Cory Weaver

Ever since Abraham’s time, the literary world has been filled with depictions of complex patriarchal relationships. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Idomeneo, the final production of the San Francisco Opera’s 2024-25 Season that opened on 14 June, is another such exploration.

The plot of the opera – whose style straddles those of Italian opera seria and Gluck — continues the myth of the Trojan War. Set in Crete, Idomeneo – King of Crete and one of Agamemnon’s generals – survives a shipwreck on his return from the Trojan War by making a vow to Neptune to sacrifice the first living creature he sees on land, which happens to be his son, Idamante. Meanwhile, in Crete, Idamante becomes entangled in a love triangle with Ilia, the daughter of the defeated Trojan King Priam, and Elettra, the daughter of Agamemnon. In his libretto, Giambattista Varesco followed pretty much Antoine Danchet’s dramatic plot except for the tragic ending (where Idoménée kills his own son), substituting it for a deus ex machina in which Neptune decrees that Idomeneo had to yield the throne to Idamante and Ilia to be married to him, an ending that was more in line with the Enlightened ideals.

This is only the fifth time the San Francisco Opera has presented Idomeneo. It first arrived in 1977, conducted by John Pritchard (before he was appointed as SF Opera’s first Music Director) in the famous Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production. (The Metropolitan Opera, which premiered the opera five years later, still retains this production to this day.) Pritchard also led the 1989 new production by John Copley in the Company’s only showing of Mozart’s revised 1786 version with a tenor Idamante, while Donald Runnicles, SFO’s second Music Director, led the revivals of Copley’s staging in 1999 and 2008.

On the opening night, the musical aspects of this season’s closer elevated its status to a summer must-see. Eun Sun Kim, SFO’s current Music Director, conjured up power and grace in first ever outing with the score. Unlike her take on last summer’s Die Zauberflöte, it felt like this time she leaned towards a HIP-influenced reading; tempi were noticeably zippier and the strings sounded brighter. More importantly, she brought up all the nuances and colors from the orchestra, from the stormy sea in Act I to the grave solemnity of the temple scene in the final Act. It was all super exciting and cohesive.

Kim was surrounded by a strong group of principals, most of whom were veterans in their respective roles. Matthew Polenzani’s title role was an interesting character study of the “less is more” kind; without being over the top, he efficiently projected the fear and anguish of a father on the brink of losing his son, particularly in his facial expressions and, more notably, in his voice. While his voice has darkened over the years, it was supple enough to navigate the demands of the role, bringing a sense of maturity and even authenticity. His “Fuor del mar”, for example, became a true expression of sorrow rather than a vehicle for showing off out of context.

The two Princesses tend to steal the show in any performances of Idomeneo (for the exact opposite reasons), and here was indeed the case. The debuting Ying Fang proved why she is the leading exponent of Ilia as of late. With a bright, sparkling tone and an ease of coloratura, Fang radiated not only innocence but, more importantly, innocence lost, making the role more multi-faceted and fascinating to watch. Her “Zeffiretti lusinghieri” became a true showstopper in that regard, with carefully placed pianissimi to boot!

After gloriously portraying Richard Strauss’s Salome at the Met just last month (a performance so magnificent that I caught both the broadcast and the encore at the movie theater), I was very curious how Elza van den Heever would approach Elettra here. My biggest pet peeve is that some singers tend to act like the part is an audition for Strauss’s Elektra and many reviews of Idomeneo seemed to indicate “D’Oreste, d’Ajace” as the only reason to watch this opera! To my pleasant surprise, van der Heever approached the role with restraint and elegance, fully embodying the character as a member of the royalty without turning it into a caricature.

In her hands, the three arias turned into a demonstration of three different states of Elettra’s unstable, manipulative, yet somewhat hopeful mind, from jealousy to (temporary) bliss to finally rage and desperation of losing it all. van den Heever used her large and commanding instrument intelligently, full of nuances and gorgeous phrases. It wasn’t till “D’Oreste, d’Ajace” that the audience began to see splashes of Strauss (her self-professed favorite), and even then, she didn’t completely lose it and performed the rage aria with complete control.

Cory Weaver

Husband and wife Alek Shrader and Daniela Mack reprised their respective 2008 roles as Arbace and Idamante in this performance. It was regrettable that Mack was under the weather for the premiere (as announced by SFO’s General Director Matthew Shilvock at the start of Act III), as her Idamante was spot on acting-wise. She was visibly conserving energy throughout the show and at times she sounded underpowered and out of breath. Nevertheless, she made a handsome contribution to the overall proceedings. Arbace’s two arias are often omitted, but here Shrader sang his first, “Se il tuo duol” with dignity and conviction, pledging allegiance to his king.

The comprimario roles were competently filled by Adler Fellows, proving once again the significance of the prestigious Adler program to the success of the San Francisco Opera. A quartet of the Adlers made house (and role) debuts as Cretan Women and Trojan Men: sopranos Georgiana Adams and Mary Hoskins, tenor Samuel White, and baritone Olivier Zerouali. White also stoically doubled as the High Priest of Neptune, while third-year Adler Jongwon Han’s booming voice as the Voice of the Oracle signified the turn of the event brilliantly. SF Opera Chorus noticeably went the extra mile under the direction of John Keene, performing many of Mozart’s glorious choruses with aplomb.

With the musical aspects of the night having achieved such a high level of execution, I couldn’t help but wish at times that it was a concert version instead, for several reasons. The main thing was that, for me, the frustrating production by Australian director Lindy Hume couldn’t match the brilliance of the music-making.

I often wonder what Idomeneo would look like seen through a contemporary lens, particularly because many of the plot elements — a sea monster, human sacrifice, even Neptune, the invisible god of the sea — seem so antiquated in the modern world. In this production, Hume did precisely that.

Cory Weaver

She sees the characters as deeply flawed humans with all kinds of PTSD from war. Anna Cordingley’s contemporary costumes clearly supported the vision, with the Trojans dressed as refugees (although Ilia visibly kept her Burberry scarf) and the Cretans all in black, resulting in black as the dominant color on stage for almost three-quarters of the opera. Michael Yeargan’s claustrophobic set placed the action in a three-sided, stage-wide gauze room, each side adorned with similar classical doors (borrowed from his previous production of Werther). A revolving stage was placed in the center of the room. Chairs, lots of lots of chair, to be exact, were the defining props in that room, arranged in various formations either on the revolving stage or all over the room. It all creatively defined the notion of a troubled psyche, both collectively and individually, with the chairs seating all the troubling objects of that mindset.

Hume married that abstract concept with David Bergman’s photo-realistic projections, paying homage to the ancient land of Tasmania and working closely with cinematographer Catherine Pettman and Sheoak Films, so much so that Shilvock called it “A Tasmanian Idomeneo” in his highly detailed blogpost posted a day after the premiere. Every single projection on the stage was taken from real images of Tasmania, including the sea monster (which was a floating kelp island)!

It was in the blending all those great ideas that I encountered trouble, as the production simultaneously manages to be both too much and too little. The projections, glorious as they were, proved to be confounding and even distracting. There was only one exact sentence in the entire program book mentioning the Tasmanian inspiration for the projections, but it was buried under the history of San Francisco Opera’s Idomeneo presentations. My companion and I were even wondering if the thick forest projection in Act III was Amazonian!

Cory Weaver

On the other hand, the bare stage with chairs arranged in various formations seemed insufficient to truly bring out the drama, particularly given the lengthy opera’s duration — the whole show lasted more than three-and-a-half hours on opening night, even with all the cuts — and its somber subject matter. The amount of people leaving the auditorium during each intermission suggested that I wasn’t the only one in the audience feeling that way.

Even more problematic was that the vastness of the stage somewhat affected how some singers projected their voices, weakening their sounds as they walked towards the back wall or when the revolving stage had them facing backwards. If there was any consolation, for the most part, Hume directed the singers well; the interactions between each singer, all of whom had considerable acting skills, felt genuine and authentic.

Even with all those setbacks, I still feel that Idomeneo was a great season closer and a worthy addition to San Francisco Opera’s distinguished Idomeneo presentations. Three more shows remain, including the livestream performance on Friday 20 June. Be sure not to miss this extraordinary cast, and remember, it’s a Tasmanian Idomeneo!