It appears that the Angriest Dyke in the World is taunting a stately but rather flustered drag queen. Checking our Spoleto Festival USA programs, we note that the black-winged butch is Cupid and the spangled six-footer is none other than the god Apollo. Thus did director David Alden raise the Dock Street Theatre curtain on Francesco Cavalli's Giasone, establishing in one swipe both the outrageous theatricality and the detached deconstructionism that continued unabated through the evening.

Before the stuttering servant Demo closed the show with a Porky Pig "Th-Th-Th-That's all folks," this nightclub act with period instrument pit band featured a bondage fantasy scene enacted by Queen Medea on fawning King Aegeus, the capture of a golden fleece unceremoniously reeled from the flies in the form of a gilt Elvis jacket, a strip-tease hat-and-cane routine from the wiseacre maid Alinda, and more quick-sell sight gags than a Benny Hill marathon. Cavalli's mid-career dramma musicale, though only now having its American stage premiere, has been cited as the most popular opera of the 17th Century and a touchstone marking the start of a new delineation between set-piece aria forms and dry recitative. 

This prequel to Medea chronicles the hero Jason in an Argosy of sexual conquest and quick escapes from women scorned. With this emphasis, Giasone derives more from the spirit of Plautus via commedia dell'arte than from that of Euripides. Serving it all up on the skewer of his post-modern queerish sensibility, Alden caught the farcical tone in a freewheeling update that only occasionally annoyed in its insistence on the most pedestrian parallels for classical props and plot devices. In expressing the story's darker intimations of sexual powerplay, the production struck home with the bondage scene, some by-play with a pair of handcuffs, a BobCarolTedAlice pileup, and the nine-inch nails that pierced cupid's wings. 

But judging from his reputation, I suspect that Alden could have found more substance in material that -- with its subtle master/servant sparring and erotic quadrangulations -- strongly anticipates the psychological depth of da Ponte. Despite an austere instrumental realization and the resinous tone of La Stravaganza Köln, conductor Harry Bicket drew a remarkable range of colors from this combo of bowed, plucked, and strummed strings, augmented by a tiny organ and a surreptitious tambourine. Between Bicket's mastery of Cavalli's elastic idiom and Alden's absolute confidence in the ability of singers as actors, a talented cast shone to full advantage. 

If hot young countertenors are indeed growing on trees these days, I think we can say that a particularly luscious fruit has just fallen into our laps in the person of one Lawrence Zazzo, the evening's compulsive, haughty blond Jason. With round, evenly produced tone and keen dynamic shading, Mr. Zazzo filled Cavalli's vocal lines as voluptuously as he did the snug-fitting seat of his gold lamé jeans. As Medea, Natascha Petrinsky skifully deployed a rather wiry instrument, seizing the theater deed-and-title in the incantation scene that closes Act I. This American debutante's zwischenfach vocalism was decidedly unsettled, but as a stage animal she's a stunner. Courtesy of designer Jon Morrell, Ms. Petrinsky got a lineup of costume changes that would put Diana Ross to shame, and wore the silk slip like a Victoria's Secret model, the haute couture like Audrey Hepburn, and the fetish wear like � well, like someone with practice. 

As Medea's simpatico rival Isifile, Alexandra Coku grabbed the evening's best opportunities for vocalism and didn't blow it. Guy de Mey subsumed himself into both the Apollonian drag and the wonky persona of the groveling Aegeus, decanting a tenor as full-bodied and slightly astringent as a good Chardonnay. Among the numerous servants, henchmen, and deities the cast fielded several standouts. In her double role as Cupid and Alinda (think Ur-Despina), Constance Hauman alternated pit bull ferocity with disaffected ennui, handling the prop cigarette and the Zerbinetta-style interpolations with equal aplomb. Michael Chioldi offered sprung-wound physicality and a juicy baritone as Isifile's undercover agent Oreste while Philip Skinner boomed luxuriously as gangly jock and clueless hit man in the role of Jason's captain Besso. 

I caught Renée Fleming in a "Gala Concert" backed by the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, which offered orchestral bonbons between runway turns by The Beautiful Voice. I won't presume to review this Stimmdiva show beyond noting the following:

--Loge Lizard

SAN FRANCISCO � It's technically "Off-Season" in Bayreuth-by-the-Bay and indeed I've seen one of the most "off" operas in all my experience! Die Walküre? Hmmm.... If I could suggest just one thing that it most needed, I'd say a surrounding wall of fire -- from beginning to end! The Golden Gate Opera is a name that suggests whence they should have launched this production. Most of the singers were from the chorus of the San Francisco Opera chorus having a chance to strut their stuff in principal roles, and a couple of them were actually quite good. One wants to be kind, so let's blame the directors for this debacle. The worst of it was a synthesizer dubbed, "The Virtual Orchestra". It sounded like a Hammond Electric Organ. For four hours of Wagner... well, a mother said it best at the second intermission when her daughter announced that there was yet another hour and a half. Quoth Momma: "Oh, God. Somebody shoot me now." 

The high point of the evening (for which competition was minimal) was Zoe Vandermeer, a decent Sieglinde. William Roberts sang Siegmund, but his lanky body and hatchet face made one think of more of the Scarecrow of Oz than a Wagnerian hero. Ray Bolger might not have sung Siegmund any better, but he would have been a sexier, more heroic presence on stage. Mr. Roberts is also general director of the company which suggests how he got the part. From a small company one doesn't expect much in the way of sets and costumes, but GGO could learn a few things from our other local companies. Attempting a fully staged Walküre on a nickel-dime budget is a mistake to begin with. The production looked like a high school effort, sometimes to comic effect. Page Swift might have made a regal Fricka, but her cheaply pinned together sateen and paste jewels only made her look like a middle aged drag queen, especially against Brünnhilde (Christine Springer) who looked like a teenaged lesbian. Both soprani sang adequately, have an impressive list of credits, and I would gladly hear either of them in a well directed production. William Neil as Hunding also seemed to deserve better.


The Pocket Opera continues to delight audiences with its semi-staged productions. Alas, Donald Pippin tries too hard to delight. His amusing quips and elfin humor were quite out of place with Lucrezia Borgia and Teseo. In the latter he cracked some jokes about castrati that might have been risqué when he and Calvin Coolidge were both young. 

Teseo at least was still in the original Italian. Lucrezia Borgia suffered translation by Pippin whose comic touches are delicious in the right places, but not here! Ellin Kerrigan sang Lucrezia gorgeously, filling the auditorium with a rich voice born for bel canto. Mercifully long removed from Pippin's cutesy intro, her tragic finale brought tears to my eyes. 

The San Francisco Lyric Opera and the Berkeley Opera have so many of the same singers that they seem to be two halves of a Bay-polar opera company. I'm not complaining. Jillian Khuner is easily worth a trip across the Bay in either direction! La Khuner is a spectacular lyric soprano who deserves to be singing in larger companies. Apparently she chooses to stay close to her husband, conductor Jonathan Khuner, and children. If that keeps her within my earshot I set aside my feminism and applaud her weiblich loyalty to domestic traditions. I've had the treat of hearing her this year in Luisa Miller, Tosca, and Dialogues des Carmelites. Her "Vissi d'arte" was so heartfelt that Carol Vaness should be glad that La Khuner is first a mother and wife. 

My only complaint about Berkeley Opera's Dialogues was that it was merely a concert production. No Guillotine. No decapitation of the sisters. No barechested, muscular, leather-hooded Monsieur de Paris. And I even brought my knitting! Laura Decher captured Blanche's inner strength buried under layers of fear, and Jillian Khuner's Mme. Lidoine was gently forceful (Quite a contrast to her sensitive, young Luisa Miller earlier this year. La Khuner sings, she acts, she does opera as it is to be done!) The real star of this one, however, was Aimee Puentes as flighty little Sr. Constance. Puentes reads a profound spirituality into the role. Her strong top register helps to turn the high tessatura from the twittering of a silly novice into spiritual convictions without intellectual training, but lacking nothing else. Puentes will sing the Fifteen Year Old in SFO's Lulu this year. Keep an ear out for her! Baritone William Neely also goes back and forth between companies, and includes the Lamplighters (Gilbert and Sullivan) on his circuit. As Germont in SF Lyric's La Traviata, and the Marquis in Dialogues he does quite well, but he lacks the malevolence necessary to sing Scarpia. I imagine he makes a delightful Savoyard villain. 

At the top of the heap this spring is the Merola Program's Iphigénie en Tauride. In this case it's set atop a heap of laundry that tempts one to call it Iphigenia in Schmattas. Oddly, it works. Vertical clotheslines at one side of the stage are shaken to create the sense of a storm. Christina Lamberti sang Iphegenia with beautiful clear tones and a firm top, but not a very big voice. Fortunately the Gershwin Theatre isn't that big. Perhaps she was saving herself for bigger and better things. Iffy and her priestesses wore late Victorian mourning dresses and the Scythians were decked out like gendarmes from the 30's. Orestes (Mel Ulrich) and Pylade (Norman Shankle) were wearing only white sarongs. Yum. Ulrich is a slim young brunette with excellent definition. Oh, yes, he's also a baritone with a clear strong voice that's still young, but could develop into something special. 

Shankle, a café-au-lait teddy bear also has a good young voice that needs either stronger direction or the definition that will come from experience. A nice bit of bondage suggested ways we could train these boys. I don't claim to be a voice coach, but I can always help a baritone in a Greek role to open up his bottom! These Greek buddies were all over each other, clinging, cuddling, leaving no doubt as to the nature of their devotion. Again: Yum! It seems that half-naked homoerotic Oresti are the trend these days. Far be it from me to complain, but if this is in the interest of authenticity, weren't prisoners of that era completely naked? 

The surprise treat du saison was West Bay Opera's Turn of the Screw. Devotion to the art led me on an hour's train ride and a mile walk to the Lucie Stern Community Theater in Palo Alto. (The walk was quite pretty. They have lovely homes in Palo Alto!) This small town setting invites humble expectations, but WBO had some pretty fancy staging! (SFO take note. GGO take flight!) Sophisticated use of two scrims facilitated the many scene changes and added to the ghostliness of the story. Whenever either of the ghosts was on stage a ghostly white projection of them (from live video off stage) would appear on the downstage scrim so you would see the ghost in a distractingly eerie sort of stereoscopy. Alas, only one of the singers was consistently clear in his enunciation. J. Wingate Greathouse made a seductively spooky Peter Quint, and kept his pitch and clarity even while managing some rather acrobatic climbing over the furniture. Stage director Jonathon Field and set designer Jean-Francois Revon are still the stars of this show, even more than the formidable Mr. Greathouse.

A lesbian prostitute convicted as a serial killer is the title character in Wuornos, an opera-in-progress by Carla Lucero. For those of you who don't keep up with tabloid tales from Florida, Eileen Wuornos was the daughter of a battered teenaged woman, put up for adoption and taken in by her alcoholic grandmother and molesting grandfather. She became a prostitute, and ended up killing seven of her johns. State-appointed defense attorneys were less than helpful, and Ms. Wuornos today sits on death row. I had the pleasure of hearing excerpts performed at the Jon Sims Center. It would be unfair to be very critical as the opera is only half written, but a lot of fresh talent was on display; fascinating to see these various talents in development. 

What we heard of Ms. Lucero's score was sometimes quite lovely and occasionally lapsing into echoes of Andrew Lloyd Webber. But she's young and shows tremendous potential. I look forward to hearing her style mature. This story can easily fall into cliched twaddle, the worst PC excesses on the treacherous shallows of simplified feminism. The villainous parts were indeed portrayed in leering caricature. Her attorney even did a gleefully evil tango about the glories of getting the death sentence. Dawn Davenport should have had such a lawyer! This silly caricature was sung by Michael Strelo-Smith, a young baritone to watch out for! Mr. Strelo-Smith has a big, expressive voice and considerable stage presence. I look forward to hearing him sing Horace in The Ballad of Baby Doe with the Bay Area Summer Opera Institute. 

Loretta Janca portrayed Eileen's lover, Tyria, with unimpressive voice, but wonderful acting. Caught in the middle between a very conflicted love affair and the Florida fuzz Janca's face, much more than her singing, showed Tyria's inner turmoil. Soprano Karen E. Hall sang the part of Wuornos' mother. Her big, bright voice would make a fine lyric soprano, but in a dramatic role she played her part as beautifully as she sang it. Ms. Hall, and Mr. Strelo-Smith seem well on their way. Ms. Lucero could also make it big.

-- Gertie Dammerung 
ROME -- When we heard that Rome Opera had decide to include Nabucco in the repertoire of 1997-98 season, everybody was just eager to see again Leo Nucci�s magnificent portrait of the superb king, and above all to hear again one of the great roles of Ghena Dimitrova, whose last Rome performance was a thrilling Amneris in 1993, in the revived Zeffirelli-De Nobili production. But unexpectedly last March production of Nabucco turned out to be a very big success as a whole. The scenes were quite beautiful and appropriate, even if sometimes the "archaeological" scenery designed by Mauro Carosi tended to resemble the set of an Indiana Jones movie � minus the snakes� valley, thank God.

It is well known that the Israeli conductor Daniel Oren is very fond of this opera, and in this occasion he led the orchestra through the difficulties of the score with vehemence and intelligence. The unsolicited encore of the "Va pensiero" though (quite common nowadays in Italian theatres) was quite a silly idea, since the first time through was dull. Leo Nucci�s Nabucco was extremely good: dazzling top notes and a perfect rendering of the character, above all in the mad scene. He never was a real baritono verdiano, but he is always an interesting interpreter, and... well, if his voice is definitely not very rich, it is at least firm, he doesn�t roar and always sings in tune, which is quite something if you compare it with most of last generation baritones. 

His well-deserved triumph though was partly stolen by Ferruccio Furlanetto�s thrilling performance in the role of Zaccaria: the voice sounded more powerful than ever, spinning excitingly in the cabalettas, and the usual bellowing was in this case well under control. He completely cancelled the dreadful memories of his disgusting Monforte, which two years ago contributed to the fiasco of a horrid production of Vespri Siciliani. Francesca Franci was a full voiced and beautiful Fenena, while the decrepit Ismaele of the "restored to life" Nazzareno Antinori failed to impress anyone.

Miss Ghena Dimitrova showed to the aghast audience nothing more than the debris of what once used to be a stunning soprano drammatico. The voice is much smaller now, so she could produce some nice pianissimo effects in the death scene; unfortunately Abigaille is not Melisande. Dimitrova�s famous bazooka top register is nothing more than a pop gun now, so the arias were shorn of all the ( written!!) high notes, and the da capo of the "Salgo gia" was completely omitted. Her acting skill never was her most brilliant feature, but now she moves on stage like a sort of Golem, showing no involvement whatsoever with what is going on around her. In her triumph scene she seemed completely absorbed by the manoeuvring of her very long embroidered mantle that (unkind) Sybille Ulsamer designed for her, while in the duet with Nabucco the contrast with the vivid figure of Nucci�s character was frankly annoying. Since the voice has gone she could at least have come out with some flamboyant plastique, as do Kabaiwanska and Baltsa, also in the final parts of their careers. The other singer were all very supportive to La Dimitrova, trying to ignore the embarrassing quality of her performance. 

Much applause and, in general, a big success. We just hope that Dimitrova will not get the role of Eboli, scheduled in 1999.

-- Andrea Penna
NEW YORK � Before Valery Gergiev and his peripatetic band of overworked Russian artists showed up in New York for the Kirov Opera Festival at the Metropolitan Opera House, its artistic success was a foregone conclusion. The New York Times profiled Gergiev and found his only flaws to be excessive dedication and a cavalier attitude toward rehearsal. Joe Volpe announced in a public forum that Valery Gergiev was his first choice for the Met's next Music Director. 

The Met's fundraising department joined the clamor. I received three letters and two phone calls in the space of a week reminding of me of just how wonderful the Kirov would be and asking if I had a few extra dollars hidden under the mattress to help defray the extraordinary expense (all those new sets of Met Titles!) of bringing the Kirov to New York. Once the festival started, even the program booklets did their part for the cult of personality aspect of the festival by eradicating anything that did not point to the greater glory of Valery Gergiev and his tireless dedication to his art. Other than an inane article about the festival repertoire, there was no information about the opera themselves and no bios of the many unfamiliar singers. 

Gergiev undoubtedly did help save the Kirov from financial ruin. The sorry saga of the Bolshoi during the same time period suggests the likely fate of the Kirov had not Gergiev and his troupe hit the road cup in hand. What is the point, however, of hyping the event to the point that any actual performance is likely to be a letdown? Didn't anyone learn anything from the disastrous backlash from Roberto Alagna's overhyped debut? Apparently not. The performances, for the most part, disappointed. This was particularly frustrating as the casts were well-chosen; it�s just that the performers seemed tired and uninspired. 

It began with a gala. Other than the ticket prices, the only gala things about the event were the reappearance of Marc Chagall's sets for The Magic Flute, and the opportunity to bid farewell for the summer to the Met's embarrassing chorus. Who could fail to recognize the harpies mooing in the background when the Met chorus sang alone during Vladimir Galouzine's unidiomatic rendition of "Nessun dorma?" Galouzine, who is making a considerable reputation for himself in Europe, has a tenor voice of considerable heft and a congested baritonal timbre. One wanted to give him the Heimlich maneuver. His rendition of "Si, pel ciel" from Otello with Nikolai Putilin was unconvincing and Gergiev's conducting of this opera has not improved at all since he conducted the new production as the MET a few seasons back. 

The two true highlights were duets from Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa and Iolanta. Olga Guryakova and Larissa Diadkova in the Mazeppa duet gave an thrilling preview of their performances in the complete opera while Marina Shaguch sang a tender, believable Iolanta that more than compensated for Yuri Marusin�s strained prince.

Many people fled after the deafening rendition of the Coronation Scene from Boris Godunov that closed the first part. Those who stayed snoozed though a run-through of Prince Igor Act II that dragged the program well past the scheduled conclusion time. The strange rumbling toward the end was undoubtedly the growling stomachs of the patrons who had purchased tickets for the after-gala supper. 

My first opera was Betrothal in a Monastery - a relatively obscure comedy by Prokofiev based on Sheridan's The Duenna. Were it not for a lack of compelling alternative plans, I would have left after the first act. It featured earthbound, self-derivative music and a hopelessly wordy libretto that kept the audience glued to its Met Titles. The production attempted to distract us from this by applying a veneer of 'sophistication'. We had to endure gaudy, chintzy, faux-elegant costumes, an ever present superfluous miming ballet troupe, an interminable drunken monk sequence, and a bizarre set featuring a squeaky clamshell device that I believe was a recycled prop from a memorable Batman episode. 

The production and the music only became evocative for the third act convent scene when the least important female character, well sung by Marianna Tarassova, got the big eleven o'clock ballad. As much as I disliked the piece, I felt it showcased the strengths of the Kirov relatively well. The orchestra playing was much more alert than at the gala and each of the singers was shown off to their advantage in the meager big moments given to them by the score. Larissa Diadkova got to display her comedic skills as the scheming duenna. Anne Netrebko was charming as Louisa, one of the young lovers. She has a juicy, dark, fluent lyric soprano that I would appreciate hearing in some non-Slavic repertoire. The men mostly resorted to an extremely broad comedic style that left me feeling as if I had been elbowed for three hours. 

Even though the clueless program notes labeled Ruslan and Lyudmila "a frothy sex comedy" I was worried that a politically correct faction in the audience might overreact to its dwarfist plot and brutal scenes of dwarf torture and humiliation. The production is another of Lotfi Mansouri's 'time machine' productions whereby he has recreated a famous previous production, in this case one from the Kirov. The atmospheric painted flats, attractive costumes and rapid-fire scene changes made a compelling case for this production style. Aside from its famous overture, the opera contains lots of distinctive and appealing if not overly profound music. 

Glinka's operas, A Life for the Tsar in particular, are worth periodic revivals, provided one can find a committed set of performers. The Kirov managed to field a more than adequate set of singers, but the performance was depressingly disengaged. Gergiev's conducting was crass and manipulative. He framed the performance with a turbo-charged but sloppy performance of the overture and an equally hyperkinetic jaunt through the final chorus as if that was all the red meat the lions in the audience needed. In between it was 4 hours of indifferent torpor. It is perhaps unfair to criticize the singers for being inert under these circumstances. Olga Trifonova sang Lyudmila with charm and some squally high notes. Unfortunately, her character is offstage or asleep for most of the opera. Yuri Marusin found a congenial part in the character tenor role of the bard Bayan. Unfortunately, he is being promoted as a major dramatic tenor. Yvegeny Nikitin as Ruslan was unexceptionable. Valentina Tsidipova, subbing for Galina Gorchakova as Gorislava was very shriy and unpleasant. Larissa Diadkova sang solidly if unimaginatively as Ratmir.

Next up was Prince Igor. The production can most charitably be described as the losing end of a bizarre transaction whereby the Kirov received some dinosaur-sized tampons, an unneeded outdoor sculpture, the discarded costumes from the Broadway production of Starlight Express, some oversized showerheads, and a parade float. What stage movement there was risible. I could hardly blame the woman next to me for tuning into a baseball game on her radio during the performance. Gergiev's conducting was slightly more alert than at the gala, but the performance remained earthbound until the moving final (offstage) chorus. The editorial decision to end the opera in the way is probably inappropriate, but it was with this haunting chorale that the opera achieved its first effective moment.

The singing was barely satisfactory. Mikhail Kit was uninspiring as Prince Igor. Gegam Grigorian has the appropriate heft and sound for Vladmir, but he has no clue what to do on stage. He and Larissa Diadkova as his love interest Konchakova were the best singers in the cast even if their interaction in the love duet consisted of quizzical glances. Askar Abradazkov lacked the low notes for Konchak, and his decision to fake them a la Lou Diamond Phillips in The King and I didn't really help. Galina Gorchakova's voice was in bad shape as Yaroslavna. She had sounded OK at the gala, but her heavy performance schedule during the festival was taking its toll (Why must Gergiev overwork his singers so - Larissa Diadakova had major parts in over half the performances!) Even though Gorchakova had cancelled the performance of Ruslan and Ludmilla two days before, she was unlistenable. She screamed and wailed her way through the lament in the last act. Some complained that the second half of this aria was cut, but clearly someone at the Met was aware of New York's ordinance requiring that car alarms be turned off after 5 minutes. It is heartbreaking to witness this Cheryl Studer style burnout. 

The company redeemed itself with a fiery performance of Mazeppa. I�ve never understood its relative obscurity. For Act II alone, it deserves an active place in the repertoire. This act is a non-stop hit parade of arias and ensembles culminating in a mother-daughter scene rivaled only by Mildred Pierce. Larissa Diadakova (again!) as the mother sang with strength and extraordinary intensity, while Olga Guryakova as her daughter Maria made a wonderful first impression. She is a striking figure on the stage; she seems very young and her voice was not always under perfect control. However, the excitement of her singing and her compelling stage presence more than compensated for any lack of finesse and she was mesmerizing during the final mad scene (perhaps the most inspired moment in all of Tchaikovsky's operas). 

So what are we to make of all this? Should the Gergievification of the Met and the promise of another Kirov Festival dishearten us? Gergiev is capable of inspiring memorable performances. However, his insane schedule and constant touring with his company seem to be taking a toll on him and his singers. At times, the performances had all the inspiration of subway performers going through their routine for the five hundredth time. So let the Kirov come back; just let�s make sure that everyone has a paid vacation first. 

-- Dawn Fatale
more reviews parterre box