barczablog

I’ve seen the new Opera Atelier Alcina. It’s been a month of opera-going in Toronto that already stands head and shoulders above any previous month. While occasional productions can be great, we can add this remarkable production of Handel’s opera to a month that already includes Finley’s Falstaff and Kaduce’s Butterfly, a month like no other.

Musically it’s as good as anything heard from a company known for historically informed performance. David Fallis leads Tafelmusik Orchestra and chorus in a probing exploration of a score that’s known in several versions. I confess I wasn’t aware of the ballet component—explained in the program and given free rein onstage—having always understood this opera as a virtuoso showpiece. It’s a full evening’s entertainment even with some cuts (arias missing or presented without their da capo).

In the lead-up to the opening, we’ve been told about the use of video in the production. For an ensemble known for being historically informed, there may have been some anxiety about the use of modern technology. Yet that’s surely not a legitimate concern, not when we’re already in a modern theatre using –for example—modern lighting. Opera Atelier have always been a mix of new & old, not genuinely recreating the old but rather making something new while employing elements of the old such as the movement vocabulary—both in the choreography of dancers and in the body language of singers—as well as period instruments and performance practices.  The dramaturgy that recapitulates so many elements of baroque theatre isn’t harmed by video projections onto sets that are not naturalistic.

The last few seasons have given me another simpler way of understanding Opera Atelier. Never mind “historically informed”. What we’re mostly seeing is Marshall Pynkoski’s direction with, Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg’s choreography. Pynkoski injects something very original. There’s more comedy in the story than I’ve seen in any other reading. The ballet is an important element that’s restored in this production.

And then there’s the male nudity. It’s perfectly explicable in a story of metamorphoses, where discarded lovers of the witches are transformed into animals or rocks, who are then liberated at the conclusion of the opera. It felt really apt, after seeing the Michaelangelo show at the AGO, even if it’s not historically informed; but it was certain to appeal to at least some in the audience, lobby warnings notwithstanding.

A cautionary sign in the lobby of the Elgin Theatre

Sorry that I have no pictures of naked men to offer.

Alcina sounds wonderful, thanks to Tafelmusik, Fallis and the best collection of soloists Opera Atelier has ever assembled. Falstaff may be sold out, Butterfly may or may not be your cup of tea, so you must see & hear Alcina if you can. Meghan Lindsay manages an ambiguous reading where the title character is simultaneously scary yet sympathetic, beautiful but also pitiable at times. Mireille Asselin offers us a comical sorceress, wonderfully accurate in her coloratura. Wallis Giunta’s Bradamante ranges from comedy to pathos, while Allyson McHardy’s Ruggiero sounds & looks wonderful. Kresimir Spicer’s Oronte has some of the prettiest singing of the night, and Olivier Laquerre is a dramatic stalwart.

Alcina continues until November 1st at the Elgin Theatre.

It’s like no Madama Butterfly I’ve ever seen. The new Canadian Opera Company production is really the same one they’ve been staging for years, yet very different in its new incarnation. There are two parallel casts performing Puccini’s intercultural tear-jerker over the 3 weeks between Oct 10 and 31st.

While I like Brian Macdonald –a director and choreographer I admire so much that I invited him to be a keynote speaker back in 2005 at the University of Toronto’s Festival of Original Theatre—I wonder if it’s his doing.  Wonderful as this production is, one first seen in 1990, with elegant sets from Susan Benson (because it stays out of your way, allowing you a direct connection with the performances & the depths of this wonderful opera), I’ve seen it many times, but never saw anything remotely like what I saw today.

I have a funny story to tell that might give you some idea. My wife observed that she’s never seen so many men crying. But that’s not the joke. At one point, when I was convulsing, trying not to loudly sob into the silence, I heard a voice behind me, an older lady saying rather loudly in a theater that was dead silent but for the crying, at a very tender moment, “elég hosszú”. That’s Hungarian and it’s just my good fortune that I understood.  I went from barely controlling my sobs, to tears of laughter as I completely lost it, convulsing with mad giggles.

Of course what she was saying can loosely be translated as “it’s kind of long”, but I suppose even at her advanced age it must have been her first Butterfly.

Actually it’s one of the shortest I’ve seen, with a break-neck pace from conductor Patrick Lange. I say that as someone who probably knows this score better than any opera, a score i’ve played from one end to the other. My brother sang one of his first solo roles with the COC as the Imperial Commisioner, sung today by Iain MacNeil, making a very solid and tuneful debut. Sometime later that same sibling would sing Sharpless at least once at the O’Keefe Centre, sung today by Gregory Dahl.

I’ve seen a lot of performances of this opera, some live and some on video, and I say without hesitation that today’s was the best I’ve ever seen. As my wife already reported, I wasn’t the only one being moved, in a production that didn’t really do that much for me the last time I saw it.

What’s the difference? There are two people responsible as far as I can tell.

(l-r) Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki and Kelly Kaduce as Cio-Cio San in the Canadian Opera Company production of Madama Butterfly, 2014. Photo: Michael Cooper

Chief culprit is Kelly Kaduce. I suspected I was in for something special when I responded to the COC’s invitation. As a subscriber I already have tickets to see the “A” cast (who opened the show Friday night); my subscription tickets are at the end of the run, so I chose to see the “B” cast who opened today.

I feel I am channelling Prince Yamadori, a character who makes a brief appearance in Act II. I’ve always felt a wistful attachment to him, the man whose proposal to Butterfly offers a possible escape from her predicament, a pathway she chooses to ignore. Imagine my surprise when Kelly Kaduce said it was her favourite part of the opera in her interview. Yet I was expecting that scene (ha I almost called it “our scene”) to be a highlight, in an act that’s otherwise depressingly sad, because –at least in the productions I have seen—Butterfly walks around with a cloud of misery hanging over her head, even as she claims to be hopeful.

When you’ve seen an opera countless times you think you know what it means, you think you know its possibilities. Today I had my mind opened, if not blown by what I saw. For much of Act II, Butterfly –meaning Kelly Kaduce—is finding laughs. She’s especially funny in her scene with Yamadori, as she mocks him before dismissing him.
Let me add one tiny detail, one that is usually forgotten after this bombshell is delivered to us in Act I. Butterfly is 15 years old. But does anyone ever play her in a manner that resembles a woman under the age of 40? Nope. Usually you see a diva sailing around the stage like an imitation of a Japanese battleship: ponderous, serious, vaguely Eastern, and with no possibility of humour. But oh my, the lines are actually funny, especially if played with the vigour of a teenager. It needs to be said: Kaduce is a believable teenager. While she may be older in Act II she’s still supposed to be a teenager, and that’s what Kaduce gives us. It’s as though I’ve never seen this opera before, considering how different some scenes were as a result.

When –in a scene that has long been one of my favourites, a scene i’ve played many times on the piano with the aforementioned sibling—Sharpless attempts to read Pinkerton’s letter to Butterfly, the dynamic changes completely if you have a bouncy hyper teenager interrupting and jumping up throughout. It’s been a very dark scene in other productions I’ve seen. When Sharpless delivers his electrifying question “what if he never comes back” it can be just one more in a series of dark moments, if everyone is dark dark dark from the opening of Act II. But if Suzuki is worried, while Butterfly’s “un bel di” is sung with genuine faith, and youth? And joy? and energy?  Different story. Sharpless has this secret that can’t penetrate the comedy of the scene with Yamadori, that’s his and his alone, until the kick in the gut of his direct question. The opera’s tone shifts decisively at this point, even if it does a minor reset when the boat is sighted. Butterfly doesn’t seem so forlorn nor the end so much of a foregone conclusion.

Need I say: this is by far the best Butterfly I’ve ever seen, because Kaduce is the best Butterfly I’ve ever seen or imagined.  I had no idea the opera could work so well.

Another big reason, subsidiary but still important, is the work of Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki. The voice is delicious especially in her low notes, her reactions wonderful to watch. The convulsive moment I spoke of –that led to the comedy from the Hungarian dowager—was actually DeShong’s big moment. She spoke of her favourite moment in the interview I posted last night:

Dramatically, there is a small moment between Suzuki and Butterfly that always resonates strongly with me. When Butterfly enters and discovers Sharpless and Kate Pinkerton, Suzuki breaks down. Butterfly comes to Suzuki and says that she shouldn’t cry. She says that Suzuki has been good. In this moment, I always gently shake my head “no”. I think Suzuki always feels she should have done more to protect Butterfly. It highlights the constant struggle between duty and friendship, that Suzuki feels throughout the opera.

I watched this scene and lost it because it reminds me of moments of profound recognition that have a kind of tragic dimension outside the story. I think the reason those moments are so powerful is because the pattern of suffering is momentarily interrupted, as someone notices and comments on it, and we in the audience can relate to that recognition, our own experience curiously mirrored onstage. It’s heartbreaking both because we’re watching Suzuki break down, and because sweet adorable Butterfly –at this moment played like a delicate child—is seeking for once to take care of Suzuki rather than raging or cracking up herself (although there’s plenty of time for that later).

There are other people in the show, but it’s really all about Lange, Kaduce and DeShong.

Andrea Carè is not a bad Pinkerton, even if he has an appoggiatura approach to many of his high notes, a technique that’s flawless if you’re okay with someone hitting a high note via a nearby note just below it.

Gregory Dahl is excellent as Sharpless, a role that’s sometimes very thankless, a passive observer, a giver of advice that’s almost 100% ignored. I’ve seen more strident approaches –for instance, some show concern or anger in the microseconds when Pinkerton speaks of marrying a real American wife just before the arrival of the bride—but we didn’t get that in Dahl’s reading. I think I like this better actually, because if Sharpless sees what a jerk Pinkerton really is –as happens in the Mitterand film—you end up with a story that’s way too sad too early, and therefore makes Butterfly look like a fool. I’d compare it to productions of Otello I have seen where Iago is so strong that as a result the Moor is made to look like a patsy rather than a hero (thinking especially of the unfortunate era of Sherrill Milnes in the role and as a result killing the tragedy). I need to believe Butterfly is either smart to love Pinkerton, or at least, that she’s a child who had reason to believe in Pinkerton, which is something Kaduce achieves, and which isn’t undermined by either Dahl’s understated approach, nor Carè.

I wonder if I can be trusted. I’ve been raving about Falstaff this week (a pair of reviews) so I may be sounding like a groupie or someone who swallowed the Kool-ade. But I admire the Verdi opera, love the work of two or three key performers. This is better, unexpected and in a sense like bringing something back from the dead, an opera from which i never expected such depth. Kaduce accomplished a miracle, not least because I came out of that theatre happy. During the curtain call she was again as vigorous as an 18 year old, even kissing her Pinkerton in a moment that I am certain made everyone smile (especially recalling another production I saw where people did some ironic booing and hissing for someone who can be seen as the villain). Can you blame me for thinking of Yamadori? I love this woman, and discussed with my wife traveling to see her sing no matter where that might be.

But for now? She’s here in Toronto!

I saw the second performance of the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Falstaff tonight, enjoying it even more than the first time. Where my first view was from up in ring 3—ideal to get the big picture but too far away for subtleties, especially in crowd scenes—tonight’s was from the very front, where I could see details.

Director Robert Carsen’s reading of this wonderful comedy of desire & appetite goes back and forth between the ribald & the gustatory, between blatant challenges to a husband’s fidelity & to a stomach’s capacity. A few of the performances are painted in the colourful strokes of cartoons, larger than life gestures that read even at the very back of the theatre.

You will have heard of Gerald Finley’s return to Toronto, a great star of European opera stages, a favourite in the USA, but taking his first steps on the Four Seasons Centre stage. His is a most Italianate reading, exquisite timing in the “no’s” he hurls at his sidekicks in his big monologue in the first scene (when he asks a series of rhetorical questions about the nature of honour).  Finley shows astonishing depth in this, his first undertaking of the role. It’s not the same as it was opening night, as there were a couple of places where he’s still playing with the sound, sometimes sweet, sometimes edgy and even willing to offer up a strident and unmusical sound, in the interest of a laugh. When we come to the opening scene of the last act we get a properly Shakespearean soliloquy, a mad thieving world he bemoans, at his lowest point in the opera. The last triumphant moments (captured so beautifully on the program cover and on the signage promoting the production) are the occasion for the headline, wherein I see the most perfect expression of the urges that seem to be the subject of Carsen’s exploration of this Shakespearean opera. When all is finally forgiven and everyone sits down to a wedding feast it’s a kind of sharing that reminds me of holy communion, one shared finally by everyone on stage.

The final scene from the Canadian Opera Company production of Falstaff, 2014. (Photo: Michael Cooper)

The other two larger than life portrayals?

I mentioned Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s Mistress Quickly, who does her best to match Finley’s energy & commitment, a very physical portrayal with a wonderful lower voice to match, as good as it gets in this part.

The other is perhaps unexpected, namely Simone Osborne, whose energy reminds me of Veronica (Archie’s girlfriend) or some other teenage icon such as Annette Funicello or Gidget. The body language was fun, often silly and always at an energy level making her the star of most of the scenes she was in.

Other performances only really came into focus when I was able to sit up close. The chorus did yeoman service of course, especially in some wonderful ensembles pieces, working with Russell Braun in the lengthy set-pieces in Act II when Falstaff is hiding from a pursuing horde, that Carsen also turned into a kind of crazy cartoon of synchronized slow-motion movements. Braun’s expressions are wonderful, especially in the scene as Fontana, Ford in a wonderfully whimsical disguise that reminded me of a cross between Elvis & Willy Nelson, although I may have missed the intended reference.  Whenever he’s onstage, the comedy has a more serious dimension.

Falstaff’s side-kicks –Bardolfo and Pistola—have a great amount of subtle business that I saw from up close, some of the zaniest moments in the opera, thanks to Colin Ainsworth (in a very different context from what I saw him doing on Tuesday) and Robert Gleadow. There’s a great deal of beautiful singing, with Michael Colvin starting us off (declaiming the opera’s title in the first minute of the work), Lyne Fortin and Lauren Segal as the merry wives at the centre of the story, and the sweet voice of Frédéric Antoun.

And so the COC’s new season is underway. Falstaff will be presented again on Sunday Oct 12th, running until Nov 1st, but first two different stars undertake Madama Butterfly Friday & Saturday.