It may not seem like Mozart and his librettist have much in common with Rogers and Hammerstein, but an opera company in Virginia sees parallels. This summer, Ash Lawn will present their popular music and provocative stories in Charlottesville and Blacksburg. Sandy Hausman has details:
In his time, Mozart was a controversial character, and his best known librettist – Lorenzo Da Ponte – could easily have been the subject of a really crazy opera. Born a Jew in Italy, he converted to Catholicism, became a priest, and after fathering several children, fled to Austria and then to London.
“There was a revolution going on in Paris, so his letters of recommendation weren’t so useful at that time,” says Michelle Krisel, artistic director of the Ash Lawn Opera Company. After going bankrupt in London, she adds, Da Ponte headed for America.
“That's where all rogues end up! He became a vegetable seller in Pennsylvania. He tried to begin an opera company, which was the prototype of the Metropolitan Opera, but it too went bankrupt, and then he became the first professor of Italian at Columbia University.”
He died, penniless, and was buried in Queens, New York, but today, he and Mozart are remembered for a daring opera called Cossi Fan Tutte.
"The idea of wife swapping or fiance swapping actually was a personal story for Mozart, who had fallen in love with one girl at the boarding house and married her sister," Krisel says. "What makes this opera subversive is it’s about the naughtiness of women as opposed to men. Cossi Fan Tutte means, if you remember your Latin, women as opposed to Tutti – all people or men. It’s the story of how women are as human as men and they have flirtations and stray as often if not more, and that wasn’t a topic anybody wanted to talk about.”
Equally controversial in its time was the musical South Pacific. It opened on Broadway in 1949, featuring Mary Martin washing her air on stage, singing: “I’m gonna’ wash that man right out of my hair.”
“This spawned a whole craze for short hair that could be washed at home as opposed to the beauty salon,” says Krisel.
The show won 10 Tonies, but some Americans objected to the more serious side of the story – loving couples separated by race.
“You’ve got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made,” Hammerstein wrote, “and people whose skin is a different shade. You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
“This was not an easy topic for America at that time,” Krisel explains. “In fact, the show was boycotted in the South when it toured nationally.”
Ash Lawn Opera will perform both Cossi and South Pacific this summer, updating the Italian opera to modern times in New Orleans, where Mardi Gras makes all things possible.
“You know ever since the light bulb and contact lenses were invented, it’s hard to fall for the disguise, but if it’s Mardi Gras, and everybody is in disguise, it will seem less unlikely,” Krisel says.
The show will have its premiere June 30th at Virginia Tech’s Fife Theatre before returning to its home stage, the Paramount, in Charlottesville for performances on July 10, 13 and 15. Then, the cast will put on its Broadway pants to perform South Pacific from July 23-30th.