Last night I finally got to redeem my birthday gift to myself by going to see Vanessa at the New York City Opera with tickets I bought in September.... y'know, for my birthday.
I wrote a paper on this opera and a couple others in college. I think Vanessa's a great opera because I'm not this guy who feels the need to show us how artistic and intelligent he is with bad metaphors and silly jabs at the plebian tastes of American opera-goers AS IF HE WEREN'T ONE OF THEM HIMSELF. Well, to be fair, he's right about one thing, and that's that Menotti's libretto sucks. But I don't blame Menotti.
Here's the plot: Vanessa is about Vanessa. She's a rich girl who has been waiting 20 years for some trick to return to her from wherever he is. She covered all the mirrors and portraits in her house, presumably to create the illusion that she's preserving her youth. More like VAINessa! It doesn't make sense. What makes even less sense is why her niece and mother, who live with her, put up with such melodramatic bullshit. I'd be like "Woman, don't you touch my mirrors! Find yourself a new man or GTFOI!"
'GTFOI' stands for "get the fuck over it!" I just made it up. It applies to every character in this opera.
ANYWAY, the night Vanessa's old lover is slated to return, his son of the same name comes instead because daddy's dead. Now, instead of being sensible and greeting him like a normal, sane person, Vanessa decides to turn her back to him and NOT ALLOW HIM TO LOOK AT HER until he assures her that he still loves her. The son, Anatol, being a total dipshit, decides to say he loves her even though he has no idea who the fuck she is. Elated, she turns around, kisses him, and then realizes he's a stranger. The rest of Act I is quoted directly from an episode of Three's Company. She freaks out, says "Oh my God, who are you?!" and runs out of the room. I don't know why, but I was the only person laughing aloud when this happened.
Then Anatol seduced Vanessa's niece Erika, who falls in love with him but refuses to marry him because he's a gold-digging, smooth-talking user (a character point we must take Erika's word for because there's not evidence for it anywhere else in the libretto.) Anyway, since she won't marry him, Anatol gets Vanessa to marry him. (He's like 19, and she's over 40 by the way... and if I may say, a little bit hippy.) Anyway, Vanessa loves him too because she's demented and thinks he's the same as his father.
Turns out Erika's preggers (oh shit!) and when Vanessa and Anatol announce their engagement, she goes all nutso even though she rejected him, and runs away into the winter forest to have an abortion by hand. I mean what would YOU do? Then Vanessa and Anatol leave for Paris, and Erika puts the covers back over the mirrors and portraits, ending the opera by saying "Now it is my turn to wait."
For what the little drama queen is waiting is never made clear since nobody's coming back for her. There's no reason for her to freak out, I mean she didn't even like the guy. She slept with him ONE TIME. Anyway, her grandmother won't even talk to her anymore because she's being a total crybaby, so I say if she wants to fester away in her musty old house by herself with just her expanding hips and sagging boobs for company, let her. Man, the dude gave her every chance in the world, and even though Vanessa's only happy because she's deluded and refuses to accept reality (the message of the opera, by the way, is that happiness is only found in self-deception and forgetfulness) at least she's happy.
Right, so even though I really like this opera, you have to admit the plot really blows because all the characters are retarded and lacking in dimension. Anyway, I don't really blame Menotti as much as I blame women because they cry too much.
Just kidding, I blame Menotti.
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