Puritani in the Right Hands

Bellini’s I puritani

Metropolitan Opera

February 22, 2017

A puritana in the right hands
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Bellini’s I Puritani is the one where two young lovers are separated by politics. Wait, that could be any number of stories that we have caught of late: Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, Rossini’s Tancredi… This time the couple in love is situated on opposite sides of the English civil war divide and, thanks to the mercy of the winners, it actually all works out happily in the end.

Having caught this opera during its previous run at the Metropolitan Opera, it left us lukewarm to say the least. It is not the tautest opera in terms of plot and dramatic tension, but Bellini manages to endow it with some of the most beautiful and unforgettable music. When sung by great singers, as it was tonight, it is somehow transformed into a downright exciting opera, absolutely thrilling.

Tenor Javier Camarena and soprano Diana Damrau had me seeing Puritani in a whole new light. Camarena has a sound that is honest and sincere, effortlessly exuding nobility, purity, goodness. He is entirely round sounding and harmonious, nothing jarring. This tenor has something of the dashing crooner to his vocal style, the way he mellifluously glides along Bellini’s long vocal lines. It is distinctively Latin in its warmth and ardor.

A bubbly, bouncy Damrau
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

When he sings his opening number late in Act I, the immortal quartet, A te, o cara, it becomes abundantly apparent why the young Elvira melts before him – because Camarena’s singing melts us too. He sounded so smooth and seductive that it is no wonder the heroine has fallen like a lovesick puppy for him. And so it rings true when later she laments his absence in her descent into madness and attempts to beckon him back saying, qui la sua voce soave. Oh, so very suave he was indeed. The feelings resonate in profound ways; ways that don’t always register when lesser singers embody the role. When the score clicks with the singers, the innate value of the underlying motivations become clear.

Damrau has a kinetic stage presence and her acting is wonderfully captivating. Under her tutelage, the smitten Elvira is a bubbly, bouncy, giddy little girl in her sane phase so that her breakdown is felt through the lens of being crushed in the full blossom of that young love. I found this embodiment of the character more effective than the more solemn good little church girl approach you typically see. Vocally, Damrau is at the top of her game. She has power, volume, ability, control. It was always a pleasure any time she sashayed up to the front of the stage and belted out her long Bellini bel canto lines with fluidity and poise filling the house so effortlessly, like her co-star.

So the curtain drops on a happy ending. The plot dissolves in victory for the revolutionary cause of the Puritans against the evil adversary represented by the Royalist die-hard followers of the recently decapitated King Charles I. All the traitors are pardoned and Elvira is able to marry happily across party lines.

A fair maiden driven mad
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Fast-forward just a couple of years in historical reality and everything is no longer peaches and rosy cream. The deposed king’s son, Charles II will soon be restored to power, and he will ruthlessly put these rebel Puritans in their place. And there will be blood. Neither the opera nor the Met production with all of its period detail hint at the darker side of what will soon follow in the historical reality of the situation (the way Louisa Proske's recent production of Agrippina did at Juilliard).

As a worldly, no-nonsense friend of ours casually baulked at the Puritans’ final forgiveness of Camarena’s character the last time we saw this opera: “They let him off the hook?!? Just like that?! No, it can't be.” Our principled friend may have a point. If the particular moment in history can teach us a lesson it is this: “Once a traitor, always a traitor.” We shouldn’t be fooled by the appearances of anything else.

– Lei & Lui

  

Love in the Time of Faction

Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette

Metropolitan Opera

January 28, 2017

Our pair of convalescent lovers
Photo credit: Met Opera

It was (again) one of those evenings when the stage manager appears at the front of the stage to a palpable gasp of despair from every corner of the house. “Diana Damrau is recovering from a cold [pregnant pause] and so is Vittorio Grigolo…” A ripple of shock swept through the audience: No! The announcement continued, “and so they will be singing anyway. Enjoy the performance.” Thank goodness these two lead singers are normally exceptionally strong, which meant that despite their various states of convalescence, they sounded great both individually and together. Since they often sing together, the chemistry between them is evident.

Grigolo strikes his Romèo pose
Photo credit: Met Opera

Tenor Vittorio Grigolo is one of the most thrilling super divos to grace the Met stage of late. As per his usual, he chewed up the scenery, or rather he climbed all over it. There was hardly a pillar or a platform or a column that he didn’t run and jump and ramp up on. He literally bounced off the sets embodying a romantic super-hero with a voice to match his exuberant physical prowess. That soaring quality that we look for in a great romantic tenor was definitely there, but his voice was deeper this time out, chestier than I remember it. Perhaps that was due to the cold and if so it had a pleasantly manlier side effect.

Grigolo chews up the scenery
Photo credit: Met Opera

Grigolo had several moving moments, however he really took me by storm, emotionally, when he bounded pensively across the stage toward Juliette’s balcony in Act II to cry out, L’amour, l’amour!… Ah! lève-toi soleil. Young love is at the center of the opera and this moment puts its earliest gushing red flush in words, sets it to music. Grigolo’s boyish Neapolitan charms were on full display. He’s also just a pleasure to watch, gigioneggiando hither, thither and yon.

Soprano Diana Damrau often strikes the figure of a stately dame on the operatic stage with an equally stellar vocal technique. She is a master. Somehow in order to play the star-crossed young lover Juliette, she came off as fully rejuvenated, fresh faced and bubbly. She threw herself into the role energetically and with spunk. Even her costumes look great and were very flattering of her figure. In one way or another every time she breezed across the stage a cloud of muslin and gauze floated in a flurry all around her. This Juliette was celestial also thanks to the aura of lightweight fabric that always accompanied her. Damrau’s singing was also top notch, despite the cold.

A grand dame rejuvenated
Photo credit: Met Opera

Juliette’s famous waltz in Act I, Je veux vivre, was self-assured, defiant and flirty at the same time. She intoned with exuberance the verses in which she muses on girding herself against the assaults of love in favor of living life on her own terms. Laisse-moi sommeiller / Et respirer la rose, / Respirer la rose / Avant de l’effeuiller (Let me sleep and smell the rose, before despoiling it). The imagery of savoring the rose, rather than seizing it, poses a subtle affront to the classic carpe diem trope that has so often been employed by young men to coax their ladies into love. Damrau’s body language very cleverly sent one message while her words communicated another.

Mezzo-soprano Virginie Verrez sang a charming if not naïf rendition of Stéphano’s one big aria in the second half of Act III. With its refrain of Gardez bien la belle!, her take had less of an edge of assault, and instead came off as more of an innocent, playful taunt. The contrast was nevertheless felt inasmuch as it serves to introduce the climactic duel that closes the act and ends in deaths on both sides of the factional divide.

Stunning Italianate sets update the action to 18th Century Verona
Photo credit: Met Opera

This is, of course, the time honored story about the tragic star-crossed lovers of Verona. It’s first iteration dates back to Matteo Bandello’s novella, which was probably written between 1531-1545 and which had already been widely translated and imitated. Placed among his early works, Shakespeare’s own version dates to the end of the 16th century, which then provides the basis for the 1867 opera by Charles Gounod with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré.

At first encounter with the immaculately detailed sets designed by Michael Yeargin for Bartlett Sher’s new production, it would seem that the purists in the Met audience are finally getting what they always long for: a hyper-realistic period piece with all the fixings. And they really allow you to revel in the beauty of the scenery on stage. As you file into your seat the curtain is already up so you can feast your eyes on the beautifully detailed depiction of a very Veronese piazza with its palatial facades and abundant traces of Roman relics including a single column set up in the middle of the square.

Love in the time of factions
Photo credit: Met Opera

Once the show gets going, however, it becomes clear – primarily only through the costuming decisions made by Catherine Yuber – that the action has been set not in the early Italian Renaissance but rather it has been updated to the 18th century. The Capulets are dressed in coats and stockings that make them look more French, like the Bourbon monarchs who held power in Italy and elsewhere in this period, than like Italians of the time. The Montagues are dressed decidedly different. Romeo and his gang of hoodlums come off as belonging to some kind of rebel class of slightly later Jacobin revolutionaries sporting leather coats and frilly shirts unbuttoned (showing off hunky pectorals). But aren’t we supposed to still be in Italy? What does this production accomplish by setting the story of these two timeless lovers against the tensions of later (French?) political classes?

A world in which poetry and violence collide
Photo credit: Met Opera

The program notes tell us that the choice was to set the story in a “mythical Verona” that would represent “a beautiful but dangerous world where poetry or violence might erupt at any moment.” There was also some intended reference to Fellini’s Casanova but did not seem to fully work with the overall plot. While the sets may have been Italianate, the costumes were decidedly French. They seemed to pit the ancien régime off against a clan of Jacobin-looking revolutionaries, Capulets and Montagues, respectively.

The Met orchestra sounded terrific and from the moment that it launched into the big tragic chords of the overture to Gounod’s romantic masterpiece under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda, the turmoil and tumult rocking the world outside slowly faded away. Mind you it doesn’t turn out well for anybody involved. While in the play the tragedy leads to the reconciliation of the feuding families, Gounod’s version closes on the couple expiring together, which is a more definitive and dramatic ending, certainly more fitting for the operatic form.

– Lui & Lei

The couple expires and the story ends
Photo credit: Met Opera

Bizet’s Little Known Nuit Enchanteresse

Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles

(New production)

Metropolitan Opera

January 30, 2016

A friendship at the core of the love triangle.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

For the first time in 100 years, Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles makes its return to the stage of the Met in a new production by Penny Woolcock. The opening notes of the overture brought us underwater, as behind a massive translucent screen acrobats dived down and back up, with clever projections by 59 Productions creating ripples and bubbles as the divers swam through. Truly an enchanting start.  The curtain then opens on a shantytown, a fishing village of sorts on the outskirts of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, or at least that’s where an enormous billboard at the rear of the stage situates us. It features an advertisement for the local cash crop: pearls. Inspiration from the Deep of Eternal Beauty, it reads; followed by an address for the Sinhalese Jewelry and Gem Exchange, written in big contemporary capitalist letters on a billboard that dwarfs the rest of the stage for the duration of the first act. And in fact all of the local residents are apparently enslaved to this industry. The opening choral number is a joyous song about dancing in recognition of their indigenous divinity. But no one can afford to move. They’re all seated like indentured factory workers on the clock. No time to dance now!

The priestess arrives, the billboard dominates the scene.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

The composer was only 25 when he wrote Les Pêcheurs de Perles. Its irresistibly gorgeous score, here shining under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda, is rife with tranquil exoticism, all peace and quiet, an extended lullaby of breathtaking melodies. The first big musical hook is featured about halfway through Act I and its depth of expression catches you off guard. The male duet, Au fond du temple saint, makes this opera rather unique, placing male friendship at the heart of the story:

Jurons de rester amis!

Oh oui, jurons de rester amis!

Oui, c’est elle! C’est la déesse!

En ce jour qui vient nous unir,

Et fidèle à ma promesse,

Comme un frère je veux te chérir!

C’est elle, c’est la déesse

Qui vient en ce jour nous unir!

Oui, partageons le même sort,

Soyons unis jusqu’à la mort!

Here, the two friends recall how they both fell in love with the same priestess and were able to move past that and reinforce their own bond by swearing to remain friends and share the same fate until death do us part. It’s a love triangle buoyed by a heartfelt male bond that goes way back. And musically, it represents one of the soaring high points and recurring melodies of the opera, though it’s not the only one.

Till death do us part.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Everyone is always so crazy about this big bromance duet, but I can’t get enough of Nadir’s next big number, his nostalgia-laden aria, Je crois entendre encore. In context it also introduces several important clues into the character of Nadir while deepening some of the themes of the opera.

The lead up to his big aria begins with the arrival of the new priestess in town. The chorus welcomes and beseeches her: “Ah! come, let your chants drive away / the spirits of the water, / the fields and the woods.” Zurga, the newly appointed leader of the town, swears her in, forcing her to swear that she will abide by the following commands: “To keep away with your chants the dark spirits of night, to live friendless, without a husband or a lover?” To which Leila responds, “I promise!”

The priestess after taking her vows.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

In the Je crois entendre encore aria that follows on the heels of this ceremonial exchange, Nadir expresses all the opposite sentiments regarding the magic that happens only under the enchantment of night – the very same archetypal night that the townsfolk and pearl fishers fear so much.

I think I can still hear, (Je crois entendre encore)

hidden under the palm-trees,

her tender and sonorous voice

singing like a dove’s.

O bewitching night,

exquisite rapture ...

Rather than fret over and fear the “dark spirits of night” from which Zurga and the chorus begged the priestess to liberate them, Nadir stares directly into the abyss and finds rapture and bliss. He’s apparently a free-spirited young man who likes to walk on the edge. He’s not afraid of what the night has to offer.

Under the light of the stars

I can almost see her

slightly opening her long veils

to the tepid evening breeze.

Starlight is all he needs to suggestively pursue the satisfaction of his desire and to envision his long lost love. But that doesn’t change the fact that, as my dad always says, “Nothing good ever happens after dark,” because in the end his brand of intrepid exploration under cover of night inevitably leads to his (temporary) demise.

Nadir under the influence of night.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Nadir’s  hubristic transgression, his overstepping, his pursuit of the priestess after dark in the forbidden sacred grounds, seems to be the cause, at least in the popular imagination, of the tidal wave that wipes out most of the village. Nadir is the Dionysian force in the story. His illicit desire for the priestess sends the natural order of things out of equilibrium and the consequences are dire for everyone involved. It jeopardizes friendships, love interests, community politics, even his own life, since it leads directly to the climax on the pyre where he is set to be burned alive.

Matthew Polenzani not only completely owned his duet with Zurga, he took that big first aria, Je crois entendre encore, to a whole other level. He’s the one who has the guts to stare into the abyss of the night and its mysteries. And this depth of melancholic feeling came out in his performance. Polenzani proved himself to be incredibly versatile. He embodied Nadir’s long lyrical lines with delicate tact and gentle emotion. I always thought that this tenor’s voice was a little bit on the lightweight side, but here his lightness turned into delicate effortless nostalgic emotion and worked perfectly for the character. He was all vulnerability and tender passion.

The first half of the opera may be an extended lullaby melodically, but that’s not to say that it isn’t without its dramatic tensions. The image in the billboard back in Act I is proleptic of the action at the end of the Act III. The billboard is a picture of placid nature with the waters in perfect balance. It serves as a reminder of just how tenuous the beauty of nature can be. When its Apollonian order goes out of balance civilization is in trouble. Once the temple is corrupted by the unchaste desire of its priestess, Nature reacts. The tidal wave is unleashed and the shantytown ends up under water.

A chaste priestess with erotic feelings of her own.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Diana Damrau is the raison d’etre of this opera being produced at the Met. She’s such a big star that the Met just asked her what she would like to sing and she picked Pecheurs de Perles. This opera is a great display of the soprano’s lyric coloratura, here laced with eastern ornaments. Leila’s character is strong, passionate and fragile at the same time. Beautiful. She has her first big moment at the beginning of Act II with the aria O Dieu Brahma featuring long beautiful lyric lines. She is priestess but it seems that she also has feelings of her own to tend with. A bit like a Norma figure, to some extent.

Leila prepares for martyrdom.
Photo credit: Ken Howard 

Leila’s duet with Zurga at the beginning of Act III, Va, prends aussi ma vie, once the storm has subsided and everybody is picking themselves back up and drying off. Leila bursts into Zurga’s bureaucratic party office and she purposes a fierce martyrdom for her lover. As the tensions rise between the two of them, there is a big plot twist at the end of the sequence: we find out that he is the fugitive whom she saved when she was a child and so he mood swings yet again, this time from a mad fit of irrational rage out of jealousy to that of mercy, indebtedness and forgiveness.

Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecen has fire and conveys a sensual brutal intensity that’s always a pleasure to hear (and see). His Zurga was an emotional roller coaster. One moment merciful, the next he’s condemning everyone to death. And vice versa. He’s willing to endanger himself and the whole community in order to liberate the lovers with whom he is suddenly again sympathetic. Kwiecen’s duet with Leila in Act II was particularly gripping though as he shined for his singing as much as for his dynamic and charismatic acting.

Zurga's fiery mood swings.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles was a real find. It is one of the truly beautiful and satisfying operas that would make a great gateway drug for newcomers to opera. Short and lovely, big yet simple to follow dramatic moments, highly pleasurable. I hope the Met will continue to bring it back in order to bait new opera fans as well as scour the archives for another number like this one to expand the repertory with other startling gems like this one. Bravi, bravi, in verità!

– Lui & Lei

Spectacular seaside effects by the visionary 59 Productions team.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

The pearl fishers dive for the local cash crop.
Photo credit: Ken Howard 

Friendship is an insurmountable chasm.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Love will find a way to transgress the impossible.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

The pyre awaits the lusty lovers.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

A post-apocalyptic execution scene.
Photo credit: Ken Howard