Sunday, July 27, 2008

I've never seen La Forza del Destino

I went to Caramoor last night, the musical summer festival in Katonah, NY to see my friend Marco sing a role in La Forza del Destino, Verdi's very dramatic opera about people killing each other and themselves for no reason. Caramoor is a beautiful place, and the audiences there are very appreciative - there were shouts and bravos after every aria, and my friend Marco was fantastic as usual. I have to admit I don't go see Verdi operas that often, partly because he just didn't write a single role I can sing, but also because I guess that type of music doesn't appeal to me as much as Mozart or Rossini does. But some people just die for this stuff, and there are certainly moments that I found very beautiful and moving. I think it's also REALLY hard to present Forza as a concert as opposed to staging it because a) the libretto is really weird and b) it's hard to demonstrate someone killing someone else or themselves without having them fall on the ground. One of the most exciting things that happened other than the singing and killing was that an elderly gentleman seated directly in front of me passed gas in the loudest and most audible manner right during a silence in one of the pieces - and he was sitting in the front row! The weird thing was that nobody blinked or looked around in a shocked manner except me - I'm just not good at being subtle. I just hope it wasn't his assessment of the piece: "This is what I think of you Verdi! Sssspppppwwwfffff!!!!"

2 comments:

Unknown said...

It's just because you are always on stage instead of in the audience at operas that you have not noticed that operatic gas passing is a global pass time.

Katypracht said...

LOL Awesome. I would pay to be able to go back in time and see you look around at everyone when he let 'er rip. :)