Word: malfi
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...MALFI DOESN't EXIST in this production of The Duchess of Malfi. The turgid program note warns that Webster's seventeenth-century tragedy is a "waking dream." An empty lavender platform represents the ducal palace of Malfi; in Laura Shiels and Cynthia Raymond's stylized production, this psychological drama could take place anywhere or anytime within one's imagination. Shiels and Raymond interpolate dance and mime into the story to indicate the tensions beneath the Renaissance rhetoric. A veil hangs at the back of the stage, behind which a "Duchess of Imagination" flirts while the real Duchess in front disclaims...
...responsibilities of her social position and of the danger in which her marriage will place her. At one moment, Bendheim skips for joy; at another, she dismisses her servants with a single high-handed gesture. The Duchess is a strong character, able bravely to state "I am Duchess of Malfi still" when all the trappings of rank have been taken from...
...dance and mime does not fully compensate for the narrowness of Shiels and Raymond's interpretation. Regarded merely as a nightmare, The Duchess of Malfi loses coherence and power. Though Shiels and Raymond have taken great liberties with the play--the plot is so tightly constructed that it survives. Horror after horror piles up and our interest never flags. Nevertheless, we don't believe in what happens. Bendheim's is the only performance approaching credibility. By removing The Duchess of Malfi from a gossip-ridden palace and situating it in the dark recesses of the mind, Shiels and Raymond have...
...centuries, opera librettists snubbed The Duchess of Malfi. The cut was unkind, since her tragic tale is the very stuff of grand opera. John Webster's play, published in 1623, is admirably lurid and complicated. There is the Duchess's secret and forbidden marriage to her steward Antonio. There are her two evil brothers: Ferdinand, who is driven mad by incestuous passion for her; and the Cardinal, who schemes to be Pope. After her marriage is discovered, the Duchess is imprisoned and tormented by madmen. At the end, everyone dies violently...
...opera has embraced Webster's gory drama in a big way, with not just one Duchess of Malfi but two. The Santa Fe Opera company, which has presented 20 American and world premieres in its 22 seasons, has just produced the American premiere of The Duchess of Malfi by British Composer and Librettist Stephen Oliver, 28. A second Duchess has simultaneously been staged at Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts, outside of Washington, D.C., this one a world premiere by American Composer Stephen Douglas Burton, 35, and Librettist-Conductor Christopher Keene, 31. Strikingly different?one discordant, the other...