Concert Review: They're Going for Baroque

A revived Renaissance rock Town Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Rave Tesar, Annie Haslam and Mark Lambert of Renaissance.
Photo by the author.

The history of England's progressive rock bands can be labyrinthine, with musicians slipping in and out of lineups, changes of artistic direction and fallow periods as long-running acts dealt with the rise of punk, disco, new wave and the unremitting hostility of the music press. Renaissance are one of those bands, and on Saturday night, they returned to the stage of Town Hall armed with six members and a chamber orchestra. The show, billed as Renaissance: A Symphonic Journey was their first Manhattan stage appearance in five years,

Opera Review: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

Opera Omnia presents The Return of Ulysses.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bad things happened when Ulysses came home in 1178 B.C.
Image from classical antiquity.

The brief silence of New York in early September as the city gears up for the coming opera and concert season was interrupted on Tuesday night, as Wesley Chinn's company Opera Omnia unveiled a new production of Monteverdi's The Return of Ulysses (in an English translation) at the Baryshniknov Arts Center on the W. 37th St.

Mr. Chinn's company does not appear often (this is just the third Opera Omnia production in the last six years) but when it does, they offer a chance to hear some interesting young singers specializing in the repertory of the 17th century. Here, they took Monteverdi's late masterpiece and trimmed it to a lean two and a half hours, omitting much of the opera's sweep, mythic grandeur and humor. The plus: the production retold the story in a concise, clear way that was ideal for the newcomer.

Opera Review: She Just Can't Wait to Be Queen

Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble mounts L'Incoronazione di Poppea
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Passion in the palace: Nerone (Alison Taylor Cheeseman, left) macks on Poppea (Greer Davis) in
Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble's L'Incoronazione di Poppea. 
Photo by Brian Long © 2013 Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble.

The Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble took a major chance with this year's Summer Repertoire Project, pushing into the deep waters of Renaissance opera with its first production of Claudio Monteverdi's 1642 masterpiece L'Incoronazione di Poppea. Although it is the last of Monteverdi's works for the Venetian stage, Poppea is a milestone opera in that it was the first opera to portray actual historical figures on the stage instead of mythological or allegorical figures.

Opera Review: Smells Like Teen Spirit

Gotham Chamber Opera presents Eliogabalo.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Decadence dance: Micaëla Oeste and Christopher Ainsle in a scene from Eliogabalo at The Box.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2013 Gotham Chamber Opera.

The Gotham Chamber Opera has built its reputation on the performance of fringe repertory works, sometimes in unusual locations. They may have difficulty topping this season’s first show: Franco Cavalli’s 1677 opera Eliogabalo. In the spirit of its title character, one of the most depraved among Rome’s many emperors, the show was mounted at The Box, a dinky Chrystie Street performing space dedicated to the revival of burlesque theater.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Francesca da Rimini

The Met dusts off a forgotten production of a forgotten opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Eva-Marie Westbroek (l.) courts Marcello Giordani in Francesca da Rimini.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

No doubt about it: this is the most surprising revival of the 2012-2013 season. This production of Riccardo Zandonai's Francesca di Rimini, one of the few important Italian operas of the 20th century not written by Giacomo Puccini. This production, was originally mounted in 1984 for Placido Domingo and Renata Scotto. The opera's lone 1986 revival featured Nicole Lorange and Ermanno Mauro. (Yes, I had to look them up.) It received just four performances and has never played since. This revival will play six times and include a Met Live in HD broadcast.

Zandonai's opera retells the doomed Renaissance romance of Francesca (Eva-Maria Westbroek) and Paolo (Marcello Giordani) against the backdrop of a power struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Francesca is introduced to Paolo, who is substituting for his deformed brother Gianciotto, her actual future groom. Everything goes south when Paolo and Francesca fall passionately in love.

This is a rarely performed, and neglected work. From what I've read, Francesca is sort of Tristan und Isolde (love) crossed with Simon Boccanegra (politics) written in a (post-romantic) musical idiom that has been compared to Richard Strauss. The wordless love duet at the end of Act I is the best known part of the score.

Opera Review: Damascus, on a Budget

A semi-staged Armide bows at Juilliard.

New kids on the block: Emalie Savoy (standing) Wallis Giunta (l.) and Devon Guthrie (r.) in Armide.
Photo by Nan Melville © 2012 The Juilliard School/Metropolitan Opera.

On Wednesday night, Juilliard Opera unveiled the second result of the school's collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera: a semi-staged performance of Gluck's 1777 opera Armide at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The sparse non-production featured the Juilliard Orchestra and Chorus onstage and elegantly clad young singers performing in front of the band. Period performance specialist Jane Glover conducted.

Armide was Gluck's favorite among his own operas. The composer's innovative writing for the orchestra and chorus are to the fore, with memorable, dark textures in the 'cellos and basses driving the action forward. (This is what Berlioz idealized and strove to imitate in Les Troyens.) Another feature: the composer's compact, vocal lines, which create each character with firm, yet melodic phrases. The work is also a precursor of Wagner's leitmotiv technique.

Gluck's opera requires an overpowering female lead who can range from sweet seduction to overpowering rage in the final scene as the sorceress is abandoned. Emalie Savoy met both of those extremes. She was most potent in the scene where Armide summons the forces of Hell (in the persons of the chorus and soprano Renée Tatum) to end her romance with the knight Renaud. She recants in the middle of the scene, pulling a hard dramatic shift in temperament that created sympathy for this sometimes oblique character.

Ms. Savoy's performance was enhanced with a strong supporting female cast. Throughout the opera, the sorceress was flanked by two attending ladies, sung by  Wallis Giunta and Devon Guthrie. Hearing these three singers together was the chief joy of the opera's second act. Also impressive: Ms. Tatum was effective, but not hammy in the role of La Haine, the hellish embodiment of hate and heroic French opera style.

The opera's anti-heroine would be pretty lonely without a pious knight to seduce. Renaud was played by David Portillo, a lyric tenor with a pleasing, sweet tone. However, the character spends much of the action ensorcelled by Armide. He is a noble, but passive character until rescued by his even more pious buddies.

As those two questing knights, baritone Luthando Qave and  tenor Noah Baetge made a fine comic pair. Armed with half a brass curtain rod, they beat back hordes of invisible demons and great monsters that seemed to spring out of the woodwork of the Sharp Theater. They then had to contend with lovely minions of Armide, testing their virtues in a manner that recalls Sir Galahad's adventures in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

Yes, the drama is hokey, and the theatrical sensibilities of 16th-century Italian Renaissance poetry stand at far remove from our own age. But the value in this performance rests in the potent cast of young singers, and in appreciating Gluck's economy of expression and brilliant orchestration. The score was played with crisp severity by the Juilliard Orchestra under Jane Glover, who kept one eye turned to her cast as she conducted from the middle of the stage. 

In the minds of New Yorkers, it may be difficult to separate Gluck's work from Rossini's 1817opera Armida, presented at the Met in 2010 as a big-budget star vehicle for Renée Fleming. Although the two works share story points, characters and a common origin (in Torquetto Tasso's 1581  Italian romance Gerusalemme Liberata) they are very different operas. Gluck's work is a far superior product.

Opera Review: Canal Side Story

Vertical Player Repertory Brings Rare Opera to Brooklyn Courtyard

A poster for La Calisto.

Brooklyn's guerilla opera company strikes again!

On Sunday night, the Vertical Player Repertory offered its second of four performances of Franco Cavalli's 1651 opera La Calisto. The setting: a back alley and open space behind a former industrial building on the banks of the Gowanus Canal.

Judith Barnes, a veteran of the New York City Opera, sang the role of Juno and directed the performance. In addition to a regal bearing and a powerful presence as the Queen of the Gods, the diva-turned-impresario brought a wealth of young vocal talent to this production. Most notable: the pert soprano Marcy Richardson, doubling in the role of Diana and as the god Jupiter, who disguises himself as Diana in an effort to bed the nymph Calisto.

Holly Gash made her company debut in that title role, bringing pathos and passion to the unfortunate object of Jupiter's affections who gets turned into a bear for her troubles. The third major company debut was bass Matthew Curran, who sang the role of Jupiter before that god changed genders, and returned to sing a pleasing final duet with Ms. Gash.

Mezzo Hayden DeWitt sang the trouser part: the astronomer Endymion who is the opera's lone human protagonist. Endymion is literally moonstruck, in love with Diana in her role as moon goddess through his celestial observations. Ms. DeWitt's final duet with Ms. Richardson brought their storyline to a smooth, soothing close. The cast was rounded out by Nicholas Tamagna as the drunken Pan, stomping around with two bottles of Chianti to fuel his performance.


Pan's accomplice was the Little Satyr, played by excellent countertenor Joseph Hill. Mr. Hill displayed great physical and vocal agility in this role, leaping and running over the rough industrial space as if it were a ballet theater stage, and using his falsetto instrument to whizz up and down the scales in a baroque depiction of raging lust. Nathan Baer also delivered a fine performance as Silvano, moving barefoot (!) over the rough-hewn space and singing with a pleasing baritone voice.

Ms. Barnes' company specializes in performing operas that take advantage of the gritty industrial corners of lower Brooklyn. This La Calisto was no exception, putting the audience on folding chairs and using a makeshift acting area that included a fire escape, a basement delivery hatch (which doubled as a ramp), a bed and a carpet. The effect is that of a post-modern Venetian piazza, with the stars overhead and the bricked-off windows looming overhead. Greg Goff created effective lighting with LED units mounted on the rooftops around the acting area.

For the most part, the setting worked, despite the occasional siren, airplane or air conditioner that threatened to drown out the bite-sized baroque orchestra. The wrought-iron fire escape worked as a literal stairway to heaven, as the gods Jupiter, Juno, Diana and Mercury entered from the roof of the neighboring building. Other actors entered from the Phoenix Gowanus space (which doubled as a dressing room) or from behind the assembled audience.

La Calisto will be performed on the 14th and the 16th, weather permitting. All shows are at 8pm. For more information visit Vertical Player Repertory.

Concert Review: Vivaldi Through a Modern Glass

Robert McDuffie
Photo by Christian Steiner

On Wednesday night, violinist Robert McDuffie and the Venice Baroque Orchestra brought their current tour to Carnegie Hall. The program explores the connection between Vivaldi's Four Seasons, arguably the most famous set of violin concertos ever written, and the Violin Concerto No. 2, a new work by minimalist Philip Glass.

The Four Seasons had an energetic, rustic style, choosing a very fast tempo and playing through his cadenza passages with precise, rapid-fire delivery. "Summer" featured slower, more languid melodies and an impressive thunderstorm from the cellists. The familar "Autumn"was graceful and more elegant, with the small orchestra providing able accompaniment. "Winter," which has the toughest rhythmic passages and some of the most difficult cadenzas in Vivaldi's work, provided a fitting climax to the cycle.


This new concerto, subtitled The American Four Seasons is an unusual Philip Glass composition. The shortened forms allow the New York based composer to experiment with neo-classical textures, shot through with echoes of Vivaldi's own style.

Driving, repeated notes (a hallmark of this composer's style) keep the engine moving and form a strong foundation for the soloist. The result is a series of concise movements with welcome pauses in between. Unlike Vivaldi's works, Glass chooses to let the listener figure out which season belongs to which concerto. (This writer guesses: 1) Winter, 2) Spring, 3) Summer, 4) Fall.)

Glass alternates the movements for orchestra with a series of soliloquoy passages for the violin, instead of the more conventional cadenzas. Mr. McDuffie played the articulated phrases with skill and fire, drawing beautiful sounds from his vintage instrument. As the movements played and the months passed, the orchestra built up momentum. In the final pages, the violinist led the band through racing glissando chords and swift, descending arpeggios, to thrilling effect.

Mr. McDuffie played the solo violin parts standing up, which is not unusual. However, the violinists and violists in his ensemble played standing up as well, which changed the balance of the sound somewhat and allowed more eye-contact interaction between the soloist and his fellow string players. (The lower strings, keyboard, and theorbo remained seated.)