Octavian, Cherubino, the Composer (Ariadne) as counter-tenor?

[mamascarlatti]

When Tchaikovsky sat down to write his first large-scale commission THE OPRICHNIK, he consciously used French operatic models, and even included an extensive travesti role for the young Oprichnik, Basmanov.   Although the opera was an instant hit with the public (netting Tchaikovsky a great deal of money and a publishing contract with Jurgenson) these "French" elements came back to haunt him.  Balakirev began a "whispering campaign" against the work and its composer, alleging that it had sold Russia's national pride down the river.  The casting of a mezzo in a heroic male role is assumed to be one of the aspects the conservative Balakirev found most distasteful.   Even Tchaikovsky himself became convinced his work was a ghastly mistake, and he would later disown the piece - even requiring his publishers to destroy the printing-plates.

That's an interesting story.
So what was the reaction to the trousers role Ratmir in Glinka's incredibly (to my ears) Russian "Ruslan and Lyudmila"? Was that OK because it was not a self-consciously French trousers role?

[False_Dmitry]

That's an interesting story.
So what was the reaction to the trousers role Ratmir in Glinka's incredibly (to my ears) Russian "Ruslan and Lyudmila"? Was that OK because it was not a self-consciously French trousers role?

It's an interesting question   Of course, we don't know exactly which "whispers" Balakirev was spreading... and the "Mighty Handful" had to remain repectful of Glinka's work, since they held him to be a kind of father-figure.  But as you rightly say, Ratmir's music (and the whole of R&L) are very consciously written in a newly-forged "slavic" style (although the earlier works of Bortnyansky, Dargomyzhsky & Fomin were largely and unfairly glossed-over).  It's probably fair to say that OPRICHNIK does have a very different (and Frenchified) "sound" to the rest of Tchaikovky's work, though.  Basmanov's aria to Morozov (the title-role Oprichnik) "No, no, you need not die!" is something of a endurance-test for mezzos*, and leads into an astonishing mezzo-tenor duet.  Personally I love it - but Tchaikovsky left this style alone in the future, sadly.  OPRICHNIK is mostly known only for the showpiece "caged songbird" soprano aria for Natalya Poslyshalis' mne budto golosa, which is pretty-enough as a concert item... but conveys no impression at all of the grim and murderous story of dastardly medieval revenge

* very often it is heavily cut - even Tchaikovsky's own choice of conductor for the premiere, Eduard Napravnik, introduced extensive cuts throughout the opera.

[False_Dmitry]

Whistle any two tunes from four.

But the only opera with a singing shellfish

[knight66]

But the only opera with a singing shellfish

Well you say that, but as the recent Ring productions that we have been discussing indicate; who knows what may be found at the bottom of the Rhine? Clearly those shellfish need to grab all the work they can get.

Mike

[Guido]

Like I say....not exactly a crowd pleaser.

Then there is The Egyptian Helen....Friedenstag....Guntram....Die Liebe der Danae.......

Whistle any two tunes from four.

Mike

Well even he admitted to his librettists that his musical inspiration had flagged since the early operatic successes - he was well aware of this. (though of course he proved in his late works that he had never truly lost it)  I still admire all of these operas to some degree - There's still a great warmth to them - Die Egyptische Helen contains wonderful singing roles even if Hofmannsthals libretto is far too dense and complex - and actually I think some of the writing is very memorable.

Friedenstag is weird but I like it more every time I hear it. It's not great, and you're right there are no tunes but it has a real character which I like. Danae and Die Schweigsame Frau are both curious affairs, but both are warm and occasionally lovely if a bit bland of course - the latter is actually genuinely very funny I think. None of these will ever be popular but I don't think they deserve complete dismissal either - they're still as interesting if not more so than any of the other late romantic opera composer's efforts.

I agree that he is not really a crowd pleaser, except in Salome and Elektra, and Rosenkavalier to an extent. In the first two lusty blood baths, the audience watches the sickening events go on with glee and joyful terror - the music asks us to revel in the action, not renounce it - Strauss is never judgemental and never asks us to disapprove.

[False_Dmitry]

Well you say that, but as the recent Ring productions that we have been discussing indicate; who knows what may be found at the bottom of the Rhine? Clearly those shellfish need to grab all the work they can get.

And Dvorak's RUSALKA offers a bit of work for the modern bass-baritone mollusc

[knight66]

Guido, You are right, I know most of the scores to a degree and there are fine things in each. But I prefer CDs to be trapped in a thratre with the entire works.

Mike

[mjwal]

I am not sure the stage directions state that Octavian would be in the bed when the curtain rises, though the romps in the prelude make it clear what is going on before we clap eyes on the characters.

(Knight)
"The curtains round the bed have been drawn back. Octavian is kneeling on a stool in front of the sofa on the left, half embracing the Feldmarschallin, who is lying in the corner of the sofa. Her face cannot be seen, only her very lovely hand and the arm, from which the lace shift is hanging down."
I translate "Hemd" as shift here, not shirt/blouse, as an undergarment is clearly indicated.

[knight66]

Thanks for that. The libretti I have differ from one another, so I could not suggest what the actual stage directions are.

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

(Knight)
"The curtains round the bed have been drawn back. Octavian is kneeling on a stool in front of the sofa on the left, half embracing the Feldmarschallin, who is lying in the corner of the sofa. Her face cannot be seen, only her very lovely hand and the arm, from which the lace shift is hanging down."
I translate "Hemd" as shift here, not shirt/blouse, as an undergarment is clearly indicated.

... though many recent productions, even the traditional ones, open with the couple still in bed together, evidently basking in post-coital bliss. Modern day sensilbilities are not so easily shocked as they might have been back in 1911.

[False_Dmitry]

... though many recent productions, even the traditional ones, open with the couple still in bed together, evidently basking in post-coital bliss. Modern day sensilbilities are not so easily shocked as they might have been back in 1911.

A very apposite point.  Hofmanstahl was an experienced author, with a good sense of what he could get past the censor.  It may well have been what he "needed" to write, rather than what he actually wanted to write.   Having said that, there's also a Hitchcockian maxim that the hinted and suggested can be a much more powerful in the mind than the overtly shown...   and getting performers to enact sexual excstasy is often more likely to lead to unintentional comedy

[mjwal]

Obviously Tsaraslondon's point is true, but on the other hand, to assume that Hofmannsthal and Strauss would have wanted such a display, or that it is desirable, is another question. The music of the Vorspiel represents the music of nocturnal passion - the first scene clearly shows that passion recollected and mulled over in pre-breakfast comparative tranquillity before the hubbub of the social day. Schnitzler's Reigen (La Ronde), to cite another Viennese take on infidelity etc, creates a whole lot of erotic meaningfulness through the ways "...and so to bed..." is suggested, though nothing is shown: even the film versions of this do not attempt to present us with the coital joys only alluded to by the drama.

[Tsaraslondon]

When I said post-coital bliss, that is exactly what I meant, the clue being in the word post, as in after. They may still be in bed together, but the sexual act is clearly over. I don't see this goes against anything in Homansthal, or indeed anything in Strauss's music.

[mjwal]

Of course I realised that, Tsaraslondon, but I was also responding to False_Dmitry's speculation on the artistic advisability of showing connubial bliss in any but a retrospective, reflective sense. I was more or less confirming the justness of what he calls the "Hitchcockian maxim". There I must point out, though, that Hitch himself suggested he would like to have shown a deal more of Janet Leigh in the opening voyeuristic scene of Psycho in the hotel bedroom - but the other H is unlikely to have regarded the opening scene of Rosenkavalier as an opportunity to thematise the nature of voyeurism. And it is, musically, permeated by a theme which seems to represent a tragic awareness of the transience of beauty and passion, so that from my point of view the glow of "post-coital bliss" has already become a (wonderful) memory to be evoked.

[False_Dmitry]

The music of the Vorspiel represents the music of nocturnal passion - the first scene clearly shows that passion recollected and mulled over in pre-breakfast comparative tranquillity before the hubbub of the social day.

Absolutely true - with the proviso that we only really "learn" what all that red-hot passion in the Vorspiel was supposed to be "about" after it's happened... and we see Oktavian and Marie-Therese some time after their bodily intimacy has subsided.  (You would have to be something of a mindreader to guess the "meaning" of the Vorspiel if you didn't already know).

Frankly I think Shostakovich got the immediate post-coital moment rather better with his downward-glissando trombone... a gag which women seem to recognise rather better than men, I've noticed

[bosniajenny]

Absolutely true - with the proviso that we only really "learn" what all that red-hot passion in the Vorspiel was supposed to be "about" after it's happened... and we see Oktavian and Marie-Therese some time after their bodily intimacy has subsided.  (You would have to be something of a mindreader to guess the "meaning" of the Vorspiel if you didn't already know).

Frankly I think Shostakovich got the immediate post-coital moment rather better with his downward-glissando trombone... a gag which women seem to recognise rather better than men, I've noticed

They do, False_Dmitry, they do......