Piangi, piangi
Por Alfredo Cernadas
BUENOS AIRES HERALD, Domingo 30 de mayo 2010.
Art forms can at times move viewers and/or listeners to tears, such as, for instance, Michelangelo's sublime Pietá. But tear-shedding is far more likely when movement and sound are involved, such as on a screen (no matter its size, preferably large and in a movie theatre) or on a stage, especially in an opera house.
Opera can be the most complete theatrical form since it can include music, song, dance, acting, visual arts (design, painting, sculpture, lighting, etc.). Everything is larger than life, including emotion, especially when the singers and what they perform are first rate. Then you become part of the work and you can laugh yourself silly or open the floodgates of your heart at the same time that your throat is clutched by almost unbearable emotion.
And nowhere else can you become so moved as in an opera house. One can weep to one's heart content in front of a screen, but whatever you are watching has already been done, it's like eating canned food. The flavour will never delight your sense of taste like the real McCoy. That goes for recorded opera, too. There is nothing like the theatre, in which the traditional fourth wall disappears when the artists on stage convey their feelings sincerely.
Needless to say, the ultimate responsability lies with the composer and the librettist, in that order. You can overcome the silliness of a libretto and be moved anyway if the composer has done his job creating sublime melodies. Not to speak of a perfect partnership of musician and writer, when they create situations which would move even the most stone hearted. There are many moments in several operas that I find profoundly gripping, such as in the last act of TheValkyrie, Isolde's love death, the love duet between her and Tristan, Gilda's death scene in Rigoletto, the closing scenes of The Force of Destiny or Manon, and many more. But there are four operas that I find immensely moving, when well to wonderfully performed. These are Verdi's La Traviata and Puccini's La Bohème, Sister Angelica and Madam Butterfly. In them, composer and librettist have practically achieved dramatic perfection.
Violetta is dying of consumption after having sacrificed her love for Alfredo because his stern bourgeois father prevailed on her to do so, because otherwise his sister, pura sicome un angelo (as pure as an angel) would not be able to marry into a “respectable” family. So Violetta tells Alfredo she loves someone else. In the last act Alfredo has learned the truth and arrives repentant, but it is too late: the desperate Violetta dies in his arms.
In La Bohème the ailing Mimi and her lover, the poet Rodolfo, had parted because of her failing health so that she could find someone who took care of her. But she returns to his garret to die in his arms, surrounded by their bohemian friends. Angelica, a noblewoman who gave birth out of wedlock, has taken the veil. Her stern aunt visits her in the convent to make her sign some papers and, upon her niece's insistence, coldly informs her that her boy has been dead for three years. After she leaves, Angelica poisons herself. In a vision and to the sound of angelic voices, she sees that the Virgin Mary appears with the child in her arms.
And the most moving of all is, for me, Madam Butterfly. That is the nickname of the 15-year-old Cio Cio San, who has married the dashing US officer Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton. She is madly in love with him, renounced her faith and become a christian. But all he wants of her is a good time, until he marries “a real American wife”. After he sails back to the US, Butterfly, who has been rejected by her family, has borne him a son and waits patiently year after year, for his return, even spurning princely wedding offers. Finally the ship that brings Pinkerton back reappears on Nagasaki bay. But he does not show up. Butterfly, her faithful servant Suzuki and the child keep an all-night vigil (during which a ravishing off-stage humming song is heard). Finally the exhausted Butterfly retires with her child in her arms. Soon after, Pinkerton and his wife arrive. He is distraught but there is nothing that can be done now and he flees. Butterfly enters, sees the other woman and reality falls on her. She agrees to give up her son and, left alone, commits suicide with the same knife her father had used for the same purpose years ago.
I feel this opera is the most moving of the lot for, sad as their fate is, Violetta's and Mimi's health is already in poor condition from the beginning and a fatal end is in the offing. Angelica's life has no alternative, but her demise, framed by glorious music, is quite original. But the tender, lovely Butterfly has been shunned by her family, having given herself heart and soul to a man she idolizes and in whose promise to return she believes blindly. And, what is worse, she has to give up her beloved child she adores: simply heartbreaking. In all these cases both composers have created music that it impossible not to respond to, especially when heard in the context of a convincing staging, for which the librettists provided ideal frames.
This season (indeed, this very week – check yesterday's Critic's Choice for full details) you will be able to appreciate two of my favorite tear-jerkers: Bohème at the Colón and Butterfly, by Buenos Aires Lírica, at the Avenida. Give them a try.
