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OPERA REVIEW
October 8, 2005
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By Janos Gereben
Like opera itself, most opera houses are big. Then there is the Florence Gould Theater, in the basement of San Francisco's Legion of Honor. It seats 300 (against the War Memorial's 3,000), with a bare-bones stage of 25 feet by 21 feet (the Opera House stage is 134 feet wide, 84 feet deep).
Built in 1924, eight years before Tosca inaugurated the War Memorial, the Gould — a round, white structure, by chance an opulent, but postage-stamp version of Berlin's Komische Oper — serves well Donald Pippin's Pocket Opera and that company's brilliant miniatures.
But now, in this Louis XVI-style jewel box, something big and daring and quite wonderful is taking place: the San Francisco Lyric Opera's youthful, talented, and very big romp of Carmen, with a cast of 50.
To continue in the statistical mode, that's one cast member for every six in the audience. And yet, we are not talking about a Guinness World Record type stunt of stuffing phone booths. No, the subject at hand is an exceedingly enjoyable performance of Carmen.
Anja Strauss (third from left), Frasquita Carmen happens to be one of the most frequently performed works in all opera, and so it is a completely exposed one. Most of the audience is humming along — some silently, some not — with the Toreador Song and the other "big numbers." Barnaby Palmer, the Lyric Opera's very young music director, met all challenges of size, familiarity, expectations and — in some cases — ennui, by conducting a musical crackerjack of a performance: vibrant, steady, consistent, beautifully balanced. Palmer's singers did him proud, but his greater achievement was in selecting, seating and conducting a tiny, very young orchestra that was blazing through the night. Yes, seating is an issue: the Gould has no pit, so 15 musicians are squeezed into the theater's first three rows — and tickets are sold in the fourth row, inches away from the conductor and the musicians, albeit at half price and with a warning of "limited visibility." Concertmaster Wenyi Shih is also the violin section itself, but for the able support from Erin Benim. Violas — important in Carmen — are represented (warmly and powerfully) by Marcel Demperli all by himself. Codrut Birsan's synthesizer takes care of percussion and much else besides. Carla Eckholm's bassoon solo in the Act 2 Prelude, and Michelle Caimotto's flute in the Act 3 Prelude were especially appealing. Not once did the orchestra "step on" the singers, allowing the all-around fine French diction to come through loud and clear, supertitles carrying the English translation well.
At the risk of sounding sexist, ageist or beauty-ist, the observation is unavoidable that Lyric Opera employs (most likely, for peanuts) young and handsome singers in a proportion far superior to big, famous companies. The truth must be told: Opera goes better with such beautiful, fiery singing actresses as Ariela Morgenstern in the title role, Sarah Macbride as Mica”la, the explosive Anja Strauss as Frasquita, and Katherine Growden as Mercédès. Carmen had a tough time choosing between Don José and Escamillo, based on looks alone. Christopher Campbell had a more mature (but nifty) look, while Zachary Gordin's bull-fighter seemed ready for the prom or the homecoming game. The smugglers and soldiers were good looking, the girls of the factory (the "revolting cigaret-makeresses" in the helpful translation of a famous Italian opera program) attractive to a fault and strong, and the children of the Golden Gate Boys Choir all above average. As far as singing goes, the ensemble performance held throughout. Individually, Morgenstern supported her dramatic channeling of Carmen musically as well, except for going slightly flat in recitatives. Macbride, while being an exemplary Mica”la, milked her big moments at the cost of sticking out a bit much, with momentary lapses into trying to blow the walls down.
Sarah Macbride (Mica”la)
Gordin's Escamillo was a heroic performance: maximum effectiveness with a minimal voice, and clearly the first toreador employing Sprechstimme. Campbell's Don José, on the other hand, provided the biggest, finest voice in the cast — a budding heldentenor and a prominent lyric singer — while his acting left much to be desired. Seldom will you see a powerful singer less comfortable on stage.
Awards are due to stage director Heather Carolo and stage manager Julian Leiserson, who handled three hours of extreme crowding without a single collision, and successfully choreographed "vertical" dance numbers for Gypsies and smugglers, who pretty much danced in place, no alternative being available. Jean-François Revon's modest, economic sets could be called "schematic" or "evocative," best exemplified by a free-standing door frame at one point. Kudos to the director and David Ransom's lighting design for refraining from dimming the lights every time the "fate theme" is heard — an annoying habit in many productions.
To repeat: nits and all, it came together for a fun, entertaining, dramatic, musically appealing performance, all the more impressive when looking at the facts. It's a remarkable company, this reconstituted SF Lyric, producing operas on a professional level on an annual budget of $250,000 (vs. the SF Opera's $54 million). It stages four operas, in 16 performances — coincidentally the same number produced by the much larger Opera Colorado, a company with a new, $92 million theater.
The Lyric has the lowest prices around, ranging from $15 to $28 (vs. Opera San Jose's least expensive seats, for $65), and the company treats children to free tickets. Unlike any other company in the Bay Area, where I recognize the same people at performances, at the Lyric, they are almost all "strangers" — meaning the company is bringing in new audiences. Performance after performance is sold out, as music lovers are beginning to discover what the Lyric's Simon Palmer likes to call the city's "other opera company."
(Janos Gereben, a regular contributor to SFCV, is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com)
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Ariela Morgenstern
