I imagine Magda a sensuous, elegant woman with plenty of mystery and conspiratorial
charm. She has a magnetic presence, yet her soul is a complex combination of
passion and lyricism. I decided to use the power of stillness to suggest a
character with a rich internal life living out her ultimate fantasy. Magda has
a kinetic energy of a consummate actress who almost fools herself into
believing her assumed role. An expert seducer consciously allowing herself to
be seduced, Magda uses Ruggero to fall in love with love again.
She is playing with fire, her ways are both touchingly desperate and coldly deliberate about the way Magda pursues Ruggero; yet, when her fantasy threatens to become reality, the complexity of her sorrow is truly moving. Magda plays with fire, and she goes through pain and heart break; I both love and pity her
Puccini’s wonderful catalyst for his finale, the letter of
congratulation (from Ruggero’s mother), is agonisingly cruel, as are the bells
that chime softly in the background as Ruggero hopelessly begs Magda to stay:
bells always bring the ultimate Italian emotional theme.
Magda is an enigma and I longed to understand her joys, pains, what excites her, what is important to
her?
What is she constantly dreaming of, searching for? Is she bored or had she been hurt so much and stopped trusting herself and people and is finding temporary healing in constant entertainment.
What is she constantly dreaming of, searching for? Is she bored or had she been hurt so much and stopped trusting herself and people and is finding temporary healing in constant entertainment.
Perhaps her desperate dreaming and getting quick fixes on a new love
comes from her one dimensional relationship with Rambaldo and her soul urges
her to look for a deeper human connection that brings real joy and freedom in togetherness.
Yet until she meets Ruggero her means of getting there are confused, she is locked
in the same pattern..
I admire her decision to tell him the truth and let him go. Through pain
of separation, she grows up, the other side of her pain is a realisation that she
can't live this life of deceit and is taking a new path. I am not convinced
that she goes back to Rambaldo. I feel that for her it is a new beginning a rebirth...
But of course many La Rondine lovers will argue
that J
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