MENOTTI'S RELEVANCE

Cast and Production Team for Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul presented by Bronx Opera

Bronx Opera has been delighting New York audiences for over 50 years. Distance has prevented us from reviewing their productions with any great regularity.  Add to that the fact that they perform everything in English, a language which we do not enjoy hearing sung. We loathe translations and cannot name many operas composed in English for which we can drum up any enthusiasm.

However, we have enjoyed Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium (with Caroline Nye in the starring role) and decided to take a chance on The Consul, and we are happy we did so. This is a very sad opera, and the saddest part of all is that the totalitarian governments and the consequent refugee situations still exist seven decades after Menotti selected this topic and wrote his own libretto. If only art could promote political change!

It doesn't matter which decade was chosen. Here, Director Rod Gomez chose to set the work in the 1980's.  It could have been today. The direction was excellent and the piece worked well as theater. Meganne George dressed the cast in drab attire and created a bare set out of scaffolding towers which held a door, a window, and....an oven.  If you see a gun in Act I, you are waiting for someone to get shot. When you see an oven...well, we are not going to tell you about baking bread!

The scenes alternate between the poor apartment of the Sorel's in a nameless totalitarian country, and a consulate which will remind audience members of any government agency they have visited in which there are endless forms to be filled out and passive-aggressive people in charge.

Mrs. Sorel's husband is involved in some kind of anti-government resistance and is on the run from the secret police who hound poor Mrs. Sorel into a state of misery. In this role we have the splendid soprano Mary-Hollis Hundley whose fine work we have reviewed on many occasions. We mostly recall her dignified and elegant creation of the Countess Almaviva at the Santa Fe Opera, and some lovely Russian singing at the George London Competition.

Last night will, we hope, be a breakout performance for her. She created a highly sympathetic character with whom it was easy to identify and the enthusiastic applause she received at the end let us know that others shared our opinion. Menotti, like most 20th c. composers, does not give the singers much to work with in terms of melody, and English can never show off the voice the way Italian does; still we were happy with what we heard.

As her mother-in-law, mezzo-soprano Caroline Tye was similarly affecting, especially when singing to the baby in the cradle. Ms. Tye is another artist we have reviewed and enjoyed upon many occasions. We lost count of how many performances she graced at Utopia Opera but our associations ran to another Menotti opera produced by New Camerata Opera in which she took the starring role in the aforementioned The Medium--a performance which encouraged us to attend last night.

Cara Search, who is new to us, had the role of the consul's secretary, the one demanding increasing numbers of forms to be filled out. Chuckles in the audience told us how many of us have had similar experiences with government bureaucracies. It was another fine performance.

Jeremy Moore did well as Mr. Sorel, appearing in the first act and again at the end. We recall his fine performance as Eugene Onegin for Utopia Opera. Joseph Gansert made a scary secret police agent.

Every tragedy needs some comic relief which was provided by Daniel Foltz-Morrison in the role of the magician/hypnotist Nika Magadoff who entertained the group of supplicants in the consul's office.  His appearance in the final scene was of a different nature but dramatically valid.

Baritone Conrad Schmechel portrayed John Sorel's friend Assan. We have only seen him previously in roles that allowed him to express his personality--we believe it was Papageno one time and El Dancairo another time.

The group waiting for visas comprised Ben Hoyer as Mr. Kofner, Leslie Swanson as a "foreign woman", Francesca Federico as Anna Gomez, and Amy Maude Helfer as Vera Boronel.

The same cast will perform next Saturday night and we recommend them highly. We took a look at the cast for the Sunday matinee performances and recognize some major talents there as well.  In either case you won't be disappointed.

Under the baton of Eric Kramer, the Bronx Opera Orchestra performed Menotti's music as finely as one would wish. We particularly enjoyed the wind section and paid particular attention to the oboe line, so beautifully played by Jacob Slattery. In Act II, he played the English Horn, the sound of which was (LOL) music to our ears. We sat close to the percussionist, Barbara Allen, who was on an elevated platform, and enjoyed that equally.

It seemed to us that Menotti's music was most lyrical during the interludes when no one was singing. We found that strange. We also found it peculiar that the tragic finale was accompanied by grandly heroic music. Was that meant to be ironic? If you, dear reader, can contribute something to our understanding of 20th c. music, please comment below.

(c) meche kroop

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

Sidney Outlaw, Aude Cardona, and Christopher Dylan Herbert (photo by Tony Gale)

We traveled over an hour to the farthest reaches of Brooklyn (Red Hook to be precise) to witness the launch of Floating Opera New York as they presented Debussy's only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande; the opera premiered in 1902 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and has been revived from time to time, but never on a boat, to the best of our knowledge. 

Floating Opera staged the work on a 101-year-old wooden barge, the last remaining one of its kind. The audience was seated on all four sides of the playing area which was demarcated by strings of colored lights. The set by Jian Jung comprised lots of coiled ropes and a dinghy which served as fountain, spring, and nuptial bed.

We heard the original piano score which debuted before the turn of the 20th c. chez Stéphane Mallarmé at a gathering of Symbolist artists, poets and musicians. It would later be orchestrated. George Hemcher beautifully played the diaphanous impressionistic score while Eric Kramer conducted.

The voices were uniformly excellent. As the mysterious heroine Mélisande we heard the French mezzo-soprano Aude Cardona who managed to sing the elusive unhappy woman with a fine rich tone. The compelling baritone Christopher Dylan Herbert shone as the prince Pélleas who is involved in this delicately rendered love triangle with his older half-brother Prince Golaud, so superbly sung by baritone Sidney Outlaw. The role demanded many vocal colors as he went from tenderness to jealous rage; Mr. Outlaw delivered.

As  Genviève, mother to both men, Jazmin DeRice made a substantial impression in her one important scene. As the blind grandfather Arkel, Paul Goodwin-Groen used his booming base effectively and aroused our sympathy. Another base, Brett Vogel portrayed the Doctor and the young soprano Caroline Rose Loeb portrayed Golaud's young son Yniold. Note that most of the important roles involved low voices!

The story is a strange one. Debussy himself adapted the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, an attempt to depart from realism and naturalism. The story is kind of a fairy tale taking place in vaguely Medieval times. The widower Golaud finds Mélisande weeping at a well.  Her crown has fallen into the water but she doesn't want it retrieved.  He comforts her, takes her back to his castle and weds her.

She is not happy. Pelléas, the younger half-brother, shares a rather innocent friendship with her that blossoms into love, which is only confessed when he is leaving. Nothing is really spoken but the sensual nature of the two artists' physical movement tells us a great deal. In one thrilling scene in which Pelléas sings of embracing her very long hair, he enacts that by horizontally "climbing" the stretched out rope. They are playful like children. In another scene they actually climb opposing walls of the barge.

Golaud is suspicious and tries to get his young son to spy on the pair. He has no evidence but flies into a jealous rage when he sees them exchange a farewell kiss. He slays his brother. Mélisande will soon die.

The symbolism of water is everywhere--spring, fountain, cave, tears.  How fitting to perform the work on the water!

There was only one aspect of the production that we found very UN-fitting. It was decided to present the work in English, a decision which we deplore. It is a very French work; Debussy matched the rhythm of the French language to his music. It was a poor fit to the English language which never flows like French.

Furthermore, the women's diction left much to be desired and, had we not been familiar with the story, we would have been pretty much in the dark as to what was happening. Even with our familiarity, many fine points of the story were missed. A better solution might have been to have sung the work in French with audience members being given a summary to read.

Direction by Isabel Milenski was exciting and the space put to excellent use. Christina Lorraine Bullard designed the costumes with Ms. Cardona's costume being designed by Jana Jarosz.  Effective lighting design was by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew.

It was a memorable launch of a new opera ship.  Future productions will be staged in other venues.  Hence the title--Floating Opera New York.

(c) meche kroop