The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, San Francisco Opera, June 25 2013

Through a series of circumstances, I managed to acquire a front-row seat to a third performance of The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. I covered the set in the report from the dress rehearsal, and the list and initial impressions of the singers at the premiere performance. My third performance was a somewhat better experience than the first two. I can credit some of that to the front-row seat, some of it to the singers having had, in effect, two additional rehearsals, and some of it to my becoming somewhat more familiar with the music. Overall impressions, however, remain the same: Sasha Cooke (Mary), William Burden (Peter), and James Creswell (Pharisee) were a delight to hear and watch; Nathan Gunn’s vibrato continued be excessive. The music remained pleasant enough but not that interesting. It seemed that all of the opportunities for dramatic musical gestures did not fulfill their potential. They say that the greatest opera composers were all “men of the theater.” The sense of “theatricality” was missing this time. A smidgen better than a gamma.

The Tales of Hoffman, San Francisco Opera, June 23 2013

Having seen the dress rehearsal of this production and commented on the sets there, I will merely add that for the Olympia scene, the stagehands turned the blue-gray walls around so that we could see the backing trusses that held the walls up. Also, the Antonia scene opened with most the stage being blacked out. On the left we saw Antonia’s little bedroom, complete with wallpaper that looked as though it dated to 1881, the date of the premiere.

Our cast:
E.T.A. Hoffman: Matthew Polenzani
The Muse/Nicklausse: Angela Brower
Lindorf/Coppelius/Dr. Miracle/Dapertutto: Christian Van Horn
Olympia: Hye Jung Lee
Antonia: Natalie Dessay
Crespel, Antonia’s father: James Creswell
Giulietta: Irene Roberts
Stella: Jacqueline Piccolino
Conductor: Patrick Fournillier
Director: Laurent Pelly

Many of the performers sang exceedingly well. Most memorable was Hye Jung Lee in the role of Olympia, who dispatched marvelous coloratura notes simultaneously with being swung around, fairly rapidly and to significant heights at the end of a boom. In Seattle, where the Rhinemaidens are on trapezes at the beginning of Das Rheingold, they move around but assume stationary positions whenever they need to sing. Christian Van Horn, as the four villains, was resplendent of voice. He seems to me to be a candidate to succeed Samuel Ramey as Boito’s Mefistofele. Natalie Dessay impressed with the quality of her voice; too bad that we didn’t get to hear her sing all of Hoffman’s lady loves, as originally announced. I had already seen James Creswell sing authoritatively in small part of the Pharisee in The Gospel of Mary Magdalene and was eagerly awaiting a second chance to hear him; he did not disappoint. The audience buzz was very favorable to Matthew Polenzani, our Hoffman, but to me he sounded a bit strained, with a touch of glare. Overall, an enjoyable performance, but ultimately not that interesting. Somewhat short of a beta.

Ludus Danielis (The Play of Daniel), San Francisco Renaissance Voices, June 22 2013

Conventional wisdom credits Jacapo Peri with composing the first opera, Dafne, in 1597. But the idea of “drama in music” goes back much, much further. In the current instance, the students at Beauvais Cathedral in France are credited with the creation of a “musical liturgical drama,” The Play of Daniel, as early as 1227. It tells the Old Testament story of the prophet Daniel, his interpretation of the writing on the wall, and his incarceration in the lions’ den. The story is told in song, with roles and costumes and a bit of action for the singers. They are accompanied by musical instruments, and dancers portray the lions and other characters. Sounds like opera to me.

The production that we saw was decidedly modest, with white robes for the singers, construction paper for crowns and other assorted identifying insignia, and a couple of refrigerator boxes suitably decorated with more construction paper. That’s it. The orchestra comprised seven musicians playing a number of instruments: vielle (an early violin), shawm, recorder, dulcian (an early bassoon), harp, oud (similar to a lute), theorbo (like a lute with a very long, straight neck), xylophone, and drums. The conductor also played handbells.

Even though the production was exceptionally modest, the entire experience was delightful. While I’m sure that none of the singers is sitting by the phone, eagerly awaiting a call from the Metropolitan Opera, I would be very pleased to be able to sing as well as any of them myself. I will call out Reuben Zellman, who sang “court adviser” and Habakkuk in either a very high tenor or perhaps countertenor. If that was truly countertenor range, it was one of the easiest to listen to countertenors in my experience. He also presented a witty and informative half-hour lecture on The Play of Daniel immediately prior to the actual performance. A beta—and certainly recommended if you happen to be in Palo Alto on June 29 or Berkeley on June 30. See http://www.sfrvoices.org/concerts--tickets.html.      

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, San Francisco Opera, June 19 2013

OK, here it is, the world premiere of an opera by a recognized opera composer (Mark Adamo, with Little Women and Lysistrata to his credit), heard for a second time, the first being the dress rehearsal. What’s different the second time around? The short answer: not much, although I do have some new observations and descriptions.

The only difference in staging that I detected was in the moment that Yeshua and Mary climb into bed together. Both times they were fully clothed, nothing R-rated here, and they were covered by a bedsheet, but what was happening under the sheet was less suggestive than before. I had reported “no duets,” but in fact there was a duet for Mary and Yeshua, and one for Mary and Miriam (aka The Virgin Mary). The question had been raised at dress rehearsal as to whether that was Nathan Gunn or a body double hanging on the cross. My spies backstage reported that it really was Gunn.

Our cast:
Mary Magdalene: Sasha Cooke
Yeshua: Nathan Gunn
Miriam: Maria Kanyova
Peter: William Burden
Policemen: Daniel Curran, Brian Leerhuber
Pharisee: James Creswell
Conductor: Michael Christie
Director: Kevin Newbury

This was Sasha Cooke’s first performance with San Francisco Opera, and she made a very fine first impression William Burden sang well as Peter, and Maria Kanyova almost as well. The big disappointment was heartthrob Nathan Gunn, who sounded woolly and overused his vibrato. Another important discovery was Merola graduate James Creswell, the Pharisee. His rich bass voice made me sit up and take notice, and look forward to an upcoming Tales of Hoffman in which he will sing Crespel, Antonia’s father.

On second hearing, the music remained approachable but, well, not very interesting—although Mary’s aria that begins “I love this time of the morning” was even lovelier than before. My mind recalled a comment by a friend after we had heard a performance of César Franck’s Symphony in D minor: “That piece runs the emotional gamut from A to B.” It just seemed that many opportunities for the music to make a big statement, to go along with important events, were simply missed. And the orchestral music seemed curiously detached from the vocal lines, as though they had little to do with each other. I’ll see it a third time, but at this point it’s a gamma.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (dress rehearsal), San Francisco Opera, June 16 2013

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is Mark Adamo’s third opera, following Little Women and Lysistrata. The premise of the opera is taken from lines in various apocryphal gospels that suggest, however subtly, that Mary was one of Jesus’s disciples, perhaps the most important one, and that the wedding at Cana at which he turned water into wine was in fact his own wedding to Mary. The opera tells the (a) story of Jesus’s life from the time that he met Mary through to his crucifixion and resurrection. For more information about the opera, see Adamo’s own web page and the one published by San Francisco Opera. Don’t miss the 87-page libretto, with 116 footnotes.

The same set is used throughout the opera. It represents an archaeological dig. The primary feature is a nearly semicircular wall about 15 feet high, made from rounded stones. Scaffolding immediately in front of the wall supports plywood platforms and steps that offer access to the center of downstage. In the center are the ruins of various stone walls, none more than 2 feet tall. In the center of the stone wall is an opening the size of a door, with a rounded arch on top; it is little used. There is another opening at the left side of the wall, which is used more, and to the right stairs descend to a lower level—again, little used. Most traffic is from the top of the wall, down the scaffolding to center stage. The wall extends from the left of the stage to the right, and on top it may be 10 feet deep, enough to support a chorus of 48. Yeshua (Jesus’s name in the opera) carries the cross across the top of the wall to the site of the crucifixion. (Was Nathan Gunn actually strung up on the cross? Speculative opinion thinks not, rather that it was a body double, with Gunn singing “God, O God” just behind him but out of sight.)

So what is the music like? Do you need to run away from something that will grate on your ears from beginning to end? Absolutely not! Nearly everywhere, the music is gentle and pleasant. The vocal lines are quite singable—no random bouncing up and down the scale. There are extended passages for a solo singer, and I wondered whether Adamo would write in a pause for applause, but he did not. The music simply continued with no break. There were no duets or trios, and not much in the way of chorus, aside from the occasional “Greek chorus” that explained or commented upon the action. There are some harsh moments in the music, but they point up harsh subjects, particularly near the beginning, where the chorus asks itself “Shall we burn this book [the Bible]?” and near the end, in the crucifixion scene. A particularly beautiful passage is Mary’s “I love this time of the morning,” sung after she has spent the night with Yeshua. I haven’t seen Pelleas and Melisande in a long time, but I will go out on a limb and compare Mary with Pelleas: pleasant music, no memorable tunes, nothing very dramatic, and it all starts to sound pretty much the same after a while. Repeated hearings may change my mind, but at the moment it seems that it would be hard to identify where you are in the opera if you “dropped the needle” at a random point. On the other hand, when I think of “no memorable tunes,” I remind myself of the music of Palestrina. It is wonderful, luscious, beautiful music as it goes by, but when it’s over, I can’t remember a single phrase. So “no memorable tunes” is not necessarily a problem.

I’m going to see it two more times in the next three weeks.

Cosi fan tutte, San Francisco Opera, June 9 2013

Cosi fan tutte returned to the San Francisco Opera stage after an absence of 8 years, repeating the previous production that was set in a seaside resort. The constant throughout the opera was two sets of three square gold-painted pillars, arranged in the form of an acute triangle with the acute angle toward the center of the stage; the pillars supported cross-beams. As the curtain went up, the back wall was an opaque curtain; downstage, Don Alfonso acted as the croupier at a roulette table—fitting, as he and the pair of young men enter into a bet as to the fidelity of their women. Throughout the various scenes of the opera, appropriate furniture such as sofas, beach chairs, and a desk, is brought on stage. At times the curtain in back parted to reveal the beach of the resort, with a bay behind the beach, a distant shoreline behind the bay, and pastel mountains behind that. Numerous small boats were tied up at the edge of the beach. OK, but nothing particularly noteworthy.

Our cast: 
Don Alfonso: Marco Vinco
Ferrando: Francesco Demuro
Guglielmo: Philippe Sly
Fiordiligi: Ellie Dehn
Dorabella: Christel Lötzsch
Despina: Susannah Biller
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Director: Jose Maria Condemi
Production: John Cox

From beginning to end, in every scene, the directing and the acting were superb. It was really easy to imagine that I was looking at something that was actually happening, the singers’ actions were that natural. Vocally, the standout performance was that of Philippe Sly as Guglielmo. He is “only” a first-year Adler Fellow, having participated in the Merola summer program only two years ago, but he displayed prodigious gifts in a major role. If only we could have heard this much of Leah Crocetto this early in her career! The other two men sang well enough; my major quibble was that Don Alfonso, who is supposed to have vastly more worldly experience than the two lovers, appeared to be approximately the same age as they. Ellie Dehn had a hard time managing the lowest notes in her aria “Come scoglio,” in which the vocal line features extreme leaps from high notes to low notes and back to high. (Theory has it that Mozart was tweaking his first Fiordiligi.) Susannah Biller’s Despina wasn’t quite as sparkly and perky as one might hope for. But, all in all, it was a very enjoyable afternoon—a strong beta.

The Tales of Hoffman (dress rehearsal), San Francisco Opera, June 2 2013

So, after a (planned) hiatus of several months, San Francisco Opera is gearing up for the summer season with a new production of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman. The most recent production was in 1996, when the company was performing in the Civic Auditorium with sets specifically designed for that venue. The production prior to that was in 1987.

The sets in this new production did not run the risk of eliciting applause from the audience as the curtain went up. In the prologue in the tavern, we saw not much more than a set of blue-gray walls: two walls facing the audience to the left and right, and two more blue-gray walls receding toward upstage. The center of upstage was blacked out; the chorus gradually appeared there as the lights were turned up.

The blue-gray wall theme continued throughout the opera. For Act 1, with Olympia the mechanical doll, the walls were supplemented with triangulated scaffolding to hold them up. Olympia sat upstage, at the end of a counterweighted boom, which two operators manipulated to send her bouncing high into the air. After her aria, Olympia, the boom, and the operators came out onto the main stage to be presented to the various guests.

In Act 2, with Antonia, the blue-gray walls were augmented with staircases attached to them, the staircases simply jutting out from the walls with no support beneath them.  In Act 3, with Giuletta, there was a different set of blue-gray walls, each about 10 feet wide facing the audience, alternating with sheer blue-gray curtains. And the epilogue, back in the tavern, returned to the set of the prologue.

Our cast will be reported on after attendance at a regular production; this was only a dress rehearsal.