DON GIOVANNI IN NEW YORK

Jordan Weatherston Pitts, Ashley Galvani Bell, Helena Brown, Tyler Putnam and Natalie Rose Havens surrounding Ricardo Rivera

Aristotle claimed that Art Imitates Life; Oscar Wilde claimed that the converse was more likely to be true. Let us say that both positions are valid. Last night, Divaria Productions presented a fascinating exploration of how the extravagant lives of librettist Lorenzo da Ponte and singer Manuel Garcia influenced and were influenced by the opera Don Giovanni.

We have always suspected that the rebellious Mozart saw himself in the unrepentant Don Giovanni who refuses to bow down to the father figure--the Commendatore. But we hadn't given much thought to da Ponte's identification with the libertine character of that anti-hero. Nor did we know anything about the connection with the Garcia family and the opera's first production in New York.

Thanks to the diligent scholarship and astute writing of Andrew Bell, the scripted production of Don Giovanni in New York left us with much to think about, as well as some memorable performances dancing around our brain. If the facts were stretched a bit for dramatic purposes, our rejoinder is "Se non è vero è ben trovato". Much of the dialogue was drawn from the memoirs of the Garcia family and those of Signor da Ponte.

The performance took place in the Old St. Patrick's Cathedral in Soho, of which da Ponte was a parishioner. It is a fact that the Garcia family was brought to the United States by da Ponte who was responsible for introducing Italian opera to New York. 

The Garcias opened Don Giovanni at the Park Lane Theater on this exact date (May 23rd) in 1826! (We do believe a French opera by Grétry was performed in the Louisiana Territory in 1784). Mr. Bell tells the story of this production, using excerpts from the opera to illuminate the inner feelings of the characters.

The many layered story we witnessed comprised several strands. By all accounts, both Garcia and da Ponte led scandalous lives with many ill-advised sexual liaisons. Furthermore, Garcia terrorized his daughter Maria so thoroughly that she escaped from him by marrying a much older man and quitting singing. (That she left this husband and resumed a highly successful singing career in Europe is not germane to this story.)

Garcia cheated on his wife, a singer also, with another member of the cast. Mr. Bell's script plays off the characters of the opera and there was drama aplenty. The astute lighting by Anthony Tornambene went a long way toward making clear which were real scenes between the characters and which were scenes from the opera and which were scenes showing memories of the characters.

If this sounds confusing, well, it was a bit. It would have been helpful to have read the extensive program in advance to understand why scenes from the opera were drastically out of sequence.  It would also have helped to have better acoustics. The cathedral is highly resonant which served the singers better than it did the actors portraying the characters of Da Ponte and the Garcias. We missed a lot of the dialogue but heard enough to get the gist of the story.

The singers were well cast and we enjoyed the arias and duets, even out of sequence. We wondered whether this would be more meaningful to people who knew the opera or to those who did not.

The vocal part of Don Giovanni was sung by the very physical baritone Ricardo Rivera (our favorite Escamillo) who was as compelling vocally as he was dramatically. His sidekick Leporello was superbly portrayed by bass Richard Bernstein who gave as fine a performance of "The Catalogue Aria" as we have ever heard. 

In this story, the nascent production at first lacked a tenor to play Don Ottavio, but they found one in Jordan Weatherston Pitts who performed "Dalla sua pace" with gorgeous tender tone and fine phrasing. Bass Tyler Putnam, well remembered from multiple performances at Santa Fe Opera, was effective as Masetto and chilling as the Commendatore in the final scene of the opera.

The female parts were similarly well cast and sung. Soprano Ashley Galvani Bell made a superb Donna Anna and sang a melting "Non mi dir". Her duet with Mr. Pitts "Fuggi crudele, fuggi" was masterful.

As Donna Elvira, the big beautiful sound of Helena Brown was perfect. We have reviewed her performances many times in the past five or six years and have sometimes called her a mezzo because there is so much texture in her tone. Her "Mi tradi quell'alma ingrata" was riveting and delivered within the context of Garcia's wife berating her husband for seducing the singer performing Donna Anna.

The role of Zerlina was sung by mezzo-soprano Natalie Rose Havens whom we well remember as Lola in Martha Cardona Opera's Cavalleria Rusticana. Her "Vedrai carino" was here sung with a different emphasis--the singer is thinking of her real-life lover, not Masetto.

The speaking parts were as follows: Michal Gizinski created the persona of da Ponte who narrated the evening. Anton Armendariz Diaz created the character of Manuel Garcia, the singer imported from Spain to introduce opera to New York City. The role of his browbeaten daughter Maria was performed by Paulina Cossio and her fiancé was performed by Jon Faughnan. Their marriage was accompanied by Jared Lamenzo, the Basilica organist.

Mozart's score was given to the New Asian Chamber Society, a string quartet augmented by the piano of Music Director Nicolo Sbuelz. To say that the music was marvelous would be an understatement. 

Direction was by Mr. Diaz. No costumer was credited but the entire cast looked great and we felt transported back to the 1820's.

The performance will be repeated in Sag Harbor at the Bay Street Theatre on September 22. And yes, it would be worth the trip! Not only for Mozart's music and the fine performances, but also for new insights into the manner in which we identify with literary characters and/or project our own characters onto them.

(c) meche kroop

LOTNY--Not so little

Little Opera Theatre of New York

In celebration of Carlisle Floyd's 90th birthday, LOTNY presented an evening of scenes from several of his works at the DiMenna Center last night; this presentation was part of New York Opera Fest's two-month-long festival featuring members of the New York Opera Alliance.

Although our 19th c. ears may never be completely able to wrap themselves around Mr. Floyd's 20th c. musical idiom, it would have taken a hurricane to keep us from hearing some of our favorite young singers make musical sense out of his work. Although his operas have been called accessible, our ears are often left hungry for melody. We had enjoyed a double feature of his operas last season and had loved the way they were staged and performed by LOTNY.

That the capacious performing space was packed is testament to the fact that there are many New Yorkers who find substantial nourishment in Floyd's music.

A special treat, one for which we were unprepared, was the presentation of scenes from his freshly composed opera Prince of Players in which he tackles the tale of the secret love affair between Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (tenor John Kaneklides) and actor Edward Kynaston (baritone Michael Kelly). The action takes place during the Restoration, when Charles II sat on the English throne and ended the careers of actors who had customarily portrayed women onstage. Good for women, bad for the guys.

If we have heard two singers creating more electricity together than Mr. Kelly and Mr. Kaneklides we can not recall it. The scene in which Villiers ends the relationship with Kynaston was heartbreaking and so was the scene in which Kynaston's dresser (soprano Sarah Beckham-Turner) comforts the injured actor. All three voices were excellent and the music seemed more lyrical than that of Mr. Floyd's previous operas.

The choice of material resonated more with us than that of Mr. Floyd's post-WWII opera Slow Dusk because somehow there seems to be a disjunction between the genre of opera and the plain home-spun country dialect of the libretto.  Puccini, Mascagni, and Leoncavallo got away with verismo; perhaps everything just sounds better in Italian.

Which brings us to that old bugaboo-- English diction. The higher the tessitura in English, the more difficult it seems to understand the language, putting sopranos and tenors at a distinct disadvantage, although the tenors on the program were perfectly understandable.

Ms. Beckham-Turner shared the role of young Sadie in Slow Dusk with Carolina Castells. Both sopranos sounded just fine, diction aside, with the bright focused voice of the former best suited to the ingenue quality of the first selection and the wider richer tone of the latter best suited to the tragic dimension.

Mezzo-sopranos Janice Meyerson and Jennifer Roderer shared the role of Aunt Sue with tenor Bray Wilkins performing Micah and baritone Robert Balonek reprising his role as Jess. Director Philip Shneidman, founder of LOTNY, did an excellent job of creating theatrical meaning without benefit of sets or costumes.

Also recalled from the double bill was Floyd's Markheim (1966), another good choice of theatrical material--a battle of wills between a desperate wastrel (bass Tyler Putnam, whom we admired so much in Santa Fe) and a steadfast pawnbroker (tenor Scott Six) that one just knows will not end well. The second scene was even more riveting when tenor Marc Schreiner appeared as the Stranger (maybe the devil?).

There were also selections from Floyd's 1980 political opera Willie Stark with baritone Ron Loyd delivering a powerful and persuasive aria about the law which is "like a single bed blanket".

The program closed with a selection from Of Mice and Men from 1969 with Mr. Balonek portraying the much put-upon but tolerant George with fine resonance and lucidity, and Mr. Six giving a convincing and moving performance as the mentally handicapped Lennie. They had a fine rapport in this moving scene.

Accompaniment was provided by Music Director Richard Cordova and Associate Music Director Catherine Miller.  The performing space, while generous in size, suffers from overly active acoustics and the piano sounded louder than it should have, at times threatening to drown out the singers.

Mr. Lloyd's most famous opera Susannah was not represented. Nonetheless, we left the performance feeling a bit more at ease with Mr. Lloyd's music than we felt when we arrived, thanks to the excellent work of the singers.

(c) meche kroop

APPRENTICES APPRECIATION AT SANTA FE OPERA

Apprentice Scenes Evening at Santa Fe Opera....Richard Strauss' Die schweigsame Frau

It was another star-spangled Sunday evening at the Santa Fe Opera.  Some of the stars were above in the sky and some were onstage showing off their natural talents and what they learned during the time they spent there as young artists. Some of them had taken small roles in the five excellent operas presented last summer; all had sung in the superb chorus.  But on this night they got to be stars, presenting eight scenes from very different operas--accompanied by piano and directed by some impressive directorial talent.

Scenes were chosen by the apprentices themselves with guidance from Directors Mary Birnbaum, Kathleen Clawson, Louisa Muller, and Walker Lewis. The program is helmed by David Holloway and succeeds in turning out some fine artists and also in introducing Santa Feans and visitors alike to a variety of operas.

Let us begin at the end because it was the last thing we saw/heard before saying farewell to SFO. Directed by Ms. Clawson, Leonard Bernstein's Candide shone like the gem that it always was, but was given a new luster by an exceptional cast. All the satire was captured by baritone Andrew Paulson as Dr. Pangloss and mezzo-soprano Daryl Freedman as the very funny Old Lady. Tenor Adrian Kramer made a winningly innocent Candide with the adorable soprano Bridgette Gan as his more knowing Cunegonde. Especially wonderful was mezzo-soprano Anne Marie Stanley as the frisky Paquette and baritone Jarrett Ott, disturbingly convincing as the detestable Maximillian. (He's really a very nice fella!) The costumes were spot on and added to the fun.

Pictured above is a scene from the rarely produced Strauss opera Die schweigsame Frau, an opera which was banned by the Nazi regime. The subject of the opera is a man who hates "noise" and must be won over by a troupe of opera singers. The irony is that this troupe of singers won over the audience.  The eight singers worked well together as an ensemble.  We heard Andrea Nuñez, Olivia Vote, Bridgette Gan, Cullen Gandy, Peter Tomaszewski, Michael Adams, Nicholas Davis, and Tyler Putnam. Ms. Birnbaum directed with a sure hand.

Another ensemble piece that delighted us was the quintet from Rossini's L'italiana in algeri  with mezzo Megan Marino performing the role of Isabella.  This brought back happy memories of 2002 when SFO produced this opera with Stephanie Blythe in that role. Tenor Galeano Salas was her Lindoro; Mr. Paulson sang Taddeo, Mr. Putnam was a funny Mustafa, and soprano Chelsea Basler was the cast-off wife Elvira. Mr. Lewis' direction kept things moving right along.

We had quite a few laughs with the opening piece as well. The last time we saw Francis Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirésias was at Juilliard. This opera is also not high on the list of frequently performed works.  Ms. Muller's direction emphasized the surreal quality. Tenor Aaron Short took the lead and was joined by a fine ensemble comprising Nicholas Davis, Jacquelyn Stucker, Alexandra Raszkazoff, Briana Hunter and Jorell Williams.

In Verdi's Aida, directed by Ms. Clawson, Ms. Freedman made an exceptionally fine Amneris with tenor Cooper Nolan, well remembered from Manhattan School of Music, as Radames. We enjoyed witnessing his growth as an artist.

We always jump at the chance to hear Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and Mr. Lewis gave it some intensity in his direction. As bad girl Poppea, Ms. Basler captured the style very well, as did mezzo Shabnam Kalbasi in the pants role of Nerone.

The quartet from Verdi's Luisa Miller (directed by Louisa Muller!) gave us a chance to pity the poor heroine (soprano Heather Phillips) who has fallen into the clutches of the evil schemers Walter (bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee) and Wurm (bass Kevin Thompson).  Poor Federica suffered collateral damage as the unloved Countess (mezzo Cynthia Hanna).

Only the penultimate scene failed to deliver. Even the fine direction of Ms. Birnbaum and the excellent singing of soprano Adelaide Boedecker, tenor Roy Hage, and bass-baritone Adrian N. Smith were unable to bring this inert piece to life. Perhaps we had already seen too much of the Civil War; perhaps we just don't like conversational dialogue in English. Unlike the other seven scenes that night, we were uninspired to pursue a further hearing of Matthew Aucoin's Crossing. Although Mr. Aucoin can write some powerfully evocative orchestral music, his unidiomatic libretto did not seem to inspire an interesting vocal line--so often the case in contemporary opera.

We were thrilled that the program ended on that joyful Bernstein note (pun intended).  Even the great Bernstein got help with his libretto from quite a number of people, including Richard Wilbur, John LaTouche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, and Stephen Sondheim. No wonder we have been humming the tunes 3 weeks later!

(c) meche kroop

LOTNY DOES FLOYD

Angela Mannino, Matthew Tuell and Tyler Putnam in Markheim (photo by Tina Buckman)

John Kaneklides and Carolina Castells in Slow Dusk (photo by Tina Buckman)

A double bill of Carlisle Floyd music-theater pieces was presented this past week by the ten year old Little Opera Theater of New York  with two rotating casts.  The first piece Slow Dusk was the composer’s first opera, written in 1949, and suffers from a less than dramatic libretto, Floyd’s own.  He presents himself a the poet of rural America just as Stephen Sondheim is the poet of late 20th c. Manhattan.  

The story concerns a young woman Sadie, beautifully sung by soprano Carolina Castells, who performed a lovely aria filled with foreboding.  Sadie is in love with young Micah, perfectly sung and acted by tenor John Kaneklides whose star is on the rise.  Their marriage is forbidden by Aunt Sadie and the reason had to be learned by consulting Wikipedia.  The exposition might have been given by Aunt Sue, sung by Janice Meyerson, whose interesting mezzo was marred by poor diction.  English is quite difficult to sing in a way that the audience can comprehend but the other three singers succeeded admirably.  Unfortunately Ms. Meyerson’s acting was way over the top and not in line with the mood of the piece. Baritone Robert Balonek made a fine appearance as Jess but we never figured out if he was Sue’s uncle or brother.  That’s what happens when one can’t understand the words.

The chamber orchestra comprised nine strings, harp, four winds and a wonderful percussionist (Charles Kiger) led by the excellent conductor Richard Cordova, who brought out all the nuances of Floyd's instrumental writing. The chamber arrangement by Inessa Zaretsky and Raymond J. Lustig worked well, even without a clarinet. The winds were particularly evocative over a carpet of sound laid down by the strings.  The orchestra nearly stole the show since Floyd’s vocal lines struck our ears as being less than melodic. 

The direction by Philip Shneidman was effective and Neil Patel’s simple set (lit by Nick Solyom) evoked an impoverished rural farm in the South.  Lara De Bruin's frumpy costumes were right on target.  The same excellent team was responsible for the more dramatically interesting Markheim which Floyd adapted from a Robert Louis Stevenson story in 1966.  It is a gothic tale taking place at Christmastime in 1880 in a pawnshop.  This gave Patel and De Bruin an opportunity to show their stuff.  The set looked exactly the way one would expect and the Victorian costumes were superb.

The singing was excellent all around.  Tenor Brent Reilly Turner created a very disagreeable pawnbroker of the Ebenezer Scrooge ilk. His ringing sound lent weight to the role as he toyed with his client, the reprobate aristocrat Markheim who has squandered his family fortune by gambling and is under the gun to repay some cutthroats.  He is guilty of theft, seduction and abandonment, blackmail and extortion—another thoroughly unlikable character.  But oh, what a fine baritone has Tyler Putnam whom we well remember from last summer at the Santa Fe Opera!  Both men’s acting was convincing.

It came as no great shock when Markheim strangled the pawnbroker who refuses to lend him money on a stolen work of art.  Enter….The Stranger!  This character, excellently portrayed by tenor Matthew Tuell, might be the devil and he might be a hallucination but he tries to provoke the eponymous anti-hero to murder Tess, the maid who is returning to the shop to retrieve a parcel.  Soprano Angela Mannino has a lovely stage presence with voice to match and the only character about whom we could care.  We were quite relieved when Markheim decided to spare her life and asked her to call the police.  This is evidence for the dramatic success of the story.

The work was bookended by a quartet of carolers comprising Ms. Castells, Ms. Meyerson, Mr. Kaneklides and Mr. Balonek, all from the curtain-raiser.  The overall quality of the production suited us more than the material.  But that’s just a consequence of our 19th c. Italian ears.

(c) meche kroop