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

Russian vs. Italian Crime Passionnel

Rachmaninoff’s Aleko // Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci

New York City Opera

Rose Theater

September 8, 2016

Image credit: NYC Opera

New York City Opera opened its 2016/17 season with a double bill of Rachmaninoff’s Aleko and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. The core of the two plots is very similar: there’s a group of itinerant folks (a band of gypsies and a vaudeville-circus troupe, respectively), a love triangle forms along the way, and a jealous scorned husband kills both his treacherous wife and her lover. In one work the framing for the crime passionnel is very Russian (gloomy, melancholic, dark, nostalgic), in the other pretty much Italian (sunny, lively, funny, visceral).

A Russian ballet features prominently in Rachmaninoff's Aleko
Photo credit: Tina Fineberg/New York Times

I was never a big fan of Pagliacci per se, possibly because it’s usually paired with Cavalleria Rusticana, which I have always found more compelling, since nobody can rival a Sicilian drama of amorous jealousy. This time, however, the Leoncavallo work was paired with Rachmaninoff and for the first time I found myself raving about Pagliacci. When it comes to torrid murderous jealousy, an Italian opera will always, always beat a Russian one in my mind. Italians just do loud explosive jealousy better – must be the warmer climate.

The gypsies camp in an abandoned rail station
Photo credit: NYC Opera

But, Aleko in and it of itself was an interesting discovery. The score was in many instances sweeping, melodic and lively in a folkloristic, gypsy way. Many arias and duets were lovely and highly lyrical, the dramatic finale definitely chilling and heart-breaking. However, the whole package did not come together convincingly. While there were some highs (the thunderous bass Kevin Thompson in the role of the old gypsy, the chorus, the dance number), I could not get over the fact that the title character (bass Stefan Szkafarowsky) seemed miscast in the part. While vocally capable, he came across as too old of a husband for the young Zemfira (soprano Inna Dukach) and his jealous outbursts sounded tired instead of raging and not really convincing as he lay splayed out on the ground again and again. I almost feel like Szkafarowsky should have swapped roles with Thompson, both vocally and acting-wise. Finally, the simple sets looked good enough but had some cheap touches such as a huge papier-mâché mutton roasting on a fire that was just distracting and sad to look at. All in all, and maybe because this is a rarity, the singing and acting seemed less rehearsed than the far more popular Pagliacci.

The circus has come to town!
Photo credit: Sarah Schatz

When the curtain rose for the Leoncavallo opera after intermission, it felt like someone had turned the lights on and the real party was ready to begin. The sets were pretty much the same: a more or less abandoned train station with a wagon resting among weeds in the center and two simple wood houses on the sides. But, the Italian setting was inundated with a bright warm sunniness and truly felt like night and day when compared to that of Aleko.

The Fellini-esque elements were palpable
Photo credit: Film still from Federico Fellini's La Strada

At the very beginning, a woman in a short blonde wig came to the foreground under a stage light, playing a trumpet announcing the upcoming show within the show. And so it was clear that we were in for a La Strada (Fellini)-inspired interpretation. There are indeed points of contact between the opera and the movie: itinerant circus performers including a woman who is tied to an oppressive man turns her affections to another. Granted, Nedda is way more together than Fellini’s Gelsomina and Canio does have a softer and more sympathetic side than Zampanò. However, the suggestion that both works share a nostalgic helpless raw desperation is an interesting one and it was a treat to discover the different Fellini undertones. La Strada elements shined through mostly in the treatment of Nedda, who was cast as something of a Giuletta Masina type especially in the second half of the opera when she gets decked out in her vaudeville costume, again dons a bobbed blonde wig, and paints a dot on the tip of her nose.

Never double cross a clown
Photo credit: Sarah Schatz

Pagliacci’s cast was solid and compelling across the board, from the chorus of children to the leading roles. Tenor Francesco Anile as Canio had a bright, almost metallic sound that was great for the role. His Vesti la giubba was high and alive in its poignancy and in the final No, non sono Pagliaccio, his rage and violent desperation were utterly moving at the most visceral level. One could feel that this is a role Mr. Anile possesses entirely. His acting was extremely convincing too, delivering a complex Canio who was violent, yes, but also in love and crushingly devastated. Soprano Jessica Rose Cambio as Nedda was a delight, mastering the role both vocally and acting-wise and ranging from loving and free spirited (with her lover Silvio, here handsomely portrayed by tenor Gustavo Feulien), to feisty (with Tonio, baritone Michael Corvino), to tragically splitting herself in the last scenes between the cheerful vaudeville role of Colombina and her final moments defying her violent husband.

The abandoned box car becomes the makeshift vaudeville stage
Photo credit: Sarah Schatz

The two works shared the same artistic and creative team: James Meena (conductor), Lev Pugliese (director), John Farrell (scenic designer) Iidiko Debreczeni (costume designer) and Susan Roth (lighting designer), which was particularly impressive given the radical stylistic and musical differences of the two pieces. All in all this was a brave and diverse double bill that set an ambitious tone for the new season of the recently resuscitated company. The City Opera is back or so it would seem.

Fellini-esque costumes and make up resonate
Photo credit: Fellini's La Strada

Dun da da da! È arrivata City Opera!

– Lei & Lui

When Rossini Meets Fellini

Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia

Juilliard Opera

November 21, 2014

Il Turco in Italia at Julliard

From the very overture of Juilliard’s Il Turco in Italia we are introduced to Prosdocimo, a handsome and sleek author going through a creative crisis, chewing up and scattering to the wind handwritten notes and tormentedly pulling out his hair. When the curtain rises, a bright and peaceful Italian spa (terme) is unveiled, with a disparate cast of characters (nuns, priests, fancy bourgeoisie, doctors and nurses) leisurely strolling through the white marble backdrop and palm gardens and drinking water from crystal mugs. The look is late 1950s down to the last detail. Prosdocimo stands out, now donning a pair of dark sunglasses and looking more annoyed and lost as ever, making it very clear that director John Giampietro had a genius Fellini’s 8 ½-inspired take on Rossini’s Turco. Our operatic Prosdocimo as the cinematic Guido works brilliantly and effortlessly, since the original libretto already uses this character in a very meta-theatrical way as the alter ego of the composer/librettist who is stuck on his newest dramma giocoso (Ho da fare un dramma buffo / e non trovo l’argomento!) and functions throughout the opera as narrator punctuating key plot points with hilarious commentary.

Geronio complains to Prosdocimo
Photo credit: Ruby Washington/NYTimes

From the get-go Prosdocimo tells the public that he cannot find the right plot idea, some are too sappy, others are too flat (Questo ha troppo sentimento, / quello insipido mi par). This character was played by the amazing Polish baritone Szymon Komasa, who proved to be not only a strong expressive singer, with a manly smooth tone and power to match, but also an extraordinary actor with charismatic stage presence. Mr. Komasa embodied Prosdocimo with intense energy, portraying him as the puppet-master who pushes the rest of the cast to serve his plot points and enthusiastically becomes more and more pleased with himself for how the opera is playing out. Whenever Mr. Komasa was on stage, even if not singing, he was always doing something character specific, now taking notes, now coaching and coaxing some other singers on the side, now intently observing how his ideas play out.

Geronio gets his aura read by the "gypsies"
Photo credit: Ken Howard

It is Prosdocimo who introduces (and comments on) the rest of the cast to the public: there’s a group of gypsies (in this production immigrant spa-workers) among whom the beautiful and sweet Zaida sings of her lost love. Next is Fiorilla, a spitfire of a coquettish liberal wife bored after six years of marriage and flirting left and right, to the despair of her jealous older husband Geronio. At this point the author rejoices at the great opportunities offered by a dumb husband and a capricious wife (Un marito-scimunito! / Una sposa-capricciosa! / No: di meglio non si dà). The plot thickens with the arrival of Selim, a sexy and exotic Turkish prince who immediately attracts (and is attracted by) Fiorilla but also happens to be Zaida’s long lost lover. The love triangles and vignettes that gush out of this setting are extremely juicy – think of the confrontation between Geronio and Selim, where the Turkish prince tries to convince the cuckold Italian husband to go the Turkish way, where husbands simply sell off annoying wives (to which Geronio responds that in Italy it’s customary for the husband to punch the wife-buyer in the nose):

SELIM

D’un bell’uso di Turchia

forse avrai novella intesa:

della moglie che gli pesa

il marito è venditor.

GERONIO

Sarà l’uso molto buono,

ma in Italia è più bell’uso:

il marito rompe il muso

quasi sempre al comprator.

Or else consider the cat fight between Zaida and Fiorilla and the Act I finale with the two women in a bitter rivalry for the favors of Selim and calling each other all sorts of names (pettegola, civetta, frasca, sciocca, impertinente). This was one of the most hilarious scenes of the evening, when all characters try to placate the women, except for Prosdocimo who is delighted by the fight and actually incites them to hit harder (Seguitate...via...bravissime… / qua...là...bene; in questo modo… / azzuffatevi, stringetevi, / graffi...morsi...me la godo…), in this production he even teaches each of them complementary boxing moves to enhance the drama.

Fiorilla plays hard to get
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Why on earth Il Turco in Italia is not part of standard repertoire is beyond me. I personally found it way more entertaining than Il barbiere di Siviglia. Plot-wise it’s racy and not very politically correct with a stereotypical polygamous Turk on one end and a wife claiming to be on the prowl for a thousand lovers on the other, but hey all the more fun. There are no dead moments as the story moves quickly with many coups de théâtre, one after the other. Despite the unpolitical correctness of much of the opera, the finale is, however, a happy one that adds a touch of a morale to the story, as Prosdocimo puts it: “poi finir con un poco di morale.” The denouement is, in fact, ultimately highly conservative. The love that is written in the stars is reconstituted between Selim and the gypsy Zaida, and the husband wins back his wife and marital bliss wins the day.

The philanderers consort
Photo credit: Ruby Washington/NYTimes

The contrast between the duets between the two potential lovers competing for the Turk’s heart are indicative of the types of love explored in the story. The sentiment of the “Io mi voglio divertir” duet that initiates the romance between Fiorilla and Selim is light hearted and selfish. All either of them want to do is have fun. That Selim ends up settling for the deeper long lost love he once had with Zaida in the duet, “Per la fuga è tutto lesto,” is paralleled to the eventual breaking down of headstrong and selfish Fiorilla whose husband has to break her of her philandering flirtatious ways in order to bring her back into the marital fold. Call it: the taming of the slut.

Fiorilla is free as a bird
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Korean soprano Hyesang Park as Fiorilla was terrific. Her role entails the most challenging and spectacular singing of the opera and Ms. Park displayed vocal agility, sheer power and sensational acting as the flirty yet ultimately repentant wife. Ms. Park’s Italian was excellent and she distilled the most coquettish tone even in recitatif when saying things like “lo zucchero e’ bastante?” (is the sugar enough? – for Selim’s coffee). She was a lot of fun to watch and impressive to hear, delivering a range that went from comic to tragic, though the comic flirty bits were the best parts, such as when she punches her husband for being a jealous bore and tells him she’ll punish him by getting a thousand lovers and by fooling around night and day (Per punirvi aver vogl’io / Mille amanti ognor d’intorno, / Far la pazza notte e giorno, / Divertirmi in libertà!), all while blowing kisses to the spa pool boys. In the scene of her deepest darkest cave in Act II, when Geronio threatens to leave her and she realizes that as a divorcée she would lose her honor, Ms. Park poured her heart out and then completely collapsed. Still on the ground after a long and well-deserved round of applause, she raised her head and bounced back belting out her next lines. The force of her re-attack here was arresting and the power of her voice, after such a long aria, was extraordinary, particularly coming from such a petite frame.

Bass-baritone Michael Sumuel was also impressive as Selim. He seemed to be the most experienced singer on stage (among other things, he sang Masetto in Lyric Opera of Chigago’s season opening Don Giovanni) and it showed.  His was the most extensive role after Fiorilla’s and he rose to the challenge singing with expressiveness, agility and great comic tempo. Selim’s duets with Fiorilla were probably the most enjoyable bel canto singing of the evening. Mezzo Kara Sainz as Zaida was pure romantic sweetness and rendered her reunion duet with her long lost love Selim particularly touching and heart wrenching. Bass Daniel Miroslaw as Geronio delivered a solid performance, with great stage presence and the right amount of slapstick fun.

Maestra Speranza Scappucci

This, our first outing at Julliard Opera, was a revelation. With the youthful, energetic and gracious Speranza Scappucci at the helm, the whole show ran like precision clockwork. It was not only impressive but also utterly entertaining and pure Rossinian exuberance. The prestigious school really showed that it is worth its salt. I’ll take another dose of these healing waters anytime.

- Lui & Lei