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.

Britten's 'Lucretia' at Wolf Trap

J’Nai Bridges (Lucretia, on right in blue) and River Rogers (Child) in The Rape of Lucretia (photo courtesy of Wolf Trap Opera)

With many operas produced by Wolf Trap Opera Company, it is a matter of shoehorning the work into the confines of the Barns and its tiny orchestra pit. Benjamin Britten's chamber operas, a series of works for small theaters, are perfectly suited to the venue. The first of them, The Rape of Lucretia, opens the summer season at Wolf Trap, seen in its opening night on Friday. All the major elements of staging, casting, and musical performance came together admirably, in a production that impressed in many ways, while not ultimately solving the work's basic dramatic problems. (Spoilers to follow.)

As noted in my preview article, Mary Beard discusses the story of Lucretia in some detail in her informative book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. The events, which supposedly took place in the sixth century B.C., were not recorded by Livy in Ab urbe condita until the first century B.C. The virtuous Lucretia, wife of the Roman nobleman Collatinus, was raped by Tarquinius Sextus, the son of the last Etruscan king to rule Rome. Not able to suffer the shame, she commits suicide, and Collatinus and his friend, Junius Brutus, brandish the bloody knife as they rally the Romans to rise up and overthrow the Tarquins. Not coincidentally, Collatinus and Brutus (the ancestor of the Brutus who took part in the assassination of Julius Caesar) are elected the first consuls of the new Roman republic.

Mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges brought dignity and a strong vocal presence to the title role, equal parts virginal lightness and tragic weight. In the wonderful women's ensemble scenes, which are the best parts of this opera, she was supported by the flighty high soprano of Amy Owens as Lucia and the steady maternal sound of Sarah Larsen as Bianca, her nurse. Will Liverman captured the transformation of Tarquinius from patrician soldier into bestial attacker, and Shea Owens stepped into the role of Junius (Brutus) effectively on only a week's notice. Christian Zaremba had the largest sound, just slightly unfocused here and there, as Collatinus, tall and noble of bearing. The framing of the story in Christian terms is an unfortunate relic of librettist Ronald Duncan's choice of source, André Obey's modern French play Le Viol de Lucrèce. Here, the Male Chorus, sung with moral force by tenor Brenton Ryan, and Female Chorus of powerhouse soprano Kerriann Otaño related the story to each other as part of what seemed like a confession, due to Kara Harmon's costuming of the characters as Catholic priest and modern lay woman.

Other Reviews: Philip Kennicott and Anne Midgette, A powerful opera about a horrible subject (Washington Post, June 12)

Louisa Muller's staging was simple and dramatically effective, with Erhard Rom's set evoking the marble and rusticated stone of a Roman setting, while the costumes of the soldiers suggested a modern American present. The rotating set platform, a first in Barns history, alternated between an outdoor scene with a staircase and an interior room, put to most effective use during the disturbing rape scene, where stagehands rotated the set at a dizzying rate. (The company asked counselors from the Fairfax County Rape Crisis Center to be on hand in the lobby, in case audience members had traumatic memories triggered by the story.) Craig Kier, whom we last saw at the podium in the University of Maryland production of Marc Blitzstein's Regina, again did not seem to have enough control over balances, with the sound of both singers and orchestra becoming overbearing at times.

Two aspects of Muller's directorial concept went unexplained until the final scene. She has added a supernumerary character, the daughter of Lucretia, played by the adorable and affecting River Rogers. Adding characters without any lines to a libretto that does not include them is a perilous business, as eventually a viewer will wonder why a major character is unable to speak. One also wonders why the Female Chorus, an angry woman with a nose ring, a smoking habit, and issues to resolve, is going to confession with the Male Chorus. In the final scene, Muller seems to want us to understand -- because the girl takes her dead mother's necklace, the same one around the neck of the Female Chorus -- that the Female Chorus is the daughter of the raped woman, all grown up.

This production runs through June 18, in the Barns at Wolf Trap.

Britten's 'Rape of Lucretia' Coming to Wolf Trap

Giulio Romano, Tarquin and Lucretia, 1536, fresco panel in the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua
In her fascinating book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, historian Mary Beard traces how a culture so staunchly opposed to the idea of kings could have ended up an imperial state. In its early years, Rome was ruled by a series of kings, something written about by early Roman historians but only accepted by modern historians after the discovery of an inscription, containing the word "RECEI," under some black stone in the Roman Forum in 1899. Livy, in his history Ab urbe condita, wrote of a series of six monarchs after the legendary founding of the city under Romulus and Remus. The last of them, Tarquinius Superbus, was a "paranoid autocrat," as Beard writes, "who ruthlessly eliminated his rivals, and a cruel exploiter of the Roman people, forcing them to labor on his fanatical building projects. But the awful breaking point came, as such breaking points did more than once in Roman history, with a rape -- this time the rape of the virtuous Lucretia by one of [the] king's sons (p. 93)." Beard later goes on:

This rape is almost certainly as mythic as the rape of the Sabines: assaults on women symbolically marking the beginning and the end of the regal period. [...] But mythic or not, for the rest of the Roman time the rape of Lucretia marked a turning point in politics, and its morality was debated. The theme has been replayed and reimagined in Western culture almost ever since, from Botticelli, through Titian and Shakespeare, to Benjamin Britten; Lucretia even has her own small part in Judy Chicago's feminist installation The Dinner Party, among some 1,000 heroines of world history. [...]

This was seen as a fundamentally political moment, for in the [Livy] story it leads directly to the expulsion of the kings and the start of the free Republic. As soon as Lucretia stabbed herself, Lucius Junius Brutus -- who had accompanied her husband to the scene --took the dagger from her body and, while her family was too distressed to speak, vowed to rid Rome of kings for ever. This was, of course, partly a retrospective prophecy, for the Brutus who in 44 BCE led the coup against Julius Caesar for his kingly ambitions claimed descent from this Brutus. After ensuring the support of the army and the people, who were appalled by the rape and fed up with laboring on the drain [the Cloaca Maxima], Lucius Junius Brutus forced Tarquin and his sons into exile (pp. 121-23).

Britten, The Rape of Lucretia, I. Bostridge, S. Gritton, A. Kirchschlager, Aldeburgh Festival, O. Knussen (released on February 5, 2013) Virgin 50999 60267221 | 105'33"

The Benjamin Britten work mentioned by Beard is the English composer's opera The Rape of Lucretia, which Wolf Trap Opera will perform later this month (June 10, 12, 15, and 18). Readers of these pages are no strangers to the work as we have reviewed recordings, DVDs, and live performances of this work (Castleton Festival and Peabody Chamber Opera, both in 2007). Its proportions, as one of Britten's "chamber operas," are ideal for the Barns, and it is an affecting work, too rarely staged, that always makes a dramatic impact.

The only weird part of the opera is the Christian-tinged frame narrative, told by a Male and Female Chorus in an introduction and epilogue. Livy was not the primary source of librettist Ronad Duncan, who based his text on a modern French play, André Obey's Le Viol de Lucrèce (adapted separately in English by Thornton Wilder), itself based on Shakespeare's adaptation, The Rape of Lucrece. In the opera the virtuous wife Lucretia's suffering and suicide, following her rape at the hands of Sextus Tarquinius, is related through the prism of the redemption offered by Jesus Christ.

Production starts at 03:45 --

Lawrence Brownlee Returns to Wolf Trap

Rossini, Virtuoso Arias, L. Brownlee, Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, C. Orbelian (Delos, 2014)

The last time that Lawrence Brownlee returned to his old stomping ground at Wolf Trap Opera, to help celebrate the company's 40th anniversary, he sang to his strengths, in Italian bel canto opera. When the American tenor appeared on Friday night, for the latest in the series of Wolf Trap alumni recitals on Friday night, the repertory was Italian, but less challenging and, frankly, less interesting art songs that paled in comparison. On the other hand, one can understand Brownlee's decision to take it easy on himself, as he is in the midst of preparations to reprise the role of Charlie Parker in Philadephia Opera's new opera Yardbird, this weekend in New York.

Anyone who has ever taken voice lessons, including yours truly, has sung at least one of the first four songs on this program, working from Schirmer's classic collection of Twenty-Four Italian Songs and Arias. They are sturdy, overdone pieces, hardly scintillating fare, and Brownlee did nothing to make them stand out in any particular way, reinforcing my impression that he is not really a natural recitalist. His busily intense vibrato went a little haywire on the first one, Torelli's Tu lo sai, although that may have just been nerves, since in other slow pieces, like Scarlatti's O cessate di piagarmi, the vibrato was less noticeable. As in his opera repertory, he excels in fast pieces with lots of runs, so Legrenzi's Che fiero costume was better suited to him, although Rossini's careening La Danza posed some challenges to his accompanist, company director Kim Pensinger Witman, although in all other respects, she was a sensitive musical partner, as always.

Other Reviews: Joan Reinthaler, Here’s why Lawrence Brownlee is a rising opera star (Washington Post, March 29) Peter Benecke, Stunning Brownlee Recital in Weill Capped by High C's (Classical Sonoma, March 11)

High notes, for which Brownlee is renowned, were few and far between, starting with a high A in a lovely rendition of Bellini's Malinconia, Ninfa gentile and even higher in Rossini's La lontananza. He took his time phrasing the delicately sad lines of Bellini's La Ricordanza, reworked by the composer from the soprano aria Qui la voce in I Puritani, and in Rossini's L'esule, with the beautiful refrain "ma questo suol non è la Patria mia" (but this soil is not my Fatherland). Brownlee is working on a crossover album of popular song favorites, which he tried out for the first time in the second half of this recital (not reviewed). While I would have welcomed another listening to Brownlee's Gospel arrangements instead, this set did not yet sound quite fully formed.

'Aida' at Wolf Trap

Scott Hendricks, Marjorie Owens, and Michelle DeYoung in Aida, Wolf Trap Opera, 2015 (photo by Kim Witman)
You give birth to children, and you raise them with such care, keeping them safe and guarding their every step, until they grow up and become their own people. And after all that, can they even be bothered to call or visit once in a while? One can imagine the maternal guilt trip that Wolf Trap Opera could lay on the many singers launched by its young artist program over the years. Every once in a while, one of the kids comes home to visit, as Alan Held did in 2006, but the concert performance of Verdi's Aida on Friday night in the Filene Center, featuring four of the company's distinguished alumni, will hopefully become a tradition. In other words, all you distinguished Wolf Trap Alumni, be good and come home to see your mother once in a while.

Verdi, Aida, M. Caballé, P. Domingo, New Philharmonia Orchestra, R. Muti

Aida is the grandest of grand operas, produced at the Metropolitan Opera, where it has had immense popularity (second only to La Bohème), in the most extravagant pomp over the years. However, it works just as well in small-scale productions -- like that seen at Glimmerglass in 2012 (with significant reservations) and at Virginia Opera in 2011 -- and when you have a strong cast like this one, it can be devastating even without any sets or costumes. The only problem, as is always the case in Wolf Trap's cavernous outdoor venue, was the amplification. A few seconds of no amplification made it clear that you cannot do without it, but problems with the microphone levels made the situation worse: singers on the left side of the stage were heard much more clearly after intermission than in the first half.

The four lead singers, all graduates of the Wolf Trap apprentice program, have made strong impressions in Washington in recent years. Soprano Marjorie Owens could project over the huge ensembles but also sing with delicate pianissimo at crucial points for the role ("Numi, pietà" and "O patria mia"). In those exquisite moments of Verdi soprano suffering, as the libretto puts it, Owens's pain was indeed sacred ("il suo dolor mi è sacro," as Amneris puts it), something meant for delectation. Tenor Carl Tanner was a brilliant, heroic Radamès, not a singer known necessarily for subtlety (no mincing about with the final B-flat of Celeste Aida, for example), but with enough forza to match Owens step for step. Baritone Scott Hendricks played Amonasro with savage snarl, chewing the non-existent scenery with his over-acting but leaving no doubt as to the character's passion.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Wolf Trap Opera brings back alumni for big-gun ‘Aida’ (Washington Post, July 27) Emily Cary, ‘Aida’ tenor Carl Tanner returns to D.C., where he started trucking and bounty hunting careers (Washington Times, July 22)

No one, however, matched the intensity of mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, whose Amneris was fawning, venomous, deceitful, and yet ultimately sympathetic, someone who pays dearly for loving too deeply. When the microphone level was adjusted in the second half, it brought her searing voice into sharp focus, and it was guilty fun watching her exult in Aida's pain. Current members of the young artists program filled out the cast quite nicely, Evan Boyer as Ramfis, Christian Zaremba as the Egyptian king, and Kerriann Otaño as the high priestess (the last two heard to good effect in the company's Marriage of Figaro last month).

Conductor Daniele Callegari led a strong performance at the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra, with lovely divisi strings in the introduction to Act I and strong solos from oboe and clarinet. Four trumpeters came out to the edge of the stage, with long ceremonial trumpets, for the famous triumphal march, which was a nice touch. Members of Julian Wachner's Washington Chorus were well prepared for the choral parts of the score, both suave and bombastic. The weather had turned out cool and dry, so it was surprising not to see the lawn seating full of wine-sipping spectators.

The National Symphony Orchestra and Wolf Trap Opera will be back for one more performance this summer, a staging of Puccini's Madama Butterfly (August 7), in the Filene Center.

Ghosts at Versailles and in the Supreme Court

Corigliano, The Ghosts of Versailles, T. Stratas, H. Hagegård, R. Fleming, M. Horne, Metropolitan Opera (1992)

Charles T. Downey, Ghosts, Ginsburg Given Justice As Summer Delights
Classical Voice North America, July 22

WASHINGTON, D.C. – For opera to thrive, companies must be willing to commission new works and, just as important, to revive recent operas so they can be heard more than once. Two summer festivals near Washington did their part, premiering a new comedy and reviving one of the great operatic successes of the late 20th century.

Wolf Trap Opera, a young artist training program based in a national park in a far Virginia suburb of the District, aimed high with its first production of John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, heard at its final performance on July 18. A “grand opera buffa” (Corigliano’s term) commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera for its centennial celebration, Ghosts was sized in every way to the cavernous proportions of the Met, where it received its premiere in 1991....

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Corigliano, The Ghosts of Versailles
Wolf Trap Opera

Wang, Scalia/Ginsburg
Castleton Festival

SEE ALSO:
Robert R. Reilly, 'Ghosts of Versailles' at Wolf Trap (Ionarts, July 12)

Robert Battey, A return to grand style for Wolf Trap Opera with ‘Ghosts of Versailles’ (Washington Post, July 13)

Mark Swed, 'Scalia/Ginsburg' opera underscores how opposites can be in harmony (Los Angeles Times, July 13)

Philip Kennicott, ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’: An affectionate comic opera look at the high court (Washington Post, July 12)

Geoff Edgers, From ‘rage aria’ to ‘lovely duet,’ opera does justice to court, Ginsburg says (Washington Post, July 8)

Nina Totenberg, Judicial Differences Take Center Stage In 'Scalia V. Ginsburg' (NPR, July 10, 2013)

'Ghosts of Versailles' at Wolf Trap

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from Wolf Trap.

After nearly a quarter-century delay, the Washington D.C. area has finally gotten the chance to see and hear John Corigliano’s opera The Ghosts of Versailles, composed for the Metropolitan Opera and premiered in 1991. It was worth the wait.

On Friday evening, July 10, 2015, Wolf Trap Opera opened its four-performance run (ending July 18) with an exhilarating performance. It was a coup de théâtre and a jeu d’esprit, performed with joie de vivre. I choose my French words advisedly as the opera is based on the works of Pierre-Austin Caron de Beaumarchais, the renowned French author of The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, and The Guilty Mother; the first two works of which provided the librettos for Rossini’s and Mozart’s famous operas.

Corigliano, Phantasmagoria, Fantasia, et al., E.Klas/Tampere PO Ondine Guilty Pleasures, Moments for self-indulging and a little Corigliano exerpt, R.Fleming/Philharmonia/W.Cares Decca

William M. Hoffman provided the libretto for Corigliano, meanwhile, and he did a brilliant job of assimilating Beaumarchais’s characters and creating a fascinating, wholly original work that melds a world of ghosts from the eighteenth century, the theatrical world of opera, and the real, tragic world of the French Revolution. Here is how Corigliano describes it: “My opera The Ghosts of Versailles takes place on three different planes of reality: (1) the world of eternity, inhabited by the ghosts of Versailles, including the playwright Beaumarchais and Marie Antoinette; (2) the world of the stage, inhabited by eighteenth century characters of Beaumarchais (Figaro, Susanna, the Count and Countess, etc.); and (3) the world of historic reality, primarily the reality of the French Revolution itself, populated by the characters of (1) and (2). Thus The Ghosts of Versailles represents a journey from the most fantastic to the most realistic.” The action is driven by Beaumarchais’s love of Marie Antoinette and his desire to reach back into history to change it in order to save her.

My only acquaintance with Corigliano’s music for this opera is from Phantasmagoria—Suite from ‘The Ghosts of Versailles’ (Naxos). Musically, Corigliano captures the three worlds within the opera with idiomatic ease and he portrays their occasional disorienting intersections with an attractive eeriness and spectral glow. The occasional uneasiness during his excursions into aleatory music is dramatically apt and perfectly expressive of the disorientation that occurs when ghosts, theatrical figures, and real people confusedly intermix. So there’s no reason to be scared by this aspect of the work. For most of the almost three-hour work, Corigliano musically inhabits the imagined worlds into which the action travels. And it travels fast. By this I mean the madcap pace that propels the characters forwards (or backwards) depending on which world they are traveling to or from. We hear snatches of Mozart and Rossini, and music that is both a parody and an apotheosis of their styles.

What we witness in the first act—after the harrowing scene of Marie Antoinette recalling her execution—is certainly opera buffa, full of mayhem and hilarious pranks that reminded me strongly of a Marx Brothers production. From Figaro’s aria to the section at the ambassador’s residence with Turkish singer Samira—mezzo-soprano Jenni Bank in the comic performance of a lifetime—one scene after another was hilariously funny. Ms. Bank has a wonderfully supple voice and she is first-class comedienne. One of the “you-had-to-have-been-there” moments was a singer in

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Wolf Trap Opera's 'Figaro'

Kerriann Otaño (Countess), Talya Lieberman (Susanna), Reginald Smith, Jr. (Count), Alex Rosen (Antonio), and Thomas Richards (Figaro), in Le Nozze di Figaro, Wolf Trap Opera, 2015 (photo by Teddy Wolff)
Wolf Trap Opera last performed Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro in 2006, in the vast outdoor setting of the Filene Center. For a performance in the smaller, indoor theater of the Barns, we have to go back to 1986, which is a very long time indeed for this evergreen comic opera. The truth is, no matter how many times I see Figaro, it is such a perfectly crafted opera that it satisfies more than disappoints. What this production had going for it was a charming production and acting direction by David Paul (part of a larger directorial concept including the production of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles next month), strong musical direction by conductor Kathleen Kelly, and conversation-aping recitative with mercurial accompaniment on fortepiano by Joseph Li, placed outside the pit and without a cello or other instrument to slow him down.

What it did not have so much was a perfect cast. There were large voices, both the powerhouse Count of Reginald Smith, Jr., and the dramatic, swath-cutting Countess of Kerriann Otaño, creating a sort of aristocracy of volume as they towered above most of the rest of the cast, but not always in the best way musically. Otaño's voice packed a punch but was not easy to lighten, although her strong acting helped her use the vocal power to create a devastating sense of sadness in the Countess. The Figaro of Thomas Richards was strained at the top of the range (as in the off-key high note he tried to add to Non più andrai), unpleasantly nasal, and stiff of presence, while the charms of Talya Lieberman were mostly in excellent comic timing, because the fluttery vibrato and fragility on the top notes (that rise to high C in the Susanna or via sortite terzetto just vanished) did not really suit the role's musical demands. Abigail Levis made a boyish Cherubino, thanks to believable costumes (designed by Stephanie Cluggish) and hair style (Anne Nesmith) but also because of a sweet, pure tone and natural-sounding embellishments added in both her major arias.

Other Articles: Joan Reinthaler, A ‘Marriage of Figaro’ weds energy and delicacy, slapstick and pathos (Washington Post, June 15) Anne Midgette, Wolf Trap Opera Company: The house that Kim built (Washington Post, June 12)

Jenni Bank was a stitch as a corrosive, cigarette-smoking Marcellina -- Paul updates the story to the late 19th century -- with a contribution so strong one regretted that the character's usually deleted aria, Il capro e la capretta, was not restored to the fourth act for her. In fact, I would rather have this piece, which further humanizes the character of Marcellina, instead of Barbarina's L'ho perduta, if it came right down to it.

Wilson Chin's sets gave the sense of a run-down palazzo, especially in the scenes in the servants' quarters, and made the most of the venue's small stage, subdividing it in the first act and giving new views of the manor as the action unfolded, finally opening to make the fourth act's garden scene the largest. (The same sets will return in The Ghosts of Versailles, altered to show the passage of time.) At the podium, Kathleen Kelly was authoritative, insisting on her tempi when the singers strayed, perhaps stretching out the fourth act in a way that stalled the drama but admirably firm, consolidating a generally fine sound from the musicians, some sour notes from the horns aside.

This performance repeats on June 17 and 20, in the Barns at Wolf Trap.

Wolf Trap Closes Season with Surreal Double-Bill

Mireille Asselin (Thérèse) in Les mamelles de Tirésias, Wolf Trap Opera (photo by Teddy Wolff)
The gods of ancient Greece punished presumption. This was the theme, in a way, that united the double-bill of early 20th-century French opera that closed the season at Wolf Trap Opera, heard on Sunday afternoon. The eponymous sailor of Milhaud's Le pauvre matelot (1927), on a libretto by Jean Cocteau, is punished for returning home to his waiting wife but deceiving her -- not by the gods, but by his wife herself, unknowingly. Hera punished the prophet Tiresias by turning him into a woman, during which time he even gave birth to children before Hera turned him back. The story was reversed and updated by Guillaume Apollinaire in his play Les mamelles de Tirésias, set as an opera by Poulenc in 1947, in which a wife named Thérèse proclaims her feminist independence and is turned into a man.

Apollinaire used a neologism to describe the tone of his play, "surréaliste," which he explained by adding that "if it is not newer than everything found under the sun, it has at least served to formulate no credo, no artistic and literary affirmation." The two operas form an odd pairing, but the musical styles of the two composers have something in common and one is left scratching one's head by both of them. Each opera also featured a soprano who is one of the company's major discoveries of the last couple years. Dramatic soprano Tracy Cox had a compelling turn as the sailor's wife, demonstrating a serious side that complemented her turn as Alice Ford in last year's Falstaff, both with a powerful instrument that is deployed with compelling pliancy and force. Lyric soprano Mireille Asselin, who was a fairy-light Nannetta in the same production last season, was equally fine in the role of Thérèse, created for Poulenc's soprano muse Denise Duval, taming the role's high-flying excesses with a comic edge that lightened the more incomprehensible parts of the story.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Wolf Trap Opera presents engaging French duo: Sailors and breasts (Washington Post, August 11) ---, Wolf Trap Opera, Castleton Festival launch unevenly but laudably on same weekend (Washington Post, June 29) Charles T. Downey, 'Carmen' at Wolf Trap (Ionarts, July 29)

In the same category was the hilarious performance of baritone Tobias Greenhalgh as the husband in Les mamelles, who had both the extended high range for the role and the confidence and comic range to pull off singing much of the evening in drag. Tenor Robert Watson had the power side of the role of the sailor in Le pauvre matelot, if not quite the head voice needed at a few points. Norman Garrett and Ryan Speedo Green were effective as the sailor's father-in-law and friend, although further French pronunciation coaching is needed. Baritone Joo Won Kang was fun as both the theater director and the gendarme, and many of the company's studio artists filled out the rest of the cast.

Conductor Timothy Myers, whom we have reviewed at the Castleton Festival and at Wolf Trap before, had a good handle on both scores, although allowing the orchestra too much free rein in that some of the singers sometimes struggled to be heard. This was surprising in Les mamelles, since the performance did not use the complete orchestration, with only one of each woodwind, brass, and harp (a substantial and disappointing reduction, but necessary because of the constraints of the pit at the Barns -- hear the full effect in this performance from the Opéra de Lyon). The staging by Matthew Ozawa was minimal but caught something of the essence of each work, through simple means, like a white steel frame box that surrounded the sailor's wife in Le pauvre matelot, setting her off in her loneliness, and the two little pink balloons that floated out of Asselin's dress when Thérèse began her transformation in Les mamelles.

This performance will be repeated on August 16, in the Barns at Wolf Trap.

'Carmen' at Wolf Trap

Wolf Trap Opera's important work is in the intimate indoor venue of the Barns, like Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto last month. The company, a training ground for young singers, also usually gives at least one performance in the Filene Center, a cavernous outdoor venue that appeals for some reasons -- the feel of summer, lawn seating, a large audience -- but is annoying for others, including the necessity of amplification for the singers. This year's Filene offering, a rather plain semi-staging of Bizet's Carmen, fell on Friday night, when the weather was perfect.

The sound experience of this performance was disconcerting on many levels, as the amplification system made it impossible to judge the quality of the singers' voices. Maya Lahyani had enough magnetism to pull off the title role, with a dark, viscous voice that had most of the compass needed, with some iffy notes on top. New York-born tenor Kevin Ray brought out the dorky qualities of Don José -- "il est trop niais," jokes Carmen at one point -- and had some ringing high notes, although the amplification spoiled the sound of his head voice, so crucial in the character's big aria, La fleur que tu m'avais jetée. Melinda Whittington's Micaëla was full-bodied and not so innocent that she wanted anything to do with Don José by the end of the third act, while the Escamillo of Norman Garrett left little impression, either vocally or dramatically.

Other Reviews: Tom Huizenga, Wolf Trap Opera’s ‘Carmen’ could use a little more of the original’s edginess (Washington Post, July 28)

Balances were made difficult by the amplification, so the supporting voices of the quintet were hard to distinguish. Worse, the National Symphony Orchestra, which played quite well, was placed on stage behind the singers, making the softer instruments, especially harp and flute, hard to hear, even with amplification. A large host of singers from the Washington Chorus were even further away behind the orchestra, not always lining up with the chorus members on stage, and although conductor Grant Gershon, resident conductor of the Los Angeles Opera, had a good handle on the score, he had no way to connect to the lead singers, who were behind him. Tara Faircloth's bare-bones production, with projections by S. Katy Tucker to suggest locations and costumes by Rooth Varland, was about as traditional and boring as they come.

Rather than trying to improve any of these shortcomings, the folks at Wolf Trap expended a lot of effort on some completely unnecessary technological bells and whistles instead. Subtitles that could be beamed to your tablet or other device reportedly did not work most of the evening. David Pogue, a technology writer and opera fan, also came on stage as a supernumerary wearing a Google Glass headset. This coincided almost perfectly with the appearance of Jerry Seinfeld on the cover of Wired as their "Guest Glasshole." No further comment is required.

'Falstaff' at Wolf Trap

(L to R) Tracy Cox (Alice Ford), Mireille Asselin (Nannetta), Margaret Gawrysiak (Quickly),
and Carolyn Sproule (Meg) in Falstaff, Wolf Trap Opera, 2013 (photo by Carol Pratt)
Five years after Wolf Trap Opera presented Verdi's first and only other comedy, Un Giorno di Regno, the company let the other shoe drop. Their new production of Verdi's Falstaff is timed conveniently with the composer's bicentennial year, an event marked by most summer festivals this year. Heard on opening night yesterday, in the small theater at the Barns, it is a pleasing if not ideal version of this most masterful of Verdi's operas.

Verdi, Falstaff, T. Gobbi, E. Schwarzkopf, L. Alva, A. Moffo, Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, H. von Karajan

The cast of young artists performs at a high level, led by the Alice Ford of dramatic soprano Tracy Cox, a juicy and puissant voice, and the Ford of baritone Norman Garrett, towering in presence and both powerful and refined in sound. Their foil, the hilarious and pompous Falstaff of bass-baritone Craig Colclough, showed remarkable range in the role after an imposing Commendatore and sly Shadow in last year's Don Giovanni and The Rake's Progress. Margaret Gawyrsiak, who stole the show last season as Baba the Turk, came close to doing the same as a guest artist Mistress Quickly, and mezzo-soprano Carolyn Sproule was a comely Meg.

Herbert von Karajan is to blame for me thinking that every Nannetta should sound like Anna Moffo, when in fact no one does, but Canadian soprano Mireille Asselin came admirably close, a slight tendency to sharpness aside, with a radiantly transparent sound as the Queen of the Fairies. Tenor Matthew Grills, a Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Winner last year, was her equal as Fenton, with a pretty sound and solid high notes, revealing no sound of strain, in the gorgeous aria that introduces the final scene. The supporting cast were also in good form -- the braying Caius of tenor Juan José de León, the bright-nosed, Scarecrow-like Bardolfo of Brenton Ryan, and the rotten-toothed Pistola of Aaron Sorenson -- rounding out a well-balanced ensemble that made the most of the exquisite and rollicking fugue with which Verdi adroitly ends the opera, the most savant of rib-jabs.

Read more »

Rake No. 2 at Wolf Trap

Charles T. Downey, ‘Rake’s Progress’ at Wolf Trap highlights vocal talent
Washington Post, August 6, 2012

Stravinsky, The Rake's Progress, M. Persson, T. Lehtipuu, M. Rose, E. Manistina, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, V. Jurowski (released on January 31, 2012) Opus Arte OA 1062 D | 140' [Review]

Are Stravinsky’s 20th-century masterpiece “The Rake’s Progress” and Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” opposite sides of the same coin? That seemed to be the point of Wolf Trap Opera’s pairing of the two operas this summer, both named for self-centered men who leave spurned women in their wake, with the help of servants who take part in their sins. Both men are punished with no hope of escape, abandoned even by the women who tried to deter them from the wrong path.

The summer’s best vocal talent was saved for this welcome production of “The Rake’s Progress,” on Friday night at the Barns. ­Texas-born tenor Eric Barry excelled in the demanding role of Tom Rakewell, in one of the most promising performances by a Wolf Trap young artist in recent memory. Lustrous, puissant high notes never faltered or strained, with clean accuracy of intonation and rhythm, spinning out the baroquified curlicues of Stravinsky’s vocal writing. The Anne Trulove of Corinne Winters, from Frederick, was no less striking, a winsome soprano of rounded richness, with just the right air of angelic innocence. [Continue reading]

Stravinsky, The Rake's Progress
Libretto (.PDF file) by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman
Wolf Trap Opera
Barns at Wolf Trap

Wolf Trap 'Don Giovanni'

Charles T. Downey, After cancellations, Wolf Trap’s ‘Don Giovanni’ resumes at high wattage
Washington Post, July 5, 2012

Mozart, Don Giovanni, Freiburger Barockorchester, R. Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi, 2007) [REVIEW]

There was some ominous thunder during the second act, but the libertine finally got his just deserts in the first complete performance of the Wolf Trap Opera Company’s new production of “Don Giovanni” on Tuesday night. The weekend’s violent storm canceled the first two performances, but the power was back on for this updated staging, heavy on video effects. The company’s repertoire has been mostly full of surprises in recent seasons, perhaps justifying a return to this audience favorite, last produced at the Barns in 2005.

Wolf Trap continues to field remarkable talent in its young singers, beginning with the powerful baritone of Craig Irvin, who as Leporello outshone the Don Giovanni of colleague Ryan Kuster, less burnished in the serenade “Deh vieni alla finestra.” The original casting idea, noted in publicity materials, was that Kuster and Irvin would learn both parts and switch back and forth on alternate nights of the run. Interchangeability is a theme in the Mozart-Da Ponte operas — think of Susanna and the Countess in “Figaro” and all of “Cosi” — and some of the best comedy in “Don Giovanni” results from the two men switching identities in the second act. The idea was abandoned about three weeks away from opening night, probably for the best since most audience members would not have been able to appreciate the amount of work that went into it. [Continue reading]

Mozart, Don Giovanni (critical edition, ed. Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm, in Neue Mozart-Ausgabe)
Wolf Trap Opera Company
Barns at Wolf Trap

SEE ALSO:
Anne Midgette and Charles Downey, At ‘Don Giovanni’ and other performances, storm’s power outages are a showstopper (Washington Post, July 2, 2012)

Joseph McLellan, 'Don Giovanni' at Wolf Trap (Washington Post, July 25, 2005)

Reviews Deferred

Anne Midgette and Charles T. Downey, At ‘Don Giovanni’ and other outdoor performances, storm is a show-stopper (Washington Post, July 2, 2012)

Don Giovanni survived at Wolf Trap on Friday night. There was thunder and lightning, to be sure, but those special effects accompanied not a descent into hell but the storms that passed overhead and wiped out the power just as Olivia Vote, a young mezzo, was gearing up to begin Donna Elvira’s aria “Mi tradi” (“He betrayed me”). All that betrayed her, though, were the lights, which flickered and flashed and then went out, leaving Vote standing in darkness.

There were a few bright hopes, voiced from the stage — first by a staffer and then by Kim Witman, the company’s director, illuminated by flashlights and the gentle glow of exit lights powered by the emergency generator — that the power could be gotten up and running again, but after a few minutes the company conceded defeat. “This guy gets to live tonight,” Witman said when she finally dismissed the audience, taking the stage with Craig Irvin, who played Giovanni. Few present had yet realized the magnitude of the storms, or the fact that the show would be silenced for the whole weekend: Sunday’s matinee performance of “Don Giovanni” was also canceled (as was Saturday’s scheduled performance at the Filene Center of “The Pirates of Penzance”). [Continue reading]

The resourceful performer always has a piece or two memorized and ready to play at the drop of a hat. That was the lesson for young musicians to learn on Friday night, when a violent storm swept through Rappahannock County and knocked out power to the Castleton Festival, meaning that resourceful General Director Nancy Gustafson was looking for musicians ready to keep the audience occupied.

Thanks to a small generator that provided power to the festival’s other venue, Theater House, I was able to hear a recital of singers from the Castleton Artists Training Seminar on Saturday afternoon. Like most events of this type, there was admirable promise as well as room for improvement. Big sounds came from baritone Darik Knutsen, with the lusty brindisi from Thomas’s Hamlet, and dramatic soprano Jing Zhang, in a scorching rendition of “Depuis le jour” from Gustave Charpentier’s Louise (in need of more French diction coaching). Bass Brandon Cedel scored high points for his choice of music, with an earnest but earthbound rendition of Mahler’s song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. His performance of Purcell’s “Arise, ye subterranean winds,” Prospero’s aria from The Tempest, roared and rattled in imitation of the previous night’s tempest.

Wolf Trap Opera Turns 40

See my review of the 40th anniversary gala concert for Wolf Trap Opera in The Washingtonian:

Wolf Trap Opera Turned 40, August 26:

Each summer the Wolf Trap Opera Company stages high-quality productions of major operas for its cadre of young singers. Over the years, the best of these apprentice vocalists have gone on to important careers, which is one of the best parts of attending their performances: to see and hear great talent in the making. Wolf Trap Opera took stock of its 40-year history on Wednesday night, with a gala concert of opera’s greatest hits, pairing some of this year’s new talent with some of the best who got their start in America’s National Park for the Performing Arts. Like most events of this type, it had some memorable moments among others that were less so, and it ran too long with speeches, mostly entertaining but too many in number. (At least at an awards dinner, they serve you food and wine.) If two of the scheduled singers, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and tenor Carl Tanner, had not canceled, it would have gone on even longer than three hours.

At the top of the roster was tenor Lawrence Brownlee, who brought the house down with a gutsy rendition of “Ah, mes amis!” from Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, those famous nine high Cs all on pitch and laser-focused. He also paired off with baritone Richard Paul Fink, heard earlier this summer as an impressive Wozzeck at Santa Fe Opera, in the famous duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, “Au fond du temple saint.” Bass-baritone Alan Held was a brooding, granite-solid Wotan leading the gods into Valhalla (from the end of Wagner’s Das Rheingold), as well as a charming Leporello in the catalogue aria from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, played with an iPad highlighting 1003, the number of the Don’s conquests in Spain. Held’s Scarpia in next month’s Tosca, at Washington National Opera, will certainly be worth hearing, as will -- if the planets align correctly -- the return of his Wotan in WNO’s first complete Ring cycle. [Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
Anne Midgette, At Wolf Trap Opera gala, enough star wattage to power operahouse 40 more years (Washington Post, August 26)

Susan Dormady Eisenberg, As Wolf Trap Opera Marks 40th Year, 14 Star Alumni to Return for Benefit Concert (Huffington Post, August 16)

Tales of Hoffmann at Wolf Trap

Wolf Trap Opera Company's new chamber production of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann offered much comedy, yet missed its dramatic potential due to minimal staging, lighting, and orchestral forces. The stories of love lost from demoralized poet Hoffmann (tenor Nathaniel Peake), reinforced by the Muse/Nicklausse and chorus of hipster students, with antagonist (bass-baritone Craig Irvin), begins with boisterous drinking songs in a bare, cramped Luther's Tavern (sets by Michael Olich).

First, the disappointments. Given that over three-quarters of the stage was taken up by moveable wooden blocks making a wall in the staging by Dan Rigazzi, Hoffmann and the chorus barely had room to move during the fun, rhyming Legend of Kleinzach. Perpetually under low lighting, the dozen chorus members would at times spend more than a dozen minutes blocked in the same place, looking bored, particularly during awkward lengthy pauses between scenes (conductor Israel Gursky) that slowed the work's momentum. Faces of main characters were often obscured in a shadow (lighting by Robert H. Grimes), which did not much matter for Hoffmann, who had more or less the same detached expression throughout the entire opera. Clumsy French dialogue was reminiscent of a local high school French class. Hoffmann's Muse, resonantly sung by mezzo Catherine Martin, was supposed to be in disguise as Hoffmann's friend Nicklausse; however, it must be difficult to walk like a man wearing stilettos.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Wolf Trap Opera offers vigorous, absorbing production of 'Tales of Hoffmann' (Baltimore Sun, August 9) Karren LaLonde Alenier, Hoffmann's Sirens (The Dressing, August 9) Anne Midgette, Intimate, long ‘Hoffmann’ has problems at Wolf Trap Opera (Washington Post, August 8) Terry Ponick, Wolf Trap Opera's lengthy, vigorous 'Tales of Hoffmann' (Washington Times, August 8)

Craig Irvin's strong acting, demonic eyes, and brassy bass-baritone voice strengthened his roles (Lindorf, Coppelius, Dr. Miracle, and Dapertutto) as adversaries to Hoffmann and were most memorable. The mechanical doll Olympia (soprano Jamie-Rose Guarrine, pictured), who is seen as fully human through special glasses by an infatuated Hoffmann, sang her virtuosically sweet song with comfortable ease and precision, until her robotics had a comic meltdown. Antonia (Marcy Stonikas), who was forbidden to sing by her father (Kenneth Kellogg) since it was thought to cause her illness, did sing secretly for Hoffmann, leading to her death. Stonikas was quick to overpower the resonant wooden walls of the Barns when singing the sweet text, "the turtledove has flown far away from you." The seductively malicious courtesan Giulietta (soprano Eve Gigliotti) conveyed the best balance of vocal nuance, emotive acting, and command of French language. After his woeful stories of suffering and a nicely sung lamenting piece for unaccompanied men's chorus, Hoffmann realized that poetry is his love and kissed his undisguised Muse under a spotlight, switched on for the first time.

Photo by Carol Pratt

Where to Listen This Summer

See my round-up of classical music attractions this summer at Washingtonian.com:

Ways to Get Your Summer Classical-Music Fix (Washingtonian, May 31):

Now that Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, we are officially in the summer classical-music season. After mid-June, many concert venues around town will be shuttered or mostly dark until September. There is still music to be heard, but it may mean taking a short (or long) drive to another destination. Here are some of the best options.

GO TO LORIN MAAZEL'S HOUSE
Lorin Maazel, the 81-year-old star conductor and former music director of the New York Philharmonic, has a country house in Rappahannock County. Several years ago, he built a concert hall in his house and started to host performances there, in a bucolic landscape complete with farm animals, a tranquil pond, and views of the Shenandoah mountains. In 2009, he made these semiregular performances at his property, Castleton Farms, into a summer festival, modeled after Glyndebourne in Great Britain. Rechristened the Castleton Festival the program features young instrumentalists and singers who are given training and a major résumé-building boost. Now in its third year, the event has drawn widespread media attention, including from international publications such as the Financial Times and Opernwelt. The opera productions this year include Puccini’s ever-popular La Bohème, a double-bill of Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale and Falla’s Master Pedro’s Puppet Show, and a double-bill of Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins and Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.

Other one-off performances include recitals with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, concerts by the Festival Orchestra, and a few performances in other venues, including the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, the Music Center at Strathmore (a Shakespeare extravaganza including recitations by Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons on June 30), and the Inn at Little Washington. The festival runs June 25 through July 24. [Continue reading]

Kate Lindsey Wants to Make Something of It

Read my review published today in the Style section of the Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, Kate Lindsey at Barns at Wolf Trap
Washington Post, April 11, 2011

If Alma Mahler, Dominick Argento and Miss Manners had attended the same dinner party, the conversation would have been endlessly diverting. At least that was the impression given by an approximation of such an evening, the delectable recital by Kate Lindsey on Friday at the Barns at Wolf Trap.

It was a homecoming for the Richmond-born mezzo-soprano, whose first local triumph was the title role of Wolf Trap Opera Company’s production of “La Cenerentola” in 2005. Her voice remains rich and rarefied, a dark-colored ribbon of sound that is silky but not boringly smooth. In little sets of pleasing songs by Bizet, Liszt and Ives, she was by turns sultry and powerful, with a husky chest voice that never crossed into graininess. Kim Pensinger Witman, the director of Wolf Trap Opera, was a sensitive partner at the piano, providing a carefully crafted accompaniment.

The eclectic program may have kept attendance on the low side, but it revealed an adventurous musical spirit. This was seen, for example, in the song cycle “Jeder Mensch,” commissioned last year by Lindsey from the young Egyptian-born London-born composer Mohammed Fairouz. The work’s appeal was due mostly to its incorporation of songs by Alma Mahler, who put her compositional aspirations aside when she married Gustav Mahler. [Continue reading]

Kate Lindsey (mezzo-soprano) and Kim Pensinger Witman (piano)
Music by Gounod, Liszt, Mohammed Fairouz, Ives, Argento
Barns at Wolf Trap

PREVIOUS REVIEWS:

• Tales of Hoffmann (Santa Fe, 2010)
  
• Don Giovanni (Santa Fe, 2009)
  
• L'Etoile (2007, Wolf Trap)
  
• Barber of Seville (St. Louis, 2006)
  
• La Cenerentola (Wolf Trap, 2005)

OTHER ARTICLES:

• More on Fairouz's 2011 song cycle Jeder Mensch
  
• Bill Lohmann, Have voice, will travel Kate Lindsey at Wolf Trap (Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 3)
  
• Judith Martin, The portrait of a lady: Judith Martin on sitting for Victor Edelstein (Washington Post, April 7)
  
• Tom Moore, Mohammed Fairouz: An Interview (Opera Today, September 12, 2010)
  
• Gary Hoffman, Kate Lindsey: An Interview (Opera Today, September 13, 2010)

'Midsummer Night's Dream' at Wolf Trap

Ryan Belongie (Oberon) and Alexander Strain (Puck) in A Midsummer Night's Dream (photo by Kim Pensinger Witman for the Wolf Trap Opera Company) -- More photos

Benjamin Britten's operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of my favorite 20th-century operas, which until now I have not managed to see in a live production. Having had to miss a production a couple years ago from Maryland Opera Studio (and David Kneuss's staging for Tanglewood before that), I was not going to make the same mistake with Wolf Trap Opera's new production, which opened on Friday night. Britten's music seems to make sense of this odd play, in a very modern way, stemming especially from the alluring, yet menacing figure of Oberon. For Britten, in whose works the loss of innocence is a major theme, there is something threatening and not quite right in the Fairy King's obsession with the "changeling child" protected by his queen, Tytania. It comes through in the magical, shimmering, otherworldly orchestration, which is at its most brilliant in the fairy sections of the opera.

Although it seems a little surprising to me, some people are still put off by Britten's harmonic and melodic style: at the end of the first act, which is heavy on Oberon's menace, a large portion of the audience got in their cars and drove away. This is a shame, because by the third act the opera becomes a rollicking farce with the performance of the "rude mechanicals," costumed in this production (directed by Patrick Diamond, costumes designed by Camille Assaf) as a highway construction crew in reflective vests and overalls. The concept included a mullet for Nicholas Masters's Bottom, played as the paragon of inept vanity, which required only a large pair of ears for him to be transformed into an ass. Among the group of six, the full low range of Kenneth Kellogg as Quince stood out, as did the cross-dressed hilarity of David Portillo's Flute, complete with voice cracks as he tested out his feminine range (Peter Pears, who created the role, would have been proud). Nathaniel Peake should win some sort of versatility award, having switched gears from the sadistic Soliman in Zaide to the hapless Snout, whose blithely tone-deaf performance as the Wall in the Act 3 play brought down the house.

Britten, A Midsummer Night's Dream, F. Lott, I. Cotrubas, J. Bowman, Glyndebourne Opera, B. Haitink

The vocal discovery of the evening was countertenor Ryan Belongie, a smooth voice that did not edge into shrillness and was sized perfectly for the intimate size of the Barns. His mesmerizing stage presence had just enough threat to justify the title "King of Shadows" bestowed on him by Puck, a white-haired roué who stands out from the rest of the fairies, all topped with Tytania's bright orange hair. Ashlyn Rust's bright-edged soprano was suited to the pyrotechnical parts of Tytania, but an active vibrato made more sustained lines a little buzzy. The Arlington Children's Chorus had a summery, delicate sound as the fairy chorus (ably prepared by Kevin Carr), like all the fairies in bright green pajamas -- somewhat reminiscent of Robert Carsen's production for the Aix-en-Provence Festival -- except the quartet of named fairies, costumed as servants with feather-dusters. The quartet of lovers was well matched and convincingly directed, the nerdy Lysander of Paul Appleby and equally nerdy Helena of Rena Harms, in particular. Actor Alexander Strain was a high-energy presence in the spoken role of Puck.

Other Reviews: Joan Reinthaler, Wolf Trap's "Midsummer Night's Dream" is a light, fun frolic (Washington Post, August 16) Terry Ponick, Spend your 'Midsummer Night' at Wolf Trap's Barns (Washington Times, August 17)

Patrick Diamond's production was not quite as modernized and rife with malevolent imagery as David McVicar's staging for the Théâtre de la Monnaie but less traditional fairy land than Peter Hall's classic Glyndebourne production (available on DVD). A platform raised a tilted stage at an awkwardly raked angle (singers should get combat pay for having to walk on these), and designer Erhard Rom used the same spiral staircase at the back of the stage, in the alien prison in Zaide and here leading to Oberon's chamber above. Conductor Steven Osgood, in his Wolf Trap debut, led a vivid reading of the score, with only some of the string glissandi sounding less than tidy and unified. In spite of the separation of some of the instruments placed outside the small pit, the ensemble sounded convincingly on the same page most of the evening. It was a delightful end to a season of a few too many disappointments.

This production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream will be repeated once more, on Tuesday night (August 17, 8 pm), in the Barns at Wolf Trap.