The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

Recent posts

  • William Eddins Conducts Berkeley Symphony

    Eddins
     * Notes *     
    Last Thursday William Eddins conducted the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in a program that included three short pieces written between the years 1910-1921 by French composers, an American premiere of contemporary music, and Martinů's first symphony. The evening began with the frilly Valse des dépêches by Germaine Tailleferre. The piece sounded suitable for an ice skating number, perhaps. Debussy's La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin scored for orchestra came next, it was quite dreamy and shimmery. Rounding off the French portion of the performance was Lili Boulanger's very pretty D'un matin de printemps.

    The highlight of the evening was certainly the American premiere of Allan Gilliland's Dreaming of the Masters II – Rhapsody GEB, not least of all because Eddins was both the piano soloist and conductor. Eddins spoke a bit about the genesis of the piece and explained that the "GEB" of the title refers to Gershwin, Ellington, and Bernstein. What followed was a cheerful, likable synthesis of classical and jazz.

    Berkeley Symphony ended with Martinů's Symphony No. 1. The work is rather lush and sweeping, having a rather cinematic sound. They played beautifully throughout, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

    * Tattling * 
    There was much coughing and talking during the performance. The audience clapped in between the first and second movements and the second and third movements of     the Martinů.

    William Eddins referred to Ferde Grofé's 1942 orchestration of Rhapsody in Blue as the "wallowing-cow version that you are familiar with."

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  • Runnicles Conducts Verdi’s Requiem

    Tickets have gone on sale for Verdi's Requiem at San Francisco Opera. The piece will be performed on May 29, 2009 and will be conducted by out-going music director Donald Runnicles. The soloists are Patricia Racette, Stephanie Blythe, Stefano Secco, and Andrea Silvestrelli.

    Press Release [PDF] | Official Site

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  • Gabriele Viviani Withdraws

    The Marcello for La Bohème, Gabriele Viviani, has withdrawn from the production opening at San Francisco Opera next month. He will be replaced by Quinn Kelsey, who shares the role with Brian Mulligan. Viviani sang last appeared at San Francisco Opera as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor.

    Press Release [PDF] | Production Site

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  • Opening of Boris Godunov

    Boris-godunov-coronation    * Notes * 
    The opening performance of Boris Godunov last night at San Francisco Opera was decidedly lackluster. Stein Winge's production, originally for the Grand Théâtre de Genève, is thoroughly undramatic. For the most part the singers simply wandered aimlessly or just stood and sang. The crowd in Scene 2 was especially pathetic. When Boris threw gold at them, they barely made an effort to pick it off the ground. In Scene 4 when Grigory was to make his escape, one of the supernumeraries got into place too soon, he could have easily caught Grigory if he had wanted to, and it was all very unconvincing. Also, having the Simpleton on stage so much was confusing. For one thing, the figure of the Holy Fool is not familiar to the Western audience, and was just a distraction given how many holes there are in the libretto and how many characters there were.

    The set, by Göran Wassberg, looked like a rooftop with numerous trap doors. The scene changes were quite simple and not noisy. However, they were all so transparent, and it was difficult to become immersed in the world of this opera. For example in the transition between Scenes 3 and 4, the monks of the former scene take off their robes and become the revelers at the inn. This is, perhaps, intellectually interesting, but is dramatically weak. Kari Gravklev's period costumes were attractive enough, though Xenia's empire-waisted white dress with pink hem was unflattering.

    Vassily Sinaisky's debut conducting the San Francisco Opera Orchestra was not particularly striking. There were times when the orchestra and singers were not quite synchronized, but this will probably improve as time goes on. The chorus sounded lovely, and more engaged with the work than many of the principals, though again there were times when they were not quite with the orchestra.

    In general, the singing was pretty though not captivating. Catherine Cook was brash as the Innkeeper, she started off a bit harshly but did settle down by the end of her scene. Though his voice is beautiful, Vitalij Kowaljow was not terribly commanding as Pimen. Vladimir Ognovenko (Varlaam) sounded a bit constrained but was fine. Likewise John Uhlenhopp (Prince Shuisky) and Vsevolod Grivnov (Grigory) gave perfectly good performances.

    The Adlers all did well, Kenneth Kellogg made the most of his small role as Nikitch, and Daveda Karanas had a strong debut as the Nurse. Ji Young Yang's bright tones were appealing for her role as Xenia. Best of all was Andrew Bidlack as the Simpleton, this is the first time he has really shone on the main-stage. His sensitive vocal portrayal was the most gorgeous part of the entire opera.

    Samuel Ramey was a fairly wobbly Boris, though the warm resonance of his voice can be effective. The stage directions for him were laughable, he throws himself to the ground more than once and even rolls down the raked stage. He did seem committed to his character, at least.

    * Tattling * 
    The audience whispered and talked during the music. There were no cellular phone rings, but at least one watch alarm on the hour near the back of the orchestra. Also, at least one person in Row X of the orchestra level was using a flashlight to read the program during the opera.

    In the program, Scene 2 of the synopsis is missing a period at the end of the last sentence.

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  • Eugene Onegin at Unter den Linden

    Here is the Opernphrenologe's review of the new Eugene Onegin production at the Berliner Staatsoper. I admit I did some heavy editing to get it closer to the style of the Opera Tattler, but there was only so much I could do. We'll get to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

       * Notes *
    After seeing this opera, it can only be concluded that the director Achim Freyer is a gay man with a fetish for mimes. You, dear reader, need not read any further. The rest is only some boring details about the singers and the set and so on. The only important thing to know is that Mr. Freyer loves mimes A Bit Too Much.

    On to the boring details for those of you who like pain. Yes, the entire cast was composed of mimes.  These mimes did various things. One mime simulated giving birth three times, and pulled the same baby out of her unmentionables three times. In fact, everything happened three times, except for a yellow man and a red man. The mimes went through the same routine.

    Most of the mimes were of average size, but there was one mime that was quite round. That was my favorite. What else did the mimes do? There was the regular mime stuff like spinning chairs and moving around quite slowly. They also did mime yoga (downward dog, triangle, half shoulder stand, and warrior). I also liked the part where all of the mimes bounce up and down quite lewdly when Tatjana (and others) sang about love.

    The opera was broken up into two parts, with the cut right after Lenski and Onegin challenge each other to a duel. During the first part, the entire stage is white with black "distance lines" on the ground. When Tatjana was weeping over Onegin's rejection, a bunch of little red balls were released to roll down the stage, but they kept on hitting mimes and getting stuck along the way, so it took around 5 minutes for all of the little balls to disappear. Monsieur Trinquet was yellow, and he had to sing his entire solo while doing a complicated shuffling step. He did his part quite well. There were lighted happy face balls at the dance party. At one point, the entire stage was lit in a rainbow, which I believe means that Mr. Freyer is gay.

    During the second part, Lenski is shot and the stage turns black. Before he's shot, some man in red stands behind Onegin, a profound statement about something or another I'm sure. Lenski is lit in red, which I'm sure also means something very deep. Then there is a lovely music interlude which is supposed to be Prince Gremin's ball. During most of this time, Lenski is slowly dying. At least, he stands there lit in red as mimes do things. It took a long time. Finally, he keeled over with a loud plop and that was the end of him thank goodness. The mimes went through the third revolution of their yoga, chairs, whatever. Yawn.

    I would have been satisfied with this if the singing had been better. Tatjana (Anna Samuil) had too much vibrato. Olga (Maria Gortsevskaya) was quite good, except she was somewhat hesitant on higher notes. Lenski (Rolando Villazón) was nice, except that he was quite nasal (which I wouldn't have noticed if I didn't speak any Russian). He was good for a few chuckles, since I repeated the "I love you" in Russian for the rest of the evening, except through my nose. It sounded just like him! Onegin (Roman Trekel) had absolutely awful pronunciation of Russian and he wasn't very noteworthy one way or the other. Monsieur Trinquet (Stephan Ruegamer) did an excellent job, in fact I think I found his solo the most beautiful out of the entire thing.

    * Tattling * 
    My my, what laughs I had! When the red balls appeared, a man in front of me said very loudly, "Schweine Sinn." Normally I don't like it when people talk, but it was so funny! Unfortunately, the German couple next to me kept on talking until I shushed them. The male half of the couple also kept on squirming, and he made me uncomfortable. Fortunately, he switched places with his (very talkative) female half during the second part.

    And there was so much booing! It made me so happy! The Schweinesinn Mann booed quite loudly at the start of the second half, and the conductor responded to the booers by saying something which I didn't understand. Unfortunately, my lovely Schweinesinn Mann left with his Frau five minutes after the start of the second part.

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  • SF Opera Futures

    So far, the 2009-2010 season at San Francisco Opera is rumored to include:
    Die Entführung aus dem Seraglio
    La Fanciulla del West with Deborah Voigt and Salvatore Licitra
    La Fille du Régiment with Juan Diego Florez and Diana Damrau
    The Makropoulos Case with Karita Mattila
    Mefistofele directed by William Friedkin with René Pape
    Peter Grimes directed by John Copley with Ben Heppner and Heidi Melton
    Salomé
    Il Trittico with Patricia Racette and Paolo Gavanelli
    Il Trovatore with Sondra Radvanovsky, Dmitri Hvorovstovsky, and Stephanie Blythe
    Die Walküre

    Beyond next season:
    Siegfried
    Götterdämmerung
    Moby-Dick
    Werther     with Ramón Vargas
    Nixon in China

    Much of this was either mentioned by David Gockley at various events, found in programs or press releases, or comes from Janos Gereben over at San Francisco Classical Voice.

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  • Tosca at Unter den Linden

    The Opernphrenologe was recently in Berlin and what follows is her rather entertaining review of Tosca. A review of Eugene Onegin is forthcoming.

       * Notes *
    The set was boring, so boring. Are these people on a budget or something?  I can't even describe it, it was so dull.

    As for the cast, Tosca (Micaele Carosi) was flat on the high notes and sometimes had too much trill.  Cavaradossi (Burkhard Fritz) was a weak, quiet singer. He also was raspy at the start of words (except when he sang a duet with Tosca, in which he was decent). It sounded like over-enunciation. Scarpia (Gerd Grochowski) was pretty good, but sometimes he was drowned out by the orchestra.  But my favorite was der Mesner der Kirche (Bernd Zettisch), who was just the cutest little hunchback with such adorable comic facial expressions!

    During Act I, a bunch of little kids fell down when Scarpia entered. The kids were dressed as choirboys. Then at the end of Act I, there's some weird Catholic ceremony scene as Scarpia sang his solo about how he's lecherous. I think we've all heard enough about paedophilia in the Catholic church, do we really have to see it represented in opera?

    During the second act, the set became much more exciting because of the addition of a bowl of fruit. I sincerely hoped that Scarpia would be stabbed to death with a fruit, but alas the director did not share my views on what makes good opera. I liked Tosca's dress, which was some red velvet thing.

    Finally in the third act, the opera improved. Cavardossi was severely beaten and they evidently stuck red tape on his face to show this. It was so absurd! Scarpia died so badly, it was funny! I laughed so much. He squirmed around quite a bit before finally dying properly. The best part of the opera came when Cavardossi died and we didn't have to hear him sing anymore.

    * Tattling * 
    Lots to tell, dear readers. An opera coot in the second tier was glued to her binoculars in the pauses immediately before the opera resumed. I've never seen anyone stare so blatantly at other opera patrons! It was so bad that I felt compelled to photograph her, she was such a novelty! During the pause between the second and third acts, this coot evidently found something titillating in the center of the second tier, because she became quite agitated and then tried to hide her binocularitis behind a giant black fan. Her attempts were totally pointless though, since it was still obvious what she was doing.

    I sat behind six French people, and I'm sorry to report that I have a very bad impression of French opera-goers. These people talked and talked and talked! My goodness. On my left was a German mother-daughter pair. The daughter dressed up for the opera by wearing some powder blue fur thing around her neck and fancy white gloves, which I liked quite a bit. Unfortunately, they talked too.

    I saw an abnormally large amount of what I will politely refer to as "sucky-face" at the opera.  Fortunately it was mostly during the intermission, but I have to wonder, is Tosca the sucky-face opera?

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  • Partenope at Det Kongelige Teater

    Here is the promised review from the Opernphrenologe. I must say that I'm quite jealous that she got to attend a performance of this production. However, I hear there is to be a DVD release, so at least there is that to look forward to.

       * Notes *
    The recent production of Händel's Partenope at Copenhagen's Royal Theatre was wonderful! No, really! It was really that good! I traveled all the way to Copenhagen for this one measly opera, and it was worth it.

    Andreas Scholl as Arsace was so exceedingly funny! He had these marvelous comic facial expressions as he vacillated between two women. At one point, he crawls after the queen on his knees, then on his stomach, then he lifts his leg as if urinating. It was so silly! He made grunting sounds when the women abused him, and they were so utterly absurd that I kept on laughing aloud.

    Then there was the Barbie doll of the queen. Armindo first fondles the Barbie doll as he sings about his true love for the queen. Later, Arsace got into what appeared to be a fist fight with the queen Barbie, and it seemed as if the Barbie was winning.

    During the "fight scene", the two sides first played musical chairs, then rock-paper-scissors. Fight scenes are usually dumb in the opera, and I enjoyed how this one poked fun at itself!

    As for the singing, Andreas Scholl (Arsace) was a bit weak at first but then sang beautifully. Inger Dam-Jensen (Partenope) and Christophe Dumaux (Armindo) were spectacularly good. Only Tuva Semmingsen (Rosmira) was not too good, but considering that she was too sick to sing and that some mysterious woman in black was singing for her in the orchestra pit, it is not that surprising. On the other hand, her acting was good.

    Indeed, the opera cast has been plagued with the cold since opening night. When I saw it, Andreas Scholl had recovered but poor Tuva Semmingsen was in no shape to sing. According to some others, the opera director Francisco Negrin was the origin of the cold (according to himself in an interview). Very naughty, Mr. Negrin!

    The stage was a simple rotating stage with what appeared to be tilework. I found it quite dull, until it rotated and exposed an octopus and seven fish, all done up in fake tilework. It was lovely! But that was it, it became boring after that.

    During a discussion with some people with a Scholl Problem ™, it was noted that Negrin made some hefty changes to Acts 2 and 3. The Arsace-Rosmira duet "E vuoi con dure tempre" from the 4th scene in Act 2 is missing, perhaps because Rosmira couldn't sing. Ormonte sings "La gloria in nobil alma" at the beginning of Act 3, which was originally sung by Emilio earlier in Act 2. When Arsace dreams, he is not awakened by Rosmira (this has been cut) but instead sings the terzetto in his sleep. It may be possible that Arsace's aria "Fatto è Amor un dio d'inferno" in Act 3 was also cut.

    * Tattling * 
    The audience was reasonably well-behaved. In fact, they would probably tattle on me, since I kept on cackling with laughter (though I tried to be quiet, but is quiet shaking from laughter much better?). I suspect that there were a lot of nutty opera people there. The woman on my left talked about how she was going to travel to London to see Partenope performed there (with mezzo-sopranos, though, she discovered that I was a Scholl fan and looked down upon me I think). The woman on my right kept on clicking her eyeglasses and sighing. Perhaps she was bored. She also dropped things twice, with a loud clang.

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  • La Traviata at Det Kongelige Teater

    Some months ago I learned that Andreas Scholl was to sing Partenope at the Royal Danish Theatre, and pestered my friend whom we'll call the Opernphrenologe into going, as she is rather closer to Copenhagen than I am. The Opernphrenologe also went to a performance of La Traviata, and what follows are her (edited) observations. The Partenope review is forthcoming.

       * Notes *
    "Sehmbreh leebherha deggaoo
    Follehggyar dee geeoiha in geeoiha…"

    La Traviata at the Copenhagen Opera House was decent. I liked how all of the opera singers were at around the same level, nobody stood out to make the rest sound horrible. Both Violetta (Anne Margrethe Dahl) and Alfredo (Niels Jorgen Riis) started out too quietly, but they gained in strength halfway through the first act. Giorgio Germont (Jorn Pedersen) reminded me more of an automaton rather than an opera singer. He couldn't act and there was almost no emotion in his voice. I kept on seeing a wind-up key in his back every time he sang. On the other hand, everyone was on pitch most of the time, which shocked me!

    Violetta, sung by Anne Margrethe Dahl, had extremely poor enunciation. At first, I thought about how much I enjoyed her warm round tone. Considering that I normally hate sopranos, this was surprising! Then I noticed that she was slurring. She couldn't act and her pitch went slightly off somewhere in the middle of the second act, but on the plus side she was hot and she had nice legs.

    The staging was absurd. During Act II, they put piles of dirt in the bedroom to show how poor they were. One pile of dirt had some pretty green weeds growing on it, which I thought was a charming touch. During Act III, they made a hole in the floor. That was profound.

    Act III was by far my favorite. Shortly after curtain rise, a woman pretending to be drunk threw off her cape and collapsed to the ground. Naked. Her quivering pallid flesh lay on the stage floor until some other extras carried the mound off. Then some man took his shirt off! I don't know why he did that, but he did! Then the de-shirted man pretended to have anal sex with another man who was previously dressed up as a woman. Finally, when Alfredo denounced Violetta, he ripped her dress off so she had to lay on the stage in her underwear. But they weren't any normal underwear. They were so exceedingly cootish that I was jealous.

    The Danish people do not seem to cherish their opera singers very much. The program does not contain artist biographies, but instead has a page of all of the opera singers' names with tiny little pictures. It was more like a police line-up than an opera cast list.

    * Tattling * 
    The audience talked quite a bit. When Violetta had consumption, someone else in the audience joined her. There was lots of rustling. The people in front of me talked to me during the break and seemed surprised when I told them that I always stand at the opera if I have a choice.

    There was some high-pitched feedback during the first act on the left side of the opera house. Fortunately, it disappeared by the second act.

    The opera house supplied little cups in the bathrooms so that it was easy to get water. I appreciated that very much!

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  • Rock ‘n’ Roll at ACT


    Plastic-people-of-the-universe


    * Notes *
    Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll opened the 2008-2009 season at ACT last month and closes tomorrow. The play includes the years between the Prague Spring (1968) and the Velvet Revolution (1989), with a distinct focus on Syd Barrett, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Václav Havel.

    The production, directed by Carey Perloff, included Douglas W. Schmidt’s attractive set, which worked nicely for the many scene changes. The use of projections was ham-fisted, one did not need the year of a particular scene all over the walls, and certainly have them all spinning around was gratuitous.


    The actors were fine, though René Augesen as Eleanor and Older Esme was most impressive. Perhaps this was simply because she was playing two very different characters and her range was evident.


    The play itself was quite interesting if one has an interest in Czechoslovakia, or has some sense of that history. One imagines it might have been somewhat dull otherwise, as the dialogue is not as funny as one might expect from Stoppard. Music was used to good effect during the various scenes as well as in between segments.


    * Tattling * 
    The audience was quiet and attentive, though there was one person who was turning off her cellular phone after the play had started. Naturally, she had not set her keypad to silent, so there were quite a few electronic beeps.

    I had no idea what this play was about The Plastic People of the Universe, and was probably overly excited to find out that this was the case. Despite this, when the main character Jan tells his friend Ferdinand that The Plastics were more important than Havel, I was entirely shocked!

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