I love opera - everyone is too old, the wrong height and size that society says they should be for the roles and yet leave your disbelief at the first click... and enjoy. The singing is beautiful, the furnishings lavish, the chandeliers shimmering and the ensemble cast all have wonderful individual costumes, wigs and BIG hats! Andre Chenier is not into dancing, singing shepherds and shepherdesses, adulterous Greek gods and nymphs. He is a POET! and decidedly sniffy about such things. The women gang up on him. The singing 18th century Clive Owen gets his own back - he sings with Passion! It is too much - everyone gavotte!!! But not the starving rabble, not them. Cheeky Mama's horrified acting is something to behold - as is the servant's songs of ethics and comparison and contrast, the ultimate resignation sung speech and his father's grovelling at his employer's skirts. It is horrible though that the partying rich, when confronted with the 'rabble' crying 'starving' won't offer them anything to eat or drink, or even talk to them, though they are surrounded by an excess of everything. Puccini has some brilliant lines - the servant 'ruined by reading!!!' Mama is bemused - she gave alms...How can they still be hungry or thirsty? The lack of acknowledgement and dialogue is shocking...and on they dance...
Speed forward and it is the Revolution/Terror. The heroine's sister or friend is now 'enjoying' the sexual revolution. Again the costumes and scenery are quite something - everyone looks like they've stepped out of an engraving, although the life they live is hardly truth, justice and freedom - there is liberty, but for whom? The jolliest music (a bit like a speeded up gavotte) is reserved for the aristos heading off in a cart for a date with Madame Guillotine.
The background acting, the characterisations of each of the chorus, the music is quite wonderful =) The blonde! I also love how this opera celebrates the friendship of women - the two friends care for each other as their circumstances rise and fall. The ensemble acting is perfection - in the second half, the crowd are all emoting as the visually impaired mother hurls her seriously under-age son into the revolution. Also the caps and smaller hats, especially large frilly caps! Everyone has appropriate head gear and hair - Bridgerton and other period costume dramas take note! The acting and the emotion is something - you really see the characters thinking through their emotions. The court scene is brilliantly done - the emotions of the prisoners, the costuming to show their imprisonment conditions, the most sneering judge ever, the raggle taggle entrace of the court attendees with some pushing through already seated attendees to find a seat. The horrible injustice of the prisoners facing death not being allowed to speak - but the poet is allowed to use his words and fight back! The callous attitude of the murderous crowds is also shown - some of them have snacks (apple eating going on behind the main action) and they abuse the vulnerable - the aged are told they are too old to speak and shut up, people are despised. Horrifying and yet so well acted out; the courtroom as spectacle. Stunning! Plus the desperation and romance of the poet acknowledging his final hours as he waits in prison.
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