Elina, Karel, and Carmen

The pavements of the Bronx are icy, and I'm holed up getting work done instead of going to the opera.  But before this blog resumes its regular programming next week, here's a tidbit to warm you in wintriest weather.  In the two performances I've heard her in, Elina Garanca has wowed me with her vocal talent and ability, and left me wishing there were more apparent connection between her voice and the drama of the music she sings.  Here she is, in a 2006 concert, singing "Les tringles des sistres tintaient."  Her husband, Karel Mark Chichon, is on the podium.  If you can't see the entire frame of this video in the blog, click through to YouTube so that you can.


Cold is the last word I'd use.  Am I imagining things?  Is this hometown crowd magic? Should the opera houses of the world be asking for more of the Garanca-Chichon couple at the same time?

S'il y a des sorcières...

I decided to take refuge from NYC's winter rains in sunny Seville, and headed down to see Elina Garanca's polarizing Carmen on Tuesday evening.  I'm glad I did: she has a vocally superb Carmen ("Duh!" you may exclaim, Gentle Readers; and you are right to do so, given the reactions of the international press.  Still, I was genuinely surprised by just how good she was.)  Furthermore, I feel as though she also has a fascinating Carmen just waiting to break free.  There are more details on Richard Eyre's production in my review of the performance I saw last season, with a different cast, than I'll include here.  Although it's fair to say that Eyre could have exploited and explored the 1930s setting of his Carmen more, the production stood up very well for me in this second viewing.  The action flows well, there's a clear point of view on Carmen's world, it can comfortably house a variety of different interpretative choices, and caricature is avoided.

Love, Death, and Local Color: Cavalleria and La Navarraise

I blame the scaffolding for the lighting.
I could also claim it's an artistic effect.

The Opera Orchestra of New York's much-anticipated return to the musical landscape was, for me, actually a Planned Event rather than Spontaneous Frivolity.  The orchestra, conducted by Alberto Veronesi, played with energy and sensuality, if not faultlessly.  There were a few brass wobbles, and I thought I noted one missed cue.  Veronesi seemed to have very clear ideas about how both verismo operas should sound, however: atmospheric and unabashedly, urgently emotional.  His website is still under construction, but according to Opera News he will be officially directing the OONY from next season onwards.  Technical faults are fixable, so I look forward to good and exciting things.

Usual caveats in place about the fact that I am feeling my way into the vocabulary, not to mention the more technical aspects of musical appreciation, I found the singing of Cavalleria curiously uneven.  The sexiest thing about Lola was her red dress (nerves, maybe?)  Alfio, Carlos Almaguer, seemed to have a nice timbre, but this was masked by a tendency to bellow, which affected intelligibility as well.  Veteran artist Mignon Dunn was a treat as Mamma Lucia, vividly characterized and sung.  Maria Guleghina sang a Santuzza I wanted to like more than I did.  With a warm tone and dramatic commitment she created a Santuzza with uncommon understanding of herself and Turiddu, and a resulting gentleness which was quasi-matronly.  Even phrases like "Turiddu mi tolsi l'onore" were more informed by fond memory than by present anguish.  (Quite a contrast with Waltraud Meier, who created a Santuzza straight out of a Greek tragedy, fierce and rawly passionate.)    Interesting as she was, though, she was occasionally inaccurate, and more than occasionally nigh-inaudible, which I found puzzling and disappointing.  Alagna sounded darker, stronger, and more focused than when I heard him in a run of Cav/Pag at the Met last spring.  (And I heard him from the orchestra, thanks to rush tickets, so the potential problem of his not-very-large voice getting lost should have been obviated?)  At any rate, I was quite impressed.  Curiously, he was the only performer on book for Cavalleria and I missed the unrestrained energy of his on-stage Turiddu.  Still, he sang vividly, and "Mamma, quel vino" was sung with a sob in the voice, urgent with desperation and remorse.