Chronic Negress

The Negress is down to her last opera next week, but decided to celebrate a little at her penultimate opera, a new production of “La Sonnambula,” staged by Mary Zimmerman. Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez were in the lead roles and Zimmerman set the whole thing in a rehearsal for the production. I had one glass of the house white and two glasses of the house champagnes. Champagne makes parting sorrows all the sweeter. A lot of people, including Anthony Tomasini of the New York Times, lambasted this production for straining believability. Ok, let’s get this straight. The story of a sleepwalking maiden in a Swiss village who finds her drowsy way into the bed of a msyterious Count (nothing happens of course) and then is unceremoniously dumped by her lover. All is well when the maiden sleepwalks in front of her ex. The production moves in and out of the rehearsal trope, which seems to have troubled Tomasini, among others. This is a classic case of  “What difference does it make?” It’s an opera plot (unlike most operas of its 1830s era, there is no body count at all). You’re worried about verisimilitude? At the Opera? Ye Gods! Anyway, it was lovely night for the Negress, who is not pleased that she is going to have to give this up.