A Polarizing Traviata

Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata

Metropolitan Opera

January 24, 2015

Yoncheva triumphs as Violetta
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Lei: We were not planning on seeing yet another Traviata this year, but when the Met announced that Sonya Yoncheva was replacing Marina Poplavskaya in the January run of the show, we immediately got tickets. This Bulgarian soprano was a great revelation last year, when she bewitched us as Gilda in Rigoletto (where, again, she was stepping in for Aleksandra Kruzak) and since then we’ve been looking forward to catching her again in action. Our high expectations were not disappointed. Yoncheva really stole the show and delivered a truly memorable Violetta, with fluid colorful singing and acting ranging from sensual to frail. I was excited to see her succeed like this and to hear that her next role at the Met will be as Desdemona in next season’s opening night Otello, a very well deserved step-up from her usual being called last minute to replace another soprano.

The soprano on top of her game
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Lui: Yoncheva was lyrically forceful and effortlessly filled the Met, despite the fact that she just plain skipped one of the last coloratura phrases of the big act one aria, Sempre libera. Nevertheless, she had sass and was tragically playful in the role of Violetta. She added a touch that I’ve never seen any of the other singers do in this role and in this specific production: in act two Yoncheva mimicked Alfredo’s Io vivo quasi in ciel almost as if to show that deep down she is profoundly cynical. Her embrace of the folly of everything is consummate. We get a glimpse of the fact that Violetta is aware of her escapist behavior and that her choice to be with Alfredo for his exuberant boyish naive optimism is just more escapism. She actually sees through it all. Which to me is a persuasive reading of the story. It is an opera about death, yes, but it is also prominently features a character that represents the carefree party lifestyle always in search of the easy pleasures in life (Violetta and her mob of friends); and on the other hand a character who represents all the bright eyed, optimism that sees everything through the lenses of his flowery poetic language and rose colored glasses. It doesn’t take much to realize that Alfredo is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed and it doesn’t make a lot of sense why Violetta runs off with him. Her meditations on this sudden rediscovery of love are enriched by the cynical take Yoncheva’s acting lent the character in Act II. After I first fell under the spell of her singing and stage presence as the demure and girlishly naive Gilda in last year’s revival of Rigoletto in Las Vegas, the fact that she so fully embodied the hardened cynicism of Violetta here is truly a testament to her versatility as an actress.

Violetta revels in the folly of everything
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Lei: From the very moment that Russian baritone Aleksei Markov as Germont opened his mouth I was impressed. His is a very exciting voice: deep, effortless, Met-filling, with a smooth legato, expressively tender but also manly. Markov’s reminds me a bit of Hvrostovsky (though without the evil edge) and his vocal rendition of Germont was truly dominating. However, his acting was not very convincing, most of the time he just stood stiffly there moving his arms a bit for emphasis and pacing back and forth. Also, he seemed too young and hot for a Germont, the costume folks should have got him him a walking stick and greyed up his hair a bit as it just did not make much sense when he sings stuff like Oh, malcauto vegliardo. Though again, when singing is so good as Markov’s, everything else can be secondary.

Demuro has a moment
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Lui: Francesco Demuro does not have the most handsome tenor voice and his performance as Alfredo was a bit uneven, oscillating between full heart-wrenching moments and getting drowned by orchestra and other singers. His Libiam nei lieti calici was weak and I was afraid we had stumbled upon yet another tenor who just is not up to snuff at the Met, which is disappointing because Demuro is Italian and I was really hoping for more. Then he stepped up and delivered an Un di felice eterea that really moved me, as he found the sweet spot on the stage and bolted out Alfredo’s signature naïveté with emotive expressivity. Demuro also did have good stage presence, not exactly charismatic or terribly exciting but definitely better than the average male tenor we usually get at the Met for this role.

The dumb show at Flora's party in Act II
Photo credit: Ken Howard 

Lei: I particularly enjoyed Marco Armiliato’s conducting as I felt that he chose to put the voices more front and center than usual. Maybe this was also thanks to the stark and minimalist sets by Wolfgang Gussmann that not only were (mostly) visually stunning but also did wonders for acoustics. The party scenes are the most effective in Willy Decker’s production, with crowds of black tuxedoed people sharply contrasting against the circular white backdrop as they gravitate around Violetta in her red dress, at times even lifting her on a read leather sofa. At the same time, however, this stunning visual effect is achieved by having all chorus members and party characters (including Flora) dressed and coiffed like men, regardless of their gender. For some reason I did not notice this the other times I’ve seen Decker’s production, I guess that the party scenes are so gorgeous that I just got carried away. While the voices are clearly male and female, I really had to squint through my opera glasses to figure out where the female voices were coming from. While I get Decker’s idea of a polarizing tension between a male dominated society and Violetta, it’s an interpretation that’s on the verge of being too far fetched.

A hairy-chested Violetta parodies the love affair
Photo credit: Tutti Magazine

Another unscripted twist was the whole part of Flora’s party in Act II where, during the gypsies/matadors singing and dancing, a balding, hairy-chested man wears Violetta’s red dress and mimics her entire acting routine of the Act I party. Again, while I get the point of showing that in Alfredo’s mind his love story at this stage seems a mockery, the whole lengthy sequence had nothing to do with what was being sung and at points even got a bit creepy.

Violetta dies alone
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Lui: As much as Decker’s production is gorgeous and visually exciting in the party scenes, it is depressing and unengaging in Act III, where really the viewer is not given much to work with other than few darkly dressed characters moving slowly through the dimly lit white stage (with the exception of the quick party interlude). Sure, there is still the omnipresent black and white clock as memento mori but even that at some point is taken away. At the end of the day, however, Decker is definitely successful in making La Traviata’s finale as devastating as possible, enhancing the sense of emptiness and despair when Violetta dies alone (as opposed to the more traditional Alfredo’s arms) in the middle of the white empty stage, with the other characters looming insignificantly in the background, again polarizing the heroine versus everybody else.  

– Lei & Lui

Yoncheva moves us as Violetta
Photo credit: Javier del Real

The Marking of Die Meistersinger

Thoughts on Wagner’s “comic” opera (seen at the Met on December 6, 2014)

Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

I live for Italian opera and have always been scared of Wagner. I thought that trying a “comic” work such as Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg would be a soft and painless entry into the Wagnerian world. I was so wrong. While the six hour length did not bother me, I very much disliked the pedantic approach of going on and on about what good singing should and should not be and building a whole absurd plot to try to prove the point. All I got from this is that Wagner does not know what master singing is or at least is incapable of achieving it in his own right in this opera. 

Let’s play Wagner’s game for a moment and wear “The Marker”’s hat to give Die Meistersinger some grades:

Photo Credit: Metropolitan Opera

Dramatic tension and plot: below zero - one can see from the beginning that the lovey dovey couple will end up together and the only obstacle to that seems to be a singing competition ruled by a bunch of old school form devotees and our hero will win because he sings from the heart instead of by the rules. And the journey through which we get to the happy ending is not a particularly exciting one, the turning point being the fine-tuning of a song.

Comic timing and sense of humor: below zero - it is seriously not funny at all. The attempts at comedy are pitiful and awkward and basically all focused on the character of the town clerk Beckmesser, his highlights being things such as the scornful marking of mistakes in his rival’s song and his inability to serenade because Sachs the cobbler keeps hammering away. Oh and let’s not forget that he limps for the second part of the opera because he got beaten up by the cobbler’s apprentice.

Photo Credit: Ken Howard / Met

Pacing: below zero - Wagner takes too much time to make a point that isn’t even compellingly made, not to mention the fact that it is an utterly obvious one that was clear after the first hour before the first act was even over. And by then there were still another four and a half hours left.

Photo Credit: Ken Howard / Met

Emotional impact: below zero - the point of Wagnerian opera seems to be to remove from the operatic medium any and all moments of heightened emotions, any moments of musical virtuosity, all arias, in favor of including hours on end of the most boring quotidian details of ordinary life that are hard to care about. It’s like exchanging a single five minute aria like “Cortegiani vil razza dannata” from Verdi’s Rigoletto, in which the plot is advanced, character is communicated, emotions are heightened and a story is told through musical energy, for three hours of aria-less, arid, insipid insignificant details that plod along at a snail’s pace while we wait for the opera to make its overwrought and overly obvious point. Which is one that I might add, when it does finally make it, only does so in pretty cheesy ways. The prize song is a sorry excuse for an aria. There is no emotional impact there. Play it on its own for anybody on the street and my guess is that it won’t elicit much of a response. Do the same with Donizetti’s “Una furtiva lagrima”, and any unsuspecting listener will fall victim to its gravitational emotional pull. I’m sorry but Wagner just isn’t on the same level. Does he ever tap into the emotions? Does he ever get there?

Photo credit: Metropolitan Opera

Libretto and Lyricism: below zero - the only poetic moment is supposed to be the big passionate song our hero sings to win the competition and the hand of his beloved (incidentally, what sort of father gives his daughter away as a prize of a singing competition?), with lyrics that boil down to stuff like “I had a beautiful dream where I was in a gorgeous garden and I saw an amazing woman under a tree /  then it was evening and I saw the most beautiful woman by a fountain and was really really inspired”. This is not poetic (or moving for that matter). It is empty mumbo jumbo that has nothing to do with the love relationship of the protagonists. Wagner needs to specifically have other characters be visibly moved by this aria (“Kothner is so moved that he drops the sheet which he had started reading”) and expressly compliment it (“No one can woo like him!”), since otherwise it would not be particularly moving (or wooing for that matter).

Pleasantness: below zero - this is not something that I would like to listen to, savor or relive again. Once in a lifetime it’s plenty.

Musical firepower: pretty high - the beefed up orchestra is sure impressive and the score complex and multilayered. That may be good for a symphonic concert but it’s not by itself enough for an opera.

Proto-nazi factor: pretty high - not only the last act’s parade with all the insignia of the different master singers looked disturbingly like a third reich pageant, but also Zach’s final aria is as nationalistic as it gets:

Beware! Evil tricks threaten us:

if the German people and kingdom should one day decay,

under a false, foreign rule

soon no prince would understand his people;

and foreign mists with foreign vanities

they would plant in our German land;

what is German and true none would know,

if it did not live in the honour of German Masters.

Photo credit: Metropolitan Opera

Don’t get me wrong; my hat goes off to the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, James Levine and the cast of singers who all did a great job in keeping this opera alive for six hours. It’s just that comic Wagner is really not my piece of cake, next time I will man up and dive straight into his tragic stuff.

- 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

A Young and Bubbly Operetta

Die Fledermaus

Johann Strauss

NY Opera Exchange

November 7, 2014 - Church of the Covenant

From the moment we took our seats, it felt like something extraordinary was happening: the average age of the public was clearly under 30, which is about 4 decades younger than the usual crowd at pretty much any opera performance in NYC, whether mainstream or indie. And it gets better: during the waltzy overture several patrons were itching to dance in their seats, swinging heads, shaking shoulders and tapping their feet, which also very unusual from the average snoozing public. The energetic crowd was not deceived as NY Opera Exchange’s Die Fledermaus turned out to be a whole lot of fun and an all around highly entertaining evening at the operetta.

This was my first “‘Maus” and I was surprised by how much I liked it. It’s truly a bubbly and lighthearted piece with terrific music and hilarious comic vignettes. Director Melissa Frey’s decision to present the piece with recitatifs in English translation and arias sung in the original German was very successful in keeping the gags alive for the non-German speaking public. While I am generally a purist when it comes to tampering with the original language of an opera, in this specific case I found NY Opera Exchange’s to be a welcome compromise between respect for the source material and approachability. Also, the original itself already had recitatif bits in English, Italian, French and Russian, representing the cosmopolitan hodge-podge of languages spoken in Vienna at the end of the XIX century. So, expanding a bit the English parts did not sound too awkward.

The plot boils down to a complicated prank to the detriment of an entitled (and a bit dense) nobleman orchestrated by a vindictive friend of his (the eponymous “bat” of the title). A broad and disparate cast of characters is somehow involved in the scheme, including the nobleman’s flirty wife, her ex-lover (an Italian tenor), a maid cum actress, an extravagant party-throwing Russian prince, a prison guard and a lousy lawyer. The director’s notes state that the action was set in Venice (instead of Vienna) and the piece got a commedia dell’arte spin. Quite honestly I did not get that much of an Italian flavor from the production but little matters as I found it highly effective in conveying the effervescent spirit of the operetta.

Rosalinde (the flirty wife) is by far the character with the most stage time and the most challenging and extensive singing. Soprano Margaret Newcomb was outstanding and the strongest singer on stage, both in her solo arias and in the numerous duets, trios and other ensemble pieces. Her acting was on point too, with a snobbish and elegant flair representing Rosalinde as a two-faced yet charming woman one cannot entirely dislike. Her husband, Gabriel von Einstein, was played by tenor Kevin Delaney, who had outstanding acting skills and great comic timing but unfortunately the strength of his singing did not match his other talents, particularly in ensemble pieces when he tended to get drowned by the orchestra and the other performers. I found Rosalinde’s old flame, Alfred, to be one of the funniest characters, delivering bits of blockbuster arias (Una furtiva lagrima, Che gelida manina, Libiamo nei lieti calici) in a parody of Italian opera that really elicited a few belly laughs. This Italian tenor was hilariously portrayed by Lindell O. Carter, who was 100% in character even in the recitatifs feigning a thick Italian accent.

Coloratura soprano Rebecca Shorstein, in the role of Adele (the ambitious maid), delivered some excellent and challenging singing although her acting was often a tad too forceful, unnecessarily pushing the envelope into the slapstick side of things. If only she toned it down a notch, she would have been perfect. Mezzo-soprano Chelsea Laggan as Prince Orlofsky was the best well-rounded performer, together with Ms. Newcomb. Hers is a pants role in which she plays an ennuied and slightly despotic aristocrat who participates in the prank with detached bemusement, all the while laying some heavy flirtation on Adele. Ms. Laggan’s voice is velvety and her singing fluid and nuanced, definitely a young artist to keep an eye on. Bass-baritone Costas Tsourakis played Dr. Falke (the mastermind behind the joke) with commanding stage presence and a deep, rich tone. Of lighter voice weight compared to Mr. Tsourakis, bass-baritone Andrew Luzania was the prison guard Frank, who displayed some pretty hilarious acting (particularly when he pretends to be a French aristocrat), not to mention during his waltzes (with real like partners as well as with a broom), and he also delivered generally solid singing.

The NY Opera Exchange orchestra is a serious sized one (45 musicians), even more so for an independent opera company. It was energetically led by conductor David Leibowitz and, with the exception of a slightly disjointed overture that I’d attribute to opening night jitters, delivered an impressive display of musical firepower, bubbly and waltzy, the way it should be. Delicious! Costumes and sets were also serious business and noteworthy for the level of polish, inventiveness and cohesion, particularly for a company of this size.

All in all, I was very impressed by the work of NY Opera Exchange that put together a seriously entertaining operetta and left us wanting for more. Next in their season is Lucia di Lammermoor and we’ll be curious to see how this young company copes with our most beloved Donizetti.

- Lei & Lui