Opera Today

Bring a hankie, the Florentine just opened “La Bohème.”
Puccini’s opera, which combines likable characters, elements of verismo realism, poignantly beautiful music and a tragic tale of young love lost, is one of the world’s best-loved operas. The Florentine Opera opened a strong production of the classic on Friday, in which director Lillian Groag found a balance between the story’s humor and pathos.

Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” set in a chic apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte’’ played out in a trendy club complete with burly, stone-faced doormen and a sleek VIP room.
Chicago Opera Theater has had some smashing successes with stage director Diane Paulus’ contemporary take on centuries-old operas. She is back this spring, teamed once again with conductor Jane ver, her colleague on four previous COT productions, for a fresh look at another Mozart opera, the bittersweet “The Marriage of Figaro.’’ A “Figaro’’ set in Miami’s South Beach, anyone?

Not the usual twins but a rather original though no less appealing combination. Both operas were cast from strength and far bigger houses would have been proud of it. Hasmik Papian with her splendid spinto voice was a moving if less than usually placid Angelica. She once more became a princess during the confrontation with her aunt. She poured out wonderful tone during her aria ending it however with the soft ravishing high A the score demands. I know Puccini cut it himself though after some protest but one of these days I’d love to hear Angelica’s second big aria after the intermezzo though it was not to be this time. A lot of interest centred upon Fiorenza Cossotto who at the day of the première celebrated her 70th birthday. Well, you cannot erase 50 years of stage experience and she brought to Zia Principessa all the necessary haughtiness and at one small moment even seemed to relent ( nice touch) but then regained her composure. And the voice? In the low register there are still some sounds reminding me of the impetuous Amneris I first saw in 1969. But higher on there is nothing that resembles that bright silvery sound of yore. Decibels there are and a wobble as well. Still, she was not a travesty as was Rita Gorr a few years back in Antwerp who grunted the role. All other roles were sung convincingly.

The performance started with another prologue than the usual Verdi one. The Minister of Culture had just announced that the Vlaamse Opera would lose its orchestra so that it could be cut into two to complete the two Flemish Symphonic Orchestras which have some empty chairs. As a token of protest the Opera Orchestra decided to play in their daily outfit, not wanting to deprive their clients (and future supporters) of a performance and not repeating the odious Italian way of striking. Their action resulted in a wave of sympathy. At the end of the performance, frail 81 year old Silvio Varviso spoke briefly but forcefully and asked for the spectators’ support. He is completely right as the Opera Orchestra has grown enormously these last 15 years and can easily compete (and sometimes surpasses) Pappano’s former phalanx: De Munt Orchestra. This was only the last stage in a series of happenings that illustrate the difficulties in performing a less known opera.

In the dark before the lights came up, the stage looked like a set for “Oklahoma!,” down to the dozing cowpoke. The rising lights revealed the object that had looked like a windmill to be a maypole and the setting to be Czech, yet the “Oklahoma!” resemblance didn’t altogether fade. Bedrich Smetana’s opera “The Bartered Bride” has a whiff of an American musical to its simple sweet story (boy loves girl, boy figures out how to get together with girl) and pretty tunes, and the Juilliard Opera Center’s production, which opened on Wednesday, brought out the similarities.

A few seconds into Dawn Upshaw’s singing, you decide that the most important thing is purity of tone – honest, solid, unadorned tone – and Upshaw has it in spades.

We don’t hear Bo Skovhus in the UK as much as we should. One of today’s great singers, the handsome Danish baritone is both a star and something of a sex symbol on the European mainland, although his work has been inexplicably undervalued by British opera companies and concert managements.

Looking for an escape—from reality? The Baltimore Opera Company has just the ticket. Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) is not called an “opera fantastique” for nothing.