The opera reviewer for this paper, Juliet Schoen, said the single most significant thing to boost attendance at the opera was the addition of supertitles. Assuming she’s right, that nobody ever knew what the heck was going on, what the diva was screaming about, why the lovers were taking poison or falling on their swords, then “The Operagoer’s Guide” should bring in at least that many more patrons to the nation’s opera houses.
Although I first attended the opera “La Boheme” at age 12, and continued through my teen-age years about two or three operas per season, I never really considered myself a fan. I preferred the symphony, I suppose, because it required less of me. No libretto to understand, no intimate knowledge of the score to tell if the tenor was actually singing the demanding high notes of the original. Still, my trips to the opera (in those days mostly touring companies backed by the L.A. Phil) were memorable. I just wish I’d had a better idea of what was happening.
“The Operagoer’s Guide” would have done more to turn me into a fan than all the new supertitles. It’s like Cliff’s Notes for the operatically challenged. Only better. You don’t have to read it just before going to a performance. It reads just as well as comparative literature. In his preface, Lee writes that with translations available via supertitles, the 21st-century operagoer might need “less plot and more comment – a brisk summary that concerned itself not so much with comings and goings as with motivations, and a commentary that would provide some background information … as well as some idea of the directions taken by recent criticism.”
Lee also locates each opera in its country of origin, as “One cannot depend on today’s aberrantly directed deconstructionist directors not to transfer the action of any opera to a World War II battleship.”
It’s true that a generation accustomed to modern theater may consider operatic plots too bizarre. And they are somewhat farfetched, what with everyone wanting to die for honor or unrequited love. But most are actually closer to classic tales, myths and legends than to modern stage plays.
Since the chances of my attending a performance any time soon are practically nil, I thought there would be little point in my getting this book. Wrong. It’s fascinating, if a little disheartening, to realize that I’ve been totally mistaken about the plots, derivation and history of most of the operas I thought I knew.
And Lee’s discussion of the music is equally enlightening. In Act 1 of “Tristan and Isolde” he notes Wagner’s four-note motif that begins the prelude overlaps with a second four-note motif forming the so called “Tristan” chord, “perhaps the most famous chord in the whole history of music. It has rightly been thought a harbinger of the atonal music of the 20th century.” I thought I had studied all that in school, but somehow I missed that connection, fixated, as I was, on the tone poems of Richard Strauss as the first modern harmony.
Anyway, even if I never attend another opera performance, this book has boosted my crossword puzzle scores dramatically. Five opera clues in three days: “Radames’ true love” – “Aida;” “Puccini classic” (five letters) – “Tosca;” “First opera”-“Orfeo.” Based on the Greek myth, Monteverdi’s 1607 paean to the power of music may be the prequel to Gluck’s 1762 “Orpheus and Euridice.” Who knew?
Cross referencing these libretti with Edith Hamilton’s “Mythology, Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes” is an interesting pursuit for a rainy afternoon. Both books are priceless resources for the crossword clueless and “Jeopardy” junkies alike.
Author Lee also includes suggested recordings for each of the 100 operas, all available on CD from online distributors, for those who wish to venture beyond TV appearances by the Three Tenors, who admittedly have done more than their share to boost operatic interest.
“The Operagoer’s Guide”
One Hundred Stories and Commentaries
By M. Owen Lee
Amadeus Press: 233 pp., $12.95