Blogging Backlog: Les Contes d'Hoffmann

Hoffmann (Grigolo), struggling with writing and the human condition. Photo (c) Met Opera

Gentle Readers, I am the most delinquent of bloggers. I saw this season's Contes d'Hoffmann twice, and wrote of it neither after the first performance in the run, nor after the last. I took enough notes here, though, that I'd rather not let them (longer) languish, especially as the performances at the beginning and end of the run yielded rather different experiences, both interesting, and both engaging. I am almost the last person to wish to praise Bartlett Sher, whose productions have so oversaturated recent seasons at the Met (and will, alas, apparently continue to do so.) However, I really do like this Contes d'Hoffmann production, in its gaudy shamelessness, in its willingness to let disturbing images sit unexplained. I hadn't seen it live since 2010, and I enjoyed it again. The Kleinzach song, of course, remains a problem--callous young men mocking a dwarf as a ludicrous figure--but there was a brief moment, at the end of the first performance, when it suddenly appeared as a despairing, horrifying commentary on the human condition.

Richard Tucker Day: A reverential mission and a free concert

One of my favorite things about Tucker Foundation events is the relentlessly informal atmosphere that pervades the preliminaries, regardless of how showy the arias or sparkling the gowns in the ensuing recital. To mark Richard Tucker Day on Thursday, the foundation sponsored two free concerts; to the second of these, held in the evening, I went with the Beloved Flatmate (emerita.) The auditorium of the New York Society for Ethical Culture (pictured) turned out to have favorable acoustics, and we were able to slip into a third-row seat without any trouble. While smaller than the audience for the Gala, this one was noticeably younger and more diverse, as I was pleased to note. Despite the line stretching well down the block for admission, I was surprised that there wasn't a larger turnout for a free concert with musicians of this caliber. Rising young artists and headlining stars gave mostly-showy pieces from a cross-section of the operatic repertoire stretching from early Mozart to Boito and Bizet, and, in the second half of the program, ventured into hits from American musicals to great effect. Bryan Wagorn, at the piano, proved himself an able and versatile accompanist.

Dialogues des Carmelites: il ne reste que l'Agneau de Dieu

I went to the last performance (of only three!) of the run of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites which closed out the Met's season. The production and orchestra were solid, but it was the vocal performances that gave the evening its intellectual and emotional intensity. John Dexter's classic production is strong and stark, though it's hard for me to put myself in the place of audiences who saw it as revolutionary. Before the opening bars of the score are heard, we see the nuns all prostrate in the cruciform position. The grille, the rood screen, the prison bars all descend, making effective minimalist surroundings for naturalistic presentation. I quite liked the airy form of the grille, the incorporation of the cross into its pattern, emphasizing the voluntary rather than the absolute nature of the nuns' enclosure. The stage is marked--defined--by an ever-present cross. Its shape is obscured only at a handful of moments: it is in shadow while Blanche is in her father's house, cut off by the library with its Fragonard-like painting. Again it is partially hidden during the prioress' death scene, though she is in its light. During the martyrdom, the crowds mill in the transept, blind to it. I really liked this use of space suggesting the form of grace, the force of it even (especially?) in the mundane.

Totus ardeo: De Falla and Orff with the NYPhil

Atlantis, as pictured by Athanasius Kircher in "Mundi Subterranei," 1669

This evening marks the first in a series of three performances of an imaginative and exciting program by the New York Philharmonic, under the leadership of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is paired with selections from Manuel de Falla's final (unfinished) work, Atlantida, a "scenic cantata" combining poetic laments for the fall of Atlantis with visions of Columbus' transatlantic voyage on behalf of the Spanish empire. Under the baton of Frühbeck de Burgos, both works were brought to vibrant life by the Philharmonic, in sensual, powerful performances. As I attended the general rehearsal, the following cannot be a review, but I did want to put down some notes on what was a very impressive musical experience. Getting to see the orchestra--and the very fine forces of Orfeón Pamplonés--at work was a treat. 

Götterdämmerung: Fliegt heim, ihr Raben

It's all over. Although Lepage's production has been modified, I still feel that it lets the Ring down badly in its cataclysmic conclusion. The plaster statues of the gods now crumble into the Rhine instead of exploding above the hall of the Gibichungs, which I find dramatically and theatrically more felicitous. But while the music is driven on by the momentum of all that has gone before, the production drifts. The orchestral performance was remarkable. The sound could occasionally seem unfocused, but the Beloved Flatmate were almost directly over the pit in a Family Circle box, which may have affected my perception. The dense tapestry of leitmotivs was given vibrant color; the score's movement towards an inevitable conclusion was thrilling with tension at every turn. The close connection to the singers which has characterized the rest of the cycle under Luisi was still apparent, especially effective in evoking the clash between Siegfried and Hagen. The Trauermarsch was of a shattering intensity, silence and sound alike pushed to the limits of the bearable. The long threnody of the immolation was handled with emotional nuance, and the Erlösungsmotiv over the Rhine was radiant. If only the production had made a bolder claim about the whys of this music.

Siegfried: Mut oder Übermut

Jay Hunter Morris, Deborah Voigt in Siegfried's final scene. Photo (c) Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

With inexorable momentum, Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk rolls on at the Met. Saturday's performance of Siegfried was remarkable for its emotional immediacy, a musically and dramatically exciting experience. I am still frustrated that Lepage's approach to the staging of the Ring is descriptive rather than analytical, but the performers did an admirable job. The humanizing approach to the Ring, while it may be the best approach to working with Lepage's sets, does not serve all the relationships of Siegfried equally well. The staging's implication that Mime is an unreliable narrator remains unexplored, but there was more detailed characterization of his relationship with Mime, which worked well. Siegfried's abuse of Mime is thus adolescent pique. The dwarf's interactions with the Wanderer further establish that Mime's disagreeability is personal, not part of a larger scheme of value; his refusal of Gastfreundlichkeit is shrugged at by the old man who dries his own boots at the fire. The orchestral performance was better-coordinated than at this cycle's Walküre; there were one or two moments where the brass sounded slightly unfocused, but matters were much improved. The horn and woodwind soloists distinguished themselves, and the forest murmurs were dreamily lovely. Whether it was the result of added experience or simply an example of a performance "clicking," I found myself more convinced and engaged by Fabio Luisi's Siegfried on this second hearing. Flexible dynamics and responsiveness to the singers made it a lively, but not a lightweight account. The orchestral playing in the final scene was so radiantly sensual as to border on the obscene; from my perspective, this counts as warm praise.

Il dolce suono mi colpì

I went to Tuesday's performance of Lucia di Lammermoor for the sake of the singing, but the quality of the performances from the four principals surpassed my expectations.  Even in a production which didn't give them much help, I thought they also each managed to give a striking dramatic portrayal as well.  Despite some inconsistent conducting and the tragic absence of a glass harmonica (beautifully played flute solo, but I want my eerie esoteric instrument, please!) Donizetti's bel canto masterpiece shone.  As far as Mary Zimmerman's production goes, I think a stylized visual vocabulary based on the tropes of Gothic literature is actually a neat idea for Lucia, and the mixture of exaggerating certain elements (see the moon, above) with naturalism didn't strike me as too jarring (pictures here.)  However, and this is a not inconsiderable criticism, I didn't feel the production gave much support to the dramatic arc of the plot or the inner life of the characters; the stand-and-sing syndrome had a tendency to manifest itself.  The production did leave space for the characters to have inner life, and the two final scenes were, I thought, superior to the rest of the production in this respect, with Edgardo's death scene visually echoing Lucia's madness very movingly.

Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit

Carnegie Hall sent me and the Beloved Flatmate a flyer advertising "A Transcendent Evening of Brahms," to feature the Alto Rhapsody, with Stephanie Blythe, and the Deutsches Requiem with soloists Erin Morley and Eric Owens; to these blandishments we were far from indifferent.  The first piece on the program was the rhapsody, a piece with which I was unfamiliar (and the program notes provided very little help.)  Subsequent attempts at research turned up fairly little (Wikipedia page here, "detailed listening guide" here.)  The Cambridge Companion to Brahms will be my next stop.  Update: see the comments section for a fascinating (and conveniently accessible) reference provided by Zerbinetta.  The evocative text was excerpted from Harzreise im Winter.  I do love Goethe, but I would never have guessed he could remind me so much of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets.  Maybe it was the setting.  Stephanie Blythe is maintaining her perfect record of being fabulous when I've heard her.   She here produced an almost chilly sound, without sacrificing fullness, remote, while still compassionate; the voice of a Miltonian angel, perhaps.  The transition to a plea for divine mercy at the end seemed almost abrupt, given the bleakness of what had gone before, but she characterized it with equal conviction.