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.

O sorella in pio lavoro

The fabulous Puccini-loving professor strikes again! This morning's topic in the hagiography seminar was high medieval female spirituality, and our lively discussion brought us around to the subject of miracles related to pregnancies, usually miraculous terminations of (yes, you read that right; found in lives of St. Brigid, the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and an Icelandic bishop's life, among other places) and the relationship, or perceived relationship, between chastity and holiness. Which of course brought us to Suor Angelica, in a brief professorial aside. This made me giggle--I am so glad I'm not the only one occasionally distracted by operatic analogies to seminar topics--and also elicited a general "Huh?" which was answered with admirable brevity and verve.

Of course, this meant that my afternoon tea break was devoted to wandering the byways of YouTube for the exquisite "Senza Mamma." Scotto acts it beautifully (albeit with badly synchronized sound) in this video. Virginia Zeani gives instant-lump-in-the-throat anguish, while Renata Tebaldi gives an almost unbearably beautiful rendition. Caballe lingers on each tragic phrase to heartbreaking effect. The recording I'm familiar with (yes, that is a veiled Really Shameful Confession: recording, singular) features Cristina Gallardo-Domas, whose girlishness I find very touching. Victoria de los Angeles' Angelica is radiant even on YouTube; getting my hands on the classic Trittico which includes it will be a personal objective. You will have gathered by now that my romantic sympathies are fully engaged by the pathos of this aria. So many Angelicas, so many great sopranos (and others whose omission doubtless constitutes a crime), but I have to confess that this is the version which invariably makes me want to telephone my mother. The first time I heard it--in this collection--I actually did, alarming her no end, apparently, by spontaneous mid-week confessions of love and gratitude, despite reiterated assurances that I was really fine. Oh, opera, what you do to us.

Prendi, quest'è l'immagine

Squeezed into sold-out standing room at the top of the Met on Wednesday night, I finally made it to "La Traviata" (photo New York Post)! Update: production photos may be found here. My opera glasses were virtually glued to my face... except of course for when I was plying my handkerchief. The production was, often almost-too-literally, dazzling (I was reminded again of how much Franco Zeffirelli likes glitter.) ETRO was credited in the program for providing fabrics for Violetta's apartments... and it showed. I coveted her pillows like anything. (Perusing their website did not reveal a "Buy Traviata pillows here!" link; clearly an oversight!!) I do like Decker's production; "the old order changeth, yielding place to new, / lest one good custom should corrupt the world" and all that, but I am glad to have seen this in all its borderline-kitschy resplendence. The gowns were a sight to behold, but Alfredo's costumes were gorgeous. I want his blue coat! And his boots! Maybe when I am an eccentric professor. Also, I have no quarrel with ornate 1850s demi-mondaine apartments and country houses. Oil portraits in Act I vs. watercolor landscape medallions in Act II; hazy, gilt-framed mirrors vs. natural light pouring in from the garden... nice touches, I thought. Here is a collage of musical excerpts, with pictures.

Les plus sages sont les fous

Monday night's performance of Ambroise Thomas' "Hamlet" set me reeling, and not just--not even mostly--because I have the Shakespearean text quasi-memorized, its complex dramas held close to my heart. For one thing, I was taking in much of the music for the first time; NOT ideal, but what's a girl to do when the NYPL collections are non-circulating? For another, the Caurier-Leiser production was making a lot of interesting choices which kept me busily thinking. For another, the elegantly stylized costumes were making similarly provocative choices; Hamlet, for instance, was initially dressed in white (appropriately vulnerable and disheveled, pale as his shirt, but not in the trappings and the suits of woe), and Gertrude's hair and makeup were strongly reminiscent of a caricatured 1950s trophy wife. For another, there was the pungent, unmistakable smell of burning shortly before the interval... disquieting, especially when accompanied by the growing rustle of several hundred people shifting and whispering, the disturbance of several dozen people self-evacuating, and the businesslike, unanticipated activities of ushers in the darkness. The New York Fire Department was in evidence at the interval, but we were told that a light cover had begun to smoke and smolder but had been quickly doused with no danger to the public. A non-event, but added still further to the disquiet of the evening!

For it was a disquieting evening. The battlements of Elsinore might have been an innocuous stone gray slightly overgrown with moss, but their streaky color increasingly came to look like something stagnant, putrid... yes, rotten. The initially innocuous-seeming, even welcoming interior walls, with rosy brick and white paint gently netted with pink (suitable to Vaguely 19th Century setting) began first to look as though dripping with blood, and then began to inch closer to the protagonists, once literally swinging across to bar Hamlet's exit from a scene. "Denmark's a prison..." No liberty in this nutshell. This, the stark lighting, and the spare choreography made the whole thing a rather Brechtian (to use the term loosely) experience of being encouraged to sit back and think rather than lean forward and lose oneself. The banquet, appropriately in my view, formed the dramatic highlight of the evening, brilliantly staged with the "Murder of Gonzago" an obscene, offensive farce, shadows of dumbshow-king and dumbshow-queen looming grotesquely over the seated Claudius and Gertrude. When Keenlyside then leapt up onto the banqueting table and started scattering glassware, I think I stopped breathing, as he shouted and gibbered and repeated, chillingly, snatches of the drinking song he had earlier shared with the players. Here he is wrapped in the wine-soaked tablecloth. Different from Shakespeare. Shocking. Absolutely effective.

et resurrexit

I love Bach. But then I've said that before. I love the humanity of this, a boundlessly joyous celebration of the end of fear. A lot of this week has been spent thinking about the fear, violence, and hatred in the world... and it's painful to contemplate. But then there's Bach. Easter resolution: to work for joy, hope, and love. Joy, hope, and love, people!

Domine, ne in furore

For me, this is a week of much church, and also, therefore, a week of much music. Bach has been predictably checked out of the library, as has Brahms. The magic of music blogs has also been forthcoming, with an extraordinary recording of "Herr, unser Herrscher" shared at Dich, Teure Halle; the video has Renaissance art galore, for extra terror and beauty. And the recording from which it is taken is astonishingly cheap! Oh, the temptation of impulsive classical music purchases! (Parenthetical anecdote: in a far-too-good-for-me experience, I first heard the Johannespassion in a concert given at the beginning of Lent in the Elisabethkirche of Marburg. I was smitten.) Back to this year's Lent, though... I have even already taken a sneak peek at Easter with "I know that my Redeemer liveth" shared at Se Vuoi Pace. But before we get there really, there is a lot more music to be appreciated.