BUT OH I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE WRONG
I loved it. I absolutely loved it!
This opera was a collaboration of the opera Graz and the Komische Oper of Berlin. Because of that Xerxes is only presented twice a month.
It was sold out. Really, we were right to reserve our tickets because otherwise we wouldn't have had a chance.
The arias were mixed. A few were in italian but most of them as well as the recitative parts were german. The lyrics and the translations were shown on a display above the stage.
Many critics said that it was difficult to follow the story and that it was a little disturbing. But I was able to follow quite well!
I'll try to summarize the plot:
Xerxes was a persian king that lived about 500 BC. But this opera was written in the baroque period so the costumes and the stage are from this era.
The brother of Xerxes, Arsamenes, is in love with the beautiful Romilda and she returns the feelings. But one day, Xerxes meets her and is smitten, so he wants to marry her no matter what. Both Arsamenes and Romilda protest, but the king doesn't take a no.
Romilda has a sister, Atlanta, who is very jealous about her popularity and wishes to take Arsamenes from her just to have her revenge. So when one day Arsamenes' servant Elviro is sent to deliver a letter to Romilda, she snatches the letter away and assures him that she'll give it to her sister. Of course she does not, and when suddenly Xerxes appears she tells him that the letter from Arsamenes is for HER and that Romilda loves only the king. Then follows a loooong series of confusions, mistakes an misinterpretations but surprisingly it is one of these misunderstandings that finally brings Arsamenes and Romilda together! Xerxes promises the father of Romilda a husband for her from his noble blood and because he doesn't specify it is himself, the father thinks it is Arsamenes. When Arsamenes appears, the father weds them immediately. Of course a lot more happens before the happy end, but I can't summarize it all- it would be too long!
Now to the criteria:
THE STAGE
The stage consisted mostly of a big rotating platform. The circle is divided into different settings by artificial columns. Everytime there was a change of settings, it rotated back or forward. I thought it was awesome and a really good idea!! The design was - as mentioned before - baroque: Lots of artificial roman columns, paintings of baroque houses, a lot of gold and ornamentation. The garden of Xerxes with his precious tree ( he comes home from a journey and sings an aria to the delightful shadow the tree gives. You might have heard from the aria "Ombra mai fú") is painted in a rich green, the interior design rather look a bit shady...as if the characters weren't rich and could only afford the most simple way of living.
THE COSTUMES
Ohhhhh the costumes!!! They were perfect! They looked like original baroque gowns, the men in their wide frocks, pompous hats and white wigs and the ladies in long, heavy and frilly dresses.Sometimes they had a roman touch, for example the military uniforms with golden breastplates, feather helmets and wide skirts. (Yes skirts, even for the men) Or the wedding gowns Xerxes prepared for his and Romilda's wedding! There were scenes where cupids were hopping around or where merpeople popped out of the water. The cupids were waring only baroque undergarments with golden wings, curly, White wigs and bow ans arrows. The mer had richly decorated masks and had their faced painted.
THE ACTORS AND ARIAS
The original opera back then was written for castrates so most of the actory were women. Xerxes was, Arsamenes was. There were only a few men that had arias such as the father of Romilda or Elviro. Then again, Elviro seemes to be a Counter Tenor since he was able to sing normally and when he had to dress as a woman in order to deliver Arsamenes' letter he also could sing rather high-pitched. The arias were quite the typical lng ones that actually consisted of only maybe two or four lines which were consantly repeated. Nonetheless they were beautiful, the actors could sing wonderfully (except maybe Romildas's father, didn't like his voice a lot)
But the acting was flawless!! The whole opera was so funny because of their acting. Xerxes totally reminded me of Johnny Depp in his role as Jack Sparrow. The king has this snooty character: he is full of himself, thinks he is perfect and can get everything he wants. So the actress moved exactly like him, used really funny expressions and was in gerneral absolutely wonderful. I had to laugh so much whenever she was in Action! Atlanta was the typically jealous, deceitful wench. She was always walking around with a false or assertive grin, ready to maker her sister suffer. Nonetheless it was simply funny watching her plan her revenge! Elviro, my favourite, was the perfect, funny sidekick of Arsamenes! A loyal servant to his master but with an own, strong will. His impressions as a woman made my sides hurt, even more because he was constantly changing between bariton and soprano or he directed his word at the orchestra telling them to shut up with a Berlin Accent.
Elviro as woman and Xerxes' fianceé Oh yeah I completely forgot he had one...and Xerxes obviously forgot he had one, too. So she gets mad at him and helps Arsamenes and Romilda get back together.
Dancing sheep and fighting men. Actually, this summarizes the opera perfectly.
THE HUMOR
As I already secribed above, the whole opera was really funny. Most of the Humor was rather crude and sexual, but there were wonderful puns inbetween! For example, during an aria Xerxes sings, telling Romilda that he wished he could hate her, Atlanta was strolling between him, Romilda and backstage, bringing Xerxes a new weapon each time he repeated his lines and hoping he would kill Romilda. First, it was a knive, when he didn't kill her with that she brought a pistol, at the next repetitio she gave him a crossbow and got even more frustrated when he didn't use it and then finally brought him a mini-canon!
OHHH this is one of my favourite things!!!
OH PLEASE IF THIS ISN'T A PERFECT PUN???!!
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