I am glad that I have attended the opera La Damoiselle Elue and Suor Angelica at our campus. Although they don’t have the spectacular stage like the one in the Don Giovanni at Met Opera, I like them more, especially Suor Angelica because I get a closer look at the actors’ acting and feel their emotion more strongly.

The first piece is Debussy’s La Damoiselle Elue which is poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It is about a girl Damozel who is awaiting her earthbound lover to come to the heaven. Unfortunately, her waiting is in vain and she is immersed in sorrow. Damozel sings very and express her feeling well. But, I think, at the end, if the light is turned dimmer, it will create a better sorrowful atmosphere. Since the setting is in the paradise, I wonder why Damozel is looking up to somewhere. She is supposed to look down to the earth and look for her lover.

The second piece is Puccini’s Suor Angelica and its libretto is written by Giovacchino Forzano. This opera is about the story of the nun Angelica who has been in the convent for about seven years. As she knows that her son is dead, she is so heartbroken and anguished that she decides to suicide so that she can see her son in the heaven. Right after she drinks the poison, she realizes that she has committed the mortal sin. She repents and asks the Virgin Mary for forgiveness. Eventually, the mercy Madonna forgive her and let her meet her son in the heaven.

As other opera, the orchestra and the actors in Suor Angelica cooperate well. I most like the part when the orchestra play a fast, loud and chaotic sound as Angelica covers her face, knelling down at the moment when she knows her son is dead. The fast, loud, and chaotic sound resonate with the pang of Angelica; she is shocked, hopeless and doesn’t know what to do. Having prayed for the health and happiness of the son for seven years, she cannot accept the cruel reality. Overfilled with the grief, she loses her reason and plans to suicide. At the second when she drinks the poison, the orchestra again plays a fast, thunderous sound, which resembles her irresistible impulse to die.

The opera Don Giovanni we watched before and the Suor Angelica demonstrate opposite elements. In the Don Giovanni, Don Giovanni has endless desires for women, but in the Suor Angelica, the nuns are not allowed to have desires and even the desire for food would be scolded. Angelica voluntarily repent for her sin and ask for forgiveness; she eventually elevates to the heaven with her son. Ironically, even though Don Giovanni is told that he will survive if he repent for his crime, he still refuse to repent; finally, he is dragged down to the hell.

Besides difference, Suor Angelica and Don Giovanni also have something in common. Supernatural power exist in both opera; the one with conscience is deemed to gain redemption and the one with evilness is doomed to be sentenced. It seems like that the supernatural power decides the fate of human being. However, I think that people’s fates are in their own controls; it is people who decide what they do and what they do will bring to them what they deserve.

I had the privilege to see Suor Angelica earlier tonight performed in LeFrak Concert Hall, and I am happy to say that I went. While Don Giovani was fine and all, it was a bit too long for my attention span. This opera was a much shorter piece of opera where I could better appreciate (and stay awake for) the different parts and aspects that were involved. ( I didn’t care for the first opera performed, Debussy’s “La Damoiselle Elue”. The theme of a departed woman in Heaven calling for her husband seemed very remote to me. I could care less. The music was pretty good, though.)

For starters, the stage setup was very different as compared to the Metropolitan Opera. Instead of being in a pit, the orchestra played right onstage behind the opera singers (though I think this was more due to lack of space). The lighting system was very good. It focused attention on the right people at just the right moments. An example that jumps immediately to my mind is at the end when she sees her son taking her to Heaven, with the lights both on her and her son (very emotional and heavy). Additionally, there was almost no scenery except for the fountain with the statue of the Virgin Mary whom all the nuns worshiped and revered (she was played by an actual person and managed to stay remarkably still the whole time until she came alive at the end).

Best of all, I was better able to appreciate the good music that the orchestra played so well. The music was very good at capturing the different moods and emotions in the opera. I liked Sister Angelica’s lament over her son; with the musical background, it was very moving. Her reunion with her son in Heaven is another moment that I found very moving, helped immensely by the music. I also liked how the nuns went to the upper floor of the concert hall and sang as an accompaniment.

It was a very pleasurable piece to listen to.

And to top it all off, Monica Martin played in the Violin I section of the orchestra. Go Monica!