Critic’s Notebook: Kill Tosca! (Or Don’t)

Also reviewed for Die Presse: „Tosca“ in der Staatsoper: Scarpia als stiller Sieger

The production of Vienna's Tosca is so old, Joe Biden considered it for his running mate. Should the Staatsoper elect to keep it?

Tosca, oh Tosca. Very possibly the most singularly annoying character in opera, to the point where one wonders, if Puccini had meant to create the caricature of a soprano after an unpleasant experience or 99. In Vienna, on February 2nd, Tosca was allowed to roam free on the set of Margarethe Wallmann’s production again, for the 647th (!) time. The production must be one of the longest running at any major opera house, beating even the (long-retired) classic Franco Zeffirelli “Callas” Tosca at Covent Garden, six years younger, by 20 years… and it is still going strong. If you have been to Vienna’s Staatsoper for the first time at the age of 14, you’d have to be at least 80 years old to have seen Tosca in a different direction.

G.Puccini Tosca (1953) Callas, Di Stefano, Gobbi, De Sabata L'Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala EMI/Warner

G.Puccini Tosca (1953) Price, Di Stefano, Taddei, Karajan Vienna Phil Decca

And yes, the sets look musty, in olive-greens and brown grays. The costumes look like they smell of naphthalene, all liveries and powdered Mozart-wigs. And yet, if the Staatsoper were to replace it with a newfangled work that detractors derisively (usually ignorantly) call “Regietheater”, you’d probably have a minor revolt on your hands on the Ring Road. It’s a museum piece, a production as much about the work as it is about how productions used to look, historical more than historic. Not my cup of tea, granted, but popular and very, very rarely not sold out. After I had, in more tempered form, suggested as much in my most recent review (for Die Presse), I got a letter to the editor, a fairly courteous one, actually, begging to differ and pointing out much of the above-cited success of the Wallmann-Tosca and that it served perfectly well to let the work be presented “as intended by its creators”. The letter served as a fine reminder that for all my moaning of old-fashioned productions being inherently incapable of conveying any original intentions from a 100+ years ago, and that only ‘translations’ into a modern visual, dramatic language stand a chance at truly getting to the core of any message a given opera might contain, these productions have a place. They are safe, they ‘work’. They are what opera means to many opera-goers.

Value in Safety

Yes, a modern-yet-conservative production – which is to say one that stays true to the message (that being the conservative part) but relates that message intuitively to a contemporary audience’s reality – can do so much more. If well done, an old Chrysler Saratoga in, say, Don Giovanni or the German Parliament in Parsifal or neon signs and a leotard in La Calisto not only do not detract, they can be essential elements of revelatory nights out at the opera. But while it’s easy for critics and those, like me, who have been pretending to be one for over 20 years, to proclaim our willingness to take the risk of 10 middling, awful, forgettable modern productions only to see one truly glorious one, that’s not as attractive a proposition for those who actually pay for their tickets, especially if they’ve just forked over €264 for two seats. There’s value in safety. Especially if your primary concern is to enjoy the music – and, on this occasion, hear Elena Stikhina, Piotr Beczała (Mario), and Erwin Schrott (Scarpia). Well, mostly Beczała, probably, because he’s a glorious singer, sonorous, comfortable, with a nice dynamic bandwidth, and very decent, if not brilliant acting. In that case, the setting, without offering any distractions, is (and was) perfect to sing your “E lucevan le stelle” to the crowd and repeat it, after the minute-long applause forces you to. Mme. Stikhina was a fine vocal, sumptuous, velvety Tosca, unwittingly betraying and backstabbing Mario all the way (and, of course, front-stabbing Scarpia) until her final date with gravity.

A Quiet Scarpia for the win

Ah, Scarpia! Erwin Schrott used to be the hot ticket as Don Giovanni et al. Mister Netrebko, but actually good. A voice of manly seduction in a broad-shouldered, irrepressibly sexy package who elevated his characters to new heights of appeal; an outlet for projected desires in a time where Dorian Gray hadn’t arrived yet. (Also an irresistibly vivid Leporello in the above-linked Salzburg Don Giovanni.) And then he seemingly disappeared. At least he sang less prominent parts in less prominent houses, which meant that I had heard him for the first time since that 2010 experience of perfection. Yes, the voice is, while not gone, two sizes smaller. It does not, however, sound frail or painfully pushed (à la post-vocal-problems Villazon). It’s just not as loud. While that meant that he couldn’t get above the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, in one of their climactic outbursts, it also meant an unexpected dramatic boon. For starters, he is still the broad-shouldered, in-shape hunk, the kind that Anthony Tommasini would have invariably called “strapping” and who actually made his silly costume and wig look good. That’s a dramatic must, if Scarpia is to be the serious, sexually threatening force he is meant to be, and not just a meanie Falstaff. In that sense, mere physique does wonders to the character in the way that a Günter Groissböck has transformed Ochs, or Georg Zeppenfeld King Marke. But singing quietly, involuntary or not, had the added benefit of making Scarpia truly threatening. A quiet villain is ever so effective. A brutish loud one merely banal. Being able to act helped, too. And in that sense, he might just have been the quiet highlight of the evening – for me, anyway.

Not quiet but in good shape was the orchestra under Bertrand de Billy, who conducted this Tosca for a second run and knows the orchestra well. The band was reasonably explosive, above-average sensitive, surprisingly on point, and downright sensitive, especially the cellos. And the nifty forward thrust Billy created, meant that the whole thing moved more fleetly towards its inevitable end and subsequent elations. If I don’t witness a different Viennese Tosca in my lifetime… who knows: Maybe it’s not such a terrible thing.

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Photo © Staatsoper / Michael Pöhn. Erwin Schrott (Scarpia), Elena Stikhina (Tosca)

"Tosca" an der Staatsoper: Staub und Stimme: Latest @ Wiener Zeitung

"Tosca" an der Staatsoper: Staub und Stimme

Die Wallmann-"Tosca" zum 616. Mal an der Staatsoper.

Nach einer von Dominique Meyer angeführten Schweigeminute für die jüngst verstorbene Sopranistin Mirella Freni ging es unter dem Dirigat von Marco Armiliato schwungvoll in die 616. (!) Aufführung von Margarethe Wallmanns Einrichtung der "Tosca" aus dem Jahr 1958. Die Kulissen wackeln und die Kostüme stauben in der liebgewonnenen Inszenierung, die schon lange nur noch den harmlos-konventionellen Bilderrahmen zum Gesang bietet. Das "Tosca"-Publikum will weiße Perücken, hübsche Kostüme, Sant’Andrea della Valle Interieurs, und Kerzen um den Leichnam Scarpias. Und sie bekommen es. Absetzen und etwas Neues machen wäre teuer und würde nur Ärger bringen.... [weiterlesen]

Why Do We Love 'La Bohème' So Much?

D'Ana Lombard (Mimi) and Yongzhao Yu (Rodolfo) in La Bohème, Act I, Wolf Trap Opera, August 2016
(photo by Scott Suchman for Wolf Trap Opera)
Henry Mürger was a working-class writer born in Paris, the son of a tailor and a shop-worker. In his youth Mürger was so poor that his group of friends, who included the photographer Nadar, called themselves the Buveurs d'Eau (Water Drinkers) because they could not afford to buy a drink when they went out. Most of us have been there.

Mürger wrote about the desperate poverty he and his friends endured while trying to pursue their artistic interests in a book called Scènes de la vie de bohème. It was first read as a self-published serial, a feuilleton included as a literary supplement in another publication. Mürger eventually gathered the stories into a book published in 1851, when he was not yet 30 years old. For Mürger it was the combination of poverty and artistic drive that made the life of a bohemian, as he defined it, "any man who enters into the arts without any other means of existence except the art itself." The book made Mürger's name, and he went on to have some success as a poet and playwright.

In the 1890s, Giacomo Puccini and his librettists, Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, adapted the story into an opera, La Bohème. It premiered in 1896 in Turin, followed just one year later by an alternate version composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. This opera has become intensely popular with audiences. As proof, we have reviewed a never-ending stream of productions over the years, including from Washington National Opera (in 2007 and 2014), the Castleton Festival in 2011, and Santa Fe Opera (2011 and 2007). Wolf Trap Opera turned to it again this summer, having taken this long to recuperate after Jens vivisected both the work and a performance there in 2004. It returned to the stage of the Filene Center on Friday night in a staging that was not so successful.

La Bohème may not be for everyone, but it was one of the first operas that made a major impression on me as a teenager, so I have a weak spot for it to this day. The opera keeps to a few scenes from the book, focusing on the characters of Rodolfo (who represents Mürger himself, the struggling poet), Schaunard (the musician Alexandre Schanne), Marcello (the painter François Tabar), and Colline (the philosopher Jean Wallon), whose coat of many pockets is always heavy with books. The Café Momus, where the second act is set, was a favorite haunt for writers on the Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, near the Louvre. Rodolfo's garret is on the Rue de la Tour-d'Auvergne, near Montmartre, the same street where Mürger lived. It is an intensely nostalgic work, and it makes just about everyone who hears it think fondly of their student days when they did not have two dimes to rub together after the rent was paid.

Other Reviews: Grace Jean, Strong ‘La Bohème’ at Wolf Trap makes a good case for more opera there (Washington Post, August 8)

The awkward body-mike amplification at the outdoor Filene Center made it difficult to judge the quality of the voices in this production. Soprano D’Ana Lombard, who was Rosina in Ghosts of Versailles last summer, had the range for Mimi, if not the floating vocal quality that makes her seem most innocent. Reginald Smith, Jr., who was an exceptionally strong Count in last summer's Le Nozze di Figaro, was equally powerful here as Marcello, with the same kinds of comic gifts that lightened his presence on stage. The Rodolfo of tenor Yongzhao Yu, new to my ears, seemed strong, but it is impossible to know how the voice would fill a hall when not amplified. Summer Hassan had the sass for Musetta, if not necessarily the laser-focused vocal goods. Shea Owens, who stepped into the role of Junius in The Rape of Lucretia in June at only a week's notice, and Timothy Bruno had capable turns as Schaunard and Colline, respectively.

Paul Curran updated the setting to the end of World War I. This made one question why Mimi was bothering with lighting her candle in the hallway, as well as why young men were still in Paris writing plays and painting canvases. (Even worse, it's been done before.) Erhard Rom designed one large set piece, Rodolfo's garret, that was somewhat cumbersome to roll on and off. A few small backdrop objects suggested the other scenes, as well as several large video screens (designed by S. Katy Tucker) that set the tone of Paris in the winter. The National Symphony Orchestra was again placed at the rear of the stage, with the same problems in amplification noticed last month. In particular, Grant Gershon had almost no way to control the rushing of the singers from behind the set, judging by the number of bad misalignments between the cast and the orchestra, not to mention the balance problems. A truly great production of this opera has eluded Ionarts up to this point, but the best one so far indicates that you need a straightforward production, not too heavy on the sentimentality, and a first-rate conductor who can actually conduct the singers.

Ionarts in Santa Fe: Further Thoughts on 'La Fanciulla del West'

Ensemble in The Girl of the Golden West (Photo © Ken Howard for Santa Fe Opera, 2016)
Charles T. Downey, Santa Fe Opera, part 2: the 60th anniversary’s big-ticket items
Washington Post, August 4

Puccini, La Fanciulla del West, R. Tebaldi, M. del Monaco, C. MacNeil, Orchestra of Accademia di Santa Cecilia, F. Capuana (Decca)

FURTHER THOUGHTS:
Puccini's La Fanciulla del West may not be a rarity in some parts of the world, but Santa Fe Opera had not produced this work since 1995 when it revived it for this year's 60th anniversary season. The company bet on the draw of Puccini's name, even though this opera is perhaps the composer's most unwieldy, and its regular Mozart to fill the house for ten performances each. By comparison Roméo et Juliette was given seven performances, and Capriccio and Vanessa, the latter arguably the best production of the season, just five each.

Other Reviews: John Stege, Pistol-Packin’ Minnie (Santa Fe Reporter, July 6) Scott Cantrell, Santa Fe scene: A British stage director and a French conductor take on Puccini's Western opera (Dallas Morning News, August 3) Heidi Waleson, The 2016 Festival Season at the Santa Fe Opera (Wall Street Journal, August 9)

Emmanuel Villaume and the Santa Fe Opera orchestra turned in a compelling reading of this most accomplished score. It was not in the same class as Lorin Maazel's poised conducting of the work, the only other time it has come under review on this side of the Atlantic, at the Castleton Festival in 2013. Still, Villaume and especially the male chorus gave the work the nostalgic warmth needed to soften some of the less believable twists of the story.

If we do not find credible the homesickness of the miners in the first act, in their need to believe, as in the psalm taught to them by Minnie, in the possibility that every one of them can be saved by God, then their decision not to hang Dick Johnson at the end of the third act will seem doubly ridiculous. Probably, the opera likely would work better, would seem less silly, if it ended tragically. If Johnson got hanged and the boys shot their beloved Minnie as she tried to save him, the dying heroine would have found, as suffering women always do, her perfect complement in the music of Puccini.

Ionarts in Santa Fe: 60th Anniversary Season (Part 2 of 2)

Puccini, La Fanciulla del West, N. Stemme, J. Kaufmann, Wiener Staatsoper, F. Welser-Möst (Sony, 2016)

Charles T. Downey, Santa Fe Opera, part 2: the 60th anniversary’s big-ticket items (Washington Post, August 4)

The big-ticket items on the 60th anniversary season at Santa Fe Opera are Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” and Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” which got ten performances each. And Richard Jones’s new production of “Fanciulla” (heard on August 2) could make viewers agree with Puccini, who called this unwieldy work his favorite.

Periodic titters in the Crosby Theater confirmed that the absurdities of the libretto — like “Madame Butterfly,” based on a work by David Belasco — remain problematic. The title figure, Minnie, runs a saloon in a California Gold Rush town; rebuffs the attentions of the local sheriff, Jack Rance; and falls for a stranger calling himself Dick Johnson, who turns out to be the highway bandit everyone in town is hunting. Somehow the town’s residents decide not to hang Johnson, and Minnie runs off with him. Characters include “Red Indians” named Billy Jackrabbit and Wowkle, described as “his squaw.”

Patricia Racette had the vocal power and the dramatic presence to make Minnie almost believable...

[Continue reading]

[Read Part 1]

Saturday Opera: 'La Bohème' from Liège

Puccini, La Bohème
Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège (Paolo Arrivabeni, conductor)
Production directed by Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera

Patrizia Ciofi (Mimi)
Gianluca Terranova (Rodolfo)
Ionut Pascu (Marcello)
Alessandro Spina (Colline)
Laurent Kubla (Schaunard)
Patrick Delcour (Benoît)

Production Photos from the Bregenz Festival's Turandot

It might merit confessing that I’m not all that hot about Puccini and that I suffer from a general deficiency in appreciating Italian opera. That said, I consider Turandot the best compromise as far as quality and popularity is concerned. Granted, I think that if it weren’t for Nessun dorma and one or two other greatest-hits moments and the ensuing grand popularity, nothing near the throngs of people would go sit through Turandot, as they might realize it’s actually a fairly modern opera, worthy of its 1925 composition date, and audibly aware of, say Alban Berg’s work.

But there it is, Turandot, associated more with Paul Potts than Alban Berg, and drawing millions. Even in the rain… for rain it did that night...

Full review on Forbes.com. Click on excerpted images below to find a higher resolution version of the full picture.

All images courtesy Bregenzer Festspiele, © Karl Forster

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One More 'La Bohème'

La Bohème, Washington National Opera (photo by Scott Suchman) (See more images here)
La Bohème is such an audience favorite that companies seem to be able to mount it in terrible productions, or with no-name singers, and the house will still fill itself. For its new production of the Puccini chestnut, heard on Saturday night, Washington National Opera passed the most important test, by not reviving the Mariusz Treliński dud it produced in 2007. The new production, updated to the post-World War I years, is in all other ways traditional and spectacular, but the cast list, including many company debuts, leaves some things to be desired.

At the top was the Mimi of soprano Corinne Winters, who hails from Frederick, Md., admired in recent years in training at Wolf Trap Opera, Virginia Opera, and Santa Fe Opera. She was a visually alluring Mimi, but with a few stutters vocally, a reminder that no Puccini opera should really be thought of, as is often the case, as a starter piece for young voices. Her Rodolfo, tenor Saimir Pirgu, has been sometimes impressive and other times not, and he produced mixed results here. Che gelida manina was not bad, but he often veered sharp and one wished that the sour off-stage high note at the end of the first scene had been even further off stage. John Chest's Marcello and Steven LaBrie's Schuanard were mostly under-powered, leaving the big ensemble scenes, like that at the Café Momus, mostly covered by the orchestra, conducted with exacting crispness and pleasing shape by music director Philippe Auguin, one of the highlights of the evening.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, At WNO, a ‘La Bohème’ that gets the job done (Washington Post, November 3) Tim Smith, A new production for 'La Boheme' from Washington National Opera (Baltimore Sun, November 3)

The general smallness of the voices was brought out by the sound of Australian bass Joshua Bloom as Colline, easily filling the room although not always quite on the pitch as squarely as he should have been in the coat aria, Vecchia zimarra. (If you always wanted to find out more about Colline or the other ancillary characters in the opera, you should read the source novel by Henry Murger, Scènes de la vie de bohème.) Soprano Alyson Cambridge, who appeared in a musical last season with WNO, vamped and hammed it up as Musetta but did not really have the consistent vocal power and finesse to back up her acting antics.

In truth, the biggest ovations of the night were produced by the set changes, which is a tribute to the spectacle produced by designer Lee Savage -- set pieces flying away from the first-scene garret to produce the crowd scene of the Momus. Clever, character-motivated direction from Jo Davies, working from the original direction by Peter Kazaras, added to what was a generally satisfying drama for the eyes -- although there was too much action packed into the crowd scenes that was just cutesy, like choreographed waiters out of Hello Dolly and a Charlie Chaplin impersonator. A little less attention on the crowd scenes and supernumeraries and more spent on the vocal casting would have gone a long way.

This production runs through November 15, with two separate casts, at the Kennedy Center Opera House. Some discounted tickets are available.

Lorin Maazel (1930-2014)

Lorin Maazel, world-striding conductor and consummate musicians' musician, died on Sunday morning, following an exhausting bout with pneumonia. He had already canceled most of his conducting engagements for the foreseeable future, and he had not been strong enough to conduct the operas at this summer's Castleton Festival. Still, the news came as a shock, that someone who had been making music professionally beginning over thirty years before I was born -- here he is as a young boy, conducting at Interlochen, in my home state of Michigan -- was now suddenly gone. The tributes have been universal. Over the years, we caught only a sliver of an epoch-spanning career, having reviewed Maazel with several orchestras, including the National Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Munich Philharmonic. His baton was laser-precise, which could make some of his interpretations too steely or overpowering, but one rarely complained of either sloppiness of execution or lack of self-confidence in his ideas. He knew what he wanted, and he got it, for better and, rarely, for worse. This trait made his collaboration with young musicians so good, in the orchestras he put together for the Castleton Festival. With older professionals, perhaps jaded by years of working with strong-headed conductors, it could backfire sometimes.

For this listener, where Maazel really excelled was as an opera conductor. Washingtonians were lucky in this regard when, in 2009, Maazel inaugurated a summer festival on the grounds of his family home in Rappahannock County. To get there, one drives on highways that become narrower and narrower as you move into more remote areas, eventually landing within view of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The grounds played host to a menagerie of animals -- a camel (named Omar and fond of matzo), a zebra, and the fabled zonkey (the zebra's offspring with a donkey) -- where Maazel, I wrote then, reigned like Prospero on his island. It was a labor of love for Maazel and his entire family, from his wife, actress Dietlinde Turban-Maazel, to several of the Maazel children. In a move that showed he was all in, Maazel auctioned off the 1783 Guadagnini violin he had played for over 60 years, raising $1.1 million for the Castleton Foundation. The festival's first venue, a 130-seat theater with a tiny pit built in the family's house, was supplemented with eventually larger and more stable tent theaters, including the one where we sat out the 2012 derecho, in more than a little anxiety at the rippling roof.

It was only through the Castleton Festival that we were able to experience Maazel's excellent Puccini live, as he slowly made his way through the composer's works list here: La Fanciulla del West, Il Trittico, La Bohème, and this year's Madama Butterfly, which he was not able to conduct. The scope of the festival made chamber operas most suitable, and Maazel led excellent productions of many of Benjamin Britten's small operas in the festival's early years: Albert Herring, The Rape of Lucretia, the adaptation of The Beggar's Opera, and The Turn of the Screw. Based on the taste Maazel gave us last summer, it is regrettable that we will never have the chance to hear him conduct a full performance of Peter Grimes.

His ear was not infallible, for example in his attachment to Andrew Lloyd Webber's setting of the Requiem Mass and his self-funded and widely panned opera, 1984. He had an eye for innovation, though, conducting the music for two of the best cinematic versions of operas ever made, Francesco Rosi's sultry Carmen (with Julia Migenes and Plácido Domingo) and Joseph Losey's Don Giovanni (with Ruggero Raimondi, Kiri Te Kanawa, José van Dam, and Teresa Berganza). Other examples include leading the New York Philharmonic on a controversial concert tour to North Korea, and creating a version of Wagner's Ring "without words" with the Berlin Philharmonic. A sampling of some of our favorite recordings with Maazel is below, but we will hopefully have a more complete roundup of Maazel's recorded heritage soon.

Sibelius, Symphonies, Vienna Philharmonic, L. Maazel

Puccini, Il Trittico, L. Maazel

Mozart, Don Giovanni (film directed by Joseph Losey), L. Maazel

Castleton Festival's 'Madama Butterfly'

Back at the Castleton Festival on Sunday afternoon, the performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly was very strong, with a combination of a no-expense-spared approach to set design (Erhard Rom) and costumes (Lauren Gaston and Jonathan Knipsher), plus a cast of singers well suited vocally for their roles. There was an ever-present Japanese attention to detail, from gorgeous kimonos with proper footwear, rice paper sliding walls, and a full moon that crossed the night's sky, to an historically accurate 45-star United States flag incorporated into the set. Technology was cleverly used to add motion while at times moving the plot forward, with projections on screened backdrops. Gentle waves of the Nagasaki Harbor, stars in the night sky, and the slow-evolving projection of Lt. Pinkerton's ship, "The Lincoln," returning from a distance were highly effective.

However, having quick motions cartoonishly projected behind the set, such as close-up waves of the sea or fluttery butterflies drew too much attention to what should just function as a backdrop. There were two extraordinary lighting changes (Tláloc López-Watermann) that occurred precisely with plot and musical shifts. First, from blue to gold with the striking of the gong, as the intense Bonze of bass-baritone Joseph Barron interrupted the Christian wedding party of Cio-Cio San. The second was the abrupt transition to red upon Cio-Cio San's seppuku (ritual suicide). This unsubtle programmatic approach to lighting allowed all in the audience an almost synesthetic experience.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Wolf Trap Opera, Castleton Festival launch unevenly but laudably on same weekend (Washington Post, June 30)

Conductor Bradley Moore, standing in for Castleton Founder Lorin Maazel, who was still indisposed, incited a focused inspiration from the orchestra, which was a great improvement from the Mozart opera the previous night. Soprano Ekaterina Metlova as Cio-Cio San sang with a warm, smooth voice with either tragic strength, sublime tenderness, or everything in between. Her approach to portamento (the elision of notes) could have been more creative as it became somewhat predictable. Tenor Jonathan Burton as Lt. Pinkerton sang with expressive fortitude and memorable high notes, while baritone Corey Crider as Consul Sharpless demanded the audience's ear with his commanding voice. Mezzo-soprano Kate Allen as Cio-Cio San's servant Suzuki was superb vocally, and a particularly good vocal match to her mistress. The opera ended with a blistering intensity.

This production will be repeated on July 11 and 20.

Ionarts-at-Large: A Girl From the West in Vienna

G.Puccini, La Fanciulla del West, Royal Opera House / Z.Mehta C.Neblett, P.Domingo, S.Milnes DG

You don’t have to be twelve or have water on the brain to appreciate Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West. But it helps. It’s a daft libretto coupled with sophisticated but unglamorous music that contributes to make it one of Puccini’s less popular operas. It’s a connoisseur’s piece, perhaps: for those who will marvel at the imaginative orchestration and the constant changes of direction in the score. Two, three rare moments exist where Puccini sets out for the grand romantic, Bohéme-esque gesture—only to cut it off just before the climax and continue elsewise. If you stuff the title roles with fabulous or at least famous singers—like the Vienna State Opera for their current, hopelessly sold-out run with Nina Stemme and Jonas Kaufmann—you can assure a sold-out house and having all the Puccini and Kaufmann fetishists atwitter.

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Gorgeous 'Fanciulla del West' at Castleton

The high point of this summer's Castleton Festival, edging out a fine double-bill of La Voix Humaine, was a rather spectacular production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, heard in the final performance on Sunday afternoon. Made for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where it was premiered in 1910, Fanciulla would get my vote for the most beautiful, most accomplished score that Puccini composed -- reportedly Puccini's favorite, too, as well as of scholar Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, author of an excellent biography on the composer -- and yet it is rarely performed. In fact, this was the first time the opera has ever been under review here at Ionarts, although I have been publicly calling for Washington National Opera to stage it instead of another Butterfly or Turandot. So much the better that it should come under Lorin Maazel, who has a way with the stretch and pull of Puccini's scores, the shameless emotionalism, the breadth of nobility in the sentiments.

It is an over-sized opera in many ways, "a work that is not small," as Puccini wrote to a friend (Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, Puccini: A Biography). In a sense, the story could only work in opera. It revolves around Minnie, the eponymous girl, who has raised herself up out of poverty to become the beloved central figure of a California Gold Rush town, where she serves drinks to the boys, has them all wrapped around her little finger, and teaches them a daily Bible lesson to boot. The local sheriff, Jack Rance, is one of several who plan to marry her, but she falls in love instead with a man who passes through town, Dick Johnson. She does not discover until later that he is actually Ramirez, a wanted bandit, with a heart of gold. Along the way, Puccini doles out one gorgeous set piece after another, weaving the whole into three continuously running acts, with hints of Wagner, Strauss, Debussy -- all of the big composers Puccini obviously heard in the several years between his last opera, Madama Butterfly, and this one.

Puccini, La Fanciulla del West, M. Zampieri, P. Domingo, La Scala, L. Maazel

Maazel and his musicians and cast gave the musical side exceptional beauty, the surge and gush of the lush orchestration adding vivid narration to the story, supporting and even sometimes engulfing the singers in a thrilling way. Soprano Ekaterina Metlova was a capable Minnie, with plenty of zing in the upper register if sometimes little in the lower passages, pretty and flirtatious, if just a little awkward in her movements. The vocal power she could summon up carried over most of the emotional climaxes of the role, as in the Bible lesson in Act I, on the great penitential psalm (Psalm 51), a lesson that shows itself well learned at the end of the opera. Tenor Jonathan Burton had a confident, ringing tone as Dick Johnson, while the Jack Rance of baritone Paul LaRosa was physically rakish but lacking some snarl in the voice. The supporting cast, made up of Castleton young artists, made a fine ensemble, especially in the many male chorus scenes, none more moving than the nostalgic folk song about home in Act I, which is a truly beautiful moment, and the reconciliation ensemble at the conclusion, a moment imbued with mercy in a way that reminds me of the forgiveness shown to the Count at the end of Le Nozze di Figaro.

Maazel made some waves last month when he lashed out against what he called the "Philistinism of some present day opera staging concepts." His target was opera directors who make changes that he disagrees with, distorting the story, although the negative examples he used were all ridiculous ("casting Butterfly as a hash-slinger in a San Diego diner" or turning "Falstaff into a retired sumo wrestler at a Caracas brothel"), rather than specific. Opera-goers, he concluded, had to protest against theater directors who give "the manipulators, axe-grinders and mafiosi" the upper hand and vote with their pocketbooks. Maazel, with his own summer festival, has done that one better, and Castleton's productions should perhaps be judged by the criteria that he himself set out.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, ‘Girl of the Golden West’ gives audiences sound and sight to revel in (Washington Post, July 18)

For the last few years, Maazel entrusted the entire festival to a resident stage director, William Kerley, a position he held until last year. For Fanciulla, Giandomenico Vaccari's direction did not stay slavishly close to the libretto -- Minnie's entrance on horseback in Act III was soft-pedaled, for example (Puccini wanted "eight to ten horses" in this scene at the Met in 1910 and got eight) -- but the staging was clearly set in the 19th century. Vaccari took his inspiration from Western movies, complete with a video backdrop that brought some of the colors of the American West into the stage. The two-level set clearly evoked the Polka Saloon, Minnie's (rather large) mountain hut, and a gold mine for the final scene, and the costumes added to the setting quite convincingly (sets and costumes designed by Davide Gilioli). It was beautiful and it drew you into the story, rather than deconstructing the libretto and its themes in a postmodern way that encouraged ironic distance. Backing up the storytelling in the pit, it made for a solid emotional punch in the gut that exalted the profound, almost spiritual moments in this beautiful score.

'Manon Lescaut' at WNO

Patricia Racette (Manon) and Kamen Chanev (Des Grieux) in Manon Lescaut, Washington National Opera, 2013 (photo by Scott Suchman)

I have a weak spot for Puccini and especially for Manon Lescaut, the earliest of the composer's operas to remain in regular performance. It was the first opera I ever saw at the Metropolitan Opera, as an undergraduate music major visiting the big city for the first time (a story I have told elsewhere), and the experience set me on a course of opera obsession. In many ways, the score, premiered in Turin in 1893, is one of Puccini's best, showing him working out an understanding of the Wagnerian Leitmotif in his own way and not yet fully reaching the vulgar excesses of his later melodramas. So I was happy to see it on Washington National Opera's season, especially since I had missed the debut of this production, made for WNO in 2004. The chance to study the work again with a group of my students (in a class that I take to an opera dress rehearsal every year) was equally welcome.

As experienced at opening night, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Saturday evening, this revival is a success but far from a revelation. Soprano Patricia Racette had a solid role debut as Manon, youthful and sweet of tone in the first act, if not as refined as one might hope (in "In quelle trine morbide," for example), but with the needed power and dramatic presence for the main event of "Sola, perduta, abbandonata" in the last act. Kamen Chanev stepped into the role of Des Grieux at the beginning of the rehearsal process, to replace Marco Fabio Armiliato, who had just had a vocal surgery and was on medical rest. It was a competent, if not stellar company debut for the Bulgarian tenor, whose sturdy voice carried on the role's high notes -- in many ways, Des Grieux has the better music -- but was not always quite polished in terms of intonation or suavity. In two other company debuts, veteran singer Jake Gardner was an arrogant, rather ridiculous Geronte, while Giorgio Caoduro was less than elegant as Lescaut, a little vocally rough around the edges. In minor roles, Raúl Melo was equally rough as Edmondo, while WNO regular Robert Baker came close to stealing Act II as the fruity, snooty dancing master.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, WNO shows promise of things to come in ‘Manon Lescaut’ (Washington Post, March 4) Philip Kennicott, Puccini's Manon Lescaut (PhilipKennicott.com, March 4)

John Pascoe's staging managed to be both disappointingly traditional (Pascoe's set for Act I, pictured above, looking like it could have come out of a Thomas Kinkade painting) and a little odd (a nice touch to have the Act IV desert a red-baked hellscape, with exploded fragments of the boudoir scene in Act II littering the bare stage). Stage-length mirrors hinted heavy-handedly at the element of self-regard in the story, and a video-screened parchment opened and closed, showing us the relationship of life lived and remembered in literature. This gave the sense of entering into the characters' lives through the book of Abbé Prévost, but also the sense of how an aria moment in an opera is a distancing mechanism, with some of the celebrated solos of the opera taking place in front of the closed book. Not that the modernized production by Mariusz Trelinski just mounted in Brussels (last day of live streaming is today) would have necessarily been better (Manon snorting cocaine and all), but sometimes a little outrage can be welcome.

At the podium, music director Philippe Auguin sounded a little impatient, although the fast tempi often gave the crowd scenes a good urgency. He is experimenting with a new seating arrangement for the orchestra in this production, with the strings and harp in the center of the pit, which yielded fine results in the Intermezzo and other string-centered parts of the score. Having the winds to the left and the brass to the right did seem to help with the balance, although there were still moments when the pit overpowered the stage.

This production will run through March 23, in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

Ionarts-at-Large: MPhil Season Opening Concerts

After two introductory concerts (Mahler and Wagner/Bruckner), Lorin Maazel’s first season with the Munich Philharmonic was well under way in a variety—deliberately varied—of concerts. The inclusion of works by Bach, Schubert, Strauss, Stravinsky, Puccini, Fauré, and Ravel was no accident, it’s all part of the consistently stressed, heavy handed at times, repertoire-diversity that Maazel is meant to bring to the Munich Philharmonic. The less-than-subtle suggestion that that’s what was missing under his predecessor never far away. At least it’s a better narrative than the 82-year old, by now tottering Maazel being the future of the orchestra.

On the four-concert program on the 13^th, 14^th, 15^th, and 16^th of September (as if two or three weren’t enough) was Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.5, Schubert’s Fourth Symphony, and Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra. Bach, with the slightly silly inclusion of a harpsichord in the 2500 arena that is the Philharmonic hall of the Gasteig, is good to play for the orchestra, and they should do more of it by all means. It’s music that philharmonic audiences all over the classical world are increasingly deprived on, but shouldn’t. Eventually, as familiarity with the idiom is being re-introduced to the orchestra, it will be good to hear, too.

Schubert’s Fourth, “Tragic”, Symphony was next in this ‘travel-through-the-style-periods exercise’. It’s said that there is quite a bit of Schubert in Bruckner; on this occasion there was quite a bit of Bruckner in Schubert. The most tragic thing about the work is that

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Memories of Another Past: Stefan Herheim's "La Bohème"

From my visits there so far, it feels as if the Oslo Opera hasn’t quite yet found itself since moving into the gorgeous, modern new building on Oslo’s harbourfront (one of the finest there are, inside and out). But amid cringe-worthy provincial productions that still hail from the old house (Tosca, Nutcracker), there are also signs of greater aspirations. Stefan Herheim’s Lulu from 2011 (produced for Copenhagen) was one such touch of world-class that matched the company’s building in class.

Another one was its ‘native’—Norwegians Stefan Herheim and Eivind Gullberg Jensen respectively directing and conducting— production of Giacomo Puccini's La bohème which premiered earlier this year. It was an opportunity for the opera’s 1400 seat main auditorium to shine in a hopelessly sold out run that had the feel of an ‘event’ about it. Theory and practice don’t always match, alas, and there was something about this celebration of opera remained elusive.

G.Puccini, La bohème, H.v.Karajan / BPh / Pavarotti, Freni et al. Decca

Was it that the cast that couldn’t fill Herheim’s imaginative but mildly confusing production with the necessary life that would have made it take off? Especially Diego Torre’s Rodolfo was so dourly acted that he made your average stick look positively lithesome. And indeed, Vasilij Ladjuk’s Marcello did look positively lithesome next to Torre—and further earned points for his mellifluous baritone while Torre presented a loud yet strangely tone-less tenor that had little more charm than his stock gestures.

The backdrop to this was a heady mix of the new and old: Herheim seems to have stuffed his production with many nostalgic inside references to his earliest music-theatre experiences, while gently twisting the hoary story of our second-favorite operatic TB patient. And so we get Mimì as a cancer patient in a hospital environment trapped in Oslo Opera’s old, traditional Bohème set there. The stage opens to an intensive care unit where Mimì —Marita Sølberg, the third domestic touch of excellence—dies while the tenor mopes. The music of the overture begins the moment the defibrillator is administered Mimì’s corpse, just after the ECG’s projected green thread shows her rhythmic heart gave way to the long, flat line.

In the first two acts, the alternative Mimi-universes—heavily promoted—strain the story considerably, and elucidate little. Acts three and four go by more conventionally and now the equation of Mimi’s either inevitable or slow or already-occurred death shows to have some very touching moments. None of the quibbles seemed to dent the air of festive excitement, amid the best elements were Sølberg’s singing, Jennifer Rowley’s lively stage presence as Musetta, and the august, if inconspicuous, Espen Langvik’s Schaunard. Svein Erik Sagbråten portrayed death in various incarnations— Benoît, Alcindoro, the customs Sergeant, and even Parpignol—always accompanied by actual or symbolic knocking and always in costumes that looked like taken out of the old opera house’s costume magazine., including aforementioned Nutcracker. Within all this circus spectacle of death, Herheim’s attempt to cleave traditionalism and intelligent modern staging came across as admirable, even while never quite coming to life.

Photos courtesy Oslo Opera, © Erik Berg

La Gheorghiu Hams It Up

When Angela Gheorghiu makes her Washington National Opera debut, it should be a big deal. So it seemed to be, when a capacity crowd turned up at the Kennedy Center Opera House to hear the capricious Romanian soprano. They had paid extravagant prices ($50 to $190) for tickets to the latest in the Plácido Domingo Celebrity Series, one of the final legacies of the company's former (celebrity) artistic director. Gheorghiu is a diva in every sense of the word, and she upheld the title by taking the stage in three different gowns to sing a total of eight arias on the official program. She even sang some of them relatively well.

Some things one expects La Gheorghiu to do well, music that benefits from the power of her projection and the dramatic zing of her presence, sometimes a little over the top but with sizzle. A recital's worth of such pieces are brought together on her recent "Homage to Callas" disc for EMI, released last year, and in those pieces -- like "Pleurez, mes yeux" from Massenet's Le Cid and "Ebben?...Ne andrò lontana" from Catalani's La Wally (music used to such memorable effect in Jean-Jacques Beineix's crazy 80s film Diva) -- and others like them, Gheorghiu soared. She could spin out an alluring cantabile line, too, as in the melancholy "O nume tutelar" from Gaspare Spontini's La Vestale and the other Massenet piece, "Adieu, notre petite table" from Manon.

Homage to Maria Callas, A. Gheorghiu, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, M. Armiliato

Most of the music on the first half, on the other hand, did not suit her voice, and she often seemed to have had little preparation on either the diction or the musical line. "Vive amour," from Massenet's Chérubin, was a fluffy trifle of a piece with harp and pizzicato strings (the text could have been in Romanian, though), and the "Song to the Moon" from Dvořák's Rusalka did not really sit comfortably in the sense of ensemble with the orchestra. Whoever told Gheorghiu it would be a good idea to sing Handel (a disastrously uncoordinated "Ombra mai fu," from Serse) and Mozart (an undistinguished "Deh vieni" from Le Nozze di Figaro) should have his head examined. Gheorghiu's insecurities were only made worse by the ham-handed conducting of Eugene Kohn (an opera accompanist turned conductor, he is apparently another parting gift from Plácido Domingo, who has worked with Kohn on many occasions). His swirled gestures, lunging cues, and bizarre beat were largely ignored by the musicians of the Opera House Orchestra. This meant that when Gheorghiu dropped a beat, which happened most obviously in the Handel but in other places too, or moved the tempo ahead without much warning, the orchestra usually fumbled to get back on track.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Gheorghiu, Washington National Opera put on a less-than-coordinated performance (Washington Post, March 5) Terry Ponick, Angela Gheorghiu dazzles in Washington National Opera debut (Washington Times, March 4) Patrick McCoy, A Diva's Debut: Glamorous soprano enraptures audience in DC (Washington Examiner, March 4) [Also see the commentary on the above at Parterrebox]

Kohn did little to sharpen the scatter-shot renditions of opera overtures covering Gheorghiu's wardrobe changes either. The "Dance of the Hours" from Ponchielli's La Gioconda held together the best. Mozart's overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio almost came apart at the seams due to a breathless tempo choice: Ferdinand Hérold's Zampa and Berlioz's Le Corsaire also had misalignments across the orchestra, with some lovely solos along the way. Gheorghiu decided to postpone the beloved aria "O mio babbino caro," from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, making it instead the second of her encores, and the only interesting one at that. The less said about the other encores -- Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are" (with microphone in hand!), Frederick Loewe's "I Could Have Danced All Night," and Agustín Lara's "Granada" (a perennial Domingo favorite) -- the better.

For an even less substantial concert than this one, the Plácido Domingo Celebrity Series will inflict Deborah Voigt on its audience, singing nothing but Broadway songs. We do not recommend it.

Final Thoughts on 'Tosca'

See my review of the second cast in Washington National Opera's production of Tosca:

Final Thoughts on Washington National Opera’s “Tosca” (The Washingtonian, September 26):

Puccini’s Tosca, the first production of the new Washington National Opera, now under the auspices of the Kennedy Center, was something of a dud. It would be unfair to expect that the merger with the Kennedy Center would instantly solve the struggling company’s problems, however, and the next three productions, all firmly under the more expert baton of WNO’s excellent new music director, Philippe Auguin, hold greater promise. The one encouraging note from this Tosca came in an unexpected place, the second-cast Cavaradossi of Gwyn Hughes Jones, heard late in the run on Friday night. The Welsh tenor made a brilliant Washington debut, singing this demanding role with far greater grace, beauty, and dramatic appeal than his first-cast counterpart.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the ease and power of the top of his voice, Hughes Jones started singing as a baritone. The placement of the voice is forward, producing a slightly nasal tone that was sometimes exacerbated by the decidedly Welsh color of some of Hughes Jones’s vowels as he sang in Italian. He sang Cavaradossi, a role that is often rendered with little nuance, with vigor and solidity but also with pleasing sensitivity. His rendition of the big aria, E lucevan le stelle, was melancholy and anguished in gestures both vocal and physical, with an exquisite decrescendo on one critical high note that was artful and affecting. He may not be quite the body type favored by more and more opera directors, in an opera world now so regrettably obsessed with film simulcast and camera closeups, but that is easily overlooked in an art form where vocal concerns should drive casting (but, sadly, often do not). [Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
Tim Smith, Patricia Racette shines in Washington National Opera's 'Tosca' (Baltimore Sun, September 15)

Opera in the Outfield

See my preview of Washington National Opera's Opera in the Outfield, scheduled for tomorrow night:

Take Me Out to the Opera (The Washingtonian, September 20):

Washington National Opera’s current production of Tosca, reviewed last week, may not be worth the expense of seeing it at the Kennedy Center. However, it could still be considerable fun to view it for free and in a completely different context, say, while reclining on the field of Nationals Park. In what has become an annual tradition, Opera in the Outfield will offer Washingtonians a chance to experience Thursday night’s performance of Tosca, when it is beamed in a live simulcast to the big screen in the baseball stadium. This event on September 22 is free and open to the public.

The time for preregistration for this event has come and gone, but walk-ins will be directed to remaining space in the stands or on the field—note that only blankets, not portable chairs, are allowed on the field. The opera begins at 7:30 PM, but you can arrive as early as 5:30 PM, to experience various activities leading up to the simulcast, including performances by community groups, a screening of the classic Warner Bros. cartoon What’s Opera, Doc?, and more.

[Continue reading]

'Tosca'

See my review of Washington National Opera's production of Tosca:

Puccini’s “Tosca” at the Kennedy Center (The Washingtonian, September 12):

Puccini, Tosca, B. Nilsson, F. Corelli, D. Fischer-Dieskau, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, L. Maazel

Puccini’s Tosca really is, as Joseph Kerman once quipped, a “shabby little shocker.” That is, without really fine, powerful singing from the three principals, the work has little else to recommend it. One ends up, in fact, as in Saturday night’s opening night of Washington National Opera’s new (old) staging of the opera, with a mediocrity. It was telling that the most dramatic moment of the evening, other than the grand panorama of the Te Deum scene in Act One, had nothing to do with singing. It was the headlong abandon with which Patricia Racette, in the title role, hurled herself from the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo at the opera’s melodramatic conclusion.

Little matter that, according to one reliable source, such a suicide is unlikely, given the structure of the building. One expected Racette’s closing gesture as Tosca, the actress who loves too strongly, to have been dramatic. This is the American soprano’s principal strength, as seen in her recent outings in Washington as the title role in Jenůfa, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, and last year’s Iphigénie. Racette’s voice can be beautiful in softer, more diaphanous passages, but when she hurls sound approximately at high notes, as Tosca is so often required to do, the effect can be acidic and often was. As always, Racette was the most gripping dramatic presence on stage, but one wished for more beauty in iconic moments like Tosca’s most famous aria, “Vissi d’arte.” [Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
Anne Midgette, Serviceable ‘Tosca’ signals business as usual at Washington National Opera (Washington Post, September 12)

Terry Ponick, Enthralling ‘Tosca’ (Washington Times, September 12)

Ionarts at Santa Fe: 'La Bohème'

David Lomelí (Rodolfo) in La Bohème, Santa Fe Opera, 2011 (photo by Ken Howard)

The programming formula at Santa Fe Opera generally calls for two opera chestnuts, one 20th-century classic, one world or American premiere, and one Baroque or wild card opera. The company took a bit of a risk with one of the chestnut choices this season, its first production of Gounod's Faust, but ticket sales do not appear to have been affected by a problematic production (it receives a total of ten performances). The other warhorse is a no-brainer, a revival of the 2007 production of Puccini's La Bohème (reviewed by Michael Lodico), which at eleven performances, all of them likely to sell out, is the most-performed opera at Santa Fe this summer. The results do not have to be extraordinary, or even all that good, for tickets to move.

As heard last night, under a menacing, dark-clouded, and lightning-streaked sky, the cast was, with a few exceptions, excellent. David Lomelí's Rodolfo made the biggest splash, in his Santa Fe debut: a winner of the 2006 Operalia Competition, the Mexican tenor sang with heroic poise, with seemingly boundless energy and control, and is definitely a singer to watch. The only limitations were visual, in that he was a little stiff on stage, his hands often in his pockets, but he came across as an innocent, slightly lumpy romantic. Matching him was the refined Marcello of former Santa Fe apprentice Corey McHern, less so the dramatically easy, if slightly silly and not vocally weighty Schaunard of Keith Phares. Numbered also among the revelations was the robust, rich Colline of Christian Van Horn. With each performance of this opera, Colline's Act IV coat aria, Vecchia zimarra, is becoming my favorite moment in the score, and Van Horn's stalwart tone and powerful low notes certainly continued that trend. In fact, Van Horn was squandered a bit in this opera, when he could have been cast as Méphistophélès in Faust.

(L to R) David Lomelí (Rodolfo), Markus Beam (Schaunard), Thomas Hammons (Benoit), Christian Van Horn (Colline), and Corey McKern (Marcello) in La Bohème, Santa Fe Opera, 2011 (photo by Ken Howard)

Although we have admired the voice of soprano Ana María Martínez before, she did not sound quite in command of the role of Mimi, although definitely not as outclassed as she was by Butterfly in Washington last season. There was much to admire, especially exquisitely controlled decrescendos on high notes to pianissimo and heft on loud high notes, and she was a lovely and fragile Mimi. Heidi Stober had some hits at Wolf Trap a few years ago, but her Musetta was the least pleasing of the leads, overly coy, too self-indulgent in tempo and phrasing, and then underpowered when she needed to bite like a viper. Former Santa Fe apprentice Thomas Hammons, who had a hilarious turn in L'Elisir d'Amore here in 2009, was equally zany as the bumbling landlord, Benoit.

Other Articles: Sarah Bryan Miller, Somebody should feed 'La Boheme' director some downers (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 9) Lawrence A. Johnson, Gleaming vocalism from two leads makes for a powerful “Boheme” in Santa Fe (The Classical Review, August 3) John Stege, Passionless in Paris (Santa Fe Reporter, July 13) Warwick Thompson, DiDonato Elopes to Vegas, Rages Against Arts Cuts: Interview (Bloomberg News, July 11) James M. Keller, In SFO's 'La bohème,' Ana María Martínez in full bloom as Mimi (Santa Fe New Mexican, July 3)

The staging, by Paul Curran, is nothing special but it gets the job done quite well. Kevin Knight's set alternates between a sharply angled corner background for the artists' garret and a large V-shaped space for the crowd scenes, all of it rather grim. The crowd scenes were manic, a little over-active but engaging, and the chorus, down to the children (Susanne Sheston was chorus master), sang well and forthrightly, giving verve to the visual pageantry. Curran chose not to update the setting from the gritty 19th century of Henry Mürger's Scènes de la vie de bohème, one of my favorite books in the Paris Reading Project, avoiding some of the embarrassing excesses of Washington National Opera's production, for example. As he also showed in his 2008 production of Billy Budd, Curran gave careful thought to the movements and emotional reactions of the characters, making the comic relief scenes of the artists' quartet and especially the tragic conclusion believable and emotive. Close attention to the details of the libretto and score pay off in this sort of directing, rather than trying to overlay an opera with whatever philosophical or political ideas happen to be in your head at the time.

The lovely mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato was in the house last night, to see the Santa Fe Opera conducting debut of her husband, Leonardo Vordoni. The couple met here in Santa Fe, during that memorable Laurent Pelly production of Massenet's Cendrillon in 2006, in a whirlwind romance. Vordoni may be a good conductor, but you could not tell it from this performance, which was a bit of a jumble, the sense of ensemble discombobulation more pronounced perhaps by comparison to the refined and precise version by Lorin Maazel heard earlier this summer at the Castleton Festival. Singers, both soloists and chorus, veered off regularly in their own directions, and the orchestra that had sounded so confident the night before, under Frédéric Chaslin, seemed tentative and a bit off-kilter. Without some incisive ideas from the podium about the score, singers made many of the decisions, making the end of the Act III duet, for example, drag out to an exasperating degree.