Opera Gangsters in Bushwick

Puccini’s Tosca

LoftOpera

Bushwick, Brooklyn

March 10, 2015

Cannot miss O P E R A in Bushwick
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

In usual LoftOpera fashion, we got off a subway stop in deep Brooklyn and walked our way through a far west of abandoned warehouses, decrepit storefronts and shady dealings in parked cars. We knew we were close when we saw yellow cabs (definitely Manhattanites) dropping off patrons in front of an unassuming and unmarked entrance. There were groups of people gathering around and buzzing... about a five letter sign that read “O P E R A” in bright lights, under a clutter of graffiti. We were definitely there. Charming and bubbly LoftOpera General Manager Brianna Maury welcomed every single patron at the door with a smile, a one-page program and a paper clip – to trade for a free drink at the bar.

Castel Sant'Angelo
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

The space was a huge white-walled raw loft, a converted former Chinatown bus workshop. A scaffolding structure holding a huge winged statue (Castel Sant’Angelo anyone?) lead the way to the rectangular “stage,” framed by two corner walls and facing rows of benches on the other two sides. We got there 30 minutes before start time and it was almost impossible to find a seat, as the over 100 mostly under-30 crowd had already firmly settled in, swilling their beers and chatting idly. Not to worry, though, one can always plop down on the floor, front row, where all the juicy action is anyway – you may even get hit by a squirt of Scarpia’s blood.

There was an electric party vibe and a sense of anticipation in the air. And then, the lights dimmed, silence fell and the 33-member roaring orchestra lead by Dean Buck erupted into the sweeping, action-packed overture of Puccini’s Tosca. LoftOpera may be unassuming and relaxed but their craft is dead serious and top quality. The Tosca cast had impeccable Italian and was strong across the board, both vocally and acting-wise; the direction was contemporary yet faithful to the story and the libretto.

 

The loving couple
Photo credit: Charles Kessler

Tenor Dane Suarez as Cavaradossi displayed a handsome, full voice. His is a warm and robust tenore spinto. Suarez’s Recondita armonia in Act I was beautiful, soaring, and moving. He brought down the house (and moved me to tears) with E lucevan le stelle in Act III, rendering the magic of the pure earth-shaking lyricism of a man deeply in love about to die. Soprano Carolina Castells was the heroine of the dark drama. Her interpretation of Tosca was intensely fierce. The Santuzza-like fits of jealousy she threw amidst the love duets that punctuate Act I were charming, but she really knocked it out of the park in Act II. Fearlessly stripping down to her skivvies, she offers herself to the corrupt Scarpia only to then deliver a most gut-wrenching Vissi d’arte (as she convincingly stabs the villain with his own steak knife). Her soprano is earthy and powerful and her acting talents superb. Baritone Kevin Wetzel as the villain Scarpia was appropriately snarly, rendering his character with a threatening viscerality that I think it’s still haunting some of the public in the first rows.

 

Things get Tarantino-esque
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

Bass Joseph Beutel delivered the fugitive Angelotti with a deep sense of urgency that left me wanting to hear more from him, though he exits the scene early in the action. Baritone Stefanos Koroneos was a convincing Sacristan, displaying the right comic touch without mugging or overdoing it. Tenor Jordan Pitts as Scarpia’s sidekick Spoletta had charismatic stage presence and a handsome confident voice. Finally, the 14-member chorus did an amazing job with the Te Deum at the end of Act I, and Eric Schuett was an enchanting shepherd. While playing with toy soldiers in the opening of Act III, the boy soprano delivered the lyrical lullaby Io de’ sospiri with an ethereal otherworldliness.  

 

Yes, the action is that close to the public
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

The sets were simple, really two white walls, and a handful of props: a Mary Magdalene mural and lots of votive candles for Act I, a long sleek white dining table in Act II (doubling as the platform for the attempted rape and subsequent murder), a vintage school desk in Act III. Overall, Raymond Zilberberg’s direction took us to a place somewhere between the neorealism of Rossellini (Tosca reminded me of Anna Magnani in Roma Città Aperta, particularly in the finale) and Tarantino’s splatter-noir (replete with blood, guns and gangsters).

Cavaradossi right before the torture
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

There were nice touches, some more intentional than others. Cavaradosssi swiped through Floria Tosca’s pictures on his iPhone while singing Recondita armonia, a real water faucet was used by both Angelotti and Tosca to wash out blood from their hands. And last but not least, the rumble of trucks or motorcycles passing outside the venue during Act III did not bother, rather, it heightened the intensity of the last scenes of the opera in a way that I can only describe as cinematic.  

A Tosca with a touch of neo-realism
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

LoftOpera treated Tosca as if it was the hottest new thing on the indie scene, never performed before, or, at least, never in front of an audience like this. In fact, the show’s program, instead of the usual detailed account of the whole plot, presents just a broad summary of the setting and the action, without any spoilers. It actually worked: the public may not have known or cared about the nuances of the arias but the sense of discovery was palpable, as they followed the action of the plot like their life depended on it. They giggled at Tosca’s jealous fits, cheered enthusiastically when she sunk her knife into evil Scarpia’s chest, gasped at the tragic finale. And this is what opera is all about. The most emotionally gripping, gut-stirring story-telling through music. LoftOpera gets over a hundred people to a raw warehouse space in the middle of Bushwick and they all sit in rapt religious silence through a three act Puccini opera (well, there’s the occasional beer bottle tipping but that’s part of the local soundscape). Their events are cool, sexy and unassuming to the extreme. Opera is old and stuffy? Throw some free beers at it, let people sit on the floor and have the gorgeous music do the rest. All you need are a few walls, great performers and smart direction.

As we walked out singing raucously Cavaradossi’s climactic aria, E lucevan le stelle (dolci baci e languide carezeeeee…. Muoio disperatoooooo…..non ho amato mai tanto la vitaaaaaa!!!!), behind us other happy patrons were also humming bits and pieces of the Puccini score and talking enthusiastically about the show. Because, yes, opera is grand, emotionally infectious and timeless. In the right setting, today’s generations still get it, love it and will come back for more. Next up in LoftOpera’s 2016 season are Rossini’s Le Comte Ory (June), Mozart’s Così fan tutte (September) and Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny (December). There’s a lot to look forward to!

- Lei & Lui

Logo design: Doug Smith at Penmanships

Orchestra led by Dean Buck
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco 

Scarpia's dining table
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

NYCO Strikes Back with a Classic Done Right

Puccini’s Tosca

NYCO Renaissance

Rose Theater

January 24, 2016

Tosca pulls out all the stops.
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

NYCO Renaissance’s recent production of Puccini’s Tosca was a revival, a renewal and a rebirth in many senses. It was a return for the company on a number of symbolic levels; a return of the opera that the company debuted with back in 1944. It was also the return of the most classic production of this opera. NYCO Renaissance obtained from Casa Ricordi the exclusive North American rights to re-create Adolf Hohenstein’s set and costume designs, the very same ones of the original debut performance of Tosca in its 1900 Rome premiere in Rome. All of which makes this the perfect opportunity to reflect on the value of a truly traditional production for all the purists out there.

Do not go gentle into the dying of the light.
Photo credit: NYTimes

Expectations were low after all of the lukewarm if not downright negative press I had read about it. But I mean really. What’s wrong with people? The January 24 show was great. Maybe it was just our cast or maybe at the end of the run things finally started to click. Because it was there. On the last night of the run, they pulled out all the stops.

NYCO Renaissance’s was a solid Tosca. The scenes were mostly comprised of beautifully painted backdrops oozing art deco charm. Costumes were traditional but together. The Te Deum in Act I was done right and truer to libretto than the way the current production at the Met stages it. And the Act III sets here actually resembled the actual Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome even if they placed it in the wrong side of the river. At least they gave us the Roman skyline. At the Met they don’t even give us a peekaboo view of St. Peter’s. There is something to be said for the classic approach no matter how meager the means. On the whole, it was a a very satisfying Tosca I really enjoyed. Sometimes one does not need to reinvent the wheel but just get the key stuff right, and a nostalgic wink to an opera’s first production is just a wonderful homage.

The NYCO Renaissance orchestra under the baton of maestro Pacien Mazzagatti did justice to the sweeping Puccini score. Both Scarpia and Cavaradossi were Italian and oh what a difference it makes when native speakers sing in their native language. The whole thing has a more fluid and refreshing vibe. Baritone Carlo Guelfi was an excellent Scarpia. He had a bitter snarly edge to his singing that was perfect for the character. Cavaradossi’s E lucevan le stelle (by solid tenor Raffaele Abete) left me singing this little ear candy ditty for the next several days.

Tosca surveys the damage.
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Latonia Moore’s Tosca all in all was excellent too. She absolutely owned her big sequence with Scarpia in Act II. She has a tender force. Her sound encompasses both the vulnerability of a victim and the don’t-mess-with-me resolve of a fighter and a hero. Her Vissi d’arte was wonderfully moving it took me by surprise. She managed to make me look at this classic aria with fresh eyes. Even if she could use a few more Italian language articulation sessions with the great Lucy Tucker Yates, hers was a refreshing and solid soprano who delivered on the big emotional numbers required by her role.

The Rose Theater venue in the Time Warner Center has potential. The views at intermission are to die for. It’s all quintessential New York City with sweeping Central Park framed by buildings and on this particular night there was even a golden full moon hung low in the sky just over the rooftops. However, some of the logistics can and should be improved. Patrons should be able to print their own tickets – which wasn’t an option when we purchased – and in any event no one should have to line up for over 20 minutes for Will Call before the show. That’s hardly a civilized way to start an evening at the opera.

With nothing left, the leading lady bids farewell.
Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

But to get back to the basics, let’s be honest. Opera is what we’re here for. The music is what really matters. And tonight the three principal singers sounded great. They brought all the big emotions. Tosca’s Visse d’arte captivated me. Cavaradossi’s E lucevan le stelle moved me to tears. Tosca’s big third act exit took my breath away. The production was classic but polished. And while I have never particularly cared for Tosca, I had a ball revisiting it. After all the critical trash talking in the press, on this final night of the run it seems clear: an opera for the critics it might not be, but, remaining true to its roots, the NYCO Renaissance might be an opera for the people after all!

Considering NYCO's past, we’re eager to see what their next steps will be.  

– Lui & Lei

The revival of a classic: Purists eat your heart out!
Image credit: NYCO Renaissance

Sets by Adolf Hohenstein.
Image credit: NYCO Renaissance

Scarpia's salon.
Image credit: NYCO Renaissance

Two Boys, a Detective and her Mother

Muhly’s Two Boys 
The Met - November 9, 2013

Photo credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Lei: Nico Muhly’s new opera, Two Boys, is based on the real criminal case of a disturbed British 14-year old who choreographed his own (attempted) murder by inducing a 16-year old to stab him. The murder/suicide is staged through a scheme where the younger boy assumes more than two dozen different web chat room identities, including a flirty girl, an M5 spy and a rapist, who enact all sorts of sexual and psychological harassment on the older boy before finally commissioning him the stabbing. The opera begins in the aftermath of the action, when we meet up with the detective who has been assigned the case, and we uncover the story as she does. Much of the plot details, including its framing devices, are lifted directly out of a 2005 Vanity Fair investigative article. While this source material is modern and promisingly intriguing, its Muhly-Lucas adaptation fell short on virtually all levels that to me are the necessary components of a great opera, namely, enthralling music serving a cohesive plot, strong dramatic tensions, a meaningful libretto, outstanding singing and a clever and incisive production.



Photo credit: Ken Howard / The Metropolitan Opera

Lui: To me it fell into the trap of trying to opera-ify what can’t be opera-ified. Craig Lucas’ libretto had little grasp of what makes for an effective opera and instead presented too much exposition in the mouth of its singers, an issue that reminded me of symptoms that plague other modern operas like Steven Schwartz’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon (2009). Under no circumstances do we need to hear the female lead sing repeatedly (I counted at least three times) that she is “Detective Lieutenant Anne Strawson.” First of all, it sounds ridiculous. And second, even if you have to insert it once in good faith just to maintain that Law & Order television police drama trope for reasons of genre, then just do it once. We got it the first time. She is, after all, the only middle-aged female square on stage dressed vaguely like a private eye, who does detective-like things behind an archetypal film-noir, detective-like desk.
 

Photo credit: Ken Howard / The Metropolitan Opera

Characterization in the narrative economy of opera is generally conveyed by means of a whole series of signs and signals other than explicitly holding the hand of the audience as if they were incapable of reading those signs. Can you imagine if the evil chief of police in Puccini’s Tosca came out and repeatedly sang that he was chief of police Scarpia? It would be ludicrous. In fact, his name is hardly even pronounced once, let alone his title. Yet we still know exactly who he is and precisely what role he plays in the drama. Nevertheless, operas like Two Boys and Schwartz’s Séance relentlessly bombard the audience with an unnatural reiteration of the characters names in ridiculous ways. Over and over again in Séance do we hear Mr. Johnson’s name repeated – there is even an aria with a relentless Mr. Johnson refrain. The operatic intoning of names like Mr. Johnson and Detective Lieutenant Strawson sounds foreign not only to the lexical stylings but also to the narrative technique of opera. 

The most unfortunate thing about this tactless flaunting of the conventions of the form in these recent English-language productions is that people who, for example, don’t understand Italian come away from these shows thinking that this must be what the experience of understanding one of the classic operas in Italian must be like. And this couldn’t be further from the truth, especially since Schwartz and Muhly and his librettist lack the pure musical, dramatic and literary artistry that the iconic composers of the past possess. 

Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera

Lei: The meaning and poetry of sung words cannot be overlooked. Libretti and the nuances of the language do matter. Rigoletto could address the Duke’s court saying “Cortigiani, siete dei disonesti” (“Courtiers, you are dishonest”) but it will never sound as good as “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata” (“Courtiers, vile cursed kind”). This is why I personally cannot have a complete operatic experience if I don’t understand the language of the work that’s being performed, without the muffling and streamlining filter of a subtitled translation. And that's precisely what irritates me when Craig Lucas' libretto has the poor singers dramatically declaim stuff like "Even senseless crimes make sense" or else "I am only sixteen / I wake up ang go to school / come home do my homework / have dinner / watch TV".  Ordinary language like this may be fine on TV but just sounds stupid when sung in an opera. 

Lui: All the buzz around Nico Muhly’s mélange-of-modern-music did not seem to promise the kind of pedantic narrative singing his opera actually delivered. I was expecting to be completely swept away by an avalanche of polyphonic sound approximating the multitude of voices active at any given moment on the Internet. At least this is what the bait-and-switch promotional material emphasized. Though these choral “voices of the Internet” moments were few and far between, this was precisely when I felt the opera had a pulse, that it was most alive. 



Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera

Despite all the talk about his multiplicity of musical models and influences, I really wished he would have just gone back to study his Philip Glass playbook. He could have framed the whole thing through a simple series of impressionistic musical tableaux, like Satyagraha. The Glassian narrative musical texture Muhly achieves from time to time could be employed to convey a kind of meditative Internet droning background against which this otherwise compelling story could have played out. Rather than follow its Vanity Fair source material so doggedly, we could have experienced the story as it actually unfolded, with all of its mystery and intrigue revealed through impressions.

 

Photo credit: Ken Howard / The Metropolitan Opera

There’s no harm in wearing your influences on your sleeve and Philip Glass’ minimalism with its infinite layering of nuance and complexity is exactly what this story called for with its boy genius conjuring up layer after layer of phony characters and fake avatars to dupe a poor unexpecting soul into strange sexual encounters and eventually murder. It seems to me that Muhly could have built layer upon layer of musical deception and intrigue, until the whole orchestration climaxes with the narrative and its ambiguous but unequivocally tragic denouement. In short, anything to avoid the prattling on of the detective and her mother, who only serve to muddy the thrust of the real drama and dilute the soundscape.

Lei: For the most part there was no real singing but rather unnecessary dramatic declamations that sounded forced and stupid. English is not the most musical language, even more so when it’s used in this way. I counted too few exceptions to this anti-melodic singing pattern, starting with the “bait-and-switch” choral Internet scenes with their tense chaotic and daunting musicality. Additionally, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote did not have much to work with throughout the opera, since she mostly proclaimed in operatic voice lines like “Do you speak chat?” or “People in ether, where do I find them?” However, when her character has a breakthrough moment in the final scene, Muhly finally gives her a musical aria worthy of such name, and she sang it beautifully. Although the most impressive true singing was performed by treble Andrew Pulver performing the “real” boy (as opposed to his chat room fake identities) orchestrating his own murder.



Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera

The purity, musicality and piercing strength of Pulver’s voice made me immediately think of Alessandro Moreschi, the last castrato (and the only one who made it to live recording). I’ve always been puzzled by why castrati were the ultimate operatic phenomenon back in the 1700s, never really understanding what was so hot in a grown man singing with a little boy’s voice. After hearing Andrew Pulver and imagining his voice transposed in an adult male with extraordinary lungpower and mature artistic expressivity, I realized for the first time why castrati were the Netrebkos of their time. A singer like Farinelli was the rare phenomenon of a delicate voice capable of tackling gender-bending roles with incredible power and agility (castrati portrayed both sexes on stage), delivering experiences that were both unsettling and inexplicably viscerally beautiful.

Lui: I wonder if the beautifully ambiguous voice of the boy wasn’t part of the point. Even though the little boy is only a kid of something like twelve or thirteen, one theme of the multifaceted story seems to be the difficulties one faces, not so much as they accept, but rather as they attempt to impose their sexuality on someone else. Though the homosexual issues of the pre-teen sexual predator are never really made explicit, since he remains a ghostly figure and his characterization both musically and in terms of casting, remains so deceptively naive, not only to the audience, but also to his parents, we are nevertheless not sure what to make of him. He is a haunting specter, extremely effective.

Lei: The plot stressed the wrong issues. It could have been about the perverse anonymity of the Internet allowing multiple identities, pre-pubescent sexual confusion and disconnect between virtual and real world. All these themes, however, were just in the background and not really fleshed out. The driving force and connecting narrative thread was instead the detective, with her inability to understand web dynamics, her personal drama of having chosen a career over a child she gave up for adoption, her commiserating over unsupervised troubled adolescents and her live-in petulant old mother (who offers some unnecessary comic relief).  
 

Photo credit: The Metropolitan Opera

Lui: Though it is billed as a story about the pitfalls of human connection in the time of the early Internet, my impression is that they opted to tell a sociological parable about the importance of family values. Sure the murder plot line revolves around the unbridled fantasy land of the World Wide Web, but most of the characters in the story hardly even know what a computer is. What links all three or four of the main story lines is the disintegration of family values, the inevitable oversights of working class parents, the choice of career over parenthood, the trials and tribulations of caring for the family you do have, the alienation of the younger generation from their inattentive parents, and the hands-off parenting styles of well-meaning mothers who have no particular knack for raising children. More than the Internet it’s a story about the current state of family life in the modern working class suburbs. 

 

Photo credit: Ken Howard / The Metropolitan Opera

Lei: Staging was boring and looked cheap. It was all-grey floors and movable walls with scarce tiny little furniture. If the idea was to have a plain and understated “real” world, it should have been contrasted with a bustling and hyper-lively virtual parallel world, which this production was not successful in bringing to life. While some of the Internet scenes were visually interesting with projections conveying the chaos of information overload and the chorus members perched on different levels on either side of the stage, it was just not enough to counter the blandness of the sets. 

Photo credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Lui: Why was there no attempt to deconstruct and play with all the chat room shorthand that is peppered throughout the libretto? Muhly’s style seems to be perfectly suited to defamiliarizing Internet abbreviations by turning them into the code language they appear to be: reading out the letters or riffing on the pure sounds of them. Instead what he gave us, both in terms of the text and his treatment of it, was an overly sincere attempt to sound “young” and “fresh” to millennials and an all too earnest use of slang, directly declaiming the Internet lingo for exactly what it means. The result is that both the libretto and the music’s embodiment of it felt flat and came across too often as just silly. Despite my frustration with the surface of the show, I could feel the seriousness of the underlying story, as well as the overarching sense that a thriller packing a fourth quarter payoff was boiling just beneath that surface. So I was absolutely willing to give it credit and I most certainly did not write it off beforehand. In fact, I wanted it to redeem my faith in contemporary opera. I was ready to be wowed by modernity at the Met. I wanted to see the stodgy institution that I love so much taken by storm. Nothing would make me happier!

Lei: All in all underwhelming, boring and at times also plain irritating, I had to make an effort to sit through to the end. While Muhly proved himself an impressive composer, an opera needs much more than just great music to be truly complete and worth seeing.  

Photo credit: Ángel Franco/The New York Times