The Stars Fall on City Opera

She fights for City Opera: Catherine Malfitano.
Image © Decca/Polygram

Singers speak out to save troubled opera company.
by Paul Pelkonen
The stars have come out, and they've come out fighting in the battle for the future of the New York City Opera.

A letter, written by soprano Catherine Malfitano and former NYCO dramaturge Cori Ellison, has been sent to that beleagured opera company's current management, formally denouncing the decision to leave Lincoln Center and "go rogue." The letter's delivery was announced in a New York Times article yesterday.

The letter was signed by an all-star roster of opera singers and conductors. Signatories included Placído Domingo and José Carreras, the two surviving members of The Three Tenors. Composer Carlisle Floyd, director Harold Prince and City Opera veterans Samuel Ramey and Sherrill Milnes also added their support. A total of 120 opera notables added their signatures before the letter was sent.

These artists started their New York careers at City Opera, most notably Mr. Domingo, who sang Rodolfo in La bohème in the 1960s. Mr. Domingo is also an experienced administrator and conductor.. He just stepped down as head of the Washington National Opera and is still running the Los Angeles Opera.

"We know opera, and we want to help." the letter said.

The letter expresses consternation at the company's decision to leave Lincoln Center and perform a patch-work season at various venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn. City Opera general manager George Steel has maintained that the company is drowning in its own debt. But musicians and chorus members worry that this enforced exodus as a means to break their respective unions and reduce the once-venerated company to a guerilla unit hiring pick-up musicians and performing scattered operas on the cheap.

At a meeting in May, leaders of both unions expressed a vote of "no confidence" in Mr. Steel's leadership. Julius Rudel, the company's former music director and a respected opera conductor, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times calling for Mr. Steel to step down. Recent City Opera functions have been visited by the brass section of the orchestra, playing excerpts from Carmen and Aida.

The letter comes at a crucial time for this company. The City Opera is planning to announce a new schedule at a Tuesday press conference, including a revival of La Traviata, a new Cosí fan tutte and the company's premiere of Rupert Wainwright's first opera, Prima Donna.

Not surprisingly, the two latter operas do not require a chorus.

Stadtoperdämmerung

("Twilight of the City Opera.")

Read the fine print.
 Image © Topps/Major League Baseball.

The New York City Opera will announce its schedule for 2011-2012 next Tuesday at the Guggenheim Museum. But thanks to New York Times scribe Daniel Wakin, we can now share with you most of the details of that schedule, complete with analysis.

The "season" will kick off in October with a concert performance of an unannounced opera by an unannounced composer at a location that will be disclosed following the completion of a scavenger hunt. To get the location, and opera performed, would-be opera-goers must collect the following five objects before next Tuesday's press conference:

1. an uncensored 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken baseball card. (pictured right.)
2. Giuseppe Sinopoli's baton.
3. A lock of wig hair from the Broadway production of Elton John's Aida.
4. One of the stays from La Cieca's favorite corset.
5. The original "Grail" prop from the Met's Otto Schenk production of Wagner's Parsifal.

The first four objects must be placed within the Grail and burned at Belvedere Castle during a new moon at 12am Friday night.

In other words, we don't know what the first opera is.


The rest of the schedule is fairly pedestrian. La Traviata and Rufus Wainwright's Prima Donna will be staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Not sure which theater yet. At least it's close to Junior's.

Good move, by the way, doing an opera that the Met is mounting this year. The Met's version has Natalie Dessay as Violetta, in the "red dress" production by Willy Decker that bowed last year. The City Opera's is by Jonathan Miller. This well-traveled show is a rental from their old partners at Glimmerglass in Cooperstown, NY.

The Gerald W. Lynch Theater at the John Jay College for Criminal Justice will host Mozart's Cosí fan tutte, in a new staging mounted by Christopher Alden, who directed the company's 2009 staging of Don Giovanni.

I liked my idea better--of performing the opera in various Cosí sandwich bars around the city. Better coffee, Mozart and free WiFi are a winning combination.

Finally, baroque opera by Telemann to be performed at the Museo del Barrio. Considering that Telemann wrote 33 operas, the choice may be determined by the following means:

Either way, this looks like a zero.

Opera for the Color-Blind

Universal's Blinding "Opera!" Reissues To Hit Shelves, Blind Customers.

The DG Figaro conducted by Claudio Abbado.
Original slip-case cover art, with the famous chair.

On July 12, the venerable Decca and Deutsche Grammophon labels (which, in case you don't read this blog, are the same company) will re-launch their "Opera!" line. The series presents new pressings of recordings of major repertory operas. But in another brilliant move by the Universal Classics marketing department, these recordings have been repackaged a little differently.

Which is to say, they're really ugly.

Now, we all know that record labels, with their deep vaults, are endlessly recycling and regurgitating their catalogues, especially following the over-recording of the CD boom, where every kapellmeister worth his salt would be laughed out of the musician's union unless he recorded heavily.

All over Europe and America, these first (and second) rate maestros felt inadequate unless they recorded and released a Bruckner (or Mahler) symphony cycle, a complete set of Mozart operas, and possibly a Ring. Some of these performances were released. Others languished (and may continue to languish) in the import catalogue or gathering dust in a German warehouse.

Same case. Same recording. New art. Ugh.

The point is, that the catalogue is glutted with recordings, and the ones that came out at the end of the boom (late '80s, early '90s) are the hardest to sell to connoisseurs.

Which is why this supposed "consumer friendly" Opera! series has come out. I guess they figure by stripping anything to do with opera from the covers, people roaming record shops will grab and buy--just because it's, y'know, RED.

This Figaro is just one of the series. Other reissues getting this non-deluxe treatment include:

• Sir Georg Solti's Aida with Leontyne Price and Jon Vickers. Hope it's the remaster and not the "bad" original CD pressing with the dodgy sound.
• Sir Colin Davis' Peter Grimes with Vickers and Heather Harper.
• Jeffery Tate's Tales of Hoffmann with Jessye Norman and Cheryl Studer.
• The Metropolitan Opera/James Levine Die Walküre, which is currently available as part of a budget box with the whole Levine Ring. Bet the Met just loves the purple-and-orange cover with their new Ring in progress.
• Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. Cav is under Semyn Bychkov. Pag is led by Riccardo Chailly. Both are good conductors who deserve better fates.
• The second, lesser Herbert von Karajan recording of Der Rosenkavalier with Anna Tomowa-Sintow. Skip it.
• Giuseppe Sinopoli's Madama Butterfly with Mirella Freni, near the end of her career and pretending to be a teenager.
• That really weird Lucia di Lammermoor (conducted by Ion Marin. (Who?)) with Cheryl Studer (again!) and Placìdo Domingo totally miscast as Edgardo. See above.
• Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie conducted by Marc Minkowski. Maybe it's not a total loss.

DVD Review: The Grail, Unveiled

Linda Watson and Poul Elming in Parsifal.
Photo © 1998 Bayreuth Festival

Sinopoli's Classic 1998 Parsifal Escapes the Vault.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
This 1998 Parsifal stands at a crossroads, between the halcyon days of big-budget opera recordings made at Bayreuth and the collapse of a record industry no longer willing to make new recordings. As such, it is the last such video made at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus for ten years.

It is also the last to be conducted by Italian maestro Giuseppe Sinopoli, who suffered a heart attack in 2001 while leading a performance of Aida in Berlin. Although it was made 13 years ago, this release in May of 2011 is its first appearance in any recorded form.

More importantly, this is a visual and aural record of Wolfgang Wagner's final thoughts on this opera. The composer's grandson had a traditional view of Parsifal, something to be treasured in these days of bizarre regietheater stagings. Wolfgang combines ideas from his grandfather's own 1883 staging and concepts first introduced by his brother Wieland at the 1951 reopening of the Festspielhaus following World War II.


Giuseppe Sinopoli was known for his idiosyncratic conducting style with an iconoclastic approach to tempos and an ear for detail. Here, the late maestro leads one of the slowest Parsifals on record, beating James Levine's 1985 recording by a whole two minutes. This is in keeping with Wagner's own approach to the opera. At the final 1883 performance, the composer took the baton from conductor Hermann Levi and led the third act--and it was very slow indeed.

Mr. Sinopoli is blessed with a decent, well-balanced cast. Poul Elming (Parsifal) and Falk Struckmann (Amfortas) make their second home video appearances in these roles. They had filmed the opera together in the Harry Kupfer staging in Berlin. (Sadly, this is not yet available on DVD.) Mr. Elming had not yet lost the bloom on his top, although he pushes a little during "Nur eine waffe tag." The Danish tenor also looks the part, fresh-faced and boyish at his entrance, and haggard in Act III. Mr. Struckmann looks haggard throughout, the picture of suffering, superbly sung.

Hans Sotin had been singing Gurnemanz at the Festpielhaus for about 15 years when this performance was filmed. The voice is slightly worn but the singer's experience and thorough understanding of the role make his narratives into fascinating listening. Linda Watson is an adequate Kundry, who does not penetrate the mystic hysteria of this unique character. Ekkehard Wlaschiha is a nasty Klingsor, who looks like his about to fall off his little onstage elevator. Matthais Hölle is a stolid, unyielding, and invisible presence as Titurel.

The late, brilliant Giuseppe Sinopoli.

The wealth of orchestral detail is belied by the simplicity of this staging. Wolfgang Wagner presents the opera in a plain black space, with the acting surface dominated by a labyrinthine pattern on the floor. The set consists of four rotating units, which alternate between glowing Star Trek crystals and a set of claustrophobic reversed staircases for the vault of the Grail Temple. This austere approach makes this an excellent first Parsifal to watch before delving into the (brilliant) weirdness of directors like Harry Kupfer and Nikolaus Lehnoff. The sets accompany the performance, without dominating the opera.

The choral singing is very strong, and the Festival orchestra plays superbly, taking advantage of the fact that this opera was specifically written for the unique acoustics of Bayreuth. The Act II chorus of Flower Maidens and the Act III Good Friday Spell are led very slowly indeed, and the gradual approach offers the listener a wealth of sumptuous detail. Scholars of this unique opera may also hear ideas that were previously buried, like the Klingsor motif hiding (in a major key) underneath the final workings-out of the Grail theme at the end of Act III. That alone makes this recording worth adding to any collection.

Don't believe the hype: watch this trailer, which is four hours and 27 minutes shorter than the opera.