The Flourishing Arts with Les Arts Florissants in "Les Arts Florissants"

Les Arts Florissants performed Charpentier's Les Arts Florissants at Caramoor Friday evening. Photo: Gabe Palacio
KATONAH, N.Y. -- William Christie, who turned 81 last December, founded Les Arts Florissants in 1979 in France, where he had relocated due to his opposition to the Vietnam War. The preeminent French early music ensemble took its name from a short chamber opera, composed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier in 1685 for Marie de Lorraine, Duchesse de Guise, and likely performed at her residence in Paris. Long after recording the piece in 1982, the group has returned to its namesake work as part of the ongoing celebrations for Christie's 80th birthday. Christie himself is leading a North American tour with the organization, pairing Les Arts Florissants with the same composer's La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, which came to Caramoor Friday evening. Although the ongoing wildfire smoke influx threatened to scuttle the performance in that venue's outdoor Venetian Theater, by that afternoon the winds had shifted and the air was relatively cool and clear.

The story of Les Arts Florissants is allegorical. Music, Poetry, Painting, and Architecture greet warriors returning from conflict, hoping that the arts may hold greater sway over Louis XIV, now that war is at an end. War and Discord enter, leading the Chorus of the Furies in frightful displays until Peace appears, dispersing the forces of chaos. The ultimate meaning of the work, and how it may have been referencing the political situation in France in 1685, remains obscure, but its message remains ever timely. The coincidence of this performance, although likely planned long ago, with the renewed hostilities by the United States against Iran underscored Charpentier's message: the arts flourish only when war is kept at bay.

For this tour, Christie assembled a cast drawn from the flower of Le Jardin des Voix, the French Baroque training program for young singers he established in 2002. French soprano Camille Chopin presided as La Musique, with a limpid top range and impeccable phrasing, matched by American soprano Sarah Fleiss's spirited La Poésie. Tenor Bastien Rimondi and Canadian-American contralto Sydney Frodsham made a more comical pair as La Peinture and L'Architecture, respectively, but with musical delicacy. Bass-baritone Olivier Bergeron gave an over-the-top rendition of La Discorde, echoed by the ensemble as shrieking Furies, with plenty of nasal cackling to make the point. Cast and audience alike sank into serene contemplation when Croatian soprano Josipa Balić appeared as La Paix, bringing an end to discord: even a moth, seemingly charmed, alit on the end of her finger at one point.

A quartet of dancers graced the production with their movements, joined in some dances by the vocal cast, and in the final unaccompanied choral section, they sang along with their singer counterparts. The choreography by Martin Chaix was more Mark Morris than Baroque France in style, but the dancers' movements matched the elegant music with visual shapes in ways that diverted the eyes. The costumes, as such, were formalwear and simple gowns in soft pastel colors, again giving the impression of a scene that was more of our age than the past. (Two F-holes on the back of La Musique's white jacket were a nice touch.) The sense of benevolence created by the performance hung in the air, echoing the poignant lines of the final strophe: "Ô paix si longtemps désirée, / Que tes fruits à goûter sont doux, / Tu ramènes les temps de Saturne et de Rhée, / Demeure toujours avec nous." If only peace could bring back the Golden Age and dwell with us forever.

Christie presided in a self-effacing way, adding continuo touches on both harpsichord and chamber organ. Two Baroque violins took the twin parts for treble viols, part of the specific musical establishment kept by the Duchesse de Guise. (Christie recorded the work with treble viols, but they were not missed here.) Two flutists also doubled on flageolets to add a folksy character to some of the dances. Christie's delicate approach and the beautiful French declamation of the singers are what was missing from the ensemble's most recent visit to the Library of Congress in November.

Charpentier's La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers is a showcase for the high tenor who sings Orpheus. American tenor Richard Pittsinger distinguished himself with a shining high range, capable of extraordinary softness, and refined phrasing. In Act II, he gave a different vocal sheen to each of the three pleas Orpheus made to the powers of the Underworld, concluding almost in a whisper. While the opening wedding scene of Act I featured spirited singing and dancing (including the affecting return of Camille Chopin as Euridice), the piece became exquisite with the entrance into Hell in Act II. Two bass viols, played by Myriam Rignol and Mathilde Vialle, set the somber tone of the infernal scene, bathed in red light. The striking trio sung by Ixion, Tantalus, and Tityus (all infamous denizens of the Underworld) featured the perfectly matched voices of tenors Bastien Rimondi and Attila Varga-Tóth with baritone Olivier Bergeron. Their complex, interwoven lines meshed beautifully with the bass viols and other low instruments. The dark episode continued with bass Kevin Arboleda-Oquendo's sunglasses-sporting Pluton and Sarah Fleiss's alluring Proserpine.

The return of the two flutes and higher registers sounded like a ray of light as Orpheus led Euridice out of Hell. Charpentier's opera ends with that moment, probably because a third act has been lost. The choice to end the performance there added to the sense of hope. Beauty can return to the world, and it does all the time, as long as peace prevails.

The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performs Handel's Tolomeo, starring Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Lauren Snouffer, and Nicole Heaston 4 p.m. July 26 at Caramoor. caramoor.org

Teatro Nuovo marks bicentenary of Italian opera in America

Sedona Libero (Donna Elvira), Kevin Spooner (Leporello, right), and Ricardo José Rivera (Don Giovanni), Teatro Nuovo. Photo: Steven Pisano
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Will Crutchfield, a leading American specialist in bel canto opera, has led the summer festival Teatro Nuovo since 2018, at various venues around New York. This year's programming, more than worth a trip to Manhattan this week, went back to the start of bel canto history, with the 1826 version of Mozart's Don Giovanni, heard Wednesday evening at the Rose Theater on Columbus Circle, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

A bit of history is required for that last sentence to make sense. Our country’s first operatic performances go back to the 18th century, with ballad operas in New York and French operas in New Orleans, even before the latter city technically became American. Crutchfield instead is celebrating the 200th anniversary of Italian opera in America, when Lorenzo da Ponte organized a string of performances in New York in 1826. Mozart's one-time librettist had settled in the U.S. in 1805, driven here by his scandals and bankruptcy in Europe. The troupe that presented the first Don Giovanni in America, among other works, was led by Manuel García and featured the Spanish baritone's wife, his son, and his daughter -- she who would become known as the celebrated soprano Maria Malibran. (García's other daughter, later known as Pauline Viardot, was still a child.) Crutchfield has consulted the 1826 version of the libretto, created by da Ponte, and many other sources to reconstruct the opera. His singers studied 19th-century sources to understand how the Italian singers may have added ornamentation and cadenzas to Mozart's score.

The edition is a mixture of the original Prague version with Mozart's Vienna revision, as are most modern performances. Tenor Martin Luther Clark's Ottavio sang "Il mio tesoro" and not "Dalla sua pace," and Sedona Libero's Elvira sang "Mi tradi," but not in the expected place. Noah B. Rogers, who made a pleasingly assertive Masetto, did not get to sing his aria, which was a shame, but keeping the run time just under three hours seemed worth the trade-offs. The most striking change was the shortened Act II Finale, ending almost immediately after Don Giovanni was taken off to hell. The production cut the entire concluding ensemble, as apparently most productions of the opera did until the 20th century. More significant was the adaptation of the recitatives. Conductor Geoffrey Loff led them from what looked like a clavichord, which produced a very faint, tinkling sound. Double-bassist Dane Roberts provided the foundational bass line, while cellist Hilary Metzger created an intriguing harmonic fabric of viol-like double-stop chords and melodic ideas. Along with the rhythmic freedom taken by the singers, it made the recitatives utterly different and of much greater musical interest.

Baritone Ricardo José Rivera, who is familiar to Washington audiences from his turns with Washington Concert Opera in recent years, made a caustic and insistent Don Giovanni. His scornful anger and his tender love-making, the latter heard most effectively in "Deh! viene a la finestra" (senza mandolino but with a velvety violin solo from concertmaster Laura Lutzke, accompanied by pizzicato strings), were both credible. Both leading women suited their roles admirably, with mezzo-soprano Sedona Libero's Donna Elvira erupting in spitfire ornamentation and cadenzas, and soprano Elizabeth Novella reaching an intensity of Donna Anna's grief and anger with interesting rubato choices in her big scenes. As Leporello, Kevin Spooner displayed nimble comic timing, especially in the Catalog Aria, and sure-footed rhythmic skills.

The voice shifting choices also included casting the potent mezzo-soprano of Simona Genga as Zerlina, for sheer volume the most present singer on the stage. The vocal weight affected her characterization as well, giving her a more aggressive touch in the duets with both Don Giovanni and Masetto. The Commendatore of bass-baritone Daniel Mobbs, a veteran singer, impressed more with elegance of tone than raw power. Tenor Martin Luther Clark used the pointed edge of his sound to give Don Ottavio a dignified presence, occasioning none of the usual audience laughs at the character ending up in the friend zone.

Teatro Nuovo is essentially presenting concert opera, with formal wear for costumes and a set consisting of a large projection-bearing screen (images designed by Adam J. Thompson). The orchestra of gut strings and early instruments made mostly pleasing sounds (with the natural horns and trumpets sounding most rustic), although just because the instruments are less powerful than their modern counterparts does not mean they cannot overpower singers, which Loff should have taken greater care to avoid. A skilled ensemble of ten extra musicians provided the on-stage musical performances during the Act I finale, to appropriately confusing effect.

* * *
Crutchfield paired the Mozart with Rossini's Il Turco in Italia, premiered in Milan in 1814 before the Garcías brought it to New York, also in 1826. Singer illness gutted that first American production. Happily no such issues plagued Teatro Nuovo's performance, heard at the Rose Theater on Thursday night, even with the unbreathable air in New York City this week, caused by smoke blowing in from the devastating Canadian wildfires. This is not one of Rossini's most sparkling achievements, and at well over three hours, it could have used serious truncation along the lines of what Crutchfield did with Don Giovanni. One could certainly start by excising the superfluous aria given to Albazar toward the end, as well as one or maybe both of Don Narciso's arias.

Felice Romani's libretto is predictably absurd. Selim, a Turkish prince, visits Naples and falls in love with Donna Fiorilla, who is already managing her intimacies with a husband, the aged Don Geronio, and a lover, the vain and ridiculous Don Narciso. In Naples, somewhat miraculously, is Selim's former slave and lover, Zaida, now disguised as a Roma fortune-teller. (The use of the word gipsy and some Muslim stereotypes might also make the libretto unpalatable to modern listeners.) The most ingenious part of the story is the character of Prosdocimo, a poet who, in a metafictional twist, is creating the entire story as the basis of his latest opera libretto. Many funny jokes at the art form's expense happen along the way. (Crutchfield's program note pointed to a performance of Mozart's Così fan tutte in Milan just before Romani wrote this libretto, which may have influenced the Donna Fiorilla's polyamorous excesses.)

Kresley Figueroa, familiar from her recent and excellent work with Washington National Opera's Cafritz Young Artists program, showed exceptional technique as Donna Fiorilla, lighting up her many arias and ensembles with firecracker virtuosity. While her intonation strayed at times toward the top, Figueroa's physical presence made the character's outrageous vanity and ability to manipulate men more than credible. Of her three love interests, Mattia Venni's Don Geronio, the long-suffering husband, made the best impression, with impeccable comic timing and buffo antics. As the eponymous Turk, Vincent Graña displayed the most potent instrument, easily filling the room with sound, although in terms of comfort on the stage he seemed reserved. Tenor Max Alexander Cook struggled at times in the top range, but he sang the role of Don Narciso with technical ease in melismatic passages. Soprano Sabatina Mauro, as Zaida, and David Freides, as Albazar, both made worthy appearances from the ranks of this year's Resident Artists. Hans Tashjian brought more stage antics than vocal refinement to the poet Prosdocimo, with some charming breaking of the theatrical fourth wall.

Violinist Elisa Citterio, who stood facing the orchestra, led the performance while partially playing as well, with Derrick Goff seated at the clavichord next to her. The results were not as clean in terms of ensemble cohesion, as the establishment of fast tempos did not always happen with clarity. The same division of labor occurred for the recitatives, far fewer in number, as heard in Don Giovanni. The instrumental playing, here and in Don Giovanni, was generally impeccable. The extended horn solo from Nathaniel Udell proved a highlight of the Rossini overture, with the charming alternation of stopped and open notes necessary because of the natural horn's lack of valves.

Second image credit: Mattia Venni (Don Geronio) and Kresley Figueroa (Donna Fiorilla) in Teatro Nuovo's Il Turco in Italia. Photo: Steven Pisano

Critic’s Notebook: New Production of the Rosenkavalier in Graz

Also reviewed for Die Presse: „Rosenkavalier“ in Graz: Wo die Frauen hauen und stechen

Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier C.Kleiber, Bavarian State Opera Watson, Fassbaender Popp, Ridderbusch (Orfeo, 2008) US | UK | DE

Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier C.Thielemann, Munich Phil Fleming, Koch, Damrau, Hawlata (DVD, Decca, 2011) US | UK | DE

Marschallin across Generations: New Rosenkavalier in Graz

Philipp M. Krenn’s new Rosenkavalier in Graz is a production brimming with ideas, gently nudged toward the present. In the way it succeeds at explaining itself, it comes startlingly close to a directorial ideal.

Strauss and Hofmannsthal are always about human relationships. In the new Graz Rosenkavalier that’s literally true, so liberally do director Philipp M. Krenn and set designer Momme Hinrichs deploy the revolving stage. We move seamlessly from foyer to antechamber, to servants’ quarters, to billiard room, bedroom, and kitchen. This way, Krenn manages to stage the Marschallin and Octavian’s early-morning dalliance during the overture already, while revealing – in an Upstairs/Downstairs type scenario – how the staff sorts laundry, stocks shelves, listens at doors, whispers and gossips. There are fewer secrets in this household than you’d think. Small wonder that the Marschallin (Polina Pastirchak) and Octavian (Anna Brull) are so surprisingly indiscreet.

Hinrichs’ sets and Eva Maria Dessecker’s costumes span a parallel palette from early 20th century (the aristocratic society, dueling type student fraternities) through the 1970s (replete with Bubble Chair and large-floral wallpaper) to a subtle present-day — expressed, among other things, in the kitchen where the Marschallin makes her morning coffee and where Ochs and the ever-present Leopold (Arthur Haas) brazenly help themselves to anything in sight. Whether the “carnal offspring”, as Leopold is referred to in the libretto, is Ochs’ illegitimate son or on-and-off lover... with this sexually insatiable opportunist Ochs, anything is possible.

Apropos. Wilfried Zelinka’s Ochs was magnificent: He nails the greasy vulgarian who thinks far too highly – and all the more imperturbably – of himself with fearsome ease. Someone for whom women are mainly status symbol; sunglasses casually cocked in his hair that’s a good deal longer than advisable and thinner than desired, dress shirt stretched across the paunch, lordly manner, and shoes without socks. Whether petty nobility or Mittelstand nouveau-riche – if you’ve been to Austria long enough, you know the type. That his lowest notes weren’t quite there was irrelevant amid such a vivid display of character.

In Act II Zelinka also becomes a hybrid of Ochs and the Feldmarschall, who still rightly rankles the sensitives of Sophie, even as he’s a bit more dashing, kept keep in check by his manners where his morals wouldn’t, and displaying the debonair cool of a man not used to being flustered. This whole act is the coup de théâtre Krenn has been preparing since Act I, when a Super-8-movie flashback takes us to the Marschallin’s own wedding. At the very end of the act, she finds herself face to face with her younger self in the bridal gown: This is simultaneously the young Maria Theres’ and Sophie (Tetiana Miyus). It’s a passing-of-the-torch moment. And this is also how the second act, throughout which the Marschallin is silently present – begins. She is there to support Sophie and, by extension, herself – in her struggle for marital self-determination. Sophie’s marriage is actually the memory of her own. The Marschallin’s fate (none-too-bad, if sprinkled with regrets) was not hers to decide; Sophie’s, at least, should be. It is Sophie, too, who settles the matter of the Ochs-Octavian duel when she takes a carving knife to Ochs’ calf, to make sure worse does not befall young, out-fenced Octavian.

You can like this sort of thing or not (at the premiere it was unabated applause for the directorial team), but for Krenn to pull off this act of doubling – past and present; amending the past to cure the future – in a way that explains itself with such self-evidence, brings the production startlingly close to a directorial ideal.

The orchestra under Vassilis Christopoulos supported the proceedings well, often superb; the winds especially; the violins at times rather less so. It certainly wouldn’t have hurt throughout most of the performance, if the orchestra could have played a touch more quietly throughout. The acting meanwhile was superb: the deeply moving, full-voiced Marschallin, the nuanced Ochs, the adorable, feisty Sophie. Even the torn-and-striving Octavian hardly lagged behind, and the cast as a whole delivered very decent (and better) vocal performances without, admittedly, threatening to redefine the standards for excellence. Noteworthy, however, among smaller roles were Leitmetzerin Corina Koller and Neira Muhič’s Annina. The social-media-addicted Italian singer (Iurie Ciobanu), meanwhile, had a small message for young Mr. Chalamet ready: He took selfies with a “#WECARE, Timothée” sign.

At the close, the Feldmarschall wanders past Sophie and Octavian’s embrace and finds Faninal’s “Sind halt aso, die jungen Leut’!” put in his mouth. When he watches with rather too much interest, his wife gives him a tender-but-firm tap – “Come along now, darling” – and leads him away, back to their reality.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Critic’s Notebook: Eötvös meets Krasznahorkai — Valuska at the Budapest Opera

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Oper „Valuska“ in Budapest: Lautmalerei der leisen Töne

P. Eötvös Three Sisters Nagano, O.d.Lyon (DG, 1999) US | UK | DE

P. Eötvös Love and Other Demons V.Jurowski, LPO (Glyndeborne, 2013) US | UK | DE

P. Eötvös Atlantis Eötvös, WDRSO (BMC, 2018) US | UK | DE

A Nobel Effort from Budapest

The revival of the Eötvös-Krasznahorkai opera Valuska got a deserving boost.

When the Hungarian State Opera decided to revive Peter Eötvös's final opera, Valuska, this season, following its December 2023 premiere, no one could have known that László Krasznahorkai, on whose novel Melancholy of Resistance the libretto is based, would win the Nobel Prize. Ticket sales for the small alternative venue — the Eiffel Art Studios — moved sluggishly at first. But what a difference a Nobel Prize makes! After the Swedish Academy's announcement earlier this month, all three performances sold out in no time.

It was worth attending, too — provided you can accommodate yourself with Eötvös's brand of music theater. He's written 14 operas in total, which makes him arguably Hungary's foremost opera composer (although I reckon most listeners would trade it just for Bartók's Bluebeard in a heartbeat); and ever since his fourth, Tri sestri, he is one of the most frequently performed opera composers of the last few decades. One thing his works have going for them, although they're never easy listening, is that they're usually compelling drama.

Valuska, named after the novel's (anti-)hero, is his first setting of a Hungarian text (precisely to avoid comparison with Bartók). And what an instinct Eötvös showed in choosing it. Not that Krasznahorkai's novel is an obvious choice to adapt for the stage: without paragraph — let alone chapter — breaks, Krasznahorkai unfolds his story slowly, relentlessly, with immense, whimsical detail, yet remains compelling to the willing reader, manages even to be humorous at times, in the portrayal of his all-too-human protagonists. Only gradually does one realise what is happening in the anonymous little town the book's characters inhabit: the slow undermining of society by the twin forces of anarchy and oppression.

But the selection of text by Kinga Keszthelyi and Mari Mezei (Eötvös's wife), the choices made by Bence Varga's direction, Botond Devich's creative set, Kató Huszár's bold costumes, and Sándor Baumgartner's dramatic lighting, together with Eötvös's atmospheric score, combine to create a theatrical experience that does not reproduce the novel but conveys its sense of pity, melancholy, desolation, and quiet dread. One senses a (presumably unintentional) spiritual kinship with John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces.

To call it a "theatrical" rather than an "operatic" experience is to make a point, because Eötvös's music — for all its proven quality over the years — is not so much the reason why anyone would enjoy the work. Rather, it is a layer of supporting sound, suggesting moods, or making scenes aurally explicit. Valuska thus becomes "music theatre" in the most literal sense, with the emphasis on theatre. No one will be humming arias on their way home from the out-of-the-way multi-purpose theatre — a converted railway depot that doubles as the opera's costume- and prop-depot, and rehearsal facility.

But everyone will have understood the hissing, puffing, and pounding, the chattering and rattling of the train in the first of the twelve tableaux. Likewise, the refuge that Bach's music represents — played by the reclusive Professor (András Hábetler, a retired music-school director in the novel) on the record player for himself and his friend Valuska (Zsolt Haja), who is the innocently-naïve village-idiot with strong overtones of the "holy fool" archetype. Similarly literal is the chirping of the "Prince," who is – unseen, unfathomable, never directly heard – a constant, menacing presence in the travelling circus. Eötvös pulls all manner of onomatopoeia like stops on an organ: The squeaking toilet door in the train is vocalized by the ensemble. If that was one of Eötvös' ways of giving a nod to the humor in the original, it's darn effective.

With few but telling means, the production sketches the drab, disorderly world of a neglected provincial town on the small black stage. The whale — "the largest stuffed of its kind", the circuses' great draw, and catalyst of the action — is only seen after the mob has struck. Mayor Tünde (sung, aptly enough, by Tünde Szabóki) provides a garish pink splash of color amid the greyness. With her little dog-in-handbag (the costume department combined the two hilariously) she is clip-clopping toward totalitarianism. Since the music is not very conventional, conventional means to judge the singers hardly apply; only Haja's Valuska gets aria-like, dissonant-sweet moments in which he sounds bright and lovely — a plausible holy fool, indeed. The rest act, often delightfully quirky, supporting the drama with their vocal resources and acting as effectively as the small but alert State Opera Orchestra under Kálmán Szennai's direction.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Critic’s Notebook: A Flying Dutchman from the Budapest Opera

R.Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer F.Fricsay, RIAS SOB DG/Eloquence

R.Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer F.Konwitschny, StaKap Berlin Berlin Classics

R.Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer D.Barenboim, StaKap Berlin Teldec/Warner

A Pleasing-Enough Dutchman

The point was to come to Budapest and witness the Hungarian Premiere of Nixon in China, but en passant it only seemed fitting to stop by the opera house proper (Nixon took place in a different venue) for a Flying Dutchman. It was celebrating its 140th birthday and, owing to it having been shut down for several years for comprehensive renovation work until its re-opening in 2022, I had never actually been. High time to change that, after all, it’s one of the finest examples of the neo-Renaissance style, a jewel among opera houses, perfectly sized (unless you want to make money with it), and now glowing again in its new-old splendour that had (allegedly) elicited the congratulatory grumble from Emperor Franz Joseph I at its opening that he “prescribed it to be smaller than the opera house in Vienna” but should also have “decreed that it not be more beautiful”. And indeed, it’s a truly grand opera house, all gilded, marbled, satined, and candelabraed. And yet just small enough to be intimate. (Far away enough to be ignored by the Western press, you’d think it’s the ideal stage for trying out new rôles for ambitious singers.)

So the Flying Dutchman it was. Earlier that day, a matinee of Carmen had already been produced… and apparently exhausted the Budapestian’s hunger for opera that day: The attendance was somewhere between “low” and “pitiful”, but certainly below 50% capacity of the roughly 1000 comfortable seats (fitted with subtitle screens) that the new post-renovation arrangement provides. What the hardy Wagnerians got was a fine Dutchman with some good singing in a production by János Szikora that means to offend no one or maybe just doesn’t mean much at all. The costumes (Kriszta Berzsenyi) are toned down, except for the slightly more elaborate getups of Senta and the Dutchman (a red dress and coat, respectively, with matching concentric yellow and orange circles painted on them) and a brief appearance of the Dutch sailor’s chorus as clunky papier-mâché zombies. Incidentally, that was the production’s only veritable failure. When the Norwegians call on, invite, and tease the Dutchman’s crew, their delayed, eventual response is supposed to be positively overwhelming. Various directors have come up with variously successful means of creating that effect. Amplification of the voices, as done here, is often among them. But then it should really be overwhelming. Here, it was an electronically distorted whimper that never got particularly loud and certainly never intimidating. A damp squib. The cowering visible chorus on stage was shivering for no reason.

Everywhere else, the production did not stand in the way of the music or the singing, which some more conservative audiences (for whatever that’s worth) might consider a good quality. The set by Éva Szendrényi is highly economical; two, three props (large ropes, a large frame, a loom) and otherwise it’s an empty stage, framed by frames with fabric stretched across them, doubling as a projection screen and revolving doors for getting all the seamen on and off the stage.

The singing had a few positive surprises in store. András Palerdi’s was a very pleasantly understated Daland, subtle, with good pronunciation. A bit on the soft side but never trying to overcompensate. Like his Steersman, István Horváth, who seems a fine all-purpose character tenor, à la Kevin Conners, he could be easily found on any international stage in that rôle. Anna Kissjudit’s Mary with a huge, natural, controlled voice that easily rang throughout the round was quite

Read more »

Leise Rieselt der Kunstschnee: Latest @ Wiener Zeitung

"Eugen Onegin": Leise rieselt der Kunstschnee

Tschaikowskis Klassiker ist an die Staatsoper zurückgekehrt.

Wasserstandsmeldung von der 51. Aufführung des derzeitigen "Eugen Onegin" an der Staatsoper. Im inzwischen zehnten Jahr hat man sich an die "hässlichen Bilder von Falk Richter" (Daniel Wagner) gewöhnt: Pittoresk und leise dauer-rieselt der zentnerweise angekarrte, Jahreszeiten-ignorierende Kunstschnee. Kaltblau-hübsch schimmern die Eisgebilde à la Eispalast in "James Bond - Stirb an einem anderen Tag". Und alle Mannen und Damen im (recht ordentlichen) Chor frieren einfach ein, wenn dem Regisseur nichts Besseres einfällt. Das ist praktisch, aber ein wenig einfallslos, um nicht zu sagen faul. Die unmotivierten Salti und das gekünstelte Party-Gehabe der Ballett-Statisterie ebenso, dito das Klischee Russland ist gleich Winter....

Von Katrin Hofmanns Bühne dominiert, wirkt diese sparsame Regie unterkühlt; sie trägt die Oper nicht. Es fehlt an Einsichten in die Familien- und Gesellschaftsdynamik... [weiterlesen]

On ClassicsToday: Rusalka at Theater an der Wien (Review & Production Photos)

Between Thursday, September 19th and September 30th, the Theater and der Wien put on Rusalka, conducted by David Afkham and directed by Amélie Niermeyer. The ClassicsToday review is (finally) up.Production Details on the TadW's website.

ClassicsToday: Rusalka Gets Wet Feet In Vienna

More pictures from the production below.

Read more »

On ClassicsToday: Checking Out The Budapest Orchestral Scene Part III

Jenő Koppándi & Zsolt Hamar

For my ongoing survey of Budapest’s orchestral scene, I picked out an all-Bartók evening with the Hungarian National Philharmonic after having heard a great Concerto Budapest concert and the Hungarian RSO in the Ring. The National Philharmonic came to (Western) fame under its longtime director János Ferencsik and again when it was led for two decades by Zoltán Kocsis until the latter’s death in 2016. The ambitious bill on this season-opening night included the Two Portraits Op. 5, the Third Piano Concerto, and Bluebeard’s Castle for the main course. Fab stuff, mosty:

All-Bartók Season-Opener With The Hungarian National Philharmonic

Below are a few photos from the concert to go with that review.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Read more »

Latest on Forbes: This is Your Brain on Parsifal; A Viennese Clunker from Alvis Hermanis

Parsifal At The Vienna State Opera: A Set In Lieu Of A Production

Parsifal around Easter is a lovely tradition. Especially when enjoyed with a good friend. But not every production is worth keeping up with that tradition.

Indeed, architect Otto Wagner is cannibalized for all the sets, whether it’s a more or less straight reproduction of the St. Leopold church up above the Steinhof area or bastardizations of other Otto Wagner visuals. The Karlsplatz subway station entry is emblazoned not with its own name but with the typographic decoration “Die Zeit” which Wagner designed for the telegraph office of the former Viennese newspaper of that name. Why? Because “Die Zeit” is mentioned twice in the libretto in that act. That’s all the depth there’s to it. Catch it if you can; if not, you’re no worse off for it.

This way to the full review: Parsifal At The Vienna State Opera: A Set In Lieu Of A Production

[From the Archives] A Wonderland of Possibilities: Unsuk Chin’s First Opera Premiered in Munich

Originally published on WETA 90.9's blog,Sunday, 8.5.07

“If there’s no meaning in it, that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we need not try to find any.”

This quote from the King in Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” might well describe the general listener’s absolution from the trouble of actively engaging with modern music.

Unsuk Chin, Alice in Wonderland K.Nagano / BStOp / Sally Matthews et al. Unitel DVD

Any music that is so dense, academic, or inaccessible that the listener cannot find to it without first reading a small book about the work becomes a remote and abstract art. Ultimately, that creates a sense of distance from the broader public and the art-form that leads to the ivory-tower syndrome: A certain music becomes the prerogative of musicologists and composers, a rarefied elitist pursuit, perhaps an intellectual feather in the cultural hat of a country, but not part of the substance that forms or defines its culture. Horrifying as it may seem to those who cherish and defend the “fine arts”, (even) the fine arts need to be popular to a significant degree if they are to remain meaningful in the cultural life of a society.

Korean born composer Unsuk Chin from Berlin, to where she moved 1988 after studies with György Ligeti in Hamburg, says that she does not want music that needs to be explained. At least not for her first opera “Alice in Wonderland” that received its world premiere in Munich under Kent Nagano on Saturday, June 30th after more than a year of preparations. For a composer who had started out as a Darmstadt-school serialist, thoroughly influenced by Stockhausen & Co., that’s a bold statement and comes in part due to Ligeti’s thorough re-poling of her compositional outlook.

These moments of recognizability and comfort (even plain C-major makes an appearance in this opera, well possibly a novelty in 21st-century opera) are kept together by Chin’s sound world that placed near-impossible demands on the Staatsoper’s pit. Large enough to hold any Meistersinger and Elektra orchestra, for Alice the seating plan had to be arranged anew and re-arranged again to squeeze in every player. And still, the percussion batteries overflowed into the director’s boxes to both sides of the stage. It is not the least of achievements that Chin’s music, despite the quantity of exotic instruments used, never calls attention to these instrumental ‘special effects’ like the rather more crass works of Ramírez, Sierra, Goljiov, and even Higdon or Schwantner. Harmonica and harpsichord, celesta and glockenspiel, Jew’s harp and little toy-pipes make their appearances, but to fine, never gratuitous effect; always appropriately in context to the extent that can be said at all about such an absurdist piece of work as “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.And sure enough, there are moments in Ms. Chin’s music that need little explanation and are enjoyable to the broadest selection of ears. For one, Ms. Chin is fond of quoting, half mockingly, traditional opera in Alice, or, during the caterpillar‘s bass clarinet solo, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, or baroque elements during the tea ceremony.

Chin’s music, a tapestry of influences and ideas, is difficult to describe – not the least because it is difficult to remember much of it in precise ways. There were, however, a few moments where I thought: “This sure is better than Nicholas Maw’sSophie’s Choice“. It reminded of Sophie, which had its US premiere in Washington last season, while proving far less monotonous and same-ish, not pushing on ever so hard, and less tiring. Maybe the libretto lends itself to greater frivolousness or variety when you compose for words like “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, how I wonder what you’re at…” than Holocaust, barbed wire, and “massive intakes of iron”.

The music of Alice remains a fairly difficult music, but it’s also imaginative, witty, well crafted, and – beyond the quotations – with moments of unsuspected beauty, never tiring, rarely taxing. And it certainly scores on every account against a recent Western-Asian Operatic premiere, namely The First Emperor, Tan Dun’s unbearable kitschy mix of second-rate Puccini with (in-and-of-itself interesting) Chinese percussion and string sounds.

But if the music was not as memorable as expected or desired, it was in some part the fault – or rather: achievement – of the staging. Brecht-student, painter, set-, costume designer, and stage director Achim Freyer, who staged the first performance of the Philip Glass trilogySatyagraha in Stuttgart (1981) and Salvatore Sciarrino’s Macbeth in New York, concocted a bizarre, fantastical set that dominated the performance to a degree that may have made Unsuk Chin feel uncomfortable. (Her support for the staging was – mildly put – shy of enthusiastic in several interviews given prior to the premiere.)

In front of steep stage, raked at 51 degrees (!) and nearly reaching the top of the visible part of the 90 feet high stage of the Staatsoper, stood lined up the eight singers (only their heads visible) who, in addition to Alice and the Queen, made up the cast’s different figures. All in the same makeup and wigs, operating detached white hands from behind a little barrier in front of them, they sang the parts that were then acted out by performance artists on the stage – floating (suspended from above), jumping, and gesticulating about in their oversized and colorful costumes. The croquet game (with rules resembling Calvinball), for example, was like a vast underwater ping-pong game with a likeness of Alice’s head serving as the ball. Frog and Dormouse (“You might just as well say that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”), March Hare and White Rabbit, and of course the ever-present, ever metamorphizing Cheshire Cat pop up and do their wily things on stage.

Colorful strings divide the stage into sections that are at times filled out with color (depicting the house in which Alice grows to enormous size) or sheer light, as in the final dream sequence that, like the sequence that serves as the prelude to the opera, are not actually from Lewis Carrol’s book but represent reoccurring dreams of Unsuk Chin about fatalism and faith. When Alice grows after eating the cake and cries herself a lake of tears, the 20-some feet tall Alice’s tears (one performer lifted into the air with the upper part, another at the bottom for the feet) are blue strips of fabric that endlessly gush from her eyes and fill the lower stage along with superimposed splatter of rain.

Regular Alice runs around in an oversized mask that has her appear childlike and surreal at once – to take that mask off only at the very end when she has put an end to the hokus-pokus of Wonderland by calling the shenanigans of the Queen of Hearts by their name. The Mock Turtle (“It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from”) appears in a big Campell’s Soup can, except it’s “Caroll’s [false] Turtle Soup” and plays the harmonica hauntingly – in between weeping helplessly. When Dame Gwyneth Jones appears as the Queen of Hearts, she is piercingly perfect, shrill and deliciously wacky, wobble-free – and, of course, a much-beloved favorite of the Munich audience, many of which still remember her legendary Marschallin.

Alice in Wonderland had originally been planned for the LA opera (where Kent Nagano has turned down Plácido Domingo’s offer for the role as Music Directorship but did agree to become Principal Conductor), but financial concerns scuppered the plans. Financial concerns are not much of a problem for Munich (one of the most generously subsidized opera houses in the world) where Nagano succeeded Zubin Mehta as Music Director in 2006. Alice became a Munich project and more ambitious in scope still.

The audience, conservative but open-minded, seemed to be plenty excited about the world premiere of Alice. Well over 100 audience members of all ages stood in line to secure a seat for an introductory talk, an hour before the second performance. But if Alice, sung in English and shown with German subtitles, was more than just a curiously interesting example of high art – gladly suffered in the name of being an audience that appreciates high art – remains questionable. The German audience, for one, has little experience with the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. And to the extent the story is known, it’s through Walt Disney’s film, not the original book – a book that could easily be seen in a line with James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach, or Luis Buñuel films like La Voie lactée and Le fantôme de la liberté. The translation, shown as sub- and supertitles, tried its best, but was invariably cut and left to choose between a literal translation and finding its own plays on words that didn’t always relate to the scene. Even an innocent pun like the Doormouse’s “Long tale, indeed”, while proudly wiggling around its long tail, remained obscure to most. That (lack of) perception presumably allowed for the staging to overpower music and story in the way it did… though whether that was good or bad can’t quite be said with a staging so imaginative and wonder-full as Achim Freyer.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

At WCR: The Year in Review

Charles T. Downey, Top Ten Performances of 2016
Washington Classical Review, December 20

A Traditional 'Marriage of Figaro'

Joshua Hopkins and Lisette Oropesa in The Marriage of Figaro, Washington National Opera (photo by Scott Suchman)
Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

On Saturday night, September 24, 2016, the Washington National Opera’s performance of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro was simulcast to Nationals Park for the annual Opera in the Outfield. In addition to a full opera house at the Kennedy Center, there were some 8,000 people in the ballpark pitching for Mozart. The evening began with the playing of the National Anthem.

Then came something unique in my many years of opera experience. After an overture played with punchy rhythms, conductor James Gaffigan led the WNO Orchestra in the opening orchestral measures to the duettino between Figaro and Susanna. Then the music stopped, and Gaffigan turned to the audience and exclaimed, “There’s supposed to be singing here.” But there wasn’t, because there was no Figaro or Susanna in sight. In fact, there was nothing in sight because the lights were down and the curtain had not been drawn. The culprit turned out to be a glitch with the automated curtain apparatus. The problem was soon resolved and Gaffigan and his forces began again – this time with Figaro and Susanna present on a stunningly handsome set of a neoclassical palace room.

The affair was handled with good humor, and thus began an evening filled with hilarity. The Marriage of Figaro was the musical Marx Brothers of its time. Da Ponte’s libretto, taken from Beaumarchais’s play of the same name, is a precursor to a French bedroom farce. The love spats, the impersonations, the cross-dressing, the endless conniving to entrap unfaithful lovers, the near-escapes, and the bald-faced lies combine to great comic effect. Part of the fun – the main part – is taking the terrible silliness of it all seriously, which is exactly what Mozart’s music does, though it is hardly lacking in effervescence. And it is what this excellent production does, as well. As Buster Keaton once said, comedy is a serious business. Only the audience should know that it’s funny. That was the case here, with hardly any moments of self-consciousness within the production to spoil the fun.

It is clear that director Peter Kazaras trusts that Mozart and Da Ponte knew what they were doing and so he played it straight, which is why it worked so well. (Why fight 230 years of success?) The sets and costumes are contemporaneous with the time in which the opera is set. Perhaps this is thought to be unoriginal today, but I was relieved to see a traditional production – particularly when done as attractively as this – because I am tired of seeing operas set anachronistically by directors for whom this substitutes as imagination. I’m not suggesting that there is only one way to do an opera, but do we really learn anything worthwhile from seeing Don Giovanni set in fascist Spain (as I recently experienced)? Or is Richard Wagner more correctly understood as an environmentalist who would wish us to recycle, as was suggested in the WNO’s superbly sung but sadly misconceived toxic-dump setting of the Ring Cycle this spring? Please, spare us! So often, productions such as these are calling attention away from the operas and toward the producers and directors – “Look at me!”

In any case, there was no solipsism in sight during this delightful evening of Figaro. All the principals sang and acted well. At first, bass-baritone Ryan McKinny seemed to lack the ultimate energy and ease with which to put over the role of Figaro, but he was simply warming up. He quickly grew in these departments until he clearly took command of the role and much of the opera. Soprano Lisette Oropesa’s Susanna sparked right from the beginning. Her singing was as fine as her lively characterization of the maid.

Baritone Joshua Hopkins as Count Almaviva and soprano Amanda Majeski as Countess Almaviva were paired well in the troubled marital relationship that drives the whole opera. With a good sense of stage presence, he was lecherous without being ridiculous, which made his repentance real. He was vocally strong. Majeski, in terms the Nationals Park audience would understand, hit her arias, particularly Dove sono, out of the ballpark. (I shall forgo saying it was pitch-perfect.) She was an affecting Countess. Mezzo-soprano Aleksandra Romano’s portrayal of the erotically eager pageboy Cherubino was fun and deft, though there seemed at times a slight wobble in her voice.

Keith Jameson’s tenor voice, deployed in the character role of Basilio, was one of the few able to slice through the orchestra when conductor Gaffigan swamped his singers, as he tended too often to do, particularly in the first act. Jameson’s acting captured the delicious superciliousness of Basilio. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Bishop as Marcellina and bass-baritone Valeriano Lanchas, who also sang Dr. Bartolo in the May 2010 WNO Marriage, made for another wonderful pairing. They were spot on as character actors with perfect voices for their roles. Lanchas, however, struggled in a few spots when the pace of the parlando singing quickened to warp speed.

I have already praised set designer Benoit Dugardyn’s stunning neo-classical conception, forested with handsome Doric columns. Costume designer Myung Hee Cho’s costumes splashed the stage with strong colors against the off-white stone columns. The effect was striking and helped project the characters forward.

If the four acts of The Marriage of Figaro have demonstrated anything it is the universal human fallibility of its characters. Mozart, however, does not simply laugh at them. Rather, he expresses a touching compassion that ends things with an act of forgiveness that provides the basis for the restoration of the broken relationships he portrays. Marriage not only presents the problem; it presents the solution.

In short, this is a good production of a great opera. There is no reason not to go see The Marriage of Figaro when it repeats on September 26, 28, 30, and October 2.

At Washington Classical Review: WNO's Rebuilding Year

Charles T. Downey, WNO opens season with a visually attractive, vocally bland “Figaro”
Washington Classical Review, September 23

Latest on Forbes: World Premiere of A. Schreier's Hamlet at Theater-an-der-Wien

The Shakespeare Quadricentennial is upon us, hard, and Shakespeare music content is sprouting up wherever we look. If it is just rehashing the regularly played Verdi operas, then that is not much. Better to have something unknown revived, like the Bregenz Festival did with Amleto by Franco Faccio and with a libretto by Arrigo Boito (REVIEW) or commission a new work altogether. That is what the Theater-an-der-Wien did, with Hamlet, set to music by Arno Schreier and Thomas Jonigk writing an almost Shakespeare-free libretto to it. The result, premiered last week, was good, even if good (or OK) is not good enough, for an opera to leave a notable mark. In addition I briefly recap some of the performances that I have seen at the Theater-an-der-Wien in the last two years, which were not always satisfying but never made me waver in my admiration for this little stagione house that could; that bright spot on the cultural scene in Vienna. Full review here:

To Succeed Or Not To Succeed: Theater-An-Der-Wien World Premiere Of "Hamlet"

Follow @ClassicalCritic

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: Further Thoughts on 'Don Giovanni'

Leah Crocetto (Donna Anna) in Don Giovanni (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

Mozart, Don Giovanni, J. Weisser, L. Regazzo, A. Pendatchanska, Freiburger Barockorchester, R. Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi, 2007)

FURTHER THOUGHTS:
In Strauss's "Capriccio," heard last week at Santa Fe Opera, the Countess settles on Gluck as setting the highest standard for opera. If only Santa Fe Opera had heeded her advice and replaced its annual Mozart opera with one by Gluck, as I suggested to Charles MacKay a few years ago. Mozart may be a staple at Santa Fe Opera, but Mozart is rarely the highlight of any season here. For the last truly extraordinary Mozart production at Santa Fe Opera, you would have to go back to "Lucio Silla" in 2005. This year's "Don Giovanni," last heard here in 2009, had that same feeling of routine Santa Fe Opera Mozart, mostly pleasant but with some inevitable disappointment. A nice staging of Gluck's "Iphigénie en Aulide" would have been just the thing to lift the season into something extraordinary.

The piece came to life a bit more in the recitatives, when Glenn Lewis took over on the fortepiano, seated at the left corner of the pit so he could see and interact with the singers. The superlative recording led by René Jacobs showed how the fortepiano, played with improvisational fancy, can enliven the recitatives in this opera. Lewis was not quite on the level of that recording, but he worked in witty allusions to other arias, for example, when some characters were mentioned.

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]