Upwards

Posted on February 4, 2012 by barczablog

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the images from Kaija Saariaho’s opera Amour de Loin in its Toronto production from the Canadian Opera Company as “Love from Afar“.  When I hit the publish button the other night to upload my review, I knew I had much more to say.

pilgrim

Krisztina Szabó as the Pilgrim (centre) and Russell Braun as Jaufré (above) in the Canadian Opera Company production of Love from Afar, 2012. Conductor Johannes Debus, original production by Daniele Finzi Pasca, set designer Jean Rabasse, costume designer Kevin Pollard, and lighting designers Daniele Finzi Pasca and Alexis Bowles. Photo: Michael Cooper

I was wrestling with the music, the spirituality, the images in the COC production by the team of Daniele Finzi Pasca, Julie Hamelin, Jean Rabasse, Kevin Pollard, and Alexis Bowles.   Happily my scattered thoughts suddenly are cohering around one central idea.

My first instinct had been that this was an opera that was so platonic, so abstract, that it was entirely a matter of soft ideas that needed warm bodies to flesh them out.  And so the production is replete with several physical disciplines –dance, aerial movement, acrobats and swirling fabric– to add some sensuality to balance this cold world.  But upon further reflection that’s simply wrong and to say so sells their efforts short.

So of those three (spirituality, music and images), let’s address the images first.  The mise-en-scene employs three different performers for each of the three principals (Jaufré, Clémence and the Pilgrim).  Even though Jaufré and Clémence are separated by hundreds of miles for most of the opera, that doesn’t stop the production from presenting a version of either of the lovers, possibly hovering behind them on a string, possibly wandering upstage in the shadows.  At times we may only see one Jaufré, at other times two or even three.  Sometimes this may seem entirely whimsical, as if we were seeing the imaginary Clémence inside Jaufré’s head; or it becomes much closer to something more literal when we see Jaufré looking down upon himself on his deathbed, as if his spirit were walking away, looking back at its former home.

acrobats

(left to right) Acrobats Antoine Marc, Sandrine Mérette and Ted Sikström in a scene from the Canadian Opera Company production of Love from Afar, 2012. Conductor Johannes Debus, original production by Daniele Finzi Pasca, set designer Jean Rabasse, costume designer Kevin Pollard, and lighting designers Daniele Finzi Pasca and Alexis Bowles. Photo: Chris Hutcheson

Romance is a risky kind of discourse.  Whereas the messages from emergency personnel have no room for ambiguity, the language of a lover is like a leap into the air, that risks a fall.  If the communication fails it falls to its death, whereas the ability to reach someone when speaking figuratively  is a kind of miracle we take for granted.  All communication that isn’t literal makes a kind of leap, challenging us to identify with the message, if it isn’t to fall on its face.  The aerial figures, the floating souls, the romantic propositions are all up in the air, supported by our imaginative capacity, our willingness to see more than just the bodies.

Love from Afar hints at different sorts of love.  When we first meet Jaufré he is taunted by the voices of his friends (real or imagined in his head?), reminding him of a more sensual understanding of life and love.  As the opera continues, particularly in its last scenes, we are invited to contemplate love that transcends life and the spiritual overtones of love as a pathway beyond this life.  The opera can be read as an alternative theology if we think of love itself as a divine energy, that spirit itself is the love from afar.  Throughout the opera we encounter that phrase –“love from afar”– presented in different contexts, and are invited to read it in so many different ways.

Finally–having spoken of the upward movement of the bodies and their spirits– I wanted to remark on Saariaho’s music.  It’s a remarkably simple thing to observe in the score: that many of her phrases are constructed from the bottom up.  Sometimes there are ostinati (groups of repeated notes), often going up from a lower note.  At other times, the larger phrases are constructed slowly, beginning with a low note and leading ever higher.  The music has an upward arch, not really as the tight arabesque one might find in Bach or Debussy, but rather in broadly separated sounds.  That’s especially important because Saariaho’s dissonances rarely have the blunt impact they’d have if clustered closely together, as one might find in Berg, and muted even further by her orchestration.

It’s a simple thing really, but Love from Afar wants to take us up.  And I think it succeeds.

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From Afar

Posted on February 3, 2012 by barczablog

The love one encounters in Saariaho’s opera Love from Afar is not at all like the love most people think of when they use the word in the 21st century.  And while the work was composed recently employing very modern sonorities, it’s poised on the edge of our world as if it were an ambassador from another era.

Composer Kaija Saariaho

Composer Kaija Saariaho

Tonight was the night for its first embassy in Toronto, a special occasion for the Canadian Opera Company.  With one of the longest ovations in recent memory it’s fair to say that the Canadian debut of the work was rapturously received, with the composer present to take her bow.

I think this may be the most equivocal libretto I have ever encountered.  Nobody says anything declarative without qualifying, interrogating, doubting, second-guessing.  Only at the very conclusion are the doubts set to rest. Until that point each of the lovers—namely Jaufré Rudel, minstrel & prince of Blaye, and Clémence, Countess of Tripoli—are in a kind of debate with themselves, doubting and wondering about a hypothetical love.  Going between them is the third figure of the Pilgrim who is the catalyst for the action of the opera.  Whether we think of the most blunt proposition or a subtle love poem, the discourse of love is risky.  The drama underlying Love from Afar concerns the soul’s fear in hazarding such risks.

The disparity between the world presented in Saariaho’s opera and our own world is an unavoidable piece of subtext.  We’re accustomed to seeing physical desire objectified in media, while subtler sentiments rarely get their turn.  Love from Afar does not come from a culture of instant gratification, even as it addresses itself to a modern audience.

While it’s not how love is usually understood by 21st century lovers, i was still thinking, hm, isn’t all love really from afar?  There’s an enormous gulf between people, even when they’re not a thousand miles apart but only 36 inches.  At times the production brings the separated couple into a hypothetical proximity, as each lover contemplates the image of the other at various moments.  We’re encouraged to wonder at the sights before us, questioning the reality of the spectacle, just as lovers deconstruct their own perceptions, seeking something genuine and lasting.

The co-production with English National Opera & Vlaamse Opera is among the most visually flamboyant pieces of theatre I’ve ever encountered, from a team including Daniele Finzi Pasca (Conception and Lighting Designer), Julie Hamelin (Creative Associate), Gabriele Finzi Pasca (Associate Director), Jean Rabasse (Set Designer) and Kevin Pollard (Costume Designer).

The stunning presentation includes shadow puppetry, aerial performance, acrobatics & dance, an awe-inspiring array of colours and some CGI, on top of the usual musical disciplines in opera.  The production team decided to use three performers for each of the dramatic figures (Jaufré, Clémence, and the Pilgrim), including the one singing the operatic role.  Jaufré is sung by Russell Braun, Clémence by soprano Erin Wall, and the Pilgrim, by mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó.

My first impression when I saw the pictures in advance of the production was to think that this was a display suggesting a lack of confidence in the work itself, a kind of over-compensation.  I had seen a DVD of the work with a more restrained mise-en-scène, and was thoroughly won over by Saariaho’s score, even if I did suspect it might be too platonic for some people, too theoretical.

But when you think of it, why shouldn’t an opera production make a strong case for the work being presented?  We’re accustomed to using our imaginations in any opera, from Auber to Zemlinsky, and this one is no exception.  The visuals may grab you, but they still engage imagination, never giving us anything remotely literal, and often taking us into a decidedly poetic realm.

I am certain that Love from Afar will not appeal to everyone.  The people sitting immediately in front of me left at intermission (giving me a better view).  It’s a rarefied sort of work in some respects, reminding me of Pelléas et Mélisande for its textures and for the spirituality of its story, with strong echoes of Tristan und Isolde in a much quieter idiom.

All three of the principals were good.  I was most impressed with the vocalism of Szabó in the androgynous role of the pilgrim, an enormous role that she sang with great clarity, and very much in awe of Russell Braun as Jaufré, who once again gets to play a very moving death scene.  In addition to his unshakable conviction in the role, and his delicately nuanced singing, there was also the additional matter of his aerial work, which was spell-binding.

The other big star was Johannes Debus with the COC Orchestra & chorus, wonderfully solid playing this modernist score, sweetly resounding throughout.

Love from Afar continues for another seven performances, concluding February 22nd at the Four Seasons Centre.

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10 Questions for Michael Slattery

Posted on February 2, 2012 by barczablog

Since graduating from Juilliard, Michael Slattery has enjoyed an exciting international career. He has worked with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the French National Orchestra in Paris, the Akademie für Alte Musik in Berlin, with Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roy, and with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall. Career highlights include Peter Sellars’ Tristan Project at Lincoln Center, the title role in Bernstein’s Candide at Royal Festival Hall in London, and Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at the Châtelet Theater in Paris, the Staatsoper in Berlin, and at Glimmerglass. He was recently included in The Spectator’s list of tenor “Heroes of the Concert Hall.”

His solo discs The Irish Heart, and Secret and Divine Signs, received critical acclaim from Gramophone Magazine and Five Star ratings from BBC Music Magazine and ClassicFM. Other prize-winning recordings include Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne, Scarlatti’s Cecilian Vespers, Handel’s Atalanta, Acis and Galatea, Saul,Solomon, and Samson, Britten’s Curlew River, and Bernstein’s Candide. His voice has been recorded for films and for television, and several other projects are currently in development.

Last season he performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. Outside his musical activities, Michael Slattery devotes much of his spare time to painting and writing. His paintings have been published in the French art magazine ORAOS and exhibited by Glimmerglass Opera in conjunction with the launch of its new website. They can be seen at www.michaelslattery.com.

1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?

Michael Slattery

I like to think that I’ve inherited some of my best qualities from both of my parents.  Our ancestry is Irish.  My grandfather came to America in 1920, and we still have relatives in West Clare. The family farm and home, which is several hundred years old, is now owned by my cousin Aine.  We also inherited a beautiful piece of land on the bay of Shannon, which used to be a part of the English land owner’s estate.  It’s a beautiful location and would be a wonderful place for a home, but right now it is home to several horses.

2) What is the BEST thing / worst thing about being a singer?

The best thing about being a singer are the rewards that you enjoy for sharing a gift that that is God-given.  The worst thing?  Getting sick.

3) who do you like to listen to? 

We recently got a new turntable, tube amp, and speakers.  I’ve been enjoying listening to old LPs of great singers, from Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan to Rosa Ponselle and Fritz Wunderlich.   The great tenor Robert White recently joined us for dinner and brought with him as a gift some of his RCA red seal records including “Songs my Father Taught Me.”

His father, Joe White, recorded for Thomas Edison and later for NBC in the 20‘s and 30’s as the “Silver Masked Tenor.”  We particularly enjoyed Robert’s rendition of “Just A-Wearyin’ For You” with the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

4) what ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

I wish I were better about writing letters.  It’s more and more rare to receive a hand-written letter these days.

5) when you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favourite thing to do?

I enjoy discovering new spots in New York City.  I enjoy spending time with my family, and especially enjoy getting together with my cousins.

Five more concerning Michael Slattery’s new CD Dowland in Dublin.

1) how did singing these songs on the Dowland CD challenge you?

This project was challenging in many ways.  The main challenge was to keep an open mind during the collaborative process.  In the end I think we managed this quite successfully.  Our aim was to present these songs in a completely new way, without being influenced too much by the way these songs are traditionally performed.  To achieve this, we first needed to choose the right songs for the project.  We sat and read through every song Dowland ever wrote.  During that process we found ourselves drawn to many songs that are often overlooked, for there were particular songs which seemed to have a more “Celtic” flavor than others.

The next challenge for me was in figuring out how to treat the text.  I knew that I wanted to let go of the trappings of tradition, including the formality of a traditional concert hall presentation, with elegant phrasing, rolled r’s and intense attention to dynamic choices.  I also knew that I wanted to allow the study that I had done in Ireland to influence the way I approached the text.  I was very careful to retain my authentic American voice and accent; however, I absolutely wanted to steal as much from the Irish tradition as possible.  These influences manifest themselves in two ways- ornamentation, and text declamation.  The ornamentation comes directly from the bagpiping classes that I took in Ireland, my favorite ornament being the “dirty note” which has a direct relation to “blue notes” in jazz.  The style of declamation arises directly from my classes in traditional Irish singing, most notably in the casual approach to phrasing, where breathing is allowed absolutely anywhere in the phrase, as well allowing myself to sing on the consonants, resisting the bel canto tradition of singing only on the vowels.  Often in this recording you will hear me singing on “N”s and “M”s, “NG”s “R”s and diphthongs.

2) what do you love about Dowland & this type of composition?  

Well his mastery of composition goes without saying.  What I love about him is his attention to detail, with complicated inner voices in the lute accompaniment reminiscent of Bach.  But that’s not what you’ll be hearing on this disc.  We’ve stripped all that away and treated these songs as though the melodies had been compiled in an anthology of Irish fiddle tunes.  Dowland’s songs by no means require this sort of meddling, but the point was to allow the listener to hear these songs in a new way.  We did, however, retain a few moments of fidelity to Dowland’s settings, for example the first verse of “Come Again, Sweet Love” and the entire performance of “Me, Me and None but Me,” which we included to express our respect for the original settings.

3) was there a favourite among the songs?

My favorite song is track 3: “Behold, A Wonder Here.”  I think it our most successful setting.  When the voice sings the first solo verse over the drone it reminds me of how the project began, by stripping the accompaniment down to its most fundamental form.  Throughout the subsequent verses, you begin to hear the contributions of each of the musicians individually. These improvisations then develop into a properly orchestrated realization.  In a way, this song is a microcosm of the entire project.

4) how do you relate to Dowland’s songs as a modern man?

Songs are songs.  Whether they were written 400 years ago or yesterday my approach is the same.  For me it all begins with the text.  Once I’ve discovered the reason the words are there and internalized what the poet is expressing, I try to get out of the way and serve the music.

5) is there anyone out there whose approach to Dowland you particularly admire, or who has influenced you?

I have to admit, I was surprised to hear Sting’s CD of Dowland songs.  We had already begun working on this concept, so I was disappointed to think that there would be many out there who might think his CD was the reason we decided to do this.  As much as I resisted it, his CD ended up influencing me, because it confirmed for me what I didn’t want to do.  I found some of his settings very successful, and interestingly enough, they were the tracks where you could hear Sting’s influence most strongly.  Less successful for me were the times that he approached the songs in a more traditional way.  Hearing his CD gave me the courage to let go of the tradition completely and bring more of myself to our project.

Michael Slattery's CD~~~~~~~~~~~

Michel Slattery’s new CD, Dowland in Dublin, is now available.  Clearly this project has been a labour of love.  It will be interesting to see just what listeners think.

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Tosca tonight

Posted on February 1, 2012 by barczablog

Puccini’s Tosca can take one of at least a few possible shapes:

  • It can be a riveting thriller of a story, at times keeping you glued to the action
  • It can be a virtuoso vehicle, an opportunity for any one of the three principals to step forward and seize the moment

Those two would be understood as successful productions, yet there are still other possibilities.  One of the principals may be unconvincing dramatically, or incompetent musically.  And even so, when one (or more) of Tosca-Scarpia- Cavaradossi isn’t dramatically persuasive or vocally commanding, this opera still is a powerful piece of music theatre.  I love it so….I have seen a lot of productions over the years, many of them here in Toronto, and I’ve always enjoyed myself no matter which of the components didn’t quite carry the day.

Imagine my surprise at encountering a production where everything clicked, with no real weaknesses.

director Paul Curran

Director Paul Curran

The Canadian Opera Company production directed by Paul Curran is the most urgently dramatic Tosca I’ve ever seen.  It’s full of fascinating bits of business that pull it together.  For example, during Mario Cavaradossi’s aria “recondita armonia”, we know that the Sacristan has been asked to get the painter his colours.  In this reading, sung by Brandon Jovanovich as the painter and Peter Strummer as the Sacristan, there’s a remarkably vivid exchange going on.  Strummer is not simply giving us the usual buffa lazzi (thinking of the ways I’ve heard Fernando Corena, for example, twist his voice into something grotesque during these lines), but taking the stage with something more substantial.  There are no throw-away lines between the pair, nothing wasted.  Similarly, when Angelotti (Christian Van Horn) emerges from hiding, but is unrecognizable in his prison attire, Jovanovich shoves his unrecognized friend away, making what is often one of the most heart-breaking moments of the opera that much more compelling, as Angelotti looks up at his friend from the floor of the chapel.

Julie Makerov calls to her beloved Mario from offstage, and then appears.  I’ve often rolled my eyes at the various diva antics of Toscas playing up the high-maintenance aspects of the role.  Makerov underplays, while Jovanovich twitches, obviously mindful of the hidden fugitive he wants to help.  I’ve seen this opera so many times, and usually find myself aching for Tosca to just get out and let Cavaradossi help his friend escape; this time I didn’t mind Tosca’s behaviour at all, because it was just enough.  I have been craving this kind of delicate handling of these characters I know so well.  I found myself loving them more than ever, because they were saved from the hidden melodrama, that nasty tendency some singers have to over-act.

I was especially impressed by Mark Delavan as Baron Scarpia.  Of all the characters in this opera, Scarpia is the one who is most abused by mediocre performances, bellowing singers, and melodramatic approaches.  While Scarpia will behave like a monster in due course, I have no love for productions that hit us over the head with his excesses, insulting our intelligence.  Curran & Delavan gave us something quite different.  For most of his Act I appearance Scarpia functions simply as a terrifying policeman bent on catching a fugitive.  Only in the Te Deum do we see him begin to show his true colours, thinking of Tosca, and just before her exit, there was a tantalizing moment when their eyes met.  How wonderful that Curran & Delavan make Scarpia more than just a villain.  And for much of Act II as well, Delavan’s body language is very effective, calmly taking the stage but mostly standing his ground and waiting for Tosca to come towards him, rather than merely pushing himself upon her.  When he finally gets what he wants –Tosca’s declarations of hatred—Delavan changes his approach and begins to stalk her physically, but even then it’s wonderfully underplayed compared to what I’ve seen.

I’m looking forward to seeing whether the cast that opened the production (starring Adrianne Pieczonka and Carlo Ventre) bring a similar degree of dramatic conviction as the cast I saw tonight.  The production, co-produced with the Norwegian Opera and Ballet, with sets and costumes designed by Kevin Knight, has a handsome and authentic period feel to it.  Of all the operas ever written Tosca might have the greatest claim on a kind of historic verisimilitude, considering that the scenes all are set in real historically verifiable locales, complete with the actual bells one might hear on a morning in Rome (at the opening of Act III).  One overlays or ignores the text at one’s peril, and thankfully neither Knight nor Curran departed very far.

Paolo Carignani, conducting the COC orchestra and chorus led the piece at a good clip for most of the evening, never sinking into excessive sentimentality, and often presenting Puccini’s sonorities to us with the violence of a sucker-punch; I am sure he would have approved.

Tosca presented by the Canadian Opera Company at the Four Seasons Centre runs until February 25th.  See it if you can.

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Lepage and The End

Posted on January 28, 2012 by barczablog
Robert Lepage

Robert Lepage (Canadian Press photo)

As I listen to the Metropolitan Opera premiere the last of the four operas in Wagner’s Ring Cycle –streamed for free to an eager audience worldwide—I have to say, the natives are restless.  While Canadians are just fine with Robert Lepage (those who care, at least), the verdict so far in NYC seems quite conflicted.  I am basing this on the reviews I’ve seen, before having checked anything written about the new production I am listening to tonight (I am posting this while Act III is still on so i should think the reviews would at least wait for the end of the piece?).

But there seems to be a lot riding on this.  I suppose money is part of it. I want to take a moment just to remember the things i liked, because when i read what some say, you’d think it was a mess, a disaster.  Lepage even went as far as issuing an interview that sounded like an attempt at a defense; and under the circumstances i can’t blame him.  There’s been a great deal of magic for me in each of the previous three operas, yet all I’ve heard were a series of negatives.

Das Rheingold?   We heard about the rainbow bridge failure on the opening night, the relatively under-powered Wotan & Loge.

Have people forgotten the magical parts?

  • For starters wow, the appearance of the Rhine Maidens, doing that trademark thing Lepage seems to love, namely hanging on strings.  It was stunning.
  • down down down

    The descent to Nibelheim

    And the descent to Niebelheim is surely something nobody can take away from Lepage. Has anyone ever ever ever done so much with that sequence? Yes I’ve seen marvellous moments in productions, but never the overtones of elfin magic, visual echoes of styles we see in Lord of the Rings (although to be fair, the debt is really the other way, correct? Even if Tolkien still refuses to admit any debt or influence).

  • Loge walking backwards up the wall… fire and the lie, captured in a wonderful image, and sung beautifully.
  • Wendy Bryn Harmer… at the risk of sounding crude, shouldn’t Freia, the goddess who embodies youth and fertility be beautiful? This time at least, the casting is brilliant. When the giants want her, can you blame them?  The camera loves her.
  • When  Loge sings that lovely arioso about his quest for someone willing to sacrifice woman’s wonder & worth (“Weibes Wonne und Wert”), and leans across Harmer, his hands glowing magically, I couldn’t see for the tears.  In the encore it was every bit as powerful even though I knew it was coming.
  • The relationships between the principals makes so much sense in Lepage’s reading.  One of my favourite moments in the Chereau Ring is that lovely climax when Wotan tells the giants to take the gold, and declares Freia free.  She runs away from the giants… and runs PAST her waiting family, to stand alone, distraught, as she ponders her family relationships.  Lepage takes it a step beyond that.  Farmer seems to respond to Fasolt’s rough love.  Her glances at him are so sweet, so sad when we see what happens to Fasolt, and problematic to be sure.

Die Walküre?

  • Love that pursuit through the forest, Siegmund entering to…
  • A twin sister who really looks like a twin! Casting again!
  • I said little about Bryn Terfel’s Wotan –whose portrayal I liked in Rheingold—but Terfel upped the ante substantially in this opera, particularly his long monologue in the second act.  I loved that peculiar “eye” that carries so many possible meanings.  Wotan has given up an eye in exchange for wisdom, so it makes a curious kind of sense for the eye to be a motif at this point, as Wotan explores the world, in effect using that eye.
  • I loved the Ride of the Valkyries.  I have never liked this strange set-piece, the single most over-played piece of Wagner, that turns up in movies & TV commercials, a piece that has probably never worked very well onstage.  I’ve seen several productions of this opera and have never been very happy with what the director comes up with, especially when the sisters are all suddenly dwarfed by the arrival of the much bigger woman playing Brunnhilde.  Please don’t mistake me for a size-ist, as I love big bodies, and grew up watching them onstage.  But what a difference when Brunnhilde is the same size as her sisters, and suddenly she genuinely seems to be one of a troop.   And wow that sets up the father-daughter relationship with a Wotan who truly is a godlike figure, namely Bryn Terfel.  Terfel’s reading of Wotan’s farewell at the end of the opera was truly special, beautiful, moving, and in a close-up.

Siegfried?  Here we meet the other main character of the ring, the title character, played by Jay Hunter Morris, and both physically and vocally we’ve got someone who’s up to the task.  And what about Lepage’s contribution?

  • The physical reality in this opera brings the technology of Lepage’s design a step further, a curious hybrid of projections, props, puppets, live action, tromp l’oeil… We are in something artificial, a presentational space that’s believable but not fully real either.  It means that the nature music, the dragon, the forest-bird, will all have a different kind of impact than what we’ve seen in other productions. It’s not pretending to be symbolic or archetypal; if anything it’s surprisingly real, very simple.
  • There are again several moments illuminated at the simplest level of text.  For example, I’ve never seen the segment where Siegfried tries to talk to the forest bird with his own inept flute playing made quite so enjoyable, simply by giving us the comedy that’s in the text.  Similarly we actually see Wotan’s ravens chase the forest bird away as indicated in the text.

A lot has been said about Lepage’s “machine”, a large computer-controlled device manipulating a series of rectangular shapes that resemble planks.  There’s been a great deal of resistance, complaints, objections.  Yes there was a malfunction causing a delay of the Walküre high definition broadcast.  Of course, another negative complaint to fasten on.  But has anyone really wrapped their head around this achievement?  It’s something new, and I can’t quite grasp what it means.  Projections change the reality of the playing area, and have been doing so for decades already.  This is something else again.  The chief components of that machine are reframed over and over again, in slightly different configurations.  The machine is like a mannequin, a colossal Barbie doll, except that it doesn’t wear clothes, it wears people in costumes.  This world is Protean & malleable.  Any administrator knows that the one constant in the world is change;  Lepage gets it too, and makes change something fundamental to his Ring.   That is the message of the machine, that everything changes.  Erda told us something just like that, in the last scene of Das Rheingold:

Alles was ist, endet.  (Everything that is, ends)

Lepage makes change a fundamental condition of his Ring.  For those who are bemoaning that there’s nothing profound in this Ring, perhaps they should have another look.

(I am listening to Act III of Götterdämmerung, my favourite act of the cycle… the audience giggled audibly when the Rhine Maidens came out of the water… Did the nymphs make the audience laugh, or Siegfried with his facial expression? I guess I’ll see next week).

And yes, there’s the small matter of the musical performance of Götterdämmerung.

As I said on Facebook “I love Luisi”, and hopefully I don’t need (to use Ricky Riccardo’s charming accent) to “splain” anything.  The pace he takes –faster than James Levine, faster than the pace to which most people are accustomed—is truly breath-taking.  It actually makes the singing easier for the key performers, even if they sometimes resemble patter singers.  The entire work hangs together better when the lines aren’t drawn out endlessly in the usual way German conductors have been doing for the last half century or more.

Morris and Voigt sound wonderful, as does Hans-Peter König, possibly the best singer in the entire cycle.

Okay… I am now going to listen to the end of the world.  And then I’ll watch it again next Saturday.

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Cruel and Tender

Posted on January 26, 2012 by barczablog

I feel very fortunate to have seen the story of the Women of Trachis portrayed twice within a week.  I don’t mean two performances of the same production, but two different works in wildly different media.  The comparisons are unavoidable.

Martin Crimp

Playwright Martin Crimp

Last Thursday night I was present at the opening of Handel’s oratorio Hercules at Koerner Hall, a semi-staged production by Tafelmusik invoking figures from classical Greek mythology (and reviewed that night).  The title notwithstanding, this is really a virtuoso vehicle for the women in his life sung in the baroque style (arias and recitatives, singing with orchestra), Hercules being a cameo compared to the two women vying for the leading role in his love-life.

This afternoon I saw a matinée of Martin Crimp’s Cruel and Tender, a play after Sophocles’ Trachiniae.  Directed by Atom Egoyan for Canadian Stage, Crimp’s play is also something of a star vehicle, but set in the modern day:

  • Deïanira (or “Dejanira”) from the original has become “Amelia”, Egoyan’s real-life leading lady, Arsinée Khanjian
  • Hercules has become “The General”, played by Daniel Kash
  • Their son Hyllus is now “James”, played by Jeff Lillico
  • Deïanira’s rival Iöle is now the African Princess “Laela”, played by Abena Malika.

With the earlier work still clearly in mind, it was unavoidable to make the comparisons, particularly considering the ways in which the new play updates the action.

We’ve all seen plays presented with anachronistic design elements, sometimes adding wonderful layers to the play, but often merely leaving us scratching our heads.  But interpretation is not to be confused with the bigger step taken by Crimp.  By declaring it is a play “after Sophocles’ Trachiniae” he sets himself free to make it his own, while declaring that his text is not to be mistaken for Greek tragedy.

There’s an overused word I kept thinking of watching Cruel and Tender,  namely deconstruction.  Crimp revisits the familiar territory of the older play, yet in modernizing takes everything apart, problematizing what was once simple and mythic.  But then again he is simply taking from history what has obviously changed.  I don’t believe I could possibly capture all of the categories (still haunted by the older work I saw last week), and don’t want to give too much away for fear of stealing some of Crimp’s thunder.  The General for example, does not have the freedom of the ancient hero who brings a maiden home after conquering her people.  Our modern General may emulate the savagery of his ancient prototype but must answer for his atrocities, unacceptable conduct for a modern hero, facing a new world with complex rules of engagement.  Fame is distorted by the lens of the media and interpreted by government bureaucrats, pragmatic contexts without compassion for the man.

The updates to the roles of the women are big payoffs for Crimp and the audience for Cruel and Tender.  The emotional notes struck in the Sophocles tend to be larger than life, so extreme and abstract as to seem symbolic rather than real; but then again the ancient text was presented with masks in a huge theatre, not for a society accustomed to close-ups and emotional truth.  Egoyan –perhaps with his operatic background—never mistakes Crimp’s textures for realism, encouraging a kind of post-modern virtuosity.  Each of the major parts get their moment in the figurative spotlight.

Khanjian’s Amelia carries the show just as one would expect of a Deïanira.  Although this world is defined by the General, his role is brief, only appearing near the end; for the first two thirds of the evening everyone lives in the shadow of the absent hero.  Khanjian strikes a balance between the requisite glamour for a fitting consort to the larger than life hero, and her passion.  But unlike Deïanira, Amelia’s passions are fleshed out, much more than just jealousy.  She is a pragmatist determined not to be a victim, sometimes tense, sometimes angry, a wife delivering ironic critiques with a sidelong glance, and a growing sense of misery.  This is the first time I’ve seen Khanjian perform in a live theatre setting –where she started before her much more extensive film career began—and I’m pleasantly surprised.

Malika’s Laela accomplished her chief challenge, managing to be a worthy antagonist to Amelia while being completely likeable, an innocent brought to an impossible situation.  The one question mark for me was in the production’s decision to let us hear Malika sing; if Crimp really wrote that odd and contrived scene of karaoke –the weakest thing in the production—then it’s simply that Egoyan was trying his best to make the odd writing work.  I have no idea what Crimp was aiming for in that scene, even if Malika’s singing is wonderful.  But it’s an odd shift of tone for the work that I didn’t really understand.

Daniel Kash doesn’t disappoint when he finally brings the General to us, a man who looks like a Hercules even if –speaking of deconstruction—there’s no reason why a modern general has to look like a Greek God.  Yes there is one anecdote of the General’s exploits, a rescue carrying someone on his back; but our General could just as easily be tiny, and the story a bogus fabrication.  In this respect our modern play reveals its roots, giving the General a classical heroism.  Just as Hercules suffers greatly, so too the General.  Kash does his best with the writing, which I find wordy (sorry Mr Crimp).  Speaking of heroic, Kash performs manfully considering what he’s expected to say and do.   Crimp makes wonderful use of the classical subtext when the General is raving, making delirious references to the Nemean Lion –one of Hercules’ 12 labours—and flings a bit of clothing over his shoulder as if it were the lion-skin. We thereby get the grandeur of the classical overtones that have mostly been suppressed throughout the play, in the middle of the crazed ravings of our modern man.

I was especially pleased with James (the son of the General and Amelia, corresponding to Hyllus), both in the writing and the performance of Jeff Lillico.  This is one of several places in the play where the difference between the old and new are especially edgy.  When we first meet James he’s almost gormless, a self-absorbed youth who’s under his mother’s sway: at least at first.  When sent to search for his father, all that changes. The James who returns after finding his father in Africa becomes the alpha animal, presumably from this encounter but also because of a coming of age experience in his travels.  Again, it’s partly the writing, which isn’t subtle; but I love that clarity, at least in the way that Egoyan finds the blunt truth of the family dynamic.  The pace throughout is very organic, allowing you to hear and understand, never lagging, but sometimes allowing breathing room for some of the powerful moments.

I hope I haven’t given too much away, but it’s very much worth seeing.  I’d like to see it again.

Cruel and Tender runs at the Bluma Appel Theatre until February 18th.

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bridal lullaby

Posted on January 24, 2012 by barczablog

Without being able to ask the artist, one sometimes wonders about the depths of meaning one encounters.  Are they intentional creations—where the creator sought for and purposefully aimed at those depths—or, are they serendipitous brilliance?  There’s a third possibility, that they could even be something in the viewer’s head that the author never intended.

Where does all that meaning come from?

The questions are inevitable as I play through a piece of music, a simple little thing really.  I can’t get over the depths I have encountered.  Maybe it’s all in my head.  Maybe it’s the convergence of the material and the music.

If one must be tormented by an earworm –one of those tunes that one can’t get out of your head—let it be this kind, a wonderful composition lodging in the brain because it’s such a good composition.  My mind is reverberating with the sounds of Percy Grainger’s Bridal Lullaby.

But that’s not how I encountered the piece.  I found it appended to the Merchant Ivory film Howard’s End.  There is a brief orchestral phrase in B-flat minor, striking a kind of tragic pall over the beginning.  Then the piano begins, in the related key of F-sharp major, a luxurious curtain of notes.

Although that opening orchestral phrase is from the film’s composer –Richard Robbins—there is a direct segue into Grainger’s composition.  As a result the combination may seem to be a single entity in your first encounter.  For awhile I assumed Robbins had written the entire composition, something like a piano concerto whose piano solo follows the orchestral introduction.  And then I had a close look at the credits, discovering the name of Percy Grainger.

I am pondering all of this after having again played through Percy Grainger’s brief piano solo, the aforementioned Bridal Lullaby.  The composition was a wedding gift to one of the great loves of the composer’s life, after their failed love affair.  As she moved into a new life and married someone else Grainger sent her the composition with its dedication to Karen Kellerman (her married name), a kind of bitter-sweet blessing and wish for her happiness.

Encoded in the music is a mixture of sweetness and sadness, a sighing resignation, parallel chords sliding downwards in a musical gesture of surrender to fate or just fatigue.

Imagine you are a composer, a young man in love with a woman for a dozen years.  You love her, or desire her but your mother hates the woman.  After several attempts to make it work, you finally accept fate because she’s found someone else to marry.  You may wonder just what that will be like, but if you’re a gentleman –as I believe Grainger was—you’d truly and sincerely wish her well, even as part of you said farewell not only to her, but also to your own truest dream of happiness.

Could your wedding gift to her be music, a composition intimately addressed to her privately?  That is the implication I see in a piece called “Bridal Lullaby,” as though –here’s a crazy thought—this man is singing his beloved to sleep in her new bed.

Is it possible to imagine that you were marrying a new man, with your former lover singing you to sleep?  That is what the title implied to me, especially when I read that he sent the original to her.  It is like a last love-letter, albeit one written and sent across the enforced and formal gulf created between them by the new marriage.

Grainger at the pianoWatching Howard’s End I had no idea of any of this, yet the conflicted and troubled sensibility in the music is unmistakeable, a good match for the two times we encounter the composition.  The first time we’re watching Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) walk around the property of Howard’s End, at the film’s beginning (click the link above).  The house represents something older in Ruth’s life, something like the memory Karen Kellerman had of Grainger and their love.  And when Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) walks into the house for the first time, the music comes to us as if to suggest another life from before, no matter what falsehoods any liars might proclaim. And indeed although we encounter several falsehoods, the tune is truth and wins out over those falsehoods. From what I understand about Grainger it’s as though his inner life was concealed, and only laid bare in the notes he composed and/or played at the piano.

Oh sure, there’s the matter of the film & its plot.  But it can just as easily be understood as the case of the tune that would not be denied.

Posted in Books & Literature, Essays, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

“Tosca leaps…”

Posted on January 21, 2012 by barczablog
Poster for Puccini's Tosca

Poster for Puccini’s Tosca

If this were a debate, Joseph Kerman would be in one corner, dissing Puccini’s Tosca, the opera he famously called a “shabby shocker”.

Kerman is not alone in that corner.  Benjamin Britten wasn’t too thrilled with Tosca either.  But I won’t commit public seppuku by disrespecting Mr Britten, who—as a successful composer—is entitled to his opinion.  Let’s stick to Kerman’s commentary.

Now of course this isn’t a real debate.  Kerman’s words were uttered in the context of a book, not as part of a discussion, and my responses to him may seem like attacks.  But come to think of it, so do Kerman’s words about Tosca and Puccini.

So let’s be clear.  This is a superficial discussion, not a scholarly paper.  While others have already answered Kerman in various ways on his own scholarly turf, I am writing this mostly because Tosca opens in Toronto tomorrow –a night when I have a party to go to, so I can’t be there for opening night—and a friend of mine was asking what opera he should see as his first opera.  I think he could do a lot worse than see the shabby shocker even if there is the danger that he might see other operas, and that opera might become an expensive hobby, speaking as someone who can’t resist buying CDs, DVDs, tickets, subscriptions…

Let’s focus on one tiny thing Kerman said that to my knowledge he has never retracted, possibly because to do so would be to admit just how wrong he was.

“Tosca leaps, and the orchestra screams the first thing that comes into its head.”

Whenever I read this, I want to scream at Kerman.  But let’s pretend that I have learned self-restraint (if you can imagine that in the context of this big long self-indulgent rant).

When I was much younger I was sometimes guilty of saying the first thing that popped into my head.  And it was sometimes a rude or dismissive remark that I would immediately regret and be unable to unsay no matter how hard I tried.  I wonder what it’s like to have something in a book that you can’t unsay. But the book Opera as Drama has been published in several editions, and as far as I can tell Kerman has not tried to unsay his dismissive remark.  Presumably he’s happy with this dismissive sentence, particularly because his dismissal is so well-known –and part of his fame—that it could have been printed on his business card.

Let’s think for a minute about orchestras, whether or not they say the first thing that comes into their “head”.  It’s a funny image, really.  Operas are a hybrid of words and music.  If anything in an opera is the “head” it’s the words. The orchestra is the engine of emotion, the involuntary place of feeling and gut response, not the head.  But let’s not split hairs, even if Kerman’s metaphor in some respects resembles the first lame thing that popped into HIS head.

Orchestral writing is a colossal job, sometimes written and copied and revised over a period of years –or if it’s Rossini, maybe a few weeks!—even though the effects can’t be purely cerebral.  The orchestra is not the place for rational discourse, not the place to make precise statements, oh no.  The music is a conduit of emotion.  So when the effect seems calculated I don’t believe we are nearly so moved as when the effect seems –wait for it—spontaneous.

Hm… spontaneous.  That reminds me of something.  When I am spontaneous, I am not thinking and pondering and being fake.  I am saying the first thing that pops into my head.  Funny isn’t it?  Is Kerman criticising Puccini at some level for doing something that resembles a kind of ideal(?): orchestral writing that seems spontaneous?

Okay, let’s set Mr Kerman aside for a moment.  I want to look at Puccini and actually speak of Tosca, shabby or otherwise.

Act III is a marvellous piece of music theatre, a fact not lost on the many people who see this opera again and again.  Tosca has been identified as number eight among the twenty most popular operas in a study by Opera America known as “cornerstones”.

The first two acts set us up for the last act, particularly the last five minutes.

  • Tyrannical police chief Baron Scarpia loves the beautiful singer Floria Tosca
  • Tosca loves the painter Mario Cavaradossi; Tosca is so despondent that she offers herself to Scarpia, to get Scarpia to promise a fake execution & a safe conduct pass to allow the lovers to escape;  when Scarpia claims his reward–to possess her body (and that’s as polite as i can put it)– she stabs him just as he expects a consummation
  • Cavaradossi loves Tosca; the painter is imprisoned awaiting execution as the last act opens

Got that? It’s not really complicated, not once you’ve watched Scarpia’s henchmen torturing Cavaradossi in Tosca’s presence (Act II), sadistically pushing her to the point where she betrays Cavaradossi, thinking she is saving him.  While some operas can move as slowly as a glacier, that’s not what Tosca is like.  And then we get closer to the last five minutes.

Cavaradossi is alone in prison, wondering if he will ever see his beloved Tosca again.  He sings one of the prettiest arias anyone has ever written, e lucevan le stelle.  This simple reminiscence of the pleasures of life and love in the despairing moments immediately before execution is one of the many reasons this opera is so successful.  From the first note you hear a kind of existential loneliness.

Not long after this solo, Tosca shows up.  In the previous act, she suffered a horrible ordeal, watching her lover dragged away to execution.  She sank so low that the only way she could bargain for her lover’s life was to offer herself to Scarpia, the police chief.  He promised to arrange a fake execution for Cavaradossi.  It’s not as unlikely as you might think, for Scarpia wanted Tosca’s body, and so was completely vulnerable to her at the moment when he expected a kiss. Tosca carries the safe conduct paperwork that is the last logistical detail to enable her and her lover to have a happily ever after, against all odds, and of course has no idea that Scarpia has double-crossed her as surely as she double-crossed him.

And so, the deal as Tosca understood it is that the execution is fake.  The guns will fire blanks, so Cavaradossi must fall down as if he has been shot.  This is what Tosca tells Cavaradossi, hoping for the best as she watches what she believes to be a fake execution.

But Tosca has underestimated Scarpia even in death.  Although she double-crossed Scarpia (stabbing him just when he expects something tender) it turns out the police chief has double-crossed her too, as he simply wanted Tosca’s body with no expectation of giving her anything in return.  Tosca watches what she believes to be a fake execution, even though it is actually genuine.

And so we come to the last five minutes of Tosca, as if it were a little pantomime-within-an-opera.  Tosca is the audience, watching what she believes to be a fake execution, hoping her lover will make a convincing imitation of death, never guessing that his performance will be perfect because it’s not an imitation.

The soldiers trudge in to a remarkably banal little tune, because the soldiers are just doing their jobs, bored, and indifferent.  And the music builds gradually, Cavaradossi takes his place, is offered a blindfold which he gallantly refuses.  He smiles boldly because of course he doesn’t think he is going to die.  Tosca is eating it up, as the music gradually builds.  The soldiers lift their rifles.  The music inexorably gets louder.  They take aim.

They fire and the sound is terrifying, particularly when we see Cavaradossi fall.

Tosca is moved by his artistry.

And then the music gradually quiets from its climax, as the soldiers finish their boring job, inexorable and completely insensitive to the man before them whether he’s dying or pretending.

They march away.

When the soldiers are gone, Tosca tells Cavaradossi it’s time to wake up, and runs to him, all eager and innocent as a little girl on Christmas morning, because now she can have her happily ever after.  She runs to him, tells him to get up.  And when it dawns on her that he is really dead her heart breaks very quickly, no arias, no time to comment: because the cops are now coming for her.

They have found Scarpia’s body.  The execution took place in a fortress in Rome.  To escape the pursuit, and indeed, devastated by her loss, Tosca runs to the parapet, hurls a defiant word at Scarpia—that they would be judged together before God—and then jumps.

What is the first thing that pops into the “head” of the orchestra? (recalling Kerman)

The prettiest tune we heard all night –e lucevan le stelle– was a celebration of love and romance in the face of imminent death. But the orchestra is now as powerful as it was previously gentle,  flooding us with this passionate and beautiful tune.

It makes perfect sense doesn’t it?  The orchestra is telling us the subtext for the moment: love and the brevity of life.

I feel kind of sorry for Kerman that he doesn’t get it.

Here’s a film version of those last few minutes complete with titles.  Have a look…

Posted in Books & Literature, Essays, Opera | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Herculean

Posted on January 20, 2012 by barczablog

Tonight’s premiere of Tafelmusik’s semi-staged version of Handel’s Hercules was dramatic in more ways than one.

Jeanne Lamon

Jeanne Lamon, Music Director of Tafelmusik (Photographer: Sian Richards)

We came to honour Jeanne Lamon, to celebrate her thirty years leading the baroque orchestra.  While it was a commemoration of past achievements in the presence of friends & collaborators, it also represents the beginning of a new era, with the announcement of a new media label “Tafelmusik”.

Hercules was a wonderful choice of vehicle, and an apt symbol.  While the work might suggest heroism yet it is remarkable for its wonderful opportunities to showcase female talent, just like Tafelmusik itself.  And the team responsible for the production, including long-time collaborators Marshall Pynkoski & Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg (Opera Atelier co-artistic directors, who staged & choreographed) suggest that the Tafelmusik brand will be more than just the orchestra, on different media platforms.

Tafelmusik media

Tafelmusik media: a new label

I didn’t know the work being presented (Handel’s Hercules surely deserves to be better known), and came away quite happy with the semi-staged format used on this occasion.  No one was really in costume, except perhaps Laura Pudwell who wore the generic male outfit: because she was playing a man.  Within the first 15 minutes I was completely drawn into the classical world being presented.

Some passions are more conducive to a baroque sensibility.  While I resisted Hercules’ great aria of rage –partly because there seems to be something oxymoronic about a man in pain singing an aria, partly because it feels unseemly for a great strong man to go on at such length—the various complaints of the women carried me away immediately, because I suppose they are what I expect from baroque opera.  And my prejudice echoes remarks from Lamon, who said that she found ” the male characters a bit less interesting, perhaps a bit more two-dimensional” compared to these wonderful women’s parts; after seeing the work tonight I think she’s absolutely right, and there’s nothing Herclues could ever do to steal the spotlight from his wife.

Allyson Mchardy

Soprano Allyson McHardy

Sumner Thompson brought a genuinely heroic presence to Hercules, but I believe Handel was more interested in the passions of his women.  There was Hercules’ jealous wife Dejanira, a wonderfully varied part that in some respects seems well-served in an oratorio or semi-staged context, precisely because we have no visual distractions to upstage the vocal fireworks.  At times quietly brooding, then explosively angry, and uncontrollably jealous, Dejanira is a wonderful role that was fully realized in Allyson McHardy’s wonderfully passionate singing.  And McHardy had a particularly affecting moment in a silent embrace near the end.  Soprano Natalie Paulin was the catalyst for McHardy’s rage, as the captive princess Iöle, a plaintive contrast to Dejanira.  And a third female, the reliable Laura Pudwell as the herald Lichas, had possibly the most poignant moment of all, quietly describing Hercules’ agony.

Perhaps it’s a foregone conclusions that Jeanne Lamon’s music direction should be masterful.  I’ve marvelled at the generosity of the orchestra, made available to Opera Atelier and then conducted not by Lamon but by Ivars Taurins for the annual Messiah concerts, where I have seen so many other orchestras controlled by one person –usually male—regardless of whether that leader was good or not.  The sharing has made the ensemble stronger, a wise strategy.

Tafelmusik repeat Hercules January 20, 21 and 22 at Koerner Hall.

Posted in Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Operatic alchemy

Posted on January 19, 2012 by barczablog
Alchemist at work

Alchemy: science or art? or a bit of both

The Canadian Opera Company announced its 2012-2013 season today, January 18th, a combination of works old and new.  I don’t pretend to understand how an opera company chooses their repertoire, although I think I understand some of the issues involved.  There are operas that are known to be popular, others that are considered risky.  Somehow one attempts to reconcile the desire to sell tickets and make money on the one hand, with the riskier agenda of fulfilling artistic aspirations on the other.  One can picture both a financial and creative bottom line, even if there are no actual formulas to turn base metals into gold.  Genuine quality costs money, particularly in opera, a medium known to be the most expensive of all art-forms.

The upcoming season?  We’ll get seven operas (in order of the date of premiere):

  • Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito
  • Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor
  • Verdi’s Il Trovatore
  • Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
  • Johann Strauss’s Fledermaus
  • Richard Strauss’s Salome
  • Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites

I believe this is a safer season than the one the COC is currently presenting, and I say that meaning no disrespect.  I feel confident that the company will improve on their box office returns with this lineup, whereas their current choices feel riskier to me.  As someone who admires and welcomes risky programming I am eagerly looking forward to Saariaho’s Love from Afar that premieres very soon, and hope that the COC audience embrace it, one of the first operas of the new millennium to gain some popularity.  In addition I am hopeful about the success of the double bill of Zemlinsky’s Florentine Tragedy and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and look forward to Handel’s Semele, all of which are riskier choices than the other two operas still to come, namely Tosca and Tales of Hoffmann.

You may wonder what I mean when I claim that there’s nothing as risky as the Saariaho, the Zemlinsky or the little-known Handel in the 2012-2013 season.  I refer first, to Opera America’s “Cornerstones”, a list of the 20 most popular operas that the organization compiled from box office statistics.

In 2010-2011 the COC chose three operas from that top 20 listing (namely Aida, The Magic Flute and La Cenerentola).  The current season only boasts two operas from that list (Tosca and Rigoletto), but 2012-2013 goes back to three cornerstone operas (Lucia di Lammermoor, Il trovatore, and Die Fledermaus).

And next let’s consider the operas that aren’t “cornerstones”. In 2010-2011 that meant

  • Orfeo ed Euridice (Robert Carsen’s breathtaking Toronto debut, the COC’s first Gluck opera),
  • Ariadne auf Naxos (Andrew Davis’s return to Toronto, phenomenal cast, Christopher Alden’s production),
  • Death in Venice and
  • Nixon in China (one of the best things the COC has ever done)

For 2011-2012 (this season) the previous season’s excellence was a difficult act to follow, especially given the inevitable comparisons:

  • Robert Carsen’s second Gluck opera Iphigenia in Tauris
  • Christopher Alden’s second Toronto production, an edgy Rigoletto (which I liked very much, but that was risky if the cornerstone operas are expected to be money-makers)
  • the new Love From Afar (hoping people embrace it… it’s a beautiful score and a romantic story)
  • Handel’s Semele
  • the tuneful Tales of Hoffmann and
  • an intriguing double-bill of an unknown opera (the Zemlinsky Florentine Tragedy) paired with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.  I hope the popularity of Puccini encourages people to take the plunge with Zemlinsky.

That’s the context for saying next year feels safer, namely in comparison to the current—brave—season underway.  The cornerstone operas are once again up to three.  But the other four are all safe choices as well, without anything that one could call risky.

  • While La Clemenza di Tito isn’t well-known Mozart, he is nonetheless one of three composers (with Verdi & Puccini) who has four operas in the top 20, and therefore should be a sure thing.
  • The production of Tristan und Isolde is also a safe bet even if Ben Heppner is forced to cancel, and likely to attract a sell-out crowd of Wagnerites from far and near.  I am eagerly hoping to hear him, and confident that this small house with its sweet acoustic will feel safe enough for him to undertake all the performances, notwithstanding his recent vocal vicissitudes.
  • Atom Egoyan

    Director Atom Egoyan (Canadian Press photograph)

    The chance to once again see Atom Egoyan’s Salome is another special treat, with some promised upgrades to the technology.   My only request –tongue-in-cheek–is that Egoyan take the logical step with this voyeuristic production, namely to please put a hand-held camera (or a convincing prop imitation thereof) in one of the characters’ hands.  Perhaps Herod? or Narraboth as he stalks the Judean Princess?  But in this production we are all implicated, all  voyeurs.

  • Finally, a Robert Carsen production of Dialogues des Carmelites would also be a sure thing, even if it didn’t also star Bayrakdarian, Pieczonka, Forst and Mishura.
  • And while we’re on the subject of star power, I am looking forward to hearing Stephen Costello and Anna Christy as the lovers in Lucia di Lammermoor, and Ramon Vargas as Manrico in Il trovatore. 

Next year?  Pure gold.

Posted in Essays, Opera | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments