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

ELZA VAN DEN HEEVER

Elza van den Heever (photo by Dario Acosta)

Apparently, the 19th c. came late to South Africa but better late than never!  Last night at the acoustically amazing Weill Recital Hall we were fortunate to hear a set of songs by South African composers--songs about nature, mainly--contrasting the wonders of the veld with the tumult of the big city. The program was part of Carnegie Hall's UBUNTU--a celebration of South Africa. The songs were sung by the lovely soprano Elza van den Heever whom we much admired and reviewed when she sang Elisabetta in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at The Metropolitan Opera.  The songs are gloriously melodic and stood up well next to the lieder by Brahms and Schumann that were also on the program.

Ms. van den Heever, in her recital debut, held the stage with a great deal of poise and has a bright penetrating soprano that seems comfortable in the high lying tessitura of the Händel arias with which she opened the program.  Both "Mio caro bene" from Rodelinda and "Ah! crudel, il pianto mio" from Rinaldo offered her the opportunity to show the flexibility of her instrument in the lavish fioritura.  Likewise she moved easily from one emotion to another in the various sections of each aria.  Piano partner Vlad Iftinca similarly moved easily from one mood to another.

But it was in Schumann's Frauenliebe und -leben that we were able to truly appreciate Mr. Iftinca's gifts, particularly in the postlude when the piano recalls the first meeting the young woman has with her husband to be.  Many women have protested Adelbert von Chamisso's poetry in which a woman has no life beyond childbearing and marriage; when her husband dies, her life is over.  But of course we recognize that this is an early 19th c. viewpoint and we don't care.  We love the music and hope that the singer will convey the woman's progress from adolescence to mature adulthood.

Ms. van den Heever accomplished this reasonably well, although the wonder of the young woman in "Seit ich ihn gesehen" did not come through as well as we'd hoped, perhaps due to the slow tempo.  Things picked up and by the time she got to the girl's wedding day in "Helft mir, ihr Schwestern" this rather reserved artist became excited and expressive, using her entire body, not just her voice and face.  It is clearly a matter of taste, but we prefer our singers to involve their bodies.  This expressive involvement was seen again in "An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust" in which the young woman expresses the joys of motherhood.  Likewise, her grief over her husband's death was quite moving in the final song "Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan".  And then came that stunning postlude!

The set of Fauré songs were beautifully sung.  Ms. van den Heever's quietness served her well here and these delicate gems were sung with lovely long lean lines, as French should be sung and rarely is.  We were particularly fond of the lilting "Les roses d'Ispahan" and "Clair de lune", in which Mr. Iftinca played the most gorgeous prelude.

A set of Brahms' songs was enjoyable, with more involvement of her personality.  We loved "O komme, holde Sommernacht" and the bittersweet "Die Mainacht".  

The set of songs in Afrikaans involved three composers: Stephanus Le Roux Marais, John K. Pescod, and Petrus Johannes Lemmer--all born in 1896 by strange coincidence. Perhaps in that year the planets were perfectly aligned for great music. We only wish that songs like these were being composed today.

We would like to see Ms. van den Heever let go a bit more so that the audience can share her involvement with the material. There is one other issue that hampers this lovely artist who has so much to offer. There was a problem with dynamic control. Her pianissimi were barely audible, her forte more like fortissimo; a smoother transition in dynamics would be welcome.

As encore, we heard Charles Ives' Memories--the pleasant memory of the opera house was given appropriate excitement and the nostalgic tune given appropriate melancholy.  A second encore was yet another song in Afrikaans, the name of which we did not hear.  

© meche kroop

OFF WITH HER HEAD

Elza van den Heever

Joyce DiDonato

Two queens did  battle on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in Donizetti's worthy Maria Stuarda, based upon the Schiller play (which took some large liberties with history).  Not the knock-down drag-out fight between the two divas in the 1835 opening, but the battle of two characters of varying temperaments and character--the shrewd and brilliant Protestant Elizabeth and the emotional and sensual Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic without honor in her own country.  What was most thrilling about the production was the contrast between two prime donne--soprano Elza van den Heever as Elisabetta and mezzo Joyce DiDonato as the hapless Maria.  We are convinced that these two superstars, unlike the two divas of 1835, got along just fine backstage!

Donizetti's writing for the voice is thrilling and just needs the right voices to bring it to life; here we had the right voices.  Ms. van den Heever has a bright penetrating sound and the agility to master the fioritura of the bel canto style, sadly missing from last season's production of Anna Bolena also at the Met.  Ms. DiDonato has a mellower sound, full of pathos and vulnerability except in the scene where she verbally attacks Elisabetta with vile insults, instead of assuming a modest submissive mien which might have saved her life.  Ms. DiDonato is likewise a master of the bel canto style with incredible precision in her runs and a trill to die for.

There is not much to the story.  The Earl of Leister, winningly sung by Matthew Polenzani, wants Elisabetta to forgive Maria, or at least to meet with her and consider it.  They meet in a forest outside the prison in which Maria has been sequestered.  The meeting goes badly and Maria is condemned to death by chopping block.  Maria is also supported by George Talbot, well-sung by bass Matthew Rose, and her companion Jane, equally well-sung by sturdy mezzo Maria Zifchak.  Taking Elisabetta's side is her Secretary of State Lord Cecil, sung by the fine baritone Joshua Hopkins.  But it is the two stars that carry the show.

David McVicar's production is inoffensive, properly accurate in time and place.  No great risks are taken, which is all to the good so that we can focus on the music.  Sets and costumes by John Macfarlane are acceptable in that the sets suggest the halls of the various palaces but a bit strange when the forest is set off by steps on all sides, reminding one of Chichen Itza.
The costumes in the first scene are all white against a background of bloody red, probably meant to be symbolic of the bloodshed to come but not at all suggestive of the court of that epoch.  In the final scene, the characters are all in black.  A bit obvious, no?

Musical values were strong all-around.  Maestro Maurizio Benini evinced an unusually clear and nuanced reading of the score while supporting the singers totally.  There was a memorable moment when Ms. DiDonato produced one of the finest diminuendi ever heard while Maestro Benini held the orchestra down.  Unforgettable!

The Met chorus sang with its customary verve and clarity of diction.  They opened the opera with a joyful chorus about Elisabetta's impending marriage and closed the opera with a mournful dirge about Maria's impending death.  We watch Maria's ascent to the scaffold with the looming figure of the executioner--waiting.

(c) meche kroop