Lise Davidsen at la Scala

 

Lise Davidsen successfully made her La Scala debut last night in a concert with her as the featured soloist.  These days Lise starts everything at the top.  The above film shows the orchestra on the floor with the audience in the boxes above. Riccardo Chailly conducted.  I remember him primarily as the conductor of Cecilia Bartoli's La Cenerentola recording.

Program
Giuseppe Verdi	From Macbeth  "Patria oppressa"  [chorus]
Henry Purcell	From Dido and Aeneas  "When I am laid in earth" with Lise
Richard Wagner	From Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg  Vorspiel (Prelude)
Richard Strauss	From Ariadne auf Naxos  "Es gibt ein Reich, wo alles rein ist" with Lise
Giuseppe Verdi	From La forza del destino Sinfonia "Pace, pace mio Dio"  with Lise
Richard Wagner	From Tannhäuser Ouvertüre "Dich, Teure halle"  with Lise
Giuseppe Verdi	From Nabucco  "Va’, pensiero" [chorus]

Only "When I am laid in earth" was something I had not heard Lise sing before.  It was good but unspectacular compared to the other things.  She wore black in the first half and looked radiant.  These songs are basically all tragic, so black was ok.  For the second half she wore a beautiful pastel outfit which brightened the mood.  Her hair is enhanced with an extension down to her waist. 

The two pieces in German are Lise's signature pieces, both of which I love dearly in her voice.  The most spectacularly sung of all was the Verdi "Pace, pace mio Dio".  It would not do for her to omit the Italian language.  All of her languages were beautiful.

I was intrigued by the interplay between Chailly and Davidsen.  He seemed to be looking to her for expressive cues.  This is something singers long for.  I felt it allowed Lise to feel secure and give her utmost.  As a result she made the greatest impression in the great Italian aria "Pace, pace mio Dio."  They were a magical pair.  This is La Scala after all.

I found this to be one of the most intense and spectacular vocal concerts I've ever seen.  The audience stood up a lot.  It's out there.

I masnadieri

Conductor Michele Mariotti
Staging David McVicar

Massimiliano, Count Moor..Michele Pertusi, bass
Carlo, his elder son......Fabio Sartori, tenor
Francesco, his younger son..Massimo Cavalletti, baritone
Amalia, his niece........Lisette Oropesa, soprano
Moser, priest...... Alessandro Spina, bass
Arminio, servant..Francesco Pittari, tenor
Rolla...Matteo Desole, baritone

This year Verdi's I masnadieri (The Bandits) was presented at La Scala.  We have taken notice because the female role is sung by Lisette Oropesa.

This traditional production completely violates my rules of portraying a plot.  The director's primary job is to explain the plot.  So who the hell is this guy in the military uniform that wanders around the stage in all these scenes?  Carlo before he became a bandit?  Francesco before he became a shit? Who?  Carlo is the fat guy.  So perhaps the director didn't like him and gave all his stuff to someone else.  Sigh.  I hate that.  He carries around a notebook where he occasionally writes, so the speculation is that he might be Schiller, the original writer of the story.

Lisette is spectacularly good in this, moving gently away from her soubrette Fach into full lyric repertoire.  I like her sound, her technique, her phrasing, anything else I can't think of.  She is developing into a truly wonderful singer.  This role was written for Jenny Lind who appears to have been a lyric soprano.  There is a lot of bombastic early Verdi singing throughout this opera, but the soprano is sweet and lyrical throughout.  It is an excellent role for Lisette.

The bandits seem to be having a lot of fun except for Carlo.  They leap and dance around. Francesco repents but the priest refuses to forgive him.  The silent writer comes to life and kills Francesco.  Then Amalia comes out and says that whether Carlo is an angel or a devil, she will always be his wife.  So then he kills her.  This plot is basically BS.

The male singers are all on the same page with the big Verdi sound.  The most applause was for Pertusi, Sartori and Oropesa, all well deserved.  I never have to see this opera again.  Just listening and ignoring the action is always an option.

Andrea Chénier from La Scala

Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
Staging: Mario Martone

Andrea Chénier: Yusif Eyvazov
Maddalena di Coigny: Anna Netrebko
Carlo Gérard: Luca Salsi
La mulatta Bersi: Annalisa Stroppa
La Contessa di Coigny: Mariana Pentcheva
Madelon: Judit Kutasi
Roucher: Gabriele Sagona

Giordano's Andrea Chénier is an opera about the French revolution.  The only other one I can think of is Dialogues of the Carmelites which sees the terror from a somewhat different perspective.  It is curious that no opera sees the revolution from the side of the revolutionaries.

This is a wonderful traditional staging from La Scala Milano.  In the first scene the staging is very clear with the revolutionaries' faces appearing through the windows. As I work my way through the scenes, they are all well done and easy to follow.  Not too much detail, not too little.  This is lovely, with well handled chorus, and all the elements of an excellent traditional staging.

"Viva la morte insiem."  Long live death together.  Sort of a self cancelling phrase.  I have been listening to German versions of Italian operas for so long I have forgotten what the Italian version sounds like.  Yusif is actually more highly regarded in Italy.  His steely tone cuts right through the orchestra when necessary.  He and Netrebko are gradually merging into each other.  Will we like the result?

I love this opera and have very much enjoyed its recent popularity.  I realize it will soon disappear, but that's no reason not to love it now.  The poet falls in love and stays behind in France to protect his love.  As a result, he is executed.  It is an opera about love. Maddalena tells us that an angel has kissed her.  This is the exterminating angel.  He has marked her for death.

Chailly knows his Italian repertoire and gives us a stylistically excellent reading. Lovely.  This is the one.

Bis at La Scala

Nadine Sierra

Opera Bobb tells us:

"Ciao, Opera Mavens. At the end of the La Scala Rigoletto second act last night, the standing ovation audience demanded former Adler Nadine Sierra (Adler 2011-2012) and Leo Nucci repeat the final aria (conducted by SF Opera Music Director Nicola Luisotti)."

Nadine is a raging success everywhere these days. For my encounters with her in San Francisco:

Her performance in a Merola final here.
Her Schwabacher debut recital here.
She sings Lucia here.

And now see it for yourself.

 

Netrebko in Giovanna d'Arco at La Scala

Teatro alla Scala Verdi's Giovana d’Arco opens with Anna Netrebko.

Conductor :  Riccardo Chailly
Production :  Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier

Giovanna:  Anna Netrebko (soprano)
Carlo VII:  Francesco Meli  (tenor)
Giacomo, Giovanna's father:  Devid Cecconi (baritone)
Talbot, English officer:  Dmitry Beloselskiy (bass)

It is interesting to see what composers and playwrights have made of Joan of Arc, known since 1920 as Saint Joan.

The Maid of Orléans play by Friedrich Schiller (1801)
Verdi's Giovanna d’Arco (1845)
Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans (1881)
Saint Joan play by George Bernard Shaw (1924)
Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher by Arthur Honegger (1935)

These are the ones I can think of.  Two are operas, one is an oratorio and two are plays.  Bernard Shaw's play is long and wordy and concerns itself only with Joan's trial where it is endlessly debated whether she is saint or sinner.

Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher (Joan of Arc at the stake) is a giant flash back while she burns.  The play by Schiller is the basis for at least one of the operas and maybe a bit of the other.

Joan of Arc was a real person.  She grew up in a small village of French loyalists, surrounded by Burgundians who were affiliated with the English who then ruled large parts of France.  (She lived in the time of the Burgundian music school.  Their political affiliation with the English explains this English sounding music.)  All of her fame came during her teens.  She was visited by visions of saints who told her to save France.  As only a teenager could manage, she simply went off and did this.  She must have been incredibly charismatic and sure of herself.  She didn't carry arms into battle but instead waved a banner, inspiring the French army to its greatest triumphs in the war with the English.  She led them to Rheims where her king was crowned in the place where all French kings were crowned.  She was injured and eventually captured by the enemy.  I think it's probably not known what they argued about at her trial.  At 19 she was burned at the stake.

Did she actually see visions from heaven?  In 1920 the answer was yes.

War is not very easy to enact on the opera stage, I guess.  So one of our Joan of Arc operas adds a romance.  Ambiguity of purpose would not have served our charismatic teenager.  Her achievements would have required fanaticism.

Anna Netrebko is interviewed between the acts of Verdi's Giovana d’Arco and points out what a ridiculous plot it has.  "Nonsense," is the exact word.  For instance, her father, who does not come up in the story, is a significant figure here.  He whines and complains.  Come home where you belong.  Prove you are still a virgin.  The energy of the drama concerns itself with Joan's departure from social norms for women.  Who cares?

So in this production we have a Joan of Arc who would like to save France but her father keeps her imprisoned in her room.  So she imagines that she has saved France instead.  Why not?  It makes as much sense as the libretto.  I love Meli in his all gold outfit, like a statue with a gold horse.  I also love Netrebko in her gold armor.  In France it is Joan who appears on statues on a gold horse.

You would want this opera for the Netrebko, for Meli and for the good early Verdi music.  Netrebko carried it off, as usual.  I liked the part where she cuts off her own hair.  Jesus appears with his cross which he gives to Joan.  I imagine the real Joan to be more like Katniss.

If you don't mind the German titles, try here.
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Kaufmann at La Scala

I have been listening to interviews of Jonas Kaufmann after his concert at La Scala Milan.  He reports that after the last number there was 40 minutes of applause.  In Italy.  At La Scala.  For a German tenor singing Puccini.  What an amazing honor.  Congratulations, Herr Kaufmann.

Nessun dorma the CD has arrived, and I like it very much.  He has included at least one number from each of Puccini's operas except Suor Angelica.  That would be difficult.  Puccini always sounds like himself.

I generally prefer the live versions of Jonas, but this is excellent.
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Pereira Renewed at La Scala

According to this, Alexander Pereira's contract has been renewed until 2020 at La Scala Milan.  Now we will stop worrying about him.

More news:  after a disastrous Rigoletto in Vienna in December, Simon Keenleyside is taking 3 months off.

Lent and the Met announcement came together this year.  It is remarkably similar to the Met-wiki announcement.  Maybe I'll post something later.  I put the HD stuff into the performance calendar.

Falstaff in Florence

Direttore: Zubin Mehta
Regia: Luca Ronconi
Scene: Tiziano Santi

Sir John Falstaff: Ambrogio Maestri
Fenton: Yijie Shi
Ford, marito d'Alice: Roberto De Candia
Mrs. Alice Ford: Eva Mei
Nannetta, figlia d'Alice: Ekaterina Sadovnikova
Mrs. Quickly: Elena Zilio
Mrs. Meg Page: Laura Polverelli
Bardolfo: Gianluca Sorrentino
Pistola: Mario Luperi
Dr. Cajus: Carlo Bosi

We wanted very much to see the new opera house in Florence, so we booked ourselves for Falstaff in Florence on Tuesday.  We thought we would see Roberto De Candia as Falstaff until the replacement with Ambrogio Maestri was announced. 

I included the picture above to give you an idea of the production.  This is from the second scene where the ladies have received their letters and are planning their revenge.  It is possible to interpret this production as Falstaff's dream.  It begins with him in bed and ends the same way.  He is lying in bed when the oak tree descends to hang over the bed.

There is a flock of geese on the stage at one point, stuffed, of course.  Then later the women pluck at the feathers on the geese.  Chi e?



Maestri is huge, just as Sir John needs to be.  He sings huge as well.  Perhaps you might be impressed with his enormous size after all.  He is glorious.

I enjoyed very much the "reverenza" of Mrs. Quickly.  My only complaint about the ladies was that their costumes were too similar to be able to distinguish them.  Nannetta was also lovely with a very nice high pianissimo.

It is good to hear Verdi in Italy.  It is an endless surprise.  In Falstaff the violins played with an almost constant leggiero technique, making it truly sound like a buffa opera.  That means they played with the sense of tiny spaces between the notes, creating an atmosphere of lightness and frivolity.  People constantly talk about late Verdi resembling Wagner to the point that our orchestras then play it as though it actually were Wagner.  All Verdi is still Italian, and it might be well for us to remember it on occasion.  Kudos to Maestro Mehta.

It was difficult to tell if the theater was completely finished.  The production did not require any elaborate stage machinery.  Our one complaint was that in the balcony a thin line of steel runs across the middle of one's view of the stage. 

Go see some Verdi in Italy.

Simon Boccanegra at La Fenice

Conductor:  Myung-Whun Chung
Production:  Andrea De Rosa

Simon Boccanegra:  Simone Piazzola
Jacopo Fiesco, his enemy:  Giacomo Prestia
Paolo Albiani:  Julian Kim
Maria Boccanegra:  Maria Agresta
Gabriele Adorno:  Francesco Meli

My operas seen in Italy are La Cenerentola and La Legenda di Sakuntala at the Rome opera, Aida in the Baths of Caracalla, Butterfly and Aida at the Arena di Verona and La Traviata near the Porta Romana in Florence.  None of them prepared me for the amazing experience of Simon Boccanegra at La Fenice in Venice.

We sat in expensive boxes which reduce the space available for the sound to enter.  In spite of this they could have been performing the opera inside the box with us, the acoustics were that good.  There was never any sense of over singing or covering by the orchestra.  I understand that the orchestra pit can be lowered to different levels to balance the sound.  This left these wonderful artists to fully express the emotions of this opera.

Remarkably, two of the singers participated in both Simon Boccanegra and I due Foscari, seen at home a few days ago:  soprano Maria Agresta and tenor Francesco Meli, both marvelous singers.  It is the warmth of the Simon character that elevates this opera to greatness, and Simone Piazzola succeeded brilliantly.

Remember Romeo and Juliet?  Feuding families is a common theme in Italian drama.  I have explained elsewhere that this has to do with the two factions:  Guelphs and Ghibellines.  In one opera(located in Venice) the enemy completely crushes the Foscari family for no apparent reason.  In the other (located in Genoa) while Simon dies, the others live on to a peaceful resolution. 

Simon Boccanegra was a pirate before he became the Doge of Genoa.  His life as a pirate is evoked throughout the opera through the projection of films of the sea projected on a scrim at the back of the stage.  The waves could be seen moving, and occasionally a gull would fly by.  This more than compensated for the fact that everything else except Maria was black.

With one more exception.  At the last while Simon is dying, a woman appears in a white gown and bare feet.  She walks slowly over the floor and kneals down behind Simon.  As he breathes his last, she embraces him.  It has to be his dead wife Maria.  He speaks her name and dies.

The performance was intense from the first note to the last with a vivid expressiveness such as I have never experienced.  I can't help thinking that Verdi would approve.  I used to have a derrogatory remark to go with this opera, but now I think it is my favorite.

Palazzo Ducale

On our first full day in Venice we took a well-led tour of the Palazzo Ducale or Doge's Palace.  Since it was only a few days ago that I saw I due Foscari, an opera about a Doge of Venice, the rooms took on the quality of a stage set.

We visited the room where the Doge, the council of ten and the senate met to make decisions.  The Doge's throne and the seats for the 10 looked very familiar.  Only the huge dark paintings were missing from the opera.  Paintings of the 10 showed their red robes trimmed with fur.

We visited the room where cases were tried, the torture room, the bridge of sighs and the prison cells.  The characters from the opera filled the empty spaces.

From Operavore

While browsing their recommendations, I couldn't be more surprised to read this for the coming season:

Venice

The opera scene in the first great capital of the art form was left for dead after the Teatro La Fenice endured a terrible fire in 1996 and years of instability from the late 1990s though the mid 2000s. But there has been a remarkable rebirth, with productions at La Fenice, the Teatro Malibran and elsewhere in the city. There is a notable emphasis on baroque works, plus those by Rossini and operas that had their premieres there. Among the highlights are Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino (Jan. 23-31, 2015); Gluck’s Alceste in a new production by the masterful Pier Luigi Pizzi (March 20-28); Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans (June 19-27) and generous offerings throughout the season of Bellini, Donizetti, Puccini and Verdi.

[This is an item because Cecilia Bartoli keeps complaining that the Italians are not interested in the Baroque.]

Shock: Booing at La Scala

Here is something to read about the latest incident of booing at La Scala, this time for Cecilia Bartoli.  Unlike Alagna, she does not seem to have stormed out.  We rely on Italy for opera rioting.  There seems to have been an issue with the ticket prices.

P.S.  It is now my understanding that this has to do with paying off the claque.

What Netrebko is up to

This is her Donna Anna at La Scala. Of course.  It's sort of Mozart as Wagner, don't you think?

I'm the person who gives advice.  Right?  My sense of Anna at the present time is that her aerobic conditioning is insufficient. I know she used to run in Central Park and can't help wondering if she is keeping this up.  Taking the baby to the park isn't the same thing.  You may resume ignoring me.

A visit to the Arena di Verona

This is the Arena di Verona with the sets for Aida stored just outside.  We were there for Butterfly.

 While we search for out entry gate, there are these lovely policemen on horseback.  The steps on the left side are not so steep as those on the right.

The space available for the set is vast.

 When the orchestra is in and the opera is ready to start, someone in costume for the opera comes out and rings a gong.

 Members of the audience light candles.

 The conductor enters with his escort.

And the opera begins.

The artists come over to bow on our side.

Now that I'm home I'm trying to make up for the absence of photographs.

Ballet at the Bargello

There had been thunder storms all day, so I suppose it was no surprise when half an hour into the ballet Giselle it started to pour down rain. Everyone rushed to get the sets under the loggia. I was dozing and wanted to go home. My roommate who seems to know about ballet said they were ghastly. The music was loud and canned. Oh well.

Tomorrow I am on my way home.

Greatest Sculpture

In one of my trips to Florence I lived across the street from the Academia.  One morning the door was open, resulting in this shot.

When you grow up knowing about something--like Michelangelo's David--it disappears on you. When you see it, you think "David" and not "beautiful" or "glorious." So you must teach yourself to see it again.

I tried to see it differently by buying the refrigerator magnet and putting clothes on him. In our class it was proposed that traditionally David was 10-14 when he slew Goliath. The instructor thought he looked about 25. With clothes on he is a teenager about 16 years old. You'd worry that a 16 year old was so serious.

I have a book at home--the Oxford book of Classical Art--that shows every ancient statue. The two bronze Greek men at Reggio di Calabria are very beautiful and real looking, but their attitudes are casual, like men marching through a town and flirting with the girls.

I like very much the Farnese Hercules as reconstructed, but he is a man of at least 35, perhaps 40, who is well bulked up.

I can think of nothing that so completely captures the perfection of youth as the David. For realism we see that he sculpts the veins on the backs of his hands. Who else does that?

David was originally intended to be up on the roof of the Duomo and has a slightly big head and hands to compensate for the intended angle of view. Perhaps this contributes to the look of youthfulness in clothing.

There can be no question that David captures great physical masculine beauty. It matches or exceeds other male statues.

But what separates it from all others is the action. This is the moment. David is skilled in the sling from working as a shepherd and holds his weapon casually. The rock is in his right hand by his side.

It compares favorably to the moment when the baseball pitcher has settled on the correct pitch. The count is 3&2 in the ninth inning. He has decided on the pitch and has just extended his left foot for the beginning of the windup.

This is the moment of perfect intention, and it is this that makes David the greatest piece of sculpture ever made.

Orchestra in the Bargello

The weather in Florence has been roasting until this weekend. For the orchestra concert in the Bargello on Tuesday we were afraid it might rain. It did but stopped in time for the concert, and the weather was quite beautiful.

The performance was a combination of the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina and I Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. This combination of musicians produced a big beautiful sound in the relatively small space of the Bargello. The conductor was Giuseppe Lanzetta, the same man I reviewed two years ago. I still like him a lot.

The first piece was the Violin Concerto by P.I. Tchaikovsky with Latvian Ilya Grubert as the outstanding and very virtuosic violinist. He played Ysaye's Ballade as an encore, and it was very wowie.

Then they played Beethoven Symphony number 5. The audience was small--there isn't room for anything but a small audience--but highly enthusiastic, and the orchestra encored the fourth movement. The acoustics were also excellent. It was a highly enjoyable evening.

Aida in Rome

We went out to see Aida at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. I remember from the past that there were pipes in the ruins that looked like part of the stage, so I was pleased to see that the stage machinery stands before the ruins but does not touch them.

The ruins of the baths make a fine backdrop for the set which looked a lot like ruins from Egypt: movable columns and figures and monuments.

The trumpets from the march stood in banks on the sides.

One cannot help comparing it to the Arena di Verona, since it is also an outdoor venue. In Verona the set pieces can be removed entirely through a gap at the back of the stage. In Rome they seemed to be only moved around.

The cast of Aida is large and often appears with the chorus on stage. In these scenes nothing was done to distinguish the soloists from the chorus. First rule of opera costume design: soloists must never blend in with the chorus. People would start to sing and you simply could not find them on the stage.

This picture is our view.

Daniel Oren was the excellent conductor. Aida was ably sung by Micaela Carosi. Giovanna Casolla who sang Amneris has a huge penetrating voice. She interested me most. Radames was sung by Walter Fraccaro. All three were best in the final death scene.

Aida..................Amneris....................Radames.

There was lots of very nice ballet but no march to speak of.

The seats were comfortable--perhaps too comfortable--and the weather was pleasant. I heard a bit of thunder, but no rain appeared.

Caravaggio e Caravaggeschi a Firenze

I hadn't realized that Artemisia Gentileschi was considered a follower of Caravaggio. The exhibition at the Uffizi is the first time I have seen more than one picture at a time. There is Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes, followed by sneaking the head out in a basket. She is the most interesting in these. The about 6 pictures all seem like self portraits.

Caravaggio painted a Judith. She seems to be saying "Oh ick!". Artemisia's Judith is all business.

Caravaggio painted from life, many think using the camera obscura, resulting in pictures that look like photographs.

Each person was painted one at a time, sometimes resulting in odd effects fitting them together. He used a single light source, and sometimes he filled in around the figures with objects or landscapes, sometimes just with black.

The followers seem to like just the single light source and the fading to black. Being a Caravaggeschi means realistic looking figures in black backgrounds. They look at Caravaggio and see a technique they can imitate. They miss the genius.

Beethoven

Florence is a small but very cultured city where almost anything can happen.

Monday night--everything starts at 9:15 in the evening so one is not required to rush one's dinner--at St. Mark's English Church in the Altrarno we were treated to an all Beethoven piano recital by Brian Marble from North Carolina.  First he did sonata in C, op2 No.3, an early piece that sounds a lot like Mozart on steroids, especially when Brian plays it.

This was followed by a fantastic, very muscular playing of the Hammerklavier Sonata.  At the time it was composed it must surely have boggled the mind.  What could be left to compose after this?

We are told that Brian broke four strings on his piano at home learning this.  His wife says she went home to Argentina for a month while he was practicing.  One might well love the Hammerklavier but still not want to hear it for days on end.

Bravo.

The program that came with the concert contained a lot of useful information.  The Hammerklavier Sonata is in four movements with the slow movement third and a fugue in the fourth movement.  It was written in 1818 at the start of Beethoven's third style period when the composer was already completely deaf.  It takes 50 minutes to play.   It is huge in every sense.  One should rise with the Hammerklavier.