Where gay hussars are found

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OK I’m not going to pretend that Johann Strauss’ Der Zigeunerbaron is profound or anything but it is kind of fun, especially when given the no holds barred Mörbisch Seefestspiele treatment.  It’s a tale of mistaken identity and romance with some silly humour thrown in and lots of gypsies (complete with obligatory anvil chorus) and a hidden treasure.  Heinz Marecek’s 2000 production is old fashioned spectacular with scads of dancers, galloping hussars and rather outlandish costumes all set on the large Mörbisch island stage and complete with a noisy and spectacular firework display at the start of Act 3.  There are bonus pigs.

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Never mind the murder; that’s a detail

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The Real Don Giovanni is an extremely quirky 1998 docu-drama starring Sir Thomas Allen.  It’s set during a work when he is singing the Don at the Stavovské divadlo; site of the opera’s 1787 premier.  He’s also investigating his theory that Don Giovanni was based on Giacomo Casanova who was, indeed, he claims, much involved in the creation of the opera.  He pursues his research in various archives, including Duchkov Castle, ladies’ bedrooms and through an interesting encounter with two tarts in a graveyard..

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Pelléas et Mélisande in the Tanenbaum Courtyard Garden

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Hidden away up an alleyway behind the COC’s ioffice and rehearsal complex is a very beautiful garden.  I say hidden because I lived less than 200m away for 10 years before I discovered it.  Last night it made a rather magical setting for Against the Grain Theatre’s new production of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.  The piece is set in a gloomy castle and surrounding forest in Brittany.  The high, ivy covered walls and ironwork of the performance space, enhanced by Camelia Koo’s fractured flagstones forming patterns on the grass, evoked the essentially sunless world of Maeterlinck’s poem.  Costuming in the style of the period’s composition meshed nicely with the aesthetic of the roughly contemporary space.

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Girard’s Parsifal on Blu-ray

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François Girard’s production of Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera was much written about at the time of the HD broadcast in March 2013.  My review of that broadcast is here.I don’t think my opinion has changed very much.  It’s a powerful and intensely beautiful production and there are some wonderful performances, especially that of René Pape.  I’m not going to rehash the previous review but there were a few things I noticed second time around.  In Act 1, for instance, the gendering of the scene is mirrored in other ways to emphasize the polarity.  The knights are in white, the women in black.  The men are in orderly circles, the women are just a crowd.  Also the final scene is almost overwhelmingly intense.  Kaufmann sings quite beautifully with fine diction, gravitas and simply gorgeous high notes.  Pape caps off a performance of great pathpos and humanity with the gentle gesture with which he closes Kundry’s eyes in death.  It’s compelling stuff.

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Shelter

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Shelter; music by Juliet Palmer, libretto by Julie Salverson, has been ten years in the making.  It premiered in Edmonton a couple of years ago, finally, got its Toronto premiere at the Berkeley Street Theatre  last night under the auspices of Tapestry.  It’s a complex and eclectic piece dealing with what it is to be human in a nuclear age.  There are two parallel plots which intersect in a way that makes dramatic sense but violate conventional notions of synchronicity.  This is, after all, a piece rooted in post Einsteinian physics.  The first concerns Austrian Jewish physicist Lise Meintner, one of the discoverers of nuclear fission.  She has been forced into exile by the Anschluss and is seen here refusing to work on the Manhattan project.  The second plot concerns a highly stereotypical 1950s American couple Thomas and Claire who meet at a social, marry and quickly produce a child; Hope.  Their “American Dream” is shattered when it turns out that the baby glows!  Fast forward 21 years and Hope is demanding her freedom in a world from which she has thus far been sheltered.  Reenter Meintner, engaged by Thomas to be Hope’s tutor, and still obsessing about the Manhattan project.  The final twist comes with the arrival of the Pilot, in WW2 Army Air Corps uniform, who uses a Geiger counter to find his prey.  He fails to convince Meintner to change her mind but does persuade Hope to fulfill her destiny as He pilots the Enola Gay to 31,000 feet and a clear sky.  It’s weird, disturbing and powerful.

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Gluck à l’outrance

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Gluck’s Alceste is not as well known as Orfeo ed Eurydice or the Iphigénie operas but in some ways it’s an even better example of what Gluck meant by “reform”.  It’s simple, restrained and elegant.  The plot has some similarities with Orfeo.  The good king of Thessaly, Admète, is doomed to die unless someone else volunteers in his place.  Naturally enough, this being opera, his wife Alceste volunteers.  There is much dignified lamenting.  She descends to Hades.  Husband and wife reproach each other for their selfishness in being the one to die.  Hercules shows up and, in gratitude for earlier hospitality, saves the day.  There is (dignified) rejoicing.  It;s an easy score to listen to with plenty of good tunes but no blockbuster, memorable, numbers.

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Curiously aloof Tristan

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Christoph Marthaler’s 2009 Bayreuth production of Tristan und Isolde is set in a sort of Stalinist brutalist aesthetic populated with stock figures from the 1950s.  Passion is at a minimum and the characters all seem to be trying as hard as possible to be conventional representatives of their roles.  The only one who shows any real human engagement is Kurwenal who comes across almost as a commentator on the action, or even a director.  There’s also some fairly stylized gesturing in a sort of pseudo-Sellars manner.  It’s epitomised by the costumes in Act 2 where Isolde and Brangäne look like dolls dressed as Hausfraus and Tristan wears a hideous blue blazer.  This is all rather reinforced by Michael Beyer’s video direction which uses a lot of close ups but also has a curious stillness about it that seems to amplify the emotional void; if indeed one can amplify a void.  Oddly though, in places this approach really works in that the distance, coupled with very precise blocking, gives space for the music’s essential intensity to come through.  Act 2 Scene 2, perhaps the emotional crux of the piece, is very moving and the So stürben wir, um ungetrennt is quite impressive.

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Musing on Maria

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callas27Marias seem to polarize the opera world.  Ewing of that ilk still generates more search term hits around here than even Calixto Bieito. In her day Malibran was the Maria of note and controversy and more recently, of course, we have Callas.  Callas was a bit before my time and it’s only really recently that I’ve listened to her much.  It started, ironically, with the Pasolini Medea where she doesn’t sing but does radiate a most compelling presence.  So, when Presto had the complete EMI recordings on sale for something like $20 I took the plunge and 7+ hours MC on CD duly arrived.  Just looking at the leaflet blew my mind.  She recorded everything from Rosina to Turandot and sang monster roles at an age when, today, she’d most likely still be in a YAP.  I have to say it’s a really mixed bag.  There’s some gorgeous singing.  The Casta diva in this box set is exquisite.  There’s also stuff that’s almost unbearable to listen to.  Overall though I was still really wondering what all the fuss was about.  So I got hold of a couple of documentary DVDs on Callas that included some footage of her on stage; concert rather than opera.  There seems to be virtually no video record of her actual opera performances.  It makes a huge difference.  It’s not like she does much in the way of acting but there’s something, like in the Medea, utterly compelling.  She’s still polarizing.  My partner likened her voice to scratching on a chalkboard and the cats seem to agree.  I was even asked this morning if the “Callas marathon” was over yet.  I think the investigation may be continued but tact may be required.  Also, am I completely nuts in noticing a certain similarity of timbre between Callas and Sondra Radvanovsky?  It’s hard to be sure comparing 50 year old recordings with my memory of a singer I’ve only seen live.