Katya Kabanova at West Edge

 

Conductor / Music Director - Jonathan Khuner
Production Director - Indre Viskontas

Katya - Carrie Hennessey
Kabanicha, mother in law -  Kristin Clayton
Boris, boy friend - Christopher Oglesby
Tichon, Katya's husband - Alex Boyer
Kudrjaš - Chad Somers
Varvara, Tichon's sister - Sarah Coit
Dikój, Boris's uncle  - Philip Skinner

Leoš Janáček's Káťa Kabanová (1921) played at the Bruns Amphitheater in the East Bay hills as part of the season for West Edge Opera.  It's sunny and hot when the sun is shining on you, and cold when it isn't.  You may rent yourself a blanket.  Luckily I brought a hat and a jacket.  This is normally the venue for what is lovingly called Cal Shakes, meaning UC Shakespeare, I assume.  Adjustments were made to accommodate the orchestra who played from under the stage.  In the current era where performing before an audience is difficult, I suppose they were lucky to get it.  I felt that the heat/cold situation was extreme and the acoustics, particularly for the singers, were bad.

I have seen this opera before at the San Francisco Opera before I began blogging.  I remember only the part where Katya throws herself into the Volga.  I felt that this staging introduced the characters and their relationships more successfully.  The stage didn't become cluttered with irrelevant people, because the tiny chorus seemed always to be offstage.  Everyone dresses in modern clothing.  The singers for Tichon and Boris look similar, but were clearly distinguished through their costumes.

This opera would probably best be described as verismo, concerned with the hum drum problems of ordinary people.  Katya and Tichon love one another, but then there is the boss/mother in law who expects to be always the center of attention.  She runs a business and Tichon works for her.  Katya seems to want to be a good girl, and when it transpires that she cannot manage this, she wants to be punished.  She goes around asking everyone to accommodate this desire, and when they don't, she kills herself.

I am a fan of Carrie Hennessey whose character pretty much carries this opera.  (Pun?)  I enjoy her work, and felt that the cast did a fine job.  This is not in line to become a favorite opera.

West Edge Postponed

2021 has arrived and here is the West Edge Opera summer postponed from last year.  The text is the same, but the pictures are new and dates and location are added.

This is the publicity for the 2020 season of West Edge opera:
 Leoš Janáček’s  Katya Kabanova
 Elizabeth Cree, by Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell
 Francesco Cavalli’s Eliogabolo

By Michael Zwiebach

August 6, 2019

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West Edge Opera’s Mark Streshinsky | Credit: Mark Mayfield

While West Edge Opera has your attention, as their season rolls out, the company has announced next year’s season. No surprise, it’s just as ambitious as this year’s season. The festival opens a week earlier, July 25, 2020, instead of the first week in August and, just as with the current productions, you will have to wait for Artistic Director Mark Streshinsky to do location scouting to discover where the shows will be held, so stay tuned.

 

 

As usual, there is no sign of a top 50 opera anywhere, which is why some of us regard WEO so highly. However, there is a lot of great music in the works: the 2020 festival opens with Leoš Janáček’s brilliant, realistic drama Katya Kabanova with soprano Carrie Hennessy in the title role. This is a show that will challenge the company on a number of levels, but WEO has waded into these waters before, producing Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen in 2016. If they succeed, it will be one of the highlights of the Bay Area’s musical year.   July 24, Aug 1 & 5

 

The contemporary opera that the company always offers will be Elizabeth Cree, by Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell, based on a novel by Peter Ackroyd and premiered by Opera Philadelphia in 2017. The opera is the third collaboration by Puts and Campbell, following Silent Night (2012) and The Manchurian Candidate (2015). Despite the fact that the opera is about a grisly murder, it is, the authors insist, darkly comic, and Puts believed it was his best theater work up to that time. His tonal idiom and command of period style should work well in this tale of a music hall singer of the 1890s who is accused of murdering her surgeon husband. July 25, 30 & Aug 7

 

Francesco Cavalli’s Eliogabolo (1667), from the anything-goes Venetian opera houses of the 17th century is the third show of the season. The tale of a perverse and depraved Roman emperor, it almost feels like a modern show (an operatic Caligula, maybe) and in fact it never got its Venetian premiere, but not because it was too risqué. (It was replaced by an opera on the same subject by a different composer.) Maybe it was that Cavalli was too old-fashioned at the time, but in the 21st century, audiences have come around to Cavalli. The show has major productions at Theatre de la Monnaie (Belgium, 2004), the Aspen Festival (2007), Gotham Chamber Opera (NY, 2013), and Paris Opera (2016/17). Not bad for a modern opera. The West Edge production will star countertenor Randall Scotting in the title role, a part he can only hope leaves him clothed most of the time.   July 31, Aug 6 & 8

Michael Zwiebach is the senior editor/ content manager for SFCV. He assigns all articles and content, manages the writing staff and does editing. A member of SFCV from the beginning, Michael holds a Ph.D. in music history from the University of California, Berkeley.

BB.  This will all take place in The Bruns Amphitheater in Orinda in 2021.

Bones of Girls

Composer:  Ryan Suleiman
Librettist:  Cristina Fries
Pianist, music director:  Jennifer Reason
Director:  Omari Tau

Idiot Girl:  Carrie Hennessey  (puppeteers:  Gwenyth Alberto, Mara Patton)
Moon/Father:  Kevin Doherty
Dogs:  Omari Tau (puppeteers:  Ruhan Whittington, Jesse Raga)

Bones of Girls by Ryan Suleiman was given its world premier this weekend by Rogue Music Project in Sacramento.  I enjoyed this quite a lot, but it's going to be hard to explain.

They are in tune with their time.  The music, though scored only for piano, was densely modern.  Interesting remark in the lectures after the opera, "The words take a lot longer set to music."  This was a complaint from the composer.  If they want a lot more words with the same music, they shift to talking.  But no talking here.  That's a current fad.  There did not appear to be any vocal ensembles.  The three singers, Carrie Hennessey, Kevin Doherty and Omari Tau, a kind of priest-like character, sang well this somewhat difficult music.  They created their characters while being upstaged by children.

The story is something that is written about more recently than it was earlier in my lifetime.  A woman remembers sexual advances from her father when she was a child.  In this story he wishes to marry her.  She escapes.  We see this part of her life in a flashback. 

The staging was complex.  The chosen performance space isn't really suitable for a daytime performance, which is what I chose to attend.  The moon shines down, only here just in your imagination.

The four children who are the puppeteers play together before the opera begins.   The girls handle the child Idiot Girl who is quite attractive.  The boys are a pack of dogs as hand puppets.  It was complex and surprisingly moving.  The lively children at the beginning lie inert on the floor at the end.

I found it to be a quality product.

Sacramento Choral Society does Brahms

This is an interesting week for me.  Last night the Sacramento Choral Society and Orchestra presented the Brahms Requiem, a piece I dearly love, at the Community Center Theater.  Monday night is the Saint Matthew Passion by Bach, my other favorite choral work. a/>

Donald Kendrick is the music director.  Here is the program with comments.

Serenade for Strings by Edward Elgar (1892).

This is a lovely piece in three movements for strings only.  They played it well.  The chorus sat behind but did not participate.

Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1911).

Trevor Scheunemann, baritone, was the excellent soloist.  This piece includes parts for chorus and winds.  I regret that I was less impressed with the work by the wind sections.  I have long been a fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams whose greatest contribution to western civilization is the Anglican/Episcopalian hymnal.  These pieces were new for me and were in Williams' usual English post-romantic style.  I liked them very much. 

Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms (1868)

Again Trevor Scheunemann was the baritone soloist, and Carrie Hennessey sang the soprano solo.

1. Selig sind, die da Leid tragen
2. Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras
3. Herr, lehre doch mich (baritone)
4. Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
5. Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit (soprano)
6. Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt (baritone)
7. Selig sind die Toten

Brahms' Requiem is not related to any mass liturgy, either Catholic or Lutheran, but is instead a set of biblical texts about death from Luther's translation.  The title comes from Brahms himself.

This lives deep in my memory and was performed here with devotion.  The orchestra was less than ideal.

Carrie Hennessey Puccini Recital

Just when you thought Carrie Hennessey had already done the most impossible recital you could imagine, she does something even more impossible:  Thirteen Puccini arias.  This was accompanied by Jason Sherbundy on the piano, played with the lid all the way up.  The recital is titled To Live and Die for Love, the Heroines of Puccini.

'O mio babbino caro' from Gianni Schicchi. This is Lauretta, and after declaring in this aria that she will jump off the Ponte Vecchio if she cannot have her true love, lives happily ever after.

'Signore, ascolta' from Turandot followed by 'Tu che di gel sei cinta' from Turandot. In the opera these are sung by Liu who commits suicide to keep Calaf's name secret.

'Senza mamma' from Suor Angelica. She finds that her child has died and commits suicide.  Then the pianist played the Intermezzo from Suor Angelica.

We then were treated to three arias from La Bohème. 'Si, mi chiamano Mimi,' followed by 'Donde lieta uscì.'  These are sung by Mimi who dies of natural causes at the end of the opera.  'Quando me'n vo,' which is sung by Musetta who does not die.  Carrie wandered up and down the aisles trying to seduce us.  I think she was successful.

Intermission

'Chi il bel sogno di Doretta' from La Rondine.  Doretta is not a character in the opera, and in her aria she only falls in love..

'Un bel di' from Madama Butterfly followed by 'Tu, tu piccolo Iddio' also from Madama Butterfly. Cio-Cio-san commits suicide using the Japanese ritual.

'Vissi d'arte' from Tosca.  Is it necessary to explain this?  She leaps off the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome.

Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut came next.  The recital ended with two arias from Manon Lescaut:  'In Quelle Trin Morbide' and 'Sola Perduta, Abbandonata.'  Just before she dies in the desert of Louisiana Manon sings "I don't want to die."  There is, of course, no desert in Louisiana.

Carrie sings big and continued to sing big all the way to the end.  There was no encore and the pianist did all of the talking.  It is difficult to imagine doing something this difficult.  Tristan?  She is a lirico-spinto and avoided the dramatic roles of the ice queen and Minnie.

Carrie has followers who shout and scream.  This is fun.

Carrie Hennesey in Recital

Carrie Hennessey and her accompanist Jason Sherbundy, piano, gave an extremely ambitious recital at Pioneer Church in Sacramento.  I could not help thinking the selections were made for love.

L'Aria di Doretta from Puccini's La Rondine (1917)

In the opera this is a party song and is supposed to be extemporized.  It was the perfect start for this recital of soaring, almost operatic music.

Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder (1949)


"Frühling" (Spring)
"September"
"Im Abendrot" [usually last, composed first]
"Beim Schlafengehen" (When Falling Asleep)

I probably have more recordings of these than anything else.  Elisabeth, Jessye, Renee, maybe others.  They are the peak of song repertoire.   The rearrangement was probably done to place two songs with the unique soaring phrases found only here at the beginning and end.  Carrie has her own personal style which adds an extra layer of intensity.

Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915  (1947)

The text is by James Agee whose father died in a car accident in 1916.  It seemed to me that this was a perfect choice for the approach to Fathers Day.  I wasn't sure the operatic style exactly suited this, but it was still very moving.

"I want Magic" from Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire (1998)

"Don't turn on that light."  Carrie has played this role and loves this music.

There was an encore:

Rachmaninoff's Vocalise (1915)

After such a difficult concert, one would choose this for an encore.  After the concert was over, we were told that Carrie was sick with a cold.  It is allergy season in Sacramento.  There were tiny indications, but all in all this was very successful.  I put in the dates for the pieces so it would be clear that everything was from the twentieth century.  Wonderful music, terrific singing.  Who says the recital is dead?

Chat Noir

I recently attended a recital with Carrie Hennessey and John Cozza at the Crocker Art Museum celebrating a current exhibit about Toulouse-Lautrec.   The song selections were marvelous:  Satie, Poulenc, Schoenberg and Gustave Charpentier.  All had something to do with night club singing.  The Charpentier was the aria from Louise.

The Schoenberg group included a song "Arie aus dem Spiegel" on a text by Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist for the Magic Flute.  Carrie thought it sounded like something Papageno would sing.  It is necessary at this point to remember that Schikaneder was the original Papageno and not just the librettist of Magic Flute.

Streetcar

Conductor:   Ryan Murray
Production Design: Provided by New Orleans Opera Association

Blanche DuBois: Carrie Hennessey, soprano
Stanley Kowalski: Dan Kempson, baritone
Stella Kowalski: Kiera Duffy, soprano
Harold “Mitch” Mitchell: James Callon, tenor
Eunice Hubbel: Sharmay Musacchio, contralto
Steve Hubbel: Robert Norman, tenor

A Streetcar Named Desire by Andre Previn has to be the definitive barihunk opera.  The first thing Stanley does when he enters is take off his shirt.  He believes in being comfortable.  Dan Kempson is definitely gorgeous without his shirt.  He even shouts a mean "Steeellllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Previn complained that the estate of Tennessee Williams would only allow an opera to be written on this play if the text of the play was followed exactly.  He wasn't allow to drop any text or change anything.  The pace of text as it flows through an opera is much slower than it would be in a play.  The resulting opera is a normal length for an opera, but lacks completely the types of extensions, repetitions and insertions that become the arias and interludes.  Wagner solved this problem by extending everything, but this resulted in operas that lasted 5 hours.  His reasons weren't legal--he just liked the sound of his own voice.

Seeing it again, I sympathize with Previn.  It could have been a great opera, but perhaps it isn't his fault that it isn't.  Perhaps Monteverdi could have written it.  Perhaps not.  After seeing Orfeo, one can't help wondering.  The result is a play that is only incidentally sung and requires acting on the level of the original play.  But, you see, in an opera it is the music that carries the emotions.

The deep south is really more like England than it is like the other parts of the United States, and it is this particular culture that is Williams' subject.  In the south the class divisions were almost as sharp as they were with the British.  The upper classes clung to their customs and traditions.  Blanche and Stella were raised in this atmosphere, taught to cling to their status as property owners in spite of all that changes around them.  The bemoaned loss of Belle Reve, the family mansion, is felt intensely by Blanche in a way that merely saying it cannot convey.

Maybe a British director used to Downton Abbey could manage it.  What we are seeing is class warfare, and the lower class wins.  I felt that to work properly Blanche must be seen to be trying to hold up the standards of the upper class even in her reduced circumstances.  Stella will have adapted to her life with the obviously lower class Stanley. 

There was one bit I especially liked.  When the two women are going out together, they bring along their white gloves.  Every woman had her white gloves.  Perhaps Stella wants to show Blanche that she has not forgotten everything.

I'm not sure I should keep trying with this opera.  The sets from New Orleans were very functional.  When they are supposed to be outside, the back of the stage is darkened.  I've seen this quite a lot lately.  The story flowed smoothly.  All of the singing was good.  I didn't like the costuming for Blanche.  The fancy clothes they pull out of her trunk would have been somewhat more suitable.  "Pretentious gentility," even shabby pretentious gentility is the desired effect.

It's nice to go to Modesto.  The Townsend Opera company recommends local restaurants and allows people to meet with the singers afterward in one of them.  I liked this idea.

West Edge Summer Festival

Hydrogen Jukebox  

The Cast

Soprano 1:  Sara Duchovnay
Soprano 2:  Molly Mahoney
Mezzo:  Nicole Takesono
Tenor:  Jonathan Blalock
Baritone:  Efrain Solis
Bass:  Kenneth Kellogg
Narrator:  Howard Swain

Conductor:  David Möschler

Where to begin?  This "opera," Hydrogen Jukebox, by Philip Glass on words by Allen Ginsberg was presented by West Edge Opera at the Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley.  When I used to visit this part of Berkeley, this was a BART parking lot.  They have replaced about half of it with this building, a center for people with disabilities.  They can go directly from the Ashby BART station into the basement of the building. 

The picture above shows the entire cast.  The Narrator, an actor who does not sing, is the guy in the center.  The stage for this production was on the south end of the large space and was quite tiny, with ladders going to the next floor.  At one point the invisible conductor climbed down one of these ladders and played the piano.

I was interested in these words by Glass:

"For me there are two considerations in setting text to music. There are the words themselves, which need to be set in the most natural way. With Allen's poetry I was most intent on respecting the music that was already in the words. Then there is the musical environment into which the words are set. In the poem Aunt Rose, for example, I used a 5/8 rhythm — a kind of lopsided rhythm — 1-2, 1-2-3. I heard the rhythm from the description of her toot: it's a picture of someone who walks with a limp. That's the only specific relation of the music to the words."

The result of this approach for my ears was a piece where the words dominated the music.  It also made for a very repetitive rhythmic feeling because Ginsberg's poetry tends to use a stagnant rhythmic pattern.  (Ok.  Pile on.)  I know.  Glass is always repetitive--he calls it "repetitive structures"--, but this is the only time it has actually seemed monotonous to me.  Maybe he's simply too respectful of the honored poet.

The opera uses 20 poems or fragments of poems on virtually any subject.  In one Jaweh and Allah are warring, a concept I loved.  Another deals with Aunt Rose.  Another is about smoking grass--very timely, don't you think?  There were homosexual and heterosexual couples.  Uncle Sam makes an appearance.  A flag is held up but carefully refolded and placed in a box.  It reminds you that there were once liberals in America.  I was astounded by how timely it all was even though the opera was from 1990 and many of the poems from much earlier.  I expected to be more shocked by this.  The world has changed a lot.

There was no real plot or characters.  The words were so dense and complicated that ones eyes were preoccupied with reading them with little time left for watching the action.

It's wonderful how Glass will make an opera out of anything.  Appomattox is still the most boring.

The End of the Affair 

The Cast

Sarah Miles:  Carrie Hennessey
Maurice Bendrix, her boyfriend:  Keith Phares
Henry Miles, her husband:  Philip Skinner
Mrs. Bertram, her mother:  Donna Olson
Mr. Parkis, detective:  Mark Hernandez
Lance, his son:  Ben Miller
Richard Smythe:  Michael Jankosky

Conductor:  Jonathan Khuner

The End of the Affair by Jake Heggie (2007 version) was staged at the north end of the large space.  This work is far more of a conventional opera with characters and a story, and takes place near the end of WWII in London.  It is based on a story by Graham Greene.

The plot is about an event and how it affects everyone involved.  Maurice and Sarah are in bed making love when a bomb strikes.  Maurice gets up to warn people about the bomb when another bomb causes a building to fall on him.   It's a bit like the movie Little Dorrit where the same story is told from two different perspectives.

At the beginning we see the story from Maurice's perspective.  The bomb strikes, he gets up, and Sarah leaves him with no explanation.  He spends the next 18 months trying to understand this, and ultimately hires a detective.  At the end of act 1 we see the incident portrayed from Maurice's point of view, and we fade to black.

The detective has stolen Sarah's diary, and Maurice reads the story from Sarah's side for the first time.  The building falls, Sarah sees Maurice and assumes he is dead.  She prays, "God, I will give him up if you will only let him live."  To her he is dead and then comes back to life.  She has summoned and received a miracle.  How can she not do what she has promised?

There is very much of a Catholic overlay to this story.  Mother makes a point of telling us that she had Sarah baptized Catholic when she was 2.  In the Catholic world miracles continue on to today.  God has chosen to bless Sarah with a miracle, and then when she dies others are also blessed.  Lance is cured of his disease, and Smythe loses his birth mark.  Parts of this sound pretty dubious to me from a religious perspective, but Pope Paul VI approved, so who am I to complain?

West Edge successfully invoked the mysterious mysticism of the plot.  Scenes of WWII bombed London are projected on the back.  Throughout the first act Sarah appears as a sexual fantasy object whom Maurice meets when he is thinking of her.  Her mysterious, haunting presence permeates every scene even when she has no lines.  She walks like a benign ghost over the stage.  For me the staging was marvelously effective.

Sarah gives herself to God.

All of the singing and acting was marvelous, especially Carrie Hennessey, Keith Phares, Philip Skinner, and Donna Olson.

Well done.  The music is 21st century romanticism.

I apologize for not making it to La Boheme.

Two in Tune

Last night the official unification of the Sacramento Philharmonic and Sacramento Opera was launched at a reception at the Sacramento Convention Center Theater (CCT).

While we feasted on excellent cheeses and fruit, we were entertained by soprano Carrie Hennessey and a small instrumental ensemble.

To get this unification off to a good start both organizations will have a single General Director, and he will be Robert Tannenbaum, lately of Karlsruhe in Germany.  He was fresh off the plane, but still managed to greet us warmly.  He made a good argument for unified community arts.  Two sponsors of unified arts are Fairy Tale Town and Crocker Art Museum.  He also made an interesting remark that he was happy to support basketball in Sacramento even though he had never been to a basketball game.  I haven't been to one since high school.  He mentioned Sac State

There was also a season announcement for 2013-14.  Some of these items are still in discussion.

August 11, 1:30, the opera and philharmonic will combine at Fairy Tale Town for the "Cat and Fiddle Music Festival."

Oct 19, 2:00 and 7:30, CCT, Gershwin concert with Sylvia McNair.*

Nov?, Una Sorpreso Lirico!  This is Italian for A Surprise Opera.  Everything about this is a surprise.

January 11, 2:00 and 7:30, CCT, a concert featuring Stravinsky and Brahms.*

Feb 28, 7:30, and March 2, 2:00, CCT, Il Trovatore.*

March 14, 8:00, The Assembly, Violinist Rachel Barton Pine and cellist Mike Block will discuss the evolution of music from Bartok to Metalica.  This is a bold undertaking.  The only assembly I am aware of in Sacramento is in the state capitol.  We will need to know more.

March 22, 2:00 and 7:30, CCT, concert featureing Dvorak and Glazunov.*

June 21 & 22 at Crocker Art Museum, Family opera to coincide with a Crocker exhibition.

* Music director Michael Morgan will conduct.

Then we listened to the rehearsal for the concert tonight where the Sacramento Philharmonic will perform:

Franz Joseph Haydn	Symphony No. 103 in Eb Major “Drum Roll”
Maurice Ravel	Mother Goose Suite
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	Mass in C Major “Coronation”

What I thought I was hearing was the incidental music from A Midsummer Night's Dream by Mendelssohn. 

The Coronation Mass is a symphonic mass (soloists are integrated into the texture of the orchestra and chorus) obviously intended to be performed in a service, rather than a concert mass like the Beethoven Missa Solemnis or Verdi Requiem.

Puccini at the Sacramento Opera

Above is a picture of Marie Plette dressed as Butterfly.  She sang "Un bel di" for us at the Sacramento Opera Puccini night on Friday.  Previously she appeared in Sacramento as Tosca.  I liked her then and I still like her now.

The program for the evening consisted of a first act theater piece called Puccini:  the Man and his Muses. An actor, Michael Stevenson, plays Puccini in the final year of his life. He describes each of his love affairs with his female characters, and each woman appears in costume and sings her most famous aria.

Anna from Le Villi--Nicolle Foland
Fidelia from Edgar--Leslie Sandefur
Manon from Manon Lescaut--Nicolle Foland
Mimi from La Boheme--Leslie Sandefur
Musetta from La Boheme--Nicolle Foland
Floria Tosca from Tosca--Carrie Hennessey
Butterfly from Madama Butterfly--Marie Plette
Minnie from La Fanciulla del West--Leslie Sandefur
Magda de Civry from La Rondine--Carrie Hennessey
Liu from Turandot--Marie Plette

These ladies appeared in the order in which Puccini composed them and in full costume, so it was not always possible to precisely match them to their roles.  To whom it may concern:  this is exactly how you compose an opera--choose a woman you love, write a drama for her and compose wonderful music for her to sing.  As a concept, this was quite pleasing.  I would describe it as a play with music.

The second half of the program was an excellent performance of Gianni Schicchi.  Luis Ledesma was Gianni Schicchi and Carrie Hennessey was Lauretta of the famous "O mio babbino caro."  Carrie has learned to slide since I last wrote about her Puccini singing, but she still will not attempt a scoop.  I found this an acceptable compromise.

The Sacramento Opera has merged with the Sacramento Philharmonic.  Both are now conducted by Michael Morgan.

It was a pleasant evening at the opera, though under attended and under publicized. 

Reviving the Sacramento Opera

Last night in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacramento on 11th and K was the first piece of the attempt to revive the Sacramento Opera.  Basically it was a piano vocal recital accompanied by John Cozza, president of the Saturday Club, and sung by Soprano Carrie Hennessey, Mezzo Julie Anne Miller, tenor Scott Ramsey, baritone Igor Vieira and baritone Zachary Gordin.

The repertoire was selected based on a poll of Sacramento opera fans, and Sacramentans like their war horses.  We would like to hear Mozart/Da Ponte, and maybe a little Magic Flute, followed by Rossini's Barber.  Then maybe we would like a little Verdi, including La Traviata, though the Sacramento Opera lost money when this opera was presented a couple of years ago.  Then please we would like some Carmen and all of the big three Puccini.  For variety we might go for Massanet's Werther, Samson and Dalila and a little Faust.  The appearance of Werther was a surprise.

The venue allowed for lots of listeners and low ticket prices.  It also allowed for a very lively echo.  The singers stood under the dome which probably has the most echo in the building.

It was a pleasant evening with some very pleasant young people singing.  Apparently the biggest barrier to opera in Sacramento lies in the lack of the perfect venue.  The usual place is expensive.  The size of the audience seems to indicate that at $25 a person, there is a lot of interest in opera in Sacramento.

Brundibár

Though sponsored by the Sacramento Opera, the children's opera Brundibár, by the Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása, is really more of an historical and cultural document than an opera. It is famous for having been performed 55 times at the WWII Jewish concentration camp in Theresienstadt, a fortress in the Czech Republic built by the Hapsburg Emperors, and for having been featured in a Nazi propaganda film.

The first part of the program at Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento was filled out with songs and choruses which would have been sung in Theresienstadt. I know I heard English, German and Hebrew, but there may have been even more languages. The able soloist was Josselyn Ivanov. This section featured the Sacramento Children's Chorus with their excellent director Lynn Stevens. Pictures made by the children of Theresienstadt were recovered after the war and shown to us on a large screen.


The opera, performed in English, is short and simple. Two children go out to find milk for their mother, or in lieu of that money for milk, and are prevented by the organ grinder Brundibár. Good triumphs over evil. Often the accompaniment sounds like organ grinder music, the most successful musical effect. This section of the program was accompanied by the Sacramento Youth Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Timm Rolek.

After the musical portion Ela Stein Weissberger, who had played the cat in the Theresienstadt production, spoke about life in the concentration camp and the fate of her fellow cast members. She travels the world speaking about Brundibár.