Yesterday evening at seven o'clock, just as we were preparing to leave for the theatre, the heavens opened up. Now, there have been some showers here lately — much welcome drought relief — but they've rarely been torrential and when they are, they're usually shortlived. Last week, for instance, it was bucketing down as we drove out to Bobcat Bite, but the rain was drying up even before our burgers arrived. But last night's was the heaviest and most diagonal we've seen. It brought the full stormy complement with it — thunder, lightning and wind — and showed no signs of letting up. Even the short trip from front door to car was suddenly looking like an ordeal, and I wasn't much relishing the prospect of the time I had to kill between depositing my tenor backstage and the start of the opera, two hours later.
Needs must, however. We made it from house to box office to backstage to Opera Club with minimal saturation. And once I was in the shelter of said club, with a Diet Coke and a squillion dollar view, the weather was no longer a problem. In fact it was downright picturesque. What other opera company could offer you a pre-show electrical storm? And what better opera to see in such conditions than a dark and stormy piece like Wozzeck? As the sun set, we had lightning in every direction, crackling across a pink and cloudy sky; and while it settled somewhat in time for the show, there were still intermittent flashes for the whole first half — including a magnificent bolt in time for Marie's first entrance, framed perfectly by the open back wall of the stage. It was as if they'd planned it.
Not that Daniel Slater's production needs much help in the atmosphere department. I've said on Twitter, and will say again here, this is one of the best productions of anything I've seen this year. The line between imagination and reality — sanity and madness — is blurred so gradually at first that you hardly realise it, and then when you do, the whole thing twists in an instant. Quite literally, in terms of the set, but figuratively as well. With a quick change of lightning and choreography, a perfectly innocent scene become grotesque, and you're pulled irresistibly into Wozzeck's crumbling psyche. In particular, I love how Slater has expanded the role of the Fool, who now — with pallid death mask and gently choreographed movements — becomes the embodiment of Wozzeck's darker thoughts, spurring him on to the murder of Marie and to his own demise.
David Robertson's conducting has been similarly revelatory. Of course it was thrilling to hear James Levine's Wozzeck in New York, but David brings out other facets of the score — its lyricism, its beauty — and in combination, I think my two contrasting experiences of the piece, especially so close together, make for a fairly special first encounter with this opera. One could hardly do better than to start with Levine; and upon that ear-opening foundation, David's reading has worked considerable new magic.
I don't suppose anybody would turn their nose up at the cast here, either. Richard Paul Fink outstanding in his role début as Wozzeck — a tour de force any way you look at it, especially as this production has him onstage almost constantly — and Nicola Beller Carbone beautifully bringing out both Marie's hardness and her fragility. Eric Owens is somehow both jovial and malevolent as the deranged Doctor, Robert Brubaker superb as a tightly-wound Captain, and my own tenor a disturbingly convincing Drum Major. (Those high notes, which one reviewer in New York compared to hand grenades, sound even better in Santa Fe's far less barn-like acoustic.) Jason Slayden's fresh-faced Andres is a striking contrast to Wozzeck's broken spirit, Patricia Risley's Margret is delightfully arch, and Randall Bills as the Fool takes Slater's unusual concept and makes poetry of it.
The above are all my highly impartial views, of course, but take a look at the blog posts already up from the far less beholden Out West Arts and Opera Tattler, and you'll see I'm not alone in them. I'm curious to see the print reviews as well. Over the last few weeks, I've heard more than one Santa Fe veteran describe this production (it was last staged here in 2001) as one of the company's finest. It's my first Santa Fe show, so I've nothing to compare it to; but having already seen it three times this week (two rehearsal plus opening night) I'm more than prepared to believe them. I don't think it will be an easy one to beat.
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