L'Heure Espagnole

It's Saturday!
Do you know what that means?

Well, no, you don’t, because I haven’t said. But, it’s my intention to make weekly updates on Saturdays. So, that’s right! It’s time for another round of Sleep Deprivation Opera Plots! This is an opera I heard a few years ago at a conference and I’ve always thought that it was just begging for Sleep-Deprivation treatment.

This week’s opera: L’Heure Espagnole
Composer: Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Librettist: Maurice Étienne Legrand, writing as Franc-Nohain
Date of Composition: 1907-1911

The opera opens with Torquemada, a Spanish clockmaker (does the title make sense now?) just kind of chilling in his shop when Ramiro, a muleteer (yes, he drives mules) comes in to have his watch repaired. Naturally, as Torquemada is a clockmaker.

Clocks! Clocks everywhere! And no, I haven't got a clue what's up with Ramiro's outfit. Maybe muleteers just have really poor fashion sense.

However, as he begins to work on the watch his wife, Concepcion, comes down the stairs and reminds him that he needs to go make sure that all of the clocks in town are regulated.

Concepcion likes to wear ballgowns at home. And if I were her I'd be getting really sick of all these clocks reading different times.

Torquemada runs out, asking Ramiro to wait, while Concepcion, who is expecting a few suitors, tries to figure out how to get Ramiro to leave so she can have some…*ahem* fun. She finally decides to ask Ramiro to take one of the two big grandfather clocks in the shop into her bedroom. She’s always wanted a clock. Ramiro leaves just as one of her suitors, Gonzalve, arrives.

Look at that upper body strength and extreme nonchalance!

But Gonzalve just wants to speak sweet nothings to her. Concepcion thinks that’s great, but seriously, just forget the freaking poetry and let’s get it on, okay? She shoves Gonzalve into the other clock to hide when Ramiro comes back and asks him to switch the two clocks. Ramiro apparently has no problem with this, and Concepcion is kind of turned on by the fact that he can carry heavy clocks with people hiding inside of them without complaining. Lo and behold, yet another suitor, Don Inigo, shows up and tries to start something with Concepcion, who is still too taken with Ramiro to really notice. She goes with Ramiro when he takes the clock with Gonzalve in it to her bedroom, and Don Inigo decides it would be a splendid idea to hide in the empty clock that Ramiro just took back into the shop. Without realizing it, Ramiro returns to take Don Inigo’s clock into Concepcion’s room. She is really impressed by this point, and basically says “to hell with those losers!” and she and Ramiro…have fun.

Torquemada returns! \o/ and Gonzalve and Don Inigo make their way out of the clocks. When asked what they’re doing there, both men are like, “uhhhhhhhh….I want to buy this clock!” which leaves Concepcion once again without a clock in her room.

It's Blue Shirt Day here at Torquemada's Clocks., and Torquemada is not amused.

Not that she cares. She’s a tad preoccupied. The opera ends with a moral like one of those cheesy Saturday morning cartoons that tells you not to lie or to always do your chores or something of the like. However, no one told Ravel about morals, because the moral of this story is basically Ramiro is really hot because he can carry heavy clocks and let’s go have sex.

Yeah…the French are kind of weird.