Gershwin, Porgy and Bess

Eric Owens as Porgy – Picture © Terrence McCarthy

From SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL OPERA REVIEW
By: Harvey Steiman

The current production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess concluding its run at San Francisco Opera revels in the scope and scale of grand opera, the oversized emotions and big gestures, both musical and dramatic, that make the blood rush when opera takes wing. For the most part, conductor John DeMain got all that from a sumptuous cast and a revved-up San Francisco Opera orchestra without losing the essential jazziness of Gershwin’s music, which segues seamlessly from 1930s dance beats to the sweep of a full-throated aria, and the orchestral thrusts that draw out those big emotions.

As Porgy, bass Eric Owens, last seen here as General Leslie Groves in John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, dominated the cast. He just got stronger of voice and more powerful of stage presence as the evening progressed. A big man, both tall and broad, he was utterly believable as a game-legged cripple with the upper-body strength to best his rival in a knife fight. He also has the tenderness of body language to make his duets with Bess feel special, and the velvet in the voice to bring a catch to the throat when, in the final scene, his sang the first line of “Oh Lord, I’m on my way” with a perfect mixture of pathos, wonder and resolve.

In this production, borrowed from Washington National Opera, Porgy eschewed the goat cart, instead hobbling on a makeshift crutch as he dragged one leg, a theatrical decision that made for more physical options in the love scenes with Bess and other interactions with the cast. It also created a heartbreaking final tableau as he limped across the stage into the light streaming from an opened door, disappearing on the final chord.
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Verdi, La Traviata; San Francisco Opera

Anna Netrebko as Violetta

From SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL OPERA REVIEW
By: Harvey Steiman

Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of San Francisco soloists, conducted by Donald Runnicles, San Francisco Opera. 13.6.2009 (HS)

One mark of a true operatic superstar is that he or she never does anything quite like anyone else. That’s what lifts Anna Netrebko’s Violetta Valéry, the doomed heroine of Verdi’s La Traviata, out of the ordinary. As if her voluptuous tone, fearless stage presence and ever-present musicality were not enough, her performance in the role on its opening night at San Francisco Opera impressed with its originality and aptness.

Time and again, Netrebko sidestepped hoary performance practices that have attached themselves to this familiar opera over the years. For example, in the final scene a dying Violetta reads a rueful letter from her lover’s father, who in Act II had convinced her to leave her one chance for love so that his daughter could be free to marry. Most sopranos pull a crumpled paper from their nightgown and make a big, dramatic deal out of it. Netrebko remained supine, eyes closed, reciting the letter from memory. Not only did this reflect how often Violetta has reread the letter, but it made a more gentle, seamless transition to “Addio del passato,” the heartbreaking aria that follows. Which she then sang with no scooping and fearless pianissimo attacks on high notes.

Ah yes, technical mastery. Another hallmark of Netrebko’s work is her ability to cut through the busiest orchestral moments and complex ensembles without showing the least strain, all the while phrasing with impressive dynamic range from soft to loud. Every phrase had a shape that felt natural, not forced or rote. Unfortunately, the technical mastery did not show itself in Act I. She breathed in odd spots. The coloratura in “Sempre libera” never took off, and, for those keeping score, she not only disdained the high E flat at the end, she sang the E flat on the staff as written and not even Verdi’s optional B flat.

Charles Castronovo as Alfredo and Dwayne Croft as Giorgio Germont

More impressive were her interactions with the other characters. The pinnacle came in Act II, essentially a series of scenes with her lover Alfredo and his father Giorgio Germont. I cannot recall a more natural, conversational Act II in my 37 years at the opera. That was as much the work of baritone Dwayne Croft as Germont and tenor Charles Castronovo as Alfredo. Croft, a veteran character singer, brought to the role gravitas and just enough sense of doubt about what he’s doing to make his scenes with Violetta riveting. He also rolled out the music in “Di Provenza il mar” flawlessly. In previous appearances in San Francisco, Castronovo has struck me as an uninspired actor, but here he radiated a passion and youthful vulnerability that made Alfredo into a sympathetic (if largely clueless) character. It all worked so well because Netrebko created a full-blown woman free of caricature. When Germont begins by insulting Violetta, for once we could believe that this as a character with enough substance to respond with dignity, and Germont’s response later, an expression of admiration, makes sense. It created the tension that propelled the rest of the scene.
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Verdi, Il trovatore

By: Bernard Jacobson

All you need to ensure a satisfactory performance of Il trovatore, Enrico Caruso declared, is the four greatest singers in the world.

Well, I am not about to assert that that is what we were presented with in this staging of Verdi’s great piece of operatic blood-and-thunder. Nevertheless, Leone Cottrell-Adkins had managed to secure four principals who offered a deal of fine singing.

I have had occasion to admire tenor Gino Lucchetti and soprano Barbara Smith Jones more than once in the past. As Manrico, Lucchetti again showed himself to be a better singer than some I have encountered on the most famous operatic stages in the world. The voice is attractive in timbre, and beautifully produced throughout its range. Ms Smith Jones did scarcely less well as Leonora, floating her voice with often caressing delicacy, and Charles Robert Stephens, a baritone new to me, brought solid vocal virtues to the difficult role of the Count di Luna, as well as matching Lucchetti in the matter of Italian diction-an area of expertise in which the chorus clearly needed better coaching. Of the principals, only the Azucena seemed to me less authoritative of voice, though Victoria Chaussee made the ill-fated gypsy an eminently touching human figure, and the rest of the cast, including Friedrich Konstantin Schlott as Ferrando, Sharalyn R. Bechtel as Inez, and Zander Martin as Ruiz, fulfilled the demands of their parts very competently.
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