chickenfeet

Yesterday's MetHD broadcast was Massenet's Thais. Renee Fleming sang the title with Tom Hampson as the monk Athenael. Like most operas the plot is a bit implausible. I'm guessing it's supposed to be set c. 4th CE because there are still pagans in Alexandria but that wouldn't really explain why the nuns in Act 3 are using the Roman liturgy or how Thais could be a well known actress. Still, it's fun. Here's a synopsis. Athenael has just been on a visit from his desert monastery to his home town of Alexandria which he finds to have been corrupted by the courtesan Thais. He resolves to convert her. This is bound to lead to problems as he is having wet dreams about her. (Renee gyrating in tight flesh coloured Lacroix number in the background). He returns to the city to find that his old buddy Nicias (Michael Schade) is Thais' current keeper. Nicias also has a couple of other buxom chicks on the staff (Ginger Costa-Jackson playing Myrtale and Alyson Cambridge as Crobyle) who dress Athenael for the coming festivities in a scene that's curiously reminiscent of Castle Anthrax. Thais returns from her acting gig with a host of admirers and gets into a debate with Athenael about secular vs divine love. She seems quite excited when Athenael offers her "Pain and Suffering, Mortification of the Flesh". Actually the BDSM subtext is never far below the surface (but then this is supposed to be about Christianity). Thais kisses Athenael. Since Athenael is wearing long grubby dreads this is curiously reminiscent of Salome kissing Jokaanan (though a little more connected). Athenael flees. Thus ends Act 1.

Act 2 opens with Thais in her bedroom lamenting the fact that beauty must fade etc. This is handy because Athenael pops in to offer her Eternal Life (and Mortification of the Flesh). To cut quite a long story short Thais signs up, burns her palace and sets off to a convent in the desert with Athenael, though not without some nonsense about wanting to donate a statue of Eros to the monastery. Obviously Thais didn't do Theology 101 and doesn't get that Agape and Eros are different. (Actually, given she's supposed to be an Alexandrine one might imagine her Greek would be up to it without the Theology class.) Up to this point virtually every line Athenael has sung has been fortissimo no doubt to show his great certainty in his faith. It's a bit reminiscent of Stephen Fry as the Duke of Wellington (more shouting, that's the thing).

In Act 3 our heroes are staggering across the desert with A. bitching that T. isn't trying hard enough to keep up. She reveals that her feet are bloody. A is impressed by this and miraculously produces fruit and a jug of water. In fact bloody feet seem to be quite a turn on (no surprise there). They arrive at the convent, A. hands T. off to the mysteriously Latin nuns and returns to the monastery. While Athenael wrestles with the fact that he discovered wordly lust love accompanied by more dreams of Thais in the flesh coloured number. Meanwhile Thais is dying (probably from Mortification of the Flesh but, besides, it's the third act so the heroine is bound to die). Athenael arrives to find her wrapped and rapt in a sort of papier mache LaCroix number. He tries to unconvert her (no shouting) as she radiantly enters heaven and looks on the face of God (let's face it nobody does rapt and radiant better than Renee Fleming). Athenael loses his faith. The End.

Silly as the plot is I thoroughly enjoyed it. The music is fabulous and Fleming and Hampson were perfect in their roles both vocally and dramatically. Everything else was to the Met's usual standard and there were no annoying 'tricks' either in the stage production or in the direction for the broadcast.

Next up is Puccini's La Rondine on January 10th and Gluck's Orfeo on the 24th. It looks as if lemur_catta will be otherwise engaged for Orfeo so if anyone local would care to join me, I have a spare ticket.

We left at the interval. There is some good orchestral writing but the vocal line is ditchwater dull and the libretto sucks donkey balls. The only good bit was the final aria "Batter my heart, three-person'd God" which, being John Donne, couldn't be completely awful. In fact, even the music improved a bit at this point. The rest of the libretto was mostly an extended recitative of the utmost banality including, memorably, a particularly dim general recalling how many pieces of chocolate cake he had eaten one day last September. There is only one character; Oppenheimer. The rest are cardboard cut outs. The basic premise perhaps has merit but, ultimately, Faust without Mephistopheles can't really carry an entire drama.