u r g

joy went to the opera

Lisa and I went to see Ariodante last night, and while it was totally lacking in horny gnomes, it was still pretty good. A brief recap with some modern interpretations below:

Hour One:

So we have Ariodante (we’ll call him Ari) who is all hot-to-trot over Princess Ginerva (and we’ll call her Jenny) and wants to bang her. Our hero is in luck: Jenny loves him back! And her father The King is all about giving Ari Jenny’s virtue. For real. They sing about it for about 20 minutes.

PROBLEM! Polinesso (we’ll call him Paul) wants to be king and wants in on some of Jenny’s sweet, sweet virtue. So he tricks Jenny’s BFF Dalinda (Linda) into dressing up as Jenny and meeting him in the garden. At night. Virtue be gone. Paul assures Linda that he’ll respect her honor, but you know he was all, “baby, baby, baby, it turns me on when you pretend to be Jenny… Just do it for me one more time…” And she was like, “sure, whatevs”

Intermission.

Hour Two:

Ari is so freaking excited about finally getting to bang Jenny, that he cant sleep. So he’s wandering around the garden when he comes across Paul. Ari’s all, “Paul, I am going to marry Jenny and get her virtue.” And then Paul is like, “that whore? I sleep with her left right and sideways every night.” And then they almost duel until Linda, dressed as Jenny appears (why does that always work in operas and plays? Oh look! I am going to put on someone else’s clothes and people are going to mistake me for that person! That logic is as fuzzy as when I was three and thought people couldn’t see me when I closed my eyes. Sheesh!). Linda brings Paul INTO HER GODDAMN BEDCHAMBER.

Ari then wants to kill himself, but his brother, Lurcanio (Luc) is all, “women are whores and not worth it, we’ll seek revenge” Then Ari goes into the longest non-death death in opera history. It lasts about 20 minutes and he. doesn’t. even. die. Jesus.

Everyone thinks that Ari is dead and they blame Jenny and all of her whoring. The King sentences Jenny to death.

SECOND mother-fucking Intermission.

Hour Three:

Ari is alive and wandering around in the woods cursing all women. He runs into Linda who is being chased by some of Paul’s assassins. They figure out that Jenny is still virtuous and Paul set them all up and decide to go back to the kingdom to free Jenny and set the record straight.

Meanwhile, back at the castle, Paul is dueling Luc on behalf of Jenny and losses and dies. It was around this time that the author of this opera, George Frideric Handel, realized how freaking long this shit is and therefore kills Paul off in the shortest. death-death. in. opera. history. And the proceeds to wrap up everything as quickly as possible:

• Linda and Luc decide that they love each other and go have sex
• Jenny is freed and reunited with Ari and they go have sex
• The peasants come in dancing joyfully and singing: “Heaven smiles when virtue is paired with innocence.” Over and over and over again.

So to recap: whoring bad, innocence and virtue good. Thank you George Frideric Handel.