Update the blogroll, that is, somewhat. I imagine I missed some folks, so I'll keep an eye out.
Well as long as I'm posting, I think it's worth noting that lots of people out there seem to be of the opinion, hunch-wise, that Erika is indeed the daugther of Vanessa and Anatol, Sr. I can't say I had ever thought so, but then I pay so little attention to the plots of things I only recently realized Violetta had an evening job. No, I kid, but what do you think? Oh oh oh. I just thought of a tiny contextual clue: what does Erika pull off the bookshelf to read to Vanessa? Why, it's Oedipus, which is also about the wacky hijinx that ensue when you sleep with family members.
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The more obvious (and thus more boring) read on it is also that the Oedipus story is all about generational confusion, Oedipus sleeping with his older mother instead of a nice girl his own age--and then Menotti puts a particularly interesting twist on it with the skeezy motivations of everyone involved.
I forgot to mention one of my other things in the opera, the Boris quote--"I am the false Dmitri, be my Marina!" (or whatever the exact phrasing is). But then I love people who know and love Boris.
Oh yes I always like the little Boris G reference even though I admit the opera itself defeats me to some extent. (I haven't given it a listen in a couple of years. Maybe I'll have grown into it. It happens.)
On the Boris front, I don't know your thoughts about Hans Hotter but I have bits of him doing it in German (the full opera also exists, and I missed buying the recording once) and it's pretty fabulous. I'd be happy to enable.
I'm not quite sure why I love it as much as I do, to be honest, but I can just listen to it even though I have no clue what they're saying except for words like 'smert' and 'slava'. (I mean, I know the plot, obviously, and what's going at in a general sense, but I do feel this alienation from operas in languages I just have no grasp on whatsoever.)
Maury, thank you for the link to my blog. I have had My Favorite Intermissions in my link list for some time.
I have serous problems with BORIS; I vastly prefer KHOVANSCHINA.
Of course, had Erica been Vanessa's daughter rather than her neice (a perfectly plausible concept), then she and Anatole would be half brother and sister and that little supper at the end of Act 1 would relate directly to the end of Act 1 of Die Walkure.
Aside from its own delights simply as an opera, Vanessa also provides a wealth of provocative ambiguities. During one of the intermissions last Sunday, I clearly heard one man speculate that Vanessa might be Anatol's mother. I don't know that I think this is likely in the literal sense, but there is that reading from Oedipus . . . .
I'm starting to realize just how much of a jolly good time Sam & GC had messing around with family values.
I've always assumed Erika was Vanessa's daughter.
But if Anatol is Vanessa's son, then the line that Vanessa's name, like a burning flame "used to scorch my mother's lips" takes on added meaning: he could only have been constant reminder to his mother of his father's checkered past. But what circumstances would have demanded that Vanessa's son be raised by the father, and not by Vanessa herself? Perhaps Vanessa had twins: the son given over to the father, the daughter to remain with Vanessa as her "niece."
But now this is getting out of hand.
That's alright, it was meant to get out of hand.
I must draw the line at Anatol as Vanessa's son, however. If we're serious about any of this, it's as a drama of people unknowingly doinking their family. And Vanessa would have noticed the whole giving birth thing, so if Anatol is her son, it's suddenly an opera about her saying, "oh well, boyfriend's dead, may as well hook up with my son." And that's a little beyond the pale.
Or maybe the opera is just that demented.
Love this blog, Wouldn't miss t for the world, even if I don't have one to offer in return.
Thanks to all you boys out there.
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