Rameau in the Amazon and Florencia in Egypt

D.C. types (or New Yorkers)—if you appreciate late baroque/rococo/proto-classical music but have never had the sheer pleasure of Jean-Phillippe Rameau's acquaintance...



... I can hardly recommend this here heartily enough:



Rameau's opera-ballet will be performed at the Kennedy Center (in the Concert Hall) on Monday, October 6 at 7:00 p.m. and on Thursday, October 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the Rose Theater in NYC.

On the subject of opera, it is true I have never been an opera queen. Mostly I don't get it. Why would you sing the same phrase 418 times? Why would you? Why would you? Why would you sing the same phrase, the same phrase, the same phrase, the same phrase 418 times? Why would you? Why would you? Besides which, I find many if not most opera singers absolute torture to listen to—especially those interpreting the romantic literature, with their lugubrious phrasing of the smarmy, obvious musical cues and their vibrato spread open wider than Armond Rizzo's butthole:

(ETA: In retrospect, I really meant to  say "Johnny Rapid's butthole":

The result, to me, is cacophony. What the fuck note is that even supposed to be? I often ask such singers; but they're typically too busy emitting said cacophony to hear the question.

I know a lot of serious music fans do not have this limitation; many people truly love opera and all things operatic. But I think the singing technique is easily overblown to the point of absurdity. My preference is for a singer to make the vocal line as clear and direct as possible, unless some tangible dramatic factor argues for embellishment or inflection. I'm not talking about written or suggested ornamentation in the music; I'm talking about WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SINGING TWO NOTES A MINOR THIRD APART AND EVERY NOTE IN BETWEEN?

Baroque opera tends to be interpreted with less of this nonsense, which is why Rameau and Purcell and Monteverdi are "my kids".

But I went to the KenCen the other day to see Florencia en el Amazonas, a 1996 opera by Daniel Catán:

...and it didn't suck. Sure, there was some annoying opera technique but not enough to explode my head. I cannot claim the work to be revelatory or even especially intriguing. The premise and dramatic themes are rich enough to work with—although, c'mon, "inspired by the work of Gabriel García Márquez" is as likely a cause for trepidation as for celebration—and Catán's music is relentlessly congenial. (Not happy-bouncy but pretty and lush.) Of course, at various points, I thought, unkindly and only half in jest, that "Surely I've heard every bit of this music in some suite or other of Ferde Grofé's, or possibly in some attraction at Epcot."

Anyway, the piece has the distinction of being the first-ever Spanish language opera to be commissions and performed by a major U.S. opera company. There are two more performances at KenCen: Friday (today, 9/26) at 7:30 and Sunday 9/28 at 2:00 p.m.