Opera Warhorses

The final assignment as Musical Director for the San Francisco Opera for Conductor Donald Runnicles, whose tenure  ends with the company’s 2008-09 season, was Verdi’s “La Traviata”. Runnicles conducted six performances, five for the Violetta of Anna Netrebko, with a final one scheduled with Allyn Perez. I attended the last of Netrebko’s five performances.

Although Runnicles is particularly associated with Wagner, Puccini and 20th century opera,  in San Francisco he has sampled the Verdi canon, from early Verdi (”Macbeth” and “Luisa Miller”) to his later works (”Ballo in Maschera”, “Simon Boccanegra”, both the French and Italian versions of “Don Carlos”, “Aida”, “Otello” and “Falstaff”). However, in his 19 years of conducting in San Francisco, he never had conducted any of the three great “Middle Verdi” operas.

For the summer season of 2009, which included Runnicles conducting a single performance of the Verdi Requiem and six performances of “Traviata”, the 58th opera he conducted in San Francisco, Runnicles was exclusively a Verdian.

[Below: Donald Runnicles, conductor of "La Traviata", his final opera as Musical Director, San Francisco Opera; edited image, based on photograph courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Whether by coincidence or as part of a grand design, his “La Traviata” performances occur just two and a half months before his successor Nicola Luisotti’s scheduled opening of the San Francisco Opera’s 2009-2010 season with Verdi’s “Il Trovatore”. The arc of Runnicles’ departure with “Trav” and Luisotti’s arrival with “Trov” may well suggest that Verdian opera, that had seemed shortchanged in San Francisco earlier in the millenium, is returning to its place of honor at the War Memorial Opera House.

The production was borrowed from the Los Angeles Opera, which owns two physical productions of “Traviata”, one of which, by Giovanni Agostinucci, was revived by the Southern California company for a run that overlapped the earlier performances in San Francisco.  My review  of the Los Angeles first night cast in Agostinucci’s production was most enthusiastic (see  A New Verdian Golden Age? – Poplavskaya, Giordano in Elegant Agostinucci “Traviata”: Los Angeles Opera, May 21, 2009).

Those who saw the L. A. performances or read my review  will understand why I believe that a large number of the San Francisco opera patrons, having seen “what’s out there” during the general directorship of Pamela Rosenberg, would have preferred the traditional and very beautiful Agostinucci sets to the somewhat minimalist sets in Marta Domingo’s fanciful Jazz Age timeshift.

However, there were other factors for San Francisco Opera’s choice of the lighter Domingo production (assuming that the Los Angeles Opera would have let the Agostinucci sets out of its possession and would have let the elder company make such a choice). Most important was that the “Traviata” was the vehicle for the triumphant return to San Francisco of a diva with an early association with the company – the Russian superstar Anna Netrebko.

It was her performances in the title role of Massenet’s “Manon” in Los Angeles (and later at the Berlin Staatsoper), timeshifted to  Paris in the early 1950s that created a sensation.  To this day, Robert Millard’s production photo of Netrebko as Manon in the Hotel des Transylvanie, dressed like Marilyn Monroe, is one of the most popular images in the brief history of opera photographs on the Internet. (See: “Thriller”: Paterson Links with Netrebko, Villazon and Domingo in L. A. “Manon” – October 5, 2006.)

(It is by far the most visited image of any ever displayed on the operawarhorses.com website and can be seen through the hyperlink cited above.) One expects Terrence McCarthy’s image of Netrebko’s stunning entrance in the classic limousine (with a high kick of her leg to the audience before she steps from the conveyance), also to win many admirers.

[Below: Violetta (Anna Netrebko) steps from her limousine; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Much of Netrebko’s early career in the United States is associated with the San Francisco Opera, where she participated in the Merola program for young artists, while starring in the main San Francisco Opera season in several Russian rarities – Lyudmila in Glinka’s “Ruslan and Lyudmila” (1995), Louisa in Prokofiev’s “Betrothal in a Monastery” (1998) and Marfa in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Tsar’s Bride” (2000), as well as such traditional fare as Nanetta in Verdi’s “Falstaff” and Zerlina in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”.

The rise of Netrebko to superstardom has been accompanied by an obvious increase in the size of her voice (her slightly risqué quip about a microphone in her diaphragm is widely quoted on the Internet.)

But she also has emerged as a superb actress, confident in her abilities to project the full range of a woman’s emotions, through vocal modulation, through gesture, and through facial expressions.

A friend who is an admirer of the great mid-20th century diva, Maria Callas, and who saw the first four of Netrebko’s Violettas, related to me that one could see Netrebko’s interpretation of the part evolve from performance to performance.  Those who are fortunate to see her are in the presence of one of the great singing actresses in operatic history.

[Below: Anna Netrebko is Violetta in Marta Domingo's "Jazz Age La Traviata"; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Her Alfredo was Charles Castronovo, a favorite tenor of this website.  Castronovo’s performance may be considered from different viewpoints. If one were to rate it solely from the quality of his singing, it was praiseworthy. His second act solo aria De miei bollenti spirito was beautifully expressive and the accompanying cabaletta was dramatically effective.

However, an appreciation of his stylish and beautiful leggiero voice  does not prevent one from having reservations about his assaying a role that, especially at the War Memorial Opera House with its open orchestra pit, should be assigned to a spinto tenor.

Castronovo’s attractive light lyric voice, was used to great success in two Mozart roles in this house, Tamino in “The Magic Flute” (2003) and Don Ottavio in “Don Giovanni” (see review in June 2008 archives). He also was a striking Nadir in Bizet’s “Pearl Fishers” 2004, (his role debut, which he repeated at San Diego Opera (see Castronovo, Siurina Lead Magical San Diego Opera “Pearl Fishers” – May 9, 2008).

But these three roles utilize smaller orchestras for the Mozart operas and lighter instrumentation for Nadir’s solos. In “Traviata” his voice was heard to best effect when accompanied only by the offstage banda or the a capella portion of his duet with Netrebko in the first act, or in the subdued orchestration of the final scene, such as his duet Parigi, o cara, again with Netrebko.

At other times the Verdi-sized orchestra playing in an open pit in the 3200 seat War Memorial proved challenging to a voice, for whose weight the part of Fenton in Verdi’s “Falstaff” still seems more appropriate. (For the record, I also felt that Rolando Villazon, the last San Francisco Alfredo (2003), was also challenged by this house.)

However San Francisco Opera, at least for the past half century, does not have much history of casting spinto tenors as Alfredo. Not one of THE THREE TENORS, during their heydey in San Francisco ever sang Alfredo in this house, with Franco Bonisolli (1969) the only undisputed spinto singing the role during that time when the presence of great tenors for these roles seemed the rule rather than the exception. 

There were compensating advantages, however, in casting Castronovo. He was most believable as an ardent suitor of a worldly woman, was an expressive actor, whose acting style matched nicely with Netrebko’s, and, for those who prefer singers playing father and son to have a family resemblance, did seem plausibly related to Dwayne Croft, who played his father, Giorgio.

[Below: Charles Castronovo as Alfredo Germont; based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the Sa Francisco Opera.]

Croft proved to be a persuasive Elder Germont, with a large voice whose previous Verdi in San Francisco was as Ford in “Falstaff” (2001).  (In those “Falstaffs” it was Netrebko who played  Nannetta to Croft’s Ford.)

His most notable role in San Francisco was that of Robert E. Lee in the world premiere production of Glass’ “Appomattox”. (See The Remaking of San Francisco Opera, Part I: Glass’ “Appomattox” – October 14, 2007.)

[Below: Giorgio Germont (Dwayne Croft) is moved by Violetta (Anna Netrebko); edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Notes on the Performance

Verdi’s conceptualization of “Traviata” as a contemporary drama, to be performed in modern dress, was a radical idea that offended the censors who controlled the early performances of the opera.  But this was a time of great geopolitical change in Italy with the dynasties the censors intended to protect losing their influence there within a few years, if surviving at all.

Before too long, Verdi got his way. But what was Parisian modern dress 157 years ago when “Traviata” was written, now would be considered museum pieces. Occasionally, producers wish to update “Traviata” in ways that restore the sense of radical newness.

Marta Domingo’s production moves it forward in time, although to a decade that actually is closer in time to Violetta’s 1850s than to the 21st century.  Domingo revels in visual details for her post-Great War ‘flapper” era sets. A narrow encircling proscenium in art deco style serves as a border that brings unity to each of the four disparate scenes.

Anyone staging “Traviata” gets to plan two party scenes, so that the crux of the production revolves around the art deco images of the first and third acts. (In both L. A. “Traviata” productions, Agostinucci’s and Domingo’s, the third act becomes Act II Scene II (eliminating the traditional intermission) and the fourth act becomes the third.)

Once the luxury car provides the grand entrance for Violetta on an uncluttered stage with a single streetlamp,  the Baron Douphol (Dale Travis), takes command of the arrival and garaging of the limousine. (Travis is at his best playing fussy middle-aged French noblemen, such as this baron and Monsieur de Bretigny in Massenet’s “Manon”.)

Then  the mid-stage curtains open to reveal a representation of an art deco room dominated by a gaudy chandelier, buttressed with ropes and tassels and complemented by period furniture. A bartender uses the old style cocktail shakers to mix drinks. Among the first act party-goers, Austin Kness who plays the Marquis d’Obigny stands out.

When the party guests withdraw, we observe that  the room in which the party was held also is used by Violetta as her bedchamber. Annina (Renee Tatum) helps Violetta out of her party dress into a house coat she wears over her lingerie.

After Netrebko sings an affecting Ah, fors e lui, she kicks her shoe high into the curtains and twirls in several circles. She seems confused when she hears Alfredo refrain during her Sempre libera!

In another context Producer/Stage Director David McVicar famously asked, “Where is the sex in “Traviata”?  Domingo comes up with an answer – if not sex, at least the introduction to foreplay. Just after Alfredo’s offstage voice is heard, Castronovo appears onstage in her bedroom (a rendezvous not found in Verdi’s libretto) holding Violetta’s camellia, and Violetta pulls him into her overstuffed couch bed as the act ends.

The country house is a modest affair, represented by a half dozen trees interlaced with a netting to whose spiral patterns glitter is attached. The principal plot driver in the second act is the arrival of Alfredo’s father, Giorgio Germont.  In his personal mission to break up the affair between his son and Violetta, Germont must be convincing both to his son’s amour and to the audience.

Here the acting instincts of Netrebko, Croft, and afterward Castronovo made this scene absorbing. Netrebko, sitting sullenly at Violetta’s table with head slightly bowed, sings of her life as a “fallen woman” before Alfredo’s love transformed her. Affected by her honesty, Croft makes a quick sign of the cross, then wipes his brow.

Certainly, Marta Domingo’s feel for the material provided a logical starting point for directing these singing actors, but one senses that Netrebko fully becomes the character she is portraying and that Croft and Castronovo have become “in the moment” with her, reacting with purely natural instincts.

Since Domingo was stage director for both the Los Angeles and San Francisco “Traviatas” and the traditional cut of Giorgio Germont’s cabaletta that follows Di Provenza al mar, il suol was opened (and, of course staged) in Los Angeles, then it was likely Runnicles’ decision to make the cut in San Francisco. Here, my vote with Domingo and L. A.’s conductor Gershon decision to restore the music, even conceding that  the sentiments expressed are repetitive and no one argues that this is among Verdi’s best creations.

It is the third act party that unleashes Domingo’s imagination. Although the party is on the main floor, there is an art deco mezzanine (and the 1920s-style decoration we now call a “disco ball”).

On the mezzanine an homage to a famous New Orleans jazz combo takes place (reminding us that before Luciano Pavarotti’s iconic white handkerchief, Louis Armstrong used a similar accessory to a similar theatrical effect.)

I’m not sure that any “La Traviata” stage director looks forward to staging the ballet dances that are performed at Flora Bevoix’ party, in which the action is suspended while the audience observes first a group of dancing gypsy fortune tellers and then the dance ensemble portrays a matador’s encounter with a bull.

Colombian dancer Jekyns Pelaez, in his debut season, was the Matador. Here, the flapper era theme worked against the material that Verdi wrote for the dances. Kitty McNamee, the choreographer, who presided over a successful flamenco style dance in the Los Angeles “Traviata”, seemed to resign herself to a slinky caricature of flapper dance. Alas, Verdi and Slinky are not a comfortable fit.

[Below: Jekyns Pelaez as the Matador, and  his fellow dancers at Flora's party; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The mezzanine is simply an elaborate set dressing, with no dramatic purpose. The functional furnishing in the scene is a giant multi-purpose table, on whose tabletop the dancers cavort, the card game between Douphol and Alfredo takes place, onto which Alfredo jumps to throw his winnings at Violetta, and onto which Violetta falls prostrate.

The great trio and chorus commences in which the three principals recognize how thoroughly each of their lives have become intertwined with the other two. They will reassemble in a few weeks at Violetta’s deathbed.

In the final scene, the whole concept of the Jazz Age has seemed to dissipate. A floral couch is the central furnishing of an almost bare room, save dozens of glistening lights in a scrim and strings of lights descending from above. If women’s party gowns changed markedly between the 1850s and 1920s, the suits men wore visiting sick friends and the nightclothes women wore did not.

As the scene opens, snow is falling and Violetta lies on her couch with Annina sleeping at its foot. Netrebko, after reciting Germont’s letter from memory, sings Addio del Passato beautifully, exhibiting superb breath control.

This will be a sometimes surreal scene, with a pantomime of three angels arriving downstage to fit Violetta with robe and wreath and then recede into the shadows until her formal entrance into heaven takes place.

Of course, Alfredo, whether or not it is a conviction deeply held, affirms Violetta’s assertion that she now feels stronger and Netrebko and Castronovo sing of their characters’ plans to return to Paris.

[Below: Alfredo (Charles Castronovo) and Violetta (Anna Netrebko) sing of their returning to Paris; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

This being a basically uncut final act, we have the often excised, but here beautifully presented, quintet consisting the principal trio, Annina and Dr Grenvil (Kenneth Kellogg) before the ethereal violins of Violetta’s final moments are heard.

Netrebko’s performance was worth much more than the price of admission, and the conducting of Runnicles made for a spectacular experience. Although there was yet one more performance of the opera to be conducted by the maestro, this final one with Netrebko had a  special feel to it.

When Runnicles, following the opera house’s tradition of having the conductor signal the orchestra to stand to receive the audience applause just before beginning the final act, the orchestra stayed in their seats and applauded him while members of the audience stood in the darkened theater in honor of the conductor.

The vociferous audience applause that followed at opera’s end was heartfelt, with first Netrebko, then Runnicles, receiving standing ovations. The audience left, most knowing they had seen a performance of Violetta for the ages.

For the second time in seven months, this website is reviewing a performance of the Zambello production of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”. The production, which generates enthusiasm and sold out performances in every city in which it has shown, was reviewed in its Lyric Opera performances in Chicago last November, less than two weeks after one of Chicago’s African-American residents received an invitation by the American people to move his residence to the White House in Washington, DC. The Chicago performance is detailed in The Zambello “Porgy and Bess” An Historic Success at Chicago’s Lyric – November 18, 2008

The Zambello production, which has appeared also in Washington DC, Houston and Los Angeles, is the current and most successful permutation of a collaboration between Zambello, Conductor John DeMain and former Houston Grand Opera General Director David Gockley. Their intent was to present this famous work in its original “operatic” version as intended by Gershwin. With Gockley’s assumption of the General Manager duties at the San Francisco Opera in 2006, the  scheduling of “Porgy” as part of a San Francisco Opera main season was an early priority.

[Below: the community of Catfish Row; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

One of the extraordinary factors that goes into any American performance of “Porgy and Bess” is George Gershwin’s dictate that any performances of the work use an African-American cast. Although Gockley has worked closely with the Gershwins’ family foundation that still has the power to license performances and to enforce the composer’s will, he has expressed his hope that U. S. companies will in time be permitted to cast the works with the ability to choose artists from among the world’s greatest singers, without attention to the singers’ origin or ancestry.

Even so, the cast that Gockley invited to San Francisco was as talented as one could imagine any operatic management assembling. All of the principal artists are accomplished in the full operatic repertory. The Porgy, Eric Owens, performs the Mozart basso roles, and standard repertory opera from Bellini to Richard Strauss. The Bess, Laquita Mitchell, recently performed such roles as Leonora in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” and Donna Elvira in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”.

The Crown, Lester Lynch, performs the major Verdi baritone roles, and will soon be singing Nottingham in Donizetti’s “Roberto Devereux” at Minnesota Opera. (See: In Quest of Donizetti – A 2009-10 Update.)

Chauncey Packer, the Sporting Life, sings Tamino in Mozart’s “Magic Flute” and the title role in Massenet’s “Werther”.  The remaining cast members collectively have considerable experience in a wide-ranging operatic repertory.

Nor is this a case of the San Francisco Opera filling the roles with voices that seem inappropriate for the popular showpieces – i.e., whose voices sound too “operatic” to “deliver” a standard on the Broadway stage. It is the succession of “hit songs” that resulted in the work, shorn of its “classical music” elements, being shown in abridged versions for four decades, as if it were intentionally composed to be a Broadway musical.

As an example, Owens, who was a convincing Re di Scozia in Handel’s “Ariodante” at San Francisco Opera (see the review in June 2008 archives) performed the familiar “I got plenty o’ nuttin”  with the swagger of a Broadway headliner, and the more classical and vocally difficult “Buzzard keep on flyin’ over, take along yo’ shadow” with equal distinction.

[Below: Porgy (Eric Owens) comforts Bess (Laquita Mitchell); edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Notes on the Performance

Conductor DeMain led the rousing orchestral introduction with its complex harmonies. We were instantly transported to the community of Catfish Row – in Peter J. Davison sets, a rusting, two-level, vertical community. On this first day of Summer 2009, the Clara, Angel Blue, sang a mellifluous “Summertime”, the lullaby that is the opera’s most famous “number”.

Clara’s husband, Jake (Eric Greene), has responsibility for the first choreographed “show-stopper” of the opera, Jake’s humorous ballad to his infant son, “A Woman is a Sometime Thing”. Nicely sung, and brilliantly staged in  Zambello’s production (Denni Sayers is the choreographer for San Francisco Opera performances, with Packer’s Sporting Life accompanying the merriment with lively dance steps), it is a precursor to the dark incidents that follow.

The community’s energy is reflected in what seems to be a friendly crap game, but a game that begins the opera’s central storyline, with far-reaching consequences, not all known at the opera’s end. Fatal rolls of the dice lead to the death of Robbins (Michael Austin) and eventually to that of his killer, Crown, two of four deaths of principal characters that will occur in this opera.

Austin, who has sung leading Verdi and Puccini roles throughout the world, was vocally impressive in the brief but physically demanding role (he is killed aggressively by Crown in a savage fight), displaying the depth of talent of the “Porgy” cast.

It is the consequences of the crap game that will lead Bess, in the opera’s final act, to conclude that both men – Crown and Porgy – that have protected her in the past are lost to her forever.  The manipulative Sporting Life, whose “happy dust” and whose entrepreneurial interest in the prostitution trade will probably prove to be even more destructive than Crown’s violence, will convince her to leave with him.

If the death of Robbins flows out of the community men’s recreational interests, it is Catfish Row’s principal economic activity – fishing around South Carolina’s barrier islands – from which another story arc is formed. Jake’s aspirations for the upward mobility of his infant son lead him to risk his life for potential monetary gain during the dangerous hurricane season.

It is Jake who first feels the power of Porgy’s grip, that will later strangle Crown. It is to Jake, after all, that Porgy sings that “nuttin’s plenty”. But Jake’s determination to work hard against all odds, including rough seas, leads to the deaths of Jake and Clara, one of all of opera’s most attractive couples.

[Below: Jake (Eric Greene) with his wife Clara (Angel Blue) plan for the future of their infant son; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Their tragic end is beautifully portrayed in Zambello’s vivid pantomime of Clara trying to reach for Jake on his capsized boat during the hurricane, during which the remainder of the ensemble sings at the footlights. (The assembly at the footlights is a brilliant theatrical device, always effectively utilized in the past by stage director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Adding the elevated pantomime just beyond it is a stroke of Zambello genius.)

If one explores the commentary and debate over this work from each of the seven decades since the work’s premiere, one can experience a kaleidoscope of changing attitudes to the subject matter. The original attraction of the character of Porgy, first to Edwin DuBose Heyward, the author of the original story, then to George and Ira Gershwin, was the idea, seldom explored in the 1920s, that a crippled beggar living in a community whose elders had been slaves, could be portrayed as dignified, passionate and interesting.  In the 1930s, this seemed to take verismo much lower in the class structure than such works as Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana”.

In this millenium, we, of course, have experienced what previous decades may not have imagined, and, as a result of our experiences can better appreciate Catfish Row’s sociology. Porgy may appear to the coroner and other white folks to be groveling for pennies, but at the Saucer Ceremony dealing with the consequences of Robbins’ death, it is Porgy that assumes the role of community leader, exhorting others to fill the saucer.

His counterpart community leaders are two powerful women – Maria, sung by Alteouise deVaughn, and the widow Serena Robbins, played by Karen Slack. And perhaps one of the opera’s less famous pieces in the opera is its most powerful – the trio at opera’s end between Porgy, Maria and Serena, when Porgy sings “My Bess, I want her now”.

The role of Maria is an extraordinary one, that in addition to a more traditional operatic writing style as in that final trio, (worthy of comparison with the great trios of Richard Strauss), contains an exhortation to Sporting Life not to try to sell any heroin in the vicinity of her restaurant. The text is sung rhythmically as if spoken – a bravura piece nicely performed by deVaughn.

(One wonders if John Williams in scoring the film “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” intended homage to the descending scales in Sporting Life’s “happy dust” leitmotiv when he devised the similarly orchestrated theme of descending scales for the swarming spiders.)

[Below: Maria (Alteouise deVaughn) forbids Sporting Life (Chauncey Packer) from selling heroin anywhere near her establishment; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Serena’s “My Man’s Gone Now” earned Karen Slack the first sustained audience ovation of the performance, followed by a showstopper for Bess – “Oh, the train is at the station” with its refrain “We’re leavin’ for the Promised Land”. And in the wondrous succession of melodies and set pieces, one hears the Buzzard Song and the famous and affecting duet between Bess and Porgy “Bess, you is my woman now”.

Yet another showstopper – the cakewalk “Oh, I can’t  sit down” gave us the opportunity to experience the athleticism and acrobatic and dancing skills of the Mingo, Michael Bragg, who left a strong impression in this deliciously attractive comprimario role.

Strutting to the music of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, augmented by banjo, saxophone and xylophone, Bragg and his colleagues, in their excitement preparing for the Kitiwah picnic, presented one the last of the truly lighthearted moments before darker incidents in Catfish Row and Kitiwah remind us of Mingo’s first words at the opera’s beginning – “Oh, nobody knows when the Lawd is goin’ to call”.

Although Davison constructed a unit set, it transforms effectively from Catfish Row to the landing at Kitiwah Island, with the ruins of an abandoned amusement park visible at stage left. Zambello portrays the tension between the revivalist Baptist faction of the community, led by Serena, and Sporting Life’s seductions.

[ Below: the sets for the picnic on Kitiwah Island; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Gershwin underscores the tension between salvation and seduction by making Sporting Life’s Scriptural critique so appealing to the opera’s audience (and Zambello, who uses Kitiwah as the site for adult baptisms, lets us know that some of the Catfish Row citizens are open to Sporting Life’s ideas). Sporting Life is probably grand opera’s most vivid personification of “sex, drugs and rock and roll”, and the San Francisco audience showed its delight with spirited applause.

[Below: Sporting Life (Chauncey Packer) expresses his doubts about the authority of the Scriptures; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

The appearance of Crown at Kitiwah is as menacing as that of Don Jose in Bizet’s “Carmen” at the bull-ring – an outlaw who wants a woman back in his possession who has moved on to a new relationship. Here the result is rape, rather than murder. Having admired Lester Lynch’s chillingly dramatic performance as Crown in both Chicago and San Francisco, I look forward to hearing him in the future in his Donizetti and Verdi roles.

[Below: Crown (Lester Lynch) overpowers Bess (Laquita Mitchell); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Famous features of “Porgy and Bess” are the two “Doctor Jesus” episodes. For these, Conductor DeMain puts his baton down and stands motionless as the principals, to the accompaniment of cellos and violas and a few other instruments,  go through extended passages in which they appear to be improvising the spiritual singing of the African-American churches. Gershwin’s notes are precise but the bars that measure time do not exist for those passages.

Karen Slack was last seen at San Francisco Opera three years earlier singing (in Russian) Tchaikovsky’s enchanting duets in his “Orleanskaya Dyeva” with Mischa Didyk as the Dauphin and Slack as Agnes Sorel (See this website’s review in the August, 2006 archives.) As with the other cast members, Slack’s accomplishments throughout the operatic repertory makes her searing performance as Serena especially significant.

[Below: Serena (Karen Slack) calls on the healing power of Doctor Jesus; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

In the smaller roles, several artists should be noted. Calvin Lee as Peter and Samantha McElhaney as the Strawberry Woman deserve special praise. San Francisco Opera chorister Frederick Matthews, who himself played Jake in a company of “Porgy” that toured Europe, was notable as Nelson. (For a previous interview with Matthews, see: A Year in the Life of an S. F. Opera Chorister – An Interview with Frederick Matthews.)

Even in a memorable cast, with an especially fine performance by Laquita Mitchell, the standout performer was Eric Owens as Porgy. He presented a fully conceived Porgy, effectively sung and persuasively dramatic.

[Below: Eric Owens is Porgy; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Zambello’s Assistant Producer in San Francisco was her long-time colleague Garnett Bruce. Zambello’s conceptualization of the work, with Davison’s sets, should be regarded as the authoritative presentation of this most popular of 20th century American operas.

This website has described the San Francisco Opera as the “House of Puccini”, both because of its long association with the operas of the Tuscan composer and the recent excellence of its Puccini productions, since David Gockley assumed the general directorship of the company in 2006.

The 2006 production of “Manon Lescaut” with Karita Mattila and Mischa Didyk, 2007’s  ”La Rondine” with Angela Gheorghiu and Didyk and “Madama Butterfly” with Patricia Racette and Brandon Jovanovich, and 2o08’s “La Boheme” with Gheorghiu and Piotr Beczala defined current excellence in Puccini performance.

Even though much of Gockley’s early seasons in San Francisco reflected the opera, cast and production choices of his predecessor, each of these Puccini offerings in 2006 through 2008 had a Gockley imprint, such as a Gockley change of production (”Manon Lescaut”), or the happy result of Gockley coaxing a superstar to come to San Francisco (Gheorghiu in “Rondine” and “Boheme”).

For Summer 2009, the Puccini offering is “Tosca”, the composer’s third most popular opera, after “Boheme” and “Butterfly”. Unlike Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut”, “Boheme”, “Butterfly” and “Rondine”, for which one might ask only who is to be the lead soprano and tenor roles, “Tosca” is an opera with three principal roles, with the villain of the piece, the Baron Scarpia, of equal importance to the two lovers.

It is always wonderful to have great voices singing Musetta, or Marcello, or Schaunard, or Colline, or Sharpless, or Lescaut or Prunier. However, if it were reported that a “Butterfly” was distinguished because of its Sharpless, or a “Boheme” because of its Schaunard and Colline, most veteran opera goers would interpret this to suggest inadequacies in the soprano-tenor lead singers, and the opera, therefore, likely unsuccessful.

In fact, each of the three major “Tosca” roles has great strengths that attract operatic superstars. Tosca has the title role, a major aria, opportunities for abundant dramatic acting, beautiful music, and closes the second act in an arresting pantomime as the only living character onstage.

Cavaradossi has two arias, including the third act aria he delivers while alone on stage. That aria, E lucevan le stelle is not only the most famous piece in the opera, but a true operatic “hit” beloved by the wider public (thanks in no small measure to its choice by Luciano Pavarotti as one of his signature arias). Scarpia is present only in two acts, but so dominates the action of the second act that a great Scarpia can leave an indelible memory.

The Story of “Tosca”

“Tosca” is an opera about collateral damage. Each of the three main characters will die unexpectedly, two of them because they were caught up in events with which they were not originally concerned.

A painter has arrived at a church where he is painting a picture of a Biblical subject,  Marie Magdalene. The next morning he will find himself facing a firing squad and dying. His mistress, a classical singer, will enter the church to look for him and will later that afternoon murder Rome’s chief of police and the next morning will leap to her death from the Castel Sant’Angelo.

There are backstories to the opera. First, there is the actual history. When the Bourbons, the French ruling family, were removed from power by the French Revolution, King Louis XVI’s cousin, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples (who was married to a sister of Marie Antoinette) was also chased off of his throne. A Roman republic was declared, but did not last long, when a conservative reaction to the republic returned the King to power. Ferdinand had most of his republican enemies executed, and instituted a highly efficient secret police.

Then there is the fictional backstory. Angelotti, a former official of the Roman republic, was jailed by Ferdinand’s agents. His sister, the Marchese Attavanti, attended church each day, ostensibly for prayers, but was playing her part in an elaborate plot for her brother’s prison break. She was to stock her private chapel within the church with food and disguises for Angelotti to use as an intermediate hiding place on his flight from Rome to safety.

Cavaradossi (who in the French play that “Tosca” was based upon, was the son of French Revolutionaries and was taught painting by the French Revolutionary painter, David) observed the Marchese praying and has used her features as the inspiration for a painting of Marie Magdalene commissioned by the church. Cavaradossi, who is sympathetic to the Revolution even through employed by the church, is known to Angelotti, but Cavaradossi and the Marchese do not know each other.

Notes on the Performance

The opera opens with Angelotti, nicely sung by American bass Jordan Bisch in his San Francisco Opera debut role, seeking a hidden key (whose location, I think,  is a  bit too obvious in this production), to the Marchese’ private chapel.

Cavaradossi, played by Uruguayan tenor Carlo Ventre, arrives and, after some banter with the Sacristan (Dale Travis), launches into the first big tenor aria, Recondita armonia. Ventre, whose professional debut was only 15 years ago, is one of the young spinto tenors who demonstrate in role after role that great operatic performances occur today with the same frequency as in “olden times”.

(For reviews of recent Ventre performances, see:  Team Verdi: San Diego Opera’s Praiseworthy “Aida” – April 23, 2008 and Guang Yang a Stellar Santuzza in Lyric Opera’s “Cavalleria” – Chicago, February 25, 2009 and Racette, Ventre Impress in Zambello-Inspired “Butterfly” at San Diego Opera- May 20, 2009.)

Ventre’s dusky, lyrical voice, with its beautiful timbre and pleasant vibrato, has the weight to excel in the great tenor roles of the core Italian repertory.  (The reviews listed above chronicle his Turiddu in Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana”, his Pinkerton in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and his Rhadames in Verdi’s “Aida”. Just as he appears to be shedding the role of Pinkerton, he has taken on the heavier, dramatic tenor roles like Rhadames, which he will sing in at least one of the Big Three American opera companies’ 2010 Fall season.)

My only mild criticism of this cast, not enough to detract from my thinking that the entire show deserved an A+ rating, was the Sacristan of Dale Travis. And, here, my concern was not that he did not sing the part well (because he did sing well) nor that he failed to act the part as required (because he did act well), but that I have memories of seeing two great Italian performers, Renato Capecchi and Italo Tajo, take on the role of this crotchety cleric in San Francisco late in their careers.

Travis is certainly in the first rank of character bass-baritones, and has mastered the comic expressions that we associated with, say, comic film actor Bill Murray earlier in his career, but make-up and mugging still doesn’t match the long experience of past Italian masters like Capecchi and Tajo in portraying this disaffected soul. However, to be fair to Travis and to General Director Gockley, I have no suggestion on who currently singing might fit the part better. Maybe I’m just feeling crotchety myself.

Yet Another Digression on the Paucity of Contemporary Studio Recordings

In the review of Ventre’s Pinkerton in San Diego, I expressed frustration that his colleague, Patricia Racette, a leading Butterfly of our day, has so little in the way of studio recordings of major operas. I feel that frustration even more in the case of Ventre. By this time in his career, comparable Italian tenors that I saw in San Francisco Opera performances of the late 1950s and 1960s, such as Giuseppe Campora, Gianni Raimondi and Renato Cioni (not even to speak of Mario del Monaco, most of whose repertory is archived) had one or more major studio recordings to their credit.

[Below: Mario Cavaradossi (Carlo Ventre) at his painter's scaffold; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The availability of studio recordings is slightly better for Ventre’s colleagues, Pieczonka and Ataneli. Pieczonka has recorded the part of Alice in Verdi’s “Falstaff” with DGG and is in a Naxos recording of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”. And both she and Ataneli have released one or more “recital albums”.

The DVD can be a valuable archival record, but even this technology has some limitations – certainly among them that the visual recording usually takes precedence over the aural. Most DVDs cannot match the sound of the legendary studio recordings of the 1960s.

And, yes we have You Tube, with performance snatches  of varying quality, some recorded surreptitiously; but, so far, that technology has not shown much promise as a satisfactory replacement for the controlled environment of the recording studio.

A Lustrous Tosca

[Below: Tosca (Adrianne Pieczonka) prays to the Madonna; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Tosca is a singing actress, whose stock in trade is theatricality. Puccini’s music takes the audience much of the way to where he wants us to be, but the composer anticipated that a great singing actress would be required to play the part of this great singing actress. For Tosca, one of the diva soprano roles in the Italian operatic repertory, is unsurpassed in the demands that the role makes on a singer to display not just emotion, but emotion that enthralls the audience.

Pieczonka, who sings Wagner and Richard Strauss as well, met the challenges of the role of Tosca. In her San Francisco Opera debut, Pieczonka demonstrated a spinto voice, with the beautiful sound that one expects of the greatest lyric sopranos, while possessing the necessary vocal control and the histrionic instincts necessary to make this complex character – sincere in her faith, jealous of her lover, true to her art, with the capacity for murder if backed into a corner – dramatically and musically interesting.

Sets and Stage Direction

On opening night, 77 years ago, of the War Memorial Opera House –  the very theater in which Pieczonka proved to be a superbly theatrical Tosca – this was the opera that was performed. The sets, although created by Thierry Bosquet, were based on the original sets that opened the War Memorial.

[Below: Thierry Bosquet's Act I sets for "Tosca"; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

The stage director for this “Tosca” is a person himself trained at San Francisco Opera, the former Adler Fellow, Jose Maria Condemi. I had been impressed with his revival of the David Hockney production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” earlier this year at Lyric Opera in Chicago. He also directed the “Elixir for Love for Families” at San Francisco Opera, reviewed here also.

Condemi proved that you can follow all of Puccini’s explicit stage directions and still make interesting innovations in the stage action. Wisely, Condemi does not try to change the traditional ways that audiences expect Cavaradossi, Tosca and Scarpia to interrelate. He spends his time with staging the Te Deum (the church celebration of the mistaken news that the anti-Napoleonic coalition was victorious a few hours prior at the Battle of Marengo).

Condemi approaches staging as does several contemporary stage directors, such as David McVicar.  Each member of the chorus or “extra” in a non-speaking role becomes a personality with an individual story. The choristers come in one at a time or in small groups, and each are involved in vignettes in anticipation of the Te Deum mass. The Swiss guards move into formation for the religious procession. All of this takes place towards the rear of the stage in what would be the main part of the church, while our point of view is from the far wall of a side chapel.

Such details are seen in the second act as the police functionaries interact with the masked specialist in torture and the judge who observes the proceedings in the interest of the state. But in “Tosca” it is absolutely crucial to be innovative only where one is not obstrusive on the opera’s traditions. Condemi’s “Tosca”, as was his Chicago “Tristan”, was a brilliant rethinking of how to move people around these familiar settings.

Scarpia as Personified Evil

This website has been present at Lado Ataneli’s last two operatic assignments – the title role of  Verdi’s “Rigoletto” at the San Diego Opera in March and Anckarstroem (Renato) in “Ballo in Maschera” at the Deutsche Opera Berlin in April. Both of these triumphs seemed to augur well for an impressive Scarpia in San Francisco. Not only did he not disappoint, but proved to be one of the great Scarpias of our present day.

Scarpia is a role which is the personification of evil, but evil that is most effectively presented with the utmost dignity and elegance, including a kind of perverse charm. It needs a voice of power, but one that can sing beautifully, because much of the music that Scarpia is melodious and lyrical. Ataneli has all these requisites and provided a stunning performance. (See: Power Verdi: Ataneli, Vargicova Excel in San Diego Opera “Rigoletto” – March 28, 2009 and Power Verdi: Chanev, Marambio, Ataneli in Deutsche Oper Berlin “Ballo” – April 25, 2009.)

[Below: Baron Scarpia (Lado Ataneli); edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

(One notes that Scarpia’s office in the Farnese Palace is one in which he is surrounded by paintings of male nudes. Obviously, these decorations from the Renaissance in Rome were not of Scarpia’s choosing. We know him to be lascivious, but his only interest in men seems to be in their torture or in their death on the gallows.)

[Below: Thierry Bosquet's Act II set of Scarpia's headquarters in the Palazzo Farnese; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

“Tosca” is possibly the most difficult of the standard repertory operas to find ways to depart from the stage directions that a composer and his librettists set down and meet audience approval for that departure. I cannot recall in almost five decades of attending “Tosca” of anyone deploring a stage director for following Puccini’s instructions that Tosca place candles on either side of Scarpia’s body and a cross on his chest, but I have heard lots of abuse of stage directors (including the great Jean-Pierre Ponnelle) who ignored this ritual. Many modern stage directors obviously find it ridiculous, but they change it at their peril.

[Below: Tosca (Adrianne Pieczonka) places a cross on the body of Baron Scarpia (Lado Ataneli) whom she has just killed; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

The third act begins peacefully (after a Puccinian fanfare), with its symphony of church bells and a nicely sung shepherd’s song by Zachary Weisberg, who as a young teenager has amassed enough impressive musical honors in his brief career, as might bring envy to a much older colleague. Conductor Marco Armiliato characteristically presided over the entire opera without using an orchestral score.

Pieczonka had received a heartfelt ovation from the San Francisco Opera audience after her second act Vissi d’arte, but the greatest mid-opera audience approbation occurred after Ventre’s bravura Lucevan le stelle. Modern tenors, like Ventre, know how to exude the inherent drama and energy in arias like this classic, without appearing hammy.

Some professorial treatises have been harsh on the third act of “Tosca”, but if you ignore their formulae as to how Puccini should have scored this act, or how the librettists should have written it, what Puccini gave us truly is a masterpiece. Cavaradossi is resigned to die, but regrets that he never would see Tosca again. Then she appears, like Rhadames’ vision of Aida in the tomb, to be with him, with the momentous news that she has killed Scarpia.

[Below: Mario Cavaradossi (Carlo Ventre) reads the safe conduct that Tosca (Adrianne Pieczonka) has secured for them; edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Whether or not Cavaradossi really believes that his life has been saved, or that the safe conduct is a sham, he can face the firing squad with personal satisfaction. Napoleon was victorious at Marengo, Scarpia is dead, he has had the opportunity to sing of love with Tosca in unison octaves. If the safe conduct is real and the firing squad is using blanks, they can live on. If the firing squad uses real bullets, he leaves this life as contented as he could be under the circumstances.

[Below: the death of Cavaradossi (Carlo Ventre) by firing squad; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]

Among the others who contributed to this memorable perfromance were Joel Sorensen as Spoletta, and two current Adler Fellows – Austin Kness as Sciarrone, and Kenneth Kellogg as the Jailer.

The audience applause at opera’s end was enthusiastic as each of the principals – Ataneli, Ventre and Pieczonka – stepped before the curtains for their individual bows. Although Ventre appeared at the turn of the millenium in this opera house in two roles, this threesome is new to most of the San Francisco audience. It is certain that these San Franciscans look forward to seeing all three principals in future assignments here.