The David S Operaworld blog

A series of commentary on the world of opera and of serious music hopefully with links to items of broader cultural interest, correlation with the subject at hand. There is plenty of room here for a certain amount of clowning around and general irreverence - not exclusive to me - but of course no trollers or spam please. Blog for coverage of the BBC PROMS 2010 - with thoroughly proofread/upgraded coverage of the 2009 Proms and of much else.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Muti, NY Phil on subject 'at time of war' - Honegger, LvB Eroica - more indicative of change of leadership at Avery Fisher

It might, figuratively speaking, require a return of Paul Kletzki to life to get to the spiritual core of the two works that featured on this Philharmonic program. Riccardo Muti proved that he can at least aspire to such for the Honegger and has achieved at least near as much, though differently than could Kletzki on the Beethoven.

Theme of conflict or time of war in pairing symphonies by Honegger and Beethoven was clearly unifying behind program the Philharmonic played on November 28th. The Second Symphony for strings and trumpet (for hymn quote to close the finale) is very likely the most precise of the five Honegger symphonies, composed during early phase of occupation of Paris and of much of France during World War Two. Muti, in touring with Vienna about two years back, programmed Nobilissima Visione by Hindemith, and also in putting a rare Hindemith cantata on previously at Avery Fischer, revealed here with the Honegger too that he continues to expand on repertoire to be at his behest.

My first experience of the Honegger was with Paul Kletzki and the Houston Symphony on program with Brahms Fourth and Vivaldi concerto grosso months before he passed away. The imprint of having attended this concert so long ago never quite entirely wore off – partly as I never heard the Brahms conducted better live since – not even, though passably, with Thielemann at Academy of Music in 1997.

Muti, with the Philharmonic, was most effective in bringing out this music’s bronze colors, dissonances and strong antiphony between varied groupings of voices. Some hardness to the sound he brought out of the strings is not inappropriate here; spirited quality of the playing was evident throughout. He maintained well a strong pulse through even the slower sections for instance of the first movement and lingering, dying off coda to the second movement. Distraught solo viola, followed by imitating section behind Cynthia Phelps, was full-throated in its ardor. Muti firmly, strongly projected accents to canon developed first theme of the Allegro, but undercut space, nuance for briefly passing second theme. Something approximating a hatchet type of downbeat across full section on stage helped however started to make the music sound on verge of becoming two-dimensional in perspective.

The letting of strings full out on sequence of suspended major sevenths leading into retransition not for purpose other than to display the lushness of the Philharmonic section made for stiffness to line for making eventual segue through two episodes that followed. Attack returned to be deftly pointed for sparse accompanied gigue like motion by cellos to recapitulate the opening Allegro theme – then trading off places with the second theme. Brief, long descent by cellos, to allow tentative shaft of light into the all pervasive gloom was effective; for sense of mildly broader perspective, more room for nuance, sinister insinuation could have been made of the coda.

Motive in small intervals, as especially dominates lamenting Molto moderato sections of the first movement constantly underpins the Adagio mesto - used thematically as well. Muti made heavy underlining of change from playing upward sighing half tones to descending, for such shift to be felt. By the same token, emerging long spun out descant on first stands of the cellos stood out as relatively arched. Dynamics here, as elsewhere, were followed well, if not as subtly as possible. Heavier stepwise motion in minor/major sevenths followed quite dutifully well according to how all that had preceded them. Muti effectively loosened reins on this music in response to return of simple single line lament spun out over tremolo for slow, flexibly expanded out descending descant in violins, then for eloquently spun out eulogy by Carter Brey (cello) to close things out.

Some obvious accenting, getting into the finale, turned vulgar, with violins making slightly too obviously vertical accenting of lighter heroic gesture on first entrance of theirs in the Development section. It all made their part sound quite like Prokofiev. Certainly, within healthy jaunt to it all, the accent is already there. It practically speaks for itself, so that some of the rough-hewn edges of this music should and can more naturally be made evident. Hard accenting between offbeats in violins and rushing stretto underneath became stiff, on verge of clotting during the recapitulation for missing too often already the Gallic trait or virtue of this music having so much internal accenting, pulsation of its own; trumpet hymn at close was almost too obbligato to sizable forces in his midst, followed by some ‘upper west side’ from the strings in bringing all to a close. Veteran principal trumpet Philip Smith cleanly achieved fine expression for closing lines of hymn.

Albeit a little stilted, two-dimensional for some of the Honegger, Muti convincingly captured the spirit, a fine mix of mourning and steely resolve, essential for this music. If not always internally being able to plumb the solemn depths, metaphor of so much here, his body of string players at Avery Fisher certainly got him part of the way.

Among (true) digital recordings of Eroica, the Muti with Philadelphia, perhaps the one very unqualified triumph in their fine Beethoven cycle together, ranks alongside Michael Gielen on the same label as unsurpassed. The spaciousness, flexibly lean, sinuous grace of the strings and warmth from Philadelphia winds and subtle variation in accenting all make something of the complex and expansive proportions of the piece, without ever loss of momentum. Such qualities are hallmark of the classic 1946 reading by Victor De Sabata with the London Philharmonic - legacy to which Muti most flexibly likely pays fitting homage.

After a fiery but flexibly molded truly optimum Schubert Ninth a year ago, and both poetic and blazing performances of Liszt Faust and Respighi’s Pines preceding it, this Eroica instead rated just a qualified success. One recalls as well the so varied layers of mystery for Scriabin’s Divine Poem, achieved by most supple means and farther back to the Mediterranean warmth, light and shade for Brahms’s D Major Serenade, alongside deftly pointed Turandot Suite (Busoni) and other repertoire off the beaten path Muti also champions elsewhere. His partnership at Lincoln Center, dating from shortly before the Maazel years started, has certainly been very healthy for both him and the Philharmonic.

For almost two pages of the first movement - thrust externally applied - things seemed to start off on the wrong footing. Once solo winds provided their consequent, overall line freely opened out, followed by controlled sustaining vibrato through heavy chords toward clearly pointing out their laendler gait. Things then seemed on the right track and as though they would remain so – apart from Muti applying puffy tenuti on accented offbeat heavy diminished chords, derailing focus momentarily.

Sculpting of much transition through early phases of the Development got played sympathetically with ease. While Muti however still maintained poise by internalizing all he could, the hatchet type of attack typical of Philharmonic strings subtly worked back in, especially in making way into dissonant ending main part of the Development. Fortunately however all attack and release was secure through climax to all this. More fully formed inversion of theme from the Exposition Leonard Bernstein was heard commenting upon during broadcast interval as new theme in the Development i.e. ‘Song of pain after the Holocaust,' ( i.e. how did Lenny ever pass sophomore theory?) with one or two further rationalizations to follow. Fortunately Muti indicated hearing this passage differently. There was less secure accenting in coming off also in E-flat Minor main theme octave tremoli sequencing in mostly the strings.

Muti maintained line through the recapitulation well, but trouble still lurked in having to openly try avoiding excessively vertically approached strong downbeats, as opposed to forming good line through everything. Ability to do so provides more basis for contrast instead of less, as his Philadelphia Eroica disc could tell us. Impression of this perhaps needing another several days of rehearsal to set things straight began to sink in – clearest evidence of this being Philharmonic trumpets soon before the coda verging on ‘upper west side.’ The music was written at time the area’s settlers did not yet know such geography. Contrast was clearly felt between lovely phrasing by lightly accompanied principal horn and too vertically approached extended dominant chords - inorganic from what had preceded them - into final cadence.

Finely moulded, not generically dovetailed cantabile most distinctively marked opening of the Marcia funebre - first stand winds most remarkable in capturing the right mood of it all and internal morbidezza to their lines. Strings still perhaps got caught a bit loose from their moorings on accenting, thus mildly phlegmatic in attack. Most desired expressivity by Muti became generically compromised by verticalized approach to rhetorical accents and reply thereof. For Muti, passing maggiore episode to follow was uncharacteristically heavy, stodgy, providing little needed relief. Slightly too obvious intrusive accentuation marked further compromise, as though we should behold a meeting of minds between Muti and the Philharmonic. Impression instead grew stronger that there might, other than from among wind principals, be effectively only one mind at work here at all.

Most of the way out through the coda, Muti achieved most desirable focus, somewhat lacking earlier, with approach to submediant cadence into the coda only shifting the lens from the podium momentarily and awkwardly onto what really was transpiring. Beautiful space was provided unison pianissimo violins for brief (re)-transition from fugue to recapitulation; dying out phrasing of the strings had all covered morbidezza one could desire. For so much previous lapse from the strings, their neighbors two hours to the south, if they could still play the Eroica as they did twenty years ago, would need not fear their competition. Closing phrases to this Marcia funebre provided final fully achieved moments of poetry for the Beethoven here.

In following scherzo, phegmatic attack by the strings overwhelmed lift for reply from animated woodwinds, dampening thrill of being at the ready to go out for the hunt outdoors. The strings’ too projected presence also made them rob themselves of a good forty percent of pulsation to their accenting - closer to all of it needed to generate either any steam or joie de vivre for this venture. Muti marked entering caccia horns (Ttrio) with light tenutos on their first downbeats, mostly as though to serve notice to the strings, that if ever an Eroica with them again, things should not go so awry.

Coming off a dull rendition of the Scherzo, rush down strings opening the finale was only tentatively achieved. Early variation starting on second violins achieved heavily bowed results to less than optimum effect - triplet accompaniment for next variation similarly heavy. The Prometheus theme resounded lightly in the winds, until the strings took over from them. Transition to first fugato episode (C Minor) got vaguely sectionalized, with expressive descant at end in firsts just achieved halfway. For continuing a Tchaikovsky or Balakirev Eroica, vigorous dance in G Minor had accents correct, but all joylessly belabored in achieving them. Second fugato began well, but so true to the bar-line from one third into it that it came off two-dimensional. The Andante epilogue was only episodically effective and then coda at more a true Allegretto stodgy. Wind concertato and then impassioned G Minor cadence in the Andante, both in passing reflected well upon better results achieved earlier here - and then reflecting further back on how a true Muti Eroica could perhaps still really sound, indeed resound.

This Beethoven Third seemed mostly to indicate new change of leadership at Avery Fisher Hall - redolent too of the hollowness, superficial podium editorializing (in the name of interpretation) of the Maazel era. Even late-career Maazel had the craft to keep house in order, so when Muti would drop by, all could then readily fall into place. If the strings however have suddenly achieved (again) lockstep into type of fraternized, codified entrenchment in approaching task at hand, regardless who takes the podium, then cause at Avery Fisher then for now is lost until new leadership once more can be found.

I refrain from making any final judgment or prognostication here. Going so far would be malapropos for a short while yet. Equally malapropos was including for broadcast interval the Bernstein editorial on Eroica first movement. Beyond what one can deem sophormoric, it insipidly told us nothing – to supplement what was slightly below par for what we from experience reckon Muti at Lincoln Center.

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Saturday, December 26, 2009

MET: Saturday afternoon dress rehearsal of Elektra oratorio by Strauss

Word traveled quickly that this was to be as detailed an Elektra in orchestral conception as we might ever run across today – since Giuseppe Sinopoli conducted the opera for DGG (and perhaps several other places as well) some years ago. Deborah Voigt was in considerably finer voice then than as heard today. Now, and after hearing Luisi brilliantly do Alpine Symphony with Staatskapelle Dresden from the Proms last summer, one could only surmise that such take on what was about to be heard today and probably throughout this run was something a publicity person may have picked up either first or second-hand from rehearsal sessions, limited as they most likely were. Dramatic intensity together with current of neuroticism that should infiltrate got cut off for most of the 106 minutes of this – with usual stage cuts taken.

One stage cut was most certainly necessary today - that during 'Was bluten muss?' - as Susan Bullock could have, like other sopranos attempting it, easily come to grief with it otherwise. Impetus from Fabio Luisi for unearthing so much that this score has to offer was clearly present - picked up well in the more obviously translucent passages of Elektra. A too easy tendency toward arched crescendos and hatchet downbeats on strong chords was a little more exaggerated than would normally indicate a well rehearsed performance of this. There were numerous lines in this Elektra, in the second Chrysothemis scene for instance that had the attentiveness, nuance, ease that would not make it into completely making connection with more forceful outbursts. Such sudden moments in this score break in at what can often seem at less than a moment's notice to many listeners.

It is the business of the Met orchestra not to sound as though unawares at all on such an essential staple of the repertoire as this. Numerous places, such as for howling, barking dogs, heaves, groans, flute untethered tremolo hallucinatory flourishes in central scene with Klytaemnestra Luisi attempted to bring out, but got anywhere from emerging halfway to mostly smothered instead. One need not even lightly italicize to the extent that Sinopoli does with the VPO on DGG to make such places count, at from Sinopoli only mild threat of breaking up the line. Numerous orchestras however, including the Met itself seven years ago under Levine with orchestra in top form if still an Elektra not cast especially well (except Voigt and Pape as Orest and partly Hanna Schwarz as the queen) have done better. They have certainly more meaningfully, with company under Joe Volpe’s oversight previous Saturday Elektra aired considerably more naturally brought so much more nuance out as well – all due to better rehearsal standards.

Even moments of incisive dialogue such as concerning Orest keeping company with dogs in Atrean stables and of demeaning the manhood of Aegisth by Elektra got halfway blown off. One heard the pitches, the text, but the meaning of it all just rather glibly sauntered by. Elektra’s digging for the axe in anticipation of Orest's arrival just almost sounded jackhammer enough that one could have assumed a woman at it with the biceps of George Forman or Mike Tyson; rushing up and down of cellos and basses anticipating the murder of Klytaemnestra was competently played but still unsubtle, and also broke tension by starting too loud. David Chan’s hallucinatory concertmaster solos in scene with Klytaemnestra were at first covered up, then unsubtly projected over orchestra playing still slightly too loudly not to cover them up otherwise. This was largest indication thus far that Luisi did not get the significant time he needed with his forces.

Luisi indicated numerous times his grasp of the elaborate harmonic scheme behind Elektra, a good if broad sweep to the line, very likely broader and less specific than he would have preferred. The opera he was to originally conduct at the Met this season was Frau ohne schatten. There was often specific shape to the line so much so that one could imagine how much better and ornately adorned it all could have been, if given the time - such as was heard from the Proms last summer for Alpine Symphony – ‘Alpine’ that alludes to both Elektra and Frau at once in a few places.

The best quasi-indication of under-rehearsed conditions was a tendency to underline places somewhat too conspicuously, such as during the first scene with Chrysothemis. With the very thorough time that Luisi has justifiably spent in Richard Strauss, one should hope to hear him do Elektra again, but under more favorable conditions than provided here. This was not so much badly played as just so often a tentatively, phlegmatically engaged account of Elektra – not good enough for what is deemed by Meg and Ira and also many others too to be the best opera orchestra in the world. Luisi and Dresden proved last summer, by comparison to this, how much better an opera orchestra it often is – with Alpine Symphony – some of the Orest music from Elektra intoned so beautifully today by the Met brass, to which it alludes.

The cast today proved very routiniere. Susan Bullock, had I tuned in unawares of who was in this today, could have had me imagine I was hearing Deborah Voigt as Elektra from ten or fifteen years ago, except for an aging Debbie as Chrysothemis standing right next to her, probably looking at the conductor like the Elektra too could have so much of the time. From comment I picked up from across room where I was listening to this, they each could have been trained out of the same school of Banshees as well. As much as I would hope against Voigt attempting Elektra so long ago or at any time really, same must also go for Bullock. Here is a voice for sure too light for this from singer willing to mostly coast through it, drawing with obvious effort upon what limited resources she has available to get through this.

Mid-register sounded hollow, low notes slightly choked, often weak, and a conspicuous spread almost always emitted through the passaggio. Passage such as the fleeting seduction of Aegisth, which calls on the Elektra to relax vocally emerged with good irony and revealed late in the day some acting ability on Bullock’s part, opposite an unpleasant Wolfgang Schmidt, barking off pitch at times - hardly more unpleasant than perhaps should be expected of Aegisth. Otherwise, singing and acting on Bullock's part made an overall bland impression. As opposed to what others have written - as opposed also to what Schmidt has given us before as Siegfried - Schmidt was not the problem today – certainly no more than any of the rest of this.

Deborah Voigt, in place of succeeding at a more aggressive, frontal approach towards Chrysothemis, emerged with just mostly harsh and unfocused tone instead. The middle voice, pushed so, immediately turned vinegary and strident. Whereas the voice freed up nicely to spin off a few high B’s and B-flats, especially toward the end of the opera, numerous of them could have easily come off differently. Low notes - scary to reckon for Susan Bullock - for Voigt came off no differently than for Bullock herself - dry, hollow, cracked - even almost choked at times. Voigt, as heard in Four Last Songs with DSO Berlin last summer, can still sound good, when not being compelled to press down – so hard at times here as though trying to compete dramatically with Bullock. Releases off notes were often unreliable from both women. Evgeny Nikitin (Orest) slightly reminded of Tom Krause on the deemed classic forty-three year old (though slightly over-rated) Solti recording. One could appreciate well Nikitin’s dark tone for Orest, but diction was mildly questionable and legato just cut or two above patchwork at times. Still, he won sympathy for the very ominously destined brother - in anticipation of brutal task before him.

Of the supporting cast, all three men were fine, John Easterlin and Kevin Burdette as Young and Old Servants over glibly, heavily italicized trounce through it orchestrally, and especially Oren Gradus again as Tutor to Orest from also the 2002 Levine broadcast. Rehearsed well right beforehand was the start of the ‘Orest ist tot’ introduction to the same scene, but like with so much else, follow-through was conspicuously weak. Maria Zifchak and Wendy Bryn Harmer as Third and Fourth Maids emerged the best of their lot, with a fine Overseer in, conspicuously enough, Susan Neves. Jennifer Check, as Fifth Maid, sounded outside of her element today – in comparison with her participation in Il Trittico two weeks ago.

Just listening to this, set design for the long central scene with Klytaemenestra could have just as well moved onto the floor of Chippendale’s with the rattled queen of Felicity Palmer - by now somewhat of an institution unto herself. Seen recently on disc as so fussed over, italicized to death her Zita in Gianni Schicchi under Annabel Arden and Valdimir Jurowski was, this is not surprising. No doubt, Palmer has walked the boards of the rattled queen numerous times by now. Opposite what was promised by Meg and Ira during very gratefully an abbreviated edition of the Meg and Ira show, Palmer this time gave us a Klytaemenestra from, colloquially speaking, exaggeratedly the Regina Resnik school of singing it. There was here considerably less solidity tonally - less of a solid core altogether - and less subtlety with words for sure than with either Brigitte Fassbaender for Abbado or Resnik in the part. She lightened up to attempt winning sympathy for the queen in moments of tender reminiscence of long departed happier times; much of the rest of this came close to being barked.

‘Ich habe keine gute Nachte’ ended for an entire line down in C Minor a quarter-tone flat. Having admired Palmer well for so much in the past, her Klytaemnestra included, I reckon today that other than for cameo parts and Countess in Pique-Dame, it may be getting close to time for Palmer to hang it up. For old time's sake, let us save such a Klytaemnestra for camp on PBS British sitcom or something even slightly more debauched.

Meg, alongside Ira, rewrote history in indicating Elektra as having been written nearly a hundred years ago, which if it had been done so, would have put it after Rosenkavalier. Anton Webern no less found Rosenkavalier highly admirable but recidivist after Elektra. And then there had to be the ‘back stories’, except in the case of the Oresteia, these are not really such back stories at all. For tragedies that have been out in the open to cool and dry off in the sun drenched air (with taint of olive oil) over ruins for two millennia now – add on a few centuries as well - one expects a little more or at least should.. For acting subtlety purposes, perhaps even Felicity Palmer, even with estimable knowledge of her part could have used a little consultation by Susan Flannery on how to get it right.

For acting that ranged from broad to glibly passed over (as so inconsistent to have made this conceivable as heard as merely a concert performance), much of Elektra today could have passed as some bizarre, past life episode of something or other around 12 Noon weekdays. At this point should Flannery, certainly with many back stories of her own and for her character too to offer, be at all a fan of opera, I would welcome her on any Saturday afternoon in the place of slap-happy eager Margaret Juntwait. I certainly would hope then she might take up the offer. Fine to hear from you, Susan, just as long as you read the libretto, plus some pages of historical background, commentary before coming on the air.

- Comments dedicated to Lai Tzi-Huei at Cambridge - who attended a near-definitive Stk Dresden Alpine at the Proms last summer - and especially to Edo De Waart, who gave Jones Hall (in Houston) an immaculately rehearsed and absolutely complete Rosenkavalier for HGO in co-production with Netherlands thirty-five years ago here.

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

A galavanting about Puccini's Tosca - 10.10.2009 - Met in HD (on PBS)

This was about the worst joke of a staging of Puccini’s Tosca I have yet run across, and as one with real appreciation for productions by Nuria Espert, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Luca Ronconi, next to which the new Luc Bondy production hardly raises a whimper thus far.

One incongruity followed another throughout, and for butt-ugly sets, Act One won hands down for the abstract non-representation of the St. Andrea della Valle church. The Palazzo Farnese seemed comfortably loungey, but as perhaps copied from Jonathan Miller’s production from Florence, huge maps covering the entire walls. There was little sense of where Cavaradossi might have been led to be interrogated. The last act in its abstraction of the top of Castel Sant’Angelo was the one set by Richard Peduzzi that just about entirely worked.

Angelotti (David Pittsinger) was best among the supporting cast vocally, but too casually cut a heroic figure as the rebel. Upon entering down a rope, it looked as though he just as easily could have reported in from the local gym. Moments he had with Cavaradossi not far into this proved more plausible, but still confused in how to provide meaningful perception of this character. Paul Plishka (Sacristan) emerged even less well, given so many notes sounded so raw they barely spoke; his acting emerged as just utterly silly and banal. Pissy-toned Joel Sorenson (Spoletta) relied upon overworked cliché to represent menace, the Sciarrone (James Courtney) was just barely passable - or noticeable, and Keith Miller (Jailer) had ample voice - but apparently he also had the hots for both his soldiers and for a bloodied up Cavaradossi.

Marcello Alvarez (Cavaradossi), acting and even singing the part as almost cross between Ramon Vargas and Lucky Luciano (Pavarotti) was vocally pleasant, but represented what I have always found an odious characterization of the painter. Mario Cavaradossi's putting his life on the line for his ideals and his friend Angelotti completely went for naught. Whether Bondy, Alvarez, or Pavarotti know or knew that there is a heroic accent to the part of Mario Cavaradossi, let me remind them there indeed is. Capping a thoroughly insipid evening from Alvarez was his look of surprise that he had been shot at the end of the opera, and his tendency at once to smile and grimace. His lines in defying Scarpia, upon first entering the Palazzo Farnese or being dragged in there were pouted, wimpy in place of being defiant.

When I heard that there were three whores to jolly up or service Scarpia at the start of Act Two, I falsely surmised that all this action would only carry on through “Tosca e un buon falco” and lines leading up to “Ella verra." Instead, it carried on all the way through the aria. George Gagnidze gave one of the worst performances of Scarpia in recent memory. Those who know the performing legacy of Tosca know Giuseppe Taddei’s interpretation for Karajan in the early 1960’s - though still good, my least favorite of three principals on the old Vienna Decca recording. Must you have however a dandy of a Scarpia, with legs, stature, coiffure of dainty proportions but still able to incisively issue out orders for his henchmen to carry out the carnage he will have done, then for subtlety and getting the point across most effectively this way, Taddei is your man. He fortunately got to sing it under for once a dramatically fully engaged von Karajan.

Gagnidze and much earlier Raimondi until he shaped interpretation of his own, much better than the Karajan/Raimondi contrivance on DGG, are not. Lehnhoff took similar risk in how he had the Baron Scarpia costumed (in lizard like outfit), but thanks to the intelligence of producer, maestro, and Terfel, it still worked.

George Gagnidze certainly has the figure to make Scarpia a force to be reckoned with, but vocally it was hardly ever there at all. A good raft of notes got placed badly, awkwardly. He had a way of reaching for high notes by both crooning them and placing them far back, thus increasing tendency to oddly intimate a buzzing sound. He appeared very limited in what he could give in terms of line, effective color, or menace.

His death scene, with Mattila sprawled out on a nice sofa, was a variation on Nikolaus Lehnhoff's take on this. It was incisive and menacing from Malfitano vs. Bryn Terfel, here it looked, though somewhat realistic, like such a casual way of going about it, all matter-of-fact to point of being absurd. On realistic terms, for being able to effectively issue orders to anybody, this Scarpia was an unmitigated disaster – and who, though a nice guy continued playing the somewhat twisted boppo, boffo, buffoon, through intermission interview with Susan Graham.

The man of the hour here was Karita Mattila as Tosca, as seldom did anyone else in this cast seem to have any balls, in any way. At least, Mattila had her dress and other red silks, damask to protect - alongside just mildly more serious action taking place. Her deportment, in how this was staged, more than face Mattila was putting on, seemed over whether she would get her dress torn or hair mussed up - as fetished out the Scarpia also appeared - even in the bland gaze Gagnidze gave the hall from the get-go and her in Act One. Mattila looked considerably older than her forty-nine years in how she was costumed - in black wig and wearing brown contact lenses. Her voice finally entirely came around to cooperating with what her deeply considered expressive, psychological, and dramatic interests were with her part - for a fine Third Act, slightly unexpectedly. Her expression,as Tosca, tended to be severe, and even in expecting relief to what has been a most terrible situation overnight, more serious than but very seldom that of the Cavaradossi. Cavaradossi, the way Alvarez played him, always looked easy to deceive. Mattila's descent down from high B-Flat to G toward end of Vissi d’arte below skidded off at the moviecast, same way it had two weeks earlier at opener under Levine.

Most worrying now is Karita Mattila’s tendency to press down on notes for about interval of a fifth below the passaggio and on notes surrounding it as well. Such now makes her ability to maintain legato tenuous, needless to say tense, with much threat of breaking up the line and cantabile infusing it. Even so, there were moments Mattila indeed brought to life, even against what had perhaps been Luc Bondy's original intent or bet on how things should go. Affecting were moments when Tosca bewails being prisoner for the evening to the royal celebrations, similar to my making myself prisoner to watching this dreadful performance of the opera this evening, and her pleas to Scarpia that she can not go on (“non posso piu”) with her lover having to endure the pain. Some air of vulnerability could still prevail - more effectively than from Eva Marton here in 1991, as approximate in pitch and uneven in focus as Marton so easily lapsed into being as well.

Sure there is toughness there, enough to kill Scarpia, but how then can we be moved by her plight if this is it? The scene of her leap from the parapet was silly, with byplay with Jailer up and almost enough to tumble the Jailer down the stairs. A double of hers made at the end a suspended leap into dead air, a stunt that looked so inconsequential, even cartoonish, to have deserved loud booing from across the hall.

For the atmospheric prelude to Act Three, under constantly flaccid leadership by John Colaneri, we had a session of not how to necessarily do target practice, but how to stage it with rifles so long as to more resemble pointed sticks – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. The Jailer looked up his men up and down very nicely, then physically separating Cavaradossi from Tosca when Cavaradossi must be led away as though to say ‘he’s mine.’ It just so happens to be too bad Keith Miller is not quite half the comedian John Cleese was in his heyday. Marcelo Alvarez then came on for ‘E lucevan’, entirely in love with his own voice and nuance for shaping it, with no more than just casual sense of any despondency about what might happen next.

It is nice that he shapes the lines to his part with much amore. As an aside, I prefer a character out of this to emerge, a reason for Cavaradossi to be part of the action. Equally limp and indecisive was Luc Bondy’s decision to make Scarpia into a total wuss, to be crying at Tosca’s feet, as was said of opening night, at her request for safe conduct to Civitavecchia, not to mention Scarpia’s brief sputtering back to life for “Avanti a lui ….” Perhaps he could have sputtered "Avanti a me" instead. Mattila’s collapsing back on a divan to fan herself and hyperventilate was oddly effective, but camera three seconds later following her backstage - with Mattila still looking worked up by what she had just done - even ruined that - handlers and Susan Graham all at the ready to fawn over her.

Peter, I mean Peter Gelb, give your audience please and your singers for once some friggin' space! Backstage interviews are fine, but please like lets say two minutes to enjoy a minute of curtain calls, catch our breaths, take in what we have just witnessed - or there may come a day not long from now that I will cease attending Met in HD altogether. Those artists who show up on your stage, perform, conduct your operas with integrity, direct them with integrity, will still get the respect and praise they deserve.

Why was it, Peter, that Luc Bondy, who has directed such fine productions as Salome and Don Carlos not committed to something with more integrity than what came on here? This is a production almost worth mothballing more than anything else – as much as the Lucia (Zambello) and Trovatore (Vick) that your predecessor, who, yes, made some mistakes, decried, but you can not with this – or one or two other fiasco’s so far you have given the Met.

The conducting tonight of John Colaneri, with no hint from anyone to step things up a bit, was not so much slow, though most certainly slow, but flaccid, weak on color. Color, atmosphere without shape does not really exist - most certainly in Puccini it does not) – He thoroughly failed to contribute anything toward dramatic impetus. Numerous entrances were not together. Levine on opening night waddled through, wallowed over textures excessively too - and missed markings of deciso almost entirely on accents (in brass especially) during the interrogation scene; though still inconclusive, there was still some sense of shape to how he conducted this. It was only incidentally during those few moments that Mattila would turn up the temperature on stage that anything emerged from this or from Colaneri, but only passively from him. Mattila next helps push this misguided attempt at Tosca on Bavarian State in Munich. The Met, under such musical leadership, especially at Met in HD, makes the company look provincial.

All the galvanting around with whores at start of Act Two proved perfect diminution of the character of Scarpia, but here as also underneath much of the way were much of the trappings of still a traditional, not controversial production of Puccini’s Tosca. We are familiar enough already with the characterization of Cavaradossi, very conventionally misguided as it is – from telecast on of Tosca conducted by James Conlon back in 1978 – equally well sung, equally pointless from tenor cast as the painter. Stormy trio at heart of Act Two looked with no trace of irony here perfectly stand-up-and-sing.

So, what if Mario Cavaradossi, as many have read, is mildly impressionable sexually? That is all fine and well - most ideally, very tastefully caught by Carlo Bergonzi, opposite Maria Callas, but Callas unlike Marton downtown, unlike Mattila too, remained the woman. This thing here was handled purely from the text, with all subtlety Bergonzi could issue forth – and thus there was still a character with whom we could fully sympathize - even as picked up from the recording studio. Callas is heard more spontaneously especially opposite Tito Gobbi live from Convent Garden the same year. Di Stefano went about Cavaradossi, opposite Callas, and Price most heroically, most affectingly so. So did quite well Placido Domingo (compromised by a little blandness, but still very well sung) and different, Mario Del Monaco, plus numerous others.

There is recently Richard Margison quite differently again, more controversially, riskily for sure than Alvarez, and even also Fabio Armiliato. If anything, the most controversial, or provocative production of Tosca I have seen yet, damagingly effective, is the Lehnhoff, starring Margison, from Amsterdam; it really did have ideas. This one either did not or got compromised by being put through committee at the Met.

All such galavanting proved was opera as just opportunity for a social occasion or party, where all the nice, obsequious things get said, even practically on cue - Susan Graham looking the bemused social matron in making much fuss. Regardless how wretchedly things were going. For sake of contrast – read an interview of Jon Vickers some time, even if you disagree with some of his ideological views. I certainly do not. For now, just let the charade carry on. There is competition out there from other forces in the global village in which we live; it can catch on, catch up before long.

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

ROH Don Carlo (revival - Nicholas Hytner): Escuriel in two dimensions - Semyon Bychkov. Jonas Kaufmann the Infante.

This marks second time to have covered airing of the Nick Hytner production of Verdi’s Don Carlo - in interest of hearing several singers and Marina Poplavskaya repeat Elisabetta. Previous comments date from June 30, 2008, weeks after this production first opened – and can still be found at BCCLS opera listserv.

Semyon Bychkov took over from Antonio Pappano this time. He invested more imagination into several passages, darker tinta overall, but moreover a verticalization of Verdi’s orchestral fabric to extent that structural cohesion of numerous passages sometimes would give way. Toward accommodating cast members, some other compromise factored in.

Remindful too soon of Radio Norway with Shostakovich last month was Lisa Simeone’s claim on NPR that what we would be hearing would in effect essentially be the 1884 Milan four-act version of the opera. It is indeed more compact than any of the five-act versions, including the 1886 Modena version. What we got instead was still the 1886 Modena – its last four acts - because if this really had been the Milan, Jonas Kaufmann then would have had the aria “Io la vidi” to sing – with altered recitative then newer version of the aria written a whole tone down.

Jonas Kaufmann took Rolando Villazon’s place as the Infante. One missed some Latin warmth and intensity from Villazon, but less so persistent intonation problems he has been having. Kaufmann had some of his share as well. Presuming youtube excerpts to be from same opening night as this broadcast, the evening for Kaufmann got to a somewhat rocky start. Word has it that both Kaufmann and Poplavskaya used ‘Fontainebleau’ as warm-up for the next act.

Break in legato off tied B-Flat for “Di qual amor” from Poplavskaya instantly became desecrating, plus later instances she’d break up the line to accommodate what vocal shortcomings she has. Kaufmann’s mezza voce high B in “Io lo vidi” practically scraped the throat. Intonation was sour and legato proved unfeasible while stuck in the throat. However, matters improved well for him for most of what followed - until final duet with Elisabetta.

Kaufmann succeeded best while onstage with Simon Keenlyside (Posa), but had success too with Act Two duet with the queen. The deeper, more phlegmatic, less explosive temperament of this Carlo next to Villazon’s meant also less specificity about the Infante than with Villazon. It is lovely, when not too self-conscious or phrasing from behind in doing so, to hear Kaufmann caress his lines and reveal as well, perhaps less keenly than his baritone colleague, a lieder like sensitivity for words, such as ideal in either Schubert or Schumann. And yet in early duet with Keenlyside, Kaufmann’s focused “Tristo me” leading into friendship cabaletta revealed such metal that momentarily it could have been a good second-tier Otello doing this. Kaufmann’s purposefully dull waking up from swoon into which Carlo has coalesced in front of Elisabeth carried both distinctive poetry and verisimilitude.

There is still more personality to draw out of Verdi’s Carlo than Kaufmann provided; safety net of mezza voce eventually became a cliché a good ways through this. From what we know now, portraying Carlo as person hard to get to (really) know could be insight one can draw from hearing either Kaufmann or Domingo. One could look to Carreras for Karajan (preferably 1970’s EMI) for a slightly more valid extrovert approach, or with less than perfect intonation, Villazon.

Marina Poplavskaya made a vocally fragile queen this time – more so than interpretively. She somewhat blasted through “No, pensate a Rodrigo” to Kaufmann moments after “Tu che le vanita” with wodge encircling the passaggio - recalling late-career Scotto. There were fine moments still, to recall Poplavskaya’s better lyricism in approaching this – cause for some optimism – such as her reply to Eboli near start of Act Two garden scene. Her “Non pianger” was still sensitive, though lacking secure reach over crest of its arching line. Bychkov then rushed her slightly through “Ben lo sapete” (during confrontation scene).

“Tu che le vanita” was just disastrous, though unlike with Cedolins so off key (with Gatti) it became hard to recognize what it was, here the aria was still fully recognizable. One sought in vain legato for both “s’ancor si piange” and its later reprise. Marcia altogether lacked vitality and in effect ‘farewell’ barcarolle with Kaufmann was both choppily phrased and accompanied, through final tastelessly bench pressed, punched out (by both singers) “e sempre Addio” right before Inquisitor and King enter, both hardly to mind their mowing both of them down. Perhaps neither should we for the effect on what Verdi wrote. Lovely stage appearance apparently was inadequate toward providing good vocal countenance - with legato as between worn and patchwork as Ricciarelli’s (DGG); this being so, it is hard to explain what interpretation remained, except for having heard her earlier with Pappano. Intonation was more intact and Pappano more supportive, conventionally so.

Marianne Cornetti was the light voiced Eboli, with lovely top, until pressing upon it hard. Several choked low notes hither and yond indicated verismo effect and/or perhaps just some lapse in technique. The veil song went reasonably well, though with some rushing, rhythmic distortion to accommodate rolling from break to top – given how soprano in timbre Cornetti is up high. She definitely proved the weak link with male colleagues in Act Three. Top notes for “O don fatale” were vaguely supported and penitent middle section was placed back to extent of making Eboli sound somewhat over the hill. Ganassi was last year’s Eboli, but with better established record in Rossini; such did not qualify her either for taking on this qualitatively dramatic soprano part.

Ferruccio Furlanetto most notably repeated Filippo II from last year. He resorted to excessive shouting and pouting in the part when this production opened, some of which he has internalized by now. For what wear and tear on the voice has ensued, he became more prudent here. He sang as movingly as I have ever heard him do so both “Oso lo squardo” at end of Act Two and opening lines to his fourth act aria; he and Bychkov agreed on maintaining more conventional line for “Dormiro sol”- out of which perhaps more could have been said. It was already obvious last year, clear by now that the Hytner/Furlanetto Filippo II is somewhat a diminution thereof. One felt pity for this Phillip, but less than full appreciation for the King’s dignity, with which Verdi fully invested him.

The best two dramatic events that occurred between both performances broadcast occurred with this revival, for two passages over which hard to favor any – even most anything in Aida - duologue for King with Posa and same with the Inquisitor. As somewhat Bychkov undercut the meeting with Posa, he fully rose the occasion for that with the Inquisitor (John Tomlinson, in place of Eric Halfvarson). Keenlyside last year had to drop out for indisposition for unstable Kostas Paskalis protégé Dimitri Tillakos to replace him. Keenlyside sounded a little darker this go-around than what little I have heard from him last year and slightly more compromised in legato. Interpretively he was ideal here, in standing up guilelessly beseechingly, to the King and in also revealing for Posa on last dying breath particular weakness for inciting Carlo.

Bychkov undercut Keenlyside by denying him full space to ideally encompass expanding lines in “Per me guinto” - by conducting phrase-ending a cappella lines from violins too strictly. Keenlyside evinced too considerable grace and charm as Rodrigo, such that the King might envy him at what chances toward winning Eboli exist, but also nobility with darker tone ideally enhancing some calming influence on Carlo Rodrigo has. “O Carlo, ascolta” may not have yet been the most moving account (accompanied by extra wide trumpets at its outset) of it I have ever heard. Apart from mariachis accompanying him, from the Royal Opera pit, he still transported it forward through a telling intimacy, free parlando, plus complete grace and poise.

The other triumph from this cast was as Posa’s nemesis – yet after the insinuating way Keenlyside referred to Carlo , i.e. “la vendetta del Re” – John Tomlinson indeed alone was the true epitome of a real nemesis; there could not have been possibly any worse since Martti Talvela, in almost very equal power struggles with a still young Nicolai Ghiaurov. I would rank both instances as among best handful of performances I have ever heard. Tomlinson essayed his lines with absolutely steady tone, a hint of the visionary though venomously misguided, his flexibility in being able to needle the King into getting the Inquisition’s way. I would have liked however for Furlanettto as King to have been able to stand up to the Inquisitor a little more. The despondency with which Furlanetto addressed Tomlinson – “Mio padre” – was heart-rending for what clearly is defeat for the King. It was perhaps here that Philip, in Hytner’s take on things, became again three-dimensional in full. This was not so much great music-making as theater, but still fine music-making indeed – with it hardly more Bychkov could do than step back.

Robert Lloyd, former Phillip himself, made Friar - one of both quite estimable (and also noticeable) age, experience - of considerable gravitas. Pumeza Matshikiza was the eager, but slightly quavery Tebaldo. Robert Anthony Gardner and Eri Nakamura made fine casting of Herald (and Lerma) and Celestial Voice, with resonant choral forces led very capably by Roberto Balsadonna.

Semyon Bychkov has indeed the heart for Verdi’s Don Carlo. There was though much compromise with his singers, leaving the structure of what Verdi himself penned down almost in the lurch. Granted, there was certainly much more semblance of an interpretation at work here than at La Scala’s opening night a year ago. One noticeable moment was for the duet in the last scene – bump intruding legato lower strings in obbligato to “Ma lassu ci vedremo” to go with the utter non legato of voices above. Passages of this score under Bychkov, instead of being varied components within a connecting line, would occur in blocks. Of note were several instances of accelerando or sudden change of pace to usually faster. Posa’s first solo during Act Two duologue started flat-line from Bychkov, then to infuse quasi-scherzo accenting halfway through to make agitation welling up in Rodrigo’s mind seem to have externally come about.
Opening of the prison scene was too fast - accents on lower middle line in the strings jabbed to extent of sounding positively Slavic. Other unmarked accelerandi, following convention, sounded applied from without. Bychkov does have some feeling for Verdi’s music and idiom, but his language for conveying it being conspicuously vertical at times though trips him up – such as with starting both monastery scenes (that bookend the 1884 Milan version). He certainly sounded most engaged during the two duologues, during much of Carlo and Elisabeth’s Second Act duet, and brought out more darkly than with Karajan, the diaphanous, insinuating textures of womens’ chorus just earlier starting garden scene and of Carlos awaiting audience with the queen, starting Act Three. One might surmise that Bychkov could have mistaken some of the latter for introducing scene out of Parsifal.

Entrance of royalty during the auto-da-fe had fine gravitas. Concertato started by Flemish deputies proceeded with fine, well limned solemnity. Mannerism abetted by influence of von Karajan was some alchemy between producer and maestro here calling for certain amount of mezza, sotto voce to convey intimacy between characters; more direct delivery of numerous lines would still leave us impression of dialogue occurring in private. Bychkov believed for obsequiousness to some of his cast in keeping so subdued the accompaniments that they then robbed cantabile vocal line above, of ebb and flow, except for singer who could enliven it all on his/her own, which Poplavskaya and Cornetti mostly failed at on their last two arias, respectively. Bychkov also confusingly made lumbering viola and cello triplets underneath Philip’s Ah si maledetto 1866 version (Maudit soit le soupcon infame) thirty-seconds (but on different pitches than 1866) in place of the 1886 sixteenths.

Supposed intimacy with characters for the audience broke down - with hardly any irony on Hytner’s part – subtle wall to remain up between the two parties, not to put us at ease, but for us to process information we receive from onstage for ourselves. Stage direction for actors to in essence do our work for us, provide us with our response to what goes on, is very irresponsible.

Addition of new assistant inquisitor (Teo Ghil) to the auto-da-fe is excessive - fortunately, as opposed to with Pappano, not shouting over music for banda for interrogating the condemned men he administers. He sounded this time placed further back. Watching 2008 youtube, I take issue with portraying the condemned heretics almost equally contemptibly as the Inquisition. Any self-respecting Catholic will look down upon both the horrific abuse that took place in 16th century Spain and abusive neglect by the Church since. Sorry to say, but Hytner victimizes the heretics, afresh perhaps, by also dehumanizing them. Fine skill is apparent, but such a narrow aesthetic grasp - hardly at all with Don Carlo alone. Sweeping contempt for organized religion is long familiar by now, but not some more effectively creative way of putting it across?

Don Carlo was never a good piece by which to lift the weight, cares of this world off one’s shoulders, yet Verdi seldom provided us with as complex thinking and empathy for all his characters involved so well as here. Long do we pine for escape to a better world - so remote also to those once inhabiting the Escuriel; we toil, wax and wane for seemingly long hours, yet especially while compared with the hereafter, our time is short.

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Monday, December 14, 2009

Met 2009-10 opening broadcast: Puccini's Il Trittico - and perhaps other tales of being naughty to fabricate

For opening the new Met broadcast season, we got revisited the Jack O’Brien production of Trittico from near end of third season ago. Redolent of Zeffirelli’s legacy at the Met, this production accomplishes providing congenially ample, detailed backdrop to the action, while allowing each of the three stories in this to conventionally work out against it. Where this idea of producing Trittico fell short the most in 2007, it also did here, even if less so than before, with Il Tabarro. David Cangelosi (Il Tinca) incisively excited yet again minimal passion - just assumed to be enough on which to get by - from Salvatore Licitra (Luigi). Paul Plishka made his crusty vocal state apparent as Il Talpa and Stephanie Blythe just minimally more insightful her casual romp through La Frugola,

We all know that Licitra is not a Del Monaco in either weight or volume, but there is still something to be made of Luig, more than coasting through it. He even took his murderous altercation with Michele matter-of-fact. Luigi’s pent-up anger can still cut through an overall countenance of vulnerability. Licitra’s affable tone was pleasant, except for strained high notes, but it all related yet again close to nothing as Luigi.

Zeljko Lucic, fine recent Macbeth for Levine, was Michele.. His best assets were his dark tone, evenness of articulation and seriousness about assignment as stevedore boss. Except for slight strain in achieving a few high notes, Lucic was still confident in achieving the overall tessitura. What quickly became apparent too, in catching the introversion of a good Michele, was a constant emotional reserve that missed some change of mood and color (harmony) here and there, for instance in Michele’s attempt to draw some fresh warmth out of the Giorgetta right next to him. The end of his arioso “Resto vicino a me” emerged more as vocal achievement than anything else - his brief line of ‘squaldrina’ (‘whore”) so mulled over and laughter at the very end in revealing to Giorgetta her dead lover - somewhat a misplaced Karloff or Vincent Price applied irony - highly doubtful here. Not all was lost. Lucic stopped well short of making caricature of Michele, in delivering vocal eloquence, and some sense of inner frustration and anguish.

Patricia Racette, essaying all three soprano leads, came across most curious as Giorgetta. After Stratas and Scotto, she becomes the third to do so, all three at once, at the Met. Malfitano also did for Chicago some nearly ten years ago. Lower register for Giorgetta means the most that it does for any of the three leads. Racette gratefully found some reserves upon which to draw that way. Middle register came across grainy and hollow, but curiously enough with less pitch problems than afflicted her Cio-Cio San last season. Passaggio and higher were still unstable, even with. sympathy for Giorgetta’s frustration and plight still made clearly apparent. Similar to Paoletta Marrocu’s Giorgetta for Chailly, there was touch of soubrette, though partly thanks to incredibly insightful staging at La Scala put to more specific use there than here. An all knowing earnestness to Giorgetta in how Racette played this also worked against her and perhaps also against our sympathies as well. Racette muted expected passion for Luigi and expression of desire for freedom from situation in which Giorgetta finds herself.

The Patricia Racette - as publicity writes - that dissolved into each heroine in Trittico, came about most, if still overtly so, as Angelica. Some quavery tone compromised both her opening offstage solo and start to refrain of “I desideri sono i fiori del vivi,” but with the latter a fully formed individual indeed emerged the most it had yet in this Trittico. Racette very well found somber color and warmth for the episode with the wasp stung sister, and very well too beseeching tone, moments of hysteria and deep sadness so well by end of central scene with the Princess. “Senza mamma” was felt to just significant extent from within, deeply moving, but compromised by two things – too much sobbing, gasping during orchestral interlude for slow exit of the aunt soon before and tone incapable of placing quite right - getting stuck in groove on sustained notes near the break. One had to admire how very closely Racette listened Saturday for intonation, for it not to go so far astray as for Butterfly and Don Carlo still recently from the Met.

One could also suspect some copying of Scotto’s interpretation – noticeably so in the death scene. Scotto, well understood by Racette, conveys on disc how different from her it is interpretively, given her personality and what different feeling she would have for Angelica from more culturally inbred information she naturally had for the part. Scotto was still not ultimately more a genuine Angelica than Racette. Racette invested tremendous adrenaline into making the last twenty minutes of this work the way they did for her, to be able to issue forth tone and also line of some quality from deep below and the larynx. She did so in such a way that could have risked for her more damage than already some faulty technique over so much time. Her Lauretta, while sincere, in Gianni Schicchi, sounded both mature and knowing, with persistent wobble above the staff.

Here was still an estimable achievement - one, doing all three heroines in one night, not easy at all – one often resulting in one compromise or another – with the dangerous tessitura in Angelica and considerable difference between how all three parts are written. Barbara Frittoli had the more even tone and legato, more restrained poise as Angelica in 2007, making something, mildly remindful of Tebaldi, equally moving of it then.

Wendy White and Barbara Dever repeated their Monitor and Novices ‘assistant principal’ from two years back - authoritatively so. White had the steadier tone and air of authority and sympathy - Dever the chestier, mildly more incisive, with crack to the sound in issuing reprimands hither and yond – remindful perhaps of how Fedora Barbieri sounded at it. Heidi Grant Murphy, occasionally exposing some thinness of sound, filled such out in echoing some of what had preceded her from Racette on early refrain with very convincing warmth; she ideally found the naïve, sad, and charming simplicity of Genoveffia to near Cotrubas levels. The musical and interpretative growth of this artist, through the Angel for Metzmacher in Messiaen last year at the Proms has been something lately very noteworthy. Tamara Mumford was still stern but more warmly authoritative as the Abbess, toward fitting new interpretative profile for upcoming meeting between Angelica and the Princess than the more incisively stern Patricia Risley in 2007. The two lay sisters lacked sufficient intonation, but two alms sisters expressively won our sympathies, as did the sweet toned Dolcina (Jennifer Check).

Alright! Time now for Steffi – not the one on ABC News– as to help kick off now a new season of the Meg and Ira show. What is to make of such incomplete synopsis with full interview cut-ins of Miss Blythe? Are we then to start on episode of One Life to Live or Guiding Light? Reckless daughter of estate shows up to then be informed of dead child – notification, herb preparation on Friday, suicide on the Monday. I mean, is this Miss Blythe or could it be instead Stephanie Forrester (or better yet if she could still sing – Maureen Forrester)? With all the consultants, publicity the Met hires, why not Susan Flannery? At one point, I was fully expecting news of hot dates out on the town for cocktails with young, dashing Albanian tenor before all got said and done – excesses that Ms. Flannery might recall for her character – or perhaps own personal life as well?

Sure, there are back stories to any character here, but if you will, please show me where in the music. We should not be getting melodramatic excess for scene with the Princess either; both ways quickly turn to bathos all the same. Almost churlish to mention it, but the one Trittico I have run across that most successfully avoided both potential problems for this scene was with Barbara Frittoli and the more aged sounding Marjana Lipovsek for Chailly and Ronconi. Certainly, Miss Blythe has grown in her understanding of the part, but vis-à-vis the music, somehow sounded distracted this time, as she also did so much as informed by byplay with Saimir Pirgu during Gianni Schicchi. We can fully surmise that Zita has done much the same thing in gathering up a few potentially undocumented immigrants herself. Here is indeed a real artist - with the fine voice, beautiful technique and stamina Miss Blythe offers. Churlish though it may be to mention it, but since Ronconi/Chailly, nobody at the Met has come up with any better. In the music of Trittico, as well in theater linguistics, there are what are called gaps. Come to think of it, it is the midcult pop mysticism of how the Met’s Suor Angelica ends that by now has become rather silly, as much as anything else.

In film technique that Trittico, out of all Puccini wrote, may have influenced the most, one has suture to fill in gaps mentioned, suture that protects or consoles us from encounter with the Real, on Jacques Lacan terms. Here so much of society is made up of the entire hierarchy of the family, the convent, the whole social order running things that in place of that insufficiency, there is also trace or stain of mysticism that Luca Ronconi uses that functions as suture in its place. Suture provides the role of something that may in a way symbolically provide some validation underneath the rest in the vicinity of the destitution of so much even in our midst. We do not need back stories. Many of us have lived life and have also seen more than enough soap opera. It makes for great coddling to bring up the Princess’s back stories, may even win new audiences, but such also, I have a flash, protects us too from work of art itself as well as from any real encounter with it thereof. The structure, the integrity, the aesthetic of Puccini’s music may demand a little more– but what do I know? Disregard what I say. Bring Susan Flannery on!

Turning at last to Gianni Schicchi, after tallying it all up, if one had to name most successful artist here, the answer is obvious – Alessandro Corbelli. I hope saying so lends some credence to hope that we need a new dvd out of this with him cast as Schicchi. The one dvd featuring him in this is so unsatisfactory, as to not generate any real humor or laughter at all.

Saimir Pirgu was the sweet toned, lyrical, astutely minded and phrased Rinuccio – better than I remember him from the broadcast of the L.A. Trittico with Thomas Allen fine in the title role. He understated “Avete torto”, to sincerely affect modesty - especially with Miss Blythe not far away, but then rose with good chutzpah for the aria’s closing lines, and soared freely, doubling a wobbly Racette for closing refrain on the balcony. Blythe – more broad than specific to character - some nagging inability thus far to ideally find the part of Zita in her voice - and Racette I have mentioned already.

Donato di Stefano repeated his sense of cross between gravitas and parody of such to perfection as Simone. Patrick Carfizzi went out of his way to make Betto appear crotchety, while incisive with his words. Patricia Risley and Jennifer Check had in each their individual manner the dolcezza for Ciesca and Nella. Risley on purpose made something more clearly hypocritical of Ciesca, to great humorous effect – both artists repeats from last time. Paul Plishka evinced comic gifts very well as the doctor, James Courtney haughty, equally benighted sense of authority as the notary to risible effect.

As for Stefano Ranzani, he offered more a mixed bag, in terms of results, than did Levine in 2007. There were elements of each drama for which he showed sympathy, others that eluded him. His Il Tabarro, while Levine indeed gave us cleaner ensemble and more secure downbeats, had the earthier, grittier quality to it. Hanging this Trittico on the broad panoramas of the O’Brien production is tricky, to say the least, also its great charm that helped trip up Levine. More it was issues perhaps on how to ideally coordinate it all with at times temptation to still apply the broad brush that may have eluded Ranzani. Sense of what harmonic changes occur and how they fit and interact, attendant on shifts in light of the early evening sky and of mood of the river below require in Il Tabarro a little more rubato than Ranzani felt comfortable offering us. Even while tentative, Ranzani's feel for color and atmosphere was much preferable to that of Levine.

Levine found the more Gallic delicacy, luminous quality of sonority for Suor Angelica, the opening of which Ranzani, too broad, made just generically plush. Opening sonorities, slow current of pulsation underneath, to avoid things starting flat-line for bird call as halo above, got compromised. As the convent came to life however, so did Ranzani, with him supporting his singers well and finding together with fine supporting cast the simplicity of their lines. Ranzani then mustered up the vitality to support Racette in full, though hinting at sinking all into bathos – especially if all had gone more broadly than it had already.

Schicchi turned out probably best for Ranzani, though one had to wait to hear forthright enough the boisterous laugh that opens the dramma giocoso until it would repeat after the new will had been read. Corbelli was firing off on all cylinders here, so nobody could have done anything at this point but follow him.

“Avete torto” lacked rhythmic swagger - chords underneath to potentially lend things more oomph than anybody at first mustered for it. Much of the parody, wit of the story still made it across the footlights incisively, if slightly more awkwardly at several junctures than with Levine. Evident here was more a rambunctious eccentricity of the writing. Ranzani capped all off with gorgeous sense of twilight for young couple over sight of Il Duomo and all Florence behind them - nostalgia laden morbidezza from the strings on aching consequent, followed by speech and boisterous close to everything.

Corbelli had the greater freedom at the Met – than on dvd - especially this time, in investing Schicchi, marking the bitterness in the writing, with the peasant manner of the guy with utmost simplicity. This included in his specific dealing with each family member and with those helping tend to business. His was most of all the great wit, savage at times, especially during the reading of the will, and ingenuity. The part has deepened for him - perhaps a virtue or two of the Glyndebourne Schicchi I have overlooked. Next to this at the Met, it looks and feels so very stiff, whereas at the Met Corbelli is free.

Jack O’Brien does not quite have the complete picture in giving us such a naturalistic approach. There is so much, with all its intentional gaps this piece has, so few of those underlined by Puccini, easy to miss. The casual, glib, quasi-Broadway manner with Il Tabarro shortchanges it - such as would be an outing by the nouveau riche to do the radical chic thing and go slumming through the lower depths. In all perspective, much of the story still does get told, though missing what may indeed lie beneath its surface. I found Ira a bit derisive at intermission about idea of allowing room for a (small) barge onstage. Well, it so happens, Ira, that the music in Il Tabarro does obsess somewhat with the river; should one crowd out the river for magnificent panorama of Paris, then one could have missed or have significantly undercut something – Puccini’s music.

Alessandro Corbelli may have walked to a triumph here, albeit a bit vocally thicker as Schicchi than previously at the Met, but free as he ever has been at anything before – and absolutely hilarious. He will agree– why Ronconi and Chailly were so incredibly successful at this in Milan – that the hero at end of day with Il Trittico is always still Giacomo Puccini.

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Saturday, December 12, 2009

A Gallic undoing of Marek Janowski with RSO Berlin

Philharmonie Berlin 09.12.2009. Lisa de la Salle. Debussy "Jeux"; Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2; Franck D Minor Symphony

Marek Janowski is someone who I have always reckoned to be perhaps a couple of cuts above what we would deem a good Kapellmeister – someone whose work in the opera house has caught my attention more often (as from a few Met broadcasts, I surmise) than in the concert hall. I do recall a Salome with Eva Marton in which he was described, since things were not going so well that Saturday afternoon, as having conducted it with his head buried in the score almost the whole time – and on his part, all went by efficiently enough. He recorded a complete Ring for Eurodisc almost thirty years ago, with Rene Kollo very desirable for the part of Siegfried in it, and if memory serves me correctly, in optimum form as well. Jessye Norman and and a young Siegfried Jerusalem were his two Volsungs. Theo Adam repeated Wotan from doing it with Bohm years earlier.

As also music director of OSR (Suisse Romande), he chose a Gallic program (most if it 19th century and by one composer actually Belgian, showing a certainly comfortable level of German influence still) here.

“Jeux” by Claude Debussy opened the program. Before doing some more extensive looking at the score, I deemed this to be an almost quite respectable performance of it – after the carnage on it I heard from the Proms last summer (London PO, Jurowski); it actually turned out not being significantly better than perhaps one would expect of a Dallas, Indianapolis, or Baltimore (in its current state) over here. A clean enough understanding with good pacing to it all, of form was apparent, but hardly more to cut beneath the surface than just that. Janowski revealed sense of how to display a little sheen over proceedings, but with meager depth to it all underneath. What suppleness one should expect, variety of attack, free floating arabesque, all of which to help articulate form, was weak, and conspicuously so. This was so especially when one had the sense of there beginning to be (layers of) textures starting to clot - and with clipping that would take place intermittently. Cascade of arabesque through episodes marked 'Joyeux' got rendered stiffly.

There were likely a good number of notes dropped as well. Except in glibly ascetic way, there was little about this ‘Jeux’ to have been able to construe out of it anything potentially sensuous really. RSO Berlin string tone was often a little too thin for especially such good of this music. Even near point where music achieved climax, things seemed workaday, with overt sectioning off of different strands of activity - what should be subdued. Chromatically led English horn in anguished line and answering duet in clarinets and three parts cello section rhetoric was all unyielding and lacking in nuance moments before the crest of the entire piece.

Lisa de la Salle then joined RSO Berlin for the G Minor Piano Concerto by Saint-Saens; it would seem that for orchestral forces at work, we should then be on more stable ground. What de la Salle might a bit prematurely call austere for her age, of 20 or 21, came across as rhetorically unyielding in the solo introduction to the first movement. A certain grandeur and poise to profile, which would not prevent it from being austere so much as from being two-dimensional, was lacking. Orchestral response was then stiff and a bit muddy; an unyielding character to it all got carried over into accompaniment to the real principal theme of the movement. Such lacked both nobility and character, of what passed between soloist and orchestra. A good clarinet solo rounded off a more shapely appoggiatura laden second theme, but spontaneity out of some virtuoso flourish from de la Salle into brief Development got undercut - much there continuing on as routine, flat-line as usual thus far.

De la Salle’s angularity on short flourishes of sixteenths coming off main theme of the Scherzo, just deft enough, I found a bit crude and mal–apropos. Some lift got picked up into the swaggering second theme, but as found or observed dutifully instead of spontaneously. Retransition, sequencing approaching an overtly precious quality in starting the recapitulation quickly became block-y, in projecting a not so interesting argument of working things out – less interesting than is the tunefulness and charm of this music just in and of itself. Start of the finale, taken just moderately fast, sounded immediately awkward in coordination and leaden. Expected contrasts in orchestral backing of soloist proceeded so routinely as hardly to be noticeable. Trills on second theme started incisively, but all became too strict over proceeding chorale in winds. Recapitulation started off not together at all and de la Salle’s articulation of light flourishes in upper treble register was vulgar in how she stridently clipped a couple of them. Unvarying tone quality from soloist and ensemble problems riddled the remainder of this.

A too unyielding pulsation in left hand and eschewed nuance in playing for encore of the C-sharp Minor nocturne of Chopin (Opus 27, No. 1) compromised the nobility of line that de la Salle validly sought in getting its message across. Ascending, descending run in right hand met with well calibrated nuance, but for full maturity in playing this piece, more subtleties than for just overtly special moments in it still elude de la Salle somewhat.

A brooding feeling of opening the slow introduction to the Franck D Minor Symphony was just about right, but then to hear so little come of this in how things spun out from there was most disconcerting. Violins forgot to hide being aware of downbeat or bar-line as their tremoli got underway, in building together with the rest what emerged as an overall gray sonority to all. Soggy articulation and intonation quickly became apparent from the winds and often continuously dragged down what continued as a moderate to briskly paced rendition of the Franck. Accelerandi into ritornello statements therein then felt layered on – and at being so unimaginative as such, not marked in the score to occur at all anyway. Uncharacteristic for Franck’s music and of any good German orchestra playing it, string textures frequently sounded dry and thin, if not occasionally precariously so – in for instance doubling line fortissimo sostenuto line (as marked) and thus also underneath abetting propulsion for louder half of the second theme group to Allegro sections of the first movement.

Rhetorical sweeping lines from the violins marked fortissimo ma cantando projected routinely during the Development after previous portion of this section had started to lend things some lease on life. Accelerando, making way into the recapitulation fractiously sounded stodgy to point of being silly – certainly as not having been stirred up from within. Winds accompanying a start-up to the recapitulation that lacked sufficient fortitude emerged Fauntleroy-esque – a trap within this passage anyway. Jabbing repeat note trumpets on A, certainly marked loud but far less interesting than brooding progressions from lower reaches across all three sections of the orchestra, got more space than did the rest. Priority for clear downbea, for the bar-line to be demarcated emerged as obvious in reach for the closing peroration to the first movement.

Cesar Franck could have been construed to have traveled as far as Basque territory for how guitar like hard strumming on harp introduced the second movement. Violins here sounded at least rehearsed well for their triplet tremoli throughout most of this. English horn was flat and lacked nuance for trying to shape his lines. A reticent French horn replied, uninterestingly bearing down on his lines as well. Shape to flowing second theme emerged impulsively and with weak effort at remaining together with second violins, as though all generated on the spot. Dotted rhythms for sinuously wistful lines in the winds were loose enough to contrive that there might be a slow waltz afoot in more like triplets at times than dotted rhythms that violins repeated later with dull color and shape to it all. At least, Janowski was prudent to keep textures light for this - his violins reasonably well rehearsed.

Lean, but dull shape characterized opening tune to the finale, though gunned sufficiently on opening accents. Alluring second theme on trumpet-led brass was simply not together. Reminiscence of music from preceding movements happened matter-of-fact and reprise of main theme of the finale even started to become monotonous as Janowski left it glib for us what in harmonic impetus might be generating each reprise of such lean grandeur and poise. Textures remained light, but final recall of opening introduction to first movement was all flat-line, with harp arpeggios observing their bar-lines between them, with impetus to fine band-y conclusion to all that had come before.

Somehow, it all sounded like a diminution of what Cesar Franck might have really had in mind. French music, with the Barenboim Carmen that now sounds heavier on youtube tracks or even Furtwanglerian indeed, misapplied of course, has received less than optimum representation this week from originally two different sources. As for judgment call to make on the overall situation with what ensembles have both gone by RSO Berlin, it is prudent to leave such consideration still a bit open until chance to have heard a little more from what is reported upon here.

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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Radio Bayern: La Scala opener - auspicious debut by hot new Georgian mezzo - but otherwise was it Bizet's Carmen - or was it Sominex - or Sophocles?

This was indeed something preceded by much hype, but after all, Opening Night at La Scala - yet with embarrassed impresario – mostly by how disastrous his opener was last season - Don Carlo conducted by Daniele Gatti. The loggionisti have also shown that Daniel Barenboim has also slightly fallen out of favor with them, with recent Aida performances.

Administration appeared to see to it that notice get out, that more radical steps on Emma Dante’s part get softened or removed – even partly at Barenboim’s insistence, allegedly, for no better sake than just to animate, use the press, in covering so much about all this ahead of time. All it could have accomplished was just (further) muddying of the waters. I have even run onto a website or two to engage the loggionisti in some online dialogue, I suppose, as to expectations, when they have been reported as of late having become restless about this opener coming up. Giuseppe Pennesi (La Scena Musicale) has most meaningfully reported here ultimately a passionless, sexless Carmen. It indeed sounded very much like his description – even with the amount of sexual, of course to be socially correct all misogynistic violence to have occurred on stage.

There was also an ante-prima for the deemed highly respectful under-30 crowd Friday evening –for the press to milk for all its worth. The new Dante production indeed has its rebel youth chic, experimental appeal, but half-commercial look too. With what I have read, it seems she might have received more hospitable welcome at almost any smaller house in Italy, such as in Genoa, Parma, or Siena, instead of the big time in Milan. With the fully expected fischiato (booed) response she received Monday night, it was though Danny boy could have put up a lamb for slaughter. Perhaps with all the religious symbolism she layered on, she might have welcomed something of a heroic martyrdom of sorts –myopic as to what might work for the good of Emma Dante in the long run.

Before editorializing on this further, it is time to move on to what it was like just to hear this. To Emma Dante’s credit, there are perhaps two things – even without seeing this in action. For one, and for her quote about Carmen being ‘pure as a nun, but also animalistic’ – something along those lines – her Carmen, in Antia Rachvelishvili, somehow avoided turning in a heavy statuesque iconic tragedy queen of a Carmen – harmful for a lyric voice such as that of this new artist.. Complementing that was also heard a welcome amount of witty irony spun forth in especially spoken dialogue. Fortunately the spoken dialogue got chosen here, in place of the badly concocted Guiraud recitative that makes so much of Carmen come across contrived.

What confounded me more than anything long before this draggy Carmen came to an end, though avoiding very well some of the obvious Teutonic accents of a Karajan or Maazel, was still how stodgy it sounded under Barenboim – almost as though the recitative could have fit in just fine. He was certainly out of his fach here, whereas La Scala audiences can remember the passion with which he infused Tristan und Isolde for their opener two years ago. Barenboim’s scrupulous ear for textures, through which soloists in his orchestra emerged effortlessly, proved worthwhile however.

Tempi were often slow, apparently for sake of achieving pleasant quasi-Gallic dovetailing of many lines. Carmen though first and foremost should emerge as something living –as vibrant a piece of musical theater as possible. Jerking forward of the pulse once or twice during quarrel between Jose and Escamillo sounded cut and pasted - as way of managing dramatic pacing instead of it emerging organically from what has preceded the marked shift to allegro or two. Barenboim does not have it for conducting French opera at La Scala other than for some Berlioz – still inherent to Berlioz a sense of both internal and underpinning French rhythm as well. Such is certainly even so in attempting to disclose to us what multicultural influences from as afar as northern Africa or Cuba Barenboim - perhaps at behest of Emma Dante - now claims to hear in Carmen – many of us would find a novel insight indeed.

Numerous places in this Carmen actually sounded draggier than actually may have been the case, but Barenboim had singers who whether they asked for better or not had him upon whom to depend to provide some sense of pulsation to their lines. Especially in the Jose/Micaela duet in Act One, the Card Song, and in the final scene, it was obviously lacking, for what probably were some of the slowest tempos Monday evening. All preludes, entr’actes came off well - flute principal effective for one starting Act Three (and then back-phrasing moments later the smugglers’ chorus tune) – with enough snap and pizzazz for the Act One prelude and aragonaise starting Act Four as well. All that is fine, but with most interest of all in how Barenboim might aid, build dramatic interaction between his singers. Rachvelishvili sustained the Card Song very flexibly well; build-up to “Encore…toujours la mort” was ineffective, other than from her alone.

What indeed seems almost miraculous now was the La Scala debut of now quickly rising young Georgian mezzo Anita Rachvelishvili. One heard her take command of the stage right away - fearlessly so. An entirely new name to most of us, she had auditioned for Frasquita, but with Marina Domashenko and one or two other mezzos unavailable for this run, Rachvelishvili found herself quickly catapulted into taking on the title role. Though compromised by some of the stage direction - clutter surrounding her with all that - there was apparently nothing to faze her in the least, or for that matter, to compel her to unsuitably force a lyric voice, even with it having its Slavic cutting edge. She used it always lightly and often most incisively to make the words of Carmen count, eventually defiantly. Mind you, it was the words alone, not having to spend principal on a voice to make it happen for this young singer.

One noticed right away a Carmen not the least bit in love with Don Jose, from Seguidilla on, but who could have Jose wrapped around her little finger at any point she might like or upon demand. The lower register smoldered, the upper register was always clear - all evenly connected the entire way. If Dante expected a free spirit of a Carmen on her stage, she got it; if she expected instead ‘Carmen-as-victim’- all heavily enveloped and back-phrased – better then for Dante to have looked elsewhere. Where amidst everything here Rachvelishvili got her impetus to deliver us the Carmen she did remains unclear; it appeared to have been from personal dramatic and musical instinct possibly more than anything else.

An occasional note may have gone sharp, she may have missed harmonic contrast as one picky critic quipped between minor and major mode in the Habanera. In this piece, the words, together with the music, one and both inherently the same in such a number were paramount and she always made the words speak. Rachvelishvili was the one singer among four principals with which the natural color of her instrument always clearly emerged, and shifting colors within - effortlessly at her command. The Slavic edge I mention she will want to avoid allowing to harden – especially under pressure of taking on parts dramatically beyond her scope. Most welcome here was her utter refusal to force anything for dramatic emphasis, with her getting it all practically with the words alone. Even in a vocal yet wordless passage as dance with castanets in Act Two to freshly entice a frequently moribund sounding Don Jose as that of Jonas Kaufmann, she could infuse it with concise swivel to its line and rhythm that could even entice a ground hog. How it failed to do more for the Jose on stage with her than it did was as confounding dramatically as anyone could have run across lately.

The Card Song had an air of being at once morose but casual as having to accept an imminently ominous fate. Rachvelishvili made all so alive, incisive at times, but never ostentatiously so – even in obbligato to Mercedes and Frasquita during smugglers’ ensemble in Act 3 – obbligato to which the ear could not help being directed. It is perhaps why she won the audition - for more than which she had bargained.

The greatest implausible in all of this was the Don Jose of Jonas Kaufmann. Could this really be one of the world’sleading Don Jose’s now? The voice certainly has plenty of heft, though of essentially a singer on the lyric end of the spectrum of dramatic tenors. All it seemed that Kaufmann was out to prove, with also his mildly coagulated French vowels, was how good a honk he indeed has, but such quickly became boring here. Should we be grateful that Kaufmann has enough goods vocally to supply the demand for doing the part of Don Jose alone? It has been said already that he has been more flexible in shaping his interpretation of this part other times; on parlando lines, yes, he did give some hint of that, but here that was not quite enough.

Other than for Kaufmann’s good looks, what might have ever turned Carmen’s head, especially a Carmen instead of being for instance in the hands of Jessye Norman in those of Rachvelishvili, must remain mysterious. One person writing in praised Kaufmann for lovely mezza voce he achieved on high B-Flat in the Flower Song – so back-phrased as to sound cowering before a Carmen of Rachvelishvili standing over with a whip - suggesting reverse interpretation from Emma Dante’s vision of all this - but what of the five notes building up to it? If he could have placed them farther back glottally, one might have started to hear grating noises – or indistinguishable from that.

In fact, for photo of more consensual Act Two scene I have seen, done riding the saddle style, than encounter in Act Four, Rachvelishvili as Carmen is clearly the one playing top. I could not hear, other than such heavily misdirected testosterone being put out - with things getting allocated the wrong way - how this Don Jose could have put out for such an encounter. Fortunately, Rachvelishvili did not attempt competing with Kaufmann on vocally putting out the hormones – regardless what was happening onstage. I am equally frankly surprised that Carmen, with a Don Jose of so little manliness as this one, would not have entirely cast him aside from joining the smuggling party for Act Three. As phoned in as finale to Act Two finale sounded, Carmen might’ve as well been merely thinking just 'been there, done that' to 'here we go again.'

Equally fine, dandy competition for the hand of Micaela, even that of Adriana Damato, was the Escamillo of Erwin Schrott. The dry start to "Votre toast" (‘Toreador Song’) was embarrassing. Schrott did intermittently evince bravado, macho here and there, but such coming only in fits and spurts – again not to excite the Micaela too much - constantly followed around by two priests. The one time Rachvelishvili sounded bored the entire evening was for Act Four Mozartean duetttino with Schrott.

Adriana Damato (Micaela) was equally dicey as Schrott in experimenting around as to good vocal placement. The two might have made a fine match indeed. When Rachvelishvili dropped scorn on the Don Jose about his obliging his mother, I then expected Rachvelishvili to meet her, Jose’s mother, in the mountain pass – during the following scene. Damato certainly sounded older than listed age for Micaela from just about the start. One had to admire a little valor on her part in attempts at long lines in her big aria in a single breath, but that and some of the high notes then became somewhat of the ‘hail Mary’ variety. Her best singing came for last several minutes of the slowly taken Act One duet with Don Jose.

Gabor Bretz’s Zuniga (Gabor Bretz) was strong, albeit with phlegmatic accent here and there, but with fine sense of humor and irony - understandable given what minor drawbacks he may have encountered. A young Morales (Mathias Hausmann) was also good, plus Carmen’s two animated companions (Michele Losier, Adriana Kucerova). Rodolphe Briand (Remendado) had some of the finest diction in this cast, but tone so thin that when things started to pick up a clip, it would tend to almost disappear. Francis Dudziac (Dancaire), accommodating him, had to sing softly, not to drown him out.

This was, plus being such a multicultural Carmen, one very internationally cast. I can imagine worse diction emerging from such, but can also imagine diction – coached well here – making it sound like everybody much more idiomatically understands each other than was apparent. So much clutter going on – many extra characters onstage – seemed to take place of more meaningful dramatic interaction.

The final ‘Tiens’ near the end from who was indeed smartest person in the class said it all - just as to such a wuss of a Don Jose standing right in front of her. One must look forward to future Carmens and also some Rossini from new Georgian bombshell having entered our midst – but in more sympathetic environment, even while still at La Scala. This project resembled most of all product of mutually supported, perpetuated insecurity between producer, impresario, and conductor – most naïve the producer – with what booing greeted them during curtain calls.

In this great re-telling of Sophocles by Georges Bizet, as all clarified to me by minion of La Cieca (www.parterre.com) – no wonder that both Don Jose turned out to be way he is and that Emma Dante likes the music so much - and Danny’s slow tempos - pointed out already about Act One duet. I however would like to suggest some further changes.

Have Don Jose still rape Carmen at the end, but make it look half-consensual - that she might be enjoying or even egging it on. Have her start to exit stage as Escamillo re-enters – Carmen in exiting as to equally blow both guys off - and get shot to death by Don Jose. Escamillo, in retelling Carmen according to ancient legend, originally might have hitched up with Micaela - all it seems he might have been worth anyway - then making him eponymously Don Jose's father. Schrott already made Escamillo sound old. At least then it would all make perfect sense. There may be less bravado, esprit, swagger to it, but so little need for that has been implored much anywhere as of late.

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