REVIEWS

Hei-Kyung Hong as Violetta and John Matz as Alfredo, in the Washington Opera production of “La Traviata.”

elevate and prepare a population moral- ly and intellectually for the establish- ment of a sovereign nation-state and the responsibilities of republican citizen- ship. Even though its subject matter is not explicitly political, as was the case in many of Verdi’s earlier operas, La Traviata, which deals with the life and a r e

p death of a French courtesan in 1847 O l a (five years before the opera was writ- n o i t a ten), is clearly part of the same political N n o

t project. g n i h Violetta Valery is “la traviata,” liter- s a

W ally, “the woman who went astray.” And yet, in the course of the opera, this kept woman, or prostitute, who sought only pleasure, is transformed by Alfredo Verdi’s La Traviata— Germont’s love for her, a love she had never previously experienced. But Alfre- do’s father, Giorgio Germont, demands The Woman Who Went Astray that she leave Alfredo, because his sis- ter’s engagement will be ruined if her he Washington National Opera The performance was especially brother is linked to a prostitute in a rela- Tperformance of Giuseppe Verdi’s challenging, because the 1853 score is tionship that would never receive the La Traivata on May 14, directed by much more difficult than the later one approval of the Church. Marta Domingo, was magnificent. This of 1854. There are five differences in Although he is himself transformed performance was conceived in honor of Acts II and III: the duet of Violetta and during the play in response to Violetta’s the 150th anniversary of La Traviata, Germont; the final section of Germont’s selflessness, and in the end realizes the and utilized the rarely heard, original aria; the Act II finale; the Act III duet of damage that he has done, Giorgio Ger- 1853 score. From the very first, begin- Violetta and Alfredo; and the final mont’s small-minded, false morality, ning with the overture, the orchestra, scene. In the duet with Germont, when based upon traditional family values and conducted by Giovanni Reggioli, cap- she cries out that she would rather die customs, is precisely the mentality which tured the attention of the audience. In than leave Alfredo (“Ah, si, morir Verdi knew had to be changed, if the contrast to many modern performances, preferiro!”), Violetta’s part climbs one- ongoing effort to create a republic were in which historical specificity is violated and-a-half octaves to a high-C. Ger- not to result in tragedy. with modernized sets and costumes, in mont’s music soars up to F-natural both At the same time, Alfredo’s this case both were presented in the in the duet with Violetta and in the response to Violetta’s leaving him is period specified by Verdi, and were cabaletta “No, non udrai rimproveri.” one of jealous rage, which so blinds beautifully designed. This cabaletta, along with Alfredo’s him that he is unable to think. Thus, The singing was superb. Korean- cabaletta, “O mio rimorso, o infamia,” he cannot see that Violetta still loves American soprano Hei-Kyung Hong, are usually eliminated in modern per- him, and that it was his father’s inter- making her role debut as Violetta, was formances. vention which caused her departure particularly extraordinary. John Matz, from him. singing his first Alfredo, was somewhat Educating for Citizenship But, even Violetta is not without stiff in his physical movements, but in In his operas, Giuseppe Verdi was responsibility for the outcome, in that his singing was tremendous. The Mexi- engaged in a project similar to that she is unable to resist the pressure can baritone Jorge Lagunes did a won- launched by Friedrich Schiller in Ger- placed upon her by Alfredo’s father. derful job portraying Alfredo’s father, many earlier through the creation of a She has run out of funds, she has a Giorgio Germont. national theater—the use of beauty to fatal disease. She has asked God for

94 give him and his father. She responds: “I should forgive you? It’s I who am guilty, but only love made me so.” In the end, as she is about to die, this “woman who went astray,” gives Alfre- do the most beautiful of gifts. She gives him a miniature portrait of herself and then in the second to last aria of the opera, Prendi, quest’e l’immagine, she sings: And if a gentle maiden In the flower of her youth a

r Should give you her heart, e p

O Make her your wife, I wish it. l a n o

i Then give her this portrait t a

N And tell her it is a gift n o t g

n From one, among the angels, i h s

a Who prays for her and for you. W In an act of selfless love, Violetta writes a farewell letter to Alfredo. So, although La Traviata ends in “bitter grief,” nonetheless Violetta’s forgiveness for her past waywardness, implacable.” last wish is an image of hope of future but, as she says, “even if God should When Alfredo finally returns to her, happiness. forgive her, mankind, to her, remains hours before she dies, he asks her to for- — William F. Wertz, Jr. So Close to Perfection: A Failed Effort At Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro

“In my opinion each number in Mozart’s Figaro is a miracle; it is totally beyond me how anyone could create something so perfect; nothing like it was ever done again, not even by Beethoven.” —Johannes Brahms1

hile Brahms’ evident enthusi- Wasm for Mozart’s opera, Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), may have led him to a slight overstatement, there is no doubt that this work is among the small number of compositions which qualifies for a r e

such accolades. p O s

Mozart’s Figaro was a brilliant inter- e l e g vention into the cultural/political life of n A s the Emperor Joseph II’s Vienna. With o L 4 this work, he transformed opera, both in 0 0 2 its form—“Figaro” fits neither the © “opera seria” style of the so-called classi- Erwin Schrott as Figaro and Isabel Bayrakdarian as Susanna, in the Los Angeles Opera cal operas popular at the time, nor the production of “The Marriage of Figaro.”

95 “opera buffa” type—and by his aston- ishing compositional virtuosity, in which a piece of more than three hours maintains a singular idea, applying the “Motivführung” principle of composi- tion, which Mozart learned from his col- laborator, Joseph Haydn.2 In its political polemic, the optimism about the nature of man which perme- ates the opera, with its theme of equality and justice, is a reflection of the enthusi- asm for the American Revolution among republicans in Europe. a r e

A servant, Figaro, and his bride-to- p O s

be, Susanna, are forced into a conspira- e l e g cy, to thwart the intent of their master, n A s the lustful Count Almaviva, to assert o L 4 0

one of the most brutal practices of the 0 2 nobility, the “droit de seigneur,” or © “right of the first night” (which an oli- Susanna, Figaro, and Countess Almaviva conspire to teach the Count a lesson. garch exercised by sleeping with a newly-wedded bride on his domains, narily beautiful music of Mozart, which beneath the surface in the opera. It is before permitting the bridegroom to do adds to the drama on the stage. It foreshadowed in the revolt against the so). becomes impossible for an audience not Count, whose unhappy capitulation to The conspiracy widens, as the two to recognize the human qualities of the the plot was necessary to prevent a nas- bring in his neglected and forlorn wife, servants, or to be moved by the haunt- tier conclusion. while the Count incorporates his lackeys ing prayer of the Countess as she pleads, It was for this reason that the play into his scheme. in “Porgi, amor,” for her lost love to from which the opera was adapted, return. written by Pierre Augustine Beaumar- Dangerously Revolutionary In the end, it is Susanna, the Count- chais—who was a leading organizer in The “revolutionary” theme of the ess, and Figaro who prevail, as the France of support for the American drama is evident at once, as Figaro Count falls into their elaborate trap, and Revolution—was a matter of contro- responds to being told by Susanna that must plead for forgiveness from his versy at Joseph II’s court. The play the Count wants to reassert his oli- wife, before everyone who lives on his had been banned by the Emperor’s garchical rights with her, with a defiant estate. For the moment, it is a happy decree, but Mozart and his librettist, cavatina, “Se vuol ballare”—If you want ending, as cunning has defeated brute Lorenzo Da Ponte, convinced Joseph to dance, he sings, referring to the force, and love has trumped lust. that the opera was unlikely to lead to Count, I will play the tune; i.e., you will Yet, the ending leaves one with an riots, as the play had when it opened not get away with this. Imagine the eerie, unresolved sense that all is not in Paris.3 response from the nobility seated in the really well. Mozart demonstrates a pre- audience, to the impudence of this mere science, through the development of his Historical Specificity servant, in challenging this previously characters—who are not stereotypes, In numerous writings and statements enforced right! but real, live human beings, with fears on the method of Classical composi- In 1786, when this opera was first and anxieties, and hopes for a better tion, Lyndon LaRouche has empha- performed, there was no legal concept future—of the dangers lurking if sized the importance of “historical of justice for servants living in Haps- Europe’s oligarchy rejected the notion specificity.” By this, he means that the burg Austria. Servants, as well as most of the inalienable rights of all the peo- intent of the author or composer is to others who were not part of the nobili- ple, which was the driving force behind choose an historic moment of crisis in ty, lived at the mercy and “beneficence” the American Revolution. The bloody order to provide, to the audience, an of the oligarchy. the bestiality of this chaos of the French Revolution, insight into their own thinking and “droit de seigneur” shows the extent to unleashed in 1789, three years after the behavior, through a self-conscious which a large segment of the population premiere of Mozart’s opera, by reflection on the actions of those on the was treated as property, no better than Britain’s Lord Shelburne, to prevent stage. To accomplish this, great drama- animals. Yet, the reaction to this chal- the spread of the American Revolution tists, on the level of Shakespeare and lenge was tempered by the extraordi- to Europe, is a palpable threat, just Schiller, picked specific historical

96 events or personalities, as in Shake- Figaro. In addition to a rich voice, know Mozart walked away with a dull speare’s Richard III or Schiller’s Don Schrott’s athletic cavorting and expres- ache, saddened that, once again, a great Carlos and The Maid of Orleans, to take sive acting made him a highly sympa- moment had been ruined by an impul- the audience beyond “the facts” of his- thetic character, in sharp contrast to sive act of ego, as a conceit of Brechtian torical developments, to a deeper level David Pittsinger’s effective perfor- Regietheatre destroyed what was other- of truth. mance as the Count, whose plaintive wise a nearly perfect performance. This Classical method forces mem- request that Susanna meet him for a —Harley Schlanger bers of the audience to confront their tryst, in Act III’s “Crudel,” combined own fears, to reflect on their own a seductive sweetness with more than axioms, as they watch the struggles, fail- a hint of menace. 1. Quoted in Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Mozart (New York: Farrar, Straus & ures, and successes of those on stage, so Yet, despite an overall superlative Giroux, 1982). they may locate their own sense of iden- cast, there was one huge problem. No, 2. For a discussion of Mozart’s development tity in history, and find the courage to the setting was not Hollywood, but a of Haydn’s “Motivführung” principle, see act against the wrongs they face in their recognizable Segovia in 1780—true to Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., “Mozart’s 1782- own times. This succeeds in art, not in both Beaumarchais and Mozart, with 1786 Revolution in Music,” Fidelio, Winter the literal and didactic way pushed by one glaring exception. As the curtain 1992 (Vol. I, No. 4). See also David Shav- in’s accompanying “Mozart and the modernists such as Bertolt Brecht, who opens on Act II, with the Countess American Revolutionary Upsurge,” for a reject the Classical form, but through singing “Porgi, amor,” we first see her detailed presentation of Mozart’s involve- use of metaphor and irony, so that view- on the bed, on the telephone! This ment in the republican movement of his ers may discover, in their own imagina- seemingly minor contrivance—which time. tion, what the dramatist or composer was completely incongruous, serving 3. One Mozart scholar, Volkmar Braun- has discovered about the potential to no function whatsoever—was repeat- behrens, goes so far as to argue that transform them, by making them self- ed in the beginning of Act III, when Joseph II approved of a performance of the opera as a “political calculation.” He conscious. the Count is seen at the opening of the writes that Joseph, who was a reformer For this reason, it is both wrong and curtain, also on the phone! In both and had taken steps to limit the near- immoral for modern producers to take cases, nothing was said by the charac- absolute power of the Austrian oligarchy a Classical work and change it, to ters, who hung up the phone, and and the Church, “was creating a political make it more “relevant” to the modern then began singing. issue [by approving of performing the audience, by such tricks as moving the However, that one directorial opera]. . . . From his viewpoint, the ser- setting. This is commonly done with indulgence (or, perhaps, act of tempo- vant who defends his rights was only of minor interest; it was far more important Beethoven’s great opera Fidelio, which rary insanity), destroyed the historic to hold a mirror up to the nobility.” was written about the jailing of the specificity of the whole performance. [From Volkmar Braunbehrens, Mozart in Marquis de Lafayette. It is often re-set, Instead of leaving the theater exhila- Vienna (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, in either Nazi Germany or a Central rated and uplifted, those who really 1986).] American dictatorship, thus robbing it of its real, rich historical context, that of the battle to bring the American Revolution to Europe. Similarly, the recent staging in Berlin of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio—which was composed with the intent of dampening the enthusiasm of some Viennese oligarchs for war with the Turks—was set in a Twentieth-centu- ry bordello and drug den. ‘Figaro’ in Los Angeles a r

In June 2004, the Los Angeles Opera e p O presented Le Nozze di Figaro. The first s e l e g

act was a complete joy, as the story lit- n A s erally leapt off the stage. The singing o L 4 was excellent, the playing of the 0 0 2

orchestra was crisp. A particular © standout was Erwin Schrott, a bari- Count Almaviva, Figaro, Countess Almaviva, and Susan—and in the middle of everything, tone from Uruguay, who played a bizarre, anachronistic telephone!

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