WNO's Dead Man Walking

On Saturday evening I witnessed an execution by lethal injection. OK, it wasn't a real execution, but an operatic one, terrifying nonetheless. A nervous but defiant "convict" stood center stage in a pair of underpants with a clearly visible diaper stuffed inside. His fear was palpable, his desperation permeated the theater as they dressed him in a white shirt and pants and strapped him to a gurney.  A nurse injected deadly substance into his arm. The audience stopped breathing.  Then his heartbeat, ticked off by a monitoring machine, began to slow down until it became a steady sound signaling death.   

The performance was Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, offered for the first time by the Washington National Opera. I am somewhat familiar with the work through a recording of the 2000 San Francisco production, but it did not prepare me for the impact this opera can have in a staged performance. Staggering!

Contemporary operas can be quite an ordeal to sit through. Composers are pressured to offer some new and groundbreaking concept, which usually means hard-to-like music, black-and-white scenography, and absolute absence of tradition. Melody is anathema. I came to Dead Man Walking almost directly from a performance of La Ciudad de las Mentiras (City of Lies) an opera by Elena Mendoza at Teatro Real in Madrid, which bore all these characteristics.

Stage set for La Ciudad de las Mentiras, Teatro Real, Madrid

Mendoza used four stories by Juan Carlos Onetti to explore theatrical and perhaps some musical possibilities, but her sopranos, tenors and baritones never sang. They recited lines from the stories so intertwined that only those familiar with Onetti's work could hope to understand what's going on. The English language surtitles kept the uninitiated out of a complete fog, and a written introduction gave some clarification, but I had to agree with a friend who argued that a work of art that needs so much explanation is not a good work of art. If Mendoza's singers did not sing, neither did the musicians played much music. At one point a man appeared on the stage with an accordion only to tap his hand on it a couple of times. An actor portraying a bartender scratched a metal tray with a knife, a piano player hit the keyboard a couple of times and the orchestra produced some "atmospheric" sound, sort of like a distant wind howling. Overall, it was an interesting, innovative stage production, but it was not an opera.

Dead Man Walking definitely is. Heggie did not veer off the traditional operatic structure, or as some would say formula, proving that what worked for Verdi and Puccini works for today's composers as well. The build-up, the drama, the climax - it was all there and it worked. It opens with a young couple frolicking by the lake to the sound of popular music, but disaster is already in the air. And it strikes swiftly. From then on the action moves energetically forward so the first act breezes through without any longueurs. Sister Helen's entry into the death row, with a chorus of men yelling profanities at her is a most powerful scene, musically and theatrically.

The second act starts with the title character, prisoner Joseph de Rocher, exercising in his cell to pass the time or to keep his muscles from trembling.  A great opening!  After that the energy drops and there are scenes, such as Sister Helen's conversation with Sister Rose, and her encounter with the convict's mother that one could do without. Tension returns to the stage full force with re-entry into Joseph's prison cell. He knows the hour of death is approaching and his desperation rises to a fever pitch.  Still defiant, but more dependent on Sister Helen's support, he finally feels compelled to confess his guilt. 

The death scene is one of the most powerful pieces of theater I've seen in recent years. I wish the opera ended right there. The final repeat of a religious song that served as a leitmotif throughout the opera was forgettable and unnecessary. In spite of minor quibbles (occasional clichés of sorrow and sentimentality) chapeau to Heggie and his librettist Terrence McNally for impressive work.

Kate Lindsey and Michael Mayes in WNO's Daed Man Walkong, photo Scott Suchman

In terms of production, this was one of the operas in which a simple, mostly black stage for once worked very well. The black scrim was lifted often enough to break the monotony and create a sense of movement. I usually don't pay much attention to lighting, but this time I thought it played a significant role in creating the right mood at the right time, whether it was camaraderie, anger, children's lightheartedness or dark depths of a tortured soul. Francesca Zambello, riding the wave of her recent success with Wagner's Ring, proved once again that she is an operatic force to be reckoned with.

Heggie's music is unapologetically beautiful throughout this opera, something that the audience loves and music critics condemn. It is the only modern opera I know in which the recitatives sound as good as the "arias" and blend seamlessly together. Dead Man Walking is unmistakingly American in the theme, language, and music expression. At times it sounds more like a musical than opera. But other than that, it was a classical opera in almost every sense. 

The singing and acting on Saturday were excellent throughout. In terms of voices, I would wish a stronger mezzo for the role of Sister Helen than the otherwise brilliant Kate Lindsey. Also, I am not sure if it was a good idea to cast Susan Graham next to her in a minor role. Graham reminded those familiar with the San Francisco recording of her outstanding interpretation of Sister Helen, and she overpowered Lindsey when they appeared together. Lindsey's Sister Helen was a gentle nun, different from the real life person the character was based on.  But such people can wield a power of their own quiet kind and so Lindsey's interpretation worked well, especially juxtaposed with Joseph's belligerence.

Dead Man Walking is one of the most frequently performed American operas at home and abroad, for a good reason. It is one of those works that makes you want to see it again in the same or a different production. Unlike Ciudad de las Mentiras, for example. It's an opera that you can just listen to without seeing it on stage, like La Forza del Destino or Porgy and Bess. If it does not break any new grounds, perhaps it proves that there is no need to keep fixing something that ain't broke. It's a pity WNO offered only four performances of what is arguably its most impressive production of the season, but I feel lucky that I caught the last one.

Wagner: The End of Gods

Wagner's two notable heroes, Siegfried and Parsifal, are both naive, straightforward and uneducated. But Siegfried, who seems more intelligent of the two, ends up duped and vanquished, while the dim-witted Parsifal learns to recognize the evil and resist it. Thus he earns the honor of joining the ranks of selected knights that guard the Holy Grail and, according to Wagner, sires another hero, Lohengrin. Siegfried perishes without glory or issue as a result of betrayal and his own errors.

If Siegfried's demise reminds you of Greek tragedy, there is a good reason for it. Other than the name Nibelung in the title, Wagner's tetralogy has little to do with medieval German poem Das Nibelunglied, and what it does have is contained in Götterdämmerung. Wagner's other sources include ancient Norse sagas, German mythology, classical fairy tales and, yes, Greek drama. His ability to compress and modify elements from divergent sources into a more or less coherent story continues to dazzle with its brilliance. The Nibelunglied's Siegfried was neither a product of an incestuous union, nor a lover of his aunt. He subdued and abducted Brünhilde for his prospective brother in law Gunther.  There are several older sagas that differ in their accounts of Siegfried (or Sigurd), but in Das Nibelunglied, Siegfried loved and married Krimhild, Götterdämmerung's Gutrune.

Wagner's Siegfried is physically strong, beautiful and intrepid. He is intelligent enough to figure out that Mime is not his father, he is able to forge a sword, something a much more experienced Mime cannot, and he knows where to inflict the most effective blow to kill Fafner. All of those skills have made him cocky and overconfident, but have not prepared him to deal with treachery. As a boy, Siegfried would have taken advice from Forest Bird, but as an adult he laughs off the warning from Rhein maidens that could have saved his life. His braggadocio is perhaps his biggest flaw and he pays for it dearly.
 
Brünhilde's case is a little more complex. Generally considered The Ring's larger-than-life heroine  - the savior of the world - she makes her share of mistakes before doing the right thing. Siegfried's betrayal seems unforgivable, but to plot with Hagen to kill him in revenge? That's bad manners even in the pre-historic era. In the end, she returns the cursed ring to its rightful owners, but on careful analysis it was Wotan's plan for her (remember Wotan's dialogue with Erda in Siegfried). Brünhilde's downfall began when she first refused to give up the ring, a token of love from Siegfried. The moment she held on to it, the curse kicked in: Siegfried accepted a doctored "refreshment" from Gutrune and fell prey to Hagen's plot. If Brünhilde is a hero, she is that because of the tragedies that befell her, rather than any grand deeds on her part. That seems to be the case with most Ring heroes - their appeal is in their failures more than in their accomplishments.

Götterdämmerung, the Norns

The last installment of The Ring cycle on Friday was a glorious end of the gods. Director Francesca Zambello, achieved the right balance between dream and reality. The Norns in the opening scene worked with electric cables instead of yarns, while they discussed the past, present and future, providing helpful information for those who missed the first three operas. A cable (aka rope of destiny) breaking at one point portends bad future. All three singers (Lindsay Ammann, Jamie Barton and Marcy Stonikas) were excellent and I hope we are spared yet another review labeling Wagner's narratives as "excruciatingly" long. Zambello has done a superb job of making the Norns scene somber, but lively. I love that prologue even when there is nothing on the stage, because it unveils another nuance of the story every time, but on Friday just examining details on the stage along with the music made it fly by.

In the next scene, we are back at the Valkyre's rock last seen in Siegfried. Catherine Foster and Daniel Brenna reprized the roles of Brünhilde and Siegfried. They seemed to sing with vigor, but it was hard to hear them over the orchestra.

Siegfried's Rhein journey is accompanied by somewhat abstract projections of flowing water, which is all that was needed. The Gibichung Hall was austere and elegant in black-and-white, and shades in between. Eric Halverson's Hagen was older than expected, but had a voice that no orchestra could overpower. His take on Gunther's conniving step brother was as good as one could wish, but completely different from Gidon Saks's portrayal in the WNO's 2009 concert performance. Saks was a more brooding and moody Hagen, who could be seductive, insinuating and commanding by turns - the most sexy Hagen I have ever seen. Halverson projected power and self confidence, and was more of a bully.

Götterdämmerung, Hunting Scene

Brenna's Siegfried changed from an inexperienced young man, a boy really, to a self-assured grown up which Siegfried had become through his relationship with Brünhilde. The former demi-godess taught him all she knew, she said, but that clearly did not include how to recognize deceit. Having lived mostly in isolation, Siegfried has poor social skills and makes his first sortie into the real world completely unprepared. He trusts the lying Gibichungs, but not the sincere river maidens. His memory is selective: he remembers that he has gained the ring by killing the dragon, but forgets all about Brünhilde. What a confused young man! Brenna was good in Siegfried, but affirmed himself definitively in the crucial death scene of Götterdämmerung. 

Foster was not my favorite Brünhilde. She may have done everything right but, as far as I am concerned,  failed to electrify with her presence. The weakest scene of the evening for me was the meeting between Brünhilde and Waltraute. Foster was more of a revengeful daughter than a woman in love, and Jamie Barton was neither a fierce Valkyre, nor a desperate daughter.

As Gutrune, Melissa Citro was simply lovely. Her seduction of Siegfried was a charming combination of tease and restraint, her desperation over his death genuine, her remorse at having been part of a ploy that killed him convincing.

Götterdämmerung, Hagen and Gutrune

The male chorus was excellent throughout. Conductor Philippe Auguin was impressive yet again, though he turned up the volume too high in more places than I would have liked.

Rhein maidens wading through the river full of trash was Zambello's environmental message, creative and effective. Less creative and somewhat kitschy was the closing scene in which a young girl comes to plant a tree next to the now cleansed river, as a symbol of new and better world coming after the departure of corrupt gods. 

I couldn't quite understand the meaning of barbed wires and watch towers projected in black-and-white in the background before the hunting scene.  Good reason to see the opera again.

The great thing about Wagner's Ring is that it fits into almost any time and place. It lends itself to diverse concepts, settings and interpretations more than any other opera I can think of, and every production reveals another layer worth exploring. 

Wotan can be a male chauvinist or a henpecked husband. He did seek wisdom from women - the Norns, Erda - but for advice on legal loopholes he turns to a male, Loge. Having once made a wrong choice, could he have stopped the downright spiraling and get back on the right path? 

And who is the real hero of The Ring?  Is it Siegmund who refused glory in the name of love, or is it the fearless Siegfried? Brünhilde the Valkyre, or Brünhilde the woman? There is no definitive answer to any of these questions, which allows everyone to find his or her own. Perhaps that's a secret ingredient of Wagner's lasting appeal.

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.

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. 

Cinderella And Other Fairy Tales

After more than 300 years the story of Cinderella continues to captivate, whether presented in a movie, opera, ballet or some other form.  Let me be quick to clarify that Cindy is not my favorite fairy tale character.  That honor goes to the princess who kissed a frog and turned him into a prince.  I have kissed a number of frogs in my life and none of them has turned into a prince, but I keep trying. However, I never miss a performance of Cinderella and always discover a new layer to the story.   

Maxim Mironov and Isabel Leonard in WNO's production of Rossini's opera Cinderella.

The other day I was passing by Kramerbooks store at Dupont Circle and noticed in the window a selection of children's storybooks. One was titled Everyone Poops and another The Gas We Pass: The story of Farts. Wow! They did not have those where I grew up. My first reading list comprised Grimm's, Anderson's and Perrault's fairy tales from which I advanced to Aesop and international folk stories.  In my teens I went through a period of obsession with the romanticized stories of the Wild West by Karl May and Zane Grey before graduating to the great classics.

Although I don't often see Perrault's tales in the children's sections of the dwindling number of the area's bookstores, I assume there must be an interest in them, judging by the number of kids at the Saturday premiere of WNO's Cinderella.

The production seems to be targeting young audiences and those young at heart. The colors and the design are over-the-top, screeching and at times ridiculous. But one can imagine a kid building a set like that from lego pieces, with costumes cut out from neon-colored paper. Note for example the prince's blue-and-white patterned shoes. Fussy but simple and geometric at the same time, like everything else in the show. The acting also was exaggerated and clearly meant to make you laugh even in the sad and tender moments. You could not take this Cinderella too seriously, at least not initially. It took time getting used to, but once I got "into it" it became great fun. The first really hilarious schtick was the arrival of the false prince on a white horse. I don't know if it's the same in other cultures, but in mine "the prince on a white horse" is the synonym for every woman's romantic dream of a man. Maxim Mironov's Don Ramiro was absolutely delightful. He looked like a confused young man with no experience with women. I imagine my son was like that on his first date. Isabel Leonard was not as charismatic for me in real life as she was in the Met broadcasts, but she sang beautifully.   The portrayers of the mean stepfather and his daughters, Dandini and other characters were all skilled entertainers both in terms of singing and acting, eliciting outbursts of spontaneous hilarity, with the exception of Shenyang whose Alidoro I thought was too serious for this production.

WNO's Cinderella, the Proposal Scene

Despite the emphasis on the comic, I found more depth in this production of Cinderella than I did in the Met's version a few years ago. Maybe it was the mismatch between the statuesque Elina Garanča at the time and her short and portly prince, maybe it was all the kitsch and confection in the more traditional production - but despite superb singing I never noticed then as I did this time that Angelina, aka Cinderella, was craving family. The playbill notes focus on her forgiveness and magnanimity, but to me she seemed more like a lonely woman who wanted to come to her prince from a home and a family.  Rossini's Cinderella wanted to bring an identity to her marriage, not just assume the husband's.   Even an unloving stepfather and two malicious step-sisters were better than no kin at all.

The not-quite-so-happy ending is a mixture of funny and serious like many other things in this production.  Angelina emerges from her reverie with a broom in her hand, a harsh reality that awaits many a young woman today when she wakes up.  Teenage girls might prefer the standard happy ending in Kenneth Branagh's new movie version of Cinderella. I appreciate that the British star director gave a new dimension to the wicked stepmother, portrayed aptly by Cate Blanchett. In this movie, she is a beautiful and elegant woman whose beloved husband died, forcing her to remarry. She is disappointed to learn that she is not as well loved by the second husband and it hurts even more to find herself impoverished after his death. She is still evil, but more human and easier to understand than a stereotypical fairy-tale stepmother. Branagh's Cinderella, on the other hand, is a girl with a cause, or at least a motto, not just a dreamer. But she is only a half-baked activist as if the director could not quite decide how much to intervene in the classic fairy tale. The sets in the movie are exceedingly Disney-like and gaudy, complete with a pumpkin turning into a carriage, lizards into footmen, glass shoes and tons of tulle. One expected more creativity from a Kenneth Branagh.

Opera in the Outfield

The Washington National Opera has chosen a formula which worked successfully last year with The Magic Flute free-for-all in the  Nationals baseball park.  Various operatic characters walked into the outfield to mingle with the audience and engage the kids.  The production including Jun Kaneko's playful costumes was a hit with the area families.  This year, you can expect Cinderella's mice  (or are they rats?) to greet you on arrival.

It is clear that such a vision of Rossini's opera does not agree with the music critic I saw run out of the theater as soon as the curtain hit the floor. I knew what to expect in her review the next day and she did not disappoint: a slew of poisoned arrows rained from Mount Olympus. But there are many who applaud WNO's Francesca Zambello for bringing approachable opera to the backyard of many families who would never see it otherwise.  The classic fairy tales presented in the way kids can understand teach them to dream of a world in which the good always wins and the evil is punished, something that stories about bodily functions do not.

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.