Murder, Divine Grace and Farce

Puccini’s Il Trittico

Met Opera

November 30, 2018

The gang's all here: Puccini's Il Trittico at the Met
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Apparently, Puccini intended the three one act operas of Il Trittico to always be performed together. But they rarely are. For starters, it’s expensive to have three completely different sets and casts in one evening. Also, the evening can get pretty long with massive set changes. Finally, the three works are not equally strong so often one (or even two) are dropped. Case in point, I had seen Suor Angelica together with Gianni Schicchi before but never Tabarro. So I was glad to experience the whole package the way Puccini intended it. And at the Met, which is the house where Il Trittico premiered on December 14, 1918.

It all begins in a very dark place of the soul.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

The evening started literally and figuratively in a very dark place with Il Tabarro a tale of passion, betrayal and murder. We are on the quais of the Seine and the nocturnal action revolves around the barge of Michele and his wife Giorgetta who employ a number of laborers for the loading and unloading of goods. Among them there is the dashing Luigi, who had an affair with Giorgetta. Everybody is pretty miserable and dreams of better lives. Michele remembers happier times with his wife and, upon discovering her betrayal, kills her lover and surprises her with the dead body. 

Villain without a cause. The murderous Michele in Il Tabarro.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

While the ingredients for great drama are there, this cast unfortunately did not deliver. There was zero chemistry between soprano Amber Wagner as Giorgetta and tenor Marcelo Alvarez as her lover Luigi (even if they both singers sounded very good) and most importantly baritone George Gagnidze as the murderous Michele was just not a strong enough villain. Since he’s the propeller for the super dramatic finale, his lack of oomph both vocal and acting-wise made the whole thing fall a bit flat. I’d be interested in seeing this again with a more convincing cast. 

Opolais moves as Suor Angelica.
Photo credit: Ken Howard 

Next up, with Suor Angelica the sets of church-gardens-cloisters were bright and airy, perfectly suited for a cheerful tableau of a day in some jolly nuns’ lives, with their innocent chatters and problems (such as longing to pet some lambs). When the focus shifts to Suor Angelica, though, the register swiftly moves to the mysterious first and heavily dramatic later. See, the thing is that Suor Angelica comes from a super-rich noble family who forced her to take the veil to distance her from the shame of bearing a child out of wedlock. She has been without news from her family for seven years, and when her super evil aunt (the Principessa, played by the always excellent Stephanie Blythe) shows up, things do not bode well. 

In the title character, soprano Kristine Opolais dominated the show with a visceral performance delivering a study in motherly love, pain and loss. I have recently become a mother and this opera, thanks to Opolais’ performance, spoke to me like never before. When the protagonist discovers – 2 years after the fact – that her son died, my heart sank. And when her pain starts pouring out in the aria Senza mamma, bimbo / tu sei morto, I cried. In the hands of Opolais, the potentially sappy plot turned into an emotionally raw piece, showing that with the right leading lady, this is a very powerful mini opera. Yes, the finale with the rapid fire succession of suicide—prayer for redemption—ascension to heaven with little angel boy welcoming his mother are a tad much, but the pain that came before then was real and universal. 

The farcical family tries to piece it all together
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Last but certainly not least, Gianni Schicchi is definitely the best of the three. This choral piece is so much fun that makes you wish Puccini spent more time popping out comic operas. Death is also front and center (as in the other two operas of Il Trittico), however here it is treated in farcical tones. Buoso Donati just died, leaving all his riches to the monks, probably to spite his greedy relatives. Enter trickster Gianni Schicchi to the rescue, who impersonates Buoso and modifies the will, only to leave the most treasured possessions (including a mule and the windmills of Signa) to... Buoso’s beloved friend Gianni Schicchi! The plot is fast paced, the comic timing terrific and the music just works. 

The cast was terrific all around, with everybody displaying excellent Italian, absolutely necessary to savor the juicy libretto. In the title role, legend Placido Domingo was quite impressive, displaying great acting chops, fluid movement and lyrically soave singing. While he came across more like a baritonal tenor than a real baritone, it mattered little since he conveyed Schicchi’s character with savoir faire and an almost youthful energy, clearly having a lot of fun with it. In a way, it’s a perfect fit for him at this stage in his career. Tenor Atalla Ayan and soprano Kristina Mkhitaryan delivered with ardor their lovebirds arias. The sets were the most elaborate and complex of the three one act operas, almost as to finish the evening with a bang and an optimistic feel good vibe, with a terrace overlooking the Florence skyline, a couple in love and a legendary singer asking for the public’s understanding as he turns off the stage lights. 

– Lei

Domingo elevates the hopes of all around
Photo credit: Ken Howard

A Shoddy New Rusalka

Dvořák’s Rusalka

Metropolitan Opera

February 17, 2017

Rusalka reunites with the lover of her dreams
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Lui: I had a unique experience with Rusalka at the Met. Settling into the opening bars of the overture, Mark Elders’ subdued rendition of Dvořák’s score lulled me into a state of relax in which the outside world slowly faded into the background. Although I was really ready for a darker, more uncanny take on this rather visceral and often folkloristic soundscape that is as leavened with joy as it is laden with portentous foreboding, nevertheless I found myself immersed in a parallel musical universe. No passage embodies these dynamic dichotomies more than the prancing chorus of water nymphs with their refrain of “Ho, ho ho!” that is both appealing and strange. In any case, the peaceful salve of the luscious music hit the spot.

I wish I could say the same thing for the staging as it proceeded to set the tone for the story. Mary Zimmerman’s new production really left me lukewarm in the First Act. Rather than a naturalistic set, Daniel Ostling’s design presents the woodland grove of the water nymphs as a claustrophobic rectangular room with the sky and trees painted on the walls. The hardwood flooring did nothing to suggest an outdoor environment and the lake of the water sprite was nothing more than a rectangular opening in the floor. The only even semi-realistic detail is the tree in the middle of the stage on which Rusalka will perch during her Song to the Moon. The blatant staginess of the overall design made this lone naturalistic detail seem out of place.

I see a starkness
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Lei: Zimmerman’s production looked like the Met ran out of money from the get go. The first act is all about the setting in the woods, lakes and rivers. While I do not necessarily need something overly naturalistic, plopping a tree in the middle of a hardwood floor with an uneven hole and scattering a bunch of round plastic water lilies came across as a glorified rehearsal, with hand me down props.

The Natural world housed in a room
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Water is such an important plot element. Rusalka is a nymph made of water and falls in love with the Prince while he’s swimming the lake she inhabits. In this production, we need to believe that the lake is that spot where a handful of floorboards came off. To make things worse, when the Water Sprite comes out of the “lake,” poor Eric Owens had to jump awkwardly on those plastic leaves and then roll himself on the ground back to the hole in the floor. Again, it looked like a rehearsal in a run down theater, really painful to watch. Hardwood floor scattered with yellow plastic flowers was also all we got for the supposedly romantic encounter between the newly transformed Rusalka and the Prince. I’m not against minimalism, but this one seemed to lack any concept.  

Rusalka invokes the moon
Photo credit: Sara Krulwich

Lui: One of the clever touches, though, was the dress Rusalka wears when we first encounter her. Before she makes a deal with the witch Jezibaba to get her legs, she is burdened by a long trailing “aquatic” dress covered in water lilies that she struggles to move in. And indeed she is forced to swing it around ponderously until her transformation occurs.

I really only began to give the production the benefit of the doubt in Act II, when the ideas behind certain conceits revealed themselves. The action has now moved to the Prince’s palace. The same rectangular space including the same wide wide beam hardwood floors, that once “housed” the natural setting, now redressed, stands for a modest princely parlor.

They are still skimping on the flourishes of grandeur, but the parallel shape of the space seems significant. In one corner is a heaping mound of deer and antelope skulls all with glorious antlers that stand like a neglected pile of hunting trophies, denoting an abusive human attitude toward nature. The thematic tensions begin to emerge. In Zimmerman’s take this seems to be a story about the relationship between human society and the natural world.

Lei: It is true that the Act II sets looked a bit more together and engaged more the eye but I don’t see how they conveyed any strong vision. I did not necessarily got the man vs. nature theme, seems like a lot to ask from a pile of antlers.

Rusalka is out of her element in the human world
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Lui: Having gained a human form but having lost her voice in the process, Rusalka is now out of her element amidst the humans. Austin McCormick choreographed an extended dance scene that plays out during the ballet interlude in which we see Rusalka struggling to find her place in this new world. She wavers between fascination and terror as she takes in the opulent display of a dozen or so male and female dancers decked out in elegant evening wear who enact all the rituals of human courtship with its formal introductions, posing and posturing, seductions, and being swept off your feet by the consummation of love. Rusalka has a hard time finding her footing in the machine-like rapture of the social system that drives the human world, which the choreography beautifully enacted through movement and dance.

The water nymph has trouble fitting in
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

I finally warmed up to an interpretation of the idea behind the production as a whole in the Third Act, which I found most moving of all. Although I wouldn't call it terribly compelling theater in terms of spectacle, I nevertheless came to appreciate the subtle ways it posed an interpretative problem with which to engage.

All is askew and in tatters by the end
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

We now return to the woodland glade that has been disfigured almost beyond recognition. The set, which have been reduced to nothing more than a set, is now intentionally crooked. The walls with their painted forest scene have been shredded revealing the raw two-by-fours of the set’s skeleton, an intentional metatheatrical nod to the fictiveness of the space of the stage dressed with the simplest of sets.

The suggestion is that the destruction of the sets reflect Rusalka’s subjective perception of the world she once called home. Everything has changed now since she has been disabused of her illusions. In fact, in retrospect, in Egan to think that her subjective understanding was projected onto the natural world from the very beginning. When she sang to the moon in Act I she conjured the grand lunar body in the sky with a wave of her hand and she could even stop it temporarily in its slow march across the backdrop as she sang. However, at the same time, we find out from the Water Sprite in Act III that the damage was caused by a human. The Met’s supertitles render his explanation to the nymphs: “A human has spoiled our waters.” This is what I picked up on to explain Zimmerman’s transformation of the opera into a subtle commentary on the human ability to sully nature and bring ourselves down in the process.

Natural decline and the demise of humankind
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Following the touching demise of the prince who dies in the arms of his beloved nature goddess, I couldn't help but think of the timeliness of the message for the world today. So much for the escapist pleasures I experienced when the opera began. I was suddenly confronted with one of the most pressing issues we face.

There is only one way to break the curse
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Lei: I found the Third Act sets as the most irritating at all. The sets here were just utterly trashed and dimly lit, as if they got abandoned or vandalized. Seems a little bit of a stretch to me to put so much emphasis on the line about humans spoiling waters, frankly. The idea there is that the Prince spoiled Rusalka (who used to be a nymph made of water). Other than Rusalka being distraught, the plot does not really justify a trashing of the sets. I usually like it when the production demands some extra thinking from the audience, unraveling interesting interpretations of a work. Take, for example, Zimmerman’s take on Sonnambula, which I personally love.

The problem with this Rusalka production is that it seemed to have some metatheatrical ambitions that were never fully realized or fleshed out with any sort of conviction. The result was a half-baked, cheap-looking staging. What a waste!

Lui: As one of the divas whom the Met is currently pushing, Kristine Opolais is a stunningly beautiful singing-actress. She is a pleasure to watch. After seeing her in several roles over the last couple of seasons, however, she hasn't showed me that she a voice suited for the grand hall of the house. It may very well be that she can vocally captivate an audience in some of the smaller European houses that are more intimate in scale. I have yet to be wowed by her sound here. She tackled the famous Song to the Moon modestly well but it wasn't transporting, as is often the case with the other roles in her repertory at the Met. As an actress she is more compelling. The way she played the final death scene here was as moving as I have ever seen her. It plays out much like the conclusion of the Manon Lescaut we saw her in last season, only here I found her performance more emotionally riveting.  

The irresistible charms of the Foreign Princess
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Lei: Agree. I don’t see the fuss around Kristine Opolais. She is definitely stunning but voice-wise she yet has to convince me. In this case, however, it didn't hurt that she had a strong leading man to play off against. Tenor Brandon Jovanovich as the Prince was excellent. He carried the longing of this man who gets drawn into an unusual relationship with ardor and vigor from beginning to end, but also convincingly showing other colors. This Prince is also fickle and quick to change his passions when they don’t go how he expects, falling for the easier to understand “Foreign Princess.” He represents the human race as unreliable and untrustworthy. But, he also comes back strong with heartfelt desperation as he realizes his true love and dies in Rusalka’s arms. Soprano Katarina Dalayman as the Foreign Princess was impressive, exceedingly loud in the face of Rusalka’s silence, she displayed an exuberant larger-than-life vocal performance, with fire and aggression that were a pleasure to hear.

Jezibaba conjures cures and curses
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Lui: Another impressive singer was mezzo Jamie Barton in the role of the witch Jezibaba. This lady has a sound that is luscious, enveloping and rich and this role seems to be written for her voice, menacing yet so melodic. She also seemed to embody the harsh witch with gusto and panache and just stole the show every time she was on stage.

The Water Sprite holds court in the woodland glade
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

As the Water Sprite, bass-baritone Eric Owens was thundering and authoritative, but suffered from poor costume choices, as he was sporting a frog-like outfit that came across as a caricature, at odds with the seriousness of his role.

The Met's previous production had a lushness this one lacks
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Lei: Mary Zimmerman’s production is decidedly minimalist when compared to the lush Otto Schenk production it rather unnecessarily replaces. It seems like a shame to have retired it. Was it worn out or did that one belong to Renee Fleming, for whom it served as a vehicle to her own notoriety as the great reviver of this otherwise neglected masterpiece? In order to launch a new generation of rising stars is perhaps explains why we needed something new, just not this one.

– Lei & Lui

Jezibaba goes steampunk
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Passion Italian-Style in WWII Paris

Puccini’s Manon Lescaut

Metropolitan Opera

November 25, 2016

Manon reminisces about simpler times
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Met Opera

The Met’s new production of Puccini’s first big breakthrough opera from 1893 is back for its second year in a row with a new cast. When we saw this production on the opening night of its run last winter, Roberto Alagna had stepped in to save the day due to an “unexpected” cancellation by the chronic canceller Jonas Kaufmann, opposite the gorgeous Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais. Back then it was our first Manon Lescaut and we liked it fine, though we did not feel it was something worth writing home about. This year, maybe because of the new (superior) cast or due to some Wagnerian exposure, we actually liked this Puccini highly melodramatic opera much better.

Manon unleashes her diva
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Met Opera

With the new cast, the dynamic tension between the characters shifted ever so slightly. Carlos Alvarez brought out his rich and lyric tenore spinto. His voice is vibrant and fits squarely in the Puccini canon. He played a cocky, headstrong des Grieux, with his male assertiveness coming across in his brutal attack on certain notes in key dramatic moments. His No, pazzo son in the climax of Act III turned out to be one of the most moving moments of the evening. I found that the threat of separation between the two lovers tugged on my heartstrings. Alvarez’s performance was gripping and the fact that I was virtually moved to tears completely blind-sided me. I usually find Puccini too sentimental, too saccharine, too sappy for my tastes, and yet he still manages to sneak up on me especially during scenes like this one that feature big bursts of muscular emotions set to music.  

When it comes to Anna Netrebko, it seems like she was born to sing this role. There is something about the way she embodies Manon that seems at first blush to be entirely out of character but that ultimately brings to the fore elements that you don’t usually see from other singers. While Netrebko and her voice seem a touch too mature for the Act I incarnation of this innocent country maiden who is on her way to a convent, she played her Manon as a fresh faced ingénue who was completely unaware of the innate diva-esque powers of seduction that she naturally possesses. It was a revelation in many ways, not least of all because she owned the role vocally, even while only feigning innocent naïveté. So by injecting her larger than life diva quality even in these nascent moments of Manon’s early blossoming, Netrebko endowed the character with something very special, not to mention fitting for what this young woman may in part also be deep down.

Manon possesses her inner diva
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Met Opera

In the first act, she discovers what she is capable of. In the second, she finds herself in a quandary of sorts. Having been forced by her opportunistic brother to leave the man whom she really loves, she uses her natural gifts to carve out a very posh niche for herself in the rarified Parisian world of the rich and famous in which she seems to serve as little more than a glorified whore. Clad in her plush full-length furs and surrounded by a slew of Art Deco luxuries, Netrebko dreamily croons In quelle trine morbide about missing the simpler life she enjoyed with des Grieux, her more passionate lover, the man whom she abandoned without even saying goodbye. She pines for those times when she had fewer toys but soaked up a whole lot more love, long kisses and amorous embraces.

In this case, Manon is actively a trickster. She knows exactly what she is doing when she manipulates des Grieux back into her embrace in Act II. She is a dangerous seductress using the only weapon in her arsenal as femme fatale, and that is her antico fascino che accieca. Poor des Grieux immediately falls for it, to his own knowing chagrin. Netrebko plays the moment beautifully. A slippery snake who knows the power she holds over men. Des Grieux then really sees through her deceit and artifice when she reverts back to her opportunistic materialist self after they are alerted that her arrest is imminent. Rather than high tail it out of there, she goes back to her boudoir for the jewels and the gold, and Alvarez breaks into one of his most heart wrenching numbers in the first half of the opera, Ah, Manon, mi tradisce il tuo folle pensier, which he belts out with a manly desperation. She continues to play him and he is distraught. It is in moments like this one that makes me think that Puccini really nailed it. This whole movement in the music and the narrative very concisely captures the spirit of Prévost’s novel, in which Manon is a cold blooded heartbreaker and des Grieux let's his crush get the better of him at every turn, yet he just can't help himself, and so he always goes back for more. Crazy he is indeed.

The Column of Trajan and the painting visible in the boudoir backdrop
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Met Opera

Set against the backdrop of a Nazi occupied France, Richard Eyre’s distinctive take on the opera opens in Amiens, France, only this time the year is 1941. The village of the original has been transformed into a provincial French township and the fashion has been adapted to match. On the whole the updated setting enlivens the story, despite initially feeling like another futile experiment in the modern history of operatic Regietheater. Upon further reflection, however, some of these directorial decisions do in fact add several insightful layers to the story as it stands. Not only does it come off completely sexed up – the costumes and sets look great – but it also introduces deeper motivations for such plot points as to why Manon is headed to a convent in Act I and as to why the arrival of the gendarmes in Act II is extra heartbreaking, not to mention the deportation twist in Act III.

Manon flirts with her sugar daddy
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Met Opera

Talking with a scholar of French literature and culture during one of the intermissions, I was taken by a particular insight that sheds some light on how we might go about decoding some of the liberties Richard Eyre took with this concept, especially considering the bold decision to set the opera in a France under German occupation in the year 1941, rather than the late 18th century (the novel is set in the first half of the 18th century, Puccini moves it to the second half of that century). The suggestion is that Manon is Jewish and like many rural Jewish girls of the time she is being shipped off to a convent in order to escape persecution – a relatively common occurrence. Then in Act II when the soldiers burst in to abscond with her, it is because Geronte has not merely denounced her for lechery, but rather that he has reported her Jewishness to the authorities. And so in barge the Nazis. A particularly cruel form of revenge for having found her in the midst of a tryst with her former lover and his prior rival. It’s a very powerful reading, and it very likely is what the director and his team were going for.

Not every aspect of the production fits into this reading and for it to work at all you have to use your imagination, particularly in Act IV. But the broad outlines of this notion seem to be there, and the direction makes every attempt to make it all mesh. The Act III role of the prostitutes and prisoners who are being shipped off as slave laborers to the new world would then seem to provide a parallel to the rounding up of individuals to be sent off to concentration camps. In fact, they are all systematically stripped down one-by-one during the humiliating roll call portion of the act and dressed in sad gray smocks with numbers stenciled on them, so Holocaust references would not be a stretch.

The Nazi deportation forces cart her off to the camps
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Met Opera

By the time we get to the final act, however, Eyre’s staging of Act IV only functions on the level of metaphor. The lovers find themselves in a wasteland, both the work of their all-consuming passion and of the war that has been raging on in the meantime. This is one of the main points in which the words being sung in the Italian are incongruous to the action on stage, and I usually find this practice harder to condone. The long slow death of the beloved nevertheless plays out against the backdrop of a war-ravaged cityscape and, when sung by the likes of Alvarez and Netrebko, it is a harrowing experience for all involved. An appropriately Wagnerian finale, a Liebestod in the Italian fashion, as Puccini intended it.  

The slithery snake sneaks up on her prey
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Met Opera

Rob Howell’s signature rotund set design (with striking similarities to his work in the Met’s current productions of Carmen and Le nozze di Figaro) cleverly includes in Manon’s courtesan quarters in Act II a mock up of the Column of Trajan in Rome that features an array of Kama Sutra poses and a screen with an enormous image of Cupid pinching Venus’ nipple from the iconic painting by Agnolo Branzino, The Allegory of Venus and Cupid. The part of the painting that is on full display includes the right side of the composition in which the monstrous figure of Temptation holds forth in one hand the promise of love and pleasure in the form of a honeycomb; in the other she holds the menacing prick of her scorpion tail. These elements provide a kinky backdrop against which Manon's big courtesan scene unfolds. It displays clues to the pain that will inevitably follow in the wake of love's great transitory pleasure, especially as these two lovers sing of lips that wound and heal – dolcissimo soffrir, indeed!

The set for this act must also include a great big bed and this makes Puccini powerfully unique. The libretto and the writing are among the most Dionysian outside of Wagner, but Puccini is Italian and so the quality is distinctly more warm-blooded. Just to read the text for the big love scene when des Grieux and Manon are reunited is to go on a trip to Venusberg that is not otherworldly, but profoundly of the here and now. It’s deep, if you let it work its magic on you. It can be a bit misleading for its verismo undertones, but to understand Manon Lescaut, it seems to me that you have to know not only Cavalleria rusticana, but also Tannhäuser and maybe even Tristan und Isolde, which makes it a perfect pairing for this season at the Met.

The wasteland provides the backdrop for the final movement
Photo credit: Ken Howard/Met Opera

Manon Lescaut’s Act II contains one of the deepest most Dionysian expressions of operatic abandonment in the Italian canon that I have seen. And it is only thanks to Wagner (of all people) that I have come to this understanding. This opera can take you places if you let it and it does contain raw bits of the Puccini works to come. The beginning gives you a glimpse of what is to come in the first act of La boheme. Act III gives you a glimpse of the winning formula that brought us the E lucevan le stelle movement in Tosca. And there are other prolepses of what is to come in Puccini’s later work. But his attempt to descend into the Dionysian in the second half of Act II and what happens in Act IV all amount to something very deep. This is not Verdi, and it’s not Wagner, nor is it the later Puccini. Richard Eyre’s production does not entirely disappoint.

– Lui & Lei