I started enjoying this a lot more once I gave up trying to understand what was happening minute to minute, plot-wise, and let my mind sort of drift. Do we need opera to provide good plots, or even to make sense minute to minute? The man beside me was talking about the way the mezzo (younger) was challenging the lead soprano (Angela Gheorghiu, obviously a big deal), and the script seems designed to set up these sorts of challenges. Might operas--or some of them--be thought of as structures for providing these sorts of meta-operatic challenges, rather than as anything like realistic entertainments?
David McVicar remains one of my favorite opera designers. Again, leaving the plot aside, this was one of the loveliest minute-to-minute operas that I've seen; in my mind's eye I can still three dancers lined up at the edge of the setting, just watching the principal actors at center stage. I'm not sure that this made a lick of sense, but it was one of the loveliest night's out I've had in a while.
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