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OPERA REVIEW
A Beautiful Idomeneo, Early Mozart In A New Light
November 14, 1999
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By Heather Hadlock
Last Sunday, the San Francisco Opera presented Mozart's Idomeneo with a combination of musical excellence and moral seriousness that invited one to
see the composer's operatic career in an unaccustomed light. Eloquent
orchestral playing, beautiful singing, and powerful choruses revealed how
Idomeneo, Mozart's first operatic masterpiece, prefigured later works
that have always seemed very different from it, particularly The Magic Flute.
Rendered in vivid and glorious detail under Donald Runnicles'
direction, the score is a cloud of Mozartisms. In every moment one catches a figure, timbre, or harmony that will reappear in some later work. The young
composer had already mastered the full range of operatic writing, from the
most intimate solo writing to the festive and chilling choral finales.
Idomeneo is an Italian opera seria, a genre that was already somewhat antiquated in Mozart's lifetime and that Mozart himself would leave behind, turning first to Italian comedy and then to the German popular style in his
last great opera, The Magic Flute. But this production suggests that the
resemblances between the two ends of Mozart's operatic career are far more
significant than their differences.
The early work, like the late one, features a central triangle of father,
surrogate daughter, and prince. There is a captive princess and a ranting
woman in black with snaky accessories. Both operas emphasize the pain of a
loved one's inexplicable coldness (Idomeneo rejects his son Idamante, as
Tamino must turn his back on Pamina). There are ritual scenes, in which the
younger generation submits itself to the frightening and inexplicable
demands of the older. And these trials effect a transition from the old
order to the new.
Most importantly, this production reveals that Idomeneo, far from being cold or ossified, is a more compelling drama than the later, more "natural" work. Idomeneo, unlike Sarastro, is no benevolent puppet master putting the younger generation through its paces with a confident vision of how everything should turn out. Rather, he is caught up in the trial: afraid, guilty, forbidden to speak, compelled to hurt the ones he loves most. Unlike Sarastro, whose wisdom and authority approaches divinity, Idomeneo's power depends on cruel and exacting gods whose agenda is unclear. Feeling his way in the dark, unsure where his terrible, fatal promise will lead, Idomeneo is more like Tamino, but again his "endless night" is real. Likewise, the climactic trial scene is genuinely suspenseful, because Idamante and Ilia truly face death. This young couple's trials have not been distilled down to a symbolic stroll through fire and water, accompanied by a protecting flute. They lay their heads on the block with every expectation that the axe will fall.
Therefore the ending of Idomeneo seems truly sublime: more has been risked, and a higher price has been paid for the new order. The old king has suffered on his path to renunciation, and the new rulers have bared their throats to the knife. The people rejoice at the end of this initiation ritual because it has carried tremendous human costs: thousands are dead, and the streets have run with blood. Idomeneo transforms an entire social order (based on self-protection, obligation and judgment) into a new order based on mercy, love and voluntary self-sacrifice. The Magic Flute, in which naively good individuals are led to a mature understanding of their place in an already good society, seems tame by comparison. San Francisco Opera assembled a cast of singers who could convey not only Idomeneo's beauty but also its moral and philosophical complexity. The battered and leonine Gösta Winbergh, as Idomeneo, was the key to the production's success. Winbergh's trumpeting tenor voice, with its unusual synthesis of Mozartean technique and Wagnerian authority, made the beleaguered king a compelling vocal and dramatic presence. His Wagnerian experience colored all his accompanied recitative scenes: his initial encounter with Idamante; his loving exchange with Ilia; his climactic confessions that he is the guilty one and that Idamante must be sacrificed; his farewell to Idamante just before the sacrifice. He also roused the audience to one of its greatest displays of enthusiasm with his show-stopping aria "Fuor del mar".
Barbara Bonney, making her San Francisco opera debut as Ilia, had an angelic blond beauty and serenity appropriate for her redemptive role. She has a still, elegant stage presence and trusts her music, not cluttering up her long arias with unnecessary gestures and movements. Her act II aria "Se il padre perdei" was spell-binding, with her pure and focused voice floating over the choir of woodwinds and horns. Bonney captured the melancholy quality of Ilia's love for her captor Idamante: even in love, she was reticent. Mezzo-soprano Vasselina Kasarova, as Idamante, supplied enough ardor for herself and her partner. Given their characters' different circumstances, Kasarova's enthusiasm and Bonney's reticence seemed dramatically right. Kasarova, also making her first appearance with the company, has a glorious voice and a lively, spontaneous manner. Like Bonney, she acted through her music, never once betraying the technical difficulty. With no trace of campiness, Kasarova's Idamante seemed utterly infatuated with Ilia; she would look over at her and smile as if she were the most beautiful thing in the world, and reach out to take her hand at every opportunity. Kasarova and Bonney made a lovely and touching couple, and I encourage the management to bring them back for Tancredi and I Capuleti as soon as possible. Carol Vaness, as Elettra, was the only rough spot in this cast. This strange role always seems grafted on to the story, perhaps to spice up the somber tone with periodic interjections of all-out emotionalism. Elettra does have some of the score's most gripping numbers, but Vaness's voice, with its harsh timbre and broad, inexpressive vibrato, didn't justify the time and attention it receives. Unlike the other singers, she made no effort to endow her character with human feeling. Her outbursts of jealousy in Act I and madness in Act III seemed no more than self-indulgent diva antics. John Conklin's sets, a series of High Baroque-style seascapes, were also attractive, notwithstanding occasional lapses into tackiness. There was a wave of giggles when the walls parted to reveal Idamante's waiting ship, a giant cardboard cut-out with a diaphanous shower curtain for a sail. The lurid red silk-screened sea monster that rose up to menace the crowd at the end of Act II also hovered on the brink of silliness. But the garden scene was lovely, as was the elegant final tableau of Idamante and Ilia enthroned above the sea. Costume designer Michael Stennett deserves special praise for the ingenious fusion of classical and 18th-century elements in his designs. The simple, strong colors contributed to characterization, with Ilia in blue that matched the sea and sky, Idamante in ardent gold, and Idomeneo in the heavy red of royalty and blood. Elettra's admittedly fabulous black and purple ensemble rather unsubtly emphasized her status as a blot on the landscape. This sensitive, intensely human Idomeneo suggests that Mozart's operatic career was not a line--a move from the baroque to the Romantic, from the old-fashioned to the progressive--but rather a circle. The themes and concerns of his last works had been present from the very beginning. (Heather Hadlock is Assistant Professor of Music History at Stanford University) ©1999 Heather Hadlock, all rights reserved |
