Opera Review: Do Not Resuscitate

The Merry Widow kicks it at the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Susan Graham is game in Act II of The Merry Widow at the Met.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2017 The Metropolitan Opera.

When the Peter Gelb era at the Metropolitan Opera is examined in posterity, the recent renaissance of operetta on the stage of that institution may rank among the general manager's more questionable endeavors. This season, the company is reviving its 2014 staging of Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow in its awkward English translation by house scribe Jeremy Sams. The saving grace of this revival is that it is a vehicle for Susan Graham, in her only role at the Met this season.

Opera Review: Hot Rails to Hell

The BSO brings back The Damnation of Faust.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Charles Dutoit (on podium) leads Paul Groves, Susan Graham and John Relyea in the trio from
Part III of The Damnation of Faust. Photo by Hilary Scott for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

I'm going open this review on a personal note.

Ten years (and change) age, I posted the first review on Superconductor, of the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing Hector Berlioz' The Damnation of Faust. That concert (you can read about it here) was at Carnegie Hall under the baton of James Levine. In honor of that anniversary, I took an early morning Amtrak to Boston yesterday to see the BSO perform The Damnation of Faust.

It was worth the trip.

Opera Review: Get Out of Jail Free

Bel Canto at Caramoor mounts Beethoven's Fidelio.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pablo Heras-Casado conducts the Orchestra of St. Luke's
in Fidelio at Caramoor with Paul Groves (center) as Florestan and Elsa van den Heever as Leonore.
Photo by Gabe Palacio © 2016 Caramoor Festival of the Arts.

Since its inception, the Bel Canto at Caramoor program has focused on providing opportunities for young singers and reviving rare operas, usually in Italian but occasionally in French. On Sunday afternoon, with Orchestra of St. Luke's music director Pablo Heras-Casado on the podium in the Venetian Theater, the summer festival offered Fidelio, the only completed opera by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Opera Review: The Trumpet of the Swan

Parsifal at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hunting license: Gurnemanz (Kwangchal Youn) confiscates Parsifal's (Paul Groves) bow  in Act I of
Parsifal, as Kundry (Daveda Karanas) looks off. Photo by Todd Rosenberg © 2013 Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of Parsifal (by director John Caird, making his house debut) is at once modern and old-fashioned, re-imagining Wagner's medieval iconography (Spear, Grail, magic garden) in a way that makes sense to a modern audience and still respects the rich stage history of this opera at Bayreuth and elsewhere. Mr. Caird's production uses six principal dancers (the choreographer is Tim Claydon) to create a vision of flying swans, woodland creatures (Kundry arrives by anthropomorphic horseback) and more movement than one usually sees in this static opera. The results are emotionally satisfying and magical, and familiar enough to please even the most conservative Wagnerite.

Concert Review: Starting off with a Damn

BSO brings The Damnation of Faust to Carnegie Hall
by Paul J. Pelkonen

We went to three concerts this week, and I am going to try to start things off right by reviewing Monday night's performance of Berlioz' The Damnation of Faust at Carnegie Hall.

Hector Berlioz was one of the geniuses of 19th century French music. Although he had many struggles in his career, he achieved great success with the Damnation of Faust, the result of 17 years of hard work on his part. After reading Goethe's Faust, he immediately set about composing it, conceiving an eight-scene drama. Eventually, the composer compressed the action and expanded the orchestral score, resulting in the four-act "symphonic drama" that became the most popular of Berlioz' large-scale compositions.

Although it can be performed as a fully staged work (and was the last time I saw this piece at BAM), the composer intended his work for the concert hall, not the opera house--and that is how this performance was staged, with singers and orchestra in tuxedos--with nary a pitchfork in sight.

Paul Groves, fresh off his performances in Tan Dun's The First Emperor was an able Faust, singing sweetly in the beginning and giving a powerful rendition of the callow scholar's fall from grace. He struggled with some of the high tessitura, but for the most part, his evening was a success. Wielding the pitchfork as Mephistopheles was the great Belgian baritone Jose Van Dam, now in his 60s but still velvet-voiced. He caught the sardonic humor undercut with cold steel that is needed to play this devilish role. Mezzo-soprano Yvonne Naef was a decent Marguerite, singing a heart-wrenching "Roi de Thule" aria and a moving Spinning-song.

Mr. Levine conducted a well-balanced, carefully thought out reading of the score, anchored by a dulcet string section and powerful brass. Interestingly, a tuba was used in conjunction with an ophicleide, a kind of proto-tuba that Berlioz actually specified in his score. You don't hear ophicleides much in the concert hall, and its loud, rude honking was effective in the tavern scene. The chorus gave a knockout performance, especially in the Pandemonium scene where they portray capering demons, and all start singing in gibberish. Very Lovecraftian, that.