Opera Warhorses

One year ago the Seattle Opera teamed Italian Conductor Carlo Montanaro with basso John Relyea in a new production of a relative rarity – Massenet’s “Don Quichotte” [See Masterful Massenet: John Relyea’s Don Quixote at Seattle Opera – February 26, 2011.] Montanaro has returned to Seattle as Relyea’s conductor as the young basso adds yet another relative rarity to his repertory – the title role of Verdi’s “Attila”.

The Seattle Opera assembled a strong international cast for the work’s Seattle premiere. The treacherous role of Odabella was impressively sung by the Venezuelan soprano Ana Lucrecia Garcia, whose meteoric rise internationally is one of the current operatic phenomena.

The Italian baritone Marco Vratogna, in his Seattle debut as the Roman general Ezio and the  big-voiced tenor Antonello Palombi, rounded out an accomplished Verdian quartet that would be welcomed on any operatic stage in the world.

[Below: John Relyea as Attila; edited image, based on an Elise Bakketun photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

Notes on the Production

The physical production incorporates the concept and basic set created by Bernard Uzan for the France’s Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg, and has most recently been seen at the Israeli Opera Tel Aviv. However, Seattle Opera hs extensively revised both the concept and the production, creating new costumes (including often stylish new military dress for the principals) and creating a series of visual projections that are often the dominant image of a scene.

The opera’s central theme is warfare, and all four of the story’s principal characters are battle-scarred. Two of the characters – Attila and Ezio (Aetius) – are historical personages and there are fragments of historical fact at least alluded to in the opera’s libretto.

However, the actual 5th century ravages of the historical Attila in France, Germany and Italy have had a millenium and a half to become encrusted with myth and legend. The opera’s libretto and the Napoleonic era German play on which it is based are steeped in fictional elements, the “scourge of God”, as this leader of the Huns came to be identified, mythologized to serve the geopolitical viewpoints of the German dramatist and of Verdi himself.

[Below: Ana Lucrecia Garcia as Odabella; edited image, based on an Elise Bakketun photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

This Seattle remake of the Strasbourg production has remythologized Attila yet again for the  21st century audience. Attila and his “barbarians” are bedecked in desert camouflage, and perform the precision strikes of special operation forces. Those more or less on the “Roman” side (Odabella, Ezio and Foresto) regale us in the brighty colored uniforms of some sort of fascist potentate (perhaps German imperialists or the machismo  forces of some Central or South American dictator).

Since no character in “Attila” can be regarded as either especially virtuous or evil, the remythologizing is hardly controversial. The themes in “Attila” are just as much about war and cultural conflict as those of the Theofanidis’ 2011 opera “Heart of a Soldier”.

Therefore, 20th and 21st century military costumes and images are nowhere at odds with the story line (whose deficiencies have always been evident) and certainly do not get in the way of the performance of Verdi’s incessantly melodious score.

[Below: Ezio (Marco Vratogna, left) offers to concede all the rest of Europe to Attila (John Relyea, right) if he can retain control of the Italian peninsula; edited image, based on an Elise Bakketun photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

 The Donizetti-Early Verdi Matrix

I have suggested elsewhere that the contemporary opera goer should think of the Donizetti operas from 1830 on and the Verdi operas up until 1850 as a stylistic continuum. During the two decade period the two composers perfected an approach to opera that adapted the sensuous, dramatically exciting stories of the Romantic era poetry and literature to the traditions of early 19th century Italian opera.

Along the way the two Italian composers transformed those traditions. Donizetti was a major force in the creation of the modern tenor sound, writing for those artists who perfected a new style of singing, most famously the high C belted from the tenor’s chest.

Both composers during this period glorified the agility and power of the soprano voice. Both were adept at creating female characters whose vocal pyrotechnics signified the woman of power, such as those of the title roles in Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena”, “Maria Stuarda”, “Lucrezia Borgia”, Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco (Joan of Arc) and Abigaille in Verdi’s “Nabucco”; or Verdi’s women of determined purpose such as “Attila’s” Odabella, Giselda in “I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata”, Elvira in “Ernani” or the Lady in “Macbeth”. Both composers also exploited the lyrical potential of the baritone and basso voices.

During those two decades Donizetti and Verdi effectively utilized such conventions of the early 19th century Italian opera as the dual arias – the cavatina followed by the fireworks of the cabaletta, giving them the dramatic thrust to move the action forward. Both composers also sought opportunities for the concertato, when major characters would assemble for a concerted number.

However, by the time Donizetti was age 47 (1844), he was too ill to write anything more, and Verdi was to abandon such conventions as the repeat of the cabaletta melody only a few years after “Attila”. Most of the Donizetti and early Verdi operas fell out of favor and many were unperformed for over a century. When they were performed (and we are in a period of where virtually all of the Donizetti and Verdi operas of the 20 year period have been revived) it is quite usual for cuts to be made, particularly shedding the stretta that separates the two verses of the cabaletta and limiting the cabaletta to a single verse.

Carlo Montanero, Seattle Opera’s conductor,  made a felicitous decision that should cause Verdi aficionados from afar to book a flight to Seattle to see this set of performances. He is presenting the opera uncut, so that each principal, the chorus and the orchestra perform all the music in Verdi’s original score.

[Conductor Carlo Montanaro; promotional photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

The results are revelatory. Experienced opera goers have been taught to dismiss the earlier works as less worthy than Verdi’s later efforts, because Verdi changed elements of his style in the decades after “Attila” and was quoted at different times with slightly pejorative comments about his old approaches to composing. However, if one surrenders to the music, one can grasp how masterful it is and why “Attila” was such a successful opera in the generation in which it premiered.

The Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni argued (in what I acknowledge is my substantive paraphrasing of his thoughts) that  it is impossible to consider opera as veristic simply because people in real life don’t communicate by singing to each other. Therefore, he concluded, operas should be based on surreal themes, with Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” being Busoni’s operatic ideal.

From the time of its composition, there has been a degree of intellectual angst about the obscurity of the motivations of characters in “Attila”.  Its original librettist, Solera, resisted Verdi’s request for him to write the words for a concertato in which the soprano, tenor, baritone and basso come together to sing a concerted number. Verdi’s great biographer Julian Budden, almost a century and a half later, was immensely bothered by Verdi’s request, more or less defending Solera’s position. Why would the tenor (Foresto) who is the sworn enemy of the basso (Attila) be permitted to come and go freely around Attila’s camp, so he can be ready when needed to take part in Verdi’s glorious ensembles?

I believe that Busoni and Montenaro have given us the answer to Solera and Budden. One can concede that every aria and every ensemble in “Attila” is glorious Verdi, at the apex of his early style. I don’t think that any attempt to strengthen the dramatic motivations of Foresto’s actions throughout the opera would add anything to our evening’s pleasure. But Verdi knew exactly how he wished to intermesh the vocal lines of the four principals in their great number together. No harm is done by considering the drama as a bit surreal, because the music is surreally beautiful.

[Below: Foresto (Antonello Palombi, right) is assured of the faithfulness of Odabella (Ana Lucrecia Garcia, left); edited image, based on an Elise Bakketun photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

 The Vocal Performance

In my past interviews with John Relyea [See Rising Stars: An Interview With John Relyea, Part 1 and Rising Stars: An Interview with John Relyea Part 2] he expressed his strong interest in performing roles that match his actual age (he is now in his early 40s). This role provided the opportunity to portray a virile warrior, whose range of emotions include dream-induced moments of terror.

Attila’s vocal line is lyrical, appropriate to a basso cantante, and Relyea proved himself an exemplar of the beautifully sounding high bass voice. His musical and dramatic performance was enhanced by effective use of his body, particularly his hands, in conveying the character’s thoughts and fears.

The most famous incident in Attila’s life is his encounter with Pope Leo III, who persuaded Attila to leave Rome untouched. The historical evidence suggests that such a meeting likely really happened but, if it did not, it is a legend of persuasive verisimilitude.

One can observe an emerging tradition, at least in the United States,  in which the tiny role of Leone, as he is called in the opera, is sung by a famous basso whose principal career is associated with the previous operatic generation. At the Seattle Opera, Michael Devlin, who sang many of the roles in the 1970s and beyond that Relyea is performing today, sings the role. I saw Devlin, for instance, as the four villains in Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffman” that Relyea first sang at Seattle Opera. Devlin’s appearance, even with only a few lines to sing, was appropriately nostalgic, evoking memories of stellar performances over a great operatic career.

(As another example of the new “tradition” of casting Leone with lustrous stars of the past, the most famous American Attila, Samuel Ramey, is scheduled to sing Leone at the San Francisco Opera in June 2012, 21 years after he performed Attila on the San Francisco stage.)

[Below: The appearance of Pope Leo III (Michael Devlin, right) causes Attila (John Relyea, front center) to change his course; edited image, based on an Elise Bakketun photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

Seattle Opera was fortunate to have baritone Marco Vratogna making his Seattle Opera debut as Ezio. An accomplished Verdi baritone, his exemplary work is associated with Conductor Nicola Luisotti, establishing him as a favorite with San Francisco Opera audiences [See Ovations for ‘Otello’ – San Francisco Opera, November 8, 2009 and Brilliant Cast, Colorful Production, Luisotti’s Masterful Conducting Enliven San Francisco “Aida” – September 19, 2010.]

Finally, Antonello Palombi, the Foresto, whose Seattle Manrico two years ago had impressed me [Seattle’s “Trovatore”: Standing Ovations for Antonello Palombi, Lisa Daltirus – January 16, 2010], once again demonstrated  the vocal weight appropriate to a Verdian role written for a spinto voice.

Charles Edwards created the original sets for Strasbourg. They were significantly enhanced and updated through the use of digital media created by the Seattle Opera. The costumes were the work of Melanie Taylor Burgess with lighting design by Connie Yun.

I recommend Seattle’s “Attila” without reservation.

A half century ago, the only opera written earlier than Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” that was occasionally performed by American opera companies was Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice”. But since then the operas of Handel and Gluck have become much more familiar fare than anyone would have ever expected, and Monteverdi’s and sometimes even Vivaldi’s operas are also occasionally performed.

There are perhaps several reasons why pre-Mozartean works are now performed more regularly in North America. I believe three reasons predominate. First, audiences have come to appreciate the waves of arresting melodies that abound in the 17th and especially 18th century operas. Second, there have developed performance traditions as how to present these works. Third, there are singers who have mastered the artistry required to perform the operas.

Over the next few weeks, in venues large and small, North American audiences will have the opportunity to experience two different productions of the French version of Gluck’s masterpiece about the story of Orpheus – one with a tenor Orpheus, the other sung by a mezzo soprano.

Audiences will also be able to view two 18th century settings of one of the most famous works of the 16th century – Italian poet Torquato Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered”. One version of Tasso’s exotically fanciful account of the strife between Muslims and Christians in the First Crusade  is Handel’s “Rinaldo”, to be performed in Chicago. The other is Lully’s “Armide”, which will be seen in Toronto and at the Glimmerglass Festival.

Orphee et Eurydice (Gluck), Seattle Opera, February 25, 29, March 3, 4(m), 7 and 10, 2012.

When Gluck first composed his operatic masterpiece on the Orpheus legend, it was in Italian and written for a mezzo-soprano playing a male role. But Parisian tastes persuaded Gluck to revise the opera for performance in French, with a tenor male as Orphee.

The opera has three characters and a chorus, but it is Orphee, sung in Seattle by the excellent lyric tenor William Burden, who dominates virtually every scene, a daunting task rewarded with some of the 18th century’s most beautiful melodies. He will be joined by Davinia Rodriguez as Eurydice and Julianne Gearhart as the God Amor.

[Below: Tenor William Burden is Orphee; resized image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The production is conceived and staged by the brilliant Argentine director Jose Maria Condemi, with with sets designed by Phillip Lienau and costumes by Heidi Zamora. Gary Thor Wedow conducts.

Rinaldo (Handel), Lyric Opera of Chicago, February 29, March 4(m), 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24, 2012.

“Jerusalem Delivered” is the great work by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso (whose life was sufficiently dramatic to inspire an semi-biographical opera by Donizetti).

The list of Baroque, Rococo and Classical opera composers who created operas about its principal characters, Armide and Rinaldo, is a who’s who of great figures in 17th and 18th century vocal music. The Tassomania extended to the artworld as well, with several famous artists painting their own visions of the Deliverance of Jerusalem.

[Below: Francois Boucher's "Renaud et Armide"; resized image of the painting in the Louvre, Paris.]

Lyric Opera has assembled a Dream Team for its “Rinaldo” production, conceived by the impressive Mexican concept director Francisco Negrin. Virtually every artist enlisted for this series of performances has been praised, often multiple times, by this website.

The pre-eminent counter-tenor of our day, the American David Daniels, returns to Lyric Opera as Rinaldo. He is joined by an international cast all making their Lyric debuts, but whose memorable performances in San Francisco, Santa Fe, Houston, and/or Dallas have been enthusiastically reviewed by me and are archived in this website.

These include South African soprano Elsa van den Heever (Armide), Italian mezzo Sonia Prina (Goffredo), Italian basso Luca Pisaroni (Argante) and British counter-tenor Iestyn Davies (Eustazio). Harry Bicket conducts.

Armide (Lully), Opera Atelier, Toronto, April 14, 15(m), 17, 18, 20 and 21, 2012, in a co-production with:

Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown, New York, July 21, 29(m), 31(m), August 5(m), 10, 13(m), 18 and 23, 2012.

France was the country in which the epic poem Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) first popularized the theme of heroic battles between Muslims and Christians. In this great poem and the similar works that followed it, the Knights Roland and Renaud (in Italian, Orlando and Rinaldo), are part of Charlemagne’s 8th century army defeated by the Saracens at Ronceveaux, but the warriors over the next half millenium become the subject of myriad story lines, especially by French and Italian story tellers.

Throughout much of that half millenium’s history, Christians are driving Muslims from Spain, while Muslims controlled most of North Africa, the Middle East and parts of the Balkans, continuously inspiring new spins on the old tales. The most significant literary works in this tradition for Baroque opera goers are Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso” and, of course, Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered”.

Many operatic production designers wish to conceptualize ways to make unfamiliar baroque operas relevant to modern audiences. The Christian-Muslim interrelationships that inspired Tasso, however fancifully he dealt with the subject matter, can inspire new ideas about how production designers should present operas about Christians and Muslims written almost three centuries ago.

Canada’s Opera Atelier creates its first co-production of an opera, in conjunction with the Glimmerglass Festival, choosing Lully’s great operatic tragic drama, “Armide”.

[Below: a painting of the premiere performance of Lully's "Armide".]

Stage director Marshall Pynkoski, set designer Gerard Gauci and choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg are the creative team. Lighting designs are by Bonnie Beecher.  For Toronto, Peggy Kriha Dye is the enchantress Armide, Colin Ainsworth the Christian knight Renaud, with basso Joao Fernandes as the Hidraot. David Fallis (Opera Atelier’s music director) conducts.

Dye and Ainsworth are announced for the lead roles at Glimmerglass, with the team of Fallis, Pynkoski, Gauci, Zingg and Beecher joining them at the Festival.

Orphee et Eurydice (Gluck), Opera Santa Barbara, April 27 and 29, 2012.

Jose Maria Condemi, who has assumed the duties of artistic director of the Opera Santa Barbara, promises a different production and staging of “Orphee” from the one he directs for Seattle Opera in February and March. In Santa Barbara, the role Orphee is sung by mezzo-soprano Layna Chianakas.

[Below: Mezzo-soprano Layna Chianakas is Orphee; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the Opera Santa Barbara.]

Marnie Breckenridge is the Eurydice and Angela Cadelago is the Amor. Yannis Adoniu is the choreographer. Jose Luis Moscovich conducts.

My plan is to attend and review one performance of each of these four productions.

Robert, who has had the San Francisco Opera subscription seats across the aisle from me for decades, related a funny incident to me. According to him, a young woman, attending her first opera at a Los Angeles Opera performance of  Puccini’s “Tosca”, came out at the intermission after the second act and remarked about Tosca murdering the Baron Scarpia “Boy, I didn’t see that coming.”

Regular opera goers will understand the humor that Robert sees in the story. Most long-term opera subscribers have seen “Tosca” many times and know both the score and the libretto very well. But if one reflects on the idea of a core repertory of operas that audiences go to again and again, one might regard it as a quite special idea. Two centuries ago, there was not a “core repertory” of operas. New operas were constantly expected and revivals of old operas were rather rare.

*****

[Below: Siegmund (Brandon Jovanovich, left) and Sieglinde (Anja Kampe, right) name each other, secure the sword Nothung, and run away together; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Power Singing, Powerful Imagery in Zambello’s “Walkuere” – San Francisco Opera, June 15, 2011.]

*****

But the “standard repertory” of opera persists, not necessarily because opera companies prefer to perform the best-known operas, but because audiences – particularly in countries that have no tradition of large scale public subsidies of opera companies – vote for them with their ticket purchases. San Francisco Opera’s David Gockley has gone to great lengths, through a quite revealing commentary in his company’s recent opera programs, to quantify this phenomenon.

Because there are a specific number of subscription series, an opera will normally be performed for a minimum of six performances in a San Francisco season, but some operas sell so many tickets that they can be scheduled for up to twelve performances. This latter group Gockley names the “AA” operas. He wants good singers for all performances, but the “AA” operas don’t require ”big name” stars. The “Double As” that he names are Bizet’s “Carmen”, Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”, “Nozze di Figaro” and “Magic Flute”, Puccini’s “La Boheme”, “Madama Butterfly” and “Turandot”, Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” and Verdi’s “Rigoletto” and “La Traviata”.

*****

[Below: Mimi (Ana Maria Martinez, left) finds herself attracted to Rodolfo (David Lomeli, right); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

[For my performance review, see David Lomeli, Ana Maria Martinez Shine in Deeply Cast “La Boheme” – Santa Fe Opera, July 2, 2011.]

*****

 Gockley announced a policy that San Francisco Opera will not repeat an “AA” opera more than once in five years. (Since “Butterfly” has been performed in 2006, 2007 and 2010, and “Nozze di Figaro” was performed in both 2006 and 2010, presumably these two operas will be out of the repertory for a while). The five year bracket is in evidence for “Carmen” (2006 and 2011) and “Magic Flute” (2007 and 2012).

He uses “such as” for his list, but it’s not clear what other operas than those he names would make the “AA” list. (He does not list Puccini’s “Tosca” or Verdi’s “Aida”, which perhaps are candidates.)

The “A” operas are those that Gockey is confident of scheduling for up to nine performances. He provides five examples in this list: Bellini’s “Norma”, Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”, Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”, Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci” and Verdi’s “Il Trovatore”. In this list of five, the Donizetti, Gershwin and Verdi works cited have been performed during the Gockley era, and the other two a season or two before, so one guesses the assignment to categories is based on fairly recent experience with audience demand for tickets.

He stated that the “B” and “C” operas can sell up to six performances. The “B” examples consist of ones done during his tenure: Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” (performed in the 1869 version without the Polish acts); the three one-act operas of Puccini’s “Il Trittico”; Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” and “Salome”; and three operas expected in the future – Berlioz’ “Les Troyens”, Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffman” and Verdi’s “Falstaff” (all three of which perhaps generated intense internal discussion as to how many performances to schedule). World premieres, of which Gockley has shepherded three, are expected to attract enough attention to rate a “B”.

The “C” operas include “baroque works” and those of several composers – Berg, Britten, Janacek, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. (The last named’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtensk” will be on the schedule, according to an absolutely solid source, with Brandon Jovanovich as the Sergei.) He lists Bellini’s “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” (which has been expected to return to the San Francisco stage) and Richard Strauss’ “Elektra” and “Die Frau ohne Schatten” in the “C” category as well.

[Below: the Governess (Patricia Racette, seated) is now certain that the ghost of Peter Quint (William Burden, at window) is real; edited image, based on a copyrighted Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Countdown to Britten Centennial: Conlon, Racette and Burden Impress in Enigmatic “Turn of the Screw” – March 12, 2011.]

*****

According to Gockley, there are certain opera stars with sufficient box office appeal to make a “C” opera into a “B” or a “B” in to an “A”. (His examples are Placido Domingo in Alfano’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Angela Gheorghiu in Puccini’s “La Rondine”), although, he concedes, it is not so likely that a superstar box office draw could be persuaded to commit to a dozen performances, with the result that an “A” opera could be turned into a “AA”.

Gockley then reveals that each season is deliberately balanced to include – as an example of how a now typical nine-opera season is constructed – three AAs, two As, two Bs and two Cs. And, as a final consideration, over a five year period, the “Big Five” composers – Mozart, Puccini, Richard Strauss, Verdi and Wagner – all must be well-represented, although they need not be present every year.

I find his formulas for constructing an opera season to be fascinating and revelatory. One expects that the impresarios in other cities would shift some operas  from one category to another based on their own company’s experience. Some might take issue with the details (even with a personal great reverence for Berlioz I wonder whether the demand for “Les Troyens” in San Francisco will really prove to be in the same category as “Rosenkavalier” and only a category below “Lucia” and “Trovatore”.) But the Gockley formulas display an intense interest in what the audience will actually buy tickets to see and it suggests a healthy balance between the immensely popular, the new, and the little known. It’s nice to have three  Mozart operas in Gockley’s ten opera list of what he categorizes as AAs.

The core repertory – and what operas can be depended upon to generate box office appeal – will continue to be a subject of discussion on this website. David Gockley’s expressed thoughts on how a person running a company decides which operas to schedule, is an illuminating contribution to our understanding of how the opera impresarios make decisions.

For those who wish to comment on this post, or any other item on this website, please contact me at operawarhorses@yahoo.com.