Opera Review: Keep it in the Family

The Little Opera of New York premieres Owen Wingrave.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A man alone: Robert Balonek in the title role of Owen Wingrave.
Photo by Tina Buckman © Little Opera Theatre of New York.

Not every opera is made for the stage.

In 1971, Benjamin Britten's penultimate opera Owen Wingrave was premiered on the BBC. It was a new idea, writing operas for television, and one that was not exactly the wave of the future. Owen was seen onstage in 1973 and has enjoyed occasional revivals since. On Thursday night, as part of the ongoing New York Opera Festival, the Little Opera Theatre of New York staged the first live-action performance of the opera. The performance was at the GK Theater, tucked at the watery end of Jay Street in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge.

Opera Review: Oi! Oi! Oi! Oedipus!

BAM NextWave goes Greek
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Up the gunners: The cast of Greek at BAM.
Photo © Brooklyn Academy of Music and Royal Scottish Opera.

What do you get when you combine the classic tragedy Oedipus Rex with the laddish patois spoken in the East End of London? The answer might be Stephen Berkoff's 1985 play Greek which was made into an opera by Mark Anthony Turnage, the English enfant terrible whose operatic treatment of the life of Anna-Nicole Smith shocked audiences and incidentally, contributed to the quick death of the New York City Opera. This version of Greek, presented at the BAM Opera House by the Royal Scottish Opera,  showed that the universal Oedipus story still has its power to shock and distur, and the plagues of Thatcher's England are all too relevant in the strange times of today.

Opera Review: Love on the Rocks

Ethyl Smyth's The Wreckers rises from the vasty deep.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
(This article is presented in collaboration with our friends at OperaPulse.)

Wrecking crew: (L-r) Katharine Goeldner, Sky Ingram, Michael Mayes, Neal Cooper and Kendra Broom 
in rehearsal for Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers.
Photo by Stephanie Berger © 2015 Bard SummerScape.

Each summer, it is the business of the Bard SummerScape Festival to present an opera that for whatever reason has fallen far from the fringes of the standard repertory. On Friday night, artistic director and Bard College president) Leon Botstein led the first fully staged performance of The Wreckers the 1907 opera by Dame Ethyl Smyth. (The work was first performed in the U.S. by the American Symphony Orchestra under Dr. Botstein at Carnegie Hall in 2007.) This was the first of five scheduled performances this month at the Fisher Center, the Frank Gehry-designed concert hall on the Bard campus that is SummerScape's headquarters.

Opera Review: Out Comes the Evil

New York City Opera presents The Turn of the Screw.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Benjamin P. Wenzelberg (seated), Sara Jakubiak (standing) and the cast of Star Wars
in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw at New York City Opera.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2013 New York City Opera.

On Tuesday night, the New York City Opera took a further step towards reclaiming its identity with this new production (the second of four new shows this year) of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw. City Opera has historically been a haven for important works of the 20th century that are too intimate for the cavernous stage at the Met. Screw, a chamber opera based on a famous ghost story by Henry James, meets all of those requirements.

Opera Review: Acts of Congress

City Opera opens its season with Powder Her Face.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bangers and buns: Alison Cook as the "Dirty Duchess" in Powder Her Face.
Photo by Carol Rosegg © 2013 The New York City Opera.

The New York City Opera (finally) opened their 2013 season at BAM this weekend with the company's first production of Powder Her Face, the controversial 1995 opera that is the first stage effort of bad-boy British composer Thomas Adès. In keeping with the company's entrümpelung philosophy under the stewardship of general manager George Steel, Powder featured a cast,conductor and director all making their City Opera debuts.

This opera is an account of Mrs. Margaret Campbell, the British debutante, socialite (and eventually) the Duchess of Argyll. She lost that title in 1963 when her (very public) divorce was granted for her "perverse and insatiable" behavior, including  reported acts of congress with eighty-eight other men. (This production, in a nod to good taste and the stage limitations of the Howard Gilman Opera House, includes twenty-five naked dudes in the Act I finale.) What really did her in though was a set of Polaroids obtained by her husband, that showed the good lady engaged in sexual acts while still wearing her trademark triple strand of pearls.

Mr. Adès sets these events against a brash, spiky musical fabric that incorporates a wide variety of musical styles. There are liberal references to other 20th century composers (most prominently Richard Strauss and Dmitri Shostakovich.) Jonathan Stockhammer supervised the sometimes unusual orchestral and percussive sounds emanating from the pit. Although Powder earned a BBC ban for his graphic Act I portrayal of oral sex, (a half-hummed, half-sung number) but Strauss wrote better simulated sex in his Viennese comedies.

Opera Preview: Powder Her Face

She slept with 88 men...and had the Polaroids to prove it.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Three views of Margaret Campbell, the "Dirty Duchess."
Photo montage by the author, who no longer owns a Polaroid.

The New York City Opera is back, once again operating a short split season with performances at BAM and City Center.  On Friday night, the company kicks off its 2013 season with Thomas Adés' Powder Her Face, a saucy English opera from 1995 that takes on the scandalous subject of Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of Argyll.

Known in the British tabloids as the "dirty Duchess", Mrs. Campbell hit the headlines when her 1963 divorce erupted in the courts as her husband brought forth accusations of infidelities with eighty-eight other lovers and a set of naked Polaroids including one of the Duchess engaged in oral congress with a "headless" man who might have been a son-in-law of Winston Churchill. To be fair, the Polaroids featured Mrs. Campbell still wearing her signature triple strand of pearls.

Opera Review: Possession Obsession

Opera Moderne presents The Turn of the Screw.

by Paul Pelkonen

Promotional art for The Turn of the Screw. Image © 2012 Opera Moderne.

On Saturday night, the Opera Moderne, a modest Manhattan company new to this publication ended its 2012 season with a taut performance of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw at Symphony Space.

Britten's opera (the libretto is by Myfanwy Piper) is not a straightforward adaptation of  Henry James' ambiguous ghost story. In Ms. Piper's version, the ghosts Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are actual supernatural forces, preying on two innocent children at the Essex country estate of Bly. (James' novella leaves the reader unsure if the Governess is seeing things or slowly going insane.)

Opera Review: Injustice For All

The Metropolitan Opera (briefly) revives Billy Budd.

Ship rocked: Nathan Gunn (center) in the Met's
revival of Billy Budd. Photo by Ken Howard
 © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

by Paul Pelkonen

On Friday night, the Metropolitan Opera unveiled the final revival of this season: John Dexter's classic 1978 production of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. This revival also marked the return of James Morris to a signature role: the evil John Claggart.

Set aboard a British warship in 1797, Billy Budd (based on a novella by Herman Melville) is the story of a young sailor (Nathan Gunn) press-ganged into service aboard the H.M.S. Indomitable during the "French wars." The idealistic young sailor becomes popular among the crew but is targeted for destruction by Claggart, the ship's scheming master-at-arms.

Mr. Gunn embodied energy and fresh, doomed innocence in the title role. He stirred the audience with his entrance "Farewell, O Rights-O-Man," (a paean to his former ship) and brought raw energy to the crew's shenanigans below decks. He was at his most moving in the Act II scene in the ship's brig, where Billy confronts his coming execution and comes to peace with his fate.

DVD Review: Blonde Ambition

Anna Nicole at the Royal Opera of Covent Garden.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Busting out: Eva-Marie Westbroek as Anna Nicole Smith.

Photo by Catherine Cooper © 2011 

Royal Opera at Covent Garden/ Opus Arte

Mark Anthony Turnage's ambitious opera Anna Nicole is a scathing indictment of American celebrity culture, materialism and media hype. It's an opera about the things in society that have replaced opera in the popular culture. Its focus, the rise and fall of a girl from Texas named Vicki Lynn Hogan, who became an international celebrity as Anna Nicole Smith.

Recordings Review: Sullivan (without Gilbert)

The Chandos recording of Sir Arthur Sullivan's Ivanhoe.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

"Ivanhoe is the story of a Russian farmer, and his tool."

--Bart Simpson

Written in 1891, Sir Arthur Sullivan's Ivanhoe is one of the most neglected English operas of the 19th century. Composed without his regular writing partner W. S. Gilbert, Ivanhoe is a serious adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's novel of knightly derring-do in mythical English history. Thanks to this recording from Chandos, it is now possible to hear what the great composer of comic operas sounded like when on holiday from the world of topsy-turvy. Ivanhoe is one of the most overdue recordings of a "lost" opera, and a necessary listen for lovers of opera and operetta alike.

Opera Review: The Bunnies Run Amuck

The Fairy Queen at BAM.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A mask from The Fairy Queen. Image © Brooklyn Academy of Music.

It's quite an amazing experience to see a 400-year old four-hour opera and to not want to walk out of the theater afterwards. Thursday night saw the U.S. premiere of Les Arts Florissants' staging of Henry Purcell's legendary semi-opera The Fairy Queen. At its conclusion, company director William Christie paused in the middle of his bows, and led orchestra and audience in a reprise of the opera's final chorus. It was a glorious, inclusive way to end one of the finest operas of this spring season.

A "semi-opera" that borrows heavily from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the show alternates between spoken performance of the libretto (by a fine cast of Shakespearean actors) and a series of spectacular masques which comment on and interpret the action. This tradition of separating emotional reaction from narrative drive would form the root of opera seria and the influence of Purcell's work on the later operas of Handel is unmistakeable.

Jonathan Kent's staging of the work was aided by an unforgettable series of visuals: the giant spider that wrapped Titania in its webs, Apollo (Andrew Davies) descending on a golden winged horse from the flies. The entire production was set in a sort of library or study, with walls that slid in and out and a removable ceiling and floor. As the mind-bending masques began, a lake, a Monet haystack and even the Garden of Eden appeared. The comic business of the Mechanicals and the masques themselves were part high-flying Cirque de Soleil, part classic British holiday pantomime.



Nick Bottom and his band of mechanicals were the maintenance crew for Theseus' manor house--with Flute the bellows-mender (Robert Burt) operating the vacuum cleaner. They were played by a fine crew of actors, led by Desmond Barrit as Bottom. Their Pyramus and Thisbe was staged in classic, ribald Shakespearean fashion, with minimal cuts to the comedy. The four lovers were played by appealing young actors, with emphasis placed on the interchangeable nature of Lysander (Nicholas Shaw) and Demetrius (Gwilym Lee) as a cause of their romantic conflict. Finbar Lynch and Amanda Harris dueled as Oberon and Titania, and the shirtless Jotham Amman as a kinetic Puck.

William Christie led his crack period ensemble in a crisp performance, his ensemble's trademark clarity to the fore. Purcell's work requires both orchestra and singers to find their own place with respect to Shakespeare's play. The audience was treated to exceptional singing, with the company's key vocalists switching costumes and merrily taking on multiple roles. Ed Lyon (Adam in the final masque) Andrew Davies as as Phoebus Apollo (who sang his role in mid-air) and bass Andrew Foster-Williams were all exceptional. But the performance of Emanuelle de Negri brought down the house in her scene as the Plaint, whose aria stopped the ribaldry dead and brought down the house.
On his horse: Phoebus makes his descent in The Fairy Queen.
Photo © 2009 Les Arts Florissants

Opera Review: Fish Story

The Met's new Peter Grimes.

Ellen Orford (Patricia Racette) and Peter Grimes (Anthony Dean Griffey)
Photos © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

In the new Metropolitan Opera production of Peter Grimes, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey has made the towering title role his very own. As the outcast fisherman with a terrible temper (and even worse luck), you're never really sure when Griffey's Grimes goes 'round the bend--and that's what makes his performance so powerful.

A remarkable singing actor, Griffey brings pathos to the soft, lyric moments of the score, yet packs plenty of power in his voice for the mad scenes and sudden rages that are Grimes' dark side. The entire performance is harrowing in its intensity, and stands proudly next to other great Grimeses of the past: Peter Pears, John Vickers and Philip Langridge.

Mr. Griffey is perfectly matched with soprano Patricia Racette, who sets aside the kimonos of Butterfly and the glitter of Violetta to play Ellen Orford, the schoolmistress in Grimes' village (the Borough) and his only friend in the world. Her compassion for Peter never falters, even when he descends into madness and violence.

Mrs. Sedley, the town gossip who riles the Borough up against Grimes, receives a sharp-edged portrayal from Felicity Palmer. John Del Carlo makes Swallow a sonorous comic character with his fine bass. Anthony Michaels-Moore was an able, sympathetic Captain Balstrode.

The Met chorus and orchestra were at their finest last night. The chorus was a model of tight, precise singing, handling Britten's complicated vocal lines with ease. The orchestra played superbly under the baton of Sir Donald Runnicles, providing accent and subtlety in their vocal accompaniment. The famous Sea Interludes were another highlight, with the smell of salt and the kiss of spray rising from the orchestra put under Runnicles' superb direction.

Curiously, John Doyle's spare production featured little in the way of oceanic or naval trappings. Most of the action took place before a giant wooden curtain with rustic doors all over it, representing walls and buildings within the Borough. The doors worked well for quick entrances and exits, suggesting streets, the tavern, or Grimes' pathetic little oceanside hut. Sliding walls made the acting space more and more claustrophobic, until the walls literally closed in on the doomed Grimes. It was an effective staging--dark and dour as Britten's protagonist.