Zambello Shines With WNO's New Elektra

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elektra and Chrysothemis, Photo: Scott Such

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

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

Klytämnestra towering over Elektra, Photo credit: Scott Suchman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The return of Orest, Photo credit: Scott Suchman

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

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

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

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

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

About Bernstein's Mass

The revival of Bernstein's Mass at a venue where it saw its 1971 world premiere has been touted as a grand event by the Kennedy Center, a cultural monument celebrating half a century of its own existence. The work's description as a "piece for singers, players and dancers" clarifies that it is not a traditional mass, which usually comprises six parts: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. I had not seen or heard Bernstein's piece before its anniversary night on Thursday, and decided to look at it with an open mind, without extensive research ahead of the performance. I expected to be surprised and in some ways I was.

Photo: Scott Suchman

The piece opens with a fairly modern sound as the priest comes on the stage and greets the faithful who are praying quietly in the pews. The audience is looking into a church setting from the view one would get from behind the altar, facing the choir at the far end. As the stage turns dark, the light comes from lamps high above that look like Chinese lanterns, while a percussion instrument makes a tinkling beat that brings to mind sounds from Puccini's Turandot. This brief introduction is followed by a more or less traditional Kyrie Eleison, as in any Catholic mass. Bernstein's Kyrie was particularly beautiful, auguring good things to come. The solo Simple Song switches to a tune more akin to Broadway than church, despite its psalmodic verse. The repetition of "lauda, laude" made me squirm, but Will Liverman's interpretation uplifted the uninspired verse.

The harmonized chorale, reminiscent of the great masses of the past, was sublime as were all the other parts performed by the Heritage Signature Chorale. The dancers swaying back and forth on the stage did not add value to the performance, but were not intrusive either. They seemed rather like spirits swirling around the church, or perhaps in the parishioners' minds?

The first real surprise came with the appearance of the "street chorus," representing ordinary people who express their anger at a God who does not seem to hear their prayers for peace in the chaotic world. They taunt the priest, ridicule his homily and interrupt the mass. Coming in from all sides of the stage as well as the auditorium, they look and act as if they have just walked out of Bernstein's famous West Side Story.  Several stand out with gorgeous solo numbers, a mixture of rock, jazz and blues styles, notably soprano Meroë Khalia Adeeb, performing artist-singer Curtis Bannister, Mexican mezzo-soprano Sishel Claverie and bass Matt Boehler, among others.

Photo: Scott Suchman

The orchestral meditation brought back contemplative calm and a return to the order of the Latin Mass.  Liverman sang Gloria in his best voice of the evening. Mass continued with the remainder of its traditional parts, interspersed with Broadway-style solo and choral numbers, and dancing.  A boy soprano sang a wistful aria, much like a shepherd boy at the opening of the third act of Puccini's Tosca. It was hard to imagine what could have offended so many Catholics, at least until the Mass was performed at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II.

After so much - maybe too much - of a good thing, fatigue kicked in.  By the time Mass arrived at the Lord's Prayer, Liverman sounded course and I don't think it was intentional. 

The ambitious work then takes another new turn, a surprise one could say. As the priest prepares the congregation for the communion he is hit by a personal crisis of faith. He interrupts his prayer and smashes the chalice with wine, which represents Christ's blood, lamenting the wrong color of the blood. He is aware that "half of the world is drowned and the other is swimming in the wrong direction" as he had noted earlier, and he can do nothing about it. So he now mocks his congregants. 

One gets a distinct feeling that Bernstein's inspiration was exhausted by that point. The scene which was supposed to be revolutionary, and that probably angered the faithful at the premiere, turned into a real drag. Instead of inspiring compassion, the quasi-operatic episode did nothing more than cause mild annoyance and urgent desire for a swift conclusion, which comes only after the faith of the congregation is reaffirmed. When the roughly two hours of performance without intermission closed with spoken words "The Mass is ended," without the traditional "go in peace to love and serve the Lord," all everyone wanted to do was rush to the nearest restroom.

Artists who worked with Bernstain cite limited time to complete the piece in time for the opening. The latter part of Mass reflects some of that pressure. The composition which flows with ease in the first half, despite switches between various genres, becomes more and more strained in the second half. The work would have benefited from extra time for revisions. Some of the most popular operas we enjoy today came to us in their second or third version.

Photo: Scott Suchman

Since Bernstein did not set out to compose a liturgical work, but as the subtitle says "a theater piece," was it really necessary to include all the parts of the Latin mass, albeit in an abbreviated form?  Bernstein's work was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy, a Catholic, for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971, at the  time when the U.S. was mired in the Vietnam War. There was a strong anti-war sentiment in the country and in the world. Many people could not reconcile their faith with the news from the front. Bernstein's Mass addressed some of that confusion, but according to him, the piece is a "celebration of life." 

The question surrounding the revival of a 50-plus old work is: how relevant is it today? The US has just come out of the protracted war in Afghanistan, is still under the shadow of Covid pandemic, climate change is wreaking havoc worldwide, and the  political divisions seem overwhelming. When the priest says "half of the world is drowned and the other half is swimming in the wrong direction," it resonates with the audience who privately thinks the same. And even though the critics have panned some of lyricist Stephen Schwartz's pithy lines, I could not agree more with "half of the people are dead and the other half are not voting."

So yes, Bernstein's Mass is as relevant today as it was half a century ago. It is an impressive piece, worth seeing at least once in a lifetime. With a few revisions, it could have been so much more. As it is, the mix of genres praised by Berstein fans sometimes feels more like a mishmash of material that needs good editing. If you have ever looked at maximalist home decor, you will have seen some rooms packed with eclectic styles working so well together that you would want to be invited to tea there, while others seem as cluttered as a storage room. Bernstein's piece in the end reminded me of some of the less successful attempts at maximalism. If he had had the opportunity to make the work more cohesive with a few strategic cuts, reworking some of the weaker segments, adding gravitas to others,  Mass could have been a real magnum opus. As it is, at least for this reviewer, West Side Story remains Bernstein's most successful work.

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. 

Arts and Culture in the Post-Covid Era

Sometime in May Washington area's music organizations started selling tickets for tentatively scheduled live summer concerts. The first sales went very much like the early offers of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. You had to get your computer ready ahead of the appointed start of the ticket sales and jump in as quickly as you could into the organization's website. The battle for a seat, or rather seats since individual tickets were not available, was as fierce as the battle for a vaccine in January and February. The experience reminded me of my youth in former Yugoslavia, where often we had to line up and fight for our share of coffee, tooth paste, toilet paper or some other scarce commodity.

The first concert to line up for as the Covid restrictions eased in May was the National Symphony Orchestra's performance at the Kennedy Center, featuring Russian virtuoso pianist Daniil Trifonov. The immediate obstacle was logging into my account. The website kept rejecting my user name and password. If I tried to get in as a guest, I was able to move two seats into the shopping bin, but when I reached the payment page the frustration continued. The system automatically added a $50 donation to your bill, which theoretically you could refuse, but when you did, your seats disappeared from the shopping basket. My friend was trying simultaneously on her lap top with the same result. We concluded that only people who agreed to pay the donation could purchase tickets. By the time we figured that out, all the tickets were gone. 

I managed to obtain a ticket through a different channel and saw what had sparked the fierce battle for seats. Out of 2,500 the Kennedy Center filled only about 260.  

Kennedy Center Concert Hall, May 28, 2021, photo: Z. Hoke

The small group of patrons ushered into the concert hall spoke in hushed tones as if going to a funeral.  Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter struck a cheerful note with brightly colored clothes, better suited for a summer lunch al fresco than a Friday evening concert. She thanked the patrons for coming, seemingly oblivious of the struggle they had gone through to win the honor.

On arrival to the podium, Maestro Gianandrea Noseda was so emotional that he cut  his greeting short. Overall, the event, with a drastically reduced orchestra as well as the audience, had the aura of a rehearsal rather than a real concert, but when the music started, the magic of yore returned.

The opening set was Four Noveletten, a rarely heard work by black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. U.S. music organizations are now including at least one piece by a black composer in every new program to make up for years of neglect of African-American talent. The Coleridge-Taylor piece and Haydn's Symphony No. 95 that framed Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.1 were pleasant, fluffy and forgettable in the face of the powerful piece performed by masters such as Trifonov at the piano and William Gerlach with the trumpet. 

GianandrGianandrea Noseda conducting NSO's forst 2021 concert, Photo: Scott Suchman

The second NSO concert on June 3 was designed to entertain. Called "surprise", it did not reveal the program except to say that Maestro Noseda would engage with the audience. Perhaps that's why it was a little easier to get the tickets. I expected a list of popular short pieces by well known composers, but I should have given more credit to Noseda. In many ways, the event was more fun than a usual classical music concert because it comprised six pieces that were either written by little known composers or were obscure pieces by well known composers. Noseda was in a cheerful mood as he made the audience guess what the orchestra was playing. Again, he opened with a black composer, William Grant Still. I had never heard Still's Serenade before, but was able to recognize that the music was American. I even whispered to my companion: "sounds like old Hollywood." As it turned out, Still had written arrangements for Hollywood musicals. 

The program included another black composer, Washington D.C. native George Walker, with his Lyric for Strings. Richard Strauss, Samuel Barber and Ottorino Respighi were probably the best known composers in the program, while Still, Walker and Italian Giovanni Bottesini were lesser known. Bottesini, dubbed the "Paganini of the double bass" is credited with developing bass technique that has opened up people's eyes (or ears) to the instrument's versatility.  NSO's, principal double-bass Robert Oppelt was given the opportunity to shine in Bottesini's Elegy No. 1 for Bass and Strings.

Noseda also showcased the orchestra's clarinetist Lin Ma, bassoonist Sue Heineman and harpist Adriana Horne in Strauss's Duet-Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon with String Orchestra and Harp.

The most exciting piece for me was the closing, Respighi's Gli ucelli (Birds) whose tune I recognized immediately and could hum along all its five movements, but could not guess what it was. Don't you hate it when that happens?

The NSO will perform in Wolf Trap later this month, introducing another rare piece, The Anonymous Lover by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges from 1870, another black composer.  How I would love to be there, but I'll be away.  I will return to Wolf  Trap in July after a two-year absence. The tickets for the two concerts I plan to attend were sold in "pods" of two to eight. While the small audiences at the Kennedy Center concerts felt sad despite the obvious advantages (no rustling of cough-drop wraps, or patrons sucking at their water bottles right next to your ear) a smaller audience at Wolf Trap's Filene Center will be a blessing. For years I have eschewed the mass shows there, opting instead for a more intimate setting at the Barns. But this summer that option is not available.

Museums also are reopening to a reduced number of visitors and shorter hours. The need to secure timed passes eliminates the spontaneity of going to see art when you feel like it. After three years of waiting (nothing to do with Covid) and several letters of complaint, I managed to obtain passes for the National Museum of African American History and Culture for June 30. Who knows if it will be hot or pouring on that day, whether I will have a headache, or whether I will feel like doing something entirely different, but June 30 it is and I should count my blessings.

The pandemic has taught me lessons: not to take free museums in DC for granted, to feel privileged when I am able to attend a concert or visit a museum, and to prepare physically and mentally for the cultural event I am seeing. Arts and culture deserve our full attention and appreciation, which we often forget when they are easily accessible. 

Opera in the Time of Coronavirus

This is a preview of my article written for the Washington Opera Society Magazine, June 2020 issue.

Arts organizations, especially opera houses, have put up a heroic fight to stay relevant during the pandemic, primarily by offering free streaming of their best stage productions. Individual artists have done their part by posting highlights from their repertoire in the social media and participating in organized outreach programs. The excuse of not seeing opera because of its prohibitive ticket prices is no longer valid.

No other opera company has done more than New York’s Metropolitan with its nightly presentation of Live in HD series on its web site, that includes such rarities as Berlioz’s Les Troyens and popular works like L’elisir d’amore, interspersed with memorable historic productions of La bohème, La sonnabula and Tosca. In addition, the Met is offering a free 8-week Opera Global Summer Camp via Google and Zoom classrooms, from June 15 to August 7.

Even smaller educational outlets, such as the Castleton Festival in Virginia, have made their productions available free online. Puccini's La fanciulla del West stands out.

The end of the COVID-19 crisis, unfortunately does not mean the end of problems for the performing arts that depend on large audiences.

Social distancing and other restrictions have forced the Metropolitan Opera to cancel all performances until the end of the year, including a new staging of the opening night Aida with Anna Netrebko. 

"The health and safety of our company members and our audience is our top priority, and it is simply not feasible to return to the opera house for a September opening while social distancing remains a requirement,” General Manager Peter Gelb said.

The company had earlier cancelled its planned premiere of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, while the new productions of Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte had been postponed to future seasons. All the performances of Die Zauberflöte will feature Julie Taymor's production, rather than the new production by Simon McBurney originally announced. The revival will be part of the December 31 opening night and social gala.

On the positive note, the Met still intends to go ahead with its premiere of Jake Heggie’s modern opera Dead Man Walking. Netrebko appears to be forging ahead with preparations for her debut as Abigaille in Nabucco. She posted a video of a rehearsal session for the role at her home in Vienna.

The Washington National Opera is scheduled to open its 2020-2021 season with a new production of Beethoven's Fidelio on October 24, in celebration of the composer's 250th birthday. The season is to follow with a new production of John Adams’s Nixon in China, as well as Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov and an “American opera initiative.” But at the time of writing this article, the company was still waiting for guidance from federal and local and health experts on when and in what manner it will be safe to resume. The Kennedy Center press office told the Washington Opera Society that “we do anticipate changes to our previously announced programming."

The 2019-2020 WNO season was cut short just ahead of the Washington premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Blue, a work that grapples with a contemporary tragedy — the killing of an unarmed black man at the hands of a police officer. There could be no better time to show it than now, and one would hope the company will modify its fall season to include Blue.

Washington Concert Opera has confirmed plans to perform Rosini’s Maometto II on November 22 and Bellini’s I puritani in May of next year at the Lisner Auditorium, and is adding Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, which was cancelled in the spring due to the health crisis.

MButterfly, a brand new work by talented Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo will not see its world premiere in Santa Fe this summer since its summer festival has been cancelled. The Wolf Trap, the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and many other summer opera groups also have cancelled all performances.

Seattle Opera has also reached a moment of reckoning, announcing this week the cancellation of its first opera of the 2020/2021 season: Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci. The cancellation represents a loss of work for more than 220 singers, crew, and musicians in addition to the almost 60 percent of its administrative staff that has been furloughed.

“It is a deeply painful moment for us as a company, region, and world,” said General Director Christina Scheppelmann, one time director of the WNO. 

Theaters worldwide have been forced to reimagine their summer and fall seasons amid financial and other post-COVID restrictions.

Italy’s Teatro alla Scala in Milan had planned a grand fall season with 15 opera titles. But instead of conducting Tosca on the opening night in September, Riccardo Chailly will deliver Verdi’s Requiem in honor of the victims of COVID-19, as Toscanini did in May of 1946 to reopen the theater after World War II. The company has announced a new lineup including revivals of La bohème and La traviata, which had not been previously scheduled, but it is not clear what the whole season will look like.

The management of the Opera of Rome announced that it is cancelling its fall season due to the restrictions in closed venues.

The San Carlo Theater of Naples has announced a summer season featuring two concert opera performances at a central city square in July:  Tosca with Anna Netrebko and husband Yusif Eyvazov and Aida with Jonas Kaufmann. Live streaming will make both available to audiences around the world.

The Royal Opera House in London had planned Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Händel’s Ariodante and Janaček’s Věc Makropulos among its offerings for the fall season, but the company has yet to announce if and when it might reopen. And just this week ROH chief executive Alex Beard said the company will "not last beyond autumn with current reserves."

The Paris Opera was forced to cancel new productions even before the pandemic amid a series of strikes in the French capital. Between December and January, the company cancelled more than 70 performances and lost about 15 million euros. It expects to lose another 40 million euros as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company's two venues, Palais Garnier and Opera Bastille, are hoping to re-open in the fall, but the schedule could be heavily disrupted according to the company’s general director, Stéphane Lissner.

“It’s impossible to attract 2,700 people and respect distancing. It’s impossible to maintain distances in the orchestra, the chorus… It’s impossible. We are waiting on a vaccine, medication… Maybe the virus disappears. We have to be optimistic,” said Lissner.

Germany's legendary Bayreuth Festival has been cancelled for this summer and patrons are being reimbursed or can use the tickets for the 2021 festival.

The lockdown of concert halls and opera houses, cuts in air travel and other restrictions have devastated careers and livelihood of artists worldwide. Star tenor Jonas Kaufmann started a petition in April, calling on European politicians to support the performing arts. “What is Germany, for example, other than language, culture, art, architecture, music and…well, also football ? This is the essence of our society. If you destroy that, what is left?” said Kaufmann.

European arts organizations can actually count on some financial support from the state, since culture in Europe is generally considered essential to a personal well-being. Germany, for example, approved an initial relief package of $54 billion for freelance artists and businesses in the cultural, creative, and media sectors at the end of March. Cultural ministers of all 16 states are now asking Berlin for additional funds to keep culture alive and thriving.

That idea is strange to the U.S. political establishment, which has been steadily cutting down funds for art institutions and education for decades, making art dependable on rich donors. There is no doubt, however, that American arts organizations, especially opera companies large and small, will survive the pandemic thanks to determined performing art professionals and their passionate audiences.

“Our mission is to draw our community together through opera, a unique blend of music and drama that speaks to the mind and spirit—especially in difficult times like these,” Seattle Opera's Scheppelmann said.

Kennedy Center's Reach - Compounding the Failure

The Kennedy Center is an embodiment of the disconnect between the rich and the other Americans. Perched on a plinth overlooking the Potomac River, the Watergate complex and the Saudi Embassy, and encircled by highways, the original building is as separated from the rest of the city as if it were on an island. With a grand staircase leading up to it, the gleaming white marble facade and gilded pillars, it could be a temple, a shining city on the hill or just a mirage, visible, but hard to reach. Its $250-million new expansion project, dubbed the Reach, aims to change that.  

View of the Kennedy Center from the south lawn, featuring Joel Shapiro sculpture Blue

The Kennedy Center has always felt more like a mausoleum to the 35th American president than the nation's center for the performing arts, which it purports to be. For years its managers, the board and the wealthy donors have struggled to bring it to life, attract people of every walk of life and dispel its image as an institution for the elites. They have staged musicals such as Maleficent and Aladdin, free Messiah sing-alongs, New Year's balls and exhibits. They created the Millennium Stage - a program of free performances by never-before-heard-of artists on two stages, each at one end of a huge hallway outside the three main performance halls. And now the Reach, which promises even more variety.

The annex is a bit of an architectural wonder with its three super-modern pavilions scattered over a smallish lawn, landscaped with indigenous grasses and a rectangular pond. A bridge running across Rock Creek Parkway connects the Reach with the river-bank promenade. There is also a video wall for future, presumably free shows. The tree moderate size buildings -  Welcome Pavilion, Skylight Pavilion and River Pavilion - contain surprisingly many large rehearsal and conference rooms, theaters and halls, because the structures spread into the ground. Huge widows and glass walls ensure they get enough light.

To introduce the "historic" expansion to the public, the Kennedy Center staged a two-week opening festival with free events. A visit required an online reservation and a timed-entry pass. I was not planning to go, but while looking for some ballet tickets, I ran into the page for the Reach passes and decided on the spur of the moment to go with a friend since the passes were - surprisingly -available. They did come with a warning that "all performances and events are first-come, first-served general admission until venue capacity has been reached." 

As it happened, last Thursday morning there were no lines. In fact there was no one. The organizers clearly expected crowds because there were two cordoned lanes leading to four or five gates with metal-detectors, controlling the access to the Reach area. One of the guards at the start of a lane looked at our printed passes and sent us back into the main building where, he said, we needed to sign up for real passes. We returned to the Kennedy Center entrance, bewildered and nor really clear what to look for, but a girl in a red T-shirt came up, checked our home-printed passes and said they were valid. We just needed to go out and stand in line, she explained. "What line?" we asked, "there are no lines. There are no people." She insisted that the empty lanes were lines and after some back and forth we got past the guards, through the metal detectors and to the door of the first new building. 

Kennedy Center's Reach expansion on the south lawn

A person at the door said we had to sign up for a 3-D presentation and wait. I thought we would be shown a 20-30-minutes introductory video with information about the project and its purpose. Instead, we were ushered into a room with round tables and swivel chairs, each equipped with three gadgets: a 3-D virtual reality headset, headphones and a remote control. While struggling to hold on to the two wiggly pieces on my head with one hand, I was feeling my lap for the remote control with the other to start one of the six video clips. Managed to play a clip from the Lion King musical, a very grainy one, but still providing a good glimpse into what seems to be a fun production. The next piece, a ballet from Sweden, freaked me out with its Lilliputian-size 3-D dancers who seemed to be emerging from under my feet. Skipping to the next video proved impossible before finishing the one you started (Honey, you can't get the desert before you finish your broccoli!) Just as I pulled the gadgets off my head in frustration, my fried did the same and said, "I am ready to go when you are."

3-D gadgetry at the Reach opening festival

Outside the gadgetry room, a KC employee or volunteer asked about our impressions. We said the video was grainy, the gadgets didn't work well and we still were not clear what the project was about. She launched into a speech about connecting with the community, making art accessible, reaching out to people instead of asking them to come in, and the usual spiel spewed by promoters of newly opened art institutions. But the lady showed us around the building and gave some orientation, however meager it may have been. Most of the rooms deep below us were empty except for a presentation to a group of students that we could see but not hear through a glass wall. One room contained electronic drawing booths that project images of drawings made in them on a big wall. Something kids might like to do.

Rich annex pavilions are mostly under ground.

From that building we proceeded through a lovely open space, along the pond to the next, smaller pavilion that houses a snack shop and a conference room where several chefs were conducting a workshop. It was probably one of the festival events that we were not guaranteed an entry to. On the way, we looked back on the original Kennedy Center to see newly installed Joel Shapiro's sculpture Blue, a gift from the artist.

The most prominent indoor piece of art was a video screen displaying the names of the donors - one percent of the one percenters. A leaflet picked up at the entrance showed there were other pieces of art, most of them on loan, such as Roy Lichtenstein's Brushstroke. A lengthy piece of canvas hanging in one room, which I had thought was a used drop cloth, turned out to be a piece of art by someone named Sam Gilliam.


Bridge connecting KC's Reach annex with Potomac River promenade.

I thought the bridge was a good idea, but wondered whether anyone could come up from the riverside promenade, considering how heavily guarded the main entrance to the annex was. We did not check. On that gorgeous Thursday morning the two 99-percenters decided to descend from the shining city on the hill into the plebeian valley below to enjoy a much better espresso in a more relaxed milieu.

I am not sure how soon I'll return to the Reach (what a weird name!). The place is gorgeous but not inviting, especially not with metal detectors and (as I discovered the next day), security guards at the entrance to the bridge. Nothing I've learned about the Reach concept, or a lack thereof, during this first visit looked promising. I would not be surprised if the project turned out to be a variation of the Millennium Stage, which for me only means having to elbow my way into a performance hall through the foyer filled with psychedelic-rock and flying-dancer crowds. 

The Reach concept is not well defined

I blame much of it on Placido Domingo. Everybody is ganging up on him these days, why shouldn't I. Not that he has ever harassed me, or anything. But he had a downtown Woodward and Lothrope building handed to him on a platter in the late 1990s to turn it into an opera house. The conversion was estimated at a little over $100 million and the city fathers' arms were twisted to grant a zoning permit. And then Domingo went and made a deal with the Kennedy Center to stay with them, and the building was sold to someone else. I wanted to howl. Now, instead of hopping on the metro that would take me straight into the opera house, I have to schlep across the wasteland between the George Washington Hospital, the Watergate and the avenues converging at Juarez Memorial, and fight the vagaries of Washington's weather.

It was another thing in the 1970s when most people lived in the suburbs and Washington DC had no night life. You could park anywhere. When I first visited the city in 1978, my hosts took me to see the musical Annie at the National Theater on Pennsylvania Avenue. We drove into the city from Annandale, Virginia, parked on the almost empty street right outside the theater (no meters, of course) and when we got out, the place was dark and deserted except for the patrons exiting the theater. Today, no one could pay me to drive through any part of Washington D.C. on Saturday, least of all Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Kennedy Center, with its expensive parking and a free but infrequent shuttle from and to the metro is not a place where people want to converge without a compelling reason. The only nearby restaurant is a pizzeria-café at the Watergate. The KC cafeteria is an elevator-ride away on the roof terrace and always crowded. The full-service upscale restaurant on the same floor is too expensive for most patrons. The market-style stalls in the main foyer sell sandwiches, brownies and beverages that have to be consumed on your feet or, if the weather permits, outside on the riverside terrace, which has only recently got some tables and chairs.

So I can't help but think that all the money squandered on keeping the Kennedy Center alive could have been better spent on making a new performing art complex from scratch, in a more accessible part of town, where it could attract other businesses and art groups, and infuse new life into a larger area. I do have faith in our one-percenters though: as they accumulate wealth, they'll need new screens and walls to display their names and maybe, just maybe, they'll sponsor a better project, like the donor of the Woodward and Lothrope building wanted to. Let's just hope another recipient will seize the opportunity.

Kennedy Center 2019-2020: Something Old, Something New ....

Washington's premiere performing arts center has announced its upcoming season of opera and music concerts. The programs include something tried and true, i.e. old, and something never before performed at the Kennedy Center, i.e. new. There is a lot that could be characterized as borrowed, at least in terms of repertoire, and there is even something blue. I don't know if the wedding theme was intentional - probably not - but that's the first association that came to my mind as I perused the press material.

The National Symphony Orchestra led by Maestro Gianandrea Noseda seems to be living up to the expectation that it is ready to reinvigorate the staid Washington's classical music scene.  What a pleasant surprise to see the inclusion of Poulenc's Litanies à la Vierge Noire in a concert of choral music. I was introduced to that jewel of sacred music years ago by the composer's grand nephew, or great grand nephew, who lived in the US at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTXf4wJ9xD0

Chris Poulenc made a documentary about his famous ancestor and about the Rocamadour pilgrimage site, which is the home to the title's Black Virgin - black from years of candle smoke. He conveyed that Poulenc had become very religious after the tragic death of his close friend, composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud in a 1936 car accident.  Litanies, written in the same year, was Poulenc's first sacred work to be followed by such masterpieces as Stabat Mater, Gloria, Mass in G and finally Dialogues des Carmélites. Poulenc is not a rarity in Washington where one or another of his works shows up in a program every time a music organization feels the need to include a 20th-century piece. 

Noseda convinced me of being special when he included a segment from Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet (why not the whole piece?) in the NSO's Valentine Day concert. Unlike Poulenc, Berlioz is virtually shunned by the Washington D.C. classical music organizations, who seem to believe that they can fill the halls with a staple diet of "three B's" and Mozart, interspersed with an occasional Poulenc or Shostakovich. In 1997, Leonard Slatkin, then NSO director, proved otherwise.

Through what must have been a super human effort, Slatkin managed to bring Berlioz's monumental Requiem to Washington's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, with the participation of several area ensembles, orchestras and choirs.  The cavernous church (one of the largest in the world) was packed for both performances and people traveled from far and wide to attend the historic undertaking.
 
It was too much to hope that Romeo and Juliet Suite, from the current season, would be followed by a complete Berlioz work in the coming season. One suspects, the suite made its way into the February 14 and 16 concerts by virtue of its name. 

Still, the NSO is offering some rarely performed or brand new pieces, notably by American composers.  The new season also includes what promises to be a thrilling operatic evening, featuring Act II of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde with soprano Christine Goerke, mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova, tenor Stephen Goeld and others.  And of course a lot of the old, but good, such as all nine of Beethoven's symphonies.

Now we come to something borrowed and something blue. The Washington National Opera is to be commended for its effort to stage the latest that there is on the U.S. operatic scene. This year's work is Jeanine Tesori's opera Blue (yes, that's the blue I've been referring to), set in Harlem and based on literature and contemporary events. A black policeman has to deal with the killing of his teenage son by a white policeman. Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, says she feels that art organizations have a responsibility to explore contemporary issues. 

However, some of the new works the WNO presented in recent years dig into history: Appomatox by Philip Glass and Silent Night by Kevin Puts, come to mind. Nevertheless, most of them offer something well worth seeing in comparison, for example, with WNO's recent production of Aida which, as seen in the National's ballpark, was simply awful. 

Apart from Blue, the new opera season, touting an expanded program of six "spectacular" productions, does not strike me as irresistible. At least not on the paper. We live in an era of live Met broadcasts, and opera-ballet-drama in cinema with top-notch performances from around the world. We saw the Met's new Otello last year, and an old one (Botha/Fleming) before that. The Magic Flute re-occurs in encores year after year for those who missed it the first time, or whose kids have just now reached the age when they can sit through it. In recent years, we saw Mariusz Kwiecien's sexy Don Gionvanni, and just a couple of months ago an innovative and exciting new production of Samson and Delilah. Sure, a broadcast cannot compare with a live performance. (Or can it?) But after seeing Alagna and Garanča in a Met simulcast, and while the memory of Olga Borodina's electrifying Delilah, paired with Carl Tanner's unimpressive Samson in the previous WNO production, still lingers in mind, how many people are going to flock to the Kennedy Center to see Roberto Aronica and J'Nai Bridges? Who will rush to Porgy and Bess, which is still remembered from the WNO's 2005 season? And especially after the Met shows its Porgy and Bess in cinemas in February. 

Washington must be forever grateful to Francesca Zambello for bringing the complete Wagner Ring to us in 2016, an achievement hard to match by any subsequent effort. But a company with "national" in its name should not rely on a repertoire of recycled war horses, dressed in new costumes, packaged in ever sparser stage settings and peopled with performers at the start or the end of their careers - rarely real stars.

Instead of looking to the Met, the WNO would do well to borrow some ideas from other local companies.  The Washington Concert Opera is well aware that it cannot compete with big houses and so it's director Antony Walker offers something entirely different:  rarely performed works by well known composers. Walker's formula which pairs gorgeous music with fresh new voices is almost fool-proof and has served him well for years.  Opera Lafayette is devoted to 17th and 18th-century French pieces and is doing so well that most of its performances get recorded on Naxos. 

An opera company performing at the Kennedy Center has to do better in creating its own distinctive brand.