No? Well, everyone panned it. Even the New York Times. You know who did kind of like it? My second favorite movie critic, Roger Ebert (RIP, Gene Siskel.) I re-watched this recently and thought at least it would give me the opportunity to learn a wee bit about opera.
This leads into a brief interlude where I tell my own unspectacular opera tale. I went to see Madame Butterfly performed a few years ago at OSU. I had never been to an opera before and thought I was really expanding my cultural horizons. Plus how gloriously smug to tell people, "Oh Sunday? I can't. I'm going to the opera you see. Tut tut old chap." The smugness was short-lived because the opera experience itself turned out to be an interminable 3 hours of wondering when she was going to die already. It was like The English Patient all over again. You know what? I fucking hated The English Patient. I would have been better off listening to Weezer's Pinkerton album again. How does "El Scorcho" relate to the album's operatic origins exactly?
So yes, here's a little bit about the operas and composers from the first 3 segments since I doubt I'll be seeing them live but knowing about them means I will crush the Will Shortz crossword:
1.) Un Ballo in Maschera by Verdi: based on the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden in 1792 at a masked ball (ahh, now the title makes sense.) The story of this opera is, well, probably more interesting than the opera. Verdi had lots of trouble getting this staged in his native Italy, whose censors objected to regicide being portrayed on stage. He finally staged it in the US in 1861 after alterations that removed the Swedish locale and the historical names. These are typically restored in contemporary productions. In 1955, Marian Anderson broke the color barrier by performing the part of Ulrica in a production at the Met. Verdi lived from 1813-1901.
The video is directed by Nicolas Roeg and is typically weird, not the least of which for casting his then wife Theresa Russell in an updated version of the story as King Zog of Albania who survived an assassination at the Vienna Opera in 1931 (where he was viewing Leoncallo's Pagliacci which turns up later in the film. How meta.) Wikipedia has a Commander Data moment and mentions this is the first time that a head of state exchanged gunfire with their attackers.
(also, not that weird that Roeg cast Theresa Russell. While they were married, she seemed to be a required fixture in his flicks, like Gerard Depardieu and French movies during the 80's.)
2.) La Forza Del Destino by Verdi: about a doomed love affair in 18th century Spain between a South Americna nobleman and a Spanish nobleman's daughter. Her brother stabs her to death when she tries to help him after being mortally wounded in a duel with her boyfriend.
The video is by Charles Sturridge and is something about kids stealing and burning a Mercedes. Did not understand, especially now that I know what the opera is about.
3.)Armide by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687): this is considered the French composer's masterpiece. It's the story of a witch and niece of the king of Damascus, Armide, who casts a spell on a soldier from the First Crusade named Renaud. She intends to kill him but falls in love with him instead. She casts a love spell on him but then is tormented by the thought his love for her is the result of a spell. She casts other spells to get out of this predicament and frets and in the process is cursed to love Renaud forever. Meanwhile, he is rescued by his Crusader buddies and snaps out of it. Good thing too because those Turks in the Holy Land aren't going to just kill themselves.
(All this talk of witches in the Holy Land makes me think Lully was....not an expert in Muslim culture.)
The video is by Godard and is something about a bunch of weightlifters ignoring a pair of women who are cleaning equipment in their gym. Eventually the women get naked, but the men still are oblivious. They try to stab the men but can't. Apropos of Godard, it's pretentious as shit and makes no sense if you know the original story and little sense if you do.
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