Tag: opera

New Zealand Opera

Rossini: La Cenerentola, or La Bontä Trionfa (in Italian with English surtitles)

Directed by Lindy Hume, with Musical Director Wyn Davies, Orchestra Wellington, Freemasons NZ Opera Chorus (Wellington), soloists Sarah Castle, John Tessier, Marcin Bronikowski, Ashraf Sewailam, Andrew Collis, Amelia Berry, Rachelle Pike

St. James Theatre

Saturday 9 May 2015, 7.30pm

While writers may disagree concerning whether La Cenerentola (Cinderella) is a comic opera, there is no doubt that New Zealand Opera played it as such, with much humorous activity.  Perhaps some of the symbolism and solemnity of this moral fairy tale was lost in the process, but the rich variety of visual and aural delights made for a thoroughly enjoyable entertainment.  The version of the story used by Rossini’s librettist Jacopo Ferretti was certainly not as grim as that by the brothers Grimm.  It was not until comparatively recently that this opera was seen as a masterpiece comparable to the composer’s The Barber of Seville and The Italian Girl in Algiers.

Gioacchino Rossini was indeed a precocious talent, as the title of the essay in the programme by Peter Bassett declares, having written numbers of operas while still in his teens.  But not quite as precocious as the dates 1817-1868 shown above his portrait opposite the essay would indicate.  1817 was the date of the composition of Cenerentola.  Not Rossini’s date of birth, which was 1792.  The opera comes at the midpoint of Rossini’s opera-writing career: it was his nineteenth opera, and there were 19 to follow over the next decade, after which he wrote no more operas.

The Director’s decision to set the story in Dickensian London led to marvellously detailed and evocative sets from designer Dan Potra.  The opening set, seen by the audience as background to various high-jinks during the overture, was a huge library, obviously in a great house.  It returned at appropriate points through the story, doubling at one point as the wine cellar in the prince’s palace – when, as if magically, several book shelves transformed into wine-racks, liberally stocked with bottles, including (according to the ‘revised’ libretto shown in surtitles) Cloudy Bay!  Above the highest shelves were portraits of past British monarchs; thus the audience was immediately informed of the locale.

Among the entertainments during the overture was the showing on a screen in a gilt frame of a series of portraits (photographs from the nineteenth century or early twentieth) of prospective brides for the prince, who is under pressure to get married.

The overture is one of the best-known parts of the opera, and its liveliness was rendered with proficiency by the orchestra, under the opera’s musical director, Wyn Davies.  (Too often, including on radio, is it implied that he is there just to conduct the orchestra.  Not at all; he directs all the musical aspects of the production, including all the singers.)

Rossini’s usual good humour and ability to entertain an audience were immediately in evidence.  This joint production with Opera Queensland had much going for it, including not least a cast of principal singers who were uniformly of the highest standards, not excluding the two young New Zealanders as the step-sisters.

The scene transformed, through London fog, to a street view of Don Magnifco’s well-stocked emporium, where the opening duet from the step-sisters, Clorinda (Amelia Berry) and Tisbe (Rachelle Pike) takes place.  At the beginning, they sounded occasionally unsure, but this was soon overcome, and was about the only vocal problem (and a minor one) in the entire performance.

As Angelina (Cinderella), Sarah Castle was immediately impressive, in her first aria: a song in a simple folk-like idiom, about a king who decides to marry an innocent, beautiful but poor young woman for her goodness, rather than marrying for rank, title or money.  The subtitle of the opera means ‘Goodness Triumphant’.

Castle had the coloratura style required for Rossini’s florid writing to a ‘t’, and she and prince Don Ramiro (John Tessier) really lived the parts, as did the excellent Dandini (Marcin Bronikowski).  This character in particular, resplendent in a red suit while he was posing as the prince, and the sisters also, were required in this production to overact, or shall we say act up for laughs; this they did fully.  If at times this gave a vulgar tinge to the production, it obviously lived out Lindy Hume’s conception of these characters.

The many ensembles were excellent, disguising their considerable vocal difficulty.

The male chorus, through numbers of changes of costumes and roles, was energetic and well-voiced.  Some of its members were dressed as women, though obviously being men, most sporting beards.  This added variety not only to their appearance, but to the acting required.  Their set pieces were splendid, not to mention the typical Rossini patter songs, which require such vocal, verbal and labial agility.

Andrew Collis sang and acted his part of Don Magnifico… well, magnificently.  His movement, facial expressions and general deportment spoke of an older man, and one with ideas of improving his station in life.  No wicked step-mother in this story, but a cruel and vain step-father.

Ashraf Sewailam as Alindoro was outstanding, both vocally and in characterisation.  He had the right degree of magnanimous dignity, and his singing was a delight to hear.  However, it did bother me that, as a dignified tutor, he wore his top hat too far back on his head – a symbol of a scoundrel, which he certainly was not.  The hat should be worn squarely on the head (likewise the ‘lemon-squeezer’ military hat).  But so often in dramatic productions (and at other times) one sees them perched towards the back of the head.  (It was noteworthy that on Anzac Day Sir Jerry Mateparae wore his correctly.)

Costumes and props were numerous, colourful and appropriate, given the chosen setting.  Although this version of the story involved bracelets rather than the glass slippers (or should it have been fur?) that we are accustomed to, at a suitable moment when Angelina was being robed for her wedding, Don Ramiro placed new slippers on her feet – a nice touch.

The show was beautifully lit, and there was opportunity for some extraordinary effects, including during a storm with lightning, the chorus the while waving its umbrellas, bedewed with visible raindrops.

This was certainly a production requiring much acting, and also dancing, a particularly amusing sequence being when the chorus danced at the prince’s palace, with suitable seriousness.  The choreographer for this and other dance episodes was Taiaroa Royal.  At this point I thought I felt a slight earthquake – and then the word, and the actions of people suffering from one came up in the opera (to excess, of course!).  On consulting GeoNet later I found that there was a 3.4 quake west of New Plymouth at about the right time.  Did I feel it, or was it precognition?

Two other scenarios were used: the spacious grounds of the prince’s palace, bedecked Capability Brown-style with ornamental trees, which proved useful both because they could be moved, and because characters could hide behind them.  The perspective effect in this scene was beautifully achieved.

An unacknowledged keyboard player (perhaps Wyn Davies?) accompanied the recitatives that opened the second Act; meanwhile lots of stage business involved undressing and dressing Don Remiro as he sang a magnificent aria that included several wonderful high notes.  In this instance, I did find the amount of acting by members of the chorus detracted from the impact of his beautiful singing.

The delightful sextet a little later is one of the high points of the opera, as the main characters amusingly roll their r’s, particularly in the word ‘gruppo’ (knot) which they utter numerous times to describe the tangled web of relationships and characters, particularly the transformation of the ‘valet’ into the prince, and vice versa, and the transformation of Angelina into the prince’s betrothed.

The final scene of the opera took place in front of and on the balcony of the prince’s palace.  It appeared remarkably like the central section of the façade of Buckingham Palace.  It was created by conveniently turning around Don Magnifico’s emporium.

Every effort was made to extract humour from the opera, but pathos and seriousness were not absent, particularly in Angelina’s role.  The underlying themes of the exploitation of servants and the effects of the class system were not entirely lost.  Sets and costumes alone were a feast for the eyes; the singing and orchestral playing made up a feast for the ears.  Congratulations are due all round, not least to set-builders and costume-makers.

The season continues in Wellington on Tuesday 12 May at 6pm and Thursday 14 May and Saturday 16 May at 7.30pm.  The Auckland season opens on 30 May.

New Zealand Opera presents:
Mozart: Don Giovanni

Cast:
Don Giovanni: Mark Stone, Leporello: Warwick Fyfe, Donna Elvira: Anna Leese
Donna Anna: Lisa Harper-Brown, Don Ottavio: Jaewoo Kim, Commendatore: Jud Arthur
Masetto: Robert Tucker, Zerlina: Amelia Berry

Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus, Orchestra Wellington,
Conductor: Wyn Davies,

Director: Sara Brodie

St. James Theatre

Saturday, 11 October 2014

Much has been written about what is probably the world’s most continuously
successful opera: Mozart’s Don Giovanni. That it continues to draw in the crowds despite the misgivings of various ‘experts’ over the years is tribute not only to the variety and virtuosity of the music, but also to the characterisation in Lorenzo da Ponte’s sometimes denigrated libretto.

This opera is notable for many things; the complexity of the vocal writing is certainly one of them. Another is the complexity of the plot. All the characters contrive to find themselves in bad situations from which they manage to escape, just in time. Except for Don Giovanni at the end; his final come-uppance was delivered in this version with a dramatic twist that was in accord with the contemporary production.

There were numbers of features in Wyn Davies’s conducting, Sara Brodie’s production and John Verryt’s sets that made this production of Mozart’s great opera stand out from others one has seen. In no particular order, features were: plenty of fast-paced action and music, the use of the revolving stage making for quick changes of the sets, the 21st century setting, the contemporary English of the surtitles (e.g. ‘creep’ to describe the Don), and the uniformly high standard of the lead characters’ singing and acting.

Setting the story amongst shabby ‘low life’ gathering places rather than in palazzos and piazzas was a surprise. The Hotel Commendatore, and the Hotel Ottavio, plus the Libertino’s ‘Nite Club’ allowed for much comic business, particularly the latter venue. The use of cellphones, tablet, and a modern Red Cross-style rescue team were ‘verismo’ features, 2000s-style.

These were hardly incongruities in terms of the setting; what was incongruous was having the cast doing contemporary formless slow jogging about to Mozart’s delicious music designed for quite different dances; this left me feeling disappointed and deprived – though it is hard to know what else could be done, given the contemporary setting. The pole-dancers in the background were no more or less incongruous.

The well-produced programme featured not one, not two, but three excellent essays, by John Drummond, Nicholas Reid and John Pattinson. Another commendable feature of this production was that apart from two very fine singers from overseas (Mark Stone from UK and Warwick Fyfe from Australia), the principals were all New Zealanders.

Those tremendous, portentous opening chords from the orchestra set the scene for a dramatic evening of opera. From the overture onwards, the orchestra played with great verve and panache, always ‘on the ball’, every instrument making a marked contribution to the whole.

The curtains opened on a dark set revealing the night club, a homeless man endeavouring to bed down in its vicinity (this on the day following World Homeless Day), and the brusque treatment he received – these all came to mean something in the ensuing drama.

The first character to reveal himself is Leporello, with Warwick Fyfe in fine voice, and with much nuance in his acting. Under Sara Brodie’s direction he was not so much of a buffoon as in some productions. His ‘Catalogue Aria’ in Act I was brilliantly performed. The catalogue was held on his cellphone, which he manipulated with sweeping gestures (a little impractical, I would have thought, to have a document with 2065 entries, on a tiny device!). Only in the final scene, his contribution could not be clearly heard.

The appearance of the Don introduced us to the splendid singing of Mark Stone. These demanding roles were well under the belts of the two gentlemen; Mark Stone was very much the persuasive seducer, his voice ready for the variety of timbres demanded by the different aspects of his character portrayed in the company of his would-be conquests, of his denouncers and of his servant. His big arias were sung with lots of swagger where appropriate, and sure vocal technique – masterful. The delightful Canzonetta with mandolin, ‘Deh vieni alla finestra’ was ingratiating and sung with great variation and subtlety in the voice.

Lisa Harper-Brown’s Donna Anna was at first rather overwhelmed by the orchestra, from where I sat. Her voice was at times rather shrill; I agree with William Dart’s comment in his New Zealand Herald review that she ‘showed some vocal straining’; words were not clear and her acting was stiff much of the time. This could be taken as characterisation of a woman whose father had just been murdered, but I wasn’t persuaded. I found her costume rather unbecoming for a tall woman. However, her final recitative and aria ‘Crudele…’ sung to Don Ottavio was very richly rendered.

Anna Leese’s Donna Elvira was wonderful – relaxed, her voice and words always clear, her acting natural and effective, she fulfilled the role superbly. Her entire portrayal was very strong and dramatic, commanding in both acting and singing, and her final aria was fabulous. As the Commendatore (a role he also played in Wellington City Opera’s 1987 production) Jud Arthur has the right bearing, and certainly the right voice: a deep, resonant bass, which he uses superbly well.

Don Ottavio (Jaewoo Kim) is criticised for being wooden, or not an adequate character, or other such phrases. However, he is written as rather a ‘wet’, and his apparently unsympathetic attitude probably stems from the fact that as a nobleman he could not believe that another nobleman would perpetrate such an act as murder. Kim has a lovely voice, and I did not find him inadequate, given the character he was portraying. He and Lisa Harper-Brown evoked the shocked, grieving couple very well. His ‘Il mio tesoro’ was a pleasure to hear.

Amelia Berry (Zerlina) had a few rather uncertain notes early on, but she soon settled down, and revealed not only splendid tone with a variety of timbre, but also her acting and characterisation were uniformly very good; she was really ‘in’ the role. Her singing blossomed, not the least when she produced a magical high C at one point. Her ‘Batti, batti’ was ingratiatingly lovely. Robert Tucker’s Massetto was a rather sturdy, stodgy character, but given to some fine acting and singing, though his voice was not always strong.

Of the many familiar arias in the opera, the singers gave great account, on the whole.I found the Don’s ‘Là ci darem la mano’ a little too slick. Maybe this was to depict his nature (and experience!), but would it persuade a young woman?

As if Mozart did not produce wonderful orchestral sounds and textures, superb solos and telling recitatives, where he excels in this opera is in the ensembles. The first quartet was just splendid, with the variety of emotions between the characters portrayed with sensitivity and skill by the singers. The trio early in Act II was another gorgeous ensemble; there were particularly lovely nuances in Anna Leese’s singing. The sextet in the middle of the Act was wonderfully well done, the drama conveyed through each part; the brilliance of Mozart’s writing here is quite breathtaking.

Summing up, it must said the production made less of the comic and more of the dark, even gothic and tragic in the story than do some productions. There was lots of loud and not a great deal of soft. However, characters were brilliantly portrayed, while the action and stage business kept things interesting. The chorus, like the orchestra, were uniformly first-class, and had plenty of stage business and acting, always carried out convincingly. All involved deserve hearty congratulations.

Among the many notable production touches were the scaffold beside the Hotel Ottavio, that enabled the Don to climb close to Donna Elvira’s window; the sight of the maid through the window as she went through Elvira’s bag, finally removing money.

The nice connection between the homeless man and the Commendatore should not be given away in a review, nor should the dramatic stunt that despatches the Don. The ending sextet was a commendable conclusion, following which the audience erupted in enthusiastic response, thoroughly deserved. We were privileged to attend such an enthralling, high quality production of Mozart’s great work.

Further performances are on 16 and 18 October at 7.30pm.

NZ Opera presents:
Giuseppe Verdi’s LA TRAVIATA

Cast: Lorina Gore (Violetta) / Samuel Sakker (Alfredo Germont)
David Stephenson (Giorgio Germont) / Rachelle Pike (Flora)
Jarred Holt (Baron Douphol) / Andrew Grenon (Gastone)
Kieran Rayner (Marchese) / Wendy Doyle (Annina)

Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus (director – Michael Vinten)
Orchestra Wellington
Conductor: Emmanuel Joel-Hornak

Director: Kate Cherry
Assistant Director: Jacqueline Coats
Designer: Christine Smith
Lighting: Matt Scott
Choreography: Jesse Wikiriwhi

St.James’ Theatre, Wellington

Friday 11th July 2014

(subsequent performances 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th July)

Call it what you will – an operatic masterpiece, a tried-and-trusted favorite, or a sure-fire tear-jerker – La Traviata again exerted its considerable emotional and theatrical “pull”, this time on the hearts and minds of an appreciative audience at the St James’ Theatre on Friday evening.

This was opening night of the production’s Wellington season, the Opera Company having first taken the show to Auckland a few weeks’ previously, to a good deal of acclaim. From the moment the curtain rose during Orchestra Wellington’s playing of the properly frail and tremulously-sounded Prelude, one’s attentions were properly caught and held fast. And this was due to a production whose direct and coherent accord between sounds and imagery was brilliantly established at the outset and never seriously faltered throughout the evening.

One didn’t realize until the final act the full significance of the brief opening vignette and its setting, played out during the Prelude. Violetta, the opera’s heroine, clothed in ghostly sick-bed-like garments, rose from either sleep or death and confronted the image of herself, resplendent in gorgeous red, dressed for a party and waiting for her guests – the figures were separated by the parameters of a giant glass cube, one which served throughout both to give a theatrical kind of “shape” to the action, and to represent the boundaries confining the characters in the drama.

Here the wraith-like Violetta, next to a fallen chandelier lying at an awkward angle on the floor, was outside the cube watching herself through the glass as the beautiful courtesan she once was, the “fallen chandelier”, one supposes, representing her spent radiance, a kind of glory come to grief, and a contrast with the cube’s suggestion of a beauty in a gilded cage.

The Prelude having sounded its last few soft notes, the ghostly Violetta departed, the chandelier was slowly lifted, and the cube revolved around to its open side – the party could now begin! Throughout the evening the production demonstrated a similar sharply-etched focus on the story’s essentials which allowed the music and the text to suggest to the observer whatever elements of time and place seemed most appropriate.

For instance, I thought the cube a brilliantly-employed structure in this respect, facilitating the different “character” of each of the acts, while binding the overall story together with certain themes suggested by its physical appearance. Thanks to expertly-modulated lighting, the structure’s sparkling glitter, both in a reflective and transparent sense, at once glamourized and laid bare the shallowness of the social interactions of the First and Second Acts which defined Violetta’s world as a courtesan, while those same transparencies underlined the vulnerability of her and her lover Alfredo’s situation, their desire to start a life anew together thwarted by pressures exerted by their all-too-publicly-proclaimed union.

So, while Act One and the second scene of Act Two were all glitter and sparkle, their counterparts expressed vastly different scenarios – the opening scene of Act Two evoked a house in the country, the cube beautifully allowing a suffusion of light throughout Violetta’s and Alfredo’s living-space, via glowing backdrops of panels featuring flower patterns saturated with bright, warm orange hues. As the scene proceeded, and Violetta’s happiness was gradually turned to despair and grief the backdrop colours changed, orange fading and giving way to blue – so simple and yet so affecting!

As for Act Three, we were suddenly presented with that opening, Prelude-accompanied vignette once again, with Violetta (the real Violetta, this time, ill, and close to death) in her ghostly, sick-bed garments lying next to the fallen chandelier, this time one of several of varying sizes, the surrounding hues having no warmth, no comfort. The cube, of course conveyed the privacy of a bedroom, but also the sense of something skeletal, stripped of flesh, bare and unremitting. What radiance occasionally flickered did so coldly and mercilessly – the sense conveyed by the scene was of a place of departure (“Alone, from this world…..”).

All of this wonderful work by the “creative team” (sorry – an awful phrase) deserved to be matched by stellar musical and theatrical performances from the performers both on stage and in the orchestra pit – and by and large the singers and musicians delivered the goods. In fact, musically, I thought this Traviata very satisfyingly of a piece, with the cast, conductor and orchestra players exhibiting a kind of rapport that never lost its “charge”, and in places positively radiated across the footlights and into the auditorium. One constantly sensed a kind of fusion among singers and instrumentalists tingling along the whole spectrum of musical impulse.

This was no better exemplified than by episodes like the frisson of heartless gaiety generated by the chorus of party-goers’ farewell to Violetta in the First Act, by the superbly-realised clarinet solo accompanying Violetta’s letter-writing in Act Two, and then by Violetta’s affecting declaration to Alfredo of her love for him – soprano and orchestra at full stretch, here – at the end of that scene. Then in the following scene came Alfredo’s and Violetta’s very different but equally gut-wrenching condemnations and protestations, strongly supported by supporting voices and orchestra, and in the final scene, the chilling depth of the death-tolling basses and baleful brass when Violetta gives Alfredo her portrait as a gesture of farewell at the work’s end.

So – what about those singers, then? Again, I thought they were musically very satisfying – Lorina Gore as Violetta I fell for in almost every way, singing and acting, as she seemed to do, with every fibre of her being charged with impulsiveness and commitment. Hers were high notes which poured out emotion – not just beautiful noise – and together with her Alfredo, tenor Samuel Sakker, she brought out the music’s great tenderness as well as its raw feeling. That was what I enjoyed most about hers and Sakker’s interaction – a sensitivity when duetting, almost an innocence of interaction (more of which, shortly).

I must mention Gore’s exciting high E-flat at the end of “Semper libre”, one not sanctioned by the composer, but not inappropriate, given Violetta’s euphoria in response to Alfredo’s attentions. It’s a note that singers tend not to try, mostly wisely (in my favourite non-Callas recording of the work, conducted by Carlos Kleiber, the gorgeous Roumanian soprano Ileana Cortrubas makes a brave if squally attempt at the ascent in an otherwise beautiful performance; though I must point out that Callas herself made several all-out, heart-in-mouth launches into the vocal stratosphere at this point in her various recordings, always effective, if not note-perfect!)….in Gore’s case I thought it again not the loveliest sound but an intensely musical, intense and dramatic one, a risk well taken!

I enjoyed Samuel Sakker’s Alfredo increasingly as the evening went on – I thought his singing accurate and musical to begin with, but not especially lovely – however, he either grew on my sensibilities or his tone warmed and sweetened as the story and character developed. He certainly had sufficient vocal heft for the role, but I was especially charmed by the tenderness of much of his duetting with his Violetta – especially touching were some of those First-Act exchanges, the sweetness and slight awkwardness of the boy-meets-girl scenario nicely-caught.

Unfortunately, that was where it all seemed to stay all through the evening as regards any hint of sexual chemistry between Violetta and Alfredo – their “clinches” in the succeeding acts were, to put it mildly, too chaste by a country mile, their body language conveying to each other (and to me) little of their singing’s animal passion or any hint of mingled physical intensity. Perhaps such reserve ran in the family in Alfredo’s case, as his father, Giorgio Germont, played by David Stephenson, came across as an intense and strongly focused, upright character, but ultimately something of a dry old stick – his physical response to Gore’s heartfelt “Embrace me as if I was your daughter” was out of its time, regulation PC to a fault. To be entirely fair, the gesture was of a piece with the character’s manner, business-like and unsentimental, even if Verdi’s music for Germont père suggests layers of warm feeling left physically undisturbed by Stephenson’s accurately-sung, but dry-voiced and rather detached stage portrayal.

Without wishing productions to indulge in what seems a current penchant for excessive bodice-ripping evidenced in some recent opera DVDs I’ve seen, I do feel that Traviata is a work in which one can’t underplay a certain level of romantic passion on the stage – in this case, as the saying goes, it surely comes with the territory. Lest I be accused of making too much of this, I quote a contemporary critic of the work who wrote, “The love depicted by Verdi is voluptuous and sensual, totally lacking in that angelic purity found in Bellini’s music….” I would think that says it all, really…..a certain abandonment in the lovers’ passion, a degree of rawness in their mutual desperation as the tragedy takes hold – neither state was, for me, given sufficient expression by the characters.

However, such was the musical strength of this production, the physical coyness of certain of these stage interactions didn’t fatally spoil our delight – the chorus work, by comparison, had terrific gusto in almost everything they did, apart from one or two “wandering strays” at a couple of points – especially praiseworthy were, I thought the sequences during the second party scene where firstly the women (as gypsies) and then the men (as matadors) of the chorus had different character dances to perform while singing, both of which came off splendidly, with touches of real panache! But the more conventional opening party scene also had plenty of musical bite and energy, the groups swirling around and about most satisfyingly while singing of their life of pleasure, and making their vapid progress from party to party.

Underpinning all of the musical trajectories from the pit was Orchestra Wellington, responding to conductor Emmanuel Joel-Hornak with, by turns, sensitivity, whole-heartedness and vigour. I’ve mentioned some of the most telling instrumental touches, but must pay tribute to maestro Joel-Hornak’s pacing of the work and to his flexible and sensitive direction of his singers during the music’s many tenderly heartfelt moments – his was the kind of direction that always seemed to give the music the time it needed and the musicians sufficient space to realize the same.

A friend who’s a bit of a “Traviata-buff” came with me to the performance – “A marvellous card-game scene! – I haven’t seen or heard better!” he exclaimed, afterwards. “But those two (Violetta and Alfredo) didn’t seem to know one another terribly well!” We hadn’t actually conferred, being too busy with ice-creams and friends at half-time – but he obviously felt the same way as I did. It would be interesting to learn what other people felt – like beauty, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. But I’m sure the strength and conviction of the music-making would have, for most people by far, enabled this production to carry the day, with great credit to all concerned.