Review

Have yourself a bombastic operatic Christmas

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If you want to escape the tyranny of pop singers cooing Christmas music, how about opera singers bellowing Christmas music instead? Sure, you could go for the Messiah, or Jessica Duchen’s tasteful and highbrow selections, or the glory of Alex Ross’s Messiah on Crack, but you know you really want chimes, children’s choirs, harps, and Roberto Alagna singing in German. Here follows the worst and a few of the best attempts of opera singers celebrating Christmas. (For some reason these selections seem to hail disproportionately from German-speaking countries. I cannot imagine why.)

Bryn Terfel and Bing Crosby, “White Christmas”

That’s right, it’s a duet (before Angela teamed up with Maria Callas). Not only does Bryn harmonize with Bing, he also stars in a a bargain basement green screened video in which he throws a CGI snowball. That’s how you know you’ve reached the classical crossover big time.

Leontyne Price, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”

If
you actually want something to enjoy unironically for some reason,
Leontyne Price’s traditional carols are lovely. Someone tell that
harpsichordist to stop practicing his or her etudes, though.

Roberto Alagna and Thomas Hampson, “O Tannenbaum”

The biggest problem facing opera singers attempting traditional carols is an inability to relax. This is the most notable attribute of Thomas Hampson’s meticulous, perfectly pronounced, and less than rousing rendition of “O Tanenbaum,” though there’s also the novelty value of Roberto Alagna singing in German, and the orchestra earns its paycheck at the end.

Kiri Te Kanawa and the King’s Singers, A Little Christmas Music

Kiri Te Kanawa has a reputation for blank humorlessness, but this is pretty hilarious.

Placido Domingo, Ying Huang, Michael Bolton, medley

Trust the Viennese to forge this unholy musical alliance. Poor Ying Huang is like, “They told me I’d be singing with Placido Domingo. They didn’t mention the Austrian children or Michael Bolton. I’m on TV so I’m just going to smile. Later I’ll fire my agent.” 

Kurt Rydl, “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (from Intermezzo)

I imagine Santa is a bass. But American Christmas carols sung by a cavernous-voiced Austrian bass (or, as Intermezzo puts it, “Der Megabass” are undeniably ridiculous.

“O Holy Night” (in French “Cantique de Nöel” or “Minuit, chrétiens”) is a carol whose demands can make amateurs and pop singers, well, fall on our knees. But Adolphe Adam’s big sing is a magnet for opera types, who are often better equipped for its grandiosity than they would be for something more modest.

Jussi Björling, my favorite of the lot (in Swedish)

Duet by Juan Diego Flórez (in French) and Elina Garanca (in English, sort of)

Jessye Norman (English, and the grandest of them all)

Georges Thill (the most French, suggested by Lisa below)

More suggestions welcome in the comments!

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Review

The NY Phil’s cabaret for the end of the world

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Last night’s New York Philharmonic Contact new music concert conducted by Alan Gilbert at Symphony Space featured free beer and an alarming number of people under 35. I fit right in for once!

Composer HK Gruber introduced his greatest hit, Frankenstein!! (1979) saying he didn’t intend to write a party piece. Honestly it seems like that is sort of what he did, albeit a party for Weimar revivalists eager to witness Pierrot Lunaire as rewritten by Edward Gorey. It’s a setting of twisted children’s poems set for a wild array of orchestral and toy instruments including kazoos, hoses (spun over the head), and exploding paper bags. Above all this was Gruber’s own voice, a Sprechstimme “channsonier” reminiscent (at this advanced point in his career) of Ernst Busch, intoning in accented English about John Wayne or rats or whatever. It’s great surreal fun and has some lovely moments and some genuinely intense ones too, a cabaret for the end of the world. As the Zwölftöner assured me, it’s a piece you have to hear once. (Apparently Frankenstein!! will be on at the Konzerthaus in Vienna soon, too–auf Deutsch, natürlich. I imagine it is better that way, but it really does have to be in the language of its audience.)

In fact each piece was preceded by the composer saying something about it. This struck me as a good idea because it puts a face to the music and the composers, while a little awkward, seemed friendly. But this introduction is a powerful thing in directing your listening of the subsequent piece, particularly when you are only an occasional new music listener like me.

This was particularly notable in the first half. Brazilian composer Alexandre Lunsqui introduced his piece “Fibers, Yarn and Wire” (premiere) as inspired by two photographs and talked about ideas of handcraft and weaving. The subsequent piece somehow didn’t sound like what I expected (I didn’t expect the heavy use of pan flute-like whistles, for one thing), bu I was still hearing it in terms of these images. It’s an engaging quasi-minimalist journey with steady rhythmic pulse and vaguely jazzy tone and structure. The quiet (unraveling?) ending is surprisingly nice.

Magnus Lindberg introduced his Gran Duo (2000) in far more technical terms, describing metronome markings and contrasting material and transformation between the wind and brass sections. (It’s not a duo at all but written for the winds and brass sections of a large orchestra, and owes a debt to Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.) I ended up listening to it wondering if this was the part he was talking about where fast music was played slowly and whether we’d gotten yet to the spot where the metronome markings stop increasing and start decreasing. The writing is well crafted and virtuosic but I ended up finding it very “PhD music” and not too interesting, or perhaps just too dense to appreciate on a single hearing. The Philharmonic brass sounded great, though.

New York Philharmonic, Contact! series at Symphony Space, 12/17/2011.

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Review

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

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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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Review

Daniel Harding and Joshua Bell with the NY Phil

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I know Bell would prefer HIS picture be here but he didn’t earn that.

I went to hear Daniel Harding conduct the NY Phil in Le sacre du printemps, also featuring Joshua Bell playing the Chaikovsky Violin Concerto, and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

For one of the most iconic works in the art music repertoire, The Rite of Spring actually isn’t performed very often. This week it made a welcome appearance on a New York Philharmonic program under the baton of British conductor Daniel Harding. It turned out to be the main event of an otherwise routine evening.

You can read the full review here. The Sacre was mighty impressive, the best I’ve heard the Phil play in a while. I don’t think it was my favorite angle on the piece–I’d prefer something more extreme in one direction or another–but the precision and committment were extremely satisfying. I haven’t heard Harding conduct in some time (last and only other time was the Chéreau Così in Vienna, I think) and he’s going on my list of Good Young Ones along with Andris Nelsons and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

I cannot say the same for Joshua Bell. He gave us all the notes (in record time, possibly) and put a glam sheen on them too, but there was precious little music. I’ve heard him play much better performances than this one, I know he has it in him, so this superficiality was disappointing.

In Stardirigent: The Movie, Daniel Harding will totally be played by Damian Lewis, don’t you think?

Photo copyright Deutsche Grammophon/Harald Hoffmann.

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Review

Long weekend reading

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Don’t go near that mall, Americans (and non-Americans)! Waste time on the internet instead!

The Wiener Volksoper has revived Stefan Herheim’s 2004 production of Madama Butterfly. Here’s a review by the Zwölftöner. (Bachtrack)

(If you are interested in music in Vienna, you should be reading his excellent blog, Von heute auf morgen.)

Also Viennese: Franz Welser-Möst talks to the Salzburger Nachrichten about life at the Wiener Staatsoper, in German. (Salzburger Nachrichten, thanks to Intermezzo for the tip)

Arte Live Web is streaming the Bolshoi’s grand reopening production of Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski and directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov. I haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet but I’ve heard very good things and am looking forward to it! FYI: no subtitles. (Arte Live Web)

John at Opera Ramblings has some interesting thoughts following up on my “Opera Isn’t Theater” post. (Opera Ramblings)

This article on concert presenters in Berlin is interesting if you read German. (Otherwise it will be pretty incomprehensible.) (Tagesspiegel)

Not shopping? Not quite on topic, but if you like Jeremy Denk’s piece on content and gadgets you should also check out Maria Bustillos’s on Apple’s design philosophy. (Think Denk, The Awl)

Here are some caricatures based on the Bay Staats’s current Contes d’Hoffmann, courtesy of Rolando Villazón. (Bayerische Staatsoper im Blog)

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Review

Honegger’s Joan of Arc at Carnegie

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I rarely miss a concert with a really big and really obscure piece of music. Naturally I went to see Marin Alsop conduct Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

The short life and terrifying death of Joan of Arc are the subject of Arthur Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher
(“Joan of Arc at the Stake”), a curious masterpiece of an oratorio
dating from 1938. The nearly-forgotten work received a well-deserved
resurrection by Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at
Carnegie Hall on Saturday night.

You can read the full review here.

Addendum: It’s a peculiar work and I’m not sure if I’m really inside the style yet, but I’m glad that I heard it. I’m reluctant to pass strong aesthetic judgement on it because I don’t have a very firm grasp on Honegger in general, but I’m inclined to put it more in the category of intriguing curiosity than important rediscovery.

According to this from the Baltimore City Paper, the orchestra-overpowering chorus was around 120 strong.

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Review

Fabio Luisi and the Wiener Symphoniker in NYC

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Of course I couldn’t miss a chance to reunite with the Wiener Symphoniker on Sunday. (known in these parts as the Vienna Symphony Orchestra–where the “orchestra” came from, I know not). I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

The Italian conductor Fabio Luisi has become an increasingly familiar
and welcome face to New York audiences. Recently appointed Principal
Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, he is primarily known here as an
operatic conductor. But he has also been the chief conductor of the
Vienna Symphony Orchestra (known as the Wiener Symphoniker in German)
since 2005, and on Sunday the Viennese joined him in Avery Fisher Hall.
While the warhorse program recalled the taste of the city’s other major
orchestra–the arch-conservative Vienna Philharmonic–it was a fine
afternoon.

Click here to read the whole thing. I like Luisi a lot but I was really going to this concert to hear Schmidt’s fantastic Symphony No. 4, which was swapped with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, a piece the Symphoniker could probably play in their sleep. (The obvious explanation is that this change had to do with the amount of time Luisi has been spending at the Met.) I was quite disappointed.

It’s interesting how Luisi’s reputation in New York is so much better than it is in Vienna. He keeps canceling Symphoniker gigs to conduct at the Met, which doesn’t endear him to the Viennese, but most of the people I talked to managed to both be pissed about his absenteeism and denigrate his conducting skills. In my experience he is a better opera conductor than a symphonic conductor, and he doesn’t conduct opera in Vienna much (as one of the many, many conductors who doesn’t get along with the Staatsoper), but he’s still a fine musician, far above average, and I was surprised at how low Viennese audiences rated him. I think there might be some national prejudice here–his repertoire overlaps to a dangerous extent with Christian Thielemann’s. But anyway, Vienna, New York is happy to take Luisi off your hands.

I’d prefer you send him over with Schmidt next time, though.

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Review

Gheorghiu and Kaufmann turn violet again in Adriana Lecouvreur

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(Not in concert.)

I went to see the ever-elusive Angela Gheorghiu and the happily ubiquitous Jonas Kaufmann in the Opera Orchestra of New York’s concert Adriana Lecouvreur at Carnegie Hall last night and I wrote about it for Bachtrack:

“I will return! I want to again be
intoxicated by the triumphant smile of art!” proclaims the actress
Adriana Lecouvreur in the extravagant opera of the same title. With this
role, the soprano Angela Gheorghiu returned to New York in the first
performance of the Opera Orchestra of New York’s Carnegie Hall season.
After financial difficulties the company itself has been making a
comeback as well, under new musical director Alberto Veronesi. For over
40 years, the group has produced concert performance of lesser-known
operas with outstanding casts, and this evening was a fine continuation
of that tradition, with strong performances from Jonas Kaufmann,
Ambrogio Maestri, and Anita Rachvelishvili in the other major roles.

Click here to read the full review.

I saw them in this last year in London and then I was conflicted between being overwhelmed and oddly not-quite-whelmed. In concert, this opera actually seems to work better. The music isn’t quite top drawer but it has a kind of sincerity and directness that can be both beguiling and exciting. This came through more clearly without having to think about the silly plot or David McVicar’s futile attempt to give the happenings some symbolic substance. The opera has emotional power but it lacks strong dramatic syntax, and it’s better when you focus on the former strength rather than the latter weakness. (It should be noted, though, that Angela’s couture for this concert was most impressive as well, both dresses very 1970’s, the first resembling a disco ball and the second a low-cut nightgown with a rhinestone belt and attached cape.)

This didn’t stop me from writing down some silly surtitles, though:

  • Love is a flame, friendship is its ashes.
  • I love him with the fiery recklessness of one who has had her heart taken for the first time.
  • You’re the sun that gilds the eternal Arctic night.
  • Their eyes flash like pairs of blades, showing no mercy.
  • Our love defies fate, eludes death in golden dreams.

Nevertheless, I was totally crying at the end, go figure.

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Review

Richard Tucker Gala: The stars are loud

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Some of the stars came out for the Richard Tucker Foundation’s annual gala at Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday night. With a program dominated by 19th-century Italian meatballs (despite a complete absence of actual Italians onstage), there was much drinking, cursing, praying, pleading to Mama, and other traditional operatic activities as sung by loud voices such as Dolora Zajick, Stephanie Blythe, Bryn Terfel and Jonas Kaufmann. The recipient of this year’s award was Angela Meade, who also sang, but in my following write-up, everyone gets a prize.

Marcello Giordani and Marina Poplavskaya canceled; René Pape disappeared off the program sometime last week. (This is all normal operating procedure for this gala.) Angela Gheorghiu was rumored to be materializing to sing Carmen mit dem Jonas, but her name was not mentioned once and La Scala Carmen Anita Rachvelishvili turned up to do it instead–meaning that instead of Don José-ing his Adriana of Tuesday’s Adriana Lecouvreur, Kaufmann Don José-ed his Principessa instead. Also the chorus was not the Met chorus but rather the New York Choral Society and they sounded excellent.

Orchestra: Saint-Saens, Bacchanale from Samson et Delila
Emmanuel Villaume was conducting and did a fine, unobtrusive job (well, there were some strange tempos later on but I don’t know if that was him or the singers). The orchestra was “members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.” This was a sassy and zippy choice for an opener, I approve. I quickly realized that from my third-tier seat I could hear the strings barely at all, but considering the notoriously awful acoustics of Avery Fisher I’m not going to blame Villaume for this. Luckily the voices later on came through loud and clear. It helped that this was one loud bunch of singers.
Verdict: Most Brassy

Angela Meade: Verdi, “Santo di patria” from Attila
I heard Angela Meade’s Met debut in Ernani back in 2008 and I was astonished at how much she’s grown (back then I was tipped off by a friend who went to high school with her, but she’s a secret no longer). She still has a big, clear, easy tone and agile coloratura but now sings with thrust and incisiveness, and a sense of pace that I didn’t remember at all from her before. Only a final high note came out a little shrill. This was exciting, gutsy stuff. Brava.
Verdict: Most Thrilling

Zeljko Lucic: Verdi, “Eri tu” from Un ballo in maschera
Lucic has a lovely warm tone but not a lot of power at the top. The first half of this aria came out as barked, but the second half showed he can sing a good legato when he puts his mind to it. The bit with the cello at the start was shaky in the orchestra.
Verdict: Most Blah (sorry Zeljko)

Bryn Terfel: Donizetti, “Udite, udite, o rustici” from L’elisir d’amore
The evening’s comedy act came from our current Wotan. To serve as his elixir, Terfel kept pulling bottles of beer from his jacket, including a Guinness, a Brooklyn Lager, and what I believe was a Sam Adams. That plus a lot of other gags made this more about the entertainment than the singing, but who cares to hear an amazingly sung Dulcamara anyway? Also, he seemed to chug the whole Brooklyn Lager at the end, showing fine taste in beer if not in consumption habits.
Verdict: Most Fun

Jonas Kaufmann: Mascagni, “Mamma, quel vino è generoso” from Cavalleria rusticana
The programming sequence was unfortunate here; this was Very Serious Stuff after we’d just had lots of hijinks. But there was a real emotional intensity and trajectory to this that drew me in quickly enough. At times the phrasing was micromanaged but done so cannily that I almost didn’t notice. Also his fortes are really formidable and there were excellent pianos too. Powerful!
Verdict: Most Serious, possibly also Most Demented (Good Division)

Stephanie Blythe: Thomas, “Connais-tu le pays” from Mignon
Everyone knows Stephanie Blythe can sing loudly but I at least forget that she can sing really prettily too. This had a gorgeous simplicity and floated quality that opened up naturally on the high notes. Very very nice!
Verdict: Most Enchanting

Dolora Zajick: Chaikovsky, “Tsar vishnikh sil” from The Maid of Orleans
I was coming at this with a disadvantage because I don’t know the opera so I might have missed a lot, but I found it sung with conviction but rather unvariably. She’s monumental, but she’s kind of monochromatic.
Verdict: Most Resembling a Tank

Yonghoon Lee: Massenet, “O Souverain, ô juge, ô père” from Le Cid
Lee has such a beautiful instrument but he shows even less musical variety than Zajick. Pretty much his only mode is a squillo-infused bellow, which is exciting but I never got the feeling he was taking me on a journey, and I DO know this aria. The tempo was on the (very) slow side.
Verdict: Most Squillo

Meade, Zajick, and Frank Porretta: Bellini, Finale of Act I of Norma
Meade was again exciting, Zajick contributed some great chest voice (which is not quite what one listens to Bellini for but no mind) and I didn’t notice Porretta too much.
Verdict: Best Parterre Comment Thread Bait

(The squillo in this concert seemed unhappily apportioned. If Lee could give a little of his to Frank Porretta, they’d both be better off.)

Kaufmann and Terfel: Verdi, “Dio che nell’alma infondere” from Don Carlo
Has Terfel ever sung this role onstage? I don’t think he has. Kaufmann looked more comfortable with it, to no surprise (or maybe it was the beer). But they blend surprisingly well and both have such hefty, heroic sounds that it sounded most unusually Wagnerian.
Verdict: Most Beneficial to Flanders

Maria Guleghina: Puccini, Vissi d’arte from Tosca
Like everyone else said when they saw her in Nabucco (sorry, the early Verdi, I can’t do it), very loud vocal train wreck Maria Guleghina sounds surprisingly good right now! Her vibrato is still far wider than Broadway but she sounded amazingly in control, and sang a legit piano at the end. But she must have been miffed at only getting to sing one aria, because she sang it at a tempo where it could have been two.
Verdict: Slowest, also Most Demented (Probably Bad? Division)

Zajick and Lee: Mascagni, “Tu qui, Santuzza?” from Cavalleria rusticana
Lee’s Turiddu is seemingly less conflicted than Kaufmann’s. Nevertheless, Zajick went for it with an enthusiasm to make up for the lack of staging, and Lee sounded quite impassioned before kind of running out of steam at the end. To be fair, if I had gotten cursed like that I’d probably crumple too.
Verdict: Loudest

Anita Rachvelishvili and Kaufmann: Bizet, Act IV Duet from Carmen
This was my first time hearing Anita R., whose difficult last name was horribly mangled by Barry Tucker in his introduction. She’s got an even, sexy mezzo soprano that was very effective, though it seemed this time like Don José gets the more interesting singing in this scene. Or maybe that was just because Kaufmann was kind of totally fabulous in this, which he was. They tried to semi-stage it and, well, points for effort. I couldn’t see all of it from my seat location so I won’t comment further.
Verdict: Program Choice Most Unsuited to Concert Presentation

Terfel, Meade, and Blythe with additional help, Verdi, Fugue and Finale from Falstaff
This is a good way to end such a concert! It was quite well-balanced for a minimally rehearsed effort. but that’s partly because it’s composed so cleverly.
Verdict: Most Contrapuntal (sorry, I know that’s weak)

See you from Adriana on Tuesday. Hopefully our favorite current Romanian diva will show, if she doesn’t we’ll probably get Guleghina, which I’m dreading only slightly less now than I was earlier.

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Review

Opera Isn’t Theater

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Our Hero, Walter Felsenstein (bust at the Komische Oper)

First, if you haven’t read James Jorden’s excellent piece at Musical America about the ailing Gelb regime at the Met, please go do so!

I want to look at one specific aspect of the issue. Peter Gelb thinks the way of bringing new blood into opera is to hire theater directors. But many of his recent imports–such as Michael Grandage (Don Giovanni) and Robert Lepage (the Ring, who granted has a somewhat longer history in opera)–seem utterly at a loss when confronted with opera. (The same goes for Dominique Meyer’s choices at the Wiener Staatsoper like André Engel and Eric Génovèse.) What makes the work so different?

A spoken-word theater director’s text is a script composed only of words. An opera director has a musical score of both notes and words. The music adds new and complex structural and expressive dimensions to the text. First, the timing of how the words unfold is determined not by the director and actors as in a spoken play but by the rhythm of the score and by the conductor and singers, which can make the theater director feel very constricted. What do you during this long orchestra bit? I imagine this is particularly a problem for directors like Lepage and Mary Zimmerman, who often write their own texts or are directing new works.

But much more importantly, the director is responsible for staging the music (in Peter Konwitschny’s term, Musik-inszenieren) as well as the words. In a number opera, this means confronting the structural divisions of the music–recitative, aria, ensemble, etc. In any opera, this means acknowledging, exploiting, and visualizing the gestural and expressive qualities of the music.

Here is a classic example, from La traviata. Gérmont is about to launch into his pitch to Violetta about why she needs to leave Alfredo and reveals the existence of his daughter:

Skip this paragraph if you don’t like music theory: The recit has been cruising through some unresolved diminished chords, which gives it an uneasy and awkward feeling. When he says “due figli,” “two children,” it’s finally clear why Gérmont is visiting Violetta. The orchestra correspondingly crashes in with the clarity of an accented major triad on A-flat, albeit in second inversion. Violetta repeats, “Di due figli?” and the orchestra resolves the cadential 6/4 into an E-flat major triad. Now she’s realized why he is there too. It turns out that this is the dominant chord of the [quasi-]aria’s key of A-flat major.

Version with less theory: As Gérmont finally gets to his point and announces his daughter’s existence, the previously unstable harmony settles, and we can hear Violetta start to listen to him when she joins him in a stable key, a key he continues in his “Pura siccome un angelo.”

Moving on: Gérmont’s line “Pura siccome un angelo” is rather suave, and the exact music repeats with the next line of the text. He’s hanging around middle C, a strong and highish part of the voice where a baritone is going to sound forceful. But he’s marked dolcissimo cantabile and is on the third of the chord, not the stronger root or fifth. And what’s with that sixteenth note neighbor-tone blip on “angelo” and “figlia”? It’s not harmonically important, but it gives the vocal line a little bump  that could be interpreted to mean any number of things.

That’s the thing: musical expression doesn’t have specific semantic content. These musical events could mean any number of things. Violetta could be shocked, injured, or even relieved when she repeats “two children,” but we know something happens in this particular spot when we switch from diminshed chords to major triads. It’s the director’s job to translate this musical expression into a plausible emotional narrative in the stage action. It can even go against the music, but it has to be conscious of it. You can’t just stage the words. You don’t have to be musically educated–though in my opinion it is a big, big help–but you need to listen with a sensitive ear to every note. And this is not something directors accustomed to working only with words necessarily naturally know how to do.

For the creative director, this can be a great opportunity. Since so much of opera’s drama is contained in the powerful but flexible narrative of music, it’s easy to depart from the specifics of the libretto (setting, events) as long as your alternative still makes sense on some level (enter Stefan Herheim). Unfortunately the level that most directors choose is “tradition.” The small rotating repertoire and short rehearsal periods of many opera houses leads easily to ossification of productions, performers and audience members, and for popular operas it seems way easier to choose the way everyone’s seen before. Even if no one can remember exactly why Don José always rips off Carmen’s mantilla in that measure, they do it because it is what is done.

The theoretical advantage of bringing in theater directors is that in all their operatic innocence they will see things in a fresh way.* But staging opera requires specific musical skills to create something dynamic and new, and recent new Met directors seem to have fallen either deep into a stogy tradition of which they profess ignorance (Michael Grandage) or a flatness that has no content at all (Robert Lepage). And that’s not staging opera.

Here is how Willy Decker stages the Traviata moment. Despite some overacting from Thomas Hampson it is well done:

*Grandage said he wanted a production that would be comprehensible to new operagoers. JJ rightly calls him out on this point. I’d like to add that as a member of the Youthful Demographic most of my non-opera buff friends think that opera is frumpy and old-fashioned. Some of them like a good ruffly dress-up, but just as many if not more would like to see something modern and fresh. And give new audience members some credit, they aren’t so easily confused. You know Grandage called some 22-year old to get him or her to explain Inception to him.

Previously in Regarding Regietheater:

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