Last night Peter Sellars, in town directing Tristan und Isolde at the COC, made an appearance at the Toronto Reference Library. It was billed as an interview with The Star‘s Richard Ouzounian but bar a couple of questions at the end and a brief set up by Ouzounian it was pretty much a 75 minute monologue by Sellars. Like the man himself it was fascinating but very hard to pin down.
Peter Sellars at the Four Seasons Centre last week (CBC)
There a couple or three things coming up in Toronto that might be of interest to readers.
On Sunday 27th January at 2pm Russell Braun and Rihab Chaieb are giving a recital of German songs in the Glenn Gould Studio. Tickets are $60 but only $25 for under 25s.
The following evening Peter Sellars is giving a talk on his production of Tristan und Isolde at the Toronto Reference Library. This one is free but ticketed. Tickets are available from the TPL website.
And in free RBA noon concert news, on 24th January Sasha Djihanian and Cameron McPhail with pianists Timothy Cheung and Jenna Douglas are offering up Debussy’s Ariettes oubliées and Schumann’s Dichterliebe.
With a month or so to go before the Canadian Opera Company officially announces its 2013/14 season it’s surely time for some uninformed speculation.
There are three big anniversaries in 2013; the bicentenaries of Verdi and Wagner and the centenary of Benjamin Britten. One would think all would be represented but maybe not. We know Verdi will be. Gerald Finley announced at the Rubies that he would make his role debut in the title role in Falstaff at COC in 2013/14 so we can ink that one in. Britten seems probable. There’s a Houston/COC co-pro of Peter Grimes, directed by Neil Armfield that is due to to come to Toronto. I think we can pencil that one in. No idea on casting but I would love to see Stuart Skelton myself. Wagner, I’m not so sure. Maybe February’s run of Tristan und Isolde will be COC’s sole nod to Wagner. Certainly the next most likely candidate; the Lyon/Met/COC Parsifal is, apparently, not expected before 2015.
Photo Credit – Kira Perov 2005
Word on the street is that there are only “a few hundred” tickets left for the COC’s February run of the Peter Sellars/Bill Viola Tristan und Isolde. It’s a fair bet that most of the available tickets will be for nights when Burkhard Fritz is singing rather than Ben Heppner. If you want to see Heppner I’d plan on buying now rather than expecting something last minute to turn up. I’d expect there to be horrific line-ups for the same-day nosebleeds and standing room tickets (and I don’t have the stamina to stand through Tristan!).
Christopher Alden’s production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito apparently isn’t selling so well, despite a stellar cast and a production that got very good reviews in Chicago. This makes me a sad panda. Unfashionably, perhaps, I regard Clemenza as one of Mozart’s best operas, perhaps his very best, so the chance to see it with a wonderful cast is one I would not miss. My current plans call for me to see it twice; with the principal cast and with the Ensemble Studio, but I shall be sorely tempted to get in for an extra look earlier in the run than my current tickets!
Until very recently one of the few good restaurant options within easy walking distance of the COC offices and the Kitten Kondo (since only a couple of hundred metres separate them) was a pretty decent locavore resto called Veritas. I’ve seen COC General director Alexander Neef in there more than once. Alas Veritas is no more. It has been replaced by what looks to be a hideously trendy and overpriced bar called the Pacific Junction Hotel. What’s a bit disturbing though is that this doubles the number of eateries in the ‘hood with Stiegl on tap (the other being the rather good, but also overly trendy , breakfast/brunch spot Le Petit Dejeuner. Stiegl is, par excellence, the beer of Regie. If beer features in a production by a controversial European director one can pretty much guarantee it will be Stiegl. Is this an omen? The 2012/13 COC season has Atom Egoyan, Peter Sellars, Robert Carsen and the Alden brothers directing 6 of 7 productions (surely enough to induce apoplexy in the National Post‘s Kaptainis). Are the hop leaves predicting a further shift away from the Lotfi Mansouri aesthetic? With this much Stiegl around can Herheim or Bieito be far behind?
I’ve watched John Adams’ Doctor Atomic three times now. The first time; a MetHD broadcast, I wasn’t impressed at all. The second time; an AVI rip of the Dutch television broadcast, I started to come around. Having now watched the Opus Arte DVD based on the Dutch TV broadcasts I’m converted. This piece is every bit as good as Nixon in China and probably surpasses it in emotional impact due to the more visceral nature of the material. The orchestral writing is classic Adams. The musical argument is swept along on a strong rhythmic pulse and overlapping waves of colour. In contrast the vocal line often seems duller though there are passages of great lyricism, notably Oppenheimer’s big Act 1 aria Batter my heart, three personed God. Kitty Oppenheimer and the native woman, Pasqualita, also get some good singing. I also found myself warming to the libretto. Some rather self conscious passages of Donne and Baudelaire aside, it lacks the poetry of Goodman’s libretti for Adams but Peter Sellars’ selection of words taken from the documentary record is, in its way, quite compelling; reflecting the mix of high and banal concerns that people under great tension express. It’s particularly interesting to see the relatively high level of respect for and confidence in the moral judgement of politicians displayed by the scientists. One doubts whether that would be the case today. In total, it’s a strong additiion to the repertoire of 21st century operas.
Gerald Finley (Oppenheimer) and Richard Fink (Teller) do physics
I put off watching Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin on DVD until after the run at the Canadian Opera Company because I didn’t want to prejudge the piece. Now, having seen it live twice and listened to Kent Nagano’s Berlin CD recording it seemed like time to look at the DVD. The DVD is of the original Salzburg production directed by Peter Sellars but it was recorded at Finnish National Opera in Helsinki. It features the original cast of Gerald Finley (Jaufré Rudel), Dawn Upshaw (Clémence) and Monica Groop (Pilgrim). Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts with the Orchestra and Chorus of Finnish National Opera. If you are unfamiliar with the piece you might want to check out my review of the COC production which gives a plot summary etc.
The production concept is simple enough. At each side of the stage is a spiral tower representing Jaufré’s castle in Blaye and the Citadel in Tripoli. The towers stand in a lake which the Pilgrim traverses in a sort of crystal boat. It’s simple and effective but much less spectacular than Daniele Finzi Pasca’s production seen at COC. Colour is used to symbolise the two sides and the journey; blues and greens for Blaye, reds and oranges for Tripoli and black and white for the journey. In typical Sellars style there is a fair amount of stylized and elaborate gesturing. It all seems to work pretty well.
The performances are excellent. All three singers have complete mastery of their parts and can act vocally as well as sing. Some of the acting is a bit overwrought but I think that’s Sellars. At key moments, and especially in the beautiful final scene, this very intense approach works much less well than the more understated approach taken in Toronto which seems more at one with what the music is doing. The Orchestra and, off-stage, chorus are just fine. Salonen has worked a lot with Saariaho and knows what’s required.
Where I have serious reservations with this recording is the video direction. Sellars directs this himself and like his Nixon in China Met HD broadcast it’s really quite bizarre. All video directors use close ups. Most use too many of them. Sellars takes this to extremes with bizarre partial face shots or body extremities filling the whole screen. Coupled with the exaggerated acting style, which might just be OK at a distance, this makes for a very overwrought effect that is at serious odds with the music. I’ve included four entirely typical screen caps at the end of the post to show what I mean.
Technically the disk is OK. The picture is European TV quality 16:9. One might have expected a little better for a 2004 disk. The sound is decent DTS 5.1 (Dolby 5.1 and PCM stereo alternatives). It’s quite vivid though I think the voices are balanced artificially forward. Documentation is pretty decent and the subtitle options are English, French, German and Spanish. There are very informative interviews with Sellars, Saariaho and Salonen that are all well worth watching. This is the only DVD of the piece and it’s pretty adequate. I wish someone would film Daniele Finzi Pasca’s production though.
OK, here are some screen caps of close ups. These are not cropped. This is the screen you see watching the DVD.
Handel’s Theodora was conceived and first performed as an oratorio and it was a flop. closing after three performances. I’m not sure why. It may not be Handel’s best work but it’s got some very good numbers and it’s dramatically very strong.
In 1996 Glyndebourne staged an operatic version conceived by Peter Sellars. Occasionally Mr. Sellars frustrates me but most of the time I think he’s a genius who stages some of the most thought provoking music theatre out there. This Theodora is pure genius. Sellars sets the piece in contemporary America. The President of Antioch, Valens, (Frode Olsen) is a typical American politician; a nasty mixture of imperialist bluster, bonhomie and crass consumerism and he’s well supported by a brightly clad coke can bearing heathen chorus. The Roman soldiers wear US Navy helicopter pilot uniforms. By contrast the Christians wear combinations of black and white in pretty restrained cuts and combinations. The set is mostly bare but for some giant shattered glass vases and, as needed, a few props such as a lectern, chairs and, most chillingly, the gurneys on which Theodora and Didymus are executed by lethal injection. It all works really well. Although conceived 15 years ago it could have been last week. The idea that one can’t be a “proper Roman/American” if one doesn’t adhere to the state and socially approved approved religion and the chilling, deadly self righteousness of Valens seem especially contemporary in a week that sees an IRA supporter chairing a House investigation into Muslim disloyalty.
What looked like a bit of a nuisance turned out instead to be an interesting opportunity. By chance, the Friday evening performance of the COC’s Nixon in China (our season tickets are for Friday nights) fell the evening before the Met’s HD broadcast of its production of the same piece affording me the opportunity to see two contrasting productions in less than 24 hours.
operaramblings 