Our Lives Today

Science and technology are making great strides, offering better services, faster food, better income, bigger houses, more advanced medicine and, one could conclude, a much better life. But opinions vary on whether this is the reality or not. Here are some thoughts of renowned Croatian economist, Velimir Srića, professor emeritus at the University of Zagreb, with a PhD in IT management and an MBA from Columbia University, who has also taught as visiting professor at UCLA, Swiss School of Management in Geneva, Renmin in Beijing, universities in Shanghai, Cincinnati, Budapest, Graz and many others. It would take too much space to list all his achievements, so I leave that to Google.  Here is how Dr. Srića views our lives today (and by the way, "srića" means "happiness" in one of the Croatian dialects).

Prof. Velimir Srića in an interview for Glas Slavonije:

"We live in creative times. Medicine has advanced so much that almost no man is completely healthy. The state is so powerful that no one is free. We are ruled by democracy, with man incapable people electing a few corrupted. 

Today, the best football player, actor or singer makes a thousand times more than the best teacher, educator or healer. Material wealth is accompanied by spiritual emptiness.

We are constructing ever taller buildings, while the threshold of tolerance is sinking ever lower. Cities are expanding and world views narrowing. We buy more things and enjoy them less.

The square footage of dwellings is growing, for people who increasingly live alone. Families are wealthier but couples divorce more often. The number of beautiful houses and broken homes is growing at a similar pace.

Technological advances are saving time, but we are still increasingly short of it. We have learned how to rush and forgotten how to wait with patience. The number of experts is growing as is the number of unsolved problems. We are more educated but not wiser. We know more, but understand less.

The abundance of comic shows is growing in pace with the number of people suffering from depression. We are angry all the time and tired all the time. The brain we use while reading a book is replaced by vegetating in front of a screen. We live longer, but emptier lives. We are surrounded by fast food and slow digestion.

One third of humanity is dying from starvation and one third from morbid obesity. We have hundreds of Facebook friends but no real friends. The number of high-placed people and small-minded people is growing. We quarrel often, love rarely and hate easily.

Good taste has been replaced by junk. Mass culture has created mass hysteria and mass murderers. We are visiting remote planets and asteroids, and do not know our closest neighbors. The center of our lives is a shopping place.

We proudly eat "healthy food," but allow the media to poison our spirit. There is more and more information and less and less real communication. We know the price of everything and the value of nothing. We are taught to earn a living, but not how to live.

Once we used things and loved people, today we love things and use people. Do we live better than before? Make your own conclusion."

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

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

Police officers in Blue                                                        (Photo: Scott Suchman)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funeral scene in Blue        (Photo: Scott Suchman)

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

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

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

Baritone Joshua Conyers stood out as the compassionate Reverend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

Maryland Lyric Opera Ends Verdi Season With Solid Otello

Maryland Lyric Opera ends its current season of four Verdi operas with Otello, following Un ballo in maschera, Macbeth and Falstaff. All of the four operas performed at the Music Center at Strathmore have been semi-staged as the concert hall has no room for fully staged operas. Sharing the stage with a large orchestra can be taxing on singers, but it enables the audience to focus more fully on the music. The choice of Philippe Auguin to conduct Verdi's last drama was an excellent one. He led the chorus and the orchestra with a sure hand and perfect synchronization. The choice of principals was a mixed success.

The opera opens with a crowd outside a castle on the Island of Cyprus, watching a ship commanded by Venetian general Otello struggle to reach the port through a stormy sea. Otello, who is a Moor, has been awarded governorship of Cyprus as reward for his heroism in fighting the Turks and has also won the hand of beautiful Desdemona. The crowd is cheering the ship's landing while Otello's ensign Iago plots his master's demise. The opening storm is spectacular with blasting chorus and orchestra, interjections and thunderclaps. The scene reaches a climax with Otello jumping on shore and exclaiming "Esultate!"  (rejoice) in one of opera's most exciting entrances. The brief but powerful first encounter with the tenor is a good indicator of what to expect from him as the drama enfolds.

Gregory Kunde, an internationally acclaimed tenor who - unfairly - never quite achieved stardom, acquitted himself well in his entrance to the stage on Saturday (March 3), with only a minor strain felt at the peak of his jubilant cry. Kunde's strong voice was buoyed, not drowned, by the expertly controlled chorus and orchestra under the baton of French conductor Philippe Auguin. The lighting and projections, combined with the energetic music, created a realistic feeling of the sea storm. 

As the opera progressed, Kunde's once ringing voice showed signs of dryness and fray. In Otello's love duet with Desdemona (Greek soprano Eleni Calenos), Kunde appeared less comfortable than his fresh-voiced partner, so much so that it was almost a relief to hear him complete the high-octave finish line"Venere splende" without mishap. The chemistry with Calenos was barely there.

Such moments were not infrequent throughout the evening. Kunde's rendition of Otello's descent into madness consisted largely of abrupt switches from whisper-soft voice to jarring shouts, which marred his act III aria "Dio mi potevi scagliar."  Such harsh transitions continued all the way to the bedroom scene in the last act.  Only after the murder scene, as Otello realizes he has been duped into murdering his innocent wife, Kunde regained a dignified tone and delivered the surrender aria "Niun mi tema" in appropriately noble vein.  He was also poignant in recalling the couple's first kiss as the tragic Moor ends his life by his wife's deathbed.

Otello is arguably Verdi's most demanding tenor role and singers take time to get ready for it. Kunde may have waited too long. The singer who was a memorable Otello in Rossini's bel canto version and an impressive Enée in Berlioz's epic Les Troyens, may have had a bad night on Saturday, but it is more likely that his best Otello days are behind him.

Gregory Kunde as Otello and Eleni Calenos as Desdemona.  Photo: Julian Thomas

Calenos was not the kind of Desdemona that brings tears to your eyes.  She was in good voice throughout the evening, but her vibrato sometimes veered on the verge of wobbling and her phrasing was occasionally choppy. While appropriately gentle and in turn confused by Otello's increasingly erratic behavior, the soprano's emotion never seemed as deep as the words would have it. In Desdemona's encounters with Otello, Calenos acted more like an obedient daughter than a loving wife. She may grow into the role with time, but is not there yet.

Mark Delavan had a great evening as the devious Iago. His rich bass-baritone sounded better to this ear than in MDLO's Falstaff earlier in the season. Delavan delivered an impressive "Credo in un Dio", Iago's aria in which he reflects on his cruelty in stirring Otello's jealousy, to achieve the destruction of the hated Moor through his innocent wife. He was an equal partner to Kunde in the menacing duet "Si pel ciel marmoreo giuro!"

Delavan was not the darkest and cruelest Iago to ever grace an operatic stage. There was a glint of humor rather than glee in his eye, when he put his booted leg on Otello's chest, and his flight from the stage after his crime is unveiled brought to mind comical Falstaff. But overall, he projected enough malice to make a convincing evil doer.

Yi Li was a charming Cassio, Otello's captain who provoked Iago's envy and served as the instrument of his revenge.  David Pittsinger made for an elegant and respectable Venetian envoy. Mezzo-soprano Patricia Schuman had good moments as Iago's wife Emilia, but did not quite rise to the occasion in her crucial scene of standing up to Otello for killing Desdemona, and unveiling her husband's role in it.

Supertitles by Chadwick Creative Arts included some weird translations. In Act III, Desdemona talks about Otello's angry look, "lo sguardo tuo tremendo," which was translated as "your fearful gaze." Otello's look was supposed to be frightening rather than fearful. Likewise, Otello's exclamation,"Anima mia, ti maledico," is addressed to Desdemona. He is calling her "my soul" as is common in addressing a beloved person in Italian and he is cursing her at the same time. The translation had Otello condemning his own soul. Those were minor distractions, likely missed by most patrons.

While the soloists sang with various degrees of success, the grandeur of MDLO's Saturdays performance was secured by the brilliant chorus, excellent orchestra and unwavering guidance by conductor Philippe Auguin.

The two-hour-40-minutes long performance will be repeated on Sunday, March 5.

Maryland Lyric Opera's Falstaff Makes More With Less

Verdi's final opera Falstaff is considered to be technically his best work, although it has never achieved the wide appeal of his earlier works such as Rigoletto, Aida or La Traviata. After its premiere at La Scala, Milan, in 1893, and the following years at Covent Garden, London, and Metropolitan, New York, it had been mostly neglected, but it has enjoyed a gradual comeback in the past few decades. This year, maybe in honor of the 130th anniversary of its premiere, Falstaff is taking a prominent place in the repertory of the world's major opera venues: The Metropolitan, Maryland Lyric Opera, San José and Palm Beach operas in the US; Greek National Opera in Athens, Hamburg and Nürnberg operas in Germany and Opéra Nice in France, to name a few. Salzburg Festival in Austria also features Falstaff this summer.

According to some accounts, Verdi wrote his last opera to challenge his own creativity, regardless of whether the audience would like it or not. It was only his second attempt at comedy after the first one, Un giorno di regno, flopped (I still enjoy it regardless). Based on Shakespeare's play Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff features an aging fat, impoverished and dishonest knight who may have once been slim, attractive and honorable. But like many of us, he still sees himself as he was in his youth. It takes drenching in the Thames River and a scare in the "haunted" forrest to disabuse him of his delusions. I still have the urge to shop at Forever 21, but inevitably get drenched when I find out that nothing fits.

MDLO's Performance of Falstaff, Music Center at Strathmore, Bethesda, MD

Maryland Lyric Opera's Falstaff was semi-staged, with only the most basic props: a few chairs, bench, table and the iconic wicker laundry chest. With the orchestra taking most of the Strathmore music hall's stage, there was no room for elaborate scenery or physical antics, which shifted focus to the music. The singers moved along a narrow strip of stage front while the chorus took the balcony above the orchestra.

After a quick instrumental introduction, we meet Sir Falstaff deeply in his cups at the Garter Inn, ordering his followers Bardolfo and Pistola to deliver identical love letters to two wealthy married women that he plans to seduce in order to get into their husband's coffers. The dissipated knight is buried in debt and desperate. Bass-baritone Mark Delavan's good-natured eye twinkle made him a likable Falstaff even when he was plotting the worst of the shenanigans. Delavan's voice sounded appropriate for the character's age.  The knight's minions resent being treated as servants and decide to betray his plan.

Brian Major as Ford and Mark Delavan as Falstaff in MDLO's Falstaff

The scene moves from the inn to the home of wealthy and beautiful Alice Ford, who has an excessively jealous husband. It must have been her longtime grievance because they've been married for some time and have a daughter of marriageable age. Clearly, Alice is fed up and needs to teach her husband a lesson once and for all. 

Teresa Perotta, who replaced Mary Feminear in the role of Alice on Sunday, was the evening's best surprise. Her mellifluous soprano was strong enough to soar above the orchestra, which sometimes overpowered other singers, especially those with lighter voices like soprano Rachel Blaustein as Alice's daughter Nannetta and tenor Yi Li as Fenton. Alice also sings most of her music in ensemble, so her role requires a singer with the ability to meld with others. Perotta displayed all the necessary qualities.

Together with her friends Meg Page and Mistress Quickly, Alice learns about Sir Falstaff's nefarious plan and the women decide to punish him. When Alice's jealous husband, informed by Bardolfo and Pistola of Sir Falstaff's plan, barges in to catch his wife in flagranti with the alleged lover, the women hide the visiting knight in a basket of dirty laundry and have the servants dump him in the river. The husband is appeased at the sight of the dripping wet intruder. But his daughter Nanetta also has a gripe against him because he rejects her lover's suit and wants to marry her off to a wealthy doctor. Alice promises to right all of the wrongs committed by the silly men.

Brian Major as Ford sang with a clear and ringing voice, but lacked the comic chops to convey the ridiculousness of a middle-aged husband's jealousy. Mezzo-soprano Catherine Martin showed her talent for theatrical intrigue in the role of gossipy Mistress Quickly. She was especially effective pretending obsequiousness to Sir Falstaff ("Reverenza, reverenza...") Allegra de Vita was a vocally attractive Meg Page. Rachel Blaustein and Yi Li's were well matched as Nannetta and Fenton. Both had sweet and light voices, suitable for a young couple.

The last act offers a unique opportunity for stage directors to unleash their artistic creativity. Most of it is set in a dark forest with spirits, elves, goblins and fairies, all of them fake, roaming around in Halloween-style garb, and scaring the gullible victims. It is surprising how much of that fanciful chaos was conveyed with so little on the Strathmore stage. The characters put on their disguise in front of the audience, while the bluish light projected to the scrims behind the orchestra created a required spooky atmosphere.

Ford is tricked to approve the marriage of his daughter with the man she loves, and Sir Falstaff is frightened by fake spirits to confess his sins. Even vanquished and ridiculed in the end, the old man accepts his punishment with a philosophical look on life: "Tutto nel mondo è burla" (everything in the world is a joke). Requests and offers of forgiveness are exchanged and the party leaves the forest for a celebration at the Fords' place.

Despite its funny moments, Falstaff is not a comic opera in a traditional sense. The gross knight is a thief and a liar, but he is also an astute critic of his society. "Un mondo ladro," he wails when he is punished for his own unsuccessful attempt at crookery. He suggests that as a young man he may have been naive and decent, but has become a cynic who questions the value of honor: "can it fill your belly? can it fix a broken leg?" For those unfamiliar with Shakespeare's opus: Sir John Falstaff was a sharp-witted friend of young Prince Hal in Henry IV, part one and two, who was abandoned when the prince became King Henry V.  

While we can laugh at some of the slapsticks depending on the production, there is a lot of serious thought behind the comic verse. The title character is a dishonest buffoon, but he is not truly evil. He gives hints that he was once a gentleman, and a philosopher, but fell through the cracks either through misfortune or alcoholism. In Act III, Sir Falstaff once more ruminates about the evils of the world in which there is no honor left and everything is in decline. "But," he concludes, "good wine dispels the gloomy thoughts of discouragement."

The work's treatment of women is quite advanced for Shakespeare's as well as Verdi's time. Operatic heroines are often portrayed as helpless victims or deceitful witches. In Falstaff, aka Merry Wives of Windsor, they are loyal wives, with a good sense of humor, using deception only when necessary to teach annoying men a lesson. To emphasize this modern view of women, some productions place Falstaff in more recent eras. The last one I saw live on stage at the Kennedy Center was a production by the Mariinsky Theater, with the trio of Windsor women plotting their revenge in a hair salon, while sitting under a row of retro hair driers.

The ambiguity between the comic and the serious puts Falstaff outside the categories that make an opera memorable: high drama, passion, tragedy, or side-splitting comedy. Therefore it has never had such a wide popular appeal as the traditional romantic, heroic or comic operas. 

Rachel Blaustein as Nannetta and Yi Li as Fenton in NLDO's Falstaff

Furthermore, Falstaff's cohesive structure does not comprise distinct separate pieces like arias and recitativi in the Italian tradition. Few people like this unique opera at first hearing, or go home humming one of its tunes, with the exception perhaps of Fenton's third-act solo Dal labbro il canto estasïato vola, which ends in a duet with Nannetta. 

To fully appreciate the quality and unique delights of Verdi's last opera, a listener has to become familiar with his musical inventions and with the thoughtfulness of Boito's verse through repeated listening, something an average opera fan rarely does. 

Maryland Lyric Opera was founded in 2014. Its current season of four Verdi operas ends with Otello in March.

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. 

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

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

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

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

Ferrando and Guglielmo, photo by Scott Suchman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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