From Edward Bond
Thought for the day
4
Author Archives: operaramblings
Just for fun 5/n
This is an ad from a Royal Opera House programme from July 1976. Fings ain’t wot they use to be.
Best of 2011
Herewith a personal take on the best things that came my way operatically in 2011.
Live performances
It was a pretty good year for live opera in Toronto. I’m certainly not going to complain about two Robert Carsen productions in the same calendar year. Good though the Gluck was though top honours in the fully staged opera in a real theatre go to the COC’s Ariadne auf Naxos. Neil Armfield’s production was fairly conventional but the music making was superb. Adrienne Pieczonka, Jane Archibald and Alice Coote headlined with strong support from Richard Margison and a whole bunch of past and present Studio Ensemble members. The orchestral playing too was absolutely first class and Sir Andrew Davis conducting looked like he was enjoying it as much as the audience. Later in the year I think we had a bit of “a star is born moment”. Christopher Alden’s Rigoletto was challenging enough that I wanted to see it a second time so took the chance to get a cheap ticket for the B cast. Thus I got to see the extraordinary chemistry between two very fine young singers; David Lomeli and Simone Osborne. Go see them if you get a chance. Actually, nothing at the COC seriously disappointed in 2011 (well maybe the The Magic Flute had a bit of a 200th performance of my career feel to it.) It looks like we are moving at last into an era when Toronto gets consistently high class singers and conductors in decent or better productions. It’s a shame there are only seven productions per year.
As for smaller venues, highlights included Against the Grain’s funky La Boheme in the highly outlandish setting of the Tranzac Club and Queen of Puddings’ world premiere of Ana Sokolov’s Svadba – Wedding; an hour long piece for six unaccompanied female voices. There were also any number of excellent free lunchtime concerts in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.
DVD
The surprise highlight of the year for me was the restored print of the 1961 Rosenkavalier from Salzburg. Everything about it is surprising and wonderful and undermines a great deal of received wisdom about opera in that era. Other personal discoveries were the Salzburg King Arthur (who knew Germans could be funny?) and Calixto Bieito’s truly disturbing Wozzeck starring Franz Hawlata at his very considerable best.
Personal epiphany
I started the year thinking I didn’t really like John Adams much. I had hated the Met broadcast of Doctor Atomic and while I liked some of the non-operatic stuff rather more I wasn’t a fan. After watching Nixon in China twice in 24 hours (COC on the Friday night followed by the Met broadcast on the Saturday) and attending a lunchtime concert of arias introduced by the composer and sung by Peter McGillivray and Betty Wayne Allison I was converted. I even went back and watched the Amsterdam production of Doctor Atomic on DVD. I still think Doctor Atomic has its weaknesses but Nixon in China is pretty much a masterpiece.
On-line stuff
I started this blog as a way of keeping up writing analytically while I wasn’t working. It’s helped keep me sane. Through this and Twitter and other on-line stuff I’ve met some really cool people in 2011; some in meatspace including Lydia of Definitely the Opera, Cicely Carver from COC, couturier Rosemary Uhmetsu and up and coming soprano Simone Osborne. On-line folks who have helped this year along are really too numerous to mention individually but thanks anyway!
Other stuff that happened
I met Lawrence Brownlee and Leonardo Vordoni in the cinema at a MetHD broadcast! I discovered that baritone Brett Polegato (one of the funniest people in opera) has a little grey cat called Lady Jane Grey just like my little grey monster.
The gods look down and laugh
Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2008 and got a DVD and Blu-ray release on Opus Arte not long after. It’s the sort of work I’m susceptible to. It’s a truly integrated music drama based on a classical, indeed universal, theme carried off without any kowtowing to current ideas of trendiness. I’ve watched it a few times now and like most modern works of substance it reveals more with a bit of time and effort.
Librettist David Harsent’s take on the Minotaur myth is not at odds with versions many people will be familiar with (though whether in this day and age I’m not at all sure it’s safe to assume, as Harsent does, that “people are going in with a basic knowledge of the story”) but it does add some interesting ideas. His Minotaur, Asterios in this story, is articulate as a human only in his dreams and his dying moments. At these times he sings in English. As the awake monster in the Labyrinth he is restricted to inarticulate grunts. Also original is Harsent’s take on the relationship between Theseus and Ariadne. He sees this as a thoroughly corrupt relationship based on mutual need but riddles with disgust rather than love and so looking forward to the abandonment on Naxos. It works rather well. With those concepts in place we get a pretty straightforward account of the standard myth with some thoroughly brutal scenes of Asterios killing (and in one case raping) the Innocents in the Labyrinth to the blood curdling encouragement of a masked chorus of spectators. Another non-canonical addition at this point is the introduction of the truly horrific Keres who appear to feast on the bodies and the souls of the victims. It all leads up naturally to the death of Asterios at the hands of Theseus.
Birtwistle’s score is dense, multilayered and uncompromising. It’s clearly Birtwistle and makes no concessions to the current trend to try and make opera sound like a Broadway show. It’s not an easy listen but it repays a bit of effort and contains many interesting and deft ideas. For example Ariadne is paired throughout with the alto saxophone. Sometimes it takes up her singing line and carries it forward, sometimes it doubles her line and so on but nowhere does the saxophone interact with any other character. There’s a similar relationship between Theseus and the more conventional woodwind elements of the orchestra.
The design and direction; Alison Chitty and Stephen Langridge respectively, are very well integrated and are brilliantly supported by the lighting design of Paul Pyant. The result is some quite striking stage imagery that supports the changing moods of the piece really well. They also give us the mask that Asterios wears. It’s a framework affair so depending on the lighting Asterios can be fully beast or his human face under the mask can be made more present. It’s subtle and effective.
The performances are pretty much flawless. John Tomlinson, as Asterios, excels in a piece created for him. Christine Rice as Ariadne manages some really difficult music and a really long sing (she’s on stage nearly all the time) equally well. Johan Reuter (Theseus) has slightly off English intonation but sings powerfully and acts well. There are some excellent performances in the minor roles. For my money the best of these is the First Innocent of Rebecca Bottone who manages to look incredibly fragile but totally convincing during what is perhaps the most visceral scene of all where she is raped and killed by Asterios. There are very good cameos too from Amanda Echalaz as Ker and Philip Langridge as Hiereus. Antonio Pappano conducts and gets the necessary out of both orchestra and chorus.
The video direction is very good indeed. It appears to be a joint effort by Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer. The balance of setting shots and close ups is judicious and the close ups aren’t too close. They eschew silly camera angles. The picture on Blu-ray is 16:9 1080i and very good indeed. Sound is DTS 5.0 HD Master Audio and presents a vivid sound picture with good depth and breadth (PCM stereo also available). There are English, French, German, Spanish and Italian subtitles. The documentation includes a useful essay on the music and the disk has a 32 minute “Making of” documentary that is more informative than most of its kind.
All in all, this is a very impressive work, beautifully realised on stage and well presented on disk.
For the record the Opus Arte trailer and the whole piece are available on YouTube but the AV quality is appalling.
Old fashioned fun
Puccini’s La Rondine has a plot that’s lightweight even by opera standards but it also has some really good tunes and plenty of opportunities for a star tenor and soprano to show off. In 2009 the Metropolitan Opera presented it as a vehicle for on again, off again couple Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu. Judging by the body language on and off stage this was definitely an “on again” phase. The production (Nicolas Joël), staging (Stephen Barlow) and design (Ezio Frigerio) don’t have a single thing in them that would cause concern to the most conservative of opera goers. The whole thing oozes old fashioned opulence. It’s the first time I’ve heard an audience applaud the sets! (Baldrick, you’ld laugh at a Shakespeare comedy). So no Regie here!
What we get is a beautifully sung and played performance. Gheorghiu sings gorgeously throughout and Alagna is not far behind. Their acting hows off some real sexual chemistry and if Gheorghiu tends to play the dive, well it’s that sort of role and that sort of production. They get well supported by Marius Brenciu, as the poet Prunier, and Lisette Oropesa, as the maid Lisette. These two basically provide the comic relief to the slightly cloying romantic main plot. Monica Yunus, Alyson Cambridge, Liz DeShong and Samuel Ramey take the other important roles and all are perfectly competent and true to character. The only aspect of the staging that doesn’t quite come off is the bar scene in Act 2. It’s all a bit too busy and there is some not very well thought through “drunk” choreography. Otherwise it’s basically a drawing room drama so not too, too hard to pull off. The orchestral playing is unsurprisingly good with the kind of music the Met orchestra excels in and Marco Armiliato conducting.
The video direction by Brian Large is OK. Given how much of the piece is two people talking, snogging or groping close ups seem a perfectly reasonable choice much of the time. The approach doesn’t work so well in Act 2 where a little more distance would have helped. Technically the DVD is an absolutely standard EMI treatment of a MetHD broadcast. The picture is very good 16:9 and the DTS 5.1 soundtrack is clear and spacious (LPCM stereo available too). English, French, German, Spanish and Italian subtitles and rather basic documentation in English with French and German PDF versions on the disk. Renée Fleming does the interval interviews which are about as revealing as usual (not at all).
All in all, it’s a lightweight piece but enjoyable and it would be hard to imagine a much better performance.
The Met’s Peter Grimes
I liked the 2008 MetHD broadcast of Britten’s Peter Grimes enough to buy the DVD as soon as it came out. After something of a hiatus I just watched it again.
It’s an odd production. The director (Tony award winning – run for the hills) John Doyle, was the first to use, I think, what has now become a Met cliché; a wall with windows running the whole width and height of the set. In this case it can be moved forward and back but mostly it’s forward compressing the depth of the stage. The idea is to convey the claustrophobic nature of the Borough which is fair enough but mostly what it does it confine the enormous chorus to a space it barely fits in meaning there are few options but to have it face straight forward in serried ranks and sing. To be fair, there are scenes where it’s very effective; the opening inquest scene for example and “Peter, we’ve come to take you home” in Act 3. It’s much less successful in, for example, the pub scene. The production is also very dark. This always bothers me because despite eating vast quantities of carrots my night vision isn’t great. I don’t really get it.
Dark as a metaphor is pretty blatant and comes at a heavy cost in terms of the production’s ability to convey anything else. Only at the end, in the final chorus, is the wall removed and the stage lit less funereally. The sea interludes are played out in front of a blank wall. No effort is made to give them visual accompaniment. The “wall” and the naked Interludes both tend to banish the sea from the production. There’s really no sense that the Borough is a fishing village and therefore the whole role that the sea plays in the psyche of people who make their living from it is lost.
The video director, Gary Halvorson, appears either to hate the production or think that the cinema/DVD audience is too thick to get it because he relentlessly undermines it. Unable to present the dark, stark stage that Doyle has called for he gives us a compilation of super closeups and really weird camera angles; pointing up from the side of the pit, pointing down from what looks like the cheapest seats at the outermost edge of Ring 4 and so on. He also can’t accept that the director doesn’t want to distract from the music during the Interludes so we get a succession of close ups on audio members and, more especially, on conductor Donald Runnicles. This is particularly unfortunate as Runnicles conducts like a hyperactive and self regarding pterodactyl.
The above got over with there’s much to like in this DVD set. The performances are generally very good. Tony Dean Griffey is a highly effective Peter Grimes as well as singing very well. He’s close to Peter Pears in his almost dreamy interpretation. He lacks the intensity of Langridge or the brutality of Vickers but its a valid and compelling portrayal. Anthony Michaels-Moore almost steals the show as Balstrode. This is surely the best take on the role since Geraint Evans. The sense that he’s the one man who really wants to help Grimes but knows when enough is enough is overwhelming. There are good performances in the other male roles especially from Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Ned Keene. The women are more of a mixed bag. I still can’t really get into Patricia Racette’s Ellen Orford. She acts well and is sometimes very lyrical but at other times she seems shrill and her vibrato too much for my taste. The Auntie of Jill Groves though is really good. Even toned and with a suitably cynical but not unkind persona she nails the role. The Mrs. Sedley of the timeless(1) Felicity Palmer is also quite excellent. She’s acid without being unmusical and not at all caricature like. Donald Runnicles takes things at a generally rather leisurely pace which makes the first act in particular drag a bit but the tension does build and there’s no disputing the beauty of the orchestral playing. The chorus is excellent throughout.
Technically it’s a typical DVD transfer of a MetHD broadcast. The picture quality is very good and the DTS 5.1 sound is excellent (LPCM also available). There are subtitles in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. There’s a track listing, synopsis and unhelpful essay printed in English (French and German versions in PDF on the disk). The interval features are typical but livened up a bit by Natalie Dessay who seems more willing to go off script than the other Met regulars (probably why she no longer seems to appear).
Bottom line, it’s good but I’m still searching for the ultimate DVD Grimes.
fn1 timeless as in I saw the, then, Ms. Palmer sing Pamina the month after I saw Vickers sing Grimes in 1975
The Infernal Comedy
The Infernal Comedy: Confesions of a serial killer is a “Drama for one actor, two singers and orchestra” based around the story of real-life serial killer Jack Unterweger. It features John Malkovich, Laura Aikin, Aleksandra Zamojka and the Wiener Akademie under Martin Haselböck. It was written and directed by Michael Sturminger and filmed in front of a live audience in Vienna’s Kronacher Theater in 2009. It’s a really creepy piece in which Malkovich plays the dead Unterweger on a book tour promoting his posthumous memoirs. Unterweger’s string of anecdotes, puzzles and philosophising is punctuated by arias from the two sopranos from works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Weber and others on the theme of women’s mistreatment by men. During much of this Malkovich is portraying the humiliation and murder that Unterweger inflicted on his victims on the two singers. This is probably the only chance, short of a Stefan Herheim production, that you’ll get to see Laura Aikin strangled with her own bra. It’s really creepy.
The performances are really good. Malkovich, of course, is that rarity; a Hollywood star who can actually act. Not only does act, and very well, he does it with an Austrian accent. He is very convincing as Unterweger. Some of his angry outbursts are really quite terrifying. The girls sing really well and are totally committed to doing what they have to do on stage, which largely consist of putting up with considerable indignities from Malkovich/Unterweger while still managing to sing. The orchestra, on period instruments, sounds just right. The whole thing is very well filmed and has really good DTS 5.1 sound (DD 2.0 and 5.1 as well). The English subtitles for the arias are a bit odd. I have no idea what “I encore you to Lethe’s opposite bank” means! There’s a 45 minute “making of” documentary on the disk as well but it’s not very illuminating.
All in all, well worth a look.
Giulio Cesare in Australia
Opera DVDs from Australia are as rare as Canadian ones and for the same reason. The national broadcaster’s approach to the arts would put the Philistines to shame so opera broadcasts from which DVDs can be produced are passing rare. The one under review here is a 1994 production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare from the Sydney Opera House.
There’s a lot to like about it. The stage production by Francisco Negrin is fairly conventional but attractive to look at and contains some very effective touches. He makes good use of an apron in front of the pit and he uses the rather minor character of Nireno to some effect as a sort of silent chorus on the action. Costumes are sort of 1900ish with odd touches like breastplates and Egyptian dancers and supers in white body and face make up. Sets are mostly simple with typical Egyptian iconography. Cleopatra is naked in her bath when she receives Caesar which would probably be too much for the more staid North American houses today, let alone twenty years ago. The choreography by Gregory Nash makes very effective use of a talented group of dancers. Best if all from the point of view of watching on DVD the video direction by Peter Butler is very respectful of Negrin’s intentions and gives us a real good view of all of the action.
On top of that there is some excellent singing especially by Graham Pushee in the title role. Not everyone likes to see a countertenor in this role but Pushee makes a good case for it. He’s fuller toned than most and has excellent control of his coloratura and ornamentation. He’s also a very good actor. Overall, he may be the best in this role that I have seen. The Tolomeo of Andrew Dalton makes a good foil. He’s a reedy, nasal counter tenor of an older type but that works quite well for the weak and scheming character he portrays. The Achilla of Stephen Bennett is also top notch building to a fine climax in Act 3 with “In tal’ modi si premia”. Rodney Gilchrist as Nireno doesn’t have a lot to do vocally but he’s present and contributing so much of the time that he deserves a special mention. The orchestra under Richard Hickox uses modern instruments but doesn’t go heavy or mushy.
I was initially somewhat ambivalent about Yvonne Kenny’s Cleopatra. I’ve got used to this role being sung by much younger singers than the 44 year old Kenny and it has to be that she looks and sounds very mature for Cleopatra. That said she sings with great gusto and bold coloratura. She acts well too but she does struggle a bit to be the sex kitten who seduces the stuffy Caesar. Despite this by the third act and, especially, her really committed “Da tempeste il legno infranto” I was pretty much won over by her sheer enthusiasm. There’s something of the same problem with Rosemary Gunn’s Cornelia. It’s hard to think of Ms. Gunn as the bombshell who has half of Egypt lusting after her, despite a pretty decent performance overall..
What’s not to like? Not too much really. Elizabeth Campbell’s Sesto is a bit shrill and generally not very convincing dramatically. The biggest negative though is the technical quality of the disk which scarcely does justice to Butler’s efforts. The sound, Dolby 2.0, is OK but the 4:3 picture really isn’t all that great. There’s no way one can fit 207 minutes of opera onto a single DVD9 and have great video quality. 4:3 doesn’t help either as the stage is the sets are wide but not very high (so I guess an extra bonus point for avoiding the close up trap). The subtitles are English only and the documentation is limited to a chapter list. Bottom line, a good effort rather spoiled by el cheapo production for disk(1).
This version does have the merit of being inexpensive but it’s up against strong competition from Copenhagen and Glyndebourne. Both houses offer much more recent productions at much higher technical quality. At a price.
fn1. This performance appears to be available in a different package outside North America. It has Dolby 5.1 and DTS sound tracks and, I suspect, is spread across two disks. Certainly the track numbering n the version I watched and the way it behaves if played with vlc suggests two VIDEO-TS folders crammed onto one disk.
Faust – 10/10 for trying
After all the negatives about McAnuff Faust my expectations for this afternoon’s HD broadcast were pretty low. I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t think the production is perfect but I don’t think it’s incoherent let alone dull. It also made me think a lot about the opera and the characters and that’s a good thing. Overall, it’s the sort of production I’d like to see more of. Far better a production that slightly over reaches than dull mediocrity.
From corpse to corpse
I managed to get my hands on the DVD of the Gianni Schicchi that formed the second half of the evening’s entertainment with The Miserly Knight that I reviewed yesterday (Glyndebourne 2004). It’s the same creative team of Jurowski and Arden and they reinforce the end on a corpse, start on a corpse symmetry by using the aerialist Matilda Leyser as the corpse in Schicchi. Both Jurowski and Arden stress the dark side of the work in interviews but to be honest it comes off here more as a madcap comedy. Perhaps that was inevitable when following the very dark and enigmatic Rachmaninov piece. It’s set around the time of the work’s composition and a unit set with balcony and bed and a cupboard to stuff the body in serve throughout. It’s workmanlike and effective. The blocking is very precise and effective. After all there are at least eight characters on stage throughout this piece. Arden moves and groups them with precision and my only beef is that (surprise) we miss much of her careful work because of closeupitis.
The performances are excellent. Alessandro Corbelli is superb in the title role confirming my opinion of him as one of the great comic baritones. The acid aunt Zita is wonderfully played by the seemingly timeless Felicity Palmer and the rest of the family back her up strongly with excellent ensemble work. Sally Matthews as Lauretta and Massimo Giordano as Rinuccio are the romantic interest and they are both good. Matthews manages a version of O mio babbino caro that is lovely to listen to and spectacularly insincere. She also acts very well and looks the part. Giodarno has a lovely Italianate tenor voice, acts well and is also most pleasant to listen to. Jurowski handles the score well building to some impressive climaxes where required, for example in the scene where the family are imagining all the good things the monks will get to eat from Buoso’s legacy.
The video direction isn’t as egregious here as in the Rachmaninov but it’s still annoying. The scene where Schicchi is preparing to impersonate Buoso is particularly irritating. Technical details and standard of execution are the same as for the Rachmaninov. The interviews with Jurowski, Arden and Corbelli are also equally good. I could listen to Jurowski talk about music and its relationships to other art forms and social developments for a long, long time. Just a reminder that this is also available as a double bill with the Rachmaninov on Blu-ray as well as separately on DVD.
It will be interesting to see how this compares to the upcoming COC production which will be paired with the very dark Eine florentinische Tragödie by Zemlinsky from Wilde’s play. It has a starry cast, Sir Andrew Davis conducting and Catherine Malfitano directing so we may be in for a treat.
operaramblings 