Tosca, Livermore Valley Opera, Mar. 18 2012

Livermore Valley Opera was almost an unknown to me. I had been to one previous production, The Marriage of Figaro I think it was, some years ago, but it had not made much of an impression on me. But when a friend suggested Tosca with Marie Plette and Bojan Knezvic, it was “sign me up!”

The performance was at the Bankhead Theater in downtown Livermore, a new (2007) facility with just 507 seats. There is only a single level of seating, no balcony, and the floor is raked steeply enough that it’s easy to see over the heads of the people in the row in front of you. The orchestra pit, between the audience and the stage, is truly a pit; when the conductor asked the orchestra to accept applause at the beginning of the third act, most of the musicians held their instruments high in the air so that the audience would have something to see. LVO also provides a special intermission treat on Sunday afternoon performances: complimentary ice cream, French vanilla, in individual 6 oz. containers, complete with a little wooden spoon, and served at the perfect temperature, not too soft and not too hard.

The sets were simple but effective. For act 1, we had two of the stone columns of the church, with a small statue of the Madonna between them, and part of a rose window in the background. To the right was the painter’s scaffold and the almost-finished portrait of Mary Magdalene; to the left, the Attavanti chapel. In act 2, in Scarpia’s office at the Farnese Palace, we saw a small writing desk to the left, a reclining sofa in the middle, and Scarpia’s dinner table at the right. Above it all hung a large, wider than tall, tapestry depicting a hunting scene. The act 3 set was the simplest, just the stone walls at the top of the Castel Sant’ Angelo, with a gigantic foot and the lower part of the leg of the statue of the archangel Michael to the left.

Our cast:
Floria Tosca: Marie Plette
Mario Cavaradossi: David Gustafson (not Bojan Knezvic as originally announced)
Baron Scarpia: Philip Skinner
Cesare Angelotti: Torlef Borsting
Sacristan: John Bischoff
Spoletta: Chester Pidduck
Sciarrone: Jeffrey Goble
Conductor: Alexander Katsman
Director: Olivia Stapp

The performers may be used to singing in larger halls (some certainly are): there was no problem hearing anybody—or perhaps it is a tribute to excellent acoustics in the Bankhead Theater. Gustafson sang so loudly that my ears (in the third row) rang. Unfortunately a couple of his ringing phrases developed a little crack in them, but his cry of “Vittoria! Vittoooooooooooria!” in the middle of act 2 worked well. Skinner sang well, but his volume of tone did not vary much. Plette’s Tosca was nice but not particularly remarkable. What I did find remarkable was the sacristan of John Bischoff: very rich, deep, and well enunciated. I would very much like to hear him in a larger role. The Te Deum at the end of act 1 was underpowered. The stage at the Bankhead Theater must be fairly shallow, and they just couldn’t fit enough people on stage, even with good acoustics.

The mind wonders (as it wanders), particularly in act 3, how Tosca will fling herself from the parapet at the very end. I’ve seen many, but this one will stick in my mind. Plette jumped on the edge of the wall and then launched herself, arms and head first, feet last, perfectly horizontal, into the air. Dramatic!

Great opera, good cast, fine theater, goosebumps at times—definitely a beta. Next year LVO presents La Cenerentola and La Traviata. I’ll be there!

Ernani, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Mar. 14 2012

The Metropolitan Opera’s HD broadcast of Ernani was so good, and the opera is so rarely performed, that it was an easy decision to attend the encore broadcast. Lots of other people also made the encore decision: theater #14 was at least a quarter full. I particularly wanted to hear Angela Meade again, and I enjoyed her performance just as much as I had the first time around. And this time I caught more “references” to other Verdi operas: some of it sounded, unsurprisingly, like Nabucco, but some of it sounded like operas that were still in the future in 1843: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, a bit of La Traviata, and just a hint of Aida.

Our cast:
Ernani: Marcello Giordani
Elvira: Angela Meade
Don Carlo: Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Silva: Ferruccio Furlanetto
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Production: Pier Luigi Samaritani

As mentioned, Angela Meade was superb—the Opera News review of her (on a different night) described her as “on fire.” I also appreciated Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s aria at the beginning of the third act more than I had before. A very strong beta.

Ernani, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Feb. 25 2012

Ernani was Verdi’s fifth opera, premiering in 1844 and lying between I Lombardi and I due Foscari in his operatic output. It is more in the bel canto style than any other Verdi opera that I have heard, and as we shall see, the singers addressed this challenge marvelously.

Act 1 comprises two scenes. In the first, we saw the semicircular courtyard of a ruined castle, built from flat stones stacked up to form a wall. Ernani is a bandit, an “outlawed nobleman,” and the woman he loves, Elvira, is scheduled to be married the next day to her uncle (Silva). Ernani rallies his comrades to abduct her and prevent the marriage. The second scene presented Elvira’s apartment in the castle, with a seating area lavishly strewn with carpets; to the rear, a very large door; to the right, a very large painting. In the course of the scene, Don Carlo (the King of Spain) appears and declares his love for Elvira. So now we have three men, all in love with Elvira.

The remaining three acts all took place on staircases. In Act 2 there was a long straight staircase from the center of the stage up to the left, while a balcony ran along the rear of the stage. At this point the plot got complicated, with Ernani arriving in the guise of a pilgrim to break up the wedding. He was also pursued by the King’s soldiers, and despite Silva’s hatred of Ernani, the rules of hospitality forced him to protect his guest. Act 3 featured a giant semicircular staircase that enveloped a large equestrian statue and pedestal of Charlemagne’s tomb. Don Carlo hid in this tomb while the Electors gathered to choose the next Holy Roman Emperor—and Don Carlo was selected. In the final act the tomb of Charlemagne was replaced by a stone tower with ivy growing on it. Here Ernani and Elvira were married, but Silva appeared and cashed in Ernani’s offer (from act 2) to kill himself at Silva’s demand. According to stage directions, Ernani is to stab himself and Elvira is to faint, but here Elvira snatched the weapon and died along with Ernani.

Our cast:
Ernani: Marcello Giordani
Elvira: Angela Meade
Don Carlo: Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Silva: Ferruccio Furlanetto
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Production: Pier Luigi Samaritani

Giordani, Hvorostovsky, and Furlanetto are well-known, and they all lived up to my expectations, in the best way. The “unknown” was Angela Meade—though not entirely unknown; she had been one of the winners of the 2007 National Council Auditions, which was documented in the film “The Audition.” The judges knew what they were doing. She sang magnificently, outdoing the legendary names that she shared the stage with. All of them made a persuasive case for this relatively obscure opera. Yes, truly bel canto: the plot was rather contrived, but it was a superb vehicle for some very beautiful singing. I’ll be back to catch the encore, mostly for Angela Meade. A very strong beta.

La Traviata, Opera San Jose, Feb. 18 2012

Back to the California Theatre to see the “other” cast, that is, the cast that did not perform on Thursday. The staging was the same as the one on Thursday; only the cast was (mostly) different:

Violetta: Rebecca Davis
Alfredo: Michael Dailey
Giorgio: Evan Brummel
Flora: Wendy Buzby
Baron Douphol: Isaiah Musik-Ayala
Gastone: Mete Tasin
Marquis D’Obigny: Bradley Kynard
Dr. Grenville: Silas Elash
Annina: Rebecca Krouner
Conductor: David Rohrbaugh
Stage Director: José Maria Condemi

Rebecca Davis sang with considerable force and purity of tone, but lacked some of the emotion heard on Thursday. Michael Dailey cut the final high note of his act 2 cabaletta short and avoided the pit that Thursday’s Alfredo had fallen into—perhaps that note is particularly treacherous and that’s why the cabaletta is often cut. Cheers to our tenors for at least trying it. Evan Brummel was adequate as Giorgio Germont, but lacked the gravitas heard earlier. The chorus and orchestra under the leadership of David Rohrbaugh were again superb. A beta.

La Traviata, Opera San Jose, Feb. 16 2012

Almost exactly five years to the day since the previous production of La Traviata, it’s back—not surprising, given that (according to one measure) it’s one of the most popular works in today’s opera world. It was given in four acts, with two intermissions, and a “pause” between acts 3 and 4. The same basic set was used for all four acts: to the right we saw a wooden floor, rising gently from the front of the stage to the back, with a couple of wide steps down to the flat area to the left. At the back, a wall with a large window to the right; on the right side, a wall with three doors.

As the prelude concluded, the lights came up gradually on Violetta gazing at a large (six feet by twelve) portrait of herself, mounted on the wall to the left of the large window. Through the large window, we saw a partially-completed Eiffel Tower, the setting having been moved forward about 40 years from Verdi’s intended date of 1845, and almost 200 years from what the score says: “Paris and its environs, ca. 1700.” The left side of the stage was furnished with only a large round ottoman on which several people could sit. When the prelude was over and the party music began, the guests burst through all three doors, half the chorus telling the other half that they are late.

For the second act, we were moved to the little house in the country. The middle door has been covered over by a large stone fireplace with a gun rack on the audience side. Through the window we saw the shrubbery outside, and where Violetta’s portrait had hung there was now a large rack of dried herbs. On the flat portion of the stage there was a small table and a stool.

In the third act we were at Flora’s mansion, which looked a lot like Violetta’s, except that her portrait was gone and the large window incorporated an entryway. Through the window we could see a completed Eiffel Tower. To the left, a gambling table with chairs. To the right, covering the middle door, a very large poster of a charging bull.

For the fourth and final act, we were returned to Violetta’s mansion. Her portrait had fallen off the wall and was lying against the wall at an angle. On the left was Violetta’s sickbed, and a chair for Annina. The drapes over the window were initially closed, but when Violetta asked Annina to open them, she opened one side, and a very dim light entered. After all, it was winter in Paris, and the libretto said “seven o’clock” (in the morning).

Our cast:
Violetta: Jouvanca Jean Baptiste
Alfredo: Alexander Boyer
Giorgio: Torlef Borsting
Flora: Cathleen Candia
Douphol: Isaiah Musik-Ayala
Gastone: Justin Marsh
D’Obigny: Bradley Kynard
Dr. Grenville: Silas Elash
Annina: Tori Grayum
Conductor: David Rohrbaugh
Stage Director: José Maria Condemi

The orchestra played beautifully throughout; in particular, the overture was worth some goosebumps. It took the singers a while to warm up, though. The first act sounded as though the singers were keeping a lot in reserve for later in the evening. When Alexander Boyer entered at the beginning of act 2 and sang the cavatina “De’ miei bollenti spiriti” and started in on the cabaletta “O mio rimorso!” he sounded greatly improved. Unfortunately, his final high note came out as what could only be described as a croak. We felt so bad for him. Torlef Borsting, as Alfredo’s father Giorgio Germont, sang beautifully when he sang more loudly; his softer passages suffered in comparison. Jouvanca Jean-Baptiste sang Violetta well after the first act, but not outstandingly so. The chorus sang very well. The stage direction was quite fine. In particular, Baron Douphol’s challenge to the duel at the end of act 3 was very clear, although Isaiah Musik-Ayala may have gotten ahead of his cue—he stood there with his card in his upraised hand for what seemed an uncomfortably long time. Overall, an enjoyable evening in the theater; a beta.

Götterdämmerung, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Feb. 11 2012

The Robert Lepage/La Machine Ring cycle concluded with a superb performance of Götterdämmerung. The first question to present itself, as it has for each of the previous operas in the cycle, is “What did they do with La Machine?” In case you are joining late, “La Machine” is an array of 24 2-foot wide planks, something like 24 closely-packed see-saws; each plank can rotate, independently of the others, through a full 360°. The performance takes place in front of, on, and occasionally underneath La Machine. The entire construction weighs 45 tons, so it is onstage all the time.

In contrast to Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, the first two operas of the cycle in which La Machine was distracting in its excessive amount of motion, in Götterdämmerung it tended to take a shape and then stay put while images were projected onto it. Because it is so easy to move the planks, and so easy to show new projections, a lot more happened with the “scenery” than in more traditional production—so much that it’s easy to forget the details of each scene. But the following stand out in my memory as being particularly effective. In Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, all but the four center planks were held still, while the four gently tilted back and forth, with Siegfried holding the bridle of a full-sized mechanical horse—a very apt depiction of a boat (or raft) being buffeted by the waves. The Hall of the Gibichungs was nicely represented by a few widely-space blanks held in a vertical position to be the support columns, and the remainder tilted slightly above horizontal to be the ceiling. For Siegfried’s scene with the Rhinemaidens, he stood and sat on a set of planks held slightly below horizontal, while the Rhinemaidens cavorted on their planks at a much steeper angle. They would climb up the planks and sit in one spot (presumably aided by shoes and a sit-upon made with high-friction rubber), then turn to one side and slide back down to the stage. All the while, an image of a rushing river was projected on the Rhinemaiden’s planks, with two large rocks jutting out of the river. The Rhinemaidens would sit on the rocks, presumably so that images of rushing water would not be projected on their faces.

Siegfried’s death scene was the occasion for a great use of the projections. In the transition from the scene with the Rhinemaidens to the scene with the hunting party, the planks and the rushing river stayed as they were. But after Hagen killed Siegfried, Gunther held his body, and got blood on his hands. He climbed up the left bank of the “river” and washed his hands in it. A little bit of the river turned red ... and by the end of the scene, the entire river was stained red.

Although La Machine made for a very non-traditional production, the Immolation Scene was the most true to the stage directions that I have seen. They built a funeral pyre by stacking logs at 90° angles to each other, half a dozen layers high, laid the body on top of the pyre, and then burned it with red lights and stage fog. Not the conflagration (with real fire!) that Seattle Opera did many years ago, but far superior to the recent San Francisco production, where Siegfried’s body was unceremoniously dumped from a cart at the back of the stage, perhaps into the Rhine. And here, Brünnhilde mounted the mechanical horse, which was guided slowly next to the funeral pyre as the planks rotated to vertical to hide it—and to present a surface on which the Rhine overflowed and the world burned up. In the last several seconds, what we saw were the planks held vertical, but moving slowly back and forth to suggest the undulating Rhine, which was exactly how Das Rheingold had opened. Yes, the Ring is a cycle.

Our cast:
Brünnhilde: Deborah Voigt
Siegfried: Jay Hunter Morris
Hagen: Hans-Peter König
Gunther: Iain Paterson
Gutrune: Wendy Bryn Harmer
Waltraute: Waltraud Meier
Alberich: Eric Owens
Conductor: Fabio Luisi
Production: Robert Lepage

Last November in Siegfried, Jay Hunter Morris had been promoted from cover to performer, and triumphed in the role. It was very exciting to learn that he had been given the role of Siegfried in Götterdämmerung as well. While I can’t fault anything about his performance, it wasn’t the knock-your-socks-off kind of performance that he gave us in Siegfried, which I’m sure will be long remembered. Deborah Voigt did fine, but the winner in Götterdämmerung was Hans-Peter König, who displayed a magnificent bass voice, which his performances as Hunding in Die Walküre and Fafner in Siegfried had prepared me for. Iain Paterson sang a very strong Gunther, and Wendy Bryn Harmer made a fetching Gutrune. Eric Owens was his usual sonorous Alberich. Waltraud Meier (at 56) sang a fine Waltraute, although her Valkyrie costume didn’t fit her very well. Just short of an alpha—I want to see an encore performance if it is ever broadcast, but I really want to see a Siegfried encore.

The Enchanted Island, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Jan. 21 2012

An interesting project, this. Take Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, about the Duke of Milan (Prospero), exiled to an island along with his daughter, Miranda. Mix in the two couples from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who get shipwrecked on Prospero’s island and are subsequently paired up with the wrong lover through the misapplication of a magic potion. Create a major role for Sycorax, Caliban’s mother, who in The Tempest dies before the play opens. Find arias and dances from a number of Baroque operas by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, Leclair, Purcell, Campra, and Jean-Féry Rebel. Set the words of the libretto to that music. What do you get? A pasticcio (pastiche), a form that is described as “almost as old as opera itself.” My favorite example of the genre is something called The Savoyards, which the Lamplighters presented many years ago, telling the story of the collaboration of Gilbert and Sullivan using the music and often the words of Gilbert and Sullivan: “See how the fates their gifts allot—G is happy but S is not.”

So The Enchanted Island works out to be the “world premiere” of three hours of Baroque music, complete with new sets and costumes of course. The set was an amalgam of the Baroque practice of painted flats and the thoroughly modern techniques of interactive, computer-generated video projections. The basic structure of the set was that of two columns connected by an arch overhead. Each column had a short (eight steps) curving staircase leading up to a door. The left column was Prospero’s: above the door were shelves full of books. The right column was Sycorax’s: it was engulfed by tree roots. The open space between the columns was used for any number of projections and drop-down flats. The budget for costumes must have been immense: an elaborate golden feathers (and angel-like wings) for Ariel, creature-from-the-black-lagoon costumes for Caliban and Sycorax, elaborate costumes with head-masks for the dancers, etc.

Our cast:
Ariel: Danielle de Niese
Miranda: Lisette Oropesa
Sycorax: Joyce DiDonato
Prospero: David Daniels
Ferdinand: Anthony Roth Costanzo
Neptune: Plácido Domingo
Caliban: Luca Pisaroni
Conductor: William Christie
Production: Phelim McDermott

Of these, the most impressive were Danielle de Niese and Luca Pisaroni. de Niese tossed off elaborate baroque showpiece arias with ease, and acted the part of the sprite to perfection. Pisaroni displayed a wondrous bass-baritone voice. Plácido Domingo was singing on this, his 71st birthday. While he may not be quite as impressive as he once was, it was still a delight to hear him. At the interview our hostess Deborah Voigt mentioned that Neptune was his 136th role, and Domingo noted that this was the first time he had portrayed a god. But ... how many times does a tenor get to portray even a king?

The major shortcoming of this performance was the libretto. On the macro scale, the idea of doing a mash-up of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a reasonable one. On the micro level, that of the actual words to be sung, there were problems. While there was nothing as silly as “Please pass the salt” or “Who was that on the telephone?” or “I will have to give you a geography lesson,” the librettist was clearly no Shakespeare. And the libretto was littered with far too many rhymed couplets that were just lame. Worth seeing once but not twice. A beta.