Richard Sasanow - Page 33

Sometimes, it's nice to remember a time when opera was all about wonderful singing, singing and more singing. Sunday's annual concert of the Richard Tucker Foundation--celebrating the current winner of its top prize, bass-baritone Christian Van Horn--was a great salute to this artist in particular but to the form in general. And the presence of opera-loving Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—still doing her best to keep the flame at 85--was the cherry on the sundae.

Nico Muhly's MARNIE, aided and abetted by Nicholas Wright's libretto, dramaturg Paul Cremo and the sweeping production of Michael Mayer--which had its US premiere Friday night at the Met--is that fabled “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Nothing is quite what it seems or results in easy answers--for the characters or the audience.

Anyone who was expecting the equivalent of Bette Midler's arrival as Dolly in the Harmonia Gardens when Jonas Kaufmann finally returned to the Met, on October 17, after four years and some high-profile cancellations, must have been wildly disappointed. Oh sure, Kaufmann looked like a glamorous buckaroo and compared to some of the star tenor misfires already this season at the Met, he had a triumph.

When the Met's literary advisor asked Nicholas Wright what he thought about doing the libretto for MARNIE, he said yes because he was really interested in working with composer Nico Muhly and Michael Mayer. He was somewhat reserved, however, about whether it was a good opera subject. That was understandable, of course, when he admitted, laughing, a case of mistaken identity.

I grew up with many versions of the Frankenstein story--some with greater nods to Mary Shelley's novel than others--spending Saturday afternoons being scared witless and loving every minute of it. But I was changed forever by Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, making it hard to come to the story of monster and master today with fresh eyes and ears, no matter how serious the intentions. But Gregg Kallor's SKETCHES FROM FRANKENSTEIN, which played last week in the catacombs of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, managed to do it.

THE MILE-LONG OPERA's composer David Lang says he is trying to expand the definition of what an opera is. Well, AIDA this ain't. If you live in New York, you might know the High Line, a modern elevated walkway built over abandoned railroad tracks that stretches from the West Village to the Westside Highway at 34th Street. It is a voyeur's paradise--but the production does the voyeuristic aspects one better. It's a whale of a show.

Missy Mazzoli had me with BREAKING THE WAVES, her 2016 opera written with librettist Royce Vavrek at Opera Philadelphia and PROTOTYPE 2017. With PROVING UP--same librettist and with a production also conceived by James Darrah--which had its New York debut this week at Columbia University's Miller theatre, she proved she's a force to be reckoned with.

The synopsis of Verdi's AIDA, with Ghislanzoni's smart libretto, places it in 'Egypt, during the reign of the pharaohs.' For the first performance of the opera this season, on Wednesday, they should have changed that to 'during the reign of soprano Anna Netrebko,' because she owned the stage from the moment she entered.

Whether from disease, 19th century #MeToo-style abuse, or unrequited love, Opera Philadelphia's (OP) Festival O18 opening weekend showed us three ways that central female characters lost their grip on reality. While I considered only one of them a total success, audience openness to sometimes-demanding material made it clear that the company has found a formula that strikes at the hearts of opera-goers, new and old.

Well, no one could accuse the opening of the Met's new season, with Darko Trasnjak's production of Saint-Saens' SAMSON ET DALILA, to Ferdinand Lemaire's libretto, of being drab. Starry, certainly. Over the top, definitely. Filled with feathers, absolutely. Call it “Crazy, Rich Philistines.”

'A Ukrainian Jew walked into a bar in Havana....' Wait, haven't I heard this one before? Not by a longshot. HATUEY: MEMORY OF FIRE, the opera by Frank London and Elise Thoron, performed in Yiddish, English and Spanish, is a unique work that ambitiously crosses many creative lines in a work inspired by a kind of Yiddish epic poem.

“I was, like many composers, not someone who was immediately in love with the human voice, the operatic voice, in new music,” says Lembit Beecher, whose opinion has definitely changed. He has become a powerful new force in the medium, with his new opera, SKY ON SWINGS, written with librettist Hannah Moskovitch and directed by Joanna Settle, opening the second year of Opera Philadelphia's Festival, O18, on September 20. It stars two formidable mezzos, Frederica von Stade and Marietta Simpson.

Soprano Julia Bullock is at the Met in New York this year--but not necessarily the one that comes to mind when you're thinking about performances by an opera singer. It's the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she kicked off her year as Artist-in-Residence (2018-2019) on Saturday night with “History's Persistent Voice,” the first in a series of five concerts.

You can't accuse Opera Philadelphia's O18 Festival--running September 20-30 at various city venues--of being predictable. But no one would chastise you if you were to think: How do you follow-up what seems like a once-in-a-lifetime event, last year's O17? Well, as Monty Python used to say, 'And now for something completely different...'

Before there was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, there was Antonio Salieri. Today, most people only know the latter as a character in the play AMADEUS and its Oscar-winning film version, and not as head of all things musical in Vienna for decades and a prolific composer. You've got to give points to the spunky little Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble for digging up Salieri's 1789 work LA CIFRA (THE CYPHER), an opera buffa popular in its time, and giving its US premiere.

“In Rigoletto we're dealing with abuse of women, male power, rape, murder. Obviously, the stories carry an unbelievable weight to them,” says Jonathon Loy, who's not only the stage director of the Berkshire Opera Festival's RIGOLETTO opening on August 25, but also the company's General director. 'In this #MeToo time, I need to communicate why the opera is so relevant to today's audiences, young and old--and why everyone will relate to what's going on.”

Lincoln Center's MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL is over for the season and finished up with a program that was an oddity because it wasn't mostly Mozart (or no Mozart) but all Mozart. Well, hooray for the 18th century. I was happy to be back in the bosom of the festival's namesake. Does that make me a bad person?

Ashley Fure's and Adam Fure's THE FORCE OF THINGS: AN OPERA FOR OBJECTS--one of this week's unusual attractions at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival--took place at Brooklyn's Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet. As far as I could tell, that first sentence was filled with misnomers: no recognizable opera, no Mozart--and no classical ballet either. But what the piece may lack in clarity, it gains in its boundary-stretching reminder that while we're sitting around, going about our business, climate change is happening. Now.

It was 'out with the old (i.e., Caramoor) and in with the new (i.e., Purchase College)' for Will Crutchfield's love affair with all things bel canto this weekend, and what better way to get things rolling at his new company, Teatro Nuovo, than Rossini's TANCREDI. After all, it was the master's first big hit, written in just a month when Rossini was not yet 21.

Anyone who loves Leos Janacek's gorgeous but grim operas--JENUFA, KATYA KABANOVA, MAKROPOLOUS--might be surprised by THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN. It's being presented, now through August, in a handsome production at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY.