Richard Sasanow - Page 12

Helen of Troy didn't launch a thousand ships but was a put-upon sexual victim and Marilyn Monroe--born Norma Jeane Baker, of the title--was a cloud in the shape of a woman. It was also a “disaster to be a girl” in those days before #MeToo, with powerful men (whether Menelaus or Arthur Miller) holding beautiful women captive (and worse). That was just part of Anne Carson's new ”dramatic work,” NORMA JEANE BAKER OF TROY, with its effective tonal score by Paul Clark, and two wonderful performers, soprano Renee Fleming and British actor Ben Whishaw, under director Katie Mitchell.

“Audacious” can mean daring--and Belgian director Ivo van Hove certainly fits that description for his approaches to Arthur Miller's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE and THE CRUCIBLE and numerous other theatre pieces. But when it came to Leos Janacek's DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED, van Hove's work (with the Dutch company, Muziektheater Transparent) might take on another of the word's meanings: presumptuous and arrogant, perhaps, even disrespectful.

While the cast for the season's revival of Mozart's LA CLEMENZA DI TITO looked good on paper, it didn't even hint at how good the singing was going to be at the Met this week. From top—tenor Matthew Polenzani, elegant and vibrant in the title role (“Se all'impero”), and the great mezzo Joyce DiDonato as Sesto (who delivers the opera's “hit” aria, “Parto, parto,” and more in opulent style)--to bottom, the cast delivered in every way possible.

Judging by the number of small opera companies in New York alone--see the 2019 New York Opera Fest that starts performances next month--there's no shortage of up and coming opera singers trying to make their way on the scene. But there's no showcase like the Finals Concert of the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions to give a singer a leg up--and this year's group of talented performers seemed to give us more hope than usual that all's right with the world…at least when it comes to opera.

There's lots to enjoy in the Met's revival of DIE WALKURE, the second part of Richard Wagner's great tetralogy, DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, better known simply as Wagner's Ring Cycle, which had its first performance of the season on Monday night--all five hours of it!--under the pulsating control of Philippe Jordan and the Met orchestra in full throttle. The thrills started with the entrance of soprano Christine Goerke as Brunnhilde, tenor Stuart Skelton and soprano Eva Marie Westbroek as the incestuous Siegmund and Sieglinde, the clarion mezzo Jamie Barton as Fricka, goddess of marriage. For sheer pleasure and delight, however, there's nothing that beats the best-known section of the opera, “The Ride of the Valkyries,” which opens Act III.

Was the pairing of Iain Bell and Mark Campbell--respectively, composer and librettist of New York City Opera's (NYCO) world premiere STONEWALL--'love at first sight”? I asked them. We were at the workshop in New York earlier this month that allowed them and director Leonard Foglia to cross the t's and dot the i's (and hear their new work performed).

Since my days as a pothead are long gone (LOL)—did anyone ever watch 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY without a little help from a friend?--I came to the Boston Symphony's (BSO) concert at Carnegie Hall the other night more interested in hearing the excerpts from Richard Strauss's CAPRICCIO, including Renee Fleming in its final scene, than in the composer's ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA. As it turned out, both parts of the concert, under Music Director Andris Nelsons, had much to recommend.

Can opera be a medium for social commentary and change? I've been thinking about this lately--or, more accurately, yet again--since attending a preview of the new Jeanne Tesori-Tazewell Thompson opera, BLUE, which was part of the Guggenheim Museum's fascinating Works & Process series. The performance of excerpts and roundtable with its creators were part of preparations for the work's world premiere this summer at the Glimmerglass Festival.

If Robert Lepage's production of Wagner's Ring Cycle (formally, DER RING DAS NIBELUNGEN) had worked as smoothly when it opened in 2010 as it did at this season's marvelous premiere of its prologue, DAS RHEINGOLD, on Saturday afternoon, there probably still would have been complaints--not about its focus on technology but on its traditional approach. Personally, i liked it.

The Crypt Sessions, which take place in the stone chamber beneath the Church of the Intercession on West 155th Street in Manhattan, might conjure up visions of horror, though it bears no relation to HBO's long-running anthology, “Tales from the Crypt.” Add that the center of attraction for the recital of the powerfully expressive baritone, Lucas Meachem, was Mahler's KINDERTOTENLIEDER, which translates to the grisly sounding (but actually elegant) “Songs on the Death of Children,” and one might be forgiven for thinking so. The result, in fact, was about as far from that as possible.

Will anyone else but Ambrogio Maestri bring the same dynamism to Robert Carsen's 1950's take on Verdi's masterpiece, FALSTAFF? Time will tell. But the return of the wonderful production, with the great Met orchestra under conductor Richard Farnes and an all-around terrific cast, brought a little sunshine into the gray winter in New York.

Composer, conductor and pianist Andre Previn has died at the age of 89 on February 28. Previn was composer of the opera versions of Tennessee Williams's A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and Noel Coward's BRIEF ENCOUNTER, dozens of orchestral works, film scores, jazz works and the score for Tom Stoppard's 1977 play, EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR. He was also music director of the Houston Symphony, LA Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony, as well as the London Symphony Orchestra.

Purcell's DIDO AND AENEAS, written in about 1689 with a libretto by Nahum Tate, doesn't exist in a final version approved by the composer but, well, never mind. In the care of the more-than-budding artists of the Juilliard415 historical music ensemble and singers from Juilliard's Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, all was well.

No matter what one thinks of the Met's transfiguration of Verdi's RIGOLETTO from Francesco Maria Piave's Mantua to '60s Las Vegas--I personally like much of this “Rat Pack” production from director Michael Mayer--the singing at Saturday's performance [the second of the season] was first rate.

You may have your own idea about what “opera” means and is, but I'd bet it's a world away from what composer Robert Ashley--whose 1985 work, IMPROVEMENT (DON LEAVES LINDA), has been running this week at the Kitchen in west Chelsea--had in mind.

I've already cheered tenor Javier Camarena's Herculean take on “Ah, mes amis!” in the Met's current FILLE DU REGIMENT--with 1 ½ dozen high Cs, including an encore--but there's more than the tenor in Met's current revival of the Donizetti gem to make the season suddenly seem grand. He and soprano Pretty Yende have made a potent comic once before--in Rossini's BARBIERE--but FILLE is something altogether different.

The Mason Bates-Mark Campbell opera, THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS--which debuted at the Santa Fe Opera in summer 2017--walked off with this year's Best Opera Recording at the Grammys on Sunday night. Michael Christie conducted the Santa Fe Opera orchestra, and the cast. Directed by Kevin Newbury, included Sasha Cooke, Jessica E. Jones, Edward Parks, Garrett Sorenson & Wei Wu. It was produced by Elizabeth Ostrow.

Tenor Javier Camarena set a record last night with his encore of “Ah, mes amis!” as Tonio in the season's first performance of Donizetti's LA FILLE DU REGIMENT. It was the first time that anyone was called out for an encore in three different operas—in his case Rossini's LA CENERENTOLA, Donizetti's DON PASQUALE and this one. That's more than Luciano Pavarotti or Juan Diego Florez—the only others to be brought out for a bis of an aria in the last 50 years.

It wasn't so long ago that countertenors were still considered an oddity; today, you can't turn around without tripping over one, or more. Last year, for instance, when the English Concert did Handel's RINALDO at Carnegie Hall there were, indeed, three countertenors. One of them was the young Polish singer--he's 28--Jakub Jozef Orlinski, who just made his New York debut at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall to what I can only describe as a rapturous reception. I totally agreed.

According to a quote attributed to Andy Warhol, if you want to tell a good painting from a bad one, first look at a thousand paintings; then you'll realize that there are no hard and fast rules. When it comes to performing arts and traditional repertoire, the standards are a little different. Directors, designers and cast are expected to add their two cents to work of the creators, to show their smarts and insights (or at least come up with something they think will be more meaningful to modern/younger audiences). Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte were victims of this maneuvering in the season premiere of the Met's DON GIOVANNI.