A Night At The Opera: The Anonymous Lover

I promised myself, and on this blog, that I would start writing about the operas I go to, and here is the first post on that!  Friday night, I saw The Anonymous Lover, and there’s definitely a lot to say about this show.  And not just the show itself, but things like its history and fascinating info about its composer.  I honestly wasn’t sure what to think about this show going into it, but it was a wonderful hour and a half of something I most definitely wasn’t expecting.  It was something so different from any other opera I’ve ever seen, and it was something extremely special.

The background of The Anonymous Lover is extremely interesting.  The music was written by Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a well rounded black composer in the 18th century.  He was well known for many things, such as his skills on the violin, compositions he wrote, and being a soldier.  Although he was celebrated, he was sort of overlooked because of his skin color.  The Anonymous Lover is his only remaining opera…when my wife and I were discussing this, we were pretty sure a lot of that is due to him being black.  He lived in a time where he didn’t have as much standing because of his skin color.

Obviously, the background is just the start to this piece of art.  When The Anonymous Lover starts, it starts with speaking.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who never realized speaking could be done in an opera.  I always thought that part of what made an opera, an opera was that there was no speaking.  So that was definitely a bit of a surprise.  When I later asked a friend who is trained in opera about that, he told me there were “several styles of opera that use spoken dialogue”.  Which, interestingly enough, is what led to operettas, and of course, musical theatre as we now know it.

But of course, the singing was operatic.  The Anonymous Lover is actually considered a type of opera called opéra comique.  It’s an opera that explores a wide range of emotion and not the tragic operas we’re so used to.  And it really fits that.  There was definitely humor in it, and there were a lot of things that were a lot more light hearted, but we also see into some deep human emotions.  Love is a major theme in the show, and we see that in many different ways.  There’s romantic love, love between friends, and love as a basic abstract.  It’s truly beautiful.

Something I absolutely have to say is that there is nothing in this world like operatic singing.  It’s phenomenal what these vocalists can do with their voices.  I’ve been to a bunch of shows with Opera Philadelphia, and I’m still completely wowed by the singers (and those women in corsets?  How the hell?).  I thought it was really cool that we also got to hear the actors speak.  It’s not something I’ve ever seen before, but it fit with the whole thing.  I got just as much from the speaking as I got from the dialogue.

I felt like there were some Shakespearean elements to the whole thing…but maybe that’s just because I’m really good at applying Shakespearean elements to things.  The comedy style sort of made me think of that, though.  The whole idea of The Anonymous Lover is that the character of Valcour has been anonymously wooing the character of Léotine, who has given up on love.  There are other characters trying to set them up, trying to convince Valcour that he just needs to reveal himself…all the slip ups and comedy that you’d see in a show like As You Like It.  It really had the same feeling for me, which I thought was super interesting.

The show, in itself, was a lot of fun…something I never thought I’d say about an opera.  The storyline was upbeat and funny, and there was none of the traditional tragedy I had always come to expect from an opera.  There were times where the whole audience was laughing, both during the spoken scenes and the singing scenes.  That was definitely something new for me at an opera, but I really enjoyed it.  It was a nice break from the usual.

The entirety of the show and the experience of The Anonymous Lover was phenomenal.  Opera Philadelphia always has that.  I know on my blog, I’ve talked about theatres in Philly and the Philly area…we have a lot of really great stuff around here, and Opera Philadelphia is no different.  They do such a great job with their shows, everything from the costumes and sets to, of course, the performers.  They work so hard to bring all these different things to the area, and I think they’ve really put Philly on the map with this.

I really love going to the opera.  It truly is just another form of theatre, and I’m glad it’s something I get to enjoy.  The Anonymous Lover was such a beautiful piece of art, and I loved the experience of something new at the opera.  The last opera in the season is Don Giovanni…a more traditional piece, but bound to have a spin on it, as all the opera’s closing shows have had.  It’s just another piece of theatre I can’t wait for.