Opera Warhorses

Note from William: Since 2006, at the end of each calendar year concurrent with the David Gockley administration at the San Francisco Opera, I have given letter grades to each of the productions performed by the company that year.

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

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

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

Grade A+

Das Rheingold (Wagner)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Siegfried (Wagner)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goetterdaemmerung (Wagner)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lucrezia Borgia (Donizetti)

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

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

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

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

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

Xerxes (Handel)

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

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

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

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

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

Grade A

Turandot (Puccini)

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

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

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

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

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

Don Giovanni (Mozart)

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

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

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

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

Carmen (Bizet)

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

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

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

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

Grade B+

Heart of a Soldier (Theofanidis)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A famous recording I grew up with in the 40s was the 1933 abridged Der Rosenkavalier with that manic maestro Otto Klemperer’s onetime girlfriend Elisabeth Schumann, his maybe-almost-girlfriend Lotte Lehmann and the apparently unpursued Maria Olczewska, all under the baton of Robert Heger, not exactly a household name in the annals of conducting and one that would, I’m sure, be relegated to some lower pocket by those pigeon-holers of performers according to “tiers,” first, second, and I hope no worse than that.

[Conductor Robert Heger; resized image, based on a historical photograph.]

But Robert Heger was a wonderful conductor, one of those fiery craftsmen of the pit who tend to serve more as a “first conductor” at a big-name opera house than “general music director” – and if German or Austrian spend most of their career in German-speaking countries; and don’t make as many Beethoven symphony recordings as Bruno Walter or Toscanini.

Think also of the muscular/poetical Rudolf Moralt – oh, the anguished brass and those palpitating flutes early on in his 1948 Parsifal – and there’s Arthur Rother, a great favorite of the baritone Fischer-Dieskau, or the underrated and rather Leo Blech-like Horst Stein, author of the most lyrical Richard Strauss Elektra in my experience. Or the near-phantom Heinrich Steiner, whose subtle and rather Harnoncourtian Freischuetz overture “live” from Berlin in ’36 is world class.

And there’s that candidate for frequent contempt the Met administrator/conductor Paul Breisach whose 1943 Don Giovanni of Mozart contains passages I’ve never heard better: the delicacy and pathos of the Anna-Ottavio duet early in the first act would be the opening evidence in my case for the defense.

I should also mention Bernard Haitink’s teacher Ferdinand Leitner, a g.m.d. at Stuttgart and Zurich to be sure but underrated in view of how mellifluous and undulant  a Wagnerian evening he could produce with his Karl Muck-trained baton. And how many Karajan-Solti-Bernstein groupies know the name Joseph Keilberth? The great Furtwaengler himself considered him the best of his junior colleagues because he understood the art of climax so well.

But back to the subject of this article. Just in from Hamburg in 1965, my wife and I were amazed in the little lobby of the fabled Sacher Hotel behind Vienna’s Staatsoper to see that the evening’s performance, Der Fliegende Hollander, would be conducted by none other than Prof. Robert Heger. Ah, so he wasn’t a mirage, that not-a-Walter-or-Toscanini who had conducted those gemuetlich chunks of Rosenkavalier for a cumbersome 13-disc RCA album thirty-two years before!

[Below: Conductor Robert Heger, preparing the 1933 recording of "Der Rosenkavalier" with Lotte Lehmann, Maria Olczewska, and Elizabeth Schumann.]

Alas, we had other plans for the evening (crepes, I think, at the Balkan Grill), for which I now kick myself: to have seen Heger at his impressive exercise would have been something to tell one’s grandkids.

Listening again to the ’33 Rosenkavalier after many a Straussian moon I couldn’t fail to noitice the mixture of wistfulness and sexuality in the prelude – but surely you know about the famous “orgasm” in the horns four bars after #4, whoopwhoop etc., it took the music director of the Budapest Opera to explain it to me! Then there’s the sweet-soft atmosphere as the curtain rises, with that nasty old real world held totally at bay, and Heger’s perfection of leggiero in the breakfast music.

A very Viennese performance in short, recorded in that very town, but for all its laidbackness never rhythmically sloppy.

Substantial “live” performances of Wagner led by Heger  have surfaced over the years, much to his credit. The 1943 Berlin Tristan is a darting, smoldering performance urgent to the point of what might be called controlled frantic.The scene in the first act wherein Tristan, backed by Kurvenal, tells Brangaene he’s too busy keeping the ship on course to deal with other matters (i.e.: of emotion), well, that scene comes on like an angry family drama, an energetic soap opera if you will.

Heger opens the opera with a fetching “feminine attack,” a velvety vroom of sound, trembling. There follows a twelve-and-a-half-minute prelude slow, secretive, helpless with amorous frustration, topped with a climax more rhetorical than carnal. By the way, the broadcasting studio in wartime Berlin is so lean and sensitive we can hear the rustle of music pages being turned. And when the singers come on final consonants are ceremoniously spat out in what amounts to a heaven of perfect enunciation.

The sizzle and echt-Viennese vibrance of that city’s Philharmoniker violins fairly crinkling with a sweetness just short of cloying, these make an Immolation Scene from Heger’s 1933 Goetterdaemmerung across the street from Madame Sacher’s hostelry another treasurable experience. Speaking of 30s inter-war Vienna, the Philharmonic strings may have sounded on that distant evening willowy and glamorous and devil-may-care as can be, but according to that inimitable historian Richard Cobb the city was in bad shape: “it had a sort of dusty, yellowish, run-down feeling about it.” Well, come to think of it crinkly strings and dusty baroque may go together after all …..

Strauss. Wagner. Yes of course. In fact, Heger’s Wagner with its all- there personality seems as trade markable in the twenty-first century as, say, Sir Thomas Beecham’s – I’ve just discovered Sir Thomas’ Good Friday Spell from Parsifal, so aureoled and hyper-intimate, just short of unctuous. But Heger was quite a Puccinian as well. A 1954 Vienna Radio Manon Lescaut stands out for its long and supple line, precision of articulation, and, for this is a performance as emotional as craftsmanly, its quick striking of notes plaintive as well as jolly.

The Intermezzo is milked to a turn, gracefully, its heavy regretful steps striking a bull’s-eye at our willing heart-strings.

And a postscript: Just found, the ’51 Munich Opera recording of Tannhaeuser conducted by Heger with a characteristically blazing baton. The overture is positively visceral in its gut-kicking intensity. A springy start, then huge warmth in the cellos a couple of eight bar clauses along, a wonderful crescendo of compassion to follow, then a uniquely lengthened upbeat to “a-hem” so to speak the amen of the pilgrims’ procession.

The succeeding allegro has a feverish sensual abandon: never has this music been more aroused, absolutely kicking off its trousers without care for where they might land. In the final minutes sinful strings buzz hysterically around the hear-no-evil see-no-evil brass. The opera in a nutshell. And imagine: at the very end Heger manages the rare feat of de-abrupting Wagner’s Procrustean final cadence. Big bangs musn’t be awkward!

Now I’d like to give you another postscipt re Paul Breisach ….

Critics tended to type him as a routinier because he wasn’t a recording “star” like his colleagues Walter, Szell, Reiner, Busch, Beecham. But Astrid Varnay the great Wagnerian soprano-turned-mezzo regarded him highly. I took the trouble the other day to listen to a Met broadcast of Tannhaeuser I hadn’t heard since I was a middle school brat checking in on Milton Cross and the gang at 39th and Broadway before hopping a San Francisco cable car to go to the Saturday afternoon movies. Breisach was in the pit and heavens, there emerged from my Norelco speakers a Tannhaeuser conducted with infinitely more flair than the usual downgradings in the press had suggested.

Interesting in the overture how much pain I heard in the haunting cello passage at bar 17 (don’t worry, you can’t miss it), this being promptly transformed into anger as the pilgrims’ procession sounds – Tannhaeuser will of course be missing from its trudging complement later in the opera, his bid for forgiveness in Rome having been unsuccessful as co-habiting with Venus, Improper Woman No. 1, is a very Big no-no. But Breisach’s vivid third act prelude shows Tannhaeuser’s defiance knocked to pieces in great fanfares suggesting a papal Superego lording it totally over Tannhaeuser’s roving Id.

Also among Breisach’s Met broadcasts of the 40s there’s an Aida in which he takes wrap-up-the-action ensembles in several scenes and delivers them purring along in strongly profiled, confidently relaxed tempos a bit slower than listeners might be used to. Impressive!

Alas poor Breisach, butt of many scribes, even yours truly as an under-informed junior critic. I remember seeing him one autumn day outside the stage door in San Francisco looking very natty in a gabardine suit as he waited for a taxi. Two months later he was dead in New York, aged only 56.

Please visit Arthur’s e-book on the styles of the great old conductors, at morethanthenotes dot com.

This Thoughts and Assessments Feature dates from the end of 2009, in which I add some thoughts outside of such other posts as my live performance reviews, my memorializations of the 50 year anniversaries of performances I attended, and my interviews with artists who sing, play, conduct, stage, design or write operas.

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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