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. 

The criteria are simple. An “A” reflects a musical and theatrical performance and production that would meet the standards for a “world class” performance in any opera company internationally. And, to make sure that I remain informed of what “the world” is offering, I periodically attend and review performances at many of the major opera companies of North America and Europe.

Since San Francisco Opera is the only company whose every production I have attended at least once during each calendar year since 2006, it is the only one that I rate in this fashion. (I think it would be unfair to make any comparable judgment of another company in which I missed significant numbers of their productions. Perhaps it’s also unfair to choose this one company to bestow this annual rating to, but once something like this starts, and people look for it, it takes a while to get out of the habit of doing it.)

Calendar year 2011′s mainstage productions at the War Memorial Opera House were a series of successes, with three solid San Francisco-owned productions conducted by Nicola Luisotti and a world premiere. The best of the best included the complete Francesca Zambello production of Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelungs”, the imported John Pascoe production of Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia” and Sir Nicolas Hytner’s production of Handel’s “Xerxes”.

Grade A+

Das Rheingold (Wagner)

The Zambello “Rheingold”, the first of the “Ring” co-productions with the Washington National Opera, received its San Francisco premiere in Summer 2008. “Rheingold” introduced the War Memorial Opera House to Mark Delavan’s Wotan. Lustrous at that time, in its 2011 revival “Rheingold” shone even more brightly as the prologue to Zambello’s entire “Ring”.

Although Zambello has her particular viewpoints as to what constitutes good and bad behavior in the cosmos, what is striking about her images – a gold rush era mine for Nibelheim, an upscale house in the Hamptons in obvious need of remodeling and repair for the temporary home of the gods, the bridge to Valhalla the gangplank to an ocean liner – is how chameleon-like Wagner’s storyline and music can be, fitting well with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of imaginative concepts.

There is not a single character in “Das Rheingold” who is a human being, yet the struggles for power (Wotan, Alberich, Mime) and the desire for emotional control over another being (Fricka) prove to be universal traits, whether gods, dwarves, giants or humans.

As one brilliantly imaginative example, Zambello’s Freia, hostage of the giants, becomes the poster child for Stockholm Syndrome. Although Wagner made it clear that Fasolt had fallen in love with Freia, Zambello finds reciprocal romantic feelings of Freia for Fasolt, so that it is genuinely affecting when Freia grieves that Fasolt has been murdered.

[Below: details of the contract for building Walhalla are discussed by the construction giants, Fafner (Daniel Sumegi, far left) and Fasolt (Andrea  Silvestrelli, third from left), and the gods Freia (Melissa Citro, second from left) and, from right to left, Wotan (Mark Delavan), Donner (Gerd Grochowski), Fricka (Elizabeth Bishop), and Froh (Brandon Jovanovich), and the demi-god Loge (Stefan Margita, center); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The San Francisco Opera Orchestra, led by the company’s former music director, Conductor Donald Runnicles, showed its skill and maturity. A strong cast was assembled, surrounding Delavan’s inspired Wotan. Gordon Hawkins’ Alberich, Stefan Margita’s oily Loge, David Cangelosi’s Mime, Elizabeth Bishop’s Fricka all stood out.

The first night of the “Ring” marked the debut in a Wagnerian role for tenor Brandon Jovanovich, the Froh, who would be assaying a far bigger Wagner role on the next evening.

[Below: Bruennhilde (Nina Stemme, front left, on landing at bottom of stairs) steps forward to take her punishment from her father Wotan (Mark Delavan, right) as her eight Valkyrie sisters stand on the stairs beside her; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The final act is a true coup de theatre with the eight Valkyries dressed as parachuting aviatrices, several landing at once to the Wagner’s most famous musical composition (other than the tune of “Here Comes the Bride”).

A welcome continuity was obtained by having Delavan and Bishop repeat their roles as Wotan and Fricka on the consecutive nights of “Rheingold” and “Walkuere”.

Jovanovich was a youthful looking and excellent acting heldentenor, suggesting that the jugendlich Wagnerian roles will be a major part of his career from this point on. Nina Stemme, should she assert her claim to being the reigning Bruennhilde of our day, would have the San Francisco audiences backing her all the way.

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

Siegfried (Wagner)

“Siegfried” is the most like a Once Upon a Time fairy tale of any Wagnerian opera, with a dragonslayer-hero, a sleeping beauty, scheming dwarves, and a spear with a spell so powerful that the world begins to out of spin control when the hero shatters it.

Zambello’s approach proved to be just as imaginative as in the first two operas, with both Alberich and Mime existing in states of poverty (the former with his possessions in a shopping cart, the latter raising Siegfried in a rusty trailer surrounded by a yard of junk), while waiting for the dragonslayer-to-be to grow to manhood.

Unlike the Zambello “Rheingold” and “Walkuere”, her “Siegfried”, which had premiered at the Washington National Opera, had not been seen in San Francisco before. In this opera the two principal characters are Siegfried (Jay Hunter Morris) and the dwarf Mime (David Cangelosi), supplemented by the vocally demanding characterizations of Alberich (Gordon Hawkins), Wotan disguised as the Wanderer (Mark Delavan) and Bruennhilde (Nina Stemme).

[Below: Mime (David Cangelosi, right front) goes about the business of raising a hero; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

All the cast sang and played their roles excellently, with Cangelosi’s stunningly  athletic performance as Mime especially memorable.

[For my performance review, see: Down and Out in Zambello’s American Ring: Sly, Theatrically-Centered “Siegfried” Satisfies – San Francisco Opera, June 17, 2011.]

Goetterdaemmerung (Wagner)

“Goetterdaemmerung” has always been my favorite opera, and one I consider to be a great bargain for the opera “consumer”. (No opera company can expect to get back but a fraction of the cost of producing it from ticket sales, whatever price they dare put on the ticket.)

Act I is the longest act of any multi-act opera. Its orchestration requires as large and as skilled an orchestra as any company is ever called upon to provide. The demands on the singers, particularly the Siegried (Ian Storey) and Bruennhilde (Nina Stemme), are daunting. And, to add to the complexity and cost, a full chorus is necessary.

In fact, the complexity and expense turned out to strain co-producer Washington National Opera’s fiscal resources, and San Francisco Opera became the site of the first performances of the final part of Wagner’s Nibelung saga a la Zambello.

[Below: Bruennhilde (Nina Stemme, left( and Siegfried (Ian Storey, right) both swear an oath on the spear of Hagen (Andrea Silvestrelli, center); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Whether or not every Zambello detail resonated with the audience (Rheinmaidens using garden trash bags to pick up after the mess the men had made of things) hardly mattered. The final scene proved affecting,  in which Bruennhilde, Gutrune and the Rheinmaidens share the grief of Siegfried’s death and the satisfaction of the Ring finally returned to the place it belongs.

Even an unexpected romance on the side between Hagen and Gutrune, who share a bed to watch late-night TV, proved that moments of light-heartedness can shine through even the destruction of the world’s order (at least the order conceived by the gods who ruled before the Age of Mankind).

“Goetterdaemmerung” is a triumphant experience when it is performed under the leadership of a great conductor (Donald Runnicles), by a first rank symphonic entity (San Francisco Opera Orchestra) and when presented in a theater with brilliant acoustics (the War Memorial Opera House).  Stemme was an absolute phenomenon. Andrea Silvestrelli’s Hagen, Gordon Hawkins’ Alberich, and Melissa Citro’s ditzy Gutrune were notable.

[For my performance reviews, see: Glorious “Goetterdaemmerung”: Nina Stemme Glistens – San Francisco Opera, June 5, 2011 and “Goetterdaemmerung”: Strong Finish to the First Zambello “Ring” – San Francisco Opera, June 19, 2011.]

Lucrezia Borgia (Donizetti)

The John Pascoe production of Donizetti’s operatic adaptation of Victor Hugo’s play, was used for “Lucrezia”‘s first appearance ever at the San Francisco Opera. The opera was the vehicle for the return of Renee Fleming, who has been absent from San Francisco operatic productions for over a decade.

The result of a collaboration between Fleming and Pascoe which had evolved over several years of discussion, Pascoe’s conceptualization of “Lucrezia” was originally mounted by the Washington National Opera. Pascoe fine-tuned the story of power struggles between the Duke (from the d’Este family) and Duchess (from the Borgia family) of the Renaissance city of Ferrara. In Pascoe’s hands, details of the plot are clarified, producing a dramatically cohesive performance.

[Below: Lucrezia Borgia (Renee Fleming, above) is shocked to discover that her son Gennaro (Michael Fabiano, lying on steps) was part of a group she had poisoned for revenge; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Strong casting and attractive sets assured stellar performances of an opera that more stage directors (and opera critics) should take seriously. Fleming and company were worth the “enhanced” ticket price (with a 20% surcharge), especially when joined by the solid Alfonso d’Este of basso cantante Vitalij Kowaljow. The astonishing voice of debuting Michael Fabiano heralds the career yet another first class Donizetti tenor. Elizabeth DeShong was an engaging Maffio Orsini.

[For my performance reviews and a commentary, see: Fleming, Fabiano, Frizza Fuel San Francisco Opera’s Flaming, Fulfilling First “Lucrezia Borgia” – September 23, 2011 and A Second Look: “Lucrezia Borgia” at the San Francisco Opera – October 2, 2011 and also “Lucrezia Borgia” – The Dramatic Foundations of Donizetti’s Opera.]

Xerxes (Handel)

Sir Nicholas Hytner’s production of Handel’s most light-hearted opera was imported from London to Houston in 2010 with Susan Graham (Xerxes), David Daniels (Arsamenes), Sonia Prina (Amastris) and Heidi Stober (Atalanta) in four of the principal roles. That quartet was signed to bring the opera to San Francisco, where each principal performed with great distinction, led by San Francisco Opera’s principal guest conductor, Houston Grand Opera’s Patrick Summers.

[Below: a scene from the first act of "Xerxes"'; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Hytner envisioned the opera set in 18th century London, the time of the opera’s premiere, rather than Ancient Greece or Persia. That time was a great period of discovery of both the ancient and the natural world. The British museums and scientific societies collected and displayed historical artifacts, as well as biological and botanical specimens.

In the Hytner production, gray-clad London citizens wander about, examining such artifacts and specimens in their display cases. Paralleling this collective effort of London’s elite at self-improvement and book-learning, the tongue-in-cheek story of the romantic machinations of two sisters in love with one of two brothers and two brothers in love with one of two sisters wends its way to an amiable solution. The fact that one of the brothers is the King of Ancient Persia has virtually nothing at all to do with this opera’s story.

[For my performance review, see: Graham, Daniels, Prina Excel in Elegant, Witty “Xerxes” – San Francisco Opera, October 30, 2011.]

Grade A

Turandot (Puccini)

David Hockney, although best known for his famous paintings, is also the creator of several of the most important operatic productions, themselves works of museum quality, of which two are in the possession of the San Francisco Opera.

A world treasure, the vibrant and inspired “Turandot” is one of the works dating from when Hockney and Costume Designer (and illustrator) Ian Falconer were partners. One admires this show not just for the visual delights of Hockney’s sets and Falconer’s arresting costumes, but for the production’s lighting design and stage movements. All the elements  provide a flow of energy so appropriate to Puccini’s masterpiece.

[Below: the imperial commissioners Ping (Hyung Yun), Pang (Greg Fedderly) and Pong (Daniel Montenegro) attempt to dissuade Calaf, the Unknown Prince (Marco Berti) to leave the kingdom as Calaf's father, Timur (Raymond Aceto) and his slave, Liu (Leah Crocetto), look on; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Nicola Luisotti conducted a vivacious performance, in which the debuting Irene Theorin was a praiseworthy Ice Princess, and Marco Berti an ardent Calaf. The trio of Ping, Pang, and Pong, with their finely choreographed movements, were sung nicely by, respectively, Hyung Yun, Greg Fedderly and Daniel Montenegro. Leah Crocetto’s Liu was affecting. Raymond Aceto’s excellent Timur was luxury casting.

[For my performance reviews, see:Luisotti Leads Superb “Turandot” Cast In David Hockney’s Treasured Production – San Francisco Opera, September 9, 2011 and A Second Look: Luisotti Improvises in “Turandot” Game Delay, then Hits a Grand Slam – San Francisco Opera, September 25, 2011.]

Don Giovanni (Mozart)

In San Francisco Opera’s 2010 season, Conductor Nicola Luisotti added Mozart to the list of operatic composers whose works he has conducted during his tenure as the opera company’s Music Director. His “Nozze di Figaro” was built around an American cast with Lucas Meachem and Ellie Dehn as the Count and Countess Almaviva. In 2011, Luisotti rejoined Meachem (Don Giovanni) and Dehn (Donna Anna) for Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” in a new production with an Italian team as stage director and set designer.

[Below: Don Giovanni (Lucas Meachem, below left) instructs Leporello (Marco Vinco, below right) to invite the statue of the Commendatore (Morris Robinson, above) to dinner; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Italian basso Marco Vinco, renown for his buffo roles in Europe, was impressive in his San Francisco Opera debut as Leporello. Americans Shawn Mathey (Don Ottavio), Kate Lindsey (Zerlina) and Ryan Kuster (Masetto) and Italian Serena Farnocchia (Donna Elvira) rounded out a successful Italo-American effort.

[For my performance review, see: Meachem, Vinco, Lead Cast of Imaginatively Staged “Don Giovanni” – San Francisco Opera, October 23, 2011.

Carmen (Bizet)

Another treasured opera production owned by the San Francisco Opera is Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's mounting of Bizet's "Carmen". Luisotti led this most popular of French operas in a rousing performance, in which Kendall Gladen, who was last seen here in her Adler Fellowship days, returned triumphantly to the War Memorial Opera House stage in the title role. Brazilian tenor Thiago Arancam was her Don Jose.

[Below: Don Jose (Thiago Arancam, left) appears to be fastening the restraints of Carmen (Kendall Gladen, center) as Zuniga (Wayne Tigges, right) looks on; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph; courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Stage Director Jose Maria Condemi reworked much of Ponnelle’s stage direction, but Condemi, like Ponnelle, presents ideas that always advance the story. Paolo Szot, fresh from Broadway successes, was Escamillo. Adler Fellow Sara Gartland was the Micaela.

[For my performance review, see: Kendall Gladen, Jose Maria Condemi, Nicola Luisotti Create a Consummate “Carmen” – San Francisco Opera, November 6, 2011.]

Grade B+

Heart of a Soldier (Theofanidis)

Throughout history, one can bet against any opera composed becoming a big and lasting hit and be correct 99 out of a 100 times. Even so, there are talented composers at work today, and it seems possible that among them will come some compositions that will hold their own on the operatic stage.

Christopher Theofanidis’ first large-scale effort at writing an opera for the mainstage of an international company became the third commissioned new opera to have its premiere in San Francisco during the General Directorship of David Gockley, following Glass’ “Appomattox” (2007) and Wallace’s “The Bonesetter’s Daughter” (2008).

“Soldier” is an opera commemorating the heroics of an individual whose sagacity and self-discipline saved almost as people from the Twin Towers as were lost the day of the Towers’ destruction, even though the hero perished in the effort. This opera becomes a monument to him. With accessible music, fast moving action, and an absorbing story, one can expect interest in reviving the opera, particularly for  anniversary dates of 9-11.

[Below: the Twin Towers offices are filled with employees, while Dan (William Burden, front left) and (Melody Moore, on bed, front right) try to obtain information on what is happening; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

In trying to figure out how to grade a performance in which there is no tradition in how to present it, I considered my grades of the two previous San Francisco Opera commissions – my A+ grades for “Appomattox” and “Bonesetter’s Daughter” and concluded, for the reasons stated below, that it should be a full grade lower that the other two.

Although all three operas are episodic, the Glass and Wallace works seemed to me to be more focused around a central theme. In “Appomattox”, Glass’ firmly held (and appropriate) view is that the assassination of Lincoln destroyed the efforts of Generals Grant and Lee in Appomattox Courthouse to create the basis for reconciliation between North and South. Wallace’s opera, whose somewhat autobiographical libretto is by Amy Tan, conjures up familial relationships and events that occurred long ago in China, but that cast a long shadow on the lives in the United States of her mother and herself.

In contrast “Heart of a Soldier” devotes considerable time to the stories of the late hero’s wife and his war-buddy, that, interesting as they might be, seem like they should be split off into separate works or left for the curious to peruse by reading the book on which this opera is based.

Sometimes a libretto can be fixed, to the long term benefit of the opera. Perhaps a reworked opera could be ready for the 15th anniversary of the events of the last hours of the hero’s incredible and inspirational life. But even with those reservations, the new opera was a theatrically valid, inspiring performance.

[Below: For my performance review, see: Hampson’s Heroic “Heart of a Soldier” at the War Memorial – San Francisco Opera, September 10, 2011.]

For last year’s scorecard, and hyperlinks to the previous years, see:  San Francisco Opera’s Calendar Year 2010 – Straight “A” Average Trending Higher.

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

Each year, I invite readers to join me in a dialogue (via my e-mail address, which is operawarhorses@yahoo.com). The responses have been generous in their words of support for the material covered on this website.

However, I did receive a response from a detractor, who is an opera reviewer for an electronic media site with which I had had no previous (or subsequent) familiarity. The reviewer objected to my high letter grades for the San Francisco Opera performances of three of the ten operas offered in the calendar year 2010.

Since for this sixth year of David Gockley’s General Directorship, and I have reviewed and at year’s end awarded letter grades to at least one performance of each opera mounted during the previous five calendar years, I plan to do so again. (When you start doing something like this, you discover that people expect you to keep doing it. As I have mentioned before, I do it only for the San Francisco Opera, because that is the only company whose every production over the past six years I have attended and reviewed at least once.)

*****

[Below: Romeo (Vittorio Grigolo, above) and Juliet (Nino Machiadze, below) spend a night of love before Romeo's banishment; edited image, based on a Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Vittorio Grigolo, Nino Machaidze Sublime in Ian Judge’s Romantic, Erotic “Romeo et Juliette” – Los Angeles Opera, November 9, 2011.]

*****

I thought it would be useful to review my e-mail correspondent’s critique of the letter grades I assigned to San Francisco Opera’s productions in 2010, before I post my on grades on the 10 opera productions performed on the San Francisco Opera mainstage in 2011.

This was the communication: “I cannot fathom how you deemed all of those productions to be of such high caliber. Faust, Aida and Werther all get As? Preposterous. It makes you look like a shill for the company.“

I would imagine a reviewer is supposed to ignore such comments, but, on reflection, it does seem that some of his points do warrant further discussion. My first reaction was to wonder why a person who holds himself out as an opera critic would feel it preposterous that another reviewer  recognizes the San Francisco Opera, with its world famous reputation, as producing “high caliber” performances of Gounod’s “Faust”, Verdi’s “Aida” and Massenet’s “Werther”. In fact, if you can’t get high caliber performances of these standard repertory works at the San Francisco Opera, where do you go? Chicago? London? Paris? Berlin?

If one reads the criteria on which my grades are based, they are quite specific that an “A” means that I judge the performance, production and cast as one that is consistent in quality with with what one should expect at the first rank opera houses of the world, such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the Opera National de Paris, or the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

I certainly am not arguing that it is impossible for the San Francisco Opera to fail, and “bad reviews” from me of San Francisco Opera productions exist on this website, although I am pleased to note that the virtually everything I disliked intensely was associated in one way or another with the previous management.

*****

[Below: Count Octavian (Anke Vondung, right) has presented a rose made of silver to Sophie (Patrizia Ciofi, left); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: San Diego’s Solo Celebration of Strauss’ “Rosenkavalier” Centennial – April 3, 2011.]

*****

My correspondent did not state why he did not like the “Faust”, “Aida” and “Werther”, but sent me the grades of yet another reviewer, also one with whom I was unfamiliar, whose wide ranging grades for the season averaged out to a C. But, as I state each year, my published criteria neither require me nor allow me to grade on a curve. A low grade would mean that something has gone terribly wrong. If it were the case that a significant number of the productions were going awry, it wouldn’t be just myself who was taking notice of that fact.

In the case of the “Faust”, I reviewed Lyric Opera’s Perdziola production seen in San Francisco four separate times, including performances at Lyric Opera and San Diego Opera. All four of my reviews can be accessed here. The two San Francisco Opera reviews Racette Ravishing, Relyea Riveting in San Francisco “Faust” – June 5, 2010, and also, A Second Look: A Visually, Aurally Praiseworthy “Faust” at San Francisco Opera – June 20, 2010, are the most relevant, although my reviews of the sets and production used in the other cities are offered in evidence as well:  Lyric Opera Revives Inventive Corsaro-Perdziola “Faust”: Chicago November 3, 2009 and Costello, Perez, Grimsley and Mulligan Brilliant in Spectacularly Staged “Faust” – San Diego Opera, April 23, 2011.

In the case of the “Aida”, see Brilliant Cast, Colorful Production, Luisotti’s Masterful Conducting Enliven San Francisco “Aida” – September 19, 2010 and in the case of the “Werther”, see: “Werther” Re-invented, Yet Again – Francisco Negrin’s New Production at San Francisco Opera, September 15, 2010.

Opera performance is a complicated endeavor, both for the performers and the audience. At most times the senses of each audience member are simultaneously bombarded with sight and sound images from the orchestra, chorus, opera principals and comprimario artists, in which story-telling, and dramatic interactions between characters is occurring. Such elements as the lighting also affect the operatic experience.

Additionally, during this whole process, some audience members bring to the theater, their long memories of past live performances, and/or their familiarity with studio recordings or DVDs or YouTube experiences. As well, every member of the audience sits in a unique part of the auditorium.

There is simply no objective way of grading a performance that could possibly satisfy everyone, even if it were designed for the most sophisticated opera goers. The best that one can do is for the reviewer to propose a set of criteria for judging whether a performance is very, very good or very, very bad or something in between. Not that many critics, alas, take that step, but the dicourse about the performance may be clearer.

For an example, the reader of a review should know beforehand if the reviewer believes that a good performance requires that the offering be a contemporary opera written in a serial, twelve-tone scale and mounted in a surrealistic avant-garde production.  Then the reader will better understand why that reviewer would then conclude that the San Francisco Opera – by those criteria – performed dismally in 2011, and the whole season, therefore, must be regarded as a failure.

*****

[Below: Annie Oakley (Deborah Voigt) is finally alone with the man she loves, Frank Butler (Rod Gilfry); edited image, based on a Julieta Cervantes photograph, courtesy of the Glimmerglass Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Deborah Voigt, Rod Gilfry Romp in Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun” – Glimmerglass Festival, August 12, 2011.]

*****

Interestingly, the three operas whose productions offended my e-mail correspondent lead me into another point that I would wish to make before posting the 2011 San Francisco Opera grades. All three operas have well-established performance traditions. In the case of “Faust”, I have reviewed several productions on the website, in Houston, Chicago, San Francisco, London, San Diego and Santa Fe. The San Francisco Opera “Werther” was an imaginative production, with a surreality that I found immensely insightful, yet relevant to both Goethe’s original novella and to Massenet’s treatment of the story.

There was lots to chat about in the reviews based on experiences with the operas over a long period of time. One shouldn’t be reviewing (I don’t think) whether one likes or approves of “Aida”. One should be discussing whether this is a good performance of “Aida” – well sung, well staged, and, if staged non-traditionally, whether the departure from tradition works, and yields new insights into the opera.

But there is another kind of performance review – the first impressions that come from a world premiere. Since there is no performance tradition, one must approach it in a different way, especially when grading it as I have promised to do. Thus, in the case of Theofanides’ “Heart of a Soldier”, I have chosen to approach the grade by considering that opera in relationship to the other San Francisco Opera world premieres that I have graded – Glass’ 2007 “Appomattox” and Wallace’s 2008 “The Bonesetter’s Daugher”.

The grade sheets will be posted before too long. In the meantime, please take advantage of my invitation to share your opinions with me.

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

As with much that’s written about the history of opera, much of what we think we know about a particular style of opera is based on the prejudices of writers from later in the 19th century (and from the 20th). The work of various composers are said to define a “school” – say Italian bel canto. So identified, that  ”school” is, more often than not, presented unfavorably in contradistinction to an author’s own vision of what opera should look and sound like. Over time, such prejudicial statements are absorbed as uncontestable facts by later generations of persons regarded as knowledgeable about opera.

Many of those experts obviously have a strong foundation and knowledge of Mozart’s half dozen most famous operas, of Wagner’s ten masterpieces, of Verdi’s output, at least from “Rigoletto” onward, and of the most popular works of Puccini and Richard Strauss.

It’s rather rarer to find operatic experts (although there are some important ones) who are as well-versed on the output of any but the most famous of the bel canto operas. These “most famous”, one will concede, are three comic operas by Rossini, one to three operas of Bellini, and one or two serious Donizetti operas in addition to Donizetti’s most famous comic works.

Yet, those who have studied these operas, those by Donizetti in particular, are amazed by the richness that they contain. The melodies, the staggione ensembles, the driving, high energy choral and orchestral interludes, constitute a treasure trove of works that could and should hold the operatic stage even now.

One who knows their virtues can be fatalistic about ever overcoming the prejudicial attitudes about the works that have built up over 160 years. Or one can do something about it. The opera singer Renee Fleming is in the “do something about it” group.

[Below: Renee Fleming is Lucrezia Borgia; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Fleming chose a Donizetti role, the title one in his “Lucrezia Borgia”, that Montserrat Caballe, Leyla Gencer and Beverly Sills had successfully revived in the 1960s and 1970s, and proposed a major rethinking of the opera.

Beginning with long odds, she developed first an artistic collaboration with concept director John Pascoe on a new “Lucrezia”, then invested her fame and immensely important fanbase in the effort to get it revived again in a new production. (Even noting that some star singers are brought into planning for a new production early in the process, it’s still relatively unusual for a singer to be the original promoter of an operatic revival, although, of course, tenors Neil Shicoff and Placido Domingo, to name two, also have done this.)

In 2008, the Washington National Opera, then still under Placido Domingo, that in recent years has been experimenting with reviving operas with little previous recent success in the United States, mounted the Pascoe “Lucrezia Borgia” (Domingo conducting) in a production that I believed does demonstrate the musical and dramatic qualities inherent in the work (for my review, see The Donizetti Revival, Second Stage: Radvanovsky, Grigolo in Pascoe’s WNO “Lucrezia Borgia” – November 17, 2008).

Over the past week, this production has appeared at the San Francisco Opera. As no one who knows my strong support for the opera and the production doubted, I gave it a good review. Yet, several of my colleagues in both the electronic and print media seemed sufficiently down on the opera that I received irritated e-mails on what, not I, but OTHERS, had written about the production.

Is it possible to make sense out of the “Lucrezia Borgia” story?

For those whose introduction to the opera was this production, whether at Washington’s Kennedy Center or San Francisco’s War Memorial, I offer some thoughts on the plausibility of Lucrezia’s plot.

Lucrezia Borgia is an historical figure, as were several other Donizetti characters in his operas written in the 1830s (many, but not all, of those in “Anna Bolena”, “Maria Stuarda” and “Roberto Devereux” for example). Second, none of these operas are documentaries, and they mix fact and fiction. However, in none of these quasi-historical operas, do I believe it essential to try to discern what is fact and what fiction, but instead, to consider what is dramatically plausible.

The Borgias and the Estes

In the opera, Lucrezia and her husband Alfonso d’Este are a power couple, each with their own operatives and each seemingly with their own political agenda. Is this plausible? Certainly, yes. There is indeed historical fact to support this. This was a marriage of two great political families, which included some of the most lethal despots of the day. Lucrezia did not marry a Borgia, she was one. It is entirely plausible that such a woman would have her own spies doing her personal bidding, independent of her husband.

[Below: Alfonso d'Este (Vitalij Kowaljow, standing) gives Lucrezia Borgia (Renee Fleming, seated) a choice as how her son will be executed; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Is it plausible that Lucrezia would have used her operatives to discover the identity and current situation of an illegitimate son that her family forced her to give up at birth? Absolutely. However, here we are not considering the documentary evidence of whether the real life Lucrezia had an illegitimate child, but the dramatic situation that Donizetti set to music.

A powerful woman still can have a maternal instinct and strong desire to connect with the son she bore 20 years previously. It seems natural to me that she would use trusted aides at her command to find out his whereabouts. Would she travel to Venice to try to meet him in person? A powerful woman with the capability of doing so (and armed protectors at her service) very plausibly would follow through with her objective!

[Below: Lucrezia Borgia (Renee Fleming, left) travels to Venice to meet Gennaro (Michael Fabiano, right), the son her family forced her to abandon at his birth; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Is it plausible that she would seek revenge for an insult from her son’s friends? Of course! Even in the 21st century there are families of despots that you can imagine seeking revenge for an insult, particularly when insulting comments about the families of the ruling elites is considered to be treasonable and punishable by death or exile.

Is it plausible that she would have used poison – “Borgia wine” – to advance her political objectives and/or those of her husband? This was a convenient way of suppressing dissent and ridding oneself of “enemies of the regime” on the Italian peninsula at least back to classical Roman times. Those charged with suppressing dissent in despotic regimes – an idea not unknown even in the 21st century –  will use whatever means are at their disposal.

Given this environment, what separates this storyline from a summary of the ways that the secret police and other operatives control dissent is the accident that Gennaro, whom she learns is the son she is looking for, is an associate of the subversive forces, who play the dangerous game of insulting a Borgia. Gennaro, Orsini and their sidekicks are obviously social malcontents (we would probably applaud their revolutionary spirit) willing to “rage against the machine”.

That they are all killed at something like age 20 in this opera is directly related to the reckless idea of dissent through a public act of vandalism. Given their behavior, whether commendable or not, I cannot imagine them continuing to do this and surviving until age 30.

The Pascoe Twist

John Pascoe adds one element obviously not in the libretto – that Gennaro and Orsini are lovers. Is an openly gay relationship in Renaissance Italy something that could be imagined? According to historical accounts, yes!

I have argued that there is only one circumstance where it is “cool” for a production to change the sexual orientation of an operatic character, and that is when it clarifies the plot. Does revealing a sexual relationship between Gennaro and Orsini help the plot?

For a century and three quarters, Gennaro and Orsini were presumably considered straight (if anyone thought about their orientation at all). They had developed personal bonds on a battlefield in the past, and have a “comrades-in-arms” loyalty. But in the opera, Gennaro has just gone through a near death experience, as a result of Alfonso’s death sentence, that Lucrezia has managed to thwart. Her admonition for Gennaro to get out of Ferrara immediately seems plausible enough.

Would the entreaty of a war buddy (Orsini) for Gennaro to ignore the advice of the woman who, through quick thinking, has just saved his life, lead you to change your plans? In deference to your war buddy, would you stick around for another evening, despite the personal danger to you? Would your buddy’s wish to attend a party be sufficiently persuasive to so risk his life once more? Perhaps, but is the Pascoe alternative more compelling?

If one’s lover is determined to stay a few more hours in Ferrara, and promises to travel with you at dawn the next day if you will go with him to a party that he believes is important, would you grant him the few more hours rather than separate from him? If you thought him in danger, would you leave? Then, if you discover you both are poisoned and you are offered an antidote which is insufficient to save you both, would you decide to die with him instead of living without him? To me, the dramatic motivations for Gennaro’s decisions are convincing.

[Below: Maffio Orsini (Elizabeth DeShong, right) convinces Gennaro (Michael Fabiano, left) to stay one more night in Ferrara with him; edited image, baswed on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

What about Lucrezia’s revelation to the dying Gennaro that he is a Borgia, and Gennaro’s expression of regret, after learning this, that the poison’s effect is irreversible. That also strikes me as dramatically feasible. From the first scene, Gennaro has expressed a desire to know who his mother was, and the prospect of actually getting to know her might have caused him to change his mind about the antidote, but he knows that by now it’s too late.

But is “Lucrezia Borgia” as dramatically feasible as “Rigoletto”?

Regardless of the bad reputation that the Donizetti plots have in some circles, “Lucrezia Borgia” makes dramatic sense throughout. And, all the while, the motivations are more easily understood, than, say, those of Gilda in Verdi’s “Rigoletto”. The circumstances that end “Lucrezia Borgia” – Gennaro unexpectedly being at a party at which Lucrezia’s operatives have planned the deaths of  his friends – seems rather more plausible that those of the final scene in “Rigoletto”.

In the final scene of “Rigoletto”, the Duke of Mantua is saved from assassination by the unexpected arrival in a midnight storm of a man, who is really a woman the Duke raped but who wishes to sacrifice her life for his. Perhaps it’s explicable, but it requires several levels of pyschological discussion to understand Gilda’s motivation, as well as perfect timing in her arrival at Sparafucile’s inn.

I stand by my earlier statements that “Lucrezia Borgia” is an opera that rewards those who come to know it well, not only musically, but even dramatically.

For my review of the San Francisco mounting of the Pascoe production, see: Fleming, Fabiano, Frizza Fuel San Francisco Opera’s Flaming, Fulfilling First “Lucrezia Borgia” – September 23, 2011.

Wagner himself had thought that “Siegfried” would be the most popular of the four “Ring” operas, but that honor has always gone to “Die Walkuere”. However, the story of the young Siegfried has great appeal, and the opera is filled with spectacular events and both the rousing music of the forging scenes and extremely lyrical, melodious passages, especially in the third act.

The opera follows up on a series of events that took place in one or the other of the two previous operas. “Siegfried” continues the stories of three of the “Rheingold” characters, who do not appear in “Walkuere” at all. The giant Fafner, who now possesses the Nibelung Ring, the horde of gold and the magical Tarnhelm has moved to the East where he is fearsome presence (turning himself into a dragon in the Seattle and Los Angeles versions and into a machine in the San Francisco version).

The two dwarves, who are both brothers and enemies, take up long term residence near where Fafner guards his horde. Alberich, who has cursed the Ring, of course, wants it back, but so does his brother Mime, who fashioned the Tarnhelm, but could not take advantage of it since he was unaware of its powers.

It is Mime who is provided an unexpected opportunity by events that took place at and just after the end of “Walkuere”. The god Wotan, angry with Bruennhilde, then overcome with compassion for her, deprives her of her immortality and places her to sleep on a rock surronded by magic flames to be awakened in the future by a hero. This activity distracts him from  the fact that another daughter, Sieglinde (in this particular case, human rather than immortal), but pregnant with Wotan’s grandson, Siegfried, is seeking refuge in the land in which Fafner has based himself.

She came upon the place where Mime’s lives, and, dying after childbirth, persuaded Mime to raise her child, Siegfried. She gives Mime a pieces of the sword Nothung, that her husband and brother Siegmund had received from Wotan, but which shattered in Siegmund’s battle with her husband.

Mime, who had no idea how to kill Fafner to obtain the Ring, the horde and the Tarnhelm, decides that if he raises Siegfried as his own son, that Siegfried should have the strength to kill Fafner, thus permitting Mime to gain control of the treasure.

[Mime (David Cangelosi) devises a long-term plan to raise a hero capable of killing the dragon, Fafner; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Raising Siegfried is no easy matter, particularly as he grows to adulthood, and develops a disdain for the person who claims to be his “parents”. Raised in natural surroundings, Siegfried figures out that it is most improbable that a being like Mime could be his father. Intergenerational tensions mark their relationship.

[Below: Siegfried (Alan Woodrow, center) scares Mime (Thomas Harper, laying on ground) when he brings a wild bear home with him; edited image, based on a copyrighted Gary Smith photograph for the Seattle Opera.]

To try to regain the upper hand, Mime finally tells Siegfried about the boy’s origins and about the pieces of broken sword that Sieglinde had entrusted to him. This causes Siegfried to demand that Mime re-forge the sword from its sherds. With the boy away, Mime is struggling to figure out how to reforge Nothung.

Meanwhile, Wotan, whom we later learn, after his permanent separation from his daughter, Bruennhilde, has given up his plan to build a warrior army in Valhalla, has been wandering the Earth.

[Below: Wotan (Mark Delavan) disguises himself as the Wanderer and roams the Earth; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

He comes upon Mime’s abode, and  Mime is induced to accede to the Wanderer’s suggestion that they bet each other’s heads on their ability to answer the other’s riddles. The Wanderer stumps Mime with the question, who is it that can forge the sword Nothung?, to which the Wanderer reveals the answer “he who is without fear”. The Wanderer prophecies that a person without fear will behead Mime, which causes Mime to want to introduce Siegfried to the most fearsome Fafner.

Siegfried, though unskilled at metalcraft, decides he will try to reforge Nothung himself, and does so.

[Below: Siegfried (Jay Hunter Morris) forges the sherds of Nothung into a new sword; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Events have caused Mime to accelerate his plans. The battle with Fafner now must take place immediately, so, on the excuse of trying to teach Siegfried the emotion of fear, he brings him to the lair of the dragon, into which Fafner has transformed himself.

Mime’s plots may not be understood by Siegfried, but Mime does not fool Alberich and Wotan, nor Wotan’s agent, the Woodbird. Alberich and Wotan have a convesation where the later reveals that the giant Fafner is soon to die, and the Woodbird begins to attract Siegfried’s attention, although Siegfried is yet unable to understand birdsong.

[Below: Alberich (Gordon Hawkins) in his long-term stakeout of the place where he knows the Nibelung treasure exists; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Although he expresses his preference that Siegfried and the dragon Fafner kill each other, Mime has prepared a poisioned draft for Siegfried, assuming he will be the victor of the upcoming battle.

[Below: Mime (Dennis Petersen, right) is determined that Siegfried (Stig Anderson, left) will learn fear from at the dragon's lair; edited image, based on a Chris Bennion photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

Siegfried kills the dragon, whose blood scalds his fingers and causes him to put them in his mouth. Tasting dragon’s blood gives Siegfried the power to understand the Woodbird, who warns him that Mime will poison him, but Siegfried kills him first. The Woodbird tells him about the sleeping Bruennhilde and he follows the Woodbird to the pathway to Bruennhilde’s Rock.

Wotan, in his guise as the Wanderer, has long since come to understand that he must submit to his fate, and conveys this to the earth god, Erda.

[Below: Wotan, the Wanderer (Vitalij Kowaljow) expresses his resignation to his fate to Erda (Jill Grove); edited image, based on a Monika Rittershaus photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

Wotan awaits the Woodbird and Siegfried and attempts to bar Siegfried’s way, but Siegfried, unaware who the Wanderer (or for that matter Wotan) is, breaks the sacred spear and continues on the path to where Bruennhilde sleeps.

[Below: Siegfried (John Treleaven, front center) confronts the Wanderer (Vitalij Kowaljow); edited image, based on a Monika Rittershaus photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

[Below: Siegfried (Jay Hunter Morris) comes upon the sleeping Bruennhilde (Nina Stemme); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Siegfried finds Bruennhilde and awakens her with a kiss. They make love and, and share a brief interlude of bliss.

[Below: Bruennhilde (Linda Watson, above center) has been awakened by her hero and lover, Siegfried (John Treleaven, below center); edited image, based on a Monika Rittershaus photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

The pictures from the Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco “Siegfrieds” show dramatically three very different approaches to the work, yet each bringing a significant interpretation. The Seattle “Ring” I have described as cinematic in that the total stage always provides an eye-catching and basically beautiful setting for the music dramas, as if it were inspired by the technicolor, cinemascope features of the 1960s Hollywood films.

The Los Angeles Opera production by Achim Freyer concentrates on the musical leitmotivs that provide a separate textual layer to the words of Wagner’s libretto. Each of the leitmotivs is visualized by representations of characters, concepts and things. It proved to be a highly sophisticated, but for many persons inaccesible, approach to Wagner’s story.

The San Francisco production, conceived by Francesca Zambello, I regarded as theatrical in the sense that it concentrated on each individual character and their interactions with the others. Not only the words, but the expression of the character’s motivations at each point in the drama are always present.

Note: one other complete “Ring”, seen on the Pacific Coast in the past half-decade, is reviewed on this website – the Gergiev importation of the Kirov/Mariinsky production from Saint Petersburg, Russia, seen in Orange County in 2006. For the “Siegfried” review from that “Ring”, see: Kirov’s “Siegfried” Slays Dragon, Conquers Orange County – October 9, 2006.

—-

Preparing for the Verdi Bicentennial

We are just over 23 months from the advent of the year 2013, the bicentennial of the births of Verdi and Wagner. One expects that most of the world’s larger opera companies are planning to observe these two operatic giants through mounting of their works.

Already revivals and new productions of the less performed “early Verdi” works are being performed or have been announced in Europe. Particularly notable is the increased interest in Verdi’s ninth opera (1846),  ”Attila”.  The opera, about the 5th century Barbarian leader’s historic encounter with Pope Leo, was one of the most popular of his first nine operas (all composed during a seven year period) when Verdi was in his late 20s and early 30s.

Although mounted as a vehicle in the 1980s and 1990s for basso Samuel Ramey at New York City Opera, Lyric Opera and San Francisco Opera, the opera is little known in the United States. However in 2010, the New York Met presented it for the first time, in a controversial production starring Ildar Abdrazakov, and it has been announced in a different production in January 2012 in Seattle for John Relyea and in a wholly new production (in conjunction with Milan’s La Scala) at San Francisco Opera in June 2012, for Ferruccio Furlanetto  and conducted by Nicola Luisotti.

“Attila”, was written six years before “Rigoletto”, an opera whose star (and those of other great Verdi hits that followed), shone so brightly as to obscure the group of operas that Verdi had composed earlier. Every so often a generation begins to rediscover works that appealed to persons from a long time before (and, more rarely, the inherent worth of some works that never had found an appreciative audience). As “Attila” is given more attention next year, we will explore those features of this work that has found itself some 21st century champions.

*****

[Below: Amelia (Sondra Radvanovsky) tries to warn King Gustavo (Frank Lopardo) about the conspiracy against him at the night's masked ball; edited image, based on a Dan Rest photograph, courtesy of Lyric Opera, Chicago.]

[For my performance review, see: 21st Century Verdi: Radvanovsky Leads World Class Lyric Opera “Ballo” Cast – Chicago, November 15, 2010.]

*****

One continues to see expressions of what I believe is an untenable position, that a standard of Verdi singing existed until the late 20th century that precipitously declined to a point that we no longer have singers competent to master that composer’s vocal writing. There is a precedent in musical history for the gradual disappearance of a style of singing – the florid coloratura skills of castrati sopranos and mezzos – but there was an obvious, observable reason for that disappearance. To produce the sound, an operation on boys was required, followed by years of apprenticeship, with a distressingly low yield of artists who ultimately achieved that level of fame or social status that some contemporaries might argue justified the career development requirements that all later centuries considered barbaric and forcefully eliminated.

But none of us alive today really know what the great castrati sounded like. We have to rely only on the descriptive styles of their knowledgeable contemporaries. Describing any kind of sound with written words is a perilous business. Presumably, the reviewers with some knowledge of vocal technique and the way a particular operatic role is traditionally sung, might have internal processes for recording their impressions of voices systematically, but, even informed readers of their opinions may be unable to conjure a mental aural image of the sound that the reviewer is trying to describe, and, of course, might hear the same performance and not agree at all with that reviewer’s impression.

We also have lots of people who work around opera companies or attend as audience members with clear memories of the voices of the great Verdi artists, certainly from the 1950s on. Some of these, who had heard Callas at her prime, or Tebaldi or Bastianini or Bjoerling or Pavarotti or Leontyne Price or the Young Domingo, can testify that the singers of today are not as good, even as we know they defended their favorites against the older generation that were adamant that none of this group could match Caniglia or Cigna or Lauri-Volpi or Gigli or whomever, none of whom could match the generation before them, ad infinitum.

It’s quite a different situation today. Besides the testimonials of reviewers, we have studio, “off-the-air” and “pirate” recordings, and DVDs that permit a person to hear the singers in different settings, often at many times over the course of a career. The studio recording may be somewhat endangered (see my discussion on MP3 downloads below). Nor does the aural evidence silence the debate on whom has the competence to sing what, as one can discern by browsing the highest and lowest raters of many opera performances reviewed on the amazon.com website.

*****

[Below: Abigaille (Sylvie Valayre) devises her own ideas of how Babylon should be governed; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Fink, Valayre and Aceto in San Diego Opera’s Exceptional “Nabucco” – February 20, 2010.]

*****

Even so, I reviewed six performances of five Verdi operas in 2010 – in order of composition “Nabucco” (San Diego Opera), “Rigoletto” (Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London; Los Angeles Opera), “Il Trovatore” (Seattle Opera), “Ballo in Maschera” (Lyric Opera of Chicago) and “Aida” (San Francisco Opera). I found much to praise in each of the performances, and the performances in London, San Diego, Chicago and San Francisco to be particularly extraordinary experiences.

Individual performances such as Sondra Radvanovsky’s Amelia and Mark Delavan’s Renato in Chicago; Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s Rigoletto, Patrizia Ciofi’s Gilda and Raymond Aceto’s Sparafucile in London; Sylvie Valayre’s Abigaille, Richard Paul Fink’s Nabucco and Aceto’s Zaccaria in San Diego; Dolora Zajick’s Amneris, Marcello Giordani’s Radames and Marco Vratogna’s Amonasro in San Francisco; and Sarah Coburn’s Gilda in Los Angeles matched my memories of great singers in each of these parts from our great opera “Golden Age” of the 1960s and 1970s.

I try to understand the criteria used by the “Verdi’s Paradise Lost” crowd that they believe justifies a cultural moroseness about Verdian performances, but I can’t discern what those criteria are, suspect they do not exist, and, suggest that, if needs be, everyone just recalibrate their expectations so that they can enjoy the rich Verdian singing that surrounds us today.

“Ring” and Swan Knight

I reviewed six performances of four Wagnerian operas in 2010 – three “Ring” operas (“Goetterdaemmerung” at Los Angeles Opera; “Walkuere” in Los Angeles and twice in San Francisco; “Tristan und Isolde” at Seattle Opera; and “Lohengrin” in Los Angeles.

Conflicts prevented my attending a complete Los Angeles “Ring of the Nibelungs”, although, over the period of a year, I was fortunate to see and very much appreciated the first performances of each of the four productions of Achim Freyer’s imaginative and unquestionably unorthodox approach to presenting Wagner’s epic, including his first “Goetterdaemmerung”. Even so, I was able to schedule Domingo’s incomparable Siegmund in the Summer “Ring’s” first “Walkuere”.

*****

[Below: Siegfried (John Treleaven, front left) holds the Ring of the Nibelungs in his hand; edited image, based on a Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Standing Ovations for Achim Freyer, James Conlon, Cast of “Goetterdaemmerung” – Los Angeles Opera, April 3, 2010.]

*****

Domingo, who has just celebrated his 70th birthday, is expected at some point to abandon the Wagnerian jugendlicher tenor roles (such as Siegmund and the title roles of “Lohengrin” and “Parsifal”), and perhaps none of these roles remain in Domingo’s future schedule even now.

Therefore, it seemed symbolic that the Siegmund in the next “Ring” scheduled for California, the Zambello production at the San Francisco Opera in June 2011, is Brandon Jovanovich, a spinto tenor, who, like Domingo before him, established his reputation in the Italian and French repertory before being tapped by San Francisco for this jugendlicher part. (He will make his Wagnerian “debut” as Froh in Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” the prior evening.)

In the interview I had with him in July 2010 (see Rising Stars: An Interview with Brandon Jovanovich) he stated that he is already contracted to sing his third Wagner role after Froh and Siegmund (his first Lohengrin), even though no one has yet seen him perform any Wagner. Subsequently, I was able to obtain confirmation from a person authorized to speak on behalf of the San Francisco Opera, that it is indeed that company, the site of Jovanovich’s first Siegmund, that has scheduled his first Lohengrin. (Separately, SF Opera’s musical director Nicola Luisotti was quoted as suggesting that “Lohengrin” will be one of the next “German wing” operas that he will be conducting.)

And the “person authorized” volunteered that another new role Jovanovich mentioned in his interview, Sergei in Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtensk” (an opera for which an important  production exists by San Francisco Opera’s Francesca Zambello), will also take place at that company, not too many years hence.

(I deliberately refrain from publishing rumors, but, with the caveat that productions that have not been announced officially – even those in the advanced state of planning –  may eventually be postponed or scrapped, I do publish information in which I have a high degree of confidence of whom and what  reasonably may be expected in future  operatic seasons.)

Bel Canto Wagner – American Style

At the beginning of this three part “Thoughts and Assessment” commentary, I referred again to my early post about the state of opera performance in 1955. Then, a decade after the rescue  from the totalitarian regimes that controlled four great opera-singer producing nations - Germany, Austria, France and Italy – Wagnerian opera performances in the United States was enriched, if not dominated by, Central and Western European artists. Now, at least in North America, it is theoretically possible to mount an entire “Ring” of world class artists trained in American university vocal studies programs with skills honed by American opera company young artists and apprentice programs.

This is not intended as an expression of a nationalistic pro-American sentiment (in fact in the U.S.  all Wagner performances are always in German, with most of  the American artists heavily investing in coaching in German diction and vocal style). But it does speak to the educational resources available in America for the singer with requisite voice and talent who aspires to opera. And the American-trained Wagnerians, it seems to me, contribute their share to what I call “bel canto Wagnerian singing” – the beautifully phrased, nuanced, long legato vocal lines that I believe that Wagner intended and which so enhances Wagnerian performance.

*****

[Below: Tristan (Clifton Forbis) is in despair on the shores of Kareol as Kurwenal (Greer Grimsley) consoles him; edited image, based on a Rozarii Lynch photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Tristan Tried and True: Clifton Forbis Sells Seattle Opera’s New “Tristan und Isolde” – July 31, 2010.]

*****

Mid-century complete operas as “fire sale” MP3 downloads

I have previously mentioned the increasingly rich pool of operatic material that is now obtainable as MP3 downloads, permitting an inexpensive way to amass of library of historical documents of major mid-20th century artists.  In the past couple of years, several important complete opera recordings from the RCA Victor catalogue began appearing as 99 cents an act downloads. Now, it seems that every few days another gem from the Victor, EMI and Decca offerings of the 1950s or 1960s appears in the “MP3 download” offerings at amazon.com.

For example, in th elast couple of weeks I downloaded EMI’s complete recording starring Birgit Nilsson and Joao Gibin of Puccini’s “Fanciulla del West” for $2.97 and, in preparation for my 50th anniversary of my personal first performance of the work, of the recording starring Leonie Rysanek and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” for $1.98. Many other major recordings for which I have CDs (or even vinyls) are now available in downloads, as well as some rarities (such as Decca’s recording of Catalani’s “La Wally” for Tebaldi – four acts at $3.96) that have tempted me in the past, but which I could never get around to purchasing.

What all of this means to the future of opera recording, perhaps no one is certain at present. but suddenly the costliest of art forms has become dirt cheap in one medium. For those who wish to add complete operas to their ipods, it becomes pretty easy to incorporate complete opera acts into your daily routine. I will continue to think about and assess this development in future essays.

For those who might wish to comment on my “Thoughts and Assessments” or anything else mentioned in these web-pages, please communicate with me at operawarhorses@yahoo.com.

William

]]> http://www.operawarhorses.com/2011/01/29/opera-in-live-performance-thoughts-and-assessments-at-the-end-of-2010-part-three/feed/ 0 http://www.operawarhorses.com/2011/01/21/opera-in-live-performance-thoughts-and-assessments-at-the-end-of-2010-part-two/ http://www.operawarhorses.com/2011/01/21/opera-in-live-performance-thoughts-and-assessments-at-the-end-of-2010-part-two/#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:45:28 +0000 William http://www.operawarhorses.com/?p=15645 This web-post continues previous discussions about the expansion of opera’s standard repertory. (See Opera in Live Performance, Thoughts and Assessments at the End of 2010, Part One.)

Most observers of the contemporary state of opera performance will concede that Bizet’s “Carmen” is the most durable representative of the French repertory, and I have argued that there are hopeful signs that Gounod’s “Faust”, despite a rough patch that it has gone through in the mid- and late 20th century, is arguably on the rise in audience estimation.

Bizet’s other entry in opera’s standard repertory, “Les Pecheurs de Perles (The Pearlfishers)”,  has found the 21st century a most hospitable time. With a couple of new critical editions, restoring the original ending and banishing music that seemed to plagiarize Bizet’s mentor, Gounod, but that was not even written until almost two decades after Bizet’s death, the restored “Pearlfishers” is treating modern audiences to the Parisians’ mid-19th century love affair with colors and harmonies inspired by the Orient.

Paris does the Bard, Part I

Faust” (1859) and “Pearlfishers” (1863) are two of the trio of works created for Paris’ Theatre Lyrique whose popularity seems now to be solidly on the upswing. The third, Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette”, abounds in “sweet melody” – a term I use for the seductively beautiful style of music that Gounod in effect created for “Faust’s” Garden Scene. For “Romeo” Gounod was able to create five separate love duets, themselves surrounded by effusively melodic arias and choruses.

All three of these operas have soprano and tenor roles for leggiero and lyric voices, voice types in which several currently performing artists excel. Although virtually no opera can be thought of as inexpensive for a major company to produce, “Romeo” and “Pearlfishers” are usually not the season’s budget busters, and so are especially welcome to companies who may find the economics of Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda” or Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger” daunting in these financially stressful times.

[Below: Romeo (Stephen Costello, facing audience, fifth from left) is determined not to be goaded into violence; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

[For the performance review, see: Costello, Perez in Passionately Romantic “Romeo et Juliette” – San Diego Opera, March 13, 2010.]

*****

Teenagers in Love

Gounod’s version of the Bard’s Romeo and Juliet is about teenage passion, but there is an opera, Delibes’ “Lakme”, one of the most popular French operas of a century ago, that can be thought of as the most vivid metaphor in all opera for teenage love that defies all social conventions. If you play Gerald (granted he is a young British officer engaged to be married, but is ruled by adolescent passions) and Lakme (granted she has been designated as a priestess for a Hindu cult, but is also ruled by adolescent passions) as mature, rational grownups, the opera’s plot doesn’t work as well.

American audiences in several cities in the past decade have begun to discover this wonderful opera. Although the title role is regarded as technically difficult, I have reported on performances of three successful American Lakmes (Sarah Coburn, Leah Partridge and Evelyn Pollock) at Tulsa Opera and Florida Grand Opera. This is a work ready to be rediscovered in the first tier American opera houses, where it has been out of their repertories for several decades.

The “French Opera is Dead!” crowd will howl, but, audiences who have taken a liking to “Pearlfishers” will find “Lakme” even more melodious and exotic, and Gerald and Lakme (and her dad Nilakantha) to be among the most interesting characters in Franch opera. (See my reviews at Sarah Coburn’s Ravishing Tulsa Opera Lakme – February 29, 2008 and Leah Partridge’s Splendid “Lakme” – Florida Grand Opera, Miami: February 27, 2009 and Evelyn Pollock, Chad A. Johnson in Revelatory Florida Grand Opera “Lakme” – Miami, February 28, 2009.)

Paris does the Bard, Part Two

Thomas’ “Hamlet” is yet another 19th century Parisian favorite that is being performed more often. In fact, several generations after the initial shock of what a Parisian librettist did to the Bard’s Hamlet, Brits and Americans seem to be seeing the opera more often than Parisians have over the past few years. For those unfamiliar with that opera, who are curious about it, I recommend  my review of Washington’s production (referenced below the photograph), which provides at least some of the reasons why 21st century audiences might invest in getting to know this opera better.

*****

[Below: Hamlet (Michael Chioldi) resolves to wreak some Danish havoc; edited image, based on a Karin Cooper photograph, courtesy of the Washington National Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Michael Chioldi, Micaela Oeste Enrich Washington National Opera’s Theatrically Absorbing “Hamlet” – May 22, 2010.]

*****

Several times in the past year, I found myself applauding productions that emphasize the surreality of many of these 19th century French works, from Berlioz’ “Damnation of Faust” in Chicago, to Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann” in Santa Fe, to Massenet’s “Werther” in San Francisco.

The new production of Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann” at Santa Fe Opera was particularly noteworthy. The Santa Fe Opera, which has begun delving into the classic French repertory to a greater extent than the company has been associated with in the past, decided to produce a “Tales of Hoffmann” that conformed to the last known version prior to Offenbach’s untimely death. Much of what constitutes a classic 20th century version of “Hoffmann” is of spurious origin, with cuts and the additions of non-Offenbach arias that Offenbach could not have sanctioned. Christopher Alden, who is associated with avant-garde operatic stagings, was given the task of realizing a musical performance much more like what Offenbach wrote to be performed.

Any Alden production (be it Christopher’s or David’s) can be controversial, but I believe that Christopher Alden’s conceptualization of  ”Hoffmann” as the surreal hallucinations  of the drunken Hoffmann fit the newly reconstructed, textually correct “Hoffmann”. Some of the reviewers present at the new production’s first night were hostile to the non-traditional production with its unfamiliar music, but I was delighted to receive a personal note from one of the cast principals that my review fully grasped what Christopher Alden intended, a vision that the cast understood and appreciated.

*****

[Below: Hoffmann (Paul Groves, seated left) observes the doll Olympia (Erin Wall, in chair atop table, center) through rose-colored glasses, as Spalanzani (Mark Schowalter, right) stands next to her; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Groves, Wall, Lindsey Excel in Christopher Alden’s Harrowing, Hallucinatory “Hoffmann” – Santa Fe Opera, July 17, 2010.]

*****

An Unworthy “Werther”?

Santa Fe Opera’s “Hoffmann” was not the only instance this year in which I found myself quoted in defense of a non-traditional interpretation of a French operatic work. Mexican Director Francisco Negrin, who had produced an interesting production of Gluck’s “Alceste” in 2009 at Santa Fe Opera, produced a version of Massenet’s “Werther” for San Francisco Opera, which vividly realized the obsessions of the title character.

Defending his production against a detractor who preferred the more romantic old ways of presenting a character that many today would find quite creepy, Negrin cited my review (that can be accessed at “Werther” Re-invented, Yet Again – Francisco Negrin’s New Production at San Francisco Opera, September 15, 2010) as someone who understood what he, Negrin, intended. Indeed, I am a Massenet aficionado who loves what Massenet did to Goethe’s indulgent novella, yet I feel that Negrin nailed Werther’s obsessiveness and the disquiet and potential for disaster that he brought to the lives of Charlotte and Albert, and even Sophie.

We Loves You, Porgy

The most clearly successful 20th century works that premiered after Puccini’s “Turandot” appear to be those of Benjamin Britten, who will be the subject of much attention when the 100th anniversary of his birth is celebrated in 2013. Some of the works from later in the century, most notably Adams’ “Nixon in China” will have major new mountings over the next year or two, allowing us further opportunities to assess the chances for long-term success of  this spectacularly conceived opera.

The most frequently performed American opera, Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”, predates “Nixon” by half a century. “Porgy” is approaching the time when it can be considered standard repertory fare, rather than a novelty. (It will have a new production at Seattle Opera this Summer.)

There still are some issues for the opera world to tackle as to whom should be permitted to sing the roles. As Gershwin’s biographer Walter Rimler said in my interview with him this Fall (“Porgy and Bess” at 75 Years: An Interview with Gershwin Biographer Walter Rimler, Part I and   “Porgy and Bess” at 75 Years: An Interview with Gershwin Biographer Walter Rimler, Part II), Gershwin never intended the opera be restricted by race (although he was against using “blackface” makeup).  ”Porgy’s” future should be resolved in a way that opens each role to all capable of singing it, just as the Japanese roles in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” have been cast from that opera’s earliest days.

As “Porgy’s” place in the repertory becomes secure, we can get on with proper recognition of the second most frequently performed American opera – Floyd’s “Susannah” – which also deserves its place in the permanent repertory of the first tier companies.

*****

[Below: Captain Ahab (Ben Heppner, left center in top hat with cane gives his instructions to Starbuck (Morgan Smith, left) and Pip (Talise Trevigne, in blue shirt, center); edited image, based on a Karen Almond photograph, courtesy of the Dallas Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: World Premiere: Heggie’s Theatrically Brilliant, Melodic “Moby Dick” at Dallas Opera – April 30, 2010.]

*****

I was able to attend the world premiere of Heggie’s “Moby Dick” and the second night of Catan’s “Il Postino” and regard both Heggie and Catan as capable of producing great operatic works in the future. The vastness of Melville’s subject and the extraordinary way that Heggie’s music captured so much of the essence of Melville’s great work – and its line-up of future performances at at least four other opera companies – has led me to predict that “Moby Dick” will the 21st century’s most performed work for some time, and very likely one that will remain in the active repertory. And one assumes and certainly hopes that Heggie is actively planning Great American Operas to come.

The idea of Spanish language opera, although not new, has certainly been advanced by Catan’s work. Many more people speak (and sing) Spanish than Czech, yet the Janacek operas, and, to a lesser extent those of Dvorak and Smetana, have steered many non-Czech speaking opera singers into learning to sing roles in Czech. Many artists are fluent in Spanish anyway, and those learning operatic Spanish to sing their Catan may find the camino to the classical and Romantic Spanish operas as well.

*****

[Below: the poet Pablo Neruda (Placido Domingo, left) teaches the art of metaphor to his postman, (Charles Castronovo); edited image, based on a Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Audience Ovation for Domingo, Castronovo in Catan’s “Postino” – Los Angeles Opera, September 29, 2010.]

*****

In the final part of these 2010 “Thoughts and Assessments”, I will discuss the upcoming Verdi and Wagner bicentennial year (2013), and some thoughts about the classical and opera  recording industries. See Opera in Live Performance, Thoughts and Assessments at the End of 2010, Part Three.

To an extent the economic downturn in the latter half of the five year period, has made that commentary’s conclusion that expansion of the opera repertory continues to be concentrated with operas that premiered during the 140 year period between Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” and Puccini’s “Turandot” even more solid. If anything, opera companies have become more cautious in their offerings, with “Nozze di Figaro” and “The Magic Flute”,  the two principal bel canto comedies Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” and Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore”, Verdi’s “La Traviata” and Puccini’s “La Boheme” and “Madama Butterfly” becoming seemingly indispensible fare to buttress the seasons of most companies.

In this environment, less familiar fare entails risk. The risk can be beyond the capability of a company to manage it, as when a local opera company that had adventurously announced a Handel opera had to cancel its season because ticket sales for the baroque masterpiece were cripplingly low.

Committing to a new production of a broadly unfamiliar work can be especially stressful for any company. Thus, it has been very satsifying to witness the re-evaluation of Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West)” that I have argued was very much needed, occurring simultenously in several centers of opera performance. The catalyst was the opera’s centenary in December 2010, but, unlike parochial revivals of operas in isolation, concerted action worldwide was observable.

*****

[Below: Dick Johnson (Salvatore Licitra, right) stands on the coffin that Sheriff Jack Rance (Roberto Frontali, left) has had built for him, but Minnie (Deborah Voigt, on horseback) has every intention that he should not hang; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

[For my performance reviews, see: Voigt, Licitra Lead Sizzling San Francisco Centennial Celebration for “Girl of the Golden West” – June 9, 2010 and A Second Look: Nicola Luisotti, San Francisco Opera, Champions of “Fanciulla del West” – June 27, 2010.]

*****

Operas do not get revived without champions promoting the idea, and “Fanciulla” has had a coterie of champions in recent years. The late Julian Budden, whose three volume work on Verdi had done immeasurable good to that Maestro’s reputation, took on the cause of Puccini.  He made the case through exhaustive scholarship, that opera’s most popular composer is also one of opera’s technically most accomplished, and comes very close to uttering what to many traditional critics would seem to be heresy – that “Fanciulla” may not only be Puccini’s best work (the composer thought it was), but should be regarded as a contending nominee for the title of the 20th century’s best opera as well.

Important among “Fanciulla’s” champions is the Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti, who had committed to conducting the opera in San Francisco in 2oo5, but, fortunately, acceded to holding off in realizing that goal until the opera’s 100th birthday – a time that, in retrospect, seems more propitious.

By then, Luisotti had himself been transformed from being a one-time guest conductor to becoming the musical director of the San Francisco Opera. With his home ties to Italy and successful guest appearances in London, New York City and elsewhere his reputation  as one of the pre-eminent Italian opera conductors of his generation continues to grow.

San Francisco Opera’s General Director David Gockley signed off on  a new production of “Fanciulla”, co-produced with companies in Sicily and Belgium. One of the illustrious alumni of the San Francisco Opera young artists programs – now a world famous Wagnerian soprano – Deborah Voigt committed to learning the role of Minnie, the girl of the Golden West. It is a Puccini role, like the title role of “Turandot”, that requires a soprano voice that can soar above a Wagnerian sized orchestra.

After San Francisco’s Summer of Love for the Golden West Girl, Team Fanciulla spread out to other parts of the world – Voigt and Luisotti to the New York City’s Met in December for the actual 100 birthday in the site of the opera’s world premiere, a production that the Met filmed for for one of its widely seen cinemacasts. Meanwhile, the artists singing Dick Johnson and Jack Rance in the San Francisco production, Salvatore Licitra and Roberto Frontali, celebrated “Fanciulla’s” birthday in the Sicilian run of the production, while Voigt moves West to Chicago for its revival there.

All in all, critical reception seemed supportive of “Fanciulla” taking a more central place in the opera repertory. There were, of course, detractors – including the usual  ”nattering nabobs of negativism” (to appropriate Vice President Spiro Agnew’s famously alliterative phrase). Some of the more vocal of the curmudgeons have gravitated to the financial press – David Littlejohn to Fox Corporation’s Wall Street Journal, Martin Bernheimer to the Pearson LLC’s Financial Times - and neither, of course, would give the Girl a break.

And one New York critic revealed that “Fanciulla” had more empty seats at the Met than did a performance of “Boheme” that he attended. (Even noting that New York City has had some horrendous winter weather and that an empty seat is not necessarily an unsold one, it should be stated that if the expansion of the opera repertory is dependent on the “expansion” operas matching “Boheme” in seat sales, then we  surely will not see very many new additions to the standard repertory.)

But the review of the New York Times’ influential Anthony Tommasini was eminently fair to the opera, and it seems quite certain that 2010 has ended with more partisans for Puccini’s great opera than when the year began.

*****

[Below: King Xerxes (Susan Graham) walks with the ladies of London; edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: “Xerxes” Unexcelled – Houston Grand Opera, May, 2, 2010.]

*****

Of course, “Fanciulla” is the case of “repertory expansion” within the boundaries of the aforementioned 140 year period. Yet one can observe progress, even during this in the periods before and after the 140 year period as well. Those who have read my review of the Houston Grand Opera presentation of Handel’s “Xerxes” will note that it was performed uncut – an extraordinary idea for a Handel opera – and that, in my opinion, Sir Nicholas Hytner’s witty production satirizing 18th century London tastes set new marks in performing Handel. Although the Hytner production is British, it was an audience of Texans who showed  that we in the 21st century can handle our Handel uncut.

Handel operas continue to increase in popularity and certainly in performance numbers. Since my 2005 essay on repertory expansion, I have attended and reviewed productions of “Rodelinda” and “Ariodante” in San Francisco, “Tamerlano” in Los Angeles and “Radamisto” in London, with a production of “Hercules” scheduled for Lyric Opera in Chicago in March. Gluck has been represented as well on these web pages with productions of “Iphigenie et Tauride” in San Francisco and “Alceste” in Santa Fe.

Many of these baroque productions are imaginative and praiseworthy. However, I believe the Hytner “Xerxes” excels above them all and should be recognized as one of the great works of art, that should be declared a world treasure along with the David Hockney productions in the possession of the San Francisco and Los Angeles Operas, the current Seattle production of Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelungs” and the surviving productions of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, among other productions of note.

Thus, I am delighted that San Francisco Opera’s Fall 2011 season will include the Hockney “Turandot” (which also opens the San Diego Opera season in the next several days), the Hytner “Xerxes” and the Ponnelle “Carmen” – a third of their announced productions already on my “world treasures” list.

*****

[Below: A lovesick Faust (Toby Spence) sits pensively next to Marguerite's sewing machine; resized image, based on a Catherine Ashmore photograph, courtesy of the English National Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Toby Spence Stars in Des McAnuff’s Rousing ENO Production of Gounod’s “Faust” – London, October 14, 2010.]

*****

One of the parts of the standard repertory that seemed in danger of contracting at the beginning of the 21st century was the French repertory. It was as if only Bizet’s “Carmen” had a secure position in any company’s repertory.

One opera that seemed to be in a bit of decline was Gounod’s “Faust”, even though no French opera before it is as popular as it is even today, nor is there any French opera created since, save “Carmen”, that  has ever been as popular. That “Faust’s” fortunes were waning seemed emblematic of the problems that companies had mounting French operas.

But over the century’s first decade, there have been some green shoots. Part of this is a resurgence of interest in “Faust” itself. Although I have been only a cheerleader for the Gounod revival, I have tried to express my thoughts formally on two of Gounod’s works (see my articles in the 2010 San Diego Opera program on “Romeo et Juliette” and their 2011 opera program on “Faust”.) See also my essay The Devil’s Details Part II: Thoughts on Gounod’s “Faust” elsewhere on this website.

I will discuss some of the relevant issues raised by Berlioz’ “Damnation of Faust”, Carre’s play “Faust et Marguerite” and Gounod’s “Faust” in a subsequent post, but I am convinced that the elements that attracted these Parisians to Goethe’s epic are in tune with 21st century thinking. That as insightful a Broadway director as Des McAnuff could find contemporary relevance in Gounod’s version for 21st century London audiences at English National Opera’s Coliseum speaks to the underlying strength of Gounod’s Parisian approach to Goethe’s “Faust”.

In fact, I believe that there is a rapport between 21st century tastes for stories with supernatural, surrealistic and culturally exotic elements and the works of the French opera composers of the mid and late 19th century.  The nativists Berlioz, Gounod, Thomas, Bizet, Delibes, Massenet, Saint-Saens and Debussy exploited themes to which we in the 21st century can relate. There is much that today’s opera goer would respond to, that this imposing group has produced.

In the next post of this “Thoughts and Assessments” series, I will continue the discussion of French opera production in 2010, and will discuss 20th and 21st century opera as well. For those who wish to comment on this post, or any other item on this website, please contact me at operawarhorses@yahoo.com.

The criteria are simple. An “A” reflects a musical and theatrical performance and production that would meet the standards for a “world class” performance in any opera company internationally. And, to make sure that I remain informed of what “the world” is offering, I periodically attend and review performances at many of the major opera companies of North America and Europe.

Since San Francisco Opera is the only company whose every production I have attended at least once during each calendar year since 2006, it is the only one that I rate in this fashion. (I think it would be unfair to make any comparable judgment of another company in which I missed significant numbers of their productions. Perhaps it’s also unfair to choose this one company to bestow this annual rating to, but once something like this starts, and people look for it, it takes a while to get out of the habit of doing it.)

There is one obvious thing about the ratings. The grades have been rising over time. There has been no “C” awarded since 2006, and nothing lower than an “A-” since 2008. This year, there are six rated A+ and three rated A. This is not, in my estimation, grade inflation. It is indicative that the partnership of General Director David Gockley and Musical Director Nicola Luisotti has achieved higher overall standards for the San Francisco Opera than it has enjoyed since the “Golden Age” of General Director Kurt Herbert Adler (1954-1981).

And, with the summer performances of Francesca Zambello’s wondrous production of Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelungs” and the 2011-12 season soon to be announced, which will include such fare as the season opening performances of Puccini’s “Turandot”, the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’ “Heart of a Soldier” and Renee Fleming’s return in John Pascoe’s extraordinary production of Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia” (among the operas sure to get an early “buzz”), it looks to me like purchasing San Francisco Opera tickets for calendar year 2011 is a worthwhile investment as well.

Eight of the nine productions performed by the San Francisco Opera in 2010 were “new to San Francisco” and three of the nine (“Fanciulla”, “Werther” and “Vec Makropulos”)  were new productions, never before seen anywhere.

Grade A+

La Fanciulla del West – The Girl of the Golden West (Puccini)

San Francisco Opera, the nearest international opera company to the geographic location of  ”The Girl of the Golden West”, showed off an appealing new production of Puccini’s musically complex masterpiece in honor of the opera’s 100th birthday.  It provided the occasion for the role debuts for the three principals (Deborah Voigt’s Minnie, Salvatore Licitra’s Dick Johnson, and Roberto Frontali’s Jack Rance), as well as the role debuts for every other member of the cast. This new to “Fanciulla” team set forth high musical and dramatic standards to inaugurate the opera’s next century .

Lorenzo Mariani’s production concept,whose sets are by Maurizio Balo, is a joint project with Sicily’s Teatro Massimo di Palermo (where late December 2010 performances are scheduled with Licitra and Frontali) and Liege, Belgium’s Opera Royal de Wallonie.

[Below: Minnie (Deborah Voigt) persuades the men of the mining camp to release Dick Johnson (Salvatore Licitra) from the gallows; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Conductor Nicola Luisotti, a champion for this work, led the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in a demonstration of the score’s brilliance. Tenore di forza Licitra displayed the kind of voice of power and beauty for which the War Memorial Opera House was built. Voigt proved that a Wagnerian power voice with a luminous top is the perfect sound for Minnie.

[For my performance reviews, see: Voigt, Licitra Lead Sizzling San Francisco Centennial Celebration for “Girl of the Golden West” – June 9, 2010 and A Second Look: Nicola Luisotti, San Francisco Opera, Champions of “Fanciulla del West” – June 27, 2010.)

Die Walkuere (Wagner)

New to San Francisco is the second opera in Francesca Zambello's clever "Ring of the Nibelungs". Its life begun in a joint project with the Washington National Opera, where this "Walkuere" production was first seen in 2007 (see my review at Zambello’s Dazzling “American Ring ‘Walkuere’” at Kennedy Center – March 28, 2007). Zambello demonstrates that themes of power lust, insincerity, manipulation, betrayal, delusion, love and self-sacrifice are universal, and fit just as well surrounded by iconic American images as they do in, say, a primeval forest inhabited by Teutonic gods.

[Below: Wotan (Mark Delavan, lowest step left) and Bruennhilde (Nina Stemme, lowest step right) are flanked by Bruennhilde's eight Valkyr sisters; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The production proved four things. First, that Wagnerian opera can be sung beautifully, and Mark Delavan (Wotan), Nina Stemme (Bruennhilde), Eva-Marie Westbroek (Sieglinde), Christopher Ventris (Siegmund), Raymond Aceto (Hunding) and Janina Baechle (Fricka) did just that.

Second, that the imagination of Francesca Zambello and the superb acting skills of this cast can make a thrillingly dramatic experience out of this long opera, with the first act’s scenes between Westbroek, Ventris and Aceto worthy of study in a stage actor’s master class. Third, Conductor Donald Runnicles and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra achieve Wagner’s goal that the orchestra is itself the major character in the opera, and fourth, that those who attend next Summer’s Runnicles-led complete “Ring”  are assured of one hell of a show.

[For my performance reviews, see: An American “Walkuere”: Runnicles, Wagner and Zambello At San Francisco Opera – June 10, 2010 and A Second Look: Stemme, Delavan, Lead Power Cast of San Francisco Opera “Walkuere” – June 13, 2010.]

Aida (Verdi)

Two distinct themes are merged in a new to San Francisco unveiling of Houston Grand Opera’s “Aida” co-production with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden – one the colorful sets and two the Verdian singing. The physical sets are immersed in psychedelic colors conceived by the maven of London’s Carnaby Street counterculture, Zandra Rhodes.

[Below: Aida (Micaela Carosi) in an introspective moment; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

But it is not Rhodes’ pleasing palette that in itself earns the A+. What made this an ultimate “Aida” is the artistic leadership of San Francisco Opera’s musical director, Conductor Nicola Luisotti, enlisting a superb cast he assembled from among artists he has worked with in his international career: the Italians Micaela Carosi (Aida), Marcello Giordani (Radames) and Marco Vratogna (Amonasro) and the American Dolora Zajick (Amneris). Even the smallest roles had noteworthy voices, with the emerging star tenor David Lomeli as the Messenger.

[For my review, see: Brilliant Cast, Colorful Production, Luisotti’s Masterful Conducting Enliven San Francisco “Aida” – September 19, 2010.]

Werther (Massenet)

The second “new to the world” production of 2010 is Mexican Stage Director Francisco Negrin’s complex and insightful production of Massenet’s “Werther”, co-produced with Chicago’s Lyric Opera, which will mount it in 2012. The character of Werther, conceived by Goethe, is the archetype of a dangerously obsessed individual, who destroys himself before he manages to wreck the lives of those around him.

Massenet created a lushly melodic opera, whose title role (here sung beautifully by Ramon Vargas) is one of the prime roles for a lyric tenor to show accomplishment in the French style. What Negrin unlocks in this production is the surreality with which Werther sees the world, which creates its own surreal thoughts (which Negrin manifests in a dream) in Charlotte (Alice Coote), the reluctant object of his affection. Imaginatively, Negrin portrays the characters of Albert (Brian Mulligan) and Sophie (Heidi Stober) as having a much more central role to the opera’s plot’s evolution than one experiences in traditional productions.

[Below: Albert (Brian Mulligan, below) has become concerned that the student Werther (Ramon Vargas, above) is obsessed with Albert's wife; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

A couple of the critics, apparently defending the traditional ways of presenting Werther (showing him as just another lovesick tenor?), so missed the mark on what Negrin was doing, that Negrin himself responded to one particularly caustic electronic review by citing my review of his production (see below) as someone who understood Negrin’s intentions.

For those in Chicago, thinking forward to 2012, I strongly recommend the production, and personally look forward to seeing it again.

[For my review, see: “Werther” Re-invented, Yet Again – Francisco Negrin’s New Production at San Francisco Opera, September 15, 2010.]

Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart)

Just because Nicola Luisotti has proven himself an amazing conductor for the operatic works of Verdi, Puccini and Richard Strauss, doesn’t mean he can’t be phenomenal conducting Mozart as well. San Franciscans were treated to a lively performance by the San Francisco Opera orchestra with Luisotti at the keyboard (harpsichord, of course) as well as the podium.

However, as a precautionary measure to be sure that Luisotti’s first performances of Mozart in San Francisco were fail safe, he was given as good a Mozart cast as one can imagine assembling, led by the engaging Figaro of Luca Pisaroni and the incomparable Susanna of Daniele De Niese, in her San Francisco Opera debut. Also in the cast were the charming Countess Almaviva of Ellie Dehn, another stalwart performance by Lucas Meachem as the Count Almaviva, and a welcome San Francisco Opera debut for Michele Losier (Cherubino).

[Below: Luca Pisaroni as Figaro; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

As if these principals were not enough to assure a Luisotti triumph, the legendary John Copley was brought in as stage director for this Zack Brown production that Copley himself directed when it was new in ’82. The resulting stage business was hilarious, not in small measure due to the comic antics of John Del Carlo (Don Bartolo), Catherine Cook (Marcellina) and Greg Fedderly (Don Basilio).

[For my performance review, see: Copley Directs, Luisotti Conducts, Sparkling “Nozze” Ensemble – San Francisco Opera, October 3, 2010.]

Vec Makropulos – The Makropulos Case (Janacek)

Nothing in the season was more symbolic in linking David Gockley’s leadership to the Golden Age of Kurt Herbert Adler than his creation of a new production of the mellifluous Janacek fantasy opera, “Vec Makropulos”, for which Adler mounted the American premiere, as “The Makropulos Case”, for Marie Collier in 1966.

[Below: Elina Makropulos (Karita Mattila) has used sex to get the formula to extend her existence; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Just as Adler chose Collier and Anja Silja, both great singing actresses, to perform the role of Emilia Marty/Elina Makropulos (a decade apart), Gockley chose Karita Mattila, who was electrifying in the part. The opera also introduced yet another world class artist, the Czech conductor Jiri Belohlavek, who achieved stunning results from the San Francisco Opera Orchestra.

The team of Olivier Tambosi and Frank Philipp Schloessmann, responsible for the successful production of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” for Mattila in Gockley’s first season in San Francisco, staged and designed the new production of “Vec Makropulos”.

[For the performance review, see: Brilliant Belohlavek Conducts Mattila’s Masterful “Makropulos” – San Francisco Opera, November 28, 2010.]

Grade A

Faust (Gounod)

We are in the period of celebrating the 150th anniversary of the earliest versions of Gounod’s “Faust”, the opera which became so popular that no French opera written before it has ever regained the level of popularity that “Faust” has maintained. In a production from Lyric Opera in Chicago, whose sets are by Robert Perdziola, the battle of angels (whose skin in the game was the angelic voice and witty acting of the Marguerite of Patricia Racette) and of demons (personified by the suave and all too likable Mephistopheles of John Relyea) plays out with stage direction by Jose Maria Condemi.

[Below: Faust (Stefano Secco) chats up Marguerite (Patricia Racette); edited image, based on a Terrence McCarthy photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Other noteworthy performances were the Valentin of Brian Mulligan and Siebel of Daniela Mack. Had Stefano Secco, the Faust, appeared in the Lyric Opera’s production of the opera with these sets (which I reviewed in November 2009), in a version that  Frank Corsaro directed, he would have ended up in heaven with Marguerite. San Francisco stage director, Condemi (as do I), sees Faust as a damnable scoundrel, so Secco’s Faust ends up in Hell.

[For my performance reviews, see: Racette Ravishing, Relyea Riveting in San Francisco “Faust” – June 5, 2010 and A Second Look: A Visually, Aurally Praiseworthy “Faust” at San Francisco Opera – June 20, 2010.]

Madama Butterfly (Puccini)

Stefano Secco, here as Pinkerton, performs his second “he done her wrong” role in San Francisco this year. In the performance I reviewed, the woman of misfortune, Cio Cio San, was played by Daniela Dessi. San Franciscans have only seen Dessi briefly, in mid-1990s performances of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”  and as this year’s second Butterfly, so have missed much of her career’s prime, but she gave a creditable rendition of Cio Cio San, which, with Secco’s Pinkerton, provided insight into an authentic Italian performance style.

[Below: Butterfly (Daniela Dessi) arrives on her wedding night, surrounded by her relatives; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The production, a treasure of Chicago’s Lyric Opera, was that of the legendary Harold Prince.

[For my performance review, see: Harold Prince’s Vintage “Butterfly” in San Francisco – November 5, 2010.]

Cyrano de Bergerac (Alfano)

On paper, the idea of reviving an opera by early 20th century post-verismo composer Franco Alfano, might not seem logical in a time of economic stress. But these days, to get Placido Domingo, the tenor for whom “superstar” seems an inadequate adjective, you produce whatever he requests. To make the command performance of more than routine interest, layer upon layer of intriguing features were incorporated.

An attractive production from Paris’ Theatre du Chatelet, whose first two scenes were especially memorable, was mounted. The musical score, often studiously alike the musical scores of such 1930s Errol Flynn cinematic extravaganzas as “Captain Blood”, fit nicely with a staging that enlisted a team of fencers to delight the audience in a  coup de theatre of swashbuckling (in the spirit of the original meaning of the adjective) fencing.

[Below: in a bakery that whips up pastries for the royal court, Cyrano (Placido Domingo, front) writes a note; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The three main characters, which, besides Domingo’s Cyrano, included Ainhoa Arteta’s Roxane and Thiago Arancam’s Christian, were attractively cast. Whether the personal issues of these three characters rise to “operatic” concerns is another matter, but there was no doubt that Domingo, whose amazing voice, now more baritonal than in decades past, retains its beauty and power, made this unusual opera into a razzle dazzle showpiece.

[For my performance review, see: Domingo’s Swashbuckling, Cinematic San Francisco “Cyrano” – November 6, 2010.]

For my review of John Pascoe’s production of Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia” at Washington National Opera, that would have rated an A+ using this scale, see: The Donizetti Revival, Second Stage: Radvanovsky, Grigolo in Pascoe’s WNO “Lucrezia Borgia” – November 17, 2008.

For the previous year end reports and grades on the San Francisco Opera seasons, see:

Grading Gockley’s San Francisco Opera 2009: Another Straight A Average, and

Gockley’s San Francisco Opera in 2008 – A Straight “A” Average, and

Gockley’s San Francisco Opera in 2007 – Improving Already High Grades and,

Grading Gockley’s First Year in S. F.

For those who wish to contact me to agree or disagree, please send me an e-mail at operawarhorses@yahoo.com.  Some of those comments may be published at some future date.

]]> http://www.operawarhorses.com/2010/12/12/san-francisco-operas-calendar-year-2010-straight-a-average-trending-higher/feed/ 0 http://www.operawarhorses.com/2010/03/05/opera-in-live-performance-thoughts-and-assessments-at-the-end-of-2009-part-two/ http://www.operawarhorses.com/2010/03/05/opera-in-live-performance-thoughts-and-assessments-at-the-end-of-2009-part-two/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:25:59 +0000 William http://www.operawarhorses.com/?p=8500 This post continues the essay I began in the feature Opera in Live Performance: Thoughts and Assessments at the End of 2009, Part One. I don’t know if I would characterize the Part One as necessarily pessimistic, even though I argued that a considerable amount of the revenues that operatic performance received from philanthropy may be thought of as “bubble-generated”.

This is partly because the philanthropists’ contributions included some significant percentage from an unsustainable economic expansion, and partly because wider societal needs are cutting into the philanthropic revenue base on which the arts are dependent. This opinion is not my own, but appears to be a consensus among opera company administrations that I have interviewed in several parts of the United States.

*****

[Below: Tosca (Adrienne Pieczonka) seeks to comfort the tortured Mario Cavaradossi (Carlo Ventre) as Spoletta (Joel Sorensen) looks on; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: House of Puccini: Striking San Francisco Opera “Tosca” with Pieczonka, Ataneli and Ventre – June 14, 2009.]

*****

Nor do I believe that the opera companies in some European countries that are used to generous governmental subsidies  are necessarily immune from the consequences of economic forces impacting their social systems. However, to paraphrase San Francisco Opera’s David Gockley, American opera company general directors would probably prefer to be dealing with the issue of large, but declining governmental subsidies, rather than the American situation of having (if at all) only small, though, of course, very welcome, government support (while competing for the “name” singers and other artists in the international marketplace for their services).

Thus, around the world, but particularly in the United States, I believe that the resources at the disposal of producers of grand opera will be much more constrained for the indefinite future than has been the case in the recent past. If, indeed, my supposition is correct, it is a worthwhile to discuss where these constraints may be most in evidence.

*****

[Below: although engaged to another, Gerald (Bryan Griffin) falls in love with Lakme (Leah Partridge); edited image, based on a Deborah Gray Mitchell photograph, courtesy of the Florida Grand Opera.]

[For my performance reviews, see: Leah Partridge’s Splendid “Lakme” – Florida Grand Opera, Miami: February 27, 2009 and  Evelyn Pollock, Chad A. Johnson in Revelatory Florida Grand Opera “Lakme” – Miami, February 28, 2009.]

*****

The Subscriber Pushback

There is a consequence of the decline in philanthropy, and of the absence of generous governmental subsidies. Every opera company’s subscribers have become ever more important. It is a remarkable group in every city. I doubt if any company can be said to have taken their subscribers for granted, but as resources decline or fail to increase, what this group thinks and does is (or unquestionably should be) an increasingly important concern to opera managements.

I think many opera company general directors would accept a church analogy as not inappropriate. (The reader may substitute whatever religious entity is preferred.) The subscribers are the core congregation, as opposed to those who come to church only for the “high” religious holidays (their metaphorical equivalent are those who will only buy the “hot ticket” to see a world famous superstar in a popular opera) or who visit the church from another area.

You, as the church leader, may want to lead your congregation into new directions, and expose them to some different ideas about how to do things. Because there is almost always a degree of trust in any church’s leadership in the early days, you can expect the core congregation to support you, for a while at least. But you will know when the congregation is beginning to become unhappy, and  the unhappier they get, the more uncomfortable will be life for you as the church leader.

If you no longer can depend on the congregation’s support, it doesn’t help much if you get accolades from all over the world at how brilliant you are or how “in the right” you are. If your congregation is split, or, even worse, is pretty well in agreement that what you are doing is wrong, it’s time to change course. You leave, or you take significant and maybe painful steps to reconcile your ways of doing things with the preferences of the core congregation.

As instructive as this metaphor may be, there is one part of it that doesn’t work so well. In a church, the leader may be preparing for the weekly service on a week by week basis, so that directions can be changed very quickly. Conversely, an opera company may make decisions several years ahead of time and find itself trapped in commitments that prove to be unpopular with the subscribers, or far more costly than expected, or both.

It is probable that in such a situation, one of two things will happen. The director whose artistic choices ultimately proved to be unpopular will have to leave, or signal that the future will be much different from the past, and the company will find itself concentrating its energies for several seasons on producing operas that they are certain the subscribers will wish to see.

[Below: the Rhine Maidens plead with Siegfried to return the Ring in Seattle's "Goetterdaemmerung"; edited image, based on a Rozarii Lynch photograph, courtesy of the Seattle Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Astonishing End to Seattle Opera’s “Goetterdaemmerung” – August 14, 2009.]

(The company, of course, will be grateful if the critics are happy, and, as well, the standees, and the people who help buy the tickets that sell out the house when there is a superstar. But you cannot survive as an opera company, absent a giant, predictable subsidy from somewhere, on the good will of critics, standees and a superstar’s affluent fans. They alone don’t generate enough of a revenue base.)

Possibly the most obvious area where “subscriber pushbacks” have made the lives of opera managements very, very uncomfortable, has been the mounting of operatic productions that make no sense to the opera’s subscribers, or, even worse, offend them. One can lecture subscribers on why they should not regard opera as a “trophy art for the middle class”, and that a company should not shy from enlisting production designers that set out to offend that “middle class” and make fun of the traditional ways of presenting the operas they like.

But unless most of the company’s revenues are derived from sources other than subscribers (who in the United States are both the principal ticket buyers and the philanthropists), the operatic management that feels that tradition-shredding “shock and awe” is the proper way to produce opera should be certain that their subscribers are unanimously with them.

*****

[Below: Tamerlano (Placido Domingo) consoles his daughter Asteria (Sarah Coburn); edited image, based on a Robert Millard phtograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Domingo’s Towering “Tamerlano” Bajazet: Los Angeles Opera – November 22, 2009.]

*****

Ticket Price Inflation

When, in the 1960s, a year before beginning college, I bought my first ticket for an orchestra seat at the San Francisco Opera, it was only $10 to see an opera starring Renata Tebaldi and Tito Gobbi. (Tebaldi didn’t show, but the experience convinced me that the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House “orchestra section” is a great place to watch opera.) My subscription seats have been there ever since. No one will be surprised that the tickets are priced quite a bit higher now.

I am unaware of any company anywhere that has been able to hold cost increases for subscriptions in line with the per capita income growth for their community over any substantial period of time. One could object that it is the opera’s cost increases that should determine the increase in ticket prices rather than the increase in the community’s per capita income, but, it seems to me that ultimately economic forces will prevail. Increases in opera production costs cannot outstrip increases in a community’s wealth indefinitely.

Any long term opera company subscriber anywhere has seen ticket prices soar, even as that subscriber’s opera company has seen the percentage of revenues raised from ticket sales decrease over time. Although some subscribers have substantial personal wealth, it is likely more typical that most opera season subscribers, like persons who hold season tickets to, say, the home games of a National Football League team, must devote an ever greater portion of their income each year to be able to hold onto a prized possession.

Therefore, most opera managements, certainly in the United States, have reconciled to the reality, even with some brilliant marketing and popular offerings, their revenue bases will likely be constrained, and, where there may be new growth, it will be wise to devote much of that to replenishing and augmenting depleted endowments. The hope for the future is in reining in and substantially decreasing costs.

Perhaps the non-subsidized opera companies are the operatic canaries in a coal mine. What happens to opera in the United States could well become a model for opera companies everywhere in the future.

I argue that there are several areas where there is hope for bringing costs in lines with the new economic realities: 1) a better use of the world’s existing operatic physical resources, and 2) a better appreciation of the world’s current abundance of first rate opera singers and the other artists that support them.

*****

[Below: Production Designer Achim Freyer's disk for Wagner's "Das Rheingold"; edited image, based on a Monika Rittershaus photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

[For my performance review, see: Achim Freyer’s Fascinating “Rheingold” Begins L. A. “Ring” – March 11, 2009.]

*****

What should be better appreciated: operatic singers and orchestras

My reviews on this website have made the point that most of the singers that are hired in principal roles (and many in small roles) are extraordinarily good – and I have attended live performances of most of the major opera singers of the past half century. There are more good opera singers than there are opportunities for them to sing.

In fact, it is my opinion that it is now becoming rarer to see a bad performance of a principal in an operatic role than it used to be to see a very good performance. I also believe that the orchestras in those cases where my experience with them covers several decades, are consistently better than they ever were.

I suspect that quite a few critics would disagree with me on this, although many of them will not have attended performances of reigning superstars in the late 195os and the 1960s, as I have, and will not have the same basis for making a comparative evaluation, just as I cannot speak for performances that took place in the 1930s and 1940s.

Some critics will have criteria that can be explained, and respected (“Baritone X doesn’t pronounce his French covered vowels correctly”), even if I have  a different perspective on what constitutes a world class operatic performance. But there are some critics, and I suspect many of this website’s readers will concede this, that just don’t seem to know what they are talking about.

There is a point to be made about the emergence of great operatic talent that is readily available to all major and many smaller companies. As opera patrons begin to appreciate how good the contemporary singers are, and how many deserve to be regarded as “world class”, the worry that one is going to spend a fortune on a ticket for a substandard vocal performance  may not be justified. Things can always go wrong, of course, but confidence in the casting decisions of most of the major operatic managements is probably well placed.

And some of these voices you’ve not heard of may become famous later on. Consider some of the artists that I saw at San Francisco Opera in their 20s or early 30s when their fees were still relatively low: Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, Birgit Nilsson, Leonie Rysanek, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras are a few that come to mind without even researching the subject.

One likes to see artists that have had great successes elsewhere in the world at the home company, but I suspect the top ten artists in fees charged per performance at any given time are almost never the top ten best voices at that moment. If one has confidence in your opera management’s ability to engage wonderful voices (particularly those of artists with a great stage presence and acting skills), then assume that they will find people you have never heard of (and whose fees are not now exorbitant) who will really impress you.

What is Deplorable: Throw-away Art – Opera Sets and Costumes

Opera productions used in performance suffer wear and tear. The more popular the opera, the more damage to sets and costumes is suffered. In addition, there are new operas, and there is renewed interest in operas that have not been performed for a while, so there are good reasons for new productions. Even musicology can suggest new productions. We now have quite different ideas of how Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffman”, or Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers” or Verdi’s “Don Carlos” should be performed than, say, 30 years ago.

For most opera companies, there is an ongoing expense to store old productions. There are  examples of newly installed opera company intendants arriving and destroying many (in one famous case, it is reported almost all) of the existing productions, giving them free rein to work with their favorite concept directors to create new productions.

However, once one has made all the qualifying statements, too much of the operatic heritage has been deliberately destroyed – for some discarded productions, I suspect there is not even a photographic record of what has been lost.

Opera sets are utilitarian things. If a great artist has created them, that does not seem to matter much. It’s like the monastery in Milan where Leonardo da Vinci painted the “Last Supper”. The monks need a wider door to the kitchen? Just cut a wider opening in the current door below Leonardo’s mural, even if you have to cut off the feet of Leonardo’s image of Jesus Christ. (At least they saved most of the monastery wall that Leonardo used for his painting, which is more than can be said for the Jean-Pierre Ponnelle productions of Wagner’s “Fliegende Hollaender” or Verdi’s “Rigoletto”.)

There should be an international movement to secure the remaining productions of Ponnelle, and Franco Zefferelli, and Ezio Frigerio, and other production designers of the first rank. (What “secure” might mean obviously can be the subject of more webposts. Intellectual property laws and customs surely have a bearing here. But as a point of principle, no work of art should be destroyed as a consequence of striving to preserve intellectual property, just as none should be destroyed simply to balance one institution’s budget or to clear the way for a  new production desired by management.)

My guess is that at least David Hockney’s productions in the hands of the Los Angeles Opera and San Francisco Opera are safe, but Hockney is one of the very few opera production designers whose recognition as a great artist so transcends the opera realm that one could imagine his physical sets being housed for display in an art museum.

There is a history of sharing great productions between major companies, and increasing sophistication in building sets that can fit the stages of several companies, greatly reducing the costs. (I will begin a series of website articles on this surprisingly complex subject soon.) But another area is just in its infancy – production “makeovers” where a production for one opera, when there is no longer need for the sets, are not discarded, but are converted into something else.

When this June, San Francisco Opera audiences see Robert Perdziola’s attractive sets for Gounod’s “Faust”, they are seeing a production that originally was designed for Marilyn Horne to perform Rossini’s “Tancredi” at Lyric Opera in Chicago. Perdziola reconstructed the sets to house Frank Corsaro’s concept of how to stage “Faust”, but when they appear in San Francisco, stage director Jose Maria Condemi will have reworked the sets again to bring us his own ideas.

“Makeover” productions can, in the right hands (resourceful stage directors working with inventive production construction crews) have the promise of significantly reducing costs, without diminishing the audience’s operatic experience.

These are my thoughts and assessments ending 2009. I will have more to say on each of these subjects. As always, anyone who wishes to comment upon, or associate or disagree with these thoughts, should contact me, through the now old-fashioned mechanism of e-mail, at the address operawarhorses@yahoo.com.