la cieca

Can an opera succeed too well? That's what La Cieca was thinking while her attention was wandering during Glimmerglass Opera's production of Central Park (July 30), a triptych of world premiere operas created in collaboration with three household-name playwrights. Everyone involved (opera company, composers, librettists, singers, public television, even the public) was heavily invested in the artistic success of this venture. In other words, failure was unthinkable, which means no one ever felt the icy trickle of flop sweat -- that magic brew that has inspired more artists than even Sharon Stone. The resulting operatic evening is a bit of a hothouse flower, denied the opportunity to grow strong through the threat of failure. Sure, audiences upstate applauded and laughed, and, as they say, the critics were kind. But how well will these coddled triplets survive in the hard cold world outside Cooperstown?

 

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La Cieca has to say she is more than a little weary of the "Woody Allen" vision of Manhattan as an all-white, all-straight, all-upper middle-class and Upper West Side haven of homogeneity. One of the most appealing features of the real-life Central Park is that it is free and open to everyone in the city, which means that poor people, rich people, people of color, tourists, queers, old people, young marrieds, horny teens and even mimes mix together, for a while, anyway, freed from their self-imposed ghettoes. We see practically nothing of this glorious melting pot in Central Park: everyone is just so damn white. The only exception an "ethnic" young woman of Greek descent. And wouldn't you just guess that her father runs a coffee shop in Astoria?

 

Swenson meets Bartoli

And everyone is reasonably well off, except for some very clean and undemented-looking homeless people. And, as you might guess, the action of the opera does not stray anywhere near the celebrated Ramble, symbolic home of casual gay sex in New York for better than half a century now. (I suppose we can to console ourselves with the brief Ramble scene in Harvey Milk, but La Cieca had a wonderful vision of a dimly lit stage representing a warm summer night, some lovely neo-impressionistic swirling and buzzing in the orchestra, and the sound of young men's voices fading in and out. Too much for Public TV, I suppose.)

The most artistically valid piece of the trio is "Strawberry Fields," a vignette about a vague elderly lady who thinks the activity around the John Lennon memorial is an opera performance. Yes, the one-joke story goes on too long, but the librettist, A.R. Gurney, shows considerable aptitude for operatic form, providing composer Michael Torke with lyrical strophic-sounding lines. What's more, this opera (unlike its companions) actually uses the Central Park setting as something more than an excuse for a "unified" setting. A surprisingly restrained Joyce Castle enacted the old lady with charm; it's not really her fault that the vocal line lies a minor third too high most of the time. Tenor Jeffrey Lentz (whose well-dressed and polite Zoo Story-type character certainly came off like a nice queerboy) considerately fed Castle the necessary "and thens," with clean tone and musical-theater clarity of diction.

Wendy Wasserstein, in full "Uncle Tom" mode, co-opted the solemn Jewish "Festival of Regrets" as a pretext for her predictably tiresome Jackie Mason-style shtick. One-liners like "Only a family that goes to Emmanu-El would name their son Wesley" and "I regret not having my chin done" won loud guffaws from the audience, neatly drowning out Deborah Drattell's elegant Klezmer-flavored score. The composer did not write "funny" music for Wasserstein's sitcom situations, accomplishing instead a moving musical evocation of a crisp autumn afternoon in the park. And if there's one thing Drattell can do, she can show off Lauren Flanigan's voice. The soprano was ideal as the meeskite who wins back her errant husband, her clean and accurate tone soaring thrillingly through some gorgeous Straussian vocal lines. True, a woman with a voice like Flanigan's is about as meeskite as Barbra Streisand, but, hey, it's an opera. No one really believes Ren�e Fleming works in a sweatshop, either. Among the supporting players, apprentice artist Matthew DiBattista made an adorably goofy Wesley.

In "The Food of Love," the indefatigable Flanigan did what she could with the role of a homeless woman trying to give away her baby so he can have such basic human needs as "a good prep school�dancing lessons" and, one assumes, the opportunity to network at a power kindergarten. La Cieca had to restrain herself from yelling "vergogna" as Terrence McNally's cheesy and apparently unfinished libretto paid homage to "Nancy Reagan" charity -- that is, if you notice a homeless person and feel sorry for her, that absolves you from taking any action. This homeless woman had not a speck of grime on her, and her layered Liberty Print ensemble looked more arty than ragged. What's not to like? At one point, the Blessed Virgin (the lady with the kid nobody wants, get it?) gets trampled to the ground by a gang of unruly Frisbee players, which suggests that McNally has taken a leaf from the book of Christopher Durang. Unbelievably, McNally has his leading lady cry out "What is your name? Anna Kazan! What is your age? Thirty-three!" as if in her dementia the poor thing believed she was Patricia Neway. We finish with sort of mise-en-sc�ne medley of greatest hits of Ballad of Baby Doe, Werther and Wozzeck, as ballet of children in their skivvies dance ring-a-rosy around poor crazy Anna and picturesque snowflakes fall. In May. Flanigan poured forth creamy tone and meaningfully inflected text untiringly; one has to admire her for giving her all in so ungrateful a work. Robert Beaser's score was, understandably in the circumstances, unmemorable; hey, I'd set a crappy text too if it got my music performed on Public TV. Beaser did not bother to set to music McNally's wittiest bon mot of the evening ("Fuck you!" "I won't dignify that with an answer. Fuck you too!")

A dash of vulgarity might have brought life to a too-too-tasteful production of Monteverdi's Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (July 29). Unlike the composer's more familiar Coronation of Poppea, this piece lacks juicy incident or, for that matter, much of a plot at all. It's basically a series of inward monologues and dialogues set in recitativo-arioso style, with the heaviest burden falling on faithful wife Penelope. The singer of this part is limited to a narrow range of noble suffering in an equally restricted low tessitura. Phyllis Pancella, a warm-voiced and intelligent artist, seemed to lack the variety of expression or the sheer star personality to keep this role interesting. James Maddalena, as the returning husband, sounded in poor voice, frequently flat -- a real pity, because he obviously had a lot he wanted to communicate. Of the large cast, only veteran tenor George Shirley (Eumete) really brought the musical/dramatic expression thrillingly to life, though angelic-voiced countertenor David Walker made a touching cameo of Human Frailty. La Cieca should also mention that of current early-music specialists, only Walker has both the physique and the dignity to sing Baroque music in a g-string.

La Cieca wishes wish conductor Jane Glover had encouraged her cast to sing more freely and expressively; as it was, the many tricky cadenzas and ornaments seemed all too musicological -- accurate, but not characterful. John Cox's production recycled lots of '70s Peter Hall mannerisms: mix-and-match disco costumes (Minerva in gold-lam� Hammer pants), a neo-Bayreuth raked disc, and a lot of standing around that I guess was meant to be intense but came off stiff and uninvolved. The stage effects and scene changes looked ragged and underrehearsed, not at all what we have come to expect of the polished Glimmerglass style.

Just exactly what is that makes a star? It's not intelligence, surely, or hard work, or sex appeal or even, I think, talent. As the saying goes, a star is someone who is fascinating doing nothing. Audiences at Glimmerglass this summer encountered a new object of such fascination in the person of soprano Christina Bouras as Gilda in Rigoletto. I was at first annoyed at director Rhoda Levine's idea to have Gilda already on stage in her little courtyard from the beginning of Act 1, Scene 2; after all, Verdi writes some effectively giddy entrance music for his soprano about ten minutes into the scene. So, throughout Rigoletto's confrontation with Sparafucile and, indeed, even during his "Pari siamo" soliloquy, Ms. Bouras sat quietly writing in her diary. And we watched her, wondering what she was thinking and, frankly, only-half-listening to some powerful singing from E. Mark Delavan as the jester.

By this point, I realize you're saying to yourself, "Uh-oh, what do you bet this poor child can't sing at all," but, oh, yes, she can sing. It's a light lyric voice, sweet in timbre and pinpoint-accurate in intonation, with a lovely silvery quality on top. Her coloratura is clean and she commands a respectable legato. But, again, there's something special and rare and precious going on here. Ms. Bouras has a gift we associate with the very greatest singing artists: she performs, not just words and music at the same time, but a single sort of communication that is words and music in one. It's difficult to describe, but let's just say that even Gilda's most extravagant roulades and staccati sounded as natural and unforced as speech.

One detail will have to do: when Gilda is trying to wheedle her father into allowing her more freedom, she sings, "Gi� da tre lune son qui venuta, n� la cittade ho ancor veduta" ("We have been here three months and I still haven't seen the city.") The last word of each phrase includes a falling interval, and here Ms. Bouras added a tiny, slightly nasal portamento, not quite a whine, really, but simply the sort of sound a spoiled teenager uses when trying to get around her daddy. It didn't sound like a coached "effect," but simply honest human expression. Ms. Bouras is a beginner and needs to learn to pace herself; one or two notes in the "Lass� in cielo" finale lost their purity. But this is an important young artist, and I know we will hear her name again soon.

The talented opera singers around Ms. Bouras sounded and acted like, well, so many talented opera singers. Delavan thrilled with his huge voice and cannon-like high notes, but seemed insecure at lower dynamic levels, sometimes cracking when attempting to shade his tone. Tenor Raul Hernandez's dashing Italianate sound is just right for the Duke; unfortunately he does not always stay in tune while crossing the passaggio -- which happens constantly in this high-lying role.

Next to Ms. Bouras, what surprised and delighted me most was the really superb musicality of this production -- perfect ensemble, clearly-blended textures, and a consistently Italianate sense of rubato from cast and orchestra without even a hint of a mishap. The infernally tricky syncopated ensemble that closes Scene One always goes off the track, or so it seems, but this live performance sounded more accurate than most studio recordings -- and far and away more exciting. Credit conductor George Manahan with this double miracle of impeccable musical preparation and idiomatic lyricism.

Stage director Levine trainwrecked just about every dramatic moment in this supposedly surefire opera; perhaps she was dispirited by the tatty sets of John Conklin, who seemed to think that the Duke of Mantua resided in the food court of a Santa Fe shopping mall.

Stewart Robinson's idea of playing Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio in two acts really didn't work: the long and sad "Traurigkeit" aria is nobody's idea of a first act finale, and poor William Burden (Belmonte) ran out of voice trying to sing two acts' worth of ballbreaking music in one unbroken half-hour stretch. He also had the unfortunate task of speaking the most embarrassing line in the whole stilted libretto, "Tell me, my merry friend, how can I into the palace?" (Does that sound like a cue for a Harold Arlen medley, or what?) Joyce's Guyer's bleached soprano hit all Konstanze's notes without ever really making music. The only real sparkle in the production came from Anna Christy as Blondchen, combining a tingly "German" fast vibrato with comic timing crisp enough for Broadway.

New at parterre box: a site devoted to "singing of a truly demented level of beauty --or, in some cases, singing that simply leaves me demented." James's rave faves are collected as easy-to-dowload mp3 files on The Dementia Page.