San Francisco Classical Voice

The great young Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, who made her American opera debut and was a Merola Program participant under the Mansouri regime, is singing her first Lucias ever in Los Angeles. She received well-deserved standing ovations after each performance, since her physical presence, voice, musicality and interpretation were spectacular. Given time and an accompanying increase in the size of her middle register, she may dominate this long and demanding role for years to come. However, she wasn't the entire vocal show — and that too seems worthy of note with respect to what is still a regional opera company.

Besides Netrebko, Mr. Domingo has given his audience five other fine, international-quality singers in this Lucia. Spanish tenor José Bros, Italian baritone Franco Vassallo, Russian bass Vitalij Kowaljow, Mexican tenor Javier Cortes and Croatian tenor Kresimir Spicer rounded out the cast. Singing these parts, each would have been well received at the Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden or the Met. In combination with Netrebko and aided by this first-rate orchestra and chorus, they made the aural evening a highly memorable one. In addition, the production contained no vulgarity or distractions, and there were no lecturesome offerings concerning the deeper pschyo-political significance of it all. The music, words and entirely supportive stage picture were left to speak for themselves. Res ipsa loquitur.

The next night's Orfeo ed Euridice is a curious piece. Written in 1762, it's only two hours long, including a half-hour intermission. Also, it has only three individual singing parts and thus must be almost perfectly cast if it's to succeed completely. A significant work in the history of opera "reform" (its arias are not repeated in traditional baroque fashion), Gluck's Orfeo contains beautiful music, wonderful sections for that starry Los Angeles chorus, and a good deal of ballet, choreographed here by the renowned Lucinda Childs.

The Los Angeles production, directed by Childs and designed by Tobias Hoheisel, is handsome and tastefully modern. Amor, the God of Love, was extremely well sung by rising young Italian soprano Carmen Giannattasio, who'll sing Trovatore with Washington Opera in 2004. Euridice was equally well sung by internationally-established Spanish soprano Maria Bayo, and the excellent conductor was Hartmut Haenchen, music director of the Netherlands Opera. The problem, alas, lay with Orfeo, Alaskan-born mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux.

Genaux has a large reputation in Europe, as well as a highly photogenic face and figure. She specializes in baroque music and has made several well-publicized recordings of it. One can only hope therefore that she was severely indisposed during the performance I heard, for in truth she offered very little in the way of sound. Her voice was the smallest on the stage, and, more importantly, it lacked beauty from bottom to top. Thus, although all the other pieces were in place for a major success, it must be said that this particular evening's Orfeo ed Euridice fell a bit short vocally.

Looking back at these two nights at Los Angeles Opera, several immediate conclusions arise. Presenting Anna Netrebko's debut as Lucia seems a coup of Kurt Herbert Adlerian proportions. Backing up stars with a terrific orchestra and chorus, as well as tasteful, non-intrusive productions, was a welcome surprise. The fact that Los Angeles Opera has the money and knowledge to find that many good international-quality singers to put into these two shows was impressive. And, finally, the Los Angeles audience appears knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

How long has it been since the now somewhat chronically depressed San Francisco Opera audience gave anyone a genuine standing ovation? The great Karita Mattila didn't get one for her wonderful Katya Kabanova last season! Only the relatively unknown Claudia Mahnke (as the Composer) came close at the end of the first act of Ariadne more than a year ago — and she may not have been reengaged by the company. Rather, San Francisco audiences have been given, among other things, "Seminal Works of Modern Times;" The Mother Of Us All on opening night; Donald Runnicles conducting all or some performances of seven out of nine operas; unsupported allegations that prior administrations improperly hid significant fundraising expenses (see Janos Gereben's research at sfcv.org); sight gags during "Una Voce Poco Fa" which no great Rosina would stand for; endless vulgarity during Alcina; and a Hansel and Gretel which would have been offensive to children, had anyone sought to sell them tickets.

I believe that San Francisco Opera has now temporarily lost its way. Even if, as she reportedly asserts, Pamela Rosenberg was reliably assured, before she took her present job, that (1) she would never have to do fund raising (which she had never done ), and (2) she was being hired specifically to put on in San Francisco exactly the sort of allegedly avant-garde productions she knew and loved so well in Germany, then that's not the principal issue. To me it's not of primary importance to try to determine now whether Rosenberg or a few members of the board that hired her bear greater responsibility for the opera's present situation. We may never know. What I think we do know, though, is that it's time to end this mistaken experiment in support of the mistaken affirmative goal of "being different than the Met."

San Francisco Opera was founded by Italian-Americans who knew and loved great classical singing — the principal product which Gaetano Merola, Kurt Adler, Terry McEwan and Lotfi Mansouri all fought, with varying degrees of success, to produce. It's the only product which will sell well at War Memorial Opera House prices (a pretax minimum of some $600.00 for each pair of good orchestra seats each evening). San Francisco is a "star town" that's bought this product in the past and wants it back. Great classical singing is the single most important value at every one of the world's leading opera houses; it's what ultimately drives them all; and so to have said that your primary goal was to be different than the Met necessarily implies that you wanted to redesign radically the only successful opera product in the non-state-funded market.

The Met has a truly great talent, perhaps a genius, at the helm musically. Los Angeles and Washington have the awesomely gifted Mr. Domingo, assisted in Los Angeles by Kent Nagano. Chicago has both Sir Andrew Davis and another of the most renowned judges of vocal talent in the world, Matthew Epstein. San Francisco can return to this realm of great classical singing if it truly wants to. The Adler years proved that there's money enough here if SFO will just clean house, put itself in the hands of proven, world-class judges of vocal talent, and then allow them to demand aggressively, sometimes hurtfully, that great singing and playing always come meaningfully ahead of sets, costumes, lighting, stage directors, extra rehearsal time, new commissions, "re-branding," unpopular musical scores, intellectual conceptualization, questionable taste, and political correctness in all its present forms. As I believe I found yet again in Los Angeles, "if you build it, they will come."

P.S.: I was also fortunate enough to hear MTT and the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform Mahler's 6th in The Walt Disney Concert Hall. For what they're worth, my thoughts on the building are that the outside is fun (it's not quite the Guggenheim in New York, but it works very well); the interior lobbies and staircases, which are wildly asymmetrical, are highly inspiring (so much fun that I burst out laughing when I realized I'd lost my way); and the suspended, all-wood music auditorium itself must qualify as one of the 100 most beautiful interior spaces in the world. In addition, from the first row of "terrace" seats the acoustics were terrific, and the pianissimos were as spectacular as the room.