Showing posts with label Washington National Opera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington National Opera. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Opera "Blue" Premieres in Washington After a Three-Year Delay

When Washington National Opera announced its premiere of composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tazewell Thompson's opera Blue for March of 2020, it seemed like the time was perfect to present a story dealing with racial tensions in the United States. The outrage over deaths of unarmed Black people at the hands of mostly white policemen led to renewed street protests in the United States and the Black Lives Matter movement spread across the globe. Three years later the Washington premiere, delayed by the pandemic, the topic remains as relevant as ever. Just scroll down your social media feeds to witness increasingly open and bold expressions of hatred toward "the other." Blue offers a rare and intimate look into how racial inequality destroys lives and tears into the fabric of community.

Police officers in Blue                                                        (Photo: Scott Suchman)

The opera's title refers to the blue uniforms of New York City policemen. The characters are named by their roles: the Father, the Mother, the Son, the Reverend, the Nurse, Policemen and Girlfriends, indicating they represent generic members of a close-knit Harlem community. During a brief musical introduction we see the Father as a young man running into policemen blocking his way wherever he goes until he becomes one of them. Being a policeman gives the young man a secure job, stability, health and dental insurances (no small matter in the United States) and enables him to start a family life.

In the opening scene, the Mother chats with her Girlfriends about the joys of her marriage and desired for a child. The Girlfriends cheer her happiness, but warn she should not bring a boy into this world because he would not live long. The Mother swears to protect the boy. 

The Father's fellow police officers react differently to the news. They celebrate and tease their mate, seemingly confident that their profession provides security.

Next we see the father arriving in the hospital to see his new baby. He is proud, excited but also frightened about the responsibilities coming with raising a boy in a dangerous world that he knows well as a policeman. This scene is followed by a very brief glimpse into the marital happiness buoyed by the love for a young boy at home. All too soon the playful boy becomes a rebellious teenager, well aware of injustices in his society and ashamed of his father's profession. When asked to stay away from protests in which he could get arrested and hurt, the Son accuses the Father of supporting laws that protect the white people but not his own Black community. Despite angry barbs, the Father hugs his son and assures him of his love. After promising to attend one last peaceful demonstration, the Son leaves the house and never comes back.

In the second act we witness the Father's meeting with a local priest after his son's death. His grief is exacerbated by the knowledge that the boy was killed by one of his fellow police officers. The Reverend encourages him to forgive, but the pain is shaking the Father's faith ("Only a white God would sit in his cloudy white heaven") and he swears revenge.

During the funeral, which brings the community together much as the funerals do after real-life shooting deaths in America, the Father is beset by memories of his son, and feelings of guilt and regret, wondering if he could have done anything different to save him. The parents and the congregation then end their prayers and quietly leave.

Funeral scene in Blue        (PhotoScott Suchman)

Originally commissioned by The Glimmerglass Festival at the initiative of WNO's artistic director Francesca Zambello, Blue premiered in Cooperstown in 2019. In 2020 the Music Critics Association of North America named it the 'Best New Opera.' It has since played in Seattle, Detroit and Pittsburg and had a European premiere in Amsterdam in 2022. English National Opera is scheduled to unveil its production of Blue next month at the London Coliseum.  

Washington National Opera meanwhile produced a studio recording of the opera, which was published last year on the Pentatone label. 

WNO's repeat performance of Blue on Monday was impeccable. Kenneth Kellog as the Father has made the role his own having sung it in most of the performances so far. He will sing it again in London next month. The role of the Mother was expertly conveyed by mezzo-soprano Briana Hunter, for whom the role was written. She was buoyant in her joys and heartbreaking in her sorrow, with some vocal rollercoasters to handle along the way. Aaron Crouch, who created the role of the Son, returned to it for the WNO production. The Girlfriends (Ariana Wehr, Katerina Burton and Rehanna Thelwell) were in superb voices, and delivered some of the most enchanting ensemble pieces of the evening. If I had to single out one of the three singers, it would be promising new soprano Katerina Burton. Wehr doubled as a nurse, making the most of her comic moment in which she gets to stick the new-born baby into the bewildered Father's arms.

Baritone Joshua Conyers stood out as the compassionate Reverend.

Blue is generally described as an opera about police violence against young black men. Indeed, the Girlfriends warn their pregnant friend: "Thou shalt bring forth no Black boys into this world!" The less pessimistic Father grows more concerned as his 16-year old son starts to rebel. He tells him repeatedly: "Your only duty is to stay alive," underscoring his awareness that it is not a given.

Blue does not seek to impress with violence. The shooting death does not take place on the stage. It does not need to. We see such scenes in the news media often enough. The opera shows the joys and sorrows of average African-American families and dependence on one another and their community. Despite the initial unease, the Girlfriends welcome a new boy into the community and the Father's conflict with his son ends in a firm embrace and pledge of his love.

Global interest in the Tesori-Thompson opera is testimony to its universal themes of love, conflict, pursuit of justice and tragedy.  Tesori's melodic score is an example of contemporary sound with African-American influences and a strong sense for theater. The composer known for Broadway musicals, such as Tony Award-winning Fun Home; Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical, did not shy away from writing tuneful music that people actually enjoy. Blue has been described as an eclectic piece with rich orchestration and eloquent vocal lines. There is every reason to look forward to the world premiere of Tesori's new opera Grounded, which WNO plans to premiere during its next season.  

Thompson's libretto was a mixed bag. It held very few surprises in the first act. The Girlfriend scene offered some of the most beautiful singing, but was too long in my opinion, especially in comparison with its male counterpart. The glimpse into the early family life, hinting it was a happy one, was too short to be remembered before a crucial scene of conflict between the Father and the Son. 

       Kenneth Kellogg and Aaron Crouch as Father and Son in Blue   (Photo: Scott Suchman)

The encounter between the Father and the Reverend in the second act brought to mind a scene from Verdi's Don Carlo, in which King Philip seeks advice about his rebellious son from the head of the Spanish Inquisition. The circumstances are different and the music is different. While the Spanish king seeks to sacrifice his son for the stability of his reign, the US police officer, in an equally powerful scene, seeks revenge for the unjust death of his. 

Another scene that brought to mind a well known opera was the one where somber Girlfriends give support to the grief-stricken mother. It reminded me of Poulenc's nuns in Dialogues des Carmélites preparing for the guillotine. Neither group has hope for a better future.

At the funeral, when the Father's mind wonders back to the past, we finally witness some of the family scenes missed in the first part of the opera. In this unexpected flashback, we witness the Mother making peace between the Father and the Son over a family meal. Throughout Blue, we saw the Mother rejoicing in the birth of her son and agonizing over his death, but no interaction between her and her teenage son until this last scene. It was a little late for me, literally like an afterthought. 

The congregation leaves the stage to a sad but musically calming conclusion. We are left with a sense that a human life has been cut off too early with no lesson learned and more grief to come - the same sense of helplessness we get after learning about yet another shooting death reported in the news. Despite outrage and a wave protests after every new killing of a black man by a police officer, resignation follows soon after. The Father's words to God “How many sons do we have to give before you can’t hold one more?” come back to haunt us, rightfully so. An optimistic end to this opera would ring hollow. 

Zambello has said that art organizations have a responsibility to explore contemporary issues and start dialogues that could lead to change.  She has done her part with Blue and I expect there will be more. WNO has made an extraordinary effort to make the opera accessible to educational institutions and people who don't often see opera. Almost every performance is accompanied by pre- and post-show discussions. The company has reached out to communities at the center of this work to bring them to the opera. in Addition, it is hosting events and inviting the media for dialogues on Blue's themes of race, violence, and reconciliation. A list of events can be found here:

https://www.kennedy-center.org/wno/home/2022-2023/blue/   

WNO has also produced a documentary on the making of Blue, which will be presented on March 18, starting at 1:00 PM at the Justice Forum at the Kennedy Center's REACH,  and will be followed by a panel discussion. The event is free and open to the public.


Arts organizations, at least some of them, are making steps toward awareness of our societal problems and possible change. But so should we all. One thing everyone could do immediately is stop spreading hateful, incendiary messages on social media, while hiding behind fake names.


*****


There will be four more performances of Blue at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater through March 25.


English National Opera in London will run 6 performances of Blue between April 20 and  May 4.



Monday, May 16, 2022

White Horse Can't Save WNO's Staid Carmen

Carmen is a typical femme fatale: a woman who brings misfortune to the man who falls in love with her. She is also wild, untamable and somewhat mad. A contemporary stage director always faces a dilemma of how to present all of Carmen's traits to the new audiences without making her look stereotypical or ridiculous. Then there is the question of wether to stage the opera in its traditional setting or transport it to a different time and place. For the Washington National Opera's 2022 season gala, art director Francesca Zambello opted for the safer traditional route, reviving her 2006 production, first shown at the Royal Opera House in 2006. 

The problem with reviving a well-known production, which can be seen in its entirety online, is that it inevitably invites unfair comparisons. The ROH performance is almost impossible to match as was painfully obvious from the get-go in Saturday's WNO performance. 

The singer portraying the passionate gypsy has to exude sensuality while trying to avoid the exaggerated hip-swiveling or overtly sexual gestures that could put off a contemporary viewer.  Few are able to achieve that and it seems that Zambello went for one of currently best known and most popular American mezzo-sopranos, Isabel Leonard. An accomplished singer with a beautiful voice, Leonard has been an excellent interpreter of the roles that suit her, such as Nico Muhly's Marnie, reportedly written with her in mind. But it is hard to understand why anyone would want to cast the beauty known for her cool and polished demeanor in the role of a bedraggled gypsy, who washes her legs in a bucket at a town square.  Of course, a brilliant actress can pull it off, but for Leonard it seemed like too big a stretch.

Isabel Leonard in role debut as Carmen at the Kennedy Center,  photo by Scott Suchman

The acclaimed mezzo was wise to leave off the exaggerated come-hither gestures that could make her more funny than sexy. But if she had not informed Don José that she was dancing for him, no one would know she was dancing.  Her gypsy was more of a petulant child than an independent woman, holding on to her freedom. There was no dark, brooding quality to the prediction of her own imminent death. 

Lenard's voice is versatile, but does not reach deep enough into the Kennedy Center's cavernous Opera House. (This was evident a few years ago when she sang Rossini's Cinderella at the same venue). Even for a patron sitting mid-parterre it was at times hard to discern what she was singing, which makes one wonder how much could be heard in the last row.

To make matters worse, her sound did not blend well with tenor Michael Fabiano's. He sang Don José in a powerful voice that filled the house. One could further question the chemistry, or a lack thereof, between the two protagonists, but if we assume that Don José was manipulated, rather than loved, the tenor who portrays him has more freedom in approaching the role.  Some artists choose to play an ardent lover who gradually becomes embittered and finally crazed. Fabiano's José seemed to harbor a dark side to his character from the start. There was more anger than tenderness in his pivotal aria "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée."  By the closing scene he was a raving maniac, but since his interpretation lacked a development from a naive lover to the madman, it was hard to sympathize with his ultimate pain. 

Ryan Speedo Green's Escamillo lacked the electricity and sparkle surrounding a celebrity bullfighter. The real-life horse he rode onto the stage did not help. Despite Green's robust bas-baritone and adequate singing, once he got off the horse, he acted more as a priest than a heartthrob.

As José's fiancée Micaëla, Vanessa Vasquez impressed with her beautiful voice, but not with acting.

Evan Rogister led the orchestra with aplomb, including the gorgeous prelude to Act III, that starts with a lovely flute tune and expands to other woodwind. But Rogister did not exert the same control over the chorus, whose members were not always in sync.

For some pizzazz in the otherwise unexceptional production, Zambello added a cloud of smoke coming out of the cigarette factory, suggesting a fire in Carmen's workplace. In addition to the afore-mentioned horse, whose two brief entrances created significant excitement in the audience, a Spanish Easter-procession float passed by the bullfighting arena before the fatal encounter between Carmen and Don José in the last act. 

Overall, Saturday's gala performance of Carmen seemed like a successful final exam of a college drama class, in which all the students did well and got an A. But the Washington opera has to do better than that. If the company opts to go the traditional route, it must find the interpreters who will give the old production a new life, and keep in thrall even the people who have seen Carmen many, many times. If the right artists for a traditional Carmen are not available, the production should be changed to suit the ones that are. 

In 2018, ROH's premiered a new production of Carmen that was nothing short of revolutionary.  The title character stepped onto the stage out of a female gorilla suit, in short hair and androgynous clothes. She was neither sexy nor seductive. One could describe her as playful; she even winked at the audience after her staged death. The set consisted of a huge black staircase, with masked characters, dressed in black and white, dancing up and down the steps. The dialogues were replaced by voiceover narration. The minimalist production was more akin to a Broadway musical than a 19th-century opera and not to everyone's taste, but it attracted young audiences and amused the older ones, tired of seeing more of the same.


Michael Fabian and Isabel Leonard as Don José and Carmen, photo by Scott Suchman

Post-Covid Washington may be less receptive to radical innovations in a beloved operatic piece.  The audience responded warmly to the unimaginative staging and interpretations, at least during the gala evening, which created its own excitement.  

In an effort to bring people back to live performances, opera companies worldwide offer packages that are most likely to please their patrons and keep them entertained. If it takes bringing a white horse to the stage, so be it. But ultimately, only excellence and creativity will keep the genre alive. 

WNO's Carmen runs at the Kennedy Center Opera House through May 28. 

Monday, March 14, 2022

Washington National Opera Returns to Stage With Mozart's Opera Buffa

After a two-year hiatus caused by the pandemic, the Washington National Opera has returned to the stage. It was not a spectacular opening Saturday night in the Kennedy Center's Opera House, with a grand opera and hundreds of performers, but rather a Mozart piece for six soloists and a small chorus and orchestra in a smaller hall. Così fan tutte is ranking third of the three operas Mozart wrote with Italian librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, and many consider it no more than a fluffy comedic piece with a ridiculous plot. But there is more to this rom-com than meets the eye.

For me Così fan tutte is worth seeing for many reasons, perhaps first and foremost for its unique and unforgettable terzetto "Soave sia il vento."  My first encounter with the languidly sad melody was in the movie based on Edith Warton's book The House of Mirth. It haunted me all the way home and the next day to a music store to get the complete opera in a CD set.

The story of two pairs of naive and romantic lovers brought down to earth by their elderly friend is silly if you take it literally. Young soldiers Guglielmo and Ferrando are madly in love with sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella respectively and are convinced of their fidelity. The elderly and experienced Don Alfonso contends that all women will succumb to flirtation if given a chance, and that Fiordiligi and Dorabella are no exception. He persuades the younger men to accept a bet, which could turn lucrative for him if he can make the girls accept new lovers within a day of their fiancés' absence. Alonso enlists the help of the girls' maid Despina to ensure his victory. According to the deal, Ferrando and Guglielmo will pretend they were called to war and will sail away on the waves of the heavenly aria "Soave sia il vento"  (let the wind be gentle), sung by Fiordiligi, Dorabella and Don Alfonso. They will then immediately return dressed as Albanians (that's the really preposterous part) and try to seduce each other's girlfriend (if you can believe that a mustache and strange clothes can make a man entirely unrecognizable). Don Alfonso triumphs with Despina's help and the lovers, now taught a lesson, reconcile.

Ferrando and Guglielmo, photo by Scott Suchman

The title Così fan tutte suggests, as Don Alfonso claims, that all women are unfaithful or prone to deceit. You could hear patrons on Saturday comment that it is "not a very feminist" opera and that it reflects the attitude of men towards women in Mozart's time. But any serious Mozart connoisseur knows that the composer had too much respect and admiration for women to portray them as weaklings. His heroines are bold, intelligent, devious and determined not to be victimized. Think of Pamina, Donna Anna, Susanna. They are manipulative if they need to be, and they teach their men a lesson. Queen of the Night is bloodthirsty in her drive for revenge against ex-husband. 

Contrary to the title, which quotes Don Alfonso, the opera makes gentle fun of human failings in general, not only women, and calls for the need to lower one's expectations from a relationship. As such, it is a good lesson to prospective couples today who plan to marry with a set of expectations from the future spouse.  

Yes, a story about couple-swapping, and women falling for ridiculous disguise and false declarations of love may seem frivolous, but it's a story that challenges traditional notions of strength of character and honor. Fiordiligi is trying very hard to deny her desires, considering them shameful, and vows to be strong "like a rock immovable against the winds and tempest ("Come scoglio"), but in the end her softer side prevails. The younger sister Dorabella doesn't even try to resist the declarations of passionate love. And what of the men? Mozart makes fun of their weaknesses too: their excessive pride, braggadocio, easily shaken trust, naïveté ... 

To make the plot more realistic, opera houses have resorted to modern adaptations with various success. The settings have been transferred from the old Naples into different places and periods, from the 1950s Coney Island to some phantasmagorical place in a future era. The last production I saw in Washington was set in contemporary America. Fiordiligi and Dorabella were admiring their boyfriend's pictures on smartphones, and their lovers returned disguised as tattooed, leather-clad and chain-adorned bikers. Instead of drinking hot chocolate from fine china, the girls sipped their lattes from plastic cups. Presented in the Kennedy Center's spacious opera house, the set seemed a little too minimalist, not to say empty. The writer of the English surtitles replaced the original lines with a few puns on local themes, which drew hearty laughs without hurting the original text, sung in Italian.

The WNO's new production was conceived much better.  First, it was placed in a smaller and more intimate Eisenhower Theater, ideal for this quasi-chamber piece.  There was no attempt to transplant the opera into a contemporary setting. The simplified decor by Erhard Rom was warm and accogliente and just ornate enough to provide the right background for the lovely period costumes, designed by Lynly Saunders. Occasionally, a drawing of the god of love with his arrow, or a couple of love birds, or some funny message popped up in the background to draw audience's laughs.   

The singers portraying the two couples were young and convincing. Soprano Laura Wilde was adequately serious and tormented as the elder sister Fiordiligi. She offered a solid rendition of her central aria "Come Scoglio" and sang beautifully throughout. Mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb was easily the most irresistible Dorabella I have ever seen, in both looks and voice. She was flirtatious and charming, or naive and silly as the situation required, all without exaggeration. Tenor Kang Wang stole the show for me with his radiant voice and ardent mien. I can see him rule the stage in the future when he masters more nuance to suit Ferrando's various moods. His dynamics never seemed to move more than a notch or two from the forte, and after many arias it sounded like more of the same, no matter how beautiful it was. Baritone Andrey Zhilikovsky's charmed with his warm simplicity as a friend as well as a lover. 


Don Alfonso and Despina in one of her many disguises, photo by Scott Suchman

I first saw Ana María Martínez eight years ago as Carmen in Santa Fe. She was good but not memorable, perhaps because one expected Carmen to be a mezzo. She pleasantly surprised me as the shrewd, but fun-loving maid Despina. Her comic gestures were never overdone, and she was a delight whenever she appeared on the stage.

Legendary Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto was a bit of a disappointment as Don Alfonso. I remember him as an impressive Philip II in Don Carlo, but in the role of Don Alfonso, other singers seem to have much more fun. Furlanetto seemed bored and his don was more of an old curmudgeon in need of funds than an elderly gentleman, seeking to help the younger generation. Even so, Furlanetto's powerful voice and presence tended to dominate the stage. 

The opera is a string of melodic arias, with their moods ranging from giddy to dramatic to serious. Most of the mood transitions take place in the second-act garden scene, when falsely ardent lovers, in this production dressed in what looked more like Indian than Albanian garb, court and win each other's fiancee. The women's defiant attitudes gradually soften, while the men become increasingly miserable as they see their loved ones fail them. The conversion takes its course and, unfortunately, sooner or later viewers reach a point of saturation despite the beauty of singing.  For many, the opera starts to drag as is obvious from how many mobile phones come out. No matter which way the work is repackaged (in some cases producers create additional background action) that scene feels too long for an average opera goer, particularly the one who is not convinced the story has any value in the first place. 

Ferrando and Fiordiligi, observed by scheming Don Alonso and miserable Guglielmo, photo by Scott Suchman


Stage director Alison Moritz has made her best effort to enliven the garden scene in the WNO production, making Dorabella bolder than usual in accepting her new lover. Moritz also tampered with the finale. I wonder if anyone else noticed or whether it was my imagination, but it seemed that once the couples swapped partners, the new pairs remained together even after the deceit had been unveiled. In other words, Fiordiligi stayed with her erstwhile sister's fiancé Ferrando, while Dorabella continued to cling to Guglielmo, formerly Fiordiligi's boyfriend. In the classic version, each returns to their original partner. Did Moritz want to simplify the confusion, or make the women appear less flighty, or did I get something wrong? 

Japanese-German Conductor Erina Yashima, currently assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, received a warm applause in her important US operatic debut.  

WNO opened this first night of its post-Covid season with the Ukrainian national anthem as has become customary for many cultural organizations worldwide.

The last performance of the new production of Così fan tutte is scheduled for March 26.

Thursday, August 20, 2020

American Opera Follows Its Own Path

Washington National Opera’s premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s opera Blue, a tragic story about an African-American family in New York, would have been timely in March 2020 when it was scheduled for introduction to the nation’s capital. It will still be timely in May 2021, the new premiere date, coinciding with the first anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man killed by the police in Minneapolis, during an arrest.

A performance cancellation or delay is usually cause for regret, but for participants in this opera, mostly black singers and actors, it was a reprieve. Star singer Kenneth Kellogg said in a recent interview that "there wasn’t a day in rehearsal that somebody didn’t break down and cry,” because for many of the protagonists, the opera’s story was too real. Kellogg portrays the opera’s leading character, a black policeman whose son is shot to death by a white policeman.

Libretto by Tazewell Thompson has three main characters: the Father, the Mother and the Son. The opening act comprises a series of discussions among family members and friends about their aspirations in the context of everyday injustice in minority neighborhoods. When a baby boy is born the family rejoices, but there are also apprehensions about his future amid growing police intimidation of young black men.

Things turn tense when the teenage Son, dressed in a hoodie and glued to his laptop becomes involved in protests against police violation. His father’s argument that he and his fellow officers risk their lives to protect communities is wasted on the angry young man, who calls his father a pathetic "black man in blue."


Photo by Karli Cadel: Kenneth Kellogg and Aaron Crouch as the Father and the Son at the Glimmerglass Festival, 2019

The family is devastated when the Son gets killed during a protest, leaving the Father struggling to reconcile the faith in his profession with the tragic loss of his son. The funeral scene offers some of the opera’s most ambitious choral pieces, accented in places with the soaring duet of grieving parents.

American composers have developed a unique American operatic style, with recognizably American sound and unmistakably American themes. The effort to branch away from the European opera was there from the very beginning. As early as 1855, New York saw the premiere of George Frederick Bristow's opera Rip Van Winkle, based on Washington Irving’s short story. The composer championed American music and themes throughout his life and was critical of his contemporaries who did not.

Since then, other American literary masterpieces such as Little Women, The Great Gatsby and A View from the Bridge have been adapted for the musical theater. But few have been as successful as the works based on true events. One of the first ones was The Ballad of Baby Doe by Douglas Moore, which premiered in 1956 at the Central City Opera in Colorado, where the real historical figures that inspired the opera, had lived.


When John Adams presented his opera Nixon in China in 1987 in Houston, some of the main characters were still alive. Initially considered a gimmick, the so-called docu-drama gained worldwide recognition and started a new trend that eventually caught on in Europe. In 2011, London’s Royal Opera House premiered Anna Nicole, an opera about the tragic life and death of American celebrity model Anna Nicole. Critics were not sure how to look at this provocative work, but all the six performances were sold out. Anna Nicole was portrayed by star soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek who then went on to New York to sing Sieglinde in Wagner’s Ring.

But the most performed American opera of all time is Porgy and Bess, which premiered in 1935 and has remained a symbol of American culture worldwide. There is hardly a place where the Summertime tune is not recognized even by people who do not know the opera. The music drama about African-American experience was crafted by three white men, the fact not lost on many black composers whose work has been ignored or neglected. Critics have described Porgy and Bess as a symbol of systemic racism in the American artistic world.


Many Americans would be surprised to learn that one of the earliest American opera composers, producers and teachers was a black man. Harry Lawrence Freeman wrote more than 20 operas and founded several music schools and organizations, including the Negro Opera Company. At the age of 22 he produced his first opera Epthelia in Denver. His second opera, The Martyr, was performed in several U.S. cities, while the others could not garner sufficient support in the U.S. music circles of his time. Still, during his lifetime Freeman was known as “the black Wagner.”



Scot Joplin’s 1911 Treemonisha is the only opera by a U.S. black composer that is still performed from time to time, albeit in smaller theaters, and there is a commercial recording of it.

Despite being ignored, African-American composers have created ambitious music pieces, some of which have survived. Scholars as well as music companies are now working to bring some of them to light and reverse years of neglect.

Among them is Freeman’s Voodoo that was performed in semi-staged production in 2015 in New York.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBMZymNy8Nc

Shirley Graham du Bois’ epic work Tom-Tom was performed at Harvard two years ago, for the first time since its 1932 premiere at Cleveland Stadium.

The Metropolitan Opera has announced plans to bring Terence Blanchard’s work Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on Charles Blow’s 2014 memoir, which was first performed in St. Luis last year. This will be the first production by a black composer and black librettist (Kasi Lemmons) staged by the Metropolitan Opera in its 136-year history.

American opera companies have long fought to diverse their audiences, which are predominantly white people. One way to attract new audiences is to produce a new opera. But with most operas written by white composers on white themes, it is hard to attract people of different backgrounds.

“Rarely do you go to the opera and see black people onstage really letting you know how they feel with a story written by a black librettist,” said Kellogg. The music for Blue is composed by a white woman, but the libretto is written by a black theater director.

With the story so close to real life events, many people will wonder why go see it in the theater. Certainly, it is easier to escape the harsh reality with the music of Mozart or Rossini, but opera is ultimately about real people and their emotions in conflict or tragedy, as well as in joyful times. An average opera goer will go to see Carmen or La bohème, attracted by name recognition more than a sense of discovery. But a more avid fan is curious to examine a new work or at least a re-invented production of an old one. The advent of live opera simulcasts in movie theaters, and online opera streams has made the discovery of opera, both the time-tested classics and daring new productions, accessible to everyone. The most recent Met production of Glass’s Akhnaten must have dazzled even a complete novice.


Unlike Akhnaten, Blue is an intimate drama intent on inspiring contemplation of current events rather than dazzling. It premiered in 2019 at The Glimmerglass Festival and received the 2020 award for best opera from The Music Critics Association of North America. Performances in several cities have been cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Lyric Opera of Chicago has rescheduled performances for January of 2021 and Minnesota Opera for February 2021. Washington’s premiere has been rescheduled July 2021 and Toledo opera in Ohio announced plans to produce Blue in February 2022.

Monday, May 7, 2018

CANDIDE, ou l'Optimisme à l'Américain

The Washington National Opera on Saturday presented the last piece of its 2017-2018 season: Leonard Bernstein's Candide, an unmistakably American music work based on a French satirical novella. This year marks Leonard Bernstein's centennial and all major U.S. theaters are performing his works. Not only that - a major filmmaker has announced plans to make a biopic about the composer's life, aptly titled The American.
Pangloss teaches Candide, Maximilian, Cunigonde and Paquette that the world is perfect
So why would this 20th-century American composer choose an 18th-century picaresque novella, with no less than 30 chapters, each set in a different part of the world, and a plot often described as erratic, as the basis for his operetta? Voltaire's satire is ridiculing von Leibniz's philosophy of optimism in the face of major world disasters: wars, earthquakes, social injustices, exploitation, poverty and others. In the 1950s, Bernstein could have found plenty of justification to ridicule the glories of American optimism. It was the era of nuclear arms race, Cold War, McCarthyism, organized crime and rampant racism. But it is not clear that he referred to any of that.

After testing several versions, Bernstein settled for a libretto firmly grounded on Voltaire's work, which he set to his own distinctly American brand of music. His Candide too is neither French nor German, but the epitome of a young optimistic American, who believes that the world is his to conquer and that, as his teachers say, "the sky is the limit." Cunegonde is equally naive in her expectation to land a husband who can provide a life of bliss and luxury. Like Voltaire's, Bernstein's Candide is kicked out of his master's house in Vestphalia for daring to aspire to his noble daughter Cunegonde.  Thus begins Candide's roaming around the world, a voyage beset with misfortunes, betrayal and disappointments. His optimism, as taught by his tutor Pangloss, persists as he receives or delivers blows one after another. Cunegonde is a survivor too. After losing her home in a war and surviving serial rape by the conquering soldiers, she uses her youth and good looks to secure a comfortable lifestyle.

Emily Pogorelc and Alek Shrader as WNO's Cunegonde and Candide
The action moves briskly through a series of musical episodes connected by short narratives. Major characters die and come back to life, including Pangloss, Cunegonde and her brother Maximilian. New people appear and disappear every step of the way. So much so that some performers can easily take on two roles. Actor Wynn Harmon doubles as Pangloss and Voltaire, the narrator, not impressive as either. Bass-baritone Matthew Scollin excells as both James the Anabaptist and Martin the pessimist.

For those who have not read Voltaire or heard the musical before, Bernstein's Candide is not always easy to follow. The WNO provides surtitles for the song lyrics, but not for the narrative where they could be more useful to help orient the clueless. Somewhere halfway through the performance, you are only vaguely aware of what's going on, or are completely lost. It is the power of the score, starting from the energetic overture, which made Bernstein bounce every time he conducted it, through the catchy tunes of songs such as "The Best of All Possible Worlds", that holds a spectator's attention through to the concluding chorus of "Make Our Garden Grow." 

Conductor Nicole Paiement, dressed surprisingly in a biker jacket, skinny jeans and ankle boots, led the WNO orchestra with sustained energy. Alek Shrader's Candide was gentle, benevolent, convincingly naive and beautifully sung. Emily Pogorelc sparkled as Cunegonde. Their marriage duet "O, Happy We" stands out as a conspicuous departure from Voltaire and a perfect example of American optimism: Candide wants to live on a farm and raise kids, Cunegonde wants lavish and jet-settish lifestyle, but both still expect to have a perfectly happy marriage. Washington's darling Denyce Graves was a good choice for the role of the long-suffering but feisty Old Lady, Cunegonde's protector.  She has lost one buttock to cannibals so sitting and riding is painful, but she does not let a minor obstacle like that stand in the way when the time comes to escape.

Sometimes directors opt to set Candide in modern times or in some imaginary fantastical world. A long-ago production at Washington's Arena Stage used puppets and doll houses, model ships and other playthings popping out onto the the stage like jack-in-the-box. Artistic director Francesca Zambello chose a stylized period setting with costumes that sometimes amounted to nothing but underwear, or dresses missing large chunks of fabric in strategic places. But the El Dorado scene was unmistakably Broadway-ish with its glitter and plumes. The performance was fast moving and effervescent as one would expect from a good American musical. 

But even in the best of productions, and Zambello's comes close enough to it, Candide sooner or later becomes tiresome. Awards and glowing reviews notwithstanding, the frenetic exchange of scenes is hard to absorb and the work lacks the passion to hold the audience in thrall as Bernstein's West Side Story does. 

Whether it is opera, operetta, musical or zarzuela, a music theater piece requires a clear and concise storyline, with characters affecting or completely changing one another's lives. Candide and Cunegonde are affected by life's misfortunes, but not by each other. They retire to a little farm after being disillusioned by life's vagaries. The conclusion comes too abruptly to give them time to transition from silly to wise. Is this how Bernstein saw average Americans? Or was the restless and overactive genius offering practical advice to ordinary people with overly rosy expectations for their future? Voltaire's satire may have been the wrong medium to convey this message to a broad-spectrum audience.
Candide and his companion Cacambo in El Dorado, which looks like a Broadway musical
Works such as Stravinsky's Rake's Progress, Glass's Appomatox and, yes, Bernstein's Candide, that lack passionate characters, will never have the lasting popular appeal of tragic Romeo-and-Juliette-type stories, or music comedies such as Oklahoma and My Fair Lady, or dramatic works like Porgy and Bess - despite the quality of music they offer.  

It is surprising, therefore, that the WNO would offer just a few performances of West Side Story in Concert, which were sold out despite poor publicity  (I learned quite by chance and after the fact that they had been given) as opposed to a lavish staging of Candide, which had difficulty filling the opera house on its first night Saturday, despite the availability of heavily discounted seats. 

"Any questions?"  Yes, many.

Monday, November 13, 2017

WNO's Alcina Is All About Gorgeous Singing

For those who love beautiful singing and acrobatic coloratura, the Washington National Opera's performance of Handel's Alcina is a feast. With few exceptions the singers' voices were carefully picked to suit their respective roles to perfection, with Angela Meade given the choice of a Handel heroine she felt would best showcase her heretofore rarely heard capabilities. The singing was so wonderful this past Saturday, that you could just close your eyes and let the music take you to Alcina's enchanted island. Judging by the enthusiastic applause after each aria, the audience appreciated the effort.

But there is more to opera than lovely voices and spectacular singing. This production of Alcina was too anemic for my taste. While I am sure that conductor Jane Glover, making her WNO debut, led the ensemble in a true Handelian style, watching her languid movements from my side made me wish it had been Antony Walker instead of her. I kept imagining what energy he might have infused into the performance.

The setting of WNO's Alcina is reminiscent of an underwater cave
The setting was a dark stage with a big circular opening backstage, that could have represented an exit from an underwater cave. The action took place center-stage on a well lit round platform. And there were white square seats on each side where members of the chorus would sometimes sit. Other than the lighting, not much changed throughout the two-and-hald-hour long show. Very little happened in terms of action, except for the singers's arrivals and departures and an occasional ballet number. The direction seemed to go along with the sedate pace of conducting. The stage livened up considerably with the appearances of soprano Ying Fang whose Morgana was not only charming, but also incredibly charismatic. She also made mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack and tenor Rexford Tester more interesting when they interacted with her.
Soprano Yin Fang gives a charming portrayal of Alcina's sister Morgana
Angela Meade did not have that effect. I've seen her live on stage and on big screen in cinemas and found her to be an excellent singer, but one whose voice I could never remember or recognize without seeing her. Given preference, I would rather hear her in a concert performance. What Meade lacks in looks to be convincing in the role of a seductive enchantress, could be compensated by persuasive interpretation. But to this ear she added nothing to convey "the alluring power of illusion," which seemed to be the goal of director Anne Bogart.

Alcina is a character taken from Ariosto's Orlando furioso. She attracts and traps various men who stumble upon her island and when she gets tired of them turns them into streams, beast, trees and rocks. Her current lover is Ruggiero, otherwise engaged to Bradamante. Alcina's General Oronte warns the captive that the sorceress will soon tire of him too and will want to get rid of him. Bradamante, disguised as a man, comes to the island to rescue her man. She is accompanied by Melisso, Ruggerio's former tutor. There is also a chorus representing Alcina's victims, and the WNO production seems to have dispensed with the character of Oberto, a boy soprano who is searching for his father.


Costume designer James Schuette has made some inexplicable choices. The chorus can take on various roles in modern productions of Alcina and members are dressed accordingly. In this one, men and women were dressed in mismatched black clothes: women in mostly evening gowns and men in uniforms, underwear and in one case a satin robe, perhaps suggesting that the magic spells hit them all at a different time of the day. Alcina's magenta satin gown is complemented with the same color embroidered overcoat, but Morgana is dressed in a pink tulle dress that could have been borrowed from a Balanchine ballet. An extra flounce is added at the waist perhaps to make her slim figure fuller. For most of the performance Ruggiero and Bradamante wear camouflage uniforms that could have been taken from a performance of Cosi fan tutte from a few years ago. Before Alcina's spell is removed, Ruggiero stumbles around in a tobacco-colored satin pajamas and an unattractive dressing gown.

Angela Meade displays her vocal powers in Alcina
Most of the signers are women, including mezzo Elizabeth DeShong who portrays Ruggiero. They outperform the tenor and the baritone portraying Melisso and Oronte.

Stories set in enchanted locations such as The Tempest, Armida or Alcina give producers infinite possibility of creating original magic worlds, as we have seen for example in Met's pastiche The Enchanted Island. Often, they are transferred to modern times. Dresden's Alcina a few years ago was a glamorous femme fatal who takes pleasure in seducing and destroying men. In the Semperoper's production, Bradamante was Ruggiero's wife and mother of his two children. She came to Alcina's place accompanied with Melisso as her lawyer, who helped persuade the errant husband to return to his family. 

The WNO's production seeks to invoke the mesmerizing qualities of our contemporary culture, awash with electronic gadgets with their promises of instant gratification. But if it imparted any message of wisdom, it did not come out clear. This production achieved all the effect of a good concert opera performance.  Alcina perished and the chorus came to life - truly came to life - after Glover finally poured some energy into her conducting. Alas, the moment was too brief.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Washington's Wagner Ring Draws Young and Not So Young

The night before the Washington National Opera's grand opening of its first complete Ring cycle, I was having dinner with friends who commented on the fact that the tickets were sold well in advance and that people were traveling from far and wide to see it. Almost like a pilgrimage, they said. But one gentleman hailing from California bemoaned the future of the opera in general. He said he was seeing only elderly people at the opera and wondered what will happen when this generation is gone. On the opening night Saturday at the Kennedy Center, the audience was far from old. In fact, grey heads were in the minority any many people looked younger than 30. There was not one empty seat in the venue that sometimes has difficulty filling the house for the most popular of operas. What magic is Wagner's Ring wielding to draw crowds wherever it shows up?  

For sure, much of its attraction is due to the timeless themes of love, power and greed. But I think what makes it irresistible is the way in which Wagner wrapped these themes in the tapistry of ancient myths and classical fairy tales, that fascinated us in childhood and continue to speak to our inner child. What woman would not like to be woken up by a kiss from a true hero and what man would not like to wield power over the world, or at least over his own life.  So it is consoling to see the rich, the powerful and the beautiful who are as flawed and as vulnerable as we are, and have to atone for their sins just like we do for ours.  

The opening night suggests that Wagner has young fans...

...and attracts diverse audience

I saw my first complete Ring in the 1980's thanks to the WETA Television broadcast of a Met recording. I planned to "suffer" through it as a matter of education. But instead of dreadful boredom and fatigue I expected, even the longest operas kept me awake and mesmerized.  I could not wait for the next evening to see who did what to whom, just as in the past I had waited for a new season of Dallas to see who killed J.R. And there started my love affair with the Ring.

In his book A Night at the Opera, Sir Denis Forman says: "There was a time when Wagner and especially The Ring divided mankind into the Wagnerites and the rest. Today the war is won." And guess who is the winner!








































Das Rheingold, Scene 3, Alberich and the enslaved Nibelungs

On Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, when the first Ring cycle opened with Das Rheingold or The Rhinegold as the WNO calls it, the undisputed winner was Wagner. The first of the Ring operas was last seen here 10 years ago, the other three followed one by one. The production I remembered as being firmly grounded on the American soil - with gold prospectors, robber barons and Erda as a Native American in a fringed suede dress, moccasins and feathers in her hair - has seen much improvement. I liked it well the first time, but the new version has a dreamy quality to it, including video projections of falling water, the mist rising over the river and changes in costuming that suggest universality and timelessness. In another fun new touch, this production has Freia afflicted with Stockholm syndrome, reluctant to  leave her captor Fasolt. 

A couple of chat forums took me by surprise with expressions of outrage that Wagner's gods should be using cell phones and boarding a cruise ship called Valhalla, instead of entering some sort of Norse heaven. For me Wotan, Donner, Frohe, Loge, Freia at alia were not gods even in the original version, but rather a privileged upper class fighting to retain its status. If you believe Bernard Shaw, The Ring expresses Wagner's view of his own society. In his booklet The Perfect Wagnerite, which I highly recommend, Shaw gives a detailed account on the subject. There were greedy industrialists in the 19th century as there are greedy businessmen today. Ecologists could argue that The Ring speaks in defense of the environment and protection of natural resources. In any case, why would it be easier to find Wotan more believable as god than as a CEO of a global corporation? Even the British queen calls her domain "the firm." 

Francesca Zambello had good reason to envision places and characters from the Ring in the United States. As I watched Das Rheingold, every scene and every dialogue made me think of something happening in the world today: Wotan and his group - of the political leaders of our time, weakened by the need for money and their own vanity, Alberich exploiting the Nibelungs - of a Chinese industrialist squeezing the life out of cheap labor.  Laws in The Ring are made to be broken even by those who make them; heroes are naive and therefore vanquished... 

And all this comes wrapped in some of the finest music ever written. Maestro Phillipe Auguin did a great job on Saturday safely guiding a huge ensemble of singers, players and extras through the treacherous waters of the mighty river, which is Das Rheingold opera. Overall, I think I was more impressed than 10 years ago, and I was impressed then too. In terms of portrayals it was good to hear fresh voices.  Lindsay Ammann's Erda, William Burden's Loge, Rhein maidens of Renée Tatum, Jacqueline Echols and Catherine Martin and giants Fafner (Soloman Howard - can't wait to hear him in Siegfried) and Fasolt (Julian Close) stood out for me.  It was a little surprising to see the return of some familiar faces in no less than the main roles. Alan Held as Wotan was as solid as I remember him, and Elizabeth Bishop's Fricka was as bland as I remember her from a decade ago. I could never quite understand Washington's infatuation with Bishop, but there it is.

Overall, it was a memorable opening of the cycle, certainly worth a trip to Washington. Even though I know who does what to whom in the next installment, I still can't wait to see it.

If literature on Wagner is to be believed, few contemporaries liked him except Ludwig II and Cosima von Bulow. His progeny also has a dubious reputation. But even his worst enemies today can hardly deny the glory of Wagner's music.