hidden in plain sight
by Douglas Messerli
Andrea
Leone Tottola (libretto, based on the poem by Sir Walter Scott), Gioachino
Rossini (music) La donna del lago (The Lady of the Lake) /
New York, The Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast, March 14, 2015
Poor Elena
(Joyce DiDonato), the lovely lady who lives on the banks of a Scottish loch.
Hardly has the sun risen and she has three men in love with her, Rodrigo Di Dhu
(John Osborn), the leader of Highland Clan rebelling against the King, Malcolm
Groeme (Daniella Barcellona), the warrior with whom she is deeply in love, and
a lost hunter Uberto (Juan Diego Flórez), who, unbeknownst to her, is Giacomo V,
the King to whom her father is opposed. It’s little wonder that all the local
women flutter about her small cottage since all the important men in the
territory are drawn to its denizen?
The central problem of Act I is that
Elena’s father has promised her to Rodrigo as symbol of his commitment to the
revolution, while his daughter has eyes only for Malcolm, who, at least in this
Metropolitan Opera version, is played by another mezzo-soprano (as host
Patricia Racette joked in her introduction, “In this opera mezzo-soprano gets
mezzo-soprano”). Elena, accordingly must negotiate a treaty between her heart
and her filial duty, a peace that will end the internal war she is suffering.
Ironically her dilemma is temporarily solved with the outbreak of general
hostilities. Thus the inner struggle becomes a social one which even she cannot
resist in supporting, singing along with the Clan rebels “Già un raggio forier.”
The King may have promised to protect her,
but he clearly must punish the man to whom she is engaged, Rodrigo, for his
treason. In killing him, however, Giacomo saves Elena for Malcolm, who along
with her father, now sits in his prison.
If the scenario has appeared to be quite
unbelievable up to this point, it now turns in to pure fairy tale, as the pomp and circumstance of the court is
revealed (this Scottish court, evidently, wore costumes that might have seemed
more at home in Renaissance Italy). In the midst of the glitter of the court pageantry,
Elena cannot even find the King, who stands beside her in his royal trappings
as her friend Uberto. Dramatically, his real identity is revealed before her
very eyes as he is crowned and she returns the ring, freeing her father, lover
and herself in the same moment to become loving subjects of the King who has
spared their lives and permitted them their true destinies.
Los Angeles, April
16, 2015
Reprinted
from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (April
2015).
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