Opera Today

PUCCINI: Gianni Schicchi — La Scala 2008

Music composed by Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Giovacchino Forzano after lines 43-45 of Canto XXX of Dante’s Inferno.

First Performance: 14 December 1918, Metropolitan Opera House, New York.

Principal Roles:
Gianni Schicchi (aged 50)	Baritone
Lauretta, his daughter (aged 21)	Soprano
Zita, cousin of Buoso Donati (aged 60)	Contralto
Rinuccio, Zita’s nephew (aged 24)	Tenor
Gherardo, Buoso’s nephew (aged 40)	Tenor
Nella, Gherardo’s wife (aged 34)	Soprano
Gherardino, their son (aged 7)	Contralto
Betto di Signa, Buoso’s brother-in-law (of uncertain age)	Bass
Simone, cousin of Buoso (aged 70)	Bass
Marco, Simone’s son (aged 45)	Baritone
La Ciesca, Marco’s wife (aged 38)	Mezzo-Soprano
Maestro Spinelloccio, a doctor	Bass
Ser Amantio di Nicolao, a notary	Baritone
Pinellino, a cobbler	Bass
Guccio, a dyer	Bass

Setting: Florence, 1299

Synopsis:

Buoso Donati has died in bed. His relatives mourn melodramatically, until they hear the rumor that he has left all his money to the local monastery. They frantically search for the will. Rinuccio finds it, but refuses to release it to his aunt Zita until she agrees to his terms. If the will is favorable to them, she must allow him to marry Schicchi's daughter, Lauretta. Schicchi is looked down on by the Donati family since he is a relatively new arrival in Florence. Zita consents (she does not care whom Rinuccio marries so long as the will leaves them rich), and reads the will, as Rinuccio quietly sends for Schicchi. When the will confirms the rumor, everyone is furious. They refuse to allow Rinuccio to marry, and angrily turn down his suggestion that Schicchi, who is known for his clever schemes, can aid them.

Schicchi and Lauretta arrive to a cold reception. Schicchi, seeing how downcast the relatives are, uncharitably assumes that Donati must be better. He is informed otherwise, and attempts to console the relatives by mentioning their inheritances. Zita, touched to the quick by Schicchi's condolences, angrily explains the situation, and refuses to hear of a marriage. Rinuccio begs Schicchi to help. However, Schicchi, angered by his reception, refuses to help such people. He is persuaded to try by his daughter (O mio babbino caro). Schicchi reads the will, and proclaims that nothing can be done. But then, he has a thought, and Schicchi sends his daughter away so that she may be innocent of the knowledge of what he will suggest. Schicchi first orders the body to be moved to another room, and tells the women to make up the bed. He ensures that no one else knows of the death — but before he can explain, Donati's doctor arrives. The doctor is prevented from entering by the relatives, while Schicchi imitates Donati's voice, telling the doctor that Donati is feeling better. The doctor departs, praising his own skill. Schicchi explains: Schicchi will impersonate Donati and dictate a new will.

Rinuccio goes to get the notary. The relatives agree on the division of the property, except for Donati's mule (the best in Tuscany), mills, and house. They agree to let Schicchi decide who will inherit those items, but, one by one, they return to promise him a reward if he selects that person. Schicchi agrees to each bribe — but then reminds all of the penalty for forgery — loss of a hand and permanent exile from Florence. The notary arrives, with the witnesses. Schicchi dictates a very modest funeral, a minuscule sum to the monastery, and the agreed-upon division, as the relatives speak approvingly. But one by one, Schicchi grants the mule, mills, and house to himself, to the relatives' outrage. After the notary leaves, he throws everyone out, and they are helpless to do anything except grab what they can on the way out the door. Now that Schicchi can give Lauretta a dowry, there is no obstacle to her marriage to Rinuccio. The lovers embrace, as Schicchi watches, moved. Schicchi turns to the audience and asks if this was not a fine use of Donati's money. He then requests the audience's indulgence, even if he did not receive Dante's, pleading extenuating circumstances.

[Synopsis Source: Wikipedia]

Click here for the complete libretti of Il trittico.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Schicchi.png image_description=G. Puccini: Gianni Schicchi audio=yes first_audio_name=Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Gianni Schicchi
WinAMP or VLC first_audio_link=http://www.operatoday.com/Schicchi1.m3u product=yes product_title=Giacomo Puccini: Gianni Schicchi product_by=Gianni Schicchi: Leo Nucci; Lauretta: Nino Machaidze; Zita: Cinzia De Mola; Rinuccio: Vittorio Grigolo; Gherardo: Luca Casalin; Nella: Francesca Sassu; Gherardino: Gabriele Bonini; Betto di Signa: Elia Fabbian; Simone: Mario Luperi; Marco: Vincenzo Taormina; La Ciesca: Tiziana Tramonti; Mastro Spinelloccio: Giancarlo Boldrini; Ser Amantio di Nicolao: Andrea Snarski; Pinellino: Sergio Vitale; Guccio: Chae Jun Lim. Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala. Riccardo Chailly, conducting. Live performance: 13 March 2008, Milan.

Thaïs at the MET

Or, as Mark Twain said about Wagner, it’s better than it sounds – a line Twain could get away with because Wagner was already too big a cultural cheese to worry about wisecracks by that time, and because Twain was famous for curmudgeonry, not for his music criticism. (Quick: name a composer Twain ever praised.) But we have to insist, if we want to defend Thaïs, that it’s better than it sounds, because it doesn’t sound very impressive.

There’s the famous Méditation, of course – I’ve been told it brings tears to the eyes of the Japanese, because it is always played on the radio whenever an emperor dies, but only two emperors have died since the invention of radio, so I’m not sure how they can have developed such an association. It brings tears to my eyes only after a performance of Thaïs, when that damned saxophone player performs it atrociously on the subway platform below Lincoln Center. (Don’t give him any money – it won’t make him stop.)

The trouble is that Massenet’s gift for melody and characterization and pathos, while ideal for the story of the shallow waif who is Manon or the self-romanticizing Werther, is way out its depth when trying to handle the story of Thaïs, in which two supposedly serious figures undergo serious religious self-questioning – Thaïs in renouncing the goddess of love for Christianity, Athanaël in renouncing Christian mortification of the flesh for human passion. The Méditation in the background (as it pretty much always is, from the time we first hear it between the scenes of Act II) does not give the impression Massenet intended of Wagnerian “motivation,” of musical reflection of poetic and ecstatic states of feeling; it is just repetitious underscoring, movie music composed before pictures moved.

Mary Garden as Thaïs

Ironically, though, the most persuasive case for Thaïs that I’ve ever seen was the silent 1917 film starring Mary Garden, long a major singer of the role, but more of a singing (and dancing) actress than a Voice. She was 43 by the time she filmed it, and she doesn’t look like a sexy young vamp (how did she perform Salome at that age? In French, and at a great distance from her audience), but she is invariably interesting – the inward, haunted look of her eyes giving us many a lingering glimpse (all we need, really) of the emotional conflict at the heart of her story but hardly to be found in Massenet’s score. And the pianist who accompanied the film (there was also a violin for the Méditation, of course) knew his Massenet. Between reels of this splendid artifact from a gilded age, L’Opéra Français de New York presented scenes from the opera itself, sung by soprano Caroline Worra and baritone Stephen Powell. They made a far better case for Thaïs, were far more effective as music-drama, than the recent run at the Met or the ghastly previous one in 1978.

There’s no point to the debate: Thaïs is what it is; it appeals to you or it doesn’t. Image helps. Thaïs is a vehicle – unlike Wagner’s works, it does not succeed even when performers do not bewitch; Thaïs makes any effect at all only if the diva is sexy and the baritone ardent and the production visually opulent. Take the music by itself, and it fades like a desert mirage or the visions of a mystic. Was it really there at all?

Renée Fleming as Thaïs and Thomas Hampson as Athanaël [Photo by Ken Howard courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera]

The current Met production, hand-me-down (with leads) from the Lyric Opera of Chicago, is being presented because Renée Fleming wished to sing it, and Fleming pretty much guarantees a sellout (as few divas do, these days), so that’s an excellent argument – especially if you can borrow the production ready made, not waste too much company money on it, and need never bring it back again. Miss Fleming is a pretty woman (prettier than Mary Garden, and with far more voice), and glamour is currently at a premium at the Met. Designers compete for the chance to dress the Diva of the Moment, as once they did when Geraldine Farrar and Lina Cavalieri ruled that particular roost (they both sang Thaïs). But such glamour is not easily faked, and I never get the feeling Fleming cares whether her image dazzles or not – it’s not the highest rung for her – which, frankly, is to her credit. She’s a more serious musician than that. Still, in a role like Thaïs, when she must play the glamour card, Fleming never convinces us that she is in form, that she has a link, a private line, to the goddess Venus who, we notice in the famous mirror scene in Act II, does not seem to be taking her calls. And as for the fluffy Christian Lacroix costumes, diaphanous pink seldom flatters anyone over twelve, and a costumier should notice that long, crimped blond locks and an off-one-shoulder gown are not the ideal desert look for an aspirant nun. These things can be as important as the singing in so gauzy a work as Thaïs – they certainly were for Garden, Cavalieri and Farrar, if not for Fleming. Fleming is sending sexy back – with the receipt – for a credit.

I admit to being puzzled, to working hard to understand my own unease with the way Fleming produces sound, and the sort of sound she produces. The voice has always been lovely, but years and years of affectation have made it less so. When I hear her, I keep trying to find a core to it – it is like a thick velvet cover too thick to penetrate. The plush has a late-Victorian shimmer to it, but I’m never sure anything firm exists below. Too, the register break between this velvety body and the upper register is startling – the upper octave or so, especially when coloratura is called for (or, in Massenet, high emotion of any sort) is a thin, shrill sound with no connection to the rest of the voice. I found her varying of the line, her wandering from clear singing to punctuations, to almost spoken notes, to disembodied head voice in the middle of a phrase, distracting, unbeautiful, and not particularly dramatic. Such affectations are why I try to avoid Fleming in any Italian role, but her French roles are similarly dishonest; she only seems to favor the notes of the part clearly and honestly in German and Russian works. She applies herself to the composer’s intention at such times. Otherwise, she relies on the basic prettiness of the sound to win over all hearers no matter how she abuses it.

One reason I regard these things as affectations is because Fleming tends to drop them and fall back on honest singing whenever she must duet with another artist. Her plea to Venus went for naught but, immediately afterwards, her debate with Thomas Hampson, the dredlocked Athanaël, and the brief duet in the desert outside the convent in Act III (at the one and only time in their acquaintance when the characters agree about anything) were the vocal moments worth remembering from this performance. She was pumping out voice in an artless style here, and one could suspect a woman, and real music, existed behind the velvet shimmer. But neither Fleming nor Massenet offers enough of such meat in Thaïs to fill an entire evening satisfactorily.

Hampson’s once too-confident, even boring instrument was showing its age or the weather in Act I, when his self-lacerating doubts were ineffective, but he too warmed up in confrontation for some impassioned duetting. Michael Schade gave a handsome account of Nicias, the party-boy friend to all parties, and the orchestra played if anything too sweetly for Jesús López-Cobos, not least David Chan’s violin solo for the Méditation. John Cox’s sets depicted a gorgeous blue desert sky and a glitzy art deco mansion (so right for the fifth century A.D.), but the final tableau in which Thaïs, dying in an odor of Christian sanctity and self-deprivation, is presented as a goddess enthroned on an altar, was a bit startling – though to this writer, rather a winsome touch.

John Yohalem

image=http://www.operatoday.com/THAIS_Fleming_as_Thais_5583.png image_description=Renée Fleming as Thais [Photo by Ken Howard courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera] product=yes product_title=J. Massenet: Thaïs product_by=Thaïs (Renée Fleming); Nicias (Michael Schade); Athanaël (Thomas Hampso); Palémon (Alain Vernhes); Crobyle (Alyson Cambridge); Myrtale (Ginger Costa-Jackson); La Charmeuse (Leah Partridge); Albine (Maria Zifchak). The Metropolitan Opera. David Chan, concert master. Jesús López-Cobos, conducting. product_id=Above: Renée Fleming as Thais [Photo by Ken Howard courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera]

Berlin Mayor Taps Salzburg Bigwig to Run Barenboim’s Sad House

By Shirley Apthorp [Bloomberg.com, 24 December 2008]

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) — Just in time to blight Christmas for Berlin’s music lovers, Mayor Klaus Wowereit called a press conference to announce the appointment of a new man for the top job at the hallowed Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

George Steel Says He Doesn’t Want to Join New York City Opera

By Philip Boroff [Bloomberg.com, 22 December 2008]

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) — George Steel, the general manager of the Dallas Opera, said he isn’t interested in the top job at New York City Opera — the 65-year-old company that’s homeless, leaderless and short of money.

Intermezzo, Theater an der Wien, Vienna

By Shirley Apthorp [Financial Times, 21 December 2008]

Would Richard Strauss’s Intermezzo have enjoyed more success with a better subject? Certainly the banality of this 1924 opera has been a factor in its subsequent neglect. Strauss wrote the libretto himself, basing it on a domestic drama from his home life. The story is fluffy, the piece titanically self-referential. Yet for all its dramaturgical flaws, Intermezzo overflows with glorious music.

The Play of Daniel — A Medieval Music Drama from Beauvais

No professional theater culture existed at the time and we do not know what conception the medieval era had of theater, though we can be pretty sure solemn dramas had a religious basis (as they do in every indigenous theater culture) and that music was involved somehow (ditto).

The Play of Daniel, however it was presented in the reign of Philip Augustus (the surviving manuscript does not apportion voices or instruments, much less stage directions), was an early landmark in the work of Noah Greenberg’s New York Pro Musica Antiqua, one of the earliest organizations to delve into early music and perform it with something like scholarly fidelity but also modern theatricality. Their Daniel had its premiere at the Cloisters in 1958, and was later filmed for television. That televised version, shown each year at Christmastime, was a joy of my childhood, when the Cloisters represented, for me, something of a dream palace. The staging, which based costume, movement, attitude, and primitive but graceful special effects on medieval illustration, was also magical – and besides, it was my first exposure to Early Music. The annual showing ended, alas, around 1969, when Channel 13 began to broadcast in color and assumed no one would want to watch a black and white film (they were so wrong!), and that film evidently survives only in a damaged kinescope – it’s not even on Youtube.

The Early Music revival has been one of the triumphs of recent times (its history is a grand book idea, if some author out there is looking for one). Today there are dozens of groups of every size touring the world with once-forgotten repertory and style, and Early Music concerts sell out from Moscow to Seattle. Once obliged to depend on academic day jobs, musicians can now make careers performing the work of once-forgotten eras. Yet the sophistication, the musicality, the wit of Greenberg’s troupe have seldom been surpassed.

Accordingly, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of that first staging, the Gotham Early Music Series (GEMS) has given four performances of Daniel as part of a series of concerts presented through the year by the Cloisters Museum in the intimate acoustic of its Fuentidueña Chapel. No less illustrious a figure than Russell Oberlin, a founder of the modern countertenor tradition and a star of the 1958 production, sat, silver-haired and regal, right in front of me, and prefaced the show with some enthusiastic words about the treat in store for us. Another great countertenor of the recent past, Drew Minter, was the stage director, and hewed to the faux-naïve medieval look, in movement, attitude, costume, image, proper to the piece.

I loved the way the chorus, singing the explanatory introduction as they marched in procession down the aisle, gravely performed simple, book-of-hours-style dances, and the nasal whine of the king’s groveling counselors, and the flashy lions set to devour Daniel who, at a touch from the Angel, began to mew and fawn to be petted instead. I have no idea how the Writing on the Wall was done in 1958, but just projecting it up there did not have the magical effect of a bodyless hand actually writing that I recall from the film. (Alex Ross, in The New Yorker, is also nostalgic for that moment. How many people did that film introduce to Early Music?) The small playing space no doubt forced many compromises on the company – in the film, of course, the entire huge building could be used, and was – I remember King Balthazar fleeing from assassins, who caught and strangled him on the terrace, and the ominous invasion of what seemed a vast Persian army, and there seemed, in my recollection, more room for dance. Today, those who attend the Cloisters’ concert series must content themselves with an hour or two imbibing atmosphere from the museum’s impressive collection of objects and architectural elements, a fine way to wind up to or down after a concert.

Perhaps the greatest departure in this revival from the original was to eliminate the brief explanatory verses by W.H. Auden (no less), recited by a monkish compère figure (Alvin Epstein back then – who is still around, and recently played King Lear downtown), which kept us abreast of the story, scene by scene, in the happy days before surtitles. Minter saw no reason for surtitles – and he was right, although Daniel’s is, in a sense, the first story about surtitles, the Writing on the Wall. But the story is simple and pretty well known (I have seen Minter himself sing the title role in Handel’s oratorio Belshazzar). But I missed the breathing space between numbers that the verses provided, and the slower pace of the singing, and there were attendees around me who studied the libretto rather than watching the clear, simple action in front of them. Like the medieval artists whose handiwork was all around us, the creators of Daniel, both the ancient and the modern ones, did everything they could to make the story and its lessons clear; a child of six would have had no trouble following the action, but some adults evidently did.

All you need, really, is a bunch of singers trained to the demands of medieval a cappella style but able as well (as church singers need not be) to move well and to act. James Ruff made a stiff Daniel, but sang with a fine vibrato-free baritone. Much more fun was had by Peter Walker as doomed King Balthazar (sic, in this version) and, later, a reluctant prophet Abacuc (Habakkuk), dragged in by his ear to foretell a messiah, by José Lemos, a splendid alto countertenor, as the triumphant Darius, by the three whiny counselors and the two prancing lions. It was no surprise to see the names of two dozen well-known early music groups mentioned in the musicians’ biographies. Psaltery, rebec, shawms – the simple orchestration contained the usual suspects, except for the intrusion, during the concluding Te Deum, of modern toned chimes. The processions of singers in and out of the chapel and off into the echoing distance made wise use of the building and added medieval atmosphere to the occasion.

I hope Daniel becomes, once more, a seasonal tradition. It will undoubtedly draw new children of all ages to this marvelous repertory, and, at 53 minutes, it’s a lot shorter than Handel’s Messiah.

John Yohalem

image=http://www.operatoday.com/cloisters.png image_description=Decorated archway, The Cloisters Museum and Gardens, New York. product=yes product_title=The Play of Daniel— A Medieval Music Drama from Beauvais product_by=Daniel: James Ruff; King Balthasar/Abacuc: Peter Walker; King Darius: José Lemos; Queen/Abacuc’s Angel: Sarah Pillow. Staged by Drew Minter. Mary Anne Ballard, music director. Presented by the Cloisters Museum concert series. Performance of December 21. product_id=Above: Decorated archway, The Cloisters Museum and Gardens, New York.

PAISIELLO: I Giuochi d'Agrigento

Giovanni Battista Rigon leads the Orchestra Internazionale in a performance of Paisello’s music that has both refinement and energy to spare. Though not a memorable melodist — surely if he had been, his operas would be performed more frequently — Paisello orchestrates with flair and imagination. Timpani thwacks fire off the lively sinfonia. A moody harpsichord, instead of isolating itself in the recitatives, offers sparkling commentary in some of the arias. Fine choral writing makes the contributions of the Slovak Chamber Choir highlights of the set. The live recording from 2006 captures this all in decent sound, with little stage noise.

Unfortunately, the singing of the soloists ranges from the acceptable to the lame. In the latter category, Razek Francois Bitar encompasses many of the criticisms laid against countertenors. He either hoots or squeaks, frequently sings out of tune, and most often sounds like a superannuated soprano. As he is a lead, this severely hampers the recording’s success. His character, Clearco, wins an athletic contest but turns down the reward of the hand in marriage of the king’s daughter Egesta, as Clearco loves another — Aspasia, his own sister! But of course Aspasia is not really Clearco’s sister. In fact, he is Egesta’s brother, due to a plot twist straight out of the Oedipus story. And a happy revelation of that secret, very much unlike that of the Oedipus story, brings the opera to its close. In the other major male role, that of Eraclide the king, some wonderful music gets battered by the leathery lungs of tenor Marcello Nardis. The sopranos — Maria Laura Martorana as Aspasia and Mara Lanfranchi as Egesta — may not be exciting new signing discoveries, but at least they aren’t the tests of endurance that the men are.

However, it would be foolish to wait around for a better sung performance of I Giuochi d’Agrigento. If it happens, great. In the meanwhile, anyone who enjoys operas from this era should be willing to listen through some unsatisfactory vocalising in order to enjoy the riches of Paisiello’s score.

Chris Mullins

image=http://www.operatoday.com/IGiuochi.png imagedescription=Giovanni Paisiello: I Giuochi d’Agrigento

product=yes producttitle=Giovanni Paisiello: I Giuochi d’Agrigento productby=Eraclide (Marcello Nardis), Clearco (Razek François Bitar), Aspasia (Maria Laura Martonana), Egesta (Mara Lanfranchi), Cleone (Vincenzo Taormina), Filosseno (Nicola Amodio), Elpenore (Vladimer Mebonia), Deifile (Dolores Carlucci). Coro Slovacco di Bratislava. Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia, Giovanni Battista Rigon (cond.) productid=Dynamic 531/1-2 [2CDs] price=$38.49 producturl=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?nameid1=9068&namerole1=1&bcorder=1&comp_id=263732

Best of Neujahrskonzert

Resolutely unchanging, year after year a conductor of note puts on an impish smile and bounces on his heels a bit as he leads the orchestra in music of the elder and younger Johann Strauss, with an occasional nod to other contemporaries of the waltz genre. A well-behaved audience of hoity-toities stays in their seats, though they may break into some energetic clapping along if encouraged. For variety’s sake, the TV director cuts away sometimes to filmed sequences, such as elegant dancing featuring impeccably coiffed and dressed slim pretty things, some of them definitively female, who glide around the gold-gilt halls of some palatial estate or other. And then there’s the horses…

So popular are these concerts that each new year Deutsche Grammophon puts out the CD release seemingly hours after the actual broadcast, and DVDs follow as well. Now DG releases a disc of “highlights from nine New Year’s concerts given between 1975 and 2007.” The booklet contains no other information, nor any rationale for the particular selection offered. If any viewers do not keep a visual memory of the more famous conductors in their heads, they will have to resort to the booklet, as the DVD itself only identifies the composer and composition. Carlos Kleiber is evidently DG’s favorite conductor, for he gets 6 of 17 total selections, including first and last. Indeed, his touch is light and joyful, and his stage manner appropriately light-hearted. Next in frequency comes Lorin Maazel, who tries to smile but whose face tends to settle back into a restrained scowl. He does pick up a violin for a nice solo in “Tales from the Vienna Woods.” Only one sequence features Willie Boskovsky, one of the great hosts of the event. Zubin Mehta conducts joyfully in his two selections. Not much personality emanates, however, from Seiji Ozawa, Mariss Jansons, or Ricardo Muti.

So as DVD sets go, this is a bare-bones affair, but if one wants a reminder of these particular new year’s festivities in any month of the year, pop the disc in and glide around the palatial halls of your own estate.

Chris Mullins

image=http://www.operatoday.com/BestNeujahrskonzert.png imagedescription=Best of Neujahrskonzert

product=yes producttitle=Best of Neujahrskonzert productby=Wiener Philharmoniker. Willi Boskovsky, Mariss Jansons, Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa productid=Deutsche Grammophon 073 4422 [DVD] price=$27.98 producturl=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=184512

Karita Mattila — Fever

Glamour shots present her most seductive looks, while pictures snapped at the concert where the live recording took place venture into camp territory, especially the enormous white fur floor-length jacket that apparently provided any warmth the stage lights couldn’t project. A short essay serves as a lovely example of over-the-top PR prose, establishing how Ms. Mattila’s “idea of singing a jazz programme” became a “vision {that} was finally realized.” All this while she “has been living in the USA a lot recently.” Your reviewer has been living a lot recently in the USA too. Small world.

Another note explains the history of Tin Pan Alley for us, then provides brief commentary on each song’s composer (“Cole Porter was a wealthy man of the world…”). All that’s missing is an extended list of personal “thank you’s” from the artist to make Fever fit right in with the typical pop release self-celebration. Almost in compensation, this note is found at the end: “The author of this text, Markku Piri, has initiated and developed the artistic concept of this Fever project in close collaboration with Karita Mattila. Piri also acted as set and costume designer for the shows.” You go, Piri.

The history of classical singers and popular song is long but not particularly fabled. This is not Karita’s first delving into this territory. On another Ondine release, Karita Live!, she did both great arias, such as “Vissi d”arte,” and also very enjoyable run-throughs of lighter material, such as “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” On Fever, Ms. Mattila does try out a few jazz licks, with some carefully rehearsed scatting in a couple places. She seems more comfortable singing just behind the beat, and she allows herself to play with the melody lines from time to time, generally in a tasteful fashion. Peggy Lee seems to have been her model, as indicated by songs associated with Ms. Lee such as the title track and “Black Coffee.”

Ms. Lee’s reputation can only be burnished by comparison to Ms. Mattila’s singing here, but Karita does fine overall. On holding her voice back, some of the top range loses color and is not always in tune; the body of her range sounds very good indeed. Her English comes very close to being idiomatic, with some flat “r” sounds being the occasional giveaway. Your reviewer can’t evaluate her Portuguese, but both “O Pato” and “Corcovado” get enthusiastic performances. The arrangements tend to be very light jazz indeed. “Stormy Weather” in particular gets a most bizarre orchestral prelude before slipping into a more expected blues shuffle.

A vocal trio with the odd name How Many Sisters backs up Ms. Mattila. No Vandellas they.

Ms. Mattila’s greatness as a singer has long been established in the opera world. If this recording brought pleasure to her and the enthusiastic crowds at the live concerts, then “this Fever project” is worthwhile. But don’t let PETA catch her in that fur…

Chris Mullins

image=http://www.operatoday.com/MattilaFever.png imagedescription=Karita Mattila — Fever

product=yes producttitle=Karita Mattila — Fever productby=Fever band & String section; How Many Sisters Vocal Trio; Kirmo Lintinen, conductor; Karita Mattila, soprano. product id=Ondine ODE 1105-2 [CD] price=$18.49 producturl=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=191455

Berg’s Lulu at Lyric Opera of Chicago

The psychological complexities linked to the depiction not only of the title character but also of her numerous admirers and associates could pose a daunting task to any company undertaking a new production of Berg’s final operatic work. Lyric Opera has met these challenges with respect both to Berg’s score and to his intentions for staging the opera as dramatic event. Under the musical direction of Sir Andrew Davis the complex score moves from passages of suspense and dramatic intensity to segments of lyrical beauty, the transitions forming a seamless bridge to both action and introspection. The new production commissioned by Lyric Opera is staged by Paul Curran who had scored a noteworthy triumph here with his production of Die Frau ohne Schatten in the previous season. In Curran’s vision for Lulu, the stage highlights traditional interior settings while using innovative lighting and projections in order to suggest developments in the portrayal of individual characters.

The figure of Lulu, as hinted in the prologue by the animal trainer and his menagerie, will represent female aspects of temptation, here taking on the simulation of a snake. A transition from the representative or symbolic tone of the prologue to a detailed realism of the first act demonstrates the creative approach of this production in combining the abstract and the concrete. Lulu, as sung by Marlis Petersen, is depicted in the opening scene of Act I surrounded by male figures who will play increasingly significant roles in her various transformations. Here Lulu sits for her portrait while listening to the self-motivated discussions initiated by Dr. Schön, a leading journalist, and by his son Alwa, who composes for musical theater.

In this first scene the primary male roles are not only introduced but also given skillful characterization by the singers in this production. As Dr. Schön the bass-baritone Wolfgang Schöne communicates the two-fold personality of a callous businessman whose determined authority nevertheless suffers from glints of weakness. Schöne has performed this role in other significant productions of Lulu, such familiarity surely elucidating the depth of his interpretation and his ability to interact on varying levels with individual characters. The role of Alwa is invested here by William Burden with a revelatory performance: as one of the characters — along with Lulu — who survives from the opening until nearly the end of the work, Alwa must remain vocally incisive and dramatically convincing in a variety of situations. Burden’s committed performance meets fully the taxing vocal demands of the tenor role. At the same time, while depicting the yearning musical writer who eventually succumbs to Lulu’s attractions, Burden’s dramatic skills add further to a memorable characterization. But it is the painter working on Lulu’s portrait who achieves amorous success with the title character in this initial scene. In the first of several roles that he covers in this production Scott Ramsay as the painter presses Lulu in a physically ardent, if vocally understated, plea for her affections. Shortly after she concedes to these advances, Lulu’s husband enters. As soon as the Medizinalrat comes upon this scene of marital disloyalty, he collapses dead of heart failure. Lulu’s reaction to the shock and sudden death of her husband is a gauge of the complexity of emotions that will continue to infuse Marlis Petersen’s portrayal throughout the production. A mix of curiosity and consternation indicates a character that is far from one-dimensional. The figure of Lulu — inhabited and communicated so effectively by Ms. Petersen — revels in adventure, suggesting at once a naïve lack of guile yet also a measure of complicity in the deeds and decisions to which she draws her suitors.

Marlis Petersen (title role) and Wolfgang Schöne (Dr. Schön) in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s new production of Lulu, directed by Paul Curran for the 2008-09 season. Photo by Dan Rest/Lyric Opera of Chicago

The musical and visual interlude between the first and following scenes establishes a technique which Curran uses to great effect in subsequent dramatic transitions throughout the production. During Berg’s orchestral interlude projections of images onto a screen suggest, by their change of shape or color, the progression of emotional, physical, or intellectual change in both individual characters and the constellation of the same. At the start of the second scene Lulu, who has inherited a respectable sum as widow, is now married to the painter. Countless sketches examples of her portrait adorn the walls. The figure of Schigolch — a character never fully identified from Lulu’s past — is introduced near the start of the scene when he knocks at the door of Lulu’s home and is presented with money by the heroine. In much the same way as the character Alwa, Schigolch will resurface periodically until near the close of the opera. In both solo and ensemble work bass-baritone Thomas Hammons as Schigolch proved to be an effective foil to Lulu’s carefree attitude. In their interactions a mutual enhancement could readily be perceived. Indeed Ms. Petersen’s impassioned singing of the repetition on “blind” in this scene with Schigolch underlined her dramatic involvement with exquisite controlled agility in the upper register of her voice. By the close of the scene Dr. Schön has revealed to the painter his ongoing liaison with Lulu, in this production a psychologically riveting exchange, the realization of which drives the artist to take his own life in a separate, enclosed room. The final scene of Act I reveals Lulu as a theatrical dancer thanks to the patronage of her former suitor Dr. Schön. Lullu’s effect on Schön and his impending marriage to another illustrates how Berg intends the lead character not only as a display of herself but also as a means to bare the true character of others. Ms. Petersen is especially effective here in showing Lulu’s vulnerability as well as her strength, both of which cause reactions among those surrounding her. Dr. Schön—- while referring to Lulu’s indestructibility — is now indeed persuaded to compose a written renunciation of his engagement.

The second act highlights Lulu’s marriage to Dr. Schön, his death by her hand, Lulu’s incarceration and time also spent in a medical ward, and finally her liberation and physical union with Alwa, the son of her dead husband. Throughout this act Lulu’s devoted female companion, the Countess Geschwitz, demonstrates her willingness to compromise and even to sacrifice her own well-being in order to save Lulu. As the Countess, mezzo-soprano Jill Grove sings with an appropriate and convincing dramatic urgency, lending her character’s personality aspects already encountered in the roles of Dr. Schön and Alwa. The interlude between scenes one and two takes place after Lulu has shot her husband and before the plans to release her from prison are realized. Berg’s musical interlude serves as the accompaniment to a black-and-white film of the arrest, trial, and subsequent confinement of Lulu. This extension of the projected images used between other scenes is a dramatic masterstroke, in which the actual singers are filmed and displayed in the cinematic style of the period.

In Act III of the opera the two scenes take place in Paris and London respectively. Lulu’s successful escape has led to reunion with the Countess Geschwitz and Alwa, although the search for Lulu as criminal has not abated. In their Parisian home Lulu and Alwa are surrounded by characters of questionable reputation and less than stable profiles in matters of finance. Lulu’s narrow escape from this atmosphere, as their investments collapse, brings her to London and the true realm of the underworld. She spends her time as a prostitute, living together with Schigolch, Alwa, and the Countess Geschwitz — before dying at the hands of Jack the Ripper, her final client. The last words belong here to the Countess Geschwitz, who has fallen as the second victim to Jack, before he leaves the London flat. With extraordinary pathos Ms. Grove intones, in her dying words, an unwavering feeling of the Countess’s devotion and love for the cherished Lulu.

Salvatore Calomino

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Lulu_LOC_06.png image_description=Wolfgang Schöne (Dr. Schön) and Marlis Petersen (title role) in Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of Lulu, directed by Paul Curran for the 2008-09 season. Photo by Dan Rest/Lyric Opera of Chicago product=yes product_title=Alban Berg: Lulu product_by=Lulu: Marlis Petersen; Dr. Schön/Jack The Ripper: Wolfgang Schöne; Countess Geschwitz: Jill Grove; Alwa: William Burden; Schigolch: Thomas Hammons; Painter/Black Man: Scott Ramsay; Animal Trainer/Athlete: Jan Buchwald; Prince/Marquis/Manservant: Rodell Rosel; Wardrobe Mistress/Schoolboy/Groom: Buffy Baggott. Lyric Opera of Chicago. Conductor: Sir Andrew Davis. Director: Paul Curran. Designer: Kevin Knight. product_id=Above: Wolfgang Schöne (Dr. Schön) and Marlis Petersen (title role) in Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of Lulu, directed by Paul Curran for the 2008-09 season. Photo by Dan Rest/Lyric Opera of Chicago

Bayerische Staatsoper Announces Program for 2009 Munich Opera Festival

The works of Giuseppe Verdi mark the beginning and end of the 2009 Festival: on June 30, the curtain in the National Theatre will rise on the festival gala performance of Aida, a new production this season, following the première on June 8. A performance of Falstaff on July 31 will then conclude five weeks of festival glory, which will again present audiences with a top-class programme of opera and ballet performances, concerts and song recitals.

The main point of interest will be focused on the festival première of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin in the National Theatre on July 5. For the tenth time, Kent Nagano will mount the podium of the Bavarian State Orchestra to conduct a new production. The stage director is Richard Jones, and an all-star cast headed by Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros and Michaela Schuster will be on stage.

Besides Aida with Barbara Frittoli in a production staged by Christoph Nel and conducted by Daniele Gatti, the Festival will also offer an opportunity for audiences to become reacquainted with all the other new productions of this season:

Verdi’s dark-hued opera Macbeth (July 21/24), Andreas Kriegenburg’s Wozzeck production (July 17), enthusiastically acclaimed by press and public, the queen of bel canto, Edita Gruberova in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia (July 1/6), Janáček’s Jenůfa (July 9) as a further work of the theatre’s Slavic repertoire as well as a ballet world première of this season: Jiří Kylián’s Zugvögel (July 3).

In addition, Mozart’s Idomeneo in the Cuvilliès Theater (July 23/26/30) and the new production of Strauss’ Ariadne on Naxos (July 13/16/20), which was premièred to rave reviews in the 2008 Festival, in the Prince Regent Theatre will both be revived this year. Other major highlights include the appearance of star soprano Angela Gheorghiu in a gala concert with the Bavarian State Orchestra on July 27 as well as Rolando Villazón in the title role of Jules Massenet’s Werther (July 4/7) together with Vesselina Kasarova as Charlotte, as well as song recitals with Diana Damrau (July 5), Waltraud Meier (July 20) and Jonas Kaufmann (July 26).

The 2009 Festival also has a special emphasis to offer. The “under construction” program heralded by Nikolaus Bachler in his editorial, has a number of surprises in the offing — among them a “construction site” on Marstall Square and the festival première of Leonard Bernstein’s one-acter Trouble in Tahiti on July 7: Kent Nagano will lead the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a new version especially prepared for Munich at the Cuvilliès Theatre. Another featured event at “under construction” will be the world première of Narcissus and Echo by Californian composer Jay Schwartz. The sounds of a counter tenor, a viola and percussion set will transform the Allerheiligen Hofkirche (All Saint’s Court Church) into an echo space to reflect identity, deception and recognition.

For the second successive Year, BMW Munich will be aboard as official partner of the Munich Opera Festival — a relationship, which has its foundation in the long-standing support of Opera for All. In 2009 as well, the Festival will offer free open-air events: on June 28 a concert by the Bavarian State Orchestra under the direction of Kent Nagano on Marstall Square, and on July 5, the performance of Lohengrin will mark the first time in the over 10-year history of Opera for All that audiences will have a chance to witness the live transmission of a Festival première on Max Joseph Square.

Click here for additional information.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/aida.png image_description=G. Verdi: Aida product=yes product_title=Bayerische Staatsoper Announces Program for 2009 Munich Opera Festival

Hänsel and Gretel at Covent Garden

So, directors Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier are faced with a choice: is this ‘children’s opera’ a tale of sugary sentimentality or a gothic nightmare? To my mind, they aren’t quite sure … The opening act presents a realistic portrait of ‘modern-day family life’, complete with financial woes, parental neglect, bolshy children and over-sexed adults; the second act glides into a kitschy fantasy landscape in which magic and mystery induce a sense of temporary calm, and banish the demons and debt collectors; while, in the final act, menace and maliciousness are unmercilessly unleashed, shocking us almost as much as the thunderous explosion which brings to an end the witch’s depraved malevolence.

Diana Damrau as Gretel [Photo by Clive Barda courtesy of The Royal Opera]

Christian Fenouillat’s set — a box cradled within a box, all sharp angles and distorted perspectives — recalls his designs for Leiser’s and Caurier’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Hansel’s and Gretel’s bedroom is similarly sparse, even bland, in decoration; and, unfortunately, there is little room within this confined space for the physical movement and dancing which the libretto seems to demand, in this act and subsequently. However, as in the earlier collaboration, the enclosed space is effortlessly transformed by clever use of sliding walls and subtle projections, effecting a graceful transition from the real to the fantastic, from the Spar shopping bag to the miniature gingerbread house. And, the final scenic transformation into the witch’s kitchen is both slick and unnerving. Indeed, the fact that the tiny room is translated into different environments may suggest that all the landscapes through which the children wander are transformed versions of their own home — a more subtle psychological reading than some of those proposed elsewhere in this production. Moreover, although the angel-hamsters, complete with fairy-light encrusted wings, who bless the sleeping children in the central act may have been a little too twee for some, Fenouillat's designs for the woodland are beautifully conceived, a magical scrolling panorama leading the children, and us, through the enchanted trees.

One could be forgiven for forgetting that Alice Coote (Hansel) and Camilla Tilling (Gretel) are full-grown adults and not in fact young siblings - boisterous, bickering, bearing the bravado of childhood — so faultless were their vocal and dramatic performances. The characterisation was strong and immediate, the mannerisms of childhood perfectly conveyed. We are familiar with Coote’s unruly, over-excitable Hansel from her recent Met performances, but she was matched by Tilling who captured Gretel’s mixture of innocence and mischief. Tilling was more understated at the opening, but warmed into the role, responding richly to Coote’s sweet low registers; the timbral blending in the later duets was exquisite as the vocalists expertly conveyed the sense of fun, the petulance, the fear, the ingenuity of children. Both relished the words, enunciating clearly.

Ann Murray’s Witch was a fearful figure — both literally, with her pendulous, exposed breasts, and symbolically, as, casting her redundant Zimmer frame ruthlessly aside, she charged about a kitchen clearly designed for mechanised killing. Here the sets created a real sense of ‘theatre’, the industrial-sized gas ovens, meat hooks and hanging corpses chillingly echoing the mass murders of the concentration camps. As she tumbled headfirst into Aga’s blue flames, the ensuing explosion was a genuinely disquieting coup de théâtre. Murray’s delivery of the role was superb: the intonation was secure and the tone full, never remotely shrill.

If there could be no doubting Murray’s evil intent, Eri Nakamura’s Sandman was a more curious conception: half-human, half-puppet, this unsettling miniature ‘gremlin’ sported a disturbing rubber mask and stuttered along with grotesque, stilted shuffles. Nakamura, while sweet-toned, occasionally struggled to achieve ensemble with the orchestra; however, in her defence, the peculiar characterisation meant that she had to project from the very back of the stage, an absurdity when the children into whose eyes she was supposedly dripping sand, were lying at the front.

Indeed, dramatically the second act failed entirely to convince, lacking the genuine magic it demands. The long sleep sequence, when the children dream of a loving home, was unimaginatively staged: two cosy armchairs snuggled close to a glowing fireside, as Hansel and Gretel delightedly unwrapped the delicate layers of their Christmas presents — to discover a homely sandwich … a symbol of their essential need for love and family perhaps, but less than enchanting. The Dew Fairy, sung by Simona Mihai, was cast as a pink-enswathed Barbie Doll, complete with rubber gloves and spray polish — although in this rather sanitised environment, there was clearly no chance of her ‘marigolds’ getting dirty!

However, pushing aside these small quibbles, it was a glorious musical evening. There were certainly no weak links among the vocalists. The children’s parents, Eike Wilm Schulte as Father, and Irmgard Vilsmaier as Mother, were vocally precise and projected well — indeed, Vilsmaier’s round, ringing tone reminded one of Humperdinck’s debt to Wagner, and there was a danger that at times she would smother, both musically and physically, the less statuesque Schulte! The gingerbread children, performed by the Tiffin Boys’ Choir and Tiffin Children’s Chorus, seemed not the least perturbed by their spell in the Witch’s freezer: their singing was pure, true, and secure in intonation and ensemble.

Shaping and supporting all, was the Royal Opera House orchestra under the baton of 25-year-old Robin Ticciati. Ticciati swept through the score with a sure sense of dramatic pace and musical colour, sensitive to the voices and yet aware of the importance of the orchestra in this Wagner-influenced score. From the warm, horn lullabies that open the work, he coaxed a myriad of colours from the orchestra, seeking and finding just the right timbre and mood to match the dramatic transitions between scenes and imaginative worlds. The overtures and entr’actes were, thankfully, not staged, allowing the audience to relax and revel in the landscapes Ticciati created.

Overall this was a delightful evening: Ticciati balanced momentum and lyricism; all soloists performed with conviction, style and vocal sureness; the designs charmed; and, in the end, good defeated evil.

Claire Seymour

image=http://www.operatoday.com/hansel1.png image_description=Angelika Kirchschlager as Hänsel [Photo by Clive Barda courtesy of The Royal Opera] product=yes product_title=Engelbert Humperdinck: Hänsel and Gretel product_by= Hänsel (Angelika Kirchschlager/Alice Coote); Gretel (Diana Damrau/Camilla Tilling); Gertrud (Elizabeth Connell/Irmgard Vilsmaier); Peter (Thomas Allen/Eike Wilm Schulte); Witch (Anja Silja/Ann Murray); Sandman (Pumeza Matshikiza/Eri Nakamura); Echo (Eri Nakamura/Simona Mihai/Anita Watson/Pumeza Matshikiza); Dew Fairy (Anita Watson/Simona Mihai). The Royal Opera. Conductor: Colin Davis/Robin Ticciat. Director: Moshe Leiser/Patrice Caurier. Set Designs: Christian Fenouillat. product_id=Above: Angelika Kirchschlager as Hänsel [Photo by Clive Barda courtesy of The Royal Opera]

Thaïs: A Star Vehicle — In Overdrive

Little does this lady know who and what lurks just around the corner: Salvation by a Fundamentalist Christian. But we’ll come back to that.

It is usual to look down one’s nose and say Thaïs is only done, like Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and many another famous opera, when you have a major star to sing it. It’s ‘merely’ a star vehicle and cannot stand on its own merits. Of course you don’t do Wagner operas, do you, unless there is a top flight vocal star to sing — Brunnhilde, Isolde, Elisabeth and so on? But ‘vehicle’ is the key word. Wagner is never a ‘vehicle’ composer, for his music is too innovative, too granitic, too magnificent, too important for that — and with Wagner, always, the star is: Wagner. But with lesser composers, which includes just about everyone else, the call to write a showpiece for a famous star is hard to resist. Massenet met the demand when he wrote Thaïs for Sybil Sanderson, the neurotic American soprano, who was generally regarded at the time as his mistress, and a major theatrical attraction.

Michael Schade as Nicias and Thomas Hampson as Athanaël

Lately, the big opera house in New York has been doing all it can to favor Renée Fleming, for she is the Met’s unquestionably brightest star. And that seems to bother a lot of people, most especially it raises the hackles of a crowd affectionately known as “opera queens,” a group of indeterminate age and sexual-orientation, who mainly live in or about New York (though they exist everywhere), that take pleasure in critiquing the negatives in just about anything they run across. Lately Mme. Fleming’s courtesan has been well-relished fodder for their threshings, and Massenet’s oeuvre has been caught up in their dust and declared out of date, second rate piffle (I wonder, is there first-rate piffle?).

OK, I’ll take the bait! I am here to tell you that Miss Fleming IS a star, because she has earned that status by an unusual lot of talent, discipline and hard work, and Massenet’s opera is quite a bit more than mere ‘vehicle.’ It is thoughtful, well-composed and touching music theatre, when adequately performed. And, is the very coin of the Belle Epoch, Second Empire France — a yeasty and remarkably fruitful period in the arts, and especially operatic arts — France ruled nearly supreme in the opera houses of the western world for several decades back then. For some of us, French opera is still a highly-valued aesthetic wonder. Massenet’s music is a delicious confection, of melody, pointed harmony and organization; of its kind and in its day, it was/is hard to beat.

Alyson Cambridge as Crobyle, Thomas Hampson as Athanaël and Ginger Costa-Jackson as Myrtale

Here is my argument: Massenet’s operas, Saint-Saens’ works, and those of Gounod, Bizet, Ambroise Thomas, G. Charpentier, and many others of that French school, must be taken in context, treated as valued period pieces and given full respect. If you have star singers so much the better because they draw audiences (“anything Fleming does, I want to see”), and throw the glow of stardom over their roles. In the late decades of 19th Century France, mixing religion and sex was found to be the drug of choice for audiences craving potent entertainment, and box offices looking for patrons. In opera, erotic sensuality clothed in pious religiosity was highly acceptable to the values of both Church and State, and catered to public moral approval in works such as Samson et Dalila (oh, that Bacchanal!), Faust (poor weak Marguerite, but she was saved by Angels in the end), Le jongleur de Notre-Dame (the blessing of Jean the juggler by the Virgin Mary), even unto Italy in 1918 with Puccini’s Suor Angelica, and many operas, oratorios and stage pieces too numerous to mention. There is just one hitch: You cannot update these pieces, give them modern-day regietheatre treatment or extreme concept productions, or you kill the innate aesthetic-emotional core of the work. You don’t make fun of something meant to be taken seriously, and still enjoy it. The Chicago Lyric-NY Met production by John Cox, et. al. was traditional, if with a couple of acknowledgments to Massenet’s time. It worked.

There were many moist eyes in Santa Fe’s Lensic Performing Arts Center when the Meditation was wonderfully played by Met Opera violinist David Chan, and again when that immortal melodic sweetmeat returned at the end for Thaïs’s final duet with Thomas Hampson’s religious nut Athanaël (clearly a Freudian case), who led her from being working girl to holy sister and an early death, strong emotion was perfectly appropriate. “Strange how potent cheap music is,” famously and sardonically commented Noel Coward — I would omit ‘cheap,’ amend it to read ‘...well-composed easily accessible music which touches most listeners.’ The critics and cynics of New York rain on such on-the-cuff operatic emotion, and I can only say it is their sad loss. Massenet understood the human voice and wrote for it brilliantly — Fleming said in an intermission comment, “Thaïs’s music lives in the middle voice and that’s perfect for me;” many another well-grounded vocalist would agree.

Renée Fleming as Thaïs and Thomas Hampson as Athanaël at an oasis near Mère Albine’s settlement (Act III, scene 1)

But what about Fleming — how ‘star’ was her performance? It proved a perfect assumption. I cannot imagine any prominent soprano today who could better her achievement, or even match it and sing the role with such mastery and ease. At this ripe point in Fleming’s career (she will be age-50 next Valentine’s Day), her instrument is as lissome and tonally beautiful as it will ever be, while her high-register remains thrillingly adequate to any task she sets about. Opening night (Dec. 8), critics noted discomfort with two high D-naturals in the death scene duet; then it was learned the singer had just recovered from a bad cold (though no announcement was made). Later performances found her in perfect health, and December 20 her voice floated magically, and reached the highest tones with beautiful élan. Let it be noted that previous star-turn Thaïs productions featuring top prima donnas of their day, and I refer to Mary Garden and Geraldine Farrar in the 1900s & 1910s, whose singing was not close to the quality offered by Fleming. Garden and Farrar were ‘personality’ singers, public darlings, early movie stars and prominent social figures. Neither of those admirable artists had voices to compare with Fleming’s rich lyric-soprano and neither had her ease in the top range. I heard Leontyne Price sing Thaïs in 1959, in a rather embarrassingly silly Lyric Opera of Chicago production (I recall Nicias wearing a lime-green chiffon skirt to his mid-thigh — poor Leopold Simoneau!), with Price over-singing the music in a heavy dense soprano, and not having a clue as to how to act it. These ‘star vehicles’ are not for just any vocal Cadillac are they?

Since I deem Thaïs a beautiful, well-polished, if dated, piece of exoticism well worth enjoying, I will also say that Fleming’s acting reminds one of pre-Stanislavskian times. Hers is not internalized acting of the Method School. She approaches her role as OUD — object of universal desire, a sort of generalized eroticism with Mae West-esque narcissistic preening or, as may be required, modest downcast-eyed shame & regret when her world’s-oldest profession is brought up, as it boringly often is by her doubting Thomas Athanaël, or joy and happiness as the Gates of Heaven open to her. The smile is always there, always the same smile, and very beautiful. The sculpted visage has no better side for all sides are perfect; she is at ease and relaxed in every stance, and seems to be having a good time, even when playing a bad time. Well hell — did Bette Davis ever play anything other than Bette Davis? But could Bette sing a sustained high-C? You get my point. Fleming’s invocation of Venus over the fuming senseur in Act II was so ravishingly sung and given an HD, Gloria Swanson close-up — it easily passed inspection. If you are bothered by full Monty operatic camp, maybe this parable of Egyptian Christianity is not for you, but if high style, haute exotisme, played and sung with energy and aplomb move you, as it did this observer, then the Met’s 2008 production should be just your cup of almond tea. Go for it! In terms of the style and time in which Massenet’s opera was written, one could argue we saw ideally realized star vehicle. And it was musical perfection.

J. A. Van Sant © 2008

image=http://www.operatoday.com/THAIS_Fleming_as_Thais_1327.png image_description=Renée Fleming as Thais [Photo by Ken Howard courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera] product=yes product_title=J. Massenet: Thaïs product_by=Thaïs (Renée Fleming); Nicias (Michael Schade); Athanaël (Thomas Hampso); Palémon (Alain Vernhes); Crobyle (Alyson Cambridge); Myrtale (Ginger Costa-Jackson); La Charmeuse (Leah Partridge); Albine (Maria Zifchak). The Metropolitan Opera. David Chan, concert master. Jesús López-Cobos, conducting. product_id=Above: Renée Fleming as Thais

All photos by Ken Howard courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera

PUCCINI: Suor Angelica — La Scala 2008

Composed by Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Giovacchino Forzano.

First Performance: 14 December 1918, Metropolitan Opera, New York

Principal Roles:
Suor Angelica	Soprano
La Zia Principessa [The Princess, her aunt]	Contralto
La Badessa [The Abbess]	Mezzo-Soprano
La Suora Zelatrice [The Monitress]	Mezzo-Soprano
La Maestra delle Novizie [The Mistress of the novices]	Mezzo-Soprano
Suor Genoveffa	Soprano
Suor Osmina	Soprano
Suor Dolcina	Soprano
La suora infermiera [The nursing sister]	Mezzo-Soprano
Le cercatrici [The alms sisters]	Soprano and Mezzo-Soprano
Le novizie [The novices]	Soprano and Mezzo-Soprano
Le converse [The lay sisters]	Soprano and Mezzo-Soprano

Setting:The courtyard of a convent, towards the end of the 17th century

Synopsis:

As the nuns talk and attend to their duties, the question of earthly desires is raised. Suor Genovieffa confesses that she would love to hold a lamb again and Suor Dolcina longs for rich food. Suor Angelica says that she has no unfulfilled wishes, but her colleagues do not believe her, as they know she has been longing to hear from her noble family for seven years, since she had been forced to enter the convent. One of the sisters has been stung by a wasp and Angelica, who has extensive herbal know-ledge, provides the appropriate medication. Two nuns who have been out in the world in search of food report that a fine carriage is outside the gates, but are unable to answer Angelica’s questions about its coat of arms. She is summoned by the abbess: her aunt the princess has come to see her, not from sympathy but because, as the legal guardian of Angelica and her sister Anna Viola, she needs Angelica’s signature to a document. Anna Viola is to be married, to a man, she adds harshly, who has forgiven the stain on the family honor caused by Angelica’s sin.

Angelica longs for news of her baby son, but is told that he had died. Left alone in her grief, she mixes a fatal brew and drinks it. Realising that she has committed a mortal sin, she prays for forgiveness. As she dies she sees a vision of the Virgin leading her child to her.

[Synopsis Source: Opera~Opera]

Click here for the complete libretti of Il trittico.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Angelica.png image_description=Giacomo Puccini: Suor Angelica audio=yes first_audio_name=Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Suor Angelica
WinAMP or VLC first_audio_link=http://www.operatoday.com/Angelica1.m3u product=yes product_title=Giacomo Puccini: Suor Angelica product_by=Suor Angelica (Barbara Frittoli); La Zia Principessa (Mariana Lipovšek); Badessa (Cinzia De Mola); La Suora Zelatrice (Anita Raveli); La Maestra delle Novizie (Alessandra Palomba); Suor Genoveffa (Francesca Sassu); Suor Osmina (Francesca Garbi); Suor Dolcina (Carla Di Censo); La suora infermiera (Dionisia Di Vico); Una novizia (Irina Kapanadze); Le cercatrice (Sae Kyung Rim and Adelina Scarabelli); Le converse (Anna Zoroberto and Sabina Cacioppo). Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala. Riccardo Chailly, conducting. Live performance: 13 March 2008, Milan.

Silja Dons Rubber Breasts, Creepy Makeup as Child-Eating Witch

Warwick Thompson [Bloomberg.com, 19 December 2008]

Anja Silja glides into view caked in makeup and dangling rubber breasts. She licks her lips at the sight of some tasty children, covers up her decolletage, and approaches her prey with the aid of a walker.

Carl Orff, the composer who lived a monstrous lie

Richard Morrison [Times Online, 19 December 2008]

The opening line of Carmina Burana - “O Fortuna!” - could hardly be more apt. Few composers felt themselves more at the mercy of capricious gods and twists of fate than its composer, Carl Orff. He was never a diehard Nazi; indeed, he looked with disdain on their oafish cultural values. Far from espousing the hounding of “inferior races”, he was fascinated by jazz and by what today we would call world music. Yet he rose to become one of the Third Reich’s top musicians.

Cecilia Bartoli at the Barbican

Neil Fisher [Times Online, 19 December 2008]

Never underestimate Cecilia Bartoli. If she packs light, she still packs a punch. And if anyone felt short-changed before this sedate-sounding evening of bel-canto salon songs, or, as she called it, a Soirée Rossiniana, they could hardly have complained afterwards.

A ‘Messiah’ as Handel Might Have Heard It

By Steve Smith [NY Times, 18 December 2008]

Historically informed performance practice in Baroque music is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the New York Philharmonic. But with each presentation of Handel’s “Messiah” since the orchestra began to plant the work among its December activities a few years ago has come a greater ease and authority in the lean, lithe style familiar from performances and recordings by period-instrument ensembles and groups influenced by them.

I mori di Valenza — Ponchielli’s Unfinished Opera

Donizetti never finished his Le duc d’albe, Meyerbeer his Africaine, Schubert his last symphony, Halevy his Noe, and Ponchielli his Mori di Valenza. Ponchielli’s failure to finish this project is a great shame. He worked on it around 1874-75, shortly before the first version of La gioconda, when he was at the height of his powers. The opera had to wait almost 40 years, until before the start of the First World War until Arturo Cadore, a great admirer of the composer’s, set out to finish the job. Fortunately, he was able to do so using essentially Ponchielli’s style to compose the missing fourth act, and to orchestrate the rest of the score.

It was finally performed at the Palais Garnier in Monte Carlo on March 17, 1914 with Lydia Lipkowska as Elèma, Jacqueline Royer as Carmine, a very young Giovanni Martinelli as Fernando, George Baklanoff as Delascar, and Roberto Marvini as the king. It was given in the Milan Arena that July, and finally in Cremona during the ensuing Carnival season. It was seriously considered for the 1958 season in Cremona, but the city authorities decided against it.

Bongiovanni has previously performed a tremendous service to opera lovers by releasing live performances of less well known operas performed in Italy, including many unusual works by composers like Cimarosa, Donizetti, Giordano, Mercadante, Ponchielli, Rossini, and many others. But this recording seems to be different. Rather than being an actual performance at a theater, the booklet mentions a recording in the auditorium in Castelfidardo, and the Sala Maffei in Cremona during January 2007. Let us hope that this will be the first of many such recordings, and that, if no live performances are forthcoming, works like Ponchielli’s Figliuol Prodigo, Mercadante’s I Normanni a Parigi and I briganti as well as Pacini’s Arabi nelle Gallie, Bondelmonte and Lorenzino de’Medici will get the same treatment.

The action of the opera takes place in Madrid and Valencia in the early 17th century, at a time when a large contingent of Moors was still living openly in Spain, and allowed to practice their religion.

Act I takes place in Valencia: As the opera starts, Delascar, head of the Moors , is reading a note that his son has been imprisoned, and sentenced to death. Elèma, his beautiful daughter tells her father that she could save her brother, if only she could speak to the king. Elèma reminds Delascar that she had met King Phillip five years earlier, when he was a guest at Delascar’s home. She had been picking flowers, giving him one as he passed. The king was evidently very taken with her. He kissed the flower, telling her that should she ever need a favor, it was her’s for the asking. He even wrote this on a scrap of paper and gave it to her. Elèma relates the story to her father, but he is doubtful, reminding her that the king is a servant of Rome. Just then, trumpets announce the arrival of an old Spanish knight, Giovanni d’Aguilar, who is a friend of Delascar’s. D’Aguilar, his daughter, Carmine, and her bethrothed, Fernando d’Alabayda, are all on their way to Madrid. Delascar asks D’Aguilar to take Elèma with him to Madrid and introduce her to the King. Of course, D’Aguilar agrees.

During the finale of the first act, Fernando, who had not yet met Elèma admires her beauty and momentarily forgets about Carmine, while Carmine and Elèma become friendly. All the principals leave for Madrid except Delascar.

Act II is in two scenes. The first takes place at the D’Aguilar palace. Elèma admits to Carmine that she is in love when Fernando enters. He tells them that Elèma is thought to be the courtesan of the king, but assures Elèma that he does not believe this to be true, and that he will defend her at all costs. From Fernando’s behavior, Carmine senses that he no longer loves her, but loves Elèma instead.

The scene changes to the gardens of the Buen Ritiro in Madrid. After the chorus comments on what they perceive to be the king’s new mistress (Elèma, of course), Fernando, alone, expresses guilt feelings about now loving Elèma instead of Carmine. Just then, Elèma and the king enter. The king asks Fernando about Carmine, but he just bows and leaves. Elèma asks the king to intercede in favor of the moors, when the latter names his price: a word of love from her, which she refuses, saying that she fears the resulting scorn. The Duke of Lerma enters, telling the king that Fernando has dared to draw his sword in the royal palace. The latter asks for an explanation, and Fernando tells him that a lady’s honor was outraged, pointing to Elèma. The king approves Fernando’s action, asks Elèma for her arm and reminds the courtiers that it is he who reigns.

Act III takes place in the throne room of the royal palace. Carmine, alone, muses about the recent happenings, and realizes that Elèma did not want to steal Fernando’s love from her. Elèma enters, Carmine tells her that she will be her friend in joy and sorrow, and then leaves. Alone, Elèma states that she will go away, but that she wants Carmine to marry Fernando tomorrow. Fernando enters and tells Elèma that he will leave Spain forever the next day. Asked about Carmine, he says that she will forget him. Elèma replies that Carmine will die if he leaves, and begs him for mercy. Fernando states his love for Elèma who inadvertently admits that she loves him in return. He is now happy, but she orders him to marry Carmine tomorrow, which Fernando agrees to do. A crowd is heard screaming and yelling, as they chase an old Moorish man. Fernando runs out with his sword to save him — it is Delascar.

The King, alone, enters with a paper in his hand. It is the edict which would expel the moors that the Duke of Lerma and his followers want him to sign. He says to himself that only Elèma could save her people by becoming the queen of his heart. The Duke of Lerma announces Carmine. Knowing her to be Elema’s friend, the king expresses hope. When he realizes her entreaties have nothing to do with Elema, he becomes furious and signs the document, then announces this to Lerma and the courtiers. Delascar tries to object, but the king tells him it is too late — the decree has been signed. The king also has Fernando thrown into prison for daring to threaten his person.

In Act IV, the moors have returned to Valencia where they plan to board ships for Morocco. They are bitterly lamenting the need to leave Spain, which had been their home for seven centuries, while Delascar expresses his outrage about his daughter’s readiness to sacrifice their honor. He tells the chorus that he plans to join them in exile. They leave, Elèma enters with Carmine, telling her that she will soon be married to Fernando. The latter is brought in by the king, who frees him, and tells him to marry Carmine. Leaving, the king tells Elèma that she will obtain from him all that she wished. Left alone, Elèma expresses her misery at Fernando’s choosing Carmine (forgetting that she had ordered him to),and starts to pray. Her father, entering, tells her that the king has signed a pardon for Delascar, and asks her to what she owes this favor. She replies: “to my prayers, to your daughter’s tears”. He tells her that she prayed for him in vain, that it is his duty to share the fate of his brothers, and hers to follow him. He seems willing to forgive her for the shame she has caused him, but, when she continues to refuse, because love keeps her there, he curses her and stabs her with his dagger. The king and the others enter, as Elèma dies sweetly in Fernando’s arms..

I mori diValenza is the fourth of Ponchielli’s neglected other operas to become available on CD. I Lituani, originally issued on LP in 1979 had been the first of these. This was followed by a long drought, with no further Ponchielli operas showing up in stores until the 21st century, when there was a revival of Marion Delorme in Montpellier, France, which was issued on the Accord label. More recently, I promessi Sposi was given as a concert in Sondalo, Italy, and released by Bongiovanni , followed by I Mori di Valenza on the same label in 2007. I am confident that more of Ponchielli’s works will turn up in the coming years.

Musically, I mori di Valenza has many similarities to La gioconda, but is not quite on the level as the better known work, although that might have been a bit too much to expect. La gioconda is one of the great masterpieces of Italian opera, and has long been a staple of the standard repertory, with the exception of Northern Europe and France. Perhaps, the most striking similarities are between the two soprano roles, both heroines have the same self-sacrificing nature, and both being killed at the end by the baritone.

The two principal roles in Mori di Valenza are Elèma with three arias and Delascar with two. They also have two major duets. They are interpreted by Natalia Margarit and Maurizio Zanchetti respectively. Both are fine singers, although neither has as yet attained stardom and both took part in the previously mentioned concert of I Promessi Sposi in Sondalo. Margarit has also recorded a solo CD of arias from mostly unfamiliar works on the Bongiovanni label, while Zanchetti recorded a complete Chatterton by Leoncavallo for the same firm. The other roles are all taken by other promising young singers.

This recording can be highly recommended to all lovers of Italian opera, but especially those who enjoy Ponchielli and La gioconda.

Tom Kaufman

image=http://www.operatoday.com/I_mori.png image_description=Amilcare Ponchielli: I mori di Valenza product=yes product_title=Amilcare Ponchielli: I mori di Valenza product_by=Natalia Margarit, Maurizio Zanchetti, Luigi Frattola, Caterina Novak, Alessandro Arena, Orchestra Filarmonica Ucraina Di Donetsk, Coro Ponchielli-Vertova Di Cremona, Silvano Frontalini. product_id=Bongiovanni GB 2419/20-2 [2CDs] price=$45.99 product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=9606&name_role1=1&bcorder=1&comp_id=150523

Keith Jameson — Comprimario Extraordinaire

Appearing as the young Novice in Benjamin Britten’s shipboard tragedy, Billy Budd, in Santa Fe Opera’s 2008 season, Jameson proved what he can do most impressively. His young novice sailor first appears shirtless and scarred with lash marks, the victim of a sadistic master-at-arms (John Claggart), and the cruelty of life at sea; later, he must confront Claggart and plead for mercy at the hands of a sadist in a highly emotional scene. Sounds like a daunting assignment for a 40-year old singer who grew up in a small town in South Carolina. How does he do it, and how does he manage to look and sound a crazed lad of 25?

“I am at least as much actor as singer,” Jameson explained when I asked him. “The two arts cannot be separated.” He seems disarmingly mild off stage, modest of build with blue eyes and dark hair, an infectious grin and gentle mien, which can explode into unexpected fireworks onstage in the heat of performance.

“Ben Britten is my favorite kind of music and I hope to do a lot more of it,” Jameson said. Thus far he has sung Peter Quint in Turn of the Screw, and in Britten’s Curlew River, as well as some of the British master’s choral and sacred music, and has his eye on the ingénue role of Albert Herring, in that captivating comedy of village ‘types’ and coming-of-independence. “I almost want to live in England, and specialize in Britten and in Baroque music,” Jameson admits. He would doubtless be welcome, with musicianship grounded in far more education than most professional singers enjoy.

After music and vocal studies at college in South Carolina, Jameson joined the Eastman School at Rochester, N. Y., and earned a Master’s Degree in conducting and Doctorate of Musical Performance in voice. “I tried choral conducting and a bit of teaching, but my real love is singing. I most love to perform on stage and make acting and musical expression become one unified experience – for both performers and audience. I just live for it,” he beams. Jameson continues to refine his art and with good results. “For about a year now I’ve been working with a new teacher in New York, opening the voice, and that volume you heard in the high range in Billy Budd is a result. Vocal growth has opened a wider horizon for me.”

Keith Jameson as Peter Quint, with Lisa Houben as Miss Jessel, in The Turn of the Screw, Opera Royal de Wallonie in Liege, Belgium, April 2007 [Photo courtesy of ORW]

“ When the Novice is dragged before Claggart he is a terrified, humiliated boy, and he begs for mercy, virtually for his life. He’ll do anything to avoid further physical cruelty,” Jameson explains. In the face of the boy’s screaming agony, Peter Rose, the powerful English bass impersonating Claggart, maintained an almost eerie cool, his low-keyed response creating a tremendous tension in the scene. “It’s hard work to set up such extreme contrasts and takes stamina and real acting; that is why I loved doing it. And playing against Peter Rose is something special,” Jameson found. Few in his Santa Fe audience knew Jameson could sing with such passionate power, so his recent performance proved an exciting revelation.

Jameson sees plenty of years ahead as operatic tenor, but when I asked if he eventually planned to become a teacher, his reply was immediate: “No indeed, I want to run an opera company” (This guy is full of surprises!) “I’m serious,” he continued. “I have started a small chamber music festival, January each year a time that needs a seasonal pick-up – and I present at my Southern home town a musical stage performance, some sacred music and a program of pure chamber music, and I want to make that grow into a music festival in due time that specializes in presenting American opera.” He cites the example of another character tenor and former Santa Fe performer, Darren Keith Woods, who switched from performance to management and is now the successful general director of the Ft. Worth opera, which he converted from conventional company into an annual opera festival. “Darren has shown us how, so here is hoping,” Jameson said. “But I have many roles to play and many songs to sing before that happens.”

Dr. Jameson has earned an exciting professional future, whatever form it takes.

J. A. Van Sant © 2008

Keith Jameson as Nanki-Poo and Anna Christy as Yum-Yum in Jonathan Miller's production of The Mikada, New York City Opera and English National Opera [Photo courtesy of English National Opera] image=http://www.operatoday.com/Jameson_Candide.png image_description=Keith Jameson in the title role of Candide, New York City Opera product=yes product_title=Keith Jameson — Comprimario Extraordinaire product_by= product_id=Above: Keith Jameson in the title role of Candide, New York City Opera

A gift of music

[Baltimore Sun, 14 December 2008]

Cultural organizations are taking a beating during the economic downturn, and to recover, they’ll more than ever need to retain the devotion of audiences who have supported them for years. That’s why the Baltimore Opera Company, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, should figure out a way to show its appreciation for all those who bought tickets for scheduled productions that have been canceled.

Cheers before bedtime

Fiona Maddocks [The Observer, Sunday 14 December 2008]

Trouble should be in the air the moment the tipsy husband lurches in greeting his wife with ‘Hello Mother’, then jumps on top of her while the children are gnawing the furniture next door. You can throw all of Freud at the hungry household of Hänsel und Gretel, where dysfunction rules and the Brothers Grimm are at their darkest.

Jake Heggie's 'Three Decembers'

Joshua Kosman [SF Chronicle, 13 December 2008]

It’s a rare theatrical work that offers its own most withering critique, but “Three Decembers” - the tiresome new chamber opera by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer that opened a brief three-performance run on Thursday in UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall - is one.

'Tristan und Isolde' alive and gripping at the Met

By Scott Cantrell [Dallas Morning News, 13 December 2008]

NEW YORK—For both performers and audiences, an opera as long as Tristan und Isolde —five hours Friday night at the Metropolitan Opera —challenges concentration. Imagine then, just off the center of your view of the Met stage, a woman fiddling with her PDA, flashing green light and all. That was my experience for the first 30 minutes of the opera’s last act Friday. Oh, for some of Isolde’s death potion…

PUCCINI: Il Tabarro — La Scala 2008

Music composed by Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Giuseppe Adami based on Didier Gold’s play La houppelande.

First Performance: 14 December 1918, Metropolitan Opera, New York

Principal Roles:
Michele, a barge-owner (age 50)	Baritone
Giorgetta, Michele’s wife (age 25)	Soprano
Luigi, a stevedore (age 20)	Tenor
Il ‘Tinca,’ a stevedore (age 35)	Tenor
Il ‘Talpa,’ a stevedore (age 55)	Bass
La Frugola, Talpa’s wife	Mezzo-Soprano

Setting: A bank of the river Seine, Paris, 1910

Synopsis:

The stevedores relax with a drink and dance after the day's work. Michele is moody, aware that Giorgetta no longer returns his love. Frugola comes to collect her husband Talpa. Luigi's reflections on the futility of existence cause the others to relate their dreams of happiness: Frugola's in a cottage with her cat, Giorgetta's in Paris instead of on the dreary barge. She and Luigi realise that they came from the same village near Paris and recall its pleasures.

Luigi and Giorgetta arrange an assignation for later that night, but then he surprises her by asking Michele to leave him in Rouen on the next trip. He explains to Giorgetta that he cannot bear to share her with her husband, but agrees to come on board when she lights a match as a signal. Michele asks Giorgetta why she no longer loves him and both reflect sadly on how their lives have changed since the death of their child. She evades his question and goes inside, while he broods over the likelihood that she has a lover, dismissing Luigi as a possibility because of his request to go to Rouen.

He lights his pipe and Luigi, believing this to be the signal, comes on board. Michele forces him to admit his love for Giorgetta, then strangles him and hides the body under his cloak. He invites Giorgetta to protect herself from the night air under his cloak as she used to, flinging it open to reveal Luigi's body.

[Synopsis Source: Opera~Opera]

Click here for the complete libretti of Il Trittico.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Iltabarro-poster.png image_description=Il Tabarro Poster audio=yes first_audio_name=Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Il Tabarro
WinAMP or VLC first_audio_link=http://www.operatoday.com/Tabarro1.m3u product=yes product_title=G. Puccini: Il Tabarro product_by=Michele (Juan Pons); Luigi (Miroslav Dvorsky); Tinca (Carlo Bosi); Talpa (Luigi Roni); Giorgetta (Paoletta Marrocu); Frugola (Anna Maria Chiuri); A ballad-seller (Andrea Caré); A lover (Leonardo Cortellazzi); A lover (Ye Won Joo). Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala. Riccardo Chailly, conducting. Live performance, 13 March 2008, Milan.

Note: There is an echo during a portion of this performance attributable to the RAI broadcast, the original source.

Riders to the Sea — English National Opera, London Coliseum

Nobody could have anticipated that the 60-year-old conductor would suffer a fatal heart attack only four days before ENO’s opening night.

The show went on in Hickox’s memory, led by ENO’s Music Director Edward Gardner, who had the difficult task of taking on the project in such sad circumstances. And Vaughan Williams’s opera, based on a play by J.M. Synge, is a grim work by anybody’s standards. A peasant woman, Maurya, lives in a coastal hut in the Aran Islands and has had two daughters and six sons; four of the sons, along with their father and grandfather, have already had their lives claimed by the sea. The fifth is missing, believed drowned, and fate dictates it is only a matter of time before the sixth is similarly lost. In the space of forty-five minutes, both are confirmed dead.

This was an impressive opera-directorial début by the actress and theatrical director Fiona Shaw, who created an emotionally-intense dynamic within what’s left of Maurya’s family. Their house is delineated by lighting only; there are no walls, so there is never any escape from the elements. Huge, shadowy upturned boat-hulls descend from above the stage, surreal and coffin-like. Tom Pye’s wonderfully bleak, craggy set is suggestive of a place which exists outside of the progress of time; a primaeval wasteland where nothing ever changes and all human life is in thrall to the will of nature.

In her final monologue, Maurya finds her anticipated devastation supplanted by a sense of relief and comfort that her life is no longer burdened by the certain knowledge of the destiny which awaits all of her menfolk; in one sense it is a small personal victory over nature, albeit in the context of an acknowledgement of human powerlessness. Mezzo Patricia Bardon was extraordinary in this scene, imbuing the music’s lyrical lines with an radiance that contrasts vividly with the terseness of her earlier anguished dialogue.

Sopranos Kate Valentine and Claire Booth, both making their ENO débuts, portrayed Maurya’s two daughters with emotional intelligence and excellent diction. Leigh Melrose — too long absent from the stage of the Coliseum — was ideal as the angry, burdened Bartley, the last surviving son.

The opera is well under an hour in length, and rather than staging it as a double bill with another short work, it was done with a curtain-raiser — Luonnotar, Sibelius’s 15-minute monologue for solo soprano, in a simple staging against the backdrop of Dorothy Cross’s unnervingly beautiful video projections. Singing in the original Finnish, and suspended in the centre of the stage in an eerie monolith which transpired to be one of the fateful boat-hulls, Susan Gritton was wonderful as the eponymous air-spirit who becomes trapped in the sea and inadvertently gives birth to the moon and stars. It was an inspired choice of opener, introducing the relationship between the sea and the eternal themes of birth, life, death and maternal grief which Riders goes on to explore further.

(left to right) Patricia Bardon as Maurya, Leigh Melrose as Bartley and Kate Valentine as Cathleen

The production integrates the two works fully, joining them into a single piece with a specially-commissioned interlude by John Woolrich, an organic-sounding progression of abstract chords. Not only does the pregnant Luonnotar open the performance — she closes it too, re-emerging onto the stage outside Maurya’s empty home, seemingly ready to give birth once more and perpetuate the cycle of motherhood.

Susan Gritton as Luonnotar

The orchestral playing was powerful, lyrical and atmospheric in what is mostly very subtle and understated music; the standard was a fitting tribute to the late Hickox. It was a superb performance by a fine cast in an excellent production — but it was never going to be a cheerful experience.

Ruth Elleson © 2008

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Raiders_to_the_Sea_010.png image_description=Patricia Bardon as Maurya [Photo by Clive Barda courtesy of English National Opera] product=yes product_title=Ralph Vaughan Williams: Riders to the Sea
Jean Sibelius: Luonnotar product_by=Luonnotar: Susan Gritton (soprano)
Riders to the Sea: Maurya, an old woman (Patricia Bardon); Bartley, her son (Leigh Melrose); Cathleen, her daughter (Kate Valentine); Nora, her younger daughter (Claire Booth); A woman (Madeleine Shaw); Michael (non speaking role) (Oliver Kieran-Jones). Actors: Ray Alley, Darren Everest, Simon Johns, Paul Joseph, Stephen O'Toole, Sebastian Rose. English National Opera. Conductor: Edward Gardner. Director: Fiona Shaw. Designers: Dorothy Cross, Tom Pye. Lighting designer: Jean Kalman. product_id=Above: Patricia Bardon as Maurya

All photos by Clive Barda courtesy of English National Opera

Der Fliegende Holländer — London Lyric Opera, Barbican Hall

Plans are afoot for a Fidelio at Cadogan Hall in February 2009, and after that, Die Fledermaus and Der Freischütz.

It is unclear whether there might be an intention in the more distant future to broaden the company’s scope beyond the German language, but perhaps there shouldn’t be. Although LLO is selecting well-known operas, it is also actively seeking out unusual and historically-valid performance editions. The UK is virtually flooded with companies doing the same for Baroque opera, and for Italian bel canto rarities, but there hasn’t really been anybody around to take an equivalent interest in the core German repertoire — until now.

The company’s founder and mastermind is the Australian baritone James Hancock, and this inaugural concert was the fulfilment of his long-held desire to perform the title role. Hancock used to be a tenor, and his voice remains higher-lying than the role demands; more worryingly, his voice simply dried out as the evening went on, and by the end of Act 2 there was really no ‘juice’ left. Though it is the fashion these days to preserve the dramatic flow of the opera by going straight through without intervals (as Wagner had intended at the outset), the two breaks in this performance were a practical necessity. Karl Huml seemed somewhat too high for Daland, too, and I couldn't help wondering whether he would have fared better in the title role.

The performance’s unquestionable highlight was the British soprano, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, making her role début as Senta. Lyrical and muscular of tone, with an assured stage presence and innate sense of drama, she captured the supreme emotional focus of Wagner’s early heroine in her desperation to break out of her downtrodden existence. This ‘authentic’ performance edition has the Ballad in its original A minor, a tone higher than the familiar key, and it fit Jeffers’s athletic soprano like a glove.

Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts is neither a natural Wagnerian nor a natural love interest, but his psychologically intense and highly-charged Erik was a fitting foil for Jeffers’s Senta. Their pairing was a highly intelligent piece of casting, and their scenes together were in a different league to the rest of the opera. If only there had been such chemistry between Senta and the Dutchman.

Tenor Richard Roberts’s dopey characterisation of the Steersman was engaging, though his opening song was something of a struggle; he was quite plainly suffering from a cold, though no announcement was made.

The soft lyrical passage at the end of Senta’s ballad defeated the ladies of the Philharmonia Chorus, but their male colleagues were a strong and lusty Norwegian crew; I’m sure there was nothing wrong with those who supplied the voices of the ghostly Dutch crew, but there was some nasty distortion on the amplification system which piped their rousing chorus through from offstage. Veteran conductor Lionel Friend — who was responsible for the research into the performing edition — made some strange tempo choices, but the RPO generally sounded full and energetic, a few cracked brass notes aside.

All in all, the performance would have benefited from better-balanced casting; Jeffers was just so good that she showed everybody else up. And better marketing would help ticket sales and thus financial viability; the Barbican Hall’s stalls were quite full, but there was plenty of space in the Circle and they didn’t even bother to open the Balcony. If they can sort these things out, London Lyric Opera could be an enduring success.

Ruth Elleson © 2008

image=http://www.operatoday.com/ghostship1.png image_description=Ghost Ship by Charles Cochrane product=yes product_title=R. Wagner: Der Fliegende Holländer product_by=Senta (Gweneth-Ann Jeffers); Holländer (James Hancock); Erik (Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts); Daland (Karl Huml); Mary (Anne-Marie Owens); Steuermann (Richard Roberts). London Lyric Opera. Lionel Friend, conducting. product_id=Above: Ghost Ship by Charles Cochrane

When Water Sprites Go Bad in Brussels

So why did I simultaneously find it so eye-catching, and so terribly exasperating?

Let’s first look at the source material The Little Mermaid story, as cleanly adapted by Jaroslav Kvapil and beautifully musicalized by Antonin Dvořák, shall we? Mysterious, melancholic, bittersweet, it is a journey prompted by our heroine’s romantic longing, deeply rooted in nature, and marked by spiritual conflicts and the moral consequences of love’s decisions. Dvořák’s masterful score somewhat loosely strings together solos and ensembles, some of it folk-inspired, all of it sublimely Romantic. And while the composer is never overtly programmatic, it is hard to escape the evocation of the moon, the water, the elements.

Now let’s talk about Wunderkind director Stefan Herheim’s spin on all this. Mr. Herheim has been building quite an impressive resume with high profile productions, such as last summer’s Bayreuth Parsifal. Based solely on this Rusalka, I fear that his reputation exceeds him.

The colossal realistic stage setting (excellently realized by Heike Scheele) seems to be an unidentified Belgian street corner, complete with a subway entrance, church, corner store-slash-apartment building and an Edward Hopper-like diner, alternately topped by a neon sign “Luna-tic” or “Solaris.” With a nod to nature, a tree with copious drooping branches fills one side of the street. The period is rather indeterminate, but it seems to center mostly on the 60’s, if most of Gesine Völlm’s witty costumes are any indication.

The curtain rises without music. A driving rainstorm with sound effects is in progress. Commuters play out a bustling scene. A sympathetic street person hawks flowers at the subway entrance, a couple wrestles with shopping bags, and a youth with a violin case and a red hat asks directions to some address or another. The action is full of detail. Then we find the scene being exactly repeated with the same signature bits. And again. There had to have been a full five minutes of this looped, repetitive pantomime.

And then. . .

A prostitute appears down left and poses on the proscenium. Lithe, blond-wigged, in a silver lame mini-skirt, jacket and matching thigh-high go-go boots, we have at last met our heroine. The music finally begins, sounding jarringly out of sync with the visuals.

The Water Goblin here becomes a downtrodden, at times psychotic, ax-wielding businessman, married to a red-dressed and -haired harridan, who turns out to be the Foreign Princess. They live in a balconied flat over a shop, in which graffiti-ed Rolladen open to reveal a show window that, over the evening, is at times a sex shop with dancing inflatable dolls, a bridal shop with three mannequins on display (one turns out to be Rusalka), or a butcher shop hung with three dressed pigs (none of which thankfully turn out to be anybody!).

The tortured Mr. Goblin is solicited by Rusalka on the way home, after which he pretty much has this sexual dynamic going on with her throughout, at one point chasing her, physically abusing her and beginning to rape her, only to find that he can’t. (Whew, incest with his daughter was averted in a show of rare restraint.)

During the “Song to the Moon,” Rusalka is elevated on a round advertising kiosk that arises from the floor, with a sort of bubble-light aquarium effect and a poster advertising “Poisson” cologne (it later curiously turns to become a replica of Monnaie’s real poster advertising this very performance). If you guessed that the “Luna-tic” sign somehow figured into this aria, you figured wrong. Instead, four satellite dishes on the buildings dipped toward Rusalka in individually spotlit obeisance. In verse two, lighting effects (superb work all night long by Wolfgang Göbbel) within the curtained apartments clearly indicated that everyone was suddenly watching television.

This was important, since after Rusalka invokes the name of Jezibaba, Water Goblin angrily hurls his box-style TV from the balcony to crash and explode in red flames becoming, one must suppose, the stove with red flames burning in the witch’s hut. Except there is no hut. Jezibaba is the very masculine looking street person. And so the director’s re-invention goes.

The Prince is a randy sailor returning home; the Gamekeeper in Act II here becomes a Butcher; the Hunter, a pot-smoking Peace-nik; the Kitchen Boy is an extra whose vocal part is taken instead by a Policeman; and if I have kept this all straight, Act III’s Gamekeeper has become a Priest.

In Act II, when the Prince is flirting with and being tempted by the Foreign Princess (who is Goblin’s wife, remember?), Rusalka passively discovers them from the start in bed together in a boudoir set up right in the street, an idea straight out of Evita’s Act I Harold Prince Finale. The great wedding celebration (well-prepared by choral director Piers Maxim) exceeds any Walpurgisnacht scene you can imagine with the chorus women in cartoonishly detailed padded nude body suits with distended buttocks, bloated bellies and drooping, pendulous breasts that would not be out of place in an Otto Dix painting. Later on, the ladies put on nun’s habits over this, but subsequently shuck them to copulate and debauch. For those of you who longed for a return to this 80’s Euro-stage-nun-as-bare-breasted-coitus-obsessed-saint-whore-cliche, well, it must have brought a tear to your eye.

The men are in garish Carnival costumes, one sporting a focus-stealing gigantic blue Afro, and there was enough gleaming foil confetti thrown to smother Antwerp. Having dressed Goblin up as Neptune and given him a hand mike, he and some revelers appeared in the house, engulfing us in confetti, too. I was thanking my lucky stars I was not on the janitorial staff here. In the midst of all of this, Rusalka flew in atop a crescent moon wearing a dazzling silver dress, swathed in a sparkling blue cape, and looking like the Virgin Mary. Soon, a retractable knife appeared and in due time several leading characters got stabbed, staggered a bit, one actually fell “dead” but then, no one ever died, but took their licking and kept on ticking.

In Act III, there was, briefly, a pleasant projection of water effects on a scrim that rose to the full height of the proscenium. But lest we get too eager for a return to anything resembling the real story, it disappears and as the three Water Spirits sing in their final tableau, deeply disturbed Water Goblin stabs the Foreign (aka Mrs. Goblin) Princess to death in their second floor bedroom (finally someone stayed dead) . At opera’s end, as police tape off this crime scene and lead the killer away, Rusalka is back on the street in her opening silver lame costume, soliciting another businessman.

The truly surprising thing about all of this is that as long as you didn’t understand Czech or glance at the surtitles that were talking about woods and trees and lakes and moons and, well, Kvapil’s inconvenient story, this was highly entertaining visual theatre, with well-defined character relationships (taken on their own terms), engaging effects and dazzling technology. I have nothing but praise for the hard-working stage manager and technicians who never missed a trick over a long and complicated staging. Mirror panels rolled around, the diner tracked in and out, stools rose and fell, the subway got re-dressed as a tobacco shop, the church’s rose window spun, ditto the apartment facades. This was an astounding, fantastical technical achievement in which the house can take great pride.

In a way, we were getting two different shows for the price of one. For on the musical side, the orchestra offered a secure, persuasive reading under Adam Fischer’s experienced hand, playing with sensitivity and real fire. Only the final stinging phrases of Act II seemed a little tame in an otherwise passionate account. We were equally lucky with our first-rate cast.

Lean, attractive Olga Guryakova is a near-perfect Rusalka, with a rich throbbing lower and middle range, and a hint of metal in the hurled top notes that rode the orchestra with fine results. She negotiated her famous aria well, but although her piano high notes were skillfully floated they were not her strongest suit. Willard White is in the golden years of a remarkable career and his Water Goblin offered the usual persuasive musical instincts and mellow, pleasantly grainy bass-baritone. The redoubtable Doris Soffel never fails to give pleasure with her formidable voice and assured stage presence. I did feel that at this point in her own long career, Jezibaba stretched her to the limit and was not quite a perfect fit, with the awkward passages at the break not always easily negotiated. As the Foreign Princess, Stephanie Friede was somewhat hampered by a character interpretation that made her even less sympathetic than usual, but she sang with steely (occasionally edgy) tone and forceful conviction.

I felt that the principals were uniformly excellent in their dramatic embodiment and they rose to the challenges Mr. Herheim posed them with an uncommonly well-acted ensemble performance. However, this total immersion into a violence driven concept also encouraged them to get heated up and splay a top note here and there with a too-enthusiastic approach. Not so, the terrific Prince of Burkhard Fritz. While always in the moment, Mr. Fritz controlled his well-schooled (almost) Heldentenor and served up phrase after phrase characterized by warm-voiced, technically secure vocalism.

The Three Nymphs, good time girls and regulars at the “Luna-tic” Diner, were a delightful trio who not only blended well, but were also vocally and visually distinctive: Olesya Golovneva, Young Hee Kim, and Nona Javakhidze. Julian Hubbard (Hunter and Priest), André Grégoire (Butcher) and especially Marc Coulon (Policeman) made solid contributions.

So, on the one side we had considerable musical delights drawn by a leading conductor from an orchestra in top form and a team of A-list soloists. And on the other, we had a multi-talented production team being led in a consistent, love-it-or-hate-it-can’t-look-away-from-it vision by a director of substantial gifts. Hmmmm. . .

It has to be conceded that Brussels’ Rusalka is a wholly professional, brilliant, edgy, production. It just happens to be the wrong one.

James Sohre

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Rusalka_Brussels_poster.png image_description=Rusalka, De Munt/La Monnaie Opera product=yes product_title=Antonín Dvořák: Rusalka product_by=Rusalka (Olga Guryakova, Michaela Kaune (7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 21/12)); Prins (Burkhard Fritz, Ludovit Ludha (7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 21/12)); Vreemde prinses (Stephanie Friede, Anda-Louise Bogza (7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 21/12)); Vodník (Willard White, Frode Olsen (7, 13 16, 17/12)); Ježibaba (Doris Soffel, Livia Budai (7, 10, 13, 20/12)), Jager (Julian Hubbard); Eerste bosnimf (Olesya Golovneva); Tweede bosnimf (YoungHee Kim); Derde bosnimf (Nona Javakhidze); Slager (André Grégoire); Agent (Marc Coulon). De Munt/La Monnaie Opera. Conducting: Adam Fischer, Richard Lewis (13/12). Director: Stefan Herheim.

Curtain falls on opera companies as recession hits

Kelly Jane Torrance [Washington Times, 11 December 2008]

It’s not just business institutions that are in danger of economic extinction these days. Your local opera company could be next.

One Diva to Another: This Role Is Divine

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI [NY Times, 10 December 2008]

An opera company does not decide to mount a production of Massenet’s “Thaïs” and then look for a soprano to sing the title role. The only reason to produce this ultimate star vehicle today is that a company has a genuine star who wants to sing it.

Rusalka, La Monnaie, Brussels

By Francis Carlin [Financial Times, 10 December 2008]

If being a good artist is knowing when to stop, then Stefan Herheim’s staging of Dvorák’s best-loved opera fails the test. He and Krzysztof Warlikowski are part of a new generation of producers who have dumped misérabilisme and put the fun back into opera with extravagant sets and stimulating cross references.

Elektra, Avery Fisher Hall, New York

Strauss, world-famous, by 1907, for his orchestra-straining tone poems and, furthermore, the arch-hero-villain of the opera stage for his Salome, was looking for something still more monstrous, more gut-wrenching and soul-stopping and blood-chilling for a sequel — and having, in Elektra, explored ancient history’s most dysfunctional family, drew back from the pandemoniac abyss for the remainder of his long, largely placid career.

Elektra is extreme opera-going, its single act of an adamantine intensity and focus. And if opera companies can distract you by doing something grand or monstrous with the sets or the costumes or the final matricidal dance of triumph by the shattered, emotionally eviscerated heroine, to give the thing in concert, with nothing between you and the musical shock but a titling machine (which, if anything, enhances the horror of the story, the everyday terms of hate and vengeance), calls for a cast, an orchestra, a conductor willing to submit to the demands of horror to produce art.

The four performances of Elektra given by the New York Philharmonic this month achieved that horror, that intensity, that focus, that elevating shock. It was a performance to send chills up the spine. And, though concert it was, it was in a sense staged, for there was a bit of playing area around the conductor (and a ledge stage left for the serving maids and other walk-on parts — each with its brief but extreme demands), and the singers clearly had acted these roles before and gave us thrilling, fully acted performances (the final dance aside) of their ghastly roles.

Loren Maazel was the hero of the hour, a man in total control of his material and his instrument (hundred-headed, like the primeval giants mastered by Zeus). Each taut rhythm, each gristly underlying motif had its crisp, proper place, and yet each one sounded wild, impulsive, impromptu when it came; each bark or bleat or snarl of untamed animal concealed within the score (I’d never noticed before how many there are): dogs baying, wolves howling, cows pleading as they are rushed to slaughter, carrion birds exulting, snakes twining, horses screaming (they are said to have torn Orestes apart), to say nothing of the nameless horrors that fill Clytemnestra’s dreams (described by her in succulent, gruesome detail, as if confided not to a daughter but a psychoanalyst with an unfortunate agenda) and furies of every variety filling the air with contagious hysteria. Each accent of the stage action, illustrated by the score, fell into place with the implacable precision of one’s secret terrors. The orchestra played like gods of our inner underworlds, knowing just where to stretch and threaten and pretend to console.

Deborah Polaski, who has sung most of the more haggard ladies of the heroic repertory, from Kundry to Brunnhilde, knows where the dramatic hysteria lies in the title role and where it can relax. Her looks of scorn, of pretend sympathy, of self-pity when the return of Orestes recalls her to the innocent girl she once was enhanced her vocal portrayal of these facets of character. Her voice is still in fine shape, only the whispers of the duet with Orestes betraying a certain wear and tear. Never before had I noticed how very similar the sexless Elektra is to her artistic sister, Salome — another innocent who takes vengeance on the world for too terrible, too abrupt a knowledge of the evil lurking in a mother’s soul, a stepfather’s lust, a cruel, selfish society.

Anne Schwanewilms, who has made a name for herself singing Strauss and his contemporaries in such European capitals as Berlin, London and Chicago, sang Chrysothemis. It was especially enjoyable to note the interaction between her and Polaski, the latter’s contempt, the former’s exasperation and “must-she-go-on-like-this?” glances to heaven and earth to save her from her manic sister. She is a tall, handsome woman with a clear but light soprano, not an instrument (I would guess) to hold its own with the orchestra-combating extremes of Wagner or Verdi or even Strauss (Ariadne, say) but very right for Strauss’s soaring, less earthy roles: the Marschallin, Arabella, Aithra, Daphne. Chrysothemis’s yearning for simple life, her horror of the mythic emotions of the rest of her family, are intended to set those emotions in proper context, and she sang them with the feeling of a woman who knows she is trapped: she has mythologized the ordinary, and she lets us feel the pleasure of not being stuck in an epic ourselves.

Jane Henschel sang Clytemnestra. The role — a woman slowly being driven mad by guilt and apprehension — is often performed with an eldritch wreck of a voice, but Henschel, who has a beautiful low mezzo of heroic size (her Met debut was as the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten), reminded us of the lady’s past as a queen and a woman of passion; she did not wallow in sickly torment but projected her fear, her confusion, her tragedy in graceful, phrases that lost nothing in shock value by being beautiful. Elektra can see only evil in her mother, but Strauss saw something else, something once noble and womanly, the woman who gave birth to beautiful daughters, and Henschel gave us that woman as no Clytemnestra of my experience has done since Christa Ludwig.

The lesser roles were cast with care. Julian Tovey, making his New York debut, sings with a cool glamour but did not quite equal the ominous alarm awakened by the brasses at Orestes’s appearance, and Richard Margison sang ably but somewhat missed the comical quality that James King brought to the part in his final New York appearance, as Aegisthus in a concert Elektra at Carnegie Hall — a comedy the more troubling because we know he will be murdered the moment he leaves the stage. Among the many small parts, I especially enjoyed Matt Boehler as Orestes’s nervous tutor and Linda Pavelka’s surging phrases among the usually too-anonymous maidservants.

This concert will be repeated on Tuesday and Saturday, and broadcast on WQXR on December 18.

John Yohalem

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Elektra_Olbinski.png image_description=Elektra by Rafal Olbinski product=yes product_title= product_by=Elektra: Deborah Polaski; Chrysothemis: Anne Schwanewilms; Clytemnestra: Jane Henschel; Orestes: Julian Tovey; Aegisthus: Richard Margison; Young Servant: Ryan MacPherson; Tutor: Matt Boehler. Conducted by Lorin Maazel. New York Philharmonic, performance of December 6. product_id=Above: Elektra by Rafal Olbinski

Gatti, il Don Carlo e la Scala mancata

Alfredo Gasponi [Il Messaggero, 8 December 2008]

MILANO (8 dicembre) - I Don Carlo inaugurali della Scala sembrano destinati a non conoscere la tranquillità. E sempre per via del tenore che interpreta il ruolo del protagonista dell’opera di Verdi. Nel 1992 ci fu l’edizione turbata dalle due “scivolate” vocali di Luciano Pavarotti, che il pubblico contestò duramente. Stavolta la sostituzione di Giuseppe Filianoti con Stuart Neill ha agitato le acque nelle ore prima del debutto. Bisogna dire che il salvataggio operato da Neill non ha però funzionato come garanzia per il 43enne tenore americano, perché è stato comunque contestato alla fine.

Opera Australia on the rocks

Alan Jones [LiveNews, 8 December 2008]

My attention has been drawn to comments recently in the English magazine Opera concerning the late Richard Hickox, the former music director of Opera Australia.

Los Angeles Opera's 'Carmen'

By Richard S. Ginell [LA Times, 8 December 2008]

Los Angeles Opera’s holiday-season go at Bizet’s ever-popular tune fest “Carmen” underwent changes in three of the four leading roles Saturday night — all company debuts.

Parisina at the Festival Hall

Hilary Finch [Times Online, 8 December 2008]

Beware the green-eyed monster! Azzo, Duke of Ferrara, had rather more cause for his jealousy than Otello; but Donizetti’s rarely performed “melodramma”, composed half a century before Verdi’s opera, does have its pre-echoes, and it was one of the greatest successes of Donizetti’s lifetime.

The Damnation of Faust

By Kenneth Walton [The Scotsman, 8 December 2008]

IT WAS intended to be a highlight of the RSNO season. If I’m not wrong, Saturday’s memorable performance of Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust will ultimately prove to be the highlight of all the current orchestral seasons put together. It was an absolute knock-out.

La Scala swaps tenors for season opener

By Colleen Barry [AP, 7 December 2008]

MILAN, Italy (AP) — Leave it to La Scala to generate as much drama offstage as on.

The famed opera house threw its understudy into one of the most high-profile nights in opera Sunday night, removing tenor Giuseppe Filianoti for the season-opening premiere of “Don Carlo” after he made some mistakes during a dress rehearsal this week.

Barenboim, the busy B

By David Patrick Stearns [Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 December 2008]

NEW YORK - Being Daniel Barenboim gets you only so far in this town.

Glyndebourne on Tour — Theatre Royal, Plymouth

GTO is all about looking to the future: many of the young singers in the principal roles are getting their first chance to sing with a company of this standard, knowing that from here they may, if good enough, progress to not only the Glyndebourne Festival itself but also other major houses. Also, the operas are supported by the excellent GT Chorus, and a quick look back through their rosters over the years will reveal both in the Chorus and the supporting singers some well known names — the likes of Felicity Lott, Jill Gomez and Ryland Davies, to name just three who have gone on to international careers.

The other great thing about the Glyndebourne “brand” is their reputation for musical quality and long hours of essential rehearsal time, both assets that many similarly-sized outfits struggle to achieve in these straightened times. Young singers need nurturing, and given time to develop their technical and dramatic skills; I this regard I can think of few better companies than GTO. What a touring company can also do is teach them the other vital skill of the successful singer: working to the highest standard in testing circumstances. Long miles on the road, strange theatres, sometimes inadequate facilities, unknown audiences and, for many, the need to learn two or more parts from scratch — and then there is the singing itself.

All these skills were on display recently at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth where this writer caught both Flute and Carmen playing to full enthusiastic houses at the end of GTO’s Autumn Tour. Each was expertly directed, idiomatically conducted and played, and offered a high standard of vocalism. If Mozart’s renowned pot pourri of fairy-tale, panto, myth and Masonic ritual relied almost entirely on elegant 18th century costumes and a clever lighting rig for its effects, GTO brought the versatile set of guardroom/factory with them for Bizet’s Carmen, plus the full chorus in traditional Spanish costume. Each worked well, and if the Plymouth stage seemed a trifle cramped for the latter opera, it was perfect for Magic Flute. As with many of England’s modern “one-size-fits-all” theatres, the needs of versatility can sometimes work against the opera ideal — the Theatre Royal is a good medium-sized hall, comfortable and modern in its facilities both front and back stage, but acoustically offers some challenges to unamplified voices. This showed up most in the recitatives — in both operas — where more projection was needed than was sometimes supplied. Interestingly, this was not a problem once the singers actually sang with orchestra in their arias.

With so many excellent young artists on show over the two nights, one hesitates to mention particular names, as there were absolutely no “duds” in either pack, but this writer was not alone in noticing the fine, resonant, easy tone of the South Korean baritone Yonghoon Lee as Don José in the Bizet. From a hesitant first scene his voice blossomed into something quite special as he mixed bravura passages with finely-wrought pianissimos — a name to watch.

Theatre Royal, Plymouth. [Photo courtesy of thisisplymouth.co.uk]

Douglas Boyd (Flute) and Jakub Hrusa (Carmen) directed the excellent GT Orchestra who never seemed to put a foot wrong in either ensemble or obbligatos; fine playing on each night.

Sue Loder © 2008

image=http://www.operatoday.com/GTO_Flute.png image_description=Magic Flute [Photo courtesy of Theatre Royal Plymouth] product=yes product_title=Glyndebourne on Tour — Theatre Royal, Plymouth product_by=Above: Magic Flute [Photo courtesy of Theatre Royal Plymouth]

PUCCINI: La Rondine — La Scala 1994

Music composed by Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Giuseppe Adami after a libretto by A. M. Willner and Heinz Reichert.

First Performance: 27 March 1917, Monte Carlo, Théâtre de l’Opéra.

Principal Roles:
Magda de Civry	Soprano
Lisette	Soprano
Ruggero Lastouc	Tenor
Prunier	Tenor
Rambaldo Fernandez	Baritone
Perichaud	Baritone
Gobin	Tenor
Crebillon	Bass
Yvette	Soprano
Bianca	Soprano
Suzy	Mezzo-Soprano

Setting: Paris, mid-19th century.

Synopsis:

Act I

Magda’s Parisian salon

Rambaldo Fernandez, a rich banker, is entertaining friends in the salon of his mistress, Magda. The center of attention, however, is the poet Prunier who entertains the crowd of young men and women with his gossip. “Love reigns again in Paris,” declares Prunier. Lisette, Magda’s maid, scoffs at Prunier’s thoughts of sentimental love, “We live in a hurry: ‘Do you want me?’ ‘I want you.’ That’s all!” Lisette gets on with her work as Prunier continues his discussion of love with Magda, Yvette, Suzy and Bianca. “Romance is all the rage, love-lorn glances, furtive hand-holding, kisses, sighs - but nothing more!” “Does the latest fad interest you?” asks Prunier. Magda is noncommital. Prunier calls the ‘latest fad’ a malady, an epidemic of madness, affecting the feminine population. “It takes you by surprise.” “No one is immune?” ask the ladies. “No one,” answers Prunier, “not even Doretta.” The ladies have never heard of ‘Doretta,’ who is Prunier’s latest heroine - a charming child struck down by this disease of romanticism. He has immortalized her in a song. Hearing that Prunier has composed a new song, the ladies clamour to hear it. He is reluctant but Magda insists. Calling the entire company to attention, Magda ushers Prunier to the piano. Upon hearing that the theme of this new song is ‘Love,’ Rambaldo comments, “That theme is hackneyed!” but Magda persists that they shall hear the song.

Prunier, playing the piano, introduces his song (Chi il bel sogno di Doretta). He tells the tale of a young woman who has a dream in which a king asks a maid to trust him, promising her all his riches. He begs her not to tremble, not to cry but she does not weep, she chooses to remain as she is, for no gold can purchase happiness. Prunier ceases playing. “Why don’t you go on?” asks Magda who had been enjoying the song, “There is no ending,” he says. “That is easy,” Magda joins him at the piano, “The challenge tempts me.” She takes up his song with words of her own (Chi il bel sogno di Doretta). Her ending is simple: one day a young student kisses Doretta so passionately that now she knows what passion is. Magda is so taken with her theme that the assembled crowd is quite moved. Prunier is impressed and all her friends express their appreciation of her poetry. Even Rambaldo, the practical man, is moved. Prunier thinks this proves his point: in every man’s breast lurks the romantic. Rambaldo is not pleased with this remark, declaring himself armed with holy water against this devil and presents to Magda a beautiful pearl necklace. She is surprised and tells him that love and happiness cannot be bought, however, she accepts the gift, causing Prunier to comment that his Doretta would never have done so.

Lisette comes in announcing the arrival of a young man, the son of one of Rambaldo’s childhood friends, who had called earlier but had not been admitted. Prunier remarks to Magda that she should get rid of such a maid but Magda says that Lisette brings a little sunshine into her life. This surprises Magda’s friends, who all comment that she has an enviable life, especially with one so generous as Rambaldo. “What’s the use of a fortune?” says Magda. She asks her friends if they have never dreamed of being a grisette? Magda mentions a time when she ran away from her old aunt, “Può darsi! Ma che non si dimenticano più!” and spent a few hours among students and midinettes at Bullier’s, a Paris nightspot. She recalls the singing: “Young woman, love is in bloom! Defend your heart! Kisses and the magic of smiles is paid for with tears.” She tells the story how a young man asked her name and she inscribed it on the marble tabletop. He wrote his next to hers. “There, among all the commotion, we looked deep into each other’s eyes, not saying a word.” If only she could relive those moments, thinks Magda. Prunier and the women put down Magda’s adventure to the old aunt, who must have been waiting, all alone at home, as the cause of Magda’s desire to escape - if even for so short a time. Prunier purposely mishears what the ladies have been saying, thinking they are describing the old aunt, and not the young lover, as having brown mustaches and drinking beer. “Not my type!” he says. “The woman who conquers me must correspond to my artistic taste. She must be refined and elegant. In short, worthy of me.” She must be a Galetea, a Berenice, a Francesca, a Salome, he says. The ladies laugh. Magda wants to know how he can tell whether the women he meets have the qualities he wants. “The destiny of every woman is marked in the palm of her hand,” answers Prunier. The ladies are intrigued and demand that Prunier read their palms. The group moves to a quiet corner.

Meanwhile, Ruggero Lastouc has returned and is finally shown in. He hands Rambaldo a letter of introduction from his father. Prunier announces a portentous future for Magda as he looks at her palm. Perhaps, like a swallow, she is destined to fly across the seas, he says, toward a sun-filled land of dreams, toward the sun, toward love. He hesitates. She worries that he sees an ill omen. “No, but destiny presents two faces, is it a smile or is it anguish? No one knows.” Rambaldo asks Ruggero if this is the first time he has come to Paris which, indeed, it is. Rambaldo interrupts Prunier’s palm-reading to ask if he knows of a place where young Ruggero would have a good time on his first evening in Paris. Prunier scoffs, saying the magic of a first evening in Paris is a myth. The assembled company toss out names of nightspots but it is Lisette’s suggestion, Bullier’s, which is taken up as the favorite. Yes, Ruggero must go to Bullier’s! “Love, joy and pleasure are there,” says Lisette. Magda seems transported back to her thoughts of the mysterious student she met years ago at Bullier’s. Ruggero leaves. Prunier comments that Ruggero possessed the perfumed flower of youth. “The air simple reeks with the smell of his lavender!” Rambaldo takes his leave too, followed by Périchaud, Bianca, Yvette, Gobin, then Crébillon, Prunier and Suzy. Magda is alone.

When Lisette returns from showing the guests out, Magda orders a carriage. Her only thoughts are of Prunier’s words: “Like a swallow I will migrate across the seas toward a sun-filled land of dreams.” She thinks of Bullier’s and goes into her boudoir. With Magda gone, Prunier re-enters. He has come to get Lisette, with whom he is having an affair (T’amo!). Declaring his love, he also tells Lisette that she is not worthy of a poet like him, “Only rich women can be loved by the likes of me, but instead I am yours!” As they are about to leave, Prunier takes a dislike to her hat. “It’s my lady’s finest,” replies the maid but Prunier insists that she change it, as it does not match the rest of her outfit. Alone, Prunier muses on his situation (Nove Muse, a voi perdono), asking the muses to pardon him for his actions. He loves her and cannot reason. Lisette returns with a new hat but this time Prunier asks her to change her coat for the black silk cloak she had on the night before. Again, he muses on his situation. “But I cannot abandon her, no matter how aesthetic I am.”

Magda comes out of her boudoir dressed as a grisette. Thinking of Prunier’s Doretta and knowing no one will recognize her, she departs for Bullier’s.

Act II

At Bullier’s

Crowds of people are enjoying themselves at Bullier’s (Fiori freschi!). Women sell flowers, couples dance, students drink and pick up girls, lovers are kissing. The champagne is flowing, as a group of grisettes discuss men and love. A group of students notice a hesitant figure approaching. It is Magda. They cluster around, prompting her to agree that she already has a date. They see her look at Ruggero as he enters the restaurant. Assuming the young man is whom she was waiting for, they bring her to him. Magda begs his pardon for her intrusion (Scusatemi, scusate) and Ruggero asks her not to leave. He tells her that she seems different from the other girls here. She sits down. She reminds him of the girls from Montauban, who are all smiles and youth when they dance to an old song. When she seems to not fully understand his comment, he tells her that the girls of Montauban are very beautiful but simple and modest. “Unlike the girls here, in Paris, they need only a simple flower in their hair as adornment.” When Magda wishes she could dance like the girls of Montauban, Ruggero asks her if she would like to dance with him and the two join the crowd of dancers, lost in a dream of intoxicating love (Nella dolce carezza della danza).

Prunier and Lisette enter and join in the dancing while Magda and Ruggero return to their table. She says that she is thirsty and Ruggero orders them two bocks. “Quickly, Quickly,” cries Magda, “could I ask a favor? When the waiter returns, could you pay him 20 sous and tell him to keep the change?” Ruggero does not understand the request, but acquiesces. Ruggero proposes a toast: to your health. Magda proposes her own: to your loves! “Don’t say that,” replies Ruggero, “If I were to love, then it would be only one, and for as long as I live.” “For as long as I live,” repeats Magda. Ruggero comments that he does not even know his new friend’s name. As she had done years ago, she scribbles a name - Paulette - on the tabletop. Ruggero, in turn, writes his next to hers. “Now something of ours will remain,” says Magda but Ruggero answers, “No, they will wipe it away, but the thought of you will remain with me.” Magda tells him that fortune has brought her to him. Ruggero confesses that he knows nothing of her but does not feel that she is a stranger (Io non so chi siate voi). “You are the creature my heart has been waiting for!” Magda is overcome. They kiss.

Lisette cries out “Look, it’s my mistress!” pointing to Magda. Knowing full-well that it is her indeed, Prunier tells Lisette that the wine has gone to her head, but as she insists that this woman and her mistress are one and the same, Prunier asks if she wants proof. They walk toward the table. Lisette now recognizes Ruggero. Prunier introduces himself and Lisette to Ruggero, telling her that this is the young man from earlier in the evening but that the young lady is certainly not her mistress. “You are drunk!” Prunier asks Ruggero to introduce his young lady to them. “My friend, Paulette.” “Are you convinced?” asks Prunier of Lisette, as he introduces himself to ‘Paulette.’ Lisette tells Ruggero that her mistress is exactly like this girl, were she elegantly dressed. Magda laughs, commenting that Lisette seems to be elegantly dressed herself. “It doesn’t cost much,” replies Lisette, “everything belongs to my mistress.” “That is very imprudent!” says Magda. Prunier self-consciously laughs out loud and Magda takes the opportunity to ask if this woman, her maid, is his Salome or his Berenice? “Perhaps Lisette can chose to imitate the one or the other,” she slyly remarks. Ruggero offers a toast: “Let us drink to love!” The two couples drink, then Ruggero toasts Magda. “I drink to your fresh smile. I drink to your profound desires and to your lips, which have uttered my name.” (Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso). To Magda, this evening is the fulfillment of her dream. Lisette and Prunier exchange words of love for each other while Ruggero and Magda swear to stay together forever.

Suddenly, Prunier catches sight of Rambaldo. Magda begs Ruggero to leave, but Prunier has a plan. As Rambaldo heads toward the table, Prunier tells Magda to go, to leave him to explain but she would not do so. Prunier asks her to think about what she is doing. “When you love, you don’t think,” replies Magda. Rambaldo asks to speak alone with Magda. He has brought along her necklace which she so casually left lying around her salon. “What’s the meaning of this?” he demands. “I have nothing to add to what you’ve already seen,” she replies. Rambaldo, in a more conciliatory tone, tells her it was nothing serious and asks her to leave with him. “I’m staying, I love him, let me follow my destiny, leave me, it’s over.” Rambaldo, telling her he hopes she never regrets this, departs. Ruggero returns to the table, “And now it is morning. Where shall we go?” He notices that Magda is upset.

Act III

A seaside hotel garden on Cote d’Azur

Ruggero and Magda are enjoying a quiet moment in their seaside garden. Magda comments on the heavenly scent of the flowers, “Tell me again that I still please you.” “Everything about you, my love, pleases me.” Magda hopes that the solitude is not too much for him, but he tells her that he is not alone. Magda speaks of their love being born among the flowers - the flowers at Bullier’s. Ruggero tells her she deserves something special today. He will tell her a secret: he has written to his parents asking them for money and for consent to their marriage. “You did that?” asks Magda, “I didn’t know, I didn’t expect it.” She asks Ruggero to tell her everything. “If I love you and you love me, then let it be forever! You are not just a lover, Magda, you are love itself” (E laggiù non sapevo). He asks that she accompany him to his home, kisses her, then leaves. Magda is in a quandary - should she tell him all about her past or keep quiet?

Lisette and Prunier enter, unsure that they have the right place. Lisette berates Prunier for ruining her. He had wanted to make her a singer but failed. Prunier has promised, if at all possible, to bring her back to her old life. Lisette is extremely nervous, totally overwrought, due to her stage experiences. “All my illusions are gone,” she tells him. As they quarrel, Magda enters. She is touched that they remember their old Parisian friend. Prunier, ever the cynic, asks if she is still happy. “Entirely.” He tells her that all Paris still talks about what happened, adding that few believe it. Magda asks why. “Because this isn’t the life for you.” Magda is extremely hurt by his comments. She quickly changes the subject, asking why they have come. Prunier explains that the theatre in Nice decided the previous night that Lisette was not to its liking. “She wants to return to you as a maid.” Magda is pleased to have her back and soon learns that Prunier is only acting on behalf of someone, presumably Rambaldo, who has heard of her financial plight and is ready to help. Prunier acts as if he is taking his leave of both Magda and Lisette forever, but quickly, with Magda’s permission, asks Lisette what time she gets off from work that evening. He will be waiting.

Ruggero has received a letter from his mother. He notices Magda’s changed attitude, “Did you think she wouldn’t consent?” He presses the letter into her hands. Magda reads the letter in which his mother writes “May the Lord bless the sweet creature whom He sent to you. She will be the mother of your children. It is motherhood which sanctifies love. If you know she is good, mild, pure and possesses all the virtues, then she is blessed.” His mother asks Ruggero to embrace his future wife for her; she is anxious for their return. “Here is my mother’s kiss” but Magda confesses that she cannot receive it. “I cannot erase my past, I cannot enter your house.” Ruggero is not interested in her past, “You are mine, that is all.” Magda tells him she lived among shame and gold, as Ruggero begs her not to continue. “I can be a lover, but never a wife.” Ruggero cannot live without her, she is destroying his life but she persists “Because I love you, I will not be your ruin.” Ruggero begs her to stay. “Say nothing more, let this pain be mine,” says Magda, as she leaves the side of the crying Ruggero.

[Synopsis Source: Wikipedia]

Click here for the complete libretto.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Le-Bal-Bullier-Poster.png image_description=Poster of Bal Bullier (1899) by Georges Meunier (1869-1942)

audio=yes firstaudioname=Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): La Rondine
WinAMP or VLC firstaudiolink=http://www.operatoday.com/Rondine2.m3u

product=yes producttitle=G. Puccini: La Rondine productby=Magda de Civry (Denia Mazzola-Gavazzeni); Ruggero Lastouc (Pietro Ballo); Ramblado Fernandez (Antonio Salvadori); Lisette (Adelina Scarabelli); Prunier (Paolo Barbacini); Yvette (Anna Catarci); Bianca (Elisabetta Battaglia);Suzy (Claudine Nicole Bandera); Perichaud (Silvestro Sammaritano); Gobin (Roberto Donelli); Crebillon (Tino Nava); Georgette (Anna Zoroberto); Gabriella (Mimi Park); Lolette (Elisabetta Tandura); Rabonier (Aldo Bramante); Maggiordomo (Ernesto Panariello). Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala. Gianandrea Gavazzeni, conductor. Live performance: February 1994, Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

Tristan und Isolde at the MET

Last spring, you may recall, saw no fewer than four tenors in the role (in seven performances), only one of them scheduled (Ben Heppner, in splendid voice when he finally showed up, post-op), and one of them a role- and House-debut, Gary Lehman, who earned the standing ovation he received for that feat, sharing it with the lady, Janice Baird, who jumped in to join him in mid-scene. It was not the greatest performance of the opera ever, but it was thrilling show biz.

This year, appearing at the second performance, with more preparation, to replace an ailing Peter Seiffert, who had most unwisely sung the prima through a bad cold last Friday, Lehman and his co-star, Katarina Dalayman, got an ovation again, this time for singing it well.

New York in as meteorologically uncertain a month as this last November has been is no place to be certain of any singer’s health. (As Placido Domingo said, in his first New York Times interview over thirty years ago: “Phlegms! Why do they exist?”) And then, Tristan: there aren’t many who can sing it (not well) in any age, but we are going through rather a good patch, with Forbis, Heppner, Lehman, Smith, Storey and Treleaven (and I’m still waiting to hear from Johan Botha on this one, while Jonas Kaufmann is said to be studying it). I had been looking forward to hearing Peter Seiffert, who sang the even more awkward (if shorter) role of Tannhäuser so beautifully at the Met in 2004. Perhaps it was just that cold, or perhaps he has waited too long (he is 54) — in any case, the broadcast of his debut was not a happy occasion.

Lehman’s virtues appear to be just what they seemed at his surprise appearance last year: He is a tall, slim, sturdy figure with a grainy voice, lacking Heppner’s and Dean Smith’s lyric suavity but well enough grounded from his years as a baritone to keep the tone pumping all night. He paced himself through duet and endless death scene (which he sang standing up, not lying down, looking not very sickly to me), and if yearning and despair were not the emotions I felt in his performance (as one does in a great, experienced Tristan), neither was there any marking of time: he is not a subtle Tristan, an actor’s Tristan, but he is an assured one. This is a good foundation on which to build an interpretation.

If anything, ours is an era rich in Tristans but lacking Isoldes. Neither lady last year had the voice to make more than a stab at the music, and Waltraud Meier, they say, steadfastly refuses to risk it in the enormous Met. Will Christine Brewer undertake it here while she can still sing it? And will her stolid stage persona satisfy modern audiences — admittedly, quite possible in a production originally designed around Jane Eaglen?

This year we have the Isolde of Katarina Dalayman, who has already sung Brangaene here — the roles are not very different in range, though Isolde generally lies higher — indeed, it was difficult on radio to distinguish her voice from Michelle De Young’s in their exchanges. Dalayman approaches Isolde from a mezzo point of view: the high notes feel low, edged up to, rather than soaring atop the orchestral waves. It is a voluptuous, earthy sound, with the fullness so wanting in last year’s arid Isoldes, and when she stepped to the stage apron and really let fly (not often, but now and then), she was the loudest Isolde since Nilsson. Nor did she tire, or lose her bloom in the long wait for her final entrance — her voice slipped easily in and out of the texture of Isolde’s Verklärung, now drowning in lush orchestration, now soaring above it, just as Wagner intended it to, and here her partnership with the conductor was especially rewarding.

If Dalayman has a fault it is precisely the unvarying nature of her sound: she does not play with words and phrases, emphasizing Isolde’s sarcasm, her bitterness, her rage in Act I, to which the loving Isolde of Act II can then be such a magical contrast. This is not an easy challenge to master — Wagner’s heroine is a fully-rounded, complicated invention atop the sheer physical demands — but its absence was apparent. In recompense, we had floods of sumptuous sound at Wagnerian levels, and that makes for a happy occasion. Withal, she is a handsome woman though the Met larded her with far too much makeup. It added to my enjoyment of the opera that the lovers occasionally looked at each other at loving moments and not just at the conductor while they sang what is supposed to be a dramatic performance.

Katarina Dalayman as Isolde and Michelle DeYoung as Brangane

Smaller roles were capably filled. Michelle De Young is a familiar and unflagging Brangaene, Gerd Grochowski a decent Kurwenal, Stephen Gaertner a sensitive Melot (who acts the character’s understandable confusions). René Pape, as usual, demonstrated, the moment he opened his mouth, what the other men on stage were lacking in top-grade world-class vocalism — his only problem was keeping that silly crown on his head during his bows. But though it be heresy to say it, I do not find his glorious King Marke as moving as were those of Kurt Moll or Matti Salminen, who sang even more beautifully but, more important, with a sense of tragedy, of pain at the heart at Tristan’s betrayal, that made this scene central to one’s understanding of Wagner’s message, of just how much of world and society the lovers’ passion obliged them to ignore.

The other hero of the evening was Daniel Barenboim, in his first appearances at the Met — though he has been conducting this opera at Bayreuth and elsewhere for twenty-five years. His is a lighter, swifter, more impulsive Tristan than Levine’s, with much noticeable detail from individual instruments that sometimes gets lost in the charge: the bass clarinet under Marke’s monologue, the flutes at the beginning of Act II, the last delicate touch of the harps at the evening’s end (when the few who dared to clap were, happily, hushed at once: wait till the music stops, damn it). The orchestra soared in joy for him, and the ovation was general.

A small cavil: Barenboim, like Levine, occasionally drowns the singers (Dalayman and Lehman wisely did not strain to fight him but let him win the bout) — which suggests to me that, from his place in the pit, the conductor of the Met orchestra simply cannot hear when he is doing this to his singers — though there are conductors who are more careful about it than Barenboim and Levine. My seats, I should add, were in center orchestra — friends at the score desks five stories above me had no problems hearing the voices loud and clear.

John Yohalem

image=http://www.operatoday.com/TRISTAN_Dalayman_1274.png image_description=Katarina Dalayman as Isolde. [Photo by Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera] product=yes product_title=R. Wagner: Tristan und Isolde product_by=Isolde: Katarina Dalayman; Brangaene: Michelle De Young; Tristan: Gary Lehman; Kurwenal: Gerd Grochowski; King Mark: René Pape; Melot: Stephen Gaertner. Conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Metropolitan Opera, performance of December 2. product_id=Above: Katarina Dalayman as Isolde.

All photos by Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera.

Didon et Enée, attention chef-d'oeuvre

By Nicole Duault [Le Journal du Dimanche, 5 December 2008]

La papesse du théâtre shakespearien + le pape de la musique baroque: l’addition s’annonçait prometteuse. Elle est plus que cela, un charme d’élégance et d’émotion pour un chef d’oeuvre. Didon et Enée, l’unique opéra de Purcell, ouvre avec éclat la saison de l’Opéra Comique.

La Scala in jeans applaude il «Don Carlo»

[Corriere della Sera, 5 December 2008]

MILANO — Don Carlo aveva 23 anni quando morì nel 1568. Erano i tempi del regno su cui «non tramontava mai il sole» quelli, e lui era giusto un maldestro coetaneo — forse persino più giovane — degli under 26 della Facebook generation che ieri hanno assisto al Don Carlo alla Scala, giusto con tre giorni d’anticipo rispetto alla magniloquente — e perennemente sotto scacco sindacale — inaugurazione del 7 dicembre.

London Philharmonic Orchestra — 75th Anniversary, Vol. 3: 1983-2007.

The third and final volume brings the documentation to the present, and celebrates some fine contemporary conductors of the London Philharmonic, with a disc devoted to each of its four recent conductors. Taken from a number of live performances, the recordings represent well the quality of the performances in the vividness of the concert hall. Reaching back a quarter century to 1983, the choice of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under the direction of the late Klaus Tennstedt not only pays tribute to that conductor’s exemplary leadership and also demonstrates the caliber of soloists involved, with the late Lucia Popp, soprano, Ann Murray, mezzo soprano, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, tenor, and René Pape, bass. The performance of the “Choral” Symphony stems from a concert on 8 October 1983 at Royal Festival Hall. While it is difficult to recommend a limited number of recordings of this iconic work of nineteenth-century symphonic literature, this particular release conveys a dynamic tension that is not always possible in various fine studio recordings. This performance captures Lucia Popp at an excellent time in her career and, at the same time, includes the young René Pape, a bass who has since achieved an international reputation. The addition of Ann Murray and Anthony Rolfe Johnson make this a festival-level cast for this intensive reading of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Dating from the later 1980s through the 1990s, the tenure of Franz Welser-Most includes music from several concerts and is denoted by several representative works for voices and orchestra. The disc includes five selections: Mozart’s Mass in C minor, K. 427, recorded at Walthamstow Assembly Hall in February 1987; Mozart’s Requiem, recorded at St. Augustine’s Church, London, in 1989; the final scene from Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio, with soprano Dame Felicity Lott and bass Michael Georg from a concert on 25 February 1992; Schubert’s Stabat Mater, D. 175, from a concert at Royal Festival Hall, on 26 October 1992; and Bruckner’s Te Deum, recorded in October 1995 at All Saints’ Church, London. While most of the works are well-known, Schubert’s Stabat Mater is, perhaps, less familiar than the others and nonetheless of interest because of Welser-Most’s exemplary attention to the choral textures of this work. As one of the finest contemporary interpreters of Bruckner, the recording of the Te Deum brings together a remarkable cast, which includes soprano Jane Eaglen; contralto Brigit Remmert; the late tenor Deon van der Walt, and bass Alfred Muff. It is an exciting performance that stands well with other releases of the work. The relatively large amount of choral music on this disc does not need an explanation, but the inclusion of the scene from Strauss’s Capriccio remains a kind of commentary. With the nature of musical composition at the core of the libretto for Strauss’s opera, the final scene in this famed “conversation” about music contains the unresolved argument as to whether the text of the music should be foremost. It remains for the listener to decide, but the works chosen make a strong case for the place of choral music in the tradition of the London Philharmonic.

Moving to the early twentieth century, Kurt Masur, familiar to American audiences for his fine work with the New York Philharmonic is represented here with two critical works by Dmitri Shostakovich, the composer’s First and Fifth Symphonies. The recordings of those two symphonies are taken from performances given in the relatively short time between 31 January and 3 February 2004. Masur’s lively interpretation of Shostakovich’s First Symphony bears hearing for its fine sonics that make bring a nice clarity to the solo lines and thinner textures that are characteristic of the work. With the Fifth, Masur strikes a fine balance between the range of moods and textures that are part of the score. The slow movement, the penultimate band on the recording, is seamless, with a welcome spaciousness to its elegiac quality. The ensemble required for a successful execution is present in this masterful performance, which demonstrates the quality of playing that has been part of the London Philharmonic since its founding. The culmination of the movement, with the percussive line with xylophone and piano leads to a moving conclusion under Masur’s direction.

The final disc of the set is an opportunity to hear the young conductor Vladimir Jurowski, whose recorded legacy is not yet as extensive as those of his predecessors. Jurowski brings his own intensive musicality to the London Philharmonic in a performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 14, a work that brings together settings of poetry by Lorca, Apollinaire, Küchelbecker, and Rilke, in a symphonic song cycle that stands well alongside other such twentieth-century works as Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Britten’s Les Illuminations. With soloists Tatiana Monogarova and Sergei Leiferkus, this recording from February 2006 is an excellent introduction to Jurowski’s work.

As part of the anniversary celebration of the London Philharmonic, this last installment stands well with the other two. The sound is consistently fine, and audience noise, minimal. Not only do these recordings serve well in documenting the recent years of the London Philharmonic, but they represent well the conductors involved, each a major figure at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.

James Zychowicz

image=http://www.operatoday.com/LPOVol3.png imagedescription=London Philharmonic Orchestra — 75th Anniversary, Volume 3: 1983-2007

product=yes producttitle=London Philharmonic Orchestra — 75th Anniversary, Volume 3: 1983-2007 productby=Klaus Tennstedt conducts Beethoven; Franz Welser-Möst conducts Strauss, Mozart, Schubert, and Bruckner; Kurt Masur conducts Shostakovich; Vladimir Jurowski conducts Shostakovich. productid=LPO 0099 [4CDs] price=$44.99 producturl=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?nameid1=858&namerole1=1&nameid2=61791&namerole2=4&labelid=6162&bcorder=461&compid=3755

Kulturinstitut lädt zum Liederabend mit Annette Dasch

[Süd Tirol Online, 4 December 2008]

Die weltweit gefeierte Sopranistin Annette Dasch gastiert zum Auftakt der vom Kulturinstitut neu organisierten Liederabende am 17. Dezember im Raiffeisen-Forum im Lanserhaus, Eppan. Werke von Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Alban Berg und Gustav Mahler stehen auf dem Programm.

Muti, il mio «Otello» con Jago protagonista

Lorenzo Tozzi [Il Tempo, 4 December 2008]

Il suo arrivo a Roma segna una data storica. Riccardo Muti, attesissimo sul podio dell’Opera di Roma per una partitura di grande impegno come l’«Otello» verdiano, inaugura sabato prossimo una preziosa collaborazione con il Teatro capitolino (tornerà negli anni successivi a dirigere capolavori dimenticati come l’«Ifigenia in Aulide» di Gluck e l’«Idomeneo» di Mozart).

Barcelona: Figaro la, Figaro qua

Meaning, if there is something you don’t fancy, wait a minute and the artistic gears will likely shift. Not that there is not a great deal to admire.

Updated to the Thirties, Paco Azorin’s exceedingly handsome set design and Franca Squarciapino’s elegant, tailored costumes provide much visual pleasure. The floor space consists of a large square platform, turned so that the downstage corner pokes just over the lip of the stage. In both of the first two acts, handsome white walls with detailed molding vie for prominence with Mylar-mirrored windows, hung with diaphanous drapes. The sleek white, rectangular low “sofas” get re-arranged to make a bed, a faux chaise lounge, etc. But while the handsome fireplace in Act II lent a homey counterpoint to the Countess’ melancholy, the odd inclusion of several ballet barres in the Act I bedroom was just plain “curious.”

Much more Mylar was on display in Act III, and the transparent qualities of these “two-way mirrors” was exploited by the exceptional lighting design from Albert Faura. Later in Act IV’s garden, these mirror panels painted with trees glided and re-grouped fluidly to provide plenty of hiding places for the conspirators. So beautiful were these tree effects it might be worth keeping them and standing up a production of A Little Night Music.

In spite of the quite dazzling physical production, I found the time period somewhat a defeating choice for this comedy. To be sure, the idea of the upper class exploiting servants, pursuing in-house sexual peccadillo’s, and calculating political manipulation works after a fashion in any era. But at its heart there is something decidedly unappealing about spoiled rich folks whose plight seems whiny, insignificant, and un-funny compared to a World War and the Great Depression.

That it took until halfway through Act II to generate any titter of laughter is largely the doing of stage director Lluis Pasqual, who can’t seem to settle on a playing style or a concept. Is it realistic? Commedia dell’Arte? Brechtian presentational? Noel Coward sex farce? For Mr. Pasqual, the answer is “all of the above.” What it is not with enough regularity is Mozart/da Ponte, who knew a few things about comedy timing and wrote them right into the piece, by golly. I used to think Figaro was fool-proof, but then I hadn’t yet met this director.

Kyle Ketelsen as Figaro (standing on the sofa) and Sophie Koch as Cherubino during “Non piu andrai”

Case in point, during a Susanna-Cherubino exchange in the first act, Figaro suddenly just walks off the platform to the darkened apron to “observe them” as an outsider. Just as abruptly, he re-joins the scene, in character. Huh? (This idea doesn’t recur.) During “Aprite un’po quegli occhi, “a silver (basket?-)ball descends on a wire, which our title character unhooks and tosses around and dribbles, albeit skillfully. Is it meant to be…a woman’s head? A planet of miniature cuckolds? A Harlem Globetrotters tryout? It was an entertaining distraction, but I am not sure it meant anything much to the story at hand.

Blocking was ill-considered in supporting the comic set-up and punch line. The Susanna-Marcellina Act I Bitch-Off was, well, just…bitched. Not a laugh to be gotten. Or even a loud smile. Stage pictures were often “all right,” but focus remained a problem throughout the night. When Susanna has her moment in the great Act III sextet of revealed parentage, she is sputtering her “sua madre’s/padre’s” completely blocked as she runs behind the other principals. Too, our director over-used a convention of dragging many solos to the furthest downstage point of the platform, changing the lighting to an isolated dramatic focus one-on-one with the audience, which almost rendered them concert arias. Ah well, happily — very happily — we had at our disposal a first rate cast.

Kyle Ketelsen is a world class Figaro, not only possessed of a healthy, burnished mellifluous bass instrument, even throughout his extensive range, but also gifted as one of the most inventive actors to be seen on an opera stage. His is a richly detailed, solidly acted, individualized impersonation. Ofelia Sala was almost his match as Susanna. Although her dramatic approach seemed more generalized, she displayed good stage savvy, game to try anything, and her well-schooled soprano had a hint more weight to it than many a Susanna. “Deh vieni” may have not had the pristine shimmer of a Kathy Battle, but it was compensated with substantially more thrust. Sidebar: why Mr. Ketelsen (as the title role) and Ms. Sala (who by far has the most stage time) are not getting the final bows is very odd. Those honors fell to…

Emma Bell, her securely sung Countess sleek and elegant of mien, really delivers the goods with sensitively controlled vocalism, meticulous phrasing, and, as needed, a generous fire in dramatic outbursts. Is it quibbling to want her to seem less self-absorbed by re-thinking some slightly-too-precious, cooing introspections? Judicious fine tuning might make the audience pity her more, if she pitied herself less. As the Count, Ludovic Tézier confirmed his growing reputation as today’s leading French baritone. He made good on that promise with a virile, buzzy tone, and solid stylistic command, although he did seem to tire slightly by opera’s end. “Contessa, perdona” was not the melting denouement it should have been, but blame for that moment can be shared with the poorly judged staging and conducting.

I quite liked Sofie Koch’s well-voiced, hard-working Cherubino with the caveat that her slightly covered tone made the lad sound a bit more mature than other, brighter voiced interpreters. A former Susanna, Marie McLaughlin has now graduated to Marcellina, singing it well without quite comfortably fitting the role’s more comic demands. Friedemann Röhlig had considerably more success with a rollicking account of Bartolo, securely sung with panache. Raúl Giménez was luxury casting as the best-sung Basilio I have experienced. Doing all that was required (if no more) as Barbarina and Antonio were Eliana Bayón and Valeriano Lanchas. The truly funny Don Curzio was exceptionally well performed by Roger Padullés.

Emma Bell (center) as the Countess accepting flowers from the peasant girls and Susanna (Ofelia Sala, seated, as maid)

Last, and certainly least, the workaday conducting from Antoni Ros Marbà did little to serve this sparkling, crackling score. This usually fine orchestra sounded muted and uninspired from the git-go, with the cascading wind figures lacking incisive clarity. The horns had a bad first act but improved, while the keyboardist fat-fingered more than a few notes over the course of the recitatives. Worst, the rhythmic propulsion of the individual numbers was sometimes indefinite, resulting in a momentary disruption of coordination between stage and pit. Even at the leisurely pace of the duet “Aprite, presto, aprite,” our Susanna got ahead and there was a scary moment of Swedish until Cherubino got it back on track.

And so the evening went…sometimes too fast…sometimes too slow…sometimes slapstick…sometimes overly serious…always well sung…always nice to look at. “Figaro la, Figaro qua… “ All in all, it was a great pity that the stage director and conductor weren’t at the same high class party as the stellar cast and design team.

James Sohre

image=http://www.operatoday.com/FigaroBarcelona3.png image_description=Scene from Le nozze di Figaro (Photo by Antoni Bofill courtesy of Gran Teatre del Liceu)

product=yes producttitle=W.A. Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro productby=Click here for cast information product_id=Above: Ludovic Tézier as Count Almaviva, Ofelia Sala as Susanna and Sophie Koch and Cherubino in Act I

All photos by Antoni Bofill courtesy of Gran Teatre del Liceu

Two operas, scaled for a chamber

By Jeremy Eichler [Boston Globe, 2 December 2008]

The Boston Early Music Festival attracts crowds from near and far for its biennial productions of Baroque opera. But offering one big, splashy presentation every other year has made BEMF seem like more of an occasional visitor to the opera world rather than a serious player. To firm up its opera credentials both at home and on the national scene, the organization has hired Gilbert Blin as an in-house stage director and it has launched a new series of chamber operas to be performed annually in Jordan Hall.

Tannhäuser, Deutsche Oper Berlin

By Shirley Apthorp [Financial Times, 2 December 2008]

Larger-than-life gargoyles leer at the audience from the gauze, bat-winged demons descend from the heavens and painted flames lick the naked limbs of lusting sinners. Kirsten Harms’s new Tannhäuser for Deutsche Oper borrows liberally from images of medieval Christianity (design: Bernd Damovsky). Her knights wear shining armour, Elisabeth sports virginal white, the Wartburg’s inhabitants are like cartoon illustrations of a whimsical fairytale court.

Tristan und Isolde, Metropolitan Opera, New York

By Martin Bernheimer [Financial Times, 1 December 2008]

The hero of Tristan und Isolde on Friday wasn’t on the stage. He was in the pit. This was Daniel Barenboim’s night.

Porgy through a glass lightly

The company could not have known that “local boy” Barack Obama would be elected the first black president of the United States shortly before the premiere of its first-ever Porgy on November 18. Thus the two events obviously have nothing to do with each other; they do, however, underscore the degree to which the encounter with a well-established and well-known work of art is colored by such a coincidence.

It would be incorrect to suggest that the enthusiasm — indeed, the euphoria — with which masses of Americans reacted to Obama’s election carried over into the Lyric’s impressive Art Deco home on Wacker Drive. Yet a visitor to the city in the Porgy audience could but recall the exuberant scene across town at Grant Park on election night and ask whether Obama’s victory provides a new filter for the 1935 work.

Porgy, after all, has long been celebrated — if with occasional discomfort — as the great American opera. But does it still lay claim to that stature? To ask that question in no way overlooks the superior quality of the Lyric production that originated at Washington’s National Opera and went on to evoke acclaim in Los Angeles.

Director Francesca Zambello, who on occasion has trouble reigning in a hyper-active imagination, opted here for a straight-forward and down-to-earth approach to the opera, recreating — with the help designers Peter J. Davison and Paul Tazewell — a slice of the life of the Gullah blacks whose life — and music — composer George Gershwin and his creative team had studied closely on their visits to Charleston and its near-by islands.

The demand of the Gershwin estate that Porgy be staged with an all-black cast (except for police officers) remains in force, and the singers that the Lyric assembled documented the achievement of such vocalists in a world open to them for a mere half century. What was particularly impressive is that these are artists whose repertory extends far beyond Porgy. Baritone Gordon Hawkins, Porgy on November 21, sings Alberich in stagings of Wagner’s Ring around the world, and Lester Lynch (Crown) is a celebrated Count di Luna in Verdi’s Trovartore both here and in Europe. Morenike Fadayomi (Bess) lists Donna Elvira and Salome among signature roles, and Jonita Lattimore includes the Figaro Countess and Marguerite in Faust in her repertory. Marietta Simson (Maria), slowly becoming a senior among today’s black artists, is treasured for her work both in opera and oratorio. One could continue to list such credits of distinction for each member of the cast.

For the success of the production, much credit goes to John DeMain, who all but re-invented Porgy when he conducted the 1975 Houston Grand Opera production that staged the work complete for the first time with the sung recitative that Gershwin had intended. A stellar evening at the Lyric — beyond all doubt.

Jermaine Smith (Sportin' Life) and Morenike Fadayomi (Bess) in Porgy and Bess.

Why then did one — or at least some in the audience — feel that this production was more an impressive document than a thrilling experience of great opera? Does the election of Barack Obama as president suggest that Porgy, despite its wonderful “hit” tunes, is dated?

As mentioned above, there have always been reservations about the work. Early on, critic — and composer — Virgil Thomson wrote that “folk lore subjects recounted by an outsider are only valid as long as the folk in question is unable to speak for itself,” and Obama’s election proves definitely that that is no longer the case. Duke Ellington found that “the times are here to debunk Gershwin’s lampblack Negroisms,” and several members of the original cast later questioned whether their characters did not play into the stereotypic picture of African Americans as part of America’s huddled masses, living in poverty, taking drugs and settling disagreements with their fists.

An earlier filter on the opera was provided by the civil rights and black power movements that dominated the American scene after the 1950s. Upon a revival of the Porgy play in the ‘60s, for example, social critic and African American educator Harold Cruse called it “the most incongruous, contradictory cultural symbol ever created in the Western World.” And it evoked resistance among black artists.

Morenike Fadayomi (Bess) tries to resist Lester Lynch's (Crown) advances in a scene from Porgy and Bess.

Harry Belafonte declined to play Porgy in the 1950s film (the role went to Sidney Poitier), and soprano Betty Allen, president of the Harlem School of the Arts, loathed the work. Grace Bumbry, Bess at the Met in 1985, later said:

I thought it beneath me; I felt I had worked far too hard, that we had come far too far to have to retrogress to 1935. My way of dealing with it was to see that it was really a piece of Americana, of American history, whether we liked it or not. Whether I sing it or not, it was still going to be there.

These are comments that come to mind on the heels of the Chicago Porgy and they have a certain valid resonance when the work is watched over Barack Obama’s shoulder. Underlying this feeling is the coincidence that the Lyric paired Porgy with Alban Berg’s Lulu at the mid-point of its 2008-2009 season.

For Lulu, an absolute among the femmes fatales of opera, was completed in fragmentary form in 1937, only two years after Porgy. Yet — and despite its roots in the hot-house fin-de-siècle sin-soaked soil of Freud’s Vienna, the work — in Paul Curran’s superlative production — is of overwhelming contemporary relevance and appeal.

This is not to suggest that Porgy and Bess should be shelved. In an erudite note in the Chicago program Naomi André sums things up:

The most disheartening part of the opera is the hopelessness of the characters’ fates. It is distressing to see the drinking, gambling, murder and sexual assault that take place. Even more devastating is that the characters we cheer for end up dead or broken by the end. And we know that Porgy — a poor crippled black man, will never make it to New York. Although the residents of Catfish Row sing about the “Heav’nly Lan’ of promise and opportunity, we know they will most likely not see it in their lifetimes.

That’s where Barack Obama enters in. One likes to think that a young black of today, already established in the drug trade, might have seen the Grant Park demonstration and thought:

“Hey, there is another way; there is hope.
I’m on my way.”

Wes Blomster

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Porgy_Chicago_01.png image_description=Gordon Hawkins and Morenike Fadayomi as the title characters of Porgy and Bess. Photo by Dan Rest/Lyric Opera of Chicago product=yes product_title=G. Gershwin: Porgy and Bess product_by=Porgy (Gordon Hawkins (Nov 18, 21, 26, 29, Dec 3, 6, 9, 15, 19), Lester Lynch (Nov 23, Dec 5, 12, 18)); Bess (Morenike Fadayomi (Nov 18, 21, 26, 29, Dec 3, 6, 9, 15, 19), Lisa Daltirus (Nov 23, Dec 5, 12, 18)); Crown (Lester Lynch (Nov 18, 21, 26, 29, Dec. 3, 6, 9, 15, 19), Terry Cook (Nov 23, Dec. 5, 12, 18); Serena (Jonita Lattimore); Clara (Laquita Mitchell); Maria (Marietta Simpson); Sportin' Life (Jermaine Smith); Jake (Eric Greene); Coroner (David Darlow); Detective (Danny Goldring); Policeman (Chuck Coyl). Lyric Opera of Chicago. Conductor (John DeMain (Nov. 18, 21, 23, 26, 29, Dec. 3, 9, 12, 15, 18, 19), Kelly Kuo (Dec. 5, 6)). Director (Francesca Zambello). Set Designer (Peter J. Davison). product_id=Above: Gordon Hawkins and Morenike Fadayomi as the title characters of Porgy and Bess. [All photos by Dan Rest/Lyric Opera of Chicago]

Munich's Christmas Treasures: Massenet and Handel

Although it may have been bitter cold outside, last weekend at the Bavarian State Opera things onstage were blistering “hot.”

For starters, conductor Bertrand de Billy paced the most achingly passionate and painfully felt Werther that a human heart could probably bear. There did not seem to be a phrase that was not filled with understanding and dramatic illumination. Under Maestro de Billy’s sure stylistic hand the orchestra turned in a luminescent, rhapsodic reading of the highest international quality, raising goose bumps and occasioning tears more than once during this evening of splendid music-making.

But Werther would go for little without at least two star-quality singers and Munich delivered the goods from the ranks of the best interpreters currently available: Massimo Giordano and Elina Garanca.

Mr. Giordano is as fine a Werther as one could wish. His warm lyric tenor is produced with a sound technique and spinto leanings that reliably encompasses all of the demands of the title role. True, he does cover the voice (only ever-so-slightly) at the very top, and his rather rapid (but pleasing) vibrato occasionally gets in the way of parlando utterances, but his full-throated climactic outbursts were quite thrilling. Few current exponents of this treacherous part can display such a lovely command of pianissimo and messa di voce effects that are major part of Massimo’s artistry. Moreover, he has a dark, manly presence; offers committed acting; and immerses himself convincingly in the id of this tortured character, all the while maintaining absolute control of his vocal resources.

Ms. Garanca was every bit his match as Charlotte. She is a more known commodity to the public thanks to marketing which trades heavily on her fashion model good looks. She is a stunning blond, yes, but. . .she sings, too! I recall admiring her voice from a recent televised concert, but nothing could have prepared me for her assured stage presence and the “live” impact and immediacy of her vocalism. Her wonderfully schooled, eminently pleasing lyric mezzo is a bit “anonymous” perhaps, and in this famous role she invites (albeit favorable) vocal comparison with the likes of Troyanos, von Stade, and Graham (who will take over the role later in the run). What sets Elina apart is not only top notch singing, encompassing a gamut of searing high notes, arching line, mellow low notes, and everything required in between; but also an unaffected, spontaneous embodiment of Charlotte that is a model of invention. Oh, yeah, and there is that physical beauty thing in the quotient. Memorable performance.

The two stars were ably supported by Natale De Carolis as Albert and Elena Tsallagova as Sophie. Mr. De Carolis is possessed of a warm lyric baritone that he deploys perfectly in service of this French repertoire. His characterization did make Albert seem more of a milquetoast than usual (or necessary) but it was a consistent choice, and he is a natural on the stage. Ms. Tsallagova has a secure lyric soprano and a charming presence, and if her tone was a little cool here and there, she was nonetheless an affecting younger sister.

The vocally assured Schmidt and Johann of Kevin Connors and Rüdiger Trebes were equaled by Christoph Stephinger with a well-sung turn as Charlotte’s father (although he did seem to eye the conductor more than most). The scrappy small role of Kätchen was well taken by Angela Brower, and Brühlmann found Todd Boyce ably impersonating the town fool. Both are members of the Bavarian State Opera Studio, and I recall having seen Mr. Boyce do similar good work at Glimmerglass and St. Louis.

Jürgen Rose is credited with “stage direction, scenery, light concept, and costumes.” (Whew, I guess handing out the programs had to be entrusted to someone else.) God bless Mr. Rose for his take-charge attitude, for this was a beautifully realized production that consistently heightened all of Massenet’s considerable dramatic strengths and deftly glided past his fleeting weaknesses. The concept emphasizes our hero’s total isolation. Drawing upon an image of Caspar David Friedrich’s man on a mountain, a large boulder/cliff is placed center stage topped by Werther’s writing desk.

The “abyss” that is surveyed from this vantage point takes the form of white walls and ceiling that are colorfully scrawled with quotations from Werther’s writings. In Acts One and Two, these are relegated to the corners of the structure, while in Three and Four they become denser and even more erratic as Werther’s tormented state degenerates.

The upstage is completely open and is dressed with a realistic tree (read: “nature”), and later, a Nativity scene (read: “hallucination”). A front scrim is scrawled with a circular pattern of texts suggesting a skewed cosmos. A dough nut shaped revolve swirls minimal furniture pieces around the rock in an orbit mirroring the effect of the scrim art. And real mirrors outlined the entire proscenium framing, reflecting and disorienting the action. This was a splendid, unified design compellingly lit by Michael Bauer who alternately bathed the stage in the homey warmth of sunset, or coolly distanced us from the occasional freeze-framed action when Werther’s mental shifts took him to A Bad Place. Bauer’s isolation of the tree with its ever-evolving illumination angles was a telling effect.

A scene from Werther

Rose the director made the most of every opportunity within this framework, and filled the work with individual touches. The church yard scene becomes the occasion for celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary of a beloved village couple, bringing the loveless mis-pairing of Charlotte and Albert into higher relief. The recurring device of having the cast freeze in time as Werther has a mental health lapse into a scene only he can see, is a master stroke that pays big emotional dividends. Werther’s retreat to the rock and his writing desk was used judiciously. After his death, Charlotte helplessly but inevitably surrenders to her own isolation, collapsing on the structure with heart-breaking effect.

It should also be noted that the exceptionally well-trained children’s chorus was the work of Stellario Fagone, and that Assistant Director Franziska Severin contributed to the remounting of this production. Fine work from all, I do not recall a moment that did not “land,” that did not make dramatic sense, and that did not make a definitive case for Massenet’s Werther. And how often can you say that about opera performances today?

John Mark Ainsley as Bajazet and Sarah Fox as Asteria in Tamerlano
Happily, the very next night yielded another, wholly different sort of success with a powerful rendition of Handel’s Tamerlano. Musically, we were fortunate to have Ivor Bolton in command since he is one of the leading proponents of the performance traditions of this period. He led a taut, lean reading, as noted for its driving, dramatically alert tempi as it was for its nuanced accommodation of introspections, as required by the ever-shifting alliances and moods of the story’s principals.

Mr. Bolton also contributed fine keyboard work in the Continuo, and was complemented by highly imaginative licks from Luke Green (Cembalo) and Axel Wolf (Theorbo). Also turning in fine work were the cellist Kristin von der Goltz and organist Roderick Shaw.

The above-the-title name draw was the sublime David Daniels as Tamerlano himself. Although a handful of accomplished challengers may be occasionally nipping at his heels, Mr. Daniels for me remains the world’s leading counter-tenor, the one who has set the bar for this Fach at the very high level it is today. There is a slightly earthy quality to his tone that makes his voice readily identifiable and appealingly listenable for an entire evening. His trip-hammer coloratura technique delivers blazing results. He can scale back the voice at will to a melting thread of a tone that can cast a spell of hushed amazement. And this remarkable instrument is housed in a handsome, bearded lumberjack of a physical presence, who performs throughout with easy, honest dramatic instincts.

A scene from Tamerlano

But then, the entire cast was outstanding. In the key role of Bajazet, John Mark Ainsley treated us to generous dramatic involvement, complete stylistic command, and a fresh-voiced tenor, albeit just a bit in the dry side. Soprano Sarah Fox had been announced as indisposed but then sang uncommonly well as Asteria, if with a bit too much straight tone on the piped high notes for me. It was a superbly executed “choice” but I may have appreciated more variety and at times, more warmth.

The pants role of Andronico was confidently assumed by Mary-Ellen Nesi, who not only married vocal fire power to a richly pliant mezzo, but also found a profoundly sympathetic physical presence for the part. Maite Beaumont’s Irene had plenty of spunk and sparkle, managing to come off three-dimensional in a rather two-dimensional role. Her accurate coloratura and highly serviceable upper extension of her core voice made for pleasant listening. In the less splashy baritone role of Leone, Vito Priante had all the melismas in place, and showed great beauty of tone.

I have long admired stage director Pierre Audi. I find that he makes well-considered bold choices, and best of all, that he knows how to direct the meaning of the drama at hand. And he takes calculated risks. What could be riskier than taking six singers in a repetitive, Handelian opera and putting them on a bare stage? No frou-frou and excesses to distract or help the extensive arias go down easier. . .just brilliant direction.

For through Mr. Audi, we see what makes these characters tick. He has his actors singing to, and about, each other and (are you seated?) he makes them listen to each other and react. Movement evolves out of the characters’ motivation and he edits and refines this to almost unfailingly place a singer in a position to be heard to maximum advantage. I was highly impressed with his creation of “levels” (standing, kneeling crouching, reclining), and the psychological exploration of dominance and submission as the fluid relationships continually morph. I lost count of how many times I thought “this is one of the most beautiful stage groupings I have ever seen.”

Sarah Fox as Asteria and Mary-Ellen Nesi as Andronico in Tamerlano
When the curtain rose on the second half of the performance, a single black chair had been added to the bare stage. A first reaction was to laugh at this absurd minimalism, but we soon became aware that this lone piece would be deployed in various cleverly uncluttered ways to indicate the assertion of power. When at last a nearly naked Bazajet dies seated upright on what seems now to be a throne, and Tamerlano merely closes the man’s eyes to indicate his passing, it created an utterly simple moment of the utmost power.

The actors were also used to create, in character, moving “scenery.” They were handsomely attired in flattering period costumes by Patrick Kinmouth, who also contributed the blue-gray false proscenium and gilt wainscoted “legs” arranged in a forced perspective to recede upstage. Matthew Richardson’s effectively detailed light concept which often approximated the look of old fashioned footlights and shadowy cross lighting, was well executed by Cor van den Brink. Assisting Mr. Audi in the show’s remounting was Pernilla Malmberg Silfverhjelm.

Even with the charming outdoor Christmas Market in full swing just across the Platz, it nevertheless seemed the real holiday treasures were on display inside. On the strength of this remarkable pair of back-to-back successes, the Bavarian State Opera confirmed in my mind that it remains Germany’s premiere international company.

James Sohre

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Werther_Munich_Giordano.png image_description=Massimo Giordano as Werther [Photo courtesy of Bayerische Staatsoper] product=yes product_title=Jules Massenet: Werther product_by=Werther (Massimo Giordano); Albert (Natale De Carolis); Amtmann (Christoph Stephinger); Schmidt (Kevin Conners); Johann (Rüdiger Trebes); Brühlmann (Todd Boyce); Charlotte (Elina Garanca); Sophie (Elena Tsallagova); Käthchen (Angela Brower). The Bavarian State Orchestra. The Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera. Conductor: Bertrand de Billy. Production, Set, Lighting Concept and Costumes: Jürgen Rose. product_id=Above: Massimo Giordano as Werther

All photos courtesy of Bayerische Staatsoper

Carmen at the Washington National Opera

It can be an ensemble work, with the main roles given relatively equal weight, and interaction between the characters central to plot development. An opera production can also be a star vehicle, in which a single principal (or more rarely, a pair of leads) carries the performance, while the rest of the cast plays supporting roles that sets off the drama of the “stars.” Some operas may be conceptualized either way, while others lend themselves naturally to one staging type or another: La bohème, for instance, works best as an ensemble piece, while Boris Godunov, particularly in its 1869 version, revolves around its protagonist. Arguably, so does Carmen whose femme fatale heroine writes not only her own tragic fate, but those of at least two other principals, Don José and Micaëla (the self-involved matador Escamillo will probably get over her death soon enough).

Sabina Cvilak as Micaela, Thiago Arancam as Don Jose. [Photo by Karin Cooper]
The absolute necessity of mezzo star power for a successful Carmen has once again been demonstrated by the Washington National Opera’s current production of Bizet’s classic. The fabulous DC native Denyce Graves completely dominated on stage as the seductive gypsy, with both her colleagues and the audience content to let her rule not only Don José’s heart, but also Georges Bizet’s score. Ms Graves allowed herself quite a few liberties in text projection, pitches, and timing of her part. Yet somehow, even the most fastidious purist would not have minded such an open desire for “liberty,” to quote the lady herself. She was utterly convincing in her interpretation; and if the locals saw more a fast-talking broad from South-East DC than a factory girl from the gutters of Seville, well, so much the better. Of much help were the gorgeous reds and oranges of Lennart Mark’s flamenco-inspired costumes, and the percussion section of the orchestra, which thankfully did not follow Ms Graves’s pliable relationship with time, and accompanied her dancing tastefully and precisely. Most importantly, to the singer’s credit, she has crafted her heroine’s image beautifully, knowing when to seize the limelight and when to fade into the background. The Act 2 quintet turned out to be one of the most successful moments in the production precisely because Ms Graves stepped back and blended with the ensemble. Yet later in the scene, her pitch-perfect, richly textured call “Amour…,” thrown to Escamillo from across the stage, turned not only the matador’s head, but everyone else’s in the building.

Denyce Graves as Carmen with WNO Chorus. [Photo by Karin Cooper]

Of course, with Denyce Graves, acclaimed as “the definitive Carmen,” on the playbill, a powerful protagonist in this WNO production was to be expected. More unusual was the fact that the sentimental lyrical soprano Micaëla, traditionally the weakest link in Bizet’s quartet of leads, almost managed to stand up to her rival. This thanks to Sabina Cvilak’s convincing performance, still a little shaky in Act 1, but seemingly having grown with her heroine toward a strong, powerful Act 3 finale. The men of the cast, on the other hand, were almost invariably unimpressive. Not that they did not try to make their mark. Both Thiago Arancam as José and Jorge Lagunes as Escamillo struck the right poses and delivered their high notes with panache; the Flower aria turned out quite well as a result, the torero’s infamous couplets rather less so. For the most part, however, the two male leads sounded weak and much too easily dominated by their ladies. Carmen’s derisive laugh moments before her demise seemed therefore right on target - John Marcus Bindel as Zuniga, and hilarious James Shaffran and Peter Burroughs as Le Dancaire and Le Remendado respectively all left her poor tenor in the dust… The solid support cast and the girl power, however, were enough to ensure a quality production and an enjoyable evening of “all about Carmen.”

Olga Haldey

image=http://www.operatoday.com/CarmenWNO01.png image_description=Denyce Graves as Carmen. [Photo by P. Switzer]

product=yes producttitle=G. Bizet: Carmen productby=Carmen (Deny e Graves (Nov 8, 10, 14, 16m, 19), Laura Brioli (Nov 12, 18));vDon José (Thiago Arancam (Nov 8, 10, 14, 16m, 19), Brandon Jovanovich (Nov 12, 18)); Escamillo (Alexander Vinogradov (Nov 8, 10, 16m, 19), Jorge Lagunes (Nov 12, 14, 18)); Micaëla (Sabina Cvilak); Zuniga (John Marcus Bindel); Moralès (Michael Nansel); Frasquita (Emily Albrink (Nov 8, 10, 16m, 19), Jennifer Waters (Nov 12, 14, 18)); Mercédès (Cynthia Hanna (Nov 8, 10, 16m, 19), Brandy Lynn Hawkins (Nov 12, 14, 18)). Washington National Opera. Conductor: Julius Rudel. Director: David Gately. product_id=Above: Denyce Graves as Carmen [Photo by P. Switzer]

Verdi's Aida at La Scala

The La Scala audience - or rather, members thereof - booed Roberto Alagna’s “lyrical” Radames after his use of an alternative, softer ending to “Celeste, Aida.” The outraged tenor stalked off the stage, and a stand-by tenor rushed on stage within a few moments to help the show go on. A little excitement such as that would make this DVD a lot more enjoyable.

Decca’s DVD packaging gives no information that your reviewer could find as to the exact source of this video, but since Alagna sings all the way through, it must mostly come from the premiere evening. The big news to that point had been the return to La Scala of Franco Zeffirelli as director/designer. The uncredited author of the booklet essay acknowledges the Hollywood attributes of Zeffirelli’s typically lavish traditional production, yet goes on to claim that it is “tastefully realized,” apparently because it “left enough room for chorus and principals.” How thoughtful of Zeffirelli!

Actually, the hugeness of the sets comes mostly in the height and width of the backdrops. Zeffirelli provides more than ample space. In the opening confrontation between Radames and Amneris, a herd of elephants could pass between them. A director concerned with the essential intimacy of the opera’s drama could still inspire the singers to give committed, natural performances. Zeffirelli apparently decided to let the sets and costumes do the work. Violeta Urmana in the title role, Roberto Alagna, Ildiko Komlosi as Amneris and Carlo Guelfi as Aida’s father all act as if from a manual of stock operatic gestures and poses. The singing, though unimaginative, is thoroughly professional (yes, even from Alagna), and Riccardo Chailly manages to evoke a fresh, invigorating reading of a score so familiar to the La Scala musicians. Yet the enormous cost of the production can’t dispel the feeling that this is a cheap substitute for an Aida that would really honor the complexity and majesty of Verdi’s masterpiece.

TV director Patrizia Carmine annoyingly inserts fuzzy close-ups of prop details, often at the oddest moments. But it is not Carmine’s fault that zooming in on a shield pattern here or a dusky hand clasp there can’t really pull the viewer into the action. After awhile, your reviewer began to search the three pages of credits in the booklet, to see who plastered all that bronzer on the singers (Oscar del Frate and Cristine Isac). Alagna looks orange in some scenes.

Some people go for this sort of thing, so those people should, well, go for it. But there is another Zeffirelli Aida worth checking out, with a cast of mostly unknown younger singers, staged in the relatively tiny Verdi theater in Busetto. There the famed director found a way to indulge his taste for old-fashioned trimmings while keeping a focus on doing the detailed work that makes a performance come to life.

Chris Mullins

image=http://www.operatoday.com/AidaLaScala.png imagedescription=G. Verdi: Aida

product=yes producttitle=G. Verdi: Aida productby=Violeta Urmana, Roberto Alagna, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Riccardo Chailly. productid=Decca 074 3209 [2DVDs] price=$39.98 producturl=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?nameid1=12554&namerole1=1&compid=3324&bcorder=15&labelid=5787

PUCCINI: La Fanciulla del West — La Scala 1956

Music composed by Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini after David Belasco’s play The Girl of the Golden West (1905).

First Performance: 10 December 1910, Metropolitan Opera House, New York.

Principal Roles:
Minnie	Soprano
Jack Rance, sheriff	Baritone
Dick Johnson/Ramerrez, bandit	Tenor
Nick, bartender at the Polka saloon	Tenor
Ashby, Wells Fargo agent	Bass
Sonora	Baritone
Trin, a miner	Tenor
Sid, a miner	Baritone
Bello, a miner	Baritone
Harry, a miner	Tenor
Joe a miner	Tenor
Happy a miner	Baritone
Larkens, a miner	Bass
Billy Jackrabbit, a Red Indian	Bass
Wowkle, his squaw	Mezzo-Soprano
Jake Wallace, a travelling camp minstrel	Baritone
José Castro (mestizo), one of Ramerrez’s band	Bass
The Pony Express riders	Tenor

Setting: A camp of miners at the foot of the Cloudy Mountains during the California Gold Rush (1849-50).

Introduction:

The plot is concerned with rather melodramatic happenings during the days of the California Gold Rush. While remaining true, in general, to his usual melodious style, Puccini has adapted his score to a rapidly moving conversational dialogue. He also shows that he was aware of the musical progress of the times by his use of consecutive and unresolved seventh chords somewhat in the manner of Ravel, and in the employment of Debussian augmented triads. Moreover, for the sake of local color, he introduces melodies and rhythms characteristic of the South and Southwest.

Synopsis:

Act I

Ashby, agent of the Wells Fargo Company, enters the “Polka” bar-room, and, joining the miners there assembled, says that he is close on the track of Ramerrez, chief of the band of Mexican outlaws who have recently committed a big robbery. The sheriff, Jack Rance, in talking with the men, boasts of his own love affair with the “girl,” Minnie, and says that he is going to marry her. One of the miners disputes his claim and a brawl results. Minnie herself enters and stops it. Minnie runs the “Polka,” for she is the orphaned child of the founder of this establishment, and also acts as mother and guardian angel to the miners and cowboys who frequent the place. When Rance proposes to her in his crude fashion, she spurns him and holds him at bay with a revolver. A stranger enters and gives his name as Dick Johnson of Sacramento. The sheriff is suspicious concerning him, but Minnie takes his part, saying that she has met him before. Johnson is in reality none other than the hunted Ramerrez — he has come to rob the saloon. Unaware of this, Minnie recalls with Dick the time they first met and fell in love with one another. The men all go in search of Ramerrez, leaving with Minnie their gold. She declares that if anyone is to steal the gold he must do so over her dead body. Johnson has become more and more enamoured of her and relinquishes his plan of robbery; now he admires her courage. She invites him to visit her in her cabin when the miners shall have returned.

Act II

Johnson and Minnie meet at her “shack” and sing of their love. Suddenly shots are heard outside in the darkness — the men are again searching for Ramerrez. Not wanting to be found with her lover, she conceals John¬son, then admits the men. They are hunting, they say, for Dick Johnson, who is none other than Ramerrez. Minnie declines their offered protection and they leave. Then she turns upon Johnson with the revelations that she has just heard. Dick acknowledges their truth, but goes on to tell how he was compelled by fate to become a bandit; since meet¬ing her he has resolved to give up his old life, and had prayed, in vain, that she would never know of his past. The tense dramatic atmosphere is reflected in somber chords in the orchestra.

But Minnie cannot forgive him for having deceived her after confessing his love. She sends him out into the night. A moment later shots are heard, Minnie runs to the door, opens it and drags in Johnson, seriously wounded. She hides him in a loft up under the roof. The sheriff soon enters, hot on the trail. Minnie has almost overcome his suspicions when a drop of blood falls from the loft, revealing the wounded man. Knowing that the sheriff is a desperate gambler, Minnie, as a last resort, offers to play a game of poker with him, the stakes to be her own hand and Johnson’s life, or else her own and the prisoner’s freedom. Minnie cheats, wins the game and her lover.

Act III

Johnson, nursed back to life by Minnie, is about to be hanged by Ashby’s men. He asks one last request. Let her believe that he had gained his freedom and gone away to live the nobler life she had taught him. He touchingly apostrophizes her as the “star of his wasted life.” This last request of Johnson’s is sung to the most famous melody in the opera (“Ch’ella mi creda libero”).

Just as the lynchers are about to draw the rope taut, Minnie rushes in on horseback. She at first holds the crowd at bay with her drawn revolver, then appeals to them eloquently, reminding them of her faithful care for their needs; they should not fail her now. The “boys” relent, and in spite of Rance’s protests, release the prisoner. Johnson and Minnie bid them farewell and go away together to begin life anew.

[Introduction and Synopsis adapted from The Victor Book of the Opera (10th ed. 1929)]

Click here for the complete libretto.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/corellijohnson.png imagedescription=Franco Corelli as Dick Johnson/Ramerrez audio=yes firstaudioname=Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): La Fanciulla del West
WinAMP or VLC firstaudiolink=http://www.operatoday.com/Fanciulla2.m3u

product=yes producttitle=G. Puccini: La Fanciulla del West productby=Ashby: Ugo Novelli; Bello: Pier Luigi Latinucci; Billy Jackrabbit: Eraldo Coda; Dick Johnson: Franco Corelli; Happy: Carlo Forti; Harry: Gino del Signore; Jack Rance: Tito Gobbi; Jake Wallace: Nicola Zaccaria; Jim Larkens: Giuseppe Morresi; Joe: Angelo Mercuriali; José Castro: Vittorio Tatozzi; Minnie: Gigliola Frazzoni; Nick: Franco Ricciardi; Sid: Michele Cazzato; Sonora: Enzo Sordello; Trin: Athos Cesarini; Un postiglione: Erminio Benatti; Wowkle: Maria Amadini. Orchestra & Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano. Antonino Votto (cond.). Live performance, 4 April 1956, Milan.

GIORDANO: Marcella

In Timothy Alan Shaw’s translation (not always smooth), Cantù goes on to note that Marcella came in the “final phases of [Giordano’s] creativity” - though the composer would live until 1948.

Although Puccini would go on to write more masterpieces, from La Fanciulla del West to Turandot, by 1907 much of the great Italian operatic tradition had become tired and formulaic. Giordano’s Marcella isn’t bad; some parts of the score, especially the orchestral sections such as the prelude to the last of the three episodes, are quite attractive. But the predictability of the musical language and dramatic situations drains any life from the proceedings.

In the opening scene for ensemble, set in a Parisian restaurant, a prince rescues a woman of the streets being pursued by obscurely motivated ruffians. The two fall in love, and in the second episode they are living in bliss in the country when a visitor from the prince’s country comes to tell him he must return home to save his country. In the third episode, they share (and we endure) their sad farewell to each other. Bits of operas from Manon Lescaut to La Traviata and any number of others can be discerned in this threadbare scenario.

Dynamic’s live August 2007 recording from the Martina Franca Festival might still make a case for giving Marcella an occasional listen if the two singers in the leads had more to offer. As the title character, Serena Daolio seems to always be just about ready to slip off the note, or slide up into it. Her lines also tend to trail off into breathy exhalations. Danilo Formaggia’s big, blustery tenor, in the role of Giorgio, provides volume for passion. Their final duet faintly echoes the great climax to Giordano’s greatest work, Andrea Chenier. Conductor Manilo Benzi and the Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia do an excellent job with the best Giordano’s score has to offer, a varied and colorful orchestral fabric.

Chris Mullins

image=http://www.operatoday.com/573.png image_description=Umberto Giordano: Marcella

product=yes producttitle=Umberto Giordano: Marcella productby=Marcella: Serena Daolio; Giorgio: Danilo Formaggia; Drasco: Pierluigi Dilengite; Clara: Natalizia Carone; Raimonda: Angelica Girardi; Eliana: Mara D’Antini; Lea: Maria Rosa Rondinelli; Vernier: Marcello Rosiello; Barthélemy: Giovanni Coletta; Flament: Graziano De Pace. Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia. Bratislava Chamber Choir. Conductor: Manlio Benzi. Director: Alessio Pizzech. productid=Dynamic CDS 573 [CD] price=$18.99 producturl=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?nameid1=4439&namerole1=1&bcorder=1&comp_id=272116