Brief encounter
The day after opening the 2009-10 season with Hugo Weisgall’s Esther, New York City opera presented one of the most beloved operas in the entire repertoire, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in a new production by Christopher Alden.
Due to the company’s notorious financial woes, Don Giovanni will be the only new production of the season, and it was immediately evident that not much of even a limited budget could have been spent on sets or props. The stage is almost bare: all the audience can see are two rows of chairs (plus one single chair on far stage right), five pendant lamps and a huge neon cross on the wall.
Just before the music begins, a large group of people, wearing what looked like costumes from the 1930s, take a seat on the chairs, while a masked man occupies the chair on the left. Then comes the first ingenious coup de théâtre. As the audience is led to believe that the people sitting on the stage are members of the chorus, some of them, one by one, turn out to be the principal characters of the opera. The loner is, of course, the Don himself.
Da Ponte, the librettist, called this opera a “dramma giocoso”, while Mozart in his own catalog defined it an “opera buffa”. There is very little “giocoso”, let alone “buffo”, in this production, where Alden accentuates the drama, almost neglecting the comic part of the work. It is a debatable decision, but it was consistent throughout the opera and in my opinion it worked, creating a complete, often viscerally gripping theatrical experience. The director had a specific vision of the work in mind and brought it to life in a coherent, consistent and logical manner.
The treatment of the most comic role of the opera, Leporello, was emblematic of this choice. Here Leporello, entirely dominated and brutalized by his master, moves around the stage always cowering in fear or crawling like a worm. There is hardly any cheerfulness in him, to the point that the wisecracks and the quips Da Ponte writes for him sound almost incongrous.
To his credit, Jason Hardy (Leporello) most appropriately recited them in a sort of removed, weary way. Don Giovanni at one point tries to reassure and soothe him by stroking his hair, then almost immediately drags him by one arm across the stage. As if this wasn’t enough, in the masked ball scene at the end of the first act Leporello wears the costume of Pierrot, sadness personified.
Don Giovanni is a brute, a sociopath without suavity. He doesn’t kill the Commendatore fighting sword to sword, but smashes the old man’s skull against the wall, and the blood stain remains up there until the end, perhaps the most conspicuous thing on the stage. Zerlina’s attempted rape is vicious; in the penultimate scene, the chords which should mark the Commendatore’s approaching steps instead accompany Don Giovanni’s sexual thrusts into the body of Donna Elvira’s maid.
At the very end, as if to dismiss the notion that Don Giovanni has a happy ending (and to lessen the importance of the moral of the finale), all the characters and the chorus return to their seats exactly as they were at the very beginning, with the villain showing up, wearing the same mask, in his place on the right. The original scoundrel may be punished and gone, but another one is in his place and the cycle of evil is about to begin again.
Terese Wadden’s costumes were mostly attractive and appropriately updated.
Gary Thor Wedow’s conducting was superlative. Under his baton the orchestra sounded crisp and precise. I especially appreciated Maestro Wedow’s effort to show that Mozart was after all a son of his own time, and his operas were subjected to the same performance practices of the period. Thus, the conductor allowed the use of appoggiaturas and tasteful variations in the da capos of the arias. I will never be able to understand why most conductors believe that it is acceptable to add variations in, say, Paisiello or Cimarosa, but no, Mozart cannot be altered. Even a minor trick like a messa di voce on the word “maestosa” in “Madamina, il catalogo è questo” can add an element of variety.
Another small detail I enjoyed was that the singers did not pause and take a breath between the end of a recitative and the beginning of the aria or duet itself. For instance, Don Giovanni sings “…e là, gioiello mio, ci sposeremo. Là ci darem la mano…” in a single breath, to refreshing effect.
Backs against the wall: the sextet from "Don Giovanni" at NYCO. Photo: Carol Rosegg.
The cast all gave competent vocal performances, though none of them, with one single exception, really left an indelible impression. They all looked their respective parts and had the physique du rôle (and in a couple of cases, what physique it was indeed!)
Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch, who rose to prominence and made headlines baring all in Howard Shore’s The Fly, this time showed more modesty keeping his underwear on. Like all his other colleagues, he was scenically excellent and fully complied to the director’s vision. Vocally, he was passable without a particularly distinctive instrument. The same could be said for Hardy as Leporello. He spent most of the second act in various degrees of undress, revealing a body which wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of Playgirl.
Kelly Markgraf (Masetto), appearing in a tight wifebeater, also seems destined to swell the ranks, indeed the legions, of the barihunks. Bass Brian Kontes, who brought the appropriate gravitas to the role of the Commendatore, was the only one not requested to show some skin, but then he had to lie inside a coffin for most of the opera.
Tenor Gregory Turay’s instrument has noticeably darkened since the last time I heard him several years ago at the Met in the same role. From a typical tenorino leggero, Mr. Turay has almost become a full lyric tenor, but the voice reveals some spread and less focus on top. I would have liked more chiaroscuro, more differentiation in “Dalla sua pace,” an aria in which a tenor can work wonders by modulating its reprise with gradation of pianos and pianissimos. The agility in “Il mio tesoro intanto” was hardly the most accurate I have heard.
Ukrainian-American soprano Stefania Dovhan was debuting the arduous role of Donna Anna. She was not much more than adequate. I think her voice is a couple of sizes too small for “Or sai chi l’onore,” whereas “Non mi dir,” which would suit her lighter voice better, was burdened by barely acceptable coloratura: the picchiettati high As and Bs flat in the Allegretto moderato sounded forced and clumsy. This wasn’t certainly the virtuoso showpiece it usually becomes in the hands of expert belcantistas.
I regret to say I was not impressed with Joélle Harvey as Zerlina. Her soprano sounded too weak and thin in the middle register, where all of her music lies. It is a classic case of why it is often preferable to cast a lyric mezzo-soprano in this part.
Dulcis in fundo, the single exception was Keri Alkema as Donna Elvira. This role is ideal for this singer, who has just recently made the mezzo-to-soprano transition. Her voice is robust, even and homogenized, from a sonorous low register to a bright, penetrating and secure top. Thanks to the variations she was allowed, she had a real show-stopper with “Ah! Chi mi dice mai,” an aria which often goes unobserved for its brevity. “Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata” is a difficult piece especially for its tricky intervals, which Ms. Alkema nailed perfectly. This is a singer I would love to hear as Vitellia.
All the principals, to different degrees, struggled with proper Italian pronunciation, missing double consonants and producing very un-Italian r’s. Mr. Turay even sang “Morde mi dà!” Perhaps NYC Opera should invest in a better Italian coach.
One final positive note: the New York State Theater (pardon, the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center) now seems to have better, brighter, less muffled acoustics, the result of extensive renovations which included the removal of much of the carpeting and a number of seats. Too bad they didn’t get rid of those awful gigantic statues.
Won’t see it till Thursday, but — given the caveat that voices are a matter of personal taste very often — this review carries conviction. I can’t wait to see a GIOVANNI that is as theatrically unified as this account, and many others I’ve heard, make it sound.
Couldn’t more money have been saved, and the opera made more up to date if everybody had appeared in his or her underwear? Why waste money on clothing?
Perhaps I could interest NYCO in my High Concept “Billy Budd,” in which everyone wears only jockstraps. (To save money, it’s not set on a ship. It’s in the postgame locker room at Kansas State U.)
And the “Pearl Fishers” duet makes a lot more sense if the tenor and baritone are wearing just the skimpiest of loincloths.
Completely disagree about the singers… Alkema was a bit of a screamer. Harvey sang beautifully; the rest were at least up to the task. You give the impression that Non mi dir was some Elinor Ross-like disaster and it was at least average for City Opera or the Met.
The review reeks of someone eager to display his superiority.
It was a consistently interesting and often musically satisfying performance.
Amen. To anonymously trash hard-working and not-to-mention low-paid artists… and why? Pure and simple: ego gratification. I would ask “who does this guy think he is,” but obviously, he thinks he is someone important. Wrong! Ridiculous, irresponsible, and disgusting.
This review should be given all the attention it deserves: none.
VoiceofReason, do you understand the concept of the term “review”??????
It’s to evaluate the performances, which the reviewer did.
It may not seem fair but if the singers were hard working and/or low paid, it really doesn’t have much to do with the issue, that being what the reviewer thought of their RESULTS, i.e. their performances.
98rsd disagreed with the evaluations themselves, which is fine. It’s all just opinion anyway. But honestly, if I hear what I think is a less than
good performance, I don’t really care how hard the singer worked to produce it.
A known reviewer might post a review that people would value based on a respect for the author. This is not that. This kind of anonymous sniping is simply narcissistic and serves no purpose whatsoever (except to the narcissist), although a naive reader may assign some undeserved credibility to it.
“If I hear what I think is a less than
good performance, I don’t really care how hard the singer worked to produce it.” Maybe not, but to go to the extra considerable trouble to post your unkind opinion… why?
I promise not to beat a dead Commendatore, but it was the uncommonly harsh tone about rather a good performance and my feeling that the purpose of the reviewer was not to tell us what the performance was like but to stroke his own ego that made me respond.
I agree completely that how much the singer is paid or how hard he or she worked is the point, but I think what was being said is it’s easy to come up with a snide remark and hard to do the work.
I’ll go further. I didn’t hear the “signs of strain” in Turay’s work that Tomassini did and I think he threw that in because he was reluctant to be entirely positive about someone who’s sung some very dodgy performances. This was not one of them. Yes, he took a breath in the long runs, but if there are more than one or two tenors with listenable voices singing the roles who can do the aria in performance without sneaking a breath–I haven’t heard them. I think most readers would have been very happy to have heard Turay in any DG performance. When someone starts with wanting “more chiaroscuro” (there WAS variety in tone and he differentiated in volume between the opening and the reprise) and “hardly the most accurate” (in what way? when? Sounded pretty accurate to me.) I know I’m in trouble…
Well, here’s the thing. Every review is an expression of opinion, and what’s more each review gains meaning in the context of the writer’s body of work. Obviously since “Ercole Farnese” has had only two pieces published on parterre.com, it’s not easy to derive a detailed idea of his aesthetic of operatic performance yet.
But on the other hand, I think you must admit that Ercole makes clear what his standards are for the various roles, then compares the performances he heard to those standards. He is also quite specific when he offers evidence to back up his judgments — which is why I think his style of review is more interesting than one that uses vague language like “signs of strain.” (Though, to be sure, Ercole is writing for a very specialist audience and Tommasini a much broader one.)
OK, so now both Tony T and Ercole Farnese have been accused of being ego motivated.
Are there perhaps one or more NYCO-istas “visiting” this site today?
Both reviews actually sound like reports of the VERY mixed level of vocal performances I’ve heard over the last several years at NYCO.
I think our own local as well as NYT reviews are not the only ones with egos…….
We’ll agree to disagree–If Keri Alkema is what your Hercules likes, then I’m not on the same page. I’m surprised you let pass the “preferable to cast a mezzo as Zerlina” as if this were a given, and not a very recent (and, in my mind unfortunate) attempt at “variety.” Zerlina is a classic light soprano role, but because it doesn’t have high notes, it can be sung by mezzos with an inappropriately dark timbre.
There is some evidence that Caterina Bondini, the singer Mozart chose as Zerlina for the Prague premiere, may have been a light mezzo. Not only is Zerlina a role with no “high notes”, but a look at the score shows Zerlina taking the lowest female parts in the ensembles. In addition, Zerlina was a rustic, normally represented musically in the classical era by lower voices in triple meter. Bondini also sang Susanna, a role premiered by Nancy Storace, another singer thought to be a high mezzo and for whom Mozart composed “Ch’io mi scordi di te”, one of the lowest of the Mozartean concert arias.
No wobbles, no pitch problems, fine technique, beautiful singing across the board, good acting, good looks. One of the most consistently good casts I have ever seen at NYCO (in 13 years of experience). And all young singers, fulfilling the mission of NYCO to promote new talent. I knew those people were out there somewhere, and the new hiring administration is finding them, even on short notice. So there.
Regarding Gregory Turay: can anyone think of another example of a singer performing a role at NYCO that he or she had previously done at the Met?
We may see a good deal more of that.
I’d pay to see your “Billy Budd.” Sounds inspired.
That’s an interesting question, and there must be people here who could really answer it. One (somewhat earlier) example that came to mind is John Alexander as Walther (and maybe also other roles). Another: Dominic Cossa as Germont (and maybe other roles). But there must be lots of examples if you include cover singers (which I assume Cossa was) who were already doing their roles with NYCO, and would return to them at NYCO. Maybe you’d only want to count singers who (like Turay, as far as I know…?) sang their roles at the Met first (and/or, debuted at the Met first).
As a related note, what ever happened to NYCO’s performance archives, which were supposed to go online in summer ‘09, according to a press release I came across?