San Francisco Classical Voice

In the program book (an indispensible guide now, in the age of dramaturgy — one can go back and find out what one was supposed to be thinking), Co-Director Sergio Morabito confessed to original "doubts as to whether we could actually succeed in holding our audience's attention for a three-hour opera by Handel in this setting." That sentence encapsulates much of what turned out to be so maddening. It assumes for the directors the sole responsibility for attention-holding, and the team of Morabito and Co-Director Jossi Wieler gave it their considerable all.

Granted, the plot is full of the twists required to keep the classic love-vs.-duty engine of Italian opera seria purring for a full evening. Alcina's current victim, Ruggiero, is rescued by his betrothed, Bradamante (disguised as a man), and companion Melisso, but not before all manner of intrigues ensue. These also involve Alcina's sister Morgana, who falls for the disguised Bradamante, and her jealous consort Oronte, as well as a boy, Oberto, searching for his father, now turned into a lion.

As with just about any opera of the period, one wonders from the synopsis just how it can all be kept straight. Indeed, 18th-century librettos often printed only an "argomento," setting the general scene and coyly avoiding further revelations, and thus left even more to the listener. But here comes the production team, not to explain it all for you (after all, Handel manages that just fine with his deft musical characterization), but to — beep, beep, beep — back the dump truck of "meaning" onto it and throw the lever. Thus the then-utterly-conventional practices of male sopranos and travestito roles become an entrée to polymorphous and thoroughly confusing onstage sexuality. In place of the stylized gesture of 18th-century theater, which blends so harmoniously with the singly-affective nature of baroque aria, we have what is by now the stylized gesture of the late-20th-century dramaturgid — characters rant, stomp, tear off clothing, simulate sex (there is a particularly offensive sexual assault), fire guns, and the like. Really, someone needs Ockham's Razor to be taken to his goatee.

Thus the often frenetic stage business seems designed to "hold the audience's attention," all right; the only problem is that there's usually an aria going on, an event explicitly designed by the work's creator to be the center of attention. There are those for whom this presents no conceptual difficulty, and those for whom it is an outrage.

The latter group will perhaps be the more interested to know of the truly expressive musical rendition. Roy Goodman led a strong performance from the Opera Orchestra. His gestures were perhaps grandiloquent, but precise. The band acquitted itself well and stylishly, with only the odd moment of iffy intonation (cellos and basses especially) and a considerable amount of opening-night difficulty with placing penultimate and final notes together. The violins in particular, who carry so much of the writing, shone often, as did the continuo cello of David Kadarauch.

The quality of the singing was uniformly high despite amazing choreographic obstacles (singers on their backs, singers removing or replacing clothes, singers draped over steps, chairs, each other, etc.). Alcina was played by soprano Catherine Naglestad in a succession of Little Black Dresses, said in the program books to be "each sexier and more stylish than the last." Whether one agreed with this assertion or not — certainly there were bits of Ms. Naglestad making their stage debuts — she limned a moving portrait of a character whose control of her world is inexorably slipping away. Her coloratura was thrilling, but it was her poignant resignation toward the work's close that stopped even the kinetic stage business dead in its tracks. The present object of her affection, Ruggiero, was played by the British mezzo Alice Coote, who brought admirable heft both to the character's initial lovesick languor and his later resolve. Her rendition of the aria "Verdi prati," lamenting the prospect of Alcina's lovely green landscape dissolving into desert, was of such beauty that one could almost inhabit the expanse of verdure where the set provided none. (It is possible that some of the mold on the walls had a slightly greenish cast, true.) Helene Schneiderman, mezzo soprano, was likewise excellent as the disguised Bradamante or "Ricciardo," who must deal with the affections of Morgana, sung with gusto and a bit of edge — bordering on shrillness — by soprano Catriona Smith.

Tenor Toby Spence as the jealous Oronte had some of the most preposterous stage business, proving himself a physical actor as well a fine singer — with or without his pants. Though put through frantic paces for much of his time onstage, the tenderness accorded him by Handel in the aria "Un momento di contento" came right through and revealed an artist of range. Bass David Pittsinger gave to the role of Melisso a wonderful gravitas not dispelled by some of his more playful yet peculiar business with the mirror. As the boy Oberto, mezzo Sarah Castle gave an appropriately urgent performance, rather hard on her oversize wool sweater but vocally assured. I wonder how she must have felt during the menacing aria "Barbara! Io ben lo so" when, encountering her father as lion (not a lion, of course, but a big guy in an overcoat and hat), she was directed to throw herself on Alcina and assault her. Anyone able to disgust an audience with such élan must be one heck of an actress.

And for the happy ending, as everyone sings of their joy, the ex-lion father slaps the son upside the head in time to the music. Oh how wonderfully ironic. Despite the sublime musical results the San Francisco Opera is so consistently able to achieve, one wonders for how much longer audiences will swallow, and income-strapped major donors will fund, these brave new productions (as in, "Hey, don't step in that brave new production on the sidewalk"). One notes that Handel the impresario often operated under conditions of considerable financial stringency; perhaps the General Director will someday soon be in more similar circumstances.