Opera in April

by Kathryn Bumpass

April ushers in spring and a veritable feast of operas. This evening, April 1, at 7:30 pm, and again on Sunday April 3 at 2:00 pm, OperaSLO presents Rossini's Barber of Seville at the Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo. Rossini's most popular opera, Barber is full of all kinds of pranks, hijinks and comic subplots. For those who love beautiful singing and raucous comedy, this is not to be missed.

April is also a busy month for the Met Live in HD simulcasts. Another Rossini comic opera, Le Comte Ory, will be broadcast in an encore performance April 10 at 2:00 pm. Though written for France and sung in French, this is actually a classic Italian comic opera. It is composed to a delightfully silly libretto in which the young Comte Ory masquerades first as a hermit—a holy man—and, after being exposed in that role, as a nun. All this is to gain access to the lovely Countess Adele.

The vocal styles range from coloratura to patter-style melodies. With crowds of ladies and village maidens, Ory's men, and Crusaders, there are many opportunities for large, colorful ensemble scenes. Juan Diego Florez leads the Met cast in the title role. If you love Barber of Seville, you'll want to see Le Comte Ory.

Richard Strauss' Capriccio is as lofty in tone as Ory is funny. The plot is essentially a debate about opera and the relative importance of music and poetry. The three principal characters—the Countess, the poet Olivier, and musician Flamand—are caught up in a debate, which is in intertwined with a love story. Poet and musician are both in love with the Countess and each seeks to win her favor with his art. Strauss' vocal style recalls the sweeping melodies of the Four Last Songs.

The Met's April simulcasts conclude on April 30 with Verdi's Il Trovatore (The Troubadour). This is one of the three great operas Verdi composed between 1851 and 1853, the others being Rigoletto and La Traviata. Verdi relished stories of passion with vividly passionate characters. In Il Trovatore we get both in double measure.

The plot of this opera is drawn from a wild Romantic play, Il Trobador, by the Spanish playwright Antonio Garcia Gutierrez. In this drama three central characters—Leonor, the troubadour Manrique and the Don Nuno—are consumed by their passions. Leonor and the troubadour are in love with each other, and Don Nuno (Count di Luna in the opera) is driven by jealousy and love for Leonor. Opera historian Charles Osborne states flatly that the three characters "take nothing into account but their sexual feelings."

Verdi's plot and characters are more complex, and a relatively minor character from the play becomes the vividly drawn, passionate gypsy woman Azucena. So is important was this character to Verdi, that at one point he considered calling his opera Azucena.

Azucena has witnessed a gruesome scene which has inspired in her a powerful desire for vengeance: Her mother has been burned at the stake for supposedly bewitching the old Count di Luna's small son. Azucena intends to throw the Count's child into the fire, but, deranged by horror, unknowingly throws her own son into the flames. She will raise the Count's child as her own son, Manrico.

Verdi was always giving his librettists unsolicited advice and, concerning the end of the opera, he insisted, "Don't make Azucena go mad. Exhausted with fatigue, suffering, terror, and sleeplessness, she speaks confusedly. Her faculties are weakened but she is not mad. This woman's two great passions, her love for Manrico and her wild desire to avenge her mother, must be sustained to the end."

There are many twists and turns in the opera story—so many that the libretto has been criticized by some as fatally disorganized. Actually, the story revolves around three clearly drawn themes: Azucena's story, the love of Leonora and Manrico, and the Count di Luna's insane jealousy.

Even if you're not familiar with Il Trovatore, you'll probably recognize some familiar sounding movements—perhaps the most famous of them the "Anvil Chorus" at the beginning of Act II. This chorus fills no dramatic purpose but, I think, reveals Verdi love for colorful crowd scenes and allows him to create some unusual and brilliant sonorities. In fact, Il Trovatore includes many vivid ensemble scenes, as well as beautiful arias and duets. James Levine conducts the Met's performance.