LA BOHEME – REVIEW OF LIVE FROM THE MET IN HD PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

A few hundred thousand people around the globe were treated to another revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème beamed to them directly from New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Most of them were unlikely to have seen the premier of this production in 1981 because they were not born then, were not in New York or could not afford the price of admission even if they were.

The Met has made up for lost time and opportunities for many of us to see Zeffirelli’s take on the opera by broadcasting the production in 2008, 2011 and 2014 with stellar casts. This year’s cast is no less stellar with soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Mimi and Michael Fabiano as Rodolfo.

  A scene from Act II of Puccini’s “La Bohème.” Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

We may imagine Mimi as an ill-nourished flower embroiderer who faints after she knocks on Rodolfo’s door because her candle went out. Some of that is true but Yoncheva’s Mimi has a twinkle in her eye and she is not frail. I think she sees what she wants in Rodolfo and goes after him in her sweet, humble way and they both find love and happiness at least to the end of Act II.

Yoncheva does have a beautiful voice and the familiar stops from “Me chiamano Mimi” to happy moments to her heart wrenching death at the end of Act IV are done with vocal splendor and touching expressiveness. Her lover Rodolfo is in the capable hands and vocal chords of tenor Michael Fabiano. He is youthful, ardent, vocally well-equipped and we love his love, his foolishness and his belated reconciliation with Mimi with pleasure and tears. Familiarity breeds appreciation.

The flirtatious, fun-loving, man-abusing Musetta is sung by Susanna Philips who has done the role almost countless times. She shows no fatigue and attacks her part with relish. She arrives at the crowded scene in the café, takes control, flirts with her former lover Marcello and takes the foolish Alcindoro (the aging Paul Plishka) for all he is worth.

 Brigitta Kele  (not Susanna Philips of the performance under review) as Musetta and 
Lucas Meachem as Marcello in Puccini's La Bohème. Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

Rodolfo’s three friends deserve special mention and not just for their vocal talents. Lucas Meachem as Marcello, Alexey Lavrov as Schaunard and Matthew Rose as Colline interact superbly and show true friendship. Tomfoolery and humanity combine to make the four friends a pleasure to watch and hear.     

Franco Zeffirelli’s production may well be opera as imagined by many but achieved much less frequently in recent productions in general. It is not exactly “thrift, thrift” as Hamlet would say, that causes more modest sets but a charge in tastes. Yet Zeffirelli’s extravaganzas are still produced to the delight of many. The scene in the Café Momus in Act II recreates a whole neighborhood on the Left Bank of Paris. You get a horse-drawn carriage, a donkey-drawn cart, a crowd of people on two levels and a carnival atmosphere of great excitement. Over the top? You bet.

Marco Armiliato conducted the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Matthew Diamond directed the production for the movie houses and did so sensibly without treating the opera like a video game.

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La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini was transmitted Live in HD on February 24, 2018 at the Cineplex Cinemas, Scarborough Town Centre, 300 Borough Drive, Scarborough, ON, M1P 4P5, (416) 290-5217 and other theatres across Canada.  There will be encore broadcasts on April 7, 9, 11, 15 and May 5, 2018. For more information: www.cineplex.com/events    

THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO – REVIEW OF CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

James Karas

Wajdi Mouawad is a prolific and talented Canadian of Lebanese origin who is a true man. He has written, directed and acted in numerous plays (among other accomplishments) and he knows the Middle East. The Canadian Opera Company has tapped into his talents by assigning him to direct its new production of The Abduction from the Seraglio.

Mouawad has gone a few steps further than the usual duties of an interpreter of a classic work by superimposing a play on Mozart’s work and making changes to the dialogue to suit his message. The Abduction opens with the Spanish nobleman Belmonte standing in front of the palace of the Turk Pasha Selim trying to figure out how to rescue his beloved Konstanze. She was abducted by pirates and you know the rest.

 

(top, l-r) Jane Archibald as Konstanze and Claire de Sévigné as Blonde; (bottom, l-r) 

Owen McCausland as Pedrillo and Peter Mauro as Belmonte. Photo: Michael Cooper

Mouawad adds a playlet before this. We are in Europe in the Age of Enlightenment and Belmont’s father (not in Mozart’s opera) and friends are celebrating the rescue of Kostanze. This is a celebration of civilization over Turkish barbarism and there is a game where people bash the head of a Turk with a sledge hammer. Such fun, no? Well, Konstanze has seen Turks up close and she has a different opinion of them.

Start Mozart’s work, please.

Belmonte (Swiss tenor Mauro Peter) is the ardent lover of Konstanze and his job is to be the ardent lover of Konstanze with the odd fit of jealousy. He starts with “Hier soll ich dich denn sehen” (“Here then shall I see you”) about how he suffered without Konstanze.  Then he tells us how ardently his lovesick heart is beating (“O wie ängstlich”)  and moves up the scale to rapture and joy in “Wenn der Freude Tränen fliessen” (“When tears of joy are flowing.” Peter has his job cut out and we never doubt his ardour but Konstanze, despite what she says and sings, may have some reservations the way Mouawad presents her.

The vocal part of the production belongs to soprano Jane Archibald as Konstanze. She has a silken voice and she projects her ardour and her pain with superb effect.  She sings about love and its sorrows in “Ach ich liebte” and then rises to the splendour of “Martern aller Arten” (“Tortures of every kind.”) She goes from defiance to pleading for mercy to accepting her fate. Konstanze is a more fully developed character in the opera’s unsatisfactory plot and Archibald gives a bravura performance.

Soprano Claire de Sévigné was a spry, lithe and delectably sung and assertive Blonde. Her lover Pedrillo was well accounted for by tenor Owen McCausland. Croation bass Goran Jurić sang the role of the creepy Osmin. He has a good voice but he was simply overwhelmed by the orchestra when he tried his low notes.

Pasha Selim’s palace is by the sea (the getaway is in a boat) and one can do much with Middle Eastern design motifs. Set Designer Emmanuel Clolus has set the opera in no particular place. There are large, moveable, mostly dark-coloured panels. About the only colourful thing is a large globe which holds people on a couple of levels that appears near the end of the opera. The seraglio ladies are pretty and dressed tastefully but you will not go to this production for the set.

 

Jane Archibald as Konstanze and Mauro Peter as Belmonte. Photo: Michael Cooper

The Abduction is a Singspiel meaning it combines songs and dialogue. There is lots of dialogue even without Mouawad’s additions. Why are we forced to read surtitles? Why is the dialogue at least not in English? I am not sure there is a defensible argument and I will not buy the spiel about some singers not knowing English.    

Mouawad’s intention is clearly to represent the Turks as humane, generous and civilized. There is no sign that we are in a Turkish palace at all. Scant turbans, no minarets, and no indication of a seraglio. Fair enough but we came to see Mozart’s imperfect opera and adding a playlet and making changes in the dialogue in order to make a point may be going too far. The opera can be done in perhaps a bit over two hours plus intermission. This production went to three and a half hour including a 25 minute intermission. That’s approaching Wagnerian dimensions. The music carries this opera; the plot does not. Stick to Mozart. 

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The Abduction from the Seraglio by W. A. Mozart opened on February 7 and will  be performed a total of seven times until February 24, 2018 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. West Toronto, Ont. www.coc.ca

RIGOLETTO – REVIEW OF CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Verdi’s Duke of Mantua and his courtiers have been found in all kinds of places. They have been seen in Las Vegas, a circus, with the Mafia in Little Italy and Trump Tower. Director Christopher Alden has placed them in a rather unlikely setting of a staid English gentlemen’s club. We have the rich walnut panelling, the leather chairs and well-dressed gentlemen perusing newspapers.

In keeping with our stereotypical view of the English, this is a stiff-upper-lip crowd who eschew much display of emotion and even much physical movement. Eye contact is assiduously avoided and communication across the room is encouraged. The courtiers seem to stay in their club around the clock the way I imagine Penelope’s suitors hung around Odysseus’s palace for years without ever going to their houses.

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Rigoletto, 2018, photo: Michael Cooper

With minor exceptions, the entire action takes place in the club. That, of course, does not make sense but Alden, as far as I can tell, has no intention of giving us a sequential or logical telling of the plot. This Rigoletto is, I think, the title character’s nightmare or his daughter Gilda’s dream or perhaps both.

During the overture, we see Rigoletto (baritone Roland Wood) seated in a leather chair to our right sleeping uneasily. Pay attention to the chair because it will be there for the rest of the production. A larger-than-life painting of a woman dominates the stage and we learn that it is of Gilda (Anna Christy) and it is tended by her servant Giovanna (Megan Latham).

Much of what happens is unrealistic, illogical, and abstract. But all of that may be consistent with the internal logic of a dream or a nightmare. The portrait of Gilda in the club appears ripped after her abduction. When Gild is being abducted and Rigoletto is told by the kidnapping courtiers that they are after Ceprano’s wife, Ceprano’s wife appears. When the aggrieved Monterone (a powerful Robert Pomakov) appears to complain about the defilement of his daughter, a woman in a nightgown appears. No doubt, she is his abused daughter.

What struck me more was the scene after Gilda’s abduction. We hear a briefly humanized Duke grieve about her loss and expressing his love of her and his desire to comfort her. Gilda appears on a couch and the Duke mounts her. The courtiers surround the couch and Rigoletto appears begging them to tell him where his daughter is. During this highly affecting scene, the Duke and Gilda are hidden from view and he is defiling her. When the courtiers move away we see a distraught Gilda and no Duke.

Sparafucile (the fine-voiced bass Goderdzi Janelidze) is a well-dressed assassin with a briefcase who works out of the club while the courtiers are reading their papers. He is indifferent to his barber and does take his shoes off when he is supposed to be in his run-down murder work-shop but don’t look for him on some badly lit street. This is more of the internal logic of a dream, I suppose.

Anna Christy as Gilda and Stephen Costello as the Duke of Mantua. 

Photo: Michael Cooper

The singing is of uneven quality. Wood sings consistently well but he is not allowed to or is simply unable to bring out the great pathos and drama inherent in Rigoletto’s situation. He never gets close to Gilda and even in the final scene when he realizes that she has been murdered it takes him a long time to get near her and when he does take her in his arms it is perfunctorily. When he realizes that she is dead there should not be a dry eye in the house. In the end Gilda walks away and I was looking for a ray of light to indicate apotheosis but it did not materialize.

Tenor Stephen Costello has his moments when he is allowed to let go. He sings “Questa o quella” sitting down but he is allowed some swaggering in “La donna e mobile.” Maybe he felt he was singing with his hands tied behind his back in the bizarre interpretation but he was not totally satisfactory.

Soprano Anna Christy has a sweet voice but it is simply not big enough for The Four Seasons. Her delicate tremolo sounded fine in “Caro nome” but I felt like reaching to turn up the volume.

As I said, Rigoletto has been set in numerous locales and some are more suitable than others. But all of them need some exuberance, some emotional depth that expresses the lechery and depravity of the court as well that tragedy of love and vengeance. An English gentlemen’s club be it in a dream or a nightmare is hardly the place for that.

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Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi continues until February 23, 2018 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel:  416-363-6671. www.coc.ca