Not only do I like Umberto Giordano's
Andrea Chenier, but I will defend it as a barely-guilty pleasure. The libretto by Luigi Illica boasts fairly sophisticated and quite funny French Revolution jokes (as well as several historical howlers. The sometimes too-rich melodies and their instrumentation may feel perhaps a little too predictable, a little too emotionally manipulative... but what a pleasure it can be to be emotionally manipulated! The work premiered in 1896, just after the centenary of the French Revolution, after a century profoundly marked by its shadow, and issues of gender and class are vividly, cruelly highlighted in the drama. The whole thing is more subtle than
The Scarlet Pimpernel
, and can be just as much fun, as a quasi-historical and hyper-romantic romp (I'd compare it to
Scaramouche
, a less famous novel which I loved even more than the Pimpernel when I was fourteen. But I digress.) Given its due, I believe that the score serves not only to move the melodramatic plot along with thrilling speed, but to make vivid the political and emotional tensions which are intertwined at its heart. I felt, however, that Sunday's performance by the Opera Orchestra of New York lacked romantic and revolutionary fire. Debuting the title role under the handicap of a cold, Roberto Alagna lacked much of his usual elan, and the conducting lacked finesse. Rosalind Elias' Madelon was a highlight, and George Petean was a great discovery as the fascinating Carlo Gerard, but the evening as a whole buckled (to borrow a phrase) more often than it swashed.
