Happy or sad endings?

[yashin]

Carmelites ending have enough bodies strewn across the stage?

[Hector]

"But basically, I'm with Hector.  The higher the body count, the better."   

Wendell,

You and Hector should love Moussorgsky's Khovanshchina - a whole church full plus innumerable soldiers, a boyar or two - lots of fun!

Yeah! And don't the bastards deserve it <slavering>?

'Elektra' and those prissy nuns in 'Carmelites.' Good.

I, also, love it when there is a great one-liner at the end i.e. La commedia e finita or It was a father who cursed me....

I don't know whether to laugh or cry

[val]

I have no preference. Happy or sad, the ending must have coherency with the rest of the opera. That is what I find important. An obvious example of lack of coherency is the end of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West. The happy end becomes a complete surprise, not prepared by the previous scenes, and it has the effect of a cold shower. What if Violetta in Traviata became suddenly cured in the last scene?
It is a matter of dramatic logic.

The great endings to me are those that represent a perfect synthesis of the opera: Fidelio, Norma, Götterdämmerung, Tristan und Isolde, Aida, Otello, Cardillac, The Fiery Angel. Some (Fidelio) are happy endings, others are not, but that is not the most important.

Another thing are the moral endings. Don Giovanni is an example: the hero dies without redemption but social moral wins in the last scene. Besides the triomph of dominant moral can also be used as a dramatic factor, as in Katja Kabanova, giving us the feeling that it is the moral that is wrong, not the poor Katja.

[Mark G. Simon]

I have no preference. Happy or sad, the ending must have coherency with the rest of the opera. That is what I find important. An obvious example of lack of coherency is the end of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West. The happy end becomes a complete surprise, not prepared by the previous scenes, and it has the effect of a cold shower.

But the Western requires that the good guys ride off into the sunset at the end. Puccini was just being faithful to the genre.

[val]

Mark G. Simon

But the Western requires that the good guys ride off into the sunset at the end. Puccini was just being faithful to the genre.

That's true. But I think that even John Ford would hesitate in ending one of his movies like that.

[knight66]

I am with Val here, whatever works within the context. Happy endings are less frequent as the subjects that inspired composers were frequently tragic. Elektra dying in a frenzy and ecstasy of triumphant revenge is completely appropriate and it adds layers of enrichment beyond her merely enjoying the moment then disappearing into the palace.

Mike

[Mark G. Simon]

Both comedy and tragedy are supposed to end with a decisive unalterable act. Tragedy ends in death, comedy in marriage. Today marriage no longer seems so decisive or unalterable, which blunts the impact of comedy.

[knight66]

Surely happy ever after was always mythic.

Mike

[Haffner]

Surely happy ever after was always mythic.

Mike

Let's leave Shirley out of this.



(Sorry! CORN alert!)

[Jaakko Keskinen]

The problem for don Ottavio is to find someone who can sing the role appropriately. I like both of his arias really a lot (as well as his participation in the rest of the opera).

I can testify to that myself. Last time I saw Don Giovanni, the singer of Don Ottavio was easily best liked by the audience, receiving thunderous applause. One possible reason why Don Ottavio doesn't really come to life is that he doesn't have notable flaws (exception could be made for the scene where he is upset by Donna Anna's obsessive grieving with her late father) and thus seems less humane. This is possibly more Da Ponte's fault than Mozart's but then again, composer's work is to bring characters alive from the text at hand. I don't have a problem with Ottavio, though. He has one of the most beautiful, sublime arias ever written, "Dalla sua pace". If that is not humane, I don't know what is.

On the topic: probably bittersweet, such as the ending of Die Walküre. On the other hand it feels bitter that Wotan and Brünnhilde have to part, but then again it shows Wotan showing human emotions for his daughter whom he still loves. Of course, bittersweet can sometimes be messed up. Turandot, for example, has a problem with its ending how we're supposed to feel happy for Turandot's and Calaf's marriage even though just moments earlier Liú was tortured and committed suicide. Puccini maybe could have brought this scene about, but Alfano doesn't quite make the cut. Of course, the ultimate fault probably lies with the libretto.

[jochanaan]

Opera, ideally, is as much drama as music, and as such, "happy" or "sad" (and any other point along this particular continuum) should happen as the story demands.

A truly great comic opera such as Figaro or Falstaff can leave one as cleansed and uplifted as a great tragedy.  But it does take something extra from the performers.  My favorite Figaro, for example, is still the classic Erich Kleiber/Vienna Philharmonic recording with Cesare Siepi, Lisa della Casa, and an all-star cast; as in Fred Astaire movies, this recording sounds spontaneous and joyous but shows evidence of intense "woodshedding."  (As we say in music.  "Woodshedding" means just about what you think it does; we take our work out to the woodshed, and sometimes the conductor has to give us a verbal "swat on the behind." We may sweat and cry while "in the woodshed," but when the result is a great performance it's worth every moment. )

[Mandryka]

Is Don Giovanni a great comic opera?