Salome and Turandot are among the most demanding roles in the dramatic soprano’s repertoire. Lindstrom, who is of Swedish descent, and brings to mind the vocal powers of the great Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson, has demonstrated the ability to occupy performance niches beyond the power voice we associate with Nilsson.

As Turandot, Lindstrom showed California audiences that she had physical beauty and stage presence. As Salome, Lindstrom proved the mastery of stage director Sean Curran’s brilliant dance choreography and psychologically aberrant portrayal of the Tetrach Herod’s stepdaughter.

[Below: Lise Lindstrom is Salome; edited image, based on a Ken Howad photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The San Diego Opera imported Sean Curran’s absorbing 2009 production, a co-production of the San Francisco Opera, Opera de Montreal and the Opera of St Louis. [For my previous production review and comments relevant to its revival in San Diego, see Nadja Michael a Sensation in Luisotti’s Soaring San Francisco “Salome” – October 18, 2009.] There I had made the case that San Francisco achieved one of the most successful presentations of the opera that I have witnessed in over four decades by a company known for doing the works of Richard Strauss very, very well.

Much of the credit of the production’s success was the insightful staging of Sean Curran, a former lead dancer, who has forged a second career in opera direction. But to implement Curran’s very physical ideas on how to present “Salome”, one must have a cast, especially for the five principal roles – Salome, Jokanaan, Herod, Herodias and Narraboth – who can achieve what Curran has in mind.

In San Diego, Lindstrom was joined by a uniformly excellent, world-class cast, including two veterans of the San Francisco mounting of the production – the Jokanaan, Greer Grimsley, and the Herodias, Irene Mishura.

For the Narraboth – the Syrian captain who allows his secual attraction to Salome to be manipulated into a career- (and life-) ending lapse of judgment – is a major presence in the opera’s first scene. [Because Stage Director Curran employs the increasingly popular device of opening the curtains so that several of the comprimario artists and other performers who will be present at the beginning of a given opera, can be seen wandering about the stage in character several minutes before the opera begins, we see Narraboth kneeling and watching the offstage Salome long before Conductor Steuart Bedford first raises his baton.]

Narraboth is the vehicle for the San Diego Opera debut of Sri Lankan tenor Sean Panikkar. The former San Francisco Opera Adler fellow displayed a maturing lyric voice that suggests he is at the threhold of a major intenational career. [For my recent review of Panikkar in a very different role, see Loving “The Last Savage”: Over the Top Menotti Charms at Santa Fe Opera – August 5, 2011.]

[Below: Sean Panikkar as Narraboth: edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The opera’s intense psychological drama and its exploration of the depravity of the tetrarch’s court, might cause a person unfamiliar with Strauss’ to assume this 1906 work, to be melodically austere. Instead, it is one of the most melodically lush and exotic musical scores in all of opera.

It, like Wagner’s “Parsifal” evokes the battles between Christianity and paganism. (Herod, of course, is nominally Jewish and consults with the various sects, but, from Jokanaan’s perspective, Herod, Herodias and family are all pagans. Even in our more ecumenical age, the Tetrarch’s court, certainly as Oscar Wilde portrayed it, seems far removed from the Judaeo-Christian tradition.)

Just as Wagner did in “Parsifal” Strauss creates some of the most exquisite music in German opera for the work’s references to Christ – Jokanaan’s Christ motive is as memorable an orchestral fanfare as the Zoroastrian motive that begins Strauss’ tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra (that Stanley Kubrick chose as the musical highlight of his film 2001.)

Jokanaan, whose stern exhortations of the hellfire that awaits Queen Herodias and her kind, delivered thunderously by Grimsley, also sings sweetly of his Master who is even now preaching in a fishing boat in the Sea of Galilee. Similarly beautiful music will be composed 45 years later when the hero of Britten’s “Billy Budd” will be singing of his own body after his death sinking into the sea.

Grimsley’s character seems so austere, inarticulate and mysterious to the characters onstage, other than the utterly fascinated Salome and the Two Nazarenes, who are in adoration of his message (and are nicely sung by San Diego Opera’s most stalwart comprimario, Scott Sikon and San Diego Opera chorister Nick Munson).

But Strauss provides the audience with the musical clues to understand the meaning of Jokanaan’s seeming ravings, and Director Curran and Grimsley leave no doubt that Jokanaan is not immune from Salome’s physical charms and that  he summons all his moral strength to resist them.

[Below: Jokanaan (Greer Grimsley, front center, tethered) denounces Salome (Lise Lindstrom, left, kneeling) while Captain Narraboth (Sean Panikkar, standing behind Salome) realizes what a mistake he has made; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The small reservations that I expressed about the San Francisco staging (that the Herod and Herodias combination, when compared with others that had sizzled on the San Francisco stage, were a bit underplayed) was addressed. Mishura, in her San Diego debut, meshed beautifully with the crippingly superstitious, debauched, elegantly mad Herod of Allan Glassman, an extraordinary portrait by this well-respected character tenor. One had no doubt that the Tetrach and his Queen were the exemplars for a corrupt and dissolute monarchy.

[Below: Herod (Allan Glassman, left) and Herodias (Irene Mishura, center) have different thoughts on how they wish Salome to behave; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Curran is not only the production designer and choreographer, but brings a keen sense of the history of theater and dance to “Salome”, incorporating sets and costumes (designed by Austrian painter Bruno Schwengl) and lighting (by San Francisco Opera’s former Lighting Director Chris Maravitch), that have a historical resonance with Continental avant-garde theater at the beginnings of the 20th century, the time of the opera’s premiere.

Lindstrom’s  wilden Tanz (the Hollywood  association of Salome with the “seven veils” dropped by Rita Hayworth has nothing to do with Richard Strauss’ opera or the Oscar Wilde drama on which the opera is based) is also inspired by Curran’s study of early 20th century dance choreography. The dance differed in detail from that of Nadja Michael’s Salome in San Franicsco, but was equally memorable and impressively danced.

[Below: Salome (Lise Lindstrom, center) dances with sexual provocativeness in order to achieve the object of her desire; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Grimsley’s Jokanaan, whose rantings are occasionally heard even while Salome negotiates for his head, sits in the dark in a cistern at the set’s back wall, which stands upright like a giant front-loading washing machine whose entrance opens like the focusing eye of a camera. The sexual obsession of Lindstrom’s Salome with the prophet is pointedly defined, as Lindstrom crawls around the cistern door as if she were rock-climbing.

Salome’s request for the execution and beheading of Jokanaan might have passed for merely a political act or an act of personal revenge, even as she demanded the head to be brought to her on a silver platter. Surely, Herodias thought so, and, in Curran’s production, takes the head from the executioner to deliver to her daughter.

[Below: Herodias (Irene Mishura, standing top center) holds the severed head of her enemy above her head to place it in the silver platter that Salome (Lise Lindstrom, below center) holds; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Salome then goes about to prove the point that no matter how depraved a person might be, there are always behaviors that that person believes to be beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable. Curran underscores this point by having every person onstage other than Salome turn their backs on her throughout Salome’s lengthy display of necrophilia.

[Below: Salome (Lise Lindstrom) holds Jokanaan's severed head; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Glassman’s Herod, who now knows the meaning of the expression “be careful what you wish for” orders Salome to be killed on the spot and the opera ends.

Suzanna Guzman was the Page.  The five Jews were Simeon Esper, Joseph Frank, Joseph Hu, Kristopher Irmiter and Doug Jones. Jamie Offenbach and Philip Skinner were the Soldiers and Ashraf Sewailam was the Cappadocian.

[Below: Herod (Allan Glassman) can take no more and orders that his stepdaughter be killed on the spot; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

___

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

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

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

Notes on the Production

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The Donizetti-Early Verdi Matrix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The Vocal Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I recommend Seattle’s “Attila” without reservation.

Thoughts on the Groves Riccardoosca

Groves has been associated particularly with baroque opera and Mozart (see Master of the Lyric Voice – An Interview with Paul Groves). Riccardo is usually regarded as one of the threshold roles between the lyric and spinto operatic vocal categories.

In “Ballo” the soprano and baritone each have powerfully dramatic scenes, but the tenor is center of attention throughout much of the opera, with a mix of arias (including the Barcarolle Di tu se fedele of the second scene and the penultimate scene’s Ma se m’e forza perderti), and various ensembles.  Groves demonstrated a muscular lyric voice, with all the necessary power  to hold the line in the choral ensembles, duets, trios, quartets and quintets that Verdi has assigned Riccardo.

Groves sang both solo arias and ensembles with a vocal brilliance, without any sign of forcing the large lyric sound for which he is known. In fact, Groves who brings vocal heft to the tenor roles in Mozart, brought a Mozartean grace to the complexities of this Verdian tenor role.

Riccardo is a role in which I’ve attended performances by many of the last half century’s important lyric and spinto tenors, including Giacomo Aragall, Carlo Bergonzi, Jose Carreras, Sandor Konya, Frank Lopardo, Ermanno Mauro, Luciano Pavarotti, Ragnar Ulfung, Ramon Vargas and Giuseppe Zampieri. I found Groves’ conception of the role and approach to singing it worthy of being included in a list of such esteemed tenors.

[Below: Amelia (Chiara Taigi, left) warns Riccardo (Paul Groves, second from left) of the plot to assassinate him at that evening's Mardi Gras ball; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the New Orleans Opera.]

The Other Vocal Performances

Italian soprano Chiara Taigi proved to be an effective Amelia, a married woman with whom Riccardo has an unrequited love. Chiara has an expressive voice of lyric spinto weight. She performed the taxing  aria Ma dall’arido stelo divulsa (in this production set in a New Orleans Cemetery with the high above ground vaults) with distinction.

In the soulful Morro, ma prima in grazia Taigi was able to convey the inner turmoil of a wife and mother, who suddenly has found herself in a lethal situation. As a character who never has a moment of happiness throughout the opera, Stage Director Matthew Lata often had Taigi on the floor or elsewhere in a state of constant despondency.

The Renato was Gordon Hawkins, who, in time for the simultaneous bicentennials of opera composers Wagner and Verdi, has amassed an impressive repertoire of baritone roles from both composers. With his large powerful voice that serves both his Wagnerian heldenbariton and Verdian high baritone assignments, he was a strong presence as Riccardo’s best friend and assassin, costumed in an antebellum officer’s uniform. Both of his big arias were nicely done, with the baritone showpiece Eri tu one of the night’s highlights.

[Below: Renato (Gordon Hawkins, right) threatens the life of his wife Amelia (Chiara Taigi, left); edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the New Orleans Opera.]

Mezzo-soprano Jill Grove as the sorceress Ulrica was yet another big voice, with deep power below the staff, projecting a menacing woman, whom one could believe really communicates with the forces of darkness.

[Below: Ulrica (Jill Grove) evokes her mysterious powers; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the New Orleans Opera.]

Completing the quintet of major characters is Angela Mannino, the Oscar. An alumnus of the Chicago Lyric’s Ryan Center, she displayed a leggiero voice that added a gleaming sound to the ensembles in which she appears. The comprimario roles were performed by Patrick Blackwell (Tom), Gustav Andreassen (Sam), Patrick Jacobs (Silvano), John Giraud (the Judge) and Jody Hinkley (Amelia’s Servant).

Choosing the Location where “Ballo” Makes Sense

“Ballo in Maschera” productions are usually set in Stockholm, the location originally preferred by Verdi, or Boston, the location Verdi agreed to to meet the objections of mid-19th century Habsburg Dynasty censors. Rather than placing the opera in Sweden or New England, the New Orleans Opera chose to locate the “Ballo” action in New Orleans. Changing the venue to Louisiana, rather than creating distractions from the intended story line, actually makes elements of the original story more plausible.

I suspect that Verdi, who had a rather muddled idea of the cultural geography of America, would have seen that the order of events in his opera fit nicely into the environment of the bayous of the Lower Mississippi. A judicial functionary rails about the goings on in the fortune teller Ulrica’s place of business. The page boy Oscar reveals he knows first hand all about her performances. Riccardo impulsively suggests his court disguise themselves and show up at Ulrica’s. Ulrica sends Amelia to one of the New Orleans cemeteries with their above ground crypts to search for a particular herb. The  masked ball is part of Mardi Gras, and is an annual event that the all of the community power structure and their families are expected to attend. Everything hangs together!

Choose whatever decade in the past couple of centuries  you wish to place the story “Ballo” in  Louisiana, with Riccardo as a powerful chief executive at some long ago time,  and it works. Ulrica can do whatever sorcery, even voodo0, that she wishes, Oscar can be as flamboyant as he pleases, and a masked ball will work at any time at all, especially if it is a Mardi Gras just before Lent.

One could imagine other cities in the American Southeast, such as Charleston, South Carolina or Savannah, Georgia, where the “Ballo” story might be situated as well, but I wouldn’t expect the New Orleans Opera to move the story to Savannah.

In fact, there was immediate bonding between the production and the audience. As the orchestra, under Conductor Robert Lyall, played the pizzicato notes that open the opera, onto the scrim was projected an image of a fleur de lys, the symbol of the Bourbon dynasty that once ruled New Orleans. Both the dynasty’s name and its mark have been appropriated by the community. Since the fleur de lys is now the symbol of the National Football League champions, the New Orleans Saints, the audience broke out cheering over Verdi’s music.

In reviews of other “Ballo” performances elsewhere, I have been particularly critical of unusual productions (see Vargas, Podles Brilliant in Puzzle Box “Ballo”: Houston – November 2, 2007 or Power Verdi: Chanev, Marambio, Ataneli in Deutsche Oper Berlin “Ballo” – April 25, 2009)  or of stage directors who intrude upon otherwise acceptable physical productions with unwarranted stage business (see Missing “That 70′s Show”: S. F. “Ballo” — September 17, 2006). For stage direction that I believe passed muster, see my comments of Renata Scotto’s staging in 21st Century Verdi: Radvanovsky Leads World Class Lyric Opera “Ballo” Cast – Chicago, November 15, 2010.)

Fortunately, Matthew Lata’s direction was a model of how the opera should be staged. Every character’s motivation was understandable, and what they did made sense. This is a production of which the New Orleans Opera and for which Paul Groves and his colleagues should be proud.

For another review of an opera with sets from the New Orleans Opera by G. Alan Rusnak, see: Sarah Coburn’s Ravishing Tulsa Opera Lakme – February 29, 2008.

The opera that Gounod is best known for, “Faust”, was not considered a great success at its first premiere nine years previously, but it soon became the most popular opera in the world, in part because it introduced to opera what I call “sweet melody” – erotic sentiments expressed melodiously in a seductive setting. Nothing in the experience of European opera goers had prepared them for the voluptuous Garden Scene in “Faust” where the language of seduction O nuit d’amour, ciel radieux is sung to such irresistable music.

In the next several years, as audiences swooned over “Faust”, Gounod tried other directions, but ultimately the public demanded another opera with more seduction and more “garden scenes”. He chose to create an opera from the Bard’s “Romeo and Juliet” in which the mutual sexual attraction of two teenagers was the motivation for all action. No fewer than five plausibly situated love duets (quintupling the yield of “Faust”) were created.

In 2005, the Los Angeles Opera enlisted British stage director Ian Judge to create a legendary new production that starred Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko, conducted by Frederic Chaslin. Two years ago, the Los Angeles Opera opened the season with a revival of Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore” that provided the sensational debut of soprano Nino Machaidze from the Republic of Georgia (for my review, see Los Angeles Opera’s Magic Potion: Nino Machaidze in “L’Elisir d’Amore” – September 12, 2009). It was followed up earlier this year with yet another Machaidze triumph (see my review at Partying in L. A.: Machaidze, Gavanelli Romp in All-Star “Turco in Italia” – Los Angeles Opera, February 19, 2011.)

[Below: Juliet Capulet (Nino Machaidze, left) becomes enamored with a stranger she discovers is her family's enemy, Romeo Montague (Vittorio Grigolo, right); edited image, based on a copyrighted Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

Across the continent, Los Angeles Opera General Director Placido Domingo conducted a series of performances of Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia” at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, in which the tenor lead was the European sensation, Vittorio Grigolo (see my review at The Donizetti Revival, Second Stage: Radvanovsky, Grigolo in Pascoe’s WNO “Lucrezia Borgia” – November 17, 2008). With the Los Angeles Opera planning a revival of its successful Ian Judge production of “Romeo et Juliette” , the stars became aligned for Domingo to bring together Machaidze and Grigolo in Los Angeles as the star-crossed lovers.

The result was glorious. Machaidze’s brilliant coloratura, so effective for her previous Donizetti and Rossini assignments in Los Angeles, was spectacular in this role that encompasses the coloratura fireworks of the first act Valse, highly dramatic singing for the story’s darker moments, and irresistable lyricism in her love duets.

Her Romeo, Vittorio Grigolo, has emerged not just as an international celebrity and super-star, but brings to the table an extraordinary lyric tenor voice that – at this stage of his career (he is age 34) – is perfect for late 19th century French opera, and for the Romantic heroes of Donizetti and early Verdi. That would be sufficient to assure my attendance at the performance, but he also brings acting acumen, physical athleticism and arguably as winsome a physique as any male singer in opera (which Judge’s production used to maximum advantage).

[Below: As an example of Ian Judge's swift scene changes, black-cloaked citizens of Verona who are mourning the deaths of Romeo and Juliet in the opera's prologue, become the revelers at the Capulets' ball in the opera's first act; edited image, based on a copyrighted Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

Judging the Gounod “Romeo”

Realizing how expansive a phrase as “the 20th century viewpoint” might be, it does seem a defensible statement that for several decades opera companies gave relatively little attention to Gounod’s second most popular opera, considering it (if at all) “old-fashioned”. But, as I have noted elsewhere, the operatic voices that are prevalent today include many that fit nicely the vocal demands of the late 19th century French repertory. Whether or not the operatic plots to which this repertory is set can be made to seem relevant to 21st century audiences, is a matter that operatic managements leave to their production designers.

I suspect that the reason Judge was asked to create a production of “Romeo et Juliette” for the Los Angeles Opera was his famous association with the Royal Shakespeare Company. A central idea of this production is, like the Bard’s plays, that one scene will flow directly into another. John Gunter’s sets are four hollow multi-story structures that incorporate internal staircases and platforms. The four structures can be swiftly moved into different configurations to represent Juliet’s tomb (which appears in the prologue as well as the final scene), the Capulets’ ballroom, Juliet’s balcony and garden, Friar Laurence’s sanctuary and a city street, as needed.

[Below: Friar Laurence (Vitalij Kowaljow, standing) marries the fidgety adolescents Romeo (Vittorio Grigolo, kneeling left) and Juliet (Nino Machaidze, kneeling right); edited image, based on a copyrighted Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

However, Judge’s principal reputation in Los Angeles opera circles is not how he paces the Bard’s plays, but how he introduces sex into opera. As I suggested in my review of one of his productions (see Powerful, Edgy “Tannhauser” at Los Angeles Opera – February 28, 2007), the imagery portrayed at the Los Angeles Opera’s home, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, was far more sexually-oriented than what would have been permissable for the creative departments of some of the Hollywood’s television and movie studios, a few of which are located just seven or so miles away. His “Tannhauser” could not be shown on American network TV nor get the PG-13 movie rating, important for box office receipts.

Since I first saw Judge’s “Romeo” production in 2005, I have spent considerable time thinking about Gounod’s operas, including writing articles for the magazine-like programs that were provided to the audience as they were  seated for San Diego Opera performances of “Romeo” and “Faust”. In preparing those articles, I was especially interested in accounts of reactions of audiences to these two Gounod operas a century and a half prior in the Paris of the Second French Empire.

As I experienced the Judge production again in the 2011 revival, I found even more significant the costume schemes of British designer Tim  Goodchild – the large hoop skirts of the women and black tie and tails or military dress of the men – that evoked the time of “Romeo’s” 1868 premiere. The Parisian opera goers  (for whom Goodchild’s designs were contemporary) had just a few years previously been surprised and delighted by Gounod’s erotic “sweet melodies” that pushed the boundaries of what could be sung on stage. The Los Angeles opera goers, rather than experiencing an “old-fashioned” opera production, were treated to a visualization of the opera by a stage director who himself pushed the boundaries – at least for “Tannhauser” – of what might be seen on stage.

[Below: Romeo (Vittorio Grigolo, center front, left) is banished from Verona by its Duke (Philip Cokorinos, center back) after the mortal feud between Capulets and Montagues breaks out again; edited image, based on a copyrighted Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

Rather than the licentious sexuality of Judge’s “Tannhauser” Venusberg, it is the passion of first love that Judge presents. He emphasizes that the two lovers are adolescents, consumed by erotic passion, yet at the same time giggly (as teenagers of our own day can be) when in the presence of their mutual friend, Friar Laurence. Judge stages each of the love duets with all-consuming energy, but the most vivid images are those of the wedding night.

To Gounod’s music as rapturous as the “Faust” Garden Scene, Juliet and Romeo alternate identifying birdsongs as those of a nightingale (assuring that they have all the hours of the night to continue to make love) or of a lark (meaning that dawn is approaching and Romeo must be gone from Verona on pain of death). Grigolo and Machaidze blend their voices triumphantly, astonishing an audience, many of whom were there six years earlier to be astonished by Villazon and Netrebko in the same duet.

In my “Tannhauser” review, I had suggested that Judge may have staged the Venusberg differently, if he had a tenor lead who lacked stage inhibitions and had a sufficiently youthful physique to appear at least semi-nude. With Grigolo, he had the kind of tenor to which I referred, providing Judge the opportunity to push boundaries further than has been seen in French opera in California. In their wedding bed, discreetly draped with a top sheet, Grigolo’s Romeo is virtually nude when passionately embracing his bride. When Romeo concedes that it is the lark singing and not the nightingale, he pulls on a shirt and underdrawers and hops out of bed, then still partially undressed, scales down a wall to disappear.

Placido Domingo, the conductor, put heart and soul into a performance that reveled in both the drama and the beauty of Gounod’s melodies without ever seeming indulgent or saccharine. The superb interpretations of Machaidze and Grigolo as the adolescent lovers were juxtaposed with the solid “adult” performance as Friar Laurence, of the dependable Ukrainian basso cantante Vitalij Kowaljow, who has spent his Fall singing back to back performance runs in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

[Below: The dying Romeo (Vittorio Grigolo) tries to touch the hand of the dying Juliet (Nino Machaidze); edited image, based on a copyrighted Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

Several of the comprimario positions were taken by singers who have become familiar over the years to Los Angeles Opera audiences: Russian baritone Vladimir Chernov as Capulet, Philip Cokorinos as the Duke of Verona, Ronnita Nicole Miller as the Nurse. In her Los Angeles debut Renee Rapier made a strong impression as Stephano, the character whose provocative mocking of the Capulets led to all of the bad things that happen in this opera.

Domingo-Thornton artists, from the Los Angeles Opera’s young artists’ program, filled in several of the other roles, including Museop Kim as Mercutio and Russian tenor Alexey Sayapin as Tybalt.

I recommend the revival unreservedly to all opera goers, and believe it would be an appropriate first live performance of an opera.

For my review of a different production of the same opera, see: Costello, Perez in Passionately Romantic “Romeo et Juliette” – San Diego Opera, March 13, 2010.

Last December, reviewing Gladen’s Maddalena in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” at the Los Angeles Opera (see my review at Conlon Conducts Musically Impressive “Rigoletto” – Los Angeles Opera, December 2, 2010), I made the following statement with an implied prediction: ”When I last saw Gladen in a “Rigoletto” performance (which took place in 2006 in San Francisco . . .) she was in the much smaller role of Giovanna, Gilda’s maid. With a large, sultry mezzo, this former San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow demonstrated the vocal and acting skills that will assure her much larger assignments in the great international houses.”

[Below: Kendall Gladen as Carmen; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Since Gladen’s 2006 appearance in a comprimaria role in San Francisco Opera’s 2006 “Carmen”, she has been singing the opera’s lead part with companies large and small in both North America and Europe, with the result that Carmen has unquestionably become Gladen’s signature role. Although Kate Aldrich was announced as Carmen for San Francisco’s 2011 season, illness has caused her cancellation of all performances.

In a situation that changed according to the latest information on whether Aldrich would be available for any of her scheduled performances, Gladen was announced as the replacement for the majority of Aldrich’s assignments. Although Aldrich’s withdrawal was regretted, opera goers holding tickets for performances that Gladen took over, were provided the opportunity to experience Gladen’s Carmen that audiences elsewhere had received so well. The sultry Maddalena I noted in my Los Angeles “Rigoletto” review gave just a hint of how completely formed is her conception of Carmen, as well as her voice’s size and technical skill.

The Ponnelle “Carmen” in the 21st Century

One of the “world treasures” owned by the San Francisco Opera is a Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production created for the Zurich Opera based on his 1981 production for the San Francisco Opera, created by Ponnelle for Kurt Herbert Adler’s final season, but down-sized to fit the much smaller Zurich Opera stage. (Of course, there are some of us who feel that it would been better to have not destroyed the original production, requiring the purchase of its smaller Zurich copy to replace it, but, as far as I have been able to tell, no one responsible for the original production’s destruction is still employed by the San Francisco Opera.)

Some of the coups de theatre of the larger production – such as the third act descent of a large cannon from a mountainous path at the top of the stage to the smuggler’s encampment below – were compromised by the sets being down-sized. However, one must concede that since Ponnelle’s Adler Farewell San Francisco production no longer exists, Ponnelle’s Zurich sets are a very welcome next best thing. The production’s colors are still warm and evocative of Spain. They are still a sight to behold.

[Below: the entrance of the toreador in Lillas Pastia's Tavern in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's second act sets; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Ponnelle, a la Condemi

What is different in 2011 from all the mountings of the Ponnelle production since 1981, is that Jose Maria Condemi, the stage director, has chosen to depart significantly from Ponnelle’s stage director’s playbook. Condemi, like Ponnelle, is brilliant in his attention to detail and in the motivations of the characters. Condemi has staged this opera before, including working elsewhere with Gladen. For my interview with him, see Rising Stars: An Interview with Stage Director Jose Maria Condemi, Part I.

Last Summer in a physical production  based on Frank Corsaro’s ideas about staging Gounod’s “Faust”, Condemi approached the task of including or excluding Corsaro-inspired stage business eclectically. He has done likewise with Ponnelle’s.

Therefore, although some of Ponnelle’s staging is retained (Zuniga smashing through the door of Pastia’s tavern; the children standing at the footlights in the final scene to sing about the procession of the bullfighters), Ponnelle details big and small have disappeared (Frasquita and Mercedes communicating with Carmen in Act I just prior to her escape; Don Jose escorting Micaela to the bullring in the final scene, with Micaela watching Carmen’s murder below).

[Below: Zuniga (Wayne Tigges, right) explains to Don Jose (Thiago Arancam) how he wishes Carmen to be handled; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Although Carmen’s presence dominates every scene, the opera’s story is about the destructiveness of her encounter with the socially inexperienced Basque corporal, Don Jose. Brazilian Thiago Arancam returns to San Francisco after last year’s performances as Christian in Alfano’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” mounted for Arancam’s mentor, Placido Domingo (see my review at Domingo’s Swashbuckling, Cinematic San Francisco “Cyrano” – November 6, 2010.)

The role of Don Jose is most often sung by spinto tenors at the War Memorial (this was spinto tenor Marco Berti’s San Francisco Opera role debut; and the Don Joses of Jon Vickers, Franco Bonisolli and Placido Domingo in this house are among my fond memories of previous San Francisco “Carmens”.) Arancam’s voice, at least in the 3200 seat War Memorial, seems of a more lyric weight. Yet when expressing Don Jose’s despair, Arancam summons up a muscular sound, to me reminiscent at times of Vickers. Trained at La Scala, and still early in his career, his repertory even now is dominated by spinto assignments.

Arancam’s interactions with Gladen in Condemi’s staging provided yet another insight into the complex relationship between Don Jose and Carmen.

One senses a true affection beyond just sexual attraction between these two characters that prevails almost through the entire opera, even as Don Jose’s jealousy and possessiveness makes Carmen’s withdrawal from the relationship inevitable. (Perhaps Carmen senses a Tristanesque satisfaction in the “love-death” fate for herself and Don Jose that she reads in the cards.)

Condemi made a point in printed comments that Carmen and Jose as gypsy and Basque are outsiders in the rigid Spanish society (of which the military officers such as Zuniga are part). Jose is a victim of circumstances. He and Carmen had agreed that they did not belong together, and he would have left the tavern, with only his memory of this strange encounter with Carmen that caused him to be busted a rank and to spend a month in jail.

Had not the inebriated (in Condemi’s staging) Zuniga broken down the tavern door, Jose would not have been goaded into a career-destroying fight with Zuniga (that Condemi makes even more violent by having the gypsies force Jose to slash Zuniga’s face). Jose’s attack on Zuniga limits Jose’s choices to pursuing a life with Carmen or spending the rest of his life incarcerated (if not hung for insubordination and attacking an officer). With only those two options, Don Jose’s choice would have been that of (virtually) Everyman’s.

[Below: Now that Don Jose (Thiago Arancam) has no other options than to pursue the smuggler's life with Carmen (Kendall Gladen), she explains its attractions to him; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Condemi’s changes from Ponnelle’s stagings were almost invariably dramatically valid.  He eliminated the first act freeze frame where all characters are motionless as Carmen and Don Jose gaze at each other while Bizet’s “fate theme” sounds. If Micaela’s extra-textual appearance at the bull-ring has been jettisoned, he uses the Ponnelle device of a face in the upper window to a chilling effect. It is Don Jose that peers down at Carmen, and he is spotted first by Carmen’s sister gypsies, and then Carmen herself.

Condemi touches are everywhere. In the third act smuggler’s hideaway, suggesting that the sexual relationship between Don Jose and Carmen still burns bright, Don Jose feels her stomach to see if she might be pregnant.

In this production, beyond the two principals, I found the comprimario roles of the officers (Wayne Tigges’ Zuniga and Trevor Scheunemann’s Morales) and of Carmen’s gypsy companions – Susannah Biller’s Frasquita, Cybele Gouverneur’s Mercedes, Daniel Montenegro’s Remendado and Timothy Mix’ Duncaire – to be as fine as any Team Carmen assembled at the War Memorial previously.

Paulo Szot, whose successes on Broadway in the revival Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” have established his wider fame, was an avuncular Escamillo, superstitious, seemingly fearful that all of his high risk activities (including pursuing the love of the gypsy Carmen). He was surely not the dangerous, vigorous rival of Don Jose that we usually expect.

Sara Gartland’s Micaela provided a youthful image (the character is 17). The San Francisco Opera Chorus, as is their custom, was excellent.

[Below: the smugglers -from left to right, Ramendado (Daniel Montenegro), Carmen (Kendall Gladen), Frasquita (Susannah Biller), Mercedes (Cybele Gouveneur) and Duncaire (Timothy Mix) - make their plans; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Nicola Luisotti and the French Repertory

Conductor Luisotti, whose credentials in Italian opera were never doubted, two years ago conducted Richard Strauss’ “Salome”. Other forays into the German repertory, including Wagner, are expected in the future.

With “Carmen”, the iconic French Opera, Luisotti introduces the War Memorial Opera House audiences to his approach to yet another style of opera, presenting it in its opera-comique form with spoken dialogue and, at this or that moment, some notable differences in music from that of the standard Guiraud version, created after Bizet’s death to eliminate the dialogue.

Every Luisotti performance is an extraordinary experience. For the opera’s rousing Overture, he adopted a series of postures, in which he would thrust his arms on a major beat (usually accompanied by sonorous cymbals) while simply waving his fingers in between beats. The San Francisco Opera Orchestra that has bonded so well with him had no trouble in reading his intentions. He produced wonders throughout the performance, including a slow-paced beginning for the second act gypsy’s song that was followed by an accelerando. It was said that he asked the orchestra to be “sexy” and sexy their performance was.

For those who love the opera, I recommend this production and cast unreservedly. Veteran opera goers will appreciate a “Carmen” done this well. For those who are new to opera, I believe this is would be an excellent first “Carmen” or even more, a first opera.

I had reported last year on the production’s revival for Houston (See my review at “Xerxes” Unexcelled – Houston Grand Opera, May, 2, 2010.) Its Texas outing included in its stellar cast Susan Graham as Xerxes, David Daniels as Xerxes’ brother Arsamenes, Heidi Stober as Atalanta and Sonia Prina as Amastris. All four of these artists reprised their roles at the San Francisco Opera.

In Houston, the conductor was William Lacey, rather than Houston Grand Opera’s musical director, Patrick Summers, who at that time was conducting the world premiere performance series of Heggie’s “Moby Dick” at the Dallas Opera (which, by the way, travels this February to the San Diego Opera and will be seen subsequently at the San Francisco Opera).

San Francisco Opera performances of Handel operas on the main stage of the War Memorial Opera House did not occur until a British production of “Giulio Cesare” arrived in 1982. Since then seven Handel operas have been part of eight San Francisco Opera seasons, six of them in the 21st century alone. Over that time period, a number of riddles as to how to present baroque operas in the large British and American opera houses have been solved.

Certainly the most obvious riddle was what type of singer would perform the roles originally written for high-voiced male castrati. Even if any men who met the physical requirements existed, none have been  properly trained to sing Handel operas for over two centuries. In the 1960s and 1970s, bassos such as Norman Treigle and John Ostendorf were enlisted for the lead roles, but as more of Handel was revived, the prevailing opinion was that transposing music designed for high voices to low voices was not the best formula for developing a “modern” Handel sound.

Once it was established that there was an audience for the works, there emerged an international group of singers whose vocal ranges and flexibility assured that they could perform Handel with integrity, singing the arias at the pitch and with the kind of ornamentation that Handel intended. All of the San Francisco cast displayed accomplishment in producing the modern Handel sound, but three have gained special competence in singing the old castrati roles.

In this production, as in Houston, the lead role is taken by New Mexican mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, in her second Handel assignment in San Francisco, previously appearing as the Knight Ariodant (See my review at Graham, Swenson, Prina Luminous in S. F.’s Stellar “Ariodante” – June 15, 2008.)

[Below: Susan Graham as King Xerxes; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Graham, a specialist in opera roles in which she plays a male character, displayed her warm mezzo voice with its vibrant coloratura. (See my interview in which she discusses this production at Return to New Mexico: An Interview with Susan Graham.)

A curiosity of this opera is that Handel’s most famous solo aria, Ombra mai fu, a song to a tree that Xerxes is supposed to have loved (one of the few factoids actually associated with the historical ruler) is the very first number in the opera. Hytner characteristically puts a small tree in a museum display case for Graham’s Xerxes to serenade.

Her King Xerxes turns out to be a rival in love to Xerxes’ brother, Prince Arsamenes, wonderfully played by South Carolinian counter-tenor David Daniels in one of the Handel roles he feels best fits his legendary voice (See my interview at Top of His Game – An Interview with David Daniels.)

Although the two artists had both sung at the War Memorial Opera House, this is the first time they have appeared together here. Their shared  first scene aria (not a duet), Io le diro che l’amo, demonstrated how beautifully their different high voice range and timbres blended, and was immediate confirmation that the contemporary practice of balancing female and counter-tenor voices for the baroque era operas then sung by castrati is the right solution for 21st century performance.

[Below: the brothers Arsamenes (David Daniels, standing) and Xerxes (Susan Graham, sitting on lawn chair) discuss the women in their life; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The third performer with an international reputation as a baroque specialist is Italian mezzo Sonia Prina, who had appeared appeared in 2008 as Graham’s rival Polinesso in Handel’s “Ariodante”, with Graham the male hero and Prina the male villain. In this performance Prina plays the King Xerxes’ betrothed, whom he intends to jilt, but who confounds Xerxes’ machinations by disguising herself as a soldier, ultimately to reclaim the wifely position she had originally been promised.

[Below: Amastris (Sonia Prina) disguises herself as a soldier; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Prina, with a deep mezzo that can descend with power below the staff, once more displayed extraordinary skill at baroque ornamentation. Unlike Polinesso, the love-crossed Amastris is hardly a villain, but, playing a woman scorned, Prina brought the aggressive stances and forceful presence that made her “Ariodante” performances so triumphant.

Notes on the Production

“Xerxes” is the most light-hearted of Handel’s operas. Unlike his other works for the stage, Handel’s late career “Xerxes”, abounds in comic elements. Instead of it being a serious-themed baroque opera, it often seems more like Mozart’s amalgamations of serious and comic elements in “Don Giovanni” that was created not quite half a century later.

Hytner’s approach to the opera’s plot (whose relation to the historical King of Persia that so annoyed the Greeks is ephemeral) is to move all of the action from ancient times to that of 18th century London that was contemporary to the opera’s only five  performances in that century. (Performance number six in the opera’s history did not occur until the 20th century.)

As conceived by Hytner and realized in the always charming sets of production designer David Fielding, this production is set in an English pleasure garden, in this case London’s Vauxhall Gardens in which Roubillac’s famous statue of Handel is located. (A replica of Roubillac’s statue shows up in one of this production’s scenes, although with an ancient Greek name of Alexander’s teacher on the pedestal that is an homage to Handel’s “Alexander’s Feast”.) Exporting the production’s revival to Houston and San Francisco was the responsibility of stage director Michael Walling.

During the opera’s overture, all eight characters are introduced, with their names appearing in large medallions while each arrives costumed in character. A bit of clowning in this introductory session assures the audience that this will be a lively baroque production.

There are several in-jokes that a newcomer to this production should understand. The English pleasure gardens were rather like ancient theme parks with lots of different activities occurring as 18th century Londoners strolled through them. This was a period of time when London museums and botanical gardens were collecting specimens from all over the world, so that in every scene there are items in museum display cases or potted plants to observe. These include the such Persian artifacts as a model of the ruins of Persepolis and the bridge designed for Xerxes to span the Dardanelles.

[Below: King Xerxes (Susan Graham, center left in white coast) prepares for a knighthood ceremony for several officers of the regiment of General Ariodates (Wayne Tigges, in red uniform); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Throughout the opera the Londoners appear, costumed in always completely grey 18th century styles.They sit in lawn chairs to observe ceremonies. They inspect the exhibits, referencing their guidebooks. They read the newspaper The Inquirer, this production’s tip of the hat to Addison’s Spectator.

Against this backdrop the eight characters plot and scheme. General Ariodates (amusingly played by Wayne Tigges in his company debut) has two daughters, Romilda (Lisette Oropesa in her company debut) and Atalanta (Heidi Stober).

[Below: Wayne Tigges is General Ariodates; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Stirring the Plot

Because both Romilda and Atalanta love the same man, Daniels’ Prince Arsamenes, and both Arsamenes and his brother, King Xerxes are romantically interested in Romilda, Atalanta intrigues in favor of a Xerxes-Romilda marriage, while Arsamenes, Romilda and Amastris are committed to making sure that doesn’t happen.

[Below: Atalanta (Heidi Stober, left) and Romilda (Lisette Oropesa, right) both wish to marry Prince Arsamenes (David Daniels, center); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Along the way, as if we are observing an Elizabethan comedy, disguises, misdirected messages, and other confusions occur.

[Below: Arsamenes (David Daniels, far left) hides behind a display case for an objet d'art, to overhear the conversation between Romilda (Lisette Oropesa, center, in blue dress) and Xerxes (Susan Graham, to the left of the small display case); based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Although each of the characters have been unleashed to play their roles broadly, there is, in a departure to the traditions of baroque opera, an unambiguously comic character, Arsamenes’ servant Elviro, hilariously realized by Michael Sumuel, in a couple of scenes disguising himself with dress, bonnet and falsetto voice as a flower seller.

[Below: Adopting a disguise so as to deliver a letter to one sister, Elviro (Michael Sumuel) agrees to give it to the other, Atalanta (Heidi Stober, right) with mischievous consequences; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Patrick Summers conducted the opera with distinction, often bouncing jauntily to some of Handel’s rhythmic passages. He also played the harpsichord for some of the recitatives, accompanied by San Francisco Opera Orchestra’s principal cellist David Kadarauch, positioned at his right hand. (If one is creating a guidebook as to how to both play the harpsidhord and immediately change to conducting the orchestra, it should be noted that, with hands committed to the keyboard, to be ready for quick transitions, Summers would place the baton in his mouth.)

As in Houston, Michael Leonard played the ancient theorbo, arch lute and baroque guitar. Jonathan Kelly played the second harpsichord.

This fall both the Los Angeles and San Francisco opera companies have imported classic productions by London’s Sir Nicholas Hytner. (See Stylish Production, Fine Cast for “Cosi fan Tutte” – Los Angeles Opera, September 18, 2011.) The inventiveness of both these productions whets the appetite for more of Sir Nicholas’ ideas for staging operas to be brought to American shores.

I recommend the San Francisco Opera mounting of Handel’s “Xerxes” unreservedly.

Team USA consisted of three artists who had appeared previously in San Francisco Opera performances. Baritone Lucas Meachem (Don Giovanni), Soprano Ellie Dehn (Donna Anna) and First Year Adler Fellow Basso Ryan Kuster (Masetto). Three other Americans were debuting at San Francisco Opera in this production: Kate Lindsey (Zerlina), Shawn Mathey (Don Ottavio) and Morris Robinson (The Commendatore).

The production, a mix of period dress and furniture with an avant-garde employment of 38 large mirrors that descend in various formations when called upon by the stage director, provided the matrix for Lavia’s skillful staging of the interactions between “Don Giovanni’s” eight characters.

Although five of the singers (Vinco, Farnocchia, Lindsey, Mathey and Robinson) were new to San Francisco audiences, I have posted my reviews of their excellent performances, respectively, in Paris, Toronto, Santa Fe, Chicago and Los Angeles, and so had high expectations of the quality of singing in this Luisotti-led new production.

The eminent basso Ferruccio Furlanetto (who is scheduled to sing the title role in Verdi’s “Attila” next summer in San Francisco in a new Lavia-Camera-Viotti production, conducted by Luisotti) has said that the Mozartean roles of Figaro and Don Giovanni are for young men to sing. Meachem is not yet in his mid-30s, but has really begun to dig into the character of the Spanish libertine.

[Below: Lucas Meachem as Don Giovanni; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

I had first seen Meachem’s conceptualization of the Don at the Santa Fe Opera, in which his Zerlina, as in this production, was Kate Lindsey (see my review at The Man Who Loved Women: Lucas Meachem’s Empathetic Don Giovanni – Santa Fe, July 31, 2009.)

Meachem explained his ideas about the Don’s behavior in my interview with him (See Rising Stars: An Interview with Lucas Meachem, Part I and Rising Stars: An Interview with Lucas Meachem, Part II), and the Don’s strong belief that it is society, the Commendatore and the forces of Hell who are in the wrong, thereby preventing himself from repenting. I found that Meachem’s earlier approach to the role was consistent with Lavia’s ideas of staging the new production.

Impressed as I was with Meachem’s singing in Santa Fe, Los Angeles and Chicago and in the roles he sang in San Francisco between 2005 and 2008, it is in the two Mozart roles he has sung in San Francisco under Luisotti that I believe have confirmed his stature as a great Mozartean baritone (see Copley Directs, Luisotti Conducts, Sparkling “Nozze” Ensemble – San Francisco Opera, October 3, 2010.)

In “Don Giovanni” the character who spends the most time onstage is not the Don but his discontented servant, Leporello. Marco Vinco, who was a madcap Mustafa in Paris (see my review at Genaux, Brownlee and Vinco Romp in Rossini’s “L’Italiana”: Garnier Opera House, Paris – October 8, 2010), proved equally effective in the Mozart role. Secure in the vocal requirements of this complex role, and very funny in the part’s comic antics, he provided another notch in the very long belt of European artists choosing the San Francisco Opera for their American debuts).

[Below: Marco Vinco as Leporello; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

From the earliest scenes, the audience begins to perceive the thematic structure of the new production. At first the stage is bare, except that it is lined at the walls on each side and at the back of the stage with chairs contemporary with the opera’s premiere (1787).

But with the disappearance of a stage curtain a bed is visible in which Meachem’s Don Giovanni and Ellie Dehn’s Donna Anna are engaged in obviously amorous acts. (Don Giovanni’s seductive powers are represented throughout the opera by his covering the face of the woman he intends to seduce by an unfolded handkerchief on which he places a kiss. At one point the Don even uses his handkerchief to kiss Masetto’s face.)

Because of the ambiguity of the circumstances in the first scene, stage directors always must decide whether Giovanni is forcing himself upon Anna, or whether it is a consensual act that has been interrupted with disastrous results by the appearance of Anna’s father, the Commendatore. Lavia has Dehn’s Anna in ecstasy as Giovanni covers her face. Yet, attitudes can suddenly change – even among consenting adults – if, during the nuit d’amour, one partner kills the father of the other.

That scene is followed by one in which Donna Elvira (Serena Farnocchia) sits in a swing while Vinco’s Leporello quantifies the degree of the Don’s infidelities to her, should her claim of having married the Don prove true. Farnocchia, who had  proved her adeptness in coloratura singing when I saw her last in Toronto (see my review at The Donizetti Revival, Second Stage: Stephen Lawless’ “Maria Stuarda” in Toronto – May 4, 2010), used that coloratura skill for Elvira’s great arias and ensembles. Meachem’s Don Giovanni simply used his handkerchief to cover her face, although its effectiveness with her was, by now, marginal.

[Below: Leporello (Marco Vinco) reveals to Donna Elvira (Serena Farnocchia) just how busy the man she believes to be her husband has been; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The scene of the wedding of Zerlina and Masetto is the opportunity for the San Francisco Opera chorus to join the merriment. The peasant couple were an athletic duo, with Lindsey’s Zerlina doing a cartwheel and Kuster’s Masetto a forward somersault.

[Below: The scene of the peasant wedding; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Lindsey’s Zerlina was probably more sexually provocative than anyone appearing in this role in San Francisco history spreading her amply-petticoated legs while lying on a bench to distract Masetto from his fury.

[Below: Masetto (Ryan Kuster, left) dances with his bride, Zerlina (Kate Lindsey); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The Donna Anna, Ellie Dehn, last year was the Countess Almaviva to Meachem’s Count in Luisotti’s first venture into conducting a Mozart opera in San Francisco. Although Shawn Mathey, her Don Ottavio, is in his San Francisco Opera debut season, he and Meachem were fellow Athenians, respectively Lysander and Demetrius, last season at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (see my review at Britten’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Chicago: Enchanting, Luminous, Hilarious – Lyric Opera, November 17, 2010.)

Mathey was a stylish Don Ottavio, his voice blending well with Dehn’s in their ensembles together, and performing Ottavio’s two great arias Dalla sua pace and Il mio tesoro elegantly. He and Dehn were also persuasive actors, making believable their strategic bonding after what we the audience know was her amorous if badly-ending affair with the other Don.

[Below: Don Ottavio (Shawn Mathey, above) pledges to Donna Anna (Ellie Dehn) that he will avenge her father's death; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

All of Andrea Viotti’s costumes seemed right for this opera, with the masks worn by Ottavio, Anna and Elvira particularly memorable.

[Below: Don Giovanni (Lucas Meachem, second from right in sunglasses) invites Don Ottavio (Shawn Mathey, left), Donna Elvira (Serena Farnocchia, second from left) and Donna Anna (Ellie Dehn, right) to his party; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

This production concentrates on the relationship between the Commendatore (Morris Robinson) who appears to represent the forces of Law and Order in the afterlife and Giovanni, who, as noted above, feels he has done nothing for which he needs to repent. (His slaying of the Commendatore, he might suggest, was an act of self-defense.) The opera in this staging is shorn of the final sextet in which the two couples with Elvira and Leporello do a bit of moralizing, thus focusing the ending on Giovanni’s quite effectively staged disappearance into the underworld.

The scene in the graveyard and the appearance of the Stone Guest at Dinner must be recorded as highlights of this production. Morris Robinson’s sturdy basso added the right sonority to this ghostly presence.  (For my review of another of Robinson’s portraits, see: Shining L. A. Opera “Magic Flute” on Sunny Matinee Day – January 11, 2009.)

[Below: Don Giovanni (Lucas Meachem, right) expresses his defiance to the statue of the Commendatore (Morris Robinson, right); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The excellent musical performance was shepherded by Maestro Luisotti, who seems always to achieve a vibrant orchestral response whenever he conducts. Each phrase of this familiar opera was given attention by the Maestro. Recitatives were given special treatment, with both a harpsichord played by Bryndon Hassman, accompanied by Cellist Thalia Moore, and an ancient fortepiano, an instrument that Mozart would have known, played by Luisotti himself.

[Below: Don Giovanni (Lucas Meachem, seated left) invites the Statue of the Commendatore (Morris Robinson, seated right) to eat, as Leporello (Marco Vinco, center below) cowers under the table; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

In my experience every opera that Nicola Luisotti conducts results in new insights into the scores. He now, in consecutive seasons, has performed two of the three Mozart-Da Ponte operas in San Francisco, to great distinction.

Having now seen great productions of the four Mozart “relationship” operas – “Abduction from the Seraglio” in Strasbourg, France; “Nozze di Figaro” in Paris; “Cosi fan Tutte” in Los Angeles, and “Don Giovanni” in San Francisco, all within a six month period, my long held appreciation for Mozart’s dramatic genius gains strength with each performance. I will have more to say on this subject in a subsequent essay.

I would unhestitatingly recommend the remaining performances of this season’s “Don Giovanni”.

Manzoni’s most famous work I Promessi Sposi strongly influenced the creation of the national Italian language that we  know today. His literary achievements were the linguistic equivalent of the political and military unification of Italy through the risorgimento, of which both Manzoni and Verdi were cultural heroes.

[Below: Alesssandro Manzoni in 1841, resized image of his portrait by Francesco Hayez.]

The “Manzoni Requiem” is Verdi’s one work that fits comfortably within the schedules of symphony orchestras. The “Requiem” provides the opportunity to assemble four great contemporary Verdi soloists and a large chorus to join the symphonic performance.

The project was originally assigned to Conductor Fabio Luisi, who was asked by the New York City’s Metropolitan Opera to replace the ailing James Levine as that organization’s acting music director. This resulted in an invitation to James Conlon, Los Angeles Opera’s music director, to lead the “Requiem” for the four performances scheduled during the San Francisco Symphony’s 100th anniversary year. [For a recent interview I conducted with Maestro Conlon, see: An Interview with Conductor James Conlon, Part 1 and An Interview with Conductor James Conlon, Part 2.]

[Below: a group photograph of the San Francisco Symphony in their orchestra pit at Louise Davies Hall, with the seats for the chorus above and the first rows of orchestra seating below them; resized image, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony.]

The quartet of solo vocalists selected by the San Francisco Symphony was imposing. The operatic performances of three of these principals – soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick and tenor Frank Lopardo – are well known to American audiences, and I personally have reviewed their performances in Verdi operas in the past few months.

The soprano and tenor, Radvanovsky and Lopardo, had recently teamed in a Verdi performance at the Lyric Opera (see my review at 21st Century Verdi: Radvanovsky Leads World Class Lyric Opera “Ballo” Cast – Chicago, November 15, 2010). Radvanovsky has shown that, if there existed a position of “world’s consummate Verdian soprano”, she must be considered a strong contendor for such a title.

The soprano part in the “Requiem” was written for Teresa Stolz, the first Aida, and there are stylistic similarities in the music written for the two roles. Radvanovsky’s large spinto voice, with its extraordinary purity of tone in its upper register, shone in Verdi’s many theatrical effects, such as the Soprano’s sustained note in the Offertory.

The Soprano is the only principal who is singing for much of the Libera Me, the tumultuous music in the final section of the piece. (That segment is based on music that Verdi had written in 1868 for his part of an abandoned project in which various composers were to memorialize Rossini. When Verdi decided to compose the tribute to Manzoni, that music provided the core of the Requiem’s Libera me.)

Radvanovsky met both its dramatic and expressive expectations of Verdi’s music. (For other reviews of her Verdian roles, see: Licitra, Radvanovsky Gleam in Lyric Opera’s Glorious New “Ernani”: Chicago, November 5, 2009 and Lyrical Luisotti Leads Triumphant “Trovatore” – San Francisco Opera September 11, 2009 and Verdi’s New Champion: Nicola Luisotti’s Transformative “Trovatore” – San Francisco Opera, October 4, 2009.)

[Below: Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky; resized image by Pavol Antonov, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony.]

If the Soprano owns the Libera me, I believe it possible to argue that the greater part of the “Requiem” is dominated by the mezzo-soprano, a part written for the mezzo who created the role of Amneris in the European premiere of “Aida”.

Dolora Zajick is rightly recognized as in the very top rank of contemporary Verdian mezzos, and her performance was lustrous. (For my review of her Amneris, see: Brilliant Cast, Colorful Production, Luisotti’s Masterful Conducting Enliven San Francisco “Aida” – September 19, 2010.)

[Below: Mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony.]

Frank Lopardo, who in recent years has moved from a more lyric repertory to a spinto repertory, approached the Tenor part reverentially. The Tenor, in the Ingemisco, sings the “Requiem’s” most famous music. Lopardo approached much of it sotto voce, very expressively, blending beautifully with the shimmering strings of James Conlon’s orchestra.

[Below: Tenor Frank Lopardo, resized image, based on a publicity photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony.]

The fourth role was taken by Esthonian basso Ain Anger, with a major career in Europe, who has appeared in the United States with the symphony orchestras of Philadelphia and San Francisco. I look forward to hearing his firmly placed basso cantante in operatic performance in the future.

[Below: Basso Ain Anger; edited image, based on a publicity photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony.]

The voices of the quartet of principals blended together in the  ”Requiem’s” many moments of hauntingly beautiful melody, but this is a piece that bursts periodically into the Dies irae and other moments in which expressions of Divine wrath are the dominant force.

The power of these passages, that the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, joined by the four large-voiced principals, portray with a fortissimo fury was truly an experience, that was intensified by the sophisticated, high tech acoustics of the Davies Hall.

At the “Requiem’s” end, Maestro Conlon held his baton above his head for a very long moment in which the entire audience stayed in rapt silence, until the lowered baton gave his permission for the audience to begin the well deserved ovations for the principals, chorus, orchestra and conductor.

In addition, I posted a commentary (see “Lucrezia Borgia” – The Dramatic Foundations of Donizetti’s Opera) on whether Donizetti’s operatic treatment of the famous duchessa held together dramatically. During that commentary, I mentioned that, although my own previous reviews of the production had been positive, I had received e-mails from my readers expressing concern about negative remarks that some other reviewers made about the opera, its principal singer, its production, and/or its staging.

Since I was reviewing yet another performance of the opera, I thought it would be interesting to keep in mind the concerns that others had expressed, and, where necessary, to alter my remarks if my opinions change, or illuminate those opinions which have not changed, but which, possibly, have been inadequately expressed.

[Below: Lucrezia Borgia (Renee Fleming) from a distance admires the handsomeness of a son who does not know of her; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

From Whence is a Reviewer Coming?

Back in the days of vinyl recordings, the magazine High Fidelity had a policy of which I very much approved. For its reviews of classical recordings, the reviewers that the publication invited to comment on a recording, were those known to have appreciation for and expertise in writing about the musical composition being performed, or at least the genre which they were reviewing.

Any review, of course, is a matter of personal taste. There are no metrics devised for scientifically evaluating a musical performance, so the more one knows about the reviewer’s methods for judging a performance’s quality, and the reviewer’s knowledge of the composition’s history and performance “standards”, the more likelihood of one’s confidence (or lack thereof) in the information being provided in the review.

In Defense of a Good Review

Normally, I don’t read other reviewers for one practical reason. Since, for the past few years, I have been reviewing 50 0r so live opera performances a year, it takes up all my available allocated time to travel to wherever the opera is being presented ( I live in a community that doesn’t perform opera), attend the opera(s), write the reviews, study for those performances coming up, and, from to time, interview the performing artists, and, when invited, write original articles for opera programs.

[Below: the John Pascoe unit set represents a square in Venice during Carnevale, edited image, based on a Karin Cooper photograph, courtesy of the Washington National Opera.]

My criteria for judging performances are relatively simple. Is the singing of sufficient quality that I would rate it as worthy of the major international opera houses worldwide? Does the dramatic performance provide the opera goer with insight into what the composer and, perhaps also, librettist, were trying to do? Does the production make sense? Is this something I would recommend that opera goers spend their time and money (often, quite a bit of money) to experience?

Over the past few years I’ve reported on performances at over two dozen opera companies, some for most of their productions, in Europe and North America; and I have experience attending opera performances going back several decades and encompassing most of the great operatic performers of the past half century. For those reasons, I am confident that when I review give positive reviews for operatic performances, that many more opera goers than myself will find the operatic experience worthwhile.

(Those who have read these pages often will know that I have no problem in giving bad reviews. To prove my point, the following examples are provided: The Singing’s Erste Klasse, but Railroad-Themed “Samson et Dalila” Production Ends in Train Wreck – Deutsche Oper Berlin, May 29, 2011 and Jones the Ripper’s “Queen of Spades” in S.F. – June 12, 2005. On the other hand, I usually won’t travel long distances to attend a performance that I have reason to believe that I won’t like at all.)

But What about the Anti-Lucrezia Comments of Other Reviewers?

In preparation for my second review of the San Francisco performances of this opera, in a performance occurring nine days after the first, I read a reasonably healthy sample of reviews from both print and electronic media. These reviews included many favorable comments, but some hostile ones as well.

[Below: the palace of Alfonso d'Este in John Pascoe's unit sets; edited image, based on a Karin Cooper photograph, courtesy of the Washington National Opera.]

I decided, that as I watched and listened to the second performance, I would try to understand if other reviewers saw and heard things that had escaped me the first time around, or, if it is simply a matter of taste. (I’m known as something of a Donizetti aficionado, but I know that there are perfectly respectable people who are not.)

At the top of the list of “other people’s problems” is that the opera is a star turn (my phrase, not theirs) for Renee Fleming. That’s an easy point to concede, but, whether one regards that as a good thing or bad, depends in part on one’s judgment of her performance, and, perhaps also on whether the reviewer wants to scold the opera company on acceding to the wishes of a superstar.

What Does the San Francisco Audience Want?

In an interview I conducted a couple of months ago with opera impresario Francesca Zambello, she stated that she could not tell me what she wanted to do at the Kennedy Center, now that she is assuming the artistic directorship of the Washington National Opera, until she finds out what WNO’s audience wants.

When David Gockley assumed the General Directorship of the San Francisco Opera in 2006, he had a very good idea of what the majority of the S. F. audiences wanted – especially, the crucial categories of subscribers and contributors. They wanted to see the return of “big name” stars in beautiful, theatrically valid productions.

Restoration of the Golden Years of the 1960s and 1970s, the hey-dey of big name stars and glamorous productions in San Francisco - when Kurt Herbert Adler reigned as General Director – was an announced Gockley goal that resonated with the all-important subscriber/contributor community. Two such “big names” (the examples purposely chosen, of course) whom Gockley sought to engage were Placido Domingo and Renee Fleming.

There are reasons that have been more than hinted at on this website’s pages, that it has taken a decade for Fleming to return to San Francisco Opera. But last season, Placido Domingo was coaxed back to San Francisco on his terms. I have no reason to doubt that Fleming’s return to San Francisco was very much on her terms.

She has been a proponent of Donizetti’s opera, the role of Lucrezia Borgia, and of the John Pascoe production on which she significantly collaborated. I suspect that there was not a chance of her returning except in a vehicle that she wished to do.

Perhaps there are reviewers that, I suspect, are a bit alienated by the idea of acceding to the wishes of a superstar, even a diva who felt herself wronged by a previous general director. Perhaps this alienation colored one or two of the thoughts expressed by those reviewers.

[Below: Duke Alfonso d'Este (Vitalij Kowaljow, left) gives instructions to his operative, Rustighello (Daniel Montenegro); edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

However, there are some practical considerations that an opera company management has to consider beyond whether the media will be nearly unanimous in its praise. Fleming’s return was popular with the subscribers. Even though subscribers were required to pay an additional 20% over already high prices for tickets to “Lucrezia”, it was a virtual sell-out with standing ovations for each performance. (I had one subscriber tell me that for weeks she was trying to improve her seat location, but even the negative statements from the largest area newspaper’s principal critic seemed not to cause anyone to turn back their tickets.)

“Lucrezia Borgia’s” Influence on “Rigoletto” and other Verdi Operas

As the orchestral prelude began, with its somber melody, an extra-textual tableau is seen which shows alternately Lucrezia, swordfighters at arms, Gennaro, Orsini and company and the Duke Alfonso.

(We have seen other operas where a tableau is shown during a somber beginning of an opera. More than one director has used a tableau to open Verdi’s “Rigoletto”. The “Lucrezia” beginning will stand as only one of several reminders we will have to the later operas of Verdi, Donizetti’s young colleague, who first came to know and love “Lucrezia Borgia” as a young man.)

“Lucrezia’s” prelude itself, with the slow introduction that is juxtaposed with the upbeat music of the boisterous Venetian Carnival, is an unquestioned inpiration for the music heralding the hedonistic court of “Rigoletto’s” Duke of Mantua. It’s often noted that the scene between the Duke’s and Duchess’ respective operatives, Rustighello  and Astolfo, where a chilling conversation takes place over a melodic base, is Verdi’s inspiration for the first scene between Rigoletto and the assassin Sparafucile. But as “Lucrezia” proceeds, one can detect other places where Verdi utilized Donizetti’s musical coloration for his own works.

As examples, Orsini’s first act music presages some of Azucena’s music in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore”. The vocal lines of Lucrezia and Alfonso in one of the second act trios with Gennaro is quite like the music of Macbeth and his Lady in Verdi’s early opera. The eerie horns that sound and then repeat after Orsini’s crew is locked in a room at Negroni’s party should remind one of the Monk’s music in Verdi’s “Don Carlos”.

The Pascoe Set Design

Pascoe’s set for the production had towering structures that were repositioned in each of the three acts, representing respectively, a piazza in Venice, a room in the d’Este palace of Duke Alfonso (with steps leading down to a dungeon and room for torture), and the palace of the Princess Negroni.

(One of the reviewers objected to the building materials that the sets seemed to represent as not being historically accurate for Venice; and another that none of the sets showed the splendours of Renaissance art. Rather than be drawn into an argument about whether Pascoe understands Venetian architecture or not, I record my belief that most of the audience were aware, as they should be, that they were not watching a travel documentary. Since the same stage structures had to represent Venice in the first act and different places in Ferrara in the latter two, I personally simply acceded to the Bard’s cautionary remarks in his O for a muse of fire Prologue to Henry V, basically just to use one’s imagination.)

Pascoe’s Stage Direction

After we meet a group of young Venetian mercenary soldiers, one of their captains, Gennaro (Michael Fabiano), sits down to get some rest. The sleeping Gennaro is watched by a woman who holds a Carnival mask and admires how handsome he is. It is, of course, Lucrezia Borgia (Renee Fleming), who has invested quite a lot of time and resources finally to identify a son whom she was forced by her Borgia family to give away at birth.

[Below: Lucrezia Borgia (Renee Fleming) admires her sleeping son Gennaro (Michael Fabiano), whom she has finally found after having had to give him up at birth; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

She sings an elegaic aria, Come e bello, whose main melody Lucrezia sings, with increasing elaboration three times. I listened very carefully to Fleming, this second time around, and considered the aria beautifully sung and appropriately acted.

(At least one reviewer argued that Fleming was insufficiently animated and was underplaying the part, but here calmness seems exactly the right response for the character’s motivation. She, after all, does not want to attract attention to herself. I don’t believe that Stanislavsky himself would have had her doing anything else.)

In fact, I found Pascoe’s staging imaginative and appropriate throughout, undeserving of one reviewer’s use of the pejorative term “park and bark” (sprinkled into a generally favorable review) to describe a particular image that might have seemed to that person momentarily too static. In fact, I would choose such terms as “fast-paced” and “vigorous” to describe most of the staging.

I found that the staging abounds in insights that I believe illuminate the plot. I thought having Alfonso strike Lucrezia when he discovers that Gennaro, whose murder Alfonso believed he had effected, can be seen escaping with Lucrezia’s help. Suggesting that a person with such a dark reputation as Lucrezia is herself the victim of the Duke’s cruelty, helps set up the denouement of Lucrezia’ suicide, after she realizes that she was the agent that destroyed her son that had become her obsession.

I previously expressed the belief that Pascoe’s decision to establish an overtly gay romance between Captain Gennaro and his fellow soldier, Maffio Orsini, was a brilliant stroke. This made explicable the decision of Gennaro, a marked man, to tarry with fatal consequences in Ferrara for one additional night.

(However, that point caused a reviewer to feel that Pascoe had not given sufficient attention to the emotional issues raised by gay relationships in the military, thereby somehow trivializing the message about Captain Gennaro and his lover. To me, that critique of the staging went way beyond the material with which Pascoe was dealing or what he was trying to do. But if one took the reviewer’s charge seriously, one might offer Gennaro’s decision to risk his life to stay with Orsini, and then to die with him when it was apparent he did not have enough antidote to save him as evidence of genuine emotional depth in their relationship.)

Victor Hugo, Gaetano Donizetti, Felice Romani and HBO

One of the print reviewers found fault with the plot, suggesting whimsically (I think) that had Home Box Office existed in 1830s Italy, that the plot would have been more to that reviewer’s taste. Perhaps not. Donizetti and his librettist, Romani, were pushing the envelope on what could be shown on the operatic stage, in the heavily censored theaters of Italy, when they based an opera on Lucrece Borgia, Victor Hugo’s drame historique. And, Hugo, of course, was himself pushing the envelope on what could be shown in Parisian theater.

Both play and opera were considered Revolutionary in their day, and Hugo and Donizetti were both agents who used their fame to expand what could be seen and done in theaters. If anything, Home Box Office (which, of course, is not a party to this controversy) should regard  both the French dramatist and the Italian composer as forbears.

[Below: Gennaro (Michael Fabiano, center left) confronts Gubetta (Igor Vieira, center, masked) as Maffio Orsini (Elizabeth DeShong, center right) looks on; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

“Lucrezia Borgia”, I believe, still resonates with audiences. I first saw it performed by one of its 20th century champions, Beverly Sills, with Gaetano Scano (a felicitous name for a Donizetti tenor), Suzanne Marsee and Richard Fredricks in Los Angeles in 1975. My enthusiasm for the opera has never diminished.

I’m proud of Renee Fleming for championing the opera in the 21st century, and for enlisting John Pascoe, Placido Domingo and the Washington National Opera in creating the new production. I’m proud also that the San Francisco Opera used this production, not only as the vehicle for re-establishing the company’s ties with Ms Fleming, but for mounting a world class musical performance of an historically important, rewarding opera.

The production provided the opening night festivities for the opening nights of  both the San Diego Opera’s 2011 season (see my review at Lindstrom, Ventre, Jaho Brilliant in San Diego Opera’s Sensuous, Transcendent “Turandot” – January 29, 2011) and the the San Francisco Opera’s 2011-12 season (see my review at Luisotti Leads Superb “Turandot” Cast In David Hockney’s Treasured Production – San Francisco Opera, September 9, 2011).

[Conductor Nicola Luisotti; resized image, based on a John Martin photograph, from www.nicolaluisotti.com.]

My second “Turandot” performance in September 2011 coincided with a popular innovation that General Manager David Gockley established soon after taking over the reins of the San Francisco Opera six years ago – “simulcasts” of a live performance in a venue where a large audience can share in the experience.

Soon the San Francisco Opera season developed what appears to be a lasting relationship with the San Francisco Giants and their home stadium AT&T Park. So this review is of a performance that was not only seen by a virtually sold-out audience in the 3200 seat War Memorial Opera House, but by an additional 32,000 persons availing themselves of the free tickets to experience the opera through the simulcast at the ballpark.

[Below: Irene Theorin as Turandot; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

A “Turandot” Surprise at the War Memorial Opera House

As the War Memorial Opera House audience took their seats, General Manager Gockley, joined by the chief executive of the principal corporate sponsor (Webcor Construction) of the baseball stadium simulcast, brought the official trophy from the Giants’ 2010 World Series win to the opera stage footlights (and afterwards left the trophy, discreetly guarded, in the opera house foyer for the patrons to ogle it during the intermissions). By the time of this performance, the Giants had been eliminated from the pennant race, and so it was an absolute certainty that the trophy would not return to the opera house stage in 2012.

But with good cheer, the introductory remarks had been made, and Conductor Nicola Luisotti took his place at the podium and Gockley announced that the audience would sing the traditional opening of an American baseball game, The Star Spangled Banner.

[Below: Marco Berti is the Unknown Prince, Calaf; resized image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The announcement of the National Anthem created a look of panic on the face of Conductor Luisotti. Indeed, by tradition, all American opera companies precede the beginning of the first performance of a new opera season with the National Anthem, this year performed by the opera orchestra led by Luisotti. This season, the National Anthem was played before the second night of the season, which was the World Premiere of Theofanidis’ 9-11 themed opera “Heart of a Soldier” (with Patrick Summers conducting).

But Luisotti called to the orchestra, “I have no music”. The orchestra members replied, that neither did they, although they all said they could play it by rote if they agreed on the key, and several orchestra members remembered the key they had used previously in the month.

Soon Gockley saw what was happening, and clarified that the National Anthem was being sung at the ballpark, not in the opera house.

Relieved, Maestro Luisotti began the crashing dissonant chords that are the first notes of “Turandot”.

[Below: Raymond Aceto, left, is Timur with Leah Crocetto, who is Liu; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Suddenly, Luisotti signals for the musicians to stop playing.  ”The curtain hasn’t gone up!” A wag yells “encore”!

Soon a technician arrives in the orchestra pit to let Luisotti know that they are having trouble raising the large gold curtain and it will be several minutes. At that point a couple of the members of the audience start singing the Star Spangled Banner. The orchestra picks up the key and begins to play as Luisotti, in the spirit of the moment, turns to the audience to conduct the singing. Soon all the audience is standing and singing.

Then one hears, through the curtains, members of the San Francisco Opera chorus singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game! Then Luisotti, always a bundle of energy, jumped out of the pit and moved along the center aisle to the back of the auditorium, like a late night talk show host who decides to take an impromptu visit into the audience, shaking hands, entertaining the audience members in the darkened theater with his infectious good cheer.

Then, about a quarter hour late, the technicians called him back to the podium to begin again the dissonant chords that begin “Turandot”.

[Below: Calaf (Marco Berti, in blue, front left), Turandot (Irene Theorin, fourth from left) as, from left to right, Ping (Hyung Yun), Pang (Greg Fedderly), and Pong (Daniel Montenegro) watch Liu (Leah Crocetto, in orange, front center) kill herself; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

I doubt that there were many persons in either the War Memorial Opera House or at AT&T Park that minded the mishap with the great Gold Curtain, but the ensuing performance was well worth any wait. Luisotti, whose rapport with the San Francisco Opera orchestra is a great artistic bond that assures that the operas he conducts will be symphonic triumphs.

With boundless energy, Luisotti produces an aural experience, that is deepened by the excellent choral work of the San Francisco Opera Chorus, and first rate performances by all of the members of the “Turandot” cast. The aural experiences are further enhanced by the visual wonders of the Hockney production and Falconer costumes, described in greater detail in my earlier reviews cited at the beginning of this essay. It’s like seeing a home run sail out of the AT&T Stadium, with the bases loaded.

Once Calaf melts Turandot’s icy heart and they announce their love to her father, the Emperor Altuom, the opera ends. As the chorus lines up for their curtain call, one sees that four of them are wearing San Francisco Giants paraphernalia. Then Ryan Kuster, the Mandarin, the first of the principals to walk over the Chinese bridge in center stage (over which, by tradition, the principal singer’s entrances for this production’s curtain calls take place) opens his costume to display a Giants sweatshirt.

Then the Joseph Frank’s Emperor brings some Giants’ gadgets, Hyung Yun’s Ping, Greg Fedderly’s Pang and Daniel Montengro’s Pong open their kimonos to reveal Giants’ clothing, Raymond Aceto’s Timur turns his back to the audience to reveal a large Giants’ insignia, Leah Crocetto’s Liu has a large orange “we’re number one” finger-pointing Giants’ hand (as will Theorin’s Turandot). Berti’s Calaf arrives with a Giants’ sweatshirt pulled over his costume, and Luisotti takes his bow wearing a Giants’ ballcap.

[Below: Turandot (Irene Theorin, front left) and Calaf (Marco Berti, front right) announce to the Emperor (Joseph Frank, rear) that they will be married; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

The afternoon, even with the delays caused by the Gremlin in the Front Curtain, was a smash hit. One cannot but imagine that every one of these special San Francisco Opera events, introducing opera free of charge to the community, converts new legions to the special appeal of opera in live performance, and, helps build the audiences of the future.