Wolf Trap Opera's Emperor of Atlantis

The Wolf Trap Opera's performance of a double bill titled The World Upside Down on Saturday drove home what has long been at the back of my mind: that the company has developed into the area's most creative artistic organization, in some ways probably the best.  If there had been any lingering doubt about the WTO's excellence before, the production of Viktor Ullmann's The Emperor of Atlantis paired with Gluck's comic piece Merlin's Island removed it.
 
Created in the Theresienstadt Nazi concentration camp just a year before Ullman's death in a gas chamber in Auschwitz in 1944, The Emperor of Atlantis is an hour-long piece comprising four scenes and 20 musical sections.  The music combines several genres, ranging from Bach-style oratorio and German folk song to contemporary styles and the orchestration is for 14 instruments, including a banjo, probably representing what was available in the camp. The work is styled roughly after the Italian commedia dell'arte in that it opens with a character, called Loudspeaker, introducing the players: Harlekin, Death, Emperor Overall, Drummer, Soldier and Girl. Like in commedia dell'arte, the characters represent certain social types, but that's where the similarity ends. The latter part of the original German title, Der Keiser von Atlantis, oder die Tod-Verweigerung, translated in turn as The Refusal to Die, The Denial of Death or Death Goes on Strike, augurs a somber theme.

Emperor Overall and Death in Wolf Trap Opera's Emperor of Atlantis

Written in 1943, the one-act opera echoes the chaos of the world swept in a global war and the insanity of the final years of the Nazi era. A mad ruler declares a universal war in which no one is to survive. Death is offended because deciding who will die is his mission and he also feels that mass killing diminishes his glory. Therefore, he refuses to act on Overall's orders. As a result no one dies and the world turns upside down. Enemies embrace and dance together, people fall in love and stop obeying Emperor's commands, conveyed through the Drummer. Harlekin bemoans the loss of natural order with tears in his eyes. Death says he will resume work only on condition that Emperor dies first. The ruler relents and agrees to die so Death can restore order. The opera ends with a quartet singing, “Come, Death, our honored guest…Lift life’s burdens from us,” words especially poignant coming from Ullman and his librettist Petr Kien shortly before they were sent to their own gruesome deaths.

Nazi authorities banned the performance after a dress rehearsal and the work was not staged before 1975 in a Dutch theater. 

I first saw The Emperor of Atlantis when it premiered in Washington's Holocaust Museum in 1998 to mark the centenary of Ullmann's birth. The award-winning production by the Austrian group Arbos was suitably solemn for the occasion. The stage was dark and sparse, the costumes solid gray or  striped like the uniforms of camp prisoners. The impact was powerful and depressing. I didn't think I would ever see it again.

More than 20 years later, I could barely remember where and why I had seen The Emperor the first time. But I knew I had a recording of the production which was given to me by a visiting artist whom I had interviewed and that CD helped bring the memory back. I was impressed by the WTO's choice of such a rare and harrowing piece and curious what its creative team would make of it. As I should have expected, what it did make was outstanding. 

Unlike Arbos, the WTO highlighted the satirical side of the work, without turning it into a comic parody. The silliness went away with Gluck's little known introductory piece Merlin's Island, about two shipwrecked men stranded on an island where social mores differ from theirs. Men are thrown in jail if they are not faithful, all businesses are honest, court cases are decided on the basis of common sense, and wisdom is found in laughter. Yet the two short operas worked well together, each enhancing the other.

The glittering tinsel backdrop and a playground slide from Merlin's Island segued into in Ullman's piece, but were lit in dark hues. The emperor's office was superimposed above the black tinsel curtain and characters descended on the stage from the slide, then disappeared through the strips of tinsel as the situation required. While most were dressed in neutral colors, gray, khaki, beige and white, each also wore a red or a sparkling accessory, such as the red bullhorn on the Loudspeaker's head and a red ruff around Harlekin's neck.  The characters were generally energetic and rebellious as opposed to being sad or depressed. They conveyed the madness of the world they inhabited as well as resilience that enabled them to overcome it.

I have always felt that a good work of art must be uplifting even if it deals with a most tragic of topics. Instead of beating me down, the WTO's performance of The Emperor of Atlantis left me feeling energized and optimistic, most of all impressed. What a powerful and memorable production by a relatively small company! Kudos to the WTO's creative team! Details from the performance are still swirling in my mind: Death wailing that people used to  dress up for him, Loudspeaker telling the emperor of a strange disease befalling soldiers that prevents them from dying, Emperor Overall declaring the people should be grateful to him for sending them to eternity....

The first WTO opera I saw at the Barns at Wolf Trap was Rameau's Dardanus in 2003. Since then, I have gone back almost every summer to see at least one of the season's productions, whenever possible choosing operas I have not seen before, like Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Corigliano's Ghosts of Versailles and Britten's Rape of Lucrezia.  There is usually at least one element of craziness in Wolf Trap opera productions:  French-style soubrettes cleaning up Giulio Cesare's palace in Egypt, kids in green-striped pajamas frolicking in the woods of the Mid-summer Night's Dream, Il Viaggio a Reims set in the mid-20th century, an ensemble of most eclectic characters in Aridane auf Naxos, to name a few. 

WTO's Production of Merlin's Island, a little know short opera by Gluck

Most productions have offered perfect summer entertainment after a leisurely picnic on Wolf Trap's manicured lawn. Mellowed by a glass (or two) of chilled rosé, a person may be less engaged in the show and more inclined to snooze to a pleasant classical tune. But the WTO does not allow that. Their up-and-coming young singers are bursting with infectious energy and ready to engage in any and all shenanigans, silliness or real drama on the stage to wake you up just as you begin to nod off. You'll never look at an opera the same way after you've seen it at the Barns.

Exceptions are few and far in between. For me one of them was the 2016 production of Britten's Rape of Lucrezia. It was depressing, perhaps rightfully so, but not uplifting. Yet, what's that in comparison with some grand opera companies that surprise you when they do something extraordinary.

As an educational institution with a highly acclaimed opera residency program, Wolf Trap can afford to pick lesser known and short operatic works. It often chooses operas to match the singers who have come for a three-month-long intensive workshop. One thing to look forward to every summer are fresh new voices: agile, distinctive and clarion. The company also gives its set, light and costume designers freedom to be creative. The results are fascinating.

Wolf Trap's Ghosts of Versailles

One of the highlights of my summers in Washington D.C. is an annual pilgrimage to Wolf Trap for a picnic and a performance with a group of friends.  In the early years, we used to go to the Filene Center, get cheap lawn tickets and just picnic while watching the show. After several rainy experiences, we switched to in-house seats. And finally we moved from the large crowds in the Filene's to a more intimate atmosphere of the Barns at Wolf Trap.  Over the years we have come to appreciate the Wolf Trap Opera company for its innovative productions and impressive new voices and so the annual event became an opera event.  For me the company's strength is its repertoire of rarely performed works, such as Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirésias, Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream and now Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles.

I've been wanting to see The Ghosts of Versailles since it premiered in New York in 1991 and feared I would never have a chance to see it in the conservative Washington.  When I learned last year that  the Los Angeles Opera was staging it, and no less than under the direction of my compatriot Darko Trešnjak (of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder fame), I carefully studied my budget to see if I can afford a trip to LA with hotel accommodation and a ticket for the performance.

Luckily and not surprisingly, the Wolf Trap Opera came to the rescue.  And so our little group returned enthusiastically to the Barns this Sunday, to indulge in a picnic under a huge pine tree and the never-before-seen opera. After the repas, sufficiently mellowed by sangria, cold salads, Greek spinach pie, blue cheese, fruit salad and key lime pie, we were ready to take on any operatic challenge.

Wolf Trap Opera's The Ghosts of Versailles, with Beaumarchais characters on stage

Corigliano's opera is inspired by Beaumarchais's play  La mère coupable (The Guilty Mother?), but from there, the composer and his librettist William Hoffman fly off in their own multiple directions. In their story, the famed author of three Figaro plays entertains Marie-Antoinette and her jaded retinue somewhere in the other world 200 years after their deaths. Still unable to recover from the shock of her beheading, the tragic queen bemoans her destiny and claims innocence. Beaumarchais is in love with her and promises to re-write history to save her from death. In his new play, she will be abscond to England, returned to France in triumph and the history will end as it should. Through this play (an opera-within the opera) Marie-Antoinette learns about the misery of the French poor under her husband Louis XVI's rule and she comes to terms with her real-life destiny. 

To be sure, Corigliano's opera was not what I expected.  It did start with an overture that brings to mind Bela Lugosi's Dracula.  It was eerie and beautiful, and not entirely surprising. The opening scene with ghosts sitting in a theater where an orchestra enveloped in a ghostly mist played its ghostly accords also was something to be expected.  But from then on things went from silly to crazy and worse, with a melange of music styles ranging from arias and duets reminiscent of Mozart's da Ponte operas to gypsy music, and to the American musical, at which point one of the ghosts adorned with a Valkyra shield and helmet stepped in to complain: "This is not opera. Wagner is opera." 

When Turkish entertainer Samira burst onto the scene with her seductive belly dance, pulling a magician-style, never-ending scarf from her bodice, my Serbian friend leaned to me and whispered "Bosno moja!",  referring to the whining oriental melodies that were once popular in parts of former Yugoslavia.

The second act continued with offerings hinting at every possible music genre, including a scene with Marie-Antoinette in jail, looking suspiciously like Marguerite in Gounod's Faust.

The operatic journey liberates Marie-Antoinette from her death shock and as she accepts her fate, she tells Baumarchais not to change the ending because it is exactly as it should be.  The captured bird she used to sing about spreads its wings, as we learn from a huge shadow rising behind the illuminated curtain. Even though its sparse feathers make it look more like a scraggly monster than a golden bird. Marie-Antoinette walks into the sunset with her lover Beaumarchais. 

Costumes for The Ghosts of Versailles by David Woolard

I am happy to have finally seen The Ghosts of Versailles and especially that I first saw it at the Barns and not at the Met or even at the LA Opera.  Seeing it 24 years ago would likely have been a huge disappointment.  I might have expected something sophisticated like Corigliano's Clarinet Concerto, or deeply melancholic and soulful like "The  Red Violin" Concerto. But seeing this mostly fluffy concoction after a pleasant al fresco feast, in a rustic little hall at Wolf Trap was sheer pleasure.  Our little group agreed that Melinda Whittington excelled as Marie-Antoinette as did Robert Watson as the villain.  The rest of the cast was abundant with fresh and sparkling voices as most Wolf Trap operas are.  The only disappointment, although a minor one, was Morgan Pearse's Figaro.  He was merely one of the players, instead of ruling the roost, or rather the stage, with wits and antics masking a profound wisdom that gets Figaro out of every scrape. 

The Ghosts of Versailles, at times more a sit-com than an opera, turned out to be a great choice for a summer show at the Barns, one that whetted our appetite for the next season. I am sure the company won't disappoint.

While looking into Corigliano, I happened to learn that he is married to Mark Adamo, the composer of a very successful small-scale opera Little Women.  I met Adamo for an interview regarding the Washington premiere of his work whose title I can't recall.  I do not remember the year either  (perhaps 2000?), but I remember the young man in an elegant camel hair coat and black roll neck sweater, talking most seriously about his work, clearly excited that it would be presented to audiences worldwide in a VOA radio program.   

The information that Adamo and Corigliano are married makes me wonder how much two artists living together influence each other.  I could not detect any signs of Adamo in Corigliano's opus or vice-versa.  I also wonder what Adamo is doing these days.  Perhaps the Wolf Trap Opera will show us next summer.