Frédéric Chaslin resigns

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Santa Fe Opera chief conductor Frédéric Chaslin has resigned and opera officials say a search for his successor will start in the fall.

Opera General Director Charles Mackay said Tuesday that Chaslin was leaving because he wants to focus on composing, and has a busy schedule of concerts and a recording project as music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

The opera has finished this year's season.

Chaslin, who also is a pianist, was named chief conductor in 2010 and debuted with the opera in 2009 with a production of Verdi's "La Traviata." He was born and lives in Paris.

[Recently he has conducted Faust, Tosca and Maometto II.  This story is from the AP. ]

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/28/3783646/santa-fe-operas-chief-conductor.html#storylink=cpy

Maometto II

This was the world premiere of the new critical edition of Rossini's Maometto Secondo to be published next year.  In his liner notes Dr. Philip Gossett goes out on a limb and says, "...Maometto II is one of the greatest serious operas written during the 19th century."

In my youth there was no serious Rossini in the repertoire.  I feel especially blessed to be living in the era of Rossini revival.

I thought I detected the Gossett touch in this performance--not just in the perfection of the score but also in the ornamentation of the singers.  And sure enough, he was here helping with the preparation.  And for me what is the Gossett touch?  Ornamentation suitable for each voice and powerful self-confidence in its execution.

The odd thing about Maometto is all the ensembles.  By 1820 we are living in the dying ends of opera seria, a form that is more pure in Handel, a time when da capo arias are almost the whole thing.  In Maometto II everyone gets an aria, Anna gets a lot more, but that still leaves a lot of ensembles. 

It is a monumental opera, more like something by Verdi and not at all the kind of opera usually taken on by Santa Fe.  This season the excellent chorus is especially prominent.

This opera requires four magnificent singers, and it got them.  My fellow bloggers, who have already come and gone, seemed critical of these singers.  Bah humbug!  They were all wonderful.

At the top is Luca Pisaroni as Maometto.  According to Wikipedia he is from Venezuela but moved to Italy when he was 4.  That's Italian enough for me.  I also understand that he is Thomas Hampson's son in law.  Hampson was in our audience.

In the picture above we have our other three artists.  Left is Patricia Bardon as Calbo, a contralto almost in the Ewa Podleś tradition.  This part is wickedly difficult with lots of notes on either extreme of the range, and she handled it well.

Center is the magnificent Leah Crocetto as Anna, an individual fanatically devoted to duty.  In one night I am suddenly a fan.  It is a very long and difficult role which Leah executed with increasing assurance.  Right is the tenor Bruce Sledge as Erisso.  He was also excellent.  I stood for Leah.

There is a glaring flaw in this production.  At the end Maometto faces stage left and Anna faces stage right.  This puts Maometto's sword on his upstage side, so when Anna uses it to stab herself, this is completely invisible to the audience.  Obviously if you reverse where they are standing, all this changes.  We were warned.

Thank you for this wonderful experience.

Tosca at Santa Fe

This picture in a somewhat wider and more decrepit version is the decoration for Act II of Tosca at the Santa Fe Opera.  Its title is "Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne" by Annibale Carracci, and it is indeed in the Pallazzo Farnese in Rome.  Only there it's on the ceiling while here it's on the wall.  A lot of that sort of thing goes on in this production.  (Please note the tie-in to Dionysus in King Roger.  This cannot be a coincidence.)

 
This shot shows the inside of the church dome with Cavaradossi's painting lying on the floor for Act I.  People walk all over it.  Bizarre.  And who are these lovely people?  Brian Jagde sang Cavaradossi and  Amanda Echalaz was Tosca, both big soaring, romantic Puccini singers.  Amanda was best in the intense scenes, and I liked very much her "Vissi d'arte." 

Brian is a replacement for the arranged singer.  I knew the name sounded very familiar.  He has been an Adler Fellow for 3 years, and he just won Operalia (I even managed to remember this.)  He needs to work this role into his voice more completely before he sings it in San Francisco in November.

The third person in this production was Thomas Hampson as Scarpia.  He is very sophisticated and casual about his evilness.  A lot of women think Hampson is very handsome, so what exactly is Tosca's problem?  We may never know the answer.  He died with a lot of flailing around.  He was booed in the bows and made a comical gesture--Moi?

Opera productions of the most popular operas become like established rituals.  The picture hangs here, Scarpia dies here, Tosca jumps here, but occasionally it is interesting to see something slightly different.  It is nice not to have to explain the opera.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1890-1910]

Regie Faust

The band of color across the bottom of the picture is actually a reflection in the moat that runs around the edge of the orchestra pit.

Faust and I have a relationship since it was one of the operas we performed in Ulm.  Ours was neither as serious and sensible as last season's in San Francisco nor as silly as the one at the Santa Fe Opera.

Let's see.  Guys in pointy helmets is Kaiser Germany, right?  It's hard to guess the period for this production.  Men are in top hats, but Marguerite's dress does not reach the floor.  Does that make her a child?

Faust first appears in a wheelchair through the opening at the back of the stage where God's sunset was still in progress.  To turn him back into a young man the devil is reduced to performing surgery.  The fair where Faust meets Marguerite is staged as a carnival side show with a bearded lady, a fat man and a set of Siamese twins.  Marguerite makes her appearance on roller-skates. 

The ballet is left in--a first for me--and staged as six opera divas, each attempting to seduce Faust.  It makes the opera too long.

One could go on and on listing the regie gimmicks.  I liked it that when the soldiers return in triumph, they are followed on stage by three caskets.  Serious and silly alternate in rapid order.

So how does this explain that it was a triumph?  It is one of the great mysteries, one that Shakespeare understood, that a little comedy only makes the tragedy that much deeper.

Our conductor, Frédéric Chaslin, the chief conductor of the Santa Fe Opera, is an actual Frenchman.  After my experience in Paris, I am convinced the French understand their opera in a way that mere foreigners cannot.  We were spared unrelenting heavy tempos and thick orchestral playing, and in its place was lightness and charm, a winning combination.

His singers were with him all the way, beginning with the wonderful Marguerite of American Ailyn Pérez who has already made her debut in Milan, Berlin and Vienna.  I look forward to seeing more of her.

Ours was the last performance for Bryan Hymel as Faust.  He's also already sung in Milan.  Faust appears to be on the heavy end of his repertoire.  Mark S. Doss was vocally a bit light but generally an outstanding Mephistopheles.

My tour mates are quibbling over the production, an irresistible pastime, but for me it was the singing, the poise of the singing actors, and most of all the magnificent music making that made this an excellent Faust. 

Vive la France.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1850-70]

Dessay's Traviata

In the autobiographical novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexander Dumas the Younger the life of the courtesan Marguerite Gautier is presented in flashback after she has died. The production of La Traviata at the Santa Fe Opera uses this device. During the somber music that opens the opera, Violetta’s coffin is carried across the stage while Alfredo looks on. The novel formed the basis for the play of the same name, which in turn formed the basis for the opera by Verdi.

What makes this production special is that it is Natalie Dessay’s first Violetta on any stage. The performance is about her.

It is clearer than it has ever been that we are being shown in act I and the second scene of act II two parties being thrown by two prostitutes, Violetta and her friend Flora, for their rich clients. There is no sedate nineteenth century dignity here. When Natalie is carried on to the stage in her flaming red dress, she raises her arms and screams as loud as she can. There is drinking and carousing. At last we see why we should be shocked by her. Violetta is a party girl.

At Flora’s party the gypsy music is staged as the girls displaying what they have to offer to the highest bidder, and the men pretending to be matadors in pursuit of them. This was very effective.

However, we are not always sure of our footing with regard to period. The men wear nineteenth century top hats, especially the already quite tall Laurent Naouri who sang Giorgio Germont. But in the same scene Violetta wears pants, something I don’t recall hearing of anywhere outside the wild west. It gives her freedom of movement to show how healthy and happy Violetta is feeling at this time.

The floor of the stage is littered with large gray rectangular boxes, requiring Natalie to jump from one to another throughout the opera. Violetta may be dying, but Natalie Dessay is obviously quite athletic.

It is a Traviata for Natalie. Her vocal fragility becomes the heart of her characterization. We feel the emotions of each scene instead of merely seeing them written on the translation screens. We felt her reluctance to give herself to love followed by her complete commitment. We felt Violetta’s growing illness and death as real events. In this production she dies entirely alone.


Laurent Naouri is a beautiful singer one would like to hear more of. Alfredo was sung by Saimir Pirgu who is Albanian and quite adorably handsome. Is that enough to guarantee him a career? We’ll have to see.

Frédéric Chaslin conducted. He is part of a whole team that accompanied Natalie from France, including Louis Désiré, Laurent Polly, Chantel Thomas, and Jean-Jacques Delmotte who did the scene and costume designs.

I think at this point there will need to be a personal moratorium on La Traviata.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1850-70]