Movie-going opera buffs have had multiple opportunities to celebrate this season, the advent of the Met HD broadcasts notwithstanding. I waded patiently through Bryan Singers' latest film, "Valkyrie," starring Tom Cruise as the treasonous anti-Fascist Nazi officer, Colonel Stauffenberg. "Valkyrie" is named after the eponymous mythological warrior daughters of the gods, and is the name of Wagner's most famous opera, the second installment in his epic tetralogy, "The Ring of the Nibelungs." "The Ride of the Valkyries" is the most famous excerpt from the opera (and whether or not you recognize the title, you've heard the music--in films like "Apocalypse Now" and, with bemused apologies to Richard & family, cartoons like Bugs Bunny--"kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit..."). It appears in the film soundtrack as a clever plot device: Stauffenberg's children are playing a version of war while the old victrola plays the record. A bomb siren sounds, the family retreats to the basement, the record skips, and after a few unnerving explosions, the record skips to the "Ride of the Valkyries" which prompts an epiphany from Cruise's character and determines the (ultimately failed) plot to assassinate Hitler. "Valkyrie" is the name of the military plan to be implemented in the event of the Fuhrer's death or incapacitation, involving a reserve army assuming power and executing orders in the name of the regime. Stauffenberg and his circle of plotters rewrite Valkyrie surreptitiously as a crucial component to their risky & complicated plan. In one of the most memorable scenes in the film, Stauffenberg meets Hitler, hoping to obtain the Fuhrer's signature on the secretly revised plan. Hitler describes the Valkyries as the mythological warriors who mysteriously determine which soldiers deserve a noble death, and cryptically states that "one cannot understand National Socialism without understanding the Valkyries."
[Momentary digression for serendipity: As I am writing this, my local NPR station, WHRO, is playing "Ride of the Valkyries" and reminding listeners our esteemed regional orchestra, the Virginia Symphony, will be playing a program of the same name next weekend, featuring Lorin Maazel's arrangement of orchestral music from the "Ring" cycle. This is music that begs to be experienced live, so I hope Hampton Roads readers will go support the VSO and enjoy an evening of powerful music unlike any other.]
"Tosca" has played important roles in two very different films this season, "Quantum of Solace" and "Milk." The salient characteristic these two films share is how much more engaging they are than "Valkyrie." Both James Bond and Harvey Milk attend live performances of the opera, and that is where the comparison ends. The Bond film, unsurprisingly, requires no prior knowledge of the opera, though the dramatic irony inherent in the co-opted "Te Deum" scene adds a layer of meaning to the action film (the villainous baron, Scarpia, sings of his rapacious lust for the heroine in a blasphemous scene underpinned by the choir & choristers singing the most liturgical of canticles). "Tosca" serves as a foil to the movie's action, as Bond attempts to break into the plot of his arch-rival, having stolen an ear-bud the villains are using to secretly broker a deal during the opera. We half expect Daniel Craig to steal a costume and appear on stage to disrupt both opera and plot, but after some back-stage combat, Craig's deliciously smug Bond trumps the plotters and causes their abrupt exit as Act one of Tosca comes to a more eventful close than is usually the case.
"Tosca" appears throughout the excellent (if uneven) film "Milk," as the title character (brilliantly portrayed by Sean Penn, reaffirming his status as the greatest actor of his generation), listens to his favorite opera. One of the appealing aspects of Puccini's music is the immediacy of its emotional character (interestingly, this is the bane of his music's existence for his many critics...but that's another story!). Thus, one need not recognize "E lucevan le stelle," the hero's aria near the end of his life--and therefore his relationship with his lover, Tosca--to hear it as a lament. The plaintive clarinet solo which presages this most passionate of tenor scenas is obviously tragic. But to know that Cavaradossi is singing of the memory of the "sweet kisses, the languid caresses" while Scott Smith (beautifully portrayed by James Franco) leaves his lover, Harvey Milk, was enough to make this opera queen cry. I know I'm not the only opera buff who immediately recognized the plangent tone of Giuseppe di Steffano (who died in 2008), in one of opera's ultimate cult classic recordings, featuring the muse of the opera queens, Maria Callas. But I digress. I don't know Gus Van Sant's operatic pedigree, but based on this film, I am impressed.
The night before he dies, in the panoramic, multi-layered penultimate scene, Milk attends a performance of "Tosca" at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, one of the world's great opera houses. We see him take in the opera's final, shockingly violent moments, as Tosca realizes the "staged' execution of her lover was real, so rather than fleeing Rome with a safe passage to political asylum, Cavaradossi is dead, thus she flings herself from the parapet of the Castel Sant' Angelo, making her violent death the ultimate act in the opera. That "Milk" is as much political documentary as narrative film & biopic, therefore rendering suspense moot, in no way detracts from the affecting gravity of Milk's last night at the opera. This poignancy is reinforced by the final, slow-motion image from this exquisitely shot scene, where Milk's assassin, Dan White (an exceptional supporting turn by Josh Brolin) shoots him at point blank range, and the final image flashing before Milk's eyes are none other than the banners for Tosca, waving outside the Opera House, across the street from his City Hall office. I don't know if I've committed a sin in film criticism by divulging such details, but I know I would see the film again, for the above- mentioned scenes, for the relevance & importance of the film's subject, and the exceptional performances of James Franco and Sean Penn.
No comments:
Post a Comment