OPERA AS EVENT

The cast of Dido and Aeneas in the Catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery
(photo by Kevin Condon)

On the front cover of the program for Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, producer Andrew Ousley (of Death of Classical and Unisom Media) expressed his feelings about death and remembrance as eloquently as one could have imagined, giving us a clue about his regular musical presentations in crypts and catacombs. More appropriate than macabre, these radical stagings leave us feeling that life is finite and music is one of the best means of celebrating it.

The conclusion of Purcell's opera would be familiar to most opera goers. Queen Dido of Carthage kills herself but asks her handmaiden Belinda to "remember me but forget my fate". It is arguably one of the best Baroque arias in the canon. Here it was movingly sung by mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack whose prodigious vocal chops are matched by dramatic ones. Belinda was portrayed by soprano Molly Quinn whose instrument is a finely focused one that reaches to the stratosphere and tickles the ceiling. Their overtones bounced around the walls of the catacombs of Green-wood Cemetery where 120 guests were privileged to share a unique collective experience.

Purcell composed the one-act opera for performance at a girl's school in the 1680's with libretto by Nahum Tate, based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid. We have seen it at least four times in the past two years and every time certain liberties have been taken. In this iteration, director Alek Shrader (best known for his terrific tenor) has incorporated additional text by Christopher Marlowe and introduced the character of Iarbas (the low resonant tones of Paul Greene-Dennis) whose attentions toward Dido are consistently rejected.

We have noticed a tendency, in the last few versions we have seen, to portray Dido as a strong independent woman, not a victim of Aeneas' abandonment. Here Aeneas was finely performed by Paul La Rosa. It is interesting how stories evolve with the times!  

The unfortunate Trojan Prince Aeneas is led astray by a Sorceress (Vanessa Cariddi) and her two witches (Erin Moll and Alyssa Martin) who reminded us of nothing more or less than Macbeth's "weird sisters". We never find out why they have it in for Dido but they do. They employ base trickery to fool Aeneas into believing that the gods want him to go to Italy and establish Rome. And they do this with intensely valid vocalism.

Dido's sister Anna was sung by the excellent Brooke Larimer and the cast was rounded out by Marc Molomot and Kannan Vasudevan as Trojans accompanying Aeneas.

The musical values were undeniably magnificent with these gorgeous voices accompanied by expressive music. Leading from the harpsichord was Music Director Elliot Figg. Adding to the string quartet was the haunting viola da gamba.

Dancer/choreographer Liana Kleinman added some graceful modern dance to the mix.

Production values contributed a great deal to the overall effect. The catacombs themselves provided the setting with the action taking place at one end of a long tunnel; entrances and exits occurred through side doors which led to crypts occupied by the deceased of various families from the 19th c. There was a small raised platform for the performers and Tláloc López-Watermann's evocative lighting was perfect. Fay Eva's costume design was also perfect with Dido wearing a slender red gown contrasting with Belinda's white one. The three witches wore black with suitably terrifying makeup by Ivey Ray. They created a stunning stage picture.

With such splendid musical and production values, it is sad that so few people will have the privilege of witnessing this stunning sold-out event. It is also a shame that the long narrow space does not lend itself to good sight lines. We see no way around this dilemma. The tenebrous space creates a mood like no other and the acoustics are beyond wonderful.

Mr. Ousley's events are always greater than the sum of their parts, the parts in this case including a pre-opera whiskey tasting and a post-opera torch lit stroll down from the heights of the cemetery. Lest you, dear reader, imagine that my enthusiasm for the evening was colored by inebriation, rest assured that we left our share for the angels.

(c) meche kroop

ROSSINI ROCKS SANTA FE

Patrick Carfizzi (Taddeo), Daniela Mack (Isabella), Scott Conner (Mustafa), Stacey Geyer (Elvira), Suzanne Hendrix (Zulma), Jack Swanson (Lindoro)...Photo by Ken Howard for Santa Fe Opera

It was difficult to tell who was having more fun at the Santa Fe Opera last night at a riotous performance of Rossini's 1813 laugh riot L'Italiana in Algeri. The cast sparkled with glee and the audience roared with laughter. The original production by Edward Hastings premiered in 2002; we were there and we remember best the part in which Isabella arrives in Algeria by bi-plane!

We doubt that Rossini could have foreseen the Wright Brothers' invention so we will assume that this production has been advanced from the 19th c. a full century into the future.  That a forceful female character was invented by Rossini in the early 19th c. is rather remarkable.  Her setting an example for the dependent and lovelorn Elvira has resonance for us in the 21st c.

The story concerns this independent Italian woman who has gone searching for her missing beloved Lindoro; he had been captured by pirates and enslaved by the lecherous and self-important Sultan Mustafa, a ridiculous character whose arrogance makes him easy to fool.

Isabelle is accompanied by Taddeo who adores her.  She adores him not.

Mustafa is trying to rid himself of his adoring wife Elvira who needs some good mentoring by Isabella.  Mustafa has a yen for an Italian woman and Isabella arrives at just the right moment.  The opera story involves her plotting to free all the Italian slaves as well as Lindoro. Thus the opera became catnip for the Italians--not only for its memorable melodic score but also for patriotic reasons.

The setting in Algeria, then a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, reminds us of Europe's fascination with all things exotic at that time. Indeed, not too long before, Mozart wrote his Die Entführung aus dem Serail, the theme of which is not too different.

During the overture, tiny bi-planes were "flown" up and down the aisles of the theater. A somewhat larger bi-plane appeared on the set, and when it was time for Isabella and Taddeo to make their entrance, a much larger bi-plane appeared on the stage.

This masterstroke of creativity set the audience to laughing and the laughs wouldn't stop all night long. For our taste, Shawna Lucey's direction was excessive but the audience loved all the gyrations, wriggling, pelvic thrusting, wild gesticulations, and Broadway chorus-style dancing. There was one trick that Ms.Lucey missed.  When Isabella and Lindoro take off in a hot-air balloon at the conclusion of the opera, there was a basket but no balloon!

We did love the set design by Robert Innes Hopkins which was well lit by Duane Schuler. There was a flat playing space with palm trees on each side; the floor unfolded upward to reveal Mustafa's palace with its Moorish arches and pillars. It reminded us of those greeting cards that are cleverly constructed to reveal a cut-out when one opens them.

David C. Woolard's costume design was wild and colorful for the Algerian court and suitable for the Europeans in their own fashion. We particularly enjoyed the scene in which Isabella tears down one of the curtains, snatches up some random decorations, goes behind a screen, and emerges in a stylish form-fitting costume.

The singing was excellent all around; Rossini's melodies paired with the vowel-dominant Italian language give one a chance to appreciate a singer's gifts--something that doesn't happen for us in contemporary operas in English. The best part of the singing was the work done as an ensemble. The voices blended in happy harmony with each character singing a different vocal line and expressing different emotions.

Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack made a spunky Isabella, using her physical and vocal assets to get three men to do her bidding, making each one believe that he was the object of her desire. Her delivery of "Cruda sorte" was excellent.

Tenor Jack Swanson made a fine handsome Lindoro, one for whom a woman might go out searching. He was particularly admirable in his duets. Today's audience seems to love "patter songs" as much as the audience of two centuries ago; Mr. Swanson's rapid fire delivery was impressive.

Bass Scott Conner played the part of Mustafa to the hilt. His booming voice and imposing figure perfectly set off the silly nature of his actions. It is wonderful to hear that much flexibility in a large low voice.

As his rejected wife Elvira, Apprentice Singer Stacey Geyer lent her splendid soprano to the creation of a character a normal man would be foolish to abandon; but we did say that Mustafa was foolish.

Mezzo-soprano Suzanne Hendrix was excellent in the role of Zulma, Elvira's slave and confidant. She too showed a lot of spunk.

Bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi was just about perfect in the role of Taddeo and succeeded in earning our sympathy for his unrequited love. He gets passed off as Isabella's uncle and avoids impalement by agreeing to join the court.

Baritone Craig Verm was humorously menacing as Haly, Mustafa's chief pirate and scourge of the slaves.

The chorus of Apprentice Singers served as slaves and pirates and eunuchs. We always want to thank Susanne Sheston since the chorus is always so well schooled in perfect diction. And all of them seem effective in whatever parts they are asked to play.

Last, but definitely not least, Rossini's music is a constant delight. Corrado Rovaris' baton led the Santa Fe Orchestra in a highly spirited and swiftly moving reading of the score. From the piping of the piccolo to the "Rossini Crescendo", he made every moment count.

Another triumph for the Santa Fe Opera!

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EAR CANDY EYE CANDY

Anna Christy as Morgana in Handel's Alcina (photo by Ken Howard)

We love our Handel operas with their melodies tumbling out "time-signature over final barline". To hear a perfectly cast group of singers and the perfect orchestra under one (semi-outdoor) roof is a matchless experience. Last night, Harry Bicket, renowned conductor of Early Music, led a spirited reading of Handel's Alcina, one marked by clarity and precision without any loss of emotional range.

Ariosto's 16th c. epic Orlando Furioso visited an 8th c. realm of sorcery and knighthood; it was the source material for many future theatrical works, including Handel's 1735 opera, one that achieved instant success in that epoch and which is given frequent productions in our era. We have reviewed Alcina at least three times in as many years. (All archived).

The story concerns the knight Ruggiero who has fallen under the spell of the beautiful and seductive sorceress Alcina who turns men into animals and rocks when she tires of them. His fiancee Bradamante who, in the Ariosto poem is always rescuing her fiance from some peril or other, has come to the magic island with Melisso, Ruggiero's former tutor, disguised as her brother Ricciardo. The pair must break Alcina's spell. Of course, they succeed.  But not before a lot of deception, betrayal, and some gender bending fun, as Alcina's sister Morgana falls in lust with "Ricciardo".

The singers were uniformly superb and highly invested in their assigned characterizations. As the eponymous sorceress, soprano Elza van den Heever employed her powerful pipes to limn the wide-ranging emotions of the titular character. She is in turn loving, seductive, manipulative, vengeful, defeated, and vulnerable. 

As her sister Morgana, Anna Christy fulfilled the demands of the high-lying tessitura with crystalline clarity and an undeniable facility with the coloratura passages. She imbued the character with plenty of humor in counterpoint with the serious mien of Alcina.

One could not have asked for a better Ruggiero than mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy who must sing accurately whilst wandering around the stage in a state of confusion and bewilderment. We enjoyed her performance so thoroughly that we are arranging to attend a solo recital next week  presented by Performance Santa Fe. It is never taken for granted that a trouser role will be performed with such believability.

As his abandoned lover Bradamante, the marvelous mezzo Daniela Mack must be convincing in the gender bending role of Ricciardo, her very own brother, such that her revelation to Ruggiero as his beloved can delight the audience as well as astonishing Ruggiero. Her dramatic performance equalled the success of her vocal performance.

On her quest to liberate Ruggiero from the clutches of Alcina, she has assumed this disguise and is traveling accompanied by the tutor Melisso; the role was splendidly sung by bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, whose powerful and resonant sound was blissfully interposed among that wealth of female voices.

Tenor Alek Shrader's lovely sound was similarly welcome as he brought to life the character of Oronte, Alcina's general. Oronte is the lover of Morgana and when Morgana falls for the disguised Bradamante, he gets cast off and only reunites with her at the end when she pleads for forgiveness.

It is said that there are no small roles, and soprano Jacquelyn Stucker's winning and convincing performance as Oberto, a young boy looking for his father on Alcina's enchanted island, won a huge and well-deserved round of applause from us and the rest of the house. We felt sad for her character who never found his father!

We were particularly overwhelmed by the music of Act II when there were fewer distracting high jinx onstage. Bradamante's aria was followed by one of Ruggiero's in response. The famous "Verdi prati" in which Ruggiero bids farewell to the enchanted island, always moves us to tears. Alcina's expression of despair over her loss of power was similarly affecting.

If melodies sound familiar, it is because Handel never thought twice about recycling arias from other operas. His inventiveness comes into play in his accurate characterizations and in his liberal and creative use of ornamentation in the ritornelli. As a matter of fact, one of director David Alden's touches that we most enjoyed was his having the singer deliver an aria with the A-B-A sections performed from three different vantage points.

His direction, from our point of view, was "too much of a muchness". Handel's operas seem to lend themselves to wild adaptations (see our prior reviews) and there seems to be a tendency to not trust the music to entertain a modern audience without an elaborate "concept". Perhaps the directors are right because the operas are long and the plots often confusing. We observed that the audience loved the onstage high jinx and laughed out loud.

Mr. Alden's concept was that of replacing the enchanted island with an abandoned theater and Ruggiero's enchantment that of someone escaping a mundane reality. We couldn't avoid thinking of Wagner's Tannhauser in which the eponymous knight is held captive by the goddess Venus in the Venusberg. Duty vs. desire is a common theme in opera.

But we haven't seen so much humping and jumping onstage in quite some time and found it distracting and excessive. The beasts (Alcina's ex-lovers) were portrayed by some truly excellent break-dancers (choreographed by Beate Vollack) whom we would have enjoyed at another time and place in which we could have given them our full attention. There was continual shtick that we found unnecessary and did not appreciate the moments that made no dramatic sense.

Updating an opera requires that the dramatic sense be maintained; it doesn't work for us if the story is "shoe-horned" into a concept. Taken moment by moment there were a number of valid images.  For example, when Alcina loses her power, the symbolic fuschia gloves fall to the floor.  But when dozens of them rain down from above it seemed to be overkill.  And why was Morgana pushing a baby carriage? And were the rows of people sitting back to back and jiggling up and down supposed to be on a train?  So many moments didn't make sense to us. We felt as if high vocal art was competing with low sight gags.

The setting (Gideon Davey) had something like a baroque proscenium on the left and a painting of a huge wave (like a Japanese woodcut) on the right.  From time to time a wall with seven doors descended. People rushed in and out as frequently as in a French farce.  Mr. Davey's costumes leaned toward contemporary streetwear with Morgana and Oronte dressed as theater ushers. At one point Morgana was dressed like Bette Midler.  

Oh well, the music was great! Handel's music will live on and Mr. Alden's concept will vanish.

(c) meche kroop

OUR HEARTS ILLUMINATED!

 "The Illuminated Heart"--Selections from Mozart's opera performed at the 50th Anniversary of Mostly Mozart

Not even the rainy weather could dampen the spirits of the glittery members of the sell-out crowd gathered to celebrate the opening-night program of Mostly Mozart, Manhattan's yearly summertime orgy of music-making.  It was an auspicious beginning with a veritable cornucopia of talent onstage and a conducting genius in the pit.

Maestro Louis Langrée got the evening off to a rousing start with the lively overture to Le nozze di Figaro, inarguably one of Mozart's best operas, although even his less wonderful offerings will never be neglected. Onstage, we had a servant girl doing chores, tossing laundry into a basket in time with the chords--a most effective bit of stagecraft. She wiped the walls on which words were projected; as she did so the words disappeared. This was probably the finest moment for the visuals.

Mozart was a master of melody and a champion of characterization. A great artist can sing one of his arias and, in a holographic miracle, the entire opera takes shape before your very eyes. There was no shortage of great artists onstage last night.

Capturing our heart was soprano Nadine Sierra for whom we have a special fondness, having started reviewing her work when she was considered "promising". Her promise has been fulfilled. She delights the ear with her silvery soprano and involves one with the inner life of the character she portrays.

As Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, deceitfully promising Count Almaviva her sexual favors, there was no doubt in how she felt about her employer and his unwelcome advances. When he pulled her onto his lap, you could just tell that she was physically aware of his arousal (to put it delicately). Her scene partner, baritone Peter Mattei, conveyed all the blindness and feelings of entitlement that Lorenzo Da Ponte intended in the brilliant duet "Crudel! Perchè finora".

Ms. Sierra was brilliant in every role-- but the role which totally blew us away was one we'd never heard before from an opera which Mozart never finished. We were so enthralled by "Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben" from Zaide that we longed to see Ms. Sierra perform the role in its entirety; we were sad to learn that only parts of it survive.  So...a superb concert piece it will remain. Ms. Sierra produced such a finely wrought decrescendo that we held our breath.

Soprano Christine Goerke blew us away in another manner.  She is a veritable force of nature and sang Elettra's aria of rage "O smania! O furie! ...D'Oreste, d'Aiace" from Idomeneo. Her steely soprano cuts through an orchestra like a knife through butter and swells to fill the farthest reaches of any theater. Her emotional commitment drags you into the aria and all its pain.

A fine showing was made by soprano Anna Maria Martinez and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack as sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte; their voices blended beautifully in Mozartean thirds in "Ah, guarda sorella" and later, with Mr. Mattei as Don Alfonso, in "Soave sia il vento".

Ms. Martinez was riveting as Donna Elvira in "In quali eccessi, o Numi...Mi tradi quell'alma ingrata" from Don Giovanni. We loved the way she colored each section differently as she went through all the emotions of a woman scorned by a man she can't stop loving.

When mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa sang "Parto, parto, ma tu, ben mio" from La clemenza di Tito we realized that one may readily think of it as a duet with clarinet. Jon Manasse's clarinet echoed the vocal line in such an artistic fashion we wondered why we had never heard it so clearly before. Ms. Crebassa also did credit to herself in a duet with Ms. Sierra from the same opera--"Ah perdona al primo affetto".
  
As a matter of fact, there was much in Maestro Langrées conducting that brought new clarity to old favorites.  It was also admirable the way he controlled his Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra so that they supported each singer.  No one was drowned out.

A rewarding performance of the difficult "Dalla sua pace" from Don Giovanni was given by Matthew Polenzani; he was at the very top of his form both vocally and dramatically. The phrasing, the coloring, and the timbre joined with his tasteful gestures to create a picture of a man besotted and submissive to his adoration of the ambivalent Donna Anna.

Only baritone Christopher Maltman failed to impress with a somewhat lackluster "Champagne Aria" from Don Giovanni and a charmless "Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja" from Die Zauberflöte.

These were just the highlights of the evening which ended with the Finale of Le nozze di Figaro--bringing us back full circle.

As much as our heart was illuminated, the faces of the singers were not. We wish we could be as enthusiastic about the direction, design, and illuminations of Netia Jones or the lighting of Andrew Hill-- but we cannot.

On the positive side, there were some charming moments of direction that were dramatically valid. Projections succeeded at creating the illusion of depth in the hall's shallow stage; costumes effectively suggested 18th c. silhouettes while highlighting the cut and fabrics of contemporary times. But many of the projections were weak or non-specific, or unsupported by the story.  If mixed media is going to replace sets then it had better be more effective.

Happily, that minor disappointment did nothing to tarnish the luster of the voices. After an intermissionless 90 minutes, we left fulfilled.  But we would have gladly returned for another 90!

(c) meche kroop