Films from the San Francisco Opera

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We are constantly confronted with ads for films from the Met, so maybe it's time to consider some from San Francisco.  If this is too commercial for you, I apologize.

The most recent is Jake Heggie's Moby Dick, a work I declared a 21st century masterpiece, which will be released on October 29.  It's available in DVD and Blue Ray.  If you'd rather, you can wait to see it on PBS Nov 1.  I reviewed this here.




I didn't know you could buy a film of Donizetti's Lucretia Borgia with Renée Fleming and Michael Fabiano.  This was excellent.  I reviewed it here.  This DVD will also be released on October 29.



The original cast of the San Francisco Opera's current production of  Boito's Mefistofele can be seen in this DVD.



You can still buy a DVD of Andre Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire with Fleming, Futral and Gilfry.



So far I was in the audience for all of these, including this wonderful La Boheme with Pavarotti and Freni.



And that certainly is true for this very fine example of General Horne in Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso.



And what an incredible sensation accompanied this Samson and Delilah with Domingo, the most gorgeous man who ever graced an opera state.


This is just so you know we get some pretty fabulous opera here.

Post Script to Salzburg

There is something I forgot to say in my writing about Salzburg.  Both the Large Hall and the House for Mozart have really excellent acoustics.  I sat in various areas in both rooms and could always hear the singers.  I am accustomed to the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House which has truly terrible acoustics, so this was a treat.  In its defense I don't think either of the Salzburg houses are as large as the War Memorial.  Bad seats.  Marvelous acoustics.  Perhaps this is the proper prioritization.

Top Ten

This is Renée Fleming on last night's David Letterman. You get to guess which aria each one is.

The one and only

Cecilia Bartoli dueling with the trumpeter in a concert in Moscow--"A facile vittoria" by Steffani.

The view from almost 20 years in:  She is my ninja.  She overcomes all obstacles.  She can leap tall buildings at a single bound.  I only wish I had something she wanted. 

Vanessa

 

Marie Plette as Vanessa and Nikola Printz as Erika

Samuel Barber's Vanessa (libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti) had its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in 1958 with Eleanor Steber as Vanessa.  Like Patricia Racette in our Dolores Claiborne, Steber stepped in very late in the preparation process.  In my mind it's Kiri te Kanawa.

A company currently without a house, West Edge Opera decided to produce this opera anyway in a semi-staged version.  We get those in Sacramento, and they consist of the full orchestra on the stage with the singers in front.  The singers move and act as they would in a fully staged opera.  It's a large orchestra, so the Thrust Stage at Berkeley Rep left only a little space for the actors.  But not to worry.  Vanessa is about love with only minimal action.  The singers all had big voices sufficient to carry over the orchestra.  Thank you.  This was helped by the outstanding vocal writing of Samuel Barber.

I could hear but not see what turned out to be a synthesizer at the back of the stage.  I wasn't sure what this was supposed to represent.

The question is is the plot of Vanessa a circle?  Do we end where we began?  Here is the great one singing Vanessa's opening aria.  Perhaps this isn't fair, but nothing will give you a better idea of the wonderful music in this opera.

Vanessa has been waiting for Anatol to return for 20 years.  She has waited with perfect patience with her niece Erika and her mother, sung by Malin Fritz, a lovely tall woman who lurks silently in virtually every scene.  The stately old Baroness adds exactly the right gloomy atmosphere to this strange, romantic story.

When Anatol appears, it isn't really Anatol but his son, also Anatol.  Are you staying with me?  Anatol is a fortune hunter who has spent his life hearing his father talk about the mysterious Vanessa.  He wants to see for himself.  Vanessa is the complete romantic and immediately accepts this new Anatol as her lover.  She is happy.  He, however, has wooed and spent the night with Erika, and later proposes to her.  Erika is not the romantic Vanessa is.

There is no perfect recording on YouTube of the quintet from Vanessa, but this one is pretty good.  We fell in love with this piece.

The entire cast were well cast for their parts, especially given the lack of scenery or theatrical makeup.

Vanessa:  Marie Plette
Anatol:  Jonathan Boyd 
Erika:  Nikola Printz
Baroness:  Malin Fritz 
Doctor:  Philip Skinner 

At the end Vanessa and Anatol move to Paris and leave Erika alone with the old Baroness.  So will she wait quietly alone for 20 years like Vanessa?  I prefer to imagine not.

 

My Cosi

I was telling one of the members of my Salzburg tour group that I never go to Butterfly, that Patricia Racette's famous portrayal of it is something that I always pass up.  I just hate Butterfly.  She then told me that she feels exactly the same about Cosi fan tutte, that she never goes to it and can't explain why she is now.  I agreed.  It's a horrible opera.  Not one funny thing goes on in it.

I would promise I would love Cosi only if it were staged like this:

There must not be even so much as one beat between when the two assholes appear in their so-called disguises and the girls recognize them.  The sisters must know for every second of what remains of the opera that this is their boy friends playing a cruel and stupid joke on them.  When they turn to the other guy it is because they have finally let go of their illusions and are willing to play their own reverse joke.

No one must guess this except the audience.  At the end they fire Despina and dump these two losers.  I promise I would laugh all the way through.

"Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to"

Conductor George Manahan
Director James Robinson

Dolores Claiborne: Patricia Racette
Selena St. George: Susannah Biller
Detective Thibodeau: Greg Fedderly
Vera Donovan: Elizabeth Futral

Last night at the San Francisco Opera I attended the premiere of Tobias Picker's new opera Dolores Claiborne, which is based on a novel by Stephen King, which I have not read.  According to Picker, King sold him the rights for $1, more a critique of opera than of Picker.

The genre I would choose for this opera is verismo, the realistic portrayal of the lower classes.  It doesn't get lower than Dolores (Patricia Racette) who is a maid for Vera Donovan (Elizabeth Futral shown below).  Dolores hates Vera.

The cozy picture of her family group seen below (daughter Selena, Susannah Biller, husband Joe, Wayne Tigges, and Dolores) would give you no perspective at all of her actual family life.  In this scene Dolores has brought home viewers for an up-coming eclipse, so they can all view it without harming their eyes.  Very domestic, don't you think?

In reality Joe is molesting Selena.  Dolores hates Joe.

The plot summary in the program might lead one to expect confusion, but the constant flashbacks were all handled with intelligent smoothness.  At the apron of the stage we are in the police station where Dolores has been brought for questioning after the death of her mistress.  The flashbacks appear at the back, and some of them are absolutely beautiful.

In one extended scene Dolores and Selena are riding together on the Little Tall Island ferry while boats and islands go by in the background.  It is here that Selena tells her mother that her father is molesting her.  Dolores says "No" but knows the answer is "Yes."  This is graphically dramatized in the final scene of the act.

In the second act is the eclipse when Dolores tricks her husband into falling into a well in the dark.  When he appears to be climbing out, she whacks him with a rock.

Susannah Biller as Selena appears as this character both as a child and as a grown woman.  In her guise as a child she sings a lovely solo to the stars that are visible during the eclipse.  This is the best solo.  The picture below from Opera News is Selena as an adult, perhaps remembering the eclipse she experienced as a child.

At the end of the opera Selena appears as a lawyer for her mother who is accused of pushing her employer down the stairs.  Dolores and Vera sing together the famous line from this story, "Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to."  Vera falls down the stairs--done very convincingly by Elizabeth Futral, a wonderful actress--and dies all on her own.  I'm not sure Selena believes this.

It's a sad, depressing story that you completely get swept into.  Nothing musical sticks in your head.  My opinions are going to go here.  The score in an opera isn't background music--it's music.  If you don't know the difference, I can't help you.  If you need to have it explained to you by Patricia Racette that a singer's voice has something called a "passagio," you are not ready to write an opera.

The singing actors were all incredible.  No one shook the prompter's hand, a good sign when the leading lady, Patricia Racette, stepped in almost 3 weeks ago.  She always seemed secure in her part, but her Dolores is an unhappy but not an evil woman.  At the end you feel you would have done the same.

Futral and Tigges are very fine indeed, just the right amount of arrogant and cruel.  Vera gives all her money to Dolores who doesn't want it, making Selena even more angry.

I would not wish to offend Patricia Recette, but the star of this show was Susannah Biller as Selena.  Her characterization of Selena as a child was complete, and absolutely did not prepare us for Selena as a 40 year old lawyer in high heels and her lawyer power suit.  She was stunning.

Ercole

I was wandering through the shop at the San Francisco Opera and came upon this DVD.  This appears to be Luca Pisaroni in a muscle suit.  He seems to get all the good outfits, like this one from the Enchanted Island.

In real life he's quite handsome.

 

I bought it, of course.  More later.  I have to write something for Dolores Claiborne first.

THE Verdi Album

Other than a German's natural reluctance to scoop (he scoops-it's just very delicate), this is an absolutely lovely album.  Placido Domingo and I are in agreement.  Jonas Kaufmann is the tenor of our time. 

Some people have been questioning the existence of both this album and Netrebko's.  Well they're idiots.  I think Netrebko will sing all the tracks on her album better after she has a few live performances under her belt.  In fact I think her existing live performances of this repertoire are better than the recording.  See here and here.  I digress.

I like this album more than the Wagner, actually, but this is likely because I like Verdi better than Wagner.  Verdi is writing for the true tenor and is getting the maximum from that tenor intensity that makes them the center of opera.  The Heldentenor is more a high baritone with tenor technique.  If you get what I'm saying.

The best of all compliments is that I will undoubtedly listen to this one. 
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Three Divas in New York

Anna Netrebko, Susan Graham, Renée Fleming--from Facebook