Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero at the NY Phil

I went to hear Il prigioniero with Gerald Finley and Patricia Racette as well as some Prokofiev with violinist Lisa Batiashvili at the New York Philharmonic and wrote about it for Bachtrack.

 Alan Gilbert’s last few seasons at the New York Philharmonic have featured an opera in June. While previous efforts have featured elaborate staging, this year’s installment, Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero, was performed in concert. For this particular work, which was written for radio broadcast, this seems only appropriate.

You can read the rest here. This was a performance I felt that I should have liked more than I actually did. Perhaps it takes a little more experience to get into Dallapiccola's world, which I certainly don't have much experience with. It's a striking work with some vivid moments but somehow never stopped feeling externalized.

But I am happy the Philharmonic performed it--remember how Maazel was doing concert performances of Tosca a few years ago? I'm not often thrilled by Gilbert's conducting, but his programming is fascinating (though too many guest conductors are leading only golden oldies). Keep it up.

photo copyright Chris Lee

Die Entführung aus dem Serail, or, Men Who Hate Women

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I had a few extra days in Europe, so I decided to hop over to Berlin for Calixto Bieito’s production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which I’ve wanted to see for ages. If your reaction to this decision is not along the lines of “well, of course,” then continue reading with some caution.

For staging fundamentalists, this production and its supposed desecration of Mozartian purity have become a synecdoche for all of Regietheater. This is basically dumb: you can’t reduce so much diverse work by so many people to one production, and while I haven’t actually seen Calixto Bieito’s do-do list I doubt that “despoil our sacred cultural heritage” is the first thing on it. So I want to talk about this production, not its reputation. But before seeing it I assumed that none of its critics had actually seen the thing, since their litanies of complaints have the snapshot quality of description obtained through photos and others’ reviews rather than seeing an actual performance. But after seeing it myself, I’m not sure this is necessarily correct.

Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper

I went to see Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper Berlin as directed by Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

Die Zauberflöte is a work whose outward simplicity masks internal complexity and even contradictions. Mozart’s music is childishly tuneful and yet reaches for the classically sublime; Emmanuel Schikaneder’s libretto alternates a magical quest story out of a German storybook with Masonic claptrap and secondhand Voltaire. For a children’s opera, its message occasionally goes off the rails; for Enlightenment philosophy it seems silly (and its treatment of race and gender hardly progressive). Contemporary stage directors approaching this piece have many options, as well as challenges.

You can read the whole thing here. It's a delightful production, colorful enough for kids and sophisticated enough for adults. This is the second Weimar cinema-inspired production I've seen, the first being the more chronologically appropriate Cardillac at the Wiener Staatsoper. This Zauberflöte was less literal and far prettier.

I don't know how the video and musical sides were coordinated or cued. The situation varies here--the Met made a big deal about how the videos of their Damnation de Faust responded to the music rather than the other way around, while I saw a L'enfant et les sortilèges in Munich with some severe coordination problems. In Berlin, everything seemed to function smoothly, but I don't know to what extent the timing of the video was fixed and to what extent it was being triggered on the spot. It's amazing to think of how far this technology has advanced in just a few years.

I've heard better singing at the Komische Oper, but everyone was perfectly competent. Highly recommended if you're in Berlin.

More photos below.

Don Carlo at the ROH

While Friday night at the ROH had been dedicated to men in skirts on Saturday we switched to men in tights. I didn’t intend to see Nicholas Hytner’s somber period Don Carlo twice within only a few months, but I happened to be in London and I’m very glad I did. When I saw this same production at the Met in March, it was most notable for not being laughable; this London version was genuine high drama. 

Farcical aquatic ceremonies: La donna del lago at the ROH

According to the Royal Opera House’s new production of Rossini’s La donna del lago, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. But while the production’s vague juxtaposition of barbaric highlanders and European-style courtiers doesn’t really work, there’s a lot of exciting singing, Joyce DiDonato as the titular aquatic lass, and Juan Diego Florez in a kilt.

La Périchole closes the New York City Opera's season

I went to see La Périchole at the New York City Opera and I wrote about it for Bachtrack:

Henri Bergson famously defined comedy as “something mechanical encrusted on the living”. One suspects that Jacques Offenbach would have been a fan of this definition, and that Christopher Alden most certainly is. Alden’s new production of La Périchole, which closes the New York City Opera’s season, is strange, abrasive, and also extremely funny, careening past the everyday to end up somewhere deeply bizarre.

You can read the whole thing here. I highly recommend this show! It is a great piece in a top-notch and hilarious Alden production, and that's a winning combination (check out the video below). It's actually been quite a fortnight for opera in New York, between Giulio Cesare, Mosè in Egitto, best of all David et Jonathas at BAM, and finally after all those Egyptians and Romans, then Israelites and Egyptians, and then Israelites and Philistines, finally ending with this insanely delightful farce that just has Peruvians.

It's also basically the end for me of this season's operatic adventures in NYC, though the Phil's Dallapiccola in June will provide a coda. I recommend y'all go see Dialogues of the Carmelites at the Met, but there are only three performances and unfortunately none of them fit into my schedule. As you may remember, I have mixed feelings about this piece and have seen it twice recently, once in Robert Carsen's excellent traditional staging and once in Calixto Bieito's excellent non-traditional staging, so I don't regret it too much. It will spare you my habit of nun puns (sorry).

Anyway, I have some other stuff elsewhere coming up, so I'll see you soon-ish in any case.

 
Photo copyright Carol Rosegg

Les Arts Florissant's David et Jonathas at BAM

I went to see David et Jonathas by Les Arts Florissants at BAM and I wrote about it for Bachtrack:

New York is again lucky to host William Christie and Les Arts Florissants at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Their visits are always special, and it’s not just because the unique nature of their repertory – Baroque opera, usually French, which is neglected by most of New York’s major companies – nor the virtuosic ease with which they embody this otherwise-foreign idiom. Their productions have a passionate unity of purpose and a loving, handcrafted quality that somehow seems antithetical to many of our more slick and snarky local efforts. Their present offering, a touching production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s David et Jonathas, has little in common with 2011’s Atys, but fortunately these virtues are again in full force.

You can read the whole thing here. Highly recommended. It's a great and extremely unusual work with a fantastic musical performance and a smart production. Performances that meet one of these three requirements are unusual enough, ones that fulfill all three far more so. Still could have used some program notes, however.

This production will also be released on DVD on April 30.

Photo copyright Julia Cervantes

He came, he saw, he sang a da capo aria: Giulio Cesare at the Met

Put on your dancing shoes and/or take off your shirt, there’s a new David McVicar production in town. I use “new” advisedly, since this Giulio Cesare was first seen at Glyndebourne in 2005. But it’s still a clever and often delightful piece of work, and as Met Handel goes it’s pretty convincing. The cast is a little patchy, but it’s still a good time.

Mosè in Egitto at City Opera

I went to see the New York City Opera's production of Mosè in Egitto at City Center , and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

In recent seasons, the New York City Opera has largely limited itself to chamber operas. Its newest production marks a renewed ambition: Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto, a proto grand opera that ends with nothing less than the parting of the Red Sea. Fortunately this scrappy but worthwhile performance showed that the company can tackle large-scale works on its own terms, albeit with a few stumbles along the way.

You can read the rest here. It was a frustrating afternoon: some very talented performers and interesting production ideas (Harry Kupfer's Rossini video game) that ultimately didn't quite make a full show. I still think it's worth seeing, though: it's a unique spin on an unusual piece, and that's something in itself.

A few other notes, though. I wish City Opera would show some care with its presentation. (Their website doesn't even give the address of the theater where they're performing. I had to Google it.)  This performance was trumpeted as the "original version." Putting aside the problematic construction of "original" and its implied superior status, that can't be true: the third act of the first version was lost, as you can read in the introduction of the critical edition. (This production didn't even use that critical edition; the program credits Hendon Music/Boosey and Hawkes.) I would have liked some program notes, but maybe I'm alone there. If you're going to claim scholarly status, you have to do your homework.

But enough of that, the actual performance did exceed my expectations. The LED video (more like a TV than projection scenery) occasionally looks like the VHS version of the Met's Parsifal Blu-Ray. Jayce Ogren isn't a Rossini conductor but the orchestra is sounding much better than it did last season and it's good for the City Opera to have him on board as music director. There's some good singing. So still recommendable, if you like Rossini.

Photo copyright Carol Rosegg.

Elina Garanca's Carnegie Hall recital

I went to hear Elina Garanca's New York recital debut on Saturday and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

Elina Garanča can always be counted on for a coolly polished performance. Her silvery mezzo is beautiful, even throughout her range, and impeccably on pitch. She is musically tasteful, and her sound has grown in recent years. But something often seems to be missing. While she’s too accomplished to call bland, her performances rarely show evidence of a beating heart. On Saturday night, her Carnegie Hall recital debut kept in character, showing an excellent singer rather than an effective communicator.

You can read the rest here. For all I know Elina Garanca is the nicest, warmest person in the universe, but she still has trouble portraying humanity onstage. This recital was very well-prepared and she really was trying, but the effort was all too obvious.


I'll be going to Giulio Cesare at the Met at the end of this week.