On Saturdays around mid-day it’s our tradition to listen to a live matinee performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera while we clean our house. We especially like the intermissions when there are interviews of producers and singers, & guessing games. Last Saturday the opera was Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto. It’s what I call a “war horse” because it never fails to bring out the crowds &, by the end, have them weeping in the aisles. I learned during the interviews that Verdi had a profound love and respect for Shakespeare. He believed that with Rigoletto he had created a tragic character almost equal to those of the Bard. Many times have the poet’s plays been produced in modern settings. Has it ever really worked? Would Rigoletto stand the same test?
As we mop floors & scrub toilets we imagine Rigoletto, a burly basso clad in brilliant satins of his court jester's garb. The joker’s cap of floppy points covers his piteous smile belying great anger and passion. Rigoletto is hell-bent to protect his precious daughter from the predaceous Duke, even if he must conspire to commit murder by proxy. Gilda is surely the most beautiful, sweet-young-thing in opera, as she graces the stage bouncing her mass of blonde tendrils in her modest, frilly, pastel gown. She loves & respects her father; nevertheless, she is seduced by the dapper Duke. This aristocratic dandy prances around in his pale hose, shiny knee-high boots, short puffy pantaloons, slit-sleeved waistcoat, & cocky plumed hat.
We toil away at mundane tasks as we are transported in time & place to 16th century Italy. Of course, we know that by Act III the Duke, a heartless cad, has moved on to his next conquest, & though Gilda sees it, she won’t believe her eyes. Secretly we all want the professional hit-man to kill him, but that’s not going to happen. Rigoletto is in the wrong & he is going to pay dearly for his sin. In a twist of fate the hit-man murders self-sacrificing Gilda. (Ach!) With his daughter dead in his arms Rigoletto closes the opera with "Oh the Curse!" He will live out his days ruing his misdeed while the Duke--never the wiser-- continues his life of lechery. Life can be so unfair. C'est la realité.
Opera lovers don’t question ridiculous plots or obsolete characters, but the intermission interviews have made me aware of the great difficulty for 21st century productions to be relevant. Who would be a court jester in the world of modern politics? Is it important for Gilda to remain a paragon of purity? Would her father need to protect her so fiercely? And the Duke? Didn’t he go out with the French Revolution? These days all sorts of sexual predators abound regardless of class or privilege.
I really do like the opera radio hostess for these broadcasts. She’s a competent messenger, who delivers in detail the plot, sets, costumes, & curtain calls. But when I realized that she was describing a contemporary Rigoletto, I thought, “Are you kidding me? Get real!” When I tried to visualize it, I just LOL-ed. At the close of each intermission I immediately went back to my own private version. I was glad to be a listener, & not a spectator. For me Rigoletto in 2013 is utter nonsense.
Ms. Darcy LOL-ed! Oh my! Where have the times gone? Well, if you can modernize, Ms. Darcy, then I'm sure some of these stories can too. Although, you're right, some of these conflicts wouldn't seem so conflictual nowadays. Predators do abound, and the only advice we have for young women is that they adopt the same strategies as the predators, or to stop looking at themselves as prey. They are 'liberated, empowered, women.' We obviously live in different times. Our biggest conflicts are having our computers or cars occasionally break down, or actually having to spend time with our family members who know us too well--of course, I speak for others, not myself.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, Rigoletto might still work out in traditional cultures on the other side of the world with people who maintain strong family bonds. However, a tragedy is a very Western concept, so maybe it wouldn't work out after all. I suppose Kurosawa made a few Shakespeare adaptations, but he mostly dealt with Shogunate, not with any modern Japanese setting.
But if tragedy is a western concept, have we thus abandoned it if we really don't produce or relate to them much anymore? We have, I think. Tragedies, in their efforts to produce pity for the victims (the tragic heroes) and fear of the gods (and what they do to heroes) the audience develop a pious reverent sensibility. They avoid hubris like the plague--ironically, hubris sometimes does bring plague, like in Oedipus--and go beyond their value system to something deeper, more transcendent.
We are not a transcendent humble culture, but a worldly proud culture. Most kids I work with don't even know what the word "pious" even means. More often than now, our religion is a source of pride, along with our flag lapel-patriotism, our new Apple product, our luxury SUVs, and our Piggy palaces. If there are people who carry a bit of the old ways in their lives, we wouldn't know because they're quiet and the majority is much louder. Indeed, for most of us, Rigoletto would seem like utter nonsense. Perhaps that's our tragedy though.