Richard Sasanow - Page 21

South African soprano Elza van den Heever has long had a 'date' with Beethoven's Leonore, in his only completed opera FIDELIO. It wasn't exactly a blind date—she has known for years that, eventually, she would take it on, she told me—but it was a roaring success in her role debut, at the Venetian Theatre at the Caramoor Festival, under Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke's.

The opening program for this year's Mostly Mozart Festival—the 50th--at David Geffen Hall may not have offered any new insights into the mind of the genius composer or uncovered any long-lost masterpiece not heard in 200 years. On the other hand, it was filled with wonderful music, inspired singing and total bliss for the audience, in a program that flew by, all in the name of Mozart.

It probably would have been worth the trip to Bard SummerScape's production of Pietro Mascagni's IRIS—last heard at the Met in 1931--simply to make the acquaintance of soprano Talise Trevigne. Through much suffering and indignity, Trevigne sang the title role in a luxurious, plush-voiced, physical performance that made the most of the score by the composer who will always be known for CAVALLERIA RUSTIANA, that signpost of verismo opera. She's a find, and I hope to hear her again.

When South African soprano Elza van den Heever made her debut at the Met, as Elizabeth I in Donizetti's MARIA STUARDA, it was something that was totally memorable in every way--not only for her intelligent and gorgeous bel canto singing but for the lurching gait that helped show her character as unbalanced. What does she have in mind for her role debut as Leonore, in Beethoven's FIDELIO, at the Caramoor Festival?

“The word and genre 'opera' is much broader and more inclusive in the 21st century than it was in the past,” says Huang Ruo, composer/co-librettist of PARADISE INTERRUPTED, his mesmerizing, tantalizing opera that was one of the opening selections of this year's Lincoln Center Festival.

If you're a fan of Puccini-esque music and the “magic realism” of the great Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Daniel Catan's FLORENCIA EN EL AMAZONAS may be for you. Others might find the opera--which had its New York premiere at New York City Opera's home at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theatre--like falling into a production of “Alice in Puccini-land.” With an endless array of high-strung arias, it left no room for anyone to come up for air for 2½ hours, despite some first-rate performances.

PATIENCE & SARAH—at least in the production of this chamber opera seen this past week at the Players Theatre in Greenwich Village, as part of the New York Opera Fest and 18 years after its premiere at Lincoln Center Festival—is a beautiful but somewhat lopsided affair. While it tells of the love shared by the women of the title, despite the objections and confusion of their families—Patience is educated, wealthy and a painter, Sarah's a poor, illiterate farmer--it seems really to be the story of Sarah.

The weather, the stars and “the stars” aligned the other night in Central Park, when the Metropolitan Opera performed its annual recital at SummerStage. Usually home to more pop culture performers, it turned out to be the perfect venue for introductions to some unfamiliar yet striking performers, including soprano Angel Blue, tenor Ben Bliss and baritone Alexey Lavrov.

“Bride's side or groom's? I'm Count Almaviva,” said the elegant actor as we entered what, we are told, is the Count's summer palace. “Bride's side or groom's?” says the seductive brunette in a bath towel, stepping out of the tub. She introduces herself as the Countess, Rosina. Upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber (and the atrium), we are cordially invited to the world of THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO--the name of the event as well as the opera--joining the Jack of all trades and the lovely Susanna, compliments of the ever-creative On Site Opera.

Children of All Ages! In the center ring was a death-defying feat of legerdemain guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, a tap to your toe and an audience to its feet. And for all those new-opera fanatics who think that the 19th century doesn't have anything to say to a Millennials--LoftOpera brought a whopper of a production of Rossini's last comedy to Brooklyn's Muse venue in Bushwick, which was filled with Millennials as well as perennials. Live, in person, LE COMTE ORY.

Although Kevin Newbury has directed operas by some of history's greatest composers--Donizetti and Bellini, Strauss and Mozart among them—he makes no bones about it: He prefers his composers to be living. (Librettists, too, of course)

Although the solstice doesn't officially appear for another week or so, the summer opera clock is already ticking. There's a plethora of performances going on all over New York City, in addition to interesting, entertaining and fascinating productions that are just a hop, skip and jump away. Among them: Lincoln Center's Lincoln Center Festival and Mostly Mozart and On Site Opera's West Village venue, to the more bucolic realms of Bard SummerScape in Dutchess County (NY) for Mascagni and Caramoor in Katonah (NY) for Rossini and Beethoven.

For a director known as opera's bad boy, Calixto Bieito turned to something awfully familiar in CARMEN for his US debut. Then again, he didn't actually show up for it, tied up with a new production of Aribert Reimann's LEAR in Paris and dispatching one of his top collabortors, Joan Anton Rechi, to pull it together.

“There is no sense in which [the play] THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST needs to be an opera.” Those words aren't mine, but come directly from an article by Paul Kilbey in the program at last week's U.S. stage premiere of Irish composer/lyricist Gerald Barry's 2010 opera THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. But I couldn't agree more with the sentiment.

Early in May, Gustavo Dudamel—the brilliant music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic—was booed at the opening of TURANDOT at the Vienna State Opera purportedly for playing too loud. There were no such complaints when he returned to Disney Hall in Los Angeles on May 20, with a grand, finely nuanced performance that paired the austere but marvelous MISERERE by Arvo Part with Mozart's REQUIEM.

Under the umbrella of the New York Opera Fest, The Center for Contemporary Opera presented an hour's worth of excerpts from THE WILD BEAST OF THE BUNGALOW, an episodic opera still in development by composer Rachel J. Peters and (the omnipresent) librettist Royce Vavrek. It was, frankly, spellbinding.

As part of the New York Opera Fest, Brooklyn's scrappy Vertical Player Repertory ventured into Manhattan's Christ and St. Stephen's Church near Lincoln Center, bringing with it a true rarity: Giovanni Pacini's bel canto-ish MALVINA DI SCOZIA, which dates from 1851. And while it was good to hear a work that competed in its day with the operas of Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti (not to mention the up-and-coming Verdi), “rarity” isn't necessarily synonymous with “ready for prime time,” even in Vertical's spirited production.

“Park and bark” is a term usually used derogatively when speaking about opera--a kind of old-style singing that involves standing still and bursting forth in song, with little or no acting skills involved. There certainly wasn't anything old-fashioned about the operas or the group of young singers who performed them at NYU's black box theatre on May 7 (except perhaps their good training) in “Park and Bark--6 Mini-Operas about Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park.”

Those of us with long enough memories can recall some exciting nights at Opera Orchestra of New York's concerts at Carnegie Hall, with Eve Queler at the helm. It's reputed that Donizetti's PARISINA D'ESTE made quite a stir with Montserrat Caballe in the spotlight in 1974--but anyone expecting history to repeat itself when Queler mounted the opera for Angela Meade at the Rose Theatre last week was wildly disappointed.

I wonder whether James Levine imagined that Mozart's DIE ENFUHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL (THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO) would be his swan song as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera. I think he might have chosen better.