The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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  • Merola’s 61st Season Participants

    8.18.17_Finale-1845_resizedSopranos
    Kendra Berentsen, Portland, Oregon
    Cheyanne Coss, Eaton Rapids, Michigan
    Marlen Nahhas, Houston, Texas
    Brittany Nickell, Coral Springs, Florida
    Patricia Westley, Santa Barbara, California
    Meigui Zhang, Chengdu, China

    Mezzo-Sopranos
    Megan Grey, Cedar Falls, Iowa
    Anne Maguire, Washougal, Washington
    Simone McIntosh, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
    Alexandra Urquiola, Bergenfield, New Jersey

    Tenors
    Zhengyi Bai, Linyi, Shandong, China
    Christopher Colmenero, Burlington, Vermont
    Addison Marlor, Salt Lake City, Utah
    Brian Michael Moore, Cincinnati, Ohio
    Christopher Oglesby, Woodstock, Georgia
    Charles Sy, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
    WooYoung Yoon, Seoul, South Korea

    Baritones
    SeokJong Baek, Jeon-Ju, South Korea
    Jacob Scharfman, Boston, Massachusetts
    Jaeman Yoon, Seoul, South Korea
    Xiaomeng Zhang, Wenzhou, China

    Bass-Baritones
    Andrew Moore, Point Pleasant, New Jersey
    Ted Pickell, El Dorado Hills, California

    Apprentice Coaches
    Kseniia Polstiankina Barrad, Kyiv, Ukraine
    Annie Brooks, Seattle, Washington
    Matthew Gemmill, Ames, Iowa
    James Maverick, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
    Thomas Morris, Atlanta, Georgia

    Apprentice Stage Director
    Marcus Shields, Charleston, South Carolina

    The Schwabacher Summer Concert at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music is on Thursday, July 5 and July 7 at Bing Hall.

    The Merola artists perform Mozart's Il re pastore on Thursday, July 19 and Saturday, July 21 and Stravinsky's The Rake’s Progress on Thursday, August 2 and Saturday, August 4. All of these operas are to be performed at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

    The season ends with the participants singing in the annual Merola Grand Finale (last year's performance pictured above, photograph by Kristen Loken) on Saturday, August 18 at the War Memorial Opera House.

    Official Site | Press Releases

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  • LA Opera’s Orphée et Eurydice

    La-opera-orpheus-2018* Notes * 
    Choreographer John Neumeier's production of Orphée et Eurydice (final ovation pictured left) opened at Los Angeles Opera last week. Dance companies seem to love this opera by Gluck, and this co-production with Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Joffrey Ballet is no exception. The reworking of the libretto to be contemporary, with Orpheus as a choreographer and Eurydice a star dancer is compelling, but it seems pretty brutal for the lead soprano, it would be a rare thing indeed for an opera singer to also be a prima ballerina as well.

    Joffrey Ballet is indeed impressive, the dancers mastery of various dance forms — from classic to modern — is obvious. There were only the tiniest sloppiness with some angles not being precisely the same from person to person. The male dancers that portrayed dark spirits in Act II (pictured below, photograph by Ken Howard) were especially effective. By the end of that act in fact, I felt as if I were floating on a cloud of beauty, it all did come together very well.

    Orph_0857prThe singing was uniformly clear and beautiful, while the acting was more mixed. As Amour, soprano Liv Redpath is adorably cherubic with a lithe voice. Soprano Lisette Oropesa (Eurydice) has a lovely warmth and clarity. As athletic and graceful as she is, even when she walked barefoot it was conspicuous that she is not a dancer of the same caliber as the others on stage. Neumeier really put her on the spot, it doesn't seem fair to expect an amazing opera singer also fit in with professional dancers. On the other hand, Maxim Mironov was convincing as Orphée, he also sounds great, so open and even from top to bottom.

    The chorus was very nice and cohesive as it sang in the pit with the orchestra. I enjoyed James Conlon's conducting, what it might have lacked in exactitude it made up for in liveliness.

    * Tattling * 
    The women next to me in Row B Seats 14 and 15 were at the performance because they must have known one of the dancers, and consequently they didn't seem that interested in the music and occasionally spoke to each other at full volume even though they were a few feet from the Maestro. The man next to me in 12 either fell asleep or was concentrating very hard on the music with his eyes closed in Act II.

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  • San Diego Opera’s Florencia en el Amazonas

    Jkat_Amazonas_031418_202* Notes *
    A vibrant production of Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas opened at San Diego Opera last night. The sets and singing had much to recommend it, and it was easy to see why this piece has been revived multiple times in the almost 22 years since its premiere in Houston.

    The music is lyrical and exuberant, and most of the singing was absolutely lovely. Only baritone Luis Alejandro Orozco (Riolobo) seemed underpowered, though he is a fine actor and boasts an impressive physique.

    I liked the range of emotions portrayed by mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala as Paula, part of a bickering couple seeking to renew their love, she was frighteningly shrill at the outset and charmingly warm at the end. Her other half, baritone Levi Hernandez as Alvaro, was affable. Baritone Hector Vásquez (Capitán) sang with authority.

    Tenor Daniel Montenegro and soprano María Fernanda Castillo sang beautifully together as they fall in love as Arcadio and Rosalba. Montenegro's voice is sweet, while Castillo's is brilliant. As opera singer Florencia Grimaldi, soprano Elaine Alvarez seemed perfectly suited, her rich, vivid voice was very convincing.

    The set, from Mark F. Smith, is essentially a steamboat on a turntable, and this is effective, especially with the lighting. It definitely had a resemblance to Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, which is fun, since both works deal with the Amazon and opera. Much of the chorus wore unitards some festooned with elaborate accessories to represent the water of the Amazon and various jungle beasts. This was in keeping with the libretto, which takes inspiration from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (perhaps Love in the Time of Cholera is most obvious) and has a dreamy, surreal quality.

     

    * Tattling * 
    The audience fairly quiet, though two men behind me in the center of Row S did make some loud comments.

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  • SF Symphony’s 2018-2019 Season

    SF-Symphony-4x6September 5 2018: Open Night Gala with MTT; Itzhak Perlman, violin
    September 13-16 2018: MTT conducts Castiglioni, Ravel, Copland; Yuja Wang, piano
    September 21-23 2018: MTT conducts Stravinsky's Perséphone and The Firebird
    September 27-30 2018: MTT conducts Stravinsky's Petrushka, Violin Concerto, and The Rite of Spring; Leonidas Kavakos, violin
    October 11-13 2018: Manfred Honeck conducts Prokofiev and Dvořák
    October 14 2018: Evgeny Kissin plays Beethoven and Rachmaninoff
    October 18-20 2018: Pablo Heras-Casado conducts Ravel, Bartók, and Debussy; Javier Perianes, piano
    October 21 2018: Olivier Latry, organ
    October 21-22 2018: Valery Gergiev conducts the Mariinsky Orchestra
    October 25-27 2018: Cristian Mӑcelaru conducts Anna Clyne, Lalo, Kevin Puts, and R. Strauss; Ray Chen, violin
    November 1-3 2018: Jurassic Park film with live orchestra
    November 4 2018: Hilary Hahn, violin
    November 8-10 2018: Jakub Hrůša conducts Shostakovich, Borodin, and Bartók; Karen Gomyo, violin
    November 11 2018: Semyon Bychkov conducts the Czech Philharmonic; Alisa Weilerstein, cello
    November 15–18 2018: MTT's From the Diary of Anne Frank
    November 23–25 2018: MTT conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 9
    November 30- December 1 2018: The Nightmare Before Christmas film with live orchestra
    December 2 2018: Gautier Capuҫon, cello with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
    December 14-15 2018: SoundBox curated by MTT
    December 14-15 2018: Jane Glover conducts Messiah
    January 5-6 2019: Mary Poppins film with live orchestra
    January 11-13 2019: Jaap van Zweden conducts Mozart and Bruckner; Eugene Izotov, oboe
    January 14 2019: Itzhak Perlman, violin
    January 18-20 2019: Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducts Tchaikovsky and Sibelius; Gabriela Montero, piano
    January 22 2019: Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
    January 24-26 2019: Christian Reif conducts R. Strauss, Andrew Norman, Prokofiev; Johannes Moser, cello
    January 27 2019: Leonidas Kavakos, violin
    January 31- February 2 2019: Herbert Blomstedt conducts Beethoven and Mendelssohn
    February 7-9 2019: MTT conducts Steven Mackey, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky
    February 14-17 2019: András Schiff conducts Bach and Mendelssohn
    February 22-24 2019: Daniel Harding conducts Schumann; Lars Vogt, piano
    February 27-28 2019: La La Land film with live orchestra
    March 1-2 2019: Close Encounters of the Third Kind film with live orchestra
    March 3 2019: Mikhail Pletnev conducts the Russian National Orchestra; George Li, piano
    March 7-9 2019: Franҫois-Xavier Roth conducts Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms; Cédric Tiberghien, piano
    March 10 2019: Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin with Lambert Orkis, piano
    March 14-17 2019: MTT conducts Ravel, Mozart, and Sibelius; Christian Tetzlaff, violin
    March 31 2019: Marc-André Hamelin, piano
    April 7 2019: Midori, violin and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
    April 11-14 2019: Andrey Boreyko conducts Brahms and Zemlinsky; Emanuel Ax, piano
    April 18-20 2019: Fabio Luisi conducts Glinka, Tchaikovsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov; Mario Brunello, cello
    April 25-27 2019: James Gaffigan conducts Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, and Barber; Hélène Grimaud, piano
    May 2-4 2019: Marek Janowski conducts Mendelssohn, Bruck, and Wagner; James Ehnes, violin
    May 9–11 2019: MTT conducts Debussy and Ligeti; Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
    May 12 2019: Joshua Bell, violin; Steven Isserlis, cello; and Jeremy Denk, piano
    May 16-18 2019: MTT conducts Mahler's Symphony No. 7
    May 23-25 2019: Krzysztof Urbański conducts Elgar, Bacewicz, and Mendelssohn; Vilde Frang, violin
    May 30- June 1 2019: Juraj Valčuha conducts Bach and Shostakovich; Alexander Barantschik, violin
    June 6-8 2019: TBD conducting Bartók, Grieg, and Saint-Saëns; Nikolai Lugansky, piano
    June 9 2019: Christopher Houlihan, organ
    June 13-16 2019: MTT conducts Mahler's Symphony No. 9
    June 20-22 2019: MTT conducts Steve Reich and Prokofiev; Yefim Bronfman, piano
    June 27-30 2019: MTT conducts Noye's Fludde and L'Enfant et les sortilèges

    Season Highlights | Press Release

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  • ABS performs St. John Passion

    Abs-2018* Notes *
    American Bach Soloists finished a run of St. John Passion (1725 version) concerts last weekend, ending with a matinée performance in San Francisco on Sunday. The singing was excellent.

    Tenor Aaron Sheehan has a bright sound as the Evangelist. Though much of his part is obviously on the declamatory side, he has a lovely legato as demonstrated at the end of "Er leugnete aber." Baritone Jesse Blumberg has a particularly fine voice also, and his Christ is very dignified.

    My favorite was certainly contralto Robin Bier and loved hearing her strong, tawny tones in "Von den Stricken meiner Sünden" in the first half and "Es ist vollbracht!" in the second. Soprano Hélène Brunet sounded as pure and lovely as ever in her arias.

    This performance, conducted by Jeffrey Thomas, did seem to start off with less precision than usual. The woodwinds sounded unfocused, but the orchestra was much more together by the end of the first half.

    * Tattling *
    There was very little extraneous noise from the audience, at least around me in Row K Seat 116. It was rather crowded, both the people around me expressed concern for me, especially because the person in front of me was at least a foot taller than me. I did not mind not seeing that much, and was able to concentrate well on the music.

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  • San Diego Opera’s 2018-2019 Season

    1EG5A1205October 20-28 2018: The Marriage of Figaro
    December 1-9 2018: Hansel and Gretel
    February 2-10 2019: Rigoletto
    March 8-10 2019: Three Decembers
    March 30- April 7 2019: Carmen

    The 2018-2019 season at San Diego Opera was announced today.

    2018-2019 Season | Official Site

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  • Opera Parallèle’s Trouble in Tahiti

    OSTO4959* Notes *
    Opera Parallèle is performing a very charming production of Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti again, this time presented with Jake Heggie's At the Statue of Venus as a single narrative. As an added bonus, we heard some Bernstein songs from West Side Story as people milled around the museum setting for the Heggie piece, and even Charles' Ives The Unanswered Question with dancing from living statue Steffi Chong (pictured, photograph by Steve DiBartolomeo) as Venus.

    Maestra Nicole Paiement conducted with elegance and spirit, the orchestra sounded absolutely great. The only time things felt a little off was when baritone Eugene Brancoveanu was a bit ahead during "Something's Coming," when he was up above the stage in the Center Terrace of SFJAZZ's Miner Auditorium and Paiement was not conducting.

    At the Statue of Venus involves only one mezzo, in this case Abigail Levis (Rose), singing as she waits for her blind date to arrive. The character is extremely neurotic and insecure, she goes on and on about how she shouldn't have worn slacks. Levis has a pretty voice, clear and bright. She's double cast with Renée Rapier, whose sound is perhaps richer and warmer, it's hard not to be curious about what Rapier's take is on the role. Steffi Chong's Venus, statue though she is, gave a sympathetic performance as Levis anticipated who was coming to meet her. I also really liked Sherry Parker's mixed media collage projected on the upstage screen that comprised most of the museum's works. Her work never could be mistaken for a screen saver or video game scene.

    The Trouble In Tahiti is much like what we saw in 2013, when the company performed it at Z Space with Samuel Barber's Hand of Bridge, though Venus wanders in for Scene IV, as after Sam and Dinah run into each other. Director Brian Staufenbiel's production uses a similar quartered turn-table set with a kitchen, an business man's office, an analyst's office, and a gym. The theater ends up being up above in the Center Terrace where there is a large screen showing projections of little perfect houses falling into place on lawns and amusing print advertisements of the period.

    Tahiti3351OriginalKrista Wigle, Andres Ramirez, and Bradley Kynard (pictured, photograph by Steve DiBartolomeo) are jaunty as The Trio, cheerily singing about suburbia. Eugene Brancoveanu, who along with Wigle and Ramirez reprises his role from 2013, is as funny as ever as Sam, he can be callous and impatient yet has a roguish warmth. Abigail Levis is lovely as Dinah, never shrill, and it was easy to feel compassion for her character.

    * Tattling * 
    Many of the audience members on the left side of Row L seemed to chatter quite a lot.

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  • Met Opera’s 2018-2019 Season

    MetoperaSeptember 24 2018- March 28 2018: Samson et Dalila
    September 25- November 13 2018: La Bohème
    September 26 2018- March 7 2019: Aida
    October 4-27 2018: La Fanciulla del West
    October 25 2018- April 6 2019: Tosca
    October 19- November 10 2018: Marnie
    October 30 2018- February 8 2019: Carmen
    November 8- December 1 2018: Mefistofele
    November 44- December 8 2018: Les Pêcheurs de Perles
    November 23- December 15 2018 Il Trittico
    December 4 2018- April 27 2019: La Traviata
    December 14 2018- January 10 2019: Otello
    December 19 2018- January 5 2019: The Magic Flute
    December 31 2018- January 26 2019: Adriana Lecouvreur
    January 15-31 2019: Pelléas et Mélisande
    January 24- February 14 2019: Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle
    January 30- April 18 2019: Don Giovanni
    February 7- March 2 2019: La Fille du Régiment
    February 12- May 10 2019: Rigoletto
    February 22- March 16 2019: Falstaff
    March 30- April 20 2019: La Clemenza di Tito
    May 3-11 2019: Dialogues des Carmélites
    March 9- May 6 2019: Das Rheingold
    March 25- May 7 2019: Die Walküre
    April 13- May 9 2019: Siegfried
    April 27- May 11 2019: Götterdämmerung

    The Met announced the 2018-2019 season today, the first for Yannick Nézet-Séguin as Music Director. The new productions are Samson et Dalila, Nico Muhly’s Marnie, La Traviata, and Adriana Lecouvreur (which is a co-production with San Francisco Opera, among others). Philippe Jordan conducts the Lepage production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, which stars Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde.

    Press Release with Casting | Official Site

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  • Opera San José’s Der fliegende Holländer Review

    10* Notes *
    Opera San José kicked off a new year last weekend with an ambitious production (Act II pictured, photograph by Pat Kirk) of Der fliegende Holländer. The very loud performance on Saturday night was enjoyably and unapologetically grand.

    Steven C. Kemp’s set features wood planked walls that took on projections by Ian Wallace. Most of the time these were simple backdrops of the Norwegian coast, very cobalt blue and icy white. In the more supernatural and ghostly scenes the projections would illustrate the text. We saw fire and annihilation when the Dutchman sings “”Die Frist ist um, und abermals verstrichen sind sieben Jahr,” for instance.

    Brad Dalton’s direction is straightforward and unambiguous, he gets in the humor of both the Steersman and Daland, and he created dramatic tension in Act II by having Senta face upstage so long, with only her black curls and the folds of her deep blue gown visible. The last scene was perhaps the most abstract, it was also blinding, but it was unequivocal and effective.

    Maestro Joseph Marcheso had the orchestra go all out, the music was powerfully played. There were some beautiful shimmery and clear moments, but mostly it was vibrantly thunderous. This seemed to pose no problems for the singers, who could match the volume perfectly well. The chorus had a little trouble staying exactly on beat in Act III, but sang with force and charm.

    This opera is nicely suited to the young singers cast. Tenor Mason Gates’ Steersman was very sweet and bright, and he can walk on his hands and even did a backwards somersault in Act III. Bass Gustav Andreassen was an amusing and lovable Daland. His German was easy to understand, though the rest of the singers were also intelligible. Soprano Kerriann Otaño makes for a winsome Senta, her voice is lovely and very strong. Baritone Noel Bouley’s Dutchman felt grave and human.

    * Tattling * 
    This audience was obviously the normal Opera San José crowd, so full of excitement for the singers and perhaps less concerned about Wagner. It was refreshing, I don’t think I’ve ever heard an aria applauded in the middle of Der fliegende Holländer, even the performers looked slightly confused when this happened near the end of Act II.

    The woman in Row E Seat 102 was (naturally) less tolerant of a very noisy person in Seat 104 of the same row who exclaimed loudly throughout the performance. She had to switch her seat with her companion, who had the aisle seat further away from the offending patron.

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  • Circa’s Il Ritorno

    Circa-il-ritorno-2018* Notes * 
    Following a decades long tradition, Cal Performances presented yet another fascinating hybrid work, this time a combination of contemporary circus arts and Baroque opera last weekend from the Australian troupe Circa.

    Those expecting to hear Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in patria might have been taken aback to hear Quincy Grant's 75 minute arrangement, which included arias from the opera along side electronic stylings composed by Grant himself.

    The spare ensemble only had four musicians: cellist Pal Banda, violinist/violist Nicholas Bootiman, harpist Cecilia de Santa Maria, and music director/keyboardist Natalie Murray-Beale, who really did seem to have everything perfectly in hand as she moved seamlessly from one genre to another. The two singers, mezzo-soprano Kate Howden and baritone Benedict Nelson, were amplified, heightening the sense we were hearing something rather different than Monteverdi's work.

    The performance was much more about theatrics of the body than of music and tellingly, the audience often clapped over the music. The seven acrobats featured were hard to look away from, and seemed to push the very boundaries of the body to disturbing and devastating effect. Bodies were flung against the floor or against an upstage wall, balanced upon one another or on ropes, loops, and a swing. Bridie Hooper had a segment in which she seemed to be fighting her own arm, she seemed almost possessed, yet this was somehow engrossing and even beautiful.

    * Tattling * 
    In the second row, I was right behind a fellow blogger, who was of course very quiet. The woman next to me (FF 107) talked a little at the outset but was silent for the rest. The man next to my date (FF 110) had his phone out for much of the performance.

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