The story of a callow youth who rashly decides he can’t go on living without the young woman he loves in spite of the fact that she’s been betrothed, and then married, since they were first introduced. It brims over with some of the most romantic music ever scored and is shot through with a most exquisite melancholy.  

The plot creaks no more than most operas of its time. Still, it’s hard to keep a the snicker off your lips in the last act when our young hero asks to ‘borrow’ a pair of hunting pistols because he’s going on a ‘trip’. Someone hand this boy a cell phone and dial the number for the suicide hotline. Meanwhile, Massenet, having been dubbed Madamoiselle Wagner by his critics for his love of leitmotif, is brewing an emotional apocalypse in the pit so large, our hero’s true intention cannot be misconstrued.

Werther has to be the most extraordinarily adaptable opera in the repertoire. The leading role has been mastered by tenors sized all the way from Radames and Lohengrin to Nemorino. The noble Charlotte, who is the aforementioned unrequitee, has won triumphs for a range of voices adept at the roles of Amneris and Carmen all the way down to la petite Melisande. Mezzos and sopranos. The ever resourceful composer, with an eye on the box office reciepts, even rescored the lead for the charismatic baritone Mattia Battistini ten years after the initial premiere affording Thomas Hampson with a grateful vehicle in our own time.

This live Deutsche Grammophon recording is a vehicle of another sort as it documents the return to Covent Garden of Rolando Villazon after an absence of a number of years. More of that anon. I’m sure that the five-headed Hydra that is Universal Music/Decca/DG/Phillips would have preferred to have filmed and released a DVD if not for the fact that we already have Jonas Kaufmann in this same production from the Paris Opera. Not to be unkind but, with that sort of competition, our furry,uni-browed, Mexican tenor is much better off with the microphone.

Oddly, both presentations share the same Charlotte in mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch and I wish I could present a valid reason why this portrayal deserves a second immortalization barely two years after the first.  Being French, she, blessedly knows what the words mean but in a field crowded with some of the greatest singers of the last 80 years I’m stymied as to what warrants this extra attention. She has a middle-weight voice which, when kept quiet, shows some real beauty. When the volume gets turned up and she rises to the top of the staff, however, the tone can turn baleful. Luckily the role affords more opportunities for the cream than the curdle. It’s a lovely performance, on a small scale, that sadly pales by comparison with any of her more esteemed predecessors.

Charlotte’s husband, Albert, is a completely thankless role. A mere fractional side of a very lopsided love triangle. Norwegian bass-baritone Auden Iversen almost had me wishing we were getting the alternate version with his warm honeyed tones.  Japanese Soprano Eri Nakamura has all the requisite perkiness that the character of Charlotte’s younger sister, Sophie, requires and she betrays little accent in her French. As their father, the Bailiff, Alain Vernhes, provides plenty of character and the only true Gallic charisma of the lot.

Antonio Pappano leads his second recorded performance of this opera, following the 1998 entrant on EMI with the Alagnas as the unhappy couple. His experience with the score only benefits this performance and anyone would find the Orchestra of the Royal Opera far superior to the London Symphony. The score positively shimmers with the most delicious colorings in the orchestrations. You hear the iridescent moonlight at the end of Act One just as you feel the beginning of Fall in the hues of Act Two. Pappano brings all of this across beautifully while allowing the singers the necessary support.

The support of the evening’s tenor was surely Pappano’s primary concern. Villazon had not sung at Covent Garden since vocal difficulties had forced him to seek a doctor’s treatment for a node on his chords in April 2009. He resumed a light schedule starting in March of 2010 and this performance was May 2011. He had sung Werther previously so that was in his favor. It’s safe to point out that, in many circles, Villazon’s vocal production was cause for concern long before he started experiencing any adversities. I think it’s also common knowledge that Mr. Villazon has trouble,”getting out of his own way”, as the Irish say. He always favored a tight squillante, not only in the passaggio where it’s most attractive, but throughout his range. At its best his was an extraordinarily fluent lyric tenor and he was a gifted communicator. This recording, I’m afraid,does not show him to his best advantage.

The voice is a now shadow of what it was. The squillante remains on the top but it is only reached with effort. Pitch is insecure at the start and although he improves as the evening goes on he tires noticeably at the ends of both Act II and Act IV. The second act is a challenge for any tenor and he is swamped by the orchestra on more than once instance there. Doubly odd since DG is fiddling with the knobs, no?  For his many fans this won’t be a complete disappointment but there’s more than a whiff of ‘what if’ about this whole affair. The tremendous sense of freedom that was the hallmark of his performance style is nowhere to be heard here. It makes me very sad to say this.

So, hard to recommend unless you’re a hardcore fan of Villazon.  Here’s hoping that things improve.

Dallas, Texas
May 15, 1976
IL TRITTICO [26]

IL TABARRO {30}
Giorgetta……………Renata Scotto
Luigi……………….Harry Theyard
Michele……………..Cornell MacNeil
Frugola……………..Lili Chookasian
Talpa……………….Philip Booth
Tinca……………….Charles Anthony
Song Seller………….Abram Morales
Lover……………….Betsy Norden
Lover……………….Douglas Ahlstedt
Conductor……………Sixten Ehrling

SUOR ANGELICA {26}
Angelica…………….Renata Scotto
Princess…………….Lili Chookasian
Genovieffa…………..Betsy Norden
Osmina………………Mary Fercana
Dolcina……………..Ann Florio
Monitor……………..Marcia Baldwin
Abbess………………Jean Kraft
Head Mistress………..Batyah Godfrey Ben-David
Nurse……………….Cynthia Munzer
Lay Sister…………..Maureen Smith
Lay Sister…………..Joyce Olson
Novice………………Linda Mays
Novice………………Shinja Kwak
Alms Collector……….Alma Jean Smith
Alms Collector……….Elena Doria
Conductor……………Sixten Ehrling

GIANNI SCHICCHI {90}
Gianni Schicchi………Ezio Flagello
Lauretta…………….Renata Scotto
Rinuccio…………….Enrico Di Giuseppe
Nella……………….Betsy Norden
Ciesca………………Marcia Baldwin
Zita………………..Lili Chookasian
Gherardo…………….Charles Anthony
Betto……………….Russell Christopher
Marco……………….Gene Boucher
Simone………………Philip Booth
Gherardino…………..Lawrence Klein
Spinelloccio…………Richard Best
Amantio……………..Andrij Dobriansky
Pinellino……………Herman Marcus
Guccio………………Edmond Karlsrud
Buoso Donati…………Terry Allen
Conductor……………Sixten Ehrling

Vincent Boussard

Dimitri Pittas, as Tebaldo, remained from the premiere cast (heard March 27, 2011) and made a warmer impression than 14 months ago, with focused sound, requisite agility, and good Italian, though the tone quality veered slim. The rest of the cast had changed, and so had ticket prices. Eight categories ranging from €11 to €163 at the premiere had jumped to a range of €20 to €264 for no readily accessible stated reason.

Vesselina Kasarova, who recorded Romeo back in 1997, sang with enough expressiveness to propel the story and engage the audience all by herself, as well as unexpected freshness. That said, hers is a lyric instrument with slightly diminished firmness. She acted fluidly and struck masculine poses.

Her own experience with Giulietta dating back at least to 2002, in Philadelphia, Anna Netrebko sounded relaxed and confident. The largest voice onstage, even next to Croat bass Ante Jerkunica’s resonant Capellio, she sang with dependable pitch but could not articulate a genuine trill.

Giulietta in this staging starts in (maybe) a broom closet. She climbs onto a washbasin, wall-mounted a meter off the floor. Then she stands on one foot on the washbasin’s edge and reaches upward toward a suspended and too-distant sculpture, depicting love (maybe), with her free leg outstretched for balance. She does this to Bellini’s andante maestoso and while negotiating the cantilena and declamation of “Eccomi in lieta vesta… Oh! quante volte, oh quante, ti chiedo.”

Last year the lithe and pretty soprano Eri Nakamura fumbled both Boussard’s balletic-gymnastic maneuver and Bellini’s ornate lines. Netrebko, 40, and no longer so dainty, managed it all. At least on Saturday. Bavarian taxpayers will be praying for four secure repeats (through May 26) and an insurance policy to cover any leading-lady bone fracture or, Gott behüte, a cracked washbasin.

Paul Gay, as Lorenzo, strode set designer Vincent Lemaire’s darkly raked platforms and endless open-bleacher scalinata with an insinuator’s poise, while stressing sweet lyrical compassion over basso depth. The many steps, not incidentally, gave view to the garish women’s costumes of once-fashionable Christian Lacroix, mismatched by period to those of his men.

Yves Abel drew cultured playing from the Staatsorchester, notably from the woodwinds. Unlike Fabio Luisi on the 2008 Garanca/Netrebko commercial recording of this opera, he never lost the pulse. Sören Eckhoff’s Bayerischer Staatsopernchor, habitually the weak link in performances here, acquitted itself with musical precision but opaque Italian.

At curtain time and at several points during the performance, Netrebko’s esteem for her Bulgarian co-star was evident. Careful gauging of vocal balances in the duets, and of protocol at the curtain, handed the night genially to 47-year-old Kasarova.

The May 19 performance of this run will be streamed at www.staatsoper.de at 7 pm, Central European Summer Time.

The Little Opera Theatre of New York, one of the city’s savvier little companies (responsible for the excellent run of Mozart’s Mitridate last spring), is presenting a double-bill of brief Holst chamber operas under the heading “Travelers” at 59 East 59th, a venue that permits us to be up close to big unamplified voices. The program will give any voice lover great pleasure.

The Wandering Scholar (1930), a work of Holst’s age, tells the Chaucerian tale of a medieval peasant, his wayward wife, a lecherous priest and a hungry student, with some of the air and flavor of L’Heure Espagnol. (Ravel had replaced Wagner as Holst’s idol.) Savitri, the evening’s principal offering, composed in 1908, is based on an Indian legend Holst claimed to have translated from Sanskrit, about a wife who manages to talk Death himself out of taking her husband. The passionate tones of this tormented lady make a goodly contrast to the light, flirtatious manner of the peasant’s wandering wife, and there is an attractive a cappella choral background to the serious but not-quite-tragic Indian tale.

The program is happily cast, the voices strong, the diction clear and emphatic, the acting polished. In The Wandering Scholar, Sharon Apostolou (who has sung Ravel’s avatar, the Spanish wife Concepcion) sings flirtatious Alison with an elegant soprano  juggling husband Ron Loyd (a sturdy and amorous baritone, only lacking the proper whistle to summon his dog) against Jeffrey Tucker’s hilariously venal priest and Benjamin Robinson’s conniving scholar.

Mezzo soprano Heather Johnson gives nearly Wagnerian weight and intensity to Savitri’s anguish, though she’s unsure of a top note or two. Rufus Müller, as her adored husband, Satyav?n, had, sadly, an even sketchier top. Michael Scarcelle sang Death with an even tone and the proper chilly dignity. (In the version of the tale told me by a Hindu witch, the wife asks Death to be her guru, a tremendous honor—but Holst seems to have felt Western audiences would not comprehend the irony of this point.)

Richard Cordova conducted the chamber ensemble tightly and elegantly. The arrangement of  Savitri was somewhat reduced, that of Scholar devised, after the composer’s death, by his daughter, Imogen, and his disciple, the young Benjamin Britten, to be roughly the same as the ensemble for Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia.

The music does not remind one of Lucretia, which has a more dynamic, immediate drama, but the melodies are boldly individual, Holst and no one else, following none of the fashionable schools. Savitri is grounded in its heroine’s agitated lamentations and shy stratagems, and exploits the possibilities with more operatic character.

11:00-2:00 LRT KLASIKA: First, for Liana there’s UN BALLO IN MASCHERA from the Lithuanian National Opera, which is almost Poland, if you don’t look too close.  3 F.K. because not even in Lithuania can they find enough singers to do this one properly.

11:40-1:00 RADIO CLASICA DE ESPANAL: Straussmonster gets Beethoven’s Ninth with Riccardo Chailly .  It was supposed to be a Fifth, but the collapse of the bond market has made me economize.  1 F.K. because nobody can ever pay attention long enough to find fault.

12:25-2:00 YLE KLASSINEN: Busoni’s ARLECCHINO has Henry Holland’s name all over it, because it is both esoteric and worthy of more notice.  This is a classic performance from Glyndebourne, but even so, 2 F.K.

1:00-4:00 WFMT AMERICAN OPERA Network: LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN  – is just for our dear Louanniaettaia, who can tell you more about Matthew than anybody needs to know.  3 F.K., particularly for the end of the Antonia scene which still has the critics baffled.

1:00-4:00 BBC: THE DEATH OF KLINGHOFER .  Okay, Op/Neo, “this” one is for “you,” since it has “enough” political implications “in” it to populate “several”  soap”boxes.”  3 F.K.

1:00-4:15 DEUTSCHLANDRADIO KULTUR: TANNHAUSER from Berlin - This could be pretty good, but I doubt it.  It’s got Nerva Nelli’s name on it.  3 F.K.

1:00-5:00 FRANCE MUSIQUE: And for MrMyster, we have NIXON IN CHINA from Paris -  4 F.K., since it has both Sumi Jo and June Anderson, but no Steber.

1:00-6:00 HR2 KULTUR: Let’s brighten up the day for Faninal with LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN from Darmstadt,  There should be more to bitch about here than in a month’s worth of Gruberova recitals.  4 F.K.

1:00-4:00 KBYU, WCNY, WHRO, WQED, WQXR: I can’t think of a better gift for basso profundo than the Met National Council Auditions Finals - surely among all those desparate, ambitious sopranos, there’s going to be one willing to serve as a repository for his manly fluids.

1:00-4:30 LATVIA RADIO KLASIKA: HERCULES from Chicago, (2 F.K.) goes to Ian from Down Under, who should certainly find a good use for an Eric Owens of his very own.

1:00-4:00 NRK P2: CruzSF should find THE MAKROPULOS CASE from Kungelige a worthy companion to his scrapbook of Karita Mattila memorabilia, if only as a point of comparison.  2 F.K.

1:00-5:00 RADIO 4 NETHERLANDS: Ruby, honey, I tried to find you something with plants and food, but alas, nada.  So instead, here’s Martinu’s JULIETTA, which is a most mysterious and fragile what’s-it.  1 F.K. because no one can ever quite figure out what’s going on.

1:00-5:00 RADIO CLASICA DE ESPANA and DWOJKE POLSKIE: ORLANDO  from Brussels, (2 F.K., just because it’s obscure and unfamiliar, and Handel.) FragendeFrau, this one’s for you because you’re from North Carolina, and Orlando is down there in North Carolina, or Tallahassee, or one of those states.

1:00-5:00 RTP ANTENA 2: Phoenix will have such fun recording I DUE FOSCARI from Paris (3 F.K.), because nobody can survive with just ONE Foscarus.  By the way, it’s a little-known fact, but there were actually FIVE Foscari, but three of them left home early to tour the college circuit as The Kingston Trio.

1:00-4:00 NPR World of Opera: Handel’s TESEO from Gottingen - speaking of obscure and unfamiliar and Handel, I don’t have enough information on this one to rate it.   Why the F.K. would anybody name a state Tallahassee?  Or Gottingen?

1:00-5:00 WRR: Bluecabochon should find something to munch on in WERTHER from ROH with Rolando Villazon.  4 F.K. as we all make book on when he’s going to crack, and why Andrea Bocelli would do it better.

1:30-5:00 RADIO OESTERREICH: BrooklynPunk can wrestle Eva Maria Westbroek to the ground in this LA GIOCONDA from the Netherlands.  Luciana d’Intino outsings her, which makes this a 3 F.K.

1:30-5:00 SVERIGES P2: ATYS from Paris goes to Donna_Carlo, who will immediately assume that because it’s French, it’s a dildo.   1 F.K. (see HANDEL)

2:00-6:00 ESPACE 2: DER ROSENKAVALIER from Geneva 3 F.K., goes to Bluesweet, because it’s the only standard repertory opera not being done in Philadelphia this year.

1:00-6:00 LYRIC FM
I’m giving A Placido Domingo celebration to Camille, so she can stick it in her keepsake box.  (“Stick THAT in your keepsake box.”)

2:00-5:00 RADIO SLOVENIA TRETJI: Clita-del-Toro, how would you like BORIS GODUNOV? – OperaCast gives no indication of who (or what !) is singing, but I suspect it’s a re-airing of the Ferruccio Furlanetto performance, which makes it very good, indeed, and meriting 2 F.K.

2:00-5:00 RADIO STEPHANSDOM: DAS RHEINGOLD — including a Hans Hotter Wotan and a Joan Sutherland Rhine Maiden 1957 (2 F.K.)  is destined for the stocking of MarshieMarkII, who should be hard put to point out anything in it that Behrens did better.

2:00-5:00 RADIO TRE: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR from Naples with Jessica Pratt – in this staging (3 F.K., because while the soprano will be impressive, the males will leave much to be desired) “sulla tomba” is sung while Lucia and Edgardo make love in the shower.  So who would be more deserving than mikedfw?

4:25-6:00 CESKY ROZHLAS D-Dur: And, saving the best for the last, M. Croche gets Sofia Gubajdulina’s JANOVY - because it’s the most obscure thing on the list and the one most likely to be sung in Azerbaijani.

Happy Tit Bunnies to all, and to all, happy chatting !

Two honorable mentions go to a couple of hors concours participants, who as charter members of the Parterre Posse are not eligible for prizes in this or any other competition. Congratulations, nevertheless, go to Our Own Enzo Bordello and Dawn Fatale for their exemplary seasons.

Also worthy of the lofty praise were Sempre Liberal‘s Trojan War-themed season, Grimoaldo‘s elaborate opening night festivities, and ianw2‘s lineup, which would have been a contender but for skimpy details on revivals.

And now, the winners!

For “Gelb’s Folly,” who could best a season that included among its offerings such sublime/ridiculous contrasts as “Jenufa — Netrebko/Mattila/Antonenko/ RD Smith (Belohlavek, cond.) / Luisa Miller — Guleghina/Bocelli/ Hvorostovsky/Morris/Domingo as Wurm (Armiliato, cond.)” Brava Rysanekfreak!

The competition so utterly fierce for the “Best in Show” that the Blue Ribbon Panel was torn by dissent, with one of the senior panelists flinging down her clipboard in disgust and shouting, “No! I don’t understand!” At long last, as she so often did during those long-ago nights at the West Side Club, La Cieca threw in the towel. Her Solomonic solution: “Why not have a bit of both?

Thus the “Best in Show” award is a tie:

• UpB7, for a minutely and realistically detailed plan (spread over several comments)
• Baritenor, for a visionary if impractical galaxy of Sternstunden

Each of the three winners will receive a coveted Amazon gift card in the amount of $100. And now, La Cieca must get back to the pressing duty of selecting her parure for Opening Night 2016.

In a press conference earlier this week, the identity of the singers was a closely-held secret, but Carlo Verdone, a very famous comedian and movie director (who will be in charge of the event), mentioned that one of the singers will be Ruggero Raimondi.  I have done my research and apparently the rest of the cast will be: stunning Georgian beauty Ketevan Kemoklidze as Cenerentola, Edgardo Rocha as Don Ramiro, Simone Alberghini as Dandini and Lorenzo Regazzo as Alidoro.

So, cher public, predictions for Saturday morning’s John Keenan-helmed Götterdämmerung?

La Casa della Cieca will be open for the occasion, and the broadcast can be accessed at WQXR’s Operavore minisite.

Photo: Michal Daniel.

Kupfer helped pioneer Regietheater at East Berlin’s smaller, more progressive Komische Oper and gained widespread notice with a Bayreuth Ring, also conducted by Barenboim, before this Parsifal rolled around. Working with designer and longtime collaborator Hans Schavernoch, he stripped away much of the opera’s religious and spiritual elements while putting an intense focus on the protagonists’ individual decisions and human emotions. The highly charged interplay was set in an oppressive metallic stage shell with a huge circular door suggestive of a space station or futuristic bank vault, and devoid of any of the natural beauties Wagner references in the text.

The effort, now available on DVD from EuroArts, has a somewhat dated, post-Star Wars sci-fi feel but admirably keeps most of the attention squarely focused on the singers. And though Kupfer’s direction won’t be to everyone’s liking – there’s as much writhing and crawling around as in a World Cup soccer match – the stage business does manage to keep the opera’s static plot moving at a respectable clip for four and a-half hours.

Kupfer places an especially strong focus on the characters of Amfortas and Kundry. The wounded ruler is wheeled about on a metallic chair or laying on a large wedge resembling a doorstop, the leader of a decrepit order of knights riveted on the Grail but largely impassive to expressions of faith and hope. Kundry, meanwhile, totally dominates the action during the opera’s pivotal second act — the only flesh-and-blood woman on stage owing to Kupfer’s decision to reduce the flower maidens to broadcast images on television sets scattered about the scene. The director also “spares” his heroine at the conclusion of the work, having her dreamily step forward with Gurnemanz and Parsifal as the curtain closes on the knights, suggesting she’s at last escaped the eternal cycle of death and rebirth.

All of this might come off as a persnickety rewiring of the composer’s intentions were it not for the total commitment of the cast, most of whom were accomplished Wagnerians in their vocal primes. Thirty-six-year-old Waltraud Meier is a force of nature as Kundry, chillingly recounting how she mocked Christ on the cross, then shifting from sultry to enraged as Parsifal rejects her advances during the latter half of the second act. The provocative performance, filled with nuance and elaborate blocking, offers an alternative to the Kundry that Meier essayed in the Met’s more traditional staging of the opera by Otto Schenk the same year that’s available on DG.

The hulking Poul Elming brings a pleasant lyric voice with baritonal qualities to the title role but at times appears boxed-in by Kupfer’s conception, expressing little more than confusion or anguish to all the goings on. John Tomlinson is an authoritative, satisfyingly resonant Gurnemanz, whose excellent diction and savvy use of small gestures draw the listener into his long monologues. Falk Struckmann brings strong dramatic sensibilities to Amfortas, palpably expressing pain and hopelessness in the presence of the Grail, though his voice is arguably the least interesting of the four principals. Günter von Kannen and Fritz Hübner are also effective in the roles of Klingsor and Titurel.

Barenboim, filmed from the back of the orchestra for extended stretches, looks a little like he’s being held at gunpoint but leads a spacious, wonderfully detailed account of the score that’s supportive of the singers yet sensitive to the architecture of the long acts. Though the interpretation isn’t as flashy as Christian Thielemann’s or as lush as James Levine’s, there’s a majestic, slightly foursquare quality to his reading that makes this one of the best modern takes available on DVD. The Staatskapelle orchestra and chorus are wonderfully responsive, projecting a real sense of occasion.

Having all these well-traveled and accomplished artists in one place during their best years is probably justification enough to add this Parsifal to one’s collection. Listeners who’ve experienced other revisionist takes on this elusive work in the two decades since can also reassess how well Kupfer realized the opera’s mysterious qualities and paradoxes, and if he discarded too many elements to realize his vision.

“When you look at this,” Georges Nicholson, identified as a Wagner historian, said, watching an early stage of the machine’s construction, “you feel like this is finally the ‘Ring’ that Wagner would have wanted all along.”

“We are actually having the vision that Wagner had when he was composing,” Mr. Nicholson added.

Let’s unpack, shall we? First off all, M. Nicholson should be congratulated on his successful completion of a difficult double major, Wagner Studies and Necromancy. I mean, it’s one thing to be an expert on the composer, but what’s really impressive here is that the “historian” can communicate with the dead. (At the next séance, Georges, don’t forget to quiz the Meister on how he feels about exploding statue heads. We’re all eager to get his take on that.)

The second point here is that, at least as presented in the mini-review by James Oestreich, Nicholson—“identified as a Wagner historian,” remember?—could be taken for a disinterested observer; in other words, “here’s what the expert has to say.” In fact, Nicholson is on the payroll of either Ex Machina or the Met (he’s credited as “Musical Consultant” on the program for Götterdämmerung) and therefore essentially selling a product he helped to develop. One might as well ask Don Draper for his unbiased opinion on Cool Whip.

But it’s the Appeal to Dead and Buried Authority that makes me want to scream.

Hers is an Italianate stage bearing, no matter the Greek and German parentage, and she inhabits Verdi’s Elisabeth (Elisabetta, heard in January) and this Mozart snugly indeed, a Fach-defying professional. “Dove sono” begot a dead hush in the Nationaltheater, instilled compellingly at “E Susanna non vien!”

As her husband, Simon Keenlyside modulated with brio between arrogance and suppleness through the course of the evening, his baritone showing no sign of wear. Angela Brower, a winning Nicklausse in the Constantinos Carydis Hoffmann last fall, has curves in all the wrong places to be credible as his page boy but her mezzo-soprano projected beautifully and her teamwork shone.

After a quiet start, Luca Pisaroni filled the former barber’s shoes with a plucky sense of his own value and firm bass projection. Heike Grötzinger trampolined suggestively on her lost son’s bed in Act I yet cozily received him in fetal position during his Act IV panic. She is a fine singer; too bad someone cut “Il capro e la capretta.” Christoph Stephinger evinced minor strain as Bartolo the father.

Adriana Ku?erová introduced a cutesy Susanna but could not be heard much of the time. (She has withdrawn sick from the rest of this run, with the metallic Laura Tatulescu jumping in.) Kevin Conners faltered amusingly as lawyer Curzio while veteran Ulrich Reß relished his job as music-master, leading the chorus to Keenlyside’s palpable annoyance. Veteran of veterans Alfred Kuhn—an erstwhile institution here as Frank in Die Fledermaus and alas not scheduled to sing the role this coming December—sputtered gloriously as the gardiner. Evgeniya Sotnikova simpered con dolcezza in the brief duties of his Barbarina.

Dieter Dorn’s aging staging uses stretched white fabric over wooden frames. Though not deep, this setup dampened the voices on Thursday instead of projecting them, causing an all-evening imbalance with the orchestra.

This problem had me wondering anew about those production roles. Was it, is it, ultimately Dorn’s fault or his set designer’s? In the ways the staging worked well—the werktreu characters and properly motivated action, directorial Job One—are we to credit Dorn or the dramaturgy of Hans-Joachim Ruckhäberle?

In any case it is Dorn who fails to move us into the garden at night in Act IV, a flouting of both da Ponte’s libretto and the music, which positively breathes the night air. We are instead stuck inside, facing non-instructive maneuvers with white sheets.

Dan Ettinger managed to ruin a “Carmen” last season with rash conducting. His Mozart is another story: cold and rigid, also propulsive and consistent.

No such treats, perhaps, in our next quiz, but La Cieca hopes the cher public will puzzle out the identity of the opera after the jump.

More than anything on this interesting DVD, I will remember the heart-wrenching violins.  From the tremolos that begin Act II to the fragile solo that emerges from the sturm und drang of Kostelnicka’s exit to murder the baby, Bolton uses these moments of surpassing delicacy and beauty to a deeply touching effect.  Perhaps it is actually due to his Mozart and baroque mainstays that he is able to find so much depth, variety, and moments of revelatory surprise in this rich music.

Opus Arte has released this DVD of a performance of Jenufa from Teatro Real Madrid dated December 2009.  Janacek’s opera, which premiered in 1904 and was originally called Her Foster-Daughter, is a dark, brooding story set in rural Moravia, centering around the title character’s out of wedlock child and the desperate shame and tragedy that it causes for all around her.  Janacek’s music is a vivid blend of verismo power, Czech folk music, rapturous melody, and some sounds reflecting turn-of-the-century avant-garde.

The music maintains the oppressive tension of the village life while also revealing the inner emotions of each character—lush strings contrasting with percussive xylophones.  That Janacek brings all these disparate elements together to form a unified and very personal whole is remarkable.  Janacek also wrote the very effective libretto, adapted from Preissova’s play Její pastorkyna.  In good hands, Jenufa is a deeply moving and jarring operatic experience.

The quality of Bolton’s conducting (and playing by the Orchestra of Teatro Real Madrid) is matched by a marvelously simple production from Stephane Braunschweig, serving as both stage director and set designer.  The set consists of high, dark walls that heighten the sense of being trapped in a situation that is inescapable.  The walls are set at different angles for each act and highlight the very limited use of pieces to define the space: we have only Jenufa’s rosemary shrub in Act One, and, most powerfully, only the baby bed of Jenufa’s illegitimate child, focused in bright white light, serves Act Two in Kostelnicka’s house.

Use of color is limited, with the palette mostly in black, whites, and greys with the occasional burst of red.  The sets, costumes by Thibault Vancraenenbroeck, and stark lighting by Marion Hewlitt work together synergistically to focus our attention where it should be—not on spectacle or effects, but on the human interactions of the characters.

This is also a fascinatingly understated production.  There seems to be a conscious attempt here to flatten the more melodramatic moments and make them more naturalistic, and for the most part it works.  There is an Ibsen-like feel to the production, which gives the few moments of real vocal histrionics even more power.  In this production, the frightening moment at the end of Act One when Laca slashes Jenufa’s cheek as she resists his advances seems like nothing but an unfortunate accident, perhaps just la forza del destino.

This is most evident in Deborah Polaski’s portrayal of the stern and gloomy Kostelnicka, a part previously  ”owned” by Leonie Rysanek.  Polaski’s is a surprisingly restrained (some will say too restrained) Kostelnicka, more sympathetic and womanly than one expects.  Even in her mental deterioration in the final act, Polaski goes for realism rather than hysterics.

Ms. Polaski is also in extremely good voice here, pure toned throughout the range and without a trace of wobble.  While I missed a bit of the character’s severity (other characters describe her as “a gloomy sorceress” among other things), I found great pleasure in this portrayal of a real, three-dimensional woman who makes a terrible choice while trying to do the right thing in an impossibly difficult predicament.

British soprano Amanda Roocroft is a lovely if somewhat matronly Jenufa, sung and acted with great sensitivity and emotional power.  She moves effortlessly through Jenufa’s path, from her hopeful first act to the deep depression of Act Two and the shattering realizations and reconciliation of Act Three.  Her singing is mostly quite lovely, especially in pianos and in the middle voice.  She can float high notes beautifully as well; only when she presses the voice for volume does it take on a hard and glassy tone.

As the father of Jenufa’s baby, Nikolai Schukoff brings an appropriately oily, weak, and vacillating character to Steva, a man who faces the great decisions in life through a fog of alcohol or panicked self-interest.  Schukoff’s reedy tenor is well focused and he sings with admirable tone and variety.  As the hapless Laca, Miroslav Dvorsky brings a passionate and powerful dramatic tenor to the role, though one might wish for much more variety in his singing—most everything is loud and louder.  But he brings great heart to the role, and the final reconciliation duet with Jenufa is very touching.

The supporting cast is generally fine, though they occasionally seem to be performing a more melodramatic version than the lead singers.  Marta Matheu as the Mayor’s wife finds every cliché possible, and appears to be about to break out with “Pick a Little, Talk a Little.”  In contrast, Marta Ubieta finds much personality and style as Steva’s new fiancé, Karolka.

Overall, I found this production extremely interesting and moving, though sometimes underplayed in the climactic moments.  Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating “take” on Jenufa, dramatically and musically riveting.

Or, to put it another way, the second dispatch of the day from the Met’s press office:  ”Stuart Skelton will sing the role of Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre on Monday, May 7, replacing Jonas Kaufmann who is ill.”

Daniel Wakin

The blog post in question, by critic Olivia Giovetti, is in large part a rebuttal to Gelb’s interview with Anthony Tommasini, which in turn was transparently a response to the Alex Ross‘s harsh critique of Lepage’s production in The New Yorker.

Though, as Wakin notes, Giovetti’s post has been scrubbed from the WQXR site, a cached version can be viewed here as a PDF. La Cieca invites the cher public to decide for themselves whether the piece was inflammatory enough to provoke an act of what can only be called censorship.

An eyewitness reports “throughout the entire second act, the far rightmost plank… was out of position. It should have been essentially vertical, like all the rest. But it was raised about 45 degrees from vertical, sticking out toward the audience.”

In 2008, authorities in Austria discovered a horrifying case of child abuse and incest in the home of Josef Fritzl. For 24 years, he had held his daughter Elisabeth captive in a basement. The father and daughter had an incestuous relationship that resulted in the birth of seven children. Fritzl’s wife and Elisabeth’s mother had apparently been compliant and raised some of the children as her own.

The whole case could have made the basis of its own opera, but director Martin Kusej decided to make the Fritzl family tragedy the inspiration for his production of Rusalka, filmed at the Bayerisches Staatsoper in 2010. The classic “little mermaid” fairy tale has become a dark allegory about child abuse.

Rusalka’s father is dressed in a filthy wifebeater, a blue bathrobe, and track pants, and smokes a cigarette. He has his way with her before she sings the famous “Song to the Moon.” The “moon” is a bright lamp in the basement — the only light Rusalka is allowed to see. In this case, the aria not only a symbolic fairy tale figure’s longing for love, it becomes a desperate girl’s paean to freedom.

When Jezibaba finally grants Rusalka her freedom into the “human” world, she cruelly puts her daughter in trashy-looking red stilettos that Rusalka is unable to walk in. She’s mute as well. Her first real encounter with the Prince is also violent: he’s holding a hunting rifle. She stares at him blankly as he puts her stilettos back on and carries her offstage. Rusalka has traded one unhappiness for another: she’s gone from a sexual prisoner to sex object.

Act Two starts with the gamekeeper, who has a huge stuffed deer, and he molests his niece as she’s forced to pick at the deer’s guts. Rusalka watches in horror — it reminds her of her own relationship with her father. The Prince is a faithless, shallow lover as expected — the Princess comes onstage and boldly seduces the Prince in front of Rusalka. The humiliated Rusalka starts slapping herself. The direction here is faultless, and Kusej is able to make Rusalka’s plight very human.

There’s a horrifying wedding procession with brides carrying disemboweled deer. Rusalka finds herself drawn back to her old life, monstrous as it might have been. The famous aria “Beda, beda” is in this production a threat by the abusive father to her daughter. Rusalka even sinks into a fishtank as her father watches.

Act Three has Rusalka back in the living room of her cold and distant mother. Her mother delivers her lecture to Rusalka while holding a knife to her. It’s consistent with both the Fritzl case, where the mother was apparently compliant of her daughter’s captivity, and the testimony of many victims of incest, who say that the mothers often focus the blame on the daughters instead of the husbands.

The gamekeeper makes an appearance again — the Water Goblin stabs him to death in a fit of rage. Afterwards, the father and his daughters are carted off to an asylum. The Prince expires in Rusalka’s arms in an asylum, where she is presumably imprisoned for life with her abusive father and sisters.Kusej’s take on the opera is obviously extremely dark and at times hard to watch. But then again, most fairy tales in their original form are not Disney movies — they are violent, with disturbing sexual undertones. Dvorak’s music is intense and moments of great melodic beauty are constantly interrupted by sinister, dissonant chords.

If there is one weakness in the production I’d say that the Prince is never very well-integrated into the storyline. The story is so focused on Rusalka’s relationship with her family that the Prince is a cipher. If he never cared about Rusalka, why did he visit her in the insane asylum? Unless the Prince’s visit is a hallucination? And why would he commit suicide for a woman he had so little regard for? It’s never very clear.

In a less concept-driven production, these inconsistencies would be explained by “It’s a fairy tale. The Prince has to kiss her before the story is over.” In Kusej’s production, this hole in the plot becomes noticeable. But otherwise the production is a powerful, unforgettable re-imagining of the opera.Another caveat I’d give about watching this DVD is that I think it requires a fairly strong background knowledge of the opera and the news events that inspired the production.

One must be familiar with the Little Mermaid tale (not the Disney version), and a healthy familiarity with the dark original Germanic fairy tales (e.g., “Sleeping Beauty” doesn’t end with the Prince kissing her — he rapes her, and she bears him two children before she wakes up from her dream) would also increase an understanding of the production’s concept. The Fritzl case was notorious in the news, but again, background knowledge of the case helps. In other words, the production is, despite its sensationalistic imagery, somewhat of a rarefied taste.

The performance is anchored by the stunning performance of Kristine Opolais in the title role. If your idea of Rusalka is Renee Fleming or the old recording with Gabriella Benackova, Opolais’s might not be your cup of tea. Opolais’s voice doesn’t have the beauty of those two other famous artists, and at times it can sound harsh and glassy. But the role is a long one, that calls for lyrical beauty as well as veristic outbursts. Opolais’s voice has the cut and bite to handle Dvorak’s heavy orchestration in the second and third acts.

What’s more important, she is a great actress — the character’s fear, horror, longing, despair, and hope are all brilliantly conveyed by Opolais. With another singer, the facial expressions and physical wincing and writhing might seem overwrought, but Opolais makes you believe. The performance gathered buzz throughout the opera world, and Opolais is set to make her debut as Magda in La Rondine at the Met next season. I will definitely have a ticket.

Klaus Florian Vogt’s Prince has a clear, bright, tenor voice, but having only heard Vogt in recordings, to me he sounds like a Mozart tenor singing the lyrical heldentenor roles. His voice is very light and under pressure has a nasal edge. Maybe if I heard him live it’d be different because I know he’s garnered excellent reviews in many opera houses.

Nadia Krasteva has a deep, throaty, rich mezzo voice that screams “In a few years I will be in demand everywhere as Dalila and Carmen.” But maybe the best supporting performances came from Günther Groissböck. as the Water Goblin and Janina Baechle as Jezibaba. They were intense and frighteningly creepy as the cruel parents of the water maidens.

Opera on Blu-ray continues to be somewhat problematic. The increased definition picture quality (along with the trend of filming almost exclusively in closeups) means that sometimes what would likely be stunning effects in the theater up-close on TV look artificial. The wig lines, the heavy stage makeup, the fake mustaches, the clear stockings that Opolais wears in order to avoid walking barefoot onstage, are all too visible on Blu-ray. But still, this production and performance are both highly recommended.