December 30, 2011
Vivica Genaux — An Interview
The Alaskan mezzo- soprano now spends most of her time in Europe and only visits Alaska on special occasions. When we spoke, she was visiting a friend with a lovely home in the city where Vivica could sit back with a latte and talk to this reporter.
MN: Where do you live now?
VG: In my suitcases! I just got a wonderful new pair in Oviedo, Spain. My husband is Italian and we have a home outside of Venice, but I’m not there very much, so I’m not sure I can say I live there. I still have a home in Fairbanks, Alaska and one in Pennsylvania, but I’m not in any of those places for long. That’s why my suitcases are more my home than any place else. If I do an opera production, however, I get the chance to stay in one place for a month. Many musicians travel all the time. I know that young players in the Baroque bands with whom I work often get burned out because of all the travel. Although it is sometimes difficult when your voice is your instrument, at least you don’t have to pay extra to bring it with you on an airplane. I frequently travel with orchestras and they often have problems because of lack of understanding on the part of airlines. One time we were sitting at a gate for forty minutes without knowing why we could not board the plane. Finally, a representative of the airline came on the loud speaker and apologized for the delay. She laughed heartily when she said they eventually realized that cellos are people too, because they require seats.
MN: Are you interested in the newest technical innovations for musicians?
VG: Yes, I keep all my scores on my computer so they travel with me. For Baroque music, particularly, you cannot always find what you need online. You may need to work from an edition that is exclusive to the group with which you are singing. Scores of the same piece often differ because the composer changed some notes for performances with a second cast. I like working on the computer and I put in the cadenzas for the Vivaldi arias that we are doing on our upcoming United States tour. I was given the manuscript and I put it into a program called Sibelius. Generally, I’m the person who prints out the part for each musician. I like doing that kind of work because it takes my brain off other things and I don’t have to use my voice to do it. In September I did a recording that was originally scheduled to contain duets. The soprano who was to sing with me became ill at the last moment, however. They asked me if I could do a solo program and luckily, I had all my scores on my laptop. I was able to print out all the parts, so within the space of four hours, I was able to completely change directions on that recording.
MN: How did you meet your husband?
VG: Although he’s not in the business of opera, I met him through EPCASO (The Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera), a program with which I was working a few years ago in Pittsburgh. My voice teacher, Claudia Pinza, is the director. Massimo had lived in that area for many years and he knew where to get anything that EPCASO needed, whether it was the rental of a piano, lights for a concert, etc. He would facilitate whatever was lacking and he also helped with public outreach for the program itself. I met him in 1992 when I first attended EPCASO. When I finished the program four years later, we began to date. Now he is the Director of Water Management, Flood Control, and Irrigation for an area near Venice. He was here with me recently when I sang with Nicholas McGegan in San Francisco. From there we went to Las Vegas, a city I had never visited. Then we drove around to see Bryce Canyon, the Hoover Dam, and the Glen Canyon Dam. Because Massimo is in water management, the huge dams that supply water to desert cities fascinated him.
MN: How often do you get back to Alaska or Pennsylvania?
VG: I am in Alaska a couple of weeks each year. Massimo and I are going there in March because I want him to experience winter in Alaska and enjoy the Ice Festival in Fairbanks. It’s been years since I was there for that. It’s a long trip from Italy, but we were there last August. I spent a couple of weeks in December with my teacher in Pittsburgh. Then I went back to Europe. Before I return for the tour of the States with Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante, I have concerts in Caen and Vienna as well as a recording with Fabio, which will be done in Vienna. I go to Los Angeles on January 23, after rehearsals in Parma. I’m really excited to be singing in Disney Hall on January 25. I was there for one of the first concerts held in the new building. At that time people said that the wood of the hall would mature and the acoustics would get warmer. I am curious to hear the difference now. At that early concert, I remember that one of the instrumentalists blew his nose and you could hear it all over the hall! It was phenomenal how that sound carried.
It’s wonderful to have the opportunity to come to the States with Fabio and Europa Galante. It’s my first time singing Baroque music with a Baroque band here. Their presence on stage and their musicality is phenomenal. Fabio conducts while playing the violin just as Vivaldi did. I love the idea of sharing this wonderful music with American audiences that are mainly familiar with the Baroque sound on recordings. To hear and see it live will be a lot of fun. They have such a good time playing. There is energy, concentration and just plain joy in their performances and it’s an honor to sing with them. I’m really excited about it.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/VivicaGenaux96098x10mouthcl.gif image_description=Vivica Genaux [Photo by Christian Steiner] product=yes product_title=Vivica Genaux — An Interview product_by=Interviewed by Maria Nockin product_id=Above: Vivica GenauxPhotos by Christian Steiner
December 28, 2011
Leoncavallo’s I Medici
Both composers found early acclaim with one-act operas, and to this day the pairing of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci serves as a popular mainstay of most opera houses. The sad shadow of that imposing success also falls on both composers, as neither ever managed to create another work as loved or esteemed. Leoncavallo, in fact, would have much preferred his name be linked, as unlikely as it may seem, with that of Richard Wagner. Leoncavallo considered himself to be better educated than his Italian contemporaries, including Puccini, who famously refused to acknowledge Leoncavallo’s prior claim to a novel about life among poverty-stricken hipsters in 19th century Paris — with Puccini’s La Bohéme driving Leoncavallo’s work into obscurity.
Leoncavallo would love to have created a multi-part epic along the lines of Wagner’s Ring cycle, and he actually completed the first of a planned triptych set in the Italian Renaissance — I Medici. In 2007 Deutsche Grammophon assembled some first-class artists to record this rare score. The booklet notes of DG’s handsomely produced set don’t attempt to peddle the opera as a long-lost masterpiece, offering the politely conditional, “If his opera ultimately does not work as drama…” while praising the highlights of the composer’s musical efforts. But there is more memorable melodic material in any fifteen minutes of Leoncavallo’s famed one-act work than in all four acts of I Medici.
The libretto complexly fails to provide any meaningful portrayal of the Renaissance or the political and cultural power of the two Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano. Other than a few lines at the beginning and end, the deeper issues Wagner would have dug into are ignored for a prosaic love triangle, with Giuliano in love with the sickly Simonetta, who would reciprocate if she weren’t so unwell she faints routinely. So Giulaino enjoys himself with her closest friend, Fioretta. Even as a love story, I Medici fails to satisfy, as Simonetta dies in act three almost as soon as she becomes aware of Giuliano’s dalliance with her friend, and before she can warn him of a conspiracy she has overheard to kill him and his brother. Giuliano falls victim to the assassins, while Fioretta mourns him and Lorenzo escapes. Lorenzo stays on the sidelines, making his shout of triumph at the end a bizarre non-sequitur. A menacing figure named Montesecco hangs on the outside of most of the drama yet has nothing pertinent to do in the action. The plot has more dead ends than a corn maze, but less suspense.
As a listening experience, however, I Medici shouldn’t be slighted. From the bray of hunting horns heard in the prelude through the song contest and dance sequence of act two up through the church music heard before the violence of act four, Leoncavallo stretches himself as an orchestrator. Why his lyric gift failed him can only be ascribed to the composer’s acknowledgement of his librettist’s (himself) failure to create any truly worthy inspiration.
The score finds worthy exponents in conductor Alberto Veronesi and its two male leads, Plácido Domingo and Carlos Álvarez. In 2007 Domingo still had a tenor’s silver in his vocal coloring, and he is caught in fine voice. Álvarez lacks the start tenor’s glamour and unique profile, but he has strength and nobility. As the perpetually ailing Simonetta, Daniella Dessi sounds very healthy, except for some harshness at the top. Renata Lamanda can’t make much of the dreary Fioretta, while Eric Owens lends his smoky bass in the negligible role of Montesecco.
For collectors of rare repertoire, this is an obvious “must-buy.” Otherwise, the appeal of this set is probably limited to devoted fans of either male lead.
Chris Mullins
image=http://www.operatoday.com/DG_4777456.gif
image_description=Ruggiero Leoncavallo: I Medici
product=yes
product_title=Ruggero Leoncavallo: I Medici
product_by=Giuliano de’ Medici: Plácido Domingo; Lorenzo de’ Medici: Carlos Álvarez; Simonetta: Daniella Dessi; Fioretta: Renata Lamanda; Montesecco: Eric Owens. Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Florentino. Conductor: Alberto Veronesi.
product_id=DG 0289 477 7456 3 GH 2 [2CDs]
price=$35.99
product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=19070&name_role1=1&bcorder=1&comp_id=327951
“‘I Heard a Voice’: the Music of the Golden Age”
Thus, in an anthology of the music of Thomas Weelkes, Orlando Gibbons, and Thomas Tomkins—composers active under both Elizabeth I and James I—we hear persistent echoes of Byrd and his generation, especially in formal procedures and harmonic and melodic idiom. And it is this repertory that the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge and the viol consort, Fretwork, address in their recording “I Heard a Voice.”
There a few surprises in either the selections or the performances. Both the choir and instrumental ensemble are in generally superb form, and works like Weelkes’s “Alleluia, I heard a voice,” Gibbons’s “This is the record of John,” and the settings of “When David heard” by Weelkes and Tomkins have long achieved an iconic familiarity. If the age was golden, then these are works that have repeatedly offered a degree of “gilty” pleasure.
Familiar, or no, the anthology is well constructed to show the range of the repertory. Several pieces fall into the category of “full anthem”—i.e., fully choral throughout—and among these are fine examples of the degree to which the busy bustle of ebullient lines was both exploited and artistically controlled by composers of the day. Gibbons’s “Hosanna to the Son of David” and similar works tend to sparkle here, though admittedly Cleobury maintains a tight rein: ecclesiastical propriety trumps unbounded effusion! Tomkins’s twelve-voice “O Praise the Lord” is the fullest of the full; surprisingly it emerges mired in an uncharacteristic muddiness that may ultimately have more to do with chapel acoustics than choral rendition.
As a foil to the ebullient anthems, several works underscore the melancholic, lamentative propensities of the age. The two settings of “When David heard”—the psalmist’s lament over the death of his son, Absalom—are exquisitely plaintive. The crystalline control of the choral sound brings the poignance into an intense focus, and the affective power of these gestures creates some of the most memorable moments of the recording.
The collaborations with viols are an important reminder that an important part of this repertory figured in domestic devotional settings, apart from the chapel. Weelkes’s “Most mighty and all knowing Lord” is a strophic consort song that would have easily graced less formal venues, and is engagingly sung by alto David Allsopp. “Verse anthems”—anthems alternating instrumentally accompanied solo sections with choral sections—often survive in versions for both organ or viol consort, suggestive of chapel and domestic performance. Arguably the best known example is Gibbons’s brilliant “This is the record of John.” Performed here in the familiar viol version, an otherwise strong rendition is besmirched by an excess of vibrato in the solo tenor that detracts from the ensemble blend and shaping of contours.
Such missteps are few. “I heard a voice” presents one of the standard bearers of the English choral tradition in a repertory that surely lies close to its heart. And given that, it is no surprise that it is a recording to savor.
Steven Plank
image=http://www.operatoday.com/EMI_0094639443024.gif image_description=I heard a voice product=yes product_title=“‘I Heard a Voice’: the Music of the Golden Age” product_by=Choir of King’s College, Cambridge; Fretwork; Stephen Cleobury, Director product_id=EMI 0946 3 94430 2 4 [CD] price=$15.99 product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=12862&name_role1=1&name_id2=104772&name_role2=4&bcorder=41&comp_id=49432Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina e la Compagnia dei Musici di Roma, Messa di Santa Cecilia
In part, the centerpiece—a “Missa Cantantibus organis”—pays homage to St. Cecilia, both in her liturgical rank and as patroness of music. But as a parody mass—a reworking of material from Palestrina’s responsory motet, “Cantantibus organis”—the mass also becomes a salute both to Palestrina’s musical rank and the cultivation of church music in Rome. Making these gestures of homage all the more compelling is that the mass itself is a collective enterprise, written jointly by seven composers (including Palestrina himself) from the confraternity “Compagnia dei Musici di Roma.” And while these composers, who include Annabile Stabile, Francesco Soriano, Giovanni Andrea Dragoni, Prospero Santini Ruggiero Giovannelli, and Curcio Mancini, have not risen to the modern fame of Palestrina, they collectively represent the wealth of the Roman musical establishment towards the close of the sixteenth century. Rounding out the program are motets from Palestrina’s “Song of Songs” and an unusually through-composed Magnificat.
Unsurprisingly, the Mass with so many hands involved shows a variety of textures and styles, ranging from four to twelve voice parts deployed in both imitative counterpoint, homophonic writing, and antiphonal dialogues. Much is given to twelve-voice splendor; it is interesting, however, that the grand-scale of the texture somewhat ironically suggests an economy of pace, moving through the text without lengthy development—rich but not expansive. And though the construction of the Mass is varied, the stylistic idioms are so well established that shifts from composer to composer, or texture to texture, create no jarring effect.
Ensemble officium brings to this repertory a well-seasoned fluency. The choral sound has a degree of heft to it, but in Wilfried Rombach’s hands, it emerges as focused and clear, nicely attuned to the chant-like fluidity of lines, but also to chordal richness. The result is a very satisfying performance of Roman repertory from its most golden age.
Steven Plank
image=http://www.operatoday.com/CHR_c5078d8r.gif image_description=Christophorus CHR 77288 [SACD] product=yes product_by=Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina e la Compagnia dei Musici di Roma, Messa di Santa Cecilia product_by=ensemble officium; Wilfried Rombach, Director product_id=Christophorus CHR 77288 [SACD] price=$24.99 product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=191676&album_group=5The English Oratorio: A Celebration (Barbican Hall, London)
Inspired by imaginative genius and, at times, financial necessity, Handel created musical forms, including the English-language oratorio, which have remained at the heart of English musical life ever since. His works garnered extraordinary acclaim in his own day, and continued to exert an enormous influence on the musical history of his chosen country of residence long after his death,
In the 1730s and 1740s, as London audiences’ fickle taste for Italianate opera seria waned, and wearied by the continual political intrigues of the capital’s theatrical life, Handel turned his attention to another creative outlet and source of income; realising the possibilities offered by large un-staged dramatic works, by the 1740s the oratorio had completely replaced opera in his output.
Skilfully combining elements taken from Italian opera and oratorio, the English anthem and other genres, Handel produced a uniquely ‘English’ musico-dramatic form, one which has since inspired many composers, both native and foreign. The Barbican Hall’s six-month series celebrating the English oratorio continues in 2012 with a varied array of works of contrasting styles and intent, performed by illustrious English orchestras, conductors and soloists.
Today, compared with the box office popularity of Mozart and Beethoven, it is common to dismiss Haydn as — to coin Charles Rosen phrase — a ‘connoisseurs’ composer’, but, as Rosen points out, to do so is to overlook Haydn’s enormous popular success during the 1790s, a decade which witnessed an immense outburst of musical creativity in a deliberately popular style.
It is to this decade that both of Haydn’s major oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, belong. The latter’s numerous allusions to Haydn’s ‘back catalogue’ — such as the quotation from that perennial audience favourite, the Surprise Symphony, in the fourth number — reveal the composer’s shrewd commercial and musical instincts.
The Seasons sets texts by the early Romantic nature poet, James Thompson, poems which enable the composer to indulge in his beloved pastoral idiom. The work is characterised by wonderfully evocative tone-painting which explicitly points the sentiments of the text with particularity and dramatic inventiveness; surprising modulations and unexpected dynamic accents provide deliberately theatrical flourishes.
As the title suggests, the oratorio depicts the passing of the year, but it is more than a pictorial portrait; Haydn’s musical idiom, at times surprisingly simple, even naïve, expresses not only his wonder at the beauty of the natural world, but also reveals a sincere exploration and depiction of man’s relationship to Nature. It is a true coup de théâtre, presenting before us the entire universe as Haydn and his contemporaries new it.
Following his recent award-winning recording of Haydn’s other late oratorio, The Creation, conductor Paul McCreesh now leads some of the same performers, including his renowned period ensemble the Gabrieli Consort, in a performance of this work of infinite beauty, grace and insight.
The son of an aristocratic family of assimilated Jews, Mendelssohn was baptised and raised as a Protestant and lived as a devout Christian. His preoccupation with works of a religious nature was thus a natural outgrowth of his faith; but, when his interests in the Baroque oratorio tradition and, more particularly, in the revival of the Passions of J.S. Bach combined with nineteenth-century taste for theatrical melodrama, the result was a thrilling Biblical epic, Elijah.
Though compositional sketching commenced in 1837-8, the oratorio might, like Mendelssohn’s third oratorio, Christus, have remained unfinished had it not been for a contract in September 1845 from the Committee of the Birmingham Music Festival to conduct the 1846 Festival, which offered him the opportunity to present a major new composition.
According to one eye witness, the work was finished only 9 days before the Festival. Premiered on 26 August, by an orchestra of 125 players and a chorus comprising 271 singers, it was a sensational success: audiences demanded that four arias and four choruses be immediately repeated. Mendelssohn himself was clearly overwhelmed by the occasion, later recording: “A young English tenor [Charles Lockey] sang the last aria so beautifully I was obliged to exercise great self-control in order not to be affected, and to beat time steadily.”
Andreas Delf will conduct the Britten Sinfonia and Chorus in a performance show-casing some of the finest contemporary British voices: joining experienced baritone Simon Keenlyside and alto Catherine Wyn-Rogers are young singers at their forefront of a new generation of acclaimed performers, soprano Lucy Crowe and tenor Andrew Kennedy.
It was the first performance of Tippett’s A Child of our Time, on 19th March 1944, in a concert promoted by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Region Civil Defence and Morley College Choirs — conducted by William Goehr, with soloists Joan Cross, Margaret McArthur, Peter Pears and Rogerick Lloyd –that brought Michael Tippett’s name before a wider public.
Tippett’s oratorio characteristically embodies a considered philosophy of music’s nature and function. In November 1938 Herschel Grynsbaum, a 17-year Polish Jew, assassinated a minor Nazi diplomat in retaliation for the persecution of his parents; the boy was imprisoned and disappeared, and the Nazis retaliated with a savage pogrom. Initially Tippett asked T.S. Eliot to write the libretto, but the poet suggested that as his own response might be too obviously ‘poetic’, the composer might be better advised to produce his own text. Tippett’s emotional response to Grynsbaum’s fate, and to that of all European Jews in the ensuing war, was typical in its desire to express both the horror of man’s inhumanity to man and the assurance of compassion and peace — the light and shadow within us all.
The three-part form of the oratorio was modelled on Handel’s Messiah, but the masterstroke was the inclusion of Negro Spirituals at crucial emotional and dramatic highpoints. Tippett thereby created for himself the problem of integrating the language of these spirituals with his own style, one of highly sophisticated European sensibility; he reduced the spirituals to a simple minor triad with added 7th, using them as an imaginative substitute for the Lutheran chorale, and based his own music on this core triad, thereby overcoming the apparent incompatibility of styles. There is not merely juxtaposition but true integration, as taught musical arguments combine with naturally expansive lyricism. Thus, in ‘Nobody knows’, the opening, immediately recognisable melodic quotation is treated contrapuntally and with the irregular accentuation that is consistent with Tippett’s own musical language. Similarly, the alto solo ‘The soul of man’ is derived melodically and rhythmically from the spiritual, but is also distinctively personal particularly with regard to the natural declamation of the text.
Tippett’s work explores elemental questions which retain their power to urge us to reflect on the relationship between individual human actions and universal catastrophes. At the Barbican Hall in March, Sir Andrew Davis conducts the BBC Symphony and Chorus, in a performance of this great work, which has been described as “an impassioned protest against the conditions which make persecution possible”.
Setting a poem by Cardinal Newman, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius depicts an ordinary man on the point of death, facing his judgement before God. Elgar found in Newman’s poetry a subject of both private and universal significance: Gerontius’s predicament touched the composer’s own anxieties, and these doubts ring through the painful chromaticism of Part 1 as forcefully as the vision of eternity offered in the more affirmative Part 2.
Derived from a close network of musical motifs, the music is shaped in wide arches and moves swiftly and dramatically through the text, the harmonies changing rapidly as the orchestra shares the expressive responsibility with the choral voices.
Widely considered one of the composer’s greatest works, The Dream of Gerontius was, like Mendelssohn’s Elijah, commissioned by Birmingham Music Festival, and it was first performed at Birmingham Town Hall. It is thus fitting that in April Andris Nelson will conduct the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and soloists Toby Spence, Sarah Connolly and James Rutherford in a performance of this deeply moving work, which combines religious fervour with human passion.
It might be argued that Handel’s Messiah has influenced British musical life more than any other single composition; Handel’s feeling for the English language was perhaps as fine as that of Shakespeare, and it was this musical power of expression to which the composers who followed in his footsteps aspired. In so doing, they created a musical and dramatic heritage which is gloriously celebrated in this exciting series at the Barbican Hall.
Claire Seymour
Haydn: The Seasons
14 January 2012
Gabrieli Consort & Players
Paul McCreesh conductor
Christiane Karg soprano
Allan Clayton tenor
Christopher Purves baritone
Click here for additional information.
Mendelssohn: Elijah
7 March 2012
Britten Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia Voices
Andreas Delfs conductor
Simon Keenlyside baritone
Catherine Wyn-Rogers mezzo-soprano
Lucy Crowe soprano
Andrew Kennedy tenor
Click here for additional information.
Tippett: A Child of Our Time
Hugh Wood: Violin Concerto No 2 (London premiere)
23 March 2012
BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Chorus
Sir Andrew Davis conductor
Nicole Cabell soprano
Karen Cargill mezzo-soprano
Toby Spence tenor
Matthew Rose bass
Anthony Marwood violin
Click here for additional information.
Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius
14 April 2012
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and CBSO Chorus
Andris Nelsons conductor
Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano
Toby Spence tenor
James Rutherford bass-baritone
Click here for additional information.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Joseph_Haydn%2C_Hardy.gif image_description=Joseph Haydn by Thomas Hardy (1792) [Source: Wikipedia] product=yes product_title=The English Oratorio: A Celebration (Barbican Hall, London) product_by=Click here for details regarding forthcoming performances product_id=Above: Joseph Haydn by Thomas Hardy (1792) [Source: Wikipedia]December 23, 2011
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Royal Opera House
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is a comedy and here’s it’s presented as the ultimate up market Xmas show. It’s extremely enjoyable, and an ideal introduction to the opera experience. Richard Wagner, though, gets sidelined.
Sir John Tomlinson is a definite reason for catching this revival. The days when he could sing Hans Sachs are past, but he creates an unusually vivid Veit Pogner. Tomlinson plays Pogner powerfully, as if he was a former Sachs, whose reasons for committing his daughter to this bizarre marriage make sense. He’s dedicating his daughter to art, not too shabby politics. Luckily for him, and for Eva, Walter von Stolzing arrives in the nick of time. Indeed, Beckmesser very nearly persuades the Meistersingers to drive Walter out of town. Things could so easily have turned out quite differently. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg may be comic, but it evolves against a background of tension. At any moment anarchy could breakout. Unless the Meistersingers adapt, they might not survive.
Wagner builds tension into the music. The Meistersingers sing at cross purposes, and in the riot scene, the turbulence of the chorus evokes the violence which comes with all revolution. That’s why the Night Watchman sings “bewahrt euch vor Gespenstern und Spuk, dass kein böser Geist eu’r Seel’ beruck’!” The music for the apprentice boys is energetic, a warning for those who remember Wagner’s protosocialism. This time, however, no dangerous ideas. We’re treated to a good natured Meistersinger, where the apprentices dance with little vigour, and the blows Sachs throws at David have no menace. Antonio Pappano received the longest applause of all on the first night,. Most audiences can relate better to joyful Romaticism in music better than to Wagner-on-edge, so it’s understandable. He clearly enjoys the life-affirming elements in this opera, which come over well. Christmas is not the right time for radical ideas, and this is not a production that would support them.
Graham Vicks’s riot scene is classic because it’s so well imagined. The townsfolk pop out of windows and hang precariously upside down over the stage. One man looks like he’s about to lose his footing (this happened in earlier productions, so it was planned) In their nightshirts the townsfolk look like escapees from an asylum, a good idea but not developed. The Festweise scene is masterfully blocked, so each guild is clearly defined. I liked the acrobats in the background, too. But these scenes aren’t for entertainment but emphasize the traumas in Nürnberg’s past.
Because John Tomlinson so dominates the first Act, Wolfgang Koch’s Hans Sach might be overlooked, but Koch understands the role. Sachs is an observer, who stands apart from the crowd, and who thinks before he acts. Koch’s Sachs is sung with sensitivity, and would be very effective in a more perceptive production which focuses on Sachs and not the scenery. Koch looks and sounds younger than the other Meistersingers and is rather more lyrical than Simon O’Neill’s Walther von Stolzing who is more hoch dramatisch than true Heldentenor. This was the best performance I’ve ever heard from O’Neill, and he was good, but it’s a part better suited to a more luminous timbre. O’Neill was, however, a good match for Emma Bell’s Eva, joyfully created though perhaps more Italianate than Wagnerian. In a cheerful, non-idiomatic production like this, it didn’t matter, and they conveyed the story. Popular favourite, Toby Spence, sang a very good David, but he’s more upper class than roustabout.
(L-R) Peter Coleman-Wright as Beckmesser, Wolfgang Koch as Hans Sachs, Heather Shipp as Magdalene, Simon O’Neill as Walther and Emma Bell as Eva
It was good to see many teenagers in the audience, another good reason for having a show like this in holiday time. Last week, David Chandler took his daughter to Kurt Weill’s Magical Night at the Linbury, (reviewed here) and she was ecstatic. We can give kids toys anytime, but the gift of a magical experience is beyond compare. And the same goes for adults, new to opera. This Meistersinger may not tell us much about the opera or about Wagner, but it’s an excellent night out.
Anne Ozorio
image=http://www.operatoday.com/MEISTERSINGER-111216_0229.gif image_description=Wolfgang Koch as Hans Sachs and Emma Bell As Eva [Photo © ROH 2011 / Clive Barda] product=yes product_title=Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg product_by=Walther von Stolzing: Simon O'Neill, Eva: Emma Bell, Magdalene: Heather Shipp, David: Toby Spence, Veit Pogner: John Tomlinson, Hans Sachs: Wolfgang Koch, Kunz Vogelgesang: Colin Judson, Konrad Nachtigall: Nicholas Folwell, Fritz Kother: Donald Maxwell, Hermann Ortel: Jihoon Kim, Balthazar Zorn: Martyn Hill, Augustin Moser: Pablo Bensch, Ulrich Eisslinger: Andrew Rees, Hans Foltz: Jeremy White, Hans Schwarz: Richard Wiegiold, Nightwatchman: Robert Lloyd. Conductor: Antonio Pappano, Chorus master: Renato Balsadonna, Director: Graham Vick, Revival Director: Elaine Kidd, Designs: Richard Hudson, Original Lighting: Wolfgang Goebel, Movement: Ron Howell. Royal Opera House, London, 19th Decemeber 2011. product_id=Above: Wolfgang Koch as Hans Sachs and Emma Bell As EvaPhotos © ROH 2011 / Clive Barda
The Bostridge Project: ‘Ancient and Modern’
We began with the master lutenist, John Dowland, whose distinctive blend of poem, melody and harmony was exquisitely celebrated in a sequence of ensembles, solo songs and lute dances. After a lively, euphonious opening — the trio ‘When Phoebus first did Daphne love’, in which the voices swelled and declaimed in joyful harmony — Ian Bostridge established a more intimate air, with ‘Daphne was not so chaste’. Seated, Bostridge struck a relaxed pose; the improvisatory flourishes and sense of spontaneous melodic growth reminding us that these songs would have been sung in intimate, domestic settings by whichever forces were to hand. Elizabeth Kenny’s lute was no mere substitute for voices, but an instrument in subtle dialogue with the melody, and providing telling harmonic nuance. Mark Stone’s rendering of the renowned ‘In darkness let me dwell’ seemed, in contrast, overly mannered and theatrical. The limited melodic range of these songs naturally highlights the centrality of the text and there is no need for the singer to excessively dramatise the words; indeed, to do so risks destroying the very simplicity and fluidity of line which encapsulates the understated sorrow — one merely needs to take each phrase as it comes.
The trio ‘Come again, sweet love doth now invite’ achieved a madrigalian lightness of spirit, with yearning intensity escalating through the breathy line, “To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die”, the Elizabethan euphemism beautifully coloured by Daneman. Here Stone provided solid foundations for the subtle textual nuances of the upper voices. Daneman revealed a rich lower register in ‘Flow my tears’, her eloquent phrases decorated with sensitive cadential elaborations by the lute. The three voices came together once more for ‘White as lilies was her face’, rhythmic vigour — when reflecting on the power of a woman’s wooing to undo the male — contrasting with a more subdued depiction of loss, and climaxing with an intricately assertive declared intent to “banish love with forward scorn”. Interspersed between these songs were two pieces for solo lute, the aptly titled ‘Semper Dowland simper dolens’ and ‘Mignarda’, in which Kenny relished the freedom of form and adventurous tonal palette.
Philip Heseltine, who assumed the name Peter Warlock (reflecting his interest in the occult), was deeply influenced by his Elizabethan predecessors and conducted much research into the idiom which had a marked effect on his own musical style. Six of his ‘Elizabeth songs arranged for voice and string quartet’ revealed a plaintive sound world; the Heath Quartet’s restrained, almost imperceptive vibrato recreated the undemonstrative yet acutely affecting timbre of the viol consort, the closely nestling voices further deepening the mood of concentration. In ‘Born is the Babe’ deft counterpoint between the imitative instrumental entries supported a sincere rendering of the text by Mark Stone; in particular, a tender cadence emphasised the solace of Christian faith: “The haven of peace when worldly troubles toss/ Who cur’d our care by suff’ring on the cross.”
‘O Death, rock me asleep’ was more Stygian in mood, plangent suspensions complementing the dark richness of Bostridge’s lower register as he called for death to “rock me asleep,/ Bring me to quiet rest”. In contrast, Daneman soared with piercing clarity above the dense string texture in ‘Abrahad’, recognising her husband’s death — “Alas, alas, alas, alas, lo, this is he!” — before calling dramatically for death to embrace her too, in elaborate echoes between voice and strings in dynamic variation. Maytime celebrations brought more joviality to the end of the first part of the programme, Stone’s declamatory bon esprit in ‘When May is in his prime’, being followed by Bostridge’s sweet delight in the through-sung, ‘No more, good herdsman, of thy song’. Bostridge’s ability to subtly colour an individual word, assimilating detail and overall meaning, was evident in the forward momentum he brought to repetitions in the song’s conclusion: “Your pipes to me but harsh do sound/ Wherein such sweetness erst I found/ Well may the nymph then ever fare,/ For she, for she, for she is she without compare.” The vigorous string lines underlining Daneman’s “chirping notes” in ‘In a merry may morn’ brought the first half to a joyful end.
Warlock dexterously imitates Elizabethan counterpoint and textures in many of his own songs, such as ‘Sleep’, where meandering vocal and piano lines climax in cadential flourishes of a distinctly Tudor flavour. Pianist Julius Drake enjoyed the gradual enriching of harmonic vocabulary in the second stanza, and in the piano postlude tenderly recalled the falling fifth of the opening vocal phrase, “Come, sleep”. In ‘Rest, sweet nymphs’ Bostridge achieved a remarkable gentility of tone, the dulcet softness gradually expanding through the vocal rise, “Lullaby, lullaby,/ Hath eas’d you and pleas’d you,”; typically Bostridge pointed the rhyme before subsiding to a surprisingly quiet sweetness in the concluding line: “And sweet slumber seized you,/ And now to bed I hie.” Drake’s rocking dissonances in ‘Cradle Song’ gradually became an unsettling chromatic bed above which Daneman soared expansively to reassure that “Thy nurse will tend thee as duly as may be”. The syncopated rhythms and off-beat accents of ‘Jillian of Berry’ allowed Stone to indulge in more light-hearted sentiments.
Though similarly taking his inspiration from the Elizabethan, Ivor Gurney gives voice to a more restless, modernistic yearning, and Drake profitably explored the doubts and fears conveyed in the shifting, exploratory accompaniments and postludes to the songs presented here. In ‘Even such is time’ the imminence of death was conveyed by the low piano chords which begin the song, and the desperate hope, “My God shall raise me up, I trust” (Stone), with its ringing piano octaves was unsettled by the searching postlude. Drake conjured a rippling lute texture in ‘Orpheus with his lute’ (Daneman), and a sprite-like effervescence in the impish counterpoint of ‘Under the greenwood tree’ (Stone). In ‘Brown is my love’ Stone’s honeyed tone and arching phrases aptly captured the lover’s rapture. The concluding Gurney song, the well-known ‘Sleep’, provided a striking contrast to the preceding setting by Warlock: Daneman’s soaring melodic lines struck just the right balance between anxious restlessness and musical completeness.
The recital concluded with a profoundly moving performance of Warlock’s The Curlew. The instrumental interludes were astonishing affecting: the colourings of Daniel’s rich cor anglais and Davies’ pure flute timbre were exquisitely beautiful; the individual members of the Heath Quartet expertly articulating their solo melodic fragments; and the various strands formed a dialogue of bitter-sweet elegance. Bostridge’s innate feeling for the text was evident throughout, but most powerfully felt in ‘The withering of the boughs’, with the repetition of the refrain — “No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;/ The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams” — achieving first a mysterious magic and then, when spoken, a more disillusioned stoicism. Through ‘He hears the cry of the sedge’, an almost unbearable intensity amassed, with chromatic clusters underpinning instrumental fragments, and the voice rising achingly as, in a Yeatsian vision of apocalypse, the axle breaks and stars “hurl in the deep/ The banners of East and West”; eventually the voice slipped into resigned release, as the low tenor proclaimed: “And the girdle of light is unbound,/ Your breast will not lie by the breast/ Of your beloved in sleep.” The height of anguish, perhaps, but also heart-breakingly beautiful.
Claire Seymour
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Bostridge_1654.gif image_description=Ian Bostridge [Photo by David Thompson courtesy of Askonas Holt] product=yes product_title=Song Recital Series: The Bostridge Project: ‘Ancient and Modern’ product_by=Sophie Daneman, soprano; Ian Bostridge, tenor; Mark Stone, baritone. Philippa Davies, flute; Nicholas Daniel, cor anglais; Elizabeth Kenny, lute; Julius Drake, piano. Heath Quartet: Oliver Heath, violin; Cerys Jones, violin; Gary Pomeroy, viola; Christopher Murray, cello. Wigmore Hall, London, Wednesday, 21st December 2011. product_id=Above: Ian Bostridge [Photo by David Thompson courtesy of Askonas Holt]December 22, 2011
Jonathan McGovern, Wigmore Hall
Indeed, with such an illustrious ‘trophy cabinet’, it’s hard to believe that McGovern only graduated from the Royal Academy of Music this year (with a distinction and the ‘Queen’s Commendation for Excellence’).
He certainly brought youthful vigour and ebullience to the Wigmore Hall, bounding onto the platform to perform the seven Schubert lieder which opened this Kirckman Concert Society recital. ‘Die Einsame’ (‘The solitary man’) was suitably light and untroubled in spirit; in typical Romantic fashion, the protagonist finds solace in the natural world, delighting in his ‘quiet rusticity’ as the chirps of the cricket break the silence. Pianist James Cheung’s buoyant bass motifs captured the mood of cheerful ease, while McGovern’s baritone rang out strong and clear, conveying the unflustered confidence of the evening dreamer. ‘Der Strom’ (‘The river’) brought a sudden change: rapid figuration in the piano, shifting harmonies and a plunging, low vocal line suggesting the turbulence and yearning unfulfilment of both the surging river and the poetic imagination. McGovern found it harder, in this lower register, to match the shifting colours of the accompaniment’s tones and shades; while his bass notes have focus and pleasing warmth, the upper range of his voice has greater flexibility and variety of tone.
The simplicity and directness of ‘Minnelied’ (‘Love Song’) and ‘An den Mond’ (‘To the moon’), suited him better, the strophic form and the earnest, uncomplicated sentiments drawing forth an open, sincere sound and excellent pronunciation of the texts. Cheung made much of the dancing left hand rhythms of ‘An Sylvia’ (‘To Sylvia’), while in ‘Nachtviolen’ (‘Night violets’) he delicately crafted an intimate air for McGovern’s rapturous homage to the velvet flower’s “sublime and melancholy rays”. The sequence closed with ‘Bei dir allein’ (‘With you alone’); here McGovern certainly brought youthful zeal to the energetic, expanding vocal lines as the protagonist declares that “a youthful spirit swells within me/ [that] a joyful world/ surges through me”. Indeed, bursting impetuously back onto the stage to receive his applause, the beaming baritone seemed fully invigorated by the song’s elated sentiments.
A more sober, but no less charged and committed, performance of Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No.1 followed. The three upper strings of the Barbirolli Quartet serenely placed the thrillingly high chord clusters which commence the opening movement, beneath which cellist Ashok Klouda’s beautifully shaped and resonant pizzicato fragments rang out richly. The quartet created a satisfying drama of opposition — of tonality, texture and tempo; dynamic rhythmic episodes interjected between moments of harmonic stillness. The scherzo (marked by Britten ‘con slancio’ — literally ‘with a dash’) was fittingly reckless and spontaneous, the rhythmic articulation and attack crisp and incisive. In the slow movement, a free variation form in 5/4 time, viola player Alexandros Koustas projected a exquisitely poignant high melodic line above the euphonious, still thirds of the accompaniment. The dynamic counterpoint which launches the final movement was a true dialogue between equals. The sense of overall form was superb, both within and between movements, with the finale skilfully integrating and developing previous heard motifs. This was an accomplished and extremely mature performance of Britten’s youthful composition.
The second half of the programme brought baritone and quartet together in a performance of Samuel Barber’s Dover Beach, a setting of Matthew Arnold’s lament for the loss of Victorian certainty in the face of modern doubt and despair. McGovern established a more sombre presence now, imbuing the lyrical, unfolding vocal lines with emotional depth and sensitivity, while the quartet conjured the lapping, eddying movements and fluctuating hues of the sea. McGovern’s commitment to the text was sustained and intense, as he sought to do justice to the composer’s detailed word painting, without over-emphasis or undue theatricality.
Songs by Brahms and Wolf concluded the recital. Brahms’ brief ‘Es schauen die Blumen’ (‘All flowers look up’) established a melancholy which was deepened powerfully in ‘Verzangen’ (‘Despairing’), where Cheung’s tumultuous figuration complemented and enhanced the confusion of the protagonist’s heart. The piano also introduced the basic motif in ‘Über die Heide’ (‘Over the Moors’), commencing with three detached rising bass octaves, then a leaping descent, punctuated by low right hand chords - dramatically evoking the echoing footsteps which resound across the moor as the protagonist undertakes an autumnal journey into his memories.
‘Feldeinsamkeit’ (‘Solitude in an open field’) was a high point of the sequence, the beautiful and extraordinary second stanza depicting the thoughts of the dreamer lying in the grass, mood of transcendence and peace: “Mir ist, also ob ich längst gestorben bin/ Und ziehe selig mit durch ew’ge Räume.” (“I feel as if I had died long ago/ and I drift blissfully with them through eternal space.”). McGovern maintained a quiet intensity throughout, with only the briefest sweet swelling before the extended cadence at the end of each strophe. The performers crafted a controlled but troubling narrative of rootless nocturnal wandering in ‘Wie raffft ich mich’. (‘O how I sprang up’). The final landscape of these Brahms’ lieder was the graveyard scene of ‘Auf dem Kirchhofe’ (‘In the cemetery’): in the final stanza the ‘Gewesen’ (‘departed’) on every grave was wonderfully transformed into ‘Genesen’ (‘redeemed’). As the major tonality ‘reconciled’ the former minor mode, McGovern retained the poetic ambiguity: are the dead ‘healed’ because they have been granted eternal life, or because they no longer must suffer mortal life?
In four songs from Hugo Wolf’s Mörike Lieder, Cheung painted a tapestry of many colours: first the piano’s crisp, high trills evoked the weightless flight of the bee in ‘Der Knabe und das Immlein’ (‘The boy and the little bee’), then deep tremolos sweeping upwards to high resonant chords underpinned the lover’s upwards gaze in the final verse of ‘An die Geliebte’ (‘To the beloved’) as he turns his eyes heavenward to witness the stars that smile upon him and kneels to absorb their ‘song of light’. McGovern achieved a rapt intensity here, the silvery tone of his upper range wonderfully capturing the shimmer of the glistening nocturnal sky. The aptly titled ‘Abschied’ (‘Farewell’) is the last of the Mörike Lieder and the high-spirited, waltz-like account of the unanticipated arrival and hasty departure of an over-eager critic restored the mood of celebration and joy with which the evening began.
Claire Seymour
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Jonathan_McGovern.png image_description=Jonathan McGovern [Photo by Benjamin Ealovega courtesy of IMG Artists] product=yes product_title=Kirckman Concert Society Series product_by=Jonathan McGovern, baritone; James Cheung, piano. Barbirolli Quartet: Rakhi Singh, violin; Katie Stillman, violin; Alexandros Koustas, viola; Ashok Klouda, cello. Wigmore Hal, London, Monday 19th December 2011. product_id=Above: Jonathan McGovern [Photo by Benjamin Ealovega courtesy of IMG Artists]Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Cantatas
His hat and fur-lined coat suggest a degree of fashionability, his posture is relaxed and at ease, his eyes seem soft and his smile is warm—perhaps even inwardly amused. Little of this suggests the earnestness of his father’s Lutheran orthodoxy nor the serious striving of his father’s musical endeavors. Yet, if personalities differed—and scholars now acknowledge that later accounts of the son’s life are prone to exaggeration—there is much that nevertheless allows us to see the father in the son. Vocationally, Friedemann spent close to twenty years in the employ of Halle’s Liebfrauenkirche, and in that capacity produced a significant number of church cantatas, the genre that his father had brought to new expressive and formal heights. This brilliant DVD presents four of these cantatas—“Wohl dem, der den Herren fürchtet,” “O Wunder, wer kann dieses fassen,” “Ach, dass du den Himmel zerrissest,” and “Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen”—in stunning performances by the Bachchor Mainz with the baroque orchestra, L’arpa festante, under the direction of Ralf Otto.
The tutti movements for choir and orchestra tend to reveal Friedemann’s musical formation at his father’s hand, with a substantial fugal component deftly on display. And these movements, such as the first chorus of “Wohl dem” or “Gott fähret,” are performed with highly effective choral articulation and sensitively shaped vocal phrasing. Other instances reveal an engaging programmatic touch, as in the first movement of “Ach, dass du den Himmel zerrissest,” where the rending of heaven is dramatic, heightened by the tension of choral unisons. (The movement is formally interesting, as well, fashioned as a composite movement with chorus, accompanied recitative, and arioso all in one fluid section.)
Of the soloists, Klaus Mertens, well-known for his Bach collaborations with Ton Koopman, is especially fine. He possesses the rare ability to sing with an easy lightness of tone that is nevertheless wonderfully resonant; this serves him well in both recitative and virtuosic arias, of which those with obbligato trumpets and horns are especially fine here. The wind playing of L’arpa festante—prominently paired flutes, paired horns, and paired trumpets—is highly accomplished and brings a richness of color and dynamism to the cantatas’ more affective moments. The recording also includes an instrumental Sinfonia in d minor that is partly an exercise in moody darkness and partly an exercise in spirited counterpoint. The affective vividness and the interplay of emotional contrasts are dramatically compelling, with the orchestra performing with notable elegance.
Filmed amid the decorative richness of the Augustinerkirche in Mainz, this concert of music by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach offers performances of high polish in a contemporaneous setting that beckons to the eye, much as the music beckons to the ear. Surely this is something else about which Friedemann might smile!
Steven Plank
image=http://www.operatoday.com/ACC-20103.gif image_description=Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Cantatas product=yes product_title=Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Cantatas product_by=Bachchor Mainz; L’arpa festante; Dorothee Mields, soprano; Gerhild Romberger, alto; Georg Poplutz, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass; Ralf Otto, Director. Recorded live at the St. Augustine's Church, Mainz, 1 June 2010. product_id=Accentus Music ACC-20103 [DVD] price=$22.99 product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?album_group=2&name_role=1&name_id=531December 19, 2011
Operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau
His brilliant Treatise on Harmony (1722) is a work which offered what many historians of music theory and composition regard as the most powerful and persuasive presentations of the harmonic and contrapuntal ideas which dominate the analysis of music to this day. This treatise, plus Rameau’s impressive organ and harpsichord works, would be quite enough to have guaranteed his preeminence among eighteenth-century French musicians. There was, however, even more to Rameau than this: Rameau the opera composer, the orchestrator, the dramatist, the creator of impressive and unforgettable musical vistas and choral tableaus which had direct and telling influences on the great composers of the latter century, particularly Gluck and Mozart. It is in these wonderful operas that we see why Rameau was so popular in the court of Louis XV, and why the leading philosophical and literary figures of the day admired his talent and worked on his libretti.
The beautiful selection of works provided in this recording allows the modern listener to view and enjoy the spectacle of five of Rameau’s most popular operatic creations in historically accurate performances, most of them under the baton of William Christie, one of the most remarkable figures in the history of modern baroque performance practice. Such a set of recordings will be of special use to any professor or teacher of courses in baroque opera, dance, or stagecraft, and for any student of opera history. Along with this, as a special treat, the set includes a performance of In Convertendo, a Grand Motet from the composer’s youth, as a part of an informative documentary on the composer. The operas selected (those directed by Christie include Les Indes Galantes, Les Boréades, Les Paladins; Zoroastre and Castor et Pollux are directed by Christie’s long-time associate, Christophe Rousset) include three of the most popular in the repertoire (i.e., Les Indes Galantes, Castor et Pollux, and Les Boréades). Of this group, Les Indes Galantes was undeniably the favorite work of the composer in his day — it was wildly popular as an operatic tour de force set in a series of different exotic locales, and featuring the gamut of musical effects and fanciful plot lines which even today remain charming and highly entertaining. The work received special mention in the very first barrage of the most famous pamphlet war of the century, the Querelle des Bouffons, when in 1752 Baron d’Holbach mocked those “good citizens” who “could not hear the overtures to Les Indes galantes and Les Talents lyriques without shuddering.”
Christie’s production of Les Indes galantes helps us understand why the work was so popular. Les Arts Florissants Orchestra and Chorus, and the sets and costumes of Marina Draghici in the staging by Andrei Serban, make a powerful impression. This work, best described as an opera-ballet due to the extensive use of dance, is made up of four large sections and a prologue, with each of the four sections representing a different non-European culture (i.e., The Turks, The Incas, The Persians, and by far the liveliest group — The American Savages). Throughout the production the vocal and instrumental quality of the performances is very high. After the obligatory prologue of the gods, the first entrée presents the world of the Turks, with a special focus on the humanity of Osman (sung competently by Nicolas Cavallier) who assists in reunited lovers lost at sea. Anna Maria Panzarella shines in this scene as the heroic Emilie. Nathan Berg is outstanding as Huascar in the second entrée, as is the wonderful ceremonial quality of the scenes of the Incas, which can be viewed as forerunners to similar marvelous ceremonial passages in Gluck and Mozart (e.g., Orfeo ed Euridice, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute). Special praise should be given to the wonderful volcanic eruption scene which concludes this portion of the opera, which contains is a delightful and exciting example of Rameau’s keen sense of orchestral drama. The third section of the opera, Les Fleurs — fête persane, allows us to experience the wonderful voice of Richard Croft, who is excellent in the role of Tacmas, and the highly enjoyable choreograpy of Blanca Li, whose dancers excel in the famous Ballet des fleurs, rising out of pots like blooming flowers. Christie and his team reserve their best work for the finale of the opera, Les Sauvages. Patricia Petibon provides us with a most memorable Zima, whose on-stage gyrations and coquettish demeanor is perfectly suited for her role as the sought-after Indian princess. Christie’s contribution to this last scene is palpable, as the orchestral accompaniment literally pulsates, creating an unforgettable impression. It is Petebon who says later, in the documentary attached to the production (“Swinging Rameau”) that “an American has rediscovered our repertoire!”
The remaining works in the Opus Arte set, while not quite equaling the production of Les Indes Galantes in musical impact, are all of interest to the connoisseur. Christie and Les Arts Florissants versions of Les Paladins and Les Boréades (a work not staged in the composer’s lifetime due to its Masonic themes) are solid and musically convincing, and their production of the wonderful motet In Convertendo is highly effective and memorable. Michael Levine’s sets and costume designs for Les Boréades are eye-catching imitations of Dior, but it is the performance of Barbara Bonney as Alphise and Paul Agnew as Abaris which is the most powerful aspect of the recording. The least attractive work in the set is easily Les Paladins, which features quirky but amateurish choreography, sets, and stage direction by José Montalvo and Dominque Hervieu.
Rousset’s version of Castor et Pollux (featuring Les Talens Lyriques and the Chorus of the Netherlands Opera) is impressive, and the roles of the tragic brothers (Finnur Bjarnason as Castor and Henk Neven as Pollux) are beautifully sung. Patrick Kinmonth’s sets and costumes are minimalistic but effective. Rousset’s direction of Zoroastre — another Masonic-themed work — is also a treat, featuring the Drottningholm Theatre Orchestra and Chorus as well as Les Talens Lyriques. This disc includes a fascinating documentary which provides wonderful back-stage views of the famous Drottningholm theatre. Anders Dahlin, who sings the title role, is masterful in his interpretation, which is both lyric and agile as the occasion demands.
Donald R. Boomgaarden
Dean, College of Music and Fine Arts
Loyola University New Orleans
Review of Opus Arte Production of Jean-Philippe Rameau Operas Le Boréades, Castor et Pollux, Les Indes galantes, Les Paladins, Zoarastre, and the Grand Motet In Convertendo
OPUS ARTE OA1052B D (11 DVD Set)
San Marco in Hamburg: Motets by Hieronymus Praetorius
A subsequent generation would be led by players such as Matthias Weckmann and Johann Adam Reinken, this latter a figure to whom J. S. Bach would bend the knee in his well-chronicled trip to Hamburg in 1720. At the earlier end of the spectrum stands the figure of Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-29), father of Jacob, the younger, and himself successor to his father, Jacob the elder, at the famed Jakobikirche.
This organ culture was bred by the prominence of the city’s churches, of which the Petrikirche, Jakobikirche, Catharinenkirche, and Nikolaikirche were especially significant. And in this environment some of the organists provided not only organ music, but also notable liturgical music in the form of motet and canticle. Such is the case with Hieronymus Praetorius, featured here in the CD anthology “San Marco in Hamburg.” The reference to “San Marco” acknowledges the strong influence of the Venetian school of Giovanni Gabrieli. The path from Germany to Venice was reasonably well worn, with the travels of composers like Heinrich Schütz and Hans Leo Hassler often cited examples, but the rich sonorities of Venice captivated other composers who had never heard the music of San Marco in situ. This was the case with Hieronymus Praetorius (and also with the better known Michael Praetorius—no family relation), but if learned from afar, it is a musical style they assimilated with fluency.
In “San Marco in Hamburg” the ensemble Weser-Renaissance Bremen under the direction of Manfred Cordes explores the Italian-influenced motets of Hieronymus, and does so with a recording of distinction. Though some of the pieces are large-scale, Cordes compellingly takes them on with only 15 musicians—six singers singing one-to-a-part and 9 instrumentalists combining winds, strings, and continuo. The result is that in the sumptuous 12-voice “Jubilate Deo” that opens the recording, the sonic richness is a subtler taste to savor rather than a full-belted blast of power that overwhelms. And this holds true for the large number of 8-voice works, as well. Performed in this way, the clarity of motive, the unflagging attention to purity of intonation—such wonderful final chords in the sections of the “Magnificat”!—and general buoyance of the sound can come to the fore with very satisfying results.
The decorative passage work is well served by the one-to-a-part configuration, and in motets like “Cantate Domino,” this ornamental style sparkles as foil to the suave lilt of triple-meter tutti passages. Two of the motets, “Ab oriente and Wie lang” are performed as solo motets, with accompanying polyphonic voices played instrumentally. In “Ab oriente,” this gives a welcome chance to relish the fine control of alto Peter de Groot’s sensitive singing, and the plaintive ethereal sounds of soprano Monika Mauch in “Wie lang” offer one of the highlights of the recording.
Steven Plank
image=http://www.operatoday.com/CPO_0761203724529.gif image_description=San Marco in Hamburg: Motets by Hieronymus Praetorius product=yes product_title=San Marco in Hamburg: Motets by Hieronymus Praetorius product_by=Weser-Renaissance Bremen; Manfred Cordes, Director. product_id=CPO 777 245-2 [CD] price=$17.99 product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=200836December 18, 2011
“A Year at King’s”
Some of the works on the recording like Tallis’s extraordinary 40-voice motet, “Spem in alium,” or Gregorio Allegri’s fabled setting of “Miserere” are by now well-entrenched in the modern ear. How they acheived that status, however, owes a deep debt to pioneering recordings by the choir under the direction of Sir David Willcocks (the “Miserere” in 1963 and “Spem” in 1965). The recent versions stand in the echo of the earlier, amply reconfirming the persistence of a King’s style, but also the lasting associations of the works with the choir.
The choir is one of many “Oxbridge” choral foundations, of course, though in reputation and reception they have arguably a singular status; in the broader world they represent the idealized standard of the English collegiate tradition and they set the bar very high, indeed. Their idealized position has been nurtured by the BBC broadcasts of their Christmas Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols and by a robust legacy of recording, begun under Willcocks. But the idealization also derives from the cultivation of a singularity of sound, impeccable, pristine, warm, smoothly blended, seemingly effortless. This is all predictably and gratifyingly manifest in “A Year at King’s.” If there is any downside, it is that there are no surprises.
The warmth of the sound—tone embued with the kiss of candlelight--is particularly rewarding in two Advent antiphons by the Estonian Arvo Pärt, but even in other styles it figures characteristically, as in Palestrina’s exuberant Christmas motet, “Hodie Christus natus est.” And if the sound is warm, it is also flexibly evocative. The pristine clarity of the trebles, for instance, well serves the astral imagery of Lassus’s Epiphany motet, “Videntes stellam magi,” whereas the richness of the lower voices undergird the presence of the aged Simeon in Eccard’s motet for the Presentation, “When to the Temple.”
These are pieces whose performances and very selection are unsurprising. In a context so shaped by notions of tradition, it has been significant, however, that King’s has regularly commissioned new works for their famous carol service. The commission for 2005, John Tavener’s “Away in a Manger,” is recorded here, a welcome toying with familiarity. Tavener uses the well-known text—the strand of familiarity—while in harmonic and dynamic range he pushes the bounds of expectancy, and in the absence of the familiar tune, gives a haunting new shape to the lullaby. Given the number of Christmas commissions that King’s has now amassed and their high quality, a new recording of them as a group would be a most welcome project; the Tavener here whets the appetite!
One “member of the ensemble” deserves special mention, and that is the chapel itself. The King’s sound bears the golden touch of its acoustical environment, and one might easily imagine that the marvelous sustaining power in the singing of works like Barber’s “Agnus Dei,” a reworking of the well-known “Adagio for Strings,” is the fruit of the daily singing in so wondrous a space.
A year at King’s would seem altogether too short a time to sample the glories of the choir; “A Year at King’s,” however, makes for a good step in that direction.
Steven Plank
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Year_at_Kings.png image_description=A Year at King's product=yes product_title=“A Year at King’s” product_by=The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge; Stephen Cleobury, Director of Music; Peter Stevens, organ scholar product_id=EMI 6 09004 2 [CD] price=$12.49 product_url=http://astore.amazon.com/operatoday-20/detail/B003D0ZOC8December 16, 2011
Bernarda Fink, Wigmore Hall
Mixing piano song with chamber music, Bernarda Fink’s recital titled “Une rare émotion”, placed Ravel’s vocal music in the context of his era. That “rare emotion” was a search for alternatives to mainstream culture, exemplified by exotic, alien places. While British colonialism belittled other cultures, the French saw in “orientalism” potential for creative growth. Ravel’s fascination with non-western concepts wasn’t effete, but an act of affirmative courage.
Bernarda Fink began her recital with Ravel’s Cinq mélodies populaires grecques (1904-6). Their simplicity is deceptive for they represent a very different aesthetic to the often florid fin de siècle lushness popular at the time. Perhaps it’s significant that the poet who wrote the texts, Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, persuaded Ralph Vaughan Williams to study with Ravel instead of with Vincent d’Indy. Fink and Christopher Glynn, her pianist, are right not to overdo the folk origins of these songs, for they herald Ravel’s later work, like Rapsodie espagnol and even Boléro. Perceptively, Fink and Glynn juxtaposed these songs with Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis, written only 5 years previously, preceding the languid sensuality of La Flûte de Pan with Camille Saint-Saëns Une flûte invisible (Flautist : Adam Walker)
Moire stellar, however, was Fink’s performance of Ravel’s very early Shéherézade (1903). “Asie, Asie, Asie”, she sang, her voice glowing with excitement, “Vieux pays merveilleux des contes de nourrice”. Then, she intoned the words “Je voudrais voir des assassins souriant”, almost parlando, hinting at menacing mysteries”. Emotional extremes and daring — Ravel was by no means as mannered as the dandy image he presented.
Jules Massenet’s Élégie (1872) was a reminder of the French Romantic tradition, here transcribed for cello (Marie Bitlloch) which nicely complimented Fink’s lower register. The highlight of the evening, nonetheless, was Fink’s performance of Ravel’s Chansons madécasses (1926). This is Ravel’s exoticism in full glory. Fink’s singing took on a shimmer that brought out the suppressed erotic tension. Her Aoua! was spectacular, vibrant with horror. “Méfiez-vous des blancs, habitants du rivage”, she sang. Beware of the whites, who make enticing promises, but bring carnage. The violence is even more terrifying when Ravel follows this outburst with Il est doux. A man is sitting under a palm tree, a woman is preparing his meal. The music lilts languidly. But who is the man, and who is the woman? After Aoua!, we should beware. Ravel is provocative. Exoticism isn’t safe.
Fink and Glynn sang Debussy’s Trois mélodies de Paul Verlaine (1891) and a selection of Fauré songs from his op 39 and 76, including the lovely Les roses d’Ispahan which often makes me swoon, but after that Aoua! anything but Ravel seemed tame. Glynn’s transcription of Poulenc’s Priez por paix, for voice, piano, flute and cello ended the evening on a more soothing note.
Anne Ozorio
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Fink.png
image_description=Bernarda Fink [Photo by Klemen Breitfuss courtesy of machreich artists management gmbh]
product=yes
product_title=Bernarda Fink at Wigmore Hall
product_by=Bernarda Fink, Christopher Glynn, Adam Walker, Marie Bitlloch. Wigmore Hall, London, 14th December 2011.
product_id=Above: Bernarda Fink [Photo by Klemen Breitfuss courtesy of machreich artists management gmbh]
Randal Turner Sings the Songs of Living American Composers
Recorded live in a San Francisco church (and with the expected reverberant acoustics), this CD presents a handsome voice with both strength in declamatory sections and gentle lyricism when called for. It’s not a dark sound, and at times a certain generic tonal color, like that of a Broadway singer, makes itself felt. Ironically, the least successful track is the closing encore of the American songbook chestnut, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Perhaps as the encore piece it did not get the benefit of ample rehearsal time, but pianist Allen Perriello and Mr. Turner don’t always seem to be at the same place in the music, and Mr. Turner’s precision that is so rewarding in the other, more “serious” numbers comes off as slightly prissy here.
The two best known of the composers are Ricky Ian Gordon and Jake Heggie. Gordon’s songs are attractive and closer in spirit to Broadway than to the concert hall or opera stage. The aria from Gordon’s opera The Grapes of Wrath takes Tom Joad’s closing speech from the film and prettifies it, which may work in the context of the opera but as compared to the stark approach of John Ford’s film, feels mannered. Heggie’s material has the most interesting piano parts, and the vocal settings are stylish but somewhat sterile emotionally. The aria for Starbuck from Heggie’s recent Moby Dick opera brings no surprises — it’s well-crafted but melodically unmemorable and dramatically inert.
A long piece by Turner’s “friend and composer Julia Schwartz” strives too much for cleverness, to diminishing returns. The sets by Glen Rove and Clint Borzoni, on the other hand, introduce two composers with skill and imagination to rival that of the better known Gordon and Heggie.
The slim booklet has no texts or links to texts, and the recorded sound in the church setting makes some lines hard to decipher. The piano bench, it seems, could have benefited from an application of oil before the recording session. Mr. Turner is to be thanked for deciding to focus on repertory not usually encountered in recital recordings, and as noted before, this self-published CD serves as a good testament to the inherent quality of his instrument.
Chris Mullins
image=http://www.operatoday.com/randalturner.png
image_description=Living American Composers
product=yes
product_title=Living American Composers
product_by=Randal Turner, baritone; Allen Perriello, piano.
product_id=
price=$15.99
product_url=http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/randalturner
Anne Schwanewilms, Wigmore Hall
The songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn offered Schwanewilms the opportunity to demonstrate a great range of characterisation and dramatic situation, embracing intimacy and exuberance. She garnered a surprising and delightful drollery in the opening ‘Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen’ (‘How to make naughty children behave’), her insouciant ‘cu-cuckoo’ ringing clear as a bell. Charles Spencer delivered the accompaniment’s piquant chromatic inflections with a deft touch. The simple folk-like ambience was sustained in the bucolic ‘Verlorne Müh’ (‘Wasted effort’), as the shepherdess attempts to lure her mate, offering first to go walking, then a ‘morsel’ from her basket and finally her heart. A glossy tone and seamless, bel canto legato prevailed. I wondered whether that this effortlessly fluency at times affected the clarity of diction; but the German speaker accompanying me reassured me that Schwanewilms’ use of the text was subtle but clear, and undoubtedly idiomatic.
In ‘Ablösung im Sommer’ (‘The changing of the summer guard’), the cuckoo returned, this time evoked by the piano whose perpetuum mobile signifies the evolutionary progression of the seasons — as the cuckoo sings himself ‘to death’ and the nightingale assumes the mantle of summer’s song-bearer. Both here and in the following ‘Ich ging mit Lust’ (‘I walked joyfully’), Schwanewilms’ breath control was superb, enabling her to shape extended rhapsodic lines; her velvet tone is a cloth of many colours, and she captured the myriad hues of the natural world - the verdant softness of the ‘green wood’, the silky sheen of the moon’s’ charming, sweet caresses’.
Liszt’s setting of Hugo’s ‘Oh! Quand je dors’ permitted a brief excursion into the French language, and Schwanewilms expressively and convincingly responded to the text, before returning to her native tongue for lieder from Schiler’s Wilhelm Tell, songs in which Liszt evokes the Alpine landscape with grandeur and passion. The grassy lake in ‘Der Fischerknabe’ (‘The fisherboy’) shimmered stilly, but as the waters lap around his breast and call from the depth, increasingly impetuous scalic runs in the piano conveyed the potency of his ‘bliss of delight’. ‘Horn calls’ discreetly underpinned the beautifully resonant vocal line in ‘Der Hirt’ (‘The shepherd’), and the juxtapositions of major and minor tonalities enhanced the warm, tender ache in the voice. The more tempestuous ‘Der Alpenjäger’ (‘The alpine hunstman’), in which thunderous tremblings accumulate, climaxed with a striking piano postlude. An intense and impassioned setting of Heine’s ‘Loreley’ brought the Lisztian sequence to a close, and enabled Schwanewilms once again to demonstrate her consummately controlled delivery of narrative.
Four more songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn followed after the interval. ‘Scheiden und Meiden’ (‘Farewell and Parting’) presents a broader emotional and dramatic canvas; the first stanza depicts the breathless, theatrical departure of three horsemen who gallop through the gate beneath the beloved’s watchful gaze, while second strikes a more poignant note, exploring the pain and finality of departure and death. The power and precision of Schwanewilms’s climactic high notes in the first part contrasted with the final farewells, 'Ade! Ade!’, which she delivered in a loving, almost vulnerable whisper.
The cuckoo and nightingale both returned for ‘Lob des hohen Verstandes’ (‘In praise of high intellect’), this time competing to be the prize songster in a musical contest adjudicated by a donkey. Schwanewilms relished the individual ‘voices’ given to each ‘character’, and concluded with an alarmingly realistic ass’s bray! After the gentle ‘Rheinlegendechen’ (‘Little Rhine Legend’), in which the atmospheric rocking of the piano accompaniment perfectly captured the lapping waters as they flow timelessly to the ocean, in the final song from the sequence, ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’(‘Where the splendid trumpets sound’) Schwanewilms displayed her lustrous, rich tone to full effect, signifying a transition from the whimsical naivety of Mahler’s early songs to the complex emotional profundities of the composer’s five Rückert Lieder.
Here, Schwanewilms and her accompanist rose to majestic heights of musicianship. The contemplative intimacy of ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’ (‘If you love for beauty’) was particularly stunning. Schwanewilms can produce an effortless, floating line, spinning out a high thread of sound, endlessly and ethereally until, almost weightlessly, the thrillingly tender pianissimo disperses into the air. She balances eloquence and grace with deep affective insight, as was supremely apparent in a spell-binding rendition of ‘Um Mitternacht’ (‘At midnight’). Here, the sustained focus of her lower range was in evidence, the controlled and crafted phrases indicating the valiant endurance of the protagonist. The final song, ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ (‘I am lost to the world) probed expressive depths, closing with a spine-chilling piano coda; the long silence which subsequently embraced performers and audience alike was a testament to the epic scale of the emotions evoked and communicated.
Schwanewilms seem to have it all: unfailingly precise intonation, a polished, gleaming sound, almost superhuman breath control. She also has considerable stage presence and self-assurance: utterly in command of the voice and the material, she revealed a profound understanding of these songs while retaining a sense of freshness and spontaneity. The communication between singer and pianist, and with the audience, was sincere and generous. No wonder the applause was rapturous.
Claire Seymour
Programme
Mahler — From Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen; Verlorne Müh; Ablösung im Sommer; Ich ging mit Lust.
Liszt — Oh! quand je dors; Lieder aus Schillers ‘Wilhelm Tell’; Die Loreley.
Mahler — From Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Scheiden und Meiden; Lob des hohen Verstandes; Rheinlegendchen; Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen. Five Rückert Lieder.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Anne_Schwanewilms_VMC.png image_description=Anne Schwanewilms [Photo by Johanna Peine courtesy of VMC] product=yes product_title=Anne Schwanewilms, Wigmore Hall product_by=Anne Schwanewilms, soprano; Charles Spencer, piano. Wigmore Hall, London, Thursday 8th December 2011. product_id=Above: Anne Schwanewilms [Photo by Johanna Peine courtesy of VMC]Karita Mattila at Carnegie Hall
She has been before the public now for nearly thirty years, a tidy career. She is still beautiful, and so is her voice, floods of burnished silver at the top where it can ring bell-clear and sky-silver as a moonlit Finnish winter, her sensuous chest voice deep as spring-fed wells. There are rough patches in her voice’s silvery upward stretch that may have been due to dry Stern Hall on a cold winter’s night or to too much Puccini, for whose she has lately developed an unsuitable penchant. She is a natural actress, though, and the small poetic pictures of art song suit her as well as peasant girls like Jenufa or desperate housewives like Fidelio. She has, at last, taken up Matter Makropoulos (in San Francisco), an opera she was born to grace, and New York eagerly awaits her performances in that work at the Met in late Spring.
In the meantime, on December 10, we had a recital that, in the manner traditional with this singer, featured four sets of songs unfamiliar from previous Carnegie appearances, one of them contemporary and Finnish, plus two spectacular gowns and the encore of a Broadway standard. At her first lieder concert here, I well remember, she concluded, courtesy of West Side Story, “Good night, good night, and when you go to sleep, dream of me!” and we all did.
The first half of this year’s program consisted of French songs by Poulenc and Debussy. French is not the repertory or the language that immediately comes to mind in Mattila’s case (though her operatic triumphs have included a memorable Paris Don Carlos), but she is a singer who likes to challenge both her own limits and audience expectations. In the Poulenc songs, the set of Apollinaire poems known as “Banalités,” she seized on opportunities for wild changes of mood that the many colors of her shimmering soprano happily display. The nonsense eroticism of “Chanson d’Orkenise,” the sensuality of “Hôtel,” where each phrase seemed, without dragging, to stretch itself languidly on a chaise-longue before us, the jollity of “Voyage à Paris,” the sad contrasts of “Sanglots,” all played to the singer’s expressive strengths, though her French was far from idiomatic. I wish she’d sung more Poulenc; her wit marches with his.
Debussy’s “Five Poems of Baudelaire,” a rare visitor to the recital hall precisely because its length and crepuscular moodiness can trap a singer who cannot vary her style within their narrow range, were marvelously sustained meditations in Mattila’s hands, never maudlin or dull, the bright metallic sound reaching to the heights (not so easy for her as they used to be), shining on certain phrases like refined lighting. “Balcon” and “Le jet d’eau” was especially lovely. It was a superb experiment, and an achievement, but these are not the ideal songs for her art any more than Puccini is her proper operatic home. (What a pity she never sang Sieglinde.)
After the break, and a change of costume from the rather shattering silver ensemble for the French songs to a less obviously flamboyant blue-purple gown with aquamarine jewels, Mattila sang a series of “Dream Songs” by Aulis Sallinen, Finland’s most distinguished living composer, whose The Red Line was featured at the Met when the Finnish National Opera visited New York. The dream songs are prevailingly moody or tense, not explorations of nightmare but of the uneasy states of mind that disturb our dreams, raising questions without answering them. Sallinen’s off-kilter melodies were haunting, precisely as if fragments heard in dreams were coming together in a way that made its own sense, its own clarity, which was not the clarity of being wide awake at all. The Sallinen songs did not exploit Mattila’s famous metallic gleam that New Yorkers have loved in so many operas but revealed deeper registers, below the break in her voice, murky and thrilling and oppressed as suited the texts.
It is a noble thing that Mattila, perhaps Finland’s most famous living singer (unless it’s Matti Salminen), includes a set of Finnish songs whenever she performs a concert. Sometimes these songs have been very modern and difficult in idiom, though she has revealed their expressiveness to us. The Sallinen songs, composed in 1973, were in a contemporary style that would not, I think, be difficult to enjoy by anyone who delights in lieder. Mattila, and the songs, were very persuasive.
Audience desires and the performer’s gifts were best united in her last set, five songs by Joseph Marx, a twentieth-century Austrian composer who clung to his tuneful romantic roots and is far too little known. As with many of the Debussy and Sallinen songs, the theme was usually nocturnal, but Marx’s nights are filled with magic, with woodland atmosphere, with soothing or erotic noises. One particular delight was “Valse de Chopin,” where, to a melody in the manner of that composer, Marx devises a little imagistic drama of high romanticism’s obsession with love and death, but somehow his own merrier muse touches the bleak images. Here the singer seemed to exult in giving us her music (no less so, that prince of accompanists, Martin Katz, who hurled himself into his solo coda like a dancer taking on Ravel’s La Valse).
After the printed program, Mattila admitted she’d been “lazy” in preparing encores. There were only two. One was an entertaining Finnish folk song; the other “I Could Have Danced All Night”—I know, all of you thought Birgit Nilsson owned that one. Mattila did not go up an extra octave on the final note, as Nilsson used to do, but she articulated every sentiment in the song in a way that made Nilsson seem chilly and Julie Andrews terrifically bland. Mattila “spread her wings” and her “heart took flight,” and every word in the lyric had meaning and poetic sweep. Then Martin Katz turned the song into a waltz and our prima donna was a young girl at her first ball, dancing with glamorous, invisible partners, swaying about the stage, stars in her eyes and in all of ours.
John Yohalem
image=http://www.operatoday.com/karita_mattila_002_2001_lauri_eriksson.png image_description=Karita Mattila [Photo by Lauri Eriksson courtesy of IMG Artists] product=yes product_title=Karita Mattila at Carnegie Hall product_by= product_id=Above: Karita Mattila [Photo by Lauri Eriksson courtesy of IMG Artists]December 15, 2011
December 13, 2011
Kurt Weill’s Magical Night, Linbury Studio Theatre, London
But the celebrated Pixar films paradoxically avoid the question of what would happen if children unexpectedly encountered their own toys in a state of animation. Kurt Weill’s fascinating 1920s ballet, or more correctly “Children’s Pantomime” (Kinderpantomime), Magical Night (Zaubernacht), his earliest surviving work for the stage, takes that moment as its imaginative starting point.
Kurt Weill's Magical Night now on at the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House, London, has a remarkable history. Written to a scenario supplied by the original choreographer, the otherwise obscure Wladimir Boritsch, it was given three performances at the Theater am Kurfürstendamm, Berlin, in November 1922. In 1925 it received a second production at the Garrick Theatre, New York, but the score was subsequently lost. In the 1990s Meirion Bowen bravely attempted a reconstruction from an incomplete piano rehearsal score, and his version was premiered in Germany in 2000.
But then in 2005 a set of original orchestral parts was discovered in a vault in Yale University Library, and this allowed a much more authentic version of the score to be reconstructed for the Kurt Weill Edition (2008). This was premiered at the Musikfest Stuttgart in September 2010. The ROH production thus represents a bold investment in a largely forgotten work which has only recently become available for performance. It is fair to assume, of course, that Magical Night would almost certainly not have been revived if, by some chance, Weill had died before he composed Die Dreigroschenoper. It is Weill’s name and the knowledge of what he achieved later that generates initial interest and makes revival commercially viable. But this is less a comment on the intrinsic merits of Magical Night than it is on the difficulty of building up a head of steam behind any unknown ballet. Magical Night is not a rediscovered masterpiece, but it is felicitous music with a vital rhythmic pulse that, matched with appropriate choreography, can be an arresting and enchanting theatrical experience: which is exactly what the ROH production offers.
Not that much is known of the original scenario for which Weill wrote his music. In his invaluable Kurt Weill: A Handbook, David Drew was able to suggest (mainly on the basis of press reports) that it went something like this: “As ‘the Girl’ and ‘the Boy’ fall asleep, the Fairy enters and sings her magic spell. One by one the children’s toys, and the characters from their storybooks, are brought to life. Presently, the children themselves become involved in a phantasmagoria where, for instance, Anderson’s Tin Soldier helps rescue Hansel and Gretel. At the end, the Witch is hunted by the assembled company, and at last disposed of. The Fairy then vanishes, the children sink back into a dreamless sleep, and their mother tiptoes into the room to close the curtains.” The Kurt Weill Foundation states that “Directors and choreographers are encouraged to create their own scenarios that are appropriate to the music.”
The scenario Aletta Collins has devised for the Linbury production follows the broad outline of Drew’s reconstruction, but also makes some telling changes. Anyone wishing to remain in ignorance of the story now being staged should skip the rest of this paragraph. Two young children, Megan and Jason, are playing with their toys just before bedtime; they quarrel, and Megan pulls the tail off Chimpy, Jason’s favorite toy. Their mother tells them to go to bed. At midnight the Pink Fairy comes to life and casts a spell that animates various other toys, too. The toys dance together, not always in perfect accord. The children wake up and get drawn into the dance. Chimpy accuses Megan of pulling off his tail. Megan, upset, withdraws from the group and draws a picture of a witch. The toys try to warn her that this is unwise, but it is too late, and Sarah Good, an evil witch, appears as the physical embodiment of the picture. What happens next is a little unclear, but gradually it becomes obvious that the witch is using her magic to take control of the other characters. She lures Jason into a cooker, and throws in the Pink Fairy for good measure. But the other toys manage to distract the witch and stage a rescue; there is some superb comedy here as Mighty Robot, a Buzz Lightyear-like character, woos the witch through dance. Finally the two children realize that by manipulating Megan’s picture they can take control of the witch. After screwing it up, and throwing her into convulsions, they tear it to pieces, at which point Sarah Good spectacularly explodes in a shower of paper.
Even young children are likely to be reminded of Hansel and Gretel, the story expressly referenced in the original ballet; older ones will probably see a connection to Harry Potter, and adults may recollect The Picture of Dorian Gray and similar tales. The fact that the new Magical Night is so strongly evocative of earlier stories does not diminish it, though; rather it makes it powerfully familiar, expressing ideas which have become part of our collective imagination, our modern myths of evil and possession. It appears to be rather deeper than Boritsch’s playful fantasy, with a more obvious psychological message: just as we can easily create the objects of our fears, so we can destroy them. The ballet enacts the “explanation” of fairy stories that has often been put forward: they help children understand and master their fears.
The new story is not exactly “in” the music. There is no obvious darkening of the sonic landscape as the witch exerts her baleful influence. But Weill’s music throughout has a certain edgy, threatening feel to it—at no point can it be called jolly—and allows, from the beginning, some sinister potential. It is also music that seems to require rather than demand visual realization, supporting rather than dominating the represented action. In this sense visual cues influence what is heard at least as much as auditory cues condition what is seen.
Weill’s original orchestration is brighter, bolder and more percussive than Bowen’s version (which has been recorded). It is less subtle and studied, perhaps not surprisingly, but this works to its advantage. In the early 1920s Weill, who was studying with Busoni, experienced what Richard Taruskin has taught us to regard as the quintessential dilemma of the modern composer: torn between writing “art” music for the cognoscenti in the concert hall or more accessible music for the larger audience at the theatre. Some of that tension is felt in Magical Night, a remarkably sophisticated score for a Kinderpantomime, and it would be fascinating to know what the mature Weill thought of it. But Bowen pushed it too far towards the “art” music side of the dilemma, and it was refreshing to hear that the young Weill actually wanted something brasher and livelier, more popular in tone.
Magical Night is beautifully staged in the perfectly-sized Linbury Studio Theatre. The first part, and the last, take place in a very realistic-looking children’s bedroom. This is literally split in two for the witch’s dramatic entrance, and when her power is at its zenith it is turned inside out, revealing a black shadow-world with all the necessary equipment for her fiendish culinary arts. The dancers and the choreography are superb, with lots of customized moves to distinguish the characters, and abilities, of the different toys.
To get the expert opinion of a child, I brought along my five-year-old daughter, Annie Ashizu, for a second opinion. Being well acquainted with the Toy Story trilogy, as well as Hansel and Gretel, she had more than enough imaginative equipment to be able to grasp, and be absorbed by, Magical Night. Her first words at the end were of the kind to delight any parent keen to introduce their child to the magic of live entertainment: “Papa, I love this theatre [work]. I wish I could see it two times!” She hadn’t said that after The Lion King, her previous benchmark for theatrical greatness, and as we left Covent Garden I couldn’t resist asking her if she thought Magical Night as good as Disney’s epic. “Yes,” she replied unhesitatingly; “actually, it was better!” This may turn out to be the greatest tribute to the success of ROH’s production to be found in any of the reviews. Annie instinctively loved the Pink Fairy and clearly experienced the end of the story as empowering. She talked about the characters all the way home, when she fell asleep her head was still full of them, and she woke up talking of how she had dreamed of being the Pink Fairy. We’ll be going again.
David Chandler
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Kurt_weill.gif image_description=Kurt Weill product=yes product_title=Kurt Weill: Magical Night product_by=Click here for cast and other production information. product_id=Above: Kurt WeillBelshazzar’s Feast, London
For their 2011/12 season at the Barbican Hall, the BBC Symphony Orchestra are exploring all of the symphonies of Sibelius. So for their concert on Saturday 10th December, whose main work was Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, it made sense to include Sibelius’s suite Belshazzar’s Feast based on music a wrote for a play, and in addition Gerald Finley, the baritone soloist in the Walton cantata, sang three of Sibelius’s songs with orchestra. To open, conductor Edward Gardner had chosen Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, written just 8 years after Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast had been premiered.
The Sinfonia da Requiem was originally a commission from the Japanese Government, but Britten’s symphony with its Christian Pacifist sentiment was not acceptable to the Japanese and the work was premiered by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. It is one of only two works for full orchestra alone by Britten which include the word symphony in its title (the other is the Cello Symphony). In the Sinfonia da Requiem Britten does use traditional sonata form, but the work has a three movement structure with the music moving continuously from the opening ‘Lacrymosa’ (Andante ben misurati) to the concluding ‘Requiem Aeternam’ (Andante molto tranquillo), with only the central movement, ‘Dies Irae’ (Allegro con fuoco) being at a faster tempo.
Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave a strong performance which had an involving dramatic propulsion, reflecting perhaps both the composer’s and the conductor’s involvement with the operatic stage. Britten used a large orchestra but Gardner drew some very finely grained playing from the orchestra players.
The three Sibelius songs presented us with a microcosm of Sibelius’s wider career. ‘Kom no hit, död’ (Come away death) was originally written for a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in 1909, but was orchestrated by Sibelius in 1957, the final year of his life. It is a dark and mysterious piece, with harp arpeggios underlying the plain vocal line. ‘Pa verandan vid havet’ (On a balcony beside the sea) was a piece of existential angst setting a text by the Swedish symbolist poet Viktor Rydberg and was written in 1903. The orchestral introduction came directly from the world of Sibelius symphonies, catching the brooding despair of the poem. The austere vocal line helped bring out the music of the Swedish language and the piece concluded with an astonishing outburst at the end. Whereas the first 2 songs had been in Swedish, the final one, ‘Koskenlaskijan morisamet’(The Rapids-Rider’s Brides) was in Finnish. The poem by August Ahlqvist-Oksanen has strong links to the Kalevala and Sibelius’s setting dates from the same period as his Kalevala-inspired works such as the Leminkainen Legends. The piece is a long narrative lyric ballad with a tragic end. All three pieces were well put over by Finley, in each creating a small drama, but in the concluding moments of the ballad, Finley’s voice was in danger of being overwhelmed at the climaxes.
After the interval the Sibelius Suite from Belshazzar’s Feast consisted of four movements for small orchestra, all evoking the exotic oriental world of the play for which they were written (Hjalmar Procope’s Belshazzar’s Feast premiered in 1906), though still filtered through Sibelius’s own distinctive melodic voice. They formed an interestingly small scale prelude to Walton’s far larger work, though the completist in me did wonder whether something from Handel’s oratorio on the subject couldn’t have been included as well!
Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast is rather a large scale work to find onto the platform of the Barbican Hall. The work was originally premiered at Leeds Town Hall, not exactly a large venue but one with a platform able to accommodate far more singers than at the Barbican. This meant that the BBC Symphony Chorus fielded just 150 singers to battle it out with Walton’s huge orchestra. Edward Gardner’s approach to the piece took no prisoners as he emphasised the brilliant, 1930’s glitter of the work with both chorus and orchestra combining to give a bright, sharp edged account. It was unfortunate that in the dramatic recitation at the opening, the men of the chorus failed to find complete unanimity. Walton’s setting is not, of course, simply about noisy bombast, and there were many fine quieter moments when both orchestra and chorus gave us some fine poised singing and playing. In the semi-chorus section (‘The trumpeters and pipers’) a smaller group of the BBC Symphony Chorus delivered a nicely subdued performance whilst not quite erasing memories of the BBC Singers in the same passage.
As baritone soloist, Gerald Finley brought superb commitment and dramatic credibility to the role, making every single word of Walton’s recitatives tell. But Finley’s is not a huge voice and the price to pay for his intelligent delivery was the simple fact that at key moments his voice did not quite ride over the orchestra the way it should have done. The extra brass players were placed in the balcony of the hall, giving rise to some interesting aural and spatial effects. Gardener’s control of his huge forces was impressive. But his structuring of the work itself was such that he rather emphasised the gaps between the different sections, making the work a series of separate movements rather than a single dramatic whole.
London does not really have an ideal venue for Walton’s large scale cantata and it was interesting and enterprising of the BBC to try putting the work into the Barbican Hall. The BBC Symphony Chorus did a sterling job at projecting both words and music, but there were moments when the sound was just not quite massive enough. But a lot of the piece did work surprisingly well and the struggle between chorus and orchestra almost became part of the raison d’être of the performance.
Robert Hugill
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Rembrandt-Belsazar.gif image_description=Belsazar by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (c. 1635) product=yes product_title=Belshazzar’s Feast — Benjamin Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem; Jean Sibelius Songs; Jean Sibelius Belshazzar’s Feast - Suite; William Walton: Belshazzar’s Feast product_by=Gerald Finley, baritone. BBC Symphony Chorus. BBC Symphony Orchestra. Edward Gardner, conductor. Barbican Hall, London, 10th December 2011. product_id=Above: Belsazar by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (c. 1635)Drapes ‘n’ Drops in Paris Forza
Forza is performed seldom enough that my one and only other encounter with it was Houston's 1973 production. I figure that once about every forty years, I can sit through the illogicalities of — why not say it — a patently stupid story with plot holes big enough to drive a Lamborghini through, in order to savor some of Verdi's auspicious writing. Oddly enough, there were two surprising similarities between the two versions I encountered. Both were played on a raked rectangular platform unit set that twisted up to form a back wall to the playing space, and both opted to begin the piece with Scene One and interpolate the overture after it.
Set designer Alain Chambon has skillfully managed to create an epic sense of stagecraft with economy of means, and has drawn on a color palette and textures that evoke the Golden Age of Spanish painting (Murillo, Velasquez, Zurbaran). This was largely achieved with beautifully painted drops and artfully draped heavy curtains. A singularly haunting Corpus Christi hovered over one scene above center stage (with its back to us) only to later have the same over-sized plaster image discarded absently on the mountainside as Leonora huddles under a huge fabric (her "cave") on the opposite site. Gorgeous imagery. The opening scene was not in the heroine's bedroom, but rather played out at the conclusion of a stiff, tense family formal dinner. The stunningly painted drop backing the impossibly long dining table seemed to announce that we would be seeing a traditional theatrical presentation. However, when the Marchese returned to discover the lovers, he angrily ripped the whole thing down off its pipe, and visually the piece was jump started into a splendidly suggestive approximation of subsequent locales.
Laurent Castaingt designed elegantly atmospheric soft-edged lighting, which contributed mightily to the chiaroscuro effect. Maria-Chiara Donato devised uncommonly flattering costumes for her principals, notably for Violeta Urmana's Leonora whom was first treated to a sumptuous, figure flattering dark federal blue gown, with a draped shawl conveying social status and femininity. Her male disguise was similarly well-tailored, aptly representing the effect without being slavishly "masculine." I have never seen the soprano costumed to better effect. While the Dons and the Calatrava household were all muted, jewel-toned elegance and the clerics all earth-toned, sober penitence, Ms. Donato unleashed a welcome extravagant riot of colors for the crowd scenes including a vividly clad, uninhibited Preziosilla.
For his part, director Jean-Claude Auvray told the implausible story as though he was totally convinced by it. In service to the characters, Mr. Auvray mined whatever drama was in the given situation and presented it clearly and with focus. He managed the traffic in the crowd scenes with considerable skill, and for once, we always knew where we should be looking. If characterizations were a little generic, well, the creators made them so. And if Jean-Claude slipped into a cliché or two or operatic groupings, well, they became clichés because they worked! The only truly ineffective moment of the night came with the ineffectual sword fight between the tenor and baritone which was little more than a half-hearted, clinking purse fight. (Actually, that is to insult purse fights, so lame the effort was.) The staging was all that was needed, then, and the technical elements were more surpassingly beautiful than expected, but where the company scored biggest was where it really counted. Prima la musica!
Conductor Philippe Jordan just goes from strength to strength. His passionately felt, resplendent reading urged all concerned to summon up one of the most musically exciting nights I have spent in the Bastille. The thrice-familiar overture crackled, popped, churned and soared with a burning intensity, and it elicited such a sustained roar of approval that it threatened to keep us from ever hearing the rest of the score! And so it went all evening long, Maestro Jordan giving the impression that the piece might have been written to the strengths of his responsive orchestra and his first rate soloists.
Marcelo Alvarez was indeed a forza to be reckoned with as Don Alvaro. His meaty tone soared above the staff with full, gleaming Verdian presence. He also commands a rich middle voice that was put to excellent use in this tricky role. Everything about his technique seemed hooked up and well founded, and he brought a seamless beauty to the numerous phrases that arc through the passaggio to above the staff. I don't know who the leading Verdi tenor might be these days, but Marcelo deserves serious consideration. Violeta Urmana may have staked her Fach transition from mezzo to soprano on the gamble that we needed more accomplished divas who could sing these spinto parts. She was right. And Leonora fits her like a glove. Having admired her in Vienna's Chenier I was less happy with last year's Paris Macbeth. But no equivocation here, Ms. Urmana has all the ripe low notes in place, her middle is vibrant, and her forays in higher territory encompass every demand from floating, pure pianos, to the hurled curse at the end of Pace, mio Dio. What a shame the composer gave the lovers so little to sing together, since Violeta and Marcello were exceptionally well-paired.
As Don Carlo, Vladimir Stoyanov showed off a forward-placed, imposing baritone that excelled in all but the highest notes. Here, he used a ‘poosh-em-uppa-Tony’ sort of approach that was more about reliable volume than complete control. A little rounding of the tone might stand him in better stead, but Mr. Stoyanov was nevertheless a solid Carlo. Kwangchul Youn brought his warm, mellifluous bass to Padre Guardiano, and his accomplished vocalism helped make the final trio one of the show's high points. The animated Nicola Alaimo wrung every bit of buffo humor out of Fra Melitone as he dominated his every scene. His solid, brassy bass was a nice contrast to Mr. Youn. Nadia Krasteva's ripe, sultry mezzo was a perfect fit for Preziosilla and she knew every inch of the role, giving it her all in an assured portrayal. However, I always feel that the poor mezzo sings her lungs out, prances and pouts, ‘rat-a-plans’ herself into a stupor and in the end, nothing adds up to anything substantial. Mario Luperi's authoritative, secure bass sounded appropriately paternal as the Marchese. Rodolphe Briand contributed a memorable turn as Trabuco.
No one will ever make La Forza del Destino work completely. But thanks to Paris Opera's exciting design concepts, no-nonsense direction, and abundant musical wealth, this is surely as good as it gets.
James Sohre
image=http://www.operatoday.com/une_la_force_du_destin.gif image_description=La Forza del Destino (Opéra national de Paris) product=yes product_title=Giuseppe Verdi: La Forza del Destino product_by=Il Marchese di Calatrava: Mario Luperi; Leonora: Violeta Urmana; Don Carlo: Vladimir Stoyanov; Don Alvaro: Marcelo Alvarez; Preziosilla: Nadia Krasteva; Padre Guardiano: Kwangchul Youn; Fra Melitone: Nicola Alaimo; Curra: Nona Javakhidze; Mastro Trabuco: Rodolphe Briand; Conductor: Philippe Jordan; Director: Jean-Claude Auvray; Set Design: Alain Chambon; Costume Design: Maria-Chiara Donato; Lighting Design: Laurent Castaingt; Choreography: Terry John Bates; Chorus Master: Patrick Marie Aubert. product_id=Call Her Flott — Felicity Lott sings in English
The operas of Richard Strauss provided her the opportunity often in her career to showcase her stylish and intelligent approach to larger soprano roles. However, in recent years she has found renewed acclaim as the comic lead in Offenbach operettas, such as La Belle Hélène and Le Grand Ducheese de Gerolstein. Her wit and idiomatic French carry the day in these roles, even though the voice at this point in her career has lost some of the plushness that had served her so well in Strauss and Mozart.
Perhaps it is the success she has enjoyed in these comic roles that prompted her to release this CD of lighter material and then top off the package with the casual greeting of Call Me Flott as the title. With the excellent accompaniment of Graham Johnson at the piano, Ms. Lott starts her recital of songs in English with one of the many settings of “It was a lover and his lass,” this one by Geoffrey Bush. Moving onto a piece each by two 20th century masters — Poulenc and Britten — the recital seems at first to be a rather more formal affair than it will later prove to be, and Ms. Lott is on her best recitalist form — enunciating with precision and scaling down her instrument to a more intimate level. Some high notes develop a slight tremor as a result. As the soprano moves onto rarities such as songs in English set by Gounod and Saint-Saens, listeners may begin to feel that calling the soprano “Ms. Lott” is more appropriate than the friendly suggestion of the CD title.
It’s with Noel Coward’s “If Love Were All” than Ms. Lott really seems to relax into “Flott” mode. A smile appears in the voice, and though she takes no jazz-influenced rhythmic or melodic liberties, there is a naturalness to her delivery that feels fresh and contemporary. Some of the “popular” numbers, however, are somewhat dated. Maybe a bolder interpreter would have changed Jerome Kern’s “You can’t make love by wireless” to “You can’t make love by cell phone.” Incidentally, it is only be referencing Mr. Johnson’s expert and detailed booklet notes that one can find the complete names of the composers and the poet or lyricist for the numbers. The track listing only gives composers’ surnames.
Highlights include a tender rendition of Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I do” and several deliciously old-fashioned numbers, such as “The Boy in the Gallery” and “Come on Algernon.” It actually takes a top artist to imbue these simple numbers with a sense of fun without overdoing a knowing wink at the anachronism. For your reviewer, the only odd choice is the straight-faced approach to Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” the droll comic piece about a society matron who must decline a lunch invitation after being arrested for shooting her cheating lover. Perhaps Flott thought it would hurt the piece to camp it up, but this is not Porter’s finest melody, and the number gets a bit dull. Nonetheless, the recital feels quite different than it did at its start by the 27th number (Coward’s “The Party’s Over”). Everyone should be addressing her as Flott by then.
Chris Mullins
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Call_me_Flott.gif
image_description=Call Me Flott
product=yes
product_title=Call Me Flott
product_by=Dame Felicity Lott, soprano; Graham Johnson, piano.
product_id=Champs Hill Records CHRCD003 [CD]
price=$17.99
product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=489379
Colossal Hercules in Essen
Perhaps the most astounding hallmark of this fine production is the fact that the stellar cast was assembled from Essen’s own roster of house singers. Many an international company would count itself lucky to have fielded such a superior team of soloists. First among equals was the commanding Hercules from Almas Svilpa. That his sonorous, resounding Heldenbariton also serves him well when he takes on Wotan at the house is no surprise. Even more awesome than his burnished tone, however, was Mr. Svilpa’s bravura technique that allowed the role’s florid vocal fireworks to come hurtling into the auditorium with utmost precision and emotional heft. I have seldom heard such interpretive freedom and nuance in a voice so large. Almas is also a sincere and attentive actor with an imposing, well-defined body that commands the stage.
Michaela Selinger as Dejanira and Christina Clark as Iole
The many challenges of Dejanira’s vocal and theatrical machinations held no fear for Michaela Selinger’s lusciously appealing mezzo. Ms. Selinger brings a wealth of stage savvy to bear, and she coolly mines a wealth of variety from the moody, prodding, vengeful character. The role calls for wide-arching phrases, rapid-fire fioritura, sinuously persuasive pleas, self-righteous dramatic statements, and caressed introspections, and well, this diva divine simply has it all, plus a star quality that is every bit a match for her Hercules.
Diminutive, lovely Christina Clark as Iole is a perfect foil for Dejanira, with her beautifully schooled, crystal clear, silvery soprano that, though small, floats out into the house with ease. Ms. Clark’s voice may have an innate sweetness, but she can also suggest some starch and bite when the drama requires. She immerses herself into the role with abandon.
Andreas Hermann cut a handsome figure as Hyllus, and utilized his attractive, rather straight-toned tenor to good effect. His refined phrasing lent an underlying elegance to the tortured son’s ruminations. Marie-Helen Joel was a bright-voiced, prepossessing Lichas. Her lean, responsive mezzo and assured deportment rounded out the first-rate cast who worked beautifully singly and together. Speaking of which, Alexander Eberle’s hard-working, peripatetic chorus was another of the performance’s glories for their luxuriant ensemble singing and ardent dramatic involvement.
Michaela Selingeras as Dejanira with Opern- und Extrachor, Statisterie des Aalto-Theater
Perhaps that was because Herr Eberle was indeed the evening’s conductor, and what a loving, incisive reading he coaxed from cast and pit! Maestro Eberle not only partnered his soloists with uncanny care and consideration, he also found an internal pace to the whole evening that would be the envy of many a Baroque “specialist.” Rarely, have I been so completely drawn into a Handel stage work. Eberle had his work cut out for him since the choral and instrumental forces were often spread out into the upper tier or offstage sides of the auditorium. Well worth it say I since this was a brilliant effect which surrounded us with, enveloped us into waves of music.
But this begins to fall into the realm of stage direction, and here, too, Essen scored a bull’s eye. Originally staged by Dietrich W. Hilsdorf and here remounted by Carolin Steffen-Maass, this was a fascinating “leap of faith.” For the production did not try to pretend that the oratorio format had a linear dramatic timeline. Not a Unity in sight, they elected to treat each new set piece as an impression that fits into the whole, perhaps like a piece of a stained glass window, or in stage terms, like the vignettes that form Webber and Rice’s Evita.
In making this choice, they went for broke and aggressively physicalized each scena. This yielded astounding results, and the no-holds-barred sparring and wrestling and clutching and chasing that informed many confrontations were raw, startling, and arresting. That is not to say there were not contrasting moments of repose and contemplation, but these were made all the more impressive in the context of such a primal frame of reference.
Almas Svilpa as Hercules, Michaela Selinger as Dejanira and Marie-Helen Joel as Lichas
Dieter Richter’s massive, decaying structure with its eroding stone walls, downstage cistern, displaced doors, and crumbing skylight evoked many locales, to include a temple, a public bath, a reception room, and (with addition of a large, curtained bed-room-platform stage left) a theatre. The front scrim cloth of Dejanira’s boudoir is adorned with what appears to be a primitive cave painting. So many productive uses then, for this evocative environment. It is gorgeously lit by Dirk Beck, whose brooding, mist-filled general wash was frequently invaded by beams of warm specials like that streaming from upper stage right’s large round embrasure.
Arguably the hardest-working designer was Renata Schmitzer who attired the large cast in over-the-top costumes that were varied, explicit, and staggering in aesthetic scope. In general the look seemed grounded in Handel’s own period, witness the elegant black mourning clothes, and the riotously colored waistcoats, gowns and wigs of the courtiers. The soldiers were truly intimidating with their black uniforms from a more biblical era, with breastplates and two huge feathered inverted “f’s” attached to the back as an ominous decoration that caused the men to tower over the female peasants (clad in burka variations).
The leading roles were tellingly attired in variations of shiny elegant underclothes (Iole), sleepwear (Dejanira, Hercules), court wear (Hyllus, Lichas) and uniform (Hercules). Dejanira’s volatile burgundy/purple, Hyllus’s icy blue, Lichas’s deep gray, Hercules’s bluish-grey, and Iole’s transition from white to black all meaningfully underscored their character’s souls.
If I had one wish, I would ask that the company work a bit on their English pronunciation. Only American Clark was singing in her native language and not surprisingly, her diction was superb. The others had moments of excellence, but with everything operating as such a superlative level, that was the one element that could be improved upon. Yes, I know the audience didn’t care since they were reading the German supertitles, but. . .just sayin.’
The choice to present Handel’s Hercules was a considerable risk. But thanks to Essen’s wholly winning artistic contributions it paid off with a success as colossal as its namesake.
James Sohre
image=http://www.operatoday.com/1614_2045_Hercules-0338.gif
image_description=Almas Svilpaas as Hercules and Marie-Helen Joel as Lichas [Photo by Thilo Beu courtesy of Aalto-Musiktheater]
product=yes
product_title=G. F. Handel: Hercules
product_by=Hercules: Almas Svilpa; Dejanira: Michaela Selinger; Hyllus: Andreas Hermann; Iole: Christina Clark; Lichas: Marie-Helen Joel; Conductor and Chorus Master: Alexander Eberle; Director: Dietrich W. Hilsdorf; Set Design: Dieter Richter; Costume Design: Renata Schmitzer; Lighting Design: Dirk Beck; Stage Director of the Revival: Carolin Steffen-Maass; Chorus Master: Alexander Eberle; Continuo Group: Natalia Spehl (Cembalo/Organ), Ulrich Mahr (Cello), Michael Giesen (Bass), Stephan Rath (Theorbo).
product_id=Above: Almas Svilpaas as Hercules and Marie-Helen Joel as Lichas
Photos by Thilo Beu courtesy of Aalto-Musiktheater
Amsterdam’s Adventurous Idomeneo
It is difficult to adequately describe the stunning imagery that designer Karl-Ernst Herrmann has put on display with his vivid sets, costumes, and lights (for all I know, he designed the program and swept the stage as well). All of the technical elements embody a profound depth of spirit, are supremely informative, and visually engaging. His colossal floor plan puts a four-foot wide illuminated white pentagonal walkway around the orchestra and right up to the edge of the parterre, and adjoins to it at curtain-line a massive upstage golden-hued beach “peninsula” which narrows as it recedes, and is on a hydraulic that can tilt it towards us quite steeply when so desired. A lone, Arp-inspired rock far upstage seems to be awaiting a mermaid.
Edgaras Montvidas as Arbace and Susan Gritton as Elettra
The sides and top of the proscenium are defined by a large dove-grey “box” which is initially enclosed by a similar panel that covers the entire proscenium opening. This is used to magical effect as a shadow screen to intensify any number of key downstage moments with appropriate moving images, from very small to very large. Surprisingly, the entire massive panel was hinged at the top so its bottom could swing away from us and upward to disappear into the loft, not only revealing the expanse of sand upstage, but also creating ominous lighting effects as the shadow crosses the playing space like a guillotine blade.
Mr. Herrmann has accessorized the space with mysterious poles, each bearing a ritualistic symbol atop, at once suggesting Crete, the origins of dramatic performance itself, and an uncanny timelessness. Carrying out that primitive theme, artful masks for the chorus are judiciously deployed, sometimes worn, sometimes carried aloft by hand, sometimes held aloft atop poles. His costumes are as character-defining as you are likely to see in many a year of opera-going. Just look at the chorus (singing with gusto under Martin Wright’s tutelage) in one scene arrayed in a courtly set of butter-cup yellow double-breasted suits and gowns, in another barefoot and dressed down in generic and timeless black peasant wear, in yet another appearing like a bygone era’s stereotypical tourists.
Edgaras Montvidas as Arbace, Stéphanie d’Oustrac Idamante, Judith van Wanroij as Ilia and Koor van De Nederlandse Opera
Overall, Herrmann the Costumer favors a baggy, loose fitting silhouette, almost suggesting children playing grown-ups. Idomeneo is in a generous white suit with a stray piece of shoulder armor, swaddled one time in a white felt cape and another in a consuming, weighty fur. And, yes he wears the standard issue, spiky European opera “crown.” Idamanate’s look seems inspired by a white sailor uniform, augmented by an unfettered vest and black tie. Neptune is in a mix and match of green pants, overcoat, and laurel wreath, part seaweed, part Emerald City. And best, Elettra is a diva assoluta, with a sort of violet/burgundy strapless push-up bodice top (decorated with vertical black-lacquered boning) and skirt of overlaid fabric that flares out like a funnel. Matching pumps, jacket and hat complete the fashionable persona. The hair design was no less masterful with quirky sweeps of tresses that rivaled a hood ornament on a Chrysler.
His lighting was no less affecting, with its cunning use of shadow play, and its color palette that ranged from stark white, to moody blue, to dusty orange, to vivid yellow. The diffuse sun projection was at times blood red, at others milky white, and during the raging storm, eclipsed by a brooding black disc. The lightening effect was truly unsettling, perfectly enhancing the panicked scattering of rag-clad choristers. The end of Act I was punctuated by a startling’ coup de theatre’ as the waning musical effects decrescendo’d to their last whimper when — BANG! — three giant prongs of Neptune’s trident came thrusting up violently from the stage floor. The audience was snapped to attention as one. So many exciting design choices, but then, what of the work of Herrmann the Director?
In tandem with his wife Ursel, Ehepaar Herrmann have crafted a fluid, constantly evolving series of stage pictures and plot development that are a joy to behold and too numerous to celebrate here. In addition to telling the story with serious dramatic purpose, they have managed to infuse some genuine wit and theatricality into the evening with the lurking appearances of a sometimes aggressive, sometimes bemused Nettuno. One common thread is having the sea-god continue to offer Idomeneo an ax with which to execute Idamante. However, his first entrance has him poking his head up over the ramp from the orchestra pit. Later, during a light hearted moment, he reappears there, places a platter with a cooked fish on the stage, and proceeds to filet and eat it!
Michael Schade as Idomeneo and Dietmar Kerschbaum as Gran sacerdote di Nettuno
The Herrmann’s have done exemplary work with the movement and uses of the industrious chorus. One memorable effect saw the front panel raise to reveal a massive black monolith center of the ‘beach.’ It was only after Idomeneo grabbed (what turned out to be) a piece of the black cloth and pulled away the covering that we realized the monolith was the shoulder-to-shoulder chorus huddled beneath it. A caveat: while all of the action and confrontations were believable and while all of the arias were well internalized, the limitations of the traffic patterns on the ramp did provide challenges in variety of blocking, which were largely overcome. But none of this fruitful physicalization would count for anything had the musical side not matched it, and here Netherlands Opera really scored big.
In the treacherous title role, Michael Schade sang with his accustomed polish, his pleasing grainy tone sounding suave and responsive, and his florid passages secure and fleet. I have always found him rather reserved, even stiff, with his stage deportment, but on this outing Mr. Schade displayed a passion and ferocity that made this a truly memorable role assumption. Matching him, Susan Gritton revealed herself to be an Elettra ne plus ultra. Her richly glamorous tone, interpretive savvy, flawless technique, and ample gleaming fire power dominated every scene she was in (as she must). On the basis of her recent Sesto in Paris and now her assured Idamante here, Stephanie d’Oustrac seems to be laying claim to becoming the pre-eminent Mozart Mezzo of the Moment. Her pliant, bewitching instrument has in its arsenal tremulous outbursts, plangent laments, and utter security with rip-snorting trip hammer coloratura. And she cuts a believable figure in these pants roles, blessedly free of clichéd ‘manly’ posturing.
Michael Schade as Idomeneo and Stéphanie d’Oustrac as Idamante
Having previously quite enjoyed Judith van Wanroij’s pure, silvery soprano in Monteverdi on this stage, I found my admiration well founded since she delivered a haunting, sympathetic Ilia. A pre-performance announcement in Dutch was made that I didn’t really follow, and when I asked about it at intermission I found that the singer performing Arbace was “indisposed.” I had actually already been mightily impressed by Edgardas Montvides for his vibrant tone and convincing delivery. What must he sound like when he is well!? All of the smaller roles were nicely essayed, particularly the delightfully warm soprano of diminutive Fang Fang Kong as a featured Cretan.
John Nelson led an idiomatic, highly detailed reading in the pit, eliciting vibrant colors and textures that made a potent case for Mozart’s opus. Noteworthy, too, were the wonderful contributions from Peter Lockwood with his aptly inventive playing of the continuo keyboard in tandem with the refined cello work from Herre-Jan Stergenga. When all the theatrical and musical planets align as they did with Netherlands Opera’s Idomeneo, you really are wholly drawn into an artistic experience that is, well, out of this world.
James Sohre
image=http://www.operatoday.com/idomeneo079.gif
image_description= Michael Schade as Idomeneo and Stéphanie d’Oustrac as Idamante [Photo by Marco Borggreve courtesy of De Nederlandse Opera]
product=yes
product_title=W. A. Mozart: Idomeneo
product_by=Idomeneo: Michael Schade; Idamante: Stephanie d’Oustrac; Ilia: Judith van Wanroij; Elettra: Susan Gritton; Arbace: Edgaras Montvides; Gran Sacerdote di Nettuno: Dietmar Kerschbaum; A Voice: Tijl Faveyts; Cretans: Fang Fang Kong, Inez Hafkamp, Frank Engel, Harry Teeuwen; Nettuno: Carlos Garcia Estevez; Conductor: John Nelson; Directors: Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann; Set, Lighting, and Costume Design: Karl-Ernst Herrmann; Chorus Master: Martin Wright; Continuo Keyboard: Peter Lockwood; Cello: Herre-Jan Stergenga.
product_id=Above: Michael Schade as Idomeneo and Stéphanie d’Oustrac as Idamante
Photos by Marco Borggreve courtesy of De Nederlandse Opera
Grand Don Giovanni, La Scala, Milan
This production starts controversially. Donna Anna (delicious Anna Netrebko) tussles with Don Giovanni (Peter Mattei). We assume it’s rape, because nice girls don’t do sex with strangers. What is she really objecting to, his presence or his mask? How did Don Giovanni get past her defences? He’s a man for whom the thrill of the chase may be more important than the act. So this Donna Anna seems to be enjoying herself while claiming to resist. After all, she has a fiancé and an image to protect. Don Ottavio (Giuseppe Filianoti) isn’t convinced she loves him. Netrebko sings the recitative and “Non mi dir, bell'idol mio”, with such passion that you wonder what private grief she’s trying to suppress. Netrebko’s Donna Anna is psychologically complex, not simply a victim of an attack, but of the whole repressed, narrow world she lives in. Netrebko’s performance was a tour de force of great emotional depth, haloed by exceptionally lustrous orchestral playing.
Don Giovanni is a cad but he’s a charmer. Mattei is sexy, and sings with alpha male confidence, but he expresses Don Giovanni’s appeal on deeper levels. Don Giovanni embraces life — meals as well as women — and deliberately flouts convention, whereas men like Don Ottavio and Masetto (Stefan Kocan) cling to it. He offers choice. “È aperto a tutti quanti! Viva la libertà!”. Perhaps that’s why he only meets his match in The Commendatore (superb Kwangchul Youn) who defies the constraints of death. Mattei’s Don Giovanni has animal energy, and glories in it — what kind of man keeps his own studbook? But Mattei also suggests the boyish impishness that some women can’t resist. Women like Donna Elvira (Barbara Frittoli) need so much to be needed that they fall for a trite ditty like “Deh vieni alla finestra”.
Ultimately, Don Giovanni seduces because he fills women’s fantasies. He also captivates men. Leporello (Bryn Terfel) is culpable for Don Giovanni’s misdeeds, but he can’t break away. Mattei and Terfel are the same age, and have created both Don Giovanni and Leporello, so it’s interesting to hear them together. At first Terfel is costumed like a roughneck, which is a complete mistake. No surprise that Terfel, who knows the opera thoroughly, looks uncomfortable and doesn’t sing the catalogue aria as crisply as he has done before. Don Giovanni wouldn’t hire a buffoon.
Once the silly costume is gone, Terfel shows why he’s a match for Mattei. Their different styles bounce off each other, creating dramatic tension. Terfel sounds like he’s about to explode with the violence Don Giovanni suppresses under his urbane exterior. Mattei, though, is strong enough to stand up to this savage Leporello, his elegant demeanour barely ruffled, for he knows Leporello isn’t so different from Donna Anna and Donna Elvira. They all protest but remain transfixed. The Mattei/Terfel dynamic shows the symbiotic relationship between two strong personalities made uneven because of their social status. The dinner party scene bristles with latent menace.
Everyone’s playing mind games in this opera. Zerlina (Anna Prohaska) keeps up an illusion of innocence yet delights in kinky activities (read the text). Zerlina is young, but no puppet. Prohaska’s movements are as crisp as her diction, creating a pert, non-victim personality who could quite possibly pull the strings on Don Giovanni if their positions were reversed. Prohaska is a singer to follow.
This production, directed by Robert Carsen, emphasizes the games the characters are playing. When Don Giovanni and Leporello change clothes, they aren’t really fooling anyone who doesn’t want to be fooled. The set (Michael Levine) resembles the curtain at the Teatro alla Scala, which Don Giovanni “pulls” down in replica. The masqueraders emerge from the audience, dressed in velvet, the colour of blood. It’s a good use of the otherwise wasted space right down the middle of the theatre, and dramatically correct for it engages the audience to take a stand on the morality in the opera.
When the Commendatore rises from his grave, Kwangchul Youn’s magnificent bass booms across the auditorium. It’s terrifying because the audience is disoriented, just like Don Giovanni. Youn is standing in the royal box, with the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. It’s a powerful statement, since the Italian president isn’t an ordinary politician. Politicians screw around like Don Giovanni, but the President of Italy, like Il Commendatore, is supposed to represent higher ideals. Mattei and Youn struggle with such intensity that it’s irrelevant whether Youn “is” or isn’t a statue. He stabs Don Giovanni through with his sword. “Questo è il fin di chi fa mal” sing the ensemble at the end. Often this epilogue feels unnatural after the fireworks that went before. This time there’s a twist. Mattei stands on stage, while the ensemble descends into a hole in the ground. In the real world, Commendatores don’t appear by magic. Bad guys will win unless we take responsibility against them.
Anne Ozorio
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Mozart_Krafft.gif image_description= product=yes product_title=Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Don Giovanni product_by=Don Giovanni: Peter Mattei; Il Commendatore: Kwangchul Youn; Donna Anna: Anna Netrebko; Don Ottavio: Giuseppe Filianoti; Donna Elvira: Barbara Frittoli; Leporello: Bryn Terfel; Zerlina: Anna Prohaska; Masetto: Stefan Kocan. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim; Director: Robert Carsen; Sets: Micahael Levine; Costumes: Brigitte Reiffenstuhl. Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 7th December 2011 (broadcast live internationally). product_id=December 12, 2011
December 9, 2011
Berlioz: L’Enfance du Christ, London
(I hope to rectify the understandable omission of the Messe solenelle when Riccardo Muti conducts it in Salzburg next summer, a performance of the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale remaining.) There was much to enjoy in this performance from Sir Mark Elder and the Britten Sinfonia, though my impression was that much of an often badly-behaved audience enjoyed it more than I did. (The second half was considerably delayed whilst the rest of us were compelled to wait for a gang of braying corporate hospitality beneficiaries from Mills and Reeves solicitors. I should like to think that it was from that group that a friend overheard some people announcing that the work had been composed by Benjamin Britten…)
For me, the problem lay in Elder’s conducting, certainly not in the ever-immediate response of the Britten Sinfonia. On the positive side, Elder imparted drive to the narrative, almost as if this were an opera rather than a dramatic choral work. (Berlioz never termed it an oratorio, though it is commonly and harmlessly thus described today.) I especially liked the ominous orchestral tread from Herod’s Palace, forshadowing the ‘Libera me’ from Fauré’s Requiem. Berlioz’s inimitable nervous energy was present throughout, to considerable effect. And the Ishmaelite trio for two flutes and harp was an utter delight, charmant to a degree, though it seemed quite unnecessary for the conductor to traverse the stage to conduct it. The bassoon timbre, echoing, consciously or otherwise, the music for the Witch of Endor in Handel’s Saul, was spot on for the appearance of Herod’s soothsayers. But the near-absence, certain orchestral rebellions notwithstanding, of string vibrato was a serious problem. The Vibratoverbot was not universally applied, or at least not universally adhered to: I both saw and heard valiant musicians tempt the wrath of the Norringtonian gods. There are so many objections to this practice that it is difficult to know where to start. It is utterly unhistorical, despite the pseudo-historical pleas routinely made for it. At any rate, the contrast between lively, colourful, plausibly ‘French’ woodwind and frankly unpleasant string sound was jarring. Indeed, the poor violins were forced to play for the scene in the Bethlehem stable in a fashion more reminiscent of a scratchy school orchestra than the fine ensemble we all know this to be. It could have been worse for them, I suppose: they might have been members of Norrington’s demoralised Stuttgart orchestra. Afterwards, I noticed a quotation from Elder in the programme: ‘Each particular scene has its own timbre. It is not a rich, twentieth-century sound but rather more restrained with little vibrato in the voices and instruments.’ No justification is made for the claim, let alone the results, but I cannot help wondering why, if every scene has its own timbre, a more-or-less blanket prohibition on vibrato is considered appropriate.
Choral singing was first-rate throughout, the Britten Sinfonia Voices clearly well trained by Eamonn Dougan. The choir’s keenness in the fugue, ‘Que de leurs pieds meurtris on lave les blessures!’ was exemplary, likewise the fine blend of the final a cappella chorus (with narrator), a barrage of coughs notwithstanding. Offstage, the invisible angels impressed equally, though there was something distinctly odd about the sound of the organ; I assume it must have been electronic. That the Shepherds’ Farewell was a little hasty was no fault of the singers.
The vocal soloists all had their strengths too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sarah Connolly and Roderick Williams proved the strongest: what a joy it was to hear such a melting duet from them in the stable scene, their voices happily uniting deeply-felt expressiveness with Gallic elegance. The French language heard elsewhere was often more of a trial; though Allan Clayton often sang beautifully, especially at the close, the meaning of the words was not always quite so apparent. Whilst Neal Davies had his moments, the power of his projection of Herod’s turmoil — at times, this presages both musically and temperamentally close to Boris Godunov — was often compromised by a tendency to emote excessively. The dryness at the bottom of his range was cruelly exposed from time to time.
In a sense, I have saved the worst until last: a half-baked attempt — Elder’s initiative, I am told — to evoke a sense of ‘community’ prior to the performance. Even some time after the solicitors and their important clients had deigned to join proceedings, we were made to wait a good few minutes whilst Elder and various members of the orchestra walked around on stage, conversing inaudibly in a fashion that would have shamed the most homespun of amateur dramatic societies. A concert scheduled for 7.30 thus began at 7.45. Alas, the only ‘community’ evoked was that of Deborah Warner’s ludicrous ENO staging of the Messiah. (For those brave enough to relive the horror, click here.) There was so much that was good in this performance that it was a real pity for a few aspects to have detracted from it so significantly. Let us hope, then, that London will not have to wait too long for another performance from Sir Colin.
Mark Berry
Click here for additional information regarding this performance.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Chapiteau.gif image_description=Chapiteau, la fuite en Egypte, Cathédrale d'Autun product=yes product_title=Hector Berlioz: L’Enfance du Christ, op.25 product_by=Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano); Allan Clayton (tenor); Roderick Williams (baritone); Neal Davies (bass). Britten Sinfonia Voices (chorus master: Eamonn Dougan); Britten Sinfonia; Sir Mark Elder (conductor). Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, Thursday 8 December 2011. product_id=Above: Chapiteau, la fuite en Egypte (Cathédrale Saint-Lazare d’Autun)December 6, 2011
Silent Night, Minnesota Opera
Silent Night had been highly anticipated in the Twin Cities for over the past year, which the company had work-shopped the opera with its Resident Artist singers, tweaking vocal parts, shoring up orchestral textures, as well as readying the Minnesota Opera’s fan base for a different kind of opera outside of its more traditional programming. Anticipation was also high for this particular performance, as only the Opera Company of Philadelphia had contributed to the commission, and several representatives of interested companies were in the audience to scout this opera for their prospective seasons.
Based upon a true World War I story, Christian Carion’s 2005 film Joyeux Noël, depicted an incident during World War I near the French border. Three encampments, Scottish, French and German, encircled a battlefield. After bloody fighting, soldiers called an unofficial truce for Christmas day, 1914. The film’s compelling message of religious unity and the commonality of the human condition, all in the midst of waging war, inspired Dale Johnson, artistic director of the Minnesota Opera, to commission Kevin Puts to translate the film into operatic form.
Silent Night is Puts’s first opera, though his career boasts a variety of orchestral and chamber works commissioned and performed by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Johnson provided Puts with significant dramaturgical support partnering the composer with veteran librettist Mark Campbell and director Eric Simonson. “Eric’s not only a wonderful director, he’s an accomplished writer himself,” Johnson said. “So we put him and Mark in the mix to really make sure this young composer had the kind of support he needed to create the piece.” (Opera News, 2011)
Despite the gamble of hiring a composer with no operatic compositional experience, Silent Night is arguably one of Minnesota Opera’s most masterful achievements in recent years. The company’s $1.5 million budget for this work was 50 percent larger than a normal season production, supported by their New Work’s Initiative. The production thus boasted polished performers across the board, as well as a visually realistic yet imaginative set, including a shockingly violent battle scene that opens the opera. Francis O’Connor’s ingenious staging, Kärin Kopischke’s military costumes hit the mark, with Marcus Dilliard’s lighting and Andrzej Goulding’s digital projections tastefully inserted to heighten the dramatic effect.
Karin Wolverton as Anna Sørensen
The one drawback of the premiere performance was the illness of the lead tenor, William Burden, in the role of Nikolaus Sprink. Burden was able to walk the role of Sprink, while former resident artist Brad Benoit, who had work-shopped the role last year, sang from the wings. Benoit gave a solid performance, despite having received the call only hours before the performance. It was clear, however, that there lacked some finesse and power in many of the soaring musical lines, as Benoit was eager to end the phrase while the orchestra clung to ritardandos originally dictated by Burden. The character of Sprink is a German opera singer manning the front lines, and Puts places much of the musical emphasis and beauty on this character vocal lines, which were unfortunately not delivered to their fullest on opening night.
Troy Cook as Father Palmer and John Robert Lindsey as Jonathan Dale
However, John Robert Lindsey’s Jonathan, Andrew Wilkowske’s Ponchel and the trio of lieutenant (performed by Liam Bonner, Craig Irvin, and Gabriel Preisser) achieved the most captivating musical moments. Bonner’s clarion baritone and grounded stage presence was of special note. With his flexible yet full instrument rising to the role’s high dramatic tasks, Lindsey is a young tenor to watch,
Though the production and performers delivered an outstanding performance, the composition itself lacked many things that make opera opera. As an accomplished orchestral composer, Puts’ orchestral writing knows no bounds, and encompasses high emotional ranges with striking instrumental colors and textures. The opening battle scene evokes the rhythmic intensity and sharpness of Bernstein’s Westside Story and the harmonic clash and tension of Gustav Holst’s Mars.
Liam Bonner as Lieutenant Audebert, Gabriel Preisser as Lieutenant Gordon and Craig Irvin as Lieutenant Horstmayer
But, there seem to be no real musical moments in the vocal writing. There is no pivotal aria that lingers in the mind after the performance finishes, and most of the vocal writing is more of a recitative style, with fewer soaring lines. The writing is more through-composed, dramatically trucking along at a good pace in Act I, but losing steam in Act II. There are also many silences in the vocal parts, and Puts seems to give the orchestra the heavier lifting to carry the drama.
Puts will obviously learn from his experience writing his first opera. His compositional style, especially in the orchestra, is attractive to a more modern ear, evoking orchestral soundtracks of this generation. If he can better apply his knowledge for color, harmonic tension, and rhythmic intensity to his vocal writing, he will be formidable.
Sarah Luebke
image=http://www.operatoday.com/MNO_1819.gif image_description=William Burden as Nikolaus Sprink [Photo 2011 © Michal Daniel courtesy of Minnesota Opera] product=yes product_title=Kevin Puts: Silent Night product_by=Click here for cast and production details. product_id=Above: William Burden as Nikolaus SprinkPhotos 2011 © Michal Daniel courtesy of Minnesota Opera
December 5, 2011
Anne Sofie von Otter and Brad Mehldau: Love Songs
Renée Fleming recorded a set of songs with Mr. Mehldau called Love Sublime, and now Anne Sofie von Otter joins with him for Love Songs.
Ms. Otter has established her enthusiasm — if not her aptitude — for pop and/or contemporary material before. She recorded an album of pop songs with Elvis Costello and also chose her favorite ABBA songs for a CD dedicated to those artists. Here she and Mehldau spend the rather short running time of CD 1 with 7 poems set to music by the pianist. CD 2 consists of 13 songs from a disparate group of songwriters, including Jacques Brel, Lennon/McCartney, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Bernstein.
Five of the seven poems Mehldau sets for Love Songs come from Sara Teasdale. Her simple but affecting lyric style has a song-like ambiance, which should prove suitable material for musical setting. The other two poems — one by e. e. cummings and one from Philip Larkin — read quite differently in tone and approach. However, Mr. Mehldau is rather limited as a setter of music to texts, and the seven settings tend to blend together, losing the unique voice of each author. The vocal lines have no particular melodic distinction, and Ms. Von Otter has nothing much more to do than enunciate cleanly (which she does well). Mehldau’s accompaniment tends to be chord based, and his clumsy writing for the left hand — if not simply his playing — bogs most of the music down into regimented rhythmic tedium. Meanwhile the right hand reverts all too often to broken arpeggios. Love never seemed duller.
Disc two benefits from better material, from classics such as “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home” and “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” to somewhat lesser known pieces, such as the two numbers in French by someone named Barbara. Apparently singer and pianist simply decided what songs they like, as the group does not pull together into any sort of cohesive musical statement. Von Otter sings Mitchell’s “Marcie” as nicely as she sings Richard Rodgers’s “Something Good” or “Blackbird.” But niceness is not a compelling vocal stance, and since she is not an experienced jazz vocalist, she sticks to the score. This limits Mehldau as accompanist. Presumably his jazz chops extend further than the banal support he offers here.
Von Otter has enjoyed a long and rewarding recording career, and her fans undoubtedly enjoy traveling with her across musical genres, as much as they may prefer her in the more expected repertoire of a classically trained singer. For those fans, this set may be enjoyable. Outside of such fans, those who value niceness over passion, inspiration and risk-taking may find Love Songs to be…quite nice.
Chris Mullins
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Naive_005031.gif image_description=Love Songs product=yes product_title=Love Songs product_by=Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano; Brad Mehldau, piano. product_id=Naive V5241 [2CDs] price=$17.99 product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=519668December 2, 2011
Faust, Metropolitan Opera
Currently, what was once Gounod’s most popular opera is now rarely performed at The Metropolitan Opera. With any luck, that is all about to change. On Tuesday, November 29th, The Met unfurled its first new production of Faust in quite some time. Despite some nerve wracking press in regards to the vision of its director, Des McAnuff, this production, which features a star-studded and extremely talented cast, put a modern face on a tried and true repertory staple. Despite occasional flaws, I hope to see this opera presented more often.
Jonas Kaufmann as Faust and René Pape as Méphistophélès
The orchestra was led adroitly by Yanick Nézet-Séguin. Given the current turmoil surrounding the orchestra and the fate of its beloved conductor, James Levine, it was a joy to see that the ensemble was still capable of performing with the artistry that Levine has so meticulously instilled in the players. Nézet-Séquin made his debut a few years ago conducting the debut of Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen. Those performances showcased his penchant for extracting the quintessentially French qualities of French opera. It was wonderful to experience his ability to bring out the same qualities in Faust. His reading was replete with tension, passion, and lyricism; in short, everything needed to show the brilliance of this opera when performed at its best.
The stellar cast was headed by Jonas Kaufmann. This tenor, who has made a name for himself in French, German, and Italian repertoire, is still riding on the heels of his success in last year’s run of Tosca. The applause that occurred in the second act of Tosca at his cry of “Victoria, Victoria”, was an event never before seen at The Met that has reached something of a fabled status. A similar event occurred during Faust, after he sang his Act II show piece; he received not only the traditional mix of bravos and applause, but also hooting and hollering. As someone who has experienced countless operas, this overwhelming crowd reaction was a first for me. And it was heartwarming to behold. Needless to say, such a reaction was warranted in every sense of the word. His rendition of the aria showcased his adept management of dynamics. In addition, he is the vilest Faust I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. For instance, at the end of the fairground scene, which comprises the first meeting of Faust and Marguerite, he forced himself into a waltz with Marguerite despite the fact that she had just moments ago declined his flattery. Such a contrast between Marguerite’s innocence and Faust’s cruelty elevated the relationship of the two characters to that of Don Giovanni and Donna Elvira. In the Act III love duet, when faced with Marguerite’s initial refusal, he forcefully tackled her to the ground. Needless to say, his strong acting was married perfectly to his masterful singing.
Michèle Losier as Siebel
Since her debut as Liu in Turandot, Marina Poplavskaya has created an impressive list of new Met productions. Now Faust joins Willy Decker’s Traviata, and Nicholas Hytner’s Don Carlo. Despite the split press for these two productions, she was ideally suited for Marguerite. Her rendition was replete with the innocence and naivety of the character as previously epitomized by Victoria de Los Angeles. However, unlike the great Diva, Poplavskaya’s Marguerite had the hint of a narcissistic teenager floating just below the surface. The way she played with her sweater and her hair during the ballad of the King of Thule suggested that she knew that men could find her attractive but was trying not to admit this to herself. Additionally, her capable physical acting came into focus in the second half of the opera when she was pregnant with Faust’s child.
René Pape who played Mephistopheles is a consummate performer. His work as the lead in last year’s production of Boris Godunov was dynamic in every sense of the word. His performance meshed the evil and comic aspects of the character beautifully. He was able to give a thrilling performance of “Le Veau D’Or”, while at the same time doing enacting a tap dance routine during his serenade to Marguerite.
Other noteworthy performers include Michele Losier whose Siébel was appropriately naïve. Russell Braun gave a stirring portrayal of Valentin. His first act aria was intensely the prayer it should be. Also, his dying curse on Marguerite was all the more heart wrenching because it was obvious that despite his words, he still loved his sister. As Martha, Wendy White showcased her comic talents to a marvelous degree.
Russel Braun as Valentin and Marina Poplavskaya as Marguerite
This production was directed by Des McAnuff, whose credits include Jersey Boys as well as the movie Rocky and Bullwinkle. He desired to set the opera in the post atomic age. The beginning was to take place shortly after the detonation of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The production would then go back to Faust’s youth around the time of World War I and then slowly makes its return to the present. McAnuff’s goal was to allow Faust to examine where humanity went wrong and why the atomic bomb was dropped over Japan. This was slightly misguided. While appropriate to other settings of the Faust legend, such as the play, Dr. Faustis, by Christopher Marlow, emphasizing the atomic bomb would eschew Faust’s relationship with Marguerite which is the focus of the opera. Ironically, this production should be lauded for what it did not achieve. The atomic bomb was present in frequent flashes of light as well as an image of a mushroom cloud which began the Black Sabbath. But these instances were trivial, and the mushroom cloud could have been easily construed as a puff of smoke billowing out of a witch’s cauldron. Thankfully, for the sake of the opera, Marguerite remained the focal point. If anything, due to the use of a curtain during intermission which displayed changing images of Marguerite, her position in the opera was intensified. Like other recent operas, such as Rossini’s Armida, Faust contains a substantial amount of magic. Mr. McAnuff can congratulate himself for keeping the mystery and the magic alive.
Another significant innovation of this production was its portrayal of Mephistopheles as an extension of Faust’s character. This harkens back to the line in the original German play in which Faust in conversation with his student, Wagner, refers to himself as having two personalities. He says “you know one, may you never know the other”. Unfortunately, McAnuff’s decision to portray the whole opera as Faust’s fantasy after he had poisoned himself is problematic. To begin with, Faust is a two part drama. Although the second part is never alluded to within the course of Gounod’s opera, based on the inherent villainy of Kaufman’s, I would be willing to bet that if given the opportunity to live, to experience more debauchery, he would easily avoid dying. Secondly, the fact that the action of the opera was portrayed as Faust’s fantasy as conjured up by Mephistopheles created incongruences in the stage action. True, everything in this opera is an extension of Faust’s fantasy as made possible by Mephistopheles, but Faust has to be able to participate in that fantasy. At times he was not able to. Also, the action of the opera took place within Faust’s laboratory. While colorful, dreamlike scenery was introduced after the first act, until the end of the fairgrounds scene, the set was sparse and monochromatic. Lastly, the unidimensional nature of the rather bare set did not help the singers to project to the back of the theater. This was at times evident in Kaufman’s performance.
This production by McAnuff showed every aspect Faust from the music to the story in its best light. Despite occasional blemishes, the opera which opened the Met in 1893 has a made a triumphant return.
Gregory Moomjy
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Faust_Met_2011_01.png image_description=Marina Poplavskaya as Marguerite and Jonas Kaufmann as Faust [Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera] product=yes product_title=Charles Gounod: Faust product_by=Marguerite: Marina Poplavskaya; Siébel: Michele Losier; Faust: Jonas Kaufmann; Valentin: Russell Braun; Méphistophélès: René Pape. The Metropolitan Opera. Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin. product_id=Above: Marina Poplavskaya as Marguerite and Jonas Kaufmann as FaustPhotos by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
Antwerp’s Puzzling Tchaikovsky Rarity
I certainly applaud the enterprising company for the adventurous season on offer during which locals can also take in Il Viaggio a Reims, Il Duca d’Alba and Mahagonny along with the slightly more mainstream Forza and a lone bread-and-butter run of Carmen. The overall high quality of productions here and the excellent caliber of the singers has won the loyalty and trust of a public who will clearly embrace new experiences beyond the standard repertoire. That said, The Enchantress was, for me, an opportunity missed.
Back to the afore-mentioned nut house: the first act was populated by an ensemble dressed in a ragtag, indecipherable array of (mostly) contemporary costumes (by Marc Weeger and Silke Willrett) that included mismatched track suits, letter jackets, medical wear, shorts, mix-and-match gowns, drag, military, terrorists, a large polar bear ‘mascot,’ and yes, even a female chorister in a giant white knit penis costume with removable ‘cap.’ There were real genitals on display as well, with two naked muscled ballerinos jiggle-flopping their way through the proceedings, one sporting a design of body-paint and wearing a surgical mask, the other disguised by a full rubber head of a green alien seemingly out of the bar scene in the original Star Wars. (Perhaps this was to protect the innocent.) The box set (designer Klaus Grűnberg) was a white tiled asylum (with some more penis images graffiti’d on the walls), packed with ‘choral risers’ built of overturned white plastic bottle crates. At rise, an acrobat is discovered balancing horizontally on his stomach atop an aluminum A-frame ladder center stage, while the inmates revel manically in the crowded playing space.
Did no one see the problem of presenting a virtually unknown work in such a radical ‘interpretation’? An audience hungry to know the piece has read a program synopsis and surtitles that are completely at odds with what is being presented visually. And while we are wondering how it all reconciles, what it might ‘mean,’ and what the hell the dancing polar bear is doing up there, we are mightily distracted from the full impact of some worthy music, well performed. The title refers to the central character of Nastasia (nicknamed ‘Kuma’), dubbed by some historians as "the Russian Carmen," so potent is her sensual appeal. It is not the lovely soprano Ausrine Stundyte’s fault that director Tatjana Gűrbaca has imagined her as more ‘floozy’ than ‘fatale.’ Decked out in a Sally Bowles spaghetti strap cocktail dress and black suit jacket, black hose, and a head piece that looks like a Beefeater black furry hat with a serious feathered cowlick, Kuma comes off visually about as ‘irresistible’ as a roadside hooker at 6:00 am. It doesn’t help that Ausrine is made to sashay and shimmy and stroke and pout with every Vamp cliché in the catalogue. What Ms. Stundyte does accomplish is singing very beautifully indeed, with a sizable lyrico-spinto instrument that encompasses a robust mid-register and a potent top with just a hint of steel. Previous encounters with her have revealed her to be capable of much more personalized, inventive acting than was asked of her here.
The crowd management seemed mostly designed to get masses out of the way as best as possible, in order for the principals to get on stage through the double doors, far upstage center. A couple of soloists (Prince Nikita, Deacon Mamirov) were brought downstage, but others were not, including young Prince Yuri whose lingering in the door made a weak first impression, distanced as he was from the audience. Although the upper class were in business suits, it was hard to guess what their relationships were owing to the lack of specificity in the stage groupings.
Mercifully, the obstructive ladder was finally struck and the space was freed for more varied pictures. There was a wonderful sense of repose in Act One’s great ‘a capella’ ensemble, but the lighting (Mr. Grűnberg again), having been adequate this far, was suddenly cued to throw the whole stage into very dim shadows. Very. Dim. Faces-Lost-Dim. Like this effect, the entire Act was littered with un-illuminated generalities and a conspicuous lack of focus. By the time One ended with Mamirov being pummeled with the knit penis head wielded by the Star Wars nude (laughing silently-if-demonically), I was worried — very worried — where else this could go. And then…
Act Two, set in a non-specific, elegant grey-curtained office-cum-dining-room showed some startling dramatic bite and unexpected character development. Turns out we are in Soviet Russia, and the privileged class are powerful apparatchiks. Princess Jevpraxija is rubber-stamping documents at her desk as she laments abandonment by her husband Nikita. Irina Makarova, looking regal in a tailored State uniform, turned in a performance of searing intensity and vibrant, polished vocalism. My immediate thought as the mezzo poured out impressively controlled chest tones as well as unstinting, ringing phrases above the staff was "wow, what a Verdi singer she would be." And sure enough, the thrilling Ms. Makarova has the full arsenal of those Italian roles in her repertoire. Hers was a deeply felt, varied interpretation, ranging from buttoned-down acceptance of her situation; to ranting, clothes-shedding defiance; to heartfelt, melting phrases of mourning and loss. Hers was arguably ‘the’ performance of the night, although to be fair, Ms. Stundyte become much more engaged (and better used) later in the evening, and her Act IV aria was beautifully judged and exceptionally moving.
The son, Prince Yuri was well-taken by Dimitri Polkopin, although his straight-forward tenor bullies its way through more than a few high phrases, concerned a bit more with volume than with suavity. Still, he displayed good theatrical instincts and even contributed some wit to the plot machinations as he played Mama’s Boy to Ms. Makarova’s Diva Mother. The cat-and-mouse, give-and-take staging of Act Two showed good use of the stage, and displayed a real search for dramatic motivation. Valery Alexeev was heard to best advantage paired up with these two co-stars, and his rather blustery delivery that began the show transformed into a focused, forward-placed, no-nonsense performance of real import. Taras Shtonda made the most potent vocal impression of the men, his naturally booming, orotund bass impressing all evening long. Mr. Shtonda was hampered a bit by the Mr. Magoo-like demeanor and presence that were imposed on him, but he got around that with his solid, meaningful, arching phrasing. As the intruder Paisi (a vagabond disguised as monk), Nikolai Gassiev offered a spirited, consistent portrayal, but on this evening his reliable comprimario tenor sounded just a bit raspy.
Director and design team showed a real clarity now. Some meaningful stage business was mined to good effect as the desk is re-dressed as a formal dining table, and set with dinnerware and accoutrements for the "royal" family to sup together. Physical and emotional relationships were revealed through well-considered movement, and there was a conscientious search for dramatic truth. Just as I was basking in all this honesty, taking in the affecting score, and marveling that we were now at another show freed of the prior absurdities, damn if the upstage curtain didn’t part, and a wagon full of milk-crate-mountains, scruffy protesters, and that damn bear, come rolling downstage at us! Truthfulness? Poof! Gone! (However, as Kittsjiga in this scene, Thomas Muerkas offered some exceptional singing as he denounced the aristocracy). And so the show careened willy-nilly from honesty to self-indulgent distraction, ultimately leaving us with no cogent over-all impression except wondering what the composer’s Enchantress might really be like.
In the pit, the Flemish band played cleanly, enthusiastically, and responsively, although I have heard Dmitri Jurowksi elicit more passion and commitment on other occasions. The maestro seemed a bit detached, perhaps a bit hamstrung by the excesses of the production. Certainly, Chorus Master Yannis Pouspourikas ably coached his ensemble to pour out long stretches of full-throated phrases, and they scored big in the unaccompanied scene. But owing to the rambunctious motion often asked of them, phrase endings were not always clean, and on one occasion, there were internal rhythmic coordination problems.
In the end, while the first act music came off as most characterful, on my first hearing the writing became more generic, even gratuitous, as the show wore on. While it was a welcome opportunity to experience The Enchantress at long last and at a company of fine repute, whatever good intentions Flemish Opera had, it must remain to another enterprising theatre to more fully make its case.
Jim Sohre
Click here for cast and other production information
image=http://www.operatoday.com/tsjarodejka_productiebeeld.png
image_description=Copyright Vlaamse Opera / Frederik Beyens
product=yes
product_title=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Tsjarodejka (The Enchantress)
product_by=Nastasia (Kuma): Ausrine Stundyte; Nikita: Valery Alexeev; Jevpraxija: Irina Makarova; Prince Yuri: Dimitri Polkopin; Mamirov: Taras Shtonda; Paisi: Nikolai Gassiev; Ivan Sjoeran: Igot Bakan; Foka: Jevgeni Polikanin; Polja: Anneke Luyten; Balakin: Vesselin Ivanov; Potap: Thomas Dear; Loekasj: Stephen Adrieans; Kittsjiga: Thomas Muerk; Nenila: Bea Desmet; Conductor: Dmitri Jurowski; Director: Tatjana Gűrbaca; Set and Lighting Design: Klaus Grűnberg; Costume Design: Marc Weeger and Silke Willrett; Chorus Master: Yannis Pouspourikas.
product_id=Above: Copyright Vlaamse Opera / Frederik Beyens
Perceptive La Traviata, Royal Opera House
Verdi writes gloriously for Violetta, so it’s a star vehicle for any soprano. But Violetta doesn’t exist in isolation. Although the many great singers who have created the part ensure that Violetta is central to the opera, she doesn’t exist in isolation. The drama revolves around the changing relationships between Violetta, Alfredo and Germont. This current production is important because Piotr Beczala’s Alfredo, brings out the complexity in Alfredo’s personality.This superb performance proves how important highly experienced, high quality casting can be. Beczala is passionate about historic tenor traditions, and this enthusiasm infuses his performance. Please read an interview with him here), La Traviata can be as much about Germont family values as it is about Violetta.
Ailyn Pérez as Violetta and Piotr Beczala as Alfredo
We can perhaps understand why Violetta is in her profession, but Alfredo poses more difficult questions. What kind of man gives up family and status for a demi-mondaine? It’s much more than youthful lust. Even Violetta doesn’t believe him at first, but she’s persuaded by his intensity. Verdi pointedly raises the emotional stakes with the rousing “Libiam ne’lieti calici”. It’s more than a drinking song, it’s a hymn to life.
Because Beczala takes his cue from the music, his Alfredo is infinitely more than a lightweight charmer. The energy in his singing suggests that Alfredo represents an affirmative life-force, in contrast to the shallowness of life on the party circuit. Verdi is making a strong moral statement. Beczala’s Alfredo expresses the strength in the character — firm phrasing, vibrant colour and absolute technical control. Beczala sings the high “Lavero!” at the end of the cabaletta so rings out with a confident flourish. Beczala’s lucid elegance shows that Alfredo’s emotional depth springs from strength of character.
Simon Keenlyside as Giorgio Germont and Piotr Beczala as Alfredo
Beczala’s Alfredo also emphasizes the relation between father and son, a connection sometimes underestimated. Simon Keenlyside sings Giorgio Germont with gravitas. There’s real chemistry between Keenlyside and Beczala. Their dialogues bristle with the bitter energy of shifting father/son power struggle, but the richness of the singing suggests fundamental warmth. One senses that after Violetta is is gone, Alfredo and his father will have an ever stronger connection. Lovely “pura siccome un angelo”, so this family will thrive. Keenlyside’s acting was stiffer than his singing.. He used his stick, not with a swagger, but more as a crutch, as if he had a real life injury. Keenlyside is an athlete and has mishaps. Usually, he’s much more animated.
Expectations were high for Ailyn Peréz after the publicity generated during the Royal Opera House’s Japan tour last year, where she stood in after both Angela Gheorghiu and Ermolena Jaho had to cancel at the last moment. Heroic circumstances. Last month, at the Placido Domingo Celebration, she sang a pleasant if unremarkable Gilda. Her Violetta was attractive enough allowing for uneven intonation and odd phrasing, which she might overcome with experience. One day perhaps she’ll be able to act with her voice, so her gestures come from within. The scene where Violetta squirms in horror as Alfredo enters the casino was unconvincing, though Peréz warmed up, ironically, in the final act. Although Violetta’s music is so well written it cannot help but impress, the role is complex and by no means “pretty”. She’s much more than a projection of male fantasy. Violetta fascinates Alfredo because he can sense in her something others can’t, so whoever sings the part needs to suggest what that special quality might be.
Ailyn Pérez as Violetta and Ji Hyun Kim as Gastone
Rodula Gaitanou was until only last year a Jette Parker Young Artist. Her Haydn L’isola disabitata at the Linbury was very mature for someone so young (read about it here) so it’s good that she’s directing a high profile production like this. In a revival, the moves may be the same, but the way they’re done makes all the difference between dull repeat and fresh enthusiasm. Gaitanou’s clarity illuminates another sub-theme of this opera that’s often overlooked. The gambling table is a metaphor for fate. It’s mechanical, and in Eyre’s original concept, dominates the stage like a juggernaut. The gypsies dance in strict formation, though they sing of freedom. There’s something quite sinister about the bacchanale. So the crowd scenes are tightly executed to express this tension, while subsidiary roles like Flora (Hanna Hipp), Gastone (Jin Hyun Kim), D’Obigny (Daniel Grice), Douphol (Eddie Wade), Dr Grenvil (Christophoros Stamboglis) and Annina (Gaynor Keeble) stand out as individuals, doing justice to excellent singing. It’s a pity that the conducting (Patrick Lange) was erratic, especially since he comes with good credentials (Chief Conductor at the Komische Oper, Berlin).
There’s no such thing as a staging that lets a story tell itself. In a good production, clues are always present if you’re alert to them. Bob Crowley’s set may look “traditional” but it comments powerfully on the drama. In Act One, the diagonals in the set seem to be caving in on the stage, warning that something’s awry. At the centre of the famous country house scene is a doorway which opens onto a trompe-l’œil suggesting many distant doorways beyond. Everything is illusion, even the “books” on the shelves are painted, not real, Grand paintings are haphazardly strewn across the floor. In the final act, behind Violetta’s deathbed looms a giant picture frame covered in black, as portraits used to be covered when a person died. For a brief moment, Alfredo’s image is projected onto the cloth, but fades. Mirrors, dressmaking dummies, huge, overpowering shutters, all of which add to meaning. This is a beautiful production but it’s also intelligent. With casts like this, revivals are fully justified.
Anne Ozorio
image=http://www.operatoday.com/LA%20TRAVIATA%20-%202511ashm_107.png
image_description=Ailyn Pérez as Violetta [Photo © ROH 2011 / Catherine Ashmore]
product=yes
product_title=Giuseppe Verdi : La Traviata
product_by=Violetta: Ailyn Pérez; Flora: Hanna Hipp; D'Obigny: Daniel Grice; Douphol: Eddie Wade; Dr Grenvil: Christophoros Stamboglis; Gastone: Ji Hyun Kim; Alfredo: Piotr Beczala; Annina: Gaynor Keeble; Giuseppe: Neil Gillespie; Germont: Simon Keenlyside; Messenger: John Bernays; Servant: Jonathan Coad. Conductor: Patrick Lange. Director: Richard Eyre. Revival Director: Rodula Gaitanou. Designs: Bob Crowley. Lighting: Jean Kalman. Movement: Jane Gibson. Royal Opera House, London, 28th November 2011.
product_id=Above: Ailyn Pérez as Violetta
Photos © ROH 2011 / Catherine Ashmore
December 1, 2011
Salome, Manitoba Opera
Manitoba Opera’s new production of Richard Strauss’ staged tone poem sung in German (with English surtitles) took its viewers into the blackest heart of darkness as a daring choice to open its new season. Based on Hedwig Lachmann’s translation of Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé, the 110-minute production (no intermission) directed by MO general director/CEO Larry Desrochers featured an expanded Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra led by the company’ principal conductor/music advisor, maestro Tyrone Paterson. The three-show run held November 19 to 25, 2011 at Winnipeg’s Centennial Concert Hall notably marks only the company’s second staging of the 20th century classic in 23 years.
The gritty, one-act opera based on the New Testament story of the beheading of John the Baptist deals with incest, prophecy, and madness — and yes, ultimately, love. Young Princess Salome has become obsessed with prophet Jokannan who is imprisoned by her stepfather/uncle, King Herod. He, in turn, lusts for her and cajoles her to dance for him. She agrees only after he promises he will give her whatever she desires — in this case, the Baptist’s head on a silver platter.
Russian-born soprano Mlada Khudoley has performed the title role approximately a dozen times over the past 13 years. Her riveting portrayal displayed her impressive dramatic range that had her pounding her fists like a tempestuous teenager before morphing into a hell bent, vengeful woman on the brink of insanity. The US-based powerhouse’s well-paced vocal delivery allowed her to save her last breath — if it were possible — for her final declamatory “If you had seen me, you would have loved me” that is the impetus for this opera. Strauss’ dissonant, through-composed score proved no match for this dynamo, with her soaring voice effortlessly projecting over the knotty, Wagnerian-scale orchestration.
Tenor Dennis Petersen crafted his lecherous Herod, at times, as a sickeningly juvenile ruler who plays peek-a-boo with Salome during her erotic “Dance of the Seven Veils” choreographed by Brenda Gorlick. His penetrating voice grew more desperate as he lured his stepdaughter in “Dance for me, Salome,” later stamping his feet in a sudden, volatile outburst after the princess insists on her prize. His wife/sister-in-law Herodias sung by the incomparable Canadian mezzo-soprano Judith Forst sputtered as a long-suffering partner, attempting to pierce her husband’s growing obsession for Salome like a knife.
lada Khudoley as Salome and Gregory Dahl as Jokanaan [Photo by R. Tinker courtesy of Manitoba Opera]
Special mention must be made of Winnipeg baritone Gregory Dahl’s chain-shackled Jokanaan, who immediately asserted his booming presence even from the depths of the cistern with his first vocal entry, “After me, will come one.” The charismatic singer brought both requisite strength and nobility to the role, with his robust voice trembling with fury as he foretold the coming of the Son of Man.
Lyric tenor Michael Colvin performed Captain of the Guard, Narraboth with focused clarity, growing increasingly agitated as Salome ignores his advances for Jokanaan. Mezzo-soprano Marcia Whitehead’s Page set the stage for the entire tragedy to unfold with her ominous “Something terrible will happen.”
The chorus of five Jews (Mark Thomsen; Michel Corbeil; P.J. Buchan; Keith Klassen; David Watson) brought contrapuntal might to the stage with the two Nazarenes (Mark Bodden; Peter Klymkiw) telling of miracles.
Mlada Khudoley as Salome and Dennis Petersen as Herod [Photo by R. Tinker courtesy of Manitoba Opera]
Several intriguing directorial choices underscored the love triangle — if you will — between Herod, Salome and Jokanaan, with Salome quietly slipping a veil into the cistern while also gravitating towards it during her famous striptease, creating multiple layers of sub-text. The closing image of Salome bathed in white light after being killed by Herod’s guards also suggested her own redemption (by love?); a purifying baptism of sorts that made her a sympathetic character to be pitied, not abhorred.
The production featured Boyd Ostroff’s set design created for the Opera Company of Philadelphia with a large, luminous moon radiating throughout the show, as well as blood red lighting effects by Bill Williams. Costumes designed by Richard St. Clair included jewel-encrusted robes for Herod and his wife and a series of voluminous veils for Salome’s seductive dance.
Salome is not an opera for the faint of heart — nor is it the safest box office draw. There are no jocular drinking songs or bands of dancing gypsies for levity. Salome’s chilling aria “Ah, you would not let me kiss your mouth” sung to the bloodied, severed head before she does just that still resonates with horror even in the 21st century. Salome remains a fiercely relentless opera that deserves to be seen by any serious opera lover. After nearly a quarter century hiatus, MO audiences were finally given that chance.
Holly Harris
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Salome_Manitoba_Poster.gif image_description=Salome Poster [Manitoba Opera] product=yes product_title=Richard Strauss: Salome product_by=Click here for cast and other production information. product_id=Above: Salome Poster courtesy of Manitoba Opera