Category Archives: opera

Villazon on Verdi

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Someone at the BBC had me in mind when they commissioned this programme (earlier this evening on BBC4). An hour of Rolando Villazon talking with passionate simplicity about Verdi. As he talked, he interviewed equally passionate conductors and singers about what it is that Verdi gives us that works so well. Verdi cared more about moving his audience than about impressing them. He used not just the notes but the pitch, the timbre of the voice or the musical instruments to convey the emotion in the words. More than anything he wanted us to feel what the characters are feeling. (I may possibly have added some of my own views to this summary). We got to hear excerpts from a select quartet of operas and rehearsal sequences with Rolando.

From the hour that I sat right up against the stage and watched the tension of opera singers in the wings as they prepared to walk on, the sweat and the physical effort they threw into producing both small and great sounds, their exhaustion as they reached the end of the opera, I was hooked. I have followed and sought out many singers, especially those whose repertoire centred on Verdi, and Rolando epitomises all the qualities I love best. He climbs right inside the character, he sacrifices perfection for authenticity, the result is very moving and has an edge because giving everything is a little dangerous. Most of all he brings Verdi to life in the way, I am sure, Verdi would have wished.

Yet more Verdi

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Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House, and it turned out to be the first night of the run so there was a buzz in the audience and we spotted several musical bigwigs during the intervals. The contrasts between this and the six-man Ballo in the pub on Thursday were mind-bending, though my personal enjoyment of both was high (and I preferred the seating in the pub).

Don Carlo is just about my favourite opera, and we must have seen this particular production at least three times. The music is magical and with Pappano at the helm I could have shut my eyes and been in bliss the whole evening. On stage, the opening didn’t quite grab me – Kauffman as Don Carlo, in spite of his admirable voice and acting ability doesn’t move me in the way both Villazon and Alagna have in this production, he and Hateros (as Elizabetta) were passionate, anxious and tentative in a modern way – and not enough to set up the drama, which needs vulnerability and individuals caught up and made helpless by bigger events (i.e. classical tragedy). EG was enthralled by the Cloister scene – as were the rest of the audience and I thought Kwiecień as Posa was in stunning voice and perfect for the part and they gave us a ringing duet. In the garden scene there was a new singer, Uria-Monzon, in the part of Princess Eboli, pretty, but her voice was uneven.

If anyone has read this far they will notice that I have sat though Acts I and II without becoming absorbed by the music – this may be my fault for being too tired or overdoing the opera this week. And yet, as the opera progressed and Furlanetto as Philip took the stage I did become involved and lose myself.  By the time of King Philip’s great nighttime lament that his wife never loved him, I was hooked. This was hauntingly sad and as good as I have ever heard it. Eboli’s aria to her beauty was much more secure than the veil song. Posa’s death and the final scene with Don Carlo and Elizabetta in the monastery were musically superb.

Three great operas in a week in a cinema, a pub and a grand opera house, with enthusiastic audiences of all ages. Tickets at the pub were £23 each [this is a correction]. Who says opera is dead or only for the rich?

Ballo at The King’s Head

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Our second Verdi opera this week. This was Verdi with a gigantic twist that still conveyed the musical emotions in Verdi’s score. The cast of six from OperaUpClose performed in the tiny back-of-the-pub King’s Head Theatre (Islington, London) with a piano accompaniment. If I was awarding bouquets for the evening the first would go to the pianist  (not even named in the programme), who kept the score rolling with tremendous flair and warmth. I did not miss the orchestra and there were many times when the piano seemed the perfect accompaniment.

The twist: For those who think of Ballo in Maschera as set in the 18th Century either in the Swedish court or alternatively in colonial Boston (America), it comes as a shock to find that ‘Ballo’ is a modern-day Ikea-style store with Riccardo as manager and Amelia as a checkout operator. The new libretto is hilarious in the first act, yet still within the original story line (a successful and popular – in his own eyes – Riccardo, with a camp sycophantic PA, Oscar, a dour jobs-worth assistant Renato and a disgruntled store cleaner, Tom).

Ulrica, when she appears, is the Customer Complaints Manager making the best of a poorly paid job, well below her degree-level capacity, by doing fortune-telling on the side. Those of us who knew the opera well were laughing at the cleverness of the plot adaptation, Amy and others, new to the opera, were laughing because they recognised the bind she was describing. Amy felt the opera dealt with real modern issues.

Act 2 had Amelia waiting in the freezing car park of the Ballo store to buy drugs. Her aria about her life, her dilemma and her hopelessness was genuinely moving. Riccardo turned up, now serious and confused, to declare his (rather abbreviated) passion. Renato appeared to save Riccardo from Tom, who is on his way to kill him. Tom (who deals drugs to boost his income) appears and cruelly taunts Renato for trysting with his own wife in a car park. The plot events from this point and through Act 3 are close to the original and achieve that satisfying flip of turning comedy into tragedy.

I haven’t mentioned the singing. In a venue this small, the operatic voice is twice as exciting, but also very in-your-face. It is also, with only a piano to back it up, very exposed. The evening we attended (Thursday), the voices that were most positively beautiful and assured were Tom and Ulrica (bass and mezzo). I am not a musician and it may be that the lower voices fare best in such circumstances. The others varied with great moments and the odd squeak. It was fun to have a male soprano in the trouser role and his acting was sheer delight as he echoed every movement Riccardo made and reacted brilliantly to both events and characters. All the acting was good and this enormously enhanced the singing and brought great intensity in the ensemble sections.

I really love to hear the voices only an arm’s length away and felt privileged that these singers should perform for us (at minimal pay) in this pocket-sized venue. Overall verdict from both old timers and new comers – the adaptation really worked, the music that mattered was there, a great experience, fun, moving and something to repeat.

Verdi week

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Last night the first, Nabucco, (delayed) live from the Royal Opera House in our local cinema. Only the third time I have seen it. This casting was terrific, with Liudmyla Monastyrska almost stealing the show with her chillingly acted, beautifully sung Abigaile. Her voice is built for the biggest Verdi soprano roles, I gather her Aida and Lady Macbeth were a knockout and she can act. I can’t wait to see her live. The only reason she didn’t walk off with the audience entirely was that Domingo was singing Nabucco.

I fell for Domingo way back when he took a production of Ballo and just turned it around by making ‘Amelia’ (Katia Ricciarelli) fall in love with him on stage as we listened and watched. I would have accepted him whispering the role of Nabucco, but he gave it everything, passionate, touching, strong and weak, in the third act there was a long sustained note held as the orchestra died away – there was not a quaver in his voice as he held it. EG said he had his heart in his mouth worrying about him remembering lines or sustaining quite so heavy a new role at his age, but I think such an old dog has enough know-how to cover any dicey moments.

The other lead voices were all beautifully balanced, and although I might have indented for a slighter Fenena, her voice and acting fitted the role perfectly. Perhaps the greatest feature of this production was the direction of the chorus. With all the cameras on them, there was never a moment when their concentration faltered. They were in role from start to finish. Va Pensiero was simply, yet passionately handled and the soft fade at the end was the sweetest I have ever heard. It was impossible to detect when the sound ceased.

I fear I could go on at even greater length, it must have worked more magic on me than I anticipated.

Mozart plus and minus

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Opera on DVD last night with friends, Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), one of the best recordings of all time from the Royal Opera House with Pappano and a great cast. Singing blissful, much enhanced by sublime acting and seriously good direction. Only problem is I always forget how long this opera is. I love Mozart at any one minute white listening, but… the music always seems to live within some kind of constraint that, for me, makes it less fulfilling than, say, Verdi, or Mahler. I am well aware that Mozart is sacrosanct and that stylistically he is of his period (and a great innovator within it), still, the fact remains, that I can admire, even feel faint at the beauty of it, but don’t have the same feel of new horizons found, or enlargement of mind and senses as I do with, say, Verdi.

Not the most coherent analysis – and I am not a musician – just trying to put inchoate feelings into words. I guess that’s what writers try to do.

L’Élisir d’Amore

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Last night we had six people round to watch L’Élisir d’Amore (Donizetti). This was the 2005 Vienna production with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon. Much agreement that it would be difficult to improve on this cast. Newcomers found it relatively gentle after the drama of Traviata last month. Request for Tosca next. Still struggling a bit with the picture and the sound balance. Colours too bright and voices somehow behind the orchestra. EG has worked on this today and may have fixed it. I think it is because the sound bar is trying to make us think we are in a cinema.

Feel better for my opera fix and it is great to share it with neighbours.

Opera in the snow

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Last night even though it was late, I felt starved of opera, so I watched the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor with Joan Sutherland, filmed at the MET in 1982. The sound quality and the filming were way off current standards, and La Stupenda is a stage animal not a close-up film one. For the audience though, it was clearly the performance of a lifetime. Her voice was like watching gymnasts performing, there seemed to be no moves beyond her range. I did find the jewel-encrusted Scottish courtiers distractingly absurd. I must watch the whole to become properly absorbed.

I went on to watch the whole scene again in a more modern production, aware all the time that I I should have been doing other things, like getting to bed at a sensible time.

By the time I finished the predicted snow had started.

brick paths and symphonies

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Expected bad weather still holding off, but my hands got very cold heaving bricks and moving turfs. I am taking up a grass path, but keeping the turfs to build a bank in the poor dry soil next to the drive.

No writing today either. Reading the 1853 A Year In Music in bed this morning, I was comforted once more by how little time the great composers of that period actually spent composing. They made a lot of music and they talked to each other about music and they travelled, but composing time was rare. I imagine that it didn’t earn them a living, any more than writing does today. Composing must be the most frustrating of the arts. It is all imagination – unless, say, you are a pianist composing for the piano. For orchestral work, or worse still opera, without the instrumentalists and the singers and the venue and the rehearsing time, you will never hear your own work, you cannot even show it to others except as a score.

It occurs to me that this is no longer true. Presumably there is now software that will allow you to compose and hear some version of your work… Hmm, I’ve always wanted to have a go. Now I recall the girls had a very simple music program on the old Atari. However in 1853 you had a page of music and, if you were lucky , a piano.

Opera at home

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28.2.13 We have 9 people round to watch the Salzburg 2005 Traviata (Verdi) with Netrebko and Villazon. Three new people who have seen one opera between. They coped very well, the old timers loved it though the new TV and sound bar made both the colours too heavy and the sound too shrill. I think we took out much of the bass to prevent throbbing. We’ll have to adjust it for the next one.