In 1697, the Comédie-Italienne almost managed to make fun of the court of Louis XIV but were forcibly disbanded for their trouble. In 1710, André Campra’s opera-ballet Les fêtes vénitiennes tried to bring the italianisme and the politics back to Paris.
Last weekend, Les Arts Florissants brought it to New York.
I went to see David et Jonathas by Les Arts Florissants at BAM and I wrote about it for Bachtrack:
New York is again lucky to host William
Christie and Les Arts Florissants at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Their visits are always special, and it’s not just because the unique
nature of their repertory – Baroque opera, usually French, which is
neglected by most of New York’s major companies – nor the virtuosic ease
with which they embody this otherwise-foreign idiom. Their productions
have a passionate unity of purpose and a loving, handcrafted quality
that somehow seems antithetical to many of our more slick and snarky
local efforts. Their present offering, a touching production of
Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s David et Jonathas, has little in common with
2011’s Atys, but fortunately these virtues are again in full force.
You can read the whole thing here. Highly recommended. It’s a great and extremely unusual work with a fantastic musical performance and a smart production. Performances that meet one of these three requirements are unusual enough, ones that fulfill all three far more so. Still could have used some program notes, however.
This production will also be released on DVD on April 30.
Photo copyright Julia Cervantes
I went to see Francesco Cavalli’s Eliogabalo as produced by the Gotham Chamber Opera at The Box and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.
Describing its new production of Francesco Cavalli’s 1668 opera Eliogabalo, the Gotham Chamber Opera compares the exploits of titular depraved Roman emperor Heliogabalus to Salome. There’s an obvious mistake here: Salome
is an opera; Heliogabalus was a historical figure. While the Gotham
Chamber Opera has done a valuable service by bringing this compelling,
interesting opera onstage, the production unfortunately makes the same
mistake, confusing a few historical accounts with the very different
aesthetic of 17th-century Venetian opera.
You can read the whole thing here. (In my discussion of the intersection of seventeenth-century orchestration and burlesque, I introduced the Bachtrack editorial staff to the phrase “bump it with a trumpet.”) This production didn’t work because it was one-note while seventeenth-century Venetian operas are heterogeneous. Venetian opera is closely associated with Carnival (in that respect the timing of this production was really bad–sorry, you go through one Viennese Holy Week of Faust, Parsifal, and Dialogues of the Carmelites and the idea sticks with you forever). But Eliogabalo is something far more interesting than a celebration of excess.
I thought of Calixto Bieito’s fantastic production of Platée, which I saw last summer at the Staatsoper Stuttgart (and didn’t blog about, sorry). It’s set in a nightclub, though not in the environmental theater sense of The Box. The Studio 54-like club (a good modernization of the ancien régime) provides an ostensible freedom for an outsider like Platée. But the hierarchy of court life is always lurking just beneath the surface, and the outsiders never escape their eventual punishment. Eliogabalo never leveraged its similar setting with this kind of dramatic intent.
The singing was fine but most of it was not very stylish. New York doesn’t attract enough people with extensive experience with this music. (The Wooster Group’s utterly bonkers sci-fi La Didone mashup was better sung, actually, and far more compelling.) The US’s cavernous opera houses and conservative programs confine all but the most famous Baroque operas to boutique outfits like Gotham, but unfortunately based on this production they lack the expertise to present these works to their best advantage. Gotham is, usually, a very strong company, and I hope they’ll try another early Venetian opera soon with better results.
I went to hear Le poème harmonique playing Monteverdi and such at Columbia and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.
In his 1995 book Text and Act,
the musicologist Richard Taruskin wrote of the historically-informed
performance movement, “the very recent concept of historical
authenticity is implicitly projected back into historical periods that
never knew it.” To be fair to the French group Le Poème Harmonique,
whose program “Venezia” opened the Miller Theatre at Columbia
University’s season, their press release trumpeted an “eye-opening
approach to opera using historical gesture” rather than textual
authenticity. But the program also claimed to depict 17th-century Venice
from the “streets to the palaces,” and, as my companion remarked,
Venice doesn’t have any streets. It has canals and calle, alleys.
Read the rest here. You may gather that I didn’t like this concert much! It’s a real shame the Konzept proved so misguided, because the actual performances were decent and the rep was interesting, so I wish I had been able to appreciate it. I do not wish to pile on and therefore will refrain from having another Program Notes Smackdown here, but I do want to note that there is absolutely no scholarly consensus that “Pur ti miro” is by Ferrari as the notes state. Also, why did this program not feature Arianna’s lament? It’s arguably only semi-Venetian, but it’s so good!
Administrative note: I can’t promise much blogging for the next few months, but I am going to Einstein on the Beach tomorrow, and will get out to Elisir d’amore as soon as I can.
Here’s a piece that was not on Wednesday’s program (and Neapolitan rather than Venetian): the Lamento della pazza, attributed to Pietro Antonio Giramo, given an audacious performance by Anna Caterina Antonacci.
photo copyright O. Matsura
I went to see Orpheus (not that one… or that one… or that one) at the City Opera and wrote about it for Bachtrack.
The New York City Opera has spent the
season reinventing itself from a large company with a large theater to a
peripatetic one presenting small works. Perhaps it was apt that they
closed their season with Telemann’s Orpheus. Not only was it
one of the first stagings of any Telemann opera in the United States: it
also presents a radically reworking of a familiar story that seems
unwilling to confine itself to one geographic location.
Click here to read the whole thing. It’s an intriguing work but not ultimately a spectacularly rewarding one, at least in this production (though Jennifer Rowley is really great in the central role!). It was also an extraordinarily odd choice to produce. (I heard that it resulted from George Steel meeting someone who has worked on it extensively. Not from research in “baroque operas we should put on.”) I’m all in favor of choosing weird and random repertory, so on the one hand I’m proud of them for doing it. But on the other, are we running before we are walking here? I mean, when it comes to recently discovered operas, New York (unless you count New Haven) hasn’t gotten a staging of La finta pazza yet, which is a much more important work. When you have such a tiny season each choice has to be good, and this one while it was promising didn’t quite pay off.
Also be aware that while the running time is listed on the website as two and a half hours, it was just shy of three on Saturday. El Museo del Barrio’s theater is functional enough; I was sitting too close to the front to judge the acoustic properly.
photo © Carol Rosegg
Happy fall, everyone! The opera season in New York started this weekend with Atys at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and I went and wrote about it at Bachtrack.
In 1676, Louis XIV’s court composer, Jean-Baptiste Lully, wrote Atys,
an unusually tragic opera that became a favorite of the king. In 1987,
William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants revived it in an acclaimed
series of performances in Paris and eventually at the Brooklyn Academy
of Music. Like Louis XIV centuries before, modern audiences were
enchanted by the work’s austere, pure declamation, grand choruses, and
graceful dances and its success was again influential.
Click here to read the whole thing. (By the way, I am blogging again. I’ll report from the Anna Bolena dress at the Met on Thursday, such as one can report on a dress rehearsal. I can’t go to opening night, unfortunately.)
This was a great performance, but I personally preferred LAF’s last big BAM project, The Fairy Queen. This is probably because it was so funny and different and as a semi-opera had a lot of novelty value for me. This is the kind of novelty that Atys had when it was first performed in NYC in 1987 1989. Lully opera has become more established but hardly commonplace since, so some of that freshness is still there today, but not to the same radical degree–I’ve certainly heard a lot more Lully than I have semi-opera. How much of Atys‘s original success was due to the novelty of French Baroque and how much due to the production’s undeniable excellence?
This is part of the reason why I’m a little disappointed that Les Arts Florissants have redone Atys instead of creating another production to expand our limited repertoire of French Baroque opera in New York (LAF has done a lot more in their home base in Europe but only a few of those productions have come to BAM). I know that this new iteration came into existence solely because of the generosity of a philanthropist, and we should be grateful for that! And 22 years is a long time, perhaps too long to begrudge a repeat. But I still am a fan of variety, and if you only know Atys you don’t know the full diversity of the French Baroque. I recommended some DVDs in the review, here are some clips. Most of these productions are a lot more daring and modern than Villégier’s Atys.
Most similar to Atys is Lully’s Armide, which is way better than Rossini’s and the LAF’s DVD is awesome. The Armide is Stephanie d’Oustrac who was Cybèle in Atys in France (and in the forthcoming DVD) but did not come to New York, unfortunately. Her replacement was talented but a little undersized for the role. D’Oustrac is epic.
I love this goofy, almost all dance production of Rameau’s Les Paladins.
Finally, this isn’t Les Arts Florissants, but I remind you of the DVD of Cavalli’s Ercole amante from De Nederlandse Opera that I wrote about a year ago, which is a fusion of French and Italian
styles.
Photo above © Pierre Grosbois
Actually, make that Handel’s other other Egyptian queen, because while Cleo is definitely No. 1, I think sort-of queen Seleuce in Tolomeo is more popular than Berenice. Alan Curtis recorded this obscure lady in 2010 on Virgin Classics, and brought his Il complesso barocco and most of the same singers to the Theater an der Wien for a concert performance last night. It’s not quite top-drawer Handel, but there’s still plenty to enjoy, particularly with a performance this good.
My Week of Living 18th Century continues.
Handel, Berenice. Concert performance in the Theater an der Wien, 1/27/2011. Il complesso barocco conducted by Alan Curtis with Klara Ek (Berenice), Ingela Bohlin (Alessandro), Milena Storti (Selene), Franco Fabioli (Demetrio), Mary-Ellen Nesi (Arsace), Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani (Fabio), Johannes Weisser (Aristobolo)
I didn’t do my homework and picked up a last-minute ticket 15 minutes before the show, sliding into my seat with only a few minutes to spare. Meaning, no time to read the plot summary. I think this may be the first time I have not even attempted to follow the plot of an opera, but to be honest it seemed complicated and not that compelling, so I just decided it was going to be Aria Night. With concert Handel, that works. And while none of the singers quite reached the lofty heights of Karina Gauvin and Iestyn Davies in last October’s Curtis Tolomeo, also at the Theater an der Wien (didn’t blog about it, sorry), they were first-rate.
Berenice dates from 1737, prime time for Handel creatively speaking (though personally not such a great year for him, with financial and health problems), but it was a flop and only ran for four performances. It’s quality stuff, but has an unusual number of smaller arias (also an unusual number of very nice duets). There are some pleasant and unusual numbers, but not many show-stoppers, and the seven roles of close to equal importance mean that star opportunities are sparse. The title character is indeed the lead, but it’s not the most thankful of Handel diva roles. She seems to be a “Da tempeste” and an “Ah! mio cor” short. However, Swedish soprano Klara Ek made the most of what there was, singing with technical accomplishment and bright, brilliant, sometimes hard-edged tone. Her biggest aria, “Chi’ t’intende” is certainly unusual in form, with many tempo changes and a complex oboe obligato part (wonderfully played by Vinciane Baudhuin), but it’s still not “Scherza infida” in psychological depth. Ek also brought a vivid characterization of a proud queen, and her animated facial expressions and occasionally extravagant gestures show her potential to develop into a Cult Early Music Diva. Kermes of the Future?
Fellow Swedish soprano Ingela Bohlin was an excellent contrast as Alessandro. She has a very light and girly voice for a castrato role, but her warm, liquid, sweet singing was some of the prettiest of the evening. What is it with the preponderance of fantastic Swedish early music singers? (I am also including Ann Hallenberg from Sunday’s Ariosti extravaganza, and Anne Sofie von Otter from the Rameau of last week.) I already wanted to move to Sweden, but now I want to even more.
Countertenor Franco Fagioli doesn’t have a very even or rich voice, sometimes sounding thin, but makes up for it with extraordinary range and agility. His “Guerra e pace, Egizia terra” was the showpiece of the evening. As Fabio, magnificiently named tenor Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani was accurate and pleasant, and the only snappy dresser in a somewhat disheveled cast. Mary-Ellen Nesi showed a powerful and beautiful low mezzo as Arsace, and Johannes Weisser, a holdover from last Sunday’s Ariosti, again sounded unfocused, though he acted well.
Mezzo Milena Storti was a very late replacement for the ill Romina Bassi in the role of Selene, and according to the preshow announcement received the score at three in the morning that day, learning it overnight. She has a round, dark voice and sang with impressive confidence, including great use of the text in recits and some playful moments in the arias, and was deservedly warmly received by the audience.
The baddest mustache in Baroque conducting, Alan Curtis, and his orchestra Il complesso barocco were the real highlight of the evening. They know this style inside and out, and play with easy, unexaggerated grace and energy, and perfect balance and textual transparency. I’ve never understood those who find Handel boring, but with playing with this kind of nuance and variety in character, well, I understand less.
Here’s this group’s CD of this opera again. If you’re in the market for any Handel opera recordings, I highly recommend Curtis’s recordings as a general policy for their excellent musicianship, stylistic accuracy, and animated drama.
Also, about that student Gluck performance of the other night, Il Parnaso confuso, at Schloss Schönbrunn: I went, I didn’t like, and I have no desire to beat up students, so that’s it. Except I wish to note that electronic composition and Gluck really don’t mix that well, in my opinion.
Attilio Ariosti’s 1701 opera La fede ne’ tradimenti has lots of charming arias, even more pretty good recitative, and the plot’s bumbling Python-esque medieval antics seem to be a barrel of laughs. I say “seem” because despite excellent singing and playing Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante’s concert performance did not show this small-scale satire to its best advantage. It may have been an evening more for operatic Kenner than Liebhaber, but it was still a welcome and intriguing introduction to a forgotten work. Forgotten composer. Forgotten style, even.
Attilio Ariosti, La fede ne’ tradimenti. Wiener Konzerthaus, 1/23/2011. Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante with Ann Hallenberg (Fernando), Robert Ivernizzi (Anagilda), Lucia Cirillo (Elvira), Johannes Weisser (Garzia).
Over the last few years, the Baroque crowd has been proving that there’s far more to early Italian opera than Monteverdi and Handel. While Cavalli and Vivaldi make occasional inroads into opera houses, many of these efforts seem to be taking place more in concert and on CDs than in staged productions. This includes not only the ever-expanding Vivaldi edition but also recital CDs such as Philippe Jaroussky’s Caldara, Vivica Genaux’s Hasse, Karina Gauvin’s Porpora, and Simone Kermes’s anything. Works by earlier composers such as Cavalli don’t have much to offer for virtuosic soloists, but their smoother-flowing plots seem to find greater success in theaters. Ariosti is somewhere in between chronologically and musically, and his operas haven’t found much modern success onstage nor on CD… yet.
This opera is from 1701 and was written for court, not a public theater. There are arias, a lot of them, and some of them feature the kind of coloratura fireworks and cantilena you get from Handel. But many don’t, and nearly all are smaller in scale. Some are AA’ structures, some just As, some even ABA’ da-capo-types. There are some longer solo scenes, but they consist of multiple arias connected by bits of recitative. There are a few beautiful duets, but the only other ensemble is the short choral finale (chorus consisting of the soloists). There’s a lot of recitative relative to aria, and while it’s good recitative, its volume means you’re going to be spending a fair amount of the time thinking about the dramatic action. So while there’s some very rewarding music here, I’m not sure a concert (in which the audience is following a libretto in the program) shows it to its best advantage. Considering Ariosti’s low name recognition, though, it’s probably the only option.
The venue wasn’t ideal either; the Großer Saal of the Konzerthaus is simply far too big for this work. The Theater an der Wien or even the Mozart-Saal would have been far preferable. The singers were appropriately cast for this style, the orchestra was the right size, but I’m really glad I was sitting in the third row, because I’m not sure how it would have registered much further back. (Acoustics can be funny, though.)
La fede ne’ tradimenti’s 1689 libretto, by Girolamo Gigli, is a gleeful affair that was set by a number of other composers before Ariosti. It can’t be taken seriously, nor is it meant to be. Expanding fantastically on a minor subplot in the fight between King Fernando of Castille and King Sancio of Navarre, it, in the words of Sabine Rademacher’s ace program notes, “trivializes the medieval figures and events, as well as their heroic ideals.” Briefly, the plot involves Fernando, engaged to Anagilda, though he killed her father. Anagilda’s brother is not happy about this and interferes. Anagilda, proving that ladies of Spain are just made for liberating their wrongfully imprisoned husbands, rescues Fernando. Elvira, Fernando’s sister, is also involved, and improbably ends up falling for Garzia. Of course, improbability is the point. My favorite twist is when Elvira gets into Fernando’s palace by dressing up as the servant of an African magician and telling him there’s a treasure buried in his backyard and she has to come in and wait for a particular time for the sun to make a tree cast a shadow, which will show her where to dig for it.
There is satire here! The music is heartfelt, but a violent aria from Garcia about not trusting women’s tears (“Di femmina al pianto, mai più crederò”) is immediately followed by an apparently sincere one from Elvira entitled “Pianto mio, che sangue sei.” This tone is another big thing that makes this opera tricky to appreciate in concert. Send this score to David Alden pronto and see what he can do with it! With staging, I have no doubt it would be suited for a wide audience.
Fabio Biondi’s Europa Galante, 16 members strong, plays with a silkier tone and slightly gentler attack than some of the more rattly HIP outfits, or maybe that was just the space. Ensemble and phrasing were excellent, and the continuo section was super, with great creativity in the art of bass line deployment. Solos, particularly Biondi’s own on the violin, were outstanding. Biondi, however, is one of those early music conductors whose vague gestures (with his bow) make absolutely no sense to non-HIP musician me. Looks like the ensemble gets it, though.
Mezzo Ann Hallenberg as Fernando (castrato role? I think? possibly just pants) was the star of the singers, with a large, vibrant voice, spotless coloratura and phrasing, and lively stage presence. She got most of the best arias, and her “Queste ceppi” was the highlight of the show. Fellow mezzo Lucia Cirilla’s slimmer, darker voice also excelled as Elvira. Roberta Invernizzi showed charm and agility as Anagilda, and her almost vibrato-free tone is attractive, but her sound did not project well. Johannes Weisser sounded unfocussed as Garzia.
This long evening bled some audience members during the intermissions (BTW, performers, I was the awake girl sitting next to the sleeping lady in the third row), but I’m glad I got to experience this piece, even in less than ideal conditions. It was broadcast live on the radio, and I hope will eventually be released as a CD. Maybe next time I’ll see it with staging.
Speaking of eighteenth-century obscurities, I’m off to the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst’s production of Gluck’s Il parnaso confuso on Wednesday night, in the distinguished and appropriate location of the Schloss Schönbrunn’s 18th-century theater. Opera titles with words like confuso, pazza, and finta are guarantees to get me into an audience in any case.
Christophe Rousset and Mariame Clément’s Castor et Pollux is a breath of fresh air in the Theater an der Wien. After a string of disappointing shows, here’s one that fulfills the theater’s mission: a modern, polished production of an unusual work with a fabulous orchestra and chorus. The singing is uneven and it might be a little more gloomy than grand, but it all works together.
Rameau, Castor et Pollux (1754 version). Theater an der Wien, 1/20/2011. New production premiere by Mariame Clément, sets and costumes by Julia Hansen, lights by Bernd Purkrabek, projections by fettfilm. Les Talens Lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset with Maxim Miranov (Castor), Dietrich Henschel (Pollux), Christiane Karg (Télaïre), Anne Sofie von Otter (Phébée), Nicholas Testé (Jupiter), Arnold Schoenberg Chor, directed by Erwin Ortner.
Clément and Rousset have chosen Rameau’s second, 1754 version of the opera, which is more dramatically focused and austere than the 1737 version. I came that evening familiar only with 1737 (as heard on William Christie’s recording). This was a problem; they are very different. There are fewer ballets, the action is tidied up and considerably changed, and the allegorical prologue is cut. The music slips between aria and récit in a way more reminiscent of much earlier Cavalli than most French music, and shows Rameau’s harmonic crunchiness at many points. The orchestra is large and colorfully deployed. It’s not a style you hear every day, but it’s not a difficult one to adjust to, the action moves along quickly enough, and it’s beautiful stuff.
Clément’s production takes place on a unit set dominated by a large, maroon-carpeted staircase. While the staircase is surrounded by a positively farcical number of doors, the production is nothing if not serious. Between the carpet, army of servants, and 1940’s clothes, I wondered if designer Julia Hansen was working with sloppy seconds from Robert Carsen’s Semele.
Despite the specific 1940’s setting, Clément’s production is relatively abstract, with no reference to the world outside that of the characters. The theme is brotherly love, and the happenings domestic. The ballet interludes show episodes from the characters’ earlier days (using child actors), Castor and Pollux playing and always showing affection for each other, their budding rivalry for Télaïre, and the interfering, slightly older Phébée. They’re charmingly staged and dramatically helpful, clearing up and deepening the relationships, but it’s a shame they have so little to do with the music. And that there is no actual dance.
Magic and myth are minimized. There are a few coy references to Pollux’s immortality, but they are minimal. Jupiter is a stern father with an imposing office at the top of the staircase, and he cares only for Pollux. There are no spectacular Baroque settings or transformations. Castor’s underworld is the only major set change, a white box hanging from above, in which we see his visions of life in the household projected on the walls. Pollux’s departure from his immortal life, surrounded by the chorus dressed in costumes of various time periods, is nicely done. The ending is slightly confusing (if you don’t know the piece well), and suggests that Castor’s resurrection may have been only a dream.
It does a good job telling the story, with strong blocking (mostly naturalistic, sometimes stylized in the choruses) and good variety. My only complaint, other than missing dance, is that it is somewhat too somber, too muted. It’s very tasteful and skillful, but a little more boldness or invention could have made things more exciting. However, this is a somber opera, so it fits.
On the technical side, Bernd Perkrabek’s lighting contains some awkwardly timed and bumpy transitions (more a problem of execution than design). The evening also got off to a difficult start when the surtitles machine remained blank, though it was fixed around 10 minutes into the show (after audible panic in the space behind the third ring).
The most exciting things of the evening were the playing of Christoph Rousset’s orchestra, Les Talens Lyriques, and the singing of the Arnold Schoenberg Chorus. Rousset conducted at a slightly cooler temperature than some of the peppier HIP types, but the orchestra still has tremendous rhythmic definition, agility, and virtuosity. And the Arnold Schoenberg Chor, a reliable highlight of everything they appear in, sang again with impeccable homogeneity and detail.
The soloists were somewhat variable. Up-and-coming soprano Christiane Karg was the brightest spot as Telaïre, singing with honesty, spontaneity, and beautifully clear, bright tone (including a gorgeous piano). Sometimes a stronger low register would have helped, though. Anne Sofie von Otter made a formidable figure of Phébée and sang with passion and conviction, but the role seemed to demand more emphatic recitative and less lyricism than would be ideal for the current state of her voice.
From the men, cute tenor Maxim Miranov handled the murderous haute-contre tessiatura of Castor with aplomb and bright and pleasant sound, though his fluttery vibrato may not be to all tastes. Dietrich Henschel seemed miscast as Pollux (he replaced Luca Pisaroni a little while back for reasons I don’t know), his woolly baritone lacking the flexibility and clarity required for this style. Basses Nicholas Testé as Jupiter and Pavel Kudinov as the Grand Prêtre were both excellent.
It’s a lot more of a piece than what you usually get from the Staatsoper, and to hear such an usual score makes this worth a trip in itself.
Further performances are on 22, 24, 26, 28, and 30 January, more information here.
Photos copyright Monika Rittershaus/Theater an der Wien
ANJA HARTEROS. She’s the reason why you should see this Alcina. The Wiener Staatsoper’s Baroque experiment is good enough, but only the resplendent Harteros and the fab Les Musiciens de Louvre in the pit elevate it above the blandly pretty. Adrian Noble’s production is incoherent, but all told not really that bad. The whole of this one is surprisingly better than most of its parts. I think we can mostly credit Handel and Harteros for that.
Handel, Alcina. Wiener Staatsoper, 14/11/10. New production premiere directed by Adrian Noble with sets and costumes by Anthony Ward, lights by Jean Kalman, choreography by Sue Lefton. Les Musiciens de Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski with Anja Harteros (Alcina), Vesselina Kasarova (Ruggiero), Veronica Cangemi (Morgana), Kristina Hammarström (Bradamante), Shintaro Nakajima (Oberto), Benjamin Bruns (Oronte), Adam Plachetka (Melisso).
Based on Adrian Noble’s pre-premiere ramblings, I expected his production to be rather convoluted. It is not. It has a frame narrative: the drama of Alcina is being performed by 18th-century British aristocrats for their, heh, peers. But the 18th-century characters do not have identities separate from their characters in Alcina, so it never gets very complicated. (Or interesting. However, considering how tricky these theater-in-theater productions are to pull off, maybe it’s best left half-baked.) All the concept means is that we are in an 18th-century salon with some 18th-century audience members wandering in and out (you can’t see them in any of the pictures I could find, sorry). They tend to leave for the most intimate moments, so they don’t get in the way, which doesn’t make much logical sense. It indicates how seriously Noble takes this frame–not very.
The set is a stately, luxuriously appointed room whose back wall opens up to reveal a green field. It’s such a direct rip-off of Robert Carsen’s Garnier/La Scala Alcina that it’s not even funny. (I couldn’t find a good picture of the whole Staatsoper set, unfortunately, but trust me here. Here is the Carsen. I will add a photo comparison if I can come up with one.) But it’s very pretty, the design is elaborate and eye-catching with many bright and shiny colors. The breaking of Alcina’s enchantments is equated with a dark, star-filled sky, absent her male admirers. Bradamante and Melisso cutely arrive on the island via hot air balloon. We get touches of Eastern exoticism in Ruggiero’s silk vest and Alcina’s fringed umbrellas. The dance interludes, diverting enough, feature Alcina’s spirits, her “ombre pallide,” generically Eastern (yet pale) men. Oberto’s father in the form of a lion is a charmingly homespun effect.
But mostly the costumes reveal that we are in that well-known theatrical era familiar from many productions of Mozart, Molière, and Bartlett Sher’s Met Barbiere di Siviglia: the Slutty 18th Century. This mythic era, most often explored by straight male directors, is just like the regular 18th century except with more corsets and cleavage. Women habitually wear only their underclothes in public. Dresses mysteriously fall off mid-aria, never to be recovered. This afflicts soubrettes most frequently, but any woman is vulnerable. See also Slutty Early 19th Century, AKA Anna Netrebko in the Met’s Don Pasquale. This setting has been brought to you by the Male Gaze.
I don’t think that Noble has a single thing to say about Alcina, about the lady’s magic or her society. His much-vaunted Duchess of Devonshire (see his notes linked above) is alluded to in (YES!) a giant hat at the very beginning of the opera, but otherwise the 18th-century elements are purely aesthetic. The frame merely adds an alienation effect, which makes me suspect that Noble doesn’t really trust the libretto to work when taken seriously on its own terms. I think this is a shame, and it helps make this a rather emotionally shallow production. We end with a collective dance that is reminiscent of Twelfth Night. (Or any chaconne ending of an earlier Baroque opera.) Just another evening’s entertainment, it raineth every day, etc.
But while it never gets below the surface of the work, this is actually a nice evening. It rarely drags through its four hour running time, which is no small achievement. The Personenregie of each individual number is mostly good, the plot is dealt with clearly and straightforwardly. The blocking is naturalistic with no coloratura choreography or other Sellers/McVicars/etc. whimsy. There are moments of stillness when it’s needed, such as Alcina’s “Ah mio cor,” and more elaborate stagings when needed, such as Ruggiero’s “Sta nell’ircana pietrosa tana.” It doesn’t pack much of an emotional punch and is very generic, but it works.
The inclusion of Les Musiciens de Louvre in the pit was the production’s big experiment. Media accounts before the premiere fretted about whether a Baroque opera would work in the Staatsoper acoustic. While it’s not ideal, it is more than satisfactory. The orchestra here is very large for Handel, around 50 people. I wonder if they could have gotten away with less without sounding skimpy, this group fills the theater nicely but sounds a little too big for the music. The contrast between continuo and full orchestra ritornello was jarring. But the orchestra sounds great, crisp and precise and nimble. They use vibrato tastefully, particularly the soloists. I liked the inclusion of the obligato instrumental soloists onstage, which gives the sound a wonderful intimate quality and liveness. Marc Minkowski conducted with quick but never excessive tempos, lovely phrasing in the dance movements, and good coordination. Vocal ornamentation was similarly middle-of-the-road, tasteful and idiomatic. Overall, it’s a good compromise between big opera house music and period practice.
Anja Harteros is a magnificent singer, with an incredibly rich and complicated sound that she perfectly colors to each phrase. I haven’t heard her in a few years and had forgotten how good she is. Everything in her performances just fits together vocally and theatrically in a way few singers manage. Her voice is large for Handel, but while I’m sure there are more virtuosic singers of “Ombra pallide,” she can, well, handle all the role’s demands in a gratifyingly large-scale way. She is a strong presence as Alcina, both powerful and privately vulnerable. (And her tallness helps her, made even more notable by an extremely tall wig.) Her “Ah! mio cor” was a tour de force of both voice and acting, going from despair to violence to resignation. I think she could be devastating given a better production, but the fineness of her singing is a considerable reward in itself.
Vesselina Kasarova confuses me, though she’s very popular here. Her sound is certainly unique, but it’s very uneven. She sounds like different singers in different registers, from hollow, throaty lower notes to an iffy middle register to more powerful and focused higher notes, and her phrases are inevitably broken up into segments. Her coloratura is fast but more aspiration than note. Her Ruggiero was suitably impetuous and heroic, and she had a few moments, notably a very expressive “Mi lusinga il dolce affetto.”
The standout in the smaller roles was Kristina Hammerstörm’s impeccably sung Bradamante, with all the vocal evenness Kasarova lacked. Veronica Cangemi (center in picture, right) does not have the vocal freshness that would be ideal for Morgana, and got off to a rough start in “O s’apre al riso,” scooping towards the high notes and mostly missing, but her richer soprano voice was rewarding in “Ama, sospira,” and her “Tornami al vagheggiar” accomplished. Vienna Boys’ Choir member Shintaro Nakajima was a small wonder as Oberto. I usually can’t stand little kids singing, but this boy was amazing, singing all three (!) difficult arias with confidence, accuracy, and lovely clear tone. Benjamin Bruns was fine as Oronte, Adam Platcheka very good as Melisso (both are ensemble members).
Intendant Dominique Meyer can continue to breathe easy, there were enthusiastic cheers at the end for the singers and orchestra, and moderate ones for the production team. No booing. His real test will come next month with a new Don Giovanni, a considerably riskier endeavor.
Another note: the orchestra was rehearsing in the hall up until the last second, delaying the standing room admittance considerably. We could hear them as we waited, eventually Meyer emerged from the theater (and said hello). We were let in shortly afterwards with only 20 minutes before the starting time. I tied my scarf in the front of Parterre standing room and then got out of the theater, to the Würstelstand, ate a Wurst, ran back to the opera house, through the coat check, through the WC line, bought a program, and back to my scarf. All in under 15 minutes, with five minutes to spare before the start of the opera. I impressed myself, at least. My stomach wasn’t so happy about it, but four hours of Handel opera while hungry would have been worse.
Next: I wandered around during intermission in the hopes of running into Dmitri Hvorostovsky. I failed, but I’ll be seeing him in Rigoletto on Tuesday.
I’m sorry the photos I have here are so non-illustrative, I will try to find some better ones. I was strangely lucky with the bows photos this time, here are a few:
