|
|
A seamless blend; timeless subject
|
March 26, 2009 | 10:30 AM
Can you imagine today writing a story whose dramatic action revolves around a woman's sexual virtue? How quaint, you might respond. And yet, there it was, transported 200 years and 4,000 miles this past weekend to Stony Brook.
The original plot is set in a Swiss village in the early 1800s. The villagers are getting ready to celebrate the wedding of their favorite young couple, Amina and Elvino, who are innocently and rapturously in love. While it seems like a formula for And They Lived Happily Ever After, it is just the beginning of the opera, "La Sonnambula," carried on the wings of Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini's lyrical music.
But hold on. There is a modern version. The first scene, as staged at the Metropolitan Opera, is a contemporary rehearsal hall where "La Sonnambula" is being readied for the public. Viewers are seeing a frame within a frame, as the singers and actors prepare the original opera even as they develop and grow as characters.
And then, if you will bear with me, there is yet a third setting, in which local residents are watching this plot unfold amid glorious bel canto music via satellite transmission live from the stage of the Met at Lincoln Center. It is all part of the magical program, "Metropolitan Opera Live in HD," that was started in 2006. Some 600 theaters and performance centers at universities received that first live feed in an attempt to keep opera alive and vibrant in the 21st century, even as the popularity of classical music seems to be waning.
To judge from the expansion of the offerings since then, the initiative has been a bold and courageous success. Staller has offered 12 performances this 2008-09 season, as multiple cameras strategically placed throughout the Met project the operas onto the 40-foot screen, and Dolby surround sound faithfully carries the magnificent music 60 miles east, from the stage of the Met to the audience of over 1,000 in rapt attention at the Staller Center. It's a perfect business model for what has been "traditional" embracing technological change and becoming ever more successful in the future.
Meanwhile, back to Amina and Elvino. It seems that Amina is a sleepwalker, although the isolated villagers have never heard of that condition. The night before the wedding, Amina sleepwalks into the bedroom of a visiting count and curls up on his bed. He finds her there and leaves her to continue her sleep before he is tempted to take advantage of the situation.
When the villagers, who have the function of a charming Greek chorus that interacts with the soloists, find Amina in the count's bed in the morning, the question then becomes, "Did she or didn't she?" Furious at what seems like the evidence of his senses, Elvino, who tends toward unfounded jealousy anyway, breaks the engagement, ripping the ring off Amina's finger.
As the villagers and Elvino ruminate over Amina's insistence of innocence, the count returns. Fortunately he is a more worldly character who is acquainted with the idea of sleepwalking. Knowing that he will not be believed if he comes up with this explanation out of nowhere, he brings an impressively sized textbook to substantiate this medical condition. The villagers and Elvino at first refuse to accept his story, but he at least sows some doubt to offset the condemnation of Amina.
He also effectively delays the action, allowing Elvino to sing his showstopping aria about his grief and betrayal at this turn of events, and Amina to sleepwalk before the incredulous villagers.
Amina is sung by the irrepressible French soprano, Natalie Dessay, whose clear and sweet tones fill the hall. Elvino is sung by Peruvian tenor Juan Diege Flórez. Their performance together is memorable, crackling with energy and emotion, just the way it did in last year's opera, Donizetti's "La Fille du Régiment." Together, the two have become the darling couple of the Metropolitan Opera crowd and were rewarded with applause after each aria and lengthy ovations at the end.
Although the opera was created for 19th century music lovers, it deals with a timeless subject: appearance vs. reality. That is the difference between the dream state of sleepwalking and the real world. That is the construct that the Met director hoped to symbolize by transforming the setting from a Swiss village to a modern rehearsal hall. And in an empowering way, that is the technological miracle of seeing a Metropolitan Opera performance in NYC "live" at a venue in the middle of Long Island, in a seamless blend of what appears to be and what is.
| |
|
|
|
| |
Copyright 2010
(631) 751-7744 | news@tbrnewspapers.com | www.northshoreoflongisland.com | About |
|
| |
|
