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.
Showing posts with label ncpa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ncpa. Show all posts
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, June 19, 2009
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:
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.
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)
"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.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
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:
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.
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."
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)
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.
Friday, June 5, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Dudamel conducts Bernstein and Mahler in Beijing
This past Friday evening, my friend and I attended a concert by Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, conducted by the 27-year-old phenomenon, Gustavo Dudamel.
Simón Bolívar and Dudamel performed two pieces: Bernstein's West Side Story Symphonic Dances and, after intermission, Mahler's First. The rendition of Bernstein's West Side Story was, for me to put it mildly, less than enthusiastic. The outcome was stiff and uninspiring, and lacked the interplay between jubilance and mellowness, as well as the mischievous energy that was called upon by Bernstein. The performance was sourly disappointing, not least because I was eagerly looking forward to this performance after having read and heard so much about Dudamel, who was to become L.A. Phil's youngest-ever music director starting next (2009-10) season, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, one of more than 200 youth orchestras in Venezuela funded by the Venezuelan government with the aim of uplifting poor neighborhoods and children who live in them through structured music education. Simón Bolívar, considered the apex of this wildly successful art and social experiment, has won accolades and praises not just for its narrative as a pioneering, broad-reaching social program but also for its symphonic prowess and artistic balance. Therefore, when we heard something that was more like my high school band than one with multiple DG recordings, at least I was so crestfallen that, before the Bernstein was half completed, my mind was drifting away, not into Manhattan's west side as Dudamel probably had hoped, but to endless permutations of how to salvage this Friday evening if we were to skip after intermission.
After intermission, we went back nevertheless, with her Proustian reminder that, even if we had tried, we couldn't have found a better place to be on a brutally cold Friday night in Beijing than in the embrace of the National Centre for Performing Arts. And boy, we were glad we didn't bail! When the first sets of A chords came out, we knew right away that our concerns were unnecessary - they came out with plenty of force and confidence, projecting one-part of controlled balance and one-part of sensual opulence. The Gesellen passages were superbly rendered with meticulousness -- evoking, rightfully so, memories of listening to the Wayfarer Lieder with Kubelik and Fischer-Dieskau, on which part of the first movement is based. The galore continued with a majestic entrance to the second movement, intermingled with a velvety, triple-time mid-passage. The third movement was spacious but not in any way dragging. The voicing of the Frère Jacques passage was smooth and gleeful, with a perfect relay of windwinds meandering through Mahler's handcrafted dazzle. By the fourth movement, I was wondering how much, during the Bernstein, I had missed under the cloak of my suspicion and unwarranted anxiety. The fourth movement was perhaps the high point of the evening, with monstrous horns, plush strings, and a percussion section that made me feel inadequate.
Without a doubt, Dudamel's baton managed to control all of that artistry with precision, raising Simón Bolívar's spirit and energy as he saw fit. And mind you, Simón Bolívar was not an easy baby to control: it had about 150 musicians for the Mahler and over 200 for the Bernstein. By the time the Mahler was marching towards its grand finale, Dudamel was at his best, unleashing a galloping orchestral splendor filled with dramatic outbursts, ending the evening with a feeling of finality and authority. I have always been a huge fan of Mahler, but always in a subdued, measured kind of way. But the way I reacted to Dudamel's Mahler was alien to me -- it was warm, emotional, and fulfilling. Toasting to that, this Mahler by Simón Bolívar and Dudamel was as good as any Mahler's First I have heard.
Simón Bolívar and Dudamel performed two pieces: Bernstein's West Side Story Symphonic Dances and, after intermission, Mahler's First. The rendition of Bernstein's West Side Story was, for me to put it mildly, less than enthusiastic. The outcome was stiff and uninspiring, and lacked the interplay between jubilance and mellowness, as well as the mischievous energy that was called upon by Bernstein. The performance was sourly disappointing, not least because I was eagerly looking forward to this performance after having read and heard so much about Dudamel, who was to become L.A. Phil's youngest-ever music director starting next (2009-10) season, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, one of more than 200 youth orchestras in Venezuela funded by the Venezuelan government with the aim of uplifting poor neighborhoods and children who live in them through structured music education. Simón Bolívar, considered the apex of this wildly successful art and social experiment, has won accolades and praises not just for its narrative as a pioneering, broad-reaching social program but also for its symphonic prowess and artistic balance. Therefore, when we heard something that was more like my high school band than one with multiple DG recordings, at least I was so crestfallen that, before the Bernstein was half completed, my mind was drifting away, not into Manhattan's west side as Dudamel probably had hoped, but to endless permutations of how to salvage this Friday evening if we were to skip after intermission.
After intermission, we went back nevertheless, with her Proustian reminder that, even if we had tried, we couldn't have found a better place to be on a brutally cold Friday night in Beijing than in the embrace of the National Centre for Performing Arts. And boy, we were glad we didn't bail! When the first sets of A chords came out, we knew right away that our concerns were unnecessary - they came out with plenty of force and confidence, projecting one-part of controlled balance and one-part of sensual opulence. The Gesellen passages were superbly rendered with meticulousness -- evoking, rightfully so, memories of listening to the Wayfarer Lieder with Kubelik and Fischer-Dieskau, on which part of the first movement is based. The galore continued with a majestic entrance to the second movement, intermingled with a velvety, triple-time mid-passage. The third movement was spacious but not in any way dragging. The voicing of the Frère Jacques passage was smooth and gleeful, with a perfect relay of windwinds meandering through Mahler's handcrafted dazzle. By the fourth movement, I was wondering how much, during the Bernstein, I had missed under the cloak of my suspicion and unwarranted anxiety. The fourth movement was perhaps the high point of the evening, with monstrous horns, plush strings, and a percussion section that made me feel inadequate.
Without a doubt, Dudamel's baton managed to control all of that artistry with precision, raising Simón Bolívar's spirit and energy as he saw fit. And mind you, Simón Bolívar was not an easy baby to control: it had about 150 musicians for the Mahler and over 200 for the Bernstein. By the time the Mahler was marching towards its grand finale, Dudamel was at his best, unleashing a galloping orchestral splendor filled with dramatic outbursts, ending the evening with a feeling of finality and authority. I have always been a huge fan of Mahler, but always in a subdued, measured kind of way. But the way I reacted to Dudamel's Mahler was alien to me -- it was warm, emotional, and fulfilling. Toasting to that, this Mahler by Simón Bolívar and Dudamel was as good as any Mahler's First I have heard.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Kunqu: Copper Coins
I just came back from a Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe's production of Copper Coins (十五贯) at the National Centre for Performing Arts. Copper Coins is easily one of my favorite Kunqu operas, mainly because, with a heavy comedic element, it is less dry than many other Kunqu operas, where philosophical dream scapes and imminent deaths are often the norm. The protagonist was played by the indefatigable Ji Zhenhua (计镇华), arguably the grand master of old masculine Kunqu characters (老生). I had the fortune of attending one of master Ji's performance a month earlier, when Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe was in town for a one-time only scintillating performance of 邯郸梦 at Changan Theatre.
For the evening, the singing was superb, but the acting was even better. Master Ji's each and every gesture exuded the kind of regal authority befitting immortals just as other mortals on stage and off looked on in awe. The night, however, belonged to Liu Shenglong (刘昇龙), the clown figure who provided the comedic and playful counteraction to master Ji's mastery and control. The performance flowed with a rhythmic consistency and a sinusoidal intensity, tossing between Ji's tenacity and Liu's mischief. It was drama at its best.
For the evening, the singing was superb, but the acting was even better. Master Ji's each and every gesture exuded the kind of regal authority befitting immortals just as other mortals on stage and off looked on in awe. The night, however, belonged to Liu Shenglong (刘昇龙), the clown figure who provided the comedic and playful counteraction to master Ji's mastery and control. The performance flowed with a rhythmic consistency and a sinusoidal intensity, tossing between Ji's tenacity and Liu's mischief. It was drama at its best.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Anne-Sophie Mutter in Beijing
Anne-Sophie Mutter has never moved me to tears. Until yesterday.
I have heard ASM a handful of times, most recently a few years back in the U.S. before her repertorial shift to focus more on pre-Romantic string works. By most accounts, she has few peers when it comes to nailing down the technicality and artistry of Romantic-period and Impressionist works, including Tchaikovsky's marvel, and Sarasate's lyricism. But with her technical achievements so flawless and her performance so consistently, emotionally juiced, I wonder if she could also rise as a star on the other side of the spectrum of great violinists: the kind who has the cerebral clarity and intellectual acumen to tackle the subtleties hidden in classical period pieces. Sure, Vivaldi's Four Seasons was exuberant (and it was one of two pieces she performed last night; the other was Bach's Magnificat, BWV1042 ), but it seems best amplified when performed (at least also) with the kind of intellectual seriousness that, for example, the legendary Isaac Stern would bestow upon his each and every melodic phrase, and in it, each and every played note -- bringing a composition so alive as to genuinely connect with the audience.
Obviously, I went into the concert hall with trepidation, knowing that anything other than an exceptional experience would be a disappointment. Like any great violinist would do, she imposed her authority on her chamber players as soon as she basked in her spotlight. Soon enough, Bach's notes gracefully filled the Concert Hall of the National Centre for Performing Arts, each with determination and nobility. Her string work was luxurious, with neither a slight feeling of decorative impurity nor excessive oomph. The only flaw was perhaps that she looked, it seems to me, a little stiff going into the glissando passages in the middle of Allegro non troppo. But as ASM worked through the Bach, she more than redeemed herself, ending before intermission with a joyous, jubilant Allegro assai that galloped towards a rapturous applause.
ASM looked noticeably pleased after her Bach, and that seemed to build onto her confidence in her post-intermission Vivaldi. ASM tackled the Four Seasons with the same elegance, care, and grace that she so effortlessly displayed ever since she was a teenage phenomenon. A few absent notes notwithstanding, she was magnificent and, more importantly, in full control of the Vivaldi and Trondheim Solistene, the excellent Norwegian chamber orchestra. Her expression with Winter's Largo provided ample evidence that ASM is not just a technically masterful violinist, but an expressive and intellectual artist that renders each note into part of a lyrical conversation with her audience.
Her composure was a sign of her experience, not of her age (she will be 45 in June). Considering that she was somewhat handicapped by a majority Chinese audience who was not exactly respectful: ringing cellphones, what seemed to be cameras hitting stubbornly onto the hall's wooden floor (and why were they being fidgeted in a place that prohibited photography, anyway?!), and what seemed to be a bizarre, one-second-long dog howl (don't get me started on why and how it happened), I have no doubt that she delivered her goods.
But delivering her goods was not why I went to an ASM concert, and certainly not why I was so moved as to shed a tear. After a regurgitation of Summer's Presto as a cookie-cutter, uninspiring encore, I was ready to call it a night and leave. But after the sixth curtain call (and the third after the first encore), ASM walked up to the stage, and hinted to the concertmaster as if she was going to dictate something unusual. And she did. She turned to the audience, and, with her flawless English and terse to the point, she dedicated Bach's Air (Suite No. 3, BWV1068 ) to the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. At that very instance when she finished her dedication, there was a slight commotion in the audience (with probably a few, unable to understand her, trying to get/guess what ASM just said). Soon thereafter, she engaged into Bach's monumental, albeit perennially overplayed, Magnum Opus. Overplayed always, but not last night. The majestic tranquility of ASM's air almost betrayed (or perhaps faultlessly portrayed?) the subject matter to which the piece was dedicated. The legato was one of the longest in my musical experience, not least because, as ASM ran with her fingers, a seemingly neverending surge of sad, somber images came rushing through my mind. I could also, right at that beginning moment, recall a Dallas Symphony concert I attended soon after 9/11, when the mood was similarly dreary, but because Maestro Andrew Litton picked DSCH's 11 to reflect President Bush's resolve, that night's audience could not help but felt a little resilient and upbeat with DSCH's faithful chimes and glorious symphonic march to the symphonic finale. Had ASM played something along the lines of DSCH 11's majestic, monumental ending, her effort would have been valiant, and almost entirely predictable (and in fact, that was what I was expecting, given the not-to-be-soon-forgotten hindsight of the Chinese audience's preference for big, optimistic endings, such as DPRK's performance last month). But not Bach's Air. And ASM's Air started where it ended -- morne et sombre, tranquility as an inevitable prelude to death, picture perfection as an antonymous juxtaposition to a harrowing episode of human tragedy. Bach's Air described Sichuan in a way that Litton's DSCH did not, in a way that, as it seems to me, was humane, genuine, and so calm as to condense the enormity of thousands of lost lives into three minutes of haunting stillness. I was totally plugged into that imagery. And right there, she nailed me.
And that was the very reason why I shed a tear.
I have heard ASM a handful of times, most recently a few years back in the U.S. before her repertorial shift to focus more on pre-Romantic string works. By most accounts, she has few peers when it comes to nailing down the technicality and artistry of Romantic-period and Impressionist works, including Tchaikovsky's marvel, and Sarasate's lyricism. But with her technical achievements so flawless and her performance so consistently, emotionally juiced, I wonder if she could also rise as a star on the other side of the spectrum of great violinists: the kind who has the cerebral clarity and intellectual acumen to tackle the subtleties hidden in classical period pieces. Sure, Vivaldi's Four Seasons was exuberant (and it was one of two pieces she performed last night; the other was Bach's Magnificat, BWV1042 ), but it seems best amplified when performed (at least also) with the kind of intellectual seriousness that, for example, the legendary Isaac Stern would bestow upon his each and every melodic phrase, and in it, each and every played note -- bringing a composition so alive as to genuinely connect with the audience.
Obviously, I went into the concert hall with trepidation, knowing that anything other than an exceptional experience would be a disappointment. Like any great violinist would do, she imposed her authority on her chamber players as soon as she basked in her spotlight. Soon enough, Bach's notes gracefully filled the Concert Hall of the National Centre for Performing Arts, each with determination and nobility. Her string work was luxurious, with neither a slight feeling of decorative impurity nor excessive oomph. The only flaw was perhaps that she looked, it seems to me, a little stiff going into the glissando passages in the middle of Allegro non troppo. But as ASM worked through the Bach, she more than redeemed herself, ending before intermission with a joyous, jubilant Allegro assai that galloped towards a rapturous applause.
ASM looked noticeably pleased after her Bach, and that seemed to build onto her confidence in her post-intermission Vivaldi. ASM tackled the Four Seasons with the same elegance, care, and grace that she so effortlessly displayed ever since she was a teenage phenomenon. A few absent notes notwithstanding, she was magnificent and, more importantly, in full control of the Vivaldi and Trondheim Solistene, the excellent Norwegian chamber orchestra. Her expression with Winter's Largo provided ample evidence that ASM is not just a technically masterful violinist, but an expressive and intellectual artist that renders each note into part of a lyrical conversation with her audience.
Her composure was a sign of her experience, not of her age (she will be 45 in June). Considering that she was somewhat handicapped by a majority Chinese audience who was not exactly respectful: ringing cellphones, what seemed to be cameras hitting stubbornly onto the hall's wooden floor (and why were they being fidgeted in a place that prohibited photography, anyway?!), and what seemed to be a bizarre, one-second-long dog howl (don't get me started on why and how it happened), I have no doubt that she delivered her goods.
But delivering her goods was not why I went to an ASM concert, and certainly not why I was so moved as to shed a tear. After a regurgitation of Summer's Presto as a cookie-cutter, uninspiring encore, I was ready to call it a night and leave. But after the sixth curtain call (and the third after the first encore), ASM walked up to the stage, and hinted to the concertmaster as if she was going to dictate something unusual. And she did. She turned to the audience, and, with her flawless English and terse to the point, she dedicated Bach's Air (Suite No. 3, BWV1068 ) to the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. At that very instance when she finished her dedication, there was a slight commotion in the audience (with probably a few, unable to understand her, trying to get/guess what ASM just said). Soon thereafter, she engaged into Bach's monumental, albeit perennially overplayed, Magnum Opus. Overplayed always, but not last night. The majestic tranquility of ASM's air almost betrayed (or perhaps faultlessly portrayed?) the subject matter to which the piece was dedicated. The legato was one of the longest in my musical experience, not least because, as ASM ran with her fingers, a seemingly neverending surge of sad, somber images came rushing through my mind. I could also, right at that beginning moment, recall a Dallas Symphony concert I attended soon after 9/11, when the mood was similarly dreary, but because Maestro Andrew Litton picked DSCH's 11 to reflect President Bush's resolve, that night's audience could not help but felt a little resilient and upbeat with DSCH's faithful chimes and glorious symphonic march to the symphonic finale. Had ASM played something along the lines of DSCH 11's majestic, monumental ending, her effort would have been valiant, and almost entirely predictable (and in fact, that was what I was expecting, given the not-to-be-soon-forgotten hindsight of the Chinese audience's preference for big, optimistic endings, such as DPRK's performance last month). But not Bach's Air. And ASM's Air started where it ended -- morne et sombre, tranquility as an inevitable prelude to death, picture perfection as an antonymous juxtaposition to a harrowing episode of human tragedy. Bach's Air described Sichuan in a way that Litton's DSCH did not, in a way that, as it seems to me, was humane, genuine, and so calm as to condense the enormity of thousands of lost lives into three minutes of haunting stillness. I was totally plugged into that imagery. And right there, she nailed me.
And that was the very reason why I shed a tear.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A different kind of opera
Last weekend I attended a production of "Flower Girl”, an opera staged at the National Theatre by a North Korean opera troupe.
"Flower Girl" focuses on the plight of a Korean family whose fortunes were ravaged by the selfish behavior of a landowner and his family, saved only at the end by the glory of the revolution (i.e. the Marxist-Lenin communist revolution). Without a doubt, "Flower Girl" was designed to be a partisan, propagandist surrogate whose message was simple and easy to understand. By the time the opera ended, the only question left unanswered, as it seems to me, was how soon (or not!) the supposedly inspired audience would arm themselves and join the revolution.
According to the program notes, the opera was commissioned by and written in the 30s by Kim Il-Sung, the founding father of the DPRK and father of North Korea's current leader, Kim Jong-Il. The Chinese public got their first taste of the opera through a film version of the opera, which was briefly released in the mainland in the early 70s and was well received. Since then, the opera has made various rounds in the mainland, playing mainly for small, strategically selected crowds (i.e. the PLA, young communist brigades etc.). It seems to me that while the opera has gained Chinese fans over the years, but because it has never been widely staged, it has never gained widespread prominence in the country's psyche. Over the years, the opera has been reedited by and for its chief patron, the Kim family, probably to perfect its underlying proletarian and revolutionary messages. To me, such messages were unmistakable: the landowners are(were) evil, Jesus Christ offers(-ed) no helping hand, and the proletarian revolution is(was) every Korean's ultimate salvation. The surtitles would punch out verses upon verses that sing the virtues of proletarian values, all the while ripping apart property rights and capitalistic misadventures. I felt like a cliff-side rock, looking helplessly as rapturous waves of such messages soldiered towards me in an endless repetition, finally engulfing and obliterating me, as if obliging me to accept its imminent and inevitable victory.
Politics aside, the opera was, strictly speaking, not an opera, because the main singers were given microphones to sing with. Unusual in an opera, a non-acting choir located on both sides of the orchestra sang not only the chorus, but more significantly the part of the heavenly voice seeking to explain everything to the audience -- for example, who to blame for all the poor people's plight (the landowner) and who to get credit for saving the poor (the revolution). Without a sliver of a doubt, Kim Il-Sung was to live vicariously and eternally through the united voice of the choir --an arrangement that, in itself, was a fitting, if not accidental, metaphor. Operatically, it was somewhat difficult to pinpoint exactly where "Flower Girl" would fit. The music was comprised of a chain of short tunes, each of which was tonally structured like a romantic aria, but each also woven with more sincere philosophical discourse and less floral sentimentality. "Flower Girl" is, thus, as it seems to me, Wagnerian in its content but romantic in its delivery. The singing was superb, despite the horrifying presence of the microphone. The production direction was amply satisfying, especially a prison scene whereby prisoners, understood to be locked down by the autocratic class, thumped through the prison ground as if they were laboring mindlessly in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. In the end, I was convinced that the mezzo soprano (the protagonist) and probably a few others could have sung their entire roles without the help of any electronics. Another mezzo soprano (the protagonist's mother) also sang superbly, and I found it somewhat tragic that her role was small and limiting.
The highlight of the evening was at the end, when I made my way to the orchestral pit and shook hands with a couple of musicians. I could hardly speak Korean (and I would assume they could hardly understand a word of Chinese --though I could be wrong), but I found no such need to communicate verbally. We exchanged smiles in a way that spoke a thousand words: theirs, being appreciative of a keen audience and the sincerity of those who chose to stay behind to greet and thank the musicians; and ours, being thankful for a lovely spring evening imbued with fine music, talented singing and, most importantly, the North Korean's rare but priceless presence. For different reasons, the night was special to each involved. I couldn't help but felt the urge to summarize the evening with a tinge of romantic sentimentality: that while the exchange of human warmth was a small gesture between a few men (and women), it was a giant gesture for all of mankind, in an act that verily shows how humanity by way of musical and facial proxy can transcend language, politics, ideology. No word needed spoken, for music and facial gestures cultivated the seeds of understanding and mutual admiration. That moment was, to me, the singularly most heartwarming and unique experience I have ever had in an opera house.
"Flower Girl" focuses on the plight of a Korean family whose fortunes were ravaged by the selfish behavior of a landowner and his family, saved only at the end by the glory of the revolution (i.e. the Marxist-Lenin communist revolution). Without a doubt, "Flower Girl" was designed to be a partisan, propagandist surrogate whose message was simple and easy to understand. By the time the opera ended, the only question left unanswered, as it seems to me, was how soon (or not!) the supposedly inspired audience would arm themselves and join the revolution.
According to the program notes, the opera was commissioned by and written in the 30s by Kim Il-Sung, the founding father of the DPRK and father of North Korea's current leader, Kim Jong-Il. The Chinese public got their first taste of the opera through a film version of the opera, which was briefly released in the mainland in the early 70s and was well received. Since then, the opera has made various rounds in the mainland, playing mainly for small, strategically selected crowds (i.e. the PLA, young communist brigades etc.). It seems to me that while the opera has gained Chinese fans over the years, but because it has never been widely staged, it has never gained widespread prominence in the country's psyche. Over the years, the opera has been reedited by and for its chief patron, the Kim family, probably to perfect its underlying proletarian and revolutionary messages. To me, such messages were unmistakable: the landowners are(were) evil, Jesus Christ offers(-ed) no helping hand, and the proletarian revolution is(was) every Korean's ultimate salvation. The surtitles would punch out verses upon verses that sing the virtues of proletarian values, all the while ripping apart property rights and capitalistic misadventures. I felt like a cliff-side rock, looking helplessly as rapturous waves of such messages soldiered towards me in an endless repetition, finally engulfing and obliterating me, as if obliging me to accept its imminent and inevitable victory.
Politics aside, the opera was, strictly speaking, not an opera, because the main singers were given microphones to sing with. Unusual in an opera, a non-acting choir located on both sides of the orchestra sang not only the chorus, but more significantly the part of the heavenly voice seeking to explain everything to the audience -- for example, who to blame for all the poor people's plight (the landowner) and who to get credit for saving the poor (the revolution). Without a sliver of a doubt, Kim Il-Sung was to live vicariously and eternally through the united voice of the choir --an arrangement that, in itself, was a fitting, if not accidental, metaphor. Operatically, it was somewhat difficult to pinpoint exactly where "Flower Girl" would fit. The music was comprised of a chain of short tunes, each of which was tonally structured like a romantic aria, but each also woven with more sincere philosophical discourse and less floral sentimentality. "Flower Girl" is, thus, as it seems to me, Wagnerian in its content but romantic in its delivery. The singing was superb, despite the horrifying presence of the microphone. The production direction was amply satisfying, especially a prison scene whereby prisoners, understood to be locked down by the autocratic class, thumped through the prison ground as if they were laboring mindlessly in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. In the end, I was convinced that the mezzo soprano (the protagonist) and probably a few others could have sung their entire roles without the help of any electronics. Another mezzo soprano (the protagonist's mother) also sang superbly, and I found it somewhat tragic that her role was small and limiting.
The highlight of the evening was at the end, when I made my way to the orchestral pit and shook hands with a couple of musicians. I could hardly speak Korean (and I would assume they could hardly understand a word of Chinese --though I could be wrong), but I found no such need to communicate verbally. We exchanged smiles in a way that spoke a thousand words: theirs, being appreciative of a keen audience and the sincerity of those who chose to stay behind to greet and thank the musicians; and ours, being thankful for a lovely spring evening imbued with fine music, talented singing and, most importantly, the North Korean's rare but priceless presence. For different reasons, the night was special to each involved. I couldn't help but felt the urge to summarize the evening with a tinge of romantic sentimentality: that while the exchange of human warmth was a small gesture between a few men (and women), it was a giant gesture for all of mankind, in an act that verily shows how humanity by way of musical and facial proxy can transcend language, politics, ideology. No word needed spoken, for music and facial gestures cultivated the seeds of understanding and mutual admiration. That moment was, to me, the singularly most heartwarming and unique experience I have ever had in an opera house.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Le roi d'Ys
Édouard Lalo is well known for his string compositions, for a good reason: he was an accomplished violin and viola player himself. His Spanish Symphony, a violin concerto, is considered to be an important rite of passage for many aspiring violinists.
His opera compositions, however, are less well known. Le Roi d'Ys, considered to be Lalos' most well-scored and sophisticated opera, is rarely staged. (The Met, for example, staged Le Roi six times in its 120+ years history --and these six were performed in a single season: 1921-1922.) This rarity was the primary reason why I was excited to learn that Le Roi would be staged this week at the National Theatre in Beijing, in a production co-produced by the National Theatre and the Theatre du Capitole de Toulouse.
Last night I went to the second of four Le Roi performances this weekend. Honestly, I don't have much exposure to Lalo's work prior to last night, and I was somewhat surprised by the Wagnerian nature of the composition. By the second Act, I was convinced why Lalo's work remains in the back bin of any company's repertoire: one simply can't market a Wagnerian feature under the banner of a French composer. The two concepts just don't mix...selling Le Roi, as it seems to me, is like selling existential philosophy at a burlesque factory. I am not trying deliberately to make a direct and parallel analogy here: my point, however, is that no easy way exists to fuse the two perceptibly differing concepts into one coherent, marketable product.
But last night's production was as close to achieving something monstrous as I could possibly imagine. Even so, the production was not devoid of misses: the singing, by most standards, was lackluster. The tenor singing the role of Mylio was simply not up for the challenge. His voice was weak and unable to project adequately to all corners of the hall (I sat in a perfectly located orchestra center seat but felt that his delivery was timid, particularly towards the end when Lalo obviously expected Mylio to be brazen and bold). Rozenn, a soprano role, delivered technically but was incapable of establishing any emotional connection with the audience (perhaps she was merely effectuating the role, which was supposed to be simple but oblivious to most of what went on?). It was due to the miscast of both Mylio and Rozenn that I found Margared, a mezzo-soprano role, to be sumptuously fulfilling, perhaps simply by comparison. The villainous role was hardly bel canto in nature (after all, Le Roi is, at least to me, Wagnerian), but the singer was able to deliver a top quality voice that not only danced powerfully with the orchestral score, but invited the audience (or just me?) to feel her villainous rage.
But Margared alone was not enough to save the day. What made Le Roi work, or rather, this Le Roi work was the production stage. The set includes a beautifully painted, two-story stage with plenty of ornamental details and fabulous engravings. The opera also calls for a dramatic flooding scene in the final scene. Common sense would dictate that no production would actually flood the stage with real water, but would only metaphorically do so through stage effects (e.g. blue lighting, and/or dancing ribbons) to falsify an imminent tidal surge. But no, the production designer actually flooded the stage, not merely with a few metaphoric buckets but with gallons upon gallons of fresh water gushing from the top of the two-story stage down a central stair piece and onto the stage floor! (The water was, as it seemed to me, then captured by slits across the stage.) It was as magnificent as real elephants in Aida or marching horses in Khovanshchina, except, of course, that this water design was so much more difficult to pull off not merely because of the logistic nightmare of recapturing the water but also of the #1 issue in any stage design: safety.
According to the production notes, the stage seems to be conceptualized and managed by folks at the National Theatre. If anything, this Le Roi set proves that Chinese production designers are world class, and that the Theatre's mechanics can deliver such a technical marvel, so seemingly unfathomable anywhere else, that the production was saved from mediocrity.
His opera compositions, however, are less well known. Le Roi d'Ys, considered to be Lalos' most well-scored and sophisticated opera, is rarely staged. (The Met, for example, staged Le Roi six times in its 120+ years history --and these six were performed in a single season: 1921-1922.) This rarity was the primary reason why I was excited to learn that Le Roi would be staged this week at the National Theatre in Beijing, in a production co-produced by the National Theatre and the Theatre du Capitole de Toulouse.
Last night I went to the second of four Le Roi performances this weekend. Honestly, I don't have much exposure to Lalo's work prior to last night, and I was somewhat surprised by the Wagnerian nature of the composition. By the second Act, I was convinced why Lalo's work remains in the back bin of any company's repertoire: one simply can't market a Wagnerian feature under the banner of a French composer. The two concepts just don't mix...selling Le Roi, as it seems to me, is like selling existential philosophy at a burlesque factory. I am not trying deliberately to make a direct and parallel analogy here: my point, however, is that no easy way exists to fuse the two perceptibly differing concepts into one coherent, marketable product.
But last night's production was as close to achieving something monstrous as I could possibly imagine. Even so, the production was not devoid of misses: the singing, by most standards, was lackluster. The tenor singing the role of Mylio was simply not up for the challenge. His voice was weak and unable to project adequately to all corners of the hall (I sat in a perfectly located orchestra center seat but felt that his delivery was timid, particularly towards the end when Lalo obviously expected Mylio to be brazen and bold). Rozenn, a soprano role, delivered technically but was incapable of establishing any emotional connection with the audience (perhaps she was merely effectuating the role, which was supposed to be simple but oblivious to most of what went on?). It was due to the miscast of both Mylio and Rozenn that I found Margared, a mezzo-soprano role, to be sumptuously fulfilling, perhaps simply by comparison. The villainous role was hardly bel canto in nature (after all, Le Roi is, at least to me, Wagnerian), but the singer was able to deliver a top quality voice that not only danced powerfully with the orchestral score, but invited the audience (or just me?) to feel her villainous rage.
But Margared alone was not enough to save the day. What made Le Roi work, or rather, this Le Roi work was the production stage. The set includes a beautifully painted, two-story stage with plenty of ornamental details and fabulous engravings. The opera also calls for a dramatic flooding scene in the final scene. Common sense would dictate that no production would actually flood the stage with real water, but would only metaphorically do so through stage effects (e.g. blue lighting, and/or dancing ribbons) to falsify an imminent tidal surge. But no, the production designer actually flooded the stage, not merely with a few metaphoric buckets but with gallons upon gallons of fresh water gushing from the top of the two-story stage down a central stair piece and onto the stage floor! (The water was, as it seemed to me, then captured by slits across the stage.) It was as magnificent as real elephants in Aida or marching horses in Khovanshchina, except, of course, that this water design was so much more difficult to pull off not merely because of the logistic nightmare of recapturing the water but also of the #1 issue in any stage design: safety.
According to the production notes, the stage seems to be conceptualized and managed by folks at the National Theatre. If anything, this Le Roi set proves that Chinese production designers are world class, and that the Theatre's mechanics can deliver such a technical marvel, so seemingly unfathomable anywhere else, that the production was saved from mediocrity.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
José Carreras recital
I almost missed out on a great opportunity to listen to Carreras because by the time I learned about the recital earlier this week, it was already sold out. If I hadn't exhausted all my contacts and traded some favors, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to catch one of the finest living opera singers in my lifetime.
The concert: while Carreras has lost some of his range (the highest note he hit all night, if my pitch hasn't failed me, was a Ab5 --and that was delivered with visible strain), he more than made up with an impassioned, controlled delivery. His intense concentration was amply projected through his voice and, to an even greater extent, his facial emotions. Notwithstanding a few strained high notes, Carreras' voice oozed with a mature, dutiful yet non-threatening perfection. The dramatic highlight of the evening was a superbly crafted encore piece --Verdi's Libiamo ne' lieti calici, together with soprano Po-ching Ip (no, I don't believe Carreras hit the last Bb...but who cares...the capacity audience, including I, went absolutely berserk after a prolonged, rousing third-last note, the G5). In an earlier encore (he did a total of three encores), Carreras first confounded the audience by revealing what seemed to be a hastily scribbled cheat sheet, and then turned the house into a pandemonium when he began singing to the tune of "在那遙遠的地方", in accented (but arguably well spelled-out?) Mandarin Chinese. While Carreras was taking breaks on backstage between his 10 arias of the evening, Ip (who was a classmate of mine at music school in HK, over 10 years ago) filled in with memorable performances, including Puccini's O mio babbino caro and, as an encore, Gounod's Je veux vivre dans ce reve.
To end, a little about the performance venue: it was held at the white-themed Concert Hall at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (or The Egg, as it is affectionately known). Similar to the opera house (which I visited two weeks ago when it first opened), the concert hall's interior is subtly tasteful and, thank goodness, without the kind of excessive exuberance that seems to define the modern Chinese taste. My only complaint: the existence of pieces of glass-like material separating the grid lights from the ambiance. When these grid lights hit the side of this glass-like material, a magnified refraction is casted on the side of the concert hall. Because the grid is suspended through wires from the ceiling, it could move, if ever so slightly, enough to cause the magnified refraction to move, in a musically miscued and visually annoying manner.
To end, a little about the performance venue: it was held at the white-themed Concert Hall at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (or The Egg, as it is affectionately known). Similar to the opera house (which I visited two weeks ago when it first opened), the concert hall's interior is subtly tasteful and, thank goodness, without the kind of excessive exuberance that seems to define the modern Chinese taste. My only complaint: the existence of pieces of glass-like material separating the grid lights from the ambiance. When these grid lights hit the side of this glass-like material, a magnified refraction is casted on the side of the concert hall. Because the grid is suspended through wires from the ceiling, it could move, if ever so slightly, enough to cause the magnified refraction to move, in a musically miscued and visually annoying manner.
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