Iolanta / Perséphone

Conductor:  Teodor Currentzis
Production:  Peter Sellars

These two operas -- Tchaikovsky's Iolanta (1892) and Stravinsky's Perséphone (1934) -- were presented together at Teatro Real in 2012.  Both were staged by Peter Sellars.  I am considering this as the end of my Peter Sellars project.

Iolanta

René, King of Provence, bass, Dmitry Ulianov
Robert, Duke of Burgundy, baritone, Alexej Markov
Count Vaudémont, a Burgundian knight, tenor, Pavel Cernoch
Ibn-Hakia, a Moorish physician, baritone, Willard White
Alméric, armor-bearer to King René, tenor, Vasily Efimov
Bertrand, doorkeeper of the castle, bass, Pavel Kudinov
Iolanta, blind daughter of King René, soprano, Ekaterina Scherbachenko
Marta, Bertrand's wife, Iolanta's nursemaid, contralto, Ekaterina Semenchuk
Brigitta, Iolanta's friend, soprano, Irina Churilova
Laura, Iolanta's friend, mezzo-soprano, Letitia Singleton

Iolanta is a fairy tale sung in Russian.  It was not brought to its full effect in its semi-realistic setting at the Met in 2015.  The magic was missing.  We are presented here with abstractions.  Door frames are topped with mysterious dark objects that sometimes suggest birds.  Instead of a film, we have still pictures.  Iolanta carries a cane, as the blind often do.  Her own chamber music group accompanies her.  I think we may presume they are singing the original text rather than the Soviet approved one.

28 minutes in we have movement just in time for the wonder of Willard White.  I find this abstraction very beautiful, but when they sing of roses, no roses appear.  I like the soprano very much, but the tenor could be better.  This is Sellars' area of expertise.  He isn't here to provide you with pretty scenery.  He's here to provide you with a spiritual experience.

Perséphone

Eumolphe, tenor, Paul Groves
Perséphone Speaker, Dominique Blanc
Perséphone dancer, Sam Sathya
Demetra, dancer, Chumvan Sodhachivy
Pluton, dancer, Khon Chansythyka
Mercure, Démophoon, dancer, Nam Narim

Perséphone is a Greek myth about the underworld, here sung in French.  We are in the same set as the previous work, and visually the two are similar.  There is a tenor, a speaker, a chorus and dancers from Cambodia but no choreographer.  The director seems to have collaborated with the dancers.  The music is serene for Stravinsky.

A line caught my eye:  "never chase after what your eyes gaze on too lovingly."  The story of my life.

The pairing of these two works is genius.  The entire thing is a meditation on beauty.  Life is beautiful.  Love it more.  Do not go into the darkness never to return.  Open your heart to beauty.  Thank you, Peter.

Since I am counting this as the end, I repeat the score card here.  It omits works where Sellars is the librettist.

Score card:

Great things:  Mozart La Clemenza di Tito, Handel Theodora, Bach Matthew Passion, Iolanta / Perséphone
Hits:  Saariaho L'Amour de Loin, Mozart Don Giovanni, Nixon (1st)
So so: Mozart Figaro, Giulio Cesare
Misses:Vivaldi Griselda, Adams The Death of Klinghoffer, Nixon (2nd)
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L'Histoire du soldat

L'Histoire du soldat by Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer C. F. Ramuz was created during WWI while Stravinsky was living in Switzerland.  Unfortunately it's premiere coincided with the flu epidemic.  The combination of the war and the flu prevented it from being heard very much.

We heard it in a faculty performance at California State University, Sacramento on Thursday evening.  It was originally written in French for performance in the French section of Switzerland, but has since been translated into English.

Our instrumental ensemble consisted of faculty members:

Anna Presler, violin
Chris Castro, bass
Sandra McPherson, clarinets
David Wells, bassoon
Steve Roach, trumpet
Phil Tulga, trombone
Daniel Kennedy, percussion

Omari Tau, speaker, who magically changed his voice to represent the soldier, the devil and the narrator.  I believe it was conceived for three actors.  In our performance there was a single speaker.  Sometimes it is performed with ballet, but we did not experience that.

Stravinsky lived in the time of jazz which he only knew from transcriptions.  In the sections below everything sounded like Stravinsky and not jazz, with the small exception of the section called Ragtime.

Part I

The soldier's march
Airs by a stream
Pastorale

Part II

Royal march
The little concert
Three dances: a, Tango - b, Waltz - c, Ragtime
The devil's dance
The little chorale
The devil's song
The great chorale
The devil's triumphant march

There is a plot.  The soldier is going awol.  He carries a fiddle which the devil offers to trade him for a book on how to get rich.  So this is a Faust story.  Soldier teaches devil how to play the fiddle, devil teaches soldier how to interpret the book.  After two days they part.

The soldier gets rich but is unhappy.  He plays cards with the devil to reverse the trade if he loses.  He does and gets back his fiddle and loses all his money.  He meets and marries a princess.  The devil tells the soldier that they must remain in the princess's castle, but you know that doesn't happen.  The devil wins and celebrates.  So in this Faust story the devil wins.

I like this and wish sometime to experience it with the ballet.

Rachmaninoff at the Sacramento Philharmonic

The program for the Sacramento Philharmonic included other things, too.  The conductor for the evening was Case Scaglione.  His first name means houses in Italian.

Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Pieces.  I think to effectively present these pieces the Philharmonic would need to up their game a bit.  To make their effect they depend very much on sound.

Igor Stravinsky's Symphony in C Major.  Frankly I don't know why they would choose to play this piece, since it is extremely uninteresting.  To me anyway.

Then we came to Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Behzod Abduraimov at the piano.  It was worth waiting for.  Apparently Behzod is a rising star.  He lit into Rachmaninoff's most famous piece like there was no tomorrow.  Conductor and pianist did an excellent job of maintaining coordination throughout the concerto.  Every movement was a gem, exciting, dynamic, thrilling.  And the Philharmonic rose to meet him.  For one brief shining moment they were thrilling, too.

We go to hear concerts for moments like this.  You never know when it will happen.  Thank you.

Sacramento Opera and Philharmonic

I have tracked down the brochure for next season for the combined Opera and Philharmonic.  We have a lot more details.

August 11, 1:30, the Opera and Philharmonic will combine at Fairy Tale Town in William Land Park for the "Cat and Fiddle Music Festival."  Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf is one of the numbers in this family oriented concert.

Oct 19, 2:00 and 8:00, Community Center Theater, "Here to stay:  the Gershwin Experience" concert with Sylvia McNair, conducted by Michael Morgan.

Nov 22, 8:00, Crest Theater, International Stars of Opera Recital, Ruth Ann Swenson, soprano, Frank Lopardo, tenor, Mark Robson, piano.  This is what was meant by Una Sorpreso Lirico! 

January 11, 8:00, Community Center Theater, Michael Morgan conducts Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Stravinsky Firebird Suite and Daniel Bernard Roumain Woodbox Concerto.  Here's a short film of DBR playing an electric violin.



Feb 28, 8:00, and March 2, 2:00, CCT, Verdi's Il Trovatore.  Michael Morgan will conduct.  Leonora, Lisa Daltirus; Azucena, Tichina Vaughn; Manrico, Arnold Rawls; Count Di Luna, Marcus Jupither.

March 14, 8:00, The Assembly (1000 K st.), Violinist Rachel Barton Pine and cellist Mike Block will discuss the evolution of music from Bartok to Metalica.  This is a bold undertaking. 

April 5, 8:00, CCT, concert featureing Dvorak, Glazunov and John Williams.  Michael Morgan conducts and Rachel Barton Pine plays the Glazunov violin concerto.

June 21, 1:00 and 3:00; June 22 1:00 at Crocker Art Museum, Family opera to coincide with a Crocker exhibition.  Robert Xavier Rodriquez is the composer and the words "mariachi music" appear in the text.  I think this is just for fun.

I feel this represents a different perspective.