parterre box

All right, class. Take a careful look at the costume sketch below. It’s for a major character in a standard repertory opera. (In other words, nobody is doing Natoma.) Look carefully at the sketch, and when you think you know who the character is, scroll down to find out the answer.

Think you know who this character is? All right then, scroll down the page….

keep scrolling….

scroll yet some more…

and once again…

The character depicted is . . . Erda in Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Yes, that right, the Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner. It’s a new production of the tetralogy for Washington National Opera, directed by Francesca Zambello. According to a press release from the WNO, this is to be an “American Ring,” a concept explicated by Zambello thus: “the designers and I are using American history, mythology, iconography, and landscape to set the operas. We are creating a world in some ways familiar to our audience but also one that will feel very mythic as we look to our country’s rich imagery.”

Wotan (Robert Hale) is depicted in another of designer Michael Yeargan‘s sketches in a dapper frock coat, a la Horace Tabor. And so, you are surely asking yourself, how do the Niblelungs fit into this scheme. La Cieca is glad you asked.

OH NO THEY DIDN’T! Das Rheingold opens in March, and we’ll see how this goes from there.

“She had awakened desire in him, and he had once approached the house of Thais. But he stopped on the threshold of the courtesan’s house, partly restrained by the natural timidity of extreme youth– he was then but fifteen years old– and partly by the fear of being refused on account of his want of money, for his parents took care that he should commit no great extravagances. God, in His mercy, had used these two means to prevent him from committing a great sin.”

That’s Anatole France’s take on the story, but this week on Unnatural Acts of Opera we’ll hear a different account, Jules Massenet’s opera Thais. It’s the classic 1959 Radio France version, starring Andree Esposito and Robert Massard. For those of you who have the desire (and spare time) to compare the two treatments of the story, the text of France’s novel is online. (Though just between you and La Cieca, it’s so much prettier in French! “Elle avait allumé le désir dans ses veines et il s’était une fois approché de la maison de Thaïs. Mais il avait été arrêté au seuil de la courtisane par la timidité naturelle à l’extrême jeunesse (il avait alors quinze ans), et par la peur de se voir repoussé, faute d’argent, car ses parents veillaient à ce qu’il ne pût faire de grandes dépenses. Dieu, dans sa miséricorde, avait pris ces deux moyens pour le sauver d’un grand crime.”)

Oh, and wait until you hear what Mary Garden did to a diva who dared poach her roles! Unnatural Acts of Opera.