Babylonian Captivity
I don't understand why the character of Idreno in Semiramide exists.
I mean, I get why he exists. Rossini needed to write a starring role for whatever tenor. Probably that's the reason, or something like that. But surely he could have been given some bearing on the actual plot?
Idreno's role is essentially that of one of the extra suitors in any fairy tale about a princess who has to marry one of three people, and they go in order to face some sort of riddle or challenge, and only the hero of the story will succeed and win the princess' hand. Arsace is the hero. Idreno is one of the other guys. Is it a problem that he exists? Not especially. Rule of three more or less dictates that someone has to be there, and it may as well be a tenor. What bothers me more is that the opera spends half an hour and two major arias on him. Semiramide herself only has one solo aria. If you cut Idreno's arias, and reduce him to an extra body on stage with a few lines, nothing fundamental about the opera changes, except it is now half an hour shorter.
What vexes me even more is that, while so much time is spent on Idreno, hardly any time at all is spent on Azema, who is the princess Idreno and Arsace both want to marry. To this end, she has significantly more relevance to the plot -- although she doesn't do much to actually impact it. But her stage time is relegated entirely to recitative. She doesn't get a single aria. Not even a duet, or a short half-canzonetta. What makes Idreno so special that he gets two arias where Azema barely gets anything? The only logical answer I can come up with is that Isabella Colbran's contract must have had in it a clause somewhere that no soprano could have as many arias as her, and since Semiramide only has one aria, Azema couldn't have any. That's probably wrong.
I saw Semiramide last night, and I was hoping that I would have that "aha!" moment when it all came clear to me how Idreno was not only relevant to the plot, but important, perhaps even necessary. This didn't happen. I left the opera just as perplexed at his inclusion as ever.
So I decided to overthink it.
The most literary-scholar-nonsense explanation I could come up with is this: Semiramide is an opera about a woman in power in a time when that was not typical. Semiramide is not only a queen, she is a queen who got where she is through assassination and betrayal. She has agency. Azema, meanwhile, has no such agency. She is prominently featured in two scenes, both of which begin with her alone, before Idreno comes in and steals the spotlight. In this way, Azema is portrayed as a woman whose voice is taken away by a man, and thus further raises Semiramide's unusually high level of independence. It's not so much that Idreno is important, it's only important that the Azema's lack of agency is emphasized, and Idreno is a convenient way to do this.
I, of course, don't believe this explanation for a second. But this did lead me to a much more interesting train of thought. Namely, if this line of reasoning were to hold even the slightest bit of water, it would hinge on the end of result of Semiramide's independence being at the forefront of the opera. Which it is not.
The biggest problem with Semiramide isn't that Idreno is a useless character, or even that Arsace is an uncompelling character. It's that Semiramide is a boring character.
Boring? How could Semiramide (the character, not the opera) be boring? She poisoned her husband, and might have killed her son too to secure the throne if he had not disappeared. She then stabs her accomplice in the back, and rules Babylon single-handedly. On paper, that sounds like an exciting character indeed. But whle we hear a lot about how awesome Semiramide should be, we don't actually see it. All her important actions occur before the opera begins. Sure, she does the legwork to bring the plot to the top of the hill, and then gives it a push to get it rolling, but once the opera proper actually starts, she mostly just sits by and watches things happen.
Her one big aria is even all about how much she loves Arsace. It is virtually interchangeable with any soprano "I'm so in love" aria from any other opera. You could have Azema sing that aria with no other changes, and virtually nothing in the dramatic landscape of the opera is altered. Semiramide's backstory sounds compelling, yes, but once the opera actually starts, she's more or less demoted to the role of bland love interest.
This is because the opera isn't actually about Semiramide. It's about who will be Semiramide's successor. And so the central thrust of the plot comes from a power struggle between Assur (who wants to put himself on the throne) and Oroe (who wants to reinstate the rightful heir). This opera is perhaps the epitome of the high voices being useless and the basses doing all the legwork to move the plot along. Arsace (mezzo-soprano) doesn't really care. He's just an apathetic puppet of Oroe's. And Oroe is acting on behalf of a third bass, the Ghost of King Nino.
Near the end of the second act, Assur has a mini-mad scene in which he sees a hand emerging from the ground to strike him down as punishment for his crimes. Why couldn't Semiramide get a scene like this? Intriguing though her backstory may be, the character as presented by the opera is surprisingly generic, and when she died at the end, I had a hard time seeing it as some grand tragedy.
Contrast Abigaile in Nabucco, another famous operatic usurper to the Babylonian throne. For one thing, her motives are complex. On the one hand, she's power-hungry. On the other, she resents Fenena for being the favorite child. This is compounded by Fenena managing to win the tenor. (It's the tenor in this opera, surprisingly, who's the generic inactive love interest over whom other more interesting characters fight.) Abigaile also resents Nabucco for favoring Fenena, and she knows that if she wants to become queen, she has to take action herself, because if she just waits for Nabucco to die, inheritence will no doubt pass to Fenena. This is given urgency when Abigaile discovers she's adopted, and therefore has no legitimate claim to the throne. She has to take action as soon as possible if she wants to secure the throne, because every second she waits is a second the secret could come out. All of these motives and pressures combine, and all of them directly feed into the actions Abigaile takes in the opera. And she does take actions. When it all comes crashing down on her and she poisons herself at the end of the opera, this is affecting because we have seen all this about her character. And because all of this is in the text, if you are a director or playing the role, you have the option to emphasize or downplay which aspects you choose, and thus adjust the audience's interpretation of the character and of the opera. Sure, an actress could choose to come up with some complex motivation of Semiramide, but if it's not supported in any way by the text, she'll have a hard time conveying it to the audience.
All of this is not to say that Semiramide is a bad opera. Though most of the characters are not that interesting, the events are. And Rossini's music is wonderfully evocative. Music is a fantastic way to trick an audience into thinking they're seeing something exciting. On the plot-driven vs. character-driven scale, Semiramide falls firmly on the plot side. But it would have been nice if the title character were just a smidgen more interesting.
I mean, I get why he exists. Rossini needed to write a starring role for whatever tenor. Probably that's the reason, or something like that. But surely he could have been given some bearing on the actual plot?
Idreno's role is essentially that of one of the extra suitors in any fairy tale about a princess who has to marry one of three people, and they go in order to face some sort of riddle or challenge, and only the hero of the story will succeed and win the princess' hand. Arsace is the hero. Idreno is one of the other guys. Is it a problem that he exists? Not especially. Rule of three more or less dictates that someone has to be there, and it may as well be a tenor. What bothers me more is that the opera spends half an hour and two major arias on him. Semiramide herself only has one solo aria. If you cut Idreno's arias, and reduce him to an extra body on stage with a few lines, nothing fundamental about the opera changes, except it is now half an hour shorter.
What vexes me even more is that, while so much time is spent on Idreno, hardly any time at all is spent on Azema, who is the princess Idreno and Arsace both want to marry. To this end, she has significantly more relevance to the plot -- although she doesn't do much to actually impact it. But her stage time is relegated entirely to recitative. She doesn't get a single aria. Not even a duet, or a short half-canzonetta. What makes Idreno so special that he gets two arias where Azema barely gets anything? The only logical answer I can come up with is that Isabella Colbran's contract must have had in it a clause somewhere that no soprano could have as many arias as her, and since Semiramide only has one aria, Azema couldn't have any. That's probably wrong.
I saw Semiramide last night, and I was hoping that I would have that "aha!" moment when it all came clear to me how Idreno was not only relevant to the plot, but important, perhaps even necessary. This didn't happen. I left the opera just as perplexed at his inclusion as ever.
So I decided to overthink it.
The most literary-scholar-nonsense explanation I could come up with is this: Semiramide is an opera about a woman in power in a time when that was not typical. Semiramide is not only a queen, she is a queen who got where she is through assassination and betrayal. She has agency. Azema, meanwhile, has no such agency. She is prominently featured in two scenes, both of which begin with her alone, before Idreno comes in and steals the spotlight. In this way, Azema is portrayed as a woman whose voice is taken away by a man, and thus further raises Semiramide's unusually high level of independence. It's not so much that Idreno is important, it's only important that the Azema's lack of agency is emphasized, and Idreno is a convenient way to do this.
I, of course, don't believe this explanation for a second. But this did lead me to a much more interesting train of thought. Namely, if this line of reasoning were to hold even the slightest bit of water, it would hinge on the end of result of Semiramide's independence being at the forefront of the opera. Which it is not.
The biggest problem with Semiramide isn't that Idreno is a useless character, or even that Arsace is an uncompelling character. It's that Semiramide is a boring character.
Boring? How could Semiramide (the character, not the opera) be boring? She poisoned her husband, and might have killed her son too to secure the throne if he had not disappeared. She then stabs her accomplice in the back, and rules Babylon single-handedly. On paper, that sounds like an exciting character indeed. But whle we hear a lot about how awesome Semiramide should be, we don't actually see it. All her important actions occur before the opera begins. Sure, she does the legwork to bring the plot to the top of the hill, and then gives it a push to get it rolling, but once the opera proper actually starts, she mostly just sits by and watches things happen.
Her one big aria is even all about how much she loves Arsace. It is virtually interchangeable with any soprano "I'm so in love" aria from any other opera. You could have Azema sing that aria with no other changes, and virtually nothing in the dramatic landscape of the opera is altered. Semiramide's backstory sounds compelling, yes, but once the opera actually starts, she's more or less demoted to the role of bland love interest.
This is because the opera isn't actually about Semiramide. It's about who will be Semiramide's successor. And so the central thrust of the plot comes from a power struggle between Assur (who wants to put himself on the throne) and Oroe (who wants to reinstate the rightful heir). This opera is perhaps the epitome of the high voices being useless and the basses doing all the legwork to move the plot along. Arsace (mezzo-soprano) doesn't really care. He's just an apathetic puppet of Oroe's. And Oroe is acting on behalf of a third bass, the Ghost of King Nino.
Near the end of the second act, Assur has a mini-mad scene in which he sees a hand emerging from the ground to strike him down as punishment for his crimes. Why couldn't Semiramide get a scene like this? Intriguing though her backstory may be, the character as presented by the opera is surprisingly generic, and when she died at the end, I had a hard time seeing it as some grand tragedy.
Contrast Abigaile in Nabucco, another famous operatic usurper to the Babylonian throne. For one thing, her motives are complex. On the one hand, she's power-hungry. On the other, she resents Fenena for being the favorite child. This is compounded by Fenena managing to win the tenor. (It's the tenor in this opera, surprisingly, who's the generic inactive love interest over whom other more interesting characters fight.) Abigaile also resents Nabucco for favoring Fenena, and she knows that if she wants to become queen, she has to take action herself, because if she just waits for Nabucco to die, inheritence will no doubt pass to Fenena. This is given urgency when Abigaile discovers she's adopted, and therefore has no legitimate claim to the throne. She has to take action as soon as possible if she wants to secure the throne, because every second she waits is a second the secret could come out. All of these motives and pressures combine, and all of them directly feed into the actions Abigaile takes in the opera. And she does take actions. When it all comes crashing down on her and she poisons herself at the end of the opera, this is affecting because we have seen all this about her character. And because all of this is in the text, if you are a director or playing the role, you have the option to emphasize or downplay which aspects you choose, and thus adjust the audience's interpretation of the character and of the opera. Sure, an actress could choose to come up with some complex motivation of Semiramide, but if it's not supported in any way by the text, she'll have a hard time conveying it to the audience.
All of this is not to say that Semiramide is a bad opera. Though most of the characters are not that interesting, the events are. And Rossini's music is wonderfully evocative. Music is a fantastic way to trick an audience into thinking they're seeing something exciting. On the plot-driven vs. character-driven scale, Semiramide falls firmly on the plot side. But it would have been nice if the title character were just a smidgen more interesting.
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