Saturday was the simulcast of Riccardo Zandonai's opera inspired by Canto V of the Inferno section of Dante's poem The Divine Comedy. This is the second opera that I have heard about the adulterous lovers Francesca and Paolo, but the first one I have come across that didn't have the Circle Two bookends. Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek sang the title role. Two seasons ago she sang Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walkure, making this the second opera she has performed at the Met. Tenor Marcello Giordani, who appeared last season in the the title role of Ernani, returned to the met in the role of Francesca's brother-in-law and illicit lover. Baritone Mark Delavan is Giovanni, Francesca's jealous husband. And tenor Robert Brubaker sang the role of Malatestino, Giovanni and Paolo's youngest brother.
Given the amount of details, I'll keep it simple. This opera follows the traditional legend of Francesca and Paolo; namely the "We read one day for pleasure/Of Lancelot how love constrained him/We were alone and without suspicion" storyline.
In Act 1 Francesca is afraid as she prepares for her wedding. Her brother and the bridegroom's father have both decided that rather than having the lame and somewhat deformed Giovanni come to claim his bride, they will send his handsome brother Paolo as his proxy. Oops. Francesca and Paolo fall for each other at first sight. But Francesca is really Giovanni's wife, so she's struggles between duty and lust in Act 2.
During Act 2, there's a battle going one and here is is where we meet the third brother, Malatestino. He has just been wounded in the eye, and he wears a patch later on. Robert Brubaker describes the character as being just plain angry. Which make sense because he's got one older brother who is the powerful one, and one older brother who is the handsome one; so what's he? The youngest son whose not going to inherit anything worth beans due to the utterly ridiculous inheritance laws of the day, so he takes it out on everyone. In this act, Francesca is trying to be a dutiful wife.
Act 3 follows shows Francesca and Paolo giving in to their desires over the book they are reading about adulterous passion between Lancelot and Guinevere. This follows the excuse made by Francesca in Canto V when she is trying to justify her actions as the sinners in Hell blame other people or other things for their sin. She says "Gallehaut was the book and he who wrote it" in that part of the poem. And it shows the lovers kissing after reading the part about Lancelot and Guinevere sharing an illicit kiss. However, it's only after they read about the kiss that they give into their desires. Francesca tries to resist Paolo at first; she knows it is dangerous and could lead to their downfall. But he persists and she finally gives in.
Act 4 shows Malatestino creeping out Francesca, whom he himself desires, and then he tells Giovanni about the affair between Paolo and Francesca. Giovanni kills the lovers in the very last scene.
There were three things other than Malatestino that really stood out to me. Giovanni struck me as less of a brutish husband and more of an ugly-but-loving husband. Come to think of it, he wasn't really deformed at all. He actually rather attractive. He just happened to walk with a limp. He's got a heart. And Mark Delavan pointed out during the intermission that at the time, if a man's wife was being unfaithful, he was supposed to take action. So it seems he just simply took his duty too far in that matter. After he kills the lovers, he just sits there wondering if there was something else he could have done. He is more of a sympathetic character than people make him out to be.
Also, I like how Zandonai made Francesca a sympathetic character without sugarcoating the fact that her love for Paolo could get her in trouble. We see what happens in Act 4 when she's been seeing Paolo at night for some time now (in real life the affair lasted ten years). She is a frightened and much more skittish woman than in the previous acts. She's terrified when Malatestino tries make advances on her; in the previous act she says it's not his one eye that scares her but the one that sees.
The other thing was Francesca's ladies-in-waiting and her maid. These five women struck me as both supportive of Francesca, and not really helping matters at the same time. They sing and dance and crown her with flowers to celebrate spring, but they don't seem to care too much that their mistress is not being a good wife. They all seem to be too concerned with romances and pleasure, and they are all distrustful of Francesca's husband.
Amazing opera, good music, this one just needs the bookends.
No comments:
Post a Comment