Convoluted Doesn't Begin to Describe It

I was just rereading the Met's plot synopsis of Forza. Either late-19th-century Italians had masterful memories or the opera houses had scoreboards so that the audience could keep track of the plot and characters. ("So, you say Leonora has already sung three arias and it's not even the end of Act I yet? Incredible!")

I guess, maybe, in our TV-plot-soaked society, we're used to bad writing. We've learned to recognize it. "Sarah Conner Chronicles" on Fox? Yep. Pure drivel. "Survivor IV"? Supposed to be real, but c'mon! They haven't picked regular people to be on that show since the original. "Walker: Texas Ranger" (on Hallmark family channel for some unfathomable reason)? Chuck Norris: Who started in American "B" chop-suey movies and went downhill from there; best acting so far is done in the "Classy, but Strong" Honda commercial where he doesn't say anything. There's a reason "Walker" is on an obscure cable network!

But in the 19th century, most people, if they were able to read at all, didn't have the National Enquirer at the local market. So they had to read books and treatises and things like that from the great classicists of the time. They hadn't read any trash, so a plot like Forza would seem very intriguing, different. There was probably a cultural predisposition, too. Americans don't have a whole lot of banishments in their history. (I vote we start with "W.") But Italians, aside from the fact that they have about 1,000 years more worth of history behind them, are used to hearing about a princess or marquis being turned out, and every family's gone through at least one Hatfields-vs.-McCoys blood feud at one point or another. So maybe opera plots would make more sense to them.

In addition, the world has gradually "sped up" over the years. The last vestige of arts patience was probably with Wagner operas or Mahler symphonies and things begin to get shorter and shorter from there on out. Nowadays, a pop star can't possibly write a 6-minute song and expect it to get any airplay. You can't even find an unabridged version of "Stairway to Heaven" on the radio anymore, despite this or that station's "Classic Rock" moniker. No network with any sense would even dare propose a miniseries in this day and age.

I think about the early American settlers and how they endured months and months and months of hardship and toil just to get where they could find a home; today, I get irritated when I have to go all the way out to Farragut to check on the remodeling my late parents' house. Oh, that Cedar Bluff and Turkey Creek Traffic! I'm certain that any Oregon-bound conestoga wagon driver would be equally vexed at having to drive all of 15 minutes on a well-ordered, extremely smooth and relatively flat interstate highway along with a thousand other wagons... or would he or she? They probably wouldn't enjoy passing convenience stores every two minutes, too. I, likewise, would merely laugh if I saw a snake bite my Honda Accord's tire. It would more than likely kill the snake rather than vice-versa. The to-be Oregonians' horse would be another matter entirely.

So, yes, maybe operas don't make sense to the modern acclimated mind. Think about how little we know about Biblical times, how we struggle to understand why people did what they did in that period. Will Verdi's operas be collected and published a thousand years in the future? Will anyone even begin to understand them then? I imagine people asking things like: Why would Don Carlo want to kill Alvaro? The whole thing was just an accident. Can't he see that? And, after all, Alvaro does make his sister very happy. Why would Don Carlo be so hung up on the color of Alvaro's skin? Why didn't he let the authorities track Alvaro down instead of traipsing all over Europe haphazardly trying to run into his father's murderer? And c'mon! He doesn't even recognize the guy when he next sees him?! Plastic surgery must have been more advanced than was originally thought back then, but Verdi makes no mention of Alvaro's operation. (There is that surgeon character in there, though.) That would be the only way Don Carlo wouldn't recognize him, right? Wonder how many people Don Carlo killed because he thought that they were Alvaro? Seems like that kind of anger and indiscriminant use of a weapon would get him locked away in a Super-max pretty quick.

Ah, well, I just get paid for acting the story out. Not my job to play Roger Ebert... or even Tom Eberts, for that matter... and attempt to understand Verdi's plots.