|
COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
A hundred years ago, in the fall of 1903, Gustav Mahler was rehearsing Fromental Halevy's opera "La Juive" in Vienna. By Mahler's time, the art of French grand opera that Halevy exemplified had gone out of fashion, its stylized set pieces and grandiose production values superseded by Wagnerian stream of consciousness and naturalistic plots. Nonetheless, Mahler believed in "La Juive," and he lavished special attention on the finale of Act III, in which Brogni, a cardinal in fifteenth-century Switzerland, condemns the heretical love of Leopold, a Catholic prince, and Rachel, the "Jewess" of the title. "Anathema! Anathema!" the Cardinal sings. The word signified not merely excommunication from the Church but everlasting destruction at the hand of God. At the rehearsal, Mahler watched in irritation as his chorus stood around passively. He demanded, "Do you have any idea what it meant to be condemned in the period in which this opera is set?" He jumped onstage to mime the expression that he wished his singers to assume. It was, an observer recalled, the face of a man in extreme terror, retreating from "the ray of death."
"La Juive" is now playing at the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in decades, in a production borrowed, fittingly enough, from the Vienna State Opera. The ending of Act III achieved exactly the effect...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
