La Clemenza di Tito from Salzburg

Vitellia and Tito

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Teodor Currentzis | Conductor 
Peter Sellars | Stage director

Russell Thomas | Tito Vespasiano (b) USA
Golda Schultz | Vitellia (b) South Africa
Christina Gansch | Servilia (w) Austria
Marianne Crebassa | Sesto (w) France
Jeanine De Bique | Annio (b) Trinidad
Willard White | Publio (b) Jamaica

This is Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito from the Salzburg Festival in a staging by the American Peter Sellars.  I put letters next to the cast to show that most of the cast is black.  They are from everywhere.  I know what this would mean to Americans but am not sure how a European audience would react.  It would be difficult to persuade me that the timing of this was a coincidence.  All appear to be fine singers.  This is on medici.tv until November, and I see no titles.

When the opera opens the crowd of mostly white people are herded into a corner by army.  Some of the women wear head scarves.  Tito picks Sesto and Servilia out of the crowd.  This is such wonderful music.  How have I not known this?

There are Roman arches across the stage as the only reminder of the Roman Empire, but the costumes are all modern.  I read elsewhere that Tito is compared to Nelson Mandella.  This is rather more profound than I normally expect from Peter Sellars.  This is clearly a concept production, much more so than the Claus Guth from Glyndebourne.  Mandella, the great reconciler is evoked.  Clearly Sellars has changed it into a story of racial conflict and broadened the impact by placing it in modern South Africa and using black singers.

Sesto and Annio

Sesto shoots Tito who does not die.  This is intensely serious.  A miracle could happen -- I could become a fan.  This is so brilliant I am truly amazed.  The timing couldn't be more right.  It goes to the top of my list of great Regietheater.

Annio sings a Kyrie for those who have died in the raid on the Campidoglio.  Jeanine De Bique's Annio was for me the best singing.  I liked Golda Schultz but thought she struggled with the low parts of her arias.  The use of chorus is spectacular and may truly be his area of expertise.  Russell Thomas raises Tito to new heights and then dies in the hospital.  Tutto perdono.  Are we ourselves so large?

This version has a sad ending which is achieved in part through the presence in this performance of music not originally in the score for this opera, music undoubtedly added by Peter Sellars.  One may feel free to complain.  The first clue came with the Kyrie sung by Annio.  He liked the singer and wanted her to have more to sing.  In part the tragic ending is created through the addition of serious music from Mozart's Great Mass in C minor.

I felt the brilliance of this interpretation long before the ending and therefore did not require this musical interpolation.

Nabucco in HD

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Conductor:  James Levine
Production:  Elijah Moshinsky

Nabucco, king of Babylon:  Plácido Domingo
Abigaille, Nabucco's daughter:  Liudmyla Monastyrska
Ismaele:  Russell Thomas
Fenena, Nabucco's daughter:  Jamie Barton
Zaccaria, Jewish high-priest:  Dmitry Belosselskiy

Today's opera in HD from the Metropolitan Opera was Verdi's Nabucco.  The presence of Plácido Domingo in the cast meant that the theater was much fuller than usual.  I want to say before I get lost in plot explanations that James Levine was in form.  His conducting shaped this wonderful performance.

I often enjoy regie performances, especially when they are looking for a modern interpretation of historical plots.  This may possibly be my first traditional production for Nabucco.  In particular the first scene, shown above, was far more dramatically clear than a modern production could ever manage.  We know we are in a place of worship, here the temple in Jerusalem, because all the men are wearing their prayer shawls, white scarfs with black stripes.  I liked this detail very much.  The scene ends with the Babylonians setting fire to the sacred scrolls.  The priest manages to save a set to take with them to Babylon.  This may or may not be historically accurate, but it corresponds to what is believed.

The story both does and doesn't correspond to Biblical narrative.  I'm not sure there is any basis for the daughters Abigaille and Fenena.  The insanity of Nabucco is from the Bible.  Domingo does an excellent job of portraying insanity and climbs convincingly up and down the stairs, though once he did crawl up.  He sang the madness aria lying face down on the floor.

There is a romance, of course.  We find at the beginning that both daughters are in love with the Jewish envoy Ismaele whom they met when he came to Babylon.  Fenena rescued him, and now he is returning the favor.  I enjoyed Russell Thomas in this role, though most of his singing is in the first scene.  Jamie Barton was good throughout but was especially gorgeous in her last act aria.

Abigaille, sung brilliantly and very dramatically by Liudmyla Monastyrska, is what makes this opera stand out from the crowd.  For some reason she has managed to convince the public that she is the daughter of Nabucco while in reality she is the child of slaves.  When Nabucco goes mad, she becomes ruler.  When Nabucco recovers from his insanity, he converts to Judaism and overthrows Abigaille.  All of this plot is enhanced by costumes which match our imagination of the Biblical story. 

Another outstanding feature of the opera Nabucco is the spectacular choral work.  There is chorus throughout the opera, but the peak is, of course, "Va pensiero."  What a glorious performance, which was given an encore.  In Italy the encore is traditional.  The audience sings along.  We tried, but were hindered by not knowing the words.

I hope everyone enjoyed this as much as I did.

Game of Thrones Norma

Conductor Nicola Luisotti
Director Kevin Newbury
Set designer David Korins

Oroveso:  Christian Van Horn*
Pollione:  Russell Thomas*
Norma:  Sondra Radvanovsky
Adalgisa:   Jamie Barton
*Role debut

PLACE AND TIME: Gaul, during the Roman occupation in 50 BC.  Attributing it to the mythical time/place of Game of Thrones came from the program.  I think it fits.  This is a new production, I think.  In the grand tradition of the San Francisco Opera they never say "Production xyz."  They name a director, a set designer, a costume designer, etc., but not a producer.  We know, for instance, that Show Boat was done in a production by Francesca Zambello, but nothing in the credits tells us that.  The director is the person who moves the actors about the stage, not the production designer.

Enough complaining.

Adalgisa and Norma

Please note tattoos on the foreheads of Jamie and Sondra above.  I think originally there were more.  There is nothing of ancient Gaul or Rome in the sets or costumes of this new production.  We are in a mythical time or place.  The dialog is followed precisely.  If it says she ceremonially cuts mistletoe, she ceremonially cuts mistletoe. 

Throughout the opera we had been seeing bits and pieces of this statue, including miniatures of it.  Shrug.  I didn't mind it.

In the line to the ladies room it was said that Marco Berti, who played Pollione in the first 2 performances, was fired.  I have no personal knowledge one way or the other.  The last time he appeared in San Francisco I gave him advice, and I wanted to know if he had taken any of it.  The ticket taker and elevator operator both said that Russell Thomas was better.

Sondra Radvanovsky has the weight and significance as an artist to convince us that she is the exalted priestess of the Druids.  She is very fine in this role, conquering it in spite the monotonously slow tempos that dragged every phrase.  Is this the official Bellini tempo?  Apologies.  CB's Norma has not yet passed out of my consciousness.

Jamie Barton.  Welcome to San Francisco.  We loved you.  Please come back as often as possible. 

This very difficult opera very much impressed.

Macbeth in HD

Macbeth.................Zeljko Lucic

Lady Macbeth.......Maria Guleghina

Banquo..................John Relyea

Macduff.................Dimitri Pittas

Malcolm.................Russell Thomas

Conductor...............James Levine

Production..............Adrian Noble

I skipped Macbeth at the San Francisco Opera this season. A huge fuss was made about the fact that Thomas Hampson was singing Macbeth. What do I care who is singing Macbeth. Who is singing Lady Macbeth? I will not sit through another horrible Lady Macbeth no matter what the rest of the opera is like. I thought. One simply doesn't want to cringe through those parts of the opera waiting for her parts to get over.

I was right, of course. One wants a good Lady Macbeth. One wants Maria Guleghina. In the interview at the half she discussed the role. One aria is for mezzo. Another is coloratura. A third is very heavy dramatic soprano. The interviewer asked her what attracted her to the role. I made up my own answer: because she can do it. This may well be the toughest role to cast in the repertoire. Producers would flock to this. Damn, she was good.

I liked everything about the simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera. I liked it all. I was able to see for the first time why Verdi liked Macbeth best of all his operas. He matured and realized that these requirements for a soprano were really impossible to fulfill and never got quite this screaming again.

I liked the dark production. I liked the witches that looked like ordinary people, like people in a Stanley Spencer painting. I could have passed on the little girls spitting. Maybe without closeups. I liked the scene of refugees in the woods, and felt that this treatment justified the modern costumes. We need to feel that it touches our own lives.
I liked Guleghina walking on chairs set down by the witches, though I'm not sure why. I liked the politics. It was gentle and real. I liked the substitute Macbeth, Željko Lučic, who seemed very deep, emotional and tragic. I liked John Relyea enormously, and thought he looked cute in his terrorist outfit.

I was moved and thrilled. This may be the best political Verdi I've ever seen.

Forgive the bizarre photos of Maria Guleghina. The weirder they are the more I seem to like them. When asked how she related to the role, she said she was a normal mother and waved to her kid who was watching in Europe.
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