SALOME by STRAUSS

Alex Penda as Salome at Santa Fe Opera (photo by Ken Howard)

We have always thrilled to Richard Strauss' 1905 opera Salome but the current production at the Santa Fe Opera offered a fresh and Freudian interpretation by director Daniel Slater that kept us on the edge of our seat.  Mr. Slater chose to set the opera at the turn of the 20th c. when Freud's ideas about sexuality and the unconscious were still new and shocking but not yet accepted.  The titular character is revealed by some innovative staging to have observed her father's murder at the hands of her uncle Herod, the same tetrarch who now lusts for her.

This is a family right out of Krafft-Ebing. The lascivious tetrarch Herod makes no secret of his lust for his niece. Salome's mother is unsuccessful at reining him in. She believes that Salome wants Jochanaan's head out of loyalty to her because he has been cursing her from his place of imprisonment. It is not difficult to believe that Oscar Wilde penned the scandalous story on which the opera is based.

The air is heavy with lust.  Herod, Salome, and Naraboth, captain of the guard, are all passionate about beauty. Herod and Naraboth are both driven wild with desire for Salome who is similarly driven wild by lust for Jochanaan who is passionate only about his religious beliefs. Her perceived rejection by the prophet leads her to the final mad request for his head. Hell hath no fury, as they say!

The Dance of the Seven Veils, in Mr. Slater's version, has no veils and no nudity. Salome dances for her father using mainly her graceful arms in a most seductive way.  Part of the way through the dance, her mind drifts to her childhood memories of Herod murdering her father and leading her away. (Shades of Hamlet!) Although this is a directorial innovation, it seems right there in the music.

In the role of Salome, Alex Penda shines like the star that she is. She is sufficiently petite in form to convince as an adolescent with a powerful soprano that cuts right through Strauss' sizable orchestra. 

As Herod, tenor Robert Brubaker tackled the high-lying tessitura without strain and injected his character with a real personality--not a sympathetic one but an interesting one. He is clearly at odds with his wife Herodias; he is a bit frightened but also fascinated by Jochanaan and his preaching while Herodias is offended by Jochanaan's attacks on her and wants him eliminated. Mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens fulfilled her role in a most believable way. This is a marriage like many we have seen in contemporary times, a marriage in which husband and wife barely tolerate one another

Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny made a swell Jochanaan with his resonant portentous instrument.  He does not appear as a filthy starving prisoner chained in a cistern, but rather an intellectual writing at a desk in a room of the palace.  This of course goes a long way toward helping us understand Salome's attraction to his white skin, black hair and red lips.

The opera opens with tenor Brian Jagde as Captain of the Guard mooning over "die Prinzessin Salome".  Pun intended. He compares her to the moon. Page Megan Marino tries to talk him out of it. He kills himself when he realizes that she is lusting after the prophet and not him.  Mr. Jagde's singing was filled with luster and passion; we were sorry to lose him so early in the opera!

Just as Shakespeare provided comic relief in his tragedies, Salome provided a few giggles in the form of five Jews arguing theology. We were delighted to see several of our favorite apprentices in these roles: Christopher Trapani, Roy Hage, Cullen Gandy, Aaron Short, and Kevin Thompson. Nicholas Brownlee and Tyler Putnam appeared as soldiers.

We could not have asked for a better conductor than David Robertson who captured the passionate sweep of Strauss' thrilling music. Although this opera scandalized audiences at the time of it's premiere, it established Strauss' career as a composer of operas. The work has earned its place in the canon.

Set and Costume Design by Leslie Travers worked out well. We particularly liked Salome's virginal white dress and Herodias' elaborate gown. The men all wore military uniforms, replete with sashes, epaulettes and emblems. This only struck us as peculiar on the bodies of the five Jews!  Who knew that Jews were so honored in fin de siecle Austria!

(c) meche kroop

BEETHOVEN'S ONE AND ONLY

Alex Penda and Paul Groves (photo by Ken Howard)

How is it that Beethoven only wrote one opera and spent a dozen years doing it?  It must not have come easily to him.  Indeed, he rewrote the overture to Fidelio several times and the opera as well.  It premiered for the first time in 1805 in Vienna which was, at that time, under French rule.  Largely influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution it was denied performance by the censors and only achieved production due to the intervention of Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa.

This was an unusual choice for the Santa Fe Opera.  Although it is considered an opera, it has a great deal of spoken dialogue.  Although it has a happy ending it is not a comedy.  It has two major themes: the sacrifices of marital love and freedom from tyranny.  It's message is as valuable today as it was 200 years ago.

The orchestral music is as ravishing as anything Beethoven ever wrote and the Santa Fe Orchestra under the baton of the illustrious Harry Bicket (newly appointed Chief Conductor) did it justice with clean textures and rhythmic thrust.  The vocal lines are memorably melodic but challenging to sing; the game cast managed to carry it off with style.

The staging began even before the overture and introduced Leonore, disguised as Fidelio and serving as assistant to the jailer Rocco.  We also get to see Rocco's daughter Marzelline fussing about the kitchen of Charlie Corcoran's two-story set.  Jaquino, Rocco's other assistant, is importuning Marzelline to make marriage plans but she has fallen out of love with him and fallen into love with the recently arrived Fidelio.  One by one the voices join for a stunning quartet.

As Marzelline, the strong and silky soprano of Devon Guthrie (seen as an apprentice in 2010 and 2012) contrasted well with the sharper-edged soprano of Alex Penda as the titular Fidelio.  Ms. Penda was totally convincing as a young man but she is also very petite and at least a head shorter than Ms. Guthrie.  Yes, it is true that sometimes very tall women fall for very short men but it did look rather unbelievable onstage.

As the nice-guy jailer Rocco, Austrian bass Manfred Hemm sang with intensity and created a believable character.  As the spurned Jaquino, tenor Joshua Dennis used his fine voice and dramatic skills to make more of the role than is customary.

Leonore's husband does not appear until the second act but tenor Paul Groves made up for it, giving his all to his difficult aria and still managing to look as if he'd been in a dungeon for two years, imprisoned by his vicious enemy Pizzaro, portrayed with nasty gusto by bass-baritone Greer Grimsley.

Appearing at the end as a deus ex machina, Don Fernando comes to free all the prisoners.  The powerful and imposing bass-baritone Evan Hughes filled the shoes well.  Two members of the Apprentice Program made fine showings in brief solos as prisoners: the marvelous young tenor Joseph Dennis and the astounding bass Patrick Guetti.  We fully expect to see both their careers advancing rapidly.  So much talent at such a young age!

Not enough fine things could be said about the chorus, enacting prisoners desperate for freedom. Susanne Sheston gets big props as Chorus Master.

In spite of the superb orchestral and vocal performances we found Stephen Wadsworth's concept and direction to be distressing.  It is true that oppression exists everywhere and in all epochs but we fail to see how the Nazi holocaust has much to do with the political imprisonment of a small group of people. The concept was revealed gradually.  At the beginning it seemed to be anytime/anywhere but then a portrait of Hitler was exposed and Nazi uniforms appeared.

We found this to be at odds with the intentions of Beethoven and his librettists.  (There were several as he continually revised the opera.)  It seemed to be a graft that did not take.  We would have preferred a less specific setting that would have allowed us to make our own connections.

Furthermore, there are references to "the King".  Huh??? Which King?  And British soldiers coming in to liberate the prisoners and to hang the Union Jack? We don't like to see operas manipulated to fit into a Procrustean bed.

We liked Mr. Corcoran's realistic set.  On the ground floor were Fidelio's room and across a passageway, the kitchen.  Behold Ms. Guthrie as a drab German hausfrau! (Costumes were by Camille Assaf).  On the upper level were Pizzaro's office and some kind of waiting room.  Colors were all grey.

Duane Schuler's lighting was effective.  We liked the torches illuminating the dungeon and the sunlight when the prisoners were freed.

German diction was so perfect that subtitles were scarcely necessary.  Even the spoken dialogue was crisp and clear.

(c) meche kroop

PREVIEW OF FIDELIO AT THE SANTA FE OPERA

Stephen Wadsworth, Alex Penda, Harry Bicket, Noah Baetge

Last night's program at the Morgan Library, in collaboration with The Santa Fe Opera, was both entertaining and educational.  Performances by soprano Alex Penda (formerly known as Alexandrina Pendatchanska) and tenor Noah Baetge bookended a lively panel discussion in which Ms. Penda, Mr. Wadsworth and Maestro Harry Bicket discussed the upcoming performance of Beethoven's Fidelio at the SFO.  We already had plans to review Beethoven's sole opera on our annual visit to Santa Fe and the program only served to increase our anticipation.

This will be the first time that SFO has presented Fidelio which was written in 1805 but not published (in revised form) until 1826 and not performed in the USA unil 1922.  One of the interesting points made was that Napoleon's invasion of Vienna caused the opera-going class to flee Vienna leaving behind only French soldiers who probably did not take too kindly to German opera.  On the plus side, Napoleon introduced the age of meritocracy and paved he way for Romanticism, allowing the rise of the individual who had the courage of his/her convictions.

Ms. Penda discussed her feelings about the character of Leonore whom she will portray.  She finds it easy to relate to this modern woman of strong character who surely has the courage of her convictions when she defies an oppressive political regime, dons male clothing and rescues her husband from prison.  Apparently, the censors were not happy about this!

Maestro Bicket, newly appointed Chief Conductor at The Santa Fe Opera, will be on the podium  for this summer's performances; last night he demonstrated how Mozart influenced Beethoven and played parallel melodies from the operas of Mozart and then from Fidelio.  The opera begins with mundane and worldly themes then moves into the spiritual dimension with the quartet.

Also discussed was the evolution of the instruments and also the size of the orchestra.  Modernization of instruments resulted in greater volume and a smoother sound with more consistency of volume; the loss was in flexibility.  We are eager to hear Maestro Bicket's conducting and how his vast experience with early music will affect his conducting of Beethoven.

Ms. Penda spoke of her experience with Mozart and how her voice has evolved to the point where she now sings Strauss.  Indeed, we were at SFO for her performances there as Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito and also for her performance in Rossini's Ermione as the title character.  Last night's "Come Scoglio" from Cosi Fan Tutte magnified our high estimation of her artistry.

Mr. Baetge closed the program with Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98.  We recall from various music instructors the "received wisdom" that Beethoven's greatness lay in his intense rhythms but that he was a poor melodist!  In this work, we are confronted with one gorgeous melody after another.  Mr. Baetge's impressive breath control, dynamic variety, lovely legato and fine phrasing served to emphasize these melodies.

We have seen Mr. Wadsworth's stagings in Santa Fe for over ten years, the most recent being a superlative King Roger, the rarely produced opera by Szymanowski.  Here in NYC at the Metropolitan Opera he is a frequent director as well.  We can scarcely wait to see what he will do with Fidelio.

If you do not already have your tickets for Santa Fe for this summer, consider yourself encouraged.  We have never been disappointed!

© meche kroop