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Reviews
RECITAL
Two in Deep Accord
By Robert Commanday
Yo-Yo Ma
Emanuel Ax
(12/9/04)
SYMPHONY
Cross-Fertilization
OPERA
A Splendid Array
EARLY MUSIC
A Man of Many Parts
LETTER FROM L.A.
Now and Then
MUSIC NEWS
Global Baroque
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Responses to Our 12/7/04 Question of the Week
By Michelle Dulak Thomson
San Francisco Symphony
Joshua Bell
Roberto Abbado
(12/10/04)
By Heuwell Tircuit
San Francisco Opera
Adler Fellows 2004
(12/8/04)
By Rebekah Ahrendt
Pacific Mozart Ensemble
Aurora Theater Company
The Play of Daniel
(12/11/04)
By Alan Rich
By Janos Gereben
Robert Commanday, Senior Editor
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A tradition as old as the San Francisco Opera is the season wrap-up. No matter that there'll be two more operas in June; The Season is Fall and the rest, formerly known as Summer Opera, are add-ons. The final performance of Eugene Onegin Sunday was the closer. The privilege of doing the wrap-up seems to have fallen, by default, to San Francisco Classical Voice, so here goes.
The upshot of the company's 82nd season, the penultimate one for the outward bound general director, Pamela Rosenberg, was " better than feared." Somehow the horns of Regieoper were retracted a bit, and for that we can be grateful. How much of that was due to pressures from within, the board, and how much to pressures from without, the public, the contributors, can not be known. Enough so that the whole package was closer to the tradition, style and, to a certain extent, the standards of the San Francisco Opera than its most recent history would have led one to expect.
Just one opera, Britten's Billy Budd, was an unqualified success. Kim Begley as the central character, Captain Edward Vere, was deeply impressive. Nathan Gunn embodied the golden boy Billy in person and voice, and Philip Ens was a dark, enveloping shadow of a Claggart, master at arms. The large cast and chorus, and Runnicles' conducting, were of a like excellence. The spare or severe rendering of a ship's deck, Wolfgang Gusman's design for a Vienna State Opera production, was satisfactory, but by no means superior to the previous production here. That setting looked more like a British ship of the line, early 19th century, with quarterdeck, masts, ropes, guns and all. Somehow or other, the current regime felt it had to toss most of the old, and do as much making change for change's sake as possible.
Flaws in casting or production touched each of the other six operas, errors that must be laid at the desks of the general director and the music director, Donald Runnicles. The young cast for Così fan tutte came close to bringing off that greatest of works, and might have if their number had included a baritone and actor for Guglielmo who was up to the challenge of the role. Or if director John Cox had invested some thought and time in him and that role. Far more serious was Rosenberg's blunder in engaging Michael Gielen to conduct it. Veteran though he is, his ignoring the stage and the singers on it put them on the spot and resulted in poor ensemble, in that of all operas!
La Traviata had much to recommend it. If Ruth Ann Swenson isn't the most sympathy-inducing actress of a soprano around, she sang well and was supported and set off by an exceptional Alfredo in Rolando Villazon. His youth in appearance, freshness of voice and expressiveness were just right against her Violetta. Patrick Summers' conducting was stylish, on the mark. Pity he didn't also do the Così, or George Cleve, or (fill in any of many fine and available conductors not needing to be imported). The let-down here was the Germont Père of Dmitri Hvorostovsky, a stick-figure if ever there was one. Germont is the linchpin of the opera, and this time the emotional tension just went pfft during his posturing performance.
Another great casting mistake of the season was Carol Vaness as Tosca. As has been apparent for some time, vocally, she's had it. John Copley's direction came in for criticism. The impression I've been getting is that too many opera directors concentrate on "the big picture" and, once past the blocking, rely on the singers' experience and past performances in the roles to carry the action. There's not enough teaching, as in "directing," involved.
Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre was a worthwhile adventure, a strong commitment to a work that made a big impact in the seventies, had some historical significance, and had never before been played in the United States. Several shortcomings were clear however. The libretto was dated, much of it sounding sophomoric and needing to be upgraded. Several scenes dragged on endlessly, the pointless struggle between the astronomer, Astrodamors and his sadistic wife, Mescalina, being the most egregious case, the most deserving of trimming. The music also wanted editing or compressing. The best of the score, the real music, was the final 30 minutes or so. The fine conductor, Michael Boder made the most of it. Splendid performances were turned in by Willard White, Graham Clark, Caroline Stein and Gerald Thompson.
The musical performance of Der fliegende Holländer, the grand singing, was so imposing that, as SFCV's reviewer, Thomas Grey, noted, it "redeemed" the production, director Nikolaus Lehnhoff's and designer Raimund Bauer's "futuristic science-fiction Gothic conception." Theirs was indeed a strange view, suggesting the threat or actuality of nuclear contamination, with the sailors and women villagers in weird costumes (Andrea Schmitt Futterer's designs). Concept compromised important elements in the drama, whether the Dutch ghost crew's usually "terrifying" confrontation with the Norwegians or Wagner's fundamental idea of "redemption."
The Senta of Nina Stemme, the Dutchman of Juha Uusitalo, Daland of Walter Fink, Erik of Christopher Ventris, and Donald Rwunnicles' conducting drove the opera strongly despite the strange interpretation.
At the season's last, Eugene Onegin did realize the emotional heart of the work and project its great human grasp, the tensions and reversals. Even Onegin's fate at the ending that seems to plunge precipitously, was raised to the level of the Lensky tragedy. Russell Braun was a potent Onegin, describing the character's haughty and world-weary attitudes as sharply as he did the passion and recognition of self in the final scenes. Elena Prokina is not the image one would have for Tatyana but she brought it off and sang convincingly. Piotr Beczala, vocally and dramatically, was all that Lensky should be, carried away with his emotions, self-destructively, and his singing conveyed the pathos. Susan Gorton and Annett Andriesen were marvelous as mother Larina and nurse Filipyevna, and Gustav Andreassen was as noble and touching a Prince Gremin as we wished Hvorostovsky had been as Germont.
Two choices were not good. Allyson McHardy was unsuited for the role of Tatyana's sister Olga. She couldn't be heard, from the outset, in their duet, and made no impression in her one solo number. To be sure, Olga is an emotional lightweight, a superficial person, but, perhaps compensating to bring McHardy into stronger definition, the director Johannes Schaaf had her Olga behaving like a flibbertigibbet to the point where Lensky's supersaturated love became incredible, or at least trivialized. A bigger mistake was Rosenberg's and presumably Runnicles' choice of the very young and orchestrally inexperienced Ilan Volkov as conductor. To be sure, the pacing, tempos and expressive character of Tchaikovsky's score were in place, but the orchestra sounded rough all night, and that had to be the conductor's fault.
Returning to the direction, in his treatment of Braun's Onegin, Schaaf brought out, more clearly than I can recall from any previous Eugene Onegin, the character's snobbish, city swell's disdain of the country folk and society in which he finds himself. That sets him apart, creates the context for his boredom at the ball with its terrible consequences. The deliberately rustic setting and choreography in this production (borrowed from the Netherlands Opera), as well as the staging, fosters this, and further heightens Onegin's apartness.
The penultimate scene, the St. Petersburg party in Prince Gremin’s palace, was dominated by one scenic element, the great chandelier, lit pyrotechnically. The stylized, static "dancing" did suggest that this lifeless formalized society against Tchaikovsky’s famous dance music was what Onegin’s bored, alienated eyes were perceiving. Effective as that may have been, people do expect something scenically if not choreographically showier. Finally, doing the last scene in Tatyana’s dressing room instead of an anteroom is wrong. It is insupportable that he should have invaded the princess’ private quarters. And there, Tatyana has on the floor in front of her about 40 pairs of shoes. Madame Marcos? What in the world was that about? Can the Dramaturg explain that one? In both scenes, the lighting by Manfred Voss, assisted by Andreas Frank, was badly done.
The San Francisco Opera can't afford such mistakes in judgment, whether in casting, design or direction, and its public does not deserve it. Nevertheless, when all was sung and done, it was a decent season, worth a trip, and enough back on track to stir hopes once more.
(Robert P. Commanday, senior editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.)
©2004 Robert Commanday, all rights reserved
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