Opera Today

The Met’s ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ a happy marriage of ensemble singing and acting

If I could bottle one production of one opera to pour for friends who have never seen an opera before but are curious about the art form, it would be this new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

This Figaro was very special for one reason only. It was not the singing, which was solid but not exceptional by Met standards. It was certainly not the updating of the action to 1930s Spain, nor the new set — a massive, claustrophobic, monochromatic clump of rotating gold cylinders. No, the pleasure came from the cast of young, athletic, handsome singers who acted as if they were part of the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago.

For fashioning this Figaro into a true ensemble piece we have to thank Sir Richard Eyre, who was in charge of the production. He made this Figaro a lively, funny theater piece, backed by Mozart’s matchless music.

The ringmaster of this Figaro was German soprano Marlis Petersen, the Susanna whom Figaro seeks permission to wed throughout the entire piece. On this afternoon, the opera should really have been titled “The Marriage of Susanna.” Petersen offered a welcome new perspective on this role of the maid in service to the Count and Countess Almaviva. She was no perky soubrette, bouncing around the stage. Rather, Petersen is tall, regal, handsome, cool and very sexy. It is quite clear why the Count lusts after her and wants to bed her before she weds Figaro — an opportunity the Count never achieves during four acts and nearly four hours of pure pleasure for the audience.

Even though Susanna has only one aria for herself, and that comes in the last act, she is on stage constantly, participating in numerous duets and ensemble numbers. She defined her character in the first scene, when she and Figaro are discussing the Count’s interest in Susanna as a bed partner, about which Figaro had been clueless. With graphic thrusts of her pelvis, Petersen made it clear what the Count wanted and suggested that she may be more sexually experienced than either Figaro or the Count imagined. When pretending to seduce the Count in Act Three, Petersen showed a lot of shapely leg.

Petersen was surrounded by a top-notch group of singing actors, almost all of who delivered solid vocal performances. Peter Mattei has played Count Almaviva all over the world. He has mastered projecting aristocratic arrogance and sexual menace. He was particularly strong in his Act Three aria Vedro mentr’io sospiro, in which he realizes Susannah is toying with him.

Ildar Abdrazakov was a Figaro not nearly as clever as the Figaro in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, which launches this tale of the Almavivas. This Figaro took his cues from Susanna. He was open faced and genial, but slow on the uptake. Those who saw the company’s Prince Igor last year will remember his strong baritone voice in the title role. He was equally resonant here.

Isabel Leonard, one of the world’s leading mezzo sopranos, was a believably punk, androgynous Cherubino. She delivered both of her signature arias with a mixture of humor and pathos, with solid technique. Leonard is also quite fit. She pumped through a half dozen push-ups at one point, and she climbed about fifteen feet to reach an open window in the Countess’s bedroom, out of which she jumped straight down to an unseen garden.

These four were clearly having fun, and it was a pleasure to watch them interact.

Amanda Majeski as the Countess Almaviva matched Susannah in height and regal bearing. They could have been sisters. But her portrayal presented some problems. She wore a perpetual frown as she fretted about the boorish behavior of her husband. This makes sense, but she projected such frigidity that she was not as sympathetic a character as she should be. The spunky and funny Rosina of the Barber, her character in the Rossini opera, was long gone.

Majeski’s singing was also not quite up to the level set by the others. Her first aria, Porgi Amor, was tentative, lacking volume. Her voice did not have much cream in it. She settled more comfortably into Dove Sono and delivered a more assured performance, but not one that touched the audience. Her voice at this stage is a bit small of a house this large. Majeski is the least experienced of the five leads, so this must be considered. She will undoubtedly grow into this great role.

The cast of supporting players was especially strong. Susanne Mentzer was a younger Marcellina than normal, not really old enough to have been Figaro’s mother — a surprise that surfaces in the third act. Her rivalry with Susanna produced sparks and a spirited duet in Act One.

The veteran John Del Carlo as Bartolo sounded congested in his Act One aria in which he swears revenge on Figaro for how he was outfoxed in the Rossini opera, and he struggled with the top notes. But his voice cleared later and he became a funny, barrel-chested contributor in the ensembles.

Greg Fedderly exhibited an uncommonly clear and forceful tenor as Basilio, the scheming singing teacher. Philip Cokorinos, in strong voice, was not the usual drunken gardener staggering around the stage, which was a relief. Ying Fang made a very promising debut as Barbarina, who eventually becomes Cherubino’s love match.

In Eyre’s updating of the action from 18th century Seville to the 1930s, he bled all the politics out of the opera. Figaro can and should be seen as the rumblings of the peasantry against the aristocracy and its privileges. In 1930s Seville, that doesn’t work. As a result, Eyre’s Figaro was only a comedy about sexual couplings and uncouplings.

However, the 1930s setting did allow costume designer Rob Howell to create some smashing outfits. Majeski wore two gowns — one an eye-catching black and white number. (Alert the Met bookkeepers: She wore it for just a few minutes.) The other was a memorable magenta and black beauty. This one was crucial to sorting out the complexities of the last act, in which Susanna and the Countess swap dresses and identities to fool the Count. Because both Majeski and Petersen are tall, the switcheroo was believable, as was the Count’s confusion. Eyre, for one of the few times I can remember, managed to stage this scene coherently.

Howell also provided a spiffy double-breasted blue jacket and white pants outfit for the Count, plus a riding outfit of jodhpurs and boots. Cherubino sported a white suit and vest with a Panama hat plus a black tuxedo.

While the gold cylinders dominating the stage quickly grew tiresome, the two in the center rotated to provide quick scene changes. At one point they created the illusion of long hallways in the Almaviva mansion, allowing the Count to chase after Cherubino in convincing fashion.

The set also worked well for the last act set in a pine forest. Here, a single large pine tree grew through the center of one of the cylinders. A second-level tree house was placed above the stage in the branches. On this platform Cherubino and Barbarina looked down on the action below, wide-eyed. It was a nice touch.

James Levine remains a peerless Mozart conductor, and the Met Orchestra played with finesse. He made liberal use of the tympani. The grand final 20 minutes of the Act Two ensemble finale traversed the same aural landscape as the Jupiter Symphony. Levine was greeted with adoration by the audience, acknowledging the applause from his specially made wheelchair.

This Figaro returns on December 4 for another long run with a new conductor (Edo de Waart) and a new cast. Perhaps they can capture the magic of this cast and conductor, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

David Rubin
CNY Café Momus

This review first appeared at CNY Café Momus. It is reprinted with the permission of the author.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/fig1_2098a.png image_description=Amanda Majeski as Countess Almaviva, Marlis Petersen as Susanna, Ildar Abdrazakov as Figaro, and Peter Mattei as Count Almaviva [Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera] product=yes product_title=The Met’s ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ a happy marriage of ensemble singing and acting product_by=A review by David Rubin product_id=Above: Amanda Majeski as Countess Almaviva, Marlis Petersen as Susanna, Ildar Abdrazakov as Figaro, and Peter Mattei as Count Almaviva [Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera]

Syracuse Opera’s ‘Die Fledermaus’ bubbles over with fun, laughter and irresistible music

First, a disclaimer: If you attend Sunday’s final production of Die Fledermaus, don’t come expecting anything even remotely serious. This isn’t Don Giovanni. It’s more like Dom Perignon. But if you’re looking for a good time, you’re headed for the right place.

The present production by Syracuse Opera is, in essence, a three-act bottle of champagne that when popped open spurts a bubbly potpourri of tunes, dances — and continuous laughter. The fun is augmented by an endless parade of irresistible dance music such as waltzes and polkas, and tunes you’ll be humming long after leaving the theater. Add to the mix some handsome sets, delightful singing, clever comedic acting and solid support from the orchestra pit, and you’ve a taste of Vienna right here in Syracuse.

The farcical plot of Die Fledermaus, originally set in early 19th-century Vienna, is the stuff comic opera is made of: mistaken identities, assumed identities, elaborate practical jokes, lampooning of social status and an intertwining web of sexual pursuit. Dr. Falke is bent on exacting revenge for a practical joke Eisenstein had played on him earlier. The good doctor concocts an elaborate payback that will unwind over the course of the operetta’s three acts. But the real story here is hardly a story at all: It's an excuse to sing, dance, drink, indulge your pleasures and enjoy the good life. To paraphrase the Las Vegas mantra, “What happens in Vienna, stays in Vienna.”

Of course, musical comedy demands more than just good tunes and clever one-liners to sustain some three hours of listener attention. It requires a strong cast of singing actors with sufficient chemistry to connect the musical and comedic elements convincingly. Stage Director Valerie Rachelle managed a fine cast of young musicians who not only blended well, but also made it clear that they were having fun doing it.

Neal Ferriera crafted a magnificent presence as Alfred, the self-absorbed (though completely loveable) suitor to Rosalinde. Using the sweet sounds of his magnificent leggero tenor (and thick Italian accent) as bait, Alfred tries to re-kindle the romance with former lover Rosalinde in the first-act toast, Drink, my lovely. Though his character’s amorous intentions are largely thwarted in the story, Ferriera provides laughs galore with his bravura-filled stage presence, and impresses the listener with a sinuous vocal presence that includes a stunning (and sustained) high C. Ferriera is also deserving of kudos as the only singer to stay consistently with the orchestra, beat-for-beat (no easy task considering the wild polkas and rapid stage action in this work).

The two female leads, Jennifer Goode Cooper as Rosalinde and Katrina Thurman as Adele, were in fine vocal form throughout the evening.

Thurman’s light lyric soprano, which borders on soubrette, is perfectly suited to the role of the maid, Adele. She has an immediately attractive bright and warm vocal timbre that, while not especially large, would make a perfect fit as Musetta in La Bohème (a role she’s sung before) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni). During Thurman’s Broadway-like number If I were a Country Girl, where her character is asked to prove she has sufficient talent to be an actress, it became abundantly clear that this is a singer equally at-home with musical theater and opera.

Thurman’s signature second-act number, the Laughing Song, was for my tastes the standout number of the production. This irresistible waltz can paste a smile on every face, inviting the listener to sway side to side in-time with each OOM-pah-pah. And her delivery was picture perfect. Thurman is also a fine comedic actor who several times nearly stole the show with her onstage antics and gesticulations. Her whining and maudlin tears over her “sick aunt” were a constant source of belly laughs throughout the first act.

Cooper’s attractive lyric soprano, though markedly heavier in timbre than that of Thurman, served the singer well in her two big numbers and ensemble duos and trios. The added darkness of her voice occasionally created difficulties for the listener with respect to diction, both during the singing and spoken dialogue. Fortunately, the projected supertitles (a prudent addition even to those works performed entirely in English) helped fill in the gaps.

Cooper’s most impressive work came in the second act, where her character (disguised as a Hungarian Countess) sings the syrupy Csárdás, a lugubrious song about leaving her beloved homeland that Cooper delivered in suitably maudlin manner. This lengthy number, which glittered as brightly as the endless bling adorning her magnificent gown, gave Cooper the opportunity to display her considerable command of vocal range — from the deep mezzo register to the final high note (I’m guessing a D). I expect that Cooper’s tendency to drag slightly behind conductor Douglas Kinney Frost’s beat in the quicker numbers will work itself out by Sunday’s repeat performance.

The third female role — actually a male role sung by a mezzo soprano (or pants role, as it’s often called) — is the filthy rich (though eternally bored) Russian aristocrat, Prince Orlofsky, played here in masterful fashion by Cindy Sadler.

Sadler’s husky speaking voice, which could easily pass off as that of a man, was couched in a thick and convincing Russian accent strong enough to land the actor a spot in the cast of the James Bond thriller, From Russia With Love. Sadler’s character was commanding and authoritative, drawing the eyes of all guests at the opulent ball in the tuneful drinking song Chacun à son goût, where the prince invites his guests to indulge their every pleasure.

Sadler’s best singing of the evening came with the magnificent Champagne Chorus, a toast she delivered with great energy and drive. With the exception of an occasional tendency to allow her vibrato to cloud an otherwise handsome singing voice, Sadler delivered a most enjoyable musical and comedic effort.

As Rosalinde’s philandering husband, Eisenstein, baritone Michael Mayes sang with a commanding, booming baritone that would have been perfectly suited to a large opera house such as the Met. Or perhaps a Wagnerian music drama. In the smaller confines of the Crouse Hinds Theater, however, his voice was a bit over-the top.

To be sure, Mayes’s thickly textured baritone appeared handsome and well focused, and when he sang by himself I marveled at his confidence and vocal presence. But the ensemble numbers were another story, as the thickness of his voice overpowered the other singers in virtually every duo and trio throughout the show. As a comedic actor, Mayes was beyond reproach, and his presence onstage invariably commanded the attention of the audience.

Peter Kendall Clark forged a debonair Dr. Falke, and his handsome presence and onstage demeanor was strong enough to keep stride with the charismatic Mayes. Clark’s easygoing lyric baritone, which at times appeared sufficiently light to label him a tenor, was an absolute pleasure to the ear, such as when he offered a toast to the party revelers (Brothers and sisters) in Act Two. Of all the actors, Clark’s diction was clearly the most succinct, whether singing or speaking.

As Frank, Andrew Gray appeared far too young to convince the audience of his position as the prison warden. Gray nevertheless sang well in the ensemble numbers, and gave a welcome boost to the rapidly paced trio with Cooper and Ferriera at the close of Act One.

Michael Connor, a long-time performer of comic roles at Syracuse Opera, typically steals the moment whenever he comes onstage. And he does so again as Eisenstein’s hapless lawyer, Blind. Connor is a funny man, and I’ve enjoyed his roles over the years, such as the “mad scientist” Spalanzani in the company’s production several years ago of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. (It’s gotten to the point where I begin laughing even before Connor delivers his lines.)

The sets and costumes for the production, which Syracuse Opera is renting from other companies, work splendidly. Especially pleasing is the elaborate setting for the ball at Prince Orlofsky’s palace in Act Two, elegantly anchored by an immense chandelier hanging center stage that I was worried might fall. (Remember Phantom of the Opera?) The colorful costumes worn by the female party revelers were pure eye candy.

Rachelle’s staging of the party scenes were as effervescent as Strauss’s polkas. She proved she's a good traffic cop, too — managing to keep the dancing couples from running into one-another during the crowded waltz scenes.

The musicians from Symphoria responded well to Kinney Frost’s direction at the podium, and demonstrated sufficient stamina to keep up with the relentless tempos demanded by the composer throughout the work’s seemingly endless dances. The trumpets, in particular, proved immune to the grueling pace of the faster numbers, and there was some good work on the part of the winds (especially piccolo) in the finger-busting coda to the Overture.

The Syracuse Opera Chorus got its chance to shine throughout the second act, and did so handsomely in the Champagne Chorus. I especially enjoyed the ensemble’s gentle delivery of the slow waltz of the end of that act, caressing the softer dynamic levels to whisper-quiet.

Attendance was rather disappointing at Friday’s opening performance — a victim, perhaps, of the unusual level of competing activity that included The Book of Mormon at the Landmark Theater and the opening of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson at Syracuse Stage. And then there was the presence of former President Bill Clinton, in town that evening to rally supporters of Congressman Dan Maffei.

When I left the theater I tried desperately to recall Adele’s Laughing Song throughout the ride home. No such luck. My musical memory had been hijacked by that irresistible foot-tapper, the Champagne Chorus.

It's still there now...

David Abrams
CNY Café Momus

This review first appeared at CNY Café Momus. It is reprinted with the permission of the author.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/U2G25922.png image_description=Jennifer Goode Cooper as Rosalinde, pictured here as the Russian Countess [Photo by Doug Wonders] product=yes product_title=Syracuse Opera’s ‘Die Fledermaus’ bubbles over with fun, laughter and irresistible music product_by=A review by David Abrams product_id=Above: Jennifer Goode Cooper as Rosalinde, pictured here as the Russian Countess [Photo by Doug Wonders]

Capriccio at Lyric Opera of Chicago

The current run of performances, based on the production borrowed from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, is a glorious testimonial to the anniversary of Strauss’s birth. As the Countess Madeleine Renée Fleming performs one of her signature roles. The poet Olivier and the composer Flamand, both enamored of the Countess, are portrayed by Audun Iversen and William Burden respectively. The roles of the theater director La Roche and the actress Clairon are taken by Peter Rose and by Anne Sophie von Otter. The Count, brother of the Countess Madeleine, is portrayed by Bo Skovhus. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the Lyric Opera Orchestra. Time and place for the current production are designated as a chateau near Paris during the 1920s. Costumes, interior designs, and minor props support such a setting.

Renée Fleming as the Countess, William Burden as Flamand and Audun Iversen as Olivier

The thematic tension between words and music has already begun before the start of the piece. In the first scene Flamand and Olivier track the Countess’s expressions from afar while she listens, seated in a salon offstage, to a performance of the composer’s string sextet. The beginnings of large- and small-scale symmetries, both dramatic and musical, surface already now in this production. Each of the artists admits of his love for the Countess, yet Mr. Burden’s Flamand projects more enthusiastic, rising intonations on “Freundliche Gegner” [“friendly rivals”] and in his response of “Prima la musica—e— dopo le parole!” [“First the music, then the words”]. Iversen’s portrayal of the poet Olivier remains, for the moment, determined yet subdued in comparable vocalisms. Such a contrast functions well in the spirit of the piece given Flamand’s immediate, excited reaction to the performance of his composition as an artistic bridge to the Countess. During a later scene Iversen’s vocal palette blooms into enthusiastic outbursts once the Countess becomes the audience of his own poem or sonnet. As a sobering medium to both ardent characters, the slumbering theater director La Roche awakens once the sextet has been played to its close. In this role Peter Rose makes an outstanding impression as he rails good-humoredly against the “totes Papier” [“dead paper”] produced by both artists before it receives the director’s guidance. Rose’s pointed remarks that reforms in the operatic genre, as supported by Olivier and Flamand, are “Alles nur Mode!” [“Nothing but fashion!”] emerge as a realistic pronouncement on public taste in musical theater. During the balance of the scene additional characters, especially the actress Clairon, are brought under the lens of discussion before the three depart for a rehearsal of Olivier’s latest play.

Randy Herrera, Jennifer Goodman and Bo Skovhus

The entrance of the Countess and her brother the Count signals yet a further topical scene, now a playful banter, on the relative merits of music and poetry. Ms. Fleming’s assured portrayal of the Countess Madeleine is evident in both her singing and movements. She inhabits the role as a natural extension while she graces individual lines with varying emphases, melismas, and shifts in volume. As the Count Mr. Skovhus gives biting intonation to his support of the dramatic art and to his spirited defense of Olivier’s play currently in rehearsal. Differences between the siblings are genteelly reconciled in a brief, playful dance and duet. The following scenes reunite the artists with patrons and introduce the figure of the respected “Tragödin” [“Tragedienne”] Clairon. Ms. von Otter performs the role as an understated foil to the others, both artists and devotees. Her initial exchange with Fleming’s Countess is telling when the latter’s rising pitch on “triumphierend” is matched by Clairon’s emphasis on the expected “Liebesszene” [“love scene”]. The following rehearsal of their parts by Clairon and the Count is amusingly staged, as Skovhus declaims the sonnet laden with devotion at the scene’s close. Rose’s La Roche leads all but the poet, composer, and the Countess into the theater for further rehearsal; he declares knowingly and with rich, bass tones to the poet “Du bleibst” [“But you should stay here”], in keeping with the opera’s marking “mit Grabesstimme” [“with sepulchral voice”]. Until the close of the first part of Capriccio, as divided in this production, the three remaining principals become involved in further debates on art and developments in their emotional attachments. The sonnet is now addressed by Olivier directly to the Countess for whom it was intended. Iversen invests his vocal line now with flashes of devotion as he begs for “Erhörung” [“fulfillment”] in response to Fleming’s counsel of “Geduld” and “Hoffnung” [“patience” and “hope”] pronounced with hushed yet determined tones. Of course the primacy of poetry or music is rendered more difficult to decide once Flamand sets Olivier’s sonnet to music and ultimately combines both arts. When Burden performs the sonnet for the Countess, now in its guise as a musical composition, he sings the text with true tenorial lyricism. The Countess declares that the sonnet now belongs to her, as proof of its dual devotion, but she agrees to decide for music or for poetry by the next morning. Fleming then orders via telephone that “Schokolade” be served to her guests by the servants.

Bo Skovhus as the Count and Anne Sofie von Otter as Clairon

In the second part of this production Skovhus is clearly excited after his rehearsal together with Clairon. Once the Count and Countess exchange details on their respective liaisons, the first mention is made of an opera as compromise between the warring genres. The remaining characters return from the theatrical rehearsal and become the audience for entertainment provided by the director: a series of dances provides only a brief diversion before Flamand and Olivier resume their rivalry. La Roche introduces yet further entertainment from the realm of musical theater: in a duet presented by the Italian Soprano and Italian Tenor in appropriate costume, Emily Birsan and Juan José de Léon sing their stereotypical roles with gusto and with exaggerated egos suited to their parts. Both singers perform delightfully in their cameo roles. The assembled company joins afterward in an octet of voices and opinions reminiscent of the cacophony in Strauss’s earlier Rosenkavalier. In response to the continued criticisms directed at his theatrical endeavors La Roche addresses the Countess’s guests in a soliloquy defending his “festliches Theater.” In this solo piece Rose’s delivery as La Roche is authoritative and eloquently sincere. Rose’s intonation describing the “ewige Gesetze des Theaters” [“eternal rules of the theater”] is precise, his legato binds words into phrases, and his sparing yet effective use of vocal decoration make this individual performance a dramatic highlight of the production. The others are assuredly moved by La Roche’s self-depiction as “Der Bühne ein Vater” [“a father of the stage”] and seem to reconsider and develop from their earlier held positions. As Olivier and Flamand agree to collaborate on an opera, the Count accompanies Clairon in her return to Paris.

When the stage empties a cadre of male servants enters, “den Salon aufzuräumen” [“to tidy up the salon”]. The humorous dialogue and comments exchanged by the eight male servants contribute a further level to the atmosphere of Strauss’s “Conversation-Piece.” The servants are performed, in part, by members of the Ryan Opera Center, including Anthony Clark Evans, John Irvin, Will Liverman, and Richard Ollarsaba. Facial expressions and movements are here as well-rehearsed as German diction. In the final scene of the opera the Countess inquires after her brother. When she learns from the Majordomo, performed with disciplined acting and vocal resonance by David Govertsen, that the Count has left her to dine alone, she retreats again into her thoughts on the course of the day. Fleming’s performance of the final scene is a summation of the Countess’s persona and emotions up to this point. As she asks with a rising line, “Was sagt dein Herz?” [“What does your heart tell you?”], Fleming’s wistful delivery prepares for the actual dilemma: “Wählst du den einen—verlierst du den andern!” [“If you choose one—you will lose the other!”], sung here with emphatic candor on those words signifying opposing rivals in love. Choosing either would upset the balance of an opera. When the Majordomo announces the evening’s souper, the tension is resolved as the Countess presents him with a hastily scrawled communication. The Majordomo’s smile is a promise of his discretion.

Salvatore Calomino

image=http://www.operatoday.com/14_Renee_Fleming_CAPRICCIO_LYR141003_685_cTodd_Rosenberg.png
image_description=Renée Fleming as Countess Madeleine [Photo by Todd Rosenberg]

product=yes
product_title=Capriccio at Lyric Opera of Chicago
product_by=A review by Salvatore Calomino
product_id=Above: Renée Fleming as Countess Madeleine

Photos © Todd Rosenberg

anger’s aweigh

By John Yohalem [Parterre Box, 22 October 2014]

It was a night a-tingle with excitement at the Metropolitan Opera House. At least part of this lay in never knowing when vocal protests might explode (verbally) somewhere in the auditorium.

[More . . . . ]

On The Death of Klinghoffer

Its plot is based on the 1985 hijacking of an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean, during which members of the Palestinian Liberation Front took over the ship, shot and killed the wheel-chair bound Klinghoffer, then threw him overboard in his chair. Composed by John Adams to a libretto by Alice Goodman, the production was directed, and is said to have been inspired, by Peter Sellars, who believes that opera should be set in “the danger zones” of current affairs. Klinghoffer turned out to be a danger zone for its creators. Though each made public statements insisting the work was even-handed, it evoked protests and charges of anti-Semitism wherever it appeared. Los Angeles Opera and Glyndebourne Opera canceled their scheduled premieres.

The dictionary meaning of even-handed is equal toward all, just, impartial. However, like beauty, the term seems more likely to be in the eyes of the beholder — a fact attested to daily on the world’s playing fields. Even so cool a sensibility as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas confessed he suspected that every umpire refereeing a game between “his” Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins favored the “Skins”, “but none would admit it.”

No less a language maven than William Safire conceded the “relativity” of even-handedness when he described fellow journalist and Jew, Thomas Friedman, as “far more even handed than I am.” The issue isn’t frivolous. Just as one’s strong emotions might interfere with clear judgment at a ball game, they will affect other ostensibly objectively judged experiences. What I brought to this supposedly evenhanded dramatization of Leon Klinghoffer’s death is a moral antipathy to PLO terrorism and murder, fear based on a special Jewish history; a history of being despised, oppressed and treated vilely in Western literature and drama, and knowledge that the danger zone in which Leon Klinghoffer lost his life still exists.

That out in the open, let me say that I think the creators of the death of Klinghoffer tried to produce an even handed work. Though the chorus, dancers, (choreographed by Mark Morris) and projections, kept the stage awash in moving bodies, and the orchestra under Kent Nagano, produced moments of lyrical beauty and tension, too much weighs in as doctrinaire and anti-Semitic, and the work fails both morally and dramatically.

Item: Performers, including chorus and dancers, are dressed alike in street clothes. Two performers who play friends of the Klinghoffer’s in the prologue, play terrorists in Act I and in all of Act 2, until the very last moment of the opera when they are once again “friends.”

To some this meant amorality: “Equalizing victims and assassins.” To some in the theater it was a source of confusion.

Item: The Klinghoffer’s friends — the Rumors (why that name?) engage in much petty chit chat about possessions, the value of the dollar and each other’s personal habits.

To many this was stereotyping Jews as crass and petty. Yet at the mention of Yasir Arafat’s name, this husband and wife planning to sail the Mediterranean in an era when terrorism was rampant , embrace fearfully. It’s possible their small talk was meant to be the sort of babble we all engage in to hide our deepest fears. But why was this scene written? It serves no dramatic purpose except to exist between “opposing” choral statements.

Item: The Exiled Palestinian’s chorus, sung first, begins sadly and tenderly with only soprano voices. The lines are short, the words, direct. “My father’s house was razed/in nineteen forty-eight/When the Israelis passed/Over (get it?) our house.” It concludes in fury with the full chorus gesturing and threatening to “break his teeth.”

The chorus of the Exiled Jews uses longer lines, irregular verses and is couched in allegorical language some of which didn’t make sense. “You said, ‘I am an old woman. I thought you were dead./ I have forgotten how often we betrayed one another.’“

To one reviewer the message was: Palestinians are “real men”. Jews, merely “kvetches”.

But the contrast could also be a failed attempt to reflect the exiled Jews’ deeper, Biblically-tinged attachment to their land.

The basic problem is that the death which Sellars, Goodman and Adams chose to dramatize doesn’t lend itself to even-handedness. Never mind that the Palestinians may have a cause that they and even some Jews believe in. While the world is (still a little) civilized, it is impossible to balance the murder of a helpless individual, totally unknown to his killer, with that killer’s venomous hatred, “Wherever poor men/Are gathered they can/Find Jews getting fat.... America is one big Jew.” The evil is too heavy.

But what about ennobling Klinghoffer’s death? “This,” wrote Peter Sellars of the opera, “is essentially a religious drama in the sense that Greek tragedy or the Bach Passions.... are religious dramas.”

The role of the chorus in the Passions and Greek dramas varies. But whether it tells the story, laments, rejoices or comments on what has, or what will inexorably unfold, it intensifies emotions. Religious dramas leave one exalted. In The Death of Klinghoffer, we have been so distanced from the characters, that we have little feeling for them. The ship’s captain is the person whose mind we know best and he merely ruminates. The terrorists stomp around with machine guns (how else would you distinguish them?) singing of their various rages. The Klinghoffers don’t open their mouths till Act 2 and when they do, evoke little sympathy until Mrs. Klinghoffer’s last long and moving aria. There is also a slow, lonely face-down descent from the top of the stage, harnessed to a rope, by a dancer playing the dead Klinghoffer, that makes the death seem almost beautiful. The problem is we know the cruelty of it. In a hundred years, I suppose, audiences may accept the fiction.

Given that Adams has written some of America’s most eloquent and stirring choral music, it is no surprise that the chorus sings approximately half the music. The dancers too, are almost continuously on stage, some, as alter egos to the opera’s principals. (When you finally catch on, it explains why there are two men in wheel chairs on board the Achille Lauro).The opera ends strongly, if abruptly, with Mrs. Klinghoffer’s grief. (She isn’t angry for very long.) An epilogue scored for the entire cast, which was performed in Brussels was left out of the New York performances I am told, because of disagreements on how to stage it. Just as well. Having victims and killers sing together, “Oh God, raise your hands in our defense,” does not turn The Death of Klinghoffer into a religious drama. All it does is turn the stomach.

If The Death of Klinghoffer marks the birth of American opera, a hope some have for it, opera is going to grow up to look like MTV. The work was designed as an integrated audio and visual experience with no rest for the eye or ear, but I’ll say this for it; despite its lack of moral values or sense of tragedy, its big moments are rousing. The singers wear body mikes which opera purists deplore, but are likely the way of the future. The balance between orchestra and soloists was superb, and for the most part the soloists were easily understood, although titles were displayed above left stage. The dancing was in oversupply and often fatuous; hands close to the floor for the word “soil”, high for “heaven”, drawn across the mouth for “spit”. Toward the end of the opera I wished it would just go away. But I found the huge tubular steel scaffolding by George Typsin effective, especially the scenes set high as if on a captain’s bridge.

The soloists, Stephanie Friedman, Thomas Young, Sanford Sylvan, James Maddalena, Janice Felty and Sheila Nadler, performers who have worked with Sellars, “et al” before, were all excellent.

What about John Adams’ music? Operas are after all “by” Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, not their librettists or first directors. Will this music survive? I’m not a fan of minimalism, but I’ve liked what I’ve heard by Adams. In “Klinghoffer” the rich-sounding orchestra has a fluid melodic line, which captures and enhances its moods. The “flip” song of the British Dancing Girl, is delightful. The moments of anger, whether terrorists’ or Mrs. Klinghoffer’s brief explosion, are chilling. When I think of how critics deplored some of Verdi’s, Puccini’s and Wagner’s first nights, I am astounded that so many who reviewed The Death of Klinghoffer, especially those who were paying heed to this troubled opera’s words and story, felt confident judging the music.

Estelle Gilson

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Klinghoffer.png image_description=Photo by Richard Lobell product=yes product_title=On The Death of Klinghoffer product_by=A commentary by Estelle Gilson product_id=Above photo by Richard Lobell

The Royal Shakespeare Company Releases Music From Its Archive

By Ari Shapiro [NPR, 12 October 2014]

For more than a century, the Royal Shakespeare Company in England has hired composers to write original music for its productions. That sheet music has sat in a vault for decades — until now.

[More . . . .]

Anna Netrebko, now a dramatic soprano, shines in the Met’s dark and murky ‘Macbeth’

Ever since the September 24 opening of the Met’s current production of Verdi’s Macbeth, critics have been pretty much unanimous in their acclaim for Anna Netrebko’s portrayal of the iconic Lady Macbeth. The praise is well deserved, all the more so considering the transformation of vocal timbre she had to undergo to prepare for this role. By the time of Saturday’s Live in HD simulcast, about the only question remaining was how the Russian superstar would withstand the intense scrutiny of the close-up camerawork.

Netrebko, once a lyric soprano embracing bel canto roles, has slowly been shedding her past and adding weight both to body and voice. And while the change has been gradual, it’s clear from this production that the diva has now reinvented herself as a dramatic soprano. Judging from the quality of singing and level of stamina Saturday, I’d say this new voice is here to stay.

“Behind every great man there stands a great woman,” the saying goes, and those familiar with this Shakespeare tragedy are not likely to argue the point. But Netrebko’s Lady Macbeth stands much the taller throughout this reprise of Adrian Noble’s (still-potent) 2007 production — hovering over the hapless Macbeth (Željko Lučić) a good deal of the time, as he cowers at her feet like a trained dog awaiting the next command.

In the end, however, it’s Netrebko’s ferocious display of vocal power, and not the warped power relationship, that tells the story in this Macbeth.

Whatever your opinion as to the relative merits of Peter Gelb’s simulcasts (my circle of friends are pretty much evenly divided), most will agree that viewers of the broadcasts get to see certain aspects of the production not readily available to audiences at the opera house.

Case in point: In Saturday ‘s simulcast, Live in HD Director Gary Halvorson projected close-ups of Netrebko’s eyes, affording viewers a window into her soul. (I saw a fanatical lust for power.) Halvorson projected close-ups of her facial expressions and seductive body movements, offering a revealing view of the femme fatale spinning a deadly web from which there will be no escape. Mostly, though, Halvorson projected close-ups of Netrebko’s cleavage — shot from every possible angle and broadcast across some 2,000 theater screens around the globe. Viewers from 67 countries now know what it means to be in top form in America. (No word yet on whether Gelb plans to simulcastAnna Nicole.)

Though largely gratuitous, this alternate view of Netrebko didn’t bother me as much as the cropping of the chorus scenes, which rendered it difficult to get a visual sense of the large number of singers involved. It’s also maddening to be forced to look only where the camera director allows you to look. We can see the singers in glorious detail, but are not privy to the looks and reactions of characters whom the singers are addressing. It’s as if we’re sitting in the front row of the opera house strapped in a neck brace.

In the title role, Željko Lučić forges a daring but complex character who wildly chases his ambitions but ultimately succumbs to his fears. The uxorious husband follows his wife’s bidding without question, yet appears incapable of enjoying the sexual favors she offers as bait to lure him into action. When he does reach the top, Macbeth can experience neither physical pleasure nor emotional satisfaction afforded by this absolute power. Lučić’s “mad” scene at the banquet, where he begins to mentally unravel in front of his obsequious guests, was a dramatic tour de force.

Though an excellent actor, Lučić fell far short of the other principal singers. His phrases were generally choppy, and his voice, which in all but the loudest sections came across as hoarse, sounded raspy and unfocused. By his final aria, Pietà, rispetto, amore, Lučić sounded clearly fatigued, and pitch began to wobble.

It’s always a pleasure to see and hear the incomparable bass René Pape (Banquo), even if his character does get killed off early in the second act. (Pape returns, in a bloody white shirt, as a ghost — but alas, no more singing.)

Banquo, who along with Macbeth served as King Duncan’s generals before the latter murdered the monarch, enters the forest with his young son and quickly realizes that the band of thugs in the forest (led by Richard Bernstein) have other plans for the pair. Pape delivers his great aria Come dal ciel precipita in a commanding bass, and with deep feeling.

Those looking for a tenor aria in this opera had to wait until the fourth act for Macduff to step into the spotlight. But Joseph Calleja’s poignant Ah, la paterna mano was well worth the wait. Lamenting the loss of his character’s wife and children at the hands of Macbeth, Calleja’s moving delivery — sung with a combination of tenderness and agony — captured the moment.

Of course, the lion’s share of vocal accolades belong to Netrebko. She was strong in voice from her opening cavatina (Vieni t’affretta ) and the concluding cabaletta (Or tutti, sorgete), with a firm upper register that never wavered in pitch or intensity. She navigated the wide intervals in the cheerful Brindisi (drinking song) Si colmi il calice di vino with seemingly little effort, toasting her guests gleefully while savoring the murder of Banquo only moments earlier.

Netrebko’s facial expression in the opera’s signature sleepwalking scene, where Lady Macbeth tries in vain to wash the imaginary blood off her hands, told the story better perhaps than Francesco Maria Piave’s libretto.

Set director Mark Thompson captured the dark and murky underpinnings of the drama through barren staging that provided only hints of the interior of the castle.

The forest scene in Act Four, populated with soldiers and refugees, was far more tangible, including a frozen military jeep with frosted windows and a machine gun mounted on the seat. The falling snowflakes made me reach for my coat. Thompson, also the costume director, outfitted the witches in disheveled 1940s-vintage garb that gave them the appearance of “bag ladies.” Concealed in the women’s handbags were flashlights used in clever fashion to illuminate their faces against the dark backdrop of the stage.

It’s growing increasingly difficult to take shortcuts with the props during simulcasts. Snowflakes falling in the cold and depressing forest had four sides, not six — as was abundantly clear during the close-ups of Calleja, who sang his touching aria sporting three rogue flakes stuck to his hair, each in the shape of a square.

From the foreboding opening Preludio, led by a marvelous brass section punctuated by trombones and bass trombone, the Met Orchestra under Fabio Luisi captured all the right moods at all the right places. Luisi’s invigorating Allegro Brilliante at the close of Act 1 Scene 1 was a real foot-tapper, though taken considerably faster than Verdi’s indicated tempo of half-note = 144 (my metronome clocked the maestro at an astounding 164, which all but set off the smoke detectors in my theater).

Don Palumbo’s men’s and women’s choruses were in good form throughout the production, particularly the chorus of witches. The patriotic Patria Oppressa, where the oppressed masses are lamenting the loss of their homeland, was especially lovely — though the hushed pianissimos appeared amplified out of proportion in the simulcast.

The jury may still be out as to where best to experience the Metropolitan Opera. But for the company’s unforgettable production of Macbeth, at least, there wasn’t a bad seat in the house anywhere in the world.

David Abrams
CNY Café Momus

This review first appeared at CNY Café Momus. It is reprinted with the permission of the author.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Macbeth_1361-s.gif image_description=Anna Netrebko as Lady Macbeth and Željko Lučić in the title role of Verdi's Macbeth [Photo by Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera] product=yes product_title=Anna Netrebko, now a dramatic soprano, shines in the Met’s dark and murky ‘Macbeth’ product_by=A review by David Abrams product_id=Above: Anna Netrebko as Lady Macbeth and Željko Lučić in the title role of Verdi's Macbeth [Photo by Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera]

Joyce DiDonato at the Gowanus Ballroom

Arizona Opera Presents First Mariachi Opera

Prior to the arrival of the conquistadors, Mexican music was played on rattles, drums, flutes, and conch-shell horns. When the Spanish arrived they brought violins, guitars and harps, brass, horns, and woodwinds. Indian and mestizo musicians not only learned to play them, they also built their own instruments based on Spanish ideas, sometimes giving them new shapes and tunings. Today’s Mariachi groups include both traditional and folk instruments. An ensemble might include six to eight violins, two trumpets, and a guitar as well as folk instruments including a round-backed guitar called a vihuela, a deep-voiced guitarrón, and a Mexican folk harp. On October 10, 2014 in Symphony Hall, the Mariachi band stood in a semicircle around the back of the stage.

Houston Grand Opera commissioned Cruzar la Cara de la Luna from composer José “Pepe” Martínez, music director of Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, who wrote the text together with Broadway and opera director Leonard Foglia. The work had its world premier in 2010. Since then, it has traveled to several cities including Paris, Chicago, and San Diego. This is a different kind of opera in that it combines musical theater with traditional Mexican song.

The story told of three generations of a family who lived on both sides of the United States-Mexico border. It was a familiar situation to many of the Arizonans who attended this performance. The librettists liked these cross-cultural families to the monarch butterflies which migrate from the States or Southern Canada to Mexico. As the opera opens, Laurentino, an elderly Mexican man, lies dying while his American son, Mark, sings a folksong. Lyric baritone Brian Shircliffe sang Mark with golden tones and excellent diction while demonstrating his virtuosity on the guitar. Octavio Moreno gave a fine character portrayal of Laurentino.

Cecilia Duarte and Vanessa Cerda-Alonzo were Renata and Lupita, the delightfully vivacious wives of Laurentino and his companion, Chucho. When the men went off to work in the States, Renata, Lupita, and the other townswomen were alone with their children and there were almost no men in town at all. Renata wanted to see her husband more often and she was willing to cross the border to do it. While she sang of her desire to have her next child born in the States, Lupita was happy in Mexico with the money her husband sent.

Unfortunately when Renata and her small son, Rafael, tried to cross the border, she became weak. She died in the desert. Victor, the smuggler took the boy back to Mexico where he grew up. Laurentino’s son, Mark, was born in the States, so the siblings did not know each other. The finale involves their being brought together by American granddaughter, Diana, sung by Brittany Wheeler. She got the two men to accept each other as brothers.

Although the show wass billed as an opera, the sound of the singers and instrumentalists was carefully amplified. The three women were all mezzo-sopranos but each had a distinctive timbre. Duarte’s lyric voice floated easily on the air while Cerda-Alonzo’s stentorian tones were reminiscent of Flamenco singers. Wheeler’s sound was warm and colorful. In the supporting roles of Rafael, Chucho, and Victor; David Guzman, Saúl Ávalos, and Juan Mejia added considerably to the worth of this performance.

The music was absolutely enchanting and it brought a great many new faces to the Arizona Opera audience. The applause at the evening’s end was deafening. This was the first Mariachi opera to be shown in AZ, but another is already being written. I, for one, won’t miss it.

Maria Nockin

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Renata%20Cecilia%20Duarte%20and%20Young%20Rafael%20Roderigo%20de%20Leon%20Bran.jpg
image_description=Cecilia Duarte as Renata with her young son, Rafael played by Rodrigo de Leon Bran

product=yes
product_title=Arizona Opera Presents First Mariachi Opera
product_by=A review by Maria Nockin
product_id=Above: Cecilia Duarte as Renata with her young son, Rafael played by Rodrigo de Leon Bran

Plácido Domingo: I due Foscari, London

First, Plácido Domingo is an icon. Even past his prime, he has such presence that he can present a role with style. When he does retire, we can look back and say we were there. Secondly, Francesco Foscari is a role that doesn’t present extreme vocal demands. Domingo didn’t go much out of range. Foscari is an old man, worn out by tragedy and the intrigues of state. Sounding pinched and dry is part of the character.

Domingo knows how to marshal his reserves. At the end, the old man rages against the city and the fates that have destroyed him. Mellifluous sounds would be inappropriate. Domingo sings with such intensity that it feels like a statement. We shouldn’t shaft old Doges because they aren’t what they were, any more than we should shaft Father Figures like Plácido Domingo. The Council of Ten might be ungrateful, but I, for one, treasured his performance.

Plácido Domingo as Francesco Foscari, Francesco Meli as Jacopo Foscari and Maria Agresta as Lucrezia Contarini

Domingo’s presence in Los Angeles honours the city, just as a great Doge would have honoured Venice. That’s perhaps why the Royal Opera House brought this production to London, so we could enjoy Domingo once again in a role he can still achieve reasonably well. The narrative is bleak and sombre. There aren’t all that many flashy “big moments” for Antonio Pappano to whip the orchestra into full Verdian glory. The set (designs by Kevin Knight, with costumes by Mattie Ulrich) thus serve to distract from the opera itself. We delight in the gorgeous jewel colours that show Venice at its gaudy best. But the gem is flawed. The city is rent by vicious intrigue. The Doge is destroyed in a way that would hurt the most: his last son is accused, exiled and dies. It’s not a pretty story. Still, we can fantasize, like the crowds in the piazza watching the circus acrobats and fire-eaters doing their tricks. What a brilliant metaphor! Even at this early age, was Verdi making oblique statements?

Wonderful atmospheric lighting by Bruno Poet, whose lighting suggests mists descending on the city, enveloping it in gloom. Most of the effects are created by video projections. so the set travels well. Just as the invention of electric light changed opera, video allows infinitely greater possibilities than, say, painted flats. The art comes in using technique well. Here, though, we see a backdrop of waves, which might have been exciting in Los Angeles, but London audiences would recognize as the backdrop to Birtwistle’s The Minotaur. Numerous other projections onto cloth, which seem to be done by fairly basic oil and water washes projected onto cloth. The giant face of the Lion of Venice doesn’t do as it’s told. Maybe there’s a very subtle truth in that but the production isn’t quite that deep. The projections dissolve as the cloth is lowered, clumsily, into a hole in the floor. Apart from the nice costumes, the production feels minor house. Thaddeus Strassberger, an American, is director, but there’s not much direction as such. The singers strike am-dram theatrical poses, but since the production revolves entirely around Plácido Domingo, there’s probably little need to develop the other roles as drama.

Vocally, Maria Agresta’s Lucrezia Contarini. was the high point of the evening. What a pure, clean voice, capable of passionate conviction. Agresta and Francesco Meli, who sings Jacopo Foscari, provided the vocal colour otherwise in short supply, in an opera that depicts a harsh, repressive regime. When Agresta and Meli sang their final duet, the opera came to life. That said, though, Maurizio Muraro, singing Jacopo Loredano, member of the Council of Ten, impressed with the authoritative richness in his voice. The other members of the Council, and the rows of women in white, priests, servants and so on, operate anonymously, which is perhaps right, but Muraro’s Loredano has power and individuality. So, yes, go to this I due Foscari, for Plácido Domingo, around whom it’s all been created.

For more information please see the Royal Opera House site.

Anne Ozorio

image=http://www.operatoday.com/2677ashm_1664%20copy%20DOMINGO%20AS%20FRANCESCO%20FOSCARI%20%28C%29%20ROH.%20PHOTOGRAPHER%20CATHERINE%20ASHMORE.png image_description=Plácido Domingo as Francesco Foscari [Photo (C) Roh. Photographer Catherine Ashmore] product=yes product_title=Plácido Domingo: I due Foscari, London product_by=A review by Anne Ozorio product_id=Above: Plácido Domingo as Francesco Foscari

Photos © ROH. Photographer: Catherine Ashmore.

Philip Glass’s The Trial

Auspicious prospects indeed. Music Theatre Wales did Glass proud with an excellent production, sensitively attuned to the nuances of Glass’s idiosyncratic idiom.

Kafka’s The Trial has such iconic status that any opera based on it carries huge expectations. The atmosphere of the novel is so unusual that it doesn’t lend itself readily to ordinary operatic treatment. Glass’s music, however, operates on the surreal dissociation that pervades the spirit of the novel. As we listen to the repeated sequences, our minds become inured to patterns. Glass’s music expresses the existential angst of mechanical, impersonal systems. If Glass and his librettist, Christopher Hampton, had used the German title “Der Prozess” , the connection would be even more clear. Josef K (Johnny Herford) wakes up one morning and everything starts to go out of synch. He knows something’s wrong but goes along with things until he becomes part of what he didn’t believe in. It’s reasonable that his Uncle (Michael Druiett) should help but why strange women like Leni (Amanda Forbes) and a painter (Paul Curievici)? Or oddballs like Block (Michael Bennett) who any reasonable person wouldn’t trust? As we become familiar with the cadences in the music, our minds start to follow almost by auto-pilot, and we’re mesmerized, too. K’s problems start on his 30th birthday. A year later, he’s dead. Or perhaps he’s at last succumbed to the long slow death that is conformity to systems that have no real meaning. Once he slips into habits of non-logic, the process takes control. Perhaps that’s the real Trial Josef K is undergoing. He hasn’t committed a crime, he’s just part of the irrational scheme of things.

l-r: Johnny Herford (Josef K), Paul Curievici (Titorelli). In doorway top-bottom: Amanda Forbes, Michael Bennett, Rowan Hellier, (Watchers)

Glass’s music wonderfully captures the mindless numbness of the processes around us. In In the Penal Colony (also based on a story by Kafka), an infernal machine drills words into the flesh of a prisoner. The concise nature of chamber opera intensifies the effect of Glass’s music, creating unbearable tension, so concentrated that it might explain why some listeners switched off, emotionally. Please read my review of In the Penal Colony HERE. The Trial is more diffuse, involving more characters and covers a longer time span, So the impact is less extreme. The story is more or less familiar to all, which helps make it more accessible. The opera unfolds over ten scenes in two acts, in fairly symmetrical form, which also helps to distance the audience from the human tragedy. In the Penal Colony is a masterpiece, possibly Glass’s finest work, but The Trial should prove much more popular. By Glass’s standards, the music is more concrete than usual, with many good “special effects” like booming trumpet figures illustrating The Uncle, followed by wailing trombone illustrating young K. There are quirky jazzy waltzes and delightful gigues on celeste and xylophone. Modern music without too much fear, but enough intelligence and integrity to satisfy high standards.

Johnny Herford sings Josef K. It can’t be easy to create a character disintegrating from a rational man into automaton, but Herford is convincing. His voice has a good balance of rugged manliness and plaintive vulnerability. Even in the throes of his confusion, this K can break off for a quick snog! Amanda Forbes sings Fräulein Bürstner/Leni, roles which make her switch from prim repression to voluptuousness. Forbes’s sensual timbre makes one hear the woman behind the compulsive wanton. Leni sleeps with anyone. She’s funny, yet also someone deeply flawed, forced to play a role defined by men. she’s not given to reflection, but Forbes shows her fragility by employing a good edgy tension to her singing. Good performances too from Michael Druiett (Inspector/Uncle), Michael Bennett (Guard/Block), Nicholas Folwell (Guard/ Usher/Clerk/Priest), Rowan Hellier (Frau Grubach/Washerwoman) and Gwion Thomas (Magistrate /Lawyer). Paul Curievici (Painter/Flogger/Student) stands out in small roles: he’s one of the better character tenors of his generation. Michael McCarthy directed, with sets by Simon Banham. Wonderfully idiomatic playing by the Music Theatre Wales Ensemble, conducted by Michael Rafferty.

Anne Ozorio

image=http://www.operatoday.com/141007_0457%20trial%20adj.png image_description=Johnny Herford as Josef K and Nicholas Folwell as Guard Willem [Photo: Clive Barda] product=yes product_title=Philip Glass’s The Trial product_by=A review by Anne Ozorio product_id=Above: Johnny Herford as Josef K and Nicholas Folwell as Guard Willem

Photos: Clive Barda

Trusting the ensemble — Charles Hazlewood

How playing an instrument benefits your brain

Architecture: The Opera Garnier

Joyce DiDonato: Alcina, Barbican, London

This was a concert performance and the singers were using scores, but it certainly wasn’t a score bound performance, all the singers projected drama as if they were in the opera house. Someone had thought about the dramaturgy. There were entrances and exits and more importantly the performers reacted to each other. Baroque opera does not need a lot of staging to make it work, and here Alcina received just enough. It helped that the cast were all extremely vivid performers; it wasn’t just Joyce DiDonato’s Alcina who prowled round the stage, and she and Alice Coote made their first entrance entwined like the lovers that their characters are.

Bicket and the English Concert gave a sparking account of the overture, brisk but not too rushed with a nice crispness. My main gripe was that there was only one harpsichord, played by Bicket himself, along with a theorbo and for me the continuo just wasn’t strong enough.

The eagle eyed would have spotted that I have not mentioned any chorus. Handel wrote Alcina in 1735 for the theatre at Covent Garden where his rather reduced company had moved after the creation of the rival Opera of the Nobility. To the not-inconsiderable draw of the castrato Cafarelli, Handel was able to add a dance troupe and a small chorus. Alcina has short choruses and dances woven into its texture in a way which few other Handel operas have. Here, the choruses were sung by four of the soloists (Anna Devin, Christine Rice, Ben Johnson and Wojtek Gierlack), with the entire cast singing the very final sequence when Alcina’s victims come alive again.

Though the performance was billed as part of the Joyce DiDonato Artist Spotlight, strictly speaking the leading role in the opera is Ruggiero. To Handel’s audience it was the castrato who had primacy and Handel ensured this. When he adjusted the libretto (which was originally written for the castrato Farinelli’s brother, the composer Riccardo Broschi), he altered the number of arias that each of the principals gets. So that Ruggiero has eight, Alcina has six, and all the others far fewer. But it is Alcina who dominates the opera, and was clearly the character about whom Handel felt strongest. It is she who gets the most interesting range of arias.

Handel was also adept at using the resources available; the role of Oronte was written for a young 21 year old tenor, John Beard, who would go on to create some of Handel’s greatest tenor roles in oratorio. And the character of the boy Oberto was introduced (he’s not in the original), to provide a role for the boy treble, William Savage.

DiDonato was dressed in a Vivienne Westwood creation that was both dramatic and imaginative; like a previous Westwood dress for DiDonato, this one was highly constructed and in each act she appeared with the piece in a different configuration. The dress certainly ensured that DiDonato’s Alcina drew our eyes in the way the sorceress ought. Strictly, Alcina is the villain but clearly Handel had sympathy with her and the interest in the role is how she deals with rejection in love and the waning of her powers. In act one, with Alcina happily in love, I missed the limpidness in the upper register and fluid flexibility. DiDonato’s zwischfach mezzo-soprano gave the simpler passages a highly sculpted quality (which matched the visuals). Everything was perfectly done, but DiDonato’s Alcina had a very distinctive tang to it.

But when the going got tough, DiDonato really showed us her mettle. ‘Ah! mio cor’ was stunning. But though the performance was very moving, I was aware that as a performer DiDonato feels the need to do something expressive with every note. It is not a style that everyone will like, but it is the way she is. If you listen to DiDonato in Handel, that is what you get. Alcina gets to close Act two with her striking scene where she tries and fails to raise the supernatural powers and here having an artist of DiDonato’s character counted as she combined a feel for the music with a strong dramatic sense. Yes, the passagework was vividly done, but it meant something. This continued in the last act where Alcina lets rip with ‘Ma quanto tornerai’, but the aria reflects how conflicted the character has now become, something DiDonato projected.

There was a strong interaction between DiDonato’s Alcina and Alice Coote’s Ruggiero, they projected a believable relationship. The roles that Handel wrote for Cafarelli clearly suite the range of Coote’s voice and she sings them superbly, with everything within the range of the voice. There was never any sense in the da capos of the singer pushing the vocal line into more familiar territory, as can happen, and Coote’s ornamentation was all nicely within the compass of the arias and generally a filling in and elaboration. That said Coote is also, like DiDonato, a very distinctive singer in this repertoire and projects a very personal way with the Handelian vocal line, one which for me echoes singers of the past like Janet Baker (which is no bad thing).

Ruggiero is rather passive for much of the opera. In Act Three Coote did bring the house down with the show piece ‘Sta nell’ircana’ with its wonderful pair of horns (but I’d worry about a Ruggiero who wasn’t able to do that). Where Coote counted was in the earlier acts, where she brought a great sense of character to Ruggiero’s arias giving us the feel of a rather nice but dim hero in love, and struggling with it. Coote is another singer who does something’ with the vocal line but again she is very expressive with it and I can listen to hear brand of Handel all day.

Whilst the role of Morgana only gets four arias, Handel clearly intended the role to balance that of Alcina and Morgana has the biggest show piece in Act one, the aria ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’. And here it was Anna Christy who brought the house down. Her performance was technically brilliant but also very characterful, no mean feat in such complex music. Throughout the opera, Christy projected her sheer delight in the character. Morgana is the most complex character in the opera, she is one of Handel’s glorious coquettes. This is a line which can be traced through Poppea in Agrippina, Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare and Atalanta in Serse, and all delight. Here Christy delighted, as she displayed Morgana’s complexity and delightful charm, combined with fine technical poise. Her bright, yet warm soprano was nicely contrasted to Coote and DiDonato’s voices which helped the contrasts in the opera. I might add that Christy was very visibly pregnant (a wrinkle which would add spice to the plot indeed!).

Bradamente, who spends most of the opera disguised as a man, was written originally for a singer who specialised in playing men. She must have also had a very strong technique, her first two arias both have incredibly fast passagework which Christine Rice rendered with a lovely vividness and evenness. She brought a great sense of personality to the character, I loved her touches of bewilderment in the opening scene when Bradamante realises that, as a man, Morgana is in love with him! Rice, throughout, projected a very strong sense of character and interaction with the other singers.

Morgana’s rejected love interest is Oronte, sung by tenor Ben Johnson. He displayed a fine vigorous tenor voice which very much suited the music. We mustn’t forget that the original Oronte was a very robust singer. But Johnson combined robustness with a fine technique and a lovely feeling for Oronte’s bewilderment as his lover rejects him. Perhaps things got a little too laboured in his act two aria, but he recovered in act three.

There was no sense of Anna Devin being boyish as Oberto, after all she is singing Morgana in this opera with the Russian National Orchestra. Oberto’s first two arias are both relatively simple and effective, and both were nicely projected by Devin. She held our attention in a role which is not dramatically relevant and relies on the singer’s personality. Then in the Act Three aria she let rip in mesmerising fashion.

Wojtek Gierlach only got one aria as Melisso, but he sang this with vigorous commitment and throughout the opera was vividly characterful in his recitative.

Throughout we had some lovely playing from the English Concert, with some glorious solo moments including a couple of cadenzas at the end of arias. The smaller scale, continuo arias were all sensitively played, and in the larger scale pieces there were many instrumental moments to treasure. The textures of Handel’s combinations of voice with string figuration, such is in Ruggiero’s Act two Il mio tresor, were magically done.

This was a finely involving performance. Given uncut, with two intervals, it lasted nearly four hours but never felt long. Despite the starry names, this felt like an ensemble piece with everyone pulling the drama though of course it was DiDonato’s Alcina who dominated as she rightly should.

The performance was the first on a tour, which continues: Sunday, 12 October 2014, Palacio de Congresos Y Auditorio de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain; Tuesday, 14 October 2014, Auditorio Nacional de Musica, Madrid, Spain; Friday, 17 October 2014, Theater an der Wien, Vienna, Austria; Monday, 20 October 2014, Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris, France; Sunday, 26 October 2014, Carnegie Hall, New York, USA 2PM

Robert Hugill

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Cast and production information:

Joyce DiDonato: Alcina; Alice Coote: Ruggiero, Anna Christy: Morgana, Christine Rice: Bradamante, Ben Johnson: Oronte, Wojtek Gierlach: Melisso, Anna Devin: Oberto. English Concert. Harry Bicket: Conductor. Barbican Hall, London 10 October 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/DiDonato_Barbican.png image_description=Joyce DiDonato [Photo: MARK ALLAN/BARBICAN] product=yes product_title=Joyce DiDonato: Alcina, Barbican, London product_by=A review by Robert Hugill product_id=Above: Joyce DiDonato (gown designed by Vivienne Westwood) [Photo: MARK ALLAN/BARBICAN]

Un ballo in maschera in San Francisco

And everyone knew what had happened to the Capetian kings in France.

It was in these final moments of the Risorgimento (unification of Italy) that Verdi wanted to premiere an opera in which there is a successful conspiracy to murder a king! Censors in Rome finally agreed that a story about a governor of Massachusetts involved in a nasty bit of adultery could be accepted.

Censorship these days operates a bit differently. No longer political censorship it is now economic censorship. Opera management perceives that the public will not buy tickets unless art is packaged in insipid wrappers. No Calixto Bieito in San Francisco. In this famous Spanish director's opening scene of Un ballo in maschera the courtiers sit on toilets in a mens room, the angry confrontation of husband and wife occurs in the bathroom of their home, their child’s toys floating in the bathtub.

On the War Memorial stage we were back in Sweden, at least we thought so because it was snowing in the second act, otherwise it could have been almost anywhere in nineteenth century Europe. In the program booklet there was no name credited to the design of the scenery. Presumably the sets are based on the production John Conklin created forty years ago (the mid 1970’s) and maybe the scenery has been modified for this staging by director Jose Maria Condemi, maybe by others over the years as well to the degree that it is not appropriate to identify Mr. Conklin with the sets.

Mr. Condemi is a resourceful stage director, finding business for his actors as if he were staging a comedy, and finding solutions for animating long chorus scenes with the addition of dancers miming slapstick comedy (or maybe this was a touch he was re-creating from the original production). He does move his actors around the stage with appropriate counter moves, and in fact he carefully sculpted all the musical numbers to accommodate Verdi’s musical initiatives.

Julianna Di Giacomo as Amelia

However the opera itself lacks integrity, its libretto derived from those of several other remakes of an original libretto by Eugène Scribe who was famous for being able to recast nearly any story into reasonable opportunities for arias, duets and trios and then wrapping it all up in a big finale. The challenge in staging ballo is to create an atmosphere in which these musical forms transform theatrical formula into vibrant theatrical reality.

Context for this ballo was sorely missing.

Conductor Nicola Luisotti was in the pit. This meant that it was big conducting that resulted in a huge orchestral presence for this little story of innocent adultery that is in fact the big music of the politically strident Verdi.

The pit cried out for big singing and the three protagonists could in fact do big, each in a different way. The king of Sweden was Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas, once a bel canto Nemorino, then a lyric tenor Werther and now Gustavo, a mature Verdi tenor! Mr. Vargas is big on musicianship, big on style, his medium sized voice pushed a bit beyond its endurance in this role with this maestro. The tenor and the maestro did together effect some quite fine Verdi moments.

American soprano Julianna Di Giacomo, a former Merola participant, was Amelia. She achieved volumes of beautiful tone that prevailed above the fortes of the full ensemble! Mlle. Di Giacomo presented herself as an arrived artist though she is not a fully finished artist, unable to create the emotionally charged vocal lines and tones that confuse innocence and guilt, the hallmarks of this and most Verdi heroines. It was therefore an incomplete performance.

Brian Mulligan as Renato

American baritone Brian Mulligan sang Count Anckarström aka Renato, husband of Amelia and Gustavus’s confidant and assassin. While Mr. Mulligan may not have the physical persona to impersonate a powerful Verdi baritone he apparently does have the voice, delivering the Act III “Eri tu che macchiavi quell'anima” in beautiful and passionate voice, one of the few felt moments in this mostly emotionally flat evening.

American soprano Heidi Stober was the Oscar. Mme. Stober is a mature artist whose facile, perfunctory performance did not capture the naiveté necessary to this role, an attribute that can make Oscar an emotionally moving part of the final moments of the opera. Veteran mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick had the cameo role of Ulrica. A big artist, la Zajick cast an appropriate spell as Verdi’s witch but only very occasionally endowed her spell with magical singing.

Michael Milenski

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Casts and production information:

Amelia: Julianna Di Giacomo; Oscar: Heidi Stober; Gustavus: Ramón Vargas; Count Anckarström: Brian Mulligan; Ulrica: Dolora Zajick; Count Horn: Scott Conner; Count Ribbing: Christian van Horn; Christian: Efrain Solis; Judge: A.J. Glueckert; Amelia’s servant: Christopher Jackson. Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera. Conductor: Nicola Luisotti; Stage Director: Jose Maria Condemi; Costume Designer: John Conklin; Lighting Designer: Gary Marder; Choreographer: Lawrence Pech. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, October 7, 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Ballo_SF1.png

product=yes
product_title=Un ballo in maschera in San Francisco
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: Ramón Vargas as Gustavus [All photos by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera]

A New Don Giovanni and Anniversary at Lyric Opera of Chicago

The cast features Mariusz Kwiecień as Don Giovanni, Kyle Ketelsen as his servant Leporello, Marina Rebeka and Antonio Poli as Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, Ana María Martínez as Donna Elvira, Andriana Chuchman and Michael Sumuel as Zerlina and Masetto, and Andrea Silvestrelli as the Commendatore. Ms. Chuchman sings her first Zerlinas in these performances and Mr. Sumuel makes his debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Michael Black is Lyric Opera’s Chorus Master.

The updating of the action in Don Giovanni to the 1920s for this production is suggested more directly by props, costumes, and isolated movements than by sets which, for the most part, communicate a vaguely Spanish setting. To be sure, nods to a modern setting exist in a neon sign indicating a bar in the vicinity of an ubiquitous pension. Yet the country folk appearing in traditional costume underlines the longevity of Spanish tradition lingering into the twentieth century.

During the opening scene Mr. Ketelsen’s Leporello laments his thankless position. As he describes the task of guarding his profligate master’s safety, Ketelsen’s weary devotion is traced with lyrical embellishments gliding downward on “far la sentinella.” At the entrance of the womanizer and his current conquest Mr. Kwiecień and Ms. Rebeka act out their conflict with the aid of individualized props: Don Giovanni guards his identity now with a white mask while this Donna Anna refuses to cede her hold on the beloved “Scellerato” [“scoundrel”] to whom she remains linked by means of a suggestive handcuff. Both Kwiecień and Rebeka show dramatic commitment in their vocal projection until Donna Anna’s father intercedes. Mr. Silvestrelli throws himself with outrage into the fray. As the first of a number of modifications in this production’s use of weaponry, the commendatore is killed, at some distance, by the shot from a pistol, rather than the blow from a sword during a fight. Leporello’s shock and continued subservience is well delineated here when Ketelsen epitomizes fear in response to Giovanni with the telling intonation of “non parlo piu” [“I shall say no more”]. Upon Ms. Rebeka’s return to the stage when joined by Mr. Poli, both modulate their voices to match in a unified oath of vengeance while forte notes were inserted now to excellent effect. At the close of their duet each character displays a hand covered with the blood of the commendatore as a seal to Ottavio’s statement “Lo giuro” [“I swear it”].

The introduction of Donna Elvira in the following sequence brings a further touch of the modern as Ms. Martínez steps out of the side-car of a double-seated motorized cycle. In her eloquent delivery of Donna Elvira’s impassioned aria, “Ah! chi mi dice mai” [“Ah! Who is there who will tell me!“] Martínez strikes a pose of defiance as she tosses her head and strides about in her cycling trousers. She draws on a full vocal range demonstrating a fluid rise to the emphatic high pitch at the close of the line, “Gli vo’ cavar il cor” [“I shall tear out his heart”]. After Leporello aids Giovanni in his escape from Donna Elvira’s accusations, he sings the virtuoso catalogue aria. In this production Ketelsen holds a small volume in which are inscribed names of his master’s conquests along with place of origin. Given the understated dramatic symbol here of the book, the effect of the music must be communicated through voice and gesture. Not only does Ketelsen move and act in dapper fashion, as a match to his stylish period clothing, but he also invests the piece with rich tone and practiced legato. The servant’s own involvement in maintaining the “lista” is carefully intoned just as Ketelsen’s high pitches on the repeat of “Voi sapete” [“You well know”] round out nicely the confrontation with Elvira.

The subsequent scene of a bucolic setting close to Don Giovanni’s mansion introduces the remaining soloists and the choral participants in this production. Zerlina and Masetto sing individually and in duet of their emotional happiness and impending marriage. Ms. Chuchman’s bright soprano is especially well suited to this role throughout the opera; Mr. Sumuel allows his resonant projection to emphasize distinctive, brusque aspects of Masetto’s personality. The arrival of Don Giovanni and Leporello leads to the disruption of harmony and is acted here in swift motions until Masetto is spirited away by the servant. The performance of “La chi darem la mano” [“There you will give me your hand”] between the Don and Zerlina highlights both Kwiecień’s stylish piano singing and his seemingly breathless stream of seductive words. Chuchman in turn responds with pointed top notes and lovely, spirited embellishments especially toward the close of the duet. Elvira’s interruption of this seduction with her renewal of emotional appeals coincides with the entrance of Donna Anna and Ottavio who, paradoxically, elicit the assistance of Don Giovanni to find the murderer. In the following quartet Kwiecień’s voice is striking in its extended lines and his final dramatic characterization of Elvira as “Infelice.” The succession of solo pieces following Giovanni’s brief departure advances the emotional and personal determination of the principals. Ms. Rebeka’s declamation before her aria, ”Or sai chi l’onore” [“Now you know who (tried) my honor”], enhances her excited aural recognition of Don Giovanni as the killer. Forte notes were then mirrored on “traditore” in the aria proper with a rising melisma of encouragement on “giusto furor” [“well-founded anger”]. Mr. Poli’s performance of the response delivered by Don Ottavio is no less effective. In “Dalla sua pace” [“Upon her peace of mind”] Poli was securely on pitch in “morte mi da” [“gives me death”], and he introduces appogiaturas at significant moments in the text. The following “Finch’ han dal vino” [“Now that the wine”], the famous “champagne aria,” is integrated into Don Giovanni’s rakish personality rather than having the piece staged with the Don alone musing on his past and potential future. Here Kwiecień was pawed by several eager, unnamed women as he tossed off the rapid lines of the aria. The final solo contribution before the finale of Act One is perhaps the most traditionally staged of this production. In Zerlina’s “Batti, batti” [“Beat me, beat me”] she truly here sings back the devotion of Masetto. Chuchman’s acting and singing showed her exquisite skills as a performer of Mozart: a smooth, crystal line, decorations suited to her voice, and gestures fulfilling the import of the music. As a preparation for the finale, the nobles “in maschera” enter; Leporello sees them from the balcony of Don Giovani’s villa and invites them to attend the soiree inside. After some initial imbalances, the vocal music of the noble guests with host and servant, against the backdrop of repeated dance rhythms, functioned well in this production. Martínez and Rebeka contributed significantly to the ensemble, just as Don Giovanni maneuvers Zerlina offstage during the dance. The interplay between Don Giovanni and Leporello in the final moments is cleverly staged so that Kwiecień assumes a final swaggering pose before escaping.

The second act in this production remains as consistently satisfying vocally as the first, with the addition of several dramatically interpretive ploys. Don Giovanni’s own masquerade, in which he coaches Leporello to impersonate him in a romantic dialogue with Elvira, is here convincing and at once amusing. When left alone to serenade Elvira’s maid, Kwiecień’s performance of “Deh vieni alla finestra” [“Come to the window”] stands out as his most lyrically sustained moment in the performance. With high notes pushed forward to indicate the urgency of his appeal and embellishments punctuating the vocal line, the performance of this aria by Kwiecień is a lesson in song.

Leporello’s identity is recognized in the following scene when he is confronted by Donna Anna, Don Ottavio and the country pair. After Leporello begs for mercy, Ottavio asks the others to guard Donna Anna while he secures help from the authorities. Poli’s rendition of “Il mio tesoro” [“My treasure”] with rising tones on “andate” and “cercate” has the effect of a graceful gentleman determined to assure the reputation of his beloved. The emphases at “nunzio vogl’io tornar” [“I shall not return”] make the aria even more believable. In the following “Mi tradì” [“He betrayed me”] of Donna Elvira the same devotion is signaled by Martínez with excellent phrasing, yet the tempo here is nearly too rapid for the aria to have its desired effect. In the final solo aria of this act, Donna Anna’s “Non mi dir” [“Do not tell me”] Rebeka makes a strong impression by introducing vocal color and decoration to suggest a transformed character as both daughter and lover. Rebeka’s scales and embellishments in the second part of the aria provided a cap to her yearning appeal directed at Don Ottavio.

In the final scene of retribution Don Giovanni’s demise is far from unjustified. The pistol returns as a prop when Giovanni scorns Elvira’s final appeals. After he hurls food at her from the banquet table, Martínez shoots him before yielding the final judgment to the statua of the Commendatore. Don Giovanni’s descent into hell is ingeniously staged yet the music and vocal treasures in this production emerge as equally memorable.

Salvatore Calomino

image=http://www.operatoday.com/12_Mariusz_Kwiecien_Andriana_Chuchman_DON_GIOVANNI_LYR140924_0260_cTodd_Rosenberg.jpg
image_description=Mariusz Kwiecien and Andriana Chuchman [Photo by Todd Rosenberg]

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product_title=A New Don Giovanni and Anniversary at Lyric Opera of Chicago
product_by=A review by Salvatore Calomino
product_id=Above: Mariusz Kwiecien and Andriana Chuchman [Photo by Todd Rosenberg]

Grande messe des morts, LSO

Irrespective of that hindsight, I found it at the time a magnificent, unforgettable performance, as indeed I wrote, or rather raved, at the time. Life goes on, however, even when it comes to requiem masses. This performance was perhaps never going to live up to the extraordinary nature of that occasion; not only was the greatest Berlioz conductor of all time delivering his valedictory thoughts on the piece, but for once, Wren’s cathedral proved a preferable venue. The Royal Festival Hall was anything but ideal; I could not help but wondering whether a trip, say, to Westminster Cathedral would not have been a good idea. (The problem was not simply a matter of the acoustic, as I shall try to argue below.) Those factors notwithstanding, however, this was in most respects an excellent performance, one which will have doubtless introduced a good few new listeners to this singular work.

The acoustical difference announced itself immediately, with greater orchestral and, perhaps most strikingly, choral clarity. This could almost have been a different work. Performance standards, choral and orchestral, were highly impressive throughout; indeed, just as in St Paul’s, there were no conceivable grounds for complaint in that respect. The ‘Requiem aeternam’ and ‘Kyrie’ benefited from wonderful Philharmonia string playing, especially the expressive vibrato employed and instrumental phrasing (doubtless partly to be credited to Esa-Pekka Salonen too). It was expressive yet taut. This first movement is perhaps not a terribly characteristic movement; the work is arguably not the most characteristic of Berlioz’s œuvre either. Its roots in earlier French music, most of it more or less entirely forgotten by present-day audiences, came through, as did its peculiar novelty. A weird instance of applause following this movement was not, I was grateful, to be repeated.

Cellos and double basses again made a fine impression at the opening of the ‘Dies irae’. Salonen here, as throughout, marshalled his forces very well. Palpable tension as the brass players stood was not entirely fulfilled in reality. I do not think it was any fault of the performance as such, but the effect, despite its deafening, all-too-deafening volume, far too much from where I was seated, paled besides the truer aural perspective and blended sound offered under the St Paul’s dome. Matters were not improved by a telephone ringing as the deafening brass ceased. (Do these people have no shame at all?) Still, there was a very strong impression to be had of the work’s insanity. There was an overwhelming sense of contrast in the following ‘Quid sum miser’: not, quite rightly, repose, but supplication.

The ‘Rex tremendae’ then proved both excitable and exciting. However, it proved a good example of another problem relating to the venue, though perhaps, to a certain extent, to Salonen’s conception. (In truth, it is very difficult to say what exactly was owed to what.) Part of the fascination of this work is its secularism, the strange emptiness at the heart of the work, about which I wrote when discussing the Davis performance. That gains meaning and a truly disconcerting quality when performed not only in a building such as St Paul’s, but also when conducted by a man whose religious and/or philosophical questing is leading him truly to grapple with the difficulties presented by such a work. Salonen was musically very impressive; Davis truly had one think, and experience the implications of crises of faith.

There was relief to be felt thereafter from the a cappella semi-chorus (actually much less than that: probably twenty voices or so) in the ‘Quaerens me’. It was possible to feel a connection with a much older choral tradition, even if the sense of Palestrina were more apparent than ‘real’. Especially memorable was the beautiful halo of sound at the conclusion: ‘Statuens in parte dextra’. The ‘Lacrymosa’ and ‘Domine, Jesu Christe’ have texts I find well-nigh impossible to dissociate from Mozart: my problem, I know. Or at least, it takes a performative wrench to have me forget that greatest of all Requiem settings. Here, Berlioz’s oddness came across strongly, not least the blazing conclusion to the first of the two movements. But it was only really in the second that the anxiety to what is after all an imprecations registered in duly personal — both compositional and theological — fashion.

The ‘Hostias’ benefited from nicely snarling trombones, as well as markedly ‘white’ flutes — and, of course, excellent choral singing. As so often, the ‘Sanctus’ was marred by a tremulous tenor, Sébastien Droy, who was at times somewhat constricted too. A brightly ‘secular’ Hosanna fugue made its point — perhaps a little too strongly. However, the ‘Agnus Dei’ was very impressive, bringing due symmetry with the opening movement. Salonen’s control remained admirable, and there was again delectable menace to the trombones and, more generally, to the bass line. Finally, there came resolution of sorts, though I could not help thinking it more ‘musical’ then ‘theological’ — not so much because Berlioz cannot achieve the latter variety, a point which is at least arguable, but because the performance as a whole never truly engaged with theological issues in the first place.

Mark Berry

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Cast and production information:

Sébastien Droy (tenor); Philharmonia Voices (chorus master: Aidan Oliver); Gloucester Choral Society (chorus master: Adrian Partington); Bristol Choral Society (chorus master: Adrian Partington)/Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, Thursday 25 September 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Hector_Berlioz_2.jpg image_description=Hector Berlioz [Source: Wikipedia] product=yes product_title=Hector Berlioz: Grande messe des morts, op.5 product_by=A review by Mark Berry product_id=Above: Hector Berlioz [Source: Wikipedia]

Guillaume Tell, Welsh National Opera

The two Rossini operas shared the same scenic environment (though each had a very different look), with set designs by Raimund Bauer, costumes by Marie-Jeanne Lecca, lighting by Fabrice Kebour and choreography by Amir Hosseinpour. Carlo Rizzi conducted, with a cast including Luciano Botelho as Ruodi, David Kempster as William Tell, Fflur Wyn as Jemmy, Leah-Marian Jones as Jemmy, Barry Banks as Arnold, Richard Wiegold as Melcthal and Walter, Nicky Spence as Rodolphe, Aidan Smith as Leuthold, Julian Boyce as an Austrian Huntsman and Clive Bayley as Gessler.

WNO’s production of Guillaume Tell was the first staging of the opera since the 1992 revival of John Cox’s production at Covent Garden. Despite its high reputation, the work’s length, staging requirements with ballets, large chorus and orchestra, and the difficulty of casting the lead tenor role of Arnold, have all mitigated against performance. WNO’s has not only solved these problems, but the company is taking Guillaume Tell on tour, we caught the last performance at the Wales Millennium Centre prior to Llandudo, Bristol, Birmingham, Oxford and Southampton.

Pountney and Bauer used the same moveable screens for Guillaume Tell as for Mose in Egitto, but in Guillaume Tell the screens were covered in a translucent glass-like material sculpted into a low relief of a mountain-scape.

The opera opened with something of a coup, lead cellist Rosie Biss sitting centre stage playing to cello solo at the opening of the overture which received a finely crafted performance from Biss and the other orchestra cellos. At the end of this section, Rodolphe (Nicky Spence) strode on with a group of hench-men and confiscated the cello and carried off Biss. Spence looked particularly striking wearing a black great-coat, but with a metal helmet made to resemble a stags head. A broken cello (thankfully not the one Biss was playing) was lowered down and hung there for the rest of the overture and some of the opening scenes. Thankfully there was no more staging of the overture, and we could enjoy, in peace, the superbly evocative performance by Rizzi and the orchestra.

During the overture, Bauer’s Swiss landscape backdrop gradually became apparent and its grey and white colours were taken up by the costumes for the chorus and principals in the opening of act one. These were all wearing vaguely 19th century costumes, but in muted tones; these people were all camouflaged. Pountney’s staging avoided folksy local colour. There was dancing, choreography Amir Hosseinpour, and there were indications of region and nationality, but it was carefully muted until, ready for the celebrations, the chorus unpacked their best and each put on a brightly coloured item (hat, scarf, vest, pinafore). The result was to evoke a people operating carefully under a yoke. When the Austrians appeared at the end, they were a fearsome lot, with Spence’s Rodolphe still wearing his stags-head helmet. The ballet music in this act was danced by the six dancers and was almost comic entertainment, again with little folk influence.

Act two opened with the Austrian hunters all wearing stags head helmets, salivating over the corpses of six young people. In a rather eerily ghoulish touch, these came to life as ghosts and were still around when Gisela Stille sang her glorious solo as Mathilde. This scene and the next were both performed against the movable now split into three, with the superstructure supporting the screens well visible, as were the stage hands moving the screens. The famous final scene in act two, the oath taken by the three Swiss cantons, was simply done as Pountney relied on Rossini’s glorious music and the performance of the WNO chorus. But again there was a daring element here, I can think of few companies who could (and would) perform this scene with fewer than 30 singers. There were around 26 chorus men, with 8 or 9 in each chorus, but the results were glorious.

Act three was pure David Pountney, and had the look and feel of many previous productions by him. The screens were all turned round, to provide a scaffolding backdrop against which the dances and apple shooting took place. The Austrians were all strongly characterised to the point of caricature, with Clive Bayley’s Gessler wearing armour but in a wheel chair, and Spence’s Rodolphe and the Austrian soldiers all marshalling the Swiss in a totalitarian manner. But Rossini’s ballet music here, full of characteristic dances, does not fit the dramaturgy and the results were, perhaps intentionally, rather comic. The whole scene was, needless to say, vividly dramatic. You could sympathise with Pountney’s caricaturing of the Austrians as Rossini does not really give hum much to go on, and at least he avoided lazy shorthand like having them in Nazi uniforms.

The final act started with Barry Bank’s Arnold amid the structures used in act one, but this time reversed and turned round. Pountney solved the problem of the orchestral description of Tell’s escape by using the dancers without any attempt at naturalism and the opera concluded with in an admirably straight and direct manner, with the sun coming up through the translucent backdrop of the mountains.

Bauer’s flexible set and Kebour’s lighting proved an essential part of the staging. Not only were the screen flexible in their placement, but their backdrops could be opaque or translucent, making them turn from atmospheric and evocative of the mountains, to threatening thanks to the shadows of the super structure.

Within this, Pountney elicted some strong and sympathetic performances with the Swiss characters all being admirably natural and understated in contrast to the highly coloured Austrians. David Kempster made a bluff and personable Tell. This is not a particularly showy role and requires someone who can bring committment and purpose to it, to combine the idea of Tell as an ordinary family man with that of a patriot. This Kempster did well, bringing an understated sense of charisma to the character. I have heard finer sung accounts of Tell’s great act three arioso, sung when he is about to shoot the arrow at his son, but Kempster imbued it with real feeling.

Arnold is a killer of a role and it is one where, like Berlioz’s Aeneas, we need to re-discover performances using the pitch and instruments of the period. Arnold was written for a powerful high lying tenor, pushing the voice to the limits of the technique, witness the fact that one of the early protagonists was the first to sing the role’s top C using a full chest voice. However you sing the top C, the role requires a powerful, narrow-focused voice capable of great strength, great flexibility and a fine and even sense of line. And Barry Banks certainly fitted the bill, and in Arnold seems to have found the role of a lifetime. To say a singer’s tone was steely is generally regarded not as a compliment, but I can think of no other way to describe Banks performance and in this case it was just what was wanted. Firm, even gleaming tone with a superb sense of line a nice bravura feel to the showier moments. Banks’s Arnold was an intense, troubled young man, but his two scenes with Gisela Stille’s Mathilde were full of virile passion and their duet in act two was not a little stylish too.

Gisela Stille was a modern style Mathilde. She didn’t bring a laser-like clarity to the role, as typified by Montserrat Caballe in her recording. Instead Stille sang with a fine-grained warm vibrato which lent the character a soft edge and warmed her aristocratic demeanour. Mathilde is something of an under-written role, deprived of a second solo owing to the work’s length. Despite the cuts used by WNO, space was thankfully found for the important short scene between Mathilde and Arnold at the start of act three. Stille’s act one solo was finely done, combining aristocratic poise with an underlying sense of passion. Stille made Mathilde someone intriguing, about whom you would like to know more.

Fflur Wyn made a vibrant Jemmy, she cut a lively boyish figure, and sang with bright, focused tone. Leah-Marian Jones made warmly supportive Hedwige, and her account of Hedwige’s impassioned outburst in act four, when Tell is in prison, made you wish Rossini had given more to the role.

Richard Wiegold made a dignified Melcthal, returning in act two to report his own death as Walter. Aidan Smith was a committed Leuthold in act one. Luciano Botelho sang Ruodi’s act one solo with an admirably free and high-lying lyric tenor.

The Austrians were all vividly etched caricatures with some brilliantly intense performances. Nicky Spence sang Rodolphe with firm, bright and a lovely evenness of tone, sounding completely different to his account of Mambre in Mose in Egitto the previous evening. Visually and vocally he conveyed the character’s real glee at the mayhem he was able to create. Clive Bayley made much of the relatively small role of Gessler, making the caricature fully alive vocally and physically. Julian Boyce was strong in the cameo role of the Austrian huntsman.

The WNO Chorus were on terrific form. Rossini gives the chorus a clear dramatic role in the opera, obviously relishing the opportunities provided by the Paris Opera chorus’s facility and size. The Swiss and the Austrians are clearly differentiated in their music and in the oath scene in act two, Rossini gives each canton its own distinctive tint. The WNO grasped all these opportunities, and sang with an admirably firm, flexible and, when needed, heroic tone the the dramatic opportunities fully exploited.

From the large scale overture, to the many intermezzos evolving the natural beauty of Switzerland. Guillaume Tell is as much a showpiece for the orchestra. Carlo Rizzi and the WNO orchestra clearly relished the meaty and expansive score. In addition to the very visible cello solo, there were myriad other smaller ones, all well taken. It wasn’t all bombast, though Carlo Rizzi brought out the piece’s large scale grandeur but also its humanness.

Any performance of Guillaume Tell is an achievement. But Pountney, Rizzi and their WNO forces managed to get so much right, and create a strongly dramatic and musical whole. Yes it was cut, yes some performances veered into caricature, yes the sung French somewhat a little fuzzy. But in a work the size of Guillaume Tell, it is impossible to get everything right. WNO and the cast are to be congratulated for their achievement in creating such a musically and dramatically satisfying performance of an opera, which though a masterpiece, is enormously difficult to bring off.

Robert Hugill

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Cast and production information:

Luciano Botelho:Ruodi, David Kempster: Guillaume Tell, Fflur Wyn: Jemmy, Leah-Marian Jones: Jemmy, Barry Banks: Arnold, Richard Wiegold: Melcthal/Walter, Nicky Spence: Rodolphe, Aidan Smith: Leuthold, Julian Boyce: an Austrian Huntsman, Clive Bayley: Gessler. Director: David Pountney, Set Design: Raimund Bauer, Costume Design: Marie-Jeanne Lecca, Conductor: Carlo Rizzi. Welsh National Opera at Wales Millennium Centre, 4 October 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Schrankt%C3%BCr_1782_Tell.jpg image_description=A 1782 depiction of Tell in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich [Source: Wikipedia] product=yes product_title=Guillaume Tell, Welsh National Opera product_by=A review by Robert Hugill product_id=Above: A 1782 depiction of Tell in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich [Source: Wikipedia]

Mose in Egitto, Welsh National Opera

Both use the same scenic concept, directed by David Pountney, designed by Raimund Bauer, with costumes by Marie-Jeanne Lecca and lighting by Fabrice Kebour. Both are conducted by Carlo Rizzi and with some cast in common. We caught the first night of Mose in Egitto on 3 October 2014 at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. The cast included David Alegret as Osiride, Andrew Foster-Williams as Faraone, Christine Rice as Amaltea, Miklos Sebestyen as Mose, Barry Banks as Aronne, Nicky Spence as Mambre, Claire Booth as Elcia and Leah-Marion Jones as Amenofi.

Rossini’s Biblical opera was written for Lent, 1818 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples where Rossini was the musical director. Between 1815 and 1822 he would write an important sequence of opera seria for the Royal theatres in Naples, which enabled him to take advantage of a superb orchestra, fine chorus, celebrated set design team, long rehearsal period and some of the finest soloists of the day including the leading diva Isabella Colbran and tenor Andrea Nozzari. The ensemble at the San Carlo was famously tenor rich, so that Rossini’s Neapolitan operas are tenor heavy and it is to WNO’s credit that in what was clearly a budget production they found three very strong, and finely contrasting tenors in David Alegret (Osiride), Barry Banks (Aronne) and Nicky Spence (Mambre).

In most of his Neapolitan operas Rossini pushed the bounds of what was possible on the operatic stage and Mose in Egitto is no different. Not only does it have grand scene effects, but they are accompanied by significant orchestra music, and the role of the chorus is highly prominent throughout. These are things we take for granted nowadays, but were innovations at the time.

Essentially, Rossini wrote a two-act opera seria which grafted the story of Mose (Miklos Sebestyen), Aronne (Barry Banks) and the Children of Israel in captivity and attempting to leave Egypt ruled by Faraone (Andrew Foster-Williams), onto a doomed love story involving Faraone’s son, Osiride (David Alegret) and a Hebrew girl, Elcia (Claire Booth). Things are complicated by the fact that Faraone’s wife, Amaltea (Christine Rice) has secretly converted to Judaism and supports the Jews, whilst the high priest, Mambre (Nicky Spence), is active against them. Things start with Egpyt in darkness, with a chorus and then prayer from Mose, and then proceed in typical opera seria fashion, but with inclusion of some rather dramatic choruses and an unusually prominent bass role in Mose. The Colbran role was Elcia, the Hebrew girl, so it was she who closed act two with a spectacular solo. But Rossini had a trick up his sleeve, and with act three moved well away from conventional opera seria with a mainly orchestral crossing of the Red Sea designed to show off the scenic splendour. In fact, the first night audience laughed and the opera remains something of challenge. Poutney and designer Raimund Bauer came up with their own highly theatrical but very simple solution.

The opera opened in virtual darkness, with a central white light diminishing leaving the opening choral ensemble, and then the solo for Mose (Sebestyen), in complete darkness. When light did come on, the set looked like an explosion in a paint factory, everything and everyone was a riot of colour. The set was a pair of huge movable textured screens, one red and one blue, in front of which were risers. The Children of Israel were dressed in blue/green/purple, whilst the Egyptians were in red/yellow/orange, to highly vivid effect especially as the face make-up reflected this. The Israelites were in 20th century workers style uniforms with the women in headscarves, the Egyptians were more formally dressed, the men of the chorus wearing fezzes. Osiride (David Alegret) was in a suit, and the rest of the Egyptian royal family mixed styles but had Egyptian head-dresses. My companion commented that the costumes with their use of colour and all over pattern reminded him of the work of the Serbian painter and designer Bernat Klein.

Within this, Pountney gave us a very straightforward production of Rossini’s drama, with few if any axes to grind. There were hints of links to modernity, in the costumes and the behaviour of the choruses (the way the Israelites prayed for instance), but everything was intelligently suggested rather than pressed on you. Rossini’s music is difficult, and his musical structures are large scale, and it was admirable the way Pountney and his cast articulated the drama without you ever feeling like they were keeping you entertained as can happen in opera seria. It helped that all the soloists were of a very high order.

In Rossini’s opera seria, there is a general rule that you are never alone; arias are relatively rare (until the heroine’s final scene, when Colbran got to come centre stage), and can often be accompanied by chorus. Solos develop into duets, and duets develop into quartets, Rossini seems to have taken a highly fluid view of drama and Pountney, his cast and Carlo Rizzi in the pit, made this work.

Singing the Colbran role of Elcia, Claire Booth really came into her own with Elcia’s final scene which closes act two. Before that, the character is a little one-sided, spending rather too much time drooping. Pountney, Booth and Alegret brought a rather nice suggestion of domination/submission into the Elcia/Osiride relationship. They have two duets, each powerful with the second rather disturbing (Alegret leading a blindfolded Booth onto the stage), this latter is interrupted and they are discovered, so Rossini leads us into the spectacular quartet sung by Alegret, Booth, Rice and Spence.

At first, I had to admit that I thought perhaps Booth’s voice was too light for the role. She had flexibility, but did she have the power and darkness in the lower voice, which Colbran (probably a mezzo-soprano with a high extension) seems to have had? Booth blended beautifully with Alegret in their duets, and with Leah Marian Jones, in another moving duet. But in the closing scenes of act two, she came into her own and revealed a wonderful armoury of fire-power in her voice which gave us all of the vocal fireworks necessary, yet all aligned to a powerfully dramatic performance. This performance was part of WNO’s Music and Madness season and it was clear that Booth’s Elcia was well on her way.

Spanish tenor David Alegret has sung Rossini tenor roles for Garsington in the UK and extensively all over Europe. He has the admirable combination of a tall-slim frame (unusual in a tenor), and a flexible, high-lying voice which fits Rossini’s complex music. It has to be said that his voice has a certain, narrow-focussed edginess to it, but he always used this expressively. And he combined a superb technique, with a fearlessness in the high lying range. The character of Osiride is not the most sympathetic, secretly in love with Elcia he wants to keep the Israelites in Egypt purely so that he can see her.

The two other roles, apart from Elcia, who get real solos are Faraone and his wife Amaltea. Foster-Williams impressed greatly as Faraone, making the character quite strong even though he has to spend the opera vacillating, alternately freeing and not-freeing the Israelites. Foster-Williams was both musical and dramatic in his solo, with an admirable facility for passagework, but it was the entirety and completeness of his performance which really impressed. The same was true of Christine Rice as Amaltea. This is not the most dramatically necessary of roles, but she had a superb solo in act two and participated in the famous quartet, as well as being dramatically vivid in the rest of the opera. But Rice brought her rich tones and an expressive facility in to passagework to bear and drew us in. This was a great example of a strong and intelligent singer making a role work for her.

The role of Mose, though the title role, is not the biggest in the opera, but then having a bass singing the title role in an opera seria was still something of a novelty. Sebestyen certainly had the physique du role, looking very much the Old Testament prophet and he brought the same level of authority to Mose’s series of prayers and imprecations. Mose does not take part in the opera seria shenanigins, he simply appears and disappears, spending his time either praying to God or hurling abuse at the Egyptians. This Sebestyen did extremely well (I am sure he is a highly sophisticated singer and capable of far more in other roles!), and topped a fine performance with his lovely opening of the famous prayer in act three.

Aronne (Moses’ brother Aaron) is not the largest of roles but Barry Banks who sang it is also singing Arnold in WNO’s performances of Guillaume Tell! Banks brought a high degree of drama and a vivid sense of the character’s anger and downright nastiness to the role, and his always characterful voice was well differentiated from Alegret’s in the ensembles, which is always a nice point. The quartet in act two is unusual because Rossini scores it for soprano, mezzo-soprano and two tenors, which certainly requires a nice differentiation in style and timbre, something that Alegret and Banks were clearly aware of.

The third tenor in all this was that vicious High Priest, Mambre played with relish by Nicky Spence. In fact, the libretto is relatively sympathetic to Mambre, he is devoted to his own Gods and believes that Mose is simply a charlatan. Spence is one of those singers who seems incapable of giving a boring performance and he is on something of a Rossini roll at the moment. Having seen him as Iago in Buxton Festival’s Otello last year, it was good to see and hear him back in action as Mambre (and he is singing in Guillaume Tell too).

Leah-Marian Jones sang the relatively small role of Amenofi, a Hebrew woman, and she use her familiar mellifluous tones in sympathetic duet with Claire Booth.

Another character in all this was the chorus. Pountney had them divided into two, half Israelites and half Egyptians, but staged it so that the entire chorus participated in all the action (for the prayer in act three they hovered discreetly almost off stage; in darkness but able to contribute). And the chorus was magnificent. One of the joys of this opera was the way Rossini took the opera/oratorio form (Lent called for such things in Italy) and gave it a highly dramatic context. Not only does he write good choruses, but he gives the chorus dramatic role. And the WNO Chorus, chorus master Alexander Martin, were clearly on thrilling, peak form.

As were the WNO Orchestra, playing superbly for Carlo Rizzi. Rossini pushed orchestral as well as vocal boundaries, making the orchestral part far more complex. Rizzi clearly has a good feel for this period of music and made the piece flow beautifully, keeping pace just right and never making it feel rushed but never over indulging. The orchestra followed him, and we were treated to some lovely individual solo moments along the way.

The staging was simple and direct, with the screens and risers being moved around by visible stage-hands who almost became part of the show. It was clear that Pountney was intentionaly making this a theatrical performance, and whilst the rain of fire from heaven at the end of act one was a little disappointing, the crossing of the Red Sea with the screens parting and a billowing wave of silk covering Faraone and Mambre, was very effective.

This was one of the most satisfying Rossini opera seria that I have ever heard in the theatre. Poutney, Rizzi and their cast not only brought a high degree of musicality to the work, but they made dramatic sense too. You never felt preached to, and you never felt that the performers were struggling to entertain you in one of the long arias or ensembles, instead were were treated to a superbly dramatic whole which paid Rossini the compliment of taking him seriously as a really gifted dramatist.

Robert Hugill

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Cast and production information:

David Alegret: Osiride, Andrew Foster-Williams: Faraone, Christine Rice: Amaltea, Miklos Sebestyen: Mose, Barry Banks: Aronne, Nicky Spence: Mambre, Claire Booth: Elcia, Leah-Marion Jones: Amenofi. David Pountney: Director, Raimund Bauer: Set Design, Marie-Jeanne Lecca: Costume Design, Conductor: Carlo Rizzi. Welsh National Opera at Wales Millennium Centre, 3 October 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/moses-s-journey-into-egypt.jpg image_description=Moses' Journey into Egypt by Pietro Perugino (c. 1482) [Source: Wikiart] product=yes product_title=Mose in Egitto, Welsh National Opera product_by=A review by Robert Hugill product_id=Above: Moses’s Journey into Egypt by Pietro Perugino (c. 1482) [Source: Wikiart]

L’incoronazione di Poppea, Barbican Hall

The opera was first performed in 1642. Drawn from the annals of Tacitus, Francesco Busenello’s libretto for Monteverdi’s final opera reflects the mid-seventeenth-century Venetian Republic’s rejection of the mores of courtly aristocracy and its taste for earthy, popular themes.

Set in the reign of Nero, it depicts the irresistible power and tragic pathos of human love, as the passion of Nero and Poppea ruthlessly sweeps aside all hindrances and finds ultimate fulfillment in the Queen’s coronation. In the Prologue which precedes the three Acts, Fortuna, Virtù and Amor dispute which of them has most power. In this richly sensory and sensual performance by the Academy of Ancient Music under the musical direction of Robert Howarth, there was no doubt that Amor is justified in claiming victory.

Alexander Oliver and Timothy Nelson directed what was billed as a semi-staged performance: in fact, since there is little stage incident, there really was no need for a fuller staging. The ascending pyramid of chairs, raked behind the small, centrally placed forces of the Academy of Ancient Music, conveyed both the rigid hierarchies of the Roman Empire and the irresistible force of Poppea’s desire to reach the pinnacle of power. Evocative lighting emphasised the highs and lows of human conduct and morality (there were just a few moments when synchronicity of lighting design and dramatic action were less than perfect). The ritual formality of the performers’ first entrance combined with the bright, present-day costumes drew attention both to the historical reality and the astonishingly modern relevance of the drama. And, as characters pondered, plotted and interacted in the spacious forestage area, and moved at times among the audience, we were presented with a convincing, wide array of temperamental aspects of humanity.

The opera begins with the unexpected return of Ottone, Poppea’s husband, whom Nero has despatched to far realms on state business. Iestyn Davies, dressed in a white linen suit which suggested his simple loyalty and also his inherent weakness, was wonderfully expressive in his opening monologue, ‘Ah, perfida Poppea’. Lamenting his wife’s betrayal he swung persuasively between pain and wrath. Fully appreciating the way that Monteverdi’s innovative forms and intensely responsive musical language convey emotion, Davies skilfully communicated the later change in Ottone’s character. Despite recognising his fidelity, Poppea rejects Ottone’s love, in submission to her vaulting ambition, and Davies’ subsequent monologue of murderous intent was intensely dramatic. There were also some fine duets between Ottone and Drusilla, sung with warmth and brightness by soprano Sophie Junker. Junker’s joyful vivacity later gave way to tender reflection when their plot to kill Poppea was uncovered: confessing before Nero, in order to save Ottone from the Emperor’s wrath, Junker was both sensuous and vulnerable. Nero’s command that the plotters be exiled seemed a fair judgement.

Matthew Rose used his capacious bass intelligently as Seneca, the Emperor’s wise advisor, modulating his tone to convey both moral imperiousness and human humility. His warning to Ottavia to maintain her dignity and virtue in the face of Nero’s betrayal was beautifully phrased; in welcoming death, ‘Venga, venga la morte’, Rose inspired both admiration and pity. In a powerful scene with Sarah Connolly’s commanding Nero, the rapid exchanges had an impressive rhetorical power; both Rose and Connolly exhibited flexibility and control as the ever-changing line lengths conveyed the accumulating emotional force. In contrast, Seneca’s household’s sad farewell to their master had the expressive grace of a madrigal.

Tenor Andrew Tortise was striking as Poppea’s Nurse Arnalta. In the scene in which Arnalta warns her old charge to beware Ottavia’s vengeance, there was a striking contrast between Tortise’s calm wisdom and the fury of Lynne Dawson’s Poppea. Tortise sang the Nurse’s lullaby with gentle sweetness, but also injected a well-judged comic note in the final scene.

Mezzo-soprano Marina de Liso was superb as Ottavia: with finely nuanced phrasing and dark timbre she portrayed a truly regal suffering. In both of her principal arias, ‘Disprezzata regina’ and ‘A Dio Roma’, de Liso’s flexible declamation communicated the changing emotions within a lyrical continuity; chromatic nuances emphasised the pathos of her tragedy — it was easy to believe and understand contemporary reports of the power of Monteverdi’s music to stir the affections of his audiences and move them to tears.

This was a stellar cast and the principals were matched by fine singing in the minor roles. Tenor Gwilym Bowen, as Valletta and the First Soldier, moved and sang with naturalness, and demonstrated a pleasing, focused upper register. His comic scene with Daniela Lehner’s Damigella was a delightful moment of frothy light relief. Lehner also sang Amor, and having protected Poppea from Ottone’s murderous plot, gloried lustrously from the balcony.

Which brings us to the central passion-driven pair. With Anna Caterina Antonacci unable to take the role of Poppea as planned, Lynne Dawson might have seemed a strange choice of replacement. There’s no doubt that Dawson has had a varied and highly successful career over more than 30 years. Though best known for her Handel interpretations she has excelled in diverse repertoire; but, of late, it has been teaching, as head of vocal and opera studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, rather than singing which has been her focus. And, as the self-righteous, adulterous Roman queen, Dawson could not consistently summon the necessary vocal lustre. Although displaying a seductive lyricism when charming Nero to submit to her wish to have Seneca killed, her soprano lacked real, consistent weight and tone, and there were some technical blemishes in phrasing and tuning. This was a pity as it weakened the credibility of Nero’s passionate, single-minded commitment to his mistress.

Fittingly, Sarah Connolly was utterly authoritative and vocally imposing as the Roman tyrant, Nero. Responsive to every musical detail, physically commanding of presence, gleaming of tone and delivering Monteverdi’s organically evolving structures with sensitivity and suppleness, Connolly was a consummate portrait in blind self-conviction and egoistic assurance. Nero’s ecstatic celebrations following Seneca’s death possessed a wild beauty which was both seductive and deeply unsettling. In Connolly’s subsequent duet with Elmar Gilbertsson’s excellent Lucano, she demonstrated and effortless, florid vocal virtuosity, sculpting a highly dramatic idiom with repeated exclamations and exultations as Nero rejoices in Poppea’s beauty.

Directing the instrumentalists of the Academy of Ancient Music, Robert Howarth (replacing the indisposed Richard Egarr) created a ceaseless flow of recitative, arias, duets, trios and laments, forming exciting contrasts. As Monteverdi’s formal arrangements constantly evolved, Howarth’s flexible control of tempo perfectly reflected the score’s changeability of mood and allowed for the ‘side-actions’ to be smoothly incorporated into the main plot. The wonderfully expressive theorbo playing of William Carter and Alex McCartney was punctuated by instrumental accompaniments which were by turns lyrical and lithe; there was some biting concitato incisiveness in the scene for the soldiers and during the interrogation of Drusilla before Nero.

Throughout the performance, the capacity audience were held transfixed, unmoving and utterly captivated. The seventeenth century aspiration to (in the words of Monteverdi’s biographer Leo Schrade) speak to the passions of men — and to depict the human reality of those passions in conflict — was wonderfully fulfilled.

Claire Seymour

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Cast and production information:

Lynne Dawson, Poppea; Sarah Connolly, Nerone; Sophie Junker, Drusilla/Virtu; Daniela Lehner’ Amore/Damigella; Marina de Liso, Ottavia; Matthew Rose, Seneca; Iestyn Davies, Ottone; Andrew Tortise, Arnalta; Vicki St Pierre, Nutrice; Elmar Gilbertsson, Lucano/2nd Soldier; Gwilym Bowen, Valletto/1st Soldier/Highest Familiari; Richard Latham, Liberto/Middle Familiari; Charmian Bedford, Fortuna; Phillip Tebb, Littore/Bass Familiari; Robert Howarth, director; Alexander Oliver and Timothy Nelson, stage directors; Academy of Ancient Music. Barbican Hall, London, Saturday, 4 ^th October 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Monteverdi.jpg image_description=Claudio Monteverdi product=yes product_title=L’incoronazione di Poppea, Academy of Ancient Music, Barbican Hall, London, 4th October 2014 product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Claudio Monteverdi

Rameau’s Les Paladins, Wigmore Hall

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of Jean-Philippe Rameau, they presented the Wigmore Hall audience with a vibrant sequence of instrumental numbers and arias entitled Les surprises de l’Amour. At the 1748 premiere of Rameau’s eponymous ballet héroïque, King Louis XV is reputed to have yawned, declaring that he would have preferred a comedy.

At the Wigmore Hall London, there were certainly no yawns; but there was much laughter to complement passionate love and lyrical dignity in a performance which combined wit and charm with nobility and grace.

Throughout, Correas successfully strove to embody a Baroque spirit of theatre and imagination. Contrasts of dynamic, register and timbre were exaggerated and celebrated, textures were by turns airy, then plangent, and such vivid shifts engendered a dramatic, playful - and at times, fantastical - mood. Equally at home with the jovial and the sensual, the instrumentalists of Les Paladins - the five female violinists standing to the left, while the male lower strings and woodwind players occupied the right of the stage - entered fully into the spirit of Correas’s endeavour, playing expressively and vivaciously, and giving each musical motif and melody a fresh character.

Tempi were lively. In the Ouverture from Les Indes galantes an airy buoyancy was enriched by accented chromatic dissonances and tight trills, and the strings’ crystalline runs were matched by the bright vitality of the flutes (Jacque-Antoine Bresch, Lorenzo Brondetta). The dashing semi-quavers of the Ouverture from Les fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour fizzed with energy, while the piercing gleam of the flutes alleviated the brooding solemnity of the slow opening.

The comic sensibilities of Louis XV’s court were deliciously captured in the Act III Chaconne from Platée. The opera tells the story of Jupiter, who flirts with the ugly swamp-dwelling nymph Platée in order, ironically, to convince his jealous wife Juno of his constancy; the exaggeration of registral extremes, melodic leaps and dynamic outbursts enlivened the endless ground bass repetitions, and conveyed the absurdity of the context. Rhythmic bite and dramatic contrasts were also the order of the day in four short dances from Les surprises de l’Amour, where the boisterous tambourin was followed by a graceful contredanse, the casual pianissimo close of the latter suggesting a nonchalant, flirtatious bow of aristocratic leave-taking. The final instrumental number, ‘Air pour des fous gais et des fous tristes’ (Songs of happy and mad fools) juxtaposed the elegant trio of leader Juliette Roumailhac, Benoît Bursztejn and Nicolas Crnjanski (cello) with the full-bodied exuberance of the ensemble’s racing scales.

Alternating with these instrumental numbers, Sandrine Piau performed a series of airs ranging from the delicately beautiful to the fierily virtuosic. Powerful but never strident, elegant but flexible, Piau’s soprano is unfailingly refined and alluring. The sound is clean, and what it might lack in range of colour is more than outweighed by her ability to spin a naturally evolving melody. Piau thoroughly enjoyed the drama of these airs, too, expertly conveying character. Regal poise characterised the opening bars ‘Règne Amour’ from Les surprises de l’Amour, as Piau communicated the passionate sentiments of the text with beauty of line and expressive, relaxed trills. With the call to Venus to ‘Fire your conquering darts’ (‘Lance tes traits vainqueurs’), she unleashed a light and agile line, supported by nimble violin runs. There was nobility too in the funeral lament from Castor et Pollux, ‘Tristes apprêts, pâles flambeaux’ (Sad adornments, pale torches), in which the painful but dignified grief of Castor’s beloved, Telaire, was communicated directly and intensely. The nuanced rising appoggiaturas at the phrase endings, and the additional chromaticisms in the da capo repeat, movingly enhanced the mood of mournful distress, while bassoonist Nicolas Pouyanne conversed with the voice with eloquent gravity. In contrast, ‘Brillez, Astres nouveaux’ (Shine, new stars!) from Act 5 of the same opera made for a sparkling end to the first half of the recital. During a Festival of the Universe, when Telaire is granted a place in the firmament, a Planet sings this ariette, and the celebratory mood was captured by the bright, Italianate, decorative instrumental parts and Piau’s gleaming sheen and rhythmic energy.

The musical highlight of the evening was ‘Je vole, amour’ (I fly, love) from Les Paladins in which the pure loveliness of Piau’s tone was hypnotising: the sustained floating line was an unbroken legato thread - a perfect embodiment of the undying, faithful devotion which breaks the chains of imprisonment. Piau’s perfectly placed intervallic leaps were pristinely negotiated - she slipped effortlessly from the stratospheric heights - and the ornaments judicious and finely controlled.

The soprano’s comic vivacity came to the fore in the final item, ‘Formon les plus brillants’ (Let us organise a dazzling concert’) from Platée, in which Folly, carrying Apollo’s lyre, bursts in during the performance of the ‘Songs of the happy and sad fools’, and announces the commencement of the very concert that she has so impetuously interrupted. Piau relished the ensuing mockeries and shenanigans; not once did the on-stage antics with the harp, exaggerated theatricalities or switches between declamation, spoken dialogue and song temper the musical sureness and beauty.

A programme of eighteenth-century French opera might have appeared at first glance somewhat rarefied and dry. This performance was anything but. Exalted, yes: in that it was a stylish, elegant presentation of an esoteric selection of works, delivered with wit, poise and sublimity. The marriage of effortless technical proficiency with natural musicianship made for an elevating evening.

Claire Seymour

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Programme:

Ouverture from Les Indes galantes; Ouverture from Les fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour; ‘Tristes apprêts’ from Castor et Pollux; Chaconne from Platée; ‘Brillez, astres nouveaux’ from Castor et Pollux; Loure, menuet, tambourin, contredanse from Les surprises de l’Amour; ‘Je vole, amour’ from Les Paladins; ‘Air pour des fous gais et des fous tristes’ from Platée; ‘Formons les plus brillants ... Aux langueurs d’Apollon’ from Platée

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Portrait_of_Jean-Philippe_Rameau_-_Joseph_Aved.jpg
image_description=Jean-Philippe Rameau [Source: Wikipedia]

product=yes
product_title=Rameau’s Les Paladins, Wigmore Hall
product_by=A review by Claire Seymour
product_id=Above: Jean-Philippe Rameau [Source: Wikipedia]

Puccini : The Girl of the Golden West, ENO London

Bright lights greet curtain up, startling the audience. More fun to come as the music evolves. In The Girl of the Golden West we're enjoying Arcadia in Wild West costume, the stuff of childhood dreams and simple homilies. The men at the Polka love Minnie for her good nature and rough edges, but they turn savage without much provocation. So much for her teaching the Bible. Perhaps there's a reason why Ramerrez (not Ramirez) is a Mexican. As soon as Minnie reappears the would-be killers turn back into lambs. Where will Minnie and Ramerrez go when they leave California? Both are now displaced from a place where they belonged. But let's not bother ourselves with too much detail. Richard Jones's production, with designs by Miriam Buether, presents the opera as plain good fun, rather like Minnie herself, not in the least bit sophisticated but with her heart in the right place. As usual, Jones takes his cue from the music. In this opera, Puccini employs special effects, like wind machines and "gunshots" in the percussion, There are many good moments in the music, like 'Ch’ella Mì Creda Libero', Ramerrez's big 'Un bel Di' moment. But in general, this music works well as pure, uncomplicated fun. Not for nothing I've been calling the opera has been called the first Spaghetti Western for the last 40 years, when such westerns were all the rage,..

Casting Susan Bullock as Minnie is a stroke of inspiration. Bullock is a Wagnerian, so she has the timbre of a Brünnhilde charging into action to protect the wronged. Puccini doesn't give Minnie long heroic passages to develop her personality, since after all, she's plainfolks, who falls for Mr Johnson because he treats her like a lady. So Bullock's innate sense of style does for Minnie what fancy clothes and tight shoes can't do. Bullock's words ring out with desperate heroism. Minnie has seen an alternative to the life she leads. Like Senta, she's prepared to risk all for her man. Bullock's portrayal adds wonders, bringing out humorous levels in this opera that might get missed in too prosaic a reading. The effect would be heightened even more if she sang with her normal English accent, but English audiences, much given to literal fake accents, probably wouldn't understand why. Bullock's natural good nature warms Minnie's personality and creates a convincing character.

Peter Auty sings Ramerrez/Mr Johnson. The fit is good. Auty's experience adds authority and depth. In the second act, Minnie tries, ineptly, to seduce Mr Johnson, Auty shows how Ramerrez's nobler instincts motivate his actions. Auty's resolve suggests why Minnie is drawn to the stranger, so different from the rabble around her. Again, this isn't obvious in the libretto but a sign of sensitive directoral interpretation. Richard Jones's staging is far more perceptive than meets the eye, but probably too subtle for some.

Craig Colclough sings Jack Rance. His voice is technically secure, but the portrayal is relatively straightforward, allowing greater definition to Minnie and Mr Johnson/Ramerrez. It was good to hear Graham Clark again, albeit in the fairly small part of the bartender. Clark is a national insititution, and a long-term stalwart of the ENO. His very presence makes a statement.

The cast included Nicholas Masters, Leigh Melrose, Adrian Dwyer, Jonathan McGovern, Richard Roberts, Sam Furness, Alexander Robin Baker, Nicholas Crawley, Jimmy Holliday, Clare Presland, George Humphreys, Trevor Eliot Bowes, and Daniel Mullaney. Good singing, good chorus: proof that the ENO nurtures talent in a way no micro mini company ever could. The conductor was Keri-Lynn Wilson, making her ENO debut.

Anne Ozorio

Giacomo Puccini : The Girl of the Golden West, ENO London 2nd October 2014
Librettist Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini after David Belasco

Conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, Director Richard Jones, Set Designer Miriam Buether,
Costume Designer Nicky Gillibrand, Lighting Designer Mimi Jordan Sherin, Choreographer Lucy Burge, Translator Kelley Rourke

Minnie Susan Bullock, Jack Rance Craig Colclough, Dick Johnson Peter Auty,
Nick Graham Clark / Richard Roberts, Sonora Leigh Melrose, Larkens Nicholas Crawley, Trin Adrian Dwyer, Sid Jonathan McGovern, Handsome Charles Rice,
Harry Richard Roberts / Philip Sheffield, Joe Sam Furness, Happy Alexander Robin Baker, Ashby Nicholas Masters, Jake Wallace George Humphreys, Wowkle Clare Presland

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product_title= Giacomo Puccini : The Girl of the Golden West, English National Opera, London, 2nd October 2014
product_by=A review by Anne Ozorio
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