Tag: Bartlett Sher

Too Much Is Not Enough

On April 7, 2017

(Photo: mine, link / Please do not reproduce without permission)

Is too much of a good thing really so bad?

In Salzburg last August, I was spoiled in seeing operas and concerts every day and night of my visit; I generally avoid this, as it not only hurts the brain, but robs the soul of some meaningful (and usually much-needed, in my case) contemplation, as well as necessary human connection and company. I like to sit between things and drink, write, and live: go to dinner, go to galleries, take long walks — but mostly, think, feel, absorb. Good music, well sung and presented, offers me big meal needing a slow digestion, which is best done in silence and sunshine, over wine or cocktails, with friends in lively talks, on walks through the woods with birdsong and breezes.

Alas, I didn’t get much time for any of that on a recent trip to New York City, where I saw four operas over a three-day visit, with various work-related things to complete two of the three day times. New York in winter is challenging enough; being exposed to so music, and so many ideas, presented a wholly unique level of emotional and intellectual heartburn. Then again, it was its own kind of binge, and I can’t say I’m sorry for indulging. All the operas I saw (Fidelio, Idomeneo, Romeo et Juliette, and La Traviata) left strong impressions in different ways, but what linked them all was the tremendously high quality of singing, and, in some cases, the intriguing smart approach to directing.

The Met’s revival of Fidelio, for instance (which closes tomorrow, Saturday, April 8th), was so good that I still recall (and am stopped in my tracks by) various images it presented. Beethoven’s sole opera revolves around a woman, Leonore, who disguises herself as a man to rescue her husband Florestan, who is being held prisoner by a ruthless state governor, Don Pizarro. Many people not familiar with opera will be familiar with the famous “Leonore” overture, the third in a series of pieces Beethoven wrote in his frenzy to perfect the work. I have clear memories of seeing this opera at the Canadian Opera Company decades ago with my mother, and her writing an angry letter to the company after the production did not include this overture; to her, it was sacrilege, but of course, it was difficult to convey, in a diplomatic matter, that the habit of playing it as part of an opera production (usually just before the finale) had fallen out of fashion, for logistical as well as dramatic reasons. I still think of her, and in fact, did again this trip. Jurgen Flimm’s production, however, is so smart, and the performances so very engaging (particularly sopranos Hanna-Elisabeth Müller and Adrienne Pieczonka, who I am very much looking forward to seeing in the Canadian Opera Company’s Tosca), that I honestly didn’t miss that bit of nostalgia at all. Sorry, mom.

Fidelio bows (Photo: mine, link / Please do not reproduce without permission)

Flimm, who is Director of the Staatsoper Berlin Unter den Linden since 2010 (and whose work you’ll be reading more about in a post later this spring) has placed the action of the work —traditionally set in late 18th-century Seville after the French Revolution — in immediately-post-WW2 Europe. In doing this, he uses imagery that some (especially those of us familiar with Holocaust photo documents) may find familiar; piles of shoes, for instance, along with other personal belongings, are piled into corners in the underground dungeon where Florestan is being held, the only signs of the vanished, the ranks of which Don Pizarro firmly plans his prisoner to join. Director Flimm gives a poignant commentary on the nature of power here, and how its abuse creates political discord which is expressed as a deep social malaise. Thus, relationships are given a distinct emphasis: those between employer and employee, prisoner and guard, father and daughter, husband and wife — and, more broadly, men and women. Everything is poisoned, and thus, everyone.

Nowhere was this illustrated more clearly than in the way Flimm staged the interactions between Leonore (Adrienne Pieczonka), the prison warden Rocco (Falk Struckmann), Marzellina (Hanna-Elisabeth Müller) and Jaquino (David Portillo), an assistant to Rocco at the prison where Leonore’s husband Florestan (Klaus Florian Vogt) is being held illegally by Don Pizarro (Greer Grimsley). The stark contrast between the Marzellina/Jaquino and Leonore/Florestan relationships was highlighted at the ending of the opera, which, for all its raucous joy, had a satisfyingly bitter edge, with Flimm showing the corrupt Pizarro being led to the gallows by celebrating freed prisoners, and Marzellina’s look of horror as she realizes the “boy” she’d been infatuated with was really a woman; Jaquino is intent on harassing (or rather, bullying, in the manner of his old boss) the poor girl into submission, as she drops blood-red roses across the celebratory scene. Leonore and Florestan are hoisted in joy by the happy onlookers as Robert Israel’s stark set, with its unmistakeable gallows, looms over the proceedings, a grim reminder that the happiness on display is not only fleeting, but mixed with violence, the sort that its purer form (in the form of Leonore) sought to eradicate. It is a caustic ending that offers a fantastically smart and very timely non-conclusion to what many consider to be one of the most difficult works in the operatic repertoire.

Matthew Polenzani as Idomeneo / Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera (via)

Less about production and far, far more about the singing in and of itself providing the drama, Mozart’s 1781 opera Idomeneo, featured a stellar cast that included soprano Elza van den Heever (whose work I so enjoyed last fall, when she performed the lead in Norma with the Canadian Opera Company) and tenor Matthew Polenzani, who is the recipient of a 2017 Opera News Award (which are being handed out in NYC this coming Sunday, April 9th). More than once during that Friday evening performance I found myself shutting eyes and throwing head back in sheer wonder at Polenzani’s marvelously emotive voice, his “Fuor del mar” in the second act a particularly heartfelt interpretation. (Sidenote: I am greatly looking forward to the revival of his Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore next season; expect a post about that.) Lindemann Young Artist Development Program graduate Yin Fang, who sang the role of Ilia, has a gorgeous, crystalline soprano, as well as a gracious stage presence that made her scenes with mezzo soprano Alice Coote (in a pants role, as Idamante, son of the title character) a joy to listen to. The 35 year-old production, by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, was tasteful if homogenous — which was useful, because it allowed a pure experience of Mozart’s music, in and of itself. Maestro James Levine conducted a lustrous Met Orchestra that allowed for the score’s youthful vivacity to shine through, something the singers took full and glorious advantage of.

(Photo: mine, link / Please do not reproduce without permission)

Equally compelling was American theatre director Bartlett Sher‘s Romeo et Juliette, French composer Charles Gounod’s tuneful 1867 interpretation of the Shakespearean tale of the star-crossed lovers. The house was, I think, nearly sold out for this special closing show, which featured star turns from soprano Pretty Yende and tenor Stephen Costello in the leads. Yende is a highly watchable performer, her lilting voice as responsive and graceful as the fluters of her gorgeous Catherine Zuber-designed costumes; she shared an exceptional chemistry with Costello, whose wholly romantic rendering of “Ah! Lêve-toi, soleil!” made more than a few of the ladies around me happily sigh. Making his mark in a small but pivotal role as Frère Laurent as English bass Matthew Rose (who I interviewed recently); his authoritative bass voice expressed a wonderfully nuanced range of emotions, and that, together with the way he cleverly used his physicality (Rose is very tall), suggested a touching paternal protectiveness of the young lovers.

Last but not least on my NYC opera whirlwind trip was Verdi’s La Traviata, perhaps one of the best-known of all works, though this staging was easily one of the most modern I’ve attended. The story, about a popular, if secretly ill, courtesan who finds real love and ultimately gives it up when pressured, only to tragically die (come on, you knew that was coming), is one of the most popular works in opera, with a very famous drinking song that everyone (yes, even you) knows and has hummed to once or twice. Directed by German theater artist Willy Decker from a 2005 production at the Salzburg Festival, the set principally consisted of a massive curved wall, with an overall design aesthetic containing strong German expressionist influences. Violetta’s place as an isolated woman who craves (and survives on) male attention was confirmed and re-confirmed throughout the evening, as was director Decker’s belief that Traviata is (as he notes in the program notes) “a piece about death”; by the end I felt as if I’d been continually hit with a large frying pan labelled Big Artistic Ideas. If it all seemed dramatic and theatrical, I suppose it was meant to, wiping away any lingering memories of traditional productions involving big dresses and fans, and I was actually quite pleased the performers put their whole passion into this endeavour, offering vocal interpretations that precisely matched the strong directorial vision. Its leads —soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Violetta, tenor Michael Fabiano as Alfredo, and baritone Thomas Hampson as Giorgio Germont (Alfredo’s father) — delivered searing performances that were entirely modern and watchable, even, dare I say, cinematic, with Fabiano, especially, easily delivering, one of the most memorable (and applauded) interpretations of Alfredo I’ve ever seen; he wasn’t merely passionate about Violetta, but dangerously obsessive. The fact I found myself so impressed is, in retrospect, notable; this was one of my mother’s very favorite works, and I suspect I have seen it now many hundreds of times. I also suspect she would have, in her infinite Verdi wisdom, been as gaga over the performances as I was.

The set of La Traviata (Photo: mine, link / Please do not reproduce without permission)

La Traviata continues at the Met to April 14th, with Carmen Giannattasio as Violetta, Atalla Ayan as Alfredo, and, starting tomorrow night (Saturday, April 8th), Placido Domingo as Giorgio Germont. Go! Andiamo! You may not agree with all of Decker’s creative choices, but I guarantee you will come out with at least one strong image from this production seared into your brain (never a bad thing, ultimately), and with the brindisi — as vibrant a piece of music as ever — still ringing in your ears.

Stormy Pacific

By Catherine Kustanczy

On February 28, 2011

In interviews, music, theatre, tour

For all its sheen, there’s something awfully disquieting about South Pacific. The beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, about the shenanigans of a group of U.S. army men stationed in the south seas, features some super-famous tunes (including “Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair”, and “Some Enchanted Evening”), but some genuinely uncomfortable moments that, in the Bartlett Sher-directed version currently back in Toronto after last summer’s run, don’t get smoothed over, but underlined. I love this. Few things are more annoying than a musical production that isn’t conscious of its own dated attitudes or troubling subtexts. Sher doesn’t want cute, shiny, and lovable; he’s more interested in difficult, ugly, and awkward. Those dark places are where the humanity of the piece reside, silent, lurking, and treacherous.

The Tony Award-winning production (running at the Toronto Centre For The Arts through April 10th) features top-notch performances and choreography, but it’s in the show’s design, and particularly, its direction, where one really notices the troubling underbelly lurking within James Michener’s tales. The alarmingly leanings of earnest Lieutenant Joseph Cable (Aaron Ramey) for the young native Liat (Sumie Maeda) gives the gorgeous “Younger Than Springtime” a much darker undertone. Her ambitious mother, Bloody Mary (Jodi Kimura), lurks around the two young lovers after their first initial tryst, singing “Happy Talk” as more of a desperate sales pitch than a romantic lullaby, stalking and wildly gesturing at the stunned Cable and pushing her pie-eyed daughter toward him: “If you don’t have a dream / you got to have a dream! / How you gonna make a dream come true?” But whose dream is it? And how much compromise does it take to make that dream a reality? What’s the price? Sher’s production doesn’t provide any easy answers.

Equally, the dark undercurrent of racism that snakes through Sher’s production gives it an edge against the saccharine moments, that, once they occur, seem at once beautifully poetic and confusingly florid; the powerful ballad “You’ve Got To Be Taught” is delivered as two black airmen stand on one side of the stage, and two white cohorts on the other. It isn’t hard to recall the words of transplanted Frenchman Emile De Becque (David Pittsinger) talking about why he left France -the ostensible reason he gives is “freedom” -but the fact he has no problem having a black servant becomes all the more troubling. Suddenly he and his nurse love-interest Nellie Forbush don’t seem so different after all. Their “Some Enchanted Evening” ballad is indeed, enchanting, but you can’t quite forget that they’re working through the same difficult issues around race, hypocrisy, and Western privilege.

By the musical’s end, love conquers all, though we sense a long road ahead for the couple. Playing a role as complicated -and as fraught with historical baggage -as Nellie isn’t a walk in the park, even with that beautiful, catchy music. American soprano Carmen Cusack captures the frustrations, fears, and outright confusion of a women at an emotional crossroads: trust a man her logical mind says “no” to, or trust her heart, which says just the opposite.

Carmen and I recently exchanged ideas about the challenges of playing Nellie, of singing Rodgers and Hammerstein with opera singers, and what South Pacific might tell a newer generation.

What’s the biggest challenge to playing Nellie?

The challenge with Nellie is going through her emotional ride every night without exhausting myself too much. She laughs, sings, dances and cries, she is tormented at various points and to genuinely give that to an audience, my body has to endure her journey. So keeping myself strong and healthy to maintain 8 shows a week is the main goal.

How much did past interpretations of the role affect your own (or did they)? It must be challenging, knowing so many people are walking in with an image of Mitzi Gaynor in their heads.

I can’t say that any particular interpretation of Nellie affected mine. I looked at the script and saw a woman that I could relate to on certain levels and then just watched a bunch of old 1940s films and came up with something that worked for me. Although, I will say that Mary Martin’s spunky, sort of tom-boy feel was inspirational.

Your leading men in this touring show (David Pittsinger and Jason Howard) come from operatic backgrounds. Does that change the way you approach the music, vocally? How much has your own style and approach influenced them?

The music is written so well that there really aren’t any adjustments vocally to be made. The songs come into the scenes and are a perfect flow of the conversation. Rodgers and Hammerstein certainly knew what they were doing. I am lucky to have had several years of opera training behind me so I can blend with my operatic costars. As for my style influencing them…. you’d have to ask them.

One of the hardest things about playing Nellie is the accent -it must be dangerously easy to fall into Hee-Haw rhythms. How conscious are you about this when you’re onstage?

I don’t really think too much about that. As soon as the wig and costume goes on the accent comes. I just try to keep it subtle.

The music from this is so famous and so beloved; how hard is it to stay in character onstage, and not totally swept up by that music?

Not hard at all! It’s the music that helps put me into character and places me on that tropical paradise and keeps me there for those three hours. It’s an awesome ride!

South Pacific has a timeless, and yet timely quality to it. What sorts of things do you think it says to a 21st century audience, one that hasn’t lived through civil rights or World War Two?

How much we’ve learned and yet how much there still is to learn.

Across A Crowded Room

By Catherine Kustanczy

On August 17, 2010

In opera

What surprised me most about attending the Toronto opening of South Pacific recently wasn’t the smart Bartlett Sher direction, the hot dancing sailors, or the strong, ballsy singing. No, it was the fact that so many people I met and spoke with hadn’t seen either the film or any other stage productions. Just like me! Here I thought I was the only SP virgin in the audience. Guess not.

South Pacific belongs, at least to my mind, to another time and place -one where everyone had a crush on either Mitzi Gaynor or Rossano Brazzi, the stars of the 1958 film version of the beloved Rodgers and Hammstein musical. The story, set on a tropical island during the Second World War, revolves around Ensign Nelly Forbush (Carmen Cusack) and her relationship with Frenchman Emile DeBecque (Jason Howard). Nelly’s all fine and dandy canoodling with a man she hardly knows, until he introduces his Polynesian children to her, and she figures out he’s been with a “coloured.” Remember this musical is set during the 1940s, before MLK and the civil rights movement proper existed, and the ugly spectre of racism was still haunting every part of society.

Dated and yet weirdly timely in its attitudes and portrait of a closed, hypocritical paradise, Sher’s multi-award-winning Lincoln Center production has kept every ounce of James Michener‘s intoxicating, if occasionally uneasy atmosphere from his Tales of The South Pacific collection. There’s romance, there’s boredom, there’s a dangerous restlessness, and the huckster-slickness of island trade. There’s also latent, if noticeable racism; for instance, the black navymen stand apart from their white counterparts in most scenes, even when they’re dancing and singing. This is no never-never-land where supposed “difference” is ever forgotten. Never for one moment does Sher let us forget this is a very segregated, racist society singing those cutesy, toe-tapping songs.

It’s also, at least to my twenty-first century feminist mind, staged to be vaguely chauvinistic -quite purposely. The hummable, weirdly addictive number “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” is sung by the gaggle of bored, restless navy boys, with heavy legs and wide gaits, like they all have the worst case of blue balls in history. The way they shout and enunciate their lines (particularly the pelvic-thrust-inducing “ANYTHING like … a dame!“) is both smirk-inducing and slightly disturbing. I got the feeling watching them that I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a tiki bar near any of them. Sher’s desire to portray, honestly and without the cute, coddling frills, the sort of wild loneliness that’s endemic to military life -a loneliness that transforms into predatory, dangerous energy in such isolated, testosterone-fueled circumstances. You have to wonder what those soldiers would do if they all got to the island that’s across the bay. At the same time, you can’t blame the French Polynesians for locking their daughters away. Yikes.

Standing out as the pirate-like ringleader of this band of un-merry men is Luther Bellis, played with sexy aplomb by Matthew Saldivar. With his tattoos, bead necklaces, open shirt and goatee, he’s like Captain Jack by way of New Jersey, and, to my mind, is absolutely magnetic whenever he’s onstage, even if he isn’t talking. He’s just as good demonstrating his player attitude as he is conveying a boyish awkwardness, particularly in his scenes with Nelly. There’s a beautiful vulnerability at work in those scenes, as we sense that, behind the aggressive boys-club aplomb is a truly good man who is all too aware of his position, both in and outside navy life. In short, it’s a star-making performance, and I’m curious to see more from Saldivar in future.

The other notable performance comes from Anderson Davis as straight-arrow Lieutenant Cable, who comes to the South Pacific island as a Princeton straight-arrow, but is soon fumbling to find a center to the spinning madness. Davis is mesmerizing in conveying Cable’s entrancement and accompanying panic with the new world the island shows him, notably in the form of Liat (Sumie Maeda), daughter of souvenir hawker Mary (Jodi Kimura). Sher brilliantly plays up the opportunism and exploitation at work in both Cable and Mary’s machinations; the former, delivering a gorgeous, blistering “Younger Than Springtime”, brings to mind vague, troubling hints of pedophilia, while Kimura’s throaty, if hypnotic delivery of “Bali Ha’i” is sung like the huge, musical sales pitch it’s supposed to be. She’s played as a desperate mum eager to give her daughter a better life, and immediately recognizes Cable as just the man to do that. With her crooked grin, low-lidded gaze, and slow, deliberate walk, Kimura delivers a nuanced, fascinating performance that could easily fall into racial stereotype, but never, ever does.

As to the leads, Jason Howard (as Emile) has an amazing, beautiful full singing tone, and really fleshes out the emotional undercurrents of his character in his numbers (especially “This Nearly Was Mine”), but his French accent is sometimes more Pepe Le Pew than Paris, and his acting feels a bit too “Big Romantic Lead”-hammy at points. I don’t want to see Emile trying to romance Nelly -I want to know he can (and does), and I wasn’t always buying it. Maybe it was opening night jitters, or to much Wagner (Howard just came off of playing Wotan in the German composer’s ring cycle in Strasbourg). As his love interest, Carmen Cusack is solid and reliable, with a beautiful, clear soprano tone. But… she’s weirdly distant; her hot-blooded Southerner seems strangely Polar, and it takes away from the character’s essential, unpretentious earthiness. The famous “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” is staged with inventive choreography and props (including a vintage tropical shower), and the chorus of Nurses around her is certainly vivacious but there’s something insincere in Cusack’s delivery. I got the feeling she’d be more comfortable doing a solo show of R&H hits than getting her hair wet.

Perhaps most importantly, Cusack and Howard lack the crucial to make their scenes together really sizzle. A bit more consistency with the leads and a little more sincerity (though really, you can’t fake chemistry) might make for a more moving experience, especially considering the theme of the work -racism -rises or falls based on the characters’ sincerity. When her character finds out Emile’s first wife was, as she put it, a “colored”, she says it as though she has something unpleasant affixed to her shoe; never for a moment did I believe Nelly harbored a massive racist streak , one that serves as a huge symbol of the deep conflict at work within both the musical and it earlier forbear. Thing is, I needed to feel her utter disgust and repulsion -however uncomfortable -to really feel the full force of the work. I found it more with Cable, the sailors, and Bloody Mary than with the leads. Maybe I was just looking too hard for meaning, but I also believe Sher fully intended for the horror of racism to be keenly felt by audience members, and, certainly it is, at least in some scenes. It just isn’t consistent, especially where it needs to be.

Still, there’s no doubting the musical chops -of the leads, or indeed, anyone – for one minute; the ensemble belts out all the beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein hits like they were born to do it, and, in the end, I suppose that’s what many -most -people come for. Between the Catherine Zuber’s lovely costumes, Christopher Gattelli’s sprightly musical staging, and Michael Yeargan’s super-inventive sets, this is an evening of musical theatre you won’t soon forget. And you might just look at the sunny film version a bit differently, too. Sometimes darkness amidst the sun and sand is a refreshing change. And sometimes, across a crowded room, you’re smacked in the face with something ugly you didn’t expect. It isn’t always a bad thing, even if the sunshine is awfully nice.