Teatro Nuovo streams Vaccai live tonight on YouTube Live

Wait, Vaccai? Who?

Something old is now new. Teatro Nuovo will release Bel Canto in Thirty Minutes tonight, September 15th at 7:30 p.m. on YouTube Live. Be there, and again and again! The video production features the first-ever complete recording of Nicola Vaccai’s 1832 Metodo pratico de canto (translated as Practical Method of Italian Singing), a charming collection of miniature arias. These vocal gems have been used as training exercises for Bel Canto singers for nearly two centuries, each transposed to accommodate the various vocal ranges.

Who was Vaccai? Briefly, he had a passion for music and voice. At twenty-one he became fascinated with Giovanni Paisiello, whose Il Barbiere di Siviglia was all the rage. He settled in Venice in 1815, where he taught voice and composed operas, his most famous being Giulietta e Romeo, which premiered in Milan in 1825. Vaccai became professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory.

The great soprano Maria Malibran, who sang Vaccai’s Romeo several times, outraged Bellini and Romani by substituting Vaccai’s ending from Giulietta e Romeo for the last scene of Bellini’s I Capuletti e I Montecchi in Bologna in 1832. She found it more moving, indeed, many considered it superior to Bellini’s.

Bel Canto in Thirty Minutes has remotely-recorded performances of this classic compendium of Bel Canto style, designed by the composer to be “short and amusing,” and useful, one might add. Teatro Nuovo Artistic Director Will Crutchfield and selected soloists will be on line for a live chat during the premiere streaming.

“This is the moment when the world heads back to school for the fall, and when rehearsals should be underway for opera seasons everywhere,” said Crutchfield as he introduces the program. “Since all of that has been disrupted by the pandemic, I thought we should share some great music meant to be sung at home, and written for study and practice as well as for pleasure. As students have known since 1832, it’s also quite catchy, and as much fun as it is educational.” 

All singers have donated their services, and Bel Canto in Thirty Minutes is offered to the opera public completely free of charge. It will remain permanently available on YouTube after the premiere, and can also be accessed through teatronuovo.org. There, it is accompanied by an article on Vaccai and his times, a piece-by-piece explanation of the arias, and complete texts and translations (summary translations are embedded in the video).

“The book ranges from folksong simplicity to poignant reflection and high virtuosity,” says Crutchfield. “It starts easy and finishes hard,” he adds, “but even a fully developed singer can keep in shape by returning to the easy pieces, and even a student can at least make a start on the difficult ones. Best of all, it’s beautiful music from beginning to end. I think every opera fan should know it.”

The artists performing are familiar to fans of Teatro Nuovo. In fact, many have been interviewed by OperaMetro in past seasons, the texts of which are still available in various locations on the site.

Bel Canto in Thirty Minutes: Complete vocal roster in alphabetical order: Santiago Ballerini, Lawrence Brownlee, Teresa Castillo, Junhan Choi, Georgia Jarman, Alisa Jordheim, Hannah Ludwig, Christine Lyons, Megan Marino, Dorian McCall, Madison Marie McIntosh, Angela Meade, Tamara Mumford, Lisette Oropesa, Daniel Mobbs, Jennifer Rowley, Nicholas Simpson, Michael Spyres, Derrek Stark, Alina Tamborini, Hans Tashjian, Meigui Zhang.

Celebrate fine voices with Bel Canto in Thirty Minutes, starting tonight at 7:30 on YouTube Live!

Happy to be back. OM.

Princeton Festival’s 2020 season is Virtually Yours

Princeton Festival’s 2020 season, like last year, is a month-long fest of fine music, featuring symphonic wonders, chamber music, great opera, musical shows, soloists, backstage insights, workshops, dialogues and more. But then came the terrible virus…

Not to be undone, the Princeton Festival presents Virtually Yours, through which they will stream events every day from June 1 to June 28. A full schedule is available at the www.princetonfestival.org.

Richard Tan Yuk leads the Princeton Festival

Opera lovers are in for a treat: four operas in the Virtually Yours series, first to last, are videos of previous Festival opera productions, each conducted by Richard Tan Yuk, each streamed just once this June on Sundays at 1 pm. The operas are Puccini’s Madama Butterfly from 2018 on June 7, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro on June 14, the acclaimed 2019 production of John Adams’s Nixon in China on June 21 and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman on June 28.

Princeton Festival’s production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in June, 2018

Other opera related events include Opera Expert  Professor Timothy Urban on Why We Love Opera (Thursday, June 4) and Professor Stacy Wolf presents her thoughts on Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure and Promise of Musical Theater across America (Thursday, June 18).

Also there is an Opera Workshop for people who want to learn more about the art form, starting Tuesday, June 9; and a Musical Workshop for aspiring singers beginning Monday June 15.  A Live Musical Theater Review is scheduled for Saturday, June 20 @ 8 pm.

In addition, a podcast series will cover such topics as Women in Music and Costuming of Operas and Musicals. The wonderful soprano Sylvia McNair… always loved her…talks about life in the operatic fast lane in an episode entitled An International Career. Having interviewed for OperaMetro several young artists at the beginning of their opera careers, their first taste of fame, the hard work, the sacrifices, the lifestyle, the risks and so on, I can tell you that it’s often not easy.

Yulia Lysenko and Matthew White as Butterfly and Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly

Of Butterfly, the first opera streamed coming this Sunday, June 7 at 1:00 p.m., OperaMetro interviewed the Cio Cio San, Yulia Lysenko, the complete text to be found way down on the page Regional Eighteen Nineteen. We did not see this one live on stage, however.

Of the performance, Nancy Plum of Town Topics in Princeton said  “Lysenko in particular showed that Puccini’s music was written for a voice such as hers; gliding across the stage in quasi-platform flip-flops, Lysenko floated higher musical passages over the orchestral accompaniment and clearly was not afraid to sing at a pianissimo volume to make a theatrical or musical point. There was no doubt that she believed what she was singing — that Pinkerton would return to her. Joined in the first act by a well-blended chorus of fellow geishas, Lysenko consistently matched the drama of the music while onstage almost the entire opera.”

Yulia Lysenko, Princeton’s Butterfly, offstage

OperaMetro also interviewed two of the stars of 2019’s Nixon in China (to be streamed June 21) as well as reviewed one of the performances. These both can be found somewhat below on this same page, Regional Nineteen Twenty. Enjoy.

Support your local opera!

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay in touch with people you love.

OperaMetro! Good to be back! Never say ‘never’ again…

An interview with soprano Aida Carducci

OperaMetro (OM) had the privilege of speaking with Aida Carducci (AC), who will sing Donna Elvira in the Bronx Opera’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni on Saturday, January 11, and Saturday, January 18. I’d like to say we bumped into each other on the Left Bank in Paris and were having this conversation while leafing through bins of old 78s and LPs of great opera singers from the distant past, a passion, it turns out, we both share. But, alas, it is not so. However, we did have a warm, wonderful chat by telephone on a dreary, wet and cold December morning, 2019.

OM: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Aida!

Aida Carducci is Donna Elvira for BxO

AC: You’re quite welcome!

OM: I first want to talk about your role in Don Giovanni. You’re singing Donna Elvira, one of the three women in an orbit around the Don. What’s your experience with the role?

AC: I covered Elvira a few years ago, but this is my first time singing the main stage role. It’s also my first time singing it in English.

OM: Tell me about relearning and performing a role in English. It must be an interesting transition.

AC: It is, I’m enjoying it even more than I expected. The greatest benefit, apart from having your audience understand the drama without having to glance at subtitles, is that we on stage can relate to the dialogue in real time, thus removing any barrier of translation by singing in our native language. We know the words and the proper inflections behind them, which make our responses, both verbal and behavioral, more in synch with one another. I’ve learned so much about my character. Ben Spierman formed this English translation with finess, allowing it to flow smoothly to our modern ears while maintaining the intention of the original Da Ponte libretto.

OM: There are three women in Don Giovanni, each having her own special relationship with the man. Tell me about Donna Elvira and her relationship with DG.

AC: Donna Elvira is most interesting character in the show.

OM: No argument. Why so for you?

AC: She experiences such a wide range of emotions, some churned up from her past, some stimulated by the present moment, and she vacillates between revulsion and compassion for this, this awful, but fascinating man. She begs him to change, but after the penultimate scene, in which the Don is dragged down into the underworld by the statue, she opts to drop out of the worldly world.

OM: She feels she has failed somehow.

AC: To some extent. But he was beyond all hope. I mean, these are very real human emotions, emotions that are all around us in our everyday life. You fall for the wrong person, for the wrong reasons, but you’re still drawn to this person, even when it is obvious things are not working out. And that feeling of being drawn is where your hope still lies.

OM: The fascination fuels the hope that he can be changed.

AC: But she’s conflicted. She’s caught in a conflict between brain, body, and heart: she knows objectively that any relationship with this immoral, disgusting man is wrong, especially after Leporello literally rubs in her face how many the other women the Don has conquered. But the Don was charming, he gave her pleasure, and she loves him, even when he continues to play with her emotions throughout Act II.

OM: He’s a psychological abuser, for sure.

AC: These aspects come out in her arias, in her ensembles with others, and in the recitative. The arias show different aspects of her psyche. She unravels toward the end of the opera as the conflict between the pain he’s caused her and the deep concern for his spiritual wellbeing reach a crisis point. She knows how evil he is, but her love for him won’t let her curse him and abandon him. She hopes for his redemption.

OM: The others are not so forgiving.

AC: No, not at all. But see, Elvira is deeply religious. She believes in forgiveness of sins and redemption, which I think is why she hangs on to the possibility that he will repent his evil deeds and acknowledge her feelings for him. In the penultimate scene, the Don has his last chance to redeem himself. Elvira knows that his behavior will lead to the fires of Hell because she believes that is what awaits sinners. And she’s right! When you think of the magnitude of what she endures, then her decision to step away from the worldly and seek the peace of a religious retreat is not surprising. That scene solidifies her moral and ethical path in the future.

OM: For a dramma giocoso, this is not funny at all.

AC: Not really. Leporello on the surface seems funny, but he’s quite cruel and unsympathetic toward Elvira throughout the show.

OM: Certainly he’s downright cruel at times, as you said above, by flaunting all of Giovanni’s conquests in front of Elvira. I find Leporello to be a wanna-be Don.

AC: No contest. Though in this production at least in Act II he acknowledges the costs of that role and tries to leave. But he is persuaded to stay with some money from the Don.

OM: Tell me, Aida, is this your first Bronx Opera production?

AC: Actually it’s my third. The first was Verdi’s Falstaff in 2017. I sang Meg Page, followed by Menotti’s The Consul last January. I played Anna Gomez. I’m also singing Mařenka in The Bartered Bride this May.

OM: That’s one of my favorite operas! Very special. Tell me, how is the Bronx Opera to work with?

AC: Totally embracing and supportive, wonderful musicians, wonderful people, and they seem to have an ear for exceptional voices. I have enjoyed every part of the process. They have a genuine love for what they do. In addition, they do special performances for school children with commentary and, of course, in English. For us, the singers, they spend a lot of time making sure that each singer is vocally right for the role and temperamentally right with the others in the cast. And the productions are well thought out, regardless of whether it’s modernized or traditional. The Bronx Opera is an important part of New York’s metropolitan cultural scene.

OM: Okay, so you have operas by Verdi, Menotti, now Mozart and soon Smetana. Where to, next?

AC: I am profoundly drawn to Verdi and spend a great deal of time studying his life and works. I’d love to perform in as many of his operas as I can. In May of 2019, I sang Amelia in Un ballo in maschera. It was quite a thrill! I am studying Alice Ford in Falstaff, Aïda, Elvira in Ernani, Leonore in Il Trovatore and La forza del destino but also Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Tosca.

OM: I sense from your enthusiasm that this is only the short list, si?

AC: How much time do we have?

OM: Dare I mention German opera?

AC: Oh dear! Well, I adore Wagner and Strauss operas! I would love to sing Elisabeth in Tannhäuser or Elsa in Lohengrin, of course the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, but all a few years down the road.

OM: One must pace one’s self.

AC: At the Metropolitan Opera Competition finals I was captivated by Ich ging zu ihm.,.

OM: From Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane.

AC: Exactly! Wonderful aria.

OM: Heliane was performed this past summer at Bard College’s SummerScape. I have two posts on the OperaMetro page regional-nineteen-twenty, in fact right below the interview I just did with Ben Spierman.

AC: Shall have to check it out. I knew Heliane was there, but unfortunately I had time conflicts. But I know about their wonderful summer programs. I have a Master’s of Music from Bard College Conservatory through the Graduate Vocal Arts Program. I also spent a summer with Will Crutchfield’s Teatro Nuovo as an Apprentice Artist for their inaugural season in the chorus of Mayr’s Medea in Corinto and in Mozart Opera Project studying Vitellia in La clemenzo di Tito.

OM: I was at only the opening night of Rossini’s Tancredi. Sorry to have missed you.

AC: These are important years, I feel. You’ve got to give it your all, and if you love something so much and you want to do it professionally, you have to make the sacrifices, work hard, and learn everything you can.

OM: I hear this from all of the young professionals I talk to. It’s a big step from dabbling in an art form to making a career in the art form. All right, switching gears here, I always ask this question: What do you do when you have a day off and you want to wind down? 

AC: I love to cook. I love to make food, baking, I love Parisian food, actually French food in general. Love Paris. I do yoga, I go running, do Pilates. I live in the City, love to explore the cultural and culinary wonders right here in my backyard. I would love to have a car and explore upstate NY with my sister, but that’s not practical to have the car.

OM: Still, it’s a wonderful life.

AC: But…this is not exactly what you would call “winding down from opera,” but I LOVE listening to recordings of singers from the turn of the century.

OM: You mean like Y2K singers…

AC: No…

OM: Just kidding. I know the crew you’re referring to.

AC: I go to used book sellers, both brick and mortar and the internet, searching for everything I can find. I read about the singers’ lives and the circumstances they dealt with.

OM: And of course you listen to them.

AC: Absolutely! Wow! I find so much emotion in these voices! A greater depth of character, a deeper meaning to the words they sing, just incredible vocal expression, a level of confidence…

OM: Many of them worked with the composer as the role was created.

AC: I have an enormous collection of these singers. I listen to them over and over…I feel like such a nerd crying in the subway.

OM: For instance?

AC: The list is too long. For one, Claudia Muzio really gets to me.

OM: Her singing of Ah, non credea mirarti from La sonnambula is very touching. Brings me to tears.

AC: Yes, absolutely! I know that one!

OM: Alas, too many to talk about now.

AC: Unfortunately so. I admire their connection to the emotional language of music, the technique and style has the most human quality. I study these recordings as a framework for developing my own voice as an artist. A few years ago, I had the honor of singing for Richard Bonynge at a competition at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan. Talking afterwards he said ‘always sing with your own voice,’ listen to it, develop it, refine it, but always your own. My voice teacher and mentor, Dan Marek, is an expert of bel canto singing technique and has guided me through the vocal literature and repertory with careful attention to the writings of Manuel Garcia.

OM: Ah! The Garcia family! Great voice teacher he was, MG junior, not to mention Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot. I know their story well…We don’t have time for this discussion.

AC: We do not.

OM: Okay, back on track: Will Crutchfield at Teatro Nuovo also knows these turn of century voices, he even gave me a list of ‘em. He has a good ear for young singers.

AC: Indeed he does.

OM: We’ve been talking for an hour.

AC: Where does the time go!

OM: Aida, I promise I’ll talk to you again in the spring about The Bartered Bride. Best wishes with Donna Elvira and Don Giovanni. It was a real pleasure talking to you.

AC: And my pleasure as well.

BxO’s Don Giovanni is performed at the Lovinger Theatre, Lehman College, on Saturday, January 11 @ 7:30 and Sunday, 1/12 @ 2:30, then again the following weekend, Friday, January 17 @ 7:30 and Saturday, 1/18 at 2:30. The Lovinger Theatre is at 250 Bedford Park West in the Bronx. Check out the Bronx Opera’s website for tickets and more information.

To repeat, Aida Carducci sings Donna Elvira on the 11th and the 18th.

Smetana’s The Bartered Bride is performed in May 2 @ 7:30/May 3 @ 2:30/ then May 9 @ 7:30 and May 10 @ 2:30.

Support your local opera! Happy New Year to all.

OM

Bronx Opera to perform Mozart’s Don Giovanni in January

The Bronx Opera, aka BxO, opens its 53rd season of opera in the Bronx with Mozart’s dramma giocoso Don Giovanni in early January, followed in May by Smetana’s The Bartered Bride.

Happily now a regular thing here, OperaMetro (OM) talked with Ben Spierman, BxO’s General Director, about the company, about Don Giovanni, The Bartered Bride, Mozart, Smetana, Prague…

Ben Spierman, General Director of the Bronx Opera

OM: Always a pleasure to talk with you, Ben.

BS: Likewise with you.

OM: So tell me about this season’s choices.

BS: As you know we try to do one relatively mainstream opera, the only limitation being the size of it, casting, orchestra size, scenic demands…we won’t ever be trying a Ring Cycle, in other words. And then we do one opera not very frequently heard, regardless of its time period. Those in this last category are often 20th century operas: last year we did Menotti’s The Consul and, more familiar, Sullivan’s The Mikado. All operas are in English, of course. This season we decided it was time to another Mozart/Da Ponte opera. We had the double cast, so why not Don Giovanni?

OM: Can’t think of any reason why not myself.

BS: And then The Bartered Bride is a Company favorite.

OM: Like Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love in ’17.

BS: Exactly, another Company favorite.

OM: Mine as well, so lucky to learn BxO was staging it.

BS: We hadn’t done Bartered Bride in a while.

OM: It’s also actually one of my favorites. Any coincidence that you paired the two because both were composed and premiered in Prague?

BS: Maybe subconsciously.

OM: And that Smetana, like many composers in the 19th century, adored Mozart’s music. I believe to some extent he modeled the overture for Prodaná nevěsta, aka The Bartered Bride, on that of Le nozze di Figaro.

BS: It’s such a fun opera, but, like Figaro, it has a lot of emotional depth to it.

OM: Marie in German, Mařenka in Czech, anyway, her aria toward the end of Act III always brings me to tears. These are great choices!

BS: Thank you! Our feeling was this year let’s not do something modern, 20th century, let’s do two classic pieces. Once we chose the two, we saw parallels…though both are comic to an extent, each has something to say about human relationships, the shape of love, power. Don Giovanni is a morality play revolving around the title character. The others more or less react to his dynamic force. In The Bartered Bride, there’s dominance of the parental generation over the desires of the next generation. Both have a lot of different levels going on at once. Because these issues are still going on today, we decided to update each opera to a different era. Our director for Don Giovanni is Rod Gomez; I’m directing The Bartered Bride.

OM: You and I shall talk more about The Bartered Bride at a later date and I plan to talk to Rod sometime next week.

BS: I’ll let him tell you about the specifics of the production.

OM: Tell me, Ben, about your relationship with Don Giovanni.

BS: The Don is a fascinating character, totally defiant in the face of the morals of society and the finality of death. Paradoxically, he’s at the center of it all but he’s not given the big revealing, download kind of aria. Each of the other characters reacts to him in his or her solo or in ensembles.

OM: Morally, he’s really a disgusting individual by any standards…amoral might be a better descriptive…and yet Mozart’s music is so perfect, so beautiful.

BS: Yes, because that’s what Mozart does so well. I feel this causes a lot of ambivalence when we, in the audience, are confronted by the Don. The Romantic era of the early 19th century was fascinated by his defiance of the supernatural, represented by the statue of the slain Il Commendatore, Donna Anna’s father. Total absence of or moral constraint, subsequent guilt or responsibility for his actions. But we’re left with Mozart’s music.

OM: All three of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas are about love relationships that are tested. Only Figaro ends with some degree of positive closure (though I wouldn’t trust the Count to remember the lesson he’s learned by the following morning). Those folks remaining after the demise of the Don are not completely convincing in their emotional plans in the Epilogue. Likewise at the end of Così fan tutte, for that matter.

BS: Again, a beautiful opera. I think the take away of the story of Così fan tutte is that love has to be to some extent realistic. The young men and women in the opera have put the person he or she loves on a pedestal, and by the end their eyes are opened to a more realistic view of one another. Don Alfonso and Despina are far more practical: nobody’s perfect, we’re all human, both the men and the women ‘failed’ the test.

OM: Yet many in the later 19th century, early 20th century considered Così fan tutte immoral. It was only after the World War II that it was recognized as the masterpiece it is.

BS: I think the excellence, the sheer beauty of his music and the vocal writing beg for live performances.

OM: One wonders how his music would have evolved to if he had lived longer.

BS: One can only imagine. I feel he might have invested more in German opera, because this audience was more tolerant of ‘heavy’ orchestration. But, on the other hand, though he was very much the artist who worked with material that really grabbed his fascination, he also had a keen eye toward making a living: his art had to follow the money.

OM: Hence his last two operas, La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte.

BS: But his influences on his successors, Beethoven, Rossini especially, even Tchaikovsky were tremendous. Mozart’s musical canon was important to so many composers. In fact, my father Michael collected a bunch of quotes about Mozart for the program, how they were affected by him, by his style, etc. Sondheim and A Little Night Music is a case in point.

OM: Thank you, Ben, we look forward to the Don, and we’ll chat later about The Bartered Bride. And also about your work now as a Freelance Stage Director: you’re directing H.M.S. Pinafore with Oswego Opera Theatre?

BS: Yes!

OM: We’ll talk about this as well!

BS: Excellent! Thank you!

BxO’s Don Giovanni is performed at the Lovinger Theatre, Lehman College, on Saturday, January 11 @ 7:30 and Sunday, 1/12 @ 2:30, then again the following weekend, Friday, January 17 @ 7:30 and Saturday, 1/18 at 2:30. Note soprano Aida Carducci performs Elvira on 1/11 and 1/18; soprano Elisabeth Slaten performs Elvira on 1/12 and 1/17.

The Lovinger Theatre is at 250 Bedford Park West in the Bronx. Check out the Bronx Opera’s website www.bronxopera.org for tickets and more information.

As a heads up, Smetana’s The Bartered Bride is performed on Saturday, May 2 @ 7:30/ Sunday May 3 @ 2:30/ then Saturday, May 9 @ 7:30 and Sunday, May 10 @ 2:30. Two Saturday/Sundays.

Support your local opera! Where careers are nurtured and stars are born.

Happy New Year to all!

OM

Bard SummerScape’s Das Wunder der Heliane soars

Being that we’re now some 91 years past the world premiere of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s soaring mystery play Das Wunder der Heliane, issues about whether his music is regressive, progressive, derivative, no better than movie music, but maybe no worse…and was he enhanced creatively by his father’s fierce protection or was he most likely defeated by his father’s behind-the-back efforts…all these issues (and more) are not really relevant at the moments during a live performance.

Sherry Lee’s intelligent notes (on page 8 of the program) and Christian Räth’s Director’s Note (on page 7) give us some good contextual thoughts to ponder, but I think the last line of the latter says it all: “Korngold’s opera and his music bear a spiritual mystery, which should be experienced but cannot be rationally explained, and is a miracle in and of itself,” emphasis on the word “experienced.”

Curtain call at the end of Bard SummerScape’s Das Wunder der Heliane

Happily, Bard’s Das Wunder der Heliane was musically, dramatically, scenically and (mostly) vocally exciting throughout what seemed to be a short Sunday afternoon in the Sosnoff Theater. More often than not there were long delicious stretches of music, voice and staging, thus relegating anything the least bit less than wonderful to an infrequent exception. Though the ending of the opera on stage came up a bit short after the miraculous buildup, it was plausible and the introduction of many colored costumes was refreshing. Korngold’s musical ending is much bigger.

The production is under the creative direction of Christian Räth, with sets and costumes designed by Esther Bialas, the lighting designed by Thomas C. Hase, and projections designed by Elaine J. McCarthy. It is “timeless,” though familiar knives and swords and some of the outfits bespeak of an earlier time on earth.

The main set is an ensemble of large pieces consisting of tall mobile towers, metal construction scaffolding covered in semi-transparent gray wrap. These easily break apart and travel across stage on rollers to yield different configurations. Stairs within them allow ascent to the top or descent to the stage floor; there are passage-ways within to allow the soloists and chorus to appear from nowhere and disappear as well. Very clever and quite effective actually.

Striking that Catherine Galasso, the movement director, chose crisp angular movements for the folks impressed by the state. Pose to pose, lifts reset to the ground, all in tight synchrony: the six Judges are a case in point: their choreographed reactions grab our attention, their bright red robes and large red collars contrast sharply with the dull gray background. Many times I felt strongly pulled into Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, which, probably not coincidentally, also premiered in 1927.* This production of Das Wunder der Heliane is not in black and white like the film, but let’s say every color has an impact.

The stylized movements and edgy stiffness are primarily reserved for those the joyless souls impressed into the dark service of the government, but some other characters move with a conspicuous degree of naturalness and grace. They are: The Porter, whom we first meet as an overseer in the prison in Act I, then again as a caring father in Act III; second, The Stranger, who, throughout the opera, is a sorrowful captive simply because he espouses joy, companionship and love. And then there is Heliane, The Ruler’s lovely wife who remains chaste. Well, more or less.

The contrast between these two groups of characters is most telling.

Aušrine Stundyte is Helaine

Heliane is marvelously sung by Lithuanian soprano Aušrine Stundyte. Beautiful throughout, she is soft, lithe, and fluid in her movements but also strong and sexual, though not aggressively so. She is defiant, struck down and helpless, desperate, sorely tried, but ultimately triumphant. The tension steadily builds toward her last trial: she must resurrect the dead Stranger in front of all witnesses or die by fire at the stake, if she is not torn apart by the angry mob first. Heliane is a big role, one that demands a wide dramatic and vocal range. Stundyte’s participation in the softer balletic moments during the Prelude to Act III is evidence of her agility and versatility. She is the real deal here. Mille bravi!

At the opera’s start, The Stranger has already been arrested for bringing joy and hope to the joyless and hopeless folk of the land. Through his death, he, Heliane and, of the living, the whole population of the oppressive State are redeemed. Tenor David Brenna, renowned for his singing of Siegfried on the international circuit, presents The Stranger in a dramatic stage presence and a heroic vocal performance of Wagnerian range and stamina. The high tessitura of the role forces him to reach up uncomfortably and, at times, his stentorian voice is actually too loud for the small Sosnoff auditorium. However, within range, his softer voice is sweet, gentle and expressive.

Daniel Brenna is The Stranger

Baritone Nicholas Brownlee as The Porter was elegant in voice, gentle in demeanor, thus bringing hope and humanity to the gloom. He is small comfort to the condemned Stranger in Act I, but in Act III he gives evidence of the miracles of goodness to come.

Nicholas Brownlee is The Porter

On the loveless side is Alfred Walker as The Ruler of the land. His is an impressively rich, solid, seamless baritone voice, one that forcefully conveys The Ruler’s angry, vengeful and homicidal personality. Wicked Rulers do these things. Walker is costumed in dark leather, festooned with medals, but miserable, devoid of love.

Alfred Walker is The Ruler

The Ruler’s henchperson, perhaps a former mistress, is The Messenger, sung by Jennifer Feinstein. Her costume is red, her hair is silver in spite of her youthful face. Praise to J. Jared Janas for wig, hair, and makeup design for this and also for The Blind Chief Justice, sung by David Cangelosi, and the six Judges, in order of their number: Derek Taylor, Nathan Berg, Scott Conner, Richard Troxell, Michael J. Hawk, and Kevin Thompson. They too are often cloaked in bright red, perhaps suggesting their blood thirstiness, but certainly in contrast to the gray sets.

Jennifer Feinstein is The Messenger

Joseph Demarest is The Young Man who shouts slurs and derision at Heliane in Act III; The Celestial Voices in Acts I and III are sopranos Aine Hakamatsuka and Caroline Miller. The Aged Child is played by Ezra Quinn Lombino; The Young Boy is played by Vladimir Villano Vazquez.

The Bard Festival Chorale, under the direction of Chorus Master James Bagwell, actively traverses a range of characters from those in a fierce angry mob in protest to a transformed populace beginning to feel the love because of Heliane’s miracle to a celestial chorus celebrating the same.

Leon Botstein conducted a well-rehearsed American Symphony Orchestra with his usual aplomb. He loves and knows this repertory well. Thank you, Maestro Botstein!

In his pre-performance talk, looking out over an audience of white-haired music lovers, Mr. Botstein made the point that, should we choose so, we will certainly have the opportunity to see La Bohème again and again in our lifetime...but the opportunity to see Das Wunder der Heliane again? Very unlikely.

OM’s good advice (always good advice): Catch it if you can! You never know, but with Heliane one can guess, when this one with come around again!

Reviewed performance date: a very hot Sunday, July 28, 2019.

Photo of Curtain Call: OM: they are, from left to right, one of Six Judges, Nicholas Brownlee, Vladimir Villano Vazquez, David Brenna, Aušrine Stundyte, Alfred Walker, Jennifer Feinstein, David Cangelosi, and Ezra Quinn Lombino.

Photos of artists were picked from websites.

Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane is performed in the Sosnoff Theater on the afternoons of Wednesday, July 31, at 2 p.m., Friday, August 2 at 4 p.m. and Sunday, August 4 at 2 p.m.

Korngold’s more popular Die tote Stadt will be performed in concert at the Sosnoff Theater at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 18; a pre-concert talk is at 4 p.m.

Bard’s Das Wunder der Heliane is wonderful. Support your local opera! OM.

* Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, though silent, had a full length orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz, who, in 1924, had also composed the film score for Lang’s earlier Nibelungen films.** Huppertz’s score for Metropolis was performed at the world premiere. Alas, the original version of Metropolis was severely cut for consumption in the USA. This edited version of Metropolis was bumped from American theaters by The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson, also 1927. The Jazz Singer was one of the very first ‘talkies.’ Guess Korngold was not alone in being bumped by all that jazz…

** Lang’s Nibelungen films (Siegfried and Kriemhild’s Revenge) were based on the original German epic entitled the Nibelungenlied, not on Wagner’s tetralogy, which was, for the last two operas of the Ring (Siegfried and Götterdämmerung), based on about the first half of the original. Obviously Siegfried and Brunhild (no umlaut, one n and no e) are characters in the film, the dragon, the gold, the magic fire, etc. but the epic’s second half is about the conflict between Brunhild and Kriemhild, the latter seeking revenge for the murder of her husband Siegfried. The evil Hagen figures prominently in both halves.

Bard SummerScape performs Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane

Not only this, but much more!

Those of us who thrilled at the New York City Opera’s ground breaking production of Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt* in 1975 will certainly not want to miss his next much grander, more mystical opera Das Wunder der Heliane (The Miracle of Heliane). For that matter, nor will other fans of 20th century opera. It’s big, bold, and, as miracles and music go, heavenly.

The tale concerns a conflict of representative types, rather like that in Richard Strauss’s earlier Die Frau ohne Schatten. Only Heliane is named. The Stranger, who exudes joy in life, love, and humanity is in prison apparently for exciting these and thereby disrupting the peace of a kingdom of alienation. “I want mankind to be happy,” he will tell the Ruler, who has come to announce to the Stranger that he is to be executed tomorrow. Prior to this the Porter has told the Stranger of the lovely Heliane, as kind as she is beautiful, and that she and her husband, the Ruler, are a loveless couple. Indeed all of the Ruler’s subjects are miserable. Against the restrictive laws, Heliane visits the Stranger, who is deeply struck by the aura around her being, and, like Salome with Jokanaan, he asks to touch her hair, to kiss her feet, and ultimately to have her body. Heliane retires to a chapel in the prison, barely avoiding discovery by the Ruler, who has returned to offer the Stranger a deal: the Stranger can go free if he can make Heliane love the Ruler. The trembling Stranger falters; Heliane appears, still naked (at least in the stage directions); the Ruler, enraged, has her arrested.

In Act II we meet more of the loveless, miserable people of the kingdom, particularly the snarling vengeful Messenger, perhaps once the Ruler’s sex object, and the Blind Judge. At the trial, in her defense, Heliane sings Ich ging zu ihm (I went to him who is to die tomorrow). It’s the centerpiece solo of the opera, building on themes set forth in Act I, gradually increasing in intensity, in the manner of Ariadne’s Es gibt ein Reich in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. She denies any real love for the Stranger, but she admits that she gave herself to him, which, of course, further enrages the Ruler. He gives Heliane a dagger with which to commit self-execution. But the Stranger bursts in with a better plan. Courtroom cleared, he asks Heliane to kill him right then and there. This act on her part will not only make him pay for his crimes, but also it will move the Ruler to pardon her. Heliane can’t do it, though. Without giving away how we get from this impass to Act III, let’s just say that ultimately joy and love triumph in spirit, accompanied by heavenly voices.

Venus in the Grotto by Koloman Moser. akg-images.

In Vienna at the turn of the last century, Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a musical child prodigy. He grew up in a cultural hothouse of operas from the likes of Richard Strauss, Antonin Dvořák, Carl Goldmark, Alexander Zemlinsky, Franz Schreker, Alban Berg, and Arnold Schönberg, to name just a few, as well as the symphonic and chamber music from most of the aforementioned plus Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, usw. You know the art of that period as well: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, et al., Otto Wagner’s Jugendstil, Arthur Schnitzler’s tales, Brecht’s plays, and of course Franz Wedekind’s Lulu. It was a very rich, creative time.

Young Erich Wolfgang Korngold, back cover of libretto for CBS Records Violanta

Erich was the second son of Julius Korngold. Julius was an amateur musician who actually studied under Bruckner, but, more importantly, he was a powerful music critic, filling the shoes of the notorious Eduard Hanslick at the Neue Freie Presse in Vienna. He recognized his son’s gifts immediately and, to cultivate them properly, placed Erich more or less under house arrest so that his talents and skills would blossom and perfect without distractions or interference from the outside. The psychological ramifications of these years would be long lasting.

Erich’s first forays into opera (at 19) premiered in Munich on March 28, 1916 in the form of a double bill of one-act compositions: Der Ring des Polykrates (op. 7) and Violanta (op. 8), both under the baton of Bruno Walter.** No, the first is not a spoof of Wagner’s tetralogy, but rather a chamber opera, quite charming in its way, an adaptation of a slight comic drama; the second is volcanic, an explosion of hot passion, betrayal, and revenge. In 1920 Korngold scored a big hit with the full length Die tote Stadt, set to a libretto by himself and his father Julius, under the nom-de-plume of “Paul Schott,” adapted from the novel Bruges-la-morte by Georges Rodenbach. On December 4, 1920, Die tote Stadt had simultaneous premieres in Hamburg and Cologne (this one with a young Otto Klemperer conducting).*** In November, 1921 Die tote Stadt premiered at the Met with Maria Jeritza as Marietta. Her 1927 recording of Glück, das mir verblieb on the Victor label was a best seller (though in the opera it’s actually the first part of an aria/duet between Marietta and Paul).****

The great Maria Jeritza as Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, from The Vienna Opera by Marcel Prawy

But then came bumps in the road. Erich struggled to surface from the suffocating control of his father: he chose to marry one Luzi von Sonnenthal, a move fiercely opposed by Julius. Meanwhile the latter waged prose wars with the likes of Richard Strauss, Arnold Schönberg, any Serialist composers actually, but also against anything new. At the same time, the conservatives, later the Nazis, were condemning any art, literature or music as degenerate if it seemed glorified the immoral, the decadent and/or the decayed. Some of the operas of the period fell into these categories, for instances Franz Schreker’s Der ferne Klang (1912) and Die Gezeichneten (1918) or, later, Kurt Weill’s Die Dreigroschenoper (1928) and Aufstieg und fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1930). Corrupt officials, crooks and whores.

Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf, which premiered in Leipzig in February, 1927, came in between these. With its variety of musical styles, including faux jazz, it swept through Europe as a defining example of a Zeitoper, an ‘opera of the time.’ Facing the threat of modernism, Franz Schalk, then director of the Vienna Opera, at first sided with Julius Korngold (and also with the German Nationalists) against performances of Jonny spielt auf in Vienna. But Schalk, with his eye to the potentially big box office and under increasing pressure from supporters of modern music, caved in: Jonny spielt auf premiered with great, but not uncontested success, at the Vienna Opera on New Year’s Eve, 1927.

Back to Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane: it had premiered in Hamburg in early October, 1927, with Maria Hussa in the title role. For the Vienna premiere, Korngold assembled two star-laden casts (the first with the by-now superstar Lotte Lehmann and Jan Kiepura) so that his opera could be performed on successive evenings. But the excitement was for Jonny, not for Heliane. The first performance was a failure, the second was withdrawn, Die tote Stadt was substituted instead.

Subsequent performances of Das Wunder der Heliane in Vienna materialized, some conducted by Korngold himself, and others were scheduled throughout Europe, but Krenek supporters found that Julius had written to theaters urging them not to stage Jonny spielt auf. The backlash against Vater Korngold defeated his son’s Heliane.

Korngold “retired” to edit versions of operettas for director Max Reinhardt, ultimately leading the latter, after fleeing Germany, to invite Korngold to compose film music for his first and only Hollywood film, A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1935. Korngold’s subsequent film scores were highly praised, leading to two Academy Awards: for Anthony Adverse (1936) and for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938); The Sea Hawk (1940) with Errol Flynn is a personal favorite of mine…and so on. Though Korngold would write one last opera in Europe before the war, Die Kathrin, the Nazi occupation prevented successful productions.

Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane is performed in the Sosnoff Theater on the evening of July 26 (U.S. premiere) at 7:30 p.m., the afternoons of Sunday, July 28, Wednesday, July 31, and Sunday, August 4 at 2 p.m., and the afternoon of August 2 at 4 p.m. The pre-opera talk with Leo Botstein, who conducts all performances, is on Sunday, July 28 at noon.

The production is directed by Christian Räth, with sets and costumes by Esther Bialas. Soprano Ausrine Stundyte will sing the title role; tenor Daniel Brenna is the Stranger.

Don’t miss it.

On Thursdays and Sundays, July 25 through August 18 at 7 p.m. many, if not all of the films for which Korngold composed the scores will be shown.

On Sunday, August 11, Korngold’s popular music and edits of operettas are presented.

Korngold’s Die tote Stadt will be performed in concert at the Sosnoff Theater at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 18; a pre-concert talk is at 4 p.m. Other features that weekend concern Korngold in America, featuring compositions and discussions.

* April, 1975, and again in September of the same year, with Carol Neblett, John Alexander, and Dominic Cossa, conducted by Imre Pallo

Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk, 1940. Great film!

** The opera discography, at least on my shelves, is as follows: Der Ring des Polycrates, on CPO CDs, released in 1996, conducted by Klauspeter Seibel; Violanta, now on CBS CDs , released in 1980, starring Eva Marton, Siegfried Jerusalem, Walter Berry, et al. conducted by Marek Janowski; Die tote Stadt, now on RCA Victor CDs, recorded and released in 1975 on vinyl, starring Carol Neblett, René Kollo, Benjamin Luxon, Herrmann Prey, et al. conducted by Erich Leinsdorf; Das Wunder der Heliane, on London CDs (one of the Entartete Musik series), starring Anna Tomowa-Sintow, John David de Haan, Reinhild Runkel, René Pape, Nicolai Gedda, et al. conducted by John Mauceri, released in 1993; Die Kathrin, on CPO CDs, released in 1998, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. At least one other recording of Die tote Stadt and, more recently, Das Wunder der Heliane exists, but I have not heard them. Renée Fleming sings Glück, das mir verblieb from Die tote Stadt on the Decca CD album Renée Fleming The Beautiful Voice, conducted by Jeffrey Tate, released in 1998. She sings Ich ging su ihm from Act II of Das Wunder der Heliane on the Decca CD album Homage: The Age of the Diva, conducted by Valery Gergiev, released in 2006.

On the top of the page Addenda are a three Korngold selections sung by Ms. Fleming, Marietta’s Lied from Die tote Stadt, Ich ging zu ihm from Das Wunder der Heliane, and Ich soll ihn niemals from Die Kathrin. Also is the great Lotte Lehmann singing Ich ging zu ihm. Lehmann sang the role of Heliane in the Vienna premiere performance.

Die tote Stadt has at least two video disc releases. One, on the ArteHaus Musik label, is an Opéra National du Rhin production from 2001, well sung by Torsten Kerl and Angela Denoke and the others, but conceived and staged in such a ridiculous manner that I, for one, can’t watch it. I’ll bet I’m not alone in this! Play it only for the soundtrack. The other, also on the ArteHaus Musik label, is a Deutsche Oper Berlin 1983 production by Götz Friedrich starring James King as Paul and Karen Armstrong as Marietta. With sets designed by Andreas Reinhardt, it has the proper gloom of Bruges, the dark dead city. Though James King is older than I imagine Paul to be, his lingering sadness for his loss of Marie touches one to the core.

This just in: at the SummerScape performance of Das Wunder der Heliane I purchased the Naxos Blu ray DVD of the Deutsche Oper Berlin’s production in spring 2019. Not yet viewed.

*** The idea of simultaneous world premieres was not new. Pietro Mascagni, whose verismo Cavalleria Rusticana rocked the opera world in 1890, had the cogliones to premiere his commedia dell’arte opera Le maschere (The Maskers, aka Characters in Masks) on January 17, 1901 at La Scala (conducted by himself, of course; later by Toscanini), the Costanzi in Roma, the Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Regio in Turino, La Fenice in Venezia, and the Filarmonico in Verona. Six, count ‘em, six world premiere failures in one night…gotta be a record…!

**** Maria Jeritza sang Ariadne in the world premiere of the original 1912 version of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (libretto by Hugo von Hofmannstahl, conceived and directed by Max Reinhardt), also in the world premiere of the 1916 revised version we know and love today. The revised Ariadne also introduced a young Lotte Lehmann to Vienna in the newly created role of The Composer. Jeritza was the Empress in the world premiere of Die Frau ohne Schatten (with Lehmann as the Dyer’s Wife) in 1919 and Helena in Ägyptische Helena, US and Met premiere in 1928. Korngold wrote for her voice the roles Violanta (she sang it in the Vienna premiere), Marietta (the 1920 Hamburg world premiere and Vienna premiere), and Heliane with Jeritza in mind, though she declined the offer. Jeritza sang the Met premieres of Die tote Stadt in 1921, Jenůfa (in German) in 1924, and Turandot in 1926. She was also a renowned Salome, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Tosca, Manon Lescaut and Minnie in La fanciulla del West. Strauss, Korngold, Puccini , they all loved her…The story goes that she tripped on stage during a performance of Tosca, forcing her to sing Vissi d’Arte on her stomach...might have been at the Met…Marcel Prawy called her ‘the Primadonna of the Century.’

Jeritza was in the audience at the Metropolitan Opera on November 11, 1974, the night of the premiere of the new production of Jenůfa (in English) with Teresa Kubiak, Astrid Varnay, Jon Vickers and William Lewis, under John Nelson). We acknowledged her presence with applause.

The SummerScape performance of Weber’s Euryanthe was OM’s first review in 2014. Time flies when you’re having fun!

Support your local opera festivals. Bring lots of friends with you! OM

Princeton Festival performs Adams’ Nixon in China

The Princeton Festival closed its 2019 season with a second performance of Nixon in China, an opera more specifically relevant to today’s political landscape than Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.*

In the simple but effective staging, Director Steven LaCosse gave us a big show on a small stage. Though cramped somewhat during the crowd scenes, particularly Nixon’s landing, the banquet at the end of the Act I and the elaborate entertainment in Act II, LaCosse kept things moving both on stage and in transition, thanks to a set which could be morphed smoothly into new entrances, new configurations of chairs and risers, etc. The entertainment, a wild ballet and the crowd’s reactions in Act II were quite affecting; the reflective mood of Act III was never shattered by irrelevant business.

Jonathan Dahm Robertson’s projections enhanced the transitions with snippets of newspaper headlines on multiple screens, many documenting President Richard M. Nixon’s visit to China in February of 1972. A quick eye, however, detected as well a projected headline of the current President’s recent visit there on one of the panels on the left. Brief but telling, this is, especially since at the end of Nixon in China the weary characters seem to feel as if not a whole lot of substance had been accomplished by the historic visit.

Then, too, there are numerous images of our war in Vietnam: in the opera Mao Tse-tung observes to Nixon “You want to bring your boys back home,” to which Nixon replies “What if we do? Is that a crime?” Mao then asserts that China doesn’t need to invade other countries because the Chinese people are in all matters self-sufficient. American soldiers, the Green Berets specifically, are in Vietnam to defend a capitalist economy to feed the greed and usury of the American people. Throughout the opera, the images remind us that China, a very Communist country recently cleansed of the burdens of tradition and any wisps of capitalism, had to be, for Nixon, a break from reality, almost a walk on the moon, in context of what was going on back here at home.

Sean Anderson is Richard M. Nixon in Nixon in China

Nixon, heroically sung by Sean Anderson,** comes off as, well, an American out of context: he’s positive, genuine, up front, almost childlike, awkward, not really sure of what to say, but fascinated that, regardless, it will be reported in the news all over the world. “When I shook hands with Cho En lai…”

The fatigue of the trip, however, weighs down his exuberance, as much as the fatigue from Adams’ excellent but longer-than-it-has-to-be score weighs down on ours. By Act III, performed without intermission after Act II, the last evening of the visit, Nixon is no longer grandstanding. Rather, he is homesick, seeking the comfort of familiarity. He quietly recalls to Pat his close call with death as a fighter pilot in World War II and what he did to raise the spirits of his comrades.

Pat in her red dress, Kissinger toasting Chou En-Lai as Nixon accepts applause in Act I

Pat Nixon is similar to her husband, positive and genuine, though not as manic. She’s more interpersonally sensitive, willing to break protocol by getting down on her knees to interact with the cute children. She tries to be gracious and properly excited by the gift of a little elephant in glass, a fitting gift in that it’s the symbol of the USA’s Republican Party. She asks, “Tell me, is it one of a kind?” The Three Secretaries reply “They [our workers] can make hundreds every day.”

During The Red Detachment of Women, an entertainment/propaganda ballet in Act II, Pat is so emotionally shaken that she breaks decorum to comfort a dancer who, in the plot, appears to be savagely beaten. Soprano Rainelle Krause** delivers all this, as well as Pat’s fundamentally positive, hopeful attitudes toward the future in her two ruminations “I don’t daydream and I don’t look back” and “This is prophetic….” both early in Act II, with a well-grounded soulfulness. But Krause can also let loose a lusty, even heroic soprano voice when the situation arises.

Henry Kissinger, sung by Joseph Barron, is the more philosophically, politically and socially savvy one of the entourage. He, after all, set up the historic trip and he, because of his global wisdom, brings more to the table with that international handshake. Barron’s stance throughout was solid, his dark baritone voice resonant.

The Red Detachment of Women is performed as entertainment

In the performance of The Red Detachment of Women we meet the character of Lao Szu, a name remarkably like Lao Tsu, the alleged founder of Taoism, the ancient belief system outlawed by the Cultural Revolution in China. Szu is a brutal landlord who, he tells us, has just finished having his way with one of the female tenants. Wu Ching-hua, a revolutionary leader with the Red Detachment, snatches a whip away from Lao Szu and strikes him, kicks him, etc., but, when the tables turn on her, Lao Szu shouts repeatedly to the guards “Whip her to death! Whip her to death!” Graham Lustig choreographed this effective (but long) ballet; dancers included Eun Kyong Kim, Seyong Kim, Azusa Okamoto, Raymond Pinto, Amy Ruggerio, and Gillian Worek.

But wait: Lao Szu was also sung by Joseph Barron, labeled “Kissinger (as Lao Szu)” in the libretto.*** Hmmm. Pat Nixon even asks “Doesn’t he look like you-know-who?” but we, at least I in the audience wondered: a. why Henry Kissinger would play a character in a Chinese revolutionary ballet and b. play it with such gusto, like, where did that vengeful sadistic streak come from?? I thought Kissinger was a man of peace…The synopsis in the program**** was no help.

Answer: as conceived by librettist Alice Goodman and composer John Adams Lao Szu is indeed a different person, played by a Chinese actor who should, to make a point, look and act like an American landlord (which is why the singer who sings the role of Kissinger should take the part). In this we see the ballet through the eyes of the Chinese Communists: Lao Szu represents the former brutality and oppression of capitalism and tradition…

The People…

The emotional center of the Chinese contingent is Premier Chou En-Lai, who, with Mao Tse-tung, did the Long March in 1934-1935 and helped to bring about the Cultural Revolution in 1966-1969. Of the two, Chou is also the more savvy one about the ways of the West, having been to Europe and met with high level world diplomats, etc. John Viscardi maintained Chou’s gravity, his serious bearing and his pride throughout the opera. Compared to the others Chou is far less prone to bravado and bragging, more to reflection. Mao Tse-tung was sung by heldentenor Cameron Schutza, whose voice had endless power and presence throughout Act I.

Of the Chinese women, Chiang Ch’ing (Madame Mao) is sung with a sweet, high voice by Teresa Castillo. Dynamite! Her big scene at the end of Act II, “I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung” asserts the meaning of the ballet. The Three Secretaries were often omnipresent but silent, sometimes assertive, always polite. Liz Culpepper was the 1st Secretary, Emily Marvosh was the 2nd, and Edith Dowd was the 3rd.

Praise to the Princeton Festival Chorus, under Gregory Geehern; praise for the Lighting Design by Norman Coates; praise for the Costumes designed by James Schuette; praise to Brittany Rappese for Wigs and Makeup; praise for Stanley Fink, the Répétiteur/Coach. One can only imagine the complexity of getting this production synched and ready for show time.

But above all, praise for Richard Tang Yuk for his expert conducting of John Adams’ complex composition. The coordination of the instrumentalists in the pit and the singers and dancers on stage was without apparent flaw. Bravo!

The performance was amplified, in the program the disclaimer: “The principal singers are miked according to instructions from the composer,” which is fine, but Act I was too much ‘miked’ for the relatively small Matthews Theatre. The amplification of Act II/Act III was less obtrusive.

Photos provided by Princeton Festival.

* But there’s always tomorrow, as close as a tweet away. Who knows?

** OperaMetro interviewed both Sean Anderson and Rainelle Krause. It is posted down below this review and the two more recent posts of the stars of Teatro Nuovo.

*** I used the libretto provided in the Naxos recording of the 2008 Opera Colorado production, conducted by Marin Alsop.

**** The synopsis in the program and in the Naxos libretto is courtesy Hendon Music Inc., copyright 1987.

Celebrate the summer festivals! Support your local opera! Embrace new singers, the stars of tomorrow!

Ciao, OM

Stars of Teatro Nuovo perform Vincenzo Bellini’s La straniera

OperaMetro (OM) has the esteemed privilege of speaking with Christine Lyons (CL) and Alina Tamborini (AT), both sopranos from this season’s cast of Teatro Nuovo’s performances of Bellini’s rarely performed La straniera.* Sun is out, but still cool, and we’re sitting together at a local bistro near Jazz at Lincoln Center, smiling, sipping espresso, revealing trade secrets, sharing insights, making observations and espousing opinions, ideas all swirling around before the upcoming performances by Teatro Nuovo in mid-July.** Like fine singing? Don’t miss the chance to hear these two wonderful sopranos live on stage…

OM: Thank you both for agreeing to chat with me.

CL & AT: Thank you for inviting us!

OM: You both are returning for your second season with Will Crutchfield and Teatro Nuovo. It’s probably safe to assume that your experience with the Company last year was positive, oui? For starters, what role did you perform back then and what, in your experience, is special about Teatro Nuovo’s preparation for your role this year, in contrast, let’s say, to any previous coaching, training, performing programs you’ve participated in? Christine.

Christine Lyons sings Alaida in Bellini’s La straniera

CL: I had a real transformative experience singing Amenaide in Rossini’s Tancredi rifatto in the inaugural season last year and so I am thrilled to be returning for this revival of La straniera. Teatro Nuovo is such a very special company in many ways, but particularly because of its focused dedication to the techniques of the bel canto tradition, techniques that my voice loves and luxuriates in. It really is such a treat to deepen my understanding and application of bel canto in my second season here at Teatro Nuovo.

OM: Alina?

AT: I was an apprentice artist with Teatro Nuovo last year, so this year, a step up to soloist, is very exciting for me as well. Last year I prepared the roles of Zerlina and Servilia from, respectively, Mozart's Don Giovanni and La Clemeza di Tito for the workshops that were a part of the week. I also sang in the chorus for Mayr's Medea in Corinto. Great music! It was absolutely incredible. At Teatro Nuovo, the faculty and staff, as well as, of course, all the singers sit in on the lectures and the work classes. Second to that is the fact that we have such consistent training in lectures, the masterclasses, aka the work classes, the lessons, the coaching and rehearsals, and let’s not forget the classes in Italian...like, wow! It's incredibly inclusive! Their attention to detail and, consequently, their instruction about how to find these details on our own were incredibly beneficial to us, you know, as young musicians and, honestly, to us as people. I used all of what I learned last year to prepare me to come back this year!

Alina Tamborini sings Isoletta in Bellini’s La straniera

CL: The truth is, the training NEVER ends for a classical singer. I count Will Crutchfield and the faculty here among the most influential mentors and coaches to my artistry both within and outside of the program’s parameters.

AT: Absolutely, Christine, I agree! The coaches, teachers, and directors are all very much on the same page, but yet they each bring something unique. Certainly they have their own strengths, which they share with us generously. I took one of the scenes I’m performing in to five different coaches/teachers and I got something different out of EVERY coaching. All insights. Very important too, though: they never try to take away from you your identity as a singer. Each of us retains a unique voice. Bottom line: the community they’ve created here is fantastic. That's the best part of Teatro Nuovo.

OM: Teatro Nuovo used period instruments last season to marvelous effect. I reviewed the fabulous opening night Tancredi. As singers, tell me about this switch from a modern orchestra to a period orchestra. Does this practice in anyway change the vocal approach to performing your role?

CL: Well yes, of course, but, it’s not just the instruments that are different. At Teatro Nuovo the highly influential and historically correct institution of a Maestro al cembalo and Primo violin e capo d’orchestra has been reinstated.

OM: Will Crutchfield at the cembalo and Jakob Lehmann as Concert Master and First violin. Same as last season.

CL: Exactly! It’s similar, we’re told, to the way orchestras were set up back in the day. The result is fascinating, its impact far reaching: the absence of a single stand-up conductor means that we, the singers, are given the opportunity, no, we’re actually encouraged to take more authority over our shaping of our vocal line. This set-up invites everyone on the stage and in the pit to think collectively, constantly and carefully listen to one another from moment to moment to craft the performance. Each moment is made up of its own, unique kaleidoscope of choices that we, as a group, feel inspired to make that day. I think we’re all finding that creating music in this manner paves the way for more spontaneity within every performance. I think it’s brilliant!

OM: Actually, Will Crutchfield emphasized the new freedom gained from the reorganization of the cembalo and primo violin in this season’s interview with him.

AT: But there is another difference as well: yes, using the period instruments allows us to give a much more authentic performance, but it’s not only the instruments: I mean, in the Baroque era, everyone used ‘period instruments.’

OM: Of course they did. Just like everyone in Mozart’s time composed ‘classical music.’

AT: Ha, ha! Right! But, point is, the pitch is different too: the Baroque orchestras tuned to A415. In the early Romantic era, the time of Bellini, it was common practice to tune to A430.

OM: So more to your point, it’s the tuning, not just that the instruments themselves are ‘period.’ Okay, how does that difference impact you?

AT: Singing at A430, as opposed to today’s tuning of A440, not going to lie here, was a bit jarring the first few days, but we got used to it.

CL: We did. Wasn’t really too difficult.

AT: Don't get me wrong, I love singing high notes! But I'm not going to complain about having to sing the ‘same’ high notes just a little bit under what I am used to. For sure, it takes a moment or two to adjust to, but I feel it's much nicer to perform this music as it was meant to be performed (and experienced) with the instruments that were playing then and the pitch they were tuned to!

OM: So modern recordings of La straniera are not much help in preparation, right? 

AT: No. Correct! For practicing, I try to listen only to my recordings of my lessons and coachings. Unfortunately I can’t easily approximate the correct lowered pitch, even with a piano tuned to today’s standard.

OM: Changing the subject, these are semi-staged performances, same as last season. Did, last year, the absence of sets and props, maybe even no character specific costumes pose any additional challenges to your performance? Christine.

CL: The idea of executing complicated plot lines on the stage without sets and props was, I’ll admit, at first daunting, but after my experience last year with Tancredi rifatto I now understand that working with materials extraneous to the music can be a deterrent to the realization of the core material at hand. Unable to rely on lighting, costumes, props and makeup to communicate with our audiences, we’re tasked to take the listener through the dramatic/emotional experiences of our characters using vocal technique and spirit alone.

OM: You’re singing Alaide, the strange woman in La straniera. What is your acquaintance with La straniera in performance or on recording? And also with Bellini’s style in general?

CL: Alaide is a role debut for me, and it’s quite exciting because La straniera has not been heard in New York in over 20 years! Consequently, Will Crutchfield and I are really shaping the role vocally without feeling any pressure to do what has already been done by any other singer. I find myself pursuing daily what I think resonates best dramatically in the cues I take from Bellini’s score and Romani’s libretto. I think we are creating something totally alive and original. Add to this the bonus of reviving some of the most intensely beautiful music I’ve ever heard. It is one of the greatest artistic pursuits of my career.

OM: Totally agree: it’s a unique opera. Have you sung any other roles by Bellini?

CL: Yes, this marks the third Bellini role I’ve sung in the last year and a half. It’s been wonderful: I’m fairly certain I will never tire of singing his music! For me there is no other composer with whom I have felt such a timeless kinship. Bellini’s score, melded with Romani’s haunting libretto, has created an intangible element, one that has become interwoven into my own pathos. Singing Norma really solidified this bond for me. What a tremendous composition it is! The way he writes for the voice is completely unparalleled in terms of the freedom and autonomy he allows you in the expression of his melodies, and then the brilliant bursts of emotional fioritura are as exciting to tackle, as, I imagine it is, for example, for my dad to complete each portion of the triathlons he undertakes. Bellini is a language I want to speak daily. I’m operating in a creative wonderland here at Teatro Nuovo.

OM: The role of Alaide has a wide range of emotional moments.

CL: Oh my yes! For me, in the case of La straniera, these experiences include conjuring up an atmosphere of absolute solitude and abject sadness, delivering a bloody mad scene, sparring with thunder and lightning, and driving the evening home with a gut-wrenching cry of defiance to the heavens over the dead body of a man who has killed himself out of love for me. It’s a challenge I readily accept, knowing that the exercise can only elevate my vocal artistry, which is THE goal!

OM: Special preparation?

CL: I need only to listen to Maria Callas in her studio recordings to know that if you have the tools in your kit, the choices you can make as a vocal actor can be enough to serve up this gorgeous music and intense drama on a silver platter. Absolutely!

OM: Returning to the lack of costumes and props…Alina?

AT: Often, performers will say that "once I'm in costume on the stage, I really feel like I am in character." But in the chorus of Medea in Corinto last year, I didn’t at all feel out of place doing a concert version of an opera. We were very Greek Chorus-esque. So this year, as a resident artist performing a solo role, I expect, you know, that I’ll feel a bit vulnerable at first. But we're so well prepared here. I have to assume that feeling really prepared is a good start, one that will be work well throughout the season! Also I feel that an opera in concert provides exciting challenges: since we don't have costumes and aren't using props, at least not in Straniera, we have to focus on the music we’re making together. I very truly believe that our well-rehearsed musical numbers will be more than enough to engage an audience!

OM: You’re singing Isoletta, a young bride in La straniera. What is your acquaintance with La straniera in performance or on recording? With Bellini’s operatic style in general?

AT: Oh my! I have NOT performed this role before! In all honesty, though now it’s all ‘past tense’, I knew very little about Straniera, except that it was written by Bellini. Yes, I have performed other operatic roles and songs by bel canto composers, but this is the first time I have actually sung anything by Bellini. I mean, given recordings, it's hard not to know Norma and La sonnambula, since they're so iconic.  But La straneira? It was a whole new experience for me.

OM: Looking forward, Christine, what roles do you seek to perform within the next, say, five years? And, for guidance, to whom does one turn for advice on such decisions? Will these roles involve voice training different from that which you’ve received lately? Do you have to re-tool, in other words, for these sought-after roles? Are there dream roles you seek to perform, but…by virtue of your youth and their challenges, you should put off for a longer spell?

CL: I am beginning to see my core repertoire emerge within the operas of Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi and Puccini. Every bit of the bel canto techniques that have become the fabric of my vocal point of view will support me in interpreting this music in the richest way.

OM: Alina?

AT: I'm going to start off by saying that my dream role is, without question, Carmen. Ahhh…

OM: Yes, but?

AT: Well, ha! I think it is safe to say that it’s a role I will probably never perform, being, after all a lyric coloratura soprano and whatnot. As a young singer who is very new to this business, I feel in between a lot of things right now. There are so many roles that I could perform, but so much of it depends on the other voices that are cast, especially in Mozart and bel canto operas where there are numerous soprano roles. I would like to think that Violetta in La Traviata is a role that is coming in the future, but maybe at the end of the next five years? I have always dreamed to sing Zerbinetta in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos or all three of the soprano roles in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann.

But there are other factors: it is so important to have literally, I mean this, a tribe of people whom you can trust as a singer. You want to have a manger/agent, a teacher, a closer mentor, a trusted colleague, and a network of coaches who specialize in a number of different areas. In general, I try to only work with mentors whose opinions I can trust.

OM: And who love you.

AT: That too. My teacher, Brenda Harris, has nothing but my absolute best interest in mind. I trust her so much. I also trust Will Crutchfield's opinion a lot, I mean a lot a lot! His musical suggestions always come from a place of cosmic expansive knowledge. Honestly, I trust the opinions of all the coaches at Teatro Nuovo. A lot of them have given me the same suggestions seemingly without conferring with each other. Like I said earlier, they have a vocal sound in mind and they know how to develop it!

The role of Isoletta in La straniera has literally helped me re-tool my voice! Brenda and Will have worked with me to create a much stronger chest voice. Even though we may get all of our praise for high notes, it's so necessary for sopranos to get the chest voice right. My top register has done nothing but grow stronger with this improvement. I know I keep saying I got lucky, but really, I am so glad I have only worked with people who have improved my technique. It's so much more fun to work on details of improvement, as opposed to un-doing something wrong!

OM: Special things indeed! Okay, my friends, I have one more question for you and a request… What sorts of things do you enjoy talking about with normal people, myself of course not included in that group?

CL: I’m a full-time creative and am always preparing for my current role and the next. Many of us singers are carrying around 3 or more scores on a daily basis, and the joy truly is in the preparation. All in all, I feel like my job is my hobby!

OM: Alina. You’re up!

AT: I LOVE sports! My dad grew up in Boston, I have an enormous family still living there, so I've been a Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins fan my whole life. I know that the Patriots are polarizing, but I grew up with them, so what can I do? I had lived in Michigan until I was 23. I went to Michigan State University, my dad was a professor there, so I also followed MSU sports throughout my life. Here’s a Fun Fact: until I moved away for my master's program, I had only missed seven, count ‘em: seven home MSU football games since I was born! I still have the ticket from the very first football game when I was three months old!

Really, my dad loved sports. He instilled that love in me as well. Though I was never any good at any of them, I did play basketball, volleyball, and softball for a very long time. I can't name all the players on all the teams, but I love watching sports and playing in my fantasy football league. Our league is four years deep and I've won twice, beating ten guys. It might be my best non-musical accomplishment. I don’t know, I probably should get more hobbies: I love going star gazing, cooking, and board games, though I get a bit too competitive with the board games!

OM: OK, lastly, if you have an answer to a question I haven’t asked, say the question and then answer it.

AT: Cool! The question is: Alina, what is your favorite role in an opera or song you have performed? Without hesitation she answered: My favorite role I ever performed was Adele in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus. She was such a fun character to play, and really, the life of the party!

OM: As are you. You’re smiling big time….But I want to return to a point you made earlier, Christine, about how the absence of a single conductor on a podium changes the relationship of the orchestra and the singers and the opera as written...

CL and AT: (standing in unison, as if premeditated) Please hold that thought, Metro! Answers, yes, but might we resume this at a later date?***

OM: Er, sure…keep in touch. No, no, I got the check….

Photos: Christine Lyons by Matt Medelsohn, Alina Tamborini by Tyler James with Tyler James Photography.

* Bellini’s La straniera is performed at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday evening, July 13, at the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, Purchase, New York, and at 7:30 p.m. at Jazz at Lincoln Center Wednesday evening, July 17. Tickets for these events may be purchased at www.teatronuovo.org.

** Actually we did this by email, as usual, but I would have picked up the tab, were there indeed one. Happy we took rain checks on the face-to-face.

*** This afterthought question is answered on the Page labeled Addenda.

No, I, still chained to my desk at the OperaMetro office, have been given these wonderfully insightful,  intricate and complete answers by emails from Alina and Christine. I’m happy not to have to reconstruct it from my ‘speed’ typing transcription…such as it is.

Note that even this interview is split into two pieces. After we finished, another question popped up and I have just received answers from Christine and Alina. Better, I think, to post the above now and then add, as a second interview, my singers’ rather detailed answers to the new question…I love talking to young artists. Like, really.

Happy summer 2019! Damn hot outside, so I’m told. About time!

OM.

Stars of Teatro Nuovo perform Gioacchino Rossini’s La gazza ladra

OperaMetro (OM) has the esteemed privilege of speaking with Alisa Jordheim (AJ) and Hannah Ludwig (HL), both stars of Teatro Nuovo’s performances of the rarely performed La gazza ladra.* We’re sitting together at a different local bistro near Jazz at Lincoln Center, gotta shake things up here, but still making observations, espousing opinions, smiling, sharing insights, revealing trade secrets and ideas, all swirling around before the upcoming performances by Teatro Nuovo in mid-July.** Don’t miss the chance to hear these two wonderful singers live on stage…

OM: Thank you both for agreeing to chat with me.

HL & AJ: Thank you for inviting us!

OM: You’ve both worked with Will Crutchfield before. Hannah you are returning for your second season and the company of Teatro Nuovo. It’s probably safe to assume that your experience last year was positive, oui? What role did you perform last season and what, in your experience, is special about Teatro Nuovo’s preparation for your role this year, in contrast to any previous coaching, training, performing programs you’ve participated in?

Hannah Ludwig sings the role of Pippo in Rossini’s La gazza ladra

HL: I really enjoyed myself last summer! I sang the role of Isaura in Rossini’s Tancredi. What I love most about Teatro Nuovo is the collaborative atmosphere of singers and orchestral players. I am a huge fan of performing chamber music and that is exactly how it felt last year. It’s what I was most looking forward to when I knew I would be returning. There is freedom to make music together, to choose tempi based on feeling rather than what is tradition. It’s reviving the true bel canto style of making music together and not feeling like soloists as separate participants.

OM: Alisa?

AJ: You’re right, this is my first season at Teatro Nuovo, but the first time I worked with Will Crutchfield was at Bel Canto at Caramoor in 2015. I sang the role of Constance in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites.

Alisa Jordheim sings Ninetta in Rossini’s La gazza ladra

OM: I remember that season! Will’s daughter directed the staging, as I recall. Dialogues des Carmélites is one of my favorite operas!

AJ: Oh yes, one of mine as well. That production was a transcendent experience for me in so many ways; therefore, when the opportunity arose for me to sing Ninetta in La gazza ladra this summer at Teatro Nuovo, I was so excited to work with many of the same colleagues who had such a profound professional impact on me back in 2015.

OM: Experience with the Company so far?

AJ: I appreciate so much that Teatro Nuovo focuses on the true bel canto traditions of the past, as well as encouraging us singers to have the most authentic Italian pronunciation possible. This focus on working the music and text simultaneously for six weeks (instead of just a typical three-week rehearsal period) is exceptional. We also get to work with members of the orchestra well in advance of the performances, which is a luxury and a joy.

OM: Teatro Nuovo used period instruments last season to marvelous effect. Does this practice in anyway change the vocal approach to performing your role?

HL: It makes the overall pitch lower and for a mezzo that is actually fun! I love singing in my lower register. The initial shift from practicing at home at a “normal” tuning pitch is an adjustment at first but this time around I was used to it.

AJ: I have sung with period instruments before and find the experience fascinating. It's a way for me to go back in time and experience what these pieces would have sounded like in the composer's day. Our tuning for La gazza ladra is at A430 rather than A440, so the pitch difference isn't terribly noticeable (approximately a quarter of a step lower than what we are used to today). Graciously (and thankfully) the Teatro Nuovo/SUNY Purchase staff tuned some practice room pianos to A430 so we can get used to the feeling of the new pitch well in advance of the performances. When I performed baroque repertoire with period instruments at A415 (which feels like a half-step lower than A440), I was aware of a much bigger difference, and in that case, I will practice the music a half-step down so I'm not surprised during rehearsals.

OM: Interesting! Last season Teatro Nuovo, at least for the Tancredi I reviewed, used few or no sets. Will the absence of sets and props, maybe character specific costumes, pose any additional challenges to your performance, Alisa?

AJ: Because of the importance of various items in La gazza ladra, we are actually using props! We are also wearing attire that helps us tell the story in the absence of costumes and a set. But on the whole, our semi-staged version of the opera is freeing: while we do have minimal props and stage movement to tell the story, we are given the opportunity to let the music speak for itself, especially in the more reflective moments of the score.

OM: Hannah?

HL: I agree. If anything, it removes the distraction of having to remember other stage items and just allows me to truly focus on my singing.

OM: Alisa, you’re singing Ninetta, the young servant, the accused thief in La gazza ladra. First, have you performed this role before or, if not, what is your acquaintance with La gazza ladra in performance or on recording? With Rossini’s operatic style in general?

AJ: This is my role debut of Ninetta! I didn't know much about La gazza ladra before being offered the role. I have studied bel canto and the Rossinian style before and, having performed Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, the musical elements in La gazza ladra were not unfamiliar to me. There aren't many recordings of La gazza ladra, but I did listen to one before diving into the score myself. Knowing the appropriate vocabulary for ornamentation is perhaps the most challenging aspect of making a bel canto role one's own, and I so appreciate Teatro Nuovo's attention to that element of education and the program's encouragement to explore what works best for each individual voice. I'm so grateful to know the opera now: what a gem!

OM: Hannah, you were in last season’s heroic epic Tancredi, yet this season you’re singing a trouser role in Gazza ladra in a semiseria opera. Are you finding subtle differences in the style?

HL: I have sung some of Rossini’s leading roles before such as Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri and Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and I’ve always been the most vocally comfortable singing his music. It allows the voice to stretch and move that makes my technique stronger, as if every time I perform I’m getting a nice vocal workout. I will be singing Pippo for the first time this summer with Teatro Nuovo.  Before being asked to do the role, I had never listened to La gazza ladra, but I had just performed Rosina. Once I started studying it after Rosina I found a lot of similarities in the vocal part. The coloratura patterns are very well constructed and I don’t feel like I am stretching any part of my voice in an unhealthy manner.  It’s very refreshing.

OM: Looking forward, Hannah, what roles do you seek to perform within the next, say, five years? And, for guidance, to whom does one turn for advice on such decisions? Will these roles involve voice training different from that which you’ve received lately? Do you have to re-tool, in other words, for these sought-after roles? Are there dream roles you seek to perform, but…by virtue of your youth and their challenges, you should put off for a longer spell?

HL: At this moment, I’m still considered a young low voice. The main focus of the next couple of years is to keep the voice healthy and flexible before I move into rep like Verdi and Wagner. For now this means singing rep like Handel, Rossini, Donizetti, Mozart etc. I have a wonderful “circle of trust” which includes my teacher, my managers, and vocal coaches with whom I discuss, on a regular basis, the progression of my development and what music I should focus on so that I have a long career. Even though my voice is already pretty dark and big, I need to have patience in singing the big girls. Patience is a virtue here.

OM: Alisa?

AJ: I hope to sing more bel canto repertoire in the near future - I'd love to sing Lucia di Lammermoor, Adina in L'elisir d'amore, Marie in La fille du régiment, and Ophélie in Hamlet, just to name a few. I also greatly enjoy doing concert and contemporary work, recitals, and musical theatre. No matter what projects come my way, I am always excited by the possibility of new characters, new music, and new collaborations; it's all an exciting journey for me. I always consult my teacher, William McGraw, as well as my managers, Guy Barzilay and Michael Denos, about appropriate repertoire. No matter what role I'm singing, I sing with my own voice and technique, and I never try to sound like, or be, someone else. One of the special things to embrace about the human voice is that no one else has yours!

OM: Special things indeed! I have one more question for you and a request… What sorts of things do you enjoy talking about with normal people, myself not included in that group?

HL: Ha! I feel like I am not normal…makes me chuckle. I actually had a coach last year say that I needed hobbies because I tend to make my job a 24/7 affair.

OM: It is an all-absorbing world, isn’t it.

HL: I guess outside interests would be my love of reading and doing any kind of activity that involves history.  If there is a museum or historical area in the places I’m traveling for work, it’s where I will be as soon as I have free time. I’m also into fitness so I love working out. Other than that, any time I can hang out with my boyfriend at home is the best.

OM: And you, Alisa?

AJ: I too love reading: I just recently finished Sue Grafton's alphabet mystery series. I very much enjoy watching my Netflix and HBO shows…Breaking Bad is my ultimate favorite.

OM: I’d say ‘Yo Bitch!’ but that might be misconstrued.

AJ: Ha! And of course I enjoy catching up with friends and family on the phone or FaceTime. One of my favorite things about being a singer is the opportunity to travel, so I try to explore the places I visit and soak up the culture (and food!). If I haven't worked out enough in rehearsals, I bring my Insanity DVDs with me when I travel to get some additional exercise!

OM: All right, lastly, here’s the request: If you have an answer to a question I haven’t asked, what is the question and what’s your answer?

AJ: My question is: If you weren't a singer, Alisa, what would you be? My answer is: A hospital nurse or nurse practitioner.

OM: From ‘audible’ to ‘laudable.’ Hannah?

HL: Okay, what is your favorite part of preparing/performing a role, Hannah? Is it the prep work, the staging rehearsal, etc? Hannah thought for a moment, then said: My answer is: there is no better feeling in the world than singing with an orchestra! That initial rehearsal with the orchestra is the most emotional and exciting part of the process. They bring forth all of the colors of your character; they provide the sounds of the scenery where the piece is set. Once you have nailed down the character in rehearsal and then perform it with your orchestral colleagues, it truly feels like the culmination of something glorious that you get to share with the whole world.

OM: Thank you so, wonderful singers! It was a pleasure to talk to you. Look for that new question…

Photos: Alisa Jordheim by Fay Fox; Hannah Ludwig by John Matthew Myers.

* La gazza ladra is performed on Sunday afternoon, July 14 at 4:30 p.m. at The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, Purchase, NY, and again on Thursday evening, July 18 at 7:30 p.m. at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Tickets for all performance are available at www.teatronuovo.org.

** Actually we did this by email, as usual, but I would have picked up the tab, were there indeed one. Happy we took rain checks for the face-to-face followup.

No, I, still chained to my desk at the OperaMetro office, have been given these wonderfully insightful, intricate and complete answers by emails from Alisa and Hannah. I’m happy not to have to reconstruct it from my dreadful ‘speed’ typing transcriptions…such as they are.

Note that even this interview is split into two pieces. After we finished, another question popped up and I have just received additional answers from Hannah and Alisa. Better, I think, to post the above now and then add, as a second interview, my singers’ rather detailed answers to the new question. It will be posted on the Page Addenda…I love talking to young artists. Like, really.

Happy summer 2019! Hot outside, so I’m told. About time!

OM.

The Princeton Festival to perform John Adams’ Nixon in China

The Princeton Festival will perform Nixon in China, for sure a daring stretch for a summer music festival, but also perhaps a timely undertaking, considering the world we live in.

OperaMetro (OM) had the privilege to interview two of the principal singers, Sean Anderson (SA) and Rainelle Krause (RK), who will portray Richard Nixon and his wife Pat in the Princeton Festival’s production of the John Adams opera.

As usual for my interviews, I say here something like ‘and we’re sitting in an outdoor café, downtown Princeton, across from the majestic campus of Princeton University on a glorious day in late May, chatting over our designer salads and frothy cappuccinos…but frankly no, we did this by email. Screen time, not face time.

OM: Thank you Sean, thank you Rainelle for coming! I’m really looking forward to Nixon in China.

RK: So far it’s a great experience for us.

Rainelle Krause is Pat Nixon

SA: Agreed.

OM: This opera must be exciting to perform, but at the same time to some extent intimidating. I mean, most national leaders in opera, Caesar, Attila, Napoleon, Cleopatra, Queen Bess, Mary Stuart, to name a few, are not known in the way we know Richard Nixon and Pat. I close my eyes and I swear I can still hear him saying “I’m not a crook, I’m not a crook,” as if it were yesterday. Watergate, Deep Throat, John Dean, Rosemary’s booboo…I remember the day Nixon resigned as if it were yesterday…real people…not Attila…Tell me about the preparation you each did for your roles.

SA: I did some research into Richard Nixon’s life. I read his book, Six Crises, and listened to most of an audiobook called Richard Nixon, the Life by John Farrell. There is an HBO special called Nixon By Nixon: In His Own Words, which was quite interesting.

Sean Anderson is Richard Nixon

OM: So you know how the man moved, his postures, facial expressions, gestures…don’t need to know the voice I guess, because he didn’t sing his lines…

SA: Right. But aware of these things, I’ve also noticed a certain physical language that seems to be a part of many politicians' public image, like, in the same way, say, a dancer always seems to move with grace, arms, certain postures and hand gestures. These too may simply be a part of what it means to have a career in politics.

OM: I get that too.

SA: So I came to rehearsal more or less prepared with a very basic Nixon characterization and some general politician body language. But I don’t think that this production is going to focus too much on recreating Nixon’s behavioral idiosyncrasies. And I think this is wise: Nixon impersonation has become too associated with political and popular humor for it to function as anything else.

OM: Well, and in reality only a certain percentage of the audience would pick up on the mannerisms. The opera is 1972 and Nixon was more or less off camera after the late 70s.

SA: Agreed. However, I think knowing the historical and political context of the ’72 visit is important for us to make sense of the piece, and certainly knowing Nixon’s mindset at the time is vital to understanding how to perform the role.

Cameron Schutza is Chairman Mao

OM: Rainelle?

RK: I also watched some clips of documentaries on Pat, watched news footage from the time, and also did some light reading on her life, but I’m primarily using these sources only to highlight what the libretto gives me to work with. The text is my main source of her character, enhanced by the program notes by the librettist. I agree with Sean: I want to really keep my Pat in this moment in time, 1972, and reduce the possibility of layering thoughts about her later life into my characterization.

OM: Tell us, Rainelle, about singing Pat. What is the role like vocally?

RK: Right now I’m making my mark, so to speak, as Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Zauberflöte, so being able to sing Pat is a great opportunity for something completely different.  I feel it’s good for the voice to have a chance to work down out of that stratosphere and explore some new colors, and while I find both characters complex and interesting, Pat, in contrast to the Queen, has a lovely quiet strength to her. It is quite beautiful.  In my opinion, she has the prettiest music in the whole piece.  This is a role debut for me, and also my first Adams production; as such, it’s exciting and, as you say, a little intimidating!

OM: Sean?

SA: This is as well my first piece by John Adams. I have seen a video of the Met’s production of Nixon, but nothing live. While I have performed several 20th century operas, Nixon is one of the most challenging I’ve ever faced. This will be my debut in the role.

OM: What are some of your current staples?

SA: This past season I sang Gianni Schicchi, Telramund in Wagner’s Lohengrin, and I have Sharpless and Gellner in La Wally coming up…

OM: Gellner? In La Wally?!? THE La Wally? Wow! Now there’s an opera not frequently done! Cool! Curious how they’ll pull of the avalanche at the end…

SA:  Ha! Well, we’ll see.

OM: It’s not surprising that you both mention digging into new roles in the standard repertory, Wally notwithstanding, both trying out this and that. But John Adams is a whole new world. Tell me about the challenges you face with his music.

Teresa Castillo is Madame Mao

RK: I think every role has its own challenges, but the sheer complexity of Adams’ music makes it a technical as well as artistic challenge. It’s a real collaboration between the singers, the conductor, and the orchestra, to carry it off.  I find Adams’ music compelling, even at first listening, but it grows more satisfying through the process of study and performing. I think the audiences will find it so.

SA: I totally agree with Rainelle: the biggest challenge of Nixon in China is, by far, the rhythmic complexity. At first listen, it is easy to mark the repeated notes, rhythms, and text that are Adams’ trademark style, but nearly every instance of repetition contains variations – some obvious, some exceedingly subtle – these change the perceived pattern. One must always be counting, and even one slightly early or late entrance/cut-off can derail the train. Of course there are other challenges to the piece, but the labyrinth of rhythmic trials in Nixon stands far and above the others – at least for me. When learning other roles, there usually comes a point when the rhythm has become internalized enough that a singer need not necessarily count every beat. Not so with Nixon.

OM: My next two questions are prefaced by two observations, part unbiased, part biased, only a little bit, but part devil’s advocate. First, one might say that the purpose of the ‘minimalist’ operas (and the instrumental compositions as well) was to facilitate the entry of the listener into an altered state of consciousness, an almost out of body experience through seemingly endless repetition of musical lines, text, and, on stage, often made visual with choreographed repetitious behaviors. Certainly the early ones in the late 70s, early 80s were like this.

As an aside, my dear mother used to say this about Bach, even without the staging and singing.

Taking a more positive slant, I thought Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach (at BAM in 1984) was thoroughly mesmerizing, and his Satyagraha (at the Met in 2008) was emotionally impactful in unexpected ways. Which leads to the second observation, namely that whereas in most of the operas in the standard repertory the emotional impact of an event in the drama is clearly defined by the music and the text, and hopefully complemented by the staging (action, interaction and scenic setting), often the music and text of the minimalist operas add options for the staging, but at the same time eschew dramatic clarity.

First question: how do you create a character in an opera like this?

Joseph Barron is Henry Kissinger

SA: Well, yes, character-wise, there are no “operatic archetypes” to fall back on: there are no revenge plots, no armies to lead to victory, no broken hearts or tragic deaths. The drama in this opera is found more in psychological profiles and personal relationships than in anything else. For the singer, the challenge here is to covey the incredibly high, intangible stakes of each moment in a compelling and naturalistic manner while maintaining the consistent inner-metronome the music requires.

Adams’ Nixon is grandiose, clever, and paranoid, in short, actually similar to the man himself. He craves the respect of, but at the same time is confounded by Mao, whom he realizes occupies a place of historical importance that exceeds his own. He is jealous of Kissinger, whom Mao recognizes as a fellow philosopher. He recognizes Chou En Lai as a fellow politician and someone with whom he can deal, as long as he can find a way around their cultural differences. He loves Pat, but her needs are a distant second to his political goals. In this piece, Nixon’s different personalities are more revealed by how he acts in public vs. private, rather than towards individual people. The exception to this would be in the third act when he opens up to Pat about his experiences during the War of the Pacific. As these aspects emerge the music changes.

OM: We’ll return to this last point. Rainelle? 

John Viscardi is Chou En Lai

RK: Sean is right, Pat doesn’t have a whole lot of verbal interaction with other characters in this production — she is focused on her husband, except for the scene where she tours the countryside and visits hospitals and farms, where we get a glimpse into her thoughts, her past, and her vision for the future.  Adams’ Pat is hopeful, almost painfully so since we as the audience know what is to come.  She has a strong, unwavering belief in the goodness of the nation, and in the rightness of this trip.  She’s portrayed as almost naive, despite her age, and at the same time has an empathetic humanity to her that I think will resonate with the audience.  

So my biggest challenge, dramatically speaking, is to show the strength of Pat as a highly educated, driven woman, and also reconcile that with her absolute dedication to her position as First Lady and the wife of a politician.  She took those roles very seriously, and I think it does her a disservice to only portray her as just a typical housewife when she was anything but.  She projected that sort of demure, diffident, 1950’s housewife persona, but in reality she had a great complexity about her.  Her aria really highlights these facets of her personality, as well as her dreams for the nation.

OM: This, Rainelle, leads me into the second question: what is, for you and/or your character, the most emotionally touching moment in the opera and why does (or should) this moment resonate with audiences? Perhaps put into words how the composer and librettist build to the moment.

RK: I really think that Pat’s introspective aria, This is prophetic! in Act II is one of the most touching parts of the entire piece.  It’s placed in the middle of the opera, it forces us to slow down musically and psychologically, offering a respite from what could be called an assault of repetition.  Poetically, it is dense and highly symbolic, it’s a moment out of time, and digs into her vision of herself, and of America.  I find it more layered and revealing with each rehearsal.

SA: I don’t know if “touching” is the right descriptor for my example, but I think the most emotional moment for Nixon is near the end of the first act. He has just finished a toast in response to one made by Chou En Lai and has received a tremendous ovation. His optimism about what this visit to China will bring is at its highest point; his doubts about the future and troubles at home are numbed by a tipsy haze. He sings: “Just let me say one thing: I opposed China. I was wrong!” to another ovation, greater than the first. We rarely take given opportunities to publicly admit mistakes, let alone get applauded for it. The cynic in me wonders if Nixon really means this apology, but the headiness of the moment is undeniable. The harmony, driving rhythm, and drama build to this point perfectly. It is everything the end of an act of opera should be.

OM: We look forward to both of these moments. One last question: Act III of the opera has considerably more introspection than the first two acts, Pat’s aria in Act II notwithstanding. What new aspects of your characters and their relationship are revealed?

SA: You're correct about Act III being more introspective. As I said, Nixon opens up to Pat about his experiences during the War of the Pacific. There is a lot to unpack in the text, both personally for Nixon and with his relationship with Pat. We have yet to stage that act, but I'm looking forward to hearing Steve LaCosse’s ideas and sharing my own. I will say, that while the music is still quite challenging, the rhythmic frenzy of the previous acts is not as prevalent. Working on that act feels akin to exercising a different muscle group.

RK: Act III is huge in many ways: it’s when all the walls come down, figuratively speaking. The hopes and dreams of the characters have reached their conclusion, and what’s left is a harsh, unforgiving reality which forces our characters to introspect. This takes the form of reminiscence, and pares down our ties to each other — more than First Lady and President, we are husband and wife, and beyond that, simply flawed individuals. Mao, his wife, and Chou En-lai have similar memories of their own paths. At one point, Chou En-lai asks “How much of what we did was good?” That, to me, is the central question of the third act, for every character.

OM: The mask is dropped. 

SA: It might make one think about the present.

OM: Elaborate, s’il vous plait.

SA: It’s inevitable, I think, for people to draw comparisons between Nixon in China and current events, the trade skirmishes with China, President Trump’s visit to North Korea specifically.

OM: Are there lessons to be learned?

SA:  Not really. I feel that history is a wheel, and if the story of this opera and/or the characters in it seem relevant, it is due to the fact that the wheel seems to have returned to that point once again; in short, pure coincidence.

OM: What we call a selective, or confirmation bias.

SA: For us, Adams’ Nixon in China is incredibly challenging musical experience. That a smaller festival company producing it is the definition of daring, some would say audacious. Our only objective is to perform the best opera we possibly can. In other words, this not a political statement.

OM: (turning to the readers) You’ll have to judge for yourselves, that’s all there is to it. (back to RK and SA) Lastly, tell the readers briefly what you do when you’re not on stage or in rehearsal, hobbies, interests, favorite Impressionist artist, favorite binge watching experiences. Whatever. The humanizing sort of stuff.

SA: I have several hobbies that keep me busy when I’m on the road, but the simplest way to describe me would be to call me a “geek”. I collect comic books, play pen and paper role-playing games, enjoy board games of all kinds and am a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, both mainstream and obscure. My favorite impressionistic artist is Pissarro: Allée dans une forêt being my favorite of my favorite. The best binge-watching experience I ever had was watching Avatar: the last Airbender with my wife and daughter.

OM: Pissarro is an artist my mother-in-law and my wife are very fond of. Beautiful art. Rainelle?

RK: Okay, in addition to my work as a singer, I’m also an aerialist.

OM: Humanizing, but with risks, oui?

RK: Oui!  One of my clips from a rehearsal in New Orleans just went viral, singing Queen of the Night upside down on aerial silks.

OM: Ahhhh, The aforementioned Queen.

RK: Want to see it? Check out https://youtu.be/hOvQ6GlH3Vk  I have a whole portfolio of aerial arias, and am finishing up work on choreographing Ophelia’s Mad Scene from Hamlet, which I’m SO excited about!  Art? I really love Klimt and Schiele, and recently fell in love with Murakami.

OM: The Kiss, Judith, and Kafka on the Shore.

RK: Exactly. My husband and I binge watch shows together when I’m at home, most recently Game of Thrones, along with the rest of the country!  We live with two fluffy cats and one very spoiled reptile!  Pictures of all of them can be found on my Instagram and Facebook profiles.

OM: Lovely. Shall check ‘em out!

Thank you both for chatting with me, look forward to meeting you after the performance on the 30th.

Nixon in China, set to a libretto by Alice Goodman, was co-commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the home of many signature “Next Wave” performances, including a major revival of Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach in 1984 and The Photographer; Nixon in China had its premiere was in Houston on October 22, 1987. It was American composer John Adams’ first international success, to be followed by The Death of Klinghoffer, libretto by Alice Goodman, in 1991 at the Théâtre de la Monnie in Brussels and Doctor Atomic in 2005 in San Francisco, all three world premieres directed by the great Peter Sellars. Sellars also wrote the libretto for Doctor Atomic and for Adams’ most recent opera Girls of the Golden West, premiered at San Francisco in 2017.

Nixon in China sports the following artists and performers: Richard Tang Yuk conducts, Steven LaCosse is Stage Director, the Production is designed by Jonathan Dahm Roberts, the Lighting Designer is Norman Coates, and Costumes are designer is James Schulte. Sean Anderson is Nixon in Princeton, Rainelle Krause is Pat Nixon, Cameron Schutza is Chairman Mao, Teresa Castillo is Madame Mao, Joseph Barron is Henry Kissinger, John Viscardi is Premire Cho En Lai, Liz Culpepper is the 1st Secretary, Emily Marvosh is the 2nd Secretary, and Edith Dowd is the 3rd Secretary.

Nixon in China is performed on two Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m., June 23 and June 30 in the Matthew Theatre of the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey.

Tickets for Nixon in China can be purchased at the Princeton Festival website, https://princetonfestival.org.

Support your local opera!! Embrace the moment. Some of us remember watching newsreels of the actual event in black and white TV…

OM