Zambello Shines With WNO's New Elektra

Not since Wagner's Ring in 2016 have we seen such a brilliant Washington National Opera production as Richard Strauss' Elektra on Monday night at the Kennedy Center.  The performance showed what WNO's artistic director Francesca Zambello can do when she puts her mind to it, from collecting the best interpreters for some of the hardest operatic roles to getting the artistic team to join forces to create a memorable revival of a groundbreaking masterpiece.

After visiting Calcutta (today's Kolkata), India, Sir Winston Churchill said: "I shall always be glad to have seen it for the reason that it will be unnecessary for me to see it again." This is how many opera fans feel about Strauss' Elektra. This is probably how I felt when I first saw it all those many years ago, with Hungarian soprano Eva Marton in the role of the revenge-obsessed Greek heroine.

Strauss' Elektra is based on Hugo von Hofmannsthal's 1903 play, which was inspired by an old Greek legend and subsequent plays written by Sophocles and other tragedians.  In Greek legend, King Agamemnon of Mycenae returns from the Trojan War to be assassinated by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Agamemnon's daughters Electra and Chrysothemis are spared, but closely watched, and his son Orestes is sent away. Years later, Orestes returns to see the justice done. According to the legend, he then takes the crown and Electra marries his friend Pylades.

Not so in Strauss' opera. His Elektra is traumatized by the bloody murder of her father, which she has either witnessed or has seen his massacred body in the aftermath ("dein Blut rann über deine Augen, und das Bad dampfte von deinem Blut"). She is now torn by the need for revenge. 

Elektra is a female counterpart to Hamlet, only more direct, more fierce and more bloodthirsty.  Unlike Hamlet, who causes many deaths before his own, Elektra is mostly self-destructing. She does not bathe, she does not groom her hair or clothes, and she does not control her behavior, even to save herself. Her raison d'être is getting her father's assassins killed, possibly with the same axe that was used to slaughter him in his bath. After that, she plans to celebrate with a dance around his grave.

We first get a hint of Elektra's deranged mind from a conversation between five  maids, at the start of the opera, but the degree of her abomination is further underlined by contrast with her younger sister Chrysothemis. After being told that their brother Orest is dead, Chrysothemis loses hope to get justice done and is ready to move on, while Elektra believes it is now up to the sisters to kill the murderers, their mother Klytämnestra and her new husband Aegisth. 

Elektra and Chrysothemis, Photo: Scott Such

Chrysothemis urges her sister to contain her anger lest she should be forced to spend the rest of her life in prison. She wants for both of them to abandon the misery of the corrupt court, and start a new life. Her plea for a future as a wife and mother is one of the most poignant scenes in the opera ("Kinder will ich haben, hevor mein Leib verwelkt, und wär's ein Bauer, dem sie mich geben). But Elektra cannot be swayed from her course and is fierce or devious in turn, as needed. She promises Chrysothemis a lavish wedding and a handsome husband to enlist her help for the deadly deed.

Klytämnestra is weary of her elder daughter, but convinced of Elektra's supernatural powers comes to seek her help to get rid of the nightmares that keep her awake. Elektra's suggested remedy is not to her liking.  "Wenn das rechte Blutopfer unterm Beile Fällt, dann träumst du nicht länger" (if you offer the right sacrifice, the dreams will be gone). 

Klytämnestra towering over Elektra, Photo credit: Scott Suchman

Orest returns from exile and with Elektra's help sneaks into the palace where he kills his mother and her lover. Elektra's mission accomplished, she begins the joyful dance announced as the drama began, and does not stop until she falls dead. Orest is crowned in this production, which is not standard, but brings some optimism at the end of the tragedy.

The relentless strife, pain, agony and madness are densely packed in one long act. The constant agitation, primal screams, laments and intense orchestral music can be taxing on the audience as well as the performers. If the singers shriek, as some are wont to do, it makes wading through the drama harder.  Seeing the curtain fall on the final scene can be a real relief.

None of this was evident in WNO's Elektra on Monday night. The production was well paced and the voices enjoyable. I cannot think of a better choice for the title role than Christine Goerke. Her plush, but hefty soprano floated smoothly from the stage, enveloping the space with force and sweetness, a combination rarely heard in this opera. At times, Goerke brought to mind her superb Brünhilde on the same stage a few years ago, making one wonder how much influence Wagner really had on Strauss. Goerke was frightful in her anger, seductive in her cajoling and almost girlishly coy about her unkempt looks before Orest.  Only her aimless climbing up and down a pile of rubber gravel on the stage seemed superfluous at times. Goerke could convey any feeling with her voice and stance without moving at all.

A real surprise of the evening was Sara Jakubiak's Chrysotemis. Never have I heard such an impressive rendition of this young girl's plea for a peaceful life. The soprano portraying Chrysothemis has to be exceptional to make an impression next to Elektra and Jakubiak definitely did that.  I wish I had seen Goerke's Chrysothemis in an older WNO production of the opera.

Swedish mezzo-soprano Katarina Dalayman was a queen not sure of her power. If Elektra is half-crazed, Dalayman's Klytämnestra is surely getting there, but more like a cackling old lady losing her mind than a murdering despot. 

Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo-Green was an impressive Orest, a role in my view more suitable for him than Escamillo in WNO's latest Carmen. He exuded physical strength and guile Orest needed to regain his rightful position at a court overtaken by treachery.

Czech tenor Štefan Margita emphasized Aegisth's physical and moral weakness in his brief appearance. It was hard to link this pathetic figure with acts of horrific carnage.  

Evan Rogister conducted with aplomb, emphasizing the terror and the drama, without overpowering the singers.

The return of Orest, Photo credit: Scott Suchman

Erhard Rom's set is simple and dark. The only light-colored props are the ruins of a Greek entablature with Agamemnon's name on it, toppled to the ground to signal the demise of his kingdom. Behind them loom modern black structures of a new palace under construction. 

Bibhu Mohapatra's costumes for Elektra and the maids bear elements of Greek peasant garb, while Chrysotemis, Klytämnestra and her retinue wear contemporary looking festive dresses with red, black and gold accents. It is not quite clear why the queen's headgear looks more fitting for a Valkyrie than an ancient Greek royal. Aegisth's appearance is somewhat clownish as he stumbles on the scene in a long tunic, inebriated and clueless. Orest and his companions wear copper-colored breastplates shaped to reflect sculpted bodies underneath, complemented with royal blue shirts and green mantles.

In the post-performance Q & A session, Zambello said the groups were separated by distinctly different costumes to emphasize their belonging to different  factions. In answer to another question, she acknowledged that all the artists sigh a huge breath of relief when the opera is over.  It sounded like Churchill after visiting Calcutta.

I can't remember how exactly I felt after seeing my first Elektra, but I know that I have always considered it a challenge - an opera that needs to be seen and heard time and time again to be conquered. In the past Elektra always won. But the WNO performance on Monday night was unlike any version I had heard before.

I was truly enthralled by it entirely for the first time: the music, acting, voices, dancers and even the somewhat simplistic set.  Zambello's latest production has restored my hope in the return of a better era for the opera house which has floundered in recent years with pedestrian productions of popular works. 

First Day: Die Walküre

Wagner stipulated that his tetralogy is to be performed in three days and one preliminary evening. In this scheme of things, the first of the four operas, Das Rheingold, is a prologue. I don't quite get the logic of it, but nevertheless, this somehow puts Die Walküre in the first place. Indeed, it is the most popular and best known of the four Ring operas. Perhaps that's why it opened with more fanfare (literally) on Monday than the "prologue" two days ago.

Ring's "First Day" opens with fanfare on Alpenhorns

After seeing Christine Goerke in Florencia an el Amazonas a few years ago, I said she was my new favorite soprano. So when it was announced that she would replace the indisposed Catherine Foster as Brünhilde at least for the evening, I was curious but admittedly a little suspicious, despite her reputation as a Wagnerian. Florencia is one thing and Brünhilde quite another, and my taste rarely conforms with reviewers' opinions.

Well, Goerke dispelled any doubt I might have had when she hurtled onto the stage, seemingly from a riding session, for a meeting with her father. She was in excellent voice, sang effortlessly throughout, and her presence was electrifying after a somewhat disappointing Siegmund/Sieglinde duo (Christopher Ventris and Meagan Miller). It is a pity that Goerke's expressive voice was drowned by the orchestra in some of the most sensitive moments of her encounter with Siegmund.

Another star of the evening for me was Alan Held as Wotan. From a ruthless god in Das Rheingold he transitioned into a father torn between love and duty. His torment after killing out-of-wedlock son Siegmund is so genuine that I felt a lump swelling in my throat and I am far from sentimental. He was equally poignant in his farewell to Brünhilde. When I first saw Held's Wotan, he turned from the charming young seducer of Das Rheingold into a more mature man/god of Die Walküre and finally into an old tramp in Siegfried. This time around he displayed a more profound understanding of Wotan's character and his dilemmas. 

As heralded in Das Rheingold, Francesca Zambello's "American Ring" has undergone a lot of refinement since I last saw it. The popular ride of the Valkyres, with warrior women parachuting onto the stage, was spectacular and a clear favorite with the audience. I liked the way the uniformed women lined up before Wotan as if he were their military commander, not father. Real German shepherds were running across the stage to sniff out the runaway twins. And Wotan lit real fire around his disobedient daughter. That last scene was not only spectacular but a little frightening too.

Closing scene from Die Walküre was encored in my kitchen 

Some of the things that bothered my the first time around were still there and now I know why. When Placido Domingo sang Siegmund in the earlier production, I remember thinking: well, hasn't he aged, look at how his shoulders are stooped! But when I saw the same hump on a much younger Christopher Ventris on Monday, I had a better view from a seat closer to the stage, and saw that the problem was in the coat, not Domingo's back. The coat has a pleat in the upper back that opens when the singer bends, making him look like a hunchback. Hasn't the designer noticed that with all the bending between Siegmund and Sieglinde?

A propos bending, I used to think that Anja Kampe (WNO's 2007 Sieglinde) was unable to assume more than two different postures on the stage: one with her arms wrapped around her waist, the other with her arms spread out; both while leaning heavily forward. I was therefore surprised to see her as a seductive and quite creative Tosca two years ago in Berlin. Miller's Sieglinde on Monday showed a wider range of motion and expression than Kampe's, but bending forward was her main shtick as well, suggesting it has more to do with die Regie than the interpreter.

New patrons probably won't notice any of this as they get carried away by the drama unfolding on the stage. Zambello's concept of Americanizing The Ring worked very well in Die Walküre as it did in Das Rheingold, and how could it not with our CEO's acting like gods, many of our young people serving in the military, numerous children being abandoned by parents and women still being punished for being assertive. The first scene of Act I could be taking place in the Appalachia, or in any remote, gun-toting community that abides by its own laws and honor code. The encounter between Wotan and Fricka could have been a scene from a convincing new version of Citizen Cane.

In answer to the traditionalists who reject Wotan in a three-piece suit, here's how Sir Denis Forman paraphrases Wotan in A Night at the Opera: "I won the world by making some pretty dodgy deals with certain doubtful operators" and "I can't attack Fafner because the deal I did with him specifically excludes aggression." Forman was born in 1917 and the book is from 1994. We are in 2016 if I am not mistaken.

Wagner's impact is powerful - I was only too aware of it when the smell from my kitchen  back home reminded me that I had forgotten to turn off the stove before leaving for the opera. During the five-hour absence, what was supposed to be a home made beef soup turned into a pile of charcoals at the bottom of the pot.  My apprehension about the stage fire was actually a premonition.

Florencia in the Amazon: Remembering Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Washington National Opera opened its 2014-2015 season with Daniel Catán's opera Florencia in the Amazon. The work is said to be inspired by magic realism of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello brought to Washington her 1996 world premiere production of Florencia in the Amazon from Houston Grand Opera.

WNO Florencia in the Amazon - opening scene

When Marquez's masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude first appeared in Croatia in the early 1970s, it dominated conversations at Zagreb cafes, dinner parties, klatch groups and practically every place where people got together for whatever reason. The topic was not restricted to literary or highly educated circles. Since the black-and-white TV carried mostly live broadcasts of Communist Party sessions and overly long and boring "cultural" discussions, while iPhones and computers did not exist, young people in Zagreb flocked to theaters, cafes, bars, and clubs and socialized. After closing time, reading in bed was about the only available form of entertainment.

And so almost everyone read: receptionists, bank clerks, nurses and technicians as well as students of arts and humanities and the so-called intelligentsia. When you stepped into your favorite cafe of an evening, you had to know what everyone was talking about or you'd be excluded. During one particular season in the 1970s, everyone talked about One Hundred Years of Solitude. I specifically remember explaining the finesses of Marquez's magic realism to a typist from the Interior Ministry who may have not graduated from high school, but had the ambition of seducing the son of a rich and famous sculptor. Whether I knew what I was talking about is another matter, but she listened to my exposé with wide opened eyes and baited breath.

I predicted that Garcia Marquez would get the Nobel Prize for literature, which he did in 1982, and then came my most favorite work of his, Love in the Time of Cholera. My fascination with the Colombian author lasted for a good while longer. Long enough to make the 2007 movie with Javier Bardem a must-see, and long enough to be curious about Catán's opera.

An interesting piece of trivia about Florencia has made it even more compelling: the 1996 Houston premiere was conducted by late Croatian conductor Vjekoslav Sutej. The WNO orchestra was led by Carolyn Kuan whom I first saw just last month in Santa Fe, conducting the U.S. premiere of Huang Ruo's Dr. Sun Yat Sen.

Carolyn Kuan with WNO's Michael Solomon,
Santa Fe, August 2014

I went to see WNO's production with another European friend, both of us curious as to how Garcia Marquez's magic realism would translate into opera. As it turned out, the libretto by Marcela Fuentes-Berain was not based on any particular work by Garcia Marquez. It was, as we learned, largely conceived by the composer and worked out with the librettist who was a student of Garcia Marquez.

Florencia Grimaldi, a celebrated operatic diva, tired of her celebrity status, travels incognito on a steamboat down the Amazon to the jungle city of Manaus.  She is looking for the love of her life, butterfly collector Cristóbal, whom she had abandoned to pursue operatic glory.  No one has heard of him in a long time and Florencia is not sure if he is still alive.  But the deeper she gets into the jungle, the more she senses his presence.

Two other couples are on the boat, one young and falling in love, the other long married and bickering.  All are heading for Manaus expecting to hear the famous diva sing.

Almost from the opening bars of Catán's opera I felt I was walking into the world of One Hundred Years of Solitude. There was the water and the jungle and the isolated Utopian world of Macondo,  in this case a ship called El Dorado. Florencia Grimaldi was as solid-looking as I had once imagined the Solitude's immortal matriarch Úrsula Iguarán to be. Video projections, gradually shifting from a jungle setting into a more abstract world, solidified the impression of Macondo.

Catán's music is rich and melodic, sometimes exotic, sometimes cinematic and always beautiful. Reviewers have found similarities with Puccini, Ravel and even Stravinsky in the score, on occasion hinting it is a bad thing. "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" is a bridal formula for a good wedding, why not for a good music score? I, for one, can find similarities in any opera with bits and pieces from another. But it is the complete effect that matters in the end. With familiar elements Catán has created a new ephemeral piece that I would like to hear again at home on CD. He gave all three female characters gorgeous arias, especially to Florencia, naturally. All three singers have acquitted themselves wonderfully in the WNO production. Christine Georke is my new favorite soprano. In between arias are passionate duets, choral passages and instrumental interludes, always changing the mood, hinting at things coming...

The opera is short on action but big on emotion, mostly love between man and woman, but also love of nature, it seems. Love can bring the dead back to life and turn those alive into spirits (of a butterfly?) But it is not static as some have described it. Everything happens on the ship, which is rotating to create a different atmosphere, all in sync with the changing background, and giving a sense of moving through time and place. But it is an exotic and dream-like place, at least for those of us who have never seen a real-life jungle. Occasional sounds of marimba, off-stage chorus or isolated violins intensify the sense of being in a foreign land. Adding to the exotic are the dancers in native American dress that represent river spirits.

Christine Goerke as Florencia at WNO

The spirits, four men and one woman, circle the ship, sometimes impersonating piranhas (do piranhas live in the Amazon?), but seem to be benevolent and sympathetic to human pain. In response to wails of loss and regret, they retrieve Rosalba's manuscript from the river's bottom and deliver Paula's drowned husband alive back on the ship's deck.

On arrival to its destination,  the El Dorado crew and passengers find the city of Manaus in the grips of a cholera epidemic and have to turn back. Just like in a dream, the mission is not accomplished. At least in my dream. I never arrive at a destination and never find what I am looking for in any of my dreams. One setting usually dissolves into another and with it one situation becomes another. So do things in Catán's opera.  The ship's captain tells Florencia: "There is no coming and going.  No one step is ever the same.  No turn is ever a return."

My friend and I left the theater reminiscing about Marquez's literature, or rather what we remember of it today. The most vivid memories on my part were of the story A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. We agreed that Florencia in the Amazon conveyed the spirit of Garcia Marquez's dream world as well as any of his books, and that for those who have not read any, at least this opera can turn realism into magic, if only for two hours.

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Florencia in the Amazon's short run in Washington ended today. Those keen on seeing it will have another chance in November and December in Los Angeles.