Jenůfa in SF 👍🏻

Laca, Kostelnička, Jenůfa

👍🏻
Conductor: Jiří Bělohlávek
Director: Olivier Tambosi
Production: Frank Philipp Schlössmann

Jenůfa, Kostelnička's stepdaughter:  Malin Byström*, soprano
Kostelnička Buryjovka:  Karita Mattila, soprano
Laca Klemeň, cousin of Jenůfa:  William Burden, tenor
Steva Buryja, cousin of Jenůfa: Scott Quinn*, tenor
Grandmother Buryjovka, Kostelnička's mother: Jill Grove, contralto

Jenůfa (yeh-NEW-fuh) by Leoš Janáček currently running at the San Francisco Opera will never be the same for me.  There are like rocks in this production.  We decided this must be symbolism, but I don't really do symbolism.

Jenůfa is about the lives of women as seen from the perspective of those who love them.  Because Kostelnička married a leader in the church, when he died she retained her position of leadership in the community.  After Jenůfa's baby is born, Kostelnička mentions that she has christened him.  That means she has that authority.  Grandmother Buryjovka had two sons, both of whom were married twice, and  Kostelnička is the only one from the second generation who remains alive and the only one without a child of her own.  Though she is only her stepmother, Kostelnička loves Jenůfa and wishes her to have a good life, one as good as hers has been.  All that happens arises out of this motive.

Jenůfa is a cheerful, beautiful young woman who is loved by both Laca and Steva.  Steva is a drunk and a layabout who has gotten Jenůfa pregnant, but who also inherits the mill from grandmother when she dies.  Laca is lonely and rejected.  Crucial to the plot is the fact that Laca accidentally cuts Jenůfa in the face.  In our production this was made to look particularly ugly.

When Kostelnička finds out that Jenůfa is pregnant, she knows that she must act to save this situation.  She tells Steva that he must marry Jenůfa, and he responds that he is engaged to the mayor's daughter.  He won't marry Jenůfa because she is now disfigured.  Steva knows that he is the father of Jenůfa's baby and still rejects her.

Kostelnička in the dead of winter takes the baby out and shoves it down through a hole in the ice.  She feels that without a baby Jenůfa has a better chance in life.  Instead Jenůfa is saved by the almost miraculous transformation of Laca who truly loves her.

I enjoyed the voices, including the two wonderful tenors.  These two men, Laca and Steva, look and sound close enough alike to actually be brothers.

But it is the women that give this particular performance its great power.  Important is the contrast in power between the characters of the sweet but weak Jenůfa and the strong and controlling Kostelnička.   Malin Byström acts and sings beautifully, but it is the astounding strength of Karita Mattila that carries the opera to its great heights.  She has always been one of the great singing actresses of opera, but here she has topped herself.  It is these moments when the art form of opera shows itself to us to be the greatest of all, that it towers over the emotional heights and depths of everything else without presenting the material in a sordid way.

The tension built all the way to the end due to the masterful conducting of Jiří Bělohlávek.  There was some unusual orchestration.

In my heart David Gockley retires with this wonderful performance.  I don't know what the rocks mean, and I don't care, but my heart has been penetrated.  Thank you.

Gockley Gala 2016

This is the set for last night's David Gockley Gala celebrating the retirement of the current San Francisco Opera Intendant at the end of the current season.  Most of Gockley's opera management career took place in Houston, and the Gala was specifically designed to celebrate his entire career.  Gockley was general director of the Houston Grand Opera from 1972 to 2006, and then became the general director of the San Francisco Opera up to the end of the current season.

Overture from Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, conducted by John DeMain.  1/4

Many people were introduced at this point in the program.  The masters of ceremony were Frederica von Stade and Thomas Hampson.  We were reminded that Gockley had commissioned Heart of a Soldier for him.  Gockley commissioned about 45 new operas. 

Goodbye to David Gockley

These are some of my favorite productions during David Gockley's tenure at the San Francisco Opera.

Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans with Dolora Zajick SFO was playing in San Francisco in 2006 when I happened to be there, and was simply magnificent.  I don't know why it isn't done more often.  Perhaps you need Dolora Zajick.  She's waving her banner just as I read about.

David Gockley

The San Francisco Opera was very lucky to get David Gockley when he was stolen away from Houston Grand Opera in 2005. He succeeded the hugely controversial Pamela Rosenberg.  While she herself was American, her opera was distinctly European in flavor.  David is home grown.

A lot of things changed.

Immediately Pamela's hated logo, the word opera seen through a gash, was replaced by an asterisk that strongly resembles the ceiling fixture of the War Memorial Opera House.

After Pamela's virtually star free tenure, he promised us:

• Renée Fleming--he delivered Lucretia Borgia in 2011.
• Anna Netrebko--he delivered La Traviata in 2009.  Anna is a Merolini.
• Thomas Hampson--he delivered in spades with Macbeth 2007, Heart of a Soldier 2011, and Un Ballo in Maschera 2014.
• Dmitri Hvorostovsky--he delivered in Simon Boccanegra 2008 and Il Trovatore 2009.
• Marcello Giordani--he delivered Aida 2010.
• Ramón Vargas--he delivered L'Elizir d'amore 2008, Werther 2010, Mefistofele 2013 and Un Ballo in Maschera 2014.
• Marcelo Alvarez--unhappily we missed him.
• Juan Diego Flórez--La Fille de Regiment with the fabulous Diana Damrau 2009.
• Ben Heppner--our Ben experiences are from before Pamela.
• Natalie Dessay--he delivered in Lucia di Lammermoor 2008 and Tales of Hoffmann 2013.  These were her only appearances at San Francisco Opera.
• Angela Gheorghiu--he delivered La Rondine 2007, La Boheme 2008 and Tosca 2012, 3 of her most famed roles.

This is an amazing record.  I should add here great singers who appeared under his leadership but were not in the original promised list:  Joyce DiDonato, Placido Domingo, Matthew Polenzani, Javier Camarena, Sondra Radvanovsky, Nina Stemme, Piotr Beczala, Mariusz Kwiecien, Ewa Podleś, etc.

He promised and delivered a Ring cycle of great distinction.  I'll never forget Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde.

The most controversial part of his tenure was his relationship to his musical director Donald Runnicles.  Gockley is a much more hands on Intendant than Rosenberg or perhaps even Mansouri before her.  Gockley likes to be very much involved in casting, and their were rumors that Runnicles felt he was moving into his territory.  The musical director isn't just in charge of the orchestra.  I have always felt that he was responsible for all the musical success or failure of a company.

I'm going to express my own opinions here.  Donald Runnicles is a very great conductor, but his greatness lies in German repertoire.  When Gockley presented his Ring, it was Runnicles who magnificently conducted it.  However, he did nothing to diminish the Verdi Curse which I have long identified.  For years it was practically guaranteed that any Verdi performance would be terrible.  Now under Nicola Luisotti, who began his tenure as Musical Director in 2009, that is behind us.  His Italian repertoire is top drawer.  Gockley gets credit for this.

Another of his gifts is the presenting of new operas.  During his tenure he premiered:

• Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton’s Appomattox in 2007,
• Stewart Wallace and Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter in 2008.
• Christopher Theofanidis and Donna Di Novelli’s Heart of a Soldier in 2011.
• Nolan Gasser and Carey Harrison’s The Secret Garden in 2013, 
• Mark Adamo’s The Gospel of Mary Magdalene in 2013,
• Tobias Picker and J.D. McClatchy’s Dolores Claiborne, based on the novel by Stephen King in 2013. 
• Marco Tutino and Luca Rossi's La Ciociara summer of 2015.

Curiously I have reviewed all of these.  I especially loved Bonesetter, but I'm not sure any of these operas rises to greatness.  His influence seems to be in the direction of the ordinary.  Appomattox is being reworked in Washington to bring it more plot.

His record with new operas must be contrasted with that of Lotfi Mansouri who introduced Susa's  The Dangerous Liaisons, Wallace's Harvey Milk, Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, Heggie's Dead Man Walking, and Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer.  This is a very distinguished set of new operas.  Each of them pushes on the boundaries.

In general it seems to me that David Gockley knows the opera world extremely well and knows how voices are to be paired with repertoire.  He recently fired someone because they were bad.  When did you hear that before?

It will be hard to replace him when his tenure ends in 2016, but the rumors for his replacement sound pretty good.

As a wish for the future, I would like to see a renewal of the days of Kurt Herbert Adler when significant European singers made their American debuts in San Francisco.  We could start with Maria Agresta.

I wish prosperity and long life to the San Francisco Opera.

Freezing in Dolores Park

I attended Opera in Dolores Park in San Francisco yesterday afternoon. The general director, David Gockley, appeared with his dog Foxy, who was exactly the size, color, shape and degree of shagginess of a red fox. His personality is distinctly dog-like. He [DG, not Foxy] assured us that he had gone to much difficulty to ascertain that Dolores Park would be warm and toasty even when everywhere else was freezing. This was meant as an apology, I’m sure, since it was windy and drizzling, a typical San Francisco summer day.

I told my story about doing Martha outdoors on a considerably warmer and less windy day than yesterday, and how all the cast became sick for the rest of the week. The audience can take it, but singing outdoors is always risky.

Susan Graham, who flew in from LA that morning after the end of her fantastic run in Lustige Witwe, sang “Non so piu cosa son,” apparently without rehearsal. I found this fascinating. Please don’t think I’m telling it to put anyone down. In the middle of the aria she forgot what came next, and more quickly and efficiently than you would have imagined, she and Donald Runnicles looked at one another, and he fed her the cue. All went on smoothly to the end. Runnicles did not shout out like the Met prompter—he just mouthed the words. God, I love show business.

I wimped out and didn’t last through the second half, but I was there long enough to hear Hope Briggs as Donna Anna, a woman with a gorgeous voice and beautiful phrasing.

Wayne Tigges and Claudia Mahnke sang “La ci darem la mano.” “Look at his shoes!” I whispered. He was wearing black and white wingtips. He also would sing a phrase and then hold his lips in the same position long after the phrase had ended. Perhaps he feels that Don Giovanni is a comedy, as I do. Now I am going to bitch. Imagine that this is Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing this seduction duet. Would they stand there never looking at one another? No. They would not. You would see the seduction happening, and when she sang “Andiam,” you would know exactly where they were going. This is not trivial. I don’t care if it is a concert, I want to see it.

They are all lovely young people.