These days, I rarely get to see an opera that I have never seen before: one where I do not even know the story and the ending. It was a great treat to see this sumptuous version of Thaïs from the Met. Massenet's opera is rarely performed and is best known for the Méditation violin solo during the Act II entr'acte. Plácido Domingo explains during his introduction that the opera is not often heard because few sopranos can manage it. Cue Renée Fleming.
The libretto is apparently based on a novel by Anatole France and is set in 4th century Alexandria. The monk Athanaël dreams of the beautiful courtesan Thaïs, played by Renée Fleming. I have that dream too. Athanaël, sung by baritone Thomas Hampson, resolves to save Thaïs's soul. He comes to her at a vulnerable time when she is wondering when her beauty will fade. He offers her eternal life, which seems a good deal at the time. I suppose, in the context of the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body, this makes some sort of sense. Athanaël escorts Thaïs to a nunnery, where her soul is saved. Too late, Athanaël realises that it was her body that interested him, not her soul: "Nothing is real but earthly love".
Renée Fleming's singing of Massenet's sumptuous and erotic music is, well, sumptuous and erotic. She wears a succession of designer dresses including a sensational figure-hugging number with diaphanous cut-outs. The scene in which she stands in front of the mirror and contemplates her mortality is the outstanding one for me. The dreadlocked Thomas Hampson does his best with the sanctimonious Athanaël: "I will wear the trappings of hell to defeat the devil". Maybe that is why this role is for a baritone rather than a tenor.
When Athanaël persuades Thaïs to accompany him to the nunnery she insists on taking one little luxury with her. We appear to be straying into Desert Island Discs territory here. The luxury item turns out be be a statuette of Eros shaped suspiciously like a dildo. Maybe she has her fingers crossed when she promises to be virtuous.
The libretto is apparently based on a novel by Anatole France and is set in 4th century Alexandria. The monk Athanaël dreams of the beautiful courtesan Thaïs, played by Renée Fleming. I have that dream too. Athanaël, sung by baritone Thomas Hampson, resolves to save Thaïs's soul. He comes to her at a vulnerable time when she is wondering when her beauty will fade. He offers her eternal life, which seems a good deal at the time. I suppose, in the context of the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body, this makes some sort of sense. Athanaël escorts Thaïs to a nunnery, where her soul is saved. Too late, Athanaël realises that it was her body that interested him, not her soul: "Nothing is real but earthly love".
Renée Fleming's singing of Massenet's sumptuous and erotic music is, well, sumptuous and erotic. She wears a succession of designer dresses including a sensational figure-hugging number with diaphanous cut-outs. The scene in which she stands in front of the mirror and contemplates her mortality is the outstanding one for me. The dreadlocked Thomas Hampson does his best with the sanctimonious Athanaël: "I will wear the trappings of hell to defeat the devil". Maybe that is why this role is for a baritone rather than a tenor.
When Athanaël persuades Thaïs to accompany him to the nunnery she insists on taking one little luxury with her. We appear to be straying into Desert Island Discs territory here. The luxury item turns out be be a statuette of Eros shaped suspiciously like a dildo. Maybe she has her fingers crossed when she promises to be virtuous.