barczablog

Ah such a long title. I’m already being Wagnerian.

He’s everywhere whether you know it or not, Wagner not precisely über alles, but still ubiquitous. We talked about him inevitably last night in class, discussing the dramaturgy of silent film, but we could just as easily have been talking about the device on which you’re reading this. Ever notice that when your device wants to inform you that you’ve made a bad choice there’s a funny wonky sound? Or if you’re being notified that you have something good, such as a new text, you get an affirmative sound? Yes that’s Wagnerian, that unity between the machine and the content.

No Wagner didn’t know about computers or silent film (having died back in 1883), but he did toss out the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk. It’s sometimes translated as “total art work”, but that’s confusing. He was writing about an ideal, back in a time when designers and directors and performers were upstaging one another, rather than working together towards a single unified concept. So many things work that way now –not just artistic creations like our films or plays but also our machines too–that it’s hard to remember that things used to be way way messier at one time.

And so of course i have to think about Wagner after having seen: Wagner. I finally made it to the Canadian Opera Company Die Walküre, late in the run. Everyone knows their music and their movements exquisitely well by now, how arrogant I am to think I can walk in there for oh 4.5 hours, and then what… create comments within an hour, when they’ve been working on this for literally weeks? Yes, I suppose I must sound a bit like Wagner, a man with a colossal ego and the ability to upset whole nations. If nothing else he is a lesson in remembering that just because an artist is a complete jerk doesn’t mean his art can’t be wonderful.

I was joking to my friend sitting beside me: “I don’t need my voice tomorrow”. We bravo’d extensively. She actually emitted something more like a scream at one point, although I was assured that it was carefully executed to leave the voice intact.

It struck me as ironic that there were as many departures from the text in Atom Egoyan’s production of Walküre as in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Don Giovanni. But –as my friend reminded me—with Wagner we’re long accustomed to Regietheater (director’s theatre), indeed it’s almost de rigueur at this point. I think Robert Lepage’s Ring at the Metropolitan Opera met with at least some critical disapproval because Lepage had the temerity to tell the story as written. Audiences experienced Götterdämmerung without any fancy conceptual overlay.

I wonder though if I should call it “Egoyan’s Walküre”?   Oh he certainly made some interesting choices, don’t get me wrong. But in a real sense, one could question whose Walküre this is, as so many contributed to the total work. Given that the run is almost over –a great success by most standards I am sure—why don’t we try to answer that question, and find some candidates.

When you sit down for the first act, the story seems to be a love triangle.

But before we see anyone we’re listening to that COC orchestra led by Johannes Debus. The orchestra doesn’t go quite as fast as they did in Richard Bradshaw’s day –a quality I loved—but it’s still often quite quick, as for instance in the opening ten minutes of the last act, played brilliantly. Would it be Debus´Walküre?

Hm. Nobody would call it Hunding’s opera, yet what about Dimitry Ivaschenko, so impressive as the wronged husband, lugging huge hunks of animal haunch that he munches on when he’s not noticing how much his dinner guest resembles his wife. The voice is fabulous, powerfully penetrating, as is the stage presence. Given that he’s likely to use this as a stepping stone (although he’s already very successful in Europe) as Americans come to Toronto intent on hearing the soprano and discovering this wonderful artist, you would at least be justified in calling this Ivaschenko’s Walküre.

Clifton Forbis is back in the role of Siegmund that he created when Egoyan’s production (haha bet you though I was going to call it “Egoyan’s Walküre”..! whoops I guess I just did….) was new more than a decade ago. Physically it’s a mature Siegmund, who looks older than his onstage twin, at least from my vantage point in the second row. But the voice? He missed part of the run due to illness, and even tonight we heard coughs. But whenever he appears the story seems to be about him, the music coming to life. The further we got into the role, the better he sounded. Forbis’ Walküre? Perhaps.

The production places a great deal of emphasis on Sieglinde and her visions. Heidi Melton’s Walküre? I cried at her big climax in the last act. I admit I giggled a bit when I saw Christine Goerke begin to give Sieglinde—who is pregnant, we discover—advice as a mom, recalling some of the posts she’s made on social media. Both Melton & Goerke have such lovely vibrant facial expressions, it was a particular pleasure sitting up close. When the two women were singing it was totally amazing.

Soprano Christine Goerke (photo by Gary Mulcahey)

How about Christine Goerke’s Walküre? I think you could make a solid case, considering the excitement her casting created. Had she been merely okay the audiences would still have been centred on her. But in fact this was –as you may have heard—completely worth the hype, a performance that even had some genuine swagger to it. When Goerke sings that battle cry to introduce herself at the beginning of Act II she made it a bit of comedy, teasing her dad, at times shining that wacky light –part of Michael Levine’s design—onto him. If the triumph were only in the vocal realm that would still be huge news, given the shortage of genuine dramatic sopranos. Goerke is also a wonderful actress, and will be a joy to watch as she works through the different parts of Brunnhilde in the other two Ring operas that are ahead.

Even so, there might be others who might want to wrest the opera away. Johan Reuter as Wotan gets the last words, and they’re particularly beautiful the way he sang them. While the story in Act I seems to be all about the twins, while the story then gets complicated with the arrival of immortals for Act II, this opera is really about Wotan and his estrangement from himself: enacted via his daughter Valkyries, especially Brunnhilde. In passing I should mention that another Valkyrie, namely the role of Helmwige, can be understood as a future Brunnhilde given that she sings her own brief version of the war-cry in the opening to Act III. Aviva Fortunata was exquisite in her brief appearance.

Who else might claim Walküre?

There’s the fellow whose set & costume design is being used again, namely Michael Levine. I adore these designs, which serve the opera wonderfully. They serve the comical opening to Act III, the metaphysical overtones in Act II (when Wotan & Fricka are debating the whole love triangle, while standing over the sleeping bodies of Siegmund & Sieglinde). There’s so much one could say about the design, although I think it’s almost too much of a good thing. My favourite moment in the production as I saw it in the old theatre over a decade ago was largely invisible where I was sitting, obscured by parts of the set. Was I sitting behind a pillar? Nope, I was about ten feet away from the conductor. He didn’t see it either. Is this set too much of a good thing? I ask that in context with the comment from Debbie Voigt during the documentary on the Lepage Ring, when at one point she categorically refuses to get back on the set, although she eventually would relent. There are no moving planks in this set, just lots of small parts that seem designed to trip up singers. I didn’t see anyone fall, so perhaps I sound unkind. I repeat, I love this set. It manages to simultaneously suggest the grandeur of the gods –especially in Acts II and III—and the process of decay, pieces of flooring coming up, the tree chopped up into pieces.  It always gives us several wonderful things to look at throughout, when it’s not almost blinding us with glaring lights.

So while I may sound as though I am making the case for Levine’s Walküre I am inclined to look elsewhere. There’s the company’s General Director, Alexander Neef, whose assembly of talent is the reason for the excitement. I love that he brought us Tcherniakov‘s DG, complete with Russell Braun, Michael Schade, Jane Archibald, etc, yet he’s also giving us a decidedly Canadian company, whether in the Zerlina of Sasha Djihanian, the Helmwige of Aviva Fortunata, or several other contributors, Egoyan and Levine perhaps most prominent among them.

I suppose I should simply upload this now and go to bed. On the weekend there’s another performance of each opera remaining. If you can go to either –or both—I would heartily recommend you do so. It’s quite an amazing pair of productions.

The quote in the headline is the witty riposte of Ian Henderson as part of the conversation about Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Don Giovanni. You may have thought of it as Mozart’s Don Giovanni,…? ha! but when a modern opera director gets their hands on one of the warhorses it can be contentious.

Ian’s comments (found here if you skip to the bottom of my review of opening night) are wittier than most, but in context with concerns about the production’s misogyny. While it may be true – that at times the director is rough on the women in this opera— I feel it goes both ways, as life is every bit as rough on the men, Don Giovanni included, who is the chief victim of this version of the story.

I got to see the show for a second time tonight, fresh from a production of von Horvath’s Tales of the Vienna Woods at Ryerson Theatre School. Mozart is a great cure for the chronic ear-worms I have from hearing and playing so much Johann Strauss over the past month of rehearsals & performances. Resounding in my head at the moment? the glory of a COC cast without any weaknesses –Russell Braun, Jennifer Holloway, Jane Archibald, Kyle Ketelsen, Michael Schade, Sasha Djihanian, Zachary Nelson, Andrea Silvestrelli– and the orchestra.

Russell Braun’s Don Giovanni sometimes resembles a singer in a monodrama (borrowing an idea from one of James Jorden’s reviews, coincidentally about another Don Giovanni, but in a very different sense). How ? While Kyle Ketelsen or Jennifer Holloway are singing powerfully in his face, Braun sings some of the quietest subtlest recitative I’ve ever heard. Sitting up close I recognize that it’s as though he’s in his own little private Espagna, crooning to himself, hallucinating at times (twice seeing someone who looks just like the Commendatore venture onto the stage), when he isn’t living the high life (or the life high). The portrayal is better, deeper & more powerful than what he gave us opening night, but it may also be the benefit of sitting closer, picking up little nuances that you miss when you’re sitting further away.

Michael Schade continues to impress me with his range of emotions. In “dalla sua pace” he runs the gamut of emotion, not just the moment when he’s in a foetal position that I alluded to in the earlier review, but instances of power, passion, reflection, sadness, triumph, all in the space of a wonderfully dynamic few minutes.

It’s really crazy to single anyone out though. Kyle Ketelsen is amazing, even better up close with his physical eloquence, including everything from popping bubble gum to trick moves with a yo-yo. Jane Archibald sounded better tonight, possibly because she’d been announced as unwell back in December when she sang in the TSO Messiah, and has finally shaken off her virus; and she was deliciously comical, once I began to wrap my head around Tcherniakov’s version, a reading that’s very dark at times, never dull, but often hysterically funny. I felt like a fish out of water, sitting beside a newcomer to the opera, and in the second row, which meant we were immersed in the comedy. I don’t understand why there weren’t more laughs, unless it’s because some people think you’re not supposed to laugh at an opera. But I do understand why there weren’t more bravos during the show, as there were many times that everyone was silent in a kind of awe. Where the music signals a clear break for applause, they went wild.

I feel there’s a cautionary note that should go with productions such as this one. “If you’re a person who arrives with stipulations, either lose them now or prepare to feel frustrated”.  Seeing an opera isn’t like buying real estate. Yes you can insist that your house must have a walk in closet or 4 bathrooms or whatever floats your boat.  Stipulations at the opera? They may help you understand what you’re seeing but they will not make you happy.  Nope. Happiness is arriving at the opera, ready to let the opera move you any way it wants to move you.   Now of course there are moments where I am not sure precisely what was happening.  We didn’t get the usual gag from Donna Elvira’s arrival, because Tcherniakov does it differently.  I don’t pretend to understand what his version “means” in the arcane subtextual world created for the performers. So what.   In most of the opera it makes exquisite sense even at times like this, when I’m scratching my head.  There are far worse examples I could point to, where a director’s insight that works 80% of the time leads to moments or entire scenes that are ludicrous because of how badly they serve the text & the performers, but slavishly serve a concept. Tcherniakov’s concept illuminates a far higher percentage of the text, and perhaps more importantly, when it works it’s amazing, especially when you sit up close.

And here’s another thought, from the morning after, that perhaps this is really about our society’s maturation.  DG is a throwback of sorts, certainly someone valorized in other centuries.  The first time I was confronted with Tcherniakov’s modernization i too was stuck in that slough of despond where everyone seems stuck for much of Act II, unable to shake off the heavy legacy of past DGs, of honour and lies and behaviour that’s ultimately unhealthy. Last night I realized what that Act II struggle was about. We watched the three women gradually come back from a very dark place, we see Ottavio man up, and Masetto have his own crisis, so that in the end the cast seems to outgrow the childishness of what DG represents, the old false social archetypes that we no longer can live honourably. Perhaps this is like an ordeal for the collective unconscious, as each archetype grows up: except DG himself.  DG (and also Don JianGhomeshi too, yes we can use Ian Henderson’s version) represents everything we are outgrowing, in the glare of the trials and the screams of sexual assault.

Don Giovanni runs until February 21st.  See it if you can.

click for more information (photo by Michael Cooper)