I like the idea of having a career, and so anonymity is important. Academia frowns on triviality, and a blog is a fair description of the Platonic Ideal of Triviality. That being said, I also enjoy my sanity. There is only so much of the stiff, rigid Academia one can handle (and no, I'm not going to use the composer pun here, thank you) and I need an outlet for my hysteria and random bouts of giggling. Yes. Giggling. Hence, the creation of this blog. If you enjoy it, wonderful. If you don't feel free to walk away unscathed. You won't hurt my feelings.
I love opera. I really do. There are few things that make me happier than a night out at the theatre, listening to good singers (and sometimes bad ones) declare their love/hate/respect/amusement/lust/infatuation/loathing/begrudging acceptance to another person. But that doesn't mean I won't make fun of it. It practically screams for that, anyways. A good friend and I used to translate opera plots into sleep-deprivation-speak when we studied them for various classes. Unfortunately, we now live in different states and it's understandably become difficult to study for our classes together. However, I can't help but think of any opera plot in terms that make sense when you're highly caffeinated and going off of about two hours of sleep and it's already four in the morning and you still haven't done your research methods homework because you're too busy trying to learn Schenkerian Analysis and dissecting the relationship between Colin McPhee and Benjamin Britten.
I would like to continue this tradition. So, without further ado, I present this, the first edition of Sleep Deprivation Opera Plots. Or SDOP. (in the name of love?)
This week's opera: Ernani
Composer: Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Librettist: Francesco Maria Piave
Date of Composition: 1844
Other Remarks: Based on a book by Victor Hugo and surprisingly low on death for a Verdi opera.
Onwards!
There are some bandits. Ernani is their leader (of course he is) (I'm pretty sure in the production I saw he had a really badass cape).
The mask means he's a bandit.
Ernani is sad, because the love of his life, Elvira, is getting married, against her will, to some old rich guy named Gomez de Silva.
She's probably also sad that her hair is two different colors and her arms are different lengths.
Anyways, Elvira is complaining about getting married when suddenly a guy in disguise shows up in her bedroom! His disguise is pretty much useless, because Elvira just automatically knows that he's King Carlos. When Elvira rejects his love, he attacks her, but Ernani shows up to save the day (of course he does), explaining that the bandits stole his land and forced him to be their leader (suuuuuuuuurrrrre). Carlos and Ernani are about to get into a fight, presumably over someone's honour, when Gomez de Silva shows up and wonders what these strange men are doing in his fiancee's bedroom. Ernani skedaddles.
Ernani comes back, disguised as a pilgrim (it didn't work for the king, but hey, maybe that bitchin' cape helps) and asks Silva for shelter. Ernani's disguise is apparently great, because Silva grants him the shelter. We learn that Elvira thinks Ernani is dead - after convincing her otherwise, Elvira tells him that she is going to kill herself at the altar. Silva decides to check up on his wife and realizes what is going on, but, because he's already promised Ernani shelter, it means that he has to protect the bandit from the king, who is, at this moment, trying to get into Silva's mansion-house to kill Ernani. Carlos decides that Silva is lying when he claims that he hasn't seen Ernani, and takes Elvira hostage. Obviously, Silva gets kind of peeved by this, and, after the king leaves, HE challenges Ernani to a duel. Ernani refuses and, clearly, the next course of action is to WORK TOGETHER TO SAVE OUR WOMAN!!!! YAHR!!!!! Ernani then tells Silva that he owes him a debt, and basically gives him an "I'll do whatever you want, whenever you want" coupon. Poor choice, Ernani....because Silva decides what he wants is for Ernani to kill himself upon the sound of the hunting horn. This can't end well.
Carlos, meanwhile, decides to visit Charlemagne's tomb. Yup. This is apparently because, not only is Charlemagne's tomb the cool place to plot and brood about life, but Carlos is also in the running to be elected as the next Holy Roman Emperor (where did that come from???) Apparently, a group of "traitorous noblemen," including Silva, Ernani, and Elvira (how did she escape??? it's always upset me that we don't know. did she fly out of the window? did she drug the king's wine? did she borrow Ernani's badass disguise cape and just walk out? we never know...) have also decided that the tomb is a good place for a hangout, and Carlos overhears them plotting to kill him. He doesn't like this idea, for obvious reasons. AND THEN SUDDENLY Carlos is named Holy Roman Emperor. The king's guards jump out from their hiding places and the conspirators are shocked and dismayed (because really, what huge political figure with people plotting to kill him walks around with guards these days?). Carlos decides that all the traitorous noblemen must be executed. Ernani declares that this includes him, for he is secretly the Lord of Aragon! GASP! Turns out those bandits did steal his land and force him to be their leader, after all.
The "traitorous noblemen" are probably jealous that they don't have clothes. Or bodies.
Elvira pleads with Carlos not to kill Ern....Don Juan of Aragon, and he, having a random change of heart, obliges, decreeing that Aragon and Elvira should be married. Silva is not amused.
AND THEN there is wedded bliss. Elvira and Aragon stare lovingly into each others' eyes and sing sappy love songs as the romantic leads of opera are wont to do. BUT WAIT. CAN SOMETHING DESTROY THIS PERFECT ENDING? WHAT IS THAT IN THE DISTANCE? IS THAT THE SOUND OF SILVA'S HUNTING HORN??? Gomez arrives, giving Aragon a knife. When Aragon pleads for time to "sip from the cup of love" (euphemism, much?) Silva calls him a coward. So Ernani stabs himself and dies in Elvira's arms, telling her to live. LIVE!!!!!
I'm not sure if she's distraught over Aragon or the fact that she appears to have lost the entire lower half of her body.
Hey. I said there wasn't much death. It wouldn't be a Verdi opera without at least one overly dramatic death scene.
Elvira totally borrowed the badass cape to escape.
ReplyDeleteBUT WAIT. CAN SOMETHING DESTROY THIS PERFECT ENDING?
Of course. It's Verdi.
Some day we're going to find an abandoned, unknown Verdi opera in which everyone makes it to the curtain call unscathed, with a note from Verdi saying it's scrapped for being too happy. Mark my words.
DeleteOkay, so John Rice wrote an essay on the influence of caffeine on music history.
Deletehttp://home.rconnect.com/~lydiar/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/coffee.pdf
I feel like "what substance was the composer and/or librettist on while writing this opera" is an important question that needs to be asked more often in musicology.
This is amazing. But, how would we know? Coffee stains on the manuscript? A letter telling a colleague about their 7% solution? Or would we make inferences from style and plot? I'm very curious about how this would work...
DeleteI can think of a few offhand that be worth pursuing. Bach and the Coffee Cantata (not an opera, but still, it's one of the few pieces of music actually about caffeine addiction). Also, there's Constanze Mozart's story that her husband drank punch while writing one of the Da Ponte operas (either Figaro or Don Giovanni). Salieri wrote a few letters about his love of chocolate. Schubert also liked hanging out in coffee shops. And, of course, Berlioz and opium.
DeleteI always picture Ethel Smyth smoking a pipe, but I can't find a photograph of her showing this. Maybe I imagined it (or maybe I'm confusing her with someone else from the incredibly dry book on British lesbians I read last spring).