A Truly American (Italian) Opera

Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West

New York City Opera

Rose Theater

September 6, 2017

Nobody move! Minnie takes charge
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Where has La Fanciulla del West been all my life? It was such an exciting and surprising discovery that I think it might be my favorite Puccini opera to date, especially in terms of plot. Whereas he can often be too cloyingly melodramatic, too saccharine for my taste in some of his more canonical verismo standards, La Fanciulla, once it gets going, tells the compelling story of an empowered woman risking life and limb to realize her dream of true love and marital bliss. I say “once it gets going” because like La Bohème, the first act of this proto-spaghetti western of an opera feels on first listen a bit bogged down by exposition.

The Polka Bar is the heart of the community of miners
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Yet the first act is deceptively tight despite seeming relatively sprawling. The libretto covers a lot of ground. Structurally it sets up for everything that is to come. The men are are lonely. They swill their whiskey straight and are intolerant of anyone who drinks it any other way. But they are also suckers for mail from home and softies when it comes to a nurturing lesson from Scripture – though they are also given to stacking the deck against the dealer at the gambling table. All of the later plot points are all established in this early series of tableaux that follow one right after the other.

The men busy themselves with drink, cards, Bible lessons
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

A lot of this flow depends on the tempos coming out of the pit. James Meena conducted a well-paced rendition of the score. The multifaceted series of set pieces in the first act hurled right along. Everything clicked in terms of narrative rhythm.

The content-rich first act then gives way to the fast-paced, action-packed second and third acts. There are even hints of Tosca in the story: brutal law enforcement officer lusts after the leading lady who is also a prominent figure in her community, here she is the proprietor of the local watering hole, and has to compete for her attentions against an outlaw, sans the execution and suicide.

Minnie is beset by men from the beginning
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

New York City Opera’s multi-partner collaboration presents a simple, no frills, unfussy production. The staging did its job without distracting from culminating plot points, like the big scene where Minnie robs the sheriff of his prize by cheating at cards. The dramatic turn of events in that climactic moment was almost cinematic in terms of its creation of suspense. If the world of the miners and the Polka bar they haunt came to life only in part thanks to Ivan Stefanutti’s minimal but effective set designs, then the music coming out of the pit did more than pick up the slack.

Minnie scams the evil sheriff at poker
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

In addition to buoying the suspenseful dramatic twists and turns in the plot, the score also heightens some very emotionally moving moments, particularly the tenor’s redemption aria in the second act and Minnie’s plea for a reprieve for her beloved outlaw in the third.

But there were awkward moments as well. The opera is, after all, sung in Italian and it’s full of expressions that perhaps Puccini thought would convey an American flair (Ugh!, Hallo!, whisky, Urrah!) that end up sounding like a spaghetti western badly translated back into Italian. Nevertheless, a dynamic and charismatic all-male chorus did justice to their caricatures, all things considered.

Johnson says his prayers before execution
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Jonathan Burton leant his manly and moving tenore spinto skills to the role of the outlaw in disguise, known variously as Johnson or Ramerrez. His Act II climactic mini-aria in which his proclamation of love for Minnie and his promise to change his lifestyle in accordance with that commitment was underwritten by Burton’s heartfelt vocal surge in emotion and conviction. When he kicked into the full-throated cry of a tenor emoting he bore it all, both heart and soul, so that there was no doubt as to the sincerity of his sentiments, despite his other duplicitous behavior.

Soprano Kristin Sampson played the barkeep, Minnie, as a real go-getter but with a soft side, not unlike the all-too-similar character played by Joan Crawford in Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar. She sang with an almost Wagnerian might and forcefulness. But she was also tender in the maternal moments she shares with her regular customers in their miner community, an all around dynamic character, played with tact by Sampson.

Tough as nails, Minnie longs for one thing only: true love
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Minnie is a modern heroine for a brave new world. Such a compelling strong no-nonsense leading lady! Nothing like those wimpy suicidal creatures who usually inhabit the operatic stage, she is an enterprising, independent, strong yet gracious woman who is equally at ease when teaching Bible lessons in humane behavior to a bunch of illiterate miners, as she is fiercely defending their hard-earned gold, dolling up for her date and cheating at poker to save the man she loves – not to mention shootin’ ’em up, left and right. Poom! Poom! Nobody messes with Minnie!

True love in the making
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

La Fanciulla del West is a tale of compassion and second chances – even a bandit can have a change of heart if he meets the right girl. And they can live happily ever after walking together into the sunset of the great American West. While conceived by an Italian, this opera embodies the quintessential American traits of optimism, happy endings and fierce individuality. When it’s all said and done, so unlike Puccini’s other verismo fare. Cheesy, maybe – but refreshing, moving and uplifting too. Again, so very American.

– Lei & Lui

Love is worth the gamble!

A Southern Italian Odyssey of Betrayal and Murder

Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana / Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci

Metropolitan Opera 

April 14, 2015

The two faces of the star of the show.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

The Met’s new production of Cavalleria Rusticana is a solemn and downtrodden outing. Purportedly set over Easter weekend in Sicily where the oranges are supposed to hang redolent on the air alongside the square (Aranci olezzano sui verdi margini) and the sunshine of springtime in southern Italy ought to burn brightly, Sir David McVicar’s new setting is instead dark and brooding. All we get is a stark “piazza” and minimalist details that do little to set the scene no matter how effective they are for transitions between piazza, church, tavern, home, and back again. While I’m not necessarily against essential productions, this one definitely missed the mark. I could not get over the darkness that made the whole thing feel more like a northern European Protestant winter rather than a Sicilian Catholic spring. 

Sicilian Easter on McVicar's set in all its starkness.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

To me the Sicilian land, with its almost violently bright sunlight and generous nature, is an important character in Cavalleria. A place of strong contrasts, torrid and sensual, stirring irresistible passions that lead to tragic impulsive acts. McVicar’s sets, with the only touch of color being a basket of tomatoes in the market scene, if anything stirred a sad gloominess, but certainly nothing remotely sensual or impulsive, which is kind of the point of this opera. On the other hand, the costumes were very Sicilian. And the opening passages of the opera, both its in medias res serenade and initial choruses, are sung in Sicilian dialect which is very musical. But it was a bit strange to hear foreign voices intone these southern accents. It does not quite compute in the mouth of singers who sounded more comfortable singing German. But oh well. Opera is an international art form, as it almost always has been.

Lola amidst her people.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

I’m usually not a fan of verismo opera, especially when in the hands of Puccini when he is at his sappiest in La Boheme. But there is something irresistibly evocative and viscerally suggestive, almost seductive and sexy to me about Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. There is something to be said about bringing verismo back to its original literary roots in Italy. As a movement it is often placed in a league with the gritty urban French “naturalism” of Emile Zola. But the Italian verismo of Giovanni Verga, the author of the play and short story on which the opera is based, is driven by a different set of social and geographic concerns that are determined largely by its roots in Sicilian peasant life, rather than the underbelly of Parisian life. Verga gives us a different kind of striving and struggling and suffering in the figures of his fishermen, peasants and other subaltern individuals and it translates to the opera stage far more effectively. 

Santuzza implores Turiddu.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera 

The orchestra led by maestro Fabio Luisi plowed through the stunning score with intensity and beauty. For Mascagni’s is such beautiful music. And so unconventional in many ways with its opening in medias res and its two choral introductory passages alternating with musical interludes. The singing was also mostly phenomenal. Marcelo Alvarez as the cold-blooded mamma’s boy, Turiddu, was a revelation. While I’ve seen him before, this was the first time he really impressed me. Alvarez burst onto the scene with a full round tenor sound that we don’t get nearly enough at the Met. He was manly and masculine and full chested as he made easy work of his long legato lines. 

I was particularly moved by his “Tu qui, Santuzza,” about halfway through, when he lets his spurned lover know that he is not a slave to her insane jealousy because he intends to go back to his previous lover – nevermind the fact that she is now rather inconveniently married to the biggest, baddest bass baritone in town, who also just happens to like to crack his whip any chance he gets (Schiocca la frusta). The “Tu qui, Santuzza” scene evolves beautifully from a standoffish put down (Bada, Santuzza, schiavo non sono) to a passionate duet in which the audience witnesses the depth of the love bond these characters actually do share (No, no, Turiddu, rimani ancora). Even if the text of what they’re saying to each other dramatizes their unfriendly separation and Turiddu’s insistent leavetaking, Mascagni has scored it in such a way that underscores their contrapuntal affection. It is the stuff that heart-wrenching drama is made of. And Alvarez and Westbroek brought it forcefully to life. I was tingling all over.  

Turiddu and Santuzza have a moment.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Santuzza was beautifully acted and powerfully sung. I find Santuzza’s plight heartbreaking. Poor Santuzza and all that she is forced to endure at the whims of this cowardly mammone (mamma’s boy). I mean, come on, Turiddu is supposed to marry her but betrays her, lies to her face and goes to church (!) with his lover Lola right under Santuzza’s nose. Also, he is not even enough of a man to stand behind his actions and runs whining to his mamma Lucia all the time. What an immature jerk! He really does seem to get what he deserves when Lola’s irascible husband Alfio finally kills him. 

"A te, la mala Pasqua!"
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

My one big qualm with Westbroek’s performance is the way in which she chose to embody the “mala Pasqua” curse she levels at her offender at the end of their big showdown scene. When a southern Italian, especially a Sicilian woman, intones a mala Pasqua against you, they say it like they mean it. We’re talking Medea-style, chthonic earth cult Mediterranean thumos coming at you loud and clear, with the visceral fury of a wounded wild animal. When Westbroek got to it she sang it with a weary worn out desperation that half seemed like she didn’t really mean it, especially when accompanied by facial expressions and body language that made it seem like she immediately reconsidered what she said, as if she couldn’t believe what she just uttered, rather than unleashing on him the fury of a dishonored southern Italian woman along with all the force of the land that bore and bred her. When a woman like Santuzza issues a mala Pasqua curse, she definitely does not regret it and rides that boiling wave of anger for a long while before calming down. 

Santuzza in the Sicilian borgo.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

Both Mascagni and Verga give us a pessimistic vision of the lower classes in this Sicilian borgo who are oppressed by culture though they should be uplifted by nature that is springing back to life all around them. But there is no Christ-like resurrection here. No rebirth. Only the struggle of two equally ill-fated individuals, one perhaps more morally just than the other, to live out their passions. There will be no resurrection of the flesh for compar Turiddu this Easter. 

Model of McVicar's early 20th Century Pagliacci set.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

McVicar’s new Pagliacci on the other hand is an entirely different beast. He sets it in a town square that is bustling with realistic detail including stunning depth of field with an authentic looking southern Italian bar in the farthest reaches of the stage that bristles with small town life – beautiful details that made me nostalgic for small town Italian life. So charming. So gritty. The modernizing touches with respect to the Met’s prior cartoonish production of Pagliacci were just a handful: a truck (instead of a horse-drawn caravan), some telephone poles and electric wires and the visual vocabulary of the vaudeville stage replacing that of the commedia dell’arte. Otherwise this production, while pleasant and visually engaging, felt pretty safe, traditional and not terribly innovative. The contrast with McVicar’s approach to Cavalleria was nevertheless striking. From so stark and lifeless to so bubbling with life, what does he really accomplish dividing the split bill so squarely? 

Canio, the clown is not all laughs.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

Marcelo Alvarez continued to impress as Canio, a more noble and moving character than that useless and cruel Turiddu. He embodied the painful intertwining between theatrical fiction and harsh reality with a profound, heart-piercing desperation that moved me to tears, particularly in the signature aria Vesti la giubba. His female counterpart, the cheating wife Nedda, was played by soprano Patricia Racette, who positively surprised me with an extremely energetic stage presence and a vocal performance to match it, particularly effective in her duet with her lover Silvio and in the vaudeville performance. Georgian bass-baritone George Gagnidze was also on double duty from Cavalleria (where he played a lumbering lug of an Alfio), here more incisive as the troupe’s hunchback Tonio, also in love with Nedda.

Nedda struts her stuff.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

While musically and dramatically I prefer Cavalleria over Pagliacci, I did find McVicar’s specific direction choices for the Leoncavallo companion piece more enjoyable and true to the original narrative core when compared to his take on Mascagni. The meta-theatrical themes of Pagliacci came vividly to life in this production’s cheerful Italian village. I cannot help but wonder, though, if they injected some Sicilian sunshine into Cavalleria, what a better show it would have been.

– Lui & Lei

Commedia dell'arte goes Vaudeville.
Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera