operaman's blog

The English National Opera has mounted a production of the opera Punch and Judy by Harrison Birtwistle. I was at the world premier of this work which took place in the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh in 1968. Benjamin Britten had commissioned the piece but together with Peter Pears walked out of the premier mid-performance. Some people have tried to put a gloss on this somewhat unfortunate occurrence by saying BB was ill that day. I was with him that day. He wasn't ill. He just hated the piece. I think it was the unremitting violence which got to him. Well, that and the fact he thought the music was "crap.”

I went to hear the Oregon Symphony Orchestra play Mahler's 9th Symphony last week. I don't know what has got into that crew but they were smokin'!! Time after time in that huge work Mahler hangs the players out to dry making them negotiate fiendishly difficult passages in a most exposed way so there is nowhere for them to hide. Every clam is going to sound with the resonance of a metal triangle being dropped on a concrete floor. This performance was amazing. I left the hall drained but exhilarated.

An interesting article here on Tan Dun. I have difficulty in taking this guy seriously as anything other than one who can write a slick film-score on demand. He takes himself a good deal too seriously for my liking. And his references to Alexander Goehr as "our beloved professor" smack of false modesty. As I recall everyone at Cambridge called Goehr “Sandy.” I had to chuckle when I read what Tan said :"I remember Professor Goehr telling us to avoid ethnic content, to be neutral and independent" and then adding "If you want to be a Chinese avant-garde artist, the safest way is to stick to your grandmother’s tone. The most dangerous way is to follow Western music from the Romantics to 12-tone. This period is poison. I could only use the techniques as a recipe for my fusion cooking" and then read what Goehr said when asked about it: “Actually,” he said, “what I warned them against was to do a Chinese version of Western music. Unfortunately my warning had little effect. They have become Western composers with a few temple bells.” Ouch! Game, set and match to beloved professor Goehr I think.

Pat Kight, a friend of mine from Albany is currently appearing in a production by Willamette Stage Company of David Lindsay Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole in Corvallis. The production has been well received and she tells me that by popular demand the run has been extended until 17th May. I don't know this theater company but I do know what a consummate professional Pat is and how she wouldn't have involved herself with this unless it were going to be a most worthwhile venture. So if you live down that way you should consider going to see this play. Yeah, I know that has nothing to do with opera but Pat is a big supporter of this blog. So sue me.

Riccardo Muti has been appointed obergruppenführer of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra about which the Board of Directors and the musicians claim to be delighted. My spies tell me that when he was at La Scala, Milan, he was a difficult maestro to work with/for. Let's see how the CSO feels about him after he's been in the job a year or two. Bob Shingleton the author of the blog On an Overgrown Path tells a lovely story of working with Muti in the early 1980's. He says "I remember desperately trying to find a cab for Muti in the rather tough street outside the Met Church in tropical heat at the end of one session. Muti appreciated my efforts by saying – “if this had been a Deutsche Grammophon session they would have arranged a limo.” Plus ça change...."

Yet another string player has left his nearly-priceless instrument on some public transport vehicle. This one got it back. I cannot consider this topic without noting that the violinist in this case was so relieved to have his instrument returned he gave the driver a reward of a hundred bucks. An honest cabbie finds your $4 million 18th century fiddle in his cab and instead of hocking it on the Strad black market (Oh, indeed there is one) he makes sure that you are re-united with the tool of your trade asap and you give him a hundred bucks? That's barely walkin'-around money in New York these days! Oh, and he played for the cabbie at the rank at Newark Airport. Yeah, that's gonna feed the kids. I have but one question: What is the matter with these people? You're toting round an instrument worth about the same as the GDP of a small African country and when you get out of a taxi you're too busy picking your nose or whatever to remember you have it with you? Okay, that's two questions. Refer to previous invitation to seek legal redress.

Notwithstanding a very busy week which included rehearsals for Aida, the Annual dinner for Camerata members and a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Portland Opera, the General Director of the Opera, Christopher Mattaliano, took the time to sit down with Operaman and discuss some issues of vital interest to the continuing health of opera and the security of our country. Okay, I lied about homeland security. Who doesn't? But we did talk opera. When I say he sat down “with” me I use the word in its chronological rather than geographical sense. I was at home with a sheaf of notes and a beer and Mr. M was at a car wash somewhere. We had an interesting chat.

Operaman: let's start with the easy stuff, Chris. Encores - yes or no?
C.M. I think it's something you decide on a case-by-case basis. If a singer has just nailed a particularly wonderful aria and the audience wants to hear him or her sing it again and if the singer is prepared to do it and the conductor is okay with it, why not? There's a very long tradition of encores in opera. I know some houses have a no-encore policy but I don't have such a policy here in Portland. It seems to me it is a part of what can make a night at the opera a very special experience.
Operaman: Juan Diego Flórez got lots of ink last week for taking a bis of “Ah! Mes amis” at the Met. Apparently Peter Gelb contacted him weeks before the performance to arrange how they would deal with an encore and finally it was decided that there would be a telephonic hot line from Gelb's box and a red light on the conductor's podium to give him the go-ahead. Are you okay with that?

I have just learned that last night (Tuesday) Juan Diego Flórez reprised 'Ah! Mes amis' his Act I aria from La Fille du Regiment currently in production at the Met. My informant tells me that his ovation was significantly more enthusiastic than that which greeted his performance of said cabaletta on Saturday. So. That's two bis in three performances - or, as patrons in two other well-known New York venues are won't to say, he's batting .667

Last Friday evening had an early dinner date at Jake’s Grill with Alexis Hamilton, Portland Opera’s Manager of Education and Outreach. She had invited me to attend the Destination Opera discussion at the Art Museum that evening and I thought it might be helpful to me if we could have a chat over a glass of Jake’s finest so that I could get an overview of what the panel and audience would be chatting about. I am so gald we did because, as you will probably have gathered by now, I am not possessed of a well-developed academic mind. My approach is usually more along the lines of “How can I know what I think until I hear what I say?” The delightful combination of sancerre and Alexis primed me perfectly and by the appointed hour I had gathered my wits into something resembling order and was ready to play with the grown-ups.

The discussion was about Exoticism and Orientalism in art. The panel comprised Bob Kingston who knows a thing or two about opera (his talks at the Keller before performances are always informative and insightful) together with an art historian and a dance historian. Alexis was the referee moderator. It was a lively and fun discussion and I plan to make a point of attending more of these. You should too. They are free and make for a very pleasant evening. Thanks Alexis!

No bis of “Ah! Mes amis” from Juan Diego Flórez at the Met. More on that later.

If you attended Saturday's Met simulcast of Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment and you didn't have a thoroughly fun time then I really think you should look for some other art form to enjoy because opera absolutely does not get any more fun than that. It's a silly opera and rather like some Shakespeare comedies it can suffer from not actually being very funny. Except yesterday. It was funny. Very, very funny. Natalie Dessay is a natural comedienne in the mould of Lucille Ball. She seems to have a natural flair for physical comedy and for comedic timing - something which cannot be taught. Whether she was ironing the soldiers’ shirts or marching or being carried aloft she was a downright hoot. As had been reported from Monday's opening night there was definite chemistry between her and JDF which came across most convincingly.

As my daughter Gracie has progressed through her teen years I have tried very hard not to overload her with parental advice on the basis that if I were to give her too much of it she would ignore or forget it. So I have restricted myself to three things which I have tried to drill into her head in the hope they will stick:

Oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen, he does.

On Friday evening I was invited St Mary's Cathedral to listen to the Choral Arts Ensemble, joined by the University of Portland Singers, a professional orchestra and some wailin' soloists, perform the Choral Fantasia and the Missa Solemnis by Ludwig van Beethoven. I first became aware of this performance when a few weeks ago Megan Elliott kindly left a comment on a previous blog entry of mine and then a few days ago I saw it advertised and, as I am currently on a Beethoven jag and still thinking about next season’s Fidelio and turning over in my mind just what I do think about Mr. van B and his vocal works, it seemed appropriate I should go hear the Mass which Beethoven himself declared to be his masterpiece. One does not often have an opportunity to hear this work performed. Why? Because it's damned difficult, that's why! Most amateur choirs can't sing it. This choir could sing it. Had to go, really.

Months ago when I became aware that Sweeney Todd would be coming to Portland as a part of the Fred Meyer Broadway Across America/Portland series I promised Elizabeth that somehow or other I would try to secure seats for us. How could I not?  She is such a Sondheim fan and knows this particular show with a degree of detail that is almost scary. Over the years, she has sung almost all of the score to me, played me the soundtrack from the Broadway production with Angela Lansbury and come with me to the recent movie version with Johnny Depp (I loved it!). And while by and large I am not really a Broadway fan I have high regard for Sondheim and know that this piece has made an appearance in the repertory of some top-notch opera companies - including our own. So when a good friend made me the beneficiary of four excellent seats I extended an invitation to Elizabeth and Holly and to Evan, a friend of ours. Sunday would be a big day.

The tension. The edge-of-the-seat nervousness and damp palms wrought by nail-biting anxiety. The guilty thrill one experiences when watching someone else's doom. Forgive me if I digress; I refer of course to The Masters which over the last four days has been unfolding on the almost too-perfect back-drop of Augusta National Golf Course. When that was over, having been won by a nice South African chap (as soon as I used that adjective you knew it wasn't Rory Sabbatini, right?) I sunk a swift Rogue Ale and met my guests at the Keller for the evening show - and the last performance of the current run here in Portland.

Let me get this off my chest right away. Fidelio is one strange opera. Until this last week I didn't know the work at all. Okay, I have many times heard the overture - known as Leonora Number 3 - which is played at all-Beethoven concerts. I have always liked it. And yet. Perhaps it's just me but when the composer has to have three cracks at the overture does it not make one wonder whether he really had a handle on the piece. I mean, if you went to a fine restaurant and the chef had to have three goes at the appetizer before it could be served wouldn't you be a tad concerned about how the main course was going to turn out? Anyway, other than the overture, I knew - nada. That of itself might not have put me off too much but then there's the fact that Beethoven didn't write any other operas. There are two ways of looking at this. One way is "He poured his entire operatic genius into this one work. Other operas would have been superfluous." The other is "Just one, huh? Not his thing , I guess. Did great piano sonatas though, didn't he?" I was inclined to the latter view so it's not like I have been sitting around and pining and waiting for someone to produce Fidelio.

And I am an unre-constructed opera fan. So when I invited Holly and Elizabeth to join me for a concert performance of this very opera I expected a chorus of "Thanks very much but we're washing our hair (doing our nails/castrating the cat) that evening". But no. Elizabeth surprised me with a very enthusiastic "I'd love to!" Umm. Okay then.

Perhaps even old-fashioned to the point of being conservative, traditional and fond of the literal and over-grand. These are all adjectives which have been leveled at Franco Zeffirelli, and I am proud to associate myself with them and by extension with him. So imagine my delight at yesterday's Met simulcast of the Zeffirelli production of La Boheme. After the minimalist-static marathon Cornish Opera a couple of weeks ago, it was such a joy to see a stage showing a scene which looked as though it had been lifted lock, stock and barrel from some arrondissement in Paris - and they'd managed to do it while leaving all the people in place. Dang but that's clever! It is really no wonder that this production has been performed at the Met more than any production of any other opera in the company's entire history. Something like 350 performances. I think they got their money's worth out of this one. I know that for some opera-goers it is over the top, but how gloriously over the top! Just when you thought the stage was as crowded as it could be with perhaps a hundred and fifty people doing their thing in and around Café Momus, Zeffirelli's stage directions could be boiled down to "Okay. Now we need a military band. No,no - not just a soldier or two with a trumpet...the band. And an entire platoon of soldiers should come down the steps. And a guy on stilts should lead in a group of kids. And a toy seller with his wares. Hmmm...what's missing? AHA! A horse and cart...We definitely need a horse and cart - bring 'em on stage left!" I wanted to stand and cheer and yell "Yes! This is how I want to see La Boheme! Mille grazie Signor Zeffirelli!!"