IN REVIEW:
FROM AROUND THE WORLD
and Plácido Domingo took Umberto Giordano's Fedora seriously and played it straight. |
On October 1, The Bartered Bride returned to the Metropolitan Opera repertory in the late John Dexter's production, last seen in 1978. The effect of Jan Skalicky's literal, folksy costumes against Josef Svoboda's stark, stylized sets, if now oddly anachronistic, put welcome emphasis on the performers and highlighted the production's most engaging features, notably Pavel Smok's clever choreography for the Act II Furiant and the Act III Dance of the Comedians. The visual streamlining of the stage picture was matched by James Levine's whirlwind conducting, which placed clarity and energy well ahead of charm and sentiment.
When Teresa Stratas dropped out of the first performance, Gwynne Geyer proved an ideal replacement -- vocally smooth, bright and expressive, dramatically assertive and mature, without overplayed coyness. Her Jeník, David Kuebler, gave as good as he got in their duets. The professionalism of a Broadway musical pervaded the rest of the cast as well -- Vladimir Bogachov a wide-eyed, Schweik-like Vasek, Paul Plishka a smugly voluble Kecal, Korliss Uecker a bright, fetching Esmeralda, Peter Kazaras in full charge as the Circus Barker. Timothy Nolen made his company debut as Krusina, Marenka's father; a bit underpowered at the outset, this agreeable baritone soon came into his own as a credible farmer -- no mean feat in so urban a production. His wife, Ludmila, and Vasek's parents were played with appropriate bluster by Stephanie Blythe, Rosalind Elias and Julien Robbins, while LeRoy Lehr scored handily as the circus' "Red Indian." Lehr and Kazaras displayed the clearest diction of the evening.
| FRENI, DOMINGO -- HIGH-VERISMO LOVERS IN THE MET'S FEDORA |
Fedora, a period piece of a different sort, appeared a few days later (seen Oct. 8). This highly theatrical opera was modern for its day, and Ferruccio Villagrossi's stage designs (from Barcelona's Teatre del Liceu) wisely don't try to modernize it further: like Colautti's libretto (after a Sardou melodrama) and Giordano's score, the production depicts rather than interprets. Stage director Beppe De Tomasi kept a balance between naturalness, stylization and period feeling. More than "suspension of disbelief," Fedora demands belief itself -- supplied by a cast that took the work seriously and played it straight. Mirella Freni is no high-intensity dramatic soprano, but she lived and breathed the style, delivering the title role with a grandeur of manner that kept up momentum. As Loris, the object of her love-hate fixation, Plácido Domingo sang and acted with conviction and a sense of fatality. Ainhoa Arteta cut a bright figure as Olga, who lightens up the proceedings, with Dwayne Croft as the diplomat De Siriex, who smoothes them over. On the podium, Roberto Abbado showed himself to the verismo manner born.
JOHN W. FREEMAN
On October 20, New Jersey State Opera presented Don Carlo, in the four-act version, at the newly restored Symphony Hall. In the title role, Antonio Nagore's sturdy voice carried the music with clarity, but the tenor's histrionic credibility was limited. Gary Lehman, the star of the performance, sang Rodrigo with golden vocal elegance and dramatic power, his Act III death scene bringing down the house. As Eboli, Marianna Paunova filled Symphony Hall with powerful sound, dominating the stage with sultry good looks. Priscilla Baskerville grew vocally as Elisabetta, and the audience was visibly moved by her poignant "Non pianger." As Filippo, the venerable Bonaldo Giaiotti wore his role as regally as his robes, his masterful characterization culminating in his Act III confrontation with the Grand Inquisitor, powerfully portrayed by Stefan Szkafarowsky. Craig Dynowski displayed much promise as the Monk/Carlo V.
Roberto Oswald's unit set of stone and iron (from Baltimore Opera) evoked the moribund atmosphere of Verdi's Spanish tragedy, and Lelia Barton's costumes lent the right balance of imperial autocracy. Alfredo Silipigni conducted the orchestra with power and authority, the depth and intensity of his reading enriched by his sensitive understanding of Verdi style and the dramatic conflicts in the score. Silipigni's sweeping musical dimension of the dichotomy between church and state in Act II was carried flawlessly by the perfect integration of two instrumental ensembles (one in the back balcony).
MARIE M. ASHDOWN
Delores Ziegler returned to her home turf to sing Octavian in what turned out to be a glorious Atlanta Opera production of Der Rosenkavalier (seen Sept. 19). In every respect this was a splendid, fully thought-out characterization. Appropriately languid in the early scenes with the Marschallin, Ziegler's Octavian displayed his mercurial temperament even before the arrival of Baron Ochs. And his struck-between-the-eyes gaze on first seeing Sophie was both touching and gently funny. Ziegler's Mariandel was also finely conceived, comic but never vulgar, and thankfully she sang those scenes with only a suggestion of the usual off-pitch vocal shenanigans.
This was far more than a vanity vehicle for a hometown singer. Jay Lesenger's sharply honed staging made for a surprisingly intimate Der Rosenkavalier, in which even the most outlandish characters remained distinctly human. Adding to this impression, perhaps, was the first-rate Kurt Link, among the smaller performers onstage, who played Ochs as a booming pipsqueak. Helen Donath's Marschallin was a deeply felt portrait of a woman facing a painful inevitability with determined grace and style. Jan Grissom made an enchanting, effortless Sophie. Among the supporting cast, Kitt Reuter-Foss scored a huge success with her extravagant Annina. Binding everything together was the exemplary conducting of William Fred Scott and his responsive musicians.
JOHN CROOK
The Opera Company of El Paso's Madama Butterfly was not one to bowl over Puccini aficionados. Scenographically encumbered by a set that was too large (designed by Wally Coberg for Virginia Opera), which pushed much of the action to the sidelines, and costumes by Lelia Barton that proved none too flattering, the production evoked no sense of exoticism. Moreover, director Buck Ross failed to kindle much pathos among his singers.
Soprano Geraldine MacMillan in the title role displayed considerable beauty of voice but lacked requisite squillo in the more harrowing moments. As Pinkerton, tenor Carl Tanner emphasized the cynical seducer with clean, well-projected vocal line. Kathryn Honan-Carter made a splendid Suzuki, her beautiful mezzo blending or shining forth as the situation warranted. Elias Mokole employed his warm baritone in service of a compassionate Sharpless, while Edward Russell made a fine impression as the Bonze. The orchestra under Raymond Harvey, who was careful not to swamp the singers, never erupted in groundswells of tragedy at the heroine's suicide.
JAIME CASTAÑEDA-REYES
Turandot, which opened Opera Pacific's eleventh season in the Orange County Performing Arts Center, should have marked Jane Eaglen's first foray into the title role. But the British soprano, who had been singing Norma in Bellini's opera at nearby Los Angeles Opera through September, pulled out of the Puccini work without explanation. In her place, American Alessandra Marc, originally scheduled to alternate with Eaglen, agreed to sing all six performances in eight days. Marc commands the top notes and the power for an exemplary Turandot; in addition, her mellow tone makes a strong contrast to other, more metallic princesses of recent memory. At the second performance (Sept. 22), within a day of the first, the soprano showed stamina but few dramatic insights. Instead, she fiddled with her mostly rhinestone gown, had trouble turning on the steps of the set and looked irritated throughout. The distance from her loud singing to her soft is not far, yet the voice, if not the character, projects well.
As Calàf, Eduardo Villa held his own against this physically slow-moving Turandot, and together they negotiated the musical hurdles of the extended Alfano finale without flinching. The rest of the cast -- a solid Liù in Guiping Deng, a quavery Timur in Riccardo Ferrari, a pleasing Ping, Pang and Pong in Frank Hernandez, Howard Bender and Ray Hornblower -- moved about the crowded stage phlegmatically. Peter Wolf's set, from Arizona Opera, seemed only minimally less cluttered than its 1990 Opera Pacific counterpart. Roman Terleckyj's busily chaotic staging required more from the masques than seemed necessary or desirable. In the pit, John Mauceri conducted a proficient, occasionally overloud orchestra in a committed, tightly paced performance.
DANIEL CARIAGA
Any hope that Franco Zeffirelli's new Pagliacci for Los Angeles Music Center Opera might weigh in at moderate size or intimate dimension was dashed at its September 4 premiere. Updating the story to the 1990s, the director put up a grungy three-story row house, framed by the massive industrial pillars of a highway overpass, and paraded before it what seemed like hundreds of villagers and traveling actors; he pitted principals against mob scenes, with one distraction after another. His characters reveled in bold exhibitionism, not dramatic clarity. There were hookers in leather shorts and thigh-high boots, toughs with mohawks, roller-bladers and a whole menagerie of side-show sensationalists. Nedda, when not climbing around like Anna Magnani in a house dress, was a star-spangled cowgirl, Canio a Nathan Detroit character in white double-breasted pinstripe and black shirt. None of costume designer Raimonda Gaetani's efforts amounted to more than window dressing, serving as mere complements to a tenderloin world studded with flickering TV screens seen through open windows.
By handing back the line "La commedia è finita" to Tonio, as Leoncavallo had intended, Zeffirelli dulled the drama in this production, leaving Canio with nothing to say, sing or do but be grasped by the police. The director also robbed the murder scene of its climactic horror by having a super rush onstage and whisk away the twenty-odd gaping children just before the knife was plunged.
Lawrence Foster led an initially scrappy- sounding orchestra with dispatch. As Canio, Plácido Domingo sang with customary ringing passion; Veronica Villarroel had the vocal measure of Nedda's sensuality and ardor; Manuel Lanza was a Silvio of baritonal refinement, contrasted with Juan Pons' more assertive Tonio; and Greg Fedderly etched his Beppe in wonderfully bright vocalism and inspired whimsy.
The next night (Sept. 5), Domingo officiated in the pit for Norma, a Stonehenge affair from Nicholas Muni and John Conklin. The conductor, exerting considerable authority over orchestra and singers, yielded the score's lyrical depths. Not so William Vendice, who took over the baton for Sally Wolf's debut in the title role. While lacking the breath control and stentorian power of her predecessor, Jane Eaglen, she did manage ravishing pianissimos and pure-toned high notes that floated with limpid beauty -- without commanding Norma's despair and passion. But José Cura delivered the goods. His virile, elegantly produced tenor, with its dark, molten tone, magnified this handsome, brooding Pollione, whose presence explained the obsession of the vestal virgins, including Susanne Mentzer's well-sung, convincing Adalgisa.
DONNA PERLMUTTER
There were more doubters than dreamers two years ago, when Sonoma City Opera commissioned composer David Conte and librettist Philip Littell to provide a work to celebrate the city's sesquicentennial. The Dreamers confounded skeptics and left audiences cheering at each of seven sold-out performances (seen Aug. 11) in the 300-seat Sebastiani Theatre. Sonoma Opera's faith in first-time opera composer Conte was fully justified. Unlike composers of several other recently commissioned works, he has written much vocal and choral music, and his expertise is reflected in The Dreamers' most powerful, soaring moments, especially the big ensembles in the second half of the three-hour opus.
Sonoma's founder, General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1808-90), is the central figure of the work. Moving between fact and fiction, vision and reality, Yankees, Mexicans, an Indian and a freed slave, The Dreamers may sometimes lack clarity but never passion in its lyrical or narrative expression.
John Miner molded some thirty soloists, chorus and thirteen instrumentalists into an often thrilling ensemble. Stage director Sandra Bernhard and designer Peter Compton worked magic with a cast of outstanding area singers, who almost without exception sang superbly and with clear diction. As General Vallejo, Shouvic Mondle was fabulous, and Karen Connor, Sylvie Braitman, Antoine Garth and Kevin Brackett deserve mention.
BYRON BELT
During July and August, Utah Festival Opera played three operas in repertory at the beautiful 1,100-seat rococo Eccles Theatre. Most interesting was a new production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West (seen July 27). The company's founder and director, tenor Michael Ballam, had special interest in the opera, having appeared in Harold Prince's staging for Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1979. Indeed, Utah's setting briefly recalled Prince's, with its self-contained Polka saloon. But Puccini's directions were left behind, as Act III was oddly returned to the saloon, not set in the California forest. Scenic design by Keith Brumly and stage direction by Vincent Liotta served this verismo work well.
Baritone Brian Montgomery and soprano Karon Poston-Sullivan commanded their roles of Jack Rance and Minnie with resounding success: their scenes together sizzled. Poston, described by Ballam as a "Mozart-Bellini singer," nevertheless invested the spinto role with the right vocal quality, giving full effect to Puccini's music and easily delivering the high C in Act I with dead-on pitch. Montgomery's sheriff was handsomely sung, his acting memorable. As Ramerrez, Arnold Rawls proved Logan's only weak link, his tenor short on top, his acting rudimentary.
Ward Holmquist knew the idiom, but his thirty-eight-piece orchestra was too small to maintain balance or convey the sweep of Puccini's glorious score. The large company of miners was uniformly excellent, with the Sonora of Jeffrey Byers, Ashby of Dean Elzinga and Nick of Alberto Sanchez outstanding.
J. A. VAN SANT
Mefistofele is the signature opera of Tito Capobianco, and the New York City Opera production that established him as a director in 1969 still holds up well. His conception was revamped by his wife, Gigi Elena. The miracle is that Capobianco has taken Boito's odd piece of musical theater and transformed it into an eye-catching spectacle with special effects that divert attention from the work's intrinsic shortcomings.
Unfortunately, David Pittsinger, the protagonist of the present effort, was unable to carry the burden of this demanding assignment. His smooth bass-baritone is several sizes too small for the music and lacks the presence and color to make Mefistofele's three big arias interesting. While he performed the gymnastics created by Capobianco adequately, Pittsinger failed to create a fully dimensional character.
As Faust, Italian tenor Walter Fraccaro provided the evening's most authentic moments. His sound is a shade lyric for the role's bigger moments, but it opens in the upper octave with secure, ringing high notes. In the dual roles of Margherita/Elena, Phyllis Treigle elicited curiosity on the basis of her father's legendary portrayal of the title role, but her own performance was disappointing. She has a compelling dark timbre but a technique too rudimentary to allow her to make the words and emotions meaningful. Her "L'Altra notte" was dry and marred by awkward register breaks, and the "Lontano" duet lacked true blend.
With these under-energized elements, conductor Theo Alcantara had to keep the orchestra down much of the time. He coordinated the pit to the complex action onstage, however, with amazing success, and made a strong musical statement in the choral frescos of the prologue. Marianne Cornetti performed Martha and Pantalis so expertly as to make one regret she has given up comprimario parts at the Met in favor of heavy mezzo roles with regional U.S. companies.
ROBERT CROAN
The Bartered Bride was featured last summer at Lake George Opera Festival (Aug. 3), along with Le Nozze di Figaro, Richard Wargo's The Music Shop and Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury. The company continues to do remarkable things with its small stage space in the Queensbury High School auditorium. This time the big challenge was to execute the arrival of the circus, which opens Act III. Thanks to the combined skills of director Patricia Norcia and choreographer Mary Stafura, the outcome was exhilarating, with all kinds of clownish antics to engage one's attention, accompanied by Smetana's marvelous Dance of the Comedians.
Music director Joseph Illick and the Lake George Opera Festival Orchestra, aided by the hall's fine acoustics, set the tone with a brilliant overture. This was traditional Bohemia, with Harry Feiner's pleasantly rustic set and Toni West's colorful folksy costumes. A captivating Marenka, Anna Singer looked lovely and sang well; Brad Cresswell made a dashing Jeník, and John Koch captured the right combination of humor and sympathy in Vasek. Peter Volpe was outstanding as the conniving marriage-broker Kecal. Such was the infectious spirit generated by all concerned, including the excellent chorus and dancers, that everyone left the theater heartened by Smetana's idyll to Bohemian country life.
WILLIAM D. WEST
The Canadian Opera Company launched its 1996-97 season with two new productions -- Salome and Elektra, both boldly de- and re-constructed and marketed for their sex-and-violence allure to a potential younger audience. Salome (Sept. 27 at the O'Keefe Centre) was entrusted to Canada's leading cutting-edge filmmaker, Atom Egoyan, who applied his cinematic and video skills to providing a context for the action, with footage of Herodes' court -- part spa, part clinic -- a contemporary milieu of self-gratification, surveillance and paranoia. Later, whenever Jochanaan sang unseen from his cistern, an immense image of his mouth -- the very mouth Salome so longs to kiss -- appeared on the walls. The Dance of the Seven Veils, featuring filmed footage projected onto an immense veil, with Salome silhouetted behind it, depicted her passage from childhood and an uncertain innocence to womanhood and abuse at the hands of both Herodes and his guards.
Egoyan's cinematic preoccupations, however, proved secondary to his skill in shaping a taut narrative. He can gauge precisely the tension of a situation and increase the stakes. His almost sculptural arrangement of the singers on Derek McLane's powerful, abstract, sloping set (caught in both glare and shadow by Michael Whitfield's lighting) was always effective. He constructed a chain of abuse that led directly to Salome, then turned the screws by eliminating most of the court elements, leaving the family trio isolated in its own hell.
At every point, this powerful staging was sensitive to Strauss' music, thrillingly explosive in conductor Richard Bradshaw's reading. Ljuba Kazarnovskaya sang Salome lyrically, with a radiant shimmer in her top register; she couldn't produce the big climaxes, but she also never lost the timbre of innocence. Her interpretation (supported by Catherine Zuber's astute costuming) was haunted and troubling. Simon Estes declaimed Jochanaan's music with prophetic fervor; David Rampy sang no more comfortably than most tenors who tackle Herodes, but his presence was truly alarming. Jane Gilbert delivered a rich-voiced, deliciously lowbrow Herodias, Norine Burgess was ardent as the Page, and Jon Villars provided an incisive Narraboth.
Elektra (Oct. 2), approached no less adventurously, had little of Salome's impact. James Robinson's inventive staging had few helpful ideas, and several that were one-of-a-kind nutty. Before the opera began, there was a little pantomime of the happy Agamemnon family at dinner; by the start of the opera, the dining-room furniture had been chopped up and scattered in the palace courtyard; at the very end, Chrysothemis scampered around, trying to reassemble the pieces for a family tea party. McLane's adaptation of his Salome space featured a white garden shed, which turned out to be the entrance to the palace, lined in gold; when Orest approached for his revenge, the shed meekly tipped over.
Robinson's hyperactive staging still left time for lots of sprawling around. His disinclination to let the characters interact, however, reduced the potential tragic force. Susan Marie Pierson performed Elektra with surprising poise and beauty; despite what everyone (including Elektra herself) says about how bad she looks, she had the prettiest outfit -- Anita Stewart's costumes often went awry -- and behaved with a level-headed aplomb that seemed at odds with text and music. Susan Shafer, dressed as Norma Desmond, was a forceful but exaggerated Klytämnestra, while Makvala Kasrashvili, with a wig and ball gown that suggested Miss Piggy, sang Chrysothemis with a huge soprano and had to put up with most of the director's worst ideas. Quade Winter's Aegisth was reduced to a cartoon, but Claudio Otelli's Orest possessed focus and passion. Mimi Jordan Sherin's colorful lighting was a show on its own, while in the pit John Crosby conducted with authority and balance, but also with a mellowness that would have been more apt for Arabella.
URJO KAREDA
Hopes were high for the third operatic collaboration of conductor William Christie and director Jean-Marie Villegier, but the magic that produced Atys and Médée was missing in Hippolyte et Aricie. Villegier's note in the program made it clear that he was unable to find the key to presenting the work, offering too literal an interpretation, in which the thread of the drama continually got lost. Fortunately, Christie and Les Arts Florissants were in top form, though some of the conductor's tempos were frighteningly rapid. The plain decor of Nicolas de Lajarte set off Patrice Cauchetier's costumes well. Ana Yepes' effective choreography almost made one forget the restricted vocabulary of her movement.
The singers seemed nervous on the first two nights of the run (Sept. 17, 18). Only Laurent Naouri as Thésée presented a finished portrayal, his wide-ranging bass-baritone and his unstinting performance standing way above his colleagues. His alternate, Thierry Félix, lacked the low notes and dynamism to surmount the production. Lorraine Hunt (Phèdre) has presence galore, but her voice misses the splendor of Isabelle Vernet's, in the event slightly under the weather. Both pairs of lovers were pale, not helped by either Rameau or Villegier in this instance. As Hippolyte, Mark Padmore was marginally less wan than Paul Agnew, but neither sounded comfortable in the upper reaches of Rameau's tenor writing. Anna-Maria Panzarella and Annick Massis should become more effective as Aricie once they settle into the role.
Villegier's treatment of the lesser roles and the chorus was especially questionable: Diane as a gray-haired, gossipy schoolmarm, the Priestess as a little old lady in the middle of the chorus. Patricia Petitbon, Gaelle Mechaly and Mireille Delunsch all stood out in several incarnations. Only the trio of the Parques functioned effectively from a dramatic standpoint. One might question placing this production in the Palais Garnier, where too much was lost. Most of the singers would have been happier within the confines of the Opéra Comique, where the two earlier Christie-Villegier collaborations had been performed.
Peter Sellars' megalomania reached new depths in his assault on The Rake's Progress, set in a California prison because that state has reduced its education, hospital and culture budgets but has still found $83 billion to construct new prisons, and a statement must be made. Unfortunately, the impact was lost on most of the Parisian audience, and the musical side of the production was not sufficiently up to the challenge. Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dawn Upshaw (Anne), Denyce Graves (Baba), Paul Groves (Tom Rakewell) and Willard White (Nick Shadow) were drowned in the morass.
JOEL KASOW
Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet is to its Shakespearean model about what
Gounod's Faust is to Goethe's, but fewer people have hitherto been
willing to suspend their critical disbelief for Thomas' opera than for Gounod's.
The opera Hamlet is especially crippled by a clunky happy ending,
in which the Ghost of Hamlet's father reappears, like a cross between the
avenging Commendatore in Don Giovanni and the Monk in Verdi's Don
Carlo, to protect the prince and even crown him king. 
Still, it's a respectable representative of nineteenth-century
French opera -- in fact, it was Thomas' greatest grand-opera triumph (Mignon
was an opéra comique) -- and it's a good showcase for a lyric baritone.
Soundly cast and played, this new production was an auspicious start to
Geneva's season (Sept. 6).
KEENLYSIDE, HARRIES, DESSAY IN HAMLET--AN AUSPICIOUS START TO GENEVA'S SEASON
Thomas' Hamlet is very much a product of its time; accordingly, Agostino Cavalca costumed the figures in 1860s-era attire. Christian Fenouillat's sets were less successful: pieces of palace wall moved across the stage in a vain attempt to shield the characters from the yawning void of the empty black stage behind them. Where the interaction of characters was concerned, however, Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser's direction was strikingly effective in places such as the confrontation between Hamlet and Gertrude in Act IV and the excellent scene with the traveling players, which, thanks to the skill of three good mimes, was as strong as ever I've seen it, even in Shakespeare's version.
At the beginning, Simon Keenlyside's voice seemed pallid in the title role, but he marshaled his resources for an impressive drinking song in Act II, going to the limit to show what he can do in the way of color and intensity. Kathryn Harries' fine performance as Gertrude was marred only by a slightly throaty quality, which made it sound sometimes as if she were singing two pitches at once. On the other hand, her timbre contrasted ideally with the clear purity of Natalie Dessay as Ophélie. Though slightly wooden at times, Dessay sang beautifully, skillfully apportioning her energies so that there was always color at the top and plenty of steam left to deliver big, satisfying climaxes to each aria. Only when she had to begin her mad scene lying on her side in fetal position did a couple of technical hiccups appear in her approach to top notes.
As Claudius, Alain Vernhes displayed a beautiful instrument, but he didn't always sing beautifully. Marcus Hollop was suitably large and stentorian as the Ghost. Conductor Louis Langrée maintained a light touch, but in some slow passages, such as the introduction to Ophélie's Act II aria, the music started to dissolve rather than achieving transparency, and one felt that Langrée's efforts at sensitive interpretation might degenerate into mere mannerism.
ANNE MIDGETTE
Given that Monteverdi was the first great master of opera, one can only lament that just three of his dozen operas survive. At this summer's Lucerne International Music Festival, theatrical director Philipp Himmelmann expanded the corpus of the composer's "operas" by assembling a handful of his late vocal works into a self-standing theatrical piece called Il Trionfo dell'Amore. The production derived from two sources: seven items from Monteverdi's Eighth (and last) Book of Madrigals, subtitled Madrigals of Love and War, published in 1638, and the long dramatic scena Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda from 1624, here inserted a third of the way through the madrigals.
Himmelmann's beautifully conceived production (seen Aug. 22) did not fall clearly into any single genre. It was part dramatic recitation, part ballet, part singing (mostly choral but with several prominent solos); since we don't have masques anymore, one might as well call it an opera. The work lacks a plot, at least in terms of traditional action, but the general theme has to do with love and war and how the two can overlap. The performances were respectable, especially considering that the musical casting required eight singers to perform intricate madrigals while effecting a slowly evolving gestural choreography. Still, one was struck by how conservative the musical interpretations were. Even apart from the arrangements, which skillfully mixed period instruments (virginals and theorbos) with a modern orchestra, the interpretations involved little of the extemporized decoration we have come to expect from performances of early baroque music. And why, one wondered, was the "Lamento della Ninfa" shorn of its concluding trio, a sort of moral commentary that tries to make sense of love's disillusionment?
The production emerged memorable, however, even if one could quibble with its details. Each episode began with a pair of actors declaiming a German translation of the text that was about to be sung (poems by Petrarch, Tasso, Rinuccini and others); through high-contrast lighting, they generally appeared as Expressionistic talking heads. This yielded to a spare set in which oversized bowls of water, with drops (tears perhaps?) constantly trickling into them from above, were placed symmetrically about the stage. The white-clad singers, sometimes blindfolded, walked, danced or rolled among them. Each ensuing number involved a variation on this visual theme; repositioning the bowls, mirroring them with additional ones at higher elevation. During Tancredi e Clorinda, the production's centerpiece, the singers dangled high above the stage in ski-lift chairs as two dancers (Fabrice Edelmann and the impressive Jane Hopper) interpreted a superactive yet poignant ballet choreographed by Richard Wherlock, detailing the plot, in which Tancredi slays a rival knight only to discover that it is actually his beloved Clorinda in disguise.
Thanks to its clean conception, fine execution and the skill with which the same ideas were played in parallel through the disparate techniques of singing, acting and dance, Himmelmann's Monteverdi "opera" joins other recent successful postmodern inter-genre productions (e.g. Mark Morris' opera/ballet version of Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato).
JAMES M. KELLER
Rossini's semiserious Matilde di Shabran, first performed in Rome in 1821, was revived sporadically throughout the nineteenth century (it was a popular vehicle with the Marchisio sisters) but has been mounted only once before in this century (Genoa, 1974). The Rossini Opera Festival's new production at the Palafestival (seen Aug. 17), based on the more satisfactory -- but practically unknown -- Neapolitan version of the score (prepared by Jürgen Selk), proved quite a discovery. None of the solo numbers may be instantly memorable, but it is clearly a major work: the ensembles are exquisitely crafted and bewitching in effect, and the contrasting moods of Ferretti's tragicomic libretto, in which the tyrannical misogynist Corradino falls abjectly in love with Matilde, are ideally suited to the expressive ambivalence of Rossini's music.
The production, designed and directed by Pier'Alli, caught the spirit of the score to perfection, making ironical use of a forbiddingly fortified setting and poking fun at Corradino's fetishistic love for weapons. Yves Abel's conducting matched the witty fluency of the staging, though the dynamic level of the orchestra of Bologna's Teatro Comunale (which gave its best performance ever at the festival) sometimes proved too much for the relatively lightweight voices.
The cast included no star names but proved both stylish and homogenous. Elizabeth Futral -- though not ideally virtuosic in the final scene -- was convincing as the quick-witted Matilde and made much of the encounters with her nasty rival, the Contessa d'Arco (Francesca Franci). The twenty-three-year-old Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez proved something of a revelation as Corradino, dispatching his formidable florid measures without any sacrifice of tonal beauty or diction. Bruno Praticò offered a hilarious portrayal (in Neapolitan dialect) of the buffo Isidoro, and Roberto Frontali was excellent as Aliprando, though the part lies low for his high baritone. Perhaps the most eloquent, if not the most immaculate, singing came from Patricia Spence, who offered vibrant legato phrasing and expressively integrated coloratura in the travesty role of Edoardo. Like the rest of the cast (and the Prague Chamber Chorus), she was warmly applauded at the end of a long evening (the first of the two acts lasts two hours).
The other highlight of this year's festival was a revival of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1987 staging of the one-act L'Occasione Fa il Ladro at the Pedrotti Auditorium (seen Aug. 19). Directed by Sonja Frisell, this conception turns Don Parmenione's servant Martino into stage manager and director and offers the audience a series of deeply satisfying theatrical conceits that seem to spring directly from the music.
The well-assorted cast offered expert teamwork. Lorenzo Regazzo moved on- and offstage with wily alacrity as Martino and proved warmly communicative in voice and gesture. Rockwell Blake phrased suavely as Alberto, crowning his aria with a spectacular (fifteen-second?) diminuendo followed by a rapid crescendo -- all on one breath. The audience was enraptured, as it was by Eva Mei's exquisite performance of Berenice's big aria. Fabio Sartori and Enkelejda Shkosa offered well-turned portrayals as Don Eusebio and Ernestina, and Roberto De Candia's Parmenione was impressive in voice and presence, though his underinflected phrasing hardly suggested a master of duplicity. Conductor Maurizio Benini drew colorful, accurate playing from the Orchestra della Toscana.
STEPHEN HASTINGS
"Mein Herr! Der Singer Meister-Schlag/Gewinnt sich nicht an einem Tag" -- "Great singing doesn't happen overnight," David instructs Walther von Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The new production at Bayreuth (attended Aug. 19) bore out his words. The cast, trying out their roles for the first time, tended more to fledgling hops of considerable promise than to soaring, sustained flight. Wolfgang Wagner's straightforward period production was, if not inspired, at least not unduly distracting. Everyone sat puritanically in church pews in Act I, dutifully milled about in an unconvincing free-for-all in Act II and donned bright costumes to fill the stage with color in Act III.
When the singers have built up more stamina, this could be a good cast. While his sound is tighter and edgier than ideal for weightier Wagner roles, Peter Seiffert had the consistency and secure top to shine as Walther in Act I, though the flow of the music had washed away some color by the prize song. Visually ideal as Eva, Renée Fleming paced herself until Act III, when she demonstrated, with good, solid, accurate if not ethereal singing, that while she may not yet be a Meisterin in the role, she's at least a Gesellin (journeywoman). By contrast, Endrik Wottrich's attractive David was still an apprentice, showing strain in the upper part of his voice. Andreas Schmidt's Beckmesser was mercifully unhampered by campy caricature. Eric Halfvarson sang Pogner with a mellowness particularly striking from someone who had delivered a grim, slightly barky Hagen the night before. Robert Holl's Sachs, like Seiffert's Walther, could grow into something terrific if he loosens up a little onstage, spreads the power and beauty of parts of his "Wahn!" monologue throughout the evening and develops the endurance to get through the finale.
Slow tempos were part of the problem, but Daniel Barenboim was testing his wings with Meistersinger as well. In the overture, there was a flexibility and gentleness to the line, enhanced by soft clouds of new color. But he hadn't gotten around to putting in order the treasures he was pulling out of the score; they lay in a tangled, glittering heap, awaiting future performances to be worked into a more structured system.
Even at his best, Barenboim has more a narrative than a structured approach: if he were an author, he'd write novels, not poems. His marvelous Tristan und Isolde collared you and drew you through a full range of emotion and color without ever letting up on the dramatic tension. Waltraud Meier made an undeniably compelling Isolde, but there were also moments when vocal color and intensity deserted her. Siegfried Jerusalem's achievement lay in getting through the opera at all. Fabulous, on the other hand, were Eric Wonder's sets, picking up the iconography of painter Mark Rothko with rectangles of floating light projected on the scrim in front of the singers and the backdrop behind them. The quotation was apt: Rothko's paintings and the music of Tristan embody the same kind of active stasis, combining the seemingly contradictory elements of dramatic intensity and a mood of meditation. At the beginning of each act, a blank, luminous screen over the stage briefly invoked the whole idea of active projection common to both.
The Ring, by contrast, had some pretty pictures but little substance. Alfred Kirchner's production, now in its third year, begins with an antic, fairytale Rheingold (in the blue-and-green innocence of the first scene, Alberich -- the impressive Ekkehard Wlaschiha -- is a veritable Papageno-like figure) and parallels the decline of the gods to end on a virtually empty stage for the finale of Götterdämmerung. At its best, James Levine's leisurely conducting had a chamber-music translucency, at its worst, a leaden slowness, with long pauses that became mannered.
Leading the singers were the Fricka of Hanna Schwarz and the Wotan of John Tomlinson, she ahead by a length, with her wonted total commitment and ability to make her voice blossom or hush with the richness and color that Wagner's lines demand. This brand of intensity was missing from the Brünnhilde of Deborah Polaski, who could go an extra five yards in terms of even phrasing and dynamic variation. Wolfgang Schmidt's Siegfried, despite some fine, ringing tones, was too bleaty to make it pleasurable to listen to him for a whole evening.
ANNE MIDGETTE
The production of Lulu put together by the forces of the Grønnegards Theater, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and Zentropa Film proved a highlight among the opera offerings of Copenhagen's reign as Cultural Capital of Europe. Seen September 3, when the acoustics of the Christiansborg Palace Riding Hall had been tweaked satisfactorily, the well-chosen cast (directed by Travis Preston) gave the kind of seamless, utterly convincing performance of the opera that one usually only hopes to experience. This was Lulu with no excuses. The action took place on a sharply raked, earth-covered stage (set design by Nina Flagstad), with numerous cage doors facilitating entrances and exits -- burials, in the case of Lulu's husbands -- to and from a vaguely malign subterranean world. The stage was strewn with large canvases, later shown to represent Lulu as various aspects of Woman.
Constance Hauman's generous acting and total concentration in the title role provided the fulcrum for the drama. Her Lulu, a ruthless predator, was fully aware of her allure and equally unconcerned with the ruin she caused around her. It seemed perfectly natural that she would offer her naked body to her lover Dr. Schön as writing paper for his letter renouncing his fiancée. Yet she remained an empathetic character throughout -- one did not feel she deserved her degradation and brutal death. Vocally, Hauman seemed underpowered, but she was singing the sixth of eight performances spaced every other day, so fatigue must be factored in.
Other standouts in the cast were Monte Jaffe, whose resonant baritone and nuanced body language as Schön and Jack the Ripper provided a good counterweight to Lulu, and Michael Myers, whose urgent tenor gave the Painter a neurotic edge. Julia Juon was a rich-voiced, striking Geschwitz, Peter Straka a sympathetic Alwa, and veteran Theo Adam lent a tattered dignity to Schigolch. Ulf Schirmer led the Danish National Radio Symphony in a reading that supported the drama but never overwhelmed the singers; Lewis Klahr provided a film segment that strongly advanced the production's concept.
Though the staging of Carl Nielsen's Maskarade on view this season at the Royal Danish Opera (seen Sept. 7) was a revision of the 1965 production designed by Ove Chr. Pedersen, one could not help wishing that the company had gone all the way and staged the work anew. The cramped, skimpy set, viewed three nights after RDO's brilliantly spare La Forza del Destino, seemed somehow inadequate for such a lively and beloved piece. That said, the rest of the evening was sheer delight, with a committed cast doing justice to the composer's music, inspired by Ludvig Holberg's eponymous comedy and with a libretto by Vilhelm Andersen.
Bass Stephen Milling, a big man with a big voice and commanding presence, played Jeronimus, the paterfamilias whose authority is challenged by his son's (Leander) and his wife's (Magdelone) propensity for the newest (c. 1723) craze -- masquerades. Furthermore, Leander, played charmingly by tenor Thomas Poulsen Kragh, has fallen in love with a girl he met at a masked party. His father has other plans, having engaged him to Leonora, daughter of his friend Leonard. With a little help from Leander's valet, Henrik (baritone Johan Reuter), all ends well -- especially as the masked beauty turns out to be Leonora. Act III, set at a ball, is made livelier by ballet numbers, here executed enchantingly by dancers of the Royal Danish Ballet. Other notable singers were mezzo Kari Hamnoy as Magdelone, who also danced a flirty folie d'Espagne, and soprano Henriette Bonde-Hansen, the perky Leonora. Paavo Berglund kept the orchestra bubbling.
MARYLIS SEVILLA-GONZAGA
Un Ballo in Maschera opened at the Teatro Municipal on August 26. As Riccardo, Walter Fraccaro displayed a medium-size voice that tightened on top. Though the handsome tenor lacked passion through most of the opera, he pulled it together for a beautiful death scene. Remembered here for an outstanding Turandot, American Audrey Stottler proved disappointing, as she has not yet mastered Verdi style, and her sincere intentions to shade her ample voice were not always successful. Australian baritone Barry Anderson offered a routine Renato, his voice past its prime. Barbara Dever's Ulrica was generous in voice and even throughout all registers, but the actions required of her in Emilio Sagi's fatuous staging were misguided. Elizabeth Vidal as Oscar showed technical flaws in her vocal emission; she too was given horrible blocking. Enrique Bordolini provided beautiful sets and intelligent lighting, with costumes by Imme Holler. Orchestra and chorus maintained a high standard, with a passionate Michelangelo Veltri in the pit.
Diana Soviero went on as Cio-Cio-San on September 21, despite illness; the exquisite singing actress lacked her usual strength and breath control for Butterfly's outbursts. Dino Di Domenico sang a correct Pinkerton, Yun Deng an outstanding Suzuki. Young British baritone Garry Magee characterized a youthful Sharpless with a modest-size voice and not always apt acting. Chilean Ricardo Iturra portrayed a fine Goro. Miguel Patron Marchand's conducting kept things moving but lacked intensity in some key passages. Bernard Uzan directed.
Of the national casts, Cecilia Frigerio made an outstanding Cio-Cio-San. Lucia D'Anselmo did a good job as Amelia, while dramatic tenor José Azocar was at his best as both Riccardo and Pinkerton, as was baritone Patricio Mendez as Renato.
ENZO BERIO
Two productions hardly could be more contrasting than the new ones offered this season at the Teatro Colón. For Die Zauberflöte (Aug. 27), director-designer Beni Montresor filled his predominantly white-and-gold sets and costumes with kitsch and silliness, plagiarizing ideas from Nikolaus Lehnhoff's Munich Das Rheingold and Ingmar Bergman's film of the Mozart opera. As Sarastro, Kurt Rydl lacked style and breath. Sumi Jo has the coloratura and top notes (though she hardly sustained them) for the Queen of the Night, but on this occasion she did not display the volume and solid center for "O zitt're nicht." Things improved with "Der Hölle Rache." Dagmar Schellenberger's ordinary Pamina and Kurt Streit's adequate Tamino contrasted sharply with Manfred Hemm's Papageno and Graciela Oddone's Papagena, both outstanding. Ivor Bolton conducted routinely.
Die Walküre (Sept. 15) continued the Colón's Ring cycle. Roberto Oswald staged the opera in his own imaginative sets (also designing the impressive lighting), with costumes by Aníbal Lápiz. The Valkyries were flown in astride their steeds, and Hunding was escorted by an entourage that helped him in his combat with Siegmund. As Wotan, James Morris exuded authority and noble bearing, phrasing aptly. Siegfried Jerusalem made a superb Siegmund. Essentially a lyric tenor, he caressed the phrases of "Winterstürme" but still found heroic accents in his narrative. Mechthild Gessendorf seemed restrained as Sieglinde, persuasive only in her Act III outbursts. Nadine Secunde had Brünnhilde's high notes but lacked vocal dazzle, though she acted convincingly. Kurt Moll made a formidable Hunding, Birgitta Svendén a fine Fricka. Jeffrey Tate's reading sounded warmly lyrical, if lacking in epic strength.
Morris, who canceled his last two performances, was replaced by Clayton Brainard, an American newcomer who had mastered a difficult role and displayed a beautiful if not voluminous bass-baritone, with an easy top.
EDUARDO ARNOSI
photo: (Freni, Domingo) © Beth Bergman 1996