Schwabacher Recital Series #3: Invitations

The third & final recital of this season's Schwabacher series took place last Tuesday, & it was all mostly marvelous (except for the venue, the Conservatory of Music's Barbro Osher Hall, which I will complain about below). The featured players were bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, currently slaying across the street as Orest in Richard Strauss's Elektra, & pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson (who is also Artistic Director of the San Francisco Opera Center, co-presenters with the Merola program of this recital series). Ketelsen  & Matheson were joined by several participants in this year's Merola program. Before the music started, Matheson gave us the key to the eclectic program: invitations, a theme malleable & capacious enough to provide a program of surprises & satisfactions. Surtitles were used for the songs as well as the opera excerpts, & I wish every recital did this.

The first piece was Là ci darem la mano, from Don Giovanni; as the recital took place on Bloomsday, this was a lovely but perhaps inadvertent homage to the day, as that duet is one of the musical notes ripping through Leopold Bloom's day in Dublin. Ketelsen was joined by soprano Shannon Crowley & they were accompanied by pianist Deven Shah. (stage director Claire Choquette supplied minimalist but effective movements for the dramatic pieces). Ketelsen as Giovanni (& later as Scarpia) is sexy & seductive; the commanding but nuanced authority of his voice is familiar but what struck me, seeing him at relatively close range, is how good an actor he is: convincing, insightful, nothing overdone; he could hold the stage even without his distinguished singing. Crowley was charmingly conflicted as Zerlina, & the next two numbers, L'invito by Rossini & Stornello by Verdi, for which she was accompanied by Matheson, confirmed her strength in the pert/perky/winsome repertoire; I'm sure there are sassy servant girls & clever peasant sweethearts in her future.

The next set had Matheson accompanying tenor Ryan Bryce Johnson in three Duparc songs: L'invitation au voyage, Chanson Triste, & Phidylé. He took these dreamy songs from a convincing ardent angle, which worked very well; there was a lot of youthful yearning there in songs that don't always sound as youthful as they should. There were lots of passionate, big voices on this program. After the Duparc, Ketelsen & Shah returned to the stage for Ravel's Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, a loose cycle of three songs: Chanson Romanesque, Chanson épique, & Chanson à boire. In the latter Ketelsen gave clear but subtle, insofar as a drunk can be subtle, indications of the singer's inebriation; it was another demonstration of his skill in inhabiting the persona of a song, something also revealed by the switches in mood among these three very different pieces. Shah is a strong accompanist.

Two sets, both accompanied by Matheson, closed out the first half: a trio of Italian songs (Sognai by Schira, Il poveretto by Verdi, & Nebbie by Respighi) sung by tenor Chester Seungyup Han & a trio of Korean songs (San A / O Mountain by Dong Soo Shin, Ma Joong / Welcome by Hak Joon Yoon), & Mot I Jeo / Unable to forget by Hye-Young Cho) sung by baritone Paul Jang: powerhouse passions to send us into intermission. Han's rendition of Il poveretto was for me the highlight of his set, a song about an old soldier begging for any small coin so he could buy some sort of meal that turned out to be surprisingly touching. It made me think of beggars I had passed that day, particularly one lying on the sidewalk moaning that he couldn't even buy a cup of coffee. The three Italian songs were not ones I had heard before, but the Korean songs seemed a greater rarity & were a real treat; recitals so seldom step off the German-French-Italian-OK-maybe-some-English song path. Musically they sounded to my ears like American folk songs. The song to the mountain was particularly moving. Both Han & Jang really let it rip in their sets.

The entire second half was an excerpt from Tosca, with Ketelsen as Scarpia, soprano Charlotte Kelso as Tosca, Chester Seungyup Han as Cavaradossi, Paul Jang as Sciarrone, & Ryan Bryce Johnson as Spoletta, with Carrie-Ann Matheson as a fluid & evocative accompanist. Matheson started off by giving us a plot summary of what was happening. I'm not sure this crowd needed such a summary, but Matheson knows her audience better than I do.

(left to right: soprano Charlotte Kelso, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson)

Even without a full orchestra, & even in excerpt, Tosca is a musically & dramatically powerful opera. It's one I have mixed feelings about, though: the only interesting (& even, in a weird way, sympathetic) character, as far as I'm concerned, is Scarpia, the reactionary head of the secret police: not the choice the opera or my heart would really want a listener to make. Cavaradossi is passionate & romantic & mostly a cipher. As for Floria Tosca, let's look at her behavior just in this Act 2 excerpt: Cavaradossi is the one tied up & tortured, with blood running down his face, but she insists she's the one who is being tortured & she is just too sensitive to take it. That's why, against Cavaradossi's wishes, she betrays his compatriot (& also, by association, him). Her lover can keep quiet under torture but she, under the mere thought of torture, breaks his confidence & betrays his trust. Then, during her big aria, she insists that she has never harmed a single person – really? I just heard you sell out Angelotti – & she doesn't deserve any of this anyway because she has brought flowers & jewels to adorn the church. (Do I need Latin Catholic trigger warnings?) Yet, despite her efforts to bribe the Creator with His own creations, bad things have happened to her (of course to her; forget Angelotti & even Cavaradossi). There are just too many bitch, please! moments with her.

That aside: the opera is, as I said, musically & dramatically effective, & the excerpt was gripping. Ketelsen is a superb Scarpia. Again, he doesn't overdo it, but he makes very clear the sadism, the sexual tingle, underlying the police chief's machinations. He doesn't indulge in snarling & bellowing (genuinely powerful people don't need to bellow); he even amuses himself with his sadism. Kelso was compelling & even touching (at least, as touching as I will find this character) as Tosca. with lovely rich tones for Vissi d'arte. Han really belted out his Vittoria! Vitorria! triumphantly, which is pretty much Cavaradossi's business in this act. The smaller parts were well taken; Jang portrayed amusing confusion on Sciarrone's part at the start again / stop again orders of the seemingly capricious Scarpia (the torturer, being in the other room torturing, of course doesn't hear the conversation with Tosca). It was quite a show, received very enthusiastically by the full house. Ketelsen & Matheson followed it with an encore, Cole Porter's very funny Tale of an Oyster, made even more hilarious by Ketelsen's commanding tones & authoritative stage presence. He also nicely delineated the oyster's different emotions at each stage of its journey, from Oyster Bay to high-society meal to being upchucked back into the Bay, sadder but wiser for his social-climbing adventure.

(left to right: tenor Chester Seungyup Han, pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, soprano Charlotte Kelso, tenor Ryan Bryce Johnson, & baritone Paul Jang)

Now I will complain about the venue. I have been to the Conservatory's Barbro Osher Hall several times. First something good: once you're up there, in a glass-encased room on the 11th floor of the Conservatory's new building, there are attractive views down Van Ness Avenue & across the street to Davies Hall & the Opera House, & it's very pretty at night, with all the lights of the city sparkling below you. When you see the room from the street, it glows like a jewel.

But: the room (it's not really a "hall") is described as "intimate", but I'd describe it as "small", which is not the same thing. The chairs, the cheap plastic kind that can be stacked up easily & moved out of the way, are not very comfortable. But the real problem is getting to & from the room. I've been to several concerts there & only once were people allowed up to wait when they arrived. Every other time, we have to collect in the lower lobby of the building, where there are not nearly enough seats, so concert-goers, who are often elderly, cranky people (& I include myself in that) have to stand, often for long periods, before we can get upstairs, where we have to stand waiting again. There is usually some sort of rough line that forms, with the policing that that involves (on Tuesday there was a man keenly invested in letting everyone know he was first in line; I had arrived at least 10 minutes before he did, but didn't bother disputing precedence with him, as I had taken one of the few seats available & preferred that to standing the whole time). And that line he was so intent on? It's just to get on the elevator! The audience has to be led up, one carload at a time, to the 11th floor. Once there, as I said, a line has to form again before we can get into the actual room (which, again, I'm not going to call a hall). There is lots of anxiety & fraying tempers, as seats are not reserved & so where you are when the doors open affects where you sit during the concert. And I am far from the only person who cares a lot about where he or she sits.

And then, after the concert, you have to do the same thing in reverse: line up by the elevators to be taken down one carload at a time. And if you need to use the restrooms before descending, because of course you do, you have to get through the crowd jammed up by the elevators, most of whom stand there staring like angry lumps even after you explain that you're not trying to cut ahead of them, you're trying to get past them to the restrooms. I don't really understand why a recital like this, which could have drawn a larger crowd, wasn't in a larger venue. Even if the size of the room weren't a problem, the logistics definitely are. Not sure what the Conservatory was thinking when they came up with this arrangement. But when I see the Osher Recital Hall as a venue, I definitely think twice about attending.

Schwabacher Recital Series #2: Paths of the Heart

The second Schwabacher Recital of the season, & the only one featuring only one vocalist, took place earlier this month (I am, as usual, perpetually behind on posting) at the First Unitarian Universalist Society, an unusual setting (I have only been there once before, years ago, for a Meredith Monk concert) but an attractive one. Pianist Tzu Kuang Tan accompanied baritone Gabriel Natal-Báez in Paths of the Heart, a thoughtful & poetic program taking as its theme journeys outward & inward.

The first set opened with six songs from Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel, settings of lyrics by Robert Louis Stevenson; we heard The Vagabond, Let Beauty Awake, The Roadside Fire, Youth and Love, Whither Must I Wander?, & Bright Is the Ring of Words. The titles tip you off to the mood: you have a sense of youthful springtime wanderlust, carefree adventuring in the face of the looming drudgery of adulthood, with the mood darkening towards the end into uncertainty & even, in the bittersweet final song, the suggested loss of life & life.

The second set was four Schubert lieder: Prometheus, Geistes-Gruß (Ghost Greetings), Wandrers Nachtlied II (with texts by Goethe), & Der Atlas (text by Heine): a different sort of wandering, more heroic in scale, featuring demi-gods & legendary knights, but also, in the Wandrers Nachtlied, what might be an old, or simply very weary, searcher, calmly awaiting the peace of night to fall on his restless life. These journeys were more in psychological & philosophical realms. It was clear from the start, & became even clearer as the tone & mood deepened & the theme shifted, that we were in very good hands with these performers. Natal-Báez has a rich, smooth voice, which might be enough, but he also uses it with thoughtful care & great expressivity. Tan was a strongly lyrical accompanist. Fortunately the audience was attuned enough to hold applause until each set finished, as requested in the program, so they were able to conjure their vistas without interruptions.

The second half of the program brought us to Spain & the Hispanic world, initially through the French lens of Ravel's Don Quichotte à Dulcinée; we were given all three numbers in the cycle (Chanson Romanesque, Chanson épique, & Chanson à boire, with texts by Paul Morand inspired by Cervantes's classic novel). The three songs are very loosely related, to each other & to the source material, but the idealistic / crazy figure of the knight errant encapsulates many of the themes of the program: wandering, both physically & psychologically & spiritually; the estrangement that comes from always moving on, as well as the desire to connect that keeps leading one on; a sense of adventuring among the elusive & fragile beauty of the world.

The final set was in Spanish, & included the sense of traveling back nostalgically to one's own past (Natal-Báez is from Puerto Rico). beginning with two songs by Miguel Ortega to poems by Federico Garcia Lorca – Romance de la Luna, Luna & Preciosa y el aire – followed by individual songs by Luis Antonio Ramírez (Lucero del alba / Morning song, with text by Luis Lloréns Torres), Manuel Ponce (Estrellita / Little Star, with text by the composer), Astor Piazzolla (Los pájaros perdidos / The Lost Birds, with text by Mario Trejo), & Alfonso Esparza Oteo (¡Dime que sí! / Say yes!, with text by Alfonso Espiriu). The two Lorca songs, beautifully fraught encounters of children with death & sex, hide their sophistication under charming, almost folk-tale-type, language. The four final songs seemed more like the journey through life, taking up birds, stars, love lost & gained, familiar inhabitants of Lieder-land & none the worse for that, of course.

This was an outstanding recital: the music was chosen with care & intelligence & well presented(Natal-Báez wrote the thoughtful program notes, as well as the translations of the Spanish lyrics) & Tan & Natal-Báez both operated on a consistently high level of artistry. There was one encore, To Dream the Impossible Dream from Man of la Mancha, which neatly tied up several themes of the program: Don Quixote, of course, & questing through life; Tan & Natal-Báez let it soar like the Broadway anthem it is, sending us out into our own starry nights.

Taking their bows: Tan on the left, Natal-Báez on the right

Schwabacher Recital Series #1: Italienisches Liederbuch

Yesterday at the Taube Atrium Theater, the Merola Opera Program & the San Francisco Opera Center presented the first of this season's three Schwabacher Recitals; this one, curated by Nicholas Phan, featured pianist Ji Youn Lee, soprano Mary Hoskins, & baritone Olivier Zerouali. The program had not been announced in advance, so the first pleasure was finding out that we would be hearing Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch, a collection of 46 mostly brief lieder to words by Paul Heyse "based on anonymous Italian poetry", which I've heard on recordings but which I've rarely (maybe never? unless it was decades ago, in another time & place?) encountered live. The second pleasure was how successful, how thoughtful, charming & moving, & inspiriting, the concert was.

I'm guessing that the "curating" part of Phan's role was not only in picking the repertory but also in directing the performers; the songs are not explicitly about an on-going story, but instead about many stories flitting in & out of possibility, & the two singers listened to each other attentively, with subtlety & care, to the apt, often dramatic or witty, accompaniment of Lee's playing. Her Steinway was to the center left (audience left) of the stage; to its right were two black chairs on either side of a small round café-like table with a black tablecloth, topped with two glasses of water (Zerouali drank more of his than Hoskins did of hers) & a few candles. Lee wore a stylish black ensemble; Zerouali wore a black tuxedo with an open-necked shirt, & Hoskins wore a velvety forest-green gown (one of her songs mentions wearing green, a possible inspiration). The large back wall featured a series of close-ups of paintings, some famous (Botticelli, Munch) & some not so much, a different art work for each song, printed in soft blacks & greys against a purple background, the art work reflecting & commenting on the content of the songs & the lovely shade of purple evoking the musical period in which Wolf worked; the effect was subtle & evocative. The words of the songs were displayed in large clear white type against the dark background of the art works.

I think I have only once before been to a recital which used surtitles, which have now become obligatory in opera houses. I am all in favor of using them in recitals, though I understand there are various difficulties, including cost, that prevent surtitles from becoming standard for recitals. It's worth the trouble, from an audience member's point of view, if only for sparing us the constant rustling & riffling & folding of programs with the words in them. (I'm always amazed by the number of habitual recital-goers who seem unable to figure out how the songs are arranged on the word-sheets, leading to endless flipping & scanning & searching, generally during the music). I was also grateful that in his brief opening remarks, Phan politely but clearly asked us not to applaud until the very end. I don't consider it the end of what passes for civilization if applause arrives at the "wrong" moment, but it is obtrusive, often feels merely de rigueur, & would be especially disruptive when the songs are all relatively brief (our 46 were covered in roughly an hour & 15 minutes).

The soprano is sometimes flirtatious, sometimes annoyed at her straying lover; the baritone is seductive, sometimes puzzled; both are sometimes angry, sometimes sweet. The later songs sometimes reference Paradise, in presence or in absence, a singular marker in Catholic Italy. Unlike lieder that expose the intimate feelings of a single heart, these songs are usually addressed outwards, to another (perhaps this is part of their extroverted "Italian" nature, in the eyes of an Austrian like Wolf), though there is not a clear dramatic arc or storyline in this cycle, but rather a variety of moods & situations; potent little dramas are implied, then slip away. The interplay between Hoskins & Zerouali reflected the on-going variety of the songs; nothing was overdone, nothing detracted from whichever was singing at the time, but both were at all times really present & responsive to the other. Both singers have appealing voices, Zerouali vigorous & forceful, Hoskins with a powerful but pure tone. Their attention to the words & their meanings was heightened by the audience's ability to follow along easily with the surtitles.

I do find the Taube Atrium Theater an odd space, with some acoustic peculiarities. There were only a couple of brief moments when the singers seemed to let the big size of their voices escape the reality of the room a bit. These were very tiny flaws in a collection of jewels. All concert-goers know the peculiarities of the interactions between the day they're having & the performance: does one lift or bring down the other, pull one somewhere else or seem like more of the same: each performance will be different for each audience member. So I'll just say I was having a fairly strange & not all that good day, & this concert was a welcome & delightful respite.

Merola, present and future

Sadly I was still too sick last Saturday to attend the Merola Grand Finale, which I understand was quite enjoyable. I heard some spectacular singing not only in their Streetcar Named Desire but also in their superb Don Giovanni, which I hope to post about shortly (see the mention above of temporarily debilitating sickness). Best wishes to all the young singers involved.

Here's a preview of next summer's operas, as noted in an Auditions ad (page 48) in the September Opera News (the one with local fave Patricia Racette on the cover): Menotti's The Medium with Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Donizetti's Don Pasquale. See you there!

Merola rides a Streetcar Named Desire

Last Saturday I was at the second of the two Merola Opera performances of Andre Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, in a reduced orchestration prepared by Peter Grunberg. The libretto by Philip Littell is based of course on the famous play by Tennessee Williams. This was the first revival of the work since its world premiere here in 1998. I saw those original performances and liked them, but despite the care taken and the overall excellence of Saturday's performance, the opera itself seems more problematic than ever.

There is a single-unit set used for all three acts (Steven Kemp did the scenic design). The street, the stairs, the neighbors above, the Kowalski's two-room apartment, are all jammed together, giving an effective sense of poverty and claustrophobic quarters and confusion verging on chaos and also vitality. The costumes by Kristi Johnson and the lighting by Eric Watkins were equally thoughtful and appropriate. The pace and energy of the orchestra, conducted by Mark Morash, was undimmed for the entire length of the show. The direction by Jose Maria Condemi had numerous subtle, excellent touches, such as the business-like way Blanche nods (setting aside her airs and affectations) during one of her exchanges with Stanley; or the look of incredulity and barely hidden pleasure on the face of the young paperboy when he realizes Blanche is trying to seduce him; or the way the essentially innocent Mitch sadly and pointlessly smoothes his hair and adjusts his shirt during Blanche's final exit. . . .

And the singers were all strong and convincing, from the smaller roles (Alexander Elliott as the asylum doctor and Amanda Woodbury as the nurse, Shirin Eskandani as the Mexican woman selling flores por los Muertos, Mingjie Lei as the paperboy, Eliza Bonet and Benjamin Werley as Eunice and Steve Hubbell, the upstairs neighbors) to the four leads: Casey Candebat as dreamy, naive Mitch; Adelaide Boedecker as an appealing, warm Stella; Thomas Gunther, who succeeded in creating a Stanley (crude, tough, and smart) that stood on his own without constantly evoking or imitating his famous predecessors; and Julie Adams, tireless in the exhausting, many-layered role of fragile, deceptive, destructive Blanche, floating beautiful high notes at the end as surely as she had done all through the preceding hours. Clearly it was not the fault of singers, orchestra, director, or designers if I still came away not quite convinced that the opera itself was a good idea. I think Streetcar is a much stronger opera than some of the other recent San Francisco premieres (such as The Bonesetter's Daughter, Heart of a Soldier, and The Gospel of Mary Magdalene). And yet, and yet. . . .

Like Ibsen, Williams creates a world of surface "realism" that can seem realistic to the point of sordid, but which contains, just below that surface, a stronger, sustaining world of myth and poetry. The play, one of the few reliable classics of the American theater, seems so obviously meant for music that you have to wonder if perhaps that is an impulse best resisted -- that it seems so obviously meant for music because the words and actions already contain all the music the play really needs. For every moment in which the score crystallizes or releases something in the dramatic situation (Stella's cat-who-just-got-the-cream vocalise the morning after she and Stanley have make-up sex; Blanche's impassioned cries "a light had gone out" when she finishes the agonizing story of her husband's suicide; Blanche's floating, ethereal repetition of "whoever you are" as she makes her final exit, helped by the asylum doctor and nurse) there are whole scenes in which the music slows the action and constricts the performers' possible interpretations. And though I enjoyed Previn's bluesy-woozy music, there are too many moments when its sexy-time woo-wooooo sounds conventional and cheesy.

The familiarity of the play (particularly in the form of the 1951 film with Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando), not just in general plot terms but down to specific lines and moments that have entered the common currency of American cultural reference, also works against the opera. My recollection from the time of the premiere is that the Williams estate kept very strict control over what changes could be made to the play. As a result, every single moment happens as expected, there are no surprises (and, as noted above, the score frequently keeps the performers from interpretations that might surprise us). I don't think it's an accident that Stanley shouting "Stella! Stella!" did not make much effect Saturday (as it did not in the premiere performances) -- it's no criticism of Thomas Gunther, who as I said gave us a Stanley of his own, if he could not erase (as the excellent Rod Gilfry during the premiere could not erase) the iconic memory of Marlon Brando, his shirt torn and drenched, howling in the street. Previn's music for the moment is practically recessive, as if he knew it had to be included but he couldn't quite figure out what to do with it. At least there was an attempt to turn Blanche's "I don't want realism, I want magic!" into an aria, and the challenge of "Whoever you are -- I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" was brilliantly handled by emphasizing the "whoever you are" part rather than "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," which sadly has become almost a camp line. But there aren't enough moments of such brilliance.

There's also the matter of the run time, which is three-and-a-half hours. This is not long enough to be an event (a la Einstein on the Beach, Les Troyens, St Francois d'Assise, or almost anything by Wagner), and it's not short enough to fit in with the way we live now. Americans notoriously are forced to spend too many hours at work, and often have long unpleasant commutes. A three-and-a-half hour performance is not going to fit easily into most schedules. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but I think it is a real thing. I've been noticing for several years now that if a theatrical performance is anything approaching or over three hours then the run-time generally gets commented on in reviews. The occasional response to these comments is to sneer at the Philistines who are only concerned about the last train back to the suburbs (it's always the suburbs). But for most people, a three-and-a-half hour performance is automatically a non-starter.

And I think this is one reason for the growing number of "family" presentations of familiar operas: it's a respectable way of cutting classic works whose run-times were designed for a different era. People have to live their lives in a daily detail way, and that often means worrying about things like when the last train leaves. And Philistinism doesn't even need to enter into it -- given the digital cornucopia now available so easily to us, you could spend that three-and-a-half hours watching The Passion of Joan of Arc and Cries and Whispers, and have time left over to make popcorn and read some Baudelaire. Throw in the travel time to and from the theater, and you've got hours available for cultural Crazy Town. Saying a work is too long is always a way of criticizing some other failing, and I can't really say Previn's score is worth the time it takes.

The Merola Program motto is "the future of opera." Based on Saturday, I'd say that as far as design and performance go, the future of opera looks very bright. But based on the opera itself as an example of new repertory, I'd say it's cloudy with a chance of drought. Merola's forthcoming Don Giovanni plays 31 July and 2 August (more information here), and if the cast is as strong as Streetcar's it will be well worth checking out.

Merola Master Class with Eric Owens

As part of San Francisco Opera's Merola Program for young artists, distinguished singers give master classes. I recently heard bass-baritone Eric Owens conduct such a class for four young singers. I had never been to a master class before and found it quite interesting; it was two hours without a break, but the time went by quickly, even given the very technical nature of what was going on. I was very interested in seeing Owens in the role of teacher since he gave a truly remarkable recital for Cal Performances a few years ago.

There were four singers: baritone Alexander Elliott, with Sahar Nouri on piano, performed Wie Todesahnung . . . O du mein holder Abendstern from Wagner's Tannhauser; soprano Talya Lieberman, with Sahar Nouri on piano, performed Oh! Quante volte from Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi; mezzo-soprano Nian Wang, with Kirill Kuzmin on piano, performed Parto, parto from Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito; and bass-baritone Rhys Lloyd Talbot, with Ronny Michael Greenberg on piano, performed Vous qui faites l'endormie from Gounod's Faust.

Owens spent about thirty minutes with each performer, always starting with genial and sincere words of praise before moving on to detailed critiques of individual phrases and even consonants and vowels. There was advice on breath, and on the piano phrases that take more breath. He had them vibrate each note, or sing nasally. It seemed to be a matter of taking things apart and then putting them back together -- of making the singers very aware of all the physical elements that went into producing each note (and into producing a finely spun legato line) and then moving them beyond that self-consciousness. It struck me how difficult singing is, as well as how simple and natural -- and what mental poise it takes to live simultaneously in those two realms, of self-critical hyper-awareness and of selfless, joyful music-making as a specific-character. At least in a class the singers can stop and try again. In a performance, what happens happens and you need to keep moving.

He  rarely offered emotional or interpretive advice, though he did end by telling Lloyd Talbot as Gounod's Mephistopheles to go ahead and "be that bad boy they all love - this is the ultimate one -- you're the damn devil!" He also said to one of them, "You're going to tell me a story, and it's not that you've memorized an aria -- these words are being spoken for the very first time." And he told someone else, "Stop trying to make your voice beautiful -- it's already beautiful." Instead he offered acute but always considerate advice on how to produce certain sounds ("German is a gorgeous language"), and the sounds ultimately produce the effects.

He would step away from the stage as the performers repeated phrases at his request, and he was very considerate about not blocking the view of any audience members as he stepped back into the auditorium (I wish the rest of the audience had been nearly as considerate -- there was an irritating amount of whispering, program shuffling, and other garden variety bad concert-hall behavior.) He reminded the singers that "it's work what we do up here" and that "my job is to make myself unnecessary." It was a remarkable view of vocal artistry, the kind of behind-the-scenes look that we audience members don't usually get (and should probably forget when listening to opera). All four singers impressed me right off the bat with their voices but then I was further impressed by their eagerness to learn and try things differently -- it can't be easy to be on display like that.

The class was followed by what looked like a lavish reception, but I had to work the next day (this was a Thursday night) so I had to high-tail it out of there. Your next chance to catch the Merolini in operation comes with the revival of Previn's Streetcar Named Desire on 10 and 12 July; more information on there may be found here.

Lovely "Rita"

Last night I was at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley for the first in New Century Chamber Orchestra's latest concerts, their first foray into operatic repertory. They programmed wisely, starting with a selection of opera-related pieces and then, after intermission, concluding with a Donizetti rarity: Rita, a roughly hour-long comedy for three singers (rescored and edited for New Century by Peter Grunberg, and staged by Eugene Brancoveanu).

Fortunately we were spared any chat from the stage and the first part opened immediately with music, the Intermezzo from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, arranged by Clarice Assad, followed by the Prestissimo from Verdi's String Quartet in E Minor, then the Meditation from Massenet's Thais, arranged by Clarice Assad, with NCCO leader Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg as the violin soloist, and  closing with the Overture to Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus, arranged by Mats Lidstrom. The orchestra members clearly enjoy playing together, and cast a melodious spell in these popular favorites, the fleeter, more comic selections alternating with the more poignant. The Verdi is probably the least familiar, though parts of it sounded very Verdian, as if these embryonic slashes would swell into something like a chorus from Ballo. Salerno-Sonnenberg as Thais provided an inward Meditation, a searching contemplation that clearly affected some of the audience, who stood up to applaud when that selection was finished. The part of the Meditation usually taken by (I think) a harp was replaced by (I think) a xylophone, whose comparatively less ethereal sound provided an interesting and contrasting earthward pull and comment on the soaring violin. [UPDATE: I am reliably informed (see the comments) that it was a marimba, not a xylophone, that replaced the harp.] The Fledermaus Overture was very pleasant and I was surprised at how familiar I was with it, since though I understand many people really love Fledermaus I am not among them. It could maybe have sparkled a little more, but it was enjoyable, which is all that I can ask and usually more than I get from that particular operetta. So a very enjoyable first part, about thirty-forty minutes, preparing us with arching beauty and dashing tunefulness for bel canto comedy.

I was actually a little surprised at how much fun the performance of Rita was. To get some complaints out of the way, the concert, in the middle of the work week, started at the ridiculous hour of 8:00, which is probably why most members of the audience looked as if they were retired. And the second half started with a useless video, in which Salerno-Sonnenberg went on about wanting to do something operatic with the group and choosing the Donizetti because it was manageable and then warning us about the subject matter ("spousal abuse," and though they didn't come right out and say it I'm going to guess that NCCO is, in fact, opposed to it) but it's a farce so it's all OK (I was relieved that the term "politically incorrect" was not used) and that was intercut with the director giving away crucial elements of the plot. What was the point of all this? We're already sitting there, waiting – we don't need to be persuaded that this is worth seeing, we don't need behind-the-scenes banalities. Why not let us discover the piece on our own? We'll find out soon enough what it's about. It's rare enough that we see an opera where we don't know semi-quaver by semi-quaver what's going to happen next; please, let it unfold as it was meant to, in real time on stage in front of our ears and eyes. Last NCCO concert I went to they performed the Four Seasons, prefaced with one of these unnecessary videos, in which different members of the orchestra talked about parts of the music they liked, which is very nice but I'm more interested in the parts I like. Anyway once they actually started performing the Vivaldi, there was bustle and applause from the audience after each segment until the third or fourth time it happened when Salerno-Sonnenberg, without looking at the audience, lifted her bow off the violin and pointed it at us, commanding silence. It was a dramatic (and effective) gesture, but if you're going to get all chatty and personal from the stage you can't blame the audience if they take you at your word and think they're at a cocktail party and don't pay much attention. (And in fact the audience was noisier during Rita than during the first part of the concert.)

So I was sitting there, having been told plot twists I had carefully avoided reading about, wondering glumly if farce was my least favorite form of comedy, or just close to my least favorite, and – OK, I'm going to give away some plot elements here; to be both clear and obscure, I'll say that the basic plot of Rita is a comic variant of  Enoch Arden – reflecting that I don't find "spousal abuse" any more amusing when it's the man who's being abused. Then the performance started and it was, as I said, a surprising amount of fun. Brancoveanu, who directed and designed the staging and prepared the English-language spoken parts between the musical numbers (which were sung in Italian, with surtitles), is well known around here for his beautiful baritone and strong stage presence, but he's just as talented on the other side of the stage lights; the staging was filled with clever, witty touches (starting with the cover of the program, which showed the three singers in a pose reminiscent of the Lubitsch/Ben Hecht film Design for Living – OK, there's another plot tease for you). Not everything worked brilliantly, but most of it did, and there was nothing dull or wrong-headed. Lots of it was surprisingly funny, like a slow-motion boxing match between the men. He also avoided the trap of making the stage business so busy and constant that shtick overwhelmed the performance, something I've seen happen with bel canto comedy fairly often (looking at you, Barbiere). It's too bad they didn't have a raised stage for the singers, the way Philharmonia Baroque does when they stage things at First Congregational, but it was all visible enough with a bit of neck-craning.

The staging was solidly grounded in the personalities and performances of the three excellent leads, soprano Maria Valdes as Rita, tenor Thomas Glenn as Beppe, and baritone Efraín Solís as Gasparo. All are young and good-looking enough so that the strong physical attraction behind their abused/abuser byplay was clear. Clever use was made of the physical differences between the two men; Glenn, who starts out as the hen-pecked husband, has a slighter build than does Solís, and his clear and distinctive tenor is not as large a voice as Solís's baritone, and those distinctions made part of the comedy. Glenn was hilariously meek as the opera opened, dressed, ironically, in a wifebeater, as he obediently painted his wife's toenails. His bearing and voice opened up when he realized he had a chance to escape her (the opera was of course written before divorce became a realistic possible solution for unhappy marriages). In a very funny bit he appropriates Gasparo's jacket (which he stuffs with things to create the appearance of muscles), and his dark glasses, and his swagger, and also a bit of Lucia's mad scene. Both Solís and Valdes are charming enough to get away with their "abusive behaviors," which seem like pre-emptive attempts not to be overwhelmed by their attraction for each other. Gasparo had some funny interplay with the orchestra, when he asked for something romantic and Salerno-Sonnenberg obliged with a brief reprise of the Meditation from Thais until he stopped her and demanded something italiano. Beautiful singing and playing all around, with lots of joy in the audience. When the opera ended the amiable older gentleman next to me, who had earlier noticed my bag from Moe's and with whom I had been summoning up remembrances of bookstores past, cheerfully said of his elegant wife, "Well, now I have to go home and beat her" and we all three laughed.

There are three more opportunities to catch the performance, and when else are you going to get to see Rita: Friday 14 February at First United Methodist Church in Palo Alto, Saturday 15 February at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, and Sunday 16 February at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center in San Rafael. More information and tickets here.

wish you were here

Yesterday afternoon I was at the second performance of this summer's first Merola Opera production, Dominick Argento's skewed and lively Postcard from Morocco, with a libretto by John Donahue. It's a very entertaining work, and I found it worth the trek out to the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason, which has a beautiful oceanside location that is fairly difficult to get to for non-drivers. (I assume the rent on the theater is very low.) I can't complain too much because it was a beautiful day and I enjoyed my long walk. In the opera we have seven travelers who are stuck somewhere, possibly even Morocco, waiting for a train, most likely, that will take them out of there - it may not even matter much to them where they're going.

Each of them carries some sort of box or case; each describes what he or she is carrying, but even items that sound normal - hats, shoes, a hand mirror - grow more fantastical and improbable in the description, often evoking an atmosphere of threat or paranoia (the woman with the hand mirror uses it to keep constant watch on the nooks and crannies around her; the shoe salesman leans in with insinuating and vaguely threatening suggestions). I was actually a bit surprised to read later that the opera is from 1971 because it seems so redolent of a post-war atmosphere, dipped in surrealism and existentialism, of dislocation, menace, masked identity, and absurdist comedy, though indeed the early 1970s were also a time of paranoia and absurdity (and if it comes to that, so is 2012. . . ) . The influences go back even further, though, since I kept feeling that 4 Saints in 3 Acts was an influence or at least an example, not just in the way the libretto was organized but particularly in Argento's music, which, like Thomson's, is clear, bright, and witty, with surprising emotional resonance. And both works incorporate elements of popular styles: marches, dance bands, circus tunes, as well as higher-toned references, though they are often treated in a playful manner.

The opera is one of those works that gains its unity not from plot line but from echoing metaphors and atmosphere. As the seven travelers gradually announce who they are, they self-consciously create themselves as characters, and there are many explicitly theatrical and performance references, including an interlude called Souvenirs de Bayreuth, in which circus acts such as juggling and the twisting of a vaguely obscene-looking pink balloon dog as well as dancing take place to dance-band versions of Wagner tunes such as the Valhalla theme, or the Lohengrin wedding march (for a brief, surreal marriage ceremony that ends with the popping of the pink balloon dog), or the sailors' chorus from The Flying Dutchman (the tale of another doomed traveler, who had earlier been mentioned in passing). One of the women sings into a 1940s style radio microphone, but her lovely voice is singing nonsense syllables. One of the men plays the cornet for weddings and dance bands. Two of the men perform a Punch-and-Judy show, with bright puppets on their head. It turns out the man with the cornet is also a puppeteer, and there are suggestions that the other characters are his puppets. But another man is an artist, and he's set apart a bit, and there are suggestions that it is actually he who is creating the action. The title (it's a postcard, not postcards, from Morocco) hints that there is ultimately only one person sending us greetings here.

We learn a bit more about the artist's past than we do about the others: he's the only one who refers to a childhood memory. He tells us about a vast magical ship that appeared in the sky, moored in the clouds, and he longed to be taken up from the waves of grass onto the ship, but the iceman came by and laughed at him and the ship disappeared, never to return. He has the closest thing to a love duet in the work. A lady with a cake box confesses that her box contains her lover; the artist remembers seeing the two of them outside a church, with the sort of memorable details - her head turning, showing her beautiful smile; her handsome lover dancing in the sun - that might actually be invented, just because they are so perfectly memorable. While the artist describes all this the lady with the cake box denies it all. This love duet between two people who aren't lovers, about a picture-perfect memory that possibly never really happened, is the most rapturously beautiful moment in the opera.

The usual problem with nonlinear, poetic/absurdist/oneiric works like this is of course how and when to end them, since there is no obvious plot climax. Here's where I felt the work fell down at the very end. The artist, in a moment of despair, opens his case (he's the only one to do so) and reveals its emptiness; there's nothing in the artist's little bag of tricks. We hear the same screeching, scream-like steam whistle that we heard at the very beginning coming out of his mouth. It should have ended there. Instead Argento and Donahue went for a sentimental finale, with first a hint that the artist and the woman with the cake box will have a true emotional connection (which I, under the circumstances, found a bit cheeseball) and then the artist sings of rediscovering the magical air ship of his childhood. It's all beautifully sung but dull in a feel-good way that seems false to the world we've entered. The opera is ninety minutes with no intermission, and it's too bad they can't lop off the final ten minutes, which would leave a more satisfying work.

The set is just a few simple benches, with some blown-up photos of sections of a train station hanging behind. The staging was fluid and inventive; director Peter Kazaras has a keen eye for stage pictures, and rearranges his seven singers and a few props in ways that provide constant movement that is psychologically revealing rather than forced. There are striking dance sequences as well as what you might call organized movement (the choreography is by Melecio Estrella).  Here I have to single out baritone Joseph Lattanzi, the shoe salesman as well as the second puppeteer in the Punch-and-Judy show, who was not only the best dancer but the most effective overall at moving on stage; I suspect the director realized this, since he was given more dramatic movements than the others - he even juggles, which is especially amusing since he looks a bit like F Scott Fitzgerald, so imagine Fitzgerald juggling some brightly colored balls - and he was always placed in the front in the dance sequences. There is very effective use of light and shadow (Justin Partier is the lighting designer, Nicholas Muni the scenic designer, and Kristi Johnson the costume designer).

In addition to the aforementioned Joseph Lattanzi, the very strong cast also included Aviva Fortunata as the Lady with the Cake Box, Suzanne Rigden as the Lady with the Hand Mirror, Matthew Scollin as the Man with the Cornet Case/the Puppet Maker, Carolyn Sproule as the Lady with a Hat Box, and Andrew Stenson as a Man with Old Luggage (as well as Punch in the puppet show). AJ Glueckert was the artist, and though he had a couple of minor line fluffs he really provided an emotional anchor for the action with an anguished yet warm presence. Mark Morash conducted the orchestra, with Tatiana Freedland on violin, Patricia Heller on viola, Andrew Butler on bass, Mike Corner on clarinet and saxophone, Donald Kennelly on trombone, Paul Psarros on guitar, Sun Ha Yoon on keyboards, and Scott Bleaken on percussion. Not a big band, to produce such a big bright sound.

I was glad Merola chose to do a rarity this year. These young singers will have plenty of Bohemes and Barbieres in their future. The second opera this year is also a bit of a rarity, Mozart's La finta giardiniera. You can catch it August 2 at 8:00 and August 4 at 2:00, also at the Cowell Theater. You can find a link to buy tickets here, though it's a bit buried.