A Tepid Puccini Redux at the Metropolitan Opera

 On my recent trip to NYC I caught a performance of Florencia en el Amazonas, a 1996 opera by Mexican composer Daniel Catán. This was the first Mexican opera performed at the Met, and was part of an admirable effort to go beyond the standard repertory (eg the recent Fire Shut Up My Bones and The History of Malcolm X). But they have to do better than this tepid rehash of Puccini. This composer clearly loves the postromantic style of the Italian, but lacks his gift for transcendent melody. So the opera came across as overly sweetened weak tea, as a La Boheme clone with mosquitos. 

The opera focuses on Florencia Grimaldi, a soprano diva traveling up the Amazon river on the way to an operatic engagement at the opera house at Manaus, Brazil. On the way, Florencia (well sung by the soprano Ailyn Pérez) swoons and pines over he lost love, the butterfly hunter Cristóbal, who has vanished into the Amazon forest. From the first bars, it sounds like a B- version of La Boheme, beginning with an initial busy market scene with a bustling chorus of colorful vendors. Even Florencia's entrance aria sounds like the famed Boheme Act 1 aria "Si, mi chiamano Mimi" as the soprano reflects on her name. Only this time her lover is not present (he is in the jungle, and is represented by a big butterfly avatar above the stage). Much of the weakness of the plot is due to the absence of her lover. Florencia's longing and pining without resolution (the lover never appears) can take us just so far, and Catán lacks the originality to sustain unresolved love for two hours. 

Similar to La Boheme, there is a group of accompanying characters to contrast the central love interest, here with mostly uninteresting music and stories. The story of journalist Rosalba (the excellent soprano Gabriella Reyes), passionately devoted to telling the story of her heroine Florencia, could have been a fascinating plot of lesbian attraction, but was instead watered down by her uninteresting romance with the ship's captain. The end of the first act had a nice touch, in which local religious imagery interfaced with the Western ship passengers, but the music changed little besides adding some Latin drums, missing a chance at cross-cultural music. 

The production felt almost comically cheap on the huge Met stage. It featured a mostly unvarying green backdrop and an unchanging river, only varied by differing sets depicting the ship. At one point, we see the entire ship, as if from afar, but oddly the characters continue to sing beside it, as if the differing perspective was of no importance. 

The most interesting production choices were to have various Amazonian fauna (piranha, parrots, crocodiles, iguanas) appear in cute abstract costumes . These creatures sometimes served as plot elements, eg as fish made away with a book that fell overboard (believe it or not, the dropped book was a major plot hinge). This was a lost musical opportunity--Richard Strauss would have had the piranha sing a bloodthirsty chorus, and Werner Herzog would have had the parrots scream in pain. Any of this would have been a welcome contrast to the unending, meandering, tepid romanticism that is Catán's métier. Only at the very end, as cholera envelops the river and Manaus, did the composer write some ghostly, eerie music--but this quickly ended. The opera ends with a botanical garden Tristan und Isolde, with Florencia transforming into a butterfly to join her lover in the jungle. Sadly, her sprouting of wings looked comical and silly, and the music lacked a Puccinian soaring climax from soprano or orchestra. This diminished the Wagnerian intent of the finale. 

While I'm glad the Met is trying new things, surely they could have found something better than Florencia. The tropics can be a superb backdrop for menacing, atmospheric drama (see Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, or Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo), but there was not much atmosphere here.