Washington National Opera’s Carmen: Enter the Ultimate Feminist

Washington National Opera’s Artistic Director Francesca Zambello gives a good show.  Count on it.  For WNO’s first return to the Kennedy Center’s Opera House after a two-year pandemic-caused hiatus, she selected and chose to self-direct Georges Bizet’s grand opera Carmen (1875), one of the most popular operas of all time.  WNO also scheduled its annual GALA to coincide with Carmen’s opening, a GALA that raised over a million dollars for WNO, making the event both a celebration and a performance.  It was a happy affair with tuxedos, evening gowns, and sparkling jewels heavily represented in the audience. 

Carmen (Isabel Leonard) has many would be suitors. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Ms. Zambello’s Carmen is a crowd pleasing, classical production which she squarely points towards supporting feminism today.  In her program notes, she says about Carmen, “For every choice she makes, she is aware of the consequences, and she is fully prepared to face them on her own. ‘I was born free, and I will die free,’ she says many times – and that’s exactly what she does.  I think she is the ultimate feminist.”  My bottom line in this report is “Roger that!”.

Composer Bizet died from heart disease in 1875, at the age of 36, before Carmen finished its initial run.  It is said that disappointment over the unfavorable reception of Carmen in Paris contributed to his physical decline; he never knew of the success he had created.  Of less than ten full operas by Bizet, only The Pearl Fishers also remains in today’s repertoire.  One of the first things I remember my son saying to me about opera was that Carmen had too many hit tunes to be an opera.  I sometimes wonder if Bizet had lived longer whether his work would have moved into musicals.  Given that Carmen contains some spoken dialog, it probably technically qualifies as a musical, though the vocals are fully operatic.  He did have an extraordinary gift for great tunes.  Anyone who has watched television or is a fan of the movies has heard at least excerpts of music from Carmen.  Perhaps not, but one suspects that most people in the western world have hummed the Habanera or Sequidilla or Toreador arias at one time or another.

Carmen (Isabel Leonard) has seduced Don José (Michael Fabiano). Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Spoiler alert for the remainder of this report - In large measure Carmen succeeds via those tunes and Bizet’s great orchestral music, but it has an unusually gripping story, like watching a train wreck you see coming but can’t look away.  Many critics who reviewed it in its day spurned it as being immoral.  An overtly sexual young woman in Spain lives life freely as a Romani, a gypsy group largely rejected by Spanish society and who chose to live outside the law; she considers her personal freedom inviolate.  She seduces a corporal in the military, Don José, and gets him into trouble.  Pure-hearted Micaëla, his childhood sweetheart, fails to convince him to come home and marry her.  After he is released from a short stay in prison, Carmen persuades him to desert his unit and join her in a group of gypsy smugglers.  She then begins to resent his attempts to control her, and she falls in love with a dashing bullfighter, Escamillio.  She tries to break away, but Don José pursues her, desperately trying to convince her to come back to him.  She throws the ring he gave her at his feet, confirms her love for Escamillio, and challenges him to kill her or let her go.  Finally convinced she no longer loves him and will not return to him, in a moment of rage, he stabs her to death.  Bizet had to compose music for all of this, the sexy playful and the murderous, including adding a Spanish gypsy flair.

Micaëla (Vanessa Vasquez) tries to persuade Don José (Michael Fabiano) to return to his home. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

On what was the opera based – was there a real Carmen?  Probably, but the opera is fiction based on Prosper Mérimée’s novella “Carmen”, published in 1845, that relates stories Mérimée heard about Roma people while traveling in Spain; one story was of a beautiful young woman who seduces and then rejects a soldier who kills her.  Bizet proposed this controversial choice to experienced librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy for a new opera he was commissioned to compose for Opéra-Comique, a major step up for Bizet.

The cast for WNO’s Carmen is comprised of international opera stars for three of the main roles: mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as Carmen, tenor Michael Fabiano as corporal Don José, and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green as Escamillo, the bullfighter.  In Friday night’s performance, Ms. Leonard sang beautifully as she always does, and her acting was detailed as it always is.  Her Habanera was fun and nuanced but was more professional and measured than fiery.  One always expects an edgy spitfire from Carmen; she is often characterized as hedonistic, impetuous, hot-tempered and cold-hearted.  This performance gave us a more controlled and calculating Carmen, very self-aware, not so much filled with pent-up anger.  Was this the result of Ms. Leonard’s portrayal or Ms. Zambello emphasizing the feminist side?  The beauty of Ms. Leonard’s voice and her sexual allure came through clearly in her delightful Sequidilla (Près des remparts de Séville) and subsequent arias.  Mr. Fabiano’s beautiful tenor voice and impassioned singing were on display, but he seemed a lost soul from the beginning, not that difficult a conquest for Carmen; I had trouble seeing why Carmen was attracted to him out of all her choices – she could have had an officer.   Their final scene together was intense, and their duets were well done throughout.  Mr. Green’s performance on the other hand was spirited and entirely compelling from the moment he arrived on stage, very believable as a bullfighter; he brought down the house with his excellent Toreador aria.  On stage, he readily became the focus of attention.

Escamillo (Ryan Speedo Green) enters on Honey, the white horse. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

The fourth main role, that of Micaëla was played by the rising star soprano Vanessa Vasquez who sang beautifully and was also convincing as the sweet-hearted girlfriend Don José gave up for Carmen; Bizet gave some of the most beautiful arias to Micaëla.  All four main performers have worked with WNO previously, though it was a first in an opera role for Mr. Green.  Ms. Vasquez was Donna Anna in WNO’s 2020 Don Giovanni, one of the last, if not the last performance in the Opera House before the pandemic shut down.  I recall saying at the time that she was the best Donna Anna I had seen; she also made an outstanding Micaëla.  Among the talented supporting players were several Cafritz Young Artists who performed admirably.  I especially enjoyed soprano Susannah Waddington and mezzo-soprano Hannah Shea as Carmen’s friends Frasquita and Mercédès.  Ms. Waddington has been a standout in the program, and Ms. Shea recently won the annual Annapolis Opera Vocal Competition.  Jonathan Bryan as officer Moralès, Kevin Short as lieutenant Zuniga, Kyle Miller as Le Dancaïre, Duke Kim as Le Remendado, and Karma Camp as Lillas Pastia all deserve mention for adding to the success of the performance. 

Escamillo (Ryan Speedo Green) entertains with crowd with Toreador. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

The formidable WNO Orchestra under the direction of Conductor Evan Rogister played Bizet’s marvelous music in fine accompanying fashion.  The choruses, men’s, women’s, and children’s all gave pleasing performances, bringing Bizet’s excellent choral music to life.  Many chorus members, including the children were used to good effect as characters on stage for the drama.  Kudos to Chorus Master Steven Gathman. 

A fight breaks out between Carmen’s suitors, Don José (Michael Fabiano) and Escamillo (Ryan Speedo Green). Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

The staging by Director Zambello had sets mainly composed of a couple of clay colored walls that were moved about on a rotating platform to form a courtyard, a tavern, and a smuggler’s camp for the the different scenes.  The period costumes were more posh and added life to the performance.  Tanya McCallin served as both Set and Costume Designer.  Some aspects seemed a little overdone, such as smoke bellowing forth from the cigarette factory.  Except for scenes with only Carmen and Don José, the sets were often filled with performers in lavish costumes; at the end, the performers had to assemble in the back of the stage and come forward in waves for their applause.  The staging also featured embellishments, such as having Escamillo ride in on a white horse, guns fired in celebration, and climbers scaling walls.  Although Ms. Zambello became Washington National Opera Artistic Director in 2012, her history of directing WNO productions began in 2001.  If I have counted correctly, Carmen is her 30th staged opera for WNO.  Since I began attending and reporting on WNO operas in 2016, I have seen 10 of 12 that she has directed. So, I know whereof I speak: Ms. Zambello gives a good show.

The cast in an example of the lavish staging of WNO’s Carmen. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Bizet’s music and the indomitable spirit of Carmen make this opera compelling theater.  You will be entertained if you go, though you may not remember this production as the best.  You will, however, likely remember for a very long time that that you got to see Isabel Leonard, Michael Fabiano, Ryan Speedo Green, and Vanessa Vasquez have a go at it.  I sure will, and the enthusiastic standing ovation at the end assures me that others felt the same.

Carmen ends tragically. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

The Fan Experience: WNO scheduled performances of Carmen for May 14, 15, 16, 20, 22, 25, 27, and 28.  Performances on May 15 and 27 have Cafritz Young Artists playing the major roles.  Remaining tickets can be accessed at this link; however, the last time I checked, few were remaining.  Parking ($25) in the indoor KC parking lot can be reserved online ahead of the day of the performance; there is a discount for KC members.  Access through the north side entrances is still closed, but traffic flows freely to entrances on the south side.  Taking the Metro to Foggy Bottom and catching the red Kennedy Center buses is a good mass transit option.  Before you go, check KC’s masking and vaccination requirements, which often pop up anytime you visit the KC website at kennedy-center.org, but if it doesn’t, click on the banner at the top of the page.

I feel compelled to add this note: if you are an endangered spouse or girlfriend, seek help.  My mother was a victim of domestic violence when I was a child.  Domestic violence remains a serious problem in the U.S. today.

Maryland Lyric Opera’s Don Carlo: Great Singing, Music, and Showmanship

I love it when the professional hand is in evidence.  I love it when the commitment to quality is absolute.  I love it when there is a commitment to community riding alongside the commitment to the arts.  Maryland Lyric Opera gets high marks on all of these, and all three were on full display Friday night in MDLO’s showpiece production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo (1867) in concert.  MDLO’s partially staged performance included a seventy-one piece orchestra, a twenty piece Banda, and a seventy-four member chorus, six lead soloists and eight contributing singers.  This was concert opera at its fullest and then some.

Any report on a performance of Don Carlo has a lot to unpack, beginning with the question of why it is sometimes called Don Carlos.  What difference does an s make?  Verdi and his librettists Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle originally wrote a grand, five-act opera in French for Paris titled Don Carlos (including a ballet not often performed today).  It didn’t fare all that well, and Verdi produced several revisions, the most important and most often performed is the one for his homeland, a four-act version with the libretto translated into Italian, called Don Carlo.  The Metropolitan Opera recently performed Don Carlos, its first ever production of the original in French.  Many musicologists, though not all, view the opera as Verdi’s finest.  Some consider it flawed in construction despite its important and still relevant themes, but all yield to the greatness of its music.  Don Carlo is frequently performed in Europe, though not so often in the US for reasons I’ll get to later.

Mark Delevan as Rodrigo and Arturo Chacón-Cruz as Carlo. Photo by Julian Thomas; courtesy of Maryland Opera.

Don Carlo is a historical drama (loosely based on real people and events) that takes place in sixteenth century Spain under the rule of King Philip II and the Spanish Inquisition.  It is based on a Schiller play which itself had a forerunner in a French romance by Abbé de Saint-Réal whose plot was based on a rumor, not substantiated, that the real Don Carlos, heir to Philip’s throne was secretly in love with his stepmother; it’s complicated, follow me here.  While we think of Verdi as primarily concerned with affairs of the heart, he also became a political activist, deeply concerned with governance, conflicts between kingdoms/nations, matters of church and state, and their impact on the individual.

The opera’s plot in a nutshell: A monk seeming to be the deceased previous ruler, Charles V, offers foreboding words for Carlo who has just returned from Flanders where there is an uprising, a trip made against the wishes of his father, the King.  Arrangements had been made for Prince Carlo of Spain to marry Princess Elisabetta of France to seal the peace between warring France and Spain.  Subsequently, the two met and fell in love.  In the interim, King Philip decided it was better for him to marry her instead.  Jilted by his father, Carlo is distraught and still drawn to Elisabetta.  She accepts the new situation as their fate and reluctantly rebuffs Carlo.  Court Princess Eboli has designs on Carlo but then seeks revenge on him when she discovers his love of Elisabetta; she plants evidence of his attachment to the Queen for the King to find.  Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa, befriends Carlo; both have a commitment to helping citizens of Flanders, repressed in rule by Philip.  Philip takes Rodrigo as a confidant to also spy on Carlo and Elizabeth whom he suspects are adulterous.  The King asks the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition how to deal with Carlo’s rebellion and is told Carlo’s death is warranted and so is Rodrigo’s for abetting the insurrection in Flanders.  The King mourns his wife’s lack of love for him and on discovering the evidence planted by Eboli accuses her of an affair with Carlo.  Eboli and the King come to realize Elisabetta is innocent.  Eboli confesses to Elisabetta that she gave evidence of her affection for Carlo to the King and that she was the King’s mistress; Elisabetta banishes her to exile.  Rodrigo is shot by the King’s men.  Carlo vows to continue the fight for Flanders, and after a brief reunion with Elisabetta, is almost captured by the King’s men, but is led into a tomb by the ghost of his granddad, Charles V in an ending so ambiguous that it has caused many a stage director to alter it; MDLO stayed true to Verdi.  As you can see, this plot requires an oversized nutshell.  I think that’s a problem, more later.

Elaine Alvarez as Elisabetta. Photo by Julian Thomas; courtesy of Maryland Opera.

Let’s give Verdi and the MDLO Orchestra (seventy-one members with a twenty-member Banda) their due.  Verdi’s music in Don Carlo, like all Verdi music is mood setting, drama enhancing and melodious, but this one seemed very different to me, far different from the music I just heard in attending Rigoletto recently.  It seemed more refined and more varied.  I thought I heard a middle eastern influence at times, marches, different choices of solo instruments, other influences; some of it even sounded French.  Conductor Louis Salemno, leading a massive orchestra and chorus, gave Verdi’s music full measure, beautiful, sometimes drawing you in and sometimes pressing you back in your seat.  It was a marvelous experience.

Andrea Silvestrelli as King Philip. Photo by Julian Thomas; courtesy of Maryland Opera.

Verdi’s Don Carlo requires six strong soloists for the roles of Carlo, Elisabetta, Philip, Rodrigo, Eboli, and Grand Inquisitor.  MDLO’s six main soloists were stellar and buoyed by eight excellent supporting singers; all were excellent in singing and acting.  International star tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz was a convincing Carlo whose burnished tenor was impressive in solos and duets.  One of the most impressive duets came early in the opera as Carlo and Rodrigo sealed their friendship, blending their voices in a beautiful manner, reminiscent of the tenor baritone-duet in The Pearl Fishers.  Baritone Mark Delavan, an MDLO regular, gave one of his finest performances as Rodrigo.  Soprano Elaine Alvarez sang beautifully as Elisabetta.  Her voice has a rare endearing quality, so effective at conveying the emotions of the troubled Queen.  Mezzo-soprano Catherine Martin provided perhaps the only light-hearted moment of the opera with her Act I aria about mistaken identities, which was a delight.  She further impressed with a beautiful and emotionally searing aria in Act III expressing her shame and regret over her actions.  Bass Andrea Silvestrelli who played King Philip II is often described as “one of the most sought-after 'bassi profondi' on the international opera scene”.  It is hard to envision a more perfect King Philip.  With that voice and royal manner, he commands every scene, while still conveying his insecurities about his power and his love life.  Bass Kenneth Kellogg made a fearsome, implacable blind Grand Inquisitor; his voice in fine form used to chilling effect. 

The excellent cast in smaller roles contributed substantially to the effectiveness of the performance, including the marvelous soprano Nayoung Ban, who portrayed Tebaldo and the Celestial Voice, and smooth, steady baritone SeungHyeon Baek who sang the roles of Frate and a Flemish Deputy; both are former members of the MDLO Young Artists institute.  Other contributors were Mauricio Miranda, Hunter Enoch, Javier Arrey, Jose Sacin, Adam Cioffani, and Annie Gill.  The seventy-four member MDLO Chorus singing beautifully were placed in a balcony semi-circle at the back of the stage with men and women members evenly dispersed.  The chorus is a major contributor to the performance in Don Carlo, and this chorus fulfilled that role extremely well.  One complicating factor for all the singers was the size and volume of the orchestra, which seemed to force singers occasionally to labor extra hard to match the volume of the orchestra’s sound.

Catherine Martin as Princess Eboli (left) and Nayoung Ban as Tebaldo. Photo by Julian Thomas; courtesy of Maryland Opera.

Although this was a concert version of Don Carlo, it was semi-staged with only a few props, featuring singer-actor interactions, but no costumes or sets.  Visual Supervisor Dave Gately’s limited staging was well done, enhancing the drama.  Lighting changes were used effectively to enhance the mood of several of the scenes; kudos to Lighting Designer Stuart Duke.  The English supertitles (the opera was sung in Italian) were displayed on a large zig zag screen about the chorus.  A series of paintings to complement the setting were also displayed on the screen, a clever and effective innovation for this production; kudos to Projection Designer Sarah Tundermann. [Addendum 5/17/22 - I asked for additional information on the paintings that were used and received these interesting comments from Ms. Tundermann: "David Gately was inspired by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos), so many of the paintings are either by him, or are stylistically similar. In some cases I projected one of his works, sometimes moving through pans and tilts before landing on the framing we would sit in for the scene. In other cases, a single painting didn't work with the screen shape, or I was looking for something to match the mood and/or location of the scene better, so I visually compiled multiple paintings into a single image. This was the case for the first scene in which I combined Saint Francis Kneeling in Meditation with the city-scape background of The Feast in the House of Simon, both by El Greco. Other works by El Greco that were included in the projections were View of Toledo, Christ Healing the Blind, Apparition of the Virgin and Child to Saint Hyacinth, The Disrobing of Christ, The Vision of Saint John, Laocoon, and The View and Plan of Toledo. The act one finale - the Auto-da-fé - included works by Eugenio Lucas Velázquez and Francisco de Goya."

Kenneth Kellogg as the Grand Inquisitor (center) confronting King Philip. Photo by Julian Thomas; courtesy of Maryland Opera.

My previous experience of Don Carlo was Washington National Opera’s production of 2018 which used a dark and foreboding staging throughout, with an emphasis on oppressive governance and church issues.  MDLO’s performance emphasized more the force of the attachment between Carlo and Elisabetta, even without a first act in the Paris version that establishes their love for each other.  I preferred this emphasis.  One disadvantage of the concert version is a lessened impact of the scene, though not the music, for the auto da fé scene, a celebration where heretics are burned alive, as sentenced by the Inquisition.  This is a more chilling scene in staged versions, “as a voice from the heavens sings of their salvation”.  The course of the ending is also more difficult to convey in a concert version.  MDLO’s semi-staged version did convey the important themes of the opera and provided a compelling, entertaining drama.  It also left me wanting to see the opera again; it has so many nuances to the story.

Often the reason given for Don Carlo not being produced more often in the U.S. is the cost of staging it with six extraordinary singers demanded for an effective presentation.  Opera is government subsidized in Europe and Don Carlo gets substantially more play there.  I wonder, however, if part of the issue in the U.S. is that we don’t have a history of living under kings and royalty.  We are not so readily drawn into this opera; its basis has not been drilled into our bones.  An opera about George Washington or Thomas Jefferson would have immediate appeal here, maybe even one about Hamilton. Verdi’s La Traviata, about a good girl in a bad situation, is enormously popular in the U.S.; our hearts quickly go out to Violetta. Don Carlo also covers a lot of territory even in a three-hour opera.  I believe Americans need more time and character development to be drawn deeper into its several stories, perhaps better as a mini-series; with the ambiguous ending, it seems ripe for a season two.  Despite its sophistication, Don Carlo will likely remain an opera whose main appeal is for opera aficionados. Regardless, its themes remain relevant in our turbulent times, and MDLO certainly showed us that its music deserves to be heard more often.

With Don Carlo, MDLO wraps up a COVID-limited season of two excellent productions, both concert versions, after a two-year hiatus caused by the pandemic.  MDLO, during that period ,showed its strong commitment to their community by using their resources early on to obtain and distribute face masks, in short supply at the time, to first responders and health care workers.  We are all beneficiaries of their ability to bring world class opera performances to the Maryland suburbs.

Fan Experience: Maryland Lyric Opera held performances of Don Carlo on May 13 and 15 at the Music Center at Strathmore.  The concert hall is a beautiful structure that has outstanding acoustics for concert performances.  Strathmore is conveniently located close to the Grosvenor Metro Stop on the Rockville Pike.  Use of the parking deck is free on evenings and weekends.  I have found parking there to be easy in and easy out.

For anyone not familiar with Don Carlo, I strongly recommend reading the synopsis ahead of time, at least the first two acts. As I have described, it is a very complicated plot.

Opera Philadelphia's Rigoletto: Follow Up Comments from Director Lindy Hume

This report is a follow up to the preceding report on Opera Philadelphia’s current production of Rigoletto using a version originated by Director Lindy Hume in 2012, previously performed in New Zealand, Australia, and Seattle. She updates the setting to modern day and molds her version to remove the glamorous veneer of the Duke of Mantua and his courtiers to shine the spotlight more directly at their sinister nature. After seeing the opera, I posed two questions to Frank Luzi , OP’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, who forwarded my questions to Director Hume. It will be helpful to read the previous report if you have not done so. My questions and her responses follow:

Ques: Was the ballroom set hung above the other scenes a logistical issue or to make a point by the director?  If so, what was it meant to represent?

Ans: The court of the Duke of Mantua is recognizably a society in which those with great wealth and power are oblivious to their oppression of others. The lives and relationships of people without power, like Rigoletto/Gilda, the older nobleman Monterone and even the criminal underclass represented by Sparafucile/Maddalena, are shaped, corrupted, and even bonded, by their impotence. In the drama (and as Rigoletto explicitly states in his monologue 'pari siamo') they are continually overshadowed by the presence of the all-powerful Duke, his court, and its influence. The Ducal palace looming over the action is a constant reminder that, for these underclasses, there is no escape from its power.

Ques: Do we know why Lindy Hume ended Rigoletto with Maddelena, not Sparafucile, killing Gilda?  It caught me by surprise.

Ans: I'm delighted that Maddalena murdering Gilda came as a surprise - that's exactly what I wanted. It's one of my favourite moments in the production, and in New Zealand, Australia and in Seattle there have been audible gasps in the audience when she stabs her. But it seems logical to me as well as being a dramatically exciting twist. It's very clear in the libretto and dramaturgy of the storm scene that the murder of a substitute victim is Maddalena's idea, that she drives the plan and stands to benefit from it. The minute that Gilda walks into the inn they both see their victim is a teenage kid. At that point, I wondered what would happen if Sparafucile (who we know has professional scruples) hesitated? Maddalena is in a desperately emotional state, she sees him hesitate, so she just grabs the knife and... it's over. 

I like doing the scene this way partly because theatrically it's an unexpected jolt to people who know the opera well, partly because it brilliantly finishes off Maddalena's extreme journey in Act 3, giving her character a more impactful arc rather than just "the hooker", and partly because there's something even more tragic - one woman killing another over the same, completely unworthy, man. The result is the same, Gilda's murder is as much the result of the actions of her father, the Duke, her abductors, and her corrupt companion Giovanna, as it is her encounter with Sparafucile and Maddalena. 

I am appreciative for Mr. Luzi’s assistance and for Director Hume’s substantive responses.

Opera Philadelphia’s Rigoletto: The Wait Was Over

Rent, the musical, loosely based on La Boheme has a song titled “525,600 Minutes” where the number refers to the minutes in a year.  The last fully staged opera by Opera Philadelphia was 942 days before Friday night’s Rigoletto, or 1,356,480 minutes, over 2.5 years ago.  The company used the down time to organize outdoor events, commission new works, initiate and stock their innovative Opera Philadelphia Channel, and stage an oratorio in the Kimmel Center in January.  The wildly enthusiastic audience Friday could not have been happier that the wait was over.  The audience was obviously appreciative of both the performance and Opera Philadelphia’s return.

Rigoletto (baritone Anthony Clark Evans) sits alone in the Duke of Mantua’s ballroom with a large screen monitor overhead. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

OP selected opera meat and potatoes in their comeback production - popular Verdi sung by beautiful voices - but they veered away from a classical production.  OP instead chose a modern setting and seasoned it with awareness-raising for misogyny in opera.  Verdi’s principal theme of abuse of power in the 19th century was moved forward to the 21st.  Rigoletto (1851) is based on an 1832 play by Victor Hugo that caused the power brokers of his day to feel threatened enough to shut it down after one performance.  Composer Giuseppe Verdi and his librettist Francesco Piave revised the story just enough to be passable to those in power.  OP presented a version by Director Lindy Hume from 2012, which she based on the life of Italian media tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi.  Other more recent examples could have been used – Jeffrey Epstein, anyone?

left photo: Countess Ceprano (soprano Kara Goodrich) is pursued by the Duke of Mantua (tenor Joshua Blue) - you are also looking at Mimi and Rodolfo in next season’s La Bohème. right photo: The Duke (tenor Joshua Blue) hears Count Monterone (bass-baritone Ben Wager) deliver his curse. Photos by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Briefly, in OP’s production Rigoletto works as a court jester for a powerful, corrupt, licentious politician, the Duke of Mantua.  He serves the Duke to keep his underlings in line using sharp-barbed humor; he also assists the Duke in making his sexual conquests. Count Monterone, one outraged father of a victim of the Duke, places a curse on Rigoletto which strikes fear in his heart.  The Duke utilizes whatever means necessary to eliminate anyone opposing him; he has Monterone thrown into prison.  Rigoletto hates his dirty, corrupt life, but has a treasure that makes life worth living, a teenage daughter Gilda whom he has sheltered and hidden from the outside world, especially from the Duke and his courtiers.  The Duke spots Gilda in church and courts her on the sly, claiming to be a poor student.  He then takes her to bed after his aides kidnap and bring her to him.  Gilda is in love, but while charmed by Gilda’s innocence, the Duke considers one woman to be as good as another for his purposes.  Rigoletto, decimated and outraged by finding his daughter in the Duke’s chamber, decides to run away with Gilda, but first plots the Duke’s assassination as his revenge.  His plan is tragically foiled when Gilda decides to sacrifice her life to save the Duke’s.  Rigoletto is crushed, resigned to the fate of the curse.  The Duke goes unpunished – and my guess is, very likely re-elected. Relevant today? Didn’t a recent successful politician say that if you are a celebrity you can get away with anything?

left photo: Rigoletto (baritone Anthony Clark Evans) talks with his daughter Gilda (soprano Raven McMillon). right photo: Gilda (soprano) Raven McMillon) alone on her bed sings “Caro Nome”. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Ms. Hume commented in her program Q&A, “As a feminist and a fan of Verdi’s wonderful observation of human behavior, how could I resist bringing these worlds together in an imagined scenario where the excesses of obscene wealth, the corruption of high political power, and the moral void of the court all vibrate with an undercurrent of fear, violence, misogyny, and criminality?  This is the world of Verdi’s Rigoletto, and our own.”  She also stated, “Verdi turned a philanderer into a rock star by giving him some of the best music to the most misogynistic lines ever written ‘Act 1, it’s this girl, or that girl, they’re all the same to me…’ and in Act 3 ‘women are unreliable’.”  Ms. Hume wanted to provide a less glamorous view of the Duke.  Certainly, under Revival Director Daniel Pelzig, this production accomplished that aim by tarnishing the Duke’s bad boy appeal, portraying him as a criminal, malignant narcissist. 

In another source, Ms. Hume adds this insightful analysis: “Rigoletto is all about power – those who have it, and those who have none. The Duke of Mantua is the epicentre of power. He and all his corrupt courtiers are no less dangerous thugs than the hired assassin Sparafucile but they are entitled, wealthy thugs in power, while Sparafucile and his prostitute sister Maddalena are simply criminals. Between these two equally corrupt worlds – the elite and the underbelly of society – live ordinary, impotent people like Rigoletto and his innocent daughter Gilda, who are corrupted and destroyed when misadventure smashes these dangerous worlds together.”  No one is likeable in Rigoletto.  My wife asked me if I really didn’t like Gilda. Well, let’s see: the Duke lies to her about who he is, stalks her, gains access to her home unannounced, feigns genuine concern for her, condones her kidnapping, sexually assaults her, and then, she witnesses his dalliance with yet another woman - love or pathology? I don’t dislike Gilda, but at best, I can only offer empathy for the situations that Rigoletto’s characters are trapped in and sympathy for their losses. As for Gilda, I did like her singing.

The Duke’s courtiers trick Rigoletto into aiding their nighttime raid to kidnap Gilda. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Opera Philadelphia’s staging of the work used an opening set of a large ballroom of the Duke’s palace, rather impressive when many of today’s sets are mainly lighting and projections, but it also presented a logistical problem.  The ballroom is used for several scenes and acts; what do you do with it when the other scenes are in progress.  OP chose to hang it overhead in full view; perhaps it was an intentional attempt to keep the powerful overlooking everything, but I simply found it a little distracting.  [See Director Hume’s comments on this issue in my follow up report to this one]. The costumes designed by Richard Roberts gave believe-ability to the period, and lighting by Drew Billiau was effective in focusing the audience’s attention.  The large tv screen in the ballroom seemed appropriate for a politician’s room and projections were used dramatically.  The staging of the additional scenes was mostly well done with a rotating stage, causing the smaller sets to enter and exit smoothly, without much delay.  The night scene where Rigoletto gets confused and unwittingly aids the kidnapping of his own daughter was done effectively, as was having Gilda alone on her bed with the remainder of the stage darkened, while singing her main aria, “Caro Nome”.  Mr. Pelzig managed well the movements of a large group on stage, 13 named singers, a 24 member chorus, and 12 supernumeraries. 

Okay, why isn’t Rigoletto the most depressing opera ever?  It’s the music; you go home humming it.  Verdi’s ability to dramatize with his music and at the same time deliver such memorable tunes with his arias make Rigoletto among the most often performed operas.  Maybe Verdi gave the Duke great arias to take advantage of what Director Hume calls “the enduring appeal of scandal...I think we vicariously enjoy watching people play fast and loose with the normal rules of society – maybe because we resent rules in some ways." 

The courtiers present the Duke with evidence of their capture as a gift. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Director Corrado Rovaris and the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra delivered Verdi’s music faithfully.  In addition to the 58-piece orchestra, a 13 member banda supplied diegetic music (music within the play that both the characters and the audience hears). The music never threatened to overwhelm the singers and paused appropriately to allow singers acapella performances for parts of their arias.  Try an experiment: put on a video of Rigoletto without the subtitles and focus on listening to the music while watching the action.  It will be a Verdi lesson in how music can foreshadow events, enhance the meaning of looks, and add intensity to the drama on stage.  In her recorded pre-opera talk, termed Opera Overtures, Dr. Lily Kass, OP’s scholar-in-residence, gives examples of this.

left photo: Sparafucile (bass Wei Wu) behind the bar watches as Maddelena (mezzo-soprano Kristen Choi) ensnares the Duke (tenor Joshua Blue) in their plan. right photo: Rigoletto forces Gilda to witness the Duke’s advances on his new mistress Maddelena. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

An excellent group of mostly young singers was headlined by baritone Anthony Clark Evans as Rigoletto.  His polished brass baritone and impressive singing were well suited for the role.  Part of Rigoletto’s character was shaped by his feelings about his physical deformity.  He is a hunchback, but nothing untoward was in evidence as Mr. Evans moved about the stage; it is that feature that gives audiences some sympathy for him.  I was particularly excited to hear Raven McMillon in the role of Gilda, having heard some of her performance as a Grand Finals Winner of the 2021 Metropolitan Opera’s Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition.  I thought she showed some tentativeness as a young actress, but sang well overall, showing occasional brilliance with her high coloratura flourishes dropping to lovely low tones.  She absolutely nailed “Caro Nome”; her thunderous applause was well deserved.  Tenor Joshua Blue sang and performed well in the role of the Duke of Mantua. In his solo arias, he displayed why he is much in demand today.  Two of my favorites were bass Wei Wu as the assassin Sparafucile and mezzo-soprano Kristen Choi as his prostitute sister Maddelena.  Mr. Wu has performed in so many operas in the mid-Atlantic region, he not only gives capable performances in supporting roles but adds a grounding to the productions.  His Sparafucile was more business-like than menacing.  The shock of the evening for me was Maddalena being Gilda’s killer, not seen in other productions.  I’m not sure what Director Hume intended by this change.  At any rate, Ms. Choi is a delight.  I have seen her in the roles of Suzuki (Madama Butterfly) and Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), but it was in Opera Philadelphia Channel’s TakTakShoo that I saw the range of her free-flowing acting talents, a range further developed with Maddelena.  [See Director Hume’s comments on her choice to have Maddelena wield the knife in my follow up report to this one].

The singers in supporting roles were uniformly excellent and added greatly to the performance.  Ensemble numbers were impressive; I especially like the trios, quartets, and quintets in Act 3.  The strong chorus was especially enjoyable.  Kudos to Chorus Master Elizabeth Braden.

How you respond to Rigoletto will likely be influenced by whether it is your first Rigoletto.  It might seem a tough opera to begin with, but in fact, when I was first bitten by the opera bug, Rigoletto was my favorite opera for a long time, mainly of course because of the music.  For the record, I have always thought of the Duke as a destructive slimeball.  I do wonder after seeing Ms. Hume’s updated version whether I will still be able to enjoy hearing “La Donna é mobile” or “Questa o quella”.  And if not, is that a good thing?  Opera Philadelphia doesn’t settle for comfortable, and that is a good thing.

The Fan Experience: Performances of Rigoletto in the Academy of Music were scheduled for April 29, May 1, 6, 8.  The opera is sung in Italian with English supertitles on a screen above the stage.  Before going, check out OP’s COVID-19 requirements; currently proof of vaccination and the wearing of masks in the theater are required.  The pre-opera talk (Opera Overtures) and the printed program are made available on line for ticket holders. The excitement for next season is already building. I am especially excited that the Opera Philadelphia Festival will return in October after a two year hiatus.

It is always a pleasure to visit Philadelphia, so much to see and do and taste.  My wife and I waited too late to get dinner reservations before the opera at restaurants we’ve read reviews of and like to visit.  Friday evening, we were strolling down 15th Street when my wife spotted Alice Pizza restaurant just around the corner from the Academy of Music and said, “Italian sounds good”.  We lucked out getting a table at that hour, and soon realized we had lucked into an excellent restaurant, serving much more than pizza.  Our luck continued to hold – the couple at the table beside us was also attending the opera, and we struck up a conversation.  It turned out that Alice is one of their favorite restaurants.  It also turned out that their interest in Opera Philadelphia is augmented by the fact that their daughter plays in the orchestra; and I assured her proud parents that my blog report would say that the highlight of the evening’s performance was the playing of the Principal Second Violinist.  Mission accomplished.

WCO's Orphée: Kate Lindsey Commands the Stage in Maestro Walker’s Gem

Expectations were high for Washington Concert Opera’s Orphée, as discussed in my previous report.  WCO chose to present three productions this first season, post the pandemic shutdown years, rather than the normal two.  Artistic Director and Conductor Antony Walker chose the Berlioz adaptation of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for several reasons, including its shortened length of 90 minutes, a limited cast of only three singers with a smaller orchestra and chorus, and the opportunity to again showcase mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey.  Gluck’s work held a special place in Conductor Walker’s heart.  He made his conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010 with this opera and had long wished for the opportunity to conduct the opera in a smaller setting that would allow him to utilize his ideas in its formulation.  WCO’s productions typically approach three hours with use of a large orchestra and chorus.  In the case of Orphée, the saying that dynamite comes in a small package comes to mind. 

Kate Lindsey as Orphée, backed by the Washington Concert Opera Chorus in WCO’s Orphée on Sunday, April 24. Photo by Caitlin Oldham Photography; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

The Orpheus myth begins with him mourning the death of his wife Eurydice; he decides to retrieve her from Hades, using his extraordinary singing skill. Amour, God of Love grants his wish but under one condition. He cannot look at Eurydice while they are leaving or explain why to her. Just before exiting Hades, he whiffs and Eurydice is returned to the Underworld. The Greek myth ends badly for both, but In Gluck’s telling we get a happy ending: Amour is persuaded by Oprhée’s love to return Eurydice to him in the land of the living.

If you will allow me an analogy, we might think of different operas as different culinary dishes, each with its own recipe utilizing a libretto and a score as the principal ingredients, seasoned by performers and presentation.  Let’s call German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck and librettist Ranieri de’ Calzabigi’s original 1762 Orfeo ed Euridice an Italian soup.  In 1774, Gluck collaborated with librettist Pierre Celeste-Moline to produce a version for Paris in French.  To suit the taste and language of those audiences, he changed his recipe significantly.  Parisienne audiences of the early 1800s did not want castrati, used in 1762, in their soup, so he changed Orphée’s voice type to a high tenor; they did want more ballet in their soup, so he added more.  He also added an ingredient he deliberately avoided in his “reform opera” soup of 1762, coloratura arias, which Parisienne audiences liked. 

left photo: Jacquelyn Stucker as Eurydice and Conductor Antony Walker. right photo: Helen Zhibing Huang as Amour (Cupid) and Kate Lindsey as Orphée. Photos by Caitlin Oldham Photography; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

Parisienne audiences were growing weary of Gluck’s operas in the early part of the nineteenth century; and the re-tuning of orchestras in Paris to a brighter sound pushed would-be Orphée singers beyond their high tenor limits.  Again, the story and the recipe shifts: a young composer Hector Berlioz had become infatuated with Gluck’s music and acted on a suggestion that Orphée et Eurydice be adapted for the lower voice type of opera megastar Pauline Viardot, the leading singer/actor and influencer of her day.  The adaptation and her performances were hugely successful.  Sometimes you got to do what sells, but as a tribute to Gluck’s genius, all these soups are not only tasty, but nourishing for the soul.  The Berlioz adaptation opened the door for mezzo-sopranos to perform in the role, though not just any mezzo-soprano.  In the Orpheus myth, he uses the beauty of his singing to charm his way into Hades and back to retrieve his dead wife Eurydice.  In each version, it was important to cast a singer possessing a stand-out voice and a sensitive artistry to effectively convey powerful emotions in sometimes subtle ways.

l to r: Nardia Boodoo, Andile Ndlovu, Jacquelyn Stucker, Kate Lindsey, and Conductor Walker. Photo by Caitlin Oldham Photography; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey is one of the world’s leading mezzos, even though she feels like a local performer.  She is a Richmond native; she spent two summers as a Wolf Trap Filene Artist in her youth, and has appeared in three previous WCO productions, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, La favorite, and Sapho, another role popularized by Pauline Viardot.  I first saw her in Washington National Opera’s Dead Man Walking in 2016 and commented that I thought this young talent’s performance would improve “as her confidence grows”; in WCO’s Sapho I thought “she owned the stage”, and about Met Opera’s Agrippina, I said, “she was difficult to take your eyes from”.  She has blossomed impressively, clearly ready for a role where she does 90% of the singing.  Maestro Walker saw her as having qualities of artistry, intellectual breadth, and courage similar to Viardot as well as a similar voice type. She had also been readied to sing the Berlioz version, having been scheduled to do so for a performance in Europe that was canceled by COVID.  Sunday night, she was the most professional singer in the room in a group of accomplished professionals, and she was in character for every second of Orphée, her face as well as her singing telling the story - there were tears in the audience.  Her voice was beautiful, and her on point singing was often other worldly, perfect for Orpheus.  Her coloratura aria at the end of Act I (Amour, viens render à mon ûme, or Love, restore your flame to my soul) was delivered with such force and emotion that the audience exploded with applause when Maestro Walker paused the orchestra.  In Sunday’s performance, she commanded the stage and had the audience enraptured.

Maestro Walker had selected an excellent duo of sopranos for the opera’s two supporting roles in their debuts with Washington Concert Opera; Soprano Jaquelyn Stucker as Eurydice sang beautifully, her lovely voice filled with emotion; she was a highlight of the evening even in a small role.  Soprano Helen Zhibang Huang as Amour charmed the audience with her bright soprano and her amusing portrayal of Cupid.  I hope that performing again in the Washington area will frequently be on both their agendas.

l to r: Andile Ndlovu, Nardia Boodoo, and Kate Lindsey. Photo by Caitlin Oldham Photography; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

Concert opera is not staged, singers with accompaniment only, to allow a focus on the singing and the music. This WCO production had something not seen before in WCO performances – dance!  I chatted by telephone with Maestro Walker prior to the performance and asked him about adding staging to the performance.  WCO had used partial staging for two previous performances, La Cenerentola in 2010 and La vin herbé in 2019, but never dance.  He had selected Washington Ballet’s Andile Ndlovu and Nardia Boodoo to work with him, Chorus Master David Hanlon, and the singers (without a stage director), to incorporate dance into the production. He stated:

Andile Ndlovu and Nardia Boodoo. Photos by Caitlin Oldham Photography; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

“I decided that, seeing as Orphée is a reformed French baroque opera, where dance is an essential component, I would include two classically trained dancers to dance 6 key set pieces, and to help us tell the story even more clearly and compellingly.  Andile Ndlovu and Nardia Boodoo's journey as the dancers in Orphée included starting the opera in a formal, exuberant fashion, transitioning immediately into two grieving mourners at Eurydice’s funeral, then becoming briefly monsters of Hades before expressing the delights and bliss of Elysium with Eurydice.  And, of course, they finished the opera with a celebratory flourish!  My thought for the dancers was that essentially, they should be a part of the supernatural element of the opera, working for Amour in various capacities, and guiding and testing Orphée: trying to help fulfill Amour’s wish for the lovers to be reunited by assisting in Orphée’s journey from above ground into the Underworld and back.  As dancers, these wonderful performers can assume multiple characters and roles in such a drama, and really add a fascinating new artistic dimension to the story telling. Having another male and female couple also express love and grief through dance was a real gift to telling the story.  It was the first time in WCO history that dancers were used, and I was really delighted with Andile and Nardia’s artistry and hope that we can incorporate dance into the occasional future work in this similar genre.”

l to r: Nardia Boodoo, Andile Ndlovu, Jacquelyn Stucker, Kate Lindsey, and Conductor Walker. Photo by Caitlin Oldham Photography; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

In viewing the performance, I did not perceive all the elements in Maestro Walker’s description, but dancers certainly added another element of beauty.  As Orphée entered stage left, she was engaged by the dancers who interacted with each of the singers in telling the story.  Mr. Ndlovu, who also choreographed the dance, and Ms. Boodoo are lovely young people whose movements were smooth and flowing.  The addition of dance does provide a logistics problem.  The orchestra onstage was moved to one half of the stage and the chorus was seated at the back of the other half to allow a performance area for the dancers, but it worked well enough.  I would welcome use of dance in future Washington Concert Opera productions.  The choice of the singers and dancers for this opera also met another goal for Director Walker.  He wanted to “highlight the universality of the experiences of love and grief by casting in a more diverse way”.  Ms. Zhibing is Chinese American.  Mr. Ndlovu is a native of South Africa and Ms. Boodoo is of Indo-Trinidadian ancestry.

Kate Lindsey and Conductor Walker with the Washington Concert Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Photo by Caitlin Oldham Photography; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

I will mention the music last when it should be first.  An enjoyable part of Washington Concert Opera performances always is being able to see Maestro Walker and the orchestra on stage, rather than in a pit;  Conductor Walker’s movements are a show in themselves.  The orchestra and chorus were somewhat smaller than usual but were fully engaging.  Maestro Walker made some changes to the Berlioz adaptation, such as changing some aspects of the instrumentation back to the Gluck version.  I had not heard Gluck’s opera before in any version, and the music surprised me again and again.  Lovely, baroque style melodies appeared throughout the evening and different instruments shone in solo ornamentations, the oboe, the flute, and the harp.  But most impressive of all was how much the music supported and added to the drama and its changing moods.  The WCO chorus was a delight as usual and even became players in the partial staging of the drama.  If they are all members of the same church, let me know; I might sign up.  Kudos to Conductor Walker and Chorus Master Hanlon.

My high expectations for the evening were met and exceeded.  While perhaps WCO’s Orphée could be improved with more rehearsal time which was short and more time to formulate its elements, the audience was offered an artistic experience being created before our eyes, first rate and exciting.  I have no trouble calling it a gem.  It engaged; it sparkled; it enriched.  It was live and in person!  The Berlioz adaptation of Gluck’s Ofeo ed Euridice is definitely a dish I’d like to try again.

The Fan Experience: As with all WCO productions, Sunday night’s performance in Lisner Auditorium was one off.  If you missed it, you missed it forever.  Orphée was the second of three operas this season; WCO’s final opera of the season will be Lakmé, to be performed on May 22.  You might consider adopting my attitude based on many performances I have now attended: I don’t really need for WCO to announce the names of the operas selected for the coming season; just give me the dates, and I will be there. 

Kate Lindsey will serve as Wolf Trap Opera’s Filene Artist in Residence this summer. She will perform a recital on July 8 and offer a master class open to the public on July 14.

Opening comments were made by Meg Sippey, WCO’s new Executive Director; she noted she was one week on the job.  Peter Russell, General Director of Vocal Arts DC, presented the pre-opera talk and provided program notes.  Mr. Russell typically presents a one-hour lecture on WCO’s operas in the free Opera Gems series; the one for Lakmé is scheduled for online presentation for April 28 at 1 pm.  Lakmé should last around 2.5 hours, but frankly, I thought 90 minutes for a Sunday evening was not too short.

In my experience, all the seats in Lisner Auditorium are fine for viewing the performance, but the sound is probably better towards the center of the auditorium.  Parking on the street around the auditorium is catch as catch can; if you find a spot, the meters are usually turned off on Sunday, but be sure to read the signs!  Metro is two blocks away.  WCO has a visitor web page with directions and parking info, helpful in finding lot parking. 

WCO’s Orphée, Kate Lindsey, Dancers, with a Little Bit of Gluck Arriving Sunday

The Greek myth of Orpheus has played a signature role in opera.  Why might that be?  Orpheus was a musician and singer, so gifted that his playing and singing could charm even flora and fauna (I don’t think even Pavarotti could make trees and rocks dance, but the demi-god Orpheus could).  There are many variations of the myth, but most concur that his wife Eurydice died of a snake bite.  Orpheus became determined to bring her back.  He used his musical gifts to make his way into the underworld, past ferryman Charon, the three-headed guard dog Cerberus, through the Elysian Fields, to descend into Hell.  Hades, God of the underworld, was so affected by his music and his grief that he allowed Orpheus and Eurydice to leave together with one condition: Orpheus could not look at his wife until they were completely above ground.  As Orpheus exited, he looked back at Eurydice, and she disappeared back into Hell.  What could fit opera better than death, the charm of music, the power of love, and a tragic ending?

Many composers and librettists have tried their hand at the Orpheus myth, coming close to being the plot of the first opera ever composed.  Three operatic versions stand out.  Composer Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (Italian, 1607) wasn’t quite the first opera (Dafne, 1597), though it often has gotten that credit; however, his is the first opera to have remained in the repertoire that gets regularly performed and that had a significant influence on the field.  The opera version that has been most popular has been Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) by composer Christoph Willibald Gluck.  Gluck himself wrote three distinct versions of his opera: the original, a Parma version, and a Parisian version – sometimes Orfeo, sometimes Orphée, sometimes ed, sometimes et, sometimes Euridice, sometimes Eurydice - switching between Italian and French languages, changing the voice type for Orpheus in each version to suit the country where it was to be performed and to suit the tastes of that country at that time. 

left photo: Pauline Viardot as Orphée (1860) by Holoman; public domain image from Wikipedia. right photo: mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey; photo by Rosetta Greek and courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

Tastes continued to evolve in singing and music, and in 1859, composer Hector Berlioz, famous for his Symphonie Fantastique and his opera Les Troyens, produced a version specifically for the superstar singer and influencer of his day, Pauline Viardot.  The Berlioz adaptation became hugely successful and is still performed today, including this Sunday by Washington Concert Opera as Orphée.  (For an illuminating discussion of the fascinating history of this work, check out Peter Russell’s online discussion at this link; he points out that composer Jules Massenet played in the orchestra for the premiere and French painter Delacroix helped design Ms. Viardot’s costume.)  

A principal reason that Gluck’s opera has enjoyed staying power is that it was the first of his “reform operas”, an approach that influenced composers who came after him.  Gluck chose to champion operas that removed the emphasis on singing virtuosity and mostly eliminated coloratura arias designed to show the talents of great singers.  He chose to have the music focus simply on serving the drama.  It worked for audiences and composers to follow, including a young Hector Berlioz who became infatuated with Gluck’s operas.  It also influenced WCO’s Artistic Director and Conductor Antony Walker.  In a telephone interview, he indicated that he was also drawn to this opera by its inclusion of dance and a larger role for the chorus than was previously custom.  Maestro Walker conducted Gluck’s opera in his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 2011 and longed for the opportunity to present a performance in a more intimate setting – compared to the Lincoln Center, Lisner Auditorium is more intimate.

left photo: Soprano Jaquelyn Stucker who will sing the role of Eurydice; courtesy of Jacquelyn Stucker. right photo: Soprano Helen Zhibing Huang who will sing the role of Amour; courtesy of Helen Zhibing Huang.

He also was looking for another opera to bring back current opera headliner and Richmond native, mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey.  As noted above, the use of different voice types over the years for the role of Orpheus has evolved, beginning as a castrato, and moving to high tenors, mezzo-sopranos, and countertenors; the goal always being to place someone in the role with great artistry and a beautiful and distinctive voice who will sing the majority of the opera – remember that Orpheus’ singing could charm the trees and rocks.  Ms. Lindsey has sung in three previous WCO productions, the last being Sapho, an opera also created for Ms. Viardot, this by famous composer Charles Guonod.  Two works created for Viardot and being sung by Lindsey is not just a coincidence.  Maestro Walker sees them not only as similar voice types, but also importantly, as similarly brave women willing to take on challenging roles and totally immerse themselves in the characters they are portraying.  If you have seen Ms. Lindsey in Met Opera’s The Tales of Hoffman and Agrippina, you will not disagree with him.  She will be joined on the stage by soprano Jacquelyn Stucker as Euridyce and soprano Helen Zhibing Huang as Amour.

Ballet dancers Andile Ndlovu and Nardia Boodoo. Courtesy of Washington Ballet.

As the name indicates, Washington Concert Opera presents concert versions of operas.  However, the importance of dance to this work and its history, compelled Director Walker to add dance to WCO’s concert version, so a slightly staged version will be performed.  Without a stage director, he and the singers worked with the dancers to arrange the performance.  The two dancers are Washington Ballet’s Andile Ndlovu and Nardia Boodoo.  Mr. Ndlovu also served as choreographer.  The choice of the singers and dancers for this opera also met another goal for Director Walker.  He wanted to “highlight the universality of the experiences of love and grief by casting in a more diverse way”.  Ms. Zhibing is Chinese American.  Mr. Ndlovu is a native of South Africa and Ms. Boodoo is of Indo-Trinidadian ancestry.

The opera is selected, the characters cast, the stage set.  Will Orpheus enchant you?  With a little bit of Gluck, yes!

The Fan Experience:  Orphée as composed by Gluck in 1762, as adapted by Berlioz in 1859. will be performed on Sunday, April 24 at 6:00 pm in Lisner Auditorium, sung in French with English supertitles; the opera runs for a hour and 30 minutes.  Be sure to review WCO’s current COVID-19 policies for attendance at this link. WCO’s final opera of the season will be Lakmé, to be performed on May 22.

Peter Russell, General Director of Vocal Arts DC, whose background talk is noted above will present a pre-opera talk at 5 pm.  Mr. Russell typically presents a one-hour lecture on WCO’s operas in the free Opera Gems series; the one for Lakmé is scheduled for online presentation for April 28 at 1 pm.

In my experience, all the seats are fine for viewing the performance, but the sound is probably better towards the center of the auditorium.  Parking on the street around the auditorium is catch as catch can, but if you find a spot, the meters are usually turned off on Sunday, but be sure to read the signs!  Metro is two blocks away.  WCO has a visitor web page with directions and parking info, helpful in finding lot parking. 

Virginia Opera Wraps Up Its 2021-2022 Season with a Rousing Figaro

VO’s Figaro Saturday night at GMU’s Center for the Arts was a rousing, if uneven production, that judging by comments overheard on exiting, sent everyone home happy.  But first:

Thank you, Virginia Opera, for a marvelous season of live performances of great operas produced under the restrictions and the continuing threat of closure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, including: Wagner’s Das Rheingold in September; Puccini’s La Bohéme: Rodolfo Remembers in November; Heggie’s Three Decembers in February; and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, wrapping up the season this past weekend.  Bravi! 

Cast of Virginia Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

The Marraige of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro, 1786) was the first of three operas by the team of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte that included Don Giovanni followed by Così fan tutte.  All three are among the most often performed operas in the repertoire.  This team seems an unlikely pairing, the roguish, rookie librettist Da Ponte and the superstar composer Mozart.  Da Ponte had written only five librettos before Figaro, two of note, one a success with popular composer Vincente Martin y Soler and one a flop with composer Antonio Salieri, Mozart’s chief rival.  Salieri reportedly said that he would rather cut off his fingers than work with Da Ponte again.  However, Da Ponte was Austrian Emperor Joseph II’s court poet and a favorite of the emperor.  Mozart was no fool and realized the best path to a court sponsored production was to engage Da Ponte, a marriage determined by fate and circumstance, if not made in heaven.  Both men were worldly wise.

Symone Harcum as the Countess and Richard Ollarsaba as the Count. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

Briefly, in the play, Count Almavira desires to bed Susanna, his wife Rosina’s servant, supposedly justified by droit du seigneur (right of the lord); this is the purported feudal right of a lord to bed a servant girl on her wedding night before her husband can sleep with her, a right the Count himself had just disavowed.  Susanna’s betrothed, Figaro, in cahoots with her, the Countess, and a love struck page, Cherubino, lay plans to outwit the Count.  Plots and subplots are begun and go astray, and hilarious surprises abound in classical opera buffa style.  As was the case for all Mozart/Da Ponte collaborations, there is more afoot than comedy; social change rippling through society at that time is also a subject of the opera.  Now, le droit seigneur has a murky history at best from the medieval period and certainly was not found in 18th century Europe.  Regardless, it was an excellent plot device for Beaumarchais to make the point quite clearly that nobility had more control over their subjects, even their bodies, than should be granted; this was a controversy roiling aristocracies of the continent at that time.  Da Ponte and Mozart bring us to a conclusion that love conquers all and the only path forward is to ask for and give forgiveness and move on.  Surely that was the shared belief that allowed them to work together and produce great works.  The ending confrontation was set up well by Virginia Opera; when forced to confront his abuse of his wife, the Count asks for forgiveness, and the Countess gives it.

Alisa Jordheim as Susanna and Erik Earl Larson as Figaro. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

Mozart suggested to Da Ponte that he write a libretto using Beaumarchais’ play of the same name, the second play in a trilogy about the Count Almavira and Rosina.  The first play in the series was The Barber of Seville, later made into the highly successful Rossini opera, and the last play being The Guilty Mother.  At the time, The Marriage of Figaro was barred from production in Vienna by the emperor due to incendiary language inspiring subjects to throw off the yoke of the nobility, all this taking place concurrently with the American Revolution, just ten years prior to the French Revolution.  The choice of the second play was timely, but Da Ponte had to reduce and modify the spoken play to text that could be sung in an opera that he might be able pass under Joseph II’s radar.  Thus, in a scene where Figaro is angry with the Count, the Beaumarchais text reads “Because you are a great lord, you think you are a great genius!  You took the trouble to be born, that’s all.  You remain nothing but an ordinary man; while I…had to use more science and calculation simply to survive than it has taken to rule Spain for the last hundred years!”  See why Emperor Joseph might object to a servant uttering these words?  In the opera, Figaro sings, “Well, little count, if you want to dance, I will choose the tune.”  The aria makes the point that the servant does not accept the count’s yoke of control, but in a safer manner, especially when flavored by high comedy.  Da Ponte and Mozart knew what they were dealing with and how to navigate the terrain, and importantly, they shared a vision that their target was not political upheaval but illuminating the human heart and successfully putting on a good show. 

Alisa Jordheim as Susanna, Lauren Cook as Cherubino, and Symone Harcum as the Countess. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

Sharing their hearts with ours were twelve named singers, a twelve-member chorus, and two supernumeraries.  In a good cast, the standout performances came from bass-baritone Richard Ollarsaba as the Count and soprano Symone Harcum as the Countess.  Mr. Ollarsaba, is familiar to area audiences.   He was in training with Wolf Trap Opera as a Filene Artist in 2016-2017, and gave a noteworthy performance as Chaplain Raimondo in VO’s 2018 Lucia di Lammermoor.   He possesses an appealing voice matched by well-executed vocals and a commanding stage presence; he was an excellent choice for the role of the Count.  He is one of a legion of young opera stars in the making whose careers have been greatly impeded by pandemic closures, but keep an eye on him for what appears to be a bright future.  The Countess does not appear in the opera until the beginning of Act II.  My wife’s first comment to me after the opera was that when soprano Symone Harcum appeared on stage, “She brought life to the party”.  Indeed, in many ways the opera itself moved up a notch in Act II.  Ms. Harcum’s excellent arias and recitatives easily soared over the orchestra.  She had a regal appearance, easily identifiable as the Countess.  Her acting as the sad but hopeful wife of a straying husband was touching.  Soprano Alisa Jordheim made an appropriately fetching Susanna, though both she and baritone Erik Earl Larson as Figaro seemed a little overwhelmed and possibly out of sync with the orchestra in the early going.  Mr. Larson cut a fine figure as Figaro and had a good voice for the role, though his acting might have used more definition.  Ms. Jordheim began to really impress with her ensemble singing.  Her solo aria “Oh come, don’t delay” teasing her husband in the final act was a highlight of the evening and a fine showcase for her talent.

left to right: Jason Ferrante as Basilio, Whitney Robinson as Marcelina, Erik J. McConnell as Dr. Bartolo, and Richard Ollarsaba as the Count. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

In the fifth major role in the opera, mezzo-soprano Lauren Cook displayed dramatic and comedic acting talent as the page Cherubino, a pants role; her vocals at times dropped off and were hidden by the orchestra.  Other performers who contributed admirably to the performance were tenor Jason Ferrante in dual roles as the Count’s enabler, Basilio, and notary Don Curzio; baritone-bass Eric J. McConnell as Dr. Bartolo, Figaro’s old nemesis; bass-baritone Chauncey Blade as the drunken gardener Antonio; and the bridesmaids played by sopranos Keely Borland and Tara Hoyle.  Sometimes it is the singers in minor roles that catch your eye.  Mezzo-soprano Whitney Robinson as Marcellina, the former servant of Dr. Bartolo, was a standout showing a flair for comedy.  Soprano Catherine Goode as Barbarino had a voice that brought me to attention and made my ears perk up; her aria in the last act, “I have lost it, poor me”, caused me to hope Virginia Opera will bring her back again in a more prominent role.  The Virginia Opera Chorus under the direction of Chorusmaster Brandon Eldredge was a delight.  As always, I was so impressed with Mozart’s ability to create ensemble numbers including from two to seven solo singers singing along different lines.  VO’s ensemble of singers delivered these in thrilling fashion.  It is a shame, I think, that audiences today do not insist on encores of favorite numbers as they did in Mozart’s time.  The audiences at the first performances in 1786 insisted on so many encores that Emperor Joseph imposed a rule that encores of ensemble numbers would not be allowed because they caused performances to run too late.  I’d be willing to stay.

left photo: Catherine Goode as Barbarina. right photo: Chauncey Blade (center) as the Gardener. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

The Richmond Symphony under the direction of Conductor Adam Turner played Mozart’s glorious music beautifully, although the initial response of the woodwinds to the strings beginning the overture seemed a little askew.  I thought the volume of the orchestra sounded about right, though at times I had difficulty hearing a few of the singers.  Overall, the music was engaging and pleasing throughout the evening.  This is definitely an opera where you go home humming the melodies.

Kudos to veteran stage director and choreographer Kyle Lang who directed the production, his fifth directing assignment with Virginia Opera.  His gift for comedic embellishments, such as having eavesdropping servants fall through when a door was opened and adding a drunken odor to the gardener, enhanced the performance.  His ability to move so many performers around the stage created a natural flow; he even gave us a little ballet in the wedding scene.  Having the opening scenes of Act I all take place in Figaro/Susanna’s bedroom seemed a little odd, but it was economical.  Director Lang was very good at designing scenes for maximum comic effect where the power advantage was contantly shifting between the characters – where Susanna had the advantage, then Figaro, then the Count, etc.  Also, kudos to Set Designer Peter Dean Beck for excellent sets for all the acts and to Costume Designer Paul Brown for great period costumes and to Lighting Designer Driscoll Otto for lighting changes that complemented the action on the stage.  This was, overall, an impressive production. 

Mozart is the only composer renown for both concert works and operas.  It was opera that was his favorite format.  Virginia Opera’s performance of The Marriage of Figaro enhanced the impact of Mozart’s music and Da Ponte’s poetry.  I very much appreciated the message that Director Lang felt emerges from this opera: “If we genuinely listen to what others need, there is hope for change.”

The Fan Experience: Performances of The Marriage of Figaro occurred on March 25, 26, and 27 in Norfolk, April 1 and 3 in Richmond, and in Fairfax on April 11, 12.  The opera was sung in Italian with English supertitles.  COVID-19 protocols were in effect for all performances.  Joshua Borths, Professor of Music at Capital University, gave the pre-opera talk 45-min prior to performance time.  His presentation was a highly informative and entertaining talk that enabled listeners to view the opera with the background that audiences of his day would have had.  

Subscriptions are now available for Virginia Opera’s 2022-2023 season at this link.  Four operas have been announced and will include the second opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, The Valkyrie.  This is a follow-up to last year’s The Rhinegold, first in the Cycle, and plans are to present all four.  Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Spears’ Fellow Travelers, and Verdi’s La Traviata finish out the season.

Annapolis Opera’s Into the Woods: Broadway Comes to Annapolis

Annapolis Opera brought Broadway to Annapolis Friday night with an entertainment bonanza.  Somehow, I had not seen the 1987 musical Into the Woods with songs and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine.  I can think of at least five Sondheim musicals I have seen, but somehow, not this one.  Thanks to Annapolis Opera and my wife’s nudging that we go, I am now a fan of this Sondheim musical also.  The AO performance was funny, communicated the musical’s messages, and was loaded with enjoyable singing and music. Kudos to all the opera-trained singers who sang show tunes with the panache to make it high quality Broadway.

l to r: Colleen Daly as the Baker’s wife, Arianna Zuckerman as the Witch, and Patrick Kilbride as the Baker. Photo by Michael C. Halbig; courtesy of Annapolis Opera.

Attending Into the Woods is like getting a whack at a piñata.  When you break it open, a multitude of treats flows out to you.  Annapolis Opera used nineteen performers to portray 23 characters, at least - not even counting the birds.  Then there were colorful costumes and sets, and an orchestra and conductor, and cool lighting and sound effects.  All this to tell a new fairytale that interlaces with several well-known fairytales.  A baker and his wife want to conceive a child but cannot because they are under a witch’s curse, and to remove the curse, they must undertake a quest into the woods to obtain four items to pay the witch’s ransom: a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold.  Well, who do you think that they might run into in the woods who could supply such items?  In these woods, Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk; Little Red Riding Hood; Rapunzel; and Cinderella.  Voila, and everyone lives happily ever after at the end of the Act 1, except for Cinderella’s stepsisters who suffered an unfortunate mishap; those pesky birds.  In Act 2, the mother of the Giant that Jack killed comes down a new beanstalk looking for him and menacing everyone; people threaten to sacrifice Jack to the Giant; Little Red develops PTSD and starts carrying a knife, infidelity rears its head, more than once (sadly, I must report that Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were involved); and not everyone survives.  Now you know the rest of the story: life goes on and actions have consequences!  Remember that piñata?  Do you remember the aftermath: how you had to scramble to get as many of the goodies for yourself as you could, and maybe had to fight over some, and how some kids ended up with a lot of candy, and some stood to the side and felt unhappy?  Fortunately, they were all kids and not yet armed.  Even good things have consequences.  Well, don’t despair; Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Lapine don’t leave us there.  Their musical offers us hope and a path forward, through our need for each other; a closing number is the song, “No one is alone”.

left photo: Matthew Hill as Jack and Diana DiMarzio as Jack’s Mother. right photo: Kylee Hope Geraci as Little Red Riding Hood and Paul La Rosa as the Big Bad Wolf. Photos by Michael C. Halbig; courtesy of Annapolis Opera.

AO’s Into the Woods had a large cast of excellent singer/actors.  Because they trained as opera singers, I could label them as sopranos, tenors, etc., but for this production, they were all Broadway singers.  For the show’s opening run on Broadway, Joanna Gleason won a Tony Award for best actress as the Baker’s wife.  Colleen Daly had some big shoes to fill and did it impressively, singing and acting beautifully in that role, showing her acting range when she meets a charming prince in the woods and later sings, “Moments in the Woods”.  Patrick McBride, in excellent musical theater voice, played the earnest Baker with steady consistency in a role where he is constantly struggling with the ethics of his choices.  The surprise of the night was teenager Kylie Hope Geraci as Little, Red Riding Hood; she was spot on in her singing, diction, and acting – one imagines she has a bright future!  In “I Know Things Now” she sang one of my favorite lines from the show: “Isn’t it nice to know a lot, and a little bit not”.  Matthew Hill as Jack also impressed in singing and acting, a tenor who seemed a natural for musicals.  Emma Grimsley as Cinderella brought endearing pathos to the role.  Arianna Zuckermann made a commanding Witch who even got to do a little rapping early on.  Diana DiMarzio played Jack’s mother in hen pecking fashion, belittling Jack and then defending him with her life.  Jesse Mashburn sang with compassion as Cinderella’s mother.  Denique Isaac as Rapunzel gave us an upset, abused child raised by the Witch, but also some opera riffs that left me wanting to hear more.

l to r bottom: Natasha Ramirez Farr as Cinderella’s Stepmother, Emma Grimsley as Cinderella, and Paul La Rosa as Cinderella’s Prince. l to r top: Erin Ridge as Lucinda and Patricia Hengen as Florinda, Cinderella’s Stepsisters. Photo by Michael C. Halbig; courtesy of Annapolis Opera.

The show has many enjoyable ensemble numbers, such as the Baker and his Wife singing “It Takes Two” (remember my wife’s nudging).  One I particularly enjoyed was the duet “Agony” between Paul La Rosa as Cinderella’s prince and Brandon Lockart as Rapunzel’s prince, as they bemoan the choices forced upon them.  Cinderella’s family was a hoot with her stepsisters Florinda (Patricia Hengen) and Lucinda (Erin Ridge), stepmother (Natasha Ramirez Farr), and her father (Timothy Mix).  Christopher Hartung as Steward, Alisha Woodberry as Snow White, and Daisha Togawa as Sleeping Beauty contributed effectively. In a non-singing but major role, Dean Anthony who also directed the show, was a great choice for narrator/Mysterious Man with his clear deep voice. 

Mr. Sondheim’s engaging music was presented beautifully by Conductor Craig Kier and the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra.  If you heard this melodious music on the radio not knowing what it was, you would immediately think Broadway.  Musical themes are developed for some of the characters and solo instruments and sections were constantly coloring the action on the stage.

left photo: Arianna Zuckerman as the Witch after transformation. center photo: Emma Grimsley as Cinderella calling on the birds. right photo: Brandon Lockhart as Rapunzel’s Prince and Paul La Rosa as Cinderella’s Prince. Photos by Michael C. Halbig; courtesy of Annapolis Opera.

Special kudos to Director Anthony for keeping a show with so many characters moving at a brisk clip and setting up the comedy in a manner that works.  I liked the touch of having most of the cast appear on stage near the close of each act reciting old sayings and aphorisms with an ironic and funny twist.  The sets effectively displayed facades of three home fronts from fairytales and therefore, three scenes at once.  The use of a mobile of bird cutouts for the birds which figure in the action worked in this context, adding to the fun. Also, cutouts of horses and white cows were hilarious.  Designer Glenn Avery Breed’s costumes were delightful and fairytale-worthy, as was the lighting and special effects from Production Manager and Lighting Designer Christopher Brusberg.

Dean Anthony, seated, as the Narrator being accosted by the characters. Photo by Michael C. Halbig; courtesy of Annapolis Opera.

There is one small concern I will mention with In the Woods. The lyrics and dialog for Into the Woods are extraordinarily creative and clever.  It’s almost too much at once; one lesson or insight hardly settles before another is thrown our way, and we don’t get to go that deeply into any one character.  The volume works for entertainment purposes, but perhaps not in honing the message.  I suppose the message overall also was that there is a lot that goes on in life, some you influence that affects others and some beyond your control that affects you.  The closing refrain will stay with me for a while: “Be careful what you say.  Children will listen.  Be careful what you wish for, for wishes are children.  Careful the path you take, wishes come true”. 

l to r: Erin Ridge as Lucinda, Natasha Ramirez Farr as Cinderella’s Stepmother; Denique Isaac as Rapunzel; Timothy Mix as Rapunzel’s Father, Paul La Rosa as Cinderella’s Prince, Matthew Hill as Jack, Diana DiMarzio as Jack’s Mother, Emma Grimsley as Cinderella, and Christopher Hartung as Steward. Photo by Michael C. Halbig; courtesy of Annapolis Opera.

Finally, I have to give kudos (my wife insists, and they are well deserved) to Annapolis Opera Music and Artistic Director Craig Kier for taking on such a massive undertaking and providing employment opportunities for so many vocalists while opportunities are still constrained by the pandemic. 

The Fan Experience: Performances of Into the Woods were held March 18, 19, 20 in the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts.  The musical is sung in English with no super titles; singers did not wear microphones.  The performance lasted about three hours including one intermission.  Parking at the Hall was free.

An informative pre-opera talk was given by Hannah Epstein, Music Teacher and Musical Afficianado, as part of AO’s Insight series of talks about In the Woods.  She gave interesting insights into the construction of the musical, and there was a discussion of the difference between singing in operas and musicals.

Annapolis Opera has scheduled a concert and a vocal competition before returning to staged opera on May 15 with Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.  Before attending a performance, be sure to check the company’s masking and vaccination requirements in place at that time.

Washington National Opera’s Così fan tutte: Funny, Entertaining, and Forgiving

Washington National Opera has pulled off a minor miracle with their classical production of Mozart’s comedic opera, Così fan tutte (1790). Monday’s performance was genuinely funny from beginning to end and very true, I suspect, to Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s intentions.  Managing to wash over the darker undertones, it is a charmer of a production with few tickets remaining.

I have been increasingly drawn to this opera over the years due to the music and arias but definitely have found it to be an acquired taste.  The full title is Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti (translates to All Women Do It, or The School for Lovers).  Enjoying a performance reminds me of eating an ice cream sundae while on a diet; you must ignore the calories and their consequences to enjoy it, but you can.  Two sisters, Fiordiligi and Dorabella are in love with two soldiers, Guglielmo and Ferrando, respectively.  Remember the respectively; it’s going to change.  The guy’s exaggerated protestations of love and faithfulness of their fiancées are overheard by an older friend, Don Alfonso, a self-proclaimed philosopher.  He challenges their beliefs that their loves would never be unfaithful, and a bet is made.  Through deceptions and maid Despina’s help, Alfonso says he will prove to them in a day’s time that their women, like all women, are incapable of constancy.  The philosopher’s deceptions work as each lady is seduced by the other’s boyfriend with the aid of a few coercive tricks.  In their distress, Alfonso counsels forgiveness to have them wed.  Wed you might ask?  Given what they now know about each other?  Wed which one?  The lovers’ sundaes were delicious, but the added weight is now troubling them and the audience, and the audience must digest a serving of eighteenth century misogyny just presented to them.  In fairness to Mozart and Da Ponte, Despina fully presents the women’s side, making it a little surprising that the creators didn’t choose the plural tutti for the title, meaning everybody does it.

l to r: Kang Wang as Ferrando and Andrey Zhilikhovsky as Guglielmo. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

For a good Così fan tutte production you need six strong singers and a good conductor and orchestra; everybody has a moment or two in the spotlight, and as Mozart always does it, loads of great ensemble numbers are included.  WNO brought in four excellent, attractive young singers for the lovers and anchored this group with outstanding veterans in the roles of the philosopher and maid; these players are also excellent actors.  They brought in Conductor Erina Yashima from her role as assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra to lead the WNO Orchestra.  The music sounded marvelous, and the coordination with the singers was perfect, as I noticed several times, even with the challenge of having the conductor and orchestra on the Eisenhower Theatre’s stage behind the singers, hidden by a scrim.  The overture was delightful with piccolos, flutes, clarinets, and oboes trilling melody answered by the strings through to a final rumble by the drums that put us in the proper mood for the comedy to begin.  Bring her back, bring her back…

Laura Wilde as Fiordiligi and Ferruccio Ferlanetto as Don Alfonso. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Soprano Laura Wilde was well chosen for the role of Fiordiligi, fully displaying the crisis of conscience that the character feels.  Her singing placed her own stamp on the role, displaying pianissimo command in a lovely lower register.  Her aria, “Per pietà, ben mio, perdona" (for pity, my love, forgive) was especially beautiful and moving.  Mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb sang well in the role of Dorabella, the sister who strays more readily; her acting has movie star appeal.  The duets were beautifully done, though it seemed to me their voice ranges overlapped such that the blending does not achieve a distinctive beauty.  The guys were also stellar in singing and acting.  Moldovan baritone Andrey Zhilikhovsky sang with convincing feeling and projected the roguish fellow that Guglielmo should be.  Tenor Kang Wang’s voice impresses, and the mellowness of his tenor singing seemed perfect for romantic roles.  Distinguished bass Ferruccio Furlanetto displayed a pleasing voice and a winning demeanor for Don Alfonso, a character worn and weighted by life experience and a commitment to the Enlightenment’s reasoned approach.  Soprano Ana María Martínez is a delight in any role she sings, and her Despina I rate as the best I have seen, managing high comedy and jaded reflection, with lovely singing.  Ms. Martínez and Mr. Furlanetto were standouts in an excellent cast, perfectly balancing the youthful singers.  Near the end we get to hear the WNO Chorus ably directed by Steven Gathman.  The entire cast sang beautifully in Mr. Mozart’s many terrific ensemble numbers.

Anna María Martínez as Despina in disguise as a doctor and Ferruccio Furlanetto as Don Alfonso. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

There are more kudos to hand out for an opera that works so well.  Let’s start with a huge one for Director Alison Moritz.  The staging flowed well, as supernumeraries moved props and walls around without distraction, and the comedy was maintained throughout.  Ms. Moritz placed the lovers among the wealthy, perhaps to make it easier to laugh at their self-deception?   Kudos also to Costume Designer Lynly A. Saunders for bright, colorful, lovely costumes, and especially for the disguises for Despina, which helped Ms. Martínez make those scenes laugh out loud funny.  Kudos also to Erhard Rom (Set Designer), S. Katy Tucker (Projection Designer) and Mark McCullough (Lighting Designer) for clever, entertaining use of screen projections and mobile walls to move props about and place the singers in cheerful backgrounds. 

Kang Wang as Ferrando, Laura Wilde as Fiordiligi, Ferruccio Furlanetto as Don Alfonso, and Andrey Zhilikhovsky as Guglielmo with the WNO Orchestra in the background, led by Conductor Erina Yashima. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte collaborated over a four year period to produce three of the most popular works in today’s opera repertory, The Marriage of Figaro (1986), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790).  Each opera contains some of Mozart’s greatest music, and each includes compelling human dramas by Da Ponte.  Da Ponte based the first two on other works, but Così is original with him.  Music historians indicate that Mozart focused on making a successful show and left the story very much to his librettist.  I believe there is a lot of Da Ponte in Così, especially in the character Don Alfonso.  Così’s librettist led an astounding life over his 89 years.  By all reports he was a womanizer causing him a lot of heartache, missing teeth, and money problems.  He was born into a Jewish family that converted to Catholicism when he was fourteen, causing him to take the name of the local bishop.  Lorenzo became a priest and while serving in that capacity took a mistress, by whom he had two children; he subsequently was banished from Venice for fifteen years supposedly for producing entertainments in a brothel, and other mala vita, bad living.  He obtained an introduction to Antononio Salieri, Mozart’s rival, and became a librettist.  After Così, he lost his court appointment due to the death of Austria’s Josef II; he became a family man, lived in London as a book seller and grocer, before spending the rest of his life in New York where he became the first Professor of Italian History at Columbia College.  He also started an opera company that failed but became the forerunner of the Metropolitan Opera.  During his entire life, his many, many business ventures failed, but he never lost his ability to charm those above his station.  All of which I reference to make the case that the man knew something of life. 

I believe that Don Alfonso’s offering of forgiveness as the final solution was born of Da Ponte’s experiences and likely his desire for some absolution for himself.  I am trying to make my peace with this opera by focusing on a line from Fiordiligi’s aria,"Per pietà, ben mio, perdona" (for pity, my love, forgive), sang so beautifully by Ms. Wilde.  She sings “forgive the sins of a loving heart”; other translations use “forgive the error of a loving soul”.  I think this is really the point Mr. Da Ponte was creating in Cosí fan tutte.  Yes, I think he and Mr. Mozart chose to have some fun at the expense of naïve earthlings.  However, I suggest that that line came directly from the librettist’s heart, and that line, not human indiscretions, inspired the composer to fill the opera with music of such great beauty.

The Fan Experience:  Così fan tutte has additional performances occurring on March 18, 20, 23, 26, but as of March 15, seating was very limited.  The Eisenhower Theatre’s seating capacity is only half what the Opera House can accommodate; the Opera House is currently hosting Jesus Christ Superstar.  The Così performance runs 2 hours and 45 minutes plus a 25-minute intermission.  The opera is sung in Italian with English supertitles.

WNO Director Timothy O’Leary speaking before the performance began noted that we are all caught in what is happening in Ukraine.  He voiced support of members of the WNO Orchestra who are from Ukraine and have families there.

Parking ($25) in the indoor KC parking lot can be reserved online ahead of the day of the performance; there is a discount for KC members.  Access through the north side entrances is still closed, but traffic flows freely to entrances on the south side.  Taking the Metro to Foggy Bottom and catching the red Kennedy Center buses is a good mass transit option.

Before you go, check KC’s masking and vaccination requirements, which often pop up anytime you visit the KC website at kennedy-center.org, but if it doesn’t, click on the banner at the top of the page.

WNO’s “Written in Stone”: Our Stories Told Powerfully Through Monuments and New Opera

The place we know and love as the Kennedy Center is, by a congressional act, the United States National Cultural Center.  KC was formally named in 1964 as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a “living monument” memorializing JFK’s legacy; President Lyndon Johnson laid the cornerstone that year.  In the foyer that runs the length of its three main theaters is placed a dramatic, larger-than-life bust of JFK, created by sculptor Robert Berks.  KC has recently undergone a substantial expansion known as the REACH and a new statue of JFK has been placed there.  The Kennedy Center is home to the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, and the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts; its major venues, the Eisenhower Theater, the Opera House, and the Concert Hall, host performances from a wide range of the performing arts, and free concerts are performed on its Millenium Stage several times each week.  The Kennedy Center structure is itself a history written in stone.

Aerial view of the Kennedy Center beside the Potomac River; the Reach is in the foreground. Photo by Richard Barnes; courtesy of the Kennedy Center.

WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello conceived the monuments theme as she considered ideas for a commemorative event for the Kennedy Center’s 50th anniversary as a follow up to Leonard Bernstein’s Mass composed for the inauguration of the Kennedy Center in 1971.  Director Zambello chose the theme before the controversy boiled over regarding confederate statues.  It also should be noted that Ms. Zambello intended that the pieces raise awareness and questions, not take sides in political debates, rather to present searches for meaning with adjudications left to the human heart.  She called upon composers and librettists who have a history with WNO to choose a monument for their focus, and the four teams of opera creators selected served WNO’s purposes well.  I was entertained by each story, and each story was powerfully told using the human voice in song.

WNO has, since 2012, been pairing composers and librettists and commissioning them to create and produce on KC stages each January new, short American Operas.  This program, known as the American Opera Initiative, was paused after last season’s trio of excellent 20-min operas, presented online due to COVID.  Efforts this year were devoted to creating “Written in Stone”, an assemblage of four short works constructed around the theme of “monuments”, focusing on

what monuments capture about our history,

their meanings for we the people,

at a point in time,

while we change,

including four world premieres:

Chantal – an opera on a surveyor’s view of monuments

Music and Libretto by Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran

Rise – an opera inspired by the Portrait Monument in the Capitol rotunda

Music by Kamala Sankaram

Libretto by A.M. Homes

 it all falls down – an opera inspired by the Supreme Court Building

Music by Carlos Simon

Libretto by Marc Bamuthi Joseph

 The Rift – an opera inspired by the Vietnam War Memorial

Music by Huang Ruo

Libretto by David Henry Hwang

Alicia Hall Moran as the surveyor in Chantal. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Chantal, a name derived from a word meaning stone, provides a prologue for the program with a solo performer, mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran, who plays a surveyor and who coauthored the score and libretto with her husband Jason Moran.  Team Moran’s music and Ms. Moran’s professional singing contributed effectively to the vignette.  Chantal presents a surveyors view and muses that each monument is both a question and an answer that stands until brought down by an idea.  To borrow from the program guide, the surveyor also recalls “others who have surveyed the American landscape: Harriet Tubman (~1822–1913), who guided enslaved individuals to freedom via the Underground Railroad; Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a free African-American who assisted with a survey that established the original borders of the District of Columbia; Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (d. 1818), a man of African descent who is recognized as ‘the Founder of Chicago’; Esteban de Dorantes (~1500– 1539), an enslaved man who was the first African to explore North America; and Gladys Mae West (b. 1930), an African-American mathematician known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the earth”; I quote in case you, like I, are not familiar with all of these names, little recognized for their contributions.  This prologue set the stage for raising the questions in the stories to follow, making for a more cohesive grouping. 

l to r: Darryl Freedman as sculptor Adelaide Johnson, Vanessa Becerra as Girl Scout Alicia Hernández, Danielle Talamantes as her mother, Suzanna Waddington as The Monument, and J’Nai Bridges as a Capitol police officer in Rise. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Rise has a heart-warming plot idea for a chamber piece around a monuments theme: Girl Scout Alicia Hernández visiting the Capitol has gotten separated from her troupe. Alicia’s trip to the nation’s capital has turned into a spiritual journey, with her wishing to discover her place in our history, and she is initially troubled by being unable to see anyone in the statues or walls that looks like her.  She finds validation in Adelaide Johnson’s Portrait Monument, a sculpture of pioneers of the American women’s rights movement: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and one figure unfinished to be sculpted by the future.  The libretto tells us that “We hold our history in our bodies...We embody what has come before... We each have stories to tell.” The 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving women in the U.S. the right to vote was celebrated in 2020; that’s right, just slightly over 100 years ago women could not vote in the USA.  Tennessee was the last state to ratify the amendment, the vote was only 50-47 in favor.  That’s long enough to forget; the Portrait Monument causes us remember, and its unfinished figure could become Alicia; there are plenty of inequalities remaining that she might be inspired to address.  The music provided appropriate background for the singing and mood of the story, with dissonance used to reflect the tension.  Rise was cast with an outstanding group of young sopranos: soprano Vanessa Becerra as the Girl Scout, soprano Danielle Talamantes as her mother, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges as Capitol police officer Victoria Wilson, mezzo-soprano Darryl Freedman in two roles as Powerful Woman and as Adelaide Johnson, and soprano Suzannah Waddington as The Monument.  Alas, such talent on display for such a short period of time. (Want to guess who the model was for the Powerful Woman? Check the Fan Experience section below.)

J’Nai Bridges as the mother caught between her gay son to the left, played by Christian Mark Gibbs, and her husband to the right , played by Alfred Walker in it all falls down. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

It all falls down is the most tightly integrated and promising opera of the four and presents a conflict of monuments.  The inspirational monument is the Supreme Court Building where a black father and son wait on its steps for the Court’s decision on the legality of gay marriage; a church is a living monument poised in the background.  The father is a fundamentalist preacher for a largely black congregation who take the Bible literally and uncompromisingly as the word of God; for him and most members of the congregation, homosexuality is an intolerable, abhorrent sin.  His son, also a preacher, is gay and has recently announced his love for men to the congregation in the same church.  On the Supreme Court steps, they are not standing together.  Can love overrule everything as the opera asserts and bridge the gulf between father and son?  If you are betting on yes, I’d ask for odds, and the opera does not provide the answer.  I found this opera to be impactful; I felt a high level of anxiety as I watched and feared for this decent young man as he approached his turn at the podium, determined to announce his sexual orientation.  His mother, in a marvelous performance by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, supports his decision.  His father, in a marvelous performance also by bass-baritone Alfred Walker, declares his son as persona non grata in the church.  The son, in perhaps an even more marvelous performance by tenor and versatile actor, Christian Mark Gibbs, stays true to himself and love, while longing for reconnection with his father.  The characters are convincingly brought to life by the singers, powerful stuff.  The pleasure of a chorus was also featured in this piece as the church congregation.  The engaging orchestral music was especially effective in supporting the drama and was even enlivened with a couple of spiritual riffs.

Karen Vuong as sculptor Maya Lin, Rod Gilfry as former defense secretary Robert McNamara, Christian Mark Gibbs as veteran Grady Mitchell, Nina Yoshida Nelsen as Vietnamese refugee Phuong Tran in Rift. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Rift, the concluding segment, tells the story of American designer and sculptor Maya Lin, beginning as a Yale student who enters a national competition for the best design for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  At that time, building a memorial to the war was highly controversial as the country was deeply divided over the war.  Ms. Lin, of Chinese heritage, wins and faces an aftermath of praise and condemnation, both personal and in regard to her design.  The telling of the story in Rift is raw and shocking at points with brutal epithets hurled both at the decision to establish the memorial and towards Ms. Lin personally, attacking both her design and her racial heritage – as one example, Ross Perot at the time called it an “ugly black slab designed by an eggroll”.  Rift also weaves in a vignette about Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson, and his recriminations over his decisions in the war.  The excellent cast of singers included soprano Karen Vuong as Ms. Lin, mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen as Phuong Tran, tenor Christian Mark Gibbs as Grady Mitchell, and baritone Rod Gilfry as Robert McNamara.  Each character presented a different perspective on the war and the monument.  Grady Mitchell, a war veteran, disappointed and angry with the government at first had no desire for the memorial, and poignantly, Phoung Tran, a Vietnamese refugee mourning the loss of her husband in the war, decried that there was no memorial for the Vietnamese soldiers who fought with the Americans.  Ms. Lin’s concept was to have a memorial that represented a rift in the earth, a “wound in the earth that was closed and healing”. If you fought in that war or have family or friends who did, especially if you lost a loved one in the war, you know the feelings are still tender and strong.  Many have visited the memorial to touch the names inscribed upon its walls.

The rift in America over the Viet Nam War was a turning point in our history, and I believe Rift could be developed into an important full-length opera.  I found the music engaging in reflecting the moods of the different scenes and held rich possibilities for elaboration, especially more arias allowing the emotions to be expressed and to sink in, some perhaps in more reflective moments, less structured by anger and stress.  Puccini and Wagner used hours to develop musical themes and explore emotions. One aspect of short operas is that they need to tell a story in a short amount of time.  I was so attuned to learning the story in these short operas, I frequently unconsciously placed the music in the background while focusing on the words; unfortunately, this means I miss some of the richness in the construction of the scores. Something longer for Rift might be even more compelling. Rift, of the four operas, perhaps best demonstrates the theme of “Written in Stone” as a powerful demonstration that monuments not only tell our history as a country, but connect us in very real ways with our memories and feelings about that time and those events. 

The excellent music of “Written in Stone” was provided by the Washington National Opera Orchestra ably led by Conductor Robert Spano, and Steven Gathman ably served as Chorus Master.  The orchestra was placed on stage at the rear behind a scrim, a challenge for the conductor to be behind the singers.  James Robinson served capably as Director for the last three operas; Alicia Hall Moran did so for Chantal.  The sets were minimal but effective and were greatly aided by the projected images.  Set design, lighting design, and projection design was well done and handled by Erhard Rom, Mark McCullough, and S. Katy Tucker, respectively. 

The Fan Experience: “Written in Stone” is scheduled for performances in the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre on March 5, 9, 13, 19, 21, 25.  The performance runs 2.5 hours including an intermission between it all falls down and Rift. The operas are sung in English with English supertitles.

 In support of members of the WNO Orchestra who are from Ukraine and have families both there and in the U.S., the national anthem of Ukraine was played and sung in Ukrainian by the WNO’s Cafritz Young Artists prior to the beginning of the performance.

For fans of the American Opera Initiative, like myself, I obtained this statement from the program’s director, Robert Ainsley, “After celebrating its tenth season with the well-received production Written in Stone, the initiative's next iteration will reboot its popular weekend festival format in the next season. The expanded work of AOI includes: The Cartography Project and the recently announced True Voice Award.”

Parking ($25) in the indoor KC parking lot can be reserved online ahead of the day of the performance; there is a discount for KC members.  Access through the north side entrances is still closed but traffic flows freely to entrances on the south side.  Taking the Metro to Foggy Bottom and catching the red Kennedy Center buses is a good mass transit option.

Before you go, check KC’s masking and vaccination requirements, which often pop up anytime you visit the KC website at kennedy-center.org, but if it doesn’t, click on the banner at the top of the page.

Who was the Powerfull Woman in Rise based on? KC Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and several of the composers and librettists participated in a Guggenheim Works and Progress discussion that included music samples by performers. During the discussion, composer Kamala Sankaram revealed that the Powerful Woman in Rise was Nancy Pelosi in the original draft, but the Kennedy Center has to remain apolitical. The video is worth viewing to learn more about some of the interesting elements incorporated into the scores.

Maryland Lyric Opera’s Turandot: Power Opera and a Star Soprano Emerges

Composer Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot (1926), based on an eponymous play by Carlo Gozzi, features librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.   The score for the last scene was unfinished at Puccini’s death and was completed by composer Franco Alfani.  The fairy tale plot for Turandot is problematic in several ways and best viewed as though the story was introduced with the statement “In a place and time long ago that never existed”.  Nonetheless, whether performed in concert as done by Maryland Lyric Opera this past weekend or as a fully staged Met Opera Zeffirelli spectacle, it is compelling opera with great music by a great composer.  In this impressive return to the stage for the first time in two pandemic-restricted years, MDLO made a compelling case that theirs is still an opera company to be reckoned with.  This production, marked by outstanding orchestral and choral performances, also introduced an exciting young soprano to the DC area.  At Sunday afternoon’s performance in the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, I felt doubly rewarded. 

Soprano Alexandra LoBianco as Turandot. Photo by Julian Thomas Photography; courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

Someone once jokingly told me that concert opera was crack cocaine for opera enthusiasts; I concur and am a huge fan.  Let me explain.  MDLO performs operas in concert with a large orchestra and chorus, on stage with the singers; the music is not emerging from a pit which often constrains the number of musicians that can be accommodated.  The singers sing in character and the story gets told, but they have more freedom to focus on singing, without also having to worry about costume changes, placement on stage, and choreography.  The focus and sound panorama that emerges can enhance the musical experience.  The audience then can also focus on the music and singing. MDLO’s concert production of Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West in 2018 was one of my favorite opera performances of that year; I felt like I truly heard the music of that opera for the first time.  Puccini scored Turandot for a large orchestra and a variety of instruments, including two alto saxophones, two harps, and a range of different percussion instruments; using two harps allowed a larger range of octaves to be covered at the same time.  MDLO, under Maestro Louis Salemno’s leadership, went all out, seating 80 musicians on stage, plus a 12-person banda of horns in Strathmore’s “hockey balcony” high above and beside the orchestra, backed by a 79-person chorus.  Conductor Salemno told me by phone that Puccini scored the opera for a banda of four trumpets and four trombones separated from the orchestra.  He placed the players in his banda in Strathmore’s “hockey stick” balcony, but they could not see him well enough from there; he finally settled on having MDLO Associate Conductor Husan Park conduct the “hockey stick” banda, taking cues from the Maestro.  He also revealed that because of Omicron’s emergence, for every rehearsal, MDLO required each person to be tested for COVID; there also had to be covers for all singers, musicians, and the conductor himself, about 200 people employed for this production, and all had to attend rehearsals; luckily, not one person tested positive.  It all worked for this production.  The first chords from the orchestra had the force to press me back into my seat.  The heightened sound enhanced the intensity of the experience, especially in the most dramatic moments.  Concert opera by MDLO ups the amperage, giving us opera’s orchestral and choral music on full power. 

The Maryland Lyric Opera Orchestra under the experienced hand of Conductor Salemno consistently delivers excellent performances and did again with Turandot.  Chorus Master Steven Gathman led the MDLO Chorus in an impressive, stand out performance.  Both men are local treasures who deliver musical and choral artistry of the highest professional order.  The playing, singing, and sound was magnificent!  I should also add that for Turandot the singers did not stand in front of music stands to deliver their arias, but engaged to a degree in acting out scenes, using facial expressions and body language.  Also, some solo singing was done at different places from the balconies.  There were no costumes, though Ping, Pang, and Pong did wear the same red vests.  Kudos to Visual Supervisor David Gately.  Also, kudos to Lighting Designer Stuart Duke who controlled spotlighting and colored background lighting.  The production overall was effectively done.

Morris Robinson (left) as Timur and Jonathon Burton (right) as Calàf. Photo by Julian Thomas Photography; courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

Turandot is a fairy tale about a queen in ancient Peking embittered by a prince’s savagery visited upon an ancestor.  Hardened, she requires any suitor to answer three riddles to win her hand, and if they fail, it’s off with their heads.  The thirteenth suitor has failed as the opera begins, with a blood thirsty chorus watching the Prince of Persia walk to his beheading.  Prince Calàf arrives and unexpectedly meets his father Timur, the disposed Tartar king, aided by his loyal subject Liù, who is in love with his son.  Caláf accepts Turandot’s challenge, even though ministers Ping, Pang, and Pong attempt to dissuade him and spare his life.  Caláf correctly solves the riddles, but Turandot pleads not to marry him.  Not wanting to force her to be his bride, he offers her a bargain – if she can discover his name before morning, he will give up both his pursuit of her and his life.  Turandot threatens all the townspeople to discover his name, even torturing Liù to the point where she takes her own life.  Maybe the most recognized opera tune of all time, “Nessun Dorma”, is sung, which means no one sleeps.  Calàf offers one more sacrifice before winning Turandot’s heart in a climatic final scene. 

This tale is intended to show the power of love, especially the redemptive power of love, certainly a worthy theme, and Puccini engages our senses as completely as possible to make that message as effectively as possible.  In concert versions, we lose the heightened impact of the colorful and exotic visuals (re Mr. Zefferilli’s ostentatious productions), but we get enhanced singing and music as a reward.  Because there are not supernatural elements in Turandot, it is tempting to hold it to real life logic, such that Caláf stretches credulity when he falls heads over heels in love given Turandot’s actions. However, fairy-tales can get rather far out. Philip Glass’s The Juniper Tree has a murdered child reborn as a singing bird. I’ve decided that grappling with the inconsistencies of this story is to be avoided.  I recommend that you not try to apply human reason to the story or its characters.  They simply serve its overarching purpose, the moral of the story, like in any good fairy tale, and besides, it’s opera.  Leave it at that, and take home the important message.  If you do, you will be in for a terrific experience.

(left to right) Nicole Heaston as Liù, Morris Robinson as Timur, and Jonathan Burton as Calàf. Photo by Julian Thomas Photography; courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

MDLO assembled an impressive cast for Turandot, to tell this story and deliver this message.  I am familiar with most of the cast.  Many had worked with MDLO or trained with MDLO before, but I had not previously heard dramatic soprano Alexandra LoBianco who played Turandot.  I learned from Conductor Salemno that while he routinely auditions singers for roles, he accepted her for the role without hearing her, based largely on the recommendation of his former mentor and friend, John DeMain, Music Director for the Madison Symphony and Opera.  Mr. Demain told him that not only could she sing with the force that Turandot requires, she would also impress him with her “beautiful pianissimos” (singing with full voice but softly).  Good call, Maestros DeMain and Salemno.  Seattle Opera has been aware of Ms. LoBianco’s talent for some time and will feature her again in October as Isolde in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde – a clear indication of their regard for her.  The beauty of her voice and singing, and the emotionality she brings to a role are stunning.  She even managed to bring an element of tenderness to the ice queen, Turandot.  I will take the liberty as a die-hard opera fan to predict that Alexandra LoBianco is an emerging star soprano, after being held back by almost two years of pandemic opera cancellations.  I certainly want to see her again.  I bet Seattle would be a fine place for an October vacation; get your tickets early.  Kudos to MDLO for introducing the DC area to this impressive talent. 

Tenor Jonathan Burton performs regularly with the top opera companies across the country and has previously appeared in MDLO productions.  He was a constant, effective Calàf, the successful suitor for Turandot, and his sterling “Nessan Dorma” drew a well-deserved round of applause.  Soprano Nicole Heaston, whom I have not heard previously although she has a strong performance record in the major opera houses, proved to be an ideal Liù.  She displayed tender vulnerability along with her bright, shimmering soprano voice.  Ms. Heaston earned an ovation with her very first aria; she was clearly a crowd favorite.  It says something about the quality of a cast when noted bass Morris Robinson plays the relatively minor role of Timur (kudos to MDLO for attracting top notch singers).  He not only brings that impressive voice to the role, but also a profound ability to communicate with gestures that he employed dramatically in this concert version.  Government ministers Ping, Pang, and Pong are the most likeable characters in the opera, trying to dissuade the suitor, providing comic relief, and singing a sentimental ode to their homes.  These roles were very well sung by baritone Javier Arrey, tenor Joseph Michael Brent, and tenor Yi Li.  Also adding to the performance was tenor Maurico Miranda in dual roles as the Emperor Altoum and the Prince of Persia, and base-baritone Hunter Enoch as the Mandarin.

Turandot was another impressive production by Maryland Lyric Opera, a company committed to bringing opera to the DC/suburban Maryland area.  Hopefully, as the Maestro stated, COVID continues to diminish, and they can get back in the swing of things!

The Fan Experience:  MDLO gave performances of Turandot on February 25 and 27 in the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, MD.  The performances were sung in Italian with supertitles in English on a wide screen above the backstage balcony.  The Music Center is an excellent venue for concert opera, with a charming décor and impressive acoustics.  Ticket prices for MDLO performances are modest, and students can purchase tickets for $10; the company has a strong commitment to music education in their community.

The next MDLO production will be Verdi’s Don Carlo, also performed in concert at the Music Center on May  13, 15. Maestro Salemno told me that Don Carlo is his favorite opera, still recalling the first time he heard it. It will include its own banda.  MDLO had a strong audience turn out for Turandot; you can lock in your seats now at this link.

Baltimore Concert Opera Sells Out Its Fully Staged The Barber of Seville

Baltimore Concert Opera in collaboration with Opera Delaware has given its fans a tonic needed for battling the isolation and depression of two years with COVID-19, a fully staged with orchestra, laugh out loud funny, rendition of Rossini’s comedic opera, The Barber of Seville (1816, Il Barbiere di Siviglia).  Sunday’s performance at Towson University was the funniest opera I have ever seen, by far, and it still managed to involve me in the story…all that merged with and facilitated by Rossini’s glorious music live.  It was a performance I will long remember, not like any other Barber I have seen.  And when was the last time an opera company presented a professional fully staged opera in the Baltimore area?  And when has BCO ever produced a fully staged opera?  This one works on all levels to support the comedy, including set, costumes, lighting/projections, staging, singing and music; even the venue contributed.  This production now moves to Opera Delaware in Wilmington’s Grand Opera House for two performances this coming weekend.

Christopher Bozeka (left) as Count Almavira and Brian James Myer (right) as Figaro in The Barber of Seville. Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker and courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

In composer Gioachino Rossini’s and librettist Cesare Sterbini’s plot for this opera buffa, Count Almavira has fallen in love with young maid Rosina and pretends to be a poor student Lindoro to win her heart without the influence of his wealth and position.  Rosina returns his infatuation, but she is the ward of Dr. Bartolo who is keeping her secluded in his home with plans to wed her himself, against her will.  Figaro, a barber, fixer, and arranger of all things in 18th century Spain undertakes helping Count Almavira secure the hand of Rosina, while keeping his identity secret until their marriage is secured.  Dr. Bartolo is assisted in his plot by the unashamedly mercenary music teacher Don Basilio.  Disguises and comedic plots come and go until our two young lovers are united with a happy ending for everyone, except Dr. Bartolo.  In this performance, the serious themes of human character flaws and the stacked deck of societal mores are dealt with authentically in the commedia dell’arte manner of exposing them and making fun of them.  The opera was composed when Rossini was 24 years old, in his early period when he mainly composed comedies and ascended to greatness.  The Barber of Seville is consistently on the list of the ten most often performed operas worldwide.  The plot is based on a play by Beaumarchais, part of a trilogy; we meet Count Almavira and Figaro again in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, based on another member of the trilogy. 

Mary Beth Nelson as Rosina. Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker and courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

Let me begin my report with the music, an aspect of this production that should be emphasized.  There was familiar applause as award winning Conductor Anthony Barrese, well known to BCO/Opera Delaware audiences, made his entrance to the podium.  When I heard the first notes coming from the Opera Delaware Orchestra, my spirits jumped about fifty points on the spirit scale; it is so good to hear music live once more, and what could be more thrilling than hearing Rossini’s overture for this opera.  Kudos to Maestro Barrese and his 34 players for bringing Rossini’s magnificent music to life, so nourishing for the soul.  In the 2015-16 season Mr. Barrese led a “Return of Rossini” festival for Opera Southwest.  He stated that he wanted to make this production as authentically Rossini as possible; for that for he returned to Rossini’s original score.  Thus, he chose to include Count Almavira’s final aria that has often been cut in previous productions, and he does allow the singers freedom to display their individual virtuosity as would have been done in Rossini’s day.  After a stirring beginning on its own, the music playing became tightly integrated into the fabric of the opera, always there to be enjoyed and yet a critical part of something larger, building on itself from beginning to end.  This is an opera for the lovers of tune-filled opera.  Take one of your friends who hasn’t seen an opera before to this one.

Comedy, especially in opera, is difficult to execute effectively.  It requires timing, appropriate framing, an element of surprise, and preparation of the audience to receive it as intended.  Kudos to Director Octavio Cardenas for a huge success in this endeavor.  The minimal sets were constructed of colorful mobile designs giving the production a bright, happy feeling one might get from watching a marionette show.  Papermoon Opera Productions is credited for scenic design, lighting, projections, costumes, wigs and make up.  The mobile sets also, especially in the moderate-sized Stephens Hall at Towson University, gave me a feeling of watching a traveling troupe of players who had stopped to display their wares, thus creating a story within a story, and causing us to develop a relationship with the players playing the characters, not just the charcters themselves, and somehow then, their jokes became inside jokes for the audience.  The jokes started early with mocking gestures and sounds such as one character repeating what another said in falsetto voice.  Every character represents recognizable human failings and contributed to the comedy and the laughter in the audience built from a few instances to almost constant laughter near the end.  This building of momentum allowed the jokes to get more and more outrageous as time went by and still be accepted by the audience.  The humor is always cleverly contributed to and sometimes led by Rossini’s music.  By the end, the lighting effects and projections were adding their own stand out comic touches, and there were a couple of opera shockers.  Think of it as a Marx brothers movie set to classical music.  Still, we are relieved in the end that true love rules the day, and the good guys win.

Timothy Mix (left) as Dr. Bartolo and Kevin Short (right) as Don Basilio. Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker and courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

BCO Artistic and General Director Julia Cooke stated in her opening remarks that “this is the most historically informed production I've ever heard.”  I had to challenge that in as much as at one point, Dr.Bartolo began channeling Tom Jones by beginning to sing “It’s Not Unusual”!  She responded,” Let me explain: Maestro Barrese is a Rossini scholar who has spent years researching Rossini, his writings, and original scores.  His approach was to "scrape the barnacles off" of the performance practices which have essentially been passed down through generations but have not necessarily kept Rossini's original musical intentions in mind.  The thing that the audiences didn't know is that each performance of this production is different because Maestro has encouraged the singers to improvise in certain sections, just as singers would have in Rossini's day.  One sort of improvisation in that time would have been to reference other contemporary music, thus, the Tom Jones reference in our modern day production.  In that scene, Dr. Bartolo refers to music having been "better in my day," and so far, I haven't heard Tim Mix (Dr. Bartolo) do the scene the same way through all the rehearsals and performances!  Yesterday was the first outing of Tom Jones, and I can't wait to see what tunes he'll pick for next weekend’s performances!” 

BCO/Opera Delaware assembled an excellent cast for this production, beginning with tenor Christopher Bozeka as Count Almavira, a role he performed in Wolf Trap Opera’s 2019 Barber.  His performance seemed a little cool in the beginning, especially contrasted with Brian James Myer’s booming Figaro, but Mr. Bozeka grew stronger as he got deeper into the action, and his singing of the aforementioned final aria for Count Almavira was one of the standout moments of the production.  His comedic expression grew stronger as well.  Baritone Myer was certainly a crowd pleaser.  His big aria, “Largo al factotum” – think Figaro, Figaro, Figaro – drew huge applause.  He continued a strong performance throughout the opera, especially with rapid patter singing required in several scenes.  Mezzo-soprano Mary Beth Nelson as Rosina plays her role in marionette-like fashion, almost always a bright smiling painted face turned to the audience.  She quickly won me over with both her singing and her comedic acumen, consistent throughout the performance.  Baritone Timothy Mix presents a dilemna.  Dr. Bartolo is a devious and overbearing lech, and we should feel threatened by him.  However, with his flair for comedy, Mr. Mix makes him enjoyable and almost likeable, and his patter singing was a treat.  I also had an issue with bass-baritone Kevin Short as music teacher Don Basilio.  I see Basilio as supercilious and effete, but while Mr. Short displayed a level of buffoonery that contributed to the comedy, his powerful stage presences and voice made me want to see him in another role, say Mephistopheles in Faust.  Comedy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  Also contributing to the performance was young soprano Julia Laird as Berta, Dr. Bartolo’s long suffering maid to whom Rossini gives her own aria, well done by Ms. Laird.  Baritone Zachary Bryant contributed a respectable Fiorello in the opening scene.

Julia Laird as Berta. Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker and courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

A special feature of Rossini music, like Mozart music, is the choral and ensemble numbers, duets, trios, quartets, quintets, and sextets; together they almost equal the time Rossini allotts to arias.  The solo singers singing in ensembles were a highlight of this performance, and the chorus sounded beautiful, truly impressive throughout; I took note of it when they first appeared on stage.  Kudos to Chorus Master Aurelien Eulert. 

So, when was the last time a professional opera company presented a fully staged opera in the Baltimore area?  It was 2016 when Lyric Opera Baltimore performed Romeo and Juliet before sadly closing its doors forever.  For its performances this past weekend, BCO sold out the main floor of Stephens Hall, close to 500 patrons per performance and could have been more; the balcony was reserved for necessary lighting, projection, and sound equipment; seating there was also held in reserve in case the threatening situation with Omicron necessitated social distance seating.  And when has BCO ever produced a fully staged opera before?  Never, but it won’t be the last one.  Director Cooke says that BCO plans to include a fully staged production in each season going forward.  What will the next one be and when will it take place?  We will have to wait a little while longer for the 2022-2023 season announcement.  For the moment, I am willing to bet that every attendee Sunday afternoon went home with a smile on their face, a chuckle under their breath, and warmth in their heart.  Step by step, Baltimore Concert Opera is brightening the future of opera in Baltimore. 

The Fan Experience: Baltimore Concert Opera held performances of The Barber of Seville on February 18 and 20, its first ever fully staged production of an opera.  This production now moves to the venue of BCO’s co-producer, Opera Delaware, for performances on February 25 and 27; tickets remain available for those performances.  The opera is sung in Italian with projected English supertitles.  OD vaccination and masking policy for Opera Delaware can be found at this link. 

BCO offers ticket holders access to four lectures on an upcoming opera by their Scholar-In-Residence, Dr. Aaron Ziegel, Associate Professor of Music History and Culture at Towson University.  Dr. Ziegel’s lectures offer a deep dive into the opera itself and insights into the elements of opera and opera history during the period in which the opera was composed.  I have found them to be both entertaining and highly informative.  Dr. Ziegel recommends reading the opera libretto before attending a performance.  For an opera as fast paced and complex as Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, it is especially helpful, or at least read the opera synopsis beforehand.  He also provided a pre-opera talk on video for this production. The lectures are also available to Opera Delaware ticket holders.

The educational lectures are just one of the ways that BCO takes care of its patrons.  I received multiple messages from BCO prior to the performances reminding me of the date, directions to the venue, parking availability, how to get from the parking lot to theater, informational material, and how to access lectures.  I even got a phone message the morning of the performance reminding me of the company’s vaccination and masking policy.  All this was very helpful in reducing the anxiety in attending opera.  I might add they are very concerned for the health of their patrons.  Director Cooke stated that “We had meetings upon meetings with our medical advisors, and staffs and boards of both companies, and we paid very close attention to science news.  Ultimately, with our vaccination policy for artists and guests, and masking, we were able to maintain a normal approach to seating on the main level.”

Artistic and General Director Julia Cooke. Photo courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

For opera fans in Baltimore I am including this statement received from Artistic and General Director Cooke by email in response to my many questions:

“Our goal is to keep fully staged productions as part of our seasons, in addition to the wonderful concert operas, Thirsty Thursdays at the Opera series, and outreach and education programming.  I am currently working on a plan for a fully staged co-production for the 2022-2023 season, along with our traditional offerings.  Truth be told: this is truly up to our community and our funders.  Obviously, we had a great deal of interest in this first one, with two performances to full houses in a theater more than twice the size of anything we have sold before, and in a pandemic.  This indicates to me that Baltimore is ready for the return of fully staged opera, and BCO is absolutely ready to serve in that capacity.  We plan to forge ahead with our new model and will ask our community of supporters to invest in BCO so we can continue to bring high quality opera of every ilk to our audiences.  Our vision to Build Community through Opera and our success in doing so for 13 years, is the key to our future.  Putting on great performances is only the tip of the iceberg. We are dedicated to our people, and in turn, hope they are equally dedicated to us.  We believe that BCO's success is Baltimore's success!”

Opera Philadelphia Channel’s Svadba: Guys, See What We Men Are Missing

Svadba (2011) by Ana Sokolović, who composed the music and wrote the libretto, is an opera.  Opera Philadelphia Channel’s Svadba is a film version produced by Boston Lyric Opera and co-produced by Opera Philadelphia.  It is an original film version, not a video of an on-stage production.  The U.S. premiere of the opera was staged by Opera Philadelphia in 2013, OP’s first performance at FringeArts, and received critical acclaim.

Svadba means wedding in Serbian, and the story of this wedding takes place on the day/evening before the wedding and the day of the ceremony, a period of time when the bride and her attendants make preparations, a time when the realization of the impending changes in relationships takes hold, a time “filled with private and ancient rituals”.   Characters include the bride, her four closest friends, and a female elder of the family, perhaps her mother.  The cast, composer, and director of this “story” are all female; perhaps “experience” is a better word.  It’s a common story/experience.  About two million marriages occur each year in the U.S. alone.  But the experience in the opera is thoroughly female, told by female performers and creative staff. 

Dancers on the beach in the film version of Svadba are (L-R) Sarah Pacheco, Sasha Peterson, Victoria Awkward, Emily Jerant-Hendrickson, and Jay Breen. Photo by David Angus; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Film makes available options not possible for on stage productions.  In this case, seven actors portraying the characters dance on the beach and inside a beach cottage beside the Atlantic Ocean; they provide the action but do not sing.  Six singers in a studio provide a capella singing with only limited accents by percussion instruments for accompaniment, including the wind off the ocean; there is infrequent use of an ocarina (a small flute like instrument) but no orchestra.  In the film, the camera switches between scenes showing the actors and scenes showing the singers.  Though the actors are paired with a reciprocal singer, I found it challenging to connect the names of the actor/dancers with their roles, same for the singers, except for the bride Milica, played brilliantly by Victoria Lynn Awkward and sung brilliantly by Chambrelle Williams. I can understand separating the singing from the filming to get better acoustics and avoid extraneous sounds on the set, but I find it difficult to believe that singing with the precision required for this work can be done on stage with dancers/actors performing their movements while also being the singers.

Inside the beach side cottage, the bride and her attendants make preparations, and they dance. Photos courtesy of Boston Lyric Opera.

Svadba is a visually arresting film, rich in colors, forms, textures, and movement.  The costumes and décor support the atmosphere of the film.  Kudos to Lena Borovci for costume design and Ana Novočić for production design.  The action takes place in a rustic beach house and on its isolated Cape Cod beach.  Expressive dancing, some great dancing, abounds.  The movement allows for characterization of the individuals as well as presentation of the relationships and the community experience.  The elder female was played by Jackie Davis; the dancer/actor attendants are Jay Breen, Sarah Pacheco, Sasha Peterson and Emily Jerant-Hendrickson; the non-singing groom was played by Olivia Moon.  Everything is beautiful; there are no off colors or flavors in the piece.  It is all human.  It is all ritual.  It is what we do, though in this case, only if your family and friends are extraordinarily talented.

A camera crew records a scene between Victoria Awkward as the bride Milica and Jackie Davis as Lena, the elder woman. Photo by David Angus; courtesy of Boston Lyric Opera.

The music is made primarily by human voices.  There is no dialog, and the libretto is written and performed in Serbian.  My first viewing was without the captions in English, which allowed none of the expressive sounds made by the singers to have verbal meaning for me, and often they are sounds only.  The second viewing with captions allowed me to better understand the different scenes of the performance and to appreciate its poetry – “wash your hair with… stars”.  It's about acknowledging and celebrating relationships and how they will change with friends and family once mated.  (Composer’s note: “The text is made up of excerpts from popular songs traditionally sung before a wedding. The songs come from several Balkan dialects and from different eras.  The meaning of the texts should not be taken literally.”) In truth, I found my interest was waning in the middle of the film on viewing without the captions.  Without them, for instance, I missed an important concern of the bride with the groom.  But the words do not tell that much of the story; relating to the experience is critical, whereby one intuits the action. 

Studio singers for Svadba include (L-R) Maggie Finegan, Hannah Ludwig, Chambrelle D. Williamson, Vera Savage, Mack Wolz, and Briana J. Robinson. Photo by Liza Voll; courtesy of Boston Lyric Opera.

The singing is striking and beautiful in its harmonics and complex rhythms.  The vocal for the opening scene with the bride to be and her four friends sweeping across the beach gave me a brief flashback to the “Ride of the Valkyries”.  The mixture of tonal and dissonant vocal music and rhythms, tapped out at one point by singing the Serbian alphabet, syllables without meaning as well as those part of words, reminded me of African rhythms and reminded me how sounds can speak their own language.  The singers all performed beautifully; they included Briana J. Robinson as Lena, the elder, and the four attendants, Maggie Finnegan, Mack Wolz, Hannah Ludwig, and Vera Savage.  Kudos to Conductor Daniela Candillari.  The film frequently switches between showing the actors performing to studio scenes with the singers. This is visually arresting but means a ballet and a concert are being viewed concurrently.  For me, it added interest to the film given how different the music is for opera, sort of a Greek chorus accompanying the actors; others may find it distracting from the storytelling.  For me, Director Shura Baryshnikov managed to make the story compelling visually and musically, though with only dream-like drama; kudos also to Katherine Castro, Director of Photography and Screenwriter Hannah Shepard.  Svadba does succeed as an artistic work that is also entertaining.

The wedding begins on the beach in Svadba. Photo courtesy of Boston Lyric Opera.

Svadba is an unusual opera and an endearing film. I also found the subject matter of the opera to be thought provoking.  My reaction at the end of the film was wow, that’s nice…beautiful really…heartwarming…stunning vocals…and I felt an attachment to the performance I had just viewed growing, and I watched it again.  Men don’t have any rituals quite like that, at least in the culture I know.  So guys, watch it and sense what we are missing.  I might be a little envious of the connections and communal aspects.  Of course, being male I would never admit it.  A more general worry for me is that our culture seems since the advent of smart phones to grow less and less social; the reinforcing effect of personal contact on relationships and communal values seems to be slipping away; is humanity itself fading?  I think we could use more operas like Svadba to remind us of what we have of significance and value that we may be in danger of losing, and have the work not only performed in films, but we also need to see them in opera houses for the communal impact of in person opera performances. I digress, but maybe Svadba will make you ponder the value of relationships and rituals as well.

The Fan Experience: Svadba is available for on demand viewing for $15 on the Opera Philadelphia Channel (operaphila.tv) and on Boston Lyric Opera's operabox.tv streaming service.  Each service offers an annual subscription for $99; OP offers a monthly pay plan for $9.99 per month.  The film comes in at slightly less than an hour and can be watched on internet connected devices.  I watched on my MacBook and on my large screen tv using the OPC app.  I recommend the large screen to better enjoy the scenery and Air Pods Pro to enjoy the sound.  Subtitles/captions are available in both English and Serbian.

The Remarkable Virginia Opera Presents An Engaging, Entertaining Three Decembers

This is a story about a group who tells stories.  It is also about their most recent storytelling. No mid-Atlantic opera company has delivered more to their fan base so far this season, in the time of COVID, than Virginia Opera.  So far, we’ve been given an adventurous, scaled-back Das Rheingold delivered at an outdoor golf facility, followed by Rodolfo Remembers, a trimmed and refocused La Bohéme, and now, Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers, all presented under the threat and restrictions imposed by the coronavirus.  From gods on a golf course to ghost-like bohemian lovers to an absentee mom with cause, we have been entertained and engaged artistically at a time when we could not need it more.  Kudos to Virginia Opera for their willingness to take calculated risks and find creative responses to the challenges, while maintaining the quality of artistic expression.  Even under the most trying of circumstances, President/CEO Peggy Kriha Dye and VO Artistic Director/Conductor Adam Turner continue to honor VO’s tradition of bringing to its audiences “a variety of fresh and compelling operatic experiences”.  Indeed, with The Marriage of Figaro and The Sound of Music still to come, their program could hardly be more varied or impressive!  As I began to read about their current production, Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers, my interest started to grow and I had to see it. Many questions sprang to mind: why this opera and why now, what was the music like, why the lead change from an opera star to a Broadway star, and did this example of 21st century opera portend the future of VO opera and even opera itself. 

Virginia Opera’s President and CEO Peggy Kriha Dye and Artistic Director and Conductor Adam Turner. Photos courtesy of Virginia Opera.

First, let’s discuss the opera’s performance at George Mason University’s Performing Arts Center in Fairfax on Sunday afternoon.  Virginia Opera’s production is the 35th production of Three Decembers since its premiere in 2008.  It premiered as a two-act chamber opera titled Daybreak at last but was revised to a one-act opera scored for three singers and eleven musicians, now the intimate work about human emotions that the composer originally intended.  In an outstanding interview with VO’s preview lecturer Josh Borths, composer Heggie remarked that he is now happy with the work, even stating that at this point he wouldn’t change a single note.  I recommend the interview because Mr. Heggie, who also composed the better-known works, Dead Man Walking and Moby Dick, was remarkably forthcoming about his operas, his approach to writing opera, and his personal life.  Librettist Gene Scheer wrote the libretto for Three Decembers from an unperformed play by Terrence McNally. Playwright McNally, Mr. Heggie’s longtime friend and collaborator, had suggested that script; he was the librettist for composer Heggie’s first opera, Dead Man Walking.  I found Scheer’s libretto to be clever, filled with humor as well as drama, snarky comments, and foreshadows of painful secrets that will be revealed.

Three Decembers chronicles conversations between fictional Broadway star Maddy (Madeline Mitchell), her daughter Bea (Beatrice), and her son Charlie at three time points in their lives, including Christmas season 1986, 1996, and 2006.  The opera begins with the grown children talking with each other by phone, spoofing their mother while reading her Christmas letter; mom is spending the holiday in the Caribbean.  Though making fun of their absentee mother, they obviously still need her attention and love.  Charlie is angry that once again Maddy has called his partner by the name Curt, when his real name is Burt, an upset made more intense because Burt is sick, having contracted AIDS.  Bea, also a mother now, is having marriage and drinking problems she hides.  It would be unfair to reveal more.  Go and enjoy the anticipation that precedes each unveiling.  As I left the theater, I heard a woman say that this was the first opera where she had cried.  I admit that I also had an issue with my KN-95 mask becoming damp around the edges.  I also smiled and laughed a lot.  Being human is tough gig.  Three Decembers attempts to put it in perspective.  For me, the ending seemed a little easy, considering all we had been through.  However, I agreed with the final sentiment of the denouement, and I felt about attending the opera what the characters concluded about life itself – “I am so awfully glad I showed up”.

left photo: Efrain Solis as Charlie and Karen Ziemba as Maddy. right photo: Karen Ziemba as Maddy and Cecilia Violetta López as Bea. Photos by Ben Schill Photography; photos courtesy of Virginia Opera.

VO has assembled a wonderful cast to present this work, adding a new aspect not tried before in previous productions of the opera – casting a real Tony Award winning actress/singer in the role of Madeline Mitchell.  Artistic Director Adam Turner told me by phone that he got the idea from a mentor friend, director and conductor Rob Fisher, and discussed it with composer Heggie who loved the idea.  Broadway singers are able to maintain the warmth and timbre of their voices while belting out the show tunes they are given and having a Broadway star sing the role could add to the authenticity of the drama.  As Mr. Turner considered the possibilities for a singer in the right time of life who carried the stature he was looking for, Karen Ziemba was among the top, and he had a contact.  Ms. Ziemba won a Tony Award in 2000 for best featured actress in a musical for her role in Contact and has sung in many popular Broadway shows and acted in several popular television series.   Mr. Fisher helped recruit her for the role, and Mr. Turner had the rare experience of negotiating a contract to employ a Broadway star; what won’t this man do to bring you a great story!  Composer Heggie wrote the role of Maddy for the legendary, classically trained mezzo-soprano Fredericka von Stade, and Mr. Turner had conducted two previous productions where she sang the role.  He worked with Ms. Ziemba to help her adjust to the demands of this opera.  Since Broadway performers wear microphones for even smaller venues than opera houses, he had all three cast members wear microphones, but said the sound was amplified only a small amount.  I thought the sound was fine.  I thought Ms. Ziemba gave an effective and affecting performance, very believable as a star of Broadway. 

Efrain Solis as Charlie and Cecilia Violetta López as Bea. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; photos courtesy of Virginia Opera.

The roles of the children in Three Decembers are as prominent as the role of the mother, and baritone Efrain Solis as Charlie and soprano Cecilia Violetta López shone in those roles, both in acting and singing; both singers have appeared before in VO productions.  Both seemed to me as comfortable with the Broadway aspects as the opera demands of the show.  Mr. Solis has played Charlie in two previous productions of Three Decembers.  He appears comfortable with musical theater; I recently saw him sing on video “You’ll be back”, a delightful tune from the Broadway hit Hamilton; (it appears at the 23-min mark of a Washington Concert Opera concert video).  Ms. López appeared as Adina in VO’s 2019 production of The Elixir of Love; my blog report on that performance said “…for me, it was soprano Cecilia Violetta López that truly held my attention…[she] has a pretty voice laced with charm and warmth, and she sings beautifully.”  In this role, she gets to display a greater dramatic range and does this beautifully.  Several of the ensemble numbers are highlights such as the Bea/Charlie duet “Father’s Chair” as they each remember the same scene with their deceased father differently.

Conductor Turner said that he was very attached to this opera because he loved the score, “one of the factors I find most compelling in Jake Heggie's writing style is his overarching sense of lyricism accompanying a theatrically-driven storytelling. Every note is in service of the story, but it's given an abundance of beauty, through a primarily tonal lens, with sweeping rhapsodic gestures in many moments followed by colorful expressions of tension and chromaticism in other moments. It's a style of writing I've come to know well over the years, particularly with productions of Dead Man Walking and recent workshops of If I Were You.”   I thought the score combined opera in sustaining the drama and Broadway in providing likable melodies; dissonance is used judiciously and effectively.  Mr. Heggie’s music in this opera seemed to me to parallel the underlying love that connected the three characters even as it changed to reflect the tumult of the moment.  Mr. Turner and the Virginia Orchestra ensemble delivered it well.  The work was written for 11 players, but was increased to 16 for VO’s production.  The conductor explained, “Given the size of our theaters, I decided to increase the string count by 4 (to give a little extra string warmth to the general sound) and split some of the divisi for woodwinds (some players don't play multiple instruments; for instance, the combined saxophone and flute part was split between two separate players).”  He also played one of the two pianos.

Karen Ziemba as Maddy. Photos by Ben Schill Photography; photo courtesy of Virginia Opera.

I also thought the staging for Three Decembers was exceedingly well done.  Several mini-sets were moved in and out during the performance without intermission. Our attention was always focused by large frames composed of numerous smaller picture frames, and the scene shifts went at a steady pace that sustained the drama. Kudos to Stage Director Lawrence Edelson and Scenic and Costume Designer Court Watson.

To return to some of my questions: Why this opera and why now?  VO Artistic Director Adam Turner has conducted two previous productions and is a long time friend of composer Heggie (interestingly, in the aforementioned interview, Mr. Heggie revealed that he and Ms. Dye knew each other when they were just starting their careers); so, this Heggie opera is a natural fit for VO.  Further, the coronavirus pandemic makes it an especially good choice right now; only three singers and eleven musicians required makes observing COVID protocols in rehearsal and staging more manageable; plus, the financial risk of a COVID-forced cancellation is reduced.  It also fits in another important way.  Director Turner wants to introduce Virginia audiences to wider selection of opera choices, especially more modern works.  I am all in with that perspective.  I’m looking forward to a Mozart opera in March, but I also like sampling new, fresh, contemporary works, that I can relate directly to and that I haven’t seen five times already.  We can also expect to see more contemporary operas in the future in general.  Mr. Borths in his pre-opera talk stated that Three Decembers was part of an opera renaissance.  New operas are being written and premiered now at a rate unmatched in opera history.  That sounds great to me; bring ‘em on.  During my life, I have been able to see a new movie every week. What if I could do that with opera?

The Fan Experience:  After being performed in Norfolk on January 28, 29, 30 and in Fairfax on February 5 and 6; Three Decembers now moves to Richmond for performances on February 11 and 13.  The pre-opera talk by Josh Borths takes place 45 minutes before the opera begins.  The opera is sung in English, but still has English subtitles projected on a screen. The next VO opera will be Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro performed on March 25, 26, 27 in Norfolk, April 1, 3 in Fairfax, and April 9, 10 in Richmond. For any opera today you intend to attend, make sure to check on pandemic restrictions in place at the time, such as vaccination and masking requirements.

Knights of the Opera Table 2021: Return of the Opera Critics

Public domain knight illustration by Paul Mercuri: http://www.oldbookart.com/2012/01/15/middle-ages-medieval-dress/.

This is OperaGene’s annual report on opera critics in the mid-Atlantic, a group who in good natured humor, I refer to as “Knights of the Opera Table”.  Their charge is to champion good performances and slay the bad ones, and…in all seriousness…to provide knowledgeable opinions about opera performances that the rest of us can learn from, compare our own responses against, and be provoked to further think about/discuss what we witnessed, purposefully deepening and widening our enjoyment and appreciation of the art form. The mid-Atlantic region is blessed with a wealth of good opera companies and an excellent group of professional opera critics. 

Well, 2021 was another tough year for the Knights as COVID, not only overstayed its welcome, but also mounted a resurgence.  However, enabled by the availability of vaccinations and booster shots, opera performances began to reappear in opera houses and concert halls after over a year and a half of being shut down.  So far, they have been able to hold fast against the Omicron variant.  Most companies took cautious first steps, offering only a few productions in the Fall portion of the 2021-2022 season.  Correspondingly, the Knights returned to the review podium as productions geared up, though seemingly now a kinder and gentler bunch, I think.  One can forgive approaching criticism gingerly at this point; who wants to criticize companies and performers who have been under such duress and such under-employment?  Besides, we have all been so grateful for anything they could offer us, that everything looks good.  There are signs the gloves may be coming off soon as the performance scene heats up.  Let’s take a closer look at the list of usual suspects and begin with some good news.

In one of the happier moments of 2021 for this opera fan, Jeremy Reynolds, classical music critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was released and returned to his true calling.  He had been captured by PPG management for service on the editorial board of the paper, a supposedly higher-value job.  Thankfully, he escaped in time to give us a sparkling review of Pittsburgh Opera’s The Magic Flute in November,  as well as posting a host of classical music reviews.  Good thing, too; I was close to organizing a rescue.  In truth, looking at his list of columns this year, he now appears to be wearing more than one hat, as he also fills in for other areas where there are staff shortages.  I think his reassignment may have led to some pent-up critical momentum; he described a recent performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony as “serving up some spongey Beethoven and a Mendelssohn symphony with three left feet.”  I only wish I could have been there.  In fairness to Knight Reynolds and the Symphony, I should add that he noted that this was a rare misstep for the excellent Pittsburgh Symphony.

Pittsburgh’s other excellent critic, George Parous, hit a pandemic rough patch when his online work venue, Pittsburgh Table-in-the-Round, closed up shop, but fortunately it morphed into onStage Pittsburgh in time for Knight Parous to post a review of Pittsburgh Opera’s The Magic Flute.

Moving eastward, Knights covering the Philadelphia area continue to include Peter Dobrin, who reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer on “classical music and the arts with an emphasis on the business of the arts and the life of the city”.  Mr. Dobrin is now one of the senior statesmen in arts journalism and criticism, whose clear and informative articles are always worth reading.  One of his articles that I recommend covers the announcement that Philadelphia is adding a sculpture of the great contralto and Philadelphia native, Marian Anderson, to the grounds of the Academy of Music.  His opera posts follow along the lines of his charge, no longer direct reviews of opera, which falls now to the Inquirer’s other classical music critic, David Patrick Stearns.  Knight Stearns has been one of the most steadfast opera reviewers during the pandemic; he has even written about several of the programs on the Opera Philadelphia Channel.  He did demonstrate an impact of COVID on him personally; his review of Opera Philadelphia’s recent twin bill of Oedipus Rex and Lilacs, one a Greek tragedy and the other about the death of Abraham Lincoln, pleaded, “Let’s have some feel-good arias.  Soon.” Amen.

 Another regular on the Opera Table is Knight Cameron Kelsall of the Broad Street Review, whose reviews are consistently insightful.  He is also a contributor to other publications, and most recently, he seems to be publishing most often on Bachtrack.com.  I enjoyed his review of the excellent Opera Philadelphia Channel’s film version of Voix Humaine starring Patricia Racette. 

Turning South, if one wants a prolific professional music critic who is totally dedicated to the arts in our local area, look no further than critic Charles Downey of the Washington Classical Review.  His reviews are so amazingly knowledgeable, insightful, and succinct that I sometimes refer to them in my blog reports.  It is also impressive that his reviews consistently appear online the next morning after a performance; his are typically the first that appear. 

Knight Susan Galbraith continues to post insightful reviews, now for DC Metro Theater Arts after DC Theatre Scene ceased publication; her highly descriptive review made “…Iphigenia” sound like a house of mirrors that I’m sorry I missed.  On the other hand, Whitney Fishburn of DC Metro Theater Arts stepped away from the Opera Table to pursue other interests at this time.

Washington Post’s Knight errant, Michael Andor Brodeur, tends to be more errant than most, with a national view, wandering frequently up to NYC to take in Met Opera performances.  Mr. Brodeur had the misfortune to join WP just as COVID-19 shut everything down in March 2020.  With in-house performances opening up, he is now able to post regular reports.  Mr. Brodeur does not offer the hard-edged criticism that I so enjoyed with Ms. Midgette, but he can turn a phrase and is demonstrating a forte for capturing the spirit of a performance in reviews and the heart of the issue in features.  Have a look at his review of Wolf Trap’s “50 Years Together” anniversary show at the Filene Center; it is almost poetic in communicating the evening.  He also has a rich knowledge of music and music history that he draws upon in his reviews.  I do have one concern at this juncture.  He seems to be largely overlooking opera performances of the smaller companies in the area, perhaps simply a workload issue.  He did not cover Wolf Trap Opera productions of opera this season, nor did he cover Opera Lafayette, Washington Concert Opera, Virginia Opera, or IN Series opera performances in 2021.  If he wants to errant outside DC, Baltimore is not too far away, and Baltimore Concert Opera is staging their first fully staged opera with orchestra on February 18 and 20.  And just outside the beltway in Bethesda, Maryland Lyric Opera is emerging from the pandemic with concert performances of Turandot on February 25 and 27. In my view, there are an awful lot of excellent local performances not appearing in the Washington Post.  In Knight Brodeur’s best performances list for 2021, he mentioned two Met Opera performances and the Opera Philadelphia Channel.  I second the nomination of OPC, but I will also note that Knight Downey listed Washington Concert Opera’s Maometto II in his list of best, which I agree with, and he also posted reviews for IN Series, Wolf Trap Opera, and Opera Lafayette operas.  Having expressed my concern, let me emphasize that I am now a fan of Mr. Brodeur’s excellent work and very much enjoy reading his reviews.

In closing, I note with pleasure that the former Post classical music and opera critic, Anne Midgette, once again appeared in print this past year, in an online NPR article.  She says that there will likely be a couple more feature articles for NPR, though her focus is still finishing her book.  On a sadder note, the seasons change and the NY Times excellent critic Anthony Tommasini announced his retirement. I have enjoyed reading his Met Opera reviews, which I often felt were too easy on the Met. My appreciation for Knight Tommasini deepened when I read his book, “The Indispensible Composers”.

 The Fan Experience: There are some facts of life that must be dealt with.  You can read reviews in many online sites at no cost, such as Washington Classical Review, onStage Pittsburgh, and DC Metro Theater Arts.  However, to read journalists who work for newspapers, such as the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, you will need a subscription.  Sometimes visitors are allowed a few articles at no cost, and you can often take advantage of special online rates that occur from time to time.

If you are wondering what the Knights did during the heart of the pandemic when performances were shut down, check out last year’s review, “Knights of the Opera Table, COVID edition”.

IN Series’ A Fairy Queen: Thrice Charmed by Magic

A Fairy Queen graphic by artist Richshaad Ryan; courtesy of IN Series.

Prologue: The course of true opera never did run smooth.  IN Series’ production of A Fairy Queen has a three-hundred-year, complicated history behind it.  Opera developed in different styles during different time periods in Italy, France, Germany, and England.  We are still waiting for fully developed American opera, post Menotti and Sondheim.  Opera purists tend to view altering the divine works of the great masters as sinful.  Yet, from what I’ve read that was not always the case.  Opera performances were meant to be entertaining works of art that connected their truths with audiences of the present day, place, and culture; modifications and adaptations were routine.  IN Series agrees with Shakespeare that the play’s the thing, but methinks their essence is how you present the play matters.  Their online motto is “Opera that speaks. Theater that sings.”  Now in their fortieth year and under the leadership of Artistic Director Timothy Nelson since 2018, their name was derived from an early review that called their productions inspirational, interesting, and international.  For progressive opera exploring important themes, it is the IN place to be in the DC area.

1600’s: England was slow to embrace dramas in which the words were sung, holding tight to the spoken versions of their great dramatists.  An early step was to produce semi-operas: take a nice play, divide it into five acts, and insert musical interludes between the acts with some singing and dancing for good measure, all to be performed at court (that’s where the people who could pay for it resided).  English composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was the genre’s most highly regarded practitioner, and The Fairy Queen, based on William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is regarded as the best of the type, mainly due to Purcell’s music.  Much of the play revolves around Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, whose falling out drives the early action.

IN Series Artistic Director Timothy Nelson; photo courtesy of IN Series.

2016: Did you notice the shift between A Fairy Queen and The Fairy Queen in the prologue?  The journey from one to the other began when Artistic Director Nelson conceived and constructed a new version of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen to be fully staged for a 2016 festival in England; he chose to call his construction A Fairy Queen.  The alterations were substantial.  The Fairy Queen is a five-act adaptation of “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” with five musical interludes.  Interludes were not usually constructed to be part of the drama; furthermore, in these 4-5 hour performances, the actors didn’t sing and the singers didn’t act.  Mr. Nelson wanted to create a clear narrative flow with music and singing directly supporting the important themes of the play in a shorter time frame.  His Fairy Queen has four stories from Shakespeare’s play presented as four dramas presented over four nights by fairies, with a prologue and epilogue; he included about 90% of Purcell’s music from The Fairy Queen and some of Purcell’s other songs as well, all picked to support what was happening in the play, all sung by the actors.   

2020: The plot thickened in 2020 when A Fairy Queen, scheduled to be a fully staged opening to its new season, was undone by the COVID pandemic.  IN Series chose instead to have a virtual season with online productions placed on their INvision streaming platform.  A Fairy Queen was to be done as a podcast, thought to be the first podcast opera.  Artistic Director Nelson had the idea to use old technology in an opera year seasoned by technology.  He conceived using a radio show format from the mid-20th century to communicate the themes of Purcell’s and Shakeseare’s work.  This allowed a narrator to be employed, along with a sound effects person that could help communicate time and the place of the opera.  Actor/singers and musicians from around the globe were deployed in separate efforts creating recordings that were stitched together by IN Series staff.  The podcast is still available on the IN Series website. 

2021: The return to live staging of opera for IN Series was a carefully orchestrated effort that began in October with an animated feature, BOHEME in the Heights, including live music in a theater.  Mr. Nelson decided to open the 2021-2022 season of live staged opera with A Fairy Queen, noting that both A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet were first performed in England in a year when Europe was emerging from a pandemic, as though Shakespeare was saying that theater was not going away.  IN Series wanted to make the same pronouncement and believed that a light-hearted opening production would be fitting.    

Sunday:  I came to the Lang Theater wondering how well Mr. Nelson’s deconstruction and resynthesis of Shakespeare and Purcell would work; to borrow again from the bard, would he be able to make concord of his discord?  The question came back to me near the end of the opera’s first section.  At the end of ‘Night the First: The Mechanicals’, the engaging novelty had mostly worn off, and after some initial hilarity, the character Bottom, whose clueless manner was being effectively played for laughs on stage, was starting to trend more annoying than amusing to me.  Maybe the ‘The Mechanicals’ (the locals planning to put on the play Pyramus and Thisbe) was not a strong enough opening act to keep me engaged, or maybe skipping lunch had dropped my blood sugar too low.  But remedy was soon at hand.  Puck began ‘Night the Second: The Fairies” with a soothing rendition of Purcell’s “O Solitude”, and when Titania started singing, first with Oberon and then the Chorus, I became viscerally aware that all my concern had vanished.  Indeed, the transformation was magical.  Perhaps some fairy dust from the stage had blown across the audience.  On stage, an old-time radio performance of A Fairy Queen, a play within a play, was in progress, performed in front of a live audience, and I became part of ‘that’ audience once more.  Bottom became funny again, especially snuggling up to Titania, and this music drama enveloped me for the rest of the ride.  Afterwards, it seemed to me that Shakespeare and an English semi-opera had been effectively transformed into an American opera that looked destined for Broadway.

l to r: Ben Williamson who played Oberon; Lucy Page who played Titania; and Sara Couden who played Fairy and Quince. Photos courtesy of IN Series.

Highlights: The production was done well overall.  Certainly, a highlight was the cast of multi-talented singers.  A Fairy Queen places a special demand on the singers.  Not only must they sing baroque well, but they must also recite Shakespeare well.  This cast, who often played multiple roles, was marvelous in both regards.  Mr. Nelson was able to anchor the performance by bringing back three singers from the podcast – soprano Lucy Page as Titania, countertenor Benjamin Williamson as Oberon, and mezzo-soprano Sara Couden as a fairy/Peter Quince.  All three were extraordinary.  Given her effect on me, Ms. Page must surely have been a Siren in ancient Greece in a former life.  Mr. Williamson and Ms. Couden seemed like naturals for their roles.  The four young lovers, soprano Melissa Wimbish playing Hermia, tenor Aaron Sheehan as Lysander, baritone Marc Callahan as Demetrius, and mezzo-soprano Sylvia Leith as Helena provided vocal treats in those and other roles, but they also provided terrific Shakespeare with their rousing spat when Helena felt under attack from the other three, lifting me to the edge of my seat.  Bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca as Puck and in other roles provided deep sounds needed to underscore magic.

l to r: Melissa Wimbish who played Hermia/Flute/Thisbe; Marc Callahan who played Bottom/Demetrius/Pyramus; and Aaron Sheehan who played Lysander/Snout/Wall. Photos couresy of IN Series.

The music, directed by Mr. Nelson who also contributed on the harpsichord and organ, included cellists Wheeler Jarvis and Maxfield Wollam Fisher, violinist Jeffrey Thurston, and pianist Emily Baltzer.  This small group ably provided accompaniment and expression of Purcell’s music.  During Mr. Williamson’s excellent aria “Music for awhile” I began to sense the cleverness in Mr. Nelson’s scoring this performance for three keyboards; “Music for awhile” accompanied by piano and cello, with the cello played pizzicato, turned baroque into jazz.  I began to look forward to hearing the different colorations that harpsichord, organ, and piano gave to the different songs, with the harpsichord saying properly done, the organ soothing and mellowing arias, and the piano, late to the baroque party saying you haven’t really heard baroque until you’ve heard me play baroque.  This choice by Mr. Nelson was different and exciting, but more excitement was in store.  Mr. Nelson feigned a failed attempt to accompany Ms. Couden on a toy trumpet.  She asked for audience help, and in the biggest surprise of the performance, star soprano Claron McFadden emerged from the audience as the needed and quite pleasing Trumpet.  Singers also included a three fairy ensemble (soprano Rachel Evangeline Barham, tenor Andrew Sauvageau, and baritone James Rogers).

l to r: Sylvia Leith as Helena/Snug/Lion; Enrico Lagasca as Puck/Starveling/Moonshine; and Claron McFadden as Trumpet. Photos courtesy of IN Series.

Staging for the opera was simple, but appropriate and adequate, a radio studio with needed personnel and equipment and a studio audience.  Sitting beside the ON AIR light, narrator John T. K. Scherch sounded like a real life radio host, which he is, as well as a performing bass.  On the side manning a booth with an amazing assortment of things to make sounds with was Sound Effects Artist Jill Ahrold Bailey.  Both of these contributors had impeccable timing and used well their many opportunities to add to the humor of the performance.  Need evidence audiences are part of performances? Ms. Bailey held up a sign telling the audience when to applaud.

Epilogue: My wife’s summation was that she thought the performance of A Fairy Queen was beautiful!  I will add a bit more.  Shakespeare’s words and wit drew us into true love, love lost, and truer love found; Purcell’s music quieted the beast to let us experience the bard’s incantations, and this IN Series performance was, as my wife proclaimed, beautiful.  Author, composer, and performers each contributed to the magic.  We, the audience, were thrice charmed.  In the end, live staged opera reemerged and met its goal - beauty was achieved and shared. 

The Fan Experience: IN Series gave performances of A Fairy Queen on December 3 in Baltimore at the Baltimore Theatre Project, and on December 4 and 5 in the Lang Theater in the Atlas Performing Arts Center.  Their 2021-2022 seasons includes a premiere of a new opera, Zavala-Zavala, and IN Series’ first performance at the Kennedy Center; details for the rest of their season can be found at https://www.inseries.org/current-season. 

Finding IN Series online can be a challenge when you try “in series” in your browser’s search bar.  If you use the term “in series opera” it pops up.  The URL is “inseries.org”.  There is a lot of online content there to be enjoyed.

The Lang Theater was a perfect venue for A Fairy Queen, not tiny, but still intimate and comfortable.  Atlas Performing Arts Center is a 35 minute drive from Tysons Corner under optimal driving conditions.  Sunday’s was pleasant.  Most daunting, however, is the difficulty in finding on street parking.  Instead, I reserved a close by parking slot from SpotHero, a company recommended by the Center’s website and that worked out well.  A bus option from Union Station also exists. 

Washington Concert Opera’s Maometto II: Five Reasons

I was as excited to be going to see WCO’s performance of Rossini’s little performed opera, Maometto II, as any I have anticipated attending, with the possible exception of going to see Anna Netrebko in Eugene Onegin at the Met.  First, concert opera is pure joy for opera fans; the unadulterated focus of concert opera is dead center on the music and the singing.  Second, with Washington Concert Opera you get the full concert opera experience: singers singing in character, a full chorus, and orchestra led by the outstanding conductor Antony Walker, who is also the WCO Artistic Director.  Third, the operas hand-picked by Mr. Walker for performance are always operas with high vocal and musical appeal, often little performed, but with some special features that make them worth bringing back, ‘premieres’ to my ears.  WCO’s 2017 performance of Beethoven’s Leonore still ranks as one of my most treasured opera experiences. Fourth, WCO brings to the stage some of the best opera singers on the planet!  And fifth, the last live WCO performance in Lisner Auditorium was November 26, 2019.  The recent return of live opera to the stage has been uplifting and has re-ignited my passion for opera. 

Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Maometto II. Photo by Caitlin Oldham; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

Giachino Rossini is one of opera’s most often performed composers.  Of his 39 operas, a handful are still performed regularly, and another handful are performed occasionally.  One, The Barber of Seville, is performed somewhere in the world 24/7, I think.  His “William Tell Overture”will always be remembered as the Lone Ranger’s theme song by my generation.  Maometto II falls in the category of one of his almost never performed works, his penultimate work of his period in Naples, possibly his most experimental, though mostly appreciated thus far by musicologists and opera experts.  The Naples audience of his day was not happy with its through composed nature nor with Rossini killing off his heroine.  Undaunted, Composer Rossini moved the opera to Venice, changed the ending, which gained more approval, but not lasting appeal.  After he relocated to Paris, he penned yet another version, this time in French, titled The Siege of Corinth, which enjoyed success over the next ten years and faded from view.  Music folks appreciated its originality, but impresarios and opera fans looked elsewhere.  WCO’s performance was only the third production of the original, restored version of Maometto II in North America, premiered in 2012 by the Santa Fe Opera. 

Maometto II (based on the real Turkish leader Mehmeh II) is the Sultan of the Turks attempting in 1476 to take control of Negroponte, a strategic Venetian colony in the Aegean Sea.  These clashes between the east and west of that time were savage battles; when the Turks won, they slaughtered all the men, taking the surviving women and children as slaves. The city is under siege and the threat of violent death is imminent for all.  The Venetian leader Paolo Erisso is persuaded by a young general, Caldo, to fight to the death rather than face the humiliation of surrender.  The plot centers on Anna, the daughter of Paolo, who wants his daughter to marry Caldo so she will be protected after he is gone.  However, Anna has fallen in love with someone else while visiting in Corinth, but her dad informs her that her lover could not be who she thought he was.  She discovers her seducer was in fact Maometto II, who was on a spying mission at the time; she is angry at the deception and devastated that her true love is her true enemy. 

Soprano Leah Crocetto singing the role of Anna. Photo by Caitlin Oldham; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

This fictional story based on librettist Cesare Della Valle’s own play “Anna Erizo”, is a good basis for an opera, and Rossini and Della Valle had choices to make in how closely to follow it.  They chose to have the father reject his daughter and to have Anna remain loyal to her father and her country, while rejecting her lover as her country’s enemy.  She also chooses death, rather than pleading for her life or attempting an escape, at least in the Naples version.  Perhaps Rossini and Della Valle saw her as an Italian Joan D’arc.  If so, I suspect Italy was too fragmented at the time to embrace her as such; it might have worked for Verdi fifty years later or Puccini eighty years later.  Perhaps the Neopolitans just felt it was letting the bad guy win. 

Bass-baritone Ashraf Sewailam singing the role of Maometto II. Photo by Caitlin Oldham; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

The difficulty I had with Maometto II’s plot line is that Act I is the train wreck of Anna’s life unfolding, and it is presented as if watching the story on the local news with interviews.  Instead, suppose the drama had begun with Anna in Maometto’s arms and then we learn of the deception?  For me, the love story between Anna and Maometto never gained strong credence.  Act II was more engaging, having a stronger emotional impact due to impassioned singing.  Caldo’s defense of Anna was touching, and he (a pants role) was a likable character.  The others are driven by patriotism and honor, so much so that Anna’s father rejected her; and still she was consumed by loyalty to her father and country.  Maometto has a tender moment and tries to get Anna back, but then offers Anna the choice of accepting him or seeing her family and friends bathed in blood.  The women’s chorus tries to get Anna to choose her love for Maometto, but she is resolute.  The story kept me interested throughout, but I wound up questioning her and the composer’s final choice, especially with the Venetians winning.  If Maometto II gets performed more often, it will be interesting to see what choices modern stage directors make.

Tenor Bruce Sledge singing the role of Paolo Erisso. Photo by Caitlin Oldham; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

The stories for WCO productions are always the Christmas tree on which the adornments of music and singing can be hung; this year’s decorated tree was especially beautiful.  The cast for this performance was truly impressive and the singers only embellished their reputations.  It was such a pleasure to hear singers of this quality performing live once again.  Soprano Leah Crocetto as Anna and tenor Bruce Sledge as Paolo Erisso also sang these roles in the Santa Fe production to critical acclaim.  Rossini wrote this opera for singers of extraordinary ability in his day and it poses challenges for today’s singers who must possess the coloratura skills, for both males and females, to sing it as written.  Ms. Crocetto and Mr. Sledge wowed the audience.  I have seen Ms. Crocetto perform on several occassions but never as calm and self assured as Sunday night; I guess achieving diva status will do that to you. Bass-baritone Ashraf Sewailam gave a beautiful and powerful performance as Maometto II.  Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong had little opportunity to shine, until her aria “Non Temer” in mid Act II, when she drew the loudest and most sustained applause of the evening for a bravura delivery.  Tenor Matthew Hill had a brief appearance as Condulmiero. The duets and ensembles, including the Act I highlight, the terzettone (great big trio) ,were beautifully done.  The chorus, male and female, got to play an interactive role in this opera and added substantially to the performance; kudos to Assistant Conductor and Chorus Master David Hanlon.

Mezzo-soprano singing the role of Caldo. Photo by Caitlin Oldham; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

One of the dislikes of the early Neapolitans was this opera’s through composed nature not allowing time for applause for favorite singers.  On Sunday evening, applause breaking out was not infrequent, and Conductor Walker wisely let the audience show its appreciation; only once did the music override the spontaneous applause.  The orchestra was slightly downsized for this performance yielding to COVID social distancing requirements, but still was a joy.  Personally, I had some minor difficulties with Rossini’s score.  As a concert I loved the music, rich in melody and novel in orchestration, well played by the orchestra.  However, the extended dramatic recitatives had the orchestra frequently punctuating the remarks, so frequently I found it annoying, like too many rim shots from the drums in a comedy routine.  My other problem was that Rossini’s music often did not convey the seriousness of this very serious opera.  In one section, when the singer was expressing fear over the horrors being carried out, the music could have been accompanying a parade instead.  For me, Rossini’s music was often too lovely and enjoyable to pair with slaughter and blood baths, but as I said, as a concert, it was fantastic and the singers brought out the drama.

My five reasons for eagerly awaiting this return performance of the Washington Concert Opera were satisfied and my curiosity was rewarded.  I am already anticipating the next one.  Washington Concert Opera remains one of the best tickets on the east coast.

The Fan Experience: Sadly, WCO performances are one night only.  My advice is to get your tickets now for this season’s next two operas, Orphée starring the great Kate Lindsey on April 24 and Lakmé on May 22, which will include soprano Erin Morley and mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven singing my favorite duet, the sumptuously beautiful “Flower Duet”. 

For an excellent professional critique of WCO’s performance, I recommend Charles Downey’s review at https://washingtonclassicalreview.com/2021/11/22/washington-concert-opera-triumphantly-returns-with-rossinis-maometto-ii/.

In a WCO series called Opera Gems Online, Peter Russell gives a one-hour lecture as a Zoom discussion of each opera prior to performance.  I have found these to be interesting and informative. Mr. Russell is the General Director of Vocal Arts DC and was a co-founder of WCO.

Pandemic requirements for attending Sunday night’s performance included proof of COVID-19 vaccination and mask wearing inside Lisner Auditorium.  We will see what April and May will bring.  Lisner is conveniently located on the George Washington University campus, with on-street parking, a convenient parking garage nearby, and a close by Metro station, Foggy Bottom.  The mid-sized Lisner Auditorium with some terraced seating, but no tiers, makes for good viewing and hearing from any seat.  Surtitles in English are projected on a screen above the stage. Performances are scheduled for Sunday evenings at 6 pm. 

Virginia Opera’s La Bohéme: Rodolfo Remembers - Worth Seeing More Than Once

This COVID-friendly adaptation of La Bohéme is admirably done by a company that has worked as hard as any to serve its fans and recruit new ones during a pandemic that has both prevented performances altogether and constrained whatever was possible - for over a year and a half to the present day.  Fans in attendance so far not only got to hear Puccini’s beautiful music and some great (I really mean great) singing, they also got to view the same story from a different and engaging new perspective as ‘Rodolfo remembers’.  This version is worthy of additional viewings to absorb all its nuances.  This is high art and high entertainment that touches even the coldest of hearts.

Virginia Opera has had to endure multiple COVID restrictions, including mask wearing, social distancing, ensuring vaccinations for staff and performers, twice weekly testing for those in rehearsals, as well as restrictions placed on venues, and had to make plans for their productions months ago before the current pandemic situation could be assessed, with outbreaks of the delta variant popping up across the country, and these measures worked; not one VO performer has tested positive.  In September, the company presented Richard Wagner’s Das Rhinegold, both shortened and presented in an open-air venue (Topgolf) as pandemic compromises.  Most companies in the mid-Atlantic are presenting no fully-staged operas this Fall, or at most one.  Fortunately, VA Opera’s Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Adam Turner had worked with San Diego Opera and was familiar with their new, COVID-friendly adaptation of La Bohéme, which, by the way, was presented as a drive-in opera with attendees in their cars!  What’s old becomes new again, in more ways than one.  Fortunately, the singers for this production can sing without masks now and even touch each other and we can hear the music and singing without speakers.

Soprano Raquel González as Mimi and tenor Matthew Vickers as Rodolfo remembering their first meeting and the lost key on the floor. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

This new adaptation, co-authored by Keturah Strickann and Bruce Stasyna for San Diego Opera, tells the story as the process of Rodolfo remembering the love of his life Mimi and his bohemian friends in 1840s Paris, as he comes to terms with his grief over her death; Ms. Strickann, who has a history with VO, also reprises her role as stage director of the original production.  It’s ten years later and we see Rodolfo’s memories acted out on stage: the camaraderie of his fellow bohemians in their youthful exploits, Marcello the painter, Colline the philosopher, and Schaunard the musician, Rodolfo’s first encounter with Mimi, the dinner at Café Momos punctuated by the riff and reunion of Marcello with Musetta, a woman who lives by her wits, the estrangement of Mimi and Rodolfo, and their deathbed reunion as Mimi is lost forever.  We get all this and the advantages of in door theater staging.  What do we miss in this telling?  We lose the comedic encounter with the landlord Benoît as scene shortening, the street scene (COVID), and the children’s and adult choruses (COVID).  All the big arias are retained with the heart of the story.

left: Rodolfo (Matthew Vickers) remembering a cold night with Marcello (baritone Luis Orozco) when he burned pages from a manuscript to add some heat to the room. right: A memory of his friends, Marcello (Luis Orozco) checking out the wine, Schaunard (baritone Nicholas Martorano) on the table, and Colline (bass-baritone Eric J. McConnell) standing. Photos by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

When it was over, the music had been played so beautifully, I was ready to shower Artistic Director and Conductor Adam Turner with praise, but the fellow who came on stage to bow and receive applause didn’t look like him; I had missed the notice in the program.  So instead, let me shower my praise on Assistant Conductor and Chorus Master Brandon Eldredge who was in the pit for the Fairfax performances and to the excellent Virginia Symphony Orchestra.  Mr. Turner participated in the pre-opera discussion and I asked him if COVID restrictions had affected the orchestra for this production.  He indicated that there was a full string section, but the brass and woodwind sections had been slightly reduced (those players cannot wear masks in rehearsals).  He predicted I would not be able to tell the difference and he was correct.  While a couple of times I found the music slightly overriding the sound from the singers, this was La Bohéme music performed as beautifully as I have heard.

A memory of the evening’s dinner at Cafe Momos with friends, Colline (Eric J. McConnell), Schaunard (Nicholas Martorano), Mimi (Raquel González), Rodolfo (Matthew Vickers), and Marcello (Luis Orozco). Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

Now here is where Virginia Opera’s production of this classic truly excels, the singing!  Tenor Matthew Vickers gives the performance of his life as Rodolfo; his burnished metallic tenor sounded the best I have heard him, hitting all the high notes.  He was equally matched in dulcet tone, by newcomer to Virginia Opera, soprano Raquel González, whose gentle, calm manner maintained an edge of pathos that was perfect for Mimi.  Their duets were both thrilling in sound and emotionally affecting; it was easy to believe this couple was in love.  The wild card in Bohéme for me is always the soprano who sings the role of Musetta, who has an aria “Quando me'n vo” sung at Café Momos that is a showpiece, and the acting for this complex role requires a much greater range than for Mimi.  In her debut with VO, soprano Marlen Nahhas managed the role delightfully and sang a lovely “Quando”;  I have seen Ms. Nahhas perform with Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artists; she is a budding star.  Rodolfo’s friends sung by baritone Luis Orozco as Marcello, bass-baritone Eric J. McConnell as Colline, and baritone Nicholas Martorano as Schaunard sung their roles well and demonstrated the bohemian camaraderie so important to projecting the charm and warmth of youthful friendships in La Bohéme.  Ricardo L. Lugo served admirably as Musetta’s wealthy admirer, Alcindoro.

A memory of Musetta (soprano Marlen Nahhas) using her wealthy admirer Alcindoro (Ricardo L. Lugo) to incite Marcello’s jealousy. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

The set for Rodolfo Remembers is impressive, an upscale room for the now successful writer, Rodolfo with two draped, floor-length windows, a desk and table, and a chaise sitting area.  The friends come and go as Rodolfo remembers them, then Mimi appears entering through the window, bathed in light that makes her appear almost an apparition.  All of the memories take place in this room as Rodolfo imagines them.  Kudos to set designer Court Watson and lighting designer Mary Shabatura!  Also kudos to Court Watson for great looking costumes that enhanced the eye appeal of the staging. Director Strickann does a good job at playing the scenes out and moving the singers around as scenes change without a break, only moving a few props around with some pretend movements in imperfect memory fashion, as Roldofo remembers the crucial elements but not all the details.  In the end, it’s not the details that matter but what is revealed about the human heart.  Ms. Strickann succeeds on that count and kudos to her.

My mind kept playing tricks on me as I watched the performance; my memories of other versions of La Bohéme I had seen caused me to keep placing Rodolfo in the action, when in this version he really is just an observer of his memories.  I’d like to see it again to sort more of that out.  Seeing it again also would be very easy on the eyes and ears and good for my soul.  As the applause died down at the end, my wife turned to me and said, “This felt like being at the opera!”.  Indeed, it did, and it was, no longer just a memory, after a very long time.

The Fan Experience:  After three performances in Norfolk and two in Fairfax, Virginia Opera will perform La Bohéme: Rodolfo remembers in Richmond on Friday, November 19 and Sunday, November 21.  Tickets remain available, priced $20 to $130 - don’t be afraid of the cheap seats; sometimes the sound is best in those, though the view is better in the pricier ones.  Sung in Italian with English surtitles, 90 minutes with no intermission. Currently, all Virginia Opera indoor venues require proof of vaccination for attendance, with mask wearing inside the venues.

A new VO feature this season is an hour-long pre-performance Zoom discussion with Joshua Borths, Professor of Music History at Capital University, discussing each upcoming opera and its background, this time including participation by Director Stickann; it’s well worth viewing live before or as a video after you go.  These are available on Facebook and YouTube under the title “Let’s Talk Opera with Josh Borths”.  There is also a half hour pre-opera talk an hour before the opera that I recommend to increase your appreciation for what you are about to see and answer you questions.

My schedule won’t allow me to attend another performance, but i’d love to see a video of Rodolfo Remembers. To Virginia Opera: Hint, hint.

BCO’s The Medium: So, Julia Cried and Opera Returned to Baltimore

Julia Cooke, Artistic Director and General Director of Baltimore Concert Opera, a passionate advocate for opera in Baltimore.

What is opera about?  When Julia Cooke, Baltimore Concert Opera’s Artistic Director and General Director, picked up the microphone and ascended to the stage of the Engineers Club on Saturday night, prepared to make opening remarks as she does for every BCO production, she faltered.  She started to speak, but the words would not come.  This accomplished opera executive, a trained opera singer herself, choked up.  Her eyes welled up with tears, tears of relief and joy, and it took a few moments before the words could come out.  The last time she was able to introduce an opera before a live audience inside the Engineers Club was March 1, 2020; then, the pandemic came crushing down, interrupting performances, careers, and fans’ access to live opera.  Not intending to cry, her emotion conveyed what needed to be said in operatic style.  The reaction from the audience was swift and simpatico – cries of “We love you, Julia,” rang out.  She recovered, made her remarks, and Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium began. 

Now, for the first time in over a year and a half let’s talk about a BCO live, in house, opera performance that we could see and hear in person.  To get started, I asked Ms. Cooke why The Medium was selected and why now?   She responded, “I selected this opera to open our “return season” for many reasons, and I’ll tell you that there are about 10 different season drafts which I tore up every time more COVID news came! It was very challenging to try to predict where we’d be at this point since I needed to announce the season in July at the latest…I did my best to offer a balanced season as we move into not only a post-COVID world, but also BCO’s major expansion this year.  I knew that to mitigate as many of the COVID obstacles as I could, we’d need a short opera (to limit time the audience is in the same room together), with a small cast (limiting the number of people in rehearsals and on stage for distancing purposes), and which would pack a big dramatic punch.  Because it’s short, it needed to have a memorable impact dramatically.  The Medium is frequently performed by very young casts, often at music schools, but you don’t often see it done by more established professionals. I wanted to give it a treatment it rightfully deserves, in a professional setting.”  More on the ‘major expansion’ further down in the Fan Experience section.

This is not the first time, Baltimore Concert Opera has performed a Menotti opera; BCO previously performed The Consul, in 2019. From the mid-forties into the seventies of the twentieth century, Gian Carlo Menotti was the dominant American composer of opera.  He attempted to bring opera to the masses by writing operas for radio, television, and the stage.  His opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, was the first opera written for television; it is his best known and most often performed work.  He pioneered the “Broadway Opera”, a through-composed work with libretti written in the American idiom, several of which had successful runs on Broadway that brought him great acclaim and won him two Pulitzer Prizes.  To keep his operas focused on engaging average American audiences, he not only wrote the music but also wrote the libretti, and he insisted on directing the staging, going Richard Wagner one better.  BCO’s new Scholar-in-Residence, Dr. Aaron Ziegel, told us in the pre-opera talk that Mr. Menotti deliberately used idiomatic American speech patterns, and while including many short tunes, he avoided long, drama-interrupting arias.  He also kept his operas short – The Medium is two acts and an hour long, fitting BCO’s requirements at this point in the pandemic recovery. 

Monica, played by soprano Amanda Shariff and Toby played by dancer Peter Pattengill in The Medium. Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker; courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

Dr. Ziegel also reported that Menotti’s idea for The Medium came from an experience he had attending a friend’s séance.  I think it would have made an excellent episode of the popular TV show, The Twilight Zone.  It takes place in the home of a life weary medium, Madame Flora, who holds séances where she helps her clients get in touch with their dead children; they call her Baba.  Her daughter Monica and a servant boy rescued from the streets, Toby, both teenagers, are accessories to the ruse.  In one séance, Madame Flora felt that someone or something touched her throat.  Fearing it was a brush with the supernatural in which she does not believe, she demands to know who did it.  She sends her clients home.  During the next week, she is drinking heavily and has begun to hear a voice singing.  Her clients return for their weekly séance, but distraught and now reexamining her life, she admits she is a fraud and returns their money.  They leave but insist their experience with her was real.  I dislike including spoilers, so let’s just say that Baba continues to become unhinged and there is gun play.  She, like we, never know what touched her throat.  Cue the Twilight Zone theme, do do do, do do do, and Rod Serling.  It is an entertaining story that does have “a big dramatic punch”.  There is enough ambiguity in the story to leave one wondering when it was over:  was it a ghost story, an exposé on mediums, or a nod to the possibility there is more in this world than are dreamt of in our philosophies?  Personally, I am glad that this one survived the tearing up of proposed drafts of BCO’s “return season”.

What about the music?  BCO productions to this point (more on this later) have used piano accompaniments, as they did for The Medium.  Mr. Menotti’s score was mainly tonal in the tunes and dissonant for conveying the distraught and for special effects, sounding very Broadway like.  Keeping with the composer’s desire to keep the drama moving, the closest number to an aria was Monica singing “The Black Swan”, a fairytale lullaby.  There were however plenty of tunes, again consistent with Broadway; my wife remarked to me how much she enjoyed the music.  Piano accompaniment was provided by Wei-Han Wu.  I noted to myself early on that it must be difficult to maintain the correct timing and dynamics for music changing so often and so quickly as the story progressed, sometimes the softest voice of a child, conversation in a group, and then the shrieks of a mad woman.  Mr. Wu gave an impressive performance, aided by Conductor Joshua Hong.

l to r: Madame Flora (mezzo-soprano Jenni Bank) had a surprise in the séance with her clients, Mr. Gobineau (baritone Travis Lucas), Mrs. Gobineau (soprano Samantha Lax), and Mrs. Nolan (mezzo-soprano Taylor Hillary Boykins). Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker; courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

The singers, led by soprano Amanda Sheriff as Monica, in her BCO debut, and mezzo-soprano Jenni Bank, in a return to BCO, represented a well-balanced and uniformly excellent cast.  Ms. Sheriff displayed a lyrical gift in an uneven beginning and then absolutely shone in “The Black Swan” and in providing the child-like singing off stage.  Ms. Bank sang and acted her role of Baba beautifully, a bit of a challenge since the role is for a contralto and Baba’s mood swings present sharp vocal shifts.  Though excellent, she is such a strong force on stage that it was difficult to accept her as a tormented woman losing touch with reality, or was it being confronted with an alternate reality. The third lead role, that of Toby, Baba’s nonverbal servant taken into her care, was well acted by dancer Peter Pattengill.  The séance regulars, soprano Samantha Lax as Mrs. Gobineau, baritone Travis Lucas as Mr. Gobineau, and mezzo-soprano Taylor Hillary Boykins as Mrs. Nolan, sang and acted so well that I thought while I listened to them that I hope BCO brings them back to feature in more prominent roles. Goal to have The Medium “done by more established professionals” – check!

BCO chose to partially stage The Medium with costumes and props, making the stage appear as a room for a séance.  I wondered if having an important role be a tacet one (nonverbal) required some staging.  I asked Director Cooke and she responded “we would call this production semi-staged.  We have moved more toward a semi-staged model in all the concert operas, even prior to COVID.  It depends on the piece: our Adriana Lecouvreur next year will be more akin to the way we did Anna Bolena—artists singing from memory, but with only very minimal blocking rather than a fuller semi-staging as we did with The Medium, and The Consul back in 2019.  I feel that there are some pieces which need more defined stagecraft, like The Medium and The Consul, because of the nature of the storytelling and the way the music is set. The Italian repertoire tends to be more lyrical and the drama moves more slowly and is easier to discern primarily through the music and singing. I wouldn’t say this is standard by language or era, but more individually defined by each opera itself.” 

With Madame Flora, a.k.a.Baba (mezzo-soprano Jenni Bank) standing and Toby (dancer Peter Pattengill) on the floor, what has happened? Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker; courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

The staging by Director Catrin Davies was well done overall, though staging didn’t seem crisp.  The use of a thin, backlit screen as the puppet theater was a clever idea. However, staging in a theater where the seats are not tiered presents a difficulty – anything much lower than hip level on stage will not be seen by a sizable portion of the audience.  In this staging, much of the action with Toby and the play between Toby and Monica occurred at floor level.  That said, the staging was helpful and effectively portrayed the drama.

In closing, I’ll answer my opening question: what is opera about?  Opera is about more than music and singing and storytelling.  It’s also very much about people and community.  We suffer without the community as well as without the music and singing.  So, Julia cried; we all felt better, and a brighter future has opened up.

The Fan Experience: The two performances of The Medium were given on Friday night and the following Sunday afternoon, as is the usual practice of BCO.  The Engineers Club in the Garrett-Jacobs Mansion is a palatial, intimate venue for concert opera, worth seeing in itself.  Ticket prices for BCO performances are a bargain, and be forewarned, performances are typically selling out in the small 200-seat theater.  The current requirement for proof of COVID vaccination and the wearing of masks in the theater were strictly enforced.

In what I think is a major enhancement, BCO has added Dr. Aaron Ziegel to their staff as Scholar-in-Residence.  He provided four one-hour, highly informative Zoom classes on Menotti and The Medium prior to the performances and an engaging half hour pre-opera talk on site.  In college I had a history professor whose classes I would not miss because he made history sound like a soap opera, but with real facts.  Dr. Ziegel, Associate Professor of Music History at Towson University, has that gift for storytelling.  My wife kept talking about how much she liked the pre-opera talk.  Access to the classes is included with your ticket.  BCO also had magicians performing in between the pre-opera talk and the performance. BCO is following in Menotti’s footsteps, doing their best to make opera accessible to everyone.

In her opening comments, Ms. Cooke remarked on their ambitious plans for expansion this season.  BCO’s next production, The Barber of Seville, will mark their first ever fully-staged opera with an orchestra, to be performed on February 18 and 20 in Stephens Hall at Towson University.  Their final production of the “return season”, Adriana Lecouvreur, will return to the Engineers Club on April 22, 24 in the more traditional concert format (Yay!).  Dr. Ziegel will present four Zoom lectures and the pre-opera talk for each of those productions as well.

There are some additional issues affecting the fan experience to be mentioned.  The venue does continue to be plagued by controlling the temperature in the ballroom where performances are held.  Once, the room fills up, it can get uncomfortably warm.  As noted in the text above, staging in the venue can be problematic, with the low-level portion of the stage blocked from view for a portion of the audience.  Also, while I typically utilize on street parking for performances, I used valet parking this time and there was an uncommonly long wait for my car to be retrieved (over 30 min).  The attendant explained that this is unusual; this time they had to use a lot three blocks from the venue, which slowed bringing the cars back.  While there are many superb restaurants in Baltimore, there is also a food court, Mt. Vernon Marketplace, two blocks from the Engineers Club, convenient for a quick bite before a show; pre-pandemic, it was also possible to make reservations for dinner in the Club.  BCO offers an open bar for its performances. While in Baltimore this trip, we ate a dinner at Charleston, a fine dining restaurant; it was the way life ought to be but rarely is.

WNO’s Come Home Celebration: A Very Special Night at the Opera

Washington National Opera called its fans back to the Kennedy Center’s Opera House on Saturday night for the first of four performances of “Come Home: A Celebration of Return”.  Nineteen months have gone by since the Opera House went dark on March 12, 2020.  This celebration provided a needed coming together of the WNO family - performers, staff, and fans – to acknowledge our loss, express our gratitude to performers and staff who persevered during the pandemic and to medical staff and first responders who helped keep us safe.  WNO’s celebration also provided a spectacular show, filled with opera stars and great music, with a full WNO Orchestra and Chorus.  

The cast, orchestra, and chorus for “Come Home: A Celebration of Return”. Soloists from left to right: tenor Duke Kim, bass-baritone Christian Simmons, heldentenor David Butt Philip, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, soprano Pretty Yende, bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, soprano Alexandria Shiner, soprano Suzannah Waddington, and mezzo-soprano Rehanna Thelwell. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

The celebration was organized around inspirational ideals expressed in operas, the idealism of creating art, the ideals of justice with a salute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the ideal of liberty, as we are freed from the chains of the pandemic.  A cast of ten soloists included opera headliners such as soprano Pretty Yende in her WNO debut, Kennedy Center favorites, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and tenor Lawrence Brownlee, and current and former members of WNO’s Cafritz Young Artists Program.  Conductor Evan Rogister was in place leading the WNO Orchestra.  It was also a great pleasure to see the WNO Chorus on stage led by Chorus Master Steve Gathman.  Remarks were made by Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein and WNO General Director Timothy O’Leary; WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, who is away directing a new production, was featured in a short video.

The concert opened with Conductor Evan Rogister and the orchestra on stage, not in the pit. As they began playing the first selection, the Prelude to Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg, a video on the planning and construction of the Kennedy Center was shown on a screen at the back of the stage, appropriately since KC is now celebrating its 50th anniversary.  Those heroic efforts to construct a U.S. center for the performing arts gave us the magnificent gathering place we have today.  As new, more abstract images appeared on the screen and walls of the stage, soprano Alexandria Shiner, a former Cafritz young artist, moved upon the stage as the orchestra moved into “Dich, teure Halle” from Wagner’s Tännhauser.  Ms. Shiner who has trained with both the Cafritz Young Artists program and Wolf Trap Opera, left no doubt whether she belonged in this group of illustrious opera singers.  I have heard her several times before; her excellent performance came as no surprise. 

Soprano Pretty Yende and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in “Come Home: A Celebration of Return”. Photos by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

The screen moved away and the chorus appeared at the back of the stage; my spirits soared – it had been way too long of a separation.  Conductor Rogister then led the orchestra accompanying the impressive heldentenor, David Butt Philip, also in his KC debut, singing Preislied from the Meistersinger, Wagner’s only comedic opera, noted by Ms. Zambello as a celebration of singing, family, and friends. Following Mr. Philip off stage was mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard moving onstage and then bringing down the house singing Jeanine Tesori’s “The Girl in 14G”; laughter erupted throughout as she managed to rebound between singing a Broadway tune while also imitating the opera and jazz music that two neighbors are playing too loudly, by far the most upbeat number in the concert.  It might have been a mistake to let her sing that number.  I was rocked back at how amazing she sounded doing Broadway; if the opera folks don’t treat her right…just sayin. 

Next up was a musical interlude featuring “Fate Now Conquers” (2020) by Kennedy Center composer-in-residence Carlos Simon, a piece that seemed to rumble about the orchestra like obstacles moved about by a storm.  In a video appearance on screen, Mr. Simon explained the title came from an entry in Beethoven’s notebook when his body had grown infirm.  Taken from the Iliad, the quote tells us that fate gets us in the end, as it subdued even Beethoven, but adds that all lives shall inherit our works, which I think harkens to appreciating all the lives that make and have made opera possible.  Mr. Simon was also present and bowed from his seat in the audience.

As each performance ended, a new singer emerged, and so it went all evening, with brief remarks by officials and the occasional video mixed in, very smoothly accomplished.  By my overall count, there were two orchestral pieces and fifteen solos/ensemble numbers.  Each was a highlight in its own way.  Costumes were designed by Bibhu Mohapatra honoring RBG’s iconic style, constituting more of an entertaining fashion show than support for the storytelling; especially note the collars.  Speaking of storytelling, a critical element of opera, I will mention just a few more performances because they went beyond the spectacle of opera (tenor Lawrene Brownlee’s arias and hign C’s shown like diamonds in that regard) to sweep me up into the drama of the scene, even if only for a few brief minutes. 

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn in “Come Home: A Celebration of Return”. Photos by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

First of such performances came with soprano Pretty Yende’s debut on the Opera House stage as Antonia in a scene from Jules Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffman; joining her were Cafritz Young Artist, mezzo-soprano Rehanna Thelwell, as her dead mother, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, also in his debut at KC, as Dr. Miracle.  Remarkable singing and emotion by Ms. Yende and Mr. Van Horn was evenly supported by the remarkable Ms. Thelwell, drawing me into the scene, touching my heart.  Even a single singer can perform that miracle as Mr. Van Horn did later in the evening, breathing life into the foreboding “Studia il passo, o mio figlia…Come dal ciel” from Verdi’s Macbeth, reminding us of the summer of 2020.  Though debatable, perhaps the summa cum laude performance of the evening was Pretty Yende as Violetta from La Traviata, singing “É strano!...Sempre libre”, in duet with tenor Duke Kim, a Cafritz Young Artist and a Grand Finals Winner in this year’s Met Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition Auditions; Mr. Kim was placed a bit too far back behind the orchestra.  Ms. Yende, ably joined by Mr. Kim displayed her own virtuoso style with affecting emotional impact.  Soprano Suzannah Waddington and bass-baritone Christian Simmons, both current Cafritz Young Artists, contributed substantially to the evening in ensemble scenes from Beethoven and Rossini; I labelled Ms. Waddington a treasure in my report on the American Opera Iniative’s spring online production of American Apollo.

Soprano Alexandria Shiner and heldentenor David Butt Philip in “Come Home: A Celebration of Return”. Photos by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Part of the evening’s celebration was a video tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a tribute delayed from audiences by COVID-19.  She was a fixture at Washington National Opera productions and regularly took her interns to performances; she even appeared in one in a speaking role.  Family members of Justice Ginsburg were in attendance as well as family members of her colleague and friend and often companion at the opera, Justice Antonin Scalia.  Mr. O’Leary announced that RBG’s family members had donated her opera memorabilia to WNO, including her piano, which is now installed in a room at the Kennedy Center’s rehearsal studio in Takoma Park and has been named the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Studio and Library; the piano will be used for rehearsals in the room.  The family of Justice Scalia made a donation to WNO as well. It would be nice to have more government officials and their families become such strong supporters of the arts.

In closing, let me admit that I went to the performance with a secret wish that it would have been a fully staged, classical opera instead of a concert.  However, this carefully planned event won me over.  A celebration was needed, and this one was special – the family was together again.

The Fan Experience: A special feature of this production was a champagne toast held in the hallway following the performance, a very nice cap on such a wondrous evening.  Four performances in all were scheduled for “Come Home: A Celebration of Return” – November 6, 8, 10, and 14.  Seats are available for remaining performances; the Sunday performance is a matinee.  The performances were scheduled to run 2 hours and 20 minutes with a 25-minute intermission; I think opening night it should have read “plus” a 25 minute intermission. 

Now we wait again, until March 2022 for WNO’s premiere of Written in Skin and Mozart’s Così fan tutte, followed by May’s Carmen, starring none other than Isabel Leonard, in an all-star cast.

Hearing opera again live was an interesting auditory experience.  I had to let my ears adjust to the volume, instead of doing what I have done for the last year and half – adjust the volume on my AirPods.  It is a trade-off I will gladly make.

At one point, Mr. Rubenstein quipped wasn’t it nice to be present with everyone in the room being vaccinated.  Yes, it was and be aware of the Kennedy Centers COVID-19 requirements before you go, at this link:  https://www.kennedy-center.org/visit/covid-safety/