tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-185400632024-03-16T08:02:39.475-04:00wellsung.blogspot.comAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.comBlogger580125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-87473892192161882882022-11-27T23:15:00.005-05:002022-11-27T23:18:06.830-05:00Don Carlos in Chicago<p>Despite some solid casting Lyric's first take on the 5-Act French language Don Carlos (seen in its last iteration on November 25th) was not so much a revelation as a reminder about what a slog this show can be. I think a lot of the blame has to go to Lyric MD Enrique Mazzola on the podium, who conducted a performance that seemed to be trying to convey how important and momentous a show this is but just ended up sacrificing any sense of momentum or excitement in the music. For all it's epic sweep Don Carlos still operates by the same musical logic as other Verdi potboilers and it needs to be played with an eye towards building tension and milking the drama like usual. There were a few glimmers of life in random places like the Posa-Philip scene and stretches of Act IV but the norm was plodding and uninspired. Endless pauses in transitional moments added to the sense of stasis. The length of the piece and relative lack of showpieces means you really have to sell the musical tension in every scene, but this reading felt content to coast on the obvious greatness of the music. </p><p>Perhaps even more than the Met's outing of the French language version last year, the text sounded very mushy and more like a factor that inhibited the singers than one that enlivened the drama. I remain convinced that the French can be great given some of the recordings I've heard, but we are clearly at an early stage where any routine collection of principals is not really prepared to sell the French text, and one sorely misses the expressiveness they might have been able to deliver in more familiar Italian (maybe?).</p><p>Some takes on the principles:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Joshua Guerrero has the right natural sound for Don Carlos to be sure and he was mostly a pleasure to listen to, though at times there is a tightness in the top half of the voice that verges on uncomfortable. Character-wise this seemed like an attempt at playing up the moody, neurotic version of Don Carlos and ending up with something that just felt inert. The tempi from the pit certainly didn't help, with big moments like the opening Fontainebleu aria and the Act 2 scene with Elisabetta DOA.</li><li>The beauty of Rachel Willis Sorensen's voice is undeniable, though in most of the early part of the evening she was dogged by twin handicaps of noticeable caution and thinning of the sound in Elisabetta's big soaring moments and a volume level one notch softer than what most of her counterparts were putting out. That said, she seemed to address some of these issues by the final Act and "Tu che le vanità" (sorry too lazy to look up the French names) was legitimately engrossing.</li><li>Clementine Margaine's vocal presence and dramatic commitment as Eboli popped hard against the lukewarm temperature onstage and in the pit--at times you could almost feel her trying in vain to push the whole opera into a higher gear. This was surely the most confident and stylish vocal portrayal of the evening, with all the pungent turns, dynamic creativity, and generally irresistible energy I remember from her DC Carmen a few years back. That said, the Veil Song had lovely moments but also included some strong choices that seemed like maybe an attempt to sell the piece on something other than its own merits. While her "O Don Fatale" was absolutely a highlight due to Margaine's exciting vocalism, the great climax wasn't as fully locked in as one might have hoped, no doubt due in part to a lack of inspiration and responsiveness from the pit.</li><li>Dmitri Belosselskiy's Philip had the welcome heft to fill the hall and the right gravitas for the part. The big Act IV scene was one of the first really moving stretches in this production, even if the aria didn't quite come together as an integrated whole, I think in part due to a limited sense of that Verdian line, but perfunctory pit business was certainly an issue here too.</li><li>I liked Igor Golovatenko's Posa quite a bit, with a warm musical sound and nice sense of legato. "Per me giunto è il dì supremo" was a bit pedestrian.</li><li>Solomon Howard, very familiar to DC audiences, was a very compelling Grand Inquisitor and a counterpoint to my recent complaints about casting very young singers in (very) old roles.</li></ul><div>There has been a lot of ire directed at the physical production, which I suspect may be in part an expression of disappointment in the snoozy musical presentation. But it is definitely not good. Apparently before David McVicar foisted his off-putting Met Don Carlos on New York audiences' eyes he was testing out his theory that the audience should experience the visual analogue of the characters' pain and hopelessness in real time with this 2007 prod for Frankfurt. The set, entirely composed of white bricks, looks a bit like a neglected Eastern European sauna. Little platforms of bricks raise and lower at times but except for one platform representing Carlos V's tomb it is unclear why they are doing this. One might be ok with looking at this for 4 hours if it was used more creatively, but it was not. I'm not calling for 10 sets and realistic ramparts or whatever but the lack of creativity in some of these budget post-COVID stagings is worrying.</div>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-48395224201783996492022-11-03T11:09:00.000-04:002022-11-03T11:09:01.435-04:00Elektra at Washington National Opera<p>See my review of WNO's Elektra on Parterre <a href="https://parterre.com/2022/11/02/last-dance-2/">here</a>.</p><p><br /></p>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-11075930778854784792022-10-24T01:23:00.006-04:002022-10-24T16:46:20.794-04:00Il Trovatore at Washington National Opera<p>I'm afraid this Il Trovatore was a bit of a rocky start to Washington National Opera's 22/23 season, with the company assembling some good fundamentals but turning out an inconsistent show overall. </p><p>Latonia Moore's Leonora was the big draw here, and for good reason--the voice is a gorgeous fit for Leonora, combining an unimpeachable top with a rich chest sound that easily filled the KC Opera House. But unfortunately the big numbers just never made it past the level of a beautiful voice singing beautiful songs. These should be vocal and dramatic events driven by whatever the diva in question has to share, but Moore seemed to be largely coloring within the lines of the perfunctory tempi coming out of the pit. Also, she had a tendency to slide between notes in the more coloratura passages--making a bit of a hash of the cabaletta to Tacea La Notte and generally marring that beautiful sound with a sense that she wasn't fully in command where the score gets a bit thorny. </p><p>Dramatically she was fine if a bit generic through the first Act or so, but really found her footing in the final confrontations with di Luna and Manrico which showed off some exciting Verdian fire. Hopefully the warm up was an artifact of opening night and more of that late energy will find its way into the rest of the portrayal later in the run.</p><p>Manrico was Gwyn Hughes Jones, who has one of those curious tenor voices that easily fills the hall despite an inherently light timbre that seems like it couldn't possibly be associated with that degree of volume. It is a generally appealing sound with a nice ping in the top, though can occasionally veer into too much of an unpleasant nasal quality. Ultimately I think his voice is just miscast for Manrico, who needs more heroic heft in his sound to balance the heavyweight female voices he spends most of his time competing with. While "Ah, si ben mio" isn't quite in the same league as some of celebrated statement pieces for the other principals, as with Moore, this was again some very pretty singing without a lot of style or dramatic urgency.</p><p>Christopher Maltman is of course familiar from lots of Don Giovannis, though is apparently moving into more Verdi per his bio, appearing as Count di Luna here. It's a big, imposing sound that is excellent for di Luna's authoritative presence in the ensembles and confrontations, and Maltman has a great facility for bringing out the text. But...he just lacks that extra element of vocal suaveness that makes the Verdi baritone parts special. "Il balen del suo sorriso" does not need to serve Hvorostovsky-levels of decadence but it does need to be a little prettier and more irresistible than what Maltman turned in Saturday night. His di Luna was also a pretty one-note villain, which, watching it again I realize is really 90-95 percent of the role on paper, but that's why the great exponents of the role know that you need to milk those rare opportunities to show something different for all they are worth.</p><p>That leaves Raehann Bryce-Davis's Azucena, which really stood apart among the principals on opening night for bringing vocal excitement and a top-to-bottom level of consistent characterization and commitment. She delivers a vocally complete Azucena with a deliciously cutting chest voice and ample power on top, but also memorable stylistic choices in Azucena's go-for-broke madness moments, sassy moments, etc. Other quibbles with the evening aside, finding a singer really owning and running with a great new take on Azucena is extremely exciting, and I hope Bryce-Davis has many more of these lined up.</p><p>Elsewhere in the cast we got the ridiculous luxury casting of Ryan Speedo Green, who is really in town for Orest in Elektra next weekend, as Ferrando. It's sometimes hard not to zone out during the prologue but he had me very hooked.</p><p>To be clear, the musical issues were broader than the principals and it really seems like this Trovatore may have just been a bit under-baked for opening night. Coordination problems with the pit cropped up in a number of scenes, and the big Act 2 finale had such a plodding disjointed feel that it seemed like the only explanation was some element of caution to make sure things didn't go off the rails. </p><p>Perhaps that will clear up as the run goes on, though it was hard to tell what conductor Michele Gamba would have in store under more comfortable conditions. The oom-pah orchestra material definitely had an energetic verve, but for most of the show one did not get a sense of his capacity to really build drama in the scenes at more than one speed. As noted, whether a function of the singers or the leadership or both, readings of the big arias came off as very straightforward. Chorus work apart from the coordination issues was strong.</p><p>And then there is the production. So, if folks remember, right before the shutdown, WNO's 2020 spring season had Don Giovanni running at the same time as Samson et Dalila, and they shared the same set by Erhard Rom, sort of a deconstructed office building/sterile modern space, using different projections and configurations for the two shows. It worked well enough in the Don Giovanni where the contrast with traditional costumes seemed to echo the production's focus on modern "me too" themes, but now it appears WNO has revived that set again for this Trovatore (again with period costumes) and I am trying to figure out whether there is even an attempt at any artistic justification here or if they just own the set and times are tough. </p><p>They've re-dressed it here and there with medieval Spain stuff and have added some new projections (including some effective animations for the exposition sections), but that just seems to emphasize that the modern set is not really supposed to have meaning within the production? Certainly wasn't picking up on much directorial intent beyond putting a serviceable Trovatore into the available physical space. There are also these huge gray walls that look like the side of the office building which they fly in for some of the scenes done upstage which are...very not good to look at. </p><p>I now have a sinking feeling this set is also going to be used for the Elektra that opens next week.</p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-23936847834079627172022-10-11T01:46:00.002-04:002022-10-11T01:46:19.334-04:00Michael Spyres in Recital<p>Michael Spyres took a night off from his celebrated run in the Met's Idomeneo revival to open the Vocal Arts DC season in a compact program of song cycles from Berlioz, Beethoven, and Liszt.</p><p>Spyres' rendition of Berlioz' Les Nuits d'Ete was a fine showcase for his distinctive "baritenor" and the range of colors he is capable of producing with it. After the half, <i>An die Ferne Geliebte</i> was elegant if a bit forgettable (tough being the classical transition piece between two romantic-era powerhouses). For such a distinctive sound, Spyres is something of a chameleon, employing a whole different approach and set of seemingly period-appropriate(?) effects for each cycle. </p><p>After the tasteful Berlioz and Beethoven, Spyres offered Liszt's spectacular Tre Sonetti del Petrarca for the final cycle. Vocal recitals by opera singers tend to withhold something a bit more explicitly operatic for the big finish, but rarely has the reveal been as dramatic as it was here, with Spyres unleashing 20 minutes of big, overwhelming sound only hinted at in the earlier part of the program.</p><p>For his single encore, Spyres gave "Fuor del Mar," the number from Idomeneo that has been getting him so much attention on the New York stage the past two weeks. Without the pressure of filling the Met, this was a bit more unified and less gutsy than the version I heard Spyres do in the house, though still thoroughly exciting. Hopefully this doesn't HD-style cannibalize any DC audience members that were thinking about a trip for one of the final shows...</p>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-50104673955439295642022-10-06T00:44:00.002-04:002022-10-06T00:48:49.037-04:00Medea at the Met<p>The Met’s opening night production of Cherubini's "Medea" played to the house's strengths: putting great singers in comfortable surroundings and letting them do their thing. Medea is ripe
for more thoughtful interrogation than this McVicar joint could provide, but this was undoubtedly the right vehicle for the company's star-driven opening night and
it came off splendidly. <o:p></o:p></p><p>The superstar at the center, Sondra Radvanovsky, delivered all the big-time
Medea one could ask for, serving utter command of the stage but also depth of
characterization and attention to detail. Radvanovsky does not deliver CD-perfect
sound on stage but the vocal excitement and awe she can create is far more
important, and any idiosyncrasies were easily folded into the character. Besides
the vocal demands, this is a treacherous acting assignment for a singer. Maintaining
a feverish emotional pitch through I dunno, 10 - 20 oaths of revenge, may be
the easy part—Medea must also sell whiplash turns of emotion and maintain
audience interest through long monologues that rest entirely on the lead.
Radvanovsky made all of this highly engaging.<o:p></o:p></p><p>This is also a production that does not provide a lot of distractions from
its lead. The last/first time I saw Medea onstage was in Simon Stone's utter waste
of a production at the Salzburg festival pre-pandemic. Stone's fussy,
hyper-realistic take (sorry now I'm going to complain about this old production)
constructed elaborate modern-dress scenarios which buried the leads under so
much cinematic detail that most scenes were already done by the time you had
figured out how the text fit to the scenario you were observing. <o:p></o:p></p><p>McVicar, working with a straightforward unit set showing the walls of Crete which
open to reveal the inside of the palace, mostly just lets the leads play the
scenes in front of a static set, which I was very grateful for, at least this
time around. A few bits were pushed too far—Medea slithering around on the
floor when she initially crashes the wedding didn’t need to go on for so long, some
of the upstage tableaux, like Glauce’s gory demise, overstayed their welcome,
and Medea’s interpretive movement under the Act III prelude was too on the nose.
Least forgivable was the choice to have Medea curl up with the corpses of her
children at the end, even though the libretto clearly states she has gone down
to the river. Blocking that so clearly contradicts the text needs a good
rationale but it was hard to find a justification besides injecting a bit of
sympathy for this…checks notes…*vengeful child murderer* in the last seconds of
the show. But mostly this was a non-interventional production that just worked.<o:p></o:p></p><p>Elsewhere in the cast: it feels odd to say Polenzani didn't "stand
out" but that is the fate of basically everyone who is not Medea in this
show. He was absolutely Radvonovsky's equal in their ensemble work, especially
the big duet that ends Act I. The show makes you wait perhaps a bit too long
before Medea shows up and by 30 minutes in you could feel the audience's
attention starting to wander a bit. I assume that was Cherubini's plan all
along, because if the Medea-Jason duet comes off the way Radvonovsky-Polenzani
delivered it the audience collectively kicks itself for being doubters just
moments later. Polenzani shines in this heavier rep by maintaining much of the delicious
pingy sound familiar from his Mozart days, though here he sounded a tad shouty
and careless at times. Despite having his cake and eating it too at the outset
of the plot, Polenzani’s Jason was almost as bedraggled and sulky as Medea, never
letting the audience forget that he has been compromised and brutalized by tragedy
as well. <o:p></o:p></p><p>Michele Pertusi was an imposing Creon, perfectly sitting in that
intersection of gravitas and vocal luxury that one expects in supporting
authority figures at the Met. I complained last week about how the dad in
Rossini's Otello was cast with a perfectly pleasant young artist which cost the
dynamic between Desdemona and her father some credibility. Pertusi's imposing
father neatly validated that observation a few days later. I know there are
economics at work here for smaller companies and getting young artists exposure
in these roles is important, but companies should think about the impact as
well. <o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p>Janai Brugger was a luminous Glauce reaching just a bit at the top of her
otherwise very satisfying Act I showpiece. Ekaterina Grubovna’s Neris was
gorgeously sung, but I grew a bit distracted in her major Act II aria.<o:p></o:p></p><p><br /></p>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-32462604520169680732020-03-02T11:04:00.000-05:002020-03-04T11:05:06.693-05:00Cantate Chamber Singers in Bethesda<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Wrote about Cantate Chamber Singers' March concert for <a href="https://washingtonclassicalreview.com/2020/03/02/mozart-and-more-in-unique-program-from-cantate-chamber-singers/">WCR</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Victoria Gau, now halfway through her first season as music director of the Cantate Chamber Singers, led the chorus in a unique program interspersing (mostly) 20th century choral selections among the movements of Mozart’s Requiem, Sunday night at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda.
</blockquote>
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-27751904819642762082020-03-01T15:23:00.003-05:002020-03-02T13:29:53.228-05:00Don Giovanni at WNO (2020)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Quick thoughts on WNO's new Don Giovanni last night...<br />
<br />
I walked into this show erroneously assuming WNO was bringing back the very successful production from ~2010 or so but this an entirely new (and somewhat less successful) joint. For some reason this new production sets the action in a hyper-modern that looks a bit like a law firm lobby, while keeping the costumes in the standard vaguely 18th century feudal aesthetic. It's not terrible, just somewhat puzzling. Why not just put everyone in modern dress?<br />
<br />
The key directorial intervention is a series of ghostly female figures in white that represent Don Giovanni's victims, appearing at various points throughout the show and ultimately acting as the avenging spirits dragging DG down to hell. This seems perfectly fair, if not especially unexpected or particularly inventive in light of <span lang="it" style="font-style: normal;" title="Italian language text">the topical #metoo frame being added to Don Giovannis far and wide these days. </span><br />
<span lang="it" style="font-style: normal;" title="Italian language text"><br /></span>
<span lang="it" style="font-style: normal;" title="Italian language text">However, and this is a hair-splitting quibble, but figures in white trudging around REALLY suggests that these are ghosts. At the risk of being dragged for being a Don Giovanni </span>apologist (he's definitely terrible and deserves to be sucked into hell! etc), he's not, you know, technically a serial killer, in which case ghost victims would make absolute sense. This "misapplied" image also seemed a bit off in light of the production's very weak characterization of DG himself, of which more below. Also, I couldn't help thinking about showgirl ghosts from Follies, which is a very odd recurring image to have in one's head during a production of Don Giovanni.<br />
<br />
On the plus side of the casting ledger we got the exquisite Donnas Anna and Elvira of Vanessa Vasquez and Keri Alkema, respectively. Vasquez, a 2017 Met Council winner, demonstrated an exquisite, silvery sound here, with thrilling unforced security across the role's demands, and an especially fiery quality in Anna's recitative. My one regret was the plodding tempo for her "Or sai chi l'onore" which prevented her from getting real traction in the piece and doing something more with it.<br />
<br />
Alkema's Elvira was probably the highlight of the evening for me, and represented some closure after Amanda Majeski's pretty but ultimately inert Elvira in Chicago back in the fall. For the character to work, Elvira can't be merely "conflicted"--she has to be a hot mess. In addition, it's important that she reads decidedly older than Donna Anna, and that her desperation in part comes from that place. She has to be a more vulernable and pathetic character than simply a pissed-off version of Donna Anna. It's not always pretty, but the impact of a generic Donna Elvira vs. a Donna Elvira who understands the parameters of the character is night and day. Alkema appears to get all this, and boasts a rich, fascinating voice and sense of vocal artistry to boot. Her "Mi Tradi" was by turns sobbing, defiant, and melancholy, a real triumph that fully exploited the emotional possibilities of the piece.<br />
<br />
Kyle Ketelson possibly garnered the biggest applause of the night, with an exceptionally watchable Leporello reminiscent of an late-90s Seth Green character (I mean this in the best possible way), far removed from your standard-issue exasperated buffoon Leporello. In a production which did not generate much organic comedy, his ability to inject personality and great comic timing into his interpretation of the part was a major asset.<br />
<br />
In the "perfectly pleasant if not particularly distinguished" lane, we had Vanessa Becerra, whose pretty soprano offered an appropriately light and youthful quality sound for Zerlina, and WNO young artist alumni Norman Garrett, whose substantial yet flexible baritone was a nice fit for Masetto.<br />
<br />
Now for the less good. Ryan McKinny has had a good track record at WNO, with fine back to back appearances in the Ring Cycle and Figaro a few years ago. He has a lovely sound most comfortable in a slightly high lying baritone space but not lacking for volume, and a sensitive approach to text.<br />
<br />
But he was a curiously absent Don here. I'm not sure if how much of this was directorial direction but his Don Giovanni felt at times like a disinterested observer of the mayhem he was generating, delivering little in the way of either the menace or seduction theoretically driving that mayhem. Directorial direction certainly seemed to come into play in the lead up to the party scene which had him not just drinking, but actually drunk and maybe a little sleepy and over it as a result of all that drinking. <span lang="it" style="font-style: normal;" title="Italian language text">"Fin ch'han dal vino" was staged(?) as a careless mess, with McKinny seeming to stumble over words. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="it" style="font-style: normal;" title="Italian language text">Perhaps this made sense in the broader strategic context of this production, with its #metoo framing: portraying DG as some kind of virile, malignant force of nature actually validates his crimes, instead we should see him as a sad little man remorselessly exercising his ill-gotten privilege and destroying people's lives as a byproduct. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="it" style="font-style: normal;" title="Italian language text">I'm not opposed to this take, though it creates some practical problems for the mechanics of the show as some of the basic motivating impulses for scenes fall flat and the other characters' reactions to DG don't make much sense. Moreover, a focus on DG's accountability at the hands of his victims, as attempted here, doesn't feel that cathartic when his villainy doesn't register as strongly. I could imagine a production being really creative and deliberate about this choice and making it work, here it mostly felt like part of the plot was missing.</span><br />
<span lang="it" style="font-style: normal;" title="Italian language text"><br /></span>
<span lang="it" style="font-style: normal;" title="Italian language text">Or maybe I am overthinking it and McKinny is just not cut out for this role and the outsized personality it requires. Musically, he also had difficulty in the lower reaches of the part. I appreciate as much as the next person a really gorgeous and lyrical "La ci darem la mano" but there seems to be a pernicious trend afoot of casting Don Giovanni's that don't really have this lower heft because they sound nice up top, and that's not really the part.</span><br />
<br />
Also in the problematic arena was tenor Alex Shrader, who struggled through Don Ottavio. Shrader sang the tenor part in the National Symphony Orchestra Messiahs here before the holidays and unfortunately the vocal challenges he had in those performances are still evident. He has a very attractive sound in the middle voice, but occasionally suffered cracks and needed to switch into a very light head voice to reach everything above the staff. Overall his volume was an extremely noticeable notch below the rest of the cast. "Il mio tesoro" was cut. Not sure what is going on here but hope he is figuring out how to work through it.<br />
<br />
Evan Rogister, the new WNO principal conductor (or whatever they are calling it) led an uneven performance in the pit. The opera house orchestra sounded very nice in parts and there were a lot of moments of sensitive shaping from Rogister, but this opening night performance was also rife with coordination problems in both individual sections and ensemble moments like the first Act finale. A disproportionate share of this seemed to fall on McKinny's head so perhaps this was also a rehearsal issue, but there is a lot of tightening up to do here (good thing that WNO has scheduled something like 12 of these shows). There were also some annoyingly pokey tempos, including the aforementioned aria for Donna Anna and the finale which remained stuck in a low gear, perhaps out of an abundance of caution to not let the evening's final moments unravel.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-57564250341413583162020-02-29T11:06:00.000-05:002020-03-04T11:06:42.490-05:00Brentano String Quartet at Wolf Trap<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Thoughts on the Brentano String Quartet for <a href="https://washingtonclassicalreview.com/2020/02/29/brentano-quartet-presents-a-unique-program-for-beethoven-year-at-wolf-trap/">WCR</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Wolf Trap presented the Brentano String Quartet Friday night, with a thoughtful take on Beethoven anniversary year. The program was organized around Beethoven’s Op. 132 String Quartet in A minor, particularly its celebrated third movement.
</blockquote>
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-19126185729954809092020-01-11T15:24:00.000-05:002020-03-01T15:25:31.884-05:00WNO's American Opera Initiative<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Thoughts on WNO's 20 minute opera evening for <a href="https://washingtonclassicalreview.com/2020/01/11/wnos-american-opera-initiative-serves-up-an-intriguing-trio-of-new-works/">WCR</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The American Opera Initiative, Washington National Opera’s program devoted to developing new work, presented its annual set of 20-minute commissions Friday night at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theatre. While the results are frequently mixed, these evenings always offer a welcome opportunity to understand how composers of the moment are addressing familiar challenges.</blockquote>
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-45274420246396080412019-12-08T23:37:00.000-05:002019-12-08T23:37:03.037-05:00Don Giovanni at Lyric Opera
Quick thoughts on Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Don Giovanni (the performance on Saturday November 30th) which impressed with overall high musical values and a first rate cast but was also just a little bit boring.
<br />
<br />Lyric deserves props for assembling a really tremendous cast here, each of the principals formidable rising or recently established important exponents of these roles on the stage today. In this heady company, Rachel Willis Sorenson’s Donna Anna stood out among the women, her ample, steely soprano a great vehicle for a relentlessly anxious, broken Donna Anna.
<br /><br />Ying Fang has a gorgeous sound, a bright soubrette timbre but with healthy weight behind it, which she used in service of a particularly beautifully sung Zerlina. I’m not sure if she really got to a place that was more than (very) pretty, though. This was truly about as good as one could hope for as far as beautifully sung renditions of Zerlina’s music, but the layers that transform this character from comedy to something more meaningful did not quite register.
<br /><br />Amanda Majeski needed a moment to calibrate her voice for Donna Elvira’s treacherous opener, but settled quickly into a creamy, attractive sound with plenty of edgy bite for Elvira’s self-righteous Act I declarations. Unfortunately her rendition of “Mi Tradi” failed to deliver on this early promise, Majeski offering a curiously inert, effortful performance in which the piece seemed to be getting the better of her (also unfortunate were some smudged pitches in the final runs). Don Giovanni can be a long evening (when did we stop doing two intermissions for Mozart?) and by the time Elvira’s final statement rolls around the audience in sore need of big enthralling moments in the final string of arias. This “Mi Tradi” did not get there.
<br /><br />Lucas Meachem turned in an intimidating, highly musical Don. His sound leans a shade lighter than the deepest, bass-inflected Dons, so instead of thundering we get a much more agile, nuanced take on this music than expected. Rarely have I heard the Don’s “seducer” arias sound more compelling. Moreover, his Don is a disturbingly familiar modern character, a sociopath but also the smartest person in the room and completely in control of his agenda.
<br /><br />Ben Bliss has a near ideal sound for Don Ottavio, though he was noticeably a notch quieter than the rest of the cast. His very lovely but not particularly distinctive takes on Ottavio’s big arias also fell a bit flat. Not helping was a feature of this production that has some of the big arias performed in front of the curtain, which tended to raise expectations. Matthew Rose’s Leporello rounded out the high quality cast though had repeated coordination problems with the pit.
<br /><br />James Gaffigan’s leadership in the pit was very fine at points, with a brilliant overture and exciting, stylish conducting, but he also contributed to some of the lack of momentum that detracted from the evening, with curiously slow tempi at times and repeated retreats into four-square phrasing.
<br /><br />The production, directed by Robert Falls, randomly updates the action to Spain in the 1930s, which may be something of a trend with the Met’s art deco Marriage of Figaro. The production design has its moments, as in an overflowing garden for the graveyard scene, but its “fragmentary realism” approach, with elements of the set lavishly realized against a bare stage sometimes conveyed “we wanted to wow you but didn’t have enough budget to finish the job.” The imposing whitewashed structures have a sterility about them that grows bland by the end of the night.
<br /><br />Falls’ chief dramatic intervention here is to really step up our repulsion for the title character, dramatizing Don Giovanni’s abuse of his victims in graphic detail. During “Fin ch'han dal vino,” Don Giovanni chokes and slaps a woman kneeling before him while another feels him up from behind. In the final scene, Zerlina’s maid wriggles bound onto the back of the stage, apparently having become a full-on sex slave since her earlier seduction, and proceeds to writhe around through the entire scene until rescued by Donna Elvira on her way out.
<br /><br />These are shocking, grim things to put onstage, and they immediately draw our attention from whatever musico-dramatic action is occurring in the story at that moment. The concern seems to be that a finer point needs to be put on Don Giovanni’s loathsomeness, that an “honest” staging needs to underline what a monster he is lest the audience think he is merely a lovable cad.
<br /><br />I can sympathize with this impulse to some degree. Don Giovanni is an indictment of abusive power and male violence but nonetheless has an ambivalent, shifting relationship to enabling ideas about the allure of power and suffering. I think a production that found inventive and shocking ways to lay bare the power dynamics submerged in the farce could be very revealing.
<br /><br />Unfortunately, this production doesn’t seem to be trying to engage us in a deeper reading of the work as much as it is simply hedging its bets. The souped-up monstrousness of Don Giovanni blithely coexists with a fairly routine production, down to goofy choreographed bits in the group numbers. By the end, the more transgressive material for the Don seem like crude attempts to stack the evidence against the character, simplifying the narrative rather than complicating it further.<br />Which brings us to a final rant.
<br /><br />We’re really getting to a breaking point with Don Giovanni stagings where the sexy blocking is so repetitive you can almost predict when someone’s about to get straddled. There’s just so. much. rubbing. all. the. time. Also so much dropping to the floor and pretending to almost bang, so many hands up skirts, and so many neck gnawings. These staging tics fail to evoke anything that looks like an authentic, sexually charged scenario, frequently make the singers look uncomfortable, and undercut the singers’ ability to convey some of that sexiness through the music. We need a moratorium on excessively randy blocking now; hopefully that will give directors a chance to come up with some novel ways to stage these scenes.<br />
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-75638015135404309392019-11-27T21:43:00.004-05:002019-11-27T21:43:44.893-05:00Hamlet at WCO<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I wrote about Washington Concert Opera's Hamlet for Parterre:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet isn’t the rarity it once was, with a handful of
notable productions in recent years, including the Met in 2010 and here
at Washington National Opera in the same year, featuring Elizabeths
Bishop and Futral, plus <strong>Sam Ramey</strong> (!) as Claudius. (I’ve been thinking this decade went by quickly but maybe not?) <a href="https://parterre.com/2019/11/27/sweet-prince-2/">Read the whole thing here...</a></blockquote>
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-29807605983290000942019-11-23T00:47:00.003-05:002019-11-23T00:47:29.455-05:00NSO plays Puts and Strauss<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My take on the NSO's premiere of Kevin Puts' "The Brightness of Light" with Renee Fleming and Rod Gilfry on Washington Classical Review: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On the heels of their big Wagner outing, the National Symphony Orchestra
and music director Gianandrea Noseda offered another ambitious vocal
program Thursday evening at Kennedy Center: the Washington premiere of a
new NSO co-commission by composer Kevin Puts, with soprano Renée
Fleming in a starring role. <a href="https://washingtonclassicalreview.com/2019/11/22/fleming-a-radiant-okeefe-in-d-c-premiere-of-brightness-of-light/">Read the rest...</a></blockquote>
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-75031660752361645222019-11-14T12:25:00.002-05:002019-11-14T16:10:22.163-05:00Wagner (highlights) with the NSO<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Some quick reactions on Tristan Act II last night at the Kennedy Center…
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There was much to enjoy in this exploratory outing for Goerke’s Isolde, as well as some challenges. It was a real joy to hear her in a concert setting again for the first time in a while. She may not bowl you over with volume in a huge opera house, but in a (slightly) smaller hall you can really appreciate the full heft of her sound. The true excitement here, as is appropriate, was in Isolde’s pealing high music. Goerke’s distinctive quick vibrato continues to differentiate her in Wagner's big moments, bringing a soft, plush texture that is a great vehicle for emotional communication. There was something of a warm up period here, where the sound was confident but a bit on the dry side. But that resolved itself and by the time the meat of the duet had arrived she had settled nicely into warm, blazing top notes that made the big finish exhilarating.
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However that top often seemed disconnected from the rest of the voice. She seemed to have difficulty cutting through the orchestra in the middle and lower registers to the extent that it was a bit difficult to follow the through line of the music in parts. While the top felt sufficiently free, the effort elsewhere left an overall impression of a lot of work going on. Noseda was not helpful in this respect, driving the NSO at (what were admittedly very fun) full bore with few compromises for the singers, though when the orchestra did dial it back, you could still catch moments of those rich middle register tones. Here's hoping that as she spends more time with the role she can get to a place that feels more comfortable across her range.<br />
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A concert performance doesn’t really lend itself to a full dramatic evaluation, but, as she has with some of the other Wagner heroines, Goerke seemed to be keying into a more vulnerable side of Isolde, which I found quite compelling. (Just kidding Stemme unhinged emo princess you’re the only one for me I swear!)<br />
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If Goerke was trying some stuff out, Stephen Gould was making big-time Wagner singing look like another casual Wednesday night down at the pub. He may not be the most dynamic Tristan (concert presentation caveats of course), but no matter how unruly that orchestra gets dude is gonna blast Tristan into the back row with only a hint of manly strain. Which is not to say he only has one setting--there was some really lovely singing at quieter dynamics too. I was also impressed with baritone Günther Groissböck who offered a very musical Konig Marke (gotta love having a <a href="https://www.staatsoper.de/media/_processed_/f/3/csm_Groissboeck_Guenther_c_DominikStixenberger_q_b52ce54fbb.jpg">hot Marke</a> next to a more, er, standard Tristan, like damn girl I guess that potion really worked), and Ekaterina Gubanova’s clarion Brangaene.<br />
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As noted above, I hope Noseda is a bit of a better accompanist for the singers when this program repeats. But that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy what the orchestra was doing. Noseda delivered an urgent, muscular Act II and the NSO was in top form with really passionate, committed playing and excellent solo work (though the offstage hunting horns had some problems). The only disappointment was that we couldn’t hear them take on the rest.
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-16685831125022274782019-11-11T00:28:00.001-05:002019-11-12T11:18:10.099-05:00Akhnaten at the Met<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Late 20th century nights at the Met feel like some kind of temporary truce between warring New York artistic factions. And so it was for the premiere of Philip Glass’ 1985 opera “Akhnaten” Friday night, which found the hip and (often, though certainly not all) under 60 crowd improbably slumming it on the Upper West Side to honor the original downtown master finally seeing this landmark 35 year old work getting some recognition uptown.<br />
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Akhnaten is the third opera in the “Portrait Trilogy” along with Satyagraha and Einstein on the Beach, but in format and musical language Akhnaten and Satyagraha are really a pair relative to the far more out there experimentation of Einstein. Glass’ subject here is the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten, who, according to the scraps of evidence that survive, briefly overthrew Egypt’s polytheistic religion for monotheism. <br />
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As with Satyagraha, Glass sets evocative pieces of text that broadly capture different ideas and events related to the subject. Here he draws us into the drama and mystery surrounding the political cult of Ancient Egypt, as well as Akhnaten’s idea of monotheism. It is a fascinating and varied score, combining periods of long meditative stasis with pounding, exhilarating choruses that create real action with only the thinnest outlines of a plot declaimed by a narrator.<br />
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Perhaps the one misstep is the segue to the epilogue, in which the narrator becomes a modern university lecturer describing what evidence is left of Akhnaten before the haunting final trio sung by the ghosts of Akhnaten, his queen, and his mother. I can appreciate the idea of confronting the audience with how much what we've just watched is really an academic fiction, but I don't know if it justifies breaking the magic of the piece with a psychiatrist-at-the-end-of-Psycho-style explanation. Moving straight from the action to the otherworldly final chorus would be a lot more effective.<br />
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Phelim McDermott’s production is just what one might imagine “BAM goes to Lincoln Center” entails (In a good way!). The basic language of the production is symbolism and abstraction, but the catwalk set and its compartments allow for a bewildering array of chorus members and supernumeraries to get involved. There’s a cool scrim that creates sort of an ancient hieroglyphics effect with real actors. Kevin Pollard’s dazzling costumes give ancient Egypt via Victorian times via star wars, and of course there is a whole jumpsuit clad juggling troupe. There are so many arresting visual moments here, from the Act I finale when Akhnaten in his giant gilt hoop skirt get-up, framed with LED sun rays, announces his new religion, to the iconic image from the production photos of Akhnaten climbing a set of stairs in an endless gauzy red robe before a giant red globe representing Aten.
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Does the production sometimes try to do too much? Does one sometimes wish the production had taken one thing off before it left the house? Maybe. It’s a very different show, of course, but feels a lot less cohesive than the McDermott’s Satyagraha production for the Met. The fact that the most resonant stage imagery come in the more economical second act, when the catwalk set is largely sidelined, suggests the production’s focus wanders a bit in the big group parts of Act I and Act III, which seem more concerned with getting a lot of cool stuff onstage than clearly conveying some meaningful fusion of stage tableau and music. There are also moments in the outer Act crowd scenes (Akhnaten fighting the old guard priests, Akhnaten later being hounded by the old guard) where the dramatization of the action gets awfully literal, as though after getting hordes of people in place there wasn’t time left to come up with more creative ways to convey the ideas. The “avant garde” elements of the production seem to be ultimately more of a convenient aesthetic option than any kind of deliberate approach shaping the production.
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Also I was sort of ambivalent about the juggling, which worked beautifully in a few places (especially the *group juggling with beach balls* during Act II), but raises the specter of a Diane Paulus’ Pippin revival-type situation, where the director doesn’t trust the material and needs to juice it with stuff that is entertaining in its own right regardless of what show it’s in. But ultimately I think these are quibbles. This is an exceptional piece of stagecraft and the kind of delightfully gonzo thing the Met really excels at when it wants to.
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Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo’s performance is as much an achievement of physical as of musical drama. From his arresting entry, slowly descending a staircase completely nude, eyes locked into the horizon, he establishes himself as the mesmerizing presence at the heart of the production some 20 minutes before he sings a note. When his distinctive countertenor sound does show up, it is hard to imagine another singer in the role. It’s a very particular, highly focused, slightly nasal sound that makes a much more forward impression than a more typical countertenor timbre, and unmoors the character from specific gender or age to great effect. His big second act aria, sung in the vernacular of the audience, was an overwhelming moment, Costanzo unearthing painful devotion and ecstasy in service of/oneness with his deity.
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J’Nai Bridges, in a Met role debut as Nefertiti, made a wonderful vocal partner for Costanzo, especially in their second act duet, another key highlight. Akhnaten and Nefertiti, dressed in identical translucent red robes with long trains extending into the wings, sing a duet of long lines that intertwine in rapturous chromatic harmonies. Elsewhere in the cast, soprano Disella Larusdottir’s Queen Tye had some warm up challenges early on, but settled in well, beautifully supporting the central trio in both the end of the Act I and the finale. Zachary James, in a spoken role as the narrator, and the rest of the supporting cast were superb. Glass’ music sometimes seems deceptively easy to an audience, but requires huge amounts of stamina and consistency from singers. Hearing Glass' music performed at this level with major operatic voices is truly a rare treat.<br />
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The high level of the principals was echoed by the Met chorus and orchestra, led here by Karen Kamensek. Minimalism certainly seems like a misnomer for Glass’ work when applied to the highly complex choral and orchestral demands of this work, but Kamensek managed to hold things together with ease (except maybe some coordination issues with the offstage percussion?) while capturing the sense of epic timelessness in the score.
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-22040955685167822702019-11-04T00:55:00.000-05:002019-11-04T00:55:30.286-05:00Christian Gerhaher at the Kennedy Center<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I reviewed Christian Gerhaher's all-Mahler recital for Washington Classical Review:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Longtime collaborators baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold
Huber returned to Washington Friday night to continue the survey of the
songs of Gustav Mahler they began here two years ago at the University
of District Columbia. Mahler’s songs have many lives, whether in the
various piano and orchestra arrangements provided by the composer
himself, or immortalized as material for his symphonies. Given Gerhaher
and Huber’s reputation for exceedingly sensitive, thoughtful readings of
the lieder repertoire, this recital promised a view of these works at
their most sparing and intimate. <a href="https://washingtonclassicalreview.com/2019/10/19/a-night-of-stirring-mahlerlieder-from-duet-partners-gerhaher-and-huber/">Read more...</a></blockquote>
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-59486273602467469912019-10-28T23:51:00.004-04:002019-10-29T16:12:58.655-04:00Otello at WNO
For my first opera outing on American soil in two years (!), I took in Washington National Opera's very strong Otello season opener Saturday night. Famous for DC sightings were in short supply I'm afraid, aside from diehard RBG (who entered to a raucous standing ovation). I did, however, spy an extremely brazen mouse who apparently likes to hang out around Orchestra row T on the outside left aisle during shows (paging KC maintenance).<br />
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This ENO/Royal Swedish Opera/Teatro Real co-production, directed by David Alden, has been around the block a few times (gotta love a production pedigree that sounds like a multilateral trade agreement) and was familiar to me from watching <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQYed8oRxwA&t=3106s">this vid</a> years ago. It is conceptually tame relative to some of Alden’s other work: the unit set and late Victorian costumes plant us squarely in generic Europe times and things unfold in a fairly straightforward fashion from there. But I enjoyed the moody atmosphere and found it effective at keeping the central dramatic triangle in the foreground. Staging of the Act I crowd material was particularly well handled, creating a sense of claustrophobia and menace within the limited set space. Perhaps less successfully, the Act II peasant/children’s chorus for Desdemona is all sung offstage while several silent children/soldiers mutely offer her the flowers. I can see how the usual masses of choristers onstage at this point distract from the brewing tension for the subsequent scene, though it also gets tiresome to listen to that much offstage choir.
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(Directorial pet peeve sidebar: you know that thing where the leads in opera productions frequently end up canoodling on the ground? Where the scene is a living room with perfectly good furniture but everyone ends up pawing each other on the floor and showing off how good they are at singing on their backs? This production takes things one step further, where we are asked to believe that, at the end of Act I, Desdemona, in her nightie, is so moved by passion that she decides to lie down and then make out with Otello on what has been established as cobblestones that are surely extremely wet from having just been the site of 1) a storm and 2) a drunken melee. C’mon.)<br />
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The most striking thing about this production is the extreme lighting that is something of an Alden trademark. The design makes use of harsh white washes to create a stark, expressionistic look and interesting shadow effects. It also has the practical benefit of allowing Otello to “hide” in Act II by simply stepping into the shadows rather than ducking behind a piece of set. At other times, it felt a bit misguided, as singers got caught in darkness for no discernible purpose (though it seemed like there were also some opening night kinks in play).
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But back to that cast. Appearing for the first time with WNO, regular Met fixture George Gagnidze’s assertive, even baritone soared through Iago’s music. His “Credo” offered plenty of throwback vocal grandeur, filling the house with charismatic sound and tossing off those big forte flourishes with ease. Indeed the vocal package is so appealing one might be forgiven for not noticing that his characterization for Iago is ultimately a bit generic.
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American Leah Crocetto matched Gagnidze in vocal glamour and then some, turning in a Desdemona of really special beauty. The voice is gorgeous to be sure, but one was also struck by how much she understands how to create a sense of vocal drama over time as Desdemona wanders in and out of the story. Her voice rarely more than a silvery thread in happy wife mode well into Act II, her first real emotional outburst was overwhelming in its directness and intensity--more than one sparkly patron in my vicinity audibly gasped. I am sometimes lukewarm on the Willow Song; too much reliance on the pretty melody at this late stage in the drama can feel cloying. Not a problem here: Crocetto’s delicate phrasing and engaged reading made this and the subsequent prayer made Desdemona’s final statement both enthralling and heartbreaking.
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An Otello with no tradeoffs is a very rare thing, and Russell Thomas’ assumption was no exception. While he has successfully brought together the pieces needed to pull this off, at least as of now, those pieces haven't cohered into a vocally unified whole. In his comfort zone, Thomas’ warm tenor was a joy to listen to, finding the legato sweetness in this part that can easily be lost with heavier voices. But he seemed to be reaching for low notes, while some of the quick turn mezza voce and high piano effects e.g. in the Act I duet were not well integrated and wavered around the pitch. As for those big punishing passages that find Verdi creeping into Wagner’s turf, Thomas carried these off with gutsy, exciting singing (except perhaps for that brutal opening bit which was still clearly in warm-up mode). Yet it was clear, for instance when matched with Gagnidze for the duet at the end of Act II, that his voice is still probably a size smaller than what the part really calls for.<br />
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Interpretation-wise this is a strong if not particularly distinctive portrayal. Thomas pulled off some good foreshadowing bits in the first Act that laid a bit more groundwork for Act II’s sudden paranoia, and the subsequent descent was fully realized. (Watching Otellos lose their shit at Iago’s slightest provocation sure makes one want to complain that a given actor’s turn isn’t believable, but rewatching this one is struck at how hard it is to make something gradual out of Otello’s Act II material.)
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Supporting cast was strong all around but special attention must be paid to former WNO young artist Deborah Nansteel, who threatened to steal the final moments of the show with an Emilia of particularly righteous fury.
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Italian maestro Daniele Callegari’s leadership in the pit was a special highlight of the evening. In Act I he refused to indulge anything less than the blistering tempi that make this music really exhilarating, while still managing to deliver the overall transparency and precision that allowed one to appreciate lots of details from this fascinating late Verdi score. The Act III chorus sequence was expertly built to an overwhelming climax. WNO Chorus and Orchestra both excelled here, gamely meeting Callegari’s demands. He also proved a sensitive accompanist for the singers, never allowing the balance to get out of line despite a wide range of voices to contend with.
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(Full disclosure: I once had the pleasure of being raked over the coals by Callegari as part of a very non professional opera chorus backing up a Wolf Trap Aida. If you ever want some real fast lessons on how Italian opera works just try to show up and sight read that impossibly delicate Act I men’s chorus at a casual mezzo piano for someone like Callegari. See how that works out for you.)
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-16737582498511160172019-02-15T09:47:00.001-05:002019-02-15T09:54:01.132-05:00Wagner in Abu DhabiSo, here’s a thing that happened the other weekend: the august Bayreuth festival followed other marquee western institutions like NYU, the Louvre, and Shake Shack to the United Arab Emirates, offering two concert presentations of Die Walkure in Abu Dhabi. Living in India at the moment I don’t get a lot of live opera opportunities, so a quick popover seemed justified, no?Abu Dhabi is Dubai’s sleepier sibling. The downtown looks sort of like 80s Phoenix punctuated by gigantic futuristic statement skyscrapers. Endless malls have every Western store one could dream but don’t seem nearly well-attended enough to break even. Most of the conversations I had in my 36 hrs on the ground were about where someone was from in India. It’s a funny place (and by funny I mean sometimes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/04/missing-emirati-princess-latifa-al-maktoum-had-planned-escape-for-seven-years">very disturbing</a>).
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The venue was the auditorium of the fancy Emirates Palace hotel, famous for its several billion dollar construction cost and general <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/emirates-palace-gold-abu-dhabi/index.html">gildedness</a>. Perhaps more of the local set went to the first show, because for this second installment the audience was perhaps 85 percent Europeans and Americans. Bonus points for the Bavaria-themed intermission refreshments including Weissbier on tap and pretzels.
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But anyhow, the show. In the absence of a staged production or specific cast presented in Bayreuth, I suppose a more accurate descriptor for this presentation might be “The Bayreuth Festival presents…” Given that the festival musicians are drawn from orchestras around Germany and are probably otherwise occupied in February, I suspect this may have been more of an extended pick up band than, like, the exact group in the pit last August? Also, the forces for this tour were somewhat truncated (only 2 harps!) for concert purposes. Leading the band was conductor Markus Poschner, who directs the Bruckner Orchestra in Linz, though not sure how he relates to the festival outside of this tour. That said the cast certainly included a number of bona fide Bayreuthers, with Catherine Foster and Stephen Gould headlining.
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Because concert presentations can’t just leave well enough alone, the show was accompanied by a full length film dramatization. This was ostensibly directed by Katharina Wagner herself, though this was less Katharina Wagner, radical provocateur, and more “Ach this middle east thing is coming up and they gave us all this cash...quick get a camera, take some actors into the woods this weekend, and get them to do meaningful looks in slo-mo.” Not poorly done as far as low-budget opera dramatizations go, I suppose--if this was backing up a Buffalo Symphony “Wagner in Concert” show you would probably be impressed that they really went all out this year. But kinda chintzy for the Bayreuth brand. More annoying is that, despite investing a bunch in this video, they couldn’t deign to offer supertitles, an especially egregious omission in a cross-cultural concert. On the other hand, the actor they had playing Brunnhilde was serving like a Carrie Mulligan/Brownstein forest pixie vibe that was really working for me and it’s possible I am now going to think of her face during all future Walkure sittings.
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I got to spend a while with Catherine Foster’s Brunnhilde during the Washington National Opera Ring a few years back, and was very pleased to hear it again. Now, sometimes when I try to think of what to say about Foster it sounds like a backhanded compliment, e.g. “Bayreuth sure is lucky to have her, when you think about the string of problematic Brunnhildes that came before!” Or: “Wow, she sounds just so accurate in this part. Really great stuff.” The thing is, I really do think she sounds lovely--it’s a warm, full sound that blazes into a clarion, unforced top (barring the occasionally muffed Hojotoho). Perhaps it’s because she clearly has the goods that I’m more aware of what’s missing, i.e. that last mile of dramatic engagement both in the vocal line and general stage presence. Which is certainly not to say she brings nothing to the role, the Act III monologue from “War es so schmahlich...” in Abu Dhabi was especially compelling and finely felt. Still, the odd square phrase or slack climax is enough to pull one out of the moment and reinforce that for all the considerable achievement of her Brunnhilde there is another layer missing. But I’m not complaining, I swear.
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Daniela Kohler, an upcoming Sieglinde at Bayreuth, proved a nice vocal complement for Stephen Gould’s seasoned Siegmund. Gould’s earthy tenor was in fine form, delivering an ur-example of the robust Siegmund type, capped with one of those never ending Waaaaaalse’s that is all the more exciting for being just a tad unwieldy. Kohler matched him with a womanly Sieglinde distinguished by an urgent attractive, middle--not an effortless sound but that is part of the appeal. That effort got the better of her at the top of her range however, where the voice tended to thin out rather than bloom.
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Egils Silins offered a solid if a bit of an anonymous Wotan, though I’ll admit I find it tough to assess the subtler virtues of a Wotan portrayal without being able to follow the text for the Act II material. The Fricka scene popped though, thanks to his chemistry with partner Christa Mayer’s gloriously haughty goddess. It looks like her Ring work has been mostly Erda focused but Fricka should clearly be on the agenda.
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Conductor Markus Poschner had perhaps a challenging assignment here. There was an uncanny alignment between the dramatization video and big entrances/motif statements in the score, which seemed to suggest there was some deliberate attempt to time the music to the video? That’s cool, I guess, though probably not a best practice for getting to good, organic sounding Wagner. Whether it was that or just playing it safe under tour conditions, pokey, aimless tempi were a problem in some of the longer scenes. Things perked up in the climaxes, which were genuinely thrilling and showcased gorgeous sound from the orchestra. The Act III finale foundered, however, as Poschner kept trying to do these huge ritards right before the big climaxes, a cheap substitute for building real tension over time.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-72084999960274515432017-07-25T15:47:00.002-04:002017-07-25T15:47:22.808-04:00Xerxes at GlimmerglassI wrote about the Glimmerglass production of Xerxes for Parterre.com:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The late-mid 1730s were transitional years for Handel, to put it nicely. At the dawn of his 50s, the composer was confronting financial troubles
and an English public whose tastes were rapidly forsaking Italian opera
in favor of English burlesque works on the model of <em>The Beggar’s Opera</em> (something called <em>The Dragon of Wantley</em>, in part a send-up of Handel’s <em>Giustino</em>,
was the toast of the 1737 season). Though still dabbling in the opera
game, Handel was already turning toward the oratorio form which would
dominate his creative output for the rest of his life.</blockquote>
<br />
Read the whole thing <a href="http://parterre.com/2017/07/24/tree-for-the-show/">here</a>...<br />
<br />Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-7292766477807533642017-06-21T23:24:00.005-04:002017-06-21T23:42:03.251-04:00Auguin out at WNOAs though we didn't have enough news to fret over, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/wno-will-not-renew-music-director-contract/2017/06/21/f54e7e96-569e-11e7-9e18-968f6ad1e1d3_story.html?utm_term=.6e313dcc0785">WNO announced today</a> that Phillipe Auguin would make the move to "emeritus" status after next season, concluding his eight year run with the company.<br />
<br />
Mind you, eight years is a respectable tenure, I don't know the details, and with only 5 shows a year one is bound to feel a bit shortchanged and disappointed when one likes the principal conductor in question. The more unsettling part of the article is how artistic director Francesca Zambello describes the break:<br />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
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This does not bode well. <a href="https://t.co/k7TJUjoBQv">pic.twitter.com/k7TJUjoBQv</a></div>
— Simon Chin (@chin_simon) <a href="https://twitter.com/chin_simon/status/877593028315172864">June 21, 2017</a></blockquote>
WNO has turned in solid work over the past 8 years (about the period I have been in DC), mostly commensurate with companies of similar import. There have been a lot of competent, well-cast, somewhat forgettable productions of the standard rep, some decided misfires, and some noble if usually unsuccessful delving into more adventurous work. But when one thinks of moments when this company punched above its weight and created work of a superior musical value, those moments, last year's Ring chief among them, are largely associated with Auguin's leadership. I have no idea how things have gone down behind the scenes, but for WNO's public and its critics, I think its safe to say Auguin has been synonymous with WNO at its best in recent years.<br />
<br />
So it is jarring to find Zambello taking a lukewarm stance toward Auguin in her quotes above, suggesting his superior handling of the most ambitious works WNO has tangled with lately is different than what WNO is looking for in a music director. And more jarring still is what she offers as where the company is headed instead: American works and mini-commissions. WNO's efforts on these fronts are laudable enough but the company has shown little talent in picking contemporary American works in recent years, while its new commission program is nice but decidedly a side show for the holiday months while big traveling musicals take over the opera house. I'm sure all those stuffy WNO subscribers from McLean are going to love this new plan.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, this does not feel like a serious comment, but rather a dodge papering over a less than amicable parting. What's worrying is what this unceremonious explanation says about the organization's investment in shoring up its musical future. Auguin's time with WNO has meant a lot to this organization and its audience and giving him the ol' "we've decided to go another direction" brush off betrays a worrying lack of appreciation for that fact. <br />
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-49036267354578302482017-06-08T17:50:00.002-04:002017-06-08T17:50:18.620-04:00Beczala at UDC<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>Belated review of Piotr Beczala's Vocal Arts DC from May... </i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
star tenor recital is perhaps a higher stakes affair than, say, the
comparable baritone event. A safe program rooted in your stage
repertoire is nearly guaranteed to score a success with your audience,
so branching out into less familiar terrain is an especially gutsy move
(while your low-voiced colleagues have carte blanche to program whatever
spinach they see fit.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
a recent recital presented by Vocal Arts DC, Piotr Beczala grasped the
opportunity to do something far afield from his stage roles in the first
half, presenting the entirety of Schumann’s “Dichterliebe.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Quickly
dispelling any concerns that the big sound he deploys in the opera
house would crush these delicate songs, Beczala assumed a surprisingly
gentle and scaled down vocalism here, while preserving an appealing core
of the warmth and ping. Indeed, Beczala only opened up into the more
full throated we are used to seven pieces in, for the “Ich grolle
nicht,” a thrilling touch for the restraint that came before. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
restraint came with something of a price in balance with Beczala’s
collaborator at the piano, Martin Katz. Now, I like a robust piano
contribution in a recital, especially in a work like this, where the
riches of the accompaniment often rival the vocal line. But I’ll admit
that preference was pushed to the limit here, with Katz boldly giving
full (and glorious) voice to the piano despite Beczala’s light touch. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ultimately,
Beczala’s “Dichterliebe” offered lots of thoughtful detail and earnest
feeling in the moment, but these pieces probably need an additional
layer of insight to stand apart, especially in moments like the dark
imagery of the final song. I wouldn’t mind hearing a tasteful if
predictable reading like Beczala’s again, but I’m not sure I would gain
any deeper insight from it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After
the half, Beczala quickly made the audience forget any lingering
equivocations about his Schumann, in songs by the late romantic Polish
composer Mieczylaw Karlowicz. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Clearly
relishing the chance to sing in his own tongue, serving the kind of
throwback handsomeness that you and your grandma could easily bond over,
Beczala inhabited the naked emotionalism of these songs with an
infectious joy. These melancholy pieces (sample lyric: “Your words
flowing toward me/Are like a prayer at the side of a coffin/They evoke
shivers of death”) encourage a certain amount of indulgence, and Beczala
complied, adding a hint of attractive sob in the voice or a shivery
falsetto where appropriate, like the climax of the tender, gorgeously
shaped final number, “I remember quiet, clear golden days.” </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Heading
south with a series of selections from Dvorak’s “Gypsy Melodies,”
Beczala abandoned the smooth seduction of the Karlowicz set for a more
rough-hewn sound in these character songs. Two of the lusty middle
selections, “The string is taut” and “Wide sleeves and wide trousers,”
were particularly extravagant, Beczala pushing a broad tone and
delightfully reckless volume levels, but never crossing the line into
ugly. The penultimate, unabashed tear-jerker “Songs my mother taught me”
was a highlight as well.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Beczala
returned to polished form for the final set, four surprisingly touching
songs by Rachmaninoff. Like the Karlowicz selections these emotionally
generous works seemed especially well-suited to his sensibilities,
including a hushed, intimate reading of “Lilacs” and a thrillingly
dramatic rendition of “Sing not to me, fair maiden.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
his two encores (a treat for D.C., which seems hard pressed to muster
more than a single courtesy bonus selection these days) Beczala indulged
the audience with some Italian, starting with Leoncavallo’s
“Mattinata.” While I certainly enjoy Beczala in his bread and butter
rep, it was also a reminder that I sometimes find the sound of his
Italian a little too broad and unidiomatic, a curious sensation after 40
minutes of his gloriously confident Polish, Czech, and Russian. By the
irresistible second encore, Caruso barnburner “Core ‘ngrato (Catarì,
Catarì),” this minor quibble had been thoroughly forgotten. </span></div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-80148158473068012092017-05-08T22:00:00.000-04:002017-05-26T14:21:17.965-04:00Butterfly at WNOI wrote about WNO's Madame Butterfly for Parterre.com:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Opera warhorse overload can happen to the best of us, and going into
Washington National Opera’s final presentation of the season, <em>Madama Butterfly</em>, I feared that I might be geisha’d out. My most recent encounter just six months ago (a Vienna State Opera production with <strong>Kristine Opolais</strong>) was well done but left me thoroughly cold, a sign that a personal moratorium on this particular chestnut might be in order. </blockquote>
<br />
Read the whole thing <a href="http://parterre.com/2017/05/08/keeping-the-faith/">here</a>...<br />
<br />Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-88172987922923981242017-03-15T15:32:00.000-04:002017-03-15T15:32:08.576-04:00Fidelio at Washington Concert OperaI wrote about WCO's Fidelio for Parterre:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
While even committed opera enthusiasts can find Beethoven’s <em>Fidelio</em> a chore, a hardy few wonder why we can’t have more <em>Fidelio</em>.
Washington Concert Opera maestro had these completists in mind last
weekend with a presentation of the original 1805 version of <em>Fidelio</em>, aka <em>Leonore, oder Der Triumph der ehelichen Liebe</em>.</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://parterre.com/2017/03/13/you-must-meet-my-wife/#more-49319">Read the whole thing here...</a> Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-32747619577221602622017-03-12T23:53:00.003-04:002017-03-12T23:53:58.672-04:00Champion at WNOI wrote about the premiere of Champion at WNO for Parterre:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Washington National Opera continued a focus on recent works this season with <b>Terence Blanchard</b> and <b>Michael Cristofer</b>’s 2013 opera <i>Champion</i> on the life of boxer <b>Emile Griffith</b>.
Though many of the stumbling blocks one might expect are no doubt
present in this first attempt at an opera from Blanchard, there is also
much to appreciate in this ambitious work.</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://parterre.com/2017/03/08/ring-cycle-2/">Read the whole thing here...</a> Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-5628727594532648512017-02-28T10:38:00.000-05:002017-02-28T10:38:04.741-05:00Dead Man Walking at WNOThoughts on WNO's new production of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking at Parterre...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the program notes to Washington National Opera’s new production of <em>Dead Man Walking</em>, composer<strong> Jake Heggie </strong>notes
that the premiere of a new opera was a “rare occasion” in 2000, when
this piece first appeared in San Francisco. Since then, it has
flourished in a way few contemporary operas have, garnering nearly 300
performances across the globe. But having finally seen it this past
Saturday in DC, I’m afraid this work’s popularity may be a result of
first-mover advantage more than anything else. </blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://parterre.com/2017/02/28/dead-man-stumbling/#more-49145">Read the whole thing here...</a> Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-54667586050199241852017-02-08T01:13:00.003-05:002017-02-13T17:00:06.966-05:00Götterdämmerung in Toronto<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyGszSmcxWpaM6EnzbhAr5XhnXkmlN7jkDKYwvJZKSaElTpDFFJsMBOjm-Yq6jj3CMOxYHUL7bdpEgqtdJJBMruPIFwPl2RgC94SDEH72Dl2V2WmW3aihjLyBoAGsH6SdzS6vfKA/s1600/DC_Jan_17023_440px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyGszSmcxWpaM6EnzbhAr5XhnXkmlN7jkDKYwvJZKSaElTpDFFJsMBOjm-Yq6jj3CMOxYHUL7bdpEgqtdJJBMruPIFwPl2RgC94SDEH72Dl2V2WmW3aihjLyBoAGsH6SdzS6vfKA/s1600/DC_Jan_17023_440px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Shiloh Battlefield, Tennessee. <i>Camera: Minolta Hi-matic. Film: Ilford HP5+.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Last Thursday we found ourselves in Toronto for the premiere of the final installment in Canadian Opera Company's Ring Cycle (aka, the COC Ring), featuring no less a momentous event than Christine Goerke's first outing as the Götterdämmerung Brunnhilde.<br />
<br />
This long anticipated assumption is the culmination of perhaps THE major Brunnhilde assumption of the decade, and certainly the most consequential assumption by an American in some time. Goerke continues to offer an uncommonly beautiful take on this music, fully realizing the score at a level only available to a few singers today. Big climaxes were thrilling, especially a stunning Dawn Duet that elicited the rare intra-act Wagner applause, while Goerke's luscious, expressive middle register shone in stretches like the Waltraute scene and Immolation lead-up.<br />
<br />
Beyond sheer vocal beauty, Goerke makes a strong dramatic impression too, introducing some compelling ideas about the character that are sure to mature over time. This is not the blazing Brunnhilde of a Nina Stemme, who plays the warrior princess (marvelously) as a furious powder keg, touched off by the sight of Siegfried and Gutrune. Goerke seems to be after a more vulnerable, wounded Brunnhilde, who comes to her anger at Siegfried reluctantly, from a place of emotional pain.<br />
<br />
The first night performance seemed perhaps a bit cautious, as might be expected of a maiden Götterdämmerung, with careful navigation of the some of the trickier passages sometimes slowing down the overall momentum. Also, around the top of the middle register she sometimes goes into an unpleasant swallowed sound to get a note across, a tic we've heard before but seemed especially evident here. Quibbles aside though, y'all need to book your Chicago and Met Ring tickets ASAP. In 30 years North American Ring fans are going to fall into two buckets: the lucky ones who saw Goerke in her prime and the pitiable ones that missed out.<br />
<br />
Andreas Schager's Siegfried was a welcome surprise and yet another
reason to think that we are living in at the start of a mini-Siegfried
renaissance. Schager has a huge, very attractive voice, indeed almost
gratuitously loud at times, despite generally unsympathetic dynamics
from the pit, and showed almost no wear by the climactic death scene,
which was eminently secure and affecting. His
characterization leans towards heroic doofus in a
Siegfried Jerusalem vein, though again, that death scene brought out some
unexpected layers.<br />
<br />
Other cast highlights included mezzo Karen Cargill, turning in a ravishing, high drama Waltraute to balance Goerke's Brunnhild and making this scene one of the highlights of the evening. Estonian bass Ain Anger offered up a unexpectedly hot Hagen, backed by a vast, rangy instrument that conveyed the unhinged menace of the role, for instance in a reckless and terrifying call to the vassals. Norns n' Maidens were all very strong, with special recognition going to the wonderful contralto Lindsay Amman, reprising her role from the DC Ring.<br />
<br />
COC maestro Johannes Debus offered a strong hand and some persuasive ideas about the score, including as a brutal, ecstatic Siegfried Funeral March, though speedy tempi could cross the line from energetic to glib at times. At least on opening night, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra wasn't always prepared to execute on Debus' ideas cleanly. Strings generally shone but even with the requisite Ring cycle handicap, the brass committed too many pitchiness and entry flub sins for comfort. Hopefully as the run goes on the polish level will improve and do justice to Debus' dynamic approach.<br />
<br />
As for the production, the COC Ring shares a common designer but each installment has been given a different director, here Tim Albery. The modern dress, minimalist design can deliver some arresting images, such as the dreamlike setting for Brunnhilde's mountaintop, set on the dark, largely bare stage, punctuated by the odd light and prop that seems to float in the ether. But the production isn't really inventive or strict enough to keep this aesthetic interesting. For instance, the following Gibichung palace just looks like a basic sparsely furnished living room that might be found in any production. While strong direction might have made up for this, Albery serves up an exceedingly conventional, undistinguished Gibichung scene. Say what you will about Zambello, modern dress isn't just a neutral aesthetic in her Ring, but a component of a richly layered (if not always advisable) interpretation.<br />
<br />
More successful moments included the Siegfried death scene mentioned above, as well as Gunther/Siegfried's taking of Brunnhilde. Gunther, in suit and trenchcoat, paces deliberately around Brunnhilde and her modest dining table throughout most of the scene before suddenly exploding in violence. Tapping contemporary images of home invasion and domestic violence, Albery powerfully illustrates the terror and violation inherent in this scene. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately the finale, in which the residents of Gibichungville place the shattered pieces of a model Vahalla around the stage, slowly walk to the front of the stage, then slowly walk to the back of the stage, is just terribly boring. You don't have to have spectacle for the end of the Ring but if you're not ready to accompany the end of the Gods with some minimally credible stage spectacle, then you better have a good reason why not.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.com3