I feel like an operatic sausage. I’m stuffed a lot into this post, having jammed too much opera into my head in a brief period of time.
Talk about contrast! Saturday was the closing performance of the Lepage Bluebeard-Erwartung double bill from the Canadian Opera Company. Sunday afternoon was Hello Goodbye, a romantic whirlwind tour of traviata (Verdi) boheme (Puccini) & elisir d’amore (Donizetti), featuring the love duets & arias. One was darkly murderous, the other lightly amorous, one drowning me in overpowering sonorities, the other friendly & delicate. One employed the machinery of theatre to create druggy illusions, the other was accomplished with voices, piano and human beings acting.
I am a longtime admirer of Robert Lepage. I met him briefly at a Wagner Society meeting before his Ring cycle when he called opera the mother of art forms, a quote that I’ve seen revised or adjusted now to speak of theatre rather than opera that way. It doesn’t matter, really, Lepage does them all. His recent Hamlet was a dance adaptation of the play without any of Shakespeare’s lines, cleverly telling the story via bodies in motion. He’s done so much and continues to produce new work, that’s not to be confused with this relic from the last century, revived because even on its fourth or fifth incarnation in Toronto it is still as good or better than anything the COC can offer.
As someone who routinely sits as close as possible to the action, sometimes it can feel like a mistake, as it did Saturday at the closing performance of the Canadian Opera Company’s double bill of Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Arnold Schönberg’s Erwartung. My COC subscription seat is in the 2nd row.
I also sat really close for the Stratford Macbeth, watching a set reconfigured endlessly, a human-powered version of the machine we see in his Metropolitan Opera Ring cycle. Whether in the endless movements of the set, or watching the bikers riding quiet bikes? it reminded me of the artifice of it all, when we recall that motorcycles are above all noisy, while these stage devices were soft-spoken toys. But I’m not complaining, not when there was so much magic before me, ghostly & mesmerizing. Similarly, from this close vantage, our first glimpse of Bluebeard’s castle is an obvious model that made me giggle remembering This is Spinal Tap and the 36 inch model of Stonehenge, before we moved on to the remarkable images.
The entire stage is surrounded by a gold frame, which was great when you sat far away in O’keefe Centre back in the 1990s, not so good at the Four Seasons Centre in 2026 (or 2015).
Notice how the photo does not include the bottom part. Seen from up close the bottom of that gold frame (not shown) actually obstructs parts of the stage, especially for those of us in the first rows, such that for example when the wives emerge from the river of tears we can’t see them until they’re standing up and even then they’re partially obscured. Seeing this show before in the old theatre you could see the river of tears flowing. To be honest I no longer remember what it looks like when you’re further back, as I also saw it from up close in 2015. It’s a very 21st century kind of experience, as when your iPhone upgrades and you’re spending hours or days trying to figure out how to make it work the way it used to.
Lepage and his team take us deep into the heart of madness with Erwartung. It’s chilling, powerful.
There’s also the other caution I have been given many times, that up close the acoustic of the Four Seasons Centre is quite different than further back. On my way into the hall, a friend muttered a warning about how Johannes Debus held nothing back, turning the orchestra loose, drowning the singers in the big sound.
True.
Normally I love the full frontal orchestra you get sitting close, immersed in a wall of sound, especially for modernist operas (anything from Wagner on). But it meant that at times I was watching lips moving without hearing the voice. Door #5 was not the usual thrill, not when Judith seemed to phone in her high note, coming off it after touching it briefly, perhaps aware that it was the closing performance and she didn’t need to impress anyone. There were places her singing felt more artistic & thoughtful than the last Judith I heard, when I could hear the singing. We’ve seen the production several times in Toronto, a combination that has served to promote the COC brand around the world with their edgy mise en scene. While I genuinely love the way this production looks and feels, seen and heard from up close it felt a bit like a date with an old GF I hadn’t seen in a decade or more, now noticing both my wrinkles and hers, aware that whatever the former excitement between us, now we are “good friends” without any chemistry.
And while I was in my grumpy-pants mood, I was aware again of my ongoing quibble with the COC. For an allegedly Canadian opera company, selling a production sung by two people in Hungarian, and a third person singing in German, I see little reason for them to import singers who are going to be inaudible because they’re drowned out. Yes it’s probably different when you sit further back, where the acoustical balance is better, although I love the COC orchestra from up close. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they’re bad. I’m saying that there is no reason for the COC to spend extra dollars importing singers on the faulty assumption that Canadians are not as good, if the foreigners will just get drowned out. The imported talent should be known, with a famous name selling tickets, otherwise why bother? the singers should be Canadians.
Sunday was much more romantic. Comparing the two programs, you don’t take someone on a first date where the double bill consists of a Duke who has his previous wives locked up, and a woman who appears to be raving about a lover. Sunday we watched fatal love between Verdi’s Violetta & Alfredo and Puccini’s Mimi & Rodolfo before finding our way to happily ever after with Donizetti’s Adina and Nemorino in Elixir of Love.
And even though one of the singers was indisposed, Sunday was a much happier experience. In the live acoustic of Beach United church, I could hear everything, as no one was drowned out by the soft & sensitive pianism of Narmina Afendiyeva. “Hello Goodbye” was an original play narrated by Ryan Hofman, contrived to contain the romantic arias & duets between characters in la traviata, la boheme and elisir d’amore. I was reminded of Mamma Mia, a play that’s just a loose pretense to set up our favourite tunes, although this time it was Puccini, Verdi & Donizetti, not ABBA.
I could hear that something wasn’t right in the opening dialogue between soprano Holly Chaplin and tenor Ernesto Ramirez, although once they started singing I almost forgot. Later, Joel Ricci stepped in to sing some of the tenor part while Ernesto mimed the Act 1 love scene with Mimi. This time the operatic sound (from Joel & Holly) was shared with a gentler sound from Ernesto, who was obviously holding back. That tenor sound, held back, was still exquisite, his intonation & phrasing stunningly beautiful. While Ernesto’s experience of the afternoon was likely one of being stressed out, worried about his health, the resulting performance was a success. He was able to safely sing “una furtiva lagrima”, admittedly an aria that doesn’t go as high as “che gelida manina”.
And Holly Chaplin was amazing, a bit of the high maintenance diva for Violetta before showing a softer more vulnerable side as Mimi.
And now this week, she’s rehearsing two more projects. The two images below are both starring Holly, one on Friday May 22nd, the other Saturday May 23rd. Remember how I began this post, speaking of an operatic sausage, too much jammed in? Maybe she’s doing even more, a week with three big projects May 17th, 22nd and 23rd.
Holly is stepping in Friday (on behalf of another singer) to do Donna Anna in the benefit Don Giovanni at the Redwood Theatre, before singing in I Capuletti e Montecchi for Opera by Request on Saturday. Ernesto will be back for the OBR show too..!
barczablog 