Opera thoughts

I always thought Opera would be long, pretentious, and boring, and I 100% expected to hate every moment of the Opera's we attended. I was correct about how long it would be and how pretentious the audiences tended to be, but I was absolutely wrong about how boring it was. We saw 3 Operas, Andrea Chenier by Umbert Giordano, Le Nozze Di Figaro by Mozart, and Otello by Giuseppe Verdi. The first show, Andrea Chenier, was really cool, mostly for the very detailed costumes and the brilliant stage choices, but I didn't connect very much emotionally with the tragedy, so it was my least favorite of the three. The other two, however, really made me fall in love with Opera.

Le Nozze Di Figaro was put on during Mozart Woche (Mozart week) at the Festspielhaus, and while it was only partly staged (and completely uncut) it was one of the most entertaining performances I have ever seen. The performers were super charismatic, super funny, and really conveyed the action of the scene, which was super impressive given that they had nearly zero props and stage space. All the singers were extremely impressive as musicians, but my favorite by far was Bartolo. The actor was this big barrel chested man with a curly mullet and the loudest voice I had ever heard. Every time he opened his mouth it was a cannonball to the face, and he could break bones with his basso belt. The plot was ridiculous, and was made even more ridiculous by the lack of props (turns out if you have a fan infront of your face you could be anyone), and I really appreciate that we had a whole synopsis given to us the morning of, as the plot was Shakespearean levels of convoluted. The only problem with that performance was that they performed literally every note, including all the optional arias, so it took around 4 hours to get through.

The last Opera we saw, and perhaps my favorite, was Otello. The show started with a storm, and the "special effects" were done with such conviction you could taste salt water. Verdi really leaned into the whole "Jago is evil" subplot, and the director of the show wanted to make that crystal clear. Every time Jago had a song they poured smoke all over the stage, and they replaced the usual 4th trombone part with a cimbasso (imagine a tuba had a baby with a bassoon and it was raised by trombone players), and the brass section played the satanic chords I had ever heard. As good as the leads were, I was far more impressed by the orchestra and the chorus. Every time the chorus came on stage they would put forth a wall of sound so forceful an vicious it could pin you to the wall. Maybe we just got extremely lucky with the performances, but after this month I can forsee myself seeing a lot more opera.