The “standard repertory” of opera is dominated by works created by citizens of four European countries - Italy, Germany, Austria and France. Many of the singers, conductors, set designers and stage directors associated with opera production are themselves from those four countries, although if you look at the world supply of operatic performers, there would certainly be a far greater percentage of artists from outside those four nations today than would have been the case, say, three quarters of a century ago.
As we are beginning to understand again during our current world economic crisis, the performing arts prosper during “business as usual” times and tend to wilt during extremely troubled times.
World War II proved an especially problematic time for opera performance, because for most of the War the leadership of each of the four countries enumerated in the first paragraph were the formal enemies of the coalition of forces that proved victorious, and it was these four countries on whose land much of the European part of the war took place. The operatic infrastructure, with some exceptions, tended to be centralized at opera houses in big cities, many of which suffered great wartime damage.
It was well into the postwar period before all of the major opera companies in the four countries had resumed functioning. Artists of great talent interested in performing in, conducting or producing operas, had limited options, but among those options were the intact companies of the United States, especially the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and the San Francisco Opera.
In the 1950s, the Met was directed by a British citizen, Sir Rudolph Bing. The San Francisco Opera was directed in the early years by an Italian born conductor Gaetano Merola, followed by another conductor and Austrian refugee, Kurt Herbert Adler. Each of these three transplanted Europeans had to wrestle in the postwar years with issues of which artists who had spent their war years in one of the four countries might have crossed this or that line in support of their nation’s war policies.
In this observation of an important anniversary in Jean-Pierre’s career, the focus is not on Ponnelle’s wartime experiences - he was eight when the Vichy government took control of France and 13 when the war ended - but that the assignment that Adler gave him was to design the sets for a double bill of Carl Orff’s works - “Carmina Burana” and “Die Kluge”.
Tony Palmer’s current film “O Fortuna”, which delves into Orff’s relationship with the Nazi regime, revives the controversy over information that was known or suspected about Orff in the late 1940s.
Many of Adler’s choices in the 1950s seem to be aimed at reconciliation with artists from the nations on the “other side”.
Thirteen years after Hitler’s death, Adler, who obviously accepted Orff’s expressions of deep regret about his activities during the Nazi period, mounted the double bill (with Leontyne Price in the title role of “Die Kluge”). Palmer’s film surely heightens Adler’s obviously political 1958 repertory choice, inviting some of us to consider the intended significance of a long-forgotten act.
[Below: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, backstage at San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House; edited image, based on a Ron Scherl photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]
This website has already discussed the extraordinary network of European conductors and other artists who seemed to act as talent scouts for Adler to bring promising artists to the attention of the San Francisco audiences, and then the world. (See S. F. Opera “Bel Canto” in the Adler Years Part I (1954-1957))
Even so, it was an extraordinary act for San Francisco Opera, whose warehouses were full of production sets dating back to the 1920s, and who had up until then made relatively few investments in new productions, to commission a French youth in his mid-20s to design the sets for two productions. (Ponnelle’s work was so well-received that he was invited back for a second Adler project, designing the sets for the American premiere of Richard Strauss’ “Die Frau ohne Schatten” in 1959.)
[Below: a medieval celebration, under the signs of the Zodiac; one of Ponnelle's sets for "Carmina Burana"; edited image of a photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]
San Francisco became a crucible for Ponnelle’s growing talents. But after the Orff double bill and the “Frau” sets, Ponnelle’s early legacy was represented in San Francisco only by revivals of “Carmina” and “Frau” in the 1960s, until the 37 year old Ponnelle returned in 1969 in his re-invented persona as production designer and stage director.
In this essay, we will not attempt to divine the significance of Ponnelle’s great productions, nor to try to define his role in 20th century opera history. This is only the first in a series of pieces about Ponnelle, that will appear occasionally, and it is presented as a commemoration of his role, 50 years ago, in bringing the music of Orff in a theatrical setting to San Francisco audiences.
[Below: Jean Pierre Ponnelle and Kurt Herbert Adler at the front of the San Francisco Opera orchestra section, examine a set on stage; edited image, based on a Robert Messick photograph, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.]
As we prepare this series on Ponnelle, we invite colleagues who worked with him in any capacity, or who have studied, or enjoyed his works, to contact us at operawarhorses@yahoo.com to participate with us in this celebration of his work and legacy.
Cordially, William
In June 2008 Clifford (Kip) Cranna, Ph.D., San Francisco Opera’s Director of Music Administration, became the 35th person to be awarded the San Francisco Opera Medal, an honor created 38 years ago. It was the first medal to be awarded since 2005, and thus the first of General Director David Gockley’s tenure. (A few days later soprano Ruth Ann Swenson was similarly honored.)
[Below: Dr Clifford (Kip) Cranna, Director of Music Administration, San Francisco Opera; edited image, based on photograph from San Francisco Opera.]
Cranna is well known to San Francisco Opera audiences as one of most informative (and obviously erudite) of the persons who give pre-opera lectures. Only a few of those audiences are aware that he has been involved in the administration of the San Francisco Opera since 1979, and therefore has served under every one of San Francisco Opera’s general directors except the opera’s founder, Gaetano Merola.
This series of interviews has sought to interview people who are engaged at different levels of opera production. With my particular interest in the history of the San Francisco Opera, it was a special pleasure to have the opportunity to talk with someone who had worked closely with five San Francisco Opera directors.
I arranged to interview Kip in his fourth floor office above the San Francisco Opera stage after the first of two family matinee performances of Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love”. Before the interview began, he was engaged in a post-performance critique of the English supertitles shown above the stage proscenium.
(Although the performance was in English, it is the custom in San Francisco to have English supertitles for every performance, regardless of the language being sung. Some of the English words sung in the family matinee “Elixir” were revisions of the translation from the Italian in the edition being used. However, there had been obvious discrepancies during the performance between the supertitles being shown and the words being sung. Cranna, showing grace and obvious disappointment, established that the person who had entered changes in the supertitle computer program to conform to the newly translated passages forgot to save the changes electronically.)
Wm: Congratulations on your receiving the San Francisco Opera Medal last June, and also for your recent appointment as “Director of Music Administration”.
How did you come to be interested in opera?
KC: Well, pretty much like other people, I was introduced to opera through operatic performances. I happened to be in junior high school in Devils Lake, North Dakota, where I had been influenced by the kind of music teacher that was exemplified in the film “Mr Holland’s Opus”. I was encouraged by my own “Mr Holland” to take part in choral music. Then I came to know opera through a traveling troupe’s presentation at our high school’s of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”.
I attended college at the University of North Dakota, where I became interested in Renaissance and Baroque era music. There I had mute parts in Wolf-Ferrari’s opera “The Secret of Suzanne” and Menotti’s “The Medium”. I had a particular interest in the Spanish Renaissance, and an adequate fluency in Spanish.
But after college I became an officer in the United States Navy, serving off the coast of Vietnam in 1970. When I had a chance to transfer to another duty station, I requested London, England, but got an assignment to Naples, Italy. American servicemen in Naples lived “on the local economy”, rather than a military base, so I became immersed in the Italian countryside.
After military service, I entered Stanford University, with the idea of pursuing my interest in the Spanish Renaissance. However, this was 1972 and Spain was governed by Generalissimo Franco, who had no interest in non-Spaniards doing historical research in his country. You could not get access to the libraries you needed.
At Stanford I had a professor who specialized in Bolognese composers, who re-directed my interests to the Italian Renaissance. Italy had no problems at all with Americans or other non-Italians doing research there. I met Bruce Lamott, another early Renaissance scholar, and we became partners. By now, it was the late 1970s, the United States economy was weak, and there were no jobs. Bruce got temporary work at the University of California Davis and I looked for jobs in music-related fields.
Prior to that, to make ends meet, Bruce and I worked at Sequoia Hospital’s Emergency Room, handling the waiting room clipboards used to manage and triage patients. In time, I worked in Sequoia Hospital’s business office, and continued working on my Ph.D. at Stanford.
We had been teaching assistants at Stanford for its famous conductor and professor, Sandor Salgo, who was teaching a course on Beethoven, for which 350 students had enrolled. Salgo brought Bruce to Carmel to be the Carmel Bach Festival’s harpsichordist. Bruce also accompanied recitals by James H. Schwabacher, Jr. It was Schwabacher, who had such an important relationship with the San Francisco Opera, that mentioned to me that a person at San Francisco Opera was looking for an assistant.
I was hired to handle a number of administrative details. I had responsibility for the arrangements of the San Francisco Opera’s winter 1979-80 tour of the Philippines. Other duties included contracting for facilities, and taking notes in the bargaining sessions with the Opera’s labor organizations.
At the Opera, I was shifted to the musical administration side. Across the hall from my office was Terrence McEwen, who, having been designated as the successor to the then General Director Kurt Herbert Adler, was serving a year and a half apprenticeship. McEwen told me he wanted me to become his Musical Administrator. When I assumed the job in the early 1980s I was involved with the “nuts and bolts” of operatic planning.
Wm: You had responsibility for the telecasts of 1979 through 1981.
KC: Handling administrative details for the telecasts was a very big part of my job, beginning with the 1979 telecast of Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda” with Renata Scotto and Luciano Pavarotti.
Wm: The 1980 telecast of Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila” with Placido Domingo and Shirley Verrett was telecast on the Public Broadcasting System and has been released on DVD. The 1981 telecast of “Aida” with Margaret Price and Pavarotti was shown in Europe, but not PBS, but is also available on DVD. Why hasn’t the 1979 “Gioconda”, which was shown on PBS and won many Emmys, ever been released?
KC: My belief is that the first telecast became ensnared in a dispute over who has the rights to what.
Wm: Perhaps this website can try to figure out with the lead PBS station as to what the issues are that are preventing its release.
KC: Other archival recordings where rights issues come into play are the San Francisco Opera broadcasts of 1970 through 1982. The broadcast masters are on the monstrous old tapes. For the opera company to digitize them, so as to preserve them until such time as they can be released, is a very expensive process.
Wm: No one has your vantage point in working with the last five San Francisco Opera directors. How would you characterize them? If you prefer, you can limit your remarks to those that have passed on.
KC: I’ll tackle all five. First, Kurt Herbert Adler: It is my belief that Adler’s greatest gift was being lucky. He was a tyrant that took incredible chances, most of which paid off. He had the ability to convince people to do things that they normally would not have done. Much of what he strived for, over time, the company achieved, and, by those efforts, he made the San Francisco Opera great.
Terry McEwen was lots of fun, very friendly, a larger than life raconteur who loved wonderful singing. His great achievements in San Francisco were the new production of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Niebelungen” and the development of the San Francisco Opera Center for young singers.
Lofti Mansouri was the right guy to run the company during the 1990s. He was a close friend, and Bruce and I still go to his house for dinner on occasion. Mansouri, like our current General Director David Gockley, believed that opera was for everyone, and, of course, is known for promoting “supertitles” which he pioneered while running the Canadian Opera in Toronto. (They were established at San Francisco in McEwen’s administration).
One of Lofti’s greatest achievements was the brilliant way he managed the 18-month “out-of-house” period in 1996-97 while the Opera House was closed for renovation.
Pamela Rosenberg had such wide-ranging interests that she seemed interested in all things, especially new music and innovative productions. She had been married to an avant-garde composer and made the San Francisco Opera premiere of Messiaen’s “Saint Francoise” the hallmark of her years here. But she faced many challenges, of course including a severe budget deficit, and could not make the things happen that she wished to see.
David Gockley, I have already compared to Lofti Mansouri in his determination to find new audiences for opera, and he is like McEwen in his enthusiasm for great singing, and the excitement of having the leading stars of opera performing in San Francisco. Gockley has a strong belief in technology. He is also thoroughly committed to new works, as evidenced by Glass’ “Appomattox” in 2007, Wallace’s “Bonesetter’s Daughter” in 2008 and the upcoming commission of Heggie’s “Moby Dick” in coordination with the Dallas and San Diego Operas.
Wm: What are your favorite operas?
KC: Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” is my favorite and all of Mozart’s four main operas (including “Cosi Fan Tutte”, “Don Giovanni” and “Die Zauberfloete”) would be in the top ten. My other favorites would include Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale”, Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”, Stravinsky’s “Rake’s Progress”, Britten’s “Billy Budd”, Puccini’s “La Boheme” and Rossini’s “Cenerentola”. In addition to these, I love the baroque operas.
Wm: This website in late December will be observing the 50th anniversary of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s American operatic debut, in his capacity as set designer for a San Francisco Opera double bill of Carl Orff’s works. By the time you joined San Francisco Opera, Ponnelle had become both the production designer and stage director of the operas on which he worked. What was it like working with him?
KC: Jean-Pierre was an incredible genius, whose operatic productions would often show deep insight into those works. However, he could be a real tyrant, very demanding and difficult to work with. But that said, he produced fabulous shows. The 1981 production of Bizet’s “Carmen” in the original Ponnelle sets (rather than the what we refer to as the mini-Ponnelle sets from Zurich that we now use) and the 1985 production of Verdi’s “Falstaff” (which San Francisco Opera still possesses) were fabulous shows.
Wm: A major part of your job is working with the conductors.
KC: Yes, I do get involved in details - such as whether a second harp really is justified. But the work with the conductors is extraordinarily satisfying. Donald Runnicles is an extraordinary talent. Edo de Waart was the original conductor for the Lehnhoff production of Wagner’s “Ring” and did a great job. I thoroughly enjoyed the relationship with Sir Charles Mackerras, who had been our Principal Guest Conductor and later Principal Guest Conductor Emeritus. He was versatile, but very demanding.
I remember with fondness John Pritchard, although we were not aware at the time that he was dying of lung cancer, and was no longer the vigorous conductor who could match his reputation. Nicola Luisotti, who will be the new principal conductor, is very popular with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, as was Nello Santi and Maurizio Arena.
However, not every conductor left me with a pleasant memory. Christoph von Dohnanyi was very difficult; he terrorized me.
Wm: With which artists of the past did you especially enjoy working?
KC: There are some obvious favorites. Marilyn Horne was wonderful. Luciano Pavarotti was unmatched - he was a great performer, about whom you never worried. Frederica von Stade - “Flicka” - is still performing, but since she has announced she will be retiring, I will put her on this list of my favorites from the past. Paolo Montarsolo and Alfredo Kraus belong there also. Among current performers, I would list Ruth Ann Swenson.
Wm: One of this website’s themes is that the best singers of the current day are as good as the best singers of the previous generations.
KC: I absolutely agree, and, in fact, have made speeches that have demonstrated that every generation has critics that deplore the current state of singing, when compared to the group of singers that were performing in the generation before them.
Wm: May I congratulate you on the family matinee of Donizetti’s “Elixir of Love”? This was the first I had ever attended.
KC: I do think the performances in English are accomplishing something. Pamela Rosenberg developed a one hour performance of Mozart’s “Magic Flute” designed for toddlers. This year we have arranged for hundreds of children to attend the rehearsals of Puccini’s “La Boheme”.
It is a David Gockley innovation to shift the focus of the family matinees from the children to the parents. For large numbers of the parents in this audience, their only previous knowledge about opera had been of the stereotypes about it. Being able to experience an interesting and absorbing performance with their children will change a lot of minds about opera.
Wm: What do you see as the future of opera performance?
KC: I am an optimist in the short term, and a pessimist in the long term. I do not believe it will survive - at least in the form we are used to it - because of the marginalization of classical music in our society. What is missing is the degree of media enthusiasm for the great singers of our present day that one saw for Maria Callas, or Beverly Sills, or THE THREE TENORS. Will the next generation care about great opera singers at all?
I do not think that our present economic formula for producing opera, with its strong reliance on the nonprofit sector, will survive past 2050, unless we find a way to change our system. Right now, there are only a handful of individuals that provide the contributions that keep the opera companies going. Even when the present economic turmoil abates, the large range of choices for an individual’s personal giving will remain a problem for opera. Those rich enough to fund the arts, may wish instead to contribute to causes that promote social justice, medical research, or the environment.
The high ticket prices that opera companies must charge for live performances are a great concern. It could very well be that cinemacasts may eventually replace live opera performance.
Wm: Kip, thank you for your time.
KC: It was a pleasure.
For months Opera Santa Barbara arranged a wonderful celebration of the 150th Birthday of the great Italian composer Giacomo Puccini in their gilded, opulent new operatic venue - The Granada Theatre. The celebration was to take place with superb wining, dining and Puccini’s great music, plus a very, very special guest - the composer’s granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini.
As all of us opera lovers know, Puccini, born in Lucca, Italy in December, 1858, gave the world many of its most popular and cherished operas, including Madama Butterfly, La Boheme, Turandot, Tosca, The Girl of the Golden West, and Manon Lescaut.
[Below: an invitation to the Opera Santa Barbara's fundraiser for The Granada Theater.]
(Signora Puccini, in addition to being a blood descendent of the composer, is a celebrity in her own right, having engaged in a multi-million battle with the Puccini Foundation over the Maestro’s legacy. The Italian courts have found in her favor, and she now oversees a foundation that administers three of Giacomo’s historic villas.)
[Below: Simonetta Puccini is escorted by Opera Santa Barbara General Director Steven Sharpe.]
The evening was magnificent with wining and dining in the tradition of Italy’s lovely Lucca, Puccini’s hometown province. Chef Aurelio Barattini of Lucca’s 14th century institution, the L’Antica Locanda di Sesto restaurant, was flown in to supervise the meal catered by Santa Barbara’s Via Maestra Restaurant.
Madame Puccini was heartily toasted by all (including some of Santa Barbara County’s extraordinary wines).
[Below: Giacomo Puccini's photograph on a card directing a guest to his table.]
But the very grand feast - in the cuisine of Lucca - featured each course being preceeded by singers from Opera Santa Barbara doing choice Puccini arias. Opulent tables (see below) were located on the theater’s stage so that patrons could imbibe the newly restored grandeur of the Granada.
[Below: the table settings for the Opera Santa Barbara Dinner that took place on the Granada Theater stage.]
The singers were Sopranos Michele Bogdanovitz, Jamie Chamberlin and tenor Edgar Ramirez, all ably accompanied by pianist Gerald Sternbach - starting off the evening with O mio babbino caro from “Gianni Schicchi” (which Los Angeles Opera just presented as one of three Puccini operas in “Il Trittico”) and ending with tenor Ramirez doing a fine Nessun dorma from “Turandot” - the vehicle Luciano Pavarotti made his own!
And what piece would you have selected to preceed the roasted Wild Boar? I would have selected that final line by Tosca after she has done-in the evil police-boss Baron Scarpia who had been tormenting her — over his dead body, flicking her teeth Italian style, she snarls “Avanti lui tremava tutta Roma (Before him trembled all Rome)”. Enter: the roasted wild boar on the tray complete with red apple in the mouth!
The Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Los Angeles, which promotes Puccini’s operas on behalf of the Italian government assisted Opera Santa Barbara with this totally memorable evening, and Italy’s Consul General Nicola Faganello himself dined with Signora Puccini.
[Below: Simonetta Puccini, seated next to Italy's consul general Nicola Faganello (partially hidden) displays a photograph of her grandfather.]
With supremely hideous irony, Wagner’s musical legacy was not about to be upstaged - the final opera of his colossal four-opera Ring - Goetterdaemmerung - ends with the “Immolation”, as the great castle Valhalla is torched and burns furiously as Bruennhilde rides her horse Grane into the flames as the towers and walls of Valhalla come crashing down.
Without a doubt, one of the most overwhelmingly dramatic scenes in all of opera was tragically replicated on the very weekend of this celebration, as the cities of Montecito and Santa Barbara were engulfed by a veritable, truly Wagnerian-scale Immolation.
The firestorm left some of America’s grandest mansions into smoking ruins - their occupants had to run for their lives, with more than 200 homes reduced to ashes. Many of Westmont College’s buildings were burned and very sadly, the lovely Mt Calvary Monastery and Retreat, as pictured here in the Santa Barbara News Press’ tearfully dramatic photo, shown below, was totally destroyed.
[Below: a scene of destruction at the Mount Calvary Monastery and Retreat; edited image, of a photograph from the Santa Barbara News Press.]
As if the economy’s Goetterdaemmerung was not enough torment!
For those thousands affected, it was Santa Barbara’s equivalent of the horrendous fire bombing of Dresden in February 1945 which left their famed and beloved Frauenkirche in smoking ruins like Mt Calvary. Even so, Dresden rose from those ashes into a restored baroque gem.
But Puccini’s 150th Birthday Event went on - as it should have - for Santa Barbara surely will recover like the legendary Phoenix from these horrific flames, and Puccini’s divine music will sustain all of us and - in time - will erase the sorrows, misery and loss.
A personal note: I’ve attended many wonderful operatic celebratory party-events over a great many years. This was, beyond doubt, the most unforgetably sensational!
Tom
Note from Tom and William on Future www.operawarhorses.com features:
We have not posted any correspondence between ourselves and our readers since January 2006. It is our plan to re-institute the posted correspondence periodically beginning in January 2009.
In addition, we are planning a series on operatic production designer Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, that will launch an ongoing feature on the collected work of several major set and production designers. We invite anyone with personal experience with Ponnelle and his productions, including information on those productions that are still in existence, to write us at operawarhorses@yahoo.com.
You may use that e-mail address to communicate with us on any other operatic subject as well, including our invitation for persons to describe “superlative” performances. If you agree or disagree with any of our postings, please use the e-mail for that purpose also.
