This time it really was The Magic Flute and not Die Zauberflöte, as the singspiel was presented in an English translation by San Francisco Opera’s general director, David Gockley. Certain liberties were taken with the text, sometimes to good effect. After the Queen of the Night’s first aria, Tamino wondered, incredulously, “Was that for real?” Papageno did not carry the traditional birdcage on his back; rather he carried a loose wicker frame that held various sizes of white eggs with black speckles, and he explained to Tamino that he practiced sustainable bird-catching. But for the words that were sung, the English translation just didn’t seem to fit the music as well as the original German.
The production was designed by Jun Kaneko, who gave us lots of projections. During the overture, we saw a white surface with many black speckles; as the music progressed, numerous colored lines were drawn across the background, mostly horizontal and vertical. This theme of horizontal and vertical lines continued throughout the performance, except when a large number of ellipses appeared to be generated down low to the rear of the stage, and draw nearer as they moved to the front and top of the stage. It reminded me of an opening scene from Star Wars, in which an immense space ship floats by, directly overhead. The effect was more distracting than offensive, but it added nothing to the music—aside from the Trial by Fire and Trial by Water. Here, projections of wriggling vertical red lines and wiggling horizontal blue lines adequately solved what I imagine is a difficult problem. The most delightful part of the production was the “Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa” duet for Pagageno and Papagena. Half a dozen young children came out, costumed like very young chicks, with very round bodies and tiny little wings that flapped a bit.
Our cast:
Tamino: Alek Shrader
Pamina: Heidi Stober
Papageno: Nathan Gunn
Papagena: Nadine Sierra
Queen of the Night: Albina Shagimuratova
Sarastro: Kristinn Sigmundsson
Monostatos: Greg Fedderly
Conductor: Rory Macdonald
Director: Harry Silverstein
Much buzz surrounded Shagimuratova as Queen of the Night; she did sing superbly but I was most impressed by the Monostatos of Greg Fedderly, who sang strongly, clearly, and simply, without attempting to add a veneer of evil to his voice. Heidi Stober made a fine Pamina; Nathan Gunn acted his role very well, though I found nothing special in his singing. I’ve heard Kristinn Sigmundsson sing better than he did this time. During the overture and orchestral interludes, the orchestra sounded magnificent. I’ll have to list the set design and the translation as detractors, and rate the experience somewhere between a gamma and a beta.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Duke Bluebeard's Castle, San Francisco Symphony, June 23 2012
Little did I know that Bela Bartok (1881-1945) had written an opera. It’s a dark tale in which Judith, the Duke’s fourth wife, visits his castle for the first time. There are seven doors to seven rooms hiding the Duke’s secrets, which Judith persuades him to open, one by one. Behind the first door is a torture chamber; behind the second, the armory; and so on. Behind the seventh and last door are his first three wives, still alive.
It’s a one-act opera, with only two singing roles, for bass-baritone and mezzo-soprano, with a spoken introduction. It lasts about an hour. There is not much action; all that needs to happen is for the Duke and Judith to open the seven doors, and so it was appropriate for the San Francisco Symphony to present it as a semi-staged performance. Much publicity was made of the semi-sets, which were underwhelming. The orchestral players were in their usual positions on stage. To the left and right of the orchestra, and behind, were the walls of the castle: light-gray expanses of fabric, punctuated by buttresses. Well, sort of buttresses. These buttresses were flush with the castle wall at the bottom, extending farther out from the wall with increasing height. The sides of the buttresses to the right and left of the orchestra were therefore acute right triangles, with the smallest angle at floor level. On these triangular surfaces were projected various nondescript images, though I could identify water droplets and roses at various times. The entire wall behind the orchestra was also used for projections. Suspended above the orchestra were four (non-regular) tetrahedrons,stacked one in back of the other, though toward the end they were moved apart. They also served as surfaces for projections.
Our cast:
Duke Bluebeard: Alan Held
Judith: Michelle deYoung
Speaker: Ken Ruta
Conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas
Director: Nick Hillel
I attended the performance somewhat reluctantly, since the name “Bartok” conveys to me “modern music,” only some of which I can accept. But a friend’s rave review persuaded to see what sort of ticket might be available, and when I saw the opportunity to sit in the third row of orchestra center, I jumped. I need not have worried about the music. The pre-performance lecturer mentioned the recurring (dissonant) interval of the second, signifying “blood,” but in context it worked just fine. The music was not at all difficult to appreciate. None of it was particularly “memorable,” but the same can be said for Palestrina. What made the biggest impression on me was the music, loud and glorious, for the opening of the fifth door, the door to the Duke’s entire kingdom (dukedom?).
The singers performed (and they performed, not just sang as in a concert performance) behind the orchestra, slightly raised above their level, but my third row vantage point meant that they were often obscured by the conductor and the downstage players. Nevertheless, Alan Held made a magnificent Bluebeard; Michelle deYoung was adequate to her role of Judith. And the orchestra sounded wonderful. (The piano in the Liszt Concerto #1 that came before intermission sounded rather harsh from the third row.) I’m glad I went, glad to have added this opera to my repertoire, but rather disappointed in the staging. It’s somewhere between a gamma and a beta.
It’s a one-act opera, with only two singing roles, for bass-baritone and mezzo-soprano, with a spoken introduction. It lasts about an hour. There is not much action; all that needs to happen is for the Duke and Judith to open the seven doors, and so it was appropriate for the San Francisco Symphony to present it as a semi-staged performance. Much publicity was made of the semi-sets, which were underwhelming. The orchestral players were in their usual positions on stage. To the left and right of the orchestra, and behind, were the walls of the castle: light-gray expanses of fabric, punctuated by buttresses. Well, sort of buttresses. These buttresses were flush with the castle wall at the bottom, extending farther out from the wall with increasing height. The sides of the buttresses to the right and left of the orchestra were therefore acute right triangles, with the smallest angle at floor level. On these triangular surfaces were projected various nondescript images, though I could identify water droplets and roses at various times. The entire wall behind the orchestra was also used for projections. Suspended above the orchestra were four (non-regular) tetrahedrons,stacked one in back of the other, though toward the end they were moved apart. They also served as surfaces for projections.
Our cast:
Duke Bluebeard: Alan Held
Judith: Michelle deYoung
Speaker: Ken Ruta
Conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas
Director: Nick Hillel
I attended the performance somewhat reluctantly, since the name “Bartok” conveys to me “modern music,” only some of which I can accept. But a friend’s rave review persuaded to see what sort of ticket might be available, and when I saw the opportunity to sit in the third row of orchestra center, I jumped. I need not have worried about the music. The pre-performance lecturer mentioned the recurring (dissonant) interval of the second, signifying “blood,” but in context it worked just fine. The music was not at all difficult to appreciate. None of it was particularly “memorable,” but the same can be said for Palestrina. What made the biggest impression on me was the music, loud and glorious, for the opening of the fifth door, the door to the Duke’s entire kingdom (dukedom?).
The singers performed (and they performed, not just sang as in a concert performance) behind the orchestra, slightly raised above their level, but my third row vantage point meant that they were often obscured by the conductor and the downstage players. Nevertheless, Alan Held made a magnificent Bluebeard; Michelle deYoung was adequate to her role of Judith. And the orchestra sounded wonderful. (The piano in the Liszt Concerto #1 that came before intermission sounded rather harsh from the third row.) I’m glad I went, glad to have added this opera to my repertoire, but rather disappointed in the staging. It’s somewhere between a gamma and a beta.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Nixon in China, San Francisco Opera, June 17 2012
As promised earlier, today it was back to the War Memorial Opera House for my third Nixon in China, having already seen the dress rehearsal and a performance that I traded my wife’s ticket for. The staging was of course the same, there were no substitutions in the cast, and the performance went just like the previous one.
I did notice two things that I hadn’t before: in the first act, Chairman Mao gets to demonstrate his heldentenor voice with a note held for a loooooooong time. The word? Duraaaaaaaaation. Some sort of pun, perhaps? And I found another sentence to add to my collection of insipid lines from opera in English. To “Who was that on the telephone?” (Angle of Repose) and “I’ll have to give you a geography lesson,” (Heart of a Soldier), I can add “Where’s the toilet?” sung by Henry Kissinger in act 3. After Chou En-lai tells him “Through the door,” Kissinger replies “Excuse me, I’ll be back in a moment,” and that’s the last we hear from him. He does return (he can be seen zipping up his trousers) and wanders around and winds up standing underneath his photo, but we don’t hear him again. The librettist must have had some sort of bone to pick with Kissinger, because his character is treated quite shabbily.
So, after trying to do my due diligence with three performances, I’m still left wondering what all the fuss is about. It will probably be a long time before I feel obliged to see this opera again, which is just fine. It’s still a gamma.
I did notice two things that I hadn’t before: in the first act, Chairman Mao gets to demonstrate his heldentenor voice with a note held for a loooooooong time. The word? Duraaaaaaaaation. Some sort of pun, perhaps? And I found another sentence to add to my collection of insipid lines from opera in English. To “Who was that on the telephone?” (Angle of Repose) and “I’ll have to give you a geography lesson,” (Heart of a Soldier), I can add “Where’s the toilet?” sung by Henry Kissinger in act 3. After Chou En-lai tells him “Through the door,” Kissinger replies “Excuse me, I’ll be back in a moment,” and that’s the last we hear from him. He does return (he can be seen zipping up his trousers) and wanders around and winds up standing underneath his photo, but we don’t hear him again. The librettist must have had some sort of bone to pick with Kissinger, because his character is treated quite shabbily.
So, after trying to do my due diligence with three performances, I’m still left wondering what all the fuss is about. It will probably be a long time before I feel obliged to see this opera again, which is just fine. It’s still a gamma.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Nixon in China, San Francisco Opera, June 14 2012
25 years have passed since John Adams’s Nixon in China premiered in Houston, having been commissioned by the then-general director of Houston Grand Opera, David Gockley. Mr. Gockley is now the general director of San Francisco Opera, and he has brought Nixon in China to its first performances at this company. Although a number of operatic luminaries consider it to be one of the finest operas of the 20th century, it would be OK with me if San Francisco waits another 25 years before doing it again.
The opera is based on Nixon’s historic trip to China Feb. 21-28, 1972. I can’t quite say “tells the story of” because there is little story line—i.e., no plot. The opera comprises a series of vignettes of the trip:
Act 1: Nixon’s arrival, meeting Chairman Mao, the banquet
Act 2: Pat Nixon’s visit to several venues, the ballet “The Red Detachment of Women”
Act 3: The principals reflect on their lives
As I mentioned in my review of the Met HD broadcast of Nixon in China, no one falls in love, no one dies, so what makes this an opera? Well, it does have many of the trappings of opera: a title reminiscent of such works as The Italian Girl in Algiers and Iphegenie in Tauride; it has a prelude, choruses, arias, and a ballet; and it has an ensemble finale of the sort that Mozart used frequently. But as for drama—well, there’s not much of that.
I can’t resist a couple of juicy quotes from contemporary reviews:
“Nixon in China works to redefine the concept of boredom.” (Donal Henahan)
“There are only three things wrong with Nixon in China. One, the libretto; two, the music; three, the direction. Outside of that, it's perfect.” (Marvin Kitman)
Nevertheless, given the level of critical acclaim for the opera, I tried my best to see what I (and others) are missing. I attended three lectures on the opera. I attended the dress rehearsal and today’s performance, and will attend another performance shortly. (I did not purchase a recording, nor did I read “John Adams’s Nixon in China: Musical Analysis, Historical and Political Perspectives” by Timothy Johnson.)
The staging of the beginning of Act 1 was quite effective. At first we saw just a projection of a cloudy mist drifting by, then an image of Air Force 1 (a Boeing 707) emerged. The projection grew larger, and a single window was illuminated to show Nixon in his seat. The plane then banked to the right, and the viewpoint shifted to the head of the runway in Peking. The plane passed overhead and touched down, complete with puffs of smoke from the wheels. The projection changed again to show the nose of the plane swinging around to its final position, then the scrim was raised to reveal a cutout of the nose, wing, and an engine. A stairway was rolled up to the plane and Nixon descended to ground level and was greeted by Chou En-lai.
Act 1 scene 2 portrayed the meeting with Chairman Mao, who was old (78) and unstable on his feet. The set consisted of not much more than some straight-backed chairs and a round table. Scene 3 was the banquet in the Great Hall of the People, with a number of round tables with chairs, and waiters scurrying back and forth. There was also a very tall lectern, probably 12 feet in height, from which first Chou En-lai and then Nixon delivered short arias.
In Act 2 scene 1, Pat Nixon visited various points of interest: a glass factory, where she was presented with a small elephant figurine; a health clinic; a pig farm; a schoolyard; the Ming Tombs. Here the chorus carried placards on poles, with Chinese characters (no subtitles!) on one side and blank on the other side. When the blank sides were turned to the audience, images of glass elephants, injections, pigs, and schoolchildren were projected on them.
One of my lecturers mentioned the difficulty of the music: “there’s never more than 5 seconds where the music stays in the same time signature.” Well, that’s not something that I hear, but I grasped the difficulty of the pig farm scene. The chorus sang “pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig” very rapidly, and my mouth gets tired just thinking about it.
Act 2 scene 2 was the ballet The Red Detachment of Women. There were three or four rows of bleachers, with the principals sitting in the first row and the chorus behind them. In the background was a large hammer and sickle; the image separated at one point to show a large image of Chairman Mao. One lecturer pointed out that this was where the opera devolved into fantasy, “from which it never recovers.” Henry Kissinger left his seat to walk on stage and paw at the prima ballerina; he then ran off stage and returned dressed in the same costume as the landowner (?), and gave the order “whip her to death!” Ultimately Chiang Ch’ing (Madame Mao) held a pistol to his head and shot him; he wound up with his head resting against the prompter’s box. I was unable to make any sense of Kissinger’s involvement in the on-stage action, or of the Nixons’ sympathetic involvement with the same prima ballerina.
Act 3 opened with many of the props from the earlier acts on stage: the airport stairway, the 12-foot lectern, bicycles from Act 2 scene 1, chairs and serving tables from the banquet. Gradually they were cleared away and replaced by six triangular towers, with black-and-white photographs of the actual historic characters (Kissinger, Pat Nixon, Richard Nixon, Mao Tse-Tung, Chiang Ch’ing, Chou En-lai) on two sides of the triangle. There was no chorus in this act, just the principals wandering on and off stage, singing reminiscences of the Long March or Nixon’s WWII experience. Chou En-lai got the last word, wondering “whether what we did was good,” and the act closed with each principal standing at the base of his or her tower.
Our cast:
Chou En-lai: Chen-Ye Yuan
Richard Nixon: Brian Mulligan
Henry Kissinger: Patrick Carfizzi
Mao Tse-Tung: Simon O’Neill
Pat Nixon: Maria Kanyova
Chiang Ch’ing: Hye Jung Lee
Conductor: Lawrence Renes
Director: Michael Cavanagh
All of the singers had studied their characters well, and were proficient in imitating their mannerisms. The outstanding singer was Hye Jung Lee as Chiang Ch’ing; she had a “barn burner” of an aria in Act 2 scene 2, “I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung,” which I have heard compared to the Queen of the Night’s arias in Die Zauberflöte. According to the composer’s directions, all of the principals were miked, but I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been told.
The orchestral music was quite fine. John Adams rejected the precepts of most “modern music” and wrote music that people could actually tolerate listening to. I heard many echoes of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten (which I love); at one point in the ballet there is a section that sounded like very lush Richard Strauss or maybe even Rachmaninoff; the opera ended with music that reminded me of “Neptune the Mystic” from The Planets by Gustav Holst. And the vocal lines were lyrical, rather than jumping vast distances from one note to the next. The staging was decidedly superior to that seen earlier in the Met HD broadcast. But the libretto, such as it is, still leaves me wondering “Huh? What’s that about? What sense does that make? What’s the point?” I’ll give this one a gamma, and will go again, not so much because I want to see it again but rather I want to continue trying to figure out what all the fuss is about.
The opera is based on Nixon’s historic trip to China Feb. 21-28, 1972. I can’t quite say “tells the story of” because there is little story line—i.e., no plot. The opera comprises a series of vignettes of the trip:
Act 1: Nixon’s arrival, meeting Chairman Mao, the banquet
Act 2: Pat Nixon’s visit to several venues, the ballet “The Red Detachment of Women”
Act 3: The principals reflect on their lives
As I mentioned in my review of the Met HD broadcast of Nixon in China, no one falls in love, no one dies, so what makes this an opera? Well, it does have many of the trappings of opera: a title reminiscent of such works as The Italian Girl in Algiers and Iphegenie in Tauride; it has a prelude, choruses, arias, and a ballet; and it has an ensemble finale of the sort that Mozart used frequently. But as for drama—well, there’s not much of that.
I can’t resist a couple of juicy quotes from contemporary reviews:
“Nixon in China works to redefine the concept of boredom.” (Donal Henahan)
“There are only three things wrong with Nixon in China. One, the libretto; two, the music; three, the direction. Outside of that, it's perfect.” (Marvin Kitman)
Nevertheless, given the level of critical acclaim for the opera, I tried my best to see what I (and others) are missing. I attended three lectures on the opera. I attended the dress rehearsal and today’s performance, and will attend another performance shortly. (I did not purchase a recording, nor did I read “John Adams’s Nixon in China: Musical Analysis, Historical and Political Perspectives” by Timothy Johnson.)
The staging of the beginning of Act 1 was quite effective. At first we saw just a projection of a cloudy mist drifting by, then an image of Air Force 1 (a Boeing 707) emerged. The projection grew larger, and a single window was illuminated to show Nixon in his seat. The plane then banked to the right, and the viewpoint shifted to the head of the runway in Peking. The plane passed overhead and touched down, complete with puffs of smoke from the wheels. The projection changed again to show the nose of the plane swinging around to its final position, then the scrim was raised to reveal a cutout of the nose, wing, and an engine. A stairway was rolled up to the plane and Nixon descended to ground level and was greeted by Chou En-lai.
Act 1 scene 2 portrayed the meeting with Chairman Mao, who was old (78) and unstable on his feet. The set consisted of not much more than some straight-backed chairs and a round table. Scene 3 was the banquet in the Great Hall of the People, with a number of round tables with chairs, and waiters scurrying back and forth. There was also a very tall lectern, probably 12 feet in height, from which first Chou En-lai and then Nixon delivered short arias.
In Act 2 scene 1, Pat Nixon visited various points of interest: a glass factory, where she was presented with a small elephant figurine; a health clinic; a pig farm; a schoolyard; the Ming Tombs. Here the chorus carried placards on poles, with Chinese characters (no subtitles!) on one side and blank on the other side. When the blank sides were turned to the audience, images of glass elephants, injections, pigs, and schoolchildren were projected on them.
One of my lecturers mentioned the difficulty of the music: “there’s never more than 5 seconds where the music stays in the same time signature.” Well, that’s not something that I hear, but I grasped the difficulty of the pig farm scene. The chorus sang “pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig-pig” very rapidly, and my mouth gets tired just thinking about it.
Act 2 scene 2 was the ballet The Red Detachment of Women. There were three or four rows of bleachers, with the principals sitting in the first row and the chorus behind them. In the background was a large hammer and sickle; the image separated at one point to show a large image of Chairman Mao. One lecturer pointed out that this was where the opera devolved into fantasy, “from which it never recovers.” Henry Kissinger left his seat to walk on stage and paw at the prima ballerina; he then ran off stage and returned dressed in the same costume as the landowner (?), and gave the order “whip her to death!” Ultimately Chiang Ch’ing (Madame Mao) held a pistol to his head and shot him; he wound up with his head resting against the prompter’s box. I was unable to make any sense of Kissinger’s involvement in the on-stage action, or of the Nixons’ sympathetic involvement with the same prima ballerina.
Act 3 opened with many of the props from the earlier acts on stage: the airport stairway, the 12-foot lectern, bicycles from Act 2 scene 1, chairs and serving tables from the banquet. Gradually they were cleared away and replaced by six triangular towers, with black-and-white photographs of the actual historic characters (Kissinger, Pat Nixon, Richard Nixon, Mao Tse-Tung, Chiang Ch’ing, Chou En-lai) on two sides of the triangle. There was no chorus in this act, just the principals wandering on and off stage, singing reminiscences of the Long March or Nixon’s WWII experience. Chou En-lai got the last word, wondering “whether what we did was good,” and the act closed with each principal standing at the base of his or her tower.
Our cast:
Chou En-lai: Chen-Ye Yuan
Richard Nixon: Brian Mulligan
Henry Kissinger: Patrick Carfizzi
Mao Tse-Tung: Simon O’Neill
Pat Nixon: Maria Kanyova
Chiang Ch’ing: Hye Jung Lee
Conductor: Lawrence Renes
Director: Michael Cavanagh
All of the singers had studied their characters well, and were proficient in imitating their mannerisms. The outstanding singer was Hye Jung Lee as Chiang Ch’ing; she had a “barn burner” of an aria in Act 2 scene 2, “I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung,” which I have heard compared to the Queen of the Night’s arias in Die Zauberflöte. According to the composer’s directions, all of the principals were miked, but I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been told.
The orchestral music was quite fine. John Adams rejected the precepts of most “modern music” and wrote music that people could actually tolerate listening to. I heard many echoes of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten (which I love); at one point in the ballet there is a section that sounded like very lush Richard Strauss or maybe even Rachmaninoff; the opera ended with music that reminded me of “Neptune the Mystic” from The Planets by Gustav Holst. And the vocal lines were lyrical, rather than jumping vast distances from one note to the next. The staging was decidedly superior to that seen earlier in the Met HD broadcast. But the libretto, such as it is, still leaves me wondering “Huh? What’s that about? What sense does that make? What’s the point?” I’ll give this one a gamma, and will go again, not so much because I want to see it again but rather I want to continue trying to figure out what all the fuss is about.
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