RESCUED!

Opera Lafayette's production of Beethoven's Leonore (photo by Louis Forget)

Boy loves Girl, Girl loves Another Boy (sounds familiar?).  Wait, the Boy she loves is actually a Girl disguised as a Boy.  Of course, by now you've figured out that we're speaking of Beethoven's Fidelio. But we are not! We are speaking of the precursor to Fidelio which Beethoven wrote in 1804. How come we didn't know about this?

Opera Lafayette, on their too infrequent visits to New York City, is famed for unearthing treasures; but this treasure was missing something important. What's an opera without a tenor aria? Not that Beethoven didn't write one but in the process of revising an opera that didn't go over well with the French soldiers occupying Vienna at the time, much was lost.

Leave it to Artistic Director and Maestro Ryan Brown to engage the services of the renowned Will Crutchfield to work with Beethoven's sketches and recreate the aria. The scholarship involved in this project made for interesting reading in the program book; rather than reveal it, we prefer to urge you to attend the final performance Wednesday night at the Kaye Playhouse of Hunter College. You will be lucky, dear Reader, to snag a ticket and you will thank me.  (You are welcome!)

If you were reading my blog three years ago, you may have read about Opera Lafayette's production of Pierre Gavreaux's Leonore. If you have not, you can enter "Opera Lafayette" in the search bar and read about what might have been the inspiration for this telling of the same tale. If so it was a genius idea to utilize the same set and costumes and much of the same cast. We spoke with some of the singers and got the picture that learning the same role in German for these Francophiles was a challenge, one that they met successfully. The acting remained at the same fine quality.

There is plenty of spoken dialogue which often reminded us of a graphic novel like Maus by Art Spiegelman. The simplicity allowed us to focus on the themes and the music. 

As you probably know, the themes are those of overcoming oppression and the role of woman as rescuer. The titular character portrayed by the splendid soprano Nathalie Paulin has disguised herself (not very convincingly to our eye) as a man and secured a position as assistant to the jailer Rocco  (the fine bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus) who runs the prison where she believes her husband to be incarcerated.

Rocco's lively pixieish teenage daughter, portrayed by delightful soprano Pascale Beaudin, rejects her ardent suitor Jaquino (Keven Geddes) in the delightful opening scene and convinces her father that Leonore is the "man" for her. He consents.

Leonore wins the trust of Rocco, gets into the dungeon, and rescues her husband Florestan (tennorific Jean-Michel Richer) from the evil machinations of Don Pizarro, who wanted vengeance for Florestan's criticism of his evil ways. Let us say at this point that Matthew Scollin, who sang the role of Pizarro, created the most evil villain in our memory.

A deus ex machina concludes the opera with the arrival of the King's Minister Don Fernando (booming bass Alexandre Sylvestre) and the prisoners rejoice and celebrate Leonore's heroism.

The music captivated us from the moment Maestro Brown raised his baton. Please don't ask which of the four overtures we heard. It's like trying to sort out Puccini's four iterations of Madama Butterfly. Whichever it was we enjoyed the descending motif and the portentous theme. There were ascending flute arpeggi to lighten the mood. When the orchestra got into the melody that all Beethoven lovers will recognize, Maestro Brown carefully elicited the modulations from major to minor that make this overture so memorable and affecting.

The singing was superb all around and hearing the restored tenor aria was a special treat. Mr. Richer has grown in the role dramatically, in spite of having to sing in a different language. Actually we were quite satisfied with everyone's German diction and barely noticed the missing subtitles at the beginning which were quickly restored.

The score has some fine arias but we were most impressed by the duets and ensembles. The opera was written just five years after Mozart's death but we heard many echoes of him both musically and philosophically. Both composers created characters imbued with humanity and higher values.

Oriol Tomas directed with finesse until the final scene. We didn't care for the way it was staged; the words sung by Leonore and Florestan did not match up with the action. He was chained in place but Leonore, who should have been rushing to him, was lying at the other end of the stage. We just didn't buy it as a reunion scene. Actually there was more chemistry between Marzelline and Jaquino in the first scene who were charmingly directed, interacting quite believably whilst folding laundry.

Laurence Mongeau's set comprised simple interlocking rectangular forms embellished with parallel cables stretched to connect. It was Rob Siler's lighting design that created the appropriate atmosphere for each scene.

The theme of "rescue" has stayed with us all night. Leonore rescued Florestan and Opera Lafayette rescued Beethoven's early attempt at creating the Fidelio that occupies a major place in the canon.

© meche kroop

OPERA LAFAYETTE LOOKS AT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Nathalie Paulin as the eponymous Sapho in Martini's opera 

Perhaps not every lover of the arts will agree with us but we believe that a work of art requires no explanation. It should stand on its own merits. We see people in museums being led around by a docent explaining why a certain painting is excellent.  We are the type to wander around and stop at a painting that arrests our attention, take it in, and decide for ourselves why we like it.

When we go to the theater and the director requires several pages to explain his/her concept and what he/she is trying to convey, we feel irritated.  Either it works or it doesn't.

On Sunday evening, Opera Lafayette, those welcome visitors from D.C., threw us a curve ball by presenting some strangely directed excerpts from three operas composed during the late 18th c. in France. No doubt the tumultuous political climate had an influence on the choice of libretti and compositional style.

However, we feel that Director Mirenka Čechová, in her attempt to do something new and interesting, decided to fit the scenes into a Procrustean bed. She elaborately described why she chose the colors of the French flag and laid a common motive onto the three heroines of the three operas from which the scenes were taken.  We got a headache just trying to understand her "Director's Note".

Judith A. Miller, Associate Professor of History at Emory University contributed several more pages about the French revolution. We would sooner read Simon Schama's 1989 tome "Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution". We do not come to the opera to be educated nor to be baffled.  We come to be entertained and inspired by beautiful music.

And beautiful music was heard, no doubt about that! Canadian soprano Nathalie Paulin gave an impressive performance in scenes from the three operas represented. In Sacchini's Oedipe à Colone she made a splendid Antigone; in Jean-Paul-Égide Martini's Sapho she was equally fine as Sapho; and in Luigi Cherubini's Médée she was incredibly powerful. Her acting was as fine as her singing.

We find no fault with the fine singing and acting of tenor Antonio Figueroa who excelled in the roles of Jason and Phaon. Baritone Javier Arrey was no less excellent as Oedipe and Stesichore. Soprano Sophie Junker was fine in the smaller roles of Cléis and Néris.

Ryan Brown's conducting of the Opera Lafayette period-instrument ensemble was thrilling, as it usually is.  With such fine musical values to delight our ears, it seemed a shame to clutter the stage with symbols.  This may be all the rage in Europe but it did not please us.

This is not to say that the images were unattractive. We mostly admired Martin Spetlik's lighting of Petr Bohác's interesting set design; it's just that the images, as striking as they were, seemed jarring against the music and apposite only to the unconscious of the director.

There were birds on sticks, men carrying suitcases leaking sand, an acrylic tub filled with water to drown the soprano, and what all else.  If music is to provoke imagery we want it to be from our own unconscious memories and fantasies, not from someone else's.

We hope Opera Lafayette's next visit will return us to the world of theatrical realism!

(c) meche kroop