Operatic duels, showdowns and face-offs

As even I was compelled to notice, there was a sporting event this past weekend which involved many of my neighbors (not to say much of the country) in passionate partisanship. I observed this so far as to take a break from working for the sake of compiling a list of epic operatic confrontations.

Sometimes La Forza del Destino seems to be little more than a string of confrontations, but Verdi saves the most intense for last, when the revenge-breathing baritone tracks down our unfortunate hero.  He's out for blood, and means to have it. Alvaro begs him to be resigned to the misfortune that has pursued them both, but the baritone insults him for a good five minutes, and it all ends with vows of mutual destruction, which Corelli and Bastianini manage to make exciting and menacing despite being planted motionless and not looking at each other:



Verdi's convention of mutual insults culminating in an off-stage duel appears again at the finale of Il Trovatore's first act. The director of this Covent Garden decided to make the duel with steel coincide with the vocal one. This fits the music, but makes the singers have to worry about footwork and ripostes at the same time as some rather demanding music. (Manrico has a mullet, and the smooth-voiced Di Luna seems to be in better physical shape than his gypsy rival... does anyone know if this production was trying to invert the usual audience sympathies?)

Son la Gioconda!

William Berger, in his entertaining Puccini Without Excuses, quipped that "there seem to be more exclamation points in the libretto of La Gioconda than in all other libretti combined."  Hyperbole, but he has a point: many of the exchanges in this fraught drama appear to consist almost entirely of impassioned outbursts.  (Exclamation-ridden libretto (by Arrigo Boito, no less!) here, Wikipedia synopsis of the wild plot here.)  The friend whom I met in the Rush Tickets line is currently singing Enzo, so with his inspiration and with his help finding recordings and a full score, I've spent some time working on connecting with and appreciating this work.  And as a reward, I got to hear performances with the New York Opera Forum.  (There is a lot of opera lurking around this city!  That may become the topic of a post at some point.)  Not insignificantly, I think, the liner notes for the remastered first full recording lament that "it is easy, though mistaken, to regard it as a less than excellent opera."  Based on my own experience, I would say that it can be easy, and may well be mistaken.  But it has certainly moved me to think about what I expect of opera conventions, and what the merits of lavishing loving investigation on not-quite-masterpieces may be.