Le Comte Ory

I went to see this live screening this past Saturday morning. I had a very full week, and almost didn't go. But these are three of my favorite singers, and I've enjoyed all of director Bartlett Scher's previous work for the Met, and Catherine Zuber designed the costumes. So I dragged myself out of bed, threw on something barely resembling clothes, slapped some Nutella on a slice of banana bread for breakfast, and I went.

It was well worth it. It would've been a huge shame to miss Juan Diego Florez, Diana Damrau, and Joyce DiDonato all in the same show, each of whom is the best in their fach. Besides which, Florez had come directly from the birth of his first child (a son, Leandro). As in, the baby was born at 12:25 PM EST, and the opera began at 1:00 PM. He was clearly running on adrenaline and fumes, but did seemed completely focused on his performance. In the title role, Florez is disguised both as an old hermit and a nun, and his shameless mugging was hilarious.

Oddly, I'm not usually a huge fan of tenors. Sure, I've seen tenors who have been very good, but I don't find myself moved to adoration like I have been with baritones. There are certainly more baritones whose careers I follow than tenors. Don't know why that is. Open to suggestion. But Florez is definitely the exception for me. His voice is thrilling-it has such a bright, exciting sound.

Director Bartlett Scher decided to give this show a sort of a framing device--it is kind of an odd opera, as it is a medieval French farce set during the Crusades, with music composed by an Italian. To try to marry the two sensibilities, Scher set it in a theater during Rossini's time, so you can see period set mechanics and stagehands. For the costumes, Zuber made it look like they had just raided whatever was in the wardrobe closet. It was full of frothy pink confections, but the only thing I didn't entirely like about it was sometimes you'd catch a period from the future--I'd catch a Regency era gown here and there, and it was a bit distracting. But they did fun things like creating a storm with guys on the side of the stage shaking thunder sheets and wind machines, and someone was welding to create lightning (although the camera was having a hard time catching it).

Part of this stage device was a grumpy stage manager, played by Rob Besserer. It was essentially the same character he played in Scher's The Barber of Seville a few years ago, when he played the mute servant. I find it amusing because:
a) he looks like this little stooped over old guy, until the curtain call when he straightens up, and you realize he's the tallest guy on stage
b) he's the same dancer who played Herr Drosselmeier-my favorite character- in the DVD I have of Mark Morris' The Hard Nut.

Other things I enjoyed about the production:
- Choreographed stagehands twirling about while moving trees, therefore dubbed "treeography"
- A bunch of (often bearded) man disguised as nuns, hiding all the wine they've stolen under their habits. They also had a hilarious dance number.
-Rob Besserer's in-character creeping behind Renee Fleming as she introduced the broadcast
-The trio for the three leads as Ory sneaks into Countess Adele's bed, not knowing she's already got his page Isolier in there with her. They are ostensibly in the dark, so there was lots of hilariously entangled limbs and misplaced groping.

Here's a video of the scene I'm referring to, which I kidnapped from the Met's website:

To Be Beautiful and Upsetting

So this isn't exactly the most timely post, but I was feeling particularly inspired this morning. My very thoughtful and intelligent parents noticed my post on Mark Morris's The Hard Nut and bought me the DVD for Christmas.

There's a great little documentary in the bonus features, and my favorite part come when Morris is talking about his inspiration, and why he wanted to work with comic artist Charles Burns, and he describes his work as "beautiful and upsetting." I heard that and thought, how marvelous! I would love to create something beautiful and upsetting. I think that's a fantastic goal for an artist.

As I expected, there were things I understood and appreciated about the show that I didn't pick up on when I was younger. For example, I was excited and amused when I realized, as a child, that the maid/nurse is played by a man (on pointe, no less). Now coming at it as an adult, I realized that there's tons of roles in the show that are played by the opposite sex, such as Fritz and Mrs. Stahlbaum/the Queen. Also, the snow and flower ensembles are completely mixed gender because, to quote Morris, "Nature means everyone". That makes a ton of sense to me!

The reason that I was inspired today is I was reading this New York Times article about the book "Apollo's Angels", and the following quote jumped out at me:

"My own main alarm about ballet...is that its dependence on pointwork for women and partnering by men proposes a dichotomizing view of the sexes that is at best outmoded and at worst repellently sexist."

And that blew my mind, because it's exactly the thing that I realized I was noticing for the first time about The Hard Nut. It's incredibly equal-opportunity: men partner men, whole groups partner each other, and the men are on pointe as often as the women are. Morris makes the choice which is most appropriate for the music or the character, whether that's using an "ugly" step instead of a more graceful one, or putting a man in pointe shoes.

One thing that always bothered me about traditional versions of The Nutcracker is that the second act doesn't have a plot. They go to the Land of Sweets and party. Instead, The Hard Nut takes the opportunity to actually use the original Hoffman story, and explain how Drosselmeier's nephew came to be transformed into a nutcracker. This also gives more stage time to Drosselmeier, who is my favorite character in the show. On the DVD he's played by Rob Besserer, who I discovered has worked with the Metropolitan Opera lately in silent character/pantomime roles. As it happens, this spring he'll be appearing in Le Comte Ory, which I was planning to see anyway, so that's an added bonus.

Speaking of the Met's live transmissions, I wonder if this would be an effective tool for ballet, as well? Thoughts?