Review

Yevgeny Onegin: Love in a cold climate

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There’s a chance that this was my last rep performance at the Staatsoper this season, so it’s a shame I have to go out on a mediocre note. This revival of Falk Richter’s dire production is notable and perhaps worth seeing for Peter Mattei’s stellar assumption of the title role. But this isn’t really a star vehicle opera. I guess some people can overlook the incoherence in rest of it more easily than I can, but I didn’t find it a satisfying experience. Maija Kovalevska’s Tatiana isn’t that bad, though.

Chaikovsky, Eugen Onegin. Wiener Staatsoper, 6/11/2011. Production by Falk Richter (revival), conducted by Michael Güttler with Maija Kovalevska (Tatiana), Peter Mattei (Onegin), Marius Benciu (Lensky), Ain Anger (Gremin), Nadia Krasteva (Olga), Zoryana Kushpler (Larina), Aura Twarowska (Filipjewna).

Falk Richter’s production is a grab bag of clichés that come and go. The one constant is an awful lot of falling snow in nearly every scene. Dress is modern, set is minimal, and blocking is static. Color symbolism, imaginary characters and doublings, and really annoying acrobats are combined into a static, chilly mix that shows little interest in the story and characters, or any sensitivity to the music at all. At first, we see doubles of Tatiana with a mystery man as frozen couples in the background, and the happy peasants also seem to belong to her fantasy world, identifiably by its, um, romantic navy blue business suits. The more practical characters wear red. If anyone wants to make this red mean something obviously significant and Communist, I would first caution you that this production doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Russia at all. The blue plus red plus white snow does look like a Russian flag, though (after my Italian flag the other week). Also, he forgets about all this after Act 1.

Letter Scene

Act 2 features a truly dreadful party scene that includes awkwardly enthusiastic attempts at current dance styles by the chorus, further flips by said acrobats, and, because we’re in Austria, some people in puffy shiny dresses waltzing (Tatiana incongruously wearing diva-approved long sleeves). I kind of liked Monsieur Triquet as a faded rock star, but like everything else he doesn’t have a point. Act 3 involves lots of people in black walking up and down stairs quite slowly. I was hoping Tatiana or Onegin would rip off her bedazzled shower cap, but they didn’t. That would have made everything a little more exciting and less Norma Desmond-looking. I could go on, but I’ll try not to, because the main sin of this production is that it is not interesting. The lighting design is also far too dark at times, including a Letter Scene that while not too dark is lit entirely from the back (see above), the lack of front light means you can’t see Tatiana’s face clearly. OK, I’ll stop.

For two lead singers, both new to this production and in fact making their house debuts, the staging offered little help in terms of characterization, and while both showed good acting skills they ended up a little underdeveloped and generic. Maija Kovalevska cuts a pretty figure as Tatiana and is a good actress, within the unfortunate strictures of this production. I never warmed to her metallic, tense sound and fast vibrato, but her singing was musical and rock solid secure, and she can manage impressive power in her upper register. On the other hand, Peter Mattei is seemingly incapable of making a less than beautiful sound, with a chocolately baritone that he never forces (his voice is not large but it is well-projected). His Onegin went on a clear journey from arrogance (Act 1) to boredom (Act 2) to despondency (Act 3), but I think he was much better in this Salzburg production available on DVD.

Act 3

Michael Güttler conducted a rushed account of the prelude followed by an ensemble in which the sisters’ offstage singing had little to do with whatever the harp was playing in the pit. It got a little better. Being too tough on Güttler would be cruel since he probably didn’t get any rehearsal, but this was not good and the orchestra was not trying very hard. In the rest of the cast, Marius Brenciu was a thin-toned, underacted Lensky, though his pp account of the aria’s second strophe was nice. Ain Anger is the youngest and least crusty Gremin this side of René Pape and sang lyrically and not so giant Russian-ly but well. As Olga, Madame Larina, and Filipjewa, Nadia Krasteva, Zoryana Kushpler, and Aura Twarowska showed that the Staatsoper ensemble has a smashing group of Slavic mezzos and altos, all three of them outstanding. Somewhere there’s got to be an opera by Cui or Dargomyzhsky or somebody that has three lading mezzo/alto roles for these impressive ladies.

If you want to go hear them in Onegin, well, you can do that too. Performances remain on June 10 and 13.

Video: Peter Mattei in said Salzburg production

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsoper.

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Review

Stefan Herheim’s coasts of Bohemia

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Stefan Herheim’s production of Rusalka, just finishing its run at the Semperoper Dresden, was one of the best performances I’ve seen in I don’t know how long. It begins not with the score but gently falling rain. We’re on a European street, with several houses, the entrance to a subway stop, a tree, a lamppost, a church, some closed-up shops, and a bar.

Ordinary people pass by, a homeless woman lingers by the subway, a girl carrying a violin case asks for directions, the wind massacres an umbrella, a woman looks out her balcony. But while we vaguely wonder what this has to do with Rusalka (well, there’s water, and the bar is called the “Lunatic”), we begin to notice something else: the events are repeating themselves. A woman slips in a puddle again, violin girl asks for directions again, the woman goes out onto her balcony again.

It’s simultaneously enchanting and estranging. The details are meticulously crafted, but you aren’t drifting off, you’re thinking. Where’s Dvořák, where’s the pond, and didn’t I just see this same thing happen a second ago? And that’s just the first five minutes. You’re about to get a fascinating psychological thriller.

Dvořák, Rusalka. Semperoper Dresden, 5/28/2011. Production by Stefan Herheim, set design by Heike Scheele, costumes by Gesine Völlm, lichees by Reinhard Traub and Herheim. Conducted by Tomáš Netopil with Gal James (Rusalka), Zoltán Nyári (Prince), Gustáv Belácek (Water Gnome), Lisa Livingston (Foreign Princess), Tichina Vaughan (Ježibaba).

The opening sequence is the dull outer life of the Water Gnome, here the central character. With the music, we enter his fantasy world. Wandering around in his pajamas, sometimes he observes the course of his own frustrating life in flashback, sometimes he is in the present, sometimes we can’t really tell what is real and what isn’t. It is all precisely attuned to the momentum of the music, following its course more than it does one of logic. The moments succeed each other in an almost revue-like associative avalanche.

In the real world, Rusalka is a silver-dressed (moon-colored) streetwalker who attempts to seduce the Water Gnome. She, in changing guises, is his Eternal Feminine, the spirit of a nonexistent ideal, an escapist fantasy he prefers to the reality of the woman on the balcony–his wife. The fairy-tale atmosphere is not an escape but a dangerous quantity of sublimation.

Rather than return to her, he ducks into the bar, where he sees his younger self teased by three girls (the nymphs). But there’s always a darker, rawer shadow haunting these memories, as indicated by the bouncing mannequins of the sex shop under his apartment who dance to the nymph’s ritornello (the bar’s stools also go up and down, and the lights flash, quite a show). Indeed, each time he attempts to reach his idealized fantasy it collapses or is unmasked as grotesque, unfulfilled lust, most explicitly indicated by the misshapen, underdressed mob of the chorus that surrounds him at times. You can dream, but it doesn’t make you innocent.

Dresden (Tichina Vaughan as Jezibaba)

Sometimes the happenings are kind of familiar: Rusalka, sitting on top of one of the cylindrical poster-mounting things European cities have, even spectacularly gets a mermaid’s tail floating in water. She sings her Song to the Moon to illuminated satellite dishes and begs the Water Gnome to free her. (Ježibaba is the homeless woman, and she gets Rusalka ingress to the Waterman’s apartment, where she and Ježibaba and the wife hang out. What this meant was a little mysterious to me* but I love some sisterly affection. The nature of Rusalka’s transformation was not on the clear side of things. I’ll get to that.)

The prostitute Rusalka makes the Water Gnome remember an old girlfriend he left for his eventual wife (or an idea of a woman and and not a real person at all?), and the sex shop becomes a bridal store (there are his apparent two versions of women right there, ha!). As Rusalka becomes a young woman in a wedding dress, a younger version of the Water Gnome appears and it is the Prince. (By now we’re in the late 60’s or early 70’s, and first we get a hippie cowboy as the Hunter singing the deer song in what I couldn’t help but wonder if was a Mulholland Drive reference. You know Herheim must love David Lynch.)

Graz (Gal James and Gustáv Belácek, with Lisa Livingston in the back)

In Act 2, we see Rusalka and the Foreign Princess (who has been the Water Gnome’s wife all along) as identically-dressed doubles. The ideal of Rusalka is rapidly replaced by the reality of the Foreign Princess. Then the Prince and the Foreign Princess go to the opera, sitting in one of the proscenium boxes and, judging by their programs, seeing Rusalka, the fantasy. At the upstage end of the stage’s street, a mirror has been lingering all evening, reminding us that we are watching ourselves, now it expands to show the entire house as we watch the spectacular show of the Water Gnome’s sea-themed carnival. The Foreign Princess then tries to drag her husband out of this world. But by now Rusalka has descended in a glittery dress on an illuminated moon, the sea creatures have marauded through the auditorium, Herheim has fired a confetti canon over the Parkett, and the Water Gnome’s problem is our own: we don’t want to leave this spectacle either.

Graz (James and Belácek)

In Act 3, we see the tragic effects of the Water Gnome’s inability to confront the real world. Still haunted by the hooker with a heart of gold but stuck watching TV at home (apparently they got a new one since they spectacularly threw a TV off their balcony to much shattering and fire in Act 1), he murders his wife. Rusalka is sadly left to identify her, and he is arrested. He only returns to smash the watery cylinder that enclosed Rusalka, trying to leave the fantasies that ultimately deceived him.

The ballet in Act 2 (Dresden)

The most striking thing about the production is how through all the complexity it just works, with amazingly detailed acting, the stagecraft of Heike Scheele’s set (the shops on the street transforming, the nymphs floating Rhinemaiden-like) in a way that is dazzling but never gratuitously showy because it works in such close concert with the score. Sometimes, however, it is all a bit much to watch.** It also works with Herheim’s story, which admittedly has little to do with the customary Rusalka at most points. The biggest loss is the story of Rusalka herself, who doesn’t get much in the way of an independent existence or sympathy as a character. But Herheim’s idea–that the Rusalka of the opera is not a woman but a fantasy–is brilliantly realized.***

Lisa Livingston (Graz)

At this May performance the excellent cast was mixed between that of the opera’s December premiere in Dresden and artists from an earlier incarnation in Graz. The majority were from Graz, so I’ve mostly used Graz’s pictures here (sorry, there are some multiple Princes and Ježibabas, but I ID’d the locations for copyright, the top photo is Dresden). Gal James was pure vocal loveliness as Rusalka, with a natural, sweet and even lyric sound and powerful acting between her multiple incarnations. Vocally, she may be my favorite Rusalka yet. Zoltán Nyári has a less heroic voice than you usually hear as the Prince, but his passionate delivery and energy made up for a certain lack of heft. Gustáv Belácek as the Water Gnome was a fascinating protagonist through the production’s heavy demands, and sung with warm sound and ease. Tichina Vaughan was an excellent, somewhat steely but loud Ježibaba, also acted with wonderful comic timing. Lisa Livingston, substituting for Stephanie Friede as the Foreign Princess, suffered from a lot of vibrato but was loud and a strong actress. Tomáš Netopil conducted the excellent orchestra in a beautifully shaped lyrical performance and had quick reflexes with some singers who showed rhythmic creativity.

This production will be back in Dresden in late August, and if you have any chance to see it, GO! The mystifying and frustrating dearth of Stefan Herheim productions on DVD continues (the Onegin in Amsterdam in June will be filmed), but if you’re in Europe this one’s worth a trip. Besides, if you’re watching a video, no confetti will land on your head.

Don’t make me choose between this Rusalka and Martin Kusej’s devastating, very different Bayerische Staatsoper production, they are both fantastic.

*das Geherheimnis (n.): part of a production you don’t understand.
**herheimlich (adj.): when there’s so much stuff going on onstage you have no clue in which direction to look and maybe miss something important.
***Herheimlich maneuver (n.): Extreme method for vigorous expulsion of deeply held preconceptions, for better or worse. Caution: Excessive use of Herheimlich maneuver can result in cases of fatal incomprehensibility. (contributed by @Mirto_P on Twitter.)

Here is a video, but it honestly doesn’t convey the feeling of the production at all. Thanks to Opera Cake for the upload.

Graz photos copyright by Karl and Monika Forster
Dresden photos copyright Mathias Creuzinger

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Review

The Festwochen’s Rigoletto (later to be the Met’s)

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I think my favorite part was when Sparafucile handed Rigoletto his business card.

I wrote about Sunday’s premiere of Luc Bondy’s serviceable but mediocre Rigoletto for Bachtrack, and you can read the review here.

This production will be seen at La Scala and at the Met, reportedly in New York during the 2012/13 season. After Luc Bondy’s roaring success with Tosca, it’s something of a surprise he will be back at all (possibly the contract was signed long ago, and the La Scala connection is due to Stéphane Lissner, intendant in Milan and music director of the Festwochen). This production is rather better than the Tosca, and hovers around the weak average level of Met new productions. I would put it on a par with Bartlett Sher’s Hoffmann, a production it somewhat resembles in its dark, vague, slightly surreal ladies-in-underwear circus look. (The first thing that always happens when things get surreal is that women take their clothes off. Funny how that works.)

Basically, this is a traditional Rigoletto with an updated grimy look. George Gagnidze in the title role is the best part of the production, but he is generally working the usual Rigoletto clichés. I tried to find a little more in Bondy’s work in the Bachtrack review above, but I may have been reaching. Its combination of static sections, completely conventional moments, and a few added details already resemble the third or fourth revival of a once-interesting production.

But it’s still got stuff to piss off traditionalists. Let’s take a look at what! Also, more pictures.

(To be fair, the Met audience probably won’t be seeing this production the day after seeing a Stefan Herheim production, like I did. That was not advisable, though unavoidable. More on that one later today.)

The issues I see:
1. The set, though the work of important designer Erich Wonder, is ineffective and looks bargain basement. The first two acts are just some sliding diagonal walls (not really shown in any of the official production photos), the third act a two-level job that looked small on the Theater an der Wien’s stage. Resizing will be tricky: the Met is twice as big or so.

2. There is some doubling going on. First Rigoletto and the Duke wear the same color jackets. Then in Act 3, Maddalena and Gilda are kind of similar, and then Gilda dresses up as the Duke to die for him. This could have gone somewhere, but it didn’t.

3. There are a few non-literalisms. Rigoletto lacks a hump. The blocking in “Bella figlia” shows Gilda approaching the Duke but him not seeing her. I thought this last bit was rather good, actually.

4. Rigoletto kind of looks like the Joker from The Dark Knight. This would make him the second Joker I’ve seen onstage in an opera this season.

5. There are some ridiculous moments. There’s the matter of the ladder I described in the Bachtrack review, which seems like it must be a retort to those who protested the candle elimination in Tosca. There are the business cards. Giovanna sneaking the Duke behind Gilda onto her bed without her noticing him courts unintentional comedy. Gilda is carried off on her bed, not protesting as a bunch of masked men abduct her (really???).

6. There are some big gestures that are visually effective, such as when the mass of the chorus surrounds Monterone. But since we never get a feeling of power or corruption out of this court, the motivation is unclear. The court mostly spends its time gleefully skipping around in circles like Otto Schenk’s Italian peasants. Seriously, the choreography is bad. (Bonus: Karina Sarkissova is credited with “choreographic collaboration”–Sarkissova is the Staatsoper ballet dancer best known for getting fired and then re-hired after an underclothed photoshot in a Viennese men’s mag called, yes, Wiener.)

7. I actually thought the women’s dresses in the first scene were kind of fabulous. The random pantaloons ladies seemed like gratuitous male gaze decoration, though–maybe they could have had a dramaturgical function had Bondy done anything with them at all.

With a Duca and Gilda who can bring more individual personality to their performances, I can see this production being sort of OK. Uh, yay?

More pictures:

 

 
Photos © by Ruth Walz

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Review

Following Tosca’s footsteps

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While in Rome, I did what any self-respecting opera fan in Rome does: I took myself on a Tosca walking tour. Here’s what I found.

Like most verismic operas, Tosca is specific about details of setting. At the beginning of Act 3, Puccini specifies no fewer than fourteen different bells, situated in eight different locations as to aurally render dawn in Rome from the standpoint of the Castel Sant’Angelo. Compared to that, finding the three main sites is easy.

You can see these locations in literal-minded action in this movie version of the opera. 

Act 1: The Church

Cavaradossi is doing his painting job at the Baroque basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle, on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and around the corner from the Pantheon. It’s spectacular, but doesn’t rank very high in the food chain of local ecclesiastical tourism, which tells you something about Roman churches (this is possibly because it lacks a defining big-name painting or statue; I guess Cavaradossi doesn’t count). Around a dozen people were milling around when I visited. It boasts lots of frescoes depicting the life of the eponymous St. Andrew and the third-largest dome in Rome (after St. Peter’s and the Pantheon).

A small sign identifies the chapel dedicated to the Barberini family as the relevant Attavanti chapel. Appropriately, it is enclosed by a locked gate. No lady’s clothes in sight.

The art ranges from the sixteenth to nineteenth century. The center of the church is filled with unusual yellow light due to colored windows around the dome, as seen above. Baroque fans should note that there is also a chapel dedicated to the Strozzi family (think Barbara Strozzi). The church is open from 7:30 a.m. until noon and 4:30 to 7:30 in the evening.

Here is the set from Franco Zeffirelli’s late Met Tosca prodution. As you can see, he enlarged the church to include (presumably) three vaults to accommodate the size of the Met stage. Shenanigans!

Act 2: The Palazzo Farnese
The home of Scarpia’s evil lair is only a five-minute walk away, on the other side of the Campo de’Fiori. Today, in what I’m not sure can be described as dramatic irony or just as strange, it houses the French embassy.

You can tour the building if you make an appointment ahead of time, but not being organized, I didn’t, and just admired it from the outside. Too big to fit in one photo!

Act 3: The Castel Sant’Angelo
The Castel Sant’Angelo is a major landmark just by dint of its size. It began life as the mausoleum for the emperor Hadrian but later was expanded into a fortress. It’s located on the other side of the Tiber, but I really don’t need to give directions. You can’t miss it.

Inside it looks quite cute and peaceful today. It houses a not terribly popular museum of miscellaneous objects, but it’s best for just wandering around the battlements.

You might also remember it from the film Roman Holiday:

I did wonder: so where did Tosca land? If she landed in the moat (is that what this is?), maybe she changed her mind and swam away down the river?

But pavement of some kind seems more likely. Hopefully she didn’t take a living statue out with her.

Her last view, however, was probably gorgeous (for verismic accuracy, I should note that this photo is was taken at around 11:00, not dawn).

The location of Mario’s villa, however, remains a secret.

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Review

La battaglia di Legnano in Rome

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The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma’s new production of La battaglia di Legnano is part of the nationwide celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Republic’s founding. The choice is apt; this obscure opera is one of Verdi’s less covert Risorgimento works and features many rousing paens to Italia. (One post-unification production even retitled it The Defeat of Austria.) The production pushes this angle, so it’s almost irresistible to make this underwhelming, underattended, indifferently received premiere an allegory for the (poor) State of Opera in Italy Today. I don’t know if that’s appropriate because Italian opera politics isn’t something I know much about. After passive aggressively suggesting that, let’s talk about this opera.

Verdi, La battaglia die Legnano. Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, 5/25/2011 (new production premiere). Production by Ruggero Cappuccio, sets and costumes by Carlo Savi “con interventi di Mimmo Paladino e Matthew Spender,” lights by Agostino Angelini. Conducted by Pinchas Steinberg with Luca Salsi (Rolando), Tatiana Serjan (Lida), Yonghoon Lee (Arrigo), Gianfranco Montresor (Marcovaldo), Dmitriy Beloselskiy (Barbarossa)

La battaglia di Legnano dates from 1849, just before Luisa Miller, which is for me the cusp of where Verdi starts to get interesting. I can’t say I found a lot of the music very memorable, though. It’s got a good soprano aria (made semi-famous by Leyla Gencer, it’s not on YouTube but here she sings another part of the opera) and some good choruses. The most entertaining thing for me was to spot what Verdi recycled later: the plot is basically the same as Luisa Miller only with a warrior cult known as the Knights of Death instead of Federica providing competition for the tenor. Baritone Rolando’s aria in praise of familial love is a warm-up for “Di Provenza,” with the same accompaniment figure. And monks singing offstage while the soprano obligatocizes onstage recalls the Trovatore “Misere.”

Dramatically speaking, the titular battle disappointingly occurs offstage. The onstage action involves a love triangle but mostly consists of episodes of saber-rattling and note-passing more confusing than the Roman bus system. Plus the periodic chorus in praise of the Patria, naturally. In war-torn Medieval Milan (Barbarossa is invading), Lida married Rolando, but always loved Arrigo. Who she thought was dead, but of course he wasn’t. Drama ensues.

Singing comes before staging in most Italian opera houses, and that was the case here. The production is primarily concerned with getting everyone lined up downstage so they could sing nice and loud. Conceptually it is a mess. Director Gabriele Lavia left the production acrimoniously three months before the premiere, his vision apparently too costly and complicated for the company management (click on the Battaglia di Legnano link in the right column in the link above for a PDF with an article concerning this, in Italian). What last-minute replacement Ruggero Cappuccio has pieced together isn’t that great.

In what’s left over of Lavia’s concept (judging by what he says in the article linked to above), he pays studious tribute to the truism that an opera staging should reflect the original setting, the time of the opera’s composition, and the present day. The first is shown in the action itself and 19th-century paintings representing Medieval subjects which appear as a backdrop, the second in the costuming of the principals (tenor warrior hero Arrigo rather obviously sports a red Garibaldi neckerchief), and the latter in the modern dress of the chorus. Added to this is a silent lady in white who dabs at the background paintings, apparently showing the representation of Italy, or something. There are also some antiquities in crates, further showing the construction of Italy’s identity? Unfortunately none of this helps tell the story, the sets give little help to figure out what is happening and the non-existent blocking and characterization don’t assist either. It all ends up a bit screwy. I was wondering why the chorus was dressed in three different colors until they obediently organized themselves to reveal that their red, white, and green made them look like a massed Italian flag. OK.

It’s a shame that the staging didn’t make a better case for the opera, because the singers were pretty good. Tenor Yonghoon Lee has been getting a lot of buzz recently, and after missing his Wien Cavaradossis in April I was glad to hear him here. His voice is a dark, ringing spinto that’s powerful, glamorous, and even, a remarkable instrument with a ton of potential. But as a performer I have to keep him in the “potential” category for now due to a distinct lack of musical sophistication. I know this isn’t a style crying for subtlety, but singing with only one tone color and little differentiation of phrasing and dynamics becomes boring no matter how great the voice. I can’t really judge his acting based on this production, but he is quite good-looking.

Tatiana Serjan as Lida has a loud and steely and Russian voice that isn’t that beautiful, and she got tangled up in the cadenzas and coloratura at times. But she’s got that elusive thing known as temperament, and was fascinatingly intense to watch. Despite the blunt nature of her instrument she varied her singing well. She is what Maria Guleghina should be, with a better technique, no wobbles and without the wildly inappropriate repertoire. I would love to see Serjan go to town in an opera and production that gives her a little more space; I think she would bring it.

The only Italian among the major roles (a fact I’m sure escaped no one) was Luca Salsi as Rolando, who was solid and reliable and effective if something less than amazing. Dmitriy Beloselskiy made a strong cameo as Barbarossa (yeah, it’s that kind of opera). The chorus subscribes to the same school of Hearty Singing as the Staatsoper and sounded excellent, likewise the orchestra made this music sound less oom-pah-pah dull than it could. Pinchas Steinberg’s reading was clear, effective, not the high polish of Muti but a cut above average tub-thumping early Verdi.

The house was, at most, 75% full and the performance was received indifferently, with many not even staying to applaud or boo the production team (there was a decent amount of booing for them, yet), despite enthusiastic reception for Lee, Steinberg, and the orchestra. Not very festive for a celebration of Italy. Or maybe I’m just too used to the long ovations of Austria and Germany and having an ORF camera pointed in my direction at every first night.

Further performances are on 26, 28, 29, 31 May. May 28 features an alternate cast. This production will be seen later at the Liceu in Barcelona.

About the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma: It is important to note that the opera house’s website does not sell tickets in the cheaper price categories. It might look like the cheap tickets are sold out, but they may not be! If you want to buy a cheap top-level galleria seat (it is a small house and I could see just fine, even from the side, for the very reasonable price of 23 Euros), you can do so from the box office in person. I got mine there on the day of the performance, for a premiere, but this might not always be possible. You can also buy a galleria ticket for extra cost through a third party website such as this one. Last-minute discounts aren’t that good and there is no standing room.

Dress is somewhat more casual than in Austria or Germany, but also more stylish.

In a city of many beautiful buildings, the opera house doesn’t even bother to try to compete. It is also located in a dull district near the train station.

The side of the house suggests a slightly grander past:

But it also confuses (the white sign clarifies that, contra the other sign, this is not in fact the entrance to the galleria):

Inside is quite a bit better, but I didn’t take any photos because a sign forbade it and since I performed an epic feat of seat-hopping for the second half I wasn’t going to tempt fate. Here’s a photo I found on the internet. The theater looks better when it’s full:

Production photos copyright Teatro dell’Opera Roma.

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Review

Wiener Philharmoniker buries Mahler again

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Mahler died 100 years ago yesterday. This we know, thanks to a great deal of recent hullabaloo. While alive, Mahler was fond of thinking about death, which for his fans has endowed his passing with an outsized symbolic importance. This has led to a rash of morbidity and dubious biographical interpretation of his music (did you know the Symphony No. 6 was prophetic?*). I’m not a guest at this party. Death comes to us all, Mahler the Übermensch included. It’s something tragic and personal, not a piece of performance art. Memorialize the richness of the life, don’t fetishize its end. I do enjoy hearing Mahler’s music, though, and I went to the Wiener Philharmoniker’s memorial concert at the Staatsoper (Mahler’s old haunt) last night.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been boycotting the Philharmoniker for the past few months due to their sexism and general distastefulness, but the proceeds of this concert went to earthquake relief in Japan, so I made an exception.

Based on this performance, in which Daniele Gatti conducted the Symphony No. 9, the Philharmoniker didn’t care much about this event either. If they rehearsed for this concert, it didn’t do much good. This was disastrously sloppy playing with terrible ensemble, lots of intonation problems, and more wrong notes than you could shake a Wunderhorn at. (I’m looking at you, hornist in the second movement. BLAH bum bum bum Bum Bum. And you, flutist who got lost in the development in the first movement.) The brass and woodwinds (and out of tune chimes) were the primary culprits, but even the usually invincible strings sounded scrappy.

Gatti is an eccentric conductor, and the oddness of his stretched-out climaxes, dramatic pauses, lack of contrast, and strange balances only made things worse, losing any sense of shape in the first movement. The attempt at a thrilling accelerando at the end of the third movement fell apart in missed notes and poor ensemble. The strings came into better focus in the last movement, where Gatti alternated loud and full playing with intimate sections, but the ending was rather shaky. Total running time was around 90 minutes, on the slower side but not extreme. I assure you that this was not Gatti-is-weird interpretive peculiarity but objectively poor playing. I know this is an orchestra incapable of feeling shame, but I was actually shocked that they couldn’t do a little better for the Mahler memorial concert.** Silly me.

If this concert gets good notices in the press, I may scream. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer recently, I really want to write positive reviews, but that requires good performances.

If you want to watch Claudio Abbado and the Berliner Philharmoniker’s less geographically apt but probably infinitely less embarrassing memorial concert instead (with the Adagio from the Symphony No. 10 and Das Lied von der Erde), you can do so here.

*We were told all about this at an inane pre-concert lecture by dilettante Gilbert Kaplan, along with every other of the Top 20 Mahler Clichés. “Every emotion possible appears in Mahler’s music,” you know that?

**Conspiracy theories: a) since they weren’t being paid, were they stingy with rehearsals? b) Two women in woodwinds suggest presence of some ringers (yes this is pathetic but there are no women in the wind section on the roster). c) This symphony was originally scheduled for last fall but canceled due to a conductor change, and was not given a planned rehearsal workout then.

Gustav-Mahler-Gedenkkonzert (Symphony No. 9). Wiener Philharmoniker at the Wiener Staatsoper, 5/18/2011. Daniele Gatti, conductor.

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Review

Manon: Don’t put your hand there

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I probably should have known better than to go to this typical Staatsoper revival with Roberto Alagna and Norah Amsellem, but I did anyway. Allow me to advise you of its content before you let this happen to you. Andrei Serban’s production seems rather interesting, but what is onstage is more an impression of a production than a production. Musically things were plausibly French, but they were not plausibly very good.

Massenet, Manon. Wiener Staatsoper, 5/16/2011. Production by Andrei Serban (revival), conducted by Jesús López-Cobos with Norah Amsellem (Manon), Roberto Alagna (Des Grieux), Tae Joong Yang (Lescaut).

Andrei Serban’s production is set in the 1930’s Paris, with frequent references to film (hanging posters) and some surreal touches. In what could be unprecedented Staatsoper cost-cutting and time-saving, the chorus mostly sings from the pit and some of the supernumeraries are cardboard cutouts of various film celebrities, but they’re a part of Manon’s world of artifice and isolation (oh, the ever-popular “modernist alienation” card). Act 1 takes place in a train station, Act 4 takes place in a Moulin Rouge-type place with a claustrophobic mirror reflecting gambling tables, and Act 5, where the hopes of glitz promised by the movies has vanished we get a bare stage with some vaguely relevant projections of the simple truths of grass and water. (The projections during the set changes include one night scene with disconcertingly modern cars in it.)

With the right Personenregie and casting to go with this atmosphere, I could see it working pretty well, but it didn’t come together this evening. The Manon/Des Grieux scenes are intended to be intimate while the bigger ones are more stylized and choreographed, but both were messily executed. I got the impression that bits like the Act 2 guardsmen were actually originally witty, but only a few hints of this remained. (They had around four or five days of rehearsal for this, we have documented proof.) Also, it is except for the movie posters monochromatic, but apparently all Staatsoper productions are like this. Some atmospheric melodramatic old movie-style acting was still had from Roberto Alagna (who sang in the premiere of this production a few years ago), but for the most part it was generic.

The biggest problem was Norah Amsellem’s Manon. The production is designed for a Manon with a confident, modern sexuality (who could this have been? hint: she suffered a wardrobe malfunction in front of the German press earlier this week) but prim and thoroughly unglamorous Amsellem doesn’t seem the type to leave a half-full wine glass next to her bed, or to stumble around in Act 5 in a full-length beaded evening gown. She went through the motions, but something was missing; a more conventional romantic interpretation may have worked better for her. Manon is a problematic character who is pretty much going to annoy me no matter what, but this didn’t seem to be a way of solving the problem. Amsellem’s singing was stylistically strong but her thin, quavery tone is not easy on the ears, her coloratura is poor, and she held the high notes in the Cours la reine for a lot longer than I wanted her to.

Roberto Alagna gave a strongly acted performance as a convincingly youthful Des Grieux (Alagna is going to be working the “youthfully impetuous” thing straight up to retirement, I think). Sometimes he slipped into tenorial schtick, most grievously in “Ah, fuyez, douce image,” but mostly was the most engaging element of the performance. Vocally he was uneven as well, at best strong and passionate and confident. Unfortunately he lost the orchestra in several places in “Ah, fuyez,” and tried to float “En fermant les yeux” but it didn’t work very well, with a tenuous sound aspirating up to the G natural, and the final high A sung in falsetto. Both singers did best with the St.-Sulpice scene, calling for the most full-throated singing. (This is actually the first time I have seen this opera live. I’m not sure how I know the score as well as I do. Huh.)

After I gave them credit for being good just recently, the orchestra was at its worst and turned in a very sloppy and unbalanced performance. Jesús López-Cobos’s conducting lacked flexibility and rhythmic life, as well as those coordination issues. The supporting cast was OK but uninspired. Extra credit, however, for Caroline Wenborne as Javotte’s delightful little dance break at the very end of Act 3 Scene 1.


Several performances remain. Also, if you are interested in the production, much of it is on YouTube with Alagna and Netrebko (it was broadcast on TV, but is not available on DVD). Here’s a bit:

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsoper

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Review

Die Walküre from the Met: Die Maschine ohne Ghost

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I went to the Live from HD broadcast of Die Walküre on Saturday! For writing about this I recruited the help of NYC correspondent “Pélleas,” who saw it live. We chatted for a little while on Sunday. Or, a lot while. The Machine! James Levine, actually conducting! Valkyries falling on their asses! All right ahead!

Zerbinetta: Just to be really clear, I went to the broadcast on May 14 in Vienna in the romantic surroundings of the Donauzentrum shopping mall and you saw it live at the opera house in New York on…
Pélleas: April 28th. So, how did it come across in the film version? I saw the Rheingold movie broadcast and I must say that the whole effect of the planks worked much better in person.
Zerbinetta: Yeah, I hope so. (I didn’t see Rheingold at all.) Because it was really weak on the broadcast. It was all shot in closeup so you could only see the whole machine occasionally (when it did shit) and the rest of the time it basically looked like a really expensive projection screen.
Pélleas: The planks basically are an expensive projection screen, but during the couple of set piece moments that they have they can be very spectacular. I found their transformation from a snowy wasteland to a forrest of trees in the beginning very cool. And the bit with Brünnhilde being left on the mountain in her ring of fire was also really cool. That is, when you weren’t worried for the safety of the stunt double given the injury that happened because of The Machine earlier in the night (more about that later).

Zerbinetta: OH you were at THAT one. Anyway, I was very disappointed in the design work. It looked strangely unfinished, like there was the machine and nothing else. Projections always look bad close up but it seemed like they forgot to add any kind of texture or life to any of the stage pictures. Hunding’s table looked like it came from Ikea. Too many smooth flat surfaces. It was just all SO DAMN LITERAL and unimaginative. And not just the design.
Pélleas: Yep. I totally agree with you there. The only time they tried to give some sort of originality to anything it came off as really tacky. And there was basically no original psychological insight into any of the characters or the staging.
Zerbinetta: It was also very very static. Like the Ring I saw in Vienna in April didn’t have much insight either but at least everything kept moving pretty well.
Pélleas: About the accident, though. One of the valkyries took a hard landing sliding off of her horse. I didn’t see it, so I’m not sure how she landed, but I heard it. She either caught her leg in the stage at the end, or landed really hard on her butt. She exited the stage immediately, returned a couple of minutes later (to applause), and sang her part. But she didn’t appear at the curtain call. (Ed. note: she was OK.)
Zerbinetta: I thought the end really lost the emotional thread when Brünnhilde left the stage to be replaced by a double. You need that farewell ritual to be about the character.
Pélleas: A lot of people complained about that, but I didn’t really mind it. I was still emotionally invested in the scene, because the music was simply so beautiful, and the stunt double did a good job of imitating the way her body was slouched into Wotan.
Zerbinetta: The problem with the ending in the HD was they didn’t want to show the double close up to show that it was a double so the entire opera is in closeups and then HELLO wide angle!
Pélleas: Well, it’d be hard to get the majesty of the entire set if you did closeups. And that is the one moment where the set as a whole really shines.
Zerbinetta: The switch was disconcertingly abrupt. Didn’t go with the music. Especially when Levine’s magic fire was burning soooo slowly. So about the conducting. ????
Pélleas: Everyone was of course totally enthused that Levine was alive enough to conduct. I was generally extremely pleased with his conducting.
Zerbinetta: I liked bits of it but overall it felt kind of too slack, especially the really slow Act 2. Act 3 was majestic, though. Orchestra sounded good, though I suspect I am spoiled by Vienna. How was the balance between singers and orchestra?
Pélleas: It was generally very good. I didn’t have any trouble hearing any of the singers, and vocally it seemed to be a much better evening than the opening night performance that got reviewed. Westbroek was able to sing through the entire evening, and she was marvelous. Her final notes simply soared above the orchestra with such great volume and power, for such a long time. A.— and I looked to each other with grins on our faces. I think it was the vocal highlight of the evening.

Zerbinetta: I thought Westbroek sounded glorious, she has this shining and effortless tone that is just amazing and visceral. But she looked nervous and hesitant. Anna Nicole wasn’t a good use of her vocal talents, but it did show she can be a much better actress than she was as Sieglinde here. My biggest surprise was Terfel, I think. I’ve always thought of him as a bit of a fun ham, but this was really subtle and powerful and beautiful. Also his German and use of the text were just gorgeous. Usually I think Wotan is a big bore and I didn’t this time.
Pélleas: He was really great. He kept me emotionally engaged during his Act 2 monologue, which is one of my favorite parts of the opera, but one that is really easy to make boring. And the absolute disdain that he packed into his command to Hunding to die was chilling.
Zerbinetta: Yeah, but the staging of the fight was pathetic. Lots of people standing around.
Pélleas: Believe it or not, it actually came off as exciting live. But that’s because so much else was boring…. And let’s be honest, none of the singers were really required to act in this production. The emotional engagement they produced through their acting was really in spite of the production, not because of it.
Zerbinetta: I think the idea is that there’s a spectacular background for the singers to do their thing in front of, but really, you need more directorial interpretation get the Ring to hold together and get the singers to act together instead of independently. I think it’s lifted out of Chéreau but I loved when Siegmund recognized Wotan and then died in his arms at the very end of Act 2. Probably the only theatrical moment between two characters I thought was really emotionally genuine and touching.

Pélleas: If only we could bring in Freyer to explain the emotional/mythological resonances of these characters BETWEEN each other! A good example is Fricka’s scene with Wotan. She does a great job of projecting wounded power while asserting that her pride will never be completely killed (and Blythe was amazing as always) and Terfel did a great job of expressing his descent into madness and grief at that moment – seeing all of his plans unravel because of his own hubris and his need to obey his wife’s command. Both acted convincingly enough in that scene, but they were pretty much doing it independently of each other.
Zerbinetta: The lack of detailed direction really showed in the closeups. Everyone spent a lot more time looking towards Levine that they did at each other. Also, that awkward dinner scene in Act 1 with everyone sitting around the table giving each other side-eye including very avuncular Hunding and you couldn’t see them below the knees? Looked like a TV show to me. This TV show is super-dramatic, it puts the opera back in soap opera, and it is called “One Tree Sword.” Ratings, um, gold! Even against Eurovision. (I am still sad I missed Eurovision.)
Pélleas: Yeah, hated that staging. A.— tried to say that it made it more emotional when they declared their love for each other and they came out so you could see them below the knees, but I don’t buy it. At least Kaufmann seemed to not always be looking at Levine. And he was the one person to be constantly moving about, as if he actually was young and spry. And the hottness factor and great voice doesn’t hurt.
Zerbinetta: You are obviously aware that Jonas Kaufmann is the Bestest is one of the guiding principles of this blog. I liked him a lot, the Wälses weren’t actually that great but the lyrical parts were, dramatic but also subtle. And the Todesverkündigung was so beautiful. From him. Not so much from Voigt.
Pélleas: I found Voigt’s voice beautiful enough (and Jonas’s absolutely heartbreaking and thrilling). But it didn’t help that the WORST STAGING EVER happened during the annunciation of death.
Zerbinetta: It made me want to run home and watch shirtless Peter Hofmann and Gwyneth Jones on YouTube in the Chéreau. The horns at the beginning of that scene always give me chills. It is in fact my favorite scene in all of Wagner.
Pélleas: You can’t have a moment of such gravity be announced with Brunhilde simply WALKING onto the stage looking exactly as she had before. Even the drab and literal Schenk staging had her wear a cool warrior’s mask to give that scene some amount of gravitas.
Zerbinetta: I agree! Also, why didn’t Sieglinde wake up at some point considering how Siegmund was shaking her? This is a production that leads you towards silly literalism, because its terms are so literal. And yet its look is so unfinished plus the giant traditional costumes that if I were seeing it in Germany I would suspect some weak-ass Verfremdung was going on. But about Voigt: she was miles better than the Brünnhilde I saw in Vienna in April and I liked her sassiness, but I didn’t like her tonal color much, often sour below the top notes. And after the OK hojotoho her German was pretty bad and she didn’t put across the meaning of the text like Terfel and Kaufmann did (Blythe was also interpretively bland, I thought, but THAT SOUND). And there were a few moments wherein she grinned inappropriately when I thought she really needed a director to get her to put together the emotional beats more clearly.

Pélleas: A lot of the more intimate moments could have been much more emotional if thought had been given to him. I think Lepage recognized this and tried to do something interesting during the long monologues (Sigmund’s in Act I and Wotan’s in Act II), but his solution was to do more of his techno wizardry. For the record I disliked the shadow fight in Act I because it was so damn literal and liked the Eye of Color in Act II simply because it was less literal. Except when it mentioned the Ring and an image that was probably licensed from New Line popped up. As if we didn’t already know that Lord of the Rings and Wagner are the same thing.
Zerbinetta: But you had A.— with you, she could probably read the Elvish on the Ring (she is going to kill me if she reads this).
Pélleas: haha
Zerbinetta: Bechtolf did the shadow thing in much less elaborate fashion in Vienna’s Ring, in some of the same places even, and I thought the same thing. Doesn’t add anything, and distracts from the fact that the act of narration itself and the viewpoint of the narrator is a loaded concept in Wagner. Siegmund and Wotan’s stories aren’t neutral exposition. Neither director seemed to appreciate this (though there was the eye, implying some kind of viewpoint, oh damn, I’m just going to go back to Herheim while I still can), but Lepage has so many bells and whistles that it is less obvious that he has nothing to say and an equally simplistic view of the piece. My concern is that this staging has no soul. The Machine lacks a Ghost (yes I thought of that line partway through the show last night).
Pélleas: The only emotional investment is what each individual singer brings to the table. Which can sometimes be sufficient for individual scenes, but doesn’t lead to a sense of continuity across the opera(s). To be clear though, I left the opera house extremely happy and excited, as did A.—. Because the singing was almost uniformly excellent (or above par) the orchestra exciting, and the staging had some really exciting moments that can overshadow the drabness. But it’s like a contact high, when you think about it afterwards you realize there wasn’t really much there. Whereas with Freyer I was thinking for days or weeks afterwards and kept having fun doing so. I’m jealous of you for seeing the whole Freyer Ring btw. In case you didn’t already know that 😉
Zerbinetta: Freyer yes! As for Lepage I kind of had a similar reaction but more moderate (I guess because I didn’t get the big effects very well). The singing really was very good and the performers involving by sheer force of will. But all flash and little depth. More broadly, I guess that’s what bothers me most about the Met’s current artistic direction. It’s so anti-intellectual. I mean not everything has to be hard but they seem so unwilling to challenge audiences at all. (I’m saying this from the happy position of publicly funded Europe.)
Pélleas: I don’t think we’re going to be getting any Regie anytime soon unfortunately
Zerbinetta: Tchnerniakov is on Met Futures for Prince Igor! That’s hard-core Regie right there. Decker’s Traviata seemed to go well and that’s legit Regie. So I have some hope but mostly for imported productions.
Pélleas: But there’s also the option of genuinely beautiful. The Met’s staging of Tristan for example isn’t particularly difficult, but the austere set and props has a beautiful aesthetic that Lepage lacks, precisely because it doesn’t try to be literal.
Zerbinetta: There definitely is a place for genuinely beautiful austere productions. I just wish we could have a place for all sorts of productions that could co-exist happily like a little operatic We Are the World.
Pélleas: Just looking at Met Futures right now. They’re having LePage direct The Tempest??? mrrr
Zerbinetta: Apparently? I’m not a big Adès fan so I don’t really care too much to be honest. I’m mostly worried about the prominence of Bartlett Sher. I can’t stand Bartlett Sher
Pélleas: I LOVE Thomas Adès
Zerbinetta: I should listen to more Adès. I’ll try. Anna Nicole actually got me into Turnage. But I have to go and eat something before the Sellars show tonight. Is there anything we must say about Walküre that we have not said?
Pélleas: I don’t believe so. Enjoy Sellars & co!
Zerbinetta: Have a great afternoon over there.
Pélleas: I shall. talk to you soon!
Zerbinetta: ciao! (as they say, improbably, in German.)
Pélleas: wtf? silly Germans.

It occurred to me later that we left out an important factor: how will this staging age? In 10 years will the Met still be stuck with a Ring that looks like how Space Invaders looks to us now, only not so cutely retro? In my opinion, storytelling ages better than gadgets, but we’ll see.

Photos copyright Ken Howard/Met Opera.

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Review

The Budapest Festival Orchestra’s highs and lows

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The Budapest Festival Orchestra and their music director Iván Fischer came to the Musikverein last night with an odd program of Bartók (Dance Suite for Orchestra Sz 77), Paganini (Violin Concerto No. 1), and Chaikovsky (Symphony No. 5). It’s not bad programming per se, but it seemed a little bit on the random side. I suppose the Bartók and Chaikovsky both have dance things going on? (Which is something you could say for a lot of music.)

I really like this orchestra, with their dry sound and vaguely Russian brass, but I wasn’t as blown away this time as I was by their Konzerthaus concert last September. But they are still a very good orchestra indeed. If only this program had come together a little better. The Bartók Dance Suite was new in title to me, though I’ve heard some parts of it before in other Bartók pieces. It was an unusual choice to open the program, because the orchestra is treated quite sectionally and it was hard to get a good sense of their general sound. However, the playing was very fine, with wonderful transparency between sections.

Yes, really.

Judging by the hobbit hair and the PR accompanying his CD, violin soloist József Lendvay sees himself as the embodiment of the demonic Hungarian Gypsy fiddler. But while his first Paganini concerto would be suitable for a Heuriger somewhere, this astonishingly sloppy performance was not fit for the Musikverein. Granted, he has a rather good flying staccato and plays it all very quickly, but more notes were wrong than right, and most of them were not in the right places, either. The whole concerto was pervaded by rubato and twisted rhythms with no musical logic, and even simple passages showed little grace and wretched intonation (nearly every harmonic squeaked in the way they do when you don’t tune them quite right). Just awful. He got a large ovation, making me distrust the collective ears of the Viennese public (this was perhaps not the usual crowd; they applauded a lot after the first movement of a perfectly conventional concerto, I wanted to in the hope that he would stop). Paging Julia Fischer! Or Hilary Hahn! We need you!

(I prefer writing positive reviews, I really like liking things, but I understand why people bash performances so much. It is so much easier to write. I think it is richly deserved in this case.)

It could only get better after that. And it did. The Chaikovsky Symphony no. 5 was very good, a good completion for my Jansons No. 4 and Barenboim No. 6 earlier this season. Fischer had his eye on the trajectory of the entire piece, starting off restrained and somber in the first movement. The horn solo in the second movement was a bit disappointingly blank, but the movement built up to a very impressive and clearly planned climax, even though the movement itself feels like leftovers from the Symphony No. 4 (fate motive? check. pizzicati? check.) plus some of the better bits of the Swan Lake finale. The third movement was quiet, played as a soft interlude between the outpourings of the second and fourth, and the staccato passages in the strings could have used more lightness. The fourth movement turned very gaudy, with the bright brass pretty much blasting everyone else out of the water. The ending was taken at an impressive clip, perhaps to disguise that it is about 4 minutes of straight V — I alternations.

A mixed bag but mostly redeemed by the Chaik.

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer, conductor. Musikverein, 5/11/2011. Program: Bartók, Dance Suite for Orchestra Sz 77; Pagaini, Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major; Chaikovsky/Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5 in e minor.

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Review

Jenůfa: Kindertotenlieder

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The Bartered Bride taught us that Czech peasants are adorable. Janáček’s Jenůfa teaches us that they (or at least the Moravian variety if we want to be real precise) actually are evil. Neither of Jenůfa’s men seem like good catches, and her mother kills Jenůfa’s baby. This is not a happy opera. Like in some similar works, it is the angelic light emitted by the female protagonist and the glow of the music’s lyricism that makes it more than just an exercise in misery.

Some rough edges were still showing at Monday’s first performance at the Staatsoper this season, but the cast of Angela Denoke, Agnes Baltsa, and co. is good, the production simple and effective, and the conducting promising, so: worth seeing. Well, it’s Janáček, so of course it’s worth seeing. But that’s just my opinion.

Janáček, Jenůfa. Wiener Staatsoper, 5/9/2010. (In German.) Production by David Pountney (revival), conducted by Graeme Jenkins with Angela Denoke (Jenůfa), Agnes Baltsa (Kostelnička), Jorma Silvasti (Laca), Marian Talaba (Števa).

The biggest shock for me was when Jenůfa started singing and I could understand what she was saying. Somehow I missed that the Staatsoper performs this opera in a German translation. Janáček approved of it, but it’s still no good, in my opinion. The rhythm of the text feels entirely different from the original and much clunkier, no longer in tune with the musical line. Comprehensibility seems to come at too high a cost in this case. Luckily the new production of Kat’a Kabanová, coming in June, will be sung in Czech.

This Staatsoper run is going under the fancy name of a Wiederaufnahme, which means it got more rehearsal than a regular repertoire performance. The could be seen in the better-than-average direction of David Pountney’s straightforward production. It probably helped that three of the principals were back from the 2002 premiere as well. Musically, there were hiccups. I suspect some of the singers sounded better in 2002.

Graeme Jenkins’s conducting had some lovely poetic moments and a good general feel for the music’s pace, particularly in the start and end of the opera. This was more a lyrical reading than a folksy one. But a few sections sounded shaky or tentative, and the chorus and orchestra were separated a bit in Act 1. The end of Act 2, staged as a frozen tableau, needed more tension to convince. The orchestra, though, was on decent behavior and I suppose it will all get better later in the run.

Angela Denoke is an excellent Jenůfa. Her voice is well-controlled but not naturally beautiful (the white, straight-tone high notes in particular are an issue), but she is so wonderfully expressive that this does not seem to matter. She gives the impression of living in this music and role, her singing and acting always working as one. Her Jenůfa is never cloyingly naive, but pure goodness.

Agnes Baltsa is immensely popular here and her performance falls into the same general category as Denoke’s–more memorable as a whole theatrical experience than as a vocal one. Her Kostelnička is a formidable, and yet more sympathetic and less monstrous than many. But, and I’m in the minority here, I find her singing just too ugly. The lower half of her voice has a nasal tinge and the upper half is threadbare. I’m not sure why Denoke was so convincing to me and Baltsa ultimately was not, but that’s how it was.

The men were on the weaker side of things, with Jorma Silvasti as Laca sounding excellent and solid until he had to sing anything above the staff and then there was trouble. He is a fine actor, though. Marian Talaba, the only principal member of the cast not in the 2002 premiere, struggled through Števa with an effortful, forced tenor and self-conscious acting. In the smaller roles, Caroline Wenborne stood out as Karolka, producing what really were the most beautiful and healthy tones of the night.

David Pountney’s production is austere and generally effective. The unit set of dull gray walls is elaborated by a complex mill wheel in Act 1 (which turns with the woodblock’s ticking, whatever could that mean? better get the Subtle Symbolism Detectives on the case), lots of bags of grain in Act 2, and just a wedding feast in Act 3. It is very dreary and I missed the element of nature and the outdoors you associate with this sort of opera, but it works well enough. Personenregie was naturalistic, fairly detailed, and respectable. I am not sure, however, why the wedding guests started smashing dishes in Act 3, and it did seem to distract from Jenůfa. Costumes, like the sets, are monochromatic, except for Act 3, and show obvious but sensible characterization. The lighting design is nice, though sometimes the shifts were too quick.

Ultimately this didn’t have the cataclysmic payoff that Jenůfa can, but it’s still good. Look for it to improve over the course of the run. Standing room was deserted, so you wouldn’t even have to wait for long to get a good spot. Further performances on 12, 15, 19, 22 May.

Sorry for the crappiness of this review, I’ve been strung out on allergy medicine all week and can’t think straight. This was a singularly appropriate opera to see when part of my face was still a little puffy and weird, though.

Also, does anyone else want to see a Jenůfa set in the rural American South? Or maybe with Mormons? Creative American Opera House, make it happen.

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsoper.

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