Word: seigneur
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Like most operatic plots, that of The Marriage of Figaro is tortuous and ultimately unnecessary. Suffice to say that it involve the feudal privilege known as droit de seigneur and, some hours later, reunites one character with an unlikely set of parents. Unity comes not from the storyline but from the voices, which without exception stay well in control of a difficult and lengthy score--especially Knowles, who must awkwardly sing the show's first notes from his knees...
Despite their many erotic moments, both of these stories are curiously lifeless. The effect may be intentional. Hawkes displays the paraphernalia of pornography in a cautionary manner. Both tales end in a kind of hellfire. Seigneur is burned at the stake by some vengeful ex-pupils, and Virginie voluntarily joins him; Bocage's mother puts an end to the latter-day revels by torching her house. These fates are not surprising. Virginie foreshadows her fiery destructions throughout her journals. Other forms of suspense are similarly lacking; the second story recapitulates the first with increasing listlessness. If Hawkes...
...Christine Papin killed their employer, Mme. Lancelin, and her daughter. Kesselman has retained the names of the sisters, but otherwise the play is very much her own. The playwright focuses on mother-daughter relationships, intimate sisterly affection and a rigid class structure that borders on the feudal droit du seigneur...
...lovers. "It is almost impossible," said Stravinsky, "to describe the perversity of Diaghilev's entourage-a kind of homosexual Swiss Guard." He reminded one musician of a "decadent Roman emperor-possibly Genghis Khan or even a barbarous Scythian-and lastly, what he really was: a Russian grand seigneur...
...ivory and jade. Restored and main tamed by a crew of 1,000, it makes Versailles look like a nouveau riche country mansion. In the hills northwest of the city is the Summer Palace, which was largely destroyed hi 1860 by Britain's Lord Elgin, son of the seigneur who took the marbles from the Parthenon. Rebuilt hi 1888 by the dotty Dowager Empress Tz'u Hsi, diverting funds allotted for naval construction, the imperial plaisanterie occupies 700 acres and attracts huge numbers of Chinese rubbernecks. And then there are the Ming Tombs and, a few hours away...