[Below: Francesca Zambello; edited image, based on a promotional photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Note well: the first presentation with Wagner himself conducting was at Bayreuth in 1876, just 24 years before the Ring hit San Francisco – then certainly the cultural capitol of the Golden West (i.e. everything west of St Louis) at the time! It was just six years later when the 1906 earthquake shook up that world-famed tenor Enrico Caruso, singing here the evening before, staying at the fabled (and still here) Palace Hotel, fled the wreckage hurling ghastly epithets in Italian, vowing never to return – he didn’t ! But you will with opera like this !

And you ask how come this Wagner Summer Festival starts with the Third Opera in Wagner’s colossal Tetralogy? It doesn’t really start until three cycles of all four operas are presented, first one commencing June 14, 2011, next June 21, and final June 28. In fact this “Siegfried” of May 29 and the “Goetterdaemmerung” of June 5 conclude the years-long SF Opera project to present the entire Francesca Zambello Ring with “Rheingold” and “Die Walkuere” having already debuted (see your website host William’s reviews, cited at this review’s end.)

This “Siegfried” production, and the two previous “Ring” operas in the Zambello cycle were first seen at the Washington National Opera, in co-production with San Francisco. However, budgetary issues at the WNO, resulted in the San Francisco Opera agreeing to develop and premiere the “Goetterdaemmerung” production, with the entire Zambello “Ring” to be seen for the first time. But San Francisco has never seen a Ring like this. All prior readings here (your website host and I have seen most, but not the 1900 nor 1935 versions!!) have been very traditional. Ms Zambello – well known all over America – has re-conceived this world-scale masterwork. She places it in America, in essentially recent (and contemporary) times, highlighting the rape of America’s environment in this industrial age. Thus the costumes are generic and the scenic-filmed backgrounds are nascent American growing industrial-age genre. We clearly saw this in both of the first two presentations, and this ambience definitely appears in Acts I and II of this Siegfried, yet Act III is very traditional and hardly departs at all from all the earlier Rings seen here.

As the curtain ascends in Act I of Ms Zambello’s conception of Siegfried, we see power lines and metal support-structures amidst swirling industrial smoke. On Stage Right is this auto-trailer (you’ve seen thousands on the road) open to audience view with a stove out front, a beach chair, a stack of beer cases, jeep-cans of fuel and other very familiar trappings of our youth- and now.

[Below: the home in which Siegfried grew up; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Suddenly a bounding Yosemite-emigre’ bear arrives (great antics) with Siegfried – whose “father & mother combined” erstwhile colleague/ instructor/ guide/ keeper Mime cowering in the background in fear of this strapping Siegfried. This wonderfully animated act develops with Siegfried and Mime hurling insults, brandishing weapons and fists – plus an operatic first for me as Siegfried gives Mime a head-first dunking in the water trough (audience roars). Yet Ms Zambello underlines actual warmth between these two – rarely seen these days.

[Below: Siegfried (Jay Hunter Morris) presents his list of non-negotiable demands to Mime (David Cangelosi), edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Momentarily Wotan (marvellously presented by Mark Delavan) arrives on the scene which gets underway with the famed Riddles (like 20 questions) – a bout which Mime flunks. Again Zambello shows us real warmth between these two as they pop open a beer in the trailer, sharing a bag of potato chips.

[Below: Mime (David Cangelosi, left) is distressed by the appearance of the Wanderer (Mark Delavan); resized image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Mime finally digs out the shards of the great sword Nothung. After Mime’s pathetic attempts to forge it – as Siegfried lambasts him repeatedly, Siegfried takes over – having been presented his Mother’s blue scarf (i.e. Sieglinde) which he caresses with huge emotion (so do we!). He wears this throughout the balance of the opera, including as he successfuly re-forges Nothung, holding its hilt wrapped in that scarf – to me a coup de theatre for the emotions before us – a Zambello Magic-Moment! Oh yes, he had a couple more beers while on the job!

Our Mime is David Cangelosi – beyond any doubt whatever the best acting I’ve seen anywhere in the world for this very fun – and challenging role. Our Siegfried is Jay Hunter Morris giving his all in a wonderfully lyrical, quite lush reading, but not looking remotely like a youth. But does Siegfried have to be an ungainly Geek-teenager?

Act II is almost identical to Zambello’s Act II Scene 2 of her “Walkuere” which was under a freeway – this is under a bridge. Alberich (Gordon Hawkins) is on the scene with an AK-47 shoved along with his booze in a shopping-cart.

[Below: Alberich (Gordon Hawkins) stays near the site where the Ring is kept; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Shortly the Forest Bird (wonderfully sung by Stacey Tappan) from the high metal bridge hanging over the trash-scattered scene, appearing in bright orange costume -cueing Siegfried what to do, where to look, where to go, etc. Hearing her magic flute (a la Mozart), he tries to create one for himself using industrial tools, to no avail (audience roars).

At last it’s time for him to meet Fafner the monster whose got the Ring, the gold and all the other goodies. Suddenly the doors open and here comes a gigantic German Panzer-tank style Scrap-Metal Compactor which gyrates about the stage, assaulting Siegfried with hissing jets of steam. Siegfried wins, gets the Ring and loot, and runs off to the Forest Bird’s directions in pursuit of The Sleeping Beauty.

[Below: Siegfried (Jay Hunter Morris, right) battles Fafner (Daniel Sumegi), who has taken the form of a giant, metal machine; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Act III is totally traditional – and totally sublime with luscious music fabulously transmitted to us by SF Opera’s world-class orchestra under Donald Runnicles’ excellently-in-command baton. The Earth-goddess Erda (wonderfully done by Ronnita Miller) lectures Wotan who ultimately seeks – and receives – her blessings. Rising up from her rock resting place surrounded by the industrial-chemicals-colored magic fire only a Super-Hero can penetrate, after that inevitable kiss to awake The Sleeping Beauty, Bruenhilde (brilliantly sung – shaking the chandeliers – and garnering the biggest, standing applause – Nina Stemme) slowly rises, blinded by the sun, whom she greets Heil dir Sonne – from here on it’s pure, unadulterated Mega-ecstacy as this monumental work ends – preparing us for The End in “Die Goetterdaemmerung”.

[Below: Bruennhilde (Nina Stemme) is awakened from her 20 years of sleep; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Special kudos – and applause – should go to the lighting director Mark McCullough and Projections (fabulous !!!) Director Jan Hartley – both utterly superb.

All this whipped together made for a San Francisco Opera – Zambello triumph with a world-class cast, orchestra, conductor, back-stage troops drenching us with an afternoon of absolute operatic delight worth the price of the ticket (now, a century and a decade later, more than $2) and vastly more. By all means see this Ring – your ears will be ringing with it for years!!

For William’s reviews of San Francisco Opera performances of the Zambello “Ring”, see: A Second Look: Stemme, Delavan, Lead Power Cast of San Francisco Opera “Walkuere” – June 13, 2010, and

An American “Walkuere”: Runnicles, Wagner and Zambello At San Francisco Opera – June 10, 2010, and,

Pure Gold: A Second Look at S. F.’s “American Ring Rheingold” – June 22, 2008, and,

Delavan Shines in a Gleaming San Francisco “Rheingold” – June 14, 2008.

As expected, the house was sold out and the audience highly enthusiastic about the sun-dappled production with its impressive cast – at the opera’s conclusion rising almost as one for a standing ovation, complete with whistling!

[Below: Morales (Scott Sikon, right) engages Micaela (Talise Trevigne, center) in conversation, as she searches for her boyhood sweetheart among the soldiers; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Is there a soul out there who doesn’t love this piece, as when the kids come marching out on stage mimicking the soldiers, or when she dances atop the tables in the cabaret singing to the hapless Don Jose with the castanets, or when that mucho-macho, resplendant baritone bull fighter Escamillo sings the ripping Toreador song? It’s no exaggeration to say, as does San Diego Opera, that “Carmen” is the quintessential opera!

Of the four prinicpals, two, Richard Leech the Don Jose and Wayne Tigges the Escamillo, were last minute replacements for artists suffering from injury or illness, yet the resulting performance, staged by the savvy stage director Sonja Frisell (herself replacing another stage director only recently) and conducted by the esteemed veteran conductor  Edoardo Mueller, moved forward almost flawlessly.

Mueller conducted with a carefully measured pace, allowing the artists plenty of time to breathe and get acclimated, but he lit up the after-burners in the final confrontation scene between Carmen and Don Jose outside the bull ring, ending with all the stops pullled out.

Surguladze’s Carmen

The Carmen, Nino Surguladze, proved to be an alluring actress, with a sultry mezzo voice. Yet another operatic product of the Republic of Georgia, a country whose entire population is only one and a half times that of San Diego County alone

California has reveled in the opera singers from this former Soviet republic high in the Caucasus. Her Georgian colleagues Nino Machaidze and George Gagnidze have distinguished themselves at the Los Angeles Opera and Lado Ataneli has appeared in starring roles at each of California three major opera companies.

[Below: Carmen (Nino Surguladze) displays interest in Zuniga (Kevin Langan); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Leech’s Don Jose

Lyric/dramatic tenor Richard Leech returns to the house where he first performed the role of Don Jose, replacing the injured Salvatore Licitra, who had to withdraw after rehearsals began. Leech was in his best form – perfectly cast in this role. [For William's review of Leech's most recent previous performances in San Diego, see: Tradition and Novelty in San Diego Opera’s New “Cavalleria” – March 22, 2008.]

[Below: Carmen (Nino Surguladze) entices Don Jose (Richard Leech); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Trevigne’s Micaela

The role of Micaela is one of the choice roles in the lyric soprano repertory, and Talise Trevigne’s extraordinarily moving performance of this role for the San Diego Opera is arguably her most important assignment from the standard operatic repertory to date. However, Trevigne’s career has already had a notable milestone, as she created the role of Pip in Heggie’s opera, “Moby Dick”, in a production that will have its San DIego Opera premiere in 2012 (see World Premiere: Heggie’s Theatrically Brilliant, Melodic “Moby Dick” at Dallas Opera – April 30, 2010.)

[Below: Micaela (Talise Trevigne, right) convinces Don Jose (Richard Leech, left) that he must return home to his dying mother; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Tigges’ Escamillo

Wayne Tigges’ career has advanced in the past year as a result of opportunities that have arisen by the withdrawal of originally announced artists from important assignments. Most notably, he sang the role of the Four Villains last summer at Santa Fe Opera in the authentic version of Offenbach’s 1885 opera “Tales of Hoffman”, that was never performed before the 21st century (see William’s review at Groves, Wall, Lindsey Excel in Christopher Alden’s Harrowing, Hallucinatory “Hoffmann” – Santa Fe Opera, July 17, 2010.)

Tigges reveled in his role as the bullfighter, to an exulting audience.

[Below: Escamillo (Wayne Tigges, center, in suit of lights) escorts Carmen (Nino Surguladze) in the procession to the bull ring; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The remaining cast consists of a number of artists most of whom, even with international careers, have become very familiar to San Diego Opera’s performances. (The attractions of sunny San Diego and the friendliness of the company are particular draws for many artists.)

The regimental officers Zuniga and Morales were sung respectively by Kevin Langan and Scott Sikon. Langan was superb as the military bossman, whose own misbehavior seals Don Jose’s fate.

The other four members of Carmen’s outlaw quintet were Rachel Copeland (Frasquita), Priti Gandhi (Mercedes),  Jeff Mattsey (Duncaire) and Joseph Hu (Ramendado).

The sets and costumes, designed to reflect the Seville of the 1870s contemporary with the opera’s first performances, were originally created by the Houston Grand Opera and are now owned by the Utah Opera. At one point San Diego Opera owned these sets. A more modernistic “Carmen” production was presented here five years ago, but this season’s return to a more traditional looking “Carmen” was well received by the San Diego audiences.

The San Diego Opera Experience

Your website host William just reviewed San Diego Opera season’s other French opera – the super-popular Gounod’s “Faust”, noting that these two operas are the most-performed French operatic masterpieces seen today. I note this as William – like a finger-wagging college professor who knows his stuff - grades opera productions on many criteria. And why do I mention these grades?

Because I rate San Diego Opera’s entire 2011 Season with fabulous productions of Puccini’s “Turandot”, Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier”, “Faust”, and now ”Carmen” as an A+ season – all criteria considered! From the viewpoint of the operas selected, the casting, how they looked and how they sounded – this was world-class opera competing with any great opera house in the world, all comers invited!!

With operas not performed all that often, both your website host William and I usually do a short Opera 101 refresher to bring our readers up to speed, but not for “Carmen” as all of us opera lovers know – and love – this wonderful piece. Indeed, being a baritone, I very often “do” the Toreador song in the shower and know many others who also do this! “Carmen” has it all with a believable story, terrific-gripping drama, fabulous color, lots of action, love songs, conflict and above all else, utterly sensational music. And San Diego Opera addressed every one of these aspects with marvelous flourish, concluding a season in which your host and I could and do say that of every production presented this season!

With the close of this brilliant 2011 season, we can all look  forward to San Diego Opera’s 2012 season bringing the new, American blockbuster Heggie’s ”Moby Dick” about which San Diego Opera boss Ian  Campbell spoke in detail in before-the-opera remarks to the “Carmen” audience, also highlighting Richard Strauss’ gut-wrenching – and fabulous — Salome on the menu plus Donizetti’s rollicking comedy “Don Pasquale” with another laugh-in served for 2012′s season-dessert, Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”. Sounds terrific.

Tom’s review of the December 16th performance is posted below:

Night Visitors to Visit Amahl in Historic Pasadena Playhouse

It’s Christmas Season – when many of us swoon to the glorious music of Handel’s Messiah, and certainly to one of its most overwhelming numbers: Rejoice, Rejoice, Rejoice Greatly   .    . Well, here it’s Christmas Season and a new opera company has arrived on the scene – Intimate Opera of Pasadena at www.intimateopera.net. (They dub it IOP) - Rejoice !

And to add lustre to this wonderfully happy news is that they celebrate their Gala Opening with Gian Carlo Menotti’s adorable “Amahl and the Night Visitors” at their new home a block from my Pasadena offices – the venerable, lovely, and yes intimate old Pasadena Playhouse - the State Theater of California – at www.pasadenaplayhouse.org . It’s just off Green Street on South El Molino # 39 in the Theater District of Pasadena just south of the Rose Parade route on Colorado Blvd. You can’t miss it -easy, cheap parking across the street, safe on the streets as well. Excellent restaurants highlighted below – the world famed Cordon Bleu academy of cooking is a block away!!!

[Below: the courtyard of the Pasadena Playhouse; photograph by Thomas Rubbert.]

Contrary to what some nay-sayers might be won’t to say upon the opening of a new venture in times like these, this is no Amateur Hour Shew by any means. Metropolitan Opera stars who have also graced the stages in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles etc command our stage with a superb team of highly experienced professionals who know their business. From those of us who love this, the most challenging, opulent, glorious (and expensive) of the performing arts – a most hearty WELCOME to IOP which plans Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” in 2011 and Verdi’s “Rigoletto” in 2012 (LA Opera’s most recent presentation).

“Amahl” is a distinctly Twentieth Century piece written for NBC television and seen by millions on Christmas Eve, 1951 (I saw this telecast later and absolutely loved it). It has become a tradition on TV and I submit more Americans have seen this one-act tear-jerker than have seen any other opera, by any other composer, ever! Across the land are many, many local productions. I’ve seen it from coast-to-coast over the years, and place it along side the lush Christmas opera of Humperdinck – the very Wagnerian “Hansel & Gretel” which I also love (and watch every year on DVD several times!).

[Below: Gian Carlo Menotti, in 1950, the year he was composing "Amahl and the Night Visitors"; based on a historical photograph from spoletofestival.it.]

Menotti was a prolific composer who attended the famed Curtis Institute of Music in Philly with the likes of Leonard Bernstein (who hardly needs introduction) and fellow-American-composer Samuel Barber – with whom Menotti developed a lifetime friendship. Menotti founded the celebrated Spoleto Festival USA (and earlier its equivalent in Europe), wrote something like two dozen operas – some well known – earning a Pulitzer prize for two (“The Consul” in 1950, and “The Saint of Bleeker Street” in 1955), having written his first opera at age eleven “The Death of Pierrot” – and what were you doing at eleven??

He passed at 95 in 2007 leaving the world much the richer for all his contributions – most certainly including “Amahl and the Night Visitors” which very probably is his most appreciated legacy. Indeed, next summer Santa Fe Opera features Menotti’s “The Last Savage“ which your website host William will be reviewing. LA Opera has done Menotti pieces as well.

The short story of “Amahl” - in this one-act short opera – happens on the very first Christmas Eve, all taking place in and around the small, rustic hut of the young lad Amahl and his impoverished, widowed Mom, with the crippled Amahl, needing a crutch to get about, but loving to play his shepherd’s flute-like pipe – nearby there are shepherds ” . . . in the fields, abiding o’er their flocks by night” (day too!). His tune is haunting, lillting and lovely - this sets the action in motion.

[Below: Mezzo soprano Suzanna Guzman (left), being interviewed by Dallas Opera media director, Suzanne Calvin; edited image, based on videography by Cody Rubio, courtesy of the Dallas Opera.]

Gradually appearing out of the darkness in resplendant raiment are Three Kings - Amahl is very excited and asks such probing questions a kid would ask, like “  .  .   .is your blood really blue? And of course, what goodies are they carrying with them and where are they going? Meanwhile the neighbor-shepherds come in filled with curiosity, and upon being told of the royal’s quest, they present humble gifts of local fruits and veggies to the Three Kings who are most graciously appreciative – they are Kaspar, Balthasar and Melchior who have a page to help things along – they tell Mom they are seeking The Child, singing “Have you seen a Child the color of wheat, the color of dawn?”

As night settles in, Amahl urges Mom to come out to see the beautiful night sky brilliantly illuminated by an immense new star ” . . .  as big as a window . . . “. The thrilled Shepherds, led by Amahl, are enticed to dance, ending up in an exciting, fast-paced Tarantella to the delight of all.

Mom, desparately poor but seeing all this wealth on her floor, secretes one of the precious gifts, but just then the Page awakens, and a brawl ensues, with Amahl lighting upon that Page to rescue Mom who simply wants to present some of the Three King’s gold to the Christ Child, but the Three Kings intervene and observe the Christ Child has no need of the gold. Mom begs them to take back the gold for The Child. Meanwhile Amahl wants to present his crutch to the Babe in the Manger having asked Kaspar if maybe he has some magical jewel to help cure his crippled leg.

But just then a miracle transforms the scene - Amahl cannot only walk now without his crutch, but dances and prances in Joy! The royals beam in happiness at this miraculous event. As the Three Kings prepare to depart to the Manger Scene to behold the Christ Child bearing their gifts, Amahl asks to join them – they happily so invite him, and as they leave on their sacred quest, Mom and Amahl sing an incredibly emotional duet “I shall miss you very much”. As this entourage take their leave, Amahl plays his flute with the same lilting tune that opened this lovely fable.  I guarantee you there’s not a dry eye in the house!!

The Cast: Two local opera-singers done good – gracing the stages at NYC’s Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera, San Francisco Opera, inter alia, are mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzman (no rookie in LA – she’s done 39 productions here in LA alone!) and worked with composer extraordinaire Gian Carlo Menotti personally.

[Below: Tenor Greg Fedderly (right) attends a Los Angeles Opera performance with soprano Amanda Squitieri; edited image, based on a photograph from the Los Angeles Opera.]

She is Mom opposite comprimario-tenor Greg Fedderly who graces LA’s stage very often (seemingly everywhere else these days!), singing King Kaspar, baritone Robin Buck as King Melchior (no rookie either – 45 roles all over the world with mentors like greats Birgit Nilsson, Hans Hotter, Placido Domingo et al!. Greg Fedderly most recently did the comic role of Monostatos in Mozart’s sublime “The Magic Flute” where he brought down the house with screaming laughter – a role he will reprise at the Met shortly.

[Actor Malcolm McDowell as Mr Linderman on the NBC television series, Heroes,  promotional photograph.]

Bass baritone Cedric Berry does King Balthazar (Met Auditions winner and frequent LA Opera artist like in LA’s productions of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”, Puccini’s “La Boheme” and , Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila”, Gounod’s “Faust”, Britten’s “Billy Budd” - again hardly the new kid on the block).

The Page is Benito Galinda, and our lad-sopranos as Amahl are Caleb Glickman alternating with Leighton Sackby, all conducted by Pasadena Master Chorale Founder and Director Jeffrey Bernstein – again no rookie on the LA classical music scene to say the least – from 1997 to 2007 director of chorale music at local Occidental College when he’s not composing music, leading world chorale tours, hopefully taking time out to have dinner occasionally – having music degrees from such schools as Harvard and Yale plus our own UCLA.

The Production Team. The Founder and General Director of IOP is Wendy Kikkert – her team includes stage director Stephanie Vlahos hailing from Yale University and a graduate of NYC’s world-famed Julliard School – she’s also a singer having performed with LA Opera and also having worked with famed conductor Pierre Boulez (will be here in LA to conduct next March!!), conductor-composer Andre’ Previn, composer John Adams, et al.

Dessert Served after Intermission! This is truly sweet – it being the Christmas Season well-known actor Malcolm McDowell (Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange; John Carpenter’s Halloween) will read Welsh Poet Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales after the intermission – beverages, goodies available in the lovely courtyard.

Tickets: This production opens on Dec 16, and there are performances on Friday Dec 17, 2010 at 8:00, ditto on Saturday Dec 18 which also has a 2:00 PM Matinee, and a 2 PM Matinee Sunday Dec 19. Pull IOP’s website at www.intimateopera.net and phone for tix at 626 274-7372.

Dining less than a block away: On “campus”, overlooking the attractive fountained courtyard of the Pasadena Playhouse, is an excellent dining spot (crowded), “Elements Kitchen” (see the website for phone). A stone’s throw down Green street less than a block on the same side of the street is Zagat rated Maison Akira (713 E Green St at 626 796-9501) which is a superb French-Asian Fusion spot worthy of major attention.

Just up El Molino at  641 East Colorado Blvd (NW corner) is Hawaii’s terrific Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine about 250 feet away at 626 356-4066.  Around the corner on Lake Ave just 2 short blocks east of the Theater and a smidge down (south) 141 South Lake Ave is an outstanding North Italian destination restaurant Celestino’s (valet parking) at 626 795-4006. All these are within very easy walking distance.

Epilogue: Legend (and Gian Carlo Menotti) have it that as a child, Menotti was crippled in a leg not aided by unsuccessful medical treatment, being ultimately taken to a Holy Shrine in Italy – shortly thereafter he was no longer crippled!!  Sound familiar?

See also: Tom’s New Year’s Pleasure: “Phantom of the Opera” in Vegas. For a discussion of the Bracebridge Dinner at Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel, see: Tom’s Winter of Content: Midwinter Opera in Sunny Southern California 2007-08.

Tom’s review of the December 16, 2010 performance of “Amahl”:

Gala Opening Night Production Reviewed: This was an extraordinary night for not only Pasadenans but Southern California Opera lovers alike: the opening presentation of a brand new opera company with a very spirited crowd gathered in Pasadena Playhouse’s most salubrious courtyard we have pictured, where I recognized many, many opera-loving friends coming to enjoy – and support our newly welcomed cultural asset. Pasadena has enjoyed opera before over the years in its grande, very European Civic Auditorium – such as visits by San Diego Opera, and others – but these were road shows (most welcome indeed) but not by our own resident opera company. All of us wish IOP the best of all possible luck.

And they produced the goods – a superb, highly polished, very professional presentation!! “Amahl and the Night Visitors” is usally presented by local colleges and churches, and occasionally by smaller, local performing groups, but this was not a home-town, local-yokel show – far fom it. IOP made a decision to have the reading of A Child’s Christmas in Wales first, which was read fabulously by Malcolm McDowell seated comfortably by a table as snowflakes projected on the scrim fell softly. Then without intermission, the curtains rose for the Opera with a large set of Amahl’s rustic abode with a blazing fireplace around which all the action took place.

IOP played the piece as a comedy – very effectively – when it fit. The laughs started when there was rapping at the door – as Amahl opens it he beholds a King, jumping back to tell his Mom who is disgusted with him at seeing such ridiculous things, then another knock, another King! Then three – Mom is bug-eyed at the spectacle of Three Kings and their resplendant Page parading in. Gregg Fedderly enters as King Kaspar carrying a huge birdcage with a brilliantly-plumed parrot inside, provoking more laugh-lines.

The cast was very well balanced – Suzanne Guzman as Mom got by far most of the singing – and as always, she was terrific and garnered the most applause. Greg Fedderly was a true comic, but didn’t get many long lines to sing. Later – after the show in talking with him, he said he loved the chance to have fun in this role and being able to do it in Pasadena!

The Shepherds turned out to be essentially a dance-troupe who gave a super show ending with the Tarantella noted above – clearly the high point in the music. This total charmer was a treat for all, very much appreciated by the audience, and most worthy for all to see in a most comfortable house!!

Tom Rubbert

[Below: Placido Domingo in a Rolex Watch promotional photograph, edited image, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

On September 23 2010, Placido Domingo, Los Angeles Opera’s general director, created the role of Chilean Nobel prizewinner Pablo Neruda in the world premiere of Catan’s “Il Postino”, that opened the Los Angeles Opera 2010-2011 season. In yet another example of his physical endurance, he began a series of Los Angeles Opera performances that alternated between singing the role of Neruda and conducting Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” – while simultaneously holding the  full time job of being  LA Opera’s bossman.  (And, those in the front row seats will confirm that he often appears wearing a Rolex Watch, a sponsoring partner of LA Opera!)

Nozze Notes

With Domingo receiving audience acclaim as he entered the orchestra pit, the curtain rose to our Figaro, Daniel Okulitch – clad in a white T-shirt with red suspenders – up on a tall ladder roller-painting a black wall with fire-engine red paint. (The costume was strikingly different from how Okulitch was clad when starring in Shore’s “The Fly”. See William’s review at Dissecting “The Fly”: the American Premiere of Shore’s Opera in L.A. – September 7, 2008.)

[Below: Figaro (Daniel Okulitch) at opera's beginning; edited image, based on a Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

Stage director Ian Judge’s ideas can be controversial (see Powerful, Edgy “Tannhauser” at Los Angeles Opera – February 28, 2007). But this production – whose sets by Tim Goodchild and costumes by Deidre Clancy were often of stunning quality  - was very traditional except for some comic moments as when Cherubino (sung by Croatian mezzo-soprano Renata Pokupic, one of several Los Angeles debuts in the “Nozze” cast) marches off to military duty, his headgear being that red paint bucket!

[Below: Figaro (Daniel Okulitch) encourages Cherubino (Renata Pokupic) to get into the spirit of his new military assignment; edited image, based on a Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

Other debuting principals have been reviewed in peformances elsewhere. The Susanna was Marlis Pedersen (See “Lulu” at the Lyric – November 19, 2008) and Count Almaviva was played by Bo Skovhus (see Night at the Museum: “Iphigenie en Tauride” Springs to Life in S. F. – June 17, 2007.)

Also debuting were the Doctor Bartolo (Alessandro Guerzoni) and the Countess Almaviva (Martina Serafin ). The Countess’ bedroom scene reveals a magnificent all-white salon with a white 1930s telephone on the bed as the champagne-sipping countess meanders about – in bare feet. Is this an unsubtle hint she could double as The Barefoot Contessa?

[Below: Susanna (Marlis Pedersen, left) and Countess Almaviva (Martina Serafin, right) dress up Cherubino (Renata Pokupic) as a girl; edited image, based on a Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

England’s Christopher Gillett was a show-stopping Don Basilio earning by far the biggest laughs. By far the most  hilarious git-up costume was that of the ultra-hilarious Marcellina made up as a very uppity Lady whose gestures garnered bigtime laughs.

[Below: Don Basilio (Christopher Gillett, left) joins Marcellina (Ronnita Nicole Miller) and Dr Bartolo (Alessandro Guerzoni) in scheming to break up the marriage of Figaro; edited image, based on a Robert Millard photograph; courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

Mr Domingo is hardly a stranger to Los Angeles audiences – he has now sung 22 different roles here, and with “Marriage of Figaro” he will have conducted 65 performances of 12 different operas, and with the end of this Figaro run he will have sung 132 opera performances here!

Mr Domingo conducted with his usual supreme control and charm – yet he had been singing in “Il Postino” not even 22 hours before. His energy level is astonishing — a comment heard from nearly everyone. This was a wonderful treat, beautifully performed by a well-rehearsed, excellently balanced and matched cast who really knew their stuff, making for the experience every opera lover hopes for. I say to all this crew – including the under-praised hard-working troops behind the scenes making this happen – Bravi! Bravi!

A Postino Post-script

Opening Los Angeles Opera’s Silver Anniversary (25th!) 2010 -2011 Fall Season was the World Premiere of “Il Postino” (based on the Oscar-winning 1994 Italian film), in which Placido Domingo sang the starring role magnificently already reviewed for you by your website host William (see Audience Ovation for Domingo, Castronovo in Catan’s “Postino” – Los Angeles Opera, September 29, 2010).

At final curtain responding to a roaring, standing ovation, the cast came forward again and again, but Mr Domingo stood back with his cast and let the others receive the adulation, particularly young soon-to-be superstar tenor Charles Castronovo with whom he sang the dynamite final duet (about which Mr Castronovo said was about as much a thrill as a young singer could conceive!).

[Below: Pablo Neruda (Placido Domingo) and Mario Ruappolo (Charles Castronovo) in the final duet of "Il Postino"; edited image, based on a Robert Millard photograph, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera.]

And this is so typical – and so elegant a gesture from today’s undeniably pre-eminent tenor Superstar, and ambassador extraordinaire for the opera world!

Tom Rubbert

In total contrast Santa Fe Opera now presents Benjamin Britten doing a comedy in a small-scale (“Billy Budd” and “Peter Grimes” are Big Time grande opera indeed), chamber opera written for twelve musicians designed for budget-oriented presentations. But it was no small-scale casting for this one.  Grandly commanding the baton in his Santa Fe debut was internationally renowned conductor Sir Andrew Davis.

[Sir Andrew Davis, music director of the Lyric Opera, Chicago (whose lobby is the background of this photograph), conducted "Albert Herring"; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

International super-star Christine Brewer headlined the cast as the over-bearing, imperious Lady Billows (aka like that wicked witch school principal you had in grammar school – I certainly had a totally forgettable one!). Judith Christin was cast to utter perfection as Mother Herring, giving her yet another chance to excel at her well known comedic antics so frequently bringing down the house here.  No one, but no one, does side-splitting facial expressions better than Judith Christin!!

Soon-to-be super star tenor Alek Shrader (who is also moonlighting here in this season’s final performance of Mozart’s “Magic Flute”) sang the title role.

[Below: Albert Herring (Alek Shrader) minds his mother's store; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

Albert Herring is rarely presented and has never been seen in many American houses, but I have had the good luck to have seen it often (mostly in the UK including at Glyndebourne in rain and in my wet tux!). Because of its rarity, here’s a quick Opera-101 overview of this opera based on a short story by France’s great writer/poet/playwright Guy de Maupassant, with the action taking place in Victorian England sited in a small market-town in Suffolk, with the opera first presented at Glyndebourne (now England’s equivalent of Santa Fe’s summer opera festival) in 1947.

Mother Herring is a greengrocer and is our hero’s overbearing, suffocatingly-protective Mom. But the town’s self-appointed custodienne of Morality is the aptly named Lady Billows, a billowing, bossy, know-it-all who comes up with a contest for the town to select a spotessly virtuous Queen of the May Festival to be crowned and given a prize by the committee in charge of these festivities.

Unfortunately, after much diligent searching, no such laudatory Lass-of-virtue could be found to the consternation of all with a Ms Billows noting  of one of the possibilities ” .  .    . exuding moral blame, but stinks of moral shame .  .  . “, so the committee taps our Hero, the young lad Albert Herring who is “pure as new-mown hay” (aka some sort of hayseed? Keep tuned) to be, instead, “King of the May Festival”. Mother Herring is ecstatic, but Al definitely is not, so his mother angrily dismisses him as a Bad Boy.

[Below: the town's elders descend upon Mother Herring's grocery store, from left Mother Herring (Judith Christin), Albert (Alek Shrader), Mr Budd (Dale Travis), Lady Billows (Christine Brewer) and Mayor Upfold (Mark Schowalter); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

The scene changes in Act II to the garden of the vicarage all set up for the banquet with tureens of lemonade on the lovely green lawns in front of the Church, parsonage and some houses of this charming little village. Now comes the fun – Al’s buddy Sid secretly spikes Al’s lemonade with booze! Meanwhile the speeches are given, and Al is crowned and awarded the 25 quid prize, then staggers home with more than just a buzz, but meanwhile overheard Sid and another friend Nancy saying how sorry they are for Al that he’s such a momma’s boy – totally suffocated and domineered by his Mom – that he ought to get out more . Well, that gossip ruminates in Al’s head – then Rebellion! Albert Herring runs away from this cozy nest to go out and discover the Real World, saying to Mum, and proclaiming he’s not Mum’s “sugar plum”.

[Below: Sid (Joshua Hopkins, left) and Nancy (Kate Lindsey) have a bit of fun with Albert (Alek Shrader); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

Act III, always wildly funny, starts with all in consternation as Al is missing – but eventually the local constable, ably played by Dale Travis (who, had stepped in to replace an indisposed Wayne Tigges the prior evening as the four Villains in “Tales of Hoffmann”) comes in with the crushed, muddy “coronation” hat that Al had been crowned with, as Al’s Mum almost collapses in grief. This is the only solemn passage in the piece, but loaded with fabulous music, as the others pay sympathy – but patronizing – to Mum.

But suddenly Al comes stumbling back to the party having spent lots on cheap likker, totally dishevelled – skunk-drunk. He’s besieged with disdain, disgust and sarcastic rebukes from the locals. Mum says loudly, “You’ll pay for this, my boy”. Then, emboldened with that booze, Al proclaims loudly that it’s all his overbearing mother’s fault that he’s such a mess.

[Below: Albert Herring (Alek Shrader), having lost his inhibitions to alcohol, tells everyone what he really thinks; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

All his buddies and the young crowd loudly cheer him on, but the oh-so-moral townsfolk grimace and turn their backs on these hopeless kids, as completely humiliated Mother Herring, wrenching in anger, embarrassment and disgust, has a fit – and Judith Christin does this with, well, sheer genius. Al has the final words, “That’ll do, Mum”. And on that sweet note the piece ends with roaring applause from a most enthusiastic audience.

Christine Brewer has graced Santa Fe’s stage before in the fabulous 2005 Peter Grimes, Richard Strauss’ “The Egyptian Helen” in 2001 and Gluck’s “Alceste” in 2009. Judith Christin has graced the Santa Fe stage for years in many roles, as well as in most other American opera houses.

[Below: Lady Billows (Christine Brewer, right) shares her thoughts with Florence Pike (Jill Grove); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of Santa Fe Opera.]

Alek Shrader, who well and truly earned the top applause, will surely be welcomed on any return here and clearly will be seen everywhere shortly. This ripping production was directed by Paul Curran who also did the 2005 Peter Grimes here, with sets and superbly appropriate costumes by Kevin Knight. The principal cast rounded out with Sid being sung by Joshua Hopkins and Nancy by Kate Lindsey,  the school marm by Celena Shafer to gales of laughter – a graduate of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice program, and the Vicar played by a current Apprentice Jonathan Michie – and very well indeed!

And let’s all hope Sir Andrew will command the podium here again – soon. This was a real treat – by far the best reading of “Albert Herring” I’ve ever seen, and the sound he conjured from the the twelve piece orchestra seemed like an almost full symphony orchestra.

Over the years The Santa Fe Opera has also done three other Benjamin Britten operas, “Owen Wingrave” in 1973, “The Turn of The Screw” in 1983, and “Noah’s Fludde” in 1996 and 1999, but none can equal the “Peter Grimes” and “Billy Budd” noted above.  This reading takes its place of honor along side these two masterpieces in the hands of the most able Santa Fe Opera team. Bravi! Bravi!

[Below: Tamino (Charles Castronovo) walks with the animals; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

For those of you who love and collect numbers (don’t we all for certain favorite things?), the operas of Mozart have enjoyed the most productions of opera presented by The Santa Fe Opera since its Day One in 1957 in which season Mozart’s charming “Cosi fan tutte” was presented after the first opera fully staged here – Puccini’s glorious “Madama Butterfly”.

“Butterfly” opened this summer’s 2010 season and reviewed by your website host William who additionally reviewed this season’s brand-new-for Santa Fe, Offenbach’s  ”Tales of Hoffman”. (For the previous 2010 season reviews see: Kaduce’s Incandescent Cio Cio San, Jovanovich’s Injudicious Pinkerton, Emblazon Blakeley’s “Butterfly” – Santa Fe Opera, July 16, 2010 and Groves, Wall, Lindsey Excel in Christopher Alden’s Harrowing, Hallucinatory “Hoffmann” – Santa Fe Opera, July 17, 2010.) The balance of this summer opera festival, which I regard without any doubt whatever as the premier summer opera festival in America, included Britten’s “Albert Herring” and a world premiere of “Life is a Dream”, an opera written by Lewis Spratlan, based on The Golden Age of Spanish Drama.

[Below: Sarastro (Andrea Silvestrelli, right) explains to Pamina (Ekaterina Siurina) why she should seek a different view of the world than the one taught her by her mother; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

For those who know The Santa Fe Opera well, it comes as no surprise that the operas of Richard Strauss have graced Santa Fe’s stage more than those of any other composer, as Founding Father Emeritus John Crosby adored Strauss’ works. And since that Santa Fe Opera Day One in 1957 what composer’s operas played second-fiddle, as it were, to those of Richard Strauss?  Mozart’s nine operas compared with Strauss’ 13, but alas, Mozart gets the giant bouquet of roses for the most opera productions here by quite a margin – “The Marriage of Figaro”. But not every opera composer has received this kind of attention – prolific composers like Richard Wagner, Peter Tschaikovski, and Dmitri Shostakovitch have only had one each!

But then there’s such a thing as paying the overhead, selling tickets and other such boring details, particularly in tough economic times like we have experienced the last several years which have immensely impacted all of the performing arts, most certainly including opera – the most expensive of the performing arts – but also the Greatest Show on Earth, and at this The Santa Fe Opera truly excels!

[Below: the Three Ladies (Audrey Walstrom, Rachel Willis-Sorensen and Renee Tatum) present Prince Tamino (Charles Castronovo) with a locket; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

But I digress. Many critics laud Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” or his ”Marriage of Figaro” as the greatest of all operas, with which I would not strenuously argue, but to me the “Magic Flute” has Mozart’s most glorious operatic music, although, for many, the story-line is wacky, but nevertheless very entertaining. Speaking of which, if you haven’t seen the fabulous film about Mozart – aptly named Amadeus – by all means go rent it at Blockbuster or order it from Netflix. It’s utterly sensational – you’ll never forget it, and the image of him – with his comic laugh – shown in this dazzling flick will stick with you forever. I have watched my DVD of this dozens of time!!

“The Magic Flute” is a Singspiel – a musical play, and a play it is with much spoken dialogue – here done in English – but the music issung in German. Don’t fret – for Santa Fe, like the Met, has the best system in the world for following the action without craning your neck gaping at supertitles seemingly in outer space. You just touch a button on the screen in front of you in the backrest of that seat in front, and voila!, there is the full translation in English or Spanish. I’ve seen purists – who wouldn’t deign to read supertitles – take furtive looks at these screens. By all means do when you come here – it makes the piece 1000% better since you’ll understand what’s happening.

[Below: Papageno (Joshua Hopkins) pursues his career as a birdcatcher; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

Every opera-lover knows this complicated, often perplexing piece somewhat, but as a quicky Opera-101 refresher, here’s my brief take: It starts out as a romantic fairy tale as the handsome, young Prince Tamino encounters a series of grievous trials and travails, one of which is a creepy monster-serpent – often portrayed as in Wagner’s epic opera Siegfried when that hero slays the evil, hissing, salivating Dinosaur-inspired Fafner on his way to triumph.

[Below: A monster intends to have a dinner of Prince Tamino (Charles Castronovo); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

Soon, Papageno – the Birdcatcher – arrives on the scene – by far the most beguiling, enchanting character of this whole crew, singing one of the most catchy (sorry) tune of all Der Vogelfaenger bin ich ja (the birdcatcher yes I am), but he’s after the wife of his dreams who, surprise of surprises, shows up at the end as an old witch, but suddenly metamorphs into a dazzling looker. The two launch into the most ingenious and enchanting duet in all of Mozart’s works – this number is worth the price of the ticket alone!!

But meanwhile, Prince Tamino must somehow rescue Pamina, the gorgeous daughter of the evil and imperious Queen of the Night (who gets the most roaring-ovation killer-arias of all), and Mozart sees to it that he conveniently receives a magic flute and a Glockenspiel to help clear the way, for playing these suddenly makes everyone become delirious in happiness – in this production it makes them giddy as if polluted with booze!! The music that goes with this is magically sensational – Mozart at the apotheosis of his powers. No one will leave this production without remembering that Glockenspiel!

To help pave the way for the story, Mozart has three children who arrive and save the day at the most convenient times, here clad in Buddhist yellow-orange robes, bald as novice monks – and adorable! At the most needed time, they lower on ropes the Magic Flute, the Glockenspiel (in a sparkling Blue lunch-box) and a big McDonald’s Bag for Papageno loaded with Big Macs, fries – the works, which he devours with relish (included in the McDonald’s bag?).

[Below: Papageno (Joshua Hopkins), dissuaded from suicide, receives a magic glockenspiel from the three Genii (Trent Llewellyn, Sean Jahner and Craig Short); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

Off go the Prince and the Birdcatcher on their often Vaudeville-scale quests through huge, perilous trials and torments - affording Mozart luscious material for some of the most sublime music extant. Did I mention I love this piece? I reviewed this same Tim Albery production in Santa Fe Opera’s 2006 season, the sets to which are minimal (Critic Heidi Waleson of the Wall Street Journal thought they blew at least $50 on these sets) but terrific costumes.

The casting for this production is superb, with young, striking tenor Charles Castronovo seen as Prince Tamino, Joshua Hopkins as our Birdcatcher Papageno, un-gussied-up as the next-door college kid complete with Levi’s, yellow sneakers (aka athletic shoes in today’s lingo), red T-shirt (bird print on front, of course), opposite his Papagena who is Jamie-Rose Guarine, Pamina played by Russian Soprano Ekaterina Siurina.

[Below: Ekaterina Siurina is Pamina; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

Her Mom the Queen of the Night is Audrey Luna for this evening as a very evil, threatening figure indeed, but previously by Erin Morby for the balance of the season, Andrea Silvestrelli (a truly fabulous low-low bass basso reminding me of the late basso Cesare Siepi) as the severe but most lovable Sarastro opposite the Real Bad Guy Monostatos of Timothy Oliver, clad along with his henchmen as East German “Stasi” police.

[Below: Monostatos (Tim Oliver, third from left in dark uniform, and his slaves (from left to right in gray uniforms, Heath Huberg, Brad Benoit, Albert Gleuckert, Thomas Forde, Brent Turner and Samuel Levine, create an unpleasant situation for Papageno (Joshua Hopkins, front left) and Pamina (Ekaterina Siurina, front right); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

The performance took place under the very competent baton of Lawrence Renes returning to Santa Fe after his 2007 debut in the premiere of “Tea, A Mirror of Soul”.  As if he didn’t have enough to do as Albert Herring in that opera, Alek Shrader moonlights as Prince Tamino on the Final Aug 27 Magic Flute. (Charles Castronovo is off to L. A. for rehearsals for the title role in the world premiere of Catan’s “Il Postino”, which opens the Los Angeles Opera’s 2010-2011 season.)

Mother Nature played a most prominent role in tonight’s production (seen Aug 23, 2010) – presenting with an ominously threatening, black sky with raindrops intervening. The back of the stage was open to this sky, and during the thrilling overture, great streaks of lightning spangled the sky as if on cue! Indeed, while the evil Queen of the Night arrives and sings her diatribe, flashes of lightning again obliged, but I suspect the Director of Lighting may want to take credit for these terrific effects!

[Below: Audrey Luna is the Queen of the Night: edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

In this production, the piece opens with the huge snake-like monster with mouth agape and steaming – but Prince Tamino is trapped in that mouth – struggling to get out as the Three Ladies (here brilliantly portrayed by Rachel Willis-Sorensen, Audrey Walstrom, and Renee’ Tatum) come upon this dreadful scene armed with spears with which they do in the serpent, all three dreaming that they would love to have this guy as a hubby! Papageno arrives, meets the Prince, sees the dead serpent, and promptly takes credit for finishing off the monster. To that, one of the three ladies clamp his lying mouth shut with a dog-muzzle which our Papageno uses to great audience acclaim.

An especially enchanting scene is when the flute and Glockenspiel are played, huge animals appear on stage, a gigantic MGM-style lion on the right, monster Tiger on the left, 40′ long Croc, and the Biggest Beaked Bird you’ve ever seen – to the ecstatic enchantment of the house. One other very nice touch – Papageno’s dream wife does show up at long last – clad in exactly the same rig as Papageno, then onstage come their swarms of children.

[Below: Papageno (Joshua Hopkins) and Papagena (Jamie-Rose Guarrine) share their ideas on family planning; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.]

In closing, may I again suggest that this is summer opera at its best in America, in an incomparable setting with spectacular blood-red sunsets, majestic mountains, World Class opera beyond doubt, and a town groaning with fabulous Southwest eats and great shopping. See my “Tom’s Tips to Opera in Santa Fe” on this website. Have fun!

Tom Rubbert

Closing the San Diego Opera’s 2010 season is Verdi’s beloved “La Traviata” written a decade after “Nabucco” when the 40 year old Verdi was at the apotheosis of his youthful powers. The opera debuted March 6,1853 , just six and a half weeks after the premiere of his fabulous “Il Trovatore”, seen in San Diego in 2007. The premieres of these two operatic blockbusters occurred just over a year after his first universally acknowledged masterpiece, “Rigoletto” (performed last season at San Diego Opera).

Many regulars in the San Diego audience commented (as also heard from prior audiences in this production-run) that this may well be the most visually opulent operatic production San Diego has ever seen (with which I agree), the sets and costumes coming from (and owned by) the San Francisco Opera.

John Conklin, the set designer has done some 12 productions seen at San Diego Opera, in addition to all his productions at the Met, Lyric Opera (Chicago), San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe, and English National Opera. With a production like this, he’s more than just welcome in San Diego!

The “Traviata” cast was indeed stellar, starting with its leading lady, Elizabeth Futral, the world-stage American soprano singing Violetta , a role she has performed at the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera (Chicago), Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin.

[Below: Elizabeth Futral as Violetta; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Opposite Futral as Alfredo Germont (the significant other) was Rumanian tenor Marius Brenciu making his house debut. Brenciu has vast European experience including the estimable Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin) and Staatsoper Hamburg, as well as at the Met.

[Below: Alfredo Germont (Marius Bresciu, center) sings of his infatuation with Violetta Valery (Elizabeth Futral, seated foreground); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

His grumpy Dad, Germont Senior, is Cornish baritone Alan Opie, coming with a loaded portfolio of British experience at the renowned English National Opera (ENO), with Captain Balstrode in Britten’s “Peter Grimes”, among many many assignments.

[Below: The elder Germont (Alan Opie) pleads with Violetta (Elizabeth Futral) to break off her relationship with his son; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Your website host William, has called San Diego Opera a “Verdi-friendly” company whose productions one can expect to be respectful of the master. He reviewed the “Nabucco” production and interviewed Raymond Aceto, its Zaccaria, who super-starred in this year’s production as Zaccaria. Aceto stole the show to tumultuous applause! (See Fink, Valayre and Aceto in San Diego Opera’s Exceptional “Nabucco” – February 20, 2010 and Rising Stars: An Interview with Raymond Aceto, Part I.)

But “Nabucco” and Verdi, himself personally, have more in common than might meet the eye: a certain opera soprano by the name of Giuseppina Strepponi starred in the premiere La Scala performance of “Nabucco” in the role of Abigaille.  Shortly thereafter Strepponi became Verdi’s live-in lady-friend and ultimately his wife four years after he wrote “La Traviata!”  (Want to know more? See the excellent/detailed/well-acted DVD set The Life of Verdi profusely photographed with glorious music, filmed on location, shown on Public TV, with Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti et al. originally priced at $149, but recently seen at $32 at Blockbuster).

But there’s more: as you know our website’s name is Opera War Horses, and if ever there was one to fit this bill it’s got to be “La Traviata”, one of the most popular operas ever, presented in every opera house around the world with regularity. In North America it is consistently the most performed Verdi opera. It helps today in a very big way to pay the rent in those opera houses.  (Thank you very much !!)

A Vivacious “Woefully Wayward Woman”

“La Traviata’s” story-line follows the Alexander Dumas novel La Dame aux Camelias (The Lady of the Camellias) closely – and virtually every production has her wearing a camellia in the hair or on the bodice (we show San Diego Opera’s white camellia-inspired ball gown), but traviata means a “Fallen” or “Wayward” or “Misguided” woman – not the very grande dame we’re all used to seeing on stage around the world.

At the time, she was a “kept woman” –  a demi-monde (shady-lady) mistress to some rich bloke. In today’s world, she’s hardly a strumpet. We’re not the least bit shocked by her lifestyle, but at the time 157 years ago, the beau monde bourgeois upper classes featured in “La Traviata” were appalled.

This is so clearly seen in the second scene when Germont, father of her then-boyfriend Alfredo, with whom she was living “in sin” (i.e. without benefit of clergy) in a Paris country house, comes to plead with her to disappear and leave the family’s reputation without her blemish. She tearfully agrees, writing a letter to her erstwhile lover in an act ending in unforgetable emotion-wrenching scenes.

Is It An “Overcast” Evening At San Diego Opera?

The stage director was Andrew Sinclair, who is an Aussie, as is San Diego Opera’s General Manager, Ian Campbell. Sinclair debuted here in 2000 with a smashing Wagner “Lohengrin” (I saw it twice), then Verdi’s “Aida” in 2001, Bizet’s “Pearlfishers” in 2004 and 2008 (which he also did with the San Francisco and New York City Operas). In 2008 he directed the spectacular performances of Donizetti’s “Mary, Queen of Scots (Maria Stuarda)” here in 2008 as well as 2008′s production of Puccini’s “Tosca“, with time off to do Wagner’s “Lohengrin” at Wagner’s own theatre in Bayreuth!!

Supporting the three principals – Futral, Brenciu and Opie – was a deeply cast ensemble.  The Marquis d’Obigny (think the raucous card game and his white gloves-across-the-mug duel-challenge to Alfredo) is long-time San Diego Opera artist Scott Sikon who has done more than 20 roles here, starting in 1991 in Britten’s “Albert Herring”.

[Below: the Elder Germont (Alan Opie, left center foreground) confronts his son, Alfredo (Marius Brenciu, right center foreground on his scandalous behavior towards Violetta; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The medic, Dr Grenvil, is American bass-baritone Kristopher Irmiter, whom we saw last season as Ned Keene in the gut-wrenching San Diego Opera production of Britten’s “Peter Grimes”. Irmiter’s curriculum vitae includes some 90+ roles in 45+ operas – (not a rookie!).

Appearing as Gaston is Taiwanese tenor, Joseph Hu, who debuted here in 1995 in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”, subsequently gracing San Diego Opera’s stage in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and Turandot”, Wagner’s “Flying Dutchman”, Verdi’s “Otello” and “Don Carlo”, Saint-Saens’ “Samson and Delilah”, and Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet”. (Again, hardly a rookie!).

American baritone Nicolai Janitzky was the Baron Douphol. He made his company debut here in Janacek’s “Katya Kabanova”, and then was seen in the marvelous production of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godounov” (which I also saw twice!). A graduate of Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Program, Janitzky sang the title role there in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”, in which I thought he was sensational.

“Traviata” has some fabulous ballet/dance sequences, ably managed by American choreographer Kristina Cobarrubia making her San Diego Opera debut in last year’s wonderful production of Massenet’s “Don Quixote”, having studied the flamenco style at length in Spain and New Mexico.

[Below: the dancers at Flora's party; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

And on the podium, having recovered from an illness that sidelined him the previous Saturday for his anxiously anticipated San Diego Opera debut – is Italian conductor Renato Palumbo, who led his first opera at age 19 as a Wunderkind (and what were you doing at 19) who has conducted everywhere in Italy, when he wasn’t busy in Berlin, Tokyo, Chicago, England, etc.

No, I submit it’s not an overcast evening with a cast like this!  I see stars!!

La Traviata Ends in Sublime Ecstasy

Our ill-fated heroine Violetta shares her final destiny and fate in common with the heroines in two other operas San Diego Opera is presenting this season: She expires at the end in the arms of her lover to exquisitely lush music – as is true of  Mimi in Puccini’s “La Boheme” and Juliet in this year’s Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet”. (See my review of the former at Piotr Beczala, Ellie Dehn, Priti Gandhi Stunning in San Diego “La Boheme” – February 5, 2010 and William’s of the latter at Costello, Perez in Passionately Romantic “Romeo et Juliette” – San Diego Opera, March 13, 2010.)

Thus the season is tied together in so many intricate ways for those of us who love this, the greatest (and most expensive) show on earth – opera!!

[Below: Violetta (Elizabeth Futral) is comforted by Alfredo (Marius Brenciu) as Doctor Grenvil (Kristopher Irmiter), Annina (Rebecca Skaar) and the Elder Germont (Alan Opie) lose hope that she will survive; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Glorious music ends all three pieces – the duet between Alfredo and Violetta at the very end being, to me, one of the most heart-rending lover’s duet in all Italian opera, bringing the curtain down magnificently – to a magnificent San Diego Opera season!

For a review of a previous Elizabeth Futral performance at the San Diego Opera, see: Cura, Futral Shine in New San Diego Opera “Pagliacci” – March 22, 2008.

For recent performance reviews of  ”La Traviata”, see: Dessay’s Scintillating Role Debut as Violetta in Pelly’s Imaginative Santa Fe “Traviata” – July 3, 2009 and,

Runnicles’ Conducting, Netrebko’s Glamorous Violetta Inspire San Francisco Opera “Traviata” – June 28, 2009 and,

A New Verdian Golden Age? – Poplavskaya, Giordano in Elegant Agostinucci “Traviata”: Los Angeles Opera, May 21, 2009.

Prolific American composer, Pulitzer-Prize winning John Adams (born 1947, California-based) certainly seized on the vast gravity of this confrontation in placing it in the Three-Dimensional world of Opera, debuting at Houston Grand Opera in 1987, soon making its way to Los Angeles in 1990 with a Peter Sellars production where I saw it initially, and was entranced. Adams’ “Nixon in China” came in for a spectacular landing in Long Beach.

[Below: the finale to "Nixon in China" at Long Beach Opera; edited image, based on a Keith Ian Pelakoff photograph, courtesy of the Long Beach Opera.]

Long Beach Opera brought back this extraordinary work (March 20 and 28, 2010) to Long Beach’s larger, LA Music Center-size Terrace Theater, conducted by LBO’s Artistic & General Intendant Austrian Andreas Mitisek, stage-directed by Peter Pawlik and choreographed by UK’s Jenny Weston, both coming with substantial portfolios in opera. Of this piece, composer Adams notes, “It is part epic, part satire, part a parody of political posturing, and part serious examination of historical, philosophical and even gender issues.”

Having seen it twice before, it is indeed all of those observations, but much more: Adams takes his famed minimalist genre and makes it sing, dance, soar musically and be enormously entertaining as we watch history unfold – as did those of us fortunate enough to have seen San Francisco’s super-spectacular Phillip Glass’ “Appomattox” (seen Oct 14, 2007) which your website host William and I independently reviewed – we were both literally awe-struck. (see: The Remaking of San Francisco Opera, Part I: Glass’ “Appomattox” – October 14, 2007 and Tom on S. F.’s “Appomattox” – An American “War and Peace”.)

I was ditto when I first saw “Nixon”! Here the pacing of the musical score was fast, very gutsy/dynamic/forceful, lyrical at points, thunderously Wagnerian at others, and supremely entertaining.

Both “Nixon in ChIna” and “Appomattox” are Docu-Operas much in the tradition of super-film-maker Ken Burns presenting his unforgettable documentaries on TV. Indeed, Prokoviev’s sensational opera “War and Peace” seen in San Francisco and Seattle was the definitive Docu-opera of the twentieth century, and to me “Appomattox” was an American “War and Peace”!!

Opera lets music tell another side – indeed another, three- dimensional perspective – to these historic events, adding understanding, depth and emotion which photos or film cannot do, just as the sensational music of Puccini makes his “La Boheme” and “Madame Butterfly” so deliriously sublime which an ordinary movie-theater flick could not do.

Chairman Mao still surveys his vast domain from the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tian-an-men) in Beijing, commanding Tiananmen Square as seen in my photograph looking due north as this Gate gains entrance into the fabled Forbidden City lying on a precise North/South axis.

Many ask what the huge Chinese characters on the walls of this photographed-by-all Gate say; that on the left says Long Live The People’s Republic of China, and the right one says Long Live The Unity of the Peoples of the World.

[Below: the portrait of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square; resized image from a photograph by Tom.]

We also show the Gate from the Square itself, festooned with flowers. In its center is Mao’s colossal tomb. On the West side of the Gate is the Great Hall of the People within which many of the meetings occurred in this epic visit (preceded by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s Secretary of State, setting the stage. We show the Great Hall of the People, seat of the legislative bodies of China. Kissinger is seen repeatedly in Adams’s opera as a very central mover-and-shaker.

[Below: a wider view of Tiananmen Square; resized image of photograph by Tom.]

The elite in the US delegation stayed and dined in the near-by Beijing Hotel  (I’ve been often) which we also show – an elegant, European-style hotel with all the amenities. I have been told by locals that Mao did dance there, but not necessarily when the Nixons visited, but in the opera Mao’s famous “dance” is brilliantly portrayed by Adams in perhaps the most famous music in the opera.

[Below: the Beijing Hotel; resized image from a photograph by Tom.]

Of interest – and meaningful in the opera – is that when Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China (China has risen again) from the balcony of Tiananmen on October 1, 1949, he was following the centuries when the Emperors of China issued great proclamations from this very spot!

While in Beijing the Nixons toured (their first request) the Forbidden City (see my review of Puccini’s “Turandot”: Superlative: 1998 Gold Medal “Turandot” in Beijing’s Forbidden City), the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, etc and attended many grande banquets – at one we show him examining the next dish with less-than-enthusiam – maybe Peking Toad? These banquets are superbly shown in the Long Beach Opera production.

[Below, in a historical photograph, Premier Chou En Lai assists President Nixon with his dinner; edited image, based on a photograph, with the courtesy and permission of the Nixon Presidential Library.]

Setting the Stage for this Super-Summit and the Opera Documenting it

Mao’s China assisted North Korea during the Korean War starting in June 1950 – the US fought to a bloody stalemate, with 54,000 dead US soldiers, Ike Eisenhower signing an armistace July 27,1953. Soviet Russia had been substantially supporting Mao’s China until 1960 when that aid ceased dramatically, and Russia emerged into a nuclear Super Power becoming highly suspicious of China under Mao, as Japan immensely prospered under the US nuclear shield, becoming the economic Super Power of Asia.

France’s long involvement in Vietnam drew to a fatal close and the US became heavily involved by 1963 as Mao’s China greatly assisted North Vietnam ultimately bringing about America’s total defeat with the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 (58,000 dead US soldiers) with Mao’s death following in September 1976, but this war was furiously raging when Nixon visited.

All of these seething, ongoing events set the stage for Nixon making the decision to attempt a reconcilliation, going to China in February 1972 – Nixon arriving in Air Force One - “Spirit of ’76″ on the tarmac in Beijing – and rolling forward on stage in Long Beach to tumultuous applause – most dramatically portrayed as Adams’ “Nixon in China” opens with China’s Prime Minister Zhou Enlai (aka Chou en Lai) greeting Richard and Patricia Nixon.

[Below: in a historical photograph, Premier Chou Enlai greets President and Mrs Nixon; based on a photograph used with the courtesy and permission of the Nixon Presidential Library.]

Patricia Nixon figures in Adams’ opera significantly as does the wife of Mao Zedong, Jiang Qing (pronounced Jee-yong Ching) who headed the infamous Gang of Four after Mao’s death – in fact one of the most memorable pieces in Adams’ opera is I am the wife of Mao Zedong!

In 1966 Mao Zedong launched the ill-fated, horrific Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution sending frenzied armies of Red Guards frantically waving their little Red Books (filled with Mao’s quotations – now a popular tourist item) as they spread destruction throughout China, but starting to wind down as Nixon arrived. Meanwhile China became a member of the UN in 1971 as the US was rapidly building its Mutually Assured Destruction military stance. So here we have these two enormously major players on World Center Stage facing each other to maneuver the Knights, Rooks, Bishops, Kings - and pawns too – in a World-Scale, immense chess game, very much visualized by Adams.

Casting of These Roles

Having created the role of Mao Zedong in its original production, John Duykers reprises this dynamic role in Long Beach having performed operas with San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Chicago’s Lyric, Covent Garden-London, LA Opera, et al and is on the award-winning DVD of “Nixon in China” featured on Public Television’s ”Great Performances” which is available as are CDs – see below.

Opposite him as Richard M Nixon is Michael Chioldi who debuted at the Met with the late, great Luciano Pavarotti, having appeared also in San Francisco Opera, Houston, Chicago, Santa Fe, LA, and the Washington National Opera. His presentation in Long Beach of Nixon was riveting, with multiple showings of Nixon’s famed “V for Victory” gestures with arms aloft.

[Below: President Nixon (Michael Chioldi), arms outstreched, flashes the victory sign, as Chairman Mao (John Duykers) rests in his chair and Zhao Enlai (Roberto Gomez) looks on; edited image, based on a Keith Ian Pelakoff photograph, courtesy of the Long Beach Opera.]

Nixon’s wife Patricia Nixon is sung by Suzan Hanson having sung at LBO before as well as having done this very role at Italy’s famed Arena di Verona. She was dressed in red with her little handbag – and shown to have a drinking problem, giving a stunning performance armed with toothy smiles, grabbing laughter again and again.

The Wife of Mao Zedong (Jiang Qing) is sung by Ani Maldjian who has performed at LBO before in their adorable production of Janacek’s “Cunning Little Vixen” and Diary of Anne Frank, coming with training at San Francisco and Seattle operas, among others!  She portrayed this role menacingly, ultimately brandishing an AK-47 at everyone, including Nixon.

[Below: Jiang Qing (Ani Maldjian) greets President Nixon (Michael Chioldi) holding her AK-47; edited image, based on a Keith Ian Pelakoff photograph, courtesy of the Long Beach Opera.]

Premier Zhou Enlai is wonderfully performed by Roberto Perlas Gomez who returns to LBO having sung in LBO’s terrific re-discovered (lost for 269 years!) Vivaldi opera Motezuma (which I reviewed last year), having done Zhou Enlai at the Arena di Verona, whose fat portfolio includes performances at San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, LA Opera, Michigan Opera et al. He ends the three-hour long opera with very lyrical, soft, lushly romantic music having the last say, “How much of what we did was good?”

Henry Kissinger is performed by Kyle Albertson whose operatic credentials are vast with such delicious roles as Escamillo in Bizet’s “Carmen”, Monterone inVerdi’s “Rigoletto”, Leporello in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”, Dr Miracle in Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” and Dr Bartolo in Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”. (How much fun can you have on stage??).

Three singers appear as Mao’s secretaries filling out the cast, clad in red and wearing white lampshade hats (literally!!), as gigantic sedan chairs are driven about the stage in which Mao, Enlai, Nixon and Kissinger repose during very sharp exchanges between Mao and Nixon – extremely effective theater at its best -recalling that famous picture of Nixon and Mao sitting in such enormous over-stuffed chairs as they met.

But Mr Albertson figures prominently in the Opera within the Opera in Act II of Adams’ “Nixon in China” ( “The Red Detachment of Women”) when Kissinger is portrayed as an evil, lecherous Bad Guy in this stage production within a stage production – the Nixon’s looking on in dismay – as wildly acrobatic dancers leap across the stage with furious dynamism often associated with the Chinese theatrical stage. Jiang Qing seizes a copy of Mao’s famed “Little Red Book” from the sky, and suddenly all of the People’s Liberation Army troops on stage have their own copy to wave!! This Act was dazzling, again to say the least.

We show the Nixons bidding farewell on Tiananmen Square (by permission, Nixon Library, which is in nearby Yorba Linda and very much worth a visit –  www.nixonlibrary.gov ).

[Below: a historic photograph of Patricia and Richard Nixon, waving goodbye to the People's Republic of China; resized image of a photograph, with the courtesy and permission of the Nixon Presidential Library.]

An excellent new CD recording of “Nixon in China” just came out by Opera Colorado: Naxos CD # 8.669022-24 (3 discs); another recording was made in 1987 by the Orchestra of St Luke’s, but the new one is much better. A different production was just presented 14 March 2010 in Vancouver, BC to coincide with their Winter Olympic Games as part of their Cultural Olympics directed by the late Opera Pacific’s former GM John DeMain, and the Met in New York will present it next season conducted by the composer in an updated Peter Sellars production which I certainly intend to see. They said it will be at their world-wide film-theaters.

Historic Retrospectives – and Ironies Abound!

Long Beach Opera is hardly a newcomer to opera in Southern California having been here 31 years –longer than Los Angeles Opera, but pursuing their own unique agenda of operatic material as this season ably demonstrates: LBO just did Kurka’s “The Good Soldier Schweik”, and is literally taking the plunge in doing modern American composer Ricky Ian Gordon’s “Orpheus and Euridice” poolside, coming up June 11, 12 and 13 which should make quite a splash. . . !  You sit by the pool – instead of in an Opera House, just as LBO has done opera in the bowels of a great ship (the Queen Mary)!

LBO has a rich legacy of presenting not-often-seen operas, like “Strauss Meets Frankenstein” (2008), Leos Janacek’s mysterious “From the House of the Dead” (1997), Henry Purcell’s “The Indian American Queen: (1998), Moliere’s play “The Imaginary Invalid” (1999), Victor Ullmann’s “The Emperor of Atlantis” (2009) in addition to those noted above in the cast listing. Great opera stars have graced LBO’s stage over the years like Jerome Hines, James Morris, Jerry Hadley and Ruth Ann Swenson!

LBO’s production features 12 dancers from the Long Beach Ballet, 40 choir singers, 4 saxophones, and two side-by-side concert grand pianos in the 50+ piece orchestra all brilliantly conducted by LBO’s Boss Andreas Mitisek at whose left elbow I sat!  With this production of “Nixon in China”, we can look back to that mega-event 38 years ago and appreciate what has happened in the interim.

Today you can buy a Coca Cola on Tiananmen Square, grab a McDonald’s burger across the street from the Beijing Hotel all within site of Mao’s tomb. And just a few miles from Nixon’s birthplace-burial site and Presidential Library (where the real Nixon in China is prominantly featured) has arisen a vast Chinese Temple complex which we picture – compare these buildings to that we picture above of Tiananmen Gate – where Mao proclaimed the PRC - a smaller but very different world today!!

[Below: the Chinese temple in Hacienda Heights, a few miles from Yorba Linda, California, Nixon's boyhood home and the location of the Nixon Presidential Library; resized image, based on a photograph by Tom.]

This smashing production of “Nixon in China” not-to be-missed, and next presented on March 28, 2010. (Telephone 562 432-5934,  www.LongBeachOpera.org.)

Tom

[Below: A Paris Christmas eve; the second act sets for "La Boheme", edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

San Diego Opera opened its 2010 International Season with this sublime masterpiece – but the 2010 Season itself is a masterpiece of opera selections featuring Verdi’s majestic, epochal “Nabucco”, the lushly passionate love-in of Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet”, and ending with Verdi’s sensational “La Traviata”.

Tying together this Season (dubbed The Season of Desire), the heroines in three of these operas share their destiny in common. In each, the heroine expires at the end in dramatically overwhelming dramatic pathos in the arms of her lover. This Season ends with “La Traviata” as our heroine collapses after singing with her lover in perhaps the most riveting final duet in all Italian opera as the curtain falls on this wondrous opera – and the 2010 San Diego Season. Lots to look forward to indeed – particularly in a season short one opera due to the tough economy out there in the Real World – but not short on quality!

Thirty-five years ago the San Diego Opera launched itself as an opera company with “La Boheme”, repeating it in 1968, then in 1975 bringing this glorious crowd-pleaser back every five years since then. Many luminaries in the opera world have graced San Diego Opera’s stage in these productions – certainly in 1980 with the late, great Luciano Pavarotti as Rodolfo (a performance I saw!).

[Below: the Bohemian's garrett, seen in Act I and IV of the San Diego Opera John Conklin production of "La Boheme"; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The wonderful scene/sets/ambience/atmosphere of this production is the work of San Diego Opera veteran (with some 12 productions since 1980) John Conklin. He is no newcomer in designing stage smash-hits not just here but in San Francisco, Santa Fe, the Met, Washington National Opera, English National Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, et al, etc. This is a very traditional, very comfortable overview of this cherished-by-all piece.

[Below: the Bohemians in conversation, with Schaunard (Malcolm MacKenzie) standing and, seated from left, Rodolfo (Piotr Beczala), Marcello (Jeff Matsey) and Colline (Alfred Walker), edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Without any doubt, Polish tenor Piotr Beczala was the MVP in this brilliant, sparkling production as Rodolfo - not acting the role, but living it – creamy, silken smooth, utterly effortless, tear-jerking singing sending chills up my spine and the audience to their feet at final curtain call. All of us who have grown up in the joy of the greatest (and expensive) show on Earth – opera – were very much aware of seeing a rising super-star!!

Living (again not playing) the all-important role of Mimi was Ellie Dehn – like Beczala making her house debut here – who arrives on the scene as Act 1 reaches its climax knocking at the door, losing her key. Dehn came off as one of the most demure, feminine, shy, arresting Mimis that I’ve seen (not telling the world how great she is) presenting rich, resonant, soaring notes very much up to the splendor of Piotr Beczala.

Ellie Dehn replaced the orginally scheduled Anja Harteros, came with experience as Musetta at the Met and Freia in the Los Angeles Opera production of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold”, and will be the Countess in the forthcoming San Francisco Opera production of Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro”.

[Below: Rodolfo (Piotr Beczala) warms the hands of Mimi (Ellie Dehn); edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Most particularly lush, colorful and terrific was the Act II Cafe’ Momus scene for sheer operatic joy. The Act opened with the stage crammed – jugglers, musicians, kids, cops, all the town out in Paris on Christmas Eve with huge, spectacular posters of the fabled Moulin Rouge show-posters by French artist extraordinaire Toulouse Lautrec forming the background (San Diego Museum of Art features a giant retrospective of his work later this year).

The Musetta - fabulously presented by Priti Gandhi who lives part-time next door in Del Mar – stole this act. Dressed in a stunning, bright-yellow show-stopper gitup, she dominated the act all the way to the end when the French tricolor is marched out to the cheering mob scene when it ends with Musetta’s portly, antique, top-hat sporting sugar-daddy, Alcindoro (Scott Sikon), being stuck with the bill for the bohemian frolic to the roaring delight of the audience. Bluntly,  I know of no Act in all Italian opera more festively joyous than this!!

[Below: Musetta (Priti Gandhi) is carried on the shoulders of  Colline (Alfred Walker, left) and Schaunard (Malcolm MacKenzie) as Marcello (Jeff Mattsey) follows; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The evening’s Marcello was Jeff Mattsey, whose San Diego Opera debut had been in 1995 in the other Bohemian baritone role of Schaunard. Filling out this cast in the delicious, fun roles, are Matthew MacKenzie (Zurga in San Diego Opera’s 2008 production of Bizet’s “Pearl Fishers” and Sharpless in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” in 2009, both performances reviewed on this website) as Schaunard, and  Alfred Walker as Colline. Walker debuted here in 2006 in the marvellous production of Handel’s “Julius Caesar” (I go for Baroque .   .   . ), who was Porgy in L. A. ‘s wonderful production of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”.

Our Musetta, Priti Gandhi, has appeared here in Mozart’s “Magic Flute”, Verdi’s “Otello” and “Aida”, and most recently, in last season’s gritty (and fabulous) showing of Britten’s “Peter Grimes”. She was also seen recently in the Los Angeles Opera production of Weill’s “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” (now available on a terrific L. A. Opera DVD).

Besides singing the role of Alcindoro in Act II, Scott Sikon earlier played the soon-to-be-drunk landlord Benoit. Sikon debuted here in Britten’s “Albert Herring” in 1991, having graced San Diego Opera’s stage in 20+ roles, as well as the stages at Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, et al.

[Below: Alcindoro (Scott Sikon, left) is annoyed that his mistress, Musetta (Priti Gandhi) is carrying on a raucous conversation with her former lover Marcello (Jeff Mattsey) at the next table; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

E. Loren Meeker made her San Diego Opera stage director debut. But she is hardly a rookie here, having been Assistant Director at San Diego Opera between 2005 and 2007, and  with similar staffing assignments at Chicago Lyric Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

Presiding over the orchestra with distinction was Conductor Karen Keltner, whose spirited performance  won tumultuous applause at opera’s end.

We’ve all seen many reviews of “La Boheme”, but one of the most famous – and my favorite – is that by Puccini’s long-time publisher G Ricordi – collaborator, critic, helper, etc who worked with Puccini in the three years of “La Boheme’s” gestation as well as Puccini’s prior operas, writing, “Dear Puccini, if this time you have not succeeded in hitting the nail squarely on the head, I will change my profession and sell salami.”  No, he  didn’t change professions .   .     .  !!

[Below: the lovers Mimi (Ellie Dehn) and Rodolfo (Piotr Beczala), reconciled at the end of Act III, leave together; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

This Trio – Beczala, Dehn and Gandhi – were nothing short of fabulous. What a Season starter!!

Just a final factoid of interest to California opera-lovers:La Boheme’s first American debut (April 1897) was in (envelope please .  .   . ) - Los Angeles! I confirmed this with Puccini’s granddaughter in Santa Barbara last year at a Santa Barbara Opera gala in her honor!! (See: Puccini’s 150th Birthday Party Takes Place as Santa Barbara Firestorm Rages – November 15, 2008.)

For William’s reviews of Piotr Beczala’s Tamino and Rodolfo at San Francisco Opera, see: The Magic Scarfe: “Zauberfloete” in San Francisco – October 13, 2007 and The Luisotti “Boheme” in San Francisco – November 22, 2008.

[Below: Anthony Dean Griffey as Peter Grimes; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of  the San Diego Opera.]

He was accompanied by a stellar cast well suited for this very emotionally moving work – which I believe is without any doubt Britain’s greatest opera. But Mr Griffey had just done “Peter Grimes” at the Met in 2008 which many of us (including me) saw in the Met theaters “near us” in their grossly minimalist production (like their mounting of Richard Jones’ production of Humperdinck’s “Hansel und Gretel”), in which he also garnered thunderous applause.

San Diego Opera’s stage production was, most happily, the total opposite of minimalist. Some of us feel this piece requires every nuance of visual inspiration provided by the salt-air sea, foghorns, the “Boar” pub, the ambience of the waterfront .  .   .   .

The sets were those of the late Carl Toms, and were created (and funded by Iowa’s Gramma Fisher Foundation) for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the San Francisco Opera in 1973. The costumes were from the Met, with all these elements working very well together for a salt-air, moody, theatrical presentation.  

[Below: part of Carl Toms' sets for Peter Grimes; above Auntie (Judith Christin) and the Apothecary (Kristopher Irmiter) share thoughts about Grimes (Anthony Dean Griffey, below); edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.] 

The opera is dominated by the chorus’ many striking numbers, like the chanting of Grimes is at his exercise when the villagers hear Grimes is making his new boy-apprentice work on a Sunday!

The remarkable cast included frequent San Diego Opera guest artists. Well known American bass-baritone John Del Carlo appeared in the nifty role of Swallow, a lawyer is who the local village-mayor and coroner.

[Below: John del Carlo as Swallow; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

              

[Below: Bob Boles (Greg Fedderly) addresses the townspeople; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

  

                      

Britten (born 1913) wrote this piece during WWII which premiered at Sadler’s Wells’ postwar re-opening in London in 1945 a month after the end of World War II, set on the east coast of England at Aldeburgh where the writer of the original story (much changed by Britten) lived and where Britten took up residence after the premier. This was one of England’s greatest poets, George Crabbe, whose grande poem The Borough, Britten used for Peter Grimes. Britten was greatly influenced in his musical composition by fellow English composer Frank Bridge, a debt he readily conceded. (As a bit of local lore, Britten lived in the San Diego County community of Escondido before “Peter Grimes” premiered. In fact, he acquired the George Crabbe story from a used book store – in Los Angeles! You never know who you might run into in these dusty shoppes!).  

 

 Dory Fishing in Southern California: Grimes as “Verismo”

A personal note: Your reviewer lives by the sea and has for decades. My bed is but 25 feet from a tidal salt water bay. The ever present sound of the sea, the storms, the fog, the wind, and the foghorns – so skillfully presented by Britten in “Peter Grimes” –  are in my soul.

But to the point: a dory fleet has been located in Newport, California since 1891. Like in Britten’s home by the sea in Aldeburgh, England, fishing boats put to sea, often with an apprentice, hoping to return with a fine catch. But there are times when some do not return.

[Below: the Orange County dory fishing fleet's headquarters in Newport Beach; photograph by Tom.]

Every time I pass this scene, all I hear is Britten’s music and the chorus shouting “Peter Grimes, Peter Grimes”.

[Below: A dory fishing boat with "apprentices" at Newport, California; photograph by Tom.]