So it was that on a cool and clear Friday night (two days ago), myself and (a rather ravishing-looking, in her low-cut black dress) Polina caught a cab, made our way uptown to Lincoln Center, strode into the Met Opera House, snagged ourselves a bar of raspberry chocolate along with a few glasses of champagne (Louis Roederer--conveniently, my all around favorite), ascended the stairs, found our box, proceeded to settle ourselves into our balcony seats (a grand production, I know--but, dear readers, it was all FOR a rather grand production)... All this to see the last performance of the season of a work very close to my heart: "Wozzeck".
An operatic adaption by Alban Berg of Georg Buchner's play of the same name, "Wozzeck" centers around the story of a soldier who, in dire need of money to support his newborn son, submits himself to a series of bizarre and humiliating experiments, these overseen by a rather mad doctor (one more concerned with his own academic immortality than the health and well-being of his patient). Wozzeck (our protagonist) grows ever more deranged as these experiments begin to eat into his character; while at the same time, his wife, feeling abandoned, unloved, and alone, decides to have an affair with a drum major she, one day, rather arbitrarily (or perhaps not so, considering her state) picks out of a marching procession. She feels bad, Wozzeck feels worse (ahem--"understatement"), he finds out about her affair (from his doctor and his captain: together on the street they give him the good ol' proverbial poking in the ribs, with no idea of the carnage they are about to bring manifest...), and, naturally, he ends up slitting her throat in the forest one fine and moonlit evening, drowning himself soon after.
So yes, it's a tragedy in the classic vein ("Othello" comes to mind, here, though surely another dozen would spring forth were we to give it any thought); although, in something of a cruel twist, apparently this tale was in fact based on a true story... The play itself was written by Buchner in (I believe) the 1830s, the opera based on said play was composed by Alben Berg almost a century later.
Now, my experience with this whole thing began in my late teens, when I landed the lead in a (what was, admittedly, a rather small, though still exhilarating) production of "Wozzeck"--the play. In setting up for this thing, here (rehearsal etc--making one's emotional choices, as an actor), I suppose it's fair to say that the material, when analyzed, can and does lend itself to a rather broad interpretation, but for me personally, the whole thing, in playing Wozzeck (this in regard to the beats I chose and so on), was to do so as a small, slight, hunched over, meek, rather subdued, rather beaten down sort of man. One with an overbearing wife (hence his need to support her, lest he deal with her berating), a sneering captain, and a mad doctor. (And no friends.) In the alleyway, when he happens upon both the captain and the doctor (drunk or not, together--depends on how you opt to play it), and they begin to (jokingly or not--again, a choice) insinuate that they saw his wife carousing about with a certain rather handsome and proud drum major, Wozzeck's reply of, "Please sir, she's all I have..." (this is, for me, one of the key lines in the play) should come out as a kind of pathetic whine crossed with, say, a desperate pleading... Wozzeck starts out mildly paranoid ("The earth is hollow... I tell you, it's HOLLOW...!"--this to be delivered with a kind of "childish fright" meets "zealous glee", I'd think; more of a sense of discovery, than real terror), gets worse, has relapses back into sanity whenever his universe is threatened from without (his wife cheating on him), but, all the same, despite the pendulum swings of his inner state, still remains essentially a passive protagonist. This until, of course, he slits his wife's throat in the forest--and we end her life on his line (I may have the exact phrasing off, here, but it's something close to): "BUT NOT ME! NEVER ME!!"... (slash) (blood pours out on stage) (she dies) And here, suddenly, he's taken real action for the first time in the play. (The second and last time, arguably, is when he drowns himself.) So you play the guy as sort of this pathetic, spineless amoeba, and then, when he finally snaps and ends his wife's life, it's not only tragic, it's also shocking despite its inevitability.
At least, that was my take on it. But, now, with the opera...
Well, let's just say it's really hard to find a late-20-something/early-30-something, small, slight, hunched over, meek, rather subdued, rather beaten down OPERA SINGER that can really belt out those notes. And this, I think, more than anything, was probably my real problem with the (critically acclaimed) production Polina and I saw last Friday. I was quite familiar with the play, obviously, and had read the libretto and even (a while ago, in voice training) performed some scenes from the opera, but had never actually seen the whole thing front-to-back myself. And wow, WHAT a difference it was... Granted, the Met's take on it was a very, VERY modern one--think "Grey wall against black background", extremely stark, extremely minimalist (in fact, if you've seen Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" you'll have a good idea of what the set design was like)--but regardless, though I tend to prefer lavish sweeping staircases and golden chandeliers in my operas, I'm not averse to "less is more" in and of itself; I do, however, take issue with it when it tends to come off as simple LAZINESS (which it did, for me, here)... And, honestly (I'm going to get shot for this, but what the hell...), though this production has received some simply rave reviews, I just wasn't convinced, wasn't moved--and in the end, though the conductor was amazing (my friend Dory--who also, coincidently, attended the same performance I was at--rightfully pointed out the microsecond-perfect timing on this one particular crescendo which even I, with my untrained ear, caught), and the man who played Wozzeck himself had an incredible voice, it just. Was. NOT. Wozzeck. Or at least, not the one I knew. Here our Wozzeck was strong, powerful, ramrod straight, and, though slightly dim and perhaps easily taken advantage of, certainly did anything but give the impression that he'd tip over the edge and fall into madness, all from hearing the news that his wife had a one-night-stand with our dashing drum major. If anything, this Wozzeck would have, upon finding out, gone home, yelled at her, slapped her, laughed, gone to the tavern, gotten drunk (well, OK, he did that part and I bought it), gone to a whorehouse (or a few), gotten into a couple of fights, crawled home, not spoken to his wife for a few days... And then it would have been business as usual from there on out. Certainly he didn't strike me as the kind of fellow who would really, really, succumb to this whole "The earth is hollow and the Freemasons are everywhere business" (which, of course, is the whole set-up in the play--Wozzeck's justifying his irrational universe as easily as he does--because he is, in the end, so malleable...). A very different characterization of Wozzeck, to be sure...
So yes, musically, the opera was beautiful. Visually, I found it plain and dull (save for the two tavern scenes, which were actually quite well done, in a hallucinatory and nightmarish fashion... If only the rest of the production hadn't been done in the very same palette, these scenes might have had even greater impact.) Theatrically, I thought it was a broad and sweepingly inaccurate take on the play and, in particular, the main character, but, in fairness, this may just be a byproduct of translating a play into the grain of the operatic medium. All in all, though--I think I can say I actually had more fun simply "being at the opera with Polina" than I did actually watching this one particular opera.
Afterwards, we hit a seafood restaurant across the street. More champagne, a dozen oysters, and a few other tasty tidbits as well. Topics of conversation: "What did we think of the opera?" (from both of us); "You really should wear more suits like that, they look great on you... Very 'country gentleman'..." (from her, in reference to my tweed Ralph Lauren three-piece); "Hmm...! Perhaps I should indeed then, leave Manhattan one day soon and, somewhere upstate, assume the look and mannerisms inherent in that of a country gentleman's lifestyle, a la the classic Ralph Lauren ad...!" (from me, in response to the suit observation); "Man, we really need to make a lot of money. Soon..." (from both of us); and, finally (again, from both of us), "Chocolate mousse and Marble cake? Hmm...!!" (We went with the mousse.)
Po and I made our way back downtown after that (though not before stopping at Sortie for a brief bit to see a friend of mine, Abram, who'd just come in from LA the night before), and I must say, when I finally got home (after dropping Po in the West Village), I think I was asleep before I hit the bed. Perhaps this "Wozzeck" had taken more out of me than I'd realized...? Then again, perhaps it was just the oysters, chocolate, and champagne. And mousse.
One thing is certain: the next time we hit the opera (soon!! Po and I shall make a point of it), we're talkin' sweeping staircases and lavish chandeliers my friends... Perhaps a bit of Mozart? Something simple. Something nice. Tonality debates aside, If I'm not humming it throughout the rest of the night, God knows something just isn't right...
(Above: the cast takes a bow. Below: a shot of the audience as viewed from our seats, just before showtime; Polina poses in our balcony's coat room.)
