Tag: Puccini

Danke, meine Damen!

On June 1, 2017

In Berlin, classical, Europe, music, opera, voice, writing

Looking up at the Komische Oper. (Photo: mine. Please do not reproduce without permission.)

Trips to Berlin always seem like a whirlwind. My first visit in January was essentially just that, part of a larger two-week European winter opera jaunt that also included explorations through Belgium and France. In the four nights I spent in Berlin this past winter, I ensured visits to the Komische Oper, Deutsche Oper, and of course, the Berlin Philharmonic, even as temperatures dropped and Siberian winds made me glad to have brought my mukluks and wooly sweaters.

Returning to Berlin in spring, visits to productions by these organizations were a foregone conclusion, but because I had the luxury of more time this particular jaunt, I included others as well (notably the Staatsoper Berlin, as well as NYC’s Metropolitan Opera, at the very end), which yielded a bouquet of thought-provoking experiences. Of the panoply of cultural riches I experienced over the course of my recent two week trip, what connected everything, and stands out in retrospect, were incredible performances by women. Longing, love, loneliness, intimacy, identity, community — all of these themes were covered, in moving, creative ways that felt all too familiar and close at times. Each performer embarked on different types of journeys that would intersect, move apart, race in parallel lines, only to twist and turn again. Looking for love, finding love, rejecting love; looking for self, finding self, reinventing self; seeking kindred spirits, finding those spirits leaving or being abandoned by them — all this, plus narratives of dedication, deception, and rejection, helped to elevate the performances I saw from mere entertainment into real (and very familiar, for me) human experience. Despite the cool and rainy Berlin spring, there was something warming about all of it. That isn’t to say everything I saw was comforting, though some of it was certainly entertaining.

The work of Komische Oper left a strong impression, visually, sonically, and theatrically. This fine company (which translates literally as “comic opera,” though the work it presents isn’t strictly comedic) impressed me during my previous visit, when I attended opening night of its whimsical double-bill production (working together with British production outfit 1927) of Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. Vibrancy, color, and imagination, together with a deep respect for the scores and great, rave performances, left me wanting more.

Returning to Berlin, I saw three productions at the Komische, which is located just steps from the famous Brandenburg Gate. Ball im Savoy (Ball At The Savoy) is a fun, naughty 1932 operetta by Paul Abraham, a Jewish-Hungarian composer who enjoyed immense success in the 1930s with a string of musical hits and big screen adaptations. Originally presented by the KOB in 2013 as director Barry Kosky’s closing work to mark his first season as Chief Director for the company, this was a fantastic, uproarious production, filled with solid performances, beautiful designs, and smart commentary on the nature of human relating, particularly within the sometimes complicated sphere of sexual intimacy.

L-R Katharine Mehrling, Dagmar Manzel, and Christiane Oertel in Ball im Savoy.
Photo: Iko Freese / drama-berlin.de

I especially appreciated the casting and performance of Dagmar Manzel a well-known, deeply entertaining German actor who, like many artists in Berlin, goes totally against the Hollywood aesthetic of young, cute, and Instagram-hot; Manzel is pushing sixty, broad-shouldered and large of laugh, with a raspy, sexy, low voice and a a wonderfully confident stage presence. What a treat it would be to see her live again; Manzel is an eminently watchable performer, who ably delivered a smart, nuanced performance playing Madeleine, the just-married wife of Aristide (Christoph Späth), a man with a past, and who seemed frequently more attached to his fear than to his wife. The scenes between the two crackled with a spicy, natural chemistry and volcanic verve. As Opera News reviewer A.J. Goldmann noted in his 2013 review of Ball im Savoy, “Not only is the KOB an ideal forum for rescuing such works from obscurity; the works themselves — and the worthy productions they come packaged in — add immeasurably to the company’s luster.” No kidding.

Manzel will appear at Komische Oper next season in two productions, both of which I’m keen to see: as the lead in the 1923 musical Die Perlen der Cleopatra (The Pearls of Cleopatra) by Oscar Straus, in a production directed by Barry Kosky (which she’s also doing this July as part of the KOB’s Summer Festival); and in another Straus work, this one from 1932, helmed again by Australia-born director, Eine Frau, die weiß, was sie will! (A Woman Who Knows What She Wants!). The latter will be staged this fall, when I am planning on possibly making a return visit to Berlin, so… stay tuned.

Gunter Papendell as Don Giovanni.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus

More color and entertainment at the Komische came in the form of a very surreal, commedia dell’arte-influenced staging of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which was sung in German, a choice which I found myself initially stunned at sonically, but grew to eventually appreciate, even adore. Very purposely leaving the lyricism, romance, and poetry of the original behind, director Herbert Fritsch, together with conductor Jordan de Souza, produced a raucously entertaining spectacle that, while not offering any emotionally moving moments for me personally, did offer a bold canvas onto which Fritsch painted his garish vision.

Philipp Meierhofer’s Leporello, costumed in baggy black but clearly embodying a Pulcinella-style characterization and presentation, was the sort of wise man figure to Günter Papendell’s Don Giovanni, a lithe, foppish figure with clear visual references to the Joker and, more directly, German actor Conrad Veitch in cinema classic The Man Who Laughs. Singing a feisty, sexy, diva-tastic Donna Elvira was Nina Bernsteiner, whose steaming middle voice and glassy tones perfectly reflected both Fritsch’s opera buffa-first approach, as well as the earthy nature of the woman behind, or perhaps physically manifesting, the fabulously grand Victoria Behr-designed yellow gown; Elvira wasn’t playing at being a needy diva, she simply was a True Actual Diva (and she made sure her purple-suited Lothario knew it). From its surreal opening, featuring assorted smashings, to the indelible image — Giovanni’s outstretched hand — of its sudden close (a nod to Mozart’s alternate ending), this was a strong vision for a work that aways provokes strong opinions. Was I moved? Not especially. Did I have a new appreciation for the characters? Yes. Was I entertained as all hell? You bet. Sometimes it’s nice to see something you thought you knew very well, to be surprised by it in new ways, and find out there is still yet more to discover; this was one of those moments.

Peter Renz, Katazyna Wlodarczyk, Talya Libermann. Photo: Iko Freese / drama-berlin.de

This year being the 450th birthday of Claudio Monteverdi (an important moment for opera), I couldn’t resist seeing The Coronation of Poppea (Die Kronung der Poppea), the third Komische production I attended, and easily the one that left the strongest impression. I’m going to be exploring this work, and the KOB’s very sexy, very disturbing production in a future post which will feature the talented German baritone Dominik Köninger (who sings Nero in the show), but suffice for now to say that of the seven operas I saw in Berlin, this one has stayed with me the most. The story of the Emperor Nero, of his decadent world, and his ruthless murder of Seneca (Jens Larsen), his casual tossing-aside of wife Octavia (Karolina Gumos) and his lust for (and with) Poppea (Alma Sadé), were staged with class, intelligence, and vision. That’s not to say there weren’t some shocking scenes; Nero’s coterie includes some fully nude celebrants (male and female), and Seneca’s murder featured both frontal male nudity and a copious (/ disturbing) amount of (stage) blood.

Monteverdi’s original, stately score has been given a very creative re-working by composer Elena Kats-Chernin that features modern instrumentation (the orchestra includes a banjo!) and the transposition of not only instruments but roles (including Nero, from a counter-tenor to a baritone), bringing a new-meets-old sound that places firm emphasis on music as storytelling, and perfectly matches Director Barry Kosky’s decadent, stylish production and Music Director Matthew Toogood’s detailed approach. Presented as a remount for the KOB (Poppea is part of a Monteverdi cycle by the company, originally done in 2012), the piece kept a perfect respect for Monteverdi’s original vision while contemporizing its subtext; there was something alarmingly timely (and of course, timeless) about the ruthlessness and greedy ambition of its sordid cast of characters, and, led by Köninger’s snarling, sexy, utterly magnetic performance this was a coronation that felt, at times, far too close. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything so highly charged on an opera stage in a long time. More on this one soon, but for now, in a word: WOW.

Curtain calls for La Traviata. Photo: mine (via). Please do not reproduce without permission.

There were more big “wow” moments this trip, too. Verdi’s La Traviata was given a high-concept treatment that made liberal use of sand (truth: if I see another heavily symbolic, time-is-running-out-for-Violetta production, I will scream) but the singing, specifically that of Ailyn Perez in the lead, and Simone Piazzola as Giorgio Germont, was gorgeous. Her rendering of “Sempre Libera” (“Always Free”) specifically, was defiant, almost angry, a nice contrast to the puffy, cute, la-la-la interpretations I’ve seen over many decades now. (I kept hearing Perez’s version play, over and over, in my head on the plane ride home, in fact.) Soprano Perez’s Violetta was indeed defiant, angry, — and also, I felt, tired: tired of her life, tired of the fake people around her and the phony relationships, tired of the obsessive little boys she attracts. Her scenes with baritone Piazzola, in particular, brimmed with humanity, and highlighted an intriguing subtext, that perhaps Violetta had met her equal not with Alfredo (tenor Abdellah Lasri), but with his father. There was an emotional rawness to the charged, dramatic scene between Germont Sr. and Violetta, where he comes to beg her to break things off with his son for the sake of his family’s reputation. Piazzola (who sang the role in a circus-themed production directed by Roland Villazon in 2015) offered a poetic portrayal of a man who’d perhaps had fatherhood foisted onto him far too young, and who had little to no real relationship with the son whose reputation he wants to protect. These were wonderfully alive, complex, human performances, and I am looking forward to seeing more of Perez and Piazzola sing again soon. (Ernani at La Scala next September is certainly tempting, if a bit far off!)

Cristina Pasaroiu as Magda in Deutsche Oper’s production of La Rondine. Photo: Bettina Stöß (via)

Other performers I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing again are soprano Cristina Pasaroiu, a beautiful, bell-toned lead in Puccini’s beautiful La Rondine (The Swallow) at Deutsche Oper, and soprano Dorothea Röschmann, whose portrayal of the Countess in the Staatsoper’s Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) was one of the most honest portrayals I’ve ever witnessed. Both performers gave truly memorable performances, with Pasaroiu providing a lovely focal point for Rolando Villazon’s gorgeous, colorful production of Puccini’s 1916 work, and delivering a searing rendition of the famous “Chi il bel sogno di doretta” aria. Confession: I ruined my mascara at Pasaroiu’s interpretation; she captured the deep longing at the heart of this aria so, so perfectly. (Saturday night’s alright for crying, clearly.) Even standing still, watching Ruggero (Vincenzo Costanzo) in a club, or leaving him at the opera’s close, Pasaroiu said so much with such simple, elegant body language; I got the impression, in watching her, that she would have been a great silent film star. The Romanian soprano projects such rich poetry with her every gesture (and in Rondine‘s case, a beautiful sadness), which clearly translates vocally, something conductor Roberto Rizzi Brignoli sensed at a very intrinsic level, particularly with his careful shaping of the string section.

Another conductor with a very deep sense of relationship with his performers, Pablo Heras Casado, led a buoyant if equally thoughtful orchestra in Jurgen Flimm’s very funny (if occasionally tiresome) production of Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) at the Staatsoper Berlin, a remount of a production from November 2015, with the same cast intact. Heras-Casado kept all the drama and tension (particularly hierarchical ones) of the original play (by Pierre Beaumarchais) fully intact, employing a rhythmic undercurrent that powered the score while keeping players inspired to provide a true heartbeat, and some needed counterpoint, to the slapstick-like follies and shenanigans that characterized much of Flimm’s production.

Anna Prohaska and Dorothea Röschmann in Staatsoper Berlin’s Le nozze di Figaro.
Photo: Staatsoper Berlin / Clarchen and Matthias Baus (via)

Dorothea Röschmann, reprising her role as Countess Almaviva, offered the most authentic characterization I may have ever seen Hers was a woman who loves, or wants to love, deeply, who is deeply saddened at the way her position, and the ridiculous behaviour of her husband the Count (Ildebrando D’Arcangelo), by extension, has separated her from this desired intimacy. Röschmann proved her acting chops in small but powerful ways; the way she gazed at Cherubino (a fantastic Marianne Crebassa) at points, the way she squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed her words in admitting to the Count who was hiding in the closet, the way she looked at him when the great reveal finally happened — all were highly theatrical moments that offered small slices of humanity amidst a zany comic staging. Her’s “Dove sono i bei momenti“(“Where are they, the beautiful moments”) was lushly voiced and achingly human, her scenes with Susanna (a sparky Anna Prohaska) brimming with vitality. This was a smart, nuanced, adult portrayal, and even with the nearly non-stop comedy that filled Flimm’s production, Röschmann’s Countess came off as authentic, sincere, and truly, deeply heartbroken, even at the opera’s end, when all is supposedly forgiven.

Renee Fleming at the curtain call
for Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera.
Photo: mine. Please do not reproduce without permission.

This post about my latest opera travels wouldn’t be at all complete without briefly exploring its incredible conclusion: experiencing Renée Fleming and Elina Garanča at the Metropolitan Opera in the penultimate performance of Der Rosenkavalier for the season. Seeing the two singers together in what amounted to a beautiful exploration of love, loss, aging, and acceptance felt like the apotheosis of a trip that carried with it strong undercurrents of disappointment and sadness, but also discovery and quiet renewal. I felt tears brimming listening to Fleming, especially as her character, the Marschallin moved between ponderings on the capricious nature of men (“Da geht er hin…” / “There he goes…“ ) and her relationship with the young Octavian (Garanča), to the inevitable (and cruel) passing of time (“Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding” / “Time, it is a weird thing“) at the end of the first act. She didn’t just act the role of the aging, glamorous Marschallin here, or churn out something mediocre, maudlin, or in any way predictable; she was living her soul, bearing it, live, in front of the Metropolitan Opera audience, and it was breathtaking to behold.

Tired but happy me in Berlin. (via)
Photo: mine. Please do not reproduce without permission.

Fleming’s signature creamy soprano was lilting, spinning, soaring, twisting and arching, and joined with Garanča’s gorgeous, chocolate-toned mezzo in a seemingly effortless series of tiny tornados that spun in, around and through the audience. Both women were fiercely confident and utterly loving in their embrace of Strauss’ poetic score, and fully committed to Robert Carsen’s beautiful vision of a world about to completely vanish, in both micro and macro ways; these ladies surely vanished into their respective roles, musically, dramatically, spiritually. Bye composer, bye mascara… by God, bravissime!

I’m saving my symphony-going experiences for a future post, but suffice (for now) to say that seeing conductors Mariss Jansons, Herbert Blomstedt, and Daniel Barenboim live was very special; I had my mind changed about Sibelius and Bruckner in ways I never thought would happen. Danke Berlin…. Danke NYC… you ladies especially made it very beautiful, very memorable, and very worth every tube of mascara. Wahrheit!

Marcelo Puente: “You Can Feel Every Word”

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 28, 2017

In opera, personal

In the early days of video recording technology, my mother would tape any and every opera production broadcast on PBS. By the end of the 1980s, we had a huge collection of VHS tapes, all carefully labelled in my mother’s tidy handwriting. Some we’d never watch again; some lived in the VCR. One that I kept going back to, from the time I was a child, was Puccini’s Tosca; I think it was the first opera I watched repeatedly (at least until we got hold of a copy of Francesco Rosi’s raunchy Carmen), and one I never got bored of, either musically or dramatically. Many a rainy summer’s day was spent in front of the TV, my friends and I with our root beer floats in hand, watching Hildegard Behrens, Placido Domingo, and Cornell MacNeil swirl, roar, sweat, and sigh through Franco Zeffirelli’s opulent production. My youthful passion for the production was what inspired my mother to return to the Met after well over a decade of absence; this time she brought an excited little girl who sat pie-eyed throughout the whole thing, wearing shiny shoes, a smart little red jacket, and a giant smile.

We owned a few classic recordings of Puccini’s famous 1899 work, and even now, putting those vinyl recordings on (the Callas/Gobbi version especially), I’m struck by just how dramatically expressive the score is. Tosca a great introduction for young newcomers to the world of opera; the music clearly tells you everything you need to know. A passionate lady lead! A persecuted lover! A rip-roaring bad guy! It’s the stuff of great novels, old Hollywood, dreamy (if doomed) romances. As well as entertainment value, so many personal memories are connected to this work, including the premiere Met visit. I was simultaneously scared of and thrilled by Scarpia, and for years, I couldn’t see (much less hear) MacNeil as anything but the dastardly villain of the piece. Hearing the opening notes of his introduction still sends a shiver down my spine. Years later, my father would play the famous “E lucevan le stelle” (“And the stars were shining”) for me on his violin, unbidden. It was the last thing I heard him play.

It was a thrill to learn Argentinian tenor Marcelo Puente would be performing as Mario Cavaradossi (who sings that famous aria in the opera’s last act) for the Canadian Opera Company’s spring production of Tosca — and opposite the great soprano Adrienne Pieczonka, whose work I so enjoyed last month at the Met, in Fidelio. I’ve followed Puente’s work for years, and have admired his passionate, head-first approach to dramatic material, as well as his golden, honey-toned tenor voice. He recently made his Covent Garden debut in another Puccini role, as Pinkerton in the Royal Opera’s Madame Butterfly, to rave reviews. Next season, he’ll be the dramatic role of Don Alvaro in Verdi’s La forza del destino at the Semperoper in Dresden, and will also be making his debut at Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg, in a new production of Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, as another doomed romantic hero. What’s up with that? I spoke with Marcelo about singing romantic leads, why he dropped out of medical school (true story), and just why audiences should care about a character like Cavaradossi.

Photo of Marcelo Puente by Helen Bianco

Listed, Schmisted

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 18, 2017

In opera

If you are active on social media, you may have seen the recent “musical” lists going around and being shared by contacts on Facebook, in which favorites (non-faovorites as well) are revealed. An opera version was quick to follow, and I’ve been reading the lists shared by various friends (including those working both inside and outside the industry) with much interest.

Tempted to join the trend, I found (shock) my own version was a bit too long, and it just became easier (and more logical) to post here, for everyone, including my many lovely European readers.

Hopefully some of these choices inspire, amuse, illuminate; some may really raise eyebrows, others may inspire smirks. Either way, I’d love to know if any of these might prod you, good reader, into either listening or watching a work in a new way, or even experiencing an opera for the first time. I hope so! Either way, enjoy, and feel free to share your thoughts.

Opera I hate:

I find this to be such a reductive question; I don’t hate any of them. Sometimes a certain production can lead to intense dislike, even hate, and that’s a pity; sometimes, the opposite is just as true, with a smart production elevating mediocre material, illuminating and inspiring audiences (which is, of course, lovely and delightful). There are definitely a lot of mediocre works, and directors, and it’s so often a question of finding the right pairing. I don’t envy programmers at all these days, especially with the current challenges facing the art form.

Opera I think is overrated:

There are no overrated operas; only undercooked (or over-heated) ideas in presenting them.

Opera I think is underrated:

Two, off the top of my head (though there are many):

– Stitch, by Anna Chatterton (who I interviewed last summer) and Juliet Palmer; this is a very moving work about sweatshop workers, deceptively simple, but more timely than ever;

– L’enfant et les sortileges, by Maurice Ravel, which I saw for the first time this past winter in Berlin, in a very beautiful production at Komische Oper. It’s a whimsical work, with a very impressionistic score, and its libretto is ripe for directorial creativity. I also think it would make a great introduction for kids, though it’s rightly been pointed out that the work is more of “a musical grotesqueness for adults rather than a children’s opera.” True, but still vastly underrated.

Opera I love:

There are truly too many things I love to mention. Even with works I take issue with, I almost always tend to find something I like, or even love, and sometimes, it’s a great performer who will elevate the material (or my experience of it) from meh to marvellous.

For instance, seeing (and interviewing) Patricia Racette in the title role in Madame Butterfly at the Canadian Opera Company in 2014 really made me re-think, and thus, re-experience this work in some important ways. I still find large swaths of it troublesome, but Racette’s interpretation and understanding of the role is so great, and she so very much made it her own (and from what I’d call a refreshngly feminist place), it was like seeing the famous Puccini work for the first time. Great artists have this power.

Opera I cherish:

This feels like a personal question; the act of cherishing something implies a kind of intimacy and comfort coupled with deep gratitude. I’m grateful for every work, but things that speak to me on a personal level include Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore (its tuneful score is so warm, so bright, so full of humanity), Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (such a gorgeous study of fidelity, authenticity, and the corners of the human heart), and Berlioz’s Le damnation de Faust — not strictly an opera in the traditional sense, but when it done right, can be very powerful, as my experience of it in Europe this past winter so wonderfully highlighted.

Guilty pleasure:

There is no such thing as guilty opera love, is there? That implies there’s a kind of snobbery within the art form about things opera fans are “supposed” to like or dislike – to hell with those rules, and that way of thinking. Pleasure is pleasure; music is music; love is love. Go listen to something you enjoy, and don’t feel ever feel guilty that it somehow isn’t cool enough for the supposed “in” crowd.

Opera I want to see revived:

In North America, it would be nice to see more Meyerbeer put onstage; his stuff is musically dense, but has intense passages of musical wonder rich with fascinating characterizations as well as great theatrical possibilities. I’d also like to see Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, Puccini’s La Rondine, and the work of Hungarian operetta composer Emmerich Kálmán staged far more often on these shores.

Opera that I first saw on DVD:

Forget DVDs! I have fond memories of regularly watching (and taping) Met broadcasts on the PBS program, “Great Performances.”

Opera that I first saw live:

Bizet’s Carmen (at age three!).

Opera that I first performed in:

I’ve never performed in opera, but I did act in the theater many years ago, and I particularly enjoyed Shaw’s Saint Joan, Sophocles’ Antigone, and Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I walked away from the stage years ago, and thankfully, found just as much value, power, and profundity in comic works as I used to see solely in tragedy. Ah, the wonderful things maturity brings.

Opera I most recently saw:

Live, La traviata recently at the Met in New York City (rundown here); on PVR, Wagner’s epic Lohengrin with Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros. The latter is a very good example of the right production hitting the right emotional and intellectual notes in order to produce a whole new experience and understanding of the score. The production, from 2009 and done at the Bayerische Staatsoper, was a very modern, unusual staging (which provoked some strong reactions in the opera world); I’ve enjoyed it for a while now (this wasn’t my first PVR viewing), and I thought Richard Jones’ directorial ideas truly suited the work; his sometimes-risky concept was helped immeasurably by the utterly committed performances of its leads, who were heartbreaking and fantastic and… sigh.

Greatest opening:

A few thoughts here:

I think Verdi had some bombastically good openings musically; you can’t beat the boom-boom-bang wonder of Rigoletto or Il trovatore or La Traviata. I remember my mother always seemed as if she was on the verge of jumping out of her chair, either at the opera house or at home, whenever the opening bars of any (/all) of these was played (and that’s after the overtures). I remember her shoulders hunching up, her eyes squeezing shut, her fingers curling into fists, as the music played, and her saying, quietly, after a few moments, “ohhhhhh, Verdi….” You have to admit, he is great with the attention-getting openings.

For myself, I think one of the most intriguing and misunderstood of openings is Don Giovanni; it’s really not at all as clear-cut as many believe it to be; I’m really not sure Donna Anna is as pure as many have made her out to be; I know how risky that is to say, but pffffft… the music whispers, at least to my ears, that we should be questioning, completely, the scene, in and of itself, and not taking its events — or characters — at face value. I deeply like (and heartily agree with) how director Sven-Eric Bechtolf staged this, along with the entire opera, last summer in Salzburg. Read on…

Greatest ending:

I dislike the “greatest” label – I find it insultingly reductive, and taste is such a personal thing anyway — but I will say, I enjoy the ending of Don Giovanni, because, like Austen’s great novels, it ends with people who are facing a new and uncertain kind of beginning; once the title character gets dragged off (to wherever — hell is non-existence to some), everyone has to figure out how and why to live now that he – that viral, vibrant tornado of chaos — is gone.

To those who know me well, it’s not a grand secret that I really, really loved Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s staging of this opera in Salzburg last summer (a re-mount of his 2014 production); it struck chords with me in ways I still can’t quite explain – though the fact he treated the women as actual human beings with real needs went a long, long way (for me) in further appreciating and understanding this troubling work, and it all started with a very sexy opening, and closed with… more suggestion of sex, a kind of continuation of that restless, rule-breaking chaos that is both so dangerous and attractive. Mozart and Da Ponte wrote a great ending full of question marks; Bechtolf took that and ran with it. Bravo!

Worst middle of an otherwise great opera:

I really don’t like this question, because it doesn’t take into account how damn hard the writing process actually is.

Many times librettists and composers (to say nothing of writers, editors, producers, and other assorted creative types) struggle against the dreaded middle-section-sag, sometimes to no avail. This is where good directors, conductors, and performers become extra-special important (more than they already are, of course); it’s up to the creative teams (sound as well as visual) to create something special with material that develops such unfortunate (if occasionally unavoidable) sag. Find something to elevate and illuminate, for audiences, and for yourselves; I think this is the aim of many good artists past and present, to be honest, and it is worth keeping in mind when you find yourself nodding off in the middle of anything.

Greatest opera of all time:

The next one I’m going to see, of course — or that you’ll suggest to me.

You Can’t Catch Me

By Catherine Kustanczy

On November 3, 2009

In opera

In keeping with my contemplations about images of women in popular culture lately, a couple things from the last few weeks have been sticking and bear a bit of examination. Opera was, for many moons, the pop culture of its day; not solely the denizens of the upper classes, it was the place where music, entertainment, theatre and play melded together and foisted into onto a wider social milieu. Images of swooning heroines and brave men abounded, based, as many pieces were, on classical tales from Mediterranean mythologies. A time passed and the world shifted its attention to more current concerns, opera began to reflect what I’d call World Politics Lite; that is, librettists and composers would bring in contemporary themes and ideas reflective of the wider world, but include elements of yore to make the whole thing a bit more palatable. Opera was already a place where questioning the norm wasn’t quite (cough) allowed; making its characters -especially its women -safe, predictable, passive, and victimized allowed for a greater audience catharsis, however insincere and overwrought it may have been.

All of this bubbled up to the surface following a recent visit to the opera. The Canadian Opera Company’s production of Madame Butterfly (closing tonight at the Four Seasons Centre) is beautiful in its simplicity; Brian MacDonald‘s solid direction and Susan Benson‘s dreamy design provide a poetic austerity amidst the washed-out shades and colourings. Adina Nitescu‘s soprano is full, throaty, and lovely, and her acting is keenly felt, and as such, entirely moving.

Yet there is something that has always troubled me about the opera; Cio-Cio San (or “Butterfly”) is so terribly naive, her blind, passionate infatuation with Pinkerton and all he represents is maudlin in the extreme, and her willingness to throw over her culture and historical heritage to win validation is deeply unnerving. Along with these troubling notions, there’s the patronizing, stereotypical portrayal of Japanese culture itself. “Isn’t it cute?” the libretto implies, “aren’t these such nice simple people?” The atonal, rhythmic qualities of the music imitates this patronizing attitude; it’s about as Japanese as the teriyaki stand in your local mall’s food court.

The opera is a reflection of Puccini’s awareness of the colonial reach of the U.S. -and, by extension, Italy -but it absolutely reeks of White Privileged European Male-ness. As if to balance all this vitriol, I was struck, in sitting there watching it for the umpteenth time recently, of the sheer gorgeousness of much of the music. Somehow, I reconciled my extreme discomfort with Butterfly’s chauvinistic, colonial underpinnings with Puccini’s genuinely beautiful, dreamy score. It didn’t make any of the issues I have easier to bear, nor did it lubricate the suspension of my disbelief over the next two hours; it did, however, remind me that sometimes it’s better to shut your eyes and listen to the notes, not the words. Of course, once I opened them again, I was hit, strongly, by the pretense of theatre cushioning us, so we can sigh over scenarios that would be anything but romantic in reality. There’s a patronizing, reductive archness to it all that renders Butterfly’s choices insincere and too easy to excuse: “well she’s just a kid… ”

This same frustrating sense of reduction happened again with the musical version of Debbie Does Dallas (running to November 8th at Toronto’s Theatre Centre). The musical is based on the tacky 70s porn flick of the same name. Presented by the newly-formed Ghost Light Projects, the work is cute, bouncy, and empty -kind of like Debbie herself. Lead Jamie Robinson is likeable and certainly an ebullient presence onstage, but the premise -Nice-Girl Cheerleader Turns Into Wholesome Whore To Chase Her Dreams -is tiresome and dated. I enjoyed director Penelope Corrin injecting a bit of social commentary in small drims and drams throughout, questioning the outmoded idea that equates selling sexual favours with liberation. There weren’t enough of those moments, alas. More brazenly unzipping the trousers of chauvinism parading as liberation might’ve made for a more powerful piece, even within the admittedly-small corral of the musical itself. Debbie Does Dallas may be all puffery and pom-poms, but it holds a darker, decidedly unpleasant undertone that isn’t funny at all.

Hedwig & The Angry Inch – Origin of Love
by disastr2000

A much better example of liberation in action was Ghost Light’s second, so-called “complementary” production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The punk rock musical features some kick-ass tunes along with a juicy lead role -uh, for a man. Still, Seth Drabinsky’s angry passionate portrayal of the East German rock diva icon -not fully male, not fully female -nicely encapsulated the claustrophobic rage at the masquerade of societal gender stereotypes. He was backed up by the incredible sonic power of local Toronto band The Vicious Guns and actor/singer L.A. Lopes, who director Corrin cleverly placed in a beard and drab garb; the ensuing confusion, between Lopes’ masculine appearance and high, searing soprano vocal was a kind of delicious confusion -and possessed a kind of manic, gorgeous opera all its own. The fact Hedwig spits out her memories of living in communist-era Europe also has a delicious timeliness, considering this week marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. It’s as if the zeitgeist of that moment of liberation found expression in Hedwig’s manic energies, sexual and otherwise.

The production itself nicely mixes the busy confusion of sexual politics with the more tender aspects of love, never slipping into the maudlin or saccharine. Corrin innately understands the snarling energy of punk rock and its transformative power in both epic and intimate ways. You change yourself; you change the world around you. That isn’t necessarily a punk ethos either; it’s a human one. Reducing one’s self to bits and pieces reduces the world, and our capacity to move freely in it. The wall’s fallen; the web’s mental. Leave your mark, Hedwig urges, and move on.