SALOME - REVIEW OF 2025 BROADCAST LIVE FROM THE MET

 Reviewed by James Karas

Holy ….

I am at a loss for the next word to express the effect that the live transmission of a performance of Richard Straus’s Salome from New York’s Met Opera had on me in the Cineplex theatre where I saw it. I could invoke a deity, an animal or an imprecation or say simply that I was overwhelmed or bowled over. I was.

The production is directed by the brilliant and unorthodox Claus Guth with dramatic effects and gore that you will not forget, Guth directed Salome for the Deutsche Oper in 2016 that was very different from what he has done for the Met. I saw it and I will comment on it below.

Guth and Set Designer Etienne Pluss set the opera in the large hall of Herod’s palace. It features heavy wood paneling resembling a 19^th century mansion perhaps and the costumes are from the same era. The other set is the cistern referred to in the libretto or the dungeon of the palace which has bare concrete walls and the chained Jochanaan (John the Baptist) where most of the action takes place. There is a steep staircase leading to the dungeon.

As in the 2016 Deutsche Oper production there are seven Salomes ranging from a young girl to the grown-up Salome sung by soprano Elza van den Heever. The Met production, aside from the seven Salomes, bears little resemblance to the 2016 Berlin production.

Salome is dressed in a black dress with a white collar looking very proper and perhaps Puritan. She takes the black dress off and wears a modest white undergarment when trying to attract Jochanaan. The other six Salomes are blonde girls resembling Heever’s Salome. 

A scene from Salome at the Met. Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

But the innocent-looking Salome is obsessed with the wild, religious fanatic Jochanaan and she tries to get him to kiss her on the mouth. The holy man rejects her forcefully and she finds a way of wreaking vengeance on him and kissing him passionately.

Strauss composed powerful music and lyrics based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name and Heever has the vocal power to knock you out of your seat or glue you into it for the entire performance. Watching and listening to Heever is an unforgettable experience. Her holding up Jochanaan’s severed head beside his headless torso and kissing it passionately may be unsettling for some, but it is incredibly dramatic.

Salome’s mother Herodias is an unapologetic slut dressed in red with red hair. She stands against a wall and a man’s hands come out and gives her a glass of wine. He then reaches out and massages her chest. Mezzo soprano Michelle DeYoung gives an outstanding performance as Herodias.

Herod, Salome’s uncle and stepfather (he is Salome’s father’s half-brother who married her mother Herodias) is a debauched man who lusts after Salome. He is petrified of the prophet Jochanaan who is damning him for his incestuous sin. Again, a marvelous performance both vocally and theatrically.

Peter Mattei gives a bravura performance as Jochanaan. He is fearless in his announcement of the coming of Christ and fights off not just Salome but the world of sinners.

The famous scene of the Dance of the Seven Veils has music that Strauss composed music for especially. Salome sheds her veils and is almost or totally naked raising Herod’s hormonal levels to the bursting point. The problem here is where are you going to find a soprano who can sing the notes and have the ability and physical attributes to achieve what the opera demands or what we imagine. Guth’s solution is to put a veil on the head of the Salomes and have them take a ballet stand or position and go off the stage. A couple of them seemed able to do some ballet but it is not important. We hear the music and see Herod’s response who reluctantly accedes to Salome’s demand for the Baptist’s head.

The scene is blood-curdling as Salome takes the head and kisses it passionately as Jochanaan’s blood covers her. All seven Salomes have blood on them. It is astounding and riveting.

Naraboth (Peter Buszewski), the Syrian soldier who is in love with Salome is sung with exceptional passion. He commits suicide according to the libretto, but Guth has him stabbed by Salome as he tries to intervene in her pursuit of Jochanaan. We do not witness his death, but we are informed that he killed himself.

Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducted the Met Opera Orchestra with heroic vigour and effectiveness,

A few reminiscences of Guth’s 2016 production of Salome in Berlin. The opera was set in a modern fashionable men’s clothing store owned by Herod. The men wore nice suits, and the women have becoming dresses.

When the curtain went down at the end of the performance, soprano Allison Oakes who sang the title role stepped out for a bow. She was greeted with a widespread chorus of boos.

The gentleman who was sitting beside me leaned forward and put his head between his hands. The applause of the audience became polite and enthusiastic when the performers took their bows, and they applauded Oakes positively if not enthusiastically. My neighbor (unknown to me) refused to lift a finger of approval, and I finally asked him how he would rate the production on a scale of 1 to 10. He said that he wished fervently that he had missed it completely.

The audience at the Met burst into enthusiastic applause at the end and proceeded to give the production a standing ovation. The Berlin production was tame compared to the gory New York production where there was blood all over. Go figure.
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Salome by Richard Strauss was shown Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera at select Cineplex theatres across Canada on May 17, 2025. It will be shown again at select theatres on June 7, 2025. For more information go to: www.cineplex.com/events

Jame Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press

EUGENE ONEGIN – REVIEW OF 2025 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Canadian Opera Company is wrapping up its current season with a production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. This production was directed by Robert Carsen for the Metropolitan Opera and premiered at Lincoln Centre in 1997. In 2013 the Met replaced it with a production by Deborah Warner but the Canadian Opera Company (COC) borrowed all scenery and costumes from of the 1997 Met production  for its staging of Eugene Onegin in 2018 which it has revived for the current season. More about Carsen’s production below.

The COC production is well equipped vocally. Our attention is focused on lovely Tatyana (soprano Lauren Fagan), the impressionable young girl who falls hopelessly in love with the playboy Eugene Onegin (bass-baritone Andril Kymach). Tatyana dominates the opera vocally and emotionally as she does the audience. The famous Letter Scene covers a breadth of hope, fear, passion and doubt as Tatyana tries to write a letter to Onegin. Fagan captures and expresses Tatyana’s emotional turmoil beautifully.

Kymach as Onegin is arrogant, unsympathetic and even obnoxious especially in the treatment of his friend Lensky (tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson), His treatment of Tatyana is abominable, his action against his friend repulsive and even though singing is good, we do not like him. LeRoy Johnson sings his Farewell to Olga gorgeously.

Mezzo-soprano Megan Marino does superb work as Tatyana’s sister Olga. She is engaged to Lensky and flirts with Onegin at the ball precipitating the duel. But she is excellent vocally and we forgive her because of her youth.

Bass Dimitry Ivashchenko deserves kudos for his role as Prince Gremin, a retired general who marries Tatyana on the rebound no doubt. He is a dignified gentleman who sings in moving sonority about being married to a younger woman. Ivashchenko gives a show-stopping performance.

The set and costume designs are by Michael  Levine. More about the sets in a minute but the costumes are what the Russian upper crust aspired to and what the Metropolitan Opera could afford. A lot.

Lauren Fagan as Tatyana in the Letter Scene : Photo: Michael Cooper

A few words about Carsen’s production are a propos. Carsen has opted for a minimalist production which may have its attractions but also some detractions. The opening scene takes place in the garden of the Larin estate somewhere in Russia. The libretto calls for a house with a terrace on one side, with a flower bed and shady tree nearby. There is thick foliage and a village and a church visible in the distance. In the Carsen production we have the stage floor covered with orange leaves. There are several leafless tree trunks and we see the estate owner Madame Larina (Krisztina Szabo), Tatyana’s mother, doing something with the help of Filipyevna (Emily Treigle).  

The director and set designer are not bound by what the librettist imagined but an almost bare stage may be taking it a bit far.

The leaves are partially swept away and we are transported to Tatyana’s bedroom for the Letter Scene. It is supposed to be furnished but all we get is a bed and a table on a bare stage with a view of the sky and the moon. Is that taking minimalism a bit too far?

There is a ball scene where people dance. The waltz is meant for that. The stage is cleared but only a small part of the stage is used for dancing. The square where the dancers are squeezed is so small that the dancers are given very little space in which to dance. I thought some of them had no idea how to waltz but it may have been that there was not enough space for them to move.

The revival director is Peter McLintock and the lighting designer is Christine Binder.

Speranza Scapucci conducted the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra in its marvelous performance of Tchaikovsky’s plush score in production that raises a few eyebrows in its choice of sets but that is otherwise splendid.    
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Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is being performed six times until May 24, 2025, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel:  416-363-6671. www.coc.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture f The Greek Press

WOZZECK - REVIEW OF 2025 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas 

In 1925 Alban Berg’s first opera Wozzeck received its first performance in Berlin. It gave a solid kick in the butt to the operatic tradition of the previous several centuries. Monteverdi, Mozert, Verdi and Puccini felt the kick but they survived and are still thriving. But Wozzeck made its mark. It is an opera about the wretched of the earth, the abused and downtrodden who live in poverty and hopelessness. It is composed in atonal music and you can forget nice melodies and arias but you do get powerful music that, combined with William Kentridge’s directing and art, will give you something stunning.

Wozzeck is a soldier around 1820 according to the libretto but director William Kentridge sets the production in the 20^th century, perhaps around World War I. In the opening scene according to the libretto the soldier Wozzeck is shaving his Captain but Kentridge does away with that and we have Wozzeck wheeling in a movie projector and showing some fast clips. The Captain abusively tells him to slow down the gnarly film. We get a snapshot of the life of the pathetic Wozzeck.

It should be noted that this is not an ordinary production. William Kentridge is a brilliant artist who has become involved in theatre and opera productions of distinction, not to say genius. The current staging of Wozzeck is a co-production with The Salzburg Festival, The Metropolitan Opera and Opera Australia. It premiered at The Salzburg Festival in 2017.

The distinctive feature of this, as of all Kentridge productions, is the set. It is designed by Sabine Theunissen with generous use of video projections, especially of Kentridge’s line drawings. There are scenes that must be from World War I but one is never quite sure what is happening with the complex and changeable set.

Scene from Wozzeck. Photo: Michael Cooper

The set is a complicated and almost incomprehensible mixture of paintings, drawings and physical objects that surround the poor soldier and the people in his life. You can only pay so much attention to it impressive as it is, or you may miss parts of the opera.

Baritone Michael Kupfer-Radecky plays the pathetic Wozzeck  He must deliver a man who is buffeted by misfortunes,  like King Lear, without having any social position to fight back. Superb singing and acting by Kupfer-Radecky. Wozzeck is abused and ridiculed by his Captain (excellent work by tenor Michael Shade), used by the quack Doctor (bass Anthony Robin Schneider) and gets the coup de grace of humiliation by his common law wife and mother of his child, Marie (soprano Ambur Braid in a moving and stunning performance). Marie reads the Bible looking for solace from the guilt precipitated by her infidelity. Does that provide us with a twinge of sympathy for Marie? The strutting and macho Drum Major (a fine-voiced, strutting and macho tenor Matthew Cairns) is too strong of a sexual attraction for her to resist, Bible or no Bible.

As if that were not enough or because of it, Wozzeck has some strange visions that lead us to believe that he is unhinged. His neighbor Margret (mezzo soprano Krisztina Szabo) and his friend Andres (tenor Owen McCausland) are perhaps the sane people in his life but he is a pitiful creature without the standing of a tragic hero. We pity him for his simplicity and his suffering,

Kentridge’s direction, like his art, is brilliant as he combines the atonal music of Berg with the plot delineated by  the superb acting and singing into ninety minutes of astonishing opera. The Canadian Opera Company Orchestra under the baton Johannes Debus plays Berg’s music magnificently for a memorable night at the opera.
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Wozzeck by Alban Berg is being performed a total of seven  times until May 16., 2025, at the Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St. West Toronto. www.coc.ca/

James karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO - REVIEW OF 2025 BROADCAST LIVE FROM THE MET

 Reviewed by James Karas

New York’s Met Opera has broadcast the 2014 production of The Marriage of Figaro to movie theatres around the world. Directed by Richard Eyre, this is an outstanding and I dare say extraordinary production of one of the best operas ever composed. Is that enough superlatives? Stay tuned.

Eyre is a consummate man of the theatre and he directs this Figaro as if it were a play at a major theatre. I have seen the production before and this time I paid more attention not just to the singers but to the person that she or he was singing to or was with. In the theatre the reaction or facial expression of the listener is of the utmost importance. It is equally importance in an opera but when you are watching and listening to the tenor or the soprano trying to reach for the stratosphere vocally, your attention to the person being addressed may waiver.

Let’s start with Eyre’s theatricality during the overture, before the plot begins to unravel. Eyre starts the action during the breathless opening music and gives us a better understanding of the plot that follows. A young, pretty and scantily dressed woman runs onto the stage and hurriedly tries to put some clothes on. We then see a young man (Count Almaviva as it turns out) putting on his robe. He is self-satisfied and happy. He just had sex with one of his servants and when he tries to seduce Suzanna, Figaro’s intended wife, we know what type of man he is. The scene is a marvelous preview of the plot. Credit is due to revival stage director Jonathon Loy. 

Olga Kulchynska as Susanna, Sun-Ly Pierce as Cherubino, and 
Federica Lombardi as Countess Almaviva. 
Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

Then, there is the scene of the Countess and Suzanna listening to the testosterone-driven  Cherubino expressing his massive sexual urges to the two ladies. We know his hormonal urges but if we watch the facial expressions of the Countess and Suzanna, we see that they are infected by his enthusiasm, or more bluntly they too are aroused.

It is worthwhile paying attention to such details as you listen to and watch the opera. I hasten to add that the luxury of seeing details like that are almost certainly not available in a huge theatre like Lincoln Centre and perhaps from many seats in  smaller venues. The live transmission and judicious handling of the camera shots makes it all possible. And it is a bonus to see the production in a movie theatre. Who can afford to go and see it in New York anyway?

Another virtue of the production is the revolving stage by Set Designer Rob Howell. It is monumental in size and resembles a medieval cathedral but you see different rooms such as the Countess’s bedroom, Figaro and Suzanna’s room and the garden. The big advantage of the revolving set is the seamless continuity between scenes. No curtain. No furniture, nothing needs to stop or delay the continuity of the plot. Howell designs the costumes for 1930’s Seville where the wealthy men wear handsome three-piece suits, the women are adorned with elegant gowns and the lower orders are attired modestly.

The Met provides some young, talented and attractive singers for most of the roles. Staring with the central role of Suzanna, we have Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska with a lovely voice and lively acting in the biggest role in the opera. Bass-baritone Michael Samuel as Figaro is the schemer-in-chief and the deliverer of some of the best melodies such as ”Se vuol ballare”  “Non piu andrai farfallone amoriso” and much more.

Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins is the suave, jealous, philandering Count Almaviva. All his sins are absolved near the end of the opera when he sings the two words “Contessa, Perdono.” With resplendent sonority and emotion, he seeks benediction from his wife which she readily grants.

The noble countess is sung by soprano Federica Lombardi who sings the gorgeous “Dove sono” and “Porgi amor” in a ravishing voice that expresses loss, longing and resolution. Mezzo-soprano Sun Ly-Pierce as the young, pursuer of sex is on the opposite side of the scale as his body and voice tremble when his being is under the influence of Eros which happens to be all the time.

Conductor Joana Mallwitz in her debut at the Met set a brisk pace and gave a wonderful performance. Yes, she is a woman conductor and I hope this is the last time I feel the necessity of mentioning the gender of the conductor.
This is an exemplary production and a display of what is being done to bring first class opera around the world.
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The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) by W A. Mozart was shown Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera at select Cineplex theatres across Canada on April 26, 2025. It will be shown again at select theatres on May 10, 2025. For more information including dates for reprises go to: www.cineplex.com/events

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press