Imeneo and Subtext

Continuing in my year of working on 12 operas in 12 months (yikes!), next up is Handel's IMENEO.

Not iDOmeneo -- that's by Mozart. The sad joke I've repeated too many times now is that we actually are doing Idomeneo, just with all the parts in the key of C being cut out... get it? key of C? Yeah -- funny the first time, barely.

Imeneo first came to my attention the year before Glimmerglass was set to produce it. Of course I said, "you mean Idomeneo, right?" and got the look from Nicholas Russell that I now give others... It was a lovely cast - John Tessier, Amanda Pabyan, Michael Maniaci - but I have to admit to not liking the production all that much. With the exception of the brilliant choice to have a bunch of an act set at a dinner table, Alden's other choices were a bit stark.

The score is simply beautiful and the story is, well, simply simple: Clomiri loves Imeneo, Imeneo wants to marry Rosmene, Rosmene is engaged to Tirinto. Got it? Rosmene, after faking a nervous breakdown, decides to bow to the will of Argenio (Clomiri's father) and do the honorable thing by marrying Imeneo - the hero who saved Rosmene and a bunch of other ladies from pirates. Yes, PIRATES! To Be Ungrateful or Unfaithful? That is her question. It ends with Rosmene, Tirinto, and Clomiri all quite Unhappy.

The production design had a caveat attached to it: use as little money as possible. After the expense of La Boheme (the most expensive Opera McGill production to date), we had to explore ways to create Imeneo with less than we might normally spend. What to do now that our audiences have come to expect a certain level of production values?

We decided to go with the adage "what's old is new again". McGill University is trying to begin to think Green, and I've been storing up bits and pieces of sets from other productions over the past four years - so why not use them? Boston Lyric Opera did this last season by using a Conklin set designed for one opera at Glimmerglass and re-thinking it for another opera at BLO. We're going to do something slightly different. The plan is to use the rice paper drops from Alcina to define the space, the sculpted head of Lucretia hung as a "moon", and costumes/props from both Thésée and The Rape of Lucretia to create the period.

My stage direction for this production will be focusing on character subtext and how those ideas motivate the da capo ornaments. Easier said than done... An abstract I wrote for a conference on design was titled "Subtextual Leitmotifs in Operatic Design". Although the paper got sidelined because I was in the midst of doing ten operas during 2010, the ideas in the paper are ever-present in my mind when working with opera singers. (I first explored these a few years back during Opera McGill's Alcina production).

How does a director and the cast discover the subtext? What IS subtext? Lots of people think it's about sex, like when Mozart orchestrates horns to play during Fiordiligi's "Per pieta" aria in the 2nd act of Cosi fan tutte. It's more than that, a lot more.

It's a process of really digging into the actual TEXT, an archeological dig into the character's Environment, their Relationships with the others onstage, their Objectives and Obstacles in each scene, aria, and the overall picture, their Tactics (usually given by the composer - i.e. tempo, key, dynamics, vocal registers), and what's at Stake for each character at any given moment. Those are all very rational ideas to explore. Subtext connects those ideas in two ways: directed internally, they mix in with the emotions and magnify them in so many ways; directed externally, they can hit others onstage and those in the audience with a vivid picture of a character's inner thoughts and emotions. All of us Think one thing, Say another, and Do something else when dealing with our loved ones, our friends, our co-workers, and the strangers on the subway. How do we know what Othello is thinking? He either has to tell us in his text, or we see into his thoughts because of the difference in what he says and what he does onstage. How he says it is also important...

Just a few thoughts about what we'll be concentrating on during March. Of course, we'll also be concentrating on the music, the ornaments, and the voices! Each year Opera McGill presents a baroque opera in collaboration with the Early Music Program at McGill - in period tuning and with period instrumentation. EACH year -- the only academic program in North America to do so, at least to my knowledge. Don't miss it: March 25, 26, & 27 (matinee), 2011 in Pollack Hall in downtown Montreal.

Opera Lives!

After the last few operas I've seen, and I'm speaking as a ticket-buying audience member not as a producer, I'd become increasingly worried that opera was falling into a void. A void of mediocre singing/yelling, terrible language skills and acting without textual connotations (let alone, subtextual!), horrid lighting cues that verged on community theatre, incompetent conducting and pedestrian direction.

A sad state! I'd been seeing this sort of "throw-it-together" opera for awhile now... Everywhere: close at home, far from home, at opera companies with big budgets and at companies with small budgets. It was getting kinda depressing.

And then I took a flight from Plattsburgh, NY, to Boston, MA to see the Boston Lyric Opera production of Puccini's "Tosca'. The reason for my trip was to see old friends who were all involved in the production. The leading lady Jill Gardner, the director David Lefkowich, and the conductor Andrew Bisantz, were all assembled by the artistic administrator of BLO Nicholas Russell for this production. All of us had met at Glimmerglass during our summers there, and now here they were in Boston.

Honestly, I was more interested in seeing everyone than sitting through another opera - particularly when I heard the tenor had become sick and they were bringing in a sub. I also did not know the rest of the cast, and so was getting set for that "same-old" opera I had been seeing at other places around North America.

Well --- OPERA LIVES AGAIN! In spades! The BLO production just blew me away. Starting with Jill's amazing, gutsy, and wonderfully sung portrayal of the title role. I have not seen a singer give such a complete performance -- vocal, musical, and dramatic -- in years. Jill WAS Tosca. I believed every moment and she created such special ones: praying to the Madonna, flirting with her Mario, singing "Vissi d'arte" on Scarpia's temporary cot, stabbing him to death with the scissors (go David Lefkowich!), and her amazingly shocking "leap". You just had to be there to believe it. It was all done with a beautiful connection to the text, attention to Puccini's score, and gorgeous tone. BRAVA!

Supporting her in all of this was the conductor, Andrew Bisantz. I've heard him conduct lots of opera - from Little Women to Manon Lescaut, and was not surprised at how adept he was with this score. I think Puccini might be his forte, as it all seemed to flow effortlessly; sculpting a beautiful performance from orchestra and singers alike, he allowed his leading singers ample freedom to express this tricky score. It's too bad that the Met seems to be hiring young, inexperienced Maestri with big names and big money behind them -- instead of hiring actual conductors who know the scores because they've spent their 10,000 hours actually LEARNING how the buggers go. Note to Gelb...

Not to be missed were all of David Lefkowich's touches. This was not an original production -- rented all the way from Scottish National Opera and arriving via boat. I've only seen David work in original productions, and he flourishes in those. However, the confines presented to him really came to fruition in the 2nd act. It was simply riveting. From Scarpia getting in some good ol' fashioned gut punches on the tenor, to the vivid almost-rape of Tosca, to Scarpia's murder by scissors, I was impressed. No one moves men around onstage in Fedoras better than David Lefkowich!

The rest of the cast was also QUITE good: from Bradley Garvin's channeling of a young Milnes mixed with Hollywood good looks, to the substitute tenor of the day Richard Crawley (who threw himself into the role as if he'd been in rehearsals for weeks), to the supporting roles (T. Stephen Smith's perfect Sacristan to Anton Belov's Angelotti); that sort of deep casting comes from an artistic administrator who knows his business!

So yes, I judged an Aria Contest for Teens - with Miss Boston and her tiara - and there were numerous bottles of champagne and red wine at a dinner filled with old friends from Florida Grand Opera (a surprise). I also had an afternoon with the glorious Ruth Golden, in town to hear the opening night, and was able to see Brevard alumni Nicole Rodin sing in an outreach BLO performance plus have a Starbucks with Margot Rood. Margot's now flourishing in Boston, which is such a great place for singers with small voices...

Just kidding Margot! I'm hoping Boston will figure out what I figured out three years ago -- Margot is one of the most talented singing actors out there. BLO should hire her next...

Next up: Catherine Malfitano's McGill masterclass on November 20; Boheme starts staging at McGill on November 23; Gately and I head off for the Brevard auditions Dec. 4 - 15 (Chicago, Ft.Worth, NYC, Boston). I promise to blog from those auditions!