I’m trying to catch all of the Met HD broadcasts that my schedule permits. Dr. Atomic is the only one that I’ve intentionally missed, having seen it in San Francisco the year before and come away with the feeling that I really didn’t need to see it again. So, knowing little more than that Thomas Adès's The Tempest was new and was based on Shakespeare, I trundled on down to our local movie theater, hoping for another new opera that I could enjoy as much as Moby-Dick.
The music and staging of the prelude described the tempest at sea. A body double (undoubtedly a gymnast) for Ariel climbed up onto and into a large, whirling chandelier, while at stage level various drowning persons writhed through slits in a very large blue fabric. When the storm subsided, the blue fabric was withdrawn to reveal a stage-upon-the-stage in front, rows of elegantly dressed opera patrons beyond the stage, and in the background the balcony levels of a classic European opera house—La Scala, we were told, since Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan. The rest of the action of act 1 took place on this stage, and above it (Ariel sang from a catwalk high above the stage), and below it (Caliban spent most of his time in the two-foot high space between the Met’s stage and The Tempest’s stage). Miranda sinks into, and is later expelled from, the prompter’s box.
The opera-house setting continued for acts 2 and 3. In act 2, the secondary stage was filled with two-dimensional cutouts of a forest. Ferdinand was drawn upward from the prompter’s box, his wrists attached to ropes that ascended into the rafters; after Miranda unlocked the shackles from his wrists, the two walked upstage into the sunset. In the first part of act 3 we saw the backstage workings of the theater, with a gigantic scaffold that supported three levels of chorus. As the characters complained about being hungry and thirsty, a very long table was brought on stage. But in the middle of their repast, a demonic version of Ariel and her chandelier appeared and frightened everyone away. In the final scene we saw a cross-section of the opera house: to the left, a slice of the opera stage through the prompter’s box, with space underneath; to the right, a slice of the orchestra seating area with about ten individual seats scattered about. Above the seating area were the three levels of balcony seating.
Our cast:
Prospero: Simon Keenlyside
Ariel: Audrey Luna
Caliban: Alan Oke
Miranda: Isabel Leonard
Ferdinand: Alek Shrader
King of Naples: William Burden
Antonio: Toby Spence
Trinculo: Iestyn Davies
Conductor: Thomas Adès (the composer)
Production: Robert Lepage
Set Designer: Jasmine Catudal
The most memorable performance was that of Audrey Luna’s Ariel. The part is composed for very high soprano; she was in the stratosphere most of the time. Her high tessitura, and her spending most of her time above the stage, were supposed to suggest that she was “not of this world.” For the most part, that meant that she could not be understood; supertitles were essential. This isn’t to say that I enjoyed her music—it was more a remarkable demonstration at what she was capable of doing with her voice. Alan Oke sang particularly well in a short aria for Caliban in act 2. But overall the character that I would have liked to have heard more of was Gonzalo (not credited in the Met’s handout), who displayed a very fine bass voice.
But the music was not interesting. The libretto was made almost in its entirety of rhyming couplets, some short, some long. I managed to commit one to memory: “Driven insane/They’ll know my name.” Perhaps the weak or false rhymes (there was also an attempt to rhyme “ships” with “gifts”) are fashionable, but they didn’t work for me. Nor did an entire evening of rhyming couplets. The staging wasn’t outrageous (no witches with hula-hoops), it just seemed pointless. I don’t need to see this one again either. A gamma.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Die Fledermaus, Opera San Jose, Nov. 25 2012
What a difference a change in cast can make! Or maybe it was simply that this was the last performance of the run. Or the fourth performance, which I have been told is often the best. It wasn’t that anyone sang particularly better than his/her counterpart in the other cast; rather, things just seemed to be more lively and sparkling than before. Maybe they’d had a bit of the champagne before going on.
Our cast:
Gabriel von Eisenstein: Alexander Boyer
Rosalinde, his wife: Cecilia Violetta Lopez
Adele, their chambermaid: Elisabeth Russ
Ida, Adele’s sister: Catherine Brady
Alfred, an Italian tenor, Rosalinde’s former flame: Michael Dailey
Dr. Falke, “the bat”: Jo Vincent Parks
Dr. Blind, Eisenstein’s lawyer: Michael Mendelsohn
Frank, the prison warden: Isaiah Musik-Ayala
Prince Orlofsky, a wealthy Russian: Rebecca Krouner
Frosch, the jailer: Kelly Houston
Conductor: David Rohrbaugh
Stage Director: Marc Jacobs
I’ll give pride of place to Elisabeth Russ’s Adele this time—her third act aria, “Spiel’ ich die Unschuld,” was what has kept running through my head for days. An excellent time was had by our entire party. A strong beta.
Our cast:
Gabriel von Eisenstein: Alexander Boyer
Rosalinde, his wife: Cecilia Violetta Lopez
Adele, their chambermaid: Elisabeth Russ
Ida, Adele’s sister: Catherine Brady
Alfred, an Italian tenor, Rosalinde’s former flame: Michael Dailey
Dr. Falke, “the bat”: Jo Vincent Parks
Dr. Blind, Eisenstein’s lawyer: Michael Mendelsohn
Frank, the prison warden: Isaiah Musik-Ayala
Prince Orlofsky, a wealthy Russian: Rebecca Krouner
Frosch, the jailer: Kelly Houston
Conductor: David Rohrbaugh
Stage Director: Marc Jacobs
I’ll give pride of place to Elisabeth Russ’s Adele this time—her third act aria, “Spiel’ ich die Unschuld,” was what has kept running through my head for days. An excellent time was had by our entire party. A strong beta.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Tosca, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 18 2012
It’s “dueling Toscas” in San Francisco. There will be a total of 12 performances, half of them with Angela Gheorghiu and half of them with Patricia Racette, each of them with her own Cavaradossi and Scarpia. This page reports on Angela Gheorghiu; I have yet to see the Patrica Racette cast.
The current production dates from 1997, which itself was intended to echo the set of the Tosca that opened the War Memorial Opera House in 1932. As such it was a perfectly traditional set, even looking as though it had been used a few times and somewhat faded with age. The first act, in the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, looked like an Italian church whose walls were covered with faded frescoes. To the right were two chapels with locked steel bars, and the requisite statue of the Madonna was just outside them. To the left was a wooden platform with stairs and guard rails where the artist Cavaradossi could stand to work on his painting of Mary Magdalene. Partway upstage was the nave of the church, with another recess behind it.
Scarpia’s office in act two had everything that you would expect: to the left, an open window through which the music of the floor below could be heard; Scarpia’s desk; in the middle of the stage, the sofa on which Scarpia intends to have his way with Tosca; to the right, Scarpia’s dining table and the door to the torture chamber. The surprising element was the male nudes painted on the square columns that supported the ceiling of the office.
In act three we saw the topmost level of the Castel Sant’Angelo, a flat plaza with walls to the left and right, and stone stairs rising a few feet to the parapet from which Tosca took her final leap. Just to the left of the parapet was a statue of St. Michael Archangel drawing his sword. On the back wall was a painting of the Roman skyline, dominated by the dome of St. Peter’s, with smaller domes in front of it. Since act three begins at 4:00 am, the sky was a deep blue with stars twinkling in it; as the act progressed, the stars faded, the blue lightened, and rosy hues of sunrise appeared. Gheorghiu as Tosca took a proper swan dive from the parapet.
Our cast:
Floria Tosca: Angela Gheorghiu
Mario Cavaradossi: Massimo Giordano
Baron Scarpia: Roberto Frontali
Angelotti: Christian Van Horn
Spoletta: Joel Sorensen
Sacristan: Dale Travis
Sciarrone: Ao Li
Jailer: Ryan Kuster
Shepherd Boy: Etienne Julius Valdez
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Director: Jose Maria Condemi
Production Designer: Thierry Bosquet
This was Angela Gheorghiu’s second Tosca of the current run. Her first had been cut short after the first act due to an intestinal upset, and her cover Melody Moore performed acts two and three to rave reviews. I wish I had seen that performance—this afternoon Gheorghiu sang adequately, but not up to the level of her “Vissi d’Arte” on YouTube. Giordano also made an adequate Cavaradossi, although his “E lucevan le stelle” in the third act drew no applause whatsoever. Frontali’s Scarpia was my favorite of the three principals. Van Horn sounded wonderful in the small part of Angelotti. I had seen Dale Travis as the sacristan three months ago in Santa Fe; his overacting had been toned down a lot. The entire effect came up somewhat short of my expectations, somewhat short of a beta. I’ll go again, but only because the Patricia Racette cast has gotten outstanding reviews: “What a difference change in principals can make!” I’ll go see for myself.
The current production dates from 1997, which itself was intended to echo the set of the Tosca that opened the War Memorial Opera House in 1932. As such it was a perfectly traditional set, even looking as though it had been used a few times and somewhat faded with age. The first act, in the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, looked like an Italian church whose walls were covered with faded frescoes. To the right were two chapels with locked steel bars, and the requisite statue of the Madonna was just outside them. To the left was a wooden platform with stairs and guard rails where the artist Cavaradossi could stand to work on his painting of Mary Magdalene. Partway upstage was the nave of the church, with another recess behind it.
Scarpia’s office in act two had everything that you would expect: to the left, an open window through which the music of the floor below could be heard; Scarpia’s desk; in the middle of the stage, the sofa on which Scarpia intends to have his way with Tosca; to the right, Scarpia’s dining table and the door to the torture chamber. The surprising element was the male nudes painted on the square columns that supported the ceiling of the office.
In act three we saw the topmost level of the Castel Sant’Angelo, a flat plaza with walls to the left and right, and stone stairs rising a few feet to the parapet from which Tosca took her final leap. Just to the left of the parapet was a statue of St. Michael Archangel drawing his sword. On the back wall was a painting of the Roman skyline, dominated by the dome of St. Peter’s, with smaller domes in front of it. Since act three begins at 4:00 am, the sky was a deep blue with stars twinkling in it; as the act progressed, the stars faded, the blue lightened, and rosy hues of sunrise appeared. Gheorghiu as Tosca took a proper swan dive from the parapet.
Our cast:
Floria Tosca: Angela Gheorghiu
Mario Cavaradossi: Massimo Giordano
Baron Scarpia: Roberto Frontali
Angelotti: Christian Van Horn
Spoletta: Joel Sorensen
Sacristan: Dale Travis
Sciarrone: Ao Li
Jailer: Ryan Kuster
Shepherd Boy: Etienne Julius Valdez
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Director: Jose Maria Condemi
Production Designer: Thierry Bosquet
This was Angela Gheorghiu’s second Tosca of the current run. Her first had been cut short after the first act due to an intestinal upset, and her cover Melody Moore performed acts two and three to rave reviews. I wish I had seen that performance—this afternoon Gheorghiu sang adequately, but not up to the level of her “Vissi d’Arte” on YouTube. Giordano also made an adequate Cavaradossi, although his “E lucevan le stelle” in the third act drew no applause whatsoever. Frontali’s Scarpia was my favorite of the three principals. Van Horn sounded wonderful in the small part of Angelotti. I had seen Dale Travis as the sacristan three months ago in Santa Fe; his overacting had been toned down a lot. The entire effect came up somewhat short of my expectations, somewhat short of a beta. I’ll go again, but only because the Patricia Racette cast has gotten outstanding reviews: “What a difference change in principals can make!” I’ll go see for myself.
Die Fledermaus, Opera San Jose, Nov. 15 2012
As one who cut his operatic teeth on Wagner, even the best Viennese operetta by the Waltz King Johann Strauss Junior (a.k.a. Johann Sebastian Strauss—I have to believe that the first Waltz King, his father Johann Strauss Sr., had Bach on his mind) failed to excite me when the current season was announced. But as I delved into studying the operetta for potluck preview, I discovered that Strauss had written lots of delightful music, well worth hearing. Yes, it’s light, and frothy, and bubbly, but it’s well worth listening to.
The sets for acts one, two, and three all comprised the same “shell” along the back wall and the legs. They gave the impression that the action was taking place in a giant solarium, made up of numerous panes of glass a foot square set in steel frames of various thickness according to the needs of the structure. The legs were similarly made from foot-square panes of glass, set in double doors through which characters could enter and exit. It was somewhat reminiscent of the Crystal Palace on a small scale. The performing space of the first act was outfitted with a sofa and a dining table and other accoutrements of the residence of a wealthy Viennese banker. There is a big crowd at Prince Orlovsky’s party in act two, so there was not much in the way of decoration other than a fanciful structure with mirror-image curlicues perhaps ten feet tall. Act three, set in Frank’s prison, featured large steel jailhouse bars separating upstage from downstage. The bars bore a wooden sign, “MINISTRY OF JUSTICE.” To the right was Frank’s desk, to the left was an armoire in which he hung the fancy jacket that he had worn to the party in act two.
Our cast:
Gabriel von Eisenstein: James Callon
Rosalinde, his wife: Melody King
Adele, their chambermaid: Jillian Boye
Ida, Adele’s sister: Tori Grayum
Alfred, an Italian tenor, Rosalinde’s former flame: Michael Dailey
Dr. Falke, “the bat”: Zachary Altman
Dr. Blind, Eisenstein’s lawyer: Michael Mendelsohn
Frank, the prison warden: Silas Elash
Prince Orlofsky, a wealthy Russian: Nicole Birkland
Frosch, the jailer: Kelly Houston
Conductor: David Rohrbaugh
Stage Director: Marc Jacobs
As is typical, the music was sung in German and the dialogue was in English. David Scott Marley, he of Berkeley Opera’s Bat out of Hell, a wonderful spoof of Die Fledermaus, was commissioned to prepare a new English translation of the dialogue. I had hoped that it would be as hilarious as Bat out of Hell, but no, it was a fairly straight translation. The greatest liberty taken was to place the action ca. 1890, with Dr. Falke being a student of Dr. Freud’s. The opening of act three, which is usually the occasion for an extended comic scene by a superb actor, “far gone in drink” according to the libretto, turned out to be far shorter than customary, and Kelly Houston was stone-cold sober. Something of a let-down.
Zachary Altman continues to impress with his rich baritone; the company has traditionally done very well with baritones. I hope that as his training progresses that we’ll be able to mention him along with Douglas Nagel, Mel Ulrich, Brian Leerhuber, and Nmon Ford-Levine. Also outstanding, as expected, was Silas Elash as Frank. Jillian Boye as Adele uncorked some marvelous coloratura. The playing from the orchestra was superb. But the parts didn’t quite add up to a resounding whole; it was a beta.
The sets for acts one, two, and three all comprised the same “shell” along the back wall and the legs. They gave the impression that the action was taking place in a giant solarium, made up of numerous panes of glass a foot square set in steel frames of various thickness according to the needs of the structure. The legs were similarly made from foot-square panes of glass, set in double doors through which characters could enter and exit. It was somewhat reminiscent of the Crystal Palace on a small scale. The performing space of the first act was outfitted with a sofa and a dining table and other accoutrements of the residence of a wealthy Viennese banker. There is a big crowd at Prince Orlovsky’s party in act two, so there was not much in the way of decoration other than a fanciful structure with mirror-image curlicues perhaps ten feet tall. Act three, set in Frank’s prison, featured large steel jailhouse bars separating upstage from downstage. The bars bore a wooden sign, “MINISTRY OF JUSTICE.” To the right was Frank’s desk, to the left was an armoire in which he hung the fancy jacket that he had worn to the party in act two.
Our cast:
Gabriel von Eisenstein: James Callon
Rosalinde, his wife: Melody King
Adele, their chambermaid: Jillian Boye
Ida, Adele’s sister: Tori Grayum
Alfred, an Italian tenor, Rosalinde’s former flame: Michael Dailey
Dr. Falke, “the bat”: Zachary Altman
Dr. Blind, Eisenstein’s lawyer: Michael Mendelsohn
Frank, the prison warden: Silas Elash
Prince Orlofsky, a wealthy Russian: Nicole Birkland
Frosch, the jailer: Kelly Houston
Conductor: David Rohrbaugh
Stage Director: Marc Jacobs
As is typical, the music was sung in German and the dialogue was in English. David Scott Marley, he of Berkeley Opera’s Bat out of Hell, a wonderful spoof of Die Fledermaus, was commissioned to prepare a new English translation of the dialogue. I had hoped that it would be as hilarious as Bat out of Hell, but no, it was a fairly straight translation. The greatest liberty taken was to place the action ca. 1890, with Dr. Falke being a student of Dr. Freud’s. The opening of act three, which is usually the occasion for an extended comic scene by a superb actor, “far gone in drink” according to the libretto, turned out to be far shorter than customary, and Kelly Houston was stone-cold sober. Something of a let-down.
Zachary Altman continues to impress with his rich baritone; the company has traditionally done very well with baritones. I hope that as his training progresses that we’ll be able to mention him along with Douglas Nagel, Mel Ulrich, Brian Leerhuber, and Nmon Ford-Levine. Also outstanding, as expected, was Silas Elash as Frank. Jillian Boye as Adele uncorked some marvelous coloratura. The playing from the orchestra was superb. But the parts didn’t quite add up to a resounding whole; it was a beta.
Lohengrin, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 6 2012
What with Lohengrin being infrequently performed, and a generally excellent cast in the current production, it was an easy decision to go back to San Francisco Opera for another performance, in spite of the less-than-successful staging. The performance of Nov. 6 was essentially the same as the one seen earlier—same sets, same cast, same outstanding Brandon Jovanovich and Petra Lang, same Gerd Grochowski coming into his own at the beginning of the second act. A swell evening in the theater, and still a strong beta.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Lohengrin, San Francisco Opera, October 31 2012
Lohengrin in a three-piece suit and Brabantine soldiers carrying AK-47s—at least director Daniel Slater stopped short of “regietheater run amok.” The idea behind the production, as we learned at an “Insights” panel discussion, was that Elsa’s trial in Act 1 is similar to the Communist show trials in which the verdict was predetermined. So this Lohengrin was set in an unnamed Eastern-bloc country of the 1950s or 60s, or perhaps particularly in Hungary in 1956.
The “miracle of music” prelude to Act 1 was staged, with Elsa kneeling downstage under a spotlight. Lohengrin entered from upstage, sat down at a strictly functional wooden table, and at the climax of the prelude put a chain with a medallion symbolizing his mission around his neck. As the stage filled with Brabantine and Saxon soldiers (in contrasting uniforms), Lohengrin simply stood up and walked offstage, trying to be inconspicuous.
Act 1 was set in what looked like a large library. The rear wall was made up of bookshelves imbedded in a white plaster wall, and the legs to the left and right of the stage were similar plaster walls enclosing bookshelves. The unnamed Eastern-bloc country must have had funds to build the building, but very limited funds to stock it, for there were very few books on the shelves. Or maybe the populace was exceptionally well-read and had checked out almost all of the books. The wide-open central space had about four steps separating upstage from downstage. As necessary, more simple wooden tables were brought in. Telramund and Ortrud sat at such a table during Elsa’s trial. Lohengrin arrived, not in a boat pulled by a swan, but in front of a 10-year-old boy sporting swan wings; he also simply walked offstage after Lohengrin’s “Nun sei bedankt, mein lieber Schwan.” Lohengrin had the ring and the horn, but lacked a sword. As the trial by combat approached, I wondered whether it was going to be hand-to-hand combat, but at the last moment the props guys found the swords and brought them in, in a case from which Lohengrin and Telramund pulled their weapons.
Act 2 began outside the castle. We saw a fairly bare wall punctuated by square windows, some of which were missing. It looked like a decrepit factory wall. There was one large cutout in which Elsa appeared to sing of her joy, and from which she could call down to Ortrud. When day broke and the second scene began, the factory wall was lifted out of sight to reveal the inside of the library. To turn it into a festive venue suitable for a wedding, streamers were thrown from the balconies in front of the bookshelves at the rear down to soldiers on the main floor, who attached the other ends to the bookshelves right and left.
The raising of the curtain for Act 3 elicited chuckles from the audience. During intermission stagehands had erected a small motel room in the middle of the library, its floor about five feet above the stage, and with left, right, and rear walls and a ceiling above. It reminded me of a production of La Boheme, in which the Bohemian’s tiny garret was a small room similarly suspended above the vast Opera House stage. Lohengrin and Elsa’s room was furnished with a brass bed with a white bedspread, and a dining table-style armchair. As the curtain went up, we saw Lohengrin and Elsa standing a foot or two apart, both facing the audience, holding hands just like Ken and Barbie atop a wedding cake. This is where Lohengrin’s three-piece suit came into play: during Act 2 he had shucked the traveling clothes he arrived in (simple pants and sweater with a long leather overcoat—no shining armor in 1956 Hungary) and appeared in the three-piece suit to greet Elsa and her bridesmaids. Again, where was the sword that he would use to slay Telramund? Telramund entered the motel room with a dagger; Lohengrin overpowered him and drove his hand clutching the dagger into his abdomen. He fell on the white bedspread and bled profusely. For the second scene, the curtain fell while the stagehands dismantled the motel room, then rose to bring us back to the library. When it came time for Lohengrin to depart, the wall of bookshelves upstage parted to reveal the 10-year-old with the swan wings. In some staging sleight-of-hand the “swan” was replaced by the young Gottfried, who when presented with Lohengrin’s sword found it far too heavy for him. The tip of the sword hit the ground, but then Gottfried got the better of it and hoisted it on high. Elsa then proceeded to die of an unspecified cause, just as called for in the score.
Our cast:
Lohengrin: Brandon Jovanovich
Elsa von Brabant: Camilla Nylund
Ortrud: Petra Lang
Friedrich von Telramund: Gerd Grochowski
Heinrich der Vogler: Kristinn Sigmundsson
King's Herald: Brian Mulligan
Noble: Nathaniel Peake
Noble: Robert Watson
Noble: Joo Won Kang
Noble: Ryan Kuster
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Director: Daniel Slater
Do we ever have a heldentenor! Brandon Jovanovich sang magnificently, and he looked like a Greek god to boot, even if he wasn’t in shining armor. His words to Telramund after vanquishing him in the Act 1 combat, “God had delivered your life into my hands,” rang with truly stentorian authority. Petra Lang made a menacing Ortrud; Gerd Grochowski’s Telramund sounded a bit underpowered in Act 1 but he came into his own at the beginning of Act 2. Kristinn Sigmundsson stumbled a few times as King Henry in Act 1. Camilla Nylund had the most challenging role, according to some; her Elsa suffered slightly in comparison to Lohengrin. This was Nicola Luisotti’s first Wagner opera. In the noiser sections, he unleashed wonderful sound from the orchestra, but the feeling and nuance of the Act 1 prelude escaped him. Brandon Jovanovich gets an alpha, but the performance overall is only worth a strong beta, thanks in large part to the unsuccessful staging.
The “miracle of music” prelude to Act 1 was staged, with Elsa kneeling downstage under a spotlight. Lohengrin entered from upstage, sat down at a strictly functional wooden table, and at the climax of the prelude put a chain with a medallion symbolizing his mission around his neck. As the stage filled with Brabantine and Saxon soldiers (in contrasting uniforms), Lohengrin simply stood up and walked offstage, trying to be inconspicuous.
Act 1 was set in what looked like a large library. The rear wall was made up of bookshelves imbedded in a white plaster wall, and the legs to the left and right of the stage were similar plaster walls enclosing bookshelves. The unnamed Eastern-bloc country must have had funds to build the building, but very limited funds to stock it, for there were very few books on the shelves. Or maybe the populace was exceptionally well-read and had checked out almost all of the books. The wide-open central space had about four steps separating upstage from downstage. As necessary, more simple wooden tables were brought in. Telramund and Ortrud sat at such a table during Elsa’s trial. Lohengrin arrived, not in a boat pulled by a swan, but in front of a 10-year-old boy sporting swan wings; he also simply walked offstage after Lohengrin’s “Nun sei bedankt, mein lieber Schwan.” Lohengrin had the ring and the horn, but lacked a sword. As the trial by combat approached, I wondered whether it was going to be hand-to-hand combat, but at the last moment the props guys found the swords and brought them in, in a case from which Lohengrin and Telramund pulled their weapons.
Act 2 began outside the castle. We saw a fairly bare wall punctuated by square windows, some of which were missing. It looked like a decrepit factory wall. There was one large cutout in which Elsa appeared to sing of her joy, and from which she could call down to Ortrud. When day broke and the second scene began, the factory wall was lifted out of sight to reveal the inside of the library. To turn it into a festive venue suitable for a wedding, streamers were thrown from the balconies in front of the bookshelves at the rear down to soldiers on the main floor, who attached the other ends to the bookshelves right and left.
The raising of the curtain for Act 3 elicited chuckles from the audience. During intermission stagehands had erected a small motel room in the middle of the library, its floor about five feet above the stage, and with left, right, and rear walls and a ceiling above. It reminded me of a production of La Boheme, in which the Bohemian’s tiny garret was a small room similarly suspended above the vast Opera House stage. Lohengrin and Elsa’s room was furnished with a brass bed with a white bedspread, and a dining table-style armchair. As the curtain went up, we saw Lohengrin and Elsa standing a foot or two apart, both facing the audience, holding hands just like Ken and Barbie atop a wedding cake. This is where Lohengrin’s three-piece suit came into play: during Act 2 he had shucked the traveling clothes he arrived in (simple pants and sweater with a long leather overcoat—no shining armor in 1956 Hungary) and appeared in the three-piece suit to greet Elsa and her bridesmaids. Again, where was the sword that he would use to slay Telramund? Telramund entered the motel room with a dagger; Lohengrin overpowered him and drove his hand clutching the dagger into his abdomen. He fell on the white bedspread and bled profusely. For the second scene, the curtain fell while the stagehands dismantled the motel room, then rose to bring us back to the library. When it came time for Lohengrin to depart, the wall of bookshelves upstage parted to reveal the 10-year-old with the swan wings. In some staging sleight-of-hand the “swan” was replaced by the young Gottfried, who when presented with Lohengrin’s sword found it far too heavy for him. The tip of the sword hit the ground, but then Gottfried got the better of it and hoisted it on high. Elsa then proceeded to die of an unspecified cause, just as called for in the score.
Our cast:
Lohengrin: Brandon Jovanovich
Elsa von Brabant: Camilla Nylund
Ortrud: Petra Lang
Friedrich von Telramund: Gerd Grochowski
Heinrich der Vogler: Kristinn Sigmundsson
King's Herald: Brian Mulligan
Noble: Nathaniel Peake
Noble: Robert Watson
Noble: Joo Won Kang
Noble: Ryan Kuster
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Director: Daniel Slater
Do we ever have a heldentenor! Brandon Jovanovich sang magnificently, and he looked like a Greek god to boot, even if he wasn’t in shining armor. His words to Telramund after vanquishing him in the Act 1 combat, “God had delivered your life into my hands,” rang with truly stentorian authority. Petra Lang made a menacing Ortrud; Gerd Grochowski’s Telramund sounded a bit underpowered in Act 1 but he came into his own at the beginning of Act 2. Kristinn Sigmundsson stumbled a few times as King Henry in Act 1. Camilla Nylund had the most challenging role, according to some; her Elsa suffered slightly in comparison to Lohengrin. This was Nicola Luisotti’s first Wagner opera. In the noiser sections, he unleashed wonderful sound from the orchestra, but the feeling and nuance of the Act 1 prelude escaped him. Brandon Jovanovich gets an alpha, but the performance overall is only worth a strong beta, thanks in large part to the unsuccessful staging.
Moby-Dick, San Francisco Opera, Oct. 30 2012
What’s the chance that I’ll ever get to see Moby-Dick again? It’s definitely worthy of entering the standard repertoire, but there’s a lot of competition for relatively few slots in San Francisco Opera’s schedule, and it probably requires more resources than an regional company can muster. So, back to the War Memorial Opera House, this time in less-expensive seats that nevertheless have great sound.
The staging, of course, was the same as reported earlier.
Our cast:
Captain Ahab: Jay Hunter Morris (a.k.a. Jayhab)
Greenhorn (Ishmael): Stephen Costello
Starbuck: Morgan Smith
Queequeg: Jonathan Lemalu
Pip: Talise Trevigne
Flask: Matthew O’Neill
Stubb: Robert Orth
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Director: Leonard Foglia
Set Designer: Robert Brill
And the performance was very much the same as reported earlier, with the exception that I came away even more impressed by Morgan Smith’s Starbuck. I’d sure like to hear him again in a more familiar role. Give it a notch above a beta.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Otello, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Oct. 27 2012
We found a new theater for this broadcast, in Gig Harbor, Washington, 20 minutes from my sister’s home. In contrast to our regular theater, where we arrive an hour early to claim our favorite seats, we arrived 40 minutes early to find one person in line and a locked door. We were admitted at 9:30 to find a theater very much like our regular one, with just-as-good audio and video.
Otello opens with some of the best, that is most violent, storm music in all of opera. We saw the residents of Cyprus standing on three levels of a castle wall-like structure, the darkness of the staging suggesting the severe storm that nearly caused Otello’s ship to crash on the rocks. After he had disembarked, the wall slid out of sight to reveal a large plaza made of stone, with many large columns supporting who-knows-what out of sight in the rafters, and the outside walls of numerous monumental buildings.
In Act 2, the columns remained, but upstage was a small garden with grass and walking paths in which Desdemona and Iago’s wife could stroll, as mentioned in the libretto. Downstage there was a large table where Otello could conduct the affairs of state. The columns stayed in place for Act 3, but now we were clearly inside a large building, with a very large painting upstage forming a backdrop. For Act 4, Desdemona’s bed was set on a ziggurat with three levels, amidst the columns, with a different very large painting behind the bed.
Our cast:
Otello: Johan Botha
Desdemona: Renée Fleming
Iago: Falk Struckmann
Emilia: Renèe Tatum
Cassio: Michael Fabiano
Lodovico: James Morris
Montàno: Stephen Gaertner
Roderigo: Eduardo Valdes
Herald: Luthando Qave
Conductor: Semyon Bychkov
Production: Elijah Moshinsky
No question about it, superb singing all around. Botha, Fleming, and Fabiano were particularly impressive, and Morris sounded wonderful. The only problem was Botha’s physical appearance. He is a very large man, and lying on the floor at the end of Act 3 does not show him off to his best advantage. The HD cameras showed more perspiration on his face than we usually see in other HD closeups, and his acting skills appear to be limited. But sonically, he was fabulous. A strong beta.
Otello opens with some of the best, that is most violent, storm music in all of opera. We saw the residents of Cyprus standing on three levels of a castle wall-like structure, the darkness of the staging suggesting the severe storm that nearly caused Otello’s ship to crash on the rocks. After he had disembarked, the wall slid out of sight to reveal a large plaza made of stone, with many large columns supporting who-knows-what out of sight in the rafters, and the outside walls of numerous monumental buildings.
In Act 2, the columns remained, but upstage was a small garden with grass and walking paths in which Desdemona and Iago’s wife could stroll, as mentioned in the libretto. Downstage there was a large table where Otello could conduct the affairs of state. The columns stayed in place for Act 3, but now we were clearly inside a large building, with a very large painting upstage forming a backdrop. For Act 4, Desdemona’s bed was set on a ziggurat with three levels, amidst the columns, with a different very large painting behind the bed.
Our cast:
Otello: Johan Botha
Desdemona: Renée Fleming
Iago: Falk Struckmann
Emilia: Renèe Tatum
Cassio: Michael Fabiano
Lodovico: James Morris
Montàno: Stephen Gaertner
Roderigo: Eduardo Valdes
Herald: Luthando Qave
Conductor: Semyon Bychkov
Production: Elijah Moshinsky
No question about it, superb singing all around. Botha, Fleming, and Fabiano were particularly impressive, and Morris sounded wonderful. The only problem was Botha’s physical appearance. He is a very large man, and lying on the floor at the end of Act 3 does not show him off to his best advantage. The HD cameras showed more perspiration on his face than we usually see in other HD closeups, and his acting skills appear to be limited. But sonically, he was fabulous. A strong beta.
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