Met Opera shows audience some clemency

I was late on the Met’s revival of La clemenza di Tito, but I did go on Thursday and thought I would briefly recap. As many others have already written, this is one of the best evenings at the Met so far this season, and in the Mozart department specifically worlds better than the dire Figaro (and, from what I hear, the current Don Giovanni as well). The conducting and direction are detailed, insightful, and precise, and the cast is excellent. Conductor Harry Bicket is associated with HIP performance and here gave a swift and light yet still dignified interpretation, and the orchestra sounded pretty great. (As much as I like HIP Mozart, having the superior intonation of the modern clarinet in Tito is always a blessing. But fortunately here a harpsichord replaced Figaro‘s piano in the recits.)

The cast is led by android mezzo Elina Garanca as Sesto. This was the first time I’d heard her since she’d had her baby, and her voice, always a secure and smooth instrument, seems to have become warmer and richer, a definite improvement. She is a lovely Mozart singer–while her exactitude and cool temperament can come off as overly detached and anonymous in other repertoire, here they are elegant, and she is much better-suited for seeming noble and conflicted than she is at pretending she’s a dirty and passionate gypsy. She stayed almost entirely on the tracks in the obstacle course portion of “Parto, parto,” and did something astonishing in “Deh, per questo istate solo,” Sesto’s lowest and most vulnerable point–she acted quite well! This was, along with her appropriately distant Charlotte in Wien, the most convincing performance I’ve seen from her, and vocally definitely the best.

Barbara Frittoli’s voice may not be quite refulgent–the high notes have a wobble, and the tone is not quite velvety–, but she’s a real artist and imbues this difficult music with expression and finesse. She threw herself into the production’s rather undignified conception of Vitellia with humor, and has excellent comic timing. She seems to have borrowed her fruity “Non più di fiori” chest voice from Karita Mattila, which is not good, but vocal imperfections are forgivable in crazy lady music, particularly when you sing it with this kind of conviction. Debutant Lucy Crowe (once an excellent Sophie in München) sounded gorgeous as Servilia, with a sweet and peachy tone with just a bit of an edge to it, and impeccable musicianship. She is also a fine actress. Kate Lindsey has a leaner voice than Garanca, giving her Annio some contrast, and while her singing is classy it was somewhat less glamorous than the rest of the women.

This leaves us with Tito, the only male role of importance. Russell Thomas took the second half of this run this performance only (replacing Giuseppe Filianoti). He’s got a sweet tenor voice and can more or less handle the strenuous coloratura of “Se all’impero,” but the lower notes tend to be unstable in pitch and projection. He is a decent actor, starting off with something more interesting (slightly insecure and nervous) than he ended up with at the end. While a good enough performance, he was overall not on the same level as the women and I kind of wish I had seen Filianoti.

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s production dates from 1984, and everyone seems very enchanted by its elaborate lighting plot (sometimes unnecessarily showy–slow down those crossfades! or can the dimmers not handle it?) and clean white drapery. I wonder if all the petticoat-fanciers recognize that it is the intellectual grandparent of Stefan Herheim’s Serse. The costumes combine eighteenth-century motifs with quasi-Roman ones, and Tito’s Forum is already a cracked ruin (no less than Stanley Sadie criticized this decision upon the premiere–“in Tito’s time the Forum was still quite new”–to which I say, no shit, Sherlock, and Servilia wasn’t dressed like Donna Anna back then, either). Vitellia is a deposed noblewoman, Tito’s hereditary power is maintained solely due to strength of character–and he wonders if even that will be enough. The sense of something being extended past its logical expiration date is a commentary on the opera’s place in history, an outdated opera seria composed in 1791, an anachronistic tribute to both a musical logic and a political power that no longer promised the certainty they once did. It’s a fine production and has been revived well here, though the burning of Rome is not the best effect ever.

There’s only one more performance but I encourage you to catch it if you can, and the HD should be on PBS at some point.


Mozart, La clemenza di Tito. Metropolitan Opera, 12/6/2012. Production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (revival), conducted by Harry Bicket with Russell Thomas (Tito), Elina Garanca (Sesto), Barbara Frittoli (Vitellia), Lucy Crowe (Servilia), Kate Lindsey (Annio), Oren Gradus (Publio).

Video: Elina Garanca sings the opening of “Parto, parto”

Photo copyright Ken Howard/Met.

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Hansel and Gretel at the Met, not just for the kids

Revival may have dulled the edges of Richard Jones’s Hansel and Gretel, but this Met production still has a lot to recommend it. It’s got good and some great singing (thank you, Aleksandra Kurzak), a super score played very well by the orchestra, and Jones’s alternately harsh, grotesque, and sweet production is the most fully conceived and realized evening I’ve had at the Met this season.


Humperdinck, Hansel and Gretel. Metropolitan Opera, 12/16/2011. Production by Richard Jones (revival), English translation by David Pountney, conducted by Robin Ticciati with Aleksandra Kurzak (Gretel), Kate Lindsey (Hansel), Robert Brubaker (Witch), Michaela Martens (Mother), Dwayne Croft (Father).

This production is well-known and already available on DVD but this was my first time seeing it so I’m going to describe it anyway. The Met performs this opera in David Pountney’s English translation. In lieu of photos of the current cast these ones show the 2009 cast–I will change this when I can.

Jones’s production starts off brutally realistic and gets increasingly surreal as the acts proceed. The whole thing is out of some mid-century British children’s novel that probably featured a character named Olive (also much detail about ration stamps and expecting extensive knowledge of outdated British coins–oh no, we’ve only a crown and sixpence remaining!). Each act takes place in a kitchen, representing the children’s hunger. The first is the bare one of Hansel and Gretel’s parents, the second is the ghostly one of the forest (with the loud interior decoration that has led me to call this director Wallpaper Jones), and the third is the ghastly one of the Witch. The children dream not of angels but of chefs bringing extravagant food, and you get the sense that Jones’s heart isn’t really in the prayer at the end. Like today’s children, he would prefer to see them break off a leg from the baked-up Witch.

The acting in this revival is on the broad side, and the timing isn’t always quite right. It was probably tighter the first time around–perhaps also in Chicago or Cardiff, where this production was first seen. But it stands up well, with magical and clever visual touches that play to both adults and children, from the glittery Sandman to the housewife Dew Fairy to the delightfully sloppy food fight in Act 3 (one of the messiest Messy Stage productions I’ve seen–a family-friendly version of Calixto Bieito’s Don Giovanni). It’s cute without being sugary and gets that grotesque meanness of an old school fairy tale but also the timeless pleasure of sticking a cream pie in someone’s face. It’s fun without talking down to anyone, and that’s a hard thing to achieve.

Purists may be offended by the lack of an actual gingerbread house, but in my opinion this is the kind of staging the Met needs more of in any repertory. It’s inventive, it’s visually strong, it’s not too challenging, and it revives pretty well. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wallpaper Jones is an old pro at opera staging, not a newcomer from another discipline. Not all his productions are successful (though even his semi-failures like the Munich Lohengrin are interesting), but his work here is so many miles ahead of any of the Met’s new productions this season it’s not even funny.

One thing that was new about this revival was its conductor, Robin Ticciati, making his Met debut. It’s a badly kept secret that even though this opera is often considered a kiddie piece Humperdinck’s score is really, really good, a kind of fairy tale, more melodic Wagner. Excellent conducting can make a big impression. Ticciati sometimes got that, but I found a lot of it slack and unfocused, and transitions didn’t always flow smoothly. It wasn’t bad, but it could have been much better. The orchestra, however, was playing wonderfully.

The vocal star of the evening was Aleksandra Kurzak as Gretel, singing with youthful, radiant tone and excellent musicianship. Her English enunciation was clear if not always quite correct (her vowels sometimes weren’t the right ones), and she managed to play the youthful stuff as cute without being cloying. Kate Lindsey’s Hansel was less interesting. She’s a very solid and reliable singer with a soprano-like mezzo, but I can’t help but find her bland and generic. Acting-wise, she’s obviously experienced playing boys but sometimes her dance-happy hyperactivity wasn’t quite in the style of the production–she got a lot of laughs, though.

The Witch was, as often, played by a tenor in drag, here Robert Brubaker (last seen by me in my Most Confusing Opera Experience of 2011, Der König Kandaules at the Wiener Volksoper). He camped it up in fine style without quite stealing the show, and sang more pleasantly than you have any right to expect in this character role. Michaela Martens was a highlight as the Mother, her rich dramatic mezzo rather overqualified for such a short role. Dwayne Croft was less present as a character than the father could be–the most conspicuous sign of a toned-down revival, I suspect–but sang with bass-like resonance. The bit roles were strong, particularly Jennifer Johnson Cano as the Sandman.

It took me a few revivals to actually see this production. I generally avoid sites where children congregate en masse, and while they were generally well-behaved it was still chattier than normal. But I’m glad I finally did see it. More Richard Jones at the Met, please.

Performances continue through the holidays.

Trailer (different cast):

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La finta giardiniera: Weeding needed

Mozart’s early opera La finta giardiniera is a problem work.  Whether its wild mixture of silly and serious is confusing or just confused is a matter for debate, but it’s surely a challenging piece to stage.  David Alden’s new Theater an der Wien production takes it very seriously indeed, probably far more seriously than Mozart ever did.  The result is grim, unfunny, and ugly to boot.  After three and a half hours watching his emotionally damaged zombies sing rage aria after rage aria, I wanted to sing one too.  I still think this opera can be a delight, and found this production hugely disappointing.

Luckily this was partly redeemed by high quality musicianship.  Despite variable voices, René Jacobs conducted a rhythmically incisive performance full of dramatic spontaneity, and the Freiburger Barockorchester is so good they almost made the evening worth it just by themselves.

Mozart, La finta giardiniera.  Theater an der Wien, 12/11/10.  New production premiere by David Alden, sets by Paul Steinberg, costumes by Doey Lüthi, lights by Wolfgang Goebbel, choreography by Beate Vollack.  Freiburger Barockorchester conducted by René Jacobs with Sophie Karthäuser (Sandrina/Violante), Topi Lehtipuu (Il Contino Belfiore), Alexandrina Pendatchanska (Arminda), Michael Nagy (Nardo/Roberto), Jeffrey Francis (Il Podestà), Sunhae Im (Serpetta), Marie-Claude Chappuis (Cavaliere Ramiro)

The central event in David Alden’s staging happens before the opera starts: Il Contino Belfiore’s attempted (he thinks successful) murder of his lover Violante.  Her disguise as the gardening girl Sandrina is explained by Alden as the result of extreme trauma, and, wandering around in a bloody wedding dress with a vacant stare and a large pair of gardening shears, she does look like she’s been through hell.  All the other characters, similarly unlucky in love, are going through the same anguish in varying degrees.

By putting all the characters in liminal emotional states, I think Alden wanted to try to explain their strange actions and the many coincidences of the convoluted plot. The problem is that this plot that we see onstage is basically a buffo farce.  The trauma Alden has put front and center doesn’t hang over the music or libretto in any perceptible way, and the gloom feels totally wrong.  And while he does differentiate slightly between the seria characters and the buffo ones (as Mozart’s music does), for example by putting the seria characters on a staircase to indicate their higher social status, for the most part they are strangely uniform wrecks, and all so wrapped up in their own psychoses they rarely interact with each other.  Love, flirtation, and seduction are shoved aside in favor of jealousy and rage.

The sets are minimal: various neon-colored backdrops, some sliding walls, a few chairs, and more ascending and descending light fixtures than seem necessary.  It is not an attractive production.  The setting is nominally Italy in the 1930’s, but this means nothing more than the general sense of the costumes.  Why?  According to the note, Alden sees the Podestà Don Anchise as a mini-Mussolini, wishing to control everyone and failing.  I did not see this in the staging, though, the Podestà is a comic old man supporting role and he didn’t seem any more complicated or important here than usual.  Also, he was not comic, and that was a problem.  Arminda seems to be an aviatrix (???).  That’s all I got.  (I also must refer you to James Jorden’s excellent essay on time-traveling productions, if you have not already read it.  This is a dire example of the Carmen type, only without the realism.  The Mussolini thing seems the be the sole reason for this setting, and if I hadn’t read about that in the program it would have totally gone over my head.)

The garden is never more than suggested, though Sandrina relives her attempted murder Edward Scissorhands-style (after Cardillac, I am convinced that this film is the only metatext you need for opera in Vienna this fall) by cutting a murderous topiary.  In the garden, things are kept more or less under control, in the forest of the Act 2 finale, the characters involuntarily lose their inhibitions, I think?  (For Arminda, this involves a superhero costume.  There aren’t any pictures.)  Nice nature metaphor, but the problem is that this doesn’t really work with the plot, which is pure running around in the dark and bumping into people silliness.

The most surprising thing was how Alden’s fantasy for absurd comedy seems to have deserted him.  He knows how to engagingly stage an aria, there’s always something to watch, but other than some obvious physical comedy the invention is minimal, and it seems like overlaid schtick.  By giving into stylized blocking in the Act 1 finale, he confuses the plot where he could have done a lot to clarify the character relationships, and the Act 2 finale turns strangely static.   In both, the plot developments fly by without dramatization.  Indeed, Alden’s concept of a dream landscape seems to preclude the advancement of events in most forms.

In short, I think Alden took this piece far too seriously.  It’s very long, more cuts might have helped, and by reading it so deeply he extinguished the farcical fun that is the libretto’s main asset, leaving us with a confusing, dour psychodrama. 

But while this score isn’t quite top-drawer, B-grade Mozart is better than A-grade almost anyone else.  The Freiburger Barockorchester is wonder.  They have a lovely reedy sound, perfect for the acrobatics of this music, and play a precision and refinement to rival any non-historical practice group.  To hear this music played with so much rhythmic life, transparency, and tonal color is worth any pumpkin-mangling going on onstage.  René Jacobs elaborated the wind parts a bit, as is his wont, and the arias in particular sounded busier than usual.  I don’t know this opera well enough to be specific, at times I found it fussy but mostly it was a wash.  I also don’t know the opera well enough to say whether Jacobs’s tempos were conventional or not, but with the exception of some plodding in the Act 2 finale they felt well-judged if on the fleet side, and he is a master of long-range dramatic pacing.

He also is a master of conducting singers.  The cast sang with a dramatic spontaneity and commitment that still felt perfectly musical, an amazing balance for Mozart.  In the title role Sophie Karthäuser has a lyric sound that is just the right size for the role and sang with style and confidence, though her tone can turn wiry and sharp at the top.  Topi Lehtipuu as Belfiore has a clear and really beautiful, though small, voice, but sounded strained at higher volumes.  His Contino was vaguely hipster-esque and subject to most of the production’s acrobatics, which didn’t bother his singing at all.

The unexpected highlight was Michael Nagy as Nardo, Sandrina’s servant, with a flexible, silky baritone voice and more comic élan than the production knew what to do with (granted, that isn’t a considerable quantity).  He will be Wolfram at Bayreuth next summer and definitely is one to watch.  Jeffrey Francis sounded thin and character-tenor-esque as the Podestà, and failed to be funny in this buffo part, but I wouldn’t blame him for this.  I’m not sure if Arminda is the best use of Alexandrina Pendatchanska’s skills, she has the right temperament but seems overqualified in most other departments with some showy interpolations.  Sunhae Im as the cigar-smoking soubrette Serpetta was a bright spot, and was amusing and sounded sweet, though her low range did not always project.  Marie-Claude Chappuis drifted in and out as Ramiro, excellent in lyric sections but lacking the power for the more emphatic seria music this character gets.

Massive booing for Alden and the production team at the end, cheers for everyone else.  I think this can be a great evening at the opera when produced right, though it’s always going to be a kind of weird one.  I came to know it through this absolutely adorable Salzburg Festival production, which takes place in a Home Depot-like garden store and is like a double dose of happy pills.  It does not take anything seriously at all.  I highly recommend it.

If you want to hear this performance, it is being broadcast on November 13 (AKA today) at 19:30 on Ö1.

Bows by Bad Photography is Us (production team in the first row, cast and conductor in the second):

Photos copyright Theater an der Wien/Wilfried Hösl.  Bows photo by me.

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