TEATRO DON OPERATICO
Les Démocrates
A Recently
Discovered
Meyerbeer Grand Opera
presented by
DON OPERATICO
Date: December
09, 2000 08:58 PM
Author: Don Operatico
Subject: Recently Discovered
Meyerbeer Grand Opera
Albert (pronounced Al-BAIR) de Gore
(tenor)
Raoul Nader
(bass)
Georges St.-Buche (bass-baritone)
Bucanan de
Nevers (baritone)
Amérique de Valois (soprano)
Catherine
Harice de
St.-Buche (soprano)
Act I
The
opera opens with a fund-raising party in
sixteenth-century France, at which
a chorus of politicians,
corporate donors, and media moguls
is schmoozing with three
candidates for the
position of
Lord High Whatever. A propos of the
need to restrict the influx of
immigrants, Bucanan de Nevers relates
some of his amorous adventures.
Albert, a Democrat, chimes in,
relating how he has fallen in love
with a mysterious beauty, who
turns out to be Catherine Harice de
St.-Buche, the daughter of the
Republican leader Georges de
St.-Buche. She's also the one charged
with advising Queen Amérique de Valois on how to
select the LHW.
St.-Buche has subtly hinted that,
if he isn't chosen, Catherine
could find herself not only out of
pocket money, but shipped off to
a convent. If he is, she can marry
Bucanan; but she doen't have a
hope of marrying Albert,
St.-Buche's hereditary enemy. Raoul Nader,
meanwhile, views all this corporate
schmoozing with gruff disdain,
expressing his left-eing views
about universal healthcare and the
like in the most uncompromising
terms, in a rollicking aria based on
the theme "We Shall
Overcome."
Act II
Queen Amérique de
Valois is in
her royal chamber, watching some
court entertainment or other called
"Tous Mes Enfants" or something
equally dreary. This is a pretext
for a longish ballet. The
candidates for LHW try desperately
to attract her attention, with
little success. Finally she hires a
slew of a hundred courtiers to
vote for her, which they do in the
election ballet. The latter is
interrupted by the sudden arrival
of Catherine Harice de St.-Buche,
who trips several courtiers with
her train. As they sprawl on the
floor, it looks as though most of
them are pointing at St-Buche
(some of them having been subtly
moved by Catherine). St.-Buche
claims to have won; Albert
challenges him to a duel.
Intermission
Date: December 11, 2000 01:01 PM
Author: Susie McLean
Subject: Les democrates
Don't forget the apotheosis, sung
by the nine-member chorus, "Les
Suprêmes".
Date: December 11, 2000 02:07 PM
Author: Alan Bromberg
Subject: Les democrates
[Ballet request]
Will that be the notorious
"Butterfly Ballet?"
Date: December 10, 2000 07:34 PM
Act III
The election-officials' chorus
is followed by the hand-recount
ballet, in which ballot-counters
deftly evade the swords of the
Republicans. Who needs actual
singing in an
opera anyway?
Subsequently, Albert and Georges
face off in a duet. St-Buche
insists that the Lord High
Whatevership is his by right, since he'd
forked out well overthe statutory
venti scudi for it. Albert, on the
other hand, argues that most of the
nobility want him, and so does
Catherine Harice de SB. At this
reference to St-Buche's daughter,
the duel starts getting violent,
and is interrupted only by hte
timely arrival of Catherine
herself, who comes between the two
contestants, accidentally tripping
up St-Buche with her train, in
the erroneous belief that he's
Albert de Gore. The act ends as
St-Buche gets up, quivering with
syntactically and lexically
challenged rage.
Date: December 11, 2000 09:19 PM
Act IV
A chorus of pundits sings of the
need for "closure" (La Clôture),
while silencing some plebs who say
the vote should be counted
halfway fairly, insofar as
'fair" is possible in an undemocratic
electoral system like
ours
(referring, of course, to
sixteenth-century France). Why,
sing the pundits, not just let
St-Buche have the bloody election;
it isn't as though it much
mattered.
There follows the media circus
ballet.
St.-Buche, meanwhile, is all fired
up for vengeance. He sings a
dyslexic, or possibly just sloppy,
aria egging on the Republicans to
violence against the Democrats and
their hand-counting lackeys.
Bucanan alone resists their ignoble
purpose; miffed, he runs off to
hold his own party.
Act V
Albert and Catherine sing a
longish love-duet; out of love for
Albert, Catherine decides to allow
the hand-counts after all.
Indeed, she goes even further,
becoming not only a Buddhist nun, but
a Democratic fund-raiser. Raoul
Nader hears their vows and marries
them, all the while gruffly
pointing out that Albert would have won
handily if more people had been
aware that he wasn't St.-Buche. He
grumbles something about corporate
shills to a not terribly subtle
reprise of "We Shall
Overcome."
The hand-count ballet (also called
the ballot ballet) resumes,
watched by Raoul, Albert, and
Catherine. One of Meyerbeer's most
original touches here is having
some of the dancers dress up in
butterfly suits to represent the
ballots. The ballet is suddenly
interrupted when a mob of
Republicans rushes in and puts the
ballot-counters and other liberals
to fire and the sword.
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