During the last two seasons of Live at the Met in HD at the Cineplex, I enjoyed three of the four operas in Wagner's Des Ring der Nibelungen (I had to miss Götterdämmerung due to a scheduling conflict). I was impressed by the versatility of the uniquely modern set in its ability to tell the story in a very traditional manner, and I was simply blown away by the quality of the singing cast.
Now the entire cycle is available on DVD and I've just finished watching it all. No, not all at one time! (even I'm not that much of a music nut!) I watched an act at a time when I had free evenings over the last several weeks. And I am even more impressed with the sheer strengths of this new Ring on every level. It's not definitive (what Ring ever is?) but it's about as close to a definitive version as I think I am ever likely to see and hear.
I've seen live stagings at the Canadian Opera Company of three of the Ring operas, and I've always been disappointed by the sheer weight of psychological symbolism dragged out into the open and rammed down the audience's throat. Sometimes, the meaning (if any) of the stage director's interpretation is so unclear and the choice of visual images so unhelpful that the staging simply ends up swearing at the music. A noted directing teacher once told me that a wonderful intellectual concept which doesn't carry across the footlights to the audience needs to be cut right out of the production, and I totally agree! (rant for the day)
That certainly isn't the case here. This production, staged and directed by Robert Lepage, simply uses very modern technology to try to show us the Ring as Wagner wrote it. The main tool is the huge "machine" which dominates the entire Met stage, and the dizzying array of digital projections which appear on its surfaces.
Right at the outset of Das Rheingold, Lepage's approach gives the most dramatically effective solution I've ever seen to the cursed problem of how to make the Rhinemaidens sing and swim at the same time. Later on, in Die Walküre, Lepage provides an equally effective solution to the galloping horses of the Valkyries. Most productions, including the ones I have seen staged, have simply sidestepped the problem by ignoring the horses altogether, even though the eight Valkyries are singing about them.
And how could I not mention that overwhelming entry of the gods into Valhalla? For the first time I have ever seen or heard of, a stage director has actually comes up with a staging concept that does full justice to the grandeur and splendour of Wagner's music at this point. If you haven't seen the show yet, I'm not telling what it is -- the surprise is everything on the first viewing.
These are only a couple of examples of how this unique set becomes almost another character in the performances. But at the same time, "the machine" does not dominate or control the show. Indeed, watching on home video, I was less conscious of the set's movements and changes and simply accepted them as part of the total picture. The same went for the extraordinary projections, and lighting effects.
Aside from all these technical matters, the singing in this production is glorious. Could there possibly be a more dominant, imposing Wotan than Bryn Terfel? I think not, at least not in our times. Jay Hunter Morris is a thoroughly impressive Siegfried, coming across as much younger than his actual age (most tenors struggle to get the young Siegfried down from middle age to 30 or so). The Brünnhilde of Deborah Voight was splendid throughout. Most of the remaining roles were cast with singers who are not famous international stars (an obvious difference from the Met's last video Ring of 20 years ago). All acquitted themselves splendidly.
What I found especially noteworthy is that there was so little "stand and deliver" singing going on. These singers can all act as well, and what a terrific difference that makes to the dramatic power of the whole.
The excellence of the Met orchestra, whether conducted by James Levine or Fabio Luisi, is clearly heard on the splendid soundtrack. Even such dense and complex passages as the stormy prelude to Act III of Siegfried come out clearly, every part easily distinguishable and played with immense verve and precision.
I'm also filled with even more admiration than before for the splendid camera work. Interestingly, the predominance of close-up shots was less disconcerting on a home screen than on the gigantic wall of a Cineplex auditorium!
The box set of DVDs comes with a considerable bonus, the 2-hour documentary Wagner's Dream which takes you right through the process of imagining, planning, staging, and performing this immense new cycle. It's a fine documentary film in its own right, but also very enlightening in view of having seen the performances in the set. The filmmakers even include such classic and horrible moments as the failure of the set to move during the entry of the gods into Valhalla at the opening night of Das Rheingold, or the moment when Deborah Voight slipped off the set at her first entry on the opening night of Die Walküre. But as always, the show must go on, and so indeed it does.
I've always treasured my videos of the early 1990s cycle from the Met, and will certainly return to them. But on many levels, this new issue is a contender for "best Ring cycle ever on video". This should be must-viewing for any Wagner fan.
Wednesday 31 October 2012
Monday 29 October 2012
Give It A Shot!
I must admit, almost against my will, I enjoyed Opera Atelier's production of Der Freischütz by Weber. It's the first excursion into the Romantic repertoire for Opera Atelier, but still a good idea simply because live performances of this opera are a rarity in Canada, and it doesn't seem like one that the Canadian Opera Company is likely to tackle!
What concerned me was that OA is apt to take a bit too "joky" of a tone with some of their productions. For example, I felt their Don Giovanni spent too much time being funny. Yes, Don G is called by Mozart a dramma giocoso but I just thought the giocoso kept going into scenes where it really wasn't called for by the libretto.
Anyway, Der Freischütz thankfully didn't suffer in this respect. The funny scenes, especially those involving Agathe's friend Ännchen were great fun indeed. The serious scenes were played seriously, especially the climactic scene of the casting of the magic bullets. If some members of the audience were chuckling, I think that was just the reaction aggressive rationalists adopt when confronted with any depiction of supernatural forces. It was interesting to see how, as the casting of the bullets proceeded, the little giggles gradually died away altogether -- a real tribute to the sheer dramatic power of Weber's music and of the production.
That Wolf's Glen scene made splendid use of digital projection techniques to create a convincingly supernatural atmosphere. The choreography of the dancers was somewhat helpful, but seemed to me a bit at odds with the staging. In all other parts of the opera, staging and choreography remained firmly grounded in period. and, as always, the entire production rested on the firm and secure foundation of the Tafelmusik orchestra, and the thoughtful, accomplished conducting of David Fallis.
The singing was, as always, uniformly strong. But I felt a couple of singers were not well-suited to their roles. Gustav Andreassen was just too hale and hearty for the Wise Hermit who provides the reconciliation scene at the end. Meghan Lindsay sang beautifully, particularly in her quiet but clear high passages, but I found her acting stiff and cold in the role of the heroine, making Agathe into something of a frigid Ice Queen.
Next to her, Carla Huhtanen sparkled and glittered in the comic soubrette role of Ännchen. Every time I see her play one of these parts, I enjoy her work more and more -- she's a delight! Vasil Garvanliev's clean, hard-edged characterization of the villainous Kaspar also sparkled, but with demonic fire -- right from his first entry he dominated the stage, moving with the speed and energy of forked lightning.
In the key role of Max, tenor Krešimir Špicer was solid, able to be powerful and tender by turns. Of all the cast, he seemed to be most into the ethos of Romanticism, his acting clearly expressing the varied emotions of this tormented man.
Not a perfect show by any means, but on the whole a very effective one -- and well worth your time if you get a chance to see it this week. However, I got cold shivers when co-Artistic Director Marshall Pynkoski made a comment about Wagner possibly being on the horizon. I think that would definitely not be a good place for Opera Atelier to try to go!
What concerned me was that OA is apt to take a bit too "joky" of a tone with some of their productions. For example, I felt their Don Giovanni spent too much time being funny. Yes, Don G is called by Mozart a dramma giocoso but I just thought the giocoso kept going into scenes where it really wasn't called for by the libretto.
Anyway, Der Freischütz thankfully didn't suffer in this respect. The funny scenes, especially those involving Agathe's friend Ännchen were great fun indeed. The serious scenes were played seriously, especially the climactic scene of the casting of the magic bullets. If some members of the audience were chuckling, I think that was just the reaction aggressive rationalists adopt when confronted with any depiction of supernatural forces. It was interesting to see how, as the casting of the bullets proceeded, the little giggles gradually died away altogether -- a real tribute to the sheer dramatic power of Weber's music and of the production.
That Wolf's Glen scene made splendid use of digital projection techniques to create a convincingly supernatural atmosphere. The choreography of the dancers was somewhat helpful, but seemed to me a bit at odds with the staging. In all other parts of the opera, staging and choreography remained firmly grounded in period. and, as always, the entire production rested on the firm and secure foundation of the Tafelmusik orchestra, and the thoughtful, accomplished conducting of David Fallis.
The singing was, as always, uniformly strong. But I felt a couple of singers were not well-suited to their roles. Gustav Andreassen was just too hale and hearty for the Wise Hermit who provides the reconciliation scene at the end. Meghan Lindsay sang beautifully, particularly in her quiet but clear high passages, but I found her acting stiff and cold in the role of the heroine, making Agathe into something of a frigid Ice Queen.
Next to her, Carla Huhtanen sparkled and glittered in the comic soubrette role of Ännchen. Every time I see her play one of these parts, I enjoy her work more and more -- she's a delight! Vasil Garvanliev's clean, hard-edged characterization of the villainous Kaspar also sparkled, but with demonic fire -- right from his first entry he dominated the stage, moving with the speed and energy of forked lightning.
In the key role of Max, tenor Krešimir Špicer was solid, able to be powerful and tender by turns. Of all the cast, he seemed to be most into the ethos of Romanticism, his acting clearly expressing the varied emotions of this tormented man.
Not a perfect show by any means, but on the whole a very effective one -- and well worth your time if you get a chance to see it this week. However, I got cold shivers when co-Artistic Director Marshall Pynkoski made a comment about Wagner possibly being on the horizon. I think that would definitely not be a good place for Opera Atelier to try to go!
Monday 8 October 2012
A Fine Nine
Well, I've been MIA for quite a while, yes? But here I am again, and only a few weeks late with my account of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony's season opener.
There were two short modern works to act as curtain-raisers for the main event. Stewart Goodyear's Count Up and John Estacio's Brio: Toccata and Fantasy for Orchestra both exemplified a welcome trend in recent composition: the rebirth of rhythm. Too much music composed during the 1960s to the 1990s simply lay there, a series of sound effects and chunks of sound that began nowhere, went nowhere much, and ended from exhaustion in a place that (like their beginning) was nowhere but was different since it was somewhere else (concept borrowed from one of my favourite writers on music, Donald Francis Tovey!). These two pieces both had strong, clear rhythmic profiles and were clearly bound on a journey. I've always found this makes music more approachable, even if the harmonies and instrumentation are tough nuts to crack. The orchestra played very well, and both works got much more enthusiastic response than the polite-applause-barely-long-enough-to-get-the-conductor-off-the-stage which often greets modern works.
That's due in large part to Edwin Outwater, the orchestra's music director, who manages to program a large number of modern pieces that share this key characteristic, and thus tend to go over well with the K-W audience.
The main event was Beethoven's monumental Symphony # 9, the work which gave the entire concert its title of Ode to Joy, Ode to Kitchener. This by way of being a celebration of the city's 100th birthday.
While everyone who knows the Ninth waits eagerly for the splendid choral variations of the finale, I've always felt that the work stands or falls by the execution of the serene and elevated slow movement. This needs to be genuinely slow -- too many Ninths are undone by the conductor turning the third movement into a brisk walk in the park. At the same time, though, it needs to maintain a clear forward impetus. And finally, the conductor needs to be fearless in letting the tempo breathe, allowing the basic pace to expand and contract at key moments.
Sounds impossible? Well, the great ones who have led performances throughout their careers can usually get it all right by the time they are seventy or so. It's a piece that somehow seems to reflect the wisdom of age, and requires the wisdom of age to perform properly. Or so I used to think. But Outwater's shaping of the slow movement was so exemplary that it age is clearly not the only criterion! The music lived and breathed in exactly the right spirit, and set the seal of a fine performance of the Ninth.
The choral finale was exemplary too, in another way. Combining multiple choirs trained by different conductors can sometimes lead to annoying minor glitches. But in this case, all the singers were very well in tune with one another and with the conductor and the choral sound was tightly unified at all times and very thrilling indeed.
Which leaves the soloists. Tenor Michael Colvin, a late substitution, was spectacular in the march variation. Bass Phillip Addis and mezzo-soprano Megan Latham were both effective,and Latham in particular became a solid anchor of the quartet, not simply disappearing into the sound as the mezzo is apt to do. Soprano Susan Tsagkaris was a relative disappointment, with a pronounced wobble that made it unclear whether she even nailed her high notes accurately.
The dramatic first movement and spectacular giants' dance of the scherzo were also clearly, neatly played, with the obvious advantage of a mid-size orchestra's cleaner sound compensating for the lack of sheer volume that one would get with a full-size body like the Toronto Symphony.
In sum: an exciting concert, with some good solid modern work, a thrilling choral finale, and a beautiful reading of the slow movement that lifted the performers and audience firmly into the heavens, where Beethoven's imagination so clearly took him.
There were two short modern works to act as curtain-raisers for the main event. Stewart Goodyear's Count Up and John Estacio's Brio: Toccata and Fantasy for Orchestra both exemplified a welcome trend in recent composition: the rebirth of rhythm. Too much music composed during the 1960s to the 1990s simply lay there, a series of sound effects and chunks of sound that began nowhere, went nowhere much, and ended from exhaustion in a place that (like their beginning) was nowhere but was different since it was somewhere else (concept borrowed from one of my favourite writers on music, Donald Francis Tovey!). These two pieces both had strong, clear rhythmic profiles and were clearly bound on a journey. I've always found this makes music more approachable, even if the harmonies and instrumentation are tough nuts to crack. The orchestra played very well, and both works got much more enthusiastic response than the polite-applause-barely-long-enough-to-get-the-conductor-off-the-stage which often greets modern works.
That's due in large part to Edwin Outwater, the orchestra's music director, who manages to program a large number of modern pieces that share this key characteristic, and thus tend to go over well with the K-W audience.
The main event was Beethoven's monumental Symphony # 9, the work which gave the entire concert its title of Ode to Joy, Ode to Kitchener. This by way of being a celebration of the city's 100th birthday.
While everyone who knows the Ninth waits eagerly for the splendid choral variations of the finale, I've always felt that the work stands or falls by the execution of the serene and elevated slow movement. This needs to be genuinely slow -- too many Ninths are undone by the conductor turning the third movement into a brisk walk in the park. At the same time, though, it needs to maintain a clear forward impetus. And finally, the conductor needs to be fearless in letting the tempo breathe, allowing the basic pace to expand and contract at key moments.
Sounds impossible? Well, the great ones who have led performances throughout their careers can usually get it all right by the time they are seventy or so. It's a piece that somehow seems to reflect the wisdom of age, and requires the wisdom of age to perform properly. Or so I used to think. But Outwater's shaping of the slow movement was so exemplary that it age is clearly not the only criterion! The music lived and breathed in exactly the right spirit, and set the seal of a fine performance of the Ninth.
The choral finale was exemplary too, in another way. Combining multiple choirs trained by different conductors can sometimes lead to annoying minor glitches. But in this case, all the singers were very well in tune with one another and with the conductor and the choral sound was tightly unified at all times and very thrilling indeed.
Which leaves the soloists. Tenor Michael Colvin, a late substitution, was spectacular in the march variation. Bass Phillip Addis and mezzo-soprano Megan Latham were both effective,and Latham in particular became a solid anchor of the quartet, not simply disappearing into the sound as the mezzo is apt to do. Soprano Susan Tsagkaris was a relative disappointment, with a pronounced wobble that made it unclear whether she even nailed her high notes accurately.
The dramatic first movement and spectacular giants' dance of the scherzo were also clearly, neatly played, with the obvious advantage of a mid-size orchestra's cleaner sound compensating for the lack of sheer volume that one would get with a full-size body like the Toronto Symphony.
In sum: an exciting concert, with some good solid modern work, a thrilling choral finale, and a beautiful reading of the slow movement that lifted the performers and audience firmly into the heavens, where Beethoven's imagination so clearly took him.
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