Nights at the Opera: 2014

However belatedly, I decided to round up a personal "best of" list for the last calendar year. It's always an enjoyable experience of revisiting... particularly poignant for me as I looked back on the last of my German opera-going (for now.) Due to my own relative restraint (not to say remissness) in attending, I've limited myself to a top three in my usual categories.

Standout performances:

Tanja Ariane Baumgartner. Selecting one of her performances was difficult, as she was one of the most reliably exciting singers in my Frankfurt season. But her Charlotte, in Werther, was not only richly sung, but intensely intelligent and intensely sensual; showing Charlotte as a lively, trammeled spirit, rather than a domestic saint, was much appreciated by me!

Anja Silja. She's still got it. She may have invented it. In Aribert Reimann's Gespenstersonate, she made parrot noises and commented on the human condition, and I was thrilled and terrified.

Le coeur se creuse: Werther in Frankfurt

Order vs. the artist: Werther, Act I
Photo © Oper Frankfurt/Wolfgang Runkel

Until last night, Werther belonged to the category of operas I'd never seen live, despite its being solidly established as part of the standard repertoire. I'm glad to have amended this under such favorable conditions: Frankfurt's current revival boasts not only an excellent cast, but a cool, intelligent production by Willy Decker that provides a welcome counterweight to the emotionalism of Massenet's score. Decker's visual language is straightforward and effective, dividing the nature where Werther absorbs experience and sensation from the Bailli's house by a sliding wall. The Bailli's reference to it as "his kingdom" appears as a hollow reference to a pretense of bourgeois order which he cannot uphold: the image of his dead wife has a stronger presence than any of the living in this repressed and depressive atmosphere. The emotions in the score are officially forbidden by the bourgeois society on stage: Massenet is writing in and for the time of Ibsen, not that of Goethe. The children's toy houses reappear as the village of Act II; Albert and Charlotte are separated as they are bound by the enormous dining table where they preside over all the parishioners. I particularly liked that Decker's production creates many silent, musically sensitive interactions among the characters which helped give a clear emotional through-line between the opera's episodes. Credit is due to the revival director, Alan Barnes, for making poignantly clear how each of the opera's characters is imprisoned. Even the Bailli is depressed rather than feckless; Schmitt and Johann function like Shakespearean mutes, personifying the unimaginative apathy which, as Goethe's protagonist observes, can be as dangerous as malice. It is they who bring the messages which interrupt Werther and Charlotte's attempts to break free of their prescribed social roles. Charlotte, for all the calm which Albert praises, has a lively intellectual life, and is aware, with painful intensity, of the emotional life which she is being denied. And for once we see a Werther whose Todessehnsucht is present (and credible) from the outset: he devotes himself to art and nature alike; but he is exhausted by the constant effort of maintaining his refusal to compromise.

Rêve! Extase! Bonheur!

The Met has announced its 2010-11 season! The press release is excitingly long, but not organized in such a way as to give a convenient overview of what's on. Ah well; for that I'll just have to wait for the glossy brochure advertising subscriptions to turn up on my doorstep. A number of productions from this season and last season are being revived... hard times even for the magnificent Met, I suppose. Looking on the bright side, though, it gives me a chance to explore these operas and productions more fully. In no particular order, a list of Things I Am Most Excited About in the coming season.

Je ne sais si je veille

I listened to several recordings of Massenet's "Werther" this past week, preparing myself for the Great Telecast Event. Then I reread Die Leiden des Jungen Werther, driven by terrible feelings of guilt. If Massenet had been inspired by Goethe's masterpiece to write an opera so darkly, intimately beautiful, surely I should give said masterpiece another try (my horrible, shameful confession is that I did not like Werther when I read it in school.) I don't know what was wrong with me the first time. Perhaps I failed to pick up on the self-awareness and gentle self-mockery with which Werther evaluates his own impressionable, impulsive nature. Perhaps I was too immaturely looking for "the main story" of Werther and his passion for Lotte, rather than absorbing all of Werther's experiences. In any case, this time, like thousands before me, I was drawn in, pulled along, and overwhelmed.

L'anima ho milionaria!

It's true that I have the very great fortune to live in a metropolis which boasts one of the world's great opera houses. For an opera-obsessed little girl in a big city, there may be no better place of refuge than the Met, with its sleek opulence, its friendly staff, and reliably glorious music (not to mention tickets for $20 and under at any non-gala performance.) However, when one is obsessed with opera, there are always more worlds to conquer. Right now, all over the world, opera is happening. While I cheerfully embrace the lofty-goals, low-income existence of a graduate student, there are times when I wish I could fly to Milan for Rigoletto, or budget a week at Bayreuth.