Monday, September 21, 2009

The Elves Went To The Opera

By the Boiler Room Elves

Little known fact about elves: In addition to hammering away at toy trains, luring hobbits off forest paths, and baking cookies, our list of favorite hobbies includes --- opera. So when we snuck out to DC for the protest, we did our best to score some tickets to the Washington National Opera's performance of Rossini's The Barber of Seville, a bel canto comedic opera. It's one of our long-standing favorites, and this production did not disappoint. Great singing, fantastic staging, and a plethora of honest-to-goodness laugh-out-loud moments made this one of the best we've seen.

The Barber of Seville is a great intro opera for non-opera goers. . . think of it as a gateway opera. It's light-hearted, relatively fast-paced, and full of Bugs Bunny music. "Bugs Bunny music?" you ask? Sure. Cartoons in the olden days used to do a great job of prepping kids to become literate adults, familiar with cultural treasures long before the kids hit the age when classic literature, music and art become boring and irrelevant... but we digress.

Adults who have never been to an opera are often surprised to find themselves in the middle of one suddenly humming along and saying, "I know that piece!" From where? Kids' cartoons generally. Most everyone will recognize "Kill the Wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the waaaaabbit" from Bugs Bunny, but not as many would be able to identify it as Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" from Act 3 of Die Walkuere. Most of us have seen The Rabbit of Seville, which is taken directly from The Barber of Seville. And there are many, many more.

The Barber of Seville also should appeal to anyone who enjoys a nice Shakespearean comedy. Operas fall broadly into comedies and tragedies, much like Greek plays and Shakespeare. In the comedies, the young lovers need to overcome some obstacle to get married and the bad guy needs to be properly embarrassed and learn the error of his ways; in the tragedies we like to have a nice high body count on the stage, preferably singing a long aria before shuffling off this mortal coil. You'll also notice two types of singing - the arias which are sung for the beauty and tune, and the recitatives which tell the story and move the plot along. The arias are Shakespeare's soliloquies - they contain the most beautiful and memorable pieces, and they're arguably the reason why we go, but the basic plot is complete without them.

The Barber of Seville does not disappoint - a man sees a woman locked away on her balcony, she sees him, they immediately fall into undying love. He must disguise himself to free her from her "evil" guardian who plots to marry her himself. Oh no! Enter the barber Figaro (yes - Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, Fiii-ga-roooooooooo) who lives to help young lovers unite against all odds. Figaro helps our hero disguise himself so we can have a series of mistaken identities and funny situations. (Shakespeare again, or perhaps Three's Company, anyone?) Our hero, by the way, conveniently happens to be the local rich Duke, unbeknownst to our lady fair, who thinks she has fallen for a poor man. This way she can be justly rewarded for not being a gold-digger, but for being true to her heart. Ahhhh... And of course, at the end, after much mayhem, the "evil" guardian comes around and gives the young lovers his blessing, and Puck-- I mean Figaro! - gives us our lesson and we all sing ourselves off into the night.

Please note, we elves have not had a chance to study music theory or the history of opera. We're hardly experts, but we know what we like, and we like The Barber of Seville. If you ever have a chance to see it, it's a great one to start with. You can watch a clip from the DC production HERE.

And if you're interested in seeing some really great opera, but either don't have access to a decent company close by or just don't want to get all gussied up and pay that much, check out the NY Met's broadcasts. They have recently started to broadcast their operas in high-definition to participating movie theaters all over the country. Opera while munching on popcorn and wearing your favorite pair of green tights at relatively cheap prices? Now that's something to sing about. Of the upcoming season, the elves would recommend Carmen in January for lots and lots of Bugs Bunny music with a great plot and no boring music.


18 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, Elves: Although I vaguely remember classical pieces and opera showing up in cartoons when I was small, I really became aware of classical music when Walt Disney's TV show finally aired Fantasia. I was a bit older before I realized that cartoons, particularly Warner Brothers, were incorporating operatic pieces into their work, making them both funny and familiar. I still laugh at The Rabbit of Seville.

CrispyRice said...

I was going to say the same thing as LawHawk - I used to love Fantasia! And I never realized I was being "cultured" through cartoons, either. Very interesting.

My Mom did used to take me to opera when I was younger. I don't go too often as an adult though. Maybe I'll give it a whirl again.

AndrewPrice said...

Elves, Why am I not surprised that you "people" love opera. Actually, I like opera too and I thought the DC opera was fantasics -- used to have season tickets.

I am really intrigued by the idea that the NY Met is broadcasting opera across the country in theaters. I've heard great things about that and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in opera.

ScottDS said...

You guys never cease to amaze me. :-)

Between Looney Tunes and A Clockwork Orange - which features Wendy Carlos' synth version of La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) - I've been a Rossini fan for a long time and it's one of my lifelong ambitions to assemble a truly great classical music collection. I currently have a handful of compilations (not bad for a 26-year old with no knowledge of music history or production!) but I know there is more out there.

Ren and Stimpy used to feature a lot of classical music as well. As for Fantasia, I always found some of those segments a little boring. Fantasia 2000 on the other hand is a masterpiece (not just because it's shorter!). The Shostakovich segment based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" elicited a reaction in me that I don't want to describe. Actually it wasn't the segment itself, it was the original way the story ended as described in the commentary that did it for me.

I recommend a CD titled "Cartoon Classics" from RCA Victor. You can probably get it used on Amazon.

BoilerRoomElf said...

We elves have rave reviews for Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 as well. We will confess a fondness for The Dance of the Hours (with the hippos, alligators and ostriches) from the first Fantasia.

LawHawk, The Rabbit of Seville is truly a classic. And there are many other cartoon / classical music combos on YouTube.

CrispyRice, you should definitely give opera another whirl.

Andrew, you probably hear our music blasting from the boiler room now and then. There are great acoustics down here. Perhaps you can spring for the tickets for us next time, or take us to the Met at the movies soon, eh?

BoilerRoomElf said...

Scott, the elves love Rossini down here! He makes you work at double-speed! We also think some of the best music scores borrow heavily from classical music. Again, think of Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalpyse Now. There is a reason this music stands the test of time.

Thanks for the CD recommendation, the elves are always looking for more. Do you know any good sites for expanding a classical music CD collection?

ScottDS said...

The only site I can come up with (thanks to Wikipedia) is http://www.classical.net/

The problem I find is that it's not enough to want, for example, Ride of the Valkyries. You need to choose which recording you want... by which conductor... conducting which orchestra...? etc.

BoilerRoomElf said...

Thanks, Scott. Good point, too, which is perhaps another reason novices are put-off by attempting to buy classical music. Quality can vary wildly among classical music recordings, but when you buy the latest pop music CD, there is only one version.

Suzie1 said...

I didn't care for the new NEA version. Thought the OOO-BAM-AAAAAAAA was over the top.

BoilerRoomElf said...

LOL, Suzie! You raise a good point. Isn't it high time our dear leader commissioned an opera in his honor?

Unknown said...

Mr. Elf: Great idea. An opera for our great one. They could call it "ObamAida."

Suzie1 said...

Oh, I smell a Oprah Opera Club in the works....

Writer X said...

I think the great thing about opera (other than the music) is that everything is so larger-than-life and gradiose. It's like a cartoon but with real people. Maybe that's why cartoons are such a perfect fit for classical music. I'm in no way an opera expert but your post today makes me want to go out and buy tickets! And watch an old tape of Bugs Bunny cartoons. :-)

rlaWTX said...

now I miss Bugs and Elmer!!

BoilerRoomElf said...

An Oprah Opera Club. Imagine what someone like her could do for the genre, hmmm...

WriterX, we agree that opera is about overdone spectacle. We prefer the ones with traditional staging. We once "saw" Tristan and Isolde staged with nothing more than a white square and a single box on stage. ("Saw" = "suffered through.") But perhaps there's a good opera on PBS this weekend. Or those Met operas are starting next month at your local movie theater!

BoilerRoomElf said...

LawHawk, Obama's opera could take its plot line from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita (which is technically an opera, we believe) in glorifying communist revolutionaries and dictators. Imagine the soaring aria in the second Act called "Ah, um, umm, errr..."

rlaWTX, there are lots of those cartoons on YouTube. :) Don't tell the bosses, but we elves spent quite some time digging through them a few nights ago on the late shift.

AndrewPrice said...

So that's what keeps coming up out of the vents!


Scott, We do try to offer a variety of things to keep everyone entertained and thinking. If you want to see an interesting site, check out this link: Classical Music In Films. That site lists a lot of the classical music they use in films, so that you can find the pieces you like.


Writer X, Classical music is everywhere, we just tend not to notice it. Cartoons and most movies use it, because it somehow speaks to us -- it seems best suited for expressing the rhythm of our lives (if that makes sense).

Individualist said...

Dear Elves

Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig I can see going to the opera.

Sponge Bob Square Pamts and Phineas and Ferb - not so much!

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