LIVEBLOGGING DEATH IN VENICE: OK, not completely liveblogging, since I went back and edited my impressions before posting. But I watched/listened to the 1981 filmed version of Britten’s DIV opera, and after about half an hour I began to suspect I would get more out of it if I gathered my impressions and asked opera-savvy readers to comment (or dispute). So this is my completely uneducated take; I know I was handicapped by a) loving the novella a lot, b) having a hard time with opera generally, and c) taking notes, probably being too aware of my own reactions. Still, onward and upward!–or, in the case of DIV, downward. (…And the timing of this was completely accidental, which is all I’m going to say about that.)

First impressions of Death in Venice opera:

1. Aschenbach has a weird, reedy, strained voice. I am guessing Britten was going for an exhausted tone, but it’s unpleasant, grating, and we have to listen to it CONSTANTLY! Esp that whole vibrato thing. No like the straining vibrato.

2. English is maybe too colloquial for this opera? Too many contrasting sounds in the words–I usually like this diversity, how English can be thorny or supple by turns, but it isn’t working here. The words seem alternately flat (instead of poignantly casual, dramatic irony) and turgid (instead of lush, infected, doomy). Some of the turgidity is in the music, as well, though see below. Without the libretto and the voice, I don’t think I’d notice a problem in the music. …Oh bah, Asch’s thoughts about Tadzio and his form and whatnot really don’t work when the slightly pompous, self-deceiving monologue is sung rather than written. I’m not really sure why–maybe when it’s sung you have to look at it too long or too intently. Maybe it’s just a very difficult tone of voice to do in operatic form??? (…Hee, he has to sing the words “human relationships.” Poor singer.)

3. In prose, when you’re just reading, the casual conversations about e.g. the vaporetto and how you can’t take baggage on the vaporetto and welcome to our hotel, etc., can fall quietly to the ground like leaves, and just stay there in the reader’s mind rustling a little. But when these lines are sung, you have to pay too much attention–too much weight is placed on them, weight they can’t support.

4. I think I like the music, sans singing. Possibly I like it a lot. But then Aschenbach starts singing over it and gah! But maybe that is just because I’m more used to movie scores than to operas?

5. Oh, yeah, I do think the music is better at conveying a creepy, febrile beauty. OTOH, it is kind of the exact music you would expect from an opera of DIV. Evil carnival music. I’m such a sucker for evil carnival music.

6. Heh–it doesn’t really work to have a Tadzio we can see and judge. Must be equally hard to cast your Helen. The costuming is fine but I just don’t think this is filmable….

7. OH, here’s the problem: In the story, the descriptive prose and internal monologue have to continue because they create the mood, the background to the action, whereas in the opera the music is the background, and so the libretto often feels intrusive.

8. AUGH, when the music tells you he has been overwhelmed and is fleeing, WE DO NOT NEED THE LIBRETTO TO SAY SO TOO!!!! Haaaaaaate for the libretto.

9. Hee, “naw-see-us.” Human relationships!

10. Ai carai, the staging/filming here gets hideously overdone (just before A sings “Iiiiiiiiiiii love you,” which itself does not work for me either). Again, the music is better than everything else.

11. “A sweetish medicinal cleanliness/overlaying the smell of still canals”–the imagery I like, but the actual lines are too sibilant, and it’s made worse by that thin vibrato voice. “The city fathers are seldom so solicitous”–is he doing this crazy amount of sibilance on purpose?? Because it IRKS. It feels clumsy, not serpentine or whatever it is supposed to be.

12. Wargh, the Apollo vs Dionysos thing is really bad. Clunky. Although I like the clichéd-but-effective end (“I go, I go now”). Then it gets amazingly clunky again. …Marc Almond could pull this scene off (in the style of his song about the bullfighters, or the cabaret Rimbaud), definitely, but Britten apparently can’t. …Actually I would LOVE to hear the Marc Almond version of DIV. Wow.

13. The Phaedrus section is really good, though. The lighter voice works wonderfully here, the music is mysterious and gentle and foreboding, and only the staging in this version causes trouble. The libretto can be ignored when it gets silly or too obvious, because the voice is working. “I will go” is a good echo of the Apollo leavetaking, too. …Yeah, that was good.

14. The ending of this is so much better than the beginning. POSSIBLY BECAUSE THE END IS WORDLESS.
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okay, so… that was my first impression. Other reactions, comments, howls of execration??