ROF’s La Gazza Ladra Sparks Controversy

Rossini Opera Festival 2007

If ever there was an opera production that put the words “cultural divide” in neon lights, the Rossini Opera Festival’s 2007 production of La Gazza Ladra is it. The striking differences in opinions between Italian opera critics and their English counterparts were planted front and center.

These diverse viewpoints were directly linked to Damiano Michieletto’s direction and Paolo Fantin’s sets whose eagerness to exceed the textual boundaries of Rossini’s most respected opera semiseria ignited the debate. Hugh Canning’s comments in Opera, November, 2007, boiled over the operatic cauldron in total disapprobation. “They (ROF) could also hardly have done worse than engage a young director with ‘ideas’ about La Gazza Ladra, staged as an immigrant’s nightmare…The genius responsible for transforming Rossini’s domestic semiseria into a searing indictment of a police state and implacable judiciary was Damiano Michieletto.” Even as late as November, 2008, David Blewitt in Opera referred to ROF’s new productions in 2007, as, “two concept productions of unmitigated awfulness,” — the other disappointment being Rossini’s Otello.

Stephen Hastings’s perspective in Opera News November, 2007, touched on some of the ideas Italian critics voiced about the work. “The director, Damiano Michieletto, aided by scenographer Paolo Fantin, proved…adept at matching sound and movement, offering a number of striking visual effects (including a stage flooded by rain in Act 11).” In fact, the Italian critics were completely enamored by Michieletto’s and Fantin’s approach which cast a darker hue over the opera’s story than past productions had done.

Claudio Salvi, in Il Messaggero, on August 12th, 2007, said about the first performance, “In a festival which is now basing all its reason for being on modern directors and on young talented casts, the traditionalists have found it difficult to integrate their melomanical beliefs with Damiano Michieletto’s innovative and original direction, and for Pesaro’s new course of action.” Yet, Salvi believed this dreamlike interpretation of La Gazza Ladra worthy of ROF’s fame and as one of the best productions seen at ROF in the last few years. For having bet on this young director and his talented cast, this production represents a kind of awakening from the dark and shows a good dose of courage.

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Berg, Lulu

By James L. Zychowicz

Reprinted with permission from Seen and Heard – Music Web’s Live Opera, Concert and Recital Reviews.

Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Lyric Opera of Chicago, Sir Andrew Davis (conductor) Civic Opera House, Chicago 22.11.2008 (JLZ)

Production:

Director: Paul Curran
Set Design: Kevin Knight
Lighting: David Jacques

Cast:

Animal Tamer/Athlete: Jan Buchwald
Alwa: William Burden
Dr. Schön/Jack the Ripper: Wolfgang Schöne
Lulu: Marlis Petersen
Painter/Sailor: Scott Ramsay
Professor of Medicine/Professor: Craig Irvin
Schigolch: Thomas Hammons
Prince/Manservant/Marquis: Rodel Rosel
Wardrobe Mistress/Schoolboy: Buffy Baggott
Countess Geschwitz: Jill Grove
Journalist: Corey Crider

Lyric Opera of Chicago’s new production of Alban Berg’s Lulu is compelling musically, dramatically and visually. With its fine cast which includes Marlis Petersen, one of the outstanding musicians currently portraying the title role, the roles are covered well, and the staging allows them to interact with each other convincingly. The production itself is worthy of note for the innovative tack which Kevin Knight has taken from film.

Not only did Knight allow the character of Lulu to resemble Louise Brooks, who created the role in Pabst’s famous film, Pandora’s Box, but he also used the idea of film to frame each act, from the tableaux which opened them, to the scrimmed “Ende” at the conclusion of the work. In approaching the design in this way, Knight integrated into the production the musical sequence in the second act, for which Berg recommended using film to show the trial, imprisonment, and escape of Lulu, prior to her return to Alwa. The film was no longer anomalous, but part of the visual language of this production. Thus, other elements from film merged into the design to fine effect. With the Louise-Brooks wig of medium-length black hair that seemingly remains perpetually in place, Petersen resembled the image of Lulu as immortalized on film, and the film itself came to life in this production. With the visual element unifying the performance and with the fine leadership that Sir Andrew Davis has given it, this production makes an important work accessible to a wider audience.

As Lulu, Marlis Petersen sang the role easily and convincingly. She has captured the details of the part excellently, with a facility that other singers may not have. If her voice was sometimes difficult to hear, this was the result of the sometimes thick textures in the score, which was also well executed by the orchestra. Petersen’s phrasing made the sometimes angular lines that Berg used to depict his character, emerge with the remarkable clarity otherwise. Her diction, the German of a native speaker, contributed to her success in a role which she has also played in Vienna and other cities. And as incongruous as it may seem, Petersen’s previous role at Lyric was as Adele in the 2006-2007 season, an equally memorable portrayal though in many ways removed from the multidimensional Lulu of Berg’s opera. That aside, the freshness and engaging tone that Petersen brought to Adele actually enlivened her depiction of Lulu. The vocal presence was useful in defining her character, with the passages of Sprechstimme executed beautifully. Likewise, Petersen’s speaking voice lent authority to the limited passages of spoken dialogue at critical points in the drama.

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Gershwin, Porgy and Bess

By James L. Zychowicz

Reprinted with permission from Seen and Heard – Music Web’s Live Opera, Concert and Recital Reviews.

Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Lyric Opera of Chicago, John DeMain (conductor) Civic Opera House, Chicago 29.11.2008 (JLZ)

Production:

Director – Francesca Zambello
Set Design – Peter J. Davison
Costumes – Paul Tazewell
Lighting – Mark McCullough
Choreography and Association Stage Director – Denni Sayers

Cast:

Porgy – Gordon Hawkins
Bess – Morenike Radayoni
Crown – Lester Lynch
Clara – Laquita Mitchell
Sporting Life – Jermaine Smith
Jake – Eric Greene
Serena – Jonita Lattimore
Robbins – Barron Coleman
Maria – Maretta Simpson

After a number of years, George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess is back on the stage of Lyric Opera of Chicago in a production rented from Washington National Opera (Washington, D.C.) and designed by Francesca Zambello. This conception sets the work forward in time from being contemporaneous with its creation in the mid-1930s onward to the 1950s, as apparent from the costumes and, to a degree, from the kinds of interactions depicted between the black community and the white police and legal figures. The familiar story of the sometime jaded cripple Porgy falling in love with Bess, a woman of questionable virtue, who was formerly with Crown. Going into hiding after killing Seren’s husband, Crown fails to take Bess along, and she finds refuge with Porgy. While Porgy and Bess grow to love each other, Crown still feels as if Bess is his property, and the tension mounts until Porgy murders him. Yet when Porgy is taken away for questioning, Bess takes off for New York with Sporting Life, a low-life who will, no doubt lead her into more problems. The end of the work finds Porgy taking off to find Bess, and even in this fine production, his prospects of success seem poor, despite’s Porgy’s resilience.

Peter J. Davison’s vivid design works well in and serves the score nicely by allowing for appropriate spaces in which the can occur: this definitely helps to enhance those aspects of the work which are closer to musical theater than conventional opera. Without splitting hairs over distinctions between opera and musicals, the dramatic elements of Porgy and Bess can sometimes isolate the music from the action, and this is implicit in the division of the work into two parts, the first consisting of the overture, first act, and the first two scenes of the second act; the second comprising the last two scenes of Act II and the entire third act. This structure reinforces the tragic rape of Bess on Kittiwah Island and makes the production resemble more a traditional Broadway music, which usual divides into two acts.

As to the production itself, it is a vivid visualization on stage of Catfish Row as a two-story tenement, with doors and stairs accessible for various entrances and exits. It helps to define the community group whose spiritual leader is Maria, performed here by the Lyric veteran Marietta Simpson. (Simpson was part of the memorable production of Blitzstein’s Regina several years ago.) In Porgy and Bess Simpson demonstrated her always fine singing once again, but the drama also allowed audiences to appreciate her acting ability. A sympathetic character, he was most animated during the scene in which she confronts Sporting Life. Likewise, Jonita Lattimore, a voice familiar to Chicago audiences, not only for her work at Lyric, but also at other venues She brought the character of Serena to life convincingly, with her lament “My Man’s Gone Now” at the end of the first act which was particularly moving. Her vocal inflection brought out the emotional pitch of the number, which remains in this production more convincing than the somewhat obligatory spiritual-inspired chorus “Leavin’ for the Promised Land” which ends the act. “Oh, Doctor Jesus” at the end of the second act was, in Lattimore’s hands, memorable.

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