Opera Today

Nabucco, Royal Opera House, London

The people of Judah are in mourning. The Overture is heard against a simple backdrop, focusing attention on the music, and not on the “false idols” of decorative frippery.

In this time of crisis, the people concentrate on the fundamentals of their religion. In this production, we concentrate on the fundamentals of the opera: on Verdi, and on his music. We listen to the orchestra, contemplating what the Temple means . When the chorus gathers and bursts into song, the impact is explosive.

Liudmyla Monastyrska as Abigaille

This production, a joint venture between the Royal Opera House and Teatro alla Scala Milan, is strikingly perceptive in musical terms. This staging takes its cue from the invisible images in the orchestration. Daniele Abbado, the director, observes how Verdi contrasts large form against detail. The people of Judah worship a single, austere God, not multiple false idols. The director, Daniele Abbado, observes how Verdi builds the concept into his orchestration. Just as solo instruments are heard at critical moments in the drama, .individual voices stand clear against the background of massed chorus,. This contrast runs throughout the opera. Abbado’s staging reflects musical form : densely concentrated choruses, principals weaving in and out of the mass. When the crowd parts, and Leo Nucci’s Nabucco emerges, the effect is humbling. The King of the Babylonians is supposed to be all-powerful, but the God of Judah strikes him down. Nabucco isn’t divine, but human.

Leo Nucci has been singing Nabucco for decades. It is a privilege to hear him sing it again in this musically-informed production, where we can concentrate on his true artistry. He’s no longer young, but neither is Nabucco. Nucci brings out the depth of personality in the role. Babylon is a violent kingdom, and Nabucco sanctions savagery. It’s statecraft, after all. He plays a political game of public bluff, placing the crown on his head to assert authority. Nucci is small of stature, but his voice commands authority. Wisely, in this staging, he’s costumed in ordinary clothes, stressing the private side of his character, highlighting his misery and his love for his daughter. Nucci can create the role through his voice, and Abbado, who respects the drama in the music, lets him do so. When Nucci sings “una lagrima spuntò” he suggests that the madness is the first stage in a journey towards redemption, which culminates in the superb Act Four arias.

Forceful, impressive performances from Marianna Pizzolato and Ludmyla Monastryrska as Fenena and Abigaille respectively. The women represent dual personality, which Verdi emphasizes in his showpiece writing for the parts. The drama is in the music, the stage directions in the score fairly circumspect. Vitalij Kowalijow sang Zaccaria with great intensity. His High Priest is a force to be reckoned with, inspired as he is by his profound faith. Andrea Caré sang Ismaele. Robert Lloyd sang the High Priest of Baal. Two singers from the ROH Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, Dušica Bijelic and David Butt Philip sang Anna and Abdallo. Young as they are, they have great promise, justifying the investment that’s being put into developing them.

Mariana Pizzolato as Fenena

Nabucco, though, is nothing without the choruses. As always, the Royal Opera House choruses, directed by Renato Balsadonna were excellent. Because they weren’t required to flaff about “acting”, we could cherish their singing. “Va, Pensiaro” was staged so simply that we could listen to the way the voices blended like instruments in an orchestra. Pure, clean light shone from above, truly “ove olezzano tepide e molli, l’aure dolci”. Much effort went into getting balances and positions right. These choruses, and the orchestral playing around them illustrated the meaning of this opera.. The gods of Babylon are hollow structures that cannot endure. The Hebrews survive together because they have higher, nobler ideals.

Verdi’s writing is so inherently dramatic that in some ways, the plot is just a frame for a powerful expression of spiritual values. In this case, the religion is Judaism, but the plight of the Hebrews would have had relevance to the Italy in which Verdi lived, fractured as it was by faction and foreign rule. Abbado’s Nabucco is well informed, true to the wider context of Verdi’s music and ideas.

This Nabucco won’t please audiences who need to follow graven images. There isn’t much bloodthirsty violence, and some details are hard to follow. But that’s all the more reason to appreciate what Abbado and conductor Nicola Luisotti are aiming at : a staging based on the music itself. Even the colours in the staging reflect the subtlety in the orchestration. We don’t see black and white but gradations of shades within the spectrum. Far too often, productions are slammed because some people resent a director having an opinion other than their own. But there is no such thing as non-interpretation in performance. Even when we read a score, we are “interpreting” the way the notes relate to each other, and making unconscious decisions about meaning. Sometimes productions are extremely interventionist but popular because they fit assumptions shaped by convention. Such is the hold false gods have on us. All the more reason, I think, we need to appreciate productions like this which highlight the music and its inherent drama, and connect us to the composer and the ideals he believed in.

Anne Ozorio

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image_description=Leo Nucci as Nabucco [Photo © ROH / Catherine Ashmore]

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Photos © ROH / Catherine Ashmore

Flying Dutchman at LA Opera

But what exactly is the flying Dutchman — a ship or a person? The French title of the opera is Le Vaisseau fantôme — The Ghost Ship. Indeed, sailors have it that The Flying Dutchman is a ghostly Dutch Man-of-War lost rounding the Cape of Good Hope, which still appears and disappears mysteriously. Christian mythology describes The Flying Dutchman as a person — as the Wandering Jew of the Ocean, who made a pact with the Devil and must wander eternally until he finds a woman who will love him faithfully.

The wonderful aspect of great tales is that they can be anything and everything to whomever encounters them. Even more wonderful is the fact that they are often transformed into deeper, more meaningful and lasting works by writers and composers of genius. Such is the case of Richard Wagner's musical interpretation, which combines both the nautical and Christian myths.

The story that captivated Wagner's imagination was Heinrich Heine's The Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski in which a young woman in love with the portrait of the flying Dutchman, meets the man when he comes ashore to seek a wife — and pledges to love him forever. When he later doubts her love, and unhappily sets sail again, she throws herself into the sea, after which the Dutchman is redeemed by her sacrifice, and their two souls are united forever.

As James Conlon, Los Angeles' engagingly enthusiastic music director and conductor, told an audience in his customary in brief talk before the opera's performance, Wagner's view of the “Dutchman” as a man in conflict with society, was a reflection of his perception of himself as a revolutionary and a genius neither understood nor appreciated by the crass bourgeois world around him. The Dutchman is a societal outcast, doomed to eternal wandering until he can be saved by a woman's love. Salvation by love that leads to death is a theme that will be central to many of Wagner's succeeding works. Senta, the woman who eventually pledges her love to the Dutchman, is also a social misfit, (as is the cursed Kundry of Parsifal, and wrongly accused Elsa of Lohengrin) In this case, Senta who would rather stare at a ghostly portrait, than sit at a spinning wheel as other “normal” young woman do, is jeered and relentlessly teased by her peers.

Unfortunately, the Company used a production created by Nikolaus Lehnhoff in 2001 for Chicago (presented again in San Francisco in 2004) which veers dramatically from Conlon's view of the work.

Among the major disconnects is the opera's costuming. In this production Senta and the Dutchman — the non conformists are dressed in simple loose cloth garments, whereas the sailors are outfitted in cumbersome silvery space suits. The “normal” young women who according to Wagner's libretto spend their time spinning instead of mooning over a flying Dutchman, here, sit around in black tights, black shoes and black and gold hoop skirts. There are even some who spin themselves on black ballet slippers and manage to look remarkably like Hanukkah dreidels.

There is a story disconnect. In Lehnhoff's version of the last scenes the Dutchman turns his back on Senta believing she does not love him, whereupon the desperate and heartbroken Senta, left alone on stage, dons his black cloak and walks into a gathering mist. Not surprisingly my companion, new to this opera, didn't understand the ending.

And there's a physical — as in too much material — disconnect. Though there are some wonderful lighting effects, this is a dark production — sets and costumes are essentially black and steely gray. Yet most of the opera's action takes place behind a scrim — sometimes two scrims. I have no idea what two scrims do to sound, but if one tries to pierce the visual obscurity using binoculars one sees the performers faces nicely graphed.

Musically, the work fared much better, and featured the thrilling Los Angeles Opera debut of native Angelino, Soprano Julie Makerov, as Senta, when moments before the curtain was to go up, Portuguese soprano Elisabete Matos, felt too ill to perform. Makerov, who had sung the role before, brought a rich, warm voice and dramatic commitment to the role. Baritone Tomas Tomasson, also debuting with the Company offered a lyrical performance as the Dutchman. James Cresswell, whose baritone seems a shade darker than Tomasson's, was a vigorous Daland. Corey Bix did as well as possible in the thankless role of Eric. Tenor Matthew Plenk, in another of the evening's debuts, was moving in the Steersman's tender aria. Ronnita Nicole Miller, a singer I always enjoy, was Senta's nursemaid. The chorus, which plays such a large role in this work, turned in another of its impressive performances. In an unusual final curtain call, Maestro Conlon,who led a taut performance, had the orchestra — horns, violinists and all mount the stage for their share of applause and cheers.

Estelle Gilson

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image_description=Tomas Tomasson as the Dutchman and Elisabete Matos as Senta [Photo by Robert Millard courtesy of Los Angeles Opera]

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product_id=Above: Tomas Tomasson as the Dutchman and Elisabete Matos as Senta [Photo by Robert Millard courtesy of Los Angeles Opera]

Cruzar la Cara de la Luna

The matinee performance on Saturday March 16, 2013, in San Diego was the work's West Coast premiere. The title refers to the yearly migration of monarch butterflies between the United States and Mexico.

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the indigenous people of Mexico made music with rattles, drums, flutes, and conch-shell horns. The Spanish introduced violins, guitars, harps, brass instruments, and woodwinds which tended to replaced most of the original instruments. Native peoples learned to play and eventually to make the European instruments, which were first used only for Mass. Later the new instruments came into more general use but some of their shapes and tunings were adjusted for local use. Mexican music has evolved greatly over the intervening centuries, so it has undergone many changes. Mariachi music is thought to have developed from "Son" music, which featured guitars and harps played by part time musicians wearing huarache sandals and white clothing.

Cecilia Duarte as Renata

By the end of the nineteenth century, the traditions of European music were firmly established in Mexico and various forms of musical entertainment were written and performed by both Mexican and European artists. In rural areas, the members of local bands wore in charro outfits. Later this clothing would be worn by urban Mariachi bands, which until recently were all male. Mariachi music and the musicians who played it became more professional in the nineteen forties and fifties. Mariachi Vargas became a legend, appearing in films and accompanying stars singers. The group expanded by the addition of trumpets, violins and even a classical guitar so that they became a kind of orchestra, keeping the traditional son/mariachi base while integrating new musical ideas and styles. Mariachi Vargas traces its history from the 1890s. Generations of players have maintained the group's authenticity as a mariachi band while the music has evolved. Although the last Vargas associated with the group died in 1985, the group still considers itself the original band because the music has been passed down from one generation of musicians to the next.

Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon) has been performed in Houston and Paris. The matinee performance on Saturday March 16, 2013, in San Diego was the work's West Coast premiere. The title refers to the yearly migration of monarch butterflies between the United States and Mexico. Members of families, too, migrate between the two countries and sometimes spend a great deal of time away from their loved ones. Much of the audience in San Diego's sold out Civic Theater was Mexican-American and many of the people could relate personally to the family portrayed on stage. The show opened with Brian Shircliffe as Mark singing of the butterflies and accompanying himself on the guitar. His baritone voice sounded like liquid gold and his song was the beginning of a very intense performance.

Soprano Brittany Wheeler portrayed the Americanized Diana, a member of the latter generation, who wanted to catch up with her Mexican past. Vanessa Cerda-Alonzo was Lupita, a Mexican village wife whose husband was spending most of his time away from her. Both of them sang with dramatic tones as they portrayed their important characters. Colombian tenor David Guzman was the lone high male voice in this performance and his trumpet-like sound was a good fit with the Mariachi orchestra and the lower voices of much of the cast.

Cecilia Duarte as Renata, Brittany Wheeler as Diana and Octavio Moreno as Laurentino

The most fascinating character was Renata, played by Mexican mezzo-soprano Cecilia Duarte. She sang both lyrical and dramatic songs, she also danced, and her characterization brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience. Because Renata missed her husband, she hired a guide to take her and her son to him. She told no one that she was pregnant and wanted her baby to be born in the States. Unfortunately the long walk through the desert was too hard for her and, like others before her, she died before reaching her goal. The guide took the little boy back to Mexico, but he did not see his father for many years. Duarte gave an amazing performance and I would love to see her again.

Saul Avalos was a committed Chucho; Octavio Moreno a strong voiced Laurentino, and Juan Mejia an energetic Victor. The music composed by José Pepe Martinez is sometimes dramatic and at other times lyrical with kind of a big band sound from muted trumpets. His use of the harp added welcome rhythmic textures while the text told the story clearly and with considerable detail. Foglia's scenery was practical, Cesar Galindo's costumes attractive, and the lighting by Brian Nason made the visuals most effective.

Supertitles were offered in both languages so that whether you spoke Spanish or English you always knew what was being sung. The Mariachi band was led by violinist Jose Martinez, Sr. The three trumpets were always perfectly in tune, as were the harp, vihuela, guitarron, and guitar, but there were one or two instances when the violins were not completely synchronized. It's a shame that the company was only in San Diego for one day. Let's hope they will soon be back. Before and after the opera there were performances by Mariachi bands on the plaza outside the theater and it was good to see so many excellent local groups taking part.

Maria Nockin

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image_description=Brian Shircliffe as Mark [Photo by Edward Wilensky courtesy of San Diego Opera]

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Photos by Edward Wilensky courtesy of San Diego Opera

I Lombardi, UC Opera London

I Lombardi and Nabucco are almost companion pieces, and the Royal Opera House is doing Nabucco from 30th March, on a much grander scale, for Nabucco suits grand designs.

Visually, the UC Opera I Lombardi is so striking that it would stun audiences in bigger houses with better facilities. The drama starts with a simple, dark backdrop, a monochrome tower, a bright telephone box. The impact is immediate. Verdi set I Lombardi at the time of the First Crusade to conceal its message at a time when much of Italy, once the seat of the Roman Empire, was ruled by foreign powers.This isn't really a battle between Lombardy and Antioch. The Lombards are tearing each other apart with rivalries, rather than facing their true enemies. In Verdi's time, Italy was a disunited conglomeration of small states that could not rise above petty self-interest towards a greater goal.

Although Christian themes dominate the opera, I Lombardi is not anti-Muslim as such. Oronte, the prince of Antioch, becomes a Christian without much inner anguish. One can read a nod here to Italian nationalism, since Italians dominated the church, although the Austrians, also Catholic, dominated the state in Northern Italy.Verdi must have been aware of the impact Griselda's hymn to the Virgin Mary would have on audiences. Caught up in reverence, they might, for a moment, forget the pettiness of worldly values and unite in the contemplation of more noble ideals. In the chorus "Jerusalem !", nearly everyone on stage joins in unison, transfixed by the vision before them.

This staging, designed by Will Bowen, directed by Jamie Hayes, and produced by Rosie Hughes, places the action in a land that hovers between modernity and a fading memory of the past, just as Giselda inhabits an alien land far away from her origins. Phone booths are relics. We don't communicate like that much now. This is an allusion to the theme of nostalgia that runs through the opera and fuels visions of an idealized future. The Tower is a Victorian photo of a real pub in The City of London, which you can still visit.. Once it was a tavern where cock fighting took place. It's a subtle detail but cogent. The Lombards are acting out a cock-fight on a grand scale.

Ellan Parry's costumes also follow this theme of unspecified timelessness. We could be at any time in the last century, or in the present. The men wear sharp suits, as so many Italians aspire to, but preen themselves on machismo. Without true religion, crusaders are no more than street gangs spreading their turf. At the end, chorus and remaining soloists stand together, their faces shining as they contemplate Jerusalem, at last within sight. We don't need to see a mock up. We can hear it in the orchestra and in the voices of the singers, and see it in their shining faces. Jerusalem isn't a physical place but a state of mind.

UC Opera is part professional, part amateur so the performances were good enough. Charles Peebles conducted. Katharina Blumenthal sang Griselda with firm assurance. John Mackenzie sang Pagano/the Hermit, pushing a supermarket trolley with neon cross. This was wittier than you'd expect. Pagano means "pagan", and the Hermit is an outsider, who has taken a vow of poverty. In these drab surroundings, the jewel colours of the cross shone even more brightly. Jeff Stuart sang Arvino and Adam Smith was a heroic Oronte. Sally Harrison sang Viclinda and Carola Darwin sang Sophia. Andrew Doll sang the Prior. Edward Cottell sang Pirro and Joseph Dodd was a distinctive Acciano.

Anne Ozorio

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image_description=I Lombardi (Ricordi)

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product_title=Giuseppe Verdi : I Lombardi
product_by= Griselda : Katharina Blumenthal, Pagano : John Mackenzie, Arvino : Jeff Stuart, Oronte : Adam Smith, Viclinda : Sally Harrison, Sophia : Carola Darwin, Piror : Edward Cottell, Acciano : Joseph Dodd, Prior : Andrew Doll, Conductor : Charles Peebles, Producer : Rose Hughes , Director : Jamie Hayes, Designer : Will Bowen, Lighting : Matthew Eagland, UC Opera, Bloomsbury Theatre, London. 18th March 2013
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Francesca da Rimini at the Met

Ricardo Zandonai’s 1914 opera Francesca da Rimini is a one-act potboiler buried in a four-act sarcophagus.

The opera tells a simple, lurid story of lust and infidelity, drawn from Dante’s Inferno and a play by the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio.

Poor Francesca is married off, for political reasons, to the lame and ugly Giovanni Malatesta, although she thinks she is going to be marrying his handsome brother, Paolo. When Paolo confesses his love for her, they cheat on Giovanni. The affair is discovered by Giovanni’s younger brother, Malatestino, a one-eyed weasel, who tips off Giovanni. The inevitable then occurs as Giovanni kills both Francesca and Paolo after catching them in the act.

Zandonai’s teacher Mascagni could have turned this tale into a terrific one-act companion piece to his Cavalleria Rusticana. But Zandonai and his librettist Tito Ricordi (Verdi’s music publisher) larded the tale with all sorts of extraneous business that slows down the dramatic arc and blunts its violence. In this case truly half would have been twice as good.

The libretto has all sorts of obvious dramatic problems. Paolo appears at the end of Act 1 but never sings, merely locking eyes and fingers with Francesca. The villains Giovanni and Malatestino don’t appear until Act 2, and then disappear in Act 3 entirely. Neither has a role that is fully fleshed out. Indeed, only the mooning Francesca seems to have captivated Ricordi and Zandonai. The action is repeatedly interrupted by unnecessary paeans to the arrival of spring or choral giggling from Francesca’s handmaidens.

Were Zandonai a more skillful composer he might have sustained a four-act treatment, but his strengths are as an orchestrator and a provider of special musical effects. He can also whip up a huge noise from the orchestra with climax after climax, which I guess is not such a bad idea given the theme of this opera. But such repeated climaxes get old quickly.

Marcello Giordani as Paolo il Bello and Eva-Maria Westbroek as Francesca da Rimini

John C. G. Waterhouse, writing in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, accurately took Zandonai’s measure as a composer, noting his “judicious borrowings from Strauss and Debussy.” His strongest virtue is conveying a sense of atmosphere. Met Conductor Fabio Armiliato, interviewed during one of the three intermissions, tossed in Wagner, Cilea, Mascagni and Puccini as other influences. All can be heard flitting in and out of the score. While Zandonai is quite skillful at word setting, his music is without personality of its own.

Zandonai writes in sentences, while Puccini and Strauss write in pages and Wagner writes in whole chapters. Just as one thinks a real melody with some development is about to start, Zandonai changes direction. The duet for Paolo and Francesca in Act 3, when they finally consummate their love, cries out for a Manon Lescaut moment. It never comes. All the tension in the final scene, when Francesca and Paolo are murdered, is bled out of it with an interminable opening exchange between Francesca and her ladies in waiting. When Giovanni finally arrives to stab her, it’s all slam bang. Zandonai had Verdi’s Otello as a model for this murder, but he seems to have learned nothing from it.

With an eight-month season, the Met has many slots to fill. This production is the first revival of the original, mounted 27 years ago for Placido Domingo in the role of Paolo and Renata Scotto as Francesca. The production — by Piero Faggioni with sets by Ezio Frigerio and costumes by Franca Squarciapino — is a beauty. It almost justifies ticket prices north of $250. Francesca’s various gowns have the silhouette of a 14th century Italian woman of means, but the embroidery is pre-Raphaelite. Every stage picture could have walked off the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Every character is in a period costume of exquisite color and detail. While the ears may have been bored, the eyes never were, particularly in the close-ups of the HD telecast.

Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek and tenor Marcello Giordani were the illicit lovers. Both have large voices and had no trouble with the notes, although both are short on vocal allure. Westbroek never projected the vulnerability and fragility Francesca must embody if one is to care about her grim fate.

The villains were a lot more fun. Baritone Mark Delavan was a nasty Giovanni, with a booming bottom but slightly constricted top. Tenor Robert Brubaker (soon to be singing Mime in the Met’s spring Ring) made Malatestino a leering pervert with dead-on intonation.

Of the smaller roles, mezzo Ginger Costa-Jackson stood out as Francesca’s slave Smaragdi, a role written for contralto.

Marco Armiliato, conducting the opera for the first time, moved it along well and supported the singers generously. The Met Orchestra seemed to relish wallowing in this aural soup.

Tchaikovsky took a shot at the Francesca story in his orchestral fantasy of the same name. In just 26 minutes he manages to say all that need be said, capturing the frenzy and passion of the story in a way Zandonai never does. His surging theme for the lovers has already knocked out of my head everything Zandonai wrote for them.

Only 40 or so people attended this performance at Destiny USA’s Regal Theater in Syracuse, many fewer than usual. Perhaps the Met is offering too many of these telecasts. Perhaps the novelty is wearing off. Perhaps the audience is tired of the relentless close-ups and quick cuts. Or perhaps the audience is just too smart to waste four hours and $24 on this third-rate work.

David Rubin

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

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image_description=Eva-Maria Westbroek as Francesca da Rimini [Photo by Marty Sohl/ Metropolitan Opera]

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Götterdämmerung at the Staatsoper Berlin

She unfastens the ring—here represented as a sequined hand—from the arm of Siegfried’s corpse, and moves regally upstage. When video projections of fire onto a shiny back wall cede to blue swirls of water—the Rhine overflowing after Valhalla has burned to ash—the fading, ghostly image of a woman with her mouth agape hovers like a virtual nightmare. A crowd of Gibichungs, dressed in drab civil suits with touches of barbaric fur, turn toward the back wall and stare at an image of excavated human remains. As their expressions reveal signs of cognizance, a giant replica of the marble relief Human Passions by Jef Lambeaux, a depiction of nude bodies writhing somewhere between heaven and hell, descends and traps the action behind it.

As program notes by the dramaturge Michael Steinberg explain, this image has provided a kind of Leitmotif for the Ring cycle by stage team Guy Cassiers and Enrico Bagnoli, which has unfolded in epic fashion over the past three years in co-production with La Scala. The opening instalment, Das Rheingold, culminated in a video projection of the full image; in Die Walküre, it mutates into a twisting, multi-media pile of bodies. Cassiers, the director, has set out to address globalization in an age of virtual reality and pornographic violence, adopting with Bagnoli a streamlined yet abstract aesthetic. Laser-like red lines that designate warfare in Walküre reappear as the fragile network (or destiny rope) of the Norns in Götterdämmerung, and rows of white spears that serve as a canvas for flickering video projections descend to drive home the notion of human destruction.

While the visual symbolism of Cassiers and Bagnoli is sometimes too conceptual to connect with its intellectual underpinnings—now a black mass which spreads like an expressionist painting when Siegfried makes a blood oath with Günther, now a woman who sticks her computerized tongue out at the audience—the production scores a triumph in the use of light-dark imagery to mirror the archetypal forces at play, underscoring the music rather than overwhelming it with images. The restraint bordered on excessive for the opening scene in the shadowy hall of the Gibichungs, designated by a simple metal wall and a box of glowing limbs, and it took a moment to realize that a group of dancers on their knees behind Siegfried represented Grane, Brünnhilde’s horse. Yet choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui was surprisingly effective when the bodies draped themselves in black cloth and transformed into the Tarnhelm, the magic helmet which allows Siegfried to still the ring from Brünnhilde. Costumes by Tim Van Steenbergen, with a modernist take on Lederhosen for the leading Gibichungs and leather motorcycle get-up for Siegfried, add to the dystopic vision.

Ian Storey as Siegfried and Marina Poplavskaya as Gutrune with the State Opera Chorus

If the production leans too heavily on the audience’s powers of imagination, Daniel Barenboim, currently music director in both Berlin and Milan, fills the vacuum with the sharpest insight into dramatic nuance. The Staatskapelle swelled and subsided with organic ease as the score soared from subterranean tunnels to celestial plains, mutating like the ring’s magical forces to accommodate each singer. Irène Theorin, the cycle’s Brünnhilde in all instalments, threatened to burst the walls of the Schiller Theater when her seasoned Wagnerian soprano broke out from its round timbre into a screech, but she inhabited the role of the mortalized goddess with an affecting blend of dignity, hysteria and vengeance. In the role of Siegfried, Ian Storey, a tenor of higher vintage than the previous installment’s Lance Ryan last fall, struggled with a wobble in the opening scenes but warmed up to give an indomitable performance of the hero before he is stabbed in the back by Hagen. As the evil Gibichung, Russian bass Mikhail Petrenko was an increasingly ominous presence, spitting out his words with villainous resolve in the soliloquy “Hier sitz’ ich zur Wacht.”

It was a surprise to hear Marina Poplavskaja, a dramatic soprano who has forged an international career in roles such as Desdemona and Violetta, portray Gutrune—who drugs Siegfried with a magic potion in order to separate him from Brünnhilde—but her voice poured out clearly above Barenboim’s sensitive conducting and captured the Gibichung’s wicked wiles. She also gave a pleasant account of the Second Norn. Marina Prudenskaya gave an affecting performance as the Valykrie, Waltraute, who beseeches Brünnhilde to give back the ring to the Rhinemaidens, and as the Third Norn. The mezzo Margarita Nekrasova, in the role of the First Norn, did not blend easily but evoked impending pathos with a more typically Wagnerian voice. Aga Mikolaj, Maria Gortsevskaya, and Ann Lapkovskaja made for a seductive, youthful trio as the Rhinemaidens. Even at the Twilight of the Gods, Cassiers’ vision ends the cycle with the possibility for atonement. Despite the horrors the human race has wracked upon the environment and itself, it can learn from the past and start anew.

Rebecca Schmid

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image=http://www.operatoday.com/Goetterdaemmerung_106.gif image_description=Iréne Theorin a Brünnhilde and Ian Storey as Siegfried [Photo by Monika Rittershaus courtesy of Staatsoper im Schiller Theater] product=yes product_title=Götterdämmerung at the Staatsoper Berlin product_by=By Rebecca Schmid product_id=Above: Iréne Theorin a Brünnhilde and Ian Storey as Siegfried

Photos by Monika Rittershaus courtesy of Staatsoper im Schiller Theater

Robert Carsen’s Falstaff, Paris

Paris premiered Dominique Pitoiset's effort in 1999, and comparisons are apt in the two approaches to this adaptation of Shakespeare's whimsical The Merry Wives of Windsor. While Carsen's Windsor is that of a seedy, ration-starved 1950s Britain, Pitoiset's is set a generation earlier, in a late Edwardian early 1900s. Of course it predated the wildly popular television program Downton Abbey, but one can grasp avant la lettre the same comments on traditional elites confronted with the ugly underbelly of modernity. The Garter Inn, the lodging where Falstaff's shrunken budget has outworn his welcome, is a frowzy establishment set between an automobile garage that advertises daily motor tours to Royal Park and the Herne Oak (the setting of Act III) and a steam laundry business called "Quickly's," after the go-between servant character who carries messages between Falstaff and the ladies he admires. Even an ignoble knight placed in these brick-built industrial surroundings can still draw the sympathy and derision with which Verdi endowed him in equal measure. Only the third act lacked insight. Rather than hide the walls, they are darkened slightly to accommodate a projection of the Herne Oak. Surely there could have been a more effective change of scene.

Today the opera world has two reigning Falstaffs: Ambrogio Maestri, who sang in this production, and Bryn Terfel, with whom Maestri frequently alternates (as he did in La Scala's outing of the Carsen production earlier this year). Maestri's strong baritone makes him a fine counterpart, and perhaps a more lyrical and Italianate one. But he lacks the warm resonances and expansiveness of character that Terfel can bring to role. Still, his performance as the fat knight offered no cause for complaint and radiated devilishly good humor and the necessary hints of beguiling charm.

A fine supporting cast proved what a great ensemble piece this can be. Svetla Vassileva's Alice Ford offered a comforting portrayal of the woman who can outwit her seducer while still arranging her daughter's marriage to the right man. Marie-Nicole Lemieux's attractive lower tones proved that she deserves her frequent casting in the role of Mistress Quickly. The role of Ford, Alice's outraged husband, fell to the stentorian Artur Rucinski. And what a delight it was to hear the attractive young Russian soprano Elena Tsallagova float exquisite piano high notes in the role of the lovesick Nanetta. The promising lyric tenor Paolo Fanale paired well with her. Daniel Oren gave a reasonable but not truly incisive reading of the score.

Paul du Quenoy

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Cenerentola at Paris Opéra

A version of the enduringly popular Cinderella tale, it famously sheds much of the magic. There is no pumpkin or glass slipper. A fairy godfather takes the place of a fairy godmother. A buffoonishly wicked stepfather fills in for a simply evil wicked stepmother. Still, the opera soared in popularity all over the world (it was the first opera presented in Australia, for example). Nevertheless, it was a relative latecomer to the Paris Opéra, only arriving here only in 1977. The current production, by the late Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, is even older, dating back to its 1968 premiere at Munich's Bavarian State Opera. Paris audiences only saw this version for the first time when it entered the repertoire last season.

Lately, Cenerentola has enjoyed a renaissance in operatic capitals, with the principal roles going in recent years to such stars as Cecilia Bartoli, Juan Diego Florez, Lawrence Brownlee, and Joyce DiDonato (who will sing the title part at New York's Metropolitan Opera next season). The Opéra's effort is more subdued, though the great basso buffo Simone Alaimo, now a bit worn of voice, shares the role of Don Magnifico. His nephew, baritone Nicola Alaimo, is the alternate cast's Dandini, leading us to wonder what synergies these operatic relatives might make if paired on stage and why they were not. The question lingered in my mind, but the older Alaimo was a tour de force, impossible not to watch in his boorish physical comedy. It is the title role that really sparkles, however, and in the promising young mezzo Serena Malfi the Opéra made a most fortunate casting decision. Lithe lyricism and a purring lower register, together with crystal clear coloratura runs, evoked a young Bartoli. Already scheduled for a Metropolitan Opera debut, the public has much to look forward to in this exciting new artist, who only made her stage debut in 2009 and has room to grow. Tenor Antonio Siragusa has nothing to answer for in a Cenerentola universe dominated by Florez and Brownlee. A fine lyric tenor, he scaled the role's difficult ascents with admirable confidence and enjoyable flair. "Si, ritrovarla io giuro" was easily the evening's highlight among the male singing. Riccardo Novaro's Dandini accomplished this difficult role with zeal — a servant, Dandini must impersonate his master and then switch back again. François Lis's less well articulated legato eviscerated the charm of the fairy godfather Alidoro. Jeannette Fischer and Cornelia Oncioiu played up the comic notes in the stepsister roles of Clorinda and Tisbe. Riccardo Frizza led a delicate and well balanced performance that took appreciable advantage of the Palais Garnier's intimacy. The time may have come for heavier works to be staged there again.

Ponnelle's production, for which he also designed the sets and costumes, looks like a giant dollhouse, with individual rooms in Don Magnifico's run down manor and Don Ramiro's palace emerging from behind sliding screens. It is a bit quaint, but tells the story most effectively and avoids the current preoccupation with overdirecting classic opera.

Paul du Quenoy

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Click here for cast and production information.

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Wagner’s Die Meistersinger in Chicago

Happily, the current season’s production at Lyric Opera of Chicago has been a delightful success, one performed with such dedication that the event may be called an exemplary Meistersinger. James Morris performs the character Hans Sachs, the Nürnberg cobbler and master, a role for which the bass-baritone is particularly well known. The couple Walter von Stolzing and Eva Pogner is sung by Johan Botha and Amanda Majeski; the supporting couple David and Magdalene, significant in any production, is sung by David Portillo and Jamie Barton. Eva’s father Veit Pogner is performed with decided authority by the bass Dmitry Ivashchenko, and the role of the meddling Sixtus Beckmesser is taken by Bo Skovhus. The Lyric Opera Orchestra is conducted by Sir Andrew Davis in a new production shared with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the San Francisco Opera. The Lyric Opera Chorus is led by Guest Choral Master Ian Robertson.

From the lush romantic effect produced by the intersection of strings and brass to the penetrating discipline of the percussion the overture was played with reverence to the spirit of Wagner. Davis maintained an admirable sense of control in communicating the sense of a large ensemble with substrata of melodies throughout the overture and during the ensuing drama. Tempos were beautifully drawn out in this prelude as it culminated with descending strings in the midst of a prayer to Saint John the Baptist in the Katharinenkirche at Nürnberg. Walther von Stolzing watches Eva Pogner from a distance, who in turn returns his glances as she is positioned in the church pew together with her companion Magdalene. As the service concludes, the women respond to Walter’s pleas for “Ein Wort! Ein einzig Wort!” [“Just a word! A single word!”]. Ms. Majeski’s Eva retains at this point an appropriately demure vocal impression, whereas the Magdalene of Jamie Barton instructs her own suitor David with urgent intonation: she suggests that he take up the cause of Walter and supervise the nobleman’s efforts at performance in the upcoming song-competition. Ms. Barton’s idiomatic phrasing was especially evident in the lines “Laßt David Euch lehren / die Freiung begehren. - Davidchen! Hör, mein lieber Gesell” [“Let David teach you / how to follow through with the courting. - My David, listen to me, my dear friend”]. In the following scene David indeed takes Walter into his charge. David learns with dismay that Walter is unfamiliar with the rules and expectations of formal singing as part of the masters’ tradition. As Sachs’s cobbler apprentice and pupil in song David has himself reached a level which he displays proudly. In response to Walter’s “Ratet mir gut!” [“Advise me properly!”], Mr. Portillo delivered David’s extended solo aria on the art of song with confident and accurate German declamation, exquisite ornamentation, and the physical involvement so typical of the character. Portillo’s sensitivity to David’s persona was one of the highlights of this performance with his enumeration of the masters’ intricate melodic designations -- named for herbs, flowers, and birds -- recited with seemingly breathless melismas.

Act Three, Scene 1

Once the remaining apprentices were ushered into public with well-rehearsed choral involvement, the next scene was dominated by Veit Pogner, Sixtus Beckmesser, and the remaining Meister. After initial disagreements on protocol and the formal introduction of Walter von Stolzing, Pogner delivers his monologue on the significance of art in German lands as cultivated by the Meister [“Nun hört, und versteht mich recht!” (“Now listen, and understand me well!”)]. Mr. Ivashchenko’s sonorous bass enveloped the deep vocal line with superb attention to diction; he delivered confident and expressive top notes on “Eva, mein einzig Kind, zur Eh” when designating “Eva, my only child, in marriage” as the prize to be granted to the victorious singer. The Beckmesser of Skovhus was appropriately oily, with a pedantic and simpering intonation, yet at times his vocal projection was somewhat too understated. Once Walter began his song, with Botha here giving the impression of being a tad too loud and a tad under pitch, Beckmesser as the Merker (“Marker”) continued to register faults, until Walter was discouraged from singing further. Mr. Morris’s Hans Sachs came now to the fore as he both disagreed with Beckmesser on motivation and reflected on Walter’s potential. The Act closed on a blackout with a hint of the confusion that would come to dominate in Act Two.

After the short orchestral prelude, played here with an ironically light touch, David speaks with the other apprentices about the expectations for Johannestag. Comedy and sincere emotion predominate in Act Two, as the characters interact in shifting constellations that emphasize both. Eva visits Sachs to argue a case for Walter’s opportunities. In this scene both Majeski and Morris sing warmly and convincingly of affection, suggesting at first their own relationship but ultimately communicating a lasting union between Eva and Walter. In the following scene Morris accompanies Beckmesser’s nocturnal serenade of Eva with expert timing as he comments and cobbles shoes with the blows and marks of a Merker. The brawl which ensues when David realizes that his Lene a sshe is disguised, and not Eva, is serenaded by Beckmesser, is staged so that seemingly everyone in the city participates in a physical and acrobatic tour de force. Only the calls of the Nightwatchman send the assembled crowds ascatter, so that Beckmesser is left alone in confusion as Andrea Silvestrelli’s rich, low pitches resound in the Watchman’s warnings.

The lengthy Act Three begins again with David, now in the workroom of his Master Sachs. It is of course in this Act that Sachs’s character shows its fullest development, just as Eva will experience a personal and vocal transformation. Both characters in this production were admirably portrayed. Morris lent a sense of confused pathos to “Wahn! Wahn! Űberall Wahn! [“Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness!”], which he channeled convincingly into the dictum that even noble causes acquire a touch of this Wahn. He performed a moving high pitch piano on “Johannestag” to underline the magic of the forthcoming midsummer events. Likewise Majeski’s Eva bloomed in this Act as she became assured of Sachs’s support of Walter. Her aria “Ein Kind ward hier geboren” [“A child was born here”] gave evidence of her assured lyric technique. Her excellent top notes on “Selig” and throughout the quintet concluded with a vibrant, shivering trill. The staging of the final scenes with the competition on the meadow was creative and exciting in keeping with the spirit of the festivity. The close of the production belonged appropriately to the efforts of Hans Sachs, as Morris here reminded the successful Walter “to honor for me their art” [“ehrt mir ihre Kunst”] in his resonant praise of the Master.

Salvatore Calomino

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image_description=Bo Skovhus as Beckmesser and James Morris as Hans Sachs [Photo by Dan Rest courtesy of Lyric Opera of Chicago]

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Photos by Dan Rest courtesy of Lyric Opera of Chicago

The Verdi Requiem in Naples

This Verdi Messa da requiem in Naples was the San Francisco Opera’s music director’s debut as the neo-direttore musicale of the Teatro San Carlo, one of Italy’s more august musical institutions.The event was announced as a staging of what was to have been Verdi’s crowning achievement [the 73 year-old composer then further ornamented his crown with Otello and Falstaff]. It was a happening no serious Luisotti groupie could resist.

To be sure the foolish idea to stage this setting of the now outdated Catholic liturgy was later abandoned, and whispers of such an event at San Francisco Opera fell silent as well. Hear tell the production was to have been by the Catalan theatrical collective La Fura dels Baus operatically famous for a Grand Macabre at the English National Opera (samples may be found on YouTube).

The third performance of the Requiem (February 28) was briefly delayed by a wildcat strike by the orchestra and chorus protesting the elimination of funding for the theater’s corpo di ballo (corp de ballet), funding already sunk in a morass of scandal. The director of the theater came on stage to announce the delay to the great displeasure of one member of the audience who could not stop shouting vergogna, vergogna (shame, shame).

But the performance did begin, the whispers of Requiem aeternum (find eternal peace) first in the strings then by the chorus were clearly articulated stating that this was to be a vocal performance, not judgement day atmospheres. This spectacular Luisotti requiem prayer in fact emerged as one voice confessing, supplicating, imploring, begging eternal rest, with the implicit resolution that such reward was very much in question.

The first opportunity to establish the emotional chaos that set the dramatic character of Luisotti’s sinner comes soon, the male chorus of the Teatro San Carlo aggressively shouted Te decet hymnus, Deus (a hymn rises to you, God) in individual voices, a ragged sound that articulated individual anguish.

There was a lot to be worried about. The maestro unleashed the fury of the Dies irae in volumes possible only in old, very old opera houses (1716). The bass drum punctuation slightly anticipated the beat adding nearly intolerable tension, brass blurted out hidden threats. And the prayer began, four vocal colors placed directly in front of the maestro and directly in his control. Individually and jointly these voices supplicated forgiveness in the midst of raging fury of San Carlo’s huge, virtuoso orchestra.

Mezzo soprano Luciana d’Intino conveying that all is written and will be judged (Liber scriptus proferetur) exploited an enormous range of colors, gutteral chest tones, raucous almost spoken tones, snarling threats, beautifully voiced high climaxes, a voice in the prime of its expressive power that deeply invaded our sensibilities. Mme. d’Intino, of middle age, is one of Italy and Europe’s current greats who has not yet found her way onto the American west coast stages.

Argentine tenor Marcelo Alvarez delivered Verdi’s extended Dies irae tract Ingemisco tamquam reus (I weep because I am guilty) with unprecedented tenorial fervor (choking and weeping), not to mention hand wringing amidst evident physical torment as well. Mr. Alvarez, like no other tenor, ever, can take powerful vocal emotion to the edge of dramatic explosion.

Ukrainian bass Vitalij Kowaljow (Wotan in L.A.and Lucrezia Borgia’s third husband Alfonso in San Francisco) used focused black tone with minimum inflection to announce the day of judgement and describe the cries coming from the damned shrouded in flames, words that were maximally chilling in this cold blooded delivery.

The four singers stood before maestro Luisotti in rapt visual contact. An overwhelming synergy of artistic intention occurred that created one voice and body for all mankind in its final moments of existence. The performance was a massive statement, it was conceptually complete and artistically finished.

The Offertorium duet between Teatro Don Carlo’s concert master, Gabriele Pieranunzi and the soprano was of exquisite beauty. The Sanctus took off in an orchestral frenzy that left the chorus in the dust though it soon caught up and erupted into absolute delirium for the final Hosanna in excelsus. The Agnus dei was sung as if hummed, a prelude to the gentle Lux aeterna trio.

Soprano Maria Agresta in the first flush of an illustrious European career possesses a clear soprano of full lyric capability, and of great beauty that she manages with full confidence in passages of soaring tones, with much subtlety of volume from pianissimo to fortissimo. For Verdi the soprano voice is one of purity, not of complexity though dramatically there is the suspicion that such purity must harbor some guilt. It is to such a voice that Verdi gives the final Requiem prayer, Libera me, Domine (spare me, God, from eternal damnation).

This prayer, offered at the graveside, is the voice of the single, innocent soul against the fury of the Day of Wrath who in its guilt and fear explodes in a final, personal supplication for peace. The final lines in Naples were no longer sung by Maria Agresta, but spoken in desperate fear.

The Neapolitan audience seemed not to know how to react to all this shock and awe. It did manage some applause though it was hardly commensurate with the scope of the performance.

And finally the despotic maestro was not hampered by production.

Teatro San Carlo scheduled back to back performances on February 28 and March 1 (the third and fourth of five performances). Given his commitment to the role tenor Alvarez could not possibly have survived a next day performance, thus Hungarian tenor Szabolcs Brickner was scheduled to sing that performance. Said to be indisposed he was replaced by tenor Stefano Secco, well known to San Francisco Opera audiences for many roles including the 2009 Verdi Requiem conducted by Donald Runnicles. Mr. Secco is a very different artist than Marcelo Alvarez, of sweeter voice and temperament. Obviously uninitiated into the maestro’s idiosyncratic conception much accommodation was accorded Mr. Secco and a very fine, far smoother performance resulted. It did not approach the expressive magnitude of the previous evening.

Luisotti will conduct the Verdi Requiem in San Francisco in June. It could be the hottest ticket in a long time.

Michael Milenski

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Il Trovatore at Arizona Opera

It’s important to realize that the play sets the time of the action in the fifteenth century, the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of Columbus. Beliefs, customs, and relationships were very different then. People believed that a witch could make you sick by giving you the evil eye. It was an age when few lived beyond the age of forty. Women had almost no rights and more than thirty percent of children died before the age of four. Aspects of the plot that may seem outlandish now, were quite real in the fourteen hundreds.

Unfortunately, Cammarano died before completing his libretto. Verdi then took over revising it and asked Leone Emanuele Bardare to finish it. In doing so, he added a great deal to the leading soprano part. On 19 January 1853 the opera was premièred at the Apollo Theater in Rome. Rigoletto had been a tremendous success in 1851 and Il trovatore was Verdi’s next blockbuster. It swept through European musical capitals like wild fire. By 1855 it was being performed at the recently opened Academy of Music in New York and at Covent Garden in London. Two years later L’Opéra staged Verdi’s Paris version of the opera with a newly written ballet scene.

Count (Malcolm MacKenzie) duelling with Manrico (Dongwon Shin)

On 2 March 2013 Arizona Opera presented a traditional production of Verdi’s Il trovatore directed by John Hoomes at Symphony Hall in Phoenix. Actually, since a brand new rear projection screen supplied much of the scenery, it only looked traditional. Technically, it was up to the minute even though the audience was looking at Projection Designer Douglas Provost’s glorious images of fifteenth century Spain.

The first character heard in the opera is the soldier, Ferrando, recounting important background information. When a play is made into an opera only one-third of the dialogue can be used so someone has to recount some of the story. Director Hoomes saw to it that we always knew what was happening. Verdi made that bit of history into a catchy aria and Peter Volpe sang it with vigorous bronze tones. Karen Slack, who sang Leonora, the much fought over heroine, has a voluptuous soprano voice with silvery top notes and a formidable chest register. She seemed to throw care to the winds as she successfully navigated her music’s many pitfalls. The result was an exciting performance of this difficult role. Dongwon Shin was an energetic troubadour with a warm tenor voice, naturally musical phrasing and more than enough squillo for ‘Di quella pira’. He excelled in a role that few tenors attempt, so it’s no wonder that he has sung it in many cities.

Azucena (Mary Phillips) and Manrico (Dongwon Shin)

Mary Phillips had an amazing grasp of the role of Azucena. Verdi himself told us that she was not crazy, but her actions are that of a very troubled woman. These days we might blame it on traumatic stress resulting from having seen her mother’s fiery execution. Phillips made her real and totally believable, both when she showed her love for her presumed son and when she spat like a caged animal during her capture. Phillips colored her opulent mezzo-soprano voice with the myriad textures of this dramatic part. Some of the best singing in this delightful performance came from the villain, Count di Luna, portrayed by Malcolm MacKenzie. He phrased with great artistry and his sound was pure gold. He will be in Murder in the Cathedral at San Diego Opera later this month.

As Inez and Ruiz, Bevin Hill and David Margolis handled their parts with ease and added considerably to this excellent performance. Henri Venanzi’s chorus sang with ardor and commitment. Their ‘Anvil Chorus’ rang with stunning harmonies punctuated by the blows on a two toned anvil. Joel Revzen was the conductor who held everything together for this excellent performance. With a brisk, light approach, he gave a propulsive account of the score that pushed forward with relentless power.

Maria Nockin

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Cast and production information:

Manrico, Dongwon Shin; Leonora, Karen Slack; Count di Luna, Malcolm Mackenzie; Azucena, Mary Phillips; Ferrando, Peter Volpe; Ruiz, David Margulis; Inez, Bevan Hill. Arizona Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Conductor, Joel Revzen; Chorus Master, Henri Venanzi. Scenic Design, Lighting Design, and Projections, Douglas Provost. Costumes, AT Jones and Sons. Fight Director, Andrea Robertson.

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Production photos by Jeff Reeder courtesy of Arizona Opera

George Benjamin: Written on Skin

He is a megalomaniac brute who thinks he can control everything in his domain from the fruit on his trees to his wife's "obedient body". The Boy dutifully creates exotic images of "azurite and gold" on precious parchment, meticulously executed in fine detail.

Medieval art wasn't representational. Stylized depictions were meant to suggest concepts, not literality. Medieval art and modern art have more in common than we realize! Uneducated as she is, The Woman intuits that art can take on meaning of its own. Images can lie, yet also reveal eternal truths.

This, no less, may be what Written on Skin is about, despite the sensational narrative. It operates on several levels at the same time. Ostensibly the action takes place in a medieval manor house. The Protector thinks wealth will buy him eternity. A thousand years later, the lands he knew have been obliterated by "Saturday car parks" and multi lane highways. Even the Occitan has been absorbed into France. In this exquisitely poetic libretto, by Martin Crimp, past and future are superimposed on each other, reinforcing the idea that worldly certainities are impermanent. Things change, but artistic vision is timeless.

This sense of duality operates throughout the opera. The Protector thinks he controls everything around him. The Boy thinks that being an aritst (and presumably a monk) protects him from earthly engagement. Both are trumped by The Woman who wants the Boy to paint a a ""real woman" with passions and eyes that "grow black with love". The boy can see the flecks of gold in her grey eyes, but his eyes, too, turn black. The Protector sees the painting and suspects. The Boy lies to protect the Woman, but she's having no more subterfuge. "I am Agnès" she cries, "I am not a child!"

Benjamin's Written on Skin is a departure from the 19th century idea of what opera should be. Despite the vaguely modern set, and very modern music, Written on Skin is much closer to the medieval approach to art. The narrative is oblique, despite the barbarism in the plot. We cannot, and should not, impose our own ideas on what the Middle Ages "should" be. "Wild primroses and the slow torture of prisoners" as the Boy sings in Act One. Crimp's text is exquisite allegory. Poetry doesn't operate like prose : overstated literalism would kill the gossamer magic.

Thus Benjamin's music operates as poetry, elusively, obliquely, but with enough passion to make the drama progress even when the words seem static. Illustrations in medieval manuscripts depict cataclysmic scenes as if they're suspended in time. Perhaps in a past incarnation Benjamin painted illuminations, where detail is captured with surreal intensity. Although Benjamin's writing makes a virtue of ambiguity, his orchestration is stunningly pure and clear textured. Low timbred strings like double basses, and a viola de gamba, high pitched keening woodwinds, a glass harmonica and an unusual percussion section which includes bongoes, a whip and Indian tablas. This replicates the clean outlines of medieval illumination : no muddy shadows, but intense, unnatural colour. The percussion also suggests the vigour and simplicity of early music. We can "hear" the musicians of the Occitan in the sophisticated Royal Opera House orchestra. It's curiously unsettling, but perfectly in keeping with the opera. Benjamin himself conducted.

As in their previous opera, Into the Little Hill, Benjamin and Crimp use indirect speech. Phrases like "Said the Boy", or "Said the Woman", are embedded to the text, intensitfying the unsettling sense of allegory. Yet character is very well defined. The Boy and the Woman are playing the roles the Protector wants them to enact. Their long, wailing lines with strange distorted syntax suggest the stylization of mystery plays, or even Greek chorus. Individual words are gloriously embroidered and illuminated, so they shine out from the background of undulating rhythms.

Bejun Mehta sings the Boy, his countertenor at once disturbing and beautiful. Barbara Hannigan sings the Woman, her part even more demanding because the personality develops so dramatically. It is she who is the catalyst for action. As the Woman sits bowed but uncowed, Hannigan's voice expresses the frustration the Woman cannot articulate. When she suddenly pounces on the Boy, Hannigan's voice explodes with sexual tension : animal-like but desperate. She throws herself at her husband who, despite his macho image, can't cope with her being anything other than "pure and clean". At this point, Benjamin's music for the singers changes. The Protector (Christopher Purves) now gets the long, wailing legato, where previously his music erupted in short, brutal staccato. Now Agnès has the short, punchy lines and spits them out with new-found assertiveness.

When the Protector kills the Boy, we can hear his compromised feelings in the music. Is the Protector himself secretly attracted to the Boy? Purves sings with a strange tenderness suggesting that the Protector might be killing his own desires. Agnès is fed a meat pie. "How does it taste"? sings her husband. She understands the horrible truth. "I shall never, never, never get the taste out of my mouth" she sings, her voice reaching heights of horror, her lines once again stretching out in extended wailing.

Mehta appears as an Angel, surrounded by other angels who had also appeared as Marie and John, Agnès's sister and brother-in-law, now supposedly dead. Victoria Simmonds and Alan Clayton sang the roles. The Boy is now a protagonist in a painting, no longer man but immortalized as a work of art. Just as he had paiinted a woman falling, suspended in mid-air, Hannigan mounts the stairs at the side of the stage and disappears, followed by a group of retainers moving in slow motion. We don't need to see her fall. We already know. "Art" has become "life".

I'm not generally a fan of Katie Mitchell, but her directing in this was very perceptive. She and her designers Vicki Mortimer and Jon Clark have made split level sets something of a signature, but in Written on Skin the style works well with the meaning. Most of the action takes place, claustrophobically, in one room. The other rooms on other levels show the world that goes on outside the trapped manse. Perhaps the Boy is a quintessential Artist, who consciously enters other worlds when he creates a work of art ? He leaves his street clothes behind when he enters the Protectors's realm. Later, he's dressed by attendants so he can become The Angel. Perhaps it's a subtle reference to the relationship between artist and patron, as well as to the relationship between art and artist.

Written on Skin is only Benjamin's second opera. His first, Into the Little Hill, also to texts by Martin Crimp. was a highly condensed chamber opera about which I've written extensively. Read more HERE. Since Benjamin was hitherto a miniaturist, who worked slowly because he took such meticulous care, I was concerned how he'd write a full scale opera for a large house like the Royal Opera House and the seven other houses in which it is touring, I needn't have worried. Working with Martin Crimp seems to have stimulated Benjamin to new levels of creativity. Although Written on Skin is stylized and abstract, it is inherently dramatic on its own terms. Dare I say it, but I do feel that this will be one of the defining operas of the early 21st century, because it is so visionary.

George Benjamin's Written on Skin will be broadcast (audio only) on BBC Radio 3 on 22nd June.

Anne Ozorio

image=http://www.operatoday.com/written_skin.png
image_description=Christopher Purves as Protector, Bejun Mehta as Boy and Barbara Hannigan as Agnès [Photo © 2012 ROH/Stephen Cummiskey]

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Lully’s Phaeton at the Barbican, London

Phaeton was the tenth of Lully’s tragedies lyriques written with librettist Philippe Quinault. The works were ground-breaking, in them Lully effectively created the genre of French opera, synthesizing elements from ballet and drama. Yet composers such as Charpentier and Rameau, seem to have taken the genre to its real heights, and opportunities to hear Lully’s operas live in London are extremely rare. So it was a pleasure to welcome Christophe Rousset and les Talens Lyriques to London’s Barbican Hall on Friday 8 March 2013 for a concert performance of Phaeton.

Phaeton is written in five acts, plus a prologue; the prologue has little relevance to the drama and simply is an excuse to laud Lully’s patron Louis XIV. The plot of the opera is moderately complicated, with many of the cast related to each other or descended from the Gods. The sort of mythical soap opera which was beloved of baroque opera librettists and which, for modern day audiences, rather requires a family tree and a good memory. Essentially it is a moral tale about hubris, and can be seen as a warning to anyone who tries to come close to the Sun’s power (i.e. to Louis himself).

Phaeton is the son of the Sun god Apollo but his not himself a god; Phaeton is, however, very ambitious and not very likeable. Theone is in love with Phaeton, but he is chosen by Merops as the husband for his daughter Libye. Phaeton promptly drops Theone and agrees to marry Libye. However Libye and Epaphus (son of Jupiter) are in love, so an annoyed Epaphus casts aspersions on Phaeton’s parentage. To prove he is the son of Apollo, Phaeton drives his father’s chariot of the sun and burns himself. Also threading through this is Phaeton’s strong relationship to his mother Clymene, who elicits a prophecy from Protee in act which tells her that Phaeton is doomed to die.

Lully had a superb sense of dramatic construction, so that he and Quinault lay all this out in wonderfully flexible recitatives and ariosos interleaved with choruses and dances. Arias are never big, they merge flexibly with the recitative in a way which is in many ways far closer to Monteverdi than Handel. The chorus was far more active in French baroque opera than in Italian, and ballet was essential. What Lully fails to do is make them completely germane to the plot, in the way that Charpentier and Rameau were able to do.

However, a weakness of Lully’s operas is that he was not as strong on musical drama, his characters never really develop and the great musical moments are effectively bon bouches, which would work very well one their own. But the great moments are superb and quite heart wrenching.

Lully’s orchestral writing is not particularly descriptive. So the section where Phaeton drives his father’s chariot and loses control is done mainly in narration and without the sort of large-scale descriptive writing that other later composers might have used.

Rousset’s large and admirable cast were completely in tune with the genre and we were treated to an extremely stylish, vivid and entrancing performance. Some of the singers played two or three roles, so without any element of staging, you had to rather pay close attention. But it was well worth it.

In the title role Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, born in Geneva of Chilean parents, displayed a lovely lyric tenor which did not seem entirely comfortable with the haut-contre tessitura, rendering his performance a little stiff. But then Phaeton is rather unlikeable and, in fact, not the biggest of roles. His greatest moment is a non-singing one, when in act 5 he drives his father’s chariot of the sun across the sky. Something that was re-created using spectacular sets in the original performance.

Ingrid Perruche was profoundly moving as Phaeton’s mother, eliciting a prophecy and then having to deal with the fact that her son is doomed. However I think the stand-out performance came from Isabele Druet as Theone who is in love with Phaeton. Druet brought an edgy expressiveness to her voice which would not suit every role, but here it worked perfectly and served to highlight the thread of Theone’s unhappiness which ran through the opera.

Another thread was the doomed love of Libye, Sophie Bevan, and Epaphus, Andrew Foster-Williams. They had some lovely solo moments, but it was their duets which tugged the heart strings. Bevan was just as moving as Druet, but with a softer grained voice which contrasted and complemented nicely in their duets and dialogues.

Distinguished French haut-contre Cyril Auvity sang a number of roles, notably Phaeton’s father, the Sun, and demonstrated how stylish and moving the art of the haut-contre can be. Matthew Brook was suitably dignified Merops (Libye’s father), as well as doubling Autumn and Jupiter (Epaphus’s father). Virginie Thomas, a member of the Namur Chamber Choir, took a number of smaller roles, singing them all beautifully and blending well with the other singers in duets.

The chorus was kept quite busy, as Lully wrote a substantial part for them. The Namur Chamber Choir was impressively stylish in its performance and imbued its scenes with the requisite amount of drama. You began to realise quite how thrilling it must have seemed, when Lully formed the Academie Royale de Musique, to have sung drama, chorus and dancing brought together in this way.

And there was a lot of dance music. Rousset elicited a lively and vivid performance from his ensemble, but without any stage effects I began to wonder whether Rameau hadn’t don’t all this rather better.

Rousset directed from the harpsichord, conducting the ensemble numbers and playing the harpsichord for the recitatives. There was a second harpsichord for the ensembles, doubling organ and the continuo also included a theorbo, whose player doubled on baroque guitar. I’m not sure if this latter was in period, but it added a lovely texture to some of the dances.

Lully and Quinault constructed a wonderful entertainment which, I think really requires staging. In concert, without the sets and the dancing girls to distract you, there were a few moments when you felt that the drama did sag. But thanks to Rousset’s crisp and sympathetic direction and the stylish performances from singers, choir and orchestra, this was a vivid and lively evening which had some moments of real pathos.

Robert Hugill

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image_description=Jean-Baptiste Lully

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product_title=Jean-Baptiste Lully: Phaeton
product_by=Phaeton: Emiliano Gonzales Toro, Clymene: Ingrid Perruche, Theone/Astree: Isabell Druet, Libye: Sophie Bevan, Epaphus: Andrew Foster-Williams, Merops/Automne, Jupiter: Matthew Brook, Protee/Saturne: Benoit Arnould, Triton/Le Soleil, La Deesse de la Terre: Cyri Auvity, Une Heure/Une Berger egyptienne: Virginie Thomas, Les Talens Lyriques, Namur Chamber Choir, Conductor : Christophe Rousset, Barbican Hall, London
8 March 2013
product_id=Above: Jean-Baptiste Lully

Barber by ENO

The programme book mentioned commedia dell’arte: Tanya McCallin’s designs are of that world, certainly, even if there does not seem to be a great deal in Miller’s production that goes beyond the general ‘look’ of that tradition. Unlike many endlessly revived productions, this, then, is not in itself particularly tired, and one can readily imagine it offering the opportunity for new casts to come in and assume their roles without a great deal of stage rehearsal. By the same token, when compared with, for instance, John Copley’s considerably more venerable Royal Opera La bohème, which I happened to see earlier in the month, the staging does not especially sparkle, enlighten, or indeed charm either. It would do no harm to have a little Regietheater cast Rossini’s way. Either that, or assemble a cast whose sparkle would lift the work above the merely quotidian.

I say ‘the work’, but this performance, unfortunately, put me in mind of Carl Dahlhaus’s ‘twin musical cultures’ of the nineteenth century: too clear a distinction, no doubt, but nevertheless heuristically useful. On the one hand, one has the culture of the musical work, as understood in an emphatic sense, that of Beethoven and his successors; on the other, one has ‘a Rossini score ... a mere recipe for performance, and it is the performance which forms the crucial aesthetic arbiter as the realisation of a draft rather than an exegesis of a text’. The problem was that this performance, taken as a whole, simply did not sparkle as Rossini must. One therefore became of the score as a decidedly inferior, indeed well-nigh interminable work. Repetitions grated and a good part of the audience was espied, furtively or less furtively, glancing at wristwatches. If Rossini’s ‘musical thought hinged on the performance as an event,’ then this was an unhinged performance — and not, alas, in the expressionistic sense.

Benedict Nelson as Figaro, Andrew Kennedy as Count Almaviva and Lucy Crowe as Rosina

Jaime Martin’s conducting started well enough. There was throughout a welcome clarity in the score; this was not, at least, Rossini attempting and failing to be Mozart or Beethoven. Give or take the odd orchestral slip, there might have been much to enjoy in the contribution of the ENO Orchestra, considered in itself. However, impetus was soon lost, and any ‘purely musical’ tension soon sagged. Whether the first act were actually as long as it felt, I am not sure, but many during the interval opined that it seemed as though it was never going to end. If Rossini’s repetitions as opposed to development serve a dramatic purpose, one can readily forget them; here they were apparent in unfortunately lonely fashion. I could not help but mentally contrast the extraordinary use to which Beethoven, for instance in the Waldstein Sonata, puts simple tonic and dominant harmony, to the tedium induced on this occasion. For some reason, the fortepiano was employed as a continuo instrument: a strange fashion, which has enslaved musicians who would never think of using it in solo repertoire. Performance, then, failed to elevate the ‘work’. At least the English translation, by Amanda and Anthony Holden was a cut above the average.

The greater fault in any case lay elsewhere, above all in Andrew Kennedy’s Almaviva. His casting seemed simply inexplicable. Almost entirely lacking in coloratura, let alone Florez-like facility therewith, he resorted to mere crooning, a state of affairs worsened by the application at seemingly random intervals of unnervingly thick vibrato. His stage presence was of a part with his vocal performance. Benedict Nelson’s Figaro started off in reasonably convincing fashion, but by the end was somewhat hoarse and throughout lacked the pinpoint precision that might have lifted the performance. By contrast, Lucy Crowe was an excellent Rosina. Her coloratura was impeccable, her gracious stage presence no less so. Andrew Shore reminded us of his skills as a comic actor in the role of Doctor Bartolo, and Katherine Broderick also took the opportunity to shine as Berta. Sadly, the increasingly lacklustre conducting and the embarrassing performance of Kennedy conspired to negate those positive aspects of the performance, rendering one tired with the ‘work’, however it were considered.

Mark Berry

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Cast and production information:

Count Almaviva: Andrew Kennedy; Figaro: Benedict Nelson; Rosina: Lucy Crowe; Doctor Bartolo: Andrew Shore; Don Basilio: David Soar; Berta: Katherine Broderick; Ambrigio: Geraint Hylton; An Official: Roger Begley; A Notary: Allan Adams. Director: Jonathan Miller; Revival director: Peter Relton; Designs: Tanya McCallin. Orchestra and Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Genevieve Ellis)/Jaime Martin (conductor). The Coliseum, London, Monday 25 February 2013

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Crowe_Barber_ENO.gif image_description=Lucy Crowe as Rosina [Photo by Scott Rylander courtesy of English National Opera] product=yes product_title=Barber by ENO product_by=A review by Mark Berry product_id=Above: Lucy Crowe as Rosina

Photos by Scott Rylander courtesy of English National Opera

Wagner Parsifal at the Met

"Hört ihr den Ruf?". From the moment Pape starts to sing, we realize that this will be no routine Parsifal. Gurnemanz apperars in normal street clothes, so you concentrate on the man he is and what he says, without the filter of fancy dress costume. This makes for an uncommonly direct portrayal. Pape enunciates the long recitatives with careful deliberation, his phrasing natural, each word measured so its meaning cannot be missed. Like the Wanderer in Siegfried, Gurnemanz knows he cannot change the past, but might glimpse the future. The Knights mock Kundry, just as she mocked Jesus. Gurnemanz shows her compassion. Pape's voice warms when he addresses her. In the final act, he touches her face with great tenderness: you wonder if there's more to their relationship than Wagner lets on. A sub-theme of sexual repression runs through the opera. A basic understanding of Wagner's ideas on nature, human and otherwise, should alert us as to what Parsifal might really mean. Fearful of Kundry, the Community blocks out part of the balance so necessary for growth.

This production, directed by François Girard with designs by Michael Levine, interprets Parsifal in connection with the breadth of Wagner's vision perceptively. Fundamentally Parsifal isn't "about" Christianity at all, though Christian icons abound. The Knights of the Grail didn't exist, and Klingsor is sheer fantasy. The idea that any one group should "own" the Grail contradicts the very idea of Christianity, where each time Mass is said, communities all over the world re-enact the Communion. If anything Parsifal is a veiled critique of established religion. Just as Wagner challenges capitalsim in the Ring, in Parsifal he challenges conventional piety. The Grail Knights hate Klingsor because he uses magic to achieve his aims. Yet they themselves practise superstition. Good Friday commemorates the Crucifixion. It doesn't, of itself, create miracles. The Knights talk the talk, and walk the walk (the processions) but even Gurnemanz can't, at first, understand who Parsifal is and why he seemingly defiles the holy day by turning up in his grubbies.

Religion and religiosity are very different things. Parsifal is more Siegfried than Jesus. He's a posthumous child whose background is obscure: all we know are his parents' names, although Kundry, like Brünnhilde, may know more than she's letting on. Like Siegfried, Parsifal is an innocent unpolluted by the world (another reference to Wagner's Romantic ideas of Nature). But unlike Siegfried, who thinks only of himself and the immediate moment, Parsifal learns through compassion. "Durch Mitleid wissend, der reine Tor", can grow and develop, and become the Saviour releasing Amfortas from his wound. He regains the Spear that pierced Jesus' body on the Cross. He baptises Kundry, who thus (in this non-misogynistic production) can greet the Grail. Yet hang on! Jesus was the Son of God: Parsifal is the son of an obscure human being. Imbuing him with semi-divine powers is sacrilege. And in any case nothing in the Gospels suggests that the spear at the Crucifixion had magic powers. Miracles come from God, if you believe, not from inanimate objects. The Grail Community believes in things but not in the concepts that mark true faith.

Parsifal works as a spiritual experience because the music is sublime. It can detoxify our ears, clearing out the mental muzak that pollutes our normal lives. The diaphanous textures, and the reverential tempi operate on our psyches, putting us in a kind of zen state where we're receptive to spiritual urges. Parsifal can be soporific in the wrong hands, but let's not forget that the REM state of sleep is physiologically important, connected with dreams, memory and deep refreshment. No wonder Parsifal evokes spiritual feelings even if the narrative is fundamentally non-religious.

With Jonas Kaufmann as Parsifal, one can believe. He sings like a God. In the First Act, Kaufmann has relatively little to sing, because Parsifal is still in embryo, so to speak. Kaufmann's eyes observe everything keenly: he's learning with every moment that passes. Because Siegfried knew no fear, he was easily fooled. Parsifal, on the other hand, is feared by strangers because they can sense instinctively that he has a mind of his own.

In Klingsor's Zauberschloss, Parsifal kills the Flower Maiden's lovers - that's why the scene is awash with blood, as the text makes perfectly clear. Parsifal kills without malice, just as he killed the Swan who led him to the Grail community. He's still very much on a learning curve.In any case, Blood flows all over this opera. There are so many references to blood, death and birth that it's surprising how restrained this staging really is.

The Flower Maidens in this production are powerfully realized. They are beautiful, but close up we can see they are wearing wigs and have identikit painted masks. The choreography is by Carolyn Choa. The women are grouped in the shape of a lotus, so when they bend and move, they look like a giant lotus opening its petals. Choa choreographed Anthony Minghella's Madama Butterfly. While the use of the colour red also figures, the intention's quite different. The Lotus is a Buddhist symbol of purity, shooting up sullied from the mud beneath a lake. Parsifal, by implication. The reference is also to the Buddhist way of Compassion Wagner was reading about at the time he was working on Parsifal. That's yet another reason for not taking the "Christian" aspects of the opera too literally. Parsifal offers Compassion as an alternative to the self-righteous judgementalism of the Grail community. Buddhists don't believe in deities but in concepts of good ethics. Anyone who lives with selfess virtue can attain Boddhisatva. Interestingly, when the Knights of the Grail first gathered in Act One, they, too, formed a circle like a lotus, though it didn't last. A small detail, perhaps, but absolutely relevant.

The scene is nott gory. The floor is covered, but it's shiny like a mirror, reflecting what's above it. A bed descends on which Kundry attempts to seduce Parsifal It's pure white, but as Kundry moves about, she stains the sheets red. As the Flower Miadens dance, the water turns their dresses pink, in a parody of girliness. They lean on spears, like pole dancers. They are mocking the Spear as Kundry mocked Jesus, but also making a statement about the misogyny of the Grail community and of the established Church.

Katarina Dalayman's Kundry is flesh and blood woman in a negligée. Waltraud Meier's wild animal Kundry in the Nicholas Lenhoff production remains a tour de force, defining the role at its most savage.. But Dalayman is right for Girard's humanist Parsifal, and the scene on the bed gives her a chance to show Kundry's quintessential vulnerability. Dalayman is good, and would shine more had we not been blinded by the glory of Kaufmann's singing.

The Second Act marks a turning point in Parsifal's journey towards self-knowledge. Just as he is about to succumb to lust, Parsifal thinks of Amfortas's suffering. With tremendous force, Kaufmann sings "Amfortas! Die Wunde! Die Wunde!", and then with heartfelt agony "Furchtbare Klage!". His voice carries such authority that it seems to obliterate everything around him. His singing is so powerful that quite frankly, it doesn't matter how he catches the Spear, or how Kundry curses him. He's invincible because he has found his Mission.

Yet Parsifal still has a long way to go before he achieves his destiny. In the Final Act, the Grail Community is falling apart, the Knights scavenging for survival in a post-apocalyptuc Wasteland. The ground is parched and cracked. Water and blood are fluids, both essential for life. Yet even at this nadir, there is hope. When Pape sings "...der .Lenz ist da!" he prepares the way for Parsifal's "die Halme, Blüten und Blumen", fresh, open meadows rather than the hothouse flowers of Klingsor's realm. But perhaps it's also an echo of Sieglinde's "Du bist der Lenz". Nonetheless the Grail Community is still so hidebound by pointless rules that even Gurnemanz can't recognize The Spear when Parsifal places it before him.

"Der Irmis und der Leiden Pfade kam ich, soll ich mich denen jetzt entwunden wähnen" When Kaufmann sings of Parsifal's struggles, his voice expresses genuine anguish. Just as the Spear was once forged in flames, Parsifal has matured through suffering. Amfortas's wound can be healed by the Spear; Parsifal's wounds make him who he is now. He uses the Spear to help others. The Shrine is opened, and it would appear that the Community revives. Wagner's instructions are that a white dove appears over Parsifal's head. Anyone with a basic grasp of theology recognizes the reference to Jesus. Kaufmann's timbre is so strong and pure that you can suspend belief for an instant. Superlative performances, too, from Peter Mattei (Amfortas) and Evgeny Nikitin as Klingsor. In any ordinary production, they'd shine. In this luxury cast, there wasn't any weak link. Daniele Gatti's conducting highlighted the drama. I can remember a Bernard Haitink Parsifal where the tempi were so slow that that it would have worked better as audio. Beautiful, but Parsifal is a work for the stage.

Wagner was an artist, and for him, art transcended all else. Parsifal is a miraculous work of art, utterly convincing on its own terms. But it's art, not religion. Wagner adapted Icelandic sagas for the Ring, and medieval legend for Tristan und Isolde. Adapting the Gospels for his own purposes would have been perfectly logical. If anything, Girard's Parsifal makes me appreciate the true spirituality in the opera, rather than the pseudo-Christian mumbo-jumbo.

Anne Ozorio

image=
image_description

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product_title=Richard Wagner : Parsifal
product_by=IKundry : Katarina Dalayman, Parsifal : Jonas Kaufmann, Amfortas : Peter Mattei, Klingsor : Evgeny Nitikin, Gurnemanz : René Pape, Conductor : Daniele G\atti, Director : Francois Girard, Designs : Michael Levine, Costumes : Thibault V\ncraenenbroeck, Lighting : David Finn, Video : Peter Flaherty, Choreography : Carolyn Choa, Dramaturg : Serge Lamothe. Metropolitan Opera House, HD broadcast 3rd March 2013
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An Interview with Virginia Zeani

Legendary for her voice and her startling beauty, Virginia Zeani has the unmistakable presence of a great diva. Eighty-six years have not diminished the brilliance of those Elizabeth Taylor eyes, the erect posture, the dark music of that Romanian accent.

Post-performances of the Palm Beach Opera, there is always the whispered question, “What did Zeani think?” A great teacher after her illustrious career, she is analytical and was happy to share her impressions of the recent PBO production of La Cenerentola, after admitting she might be prejudiced in favor of the mezzo-soprano who sang the title role, Viveca Genaux, who is one of many Zeani students now starring on international stages. Here are some of Zeani’s observations:

“Cenerentola is an opera that can be staged quite successfully in two very different ways — one tender and romantic, one stylized and comedic. This production, from Erhard Rom of the Minnesota Opera, was the latter, and quite charmingly done. The collaboration of conductor Will Crutchfield and director Mario Corradi followed that theme with lively tempi and lots of humor, without making it a total “pochade”, or joke. Crutchfield’s background and thorough preparation always informs his musicality.

Viveca Genaux [Photo by Christian Steiner]

“I was very happy with Viveca (Genaux), whose technical security enabled her to sing all three consecutive performances of this demanding role with beautiful, creamy tone. She has very correct agility for the coloratura, and a good figure as well — I liked that she was playful and sang with personality. This is a quality I find lacking in many modern singers. Sometimes I am really shocked at the ugly faces they make.

“On the other hand, the so-called ‘ugly’ sisters — Alexandra Batsios as Clorinda and Shirin Eskandani as Tisbe — were very good vocally, and ugly in the way Rossini intended, mean and silly of character.

“Rene Barbera lacks the physical stature of the ideal Ramiro (Prince Charming) but made up for it with confidence, secure high notes and nimble fioritura. Bruno Taddia as a clown-wigged Dandini was a very amusing actor, choosing to emphasize wit over vocal emission. Bruno Pratico was an impressive Don Magnifico, and Matthew Burns made some nice magic as Alidoro.

“Overall, I enjoy the Palm Beach Opera productions. They are traditional, usually as the composer desired, they find excellent artists and understand how to please their audience.”

When asked to expound on the challenges of bel canto singing, Mme. Zeani added some interesting thoughts.

“Of course one has to work on the agility, the purity of intonation, the ‘tricks’ of trills, roulades, staccato, attack. But singers today often forget what was, for me, most important; the expression, the phrasing, the emotion. I always worked hardest on coloring the tone while keeping the legato. Even bel canto is more than just beautiful tone — the beauty of expression must be there, not only in the voice but in the face, the body, even the eyes.”

Ariane Csonka

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Virginia_Zeani.gif image_description=Virginia Zeani [Source: Wikipedia] product=yes product_title=An Interview with Virginia Zeani product_by=By Ariane Csonka product_id=Above: Virginia Zeani [Source: Wikipedia]

Tosca, Royal Opera

The dramatic pulse certainly runs high in Jonathan Kent’s ROH production, first seen in 2006 and here receiving its fifth revival under the direction of Andrew Sinclair. Kent’s approach is characterised by two principals: tradition and realism. This is no bad thing: we’re given an experience which, one imagines, must be just as Puccini imagined it — all visual extravagance, dramatic intensity and musical emotionalism. Kent combines the universality of the emotional drama with the particularities of the time and place, costume and setting unambiguously announcing the Napoleonic context.

The opulent rococo interior of Paul Brown’s gilded church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Act 1 makes a bold visual statement, its split levels shimmering in the lavish glow of a multitude of sacred candles. We are behind the high altar, the crypt visible below; the effect should be one of spaciousness but in fact the numerous balustrades and balconies restrict the stage space available, and it feels rather cluttered and overly fussy. Moreover, the chorus are pushed to the back, which diminishes the impact of the Te Deum.

Scarpia’s sordid study in the Palazzo Farnese is dominated by a huge statue, a striking symbol of domination and intimidation. The bookcases are empty, save for the single set of shelves which hide the door to his torture chamber. In contrast to the baroque splendour of Act 2, the Castel Sant’Angelo in the final act is more sparsely adorned save for a gigantic statue fragment that flies aloft. Mark Henderson’s beautiful lighting design skilfully paint the expressive colours; most strikingly, in Act 2 Henderson atmospherically conjures the shadowy recesses of Scarpia’s psyche.

The main roles in this production have previously been inhabited by Gheorghiu, Kaufmann and Terfel — modern operatic titans. But, while there were no ‘superstars’ this time around, the cast is strong-voiced and dramatically convincing, and both Amanda Echalaz and Massimo Giordano have of late established themselves on the international stage, as Tosca and Cavaradossi respectively. Indeed, having won acclaim on the other side of town, at ENO and Holland Park, Eschalaz also stood in for the indisposed Gheorghiu at Covent Garden in 2009.

Echalaz used her weighty voice and full vibrato to portray a Tosca equipped with feisty self-belief, her petulant exchanges with Cavaradossi in Act 1 revealing a woman who knows her own mind and who has a short emotional fuse. She was at her best in this opening act, and during her agonised resistance to Scarpia in Act 2, where her rich legato and dramatic commitment won our full compassion. Perhaps this Tosca lacked a little of the frail vulnerability which contrasts with her impetuousness, and which underpins her tragedy? That said, ‘Vissi d’arte’ was quietly understated but deeply felt and affecting, as Echalaz convincingly conveyed the poignant destruction wrought by Scarpia’s ruthless cruelty.

Just as Echalaz has visited this production stage before, so Massimo Giordano also stepped in for the Marcello Giordani back in 2009 and is an experienced Cavaradossi. Giordano looks and sounds the part: young and handsome, he can embody the fervent swagger and heroic self-belief of the painter, and this demeanour is matched by a warm, smooth tone and firm vocal weight. However, while volume was never prioritised at the expense of dramatic engagement, Giordano’s characterisation seemed somewhat superficial. There was much Italianate grace in the tenor’s singing, but also a few unsteady swoops up to the top: while his big Act 1 aria, ‘Recondita armonia’ was full of impact, it was low on delicacy and subtlety.

In ‘E lucevan le stelle’ Giordano more successfully balanced power and feeling, and the moments as he waited for his execution, on the roof of the Castel Sant’ Angelo were painfully fraught. Together Echalaz and Giordano told a convincing tale without really tugging at the heart-strings.

Michael Volle’s Scarpia was a more commanding presence, all sneering contempt and brooding evil. Volle was no cartoon-villain: his gestures were discreet but his moral ugliness and perverted desires were chillingly apparent. This was a man as devoid of humanity as his library is barren of books; his Act 2 duet with Echalaz built to an almost unbearable point of psychological repulsion, as his depravity was exposed for both Tosca and us.

The minor roles were all excellent; well-sung and charismatic. Jeremy White as the Sacristan engaged naturally and convincingly with the other personnel, and Hubert Francis was a nastily predatory Spoletta. Best of all, Michael Clayton-Jolly gave a wonderful rendition of the shepherd boy’s song.

After a rather understated opening, conductor Maurizio Benini revealed a sure ear for a diversity of Puccinian textures, proving alert to the details of the score and conveying a strong sense of the grand sweep of the musico-drama. There was much superb playing from the pit, although I’d have liked a bit more rawness and concentrated intensity at the climactic heights.

Overall, a revival worth seeing. Musical and dramatic standards are consistently high, sets and costumes are captivatingly luxurious and, however familiar, there’s nothing like Tosca to stir the passions.

Claire Seymour

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Cast and production information:

Floria Tosca — Amanda Echalaz; Mario Cavaradossi — Massimo Giordano; Baron Scarpia — Michael Volle; Spoletta — Hubert Francis; Angelotti — Michel de Souza; Sacristan — Jeremy White; Sciarrone — Jihoon Kim; Gaoler — John Morrissey; Shepherd Boy — Michael Clayton-Jolly; Conductor — Maurizio Benini; Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera Chorus; Director — Jonathan Kent; Designs — Paul Brown; Lighting design — Mark Henderson; Revival Director — Andrew Sinclair. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, Saturday 2nd March 2013

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Tosca-25-02-13-ROH-30.gif image_description=Amanda Echalaz as Tosca [Photo by ROH / Kenton] product=yes product_title=Tosca, Royal Opera product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Amanda Echalaz as Tosca [Photo by ROH / Kenton]

Bernarda Fink and the Italian Baroque

From the very first tumbling triplet cascades of Veracini’s Overture No.6 in G Minor it was apparent that the AAM would present a performance notable for its remarkable instrumental ensemble, dazzling clarity of articulation and supple rhythmic agility. Richter’s stage manner may be characterised by modest diffidence, but there is a discreet and impressive assurance about his leadership, a barely discernible glance or subtle gesture sufficient to ensure ensemble entries are crisp and precise, and tempi are intuitively sensed by all.

Blending pleasingly into a cohesive, sweet tone, the string players, oboists and theorbo player found much diversity of colour in Veracini’s varied score, the aching harmonic piquancies of the Largo giving way to vigorous polyphonic dialogue in the subsequent Allegro. In the rumbustious bucolic Minuet which concludes the overture, the players found a surprising dynamism in the almost exclusively single-part texture, deftly shaping the robust, spritely melodic line.

Titled ‘Italian Passions’, this programme set out to explore “the extremes of human emotion and the open-hearted Italian spirit”. Bernarda Fink’s moving, almost operatic performance of Tarquinio Merula’s idiosyncratic lullaby-chaconne, ‘Hor ch’è tempo di dormire’, certainly presented a contrast to the bright buoyancy of Veracini. Above a sinister rocking ostinato, which perhaps intimated the disturbed cries of the restless child, Fink affectingly enacted Mary’s tender but urgent coaxing as she tries to lull the baby Jesus to sleep. She drew every expressive nuance from the melody; her deepest register was modulated with particular beauty and power to convey the mother’s anguished warnings of the sufferings to come — her distress deepened by the dry, insistent repetitions of Elizabeth Kenny’s theorbo. Fink’s instinctive engagement with the text, complemented by the range of colour and the flexibility of her voice enabled her to tell the tale with fluency and naturalness. In the final two verses, with their recitative-like melody, she found a stillness and repose as the mother vows to “watch o’er my love/ And remain with bowed head/ So long as my child sleeps”.

After Merula’s deeply emotionally lament, ‘Sovvente il sole’ from Vivaldi’s serenata Andromeda liberate depicted a melancholy lover’s out-pouring of unrequited passion. Vivaldi’s dissonant inflections were richly enjoyed by the strings above which Fink’s pure mezzo tone and Richter’s delicate solo violin traceries entwined in perfectly controlled long, flowing phrases.

The aria was enclosed between two fleet-footed violin concertos by Vivaldi, ‘L’amoroso’ and ‘L’inquietudine’. In the lilting first movement of the former, Richter’s bow caressed the strings with sensuous gentleness, and soloists and ensemble combined exuberance and refinement in the concluding Allegro. ‘L’inquietudine’ evinced some technically impressive passage work, Richter’s semiquavers ever swift and light, the running lines full of character and élan.

After the interval, the strings were re-joined by the two oboists, Frank de Bruine and Lars Henriksson, for a rendition of Albinioni’s Concerto in C major for two oboes Op.9 No.9 which celebrated the composer’s rich, joyful melodic vein.

The concluding work, Il Pianto di Maria by Giovanni Battisti Ferrandini, was long attributed to Handel; Fink and the AAM demonstrated what a formidable and compelling work this 8-movement cantata is, the sacred text — drawn from both the Stabat mater and scenes depicting the Crucifixion — delivered with a theatricality and direct impact more typical of opera seria than of devotional compositions.

This is another portrait of a mother’s love and suffering for her son, and again Fink’s expressive immediacy was striking. In the opening recitative, her pained cry — “ah ciel!” — as Mary watches the “hideous tragedy” of Calvary unfold, was redolent with distress and the “immense bitterness of her torment”. Fink convincingly negotiated the rapid changes of emotion, moving from sobriety to passion, from agony to defiance. The final da capo aria had a quiet beauty and sober power as the mother reflects, “For his death took away/ The awareness of his pain”.

The playing of the AAM strings was stylish: the arching melodic contours were elegantly shaped, and the passages of close counterpoint and dialogue full of grace. The players were alert to the emotive nuances of the frequent chains of dissonance, and to the pictorial effects achieved by Ferrandini in the accompanied recitatives — as, for example, in the third movements where sharp stabbing gestures suggest Christ’s agony, “Lashed by scourges,/ Pierced by thorns,/ Wounded by nails”; or when the turbulence of the “[t]here universals earthquakes” decreed by God to mark the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Last Judgement are portrayed by agitated string passages reminiscent of Monteverdi’s stile concitato idiom.

The final, brief, and inconclusive, recitative, with its moralising dictum, “Tremble, man, you too, who are earth!” was shocking and disturbing. It is hard to imagine a more intense, impassioned portrayal of a mother’s adoration and anguish.

Claire Seymour

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Programme:

Veracini Overture in G minor; Merula Aria: Hor ch’è tempo di dormire; Vivaldi Concerto in E for violin RV271 ‘L’amoroso’, Aria: Sovvente il sole from Andromeda liberate, Concerto in D for violin RV234 ‘L’inquietudine’; Albinoni Concerto in C Op. 9 No. 9; Ferrandini Cantata: Il pianto di Maria. Academy of Ancient Music. Bernarda Fink, mezzo-soprano. Rodolfo Richter, director, violin. Wigmore Hall, London, Monday, 25th February 2013.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Fink.gif image_description=Bernarda Fink [Photo © Julia Wesely] product=yes product_title=Bernarda Fink and the Italian Baroque product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Bernarda Fink [Photo © Julia Wesely]

Bel Canto Queen Jessica Pratt

The Australian native, whisked away from a competition in Sydney by the conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti, found herself spending entire days as an observer of activities at Rome Opera. “His Young Artists’ Program consisted of watching every rehearsal, every day for six months,” she jokes from her house in Como. “One day I asked if I could take Italian lessons, and he said ‘absolutely not. You’ll learn Italian in the theater.’ And that’s what I did, just listening to everyone.” Seven years later, native fans file onto busses and travel across the country to see Pratt perform. She has sung in rare Rossini operas such as Adelaide di Borgonga in Pesaro and Ciro in Babilonia in Pesaro—the second of which she also sang at the Caramoor Festival last year—as well as in major houses such as Covent Garden and the Vienna State Opera. The current season includes performances opposite Leo Nucci and Juan Diego Florez. This May, her status as a leading diva will be officially bestowed with the Siola D’Oro, an award held by legendary sopranos such as Luciana Serra, June Anderson, Joan Sutherland, Mariella Devia, and Patrizia Ciofi.

Pratt, 33, says she was shocked by the announcement. “I’ll have to find a bank to put it in,” she says with a modest laugh of the diamond-studded brooch. “It’s a big honor because all the singers who have received it in past are all the singers I like.” She credits Gelmetti and Renata Scotto, with whom she took masterclasses at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, for steeping her in bel canto and allowing her to focus on this repertoire.“The first thing I saw here was Tancredi with Devia. I was so impressed by her that I decided wanted to sing just that.” While Pratt had sung everything from Strauss to Puccini in Australia, Scotto gave her detailed training in the leading roles in Lucia di Lamermoor and I Puritani and arranged for her first staged experience in student productions of Mozart’s Il Re Pastore and Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino. In 2007, she made her European debut at the Teatro Sociale di Como as Lucia, which remains part of her staple repertoire.“I get very attached and protective of my characters,” she says. “I need to sing her at least once a year.” She has repeatedly turned down heavier roles such as Norma. “She’s a woman who’s lived, who has two children and is thinking about killing them. I don’t have that experience to give to anyone onstage. And once you move into this repertoire you can’t go back. I would prefer to sing ‘Lucia’ and ‘Puritani’ for as long as I can. There is no rush.”

Sound decision-making in musical matters comes naturally to the soprano. She received her early education from her father, Phillip Pratt, a former tenor with Welsh National Opera and music school director in Sydney whom she still consults on Skype. Although the soprano wanted to study voice already as a young girl, she was required to play trumpet until she was 18. She nevertheless had the advantage of sitting in on her father’s private lessons, and childhood games developed skills that most people acquire in music theory courses. “Dad would play something on piano, and my brother and I would have competitions to see who could remember longest tune or pick out the notes in a chord,” she recalls. “It was our life.” Pratt attended conservatory for a single year in Sydney before deciding it wasn’t for her, instead working as a secretary to fund private lessons. She currently studies with Lella Cuberli, an American soprano based in Italy who specializes in bel canto. Cuberli has coached her in roles such as Mathilde in Guillaume Tell, which Pratt sings alongside Florez in Lima this month.

Although Pratt’s career is spreading internationally, with a recent German debut as Lucia at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and an upcoming concert in Washington, she remains faithful to the country in which she found herself artistically. “I remember watching these operas in Australia and thinking ‘this is ridiculous.’ Then I came here and saw that people that actually react to each other this way!And then I started doing it myself.” She recounts losing her temper—in Italian—during a rehearsal in Germany when two technical assistants starting laughing at her low-cut dress. “In certain situations it is easier to express myself in Italian. It just makes more sense. I hardly ever lose my temper in English!” she says. She also cites the sensitive acoustics of Italy’s old theaters and the orchestras’ ability to accompany bel canto opera with legato and buoyancy, as well as regular performances of the repertoire in which she now specializes. “Singing in Italy is a challenge every time,” she says. “Sometimes you don’t know if you’ll get paid. But it’s not a reason to abandon the country. It wouldn’t be fair. The people here have given me so much.”

Rebecca Schmid

image=http://www.operatoday.com/J-Pratt_Lucia.png image_description=Jessica Pratt as Lucia di Lamermoor [Photo by Marcello Orselli] product=yes product_title=Bel Canto Queen Jessica Pratt product_by=An interview by Rebecca Schmid product_id=Above: Jessica Pratt as Lucia di Lamermoor [Photo by Marcello Orselli]

Samson and Delilah, San Diego Opera

In the 1860s the composer was aware of a renewed interest in choral music, so he planned an oratorio on the story of Samson that is found in Chapter sixteen of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. He spoke to the husband of one of his wife's cousins, Ferdinand Lemaire, about writing a libretto for it and the writer said the story would make a good opera. They began working on it as an opera, but other concerns interrupted them.

Fellow composer Franz Liszt, who was interested in producing new works by talented composers, persuaded Saint-Saëns to finish Samson and Delilah, saying that he would produce the completed work at the grand-ducal opera house in Weimar.

The composer tailored the role of Delilah for Pauline Viardot (1821–1910), but by the time the work was finished and could be staged, the singer was too old to perform it. She did, however, organize a private performance of the second act at a friend's home with the composer at the piano. A great admirer of the work, she hoped that this private performance would encourage the director of the Paris Opéra to mount a full production. Although Saint-Saëns completed the score in 1876, no opera houses in France displayed any desire to stage Samson and Delilah.

It was Liszt's support that led to the work being premiered in a German translation on December 2, 1877, in Weimar, where it was a resounding success. But there were many intervening years before it started to become popular in other cities. Its Paris premiere at the Éden-Théâtre did not take place until October 31, 1890, but audiences did give it a warm reception. Over the next two years, performances were staged in Bordeaux, Geneva, Toulouse, Nantes, Dijon, and Montpellier. When the Paris Opéra finally presented the opera on November 23, 1892, audience members and critics alike praised it.

On February 19, 2013, San Diego Opera presented Samson and Delilah in a traditional production directed by Leslie Koenig. The solid looking, effective scenery was designed by Douglas Schmidt and the soft colored costumes were originated by Carrie Robbins. All were constructed at San Francisco Opera. Koenig’s direction told the story in a straightforward manner and made no attempt to update or change the setting from the borders of Judah, Dan, and Philistia in the late twelfth or early eleventh century BCE.

Clifton Forbis was a dramatic Samson who showed us the wages of his character’s sins. Vocally, he started off slowly, but it is a long role and his pacing was good after the first scene. His best singing was heard during the poignant third act aria, ‘Vois ma misère, helas’. Tall and slim Nadia Krasteva was a sensual, seductive Delilah who fully captured her man when she sang ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix’ (My Heart Opens at your Voice). Her voice had a purple velvet sound and the low notes of her chest voice were exquisite. As the High Priest of Dagon, Anooshah Golesorki commanded the stage as he sang with a stentorian voice. His second act duet with Krasteva was quite memorable.

Gregory Reinhart was a compelling Old Hebrew and Mikhail Svetlov a fiery Abimilech. Doug Jones, Scott Sikon, and Greg Fedderly gave interesting portrayals as Philistines. Since the composer originally thought to write this work as an oratorio, the chorus is very important. Under the direction of Charles F. Prestinari, the San Diego Opera Chorus sang Saint-Saens’ rousing music with great gusto. Conductor Karen Keltner is an expert on both French language and French music, so she coached the singers’ diction in addition to leading the orchestra in this idiomatic performance. She brought out Saint-Saens’ love for the exotic and her interpretation was particularly impressive in the ‘Bacchanal’. Her tempi were well thought out and the playing was rich and translucent. Kenneth von Heidecke’s choreography was fun to watch and the enticing music made the entire audience want to join the dance.

Maria Nockin

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Cast and Production Information

Clifton Forbis, Samson; Nadia Krasteva, Delilah; Mikhail Svetlov, Abimelech; Anoosha Golesorki, High Priest of Dagon; Scott Sikon and Doug Jones, Philistines; Greg Fedderly, Philistine Messenger; Gregory Reinhart, Old Hebrew; Karen Keltner, conductor; Leslie Koenig, director; Kenneth von Heidecke, choreographer; Charles F. Prestinari, chorus master; Douglas Schmidt, scenery; Carrie Robbins, costumes; Gary Marder, lighting design. San Diego Opera, Civic Theater, Tuesday, February 19, 2013.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Samson_SDO.png image_description=Above: Nadia Krasteva is Delilah and Clifton Forbis as Samson [Photo by J. Katarzyna Woronowicz. courtesy of San Diego Opera] product=yes product_title=Samson and Delilah, San Diego Opera product_by=A review by Maria Nockin product_id=Above: Nadia Krasteva is Delilah and Clifton Forbis as Samson [Photo by J. Katarzyna Woronowicz. courtesy of San Diego Opera]

James Conlon Renews Contract with LA Opera

The sixty-two year old conductor had just renewed his contract with the company for five more years, so he will remain in his position at least until the end of the 2017-2018 season. Besides Conlon, the opera’s leadership team includes General Director Placido Domingo and Chief Executive Officer Christopher Koelsch. Conlon, who has by now led more main stage performances than any other conductor in the company’s twenty-six year history, succeeded Kent Nagano at the beginning of the 2006-2007 season. He finishes out the current season conducting performances of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) and Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella). Next season he will conduct Verdi’s Falstaff, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), Britten’s Billy Budd, and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. All together, Los Angeles Opera will present seven productions during the 2013-1014 season.

Maestro Conlon reminisced about his early days in New York, telling us how important local opera was to him as an eleven-year-old boy. It is amazing to realize that ten years after he saw his first opera at a small company, he was working in Spoleto, Italy, as a coach and chorus conductor. Conlon has become immensely popular for his energetic talks and lectures. In addition to his pre-performance lectures at LA Opera, he has become a UCLA Regents Lecturer and will be speaking there on Verdi and Wagner. Having spent much of his career in Europe, the conductor has held important top positions in Cologne and Paris. Currently in addition to his position with Los Angeles Opera, he is music director of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival and the Cincinnati May Festival.

At the press conference, Conlon was asked about the Recovered Voices Program that presents music of composers whose careers were damaged by the Holocaust. In the past, the company has presented some of this music, including Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (The Dwarf), Ullmann’s Der Zerbrochene Krug (The Broken Jug), and Braunfels’ Die Vögel (The Birds). However, because of the financial downturn the series has been missing for the last few seasons. Conlon said “As soon as money comes back, it will come back. It's only the money.” Meanwhile, the operas mentioned above are available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Maria Nockin

image=http://www.operatoday.com/jamesconlon014.png image_description=James Conlon [Photo by Chester Higgins] product=yes product_title=James Conlon Renews Contract with LA Opera product_by=By Maria Nockin product_id=Above: James Conlon [Photo by Chester Higgins]

Eugene Onegin, Royal Opera

The Royal Opera House opted for Tchaikovsky’s romantic masterpiece, Eugene Onegin, and in my view got it both right and wrong. They got it right in that they managed to pack the house out even at full prices: could any opera composed in the last fifty years have achieved as much? Full prices = expensive: I paid £150 for what my ticket amusingly described as a “Tall Loose Seat” at the back of the Grand Tier. I was sitting on a glorified bar stool – one understands why they’re not called “Loose Stools” of course –and could see only 90% of the stage.

But they got it wrong in that they drew out very few young, or even youngish, couples on one of the great “date nights” of the year, a night when a bit of extravagance is widely felt to be allowable. It would certainly be an extravagance to most people, when a Valentine’s evening of this description, with dinner and drinks, would likely cost £400 or more. But there are plenty of young couples with a good deal of disposable income in the London area: they just weren’t choosing to see Eugene Onegin. The average age of the audience must have been on the less desirable side of 60. The stalls were a sea of white, grey and silver hair scattered with islands of exposed scalp. The overwhelming impression was that these were mostly moneyed, retired couples out for a treat on their umpteenth Valentine’s Day together and that they had long since done with holding hands and pursuing a feeling of romantic intimacy in the face of great art.

I have nothing against older people enjoying opera and intend myself to enjoy it for as long as I can. And it is admittedly often difficult to get young people enthused about the art form. But things can only get worse if, as I felt on 14 February, companies like the Royal Opera , seeing where the economic winds are blowing, start marketing their product specifically toward their older clientele. One of the first full-page ads in the Eugene Onegin programme was for Estée Lauder’s Re-Nutriv, the “Ultimate Lift Age-Correcting Crème.”Kasper Holten’s controversial production of the opera itself seemed just as aware of who was likely to be reading the programmes.

The keynote of the new production, as most reviewers have noted, is memory. As the programme explains, “Kasper Holten’s production focuses on the power of memory, on how it shapes us and how we gain self-knowledge through experience. The stage becomes increasingly full of objects symbolic for Tatyana and Onegin as they grow up and finally realize that they can never return to their past lives.” That’s oddly worded, and seems more a comment on the general human condition than on the psychological intricacies of the Pushkin-Tchaikovsky story, which is much more about the possibility or not of having a second chance to go down a road not taken than about a desired return to a “past life” (which “past life” are Onegin and Tatyana wanting to return to, we should ask).

Adrian Mourby’s programme essay, “Stepping Through the Memory Door,” more overtly attempts to link the opera to the general human condition of getting older. He draws on Lockean ideas of personal identity as constituted by memory, but gives them a depressingly bleak interpretation: “we reach the end of our lives … as the sum total, not just of our memories but of the mistakes we have made. As we go through life we accrete more and more layers, and our decisions hem us in until we are trapped in a present we never chose, unable to see the person we once had the potential to be.”Who is he talking about here? The danger of “middle age,” Mourby proceeds to moralise, is that an encounter “with someone who shared our youth” can lead us to a delusive notion that we can break free: “The curse of Friends Reunited that has blighted many modern marriages is much more than an opportunity for consummating youthful relationships in adulterous middle age; it is about the impact that people from the past have on our younger selves, selves that have been all but lost under the layers of mistakes and compromises down the years.” If anyone gets round to writing an opera about Prince Charles and his two wives, Mourby’s essay can be reprinted as a guide to some of the issues involved in that unsavoury piece of royal history. But it is an odd commentary on the story of Tchaikovsky’s teenage Tatyana, and one cannot help feeling that Mourby is going much too far in trying to make Eugene Onegin artificially RELEVANT to ROH’s aging patrons who are, ipso facto, stereotyped as romantically unfulfilled.

I’ll come to the question of whether these ideas are actually represented in Holten’s production in a moment. First, it is worth making a comparison between the view of life set out here and that expressed so successfully in Mamma Mia!, the very popular musical playing year after year not far from the Royal Opera House. Mamma Mia! unquestionablyis about middle-aged people, and it unquestionably attracts a much younger audience. In fact, it’s a safe bet that a lot more hand-holding was going on there on 14 February. I don’t believe this is simply a matter of cost. Mamma Mia!, written by a single mother, is about mistakes and misunderstandings, and it is about losing touch with younger selves, but it is also about the power of love to overcome these things and the human potential for renewal. This is what young people want to believe in, and good for them. They know, of course, that not every love story ends happily, but even the tragic ones have something to say about how wonderful love is, something to teach about the value of getting it right, and I simply cannot imagine happy young couples subscribing to the very cynical Everyman interpretation of Eugene Onegin offered by Mourby – especially on Valentine’s Day!

The really distinctive feature of Holten’s production, as all the critics have noted, is that he introduces younger versions of Tatyana and Onegin as mime roles. The critical reaction to this has been almost uniformly negative: the addition of new “characters” has been judged as either confusing the story or adding an unwanted and unnecessary layer of psychological “interpretation.” But I have not read any discussion of how this device alters the audience’s relationship to the story. Yet alter it it surely does, for by introducing young versions of characters normally imagined as young anyway, the production inevitably makes the singing Tatyana and Onegin seem much older. The casting of Krassimira Stoyanova and Simon Keenlyside as the two protagonists reinforced this impression: neither, to put it bluntly, looked like a young lover. Mourby’s essay, whatever its relevance to Tchaikovsky’s opera, is relevant to this production.

In Holten’s production, Tatyana and Onegin spend a good deal of time looking at their own younger selves; in fact in key scenes, like the writing of Tatyana’s letter and the fighting of the duel, it is the younger selves who actually perform the actions. These younger selves, performed by Vigdis Hentze Olsen and Thom Rackett, both of whom have a background in dance, were certainly very much worth looking at, especially Olsen, with her beautiful, sinuous and expressive form doing full justice to some intense choreography. She could easily have passed for Stoyanova’s daughter, and surely prompted many audience reflections on the vulnerability of beauty to time, with or without “Age-Correcting Crème.” The net result was that an audience of people with an average age of about 60 were looking at protagonists who appeared to be about 40, who were in turn looking at younger versions of themselves who appeared to be about 20: a sort of theatrical variation on the Droste effect. There was something decidedly retrospective and distancing about this, with youthful passion being mediated to an older audience who might have plenty of money but are nevertheless, in Mourby’s assessment, trapped on the wrong side of a mid-life crisis.

By the end of the opera the younger selves had been put away for all practical purposes. After her rejection by Onegin, the younger Tatyana retreated into a hollow place in one of the three pillars that bestrode the stage, where she remained visible through the ball scene (it had previously been unclear why two of the three had these hollow compartments). It was the kind of thing Virginia Woolf might have imagined for one of her female characters, and appeared to represent a sort of grave for the younger, truer self. I found it the most visually arresting moment in the production, and one that summed up what Holten was doing with the story. This Eugene Onegin is not so much about youth as about mid-life crisis, not so much about the thrill of living and feeling as about death in life,not so much about love as about troubling memories of it from long ago.

Any production of a classic opera that makes us think about it anew is to be welcomed, and I found much of interest in Holten’s Eugene Onegin. But, as one lady indignantly announced in the cloakroom afterwards, “it’s not THE opera [Tchaikovsky imagined],” and it seemed, at least in the context of Valentine’s Day, to be too obviously pitched to an aging audience stereotyped as unfulfilled and no longer able to engage directly with youthful passion. Much as I prefer Tchaikovsky’s music to ABBA’s, if I was young and in love I’d much rather have had a pair of tickets for Mamma Mia! on 14 February.

David Chandler

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Cast and production information

Tatyana: Krassimira Stoyanova; young Tatyana: Vigdis Hentze Olsen; Eugene Onegin: Simon Keenlyside; young Onegin: Thom Rackett; Lensky: Pavol Breslik; Olga: Elena Maximova; Prince Gremin: Peter Rose; Madame Larina: Diana Montague; Monsieur Triquet: Christophe Mortagne; Filipyevna: Kathleen Wilkinson; Zaretsky: Jihoon Kim; Captain: Michel de Souza; conductor: Robin Ticciati; director: Kasper Holten; set designs: Mia Stensgaard; costume designs: Katrina Lindsay; lighting design: Leo Warner. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 14 February 2013.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Pushkin.png image_description=A. S. Pushkin product=yes product_title=Eugene Onegin, Royal Opera product_by=A review by David Chandler product_id=Above: A. S. Pushkin