Opera Duds

It’s that time of year again, and we’re finally ready to reveal the winners of the “Opera Checklist Awards”, established in honor of Richard Strauss. 

The contenders are all operas or productions that are so objectionable, so annoying, and so painful to endure, that the only reason you belt yourself to your theater seat and wait for the final bows, is to check the damn things off your list.

Richard Strauss was not Joseph Strauss “The Waltz King”, but he was, and is, the king of musical compositions that are so godawful that they barely fit with what we call “operas”. Actually, some don’t fit there at all; they are really horrible, so they are better classified with most of Puccini’s oeuvre, and that of Shostakovich, and Richard Wagner’s humiliating “trivial singsong period”.

Since the “Checklist Awards” (colloquially called the “Trash Bucket List”) were first established in 1915, the perennial winner has been, every year, Strauss’ appalling Der Rosenkavalier.

(As many readers already know, “The Roz” is the composition responsible for this reviewer’s single most unenjoyable evening at the opera, or actually the worst evening in my entire life to date. Act 3, in particular, had a pronounced degrading effect on my formerly optimistic, “Cherubino serenading the countess” view of the world, and I’ll probably need a lot of psychological attention, or at least a few months of Rossini, to fix this. I aim for the personality of that dippy French guy who sings at the party in Eugene Onegin.)

So, enough of the intro, let’s get on with the show. Here are the runners up!

Remember, videos don’t count, because one can always just snap that stuff off with the remote and finish one’s popcorn in silence. (Der Meistersinger, for example.) Here we only consider operas attended in person, but still, you will see that there are some really tough stains on the opera seats of life.

Finally, don’t look for any order or ranking; they are all quite poor, indeed. To wit:

Il Giustino (Vivaldi)

Venue: Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin

The big plan: Four operas in six days, during a work trip in Germany. Tickets for Fidelio, Nabucco, and this thing, plus Coronation of Poppea. See this amazing old opera house (as well as the new one.)

What’s the plotline? Not clear to me. Some guys attack the castle, and then everyone becomes friends. In between, you see just about everything you’d expect in a three-hour circus, organized by five-year-olds and their insane music teacher.

Reasons to plan your escape:

• Bunch of people in crazy costumes riding scooters and whatnot, all over the stage, and up on ropes.

• Dumb story, maddeningly monotonous music.

• Near-fatal torture by harpsichord.

What else went wrong here:

• It was their “Baroque Festival” and I didn’t know what I was getting into.

• So terrible that I skipped on my ticket to Poppea the next night, and just got some sleep instead.

In-depth professional review: Kid stuff; skip it. Unless it’s the year 1724, and you are celebrating one more year of surviving the bubonic plague.

High point: I got a tasty bratwurst before the show, outside at the Octoberfest. Should have stayed for another, and a couple of beers.

Joan of Arc (Verdi)

Venue: Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City

The big plan: Escape the cold Chicago February, for the warmth of Mexico City, and see an opera at a venue of staggering wonder and beauty. Use public transportation.

What’s the plotline? At the end, she’s actually not burned at the stake, is how I understood it.

Reasons to plan your escape: Surprise! No English titling in Mexico, so I kind of missed the point for 2 ½ hours.  But the music was fine, so I stayed. Joan just barely squeaked onto the 2024 “Checklist” list.

What else went wrong here:

• Don’t get me started; I will become unpleasant. TicketMaster, the subway, TicketMaster again, the subway again, and again, and again. Also, the bus. And then another screwup with the bus.

• I wrote up the frightful story of this trip, titled This Poor Dog Needs A Taco, but it was widely panned, by the narrow readership. People think the first half is boring, and no one in the world has ever read the second half, which I think is better.

In-depth professional review: Really excellent, probably, if you’re fluent in Spanish. Or, I suppose, Italian.

High point: Friendly taxi driver woman on the way out of town. She seemed unhappy that I was travelling alone, and possibly hopeful about changing that. I dream.

Magic Flute (Mozart)

Venue: Lyric Opera House, Chicago

The big plan: There was no big plan; I just wanted to see Mozart’s oddball story again, and I live nearby.

What’s the plotline? I’m not sure anyone but Jon Vara fully understands the plot of Magic Flute, but that’s okay, because Mozart really hits it with the music. You get the Queen of the Night in there somewhere, and the Spirit Boys, up by the ceiling. Nice!

Reasons to plan your escape: This production was not an opera. It was a nightmare of a guy called Barrie Kosky: a terrible big-screen cartoon movie, where opera singers pop out of little doors in the screen, and sing at you.

What else went wrong here: Hoping to see something really good, I sat way too close to the stage, so this was uncomfortable in the extreme. This show would look better from about two miles back from the front row.

In-depth professional review: Much worse than listening to a 33 1/3 rpm vinyl. Maybe if you killed Kosky’s movie projectors and just sat in the dark?

High point: The guy next to me said he was Ying Fang’s “friend”, and we chatted a bit. (She was Pamina, the mezzo, and I’ve seen her on stage since then, in Santa Fe, for instance.)

Simone Boccanegra (Verdi)

Venue: Philadelphia Academy of Music

The big plan: See the inside of the oldest opera house in North America; take in a familiar Verdi show; get out of Chicago.

What’s the plotline? Paolo the bad guy tries to abduct his boss’s daughter, but Simone figures it out, and has Paolo beheaded. A lot of other things happen, but historically, almost nobody can make sense of the plot of Boccanegra.

Reasons to plan your escape: Here’s some news: this popular opera is too long, and about 2/3 of the way through, I’m tired of the plodding story, and still waiting for a strident chorus.  The show is kind of a bust, and I’m dismayed to discover that this particular Verdi piece isn’t all that appealing to me.

What else went wrong here:

• Roughly the same problems plagued my attendance at Verdi’s Don Carlo and Verdi’s Forza del Destino in New York, and Verdi’s Il Trovatore in San Francisco. Slow learner, here. Beware of the Verdis, I guess.

• In Philadelphia, the dramaturg answered a question incorrectly, regarding the significance of the “curse upon the unknown criminal” climax point.  (It is important because here Simone forces Paulo to place a curse on himself – very clever!)  Even I knew the answer, and I’d only seen Boccanegra once before. But I stayed smugly silent.

• In San Francisco, I couldn’t find a hotel for one night for less than three times the cost of the opera ticket, except if I agreed to sleep at some distance, like in Oregon. The TraveLodge where I stayed was akin to a junkyard.  Also, War Memorial House, that is one sad, dark, old-fashioned downstairs spot for dinner and drinks. Pep it up, or else.

• In New York, we eat just pizza, because these days one cannot find a restaurant open after 9 PM.  Also these days, we walk down Broadway forever, because there are no yellow cabs. Can these things be true?

In-depth professional review: Nap time.  Go pull up a video of Verdi’s blood-curdling I Masnadieri. You’ll never sleep again.

High point: Dinner at the hotel across the street from the Academy of Music. Big fun! Did it again for Rossini’s Otello!

Songbird (Fogel/Lowe/Rourke)

Venue: Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Eisenhower Theater, Washington DC

The big plan: It’s a revision of Offenbach’s Perichole, so catch it on the way to New York, where I had to work for a week. You can’t go wrong with Offenbach.

What’s the plotline? They all sing and dance, then everyone falls in love. Astonishingly original.

Reasons to plan your escape: Songbird is not an opera. Songbird is a stage musical, improperly advertised. Didn’t care for what they were doing up there.

What else went wrong here:

• It was okay. I just misread the Marriott website and tried to check in to the wrong “Crystal City Marriott”, because there are two of them.

• Left about 8 fresh biscuits and half a dozen oranges in the hotel fridge, gone forever. I’m not missing my Tupperware, though; too much of that stuff, and no matching lids.

In-depth professional review: Take it to Broadway.  Earn a million dollars.  I won’t be there.

High point: I rather enjoyed riding the Amtrak from DC up to New York.

Les Brigands (Offenbach)

Venue: Palais Garnier, Paris

The big plan: An Auber, a Gounod, and an Offenbach all in 4 days.  Wind up the week with Brigands at this stunning opera house, my first time there. See how it compares with the amusing and tuneful 2011 Brigands from Opera Comique, on Medici.tv. You can’t go wrong with Offenbach.

What’s the plotline? A woodland gang sings, and robs banks, and plays tricks on many dozens of well-dressed foreign diplomats. In this particular production, the sexual appetites of 100 nubile youngsters (and a few of their parents) know no bounds. (It’s Kosky again!)

Reasons to plan your escape:

• I knew from watching it on video that it was, sadly, a comedy operetta, but this time all the talking annoyed me. And I didn’t like when they barked “Maestro!” from the stage, to order up some music from the pit.

• The cast was half naked, and the focus of the production was not the music at all.  The focus was the garish costumes and shocking sexual orientations of everyone, but I didn’t care about that.  (Except for that one gal wearing the little blue thing.)

• I struggled to listen to the tunes, but they seemed too few and widely spaced, so I got bored. Except when they finished their songs with the old “pose with your arms up, and your foot way back, do a big grin, and wait for the applause” thing, and then I got nauseous.

What else went wrong here:

• There was, believe it or not, a guy in a suit doing a hat-and-cane act. He survived the evening only because he did not start tap dancing, and because I was pretty far away in the crowd, and unarmed.

• They added a lot of local jokes about current French politics, and some of that dialog was not translated, so I did not laugh. (The fellow next to me said it was “quite funny”.)

• Also, at the Garnier, you worry a lot about a fire, because there are not enough exits or walkways, and they have people sitting right in the aisles, on special fold-down seats. You would suffocate or burn (although this would certainly be a very nice setting in which to go out).

• It’s an outrage to attend at Garnier and see foolishness on the stage, so I will have to go back, maybe for a Berlioz tragedy -- something French and morose. I’ll bring a personal fire extinguisher.

In-depth professional review: Super! If you like to look at skinny teenage boys in underpants! And heavy-set fellows in bondage halters! Very hot!

High point: Took a lot of pictures of the place; it really is amazing. Also, you know that sound that a video makes if you fast forward it with the audio on? Quick syllables, high-pitched, not meaningful? Well, there was a guy onstage who could make that noise, and he did, while pretending to read a book very fast. Funniest thing in Paris.