Tea at Trianon: Baroque Opera for Today

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Baroque Opera for Today

The Wall Street Journal reports.

The theory behind "The Enchanted Island," which had its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on New Year's Eve, is that modern audiences don't have the patience for actual Baroque opera, but that the great tunes—and the terrific singers who specialize in the repertory—of the era should be heard at the Met. So Jeremy Sams, a director and writer, was commissioned to put together a faster-paced "new" Baroque opera, a pastiche of music by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau and others, with an original story and an English-language libretto. It was a clever idea. But the lavishly cast and produced result was a hot mess, a sprawling stew of Baroque elements minus the wit, depth and dramatic structure that make the originals, however long, work. (Read entire post.)

Titus said...: Hmmm, I thought that's how it might turn out. Too bad, in a way: it was actually one of the Met's less loony ideas of the last few years.; January 5, 2012 at 9:18:00 AM EST
elena maria vidal said...: What a shame!; January 5, 2012 at 10:17:00 AM EST