We’ve seen this Tosca before in the HD Live series, but that was four years ago, beyond the scope of these commentaries. This was the controversial Luc Bondy production, successor to the much-loved (at least by the audience), grandiose Franco Zeffirelli production.
Act 1 takes place in the church of Sant’Andrea del Valle. We saw what looked like the inside of a church nearing completion. Walls of dark gray brick rose out of sight, so the basic structure of the church was complete, but it had not yet been decorated with all of the artwork so characteristic of Italian churches. Cavaradossi was beginning that task, painting a picture of Mary Magdalene on what would turn out to be paper. The nave of the church, where pews would later be installed, was completely bare except for some bits of broken rock or brick. A few folding chairs were off to one side.
Scarpia’s office, the setting for Act 2, was similarly plain, with flat plaster walls and large windows. Three prostitutes in R-rated costumes lounged on 1950s-modern sofas and occasionally pawed at Scarpia. This made no sense at all. Scarpia told us that he seeks violent sexual conquest; he’s hardly the kind of guy to pay for it.
The top of the Castel Sant'Angelo, for Act 3, seemed to be an echo of the church of Act 1, being built out of dark gray brick. The center of the stage was occupied by a walkway; to the right, the building receded into the distance with a structure on top of it, with stairs leading to its upper reaches. Part of that structure formed a 90° angle in which Cavaradossi positioned himself for the execution.
Our cast:
Tosca: Patricia Racette
Cavaradossi: Roberto Alagna
Scarpia: George Gagnidze
Angelotti: Richard Bernstein
Sacristan: John Del Carlo
Conductor: Riccardo Frizza
Production: Luc Bondy
Patricia Racette has had a busy autumn. She was Marguerite in Mefistofele and stepped in at the last minute to learn the role of Dolores Claiborne for the world-premiere production. (And she’ll be back in San Francisco in June for Madama Butterfly and Show Boat.) She sang well enough but not astoundingly so. Roberto Alagna also sang well, but didn’t budge my meter as far as Marcelo Alvarez did in the previous broadcast. George Gagnidze’s Scarpia was even more impressive than in that previous broadcast. It was a production worth seeing the encore of, but with no one to come with me, it was easy to opt out of. A beta.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
The Flying Dutchman, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 7 2013
Having seen the dress rehearsal of Dolores Claiborne, and concluding that a story even more sordid than Rigoletto (domestic violence, child sexual abuse) needed Rigoletto-quality music but didn’t get it, I traded our Dolores Claiborne subscription tickets for an additional performance of The Flying Dutchman. No regrets.
Our cast:
The Dutchman: Greer Grimsley
Senta: Lise Lindstrom
Daland: Kristinn Sigmundsson
Erik: Ian Storey
The Steersman: A. J. Glueckert
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Director: Petrika Ionesco
Things seemed to have been settling into place as this difficult production (the one in which the director was fired a week before the opening) found its bearings. No significant changes in the sets or the stage action, and the singing was a bit better. A beta.
Our cast:
The Dutchman: Greer Grimsley
Senta: Lise Lindstrom
Daland: Kristinn Sigmundsson
Erik: Ian Storey
The Steersman: A. J. Glueckert
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Director: Petrika Ionesco
Things seemed to have been settling into place as this difficult production (the one in which the director was fired a week before the opening) found its bearings. No significant changes in the sets or the stage action, and the singing was a bit better. A beta.
The Flying Dutchman, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 3 2013
This will turn out to be my second of four trips to see San Francisco’s Flying Dutchman: one dress rehearsal, one regular season subscription, one as a result of exchanging my Dolores Claiborne ticket for something much more worthwhile, and one senior rush ticket. The sets are described in the report of the dress rehearsal.
Our cast:
The Dutchman: Greer Grimsley
Senta: Lise Lindstrom
Daland: Kristinn Sigmundsson
Erik: Ian Storey
The Steersman: A. J. Glueckert
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Director: Petrika Ionesco
This was the production that was beset by a number of problems, most notably the dismissal of the director a week prior to the dress rehearsal. General Director David Gockley told us at the dress rehearsal that we could expect to see the production fine-tuned as the run went on. There were probably some subtle differences between today’s performance and the dress rehearsal, but none were particularly noteworthy. We still had Daland’s ship backing into the fjord, the projections of astronomical photographs, half the women sweeping while the other half spun, etc.
Greer Grimsley sang well enough as the Dutchman, but wasn’t particularly remarkable. Lise Lindstrom’s Senta sounded a bit underpowered. My favorite of the principals was bass Kristinn Sigmundsson, the Icelandic biology teacher. A. J. Glueckert, as the Steersman, baffled me with his action of threatening the Dutchman with a pistol just as the Dutchman began to explain himself to Daland. Wonderful music, good enough singing, sort of cockeyed production ... not quite a beta.
Our cast:
The Dutchman: Greer Grimsley
Senta: Lise Lindstrom
Daland: Kristinn Sigmundsson
Erik: Ian Storey
The Steersman: A. J. Glueckert
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Director: Petrika Ionesco
This was the production that was beset by a number of problems, most notably the dismissal of the director a week prior to the dress rehearsal. General Director David Gockley told us at the dress rehearsal that we could expect to see the production fine-tuned as the run went on. There were probably some subtle differences between today’s performance and the dress rehearsal, but none were particularly noteworthy. We still had Daland’s ship backing into the fjord, the projections of astronomical photographs, half the women sweeping while the other half spun, etc.
Greer Grimsley sang well enough as the Dutchman, but wasn’t particularly remarkable. Lise Lindstrom’s Senta sounded a bit underpowered. My favorite of the principals was bass Kristinn Sigmundsson, the Icelandic biology teacher. A. J. Glueckert, as the Steersman, baffled me with his action of threatening the Dutchman with a pistol just as the Dutchman began to explain himself to Daland. Wonderful music, good enough singing, sort of cockeyed production ... not quite a beta.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
The Nose, Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast, Oct. 26 2013
The Nose was Shostakovich’s first opera, written at the age of 20. (He would go on to write Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District plus an operetta and two incomplete operas.) The plot of The Nose is derived from a satirical short story by Nikolai Gogol, in which a petty bureaucrat loses his nose to a barber’s razor. The nose takes on a life of its own, the bureaucrat pursues it and ultimately restores it to his face, suffering a number of absurd indignities along the way. This short story has been adapted in a number of other ways, perhaps most curiously as a puppet show at the Moscow Museum of Erotic Art, with the victim being Vladimir Putin. (The Russia of today is a far cry from the USSR of the 20th century!)
According to the intermission interview, Peter Gelb wanted to have the noted artist William Kentridge design an opera for the Met, and allowed Kentridge to choose the opera. He chose The Nose, and created a production based on his signature technique of animated films. Rather than smooth, 24- or 30-frames-per-second animations characteristic of Walt Disney cartoons, Kentridge uses a speed of only 4 to ½ frame per second, rendering the animated figures in rather jerky motion. And for the most part, that’s what we saw: singers toward the front of the stage, with jerky animations projected above them to the rear of the stage. Occasionally there was a more conventional set with singers and walls and decorations and props, such as for the scene in which the barber discovers the nose baked into a loaf of bread, and for the scene in which Kolvayov finds that his nose is missing.
Our cast:
Kovalyov: Paulo Szot
Police Inspector: Andrey Popov
The Nose: Alexander Lewis
Conductor: Pavel Smelkov
Production: William Kentridge
There are no fewer than 78 sung roles in this opera, not counting the speaking roles and the chorus, so the Met’s synopsis listed only three of the singers. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera describes the music as a “deliberate experiment,” “astringent and angular, grotesque in its emphasis on musical parody and the clash of tone-colour extremes” with “no pretence at immediate mass accessibility.” Quite so. I feel the same as Rossini did after seeing Lohengrin: “One simply can not judge Wagner’s Lohengrin after a first hearing. Pity I don't intend hearing it a second time.” But I’ll judge The Nose as a delta, and don’t intend hearing it a second time.
According to the intermission interview, Peter Gelb wanted to have the noted artist William Kentridge design an opera for the Met, and allowed Kentridge to choose the opera. He chose The Nose, and created a production based on his signature technique of animated films. Rather than smooth, 24- or 30-frames-per-second animations characteristic of Walt Disney cartoons, Kentridge uses a speed of only 4 to ½ frame per second, rendering the animated figures in rather jerky motion. And for the most part, that’s what we saw: singers toward the front of the stage, with jerky animations projected above them to the rear of the stage. Occasionally there was a more conventional set with singers and walls and decorations and props, such as for the scene in which the barber discovers the nose baked into a loaf of bread, and for the scene in which Kolvayov finds that his nose is missing.
Our cast:
Kovalyov: Paulo Szot
Police Inspector: Andrey Popov
The Nose: Alexander Lewis
Conductor: Pavel Smelkov
Production: William Kentridge
There are no fewer than 78 sung roles in this opera, not counting the speaking roles and the chorus, so the Met’s synopsis listed only three of the singers. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera describes the music as a “deliberate experiment,” “astringent and angular, grotesque in its emphasis on musical parody and the clash of tone-colour extremes” with “no pretence at immediate mass accessibility.” Quite so. I feel the same as Rossini did after seeing Lohengrin: “One simply can not judge Wagner’s Lohengrin after a first hearing. Pity I don't intend hearing it a second time.” But I’ll judge The Nose as a delta, and don’t intend hearing it a second time.
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