Song of Norway: Grieg goes Broadway-style

Danieley, Silber, and Fontana sing of Norway. Photo (c) Erin Baiano

On Tuesday night, the eve of May, the Collegiate Chorale presented an appropriately romantic extravaganza at Carnegie Hall. The 1944 Song of Norway was the brainchild of Robert Wright and George Forrest, also responsible for the later and more famous The Great Waltz and Kismet. Commissioned as a light opera, Song of Norway was here presented as a musical, but a happily hybrid one, its material based on the music and life of Edvard Grieg. Melodramatic episodes are heaped with indiscriminate zeal onto a slight plot, but the show boasts considerable charm nonetheless. Dramatic chemistry was intermittent on the night (many of the singers glued to their scores) but the musical values were solid and I enjoyed myself along with the rest of the audience. The American Symphony Orchestra played well under the baton of Ted Sperling, treating sentimental crescendos and sprightly folk rhythms with a schmaltzy sincerity which would have done an MGM extravaganza proud. The ballet artists of the Tom Gold Dance Company credit for doing their best in a constrained space with limited choreography. The Collegiate Chorale was on superb form. As a multifunctional vox populi and provider of sound effects, they sang with good diction and smooth sound, performing their various dramatic functions creditably.

Se amar non puo, rispettami: Beatrice di Tenda

Orombello e Beatrice, Pelagio Palagi, 1845/50

At Beatrice di Tenda's Venetian premiere in 1833, the audience was vociferous in expressing their resentment of what they perceived as a derivative piece, not worth their long wait for a new work by Bellini. Giuditta Pasta, the diva for whom--and at whose instigation--it was written, resorted to dramatically declaiming to the unruly carnival-goers the line intended for the tyrannical baritone: "If you cannot love me, respect me!" The audience was quieted, and the opera survived, although in relative obscurity. At Wednesday's Carnegie Hall performance, by the joint forces of the Collegiate Chorale and the American Symphony Orchestra, the audience was docile, and gave the diva of the evening, Angela Meade, the acclaim she richly deserved. I found it impossible, however, to accord the work itself more than a somewhat reserved respect. Bellini's gift for melody is on fine display, and there are some impressive musical moments, but the parts of the opera, at least on this showing, failed to cohere into a gripping whole, despite the contributions of an accomplished cast.

Gloire à ce roi charmant: Le Roi Malgré Lui

Le Roi Malgré Lui, Emmanuel Chabrier's 1887 opera, is a curious work; admired for its creative orchestration by Ravel, Stravinsky, and others, it has nonetheless remained infrequently performed. Its somewhat convoluted comic plot is very loosely based on the sixteenth-century election of Henri de Valois as King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In Chabrier's hands, this becomes a whimsical tale of a young man who would definitely not like to be king, preferring the life (and loves) of a soldier-prince. To this end he joins the elite conspiracy against himself, which is led by his bitter ex-lover Alexina, who is married to his chamberlain. To a doggerel libretto which Chabrier himself wryly likened to a stew, disguises, romantic duets, and mistaken identities ensue, creating a degree of confusion exceptional even for comic opera. All ends with a rousing chorus, of course (it is indicative of the opera's tone that dire warnings are interrupted by lovers' vows, and the actual plotting is overshadowed by a waltz.) The French and the Poles indulge in gleeful mutual stereotyping, with jokes at the expense of each and music to match, e.g. the Fête polonaise. There's even a romance between the king's best friend (Nangis, the tenor) and a local girl (Minka, who sings gypsy songs about love.) On paper, it's all rather charming; in practice it is considerably more than that. 

Opening of Act III (ensemble). Photo (c) Cory Weaver

The score really is lovely, always ready to undercut its own conventions with unexpectedly poignant harmonies or sly instrumentation, combining romance and satire to good dramatic effect, with fine individual characterization; I appreciated many of its nuances more when seeing the staging rather than just listening. The American Symphony Orchestra, under Leon Botstein, contributed lively playing, and brought off both fanfares and nocturnes nicely. Moreover, the production created for Bard SummerScape by Thaddeus Strassberger is smart, sleek, and sexy, combining historical and musical intelligence. Chabrier's score hints that the grand patriotic choruses and solemn vows are perhaps not to be taken too seriously, and states outright that indulging in romantic idealization is almost certain to lead to trouble. Strassberger brings us, via a credits sequence over the overture that could have been modeled on that of The Prisoner of Zenda, to a Hollywood soundstage of the era of Lubitsch and Selznick. Here the chorus is divided between dilettantes at a Casablanca-era roulette table and card-playing dilettantes powdered and bewigged in the manner of Europe's anciens régimes. Spectator to all of this is a Chabrier lookalike who turns out to be Basile, an obsequious innkeeper introduced in the third act as the manager of the sort of hotel where rooms are paid for by the hour. He sits in a dingy room, unfurnished save for his armchair, his television set... and a large, framed photograph of John Paul II, a clever allusion to Henri de Valois' participation in the French Wars of Religion (and the religion which was not the least of his qualifications as king-elect of Poland,) which is also used to bitterly satirize hypocritical and unavailing piety later on. To enumerate all such elements would be unavailing, if not actually impossible; the production is very busy. To a fault? Possibly; but the 'background' is usually accomplishing something as well as doing something, if only to call attention to a diversity of sexual and religious identities often obscured on the stages of Belle Epoque Paris and 1930s Hollywood (not to mention our own) if not in their audiences. Bourgeois aspiration dependent on elitism, consumerism, the sort of misogyny that cloaks itself in a patronizingly indulgent manner... there's not much that doesn't come in for satire. This reading of the libretto is so effective that it's hard to imagine Chabrier didn't at least see its possibilities. Believe it or not, it is a comedy: the waltz is given a dance routine recalling Astaire, and Minka's torch songs are staged with an extravagance that would have delighted Sam Goldwyn. As the disrupted staging of the final tableau makes clear, life's emotional and political entanglements can rarely be resolved with a rousing chorus.

Man lebt ja nur ein einzig mal: Schmidt's Notre Dame

Franz Schmidt's Notre Dame, a work of lushly romantic orchestration and extravagantly romantic sensibility, was completed in 1906, but not premiered until April of 1914. It enjoyed some popularity between the world wars, but has remained in one of the operatic repertory's dustier corners. The American Symphony Orchestra polished it up nicely for a concert performance at Carnegie Hall this Sunday. (To judge by the impassioned tone of his accompanying note, music director Leon Botstein may have taken the primary initiative in the project.) The program claims structural similarities between Notre Dame and Berg's Wozzeck. The development of Notre Dame through loosely linked scenes, and the use of its orchestra, which holds a little aloof from the singers, may bear this out. I found it far more reminiscent of Korngold, with sweeping symphonic intermezzi and rich orchestral illustration of place and character. (The only complete recording I know of features Gwyneth Jones as the gypsy Esmeralda, Kurt Moll as Quasimodo, and James King as Phoebus.) Although Phoebus is heralded with military trumpets, and the solemn archdeacon accompanied by imposing brass and organ, Esmeralda is the only one whose character, rather than function, is (it is implied) illustrated by the orchestra. True, the shimmering strings, evoking "folk" harmonies of central Europe before swelling into harp-crowned ecstasies, are very much about how Esmeralda is envisioned by all those around her, but it also appears to demonstrate her innate goodness, kindness, etc. Which brings me to what seems to be the central focus of Schmidt's opera, the Ewig-Weibliche.

There are a number of characters in Notre Dame who never meet each other; driving the drama is the fact that a Heldentenor, a dramatic tenor, a baritone, and a bass all adore or lust after the gypsy dancer (soprano.) Hugo's plot is drastically condensed, with a few narrations of past events to fill in blank spots. The vocal writing is substantially declamatory; one of the characteristics I found most fascinating was the tendency of different personages to "talk over" each other, intensely preoccupied with their own emotions or goals; only the orchestra has the whole picture. Von Hoffmannsthal, incidentally, saw the opera in 1914 and wrote Strauss about it; he liked the music, but dismissed the text as absurd. The opera is in many ways richly symphonic, with a rich prelude to each act, and three intermezzi (the first of these was premiered on its own, and remains independently performed.) Botstein kept tempi fairly steady, letting the orchestration speak for itself in matters of dramatic nuance and motivation. Strong support was lent by the Collegiate Chorale as the alternately jubilant and frenzied populace of Paris.