Opera Riot

Opera Chic has all the good stories. What a relief to read here about opera rioting in Pesaro.

Chick Flick

Well, maybe you remember when I wrote that opera is a chick flick.  You simply must read this.  Someone besides me has thought that opera is a chick flick.

Singers from Santa Fe

This is the tenor from La Boheme David Lomeli.


Ailyn Pérez from La Boheme.


This is Ana Maria Martinez who was our Mimi. I searched quite a while to find something with a visual AND didn't have Placido Domingo or Andrea Bocelli AND was standard operatic repertoire. This is as close as I could get.


And here is Isabel Leonard doing Handel.

These people were my favorites. It doesn't mean other people weren't very fine. The quality of singing across the board was very good this year.

Isabel Leonard in the New York Times

Here is an article about Isabel Leonard you might find interesting. She is the wife of the New Zealand baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes.

Impressions of Savages

The Santa Fe Opera's production of Menotti's The Last Savage leaves behind a series of images.

The most powerful image is the troop of skinny men in their turbans, long black beards, Ghandi loin cloths and pervasive tattoos who strut around the stage with their toes pointing out.  They told us we were in a comedy.  This in turn led to speculation:  how could you possibly tattoo that many men?  Body suits?  There was no evidence of wrinkling.  Stenciling?  Maybe.  Fake tattoos?  Maybe.  Mysteries are very attractive.

Then there is the unforgettable image of the heroine Kitty in her pink safari suit, complete with pink kepi.  She is sung by the dainty and adorable coloratura soprano Anna Christy.  I didn't expect so much coloratura from Menotti.  Anna was surely perfectly cast, very much like a character from Legally Blonde.

Then there is the image of the savage himself who started out in a loin cloth and huge ugly turban.  Daniel Okulitch, a Canadian baritone who looks marvelous in all possible stages of dress and undress, is also a fine lyric baritone.  I almost said we could hope to see more of him, but how could we possibly, if you know what I mean?

We wander from India to Chicago and back.  Menotti wrote his own libretti, and his skill can best be seen in the party for Chicago society.  The savage meets a cross section of religious figures, artists, debutantes, scientists, etc.  There is even a brief bit of modern sounding chamber music, which is supposed to be the only part Stravinsky liked.

Hearing Menotti from the view of the 21st century, I realize it is in the style of the classic American musical and could easily play on Broadway--particularly in this production.

Our schedule of the five operas was in exactly the right order, especially Faust at the beginning and Savage at the end.  We wondered why Marguerite climbed into the stand of organ pipes on her way to heaven.  The answer came when the savage attempts to escape civilization by climbing into the panorama of Chicago skyscrapers at the back.  We have achieved symmetry.

This was the hit of the summer.

Griselda

From l:  Griselda, Costanza, Gualtiero, Roberto.

Every year the Santa Fe Opera does one new or neglected opera, and this year it is Vivaldi's Griselda.  Obviously, 1735 isn't new, so that leaves neglected.

The plot is not politically correct.  King Gualtiero divorces his wife Griselda and threatens to marry someone else for the sole purpose of improving his political standing.  Peter Sellars, the production designer, changed the ending.  In the original there is a kind of double wedding where mother Griselda and Daughter Costanza get together with their respective men.  Instead the King announces simply that all is forgiven, you're still queen, and Griselda just goes on sweeping the floor like it's all too much for her.  Perhaps this helps our modern sensitivities, but it does not save this cruel, anachronistic plot.

I've seen stagings of Baroque operas I liked more--I was quite fond of Rinaldo in Zurich--but I don't really know if any staging could save Griselda.  Gronk painted the set.  Everything looks like modern northern New Mexico.  Do we care one way or the other?  Not really.

Because it's really all about the singing.  And gorgeous singing it was, too.

David Daniels as Roberto is probably the biggest name, and he sang very well, but for me I can't get past the countertenor thing.  Sorry.

Tenor Paul Groves as King Gualtiero, the lowest voice on the stage, was excellent.  My previous reservations about his singing--pushed down tone--were nowhere in evidence.  His coloratura is smooth and natural for such a dark voice.

You could not do this opera without contralto Meredith Arwady as Griselda.  The role was written for Vivaldi's girl friend who, everyone keeps telling us, was a terrible singer.  I was happy to see Meredith take a dip into the Baroque but hope for something more congenial next time.  She was the emotional heart of this otherwise heartless opera.

I enjoyed Amanda Majeski as Ottone, Griselda's other suiter.  This character was translated into a highschool kid with jeans and sneakers and a gun.

The unqualified star of the evening was the incredible, spectacular, gorgeous Isabel Leonard, a mezzo in the role of Costanza.  There were rumors of a shoving match for attention between Paul and David, a seemingly pointless activity, since it was clearly Isabel who stole the show.  Hers were the best arias and she aced every single one of them, including the famous "Agitata da due venti," the hit tune for this opera.

Griselda is saved by singing.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1715-40]

Outdoor Wozzeck

To give you an idea of the open air Santa Fe Opera, in the spot where Wozzeck says "I smell something.  I smell blood." I thought to myself, "I smell something, too--skunk."  Its timeliness was suspicious.

The set and its use in the drama was spectacularly serviceable on the tiny stage.  Panels came out quickly and smoothly from the side to create the different scenes with no pause in the action.  There are scenes in Wozzeck where large crowds are on stage, people dancing, bands that play on stage, almost mob scenes, and they manage it all quite gracefully.  They have their shit rather astoundingly together here.

Wozzeck is about a soldier of the rank and file.  He shaves his commanding officer every morning.  He gathers sticks in the field.  He supports his common-law wife and their child and supplements his income by allowing himself to be the subject of medical experiments.  In his particular experiment he is allowed to eat nothing but beans.  The production implied that he might also be injected with drugs.

As a result Wozzeck talks crazy.  For instance, he imagines he is pursued by Free Masons (Freimauern).

This is my third Wozzeck--once in the 60's with Marilyn Horne, once in the 80's with Janis Martin and now with Nicola Beller Carbone, a German soprano.  I was most interested in the differences in style of these three women.  Marilyn Horne could have been singing Bellini.  Janis Martin could have been doing Wagner.  Nicola Beller Carbone was doing Berg--a rather choppy modern Berg.

Wozzeck is in the full Second Viennese School style, including extensive Sprechstimme.  Wozzeck is particularly complex with all conceivable levels between talking and singing.  Richard Paul Fink was wonderfully grim and insane, altogether an outstanding Wozzeck.

There were two big men in the production--Eric Owens as the doctor and Stuart Skelton as the drum major--looming over the tiny stage.  Owens rides a bicycle right up to the edge of the pit.  It made me wonder if the orchestra gets hazard pay.  Skelton was a marvelous asshole, but he needs to see that he doesn't become typecast.

As the years go by the music sounds less and less harsh.  Now I hear the enormous variety of colors that Berg achieves with his large orchestra.  By now music in the movies has made modern music sound familiar.  Berg feels an old friend, a fascinating, very emotional old friend.

This is by far the most I have enjoyed Wozzeck.

La Boheme at Santa Fe

Why do we love it so?  I think it is because we love them, their youth and enthusiasm for living.  The Santa Fe Opera production of La Boheme achieves this.  At Santa Fe all the chorus, bit players and walk-ons are played by the apprentices who bring their youthful enthusiasm to every scene.

The production is very clever.  It looks like two streets that meet in the center of the stage until the middle building opens up to become the garrett.  The problem at Santa Fe is that the entire facility is quite tiny, so to achieve a relatively spacious looking stage is an achievement.

These days everything is coming up tenors, and La Boheme is no exception.  We were won over from the start when David Lomeli, a young Mexican tenor, opened his mouth and out flowed that bright, gorgeous, very Italian sounding voice.  He's a winner.

Also worth mentioning are Ana Maria Martinez as Mimi and Heidi Stober as Musetta.  I saw Heidi here in Platée four years ago. 

La Boheme is many people's favorite opera.  For sheer lovability it would be hard to top.

[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]

From Santa Fe

Listening to gossip about things going on behind the scenes, quarrels and so forth, I brought up the La Traviata production of two years ago.  I mentioned how much I admired the way Natalie Dessay jumped from one ridiculous giant box to another with grace and conviction.

Then I was told that before every performance she would come out in full costume and practice the jumps.  The house could not be opened until she was finished.  Natalie is always the complete performer.