Star-crossed in Crescent City
La Cieca’s misnomered intime No Expert writes:
The New Orleans Opera Association likes to describe New Orleans as “America’s First City of Opera,” and it’s true that opera performance has a long history in the Crescent City, dating back to at least 1796 when André Ernest Grétry’s Sylvain was presented. Since then, New Orleans, and opera in New Orleans, has had its ups and downs…. like the fire which destroyed the French Opera House in 1919, and Hurricane Katrina, which nearly destroyed the whole city in 2005.
Mab about the boy: Matthew Worth, Mercutio at New Orleans Opera. Photo by Balance Photography.
The New Orleans Opera Association lost many of its costumes and sets in the flooding, and its performing home, the Mahalia Jackson Theater was severely damaged which forced the company to perform in temporary lodging.
So, our local community is delighted that this year marks the return of opera to the restored Mahalia Jackson. The new stage is named in honor of famed tenor and occasional baritone Placido Domingo, who helped organize a 2006 charity gala that kept our opera company from closing down. (The gala was held at the sports arena…. one of the few venues in town that wasn’t devastated at the time) Unfortunately the renovated theater still has its familiar acoustic eccentricities: strings and male voices are a bit muffled.
I attended the recent Sunday matinee performance of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette …a work first heard in New Orleans in 1869. The theater looked great, as did the traditional production. The costumes and sets in Act I had a rich, golden appearance that resembled an illuminated manuscript.
Tenor Paul Groves, last seen in New Orleans in 2007 as Faust was an effective Romeo. Juliette was portrayed by Nicole Cabell, who has a charming stage presence and looks the part. Her voice has a warm, creamy quality, but, unfortunately her coloratura was a bit smudgy. There were moments when she and the conductor briefly parted ways. And, frankly I did not hear a trill out of her all evening. During the Act IV “Ce n’est pas le jour” duet, there were some odd acting choices that briefly threatened to turn the opera into a teen sex comedy. I imagine that was the director’s fault. Cabell managed to get things back under control with a strong, if not spectacular, “Amour ranime mon courage.”
I was accompanied by a friend who is not really an opera fan who said the highlight of the evening was “that turtledove song” performed by Jennifer Rivera’s Stephano. I wouldn’t go that far, but she definitely made the most of her solo turn. Michael Worth was very appealing as Romeo’s fun-loving but doomed friend Mercutio.
Thanks, for that, No Expert. I have contended in print for the too-often-forgotten importance of Nouvelle-Orléans to opera. For one thing, it even gave opera an influence on the musical seedbed that produced jazz, since New Orleans was the one place in the world where great numbers of African Americans long attended the opera regularly — thus getting big doses of French opera. And what European city first took up jazz with a zeal that almost shamed Americans?
My thanks, too, No Expert, for the review and for the history. I don’t know this opera (but I know of it, of course). I tend to buy/listen to recordings as they are announced for SF Opera productions, so I don’t know when I’d hear this if it weren’t for your review. I do respect your opinion so I’ll check it out.
Hi, CruzSF, the recordings I am familiar with all have their pluses and minuses. My first was an Angel Records recording with Corelli and Freni. Great stuff and real sex appeal, but it doesn’t include Juliette’s big “courage” aria. I didn’t even know that existed until I heard Catherine Malfitano’s version. There is a good version with Domingo and Swenson. And Alagna and Gheorghiu did a version that even includes the almost-always-cut ballet.
And how is Mr. Alagna in that recording? I’m alternately warm & cold on him.
I know what you mean. I’m not always crazy about him in French repertoire. But I think he does a good job as Romeo. He sings passionately without forcing it and he pulls off the tender moments. Plus you have the chemistry between him and Gheorghiu. Kraus and Malfitano do have a more youthful sound. But…when it comes to opera I like the whole enchilada, so the Alagna version with the ballet is a tough competitor.
“Kraus and Malfitano do have a more youthful sound.”
A remarkable thing to say. And true, too.
thanks noexpert
but you fail to mention some things our readers would enjoy knowing about New Orleans Opera, if they do not already, gave the world premieres Donizetti’s Anna Bolena (if NO Opera’s website is to be believed), and US premieres of Rossini’s Moise and Semiramide, among many other works.
They wrote that line about Anna Bolena a little awkwardly. I think they meant to say that it also received ts US premiere in New Orleans….along with many other works of Donizetti.
Having lived in New Orleans for much of the 1970s, I always found it remarkable that, aside from the few NO Opera performances and various recitals (Schwarzkopf, Caballe, Ludwig, Prey, and Horne recitals come to mind), there was no real vestige of the city’s 19th century operatic history. Makes me wonder what passed for an opera performance in those days. Do you know of a reliable history of the opera there? A Google search reveals nothing, but I would think there is at least a master’s thesis somewhere on it.
Why would a few years in a city in the 1970s make you doubt the quality of performances a hundred years and more before?
Dizike’s “Opera in America: A Cultural HIstory” has what you are looking for.
According to that book, at a performance in the 1820s, one singer interpolated “The Hunters of Kentucky” during a performance (of Comte d’Ory? of La Gazza Ladra? la Dame Blanche? we’ll never know but all were in the repertoire) in a Davey Crockett outfit, to stomps and whoops from the audience made up of rivermen and frontiersmen, also in Davey Crockett outfits.
So I think we have some idea of what passed for “opera” in those days!
Performances in French can scarce be counted as “real” OPERA!
Vicar, I’ve always so much enjoyed Peter Grimes in the French translation!
I met most of the cast members at a party and have to say that Jason Bridges is one of the most handsome and charming singers I’ve ever met (Nathan Gunn comes to mind) and Matthew Worth is in the same company. Paul Groves, another sweetheart, was the pro of the performance; Jennifer Rivera was an absolute delight, and Raymond Aceto will always be welcome here.
It was a gorgeous production and the cast was pretty wonderful, but this is not an opera that I would seek out. No wonder I’d never seen it before, or if I have, I don’t remember it. In such an impoverished city, recently knocked to its knees, it is a miracle that opera survives at all. I can’t help but wonder if such wonderful artists are cutting us a deal of some sort. God love ‘em whether or not they are.
As regards the comments on the history of opera in New Orleans during the 19th century, may I refer you to “Reception of Major Operatic Premieres in New Orleans During the 19th Century” the scholarly Master of Art’s Thesis by John A. Belsom who at the time was a student at Louisiana State University (LSU), Baton Rouge. Mr. Belsom is the recognized authority on 19th century opera in New Orleans, has written many scholarly articles on the subject, and has established the correct dates of US operatic premieres in New Orleans. These include: at least one dozen operas by Donizetti (Anna Bolena) a large number by Rossini, (including Semiramide), and Bellini’s Norma and I Puritani among others. Obviously, these were not by the current opera association which was established in 1943, but by earlier theaters, Theatre d’Orleans (1819-1859), and the French Opera House (1859-1919). Mr. Belsom is currently the archivist for the New Orleans Opera Association and is the author of the article to be found on the opera’s website.