17 Feb 2008
Tannhäuser at San Diego Opera
To open its 2008 season, San Diego Opera restored the production of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser that Günther Schneider-Siemsson created for the Metropolitan Opera three decades ago.
Recently in Performances
Adriana Lecouvreur Opera Holland Park
Twelve years after Opera Holland Park's first production of Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, the opera made a welcome return.
Back to the Beginnings: Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria at Iford Opera.
The Italianate cloister setting at Iford chimes neatly with Monteverdi’s penultimate opera The Return of Ulysses, as the setting cannot but bring to mind those early days of the musical genre. The world of commercial public opera had only just dawned with the opening of the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice in 1637 and for the first time opera became open to all who could afford a ticket, rather than beholden to the patronage of generous princes. Monteverdi took full advantage of the new stage and at the age of 73 brought all his experience of more than 30 years of opera-writing since his ground-breaking L’Orfeo (what a pity we have lost all those works) to the creation of two of his greatest pieces, Ulysses and then his final masterpiece, Poppea.
Schoenberg : Moses und Aron, Welsh National Opera, London
Once again, we find ourselves thanking an unrepresentable being for Welsh National Opera’s commitment to its mission. It is a sad state of affairs when a season that includes both Boulevard Solitude and Moses und Aron is considered exceptional, but it is - and is all the more so when one contrasts such seriousness of purpose with the endless revivals of La traviata which, Die Frau ohne Schatten notwithstanding, seem to occupy so much of the Royal Opera’s effort. That said, if the Royal Opera has not undertaken what would be only its second ever staging of Schoenberg’s masterpiece - the first and last was in 1965, long before most of us were born! - then at least it has engaged in a very welcome ‘WNO at the Royal Opera House’ relationship, in which we in London shall have the opportunity to see some of the fruits of the more adventurous company’s endeavours.
Rossini is Alive and Well and Living in Iowa
If you don’t have the means to get to the Rossini festival in Pesaro, you would do just as well to come to Indianola, Iowa, where Des Moines Metro Opera festival has devised a heady production of Le Comte Ory that is as long on belly laughs as it is on musical fireworks.
Gergiev : Janáček Glagolitic Mass, BBC Proms
Composed during just a few weeks of the summer of 1926, Janáček’s Slavonic-text Glagolitic Mass was first performed in Brno in December 1927. During the rehearsals for the premiere - just 3 for the orchestra and one 3-hour rehearsal for the whole ensemble - the composer made many changes, and such alterations continued so that by the time of the only other performance during Janáček’s lifetime, in Prague in April 1928, many of the instrumental (especially brass) lines had been doubled, complex rhythmic patterns had been ‘ironed-out’ (the Kyrie was originally in 5/4 time), a passage for 3 off-stage clarinets had been cut along with music for 3 sets of pedal timpani, and choral passages were also excised.
Donizetti and Mozart, Jette Parker Young Artists Royal Opera House, London
With the conclusion of the ROH 2013-14 season on Saturday evening - John Copley’s 40-year old production of La Bohème bringing down the summer curtain - the sun pouring through the gleaming windows of the Floral Hall was a welcome invitation to enjoy a final treat. The Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Showcase offered singers whom we have admired in minor and supporting roles during the past year the opportunity to step into the spotlight.
Glyndebourne's Strauss Der Rosenkavalier, BBC Proms
Many words have already been spent - not all of them on musical matters - on Richard Jones’s Glyndebourne production of Der Rosenkavalier, which last night was transported to the Royal Albert Hall. This was the first time at the Proms that Richard Strauss’s most popular opera had been heard in its entirety and, despite losing two of its principals in transit from Sussex to SW1, this semi-staged performance offered little to fault and much to admire.
Il turco in Italia at the Aix Festival
Twenty years ago stage director Christopher Alden introduced Rossini’s then forgotten comedy to Southern California audiences in a production that is still remembered. In Aix Alden has revisited this complex work that many critics now consider Rossini’s greatest comedy.
First Night of the BBC Proms : Elgar The Kingdom
The BBC Proms 2014 season began with Sir Edward Elgars The Kingdom (1903-6). It was a good start to the season,which commemorates the start of the First World War. From that perspective Sir Andrew Davis's The Kingdom moved me deeply.
Le nozze di Figaro, Munich
One is unlikely to come across a cast of Figaro principals much better than this today, and the virtues of this performance indeed proved to be primarily vocal.
Winterreise and Trauernacht at the Aix Festival
That’s A Winter’s Journey and A Night of Mourning for metteurs-en-scène William Kentridge (South Africa) and Katie Mitchell (Great Britain), completing the clean sweep of English language stage directors for the Aix Festival productions this year.
James Gilchrist at Wigmore Hall
Assured elegance, care and thoughtfulness characterised tenor James Gilchrist’s performance of Schubert’s Schwanengesang at the Wigmore Hall, the cycles’ two poets framing a compelling interpretation of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte.
Music for a While: Improvisations on Henry Purcell
‘Music for a while shall all your cares beguile.’ Dryden’s words have never seemed as apt as at the conclusion of this wonderful sequence of improvisations on Purcell’s songs and arias, interspersed with instrumental chaconnes and toccatas, by L’Arpeggiata.
Nabucco at Orange
The acoustic of the gigantic Théâtre Antique Romain at Orange cannot but astonish its nine thousand spectators, the nearly one hundred meter breadth of the its proscenium inspires awe. There was excited anticipation for this performance of Verdi’s first masterpiece.
Saint Louis: A Hit is a Hit is a Hit
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has once again staked claim to being the summer festival “of choice” in the US, not least of all for having mounted another superlative world premiere.
La Flûte Enchantée (2e Acte)
at the Aix Festival
In past years the operas of the Aix Festival that took place in the Grand Théâtre de Provence began at 8 pm. The Magic Flute began at 7 pm, or would have had not the infamous intermittents (seasonal theatrical employees) demanded to speak to the audience.
Ariodante at the Aix Festival
High drama in Aix. Three scenarios in conflict — those of G.F. Handel, Richard Jones and the intermittents (disgruntled seasonal theatrical employees). Make that four — mother nature.
Lucy Crowe, Wigmore Hall
The programme declared that ‘music, water and night’ was the connecting thread running through this diverse collection of songs, performed by soprano Lucy Crowe and pianist Anna Tilbrook, but in fact there was little need to seek a unifying element for these eclectic works allowed Crowe to demonstrate her expressive range — and offered the audience the opportunity to hear some interesting rarities.
The Turn of the Screw, Holland Park
‘Only make the reader’s general vision of evil intense enough … and his own experience, his own imagination, his own sympathy … will supply him quite sufficiently with all the particulars.
Plenty of Va-Va-Vroom: La Fille du Regiment, Iford
It is not often that concept, mood, music and place coincide perfectly. On the first night of Opera della Luna’s La Fille du Regiment at Iford Opera in Wiltshire, England we arrived with doubts (rather large doubts it should be admitted)as to whether Donizetti’s “naive and vulgar” romp of militarism and proto-feminism, peopled with hordes of gun-toting soldiers and praying peasants, could hardly be contained, surely, inside Iford’s tiny cloister?
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Performances
In fact, so complete is the restoration that the program book describes it as a "new production (sets) owned and constructed by San Diego Opera." However, the costumes are credited to the Metropolitan Opera, with the premiere date given as December 22, 1977. Furthermore, the program features a tribute to Schneider-Siemssen written by San Diego's scenic and production designer, James Mulder (working with Alexander Schneider-Siemssen).
Anyone who has seen the DVD of the Metropolitan production, featuring Richard Cassilly, Eva Marton, and Tatiana Troyanos, would have recognized the sets seen in San Diego. The most remarkable feature of the handsome, very traditional staging is the seamless transition from Venusberg to the valley outside Wartburg. With the use of a special scrim and lighting, the change happens before the audiences' eyes, and soon has prompted a wave of applause to swamp over the music. The second act hall lacks any imaginative transformation effect, but is lovingly detailed.
At the final performance of the run, seen February 3, conductor Gabor Ötvös managed a spirited reading of the score through the first two acts, after some less than pleasing ensemble and intonation in the overture. A worthy cast at first seemed somewhat muffled by the atmosphere of a dusty revival, albeit without the dust. Michael Hampe's direction certainly brought little new to the drama. Robert Gambill knotted his brow as he pleaded with Petra Lang's Venus to let him return to Wartburg. The good men of Wartburg stamped around almost like extras from Braveheart, with too much hearty spear-waving. In act two, Gambill's Tannhäuser strutted around with rock star-petulance as he sang his song of defiant eroticism, making Camilla Nylund's pretty Elisabeth look like a star-struck audience member on Wartburg Idol. Reinhard Hagen as Landgraf and Russell Braun as Wolfram brought some appreciated reserve and class to their roles.
If the first two acts passed by pleasantly but unmemorably, the last found the show finally pulling together into something special. Away from Gambill's hero, rather dull to that point, Nylund's pliant voice produced some aching beauty. Then Braun stepped forward to deliver a gorgeous hymn to the evening star, which would surely have received a long ovation if Wagner had allowed such (a couple of lonely claps tried to force the issue). Then Gambill reappeared, transformed both as the character and as a performer. He found real anguish and delivered his long narration with both vocal force and fine dramatic detail. Although the sudden appearance of the Pope's blooming staff (so to speak) could have prompted a few giggles, the climax found all the pathos that Wagner would have wanted, and the final chorus soared majestically.
A scene from Tannhäuser
So as Tannhäuser the man found his redemption, so did this production of Tannhäuser. With its 2008 season off to a strong start, San Diego Opera now looks forward to a rare staging of Donizetti's Mary, Queen of Scots, set to open February 16th.
Chris Mullins