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.