The complete idiot's guide to classical music (60 page)

The most famous of Strauss’ operettas is
Die Fledermaus
(The Bat), which Mahler conducted on the stage of the Austrian State Opera, and in more recent years has been a holiday favorite at the Met and other opera houses around the world. But
The Gypsy Baron
still gets around once in a while and it’s always fun to spend a musical
Night in Venice.
Unlike so many other composers who achieved fame only posthumously, we’re pleased to report that in his own lifetime, Strauss was rich, revered, and renowned the world over. That’s the way it ought to be.

Start with
Die Fledermaus,
of course, chock full of delicious arias, festive ensemble numbers, and enough mistaken identities to populate three other operettas. (Just about the only character who isn’t pretending to be somebody else is Prince Orlovsky, and he’s always played by a woman.)

You can pay instrumental homage to some of the other operettas with their highly tuneful overtures, then head on to some of the literally hundreds of instrumental miniatures. The waltzes top the list, of course, but don’t neglect the bouncy polkas, marches and galops that are as masterful, in their own little way, as any big symphony. It was not without reason that another composer of note, when asked for an autograph, inscribed a lady’s fan with the opening bars of Strauss’ “Blue Danube” Waltz, then signed it “Alas, not by Johannes Brahms.”

Sometimes the whole can be far better than the sum of its parts. William Schwenk Gilbert was a successful poet and humorist; Arthur Sullivan dreamed of writing operas, oratorios, and symphonies. In fact, he not only dreamed, he actually wrote them, not to mention the enormously popular song “The Lost Chord” and the famous hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Despite their best individual efforts, and not infrequent personal frictions, it was only as the peerless team of Gilbert and Sullivan that their full genius was unleashed.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
Gilbert could be as wittily ascerbic in life as he was at the writing desk. During the rehearsals of
Princess Ida,
he had a run-in with one of the singers who blurted out “Look here, sir, I will not be bullied. I know my lines.” “That may be so,” Gilbert retorted, “but you don’t know mine.” Even George Grossmith, one of Gilbert’s favorites who starred in most of the original productions, got his comeuppance that same day. After being forced to repeat the same scene 20 times, Grossmith lost his usual cool and yelled out “I’ve rehearsed this confounded business until I feel a perfect fool!” “Excellent,” was Gilbert’s rejoinder. “Now we can talk on equal terms.”

Their first collaboration,
Thespis,
was a flop (to the extent that except for a few choruses, most of the score has been lost), but four years later, Gilbert and Sullivan came up their first success,
Trial by Jury.
The producer of that show was Rupert d’Oyly Carte, and when he formed a company specifically to produce any and all works to come from the combined pens of Sullivan and Gilbert, the stage was set for a remarkable parade of smash hits. They raised light opera to new heights of lyric invention and melodic imagination, Gilbert’s satirical bent and clever verses inspiring Sullivan to his most insightful musical creations. Starting in 1881 with
Patience,
their new productions were staged at the Savoy Theatre in London, whence arose the term “Savoy operas” and the designation of Gilbert and Sullivan specialists as Savoyards.

You can’t go wrong with any of the famous operettas.
The Mikado
and
Pirates of Penzance
are probably the most popular but by all means have
Patience,
greet
The Gondoliers,
bow to
Princess Ida,
follow
The Yeomen of the Guard
to the Tower of London, and polish up the handles on the big front door of
H.M.S. Pinafore.

For Sullivan without Gilbert, you can bask in the operetta overtures, or if you feel ambitious, try the
Irish Symphony
. There’s also “Cox and Box,” Sullivan’s short and charming pre-Gilbert operetta (with lyrics by F.C. Burnand); Gilbert without Sullivan, of course, is more of a literary excursion, though some of his “Bab Ballads” have been imaginatively set to music by the American composer Seymour Barab.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
Tired of having their works pirated by American companies who didn’t pay any royalties, G&S decided to stake their overseas claim by premiering
Pirates of Penzance
in New York. That was in 1879, and more than 100 years later, the show had a new lease on American life, the New York Shakespeare Festival presenting a “dusted-off production,” starring Kevin Kline as an unusually klutzy Pirate King, and pop stars Linda Ronstadt and Rex Reed as the young lovers. A smash hit off-Broadway, this new “Pirates” subsequently transferred to Broadway and later fame and glory on TV. There also was a CD version several years ago—Elektra 2-VE 601—but that may be pretty hard to locate at this point.

In Chapter 21, we pondered some of the stories that propel a variety of operatic heroes and heroines to their untimely doom. Now let’s look in on the cheerfully bizarre doings that keep things hopping in a half-dozen of the happy ending shows you’re likely to encounter at the Met and other major opera houses.

On a sunlit Spanish street, old Doctor Bartolo lives with his pretty young ward, Rosina, counting the days until she (and more importantly, her dowry) will be his in marriage. Meanwhile, Count Almaviva also loves the lucky lady and schemes to win her hand, aided by his busybody friend Figaro, who not only serves as the town barber, but is available for useful service as a blood-letter, wigmaker, and writer of romantic letters for the literary challenged.

 
Important Things to Know
The Barber of Seville
is only a few minutes old when it contains one of the most delectable and famous arias in all comic opera, the “Largo al Factotum.” In this rapid-fire, tongue-twisting outburst (that anticipates the great Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs by more than half a century), the much putupon barber bemoans the endless tasks that are his lot, and the constant barrage of Figaro, Figaro, Figaros that are his master’s call to yet another batch of unwelcome duties.

Even as Dr. Bartolo is scheming with the music teacher, Don Basilio, to slander Almaviva so he’ll have to leave town, Figaro suggests that Almaviva get to see Rosina by disguising himself as a soldier and showing up at Bartolo’s house with a billeting order. By Act II, Figaro has concocted a bigger and better conspiracy, wherefore the Count appears at Rosina’s door dressed as a cathedral chorister. Don Basilio is sick, he says, offering himself as a worthy substitute, a plot that works like a charm until the perfectly healthy Basilio arrives also. When Bartolo himself returns to the scene of chaos, he kicks everybody out and announces that he will marry Rosina the very next day.

With all those hours left to concoct further machinations, Figaro arranges to sneak back into the house with the Count, then hoodwinks the notary into converting Bartolo’s intended marriage contract into one for Rosina and Almaviva. When he realizes what’s happened, the Doctor is outraged, but then contentedly mollifed when the Count informs him he can have the dowry after all. Between true love and hard cash, everybody is contented, and the opera can end with a rejoicing chorus.

Yes, it’s the same Barber of Seville who takes on a more important role in Mozart’s opera (he’s been promoted to Count Almaviva’s valet), while the beautiful Rosina is now the beautiful but neglected Countess. Even though the action takes place several years after the adventures described by Rossini, Mozart’s opera was written 30 years earlier, premiering in 1786, ten years after American independence and just a short time before French citizens would be giving their royalty the heave-ho.

The Beaumarchais play on which
The Marriage of Figaro
is based, (and Mozart’s opera itself) could hardly be called revolutionary, but underlying the lighthearted plot is shrewd social commentary on both the arrogance of the aristocracy and wisdom of a servant class on the rise.

Figaro is engaged to Susanna, the lady-in-waiting to the Countess, but the Count, tired of being faithful for so long, has been eyeing Susanna with more than casual interest. Back then a valet didn’t argue with a Count, so Figaro figures he’d better come up with one of his famous schemes to outwit the dirty old man. Speaking of old men, Dr. Bartolo is still kicking around, in fact, still kicking himself for having let Figaro trick him out of his marriage to Rosina. Finally, he comes up with his own idea for revenge. It seems that Figaro still has an unpaid debt, so he flourishes a contract that, in effect, says that Figaro has to marry Bartolo’s housekeeper, Marcellina, in lieu of coming up with the money. That’s problem number one.

Problem number two is that Cherubino, a hot-blooded page, who may look like a cherub, but whose galloping hormones make his actions something less than angelic, has been canned by the Count for making out with the gardener’s daughter. The lad begs Susanna to intercede for him with the Countess, since he really loves her (the Countess), and will die without her. Rather flattered by his attentions, the Countess and Susanna agree to another of Figaro’s wild-eyed schemes, this one involving Cherubino dressing up as a woman to impersonate Susanna in an assignation with the Count. The part is sung by a woman in the first place, but that’s an acting and costuming problem that we can’t be bothered with right now. The Count walks in on the plans, and Cherubino has to hide in a closet, then jump out of the window when Susanna decides to hide in the same closet. This is the type of hilarious scene that only the Marx Brothers could improve on.

Things proceed to get more and more complicated, with Susanna impersonating the Countess, the Countess pretending to be Susanna, Cherubino trying to hug every woman in the place, Barbarina confessing that Figaro is really the love-child she had with Dr. Bartolo, Figaro once again available for marriage to Susanna, and the Count first berating his supposedly errant wife, only to realize the error of his ways, and begging her forgiveness. All that remains is a final chorus of jubilation and reconciliation, and memories of the glorious Mozart music that accompanied all those on-stage shenanigans.