Review

The Tucker Gala strikes again

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The annual Tucker Gala always promises an evening of old-fashioned big singing by people who are opera famous and people who are soon to be opera famous. Usually, it’s also a prime example of the hoary journalistic cliche about opera drama playing out backstage as well as on-. This year was no exception: the event fell on my fall break so I made a trip up to see it, only to discovered that four of the singers had canceled, including Anna Netrebko, the one I wanted to see the most. The remaining program was somewhat underwhelming, honestly.


Tucker Gala, 10/12/2014, Avery Fisher Hall. Conducted by Emmanuel Villaume with a pickup orchestra and the New York Choral Society.

This is a gimmicky gala (remember Bryn Terfel and his beer chugging? that might be my non-singing-related Tucker Gala highlight), so I prefer to cover it in gimmicky fashion. This year I have given everyone a rating in the unit most appropriate to their performance, which I fear has ended up sounding like a demented Twelve Days of Christmas but whatever. Emmanuel Villaume conducted and he did an admirable job with the pacing and balances, all told.

This is, as I said, a really old fashioned event. The singers deployed more variations of Baritone Claw (an outstretched, partially clenched hand gesture most common among baritonal gentlemen) than I have ever seen in one event. There was nothing sung in German or any Slavic language, and it seemingly took only a big loud high note for the audience to erupt. I must admit I was somewhat less enthused, particularly because the printed official program didn’t mention Netrebko. This means she must have cancelled at least a few days ago (according to Barry Tucker, she decided she couldn’t sing the day after Lady Macbething, which seems fair enough), and it was poor form for the Tucker Foundation not to announce this but rather continue to publicize the event with her name attached.

Richard Tucker, Rossini, “La Danza”
We opened with the traditional recording of the Foundation’s namesake, the late tenor Richard Tucker, this year singing what was introduced as an unnamed Neapolitan song but which turned out to be not traditional but rather Rossini. It’s a tarantella-type deal with a refrain consisting primarily of “la la la” and “Mamma mia!” and was more rollicking than most of what followed it.
Rating: Three arancini

Fabiano

Michael Fabiano, Verdi, “Tutto parea sorridere… Si! de’Corsari il fulmine!” from Il corsaro
Fabiano was the winner of this year’s big Tucker Award, and a worthy winner he is. He has a strong, ringing tone with a fast, narrow vibrato. His singing is well-controlled and precise, and yet also intense and exciting. He is definitely going places, probably major places. That being said, he’s a lyric tenor at this point and we’re going to have to wait a bit for him to sing the big stuff. He acts primarily with his chin and is afflicted with, for a tenor, a serious case of Baritone Claw.
Rating: Four “all’armis” with a bonus “Andiam’!”

Pretty Yende, Bellini, “Qui la voce… Vien diletto” from I puritani
Pretty Yende is as charming as her name suggests and her voice is sweet and has a unique color. This wasn’t the best vehicle for her talents. The tiny introduction demands she set a strong mood right away and she didn’t, really. Technically, it wasn’t quite there, with some flatness in the high notes and more elaborate ornamentation in second verse of the cabaletta than she could carry off.
Rating: Two appoggiaturas, plus the Best Dress award

Ildar Abdrazakov, Verdi, “Infelice!… e tuo credevi!” from Ernani
This was authoritative and loud and perfectly fine. I think he’s lacking in charisma, though. He did have some quality Baritone Claw.
Rating: Two “all’armis”

Joseph Calleja, Puccini, “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca
Calleja often lets his beautiful tone do all the work for him and comes across as slightly uninvolved. He’s also pretty light for Cavaradossi. While the opening had a lovely dreamy quality to it, he seemed to lack the heft required for the second half.
Rating: Half a firing squad

Angela Meade, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Massenet, “Esprits de l’air” from Esclarmonde
YOU GUYS THIS PIECE IS BANANANAS! It’s Massenet’s Ride of the Valkyries fused with Lakme’s Bell Song. It is perfect exotic sorceress music. How have I gone to so much opera and not know that this thing exists? It is simultaneously delightful, hilarious, and slightly alarming. I’m not going to describe it any further, I’m just going to have you listen to it in case you have been as deprived as I have.

Thank you, Angela Meade, for singing this with the gusto and high notes such ambitious vocal writing demands, whatever the merits of the enterprise. It wasn’t all audible, but this piece is kind of chaotic. (Meade’s preferred gesture is not The Claw but what might be called The One-Armed Evita.) Jennifer Johnson Cano’s part was smaller but she sounded nice and I wish she had gotten her own solo number to better display her capabilities.
Rating: Ten Valkyries

Ildar Abdrazakov and Ingeborg Gillebo, Mozart, “Là ci darem la mano” from Don Giovanni
Gillebo seems like a perfectly good mezzo, but this isn’t exactly a role in which one can judge for star quality. (This number was originally assigned to Isabel Leonard, who cancelled.) Points for choreography.
Rating: One vaguely outstretched hand.

Lucic demonstrates classic Baritone Claw

Zeljko Lucic, Giordano, “Nemico della patria” from Andrea Chénier
Lucic let out a wimpy evil chuckle at the beginning. He just seems like too nice and decent a guy to be able to pull off villainy. The plus side is that I noticed that this aria actually has some good and pretty parts to it, which are not usually given such sensitive treatment. I usually think Giordano is a relatively crap composer, but to Lucic’s credit this made me wonder if I’ve been missing something. Villaume helped him out with the orchestra volume.
Rating: Two-thirds of a tricoleur

Joseph Calleja, Massenet, “Pourquoi me réveiller” from Werther
At first the answer to the aria’s question seemed to be, “whatever, I’m going back to sleep.” But Calleja seems to be making some effort on the intensity front, and it built up a bit. Unfortunately there was a weird buzz afflicting a few of his forte high notes. No idea what that was.
Rating: Three spring breezes

Michael Fabiano and Joyce El-Khoury, Massenet, “Toi! Vous!” etc from Manon
I believe these two are married, so they’re the Perez-Costello of this year’s Tucker Gala. (Oops, apparently they aren’t married! Sorry, guys!) El-Khoury was new to me; she has a nice rich lyric soprano (sometimes a little harsh under pressure) and is an immediately interesting performer. She injected some welcome energy and intensity into the proceedings and I’d like to see her in a full opera. Fabiano is high octane too, and at times this performance resembled Puccini’s louder and more full-blooded Manon more than Massenet’s. That’s the Tucker Gala for you!
Rating: Four slightly ripped cassocks

Angela Meade, Verdi, “Pace, pace” from La forza del destino
This didn’t appear on the program, not even the updated program. Meade sang with with great control and sensitivity, though at times it could use more color and fullness. While her voice cuts through coloratura, in this kind of rep it can sometimes seem hard-edged and over-bright. Her high C sure is big, though!
Rating: Two intentionally improbable coincidences

Elena Bocharova, Mascagni, “Regina Coeile… Inneggiamo” from Cavalleria rusticana
I’ve never seen this lady live before, I don’t think, but I think there’s a picture of her in the Book of Fachs under “Powerhouse Slavic Mezzo.” She is loud, she is metallic, her dress is from the 70s and is also metallic, and you do not mess with her. You hear her over the whole chorus even when she is singing with them in unison. The New York Choral Society sounded fine in the choral portion of this.
Rating: One Carmen, one Azucena, and an Eboli

Joseph Calleja, Sarazabal, “No peude ser” from La tabernera del puerto
Calleja has a very pretty voice, but I don’t think he has a sexy enough voice for zarzuela. I’m not sure exactly how to define it, but the delivery lacks a certain edge and he’s not quite present in the moment in the way one has to be for this rep to seem exciting. This was fine, but of those present Fabiano would have been better in this number.
Rating: One thing which cannot be
 
Pretty Yende, Bernstein, “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story
OF COURSE. She kept it classy, but I wasn’t entirely sure what this number was doing here other than punning.
Rating: Two wedding veils

Paul Appleby and Alexandra Silber, “Tonight” from West Side Story
I was less sure of what this number was doing here. Since both the singers who were originally going to do this cancelled (Leonard and Stephen Costello), I’m not sure why they called in these two (who are both fine artists themselves) when they could have called in these two to add to the program and gotten them to sing material more suitable for their talents. They seemed mismatched and both less than ideally cast. Silber would be better off with Rodgers and Hammerstein and Appleby in Mozart or Donizetti.
Rating: A fire escape that only goes up one floor

Fabiano, Meade, and co, Donizetti, Act II finale of Lucia di Lammermoor
I’m not sure about starting this right at the beginning of the Sextet. I think a good part of that number’s magic comes from the big lead-up into it (its stillness in contrast to all the chaos which preceded it), and that’s not something I can imagine when just given the sextet as a cold open. But there’s still the chaos after it, so there’s that. Fabiano did most of that, and rage and anger seems to be one of his strong points so that was good. (I would like to hear him sing something a little more gentle at some point but maybe that’s not his style?)
Rating: Three faked letters and one wedding photographer

Can’t win ’em all. I’m going to hear Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass in Philadelphia later this week, and I still haven’t written about the blistering Netrebko Macbeth, so maybe you’ll hear from me again soon.

Photos copyright Dario Acosta/Richard Tucker Foundation.

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Review

La Bohème: Your hand is cold

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The Munich Opera Festival part of the Bayerische Staatsoper’s season rolled on with a shot at what is known in these parts as a Sternstunde–famous names being providing luxury singing to gratify your pleasure principle. But for this to work you need more than glamorous singing, there has to be a real connection among the cast and with the audience too. That wasn’t happening so much last night. Angela Gheorghiu and Joseph Calleja are a beautiful match in terms of pure sound, and both have the voices for these roles. But theatrically they are a disaster, encouraging each other’s worst qualities. Gheorghiu only loves Gheorghiu, and I saw few convincing signs of Calleja loving anything at all.
I remain an enormous fan of Gheorghiu’s sound, which has a uniquely beautiful silvery smokiness and sounds perfect in this music. Would that we could hear more of it. When she finally sung out in Act 3, it was glorious, but up to then she had maintained her characteristic 75%–never quite inaudible but not loud enough either. Her self-conscious diva persona would never work so well for Mimi, but she was at her most self-absorbed this evening, reacting only for her own and our benefit and never interacting with the cast around her. She apparently got some new dresses for this production, which seemed to be of the upper middle class rather than of a simple seamstress (which sticks out because the costumes of the rest of the cast are actually fairly faithful to class), but also followed her usual preference of displaying maximum cleavage during her death scene.

Joseph Calleja also has a beautiful sound, and sang the music with much more straightforward musicality than Gheorghiu, who tends to be capricious in regards to phrasing. On a CD, his “Che gelida manina” would be a real winner, with easy high notes, smooth legato, and that golden tone with its distinctive fast vibrato. But he never does anything to make it interesting. He did more to engage with his fellow Bohemians, but his acting remains a series of indications rather than a character, and in terms of chemistry he and Gheorghiu are not so happening.

The supporting cast was mostly drawn from house locals and sounded more Eastern European in style than Italian, but were great company and way more fun than our leads. I wondered if light soubrette Laura Tatulescu had been cast as Musetta as to present minimal competition to Gheorghiu (and their timbres do make a good vocal match–they’re both Romanian, if that means anything), but while her voice is small she projected consistently and effortlessly, and managed to be full of character without overacting, a rare thing in Musettas. The pick of the Bohemians was Levente Molnár’s big-voiced, lively Marcello, showing great life and warmth, but the others were fine as well. Alfred Kühn’s bio has the telling debut date of 1963, and I suspect he has been singing repertoire like Benoit the whole while. I will just say that he is a local favorite and at least he wasn’t cast as Mime.
Dan Ettinger conducted like someone who knows his way around this tricky score, managing the remarkable tasks of rarely covering up Gheorghiu and also staying with her wayward beat. The Act 2 chaos was reasonably clean and if the orchestra was, as I suspect, playing this on little to no rehearsal, I am very impressed. Ensembles were oddly balanced and scrappy but hey, this is the Festival, with Angela Gheorghiu.
Otto Schenk’s production is a traditional job with none of the opulence of the Met’s Zeffirelli extravaganza. I have to say I like it a lot more than that one. Like Ettinger, it doesn’t try anything fancy but it puts things where they need to be to give Angela Gheorghiu something to bounce her voice off. (We’ll leave the actual productions for another day.) Act 2 is busy without ever losing track of the protagonists, the garret could arguably use some sprucing up (how long has this production been going? a while, I’m guessing) but I guess looking like that is the point of a garret. The snow scene is the most artistic of the sets, but still doesn’t dwarf the main characters. The opening of Act 4 was unusually clearly directed. I do wish that opera houses would realize that their rubber fishes are all embarrassments, though.
Admittedly, this has never been one of my favorite operas (I’m not exactly sure why), but this one left me exceptionally dry-eyed. Considering the musical merits, a disappointment. In a few weeks I’ll be seeing the new Salzburg production with Netrebko and Beczala, which I hope will have more to offer.

Photos copyright Wilfred Hösl.


Puccini, La Bohème. Bayerische Staatsoper, 7.17.2012.
Musikalische Leitung Dan Ettinger
Inszenierung Otto Schenk
Bühne und Kostüme Rudolf Heinrich
Chor Stellario Fagone


Mimi Angela Gheorghiu
Musetta Laura Tatulescu
Rodolfo Joseph Calleja
Marcello Levente Molnár
Schaunard Christian Rieger
Colline Goran Jurić 
Parpignol Dean Power
Benoît Alfred Kuhn
Alcindoro Tareq Nazmi
Ein Zöllner Tim Kuypers
Sergeant der Zollwache Peter Mazalán

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Review

Nelsons, Calleja, Opolais, and the BRSO go Italian

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I went to what sounded like it was going to be a fun summer concert and wrote about it for Bachtrack.

An old proverb names Munich as the northernmost city in Italy. As odd as this may seem, it makes some sense when considering the arches of the mock-Italian loggia in Odeonsplatz, modeled after the one in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. It was fitting that this was the setting for the Klassik am Odeonsplatz’s final concert, a so-called “Notte Italiana” (“Italian night”), featuring the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BRSO) conducted by Andris Nelsons, along with soprano Kristine Opolais and tenor Joseph Calleja.

You can read the whole thing here. (Note: no actual Italians were involved in the performance of this concert, except if there are any in the orchestra or chorus.) Had this been in a proper concert hall I would have been pickier about the orchestral portion but for an open-air quasi-pops gig I thought it was pretty good. Also, in contrast to the singers. Opolais can be good, but this was an unfortunate outing made worse by a bad choice of repertoire, and Calleja looked and sounded a bit out of it. He seems to admit it:

You could tell. I’m approaching what I am calling Tenorama week (Calleja/Villazon/Kaufmann) and on that occasion will write something about the perils of this high-pressured fach.

I’m going to be in Munich for the next few weeks and frequenting various Festspiele events, starting with Cenerentola tonight and the Ring tomorrow. Odd combination but I suspect there is a very logical explanation having to do with set storage space or rehearsal time or something.

Photo copyright Michael Heeg.

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Review

L’elisir d’amore: Punch-drunk love

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If you’ve ever gazed upon a stage full of picturesque Italian peasants and thought, “This would be so much better if it looked like something out of Brazil!” then have I got an Elisir d’amore for you, directed by David Bösch at the Bayerische Staatsoper.   Life in Nemorino and Adina’s post-apocalyptic village isn’t easy, what with the bombed-out looking landscape, rapey soldiers, and shortage of furniture.  But, like the chorus with their pathetic little watering cans, they learn how to find love under difficult circumstances.  The results are fabulous.

And your blogger does her best to appreciate the musical assets of Joseph Calleja’s Nemorino under some trying conditions.

Donizetti, L’elisir d’amore.  Bayerische Staatsoper, 1/3/2011.  Production by David Bösch, conducted by Justin Brown with Joseph Calleja (Nemorino), Laura Tatelescu (Adina), Nikolay Borchev (Belcore), Alessandro Corbelli (Dulcamara), Tara Erraught (Giannetta)

Adina and Belcore.
Note that all photos show premiere cast, not the cast I saw.

The set is at first a desert adorned only with a chair and umbrella (Adina’s) and a lamppost with a phone on it.  Despite some quite spectacular effects (some using old-fashioned means like glitter and balloons), the production’s focus is on the characters.  We first meet Giannetta, whose role is greatly expanded in this production into a nerdy teenage busybody in awkward glasses and a dirty wedding dress, who constantly hangs on Nemorino (who never notices that she has a giant crush on him).  He’s a dork himself (though here neither stupid nor idiotic), and the elegant, literate Adina seems totally out of his league.  Belcore and his soldiers are senseless brutes who rape and pillage, and his relationship with Adina never seems quite consensual.  While Adina usually is played as a manipulative bitch who needs to learn to be nice, here Nemorino and Adina go through the same journey: they must learn to defy conventions, Nemorino by refusing the macho world of the army and Adina by learning to tell a man that no means no.  This change was appreciated by me!

Dulcamara arrives in a gigantic spaceship/something that glows, shoots sparks, lets off smoke, and has twirly bits sticking out all over the place (see top of post).  In the words of the program, he comes as a god to the village, one bringing the dream of consumerism (I love German programs! this one also indulges in a close reading of the gondola girl song!).  The machine’s approach was the first time I ever found the excitement of the chorus greeting Dulcamara to be merited.  The elixir itself comes in a giant tank with a hose of the sort you use to spray insecticide.  The production is full of details like this, and confetti, and the treatment of Giannetta, but it balances this silly stuff with close attention to the protagonists and the darkness of the setting itself.  The desolate atmosphere adds surprising poignancy: these people are really struggling to find happiness under difficult circumstances.  Trust the Germans to make L’elisir d’amore depressing, I know.  But I found it touching.

This production premiered around a year ago with an almost entirely different cast (original Adina Nino Machiadze sang earlier performances in this run).  The spirit was not quite aligned this time around, and sometimes it read like a very ordinary Elisir on inventive sets.  Not that there’s anything really wrong with that, but I suspect that the original cast was able to find a more distinctive tone and more comic details.  The big set pieces, including Nemorino’s now-infamous striptease with the women’s chorus, were the best moments, but the less tinkered-with scenes were not nearly as interesting (also, note to tenors: you may think black underwear looks more flattering, but it makes you look like you’re wearing a 1920’s swimsuit).

As Nemorino, Joseph Calleja (not pictured) sang with effortless sweetness and his instantly recognizable timbre, a light, bright lyric tenor with a fast and narrow vibrato.  It sounds lovely and he knows how to sing with style and feeling, but I found his Nemorino underplayed and not integrated into the production.  He was sympathetic, straightforward, and I kind of like a Nemorino who has two brain cells to rub together, but this production seems to demand someone with more personality and presence onstage.  The “Una furtive lagrima” was the most beautiful of my recent hearings, though not the most intense.  One of the most famed moments of this production in its original iteration was Nemorino singing the aria from halfway up the set’s lamppost, but Calleja did not do this at this performance.  I didn’t mind, and his release of a bunch of balloons into the flies during the final bars was a nice touch.

Laura Tatulescu (also not pictured) has a light, focused voice with plenty of carrying power, and made a sympathetic, rather passive Adina.  Unfortunately, after a solid evening she came to considerable grief in the aria at the end of the opera, running out of breath and cutting off the usual fermatas, racing through cadenzas, and singing no acuti at all.  I’m not sure what happened because the rest of her performance was good.  Alessandro Corbelli as Dulcamara was not in best voice either, sounding blustery and approximate, and did not make as much of the comedy as I think could have been done, especially considering that Dulcamara emerges from his machine wearing a spacesuit.  As Belcore, Nikolay Borchev showed barihunk qualities of swaggering acting and perfectly acceptable if not very memorable singing.

There must be something on the cover of the Elisir d’amore orchestral score that reads “This Score May Only Be Conducted Very, Very Poorly.”  This was the worst-conducted performance I have heard since Elisir in Vienna in October.  The orchestra sounded heavy and uncoordinated, and stage/pit relations were hostile.  In the arias, the conductor more or less followed the singers, but ensembles proved a trial.  Tempo changes were nail-biters.  While star conducting isn’t exactly necessary for a solid Elisir, something this bad always gets in the way.

Schenk/Anti-Schenk:  On December 21, I saw Otto Schenk’s Wiener Staatsoper production of this opera.  Both it and this were repertory performances with non-premiere casts and showed signs of limited rehearsal.  Schenk’s production emphasizes the preciousness of the story, making both protagonists childish, the peasants very tidy and cute, and the events always light.  Bösch’s production has wildly creative visuals that interpret the story with much greater complexity, and the production has a whole featured a much more interesting mix of darkness and comedy.  And the characters, even in minimally rehearsed form, seemed to grow a lot more. I found it a much more involving and emotional experience.  Given the choice I’d pick Bösch’s fun-house in a second.

Photos copyright Bayerische Staatsoper.

Trailer:

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