November 30, 2014
Making a Note of It
By Eric Felten [WSJ, 28 November 2014]
In our age of easy playback, it’s hard to imagine how ephemeral music once was.
November 28, 2014
Florencia in el Amazonas Makes Triumphant Return to LA
The production made a strong impression on members of the audience as they entered the theater. On the curtain was a scene showing the Amazon and its surrounding jungle. In projections by S. Katy Tucker, fish were seen swimming in the river while flocks of tropical birds and swarms of multicolored butterflies periodically flew between the trees.
Florencia in el Amazonas is a contemporary opera by Daniel Catán (1949-2011) that was first seen at Houston Grand Opera on October 25, 1996. The libretto by Marcela Fuentes-Berain has some elements of Gabriel García Márquez’s style of magic realism but the story is her creation. The first Spanish-language opera to be staged by major United States opera companies, Florencia was commissioned for Houston, Los Angeles, and Seattle. It was last performed in Los Angeles in 1997. Houston revived it in 2001. Since then, there has been a performance somewhere in the western world every year or two. Restaged by original stage director, Francesca Zambello, Washington National Opera performed it most successfully last September and it will be at Nashville Opera early next year.
On November 22, 2014, Los Angeles Opera staged Zambello’s updated version. The production made a strong impression on members of the audience as they entered the theater. On the curtain was a scene showing the Amazon and its surrounding jungle. In projections by S. Katy Tucker, fish were seen swimming in the river while flocks of tropical birds and swarms of multicolored butterflies periodically flew between the trees.
All the scenery was animated!
With the lyricism of Catan’s melodic score, the story's magic realism came to life as Robert Israel’s stark but functional ship began its trip. Although his neo-romantic vocal lines are somewhat related to the music of early twentieth century Italian composers, Catan’s atmospheric orchestration is uniquely his own. Best of all, his music pleases the twenty-first century opera audience. Florencia calls to mind the natural beauty of the Amazon, especially the way conductor Grant Gershon pealed back layer after layer of the translucent score to expose its gorgeous sonorities. I wish Gershon had been a little more careful of his smaller voiced singers, but his rendition of the accompaniment was one of the best aspects of the evening.
Set in the early twentieth century, an older couple, Paula and Álvaro, Nancy Fabiola Herrera and Gordon Hawkins, needed to breathe some new life into their marriage. Herrera had a great deal of color in her dramatic-timbred voice and it came through the orchestration with creamy tones. Hawkins sang with a stentorian sound as he tried to make peace with her. New lovers, Rosalba and Arcadio, Lisette Oropesa and Arturo Chacón-Cruz, began to realize that their love could be real. Oropesa sang with spinning silvery tones that rang to the rafters, while Chacón-Cruz’s top notes oozed power and virility.
Verónica Villarroel was a strong voiced Florencia Grimaldi. She lived the part of the famous opera singer as she traveled with them towards the legendary opera house in the Brazilian rain forest city of Manaus. Bass-baritone David Pittsinger was an efficient ship's captain. Dancers realizing Eric Sean Fogel's balletic choreography symbolized the river’s mystical creatures. When a storm stopped the ship’s progress, river spirit Riolobo, sung by energetic baritone José Carbó, pleaded with the river gods. I have wanted to see this opera ever since I reviewed the recording many years ago. On Saturday evening, both my eyes and my ears were delighted by the performance. I would love to see it again and I hope my readers around the world will get that chance.
Maria Nockin
Cast and production information:
Riolobo, José Carbó; Rosalba, Lisette Oropesa; Paula, Nancy Fabiola Herrera; Alvaro, Gordon Hawkins; The Captain, David Pittsinger; Florencia Grimaldi, Verónica Villaroel; Arcadio, Arturo Chacón-Cruz; Conductor and Chorus Director, Grant Gershon; Director, Francesca Zambello; Scenery Designer, Robert Israel; Costume Designer, Catherine Zuber; Lighting Designer, Mark McCullough; Projection Designer, S. Katy Tucker; Choreographer, Eric Sean Fogel.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/14290-603-PR.png
image_description=Verónica Villarroel as Florencia Grimaldi [Photo by Craig T. Mathew /LA Opera]
product=yes
product_title=Florencia in el Amazonas Makes Triumphant Return to LA
product_by=A review by Maria Nockin
product_id=Above: Verónica Villarroel as Florencia Grimaldi [Photo by Craig T. Mathew /LA Opera]
John Adams: The Gospel According to the Other Mary
Designed as a companion piece to their ‘nativity oratorio’, El Niño, which was premiered in 2000, The Gospel lies somewhere between an opera and a concert work; it was presented in concert form in May 2012 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, these performers subsequently travelling to the Barbican Centre in March 2013 for the semi-staged European premiere of the work. This ENO production is billed as the ‘world staged premiere’.
The Gospel presents the story of the Passion through the eyes of those whose tales are usually unheard: Mary Magadalen, her sister Martha and their brother Lazarus. Jesus’s words are quoted by others but Christ himself is neither seen nor heard.
Sellars’ libretto is a mélange: a patchwork of excerpts from the Old and New Testaments mingled with literary and philosophical writings from past and present, including texts and poems of a spiritual leaning by Hildegard of Bingen, Louise Erdrich, Primo Levi, Rosario Castellanos, June Jordan and Rubén Darío. Mary and Martha, as they become increasingly engaged in the fight for justice and social change, also recite the journals of the activist and pacifist, Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Often texts are overlain, a soloist declaiming modern poetry while the chorus chant Hildegard of Bingen, for example. Indeed, the interweaving of eras is central to the creators’ endeavour, in the words of Sellars, to ‘set the passion story in the eternal present, in the tradition of sacred art’.
Thus, we move between biblical archetypes and present-day realism, the ‘timelessness’ of the former contrasting with the immediacy of contemporary social and political events such as the Arab Spring. Mary has become a human rights campaigner, fighting for the poor; she and Martha run a hostel for homeless women, the latter spurred in her mission by her own experiences of paternal abuse. Later, Mary and Martha join César Chávez on his 1000-mile march during the United Far Workers’ protest of 1975. In this way, the emotional journey of The Passion, from black despair to hope and promise, is re-enacted in our time.
George Tsypin’s set designs are simple but striking, allowing for fluid transitions between time and place. The rusts and ochres of open stage suggest a desert landscape – Syria? Iraq? – while the barbed wire perimeter fences which loom left and right intimate a prison (search lights beam down aggressively). Or perhaps, the wire is just an emblem of ‘pain’: for the action opens with a female drug addict beating her head against the metal bars, and Mary bewails, ‘they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth’. On the back wall, a hand stretches out through the misty textures, reminiscent of religious iconography. It could be the hand of Christ, or that of a modern-day beggar. Subsequently, stricken torsos similarly evoke the pain of medieval Crucifixion images and the suffering of the hungry, afflicted and tormented in the present day.
There are few props and they too straddle different times and places: large cardboard boxes serve variously as ‘blankets’ for the homeless, as an altar table, and as Lazarus’s tomb. James F. Ingalls’ lighting design stuns us with stark blocks of complementary colour, black grid lines again conjuring grim institutional anonymity and restriction.
The principals gave totally committed performances, bringing real human anguish and visceral suffering to the biblical roles. Irish mezzo soprano Patricia Bardon demonstrated her huge versatility, presenting an introverted and dignified Mary, but one also whose emotions at times cannot be contained, bursting out in a wild maelstrom of fury. Bardon gave a strikingly vociferous rendition of Erdrich’s poem ‘Mary Magdalene’; but she also conveyed Mary’s inner grace, and, during an erotic dance with a ‘flex dancer’ identified only as ‘Banks’ (in the programme he is assigned the role of the Angel Gabriel), a contrasting seductiveness. Indeed, Banks’s gliding, waving and twitching, throughout the performance, was the most mesmerising element of the evening.
Meredith Arwady used the considerable depth and reach of her low contralto register to convey Martha’s resolute core, her dark tone and huge vocal power making a tremendous dramatic impact. The role of Lazarus was performed by tenor Russell Thomas, whose heroic tone did not preclude sweetness. On his end of Act 1 ‘aria’, the Passover scene, Thomas sang Primo Levi’s poetry with searing passion and steadfastness: ‘Tell me: how is this night different/ From all other nights?/ How, tell me, is this Passover/ Different from other Passovers?’ As the emotional temperature rose and Thomas’s ardency grew still further, the scene took on an almost Broadway-esque breadth and lyricism, although any hint of kitsch was swept away by grating orchestral postlude in which shrieking brass chords punctured through throbbing strings.
A trio of countertenors – Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley – are cast as ‘Seraphim’ and take on the narrative role played by the Evangelist in Bach’s Passions: they often sing as a trio and here the intensity of the blend timbres evoked an ecclesiastical purity which contrasted strikingly with the grittiness of the surrounding context.
Movement and dance play a large part. Sellars indulges in his trademark choreography of abstract gesturing for the chorus, while Mary and Lazarus have avatars in the form of two dancers; two further dances depict the Virgin Mary and embody abstract feelings and spiritual events, such as the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The ENO chorus, dressed in motley coloured shirts and overalls (costumes, Gabriel Berry), gave a sterling performance. From the first they were a thrillingly animated mass, crying out a prophecy from Isaiah, ‘Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand’ with vigour and ferocity, and they sustained this concentration throughout the performance.
Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro led the ENO Orchestra with precision and panache. Under her dynamic but economic baton, the orchestra gave a masterly account of the score. Carneiro’s every gesture was well-defined and clear of purpose, and her confidence and control inspired some wonderful instrumental playing.
The problem with The Gospel is that Sellars, in his desire to blend spiritual reflection with political activism, has not yet recognised that less can be more. I found that the constant bombardment of overt political and philosophical ‘messages’ distanced me from the characters and events, and weakened my empathy – which can hardly have been the intended effect. But, the muscular melodic lines, strident timbres and unexpectedly piquant harmonies and progressions of Adams’ score, particularly in the second Act, make one sit up and listen. There is a percussive acerbity to much of the score, the cimbalom featuring heavily alongside side and bass drums, three tam-tams, tuned gongs, chimes, almglocken and glockenspiel. A bass guitar lends an unsettling modern beat. And at the centre of the opera is a ‘Golgotha scene’ of tremendous power and imagination: exploiting the lowest resonances of the basses, bassoons, bass guitar and gongs, Adams suggests a bottom-less well of sound, and through this boom a clarinet wails like a siren. The music seems energised by the need to move between worlds; it never settles, responding continually to situation and sentiment, and thereby guiding the listener through the complex psychological landscape and ever-shifting points-of-view. It’s a shame that Sellars did not fully exploit the considerable dramatic potential of Adams’ language and form, both of which mark a significant move away from the repetitions and transitions of the minimalist idiom more typical of the composer.
I confess to some scepticism when I entered the Coliseum, but I left the auditorium, if not unequivocally convinced, then certainly intrigued and moved.
Claire Seymour
Cast: Mary Magdalene, Patricia Bardon; Martha her sister, Meredith Arwady; Lazarus their brother, Russell Thomas; Seraphim, Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley.
Dancers: Angel Gabriel, Banks; Mary, Stephanie Berge; Mary, Mother of Jesus, Ingrid Mackinnon; Lazarus, Parinay Mehra.
Director, Peter Sellars; Conductor, Joana Carneiro; Set designer, George Tsypin; Costume designer, Gabriel Berry; Lighting designer, James F. Ingalls; Sound designer, Mark Gray; English National Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/ENO%20GATTOM%20Stephanie%20Berge%2C%20Patricia%20Bardon%204%20%28l-r%29%20%28c%29%20Richard%20Hubert%20Smith.png image_description=Stephanie Berge and Patricia Bardon [Photo by Richard Hubert Smith] product=yes product_title=John Adams: The Gospel According to the Other Mary product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Stephanie Berge and Patricia Bardon [Photo by Richard Hubert Smith]A new Yevgeny Onegin in Zagreb — Prince Gremin’s Fabulous Pool Party
Certainly inspired opera directors such as Giorgio Strehler or Jean-Pierre Ponnelle could add impressive psychological and visual insight into much of the standard operatic repertoire. But when far less gifted directors, usually with a background in theatre or film rather than music, decide to impose their idiosyncratic, self-serving and often gratuitously gimmicky interpretations on an undeserving libretto, the results are usually either embarrassing (Christoph Schlingensief) or downright offensive (Hans Neuenfels). Polish director Michał Znaniecki falls somewhere between the two.
Based on the premise that Alexander Pushkin’s complex character of Yevgeny Onegin undergoes a complete transformation after killing his friend Lensky in a duel and then through the realization that he has fallen hopelessly in love with the once rejected Tatyana, Mr Znaniecki uses the metaphor of melting ice. Given the grim bleakness of the Russian climate, there is nothing too objectionable about that. The problem is that the icy stylized birch forest/cage of Act I starts melting in Act II and by Act III, the majority of the stage is covered with so much water it turns into a very large wading pond. Either there are serious leakage problems with the roof of Prince Gremin’s palace in St Petersburg or he has changed from being an army general to a Imperial navy admiral who enjoys the sound of waves lapping in his own ballroom.
Mr. Znaniecki also designed the costumes, which were much more successful although one suspects he must own shares in the local Zagreb dry-cleaners as every character in Act III, from dancers to chorus to principal protagonists ends up so completely drenched that huge scale costume cleaning on a nightly basis must be required. Definitely a wardrobe department’s ultimate nightmare. Only Prince Gremin escapes soggy trouser legs and wet socks by being confined to a wheel chair, which on the other hand severely limits the dramatic opportunities for movement during his splendid aria.
The dancers clearly had problems during the opening Act III polonaise and subsequent ecossaise due to the slippery floor lying below several centimeters of water. Flippers or synchronized swimming might have been a better option.
Another novelty was that although Tchaikovsky and Shilovsky stipulated that the opera was in seven scenes, Mr Znaniecki preferred only six. Act I Sc. ii set in Tatyana’s bedroom also becomes Act I Sc. iii enabling the local peasant maidens to traipse about their mistress’ boudoir as well as allowing Onegin, a total stranger, to wander in and sit quite nonchalantly on her bed.
Even by the usual standards of loose bucolic morals, such a liberty would never have been countenanced in 1820s aristocratic Russian society. At first it seemed as though Tatyana was dreaming Onegin’s reply to her garrulous letter (not a bad idea at all) but as subsequent stage direction proved, this was not the case.
The introduction of a very prominent pool (that word again) table in Madame Larina’s ballroom at the opening of Act II was another production quirk. Triquet climbs onto it to deliver his name-day encomium to Tatyana and also has her dragged up to join him. At the end of the fawning couplets, he proceeds to grope her. Hardly correct social decorum befitting an aristocratic soirée.
The billiard cues provide props for the initial confrontation between Onegin and Lensky. It all seems a bit gimmicky and the pool table severely limits the space available for dancers and chorus (which was consistently impressive) during the opening waltz and mazurka.
The only truly convincing production idea was in Act III when the chorus of Prince Gremin’s vapid socialite guests stand behind a clear plastic scrim menacingly beckoning Onegin, who is on the other side, to join their superficial flashy-splashy world. Maybe he would prefer to change into a wet-suit first.
Mr Znaniecki staged a very similar watery production of Yevgeny Onegin in Bilbao in 2011 for which he was awarded the Premios Foundation Teatro Campoamor Líricos for the best new production in Spain. One shudders to contemplate what the other productions must have been like. Two performances on 18th and 20th November were heard for the most part with alternating casts.
Of the recurring interpreters the Larina of Želika Martić was vocally competent but rather vulgar in characterization (although a rural landowner she is cousin to a princess in St Petersburg, so is hardly a bumpkin). Jelena Kordić sang a suitably perky and coquettish Olga without displaying any outstanding mezzo soprano qualities.
The Lensky of Domagoj Dorotić was somewhat variable but on the whole quite impressive, especially at the second performance. Unfortunately his Act I arioso declaring his passionate love to Olga was both vocally tentative and dramatically distant without any sense of ardor at all. He could have been reading the weather report from Rostov. On the other hand, Lensky’s celebrated Act II aria ‘Kuda, kuda’ was sung with sensitivity, elegant legato, commendable mezzavoce and a finely controlled piano. Dorotić also displayed a surprising ringing upper register tone on the G# at measure 102 and on the Ab in the andante mosso change at 111. It was no surprise that at both performances he received the loudest applause from the audience. Different singers sang the other roles.
The Filipjevna of Jelena Kordić was more successful in chest notes and projection than Branka Sekulić Ćopo. It’s a shame her short scena before Tatyana’s Letter aria was delivered at the front of the stage in virtual darkness.
Although both tended to drag the tempo, Ladislav Vrgoć was vocally a more secure Triquet than Mario Bokun and the Prince Gremin of Ivica Čikeš far more impressive than Luciano Batinić. Mr Čikeš has a truly powerful and resonant bass voice with admirable diction and projection. It was all the more surprising that his Bb at measure 38 on ‘счастье’ (and again during the da capo at 130) was alarmingly below pitch.
The Tatyana of Valentina Fijačko, although a tad matronly, was more successful than Adela Golac Rilović. Neither interpreter of the role was exactly outstanding although Miss Fijačko managed the pivotal Letter scene relatively well, especially pleasing with her word colouring of ‘whispered words of hope’ (слова надежды мне шепнул). Both sopranos seemed to have problems with the F natural opening of the wistful Db major theme at measures 195 and 211 and resorted to slight upward sliding to find the note. One certainly misses the effortless cantilena of Mirella Freni, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Anna Samuil or even Kiri te Kanawa at such moments.
In the title role shared by Ljubmir Puškarić and Robert Kolar, the latter was vocally and dramatically more convincing, but neither performance could be described as really memorable. The legato phrasing of both baritones was often lacking although the more declamatory passages were usually better sung. Interestingly neither braved the optional high piano F natural at the end of Onegin’s Act I aria which Peter Mattei’s performance of the role in Salzburg in 2007 made so affecting. It is also musically a much more satisfactory way of concluding the scena.
The real delight of these performances however was the conducting of veteran Croatian maestro Nikša Bareza. This is a conductor who has directed inter alia, Götterdämmerung, Fidelio, Tosca, Il Trovatore and Andrea Chenier at La Scala and whose impressive credentials include the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Hamburg Staatsoper, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, and the Kirov Theatre in St. Petersburg. He also speaks fluent Russian, which was of immense help in supporting the singers in a Tchaikovsky opera - not to mention the fact that this was also the 6th production of the work he has led.
Similar to Wagner and Richard Strauss the orchestration in Yevgeny Onegin plays an absolutely paramount role. Part instrumental Greek chorus, part musical mirroring of the characters’ innermost thoughts and motivations and part reflection of the composer’s own angst and conflicting emotions at the time, this is a partitura so full of constantly shifting shadings, subtle rubati and emphatic rhythms, kaleidoscopic harmonics and minute inflections it covers every possible facet of orchestral expression. La tristesse Russe permeates almost every page of the score.
From the rousing brilliance of the Act III polonaise to the tender melancholy of the clarinet obbligato in Lensky’s aria, the plaintive violin phrases during Gremin’s aria, and the explosive fortissimo in the short orchestral passage towards the end of Tatyana’s letter scena (bars 270-293), maestro Bareza’s command of every nuance of this exceedingly complex score was unequivocally masterful.
Bareza: dix points, Znaniecki: zero.
Jonathan Sutherland
Cast and production information:
Conductor: Nikša Bareza. Direction and Costume Design: Michał Znaniecki. Set Design: Luigi Scoglio. Choreography: Diana Theocharidou. Larina: Želja Martić. Tatyana: Valentina Fijačko/Adela Golac Rilović. Olga: Jelena Kordić. Filipjevna: Branka Sekulić Ćopo/ Neda Martić. Yevgeny Onegin: Ljubmir Puškarić /Robert Kolar. Vladimir Lensky: Domagoj Dorotić. Prince Gremin: Ivica Čikeš/Luciano Batinić. Triquet: Ladislav Vrgoć /Mario Bokun. Photo credits: Mara Bratoš courtesy of the Croatian National Theatre Zagreb. Croatian National Theatre, Zagreb, 18th & 20th November 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Martina%20Menegoni%2C%20Stjepan%20Franetovi%C4%87.png image_description=Martina Menegoni and Stjepan Franetović product=yes product_title=A new Yevgeny Oneginin Zagreb — Prince Gremin’s Fabulous Pool Party product_by=A review by Jonathan Sutherland product_id=Above: Martina Menegoni and Stjepan FranetovićNovember 22, 2014
Nabucco in Novi Sad
Mercifully not. The straightforward reliable staging by Dejan Miladinović and effective costume designs by Jasna Petrović Badjarević were neither intrusive nor distracting. Despite having been first seen as long ago as 1983 when the opera was sung in Serbian, the production looked surprisingly fresh and functional.
A particularly pleasing production idea was during the Act III duet between Nabucco and Abigaille when the demonic anti-heroine destroys evidence of her low birth (Il foglio menzogner!). Instead of tearing up the incriminating document as indicated in the libretto, she smashes a clay tablet which is both historically much more accurate as paper didn’t exist in 6th century BC Babylon. This made a wonderful dramatic impact as the pieces shattered all over the stage. Another visual success was the enormous 5 metre long regal mantle Abigaille wears to ascend the throne which covered the entire flight of steps.
Due to earlier cuts (since restored) the opera was performed in three acts instead of the libretto’s stipulated four with Act II extending to the end of the Deh perdona, deh perdona duet between Abigaille and Nabucco. This meant that instead of the Va pensiero chorus almost ending Act III, it opened the last act of this three part version straight after the interval, which was dramatically much less effective.
Not just because of the justifiably celebrated Va pensiero chorus, Nabucco is an opera where the coro plays a major dramatic and musical role and in this regard the Novi Sad singers certainly didn’t disappoint. An impressive chorus of roughly 70 singers paid commendable attention to Verdi’s dynamics and markings. As with many large ensembles, there were one or two glitches in the presto concertante sections, especially the spirited Come notte a sol fulgente chorus with Zaccaria in Act I, Oh fuggite il maledetto that closes the ‘Jerusalem’ part of the opera and S'appressan gl'istanti d'un'ira fatale in Act II. The slower ensembles usually had better synchronization with the orchestra, especially Non far che i tuoi figli divengano preda at the end of the opening scena.
The famous Va pensiero chorus lost a lot of its customary impact due to the fact that the very young conductor Aleksandar Kojić (aged 30) chose a much more brisk tempo than one is accustomed to hearing. After all, it is marked largo in the partitura. The desperate longing for a patria perduta expressed so plaintively in the text and score was sadly missing. This was a supersonic Concorde flight on golden wings. Che peccato.
Such haste was even more curious as Kojić’s tempi for the rest of the performance were generally uncontroversial. Although coordination between pit and stage was occasionally a little fraught, this was by no means a shabby performance on the podium. String playing was generally acceptable, especially the cantabile cello introduction to Zaccaria’s recitative and Prigheria Vieni, o Levita! in Act II. There was some nice solo flute playing before Abigaille’s Anch'io dischiuso un giorno aria in Act II and again in Nabucco’s Dio di Giuda aria in Act IV. Less successful was the syncopated quaver horn punctuation in Va pensiero which was unduly heavy and had slight intonation problems.
Intonation problems would be a kind understatement to describe the performance of the Abigaille Valentina Milenković. Having had some kind of vocal crisis a few years ago, Madame Milenković essentially retired from the operatic stage and only sang an occasional Lisa in Pique Dame and Leonora in Il Trovatore but for some inexplicable reason chose to make her most recent comeback in one of the most diabolical roles Verdi ever inflicted on a soprano.
There was no coloratura, no mezzavoce, no chest notes, no lower register, no breath control, no phrasing, no piano technique - just an indescribably awful shriek at the very top of the range. The only identifiable aspect of her voice was a vibrato so wide the miserable Hebrews could have walked through it to freedom. Every ensemble was marred by her appalling screeching. In the Act II opening scena Anch'io dischiuso un giorno there was just a horrible whining, rasping noise. Diction and phrasing were a total blur. One wished the flute obbligato had continued without the vocal part.
But much worse was to come. The great cabaletta Salgo già del trono aurato was something that would have made Florence Foster Jenkins sound like Joan Sutherland. The fioratura was mush, the scale passages a murky blur, intonation seemed to cover about 3 semitones at once, the wide vibrato and wobble were totally out of control and mid-register notes inaudible. The top C at l'umil schiava a supplicar had your suffering reviewer groping for the earplugs. Perhaps Madame Milenković should consider La Duchesse du Crakentorp in La Fille du Regiment as her next comeback role.
The demanding and dramatically vital role of Zaccaria was sung by the Serbian bass Goran Krneta bravely trying to cope with a ridiculous Santa Claus beard. Despite having solid low notes, good projection and a dependable middle voice, his upper register needs a lot of work. Under any kind of pressure it tightened badly and made a rather unpleasant pinched sound. Intonation problems were noticeable in the Act IV à capella scena with chorus and Immenso Jeovha chi non ti sente was noticeably below pitch. Regrettably for the drama, Zaccaria’s important confrontations with Nabucco had little anthemic impact or emotive power. Oh trema insano! Questa è di Dio la stanza! at the end of Act I was particularly lame.
The role of Ismaele was sung by another young Serbian singer, Nenad Čiča. Certainly it is not the greatest role Verdi ever created for tenor, although its vocal importance in the ensembles is significant. Mr Čiča was clearly very nervous throughout and as a result, his voice often became badly constricted, especially in the upper register. Acting was definitely not his strong point either. His reaction to the fury of the Levites in Act II when he is ostracized for protecting Fenene from Zaccaria’s intended slaughter (Il maledetto non ha fratelli) was about as bland as if he had misplaced his breakfast bagel.
The object of Ismaele’s passion and obstinence, Fenene, was sung by a mature Serbian mezzo Violeta Srećković. She had a reasonable mezzovoce but nothing remarkable. Her important but musically underwhelming scena in Act IV (Oh dischiuso è il firmamento) was acceptable in the middle range but like Goran Krneta, very tight in the upper register. The High Priest of Baal sung by young Serbian bass Željko Andrić was a bit hooty in projection but vocally and dramatically reasonably effective. His scena Eccelsa donna, che d'Assiria il fato Reggi, le preci ascolta in Act III was more than satisfactory. The lesser roles of Anna (an older well-focused singer called Laura Pavlović) and Abdallo (Igor Ksionžik) were competently sung by the former and forgettably managed by the latter. It was more a case of small role, small voice. Basta.
The performer with anything but a small voice was the Nabucco of Dragutin Matić. Still only 33 years old, he first studied in Belgrade then in Würzburg Germany under the celebrated soprano Cheryl Studer. The grueling tessitura of the role is in many ways similar to that of Abigaille in that the demands Verdi places on this new kind of ‘high baritone’ are formidable in the extreme. Dragutin Matić has the robust masculine vocal colour of Matteo Manuguerra, the warm rounded mezzovoce tones of Piero Cappuccilli and the ringing top register of Renato Bruson. It was not surprising to learn he started his singing career as a tenor. There was real power in S'oda or me! Babilonesi without losing any intonation or musicality and the explosive line non son più re, son Dio!! was delivered with terrifying force and menace. Nabucco’s prayer to the God of the Hebrews to save Fenene (Dio di Giuda! l'ara e il tempio) and following cabaletta O prodi miei, seguitemi concluding with Di mia corona al sol in Act IV were unquestionably the musical highlights of the evening.
At the curtain calls Matić was loudly applauded by the audience which numbered only a handful of people. In fact the whole performance felt more like a closed Sitzprobe. Apparently the explanation for the extremely low attendance (despite seat prices ranging from €3 to €6.5) is that the production has been in the repertoire for over 30 years and locals are not particularly interested in seeing it again. Certainly once word got out that Valentina Milenković was appearing to crucify the role of Abigaille, only musical masochists or those expecting to experience a Balkan version of Florence Foster Jenkins were prepared to endure such a bizarre night at the opera. The Marx Brothers would have loved it — Verdi less so.
Jonathan Sutherland
image=http://www.operatoday.com/nabuko-005.png image_description=A scene from Nabucco [Photo courtesy of Serbian National Theatre, Novi Sad] product=yes product_title=Nabucco in Novi Sad product_by=A review by Jonathan Sutherland product_id=Above: A scene from Nabucco [Photo courtesy of Serbian National Theatre, Novi Sad]La Bohème in San Francisco
Mr. Caird is a very skilled director of theater and music theater. He is well credentialed in opera in Britain with productions at Welsh National Opera, his U.S. opera credits are productions at Houston Opera that have or will tour to other U.S. opera houses. Let us not overlook the Siefried and Roy show in Las Vegas (1991-2004).
Mr. Caird has created a slick, intelligent and successful production of La bohème. Typical of theater directors staging opera he has endeavored to keep the dramatic pace of the opera moving along, accelerating pace whenever possible. Scene changes are quick, intermissions are short, bows are choreographed. This with the apparent assumption that theater audiences need to keep their minds involved and music theater audiences need to keep the beat.
The opera audience has been conditioned over the past 300 years to stop time, to forget the story and sink into the elaboration of an emotion. So maybe for some of us in the War Memorial this Boheme seemed rushed and over-produced, even seemed condescending with lighting effects that were too obvious (as if we were incapable of feeling the music without its help).
Not even Rodolfo’s final cries were left as pure emotion — as the curtain fell on the dead Mimi he we see him transform the moment into words. We needed not feel the tragedy of this moment because it had become mere art — a tricky conceit. Maybe this Boheme was not for us, but for a music theater audience.
Michael Fabiano as Rodolfo, Alexia Voulgaridou as Mimi
Mr. Caird’s astutely perceived La bohème as four character sketches — the garret, the cafe, the square, and the death. In fact Marcello, an artist as well, is busily sketching the dead Mimi when the curtain falls. Each setting is created by a collage of canvas paintings (images of rooms and buildings). The colors and costumes were in the warm palate of late nineteenth century naturalistic painting. Scene changes were a vista, stagehands visible in a slick bow to Brechtian dogma (with no hint of advocacy). It was meant to please a broad audience and it did.
Finally though none of this mattered. The November 19 performance was memorable because of riveting performances by American tenor Michael Fabiano as Rodolfo and Russian baritone Alexey Markov as Marcello. Tenor Fabiano boasts the clean musicianship of his American training, and an innate sense of Italian line unaffected by mannerism. He made Puccini into heroic bel canto that fully satisfies verismo. Mr. Fabiano is a natural actor, his moves at once incorporating the physicality of singing with the emotive enthusiasms of a young poet.
Michael Fabiano as Rodolfo, Alexey Markov as Marcello
Though of Russian formation much the same can be said of baritone Markov whose Slavic colored voice added an international exoticism to this young painter as well as specific flavor to the Parisian ambiance. Both Fabiano and Markov have strong, focused, beautiful voices that sailed across the orchestra. These artists in fact provided the musical determination for the performance far more than did the leadership, or lack of, from the pit.
The November 19 Mimi was Greek soprano Alexia Voulgaridou. The internet offers no birthday for Ms. Voulgaridou and it would not matter except that her voice betrayed the mannerisms of a singer no longer in the bloom of youth, or in bloom at all, and you wondered why she was cast as Mimi. Was it the spate of Toscas she undertook in 2013 (even though Tosca and Mimi are completely different voices)? But these Toscas seem to have worn her out and have encouraged her to fall back on generic (stock) opera singer moves and gestures.
The November 19 Musetta was former Adler Fellow Nadine Sierra. She was a far more youthful Musetta than you would expect to see on a major stage, and of much lighter voice (she is a lyric coloratura). This fine young artist made Musetta memorable, her coquettishness absolutely convincing while she carved out director Caird’s imaginative new antics to “Quando men vo soletta per la via.” These antics however forced an unnaturally slow tempo that would challenge even a much larger voice.
On November 20 the Mimi was former Adler Fellow Leah Crocetto. She sings beautifully, but physically she is not appropriate to embody a consumptive heroine. You wondered why she was cast. Italian tenor Giorgio Berrugi sang Rodolfo. This young tenor with a good sound has unfortunately absorbed many mannerisms that associate him with proverbial Italian provincial opera. Soprano Ellie Dehn sang Musetta. She is a San Francisco Mozart heroine (Countess, Donna Anna, Fiordiligi) who could not possibly make the transition from stately womanhood to this coquettish character role. San Francisco Opera regular, baritone Brian Mulligan was Marcello, a fish-out-of-water as well.
Colline, Schaunard, and Benoit/Alcindoro were the same singers for both casts. Christian van Horn is San Francisco Opera’s catch all bass, one night Alidoro in Cenerentola, the next two nights Colline, then back to Alidoro. While a competent performer he does not approach the depths of character that these smaller but crucially important roles require.
The conductor was San Francisco Opera’s resident conductor Giuseppe Finzi. With the help of messieurs Fabiano and Markov he carried off November 19 honorably. On November 20 he could not bring the cast to musical cohesion. At both performances I longed for a conductor who felt verismo, not simply a maestro to accompany, or try to, the singers. Follow this link for an account of a performance by such a maestro: La bohème at San Francisco Opera.
Michael Milenski
Casts and production information:
Mimì: Alexia Voulgaridou; Rodolfo: Michael Fabiano; Musetta: Nadine Sierra; Marcello: Alexdy Markov; Colline: Christian van Horn; Schaunard: Hadleigh Adams; Benoit/Alcindoro: Dale Travis. Alternate cast: Mimì: Leah Crocetto; Rodolfo: Giorgio Berrugi; Musetta: Ellie Dehn; Marcello: Brian Mulligan. San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra. Conductor: Giuseppe Finzi. Stage Director: John Caird; Production Designer: David Farley; Lighting Designer: Michael James Clark. War Memorial Opera House, November 19/20, 2014. Seats row M).
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Boheme_SF2.png
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product_title=La bohème in San Francisco
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above:Nadine Sierra as Musetta [All photos by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera]
November 21, 2014
Radvanovsky Sings Recital in Los Angeles
On November 8, 2014, the recitalist was soprano Sondra Radvanovsky who was familiar to the Los Angeles audience because of her acclaimed performances of Tosca and Suor Angelica.
Accompanied by her long time collaborator, virtuoso pianist Anthony Manoli, she sang a challenging but not overly imaginative program of arias and songs in Italian, Russian, French, and English. Opening with a carefully crafted version of Ludwig van Beethoven’s early Ah Perfido, she showed her ability to handle both the declamatory and decorative aspects of this concert aria.
She followed it with three short songs by the composer for whose music she is best known, Giuseppe Verdi. He wrote the first two, In solitaria stanza (In a Lonely Room), and Perduta ho la pace (I Have Lost My Peace), before the premiere of his first opera, Oberto. The final song, Stornello (Italian Street Song), dates from the same year as his opera, La forza del destino. Although the songs are not major musical works, they are precursors of Verdi’s later operas and with each short piece Radvanovsky showed her ability to put a story across.
The most interesting pieces on this program were four enchanting but rarely sung romances by Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov: A Dream, Oh, Never Sing to Me Again, How Fair this Spot, and Spring Waters. I hope someday she will sing a whole evening of Russian songs. Rachmaninov and other major Russian composers wrote many wonderful pieces that are seldom performed.
To complete the first part of her recital Radvanovsky, whose forte is opera rather than song, regaled her adoring crowd with “Pace, pace mio Dio” from La forza del destino. She had a magnificent command of dynamics and during this and several of her other arias she showed that she could take her sound down to a pianissimo and then gradually increase it until it became a full fledged fortissimo. (The technical term for it is messa di voce).
Radvanovsky, who had worn a form fitting dark gold taffeta for the first half, returned in bright green silk after the intermission to sing a trio of songs by Henri Duparc: Chanson Triste (Sad Song), Extase (Ecstasy), and Au pays où se fait le guerre (To the Country Where War is Waged). Here and in her rendition of the aria that followed them, "Pleurez, Pleurez mes jeux" (Cry, Cry my Eyes) from Jules Massenet’s Le Cid, she showed her mastery of the French idiom as well as her ability to convey the beauty of sadness and tragic memories.
The soprano sometimes spoke to the audience and at this point she brought her fans back from the contemplation of tragedy with three lighter but thoroughly charming American songs by Aaron Copland: Simple Gifts, Long Time Ago, and At the River. For the finale, Radvanovsky sang a rousing, virtuosic performance of the Bolero from Verdi’s I vespri Siciliani (The Sicilian Vespers). She sang that her senses were intoxicated. She was right, her audience was drunk on fine art as they listened to her encores: "Io son l'umile ancella" (I am the Humble Handmaiden) from Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, "I Could Have Danced All Night" from Loewe's My Fair Lady, "Vissi d'arte" ( I Live for Art) from Puccini's Tosca and "O mio babbino caro" (Oh, My Dearest Daddy) from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.
Both Radvanovsky and Manoli gave bravura performances and their audience would have listened to them all night if they had continued to perform. Although the house was not much more than half full, this was a happy audience that can be counted upon to come out for more fine recitals at the Dorothy Chandler.
Maria Nockin
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image_description=Sondra Radvanovsky
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product_title=Radvanovsky Sings Recital in Los Angeles
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product_id=Above: Sondra Radvanovsky
L’elisir d’amore, Royal Opera
Pelly’s production has much to commend it: capriciousness, irony, tenderness and realism. On this occasion, it was the appearance of Bryn Terfel in his first essay at the role of the fraudulent doctor, Dulcamara, that accounted for the heightened air of expectancy; an anticipation that was further whipped up by the placard-strewn front-drop advertising Dulcamara’s fabled elixirs: ‘Costipazione’, ‘Impotenza’, ‘smettere di fumare’ — you name it, Dulcamara’s tonics truly offer a universal cure.
Terfel’s Dulcamara was less sleazy smooth-operator and more grimy grease-ball. He certainly didn’t intend to waste any time flattering and charming the yokels, and there was no attempt to feign affability or hide his deception, from the villagers or us. So what if the publicity posters on the van are peeling and the fireworks fizzle out? Aided by a couple of brutes, who drive the tatty truck and pick the peasants’ pocket, this Dulcamara is a brisk operator. In ‘Udite, udite, o rustici’ Terfel seemed almost impatient to swindle the peasants, grab the money and make a swift getaway; no matter if Nemorino, desperate for a second dose of the magic draught, was hazardously hanging on to the bull bars.
In Act 1 Terfel’s delivery was precise and vocally powerfully — adding to the quack’s aggressive gruffness — but somewhat, and surprisingly, dramatically low-key. And, despite having swapped his grubby lab-overalls for soiled red velvet, in honour of the pre-nuptial celebrations, ‘Io son ricco e tu sei bella’ was similarly under-played, with none of the hamminess that we might have expected from Terfel. The ‘wandering hands’, however, that drew an irritated ‘Silenzio!’ from groom-to-be Belcore, were a hint of the mischief to come. For in his Act 2 duet with Adina, ‘Quanto amore ed io spietata’, seemingly astonished by the miraculous transformation of Nemorino’s fortunes in love and luck which his elixir has effected, Dulcamara determined to down a large swig himself. The result was a delightfully light-footed leap, a twang of the braces, a wiggle of the bum and a wicked twinkle in the eye; beckoned off-stage by a teasing Adina, Dulcamara at last showed his charisma and appeal. Returning for the final chorus laden with crates of ‘curative’ Bordeaux, Dulcamara was full of boasts that he could boost not just the villagers’ amorous fortunes but their purses too: they had but to swallow his syrup and romance and riches were theirs! Clutching the cash, Terfel was the epitome of charming chicanery, not quite able to believe his own luck or his ‘powers’!
But, despite his winning appeal this Dulcamara was not the ‘star’ of the show; those honours went to tenor Vittorio Grigolo whose Nemorino wore his warm heart on his stripy sleeve and sang with an ardency and allure that ultimately even Adina could not resist. From his opening tumble down set designer Chantal Thomas’s towering pyramid of hay bales, Grigolo buzzed with life and optimism. His voice was as agile as his boogieing, the phrases swooping and swooning with Italianate suavity. But, Grigolo can do tenderness as well as urgency, and he combined these sentiments with striking expressive beauty in a performance of ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ which brought the house down. Nemorino’s anguish was all the more moving for its juxtaposition with the preceding high jinks of ‘Quanto amore’, but Grigolo pushed on through the second verse, the faster-than-usual tempo ratcheting up the torment, before the wonderfully wilting sighs of the close struck every listener’s heart, including Lucy Crowe’s previously impervious Adina.
Crowe sang with characteristic lucidity, accuracy and sparkle at the top; but, she didn’t quite have the fullness of tone across the whole tessitura of the role or the variety of vocal colour to capture Adina’s changeability and multifariousness — at times, vocally, she seemed rather too ‘angelic’. Crowe did work hard dramatically: perched aloft on the haystack, preening her nails under a scarlet parasol, sunning herself behind outsize scarlet shades, Crowe was a pretty picture of Beckham-esque aloofness, seemingly indifferent to Nemorino’s doting. But, despite all the hip-wriggling and posturing, she showed us Adina’s self-awareness too. Festooned with premature confetti, she might smile for the wedding photographer, but elsewhere she was quick to elude Belcore’s clutches and embraces, her grimaces and hand-wringing revealing her distaste and disquiet.
Adina’s reservations were certainly understandable, for Levente Molnár’s swaggering, baton-swinging Belcore was the embodiment of misogynistic machismo. Slapping his thigh to summon his soon-to-be bride to his lap, Belcore then preceded to bounce his ‘prized possession’ up and down with un-rhythmic oafishness. The Romanian strutted and squared up, and used his powerful baritone most effectively, to suggest Belcore’s burly brutishness and masculine over-confidence. Australian soprano Kiandra Howarth, a Jette Parker Young Artist, was a bright and feisty Gianetta, showing strong stage presence in this minor role.
After a fairly lacklustre overture, conductor Daniele Rustioni drew some characterful playing from the ROH Orchestra — the woodwind solos were particularly jaunty. Towards the close the tempi were a touch impetuous, and at times he pulled ahead of his singers, but on the whole Rustioni ensured a good balance between stage and pit. The ROH Chorus were well-marshalled; if some of their gestures were rather stylised this only served to illustrate the villagers’ lack of imagination and credulity.
Pelly’s production is busy and bustling — the zippy dog is back and raises a chuckle as he races like quicksilver across the stage. But, it is the sorrowful stillness of Nemorino’s lament that truly hits the target. If the mid-November gloom is lowering your spirits and a pick-me-up is needed, then this show is the potion for you.
Claire Seymour
Cast and production information:
Adina, Lucy Crowe; Nemorino, Vittorio Grigolo; Dulcamara, Bryn Terfel ; Belcore, Levente Molnár; Giannetta,Kiandra Howarth; Director,Laurent Pelly; Revival director, Daniel Dooner; Conductor, Daniele Rustioni; Set designs, Chantal Thomas; Costume designs,Laurent Pelly; Associate costume designer, Donate Marchand; Lighting design, Joël Adam; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; Royal Opera Chorus. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, Tuesday 18th November 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/C31B9394%20-%20VITTORIO%20GRIGOLO%20AS%20NEMORINO%2C%20LUCY%20CROWE%20AS%20ADINA%20%C2%A9%20ROH%2C%20PHOTOGRAPH%20BY%20MARK%20DOUET.png image_description=Vittorio Grigolo as Nemorino and Lucy Crowe as Adina [Photo by Mark Douet © ROH] product=yes product_title=L’elisir d’amore, Royal Opera product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Vittorio Grigolo as Nemorino and Lucy Crowe as Adina [Photo by Mark Douet © ROH]November 20, 2014
Samling Showcase, Wigmore Hall
For this delightful programme of song, five of the outstanding young musicians who have been nurtured by the organisation came together with Samling’s patron, Sir Thomas Allen, and pianist Malcolm Martineau, for an evening of individual and collective music-making which certainly reached inspired heights of excellence and pleasure.
Mezzo-soprano Rachel Kelly was given the tough task of opening this annual Showcase, the first half of which explored the song repertoire of the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth centuries; and she added to the challenge by beginning with Richard Strauss’s ‘Ruhe, Meine Seele!’ (Rest my soul), its slow, mysteriously unfolding opening requiring considerable composure and control. Kelly’s warm-toned soprano was co well-centred, and the ambiguous chromatic progressions skilfully negotiated, although as the song progressed she adopted a wider vibrato which — while it enriched the timbre, without disturbing the intonation — I found a little distracting. She used the rising register towards the close of the song to inject a note of anger and the heightened drama was enhanced by pianist James Sherlock’s impassioned accompanying gestures. This air of turbulence continued in the second of Strauss’s Op.21 songs, ‘Cäcilie’, which was composed on 9th September 1894, the day before his marriage to the soprano Pauline de Ahna. Here, Kelly showed that she has a powerful upper register (perhaps even overly forceful at times) to match her rich low resonance.
Fervent Strauss was followed by Verdian joyful doting, as tenor Joshua Owen Mills presented a vibrant rendition of Fenton’s ‘Dal labbro il canto estasiato vola’ (From my lips, a song of ecstasy flies) from Falstaff, in which the enamoured Fenton arrives at the oak tree and sings of his happiness. Accompanied by Malcolm Martineau, Owen Mills displayed a fine Italianate ring which perfectly complemented the textual sonnet’s many references to music and singing. The tenor balanced a bright gleam with tenderness. Fenton’s final line (Lips that are kissed lose none of their allure) drew forth onto the platform soprano Lucy Hall, his Nannetta, who responded warmly: ‘Indeed, they renew it, like the moon’. Hall then transported us to late nineteenth-century France, with Debussy’s ‘La Romance d’Ariel’. The lucidity of Sherlock’s piano introduction was bewitching and Hall showed plenty of courage in tackling the stratospheric surprises that Debussy throws in, although the intonation sometimes wandered at the top. And, if the tone was not always sufficiently silky, there was plenty of dramatic feeling and Hall demonstrated an innate, sure sense of phrase structure. She was more at home in the ensuing number, Poulenc’s ‘Le petit garçon trop bien portant’ (The too-healthy little boy) in which her voice took on a more soubrette-ish quality which successfully conveyed the song’s dry humour.
A ‘double duet’ followed — Schumann’s ‘Blaue Augen hat das Mädchen’ (The girl has blue eyes) from the Spanische Liebeslieder — in which Owen Mills’ buoyant tenor blended beautifully with Ross Ramgobin’s burnished baritone to convey the exuberance of youthful joy and love; pianists Sherlock and Martineau enjoyed the spritely rhythms of the accompaniment. Ramgobin has an elegant, full baritone and his rendition of ‘Wandrers Nachtlied I’ (Wanderer’s nightsong I), the first of three songs by Schubert, had a gentle ease and well-shaped sense of line. In ‘Am Strome’ (By the river), a subtle employment of rubato and tender diminuendo in the final verse movingly conveyed the protagonist’s yearning ‘for kinder shores’, while Sherlock’s short piano postlude offered some a hint of warmth and consolation. ‘Sehnsucht’ (Longing) was underpinned by the quiet but troubled throbbing of the repeating piano motif, the vocal line once again communicating clear emotions and meaning, thanks to Ramgobin’s astute appreciation of structure and line.
After these performances by the Samling scholars, it was Sir Thomas Allen’s own turn to take to the platform in four songs from Arthur Somervell’s infrequently heard narrative song-cycle, Maud, which is based upon Tennyson’s eponymous monodrama. Allen’s tone was varied, by turns shadowy and light, in response to the textual sentiments, and while the intonation was not always absolutely true at the top of the voice, the baritone’s power to move remains undiminished, and he conjured a sentimental mood, especially in the final song, ‘O that ‘twere possible’, whose very brevity enhanced the pathos. Allen was joined by Rachel Kelly in the final item of the first half, two duet arrangements from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn. ‘Verlorne Müh’ (Wasted effort) raised a wry smile, as Allen’s dismissed Kelly’s romantic pleading, ‘Närrisches Dinterie,/ Ich geh dir halt nit’ (Foolish girl,/ I’ll not go with you); Sherlock’s accompaniment deepened the caricature, as Kelly’s wheedling and luring became ever more brazen and Allen’s brush-offs increasingly brusque. ‘Trost im Unglück’ (Consolation in sorrow), in which a hussar and his beloved engage in a noisy, belligerent exchange, brought the first half to a close in fractious fashion!
If there had been a slight sense of nervous excitement in the initial sequence of songs, the mood relaxed after the interval. Owen Mills rose to the challenges of Liszt’s dramatic ‘Benedetto sia ‘l giorno’ (Blessed be the day) and the composer’s more reflective ‘I’ vidi in terra angelici costumi’ (I beheld on earth angelic grace) from Tre Sonetti di Petrarca, and if sometimes the voice was a little tight in the fortissimo passages at the top, the tenor displayed a pleasing light head voice; the conclusion to the latter song evoked a mood of quiet reverie, which was enhanced further by Sherlock’s tender rippling postlude chords. Ramgobin’s performance of Wagner’s ‘Wie Todesahnung … O du ein holder Abendstern’ from Tannhäuser was one of the highlights of the evening, full of colour and interest, and sung with a warm, honeyed tone.
Joined by Owen Mills (as Count Belfiore), Lucy Hall was a beguiling Marchioness Violante Onesti (disguised as the gardener, Sandrina) in ‘Dove mai son!’ (Wherever can I be!) from La finta giardiniera, her voice blooming beautifully. The virtuosic runs of Rossini’s ‘Bel raggio lusinghier’ from Semiramide caused Rachel Kelly no problem, as she demonstrated great flexibility and striking power, although at times there was a flinty edge to the tone. Expressive recitative and an eloquent piano introduction by Martineau preceded Hall’s sorrowful ‘Oh! quante volte’ (Oh! how much time) from Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Monthecchi, which was notable for the soprano’s soft tone and pliant phrasing. To conclude, all four singers came together for a spirited performance of the final quartet from Rigoletto, ‘Bella figlia dell’amore’, in which the intricacy of the varied musical perspectives and changing relationships was masterfully crafted. Bernstein’s ‘Make Our Garden Grow’ was a stirring, radiant encore to a rousing evening of shared music-making.
Claire Seymour
Performers and programme:
Samling Scholars: Lucy Hall soprano, Rachel Kelly mezzo-soprano, Joshua Owen Mills tenor, Ross Ramgobin baritone, James Sherlock piano; Sir Thomas Allen baritone; Malcolm Martineau piano.
Richard Strauss: ‘Ruhe, meine Seele’, ‘Cäcilie’; Verdi: ‘Dal labbro il canto estasiato vola’ from Falstaff, ‘Bella figlia dell’amore’ from Rigoletto; Debussy, ‘La Romance d’Ariel’; Poulenc, ‘Le petit garçon trop’ bien portant’; Schumann ‘Blaue Augen hat das Mädchen’ from Spanische Liebeslieder; Schubert, ‘Wandrers Nachtlied I’, ‘Am Strome’, ‘Sehnsucht’ ; Arthur Somervell, Four Songs from Maud; Mahler. ‘Verlorne Müh’, ‘Trost im Unglück’ from Des Knaben Wunderhorn; Liszt, ‘Benedetto sia ‘l giorno’, ‘I’ vidi in terra angelici costumi’ from Tre Sonetti di Petrarca; Wagner, ‘Wie Todesahnung … O du ein holder Abendstern’ from Tannhäuser; Mozart, ‘Dove mai son!’ from La finta giardiniera; Rossini, ‘Bel raggio lusinghier’ from Semiramide; Bellini, ‘Oh! quante volte’ from I Capuleti e i Monthecchi. Wigmore Hall, London, Wednesday 12th November 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Thomas_Allen_1318.png image_description=Sir Thomas Allen [Photo by Sussie Ahlburg courtesy of Askonas Holt] product=yes product_title=Samling Showcase product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Sir Thomas Allen [Photo by Sussie Ahlburg courtesy of Askonas Holt]November 19, 2014
La cenerentola in San Francisco
It was a rare evening, very rare, at San Francisco Opera when everything, almost everything, went together perfectly.
La cenerentola is Rossini’s most complex, and certainly greatest comedy. The competition is stiff indeed — L’italiana in Algeri (1812), Il turco in Italia (1814) and Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816). What separates Cenerentola (1817) and puts it way out front is the sheer size and number of its ensembles, big concerted pieces with four, five and six-voices, sometimes with chorus as well. These are the hallmarks of the great tragedies that begin with Otello (1816), the opera composed by Rossini immediately before Cenerentola.
Both Armida (1817), the tragedy written immediately after, and Cenerentola end with a huge showpiece aria for the prima donna. These years are the mature Rossini who demands big, virtuoso singers, like Cenerentola whose bravura alone must be sufficient to close the show and bring the audience to a level of delirium that made Rossini the most famous opera composer in the world.
Virtuoso singing and the sculpting of the highly sophisticated musical architecture of the arias and ensembles are the challenges of this great comedy, both challenges well met just now in San Francisco.
Conductor Jesús López-Cobos made a wunderkind debut at San Francisco Opera in 1972 at the age of thirty-two, and returned for the fall 1974 season, again for more of the big Verdi repertoire. Now, after an absence of forty years, he is back on the podium, a master of what some of us believe to be the epitome of what opera can be — the mature Rossini! The Rossini ethos is also the most delicate of all the great composers and it is sublime when it is revealed. This is very rare.
Conductor López-Cobos immediately took Rossini’s overture to the lightest boil. It was the bubbling of the tiny drops of the finest mineral water and the fleetness of a long distance runner, and it kept us there for the duration. In a Rossini tragedy the delight would be the suspension of time into pure lyricism (you forget to breathe), and the sheer joy of releasing emotion, tragic though it may be. In a comedy, you found a smile on your face, your foot marking the beat. Sheer delight. In Rossini, comedy or tragedy, it is the same music and the same joy of making that music.
The Lópes-Cobos tempos and his flights of Rossini’s sophisticated instrumentation were never indulged for effect. For example the patter pieces (when a male voice breaks into rapid words) did not so much amaze us with lightning speed as they amused us with rhythmic words. The ensembles never lost their individual voices by accelerandos intended to drive us to musical fulfillment, instead we remained immersed in the complexities of the ensembles. It was measured conducting that at once reconciled Rossini with his music and Rossini with the singers provided by San Francisco Opera.
Efrain Solís as Dandini, René Barbera as Don Ramiro
An announcement was made that French mezzo soprano Karine Deshayes was not feeling well and would not be at her best. As it was Mlle. Desayes displayed a reserved temperament and presence that left Cenerentola colorless for most of the evening. In the spectacular finale to the opera, “Non piu mesta” she did vocally approach the needed Rossini vocal excitement if not the personality. Had she not been indisposed perhaps her high notes would have been integrated into the smoother sounds of her lower voice.
Cenerentola’s father, Don Magnifico, was sung by Spanish bass-baritone Carlos Chausson. A seasoned interpreter of Rossini roles he was perfection itself in the delivery of this role as generic buffo. Bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, perfunctorily and colorlessly (fault of the staging) enacted Alidoro, the facilitator of the familiar story.
Production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Young Texan tenor René Barbera made a splendid prince aka Don Ramiro in beautiful, smooth voice throughout the role’s very high tessitura. He delivered his big second act cabelletta “Si, ritrovarla io giuro” with the voice and personality that have made him the winner of vocal competitions and with high C’s to spare.
Among San Francisco’s great treasures are the Adlers. These young singers are usually the messengers and maids in the grand repertoire, and sometimes are over-parted in important roles. In this Cenerentola production they were utter perfection as Dandini and the ugly step sisters Clorinda and Tisbe. Both Maria Valdes and Zanda Svede made these minor roles (only Clorinda has a very brief aria) into scene stealing roles with the help of their stage director, Gregory Fortner.
But the biggest star of the evening (and it was a stiff competition) was California baritone Efrain Solis as the prince’s servant Dandini. This young singer exuded the charm, pent-up fun and exuberant singing that will make him a Rossini star. The cherry-atop-the-cake was the physical resemblance of Dandini, the servant, to Don Ramiro, the prince whom he was impersonating.
In its heyday San Francisco Opera not only discovered Jesus Lopez-Cobos but also Jean Pierre Ponnelle, a young French scenographer who revolutionized San Francisco’s idea of what opera production could be. This brilliant designer turned stage director created this production of La cenerentola for San Francisco Opera back in 1969 — forty-five years ago! Its black and white, pencil drawn filigree and apparent architecture (cross-section of a multi-storied house) make it both storybook and physically tangible. It is self-consciously old and that alone made it new back in the ’60’s. More importantly its decor is integrated into action — the actors climb throughout the set — it was opera as scenographic action, not just singing.
The limitation of the Ponnelle set is however its symmetry, and it is stifling. The larger Rossini repertory was just being re-discovered back then. Since then Rossini performance practice has evolved to understand and embrace the structural complexity of these works. A mise-en-scène now must incorporate the musical score as a physical and intellectual component of the staging. This can be accomplished by imposing concept and shape as powerful as the music — strength of concept is no longer perceptible in this antique production.
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle who died in 1988 has long since not been a part of his production. It has been staged in recent revivals by Gregory Fortner who has staged this gifted cast in San Francisco as well. One assumes he kept the basic outlines of the original staging, respecting the symmetry of the set. He certainly will have added clever schtick to keep the action energized and to showcase his performers.
It is time to memorialize the Ponnelle production in photographs and move on to productions consistent with current performance practice.
Michael Milenski
Casts and production information:
Cenerentola: Karine Deshayes; Don Ramiro: René Barbera; Dandini: Efrain Solis; Don Magnifico: Carlos Chausson; Alidoro: Christian Van Horn; Clorinda: Maria Valdes; Tisbe: Zanda Svede. San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra. Conductor: Jésus López-Cobos. Production: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle; Stage Director: Gregory Fortner; Lighting Designer: Gary Marder. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, November 13, 2014. Seats: 11th row house left.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Cenerentola_SF1.png
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product_title=La Cenerentola in San Francisco
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above:Clorinda and Tisbe, the Ugly Sisters [All photos by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera]
Rameau: Maître à danser — William Christie, Barbican London
Maître à danser, not master of the dance but a master to be danced to: there's a difference. Rameau's music takes its very pulse from dance. Hearing it choreographed connects the movement in the music to the exuberant physical expressiveness that is dance.
Furthermore, the very structure of Rameau's music is influenced by the intricate patterns of dance. Rameau was a music theorist as well as a composer, his nephew was Didérot, the encyclopédiste, so this precise orderliness is fundamental to his idiom. Think about baroque gardens, where the abundance of nature is channelled into formal parterres, though woodlands flourish beyond, and birds fly freely.This tension between nature and artifice livens the spirit : gods mix with mortals, improbable plots seem perfectly plausible.
In these miniatures, one hears The Full Rameau. "You don't have to wade through a prologue, five acts and a postlude", as Christie has quipped. With dancers, the music becomes even more vivid. Sophie Daneman directed. She's a very good singer, specializing in the baroque and in Lieder. She's worked with Christie before. On this evidence, she's a very good director, too.
Christie and Les Arts Florissants presented two miniatures, Daphnis et Églé (1753) and La naissance d'Osiris. (1754). both were written as private entertainments for Louis XV and his court at Fontainebleau, after days spent out in the forests hunting for game. The context is relevant. these pieces also commemorate the birth of two royal princes. The Barbican stage was lit beautifully,suggesting candlelight in a darkend room, creating the right hushed tone of reverence. The King wanted to be amused. The show had to flatter his image of power. Both pieces present Happy Peasants, acting out simple, innocent lives, thanks to the benevolence of their King. When the second infant prince grew up, he was crowned Louis XVI and built Le petit Trianon, to act out pastoral idylls.
There's so little drama in Daphnis et Églé that its basically a masque for dancing, Daphnis (Reinoud Van Mechelen) and Églé (Élodie Fonnard), shepherd and shepherdess, are friends who gradually fall in love over a sequence of 16 tableaux. Daphnis flirts with a stranger, singing a lovely air. Églé drags him away. Dancers supply interest in the absence of plot. Each of these vignettes represent a different type of dance. Françoise Denieau choreographed. Fans of early dance will enthuse about the finer details. I enjoyed the diversity and intricate formations, charmed by the natural precision of the dancers. It felt like hearing the score come alive. Van Mechelen and Fonnard are familiar names on the French baroque circuit. Fonnard's particularly pert and dramatic and Van Mechelen has good stage presence. The first performance of this piece in 1753 flopped, apparently because the singers were duds. Fonnard and Van Mechelen most certainly are not.
Daphnis et Églé works well when its slender charms aren't overwhelmed by excess opulence. Daneman's staging reflects this innocence, A simple cloth is held up on sticks to suggest peasant theatre. Alain Blanchot's costumes (organic dyed fabric?) show the shepherds and shepherdesses in what would have been normal 18th century costume for their class, ie "modern" for the time. Daneman has worked with Christie since their first Hippolyte et Aricie together some 20 years ago.
La naissance d'Osiris is altogether more substantial. This time the French shepherds and shepherdesses congregate around an Egyptian temple (not literally depicted), worshipping Jupiter, much in the way paintings of this period showed European landscapes populated with Europeans and semi-naked figures from Classical Antiquity. There;s a particularly beautiful part for musette (baroque bagpipes). The player gets to walk around the stage, among the dancers, just as at a peasant celebration. The idyll is shattered with a violent thunderstorm, the full force of Les Arts Florissants unleashed in splendid fury. Great lighting effects (Christoph Naillet). From up in the gods in the Barbican balcony, Pierre Bessière's Jupiter fulminates. He will save the people by giving them his hero son, danced by a lithe young male dancer. Although the monarchy didn't know what was to come later, we can appreciate how poignant these pieces are because we do.
Since La naissance d'Osiris was written to mark the birth of Louis XV's second son (the future Louis XVI) the allusion is audacious. The king of the Gods rules with divine authority, like an absolute monarch. The people know their place. The piece is political power game, Fonnard sang Cupid, with simple wings stuck to her back - sweetly naive, but firmed by Fonnard's feisty singing. Sean Clayton sang A Shepherd and Arnaud Richard sang the High Priest. Eventually Jupiter takes his leave, and the Three Graces dance a lively trio.
Although Rameau's music had to be written to please a royal patron, at heart its gentle good humour and humanity triumph. We in the modern audience were able to experience Rameau presented with great depth and sensitivity.
Anne Ozorio
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image_description=Scene from Maître à danser [Photo © Philippe Deival]
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product_id=Above: Scene from Maître à danser [Photo © Philippe Deival]
November 11, 2014
November 10, 2014
The Met mounts a well sung but dramatically unconvincing ‘Carmen’
Operagoers have long grown accustomed to sacrificing dramatic integrity for a rewarding musical experience. Joan Sutherland was in her ‘60s when she sang Gilda in scenes from Verdi’s Rigoletto at a Met Gala concert in 1987. Her singing brought the house down, though it’s unlikely that anyone in the theater believed this could be the title character’s teenage daughter.
In today’s era of the Met’s high definition simulcasting, it’s growing increasingly difficult for the company to conduct business as usual. Intense visual scrutiny of the cameras pressure performers to act as credibly as they sing, and to look the part of the characters they portray. Music may still rule in opera, but in Peter Gelb’s brave new world of simulcasting, seeing is believing.
Casting the full-figured Anita Rachvelishvili as the iconic temptress Carmen in the Met’s Nov. 1 HD simulcast did not do much to enhance the dramatic integrity of the story. The Georgian mezzo-soprano has the voice for the role, to be sure — with a handsome middle range and sufficient weight in her pedal tones to add chills down the spine when she flips the fortune card and reads aloud, “La mort!” What was lacking in Rachvelishvili’s performance was the raw sexual magnetism required to bring the character Carmen to life.
When Richard Eyre’s production first ran in 2009, the sultry siren Elīna Garanĉa played the title role. Here, both singing and looks were equally convincing. Granted, Garanĉa’s unforgettable portrayal is a tough act to follow. But even ignoring the inevitable comparisons to the prior production, there was simply too little in Rachvelishvili’s performance to convey her character’s wild, dangerous and sexually alluring side.
The Habanera (sung sweetly though hardly seductively) fell flat, while the Seguidilla generated insufficient heat to make plausible Don José’s complicity in Carmen’s escape — for which he risks imprisonment. Nor was there sufficient electricity in Rachvelishvili’s dance sequence during the supposedly eroticTriangle Song at Lillas Pastia’s Tavern. As the pace of the music reached boiling point, I was sure she'd climb onto one of the tables and dance, as had Garanĉa. She did not. The little dancing we did see from her (on terra firma) would not likely have gotten her past the first round of Dancing With The Stars.
Ultimately, theater audiences across 69 countries had to be content with Rachvelishvili’s formidable vocal effort — a pleasure, indeed, but one perhaps better suited to radio broadcast than visual simulcast.
Aleksandrs Antonenko’s Don José, a bit stiff throughout the first act, grew increasingly convincing as the obsessed lover, driven to extremes over his ill-fated passion for Carmen.
In José we must sense the ambivalence of a once-proud soldier who is faced with a choice between a safe but boring life (with plain-Jane Micaëla) and an exciting but dangerous life (with by the gypsy Carmen). When he does not choose wisely, José must be seen as a pathetic loser whose self-respect begins to dwindle away — much like the money of an inveterate gambler at the dice tables. In short, José's life has gone to craps. Antonenko made this breakdown believable, and by the end of the third act he morphs into a fanatical, menacing stalker.
As a singer, Antonenko gave two performances: the one in the first half of the opera, where his voice lacked subtlety and he frequently clipped the ends of his phrases to wet his lips (such as in the first act duet with Micaëla); and the second half, where he found his voice in all its glory and used his strong spinto tenor to add body to the emotional outbursts. I shall remember him for the latter.
Simulcast viewers who missed the opportunity to hear Anita Hartig as Mimi in La Bohème last April (she took ill and had to be replaced) got their chance to hear the Romanian soprano play José's steadfast fiancée, Micaëla.
Hartig’s exquisite delivery of her signature Act Three aria Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante, sung as her character makes a last ditch attempt to free José from the grip of the deadly Carmen, was the singular most moving number in the production. Hartig's tender lyric soprano captured all the nuances of expression Bizet has to offer in this work. Her breathtaking decrescendo on the aria's final words, protégez moi, Seigneur (Protect me, O Lord), brought a lump to my throat. The profuse applause from the Met Opera audience at the end of the number said it all.
As the flamboyant toreador, a handsome and self-assured Ildar Abdrazakov at once captured the testosterone-charged persona of Escamillo — in looks as well as voice. Abdrazakov's Toreador Song at Lillas Pastia’s Tavern in Act Two was the highlight of an otherwise unspectacular first half of the performance. Though he tended to cheat the aria's sharply dotted-rhythms in favor of easier-to-sing triplets, Abdrazakov delivered his signature aria with a deep and meaty bass-baritone that made the listener sit up and take notice.
Keith Miller, reprising his role of Zuniga from the company's 2009 production, is an excellent actor whose dynamic onstage demeanor injects anima into the roles roles he portrays. Using his firm bass-baritone and strong visual presence, Miller crafted a strongly believable (and downright sleezy) captain of the guard.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better pair of supporting singer-actors than soprano Kiri Deonarine (Frasquita) and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano (Mercédès), as Carmen's colorful gypsy cohorts.
The dynamic duo performed exceptionally well in their ensemble numbers, such as the quick-tongued, rapid patter-like dialogue of the delightful quintet Nous avons en tête une affaire — which they articulated with great clarity of diction. (Abdrazakov could have learned much from the pair's precision singing in the crisply dotted-rhythmic figures here.) But the true tour de force came in the charming Fortune-Telling Duet from Act Three, where the gypsies playfully coax the cards into "revealing" their future lovers and destinies. This number was not only sung beautifully, but provided a captivating visual experience.
Eyre’s production team, spearheaded by Set Designer Rob Howell, once again used a rotating stage (a technique that now bears Eyre's signature). This proved useful in making smooth transitions between scenes and augmented the look and scope of the crowd scenes — such as in the public square during Act One. In fact, almost everything in this production was staged effectively. I especially enjoyed the scene where the cigarette girls disembark en mass from the factory, gushing forth as would water from an open spigot.
Also visually appealing was Eyre’s staging of the gypsy smugglers’ winding mountain hideaway in Act Three, aided by Lighting Director Peter Mumford’s hushed bluish hues that hinted of the arrival of dawn. I remain at a loss, however, to understand why Eyre shifts the story from 1820s Spain to the 1930s, considering his avoidance of any tangible (or implied) connection to either the Spanish Civil War or the rise of fascism on the eve of World War Two.
Granada-born conductor Pablo Heras-Casado opted to conduct without a baton, which is hardly optimal for an orchestra the size of what’s called for in Bizet’s score. But then, the tightly disciplined Met Orchestra could probably keep it together if the the musicians could only see the conductor's eyebrows. For my tastes, Heras-Casado’s tempos too often bordered on the wild side, as if trying to keep up with a troupe of flamenco dancers high on amphetamines. I also found his direction of the Habanera to be too straightforward, resulting in a sanitized dance rhythm lacking in style and ethnic substance.
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra was up to task even during Heras-Casado's most outrageous tempos, and shined repeatedly in its individual efforts. Flutist Denis Bouriakov’s sublime tone in the famous Entr’acte to Act Two, accompanied mellifluously by harp, provided dancers Maria Kowroski and Martin Harvey plenty of inspiration with which to shape a stunning pas de deux. Also impressive was Bouriakov’s shapely and cleanly articulated 16th notes in the Prelude to Act Three.
The Metropolitan Opera Chorus, augmented by a feisty and well-staged chorus of children, sounded wonderfully throughout the performance. I especially enjoyed watching the staging of the children during the first act changing of the guard scene as they mimicked the trumpets.
Live in HD Director Matthew Diamond projected the customary close-up shots of the principal characters, but this time the cameras also panned out during the large chorus numbers — affording simulcast viewers a sense of size and proportion of the choruses. I thought Diamond's decision to zoom in on Rachvelishvili several times as she lay on the floor, legs spread apart waiting to engulf José, was a bit over the top. (No pun intended.)
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/carm_0872a.png image_description=Anita Rachvelishvili as Carmen [Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera] product=yes product_title=The Met mounts a well sung but dramatically unconvincing ‘Carmen’ product_by=A review by David Abrams product_id=Above: Anita Rachvelishvili as Carmen [Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera]Maurice Greene’s Jephtha
Greene is better known for his church music and anthems than for his contributions to repertoire of a dramatic or theatrical nature, but he did however produce a small number of oratorios, pastorals and festival and moral odes.
Greene’s Jephtha (which was his second oratorio, after The Song of Deborah and Barak of 1732) was first performed in 1737, most probably in the small tavern, The Devil, near Temple Bar where meetings of the Apollo Society (founded by Greene and the Italian musician Bononcini as a rival to the Academy of Ancient Music after an infamous dispute between Bononcini and Handel, and named after the tavern’s famous ‘Apollo Room’) were held. Presumably the work had more than one performance, for it is known that the soprano part for Jephtha’s daughter was re-written for alto at a later date. The work then languished in obscurity until a 1997 performance, given and broadcast by the BBC to mark the 300 th anniversary of Greene’s birth a few months previously. For the latter occasion, Peter Lynan prepared a performing edition, which was used here by Bampton Classical Opera. (And, it is to Lynan’s informative programme article that I am indebted for some of the contextual information about the career of the little-documented Greene here presented.)
Greene set a libretto by John Hoadly (1711-76), the son of Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor (later of Winchester) and Chaplain to the Prince of Wales. Jephtha’s story, given in the Book of Judges, is a rather grim Old Testament tale of torment and sacrifice. The early Hebrew leader is recalled from exile to lead his people against their enemies, the Ammonites; in return for victory for the Israelites, Jephtha vows to sacrifice the first thing that he meets upon returning home. With horrid and inevitable irony, when he returns triumphant he is met by his beloved daughter. Jephtha explains to his daughter that he must comply with his vow and she stoically accepts her fate: the final chorus tells that each year Israel’s daughters will lament in her honour.
Hoadly follows the biblical story closely. (In 1751, when Handel set Jephtha’s story his librettist Morell contrived a quasi-happy ending which saw Jephtha’s daughter spared and her life devoted spiritual contemplation and solitude. In contrast, Greene’s sacrificial daughter willingly accepts her fate and asks only, ‘Let me awhile defer my Fate/ And to the mountains fly;/ There to bewail my Virgin state/ And then return — and die.’ Some have suggested that there is a political context for Greene’s choice of story focusing as it does on the choice between national and personal fortune that a patriotic leader must make, thereby developing a theme which was widely discussed in England during the 1730s and 40s.
Hoadly’s text is fairly static, but it presents some powerful situations and emotional of emotion, and Greene was not un-tuned to the potential for musical characterisation and affekt. The high points come in the second act which affords greater opportunity for heart-wringing and human sacrifice. In this appealing performance by Bampton Classical Opera — probably only the second performance since the time of the work’s composition — the expressive impact and charm of Greene’s score was skilfully and engagingly communicated.
The role of Jephtha was sung by John-Colyn Gyeantey. The tenor’s confident high range was instantly apparent, and although his voice seemed a little tight and lacking in support initially, as he warmed up and relaxed, Gyeantey’s lyricism and expressive phrasing came to the fore. His Act 1 aria, ‘Pity soothing melts the Soul’ was graceful and gentle, and his tone warmed still further in the extensive, low-lying lines of ‘Thou sweetest joy’ in Act 2. As the First Elder of Gilread, Nicholas Merryweather embodied imperious stateliness, making every world of text clearly audible. Merryweather’s baritone was rich and strong, with dark tone, but unfortunately it rather overwhelmed Ben Williamson’s Second Elder, whose countertenor struggled to project in their recitative duets. It was not until Williamson’s aria, ‘Against these new alarms’, that we were able to enjoy his flexible phrasing and silky legato, and admire his strong upper register.
Soprano Rosalind Coad performed the only female solo role, as Jephtha’s unfortunate daughter. In 2013 Coad won the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform Award and was also awarded 2nd prize in the Bampton Classical Opera Competition, and here she revealed a lucid, strong soprano which immediately convinced that such acclaim was deserved. She floated lightly through the more elaborate numbers — cascading in unison with the violins in the Act 2 ‘Ah! My foreboding fears — and sang with astonishing delicacy and breath control in the arias of pathos and tenderness, such as ‘if I thy Grief, thy Tears employ’. When Coad was joined by the chorus soloist in ‘Awake each joyful strain’, the female voices blended pleasing.
The singers were accompanied on period instruments by the Bampton Classical Players, led by Adrian Chandler and conducted with unfussy precision by Gilly French. The slow overture had stately gravitas, the heavy dotted rhythms perhaps portentous of the tragedy to come, while in the following Allegro there was much characterful violin playing supported by a strong, supple bass line, while the woodwind interjections cut cleanly through the vigorous string interplay. Greene employs some interesting harmonic juxtapositions and modulations and these were judiciously emphasised.
I was impressed by the agility of the violin playing, and by the range of colours and textures achieved by the small string section. The dialogues between instruments and voices — in the accompanied recitatives and in the arias — were vivid and melodious. The strings were kept busy but the wind contributed chiefly in the choruses (of which there are several in each of the two acts), offering a pleasing contrast of colour in, for example the chorus ‘Thou, universal Lord’. The recorders of Joel Raymond and Oonagh Lee were poignantly sweet during the Act 2 duet, ‘Awake joyful strain’. Paul Sharp and Simon Monday provided punchy trumpet interjections in the closing Act 1 chorus and in the Symphony which begins Act 2. The Players intonation was consistently good.
Throughout the oratorio, the continuo accompaniments of James Johnstone (harpsichord) and Gareth Deats (cello) gave the singers clear, sympathetic support, but were also not themselves without vivacity and imagination. (As was particularly evident during the rapid passagework which accompanies Jephtha’s first Act 2 aria, Deats was not unduly troubled by the strapping on his left-hand little finger!).
Perhaps the venue was less than helpful to the singers’ balance and projection. The nave is high and while the choral singing of Cantandam was joyful and robust at times one felt that some of the tone was lost in the vaulted arches. I wondered too whether placing the soloists in the centre rather than to the side might have improved the balance.
But these are small quibbles. Richard Graves, writing in the Musical Times in 1955, said of Greene, ‘So many of his works lie almost totally forgotten. When we at last turn to them, we shall find them full of unexpected beauty and charm, and as fresh as on the day they were written’. Such freshness and charm were pleasingly evident in Bampton Classical Opera’s performance of Jephtha; one wonders what further delights might be unearthed from among Greene’s neglected oeuvre.
Claire Seymour
Cast and production information:
Jephtha, John-Colyn Gyeantey; Daughter, Rosalind Coad; First Elder of Gilead, Nicholas Merryweather; Second Elder of Gilead, Ben Williamson; Conductor, Gilly French; Cantandum; Bampton Classical Players (on period instruments). SJE Arts at St John the Evangelist, Oxford. Sunday 2nd November 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Greene_colour.png image_description=Maurice Greene (Attributed to Joseph Highmore) product=yes product_title=Maurice Greene: Jephtha, Bampton Classical Opera product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Maurice Greene (Attributed to Joseph Highmore)November 7, 2014
Tosca in San Francisco
It begs asking why the opera comes back so soon. This is not a distinguished cast, and the production is the 1997 remake of the 1932 SFO production mounted for the umpteenth time.
Still it was an interesting and amusing experience.
The conducting was strikingly different from the powerfully present performances of 2012 (Nicola Luisotti). Just now the conductor was Riccardo Frizza, an Italian maestro who has worked in many important theaters around the world. If his program booklet biography is at all complete he has never before conducted a verismo opera.
Here in San Francisco he has earned critical accolades for the bel canto repertoire (Lucrezia Borgia and I Capuleti e i Montecchi. And this Tosca was pure bel canto — beautiful (pretty) music, lovely detail, flowing lines. It was music about singing, not about the brutal humanity of verismo. The first act was a delightful revelation of relaxed tempos that allowed a melodic flow. It was almost like you had never before seen the opera.
However the melodic flow was uncomfortably broken from time to time to accommodate a singer’s need/urge to exaggerate the duration of a high note, a basic stylistic impulse of later Italian style.
These same relaxed tempos imposed a dramatically flaccid second act. The pastoral beginning of the third act erased any hint, and there had been very few, of dramatic tension. We simply waited until Tosca leapt.
Young Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian was the Tosca. Mlle. Haroutounian is not a diva. Tosca is a diva. That Mlle. Haroutounian may soon be a diva is without question, though divas come in all manner, shape and size. Probably this wonderful young proto-diva will never be a Tosca, i.e. a character diva. She exudes little innate dramatic temperament.
Mlle. Haroutounian does exude a purity of voice that casts her as the Verdi heroine. She has the beauty of voice, the size of voice, and the security of technique to immediately place her among the most sought after choices for these roles. That she has the complexity of personality and the dramatic intelligence to become a great artist is yet to be seen.
Brian Jagde as Cavaradossi
Young American tenor Brian Jagde was the Cavaradossi. This former Adler Fellow has at last shown that he is ready for the War Memorial and other important stages, that he a finished artist. As the Luisotti Cavaradossi and Pinkerton he seemed over-parted, maybe even terrorized. Here with Maestro Riccardo Frizza in the pit he was given the musical space to sing, and that he did beautifully. While Mr. Jagde does not embody the Italian tenor emblematic of this role he did exhibit the fruits of his excellent American training.
Baritone Mark Delavan sang Scarpia. Without musical tension coming from the pit, and without a Tosca with whom he could emotionally spar his cardboard evil character was meaningless. Perhaps he was attempting to create character by slurring his words but the effect was that he might have had some caramel in his mouth. On the other hand the Italian diction of Kansas born Scott Conner as Angelotti was admirable.
Jose Maria Condemi was the stage director. This very able facilitator of remounted productions was sabotaged by the musical pace from the pit and the naiveté (inexperience) of Mlle. Haroutounian. What would have been effective staging in a dramatically pointed performance became too many clumsy moves.
It was an evening of beautiful music and beautiful singing. Maybe you wanted more.
Michael Milenski
Casts and production information:
Floria Tosca: Lianna Haroutounian; Mario Cavaradossi: Brian Jagde; Baron Scarpia: Mark Delavan; Cesare Angelotti: Scott Conner; Sacristan: Dale Travis; Spoletta: Joel Sorensen; Sciarrone: Efrain Solis; Jailer: Hadleigh Adams. San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra. Conductor: Riccardo Frizza; Stage director: Jose Maria Condemi; Production designer: Thierry Bosquet; Lighting designer: Gary Marder. War Memorial Opera House, November 4, 2014, Row M.
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product_title=Tosca in San Francisco
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above:Lianna Haroutounian as Floria Tosca [All photos by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera]
November 6, 2014
Antonin Dvořák: The Cunning Peasant (Šelma Sedlák)
It is no Rusalka, let alone a match for Janáček, but, especially during the second act, there are both good music and fun to be had.
(Let us quickly pass over the truly dreadful overture; whatever was the composer thinking?) The librettist, Josef Otakar Veselý, perhaps does Dvořák few favours; as Jan Smaczny noted in his helpful programme note, ‘despite an avowed aim to transform the fate of Czech literature by producing drama which “did not resemble something written in the age of Shakespeare”,’ this twenty-three-year-old medical student ‘had little success with his work for the stage’. That said, he seems to have produced something, which, if anything but transformative, would have appealed to popular, national tastes, with its crowd peasant scenes and opportunity for dance. Parallels with The Marriage of Figaro have been drawn, but they are difficult to discern beyond the stock devices of an aristocrat who would seduce a serving girl and a plot to expose him. As Smaczny again observes, ‘the real focus of the plot is the fate of the couple, Jeník and Bĕtuska, and their love; the fact that this [their love] is the object of parental disapproval places the plot more in the realm of The Bartered Bride and The Kiss, than Figaro .’ There is certainly none of the characterisation that forms Mozart’s — and Da Ponte’s — eternal masterpiece.
Director Stephen Medcalf has, seemingly in part as a result of the opera’s dramatic weakeness, decided to move the action to Hardy’s Wessex, even going so far as to rename the characters. Jeník and Bĕtuska become Joseph and Bathsheba, and so on. No particular harm is done, though I am not quite sure that the effort was necessary. Perhaps it just made a performance in English translation easier, though Medcalf also alludes to ‘an attempt to avoid the potential hazard of generalised Slavic folksiness’. The only case in which I found the shift problematical — and, unless I have misunderstood, entirely unnecessarily so — was the transformation of Vacláv, the farmer’s son to whom Martin/Gabriel would have his daughter wed, into a Jewish merchant, Reuben. Having a Jewish character ‘humourously’ rejected by the girl, mocked by the crowd, and consoling himself with his money left a bitter taste in the mouth and struck me as the sort of thing that might have been better altered rather than introduced in an adaptation. Otherwise, Medcalf presents the action, potentially complicated plotting included, clearly, with attractive period designs and — a particular boon, this — highly effective changes of lighting from John Bishop.
Dominic Wheeler led the largely impressive orchestra with flair and tenderness. It was striking how voluptuous a sound the strings (10.8.6.6.3) could make during the ‘romantic’ sections of the second act. And if the opening could not be turned into anything especially interesting, the fault for that should lie with composer and librettist, certainly not with the performers. As the music became more interesting — could not some of the material for the scene around the Maypole have been reused for a better Overture? — so did the performance sparkle all the more. Dancers (Thomas Badrock, Jessica Lee, Claire Rutland, and Rahien Testa) from the Central School of Ballet made a fine mark here too.
Vocally, there was much to admire too, starting with a highly creditable choral contribution. Unfortunately, the central couple proved less impressive than the supporting cast, Lawrence Thackeray’s Joseph often highly strained and Laura Ruhi-Vidal struggling with her high notes in particular. However, Martin Hässler’s Prince/Duke made an excellent impression, suggesting a baritone of considerable music subtlety, nicely complimented by Alison Langer’s attractively-voiced Duchess. John Findon, a late substitution in the role of John, displayed excellent comedic and musical gifts alike, with Emma Kerr more than his dramatic match as Gabriel’s housekeeper, Victoria. Anna Gillingham, David Shipley, and Robin Bailey rounded off a spirited young cast, from many of whom I suspect we shall hear more.
Mark Berry
Cast and production information:
Bĕtuška (Bathsheba): Laura Ruhi-Vidal; Jeník (Joseph): Lawrence Thackeray; Martin (Gabriel): David Shipley; Václav (Reuben): Robin Bailey; Veruna (Victoria): Emma Kerr; Prince (Duke): Martin Hässler; Princess (Duchess): Alison Langer; Jean (John) — John Findon; Berta (Fanny): Anna Gillingham. Director: Stephen Medcalf; Set designs: Francis O’Connor; Lighting: John Bishop; Choreography: Sarah Fahie; Dancers from the Central School of Ballet/ Chorus and Orchestra of the Guildhall School/Dominic Wheeler (conductor). Silk Street Theatre, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, Wednesday 5 November 2014.
Click here for a podcast concerning this production.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Dvorak1.png image_description=Antonín Dvořák [Source: Wikipedia] product=yes product_title=Antonin Dvořák: The Cunning Peasant (Šelma Sedlák) product_by=A review by Mark Berry product_id=Above: Antonín Dvořák [Source: Wikipedia]Idomeneo, Royal Opera
Having witnessed the selfless sacrifices made by the Israelite Jephtha and his daughter on Sunday when Bampton Classical Opera performed Maurice Greene’s oratorioJephtha in Oxford, Monday evening offered more parental hand-wringing and filial steadfastness at Covent Garden where Mozart’s Idomeneo received its first new production for 25 years.
Directing for the first time at the Royal Opera House, Austrian director Martin Kušej has not unreasonably abandoned Classical authenticity for indistinct modernism (the programme book is full of photographs of Hurricane Katrina and Vietnam War images), but has devised an unsubtle and at times confusing production. Set designer Annette Murschetz lines the front of the stage with a square white frame (with gaping skylight), an oversized wood-panel door on the left-hand sidewall. Behind the frame, interlocking black and white walls create a series of cubes and spaces which revolve, and through which various half-glimpsed individuals wander — rather aimlessly, but creating a general sense of journeying and searching. Colour is used rather blatantly by lighting designer Reinhard Traub: Ilia is bathed in a sanctifying white glow; Elettra’s Act 1 aria heralds an aquamarine sheen; bringing news that Idomeneo has been lost at sea while returning to Crete from Troy, the King’s confidant Arbace is immersed in lurid lime green, misty dry ice inferring the toxic death of the kingdom. But while such tonal gesture might seem straightforwardly symbolic, there are motifs in this production that defying reason and sense. Why do eleven prepubescent boys in white knee-highs and gym vests appear in Elettra’s first aria? Why do the Cretans celebrate the survival and return of Idomeneo, at the end of Act 1 by raising aloft a rubber shark that looks as if it has been pilfered from a 1970s Hollywood disaster movie? In Act 3, the stage is often foreshortened by a white back wall with a gaping, blood-splattered oblong orifice, from which spews a flowing mound of gory rubbish — not a very auspicious platform from which Ilia must sing her appeal to the wind to carry her love to Idamante.
Krystian Adam as High Priest, Matthew Polenzani as Idomeneo and Franco Fagioli as Idamante
Before a note is heard, gleaming through the rain and storm surtitles tell us where we are and what has happened, a device employed at intervals throughout and a rather redundant one given that Mozart’s music, especially in the recitatives, fulfils this task admirably. As the overture strikes up, Idomeneo’s heavy mob, clad in menacing black and ray-bans (costumes, Heide Kastler) threaten and torture the captured Trojans, while the High Priest (a honey-voiced Krystian Adam) roams among them, weighed down by Gothic black locks, leather trench coat and gold bling — looking as if he has got lost on his way to a Hallowe’en rave. If the baddies and goodies are literally and figuratively signalled in black and white, then the populace are permitted a splash of warm Mediterranean ochres, olives and azure. Similarly, when he has charitably freed the Trojan prisoners, Idamante’s humanity is suggested by the replacement of his floor-length black coat with a coral cotton shirt; subsequently splashes of pinky red (Arbace’s dangling handkerchief, for example) expand into the encompassing red scarves and sheets draped around Ilia and the surrounding masses when she interposes herself as a sacrificial victim, thereby sparing Idamante’s life. With the intercession of The Voice, pronouncing that Idomeneo must cede the throne to Ilia and Idamante, a symbol which seemed to anticipate a bloody death is transformed into a medley of triumphal Roman togas as Ilia is borne off stage aloft — much like the shark.
American tenor Matthew Polenzani was sure and solid as Idomeneo; he acts with his voice (which is just as well as Kušej doesn’t give him much stage business), and uses his head voice to emotive effect. Polenzani shows that he can control his breathing, phrasing, trilling and power to considerable dramatic effect; and, in Act 3, Idomeneo’s final revelation of a real love for the son he cannot bear to kill and Polenzani’s gently murmured acceptance of his fate were greatly moving.
Sophie Bevan as Ilia
Idamante was fiercely performed by Argentinian countertenor Franco Fagioli, but the singer’s impressive and unusually wide range, and striking power and vocal agility, are weakened by poor verbal clarity and an unusually ‘soprano-like’ tone that not all will like and which did not blend well with Polenzani’s noble warmth or Sophie Bevan’s crystalline soprano.
Sophie Bevan was an outstanding Ilia. Stunning in diaphanous chiffon, in the opening Act 1 ‘Padre, germani, addio’ Bevan looked as pure as her silvery soprano sounded, even though she had to begin singing from a prone position which can hardly have been conducive to vocal ease and comfort. ‘Se il padre perdei’ was infinitely warm and elegant, but surprising accompanied by coquettish gestures which would surely have left Idomeneo unsure as to her intentions.
As Elettra, Swedish soprano Malin Byström was Bevan’s equal. Ordered by Idomeneo to depart for Argos with Idamante, Elettra waited with gleeful anticipation, her white cloak masking the temptress’s slinky black dress, though red leather gloves and stilettos reveal her seductive intent. When Elettra turns and pockets the key of the panelled door, Idamante’s lack of free will is made clear; and Byström’s plush, gleaming tone in ‘Idol mio’ made it impossible for Fagioli to resist. Byström tired a little in the elaborate passages in Act 2 and in Act 3 her final aria of torment ‘D'Oreste, d'Ajace ho in seno i tormenti’, though still dramatic and effectively alternating dejection with fury, she was less focused of tone, the phrasing sometimes a little breathless. But, this was still a striking portrayal by Byström.
Malin Byström as Elettra
As Arbace, French tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac was superb. Dressed in bobble-hat, lumberjack checked shirt, and sporting skew-whiff spectacles with one lens clumsily patched (the moral blindness of the King’s confidant?) and trailing a battered accordion (eh?), de Barbeyrac sang with unfailing beauty; his Act 2 aria, ‘Se il tuo duol’, in which Arbace tries to salve Idomeneo’s anxiety and advises that another sacrificee may be substituted for Idamante, was enchantingly expressive.
French conductor Marc Minkowski, making his house debut, conducted fluently creating an organic flow from number to number. An energetic presence in the pit, his baton often raised perhaps unnecessarily high for the benefit of the cast, Minkowski perhaps didn’t quite draw enough ‘punch’ from his players during the overture, especially given the thuggery on stage, but during the evening there was much fine playing. The string playing during the accompanied recitatives was full of character and there were some confident solos, not least from the bassoon during Idomeneo’s Act 2 ‘Fuor del mar’.
Because the action is so frequently pushed to the front of the stage, the singers can often do little more than stand and deliver — although there is some clichéd floor/wall-writhing. As Mozart’s choruses play a significant part in the action, this is something of a problem, but Kušej finds a ‘solution’, in static gesturing: thus, as thus the Cretans prepare to bid Idamante and Elettra farewell, they draw from flimsy white plastic bags some floppy fake fish and wave them about like plastic boats — it all feels more like ‘drowning not waving’ despite their favourable observations about the propitious calm sea. When there is busy stage movement the result is indistinctiveness, as when this leaving taking is interrupted by insurrection and the dramatic chaos results in the chorus losing touch with Minkowski’s beat.
If, despite the heavy-handed but often abstruse symbolism, we were in any doubt about the ‘meaning’ of Kušej’s ‘concept’, the slogan on the curtain which falls after The Voice’s intervention — sung with Commendatore-like resonance by bass Graeme Broadbent — makes things absolutely ‘clear’: ‘Utopias fall. Rebellions decay. The rulers remain. And the people grow colder. Rigid. Under the sign of Pisces.’ Then, during the closing ballet, the revolving stage reveals: first, Idamante (black-clad) presenting his new bride (in traditional white nuptial-wear) to his people, the bloody detritus now purified by a white sheet; second, the purposively posed prepubescents, equipped with pistols and Kalashnikovs; then, a return of the matrimonial pair, white sheet now daubed with trickling blood; and finally the chorus, attired for the operating theatre in scrub gowns and caps. The message: the wounds of the world can never be healed?
Kušej’s curtain call inspired a volley of boos. But, if one doesn’t try to work out what the accordion or the gaggle of school boys are all about, the production is worth seeing — or rather hearing — for the quality of the singing and the musical commitment of voices and instrumentalists alike. Just try to ignore the shark.
Claire Seymour
Cast and production information:
Idomeneo, Matthew Polenzani; Idamante. Franco Fagioli; Ilia, Sophie Bevan; Elettra, Malin Byström; Arbace, Stanislas de Barbeyrac; High Priest, Krystian Adam; Voice, Graeme Broadbent; Director, Martin Kušej; Conductor, Marc Minkowski; Set designs, Annette Murschetz; Costume designs, Heide Kastler; Lighting design, Reinhard Traub; Dramaturg, Olaf A. Schmitt; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; Royal Opera Chorus; Concert Master, Peter Manning. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Monday, 3rd November 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/2681ashm_0846%20copy%20POLENZANI%20AS%20IDOMENEO%20%28C%29%20ROH.%20PHOTOGRAPHER%20CATHERINE%20ASHMORE.png image_description=Matthew Polenzani as Idomeneo © ROH. Photographer Catherine Ashmore product=yes product_title=Idomeneo, Royal Opera product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Matthew Polenzani as IdomeneoPhotos © ROH. Photographer Catherine Ashmore.
November 5, 2014
Donizetti’s Les Martyrs — Opera Rara, London
Sir Mark Elder conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Opera Rara Chorus and soloists Michael Spyres, Joyce El-Khoury, David Kempster, Brindley Sherratt, Clive Bayley and Wynne Evans.
Donizetti’s Les Martyrs was premiered at the Paris Opera in 1840. The work was created in double-quick time and was based on his Italian opera Poliuto, which had been cancelled just before the premiere in Naples owing to the plot’s element of religious martyrdom. Such subjects were, however, standard territory for the Paris Opera and Donizetti was able to re-cast the work as a four-act French Grand Opera with ballet to a new libretto by Eugene Scribe.Though Donizetti kept much of the original music it was re-cast into the sort of forms expected by the rather prescriptive Paris Opera. The result is an opera which fascinatingly moves between French and Italian forms so that, for example, Sévère has a very Italian caballetta embedded in the very French grand choral finale to Act two.
It is a long work, Sir Mark Elder and his forces gave us well over three hours of music even without performing the ballet. And it is written on a large scale, for large forces. The orchestra fielded a complement of around 50 strings, double woodwind plus piccolo and four bassoons (which Donizetti used to lovely effect in the overture), four horns, four trumpets, four trombones and an off-stage banda for four trumpets and three trombones. The French kept valveless horns for far longer than anyone else, so the horns were all hand stopped and each had a bewildering array of crooks, and the trumpeters similarly had two or three different instruments.
Set in Roman Armenia, the opera opens with the baptism into Christianity of the general Polyeucte (Michael Spyres). But Christians are proscribed, and Polyeucte is married to Pauline (Joyce El-Khoury) who is daughter of the governor Félix (Brindley Sherratt). Félix is introducing new laws threatening execution on anyone who gets baptised. The resulting struggle between pagan and Christian, public duty and private belief, is exacerbated by the fact the the new proconsul come to prosecute the new anti-Christian laws is Sévère (David Kempster) whom Pauline once loved (and still does) but thought was dead on the battle field.
The plot provides plenty of the ceremonial opportunities necessary in French Grand Opera, processions in the dark in catacombs, a Roman triumph, pagan ceremonies and the final throwing of the Christians to the lions in the arena. Donizetti doesn’t try to re-invent or re-structure the tradition as Verdi would do, and the work is not the masterpiece that Rossini’s Guillaume Tell is, but the music here is rich and rewarding. And the very Italian cast to the melodic material makes for an additional frisson.
One of the key scenes, however, would be a problem for modern producers I think. Pauline visits Polyeucte in prison and after he prays, she receives a vision and converts miraculously to Christianity. Donizetti’s response is to write some lovely music, unfortunately Pauline responds musically with an elaborate waltz which sounds completely out of key emotionally (though El-Khoury sang it beautifully). But the more personal scenes are very strong, particularly the third act with its confrontations between Pauline and Sévère, Pauline and Polyeucte, the questioning of Polyeucte’s Christian friend Néarque (Wynne Evans) and finally Polyeucte;s revelation of his Christianity and triumphant cabaletta which concludes the act. This was Donizetti at his best.
The role of Polyeucte was written for Gilbert Duprez, one of the singers that effectively invented the modern tenor voice; taking the chest voice up to top C and banishing the elaborate falsetto coloratura that was common until then. Whilst heroic for its time, Polyeucte requires a singer who can combine heroics with stamina, sustaining the high tessitura of the role but still able to sing with finesse and flexibility. The American tenor Michael Spyres has sung quite a number of the tenor roles in the early 19th century French Grand Opera repertoire (we saw him in Auber’s La muette de Portici in Paris in 2012) and his performance as Polyeucte was nothing less than heroic. He sang with untiring burnished tone, giving us fine nobility of phrasing and some finely flexible decorative passages. Dramatically he brought strong commitment to the role, making it believable and certainly a lot more than just a string of arias and ensembles.
The role of Pauline varied between dramatic declamation and ravishingly elaborated coloratura; it seemed as if Pauline’s response to stress was to break out in roulades. El-Khoury not only sang these beautifully, but used her lovely smoky voice to give dramatic weight to Pauline’s more vehement moments. You could imagine the role being sung with more weight and bite, but the original Pauline was Julie Dorus-Gras who created Berlioz’s Teresa and Eudoxie in Halevy’s La Juive - both roles with roulades galore. Like Spyres, El-Khoury brought dramatic commitment as well as technical poise to create a highly sympathetic and ravishing performance.
David Kempster was brilliant as Sévère, deprived of his lover Pauline yet required to find clemency for her husband. Kempster let fly brilliantly in the cavatina and caballetta the are part of the act two finale, and elsewhere brought finesse and sympathy to the role. Brindley Sherratt thundered magnificently as the governor Félix, but this was not a one-sided performance and Sherratt showed the character’s sympathetic side in his interchanges with his daughter. On the other hand, all Clive Bayley’s character of Callisthènes was required to do was thunder and he did so magnificently too. Wynne Evans was Néarque, Polyeucte’s Christian friend. This is the second tenor role, required to hang around and sing duets with the tenor and generally start things off before the lead tenor gets the fireworks. Evans sang with some style and showed a real feeling of commitment as the Christian withstood the threats of torture.
The Paris Opera required operas to make good use of the chorus and there were plenty of opportunities here for the excellent Opera Rara Chorus, which was made up of both Christians and pagans. They sang with energy and verve, giving us some lovely detailed singing. Chorus members Rosalind Waters, Andrew Friendhoff and Simon Preece all provide strong support in small solo moments.
With a long, unfamiliar score the whole performance could have felt horribly flat but Mark Elder drew a stunning performance out of the orchestra, full of life and energy. They gave some really thrilling vital playing, with copious details articulated brilliantly so that the whole had real vitality. There were also some fine solo moments from individual players.
Les Martyrs is not a forgotten masterpiece, but it is by no means a write-off. The mature Donizetti’s first response to the challenge of writing French Grand Opera, it is a fascinating transitional work. Written on such a lavish scale, opportunities of seeing it even in concert are rare so Opera Rara are to be congratulated on being able to not only perform it but to do a studio recording as well. Mark Elder and his forces did the work proud and gave a thrillingly engrossing performance.
The performance was recorded for release on Opera Rara’s own CD label, available soon. For more details, visit the Opera Rara website. it will also be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Saturday 15th November at 6.15pm GMT.
Robert Hugill
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Michael%20Spyres%20%26%20Joyce%20El-Khoury_%28c%29%20Russell%20Duncan.png image_description=Michael Spyres and Joyce El-Khoury [Photo by Russell Duncan] product= product_title=Donizetti’s Les Martyrs — Opera Rara, London product_by=A review by Robert Hugill product_id=Above: Michael Spyres and Joyce El-Khoury [Photo by Russell Duncan]November 2, 2014
Luca Pisaroni in San Diego
The singer, who has been gradually expanding his operatic repertoire, has performed the Baroque roles of Maometto in Rossini’s Maometto II, Argante in Handel's Rinaldo and Pollux in Rameau's Castor et Pollux. American Mozart lovers, however, need not fear losing him. His first two American performances next year will be as Almaviva in San Francisco and Leporello at the Metropolitan Opera.
Most recently, Pisaroni, who now lives in Austria, has expressed a passion for German lieder. His San Diego recital at the La Jolla Atheneum was the fourth and last stop in an international German song tour in collaboration with pianist Wolfram Rieger. Their journey began on October 10 at Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw, and included performances in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Auditorium and the Vancouver Recital Society.
This was a generous program of songs by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert, which warmed up both vocally and emotionally as the evening progressed. The first Mozart songs found the singer a bit tentative and with slightly raspy low tones. With his voice warmed through the Mozart pieces, Mr. Pisaroni chose a lyrical, Italianate approach to them, producing flowing legato phrases, rather than coloring his voice to interpret words and emotion. The group of more dramatic Beethoven songs which followed, concluded with an ardent performance of 'Adelaide', and led into Mendelssohn songs and more exciting vocal territory. Mr. Pisaroni's full voiced and moving interpretation of Mendelssohn's 'Reiselied' (Traveler's Song), brought the first half of the program to a rousing conclusion..
The entire second half, which was devoted to Schubert - to songs inspired by Heine and Goethe's mostly despairing, melodramatic poetry - allowed Pisaroni to do what he does so effectively in opera - use his voice's range and color to portray strong emotions. From the first painful sledge hammer rhythms of 'Der Atlas' (Atlas), with which the song opens, Mr. Pisaroni interpretation conveyed the weightiness of the Titan's bitter lament on bearing the burden of the world and its sorrows. The singer brought control of voice and line, to 'Der Doppelgänger' (The Wraith), in which a lover has wretched visions of past torments. His 'Erlkönig' (The Erl King), that tempestuous and most theatrical of Schubert's songs, in which the singer must represent three different voices, rang with authority and conviction .
Vehement expressions of pain and sorrow come more easily into Pisaroni's voice than the quiet, inner variety. Songs with fewer apparent contrasts, be they rhythmic, melodic or other, though on equally painful, sorrowful subjects, have yet to engage him with the same intensity. Works such as the slowly paced, 'Am Meer' (By the Sea), with its long and often downward turning phrases, (a lover is lamenting that his lost beloved has poisoned him with her tears) would have benefited from deeper exploration of every word and every curve in its melodic line.
Mr. Pisaroni was not an animated recitalist. Lithe and amusing as he appears as Figaro, his body was still, and his hands quietly at his side. He wore a tight fitting garment with the lapels turned up toward his face, perhaps a bit too “buttoned up” for a warm San Diego evening.
Pianist Wolfram Rieger, always an accomplished and sensitive partner, provided a particularly memorable introduction to Beethoven's 'Lied aus der Ferne' (Song from Afar). I've enjoyed Mr. Rieger's performances with various singers in various venues in the past, but it seemed to me there was something unique about the sound of the great open Steinway piano in that small room, which allowed its 150 listeners to fully appreciate the virtuosity of the pianist's role in the recital.
How exotic in this day and age to have world two world renowned artists performing songs in a living room. This lover of the vocal arts was indeed grateful to Mr. Pisaroni, Mr. Rieger and the Atheneum for bringing San Diego this rare gift.
I would be remiss as a writer and translator if I did not comment appreciatively on the notes that Mr. Pisaroni and the Atheneum provided for the program notes. Not only were they informative, but most unusually (though I'm likely one of the very few people who noticed) the English translation of every poem cited the name of the translator.
Estelle Gilson
Program and performers:
Mozart: ‘Das Veilchen’, ‘Komm, liebe Zither’, ‘An Chloë, ‘Abendempfindung’; Beethoven: Lied aus der Ferne, Der Kuss, Zärtlicher Liebe , Adelaide, Mendelssohn: 'Neue Liebe', 'Gruss', 'Morgengruss' 'Allnächtlich in Traume', “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges' ,'Reiselied'; Schubert: 'Der Atlas', 'Ihr Bild', 'Der Fischermädchen' ,'Die Stadt','Am Meer', 'Der Doppelgänger', 'Auf dem See', 'Grenzen der Menschheit', 'Ganymed', 'Erlkönig','Wanderer's Nachtlied II'. Luca Pisaroni, bass-baritone; Wolfram Rieger, piano;. Atheneum, La Jolla, San Diego, California, October 28. 2014
image=http://www.operatoday.com/LucaPisaroni.png image_description=Luca Pisaroni [Photo by Marco Borggreve] product=yes product_title=Luca Pisaroni in San Diego product_by=A review by Estelle Gilson product_id=Above: Luca Pisaroni [Photo by Marco Borggreve]La bohème, ENO
Perhaps, you might say, that is as it should be; there is certainly an element of taste in such matters. However, it seems to me that a highly creditable desire to explore the darker elements — and they are hardly difficult to find! — in Puccini’s opera is somewhat undone by moments closer to farce. The greyness of an imagined Paris inspired by Cartier-Bresson works very well, Isabella Bywater’s designs in themselves a great visual strength, waiting to be relieved by brief, or at least relatively brief, moments of colour. Café Momus makes a particular impression in that respect. However, I could not help but wonder whether some of the things — entrances, concealment, and so on — one sees going on around the sets would be better left unseen. Elements of ‘surprise’ — yes, many of us know the opera all too well, but that is a different matter — are lost, without the ‘workings’ adding anything genuinely new. Still, it is a relief not to have anything too sugary; the last thing Puccini of all composers needs is sentimentalising. Doubtless I have been spoilt by seeing Stefan Herheim’s urgently compelling version on DVD: the only staging of this work that has really revealed anything at all to me. Recommended to Puccini-lovers and —sceptics alike, indeed to anyone who believes that opera can and should be something more than a tired museum piece.
A few more serious drawbacks prevented the evening from having had the impact it might have done. Amanda Holden’s translation started off poorly and, if anything, got worse. It managed both to be vaguely ‘after’ the libretto and dreadfully anti-musical. Italian suffers worse than most languages by translation into English, but the task can be accomplished much better than this. This was a version only for those who might think there is something ‘edgy’ about people randomly singing the word ‘bastards’. But then, perhaps a selfish — or hard-of-hearing? — audience happy to applaud throughout, and indeed before the orchestra had stopped playing at the ends of acts was genuinely enthralled or even shocked by such banalities. Moreover, Gianluca Marcianò’s charmless conducting helped nothing or no one. The first act in particular seemed devoid of life. I struggled in vain to hear anything throughout the evening that would vindicate Puccini’s symphonic ambition. Instead, phrases followed one after another, quite unconnected. The ENO Orchestra, on generally excellent form, both pointed and luscious where permitted, deserved far better.
So too did the cast: probably the principal reason to catch this revival. There was a good sense of ensemble between the singers, which will doubtless only increase as the run progresses. Individually, there is much to admire too. David Butt Philip really presented Rodolfo as a credible character, not a mere opportunity to sing. The conflicts within his soul, cowardice and self-absorption vying with a genuine if ‘poetic’ aspiration towards something nobler, came across with considerable subtlety. Angel Blue seemed slightly stilted to start with, but quickly grew into the role of Mimì. Her vocal allure is by now reasonably well known; it did not disappoint. However, a little more attention at times to words and their implications would have deepened the impression. If George von Bergen was somewhat stiff as Marcello, the other students impressed; Barnaby Rea’s Colline and the Schaunard of George Humphreys helped to create a proper sense of milieu and preoccupation from which Rodolfo could emerge. Jennifer Holloway’s Musetta very much looked the part, but the top of her range proved uncomfortably strident, even squally. Andrew Shore, however, proved luxury casting as Benoît and Alcindoro, vivid portrayals them both.
Mark Berry
Cast and production information:
Marcello: George van Bergen; Rodolfo: David Butt Philip; Colline: Barnaby Rea; Schaunard: George Humphreys; Benoît, Alcindoro: Andrew Shore; Mimì: Angel Blue; Parpignol: Philip Daggett; Musetta: Jennifer Holloway; Policeman: Paul Sheehan; Foreman: Andrew Tinkler. Jonathan Miller (director); Natascha Metherell (revival director); Isabella Bywater (designs); Jean Kalman, Kevin Sleep (lighting). Chorus (chorus master: Genevieve Ellis) and Orchestra of the English National Opera/ Gianluca Marcianò (conductor). Coliseum, London, Wednesday 29 October 2014.
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Florian Boesch, Wigmore Hall - Liszt, Strauss and Schubert
In Lieder, it's not enough just to sing well. A true Lieder artist conveys meaning not only through words but through the way the music connects to ideas. Composers often set poets who were contemporary or near contemporary. Lieder was an art form for people who were fairly well read and interested in intellectual discourse. Boesch is maturing beautifully. His lower register has a rich, burnished sheen, enhancing the natural agility in his voice. Yet what makes Boesch, for Lieder specialists, the most exciting singer of his generation is the way he combines musical instincts with intelligence.
Liszt's Lieder are the songs of a composer whose true voice lives in the piano. Texts matter, but though they don't fly with the effortless glory of Schubert and Schumann. Boesch's commitment to meaning enhances balance. In Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam (S309/1, c 1855) the piano's sparkling, twinkling figures describe snowfall and starlight, a lovely image. For Liszt, though, the atmosphere is magic, and we marvel in its beauty. Heine's poem, however, is ironic. The spruce is alone, dissociated from its environment, and dreams of a palm tree "fern im Morgenland". How can this be, botanically ? The unsentimental firmness of Boesch's delivery reminds us that this isn't a "nature" song. With hardly a pause, Boesch and Martineau began Es muß ein Wunderbares sein (S34 1857). (What a miracle it must be, when two souls are entwined by love.) Oskar von Redwitz, the poet, doesn't have Heine's acerbic bite, but the two songs enhance each other when done as a pair. Like the image of the trees! Boesch and Martineau followed with O Lieb'; so lang du lieben kannst (S298/2 1843-50, Ferdinand Freiligrath).(O Love, as long as you are able) Liszt's lilting, circular figures suggest continuity, but Boesch doesn't minimize the pain in the last strophe "Bald ist ein bõses Wort gesatg! O gott ! " (pause) "es war bõs gemeint!" (an even more pained pause) "Der ander aber geht und klagt". Boesch sings the word "klagt" so the hard consonants tear, as if the lover's heart is being ripped. The pretty postlude now seems to emphasize the lover's desolation.
Loreley, (S273/11841) is thus enhanced. "Ich weiss nicht, was so esbedeuten" writes Heine "dass ich so traurig bin", when he describes the Lorelei combing her lovely hair with a golden comb, luring boatmen to their deaths. The delicacy of Boesch's singing echoed the maiden's beauty, and made me, at least, wonder if she. too, might be feeling pain: perhaps she doesn't want to kill, perhaps she's doomed, too, if she dreams of love. In Vergiftet sind mein Lieder (S289/1844-9, Heine) (My songs are poisoned), the poet blames his bitterness on his lover who poured poison into his "blühende Leben". Again, the imagery of doomed youth and nature. "Serpents dwell in my heart", the poem continues "und dich, Geliebte mein". The poem is "poisoned" but the beauty of Boesch's singing emphasized the love that inspired it.
Boesch and Martineau ended with Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh' (S306/2 1859, Goethe). The Romantiker turmoil of the earlier songs dissolves into Goethe's image of stillness."warte nur, warte nur, Ruhest du auch". Not so much rest, as death. For an encore, Boesch sang Schubert's setting of the same poem. "So I don't have to learn the same words twice", he said with a grin. Liszt's setting is more solemn than Schubert's. but the words "warte nur" are repeated so often, even accompanied by the tolling of "bells" in the piano part, that the effect is depersonalized. Schubert's Wandrers Nachtlied (D768) is more subtle, more magical, and more mysterious. With this unusual combination, Boesch,and Martineau made a case for Liszt as a composer of true Lieder in the Romantic tradition, yet also made us appreciate Liszt as a pianist who wrote art song.
For their selection of songs by Richard Strauss, Boesch and Martineau restricted themselves to early works from the period 1885-9, with one song from four years later. Again, heard together, the songs form an unusual set with insight into the development of Strauss as composer of Lieder, as opposed to composer of sublime art songs. Adolphe Friedrich von Schack (1815-94) was a pillar of Munich's artistic establishment. In Breit' über mein Haupt (op 19/2 1888), a beauty lets her dark hair fall over the face of her lover and blocks out the world beyond. Consider the similarities between Schack's poem and Paul Heyse's translation of the Spanish poem, In dem Schatten meinen Locken, set by Brahms and by Hugo Wolf at almost the same time as Strauss set von Schack. Both poets were fascinated by the East and the dreams it symbolized. One can hear what a young Münchener like Strauss would have responded to. This was the era from which the Munich Secession evolved, with its ethos of exoticism, modernity and freedom. In this song, perhaps one can think ahead to Strauss's collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
Boesch and Martineau performed two songs to poems by Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg (1812-64), Die Nacht (op 10/3 ) and Allerseelen (op 10/8, 1885). Boesch sang Die Nacht with refinement and brought elegant poise to Allerseelen. Martineau's gentle playing evoked the "duftenden Reseden", the last flowers of summer, and the image of secret, silent glances, amplified by Boesch's immaculate phrasing and hushed tones. In contrast, Boesch and Martineau presented two other songs, All' mein Gedanlen (op 21/1 1889 Felix Dahn) and Ruhe meine Seele! (op 27/1, 1894, Karl Henkell). Strictly speaking All' mein Gedanlen isn't a "new" song but a Minnelied first published in the Lochamer Liederbuch of 1460. Like the more famous version by Johannes Brahms in his 49 Volkslieder (1994), Strauss's version respects the pure, clean lines. Boesch can do simplicity as well as richness.
Strauss's Ruhe, mein Seele (op 27/1 1894, Karl Henkell) is so lovely that it could rank with Wolf, yet is so ahead of its time that we can hear in it the germ of later Strauss. It could be a companion piece to Vier letzte Lieder both in subject and the maturity of its style. A few discreet but emphatic chords from the piano from whence the voice part emerges. The vocal phrases are short, six or eight measures in each line, the piano part equally restrained. Martineau's piano sang short, sparkling figures, describing the sunshine which steals through the dark canopy of leaves in the silent wood, where "nicht ein Lüftchen regt sich leise". In this song. a singer can't hide. Boesch sang with absolute sincerity, each word clear and emotionally direct.
Boesch and Martineau completed their recital with a selection of Schubert Lieder, exquisiitely and intelligently performed, as always. But the real surprises of the evening were the Liszt and Strauss sets, very well chosen and presented, which revealed so much about the composers and their niche in the genre .
Anne Ozorio
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November 1, 2014
Wexford Festival 2014
At a ceremony marking the launch of the 63rd Festival, Ireland’s Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphrey, announced the renaming of the award-winning Wexford Opera House as Ireland’s National Opera House — no longer will Ireland by the only country in the EU not to possess a ‘National Opera House’.
In the words of WFO Chief Executive David McLoughlin, ‘This landmark development of official recognition of Ireland’s National Opera House will help secure a legacy in opera in Ireland for generations to come, but perhaps more importantly deservedly recognises the State’s previous significant investment [the Department of Arts has invested more than €31 million in the Wexford Opera House] in the creation of what has been internationally acclaimed as ‘the best small opera house in the world’.’ No doubt the finer details of the ‘partnership’ still need to be bashed out, but this state endorsement can only be good news for WFO, adding to the optimism generated by the news of a 10% increase in ticket sales this year, with almost 90% cent of the 21,500 tickets the three main-stage operas, Short Works, lunchtime recitals and other performances reported sold at the start of the Festival. WFO is now well-placed to continue its cultural mission to raise awareness of Irish opera production at home and abroad; to support the careers of burgeoning singers, designers and directors; and, of course, to evangelise for operas which have been lost, unloved and over-looked.
Marie-Ève Munger as Rosa and Filippo Fontana as Don Bucefalo
Antonio Cagnoni’s comic caper, Don Bucefalo (seen on Thursday 23rd October), is one such neglected rarity. Composed as a graduation piece, it premiered on 28th June 1847 at the Milan Conservatory and demonstrates the teenage Cagnoni’s slick facility with contemporary Italian operatic idioms, as the nineteen-year-old student pays skilful homage to his masterful ottocento forebears. With echoes of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (the eponymous con-man is peddling musical elixirs rather than love potions) and Rossini’sIl barbiere di Siviglia (the singing lesson scenes remind one of Rosina’s show-stopping number), it’s easy to see why Don Bucefalo was an instant success in 1847; snapped up by music publisher Giovanni Ricordi, the work triumphed across Italy. Yet, while Cagnoni (1828-96) composed more than a dozen more operas after this his third essay in the genre, posterity has remarked little more than his contribution to the composite mass written in memory of Rossini in 1869.
The score is ear-pleasing, if ultimately the melodies prove unmemorable. The ‘plot’ is similarly insubstantial (the libretto by Calisto Bassi was based on Giuseppe Palmoba’s Le cantatrice villane). Don Bucefalo, a pompous chorus master, arrives in town and wants to put on a performance of his new opera. He promises the locals — budding singers, thespians and artistes — that their voices are magnificent but untrained, and that his coaching will turn them into stars, initiating fierce competitive rivalry between Rosa and Agata who both think they deserve to be the prima donna. Singing lessons and rehearsals ensue, and the theatrical resentments are equalled by amorous jealousies as Rosa is pursued by three ardent admirers, one of whom turns out to be her 'dead’ husband (disguised and home from the wars). There’s much silly business, and ‘busyness’, but it all works out alright in the end. As ’theatre about theatre’, Don Bucefalo may not challenge Michael Frayn’s Noises Off or Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, but in the hands of director Kevin Newbury and his set designer Victoria (Vita) Tzykun it makes for a jaunty evening — a highly professional celebration of the absurdly ‘amateur’.
Newbury sets the opera in a 1980-ish multi-purpose recreation centre, equipped with a small stage, a café, and various sporting and theatrical apparatus, including a climbing frame, basketball hoop and stacks of gaudy plastic chairs. Primary colours clash loudly but cheerfully (in a programme article, Newbury explains that he was recalling the community centres in Maine where he himself rehearsed countless am dram productions during his youth). A raised office on the left of the stage allows for the clichés of romancing and snooping to be indulged. And, the stage is cluttered with home-made props and scenery: the cut-out flowers, sparkly suns and moons, and over-sized clouds — as well as an outmoded Casio keyboard and a decidedly ‘square’ cotton-wool sheep — wittily accessorise the musical numbers.
Cagnoni’s score places considerable emphasis on the ensembles and Newbury is inventive in marshalling the large chorus, whether they are participating in a gentle aerobics warm-up or show-casing their ‘talents’ — as conjurors, dancers, acrobats, ventriloquists, sock-puppeteers and the like — in a bid for glory in Don Bucefalo’s new show.
The principals all acquitted themselves well. As Rosa, the Québecian soprano Marie-Ève Munger sparkled with diva-like presence; her full, rich soprano gained in suppleness and sumptuousness the higher it climbed, and at the very top it gleamed with a silvery shine, yet in her Act I (Bellini-indebted) cavatina, she showed that she can shape an affecting line too. Accompanied by pianist Sonia Ben-Santamaria, Munger similarly balanced lyricism and coloratura brilliance in a French repertoire-dominated lunchtime recital, in which the caressing, long-breathed melodies of Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne were complemented by the lucidity of Debussy and the suavity of 1940s’ Gallicism. Here she was a winning prima donna, by turns sensuous and crystalline according to dramatic context — it’s no surprise that Rosa has at least three enamoured devotees hot on her heels.
As Don Marco — the petulant, envious neighbour who resents the success of Don Bucefalo’s musical seduction of Rosa — Italian tenor Davide Bartolucci swept through the nonsense patter of the Act 1 finale with aplomb (full marks for Jonathan Burton’s hilarious translation), fiery fury and crisp articulation proving preposterous but hysterical bedfellows. Tenor Matthew Newlin revealed a sweet lyricism, a self-knowing sense of humour, and many a well-shaped diminuendo as the Count di Belprato, while Peter Davorin brought a ring of authoritative clarity to the role of Carlino (Rosa’s husband, posing as his own brother). Irish soprano Jennifer Davis was dramatically convincing as Agata, and successfully conveyed genuine emotional depths in her Act 3 cavatina.
But, the success of the production was primarily indebted to the consummate musical and dramatic skill of Italian bass Filippo Fontano in the title role. Last year, I noted that as Beaupertuis, in Nino Rota’s Il Capello Di Paglia Di Firenza, Fontana ‘stayed the right side of parody and his focused bass baritone brought some depth to the role’; this year he was superlative in balancing Don Bucefalo’s bombast and genuine self-belief. The music-master’s ‘real-time’ rehearsal of the Wexford Festival Opera orchestra and the scatter-brained performance which followed were an absolute scream; he called for naïve effects and colours — a dash of fortissimo here, a squeal from the piccolo there — gradually building his score (which literally unravelled like a concertina paper trail across the forestage), adding instruments and timbres one by one, until he achieved the climax: three bars of rising triplets from the whole orchestra that sound amazingly like heart-tugging Verdi. No wonder Cagnoni’s opera-going contemporaries lapped it up.
Spanish conductor Sergio Alapont was impressively collected and commanding in the pit. Conducting the Wexford Festival Opera with brio and clarity, Alapont managed the breakneck tempi with unruffled éclat, and made the busy score dance nimbly. ‘Totally bonkers yet immensely entertaining’ best sums up both the opera and Newbury’s production.
If Don Bucefalo suggests that a good song can bring a community together, then the Pulitzer prize-winning Silent Night by composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell dramatically depicts the power of music to bring about peace between warring factions (24th October). First seen in November 2011 in Minnesota, Silent Night is based upon Christian Caron’s screenplay for director Christophe Rossignon’s 2005 film, Joyeux Noël, about the WW1 Christmas truce of December 1914.
Philip Horst and Ryan Ross
Rossignon presents the horror of war as experienced through the private stories of individual soldiers who face each other in the trenches. When Jonathan Dale’s older brother William is killed, Jonathan is overcome by guilt at leaving his brother’s body unburied on no-man’s-land, and the young Scottish recruit vows vengeance. In a village in occupied France, only a short distance from the front line, Madeleine Audebert gives birth to a child while her husband, Lieutenant Audebert, struggles to bravely lead his men and put aside his anguished longing for his absent wife and unknown child. In Germany, an opera performance by esteemed tenor Nikolaus Sprink and his lover, the Danish soprano Anna Sørensen, is interrupted by a German officer announcing the commencement of hostilities and the calling up of reservists. After five months of war, a truce comes about on Christmas Eve, when the Scottish regiment’s bag-piping and carols are heard by the French and German soldiers, lying in their trenches just yards away. Sprink has just returned from a performance at the Crown Prince’s residence (a recital which had been arranged, somewhat improbably, by Anna to enable the lovers to spend one more night together); now, he is urged by Anna (who, even more improbably has accompanied him back to the front line) to sing for his comrades. A Scottish piper joins in as Sprink’s powerful rendition of ‘Stille Nacht’ rings across the corpse-strewn no-man’s-land. The commanding officers agree a cessation of fighting: food and drink are exchanged, a football game ensues — only Jonathan remains aloof, unmoved, stymied by grief. Later, reprimanded by their superior officers for cowardice and fraternising with the enemy, the regiments are transferred to other points on the front line; as the Germans depart for Eastern Prussia, they hum a carol they have learned from the Scots.
Campbell sticks closely to the original screenplay. The text is simplified as necessary (it takes longer to sing words than to speak them) but essentially the characters and events are retained, although there are some small changes of emphasis: for example, the relationship between Nikolaus and Anna is (appositely) less sentimental than in the film (although Anna’s appearance in the trenches is no more credible…). Herein lies the problem, though: for, in following the action and actual text of the film so faithfully, Puts and Campbell have not so much created something ‘new’ — a musico-dramatic form and medium which can ‘tell its story’ through the score — but rather have produced a musical accompaniment to the original film. Certainly, Puts’ can find the notes and colours to capture the tenor of any given moment, and wonderful solos from the cello, horn and harp powerfully sway our emotions. One of the most affecting moments comes in the ‘aria’ in which Audebert reviews the number of French casualties while daydreaming about his wife back home, leading him to question the validity of the entire war: a repeating three-note harp motif is supported by gently shifting harmonies, evoking a reflective tenderness which contrasts starkly with the carnage outside Audebert’s bunker. One longs for more of this sort of ‘operatic’ moment, and a greater restructuring of the screenplay to allow the musico-dramatic forms to communicate ‘meaning’. But, more frequently Puts’ score does not take us ‘inside’ the characters and situations in this way.
Sinead Mulhern and cast of Silent Night
Presenting the annual Dr Tom Walsh lecture, on the morning of 25th October, in response to a question from an audience member Puts and Campbell explained why they had titled their opera Silent Night but had not included the actual carol in the score: they made the decision that all the music should be original (thus Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ and Bach’s ‘Bist du bei mir’ as performed by Anna and Nikolaus — and sung in the film by Natalie Dessay and Rolando Villazón — are also replaced by original music). Feeling that the pun works best if we do not hear ‘Stille Nacht’ itself, Puts emphasised that the ‘silence was the point’. Fair enough; but I can’t help feeling that a shift of musical register, from Puts’ personal idiom to a set-piece song, would have produced the same sort of magical transformation that Sprink’s carol singing effects in the film, highlighting the power of song to salve and unite. In fact, Puts does achieve this sense of unity in the notable ensemble for the five principals which ends the Prologue, where three languages blend in a chorus of war songs.
Campbell’s libretto is fittingly sparse and economical, but at times the libretto seems almost too spare: the most powerful lines are often drawn directly from the screenplay but, pared down, they can lack inference and depth, even seeming banal. Rossignon’s moments of black humour — ‘grim gaiety’ is perhaps an apt term — can occasionally seem trivial in the opera, where relationships are only sketched and some of the bitter irony of the film is lost. Thus, in the film Horstmayer, the Jewish German Lieutenant, remarks that it is no wonder that his French is better than Audebert’s German, for the latter does not have a German wife, a telling detail which the audience thoughtfully absorb, appreciating the numerous ironic implications. In Campbell’s the libretto, the inferences in Horstmayer’s statement are transformed into a straightforward piece of information that the German officer is married to a French woman. Perhaps such directness is necessary in opera, but something of the moving resonance of the film is lost. Similarly, it would be easy in the darkness of the final scene, to overlook the fact that it is Jonathan Dane who, in his angry misery, kills Ponchel, the wry French aide-de-camp who has been such a strong support to Audebert: in the cinema, the moment when Audebert hears Ponchel’s trusty alarm clock ringing and rushes from the trench to learn that the dying Frenchman, aided by a German soldier who has lent him a uniform, has visited his mother, to share a familiar morning coffee, and has learned that Audebert has a son named Henri, is distressingly poignant.
I have to allow, though, that my misgivings did not seem to be shared by the Wexford audience, who gave the performance on 24th October a standing ovation. There were screenings of Joyeux Noël in the Jerome Hynes Theatre on days of Silent Night performances, and I suspect that my reaction to the opera was influenced by the fact that I had seen Rossignon’s film just hours before! There is no denying that there are many touching moments in Puts’ score, or that the opera communicates a rich range of emotions: thus, the affecting farewell scene for Audebert and his wife is brutally swept aside by a vivid and disturbing depiction of physical combat. Puts melds different musical idioms with skill and can move slickly from the harmonious recreation of a Mozartian opera scene to the jolting shudders and violent cacophony of battle. There are imitation folk songs with bagpipe accompaniment (played by James Stone), a pastiche Latin Mass, even a fugue as the German soldiers decorate their bunker with the Tannenbäume sent by the Kronprinz.
Moreover, the Wexford cast serve Puts well, injecting character and passion into their arioso lines. As Nikolaus Sprink, tenor Chad Johnson reprised the role he performed at Fort Worth in May; impressive of stature, Johnson’s ardent tone and sure upper register did much to establish Sprink as a three-dimensional character, fraught with inner conflicts and anxiety. Horstmayer’s dilemmas in many ways embody the opera’s central moral conflicts, and Johnson’s American compatriot Philip Horst used his dark bass-baritone well to convey the complexities which disturb the Jewish German officer’s sense of duty.
Matthew Worth brought a nostalgic warmth to Audebert’s reflections; his sensitive phrasing and well-centred baritone suggested the honour and honesty of the French Lieutenant, and Worth and Dutch baritone Quirijn de Lang as Ponchel established a strong relationship, the latter adding just the right touch of irrepressibility and charm to his portrayal of the ‘best barber in Lens’.
Irish baritone Gavan Ring was strong as the Scottish officer, Lieutenant Gordon, while Jonathan Dale’s distress and bitter despair was powerfully conveyed by tenor Alexander Sprague, the light sweetness of his tone suggesting the brave Scot’s youthful vulnerability. The almost entirely male world of the opera was alleviated by Sinéad Mulhern’s bracing presentation of the strong-willed Anna, which was complemented by Kate Allen’s sympathetic Madeleine Audebert, the latter’s sumptuous mezzo inspiring empathy and understanding.
Director Tomer Zvulun and set designer Erhard Rom divide the Wexford stage vertically, so that we see the three regiments stacked above one another; this is an ingenious design which allows us to witness simultaneous actions and experiences. In particular, the gradual drawing down of a grey curtain as the ‘disgraced’ regiments are sent to different points on the front line was powerfully evocative of the deaths which surely await them. In the pit, conductor Michael Christie did much to highlight the lyricism of the score.
Silent Night is Kevin Puts’ first opera. A review of the July 2014 Cincinnati production in Classical Voice North America reported that Puts had remarked during a panel discussion that he had watched parts of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan for inspiration. The young composer is currently working with Campbell on a second opera, based on Richard Condon’s political thriller, The Manchurian Candidate, which will be premiered in March 2015 at Minnesota Opera, and one hopes that as he becomes more familiar with the genre, Puts will rely less obviously on cinematic forms and exploit more directly and fully the potential of operatic structures and means; this will also surely allow him to further develop his own distinctive voice.
Most opera-lovers will know that Oscar Wilde’s French play Salomé inspired Richard Strauss’s 1905 opera (the libretto was based on Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of Wilde, which was itself inspired by Flaubert’s Hérodias), but more recently I was intrigued to find that the seventeenth-century Italian, Alessandro Stradella, had offered a Baroque take on the infamous Herod/John the Baptist/Salome triangle in his 1675 ‘oratorio’ San Giovanni Battista [see my review of the performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in June]. Now Wexford Festival Opera has drawn our attention to yet another Salomé: Antoine Mariotte’s one-act opera, also to a libretto based on Wilde. Indeed, Mariotte began composing his opera before Strauss, but it was not premiered until 1908, in Grand-Théâtre de Lyon, three years after Strauss’s Dresden performance.
Rosetta Cucchi’s production is fairly straightforward; the stage is awash with amber and ochre textiles and light, and set designer Tiziano Santi has crafted a series of proscenium arches which recede into the veiled hinterland. Hérodias’ Page (sung with poise and a fluid legato line by mezzo-soprano Emma Watkinson) is omnipresent. Given that almost all of the audience will be familiar with the tale, there is no real dramatic tension in Mariotte’s work: the libretto is structured as a series of tableaux, with an intense focus on the eponymous debauchee, and Wexford’s decision to interrupt this sequence of short scenes with a 30-minute interval is questionable.
In the title role, the Israeli mezzo-soprano Na’ama Goldman revealed a lustrous, appealing tone, but occasionally she lacked the power and stamina to project through and above Mariotte’s rather dense orchestration, with its often low-lying, polyphonic complexities. The infamous ‘Dance’ was less than seductive, but this was not entirely Goldman’s fault, as Mariotte’s music seems, oddly, at its least exotic at this point; in addition, Vittorio Colella’s choreography relied too much (here and throughout the opera) on disengaging writhing and squirming. We were at least spared a gory head, a silver crown substituting for the Baptist’s bloody skull.
Strangely, Mariotte’s opera does not feature a soprano role; both Hérodias and Salomé are cast as mezzos. Nora Sourouzian (who made such a strong impression in last year’s Massenet double bill —) made much of Hérodias’ brief but characterful appearances. Similarly, the lunchtime recital that the French-Canadian mezzo-soprano offered with pianist Carmen Santoro show-cased Sourouzian’s affinity with tragic, lyrical repertoire: particularly impressive was Berlioz’s La Mort de Cléopatre (the first time that Sourouzian had performed the work in public) in which the mezzo soprano demonstrated her dramatic nous (especially her ability to ground Berlioz’s more histrionic tendencies) and velvety tone to splendid effect. As Mariotte’s queen, Sourouzian was a vibrant, emotionally intense Hérodias, and her vocal splendour was pleasingly complemented by Scott Wilde’s authoritative, attractive Hérode; but, it was the shining baritone of Igor Golovatenko’s Iokanaan which was the stand-out performance of the evening. Golovatenko’s striking on-stage presence was matched by the beauty of his dark timbre, confirming the strong impression he made last year at Wexford, as Gustavo in the award-winning production of Foroni’s Cristina, regina di Svezia.
David Angus inspired strong orchestral playing and the Wexford Festival Orchestra captured the poetic, symboliste intensity of Mariotte’s score with considerable accomplishment. But, while one lauds Wexford’s continuing support for the underdog, this is a Salomé which need not dance again.
In addition to the three main-stage production, WFO offered its usual complement of concerts, recitals and Short Works. The latter were housed in White’s Hotel this year, and while there were clearly economic restraints operating, the varied repertory performed was no less rewarding. Best of the bunch was director Robert Recchia’s witty version of Rossini’s La Cenerentola (25th October) — a master-class in how to mount an opera with just a tatty chair and cinema reel to set the scene. Recchia demonstrated his creative ingenuity last year, with a L’elisir d’amore that I described as ‘ingenious, transferring the action to a modern-day Irish Karaoke bar — one of the virtues of which was to provide a naturalistic raison d’être for surtitles!’ Recchia made use of visual media again, but if he might be accused of pursuing a single idea, he certainly justified his approach, setting Rossini’s ‘fairy-tale’ in the very prosaic world of 1930s cinema and utterly convincing with his ‘concept’. Don Magnifico — an ebullient Davide Bartolucci — is the proprietor of Magnifico’s motion picture emporium, his daughters Clorinda and Tisbe are rather over-dressed usherettes, while Angelina — Rossini’s ‘Cinders’ — sweeps the aisles. Stepping through the video-projections, the characters persuasively move between reality and artifice.
In the title role, Kate Allen revealed a strikingly rich mezzo register, the ability to climb to the stratosphere, and astonishing flexibility and accuracy in the virtuosic coloratura: a diva in the making. Rebecca Goulden (Clorinda) and Kristin Finnigan (Tisbe) gave engaging performances, while Eamonn Mulhall was an appealing Prince Ramiro, his tenor soft and caressing, and his upper register secure and unforced. Filippo Fontana made another welcome appearance as Dandini, and the male quartet which formed the chorus (tenors Peter O’Donohue and Jon Valender, and baritones Ciarán Wootten and Matthew Kellett) were efficiently marshalled by Recchio. At the keyboard, music director Gregory Ritchey negotiated the fistfuls of notes — although occasionally his impetuous singers left him straggling — and as Rossini morphed effortlessly into 1940s be-bop, one might be forgiven for thinking that one had imbibed too much of Ramiro’s champagne!
Puccini’s Il Tabarro provided a tragic contrast on 24th October. If Dafydd Williams’ concept — ‘White’s Hotel enables us to bring this piece to life in exciting and engaging ways. As part of the production you will find yourselves sitting in the hold of the barge as the narrative unfolds on the barge in front of and around you’ — proved rather more fanciful than Rossini’s romance, there was certainly much powerful and moving singing on display. Quentin Hayes was a complex and intriguing Michele, while Alexandros Tsilogiannis sang the role of Luigi with total conviction, if at times he struggled with the demands Puccini makes on the tenor’s uppermost range. Maria Kozlova gave a credible interpretation of the role of Giorgetta, and Stuart Laing (Tinca) and Andrew Tipple (Talpa) captured the weary laissez-faire of the poverty-stricken dock-workers.
A double bill of Holst and G&S completed the trio of Short Works (23rd October). In the latter’s Trial by Jury, Nicholas Morris was a fittingly aloof ‘Learned Judge’, well-served by his distinctive court Usher, Ashley Mercer. Irish-Canadian soprano, Johane Ansell, gave a confident, accomplished performance as ‘The Plaintiff’, while Italian-Canadian tenor Riccardo Iannello was a sympathetic ‘Defendant’. Director Conor Hanratty moved the ensemble of bridesmaids and gentleman of the jury neatly around the small stage, and the deft choreography contributed to the fluency of the performance. Holst’s The Wandering Scholar preceded the G&S carry-ons, but despite strong singing from Gavan Ring (as the disreputable Father Philippe) and Peter Davoren as the scholar Pierre who thwarts the Father’s plans for seductions and assignations, the work failed to convince. The married couple, Louis and Alison, were purposively sung by a clear-voiced Jamie Rock and bright-toned Chloe Morgan respectively, but this medieval bedroom farce felt rather lightweight.
Looking ahead, WFO will follow its acclaimed 2012 production of Delius’s A Village Romeo and Juliet with the composer’sKoanga in 2015, partnered by Mascagni’s Guglielmo Ratcliff and Ferdinand Hérold’s Le Pré aux clercs. So, as usual, there should be something for everyone.
Claire Seymour
Casts and production information:
Mariotte: Salomé
Salomé, Na’ama Goldman; Hérodias, Nora Sourouzian; Hérode, Scott Wilde; Iokanaan, Igor Golovatenko; Page, Emma Watkinson; Le Jeune Syrien, Eamonn Mulhall; First Soldier, Nicholas Morris; Second Soldier, Jorge Navarro-Colorado; director, Rosetta Cucchi; conductor, David Angus; set designer, Tiziano Santi; costume designer, Claudio Pernigotti; lighting designer, DM Wood; choreographer, Vittorio Colella; stage manager, Conor Murphy.
Cagnoni: Don Bucefalo
Don Bucefalo, Filippo Fontana; Rosa, Marie-Ève Munger; Il Conte di Belprato, Matthew Newlin; Agata, Jennifer Davis; Giannetta, Kezia Bienek; Carlino, Peter Davoren; Don Marco, Davide Bartolucci; Supernumerary, Michael Conway; director, Kevin Newbury; conductor, Sergio Alapont; set designer, Vita Tzykun; costume designer, Jessica John; lighting designer, DM Wood; choreographer, Paula O’Reilly; stage manager, Erin Shepherd.
Puts: Silent Night
German Side: Nikolaus Sprink, Chad Johnson; Anna Sørenson, Sinéad Mulhern; Lieutenant Horstmayer, Philip Horst; Kronprinz, Alexandros Tsilogiannis; Scottish Side: Jonathan Dale, Alexander Sprague; William Dale, Ian Beadle; Father Palmer, Quentin Hayes; Lieutenant Gordon, Gavan Ring; British Major, Koji Terada; French Side: Lieutenant Audebert, Matthew Worth; Ponchel, Quirijn de Lang; the General, Scott Wilde; Madeleine Audebert, Kate Allen; Gueusselin, Jamie Rock; Supernumeraries: Sean Banfield, Neil Banville, Leonard Kelly, Fran O’Reilly; director, Tomer Zvulun; conductor, Michael Christie; set designer, Erhard Rom; costume designer, Vita Tzykun; lighting designer, DM Wood; fight director, James Cosgrave; stage manager, Theresa Tsang.
Wexford Festival Opera, 22nd October — 2nd November 2014
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Na%E2%80%99ama%20Goldman%20in%20Salom%C3%A9%20by%20Antoine%20Mariotte%20%E2%80%93%20Wexford%20Festival%20Opera%202014%20%E2%80%93%20photo%20by%20Clive%20Barda.png image_description=Na'ama Goldman as Salomé [Photo by Clive Barda] product=yes product_title=Wexford Festival 2014 product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Na'ama Goldman as Salomé [Photo by Clive Barda]