CONCERT VS. STORY: ARE YOU A DRAMA QUEEN?

I divide operas into two basic groups, concert operas and story operas. In a concert opera the story is too complex or illogical to make fine drama, so you're there mostly for the music, like a concert. A story opera is true drama set to music, the sort of show where you might not even read the synopsis, for fear of spoiling the suspense.

Broadly, I would call Verdi, Bellini and Mozart concertians, and Puccini, Donizetti and Wagner storians. Many Shakespeare adaptations are story operas. Much French opera I would classify as concert. Eastern European: story. Operettas are story (and I find, as I mature as an operagoer, I'm enjoying operetta more, not less). Older operas tend toward the concert; newer operas tend toward the story. If I could pick one great opera to symbolize the concert form, it might be Il Trovatore; if I could pick one great opera to symbolize the story form, it might be La Boheme. (Your suggestions or corrections welcome below.)

I write fiction and teach journalism; I like stories. As I embark on a new season of opera-going with three shows this coming week - two at the Lyric in Chicago with Macbeth and Carmen, and a world premiere at the Florentine in Milwaukee of a rare opera in Spanish, Rio de Sangre by Don Davis - what excites me most is the preponderance of story opera on my list. Two Shakespeares. Three myths. A great Wagner. And, if I can work it out, Lucia at the Met.

So this season, as I watch, listen and write, I'm planning to concentrate on the story. Drama queens, unite.

Comments

[Bob]

I am asked, what about operas that are both concert and story? Isn't that the whole point? Yeah, but it's rare, I think, more ideal than reality - it's almost as if too much concert gets in the way of story, and vice versa. Verdi's most tune-packed operas, Rigoletto and Il Trovatore, have ridiculous stories, and his best story, La Traviata, has no great music past Act I. Mozart was so prolific with melodies that no story could hold them - you can hardly figure out the plot of Figaro from a synopsis. Puccini's best story is probably La Boheme, but I think several of his operas have better songs, including Turandot, which has an utterly silly plot. I'd say Puccini may have come closest to the ideal with Tosca and Butterfly.

[Gale Martin]

I, too, prefer the story opera though there's certainly room for both. Interesting, that some opera lovers don't like all the attention many opera companies are paying to story because it's interfering with their "concert" and their desire for vocal perfection.

[Bob]

Great point. I think reviewers and operagoers don't pay enough attention to acting and drama relative to technical aspects of the music. An operagoer sounds more knowledgable (or snobby) at intermission saying "she cracked that high C" than "she wasn't believable in that scene."

[Jacinto]

Honestly, I think there is something incontinent, and uneconomical in both monetary and other senses, in an artform that takes the length of time, the resources, the people, the money, to tell its stories. Those enormous, ugly sets to distract from the acting, or to convince the audience that there is anything remotely of merit aside from the actual music itself.

The fact of the matter is that no opera has ever remained in the repertory because it has a great libretto or staging. It remains because the MUSIC is great.

This really is what distinguishes the true opera lover and connoisseur from the rest. Someone who completely ignores any program/libretto and concentrates solely on the vocal and orchestral sounds -- form, line and shape.

Opera is defined by music. You can strip away the dramatic/visual element and still have an opera. Movies - now there's a medium that is first and foremost a dramatic/visual art form. Opera, not even close. The fact that so many directors take so many liberties with opera simply serves to underscore how relatively unimportant the dramatic/visual element is. What conductor, at least today, would suggest fundamentally reworking the music of Debussy or Wagner or Verdi? Keep in mind that it is the composer - that is, the person who wrote the music - that is most important and discussed the most. Clearly, music is the most important element.

Of course, the libretto was important in stimulating the composer's imagination but you have to look at the finished product: that blend of orchestral and vocal sounds.

Imagine what would result if we had only concert performances of opera for a number of years ?

For one thing it would quickly weed out the poseurs, snobs and nouveau riche from the true lover. Now all we would have left are the genuine opera devotees, those who function at the level of pure aural sensibility, indifferent to everything except the beauty of the tonal and vocal web.

Think back for a moment to when you first fell in love with, say, Debussy's 'Pelleas et Melisande' or 'Falstaff' or 'Tristan' or 'Elektra' or 'Boris Godunov' or 'Der Ring Des Nibelungen' or 'Moses und Aron'... (I choose these seven because they are among the finest of all operas, in my opinion)

Honestly, have you never thought to yourself:

"Wow, it is so wonderful to experience these masterpieces alone, utterly absorbed in my inner emotional world and without the distractions of the audience or the goings-on by the stage ?"

[Gale Martin]

Roberto, just wanted you to know I gave you a shout-out today on Operatoonity. And . . . I'm going to be annoying and say, "Jesus H. Christ, I wish you would post more."

[Bob]

Thanks, Gale. I let my opera listening (and writing) lie mostly fallow in the offseason to recharge. It'll crank up more now.

As for concert performances of opera: I don't think it would weed out the snobs. I think it would weed out the non-snobs. A small percentage of the public is knowledgeable enough to appreciate the musical nuance. A large percentage of the public is able to be moved by the drama. You see wet eyes commonly at an opera and rarely at a symphony. This is opera's edge over the other fine arts, I think. And this is the edge opera needs to take better advantage of.