To all those who care to read these impressions I owe an apology. Although I saw Rigoletto on October 2, 2011, demands of my own quotidian delayed the final touches on Rigoletto. Then, as I thought it was ready for upload, I had an encounter in the elevator with one of my neighbours whom I, from time to time, see at the opera. The following dialogue ensued.

OT: “Did you see Rigoletto?”

Neighbour: “Yes. A disaster.”

OT: “Oh, I actually liked it. What was that you did not like?”

Neighbour: “I mean the singing was good, but the staging…it was awful.

OT: “Hmh, actually, I found the staging most interesting. I was delighted.

Neighbour: “ Well, how many Rigolettos did you see?”

Before I got to count my former Rigolettos, which I reckon amount to probably two, one, or none, (I do not count audio recordings, fragments and arias)  the neighbour exited the elevator.

This Rigoletto is one of the most successful productions I have ever seen at the COC. It was originally staged for Chicago Lyric Opera in 2000.

Sometimes when I see a memorable production of an opera, the associative part of my brain starts shooting out random proverbial one-liners accumulated in my memory over, I do not want to say how many, decades of my current incarnation. 

When I left the opera house after Rigoletto, I jotted down three apparently disparate statements that came to mind. Here we go:  “When frog saw that horses get shoes she lift her foot too”, “Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi” and the third, one more contemporary and slightly more complex was, if I recall well, one of Marx’s thesis on Feuerbach. The sixth, I think. Translated from my mother tongue, as I recall, the lecture some four decades ago goes like this: “It is not the consciousness that determines the social being of the individuals, but rather, it is their social being that determines their consciousness. Perhaps in light of this association it is interesting to examine this Rigoletto.

The opening scene resembles a club lounge, one dimly lit and furnished in the style of P.G. Wodehouse’s famous Drones Club. Gathered are members of the nobility preoccupied with finding new forms of entertainment. Rigoletto is a jester, a private comedian whose livelihood is all about amusing an audience not always prepared for taking in a gentlemanly way a rough joke. So it happens that in ridiculing a nobleman inferior in rank to his boss, Rigoletto went too far for the taste of the receiving end. Rigoletto is cursed. An elaborate and cunning revenge was set in motion. The insulted marquis plotted to lure Rigoletto’s daughter into a love affair under the false pretense that he is a poor student. Rigoletto in a way expected that his daughter might be at risk and provided his maid with strict instructions to spare his daughter from the wrathful man. Rigoletto is outsmarted by the sophistication of a nobleman’s con game and by his gross oversight of what a small bribe could achieve with a low servant.

On the scale of consciousness we have a duke, his guests, Rigoletto, Rigoletto’s servant maid and Rigoletto’s daughter. In this “vanity fair”, the master of the revels  is of course the duke. As the social status goes down the ability to see through the thick screen of appearances diminishes proportionally. Rigoletto is in the middle of this spectrum as someone who, by seeing it all from the inside, should know better. In his social being Rigoletto is in like proportion a master and a servant, but does not quite belong to either end of the spectrum. Yet, he cannot assess either of his social roles. He is also stigmatized by physical deformity. In terms of the political correctness of his time he is not quite a valid human being. As master of his maid and a father he can only simulate superiority. He cannot overcome the fact that he is a servant, no matter how close a view he has of the lives of his masters. It is from the perspective of his social being that his narrow consciousness sets him on the devastating path in which a murder is seen as a just solution. The part of him which identifies with a master takes the charge and he arranges a hitman for a revenge killing. But all is in vain for a man who has lost his path in life and is selling his own soul for a livelihood. Everyone is corrupt, even the assassin. So instead of the duke he kills the first random person to come along , who just happens to be Rigoletto’s daughter. Rigoletto, carried away in savouring his revenge, wants to be the one who will dispose of the body of the duke. But when he hears the voice of the duke from a distance, he opens the sack he is carrying and in horror sees his dying daughter.

The consciousness determined by the social being came across as a strong flavour, brought to life in a masterful staging of this libretto. Humiliation of the outcast, cannot be dissolved if love and compassion are in short supply. With a lack of love and compassion one cannot overcome the limitations imposed by one’s social being without resorting to violence. And violence does not lead anywhere but to more violence. The singing and orchestra rendered smoothly. This is a production worth of visual recording and should be a mandatory field trip for those who aspire to advanced studies of public relations and management of human resources.

And now, dear readers, allow me to finish with another apology, this time to the wonderful team who performed Rigoletto this season at the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto.

And the credits go to:  David Lomeli (The Duke of Mantua), John Kriter (Borsa), Mireille Asselin (Cauntess Ceprano), Quinn Kelsey (Rigoletto), Adrian Kramer (Marullo), Alain Coulombe (Count Ceprano), Robert Pomakov (Count Monterone), Philip Ens (Sparafucile), Ekaterina Sadovnikova (Gilda), Megan Latham (Giovanna), Jacqueline Woodley (a page), Neil Craighead (an usher), Kendal Gladen (Maddalena), Conductor: Johanes Debus, Director: Christopher Alden, Set and Costume Designer: Michele Levine, Lighting designer: Duane Schuler.   

Susan Graham as Iphigenie

At the time Christoph Willibald Gluck composed Iphigenie en Tauride, France was a kingdom, and American slaves were granted the right to be enlisted in the civil war known as the American Revolution.

While political régimes and human rights evolved, Gluck’s opera has survived almost 350 years and is still a celebration for the ears, especially when the singers are such stars as Susan Graham and Joseph Kaiser. Mark Doss was a good choice for the role of Thoas, king of Scythia. Mr. Doss cleverly avoided the temptation to please and delivered the required crudeness and repulsiveness of the character at the risk of being initially disliked. I almost fell into this trap.  I would like to hear him in another role to have a complete impression.

Ever since I saw heard Joseph Kaiser as Lenski in Salzburg’s production of Eugene Onegin I have looked forward to enjoying his emotionally focused and enchanting voice. It was a pleasure and privilege to hear him live.

It would be unfair not to mention the minor roles of Jacqueline Woodley, Mireille Asselin, Philippe Sly, Robert Pomakov, Ambur Braid and Loren Segal, who contributed to the success of this performance.  

Although I may be perceived as an advocate for minimalistic regie-oriented staging, this time I beg to differ. When Thoas, king of Scythia, learned the prophecy that he would die from the hand of a stranger, he instituted a policy that every stranger venturing into his land be killed. (some are still desirous of such immigration policy)  He entrusted the task of killing to the gentle maiden Iphigenie, banished to his land by Diana, the goddess of hunting, who saved her from being sacrificially killed by her father. Such a terrible fate demands a shocking visual depiction. Tobias Hoheisel, the set and costume designer, opted for overly subdued, if not cliché, solutions of a plain, dark colour and a somber, void stage. Lighting designers Robert Carsen and Peter Van Praet heavily relied on the shadows. The combination of stage design, costumes and lighting removed the edge of the horrible and unseemly from the fate of Iphigenie and clipped out the potential for the dramatic visual impact warranted by this plot. On the other hand it may be a good choice of opera to seize the opportunity to introduce in safe doses such minimalism to a regie-untamed opera audience.       

The best and dramatically most convincing part was a noble struggle between Oreste (Russell Braun)and Pilades (Joseph Kaiser) , each offering his life to save the life of the other. A special mention goes to Russel Braun who, in spite of being indisposed by cold managed to sing as if there was no problem. The same thing happened to Susan Graham and Placido Domingo during this winter live broadcast from the MET. It was during the conversation with Natalie Dessay that we realized that it was really a case of bad cold for each of them. Yet, I don’t know how, they sign as if there is no stuffed nose and aching throat. Remarkable. Singers are fully entitled to cancel the performance and should never hesitate to do so. We ordinary mortals should remind ourselves how often we call a sick day under far less strenuous expectations. Still I tip my hat to those who are brave and ready to risk.

A surprise came from the orchestra under the conductor Pablo Heras-Casado. For the dramatic libretto Mr. Heras-Casado derived a sound more akin to a military march, on occasion jovial and cheerful, but not always in sync with the singing from the stage. The chorus master Sandra Horst, and the choreographer by Philippe Giraudeau compensated a great deal for the discrepancies between the pit and the stage. The lighting came across as underutilized. The reduction of props depleted the potential for creating more dynamics on the stage.

The best visual effect of the stage was the final one, which continued during the curtain bows. The surreal, white, void space surrounding the platform of the slanted stage looked stunning, out-of-this-world. Some singers did not have the best night or enough time to warm up, but the Toronto audience was gracious and greeted all with a generous applause.

Ana Sokolović

Ana Sokolović is an artist who ought to be specially introduced. Why? It is because she is our contemporary and a world recognized-composer. The second reason is that I personally believe that, apart from gossip and individual and collective tragedies, the media may contribute to the endangered sanity of the world by praising and promoting creativity happening here and now. For Canada Ana Sokolović is a case in point.

It has already been ten years that the exceptional talent of Ana  as a composer of contemporary music has been recognized. “Opera News” commented on the first staging of her first opera “Midnight Court”: “The production was dazzling, its verbal, visual and musical wit unfailingly exuberant and its stunning cast fully in command of the vocal pyrotechnics Sokolović demands.” In voices of similar exuberance wrote the “London Times”, “Globe and Mail” and “National Post”.

The history of music has no shortage of examples where the creative brilliance of great composers had not been recognized by their contemporaries, to the embarrassment of the fiefdoms, kingdoms, empires or communities, which allowed that Mozart ended in a collective grave for the homeless or get evicted by landlords as happened to Wagner. Every nation may find in its closet of shame a desolate Van Gogh, an imprisoned Solzhenitsyn, or Giordano Bruno burning at the stake.

It is a manifestation of divine grace when an artist is recognized during his life and that the creative impulse is met with deserving praise and joy at the receiving end. Ana Sokolović is looked after by her lucky star. We wish that it remain so.

After the Toronto première of her third opera “Svadba-Wedding” I was introduced to Ana Sokolović. She met me two days later, an hour before conducting the second performance of her opera. We went to sit and talk on a park bench near a busy corner half a block away from the theatre. At first glance Ana looks like a sophomore student who just completed her exams and is getting ready for an overseas trip to exotic lands. She is petite and slim. Her dark eyes are curious, focused and intelligent. Her short dark hair requires no elaborate styling. She has the unassuming spontaneity of youth. It is also unlikely that you would recognize in her  reputable university lecturer and a mother of two children. Her irresistible, forthcoming simplicity is a manifestation of joy that only a person who receives the recognition of the public and of critique while freely expressing her creative spirit may have.

Ana was born in Belgrade 1968. She studied composition in Belgrade and Novi Sad. Professors who influenced her in that period were Dušan Radić and Zoran Erić. After that came a period of graduate studies in Montreal, where she studied in the class of professor José Evangelista. Between 1995-1998, as a young composer Ana was three times recipient of the SOCAN award. In 1996 and 2009, Ana represented Canada at UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. As a recognition for exceptional creative achievements as a composer the Canada Council for the Arts in 2005 awarded her the Joseph S. Stauffer Award. That same year Ana composed her first opera “Midnight Court”, which less than a year later was successfully performed at a podium of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. In 2007 Ana was named as the Composer of the Year, an award given annually by the Music Council of Quebec.

In a unanimous decision of  the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Ana  is the artist of the year 2011-2012 in the homage series– a nomination venerable for any artist after a mere decade and a half upon her graduation. The homage also includes province-wide performances of her works. At the time of our conversation there were already 75 performances scheduled. A book for schoolchildren will be published about Ana, which will include her biography in cartoon format,  a CD, and a DVD with her music. This summer Ana is a composer-in-residence giving a master class during the summer school of music in Orford. 

On June 24, 2011, Ana’s second opera “Svadba-Wedding” had its première in Toronto. Written and sung in the Serbian language with surtitles in English, “Svadba-Wedding” explores the theme of the girls’ night out before the wedding. It is the night before the wedding of Milica, the bride, and she is with her friends Lena, Danica, Nada, Zora and Ljubica. It is a story without narration. It is direct musical experience. It is the vibration of the human voice combined with emotion that produces an associative effect, creating the connection between the audience and the stage. There is no story-telling or description of anything. The exchange between the singers and the audience takes place on a deeper level, at the level which transcends the barriers of linguistic communication. Those in the audience who are not fluent in the Serbian language were not prejudiced in the wealth of impression.  

OT: When in your life did you realize that music was your vocation, and composing in particular and not playing an instrument or singing?

AS: I started to be involved with music when I was rather young. But before my parents enrolled me in a music school, I had been attending classical ballet school until the age of 7-8. That was my first contact with the stage. My elder sister started piano lessons. As a younger child I was naturally impressed by my sister and wanted to do everything she did, and so I had to play piano too. When I was seven I started music school, and with  elementary school it became my regular schedule and my life. I believe that it is important to discover things that you like early in life. As I started music school it soon turned out that I was lacking the discipline for regular practice. It was a sign that I was not cut out for the career of musician-performer. My lack of discipline and desire to practise was obvious to everyone and I was criticized for that. But my teacher Davorka Šperac-Polojac, who still teaches in Serbia, did not state the obvious. I used to come to music school before the class began, and Ms. Šperac-Polojac would give me a key to the classroom to go there and warm up for the class. I found it boring to use that time to practice performing the piece by repeating it. Instead, I would change something each time I played it. I would change the tempo or tonality, or add some wrinkles that would occur to me at the spur of the moment. Instead of criticizing me like everyone else, my teacher encouraged me with the words that it may be I am cut out for the most creative career in music – composing.

At that time I was already composing without quite being aware of the process. I would sit at the piano and start playing. That way I created a hymn for the school, a hymn for my class. These were simple harmonies and I was not writing notes or anything. It would just come out. It was rather early in my musical education that I discovered a bent towards modern composers, usually disliked among very young students of music.

The second important influence at the outset of my encounter with art and the creative process started when I was in Grade 3 of elementary school, when my father enrolled me in drama classes held at the City of Belgrade community program for elementary schoolchildren (Dom Pionira). I was privileged to be the student of an exceptional pedagogue Ms. Zora Bokšan, who was probably the most remarkable drama teacher for young students. She was not making “actors” of us. Through drama practice she was teaching us to learn how to express ourselves in an eloquent way. With various exercises of spoken words, movements, improvisations, and mime she inspired our imaginations. She did not impose anything or proclaim any rules how it is supposed to be done. She was ushering us into our own creative expression by maintaining an open and receptive attitude. She was a great inspirational force, and my love for the theatre and the sense of structure were established in that period. I was her student until the beginning of high school, and continued to work with Ms. Zora Bokšan as her assistant, helping her with the mise-en-scenè, and composing music for her classes. In essence, that period was an introduction to the creative process in general, which I believe can be applied to any creative field.

When I came to university to study composition, the teachers to whom I was indebted were Mr. Dušan Radić and Mr. Zoran Erić, and I want to mention them as the teachers who made a lasting impact on my formation as a composer. From the influences that I felt relevant for my development I would  mention Igor Stravinsky, especially his sense of rhythm and the way he was influenced by traditional Slavic folk music. The music of György Ligeti was another important impression. Ligeti was a Hungarian Jew who lived in Germany. The music of Ligeti reached its broadest audience through the films of Stanley Kubrick such as  “The Shining”, “Odyssey 2001” and his last film “Eyes Wide Shut”.  

At the time the trumpets of the civil war in, what we now call, the Former Yugoslavia were playing high C, Ana became a student in Montreal in a graduate program at the University of Montreal. She was in the class of José Evangelista, a teacher of Spanish descent. Ana remembers one of the first conversations with her professor upon admission to the program:

AS:When the professor asked me what I would like to do. I was surprised. Contrary to the mandatory program method where everything is structured into lectures, assignments and exams, with precisely defined requirements, it was an approach which directed the student to turn to himself. It was reminiscent of the method I encountered in my drama school. I wanted to write music for ballet. At the concerts within the graduate program I was receiving compliments for my pieces, in which my colleagues recognized  “Slavic soul”. I did not have any particular intention to express my “Slavic soul” so I wondered what it was that they heard in my music. Where was my Slavic soul in the music I made? I started to explore and research my cultural ethnic heritage. Elements of Serbian life are definitely part of my artistic atelier but in that atelier there are other influences as well, from other places and other sources.

OT: The opera “Svadba-Wedding” is your third opera. Before that you wrote “Midnight Court”, which was also premiered in Toronto. Are you writing more often music for voices or instruments? Do you have a special affinity towards a particular form?

AS: I like diversity. So far I have composed for solo voice, for two instruments, for trio, whole orchestra, string quartet, etc. It is in diversity of form that I find challenge. I like, when I finish something, to start something completely different. I also like to look for a humorous note within the assignment. I am interested in exploring archetypal images and characters, discovering that which is universal in human experience and emotion.

OT: What is your first opera “Midnight Court” about?

AS: It is a musical satire with erotic elements inspired by a Brian Merriman poem. It is a story of the year 1780, but it sounds as if it were written yesterday. Archetypes of human characters are eternal. The action takes place in a period of many hardships in Ireland. War, famine and emigration decimated the population of Ireland. A young bachelor, a school-teacher in his thirties, is traveling through a forest. He sits down to have lunch and falls asleep. In his dream he is accused of a crime of being a bachelor. As the prosecutor’s witnesses appear various women: young, old, rich, poor, beautiful and ugly. When the verdict finds him guilty as charged and condemned to flogging, he wakes up. The originality and force of  Ana’s first operatic piece delighted audience and critics alike.

Irish fairies can be malign spirits, but they’ve done nothing but good for Queen of Puddings Music Theatre. This small Toronto company launched its only production of the season at Harbourfront Centre on Saturday, and a scant hour later had scored its biggest artistic success ever. The Globe and Mail

The direction was pacy, and there was much high-quality singing and playing under the direction of Dáirine Ní Mheadhra …The sounds themselves … are constantly being deconstructed and recomposed by the other performers. This is a technique that harks back at least as far as Stockhausen in the Sixties, and it is often used today in the esoteric branch of composition known as ‘spectral music’. But I have rarely heard it applied so entertainingly and resourcefully in a stage work. The London Times

OT: “Svadba-Wedding” is the fourth joint project with the Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, and your third  opera. How did it come about that you decided to compose your second and third opera?

AS: After the opera Midnight Court came the next opera project with the Queen of Puddings Music Theatre. The Love Songs is a mono opera, written for one female voice. It was first performed at the Canadian Opera Company in March 2008, after which time it toured nationally and internationally. Among other places it was performed  at the small stage of the Lisinski concert hall during 25 Music Biennale in Zagreb. It is about love in different stages and ages of life. It includes poetry of Michael Hartnett, Paul Éluard, Émile Nelligan, Vasko Popa, Miroslav Antic, Laza Kostic, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shakespeare, Catullus, Walt Whitman and Amarusataka, and the words of love are expressed in hundred languages. The idea for the third opera Svadba-Wedding  came out when I accepted the offer to compose a piece for six female voices, I wanted to combine something that is universal and joyful. That is how the idea for girls’ night out before the wedding arose. The influence of my ethnic heritage, my “Slavic soul”, was not limited to the influence of folk music. That influence is drawn from many sources: embroidery, tapestry, the sounds of the Serbian language, and also characters of certain mythic or historical personalities. The Serbian lyric mediæval poetry is extraordinary. There is little direct reference to love, it is hinted at in a subdued way. The characters of mythic or historical characters are inspiration in itself. For example, Little Radojica, although tortured in a Turkish dungeon, sighs when he sees the girl Hajkuna dancing. My native language has a strong rhythmical quality. The sounds of the spoken consonants in Serbian language “p”, “v”, “f”, “r”, if you pronounce them at a different pace it almost amounts to singing. The idea of “Svadba-Wedding” draws inspiration from an ancient right of passage and separation. Milica is any bride in any time/place. It is a departure from one part of life and initiation into something new and unknown. There is joy and excitement but also certain sadness and hesitancy. It is a wealth of emotions densely packed in one moment, emotions that are universal.

OT: When you compose, for example when you were composing this opera, do you see the piece as a final product on the stage?

AS: I must have a complete picture. It is not the one and only possible picture and it is not quite finished, but the creative process demands a certain relationship towards the whole for it to make sense on the stage. Michael Cavanagh, who directed “Svadba-Wedding”, told me that he noticed remarkable synchronicity between the music material and staging. But Michael did not have the same vision as I did in relation to costume and light. His take on this is quite legitimate and I believe that there are many ways how this opera could be staged. I deliberately did not want to influence his vision, so when I arrived at the dress rehearsal is I was pleased that he recognized the emotion and drew into the forefront its universality, but he did it in his own way. Of course we discussed certain solutions related to the transition from one scene to another.

OT: What are you doing now?

AS: I am working on a piece for string quartet inspired by Comeddia del Arte characters which includes one male dancer. I love to write for ballet. It was my first encounter with the stage and it is ballet which often draws me to compose pieces for the stage. I consider myself very fortunate that I do not have to look for the production teams who will consider my music. I am commissioned to write more than I can accomplish and for an artist there is no greater fortune. I also like to work within a given framework, It gives me a necessary guiding structure. If I were asked to write something undefined it would be very difficult for me to start.

This summer I will be a guest composer at the music academy in Orford, Quebec during the summer festival. I will give a master class of the summer school and we will perform four concerts. This year is the 60^th anniversary of Orford and I composed a hymn which will be played before every concert. It is written for the piano, for the string orchestra, string quartet, symphony orchestra,  and for seven violas da Gamba.

OT: How does it feel to be in the middle of all this?

 AS: I am so happy and busy that I do not even think about it. Sometimes when I read something written about me, for a moment I think–how wonderful, and I am almost surprised— is it really me!?

Modern-day tycoons tend to indulge in imitating their distant historical predecessors in power and wealth. From time to time the tabloids and society pages of today write about a party where a world-class celebrity musician has been entertaining his guests. The Esterházys were tycoons of a different time when private jets, yachts etc. were not yet invented grease for the human vanity. The Esterházys had a private theatre built and Haydn was a resident composer in the middle of nowhere, having peace, quiet and liberty to do whatever he wanted.

This charming and lovable production was staged at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden in May 2009 to mark the 200^th anniversary of Joseph Haydn’s death.

The booklet that comes with the DVD Orlando Paladino, says that the court Music Master Joseph Haydn was to contribute to the grandeur of Prince Esterházy with an opera performance for the anticipated visit by a Russian royal couple. The occasion warranted high order since it was a visit by a Russian Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich (later the tsar of Russia) and his wife the Princess of Württemberg, Maria Fjodorovna.

The plot of Orlando Paladino was based on the famous mediæval heroic comedy Orlando Furioso, one of the lengthiest epics written. Lodovico Ariosto wrote the poem based on Orlando Innamorato, written by Matteo Maria Boiardo early in the 16^th century.  The librettist Nunziato Porta put together a story inspired by both poetic pieces, which takes place with the backdrop of the struggle between Charlemagne and Saracens. The opera was premiered at the end of the 18^th century. At the centre of the Orlando Paladino plot is mad knight Orlando’s raging pursuit after Angelica, the queen of Cathay (the traditional name for China) and her beloved Saracen Medoro. To the aid of the lovers comes Rodomonte, another Saracen. With her magic spells a sorceress Alcina makes Orlando chalk the whole thing up and forget about it, while the lovers live happily ever after. In the presentday friction between European Muslim peregrines and Christian citizens this opera may regain its freshness and currency from a completely different angle, and with a Chinese monarch arriving in the fray…the mind boggles. But this production is directed towards jovial and entertaining.

The stage direction and choreography was a result of a smashing collaboration between Nigel Lowry and Amir Hoseinpour drawing out juices of parody, sarcasm, and plain entertainment from this heroic-comedy. It has been almost two decades since Amir Hoseinpour and Nigel Lowry teamed up their creative resources. In this tale of mock chivalry, bathos, and elements of Buster Keaton gags, the characters transcend the historical context. They display universal human traits in a charming and amusing way.  

In the role of the shepardess Eurilla, costumed in a uniform resembling a security guard or a customs officer, appears the  brilliant Korean soprano Sunhae Im, who is almost constantly on the stage firmly grounded in her role bringing up humorous flavours with superb acting and singing. Italian baritone Pietro Spagnoli appears as Rodomonte, the king of Barbaria. Rodomonte, a braggart who comes to protect the lovers, is perhaps the best defined character. Special praise to the costume designer who equipped Rodomonte with a red military overcoat, a pirate red headscarf and the inevitable eye patch, holding a crutch in one arm and waving a sabre in the other. He pulls readily available press clippings from his pocket and a pair of reading glasses to document his many victories. To save the memorable moment he pulls out a digital camera so that Eurilla may take a picture of his heroic pose. Rodomonte could blend in nicely with the troupe of the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Pietro Spagnoli as Rodomante and Sunhae Im as Eurilla

The  Norwegian tenor Magnus Staveland, only a year after his graduation from the Royal Opera Academy in Copenhagen, appeared as Medoro. In spite of his youth Mr. Staveland delivered his role with a confident but gentle lyrical touch.

Orlando’s character was shaped up with a literal approach to his fury and madness. The internet biography of the British tenor Tom Randle shows a very dynamic schedule and his repertoire covers a wide range from baroque to contemporary music. The transformation his Orlando undergoes from a madman to an oblivious, self-content military officer is truly remarkable and proves Mr. Randle to be a great stage persona.

A German coloratura soprano Marlis Petersen delivers her Angelica as a blond, delicate, vulnerable woman in a little black dress in need of a cavalier. Her voice combines a powerful  with emotional depth. Ms. Petersen was a winner of six piano competitions before she went to study music, flute, singing and acting. In 2010 she accepted the challenge to assume the role of Ophelia (Natalie Dessay cancelled due to illness) and appeared with great success on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera New York.  This unexpected engagement came at the end of her demanding schedule in Vienna, where she appeared in the role of Medea. As she was preparing to take a vacation, the offer from New York came. In the matter of a few days Ms. Petersen managed to learn the role from scratch and appear at Metropolitan Opera New York pleasing the reviewers and audience.

 The Bulgarian soprano Alexandrina Pendantchanska who appears in the role of Alcina started her singing career at the age of 17 in the role of Violeta in La Traviata. Her voice has  an electrifying piercing, dark hue, especially in the upper register. Her low notes tend to lose edge and acquire a trembling rolling quality with a taste of bitter wrath, as if coming from the depth of uncharted territories of great suffering, from which she effortlessly soars to the heights of commanding presence. Ms. Pendantchanska’s natural regal beauty was an asset in her role of Alcina, presented as a simple but powerful magician.

 Argentinian-born baritone, Victor Torres, appears as Pasquale, Orlando’s valet, a coward and braggart on a lesser scale than Rodomonte. Mr. Torres took advantage of his bulky physique for this role.

 The Finnish baritone Arttu Kataya appeared in two roles as the shepherd Licone and ferryman to the underworld.

 In addition to the main characters the creative team introduced a group of silent characters appearing individually or as a disparate group, including a bishop, a butcher, a stewardess with a beard, a ballerina with mustache, and a  toreador, playing out in the second plane the unconscious emotional baggage of the main characters.

The Freiburger Barockorchester under the conductor René Jacobs played this score with solemn splendour appropriate for baroque music. 

Eugene Onegin Staatsoper Vienna, June 2011

Staatsoper Vienna, 13 June 2011.

During 10 days of the first half of June, Eugene Onegin was performed 4 times at the Staatsoper in Vienna. I attended the last performance. Another blogger by the name of Zerbinetta also reviewed this opera, and her review can be found here. It was curious to see another production of Eugene Onegin with Peter Mattei in the title role. The one performed at the Salzburg Festspiele 2007, was reviewed earlier on this blog here. There is similarity between the two productions in choosing the time period and similar mise-en-scene.

While the Salzburg 2007 production abounds with sarcastic references to the crudeness of the soviet bureaucracy, Staatsoper Vienna’s production does not develop towards this edge and brings the focus back into the emotional field where it naturally belongs.

The opening scene introduces a stage divided into two planes. Closer to the audience is the one where the story unfolds. In the background, where an imaginary world of nostalgia is set, it is snowing. Couples in slow motion dancing or standing still, wrapped in each others arms, are the characters of this imaginary world. This parallel duality underlies the emotional context where reality and daydreaming are intertwined. The background plane is replaced by an asymmetrical vertical array of cold neon tubes in the ball scene, where Monsieur Triquet appears as a pop singer past his prime, dressed in a flashy Las Vegas-entertainment-style suit with dark glasses and bright silver shoes. Although this description fits some legendary names of the pop culture, any individual similarity is carefully avoided towards the creation of a generic image.

The mise-en-scène throughout is reduced to the bare minimum. In contrast to the elaborate set in the Salzburg production, the banquet table here is merely an outline with the lobsters encased in it, like insects in amber.

Eugene Onegin Staatsoper Vienna, June 2011

The final scene between Onegin and Tatiana takes place at a huge black marble staircase. In real life such a staircase usually leads to a memorial monument to the unknown fallen hero. The fallen hero here is hope. There are no dancing couples in the dark snowy night behind.

Perhaps a notch more could have been done on the side of choreography. At times characters were lacking purpose and standing idle. The chorus, on the other hand, was thoroughly choreographed and supported by the virtuosity of real acrobats, bringing dynamism and fullness as a counterbalance to the sheer power of the key voices. Nadia Krasteva as Olga appeared as the most colourful character. Shaped up as a hot Levantine  woman bursting with the joy of life in her tight crimson outfit, Olga appeared as if she had sprung up from a Turkish bazaar.

More character should have been invested into Onegin’s rather plain suit. The monthly brochure of the Staatsoper Vienna says that this is a house début for Mr. Peter Mattei and Ms. Maija Kovalevska in her role as Tatiana.

Petter Mattei

Peter Mattei, the most beautiful male voice I have ever heard, comes from a different sphere into this world. This is the first time I had an opportunity to hear Mr. Mattei live. The richness of the emotional spectrum was delivered with unwavering control and delicate sensibility. He sings effortlessly and truthfully as if the Absolute itself speaks through his voice. I should stop here (before I completely lather with foam) and urge readers to check for themselves.

A young Latvian soprano, Maija Kovalevska, appeared in the role of Tatiana, drawing several “brava” from the audience. This is the fifth year of her international career, and this petite fragile-looking young woman projects over the orchestra with surprising force and capacity. Her engagements outside her native Riga started in Verona with the roles of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, and continued with Mimi in La Boheme at the Met.

I would also like to mention the names of the remarkable singers Ain Anger as Prince Gremin, Marius Benciu as Lenski, and Zoryana Kushpler as Larina.

Unfortunately, the overall impression is that the whole piece comes across as a little too lightweighted. The emotional drama appears only to the extent that the individual artists invested into it and most of the characters are underdeveloped. A more resolute and conceptually clear guidance from the director seems to be lacking.

Under the conductor Michael Güttler the orchestra topped the singers on occasion. Too many rectangular shapes on the stage took away some of the compositional balance which potentially could have been achieved. Quite a number of mise-en-scène solutions from the Salzburg 2006 production of this opera are paraphrased and quoted here with a lesser effect.

I shared a box at the performance with two elderly Viennese ladies who had not seen the Salzburg production. To my surprise, and in spite of some sexually explicit breakdancing on the stage, they told me that they enjoyed the performance very much. I tip my hat to their broad-minded openness, with a wishful sigh that their peers in Toronto may be less eager to deprive themselves of experiencing something new in the opera theatre.           

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It appears that the singers enjoyed taking part in the experimental playfulness of this opera in spite of the tough learning task with the densely packed consonants and pronunciation of archaic Serbian texts. Jacqueline Woodley appeared in the role of the bride-to-be, Milica, Carla Huhtanen as Zora, Andrea Ludwig as Nada, Shannon Mercer as Danica, and Krisztina  Szabó as Ljubica.

Commissioned by the Queen of Puddings Music Theatre to compose a piece for 6 female singers, Ms. Sokolović, guided by a wish for creating a joyful and universal human context which would fit the initial requirement, ventured into her ethnic heritage researching love songs, medieval epic and lyrical folk poems. From this starting point her research expanded into the exploration of the rhythmic quality of the Serbian language, combining the experimental sounds of rolling pebbles, stirred ice cubes in a glass, with soprano voices. Those loosely connected sound and visual vignettes resonate with the vibration of universal human experience embedded in the archetypal images and rites of initiation.

Svadba is a story without a narrative. It is a direct musical experience. It is a vibration that connects the stage with the audience. It is human voice which reconciles by itself and within itself sound and emotion on a level we all share. The exchange between the performers and the audience takes place on a profound level, which overcomes the barrier of linguistic communication.

In many cultures it is a tradition that a bride spend her last night before the wedding at her home accompanied by her girlfriends in preparation to be initiated into the adulthood of married life. They sing and talk and play together while helping their friend to prepare for one of the most important days of her life. A wedding, in the Serbian folk tradition, is a collective experience. Incorporated into Christianity, the pagan rites and superstitious  customs  survived and retained prominent place in the Serbian folklore calendar, revolving around fairies, spirits of the water and forest, dragons, and other out-of-this-world invisible beings. The rich ethnic Slavic heritage includes not only poetry and music but also tapestry, embroidery and dance, which in their synergy are the inspirational force behind the Svadba-Wedding opera.

The Berkeley theatre was just the perfect size for a full enjoyment of the vocal acrobatics this opera abounds with. Costume and set designer Michael Gianfrancesco came up with flattering sensual outfits, leaving out the time/space specifications and emphasizing the universal quality brought up by the composer. Stage director Michael Cavanagh connected the dots in this opera of a yet unclassified genre with spirited intelligible charm.

It occurred to me that this opera may be staged in so many different ways. Calixto Bieito would  bring up a completely different flavour by staging the bride’s girls’ night before the wedding, for example, in a strip club with male dancers.

Isabel Bayrakdarian (C) performs on stage as character Zerlina during a dress rehearsal of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' at the Salzburg Festival August 8, 2006. Picture taken August 8. REUTERS/Martina Puehringer

An inspired convergence of many exceptionally talented artists took place at the 2006 Salzburg Festival in the making of Don Giovanni. Stage director Martin Kušej opted for a bare stage. It consists of two main planes. The first one is a narrow strip along the orchestra pit with doors at each end. Singers enter and exit as if on the main stage of life, dressed as ordinary people of today. The second plane is a circular, revolving scene with a set of vertical moving panels which placed together form a white cylinder-like wall. The dynamism of this second level along with superb lighting compensates for the complete absence of props and actually draws attention where it belongs — towards the dramatic interaction among the characters.

The string of visual snippets unfolds with arias, while recitatives are energized exchanges among well-developed, stereotyped characters.

The orchestra Wiener Philharmoniker leads and follows with a sound of refined fullness. It is an unthankful task to single out any one singer. Ildebrando D’Archangelo, endowed with a liberated voice that comes from the core of his being, unhesitant and unobstructed, gives his Leporello a lovable quality of youthful and charming wit. Christina Sheffer’s Donna Anna is a woman of dignity and sings with seared grief. I much enjoyed listening to Piotr Beczala as Ottavio. He invokes something old-fashioned by the lovely meandering curves in his phrasing. Although Thomas Hampson is not my favourite baritone he seems comfortable as a cool and dandy Don Giovanni.  My fellow Torontonian, Isabel Bayrakdarian, shines as an earthly, timid and warm Zerlina.

The revolving scene like the merry-go-round of life serves as a podium where psychological contents is displayed as mental images or moving pictures. Recurring theme in this revolving stage as if through time trajectory is a woman as a collective notion.  Uniformed in white or black underwear, a group of women is presented as ,tableaux .At first as young, pretty and sexy, doing their menial jobs, and as the end is getting closer we see them aging gray and worn-out,

Since the scene is plain and white, the costumes and lighting take the additional weight in dramatization. The costumes are unimposing and only slightly theatrical. Actually, each singer could walk out in his or her costume and blend in with the outside world of the western hemisphere today.

There is no particular message to unwrap or story between the lines in this Don Giovanni. It is face value—story of our time of hollow hearts.  Disconnected and fragmented within ourselves and with one another and unable to awaken. We do not actually live, love, and die. It all happens to us on the superficial plane of appearance.  It is a story of our time told in theatrically stylized but intelligible and plain language, leaving the spectator with an aftertaste of being exposed to something clean and clear. Perhaps the greatest achievement of this production is that it leaves no residual, undigested particles. It all flows smooth  and easy like a glass of fresh, cold water.

I watched this opera on May 11, 2011, in Toronto, at the home of the Canadian Opera Company.

Director Robert Carsen, set and costume designer Tobias Hoheisel, and lighting design by Peter van Praet and Robert Carsen, created a clean, uncluttered dramatization in a chiaroscuro palette. The choice towards reduction and simplification brings the esoteric flavour of this piece to the forefront.

The cruelties of the original myth are modified to emphasize the importance of the first and second steps towards inner transformation: faith and hope.

Lawrence Zazzo as Orfeo and Isabel Bayrakdarian as Euridice

Orfeo mourns the death of his beloved wife Euridice. He fearlessly goes to Hades and softens up the underworld rulers, who grant his wish to return Euridice to life on condition that he cannot look back at her until the journey through the night is at an end.

Euridice cannot understand why her beloved Orfeo does not look at her and suspects that he does not love her any more. When Orfeo turns to look at Euridice she dies. Orfeo does not find life worth living without her. Just when he is about to take his life, the god of love comes to his rescue and gives him back his Euridice.

Lawrence Zazzo (foreground) as Orfeo

The conductor Harry Bicket extracted all the juices from the score. Sandra Horst as a chorus master added a layer of spirituality to this masterful production. Isabel Bayrakdarian as Euridice, Ambur Braid as Amore and countertenor Lawrence Zazzo as Orfeo pleased the audience and critics in equal measure.

Lauren Segal as Dryad, Richard Margison as Tenor/Bacchus, Alice Coote as The Composer and Teiya Kasahara as Echo

When Wagner was 50, Richard Strauss was born. It was a year after Tristan and Isolde premiered. The influence of Wagner is palpable. The plot line of this opera is somewhat unusual. It ambitiously combines commedia dell’arte characters of a theatre group and opera seria in the second act by telling the story of abandoned Ariadne drowning her sorrows on the desert island of Naxos after being dumped by Theseus, with whom she is desperately in love.

The coming into existence of this opera and its final shaping up as we know it is a curiosity in itself. It started with the intention to create a satire as a gift to Max Reinhardt, the stage director, who helped Strauss a great deal with the première of the Rosenkavalier. The ambitious idea was to stage a comedy of Molierè’s  Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Because this concept imposed a considerable length and full dramatic troupe involvement, it was substantially revised, and the proposition for Molierè’s piece was chalked out. The characters of commedia dell’arte  had to find the voice and business dominated in the second act by Ariadne wallowing in her despair, with their wit and an innate sense for  letting go and meeting the next day with joy and an open heart.

The intention to create satire had to be meditated upon, to arrive at some creative results.  The imitation of reality is not enough any more in the staging of an opera. It is in the second act that I found the scales of balance and harmony bending towards frivolous expressiveness, not quite directed to establish communication with Ariadne, but rather aimed at amusing the audience and poking at it.

The set for the second act presents Ariadne clothed in a simple garment, and  surroundings of musty, dreary neglect, which was stripped of any contextual clues and left the spectators alone to find a corresponding reference in their own life experiences, or to stick to reading the libretto.

The major objection I have is the unfinished work of the stage and set director, who chose not to dig deeper into this unusual plot and try to sense the corresponding vibrations in life. It felt as if we were watching an opera seria with a prelude of some backstage commotion. I feel that there is a uniting thread to be discovered and that it allows for plenty of directorial liberty.

Although Ariadne’s sorrows are shared by many it is hard to see oneself in her. She is stripped of any features that individualize this character of myth and legend.

I would recommend the director and stage personnel of this production see the Stuttgart Ring to get some inspiration as to a possible reading of a libretto arising from myth and legend. I have not had an opportunity to see any other stage production of Ariadne auf Naxos, but I am sure that this piece will be recognized as gracious material for the exploration of director creativity in a similar way we see effervescent activity worldwide around Wagner’s Ring.

The Toronto première of this exceptional creative force was a few days ago at the home of the Canadian Opera Company, topped with  singers such as Lawrence Brownlee in the role of Prince Ramiro and Elizabeth De Shong in the contralto role of Cinderella. 

It is hard to say what was more fascinating: singing, costumes, set or mime. It all merged well into a coherent piece resulting in pleasure for sense and mind. The hairdos and costumes of Cinderella’s stepsisters were a successful venture into grotesque and farce, the most difficult of comedy forms. The parody on the Trojan horse and playfulness with the magic coach which takes Cinderella to the ball, accompanied with well-synchronized movements and music, draw responsive laughter from the audience.  Joan J. Guillén, a Spanish set and costume designer, who is also a cartoonist and a teacher of at the Institute del Teatre in Barcelona, is the brilliant mind of the set and costume. Director Joan Font, assistant director Joan Anton Rechi and lighting designer Albert Faura and choreographer Xevi Dorca, all Spanish, are an exceptional artistic team.

Six or so acrobats dressed as mice stayed on the stage throughout as silent but a well-recognized collective character from the fairy tale. Their movements seem to spring from the well researched observation of this vermin family in their natural habitat, seamlessly interwoven with music and the unfolding of the story. They brought irresistible charm and the warmth of love into this reading of the fairy tale. This was the backdrop to beautiful singing. Lawrence Brownlee is such a confident and warm tenor who carries the challenge of the bel canto vocal acrobatics with ease and milky smoothness. Elizabeth De Shong is endowed with a beautiful voice that reaches naturally and comfortably into the depths of contralto. Where many other mezzo-sopranos become wobbly and slim, she delivers firmly and with flying colours.  She is an exceptional singer, and her career is worth following.

The sound of the orchestra under the Italian-born maestro Leonardo Vordoni was somewhat short on the side of enthusiasm and fluff. There is a little more hidden in the score than what I heard from the orchestra.   

This is a lovable performance for all ages, which brings to the Toronto opera audience a flavour of different sensibilities.