Masked Ball at the Met - April 2015

Ballo in Maschera.  Met Opera NYC.  Thursday 23^rd April 2015

 

This was one of the best opera performances I have seen in a long time.  A dream cast was combined with James Levine and his marvellous orchestra and chorus in a modern, clever and eclectic production by David Alden utilising 20^th century décor and costumes with a mock-Tiepolo sky-scape of winged angel and four-horse chariot on high.  While a long way from the iconic traditional Met production, the 20^th century update seems to work (at least second time around for me). 

 

Piotr Beczala (King), Dmitry Hvorostovsky (Renato), Sondra Radvanovsky (Amelia), Dolora Zajick (Ulrica) and Heidi Stober (Oscar).  Every one of these artists was superlative and deserving of a paragraph on detail.  Mr Hvorostovsky’s talents are well known and he was true to his reputation, often singing two lines on the one breath, hitting baritonal high notes with more ease than some tenors and acting the metamorphosis from the king’s friend to foe with stunning drama.  Ms Radvanovsky has the most ‘projected’ voice I have heard in a long while, yet she also uses subtlety and diminuendos with style and flare.  Mr Beczala is one of the best tenors in the world today.  His youthful good looks and dramatic talents combine with his vocal confidence at the high registers used frequently in Ballo.  He sings without forcing and often smiles during his delivery. 

 

Popular American mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick was a splendid fortune teller, taking command of the entire space during her scene.  She even produces a skull from her leather handbag, a theme which is repeated with the skull masks of the conspirators in the last act.  We also see palm reading, playing cards and blank pages torn off writing pads by innominate public servants or scribes at innominate desks with innominate expressions and stylised movements.  The king’s court has formal waiters, soldiers, policy analysts, lobbyists, etc amongst the chorus as well as some dancers providing lots of movement on stage.  And conspirators, of course. 

 

The essence of the opera is that the king mocks prophecies of doom, saying the love of his people and God will protect him.  If this happened we would not have much of an opera!  Ulrica’s fortune-telling cards say that fate alone will decided events and humans are powerless to stop it with our frailties. 

 

Heidi Stober was a perfect Oscar in a white suit, sometimes winged, suitably spunky in a unisex way.  Like her colleagues, the voice soared into the auditorium on the numerous occasions required by the score.  His relationship with the king gives a gay side to the character and the death scene is played as such. 

 

Commentaries from some quarters recently complain that the Met is playing Verdi with poor quality casts and this in turn has led to poor attendances.  I find this hard to justify and would report exactly the opposite.  Poor attendances have occurred  in opera seasons around the world in recent years and the causes are complex.  This Friday opening seemed to have few empty seats.  During April several performances of Aida (conducted by Domingo) were virtually full as was Ernani (with Domingo playing the baritone role), leaving Don Carlos playing to less than full houses, probably due to the nature of the opera rather than the cast (which included Frittoli, Hvorostovsky, Furlanetto, Morris with Yonghoon Lee an excellent tenor in the title role).  Sadly sickness and substitution supervened on several occasions, notably when Michael Fabiano as Edgardo was brought into Lucia from Philadelphia at a few hours notice.  His single performance without rehearsal received a major accolade from the New York Times. 

 

The standard of operas at the Met remains very high from my experience … but I cannot say the same for operettas.  The Merry Widow was a disappointment and just did not seem to come to life as it can with the right chemistry.  The text was a very poor alternative translation and at times the performers just did not seem to want to be there.  The voices seemed under powered and amplification was inadequate to understand the dialogue without reading the subtitles which was not well synchronised anyway.  The Met should probably stick to opera! 

 

Notes by Andrew Byrne ..

 

Postcard from New York: http://ajbtravels.blogspot.com/

Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni) and I Pagliacci (Leoncavallo) at the Met April 2015

 

This dual production of the verismo twins is a strange marriage of directorial talent with megalomania … with much excellent singing shining through.  The McVicar productions will be controversial which probably suits The Met despite any insult to the art.  And the second opera IS an insult - from start to finish.  Pagliacci is a masterpiece, the composer himself a poet, carefully writing each line of the libretto in the marvellous drama which moves relentlessly towards theatrical tragedy by way of a play within a play.  The play itself has some ‘Punchinello’ slapstick yet the director expands this to the entire opera starting unforgivably half way through the Prologue, ‘Si puo?’ a baritone showpiece for good reason. 

 

In the busy and cluttered production of Pagliacci there are dozens of examples of hilarious and well rehearsed side-shows by acrobats, actors and vaudevillians.  Much of this distracts and thus detracts from what is happening centre-stage in the vocal drama we paid to see and hear.  The above example yields laughter from the audience during the Prologue over some shenanigans with a microphone cord stuck in Tonio’s groin, pulling three goofy assistants out of the wings, all to great hilarity.  The words of the Prologue compare life in the theatre with the real world and that the actors real and vulnerable people.  The ‘three stoogers’ are brilliant vaudeville actors, yet they are greatly overused to my mind. 

 

Another example is ‘clever’ but distracting, being Taddeo (Tonio’s) sudden appearance providing an alibi to Pagliaccio (Canio) for Colombina (Nedda) having set two places at table.  Traditionally this is sung as a terrified stammer ‘credetela’ (‘believe her!’) but McVicar has Tonio sing from the deep freeze cabinet as if he were shivering - ice and vapour for added realism as the door is opened to reveal the hidden witness.  The humour spoils the lines to my mind and does nothing but draw attention to Mr McVicar and away from Leoncavallo’s drama. 

 

Half way through Canio’s famous aria ‘Vesti la giubba’ the curtain mysteriously drops, breaking the continuity to some extent.  Mr Alvarez then continues the aria while stage noise can be heard behind, yet again distracting from what should be a magnificent set piece for the tenor.  Another unforgivable concession to stage pragmatism by Mr McVicar who is starting to get on my nerves. 

 

The noise of a truck’s starter-motor, especially a faulty one, is an ugly and unnecessary start to an opera, despite it being novel, funny and unexpected.  It is witless. 

 

Taddeo arrives in the play with a toy chicken (as required in the libretto - all of McVicar’s devices, however stupid, seem to come from the book) but he then uses the puppet as a TV character ventriloquist.  Nedda pokes the same springy toy into a saucepan and puts it on the stove as the attendant ‘three stoogers’ clown with a bowl of whipped cream which ends up on several faces.  Even the cooked chicken comes to life again on the dinner table - but does this hilarious gag add? 

 

Modern Met productions really require two reviews, one for the opera in the theatre and another for Live-HD cinema broadcast as they are significantly different experiences.  I can only comment on the theater experience after attending the twin operas (twice) live. 

 

To state the obvious, only the theatre audience will hear the actual live voices of the singers and direct orchestral sound unaltered by technology.  Thus voice size is less relevant to the cinema audience.  Likewise the appearance of revolving scenery and also mishaps … I was told that with a very short delay the live transmission can be switched to the previously recorded ‘rehearsal’ as a back-up in case of stage or technical problems.  I was not told how often this is done in practice but it would seem like a useful strategy to avoid disappointing a huge paying audience around the world (only countries near Australia’s longitude do NOT receive the broadcasts direct due to the inclement hour of night). 

 

Like the Lepage Ring, these operas, with all their faults, fulfil the Met's need for something completely different yet maintaining the realism demanded by a conservative New York audience.  On the same open, dark-walled set, the operas make a stark contrast from each other. 

 

Unlike the bright and busy Paglicci production, the first opera Cavalleria Rusticana is mostly dark and tranquil with the intense emotion depending on the musical/vocal components.  It commences with a huge ring of black chairs and a tasteful slow circuit of the stage revolve finds us virtually meeting each villager … a very Southern Italian thing to do.  Then very soon, like a child with a new toy, the director over-uses the stage revolve to the extent that I was positively vertiginous by the end of Pagliacci from the never-ending stage circles, both ways, fast and slow, most to no particularly dramatic point.  Most ridiculous was to see the entire chorus of over fifty singers in the first opera all gradually jerk themselves one way while the stage revolve goes the other, leaving them all in the same positions.  As a final insult just as the dramatic ‘La comedia e finita’ was announced the revolve went into full speed.  Presumably this was to present the empty side of the stage for the curtain calls … yet this could have been achieved without interrupting the opera’s dramatic ending.  I was intrigued that amid all the realistic attributes, candles, veils, wine jugs, fruit and vegetables, etc in Cavalleria Rusticana there was an odd mechanical refectory table with visible hydraulic expandable supports yet also with chunky wooden false legs.  One allows artistic licence but the one day of the year when village markets in Italy probably did not function was Easter Day. 

 

To give credit where it is due, the performance of Cavalleria Rusticana was both menacing and meaningful.  The singing was excellent … from the off-stage Siciliana to the shriek at the end announcing the death of Turridu.  Mr Alvarez played both tenor roles brilliantly while George Gagnidze played both Tonio and Alfio with equal effect.  Patricia Racette played Nedda both excellent in voice and as a sexy singing actress.  Santuzza was played solidly by Eva-Maria Westbroek.  Lola with the unlikely name of Ginger Costa-Jackson was born in Sicily and may have been the only cast member with genetic and cultural connections to the stories.  The minor roles were also all well acquitted.  Silvio (Lucas Meachem) and Nedda had a long section of their duet restored … and charmingly sung by both. 

 

By the modern vogue, ‘things’ happen on stage during each of the orchestral interludes … except for the Pagliacci intermezzo which then paradoxically is followed by a long pause, presumably for set changes.  The Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana is one of the greatest operatic orchestral pieces ever written.  How bizarre then that a director would feel the need to deflect attention from it.  Would he put some stage miscellany on stage during a Beethoven symphony or Bach cantata?  Maybe he would!   

Spectacular Aida again at the Met.

Aida - Verdi - Metropolitan Opera House, New York City. Friday 17th April 2015

 

I attended the second last outing of Aida for this season with Maestro Domingo on the podium and a strong cast.  When still one of the three tenors Domingo had been the original Radames in this classic production’s premiere in 1988 - along with Leona Mitchell, Sherrill Milnes, Fiorenza Cossotto and James Levine in the pit.  This is one of the few productions to survive the ‘Gelb purge’, the reason being that it would be hard to beat! 

 

While I adore the massive Egyptian colossi, sphinxes, march of hundreds, horses and triumphalism, for the purist it is a clever fraud stylistically.  It was fortuitous that I visited the Egyptian wing at the Metropolitan Museum earlier in the day, noting that the set designer Gianni Quaranta must have done the same thing, quite correctly, but got one major detail totally wrong.  Those faded frescoes, chipped statues and archaeological remnants would all have been new and vibrant at the time of the opera.  I once saw Anna Bolena at Covent Garden just after visiting the Tower of London and noted some similar incongruities. 

 

But I am being pedantic and the singing is what really matters … and it was 9 out of 10 for the most part - the Met chorus scoring ten.  Mark Delevan was most impressive playing Amonasro, as was Ramfis, played by Stefan Kocan a solid Met regular. 

 

Italian Marco Berti was fine as Radames managing the almost impossible Celeste Aida more than passably with much accurate and exciting singing beyond. 

 

Lithuanian Violeta Urmana was splendid as Amneris although her usually strong mid-voice seemed underpowered at times.  Her highs and lows were exemplary as was her drama especially at the end of Act IV, Scene 1 when she is torn between anger, love and grief. 

 

Oksana Dyka from the Ukraine (meaning ‘borderlands’) sang an excellent Aida.  Her dramatic input was stereotyped and her arms out-arms in became repetitive and irritating at times.  Her voice rose to numerous substantial heights yet she did not break any records (or chandeliers).  Maria Callas has detracted from the end of Act II for all who have heard recordings of her phenomenal feat in Mexico City singing a long, powerful and exciting E flat above chorus and orchestra.  The only more exciting thing I have heard is the thunderous applause from the audience following that high note.  A less stable nation might have been driven to a coup d’etat. 

 

The Met production by Sonja Frisell also has many high points but it is hard to go past the start of her Triumphal March which is still a breathtaking stage phenomenon no matter how many times one has seen it.  Aida is a brilliantly constructed drama conceived in outline by doyenne Egyptologist Auguste Mariette (who is not credited on the Met program title page).  The characters and interactions are all believable to me.  Verdi put all his mature genius into this work, having been brought out of retirement by the King of Egypt, his own wife and numerous others around him.  Possibly more than any other composer he developed his art - over six decades. 

 

While the drama, melodies, vocal ornaments and choruses are exemplary in Aida, for me the unique factor lies in the brief orchestral sections starting and finishing each act.  As with Falstaff, Verdi’s final opera, we have instrumental emotion, characterisation and even personality shining through an art which began with Gregorian chants a thousand years earlier (and these were unaccompanied!).   Listen for the crickets at the start of the Nile Scene! 

 

The Met orchestra was marvellous including six trumpeters on stage for the big scene.  The players know what they are doing with this popular ‘pot boiler’ being the ‘A’ of the ‘ABC’ of operas.  And some of the senior members may have played under Toscanini!  Much of the excited applause was clearly for the conductor Mr Domingo who Mr Gelb quoted recently to the audience as ‘immortal at the Met’.  And his presence must have contributed to the near full houses of recent performances. 

 

Notes by Andrew Byrne ..

 

Andrew’s Travels: http://ajbtravels.blogspot.com/

 

More soon (if I can) on Ernani both with and without Mr Domingo; new Cav&Pag production by David McVicar, A Masked Ball, Don Carlos and The Merry Widow.  A marvellous month of opera despite frequent illness amongst the singers.  Even some pre-Bach choral masses from Spain! 

 

Pontoon Aida on Sydney Harbour.

Aida - Verdi - Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, Sydney Harbour Fri 27^th March 2015.

I am still in two minds about the Handa Harbour Opera in Sydney each autumn. On the one hand I love opera and applaud any attempt to bring it to a wider audience - and it is indeed a spectacle of opera and more. On the other hand, there are major draw-backs which make me positively cringe. The singers have to be amplified and thus we lose their one unique feature being the natural voice direct to the audience’s ears as in the opera house. Furthermore, a month of outdoor opera monopolises a large part of the Sydney foreshores for a ‘strange and irrational’ art form enjoyed by only a privileged minority of our community. The noisy display of fireworks during and after the show is another aspect which some may criticise. And then we have the weather (which is probably why they invented the opera house in the first place).

The main singers were strong apart from a miscast tenor, Walter Fraccaro. The role is tough and the most difficult aria occurs in the first 10 minutes of the opera. Like Otello, Verdi’s next and second last opera, the tenor role is suitable for only a very small proportion of tenors and Mr Fraccaro is no longer amongst them (if he ever was). He did warm up to some degree and he sang all of the notes.

The weather and ambiance were perfect for a gala opening, Sydney’s dusk providing a backdrop for a drink and sustenance at tables on parapets constructed high above the water, all in view of the opera set. The pontoon sported a colossus of Nefertiti’s head, surrounded by dozens of red 44 gallon drums. Intriguing and talking points for the early arrivals. The original bust is in the Neues Museum in Berlin and is one of the most beautiful representations of the human form, crafted in the 18^th dynasty ~1300BCE under the rule of Akhenaten, Nefertiti’s husband.

The performance of Verdi’s Egyptian masterpiece was most exciting on the whole with other principals, chorus and orchestra under Maestro Castles-Onion. For the start of the Triumphal Scene the long-necked statue slowly rotated to reveal the Pharaoh and his entourage miraculously in place and on time for the scene. Two magnificent camels strode back and forth across the faux proscenium with prisoners and carts full of booty and plunder for Pharaoh’s approval. Two rows of angled black plastic coffins reminded us of body bags of recent campaigns and the carnage of war as the victors celebrated and the vanquished mourned. And we even got the fabled ‘Mexican’ E flat at the scene’s end - although it could not have been sung by Ms Latonia Moore who, despite a vast talent in the dramatic soprano range would have to be super-human to have a sustained E flat in the voice***. Of course, being amplified, another singer could easily ‘sub’ for the note as happened once in Macbeth with the Australian Opera decades ago (sung from the wings as the soprano turned away from the audience). For that matter any capable member of the ladies chorus could venture the high note (which is unwritten and dramatically inappropriate coming from the slave girl).

The Nile scene was magnificent and well exemplifies Verdi’s genius melding drama and vocal lines as the lines are sung: “La gole di Napata”. This revealed, like Wikileaks today, the unguarded remarks of the Commander in Chief who is thereby ‘disonorato’ (dishonoured), leading to his being condemned to death in the judgment scene before the opera’s end in the tomb scene, Amneris pleading for peace (“Pace, pace” way above in Nefertiti’s damaged eye socket) as the music comes to an end.

Other details of the production would take pages of descriptions … clever manoeuvres and devices, mostly straight from the book. Costumes were from cybermen outfits to Victorian dresses, white military uniforms and a loud, multicoloured balloon dress for Aida herself, looking like New Orleans fiesta.

So my advice for anyone in Sydney is to try to get a seat. The rear side seats are great value at just under $100 each. And try to borrow a program as there are no cast lists and the glossy programs are quite expensive. The food and drink are also at inflated prices, but that’s what one would expect for such a venue. The slow service is also typical of the genre … so get there early if you wish to partake and support the enterprise beyond the seat price.

Notes by Andrew Byrne ..
　
*** Note Aug 2017: I have now purchased the video of this wonderful performance and have to concede that for all appearances Ms Moore does indeed sing the E flat ending the Triumphal March.  Humble apologies!  Opera blog: http://andrewsopera.blogspot.com/

Andrew's blog http://ajbtravels.blogspot.com/

Faust at Sydney Opera House ... opera at its very best!

Faust by Gounod at the Sydney Opera House Tuesday 17^th Feb 2015

 

This was the most totally enjoyable and enthralling opera performance I have seen in Australia for years.  Few of the New York Met’s recent performances I have seen exceeded the quality and quantity of this rendition of Gounod’s Faust by veteran David McVicar and Charles Edwards (sets). 

 

It was like old times when we often saw a clever production with high quality orchestra under Guillaume Tourniaire.  But this time we also had top class singers from here and overseas with some very special high points both dramatically and vocally.  Most every production detail came from the libretto. 

 

This opera production has EVERYTHING … ‘when in doubt, add more!’  Love scene, soldiers’ chorus, mad scene, serious ballet, religious saviour scene, devil-takes-all, wine-from-water, blood from stone, group sex, sword fight, death scenes, etc … plus lots and lots of beautiful singing.  And much of it is ‘can belto’ - from the absurd reductio school of (1) bel canto, (2) can belto, (3) can’t belto, (4) can’t canto.  But devil do’th. 

 

The production was dominated by a massive mobile set of stairs leading to a pipe organ high on stage right.  Sets moved through a small chapel, village square, adjoining town houses, massive church centrepiece, interiors and more.  Costumes were colourful, traditional and often ravishing.  Lighting was atmospheric and meaningful.  A discussion in the interval with a psychiatrist informed me that Goethe's story is really just about all of us as we get older ... we would like to relive previous pleasures, we would like to be young again, we are constantly tempted by devils of all types.  Yet it is a fantasy. 

 

Teddy Tahu-Rhodes may be the most over-exposed baritone in Australia, much amplified in musical comedies.  Yet he returns to opera and sings and acts at the highest standard, and rarely with as many costume changes as this Mefisto.  Most dramatic and unexpected perhaps was the drag devil dressed suddenly in a large black gown with low cleavage and bustle, hosting a raunchy hot spot cabaret in Paris, complete with Tour Eiffel proscenium. 

 

New American Tenor Michael Fabiano is indeed impressive - starting with an almost unbelievable transformation from frail, suicidal geriatric to Hollywood handsome tenor.  And he can sing.  High, low, fast, slow, loud, soft … he has it all.  And with breath control to manage any legato line and more.  Salut, demeure chaste et pure was beautifully interpreted.  Not a hint of falsetto in this aria yet he used a customised soprano range to advantage elsewhere in Act 3.  On his web page http://michaelfabianotenor.com/biography/ Fabiano sings the almost unsingable aria (resurrected by Richard Bonynge) from Act III of Lucrezia Borgia.  And unlike each previous rendition I have heard, it is supremely beautiful to the fiendishly difficult last notes. 

 

Australia’s Nicole Car sings Marguerite with élan and ease, soaring to the highest notes after expressive legato singing.  Her trill is not like Sutherland’s … but nobody’s is!  And unlike the latter, Car can look young, virtuous and virginal.  Her ‘Jewel song’ was deservingly well received as were her tonsillar hystrionics towards the end of the opera.  The opera’s final trio was absolutely and heavenly elating, including organ and ethereal choir (unseen in the auditorium from darkened ‘loges’ C and Z). 

 

Giorgio Caoduro sings the ill-fated soldier brother Valentin with a most professional delivery.  His early party-stopper ‘Avant de quitter ces lieux’ was splendid as was his dramatic death scene in act IV.  He showed fine portamento and never appeared beyond his substantial limits. 

 

Character roles Siebel, Wagner and Marthe were all well acquitted by company regulars Anna Dowsley, Richard Anderson and Dominica Matthews. 

 

I often find ballets in operas become boring and repetitive … not so in this performance which had extensive and explicit dances in Act V. 

 

I am still concerned about vocal damage from second daily opera singing by the four principal singers - there are 3 performances in the first five days!  Does the company seriously think that centuries of experience and Maria Callas’ example were just wrong as they frequently break the two lay-day rule?  Animals have the RSPCA but singers don't even have a strong union!  Agents have a short term conflict of interest.  I spoke to a board member and retired singer during the single interval.  He agreed that he never sang more than two operas in a week, a testament to his career of 30+ years at the highest level with some of the greatest singers of the 20^th century.  Yes, I may sound like a cracked record, cracked record, cracked record ...

 

My advice if you are in Sydney in the next three weeks: just get a ticket for this Faust … despite a full house on opening night, “loges” B and X were virtually empty (sold only on the day of the performance and less than $50 per seat I believe).  https://opera.org.au/sydney/events

 

 

Notes by Andrew Byrne .. http://andrewsopera.blogspot.com/

 

For those keen on cantorial singing (and Les Mis) try: http://www.cantorsi.com/

 

 

Madama Butterfly, Sydney Opera House, Tues 27 Jan 2015

A simple opera review may be largely positive - despite the soprano failing to sing her most important high notes adequately.  But more needs to be said (see below). 

On this opening night none of the singers seemed quite right for their respective jobs, most notably Cio-cio-san.  Ms Voulgaridou simply does not have the top notes for this role.  She also clipped the final notes of Vissi d’arte in last year’s Tosca when she stood in at short notice.  Few dramatic sopranos have the optional but enormously exciting D flat at the end of Butterfly’s entrance.  But to clip the final note of the love duet ending the same act (and a related melodic line) is unacceptable.  The tenor, Mr Egglestone, continued singing his notes long after the soprano’s voice had expired.  Even more disappointing was the ending of ‘Un bel di’ (One fine day) when Ms Voulgaridou simply ‘sqeaked’ a final note, standing arms extended for the remainder of the orchestral ending looking like a statue waiting for the applause (which came in polite abundance).  To give her credit, the singing was mostly tasteful, strong and effective.  One pianissimo high note after the flower scene in Act 2 was particularly impressive.  Her death scene was also creditable.  But was she playing a geisha or was she playing herself?  I have still never worked out why Cio-cio-san is called Madama and not Mademoiselle/a.  Was she betrothed to another before the age of 15? 

Mr Egglestone had all the notes for this American ‘cad’ role … as did Mr Honeyman playing the US consul in Nagasaki.  Yet neither seemed to be truly comfortable in their parts and at times I wondered if they actually knew what words they were singing.  Sian Pendry as Suzuki was excellent. 

An honest reviewer needs to put a tolerable performance into context.  Why are we hearing this production of Butterfly yet again?  And why the fine production of Tosca by John Bell again after just 18 months?  And why is Tosca using three overseas principal artists and a foreign conductor, aged 28?  And why repeats of La Boheme and Magic Flute in the same month as Butterfly and Tosca?  Could it be symptomatic of an “opera” company which is now run by business people and not opera lovers?  These reprises are obviously a survival policy of pushing wholesale performances of popular operas and musicals.  And such merciless recycling contrasts with decades of serious and varied opera repertoire using largely local talent, supplemented with the world’s best overseas singers, conductors and directors.   No more. 

For the first ‘novelty’ of the season we look forward to Faust in three weeks.  Yet that opera’s very popularity once caused a New York reviewer to rename the Met the “Faustspeilhaus”!  A revival of Don Carlo by Verdi is also due in the winter season.  But that does not constitute a “season” by historical standards and will not interest regular subscribers, most of whom have either dropped out or must be thinking of so doing. 

An examination of the company’s calendar reveals their destructive policy of major roles being sung with only one day’s break (eg. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) contrary to the long standing practice of two ‘lay days’ between ‘big sings’.  I note Ms Voulgaridou sings on several occasions with only one day’s break.  This is a very dangerous and slippery slope.  The management is risking the voices of their singers, quite contrary to their mandate for funding from the Australia Council to nurture such talent.  Several of the members of management are singers themselves who must know better but have chosen to look the other way.  On at least two occasions this season the same opera is performed on successive days, a very risky practice, unless there are two understudies for the major roles. 

Rather than carefully husbanding its own stable of artists as in the past, the national company now seems to use dial-a-singer.  This is far from the days when it employed over 100 full time artists.  I have been told that they no longer employ any great number of singers (if any) on a full time basis. 

On another note, there were dozens of opera company staff and family in the theatre on opening night.  One wonders if the company pays fringe benefit tax on all of those free tickets (and in some cases, programs and interval drinks).  For its first 40 years this company’s opening nights were virtually always sold-out and free tickets were unheard of except for dress rehearsals. 

This season we will have had three opening nights in a row on a Tuesday.  Tenor Denis O’Neill used to say that he far preferred Friday and Saturday openings.  Few country patrons can make it mid-week while others in pressured city jobs may also be detained by the work-a-day week. 

Although this company performed the Ring operas in Melbourne one wonders when they might perform a Wagner opera in Sydney … or Puccini’s Trittico … a Czech opera … or any number of diverse masterpieces from the serious and profound repertory of the opera world starting in 1597 in Florence.  I have only been once, but I strongly recommend Pinchgut Opera.   

Notes by Andrew Byrne ..

Response to colleague with stern criticism of Sutherland and Bonynge.

I often marvel at people who have retrospective advice on how Joan Sutherland could have had a more successful career … they take on some task and I admire their chutzpah. 　

That being said, those who were around at the time of her entry into the world of opera (1957 to 1963 let’s say) agree on at least one thing: Joan Sutherland had an ability to sing up the stave with the same very full quality voice to an E flat with total ease and precision. 　She did one or two E naturals and an F in The Magic Flute but basically her trade mark was a terminal E flat and coming at the end (usually) of a well sung aria it usually brought the house down (and got the crits writing effusively about the effects on their spleen or solar plexus or whatever). 　This she did for about 25 years, only transposing downwards by a couple of semi-tones in the last few years of her long career (but who carries a tuning fork?).

Wagner never requires this of his soprano. 　Some of the most successful Wagnerian women even omit the final C in Siegfried and are still lauded across the opera world. 　Wagner required a different quality, rather like a Jewish cantor. 　The singer had to sing for hours on end (up to six in some of his operas) where most Italian opera arias go for three minutes, the odd mad scene for fifteen, give or take some recitative. 　

So while Sutherland may well have been able to sing Wagner roles, she would not necessarily have done so for very long (vide the story of Nellie Melba doing the Brunnhilde role in Siegfried with disastrous consequences).　 And would JS have been as famous?　 Would she have sung with Pavarotti?　 Some people just don’t like Richard Bonynge … yet it is hard to imagine Sutherland without him … and he continues conducting more than 20 years after his wife retired so somebody must think he has some talent on the podium. I certainly do.

I just read a scathing criticism of Sutherland, lamenting that she never sang Elektra! Basically it proves that the Bard was right when he said comparisons were odorous. 　Or as Callas famously said: “If you don’t like my voice, stay home!”　 And if Sutherland had sung Richard Strauss she may have damaged her voice and not had the long career she did.

Some believe that Sutherland sang the wrong repertoire … others may say she sang ‘muck’ (Nellie Melba’s advice to Clara Butt) … nor do some like the way Sutherland sings (‘she scoops’ I sometimes hear). 　Yet as well as her high coloratura she had an incomparable trill. Her staccato notes, acciacature and stratospheric cadenza runs could show up great singers half her age even in her very last studio recording, Ernani. She embellishes an aria she had recorded nearly 30 years earlier … that is NOT an opera record, but must run very close! Yes, there are some scoops but if you listen to the last minute of the clip you would be basalt not to be blown asunder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUV-I8msAY

Sutherland’s Turandot with Caballé is pretty incredible … but perhaps that is ‘muck’ too … like Lucia, Rigoletto, Puritani and Sonnambula (each recorded twice by JS, the second time with Pavarotti in all four cases).　 She also made pretty creditable attempts at Mozart: Don Giovanni, Nozze di Figaro, Idomeneo. 　And her lone recording (video) of the first act of Tosca (plus Vissi d’arte) and Suor Angelica show that she could sing ‘standard’ Puccini (if there IS ‘standard’ Puccini) as well. 　

And she did the comic roles of Anna Glawari and Rosalinda. 　And the home-town girl in Carmen. 　And the best set of Christmas carols I have ever heard (in fact I don’t think I ever want to hear any others!). 　And she did the ‘bleeding chunks’ from Wagner’s great operas. 　And Beethoven’s Ninth.　 And Traviata, Trovatore, Elisir, Beatrice di Tenda, Esclamonde and more,

It is true that Sutherland’s voice changed dramatically … from a bell-like pure, crystal instrument in the recordings from 1957 to 1962 and then to the vocal locomotive we knew for more or less thirty years. 　I first heard her sing Hoffmann in about 1976, then Norma, Lakmé, Alcina and the rest to Huguenots in 1990 in Sydney.　 I also heard her Anna Bolena in London in about 1986. 　She was incomparable … if you like that sort of thing. 　But if you don’t, I say, like Callas, ‘stay home’ (or go to the footy). 　

Written by Andrew Byrne ..    

Schubert's Trout comes to the Southern Highlands - final Selby concert for 2014.

Dear Colleagues,

 

I am happy to report another brilliant and uplifting concert in the Selby series at Chevalier College at 5pm on Saturday 8^th November.  The same program can also be heard in Turramurra, Wynyard, Adelaide, Canberra and Melbourne over the next week.  

 

Being an obligate opera fan, attending chamber music is a new pleasure and an education for me - especially after last weekend’s marvellous Met Macbeth ‘HD live’ at the Empire Theatre in Bowral.  

 

For the “Selby and Friends” final concert of the year we heard Mozart’s first piano trio in three movements, Brahms’ Werther’ piano quartet in four movements and Schubert’s ‘Trout’ piano quintet in five movements (the numbers of movements being the same as the number of instruments is apparently coincidental).  

 

The first is a jolly, light-hearted romp of melody, form and technical brilliance.  The second by contrast is a profoundly deep and melancholic work.  Brahms insisted that its score be prefaced by a picture of a gun pointed at a human head, according to our introduction.  And indeed it seemed like the most consistently minor, discordant, down-beat and sorrowful piece ever written (apart from Chopin’s short prelude in C minor). 

 

It was a typically brilliant move Kathryn Selby put the ever popular Schubert ‘Trout’ quintet as the last item for the year.  Five superlative artists played to a packed and enthralled audience which gave an enormous ovation (after a premature ‘Bravo’ from one enthusiast up the back just before the end!).  

 

By some strange quirk of timing the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra were also in Bowral earlier the same day, playing at St Jude’s Church.  What a plethora of culture in this small town!  Remarkably, neither of these events was on the official visitors’ information web site for November (nor was the mushroom rail tunnel tour).  

 

The two-monthly Selby concerts for 2015 look to be very enticing … http://www.selbyandfriends.com.au/

 

Best wishes to all our friends, family, neighbours and colleagues in the Highlands.  

 

Andrew Byrne .. (Redfern addiction doc)

 

Clinic web page: http://methadone-research.blogspot.com/