Category Archives: Idiots at the Opera

Idiots at the Opera – Prince Loses War, Heads Home – Prince Igor, at the Met

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You know what I know even less about than opera? Russian history and Russian music. So what am I to make of the Met’s new production of Prince Igor? Am I pissed off to have lost harem pants and Arabian fantasies for a coherent libretto and a concept that makes sense? Not at all. Thank you, director Dmitri Tcherniakov. If I want traditional I can always catch (Putin’s favorite conductor/director) Valery Gergeiv’s version on the youtube.

The critical reception has been mostly favorable, but some guy over at an e-zine walked out after the first act to show how cool he was. Sorry, where I come from (that would be Queens) reviewing without staying to the end is considered bad form. The Times liked it, and the audience seemed to on Friday night when we went. I’m sure plenty of people were looking forward to scantily clad Polovtsian maidens dressed like Barbara Eden and were disappointed when instead they got a fever dream in a field of poppies. Poppies. Worked for me, but I couldn’t get Margaret Hamilton saying “Poppies. Poppies will make them sleep” out of my brain.

Here’s the story in its simplest form: Prince Igor runs the city-state of Putivl. He goes off with his troops to war against the Polovastians – nomads from the east. He loses and gets taken prisoner. He escapes and comes home to a ruined city. The end.

It’s during his time as a hostage that the Khan (the leader of the Polovstians, insert Star Trek joke here) entertains him with dancing maidens and that’s where we get the Polovstian dancers, which if you are an American of a certain age, and stayed up late watching the late, late show, you remember from this commercial:

The opera was composed by Alexander Borodin over many years and was unfinished at his death, so others – Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov worked on it as well. For this production, Tcherniakov scrapped a lot of the additions and tried to return as much as possible to Borodin’s original.

Borodin, the illegitimate son of a Georgian prince and a Russian peasant serf girl, was a prominent scientist who never composed full time. He was part of a group of “late 19th century Russian composers who rejected Western styles and conservatory-taught methods, seeing instead an original Russian form of musical expression.” (Playbill program). So this opera might be considered, as the better-half put it, “outsider art.”

The music is haunting, exotic, melodic. It doesn’t sound like any other opera. Most of the prominent male roles are booming basses. There’s a ginormous chorus, and between that and the ten minute ballet it’s a cast of at least hundreds making it difficult and expensive to stage. (The last time the Met did it was 1917.) And then there’s the whole west meets east, or rather east meets further east, thing. Back in the 90’s one musicologist declared it Exhibit A in a treatise on Orientalism, but in this production Tcherniakov has something else in mind.

It’s long – four hours and 15 minutes including two intermissions, and that’s excising at least one act and an overture. We open with words projected on a humongous screen – “To unleash a war is the surest way to escape from one’s self.” Then there’s a projection in black and white of Ildar Abdrazakov as Prince Igor. Just a giant face. At first I had my doubts about the cinematography, but there’s method, and it’s not madness.

We go to the prologue. In the city-state of Putivl, they’re gearing up for war. There’s an eclipse which everybody takes as a bad sign. Igor is leaving his brother-in-law, Prince Galitsky in charge. Igor’s wife, Yaroslavna, pleads with him not to go. Yaroslavna is sung by Oksana Dyka whose voice has been described as “clanging” and “metallic” by some critics. I’d use intense and powerful. I’d never heard anything like it. It works for this role.

The pay-off for the photos comes in Act I (which is really Act II but for some reason the first act is considered a prologue.) Igor with a head wound wakes in the giant poppy field. According to the program, “In his mind, the tormented Igor replays over and over everything that has happened.” We see the losing battle played out in still photos and short clips of soldiers falling. We go back several times to black and white images of the Prince prostrate on the battle field. Is the poppy field “real” or a mental landscape? It’s disconcerting. The Prince’s wife, Yaroslavna shows up. Clearly that’s a hallucination but what about the Khan? He seems like a jovial guy and appears to just want the Prince’s friendship, insists he’s a guest and not a hostage and would happily free him if he promised not to oppose him, a promise Igor can’t make. We meet the Khan’s daughter, Konchakovna sung by the always sultry mezzo, Anita Rachvelishvilli (Carmen is her signature role) who is in love with Igor’s son, Prince Vladimir, who plans on sticking around. Is that even real? (For all we know, the young prince might have died in battle and it’s Igor’s fantasy.) As for the big dance number, the dancers spring up from the ground wearing simple costumes, and while the ballet is beautiful, it’s a not the usual kitsch. The program implies it’s a vision, and that’s the only way to make sense of it.

Meantime over in Putivl, Prince Galitsky is abducting maidens and planning to send his sister, Yaroslavna, to a nunnery and take over. She’s doing the best she can, but has no army. There’s a rebellion – more of a drunken riot, and then the Polovastians invade and her brother is killed.

In the final act, we see the city in ruins and here there’s a definite post-apocalyptic vibe. Igor, who has escaped from the Khan returns. The crowd is jubilant. Why they aren’t ready to kill him for getting them into this disastrous adventure is a mystery to me, but who knows with those Russians? Igor has a monologue about those who died. It’s all very Brechtian, especially when he leads his people by grabbing some bricks from the rubble to begin to rebuild the city.

Moral of the story, never get into a land war in Asia.

Works for me, and I’m sure it has resonance and relevance for the Russians as well. Regarding performers not specifically mentioned, Sergey Semishkur as Prince Vladimir – the only tenor – sang very sweetly with Rachvelishvilli. Stefan Kocan as the Khan did a fine job. Mikhail Petreko managed to make Galitsky vile without going over the top and milking it. The chorus was outstanding, and Abdrazakov was brilliant.

Worth seeing? Hell yeah. Great music, great theater, and very different from anything else we’ve seen. There are a few more performances between now and March 8th, including a March 1st live in HD. Long as it is, you could do worse on a chilly Saturday afternoon. I’d even recommend it for the opera-curious who’ve never been.

Below is the director talking about his intentions:

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Idiots at the Opera — Rusulka, They Didn’t Live Happily Ever After

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We caught the fabulous Renee Fleming singing the title role in Rusalka at the Met on Tuesday – two days out from her Superbowl triumph. The woodland set was gorgeous, and the diaphanous pond brilliant. The cool blue dresses of the title character were perfect as were the hot hues of her princess rival. This should look stunning in the HD which is tomorrow, so if you don’t have tickets yet and can’t get to the Met get some.

Fleming looked great and gave a beautiful rendition of the opera’s most well-known aria, “Song to the Moon” in Act I. However, she seemed less vocally robust in other places. Not sure if that was the effect of time or just post-game fatigue. Piotr Bezcala sang the Prince. This is the fourth role I’ve seen him in and he just gets better and better. I continue to be impressed not only by his voice, but by his acting. There’s more than a costume change involved in the varied roles he takes on. John Relyea as the Water Gnome also gave an impressive performance, managing to bring out a bit of the libretto’s humor and irony, even if the production seemed to otherwise ignore it. Mezzo-soprano, Mary Phillips was replacing Dolora Zajick as Jezibaba, the witch. Like Relyea. She seemed to be having a good time and gave the character some comic moments. Not sure if she’s in for the run, but we enjoyed her performance. Vocally, Emily Magee was great as the Foreign Princess, but as the libretto keeps bringing up her “passion” in contrast to Rusulka’s “paleness,” a little more heat could have been added.

The conductor was Yannick Nezet-Seguin. I know this mini-review has gone way over the adjective quotient, but being a musical idiot I’m not sure how I’d describe Dvorak’s score other than shimmery, creamy, playful and lush. Does that make sense?

As for the story, the better-half and I are fans of verismo – give us your soldiers gone wrong over gypsy girls, your young men in love with dying prostitutes etc. We’ll take the occasional comic romp, or history, but too much magic leaves us cold. However, this worked. The story borrows heavily from Anderson’s Little Mermaid (not, thankfully, Disney’s).but with an even bleaker ending. That may be why we liked it. When supernatural beings decide to transform for love, things shouldn’t go well.

There are three performances left, including the HD. If you’re unfamiliar with Met ticketing, you can go here for the scoop on cheap seats.

Here’s a clip for your listening pleasure:

Also want to briefly mention Falstaff. We caught the last night of the Met’s much-praised production. It was a hoot. The setting, costumes, everything worked. Ambrogio Maestri, singing the title role, seemed to be channelling Zero Mostel – and I mean that in the best possible way. Angela Meade as Alice Ford and Stephanie Blyth as Mistress Quickly were sublime. Well worth a look and listen if there’s a DVD out there.

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L’Elisir D’Amore — A Star is Born

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Last year we did not see the Bartlett Sher production of L’Elisir D’Amore with Anna Netrebko because we are idiots. We decided to rectify that mistake and see the revival also with Netrebko this year and bought tickets for its opening night.

I’ve seen Netrebko in the Willy Decker version of La Traviata thanks to youtube, but the only time the better-half and I saw her live was in this season’s dismal Eugene Onegrin, known in our house as Six Singers Flailing on a Stage in Search of a Production. So we thought it would be great to see her in a role in which she’d triumphed, in a production that actually had a director.

Not keeping up on all the gossip, we didn’t know that Netrebko was out with the flu and we’d be watching the Met debut of Andriana Chuchman. Fortunately, the Met knew, and Chuchman had been at the dress rehearsal. All we knew was what was on the note inserted in our Playbill. Someone we’d never heard of would be making her Met debut in a role we’d come to hear the sweetheart of the Metropolitan sing.

Pressure much?

The better-half who is also the nicer-half made it clear that unless she was terrible he planned to applaud her very loudly.

She started off a little soft and drowned out by the orchestra. It didn’t seem like she had the vocal power for the house, but then Continue reading L’Elisir D’Amore — A Star is Born →

Idiots at the Opera — Tosca, It’s Italian

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Tosca has so many Italian stereotypes that if an Italian hadn’t written it, it would be offensive. You’ve got your passionate revolutionary artist type tenor, your jealous diva – the character is supposed to be a famous singer — who wields a lethal letter opener, a duplicitous baron who could be one of Tony Soprano’s meaner ancestors, plus Madonna-worship (the religious icon, not the pop-singer), politics, and betrayal.

This is the kind of opera we love – passionate, Italian, and more verismo than a ripped from the headlines episode of any incarnation of Law and Order.

The current production at the Met opened in September with Patricia Racette in the title role, opposite Roberto Alagna as Mario Cavaradossi. The reviews in the usual places are of those performers. We saw it last night with Sondra Radvanovsky and Marcello Giordani in the roles.

Radvanovsky who neither of us heard before, was a revelation. If I could only use one word to describe her voice, it would be supple. She sings with amazing ease. No shrieking, no breathiness, no strain of any kind. She sings the way Fred Astaire dances – that is, she makes it look deceptively easy. She begins her big aria – Vissi d’Arte, supine on a sofa – an act which seems to defy the laws of both gravity and acoustics – and she pulls it off flawlessly. Showboating? Maybe. But we ate it up like cheesecake.

The always reliable Met fav, Marcello Giordani was in especially good form, winning us over with the powerful Act I, aria Recondita armoni. The duet between Mario and Tosca later in the act, showcased the chemistry between Continue reading Idiots at the Opera — Tosca, It’s Italian →

Idiots at the Opera — Die Frau Ohne Schatten

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Neither of us had heard of Strauss’ fairytale opera, Die Frau Ohne Schatten before, but Opera Teen called it “the most hotly anticipated event of the season” so we figured, can’t go wrong with that.

Christine Goerke, as the Dyer’s Wife, is a particular standout in a very strong cast of singers, and as Barak, her husband, Johan Reuter brought great humanity and presence. The sets and lighting have received a lot of press. The lighting was amazing. The red feather costume of the falcon glowed like embers. And the emperor’s transformation from stone back to flesh was nothing short of a miracle. However, the set with its large panels which at times were mirrored and at times black, reminded me of Tron. It was showy, but didn’t always draw us into the story. The transformation from the half-spirit world of the Emperor and Empress to the drab home of Barak the Dyer was accomplished via elevating the spirit-world set to reveal the Dyer’s home. The Empress and her nurse descended a spiral staircase down to the Dyer’s. I had some trouble with this, partly because I’d seen that staircase employed in various ways in different productions, and in this case I had to do too much mental work around the “invisible” stairs in the middle of the house. The story of the half-spirit Empress trying to obtain a shadow doesn’t have the heft of myth or the charm of fairytale. Fairytales are for children, but this one seems geared for adults. The darkness of the messenger would probably frighten small children, and the message is not just the shadow as a metaphor for the human soul, but that the ability to reproduce is the true purpose of humanity. It’s all a bit heavy-handed, and silly even for opera.

Musically, the score is brilliant and the orchestra and conductor were up to it. But we didn’t find ourselves emotionally connected. At times the music became epic and melodramatic while there was no singing and little stage action. Some of this may just be characteristic of German opera or maybe of Strauss. We’re idiots; this was our first Strauss and our first opera with a German libretto. So what do we know?

If you want young children to experience enchantment with a classical score, you’d do better to take them to The Nutcracker or maybe Tales of Hoffman. If you’re on the fence about opera, this isn’t the one to start with – you won’t leave humming. However, if you are familiar with the music, and thrilled that it’s being performed, overall it’s a fine production with some great performances, and you won’t be disappointed.

As of this writing, only one performance left — Tuesday, November 26th. Still some decent seats left, including full view family circle, and of course rush tickets is always an option. For more on last minute and cheap tix, you can check out this post.

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