Blogging Backlog: Cav & Pag at the Met

The opera season and the academic year are hurtling towards their respective conclusions, and so, although I got to see David McVicar's new production of the Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci pairing on the 18th, it is not until now that I am organizing my ramblings. I'm glad to have seen the productions, welcoming the change from their rather dusty predecessors. Having read publicity advertising the fact that the two operas would be set in successive generations in similar southern Italian settings, I was expecting an exploration of destructive ideals of masculinity. But--despite this apparent gesture towards exploring commonalities and continuities--the productions were surprisingly different from each other in visual and dramatic style. Paradoxically, I found the bright, crowded, insistently specific Pagliacci much more effective in presenting the opera's underlying themes than the dark, curiously opaque stylization of Cavalleria Rusticana. The singing in both casts was fine, although Marcelo Alvarez, playing what must be two of the operatic canon's most unsavory tenor roles, was curiously lacking in brutality or charisma. For me, at least, it was Santuzza and Nedda--powerless in their yearning--who emerged most vividly in vocal and dramatic terms.

Great Voices Sing John Denver

Placido Domingo & John Denver, ca. 1980

I associate John Denver with road trips: rolled down windows, long ribbons of asphalt, and a carful of untrained singers happily caroling "Take me home, country roads." I think of his singing as characterized by a simplicity redeeming a sentimentality that might otherwise seem oppressively earnest. The project of having opera singers interpret these open-air ballads was one I viewed with intense if somewhat skeptical curiosity. The undertaking was the brainchild of Denver's arrangers, and facilitated by the considerable influence of Placido Domingo (more details here.) I couldn't resist the opportunity to review the resulting album, especially since I'm currently staying with my mother, whose adolescence coincided with Denver's heyday, and who therefore led Denver sing-alongs on road trips. Her enthusiasm for the project was great; and so I undertook my critical listening with her helpfully at hand as a one-woman control group for my bias towards loved singers and potential indifference to Denver's lyrics. The album's attempt to find a meeting ground for Denver's music and operatic voices met with decidedly mixed results. Too many of the arrangements were dominated by sentimental strings wallowing in the predictable harmonies common to many classical crossover or pseudo-classical albums. I thought that allowing the participating artists to cross further over into Denver's musical language--or, indeed, simply a greater variety in the arrangements--would have been, on the whole, more felicitous. On the whole, I'm inclined to regard the disc more as a curious conversation piece than anything else, but my mother enjoyed listening to it enormously (including the heckling of misfires), leading me to the conclusion that it may be more successful with John Denver fans than diehard opera lovers, for situations where those two categories don't overlap.

Vieni fuori: Dallapiccola's Prigioniero with the NYPhil

I went to Saturday's concert with the New York Philharmonic for the sake of Luigi Dallapiccola's rarely performed Il Prigioniero, but ended up being entranced by the Prokoviev violin concerto which preceded it, as well.  Alan Gilbert and his orchestra were on very fine form. The degree of subtlety which they achieved in the concerto, and the sheer variety of orchestral textures in the opera, both were very impressive. I thought the latter might have used a little more dynamic restraint, but I don't know the score, and the overwhelming quality of the fortissimi may have been just what was called for.

Prokoviev's first violin concerto is singularly lovely; in this performance, it also registered as uneasy and elegiac. Its unusual form and unusual melodic patterns seemed to be gesturing towards an inarticulable truth. Lisa Batiashvili played with clarity and, in the first and third movements, with a haunting, remote melancholy of tone. Within the melancholy of the first movement she found extraordinary nuance, using the melodic progressions to move from near-anger to reflection sensual and sad as a rainy day, expressing questions of hope and fear. The strings supporting her were soft and smooth, the winds skillful and sympathetic in their echoing of the solo line. Gilbert emphasized the aggressive plurality of conflicting orchestral voices in the scherzo, with malicious pizzicato strings, wild winds, and dangerous brass. Batiashvili too embraced the unsettling mischief of the movement, varying her bowing technique, sometimes sweeping or bouncing against the strings, sometimes playing with almost delirious fluidity. Against the driven rhythms of the strings, the anxious questioning of the woodwinds, the plunging brass in the third movement, the dreamy romanticism of the solo violin wins an improbable victory. The intensity of the opera, in the second half, was of a different nature.

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.

Patricia Racette: Diva on Detour (and right at home)

"Would you be interested in attending a live recording session for a cabaret album Patricia Racette is doing?" is a question admitting of only one answer. And so, Gentle Readers, I found myself yesterday at the studio of GPR Records, in an atmosphere fizzing with champagne and cheerful anticipation. Eventually, we settled ourselves, obediently applauded for sound technicians, and then Craig Terry took his place at the Bechstein, and Racette entered and took possession of the room. The contrast with the physical space of the Met could hardly have been more dramatic (the diva flattened herself against the piano in mock alarm) and the smoky smolder Racette brought to the evening's program was a far cry from her Tosca. But it turns out the soprano has a voice for Piaf, as well as Puccini, and she sang the cabaret program with the same emotional directness that has won me over in the opera house. The evening was opened with an energetic medley of "Get Happy" and "I got Rhythm," filled with a joy mirrored in audience cheers when Racette sang "I got rhythm / I got music / I got my gal..." The follow-up of "Here's that Rainy Day" was given with an unrestrained tenderness pointed up by pianistic melancholy.  Racette performed Vernon Duke's "Not a Care in the World" with exuberant flair for jazzy syncopations. With the smoky sensuality of "Angel Eyes," we were all drawn into the painful aftermath of a relationship's disintegration. Necessary respite was accorded as Racette invited us to laugh with her as she sang "I'm calm (I'm calm, I'm perfectly calm.)"

Ogni farfalla da uno spillo è trafitta

I have a Really Shameful Confession, Gentle Readers: before last night, I'd never seen Madama Butterfly live. I don't know how many times I listened to recordings before being able to do so without an intermission to stalk wrathfully around the apartment, grumbling choice epithets for Pinkerton... but I digress. I went for the sake of Patricia Racette's Cio-Cio-San, and out of curiosity about Anthony Minghella's production; neither disappointed. Seen in person at last, Minghella's production is indeed stunningly beautiful, as well as overtly theatrical. With so problematic a text, it struck me as no bad expedient to force the audience into awareness of how artificial the presentation of this brutal drama as romantic spectacle is. The Personenregie was musically sensitive and highlighted personal interactions intelligently and poignantly. While the stylized crowd scenes appear as through Pinkerton's (exoticizing, Othering) perspective, more intimate moments are staged to reflect Butterfly's point of view. This is haunting in the orchestral lead-in to Act II (one moment, domestic bliss; the next, Pinkerton simply disappears) and during the Humming Chorus, but perhaps most effective in the ecstatic finale of Act I, a fantasy of lanterns and showering peonies. (All that said, the staging is not unproblematic, as Zerbinetta of Likely Impossibilities has pointed out.) Racette's performance was the musical highlight, though other singers made notable contributions as well.

Ecco un artista!

Photo credits to Cory Weaver and the Met via the New York Times; Opera Chic has ferreted out some others, including a great one of Terfel's Scarpia. Update: YouTube has been plundered for audio excerpts from the 24 April performance. Scroll down for links! Update II: the Met has posted pictures!

So. Tosca. While I've been trying to pull myself together, professional reviewers have made their contributions, which I don't want to simply rehash. And I've been soul-searching: what am I doing here? why am I commenting? Well, in this case especially, as a cathartic personal exercise; I remember this performance and my pulse quickens, my hands tremble. I try to start writing and end up huddled muttering "My God my God my God..." I need to try to explain that. I want to share my joy in what I experienced, knowing how I hang on the words of other opera-lovers as they describe this or that performance that held them spellbound. And even in this strange medium simultaneously obscure and public, I want to pay tribute to the artists who gave me this. I will take as encouragement the words of a nice older man named Bruce, who turned to me as we sat on a bench waiting to take our standing room places for last year's Siegfried: "And do you also know opera?" he asked. I stammered that I didn't think I could claim that, but that I certainly did love it--oh, I certainly did love it, and I was trying to learn. He patted me on the shoulder in avuncular fashion. "If you feel that way about it, young lady," he said, "you know it. Or you will." So, with no further authorization, Tosca.

Mia Tosca idolatrata

At the risk of losing all credibility by enthusing effusively for two successive operas, I have to say that Wednesday's "Tosca" was an extraordinary experience. I am firmly and passionately in the camp that argues for "Tosca" as intelligent, effective drama. There are so many moments in it which leave me in awe of Puccini--how did he know to do that?--and I am a happy believer in Tosca and Mario and Scarpia as complex, passionate people. So, my susceptibility (but also the choosiness that is based on love!) having been established, onwards.

To be honest, I can't quite say "ogni cosa in te mi piace" about the Met's current production, but let me try to follow the King's advice from Alice and begin at the beginning (and, when I come to the end, stop.) Luc Bondy's stark new production, and the Met audience's reaction to it, have both achieved notoriety by this point. But having seen it twice now (in standing room for the glamor--and, as it turns out, for the boos--of the season premiere) I think I can honestly say that... it's hit and miss. In Act I, the image of the Virgin at which Tosca prays is invisible to the audience. The space in which the action of Act I takes place is simply a stark, slightly untidy work space. Act II is... well, I still think it's ugly. Scarpia's walls are mustard-yellow and chocolate brown; he has aggressively magenta sofas, large maps on the walls, a writing desk (of course!) and a tiny table with one straight chair and one armchair for his "povera cena." And a throw rug which looks like something from IKEA gone wrong, which I was mercifully spared this time by standing in the orchestra instead of at the top. Act III is, again, stark, monumental. No angel, but a sheer staircase leading up to the battlements on the right, and a hatch in the center for the soldiers' entrances and exits. It's a comfortless, exposed place; the production as a whole does not seek to distract from the bleak realities of the plot. The approach is mostly naturalistic, with a few exceptions in lighting (stark spotlights on Angelotti's entrance, an ominous, hospital-bright glow from the off-stage room in Act II) and blocking (there's no plausible reason for Scarpia to enter the church and climb a staircase so that he overlooks the entire set... but it sure does make an entrance!) I think the first and third acts work well; I don't think a sensualist like Scarpia would have an ugly study! but there. More images from the whole thing here.