He Hui's Met debut

A belated word of congratulations to the Shanghai-born He Hui (何慧) for booking her Met debut. As Aida, she is scheduled to sing opposite Salvatore Licitra's Radamès in Sonja Frisell's production in Spring 2010.

Magic Flute

After a brief hiatus, opera returns to the NCPA's main stage with Mozart's Magic Flute, a co-production of the Centre, the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, and Opera Hong Kong. It is a work of multilingual art: Emanuel Schikaneder's German libretto, recitative in English, stage props with letter art in both languages (at the gate of Sarastro's temple, the words "Nature" and "Vernun"), and a good number of [improvised?] Chinese injected into the recitative (all by Papageno). The production team of Warren Mok, Chen Ping and Per Larsen adds conspicuous Chinese elements, including Papageno's Chinese hunter costume, a dragon to replace the serpent at the beginning of Act I, and twelve Chinese zodiac animals (with funky fluorescent heads and tails) to be called up by Tamino's flute.

In yet another evidence of the production's deference to the fluorescent plasticism of the 60s and 70s, the chorus in both acts carries fluorescent light sabers that remind me of Achim Freyer's Act I in Walkure. Some design elements are simple but effective: the chief temple is depicted by a piece of backdrop drapery with nothing but a simple printed circle, while the pyramid scene is decorated with another piece of drapery with an encircled triangle (the circle and triangle depicting, respectively, Sarastro's temple and the pyramid). Other designs are more elaborate, including the penultimate scene where Monostatos and the Queen are to slowly climb a flight of ascending stairs, only to be cast into eternal darkness with the stair prop moving sideways to stage right and lighting dimming to a ghostly effect. The glockenspiel prop is a little bit more curious, because instead of the more traditional handheld glock or tuned tam-tam, it is depicted more metaphorically with what looks like (at least from my balcony seat) a bronze sistrum or a muffed-up sleigh bell.

Mimma Briganti's Queen makes a spectacular entrance from above using wires and dazzles with a fantastic start to "O zittre nicht". In an ending that sadly mirrors her entrance, she crash lands (pun intended) by chicken scratching the high F. Even though she would end her evening by blowing her other four Fs in quite dramatic fashion in "Der Hölle Rache", the audience nevertheless appreciates her effort with a gracious round of applause. Eric Margiore's Tamino is too lightweight for NCPA's monstrous space, and is evidently overwhelmed by Inna Dukach's Pamina in the duet "Wir wandelten durch Feuersgluten" and in the quartet "Der, welcher...Beschwerden".

I always believe Magic Flute's dramatic crux rests with Papageno's comedic overtones, and in this respect baritone Brian Montgomery does not disappoint. He is sassy and funny, and is able to lid up lighting designer David Jacques' rather somber ambiance. In terms of singing, Montgomery's "Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja" sounds hesitant and tired (probably due to his need to climb up and down the set), but he fully redeems himself with a good-natured and well-sung "Pa-Pa-Pa".

Able to radiate Pamina's two distinct personalities --naive playfulness and pensive melancholy --Inna Dukach is perfect for the role and is the star of the evening. Her voice is deep, with a rounded vibrato -- listening to her is like pouring sweet honey over warm caprino while candle light flickers in an air of subtle evening lust. But I digress.

Mika Kares steals some of Dukach's stars with a commanding Sarastro, delivering "O Isis und Osiris" with plenty of regal power and paternal authority. Meanwhile, the three ladies are feisty and well-acted but sound at times disoriented and lacking tonal balance. Conductor Jari Hämäläinen frequently modulates his speed, with Queen's both arias running under tempo and "Der Arme kann..." running dramatically ahead -- with the latter's acceleration rewarding the audience with a more dramatic interchange among Tamino, Papageno, and the three ladies.

To be honest, it's hard for me to be awed by any contemporary Magic Flute production, and this one is no exception: it seems to me nearly impossible to cast for the production today --Magic Flute requires a bright leggiero tenor and a lyric soprano against a scintillating Queen and baritone who can both sing and act. (How about JDF, Fleming, Damrau and Pisaroni?) Nevertheless, I must admit this Magic Flute is still quite entertaining, with some interesting multicultural elements and a few laughs ("北京烤鴨", or Peking Duck making a cameo in Papageno's recitative) that make the evening seem shorter than it really is.

Nessun dorma, at the Bird's Nest

The National Stadium, home to the drama-filled Beijing Olympics and an architectural masterpiece, plays host tonight to a different kind of dramatic and architectural device: Puccini's Turandot, staged by famed Chinese film director Zhang Yimou. When I have more time I shall write a more detailed review of the performance. But for now, here are some photos:

The stage, spanning across the 400m and 1500m starting points.

Getting ready for Act I.

A stadium of opera goers.

O giovinetto.

Tenor Dai Yuqiang (戴玉強) gave a solid performance of Nessun dorma.

The modified finale.

Cosi comanda Turandot.

The whole evening was marred by bad acoustics, but I found a winning alternative with good visuals and better acoustics -- at least in Act I: Montserrat Caballe's stirring and heart-melting rendition of Liu's signature aria...on my iPod.

Romance of the West Chamber, a Kunqu classic

Over the years I have attended plenty of Kunqu classics, including the Peony Pavilion, The Jade Hairpin Tale, and The Palace of Eternity. But Romance of the West Chamber (西廂記), considered to be a hugely significant, if not the most monumental, piece in the classical repertoire, has eluded me, until now.

The NCPA currently plays host to Beifang Kunqu Opera Theater (北方昆曲劇院), which has put together a fine West Chamber production and has been going rounds in China in the past few years. Helmed by famed director Guo Xiaonan (郭曉男) and staged by Huang Kaifu (黃楷夫), the production is shortened for the ADD-infested modern audience, the kind of Blackberry-toting, multiple cellphone-juggling Twitter-phile who prefers book rags over actual tomes and one-liner news digests over newspaper copies. Aptly named the "Metropolitan" version (大都版), this Guo/Huang version, to be performed over the span of two days and includes 3 volumes and 12 chapters, is not exactly pocket-sized, but is still heavily condensed from an original magnum opus featuring 5 volumes and 21 chapters to be played out in three days. The compaction is different from the recital hall version (廳堂版) of the Peony Pavilion at the Imperial Granary in that the latter highlights famous chapters while the former reworks some of the chapters to re-weave the entire story line without taking away substance and performance (at least in theory, but more later).

The piece tells the story of Zhang Sheng (張生), an intelligent young man of proletarian origins, who meets and falls in love with Cui Yingying (崔鶯鶯), an elegant woman with prim lineage. They meet while he is resting at a temple on his way to attend the imperial examination. As this happens, Sun Feihu (孫飛虎), a rebel leader, surrounds the temple and demands the betrothal of Cui. Cui’s mother, under pressure, vows to marry her daughter away to anyone who could save them from the evil hands of Sun. The ever resourceful Zhang, steeped in his new-found love, sees opportunity and manages to find outside help who then, as if right on script, quashes Sun’s hopes. But Cui’s mother backpedals and, instead of giving Cui’s hand to Zhang, she simply makes Zhang Cui’s brother, reopening the prospects of a betrothal with a well-to-do family. Siblinghood, however, does not stop Cui’s chamber maid (紅娘) from stringing the two lovebirds together, as she deftly arranges their dates and secret rendezvous, thereby ensuring that the fruit of love between Zhang and Cui continues to ripen. Eventually, recognizing a path of inevitability but remaining stubbornly allergic to Zhang’s less-than-impressive lineage, the mother devises her allergy suppressor and agrees to their marriage under one condition: that Zhang would have to return triumphant from the examination. After a painful departure and an extended period of separation, Zhang finally returns as a top scholar, proves his upward mobility, and returns to find a life of happiness with Cui.

The original version of the story is invariably more complicated, in which the mother is so hostile to the peasantry class that she tries to ensconce the truth about Zhang’s examination triumph from Cui and plans ahead to marry Cui off to an aristocrat – until the truth eventually reveals itself. Wei Chunrong (魏春榮) and Wang Zhenyi (王振義), both of whom I had the privilege of listening to multiple times back in April, star as the pair of lovebirds. The performance is heavily modernized, with a production set that projects an art-deco flavor a la Frank Lloyd Wright, albeit with motifs seemingly, and loosely, based on the auspicious cloud (祥雲), a more organic and traditional Chinese elemental feature. The stage is a glass platform that lit from below by a plethora of colorful lighting, to be switched on and off based on the scene and character mood. Minimalist decorations draped from the lighting grid and sparsely anchored on stage provide subtle cues depicting seasonal and scenic changes. Between chapters, no curtain is dropped while lights are rarely dimmed enough to hide scene changes. The furniture, considered a cornerstone of the movement and the basis for character interaction in traditional Chinese opera, is not the typical fabric-wrapped kind that is abundantly featured in traditional opera fare. Instead, the chair and the table are actually somewhat a cross between Rococo and Chinoiserie revivals, subtly paying, if only accidental, homage to Thomas Chippendale and, with some imagination, Townsend-Goddard. Lighting is heavily modernized too, with spot lights and modulated coloration that not just provide illumination but awash the set with the mood of the moment. By comparison, several features of the art form, including the costume, head dressing, and the rare cues of martial arts, are decidedly more traditional. Also faithful to tradition is the lack of physical props, e.g. unlike some other revivals I've seen on DVD, this production offers no physical barrier in the critical wall scene (跳墙); nor are there painted curtains to convey scenes and background. That leaves much of the scenic description to the acting.

The actors are magnificent, with Wang bringing out the comic, if not also slightly naiveté, nature of Zhang. Wang's Zhang transitions from wandering pensiveness to streaks of thoughtful deliberation, to great effect. Wei, with her fragile porcelain face and her immaculate bodily movement, exudes a poignant character with profound intellect and a virgin’s vulnerability. Wang and Wei’s characters are meticulously built up over two evenings, culminating in a verboten scene where their relationship is consummated in a prolonged physical embrace underneath a piece of white fabric -- decorated, or metaphorically tainted, with an embroidered, bright-red peony -- that could have been a tad too suggestive and scandalous not too long ago. While the two lovebirds strike the right tone by themselves, West Chamber, in my view, is really pulled together by Hong Niang, the chamber maid character, a vocally prodigious and visually demanding creation that provides the necessary emotional, energetic, and philosophical anchor-piece to facilitate the slow-brewing love story between the two lead characters. Ni Hong (倪泓), as a Shanghai-based invitee to this northern production, handily delivers the role of the maid, with a fiendish expressiveness and a dominating stage presence. Ni's voice is pitch-perfect, with a robust coloratura projection and a convincing range of dynamics.

In my opinion, this "Metropolitan" version is just a chapter or two too short, thus leaving more to be desired. At 1.5 hours, the second evening is much shorter than the first (almost 2.5 hours without intermission). It seems to me that the ending is a little too rushed, with the all-important return scene not acted out but merely recited in a quick, unemotional epilogue. This is unfortunate, because even though the crux of the story is about the romantic, and sometimes annoying, aspects of courtship, this courtship is not going to achieve consummation in totem, at least in spirit, without Zhang’s triumphant return following a painful separation scene (長亭送別). Perhaps this is one way for Guo/Huang to downplay a de facto caste system in ancient China imbued with strict adherence to intra-caste marriage between aristocracies with traceable gotras. That said, this West Chamber is marked by excellent acting, as well as a hauntingly minimalist yet superbly effective stage modernization that showcases Kunqu, in my view, not merely as an artistic relic of the yesteryear but an art form willing and able to adapt for a rapidly modernizing aesthetic POV and social psyche.

Teatro Regio di Parma in Beijing

Teatro Regio di Parma, together with the National Centre for the Performing Arts, staged a stunning production of Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto this week, during Beijing's Opera Festival. In the early afternoon before Thursday's premiere, Beijing was darkened by rapidly-collecting rainclouds before finally sloshed with heavy rain, a fitting prelude to match the opera's penultimate, or the "Apollo", scene. Another random coincidence was that Rigoletto was first premiered at La Fenice, whose opera company was in Beijing just a week ago.

The stage was designed and produced by the late Pier Luigi Samaritani, who mixed traditional forms and structures with practical solutions of modern minimalism. His Sparafucile house was an elevated stage with a meticulous, castle-like exterior which ruptured laterally at an angle to reveal the interior. This opening worked perfectly, especially during the quartet, Un dì, se ben rammentomi, when the two pairs of characters were supposed to juxtapose vocally without physically being together. The Mantua palace was minimalistic but worked effectively, with plenty of open spaces for the noblemen and the Duke's ladies to jostle around. I'm generally not a fan of modern screens, but the use of a drop-down screen to separate Sparafucile and Rigoletto in the deal scene was effective because it helped to describe the seemingly conflicting notions of the two characters' actual proximity and the darkness that infinitely separated them.

Singing the role of the Duke was Francesco Demuro, whose voice was simply too lightweight for a hall as big as the NCPA's opera house. He was visibly and audibly nervous during La donna è mobile, where his high registers seemed completely forced, dry, and uncontrolled. His lower registers were tidy enough, but for an aria so frequently heard everywhere, tidy enough was not good enough. Demuro wobbled his final B5...with the subsequent applause short and, at least as it sounded to me, almost too unnecessarily gratuitous. As a side note, Demuro was audibly looser and more relaxed in his off-stage aria during Rigoletto's Della vendetta alfin giunge l'istante! recitative -- perhaps that was when the burdensome baggage of the famous aria was finally off his shoulders.

Gilda was sung by Désirée Rancatore, whose voice was bright and impassioned. In Sì! Vendetta, tremenda vendetta!, she hit her un-scored Eb6 with apparently little effort. She actually did it twice -- but I'll explain later. So it was slightly disappointing that she chose not to hit the dominating but somewhat frivolous "diva Db6" in the quartet. The only blemish in her voice was the world's difference between her high-range singing voice and her lower-range speaking voice. When she sang a passage that hit both ranges, she sounded like two voices combined in one -- sort of like listening to Hasselbeck and Goldberg bitch-slapping each other on The View (ok, maybe this was an unfair analogy, but I ran out of ideas as I wrapped up writing this entry at 3am). Felipe Bou delivered a solid Sparafucile, with a devilish playfulness during the deal scene and a forceful assertion during the Apollo scene. The rest of the cast was solid, including Francesca Franci, who blossomed with an abundance of molasses-like sassyness in the contralto role of Maddalena, and Roberto Tagliavini, who delivered a warm-voiced Count Monterone.

But the night, without a doubt, belonged to Leo Nucci. At 67, I had little expectation, especially given that my experience with José Carreras last year, then at 61, was less than completely satisfying. But Nucci was dominant from the get-go, with a powerful voice that permeated all corners of the opera house, and with spot-on acting that brought out the complicated emotions of the title role. His Rigoletto was complex, with alternating tinges of deviousness and compassion. His voice sounded best when the lighting was mostly off, or when he hid in an unlid portion of the stage -- that was where there was no visual distraction, thereby pushing his notes after notes of deliciousness to the showcasing center. With a convexly humped spine and a weather-washed visage, Nucci was the perfect Rigoletto: Nucci was Rigoletto as much as Rigoletto was Nucci. In Cortigiani, vil razza dannata, his impassioned display of paternal love and human fragility brought the entire audience to their feet. With a prolonged ovation, Nucci had to step out of his role to thank the audience and the orchestra, and deservedly, he seemed to relish that moment. Barely two bars later, he slipped back into his character, which he must have played a million times, as he made eye contact with Gilda and responded with:

"Dio! mia Gilda!"
"Gilda, my daughter!" (my translation)

That line radiated a quality of loving sentimentalism that befitted a Thursday evening just before Father's Day weekend.

I don't say this often, but this was definitely one of my favorite opera experiences. Nucci was hands-down my favorite Rigoletto, surpassing even Wixell in the monumental '83 production with Chailly/VPO, or MacNeil in the passionate '77 live recording with Levine/Met. When Sì! Vendetta concluded Act II, the audience's reception was so rapturous that Nucci, beaming with satisfaction, called upon conductor Donato Renzetti to encore the duet (that was also where Rancatore hit her second Eb6). When his voice began to speak Verdi's language, his enduring charisma had the entire audience on a tight leash. Ultimately, it was obvious why Nucci owned both the audience and the night.

Madama Butterfly

Beijing's opera season steps into high gear with Madama Butterfly, a co-production between La Fenice di Venezia and the National Centre for the Performing Arts. This marks the first collaboration between the two groups. Based on the fruits of their efforts, there is no reason why there shouldn't be more collaborations to come.

The production, directed by Daniele Abbado, featured a minimalist set that felt like a simple tesseract projected into our three-dimensional world. Puccini's characters would then move about in the inner cube. The set's simplicity was augmented with a thoughtful, albeit at times too cerebral, interchange of lighting colors. These colors were meant to emphasize the natural colors of Nagasaki's seasons and the more iconographic shadings of the libretto's mood. The stage sported a chessboard of translucent panels illuminated from below, pulsating with varying colors as the music motioned forward: brighter when the mood was light, and darker when the mood was sappy and subdued. Similarly back-lit translucent walls reflected mood and time of day. The rest of the stage was devoid of other props, except the presence of a table and two zabutons (for kneeling) which, in my opinion, rightfully paid tribute to the sort of minimalist furniture setup in traditional Asian theater (一桌兩椅).

Butterfly was the Ukrainian soprano Oksana Dyka: her Cio Cio San, emanating an air of fragility and natural bereavement, was spot-on. Her voice, like aged Burgundy, was sultry and round. Her upper registers were brilliant and brisk, albeit also slightly asserted -- the effect was, especially in softer passages, an audible, though not persistent, loss in command of dynamics control. More impressive, by comparison, was her natural beauty and fluid body movements, which readily seduced Pinkerton. During the love duet, Bimba, Bimba, non piangere, the two characters' beautiful, intertwining voices drew the audience to the edge of their seats and, at the moment when Pinkerton waxed poetic about Cio Cio San's intoxicating eyes:

"Tutta la tua tribù e i Bonzi tutti del Giappon
non valgono il pianto di quegli occhi cari e belli."

"Your family and priests in Japan
are not worth the tears from your loving, beautiful eyes." (my translation)

triggered in me an emotional wildfire where my burning desire to jump on stage and be part of their tight embrace was only marginally suppressed by what remained of my rapidly-deteriorating self-restraint.

Pinkerton, sung by tenor Kamen Chanev, captured the character's shift from a vibrant, passionate lover to a dark, remorseful sinner. Sharpless was sung by baritone Simone Piazzola, who was comfortably solid and clear.

Daniela Innamorati, as Suzuki, had a solid stage presence that was commanding yet inoffensive. When Cio Cio San asked that all-important question in "Suzuki, Suzuki!", Suzuki's response, a soft "Si", evoked a whiff of inevitability and vulnerability that, in my opinion, perfectly encapsulated the climatic moment of the entire piece's storyline. Her Suzuki moved me in ways that many Suzukis in the past could not.

Conductor Nicola Luisotti kept the thrust of Puccini's melodic line in locomotion without caving into singers' preferred tempos, which, in the case of Madama Butterfly, were often slower and more drawn-out. During the mellow chorus, "Coro a bocca chiusa", Luisotti was respectful to the notation and spirit of the music, and led the orchestra into an idyllic, almost solipsistic sojourn. Less respectful was the audience, who managed to generate a fair amount of noise that didn't jive well with the ethereal fluidity of Puccini's passage. But as a whole, this Madama Butterfly, though not without inadequacies, was successfully executed and a well-deserved star of the opera season.

Yuja Wang at the NCPA: a house of flying daggers

Yuja Wang is undoubtedly talented. Her debut recording, Sonatas and Etudes, with DG, provides an early glimpse of what the 22-year-old pianist is capable of: her technique is feisty but confident, while her attacking style is relentless but controlled. When her two hands propel onwards, her piano notes fly off my loudspeaker like a swarm of flying daggers.

But her concert on June 4 at the the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) showed nothing of that promise. Her concentration was clearly absent at the beginning, when she moved a quartet of Scarlatti Sonatas with an air of banality and seeming indifference. She seemed more at ease and warmed up, albeit marginally, by the time she began Brahms' 28 Variations on a Theme by Paganini. In Book I, she managed to sustain a slow but steady build-up, with the final few variations blossoming to life. But that was when the evening took a dramatic turn. Her Book II was unsentimental, and for some unspoken reason, Wang, having seemingly lost her steady tempo, began a mad dash to the finish in a way that felt unnecessarily rushed. After the intermission, she played a lackadaisical Chopin Sonata No. 2 that was adequate on the surface but devoid of any passionate resonance -- it was almost as if Chopin's score was scanned into the music machine and reconstituted, via digital MIDI, in mechanical verbatim. The evening's final, programmed piece was Stravinsky's Petrouchka, which she played by the book but lacked the kind of playfulness often expected from Stravinsky's piece.

I certainly came to the concert hall expecting something great from Wang, but her performance tonight was anything but. Overall, she seemed to have used her sustain pedal just a tad more than she needed to, thereby rendering a night that felt more like a syrupy Monet when, given the programme's flavor, it should really have been a crisp van Eyck. More troubling was a very audible (at least to me) imbalance between a stronger left and a weaker right hand throughout the evening -- something that was clearly not an issue in her debut recording. Her last two encore pieces showed not the kind of pianist Wang could be (I believe she could be much more than displayed tonight) but should be (at least for this particular evening in Beijing): a dexterous, flamboyant artist who not only can show the [predominantly Chinese] audience a good time but can have a good time herself. Her rendition of Rondo alla Turca a la Volodos was energetic and colorful, while her Flight of the Bumble Bee was spontaneous but unflushed. It was these last two encores where the flying daggers hit their intended targets, and brought the half-sold-out audience to their feet.