supercheesegirl

Last week Mom and I went to the opera. It was very eventful. Most importantly, April 26 was Free Soft Pretzel Day, so we each got a free soft pretzel on the way to the theater. Huzzah!

Don Carlo is about the son of the king of Spain, who meets his betrothed Elisabeth and falls in love, so good news, right? No, Carlo's dad decides that it'd be better politically for the king to marry Elisabeth himself, so Carlo has to watch his dad marry the girl he loves. Carlo's best friend Rodrigo encourages him to go to Flanders, which is owned by Spain and where people are being persecuted; Rodrigo argues that Carlo can set things right there and put some space between the gross royal love triangle. But things inevitably go wrong, the Carlo/Elisabeth love story is betrayed to King Philip (when they didn't even do anything besides mope at each other), Carlo is imprisoned and escapes, Rodrigo is killed, and Carlo takes too long saying goodbye to Elisabeth before running off to Flanders and gets caught and dies. (Which is pretty implausible - the assassin who killed Rodrigo probably would have overheard the time/place of the Elisabeth meetup, so why wouldn't they have been waiting for Carlo there?)

This is sort of emblematic of what I didn't love about the show itself: nobody does anything that makes any sense or that any reasonable person would do under the circumstances. At one point I leaned over to my mom and whispered, "This doesn't take place in the Spanish court, it's the court of mentally deranged people!" But then we read in the program that Verdi was creating the work specifically for the Paris Opera in the 1860s, when "long productions with melodramatic plots, lavish stage sets, action-packed crowd scenes, and a mandatory ballet" was what the audience wanted, so it makes sense that Verdi did it up. The original Don Carlo was "a five-act opera of over four hours, complete with ballet, a parade, and the spectacle of heretics being burned to death" but "he had to make cuts because the last train from Paris to its suburbs would have left by the final curtain". Mom and I strongly sympathize with that problem, since every single time we go to the opera we struggle with either leaving early to catch the 5:10 train (being in time for dinner at home) or staying to the end of the show and sitting around to wait for the 6:10 train (missing dinner at home and frustrating one's spouse who has been at home with one's child all day - oh wait that part is just my problem). For Don Carlo, Mom and I knew in advance that it was a long one, so we just planned on the 6:10 train right from the get-go.

The show began with an announcement that Michelle DeYoung, who was playing the role of Princess Eboli (Elisabeth's lady in waiting), was feeling unwell; she had graciously consented to walk the part but it would be voiced by someone else. Mom and I had never heard of such a thing happening before. How they did it was actually really cool: DeYoung appeared on the stage in costume, moving through the part as Princess Eboli, but another singer stood at the edge of the stage by the curtain and did all the singing. Both of them actually did a fantastic job - the vocals were tremendous and the acting was really evocative. Later, I talked to my opera "source", my neighbor Sid who both sings in the chorus and works full-time in the development office, and he reported that DeYoung had been struggling with bronchitis all week and had really tried to conquer it before the opening, but no dice. The other singer had recently performed this role in Don Carlo in New York - the five-act version in French, so obviously it was no problem for her to come do the four-act version in Italian, no big. Under these circumstances their performances were even more impressive.

And then, at intermission, there was an announcement that Eric Owens, who was playing King Philip, was feeling unwell! Owens went on with the show anyway but wanted to disclose that he wouldn't be singing at full voice. Well, I would not have noticed, considering the performance he turned in. Sid reports that Owens made the call to disclose the illness because the second half includes King Philip's major parts, including an aria of his own and a big duet with the Grand Inquisitor (the true villain of the whole thing), but I thought he rocked both of them. He managed to turn in a really nuanced performance in which you sympathized with Philip (even though he gave the order to EXECUTE his SON and seemed more upset about the corresponding order to execute Rodrigo). The only part where he fell short for me was in a big crowd scene where Philip is kind of shouting orders; I would imagine that at full voice he'd be really commanding here, but he blended into the background a bit. But I genuinely wouldn't have noticed this if I hadn't already known that he wasn't well; I would have just thought it was a crowd scene.

Overall, my favorite moments were in the second half: Rodrigo's death scene was just so powerfully done, Troy Cook just did an amazing job. And I really liked all of Eboli's parts in the second half as well, the character really came together (despite being played and voiced by two different people). Carlo and Elisabeth were not all that interesting to me, but there was plenty of other action to pique my interest in this opera. It won't be a favorite of mine, but I did enjoy it and I'm glad I saw it.