Dealing with pandemic shutdown requires a particular sort of humour. Try a Finnish sense of humour.
The Finnish National Opera, forced to cancel the season last spring, created in 6 months their own pandemic opera satire as Covid fan tutte, produced it live with their leading singers and filmed it for free livestreaming on Opera Vision.
From the publicity: The 100-minute Finnish-language piece accompanied by the Austrian composer’s original score conveys “scenes from the coronavirus spring” in Finland. It looks at citizens’ feelings of insecurity, job losses, travel restrictions and social isolation, among other topics.
The opera 'satirically revisits Mozart's classic opera by adapting its storyline to reflect Finland's experience during the coronavirus crisis... lightheartedly follows ordinary Finns’ lives amid press conferences by the government and pandemic experts.' Ummm, how? Well, here's the synopsis.
'On stage, singers are rehearsing Die Walküre, when they are suddenly interrupted. As management has been laid off and the news of a global virus spreads rapidly, the Wagnerians are suddenly instructed to perform a modern satire on the situation. '
'The titles come on for “Valkyyria” — a new production of Wagner’s “Die Walküre” — but the first thing you hear is what sounds like an audience coughing up a storm. Already, you know we’re in trouble. The storm music for the prelude packs a punch, but then a disgruntled customer “interface manager” steps in.
“Hey, little guy down there,” she yells at the conductor in the pit. “Stop it with Wagner! Play Mozart!”
The little guy happens to be Esa-Pekka Salonen (whose “Walküre,” postponed in the spring, is now set for January). The Mozart is “Covid fan Tutte,” an outrageous operatic spoof of “Cosi fan Tutte.” With spikes of COVID-19 the world over, this is clearly no time for a kidding around. Or is it?
That depends on who’s kidding whom. And how. And why. And the music!
In all of the above, this brilliant and, believe it or not, at times transcendent Mozartean spoof is unlike anything else that the coronavirus has wrought. We laugh at ourselves in our pandemic befuddlement, and in so doing we also hold ourselves up to the Mozart of his most probing, most troubling opera.
In Mozart’s comic operas, humor is used to break down our defenses. “Cosi fan Tutte” is the opera in which we have to stop kidding ourselves about who we are. It is the farcical opera exposing, through a sublime Mozartean lyricism, a rawness and richness of feeling that was entirely new to the lyric stage.' Read on...
Starring leading Finnish diva Karita Mattila and conducted by that little guy, Esa-Pekka Salonen. (The Finnish National Opera faced a delay of their own Die Walküre, wrecking Salonen’s dream of leading his first Ring cycle.)
The opera was performed under strict distancing rules for both performers and the audience, with no choir on the stage but its singing heard through a prerecorded performance.
The Finnish-language production (with subtitles) doesn't aim to make fun of a human tragedy, but belying the reputation of Finns for stolid solemnity, the artists stress the need to laugh. "Without humor these extraordinary times would have been very hard to take," said soprano Karita Mattila, who is Despina, navigating her way through the coronavirus world.
"Mozart was a mischievous and imaginative fellow who wasn't chained to conventional thinking," Salonen said. "He would probably be very excited about this project. I'm convinced of that."
The libretto is by Minna Lindgren; the music is (almost) 100% Mozart's.
Streamed on OperaVision now, and available for 4 months: Click here to view it: https://operavision.eu/en/library/per...
Finland, a nation of 5.5 million, has so far recorded a total of 335 COVID-19 related deaths.
“We’re not laughing at the COVID-19 tragedy and disaster,” Salonen says. “The work speaks to the actuality around us. Opera is often accused of not responding to current reality — this production offers a response to life today.”
Read more here from San Francisco, where Salonen was to have taken up his position as music director of the San Francisco Symphony.
Lyn, 4 November 2020
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