Tenors Battle Over Desdemona

Otello, ossia il moro di Venezia
Gioachino Rossini
Libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsa
July 7, 2015
Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy

Desdemona and the battling tenors
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: Milan’s Teatro alla Scala commissioned Jürgen Flimm’s new production of Rossini’s Otello as part of the city’s many offerings to visitors in connection with the Expo 2015 world’s fair. Maybe not the most obvious choice as it’s all too easy to think that Rossini’s opere serie have been surpassed in one way or another despite the Renaissance of interest in Rossini buffo, but his Otello, nevertheless, has much to recommend it.

The victor returns.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: I was impressed by the complexity and sheer enjoyability of this Otello all while noting Rossini’s “recycling” habits: the overture here is almost identical to the one in Il Turco in Italia, and several arias (including showcase pieces such as Che ascolto? and Tra tante smanie e tante) are very similar to bits that he will go on to recycle in Cenerentola and La Donna del Lago – I may even be missing some additional references here as I am not familiar with the entire universe of Rossini’s myriad works. The composer popped out operas at a very fast pace, still I cannot help but smile at one famous Donizetti comment referring to his colleague as “awfully lazy.”

Why so much indecision?
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: Rossini’s Otello differs from the more popular Shakespearean version of the story on many counts, the most relevant one being the more central role of the characters of Rodrigo and Desdemona’s father Elmiro. Here Otello’s jealousy is triggered by his belief that Desdemona is betraying him with Rodrigo, chosen by Elmiro as his daughter’s husband (unbeknownst to him, she already secretly married the Moorish general). Also, as in La Donna del Lago, Desdemona is the object of desire of three men (Otello, Rodrigo and Iago), which is a very welcome occasion for having a tenor bel canto feast. These details aside though, the main themes and dramatic impact of the work remain the same, particularly in the chilling finale with Desdemona’s murder and Otello’s desperate suicide after he is told that it was all Iago’s fault and Elmiro and Rodrigo would be happy if he married Desdemona.

Good night, my love.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: I was surprised by how radically different the three acts of the opera are, both dramatically and musically. I found Act I to be a bit flat as it set the stage for the different themes, with the action picking up collectively in Act II (Rodrigo’s pleading with Desdemona, her confession to already being wed to Otello, Iago’s scheming and the furious confrontation between Otello and Rodrigo). The drama explodes and peaks more intimately between Desdemona and Otello in Act III (her lyric despair, his murderous jealousy and ensuing desperate suicide).

Lui: The first act in particular feels perhaps the most methodical. Rossini’s treatment of the libretto feels at times formulaic in the dueling duets between the tenors, each taking turns repeating the same lines or slight variations thereof. But it turns out that this was all just exposition because in Act II the fireworks really begin, with the Otello-Iago duet, L’ira d’avverso fato (that by the way was picked up by Verdi in Rigoletto’s Vendetta), and the Otello-Rodrigo face off, Ah vieni, nel tuo sangue. The third act is indeed more subtle and focused on individual feelings and tensions between Otello and Desdemona.

The casualties are counted.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: There’s something quite irresistible about extraordinary tenors outsinging one another, when done right one simply cannot get enough of it – it’s exhilarating and addictive. Rossini knew that and used the dueling tenors trick in Otello and in later works as La Donna del Lago, Ermione and Armida. Interestingly, these Rossinian works marked the switch for male leading roles from the more sexually ambiguous castrato and contralto musico to tenors, made possible by the Compagnia del San Carlo in Naples available to Rossini at the time. These duets are truly a feast for the ears if great tenors are available, which seems to be one of the reasons why many of these serious operas are so rarely performed (when compared to the buffas). Otello calls for three challenging tenor roles (the title character, Rodrigo and Iago) and tonight we were lucky to have singers who were up to the task.

The tenors duke it out for Desdemona.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

The world class cast was overall very strong, with exciting peaks. Juan Diego Florez as Rodrigo was his usual sensational self, delivering bright, exciting fireworks but also highly lyric and moving moments (Ah come mai non senti / pietà dei miei tormenti). His performance left me wanting for more, too bad that the Rodrigo role does not have more lines. Gregory Kunde’s Otello was impressive, particularly for a tenor in his sixties. His is a baritonal tenor, with a beautiful timbre, manly and agile. The duets between Florez and Kunde were among the most exciting operatic moments I’ve witnessed all year.

Iago spars with Rodrigo.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Tenor Edgardo Rocha as Iago was pretty strong both vocally and as a stage presence, holding his ground next to Florez and Kunde. He was always convincingly evil to the core. Bass Roberto Tavaglini as Elmiro exhibited his powerful instrument that filled the space more than anybody else, with fluid phrasing and strong almost violent expressivity as Desdemona’s despotic father. Mezzo Annalisa Stoppa was also pretty impressive in the secondary role of Emilia, with a powerful and expressive instrument.

Soprano Olga Peretyatko as Desdemona had beautiful stage presence and displayed great acting chops. Vocally, she delivered a solid and accurate performance though not particularly exhilarating on the emotional level. Her articulation at times reminded me a lot of Netrebko’s dark chesty undertones, must be a Russian singer thing. Peretyatko carried the show as the emotional focus and core of all men involved, however, singing-wise the fellas were way more impressive, except maybe for her rendition of the Canzone del Salice (the famous Willow song) in Act III, when time stopped as Desdemona heart-wrenchingly sang from a gondola with the accompanying harpist slowly floating by in the background as though passing like two ships in the night on one of Venice’s many canals.

The ravishing Olga Peretyatko in her feathers.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: Upon our first intimate glimpse of Desdemona in Act I, she is seen on the beach brushing up on her Arabic and studying the teachings of an oversized copy of the Koran with her lady-in-waiting, Emilia. It is presented as the story of a double assimilation: Otello’s Venetian social integration and Desdemona’s religious and cultural conversion. Her intentions initially seem to be good; her convictions seem strong. But none of that seems to last very long, at least not in this singer’s take on it. She is suddenly blowing like one of Dante’s lustful souls in the wind of an infernal storm. Repentant over Rodrigo’s and her father’s every last whim when in the subsequent scene she falls into their ambush that is framed in this production as a covert wedding.

Flimm's stark Otello on the "shore."
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: Jürgen Flimm’s production moves the action to the Lido, the Venetian seashore: the stage floor is surrounded by white curtains and covered in sand and rows of white Fermob chairs lined up or scattered around in different formations depending on the scene. The costumes were a hodgepodge of different eras: from nineteenth-century black and white formal wear with top hats, to black tunics with Elizabethan ruffled stiff collars and Renaissance-like armor making an appearance in the duel scenes.

Like a feather in a storm of men.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: Desdemona stood out among Elizabethan-looking ladies, as she was dressed in an elegant gown covered in feathers. I wondered about the symbolism of her pronounced costume. It seems that they derived her characterization from source material of the lines that are quoted in the libretto from Canto V of Dante’s Inferno: Nessun maggior dolore / che ricordarsi del tempo felice / nella miseria. And in fact like the shade of poor Francesca, this Desdemona is blown around from one man to the next between her father, Iago, Rodrigo and Otello. She is like a plaything tossed about in capriciously in the wind of these men’s whims. Which is perhaps what the loggionista was referring to when he called this Desdemona “scemaaaaa!” For a character that is usually perceived as innocent, pure and good to a fault, an interpretation that casts her as so fickle would seem to go against her most prominent traits. Her heart bleeds for everybody and she seems to go along with what every man expects of her. It’s no wonder that Otello might misinterpret her faithfulness. She is putty in everyone’s hands. To some extent the libretto leaves room for this interpretation (the famous Dante quote, her willingness to abide by the mistakes of her father, etc.). But it goes against the essence of Desdemona’s fundamental goodness. She does not come off as the portrait of consummate conviction that she usually is, but rather as a plaything of all the men. And the loggionisti in our section weren’t having it! “Listen to the score! Study the music!” they shouted.

Desdemona aflutter in the wind.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: Flimm’s production did not always make complete sense to me (why is he moving the finale to a futuristic looking take on NYC’s Park Avenue South with 1950s-looking billboards and characters sporting modern day clothes?) but all in all it was generally eye pleasing. At no point did it detract from the action and always allowed the drama to unfold powerfully, which is sufficient production-wise, particularly with such a great cast.

The harrowing tragedy of intolerance.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: For a Milan that was in the throes of an immigration crisis when we arrived just a few weeks earlier, Rossini’s Otello was a timely offering, not least of all considering its opening scene which has no analog in its Shakespearean source material. Namely the scene in which Otello asks for the reward of citizenship in exchange for his heroic deeds against the Turks on behalf of his adopted patria, Venice. Of course, the story that ensues is one of close-minded intolerance and the systematic rejection and exclusion of the newly named figlio d’Adria, which everyone knows ends in tragic hoodwinking and the deaths of the two most innocent and well-meaning characters in the whole story. What kind of message is La Scala sending here in presenting such a poignant tragedy of intolerance? Simultaneous to the gesture of acceptance from his adopted fatherland, Otello is at one and the same time rejected and excluded from the very community that has just accepted him. The conspiracy descends upon him from the highest echelon of the city, Desdemona’s father, and seconded by the slimy Iago, who here is given explicit motivation as one of Desdemona’s previously spurned lovers, and Rodrigo, here her father’s favorite suitor for the hand of his daughter.

Desdemona sings the Willow Song.
Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: We had tickets in the nosebleed Galleria section and experienced first hand the ferocity of (some of) the Milanese public. Folks sitting next to us shouted furiously stuff like “Regista studia la musica!!,” or, “Questa Desdemona è scemaaa!!,” or else, “Il direttore è noioso!!,” to then launch themselves at intermission into animated soliloquies on how the opera should have been staged or sung, with an obsessive folly in their eyes that was highly entertaining to watch (if a bit scary). These people take opera not only seriously but also very personally. The booing is also a particularly La Scala phenomenon, unleashing hooligan-like shouting matches of boos and “bravi.” This time soprano Olga Peretyatko got a few boos (that only seemed to exacerbate the “brava” shouts from the majority of the public), while conductor Muhai Tang was not so lucky and was pretty much crucified by a vast portion of the audience shouting all sort of insults. The public was unanimous though in its uber-enthusiastic appreciation of tenors Juan Diego Florez and Gregory Kunde. No doubt opera still stirs wild passions (more or less justified) at La Scala, which is a great thing, still my heart goes out to all artists who dare perform in this theater.

– Lui & Lei 

Italian Drama On/Off-Stage

La Traviata

Teatro alla Scala – December 18, 2013

La Scala’s season opening production of La Traviata was dripping with drama: Diana Damrau missed her entrance in the Second Act, Piotr Bezcala declared he won’t ever sing again in Italy after the hard core loggionisti booed him, director Dmitri Tcherniakov and conductor Daniele Gatti were booed even more for allegedly butchering Verdi’s masterpiece - and at La Scala, of all theaters!

I happened to be in Milan during the run of this production and decided I simply had to see it to have an informed opinion on such a juicy show (also, I have a soft spot for Željko Lučić). Getting tickets for La Scala is no easy business, the box office sells out almost immediately and the black market is full of dubious scalpers who will meet you in a dark alley and ask 600 Euros for a partial view ticket that may or may not actually let you into the theater. So, the only way is the old school one of “knowing someone” and, thank goodness, I did: a family friend with a season subscription very gracefully let me go in his place.

La Scala’s public is definitely cockier and way more ferocious that the Met’s. Before the show started, my neighbor was very colorfully complaining that he heard Damrau was sick and was going to be replaced by Irina Lungu and that was going to be a total “sòla” (“ripoff”). He was evidently expressing the general sentiment, since when La Scala’s general manager Stéphane Lissner made the relevant announcement on stage, he was assailed by a chorus of boos and other insults (and if these days folks still threw market vegetables to performers on stage am sure they would have tossed a few tomatoes to the poor guy).

Photo Credit: Brescia & Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

Also, when conductor Daniele Gatti made his entrance and took his spot on the pit, someone in the audience yelled “falla piu’ veloce stasera!” (“make it faster tonight!”), voicing the widespread criticism that Gatti chose an unusually slow tempo for this production. I will say that Gatti’s choice of tempi may have been academically respectful of Verdi’s 1854 revision for the Venice San Benedetto theater, but was indeed a bit all over the place, some parts too slow (the first scene, not matching the party’s frenzy), others way too quick (Germont’s aria “D’un padre e d’una suora / t’affretta a consolar” – poor Lučić was struggling to keep up).

Photo Credit: Brescia & Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

The curtain opened the moment the orchestra started to play, and during the overture Violetta stood in the middle of a big room with a few fancy chairs scattered throughout, high ceilings with antique molding and a Parisian-like balcony overlooking the street. She spent the overture in front of a mirror, looking pretty ennuied and fatigued while getting ready for her party, fixing her make-up and adjusting her blue gown, silvery necklace and red flower in her hair, at times with the help of a mature redhead Annina, who looked and behaved more like a retired opera diva than a servant (and popped up throughout the opera when you least expected her).

When the party erupts and Violetta’s guests arrive, the decadent modern-day take was painfully evident, with the chorus wearing a hodgepodge of trashy party dresses and behaving in line with their outfits. If the direction’s aim was to depict Violetta’s party life as vane and shallow, it was definitely successful, just not a pleasant sight. While the direction of the duets with Alfredo worked pretty well, Dmitri Tcherniakov chose to have Violetta perform her usually solitary arias “E’ strano! e' strano!” and “Follie, delirio vano e’ questo!” while drinking hard liquor and clunking glasses with a silent over-dressed and over-jeweled Annina who thus emerges in a role of girlfriend-confidante who did not add much and, rather, was unnecessarily distracting.

Photo Credit: Brescia & Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

The country estate scenes were to me the most successful direction-wise, with the couple having retired to the tranquility of the countryside, they indulge in simple domestic pleasures, Alfredo rolling out home-made pasta dough, Violetta (sporting comfy furry slippers) scolding him on the proper way to do it while arranging market vegetables to be prepped on the kitchen table. These moments were cute, heart-warming and real, just the way the enjoyment of pure romantic love should be and also worked wonderfully well with the music. It was also a nice touch having glimpses of Germont father pacing back and forth outside of the kitchen window, as looming presence that will ruin the idyllic romance. The only thing that did not work here was an odd creepy rag doll sporting Violetta’s party outfit of the opening scene sitting on the kitchen counter (why?) that Alfredo nurses and cuddles when he realizes that his lover is gone. While I get what the director tried to accomplish here, it was totally unnecessary and looked pretty awkward.

Photo Credit: Brescia & Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

With the second act, we’re back to a trashy party, this time allegedly in costume, though the only character really wearing one seems to be Flora (with a ridiculous native American huge feathered headpiece), while the rest of the attendees were maybe dressed up like distasteful party people if that’s even a costume. Also, why on earth is Violetta wearing a small Afro wig? And she takes it off at the end of the act? Outfits aside, I had a major problem here with the chorus singing arias such as “Noi siamo zingarelle” and “Di Madride noi siam mattadori” that are normally sung and danced by characters looking and behaving like gypsies and matadors, just because that’s how they dressed up for the party. Here they did not have any such costumes and their sang words did not really match their acting as they just paced back and forth nonsensically following poor Alfredo from one end of the stage to the other. Drastic departures from the meaning of the libretto like these are pure heresy, no excuses allowed. The “money-throwing” scene though was effective, with the bills flying in the frame of the arched walls and the crowd in the background.

Photo Credit: Brescia & Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

The final act was set back in Violetta’s apartment, this time virtually empty, except for a mirror, two chairs, a tray of medicines, a phone, a comforter, an ikea cardboard box full of pictures and again the odd creepy Violetta-looking rag doll. The bare bones sets were successful in conveying the fact that the poor woman sold everything (cannot even afford a bed) and provided a perfect barren backdrop for the heart-wrenching arias throughout the finale. A couple of things did not entirely work though: Alfredo sings “Parigi o cara” while trying to force Violetta to eat a cream puff (while I get he’s feeling awkward about the whole situation, this was too much) and, most importantly, Violetta dies alone on her chair, while Annina is disdainfully chasing away Alfredo and his dad, as if to say “it’s all your fault now get out of here”. Call me romantic, but to me Violetta must die in the arms of her loved one and leave him heart-broken. Tcherniakov’s take was excessively nihilist in denying the unfortunate couple even this final comfort, as if to say it’s too late, nothing can fix this anymore.

Photo Credit: Brescia & Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

Having said all that, if one has really good singers, sets and direction become secondary. And La Scala had some pretty good ones. Piotr Beczala sounded fresh, confident and with a full-bodied tone and, although he is warmer and more passionate when he sings in Russian (think about his Lensky in the Met’s opening Onegin), his Alfredo was convincing if a touch clueless at times, though that’s part of the character.

Željko Lučić was, as usual, magnificent with his signature sweet effortless power and musicality that are just made for Verdi. His duets with Violetta were warm and tender, expressing the quintessential Verdian father-daughter love, as  Lučić always does so masterfully in Rigoletto. I was curious to see whether his voice sounded even stronger at La Scala than at the Met given the theater’s size difference, but I will say that the Met’s acoustics are such that really amplify it all, even more than a smaller space like La Scala.

Photo Credit: Brescia & Amisano © Teatro alla Scala

But it was soprano Irina Lungu who literally brought the whole house down, including my cynical skeptic neighbor who at the end was applauding like a madman and ecstatically yelling brava, brava!  While she was understandably tense at the beginning given her last minute engagement, she loosened up towards the end of the first act party scenes and grew stronger throughout the opera, delivering a truly terrific performance in the third act, her “Addio, del passato” making me weep like a baby. She movingly cried herself at curtain call when the whole theater rose to salute her enthusiastically which, coming from the ferocious La Scala’s public, was quite a sight.   

All in all this production had some good and bad moments, the modernizing efforts to keep La Traviata contemporary and real being successful only a few times, with some unfortunate silly touches (that rag doll!). The very core of the emotions at stake, however, was conveyed powerfully, except maybe in the nihilist finale. It was brave of La Scala to commission such a controversial production to open its season on the Verdi bicentenary – there’s nothing like some good extra-curricular drama to stir the drama on stage.

- Lei