GOING FOR BAROQUE

Emily Hughes and Adria Caffaro (photo by Brian Long)

Joyce Yin (photo by Brian Long)

Last night we attended the final performance of Francesco Cavalli's l651 opera La Calisto, presented by Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble and directed most imaginatively by Brittany Goodwin, one of New York's most gifted young directors. We were amazed by the endurance of so many aspects of love that have remained unchanged in nearly four centuries.


The playing area was filled with nymphs and satyrs, gods and goddesses--strange figures to be sure; and yet their concerns are our concerns today.  The social media generation did not invent unfulfilled romantic longing, sexual dalliances overcoming chaste intentions, rejection, cross-dressing, lesbian love, romantic deception, nor vengeful wives. There was something particularly thrilling about seeing ourselves onstage in a work dating back nearly four centuries.  Not just thrilling but moving as well. Love and sex will always be with us until the robots take over!

It is difficult to believe that this marvelous work lay dormant until 1970.  How fortunate we are that it was discovered and revived.  It lets us in on what the mid 17th c. Venetians expected from a rather new popular art form. Cavalli was there at the birth of opera.

Impresario/librettist Giovanni Faustini had created many operas with Cavalli; this one was their penultimate production. The story was derived from Ovid's Metamorphosis and recounts the story of Jove pretending to be the goddess Diana in order to seduce the beautiful chaste Calisto. The tale is padded out with the love story between the real Diana and the shepherd Endimione. In every case, chastity falls under the weight of sexual desire. 

The wily Mercurio (fine tenor Brady DelVecchio) convinces Giove (authoritative baritone Mason Jarboe) that persuasion is no match for deception when trying to seduce a woman. Their duet was musically gorgeous and also quite humorous. 

In the title role, lovely soprano Emily Hughes  sang about wanting to lead a chaste life, devoted to the goddess Diana.  Giove transforms himself into Diana (beautifully sung by mezzo-soprano Adria Caffaro) and successfully seduces her. The two women had a tender duet before entering a cave to exchange chaste kisses (which led to much more).

When the real Diana appears her voice and gestures are very different and there is no doubt that she is the real thing. When Calisto refers to their makeout session, Diana is outraged by the inference and tosses Calisto out of the virginal sisterhood. 

Ms. Caffaro successfully used vocal coloration and altered her gestures and body movements so successfully that, although Calisto was fooled, we in the audience were not.

Diana, on her part, is secretly in love with the shepherd Endimione (counter-tenor Padraic Costello) who expresses his longing for her in the most exquisite aria.

The superb soprano Joyce Yin (Co-Founder of Cantanti Projects) provided comic relief in her portrayal of Linfea, one of Diana's followers, who longs for romance. In spite of her desperation, there is no way Linfea is going to settle for the importuning of Satirino (the fine mezzo-soprano Shawn Palmer, sporting a blue wig, goat horns and hooves), even though he tells her that he is young but his tail is still growing!  He is a member of the clutch of satyrs, of which the leader is the god Pane, portrayed by counter-tenor Raymond Storms. As Silvano, one of the satyrs, bass-baritone Angky Budiardjono turned in a fine and physical performance with secure vocalism.

Act II brought on new delights as Giunone, the jealous wife of Giove, appears to expose her husband's infidelity.  Mezzo-soprano Sophie Delphis gave her all to the revenge aria in which she instructs women not to put up with philandering husbands but rather to take revenge.  Her particular revenge is to transform Calisto into a bear. Giove cannot undo this curse but finds his beloved Calisto a place in the firmament as the constellation Ursa Major, a condition foretold in the Prologue.

Mezzo-soprano Allison Gish portrayed La Natura in the Prologue, with soprano Elyse Kakacek taking the role of L'Eternita and mezzo-soprano Jingye Xu appearing as Il Destino who convinces the other two that Calisto deserves her place in the heavens. The women also appeared as The Furies.

Cavalli's music is very singable and  a small chamber orchestra, such as was heard in its own time, did full justice to Cavalli's writing, led by the renowned Early Music specialist Charles Weaver who played theorbo, lute and Baroque guitar. The chamber orchestra also included two violins, a cello, harpsichord and a second theorbo.

Costume Designer Claire Townsend did much with little, relying on creativity rather than a huge budget. The costumes were fanciful and fun.  A fur coat with ears on the hood served as a bear costume. Most magnificent of all was Giunone's black and white costume with elaborate red tulle headdress which reminded us of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland.

Satyrs had fur on their boots along with horns and tails. The Furies had big hoop skirts draped with black chiffon. Giove wore a suit and tie with fabric design of white clouds on blue background. Mercurio wore a pink suit with little golden wings on the heels of his shoes. Calisto's final costume was embellished with stars.

Diana wore a simple white gown whilst her followers wore funky garments with white knee-high stockings.

The set design by You-Shin Chen was simple, utilizing the same ramp seen in The Cunning Little Vixen. White columns were created with fabric hanging from the ceiling which could also be gathered and hoisted.

This was another fine entry in Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble's Summer Festival. There was a lot of wisdom in their choices of material--lesser known works that flowered under fine direction and casting. The emerging artists selected for this intense program of mentorship are to be applauded for their commitment to the art. 

(c) meche kroop

MOSTLY CAVALLI

L'Arpeggiata with Nuria Rial

Until the day when New York City gets a small company performing baroque opera in an intimate house, we will have to be content with an occasional exposure and an evening such as we experienced last night at Zankel Hall when we were treated to an all-too-brief evening of arias by Francesco Cavalli, a protegé of Claudio Monteverdi.

Opera flourished in the mid-17th c. in the independent Venetian Republic whose well-to-do populace enjoyed this new form of music theater. Plots involved mythology; staging was elaborate; singers were superstars. 

Bringing these riches to us were the superb musicians of L'Arpeggiata who graced the stage with their authentic instruments and impressive musicianship, under the artistic direction of Christina Pluhar, master of that curious instrument the theorbo (which we failed to differentiate from last week's archlute).

Composing the ensemble are Francesco Turrisi and Haru Kitamika who traded places on the harpsichord and organ, Veronika Skuplik on the baroque violin, Eero Palviainen playing lute and baroque guitar, Rodney Prada on the viola da gamba, Josetxu Obregon on baroque cello, Boris Schmidt on bass, Doron Sherwin on cornetto, with David Mayoral serving as percussionist.

Our attention was mostly drawn to the cornet which produced a unique penetrating sound and carried the melody most of the time. We were dazzled by Mr. Sherwin's playing of the interesting decorations of the line in the lament "Dammi morte" from Artemisia and his duet with the baroque violin in "Ninfa bella" from Calisto.

As far as the percussion goes, we had never before thought about the role of percussion in early music but last night there was no way not to think about it. In an instrumental Ciaccona by Maurizio Cazzati we heard all kinds of drums, tambourine, and jingly chains to accompany the handclapping.  In the Spanish flavored encore, we heard castanet playing that rivalled that of any flamenco artist.

But the reason we came to the performance was for the singing and soprano Nuria Rial more than fulfilled our expectations. We hasten to reassure you that bel canto (beautiful singing) did not originate in the 19th c. we so dearly love. Ms. Rial's lovely voice made the lavish embellishments sound effortless, particularly in the lovely "Restino imbalsamente" from Calisto, emphasizing the poignant upper register.

She has an unassuming manner that allows her to immerse herself in the song although the use of the music stand occasionally interfered with her engagement with the audience. Her ease with body movement and gesture enhanced the experience of the rhythm of the music.

Many of the arias were laments and her voice brought out the melancholy.  But some of the songs were jolly like "Non è maggior piacere" from Calisto, with its extended melismatic passages. "Che città" from Ormindo was downright frisky.

The lovely evening lasted only slightly more than an hour but we surely could have enjoyed more. Our taste for beauty is insatiable.

(c) meche kroop

CAVALLI'S DORICLEA

Michael Anderson, Christine Price, Justin Austin (photo by Brian Hatton)

Lyndon England, Hannah Dishman (photo by Brian Hatton)

Juan del Bosco, Caroline Braga (photo by Brian Hatton)

A rewarding and highly entertaining production of Cavalli's La Doriclea  was presented by the Manhattan School of Music Senior Opera Theater.  Baroque opera can be tedious but, in the right hands, it can be a lot of fun.  The hands belong to Dona D. Vaughn and Jorge Parodi.  Ms. Vaughn directed with a sureness born of experience--experience in telling a story and experience in pulling meaningful performances out of the singers, most of whom were seniors with a few graduate students thrown in for good measure.

Maestro Parodi's hands are another thing altogether, and if you could tear your eyes away from the riveting stage action you would be entranced by the balletic moves as he pulled superb performances from his musicians, most of whom were graduate students.  The talented theorboist was guest artist Carlos Cuestas.

This 1645 opera, with libretto by Giovanni Faustini (who collaborated with Francesco Cavalli on nine operas) is one of about a dozen surviving Venetian operas from the first half of the 17th c. The influence of Monteverdi is evident.  It suffered a delay in performance due to censorship. Why?  Probably it had something to do with the gender hijinks.

The heroine Doriclea (Christine Price) in male military garb fights alongside her husband Tigrane, King of Armenia (Michael Anderson). Arsacian King Artabano (Juan del Bosco), whose soldier Surena (Nicholas Smith) has taken her captive, has a sister Eurinda (Caroline Braga), who falls in love with Doriclea (disguised as "Cyrus") and is ready to forsake her fiancé Farnace (Megan Mikailovna Samarin in a pants role).

Adding delightful comic relief are Eurinda's maid Melloe (Hannah Dishman) who, at one point tried to attack someone with a cucumber, and Farnace's page Orindo (Lyndon England) who doesn't have to do much but cross the stage to evoke laughter.  The two have a cute duet together in which Melloe expresses the wish to experience love and Orindo expresses his cynical view of women.

On a more severe note, Sabari (Justin Austin in fine voice) a man who knows that "Cyrus" is really a woman, tries to seduce her.  When rejected he accuses her of adultery as revenge.  Confusing?  Only on paper.  Ms. Vaughn made everything clear onstage.

To complicate matters still further, Act I has a prologue in which character traits are anthropomorphized.  Ambition (Margaret Woolums) is depicted wearing a blindfold.  (Get it?)    Virtue (Sara Hope Ptachik) despairs over losing out to Vice.  (In nearly four centuries, has anything changed?)  Ignorance (Marina Lombardi) disguises herself in Virtue's garments.  In some lovely melismatic singing, Glory (Sheila Houlahan) introduces the story.

Before Act I ends, Venus (Amanda Grafton) rouses her clan of cupids, clad in pink undies with hot pink wigs, with a stirring battle cry and then promises her favors to Mercury (Mark Zhaoming Seah)  whose celestial home is the balcony of the Ades performing space.  At the end of Act II, she has a charming duet with the virile Mars (Cameron Johnson) after threatening to attack his palace with her troop of "Amorini".

We have probably omitted a few characters in this wonderful piece and for this we apologize.  Everyone sang well and acted their parts with gusto.  A few performances were outstanding.  There was a touching duet between Mr. Anderson and Ms. Price at the opening of the opera when she is too wounded to move on and begs him to kill her.  Ms. Price also has a lovely lament at the beginning of Act III.

Ms. Braga made a highly expressive address to the audience about her love for Farnace before meeting "Cyrus" and a marvelous duet with Ms. Samarin when they reconcile at the end of the opera.  We liked the scene at court in which Ms. Braga becomes besotted with "Cyrus" (the disguised Doriclea) and Ms. Dishman becomes the counterbalancing voice of reason, reminding her of her betrothal to Farnace.

The simple set and effective lighting were by Kate Ashton.  There were some jagged mountains in the rear and some clouds overhead and a fine tent for the Arsacian king.  During the garden scene some arches interlaced with flowers sufficed.

Costumes by Summer Lee Jack were apt and well executed.  Gods and goddesses looked very Roman with lots of draping.  Mars looked exactly the way one would imagine and Mercury had a winged helmet. The Arsacians looked vaguely Middle-Eastern with Eurinda and her brother Artabano appearing very royal.

We have no evidence that La Doriclea has been performed since it's opening in Venice but if anyone else had discovered it and performed it we doubt that it could have been done any better.  What a privilege to have seen a work that survived nearly 400 years.  Mankind is still struggling with gender ambiguity, fickle lovers and senseless wars. We don't need modern dress to appreciate the contemporary relevance.

© meche kroop