Don Carlo, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Dec. 11 2010

Up early on a Saturday morning to get to our local theater in plenty of time to get a good seat for the transmission that begins at 9:30 am west coast time—what we do for our passions! But we were rewarded for our efforts with over 3½ hours of fine music, plus intermissions, making 4 hours 40 minutes in total—so “lunch” didn’t happen until nearly 3:00. I hardly noticed.

The staging was modern yet faithful to the story, meaning that the set designer used modern materials to evoke the time and place of the action, as opposed to setting it in, say, a laundromat. The Met is to be commended for presenting the complete opera (less the dance numbers); we got the original Act I, in the forest of Fontainebleu. A few stick-figure trees served as the forest, two scalloped white carpets served as the snow, and the area between the carpets served as a path through the forest. Act II scene 1 in the church was gloomy, with dark pillars and a gigantic sarcophagous with “CARLOS” chiseled on the side in perfect Roman capitals. The wall that serves as the backdrop for Act II scene 2 in the monastery garden was made out of large oblong red “bricks,” each with shallow tetrahedral face scored with lines. Not a 1558 wall, but still sufficient to evoke a walled garden. Left of center, enough bricks are missing so that their absence forms a cross, with a bell hanging in the middle of it. Act III scene 1 failed to leave an impression. Act III, scene 2, the auto-da-fé (burning the heretics at the stake) was the most impressive, with the highly sculpted golden façade of a Gothic cathedral in the background, and a very large painting of the head of Christ crowned with thorns to the left. Act IV scene 1 brings us to King Philip’s study, with high walls left back and right, punctuated with a rectangular grid of foot-square windows; there are a couple of desks with accoutrements. Act IV scene 2 is in a very spare dungeon. The high walls continue, everything else goes away, and the prison bars are represented by a row of soldiers standing three feet apart facing away from the audience. Act V brings us back to the church with the CARLOS sarcophagous.

Our cast:
Don Carlo: Roberto Alagna
Elisabetta: Marina Poplavskaya
Rodrigo: Simon Keenlyside
King Philip: Ferruccio Furlanetto
Princess Eboli: Anna Smirnova
Grand Inquisitor: Eric Halfvarson
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
All were a delight to listen to, but I will single out Eric Halfvarson’s Grand Inquisitor as particularly noteworthy, with a wonderful bass voice and a superb portrayal of the ancient, doddering, yet malevolent cleric.

For a while at least, my thinking will be colored by the magnificent Makropulos Case, recently seen at San Francisco Opera. Don Carlo did not reach that level. Good music, yes; good singing, unquestionably; but no goosebumps, no “I have to catch the encore as well.” A good solid beta.

The Makropulos Case version 2, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 28 2010

Today’s final performance of The Makropulos Case continued to maintain the very high standards of the dress rehearsal and the performance of Nov. 24. Karita Mattila dominated the stage as Emilia Marty with her singing and particularly her acting; Gerd Grochowski again made his mark as a very impressive Baron Prus. I was delighted to see in the program notes that we will see him again soon, as Gunther in San Francisco’s 2011 Ring. And again, a well-deserved standing ovation for Mattila at curtain call. After her bows, she bestowed the one-cheek/other-cheek European style double kiss on each of her fellow cast members. Another alpha for the books. A candidate for my “top ten” list, which only admits new members after a period of time to see whether I keep asking people “Did you see Karita Mattila in The Makropulos Case in 2010?”

Tosca version 2, Opera San Jose, Nov. 26 2010

We saw the penultimate performance of Tosca, given by the opposite cast from the opening night cast, with Rebecca Davis as Tosca, Christopher Bengochea as Cavaradossi, and Torlef Borsting as Scarpia. Krassen Karagiozov and Isaiah Musik-Ayala repeated the roles of Angelotti and the sacristan, respectively. They were again in fine voice, Karagiozov in particular. His singing seems to have grown some considerable heft in the lower register. Davis demonstrated the virtues that led to her selection into San Francisco Opera’s Merola program. Bengochea seemed to be having an off night: his voice sounded husky and strained. Has his recent illness and weight loss affected his singing? Borsting lacked the impact that Silas Elash had in the other cast, seen the previous week. A marginal beta.

The Makropulos Case, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 24 2010

Karita Mattila gave an absolutely riveting performance as Emilia Marty in Janacek’s penultimate opera, The Makropulos Case, in San Francisco. I had seen the dress rehearsal, and was so tremendously impressed by the entire effort that when a front-row orchestra seat became available I snapped it up, even though my wife and I have yet to attend our regular series performance.

During the prelude, we get an advance peek at the sets for all three acts as the turntable slowly rotates. Act I consists of a very tall wall that curves away from us; inset into the wall are the bookshelves called for in the stage directions, with a ladder on the right for access to their higher levels. At stage level, there is a lawyer's wooden desk and various easy chairs. Legal books and papers are piled high on the desk and on the floor. On the wall is a giant clock. At the dress rehearsal it displayed the current time; at the performance it was about a half-hour fast. Its purpose is to remind us all of time slowly ticking away. The “wallpaper” was cross-hatched black stripes on a white background, more dense in some places than others. The entire effect was monochromatic. In Act II we see a stage curtain painted on another curved black-and-white cross-hatched surface; the stage curtain curves toward us. There is a sofa and a make-up table with lighted mirror that is wheeled in early in the act. Act III presents a bed supporting Emilia Marty and Baron Prus. Behind them a rising walkway curves out of sight. The left side of the walkway is the reverse side of the wall of bookshelves from Act I, while the right side of the walkway is the reverse side of the stage curtain of Act II. The black-and-white cross-hatching persists.

Karita Mattila is performing the role of Emilia Marty for the first time in her career. Her singing and her acting were first-rate in all respects. Her performance was so polished, it’s hard to believe that this is her first time out. It’s also hard to believe that she just turned 50. This ought to be her signature role.

She was supported by a fine cast:
Albert Gregor: Miro Dvorsky
Baron Jaroslav Prus: Gerd Grochowski
Dr. Kolenaty: Dale Travis
Vitek: Thomas Glenn
Kristina: Susannah Biller
Count Hauk-Šendorf: Matthew O’Neill
Janek: Brian Jagde
A Stagehand: Austin Kness
A Chambermaid, A Cleaning Woman: Maya Lahyani
Of these, Gerd Grochowski deserves special mention for his round, full, well-projected baritone.

At the curtain call, enthusiastic applause, with a few standing. When Mattila appeared, everyone rose, and deservedly so. Clearly an alpha.

Xerxes, Berkeley West Edge Opera, Nov. 21 2010

Opera San Jose presented Handel’s Xerxes several years ago, and I confess that I remembered very little of it. I did remember that Amastre loves Xerxes, who has got the hots for Romilda, who is in love with Arsamene, who returns her love; meanwhile, Atalanta is smitten with Arsamene. As our excellent pre-performance speaker (John Prescott) said, if you are going to have a comedy, what’s better than a love triangle? Two love triangles!

Xerxes is one of just a few Handel comedies, and Berkeley West Edge took that idea and ran with it, with lots of inventive stage business. Just one example: during an orchestral interlude, Arsamene and Romilda strip down to their skivvies, hop under the covers, and a lot of ill-defined “action” takes place under the covers. After a little bit of this, who should appear from under the bed but Atalanta, with a pair of very wide eyes.

The sets were simple, consisting of a wire-frame tree (in two dimensions) to which Xerxes can sing “Ombrai mai fu” and later hang photos of Romilda on, and a bed that keeps getting rolled on and off the stage. Add a framed bedroom window that can drop down from on high, and a couple of stepladders next to the window, and a collection of silhouettes of triremes to form Xerxes’s bridge across the Hellespont, and that’s all.

Our cast:
Xerxes: Paula Rasmussen
Romilda: Angela Cadelago
Arsamene: Ryan Belongie
Atalanta: Anna Slate
Amastre: Sonia Gariaeff
Elviro: Donald Sherrill
Ariodate: Roger McCracken
Of these, the two lovers Romilda and Arsamene were the standouts. Angela Cadelago sang beautifully, and looked as good as she sang, while Ryan Belongie made a strong argument for using a countertenor rather than a mezzo. Sonia Gariaeff, who has made quite an impression the few other times I have heard her, had a fairly small part; I would have liked to have heard more of her.

Bottom line, a delightful presentation of an instance of a genre that I’ve not yet come to fully appreciate—a beta.

Tosca, Opera San Jose, Nov. 18 2010

I have very much enjoyed researching the background of Tosca (the Roman Republic, the Battle of Marengo, the original Victorien Sardou play La Tosca, etc.) in preparation for giving three of my “potluck preview” talks, and doing so meant that I got more out of this Tosca than ever before. For just one example, remember that the opening to Act III includes the sounds of church bells at dawn. The score marks the bells not as pp or ff, but as vicino (nearby), lontano (distant), molto lontano (very distant), etc. So for the first time, I really listened to the bells—it is a wonderful effect!

The sets were fairly modest without looking cheap. In Act I, there is the requisite statue of the Madonna to the left, and nearby the entrance to the private Attavanti chapel. Center, the sight line goes back to the church wall, with a double door. To the right, a closer wall, with a large painting of the Madonna surrounded by cherubs, and the painter’s scaffold. With the chapel to the left and the painter’s scaffold to the right, not a whole lot of room is left for the chorus to sing the Te Deum. The Act II set has Scarpia’s desk to the left, with several candles on it; behind the desk are the shutters that he can close to shut out the sounds of the cantata from the floor below. To the right, a small writing table in front of the doorway to the torture chamber. Said doorway and entrance is a structure in the room, not just a door in a side wall. In back, again a wall with double doors in the center. Act III has a walkway five feet above stage level, going all the way from left to right, with an angled ramp leading from stage level up to it. In back of the walkway is a brick wall, with cutouts, presumably for cannon. And there is a small statue of St. Michael Archangel, in the same pose as the one atop the real Castel Sant' Angelo in Rome.

The first voice heard is that of Angelotti, the escaped prisoner, expertly sung by Krassen Karagiozov. He was sounding very good that evening. Isaiah Musik-Ayala’s Sacristan was also delightful. It’s good to see Isaiah with a good close shave. Alexander Boyer’s Cavaradossi was good, aside from a badly cracked note in E lucevan le stelle. My studies had revealed that in the Sardou play, Cavaradossi is a freethinker and a Bonapartist, opposed to the government in power; even his mustache contributes to the suspicions about him. I was pleased to see that the director had indeed equipped Alexander with a mustache. Jouvanca Jean-Baptiste sang Tosca. She started out a bit rough in Act I, but cleaned it up as the evening went on. I was particularly looking forward to Silas Elash’s Scarpia. Silas in real life looks to be on the other end of the spectrum from the purely evil Scarpia—but the makeup and costuming departments can do wonders. His Scarpia sounded somewhat more gentle than the most effective Scarpia would be—but I acknowledge that I’ve been deeply into the classic Maria Callas/Giuseppe di Stefano/Tito Gobbi recording from 1953.

One bit of acting/direction that really worked for me was in the middle of Act II. Cavaradossi’s final scream of Ahime! (that leads to Tosca’s spilling the beans) was immediately preceded by Scarpia holding out his arm in the direction of the open door to the torture chamber, with his fingers clenched and his thumb up. As the music grows in intensity, Scarpia brings down his thumb, clearly directing Roberti to tighten the screws even more. Chilling.

There is always the question of how Tosca will actually “jump to her death.” Here, she runs up the ramp, runs to the left along the walkway to meet soldiers entering from the left, reverses course and runs into more soldiers entering from the right, and has no choice but to jump off the walkway through one of the cannon ports. Sorry, but I’m not privy to what she jumped onto. Presumably not a trampoline.

Good singing, good acting, decent sets, fabulous music, goosebumps in places. A solid beta.

Madama Butterfly, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 14 2010

San Francisco Opera’s new production of Madama Butterfly is lovely to look at, but it’s hard to get excited over the remaining aspects. The set consists of the little house on Nagasaki hill with sliding shoji walls and pointed arches, and rafters open to the elements. To one side there is a deck; growing through the deck is a large tree, with leaves larger than fig-tree leaves, leaning over the little house as though it is trying to engulf it, kudzu-like. The little house really does sit on top of a hill, so that the characters need to climb up 6 feet or so to reach the house. In the background there is a diorama of Nagasaki harbor way down below; the little house may be 1000 feet or more above sea level.

The little house and its hill were mounted on a turntable. The unfortunate aspect of the production was that (1) the turntable was overused, there seemed to be too many gratuitous rotations of the turntable (2) the rotation of the turntable was presented as being performed by half a dozen kuroku (black-clad stagehands) pulling on hefty ropes, but the ropes often went slack and the illusion of pulling a weighty object was not well conveyed. Other kuroku served the performance as well, but instead of the appropriate stealthy, I’m-not-really-here motions, their grossly exaggerated stepping motions seemed to want to call attention to them.

Our cast differed from the opening night cast:
Cio-Cio-San: Daniela Dessì
Lt. B. F. Pinkerton: Stefano Secco
Suzuki: Daveda Karanas
Goro: Thomas Glenn
Sharpless: Quinn Kelsey
Prince Yamadori: Austin Kness
The Bonze: Christian Van Horn
Conductor: Julian Kovatchev
The conductor for the first several performances was our esteemed Verdi/Puccini maestro, Nicola Luisotti; I’m sure I would have preferred to have been at one of his performances. I can’t specifically fault anyone for anything, aside from the director who dressed Goro in a straw hat and a checkered vest (maybe he specializes in procuring Japanese women for visiting American sailors?), but the performance fell far short of the bar established a few years ago in the productions with Patricia Racette. I do need to note a few effective directorial touches: we see Suzuki at the opening of Act II praying to her Japanese gods, then we notice that Cio-Cio San has been praying to a statue of the Virgin Mary. Also, when Pinkerton enters the house, he removes his shoes, Japanese fashion—when Sharpless enters the “Welcome to this American house,” he does not. A beta—but barely.

Don Pasquale, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Nov 13 2010

According to the images projected prior to the beginning of the performance, in 40 years James Levine has conducted nearly 2500 performances of 86 different operas at the Met, but this is his first Don Pasquale. And it is a winner. The sprightly, sparkling overture was just a prelude of things to come, and earned Levine and the orchestra sustained, well-deserved applause, well more than a “Jimmy, we’re glad you’re back after a long absence.” When the curtain went up, we saw Don Pasquale’s cavernous (after all, this is the Met stage) but dilapidated abode, with a sagging bed in the middle, stairs ascending behind the bed, columns and pillars and an entrance way off to the right, the whole festooned with dirty laundry. John Del Carlo sang the title role to perfection; I now understand why one of my companions this morning is a big John Del Carlo fan. Mariusz Kwiecien was an excellent Dr. Malatesta. Ernesto was sung by Matthew Polenzani, who earned one of my few minor reservations about the performance: I heard a bit of a glare in his upper register that didn’t particularly appeal to me. On balance, though, he fit well with the rest of the cast.

We don’t hear a female voice until the second scene, when we are introduced to Norina, reading a book on the balcony of her rooftop apartment overlooking a Tuscan city, and introducing herself to the audience in an aria that functions exactly as does “Una voce poca fa.” Anna Netrebko absolutely shone in this role. When I first saw her following the birth of her child, her voice sounded a shade darker, and she had lost some of her endearing girlish impishness. Here she sang gorgeously, and acted the part of the young woman to the hilt, even doing a somersault into her chaise longue at the end of the scene, and jumping on Don Pasquale’s bed as part of her antics following the signing of the marriage contract. Here the antics went just a bit too far: her kicking him in the behind wasn’t necessary.

Following intermission, we are again in Don Pasquale’s house, but now with dozens of newly-hired (but not yet uniformly attired) servants, and many large packing crates, presumably containing new furniture, and labeled with proper Italian words. The scene ended with an encore of the wonderful Pasquale-Malatesta patter song duet, in front of the curtain, which has been a feature of every other Don Pasquale that I have seen. I finally understood it as (partial) cover for the scene change, which is complicated enough that the curtain remains down for several minutes following the encore. Nevertheless, it is delightful to hear that music again.

The final scene takes place in Don Pasquale’s garden, with a courtyard to the right and the two-story house to the left, with a full-width balcony leading to stairs descending to the garden.

Great music, superb singing, excellent playing, wonderful sets, spirited acting—one could hardly ask for anything more. Clearly an alpha.

Boris Godunov, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Nov 10 2010

I had high hopes for Stephen Wadsworth’s production of Boris Godunov at the Met, seen in the encore performance of Nov. 10, based on his superb Ring for Seattle Opera. Unfortunately, reality fell short of expectations. The sets took the minimalist approach too far. For the coronation scene, we get a flat golden wall with a door. Yes, the golden wall appears to be made out of 1-foot by 3-foot golden plates with a bit of texture, but it’s pretty stark. Pimen and Grigory do without a monk’s cell; the only prop is a gigantic book, with pages about 6 feet square, on which Pimen is writing his history of Russia. Yes, he has to walk on and kneel on the book to write on it, using large characters which I take to be representative of 16th-century Cyrillic. (The book then winds up in every scene following, and people keep walking on it.) The inn at the Lithuanian frontier was a small wall flown in from above with a rude table in front of it, and lots of open space on the rest of the stage. Boris’s mad scene was done with a throne surrounded on four sides with steps up to the throne, rather similar to the stepped pyramid in San Francisco's recent production of Aida. The Polish scene was built around four very rectangular benches arranged in a square. The final three scenes (outside the cathedral with the Holy Fool, the boyars, and the Kromy Forest) featured little more than the large chorus. And of course, the book, which ends up in tatters.

The production could have been redeemed by a stellar performance, but the performance also failed to move me. Much advance notice was made of René Pape’s Boris, but I didn't get much out of it. The remainder of the principals were all Russians. The most impressive performance was given by Andrey Popov as the Holy Fool, notable not so much for the singing (Mussorgky doesn't give him particularly nice music to sing) as for his acting. Wadsworth gave him a significant (mute) role in the first scene. The camera followed him closely, and Popov deserved the attention. In the later scene outside the cathedral, where the children pester him, he wound up crawling into the omnipresent large book and wrapping one of the giant pages around him like a blanket—very effective. Mikhail Petrenko brought a superb bass voice to the role of Pimen, and Vladimir Ognovenko was an effective Varlaam. I didn’t feel that my 4½ hours in the theater had been wasted, but I didn’t get much out of it either. A gamma.

Cyrano de Bergerac, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 6 2010

Franco Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac makes for a nice show but it’s not surprising that it’s not standard repertoire.

The San Francisco Opera production, imported from the Theatre du Chatelet, is perfectly appropriate to the time frame of 1619-1655, the lifespan of the historical Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac. Swords are swords and muskets are muskets. The stage action actually begins several minutes before the music starts, as we see the reverse side of the curtain at the theater of the Hotel de Bourgogne, with stagehands preparing the various props that will be used in the performance-within-the-opera. The curtain goes up, we see the theater-goers at the rear of the stage, and we see the back side of the “clouds” that are drawn across the stage. Montfleury arrives in a fantastic airborne chariot, but it’s a 17th-century fantasy, not a 21st-century fantasy. The bakery of Act II Scene 1 is a rather industrial-scale bakery, with a baker at the second-story level mixing his ingredients in a gigantic copper bowl, while other bakers arrange 3-foot-tall loaves of bread, baked in the shape of human figures, for glazing. Scene 2 brings us Roxane’s home and balcony, perfectly represented in “stone.”

Act III, following the single intermission, presents what appears to be the interior of the fort that is under siege by the Spanish forces. Although the cadets are supposed to be the ones laying siege to Arras, they are the ones that are starving, and the well-fed, well-dressed, vigorous Spanish forces are the ones that come over the wall and massacre the cadets, somehow missing Cyrano as they perform the coup de grace on the fallen bodies. Only in Act IV do we see something not quite authentic. The stage is dominated by a large tree that looks more like a tree than do the aluminum creations in the Werther production of a few weeks ago. Left with only a few large brown leaves, it manages to look more artificial and less real than anything else we've seen so far.

These performances are rumored to be Placido Domingo’s final appearance onstage at San Francisco Opera. His voice remains strong and clear and gives no evidence of being ready for retirement. Ainhoa Arteta (from the Basque region of Spain) as his Roxane was also outstanding. Her Christian, Thiago Arancam (from Brazil) started with a rather pinched, strained tenor that improved through the afternoon. Our star-to-be, Leah Crocetto, had one small and one miniscule role as Lisa and Lay Sister respectively; I continue to hope to hear her in larger roles.

The production was magnificent, the singers rose to the occasion, but the music rarely did. A great opera does not have to have hummable, take-home-with-you big tunes to make an impact, but here the music does not make much of an impact. Yes, the final minutes, where Roxane comes to understand that it is the “ugly” Cyrano who had penned all of those wonderful letters from Christian, are quite moving, but the remainder is undistinguished. Perhaps if he had gotten lucky at just one point in his career, we might mention the name of Alfano in the same breath as Leoncavallo and Mascagni, but he didn’t and we don’t. A beta, on the strength of the production and the performances.

Marriage of Figaro, San Francisco Opera, Oct. 10 2010

Das Rheingold yesterday, followed immediately by an author/book-signing event by Lotfi Mansouri, former general director of San Francisco Opera, followed today by San Francisco Opera's performance of The Marriage of Figaro. Fall opera season is busy, but boy is it fun!

The production, by John Copley, dates back to 1986; this is the sixth season in which it has been seen. The sets are lovely, traditional, and in no need of being updated. In Act 1 we see the room that the Count has given to Figaro and Susanna, with two-story tall golden-brown walls and a wooden staircase leading up to a balcony that provides access to the Count's and Countess's bedrooms. There is a bedframe, an armoire, and a dressing-table—and of course a large wooden chair in which Cherubino will hide. Act 2, in the Countess's bedroom, has the same golden-brown walls, and a large bed. The bedroom door is backstage center, the closet is to the right, and the window is to the left. (In a nice bit of stagecraft, Susanna will open the curtains and the sun will stream in.) Act 3 is the one incongruous setting, in a courtyard. There are iron gates to the left, the castle behind (with perfectly rendered Spanish clay tiles), a Moorish design on the wall, and a writing desk at the side of the courtyard. Act 4, in the garden, is dominated by tall Lombardy poplars; there are a few steps leading up to a higher level of the garden. The pavilion is offstage.

Our cast:
Figaro: Kostas Smoriginas
Susanna: Heidi Stober
Countess Almaviva: Ellie Dehn
Cherubino: Michèle Losier
Count Almaviva: Trevor Scheunemann
Marcellina: Catherine Cook
Don Basilio: Greg Fedderly
Doctor Bartolo: Dale Travis
Don Curzio: Robert MacNeil
Barbarina: Sara Gartland
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
(Luca Pisaroni, Danielle de Niese, Lucas Meacham, and John Del Carlo had sung in earlier performances in this run.) What was notable about this performance was the stage action—how many ideas were due to the singers, and how many to the director, is one the great imponderables, but there were any number of nice touches. For example, when Cherubino enters the Countess's bedroom in Act 2, Luisotti played the first bar of “Non piu andrai” on the harpsichord. When Cherubino enters the garden in Act 4, he (she) is humming the same tune. When the Count knocks on the Countess's door, Cherubino's first impulse is to hide under the bedcovers, echoing his hiding under Susanna's dress (in this production, a patterned sheet) in Act 1. In Act 3, after Figaro has discovered that Marcellina is his mother, and after Susanna slaps him, he goes and buries his head in his mother's lap just like a little boy. This last bit is something that is funny once, but probably not nearly as effective if seen a second time, like the tank in Laurent Pelly's production of Daughter of the Regiment.

Vocally, Ellie Dehn's Countess was the standout, with her two big arias "Porgi amor" and "Dove sono" being particularly effective. Don Basilio projected well; the remaining singers did not. They seemed to be young voices not accustomed to filling a space the size of the San Francisco Opera House. Overall, the performance was a success, with more audience laughter than is typical, and leading up to a moving “Perdono, perdono” finale in the garden. A beta.

Das Rheingold, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Oct. 9 2010

The Metropolitan Opera has launched their new Ring production, directed by Robert Lepage, whose primary center of attention is the 45-ton "machine" or "device" that occupies the rear portion of the stage. Imagine a left-to-right axle that supports 24 2-foot wide planks or seesaws, 2 inches apart from each other, each of which can be rotated independently about the axle. The planks are actually obtuse isosceles triangles, with the long side maybe 20 feet long and the short sides maybe 11 feet long. When the triangles are all lined up with their long sides facing the audience, images can be projected on it (and with other configurations as well).

Scene 1 had one of the short sides nearly level, with the other short side sloping down to the stage floor at an angle that permitted Alberich to climb up the slope to press his advances on the Rhinemaidens above, and permitted him to slide down to stage level. The slope must have been similar to that of a playground slide. On this slope were projected images of gold and silver coins, which slid down in response to the actions of the singers. In scene 2, two sets of six planks were held level, providing platforms for the giants to stand on—a novel alternative to platform shoes or stagehands carrying the singers piggyback or gigantic puppets. Other planks formed a slope down to the stage, permitting Freia (or her stagehand double) to enter sliding head-first on her belly to just below stage level, from whence Freia herself climbed up to the stage. Donner and Froh entered in the same manner. The descent to Nibelheim was handled by rotating each plank a few degrees more than the preceding one, forming a twisted staircase; doubles suspended by wires walked from one side to the other, starting off with their bodies parallel to the stage floor and gradually righting themselves. Scene 3 didn't make much use of the planks, and the ascent from Nibelheim was the inverse of the descent. In Scene 4 the giants were again supported on their platforms, and Freia was laid out in a hammock-like net while various golden shields were placed on top of her to hide her from the giants' eyes—not particularly effective. The best use of the machine was made for the Rainbow Bridge: six planks in the center were positioned so that they could be climbed, the remaining planks were made vertical, while rainbow lighting was projected on the machine and above it. We did not see a Valhalla.

By and large I felt that the machine was well used to convey the action, but nevertheless it called too much attention to itself—“how will the machine be configured next?” The machine left a relatively modest space in front of it for most of the action to take place, 10 or 15 feet. The costumes were in keeping with a “conventional” as opposed to “radical” Ring productions: Wotan, Froh, and Donner were dressed as mythical heroes, with plastic breastplates to make them appear muscular; Loge was dressed in an outfit made up of strips of cloth; the giants looked like burly Norsemen. Fricka and Freia wore simple gowns, though Fricka had some sort of brooch just below her bosom that pulsed with light on occasion.

The cast was as follows:
Freia: Wendy Bryn Harmer
Fricka: Stephanie Blythe
Erda: Patricia Bardon
Loge: Richard Croft
Mime: Gerhard Siegel
Wotan: Bryn Terfel
Alberich: Eric Owens
Fasolt: Franz-Josef Selig
Fafner: Hans-Peter König
plus three Rheinmaidens not credited in the Met's handout. James Levine was at the helm, back from several months of recuperation from medical problems. Of the singers, I was particularly struck by Eric Owens as Alberich. He sang with a snarl in his voice that fitted the part perfectly. My only reservation about him was that he smiled too much. The orchestra under Levine played magnificently and the total effect was very powerful—matching the 2005 Seattle Rheingold as “best Rheingold I've ever seen.” I definitely want to get to the encore broadcast.

See also the Met's page, “A New Ring for the Met”

Werther, San Francisco Opera, Sept. 26 2010

This production of Werther shows a director giving free rein to his ideas, which fortunately are not as outlandish as those that have informed other San Francisco productions -- I think particularly of Macbeth, which is remembered for the egg beater and hula hoop and the typewriter atop the prompter's box. The same set is used for all four acts: a metal wall on three sides, featuring a strip of fluorescent lighting from one end to the other; a gigantic stack of boxes taking up most of the rear left quadrant, "trees" with bare limbs and aluminum trunks, an out-of-view (from the orchestra section) staircase by which people enter and leave, and in front and below the floor level of Charlotte's home, a scruffy hotel room or apartment for Werther with an unmade bed and lots of books on the floor. We see much more of Albert than is called for in the text. In particular, he reads over Charlotte's shoulder as she reads Werther's letters at the beginning of Act 3. He even tears one of them up. But, as mentioned, not excessively outlandish. Even having seen the dress rehearsal, I wasn't able to comprehend the director's vision, but at least I was willing to believe that he had some sort of consistent vision, even if I didn't get it. Oh yes, I should mention that when Werther returns to Charlotte's home at Christmas, there are three of him, each carrying a torch. They all three shoot themselves (in Charlotte's home). One falls out of sight, one falls where Charlotte can mourn the body, and the third (the tenor) gets to wander around the stage singing.

My favorites were Brian Mulligan as Albert, with a fine baritone, and Christian Van Horn. I'm quickly becoming a CVH fan! He was the King of Egypt in Aida, and he will be the Bonze in Butterfly. The other singers (Ramon Vargas as Werther, Alice Coote as Charlotte, Heidi Stober as Sophie) acquitted themselves well though not memorably. We were originally scheduled to hear Elina Garanca as Charlotte. Having seen the Met HD broadcasts of her Carmen and Cenerentola, I was really looking forward to hearing her in person, but apparently her agent managed to get her double-booked, and San Francisco lost.

Anna Karenina version 3, Opera San Jose, Sept. 25 2010

It just keeps getting better! I wound up with an extra ticket to Anna Karenina, so I exchanged the ticket for the final performance by the opening night cast, making the third time I had heard that cast (Jasmina/Krassen/Kirk/Michael), counting the dress rehearsal. I've heard that the fourth performance has a tendency to be the best. This was the fourth by this cast, and the results add evidence to that assertion. Everyone was in fine form, but I have to particularly note the contribution of Kirk Eichelberger as Karenin, who was simply superb. The only difference in performing forces was the conductor. Our own Bryan Nies took over from Stewart Robertson, the conductor of the Florida premiere and the St. Louis reprise. Bryan led a performance every bit as fine as the ones I had heard previously.

So after a summer of reading the novel, seeing the 1935 Greta Garbo and 1948 Vivien Leigh movies, attended a number of Opera San Jose events, giving two of my own previews to my friends, and seeing four performances, Anna Karenina is a wrap. It's not going to replace Madama Butterfly, but it's the best new opera I've seen since Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking.

On to Tosca, Opera San Jose's next production!

Aida at the ball park, San Francisco Opera, Sept. 24 2010

What fun! In recent years San Francisco Opera has been simulcasting a live performance of an opera to AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants play. They wisely chose a late-September date for the event; we often get our warmest weather at that time. Nevertheless, I went loaded for bear, with a woolen overshirt and two jackets, prepared for the vagaries that might be presented. I only needed the overshirt. It stayed very pleasant all evening long, from 8:00 to 10:55. I don't know whether they chose Sept. 25 for the full moon as well, but as I took my seat said moon had just appeared over the East Bay hills and the moonbeams were reflecting off the Bay.

I had failed to make contact with friends who were saving a seat (note to self: be in line at 5:30 next year, not 7:30, and try to zero in on section 212), and wound up one level above. That seat turned out to be perfectly fine: just a little bit above the gigantic display screen above center field, and a bit left of home plate. The display screen, if I remember correctly, measures 103 feet diagonally. It's a smaller field of view than my seat in the opera house, but with the camera closeups, it makes no difference. The sound doesn't match what is heard in the opera house, but it's entirely adequate in the best sense of the words. You get to go to the opera wearing your jeans, you get to eat garlic fries and other ball park food, and in a pre-performance announcement the general director admonished the folks at the opera house to turn off their cell phones but said that the folks at the ball park could do what we want.

The performers were the same as when I saw it at the opera house, but for this special occasion I think they dug a little deeper and delivered an even more impressive performance -- except for Marco Vratogna as Amonasro, who continued to be the most impressive of all.

At intermission, our hosts (KDFC announcers) told us that the attendance was estimated at 32,000. I think that's a record for the four or five ball park simulcasts. I hope they all turn into subscribers!

Anna Karenina version 2, Opera San Jose, Sept. 23 2010

Tonight was the first time I had seen these principals in the opera. Opera San Jose has two casts for every production. Most of the time the major roles are shared between two people, and the minor roles may be assigned to only one person. For example, Khori Dastoor sang all of the Kittys, and Paul Murray sang all of the Yashvins. The part of Anna was shared by Jasmina Halimic (heard Sunday) and Jouvanca Jean-Baptiste (heard this evening); Vronsky was shared by Krassen Karagiozov and Torlef Borsting; Karenin was shared by Kirk Eichelberger and Isaiah Musik-Ayala. Years ago when I had only one season ticket, I got tired of missing some of my favorite singers, and decided that the easy way to solve that problem was to get two season tickets, one for each cast.

Jouvanca made a fine Anna Karenina, with a beautifully clear voice. Torlef (Vronsky) made an imposing figure with his full head of hair, thick beard, bushy eyebrows, and stout physique; he made me think of a Russian bear. However, his relatively lightweight tone didn't match the "Russian bear" image. He's brand-new as a resident artist, and I hope to hear him develop during his Opera San Jose career. Isaiah (Karenin) is developing. This is his second year, and he sings with a fuller, more rounded voice than I remember from last year. Alexander Boyer sang Levin (sharing the part with Michael Dailey) nicely; Tori Grayum (sharing with Bettany Coffland) made an impressive Dolly. Michael Mendelsohn was a more reserved Stiva than Christopher Bengochea, who had nearly burst with energy.

I continue to be impressed with the overall production. The 19 scene changes are handled with dispatch; the sets, even if simple, are lovely and effective -- no "weird stuff" such as the Werther that is currently running at San Francisco Opera.

Anna Karenina, Opera San Jose, Sept. 19 2010

This production is a feather in Opera San Jose's cap. Everything came together this afternoon: singers, orchestra, sets, costumes, acting were all first-rate.

With 19 or so scene changes, the sets needed to be simple. They were, but they were also effective. In the prologue, in which an accident at the train station results in the death of a railway worker, the train was simply one single bright light, framed by an Erector Set-like structure. The actual death was enacted on stage by a super jumping into a trap door on stage in front of the bright light. It wasn't a large trap door; I imagine that considerable expertise is required to jump into it without hitting your nose on the edge. The sets for interior scenes involved a minimum of furniture: a few elegant chairs; a desk to represent all of Karenin's study; for the dinner party a long table with candles and flowers was wheeled in. (All set changes took place quickly and in full view of the audience.) For outdoors scenes, a large (say 15x30) backdrop was lowered from above; park benches were supplied when necessary. Anna's suicide in front of the train was represented by her walking toward the bright headlight of the train, ultimately disappearing into the darkness beneath it. To repeat, simple, but very effective. Kudos to the set designer!

Costumes were remarkable. Again, nothing over the top, but all well-executed and entirely appropriate. The amazing thing was how many costumes there were. Anna appears in about half of the 19 scenes, and she seemed to have a new costume for each one. Vronsky had two officer uniforms, one white, one green, and elegant civilian clothes for the scenes following his resignation from the army. Even Karenin seemed to have at least three variations on ultra-formal attire.

Jasminia Halimic made a fine Anna; Kirk Eichelberger as her husband Karenin almost stole the show from her with his mellifluous bass voice. I regretted that no opportunity for applause was provided following his big aria "How strange she is tonight." He would have gotten an enthusiastic audience response. Krassen Karagiozov was somewhat stiff as Anna's lover Vronsky, perhaps reflecting his military position. Michael Dailey as Levin was fine; I think I detect an improvement in his voice since last season. Khori Dastoor (Kitty) is always delightful; Bettany Coffland was good as Dolly, and a much thinner Christopher Bengochea was an active, bouncy, almost too enthusiastic Stiva. Paul Murray, who had impressed me so much as Alidoro in last year's La Cenerentola, had a small part as Yashvin. I would have liked to have heard more of him. The orchestra was conducted by Stewart Robertson, who conducted the opera's premiere in Florida and its repeat performance in St. Louis. He guided them admirably through the "modern" music. The music itself I found to be very lovely in spots, and certainly approachable everywhere. The interlude between parts 5 and 6 is gorgeous, as is Anna's short aria in Part 1 scene 1, "I remember when he first saw you."

My only reservation about today's opera was the architecture of the work. There are 19 scenes, none of them very long, some of them very short. That is something of an echo of Russian opera, think Boris Godunov and Khovanschina, which also consist of a number of scenes that don't particularly flow into one another. The effect in Anna Karenina of the small scenes is that hardly any of them have the time to develop an arc; no time to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Characters come on stage, present practically a snapshot of the action, and then it's time for the next scene. The librettist has been very faithful to the novel, to the extent of including Tolstoy's Part 8 as an anticlimactic final scene following Anna's suicide. I ruminate about a different approach, using Carmen as a model. The original Carmen is a very short novella; nevertheless the librettists not only threw out characters (such as Carmen's husband, whom Don Jose also killed), but added Micaela and completely changed Carmen's murder. And he got four acts out of it, each with a beginning, middle, and end. Could something similar be done with Anna Karenina? Or would you need something the size of the entire Der Ring des Nibelungen?

But tackling any such problem with the architecture is not within the scope of an opera company that chooses to perform the work. Opera San Jose has done a magnificent job of presenting the opera as written, and the results should encourage other companies to take it on.

Aida, San Francisco Opera, Sept. 16 2010

San Francisco Opera either sold or discarded their prior Aida production, so they needed to create a new one. In a world of extravagant Aida productions, this one is far more modest, perhaps reflecting the budget-conscious times. The primary visual element was the side curtains that could be drawn across the stage, from either side. The edges were 30° from vertical, so that when left and right curtains were both drawn toward the center, the gap between them formed roughly a teepee shape. Said curtains were some variant of blue-green in color, and decorated with scribbles vaguely reminiscent of hieroglyphs. Beyond that there were painted drops, and occasionally some steps. Act 1 scene 2 featured a pyramid of steps, with a very lifelike statue on top. For Act 2 scene 2, the triumphal procession, there were some steps for the trumpeters to stand on, and elaborately decorated chairs for Amneris and her father the King of Egypt to sit in (at the front of the stage, blocking my view of much of the dancing), and lots of people. No elephants, but they mocked up an elephant: Radames entered standing on a platform carried by several men, while other men carried a fabric-covered structure representing the head of the elephant, complete with a trunk that a puppeteer waved back and forth. Other men carried two gigantic tusks, while still others carried "flags" in the shape of the elephant's ears. The entire elephant, save the tusks, was a light blue-green. For the final scene in which Radames and Aida suffocate in the vault, the side curtains were drawn partway onto the stage and Radames descended from high above in a steel shark cage, open on the side toward the audience. Radames clearly had a safety belt, as it took him an untoward amount of time to get unhooked from it so that he could step out of the cage. Aida of course emerged from the wings. Basically the production was true to the text, nothing at all outrageous, and couldn't have cost a great deal of money.

The outstaning performer for me was Marco Vortogna as Amonasro. He had a superb voice and was fully involved in his character. The only downside was his costume. Another reviewer compared it to Papageno's. The bulk of the costume was geometrically-patterned pantaloons, with furs (think coyote, not mink) draped over his torso. Yes, he's not dressed as the King of Ethiopia, but neither was he dressed in simple rags. Perhaps it's a beat-up version of what someone think that exotic Ethiopians wear. The big name in the performance was Dolora Zajick as Amneris. I think she saved herself for her Act 4 confrontation with Radames, which merited a "wow!" from me at the scene change; for the prior three acts, she was good but not spectacular. Micaela Carosi was adequate as Aida. Her high point was being heard over all of the assembled forces at the conclusion of Act 2. Marcelo Giordani sang well as Radames but could take acting lessons from our Amonasro. Also notable was Christian Van Horn as the King of Egypt, with a wonderful but not overpowering bass voice. You can catch a superb clip of him rehearsing the part of Karenin in Anna Karenina on YouTube. He also runs an interesting blog at christianvanhorn.tumblr.com.

La Traviata, Fremont Opera, Aug. 27 2010

Fremont Opera is a new (2007) small regional opera company that concentrates on semi-staged productions of the most-standard operatic repertoire. I missed their first production, of La Boheme, but did get to their second production, Barber of Seville, two years ago. I still talk about it. "Semi-staged" meant that there were furniture and costumes and acting, just no sets—a far cry from a "concert performance." And the singing and the acting and the directing were first-rate. With a performance like that, who needed sets? Especially when the absence of sets leaves them with enough budget to hire a full-size orchestra.

So when I found out that the winner of this year's Irene Dalis Vocal Competition, Danielle Talamantes, would be singing in this summer's semi-staged production of La Traviata, I jumped at the chance. What's more, Scott Bearden, winner of last year's Irene Dalis Vocal Competition, would be singing Gi0rgio Germont. I was early enough to snag front-row seats.

No sets, no curtain; the performance started with the conductor, Violetta, and her maid walking onto the darkened stage and assuming their positions, Violetta on a backless sofa. During the prelude, Violetta slowly awakes, coughs, and changes from her nightgown into her party dress, and when the music picks up, Act I proper is launched. Talamantes has a nice voice, perhaps a shade darker than what I was expecting in a Violetta, and lacking the exceptional energy and vivacity of the party girl that is Violetta. Her Alfredo, Benjamin Bunsold, was someone I don't remember having seen before. He's quite a striking young man, but he seemed not to have much control over his voice, and to have something stuck in his throat that rendered his voice rough and harsh in the lower register and verging on squeaky in the upper register. Fremont Opera likes to take advantage of the "balconies" that overlook the stage. During her "Ah forse lui" and "Sempre libera," sang his "Amor e palpito" interjections first from offstage, and then from the overlook.

The singers must have been given a pep talk during the first intermission. Bunsold's voice had improved remarkably, and he delivered an acceptable cavatina. But after being interrupted by the maid, he strode off the stage, omitting the powerful cabaletto. A bit later we were treated to the finest voice of the evening, Scott Bearden's Giorgio Germont, enjoyable in all respects save one: much of the time he appeared to be singing to a much larger house than the 405-seat Jackson Theatre. He has, or can have, a big voice that I hope stands him in good stead elsewhere. Interestingly, the director had him wear a clerical collar—based, I presume, on his lines "It is God, my child, who inspires these words that a father speaks" and "One day heaven will reward you for those tears." It gives him religious in addition to parental authority, not to mention vocal authority. His "Di Provenza" was tender and loving.

Having cut Alfredo's cabaletto from the beginning of scene 1, I was wondering whether the chorus of gypsies and chorus of matadors (and attendant dancers) in Flora's party might be cut as well, but they weren't. There was only one (masked) matador, who danced with two women; at the end he removed his mask, revealing himself to be—Alfredo! Which was a perfect setup for the chorus's ejaculation of "Alfredo! ... Voi!" ("Alfredo! ... You!"). At the end, when the elder Germont chastises his son for insulting a woman, he does so not from the party floor, but from the overlook.

Act III brings us of course to Violetta's deathbed, around dawn. As an example of how well a semi-staged performance can be done, when Violetta asks Annina to open the shutters and let in some light, the maid goes up to the edge of the stage, reaches up her arms, and draws apart the imaginary shutters—and the spotlight bathes her in light. Predictable, yes, but very effective. One measure of the effectiveness of a La Traviata is whether any eyes are moistened when she expires. It's rare, but it can happen. For a moment earlier in the act, I thought we might get there, but no.

For me, the standouts were two: Scott Bearden's Giorgio Germont, and the acting. For a small company that will give only two performances of this masterwork, they must have spent a lot of time rehearsing not just the singing but the acting as well. There was a lot of acting, and it was done very well. The orchestra played reasonably well, none of the horn bobbles that marred The Legend of the Ring, but they lacked the vivacity that is called for at some points.

Bottom line: enjoyable, glad I went, yet no comparison to the Barber of Seville of two years ago. But I'll certainly plan to see their next production (disregarding distractions such as Fremont Opera goes Bollywood), whenever it is.

Lucia di Lammermoor, Festival Opera, Aug. 10 2010

Festival Opera (Walnut Creek) presented Donizetti's great tragedy with two of my favorite singers, Kirk Eichelberger as Raimundo and Brian Leerhuber as Enrico. Also featured were some names new to me: Angela Cadelago as Lucia, Thomas Glenn as Edgardo, and Michael Foreman as Arturo. Kirk was, as always, superb. Unfortunately the director cut his scene with Lucia after Enrico departs following his Act 2 “Se tradirmi.” But he shone particularly well in his big aria following Lucia's mad scene. Brian's voice was as good as I remembered from his years at Opera San Jose. Patrice Houston (Alisa) is also an Opera San Jose alumna, and she made me wish that I had paid more attention to her during those years.

Angela Cadelago sounded a bit underpowered for this role; I wonder whether Rosina might be more her speed. Thomas Glenn was adequate though not outstanding. The part of Arturo, pitched as high as it is, sounds out of place amidst all the other powerful characters; he has the same handicap as Don Ottavio. But Michael Foreman certainly cut a dashing figure onstage.

The sets were nothing spectacular (two flanking “stained glass windows”, a mound of rocks in the background for the first and last scenes, and the requisite staircase for the wedding scene), but the costumes did catch my eye -- very well done. Stage direction left something to be desired: Kirk seemed to be at loose ends as to what to do with himself, which is certainly not characteristic of him. The program notes say that “Mark Foehringer makes his debut as stage director with this production,” so maybe we can be forgiving and hope for better his next time out.

L'Elisir d'Amore, Merola, August 7 2010

San Francisco Opera's Merola program presented Donizetti's The Elixir of Love on four consecutive evenings at the Cowell Theater at Ft. Mason. One cast performed on Thursday and Saturday and another cast performed on Friday and Sunday. As principals, we heard singers whom we had not heard at the summer concert three weeks ago; the summer concert singers formed the chorus.

The staging was a combination of “local color” and already-tired concept. In the self-referential vein described in Gödel, Escher, Bach, the opera was presented as though it were a rehearsal of The Elixir of Love at Ft. Mason, with a director's chair for Adina, a closet full of stage props (Nemorino must be the props boy), and a stage and proscenium set well back from the edge of the actual stage. I saw the same idea some months ago in a Met HD broadcast of La Sonnambula. It didn't work then and it didn't work now. But this time the concept didn't intrude excessively on the action; for the most part it was as if the action took place in front of whatever the set happened to be. One interesting twist was that while the score calls for Adina to be reading the legend of Tristan and Isolde, here Adina carried around the score of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

The role of Adina was sung by Nadine Sierra, whom I wouldn't mind seeing again. It took her a while to get up to speed, but once there she displayed a lovely voice fully capable of handling the intricacies of the part. Daniel Montenegro as Nemorino, Thomas Florio as Dulcamara, and Benjamin Covey as Belcore were not as impressive. Hye Jung Lee (Gianetta) had a squeaky little voice that did not appeal. As mentioned earlier, several fine singers from the summer concert performed in the chorus. I listened hard to try to pick out Kevin Thompson's superb bass, but was unable to do so.

We signed up for front row seats, as is our wont, and got more than we bargained for. The Cowell Theater does not have an official orchestra pit; they removed the seats in rows A and B and put the musicians there. In particular, the oboist (Patricia Mitchell?) sat right next to the folded-up seats of row C, so we in row D were close enough that we could easily have reached out and touched her. (But we did have a nice conversation.) I feared that the aural perspective might be pretty strange, but instead I got a feel for what the sound must be like on the conductor's podium: music to the left, music to the right, super-stereo. And they did not overwhelm the singers. I was also able to make a brief acquaintance with the bassoonist Rufus David Olivier, son of San Francisco Opera's principal bassoonist Rufus Olivier, whom I know slightly through some bassoon-playing friends. (RDO is also a member of the SF Opera orchestra.) His introduction to the big aria, Una furtiva lagrima, was nicely done.

It was not only summer in San Francisco, it was summer in San Francisco on the waterfront at 8pm. The thermometer in the car read 57° when we left the car to go to the theater, and it was 57° when we returned. Brrrrr!

Legend of the Ring, Berkeley Opera, July 31 2010

What? Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in 3½ hours? How do you do that? With massive cuts: drastically reduced lusting of Albrerich for the Rhinemaidens, no Donner, no discourse on Freia's golden apples, no Mime, no Erda; no Friedmund darf ich nicht heissen or Der Männer Sippe or Winterstürme or Du bist der Lenz, a highly compressed argument between Wotan and Fricka, a snippet of Wotan's monologue, a highly compressed Todesverkundigung, no Walkürenritt (no Valkyries other than Brünnhilde), no Leb' wohl; no "twenty questions" between Mime and the Wanderer, no Alberich-Wotan confrontation, no forest murmurs, no Erda, no "das ist kein Mann," no reluctance by Brünnhilde to fall in love with Siegfried; no Norns, no Waltraute, no Hagen's Watch, no Hagen's call to the vassals, no scene between Siegfried and the Rhinemaidens, no Siegfried's Funeral Music, and a drastically reduced Immolation Scene. It's the story of The Ring, stripped down to its bare essentials, and it still takes 3 hr 45 min start to finish including one intermission. It helps you realize that The Ring is as big as it is because it needs to be as big as it is.

You also do it with a serious reduction in performing forces: Brünnhilde doubles as Wellgunde, Wotan/Wanderer as Gunther, Alberich as Fasolt, Siegfried as Froh and Siegmund, etc. The orchestra isn't much larger than the Pocket Philharmonic: three violas (right: no violins), two cellos, two basses, one flute, one clarinet, one trumpet, three horns, one trombone, one percussionist, and an electronic piano for a harp. (They still managed to slip a Wagner tuba in amongst the horns.) Despite the small size, volume of sound was never a problem, though it might have been if Siegfried's Funeral Music had not been cut. A front row center seat may have helped also.

And you conduct with passion. The orchestra played their hearts out, with lots of enthusiasm, though not with the technical skill that I'm accustomed to hearing at Berkeley Opera. As the horns entered in the Rheingold prelude, I was afraid that it might turn into a looong evening in the theater. But anything that the orchestra lacked, the singers more than made up for. Marie Plette in particular was simply outstanding. She got to wear the most hats of anyone: Woglinde, Freia, Sieglinde, Woodbird, and Gutrune. And every time, in every role, hers was a voice to reckon with. Richard Paul Fink, perhaps the world's reigning Alberich, finally got a chance to sing Wotan. He was fine, but maybe he should stick with Alberich. That role was taken by Bojan Knezevic, rather impressively. Another highlight was Stephen Rumph as Loge: one of the youngest people on stage, he sang without the whiny tone that I so often hear in Loge, and he was a very dynamic onstage presence, always in motion, as you might expect of a flickering flame. Jay Hunter Morris certainly had the pipes as Siegmund and Siegfried, and made a good Froh as well. Dean Peterson lacked the ultimate vocal heft that makes for a great Fafner or Hunding or Hagen. I thought more highly of Christine Springer as Brünnhilde than did my companions, but that's faint praise. I was wishing for another Marie Plette in that role.

The staging was done with lots of projections, on screens to the left and right of the center where most of the action takes place. Most effective was the series of images that represented various stages of the descent into Nibelheim. There were a very few props in the center, primarily a white box that Alberich can crouch behind as he turns himself into a serpent and then a toad, and which Brünnhilde can ascend for the Todesverkundigung. There are also two fancy black leather "waiting room" chairs; Brünnhilde is put to sleep with her torso on one chair and her legs on the other, while Loge reclines on the white box. Stage direction was perhaps at its most effective near the end of Walküre Act I: as Siegmund and Sieglinde ramp up their passion, Wotan and Brünnhilde appear stage left and look on approvingly–and then Fricka enters upstage and is shocked! shocked! when Siegmund and Sieglinde kiss. Somewhat jarring was the Woodbird near the end of Siegfried. Marie Plette was wearing a woman's suit style of dress with a pillbox hat adorned with feathers, and she carried a cell phone, which she apparently used to relay a play-by-play report of the battle between Siegfried and Fafner. She even used it to take a picture of the victor. Cute, but just a bit “out there.”

There is also some sort of talisman, a T in a circle with a semicircular tab hanging from the right side of the T, looking sort of like a hood ornament. It got passed from character to character, and at times was stuck into a receiving slot in the white box. Its significance escaped me.

Overall, very enjoyable. I don't particularly feel the need to catch one of the remaining performances, but I'll certainly look forward to the next time that Berkeley Opera (presumably they will have assumed their new name of West Edge Opera by then) performs Legend of the Ring.

Faust 06/20/2010

We saw the fifth performance in the current San Francisco opera production of Gounod's Faust, the production designed by Robert Perdziola and featuring Stefano Secco as Faust, Patricia Racette as Marguerite, and John Relyea as Mephistopheles. The production is a "traditional" one with a few interesting twists. The curtain rises on Faust's laboratory, which includes a small table laden with equipment appropriate for a chemistry lab; on the left are four tables, three of which each support a body covered with a sheet. Before Faust sings his first words, there is a knock on the door. Faust goes to answer it, and then we see him guiding a person carrying a body, which is laid out on the empty table. Faust then sings of his ennui, and his desire to bring death upon himself, and invokes Satan. It turns out that the nearest "body" to the audience is Mephistopheles, who sits up straight, garnering chuckles from the audience. He dispenses with the sheet and presents himself impeccably dressed: black tie and tails, black vest, white shirt, black hair slicked straight back. They proceed in classic fashion with the vision of Marguerite, and the contract.

The sides of the set are "brick" buildings, in dark gray, that project a little bit more or a little bit less into the performing space. The flat surface of these buildings is about 10 feet wide. These same sides serve for all of the scenes of the opera ... quite fittingly for Act 1 Scene 2, the street fair. Mephistopheles has changed costume: he emerges, dressed more or less as Harlequin, from a small "covered wagon," the fabric of which is painted with a scene that looks like Hieronymus Bosch. He emphasizes his Song of the Golden Calf by "playing" a violin. At the end of the scene, where he "transforms the crowd's celebration into a decadent bacchanal," he is again calling the tune with his violin, but he is doing it on the other side of a screen, and we see only his shadow cast on the screen.

Act 2 is devoted to the scene outside Marguerite's home. She apparently lives in a brownstone, one of the dark gray brick buildings that we see in every set. There are lots of flowers, including a flower box on top of the prompter's box, and lots of tall vegetation (camelias, perhaps?) in back of where the action takes place. Another chuckle: when Mephistopheles excuses himself to find a present for Marguerite that will outdo Siebel's bouquet, he steps into a small circular well ... and the stage elevator lowers him out of sight, complete with a puff of smoke. He returns the same way, after Faust has sung his aria "Salut d'amour." Later, he follows the stage directions and takes Marthe Schwertlein away so that Faust and Marguerite can be alone. When they return, both are picking strands of hay from their clothes, and the audience chuckled again at the evidence of a "roll in the hay."

Act 3, as presented, comprises four scenes: Marguerite at her loom, the church scene, the Soldier's Chorus, and the prison scene. I cannot remember having seen the loom scene before, nor was any of the music familiar. The program book included an article on the lack of a "definitive" version of Faust, and the fact that it was originally a five-hour opera (not counting intermissions!) before the premiering opera director whittled it down to size. I reckon that this is a scene that is often cut but that was included here as a director's choice.

For the church scene, the "dark gray brick buildings" served equally well as the inside walls of a darkened church. There was also a free-standing wooden structure, with stairs leading up to the pulpit.

The Soldier's Chorus scene was staged very effectively: during the chorus, a functionary mimes the reading of names from a scroll, while Valentin (who appears to be a commanding officer) takes properly folded flags from another functionary, and with a perfect "about face" presents each one to a widow. These widows do not sing, they are supernumeraries, but they are certainly not just stage-struck volunteers--the evidence says that they are trained actors, as their portrayal of grief was all too real.

For the final scene in the prison, the side sets are moved closer to the center, leaving room between them only for a staircase that ascends from stage level to on high. I counted roughly 35 steps, with ten more painted on a backdrop. Mephistopheles and Faust enter from on high, about 20 steps up; at the end, after Marguerite has been saved, she ascends the steps to about that same level--while, at stage level, Mephistopheles presents the contract to the heartbroken Faust.

There are memorable performances, and there are those that are not so memorable. Today's performance falls in the latter class. There was one moment that was worth goosebumps: near the end of Act 2, when Mephistopheles asks the night to cover the lovers with its dark veil. Patricia Racette sings beautifully and acts well; John Relyea is impressive but not (yet) in the same league as the Samuel Ramey of 20 years ago. Stefano Secco was adequate as Faust. The orchestra played well, but I did not get the sense of passion that can be gotten in a stellar performance. John Relyea got the biggest applause at curtain call, and it appeared that the majority of the audience stood up. It's way easier to get a standing ovation in San Francisco than it used to be. That house never stood up ... until Samuel Ramey sang the title role in Boito's Mephistopheles in 1989. That standing ovation was appropriate--that performance was one for the ages.

Die Walküre dress rehearsal 06/06/2010

I had the very good fortune to be invited to the dress rehearsal of San Francisco Opera's upcoming production of Wagner's Die Walküre. The staging was more or less what I'd been led to expect by this review of the production in Washington, D.C. in 2007. Here's what's different in San Francisco:

Act I: When we first see the tree inside Hunding's cabin, we don't see the sword, just as in Washington. But whereas in Washington the sword was behind the tree, here it is stuck in the side of the tree. Apparently it is moved into its position at some point where our attention is distracted elsewhere. Everything else, the outdoor hearth, the taxidermy on the walls, the china cabinet, the gigantic moon, is as described in the review. What really impressed me about Act I was Hunding's acting (Raymond Aceto). Last night at the "Insights" panel discussion, he described himself as a chauvinistic wife-beater, and he played the part to the hilt. I couldn't see it, but I was told that Sieglinde has painted-on bruises.

Act II: The set features a long conference table with a green-and-black stone top. In the background are a half-dozen windows, 6 feet wide by 20 feet tall, with thin frames separating them, looking out over a black-and-white cityscape with lots of skyscrapers, mingled with clouds and smoke. During the prelude, Wotan (chairman of "Wotan Enterprises, Inc." as Mark Delavan told us last night at the panel discussion) is talking gaily on the phone with some unknown person. He's wearing an eye patch, not the eyeglasses with one blackened lens. He hangs up as Brünnhilde enters, and gives her his orders to give the victory to Siegmund in his coming battle with Hunding. As befitting a production set circa 1940 (my judgment, based on the design of the telephone), in the supertitles he does not tell Brünnhilde to "bridle your horse" but rather simply to prepare herself. (The words that are sung are of course the ones that Wagner wrote, it's only the supertitles that have been adapted. They did that for every mention of "horse" in the libretto--you will not find a "horse" in any of the supertitles.) At one point Brünnhilde strides across the length of the table, and she and Wotan tussle over his spear. I found that this presentation of Wotan's lengthy monologue, which can be trying for the Ring novice, moved along quite nicely. It helps to look for the point when Wotan finishes telling us what we already know from Das Rheingold and starts telling us what has happened since then. It's also helpful to pay attention to the leitmotifs.

The dominant feature of the second set for Act II (scenes 3, 4, and 5) is an aerial freeway: square-section concrete posts support the concrete roadway 15 feet above. On the ground beneath the freeway are discarded tires, a discarded sofa (or maybe a bench seat from a car), and other detritus that I couldn't identify due to the low level of lighting in the background. In the fight between Siegmund and Hunding (scene 5), Hunding mentions his dogs; as part of the action, two dogs run quickly across the stage. As in every other production I've seen, Hunding simply stands there after he kills Siegmund. As in Washington, Wotan kills Hunding not with a word or wave of the hand but by breaking his neck. Wotan sings his final lines ("Woe to Brünnhilde") and strides offstage; only then do Brünnhilde and Sieglinde re-enter to pick up the pieces of the broken sword.

Act III: As in Washington, the Valkyries parachute in during the Ride of the Valkyries. These aren't the actual Valkyries; I've been told that they are stagehands. ("Yes, they are men, but you can't tell the difference.") They land just offstage, and then the real Valkyrie runs onto the stage, dragging her parachute. This scene generated applause from the rehearsal audience ... as did the entrance of the Valkyries on their "flying horses" in Seattle in 1997. This time, no horses. When the Valkyries tell each other to keep their horses apart, because the (dead) heroes that they carry were enemies in life and their enmity has been transferred to their horses, the supertitles simply instruct them to keep the heroes apart. Instead of supers playing dead bodies on stage, or mannequins of body parts as in the current Seattle production, these Valkyries are carrying foot-square photos of their heroes. In contrast to Washington, Sieglinde is not provided with a horse for her escape from Wotan's fury.

Wagner's stage directions call for the eight other Valkyries to hide Brünnhilde in their midst as Wotan approaches, full of fury at his daughter's disobedience. Here the eight line up on a steel staircase, and Brünnhilde hides in back of the concrete ramp that supports the top of that staircase. Wotan walks down the staircase, with specific attention to each Valkyrie, as he rages against Brünnhilde. Mark Delavan told us last night at the panel discussion that the Valkyrie at the bottom of the stairs has served in the Israeli armed forces, so he gets right in her face just as a drill sergeant would.

The center of the set is a concrete disc. Brünnhilde is laid to sleep on that disc; Wotan covers her not with her shield (paratroopers don't have shields) but with his long leather coat. She gets to sleep there for a year, until Siegfried awakens her next summer.

How did it all work? For me, the setting of Act I in an Appalachian cabin worked very well, especially Raymond Aceto's powerful portrayal of the rough customer that Hunding is. The moving projections on the scrims, preceding the first two acts, were distractions from the music. And the very first projection looks like a stormy sea. Is this Die Walküre, or Der Fliegende Hollander? The idea of Wotan ruling the world from the top of a skyscraper makes sense, but Siegmund and Sieglinde must have 7-league boots to have been able to make it from the piney woods to an urban freeway in just a few hours. Brünnhilde's Rock done as concrete ramps and steel staircase is serviceable, the paratroopers are a dramatic touch. I do miss the Valkyries hiding Brünnhilde in their midst, which is what the stage directions and the libretto call for, and which does not present the staging challenges of, say, a rainbow bridge. Perhaps the director is trying to tell us something, but I don't know what it is.

This being a dress rehearsal, we were informed that the singers might not be singing using full voice, so it would be inappropriate to comment on that part of the performance.