Living at the Opera

The following photos are courtesy of the University of Arizona Opera Theater. ©
Show dates: April 9th and April 11th, 2010

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From Seen and Heard International
By: José M Irurzun; Photo Courtesy of the Teatro Calderón de Valladolid ©
Soloists, Orchestra and Chorus of Latvian National Opera. Conductor: Pietro Rizzo. Teatro Calderón de Valladolid. 19.5.2010 (JMI)

The Teatro Calderón brought Italian director Elena Barbalich’s Macbeth to Valladolid, three years after its premier in Lisbon. The production concept is very traditional, grim, dark and well suited to the dramatic narrative. Sets are often rather light coloured however but are always appropriate while the dark toned costumes are less attractive. Lighting could have taken more advantage perhaps, of the production’s dark and scary atmosphere too. The direction portrays Lady Macbeth as the real manipulator behind her husband’s actions, which is absolutely right. The two scenes with the witches are well resolved, Macbeth’s party is less so and the ghostly apparitions and the final battle were not done so well either. There are some curious details in the production, such as the presence of the murdered King Duncan on stage, covered with a blood-spattered white sheet which when removed in order to have to the corpse washed, leaves no trace of blood on his royal skin. Overall though, this is an effective production.

The best part of the evening was the music. In charge of musical direction we had Maestro Pietro Rizzo, whose reading I found wholly convincing. I do not know how many rehearsals he had, considering that he was working with a Latvian orchestra and chorus but there was no doubt that Mr. Rizzo was in full control of all the forces under his care, producing some remarkable and truly Verdian sound. This was an excellent reading. The orchestra offered a fine execution of the score, better than what one usually hears in Valladolid, and the chorus produced a decent performance too; good rather than exceptional perhaps.

The Italian baritone Vittorio Vitelli sang Macbeth and he offered exactly what we might expect from him. He has a pleasant and homogenous voice, rather lightweight for Verdi maybe, but his biggest problem, as usual, was his lack of expressiveness and his habitual tendency to sing forte.
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From Seen and Heard International
By: José M Irurzun; pictures © Javier del Real
Soloists, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid. Coro Intermezzo. Conductor: Massimo Zanetti. Teatro Real de Madrid. 23. 5.2010. (JMI)

There was a time when I was very disappointed when an opera belonging to the main repertoire was offered in concert version. With passing years I am now more inclined to accept it, provided that there is enough musical and vocal interest to justify the absence of a stage production. And since, with very few exceptions, it is almost impossible these days to see great opera singers in staged belcanto operas, I now consider the concert as a good substitute, provided that the musical and vocal quality matches the standards that these operas require.

The presence in the cast of Violeta Urmana and Sonia Ganassi largely explained Teatro Real’s slightly curious decision to go ahead with a Norma in concert version. If I am not mistaken, it is more than 30 years since has not been performed in Madrid at either the Teatro Real or Teatro de la Zarzuela.

The musical direction was entrusted to the always effective Italian conductor Massimo Zanetti. This time things worked much better than on some other occasions and this is probably the best performance I remember from him: in addition to perfectly controlled direction, he supported his singers very well and he drew an excellent performance from the orchestra along with one of the best results I can remember from the Teatro Royal’s chorus. Altogether this was an excellent musical version.

Violeta Urmana sang Norma and was clearly the main reason to program this concert. Hers was a remarkable interpretation, if not one that was completely convincing. Without entering in the discussion whether Ms Urmana is a soprano or a mezzo, I have always been convinced that she is always at her best in high mezzo roles. Norma requires a dramatic soprano with agility in the second part of the opera, while the first half requires a lyric soprano with outstanding coloratura and an easy top. In short, a true soprano is needed. Ms Urmana clearly has soprano notes, but this does not make her ideal for many sopranos roles or even some of those that she sings regularly. There was an announcement of her indisposition before the concert started and regardless of other possible health problems, I wondered if she might be suffering from “Norma virus”, as so many of her colleagues have suffered in the past. Ms Urmana is an important Norma however, despite needing better coloratura and a brighter top register. Too metallic this time and almost shouting occasionally, she was at her best in the opera’s second.
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From Seen and Heard International
By: José M Irurzun

Soloists, Orquesta y Coro Luis Mariano.Conductor: Nicola Giusti. Centro Cultural Amaia de Irún. 15.2010. (JMI)
Production Asociación Lírica Luis Mariano in coproduction with Associazione Amici Della Musica di Cuneo and Pierres Lyriques en Verán des Gaves.

The Luis Mariano Lyric Association takes its name from the world famous operetta tenor, who was born in Irún; the Association meets, with great enthusiasm, the operatic requirements of this border city of some 65,000 inhabitants. The Association’s opera performances are characterised by their great dignity, bearing in mind the difficulties faced, from a tiny stage to an orchestral space – there is no pit as such – which permits only some 30 players, and a very small budget. In these circumstances, there are two objectives which have to be met. Firstly, productions have to attract the public to the box office; next, this new public has to really enjoy what is put before them. I must say that both objectives were perfectly achieved on this occasion.

The big news – and the big plus – concerning these performances of Bellini’s La Sonnambula was the presence of Italian soprano Stefania Bonfadelli in the title role. This singer has lived through some dramatic and difficult circumstances in recent years. Still young (43), some five years ago she was one of the most beloved opera singers in the world, a regular performer at the most important opera houses. However problems in her ear forced her to cancel many bookings and led her to the operating theatre instead Her recovery has been very slow and difficult, so much so that she almost completely disappeared from the stage. This Sonnambula effectively marked Bonfadelli’s return as an opera singer, excellent news both for her and for the wider operatic community.
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From Seen and Heard International
By: José M Irurzun; Picture © Javier del Real

Soloists, Les Arts Florissants Conductor: William Christie. Teatro Real de Madrid. 18. 5.2010. (JMI)
New production Teatro Real in coproduction with Venice’s Teatro de la Fenice.

The Monteverdi trilogy, one of the recent star projects at Madrid’s Teatro Real, culminates with these performances of Poppea. The project has combined the talents of William Christie and director Pier Luigi Pizzi to provide what is surely one of the best possible displays of Monteverdi operas anywhere in the world.
In the previous two productions there had been no need to make major decisions to the music but things L’Incoronazione di Poppea, as the program explains, comes in two versions, the original from Venice and a later one from Naples, which differ considerably. The usual solution has been to present a mixture of both but since the Teatro Real’s is a co-production with La Fenice, it was a natural enough choice to opt for the Venice version, in a new edition by Jonathan Cable.
As in previous his earlier Monteverdi operas, Pier Luigi Pizzi presented a new production, one that is attractive from an aesthetic perspective, but it is somewhat static and unimaginative in purely theatrical terms. The sets consist of a rotating centre stage showing Nero’s Palace, and both Seneca’s and Poppea’s mansions. Both sides of the stage – and even its roof – have mirrors, reflecting the sets, producing many interesting effects. The costumes are also attractive, as always with Pizzi, but are also rather drab in choices of colour, mostly white, black, grey or fawn except for Drusilla’s cloak and for the opera’s final scene. Where Pizzi is less convincing is with pure stage direction which comes out as too static for much of the time although he has a group of excellent actors under his command, which helps to mitigate the sense of lack of life on stage. The way Pizzi handled the scene between Nero and Lucano was slightly strange, making it a gay love duet while in the libretto the singers refer to Poppea’s charms rather than their own.
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Caroline Seebohm Article: “The Opera Star They Love to Hate” ©
(Click the links below to view the article’s entirety)

• Opera’s Innovative ‘Chef’
  Wall Street Journal. New York, NY.:Oct. 17,1984.

• Doctor in the (Opera) House
  Wall Street Journal. New York, NY.:Mar. 18,1985.

The following is a Letter to the Editor regarding Caroline Seebohm

• Letters to the Editor: Operas on TV
  Wall Street Journal. New York, NY.:Nov. 1,1984.

From Seen and Heard International
By: José M Irurzun

There is no doubt that Cecilia Bartoli is one of the artists with the most ticket office appeal in the operatic world. She is, in fact the only major singer who can afford the luxury of refusing to sing on in staged productions. In the last three years she has engaged in a great deall of musical activity, but has only sung complete opera in Zurich.

On this visit to Spain Cecilia Bartoli is offering a series of seven concerts between April 8th and 20th, almost all of them dedicated to promoting her album Sacrificium. In Pamplona and Vitoria however she is singing a different program, devoted mostly to Handel.

Most of my Spanish readers, if not all of them, will have had some opportunity to see or to hear Cecilia Bartoli. This is her third concert tour through Spain in the last four years, not to mention a few sporadic appearances. To describe Ms Bartoli’s qualities in detail is therefore mostly superfluous, since everyone knows her strong and weak points: she is an artist with a huge capacity for communicating with an audience, as well as having musicality and technique available to very few other singers anywhere. In the past, her interpretations of bravura arias have left the audience breathless with their outstanding vocal agility but this time however, there was more interesting spianato singing in the concert requiring different levels of vocal volume.
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From Seen and Heard International
By: José M Irurzun; Photo © Javier del Real

Soloists, Orquesta-Escuela de la Sinfónica de Madrid.Conductor, Eun Sun Kim 21.4.2010 (JMI)

After the success of their Ópera-Estudio project last year with Don Pasquale, Teatro Real repeated the experience with Il Viaggio a Reims, with Raúl Giménez as vocal coach for the young cast. Last year’s success was also repeated this time, although not all the young singers on stage had the same desirable qualities as on the earlier occasion.

What happened to this Rossini opera in recent years is slightly curious. When the score was first rediscovered in the 1980s, the opera was performed with real splendour at some of Europe’s great opera houses with Claudio Abbado conducting and with a truly starry cast. Barely 20 years later, the Rossini Festival in Pesaro changed that model and presented the opera as a showcase for young singers. The success of that project is now an established fact, and for the last 9 years the opera has always been in the annual Rossini Festival programme. Something similar has happened in Spain, using the same Emilio Sagi production seen in Pesaro, which has already been staged in several different Spanish locations and France has also followed the same pattern. There, Nicola Berlofa’s production has combined the resources of a number of French opera houses, once again with young singers in the cast.

Emilio Sagi’s production has been seen by many opera- goers and the truth is that it has always gained the favour of its audiences. I have said many times before that it is in fact, the most profitable stage production in the whole history of opera. The last time I saw it was in Bilbao’s Teatro Arriaga and this is what I wrote then…

Musical direction was entrusted to the winner of the last Lopez Cobos conducting contest, Korean Eun Sun Kim, currently Lopez Cobos’ assistant at Teatro Real. Her reading was interesting and more than merely correct with lively tempos and only a couple of minor coordination problems between stage and pit… This does not overshadow a really good performance. This was a surprisingly good execution by the young orchestra, considerably better than last year in Don Pasquale. Some of the credit is certainly due to Ms Kim. The rest of my review is here.

The current cast, as on other occasions, was formed mostly by young singers some of whom have very interesting qualities. Most interesting was the Aragonese soprano Eugenia Boix as Corinna. At 28 years of age she is a more than pleasant soprano, with good doses of musical expressiveness and a good line in singing. She also cuts a pleasant figure on stage and I think that we will hear from her in the near future. A very good impression was also made by Italian bass-baritone Marco Filippo Romano (another 28 year old) in the character of Baron Trombonok. He is a true basso buffo, with an engaging voice even if its volume is not excessive. He is an excellent actor too and I am also convinced that there is a career ahead for him.
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From Seen and Heard International
By: James L. Zychowicz; Photo © Liz Lauren

Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Chicago Opera Theater, Leonardo Vordoni (conductor) Harris Theater, Chicago, 17.4.2010 (JLZ).

Chicago Opera Theater opened its 2010 season impressively with a revival of Rossini’s Mosé in Egitto. This production continues the tradition COT has of bringing to the stage bel canto opera and other related works from the early nineteenth century. In this regard, it served the score well in assembling a nicely balanced cast in an effective staging. Designated by the compose ras an azione tragic-sacra (a “tragic-sacred action”), Mosé in Egitto is sometimes treated as an oratorio, and the libretto certainly contains enough problems to challenge the the action’s realization on stage. Yet the production designer Anka Lupes and stage director Andrew Eggert brought the epic scale of the story into the space of the stage, very skillfully allowing the music to underscore the narrative very well. This is the kind of work that COT has done equally well in the past and contributes greatly to the artistic life of Chicago. Moreover, the effort involved in bringing such an infrequently performed work to any stage is in itself an act of creation that deserves congratulations.

The familiar story from the book of Exodus translates into an opera text based in part on the play L’Osiride by Francesco Ringhieri, and Andrea Leone Tottola’s libretto uses the romance between the Egyptian prince Osiride and the Hebrew woman Elcia to propel the narrative along. Even with some of the anachronisms that exist in the text, the romance between Osiride and Elcia offers some motivation for the political and religious tensions that must resolve either in the execution of Moses or with his pardon and the freedom of the Israelites. The singers who portrayed the lovers gave outstanding performances of their characters’ individual arias, both individually and in their duet and the ensemble work which involved them.

As Elcia, Siân Davies was persuasive musically and dramatically. Her vocal facility was remarkable from the start, and it was impressive to have such a talented in this unusual work. She already has credit for some major roles in Mozart’s operas, including Elvira in Don Giovanni and has also performed in Handel’s oratorios Messiah and Israel in Egypt. With this production Ms Davies had the opportunity to explore that rarely hear music, her cabaletta after the death of Osiride “Tormentia, afanni,” was impressive, especially in the context of its place near the end of the opera. She also brought finesse to her duet with Osiride in the first act, when Elcia is still consumed by her love, and not yet persuaded to forego it in deference to her loyalty to her people and faith in her deity. Her impassioned performance demonstrated all of the conflicts her character experiences in deciding between love and duty.
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