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FLORENS 2010

Mon, 8 Nov 2010 06:10:50 -0500

Although I will not have the chance to be in Florence in coming days, I will be closely following the events of Florens 2010 (http://www.florens2010.com/en/week/events). This will be the first of what I hope will be an ongoing series of discussions about how art (the arts) influence the life of cities. For a week, starting on Nov 12, people will gather to explore the economic impact of art in terms of development of tourism but also the collateral effects art can have. And where better than Florence, with its extraordinary art treasures? This is also the city where opera was born in 1597. There will be a concert conducted by Zubin Mehta with music of Mozart and Beethoven. Museums will be open late. There will be visits to botteghe (workshops). So much of what we call the fine Italian hand has been central to the Florentine ethos in the creation of objects that are both beautiful and useful. In Florence this creation happens in botteghe. I think it is important that cities and their cultural leaders not only present themselves as possessing these treasures, but always underline that the quality of our daily lives is enriched when art becomes a part of it. Yet we should never forget that art is not a consumer product, but human expression that gains currency when others make an effort to experience it.

Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet at the Metropolitan Opera

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Ambroise Thomas’s French language opera, Hamlet (1868) was once a very popular work that is now consigned to the fringes of the repertory. It is best-known for its extended mad scene for Ophelie and a drinking song for the title character. It has not been performed at the Metropolitan Opera since 1897. With commitments from the superb Simon Keenlyside for Hamlet, Natalie Dessay as Ophelie and the fine French conductor Louis Langrée, the Met decided to borrow a spare production previously seen in Geneva and London. In a season with so many new stagings, having one smaller in scale made sense.

The production itself is serviceable. It was created by a group all making their Met debuts: Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser (co-directors); Christian Fenouillat (scenery); Agostino Cavalca (costumes) and Christophe Forey (lighting). The set is made of two curved walls that move about to define space and context. This can be tiresome but works well enough. Lighting and costumes evoke the dark, gloomy mood of the story. Only the wig of Queen Gertude, which made her seem like a character from “Alice in Wonderland,” was unsuitable.

The major problem with this performance was the opera itself. The story of Shakespeare’s play is not necessarily the one this opera tells. The opera is basically a 19th century melodrama, so that the ghost of Hamlet’s father returns in the last scene and is recognized by all rather than being visible only to his son. This makes Hamlet not the mercurial and complex figure we know in Shakespeare but, rather, his father’s avenger. In the play, the deaths of key characters come in quick succession, so that there is a breathless dramatic impact as the story sweeps to its conclusion. In contrast, each major character in the opera, including Ophelie, Polonius and Gertrude, all get a major aria before meeting one fate or another, so that the dramatic pacing becomes too slow. These flaws make it harder, but not impossible, to embrace this opera for its musical worthiness: beautiful choral and orchestral passages, many fine arias and set pieces, and the incontrovertible pleasure of hearing a now-rare opera in French that once was a mainstream work.

The most compelling drama on the opening night (16 March) was the fact that Natalie Dessay had withdrawn from the role of Ophelie only days before the opening due to illness. Although the Met had an in-house substitution, the company looked for a bigger star to play the role, as this production would be preserved on video during a 27 March HD transmission. Marlis Petersen, who was in Wien singing the difficult title role in Reimann’s Medea, was contacted and agreed to step in on very short notice. The Met sent a coach to Austria to work with her. She reached New York just three days before the opening, learned the elements of the production and saved the day at the opening night. Understandably, her performance was tentative. Seen again on 24 March, Petersen had established more of a character and sang Ophelie’s long mad scene expressively.

Simon Keenlyside is an ideal singer for the role of Hamlet. His beautiful baritone voice sits perfectly for this music and his handsome, sad face communicates a whole range of emotions. His French usage is superb, always idiomatic and never exaggerated, and his acting rivals that of the great British actors who have assumed this role. Toby Spence, an English tenor, made a fine debut as Laërte. The venerable James Morris, a favorite of Met audiences, did not have his best vocal outing as Claudius but nonetheless was always a compelling presence.

The revelation in this performance was Jennifer Larmore as Queen Gertrude. The American mezzo-soprano is best known for her winning charm and skill in bel canto roles. Here she tackled high drama with great success and the opera’s most compelling scenes were those in which she faced off with Keenlyside in vivid scenes of mother-son conflict. The unsightly wig she wore on opening night was gone at the later performance, presumably because it made her look foolish.

Presiding over the production was Maestro Langrée, who blended elegance and tautness in his leadership of the orchestra. The limitations of Hamlet will never be surmounted, but this production was most welcome to give audiences the chance to discover this work and admire the skills of the musical forces present on the Met stage and in the orchestra pit.

Shostakovich’s The Nose premieres at the Metropolitan Opera

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 02:51:05 -0500

The Metropolitan Opera has a history of engaging world-class artists to design and sometimes direct productions of operas that might require a strong visual element. Marc Chagall did a legendary production of Die Zauberflöte in the Met’s first season at Lincoln Center (1966-67). He also did the huge iconic paintings, “The Sources of Music” and “The Triumph of Music,” the two splendid works that are unmissable as one first sees the façade of the Metropolitan Opera House.

Later Met productions of Die Zauberflöte were done by David Hockney and Julie Taymor. Hockney also did two wonderful triptychs called Parade (operas by Satie, Poulenc and Ravel) and Stravinsky (three works by the Russian composer). To these landmark stagings one must now add South African artist William Kentridge’s designs and direction of Shostakovich’s audacious first opera, The Nose, written in 1928 by the 22-year old composer. He also did the libretto, based on the 10-page story by Gogol that Chekhov called the best ever written. This was the opera’s premiere at the Met.

The story, very simply, is about Kovalyov, a collegiate functionary who awakens one morning to find that his nose is missing. The Nose (a character in the opera) goes on to have a more interesting life than it did when attached to Kovalyov’s face. The questions and issues the opera poses are both ridiculous and essential. When seen by audiences in the new Soviet Union, it spoke of conforming to society or being independent of it. By using the comic absurdity of The Nose being an entity that roams free, Shostakovich made audiences think about themselves and their sense of freedom. As The Nose wanders about and has amusing encounters, Kovalyov suddenly finds himself an outsider for being different and --unwillingly-- non-conformist and therefore suspect. He deals with newspaper editors who do not take him seriously, policemen who find him threatening, and women who reject him. Then, one day, he awakens to find that his nose has returned to his face and --ostensibly-- all is then right with the world and he returns to normal life.

The story blends a strange realism and satire. The tone is ironic but also kind to the characters. There is great tenderness in the music, along with an astonishing orchestration in which Shostakovich deploys a vast range of instruments, especially in the percussion section. The Met orchestra was at its best under the baton of Valery Gergiev. It is notable that Gergiev, famous for taking on a superhuman workload, was also leading his Mariinsky Orchestra and Chorus in this period at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere. While doing The Nose at the Met, Gergiev led the Mariinsky in a concert version of Berlioz’s Les Troyens that was woefully underrehearsed. While his vigor and ambition have their admirable sides, it is perhaps time for Gergiev to take on less work but make sure he does it to the best of his abilities. He is a brilliant conductor but cannot expect even the best orchestras to perform great music without sufficient preparation.

The Nose has a very large cast of almost 80 roles, but only three principal ones. Kovalyov was sung, in a Met debut, by Paolo Szot, a Brazilian baritone of Polish origin. Although he began in opera, he gained great fame in New York by starring in the Broadway musical South Pacific, for which he won many awards. It was a smart move to come to the Met in a role he could make his own. Had he done Puccini or Verdi, he would have been compared to many other baritones. Szot did a protean job in terms of singing and acting and this production succeeded because of his efforts.

Russian tenor Andrei Popov sang the high-flying music of the Police Inspector seemingly without effort and evoked an authentic Russian flavor in his speech and acting. Tenor Gordon Gietz, in the costume of The Nose, was athletic and humorous. In the large supporting cast, strong contributions came from James Courtney, Theodora Hanslowe, Vladimir Ognovenko and Claudia Waite.

The real star of the night, though, was William Kentridge. One could worry that a great visual artist might not necessarily prove to be an able stage director (after all, many professional directors have failed miserably at opera) and yet his work was ideal. The production itself is fashioned with papier-maché, newsprint, short films (including one of Shostakovich playing the piano), intentionally flimsy scenery, and wonderfully droll costumes by Greta Goiris. In a way, the production seems like a vaudeville pastiche, an inside joke between designer, composer and audience told with a wink of an eye and a big smile.

One of this production’s great achievements is that Kentridge captures both the warmth and the absurdity of the music, characters and story. While the production is dazzling, it never dominates the music (as has often happened in productions of Die Zauberflöte) but is in perfect accord with Shostakovich’s score. This accomplishment is a small miracle.

Kentridge benefited from good collaborators, including Sabine Theunissen (who worked on the set), Catherine Meyburgh (video compositor and editor), Urs Schönebaum (wonderful lighting) and associate director Luc De Wit. It is hard to tell exactly who did what, but it is clear that Kentridge was the visionary ringmaster in this great comic circus. This production is scheduled to go to the Festival of Aix-en-Provence and the Opéra National de Lyon, and Europeans would be wise to see this splendid fusion of music, storytelling and visual arts.

Verdi's Attila Premieres at the Metropolitan Opera

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

It was Italian night at the Metropolitan Opera with the company premiere (February 23, 2010) of Giuseppe Verdi’s tuneful and powerful Attila and the much overdue debut of Riccardo Muti. The arrival of this opera and conductor working with a mostly excellent cast of charismatic singers more than made up for a production that was disappointing and misguided.

Attila is not new to New Yorkers, having received a staging at the New York City Opera more than two decades ago with a sensational Samuel Ramey in the title role. It has also been seen in Chicago, San Francisco and San Diego, but had not been accorded the distinct advantage that the Metropolitan Opera can provide: its excellent chorus and peerless orchestra.

It is customary, when speaking of Riccardo Muti, to describe him as rigorous, precise, always paying attention to detail. Admirers say that his performances are full-blooded and Italianate. Detractors say that he is excessively fussy about what he considers a composer’s intentions with the consequence that the final result is dry. Muti is all of these things, and more. In his years at La Scala he bent the orchestra, chorus, soloists and practically the whole theater to his aesthetic vision. That was his right, of course, and it produced many vivid performances and just as many that seemed unfocused. The excitement of his coming to the Met is that this powerful artist, who has been on the podium for more than four decades, would work at an institution with its own grand traditions, one of which is a pride in its versatility.

The achievement of this Attila, in musical terms, was that the orchestra and chorus were every bit as qualified as Muti to make the opera great. The Italian maestro brought his many gifts and autocratic severity to musicians who were more than up to the challenge. To say that the Met orchestra made a case for Verdi’s splendid score is to acknowledge that they and the visiting conductor found a means to make sublime sounds together. The music is, by turns, ferocious and tender and foreshadows passages in operas as distinct as Macbeth, Rigoletto and Otello.

Attila was commissioned by the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, where it premiered in 1846. Audiences knew that the story, of a barbarian from the northeast who conquers Aquileia in the Adriatic lagoon, reflected their own situation. The Aquileans fled to barren islands nearby and created Venice, which rose like the phoenix from the ashes of Aquileia. When this opera premiered, Venice was under Austrian domination. In fact, 1846 was when the Austrians built the railway bridge that connects the old city to the Italian mainland, forever changing the character of La Serenissima by tethering it to the mainland. Verdi’s potent drama was intended to arouse nationalist feelings in the Venetian public as his earlier Nabucco (1842) did in Milan.

Unfortunately, almost nothing of what this opera is about was communicated in the production. Muti is said to have personally selected the cast and production. If that is the case, then he deserves praise for the former and blame for the latter. The direction and concept belonged to Pierre Audi, while the set and costumes are credited to Miuccia Prada, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, with associate costume design by Robby Duiveman and lighting design by Jean Kalman. All but Kalman were making their Met debuts. Audi is a Netherlands-based producer of considerable accomplishment. Miuccia Prada is part of the famous Italian fashion house that bears her surname. Herzog and de Meuron are best known for their design of the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing and the Tate Modern museum in London.

One must ask how much input Muti (and the Met) had in the creation of this production. It was most unfriendly to the opera and the singers, making for a numbingly static staging. The sets were heavy and oppressive rather than designed for theatrical action in an opera with the potential for a lot of movement. The prologue was a literal evocation of the total destruction of the town of Aquileia. The massive pile was impressive but singers could barely move about in it. The other scenes were enacted in a wall of vegetation, a massive forest with a couple of windows carved out to frame solo arias. This meant that singers needed to stand still and declaim. At first, the sight of this green wall was exciting, but it quickly became tedious. In a couple of scenes that brought four or five singers together, the cramped spaces meant that the singers could not really act. They stood still or paced around one another in small patterns. In the last scene, when Odabella produces a sword to stab Attila, there was no surprise to the audience (as might happen in Tosca) or even for the singers. The soprano was carrying it for several minutes and Attila seemed not to notice it.

Here again we have an example of modern operatic production. Stage imagery is visually arresting but not conceived for action. The costumes were expensive-looking but lacked specificity. They could have been from almost any century or from a science fiction film. In many contemporary opera productions, the stories are often ignored, or even changed, as if they are an inconvenience. But this story that inspired Giuseppe Verdi enough to set it to music was not an inconvenience -- it was relevant drama. Producers would never think to ignore the storytelling in new operas; they need to apply the same standards to older operas, especially ones such as Attila that hover at the fringes of regular repertory. Their stories need to be told.

During the performance, Maestro Muti stood tall at the podium, directing not only orchestra but also chorus and, at times, seemingly the singers. It was as if he were attempting to control every aspect of the performance and give life to an inert staging. The way things were, this Attila would have been more compelling in concert because there was almost nothing the expensive scenery and costumes added to the evening, so they became a distraction.

A Verdi opera requires singers with stamina, artistry, sensitivity and voices with personality. In this regard, Muti and the Met fielded an almost flawless cast. Ildar Abdrazakov, as Attila, does not possess a bass voice as rich as one would hope for in the role, but he sang with true care and attention for the part, and his Slavic features and virile deportment were just right. He clearly was inspired by Muti to create a vocal performance that was both elegant and psychologically complex. Rather than being a brutish Hun, this Attila combined power with moments of tenderness to great effect.

The most forceful character is Odabella, something of a warrior princess, who ultimately vanquishes Attila and symbolically claims a victory for a free Italy. Her music can be a voice wrecker and sound crude if not performed correctly. Violeta Urmana deployed a remarkable range of colors and volume so that the music was dramatic and beautiful. No doubt she received valuable guidance and support from Muti. The fine baritone Carlos Alvarez was to have sung Ezio, the Roman general who intones the opera’s famous words: Avrai tu l’universo; resti l’Italia a me (“You may have the universe; let Italy be mine”). Alvarez cancelled due to illness and subsequently withdrew from later performances. Giovanni Meoni stepped in at the last minute and made an outstanding debut, bringing sovereign Italian usage and a silken voice to this important role. Tenor Ramón Vargas, as Foresto (who loves Odabella and helps plan to kill Attila), was excellent in music that might once have taxed his abilities.

Samuel Ramey, Muti’s Attila of choice two decades ago, made a chilling cameo as the old bishop Leone, who appears in a terrible dream Attila has. Though he had little to sing, this veteran artist is a natural creature of the stage who floated on to the scene in a sheer white shroud emblazoned with a red cross. The effect was ravishing and all too brief.

If the Met’s wonderful chorus did not come off quite as well as the orchestra, it is only because of artistic choices imposed upon them rather than their abilities. For the most part, they were placed below all of this scenery and appeared when stage elevators rose, moving the set even higher. Sometimes only their heads and shoulders were visible.

Since the arrival of the Met’s excellent chorus master, Donald Palumbo, in 2007, it has become much more customary for choristers of different voices to be mixed together rather than being separated into sopranos, mezzos, tenors, baritones and basses. This has meant a richer, more complex choral sound issuing from most of the stage and makes a significant improvement to the choral music of Verdi, Wagner and other composers. Yet in this production of Attila, the chorus was lined up along the base of the stage, under the massive forest scenery, mostly separated by voice categories. The result, when there was just music for one type of voice, such as tenor or soprano, was that choral sound came from one corner of the stage, making it seem both imbalanced and diluted. And, when the whole chorus sang, with five solo singers high above them, they completely drowned out the soloists, except for a few high notes from Urmana. This is more the fault of the set than the conductor and chorus master.

The Met deserves great credit for adding this wonderful, under-appreciated opera to its repertory and for creating the circumstances in which Riccardo Muti and the Met Orchestra could bring the best out in one another. Their music-making, and that of the soloists, will remain in the mind much longer than the lifeless staging. If and when the Met chooses to add another Verdi rarity, an ideal choice would be Giovanna d’Arco, the story of Joan of Arc, starring Barbara Frittoli, Marcello Giordani and Carlos Alvarez, conducted by James Levine or Riccardo Muti, and a production by David McVicar (who took the twisted story of Il Trovatore seriously and made it a thrilling night of theater) or Richard Eyre, who created the new Met production of Carmen and made audiences recognize that this overly familiar opera is a masterpiece.

Irina Arkhipova, wondrous mezzo, dies

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:07:40 -0500

Irina Arkhipova might not be a familiar name, face or voice to younger opera lovers, but she is worth discovering. The fact that she was a leading artist in the Soviet Union meant that Americans did not see her much, although she did make appearances in parts of Europe. Her voice was lustrous, her acting essential and without excessive gesture, but her charisma gave her a powerful presence most singers could only dream of. Go to YouTube and watch her performances of Marfa (in Khovanschina), Marina (in Boris Godunov), Azucena (Il Trovatore) which she sings stock still as a frightening incantation, Carmen (in which there is no doubt that the gypsy is destined to fulfill here fate) and many more. Her work is in many ways a master class full of lessons for audiences and young singers. The key lesson is that if your singing and language skills are sovereign, you do not need extraneous gesture or directorial flourishes to have a great impact.

What follows is the excellent obituary from Opera News:
Mezzo Irina Arkhipova, 84, Bolshoi Star Who Found Acclaim in West, Has Died  February 11, 2010 

Irina Arkhipova  Moscow, Russia, December 2, 1925 — February 11, 2010   One of the Bolshoi Theater's greatest glories during the Soviet era, Irina Arkhipova was an artist whose voice — a magnificent, highly individual mezzo of impressive range, thrust and color — and bold, audacious performing style made her an international success during the prime years of career. Although the Bolshoi was her artistic home, beginning with her 1956 debut there, as Carmen, Arkhipova made a significant number of triumphant appearances outside of Russia, the first of them her 1960 debut in Naples, again as Carmen. Arkhipova appeared with the Bolshoi at La Scala in 1964, as Hélène in War and Peace, and later returned to Milan for Marfa in Khovanshchina and Marina in Boris Godunov, two of her greatest roles. Other significant international engagements included Expo 67 in Montreal (as part of the Bolshoi's appearances there), Orange (where her Azucena made a sensation in 1972) and Covent Garden (as Azucena and later as Ulrica), as well as appearances in Berlin, Paris, Hamburg, Belgrade and at the Savonlinna Festival, among others.
Arkhipova's first American appearance was in a recital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with John Wustman as accompanist, but most U.S. opera fans knew the mezzo's artistry only from her recordings, among them superb performances of Marina, Joan in Orleanskaya Deva and Laura in Dargomyzhsky's The Stone Guest, as well as several recital discs. She was Amneris in Aida at San Francisco Opera in 1975 but did not sing at the Metropolitan Opera House until 1992, when she appeared with the Kirov as the Old Countess in The Queen of Spades. She made her official Met debut in 1997, when she sang Filippyevna in Eugene Onegin at the age of seventy-two, creating a brilliantly detailed, warm characterization in the premiere of Robert Carsen's staging.

Arkhipova originally had ambitions to be an architect and studied architecture at the Moscow Institute, graduating in 1948. She later studied singing at the Moscow Conservatory. Her professional career began in 1954 with a two-season engagement at Sverdlovsk Opera, where her roles — all of them among her specialties throughout her career — included Marina, Eboli in Don Carlo, Charlotte in Werther and Marfa. After Sverdlovsk, she moved to the Bolshoi, where audiences cheered her as Hélène in the first Bolshoi performances of War and Peace (1959), as well as in the company premieres of operas by Khrennikov, Shchedrin and Kholminov and as Lyubasha in Tsar's Bride, Pauline in Queen of Spades and Lyubov in Mazeppa.

Arkhipova was named a People's Artist of the U.S.S.R. in 1966. A foundation was established in her name in 1993 for the purpose of supporting and promoting young opera singers; Arkhipova was very much involved in its activities, as is her husband, tenor Vladislav Piavko, who survives her.

The mezzo died in a Moscow hospital on Thursday. The official cause of death was reported as heart failure.