Urban Opera: The Witch of Endor

I had missed Urban Opera’s premiere production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas last year, but I’d heard enough raves to keep an eye out for any follow-up productions. Finally a new project was announced: a Purcell pasticcio called the Witch of Endor, scheduled for two performances on Halloween weekend at the Episcopal Church of St Mary the Virgin. I did hesitate a bit since this would be a BART plus bus trip, which meant that getting to and fro would likely take several times as long as the actual performance (which was announced as slightly more than an hour, but was actually a bit less). Then I saw that Shawnette Sulker, whom I had enjoyed so much in the Carter song-cycle last August, would be singing, so I decided to be adventurous and trip out to a different venue. Not only that – I sprang for a Premium ticket. I’m sure glad I did – the performance is one of the most fantastic (in every sense of the word) things I’ve seen in quite a while, and I’ve rarely seen any group do so much with what must be limited resources.

St Mary the Virgin turned out to a small and severely elegant church of dark wood, with the occasional baroque Catholic-type touch – two large statues of swirling angels, an elaborate brocade altar cloth. Director and conductor Chip Grant used the entire space, from the altar to the aisle to the organ loft in the back. All the music (except for one scene for drum circle) was from Purcell, centering on the short scene In Guilty Night, but also incorporating instrumental and vocal music from other compositions, combined with readings (from Rudyard Kipling and the Bible), movement, and film to tell the story of Saul’s visit to the Witch of Endor, which ends with the summoned ghost of Samuel announcing that Saul and Jonathan will the very next day join him in the world of the dead. All of these elements combined smoothly to produce something that was both new and yet faithful to the allegorical masque-spirit of the seventeenth century.

After the introductory recitation of Kipling’s The Witch of En Dor (by Gary Graves, as a wandering old street preacher) and the chaconne from King Arthur, the Reverend Dr. Jason Parkin read the relevant passages from Samuel I in mellifluous tones, a prologue that provided anyone unfamiliar with the story (which is also a key incident in Handel’s oratorio Saul) with an immediate understanding of the story we were about to experience.

Though the duration of the performance was short, it was very condensed and rich, with many touches that expanded the implications of the piece and played off one another: for example, Shawnette Sulker as the Witch wore a striking orange pleated cape and costume with a feathered headress, and the drum circle of related sorcerers carried bare white branches, and their outfits evoked the natural world and African spirit mediums and their struggle against persecution by the imperialist reformers evoked by the readings from Kipling and the film clips of British imperial coronations; the dominance and eventual collapse of imperialism is a subject, needless to say, deeply relevant to contemporary America.

The film (and it was actually a filmstrip, with that evocative whir of the projector) illustrated the backstory – the coronation of Saul and his persecution of witches and mediums – using a variety of film clips both new and old, along with images from Goya, and what I think were moments from the weird Swedish silent film Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (the Criterion edition includes the 1968 version narrated by William S. Burroughs, with a Jean-Luc Ponty soundtrack; the date surprised me, since the total effect of that version is so 1950s hipster you can almost smell the marijuana as you watch it). The film work was done by Brendan Bolles. The striking, inventive costumes were by Anastazia Louise. The chorus make-up was by Rachel Rehmet, and I have to mention one of the most stunning strokes, the climax of the work: after the ghost of Samuel announces Saul’s impending doom, you realize that the orchestra and chorus have all been sitting in profile, because they simultaneously turn their heads to show their other profile, each made up to look like a skull, so that Saul is suddenly surrounded by a skeleton chorus. Pure and powerful theater magic, using the simplest of methods. That kind of ambitious invention is evident throughout.

I could just keep on raving about the experience. I should of course mention how excellent the musical portion was. I’ve already discussed Shawnette Sulker, who showed she could handle Purcell as well as Carter. There were also excellent contributions from John Minagro as Samuel, Colby Roberts as Saul, and Lindsey McLennan as the Goddess of Dreams. The orchestra was elegant and powerful. I’m sure I’m forgetting something or someone. Kudos to Chip Grant for spearheading the large and talented crew.

Afterwards there was a generous reception in the church courtyard, with wine and cheese and crackers and grapes. Before the performance those of us with premium tickets had been offered – I swear – fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, which were delicious; I ate more than my share. I didn’t have any of the wine afterwards, since it sometimes triggers migraines for me and I’ve been headachey recently, but if I’d been feeling better I’d have risked a glass out of love for the name of the winery: Forlorn Hope Wines.

OK, I will definitely be keeping an eye out for any upcoming productions Urban Opera might put on. It’s a shame this one isn’t running another weekend, so that word can spread.

random previews: opera

The San Francisco Opera season is well underway, but the one genuinely exciting, do-not-miss production is coming up in a few weeks: Karita Mattila in The Makropulos Case. As for the rest of the season, it doesn’t exactly heat the blood. For a while I thought Gockley’s aim was to turn the local house into the Met Lite, but at this point I’m thinking we should be so lucky, given the Met’s more adventurous repertory and staging in the last few years. We’re eating their dust out here in the West, not that I think the majority of the local audience minds. They seem quite in tune with Gockley’s advocacy of – well, let’s try for something neutral between “beloved classics” and “exhausted warhorses” – the more familiar works in the repertory, sung by already well-established names.

Anyone in search of anything more adventurous or challenging than People You’ve Heard Of, In Works You’ve Already Heard (or even those just searching for novelty) is out of luck. Gockley and the bulk of the San Francisco audience seem perfectly suited to each other. That’s not a compliment. Any potential audience members intrigued by works like Le Grand Macabre or St Francois are once again left to fend for themselves out there in the avant-garde wilds. Thank goodness for DVDs! What we're getting here are brand-name works presented in a more or less plush and traditional way. Nothing here is going to frighten the horses. Going to the opera in San Francisco now isn’t like going to the Museum of Modern Art; it’s like going to Bloomingdale’s.

By the way, I don’t really buy the claims that what San Francisco Opera is currently doing is “all about the voice”; everyone says that these days casting the big Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner works is difficult to impossible, whereas we’re living in a golden age for Handel and Rossini singing. So are we getting Radamisto or La Donna del Lago? We are not. We’re getting inadequate productions of the big Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner works, because a large segment of the audience isn’t interested in anything unfamiliar and no one is interested in convincing them that new stuff can be fun and engaging.

Yes, Aida and Madama Butterfly are great works, and there’s no disgrace in presenting them, but for a veteran of the opera house there isn’t a lot of urgency in hearing them; that’s the thing about Top 40 programming – sooner or later, and probably sooner, you’re going to get another chance to hear that piece. Yet opera is a strange and addictive drug: a few months ago I looked up the performance dates of Aida for a friend, and suddenly was strangely excited at the thought of hearing the opera – Aida, of all things, an opera that has never interested me much outside of Leontyne Price’s involvement with it.

I ended up feeling I didn’t really need to pay those prices for another Aida, though Zajick was definitely a temptation. It turns out to be just as well, since I could have written the reviews without seeing it: the Zandra Rhodes designs were eye-catching but didn’t always work well, and the cast was vocally uneven. (I had seen Zandra Rhodes’s production of the Pearl Fishers and though I loved the colors I thought the setting was too cartoony.) Sung drama is the most basic form of drama, and an art form that has survived in varying forms for centuries deserves an audience that thinks of it as something more than candy-colored camp.


As for the rest of the season, I enjoyed Werther; and though Nozze di Figaro is one of my favorite operas, I loathe this production, which I’ve already seen in two different revivals (my mostly negative thoughts on that 2006 revival are here, and it was actually less vulgar than the first); I love Madama Butterfly, but feel I’ve seen it enough for a while. I did spring for a ticket to Cyrano, because I’ve always admired Domingo and the only other time I’ve heard him live was in Herodiade. And then there’s the Janacek; I assume we have Mattila’s star power to thank for bringing us one of this great composer’s fascinating works. I honestly don’t understand why he isn’t as popular as Puccini – to me he has that same kind of emotional directness and melodic richness. And Jenufa has one of the few happy endings I find convincing, even inspiring. So that’s the one can’t-miss for me this season.

I’m not excluding the upcoming June Ring Cycle from that assessment, either; I hoped that Walkure last June would guide and convince me one way or the other, but apparently I got the vocal off-night, which seems to be how these things go for me (so if I end up not buying tickets, you can be assured you’re in for a treat!). The production itself is not very interesting (my thoughts on Walkure are here, and in there is a link to my thoughts on the Rheingold, which I saw in both DC and here).

Fortunately other local groups are taking up the operatic slack for those who maybe don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for their hundredth Butterfly:

On October 30 and 31, Urban Opera is presenting a Purcell pasticcio, the Witch of Endor. They’re a new group and though I missed their previous presentation, Dido and Aeneas, it was highly praised.

Cal Performances is presenting Lorin Maazel's Castleton Festival Opera in two Britten works, The Rape of Lucretia on March 24 and 25 and Albert Herring on March 26 and 27.

Ensemble Parallele is presenting Philip Glass’s Orphee, one of his Cocteau operas, on February 26 and 27, as a follow-up to their kick-ass Wozzeck.

Berkeley West Edge Opera is in a nifty new space in El Cerrito and has some interesting programs, starting with Handel’s Xerxes on November 13, 19, and 21, followed by an adaptation of Carmen called the Carmen Fixation and a new opera by Clark Suprynowicz and Amanda Moody called Caliban’s Dreams.

Festival Opera hasn’t announced its 2011 productions as far as I know. For a while they were doing one warhorse and one more unusual work (like Rorem’s Our Town or Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream) but lately it’s been two warhorses. I hope they resume their more adventurous ways. But even if they don’t, they present solid productions in a nice smaller theater, at a much lower cost than San Francisco Opera.

The other big opera excitement for me is the James Levine 40th anniversary CD and DVD sets. Cumulatively the sets are expensive, though the per-disc price is quite low. (And by not buying tickets to Aida, Butterfly, and Figaro, I more than covered the expense.) And click on those links and look at what you get! What I really love and admire here is the commitment to new or “difficult” works (there was a time when Mozart and Wagner were considered difficult. . . ). Two recordings each of Wozzeck and Lulu, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in Les Troyens and The Great Gatsby. . . everyone will have his or her particular jewels here, but anyone who doesn't find this collection thrilling . . . uh, is probably a big fan of the current programming at San Francisco Opera. I haven’t watched any of the DVDs yet, and have only listened to about half of the CDs, but I’m thrilled with the set and can’t recommend it too highly. My one complaint so far: the packaging is flimsy and difficult to use. I almost wrecked the DVD box trying to get the tray of discs out, and removing the CDs means reaching into the cardboard envelope and sliding them out by touching the disc – so a fail on the packaging, but the recordings are sheer gold.

fun stuff I may or may not get to: October

Cal Performances gets things off to a terrific start with several west coast premieres from the Mark Morris Dance Group: Socrate, Looky, and Behemoth, September 30 to October 3. Jeremy Denk appears Sunday October 24, with a wonderful program: the Ligeti Etudes, Books 1 and 2, and Bach’s Goldberg Variations. And from the 26th to the 30th, Benjamin Bagby is performing Beowulf (with surtitles) in what the series brochure calls Anglo-Saxon – do they not call it Old English anymore? Ah, tempus fugit. . . They have a bunch of other interesting stuff as well, but that’s what I have tickets for so far.

San Francisco Performances presents the Takacs Quartet on October 9, playing Haydn, Bartok, and Beethoven. Again: they have other interesting stuff this month, but that’s what I have a ticket for so far.

Cutting Ball Theater starts its season with a Hidden Classics Reading Series presentation of Andromache, by Euripides, on Sunday October 3 at 1:00 p.m. (The Hidden Classics series has free admission.)

Between the Lines, directed by Nicole Paiement, presents Riding the Elevator into the Sky on October 9, featuring Chiaroscuro Azzurro by Laura Schwendinger with Wei He on violin and David Conte’s Sexton Songs, with Marnie Breckenridge, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. 415-503-6275 for tickets.

Magnificat presents a rare opportunity to hear John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, 8-10 October, in a different location each night, so check out details on their website.

In further baroque developments, Philharmonia Baroque presents a variety of works by Bach, including the Wedding Cantata, the harpsichord concertos in D minor and D major, and the Orchestral Suite No. 1; October 15-19 in various locations, so check out details on their website.

The Beethoven 7 is perhaps my favorite of his symphonies, so I’m glad to see the San Francisco Symphony has it scheduled October 7-9, with some interesting accompanying pieces by Revueltas, Villa-Lobos, and Varese.

The Shotgun Players offer Mary Stuart, writer-director Mark Jackson's version of Schiller's play.

At the end of the month (starting October 22), Berkeley Rep starts its run of the three-part, twelve-playwright west coast premiere of The Great Game: Afghanistan.

And at the very end of the month, October 30 and 31, Urban Opera presents The Witch of Endor, a pasticcio version of Saul's visit to the witch of Endor (familiar from Handel's Saul, if not from The First Book of Samuel) based on music mostly by Purcell. The title role is sung by Shawnette Sulker, who was so good in Carter's A Mirror on Which to Dwell.