Richard Sasanow - Page 29

I thought someone spiked the water cooler backstage at the Met during the first half of LA BOHEME on March 19. Tenor Vittorio Grigolo's Rodolfo jumped around in the opening scene like he had too much caffeine or needed medication for hyperactivity (think Ritalin). Charming, yes, boyish, definitely, but when he professed his love for Mimi after half an hour's acquaintance, one wondered whether he didn't need something to calm him down. And he wasn't alone.

When the Vienna State Opera visited New York at the end of February, it brought Alban Berg's WOZZECK to Carnegie Hall as part of the “Vienna: City of Dreams” festivities. With the big sound of the Vienna Philharmonic central to the concert performance, it set out to show what a quintessentially Viennese opera sounded like played by the hometown band. Sorry, boys [and it's still mainly a male bastion], but the Met Orchestra, conducted by James Levine, could show you a thing or two.

'I'm not a warhorse kind of singer,' mezzo Susan Graham states matter-of-factly. 'A. I'm a mezzo. B. I'm not a character mezzo. C. I'm not a contralto. The iconic opera repertoire for mezzos, Amneris (AIDA), Azucena (IL TROVATORE), even Eboli (DON CARLO)--those kinds of roles aren't my stock and trade because my voice sits high and has a different timbre.' Well, what then is her milieu? It's the likes of Handel, who composed several of the arias she has been singing this winter at the Met, as one of the stars of THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, a kind of Baroque 'jukebox opera.' But it's also Rodgers & Hammerstein's THE KING & I, which she is doing this June at the Chatelet in Paris.

Ever since the Three Tenors--Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras--got together in Rome's Baths of Caracalla in 1990, the world of opera has never been the same. And while the lookout for “the next big thing” has always been part of the opera world, the race to the finish has intensified over the last two decades, with the focus on tenors. Roberto Alagna had the misfortune to be marketed as “the Fourth Tenor” and was never quite up to the billing. Rolando Villazon has had his ups and downs (and ups). Now Vittorio Grigolo steps into the spotlight.

Maybe Richard Eyre's new production of WERTHER for the Metropolitan Opera, with strong performances by German tenor Jonas Kaufmann and French mezzo Sophie Koch, should have been called WERTHER: THE BACKSTORY or WERTHER: A FOOL'S GUIDE. Eyre took what was otherwise a beautiful and interesting interpretation of the opera and added a prologue and other details (including action leading up to a self-inflicted shot in the chest)--just in case the audience needed some hand-holding to better understand what was going on.

THE TENOR, the new novel by BWW's Classical Music Editor, Peter Danish, is a sweeping tale of a young tenor, that extends from pre-war Italy to his coming of age as a soldier in war-torn Greece, and ends in 1965 with Maria Callas' historic final performance at New York's Metropolitan Opera House. Based loosely on stories that Danish gathered from several of Callas' personal friends, it also includes extensive research done in Italy and Greece. I talked with Peter about the novel--how it came about and his own passion for opera.

Like the young Anthony Hope in Stephen Sondheim's scintillating SWEENEY TODD, “I've sailed the world, beheld its wonders…,” with SWEENEY TODDs ranging from the original cast in New York, to an all-Japanese version in Tokyo, and have never failed to be thrilled by it. But there was something about hearing it with the New York Philharmonic, led by its music director, Alan Gilbert, that showed it in all its greatness.

At a time when we're bombarded by lurid stories—in books, newspapers, television and film—it is a tribute to Richard Strauss's SALOME, first performed in 1905, that it has lost none of its impact and ability to shock. The opera is sensational in every sense of the word, particularly in a performance as intense as the one given by the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Philharmonic on Saturday night at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Andris Nelsons.

Was baritone Thomas Hampson looking for some last-minute pointers at last night's concert performance of Alban Berg's WOZZECK with the Vienna State Opera/Vienna Philharmonic under music director Franz Welser-Most at Carnegie Hall? If he did--his role debut at the Met is Thursday--then he came to the right place, for Matthias Goerne was spellbinding as the title character descending into madness in this challenging, yet rewarding, piece. From his first scene, shaving the Captain, to his drowning as an accidental by-product of the murder of his mistress, Goerne was haunted and haunting.

Monteverdi's “Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda” twice in one season in New York, in performances only months apart? Especially after Anna Caterina Antonacci's riveting take on the 20-minute work last November at the Lincoln Center's White Light Festival, what more could a small opera company like the Gotham Chamber Opera add to the discussion? As it turns out, there was quite a bit.

What does an opera singer do on his night off from singing the title role in Massenet's WERTHER in a new production at the Metropolitan? If he's the charismatic wunder-tenor Jonas Kaufmann, he heads over to Carnegie Hall to conquer another world, with his recital debut in an evening of German art songs, or lieder. And triumph he did.

When I last heard bass-baritone Gerald Finley in New York, he was a nameless prisoner in a dungeon during the Spanish Inquisition, in Dallapiccola's IL PRIGIONIERO with the New York Philharmonic. But even the eponymous title character of that 12-tone opera seemed less tortured than the singer of Schubert's 'Die Winterreise,' which Finley brought magnificently to Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall last week.

PRINCE IGOR was a glorious mess when Alexander Borodin died suddenly in 18, leaving it to others to finish a work he'd toiled on for nearly 20 years but hadn't quite made whole. With no definitive version of the opera, it was only performed by the Met in 1917--until Dmitri Tcherniakov's new production premiered last week. Musically rich, scenically fascinating, it's good to have it back where it belongs.

He was the dashing yet fickle prince in the Met's HD Live broadcast of Dvorak's RUSALKA and the womanizing Duke who concluded that “La donna e mobile” (“Woman is fickle”) in last year's “Ratpack” RIGOLETTO at the Met as well. Yet, Polish tenor Piotr Beczala is true-blue--to musical style.

It wasn't Theodora, but the Carnegie Hall audience, who went wild on Sunday at the performance by the English Concert of Handel's rarely heard THEODORA. With the modern rebirth of interest in all-things Handel, why has THEODORA remained a sometimes-thing? Well, let's face it: It's not GIULIO CESARE or even RADAMISTO (last year's Baroque extravaganza from the English Concert and Harry Bicket), where you come for the thrills of florid singing, with brilliant coloratura. No, THEODORA is a very different animal--and it's easy to see why it was a failure on its first go-around, at Covent Garden in London in 1750. Yet, Handel frequently said that this was his favorite oratorio and he would get no argument from concert-goers at Carnegie Hall on Sunday.

If your musical taste runs to Elliott Carter--or even Nico Muhly, whose TWO BOYS premiered at the Met this fall--then Kirke Mechem's THE RIVALS, which had its NY premiere this month at the Bronx Opera Company, may not be your cup of tea. But for a rollicking good time, this operatic adaptation of the great Restoration comedy of the same name by Richard Brinsley Sheridan has few rivals among its contemporaries.

There was a lovefest for the great mezzo Marilyn Horne in New York last week, filled with the music of friends, acquaintances and admirers at Carnegie Hall's sibling, Zankel Hall.

Before seeing the Met's new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s DIE FLEDERMAUS, directed by Jeremy Sams, on Saturday night, I listened to the afternoon's live broadcast of Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE. Both were written in German and performed in English to make them more palatable to their target audiences (Broadway musical lovers and young opera-goers-in-training, respectively). But, while the Mozart had its guts cut away, to shave the running time to 90 minutes without an intermission, the FLEDERMAUS went on--and on and on--for four hours. Both had the same result--and it was not good.

“Dying is easy; comedy is hard” says the old show business quip. If anything, opera comedy is even harder. Why is it so difficult? Because it offers so many opportunities to do a disservice to the composer, the artists and the art form in one fell swoop. However, Robert Carsen's antic new production of Verdi's FALSTAFF at the Met, vividly conducted by Music Director James Levine, makes it look easy.

Just what the opera world needs: Another director who doesn't have an idea about what to do with an opera. How else could you explain the new Dmitri Tcherniakov production of Verdi's LA TRAVIATA that opened the season at Milan's La Scala, on Saturday December 7th? Seen in a HD broadcast from the Emerging Pictures' 'Opera in Cinema' series, it showed what a travesty the Russian director's production was.