Don 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
Which brings us to a final rant.

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.

Hamlet at WCO

I wrote about Washington Concert Opera's Hamlet for Parterre:

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 Sam Ramey (!) as Claudius. (I’ve been thinking this decade went by quickly but maybe not?) Read the whole thing here...

NSO plays Puts and Strauss

My take on the NSO's premiere of Kevin Puts' "The Brightness of Light" with Renee Fleming and Rod Gilfry on Washington Classical Review:

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. Read the rest...

Wagner (highlights) with the NSO

Some quick reactions on Tristan Act II last night at the Kennedy Center…

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.

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.

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!)

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 hot Marke next to a more, er, standard Tristan, like damn girl I guess that potion really worked), and Ekaterina Gubanova’s clarion Brangaene.

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.

Akhnaten at the Met

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Christian Gerhaher at the Kennedy Center

I reviewed Christian Gerhaher's all-Mahler recital for Washington Classical Review:

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. Read more...

Otello 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).

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 this vid 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.

(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.)

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

(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.)

Wagner in Abu Dhabi

So, 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 very disturbing).

The venue was the auditorium of the fancy Emirates Palace hotel, famous for its several billion dollar construction cost and general gildedness. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Xerxes at Glimmerglass

I wrote about the Glimmerglass production of Xerxes for Parterre.com:

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 The Beggar’s Opera (something called The Dragon of Wantley, in part a send-up of Handel’s Giustino, 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.

Read the whole thing here...

Auguin out at WNO

As though we didn't have enough news to fret over, WNO announced today that Phillipe Auguin would make the move to "emeritus" status after next season, concluding his eight year run with the company.

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:

This does not bode well. pic.twitter.com/k7TJUjoBQv

— Simon Chin (@chin_simon) June 21, 2017

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.

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.

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.

Beczala at UDC

Belated review of Piotr Beczala's Vocal Arts DC from May...

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.)

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.”

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

Butterfly at WNO

I wrote about WNO's Madame Butterfly for Parterre.com:

Opera warhorse overload can happen to the best of us, and going into Washington National Opera’s final presentation of the season, Madama Butterfly, I feared that I might be geisha’d out. My most recent encounter just six months ago (a Vienna State Opera production with Kristine Opolais) was well done but left me thoroughly cold, a sign that a personal moratorium on this particular chestnut might be in order. 

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Fidelio at Washington Concert Opera

I wrote about WCO's Fidelio for Parterre:

While even committed opera enthusiasts can find Beethoven’s Fidelio a chore, a hardy few wonder why we can’t have more Fidelio. Washington Concert Opera maestro  had these completists in mind last weekend with a presentation of the original 1805 version of Fidelio, aka Leonore, oder Der Triumph der ehelichen Liebe.

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Champion at WNO

I wrote about the premiere of Champion at WNO for Parterre:

Washington National Opera continued a focus on recent works this season with Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer’s 2013 opera Champion on the life of boxer Emile Griffith. 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.

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Dead Man Walking at WNO

Thoughts on WNO's new production of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking at Parterre...

In the program notes to Washington National Opera’s new production of Dead Man Walking, composer Jake Heggie 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.  

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Götterdämmerung in Toronto

Shiloh Battlefield, Tennessee. Camera: Minolta Hi-matic. Film: Ilford HP5+.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

American Opera Initiative at WNO

I reviewed WNO's American Opera Initiative for Parterre:

Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative, now in its 5th year, keeps the opera flame alight at the Kennedy Center during the long winter stretch between mainstage WNO productions. With four short works on offer over the course of two nights, it is also a welcome chance to peruse how a variety of young composers are addressing the challenges of contemporary opera.

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WNO Announces

Mt. Pleasant. Camera: Pentax Spotmatic. Film: Portra400.

After something of a post-Ring cigarette break of a season this year, WNO teased a more ambitious 17-18 lineup this past Monday in a presentation at the Kennedy Center. Playing percentages is sort of silly with only 5 shows, but the trend is generally more Italian red meat after this year's heavy investment (2 out of 5 shows) in contemporary works. Strong casting throughout the year keeps the overall interest level high.

The opener is Francesca Zambello's "graffiti Aida" production that premiered in San Francisco this year. I'll have to go back and read the reactions to the production, but the takeaway here is some especially deep personnel across both A and B casts. Aida is shared by Tamara Wilson and Amber Wagner, Amneris is shared by Ekaterina Semenchuk and Marina Prudenskaya (these are new to me), and Radames is shared between Yonghoon Lee and Carl Tanner. Gordon Hawkins shows up as Amonsaro.

Next up is Handel's Alcina, a rare baroque foray for WNO. Casting is intriguing again, with Angela Meade returning after her celebrated turn in Norma a few years back, plus Ying Fang, Elizabeth DeShong, and Daniela Mack. The location will be the more intimate confines of the Eisenhower theater, a wise choice for Handel. This is a new production by theater director Anne Bogart, who also did that Norma for WNO, which was nondescript but pleasant enough.

The big project for the year is a new production of Don Carlo (with Philadelphia and Minnesota) conducted by Phillipe Auguin and featuring a very badass cast of mostly young singers including Leah Crocetto, Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas, and Eric Owens. The one-off cover (?) performance is no slouch either with Latonia Moore, Domingo Cafritz young artist MVP Daryl Freedman, and Rafael Davila for one night only. Sorry Carloheads, no word on cuts/language in the press release...

And then, to fill whatever budget hole that new Don Carlo dug, we get a Barber of Seville production. So, I don't like Barber that much. If I had the power to take one uber-chestnut that is produced constantly and bump it down to, say, Idomeneo frequency, I'm definitely going to say Barber. Directors aren't very good at making 19th century farce actually funny not just "fake laughing at opera" funny. Audiences enjoy the music in a Tom Petty's greatest hits way, not a meaningful way.

But that's just me. There are some bright spots in the staffing: sounds like there might be an interesting American debut (Andrey Zhilkovsky), Isabel Leonard sings Rosina, bass Wei Wu (who has made a strong impression in the young artist program) sings Dr. Bartolo, and we get Maestro Maurizio Benini making his WNO debut.

The season closing musical is back again, this time Candide, a tie-in with the KC-wide Bernstein centenary jamboree. Yes, it hurts a bit to give up one of only 5 slots to a musical production which is always a bit of a dicey artistic proposition. I'm also always skeptical at whether these musicals really pack the house more than a regular offering would. But of anything in the musical realm Candide of course feels most at home in the opera house, and I actually have never seen the whole thing, so I guess that's okay.

Season extras are a family holiday-time production of The Little Prince, revived from a few years back, and the annual American Opera Initiative festival, notably headlined by "Breaking the Waves" team Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek.

Les Troyens at Lyric Opera

DC Metro. Camera: Canonet QL-17. Film: Trix400.

Got to experience my first live Troyens over Thanksgiving weekend, thanks to Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production...

The headline casting coup here was the one-two punch of Christine Goerke and Susan Graham as Cassandre and Didon. Goerke's vocalism towered over the Troy acts, the part a great fit for her voice and a showcase for how she can convey urgent drama while maintaining that beautiful rounded tone throughout. Companies thinking about dipping their toe into Troyens need to get on it stat to give her more opportunities to sing this role, which could very well be a signature part for her.

Graham, a late replacement for the originally scheduled Sophie Koch, has has of course owned Didon for a decade now, and her portrayal remains an essential assumption, especially in Didon's harrowing breakdown over the course of Act 5. Her middle voice is perhaps a bit less plush than I remember from the HD broadcasts in 2012, but the her soaring, powerful top remains an incredible vehicle for Didon's passion and rage.

The third punch (?) was supposed to be Brandon Jovanovich's Aeneas, but he cancelled shortly before curtain time due to illness, and the production's Helenus, Corey Bix, went on in his place. Now before making any critiques, I want to make clear that people who cover Aeneas deserve our gratitude, are assured a place in heaven, etc. And moreover, people that can create a full-fledged, musically satisfying performance and essentially save huge stretches of the show like Bix did Saturday night are to be especially praised.

That said, Bix didn't get too far beyond checking the (admittedly pretty extraordinary) boxes for this part. The voice is loud, but somewhat colorless and lacks the heroic styling and timbre that would take the vocal portrayal to a more rarefied level. In softer music (like the love duet), the essential attractiveness of the voice is clear, but once the demands get more intense a sort of curdled sound takes over and the focus turns to getting through the music (again, no small task) rather than making something more with it. Bix has now replaced Issachah Savage in Virginia Opera's "Der Freischutz" in February, and while I am very bummed about missing another chance to hear Savage, will look forward to hearing Bix under friendlier conditions than the most intimidating cover situation possible (though I hear he also filled in for a number of Hymel dates in SFO--apparently he makes a habit of this grueling task).

Breaking down the rest of the endless cast in detail would get pretty tiring but here's a quick shout out list: as Iopas, tenor Mingjie Lei turned in a very beautiful Ceres song; Okka von der Damerau made a lot of out her turn as Dido's sister using her very dark, interesting mezzo voice; young artist Jonathan Johnson made a good impression in Hylas' Act 5 opening ballade; and Bradley Smoak brought a fine rich bass to Hector's ghost.

The production design is hit or miss. A large curved wall revolves to create different spaces in the cities of Troy and Carthage. Filled with rubble that provided a variety of playing spaces during the two Troy Acts the set looked great and served as a vehicle for some effective design moments like the huge projection of the Trojan horse drifting across the front of the ramparts while Cassandre sings her heart out from the top of the ramparts.

Unfortunately, after cleaning up the rubble for the Carthage part, things got considerably less visually interesting. The production tried to solve this with projections onto the huge expanse of the back wall of the set, but these often fell prey to the old crappy projection syndrome (CPS). A bit with stars and bad looking planets moving across the wall during the love duet was especially risible. In Act V they just stopped trying and most of the action was played out against a generically lit whitewashed wall.

Direction of the principal's scenes and crowd management during the big ensembles was fine I guess, but c'mon--with all the great inventive productions of greek and greek-adjacent theatre over recent decades this is the best we can do? I don't know if the goal was something understated, if they ran out of money, or if they just ran out of ideas, but this felt like a poorly conceived production and something of a missed opportunity given the tremendous canvas Troyens provides.

Costumes were nondescript modern dress, but sometimes confusing, as with an extremely unflattering schoolmarm skirt suit for Graham in Act III which was tried and failed to indicate "head of state." Graham's elegant "nondescript classical period" blue robe for the final Act was much more in line with what you'd expect for Troyens but it's hard to explain how it existed in the same universe with the earlier getup.

The orchestra and chorus, led by Andrew Davis, set a very high musical bar for the evening. I'll admit I had lost track of my opinion of the Lyric band and assumed it would be solid but nothing special, but was promptly put in my place by the big, exciting sound that poured from the pit. Davis served up some truly thrilling climaxes, for instance, Act 2's suicide chorus, one of those special moments where the drawbacks of the theater fall away and you are only aware of what a spectacular melding of chorus, soloists and monster orchestra you are witnessing.

Herodiade at WCO

I wrote about Washington Concert Opera's presentation of Herodiade for Parterre:

Operatic history can be cruel where multiple works with the same subject are concerned, generally consigning all but one example to obscurity, or at best the fringes of the regular repertory. In the case of Massenet’s 1881 Hérodiade, it isn’t hard to see how the work’s gentle melodies and crowd-pleasing Orientalism became hopelessly uncool in the wake of Richard Strauss’ blockbuster treatment of the Salome story a quarter century later. Yet, as demonstrated by a committed, strongly cast performance by Washington Concert Opera this past Sunday, these judgments can be unfair.

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