An American in Lyon Attending Offenbach’s Le Roi Carotte

My wife schedules our vacations.  The deal we had was to spend Christmas in Paris to attend the opera for me (see my previous blog report) and to spend New Year’s Eve in Lyon to visit France’s gastronomic capital for my wife.  My wife noticed Opéra de Lyon was performing on New Year’s Day and gave me another treat, opera in Lyon.  We were concerned that the ongoing strike in France might imperil our Lyon plans as it did our plans in Paris, but to our delight, we arrived on time and the show went on.

King Carrot (Christophe Mortagne) and his rooted entourage appear at the royal court. 2019 Photo by Blandine Soulage; courtesy of Opéra Lyon.

(Disclaimer: Parents, if your children already have trouble eating their vegetables, do not take them to this opera.)

The opera being performed on New Year’s Day was the last performance of Le Roi Carotte (1872, The Carrot King) by French composer Jacques Offenbach.  The opera was sung in French and the supertitles were only available in French; supertitles were not projected during the spoken dialog.  I had read a synopsis and background on the opera before attending, but do not speak French.  Despite my limitation, I thoroughly enjoyed the opera, as did my wife and son, and it is ironic that I had just reported on watching opera the old-fashioned way, without the benefit of supertitles in English.

To be honest, not only had I not seen this opera before, but I had not even heard of it before my wife made me aware of the Lyon production; not a lot has been written about this opera of Offenbach’s, at least in English.  Like so many worthwhile operas buried in the past, it receives little attention while La Traviata and Le Marriage de Figaro get performed daily.  I understand an opera company has got to make a living, but I will point out the performance I attended was a sellout.  I welcome more rediscovered works, as apparently do others.

Cunégonde (Catherine Trottman) and Fridolin (Yann Beuron) meet and like each other. 2019 Photo by Blandine Soulage; courtesy of Opéra Lyon.

The opera has an interesting history, beginning with its composer.  Offenbach has one opera in the modern repertoire that gets performed regularly, The Tales of Hoffman, his only serious opera.  He wrote over a hundred operas and operettas, best known in his day for his gay, light-hearted, often satirical operettas.  I suppose Le Roi Carotte could be considered an operetta except that it runs close to three hours long. He is credited with being one of the originators of the operetta, a form he used to reflect the gaiety of life in Paris during the second half of the nineteenth century, a period known as La Belle Epoque, a golden age in Europe.  He wrote the popular musical number known as the Can Can, which appears in another comic opera of his, Orpheus in the Underworld.  The sell-out for the performance may have been because it was on a holiday, or perhaps.….the audience was responding to a need to be reminded that life can be gay, to remove ourselves for a couple of hours from our own troubled times.

Le Roi Carotte was a hit in its initial run in 1872, but fell out of favor, presumably due to the huge cast and costume and set changes required, making its performance an expensive proposition, and perhaps due to the bite of its satire directed at the political factions of its day.  The libretto was written by Victorien Sardu, after a tale by E. T. A. Hoffman; you might remember Sardu as the librettist for Puccini’s Tosca.  The Lyon production was a repeat of its December 2015 revival of the opera that featured a new staging and costumes by Director Laurent Pelly and an adaptation and dialog changes by Agathe Mélinand.  The 2015 production was a huge success and was named “Best Rediscovered Work” at the 2016 International Opera Awards; Le Roi Carotte had not previously been performed since the composer’s lifetime.

Under Coloquinte’s spell, the court ladies are charmed by King Carrot (Christophe Mortagne). 2019 Photo by Blandine Soulage; courtesy of Opéra Lyon.

This is a plot of many characters, thirteen named players plus a wide variety of townspeople, vegetables, and insects.  I’m guessing between fifty to one hundred performers were on stage at some point during the performance.  Except for the veiled satirical digs at various political groups, the plot is nonsensical.  I will only offer comments on the plot since a straightforward description is beyond my abilities.  Young King Fridolin is attempting to save his country’s finances after almost bankrupting it with his youthful spending ways.  To restore some funds to the state’s coffers, he plans both to sell the castle’s armor to genie Robin-Luron and to marry Princess Cunégonde for her wealth.  Fridolin and Cunégonde meet, each traveling incognito, and they like each other; the wedding is assured.  However, spirits appearing as vegetables are growing until they sprout arms and legs and faces.  They are led by the evil sorcerer, King Carrot.  Witch Coloquinte, to get revenge, puts the townspeople under a spell making them follow King Carrot.  Cunégonde is quite taken with the new King.  Fridolin, Robin-Luron, and Rosee du savoir (who loves Fridolin and has escaped imprisonment by Coloquinte) seek out help from a magician, who directs them to travel to Pompeii to obtain a magic ring, which they manage to do.  However, on return, Coloquinte causes Fridolin to lose the ring and be attacked by hordes of insects.  Fridolin escapes, and the people rise up against the Carrot King who is managing the economy badly and restore Fridolin to the throne.  Fridolin and Rosee du savior live happily ever after, we presume.  If I went into detail, it wouldn’t make any more sense.  Go with the flow.

Because the plot is nonsensical, staging is the real king for this opera.  Director Pelly moves the action at a fast clip and adds a myriad of marvelous costumes to engage the eye and numerous sight gags, the best of which are anachronistic, such as the princess being accompanied by secret service agents dressed in black suits and sunglasses.  The visit to Pompeii was totally a hoot. Unfortunately, I could not appreciate the humor in Ms. Mélinand’s new dialogs since I do not speak French; hopefully, Le Roi Carotte will make it to the U.S., and I can make use of supertitles in English.  But suffice it is to say that there was a delightful surprise at every turn.  With its large-scale variety and most of the performers clearly playing to the audience, there is a circus-like comedic feel to this production.  The staging was superb, and it is a critical element of this particular opera.

The citizens of Pompei protect the magic ring. 2019 Photo by Blandine Soulage; courtesy of Opéra Lyon.

Offenbach’s music has one significant flaw: it is likeable.  Critics and musicologists in the twentieth century decided that likeable music was frivolous and placed Offenbach’s comedies on a lower shelf.  Somehow I seem to enjoy both Beethoven and Offenbach.  I greatly enjoyed the music and its many pleasing melodies.  Conductor Adrien Perruchon and the orchestra entertained us with Offenbach’s often bouncy music.  Le Roi Carotte is worthy of its reemergence just to enjoy its music.  Combine that with a circus-like production and it was great holiday fun.

The cast was excellent overall.  Fridolin was played by tenor Yann Beuron, a pleasant, consistent tenor who provided the focal point for the opera.  Excellent mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne, in a pants role, gave us a compelling Robin-Luron.  Catherine Trottman who has a pretty soprano voice was also charming and funny as Cungégonde.  My personal favorite in this cast was soprano Chloé Briot as Rosée du soir; her voice possesses an emotional quality in its timbre that is very engaging; her opening aria won me over completely.  Tenor Christophe Mortagne played the self-absorbed King Carrot so convincingly that he drew a few boos at the end, for his character, not him.  Actress Lydie Pruvot gave us a vengeful Coloquinte.  And there were quite a few of other singers who had their moments that contributed to the success of the production, too many to go on about.  I will mention one more which is a group; the outstanding chorus was a major player in Offenbach’s music and the performance; kudos to chorus master Roberto Balistreri.  Many of the singers also sang in the 2015 production, including Beuron, Boulianne, Briot, and Mortagne.

The citizens once rise up against King Carrot and throw their support to Fridolin (Yann Beuron). 2015 Photo by Bertrand Slofleth; courtesy of Opéra Lyon.

Satire can be found in Le Roi Carotte (The Carot King), Jacques Offenbach’s opera buffa involving vegetables (maybe even more so if you speak French), but I think that for most of the audience it is simply great music supporting a riotous fairy tale story presented with inventive and consistently surprising staging.  The entertainment value of the Opéra Lyon production was very high, and though one can find parallels in today’s world politics if one wishes to look, I don’t advise looking too deeply.  Let it be enough that there are good guys and bad guys, and in the end, the good guys and the audience wins, a treat very appropriate for the holiday period, and perhaps even needed in today’s times. 

(Addendum to Disclaimer: My disclaimer above is totally in jest.  There were many children in the audience and there have been no reports of children with increased vegetable avoidance.)

The Fan Experience: Opéra de Lyon’s next production will be Tosca which begins January 20. There were eight performances of Le Roi Carotte ending on New Year’s Day.  One special treat of the holiday performance was an encore song by the entire troupe and a burst of silver and red streamers and confetti at the close.  There were no free programs for the performance, but there was available for purchase a souvenir program in French that included relevant essays about the opera and its period of history.  

One feature that was different with the French audience was that the applause at the end was rhythmic.  Although only a few individuals along the sides stood at the end, the rhythmic clapping was thunderous and lasted for several minutes.  Le Roi Carotte was again a hit.

The Lyon National Opera venue is among stately buildings in Place de la Comedie between the Rhône and Saône rivers with an adjacent subway stop.  The opera house is moderate in size with a seating capacity of 1,100, an ideal size for opera in my opinion. The building has an impressive façade and is topped by a large cylindrical glass roof that is lit up red on performance nights.  The interior of the auditorium is dressed in black and has five U-shaped balconies stacked atop one another.  The bar area has magnificent paintings on the sides and ceiling.  The seats are wooden, and I noticed cushions are available for rental.  There are lots of staffers available to help you find your way around. Photos by author:

Paris Opera’s Prince Igor: The Heart Cannot Be Reimbursed

I recently reset my bucket list.  The only thing I had not checked off was to see the Aurora Borealis (the Northern Lights), which is very difficult to time.  So, I added seeing the world’s great opera houses – Paris Opera, La Scala, and Covent Gardens as starters.  As a result, my family and I decided to travel during Christmas to satisfy the Paris Opera listing.  We rationalized the price by saying this would be our Christmas gift to each other.  Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor (1890) was playing in Paris during the time we could travel (I should note that Borodin left the opera unfinished, and it was completed by Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov).  We purchased tickets for the December 23 performance, but there was a complication.

Photos of the Palais Garneir in Paris by author and Debra McCoy Rogers (fiammatravels.com). The inside remains a mystery for now.

The main reason I wanted to attend the Paris Opera was my desire to see an opera in the magnificent 1900-seat Palais Garnier opera house, a symbol for grand opera.  It is a stunning piece of opulent 19th century architecture, constructed to impress, to be a gathering place for rich and famous Parisiennes to be seen, though today all are welcomed.  Informative exhibits on the history of opera are housed inside, and tours are offered.  However, Paris Opera (or in French, Opéra de Paris, and formally, the Opéra Nationale de Paris) which began in 1689 and moved into Palais Garnier in the late 1800’s, now has two venues for opera productions. In 1989, the Bastille Train Station on the site of the Bastille of the French revolution fame of 1789, was replaced by a modern, circular 2700-seat opera house known as Opera Bastille.  Most operas are now held in Opera Bastille, and Palais Garnier is used mainly for ballet and concerts.  Prince Igor was scheduled for Opera Bastille.  Thus, we also scheduled a ballet by Paris Opera Ballet, titled Le Parc, for December 25 in Palais Garnier to experience the inside of the opera house.  Truly, this was to be an exciting trip.

The Fan Experience: A couple of weeks before our trip we became aware of the travel problems being caused by the strike of railway workers in France, worrisome, but the trip had been arranged for months with travel reservations paid for and hotel deposits made; we went ahead with it.  We arrived in Paris on December 22, smartly using a transfer to get to the hotel, rather than dealing with altered train and metro schedules.  On the way to Paris, we heard some opera performances had been canceled, but December 23 was still in play when we arrived.  Early afternoon on December 23, we received an email from Paris Opera that the evening’s performance had been cancelled due to the ongoing strike and protests against President Macron’s proposed changes to the French pension system.  Some opera staff whose pensions would be affected by the proposed changes supported the large strike ordered by the French syndicate of labor unions, causing opera and ballet performances to be cancelled.  When life hands you a lemon, you are supposed to make lemonade.  We hired a driver for a couple hours and took in the Christmas lights of Paris at night – really fun.

Paris at night for Christmas - Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Champs Élysées, and one of the Christmas windows at Galeries Lafayette. Photos by author.

We also had to alter our Christmas Eve dinner plans, as the heavy pressure on taxis made them impossible to reserve.  We managed to get into a recommended restaurant closer to our hotel and had an excellent dinner.  All now rested on Le Parc being performed, and on Christmas Eve, Paris Opera Ballet was still selling tickets for the Christmas Day performance. 

Notice of Le Parc cancellation. Photo by Debra Rogers (fiammatravels.com).

On Christmas Day, we left for Palais Garnier two hours before the 2:30 pm performance.  We arrived to find all entrances to Palais Garnier closed, but still no word from Paris Opera Ballet.  We were among a crowd circling the opera house, which I have to admit is a fabulous structure to walk around.  Eventually, we saw a white sign, about 15 by 20 inches, attached to the large iron gates that lead to the ticket office that stated all performances were cancelled on December 25.  At 1:21 pm, slightly more than an hour’s notice, we received an email from Paris Opera Ballet telling us that Le Parc had been cancelled.  I admit this time I did not make lemonade.  I went with my son to walk along the Seine; he examined used books for sale, and I sulked.  Dinner that evening at Le Train Bleu did help somewhat.

I suppose the moral of the story is that stuff happens, and plans don’t always work out.  I certainly understand that there were larger issues at play than my seeing an opera and bear no ill will towards anyone.  Getting the issues settled around the French retirement system is a weighty matter, and I wish them well.  I read that Paris Opera would lose $12 million in revenue by the end of 2019 and that the strike was to continue into the new year (they planned to pay the performers whose performances were cancelled).  I also feel sympathy for the performers who trained for Prince Igor and were thwarted.

Given all that I got out of the trip, I certainly don’t feel sorry for myself, and Paris Opera is reimbursing us the price of the tickets. I still enjoyed being in Paris (always) and I hope to go again and hope to get Paris Opera checked off my list at some point.  But I am disappointed.  Arts experiences are more than entertainment.  Artistic experiences grow the heart. A space for personal growth was not realized. An opportunity to become more human was lost.  My heart remains unreimbursed.

Still, one moves on.  In this case, we moved on to Lyon, in hopes that Opéra Lyon’s Le Roi Carotte was still to be performed.  More on that in my next blog report. 

Opera the Old-Fashioned Way and the Beauty of Thaïs

The original poster for the premiere of Thaïs designed by Manuel Orazi. Public domain; copied from Wikipedia.

Thaïs, where have you been all my life?  Thaïs is a beautiful opera.  Who knew?  This epiphany resulted from my experiment listening to opera without the benefit of supertitles – the English lyric translations projected over the stage.  Reading those supertitles is annoying at best.  Operas mainly come in three flavors – Italian, French, and German – there are others in the modern repertoire, of course, including English.  The major difficulty is that I don’t speak Italian, French, or German.  The minor one is that I find that lyrics sung operatically in English can still be difficult to follow.  It’s a conflict.  I am grateful for the supertitles providing English translations of the lyrics in real time.  However, reading the supertitles while action on the stage is progressing distracts from the drama on stage and the music, and sometimes it can be taxing to keep up.  But what are you going to do?  Well, consider this fact - supertitles came into use in the 1980s and only became common in the 1990s.  In fact, there was considerable resistance to the use of supertitles when they were first introduced.  So I thought that if it was good enough for opera goers for the first 400 years of opera, I should give watching opera the old-fashioned way a try: read the libretto in English before the opera and watch it without the supertitles.  That could be an enlightening experiment, right?

In 2008, NY Times critic Anthony Tommasini wrote a delightful and highly informative 25-year perspective on the history of supertitle use.  He reported that in an early reaction to supertitles, “Robert M. Jacobson, then the editor of Opera News, published by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, deplored supertitles as a “pathetic marketing grab for the fringe public,” adding that opera “is not a reading experience.”” Well, today opera is partly a reading experience and for most opera goers always has been; the reading was just done ahead of time.  The use of surtitles is now essentially universal.  The titles were first shown on a screen over the stage and were patented as “surtitles”.  They are more commonly referred to today as supertitles even if shown on the sides of the stage; in videos, they are called subtitles and displayed at the bottom of the screen.  The Metropolitan Opera has them on the back of the seats, calling them Met titles, and the Sante Fe Opera also has them on the back of the seats.  The screens on backs of seats have the advantage of allowing different language formats besides English to be selected for each individual viewer; perhaps you can read the titles in English on your screen and your neighbor can select them in Spanish, if available. 

So, what opera should I choose?  How about using the experiment to do some research on an upcoming opera that I plan to attend?  Good idea. Hmmm.  Well, at the end of January, the Maryland Lyric Opera is performing Jules Massenet’s Thaïs (1894), written in French, which I have not previously seen.  To answer the question who knew it was a great opera – MDLO did; after all, these people train opera singers.  A quick check of the synopsis revealed Thaïs is not Wagnerian in length and has a fairly simple story to follow, only a few characters to keep track of.  There is one video available for streaming on Met Opera on Demand, and a quick Google search turned up a libretto in French with an English translation for free viewing. Voila! I was in business.

Thaïs composer Jules Massenet, the most popular composer in France in the last half of the nineteenth century, is best known today for his operas Werther and Manon, both perennial favorites in the modern repertoire.  Thaïs only gets performed sporadically.  Why?  Frankly, I’m not sure, but the reason typically given is that it is unusually demanding to sing and is reserved as a showcase for an extraordinary soprano.  It has been said that opera companies don’t start by selecting Thaïs for their season and picking a soprano; they start with the soprano and then select Thaïs.  In its recent history, Metropolitan Opera performed the opera in 1974 with the great Beverly Sills.  Next it was performed in 2008 with diva Rene Fleming, which is the video in the Met’s collection, and then in 2017 starring ascending diva Ailyn Pérez.  I had passed up on the 2017 Met Opera In Cinemas broadcast of Thaïs because I had this feeling that the opera was not that good.  Wrong!

Thaïs’ librettist Louis Gallet wrote the libretto based on the Anatole France novel of the same name.  He also chose to write the libretto in prose, rather than in poetry – no rhyming, a break with French tradition at the time.  Thaïs has serious themes: a popular courtesan in fourth century Egypt, Thaïs, who is a follower of Venus and has lived ostentatiously and luxuriously, based on her beauty and sexual favors is faced with aging and disillusionment; a Christian ascetic, Athanael, who is devoted to his religious service is tempted by her erotic allure during his attempt to convert her to Christianity; Nicias, a lifelong friend of Athanael’s, who is wealthy and devoted to the pleasures that money can buy, provides the connection that allows the Thais/Athanael relationship to develop.  Anatole France had his work placed on the Forbidden List by the Catholic Church.

In the 2008 Met production, baritone Thomas Hampson plays the fanatical Athanael opposite Ms. Fleming; this pair had also performed this opera together previously in Chicago and have a audio recording of the opera.  The Met performance got good reviews, primarily because of the performers.  Ms. Fleming looks radiant and slays with her singing, though maybe not with her acting.  In her portrayal of the worn-down Thaïs collapsing with bleeding feet and exhaustion after a journey in the desert, she appears fresh enough to be at a picnic.  Mr. Hampson sings well but communicates his religious fervor far better than his attraction to Thaïs.  Tenor Michael Schade gave a very convincing portrayal of Athanael’s voluptuary friend, Nicias.  Overall, the opera worked for me, though I think it is a difficult opera to stage, especially the ending.  Navigating its themes in ways that fully engage the audience in the eternal conflict of spirit and flesh can become melodramatic or even unintentionally amusing.  I read commentary on the opera in the Grove Book of Opera, 2 nd edition, that asserts that “the human truths of Thaïs have yet to be revealed.”  Well, Maryland Lyric Opera, take your shot.

I found Massenet’s music to be wonderfully melodious and beautiful.  It serves the story well and is delightfully inventive.  The music attends to both the conflicts and the passions.  There are several beautiful arias for both Thaïs and Athanael.  There is a famous violin solo in Act II called Méditation that is spell binding in its beauty.  Criticisms that I have read that the music is thin may be missing Massenet’s point; there is a difference between thin and sensitive.  There is a male and female chorus. There are only a few ensemble numbers, though there are a couple of lovely duets between Thaïs and Athanael.  It also included a short ballet sequence.  A good deal of my enthusiasm for the opera is the music.

Okay, let’s get back to watching opera the old-fashioned way, sans supertitles.  For Thaïs there are only three acts and seven scenes, so following most of the action from memory was doable, but honestly, there were still times I longed for the subtitles.  I found the story to be engrossing; by the end of Act I, I was all in and loving the star soprano.  As to the benefits of watching the old-fashioned way, I did find it easier to concentrate on the music and closely observe the nuances in singing and acting.  The beauty of the music and the singing certainly stood out.  In the end, I think it is just a different experience, a different way of enjoying opera. 

The great composers Verdi and Wagner expected their operas to be translated and performed in the native languages of the audiences, evidence that, while the music is supreme, the words matter, matter quite a lot.  There were some scenes in Thaïs where I felt I was missing out by not knowing exactly what the characters were saying.  I appreciate benefits of opera the old-fashioned way, but in truth, part of me resisted the experience; perhaps it would grow on me with more exposure.  For now, I’m sticking with the supertitles, and I’m not happy about it.

The Fan Experience:  Maryland Lyric Opera performs Thaïs on January 30 and February 2 in the Kay Theater in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on the University of Maryland campus.  The supertitles at the Smith are shown on screens on both sides of the stage.  You can choose to read them or not; I will mostly be following them.  I will also add that I really like the Clarice as a venue for opera – small enough to feel intimate, with excellent acoustics for both singers and orchestra.  There is also plenty of free parking close to the center in the evenings and on weekends.

Washington Concert Opera’s Hamlet: Bears a Resemblance to Shakespeare

First, a confession: I have become a concert opera junkie and I love Washington Concert Opera.  If you want the experience of concentrating on the music and the singing in an opera, WCO is where you go.  Now, a funny thing happened on the way to attend their performance of Hamlet (1868) on Sunday night.  I thought I was going to see an opera version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  You know, how Verdi did Otello and Macbeth.  I had heard the name of the composer Ambroise Thomas but not seen any of his works.  I was very much looking forward to seeing this production, though fully expecting to see Shakespeare in opera form.  And yeah, it was…mostly.

l to r: Matthew Scolin, Matt Hill, Lisette Oropesa, Jacques Imbrailo, Maestro Antony Walker facing the orchestra, Eve Gigliotti, Tom Fox, and Timothy Bruno. Photo by Don Lassell; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

I have some more confessions; so, let’s clear the plate.  First, I usually attend the pre-opera talks, and for WCO, I usually attend Peter Russell’s lecture a week before the opera.  This time I went in cold.  Then as I looked over the program book, I was surprised to see that the singer singing the role of Prince Hamlet, Jacques Imbrailo, was a baritone - baritone is way too hefty for the Hamlet I know, and when I heard Mr. Imbrailo sing, I was even more surprised.  His voice is so pure and silky I think he should have been a tenor; I have started to think of him as opera’s Bing Crosby.  This guy should be singing Christmas music with the Three Tenors and instead, he’s singing, in a bitter tragedy, the principal role of Hamlet, who is going to commit murder and get killed himself…ah, or so I thought!  In reading Mr. Russell’s program notes I saw that composer Thomas wanted to write the role for a tenor but the best singer around was a baritone; after hearing Mr. Imbrailo sing, it is hard to disagree with composer Thomas’ decision. 

A duet between Ophelia (Lisette Oropesa) and Hamlet (Jacques Imbrailo). Photo by Don Lassell; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

I now know that the libretto written by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier is based on a version of Hamlet written by Alexander Dumas pére and Paul Meurice.  It turns out that Dumas and Meurice adapted the play to fit French sensibilities, and Carré and Barbier fashioned the libretto from their text to further attract paying French customers to the Broadway of its day, Parisian opera.  So, drop a few characters, drop a few scenes, add a scene, put in some crowd-pleasing arias, and voila!  Bears a resemblance to Shakespeare.  In truth though, it is a crowd pleaser.

As the opera began, I was thinking, wow, this music is really good, great melodies and orchestration.  I could have told you that the music for the celebration of Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, and King Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle and father-in-law was a regal affair with my eyes closed.  The use of the lone French horn, oboe, and bassoon was effective at communicating mood.  Loving it, and then I started to think, wait a minute.  This music is too pretty and romantic for this story.  Hamlet has realized his father was poisoned by Claudius to get his crown, and his Mother is complicit; he is withdrawing from his betrothed, sending her spiraling into madness.  Where is the anxiety, the extreme tension in the music?  This situation even calls out for dissonance in the music.  At one point, a bassoon sounded sharp to me as it rose quickly in its register and what seemed like a mistake sounded very appropriate for what was happening in the drama.  Now in fairness, the end of Act II was a barn-burner with all singers, the chorus, and the orchestration raising the tension and conflict to an appropriate level.  And from that point, the music had additional moments when it seemed to rise to the occasion, but for much of the opera, it was not only that I was not seeing Shakespeare, I also was not hearing Shakespeare. One could imagine the album coming out, titled Hamlet’s Greatest Hits.

The final shocker was the ending – Hamlet, though he is wounded lives to be hailed as the next King.  Ok, I can accept no reference to poor Yorick and no Polonius saying to thine own self be true, but Hamlet lives?!  What all this means is that I simply viewed the opera with the wrong mind set.  I had trouble appreciating it for what it was because it was not what I expected.  I blew this one.  So, let me talk about what I liked.

Hamlet (Jacques Imbrailo) rebuffs Gertrude (Eve Gigliotti) wanting to finalize wedding plans with Ophelia (Lisette Oropesa). Photo by Don Lassell; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

First, the music was very enjoyable.  Ambroise Thomas was a talented composer.  Musicologists tend to place him in the follower, rather than leader category, but I have also heard similar criticism of Puccini.  I definitely will attend this opera again if WCO performs it in the future, but I will be better prepared.  Being able to watch Artistic Director and Conductor Antony Walker on the stage is great fun.  He conducts with such enthusiasm that occasionally both his feet leave the floor at the same time.  It’s interesting to see him pause, waiting for cues from the singers and even the audience when we applauded.  And the WCO Orchestra sounds great in the Lisner Auditorium.  The chorus led by Chorus Master Mark Trawka added measurably to the performance with a beautiful sound.  In addition to its five acts, the fully staged opera includes a ballet; this was not part of WCO’s performance, but I’d love to see a ballet that fits with Hamlet.

I have already mentioned how well Mr. Imbrailo sang and what a marvelous voice he possesses.  In fairness I should also add that he gave a good acting performance.  Now I will mention what I and many in the audience were greatly anticipating, the singing of soprano Lisette Oropesa as Ophelia.  Let me put it this way, when she finished her arias in the Ophelia’s Mad Scene, the thunderous applause went on so long that Maestro Walker had to cut it somewhat short.  Wow; it is so nice to get the performance you came for.  She possesses a lovely voice and her coloratura trills and runs sound perfect to me.  She acted out the Mad Scene to enhance its delivery with the stage all to herself and the orchestra.  Thank you WCO for bringing Ms. Oropesa to DC.

In her show stopping Ophelia Mad Scene, Lisette Oropesa pauses before exiting. Photo by Don Lassell; courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

The performer who was most perfectly cast in a role was mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti.  I enjoyed her singing and she was entirely convincing as Gertrude.  Credible performances were also turned in by star baritone Tom Fox as Claudius and star bass Brian Kontes as the ghost of Hamlet’s father.  It was fun to see Jonas Hacker again, this time as Laertes, Ophelia’s brother; this young tenor is good.  The performance was also enhanced by the participation of bass Matthew Scolin as Horatio, tenor Matt Hill as Marcellus, and bass Timothy Bruno in the brief appearance of Polonius.  It was nice to see Mr. Bruno again since his days at Wolf Trap Opera.  Mr. Scolin and Mr. Hill are members of the Singing Sergeants of the US Air Force; they definitely enhanced my interest in hearing that group sing.  The ensemble arias tended to be especially effective. I hope WCO will be judicious about adding acting elements.  At the end when Scolin and Hill reappeared as gravediggers, they sat on the floor while appearing to be drinking heavily, a funny bit and enjoyed as such, but definitely contrary to the gravity of that scene and distracting from the purpose of opera presented in the concept format, a concentration on the singing and music.

Ok, my bad on this one.  If you get a chance to see Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, check it out for yourself.  And I recommend you check out anything performed by Washington Concert Opera.

The Fan Experience: Washington Concert Opera’s next performance will be Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra on April 5.  The acoustics in Lisner Auditorium are good, but the best seats for sound are the ones nearer the center of the auditorium, away from the walls.  When I drive down to their late Sunday afternoon performances, it is usually possible to find on street parking, which is usually after metered hours – be sure to check the signs where you park.  The Foggy Bottom Metro Stop is only about three blocks away.  You can check the schedule for the Singing Sergeants at this link.   

Baltimore Concert Opera’s The Consul: Powerful Entertainment

Ready for a good time?  Define good.  Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera The Consul (1950) is a good opera, but whether it is a good time depends on your definition.  The production that Baltimore Concert Opera put forward on Friday night and again on Sunday afternoon was powerful and enriching, but not fun.  The Consul is a thoroughly grim opera about attempts to get a passport to escape a police state.  If you want to leave the theater feeling good, this is not your opera, but if you want to leave the theater a little more human, this is a hot ticket.  Audiences in 1950 felt the same way; after premiering in Philadelphia, it had a run of 269 shows on Broadway. 

Melanie Henley Heyn as Magda singing the famous aria “To this we’ve become”. Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker; courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

Mr. Menotti (1911-2007) was the most acclaimed composer of America opera early in his career.  He composed over twenty operas.  The Consul was his seventh and his first full length opera.  An opera he originally wrote for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors, is perhaps his best-known work.  His operas are not often performed in major opera houses today but continue to receive attention in the small to medium-sized venues, both in the US and abroad.  The Consul won the 1950 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best musical and its music was awarded the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Music.  Kudos to Baltimore Concert Opera for pulling this one out of the vault.  With the enormity of immigration issues today in the US and across the world, The Consul’s message could not be timelier.  The courage of today’s small opera companies and their commitment to bring, not only entertaining, but meaningful artistic experiences to their communities could not be more in evidence.

l to r: Jenni Banks as the Mother, Melanie Henley Heyn as Magda, and Ron Loyd as John. Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker; courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

Magda Sorel’s husband John is a freedom fighter, a political dissident, in an unspecified country.  He is wounded by the Secret Police, and before he makes his escape, he tells Madga to go to the consul’s office to get a visa to leave the country to join him.  She does this the next day while her mother stays home with their sick child.  There she runs into an impersonal bureaucracy and an office full of anxious visa-seekers who have been trying for a very long time to get their paperwork processed, each day being told that there is something else they need or haven’t done.  Magda is told by the secretary in the office that her name is a number and her case a request – your hopes will be filed.  We get vignettes of other applicants and their stories of dealing with the office.  While contending with delays and the Secretary’s apparent indifference and attempts to get messages to her husband, Magda is harassed and threatened by the Secret Police.  With time pressing, in order to save her husband, she decides on the final solution. 

This concert opera was semi-staged by BCO, essentially fully staged except for a more elaborate set and costumes.  Artistic Director and General Manager Julia Cooke said they had decided that given the nature of the opera it really needed staging.  I don’t disagree with that decision and it enhanced the delivery of the story, but I also have a concern as well, expressed further down.  There are only two simple settings, Madga’s apartment and the consul’s office, however, Menotti employs certain theatrical elements to communicate the story that need staging for effectiveness, such as a dance, dream sequences, and displays of magic.  The staging was very well done; kudos to Director Courtney Kalbacker. 

Ian McEuen as Nika Magadoff, the magician, and Jeffrey Grayson Gates as Mr. Kofner. Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker; courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

BCO assembled an excellent cast overall for this production which features a large number of roles.  Many of the performers have sung in past BCO productions.  The lead performer in the role of Madga was a newcomer to BCO, Melanie Henley Heyn.  Ms. Heyn, a young dramatic soprano who has performed previously in roles by both Strauss and Wagner, gave an outstanding performance.  The intensity required of this role was such I hope she was able to go directly from the concert hall to a spa.  Also giving an excellent performance in the demanding role of the Secretary was mezzo-soprano Kate Farrar.  Singing to express an unchanging impersonal attitude and not passionate feeling must be difficult for an opera performer, though near the end we see how her impersonal persona amid the human crises weighs on her soul.  With excellent voices and singing, BCO veteran, baritone Ron Loyd as John Sorel and BCO favorite mezzo-soprano Jenni Banks as Magda’s mother were strong additions to the cast; I previously enjoyed both singers in BCO’s Sweeney Todd.  Tenor Ian McEuen gave a deft portrayal of the magician which added a surreal moment of levity to the drama; I have now heard Mr. McEuen give several performances in the DC/Baltimore area and he consistently gives fine performances.  Bass-baritone Joseph Charles Beutel was impressively imposing and sinister as the Secret Police.  Each of the supporting singers had their moments of adding to the drama as supporting characters: Baritone Jeffrey Grayson Gates as Mr. Kofner, soprano Laura Corina Sanders as Vera Boronel, Dana McIntosh as Anna Gomez, and mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino as Vera Boronel.  The ensembles of singers were also very effective.

l to r: The Secretary (Kate Farrar), the Foreign Woman (Laura Corina Sanders), John (Ron Loyd), Anna Gomez (Dana McIntosh), Vera Boronel (Sarah Saturnino), the Mother (Jenni Bank), Mr. Kofner (Jeffrey Grayson Gates), and above, Magda (Melanie Henley Heyn). Photo by Britt Olsen-Ecker; courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

In her pre-opera talk, Conductor Laurie Rogers said that Menotti’s music in The Consul is Italian-verismo style with notes of Puccini, and she even finds notes of Mahler in it; Menotti studied Mahler with his friend Samuel Barber.  I liked the music which seemed appropriate to the story and scenes.  There was a lot of dissonance in the music, but this was clearly called for by the story itself.  What I especially liked about the music was the beautiful touch and sensitivity displayed by pianist Joy Schreier, who provided the accompaniment.  This also brings up an issue I have mixed feelings about.  I thought the staging for this production was fitting, but at the same time, staging shifts the focus from the singing and music to the story.  The great benefit of concert opera is that it squarely places the audience’s attention on the singing and the music.  So, while I give this production high marks, I still don’t know what a concert version of The Consul would sound like.  I have mixed feelings about that.

During the performance and even now, part of me wants to label this opera as somewhat dated in its approach and musical style, like watching a movie from that era.  Yet, each time I think about the opera, the memory not only returns, it haunts me.  Magda being upset with John for having brought such trouble onto the family; the secret police offering to spare her and her husband if Magda will give them the names of John’s friends.  Secretary: “You are not the only one, Mrs. Sorel; there are thousands of cases like yours.  Magda: Must we all die then, because there are too many of us?” and Mother: “I leave behind me nothing but sorrow, but I believe that God receives with kindness the empty handed traveler”.  This production makes us not just see, but feel the human side of immigration – and it stays with you. 

The Consul is the story and plaintiff cry of our fellow humans trapped in nowhere land, unable to escape the danger where they are and unable to surmount the blockades to moving to safety elsewhere, a story frequently found in the headlines of today’s newspapers.  Baltimore Concert Opera told it well and with impact.

The Fan Experience: BCO’s next production will be Donizetti’s Anna Bolena on February 28 and March 1 – remember this year there is a day in between those two.  It is always a pleasure to attend BCO productions in the beautiful and intimate setting of the Engineers Club in Baltimore. The opera was sung in English, but the subtitles in English were still appreciated.  Commuting to BCO during Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic from Tysons Corner, VA is challenging, but is much less daunting for the Sunday matinees; worth the trip either day.  I continue to be able to find free (after hours/weekends – check the signs) street parking, though paid lots are accessible.  And finally, BCO continues to be a bargain for your entertainment dollar.

Opera Lafayette’s Venus and Adonis: Death by Baroque

Opera Lafayette is a class act, always.  They never fail to bring out the crystal, the good china, real silverware, and their desserts are the best, made with authentic ingredients.  On Thursday night’s menu was composer John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, or as I am calling this confection, Death by Baroque.  Instead of a chocolate brownie, Blow’s extraordinary baroque music played on period instruments served as the base, and instead of chocolate syrup, it was ladled with gorgeous voices, and then complemented with precision Baroque dancers, rather than a dollop of vanilla ice cream.  Yet more?  The table was set among the palatial columns of the second story atrium in the Corcoran building, a modest simulation of the premiere of Venus and Adonis in 1683 at the court of Charles II of England.  Here is my brief assessment of this concert: OL’s Death by Baroque was to die for.

l to r: Thomas Dunford, Lea Desandre, Daniel Moody, Patrick Kilbride, and Jonathan Woody open with songs. Rehearsal photo by Louis Forget; courtesy of Opera Lafayette.

Opera Lafayette celebrates its 25th season this year and, for this performance, returned to the venue of its early concerts; in those days, OL was named the Violins of Lafayette.  Singing and dancing were soon added to the concert programs, eventually evolving to focus on opera, hence the name change; read OperaGene’s first blog report on Opera Lafayette at this link.  The mission of OL is to perform, using period instruments, forgotten masterpieces of mainly 17th and 18th opera by French composers.  Over their history, Founder and Artistic Director Ryan Brown has proven exceptionally adroit at finding these gems; I no longer try to decide if I want to see an Opera Lafayette production – I just go.  While it has some connection to France through Charles II’s exile there, Venus and Adonis is the first through composed ‘English opera’.  Charles brought back to England with him an enjoyment of French culture, including courtly entertainments. 

left photo: Lea Desandre as Venus and Douglas Williams as Adonis. right photo: Lea Desandre as Venus and Sarah Shafer as Cupid. Rehearsal photos by Louis Forget; courtesy of Opera Lafayette.

Composer Blow worked as the King’s Composer, and this particular King and his court became known for carefree, even risqué behavior (for an uncensored assessment of the real King and his court, check out “A Satire of Charles II” by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester; the story is that the Earl sent this poem by accident to King Charles which lead to a self-posed period of exile for his safety).  It is notable that among the original cast was a mistress of the King and their illegitimate daughter.  Fortunately for us, Mr. Blow chose the high road in producing classical entertainment.  This is truly beautiful baroque music based on the classic story of Venus and Adonis from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and popularized by Shakespeare’s poem.  His librettist, Anne Kingsmill Finch, a woman author, highly unusual for the times, could not resist tweaking the court with lyrics such as “Your women they continue true/Until they see another man” and shifting from Venus to Adonis who was distraught by him leaving to join the hunt.  Those are but minor embellishments and must have been suffered gladly since I am unaware of any exile being imposed.  The tale told in poetry keeps love and passion and loss at a highly romantic level, and the emotional impact was fully delivered by the team of voices.  We all clutched our breasts and sadly sighed as Adonis spoke his last words after being gored in the hunt.  It was as delicious as a large serving of Death by Chocolate.

Photo bookends are dancers Julia Bengsston and Matthew Ting. Singers l to r are Sarah Shafer, Jonathan Woody, Daniel Moody, Patrick McBride, and Véronique Filloux. Rehearsal photo by Louis Forget; courtesy of Opera Lafayette.

The program was led off and greatly enhanced by songs by John Dowland (1563-1626) and Henry Purcell (1659-1695); England’s famous opera composer Purcell was a student under Blow.  The singers, mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre, countertenor Daniel Moody, tenor Patrick McBride, and bass-baritone Jonathan Woody delivered beautiful, perfectly toned sound.  The visual expressivity by the guys, both during the songs and the opera, were a little over the top, but highly enjoyable, nonetheless.  Lutist extraordinaire and Music Director for the evening Thomas Dunford accompanied the early songs and displayed amazing artistry; he has been referred to as the Eric Clapton of lute players. He was joined by the two additional Continuo players in the later songs, where there was a particularly enjoyable passage with Dunford and harpsichordist Violaine Cochard playing an interactive jazzy baroque riff together. 

The semi-staged production of Venus and Adonis included a prologue and three acts, running just under an hour.  The very high level of vocal and musical excellence continued as the initial vocalists were joined by the remaining cast and the OL orchestra, including Ryan Brown and Jacob Ashworth playing violin, Kyle Miller on viola, Anthony Manzo on base, Nina Stern on recorder, and Margaret Owens on recorder and Oboe – all superb musicians.  Playing Venus was Ms. Desandre whose lovely voice and deftness at emotional intonation were a highlight; it would be difficult to over praise this young mezzo singing this music.  Bass-baritone Douglas Williams sang well and looked the part of a dashing, handsome prince that the goddess of love might desire.  The other specified role, that of Venus’ son Cupid, was sung handsomely by soprano Sarah Shafer.  The additional singers played shepherds, shepherdesses, and huntsmen as needed, each getting a chance to shine, including soprano Véronique Filloux as well as aforementioned Moody, Kilbride, and Woody.  I will single out Daniel Moody a bit more.  I always feel that the countertenor is the singer that distinguishes baroque opera, and Mr. Moody’s clarion countertenor provided a strong beacon for this opera.  In fact, the entire cast was a delight.

left photo: Dancers Matthew Ting and Julia Bengsston. right photo: Singer Véronique Filloux, dancers Matthew Ting, and Julia Bengsston. Rehearsal photos by Louis Forget; courtesy of Opera Lafayette.

In costumes appropriate to the period were dancers Julia Bengsston and Matthew Ting, whose movements throughout the opera added interest and charm.  Their involvement was choreographed by Ms. Bengsston.  The addition of white masks towards the end for the dancers and Ms. Filloux added a ghostly effect.  I simply enjoyed the dancing, but for an interesting expert’s critique of this aspect of the performance, I refer you to a review by Susan Galbraith, who is experienced in musical drama.  I personally detected no off flavors in any of this.

left photo: Loretta O’Sullivan, Thomas Dunford, Violaine Cochard, and Lea Desandre. right photo: Cast sings to mourn the fallen Adonis. Rehearsal photos by Louis Forget; courtesy of Opera Lafayette.

Opera Lafayette’s Venus and Adonis or Death by Baroque, what’s in a name?  Opera Lafayette, originally Violins of Lafayette, has a motto for this year of ‘Celebrating 25 Years of Reawakening Masterpieces’.  That I think is more a performer’s perspective.  As a now devoted fan of Opera Lafayette, I would call them ‘Rediscovered Recipes for Delights’.  Maybe there is something in a name.

The Fan Experience: OL performed Venus and Adonis once more, the next day, moving it to NYC.  OL performs each production in both DC and NYC.  Their next opera, Beethoven’s Leonore will play in DC on February 26 and in NYC on March 2. 

Venus and Adonis is sung in English, and the program booklet contained lyrics for all the songs and the libretto for the opera which is very short.  I find understanding even English when sung in operatic style problematic, but I gave up trying to go back and forth reading the lyrics and watching the performers and just enjoyed what I was seeing and hearing.  I had gotten the gist of what was transpiring from my earlier quick scan of the program book.

It was quite a treat to get to see inside the Corcoran Building, which is formally named the Flagg Building.  Until 2014, this was the Corcoran Gallery of Art before its art works were given to the National Gallery of Art, and the building was given to George Washington University.  The building remains home to GWU’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.  The Salon Dore’ or the French Room in the building was the actual spot for Opera Lafayette’s first performance; it is a relatively small, but absolutely gorgeous room.

The venue fit the history of OL and the intimacy of this performance beautifully.  However, the acoustics and the lack of tiered seating would be issues for regular presentations there, not to mention that with its success, Opera Lafayette has way outgrown the size of this venue.  Their next performance in DC will move back to the Kennedy Center; OL’s popularity has grown to the point that even there tickets can be hard to come by.

Virginia Opera’s Il Postino: The Guiding Force of Love

If Daniel Catán had lived longer he might have become known as the Frank Capra of opera. Capra was the director of many of our most beloved, heartwarming movies, including It’s a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  These are not the movies that make it onto critics’ all-time best lists; these are the movies that touch our hearts, and we watch over and over.  The holiday season is approaching – are you not going to watch Jimmy Stewart get saved by the angel Clarence one more time?  The guiding force of love is Mr. Catán’s theme, as was Mr. Capra’s.  Il Postino (The Postman, 2010) is a beautiful production based on that theme, expressed in poetry.  Seeing it might even help you earn your wings, bell not included.

Postman Mario Ruoppolo making his rounds. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of the Virginia Opera.

Composer Catan wrote four operas and was working on a fifth when he died, in addition to a substantial body of orchestral work.  Florencia en el Amazonas, also a Catán opera where love triumphs, just completed a run at Pittsburg Opera.  His unfinished opera Meet John Doe is based on a 1941 movie of same name, directed by none other than Frank Capra.  Mr. Catán wrote the libretto for Il Postino based on the popular 1994 movie of the same name which was itself based on Antonio Skármeta’s book, Ardiente Paciencia.  The opera was premiered in 2010 by the Los Angeles Opera with Plácido Domingo playing Mario.  Catán is known for lush, Puccini-like scores and has written the first operas composed in Spanish to become popular in the US.  Unless, you speak Spanish, I doubt whether an opera is in Spanish or Italian will make much difference to you, since the sound of the languages when sung are similar.  Virginia Opera’s Glenn Winters has an excellent blog report on why opera has not flourished in Spain.

Matilde (Inna Dukach) and husband Pablo Neruda (Raúl Melo) in exile. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of the Virginia Opera.

In Il Postino, the famous (real-life) poet Pablo Neruda has been exiled from Chile for being a member of the Chilean Communist Party, and he and his wife Matilde have taken up residence on the fictitious island of Cala di Sotto off the coast of Italy.  Mario, a young man from the lower class, has been given a job as a postman with Neruda being his only customer.  Mario wants to learn poetry to give him an edge in winning the love of women.  He and Neruda become friends and together examine the nature of metaphor and poetry.  He is also influenced by the poet’s political leanings.  With the poet’s help, he wins the hand of Beatrice.  But Mario’s personal growth is not over.  Life moves on; he has seen what life can be on the other side of the prison bars of class divide, but he has not escaped them.  Neruda returns to Chile, and local politics come crashing down.  Only one poet remains on Cala di Sotto, Mario.

Neruda (Raúl Melo) explains metaphor to Mario (Daniel Montenegro). Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of the Virginia Opera.

One of the highlights of Virginia Opera’s Il Postino is the cast, beginning with tenor Daniel Montenegro who has a winning voice and portrays Mario about as effectively as this role could possibly be played.  Mr. Montenegro has a long history with this opera, consulting with Catán on the role and playing Mario in a production with Plácido Domingo.  The other dominant role in the opera is that of Neruda, sung by tenor Raúl Melo with a strong, clear voice; he gave us a very convincing portrayal of the poet.  Soprano Danielle Talamantes sings well and plays Beatrice in an affecting performance.  I did not think that soprano Inna Dukach always sang perfectly but portrayed Matilde sensuously and has a captivating voice.  Mezzo-soprano Dana Beth Miller gave us an over excited Donna Rosa, Beatrice’s mother.  Baritone Brett Bode as Mario’s friend Giogio and baritone Efrain Solis as the politician Di Cosimo gave fine supporting performances. 

Mario (Daniel Montenegro) is engaged in a game with Beatrice Russo (Danielle Talamantes) while the three women spirits look on. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of the Virginia Opera.

The Virginia Symphony Orchestra shone under Conductor Adam Turner’s baton in bringing Daniel Catán’s rich score to life.  The music is cleverly designed to not just fit the mood of a scene but to add color to flesh out the story.  In the program notes, Mr. Turner gives the example of how the nature of the music changes as it follows Mario’s growth and development.  If you just attended with eyes closed, you would get your money’s worth.  Catán occasionally mixes in elements of Latin American music with distinctive rhythms, especially with a tango dance scene; I wish he had done more of this.  There is one aspect I feel probably limits the opera’s long run popularity.  The arias are quite beautiful and, in listening to Catán scores two weeks in a row, I believe he was a gifted composer, but none of the arias have melodies that I went home humming, a little surprising considering how much I enjoyed the music.  In this case, part of what captivated me and drew me in was the music contained in Neruda’s poetry.  The excellent chorus also added measurably to the enjoyment of this performance. 

The wedding party, l to r: Neruda (Raúl Melot), Mario’s father (Miguel Girona), Mario (Daniel Montenegro), Beatrice (Danielle Talamantes), and Donna Rosa (Dana Beth Miller). Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of the Virginia Opera.

There are two ways to look at the staging of VA Opera’s Il Postino.  One is that the limitations of budget and space showed; the action in Il Postino is tightly focused in a small space while trying to convey the impression that Mario rides his bike across the island and stops in several settings.  A fairer viewpoint is that Director Crystal Mannich managed to craft a charming and engaging production using resources available; kudos to her.  To make a stationary bike appear to move when a movie camera cannot follow it over backroads of an island, the set itself revolves.  Stairs descending and winding create an island affect and the scenes of Neruda’s house, the post office, and a bar room appear as the set revolves.  Movements of characters on stage are accented by three attractive women dancers who offer various poses among the other characters.  Ms. Mannich says that they represent the emotional awakening of female desire.  They certainly add interest and a lyrical quality to the performance, though the connection to the story are not well made.  It is unfortunate that Ms. Mannich did not have Matilde display more nudity in response to the passionate aria, “Desnuda”, sung by Neruda as a tribute to his wife.  I feel this is truly a case where nudity was called for as part of the drama.  The lighting and projections were well done, adding to the atmosphere of politics and poetry.  Kudos to Scenic Designer Liliana Duque Piñeiro, Lighting Designer Paul Hackenmueller, and Projection Designer Tláloc López-Watermann.

left photo: Mario (Daniel Montenegro) confers with his friend Giorgo (Brett Bodet). Right photo: Politician Di Cosimo (Efrain Solis). Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of the Virginia Opera.

Artistic Director and Conductor Adam Turner says this opera initiates a series for Virginia Opera of “From Screen to Stage”, operas based on movies, partly intended to give audiences a soft introduction to modern music and opera.  It is perhaps poetic that Il Postino leads off the series, especially if you like Frank Capra movies.  And poetry by Pablo Neruda. Island. Sea. Friend.  Roses. Spider web. Metamorphosis.  By the way, my mention of angel wings above is also a metaphor.

Top to Bottom: Donna Rosa (Dana Beth Miller), Beatrice (Danielle Talamantes), Mario (Daniel Montenegro), and Giorgio (Brett Bode) celebrating recording the sound of the baby Beatrice carries. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of the Virginia Opera.

The Fan Experience:  Il Postino now moves to Richmond for its final two performances on Friday evening, November 22, and Sunday afternoon, November 24.  The opera is sung in Spanish with English subtitles. As always, I strongly recommend the pre-opera talk by Dr. Glenn Winters, Virginia Opera’s Community Outreach Musical Director.  I also recommend his Dr. Opera blog reports on Il Postino.  The pre-opera talks begin forty-five minutes before the performances; arrive early to ensure you get a seat.   

National Symphony Orchestra’s Tristan and Isolde: Where’s Isolde?

I had expected the second half of my headline on this blog report to read “The Legend Continues” as a new soprano sings the role of Isolde, but that is not the story of this performance.  When expectations are so high, the pain cuts deep.  I went to the National Symphony Orchestra’s concert version of Act II of Tristan und Isolde Friday night expecting that soprano Christine Goerke was going to knock my socks off.   I wanted her to knock my socks off; in fact, I needed her to knock my socks off.  Instead, for some reason, she allowed the Wagnerian thumping NSO to overwhelm her sound and it didn’t have to try that hard.  There is so much that was excellent Friday evening and that I enjoyed, but it was Ms. Goerke’s holding back that impaled me like Melot’s thrust into Tristan’s side to end Act II.  I have been a fan of Christine Goerke ever since seeing her sing Turandot at the Met a few years back, and my expectations were very high.  Even this morning, I feel wounded by disappointment.  In fairness, I must add that it was an exiting evening and the audience ate it up, offering a thunderous standing ovation that brought the performers out for a second round of bows.

The National Symphony Orchestra in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall beginning Act II of Tristan und Isolde. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Why refer to Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (1865) as legend?  There is quite a history to this opera.  It has reportedly ruined singers’ voices and driven some performers mad; the opera runs almost four hours long.  It took several years to compose and several more to bring to the stage. Wagner’s telling of this well known fable reflects aspects of his own love life and philosophical maturation. Love for these lovers becomes all consuming even to a metaphysical state. It’s style of composition and use of music was something new for its time and is considered to have constructed a new musical language for extended expressions of passion/eroticism, and made great demands on conductors and singers.  Even today it requires certain voice types and extensive training.  In comments made back in January introducing NSO’s new season, conductor Gianandrea Noseda stated that he viewed music as “before Tristan und Isolde” and “after Tristan und Isolde”.  For the music world, Tristan und Isolde was an inflection point not only for opera, but for music itself. 

Stephen Gould as Tristan and Christine Goerke as Isolde. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Adding to interest was the fact that two of today’s premier performers, Mr. Noseda and Ms. Goerke, were venturing into this opera for the first time.  Indeed, Ms. Goerke needed to glance at the music on a stand while no one else in the cast did; Act II is primarily a duet between Isolde and Tristan.  This production was such an appealing event that it lured NY Time critic Anthony Tommasini down to the Kennedy Center for a review.  He referred to Mr. Noseda and Ms. Goerke as “testing the Wagnerian waters” and said that Ms. Goerke demonstrated “sheen, but lacked blaze”; might he have been a little disappointed?  Washington Classical Review critic Charles Downey said that “this was an Isolde of more subtle delights”; hmmmm.  When I asked my son what he thought of Ms. Goerke’s performance, he simply said he couldn’t hear her - ouch - but, all too often, neither could I.  There were a few sublime moments, such as the last few arias of their love duet, especially the hauntingly beautiful melody of “So starben wir (Thus, might we die)”. If this was a trial run for Ms. Goerke to hone her take on Isolde, she must at least somehow find a way to be heard over an orchestra playing Wagner’s tumultuous music.  That seems to me to be quite a challenge even when singing full force, as near the end.  I’m still a huge fan, though I am disappointed by her performance (choices?) this time.

Ekaterina Gubanova as Brangaene and Christine Goerke as Isolde. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Which brings me to the National Symphony Orchestra’s performance under the direction of star conductor Gianandrea Noseda.  I love the National Symphony Orchestra.  I think it should be an essential element of a required course for graduation from high school and college.  If you read OperaGene often, you know that I’m a music lover, not a music expert, so keep that in mind.  I was delighted to hear the full NSO on stage playing the music to an opera, quite a treat.  (I regularly attend performances of Washington Concert Opera and Baltimore Concert Opera).  Though intimidated at first, I have become a Wagner fan; Washington National Opera’s Ring Cycle a few years back is one of my favorite opera experiences (Ms. Goerke came in to give us a terrific Bruunilde for one espisode when the scheduled soprano was injured).  Mr. Noseda is scheduled to conduct a Ring Cycle himself in the Zurich Opera House where he also serves as General Music Director.  On this occasion, I greatly enjoyed NSO’s playing, though it seemed a little raw in spots, sometimes not so smooth or refined, part of that at least due to Wagner’s music itself, I suspect.  Also, occasionally the music overpowered the singers, rather often in Ms. Goerke’s case.  With Wagner it is not always clear if the orchestra is accompanying the singers or the singers are accompanying the orchestra. The composer felt the vocal line expressed concrete thoughts, ideas, feelings, and what the orchestra expressed was primal feeling that could not be articulated. Thus, much time of critics and musicologists has been spent on the meaning of Tristan und Isolde. All I can say is that if Wagner’s music hooks you, you are seriously hooked. Bottom line - I would definitely go again to hear NSO play Wagner.  In fact, let me make this a plea to NSO – more concert opera, please!

Günther Groissböck as King Marke, Stephen Gould as Tristan, and Christine Goerke as Isolde. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of the National Symphony Orchestra.

The remainder of the cast was excellent and performed beautifully.  I was quite impressed with Stephen Gould’s tenor voice and singing.  A big surprise for me was mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova who played Brangaene.  At the point where Tristan and Isolde start to embrace, I heard this beautiful sound, loud and clear, and I thought, at last, Goerke is going to turn it on, but I spotted Ms. Gubanova on the stage balcony singing to warn the lovers; it was the servant girl’s voice I was enjoying.  Tenor Neal Cooper acquitted himself well as Melot as did baritone Hunter Enoch as Kurwenal in his brief entrance.  Bass-baritone Günther Groissböck was outstanding as King Marke.  I find Marke’s entrance at the point where he learns his closest supporter and friend Tristan has betrayed him to be one of the most poignant scenes in opera and Mr. Groissböck carried it off exceedingly well. 

l to r: Hunter Enoch, Neal Cooper, Stephen Gould, Gianandrea Noseda, Ekaterina Gubanova, and Christine Goerke. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Friday nights’ was the second of only two performances.  If there were more, would I recommend them?  That question ties me up.  I’m glad I went and enjoyed the experience despite my disappointment in not getting the performance I wanted from Ms. Goerke.  So, I’ve told you my reactions; that’s the best I can offer for this one.  But see below for how you can view a recording of the performance online.

The Fan Experience:  Certainly, having this cast of singers and the NSO performing Wagner made a compelling case for this concert.  However, Act II began without an introduction.  It was probably safe to assume that most people in Friday night’s audience were familiar with Tristan und Isolde.  But suppose, you started Game of Thrones with episode 2.  You would be beginning without some important background information, and more importantly, your emotions about the characters and events would have to get up to speed very quickly.  I felt that way Friday night; it has been a while since I viewed this opera.  An introduction to allow us to get into the emotional moment might have been helpful. As part of my plea to NSO, I will add to do complete operas in concert; short ones are okay, but at least set the scenes for single act performances. 

The Friday night performance was broadcast live online by medici.tv, and the recording is currently available for viewing; however, medici.tv is a subscription service and you will have to sign up for at least a month ($12.99)to view the entire Act II, though you can watch the prelude for free (if you like the service, until the end of November there is a 40% discount for year’s subscription).  I’m debating whether to sign up.  I wonder if the placement of the microphones might allow Ms. Goerke’s voice more prominence.  The sound in the Concert Hall was recorded but not amplified nor broadcast through speakers.

Pittsburgh Opera’s Florencia en el Amazonas: You Must See It Twice

Out of compassion for busy readers, I like to begin my reports on opera performances with the bottom line.  If all you want to know is whether I liked it or not, you are spared reading the entire report.  I sometimes read reviews where I get to the end without really knowing whether the reviewer enjoyed the performance or not.  So yes, I liked Pittsburgh Opera’s Florencia en el Amazonas, but if you want to know why I recommend seeing it twice you will have to read further.

The steamboat Eldorado is boarding as Florencia en el Amazonas begins. Photo by David Bachman Photography; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

Mexican composer Daniel Catán and his librettist Marcia Fuentes-Berain, once a student of Catán’s, have concocted an opera that reminds me of classic movies of old, a great story where love prevails.  A voyage down a river (ask your therapist) guided by a spiritual apparition, a stalwart Capitán whose lover is life itself, his nephew trying to find himself, a young female journalist trying to find herself (already you know what is going to happen, right?), a married couple struggling to stay together, and an opera diva seeking the love of her life, Cristóbal, a butterfly hunter that she left behind to pursue her career, is the mix for this emotionally powerful drama.  The story is based upon the books of Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Márquez and is imbued with the magic realism of his writings – the magic seems to fit naturally in the story (with maybe one exception I won’t spoil for you).  Catán’s music is lush and melodic with beautiful arias for all the characters; his music is said to be Puccini-like in that regard.  Conductor Antony Walker, a sure hand in the pit, and the Pittsburgh Opera never sounded better to me. 

left: Diva Florencia Grimaldi (Alexandra Loutsion) arrives as Riolobo (Craig Verm) looks on and the Captain (Ashraf Sewailam) moves forward. right: Rosalba (Natasha Wilson) is amazed that Arcadio (Andres Acosta) has recovered her journal dropped overboard. Photos by David Bachman Photography; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

The role of Florencia Grimaldi is sung by Pittsburgh native, soprano Alexandra Loutsion.  I have heard Ms. Loutsion in several performances now and her voice and vocals continue to impress.  I didn’t think she displayed sufficient gravitas early on in the role, but the lyricism of her transcendent love arias in the second act carried the day.  Baritone Craig Verm, who just finished appearing in PO’s Don Giovanni, is a standout visually and vocally, as the spirit Riolobo.  The young journalist Rosalba is played convincingly by soprano Natasha Wilson and her duets with developing love interest Arcadio, the captain’s nephew, played by Andres Acosta, are warm and pleasing.  The Capitán is sung in fine vocal form by Ashraf Sewailam, who fit the role perfectly.  Finally, the married couple, Alvaro and Paula, were sung by established stars baritone Nathan Gunn and mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy.  They added a sort of Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers charm and class to the performance, even in their arguments, and for my wife, their interactions and singing together were the highlight of the performance.  They were all aided by the assistance of the young cabin boy, well-played by Perry J. Gatch, IV.

Spirit Riolobo (Craig Verm) who appears where he is needed explains dinner as Alvaro (Nathan Gunn) and Paula (Sandra Piques Eddy) look on as the Cabin Boy (Perry J. Gatch, IV) displays the grilled option. Photo by David Bachman Photography; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

Florencia en el Amazonas is a challenging opera to stage.  After all, it involves a boat cruise down the Amazon river, including a violent storm along the way.  I thought this aspect was handled effectively by a boat hull that moved back and forth across the stage and a movie screen behind it that displayed both static and moving images to create the impression of moving down the Amazon.  This is a colorful production with costumes that are appealing and befit the setting. The scenes on the large screen ranged from realistic to impressionistic, from video to paintings. The staging provided an artistic backdrop to aid in the suspension of disbelief required of opera audiences.  I did have the feeling of wishing to see this story in a movie with modern special effects and cinematography, but then I’d miss the live singing afforded by opera.  Kudos are deserved by stage director Stephanie Havey and a long list of artistic staff involved in bringing this off.  

Arcadio (Andres Acosta) takes command as he and Rosalba (Natasha Wilson) see the churning waters; the captain (Ashraf Sewailam) is downed with Paula (Sandra Piques Eddy) by his side. Photo by David Bachman Photography; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

Okay, why see it twice?  In a sense, I had two viewings of Florencia Saturday night, the first half con la aplicación móvil and the second, sin la aplicación móvil.  Why the Spanish – you must read on.  My google translate attempt at Spanish says “with the mobile app” and “without the mobile app”.  This season, Pittsburgh Opera (begun with Don Giovanni) offers audiences a mobile app that provides additional opera information which can be accessed before and during performances; yes, I said “during performances”.  I’m sure that the very idea makes opera purists nauseous; however, I found the concept to be intriguing and wanted to give the app a try. 

To use the app, you must download the Pittsburgh Opera Mobile App to your smartphone, and to use audio in the opera house you must use earphones.  Fortunately, I always have my iPhone and Air Pods with me.  I dutifully downloaded the app.  Surprisingly, I was unable to find instructions on the PO website on how to manage all this, which could be helpful; in fact the app seems downplayed.  The app itself has a list of instructions once you dial in while inside the theater.  I dimmed the brightness of the screen as low as I could and still be able to read the screen; I even shifted my screen to dark mode.  I turned on the Do Not Disturb feature of my iPhone and connected the phone to my Air Pods by Bluetooth.  Though I was apprehensive, no one seemed to be staring at me for wearing Air Pods, a very polite audience.  I put the phone on the seat between my legs and asked my wife to tell me if the remaining light bothered her.  At intermission she said it was a little distracting but okay.  Nobody had asked me to turn it off nor even given me nasty looks.  I did not spot anyone else close to me that I could tell was using the app.  Once you click on the performance and select where next to click – before the opera, act I, intermission, act II – the app has a “Go Live” button at the bottom right to get you synced up and running. 

Riolobo (Craig Verm) appears as a river-spirit to calm the storm. Photo by David Bachman Photography; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

What did the mobile app offer?  I was focused on the opera starting and not prepared for the first vocal message through my Air Pods; I thought someone was talking behind me at first, but I quickly got the hang of the text and vocal messages.  I thought the vocal messages were much better for me than the text ones – looking over the stage for the English translations, then at the stage, then down at my iPhone was doable but a bit much.  I once accidentally tapped my screen and went for a couple of minutes without realizing I needed to click Go Live again.  Mostly the verbal messages seemed to slide in between vocalizations on the stage but not always; the synchronization with happenings on the stage was quite good.  The verbal messages most often explained how the music was reflecting the scene; for example, during Florencia’s first aria the message named instruments in the music and how they were meant to convey the nature of the churning water; other times how the style of the singing reflected the emotions being conveyed, and so forth.  There was historical information about Brazil and the geology of the Amazon given, even an attempt at humor about grilled iguana.  A few important insights were given such as highlighting the captain’s comment that “no turn in life is ever a return”.  One could click on highlighted words in the text to get definitions, such as for “aria”, helpful for opera newbies.  There were a few pictures and there was an explanation for the map on the scrim screen on stage.  There were cast member interviews during the intermission.  For sure, if it’s use continues, providing the most engaging information in the most helpful way will become an art form in itself.

I had decided before coming that I would use the app for the first Act and then view Act II as usual because I had not seen the opera before.  My iPhone battery reinforced that decision.  If you are going to use the app, make sure you charge your phone right before coming!

l to r: Rosalba (Natasha Wilson), Arcadio (Andres Acosta), Florencia (Alexandra Loutsion), Capitán (Ashraf Sewailam), Paula (Sandra Piques Eddy), and Alvaro (Nathan Gunn) learn they cannot depart at the port because cholera is raging. Photo by David Bachman Photography; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

How would I compare my experience of Act I with the app to that of Act II without the app?  It’s mixed, so bear with me.  My Air Pods are not noise canceling, so I did not feel deprived of sound in Act I while they sat in my ears.  Mostly the app was silent, offering additional information only from time to time.  The extra information provided by the app did take me a little out of the game emotionally, but on the other hand, it did add a lot of interesting insights that enhanced my appreciation for what was happening on stage and in the music.  I was more involved intellectually and maybe a tad bit less emotionally.

Which do I recommend?  Both.  These are simply different experiences; they engage in different ways and on different levels.  Perhaps a useful analogy is going through a museum and seeing the paintings without knowing much about them versus doing it with a guide who comments on the paintings, but imagine that if the paintings were videos.  I missed the app during Act II, though in a way I enjoyed Act II more – maybe Act II was simply better.  I’m tempted to say to use the app when you’ve seen the opera before, but not the first time.  However, I really feel it is a personal choice about what you enjoy most.  You might choose to get as caught up in the drama as you possibly can whether you have seen it before or not.  Or you might enjoy also getting caught up in, and in a way, becoming part of the production itself, then use the app regardless.  As for me, I’m not sure I can resist using the app again even for operas I have not seen before; the decision will be a struggle.  Remember, these are my first impressions on using the mobile app just once.  

Diva Florencia Grimaldi (Alexandra Loutsion) sings a provocative, metaphysical denouement. Photo by David Bachman Photography; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

My use of the Spanish phrases is to point out that this opera is sung in Spanish.  It was the first opera in Spanish I have attended.  For me, I don’t speak Italian or Spanish and the similarities in the sounds of the words in both languages make them equally enjoyable to me.  In fact, I was well into the opera before I noticed and reminded myself it was in Spanish.

Pittsburgh Opera’s Florencia en el Amazonas is a very enjoyable evening of compelling theater, fine operatic singing, and melodious music.  The singing and the story will have you leaving the theater with a smile on your face and warmth in your heart.  I strongly recommend seeing it twice, once con la aplicación móvil and once, sin la aplicación móvil.  See which you like better.  I like them both, though I must admit that I am leaning towards con.   

The Fan Experience:  In addition to what I report above about Pittsburgh Opera’s mobile app, let me add that the Benedum Center is a marvelous place to see an opera, great sound and absolutely gorgeous.  Florencia en el Amazonas plays again on November 12, 15, and 17; tickets are available in all price ranges.  For this one, I might recommend not to sit too close to the sides to ensure that you can see all the stage and the screen; the Pittsburgh Opera contact number for information is 412-281-0912.  I hear that a new company is running the concessions and that hot dogs may be available in the future; just a rumor?  Kristin Gatch, mom of the Cabin Boy and Assistant to the General Director/Board Liaison for Pittsburgh Opera, gives a pre-opera talk one hour prior to performances covering background information and snippets of the music. A guide on PO’s website with instructions for finding the mobile app, how to know you found the right app, and how and when to look for and start the app section that relates to operation during the performance, might be helpful addition.

Washington National Opera’s The Magic Flute: That’s Entertainment and More

OperaGene’s quick take:

• WNO’s The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte in German) is a delightful evening’s entertainment, achieving an effective comedic presentation while also engaging important deeper themes.

• The opera is an allegorical comedy composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with an original libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, suitable for both adults and children.

• Sets and costumes designed by children’s author/illustrator Maurice Sendak are a treat in themselves.

• The opera is sung in English with projected titles in English, and the cast is excellent overall.

• The WNO Orchestra and the chorus are outstanding, giving full measure to Mozart’s fabulous music.

• WNO’s production plays until November 23; performances run slightly over three hours including a twenty-five minute intermission.

David Portillo in the role of Tamino. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Prince Tamino is chased by a serpent into a magical realm where he is befriended by bird hunter Papageno, whose interests are finding a good meal, a good glass of wine, and a wife.   The prince is shown a picture of Princess Pamina and falls in love with her.  He begins a quest with Papageno’s help to find and win her with the support of her mother, the Queen of the Night, and her agents.  The queen seeks the return of her daughter who had been captured by a brotherhood, the enemy of the queen.  The opera mines the nature of the quest and its enchanted landscape for comedic effect and takes on a more serious dimension when the Pamina and Tamino encounter the brotherhood, and Papageno encounters Papagena. 

kneeling l to r: Michael Adams as Papageno and David Portillo as Tamino. Standing: l to r the three ladies, Alexandria Shiner, Deborah Nansteel, and Meredith Arwady. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

A friend once told me as I was just starting to listen to opera that The Magic Flute was a crazy story, but Mozart’s music was great.  My response to previous viewings has been colored by that assessment, and I have not taken the story very seriously.  WNO’s production succeeded in showing me how much more is contained in this story.  Though Flute can simply be enjoyed as an amusing fantasy with great music, its story is highly meaningful on several levels.  Mozart died ten weeks after the premiere of The Magic Flute.  He sensed before his death that his time was running short.  He joined the Freemasons, a group misunderstood and mistrusted by the general public, in an effort to come to terms with the great questions of life.  His was the Age of Enlightenment, the triumph of reason, and Mozart was a leader.  The mysterious Freemasons and their lodges were under close surveillance at that time by an Austrian monarchy feeling threatened by the shock waves of the French Revolution.  Mozart worked with his librettist Schikaneder, also a Mason, to develop an opera to entertain the masses, not just the nobility, and at the same time, present the order of Freemasons, not so named in the opera, as benign men of high purpose, dedicated to truth and virtue and the equality of all men.  Flute’s fantasy has drawn varied interpretations and meaning from many creative storytellers since its premiere, including early poet/dramatist Goethe, who started but did not finish a sequel to the opera, to the more modern film maker Ingmar Bergman who made a movie based on the opera.

l to r: Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the night and Sydney Mancasola as Pamina. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Because Flute is a fantasy set in ancient times with ancient gods and is meant to both be funny and to astound with stage effects, there is great latitude in how it can be presented and many creative artists have given their time to this effort, including a beloved presentation at the Met using Julie Taymor’s puppets a few years back.  Maurice Sendak worked with the Houston Grand Opera for a 1980 premiere to create scrims and sets that aligned well with his illustrations for Where the Wild Things Are.  Scenery design for WNO’s production is realized by Neil Peter Jambolis based on Sendak’s designs; he also served as lighting director.  I found the sets and scenery to be a delight and work exceedingly well with the fantasy of The Magic Flute.  Christopher Mattaliano’s direction is clear and crisp and moved things along well, but one issue I have with several of Mozart’s operas are scenes that are overextended, running on too long, and Flute certainly has some of those.  Those moments are typically sustained by Mozart’s great music, but Saturday night I found that the good feelings and interest elicited by Sendak’s designs, and the way they are used to tell the story, made the overlong scenes seem to pass more quickly.  It was neat that Jambolis and Mattaliano have been with the production since its inception and appeared on stage for the round of applause at the curtain.

l to r: David Cangelosi as Monostatos, Sidney Mancasola as Pamina, and Michael Adams as Papageno. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Conductor Eun Sun Kim and the WNO Orchestra gave a very pleasurable reading of Mozart’s music and the entire production was enhanced by excellent choral numbers directed by Steven Gathman.  One thought I had as I sat there was how much I would enjoy hearing Maestro Kim direct a large on-stage orchestra playing this music.  Masonic symbolism can even be found in the music; attend the pre-opera talk to learn about this.  I tend to think that opera sung in English is not the best sound, but the poetry and rhyming in Andrew Porter’s English translation for Schikaneder’s libretto works beautifully with Mozart’s music, and being able to understand the spoken sections in this singspiel (recitatives are spoken not sung) without resorting to the overhead supertitles was a great relief to my neck; in fact, there are no supertitles for the spoken dialog in WNO’s production.

Wei Wu as Sarastro. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

The Magic Flute uses a lot of singers and Mozart provides the lead singers with great arias.  There is Tamino, Papageno, the Queen of the Night, Pamina, and Sarastro, leader of the brotherhood, in principal roles, plus in critical supporting roles, the three ladies, Monostatos, Papagena, Speaker, and three spirits as well as others.  There are twenty-four performers named in the program book; all contributed positively to the performance.  Not only that, but Flute productions tend to recast many of the same performers.  Tenor David Portillo who sang the role of Tamino was a standout Saturday night with a beautiful voice and singing; he will head to the Met to sing the same role later this year.  Soprano Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night showed an impressive coloratura, exciting and somewhat edgy in the aria we all wait for, “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen”; she will also be going to the Met to sing the same role.  Soprano Sydney Mancasola has a lovely voice and an appealing lovestruck manner as Pamina, a role she has sung previously at the Met.  Baritone Michael Adams gave us a funny, pleasing Papageno; he is a former Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist and a veteran of the past several WNO seasons.  Bass baritone Wei Wu sang the role of Sarastro with clear diction and a pace filled with gravitas the role called for; he is also an alumnus of the Domingo-Cafritz program.  Tenor David Cangelosi, also a WNO veteran, sang well and was a comic delight as Monostatos in his lecherous pursuit of Pamina.  Soprano Alexandra Nowakowski was also a charmer singing the role of Papagena, though having her appear oversized as well as aged was a questionable directorial choice, given the current controversy over body shaming in opera.  In a brief stint, bass Kevin Short gave us an eloquent cautionary Speaker.  I will only further mention the three ladies sung by Alexandria Shiner, mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel, and contralto Meredith Arwady, all previous WNO performers.  At first, I worried about their harmony, but they grew on me quickly to the point that I was disappointed when their time on the stage was done.  Lastly, as a group, kudos for the beautiful sound and singing provided by the three spirits sung by two groups of young boys and girls that will rotate among the performances.  The entire cast contributed to a wonderful performance.

A closing scene in the brotherhood lodge. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

The Magic Flute is a much more remarkable and meaningful opera than I have previously realized, and WNO’s production checks all the boxes for success with the added pleasure of Maurice Sendak’s design of the set and costumes.  All of this, of course is supported by Mozart’s great music.  I just read a quote attributed to theologian Karl Barth to the effect that when the angels play music for God, they play Bach, but when they play music for themselves, they play Mozart.  Sendak was himself a huge Mozart fan, and angelic music is just fine with me.

The Fan Experience:  Additional performances of The Magic Flute are scheduled for November 6, 9, 12, 15, 22, and 23.  The opera is performed in English though written in German and English supertitles are projected as well.  Additionally, there is a ticketed “Family Look-In” presentation on The Magic Flute scheduled for 1:30 pm on November 23, which provides an introduction to opera for children (ages 5 and up) with excerpts of Flute to be performed by Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists. There is a pre-opera talk one hour before performances given by Ken Weiss, Principal Coach for the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists program; I found the background information and insights such as the role the number three plays in the music to be helpful. 

For the sake of my neck, I personally wish that WNO would make plans to switch the titles to back of the seat viewing, such as the Met and the Santa Fe Opera use.  I again took the subway to Foggy Bottom where the Red Kennedy Center bus was waiting on 23rd street at the subway exit, by far the least stressful way to attend events at KC. My wife again made the dash from Reston leaving work at 6 pm and found smooth sailing on this trip.

Washington National Opera’s Otello: That Darn Handkerchief

Some alternate lead headers I might have used:

 “Strong Cast Carries an Entertaining Otello”

“Verdi’s Mature Composition Style Amazes”

So, why lead with a comment about a detail, a handkerchief which Iago portrays as evidence that Desdemona has been unfaithful to Otello?  There is a scene in WNO’s season opening production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello where Iago tells Otello to pay attention to Desdemona’s handkerchief and there is a titter of laughter in the audience.  Librettist Arrigo Boito did not write a funny line or scene, so why does the audience laugh?  There were laughs in a few other moments as well.  I think the audience response is the predictable result of presenting a work well known to opera fans, based on a Shakespearean play well known by virtually everyone.  The irony in certain lines becomes amusing when we know well the storylines of the opera and its conclusion.  The line has become a victim of familiarity and the passage of time.  Nevertheless, it creates a stumble for the audience’s immersion in the drama.  It is a clear sign that the telling of the story is wanting for a modern audience.

Desdemona (Leah Crocetto), center, and a fearful Cyprian crowd peer through the storm for Otello’s ship. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Director David Alden’s set and staging compound this fundamental limitation with a set and staging that struck me as baffling.  The bare grey walls with a surprisingly displaceable back wall provided a plain set, which apparently was designed to help propel the sound out into the audience, a laudable objective in the design, but otherwise lacked features that might add to the story telling.  The locking of arms of the chorus during the storm scene seemed odd to me and the strong lights creating shadows of the singers throughout the opera were distracting.  Later, there was inexplicably a hole in the floor for fires.  The set and the costumes were supposed to be moved forward in time, unclear to what time period or for what purpose.  A solo dancer (Claudio Agüero Mariño) gave an engaging provocative dance that seemed to have little to do with the story.  I will simply say that neither the set nor staging worked to draw me into the drama.  Let me also add that my son’s reaction was different.  At intermission when I asked him what he thought of the staging, he replied that it was cool; it was an expressionistic staging he enjoyed.  Old school, new school?  And only in opera could Desdemona sing a gentle closing aria after being smoothered to death.  I will also add that having the couple on the floor made it difficult to tell what Otello had actually done to her. 

General Otello (Russell Thomas) arrives victorius. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

I have been talking details.  The bottom-line question is did the opera work to entertain and to engage the audience in its emotion and in thought provoking ways.  For me, the answer to that question is mostly yes.  The love scene between Otello and Desdemona was touching and convincing that these two were deeply into one another, though how readily he came to suspect her was disconcerting.  Racial issues were not played up that might help explain his behavior.  Desdemona’s highlight scene near the end with only her maid present was also affecting.  Iago came across as a sociopath serving as both narrator and manipulator with occasional ego driven outbursts, but I felt repulsion, not fascination with him.  I want to investigate how other singers have played Iago; so, the production did make me think.  My bottom line is that I found Otello to be an enjoyable show which had some affecting scenes, though I was never truly immersed in the drama overall.  So, let’s examine its best features.

Ensign Iago (George Gagnidze) puts into play a scheme to connect Desdemona to Captain Cassio (Zach Borichevsky) and anger an envious Roderigo (Alexander McKissick) looking on. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

WNO’s Otello has an excellent cast, that coupled with Verdi’s music, made the drama work at some level and provided beautiful sound the entire evening.  In his pre-opera talk, Kennedy Center Artistic Administrator Colin Brush stated that Russell Thomas was one of only a handful of tenors in the world who could sing the vocally demanding role of Otello.  I greatly enjoyed his performance, likely one not to be missed.  Also adding greatly to my enjoyment was George Gagnidze as Iago, a role he is known for internationally.  His highly polished baritone serves the characterization of Iago well.  Soprano Leah Crocetto has become a favorite of mine.  Her ability to sing softly conveying tender emotion is remarkable, and then as she demonstrated in her penultimate scene with only her maid present, she can bring it when a surge of emotion or power is called for.  The minor roles were well played by mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel as Emilia, tenor Zach Borichevsky as Cassio, tenor Alexander McKissick as Roderigo (in an out of place dandy costume), baritone Hunter Enoch as Montano, and bass Wei Wu as Lodovico.  I especially enjoyed the singing of Mr. Borichevsky.  I would definitely go to hear this cast again.

Desdemona (Leah Crocetto) and Otello (Russell Thomas) are rapturously reunited. Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

Now let’s get to the primary reason to go to see Otello, the music.  I remain amazed by Verdi’s music in Otello.  This music is unlike the music in Verdi’s other operas that I have seen.  The opening storm scene most reminds me of Verdi’s Requiem for its dramatic impact.  Otello is Verdi’s penultimate opera out of 28 in total.  He came out of self-imposed retirement to compose it, and he deliberately made it different in style from his earlier works.  It is what musicologists call “through composed”.  The Italian style to that point was to compose operas made up of emotional arias separated by recitative, sung dialog.  The arias were based on melodies that were developed with repeating segments.  The melodies and themes often returned and were further developed.  Not so in Otello where melodies lead to melodies and there is no demarcation between arias and recitative.  You will not likely go home humming melodies from arias from this one, but this is not a criticism in the case of Otello.  Here is the amazing part: despite its lack of memorable arias, the music is beautiful and engaging.  And by using this form, the story is propelled without a break, more Wagner-like, or sort of like a Stephen Spielberg movie.  Kudos to Conductor Daniele Callegari and the WNO Orchestra for effectively bringing this music to life.  A major player in Otello is the chorus which was outstanding; kudos to Chorus Master Steven Gathman. 

Otello’s (Russell Thomas) jealous anger erupts against Desdemona (Leah Crocetto). Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera.

WNO’s Otello has much to like and maybe you will agree with my son on the staging.  It is a highly entertaining evening, more fun than affecting, with a story we all know by heart now.  I predict you will be glad you didn’t miss this one, though to be truly engaging as drama, future directors will have to find a way to eliminate the audience response of laughter.  My representative line from this production would then have been “that damn handkerchief” not “that darn handkerchief”.

Related: OperaGene’s preview of Washington National Opera’s 2019-2020 season can be found at this link.

The Fan Experience:  Otello plays five more times - October 30, November 3, 8, 11, and 16; sung in Italian with projected English subtitles.  One of the perks of attending the opening night performance was to witness the arrival of opera fan and Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who elicited her usual spontaneous standing ovation - very neat!  I thought the audience singing was particularly impassioned this time while the national anthem was played. As mentioned above, Kennedy Center Artistic Administrator Colin Brush gives a 30-minute pre-opera talk one hour before the performance.  The talk provided history and insights that enhanced my experience of the opera, some of which I have infused into this blog report.

I finally tried one of the special sippy cups you can purchase to hold a drink bought at intermission.  At $4 added on to the cost of the beverage, it is a little expensive, but it does allow you to relax and not worry about getting your cocktail downed before intermission ends since it can be taken into the Opera House. For the first time, the Kennedy Center Red Bus was not waiting at the Foggy Bottom Metro stop when I arrived, so I made the easy ten-minute walk to KC.  I then saw one headed to the metro stop while walking in. My wife managed to drive from Reston, leaving work at 6 pm and arriving to her seat ten minutes before the 7 pm performance.

Washington National Opera’s 2019-2020 Season: Otello Leads Off a Season of Relevance

Otello and Desdemona by Alexandre-Marie Colin, 1829. Public domain image from Wikipedia.

Washington National Opera’s 2019-2020 season pushes strongly forward in engaging current social issues and making good on its commendable commitment to minority and gender balance among performers, creative staff, and leadership positions, while balancing this effort with a solid program from the classic repertoire and some newer works; examples include: 

• African American tenor Russell Thomas will star in Verdi’s Otello

• Female conductor Eun Sun Kim will lead The Magic Flute

• Blue, composed by a female composer, Jeanine Tesori, is about a black teenager killed by a white police officer

• Marian Anderson awardee, African American bass Howard Soloman, sings in recital

• An all-female team comprised of composer Laura Kaminsky, librettist Kelley Rourke, and conductor Anne Manson will provide mentorship for the American Opera Initiative (AOI)

• The female director of Don Giovanni with its sexual issues is E. Loren Meeker

• African American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges will sing the role of Delilah

• Porgy and Bess to be directed by WNO Artistic Director, Francesca Zambello

Washington National Opera 2019-2020 Season*

October 26, 30, November 3, 8, 11, 16:

Otello (1887) – Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito

November 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 17, 22, 23:

The Magic Flute (1791) – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder

January 10:

American Opera Initiative Festival: Three New Twenty-Minute Operas

February 29, March 2, 6, 8, 11, 14, 19, 22:

Don Giovanni (1787) – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte

March 1, 4, 7, 13, 16, 21:

Samson and Delilah (1877) – Camille Saint-Saëns and Ferdinand Lemaire

March 15, 18, 23, 28:

Blue (2019) – Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson

May 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23:

Porgy and Bess (1935) – George Gershwin and Dubose Heyward/Ira Gershwin

*Added event, November 25: Howard Soloman, Marian Anderson Vocal Award winner, in concert

Otello is of course based on Shakespeare’s “Othello” or “The Moor of Venice”, the tale of a Moorish Venetian general who succumbs to his jealousy and murders his innocent wife Desdemona, a tragedy engineered by his ensign Iago, perhaps literature’s purest villain.  Otello is Verdi’s penultimate opera premiere and his librettist Arrigo Boito, a close friend, was a composer in his own right.  After Don Carlo in 1867 came Aida in 1871 and Otello not until 1887, then Falstaff in 1892, his last.  When he composed Otello the opera world was already looking elsewhere for new wave leadership.  Nonetheless, Verdi was still revered and Otello was a success, though never as much so as some of his earlier operas; musicologists claim this is due to the “severe vocal and orchestral demands” of Verdi’s mature dramatic style.  Now we get to tenor Russell Thomas who sings the role of Otello; he was last seen here in WNO’s Don Carlo.  I refer you now to an excellent article by Anne Midgette covering both the vocal demands made upon Mr. Russell by this role as well as those of being a black opera singer in today’s environment.  Let us also not overlook soprano Leah Crocetto who plays Desdemona.  Ms. Crocetto is also an exciting talent who has appeared recently in DC, in WNO’s Verdi Requiem and Aida.  The bad guy is played by international opera star baritone George Gagnidze, who this past May at Met Opera gave his 100th performance as Rigoletto; tell me you didn’t think the bad guy would be played by a tenor.  Musicologists can argue about its placement in the opera pantheon; I’ve not seen it, but I am listening to a recording and love the music.  Great composer, great cast, ball in your court – starting October 26.

The Magic Flute is a holiday season favorite that comes a little early this year, running November 2-23, but then Christmas decorations are already going up in stores, so who knows when holiday season begins anymore.  I digress - In addition to more fabulous music by Mozart, this very accessible opera will have sets designed by famous children’s author Maurice Sendak.  The tale is a comical allegory about truth and love, and not too heavy, it can be enjoyed by the youngsters as well as the adults; and it will be performed in English which also helps.  The performers on November 22 will come from the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist program.  WNO also reports that a Family Look-in—a special introduction to this opera designed for families and children—is scheduled for Saturday, November 23; a separate ticket is required. For the Family Look-in, audience members will experience excerpts from The Magic Flute along with insight into behind-the-scenes aspects such as lighting, scene changes, costuming, and many other elements that create stage magic.” Speaking for myself, I attend The Magic Flute to hear the Queen of the Night.  That role will be sung by soprano Kathryn Lewek who is currently featured on a 2017 live Met Opera recording of The Magic Flute – can’t wait!

The American Opera Initiative festival will still be held in January, but only the program of three new twenty-minute operas will be presented.  I mourn what I hope is only a pause in presenting a new one-hour opera each January as well.  For those of us who crave new operas, the AOI offerings are a highlight of the season. The operas are performed by the members of the Domingo Cafritz Young Artist program.

Don Giovanni has earned its position among the best and most often performed operas of all time.  Librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte created an enduring tale about a sexual predator using his wealth and power in attempts to seduce every woman he meets, and composer Mozart created some of his greatest music to surround and help tell the story. However, for centuries-old works in the classic repertoire, this is the ‘age of the director’; the burden of proof falls to the director to tell these stories in ways that both entertain and most strongly connect with audiences of today.  Enter E. Loren Meeker, a much in demand director, to give her hand a try; what will her Giovanni emphasize?  She has directed operas for many of the major companies in the US, including Washington National Opera.  I greatly enjoyed her production of The Touchstone for Wolf Trap Opera.  She will certainly bring a female point of view to Giovanni’s exploits which adds interest, I think.  An exciting young cast familiar to DC will work with Evan Rogister in his first principal conductor performance for WNO.

Samson and Delilah is based on the well-known Bible story found in the Book of Judges.  Composer Camille Saint-Saëns is best known today for his orchestral music.  Sampson and Delilah is the only one of his 13 operas that is performed today.  In the story, Samson is a hero of extraordinary strength rallying the Hebrews in their struggles with the Philistines; Delilah is used by the Philistines to seduce and bring about Samson’s downfall.  It is a story rich with political and psychological dimensions and offers some beautiful music by Saint-Saëns.  Delilah, especially, has some beautiful arias, and WNO is bringing in star mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges to sing them. 

Blue is a co-production with The Glimmerglass Festival and the Lyric Opera of Chicago that premiered this summer at Glimmerglass.  Two black parents in Harlem are gifted with the birth of a son and must deal with the hopes and fears of black parents in America today.  The father is a police officer, and his son is killed by a white police officer, a story seeming to be ripped from today’s headlines, but that is also based on black literature and illuminates the private stories behind the public story.  The composer is Tony-award winning director Jeanine Tesori, and the librettist is playwright and theater director Tazewell Thompson who will also direct.  Blue stars former Domingo Caftitz Young Artist bass Kenneth Kellogg.  The music includes themes of gospel, blues, jazz, and opera.  WNO’s season announcement indicated that “WNO is forming a committee of local and national leaders from the African American community, the law enforcement community, and other stakeholders who will collaborate to design events that foster dialogue about the story of the opera. Event details, and ways that the public can participate, will be announced later”.

Porgy and Bess is “a tale about southern blacks by a white novelist, set to music by a New-York-based Jewish songwriter-lyricist team”.  The story was derived from DuBose Heyward’s novel “Porgy”; Mr. Heyward wrote the libretto working with lyricist Ira Gershwin.  While composer George Gershwin had a longtime, genuine interest in the African American experience, it is the performers, an all-black cast, who must bring authenticity to the work.  It is the wonderful melodies from songs like Summertime that have sustained its popularity.  WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello will direct her own production of this ‘folk opera’, as labeled by the composer, rotating two casts among performances.  Several of the supporting cast members, including up and coming soprano Janai Brugger and star mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves are currently appearing in the Met Opera revival of Porgy and Bess.  This perhaps is George Gershwin’s greatest work, certainly revealing more of the genius of this American composer.

The Fan Experience:  Individual tickets are available for all performances at this time.  For Porgy and Bess be sure to select the date when the cast you wish to hear is performing. If you are interested in buying tickets to more than one opera, check with the box office at 202-467-4600 to see if subscriptions are still possible for two or more operas ; with subscriptions, you may be eligible for parking discounts and/or other benefits, such as the ability to change your ticket to an alternate performance date.  Also remember that the Kennedy Center uses dynamic pricing which means that if certain performances are in high demand they may raise the prices for the remaining tickets closer to the performance.  There will be two same-day performances of the American Opera Initiative operas which often sell out; get your tickets early.

Generally all operas will have a pre-opera talk by a local expert; check the website of the opera of interest to find additional events that may be scheduled.

Parking is available in the Kennedy Center Garage for $23, currently with discounts of $3 for pre-paid reservations. Construction limiting access to parking entrances has been completed, but traffic in the area near performance times is typically highly congested and can cause significant delays.  You can save wear and tear on your nerves by taking the subway to Foggy Bottom Metro stop and then the red KC bus parked right outside the station; it runs every fifteen minutes.

Virginia Opera’s Tosca: Let Me Paint You a Picture

I attended Virginia Opera’s Tosca Saturday night and as I think about it today, I so wish I had gotten a ticket for Sunday’s matinee as well.  So many questions.  Oh, it’s a good show with fabulous music and singing.  Giacomo Puccini’s “shabby little thriller”, as one early critic called it, has never failed to deliver in my experience, and I don’t mean to ignore his outstanding librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.  There are many fine features to VO’s production with only a few minor complaints from me.  One of the three main characters in Tosca is a painter, so let’s examine VO’s Tosca as if it were a painting or a series of paintings like Thomas Cole’s “The Voyage of Life” (National Gallery of Art in DC) covering the four stages of a man’s life; we will only cover 16 hours.  Our paintings’ canvases and backgrounds are provided by Director Lillian Groag and the creative staff.  The singers playing their roles claim our eyes and ears, revealing themselves visually, further defined by vocal and musical colorations.  Their actions keep the colors changing before our eyes, leading to a series of paintings that move by us so fast that we can’t look away, nor even stop to examine one in more detail; like a river current, Tosca sweeps us up and carries us along at a breath-taking pace.  Tosca doesn’t have a paint by the numbers set, so let’s paint by the singers.  See how your paintings differ from mine. (Caution- plot spoilers abound after this point)

Matthew Vickers as Mario Cavaradossi and Ewa Płonka as Floria Tosca. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

First a word about the canvas, the macroenvironment shaping Mr. Puccini’s opera: it is 1800 and Napoleon is marching on Rome to crush the rule of the church and the monarchy in power, a rule much favored by most Romans.  Italy is not a unified country then, but a collection of fiefdoms.  Some Romans secretly support Napoleon’s establishment of an Italian republic and its freedoms.  There is tension in the air as the status quo of all Romans is at stake.  At first there is word Napoleon has lost a key battle, but then later as the opera progresses, news comes that Napoleon has won.  (See this blog report for an excellent historical summary of the real events that influenced Tosca’s storyline).

left: Joshua Arky as Sacristan. right: Matthew Vickers as Cavaradossi and Andrew Simpson as Cesare Angelotti. Photos by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

Mario Cavaradossi – We will use lots of red for this virile, even hot-blooded young man, patriotic in his own way.  Life is good believes painter Mario Cavaradossi.  He is painting a new portrait of Mary Magdalene for a private chapel inside the church of Sant’Andrea delle Valle, a landmark cathedral in Rome. He is an artist, a handsome young man, wealthy and in love, of noble virtue.  He appreciates his model’s beauty, her blue eyes, though not as lovely as his Tosca’s brown eyes.  He believes in freedom from the church and monarchy, though he has apparently not yet rebelled.  Nothing bad ever happened to him before.  That’s one side of Mr. Cavaradossi.  He is also sees himself as an elite, of better station than the Sacristan working in the church and the Roman chief of police who will be his undoing.  He assumes he is protected by his station in life.  Then, an escaped political prisoner and former friend, Angelotti, appears needing his help; we will color him gray as he stays in the shadows.  In the next 16 hours, Mr. Cavaradossi will be tortured, betrayed by his love, and dead.  I am unsure if he sees his cause or just himself as heroic, but he remained true and unyielding to the end.  Cavaradossi is played by tenor Matthew Vickers, who has been a VO young artist and who sang the role of Pinkerton in VO’s recent Madama Butterfly.  I am happy to report that this is the best that I have heard Mr. Vickers.  He is an excellent Cavaradossi visually and vocally, especially in Acts I and III, spirited in Act I and displaying heart touching beauty in Act III. He has a rich, lovely tenor voice, and he showed much more power in this role than he did in Butterfly.  He was a pleasure as Cavaradossi and the most effective performer at adding depth to his role. 

Kyle Albertson as Baron Scarpia and cast in the Te Deum scene closing Act I of Tosca. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

Floria Tosca – Ms. Tosca is a successful singer, who is in love with Cavaradossi.  She is a devout Catholic and committed to artistic ideals.  She is a good person and, though a mature woman, she is a good girl.  She expects that good things come to good people.  She does present with the jealously of a diva, quick to suspect that Cavaradossi has been unfaithful; she plans to catch her lover in an assignation with the model for his painting.  We must color her green.  Her suspicions are unfounded, but then she knows Cavaradossi better than I do.  I now wonder what she might have done if she had caught him with someone.  Ms. Tosca is not political.  Personal life is her venue, but her misfortune is that she has become ensnared by history and by Scarpia, the evil head of police who is obsessed with her.  He fuels her mistrust of her lover and plans to make her his conquest.  In less than 16 hours, she will betray her lover, commit murder, and die.  Her transformation from apparent good girl to action hero will make your head spin; perhaps we chose the wrong color for her?  When she falls victim to Scarpia’s grasp, she musters the strength to plan and arrange her escape with her lover.  Did she really plan to submit to Scarpia at that point to arrange passage?  Tosca is portrayed by soprano Ewa Płonka, herself undergoing a transformation as she sings a soprano role for the first time.  She sang beautifully Saturday night.  She has a remarkably colorful voice.  I thought that in moving from mezzo-soprano to dramatic soprano her voice was well-matched to the tessitura of the role.  Her vocal colorations were clean and spot on.  Her acting was serviceable, following well established patterns for Tosca, but her leap which we all wait for seemed a little cautious.  Perhaps with more experience we will see more of her in her Tosca; how would Ewa Płonka jump to her death?  Her voice is extraordinary; I would go again just to hear her sing so beautifully.  She was one of the highlights of this performance and clearly has a bright future ahead.  The thought of hearing her again is exciting.

left: Louis Alexander Riva as police agent Spoletta and Kyle Albertson as Scarpia. right: Matthew Vickers as Cavaradossi and Kyle Albertson as Scarpia in the fight scene. Photos by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

Baron Scarpia – As with the other two key characters, we know little of Scarpia’s past, but we quickly learn he is a brutal, amoral, and highly effective police chief with almost absolute power at the local level.  In his arias we learn of his true nature.  He is not content just to enjoy life; his pleasure is in taking what he desires.  He sees Cavaradossi as his adversary for Tosca and Cavaradossi’s political leanings as the wedge to take him down.  He likely also hates Cavaradossi for his privileged arrogance.  Scarpia sees Tosca as worthy prey he can make submit to his will without fear of retribution.  He sees the political struggle as a threat to his position; his loyalty is to Scarpia.  Is he simply someone controlled by his appetites?  He speaks of love for Tosca and a belief she will respond sexually to his power.  Love?  He sips wine and does paperwork while his victims are tortured and complains his supper has been interrupted.  He attempts to coerce Tosca into his bed by making her an offer she can’t refuse.  In less than 16 hours, he will be defeated by a woman and dead.  Scarpia is played by bass-baritone Kyle Albertson, who will soon play Angelotti in Met Opera’s Tosca.  Mr. Albertson has the right appearance and voice for Scarpia, and he sings well, but somehow, to me he came across as a villain who is more of a jerk than a monster.  I see Scarpia as a monster, someone who not only relishes his success, but his victim’s defeat as well.  Mr. Albertson is menacing enough and his aria coupled with the Te Deum’s celebration of Napoleon’s defeat is quite good, but I was left with the feeling that he could have done more; for me, it was a good performance that stopped short of outstanding.

Ewa Płonka as Tosca and Kyle Albertson as Scarpia. Photo by Ben Schill Photography; courtesy of Virginia Opera.

Tosca’s Director is Lillian Groag.  Let’s color her silver; it is her 25th production for Virginia Opera.  If you read my blog, you will know that I am very enamored of her directing abilities.  In fact, her constant directorial theme of showing the characters as complex human beings inspired my approach to this blog report. Each of her productions are marked by professional touches, such as her use of children in Tosca. She, of course, helps the singers color their performances as well as direct the action on the stage.  Virginia Opera cannot match the Metropolitan Opera’s budget for grandeur, but it’s not needed to tell a good story.  The sets for VO’s Tosca were quite effective, floor to ceiling, and the costumes were excellent.  For me, there were a few questions raised by the staging.  The people walking by the knave where Cavaradossi was working were distracting, and I could not locate the young shepherd boy on stage who was singing to begin Act III (voice supplied offstage by soprano Celeste Godin).  In the early part of an excellent Te Deum, the congregation was turned towards Scarpia, which seemed odd to me as he was singing about Tosca making him forget God; perhaps the cross should have come down sooner.  The Act II fight scene was excellently choreographed by Gregg C. Lolyd, but in performance was carried out at too slow a speed for maximum impact as most punches seemed telegraphed; Scarpia’s punch to the painter’s gut was the most effective part of the sequence.  Nonetheless, the fight scene added to the excitement.  There was a glitch with St. Michael’s statue in Act III, which appeared disassembled.  However, all of this is getting into the weeds about my personal responses.  I did like the touch of having Tosca make a cross placing her bloodied white gloves on Scarpia’s body as she forgave him.  You can tell by all my harping that the staging drew me in.

Cavaradossi (Matthew Vickers) and Tosca (Ewa Płonka) share their last moments together.

I regret taking so long to get to the music because I think this was Conductor Adam Turner’s finest effort among many excellent ones that I have heard.  The music was always right there as it should be, making Puccini sound as beautiful as possible and in perfect sync with the action.  I don’t know if he brings out the best in Puccini or if Puccini brings out the best in him, but kudos to him and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.  The chorus was also excellent with special kudos to Children’s Chorus Master Emily Russell.  The singers with smaller roles, such as bass-baritone Joshua Arky as Sacristan, bass-baritone Andrew Simpson, and tenor Louis Alexander Riva as Spoletta also contributed substantially to the performance. 

Yes, I have seen Tosca multiple times now; yet Virginia Opera’s production was still entertaining and thought-provoking. I have painted you a picture, a series of pictures in fact, as to how I saw it.  But of course, seeing it for yourself makes all the difference.  Then you will have your own pictures and be moved by them, as you need.

The Fan Experience: Virginia Opera will perform Tosca twice more, in Richmond, on Friday night, October 18, and on Sunday afternoon, October 20.  The opera is sung in Italian with English subtitles.  Dr. Glenn Winters, Virginia Opera's Community Outreach Musical Director, provides pre-opera talks forty-five minutes before showtime; they and his blog reports leading up to each opera offer entertaining and informative insights; I reference his report on historical aspects of Tosca above.  The pre-opera talks are frequently standing room only, so get there early.

Virginia Opera’s final opera of the season will be Aida, also directed by Lillian Groag, but for technical reasons this production will not be performed at GMU.  VO has arranged a travel/opera package for those interested in traveling to Richmond to see a performance.  Virginia Opera’s next two productions, Catán’s Il Postino and Rossini’s Cinderella will be performed at GMU’s Center for the Arts.

For the parking deck at GMU’s Center for the Arts which is adjacent to the theater, the price as gone up to $9 from last year’s $8, still reasonable, and you can walk from a more distant lot for free.  I wish the Center for the Arts would consider adding side screens for the showing the English subtitles.  The overhead one serves the balcony well but is too high up for the orchestra section in my opinion.  Refreshments offered prior to the performance and during intermissions include beer and wine, but food items are meager.  The Center for the Arts offers a wide variety of performance types throughout the year; check them out at this link. 

Pittsburgh Opera's 2019-2020 Season: Blockbusters and a New App Starting Saturday

As October cools down, the Pittsburgh Opera heats up.  As I look through their 2019-2020 season, I am truly impressed with this program.  This season might be PO’s best ever – classics by Bellini, Bizet, Handel, and Mozart with a contemporary American drama (practically hot off the press) and a modern opera with a libretto in Spanish that adds balance and currency; each opera will have four performances.  Plus, this season, starting with Don Giovanni on Saturday, PO will go public with their new mobile app, tested in performances last year, meant to give attendees an option of accessing information about the opera on their smartphones, including during the performance.

Poster art, left to right, for Don Giovanni, Florencia en el Amazonas, and Alcina; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

Pittsburg Opera 2019-2020 Season

Don Giovanni (1787) – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte 

October 12, 15, 18, 20

Florencia en el Amazonas (1996) – Daniel Catán and Marcela Fuentes-Berain

November 9, 12, 15, 17

Alcina (1735) – George Frideric Handel

January 25, 28, 31, February 2

The Last American Hammer (2018) - Peter Hilliard and Matt Boresi 

February 22, 25, 28, March 1 

Carmen (1875) – Georges Bizet and Henri Meilhac/Ludovic Halévy

March 28, 31, April 3, 5

Norma (1831) – Vincenzo Bellini and Felice Romani

April 25, 28, May 1, 3

Poster art, left to right, for The Last American Hammer, Carmen, and Norma; courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera.

The mobile app – Pittsburgh Opera has developed visual and audio content for the opera being attended, to be received on your smartphone.  Early testing appeared to validate the desirability and usefulness of the app, especially among younger audience members.  PO is proceeding opera by opera at this point and anticipate providing a report on how well it worked for Don Giovanni and have plans for using it for Florencia.  Here are bullet points PO gave for last season’s test with the performance of La Boheme:

• Listen to interviews with cast members, the director, and the conductor before the show

• Learn more about La bohème’s musical themes and motifs

• Get historical context for specific scenes in the opera

• Enjoy interesting trivia about Puccini, La bohème, and Pittsburgh Opera’s production

• Listen to supplemental audio commentary in real time

Clearly there are challenges: timing of some material with the flow of the opera, how well attendees can integrate online information with opera in progress, and how to receive this info without disturbing your neighbors in the audience.  I wonder how this will work, but I think it is an exciting idea and look forward to giving it a try myself.

Don Giovanni is in everyone’s top ten best operas and top ten most popular operas lists; perhaps not surprisingly, it is about power and sex. It is an opera you would go to just for the music if it didn’t offer so much more.  For opera fans, it is required viewing.  In the opinion of musicologists, it is not without some flaws. and you have to buy into all this action taking place in a single day, but in return, you get a fascinating hero, Don Giovanni, who is a villain that leaves you uncomfortable with your fascination; he is coupled to a comic sidekick, Leporello, who both amuses and disgusts you - he sings a delightful aria about Giovanni’s 2,065 sexual conquests he has recorded (maybe not as funny as it once was), and there will be more before the day is out. You are left with ambiguities about sexual motives, class privileges, and what actually happened that keep you wondering long after the performance is over.  It is called a dramma giocoso, a drama with jokes or a serious playful duality.  You also get the sort of arias that you go home humming.  Director Kristine McIntyre has created a film noir version of the opera that will likely have a different flavor than versions you have seen previously; she has Don Giovanni portrayed as a film noir antihero - one wonders how the humor in Giovanni is maintained in this production.  One of the great features of Don Giovanni is that it has so many outstanding roles for singers.  I have heard soprano Rachelle Durkin’s Donna Anna previously and found her to be impressive.  Baritone Musa Ngqungwana returns to PO as Leporello and that should be fun.  The conductor is Maestro Antony Walker, which is a guarantee in itself.  Don’t miss this one.   

Florencia en el Amazonas is based on the works of Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Márquez that combine realism with incidents of magic.  A soprano longing to be reunited with her true love makes a trip down the Amazon river to find him, a butterfly hunter.  For her and the other passengers it becomes a spiritual as well as a travel adventure. I am curious how a boat ride down the Amazon river will be staged.  Composer Catán has two operas that receive regular performances in the US.  Virginia Opera will be staging his opera Il Postino in November as well.  One of my personal goals this year is to attend both.  These will be the first operas in Spanish that I have heard.  Mr. Catán’s music is often described as being Puccini-like and at least one critic has evaluated his work as being “neo-Romantic” with music is that is too melodious.  Hmmm, my worry with modern operas is usually the atonality and lack of melody.  Count me in for neo-romanticism and lots of melody.  Music Director Antony Walker will again conduct, and Director Stephanie Havey will be reviving the original production of Jose Maria Condemi.  Standout soprano Alexandria Loutsion, who I loved in Wolf Trap Opera’s Tosca, will return to PO to play Florencia and the great baritone Nathan Gunn will return to PO to play Alvaro. 

Alcina is one of Handel’s many baroque operas.  I had thought of baroque operas as recitals for great singers with a little story thrown in for amusement until seeing Handel’s Semele in Philadelphia recently .  That made me realize that the staging is critical in importance for modern audiences.  I saw Washington National Opera’s Alcina last season and had reservations about the staging, though the cast was fabulous.  Director Matthew Haney will have his hands full with PO’s production.  I sort of view Alcina as ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ for sopranos; which soprano will prevail?  See if it hits you that way.  Two sopranos and two mezzo-sopranos will square off with one playing a guy and one playing a woman pretending to be a guy, and yes there are a couple of real guys thrown in.  By the way, Alcina is a sorceress who turns her lovers into shrubs or rocks when she tires of them; I don’t know if that is kinder than Turandot or not.  Handel’s music for Alcina is marvelous.  Antony Walker will conduct the orchestra provided by Chatham Baroque, which specializes in baroque music, for this performance.

The Last American Hammer was commissioned and first presented by UrbanArias in DC in 2018. UrbanArias is a champion of contemporary, accessible opera.  Hammer touches on some of the flashpoint issues of modern America: the economic erosion of life in rural America, conspiracy theories, and distrust in the government.  It is a comedy expressing serious concerns.  Reviews of the DC performance were mainly positive but expressed a need for a more focused message and a wish for more ensemble vocal numbers.  Glenn Lewis will conduct a small ensemble orchestra.  The music is reported to be influenced by country and folk music elements.  The singers will come from former and current Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artists.  This chamber opera runs for about an hour and forty minutes.

Carmen, are you kidding?  It’s Carmen, what’s not to like.  I think Carmen comes as close to a Broadway hit show as you are going to see in opera.  Carmen has been controversial since its beginning; many considered it too profane when first performed, and Bizet died before it became a hit.  Composer Georges Bizet has two currently popular operas.  The Pearl Fishers is also one of my favorites.  He died when he was only 36 years old; I can’t help but wonder what wonderful operas he might have composed if he had lived a full lifespan.  With its focus on a powerful, sexually promiscuous, young female, cigarette factory worker, even today Carmen draws concerns about political correctness, but sit back and let the music wash over you until that gut-wrenching ending.  It is an experience that will stay with you, and very likely you will go home and listen to a recording to further enjoy the music. The role of Carmen will be played by mezzo-soprano Zanda Švēde in a role that is greatly shaped by the performer singing the role.  Ms. Švēde, though a relative newcomer has several national and international productions of Carmen under her belt already in which she garnered praise.  Timothy Myers will conduct the PO orchestra.  He made his debut conducting for the Sante Fe Opera this past season, conducting The Pearl Fishers.  The setting for Carmen is Spain but Bizet and the libretto are French.

Come to think of it, Da Ponte placed Don Giovanni in Spain, but the libretto is in Italian.  If you want to hear an opera in Spanish, Florencia is your option.  Spain has been a cultural center for the development of music and dance, but somehow opera did not flourish there.

Are you ready for some bel canto! Last, but certainly not least, we get to Norma.    Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti are the big three composers known for bel canto (beautiful singing) operas. Bellini also died early, at age 33.  Despite that he wrote ten operas, five of which have become entrenched in the classic repertoire.  Norma is his masterwork; its aria “casta diva” is considered by many to be the greatest aria of all time.  Bellini and his librettist Romani were like Mozart and Da Ponte, collaborating on several great operas.  One of my favorite statements about Bellini refers to his “art of conjuring poetry, character, and drama into song.”  Norma is a Druid priestess in Gaul who secretly has an affair with an invading Roman proconsul Pollione which then turns into a love triangle with another priestess Adalgisa; these things never end well. Antony Walker conducts and Stephanie Havey directs.  Norma is a challenging and plumb role for sopranos, and PO is bringing in an exciting talent, soprano Leah Crocetto to sing this role.  I will be seeing her as Desdemona in Washington National Opera’s Otello later this month. 

If you have made it this far, I think you will agree that this is an exciting lineup for Pittsburgh Opera’s 2019-2020 season.  If you live away from Pittsburgh, consider an opera vacation trip or two.  If you live in the Pittsburgh area, season tickets seem in order.

The Fan Experience:  Individual tickets as well as season subscriptions are now on sale.  Also peruse the Pittsburgh website for special discounts, such as student tickets and group purchases. The venue for Alcina is the CAPA Theater and for The Last American Hammer the Pittsburgh Opera Headquarters.  All others will be held in the Benedum Center. One of the things I really like about Pittsburgh Opera performances is the range of prices for the tickets, which should accommodate most people's budgets. 

I also like their website which is easy to maneuver around.  If you click on the "Seasons" header on the home page, a list of the operas will pop up; then clicking on any of these will take you to the homepage for that opera, and there you will find information on all aspects of the opera and performances, especially helpful for buying tickets and finding info on the casts and creative teams.  It is also worthwhile perusing the Pittsburgh events calendar for other opera related events that Pittsburgh Opera hosts.

Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O19, part IV: Death Becomes Him

I attended the premiere of bass-baritone Joseph Keckler’s Let Me Die on September 21, one of the events in Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O19.  I still do not know what to call it: an opera event, a music theater piece, performance art; or as OP stated, this “ensemble performance collage is at once a festive meditation, strange ritual, and morbid medley of epic proportions”.  I prefer to think of it as academic opera, in this case, exploring opera for underlying meaning in operatic death scenes, with insights and case-supporting snippets of operas. 

Joseph Keckler, creator of Let Me Die. Photo by Johanna Austin; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Let Me Die was cosponsored by Philadelphia’s Fringe Arts as part of their 2019 festival.  The Fringe Arts mission is to expose “audiences to genre-defying dance, theater, and music performances by accomplished and emerging innovators who push the boundaries of art-making and redefine the artistic landscape worldwide.”  The two festivals are indeed complementary.

Mr. Keckler gives several reasons for his interest in opera death scenes, perhaps most amusing is that he was born on the anniversary of the Day of the Dead, but most germane is his training in singing opera.  As a student he was required to learn “Lasciatemi morire” (in English, “Let me die”), an aria that survived from a lost Monteverdi opera.  His takeaway lesson from the experience was that to sing opera is to die.  I wish he had thought more deeply about that.  His collaborator and arranger for Let Me Die is Matthew Dean Marsh.  This work was developed as part of Keckler’s residency at University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design; its academic roots were also in evidence as a list of references was distributed to the audience prior to the performance.

Joseph Keckler. Photo by Johanna Austin; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Let Me Die is based on a viable premise for skits: death scenes are crucial to opera, and viewed out of context, they are edgy and easy prey for humor.  He asserts that they are the most important part of an opera, the scene we all wait for, an assertion mildly amusing for fun, but a stretch too far if he is serious.  I am usually waiting for the scene where the soprano sings my favorite aria; I tend to only look forward to the death scene when it is the bad guy getting his comeuppance.  But Mr. Keckler collects these scenes and categorizes them and presents them to his audience one after another, sort of a “Keckler’s Catalog of Death by Opera”, again a mildly amusing basis for a stand-up routine and maybe a neat coffee-table book or a good date-night presentation on a college campus.  He mentioned that three-quarters of opera death scenes had women dying; that might have been more meaningfully explored.  Throughout the 90-minute performance, Lavinia Pavlish on violin and William Kim on piano contributed expertly to the production; they even had their own death scene.

Mr. Keckler then goes a step further by wondering what the cumulative effect might be of viewing a production consisting of only opera death scenes, removing the extraneous material and getting, in his words, right to the good stuff.  When he presented this hypothesis, I wondered whether it indeed might have a cumulative effect; he still had me at that point.  I think, however, he failed to properly consider that catalogs are only interesting for so long, especially if the viewer doesn’t connect with that many of the items in the catalog.  The lyrics lost much of their sting separate from their lead ups. As the evening wore on, my interest waned.  Based on my wife’s response, it was clear that the waning of interest for this performance was proportional to how many of the operas you knew and could identify; she is not an opera fan to the extent that I am and got bored.  For me, deaths without their lead ups was just a pile-up of disparate corpses for whom we knew or mostly knew the names, and no other meaning surfaced.  The exercise grew tedious after awhile. The audience was expected to be familiar with opera, but that also means a knowledgeable audience is expecting to learn or experience something new about opera, a high bar. 

l to r: Veronica Chapman-Smith, Augustine Mercante, and Natalie Levin. Photo by Johanna Austin; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

To begin the performance, Mr. Keckler came out and without comment, stepped up on a chair, spotlight now shining on his face; he sang the last couple of lines of Tosca in falsetto, and jumped off the chair, collapsing on the floor.  The opening was funny enough with a slap stick appeal, plus Mr. Keckler has a dramatic presence and rather a beautiful voice.  I wonder why he has not focused his career on singing opera; on the hand, if he wants to be a professor, I’d happily take his class.  He then tried a few jokes and went through a few more death scenes, throwing in some songs of his own.  His singing and antics held my interest during his monologue, always wondering what might come next.  Unexpectedly, he then spun the lectern around, revealing it was lined in coffin fashion, and he laid down for the remainder of the program (and ouch, bumping his head on the make-shift coffin); even that was mildly amusing for a while.  I expected his repose to be brief, but it lasted for the remainder (majority) of the program; his participation was missed.

Natalie Levin, Veronica Chapman-Smith, and Augustine Mercante. Photo by Johanna Austin; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Three singers, mezzo-soprano Natalie Levin, soprano Veronica Chapman-Smith, and countertenor Augustine Mercante, came out as reinforcements to continue the march of death scenes, this time with arias grouped into categories, such as icons, couples, and witches.  Grouping them didn’t seem to add much meaning; it might have helped if Mr. Keckler had revived to add some context.  At this point it seemed a game of name that tune or aria.  The singers’ costumes were colorful and identified the performers, but otherwise made no apparent connection to the proceedings; one could get catty about the costumes.  The singers moved about and mimed some stage action, which added a bit of visual interest.  The vignettes came and went before I could emotionally connect with the scenes.  Still, about ten minutes into this group’s medley, I started to just enjoy the singing, and I thank them for that; evidently, the human voices were making a connection, but I think to opera, not death.  The ending involved dancer Saori Tsukada appearing as death (?), gracefully walking across the stage, killing the remaining singers and musicians with a wave of her hand, and finally approaching the audience for an anticlimactic finish (maybe next time have her wave her hand and drop black confetti from the ceiling onto the audience); again, I felt that Mr. Keckler should have been there at the ending to tie it all together – it’s his show.  A professor friend of mine says that when he lectures, he tells them what he is going to say; then he says it, and then, he tells them what he said.  Performance art may need a non-verbal equivalent.

O19 was another huge success for Opera Philadelphia.  Three of the four events I attended were stellar, and all of them maintained my opinion of Opera Philadelphia as an opera leader, perhaps the opera leader in the US today. Anticipating O19, I was curious about Let Me Die, and I’m glad I got to see it. In fact, I enjoyed it as an event, even though I don’t think it lived up to its promise. Mr. Keckler himself still shows promise.  Even if my response to Let Me Die is that it didn’t measure up, I am pleased that Opera Philadelphia/Fringe Arts gave Mr. Keckler the opportunity to further develop his work and present it.  OP must take chances in order to let opera evolve.  Some avenues are not going to pan out, and that’s okay.  In fact, it is more than okay; it is critical to the encouragement of the next generation of creative artists. 

The Fan Experience:  Festival O19, five different productions over twelve days, ran September 18-29.  This is part IV of my reports on four events I attended, part I on Semele, part II on The Love of Three Oranges, and part III on Denis & Katya. 

Let Me Die started 15 minutes late; I wanted to start a chant, “we’re dying out here.”  For this event, we changed hotels and stayed at the Holiday Inn Penn Landing which is adjacent to the Fringe Arts Theatre and made it convenient to hop on I95 South the next morning, an excellent choice.

The dates for Festival O20 have already been posted: September 17-27, 2020.  Block those off on your calendar now.  I’ve attended parts of O17, O18, and O19 and loved them all.  The festival events will likely be announced in early 2020.  Philadelphia is a great city to visit just for the food, historical sights, and the arts. 

Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O19, part III: Breaking News

What a fake news headline! This news in this new opera isn’t breaking.  I mean the story of Denis and Katya is like sooooo yesterday, IMHO.  Why would we want to spend our time on news from 2016 for God’s sake.  That’s ancient history.  I mean get online and get with the times already.  There are thousands of stories happening right now and we can watch and even talk to the actors, I mean people involved.  Denis and Katya were jerks, though it was fun to watch them thumb their noses at everybody. But let’s move on.  I do wish she had showed us her tits.

The world premiere of Denis & Katya presents the story of a real-life event…really. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Disturbing paragraph, right? I’ve been thinking about Opera Philadelphia’s “new opera” entry into Festival O19.  It’s titled Denis & Katya.  Its composer is Philip Venables and the librettist is Ted Huffman.  For some odd reason, as I thought about it this morning, I found myself in voyeur space, not involved with the story, just viewing it in my head and becoming a heckler.  How might a voyeur write about this opera, seeing the characters as objects in a computer game?  I drew my deliberately provocative first paragraph above from themes in the opera itself.  The shocking last line is from a comment sent to Katya as she streamed their standoff with Russian police and special forces on the worldwide internet using her cellphone, just before she and her friend and fellow high schooler Denis died.  They built a large audience, a popular but brief show on the internet. Some online watchers even sent comments that they should kill themselves, that that was what they deserved.  I don’t know if the comments were all taunting ones; I don’t recall seeing any in the opera that offered any sympathy or comfort or assurance they could get through this if they turned themselves in.  The opera only reported the police as telling them to put down their weapons and come out.  The opera uses verbatim text.

Theo Hoffman and Siena Licht Miller each play all six characters. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

The composer and librettist picked up on their story from a news feed and became increasingly drawn to it.  Opera Philadelphia gave them the opportunity to turn it into what became a 70-minute chamber opera.  Denis and Katya, two Russian, apparently normal 16-year-olds, became friends.  After a row with their families, they headed to a relative’s cabin in a small Russian village where they found alcohol and guns and ammunition.  They began a standoff against family, friends, and authorities.  They posted photos, and much of what they did from inside the cabin they streamed using Periscope, an online streaming service.  They shot the cabin’s television to perform for their online audience, shot out a neighbor’s window recklessly, and shot up a police van dangerously with guns and bullets, and shot Katya’s mother in the hip with an air-pistol.  Eventually, the police stormed the cabin and brought out the two teenagers dead from bullet wounds.  Some thought the girl was a hostage. How they died apparently depends on what you prefer to believe: did they commit suicide or did the police kill them?  In researching the story, Mr. Venables and Mr. Huffman traveled to Russia and spoke with several of those involved.  Ksenia Ravvina is a co-creator and translator for the production.

The Journalist portrayed by Theo Hoffman and Siena Licht Miller has a moment on stage accompanied by four cellos. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

What was the story here that the composer and librettist wanted to tell?  With what they had to go on, I think they chose correctly to focus on the developing story as a revelatory event in time that came and went, not on Denis and Katya themselves.  To avoid any appearance of being disrespectful, Denis and Katya are not characters in the opera; they are talked about, but not present.  The events are related by two singers, a mezzo-soprano and a baritone, who play six different roles from among those who witnessed the event – journalist, friend, neighbor, teenager, teacher, and medic.  Each role is played by both singers with different singing and speaking parts, and texting between the composer and librettist is displayed on a screen as the opera progresses.  Mr. Venables has called it role-play theater.  Electronic, digital sounds and video footage as well as lighting effects were used to enhance the story telling. It is told as a docu-opera.  The singers were dressed in clothes as you might see them in the mall.  It offers something new to the realm of how opera can tell a story.

Theo Hoffman and Siena Licht Miller move about in playing the roles. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

The singers in Saturday’s matinee were mezzo-soprano Siena Licht Miller and baritone Theo Hoffman, two excellent young performers with strong, beautiful voices.  The acting and singing of both enhanced my enjoyment of the opera, though I never quite got comfortable with the male-female role switching for the same character.  I was, however, highly impressed with their ability for rapid fire switching between characters and immediately displaying the moods/temperaments of the next character.  Their voices conveyed the emotion that reporting does not, the crux I suspect of why this story was told as an opera. 

Mr. Venables’ choice for the music was four cellos, placing one each in the four corners of the stage, cellos because of the moods they evoke and their placement to add drama as they played individually or in combinations and four because he wanted the opera to be an easy one to take on tour.  It reminded me of the dramatic impact of a single cello passage in the aria “La momma morta” from the opera Andrea Chenier. There is different music for the different characters. My wife thought composer Venables deserved kudos for the progression of the music, especially towards the end. Mr. Venables’ strategy works and the music is supportive of the drama and is also engaging to the ear.  Also kudos to Emily Senturia, who directed the cellists. 

Shapes and footage as well as text appear on the screens. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Since the opera, I still wonder what actually happened and what role the internet audience played.  Why did Denis and Katya want their story streamed?  What role did knowing that they were being watched play in the way events unfolded?  What influence did the commenters have on them and on the authorities?  (Suppose Hannibal Lechter was commenting on Twitter or a streaming service even when he was out of sight: Clarice, why didn’t your mother love you?)  I saw a comment the other day that pointed to the scary realization that the worst of us are now connected with the best of us.  Some commenters wanted to know if it was all fake.  If Denis and Katya thought that an audience might come to their rescue, they could not have been more wrong.  There was no resolution in the opera beyond death and an ending of the story, and that is still unsatisfying and unsettling.  Two teenagers died and we don’t quite know why.  The day after their deaths the audience moved on.  The opera left me sad with the feeling that something had come into modern life that is exerting control over us in a highly impersonal way that we don’t yet understand. 

A text exchange between the composer Philip Venables and the librettist Ted Huffman. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Denis & Katya is a hard hitting drama and an outstanding work of art, but let’s place it in a bit of context.  If you only want to hear beautiful melodies and harmonies in arias you will want to listen to again and again, this one is not for you.  It is a small opera in terms of time and scope and ensemble size.  It’s emotional impact is powerful and lingering, but experienced as a story being told; I personally want to see Act II where we meet Denis and Katya. Nonetheless, the tale of Denis and Katya is gripping and the telling of it is inventive and effective, and the music works.  Perhaps most importantly, It speaks to our time, the internet age, a period in human history not just fashionably different, but fundamentally different, in ways we don’t fully comprehend.  To me, this was a different story, more about its audience really, told in a new way, opera helping us to come to grips with this new age.  it is another strong component of Festival O19, and it will stay with you long past your exit from the theater. I am thinking of it as verismo opera for the twenty-first century, and in that way, it is breaking news.

The Fan Experience:   Festival O19, five different productions over twelve days, continues through September 29; performances of Denis&Katya continue through September 29 and tickets are available, but check the website to ensure the singers you wish to see are performing on the date you wish to attend.   Ms. Miller and Mr. Hoffman rotate performances with mezzo-soprano Emily Edmonds and baritone Johnny Herford.  Also check OP’s website carefully for What’s On; the performances are often accompanied by special events, lectures and meetings with those involved.  For example, Denis & Katya did not have a pre-opera talk, but there was a post-opera talk-back. Performances are held in the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, a cozy venue where all the seats are close enough to suit me, but seats way to the side might have a limited view of one of the cello players.  Guest services at 215-732-8400 can answer any questions.

This report is part III;  part l on Semele and part ll on The Love of Three Oranges preceded this one.  I have one more event on my schedule for reports.

Philadelphia is a great city to visit for food, historical sights, and the arts. 

Opera Philadelphia Festival O19, part II: Three Oranges Minus Two Oranges Equals?

The answer is one princess because it is a theater problem, not a math problem, but we will get to that in a minute.  One of the joys of Opera Philadelphia’s season-opening festivals each Fall is getting to see works that are either new or not often performed in the US.  OP’s production of The Love of Three Oranges (1921) by Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) fits in the not often performed in the US category.  The opera is, however, quite popular in Europe where it is often staged as a children’s opera.  But Friday night in the Academy of Music, it brought madcap zaniness and eruptions of laughter to a largely adult audience that went home as happy as a child.

The Eccentrics announce The Love of Three Oranges will be performed. Photo by Kelly & Massa; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

I think three intertwining elements are at work to make Oranges a success.  First is that we all love fairy tales, the fanciful way we connect with truths about human nature; second, humans seem to innately love to play the fool or laugh at others playing the fool (we are especially amused when we realize that there is a method to the fool’s madness); and finally, the composer and thus, the music, is world class.  The Russian composer Prokofiev wrote only one other opera well known worldwide, War and Peace, but he is renown for his ballets such as Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, and many orchestral works, especially Peter and the Wolf.  He wrote the libretto for Oranges with Vera Janacopoulos, based on Vsevolod Meyerhold’s adaptation of seventeenth century playwright Carlo Gozzi’s fiaba.  Gozzi’s play used stock commedia dell’arte costumes for different character types and several of these are used in OP’s staging. OP’s productions uses the English adaptation by David Lloyd-Jones, interesting since Prokofiev wrote the libretto in French because he thought Americans would eschew Russian, but I would add important, since the opera moves at a pace that would make keeping up with subtitles taxing, especially since much of the fun is in the visuals.

The King of Clubs played by Scott Conner seeks medical advice for his son. Photo by Kelly & Massa; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

The Eccentrics keep watch and react to the tale’s twists and turns. Photo by Kelly & Massa; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Partly, The Love of Three Oranges is the result of Prokofiev’s determination to be original, to refuse to accept the restrictions of current conventions.  He had the talent to write the sort of works that were in vogue, but not the inclination.  In Oranges, he not only eschews opera conventions, but literary as well, most notably by “breaking the fourth wall” (stages have three walls; the fourth wall is the invisible barrier between the performers and the audience; if a performer directly addresses the audience or comments on the play itself, the fourth wall is broken).  Four groups of characters appear on the stage before the story appears.  Each group expresses their preference for the type of story to be presented: tragedy, comedy, romance, and farce.  They were followed by a group called the Eccentrics who announced the story and expressed the desire that all watch until the end. The Eccentrics broke the fourth wall at least twice by interfering in the story’s direction.  All the groups entered makeshift stands on each side of the stage to react to the parts of the story they liked.  A prince is unhappy, bedridden with depression and potentially fatal hypochondria.  His father, the King of Clubs is worried who will inherit the reign. Plots by family and court members abound to wrest power away from the Prince. Grand attempts to make the Prince laugh fail, until the person least likely to make him laugh does.  For laughing, he is cursed to be obsessively in love with three oranges, and he leaves on a quest to find them.  The three small oranges he finds grow into three very large oranges, each containing a princess.  He falls in love with the last one opened.  I was going to tell you how two oranges were subtracted, but it’s too sad – it’s theater and it had to be done.  Anyway, the dark forces try to interfere, but all ends happily.  Along the way we are entertained by one over the top character after another.  Director Alessandro Talevi had his hands full.  I really liked his synopsis of the meaning of the quest myth printed in the program book: “…only through contact with new, often seemingly dangerous forces, can an individual experience personal growth or maturation.”  He strove to bring forward this message in the mayhem; he even uses references to known personages and partly a wild west setting to do so. Kudos to him.

left photo: The Prince played by Jonathan Johnson is not amused by Truffaldino’s antics, played by Barry Banks. right photo: The evit witch Fata Morgana played by Wendy Bryn Harmer seeks to keep the Prince from laughing. Photos by Kelly & Massa; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Commenting on the singing for this opera is difficult because there are so many singers and because of the nature of the music.  There are sixteen singers named in the program book even without listing the singers in the groups that Prokofiev thought of as the Greek Chorus, whose job is to sing, but also comment on the action; kudos to Chorus Master Elizabeth Braden.  The entire cast gave an excellent performance.  My favorite was bass Zachary James who played the funky chicken with the feline personality, alias The Cook, the possessive and dangerous holder of the three oranges.  Tenor Jonathan Johnson as the Prince gave us all one of the best laughs of the night with his operatic approach to laughter.  Soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer gave us a fierce evil witch Fata Morgana, and tenor Barry Banks as Truffaldino provided much of the energy in his scenes.  The whole affair was anchored by an authoritative King of Clubs played by bass Scott Conner.  Each member of a large cast had their moments. The costumes (Manuel Pedretti), scenic design (Justin Arienti), action design (Ran Arthur Braun), and lighting design (Giuseppe Calabro) were all excellent and contributed to the fun.

The Prince (Jonathan Johnson), Farfarello (Ben Wager), and Truffaldino (Barry Banks) begin their quest to find three oranges. Photos by Kelly & Massa; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Oranges is through composed by Prokofiev.  I’d have to hear it again to know if any themes were repeated.  The action on stage and the music were intimately involved; every movement on stage and every mood change in the story were responded to or anticipated by the music.  I like it for that reason.  The music is melodic and harmonious and to be enjoyed on that basis, but in relatively short discontinuous segments.  It can be tender, raucous, foreboding, whatever is required, in fast succession.  Kudos to Conductor Corrado Rovaris for bringing this music to life and for deft coordination with the action on stage. Mr. Rovaris was also instrumental in getting this opera onto the O19 program. The singing is almost completely recitative to tell the story.  A famous march theme in the opera offered one of the few extended melodies.  The music is so good it can’t be discounted, but it is so integral to the opera that I doubt you will want to play it at home.  Prokofiev did compose The Love for Three Oranges suite abstracted from the opera that is pleasant enough and worth a listen.

The Cook played by Zachary James sings softly but carries a big ladle. Photos by Kelly & Massa; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

In most fairy tales, the elements of the story and staging are there to sugarcoat the underlying moral of the story.  For Oranges, the moral of the story provides the engine to which the gags are hooked onto.  You can dig more deeply into it; it is claimed to be satirical, but if so, it satirizes everyone.  I prefer to believe Prokofiev’s intent, as he himself was quoted as saying, was for us to enjoy each train car filled with visual and audio fun as the little engine of the story pulls it past us.  All seriousness aside seems to be the point of his opera.

The three oranges, once secured by the Prince (Jonathan Johnson) and Truffaldino (Barry Banks), have grown. Photos by Kelly & Massa; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

I think how you approach this production will affect your response to it.  My wife who loves fairy tales was into it immediately.  I didn’t really start laughing until the Prince did.  I think base-baritone Zach Altman who played prime minister Leander offered a good approach with a comment in the OP study guide, “Don’t try to get the whole experience in one try.  Just let it wash over you.”  In fact, if I lived in Philadelphia, I’d take it in again.

The heart of the Princes (Jonathan Johnson) is captured by Princess Ninetta played by Tiffany Townsend. Photos by Kelly & Massa; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Festival O19 and its two predecessors are seeking to push opera towards its edges and find what it can be.  Sergei Prokofiev was doing the same thing.  It’s a good fit.

The Fan Experience:  Festival O19, five different productions over twelve days, continues through September 29; performances of The Love of Three Oranges continue through September 29 and tickets are available.  Check their website carefully for What’s On; the performances are often accompanied by special events, lectures and meetings with those involved.  One of the special events not to miss is the pre-opera talks occurring one hour prior to performances that provide a excellent orientations to the performances.  The Academy of Music is modest in size for a major opera house, which means all the seats are relatively close to the stage, but I recommend checking with guest services at 215-732-8400 on seat selection for best viewing.

This report is part II; my part I blog post preceded this one.  I have two more events on my schedule for reports.

Philadelphia is a great city to visit for food, historical sights, and the arts. 

Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O19, part I: Handel Gets His Sexy Back

And Juno is not happy.  However, if you attend this brilliant production of George Frideric Handel’s Semele (1744), you will be.  If all you need to know is whether it is worth seeing, the answer is yes. It offers a fresh take on baroque opera with an extraordinary cast and the entertainment value of this production hits the top of the scale.  It is a don’t miss component of Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O19 with its theme of rarely presented works.  This production with this cast is worthy of having a run across the country.

Amanda Forsythe as Semele. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

After just witnessing two husbands (in Il Tabarro and Cavalleria Rusticana) polish off their rivals who are messing with their wives, I saw on Thursday night a woman do the honors to her husband’s lover.  The guys were violent and the woman a clever god, but jealousy, that green-eyed monster, drives both gods and mortals to exhibit lethality.  Semele is a character in Greek mythology mirrored here in the Roman version.  She turns down a chance to marry a prince and make her father the King happy and everybody in the cult lead a nice, tranquil life.  Instead she runs away with the most powerful god, Jupiter.  Jupiter has a wife, Juno, who learns of his affair.  She sets about a plot to use Semele’s desire to become immortal against her.  Through her intrigue Juno pushes Semele to extract a promise from Jupiter to give her anything she wants.  Semele’s wish is to see Jupiter as a god instead of in human form, hoping she will become immortal.  Semele comes to realize too late that viewing gods in their divine form is fatal to humans.  She bursts into flame; hubris is punished, and the normal order is restored.  Juno is happy, Semele not so much.  That is the way it works with gods and mortals: both sin, but only the humans pay. 

Tim Mead as Athamas, Daniela Mack as Ino and Lindsey Matheis as principal dancer. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

The libretto for Semele is derived from a drama written thirty years earlier as an opera by poet William Congreve, which itself was based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Congreve’s poetry adds to the arts experience of attending the opera.  Handel composed Semele, a three-hour opera, in about a month’s time; after listening to the music you will find this impossible to believe.  Congreve and Handel’s drafter for the libretto intended it to be performed as an opera, but oratorios were what was selling at that period in London, and Handel designated it be performed in “the manner of an oratorio”.  If that was his strategy, it did not work.   The opera has been performed both ways but was largely ignored altogether after its introduction in 1744 and even today is not often staged, thus fitting O19’s theme.  Handel’s use of a secular story centering on a sexual theme was not welcomed in its day, not evidently a problem for modern day Philadelphia – Handel has got his sexy back.  Opera Philadelphia’s production based on the 2016 Opera Omaha production of Director James Darrah is a company premiere; Mr. Darrah has revised and added to the 2016 version for OP’s festival.  Kudos to him for a marvelous staging.

Daniela Mack as Juno, Sarah Shafer as Iris, and Alex Rosen as Somnus. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

I tend to think of even Handel’s Italian operas as mainly vehicles for outstanding singers to have great arias to sing, so I had wondered how Semele would be staged and whether it would be engaging for three full hours.  Well, the singers in this production don’t just stand around singing with some acting thrown in.  Dance is used heavily for both the singers and chorus to convey emotion, mood, and movement.  Sad at times, funny at times, the choreography is enormously effective at drawing the audience into this surreal world and making us care about both gods and mortals.  Mr. Darrah made one very clever use of dance.  Semele’s sister Ino is in love with the prince Athamas that Semele is supposed to marry.  Ino is rather reserved and Darrah uses a dancer Lindsey Matheis to portray Ino’s feeling-self throughout the opera; when Juno appears to Semele in human form, impersonating Ino, it is the dancer she manipulates to influence Semele.  The staging is further augmented by set design, costumes, and lighting.  The opening set in dark colors and ragged scenery for a cult-like group convey the rigid social order of Semele’s existence and thus the audacity of her relationship with Jupiter.  The cosumes draw a clear distinction between mortals and gods; kudos to Costume Designer Sarah Schuessler.  The use of curtain panels played a significant role in providing a surface for lighting effects and a dramatic moment, dropping one by one from the ceiling; kudos to Emily Anne McDonald and Cameron Jaye Mock for scenic and lighting design.  Projections upon them supported certain scenes, especially the mirror projections during Semele’s aria, “Myself I will adore”; kudos to Adam Larsen for projection design.  The staging made this baroque opera substantially more interesting and compelling than it might have been otherwise.

l to r: Alex Rosen as Cadmus; Amanda Forsythe as Semele. Photos by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

The small cast of five singers not only sung their roles, they embodied the characters and participated in the dancing.  I am always impressed when singers sing from a supine postion on the floor.  I am even more impressed when they do so while being carried across the stage in a supine position.  Six singers played eight roles.  Here I will confess to being duped.  I knew that Daniela Mack, one of my favorite mezzo-sopranos was playing Ino, but I had overlooked the fact that she also sings the role of Juno.  During the opera I was so impressed with the singer playing Juno that I was looking forward to looking up her background, egg on my face for me, but a genuine compliment for Ms. Mack.  See if you readily recognize that it is the same singer in the two very different roles.  While you are at it, see if you think baritone Alex Rosen, who also plays two roles, makes a better Cadmus, the King, or Somnus, the god of sleep.  He is excellent in both, but I adored his performance as the sleepy Somnus.  OP has maintained a tradition of using these double roles. While mentioning double roles, note the outstanding chorus also supplied the excellent dance crew that were moving about the stage just about all the time and carrying the lead singers around quite often.  Their choral number near the end made me think I would be willing to pay just to hear this group sing by themselves; kudos to Chorus Master Elizabeth Braden.  It was an impressive supporting group performance. 

In listening to my CD of Semele with Kathleen Battle my focus has been on the singing, but at this performance I also found myself appreciating Handel’s music more.  I thought it had much more variety and complexity than I have realized, and yet it has arias you will go home humming.  Kudos to Conductor Gary Thor Wedow for presenting the music in such a compelling way from a group of only about twenty players, mainly using period instruments, including a harpsichord and archlute.

The lead role in Semele is Semele, so much so that it is often viewed as a showpiece opera for light, lyric sopranos with beautiful voices.  With all the singers giving such strong performances, I was starting to wonder about that assessment.  However, in the second half, soprano Amanda Forsythe showed why this is her opera.  As I listened to her trill and melisma her way through “Myself I will adore” and other arias, sometimes at a patter pace, I sat there thinking I will never hear this again; what she just did is hers alone and I am glad I was there to hear it.   

Okay, suppose you have an arena full of candidates to play Jupiter and you want to pick the one that looks most like the most powerful god.  Believe me, you would pick tenor Alek Shrader (my wife confirms this).  Not saying that’s what OP did, because the thing is that he also sings and acts beautifully.  Countertenor Tim Mead who played Prince Athamas also turned in a fine performance; in one of his melodic moments, the purity of his voice made me want to sigh.  Rounding out a strong cast was mezzo-soprano Sarah Shafer who played a funny, delightful Iris, assistant to Juno; with her clear, bright tone, she appeared to me to be ready to take on lead roles.  Overall, the cast for OP’s Semele did more than hold up its end of the bargain.

Alek Shrader as Jupiter. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Sadly, I did not get to see Semele burst into flames, but then, was that really so important?  At the end the gods were certainly cool about it.  To sort of make amends and give a big finish…well, I will let you view that for yourself.

I will end with additional kudos to Opera Philadelphia and Director James Darrah, first for treating sexual themes in a sexy, but not a salacious way and for not moralizing, just telling the story.  In doing so and by supporting its hummable arias and often toe-tapping music with a presentation that connects strongly with today’s audience…well, after a couple of hundred years, Semele may have found its time.

The Fan Experience: Opera Philadelphia’s annual opera festivals that lead off their seasons have become an annual event for my family.  Festival O19, five different productions over twelve days, continues through September 29; performances of Semele continue through September 28 and tickets are getting scarce.  Check their website carefully for What’s On; the performances are often accompanied by special events, lectures and meetings with those involved.  One of the special events not to miss is the pre-opera talks occurring one hour prior to performances that provide a excellent orientations to the performances. This report is part 1; I have three more events on my schedule.

Philadelphia is a great city to visit for food, historical sights, and the arts. 

MDLO’s Il Tabarro and Cavalleria Rusticana: This Time the Veterans Show How It’s Done

Suburban Maryland now has a hometown opera company (I’m talking to you Bethesda, College Park, Kensington, Rockville, Silver Spring, and Wheaton).  And folks, the hometown opera company can bring it!

Maryland Lyric Opera is known for training up young opera singers to start them on the road to regular employment and stardom, but the MDLO brain trust is an impressive contingent of veteran opera and classical musicians with connections to other performers who have been there and done that.  They know quality and can attract it.  On Saturday night, they called on an impressive array of veteran performers with a few of the youngsters thrown in.  Not only did MDLO bring it, but they brought it in force.  In addition to the singers, there was an 80-person chorus led by veteran Chorus Master Steven Gathman and an 80-piece orchestra with Concertmaster Jose Cueto, led by veteran Conductor Louis Salemno.  Both talent and experience were on full display in the concert performance of Giacomo Puccini’s Il Tabarro (1918, librettist Giuseppe Adami) and Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (1890, librettists Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci).  In the few previous years of their existence, I might have referred to MDLO performances as undiscovered gems, but based on the crowd Saturday night, I’d say word is getting around.

Baritone Mark Delavan who played Michele in Il Tabarro and Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana. Photo courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

Il Tabarro is a portrait of a loving relationship gone bad all the way to a tragic ending when an emotionally-estranged barge captain on the river Seine realizes his wife is having an affair.  Tabarro, like Cavalleria Rusticana, is a short, one-act opera that is often paired with another short opera to serve out an evening.  In fact, it is part of Puccini’s trilogy of short works titled Il Trittico; the other two are Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi.  Pietro Mascagni might appear to be a one-hit wonder and might not be even that, but for his wife.  He wrote Cavalleria Rusticana for a one-act opera competition.  He had doubts and was considering using another of his works, when his wife submitted it for him, and it won.  CR is also about a love gone bad, and in fact, this opera led a shift to the verismo (realism) style of Italian opera that focused on the problems and often harsh conditions encountered by everyday people.  Mascagni did have some smaller successes as a composer (L’Amico Fritz is still performed) and also led a very successful conducting career.  Both Il Tabarro and Cavalleria Rusticana are masterworks and well worth giving a listen. My guess is that some of the music in CR will be familiar even if you haven’t attended the opera before. We are fortunate to have MDLO bring them to us in concert mode where the focus is on the music and the singing, and with a full orchestra and chorus, a rare opportunity. 

Tenor Yi Li as Luigi and soprano Jill Gardner as Giorgetta in Il Tabarro. Photo courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

I do have one small suggestion based on personal preference.  Listening to Puccini’s Il Tabarro followed directly by listening to Cavalleria Rusticana is like listening to an Aerosmith album, then following it with one by Van Halen.  I love them both, but not since I was in the under-thirty demographic would I listen to two hard rock albums back to back.  Both Il Tabarro and Cavalleria Rusticana are about husbands who get angry, like really, really angry because their wives are cheating on them and apply the Italian solution to their rivals.  It’s intense and the music is often driving and eruptive.  And keep in mind the number of performers on the stage is approaching two hundred!  Both of these musical experiences are powerful.  This is not a criticism; it is a plea for mercy.  Okay, I am over emphasizing this aspect a bit; there is variety in Il Tabarro’s music, a rather interesting variety, and Cavalleria Rusticana begins gently and has a lovely, tranquil intermezzo before Alfio’s denouement.  With a three-hour opera, the moods are dictated, but when you have a choice, why not take more advantage of that terrific orchestra: say, warm me up with a mixed program of opera/musical pieces, starting with Smetana’s Moldau, then hit me with either Il Tabarro or Cavalleria Rusticana, bring me down easy with Barber’s Adagio for Strings or something similar, and then leave me happy with the Marriage of Figaro overture.  Let me believe it was all a dream and nobody got killed.  Even Puccini ended Il Trittico with a comedy.  For two years in a row now, the MDLO Orchestra has shown it can dazzle us with extraordinary playing and a rich, powerful sound.  Now it is time to romance us a little.

Tenor Jonathan Burton as Tirrudu and soprano Susan Bullock as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. Photo courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

Okay, the music was great; what about the singers?  For me personally, it is mainly the sopranos that keep me going back to the opera house, but Saturday night, I have to admit that it was the guys whose stars shown the brightest.  In Il Tabarro, baritone Mark Delavan delivered an authentic portrayal of the Parisian boat captain Michele, who off’s his wife’s lover, Luigi, in a macabre finish worthy of Alfred Hitchcock.  Powerful in both voice and appearance, he was on point communicating both his pain and anger, sufficient to cause me to feel a moment of sympathy for him, all the while projecting the threat of a shark circling in the water.  He even showed a magnanimous side, giving up his coat to cover Luigi’s corpse at the end (actually to briefly hide it, but we quibble).  Importantly, he was able to ride the crest of the music from the full orchestra that occasionally slightly submerged some of the other singers.  Kudos to Mr. Delavan on a bravura performance.  Not far behind was soprano Jill Gardner’s performance as his wife Giorgetta.  I love the timbre of Ms. Gardner’s soprano, and she sings with great beauty and emotion.  Young tenor and MDLO graduate Yi Li served capably as Luigi.  Another stand out was young mezzo-soprano Allegra de Vita, who sang the role of La Frugola, wife of stevedore Talpa, with a lovely, clear voice.  She also sang the role of Mama Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana; with hair up and wearing a more matronly dress, she projected an entirely different attitude.  In two polished and quite different performances, she showed she has mastered her recent training and is on her way to stardom (don’t miss her in MDLO’s Thaïs later this season).   

Bass-baritone Jake Gardner as Talpa and mezzo-soprano Allegra De Vita as La Frugola in Il Tabarro (she also played Mama Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana). Photo courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

A supporting cast filled out and enhanced the performance of Il Tabarro, including veteran base-baritone Jake Gardner as Talpa, recent MDLO trainees, tenor Joseph Michael Brent as Tinca and tenor Mauricio Miranda as song seller/young lover, and Madeleine Gray and Luciana Cecille as Una Donna.  There was a bit of staging proffered in addition to the placement of Michele’s coat.  The song seller was in the chorus balcony along with seven Mindinettes (members of the female chorus); impressively, the harp was also there for Il Tabarro.  There was also an off-stage chorus of stevedores contributing.  Lost of course, in a concert version, is some of the charm and story enhancement of these side characters, and use of different character placements adds welcome variety.  The full chorus did not appear on stage until Cavalleria Rusticana.  To add drama and irony, the action takes place outside a church during Easter Sunday Mass, a setting that gave Mascagni an opportunity to work in some beautiful choral numbers.

In CR, soprano Susan Bullock played the role of Santuzza, jilted lover of Turiddu.  Ms. Bullock, a very popular headliner in Great Britain, has a beautiful voice that can soar, but her voice really excels in the gentler, highly expressive passages.  On occasion, I had to concentrate to get its full measure against MDLO orchestra’s powerful backdrop.  Jonathan Burton stepped up with a strong, bright, clear tenor voice, bringing Turiddu fully to life, another bravura performance that was a delight.  Mr. Delavan again delivered an excellent performance in the role of the outraged husband, Alfio.  Newcomer soprano Joowon Chae brought a fresh, colorful voice to the role of Lola, who despite being married, had jealously drawn Turiddu away from Santuzza.  The youngsters were all good, but on that night, it was the veterans that showed us what opera can be.

A few years ago, I went to an opera concert while visiting Vienna, Austria.  It was held in a palace but had the feel of a hometown performance.  The singers were in the employ of the company and appeared often there.  It seemed to me that for that audience this was a regular thing, for entertainment, go to the opera, particularly that opera company.  It was a marvelous experience.  I wondered why more companies didn’t use repeat performers.  It’s fun to see favorites perform in different roles.  Many of the singers on Saturday night were in last year’s MDLO concert performance of La Fanciulla del West, including Bullock, Burton, Delavan, and Gardner.  Additionally, I have seen Ms. Gardner in two performances with Virginia Opera.  It was also a pleasure to see Allegra De Vita again; she is a recent member of the Domingo Cafritz Young Artists at the Kennedy Center and has performed in several Washington National Opera productions.  Most of the young singers have performed in previous MDLO concerts.  So, the evening’s experience felt familiar and that felt good to me, a hometown feel. 

I have found Maryland Lyric Opera to consistently deliver quality arts experiences with high entertainment value, using either veteran singers or their recent trainees.  And if you want to make them your hometown opera, what’s wrong with that?

The Fan Experience: The Music Center at Strathmore is a great place to attend concerts -a beautiful, modern concert hall, free parking in the evenings and relatively easy in/easy out.  For fully staged operas, MDLO uses the Kay Theatre on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park.

Shot of the stage during intermission showing the orchestra and chorus. Photo by author’s spouse, Deb Rogers (fiammatravels.com).

MDLO presented the same program again on Sunday afternoon, but had the lead performers change roles, e.g., Ms. Bullock played Giorgetta and Ms. Gardner played Santuzza.  This appears to be a breakout season for Maryland Lyric Opera, with expanded offerings for 2019-2020, including concerts by the MDLO Orchestra; one is with famed pianist Leon Fleisher.  Their next performance will be the MDLO Young Artist Institute in Concert on November 1.

Santa Fe Opera 2019, part III: A Primal Cosi fan tutte

(This is part III of a three-part series based on an August 2019 trip to attend two operas at the Santa Fe Opera.  Part I on The Fan Experience was posted previously and followed by part II, reporting on the premiere of The Thirteenth Child.) 

Cosi fan tutte illustration; image by Stuart McReath; courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.

Sometimes you get surprised, and sometimes, it’s even a good surprise.  The world premiere of The Thirteenth Child was the opera we went to Santa Fe to see.  Cosi fan tutte was an add on because we were going to be there a few days and thought it would be fun to see two operas in our first trip to the Santa Fe Opera.  Don’t get me wrong, Cosi is a great opera, and I anticipated that it would be enjoyable as always, for the music if nothing else.  I knew it was going to be a “modernized” Cosi, which always makes me skeptical, but we were getting to see it at the Santa Fe Opera, a treat all by itself.  In fact, SFO’s Cosi fan tutte turned out to be “the” opera to see, in my opinion, and my favorite Cosi so far.

This opera is one of the big three by composer Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte (along with The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni); this libretto, unlike the other two, is original with da Ponte, though the plot device of testing a mate’s fidelity was not.  The story is simple but requires two leaps of faith, one that all this happens in a day, and two, that the boys’ and the maid’s disguises are adequate to deceive the girls.  One also has to set aside moral judgement of the two young men; it’s a comedy, remember?  Well okay, as listed by Mssrs. Mozart and da Ponte, a “drama giocoso” that has been described as a playful/serious duality.  Regardless, your suspension of disbelief is well rewarded, until you realize even you have been duped, as your anticipation of laughs is replaced by anxiety.  Two young men, Guglielmo and Ferrando, enter into a bet with a more mature and cynical acquaintance Don Alfonso that their girlfriends Fiordiligi and Dorabella will remain faithful to them when tempted.  Alfonso enlists the young women’s maid, Despina, in his plan to make them believe that their young gentlemen have joined the army and have departed, then have the guys return disguised as two different suitors to test the girls’ faithfulness.  Played as comical with a bit of slapstick thrown in, the disturbing undertones slowly rise to the surface and ends with everyone wiser, but no one happy.  Cosi’s themes and messages ran against the zeitgeist of the 19th century, and the opera was disdained as lewd and immoral, unworthy of Mozart’s genius and its music co-opted for other productions.  It was only until, roughly, the 1930’s that it became regularly produced and is now one of the more popular operas.  It is remarkable how the estimation of a work’s greatness depends on the century from which it is viewed.  Audiences and performance art are co-dependent; do you realize when you attend a performance you are a participant in the making of art?  I digress.

l to r: Fiordiligi (Amanda Majeski), Guglielmo (Jarrett Ott), Don Alfonso (Rod Gilfry), Ferrando (Ben Bliss), and Dorabella (Emily D’Angelo). Photo by Ken Howard; courtesy of Santa Fe Opera.

During her pre-opera talk, Cori Ellison, SFO dramaturg extraordinaire, declared that the cast for this Cosi was a dream team.  I assumed her assertion was to some degree company hype, but in fact, it was spot on.  Each performer in a six-member cast deserved this superlative as part of their praise, a member of the Cosi dream team.  Fiordiligi was brilliantly played by soprano Amanda Majeski, who I heard sing as Countess Almaviva in DC three years ago.  She was good then; she is even better now!   A commanding stage presence was united with her beautiful, expressive voice.  Her lover Guglielmo played by baritone Jarrett Ott was well cast and matched his companions in quality of performance.   A riveting portrayal of Dorabella was given by mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, the winner of the 2018 Operalia competition; she demonstrates remarkable on-stage confidence.  With a beautiful voice and singing, she made Dorabella’s transformation possibly the most poignant of the group.  Tenor Ben Bliss played her lover Ferrando, completing a quartet of outstanding performances.  Not to be outdone, baritone Rod Gilfry as Don Alfonso and veteran soprano Tracy Dahl as Despina carved their own niches in a powerhouse cast - Ms. Dahl was clearly an audience favorite.  Each sang well and served effectively as cynical counterpoint to the naïve young lovers.  Honestly, I can offer nothing but praise for all the arias and recitatives.  Name your favorite Cosi aria; it was well done.  Mozart was also the master of ensemble singing and Cosi is filled with duets, trios, quartets, quintets, and sextets.  As good as all the voices were individually, they sounded as good or better when singing together.  They were joined by a capable off-stage chorus (Chorus Master Susanne Sheston).  Kudos to the cast and Mr. Mozart.  Conductor Harry Bickett directed a lively orchestral performance that supported the vocals well but was worthy of listening to on its own.  I am also going to make the case that SFO’s staging of this opera was outstanding, but clearly, singing of this caliber could override the deficiencies of just about any production, so bear that in mind.

l to r: Amanda Majeski as Fiordiligi and Jarrett Ott as Guglielmo embracing Emily D’Angelo as Dorabella. Photos by Ken Howard; courtesy of Santa Fe Opera.

Take away scenery; take away period costumes.  Instead have grey walls and flooring, with a couple of escape hatches on the floor and a couple of access windows on the narrowing sides, simple costumes (e.g., tennis whites, suits, cowboy jeans and jackets) changed each scene (scenic design by Paul Tate Depoo III), but revealing a more modern, but unspecified time and place.  What have you got?  The set for Director R. B. Schlather’s Cosi fan tutte.  Why was this barren landscape Mr. Schlather’s choice?  He wanted to take away the familiar that brings with it ingrained presuppositions, so that we could see more clearly what is going on with the characters who have converged on this journey together; movie travel dramas attempt something similar.  Peeling back the layers of expectations imposed by epoch and status in society puts the spotlight on the inter-working of human hearts and relationships, revealing their truths (that, frankly, don’t seem to have changed that much over 200 years, which is why classic operas are still relevant today, even when cloaked in their own time).  It also strips away excuses; each character must own their actions.  Without the attachment to another time or place, Don Alfonso, Despina, Gulielmo, Ferrando, Fiordiligi, and Dorabella all felt more like soul mates this time through.

The movement and placement of characters in each scene was choreographed to carry messages.  The lighting on stage carried those messages as well; a humorous example occurred when Despina took center stage to lecture the girls; she signaled for a spotlight and one appeared, though generally the lighting effects were more subtle; kudos to Jax Messenger for lighting design.  The costumes carried messages also and as my wife noted, they freed lots of bare arms and legs, allowing the players to move about and use their bodies to express themselves in ways not possible shrouded in the typically heavy raiment of the classics. Dance poses and moves were employed; kudos to Terese Wadden for costume design.  Luckily Bliss, Ott, Majeski, and D’Angelo were all young and in excellent shape because athleticism was required, rolling and tumbling about on the floor, jumping in and out of openings.  A couple of scenes that come to mind – Dorabella and Fiordiligi being drawn as if by a magnet to new suitors departing from sight; Dorabella rolling about on the floor while delivering a sensational aria; and Don Alfonso’s cowboy entrance, giving a tip of the hat to the production’s locale.  Perhaps the most searing image for me was of Dorabella, after her fall from grace, standing at the back of the stage, dressed in a classy, sexy suit that announced her new, worldly-wise sophistication.  In the end, even Despina was unhappy with her victory, but Alfonso crowns his cynicism by pouring liquor (water?) over each of the heads of the crew whose innocence he has smashed, and each of them then exited the stage single file…to what?  I learned that a lot can be done with a blank stage.

Rod Gilfry as Don Alfonso opening Cosi with a tip of the hat to the southwest. Photo by Ken Howard; courtesy of Santa Fe Opera.

Somehow, I feel there must be a name for this type of opera production that falls somewhere between concert opera (which I adore), where the singing and music are the focus, and grand opera, where we get the whole ball of wax.  Some term for opera set adrift in time and space, but not lacking movement.  How about “primal” opera?

Kudos to the Santa Fe Opera and their brilliant cast, and I’m so glad that we included Cosi in this trip.  Ya know, Cosi fan tutte doesn’t translate well but essentially means “thus do all women”.  However, Cosi’s impact does not allow anyone to leave with a feeling of moral superiority; more human, yes, but superior, no.. One could argue that the opera would be more appropriately named “Cosi fan tutti” or “thus do we all”. Thankfully, SFO did allow us to leave without pouring anything on our heads.

Farewell to Santa Fe Opera this season. Thanks for a great experience. (Santa Fe Opera illustration. Image by Stuart Mcreath; courtesy of Santa Fe Opera.)

 The Fan Experience: I covered this aspect in Part I of this series; take a look if you don’t know what a wonderful ride the Santa Fe Opera is.  My single caution is that if you are buying tickets that are way on the side, like for just about any opera house, inquire from the ticket office whether you will lose sight of a small portion of the stage, not a major consideration and those side seats are a bargain, but unpleasant if you are surprised.  I found driving to, parking, and exiting SFO to be relatively straightforward. The SFO website is comprehensive in providing all the logistics info you need, including the fact that the nights in the desert in an open-air theater can get chilly. The pre-opera talks are exceptional and are given both one and two hours before the performance. Food is available, including a special purchase, elegant buffet dinner with its own pre-opera talk, but also consider tailgating, an SFO tradition.

SFO’s new season, July and August 2020, has already been announced. If you want to enrich your arts and cultural experience even more, consider visiting while the 99th annual Santa Fe Indian Market is occurring, August 15-16, 2020.