They called it the Church of Beethoven because every Sunday morning they have a concert at The Kosmos at 1715 5th street. The space doesn't really look like a church. There was a coffee shop on one side.
I went for the program.
"At the River" (1916) by Charles Ives, an arrangement for violin and piano of one of Ives' songs. (I sang this in college.) It's one of those pieces where Ives changes a hymn into something unexpected.
Chaconne (1998) from The Red Violin by John Corigliano. This was a very enjoyable selection in neo-romantic style from the sound track of the movie. I have no idea if it followed the Baroque form for chaconne. I wasn't paying enough attention.
Poet Bill Nevins, who teaches at UNM, read selections from his recently published book Heartbreak Ridge.
Two minutes of silence.
Sonata No 2 for Violin and Piano (1919) by Charles Ives.
I Autumn: Adagio maestoso - Allegro moderato
II In the Barn: Presto - Allegro moderato
III The Revival: Largo - Allegretto
The artists were David Felberg, violin, and Pamela Viktoria Pyle, piano. They were both enthusiastic players of this excellent exciting music. I have loved the work of Charles Ives for many years, and found the intensity of their playing transformative. It should never be less than this. David managed to break a few bow strings even.
Coffee, poetry, music, silence. And no chatter during the playing. As I always do, I tried to start up a conversation, but it didn't work this time. Try this if you are ever in Albuquerque.
I have a copy of the 1924 edition of the Victrola Book of the Opera. From my American Operas list we see Natoma, first produced at the Metropolitan opera in 1911, and Madeleine, first performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1914, both by Victor Herbert, who wasn't born in America. These are as close as we get to American opera in that era. One owns such a book for the photographs of famous singers, such as Caruso and Geraldine Farrar who had her own private dressing room at the Met. There was a policy begun in 1900 to produce an American Opera every year at the Met, but none of them held the stage even briefly except these two. Horatio Parker's Mona, 1911, was also part of the Met's effort to produce American opera.
Carmen Balthrop in Treemonisha
Another place to research opera in America is in the book Opera in America by John Dizikes. This work focuses on the cultural life of opera rather than the compositions. The first opera to rate a chapter name is Scott Joplin's Treemonisha (1910). Dizikes' text is about African-American singers and musicians rather than the opera. Treemonisha is occasionally revived, and is definitely something to look in to.
Excerpts from the current Broadway production of Porgy and Bess. Don't you miss those opera voices.
The next operas to make it into chapter headings are Four Saints in Three Acts (1934) by Virgil Thompson and Porgy and Bess (1935), by George Gershwin. Porgy and Bess is the earliest opera by an American composer to stay in the repertoire. I think the political controversy that surrounds this opera actually enhances its power. In the past I have had my doubts, but the recent production at the San Francisco Opera has completely won me over.
Then comes the period of Gian Carlo Menotti, operas from 1938 to 1963, a native Italian whose works in English never quite lose their Italian quality. Carlisle Floyd's Susannah and Samuel Barber's Vanessa are practically all we see to interrupt Menotti's dominance. My viewing of Kiri Te Kanawa singing Vanessa left me with the feeling that this was an outstanding work that should be revived more often.
Lucy Schaufer singing "Must the winter come so soon" from Vanessa, audio only
The conclusion I have reached is that we are now living in the era of American opera. The German Hans Werner Henze, operas from 1948 to the present, provides the only competing center of opera composition in the post Einstein on the Beach, 1976, era. Today we have John Adams, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Mark Adamo, Jake Heggie, Stewart Wallace and several others to compose operas for us.
Bits from The Ghosts of Versailles, a work we could see more of
In the next year and a half people in the San Francisco Bay Area will be treated to John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick, Philip Glass' Einstein on the Beach, Nolan Gasser's The Secret Garden and Mark Adamo's The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Our cup runneth over.
Marie Antoinette soprano Teresa Stratas
Beaumarchais baritone Håkan Hagegård
Figaro baritone Gino Quilico
Susanna mezzo-soprano Judith Christin
Countess Rosina soprano Renée Fleming
Bégearss tenor Graham Clark
Count Almaviva tenor Peter Kazaras
Florestine soprano Tracy Dahl
Léon tenor Neil Rosenshein
Samira mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne
Louis XVI bass James Courtney
Woman in a Hat mezzo-soprano Jane Shaulis
Cherubino mezzo-soprano Stella Zambalis
Conductor James Levine
Production Colin Graham
I was once in a production of The Marriage of Figaro where the characters of the opera shared the stage with another cast of ghosts. They observed. When anyone needed a prop, they handed it. Their raggedy costumes showed that they were clearly dead. In fact they began their theatrical existences by stepping out of pine coffins.
But in that opera only the living had music to sing. John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles felt to me to be the opera for that other cast. The members of the first cast were there as well: the count and countess Almaviva, Cherubino, Figaro and Susanna were all there, along with the count’s daughter and the countess’s son. It's like Corigliano had been there.
In addition to my cast of memory were Beaumarchais himself and the Queen of France. There is also a villain named Begrass. The opera is in fact about the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. She wishes that she had not died, and Beaumarchais promises to give her this ending.
Why am I writing about this now? The critics think Corigliano is one of their favorite composers. Among the many videos lying around the house unwatched is a copy of The Ghosts of Versailles. Perhaps now is the time to watch it and see for myself.
Berlioz would have loved this. He was the one who didn’t care at all about consistent narrative and instead only wanted to write about the interesting parts. So we have long sections of eerie ghost music. Beaumarchais and the count have a duel, which ends with Beaumarchais being stabbed and everyone laughing—they’re dead. It makes no difference. The countess and Cherubino take a trip to the Garden of Earthly Delights which results in their child. There is an ode to the worm. A mysterious giant man named Sulyman Pasha appears for no reason at all, and at the end of the first act he explodes. Just before this explosion Brunnhilde comes out to declare, “This is not an opera. Wagner is opera.”
The pasha brings entertainment in the form of Samira, a character seemingly inserted into the opera in order for Marilyn Horne to perform a truly spectacular aria. We all miss Marilyn. She is loving every minute of this.
There is the trial of the Queen of France followed by her trip to the guillotine. Teresa Stratas in the role of Marie Antoinette was wistful and lovely.
So what is opera? Opera is things that happen in opera houses, music sung by opera singers and played by opera orchestras. Above all opera is singing. There was singing, occasionally great singing, often screechy singing. It’s a pastiche, but a pretty fabulous one. Marie decides to love Beaumarchais and stay dead. Nothing in life is likely to be this fun. #ad
