Review

Elisir d’amore: I need a drink

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Juan Diego Flórez is a very charming and accomplished guy, and not a good enough actor to disguise it.  As moony dumbass Nemorino he doesn’t convince, no matter how many precisely timed pratfalls he pulls.  This was a production that existed for one reason, and that was to hear him sing “Una furtiva lagrima.”

It got an endless ovation.  It was an exceptionally fine piece of singing, but embedded as it was in a production with no other distractions, how could it not?  This was your Platonic ideal of Wiener Staatsoper repertory performances: an adored star surrounded by solid but unexceptional ensemble costars, all engaging in well-worn dramatic shtick on a set that is older than any of them.  The only exception was that your average rep night has rather fewer stage-orchestra train wrecks than this one did.

Donizetti, L’elisir d’amore.  Wiener Staatsoper, 29/10/10.  Production “after” Otto Schenk with sets by Jürgen Rose.  Conducted by Yves Abel with Juan Diego Flórez (Nemorino), Sylvia Schwartz (Adina), Tae Joong Yang (Belcore), Lars Woldt (Dulcamara), Anita Hartig (Giannetta)

Otto Schenk’s Elisir d’amore is located in a sunny part of Italy where the peasants are remarkably clean and well-dressed.  The set, though, has been going for 179 performances and resembles a pale beached whale, even conman Dulcamara’s wish-fulfillment wagon is faded.  The blocking is steadfastly conventional and not polished enough to acquire wit beyond the most obvious drunk jokes.  Also, re-stretch your damn backdrop, Staatsoper.  The sky is wrinkly.  But if you like this kind of thing, here it is.

So far, so repertory.  The attraction here was the Nemorino of the Flórez.  I’m usually nuts for him, but he really rubbed me the wrong way in this.  Nemorino’s music gives him little space to display his virtuoso technique and high notes, leaving him to get by on his lyricism and charm alone.  His singing is musically unimpeachable, but the tone is a bit narrow and nasal for the role.  He can fill a performance with clever stage business, but it doesn’t really cohere into a character.

Absent his dazzling coloratura, I actually found him kind of smug and annoying.  His charm is indeed plentiful, and bowled the rest of the audience over, but he seemed to know exactly how good he is, and that’s never attractive.  It’s particularly not good when you’re playing a simple and sincere soul like Nemorino–tellingly, only Nemorino’s elixir-smashed confidence actually worked.  What the hell am I asking for, I know!  But the most sympathetic performances have a sort of generosity to them, and I found that absent here.

He did encore the aria, though.  Of course.

Yes, that’s La Netrebka.  Only picture I could find, sorry!

The rest of the cast was perfectly acceptable.  New ensemble member Sylvia Schwartz as Adina missed the first two performances of the run due to illness.  Maybe she had not entirely recovered; her tone wavered between sweet and focused and fluttery and squally.  She improved as a the night went on, though, and made for a poised and accurate Adina of the lyric sort.  She doesn’t have the easy coloratura or extension for a killer “Prendi” cabaletta, but her secure low notes bode well for her appearances as Susannah and Zerlina later this season.

Tae Joong Yang has a strong and noble baritone voice, but seemed to force unnecessarily both vocally and dramatically; his Belcore scored on pomposity but could have used more suavity.  Lars Woldt was miscast as Dulcamara, with a fine voice but without the velocity to make the patter roll.  Anita Hartig’s warm voice seemed overqualified for Giannetta.

Now for the biggest problem of the evening: the conducting.  I have rarely heard such a messy performance.  Yves Abel chose perfectly conventional tempos but nearly every number featured major coordination problems between orchestra and stage, including losing the entire soprano section in the Dulcamara entrance chorus, losing both tenor and soprano towards the end of the concertante Act 1 finale, and many, many places where the singers were a beat or two off from the orchestra.  Recitatives featured odd pauses.  It was BAD.  That’s the only way to put it.

Lots of enthusiastic applause from everyone in the audience, though.  Now I remember why I avoid these tourist-magnet repertory productions.  I think I have discovered the proper place for that irritating word Startenor, though.

This was the final performance with Juan Diego but the opera marches on with various other casts later this season.  This production can also be seen on DVD with Netrebko and Villazón in excellent form.  However, my favorite Elisir remains the one with Alagna and Gheorghiu–cute 1920’s setting and he’s got that sweet stupidity, she’s got that bitchiness.

This was part 2.1 of my newly-discovered series Operas I See in Both Vienna and Munich that the Bayerische Staatsoper Does More Weirdly.  Meaning I’m going to see the notorious “underpants Elisir” with Calleja in Munich in January.

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsoper.

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Review

Things that are golden: The Philharmoniker, and more Cardillac

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This week I’m the hostess with the Möstest.  I’m just back from Franz Welser-Möst’s Philharmoniker Wagner and Bruckner Philharmoniker short-notice job (standing in for an ill Esa-Pekka Salonen) at the Musikverein.  Full program information here.  Technically superlative, of course, but this lightweight and sometimes fussy Prelude and Liebestod had nothing on Haitink last week, though this was only the bread of the Tristan sandwich.  I strongly dislike Bruckner, and if I hadn’t already bought a ticket to this gig back when it was a Salonen/Mahler concert, I would never have gone to hear his Symphony No. 9, which sounds to me like an endless chain of foursquare antecedent-consequent phrases connected by melodic sequences.*  With some loud patches.  Albeit exquisitely played!  I could write bitchy Bruckner quips all night (all the symphonic ingredients are there, but the chef’s on break), but I’d rather provide a public service.

I’m not talking about sneaking into the Musikverein organ loft and unfurling a giant banner reading “AREN’T THESE SEXIST BASTARDS GREAT?” over the orchestra at the end of the next Philharmoniker concert.  Though I would dearly love to do that as well.

No, I mean here is a roundup of the reviews from Maestro Welser-Möst’s other gig this week, the Cardillac prima at the Wiener Staatsoper.  There are a lot of them.  Most of them are more enthusiastic than my generally positive take (apparently it’s Welser-Möst Conducts Music I Don’t Like Week), but I also get the feeling that everyone really wanted this to be a success, especially the locals.  Voila.  All except the last one are in German.

I’m glad that my remaining events of the week–that would be the Jonasabend at the Konzerthaus, Tolomeo at the Theater an der Wien, and possibly Elisir d’amore with the JDF–all involve music I actually like.

*I know this could describe a lot of music, but you’re not supposed to notice it.

Photo: Die Welt Online

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Review

Cardillac: Es ist ein schönes Ding, das Gold

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Everyone at the Wiener Staatsoper can breathe a sigh of relief: the first new production premiere of the Meyer/Welser-Möst regime is a success.  Hindemith’s opera isn’t easy to love, but it’s hard to imagine a more effective production of it than this one.  A few missteps aside, Sven-Eric Bectholf’s expressionist staging and a solid cast made this simultaneously overheated and distant work a compelling morality play, and Franz Welser-Möst’s loud orchestra made it an exciting one.  Pure gold?  Close, at least.

Hindemith-Lion, Cardillac (1926 version).  Wiener Staatsoper, 17/10/10.  New production premiere directed by Sven-Eric Bechtolf with sets by Rolf Gilttenberg, costumes by Marianne Glittenberg, lights by Jürgen Hoffmann.  Conducted by Franz Welser-Möst with Juha Uusitalo (Cardillac), Juliane Banse (Die Tochter), Herbert Lippert (Der Offizier), Ildiko Raimondi (Die Dame), Matthias Klink (Der Kavaliere), Tomasz Konieczny (Der Goldhändler).

Despite having had to play lots of it, I’ve never warmed to Hindemith’s music, and this opera isn’t really to my taste.  It is intentionally lacking in sympathetic characters, unsubtle, and, while loud and aggressive, emotionally distant from the happenings onstage (only Cardillac gets a real name).  That would be the “Neue Sachlichkeit” (new objectivity) movement.  1926 is a bit early to give music this label, but you can see the signs, and Bechtolf goes on about it in the program book interview.  Apart from some hats, the Romanticism of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s source story, Die Fräulein von Scuderi, is nowhere to be found in the opera or in this production.

My preeeecioussssss..

Hindemith and Ferdinand Lion’s version of the plot, in brief: people in Louis XIV’s Paris are being murdered.  All of them had recently purchased something from the meticulous goldsmith Cardillac.  Cardillac’s daughter wants to run off with a man, he says whatever, I still got my gold.  Unfortunately the would-be son-in-law (the Officer) buys something from Cardillac before they elope.  Of course, the murderer is Cardillac himself, who can’t let go of any of his creations (but apparently armed robbery just doesn’t cut it).  But he is caught in the act before killing the Officer, and while the Officer initially refuses to identify his father-in-law as the culprit, the mob gets the idea and Cardillac is done for.

Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s production finds the perfect visualization of this score.  As mentioned earlier here, his source is silent film.  This shows up in the black-and-white color palette (the only other colors are gold, of course, and a few bits of red) and in the stiff, stylized gestures of the whole cast (well, most of them).  The numbers of the score naturally become separate scenes.  Like silent film is drained of its sound and color, the naive, non-psychological opera and its detached music are missing something: a third dimension, an aura.  The primitive, stiff visual language makes the music more potent rather than less, giving it a concentrated and economic energy.

The chorus is an indistinguishable, violent black mass in stovepipe hats and capes against an abstract black and white cityscape.  Cardillac’s workshop is a bright golden room at the end of a long tunnel.  His death transfigures him into a a gold statue; his creations are all that is left of him.  The King appears in miniature, accompanied by a hulking Nosferatu figure. There are a few problem spots: the new court established to catch the murderer is associated with dancers wielding briefcases that burst into flames, some black body-stocking dancers slinking around looked more silly than scary, and I could have done without the gold-light outline of a top hat at the end. And I couldn’t help but thinking of the gold-painted living statue Mozarts on Kärtnerstrasse upon Cardillac’s transformation.  But these all go by quickly, and overall the concept is brilliant.  (It is not an entirely new thing for Bechtolf, check out his Lulu, also conducted by Welser-Möst.)

If this opera has a heart, it’s Juliane Banse’s fragile Tochter.  She made everyone else’s gestures look amateur, finding great expression in a limited range of movement (her bio says she trained as a dancer, I can believe it).  She also got most of the opera’s most delicate music, including a gentle opening scene and a major role in the pentatonic-ish finale, all of which was sung with lyric sweetness and natural ease.

Herbert Lippert also found great success as the Offizier, also with a lyric voice that rose to the climaxes, for the most part.  All of the cast was on the lyric side, actually, which would not have been a problem had Franz Welser-Möst kept the (fairly lightly-scored) orchestra down more, but just about everyone got drowned out at some point or another.  Juha Uusitalo’s voice made a bigger impression here than it does at the Met, but he still lacked variety of color and his Cardillac was still a black hole of presence.  He also did not seem to have internalized the same gestural language as everyone else.  Alas.  A great Cardillac could have tipped this production from very good to super.

In smaller roles, Matthias Klink and Ildiko Raimondi as an early Cardillac victim and his ladyfriend nobly fought the orchestra and slinked around with great style.  Tomasz Konieczny was once more the loudest low male voice onstage as the Gold Dealer.  The excessive orchestra sounded terrific, playing with surprising violence and bite, contrary to their usually-genteel style.

Judging from the number of personalities other people in the standing room were pointing out (I didn’t recognize most of the names), this was quite the social event.  It got a very enthusiastic ovation at the end, particularly for Lippert, Welser-Möst, and the production team.  No boos that I could hear.  A very good night for the Staatsoper.

There are four more performances: October 20, 23, 27, and 30.  The 23rd will be broadcast live on ORF.
Photos copyright APA.

Next: I bought a ticket for Tuesday’s Salonen/Mahler Philharmoniker concert, which in the meantime has metamorphosed into a Welser-Möst/Bruckner concert.   Nothing against Welser-Möst, but that’s a bait-and-switch, Philharmoniker.  You know I hate Bruckner.  Not sure if I will blog about this one or just grumble about it privately.

Also, did someone say there’s a Jonas Kaufmann recital at the Konzerthaus on Wednesday?  OH YES THERE IS.

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Review

Lucrezia Borgia: The diva quantified

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Last night’s Staatsoper Edita Gruberova Show, otherwise known as Lucrezia Borgia, featured the unusual sight of the orchestra onstage as well as many confused tourists who hadn’t grasped the meaning of “Konzertant” on the schedule.  But Gruberova has a cult in these parts, and the crowd was more local than usual.  Parterre’s Quantification of the Diva recently named her the greatest “contemporary diva,” a decision greeted with confusion by many Americans.  But I think that if you’re Euro, or at least if you’re Viennese, there’s little question that this judgment is correct.

Donizetti, Lucrezia Borgia.  Wiener Staatsoper in concert, 6/10/10.  Conducted by Friedrich Haider with Edita Gruberova (Lucrezia Borgia), José Bros (Gennaro), Michele Pertusi (Don Alfonso I), Laura Polverelli (Maffio Orisini)

Edita Gruberova is a miracle of vocal longevity.  She made her Staatsoper debut in 1970 but still has impeccable control over every aspect of her voice, as well as her regal stage manner, which makes her a complete and very charismatic performer.  From her first entrance, in a shiny dress and sporting fluffy hair, she radiated great confidence in her own perfection.  She’s got some great vocal tricks, her favorite being quietly hovering around a high G for an unfathomable period of time and slowly crescendoing.  Her phrasing, carefully planned and exact in every move, can be mannered, but it has a certain inner coherence and expressive commitment that made it not bother me.  And the high dramatics of poisoner/tormented mother Lucrezia Borgia fit her intense but imperious style very well.  The enormous challenges of the role didn’t seem to bother her until the marathon of the final scene–where, considering Lucrezia is dying, some vocal weaknesses can pass as dramatic effect.

It’s enough to make you barely notice that the sound itself can be dodgy in the usual ways of an aging singer.  Her tone, which in her prime was never a model of warmth, is thin in the middle, shrill on the top, and hooty in the chest voice.  Once I began to hear these well-disguised problems they began to stick out more and more.  I have to admire her–a lot–but I didn’t feel the love.

Judging from the wild cheering, It seemed like most of the audience did.  A fellow standing-room member told me about how long he and Gruberova (and the standing room section) go back, which I think was just as important an element to his bravas as anything that actually happened onstage that night, well-preserved as it was.  Maybe, at this point, you need that history.

The lack of staging of course didn’t help anything either (there were no props with the exception of a chair for Gennaro to sit on to indicate his death).  Gruberova, along with José Bros as Gennaro and Michele Pertusi as Don Alfonso, did not use music, and the trio’s interactions had some basic acting, but never enough to develop into anything.  It also didn’t help that I was unlucky in my standing room spot and they left my field of vision a few times.  (There is a DVD of Gruberova singing this role staged in Munich, with Pavol Breslik and Alice Coote as a first-class Gennaro and Orsini, and the Christof Loy production isn’t too bad once you get over the fact that it probably cost about 5 Euros. )

The non-Gruberova singers were variable.  Bros gave a solid, respectable but rather unmemorable Gennaro.  Nothing wrong with it or his bright lyric tenor voice except they weren’t exciting (and a few strained high notes in the first half).  Laura Polverelli was a dramatic and forceful Orsini, I think she would have done well with a staging.  Her tone is heavy on the vibrato, though.  The all-around best singing of the night came from classy bass Pertusi, with elegant phrasing and dark but flexible sound.

The Staatsoper orchestra, an organization to which universal opinions are often ascribed, is said to not like playing bel canto.  I thought Friedrich Haider’s tempos were perfectly reasonable, but the orchestra indeed sounded wrong, too soft-grained and misty.  A sharper attack, crisper rhythms and more forward energy would have helped.

But the orchestra wasn’t why anyone was there, they came for the Gruberova (and stayed for the Pertusi).  And I am glad that I got to see both her skill and her rapport with what truly can be called “her” public, even if I’m not a member of it.

Next: I’m going to Switzerland for Calixto Bieito’s Aida in Basel and Waltraud Meier’s Isolde in Zurich… oh, shit. Dammit.  First Nina Stemme, now Waltraud Meier cancels on me.  The Bieito and the chocolate better be good and the nine hours on the train better be comfortable.  Positing on these not until next week sometime.


Photo: Der Standard

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Review

Ich kann nicht sitzen: Standing Room at the Vienna State Opera

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So, you’re visiting Vienna and you want to go to the opera.  Your guidebook suggests that you avail yourself of the many cheap standing room (Stehplatz) tickets sold on the day of each performance, but that’s just about all it says.  If you want to know waaaay more than is necessary about the mechanics of the ritual that is the Wiener Staatsoper’s standing room, here’s your guide.

I’m assuming you’ve already decided to go to the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper).  If they’re not your thing for some reason but you still want to go to a performance in Vienna, you should also consider the Theater an der Wien, Musikverein, Konzerthaus (no standing room), or Volksoper.  I will write about these venues’ ticket policies later.

And: if you have any aspiration to see actual art onstage, absolutely never buy a concert ticket from anyone dressed as Mozart.  Read on for something way better.

1. Should you do standing room?
Standing room’s great advantages are its low price (3-4 Euros), nonrequirement of advance planning, and, from the orchestra level standing room, fantastic sight lines.  The seats for many performances sell out well in advance, particularly in the cheaper price categories, but almost all standing room tickets are sold the day of the show, and the view can be better than from seats costing over a hundred Euros.  But you are, you know, standing for the whole opera.  If you think you can easily grab an empty seat, think again.  If you have problematic knees or any other health issues that could interfere this is probably not a good idea.  Make sure you’re going to be able to enjoy it.  I still hold a grudge against Manon Lescaut from an uncomfortable standing room experience.

The view from the first row of Parterre standing room

Also, pick your opera carefully.  The Staatsoper schedule, available in the lobby and on their website, includes the length of each opera.  Consider your operatic experience and general interests before going to anything long and/or that you think you may find dull.   E.g., unless you are a Wagner fan, Parsifal is probably a bad idea.  It might convert you but that long on your feet listening to grass grow might also make you want to shoot yourself.  The Staatsoper plays one or two shortish golden oldies every week (Magic Flute, Barber of Seville, etc.) that are suitable for just about everybody.  (But realize that these ones often get some combination of the least starry casts, most ramshackle productions, and most indifferent orchestra, if you care about that.)

2. When should I get in line?
Tickets go on sale 80 minutes before the opera starts.  If you want a prime spot, you’re going to have to wait at least a little before that.  There are three sections: Parterre (just above orchestra level) , Balkon (balcony), and Galerie (gallery).  Parterre gets great views, but unless you are in the first two or three rows the sound is mediocre due to the overhang.  Galerie sounds great and while it’s the top level of the house, it is not a big theater by American standards and from the center the view is still good (the side Galerie spaces have very bad sight lines).  The upper level is less claustrophobic; the back half of Parterre can get very warm and crowded.  You also don’t have to wait as long for Galerie spots because most of the early people take Parterre. I don’t recommend Balkon, it’s got all the drawbacks of Galerie with few of the advantages.

There’s no exact science of timing.  Show up earlier if it’s a weekend or holiday or if there are any big names in the cast.  If you are not informed in these matters but want to plan ahead, then Google the leading singers and see if they seem to have recording deals, fashion spreads, or personal cults of fanatics who have a nickname for themselves.  Put their name into YouTube and if many videos appear factor in some extra time, particularly if lots of them look like they came from cell phones, because the people who make those videos will be in line and they show up insanely early.

A long line outside in spring

If you’re shooting for a good Parterre spot and there are no superstars in the cast, it’s safest to just check out the line at around 3:30 or 4:00 (for a 7:30 curtain), earlier if you are very keen, see that there are only five people there,  go do something else and come back later.  If there are big names then adjust forward, if you aren’t aiming for front Parterre adjust backwards.  If Anna Netrebko is involved budget much of the day, I am not kidding here.  Rare operas, particularly twentieth-century ones, are invariably less popular than well-known ones.

But never count on getting even a crappy spot without waiting, because X baritone you’ve never heard of might happen to be an old Vienna favorite and everyone turned out in force and there are also three busloads of Japanese tourists in line.  You never know, is what I’m saying.  However, most cancellations/casting changes happen before noon, so you can cross that fear off your list.*

You can only buy one ticket each, so make sure your whole group is in line.

3.  So I’m going to get in line.

Shorts are very much frowned upon and by some of the stricter ushers banned altogether.  Wear comfortable shoes.  Don’t even think about heels, fellow ladies.  If you’re showing up early, dress for waiting outside (though the line is under an overhang).  But be advised that the auditorium itself gets warm and the dense Parterre standing area warmer.  Regulars bring folding chairs or stools for the line (see the pictures).  You also will need to bring a scarf or string to mark your spot in the auditorium.  Snacks and books are also advisable.  If it’s a Wagner opera other than Dutchman or Rheingold, bring a sandwich to eat between Acts 2 and 3.  You will be glad you did this!  Standing tires you out more than sitting.

The line forms on the Operngasse side of the opera house.  This is the west side, near the Albertina, parallel to Kärtnerstrasse and to the left when you’re facing the building from the Ring but behind the fountain.  There’s a small sign reading “Stehplätze/Standing Area.”  (“Stehplätze” actually translates as “Standing Places,” but whatevs.)  Depending on when you get there, the line is either outside under the overhang or inside behind this door.  Also, get to know your line-mates!  Austrians can be hard to start a conversation with but they’re usually friendly once you break the ice.  As long as you explain to your line-mates, you can leave the line to get coffee or food or go to the bathroom or even, on a long wait, to get a quick lunch.  Once you’re inside the opera house, though, the ushers are watching and you should mostly stay in line.  There’s a bathroom in the hall just to the right of the ticket window.

The line inside

There are many intricate little steps in the process.  Just follow the people in front of you.  80 minutes before the opera starts you’ll buy your ticket, try to have exact change.  Tell the ticket-seller which section you want.  The places aren’t assigned, and after buying your ticket you jog down the hallway behind the ticket booth, past the coat check, and left into the main part of the opera house.  You then go left again and up one short flight of steps.  If you’re in the gallery, continue upstairs until you hit the line, if you’re in the parterre you wait on this level in two lines, one at each entrance into the orchestra section of the house.  Around 50-60 minutes before the opera starts, the ushers open the doors and lead the lines into the auditorium itself and everyone rapidly claims their spot (each marked by a single title viewer) as directed by the ushers.  Tie your scarf around the bar below the titles to mark your place.  Make sure you put your ticket somewhere you will be able to find it again.

If you’re not devoted, you can skip this part after buying your ticket and have more time for dinner, but realize that everyone else is tying their scarf somewhere and when you show up later after the crowds have cleared only the least desirable spots will be left.   Some of these are, shall we say, a little short on personal space.  Also on sight lines, if we’re talking Galerie sides.

If you waited to get a place, you now have 45 minutes or so to eat dinner.  I usually bring something with me, but there’s also a Würst stand near the line and some Turkish food stands that also have pizza on the Ring.  There’s a big Anker bakery with sandwiches in the passage under the Ring. Also, try to sit down for a while.  Check your bag and/or coat when you get back to the house, it’s required and you want as much space in standing room as you can get.

Go back to your marked spot before the opera starts and enjoy the show!  Note that moving someone else’s scarf is NOT DONE.  Like, seriously, seriously not done. If an apparently clueless tourist has taken your spot, kick their ass out.

Final Notes
If you want a program you’ll have to buy one from an usher.  These are elaborate books with lots of pictures of the production’s premiere cast and articles in German and stuff, there’s a plot summary in English at the very back.  You can also just get the pamphlet with the evening’s cast and forgo the book, ask for “nur die Liste.”

I consider the Wiener Staatsoper standing room one of the best opera experiences you can get anywhere.  The house itself is maddeningly inconsistent, but as well as an unbelievable bargain the standing room is a fascinating sociological experience and has an energy quite different from seeing an opera from a seat.  It’s not for everyone, but I think it’s one of the best things Vienna has to offer its visitors.  So do not fear the ritual, revel in it!

*Useful vocabulary: erkrankt (fallen ill), abgesagt (canceled), Umbesetzung (casting change), springt ein (substitutes).  If the opera is obscure, cancellations can prompt dramatically short-notice changes of opera.

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Review

The Queen of Spades: The long dark tea-time of the soul

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You got a rotting old pile of a palace, you invite the young people in to spruce it up, and before you know it they’re lighting it up in rainbow colors.  Such is the Old Countess’s problem in Vera Nemirova’s production of The Queen of Spades.  As Russian history it’s dubious and as Chaikovsky opera it’s graceless, but between Anja Silja in full-on Madame Armfeldt mode, Angela Denoke’s dynamite Lisa, and the efforts of Neil Shicoff as Hermann, it works anyways.

Chaikovsky, The Queen of Spades (Pique Dame) Wiener Staatsoper, 22 September 2010.  Conducted by Tugan Sokhiev, production by Vera Nemirova, with Neil Shicoff (Hermann), Angela Denoke (Lisa), Anja Silja (Countess), Boaz Daniel (Yeletsky), Albert Dohmen (Tomsky), Zoryana Kushpler (Polina).

Nemirova’s production is set in the world of the Russia’s post-Cold War nouveau riche (riches noveaux?).  Everything happens on a unit set, the stately entryway of a dusty, run-down palace.  It is less a literal location than a way-station for all the characters and their various activities–this is not an opera you can put on a unit set and be realistic–but it’s atmospheric and has a nice faded grandeur and well-observed details.  The non-Old Countess characters plot remodeling, stage a tasteless burlesque of an intermezzo on the grand staircase, and finally bring in slot machines and the multi-colored lighting plot of the damned (ugliest lighting ever, intentionally).  It’s a simplification of the many layers of past and present found in the score, here crushed into a dusty gothic tangle, but I don’t think it’s exactly a distortion.

Intermezzo

When I tried to make sense of the concept as a historical setting I got a bit of a headache.  The Old Countess laments the younger generation’s lack of style, skill, forethought, etc., and when you see the slot machines you have got to agree with her.  But this is modern Russia and what came before that i.e. Communism wasn’t exactly known for its ravishing glamor.  The opening scene seems to feature a just-barely-post-Communist wasteland, from there we move into ever-increasing decadence.  But the Old Countess appears in the place of Catherine at the end of Act 2 and still is wearing the imperial-style dress in Act 3, which makes me think that the people are trying to dust off their grand palace and recover the imperial period but end up with tacky modernity instead?  Of course this means the Old Countess is very old indeed, perhaps her initials are E.M.?

But I didn’t even try to work this out until afterwards, and maybe shouldn’t have bothered, because despite this Nemirova does a good job telling the story, without special effects except a few flapping windows.  Anja Silja pretty much IS the Old Countess.  Her voice can’t do much more than audibly carry a tune, but she has unstoppable charisma, and this role seems made for her, from her first entrance to the moment she spots Hermann behind her in her makeup mirror to her brief revival (unnecessarily put through a distorting speaker).

In his Staatsoper debut, Tugan Sokhiev led a well-paced account of the score with good attention to the changing moods–more variety than Nemirova, really.  The climaxes all happened effectively enough, though the performance as a whole lacked the kind of explosive propulsion and wildness you get with Gergiev.  In the central role of Hermann, Neil Shicoff was a compelling actor, though so clearly bonkers from the opening he didn’t take us on much of a journey.  His voice is worn and not capable of much lyricism, and his rhythms were approximate, but his considerable commitment helped in the most intense moments of the score.

Lighting plot of the damned

Angela Denoke was the most convincing Lisa I have seen (I’m at four and counting).  It’s not an easy part, you always wonder why Lisa doesn’t choose Yeletsky, but Denoke’s Lisa was every bit Hermann’s match in insanity and isolation even though the libretto never fills out her character’s motivations.  Her voice is bright, almost white, very big in the upper reaches.  She and Shicoff were impressive together, I’m not sure if they’ve done this opera together before but there was more interaction than you usually see at the Staatsoper.

Smaller roles were uneven: while Yeletsky can walk off with the opera with his fantastic aria, Boaz Daniel sounded under the weather and weak on the high notes.  Albert Dohmen as Tomsky lacked top notes and resonance as well.  One surprise highlight was Zoryana Kushpler’s beautiful dark mezzo and musicality in Polina’s brief aria.

This is the third production of this opera I’ve seen in the last two years. Like Elijah Moshinsky’s (gorgeous) Met production, it has a strange obsession with umbrellas (??).  Thilo Reinhardt’s Komische Oper production is also set in modern Russia, but with less dust and more mobsters, it is vivid and exciting but more of a psycho-thriller take on the story.  Nemirova’s production is less striking than either, but this performance was a worthy effort none the less.

Also, the Staatsoper shop has abandoned their usual soundtrack of crossover crap for the new Jonas Kaufmann CD, which first made me wonder who the hell thought screaming tenor verismo arias as background music was a good idea, but more on point made me wonder if he will ever sing Hermann.  Which is to say he should, because that would be awesome.  (Give me a few weeks, er, days to get over the fact that CDs cost 20 Euros here and I might write about this one.)

Next: Budapest Festival Orchestra with András Schiff on Tuesday.

Blurry Bows:

All photos except for the last one by the Wiener Staatsoper.

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Review

La forza del destino: Showdown at the Staatsoper corral

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Preziosilla is onto Carlos’s game.
(Note: picture is a different cast, though same Preziosilla.)
(Photo: Opera Chic)

Of all the caves in the world, you had to walk into mine.  La forza del destino might not be the most outwardly coherent of operas, but Verdi didn’t call it an “opera of ideas” for nothing, and it has an agenda under all that shaggy discursiveness.  Unfortunately David Pountney’s Wiener Staatsoper production, shorn of almost half an hour of music, has the ideas underlined and highlighted and little of the dark chaos.  This messily-staged revival and Philippe Auguin’s conducting went unstoppably forward like the plot’s bullet fired by mistake, and despite four strong singers it all felt rather off.  And the cowboys, well, they were a mistake too.  Giddyap, pardner.

Verdi, La forza del destino.  Production by David Pountney, conducted by Philippe Auguin.  With Eva-Maria Westbroek (Leonora), Fabio Armiliato (Alvaro), Zeljko Lucic (Don Carlos), Ferruccio Furlanetto (Padre Guardiano), Tomasz Konieczny (Fra Melitone), Nadia Krasteva (Preziosilla)

If you’ve ever met me, I’ve probably told you how you have to read War and Peace.  (Because you do.  It’s wonderful in every way.  It’s my favorite novel.)  La forza del destino is kind of like War and Peace.  Shit happens, some personal and some global-historical, and sometimes there’s little the characters can do to control it.  They wander through things that are larger then themselves.  Some glory in the chaos (Preziosilla) , others try to hide from it (Leonora, eventually Alvaro).  In the opera, you don’t have Tolstoy’s narrative voice telling you all the fateful stuff.  But if you’re at the Staatsoper, you have David Pountney, who’s even more pedantic.

As suggested by the opening video of a butterfly starting an enormous wheel, the production is about coincidences and unintended consequences (I was sadly distracted through the whole overture).  Christianity provides a kind of anchor for these characters adrift, who finally all end up assailing the monastery for help and guidance.  The inn is a place of momentary respite, where many Bibles seem to provide a veneer of security.  The period is sometime during the twentieth century, but only vaguely so (there are still swords for dueling).  As an interpretation it makes sense, but it hits you over the head a few times too often.  Moreover, its extreme minimalism and attendant demurral to create a world outside the principal characters undermine the portrayal of larger forces (of DESTINY) at work.  When we’re suddenly at war in Act 3 the means are not great enough to give us any real atmosphere, just some halfhearted projections.  Destiny’s force never seems adequately cataclysmic.

Crosses, crosses everywhere (Photo: Wiener Staatsoper)

The sets are simple and OK enough, but the chorus in the inn scene is a somewhat inexplicable band of sexy dancing cowboys, including also sexy dancing cowgirls, and later at war we gets sexy dancing nurse nuns.  I think most opera suffers from an excess of good taste but I’m going to make an exception here.  We have lost any opportunity to establish who these people are in favor of sexy dancing cowgirls.   If the dancing had been fun or meaningful, it would have been alright, but it was just awkwardly bad.  The execution as a whole was so messy that I really can’t say how good or bad the production as originally conceived was.  The buttons in particular were hopelessly off, with some awkward silences and interruptions–the audience had no clue when they should clap and it made the reception feel tepid just because it was unclear.  (The lights, blocking, and conductor should always signal when we should applaud.)

The score suffered from some major cuts, particularly in the choral and minor character material of Act 3.  Not that I really miss Preziosilla’s “Al suon del tamburo” and Trabuco’s aria as such, but they give this opera its texture, its wildly incoherent patchwork of random events and moments that confuses the characters as much as it does me.  Making Forza neater seems to go against its spirit.  And the one major rearrangement–reordering some scenes in Act 3 so the tenor and baritone get a break between their duets and then cutting directly to the Rataplan–destroys the wonderful sequence of the Act 3 finale entirely.

Opening scene (Photo: Wiener Staatsoper)

Conductor Philippe Auguin favored a fast and loud account of the score that, while sometimes exciting, similarly allowed for few excursions into anything.  We’re getting this sucker done in under three hours or else, he seemed to say (my recording [Levine] is two hours fifty-six minutes total and the intermission was 20-25 minutes).  By the time Leonora pled for pace, pace, I was thinking, you and me both, sister.

The singing was mostly very good, though not transcendental enough to overrule these production and conductor-ly deficiencies.  Fabio Armiliato offered solid and admirable Italian tenoring with good phrasing and intonation, fine coloring and very loud and rich high notes, faulted by a muscley and dry tone at the passaggio and below.  I feel kind of bad for never warming to him, but he failed to grab me somehow.  His acting is generic but he does manage to look impressively Jesus-like in Act 4 in a long white robe with his short beard and longish hair.  I think this was unintentional.  If it wasn’t, I have no idea what it was supposed to signify.

Act 3.  Several of the upper parts of this set were MIA last night.
Photo: Der Standard

Eva-Maria Westbroek has a fabulous soprano, lush and creamy and even right up to the top of the staff.  Above that it gets steelier, but not unpleasantly so (that is to say, her first two “malediziones” were better than the last one).  I would liked to have heard more rhythmic flexibility and Italianate phrasing from her, but Augiun was conducting like he would slow down for no woman or man, so I’m not going to say she couldn’t do it elsewhere.  She did some marvelous acting when onstage alone.  And as for her future role as Anna-Nicole Smith, well, if Anna-Nicole had had better taste she would have wished she could look that good in a pantsuit.

Zeljko Lucic has plenty of volume for Don Carlos and sang his aria with real beauty and musicality, but he seems too fundamentally decent and his voice too lyrically gentle for a villain who kills his own sister.  I would love to hear him as Boccanegra, but am not convinced of his Verdi-villain status.  Tomasz Konieczny, as Melitone, had a metallic edge to his voice that made me think he would have been more suitable, if less opulent.  Ferruccio Furlanetto is not the type to be confined to near-last in a cast list and I’m rather surprised to see him singing such a small role as Padre Guardiano.  It was lovely, and his duet with Westbroek had, along with Lucic’s aria, the best singing of the night, but, still.  It’s minor.  Nadia Krasteva as Preziosilla had the misfortune to get totally lost in Auguin’s manical tempo for the Rataplan, but otherwise didn’t sound bad and, hey, she can do both a split and a backbend.

Finally, a Great Moment in Opera Titles: “The bullet in his chest worries me.”  (“La palla che ha nel petto mi spaventa.”)  (Even in Italian it is somewhat dry, but “mi spaventa” is more properly “scares me.”)

Bows, another lousy in-house photo from me:

Next: The Semele prima is tomorrow but I need a break and think I’ll go on Friday.

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Review

Tannhäuser: Crazy in love

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This looks familiar, I’m not sure why.

Dich, teure Halle, grüss’ ich wieder!  After four years with no Wiener Staatsoper in my life, I returned last night, and if this Tannhäuser is any kind of omen I’m glad I did, because it was awesome.  Welser-Möst is doing great things with the orchestra, there’s some fantastic singing, and well, if the virgin-whore complex is getting you down (it certainly gets old for me), Claus Guth has a production for you.

Wagner, Tannhäuser (Dresden version).  Wiener Staatsoper, 8.9.2010.  Conducted by Franz Welser-Möst with Johan Botha (Tanhäuser), Anja Kampe (Elisabeth), Matthias Goerne (Wolfram von Eschenbach), Michaela Schuster (Venus), Ain Anger (Hermann).  Production by Claus Guth.

Guth sets the opera in fin-de-siècle Vienna in the early days of Freud and Schnitzler.  Venus is a figment of Tannhäuser’s imagination, his attempt to live with emotional truth and unearth his unconscious mind rather than the live with social hypocrisy of his comrades (who keep their sex lives more neatly compartmentalized).  Unfortunately, this obsession results in ostracism and (socially induced?) mental illness.  The self-harming pilgrims are, post-pardon, confined to a psych ward, Tannhäuser’s voyage to Rome seems to be in the mind only, and Elisabeth kills herself with an overdose of Tannhäuser’s pills.

We open to see… not the usual orgy but another curtain, exactly like the one that just parted (no ballet, it’s the Dresden version).  For a second I thought I had stepped into a Robert Carsen production by mistake.  But no, it is the stage on which Tannhäuser imagines a double of himself cavorting with Venus, a fantasy he finally leaves.  But even afterwards, the oddly stopping and starting action, rooms that fall apart, and surreal moments suggest that large sections of what we see are through Tannhäuser’s unstable eyes.

I liked this production a lot.  It’s arguably an indirect interpretation, avoiding much of what Wagner would have thought the opera is about (the artist-opera aspects are solely metaphoric), but Guth wants to show that Wagner’s good woman/bad woman and redemption thing aren’t unearthly matters at all, they are just means of social control (we’re still in pre-Tristan land, remember).  Virtue and Christianity are all social constructions, ones which Tannhäuser attempts to defy at his peril.  In Act 3, this gets a little on the convoluted side–I was not always sure where Tannhäuser’s social outcast status stops and his apparent actual madness starts–but it mostly works.  The program claims this is the Dresden version, but Venus does come back at the end so I think it’s a Paris-Dresden combo.

The production speaks largely through images and tableux rather than acting.  Much of the blocking is stylized and static.  Maybe this is because it’s an underrehearsed revival, maybe it’s because many of the singers don’t seem to be able to act, but it seems like it’s a part of the production.  (According to a woman I spoke with during intermission, the June premiere of this production was a lot more detailed on the Personenregie end.)  The sets are gorgeous, the prologue and pilgrims wandering through a mostly-empty stage (the shepherd is a junior-sized Tannhäuser double), the more concrete places all reproductions of actual places in Vienna. 

Tannhäuser reenters the world via the seedy, faux-exotic Hotel Oriental (which still exists), where his comrades relieve their unconsciouses by discreetly renting by the hour, unlike Tannhäuser’s more prolonged and indiscreet escapades.  The hall of song is nothing other than part of the Staatsoper itself (the room with the composer’s busts that faces the balcony looking out over the Ring).  Setting the opera in the opera house itself is kind of an overused trick but it never stops working.  This room is a Baroque imitation and social space, here representing a stiff and self-conscious society with the outdated custom of the song contest.   Finally, Act 3 takes place in Otto Wagner’s asylum in Steinhof, this era’s attempt to deal more rationally with its outcasts.  The costumes are all realistic fin-de-siècle, and it looks very good as well as being functional and unfussy.

The Staatsoper’s orchestra was in excellent form.  Franz Welser-Möst’s conducting was grand, losing a bit of impetuosity but making up for it with nobility.  Tempos were moderately quick but never rushed (though the violins came to grief on one or two of those many long downward runs).  Ensembles were mostly clear and balanced. At the loudest moments the orchestra occasionally overpowered the soloists, but for Wagner this was very singer-friendly conducting.  The chorus sounded super.

Johan Botha sang Tannhäuser with astonishing ease, beauty, and tireless power.  After what usually passes for Heldentenor singing to hear something like this is balm for the ears.  But with that amazing ease seemed to come a lack of dramatic involvement, musical shaping, and variations of color for most of the score.  You felt he might as well be reading the phone book, and while him reading the phone book would be pretty and loud it would not be interesting.  His singing is impressive, but rarely affecting.  And the man cannot act his way out of a paper bag (it must be said, a very large paper bag).  So an incredible and memorable performance in some ways, but lacking in others.

At the end, Tannhäuser finally sees Venus in the guise of Elisabeth.

Anja Kampe as Elisabeth was new to me, and I thought she was fantastic.  She’s got a big, silvery, bright voice that seems destined for bigger and less lyrical roles than this one, but did a good job with the delicate parts of the score as well as raising the roof with the loud ones.  She was also the best actor in the production, making the cardboard Saint Elisabeth close to a real and confused young woman.  (If the ticket gods of Bavaria are generous, I should be seeing her as Leonore in Fidelio in Munich later this season, and I really hope I will.)

Michaela Schuster sounded shrill as Venus, but put everything into it and vamped convincingly.  Matthias Goerne sang Wolfram von Eschenbach with velvety tone (excluding some weak top notes) and great musicality, but was quite stiff onstage.  His Evening Star song was lovely, but, staged as a contemplation of suicide, rarely has someone pointing a gun at their own head been so dull.  The action’s all vocal here.

A great start to the season, I hope this is representative.  Forza del Destino and possibly also Semele next week.

Bows (sorry, hopefully my in-house photography will improve soon, the one with flash was even worse):

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Review

Je vais marcher dans votre co-production

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La Fille du Régiment, Met Opera, 4/21/08. Natalie Dessay, Juan Diego Flórez, Felicity Palmer, Alessandro Corbelli et. al. Marco Armiliato.

Donizetti’s Fille du Régiment is an obsession-filled story of a twisted nuclear family. Only when Marie has shed her fractured paternal attachment with the regiment and reluctantly conformed to a traditional model of feminine conduct can she be united with her love, Tonio, who must in turn trade his lederhosen for a uniform to prove his masculinity. Don’t make me tell you about the tank.

Just kidding. Mostly. Been reading some Freud recently; it gets to you.

This production is a hoot. It kept coming very close to the line of Too Much, but never really crossed it.

I liked Natalie Dessay’s Marie a lot more than I liked her Lucia (not reviewed here because I saw the dress rehearsal). Her Marie is a little like a cartoon character, mixed with a slightly mystifying dose of Olympia and occasionally capable of brief introspection. Her voice is still razor-like and somewhat vinegary, but it suits this role and her interpretation of it precisely. Her middle voice had something of a glow to it that I didn’t hear in her Lucia, and her manic presence is also more at home as Marie than as Lucia (where she was hopelessly muted until the Mad Scene). “Forceful” would perhaps describe her voice, but, well, Marie is forceful too. The coloratura is so integrated with the stage action, it’s both funny and entirely verisimilar in an operatic way.

My appreciation of this opera will probably be forever hampered by my utter ambivalence about the 9 or however many high C’s that take up residence in Tonio’s “Ah! mes amis.” I have nothing but praise for Senor Flórez’s panache in singing them, and recognize that it’s an amazing feat, it’s just not my preferred mode of vocal athleticism. And I don’t find the music itself of this number very interesting. Yes, he sang it twice, it was pretty great the second time too, I’m sure I just saw vocal history but give me the regiment song or the Act II trio, or something with lots of coloratura, or whatever. Bwah. Sorry.

But I love love love Juan Diego Flórez. He’s got a lot more than the high C’s, namely charm and style. The slow parts were beautiful, and the cute parts totally cute. He’s funny without forcing anything.

I think Alessandro Corbelli has somewhat more than the amount of voice required of your average buffo but somewhat less than would be required by most other operatic roles. Tonight, at least, he sounded somewhat small and not quite boomy enough. He’s very amusing and his French is fine, though. Felicity Palmer was, as usual, both hilarious and vocally authoritative as the Marquise, nice piano playing too (and re Maury’s question: her piano bit sounded vaguely like Act III of Wozzeck to me). Marian Seldes didn’t steal the show as the Duchess of Krakenthorp, which I think is a good thing. She did make it pretty funny though, including a recurring joke about a bobsled team that made wonderfully little sense.

They all sell the thing, perhaps a little too well. There isn’t a lot of time to breathe. Sometimes the production feels like a slightly overoiled machine. Donizetti comedy is goofy but lovable, without the spicy touch of the surreal that can invade Rossini opera buffa. To be the truly anarchic experience this sucker wants to be, it could use a few more touches of interpolated Wacky to take it out of the “mildly zany” (pace Maury) and into the “totally weird” (though a little bobsled joke goes a long way), or it needs to take the piece as it is and play it a little more straight. It feels like they’re going to squeeze the opera too hard and it’s going to break, though it never quite happens. The emotional scale is a little too big, they want to be able to be touching and wacky at the same time but the gear shifts don’t happen quickly or completely enough and you end up on a fence.

These sell-out-before-anyone-has-seen-it productions bother me. I don’t think it’s been overhyped exactly, it just seems like it has been ordained a hit regardless of its actual quality. Like the encore, it seems somewhat planned out and calculated when it could use some spontaneity. It’s symptomatic of the gains and the losses you get when you import or co-produce something with other houses (in this case, two others–ROH and the Wiener Staatsoper). It arrives battle-tested but maybe just a little bit shrink-wrapped.

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