The French version of Che farò senza Euridice was full-stop throbbing emo:
J'ai perdu mon Eurydice, I have lost my Eurydice
Rien n'égale mon malheur; My misfortune has no equal
Sort cruel! quelle rigueur! Cruel fate! What severity!
Rien n'égale mon malheur! My misfortune has no equal
Je succombe à ma douleur! I give way beneath my sorrow!
Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice,
Réponds, quel supplice! Answer me, oh what torture!
Réponds-moi! It is your faithful husband
Entends ma voix qui t'appelle. Hear my voice that calls to you.
This struck me as vastly inferior to the Italian, except that when I actually looked at the original libretto it appears that the Italian is saying much of the same things. Just, my Italian sucks so I wasn't hearing them.
We were also told that the French version had an extra number of dances added to it to please the Parisian taste for these things. There was indeed a lot of dancing, not especially exciting to the untutored eye. The dance of the Blessed Spirits went on forever, and all that occured to me was that thunderstorms are not what one expects in the Elysian Fields so why were they there?
But mostly I did what I generally do at musical events- wool-gathered, happily poking at the current mental furniture- Aubrey Maturin, a 100 Demons fic, the body language of dragons- until something about the staging, I don't know what- there were no excessive costumes or masks or fantastic elements- said Perdido Street Station should be staged as a masque. Which would be cool. Because otherwise it'd look like some ripoff of FF and cheesy beyond belief. If they ever do it as a film it *will* look like a RPG and the audience's reaction will be settled just by that.
