Messiah from San Francisco

This is a performance of Handel's Messiah from Grace Cathedral, an Episcopal cathedral on Nob Hill in San Francisco, by the American Bach Soloists.  They are the original instruments ensemble I visit regularly in Davis, but they perform Messiah only in Grace Cathedral, which is a bit far away for me.  They are seriously striving for an authentic style, and I think the effort here was very successful.  If you are not getting enough Messiah, I recommend this one.  Disclaimer--there is no historical basis for using a countertenor to replace the alto solo.  This is my usual complaint.

Salzburg Whitsun 2021

The program for next year's Whitsun Festival at Salzburg has been announced.  I was sorry to see the homage to Pauline Viardot disappear, but in today's world it's only a small loss.  In 2021 Cecilia Bartoli will celebrate Rome, the city of her birth.

Fri, May 21	7:00 PM	OPERA
		George Frideric Handel
		Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno
		Cecilia sings Piacere.
Sat, May 22	11:00 AM	CONCERT
		Orchesterkonzert · Poema Sinfonico
		Conducted by Zubin Mehta
		includes Respighi's  Pini di Roma.
	7:00 PM	OPERA
		Concert performance Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
		La clemenza di Tito
		Cecilia sings Sesto
Sun, May 23	11:00 AM	CONCERT
		Sacred Concert · Dixit Dominus
	7:00 PM	OPERA
		George Frideric Handel
		Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno
	8:00 PM	GALA
		Gala dinner
Mon, May 24	11:00 AM	CONCERT
		Alessandro Scarlatti
		Cain, Overo Il Primo Omicidio
	4:00 PM	OPERA
		Concert performance Giacomo Puccini
		Tosca
		Anja Harteros, Jonas Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel

Giulio Cesare from Glyndebourne

Conductor William Christie
Director David McVicar

Giulio Cesare - Sarah Connolly, mezzo
Curio - Alexander Ashworth
Cornelia, Pompei's wife - Patricia Bardon
Sesto, Pompei's son - Angelika Kirchschlager, mezzo
Cleopatra - Danielle de Niese, soprano
Nireno - Rachid Ben Abdeslam, countertenor
Tolomeo, Cleopatra's brother - Christophe Dumaux, countertenor.
Achilla - Christopher Maltman, baritone

This performance of Handel's Giulio Cesare took place at Glyndebourne in 2005.  This is the David McVicar version that ran at the Met with David Daniels and Natalie Dessay in 2013.  I called it Julius Caesar the Musical.  I enjoy remembering that Natalie was ill for one of the performances, and Danielle de Niese was in town.  Naturally she took advantage of the opportunity and stood in for Natalie.  That would have been fun to see.

We are projected in time into the British Empire.  The Egyptian servants wear the Fez, and the Roman Army are dressed in the red uniforms of the British Army.  There is no evidence of Islam, I guess.  Cleopatra looks like a modern woman.  There are WWII ships and dirigibles.
In the real time of Julius Caesar the rulers of Egypt were descendants of one of the generals of Alexander the Great but still called themselves Pharoahs.  This is the original and in my opinion is better than the Met version.

I think I prefer this cast.  They are sincere in their change from Roman to British empire.  Angelika Kirchschlager is maybe the best trouser singer I have ever experienced.  It's worth it to see her alone. 
I'm never really wild about countertenors, so I am happy to see that Giulio Cesare is sung by the great Dame Sarah Connolly.  She even sort of looks like Caesar and carries herself like a great general.  This is Danielle de Niese's first big success, indeed this is her masterpiece.  She sings, she dances, she brings us joy.

I notice that the two dead guys, Tolomeo and Achilla, come back to life.  I also noticed this in Cecilia Bartoli's version.  The characters must have singing in the finale.  Here it is staged, but we're not sure what it should mean.

I loved it.  It runs for a little longer from Glyndebourne, so try to see it.

Agrippina in HD

👍🏻

Conductor...............Harry Bicket
Production..............David McVicar

Agrippina.............Joyce DiDonato
Nerone, her son.........Kate Lindsey
Claudio, her husband the emperor.....Matthew Rose 
Poppea, her rival..........Brenda Rae
Ottone..................Iestyn Davies (countertenor)
Narciso.................Nicholas Tamagna (countertenor)
Pallante................Duncan Rock
 
Deborah Voigt announced that Handel's Agrippina, 1709, was the oldest opera ever presented at the Met.  As I mentioned after the last time I saw it, it was composed for Venice early in the era of Neapolitan opera.  That means lots and lots of da capo arias and a happy ending.  What is more Venice than Naples is the mixing of comic and serious elements.  The Venetians weren't fussy about that stuff.

This is the most I have enjoyed a Baroque opera maybe ever.  This is regie, of course.  The clothes are modern with lots of WWII military uniforms.  There is a bar scene where all the characters seem to meet by accident.  Maybe it's on the frequently mentioned Campidoglio. When Rome conquers England, they return with Elizabeth II's crown.  One of the scenes showed the ceiling of the Pantheon which brought some character to the mostly abstract sets.

What makes this a great opera is the well designed plot.  No matter how difficult the complexities are for our heroine, she conquers them all.

I was going to say there is no hit tune until Nerone sang "Come nembo" while snorting cocaine.  This is known because Bartoli recorded it.  The most unusual thing about this production is the staging of the character Nerone.  I think we are to presume that he is a very athletic, well-tattooed juvenile delinquent.  He loves his mother and acts up continuously.  Kate Lindsey said she had to train for this role.  We believe her.  Her rendition of "Come nembo" was excellent.

The music was always excellent, but no one topped the magnificent Joyce DiDonato who created a wonderful, perfectly believable evil character and topped it with gorgeous singing.

Orlando in San Francisco

Conductor: Christopher Moulds*
Director: Harry Fehr*
Production Designer: Yannis Thavoris*

Zoroastro, doctor: Christian Van Horn (bass)
Orlando, hero: Sasha Cooke (originally alto castrato, here mezzo)
Dorinda, nurse: Christina Gansch* (soprano)
Angelica, rich American: Heidi Stober  (soprano)
Medoro, patient: Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen* (originally contralto, here countertenor)

Our production of Orlando, an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel seen at the San Francisco Opera, has leapt into the latest craze in opera regietheater:  opera as psychotherapy.  We have seen this recently in:

• Bizet's Carmen from Aix-en-Provence 7/9/17.  Don Jose is being treated for marital difficulties.
• Weber's Oberon, or The Elf King's Oath live streamed from the Bayerische Staatsoper 7/30/17.  Psychiatrists experiment on random members of the audience.  Gods and fairies are delusions.
• Berlioz' Les Troyens 2/28/19.  After the Trojan War, the survivors are institutionalized in a mental hospital with PTSD.

So our hero is showing signs of mental illness after fighting for Britain at the beginning of WWII .  In an early scene photographs of Edward VIII before and after his abdication are shown, including one where he and Wallace are friendly with Hitler.  This sets the context.  Hitler is probably still easy to identify, but I might wonder about Edward VIII.

Orlando is having hallucinations which are projected on the set as seen above.  We see handwriting, a large engagement ring, lights, a woman's eyes, etc. 

Act I

Orlando is in a hospital bed.  He is shown rescuing a woman in a wheelchair.  Both Dorinda and Angelica fall in love with Medoro, who has injured his leg.  Orlando has given Angelica an engagement ring.  Characters are introduced in rooms of the hospital.

Act II

Dorinda lets Angelica have Medoro, and Angelica gives Dorinda Orlando's ring.  Orlando is furious over this turn events and threatens everyone.  At the end of the act we hear bombs exploding

Act III

Orlando is completely bonkers by this time and is locked up.  Spoiler alert:  he is treated with not too shocking shock treatments, and is cured.  Angelica and Medoro are allowed to go in peace.  Orlando puts his uniform back on and retreats.

I felt that this modernization was very successful.  It fit the story surprisingly well.  However, sometimes plot points went by in a way that allowed you to completely miss them.

In Handel's time Orlando was a male castrato and Medoro was a woman.  We have the long ago example of Marilyn Horne to reverse this.  Our countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen is nice looking and has a beautiful voice.  My favorite singing was by Christian Van Horn, a bass who sings coloratura.  Who ever heard of such a thing.

Among the women Christina Gansch received the most applause for her act III aria.  She is someone to look out for.  Our stalwarts Sasha Cooke and Heidi Stober were both excellent actresses and good in their roles.  Their voices didn't always precisely fit the music they were singing.  Orlando in particular is quite low.

One becomes impatient with endless da capo arias, but all in all it was very enjoyable.  The orchestra included recorders, a small organ but no harpsichord, and a theorbo.

The screens in the balcony are coming down.  This is sad.  I can't read the titles from where I sit without using binoculars, while the ones on the screens are very clear.  This has to do with money.  I'm not happy about it.

Ariodante 👍🏻

👍🏻
Conductor: Gianluca Capuano
Production: Christof Loy

Nathan Berg: King of Scotland (bass)
Kathryn Lewek: Ginevra, his daughter (soprano)
Cecilia Bartoli: Prince Ariodante, her betrothed (originally a castrato)
Rolando Villazón: Lurcanio, his brother (tenor)
Christophe Dumaux:  Duke Polinesso (contralto countertenor, originally a woman)
Sandrine Piau: Dalinda, Ginevra's attendant (soprano)
Kristofer Lundin:  Odoardo (tenor)

This is the Salzburg production of Handel's Ariodante, 2017, starring the one and only Cecilia Bartoli.  In Kathryn Lewek they have found an excellent soprano who is smaller than Cecilia to play her love.  Their voices are beautiful together.  The presence of many men in business suits makes it regie.  At the very beginning Cecilia speaks to us in Italian to explain her story.  The set is large and almost blank.

Cecilia's entrance is made in a full suit of armor.  One cannot stop staring at her.  In her first aria after the king has declared Ariodante to be his heir, she sings all that coloratura while getting increasingly drunk.  I didn't know this opera was a comedy.  Villazon prevents her from falling down.  On the eve of the wedding there is a party where people dance in period costumes, including Ariodante and Ginevra. The bits where Cecilia dances are relatively short but enjoyable.  So far so good. 

The plot is one of those she loves him, while he loves someone else, etc.  Polinesso is the villain.  He plots to steal Ginevra.  Dalinda loves Polinesso, and Lurcanio loves Dalinda.  Polinesso bribes Dalinda to disguise herself as Ginevra to fool Ariodante.  He succeeds with this ruse and drops one of Ginevra's dresses on the floor outside her room.  Ariodante sings "scherza infida" and puts the dress on.

The efforts to bring the story to life seem very successful to me.  Ginevra laments the loss of Ariodante, but when he returns, he's wearing his beard and the dress Polinesso gave him, and Ginevra freaks out.  Suddenly she's interested in all the other men around her.  Hmmm.  The aria by Ginevra that appears here is accompanied by a lot of physical violence which looks too real to me.

This entire opera is performed with great emotional intensity.  If you've followed the news about this, you know that Ariodante eventually turns into Cecilia Bartoli.  So then she's singing and smoking a cigar at the same time.  It doesn't look lit, but....  When I was married long ago, my husband smoked a pipe, and I swear he would blow smoke rings exactly like that.  I swear.  This indicates a level of expertise.

It has a peculiar but happy ending.  It is nice to see Rolando, and Kathryn Lewek was marvelous.  Hail La Bartoli.  I did kind of like the beard.

The production is about gender ambiguity.  At the beginning our hero doesn't seem very happy while at the end he/she is full of smiles.   For more pictures see here.

Giulio Cesare alla PS

Forgive me.  I approach everything from the perspective of obsession and am watching Peter Sellars' take on Handel's Giulio Cesare from 1993.  There is no indication of a live audience.  Jeffrey Gall is Caesar, my fourth countertenor experience in this role.  He has a brighter sound than Scholl, Daniels or Fagioli.  His coloratura is impressive.  One of the firsts for me here is Lorraine Hunt en travisti as Sesto.  I would not have gone in quest of Peter Sellars if it weren't for the hidden treasures of Lorraine.  This is filmed somewhere in Europe.


Tolomeo, Cleopatra's brother, is sung by Drew Minter, Cleopatra is Susan Larson and Cornelia is Mary Westbrook-Geha.  My point of departure for the role of Cleopatra is Cecilia Bartoli, and Susan Larson sounds nothing like her.  I don't know how much of this I can watch.

I am mentally reviewing the versions of this opera that I have seen and can only conclude that it is regarded as a comedy.  In Zurich the Egyptians wear striped boxers.  In Salzburg Cleopatra rides a rocket.  At the Met we have wandered into a Bollywood movie.  It's hard to take any of these seriously.

This one is also not serious.  Caesar is president of the United States, apparently, due to seal of the President on the podium.  Tolomeo most resembles a punk teenager.  We have begun to notice that Peter Sellars' version of Regietheater moves every opera to somewhere American.  This is what he knows, so this is what he does.  The first person who appears representing Tolomeo and delivering Pompey's head is dressed a bit like Fidel Castro.  This at least is serious.

Caesar and Ptolemy are negotiating, and after a while Caesar starts throwing cups and felt tipped markers at Ptolemy.  Caesar has a lot more pens in his pockets and he throws them.  Then he opens the water bottles, spills water all around, and exits smiling.  He's always smiling.  Sellars seems to have anticipated our current administration.

By now I am used to the musical quality of the Bartoli GC.  Perhaps I am spoiled forever.

In Act II both Ptolemy and Achilla are harassing Cornelia.  They are laying it on pretty heavy.  So far she just frowns.  Ptolemy wraps her in a garden hose.  Sesto plans to accompany his mother into Ptolemy's harem where he can exact his revenge.  I am watching this for curiosity.  It isn't redeeming itself.  Only Lorraine is outstanding.  She waves her machine gun around menacingly.

They go with comedy all the way to the end.
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Alcina on Medici.tv

Marc Minkowski | Conductor 
Adrian Noble | Stage director

Anja Harteros | Alcina
Verónica Cangemi | Morgana
Vesselina Kasarova | Ruggiero
Kristina Hammarström | Bradamante
Alois Mühlbacher | Oberto
Benjamin Bruns | Oronte
Adam Plachetka | Melisso

I have been subscribing to medici.tv without actually watching much of anything.  I notice that there are films from San Francisco on here.  All are highly recommended.

So I decided I should watch Handel's Alcina from the Vienna State Opera, 2011, with Harteros and Kasarova.   This is a typical opera seria with a traditional staging.  The best part is at the beginning where Alcina and Ruggiero are flirting.

You would want this for the singing which is very high class.  Anja in giant fro gets the most applause.  Why isn't Alcina played scarier?  This is hard to understand about this opera.  Here she seems genuinely in love and hugs everyone at the end.

Alois Mühlbacher is elsewhere called a countertenor who sounds like the boy soprano he is supposed to be according to Wikipedia.  This is a significant role, and Minkowski makes a fuss over him at the end.

This is for the Handel lover.  The camera makes a quick flash over to the audience, and I thought it might be Donna Leon, a known Handel lover.
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Theodora from Glyndebourne

 👍🏻
Conductor:  William Christie
Director:  Peter Sellars

Theodora, a Christian of noble birth, soprano: Dawn Upshaw
Didymus, a Roman Officer, converted by and in love with Theodora, originally alto castrato, here countertenor:  David Daniels
Septimius, Roman soldier and friend to Didymus, tenor:  Richard Croft
Valens, President of Antioch, bass:  Frode Olsen
Irene, a Christian and friend of Theodora, mezzo-soprano:  Lorraine Hunt
Messenger, tenor:  Michael Hart-Davis

Someone said that Peter Sellars' production of Handel's Theodora was even better than his La Clemenza di Tito, so I thought I would give it a try.  He seems best in things that have religious themes.  This is one of Handel's oratorios and is in English.  This film is from 1996.

Hmmm.  There are soldiers and they wear American flags on their sleeves.  It's politics and religion rolled into one.  Christians are ordered to bow to idols to show loyalty to Caesar.  This is a  joy.  And then there is Lorraine Hunt.  It would be hard to ask for more.  He stages the first Christian scene like a prayer meeting, except women speak.  Lorraine sings of prosperity and people put money on the floor.  Many are in white and kneel on the floor to pray.  The chorus always present in any Handel oratorio represents the congregation.


Soldiers enter and warn the Christians that they are tempting fate.  "Dread the fruits of Christian folly."  This is not the usual oratorio libretto.   I understand it was not popular at its premier.  Oratorios usually draw their plots from either scripture or mythology.  Theodora is an historical Christian martyr.

I begin to grasp Peter Sellars' world view.  He sometimes strays too far from it.  He is THE outstanding American leader in the world of Regietheater, and this is one of his greatest works.  Among his productions, this one makes no alterations to the original text.

Apparently, honoring the Emperor consists of getting falling down drunk. So far I don't find this staging to be at all a distortion of the original.  People just look like people today instead of ancient Romans.  If this bothers you, you should get over it.

Christians are serious people while pagans are drunks seems to be the general idea.  One remembers this primarily for the work of Lorraine Hunt, but I am enjoying also Dawn Upshaw and David Daniels.  Theodora is in prison and Didymus visits her.  She asks him to kill her, but instead they exchange clothing and she escapes.

This is an extraordinary piece, deeply emotional.  One needs exposure to a wider range of Handel's works.  Here we still hear the Italian coloratura along side the more English lyricism and Handel's great choral music.

The picture above depicts the application of the death penalty.  The ending is sad and strange.  Christians wave their arms rather more than is strictly tolerable.   My experience of the Baroque does not include anything like this.  I came for Peter Sellars and Lorraine Hunt but ended with the joy of some of the most beautiful music of Handel I have ever heard.
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Ariodante from Salzburg

Or if you prefer, here is a pirated aria from the Pfingstfest.


She's still got it.

Giulio Cesare

👍🏻
I watched the live stream of Handel's Giulio Cesare from Salzburg in Cecilia Bartoli's inaugural season as artistic director of the Whitsun Festival in 2012.  The production was enormously distracting, so much so that I wrote mostly about it.  There were crocodiles, a Rolls Royce, deals over oil wells, a fan dance, etc.  And occasional obscene gestures.

What I noticed less of was the incredibly gorgeous singing, especially by Cecilia Bartoli, Andreas Scholl, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Philippe Jaroussky, with Giovanni Antonini conducting.  Jaroussky is at his most beautiful, and his duet with Anne Sofie von Otter is emotional. 

In the past year the stream has become a DVD, and in the last month this DVD has received a Grammy nomination for best opera recording.  Does that happen?  I notice that of this year's 5 nominees, Król Roger and Giulio Cesare are DVDs. 

This is the standard for modern Baroque performance.

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Rinaldo

This film (audio only) of Handel's Rinaldo is of a live performance by the Academy of Ancient Music on January 16, 1999.  The cast is similar to the recording which came shortly after this except instead of David Daniels, we have Ewa Podles.  I think I like it better.  Make up your own mind.

Agrippina at West Edge

👍🏻
Music Director/Conductor/Harpsichord: Jory Vinikour
Stage Director: Mark Streshinsky

Agrippina, wife of Claudio: Sarah Gartshore (soprano)
Nero, her son: Celine Ricci (here a mezzo, originally castrato)
Poppea: Hannah Stephens (soprano)
Ottone, Claudio's friend: Ryan Belongie (here a countertenor, originally a woman)
Claudio, emperor of Rome: Carl King (bass)
Pallante: Nikolas Nackley (bass)
Narciso: Johanna Bronk  (here mezzo, originally castrato)

Agrippina is an opera by Handel that was composed in 1709 for Venice.  Why have I never seen or heard of this opera before?  I imagine it is very important to know that it was composed for Venice because the commercial theater there was fond of sexual plots.  Poppea, La Calisto, that kind of thing.  Proper handling of the sexual plot by West Edge Opera has made this an amusing Baroque opera without any distortion of the story.  Structurally it is a Neapolitan opera with an endless series of da capo arias. In Venice both women and castrati sang.  Shortly after this Handel moved to London.  It is important to know that in Venice Agrippina was a hit.

Poppea is the sexual center of attention here as she was in Monteverdi's opera.  She tells us how to draw men's attention and lists for us three men who are interested in her:  Nero, Ottone and the Emperor Claudio.   She is most attracted to Ottone and does not like Claudio at all.

Agrippina has but one objective--she wants her son to become emperor of Rome.  She has no interest in her husband's interest in Poppea and instead uses it to manipulate Claudio for her own ends.  This is a surprisingly good plot.  The opera ends when she wins.  Here I want to complain.  They flashed words on the surtitles screen explaining what happened to the characters after the opera had ended, but they went by so fast I had no idea what they actually said.  A bit slower might be better.  Slower or not at all.

One feature of this opera was brief full-on male nudity.  Agrippina is singing, finishes her aria and says to an unseen man that he needs to get lost.  Nude man jumps out of the bed and runs off stage.  Full male nudity is much rarer in the theater than female and is therefore still entertaining.  People entered down the center aisle of the theater, including Claudio who spoke political phrases in English like an American politician.  I shook his hand as he passed.

The hit tune from this opera is "Come nembo," or at least that's what it's called in Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno which was composed for Rome.  In Agrippina it has a different text.  It is known because Cecilia Bartoli has recorded it.  Here it is sung by Celine Ricci.

The quality of the singing was excellent throughout, the make or break feature of any Baroque opera performance, with the peak experience coming from Celine Ricci.  Here is Celine in her incredible costume and makeup as Nero.

Photo by Cory Weaver.

Neapolitan opera, the kind Handel wrote, is probably the most difficult genre to stage successfully.  It works to do silly, mostly irrelevant things as was done in Partenope recently at the San Francisco Opera, and in Agrippina it works just to stage the opera as it is revealed in the libretto.

I won't again try to watch 2 operas in a day, but nevertheless I was very pleased with this.

_____________________________

I so enjoyed writing about and listening to Agrippina from West Edge that I immediately bought the All About History magazine with the featured article about Nero.  So what is current thinking about Emperor Nero who apparently killed off all possible successors?

I was especially interested in the current thinking on who burned Rome.  The argument goes from one side that Nero burned Rome to kill Christians.  The other side say the Christians burned Rome so Nero would take the blame.  Crucial factoid in this argument is that the rumor that Nero burned Rome is in fact contemporary with the actual burning.  It is possibly tacked on later that it had anything to do with Christians.  The article seems to conclude that it was not arson.  Just a fire.  A really huge fire.  The argument against Nero setting it is that his own houses burnt down.  This point of view is completely new to me.

I knew the story that Nero fiddled while Rome burned.  The curious story is that Nero considered himself an artist and gave performances at an array of venues.  His citizens who had formerly loved him came to find him disgusting, a lower class artist type engaged in an activity not suitable for the heir of Julius Caesar.

This last may be relevant, at least a little.

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno

Bellezza-Piacere-Disinganno-Tempo

Conductor:  Emmanuelle Haïm 
Production:  Krzysztof Warlikowski

Bellezza (beauty):  Sabine Devieilhe (soprano)
Piacere (pleasure):  Franco Fagioli (countertenor)
Disinganno (disillusion):  Sara Mingardo (mezzo-soprano)
Tempo (time):  Michael Spyres (tenor)

I have seen Handel's oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno staged before.  This time I watched it on medici.tv from Aix-en-Provence.  It is a youthful work written by 22 year old Handel while he was visiting in Rome.  At that time in Rome opera was forbidden and of course women singing in public was also forbidden.  All the high voices would have been sung by castrati.  The previous time I saw this it was mounted in Zurich as a vehicle for Cecilia Bartoli as Piacere, and even Anna Bonitatibus who replaced her was incredible.  It forms the core of Cecilia's album Opera Proibita.

It's a hard work to stage since it is just a philosophical discussion and has no plot.  The subtitles were in French.  Watching a philosophical discussion in languages you only partially understand is a problem.

Early on Disinganno says to Bellezza "La bellezza non ritorna piu."  I repeated this out loud several times. (Beauty never returns.)  For some people like Jennifer Lopez it never leaves, apparently.  Just remember that at 75 no one looks that great.  Sorry. If this work has a plot, it is putting Ballezza in her place.  Eventually you'll look ugly just like us.

Bellezza and her unnamed boyfriend attend a party where drugs are taken.  They are seen passing the drugs around by kissing.  Then suddenly first boyfriend and then Bellezza faint.  Both are taken to the hospital where boyfriend is declared dead.  He makes many more appearances, sometimes only in his underwear, without actually seeming alive.  Bellezza both does and doesn't recover.  Mostly her mascara runs, which is sort of ugly.  She is teased by pleasure and lectured by time and disillusion.

This staging worked pretty well but bogged down in the center.  In Zurich amusing things went on behind the main singers, and that happens to a certain extent here.  The biggest problem is that there is no Cecilia or even Anna Bonitatibus to keep us amused.

Minkowsky is wilder and more exciting than Emmanuelle Haïm.  Here's what I heard in Zurich.


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Alexander's Feast in Davis

On Monday night, leap day, American Bach Soloists, conducted by Jeffrey Thomas, presented Handel's Alexander's Feast at the Davis Community Church in Davis.  I was somewhat confused by the program which interspersed the usual text references with Concerto listings.  So a concerto has words?  No no.  One hears that concerts in the long ago interspersed arias between movements of a symphony. 

Acis and Galatea

 Corey Jamason (seated), Kyle Stegall (our Acis) and Nola Richardson (our Galatea)

Conductor:  Jeffrey Thomas

Galatea:  Nola Richardson
Acis:  Kyle Stegall
Damon:  Zachary Wilder
Polyphemus:  Mischa Bouvier

Handel's Acis [ACE-iss] and Galatea was originally devised as a one-act masque which premiered in 1718 [some of these words borrowed from Wikipedia].  I decided to use the Wikipedia description of this work because it is a bit difficult to pin down.  It isn't an opera.  Why?  In that period opera was in Italian.  The text here is in English by John Gay before he became famous for The Beggars Opera.  It's completely outside of Handel's oratorio period.  So we're going with masque, a popular form during the life of Henry Purcell whose work this somewhat resembles.  There is Purcell-like text painting, for instance.  There is no dancing.  Never mind.

I went last night to hear the American Bach Soloists perform Handel's Acis and Galatea.  For me they are the best classical group that appears anywhere near Sacramento.

And what a wonderful piece.  Who knew Handel could compose such fun, frolicking music?  The finale of Act I says, "Happy we!  What joys we feel!  What charms we see!" and a celesta suddenly appears to accompany the chorus.  This number was encored at the end.  Have I ever seen an encore at an orchestral concert in America?  They do it all the time in Italy.

Even the monster Polyphemus who appears in Act II to produce the sad ending is strangely charming.  Mischa Bouvier is one of my special favorites.  Why don't we see him in more places?  He sings, "Die, presumptuous Acis, die!" in a rather adorably savage way.  No, I can't explain it.  It's a love triangle.  I'm not sure what the character Damon is for.  He's like the voice of your mother in your ear telling you not to do bad things.

 

As a kind of prelude, Bach's Brandenburg Concert 4 was performed, with solos by Elizabeth Blumenstock (above) on violin, and Judith Linsenberg and Debra Nagy on recorders.

Everything they do is fabulous.  And Mary Wilson received a mention in Opera News best of 2014 in Laudate Pueri Dominum with American Bach Soloists (ABS).

Partenope

Think of her as one of a pair of twin girls:  PeNELope and ParTENope.  Penelope, Partenope, Penelope,  Partenope.  You'll be close enough to how to pronounce it.

We are referring, of course, to the Handel opera Partenope now playing at the San Francisco Opera.  Get up from your couch and get down to see this.

David Daniels selfie

Cast

Partenope:  Danielle de Niese
Rosmira:  Daniela Mack
Arsace:  David Daniels
Emilio:  Alek Shrader
Armindo:  Anthony Roth Costanzo *
Ormonte:  Philippe Sly

Conductor:  Julian Wachner * 
Production:  Christopher Alden
Dramaturg:  Peter Littlefield


I was ready for this because I read this tweet from David Daniels:

Opening Night of PARTENOPE  #Cards #Bourbon #cigarettes #gasMasks & #HANDEL TOYZ!

It has all this and tap dancing, toilet paper, bare chested man not baritone and a gorgeous homage to art deco.  Favorite joke:  Sound of a toilet flushing followed by Arsace saying "I hear her."  It all kind of went like that.

The production, originally in English at the ENO, is a constant flow of references to the artists of Paris in the twenties.  There is a film by Man Ray, gas masks a la photographer Lee Miller, Ezra Pound, etc.

Lee Miller photograph

The plot can be briefly summarized.  Partenope has three male suitors:  Arsace, Armindo and Emilio.  At the start of the opera she prefers Arsace and has completely rejected Emilio.  She is ambiguous toward Armindo.  Rosmira arrives disguised as a man who wishes to kill Arsace.  At the end Arsace has returned to Rosmira and Partenope has turned to Armindo.  Ormonte is a servant?  As Baroque plots go, it is quite sweet and uncomplicated.

This is the first time in all my years at the San Francisco Opera when I have seen a Dramaturg listed in the program.  A dramaturg is someone who conducts historical research and places the action within the historical period.  You see this in European opera companies quite a lot.  So why would you need a dramaturg for Partenope?

They have moved the action from 1730 to 1930 Paris.  Or perhaps, since Partenope is an historical figure, from 300 b.c. to 1930 Paris and the great art movements between the wars.  So Partenope may or may not be the photographer Lee Miller, Arsace may or may not be the writer Ezra Pound and Emilio is definitely the photographer Man Ray.  Or Maybe Arsace is Tristan Tzara, also a writer.  I'm sure there were more historical references I didn't pick up on.  Perhaps the dramaturg is for making any sense at all of the historical environment of 1920's Paris.

I simply loved it.  It was beautiful to see and hear.  The set was simply gorgeous, and it was populated by some of the most gorgeous singers around.  The countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo entertained us with beautiful singing, astounding acrobatics on the staircase, a scene where he bares his chest for Partenope and tap dancing.  AND he gets the girl.

Alex Shrader photographs people, develops the pictures and hangs them on the wall, all while entertaining us with some spectacular singing.  One aria is sung while....  I'm giving too much away.

Danielle de Niese gets four wonderful costumes, including a tuxedo, to display gracefully while she sings her arias.

 

In case you were wondering why Partenope wore a tuxedo in Act II, this is from the movie Morocco 1930 where Marlene Dietrich wears one in her night club act.

The sweetest arias were for Arsace, sung beautifully by David Daniels.  I can't exactly explain the effect this had on me which consisted of smiles and contentment.

In spite of all the smoking I didn't smell any tobacco smoke in case you are worrying about that.

Oh, and I forgot shadow puppets.



At last!  This is a portrait of Andre Breton, the founder of surrealism, by Man Ray.  Yeah!!  Alex Shrader wears something that looks like this in Act I.

Get acquainted with next season's stars

I have chosen these films to help you get acquainted with the singers next season at the San Francisco Opera.

Stoyanova who will sing Amelia



Radvanovsky who will sing her Norma.



De Niese will sing Partenope



Deshayes will sing Angiolina in her very contralto voice.



Haroutounian will sing Tosca.



Michael Fabiano, who recently won the Richard Tucker prize, will sing Rodolfo.  For my ears he is one of the stars of the future.



Nadine Serra will sing the Contessa in Figaro and Musetta in La Boheme.  This film is from her last summer appearance in the Neue Stimmen vocal competition.  You can tell she has been busy.



Luca Pisaroni.  Usually he is Figaro, but in our production he will sing the Count.



And here is the recently added Mimi of Alexia Voulgaridou.  She is miked because this is outdoors in Bregenz 2002.



Here's something more recent.  This makes two of "Je veux vivre."



I just thought you should have an idea.  This is all very top shelf.

Leah Crocetto at Mondavi

Leah Crocetto with her accompanist Mark Markham appeared at Mondavi Center in Davis last night.  She sang:

"All the things you are" by Jerome Kern
"Rejoice greatly" from Handel's Messiah

Three songs by Samuel Barber
"Sleep now, oh sleep now," "Sure on this shining night," and "Nocturne"

Three songs by Richard Strauss
"Die Nacht," "Morgen" and "Cäcilie."  I apologize for having a coughing fit in the middle of this group.  I got out as fast as I could.  My cough drops didn't work.

Marietta's Lied from Korngold's Die tote Stadt.  This piece is becoming common for me.

Intermission.

Eternal Recurrence by Gregory Peebles.  This is a piece written for Leah.

Three songs by Fernando Obradors
"Con amores la mi madre," Del cabello mas sutil," and "Ciquitita la novia."

Encores
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" by Jerome Kern
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas" from Meet me in St. Louis.

Leah has a voice of operatic proportions, and she chose pieces which suited both her voice and her musical loves.  The music included classic American pop songs, including one done expertly in dialect.  I'm seeing a lot of Obradors lately.

The new cycle by Gregory Peebles would have been helped by printed text.  We couldn't tell when the songs ended.  I would describe the style of this group as post modern.

She sang what she loves, and we loved it too.

American Bach Soloists

I selected this picture because it looks like the interior of the Davis Community Church where I attended a concert of the American Bach Soloists conducted by Jeffrey Thomas.  This is my second visit after the Bach St. John Passion.  You will notice that they are a tiny group who crowd onto the small stage of the church.  You might also notice that there is no theorbo.  This alone makes them interesting in the world of original instrument orchestras.  Even the Metropolitan Opera orchestra performing Giulio Cesare had a theorbo.  Visible in the picture is the very small organ they use for Bach.