Prima la musica, poi le parole

First and last

It's a curious sort of double life I lead. On the one hand, I live and breathe opera every day, and have done so for years; I listen to it, I watch it and, of course I write about it, and while doing so doesn't pay the bills, it nevertheless is, for lack of a better term, What I Do. But on the other hand, I'm only twenty-five and I've only lived in a city with an opera company for three years. So however deep my immersion, it's the plain and simple truth that a lot of things which happen to me, happen for the first time. And Peter Grimes has been richer in these Firsts than most.

We know I'm an obsessive sort of person and almost always inclined to see a show more than once if I can. I'll do that for all sorts of reasons. But I usually don't see every show in a season unless there's a particular — generally soprano-shaped — drawcard. In fact, there are only four productions about which I can absolutely truthfully say I saw every performance, and it will be no surprise to anybody that the cause in every case was either Yvonne Kenny or Cheryl Barker. I'm seeing every performance of Peter Grimes, however, and while the cast abounds with singers who would, on their own, be more than reason enough for my completist urge to kick in, it's nevertheless not about any one individual or any starry-eyed fixation. It is the show itself which keeps pulling me back, and above all, it is the opera itself — all this irresistible magnetism has its ultimate roots in the magic wrought by Britten. 

That magnetism must be powerful, too, because this is also the first season in which I've seen my own urge to return and return reflected in so many other people. People who sometimes think I'm a bit mad for going back are now doing it too. A few friends who almost never see anything twice, have come back, and among my fellow devotees, my 6/6 record is closer than usual to being equalled. In fact I expect it has been equalled, and so it should. And while there's a glow that hangs about from show to show, each time is somehow also the first time, as fresh and as revelatory as when we began. There's no going through the motions and no sense of getting through the less interesting bits, as I might have felt with other operas I attended multiple times. Each visit is its own experience. 

Peter Grimes has also given rise to a delightful subculture that I've always sort of wished for and never really seen. On Twitter, on Facebook, via email and in the comments of this blog, those of us knocked over by the show seem hungrier than usual to discuss it, to read and write about it, and, despite the piece's devastating nature, to joke about it. I've cried more than ever while watching it, but between acts and between performances, we've had a lot of fun. I've met old friends and made new ones during the intervals. I've traded lines from the libretto with fellow Grimes-nerds over the internet. The other night, a passing suggestion that we might all come to closing night in Borough-themed costume turned into a hilarious and increasingly surreal discussion of suitable outfits — from Ned Keene's jaunty vest, to William Spode's ghost, to my personal favourite: sea horses. 

Most striking of all has been the audience response. In my admittedly limited experience, I've never known anything like it, and I suspect the Opera Theatre hasn't felt this kind of outpouring for quite some time. Sydney audiences, who so rarely stand, have stood more than once for Peter Grimes. And they've done so immediately, rising at Stuart Skelton's first solo bow and staying on their feet throughout the entirety of the curtain call. Even before that, the applause which has filled the house just at the end of the first act has been consistently longer and louder than usual, and when conductor Mark Wigglesworth leads the orchestra's bow before Act Three, the ovation is quite extraordinary. In a sense, I think the applause has become for us a form of catharsis as much as a mark of approval. Even on opening night, when I suspect we were all too taken aback to stand, I have never seen so many arms raised so high to applaud — as if we wanted to just reach out and embrace the artists who had given us such a phenomenal experience. Nor have I myself ever clapped so loud and so long and on so many occasions. My shoulders ache. I can feel them right now.

Without hyperbole or wolfcrying, I can tell you this: I've never experienced anything like this Peter Grimes in my life; and while performances of a similar magnitude might flow a little thicker and faster in the years to come, I nevertheless cannot see anything ever effacing the particular and precious memory of this season. Certainly it has beaten everything else comparable in my life so far — and in fact, I think it did so before the Prologue had even finished on opening night. The moment I first saw Peter Carroll lead Stuart Skelton gently and silently downstage, I knew this was something different, and something which would stay with me for a long long time to come.

Amidst all these firsts, however, comes a cruel finality. The season was a short one and tonight sees the final performance of Peter Grimes. I've already heard talk of a revival: let us hope it is sooner rather than later. Too late now to tell you to see it; if you haven't done so, you probably either feel keenly what you've missed, or were never much bothered to begin. Those of us (and there are a lot of us) who have seen it or will do so surely can't help but feel how incredibly fortunate we've been to see this Grimes, and to see it at the start of its journey. Next comes Perth, then Houston, and after that, who knows? I hope Neil Armfield's show will see — and be seen by — the world. Both they and he — and Benjamin Britten — deserve nothing less. 

Dr Crabbe

I don't know if this is post is especially necessary after Harriet's on the same topic, in which she says a good deal of what's been in my mind. Still, I do want to speak my mind just a little (well, a lot) about Dr Crabbe, whose enlarged presence in Neil Armfield's production of Peter Grimes has been cordially dividing opinion.

As I have said, I wholeheartedly love Dr Crabbe. This is for a multitude of reasons, not all of which I trust myself fully to explain. One of them has to be the way he is played by Peter Carroll. Carroll's performance is so nuanced and so perfectly measured that his presence can only be a joy (and a privilege). And he's so thoroughly convincing — especially for somebody like me, I suspect, who has never seen him in any other role — that he seems really to become Crabbe, to inhabit him so fully, it's almost a ghostly encounter. He's possibly helped in this by the fact that this version of the character is very much Armfield's creation, so that there's no canonical ideal for which he must strive: he doesn't need to be as good as anyone else's Dr Crabbe, because there is no other Dr Crabbe at all like him. Unlike Stuart Skelton (who shakes it all off so easily anyway) his role comes baggage-free.

I also accept him because, quite frankly, this production (and this opera) leave me in no fit state to do anything else. Even if the idea bothered me in principle, in practice I'd be too busy stitching myself back together to notice. But you see, the idea doesn't bother me, even in principle, because the truth it is, I don't have too many hard and fast principles when it comes to the staging of opera. I don't like willful stupidity, I don't like dullness and I don't like to hear the music itself assaulted. That's it. Beyond that, I take each production as it comes and I try to accept it on its own terms, which is why, to date, I can think of only two or three productions I've really strongly disliked, and even then, I could probably still find a few good words for them. Besides, putting the author or the composer on stage is not an unheard of device; Armfield in fact has stronger backing for this decision than most, since his author is actually there in the libretto, ripe for the interpreting.

There is the argument that his presence at the side of the stage — observing all, doing sometimes very little — is  distracting. I never found him so. Perhaps my focus is too narrow, but in this show I rarely find myself regarding the full breadth of the stage. My eyes and my mind are forever being dragged about by this or that conversation or character. For me, Dr Crabbe only comes into focus when he's brought there, either by his own movements or by Peter. I don't regard his involvement in Peter's madness as intrusive: his unearthly air seems to me to heighten the hallucinatory quality of Peter's turmoil. Note, too, that Armfield's program note links his Dr Crabbe not just to the poet, but to Grimes's own father, who appears in the poem — and of whom the original Peter Grimes does indeed have visions, alongside those of his dead apprentices. 

And if we're speaking of intrusion, then I think it's worth noting that, as all-pervasive as Dr Crabbe's presence is, the role he plays is very much that of emotionally invested observor and not puppetmaster. He may look a bit like Bernard Shaw, but that's where his resemblance to this poster ends. Peter is his creation, but having created him and set him down in the Borough, he can no longer intervene. I know there have been productions of operas in which the composer directs the action, moving the players and so forth; this is not what Armfield and Carroll do with Dr Crabbe. I think that's a big part of the intense affection and sympathy I feel for his character: in many ways, he's in the same position as I am — deeply concerned for Peter, but ultimately powerless to do anything but offer love and support, and let fate run its course. When, at the beginning of Act 3, he sits, exhausted, and has a drink, he looks just as shattered as I feel. 

Finally, lest this become an entirely theatrical essay, I want also to put a word in for what I think is the extreme musicality of Armfield's Dr Crabbe. It's another reason why I don't regard him as distracting. Everything that the character does is in some way reflected in the score. Nowhere is this more apparent than during the Interludes. Staging orchestral passages of operas is a tricky business, but ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you Neil Armfield. Yes, on one very practical level, Peter Carroll is acting as a stagehand, changing a set which needs to be changed. And yet he's doing much more than that. Let me put it this way: initially, I was tempted to close my eyes during the Interludes, so as better to focus on the extraordinary music. And then I realised that watching Carroll's subtly choreographed movements was having the same effect. This, incidentally, is a quality which extends far beyond just Dr Crabbe: Armfield's ability to seamlessly match action with music is quite astounding.  

You see, this is the effect this Grimes has upon me. I've written this much on just one aspect. There are probably a dozen other facets of it which could draw at least as many words out of my virtual pen. I still haven't fathomed the riches of this beautiful Peter Grimes. I cannot stop thinking about it. I doubt I've finished writing about it either. 

Il Signor Bruschino

As tied up in Borough gossip I have been, I haven't been so completely consumed as to prevent my making the odd brief excursion to an oasis of sunshine and, well, lighter fare. One such was Rossini's deeply silly one act opera Il Signor Bruschino, staged at the Sydney Conservatorium last Friday and Saturday. 

There was time when I thought I'd never want to hear this opera again. That time was December 2005, when it was paired with Poulenc's La voix humaine in Melbourne. Yvonne Kenny sang the Poulenc, and since my terror of being late wouldn't allow me to arrive just in time for the second act, I sat through the Rossini five times. Twice would probably have sufficed. However, that was a long time ago, and I came to this production thoroughly refreshed, and willing to be confused all over again by the plot, which I never really understood in the first place. (You know something's awry when it takes more than a page of program notes to explain a one-act opera.)

I can say without hyperbole that I enjoyed — and laughed at — this Bruschino far more than I ever did at Opera Australia's. If there's one thing the Con does exceedingly well, it's comedy, and this show (directed by Brendan Carmody) was no exception. I did have the sense that the humour here was somewhat self-directed — that less comically gifted singers might have made less of the show — and it wasn't the tightest staging on the planet (though it was just about the sparsest), but honestly, when you're in tears of laughter over coloratura and a Tim Tam, what do rough patches matter? And History's Tiniest Rossini Orchestra, under Sadaharu Muramatsu, played with real sparkle. 

As with all Con operas, there were two casts for Bruschino. I saw Saturday's, for the simple reason that I was determined to see soprano Saira Luther again, having loved her in Rodelinda and missed her in Albert Herring. And since Saira herself very kindly (full disclosure moment here) provided me with a ticket, off to the Saturday performance I went, with no idea of the rest of the cast. I think I did well. Saira lived absolutely up to my expectations, with an adorably arch Sofia. Coloratura for miles, beautifully even production, and, every now and then, crystalline high note which could bring tears to a girl's eyes. I like her more than ever. And then there was the bonus of the afternoon. What do I find, upon opening my program, but that John Donohoe is our Bruschino padre (read: John Bolton Wood role). John's gendarme in Les mamelles de Tirésias is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen on a stage, and I also happen to rather like his voice, so to find he was not only in the opera, but essentially its star, was a total delight. He gave a superb performance, the best of his I've seen: desperately funny (his face when he lost the Tim Tam was priceless) and also exceedingly well sung. If he wasn't already high on my watchlist, he would be now. David Kymdell did the Rossini tenor thing quite impressively, holding his own between not one but two scene-stealing baritones, and his stage presence loosened up as the performance progressed. Javier Vilarino (the other scene-stealer) made an entrance-and-a-half, singing his opening aria from the audience, resplendent in white suite and red bow tie. I thought in fact that he might have sung himself out of voice by the end of it, but, the odd suspect moment aside, he got through nicely to the end of it, and he seemed to be having a ball with his fabulously camp take on Sofia's guardian (not, one suspects, father) Gaudenzio. Agnes Sarkis was a lovely Marianna, making much of what little Rossini gives her to sing. (He obviously hadn't discovered his mezzo fetish when he wrote this one.) David Hidden was a perfectly drawn Filiberto, sung with strong, flexible voice and impeccable comic timing; he and his fellow David also did a brilliant job of dancing daggily to their duet. (Have I mentioned how much I love it when characters dance to their singing? Directors, take note.) And Michael Butchard turned a nifty double turn, first as a useless Police Commissioner, and then, best of all, as the loutish Bruschino figlio, collapsing onto the stage with aplomb. 

It lasted just over an hour. Afterwards, I shopped idly for a couple of hours then went to be ruined again by Peter Grimes. A curious pair of operas, I know (although no more curious a pairing, perhaps than was the Poulenc, and at least I had a proper break between) but in a funny way they went well together. At the Rossini, I laughed till I cried; at Grimes, I cried till I cried. Both are good. I love the Con more than ever after this show, and can't wait till next year's shows. 

Peter Grimes

To whom does Opera Australia's new Peter Grimes belong? The first (and obvious and correct) answer is to Benjamin Britten. His genius is the fundamental reason why all of us who have seen this show are still reeling: without a trace of hyperbole, this opera is a great opera. Another answer — just as obvious — is that it belongs to Neil Armfield. It's OK, though. He hasn't appropriated it. He holds it in equal partnership with Britten. 

We can go further, though. This Peter Grimes must belong in some measure to Richard Hickox, who programmed it and who would have conducted it; and to whom, as Wanderer has pointed out, we must surely owe the casting of our beautiful Ellen Orford. It's trite but I'll say it just the same: he is there in spirit. It belongs, of course, to Opera Australia, as one of the company's finest achievements. (Such a bland term for something so rich.) It belongs to every member of the cast. It belongs to Crabbe the poet, and it belongs to Crabbe the character, written into the opera as a silent role and transformed by Armfield into an omnipresent ghost, grandfather and guardian angel. 

It belongs to us, the audience. I've rarely, if ever, felt such warmth and affection in an ovation as I did on opening night. Nor have I seen so many arms outstretched to applaud, as if we wanted to reach out and embrace the extraordinary group of artists who had just torn us so wonderfully to shreds. It also belongs to me. (And to you.) Forgive me if my writing on this opera is strange; if I write too little or too much, too often or too emotionally. I've never been so affected on every level by an opera before. Opera is what I do, it's my daily bread, and I had huge and definite expectations of this Grimes — but nevertheless, it has blindsided me, as if I never saw it coming. So you might find I'm just a little bit sensitive about it.

What struck me first — and what has stayed with me very strongly — is the reality of this Peter Grimes. Yes, the vast majority of what we see on the Opera Theatre stage is some kind of attempt to simulate reality; but Grimes doesn't attempt — it just is. All the signs of a show are there — some more obvious than others — and yet it seems like no show at all. That has a lot to do with Britten, of course; and it has a lot to with Armfield's direction, Ralph Myers's living, breathing sets, and Damien Cooper's perfect lighting. You can practically smell the sea air; I swear I did at one point.

And amazingly, that reality is achieved within a framework which could have resulted in extreme unreality. The opera takes place in several locations, indoors and out, but Armfield has moved all of the action into a village hall: a space which bears a close and deliberate resemblance to Opera Australia's own rehearsal venue, the Marrickville Town Hall. Even the scene in Peter's hut is played out on that hall's own, smaller stage, brought forward to fill the opera theatre's own proscenium arch. What's the more, the whole proceedings are watched over (and sometimes participated in) by Armfield's most daring touch, the kindly Dr Crabbe: he starts the show, he changes the set during the Interludes, he even opens the curtains on Grimes's stage-cum-hut. 

It could all have been so alienating, but it isn't. The hall might be Marrickville's cousin, but it also looks like every village hall, including the one you'd expect to find in the Borough circa 1945, the era in which Armfield has set his production. It makes me think of school fairs and prizegivings; it's so completely lifelike that even when the impossible happens, like Grimes dragging his boat across the front of it, there's little mental adjustment needed. Everything somehow makes sense. Including, for me, Dr Crabbe. He's already dividing people: some love him, some are ambivalent, some confused and some irritated. I, who have a tendency to fall unreservedly, love him. His presence, even at its most interventionist, seemed to me to reinforce, rather than detract from, Grimes's real existence. It was to him that Grimes's distracted utterances were directed, and when he comforted his creation — his child — or sat, drunk and depressed by that child's (both children's) fate, he seemed an on-stage surrogate for me and for all of us. Stuart Skelton's massive yet desperately fragile Peter Grimes was, at some level, a boy who needed a hug, and there, thank God, was Dr Crabbe to hold him, even if he didn't seem to feel it. 

So, to Stuart. He has come to us with so many expectations trailing behind (or ahead of) him. Not just the expectations of any tenor taking on such a significant and taxing role, but the expectations that come with a singer whose last attempt at that role had London reviewers comparing him favourably with Vickers, Langridge and Pears. It's as if we'd been sent a Mimi who'd been called the greatest since Freni — a huge weight upon one's artistic shoulders, but what a privilege for us to behold when the comparison holds true. And for Stuart, it does. He is worthy of his starry heritage, but he is not tied to it: he makes Peter Grimes all his own, and gives the kind of performance we've probably spent most of the season dreaming of. 

In both his singing and his acting, Stuart draws out unflinchingly the double nature of the character, brutal violence hand-in-hand with trembling softness. This is ambiguity at its most confronting: used not as a byword for misunderstood, but to create a character whose cruelty is as sincere as his kindness. He can soar powerfully, he can shout, he can sob; he can scale back to the sweetest, most lyrical pianissimo possible; and he can move so seamlessly through this considerable range that the singing he does is as natural as speaking. Stuart Skelton, our very own, is a singer who can (aided by Britten) make time stand still, which is what he does in his "Now the Great Bear and Pleiades" and again in his final scene — a mad scene which leaves even Natalie Dessay's bel canto heroines in the dust for sheer excruciating realism. I've only seen him perform it twice and yet it feels burned into my brain in his voice and in his person. 

Every time I talk about Susan Gritton, I seem to call her "our beautiful Ellen Orford". It's hard not to. Beautiful is what she is, in a deep-running way which you won't forget, once you've seen her. As with Stuart, after just two performances, I feel as if Susan has been Ellen Orford for as long as I've known who Ellen Orford is. I didn't know what to expect from her — I've heard her, intermittently, on various recordings (her sublime Ottone in Villa, conducted by Hickox, stands out) but they don't convey the live experience, not one bit. There is her voice, for a start: a soft, rounded soprano, sweet as they come but with immense reserves of power. She sings in two places at once, her voice rising to the heavens and yet remaining gorgeously grounded: her Ellen is radiant, good and strong, but she is real, not some idealised angel. Against the hugeness of the crowd, of the hall, and of Peter, she is small but steadfast. In her first duet with Skelton's Peter, she establishes herself and her character as equal partner, as strong in her own, quiet away as her rough-hewn Grimes. Her Embroidery aria is both beautiful and terribly painful. When she bursts into tears, so will you.

Peter Coleman-Wright's Balstrode is something of a revelation to me. He gives this greying sea-captain a depth and soulfulness which I simply did not expect. Opinion seems to vary, depending on which review you read, as to whether Balstrode should be classes as a principal or supporting role, but in Peter's case there is no question: his Balstrode is as vital and as three-dimensional as Grimes and Ellen. The growth in his character, from wry onlooker to involved participant and maybe the only source of moral support, is exquisitely played out, and so fully developed that I suspect he seems to be onstage much more than he actually is — his presence is felt even in his absence. And I don't think I have ever heard Peter's voice sound better or more purely lovely than here. It undergoes the same transformation as his character, beginning solid and tough, but as the performance progresses it opens up' it softens, and gains in warmth. He avoids every cliché, and brings out all the heart and humour (he's very funny) in his character. I'm happy to call this the best performance I've ever seen him give.

Meanwhile, among the ranks of the definitely supporting, the support offered is superlative. Elizabeth Campbell, last seen this season (although I didn't see her) singing Amneris, shifts gears completely to become a dark and twitchy Mrs Sedley: respectable lady, crime fetishist and laudanum addict. The characterful strangeness of her voice laces her words with a healthy hint of malice, and she gives a memorable portrayal, no more overdrawn than the libretto would have her and quite striking in her "Murder most foul it is". Catherine Carby is a relatively young and lightly sung Auntie. The production doesn't underline her more dubious activities too heavily: she's mostly publican, with only a hint here and there of what goes on upstairs. She eases her way into the role, coming into her own in the women's quartet. Her relationship with Balstrode comes across well, too, although she hasn't his hidden depths. Taryn Fiebig and Lorina Gore are too delicious for words with their matching brown hair and fabulous dresses (by Tess Schofield, who deserves huge praise for all of her costumes) and their singing is just as pretty. They're such an inseparable pair, both vocally and physically (they hold hands much of the time) that I won't try to do so: as a double act, they're just what they should be. Like Auntie, their downstairs behaviour is mostly on the harmless, almost innocent side; but in their physical interactions with men (first Balstrode, then Swallow) hint at what's beneath their outward girlishness. 

Two Young Artists turn in especially fine performances. Andrew Moran's sly, grinning Ned Keene is a welcome speck of comic relief among the bleakness, and his easy, lithe baritone is always a pleasure. And tenor David Corcoran, who seems to go from strength to strength with every performance, is an absolutely splendid Bob Boles — he even vomits on cue. If you didn't already know, I don't think you'd necessarily pick David as Young Artist: his performance here has all the grit and polish of a seasoned professional. Jud Arthur is in especially resplendent voice as Hobson, intoing that very first "Peter Grimes" and later showing off his percussion skills, as he beats the drum which calls the mob to action. Richard Anderson is a lean-voiced, breathy and suitably officious Swallow, disgracing himself very nicely in his dalliance with the Nieces. Kanen Breen is prim and uncharacteristically restrained (the hand of Neil?) as the Reverend Horace Adams; this kind of repertoire is just right for his voice, and he's a striking visual presence, too, so long and thin in his black cassock. 

Two extremely talented actors take the two silent roles. Nicholas Bakopoulos-Cooke is just heart-rending as the tiny, ill-fated apprentice John. He mightn't speak, but the expressiveness of his face and gestures speaks volumes, and he depicts the child's fear very convincingly. I challenge you stay dry-eyed when he breaks down in tears at Ellen's questions. Peter Carroll's Dr Crabbe is mesmerising. Make what you like of the role itself, and its function in this production, but there's no denying the brilliance of his performance. He embodies his invented role as if it were the most inevitable role in the world, conveying Armfield's conception with such commitment that he seemed to me to slot quite naturally into the world of the opera. I never found him distracting — if anything, I sometimes forgot he was still there at his desk — and when he did take centre stage, there was always a reason, and every moment seemed keyed precisely to the music. 

The chorus takes on one of its biggest challenges of the season and emerges triumphant. Whether scattered about the hall making nets, or massed at the front of the stage crying "Peter Grimes!" for all they're worth, they are as strong an ensemble as anyone could wish for. We know from last year's Billy Budd how well the men's chorus can handle Britten, and now the women prove themselves likewise impressive. And they do all of this while also faithfully recreating Borough life in all its tiny details — in the early scenes especially, you can look anywhere on the stage and see some believable business going on. There are more opportunities, too, for a solo line here and there, and these are all handled very well indeed.

With so much magic happening onstage, what good fortune to have a man in the pit who can handle it and cultivate it. I'm sure we'd all prefer Mark Wigglesworth's company début to have happened under happier circumstances, but the intelligence and poetry of his leadership are a worthy tribute to Richard Hickox. He negotiates this complex, precarious landscape (seascape) of a score with eerie grace, exploring the opera's intricacies without neglecting its monumental sweep, and evoking Borough life as perceptively as Armfield does. We heard the AOBO play the Four Sea Interludes earlier this year, in concert under Sir Richard Armstrong, and while that was an impressive performance, they're better still in context and with Wigglesworth in charge: the shifting, translucent quality which was missing from that earlier reading, he restores. The response to him, on opening night especially, was incredible: when he took a bow before the third act, I half expected a standing ovation to spring up then and there.

So much written. So much (so much) still unsaid, and much of that unsayable. There will, I fear, be more: I'm planning to attend all four remaining performances. I hope as many people as possible will also attend at least one of them. It took us almost the entire year to get here, but this is without a doubt Opera Australia's show of the year. And it's so much more than that. It's an experience — musical, theatrical, emotional, everything-al — which, if you've made it as far as this without booking a ticket, you simply must have. Nothing I've said here does it justice. It's magic and it's real life, all at once. It's a masterpiece.

Così fan tutte

I thought I would wait until next weekend to pay OA's new Cosi a second visit, but as it clashes with the Conservatorium production of Il Signor Bruschino — and as I was starting to feel restless and rudderless after three weeks away from the opera theatre — I decided on Friday to see the following evening's performance. Playing it fast and loose paid off: I showed up at the box office at 4 o'clock, asked for E-reserve ($47) and was promptly offered C-reserve for $55. Very nice. 

Much was made in the advance publicity for this show of the cast having been "hand picked" by director Jim Sharman. So if it's Jim we have to thank for plucking Sian Pendry out of bit parts and casting her as Dorabella, then thank him I most certainly do. I'm so pleased to discover I'm not the only one who's wanted to hear her in larger roles, and in this role I think she's proving us right. There are rough edges here and there, and her diction went AWOL on opening night (it was better last night), but it's a warm and distinctive voice and one I'm keen to hear again. Opera Australia has a wealth of gorgeous mezzos, it's true, but Sian has something unique to offer and I'm glad the company is fostering it. Besides which, she's hilarious: her confused facial expressions (which will be visible in close-up come Wednesday night) are one of the funniest parts of the show — as is her champagne-swilling "Smanie implacabile". 

Rachelle Durkin's Fiordiligi is the best thing she's done for OA since I went mad for her Alcina. She comes up with convincingly neurotic Fiordiligi — funny enough to spend three hours with, serious enough to make her "Per pieta" quite believable. In fact the aria is one of this production's most beautiful moments. After all the running around and confetti-throwing which precedes it, for this touching aria, everything comes to a standstill: Fiordiligi just kneels at the front of the stage and sings, and doesn't move until the music compels movement. The way Rachelle sings it is pretty extraordinary, too: very stripped back, soft and exposed. Her agile, silvery voice is irresistible in this music. 

Tiffany Speight is just adorable as Despina, and of the three women, she might just be the most stylish singer: she's very much the mistress of this sort of Mozart role, and all that recit — in Italian or English — just rolls off her tongue. She seems to be having a lot of fun with the role — and with Jim's take on it, which gives her a fun, vaguely feminist (though possibly not the kind of feminism Germain Greer would condone) slant — and the sparkle is infectious. The only problem with Despina is that it's not a role built to show off the inherent beauty of a voice, but the loveliness of Tiffany's shines determinedly through all the same — that is, when one's not distracted by the spangled catsuit, the pink mop, and the striptease, all of which are brilliant. 

Of the boys, I think I need to give first mention to Henry Choo. I know I haven't always been wildly enthusiastic about all of Henry's performances, but that's all the more reason to emphasise how excellent I think he is as Ferrando. His voice has rarely sounded better: not just in the obviously beautiful "Un aura amorosa", but in a bright and forceful "Tradito, schernito", which I actually thought was his best moment. And apparently he doesn't actually need to breathe, which is useful for a tenor. His acting is likewise the best I've seen from him: his loopy, clownish Ferrando is marvellous, with an appealing talent for falling over, and despite the ludicrous green outfit and appalling facial hair, he manages to hold onto just enough human frailty that when he's crushed — he really does seem crushed. 

Shane Lowrencev is possibly even funnier as Guglielmo. Hard to say exactly why: he's just one of those people who is funny just by being there. His height (sorry, one day I'll manage to write about him without mentioning it, but for heaven's sake, he's 6'8!) is a part of that but it isn't the whole story: his wonderfully snakeish physicality and his wicked way with a comic lines also add considerably to his hilariousness. As does his voice itself, I think: that rich, resonant and potentially very solemn bass lends an ironic sort of gravity to the silliness he's obliged to spout forth. The staging of his "Donne mie" is pure genius: he sings it not just to women in general, but to specific women in the audience, who have the houselights and a camera turned on them. (It's not really as cruel as it sounds.) I do miss some of that booming quality which was on show in his Polyphemus (a true bass role) but he handles the higher tessitura here very nicely all the same. 

Oh my. What is the world coming to when José Carbo is the last singer I mention in a review? Too late now to place him first — and it wouldn't make very much sense if I did — but he retains his place among my favourites. I've read a few comments here and there to the effect that José seemed uncomfortable singing in English, which I confess astonishes me: I thought his delivery of the translated text was possibly the best in the show. The only problem — this much I will concede — is that sometimes he does it so well that it sounds more like speech than opera. But the role is recit-heavy in any language, and what I loved about José's Alfonso was that he didn't sound English — he sounded Australian, twangy vowels and all. And when he does get to unleash that stunner of a voice, well, it's bliss, however fleeting. He does a sterling job as the purple-clad ringmaster of this amorous circus, an advisor whose cynicism is the product of experience rather than age. Can you believe we get to hear both José and Peter C-W as the Count Almaviva next year? Spoilt or what?

The cast was hand picked. I don't think the conductor was, but it seems like Simon Hewett was just the right choice anyway. On opening night he dashed in and started the overture even before the lights had gone down or the audience had stopped talking — a touch I loved, a sort of ambush in keeping with the spirit of the evening. Last night's entrance was more conventional: he arrived, took a bow, and began. Oh well. Either way, he leads this opera with fitting blend of enthusiasm and refinement. It's quite fast-paced, but not sinfully so: the soft, floaty moments are left intact, including that trio, which doubles as a wedding dance. The chorus has so little to sing it seems slightly disingenuous to heap praise on them: but they're always good, and they're good in this. 

The production is worth a post or two on its own. In fact, I might use next week's telecast as an excuse to give it just that. I love its wit and its exuberant celebration of love in all its troublesome forms, and I love its endearing theatricality. Show is layered upon show: two Japanese newlyweds watch the lovers, we watch them and the lovers, and everybody (the lovers, the newlyweds and the audience) shows up at some point on the big screen at the back. Singers sing to themselves, to each other, to the newlyweds and to the audience: sometimes all within the space of ten minutes. Nor is it just the singers who are celebrated by this hyper-theatrical (and hyperactive) show. Sharman's Cosi makes stars of the whole creative team: lighting, sets, costumes and video design all have their share of the limelight, and somehow, they take it without overshadowing the singing. 

Somehow. The way I've described it, it probably sounds like a mess, and yet it most decidedly isn't. It's sheer delight, a Cosi presented with a dash of lunacy and a lot of love, where beauty and insanity mix freely, take liberties with one another, and blend together for a Happily Ever After which can't help but leave you smiling.

Albert Herring

It has been pointed out to me that I've neglected — forgotten might be the more honest term — to say anything here about the Sydney Conservatorium production of Britten's Albert Herring, which I saw just over two weeks ago. I'm too late now to encourage anybody else to go — but I believe it more or less sold out, so that probably doesn't matter too much anyway, and in any case, the show is definitely worth a mention.

I blush to confess I arrived with more or less zero prior knowledge of the music of Albert Herring. But it's Britten, and Britten and I are very close friends, so as soon as it started it was as if I knew it already. Perhaps I expected something a little lighter — a little sillier, even — but it was all kinds of thrilling to discover the richness and dark corners of this quirky little opera. 

David Commisso seemed born for the title role: the moment he shuffled out, everything about him simply was Albert, and he made his way through the part's increasingly taxing music with clear, sweet tone and excellent diction. Nor was he the only excellent male in the cast. Simon Halligan was a marvellously well-acted, kindhearted Sid, Simon Gilkes very convincing as the stuffy Mr Upfold, while David Hidden's beautifully sung Mr Gedge was especially striking, with a talent for making himself understood in even the most tangled ensemble. There was also a gorgeously gruff turn from John Donohoe as Superintendant Budd. Anna Yun sang with rippling, silky tone as Lady Billows. Admittedly she didn't sound at all English or especially matronly, but it was a very appealing performance even so, and she managed, despite her youth, to look the part exceedingly well. Yun was flanked by the dour and officious Florence Pike of Celeste Haworth, who I suspect was not very well; she usually sounds much better. Simone Easthope's Miss Wordsworth was a delight, sung with sparkle and wit, and acted to utter perfection: the scene in which she rehearses the children for their roles at the crowning ceremony was especially hilarious. And speaking of hilarity: Erika Simons, Ali Manifold and Jennifer Bonner as the children in question (Emmie, Cis and Harry respectively) were, individually and collectively, shameless scene-stealers — in the best possible way. Rachel Bate was absolutely lovely, in voice and presence, as Nancy; Agnes Sarkis had a few diction issues but was still suitably blustery — and I understand English is not her first language, which makes her performance here all the more impressive.

Standards of production are generally high at the Con and this was no exception. Tom Healey's production was smart, straightforward and very funny, and made clever use of the Music Workshop stage. Gabrielle Logan's sets were fabulously evocative: a parlour and then a grocery store, brought to life before our eyes and framed by a giant map of England. I was especially impressed by the slickly choreographed set changes, which happened in full view of the audience — the stage has no curtain — without detracting from the orchestral interludes which accompanied them. And above all, let us all hail Stephen Mould, who conducted the SCM Chamber Orchestra with his usual quicksilver brilliance and deep-digging lyricism. Is it mere coincidence, do you think, that every time I run into Stephen Mould, he's conducting one of my favourite composers? First it was Poulenc (La voix humaine in Melbourne), then Janacek (the last two performances of The Makropulos Secret) and now Britten. He's now at OA conducting The Mikado — perhaps he's just the Arthur Sullivan revelation I need. 

Like all Con operas, this one was double cast. I wish I'd had a chance to see the other cast: not just for comparison, but for the chance to see this terribly charming show a second time. By way of consolation, however, there's another slice of comedy on the horizon: Il Signor Bruschino opens in just eleven days. I'll be there. Will you?

Eugene Onegin

The Antipodean opera world is a small one, apparently. I'm just back from NZ Opera's Eugene Onegin, which featured the conductor of OA's Manon Lescaut, the director of their Baroque Masterpieces, a Tatyana whom I heard for the first time singing with a youth choir in Dunedin and a Madame Larina whom I first encountered when she judged the local vocal competitions. And I bet I have mutual Facebook friends with almost the entire cast. [I just spot-checked one of them. Six mutual friends. Kevin Bacon, eat your heart out.]

Tchaikovsky is one of those composers whose operas have been slowly but surely creeping up on me. I had eyed up NZ Opera's Onegin season from afar and thought it might just be worth finally making the trip — then I saw Renée and Dmitri in the Met production and knew I had to experience this opera in person as soon as possible. So while I continue to wait for Opera Australia to stage it (or any other Tchaikovsky) I have for the moment been sated by this beautiful production.

The beauty begins with the sets. Genevieve Blanchett's design exploits the height of the Aotea Centre stage to astonishing effect, populating it first with trees (leafless, of course) and then with pillars which seem to extend into the sky like Jack's beanstalk. Blanchett does a marvellous job of capturing in visual terms that uneasy wavering between wintry austerity and impassioned opulence which permeates both score and story.  Patrick Nolan's direction walks hand-in-hand with the show's aesthetic values. He puts the opera's tale of woe across in simple, elegant and psychologically focused lines, keeping everything basically in period without making a stodgy period piece of it. A few of the reviews I've read have questioned his constraining characters to chairs at key moments — Tatyana, for instance, remains seated at her writing desk throughout her Letter Scene — but to me it seemed a rather nice visual metaphor for the social constraints which everyone in this opera faces at one point or another, and, at least in Tatyana's case, made her musical outpourings all the more dramatic.

Beauty at its purest and most powerful came, of course, from the singing, and in particular from Anna Leese. It's been a joy to watch Anna's rapid rise from local to global sensation, and her NZ Opera début, is a triumph. Her singing mingles radiant sweetness with a steely core, it's flexible and extraordinarily expressive, and she had no problem filling the theatre's difficult acoustic. The youthful freshness of her voice was just right for Tatyana, and it was coupled with a convincingly young — and occasionally gauche — stage presence: she's adorable, and yet you can see why Onegin would overlook her. Even when she had become the Princess Gremina, she retained that slightly shy, unassuming quality, and it made her all the more likeable. True, she didn't come across as hugely tormented and Russian, but there was a soft fragility to her which was just as touching. 

William Dazeley in the title role is more difficult to write about — and that's not his fault, it's the fault of the dreaded lurgy. It was announced before the curtain went up that Dazeley had been suffering from the flu for several days (I knew this already) and that he would "very gallantly" sing, but might not be at his best. And it's fair to say he definitely wasn't at his best. All things considered, he coped admirably, but his struggles became ever more audible. Matters came to a head in the penultimate scene, as he seemed to muster every last scrap of voice left just to make it through. It sounded like he'd gone as far as he could go — and sure enough, as he re-entered for his last confrontation with Tatyana, so too did a music stand and his cover, Daniel O'Connor, who had earlier made a brief appearance as the Captain and now supplied a much healthier voice for Onegin's final exertions. All of which makes it hard to comment meaningfully on Dazeley's singing, but at its best it was smooth and strong, if perhaps a bit lighter than I might expect an Onegin to be — although again, that might just have been the illness. He was a mostly convincing partner to Anna's Tatyana, though slightly prone to overreaction; he's a bit more Bingley than Darcy, perhaps, but still nice and haughty.

Happily the rest of the cast seemed to have escaped Dazeley's flu. Kristen Darragh was a bubbly and appealing Olga. It's the kind of flighty role in which you'd expect to hear a soubrette, so Tchaikovsky's choice of a mezzo takes a little getting used to —  but Darragh brought a lightness of touch to her earthy tone, and she was ultimately quite persuasive. And in fact, when the going gets tough, it's good to have a voice which suggests a slightly darker undercurrent to Olga's lightheartedness — a frilly coloratura would be quite out of place. Roman Schulackoff was clearly at ease in his own language and he was a lyrical and focused Lensky, predictably — but justifiably — earning enthusiastic applause for his "Kuda, kuda". At times his voice sounded a little thinner than I'd have liked, but he was nevertheless a stylish vocal presence.

Two other members of the supporting cast had special significance for me. Martin Snell is a name I've always known — not just because he's an opera singer, but because he's an opera singer from Dunedin. A hometown boy who made good. Which means he's probably one of the first opera singers I ever heard of, and yet this, to my knowledge, was the first time I'd ever heard him. What a start to make: he was a fantastic Gremin. Helped, admittedly, by having some of the best music in the opera to sing — but it's all in how you sing it, and he sang it beautifully, with exquisite control and low notes for days. And Patricia Wright, our Madame Larina, is of course the very first soprano for whom I travelled. More than once. The last time I attended an NZ Opera production, it was for her Donna Anna; this time she had a smaller and more, well, matronly role but it was still a thrill to see and hear her. The costume might not have been glamorous, but her voice was: suitably warm and motherly, but with a sparkle, too, which lent credence to the character's romantic recollections of her youth. I wished the role were larger, but any Patricia is a delight. 

It was also nice to see our Rosemary Gunn representing Australia as Tatyana's slightly hopeless but well-meaning nurse, and Andrew Glover put in a rather striking appearance as the foppish Monsier Triquet — he sang very well indeed, although I wasn't too keen on the character's jokey interaction with the conductor, which seemed out of keeping with the rest of the show. That conductor, incidentally, was none other than Alexander Polianichko, who worked wonders with Manon Lescaut here a couple of months ago and brought a similar brand of magic to Onegin. It seemed at times a fast-moving account, but not rushed, and he brought out all kinds of lush texture in the orchestra. Perhaps he could have supported his singers a little more at times, but then again, perhaps not — they all looked after themselves very nicely, and really, that acoustic is a problem no matter what you do. The chorus was excellent — hardly surprising when you start perusing the list of choristers, it's full of up-and-comers. The choreography was all a bit awkward, though; particularly the very odd chair dance in the third act. 

I often wonder how the opera fanatics of Auckland and Wellington manage to survive when the national company only offers two mainstage productions a year. It can't be easy. But if all of those shows are as musically and theatrically polished as this one, then maybe it's not as hard as I imagine. While not exactly devastating, the beauty of this Onegin runs deeper than the pretty frocks and elegant sets, and it's substantial sustenance for any addict. The Auckland season has already finished, but the Wellington season runs from the 10th to the 17th of October — so if you happen to be in the vicinity, I'd strongly suggest obtaining a ticket. This is a dark beauty well worth seeking out.

I Capuleti e i Montecchi

I've already witnessed one skirmish over Orpha Phelan's treatment of I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and taken part in what might have been another, had we not both been in uncharacteristically conciliatory moods. I'm sure there will be others. And yet... it's really not that bad. I admit I rolled my eyes a little at the big grey target which greeted us in place of a curtain, and the use of the overture as background to a murder of a hostage by a child soldier is perhaps belabouring the point a little, but I think it would be a great shame to dismiss this production on the basis of that first impression. Anyone who sees the greyness, or the guns, or the angular sets, and immediately consigns the whole show to the Modern & Ugly pile risks missing a lot that is Revelatory & Beautiful about the it. Some of it works and some of it doesn't, but I think it's much more of a hit than a miss; my own initial misgivings were swiftly overcome, and I ended up liking it a great deal. I even sort of liked the wacky bungee-cord ballet, in which a "Giulietta double" is thrown about and violated by various Capuleti, although nobody else seems to.

The production is set in an unidentified civil war zone (though it's hard not to look at the name of the director and assume Northern Ireland) and I can't describe the set any better than the Mighty McCallum already has:  "basically a parquet floor progressively torn up by strife". The context inevitably politicises the opera a bit, but not as much as you might think: the love story is still the heart of this show, and the violent contemporary setting just makes it stand out with greater intensity. And given that the plot itself has already provided a jolt of unfamiliarity by telling a pre-Shakespearean version of the R&J story, it seems really quite fitting that the production should widen that gap even further.

Perhaps my favourite thing about this production, though, is that the characters' behaviour matches their setting. This doesn't always happen. One of the things that irritated me about Elke Neidhardt's Don Giovanni, for instance, was that when her characters weren't doing obvious Modern things (like snorting cocaine) they immediately reverted to Traditional Mozart Gesture: in the world of narcotics and casual sex which she was trying to evoke, why on earth did Giovanni and Zerlina still sing "La ci darem la mano" from opposite sides of the room? But in Capuleti, everybody moves and acts like they're really living in the setting Phelan has given them. The odd stagey clinch aside, the two lovers interact believably as a modern day couple, heightening the immediacy which their new setting has given them. 

So much talk about the production side of things, you'd think it was the most important aspect of this Capuleti. But come on, this is bel canto, it's about voices, and whatever the underlying politics of the production, I don't think they get in the way of the music, though some will no doubt disagree. Admittedly it's a bit of a risk to ask your Giulietta to start her "Eccomi in lieta vesta" on the floor, with her back to the audience (especially when the Giulietta in question has quite a small voice to begin with) but doing so also concentrates one's attention more closely on the voice qua voice, and she turns around reasonably promptly anyway. All in all the production, for all that it reads greater meaning into the drama of the libretto than is perhaps really there, doesn't mess too much with the musical traditions of the opera. It still gets to do what it's meant to do: show off gorgeous, virtuosic singing. 

Catherine Carby leads the charge, erupting into the first scene with elegant determination. It's a delight to see a mezzo who can be convincing in a pants role without swaggering all over the place: she plays Romeo as a strong but sensitive hero with just a touch of youthful angst and no need to stride about proving his (or her) masculinity. It's true she's a little on the light side, and some of the role's lower-lying passages perhaps need a more truly contralto-ish voice, but she warms beautifully to the role just the same. It mightn't be the largest sound but it's refined, focused and precise, and her performance is admirably paced, so that she's convincing in her early scenes with Giulietta but still has enough fire in her to make the finale compelling and tragic. There were times when I might have liked a slightly richer tone, but I think that's well within her grasp: for the most part she was pretty fabulous and I'm going to do my best to hear her again and see what else she can do with the part. 

Funnily enough, our travesti Romeo is a much more convincing soldier than his tenor rival. Henry Choo does have a lovely voice and it's quite well suited to this sort of music, but his perpetual bounce and boyish smile are seriously at odds with the character. Some allowances should be made for the fact that he was substituting (Aldo di Toro was announced as unable to perform) but I've seen Henry in quite a few roles now and he's always more or less like this. Especially in this production, where Tebaldo is characterised as a ruthless gangster, we needed a genuinely scary criminal type, and Henry isn't the tenor for the job. I think Aldo could be, though, so I hope he comes back. Stephen Bennett's Capellio, on the other hand, is one father figure you definitely don't want to meet in a dark alley, his snarl of a baritone just as strikingly authoritative as his stage presence. The flicker of complexity which he brings to the character, despite his obvious mean streak and his cold-hearted treatment of Giulietta, just makes him all the more impressive. As Lorenzo (the family retainer who's a sort of conflation of Shakespeare's Nurse and Friar Laurence) Gennadi Dubinsky is a kindly and solidly sung presence, if at times slightly detached. The chorus (possibly doing double duty as both Capulets and Montagues?) is as dynamic and committed a presence as ever, and their reverent, shimmering singing in Giulietta's funeral procession is one of the opera's most devastatingly gorgeous moments.

But, while I don't want to take anything away from the excellent Catherine Carby, I can't not say it: this show belongs to Emma Matthews. Fragile, tender and mesmerisingly lovely, her Giulietta is a beacon of peace and purity amidst an ocean of angry men. There is plenty of fantastic and thrilling singing in the first scene, but it is Emma's "Oh quante volte" which is the turning point, lifting the opera to another plane. And it is primarily Emma who keeps it there, singing with such exquisite tonal beauty that you'd call her angelic, were she not such a real and sensual Giulietta. Emma is not always the world's most convincing actress but she seems to respond well to strong direction, and Phelan has drawn out what I think is the most persuasive and engaging performance I've ever seen from Emma, as interesting as it is immaculately sung. There are even moments where she opts for the dramatically appropriate sound over the pretty one: not a choice I immediately associate with Emma, but one I'm very glad to hear her make.

I've seen Emma partnered to a string of tenors, but it turns out her best leading man yet is a woman. The pairing of Emma and Catherine is an inspired bit of casting. Their voices are ideally suited to one another: both of similar weight (neither drowns the other out) but each of such distinct character as to make for some stunning duets, the two threads of sound never becoming one, but rather entwining about one another to intoxicating effect. The chemistry between them is palpable. One believes in their love, no mean feat when portraying perhaps the most famous couple of all, and their final scene is truly moving: little wonder both singers appeared to be in tears as they took their bows. 

I can't say I was quite so taken with Richard Bonynge's conducting. Obviously it would be silly to take issue with the man's understanding of the idiom — his credentials in this repertoire are not be beaten — but I can't help wondering if that very familiarity with the style is letting him down. This was quite a beautiful and sensitive reading but it was too much on the timid side for me, and could have benefited from a degree or three more vitality and risk-taking spirit. I know Bonynge is the master when it comes to looking after his singers, but perhaps that goes too far sometimes: with Emma's and Catherine's smallish voices coupled to an orchestra who sometimes sounded very small indeed, I began to have the sense of a Capuleti in miniature, delicate and pretty but just a bit mousier than it really needed to be.

Shakespeare's version it might not be, but this is still a Romeo and Juliet — still the tale of an iconic romance — and as such, rises and falls on the central couple even more than your typical operatic love story. Emma and Catherine have a lot to live up to, and together, they carry the show beautifully. In fact perhaps I was wrong. The show doesn't belong entirely to Emma. It belongs to EmmaAndCatherine, an inseparable duo, and to their touching depiction of luminous young love.

The Professor and Mary Ann

My bloggable backlog is growing, and as tomorrow is yet another opening night, I've decided this is the only way to clear it. Everything at once. Pick and choose as you will.
 

1. SECOND AIDA 

In a fit of enthusiasm after the fabulous second half of Aida's opening performance, I went and booked myself for a second helping. I must confess, however, that when I found myself back in the theatre and waiting for the curtain to go up on those cardboard sets and travelators, I began to wonder exactly why I'd come back. And then Tamara Wilson reminded me. I'm still not nearly as convinced by the production as many seem to be, but it has its moments — and even if it didn't, there would still be Tamara, and she would still be wonderful. If we can't just stop her at the airport and make her stay in the country, then I hope we can at least manage to tempt her back for something else. In the meantime, let me direct your attention to this completely delightful interview. 

The cast as a whole were much as expected, which is a good thing, and the show seemed to hit its stride earlier than on opening night. There are some incredibly strong performers in this show, not least Michael Lewis, whose Amonasro is just a masterclass in Verdi singing, and Dongwon Shin, who this time around was in full splendour right from the start. And while Milijana Nikolic's Amneris still takes a bit of time to get going, when she does, she is outstanding. 

I think what troubles me about this production, more than conveyor belts and problematic scenery, is the extent to which Graeme Murphy seems to have left his singers to their own devices. They know when, where and how to move; they interact with all the complex lighting design and all the other moving parts of the production, but it feels as if that's where Murphy left them, and the rest they've figured out for themselves, each in their own way and with varying degrees of success. So while they all acquit themselves very well indeed, it's sometimes as if each character is in his or her own version of Aida, and I'd much rather see them in something approaching a shared, coherent vision. And, while it's both unsurprising and a cliché to say it in talking about an opera directed by a choreographer, what the singers lack is exactly what the dancers have. The ballets aren't just beautiful, they're also the most dramatically interesting part of the show. Coincidence?

 2. EISTEDDFOD

I always mean to see more of the Eisteddfod than just the McDonald's Aria Final, and then it doesn't happen. But this time I finally organised myself enough to make it to North Sydney on Saturday for the first round of heats. There are few things I like better than a singing competition, and this one did not disappoint, despite the fact that I found myself in the tiniest audience I've ever experienced: apparently even parents and friends tend not to come and watch the heats. At the height of it there were maybe 10 or 12 of us watching. No matter, it was still hugely enjoyable, especially when I discovered several of my favourite singing compatriots on the list of finalists. I heard the gorgeous Sarah-Ann Walker in the afternoon, and if all goes to plan I hope to go back on Friday and hear not only Brigitte Heuser but my favourite Dunedin singer of all, the incomparable Claire Barton. Can't wait. There were plenty of familiar Australian faces among Saturday's singers too, chorus members and Con students and so on, and the standard was generally very impressive: only the few who were obviously not at the right level yet didn't make it through to the quarter finals. 

And while I'm sure it's terribly bad form to name names at this early stage, and despite having determined not to do so, I can't help but mention the one singer who completely blew me away. I recognised her immediately from the OA chorus, and now that I've heard her and seen her as a soloist, I want her out of that chorus and in the spotlight. She is Leah Thomas and she is stunningly good. Not that she needs me to promote her, of course, having already been featured quite, um, prominently by Opera Chic. But she's going straight to the top of my Watchlist. 

 3. EMMA MATTHEWS IN MONTE CARLO

If you'ver read this blog for a while, you're probably aware of my ambivalence towards Emma Matthews. She's absolutely an audience favourite and one of the company's star players, but my appreciation of her has always been more a theoretical thing than a personal response. I've just never quite got it, whatever it is, and while some of her performances have impressed me more than others, none of them has ever made my jaw drop or my heart split. All of this is my problem, not Emma's. She's a lovely singer and if I can't adore her then that's my loss.

I'm saying all of this so that you have a sense of the state in which I approached Emma's brand new solo disc, a selection of bel canto showpieces with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo and of the delighted surprise I take in reporting that it is drop dead gorgeous. It really is. In a mix of lollipops and seriously meaty repertoire, she is graceful, charming and note perfect. She sounds like the Emma I've always thought I should be hearing in the theatre, which perhaps has something to do with the fact that she's not trying to push her voice to the back of an opera house with the world's worst acoustic. Her coloratura not just immaculate but full of personality: she has huge fun with Glitter and Be Gay, drifts beautifully through Ophélie's mad scene, and her "Amour, ranime mon courage" is stunning. Better still is her superlative "Regnava nel silenzio...Quando rapito in estasi": it's sensitively characterised, imaginatively ornamented, and comes with the added bonus of Catherine Carby as Alisa — when's her solo disc, ABC? And she even includes a stunning excerpt from Richard Mills's recent The Love of the Nightingale.

I know I've given Emma a hard time. And I can't take back or alter my response to her live performances, or even guarantee that I'll go madder for her them in future. What I can say is that on this recording, she is magnificent. Her singing is elegant, exciting and beautifully refined. It's showy repertoire, but Emma is all class. Whether I will ever join the legions of Emma's devotees remains to be seen, but this CD has brought me much closer than I thought possible to finally understanding properly what all the fuss is about it. 

 4. FIFTH AND SIXTH MANON LESCAUT

(Yes, OK, technically sixth and seventh.) You'd think this would be the longest sub-post of all, but it isn't going to be. I could say a hundred things about Cheryl's Manon but in the end all those roads lead to the same conclusion: she's Cheryl's Manon. She's extraordinary. She's beautiful and she's brutal and she breaks my heart and she changes my mind. Every time. And every time in different ways. I finished the novel not sure I could ever love Manon. Cheryl has sorted that out for me. The heroine I called unsympathetic a few weeks ago has now, for all her massive flaws, won my heart and, yes, my sympathy. She's still a problematic girl, it's still a problematic opera, but when you live through Cheryl's staggering "Sola, perduta" — or rather, through any of them, they've all been different — the only problem is making it in one piece. 

Fidelio

I posted briefly and breathlessly about Fidelio the day after it opened. Usually by now I would have written something longer about it but, quite apart from the lack of time, I wasn't sure there was really anything much to add. It's very rare that I manage to say everything I want to in a single paragraph, but this one came pretty close. That said, I'm still me, so there is more to say. 

I liked Elizabeth Stannard's last minute Leonore enough that, having decided I needed to see the show again, I booked for the very next performance on the off chance she'd still be singing. She was, and I continued to like her very much. Her voice does occasionally get swamped (more in Act I than Act II) and her acting is a little bit Dickensian urchin meets Cherubino, but she's still mightily impressive, and would be even without the special circumstances. 

However, the soprano I'm saving my best adjectives for is our Marzelline. Lorina Gore is completely fabulous. Marzelline has the distinct advantage of singing one my favourite arias in the whole repertoire, but Lorina won me over well before we got to that. Just her opening tiff with Jaquino was enough. She's girlish and spirited, but never silly, and she slices beautifully through all that orchestration without sounding effortful or harsh: she's always audible and always adorable. And she handles that aria (which always has me in tears) beautifuly, then promptly outdoes herself in the quartet, where her radiant singing and the dreamy look in her eyes are just heartbreaking.

It's just rave after rave with this show. Who next? Julian Gavin is extraordinary as Florestan. As good as he was in Butterfly, I still was not expecting that clear, strong, beautiful sound which emerged from the dark depths at the beginning of Act Two. Nor was I expecting him to tackle that unsingable first aria so magnificently. He's dignified and sensitive and when the going gets tough, his singing gets sensational. He's a genuinely heroic Florestan. Colour me stunned. I can't wait to hear whatever he sings for us next: I suspect it might be Massenet's Des Grieux, which is role I would love to see him in.

Stephen Smith is an utter delight as Jaquino. He's a natural actor, always engaged with the action even when he's not singing, or singing only in ensemble (case in point: the end of Act I of Manon Lescaut, where his Edmondo actually manages to draw one's attention away from Teddy) and his light, bright tenor seem to get more interesting with every role. Stephen was sick for the second performance, however, so instead we heard Andrew Brunsdon. And I have to say, while he might not be as immediately adorable as Stephen, he may actually be a better vocal fit for the role: the sound is stronger and more Germanic. He also looks very German. Actually, almost disconcertingly so. Meanwhile, Conal Coad is his usual amiable self, a warm and paternal Rocco with a voice to match. He's lovely in the fun of the opening scenes and just as engaging when events take a more dramatic turn. 

Even the smallest roles in this Fidelio have been impressively cast. Martin Buckingham and Andrew Jones are our two solo-ing prisoners, and both sing very well indeed. Particularly Jones, whose luminous baritone was a bit of a revelation to me. The chorus en masse are just as excellent, in fact probably more so. There are really not many sounds in the world to beat that of the men of OA's chorus in unison: here, as in Billy Budd, they are magnificent. And of course, there's Warwick Fyfe right at the end as the magnanimous Don Fernando, very noble and authoritative and for once not really gormless at all. I will say it once again, though: he looks like Napoleon. It isn't just the costume, although that helps.

Yes, you have seen through my cunning plan, I am indeed saving Peter Coleman-Wright for last. That's what you do with the best, isn't it? There are a lot of performances to be excited about in this show, but none quite so electrifying as Peter's Don Pizarro. Over dinner before the show, we were discussing Australian Scarpias, and neither of us having seen Peter in the role, we wondered how well he could pull off pure evil. Well, his Pizarro answered our question in about two seconds flat. He's absolutely terrifying. He delivers his opening speech with the menace and perfect German of a movie Nazi and then moves into an absolutely bloodcurdling "Ha! welch' ein Augenblick" which is truly one of the scariest things I've ever seen on that stage. The rest of his performance is at the same superbly malevolent level, his acting and singing so dark and so compelling that one can't help but be drawn to him, irredeemable as he is. And he tops it all off by very charmingly playing up the villain act in the curtain calls: on opening night, he met the audience's pantomime booing with a suitably melodramatic swirl of his cape, and at the following performance, raised his arms skyward like some mad dictator. He is brilliant. If the rest of the show were a disaster, it would still be worth seeing just for his Pizarro.

Not done yet, but nearly there. Just two more raves. Jonathan Darlington has caused me to fall quite swooningly in love with the AOBO. Beethoven helps too, of course. They sound so sublime in the overture that at the second performance, I thought: if this was it, and there was no singing, that really would be just fine. Once the singing starts, of course, that feeling subsides, but only a little: this is still some of the most beautiful playing I think I've heard from this orchestra. 

My final words of praise are for the production team. John Gunter's design is lavish and bold and a wonder to behold, especially the towering, brutal sets. There's an ingenious set change for the final scene: very impressive, although I can't quite bring myself to join with those actually giving it its own round of applause. Serious kudos too to lighting designer Nigel Levings: there's a lot in this libretto about light and darkness, and his imaginative lighting engages nicely with all of that. 

However, it is to Cathy Dadd that I really doff my non-existent hat. Michael Hampe's production is seventeen years old and completely traditional: the sort of thing which could quite easily lose its magic in revival and end up unfocused and dull. But this Fidelio is none of those things. It's vibrant and downright riveting theatre, just as vivid as if it were a brand new production. That's helped by the presence of so many individually excellent performances, of course, but Dadd deserves high praise indeed for the way she's drawn all that brilliance together into such a triumphant whole. I said it before and I'll say it again: See This Show. 

Ariadne auf Naxos

In the midst of half a dozen (or half a million, so it seemed) other performances last week, I made the fleetingest of visits to Melbourne for opening night of Victorian Opera's Ariadne auf Naxos. Richard Strauss alone is temptation enough to travel, but my chief reason — or at least, my initial reason — for making the trip was, as usual, slightly more divacentric. Ever since I sat up and took notice of Jacqueline Dark as Tisbe in La Cenerentola, she's been a regular feature in my fantasy casting games — and one role which I kept imagining her in was Strauss's Komponist. Sigh, I thought: I'd love that, but how likely is Opera Australia to stage Ariadne? 

Well, I still don't have an answer to that question. But when I discovered that Richard Gill had read my thoughts and cast Jacqui in his company's Ariadne, I felt I really had to go. Between then and now, other reasons have arisen. More sensible ones. Like the chance to see a fabulous opera by one of my favourite composers. And the chance finally to see Victorian Opera in action. So while Jacqui was certainly the motivating factor, in the end it turned out just to be a nice little trip to see a different company in a different city, and with or without the diva, it would have been worthwhile.

I can't claim to be crazy about James McCaughey's staging. I've always thought that one of the extraordinary things about Ariadne is that, despite the fact that the concept of the simultaneous entertainments is absurd — and despite that the principals acknowledge as much in the Prologue — somehow the meeting between Zerbinetta and Ariadne (and between their respective musical and psychological worlds) does actually result in something quite beautiful and interesting and maybe even revelatory. 

McCaughey seemed to disagree, because he apparently did everything he could to keep them apart. Ariadne hung around for the very beginning of Zerbinetta's aria, but then quietly slipped offstage and left her to it, so that the entire scene was staged with only the comic troupe onstage. Gone was the sense that the group were improvising themselves into an existing opera seria. Instead it was opera and cabaret in alternation: the two entertainments might as well have been staged back to back after all, for all the interaction they had. It didn't help that he seemed to have lavished all his creative energy upon the music hall antics of Zerbinetta & co, leaving Ariadne with nothing much to do except circle her rock while Bacchus stood on it, looking heroic. 

The Prologue was quite charmingly realised, however: rather like watching No, No, Nanette or something of the sort, all Art Deco sets, girls with bobbed hair and men in their shirtsleeves and suspenders. It was nice picture of backstage chaos. Zerbinetta and her troupe were especially well done — shingled starlet and her back up boys — and there was a fantastically imperious turn by Grant Smith in the spoken role of the Haushofmeister. I'd have assumed he was a native speaker were it not for the name. 

Strong singing throughout the Prologue, more or less. The beginning is so like a play it took me a little while to really process it as opera, although Gary Rowley certainly made a favourable vocal impression as the Music Master. But the heart of the Prologue (and the best of the music) is the Composer, and Jacqui Dark was a total delight, moving engagingly between the ridiculous and the sublime, from youthful impetuosity to the rapture of an artist at work. That big, beautiful voice of hers just bloomed, opening up to the role's soaring climaxes with warmth and infectious energy. If I needed any more proof that she's underutilised by the national company, this was it: this is one classy singer, and she deserves far better than the bit parts she's getting.

The one great tragedy of Ariadne is that it offers us a plum mezzo role in the first half, only to snatch it away in the second. But if anything could console me for the absence of Jacqui, it was our Ariadne and our Bacchus. These are not easy roles to cast, but Victorian Opera managed to do so quite magnificently. Elizabeth Stannard was not a name familiar to me, but it seems she's making quite a name for herself internationally in dramatic soprano repertoire; fans of the Adelaide Ring no doubt know her from there. She was a glorious Ariadne, with all the dignity, expansive sound and Straussian style you could hope for, not to mention an excellent sense of pacing, which allowed her to start strong and finish even stronger: a convincing journey to divine bliss. John Mac Master was her Bacchus. This is the man who substituted for Ben Heppner on the opening night of Tristan at the Met, for heaven's sake, so what else can I say? He was fantastic, heroic and thrillingly secure. Rather static and solid onstage, but then, the production and his costume more or less demanded as much. 

What a shame our Zerbinetta was not at the same level. Theresa Borg had all kinds of things going for her: she gave us an adorable characterisation, strutting, posing and dancing with panache. She could have been fabulousness itself; but, alas, all that personality was not matched by a voice that could handle the role. Zerbinetta must be one of the most gruelling roles a coloratura soprano can take on. Borg coped reasonably well in the Prologue, where charisma mostly compensated for her very light voice, but she was already frequently being swamped, and in the opera proper it only got worse. Full marks for effort — she certainly threw herself into it — but she just didn't have the agility, the vibrancy of tone or the high notes to pull it off: a pretty uncomfortable situation in a role which contains one of the most insanely difficult coloratura arias in the repertoire. She was supported magnificently, however, by her entourage of very funny and very talented song-and-dance men. They were all pretty great, but especial praise must go to Samuel Dundas, who lived up to the promise of his showing in Opera Australia's YAP final with an irresistible, show-stealing Arlecchino. 

Ariadne, too, had a strong entourage, in the shape of Melanie Adams (Naiad), Roxane Hislop (Dryad) and Jessica Aszodi. The combination of their varying vibratos was a little bit overpowering at times, but they still made an impressive and quite luxuriously cast trio. Most striking of the three, I thought, was Aszodi's Echo: there's not much chance to show one's own vocal personality off in that role, but somehow she did. I've since discovered the clips of her on this page and have become mildly besotted, to the point that I'm considering going back next month for Xerxes to hear her Atalanta. We'll see, but at any rate, she was great. It was also lovely to hear Roxane again, for the first time in ... two years? Three? I don't think she's sung anything here since Rigoletto, which was late 2006. 

Orchestra Victoria sounded brilliant. The acoustic in the Playhouse (as its name would suggest) isn't wonderful for opera (although it's not a total disaster either) but they still managed to fill it with plenty of rich and varied colour and firm, focused playing. Richard Gill led them with grace and wit. I did sometimes wish he'd dig a bit deeper into the opera's most ecstatic passages, but for the most part this was a gorgeous and lyrical reading, sensitive both to the singers and to the twisting, turning, ever changing textures of the score. 

I can't say this was a perfect Ariadne. But Ariadne ain't easy. The mere fact that Victorian Opera decided to take it on is laudable enough. That they've done so in such inventive and rewarding style is, despite any of the show's flaw, cause for great joy. Absolutely worth the trip. 

Manon Lescaut

We might roll our eyes at the liberties that composers and librettists have taken in adapting literary subjects for the lyric stage but sometimes they're entirely justified in doing so. There's no excuse for the happy ending of Thomas's Hamlet, but I think both Massenet and Puccini (and their respective librettists) should be applauded for much of what they did to Manon Lescaut. A straight adaptation would most likely have given us one spectacularly sappy hero, one shallow love interest, and an audience unable to decide whom they'd like to throttle more. The des Grieux of the novel spends most of his time making terrible decisions, deceiving his friends, and crying. Manon exists only as the object of his obsessive love: she has practically no personality of her own, she barely even speaks — and when she does, it's usually to say something selfish, disingenuous or vain. It takes abject misery and squalor — the total absence of any better option — to bring out a bit of  honest emotion in Manon, and the fact that she dies in such misery, while certainly sad, is hardly heroism. 

It is to her operatic adaptors that we owe any sense of Manon's inner life. Massenet's "Adieu, notre petite table" has no equivalent in the novel — it can't, because we cannot, of necessity, see Manon alone; and it's hard to imagine the Manon do see making any such speech — and much of the rest of his version is likewise pure invention. The four fragmented vignettes of Puccini's Manon Lescaut are slightly closer to their source (although the gaps are many and chasm-like) but they still give Manon a better chance to display a bit of complex personality. Besides, the rich, varied and impassioned music Puccini gives her to sing is in itself proof of a far more fascinating, if no more likeable, character. We probably still don't sympathise with Manon, but at least we might now be better able to fathom des Grieux's fatal attraction to her.

It takes a special sort of singer to contend satisfactorily with this difficult character — to explore Manon's conflicted psychology and to convey her charms and her faults in equally compelling measure, and to do all of this without falling into trap of one easy stereotype or another, victim or temptress or virgin or whore. And even that isn't enough. She also needs to be able to sing Manon's spectacularly demanding and wide ranging music, and to sing it fantastically well: this is not a role to be coasted through. Puccini's orchestration is dense to say the least, and our Manon must somehow find a way to slice through it, soar above it and yet integrate herself within its varied textures. She has to be heard, and when she is, she must sound magnificent — there should be no such thing as an ordinary Manon Lescaut.

I don't imagine anybody has ever called Cheryl Barker ordinary. Entrancing as ever, she has found her way into Manon with her characteristic blend of intelligence, subtlety and apparent abandon, and she has done it at a time when her voice is as ideal for the role as it will ever be. She has the bright pliability of tone to capture Manon's youth and the maturity to chart her downfall convincingly; the sheer power to encompass the role's dynamic extremes and the artistry to make sense of everything that lies between those extremes. It's a massive role and she doesn't have a massive voice, but she is a master of her craft and has taken possession of this role as electrifyingly as she always does. 

The three faces of Manon — country girl, kept woman, convict — are so different from one another, and so vividly sketched within themselves, that they are almost three separate characters; one could even oversimplify and compare them to Trittico's Lauretta, Giorgetta and Angelica. Any reasonably talented singing actress could probably succeed quite well in capturing one or all of them in isolation. It's the special gift of an artist like Cheryl that she is able to bridge the gaps, to overcome (as far as possible) the obstacles inherent in the opera itself and join the contrasting facets of Manon's story into one complicated but coherent characterisation. She doesn't try to turn her into a tragic heroine, but nor is this Manon's beauty skin deep: instead she inhabits a shifting middle ground, and she scintillates. Her Manon is exactly as adorable as she should be — no more and definitely no less.

Puccini might have allowed Manon a dash of extra life but he's not quite so kind to des Grieux. At least our pauvre chevalier doesn't spend quite so much time crying as in the novel, but in creating its four focused scenes it inevitably clears away a lot of what informs his wretched life. From the moment he meets Manon, we only ever see him in pursuit of her or prostrated by her. His escalating misbehaviour and attendant self hatred is all omitted. Admittedly, it wouldn't make for fascinating theatre — you'd risk a sort of boy's own version of Suor Angelica — it does serve to underline just how pathological and desperate his relationship with Manon is, not to mention the difference in the way each of them suffers for love. 

Jorge Lopez-Yanez works as succesfully within these confines as anyone might. With opportunities for characterisation limited, he channels as much tremulous Italianate anguish into his voice as it will take. He takes full advantage of des Grieux's brief pre-Manon scenes. His "Tra voi belle" is sung with charming lightness of touch and he's convincing as an amiable but studious young man, highlighting the drastic change his fortunes will soon begin to take. He sings beautifully throughout, with only the very top of his voice showing signs of some wear and tear. It's just a joy to hear a secure, idiomatic Italianate tenor in our opera theatre, because heaven knows, we don't have enough of them. He does stagger about a bit more than necessary in the desert but his singing there is focused, brilliant and deeply felt; and occasionally he'll throw in a genuinely swoonworthy pianissimo — always appreciated.

The first encounter between Manon and des Grieux is more convincing vocally than physically. Jorge's firm, ardent voice is well matched as the dominant partner to Cheryl's lightly sung, susceptible Manon. The air between them doesn't exactly quiver with romantic tension, however, so that when she suddenly capitulates to his plea that she meet him again, it's not entirely clearly why she feels so compelled. Then again, there's something telling in the way they interact in this first scene: des Grieux, all sighs and longing looks, is excited solely by Manon, whereas she seems as thrilled by the experience as by her suitor. Their later interactions are more persuasive but the chemistry never really sizzles. (He's also hampered in the Act Two love scene by her extraordinary gold frock.) Both are appealing and committed performers in their own ways but their different approaches don't collide as explosively as one might have hoped from a couple who suffer so much for one another. Each is more compelling in separation than in togetherness — perhaps that's fitting after all. 

The two other men in Manon's life are not quite so well cast. I love Teddy Tahu Rhodes as much as anyone (well, maybe not as much some people, but you get the idea) and he's certainly a charismatic and imposing presence onstage, but I don't think Puccini is really ideal repertoire for him. He's in great voice as Manon's brother, and he is rather good in his semi-aria in Act Two, but I don't think he has quite the oily sound I'd to hear in this role: Lescaut is bad news. It's also hard to reconcile his bouncy roguishness in Act One with his self-serving creepiness in Act Two. Of course, like des Grieux, he's not helped by all the information left out of the opera: it's very hard to get a handle on Lescaut's true nature when most of his life goes unexplained. I have bigger issues with the casting of Richard Alexander as Geronte di Ravoir. They're not vocal issues: he sings wonderfully well. I just think he looks and sounds too young, and no amount of makeup and body padding can disguise that — in fact, they only make it more obvious. The point about Geronte, as far as I'm concerned, is that he represents a character (or characters) in the novel who, while they are old and foolish, also hold, by virtue of their wealth and social status, a degree of real power over Manon. Geronte might be stupid, but he's dangerous: he can ruin Manon, and he does. Casting Alexander, and costuming him as they have, turns him into a commedia dell'arte buffoon — he might as well be Bartolo — and I'd much rather a Geronte who looks and sounds like a genuine threat. 

The revelation among the bit parts is Stephen Smith, although after his excellent Beppe in Pagliacci I'm not sure if revelation is exactly the word. At any rate, he bounds about the stage exuding youthful exuberance, and his light, bright tenor is in top form. His Edmondo is a sort of Arlecchino-like figure, dashing about engineering intrigues, and doing it all with such a palpable sense of fun. He's a joy to watch, and if that voice keeps developing as it is, I daresay we'll see him in larger roles before very long. Meanwhile there's a clutch of quite luxuriously cast cameos: Dominica Matthews as the Madrigal Singer, Andrew Brunsdon as the Lamplighter and Graeme Macfarlane at his flitting, effete best as the Dancing Master. The chorus (women especially) camp it up as villagers and tarts, and sing with that same enthusiasm. Alexander Polianichko's reading is grand and sensuous and all those things you expect from a Manon Lescaut; the singers are occasionally swamped but I'm inclined to blame Puccini as much as anyone else for that. The Intermezzo is quite beautifully played but spoiled somewhat by the crashes and bangs from behind the curtain as the set is changed. 

There's not a vast deal I can say about Gale Edwards's production. It's reasonably solid and traditional but far from lifeless. She gives her singers the tools to just get on with telling the story and that's what they do, supported by some fantastic sets and costumes. The only really unusual flourish is her suggestion that Lescaut harbours some pretty unbrotherly feelings for Manon: she spends much of their Act Two conversation gently removing his wandering hands. It's an unexpected thought but an intriguing one: like the set of old aristocrats who come to stare at her during her dance lesson, it reinforces the sense of Manon as a commodity, as something to be consumed. It also functions quite well as a substitute for all the other morally reprehensible behaviour which Lescaut gets up to in the novel, and a symbol of the corruption of Manon's gilded life: especially since her reaction to his caresses is only mild annoyance — like batting a fly away — rather than outrage. Otherwise it's all reasonably straightforward. There's enough to mull over (and just plain enjoy) in the story as is, so Edwards just lets it play itself out.

Let's be honest. Manon Lescaut is important in terms of Puccini's development. It has definite charms and some extraordinary passages. But it's not a great opera, or at least, not Great with a capital G. Flawed Puccini, however, is still Puccini, and still a rewarding experience, especially when sung and staged as well as this one has been. Opera doesn't always need to be transcendent and sublime, even when it's a tragedy of sorts. This Manon Lescaut probably won't shatter your nerves completely, but it is grand and gorgeous, and when it really wants to move you — it can. Or, dare I say it, she can. It's a strong production from top to toe, but when solid gives way to special, the reason is usually Cheryl Barker. She can't help but shine, and the show is all the richer for it. 

Aida

Please forgive any infelicities or outright stupidity in what follows. I am a victim of my own bad planning. Having determined to write everything I wanted to write about Aida before the opening night of Manon Lescaut, I now find myself accordingly obliged to blog about it at a time when a sensible person would be asleep. I'll try and be briefish, but you know me: that never really works. 

I get the sense that many people have welcomed Graeme Murphy's production as a work of triumphant genius. So when I say that I don't entirely agree with that sentiment, I acknowledge at the same time that this might have as much to do with me as with him. I just know that when I write what I'm about to write, somebody will either shout at me or want to shout at me that I am missing the point. However, here it is. In the end, I did actually think this show was pretty fabulous, but the important words there are in the end. For me, the first two acts fell — no pun intended — a little flat. Murphy has this idea of 3D people in a 2D world — meaning top-of-the-line cardboard cutouts — which definitely has its moments of striking appeal. But for me it also has moments, especially at the beginning, of looking like an old fashioned Aida with cardboard sets; that is, the stylisation doesn't always (particularly at close range) look deliberate. I understand that it is deliberate, but the contrast isn't always as vividly made as it might be. That quite possibly has something to do with the performers as well: it's a while before they really take ownership of the space and let their own performances blossom, and in the meantime they risk being as two-dimensional as the sets. 

But as I've written already, whatever my reservations about the first half, they were magically obliterated by the fantastic second half, in which everything just came together brilliantly. Sets, costumes, lighting, acting, singing, orchestral playing — you name it, it was better. And it wasn't just a case of individual improvements: all the artistic forces at play seemed to feed off each other's energy so that the show as a whole became its own vibrant identity and took flight. For all the spectacle of the earlier acts, nothing in this show will remain as strong in my memory as the clear, simple and genius way Murphy staged the final act. Coupled with the heightened musical intensity and singers whose voices seemed to be gaining richness and power with every phrase, it was simply extraordinary. I'm getting worked up again now just thinking about it, a week later.

However, the point of praise I'm really rushing towards is the fantastic Tamara Wilson. Even the bitterest of last year's complainers could surely raise no objections to this import. She was outstanding. She's only young (young enough that her name still seems to have "rising star" permanently attached to it) but that is some voice, and she knows how to use it. This is her first ever Aida, and I think she said in an interview somewhere that she hadn't expected to sing the role so early in her career. Yet here she is doing it, and what I love is that she embraces that youthfulness. She doesn't try and blast the hell out of it or march about the place Acting Like A Star. Her Aida is sweet and gentle while still tackling the big moments with real power, so that she fills that theatre not with sheer volume but with a sound so perfectly spun and so controlled that it floats and swirls into the ether. If this is what her début sounds like, then "rising star" is right: she's definitely somebody special. 

Dongwon Shin's success isn't as immediate but ultimately it's hardly less impressive. His "Celeste Aida" was excellent but not what I'd call exceptional. It was only in those final two acts that his voice seemed really to open up, and once it had, the sounds that man was making were pretty amazing. Fabulous Italianate tenors are all too rare in our Opera Theatre, alas, so Shin is one we must keep in our grasp. Maybe not the subtlest actor but far from dull, and for that kind of ringing, secure tone I'd forgive far worse sins; besides, there's plenty of life and colour in the voice, and that's what really counts. Like the show itself, Milijana Nikolic takes until Act Three to come suddenly and wonderfully into her own. Of course she looks amazing from the outset, exotic and Cleopatra-esque, but to begin with her voice isn't quite as electrifying or as gorgeous as she is. Once Amneris gets a chance to make a scene, however, everything begins to change, and when she gets to her big solo scene — you could probably even call it a mad scene — she's all aflame, with voice to match, and you start to realise why Grace Bumbry (reportedly) told Leontyne Price that the opera should really be titled Amneris. 

My hat is off to Michael Lewis as well. I'd sort of forgotten he was in it, until Amonasro arrived and I had the sudden joy of a real live Verdi baritone. Lewis is in his element in this role, marrying impeccable Verdi style to a firm, flexible and suitably authoritative voice. Even if my first half reservations had continued to the end, Michael Lewis's performance (along with Tamara's) would still have remained with me as an unalloyed pleasure. Jud Arthur had a couple of minor tangles with a tricky throat but otherwise was in his usual sononorous form as Ramfis, and it was great to see David Parkin making his official company début as The King. I wasn't massively impressed with Amy Wilkinson's Priestess, although it's hard to draw too many conclusions from such a brief and distant appearane; she sang quite nicely but there wasn't much celestial about her. 

I've already in my earlier post expressed my abject love for the Opera Australia chorus. There's not much I can add to that. Hearing them in an opera like this, so grand and sweeping and with such big hits for them to sing, is just another reminder of what a wonderful sound they make. I won't declare myself quite so besotted with Sir Richard Armstrong but I was happy at least that his Aida wasn't as decibel-driven as his Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (where loud worked) and his leadership of the Radiance concert (where loud ruined things). Anyway, he drew a reasonably robust and at times quite lyrical performance from the AOBO. There did seem to be some grappling over tempi happening at the beginning but it sorted itself out — along with everything else — and in those last two acts the orchestra's playing really began to glow. 

I'm still puzzling over this Aida a bit. If you'd told me at the first or second interval how I'd feel by the end, I would not have believed you, and yet it happened. I don't recall reacting to a show like this before, dismissing one half only to fall head over heels for the other. And now what I'd like to see is an incarnation of this Aida in which it's all at the level of the second half. For all I know that might happen within this (rather long) season. Maybe it even happened on opening night and I was just too slow on the uptake. These — and Tamara Wilson! — are all good reasons for paying a second visit, and that's precisely what I plan to do.

Aida notes

I said last week that I would write again more fully about Acis and Dido, and I did mean to, but things got in the way and then I exhausted myself writing rather long reviews of the double bill for elsewhere. That said, I still want to do a proper write-up here, not because I imagine anyone's hungering for it, but for my own peace of mind, really. But that might as well wait now until Thursday, when I finally see the show for the second time. (Can you believe it? I've missed not one but two performances of a show containing Yvonne Kenny.) 

Meanwhile — at the risk of this becoming a bad habit — just a few words about Aida, which opened tonight. Genuine brevity this time — at least by my standards. Not even paragraphs, just a list. What I'd like to say about Aida is:

 

1. Please, can we keep Tamara Wilson? Alert customs. Don't let her leave. She's fabulous.

2. Surely Opera Australia has one of the finest opera choruses anywhere. Michael Black — and all choristers — I salute you.

3. This was almost like seeing two different performances of Aida on the same evening. Acts I & II were less than inspiring, despite some excellent singing. But just as I was resigning myself to more of the same, Acts III and IV came along and blew me away. Honestly, it was the strangest thing: a decidedly unspecial first half, followed by an amazing second half which has me determined to catch at least one more performance before this cast disbands. 

4. Graeme Murphy's production seems designed to be viewed from the dead centre of the theatre, so if you're booking,you might want to try for seats near the middle. I was in E14 and often felt (in the first half) that I was seeing it all side on.

5. The dancing is inevitable and occasionally superfluous, but a lot of it is pretty fantastic and a couple of numbers are pure genius. 

6. Milijana Nikolic's Amneris takes a while to warm up. But when she does... watch out. 

7. I don't think I've ever stamped my feet for so many members of a cast. 

8. The verdict? See it. It ain't perfect, but see it. With this cast if you can. 

Werther

I really had very little idea what to expect from Opera Australia's Werther — it's not an opera I'm hugely familiar with, and it was very hard to tell much about the production beyond the promise of frocks by Leona Edmiston, in honour of which I pointedly wore my watermelon coloured Leona Edmiston tights. But I arrived in a good mood, predisposed to enjoy myself, and I was not disappointed. In fact I had a wonderful time. 

The mere fact that the production is in modern dress is, I suppose, enough to put some people off, but in all honesty, this didn't seem to me a particularly feather-ruffling modernisation. I actually thought it worked very well indeed, and it looked fantastic — it's such a refreshing change to see people on stage in genuinely and recognisably modern dress, rather than the dated attempts at same in something like OA's Simon Philips Bohème, and they're set against a series of striking, sparsely furnished sets. I especially liked the set for Act I, a curious indoor-outdoor blend, with a fresh green lawn framed by massive and ornate doorframes. Le Bailli has more children than Captain Von Trapp but they're not quite so cloying — at least not in this production, where they more or less act like real children. The youngest girl is very good at being adorable, and the third eldest (after Charlotte and Sophie) even better at looking sour — something used to interesting effect in the third act. The staging is pretty straightforward for the most part, although it takes an interesting turn in Act III, when Charlotte, having been obliged to send Albert's pistols to Werther, tries repeatedly to leave her dinner party, only to be blocked by a series of ghostly and malicious party guests who seat themselves solemnly around her table, ready for the most joyless, funereal Christmas party ever. The children are herded off, with the exception of the sour girl, who sits on the couch, isolated from the party and begins to sob. It's weird, but curiously effective — a memorable way of conveying the absolute horror of Charlotte's situation, forced to celebrate in the knowledge that the man she loves is at that moment committing a miserable suicide.

Not having the premiere or intervening revivals of this production, I have no way of knowing how much of this revival is Moshinsky's concept and how much is the work of the revival director, one Elke Neidhardt. But I certainly cannot imagine Elke kowtowing to another director's vision at the expense of her own, so I suspect it is as much her production as his by now, and that everything that's there is there because she wanted it there, regardless of who had the original idea. In any case, what I have to declare without further ado, in case it isn't already clear, is that I think Elke Neidhardt has done a fantastic job with this Werther. I realise that I may have given the impression of a personal vendetta against Elke, since I rubbished both her Tannhäuser and her Don Giovanni, but I've been trying not to close my mind entirely, and this Werther, even if it isn't hers from the ground up, definitely helps to keep it open. 

The only issue I have, and it's something which troubled me in her Don Giovanni, too, although it's not nearly so troublesome here, is that she seems to excel in directing the concept but to fall down a little in directing people. In both Don Giovanni and Werther we have an utterly modern setting, but the people who inhabit it still frequently act like they were in a totally traditional production — you could roll the sets and costumes back a century and their gestures and expressions would mostly not be out of place. However, it's hardly a serious crime: after all, there's really not much you can do to take the Romantic melodrama out of this opera, certainly not without crushing its soul. Because the melodrama, the sentimentality, the excess of it is all part of its charm. At least, that's my feeling: I have a soft spot for Massenet, and I love his over the top tendencies. Thais is still on my wishlist.

One of this production's chief joys, of course, is the fabulous Aldo di Toro in the title role. I have a slight feeling of possessiveness towards Aldo, for the simple fact that I managed to see him (only just) before his Opera Australia début. I proceeded to make promises left, right and centre that that début (Alfredo in La traviata) would be a triumph and, thank heavens, it was. Now he is our beautiful Werther. His voice may not be huge, but it is absolutely delicious, and he sings with such genuine artistry and sensitivity that he is impossible to resist. His "Pourquoi me réveiller" is fantastic, naturally, but so too is his soliloquy after bidding farewell to Charlotte, not to mention a haunting death scene — including one of the more spectacular stage falls I've ever seen. Inevitably there are a few giggles, as Werther takes an awfully long time to die, but it's nevertheless a moving scene. (It might also be worth noting that the prolonged death is not really Massenet's fault. Goethe's Werther takes a full twelve hours to die, so the opera in fact accelerates things quite drastically.)

Michèle Losier is a happy discovery as Charlotte. In fact it is slightly odd to think that she replaces Pamela Helen Stephen in the role: as happy as I undoubtedly would have been to hear Pamela in the role (I'm a fan, though I know others aren't) I have difficulty imagining her in the role as envisioned here. Michèle plays a youthful, slightly fidgety Charlotte, clutching at chairs and fussing with cutlery when faced with difficult situations. Though only months go by, she seems visibly to age as she passes from the end of adolescence into her socially prudent marriage: the radiant, fluttery girl of the first act is barely recognisable in the pale, elegant society hostess of the third. She's lovely in those early scenes, but her best moments come towards the end. Her voice opens up brilliantly in her "Qui m'aurait dit la place...Va! laisse couler mes larmes" and in the surrounding scenes — a dark, exciting mezzo with a good solid lower register and plenty of colour. She's pretty devastating in the final scene, too, the last shreds of self-containment giving way to palpable terror. 

I've already mentioned in passing how delighted I was with Sarah Crane as Sophie. I've read mention in several places of Sophie as one of those typically annoying soubrettes in which opera abounds, and while I can see that she could be, that really wasn't my impression of Sarah's Sophie. Yes, she's endlessly cheerful and not massively perceptive, but to me she just seemed like a rather charming teenager. Her mooning over Schmidt is a bit overplayed, perhaps, but otherwise I liked her a lot. And I loved her singing. This is (for me) a new development: I've heard Sarah in several other roles, but she's never made a significant impression on me until now. Her voice seems more secure and distinctive now and has more of a silvery sheen than I remembered. She trips lightly through Sophie's very French coloratura, her high notes sparkle and she seems genuinely to be having fun with the music. More than that, I can't say, but I'm definitely listening to Sarah Crane with renewed interest. 

My other favourite is lovely Stephen Bennett as Le Bailli. Lately, every time I've heard Stephen, I've wished we could hear him in something a bit more substantial; this role gives us that chance to some extent, at least in terms of character development, and he lives up to my hopes. He's a totally lovable father figure, his stage presence just radiating paternal benevolence, and there's an engaging twinkle in his eye and in his voice. His French diction is superb, to my ears some of the best of the evening, and his smooth, rich bass is a constant pleasure. Andrew Schroeder sings real authority and style as Albert, though it's a pity this production seems determined to pigeonhole him as an irredeemable square — he could probably have pulled off something a bit more complex, though. He's excellent, though, and for some reason kept reminding me of Peter Coleman-Wright, which can only be a good thing.

Best of the rest is probably Stephen Smith as Schmidt. Stephen is in just about every production this year (well, seven of them) so I'm going to run out of things to say about him, but, as in Pagliacci, he turns a jocular cameo into a miniature star turn, and shows off both a charming sense of humour and a promising tenor voice. Even these brief appearances suggest he's a strong actor as well as a singer, so it will be interesting to see him take on something meatier in the future. David Thelander is entertaining, if a bit more on the generic side, as his drinking buddy Johann. Jodie McGuren and Andrew Brunsdon are very cute as the beatniks Kätchen and Bruhlmann. There's also a collection of actors, roped in to play Albert's entourage, imagined in this modern setting as an assortment of Beautiful People whose acceptance of Charlotte is superficial, and among whom Charlotte is increasingly uneasy. 

Emmanuel Plasson leads what sounds to me a very Massenet, very French performance, not shying away from romantic excess but not overdoing it either. The orchestral preludes and interludes are evocative and nicely paced, particularly at the point of Charlotte's dour Christmas party, and the saxophone solo in Charlotte's "Qui m'aurait dit" is beautifully played.

I'm not going to claim this as an earth shattering revelation, but that's hardly the point anyway. It was just a truly engaging and enjoyable night of opera. Perhaps not everybody will like the production, but there's enough excellent singing in this Werther to cover a multitude of perceived directorial sins. It's a shame audiences have been so small, at least on the two nights I attended, but such is life — the name Massenet is evidently only a guaranteed drawcard when followed by the name Manon. And Manon certainly has her appeal; but I quite like her younger brother, too, and judging by the vocal ovation from the tiny opening night audience, so do many others. 

Cav/Pag

You see, I promised you I'd post about something other than Butterfly. And so I shall. A million years ago (actually, just a bit more than a week ago, but it feels like longer) I was at opening night of Opera Australia's revival of Cav & Pag. And for various reasons, it has taken me until now to write anything about it. Chief among those reasons being, I suspect, plain old boredom. This was not exactly a fascinating night in the theatre.

It could have been. These are soap opera operas, after all. Abandoned women, faithless men, love, honour, duty, illicit affairs and illegitimate children, all kinds of fun stuff. And lots of big, fiery music to sing. Or not. This must have been my first complete Cavalleria (it actually isn't, but never mind) because I simply did not expect it to take such a very long time to get started. It's not that the opening scenes are lacking in beauty but the experience was far from electrifying. And even once the action proper got going, it wasn't quite the blazing row I was expecting. Pagliacci had a bit more energy to it, but some of the Cavalleria sleepiness seeped in nonetheless, and the production lost momentum just where you'd expect it to be gaining it: Tonio's Prologue was riveting, but by the time everyone started getting stabbed, the tension had dissipated. I giggled (sorry), yawned, and went home.

So, thank god for Jonathan Summers, is all I can say. If anything could tempt me back to this show, it would be his performances in both operas. He only has to stride on stage in Cavalleria and the show is his, and his singing is hands down the most interesting in the opera. Surely Santuzza, not Alfio, should be the one you're cheering for? Nicole Youl is sweet, but maybe a bit too sweet for Santuzza: as the timid outcast she was reasonably convincing, but once she got fired up, it didn't really make sense anymore — she just seemed like a needy meddler, not a tragic heroine, and — is this a terrible thing to say? — you could understand why Turiddu might want rid.

Speaking of whom: Dennis O'Neill divides me in half. I like to hear him sing. He's still one of the strongest and most stylish tenors at the company's disposal. I don't like to watch him sing. He doesn't move. There's no character development. A couple of arm flailing gestures and not much more, unless (as in Otello) the director has forced him into it. And if OA is going to keep casting him — and for all his dramatic shortcomings, I guess they should — it needs to be in roles in which he is at least vaguely convincing. Turiddu the supercool soldier, who leaves a trail of broken hearts in his wake? Please.

But a big thumbs up for the two mezzos of the piece. My mania for Jacqueline Dark is well established, so of course I was very happy to hear her as Mamma Lucia. She was surprisingly convincing as a decrepit old woman, vocally as well as physically — which actually just makes me that much keener to see her in a glamour part for once. The real surprise, though, was Dominica Matthews' fabulous Lola. No wonder Turiddu preferred her to Santuzza. I wouldn't necessarily have picked her voice as ideally suited to this kind of repertoire, but in fact she was wonderful, all husky tone and dangerous allure. And against a backdrop of Sicilian black, that red hair! What a thrill.

Broken record time, I'm afraid, but the star of Pagliacci is once again, yes, Jonathan Summers. You could go home satisfied after his Prologue. What else do you need? Maybe it's not the most luxuriant voice in the world these days, but its slender, growling quality is exactly what I like. He's a brilliantly paradoxical Tonio, menacing and yet sympathetic — not somebody you'd want to meet in a dark alley, but when he's being mercilessly mocked by Nedda, she, not he, is the villain, and you (or at least, I) can't help but like him. Likewise as he gives the drama its final flourish. He frames the opera, and so it becomes his opera. If it were all Tonio and no Nedda, I'd be back in a flash.

Dennis O'Neill's Canio is much like his Turiddu, except with a different jacket. The happy coincidence is that here, his dull stage presence is not entirely unsuited to the character. The scenes of adulation from the crowd are a bit hard to buy, but as the jealous husband with a young wife, he's reasonably convincing. He sings gorgeously of course, and has his rightful moment in the spotlight with "Vesti la giubba". Amelia Farrugia is a wicked, feline Nedda, quite fun to watch (and she looks very pretty) but disappointingly shallow — Nedda's petulant frustration with life never seems to give way to any more genuine emotion, even as she's planning her getaway with Silvio. But it's nice to hear her really sing in the middle of her voice, which hasn't happened much. Her upper register is still where all the colour (and money) is, but this at least was an improvement on her Rosina in Barbiere, who seemed to disappear every time the coloratura died down.

José Carbo is his usual magnificent self (I bet I've written exactly those words before) as Silvio. If only he had more to sing. But what he does sing is beautiful, and his sincerity to some extent makes up for Nedda's superficiality. He also does admirable double duty as a stagehand. And there's a bit of a star turn by Stephen Smith, whose slender but stylish tenor, striking physique (Teddy-philes will be happy) and irresistible comic energy have probably already gained him a bit of a following. 

I know, or at least, I presume, that Maestro Licata has this kind of repertoire in his blood. And to be fair, it was pretty Italian sounding. It would want to be. But the whole performance did seem a bit leaden, somehow: sundrenched to the point of lethargy. Then again, that impression probably owed something to the dullness of the goings-on onstage. I think we could have done with a bit more urgency, both in the pit and above it.

Butterfly Diaries, Part III

06-01-09 THIRD PERFORMANCE

It was all well and good preparing myself for Cheryl to cancel on night two, but having been wrong once, it didn't occur to me that it might be good psychological insurance to repeat the process until I was about fifteen metres from the theatre. Thus, not surprisingly, since it's the way these things always work, this was the night I was right. I scanned my cast list as a matter of course, and my initial, idiotic reaction was "why haven't they listed Cio-Cio San?". Then my brain caught up with me and pointed out that yes, they had listed her, she just wasn't being sung by Cheryl.

Sigh. I was a little disappointed, but, believe it or not, not heartbroken. For various reasons. One, because it was still in the back of my mind that she might cancel, so I was readyish; two, because there are still plenty of chances to hear her in the role; and three, because I'd actually ever so slightly hoped that this would happen. Yes, really. You see, Antoinette Halloran is scheduled to take over at the end of this month and for all of February. I like Antoinette Halloran a lot. And so, despite being booked to see Cheryl's Butterfly more times than any sensible person should see anyone's Butterfly in close succession, I still wasn't going to miss the chance to hear Antoinette take it on. So I was prepared to pay for yet another ticket and see yet another performance in order to do so; but it had occured to me that it would save money and help prevent Butterfly fatigue if Antoinette just happened to sing one of Cheryl's performances. And that's exactly what happened.

So I shrugged off my disappointment at the absence of Cheryl and turned my thoughts to the imminent joy of Antoinette. I've had a curious relationship with Antoinette's voice of late, but there is something about her I can't resist, even if I have occasional doubts about her. I had reasonably high hopes for her Butterfly: it's a role she's sung before, she'd already taken over at least two performances in the Melbourne season last month, and it's only a couple of weeks until her scheduled debut here. 

Usually, if I'm faced with a last minute substitution for somebody I really wanted to hear, it takes me an act or so to reconcile myself to the change. This time, though, my genuine happiness at the opportunity to hear Antoinette ahead of schedule already put her at a distinct advantage. And her performance, I'm very happy to say, continued the good work. She was absolutely beautiful. I wondered if I could love another Cio-Cio San so soon after Cheryl. With her first notes and first glance, Antoinette showed me I could. 

Perhaps she doesn't have the role under her skin quite yet, but nobody would expect her to. Nevertheless she gave an engaging, moving portrayal, as vivid in her own way as Cheryl's or anybody's. In her facial expressions, and in the first act especially, Antoinette did seem, consciously or unconsciously, to be channelling her immediate predecessor, but not in a way that came across as deliberate imitation. The character became more her own as the evening progressed, and grew into quite a different creature, a younger, more openly ardent Cio-Cio San. Vocally, the first act was her best, with the long and gruelling second act a bit less secure, although not without its thrills and moments of loveliness. No doubt one day, when she too has sung Butterfly a million times (and I daresay she shall) she'll master the art of pacing herself, but the sheer exuberance of her performance did a lot to compensate for occasionally uneven singing. 

Nerd that I am, I couldn't help playing spot the difference, noting which bits of stage business were changed and which were common to both. I saw that Antoinette knelt to scatter her flowers, rather than gliding about the stage. Also that, where Cheryl actually picks the child up and swings him about while singing, Antoinette left him on the ground and held his hand — and fair enough too, I couldn't believe it when Cheryl kept singing under the weight of a six year old in motion. Other tiny details too, but so trivial as to make the preceding points seem vastly significant. 

Julian Gavin gave what sounded to me his best performance yet. Or maybe it was just that I was in my most acoustically advantageous seat so far, right at the front of the loge. Either way, this was the night which really made me sit up and listen to his voice and think how fortunate we are to have such an attractive and secure voice in this role. My affection for Catherine Carby continues to grow. Roll on, I Capuleti — I sense a Sternstunde coming on. 

One final point, while I'm thinking of it — I very much like the way Shao-Chia Lü has been beginning each performance. Much like Simon Hewett in Otello (and he was following Simone Young's lead in doing so), there is no initial applause for the conductor's entrance. He sneaks into the pit ahead of time, and only steps up to the podium as the lights are going down, just in time to start the performance with a bang. It worked a treat in Otello, with its opening storm; Butterfly hasn't just a turbulent beginning, but the effect is equally striking. A few tourists at the second performance wrecked it by applauding once the orchestra had started, but they were silenced reasonably quickly, and otherwise it's worked well. 

And thus, with the above, I bring myself at long last up to date. Tomorrow night is my fourth. I'm afraid I can neither promise nor threaten to keep on posting about every singly performance. I mightn't have the stamina, and you certainly could be forgiven for giving up on me until I find another topic. We shall see. In the meantime, there's a Cav/Pag opening on Saturday, so the advent of a non Butterfly post is closer than you think. 

Butterfly Diaries, Part II

03-01-09 SECOND PERFORMANCE

This performance was not a part of my initial massive ticket purchase (for reasons which I'm sure seemed utterly logical at the time, but which escape me now) so I was punished with a seat in Row U of the stalls. In such a little theatre, Row U is still not exactly the middle of nowhere, however it is behind the overhang of the gallery, which means the acoustic is especially poor, even by Opera Theatre standards. Orchestra? What orchestra? I exaggerate, but not by as much as I like. I was definitely confirmed in my aversion to such faraway seats. Front row or loge for me, thank you very much.

After opening night, I had managed to convince myself (almost) that Cheryl would cancel. No definite reason for this, really, just a surreptitious cough or two and a vague sense that I'd been hearing, say, 97.6% instead of 100. In fact I'd done such a good job of convincing myself that I arrived at the theatre pretty much expecting to hear Antoinette Halloran instead. Which would have been fine — I'm booked for enough performances to compensate the loss of Cheryl in one of them — but, as it happened, she didn't cancel, and so just having her there was a bonus of sorts. 

I'm not used to seeing or hearing Cheryl from so far away, but in the big scheme of things, it hardly matters — far or near, she's still the same beautiful singer, and her commitment, charisma and oh that voice carry far, far beyond the first few rows. In fact it's probably healthy for me to be reminded of that once in while, and to have my focus broadened a bit. I think she was even lovelier than on opening night. I think. I don't know, because I can only just hold on to my last smidgen of impartiality long enough to get my grown up reviews written, and then all that goes to hell and my brain works along the lines of: Is Cheryl, Is Good. If pushed, I could probably suggest that the voice was softer and shinier than it had been in previous performance, that it flowed a little more freely, but really, we're talking about degrees of gorgeousness, and what's the point? She's Cheryl. She's Cheryl. (I'm sorry. I know I'm terribly over the top. But if I can't vent it here, then where?)

Meanwhile everybody else was much as they had been on opening night, no major changes, positive or negative. And why would you change anything? Which is not to say that this is the Most Perfect Butterfly In The World...Ever! but it's actually not far from it, in a restrained sort of way. I can't think what could be improved. Excellent principal cast, fine support from the bit players, stunning voices in the two roles which absolutely require them and, as a bonus, from Suzuki as well. As for the production, for once I really hope that Opera Australia does maintain its habit of keeping productions in the repertory for decades, because I can't see any pressing need to replace this one. I wouldn't mind seeing a version of John Bell's production for Oz Opera expanded to take advantage of the Opera Theatre's facilities, but even so, I don't want us losing Moffatt Oxenbould's production any time so. The Copley Lucia and the Cox Ballo can go (please) but not this. 

The rest you know already. They sang, they bowed, she bowed and the audience rose as one. For reasons likely more touristic than musical, but whatever the motive, the end result is the same and I'm happy. True, the performance in and of itself wasn't quite at the earth shattering, mind bending, scream eliciting standard which your usual standing ovation might require. I adored it but had no expectation of standing for it. However, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a gorgeous soprano in possession of phenomenal talent must deserve a standing ovation, just because she does. 

Butterfly Diaries, Part I

30-12-08 OPENING NIGHT

Apparently OA's season opens earlier every year, so that the 2009 season managed to open two days before the end of 2008. I suspect this was at least partly to allow Cheryl Barker a reasonable number of performances before she jets off to Paris to be their (B-cast!) Butterfly. (And may we take a moment to applaud a soprano who finishes up in Sydney on January 17th and has her first Parisian performance on the 31st, meaning less than two weeks rehearsal time for a Robert Wilson production. Yes, I know, she's sung in it before, but still. Anyway, sorry, too much parenthesis too soon. Back to business.)

Cheryl is our Butterfly, and what more is there to say? She owns this role. The (sadly now apparently abandoned) International Cheryl Barker Association website lists fifteen seasons of this opera in her performance history, in a variety of productions in both hemispheres. Opera Australia's drop dead gorgeous production was created for her and she's captured on the DVD of same, as well as a DVD of the aforementioned Robert Wilson Blue Butterfly. Of course, sheer repetition does not in itself equal magnificent role ownership, but you only have to see or hear her in the role for five or ten minutes to realise she's a very special Cio-Cio San. And look, I know, I'm me, and I think she's a very special everything. But you could be the most objective observer in the world and I suspect you'd still have to concede that she's an important and wonderfully successful intepreter of this role. 

What I like about Cheryl's Butterfly is, oh, everything, but in particular I like that, while it is something like her sixteenth Butterfly, I can't detect any signs of fatigue. Her wealth of experience shows itself in how extraordinary well she clearly understands the character, and the revelatory world of details which that knowledge brings out, sometimes I think almost unconsciously. But she doesn't coast through the role, it isn't singing by numbers, she isn't on autopilot — and lord knows, she could be forgiven if every now and then she was, just a little. For heaven's sake, she's Cheryl Barker, singing Butterfly. She could sing it in her sleep and even if she did, she'd still probably be fascinating — it's just the way she is.

And I love the details. There's a lot of Butterfly ahead of me still, so I'll try to pace myself and save a few points for later. The one I want to mention immediately, however, is the magic she works with the Warhorse of Warhorses, her "Un bel di". It's the eternal problem with big hit arias like this ("O mio babbino caro" suffers the same fate) that it's hard sometimes — for an audience and for singers too, I think — to appreciate them only in terms of their immediate context, to remain in engaged opera mode rather than switching into concert mode. "Un bel di" is so familiar that it would be easy enough to sit back and enjoy it as a favourite aria, rather than paying as much attention to what it's saying as you have to the preceding dialogue. Cheryl fixes that. Her "Un bel di" is quite extraordinarily conversational. There's very little standing at the front of the stage, gazing into the distance; instead, she remembers at every point that it's to Suzuki that she's saying all of this. Yes, it's an affirmation to herself as well, but it's not a soliloquy. Cheryl sings it in a fantastically attentive, responsive manner, the way you might expect her to sing it if the text were set as flat recitative instead. In doing so she refocuses your attention (or a good deal of it, anyway) on what's actually going on, both in the aria and in Butterfly's head. It's a BIG aria no matter which way you look at it, and even the most standandsingish performance is still going to pack a fair punch, but for my tastes, it's Cheryl's approach I find the most moving. 

Moving on, only because I think I must rather than because I feel much inclined to, a fair share of the praise ought to be heaped on Catherine Carby as well, our lovely Suzuki. Excuse me, but shouldn't Catherine be receiving far glitterier star treatment from this company? Oh, yes, she's had a few plum roles recently, I won't deny that, but all the same I can't shake the feeling that her brilliance still isn't being taken advantage of as fully as it might. The same is true of her Suzuki as was true of her Kristina — she sings her first lines, and if it weren't for the presence of a Cheryl Barker waiting in the wings, I would be happy to hear her as the star of the show. At least we had that chance in Don Giovanni, but what I'm ever more eagerly anticipating is her Romeo in I Capuleti. Just quietly, I think she might just blow Emma right out of the water. Not that it's a competition. Her Suzuki, meanwhile, is fabulous — she is the latest in a long line of mezzos (Christa Ludwig, for one) to make you really, really wish that Puccini had given her an aria. Anyway, she makes the most of what she's given and is a total and utter delight, even if Puccini (and this role) is not perhaps her most obvious repertoire. But she's Catherine, and I'm keen to hear her in absolutely anything she chooses to sing. (Yes, you see, I really do notice the other singers, even when Cheryl's about.)

Was I supposed to mention Pinkerton before Suzuki? Never mind. Nobody likes him, so nobody will mind. Except I have to confess, I don't really hate Pinkerton, at least not as a general rule. Like Don Ottavio, he's one of those characters constantly mentioned in reviews as having been made "surprisingly sympathetic" by a particular singer — to the point that I start to wonder if it might be time to accept that the character himself is actually more sympathetic than we've given him credit for. Although, in Pinkerton's case, not much more. At best, he's still an inconsiderate fool. At worst, he's total scum. Julian Gavin is closer to the former. What scumminess he possessed was ameliorated, for me at any rate, by the palpable sincerity with which Gavin imbued Pinkerton's descriptions of Butterfly — he really is completely head over heels for her, even if it's not exactly love. For a day or two at least, he's as much in her power as she is in his, and that makes at least a little bit of a difference. Of course, it's always easier to feel sympathy for a beautifully sung Pinkerton. He seemed a bit cautious on opening night, and there were a couple of unsettling swoops and scoops, but ultimately the care he took was a positive thing — we heard a Pinkerton full of light and shade, with graceful turns of phrase and dynamic variations, not just a relentless Italian bellower. It's not exactly the three-dimensional portrayal of Cheryl's Butterfly, but then, it's not as if the role offers much possibility of that. 

Is my post longer than the libretto yet? I'm afraid to check, in case it is, so will plunge ahead and, in my usual callous way, dash off all the male cameos with three or four words apiece, or something like that. You can't resist Graeme Macfarlane. He's the ultimate Goro. He's on the DVD too, which leads me to suspect he may have a lifetime monopoly on the part, like John Bolton Wood as Benoit/Alcindoro in La bohème. Anyway, Goro is just as Cio-Cio San says, "un uom cattivo", but as Graeme flits and scurries about the stage, making mischief at every turn, you can't help but like him. My other favourite is Jud Arthur's bright orange Bonze, fabulously demonic in voice and appearance — and he handles that brandishing stick of his like a pro. Barry Ryan is a good, solid Sharpless. Not as sympathetic as Richard Stilwell on the DVD, who manages to make the Consul not only likeable but surprisingly complex, but he does his job well. Luke Gabbedy struts for all he's worth as Yamadori, and strikes the right balance between handsome and preposterous — you can understand why everyone thinks Butterfly should be tempted, but also why she's obviously not — but his voice doesn't always have quite as much presence as he does. Andrew Moran is still a voice whose progress I'm keen to follow, and his brief turn as the Imperial Commissioner does nothing to change that, but it's hardly a role about which much can be said, good or bad. 

We're very fortunate in our conductor, Shao-Chia Lü, who leads a fabulously idiomatic sort of performance, all bright strings and surging emotion. Not crash bang loud, but not impossibly tiny and subtle either — just right, said Goldilocks. He helps lift the sound of the orchestra as far out of that abysmal pit as it's likely to get, for which I'm thankful. 

My final words for tonight — congratulations on reading this far, both of you — must be for the production. I am madly in love with this production. I have been since I watched that DVD and declared it the Most Beautiful Thing In The World Ever. Drastic reaction, yes, and clearly hyperbole, but you get my drift. It's not what you'd call revolutionary. But it's also a fair distance from conventional. Aesthetically it's quite possibly the most gorgeous production the company has in its repertory — among the tourist audience especially, there are audible gasps when the stars come out, or petals begin to fall, and I still get goosebumps every time Butterfly sheds one her deep pink (unmarried) kimono to reveal the blue (married) beneath. I could rhapsodize over the production almost as much as I could over Cheryl herself — and you know by now that that's a lot — so once again, I'll shut myself up, and add only that I think Moffatt Oxenbould, who created this work of art, is a wonderful and very clever man. Puccini ain't bad either.

Batman

Before I write about Billy Budd — which deserves all the words I can find — a quick mention of the very, very funny Die Fledermaus I saw at the Conservatorium on Thursday night. Mostly I hate it when companies who perform light opera/operetta in English (original or translated) feel obliged to shoehorn in a few pop culture references. But fashioning an entire adaptation from nothing but pop culture is a different beast; in a sense, an artform in itself. And that's what Mary Rachel Brown's adaptation, directed by Matthew Barclay, does. It translates every last detail of the plot into the terms of tacky Australian celebrity culture.

So Gabe Eisenstein, star cricketer, is married to ex-model Ros. Adele is a Hollywood obsessed live-in beauty therapist. Falke is a gay sports agent in love (possibly requitedly) with his star client. And so on. You get the idea. All the familiar havoc ensues, facilitated by the terribly artsy party of one Prince Bartholomew Barnaby ("Barrie" to his friends) Kos(lovs)ky. Summarised like that, it might sound absolutely awful. And it easily could have been. But the new dialogue is well-written and genuinely funny, the pop culture references grow ever more uproariously absurd, and the cast could actually act.

Whether they could sing is another matter. Actually, no, that's a terrible thing to say. They could all sing. I just don't think they're all opera singers, but that's fine, and when you're taking this kind of approach to the piece, it isn't a huge hindrance to enjoyment. The women were good: Natalie Aroyan was suitably bright-voiced and expansive as Ros, and Regine Sturm hit all the right notes in "Mein Herr Marquis". Possibly the best sounds of the night came from Ji-Hye Kim's delightfully deadpan Koslovsky. And from the chorus, actually, who sounded excellent. The men were not so good. Vocally that is. They could carry a tune, but projection, diction and beauty of tone all tended to fall by the wayside.

But guess what? I didn't care. It didn't matter. They sang because it's an operetta and they had to, but the true fabulousness was in the dialogue and this was a cast of true comedians. John Komadina's take-off of brainless "Aussie legend" sports celebrities was spot on, right down to the assault charge and the endorsement of Hair Replacement Therapy. Lorenzo Rossitano was a scream as "opera fusion" singer Alfredo; his jail cell rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody was priceless. John Donohoe's trigger happy Officer Frank deserves his own show. And I adored Simon Halligan as Falke — he gets bonus points for playing gay without going ridiculously over the top, and also for stylishly pulling off the production's one, brief moment of near-seriousness, a bitter toast to "our true identities" as he realises the man he loves will never acknowledge his.

There are all kinds of other very fun flourishes to this show; but cataloguing them would never convey their humour, so too bad. Although, I will say that being handed, as I entered the theatre, a mock tabloid front page carrying the headline "BATMAN LOSES ROBIN IN MARDI GRAS ROMP" was a definite highlight. And yes, alright, this was far from the most musically wonderful Fledermaus, but it was a whole lot of fun, and that's fine with me. Besides which, any production of Fledermaus which uses the Act Two party as an opportunity to declare André R*eu the Antichrist has my blessing.

Typical

I know Melbourne sometimes gets a little (and justifiably) miffed over what it sees as neglect by Opera Australia, the so-called national company which seems to spend a lot of time in Sydney. For obvious, selfish reasons, my sympathy is limited. But now Richard Gill is turning the tables on me. Victorian Opera's recently announced 2009 season might only contain four operas, but it includes not only one of my absolute favourites — Don Giovanni — but also two, count 'em, two of the works which always spring to mind when I start daydreaming about what I'd like to see Opera Australia do. To wit: Handel's Xerxes and, best/worst of all, Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. And just to make matters worse, guess who's singing Der Komponist? That's right, Jacqueline Dark. It was only a week or two ago that I was listening to Anne Sofie on the Sinopoli recording and thinking — you know, I did once think I couldn't see Jacqui in a pants role but forget that, she would be glorious in this. And now it's happening, but in the wrong damn city. Typical!

Nor is she the only highlight of this gorgeous little season. I've never had the chance to see a Victorian Opera production, but just the same I adore this company from afar. Their whole approach just seems so bright and inventive. Creative repertoire, interesting casting and what sound like excellent productions. Richard Gill and his crew seem to have all the right ideas about how to go about it, and it seems the company is going from strength to strength. Long may it continue. I bet OA could learn a thing or two from Victorian Opera. (Hint: Balcony Club. Good idea. Copy it. Please.)

So the only question now is, do I go to Melbourne in December for Streetcar, as planned, or do I go in July for Jacqui instead? Both, perhaps. It's a hard life I lead.

Tales of the City III

Das Rheingold

Don't worry, this isn't one of my usual solemn and rhapsodising Wagner posts. Das Rheingold was of course magnificent, soul-filling Wagner but it was also, dare I say, quite a lot of fun. This is Part the First of Francesca Zambello's so-called American Ring. Wagner filtered through American mythology and cultural history. Sounds subversive enough, but its bark is worse than its bite. It's as if she had nerve enough only to come up with the basic concept, not to pursue it as far as she might have and possibly should have.

I mean, if you're going to go as far as blatantly Americanising Wagner, for heaven's sake, you might as well go all the way. Zambello hasn't. Leaving aside objections to the very essence of the concept (and I realise many won't be willing to even do that), I think her idea of aligning the Rhine and its gold to the California gold rush is not without its appeal. However, it seems a little pointless to have the idea and then create a scene which looks like any big river. The only aspect which says "gold rush" is Alberich's prospector costume; why not, since video projections were such a prominent part of this production, use some to evoke the particular historical moment she's apparently referencing? All the projections provided us with was rushing water and swirling gold — what's specifically American about that? Nibelheim didn't match either; I expected it would look more like a working mine but it too could probably have passed for a conventionally Germanic underworld. It looked good, don't get me wrong; it just didn't seem to fit the concept.

The world of the gods was a bit more consistent. A burgeoning 1920s dynasty, lounging about a temporary vacation residence while waiting for their mansion to be built. Jennifer Larmore was appallingly marvellous as a hardbitten, grasping Fricka. Still, Zambello stumbled over details. There seemed no attempt to translate Wotan's spear into 20th century American terms; likewise Freia's golden apples. Now, you might fundamentally object to any attempt to translate such symbols, and that's understandable; but if you're Francesca Zambello, and you've had this big idea, surely you ought to have the audacity and the creativity to integrate every part of the opera into your vision. You've already gone ahead and meddled with the Ring, I doubt anyone will be very surprised if you fiddle with the symbols a bit.

Then there were the bits that were just plain weird. Like Alberich's slinky Discohelm, a square of gold lamé which he tucked into his belt like an oil rag when he wasn't draping it ridiculously over his face. No wonder the surtitles just called it "Tarnhelm", since this was not in any way, shape or form a helmet. I was disappointed by the staging of his transformation into a giant snake — music that terrifying deserves something more substantial than scaly video projections. The toad (which became a frog for the purposes of alliterative surtitles) was much better; actually it was very cute. I wanted one. I thought turning Donner's hammer into a croquet mallet was a stroke of brilliance, though.

One thing up with which I will not put, however, is the blithe manner in which Cori Ellison has just changed the translation of "Rheingold" in her surtitles. Apparently it now means "pure gold". On account of the pun in the libretto, "Rheingold! Rheingold! Reines Gold". Not really a pun if you turn them all into the same word, though. The Rheinmaidens are now "river maidens". Of course, I can see that she really had no choice. You can't set the opera in America and then have your characters wittering on about the Rhine every three seconds but still... it makes me uneasy. Especially since the word in question is also the title of the opera. Good on Ellison, though, for attempting to retain the libretto's alliteration in her surtitles where possible, even if Wagnerian German alliteration and Ellisonian American alliteration haven't quite the same rhetorical effect.

The only singer I really want to rave about is Stefan Margita, who was slick, seedy and fantastic as Loge. Everyone seemed to relish their parts but Margita still more or less stole the show; from his final monologue you'd think it had been his opera all along. It was lovely to see Jennifer Larmore in person, too; she was obviously enjoying herself a lot and given that Wagner is way out of her usual repertoire, she sang pretty damn well. She needs, however, to EAT SOMETHING. And preferably quite a lot of it. My other favourites were Andrea Silvestrelli (Fasolt), Tamara Wapinsky (Freia) and Lauren McNeese (Wellgunde). I also like Buffy Baggot (Flosshilde), mostly for her excellent name.

And! The orchestra! Thank you, Maestro Runnicles, I like you a lot. Seamless, shimmering playing which, American Ring be damned, rose from the very depths of the Rhine. Also, it has to be said — what a difference a pit makes. I've always known the conditions for the orchestra in the Opera Theatre were atrocious, but I don't think I really realised how atrocious until, at my first SFO Lucia, I was reminded what an opera orchestra can sound like when playing from a pit not actually designed for physical discomfort and muffled sound. Luxury!

V is for Vivaldi

And V is for volte-face. Pinchgut Opera's production of Vivaldi's Juditha triumphans opened last night. I'm reviewing it for NZ Opera News, so won't do so here. However, there are few points I'd like to note and first among them is my total change of policy regarding Fiona Campbell. Last year she sang Idamante for Pinchgut and I was underwhelmed. Well, I don't know what made the difference — the music, the venue, my seat, my point of view, my tastes, my ear or what — but last night as Vagaus, Fiona Campbell was ON FIRE. She was everything I look for (and rarely find) in a mezzo soprano, in a Vivaldi singer, in an opera singer in general. Absolutely stunning. If I were richer (or just less cautious) I would go to every single performance purely to hear her "Armatae face et anguibus", which is — I'm serious — one of the most amazing things I've ever heard in a theatre. She'd just come across her general's beheaded corpse, and I thought — oh please, let her sing a vengeance aria now; then it began and I realised I knew it from Cecilia Bartoli's Chatelet Vivaldi concert. Let me say this now: if I had to choose, I would choose Fiona's. Elsewhere she was equally strong, a riveting presence in every way, musically and dramatically. Somehow when I review Juditha properly I will condense all of this into a relatively sensible sentence or two but for the moment, I'm compelled to go overboard, to declare my huge admiration and brand new status as A Fan.

A few other scattered thoughts:

-Three male roles. One countertenor, two mezzos. And yet, in this production, no pants roles. I think this is very, very clever.

-Attilio Cremonesi, who directed from the harpsichord, is not only brilliant but also totally lovable. I don't think I've ever seen a conductor shake the hand of every single member of the orchestra at the end of the opera.

-Everybody is good in their roles. But if I were queen of everything, I'd love to reshuffle and see what would happen — Sally-Anne Russell (Juditha) as Ozias (spiritual leader of Bethulia), Renae Martin (Ozias) as Vagaus, Fiona Campbell as Juditha. So many mezzos! All operas should be cast like this.

-There's a telling early encounter between Judith and Holofernes, as he tries at great length to make her sit beside him and she refuses. It's a wonderful aria (beautifully sung by David Walker) and was very cleverly staged. But when you have somebody pleading at such length "sit, please sit, please sit down" and so on, I'm afraid I can't help but think of Puppy Pre-School.

-And finally, I just want to say — thank god for Pinchgut. It's a unique and stylish company, with fascinating ideas and the best taste in repertoire. I say the best taste, because it's also my taste; I just wish I'd been here to see them all.

-Update: Actually, something else. I knew he was familiar. I've just realised that I've seen David Walker before. Three and a half years ago, as Arsamene in the New York City Opera Xerxes. One of my first experiences of live opera. Small world.

Why should we not let the mice be gay?

Why not indeed?

It's with this noble sentiment that the fun in Isaac Nathan's Don John of Austria really kicks off. After what seems like the world's longest overture — as if he'd got himself trapped, à la Dudley Moore's Beethoven sonata — there's a lengthy and jolly chorus, beautifully articulated by the Sydney Philharmonia Chamber Choir. Their master has been absent and while the cat's away...hence the title, only slightly less hilarious in context. It's a sign of things to come, libretto wise.

Don Quexada enters and ruminates at length on his foster son, the unruly Don John. Eventually he breaks into song — a soporific strophic lullaby-to-self, as he, highly poetically, proclaims "I cannot stay awake, so I'll go-oh to sleeeep". Shortly Don John himself appears, played by Steve Davislim as a Mike Myers character. (Think Wayne's World rather Austin Powers). A duet ensues: "You are not heeding what I say"/"I will break the walls away" (I think. There's no libretto to look at, I'm working on memory.) These two lines are repeated ad nauseam. Before they're halfway through, you'll find you could easily sing along (as is indeed the case for much of the opera.)

Forgive me. I'm not taking it seriously. But then, neither were they. There's no question this opera has dated; indeed, it may well have been a bit silly in 1847 as well. So this concert performance with the Sydney Symphony, while not totally frivolous or facetious, played for laughs where appropriate and made no effort to convince us that this was The Great Australian Opera. I doubt anybody imagines it is; it's enough that it's The First. The music is not exactly earth shattering — sometimes it's downright dreary — but there are few nice little surprises buried in it, and it also provides its share of hilarity. Donna Agnes is treated well, as a prima donna should be, though the incessant runs and trills in her opening aria make it well nigh impossible to understand more than about one word in four. But then, judging by the intelligible words, that might be for the best. This opera, it has to be said, makes a compelling case for singing in Foreign.

The singing, by the way, was very good. Paul Whelan as Don Quexada was sonorous if rather rough; the up-and-down coloratura requirements of the role seemed to have killed off the suavity notable in his Don Giovanni a few years ago. Steve Davislim was a natural comedian — helpful given the vast amount of dialogue in this thing — and even managed to look a bit Spanish. In Dorothy, servant to Donna Agnes, Nathan seems to have devised the most thankless role ever written for mezzo soprano. Forget Suzuki. Dorothy sings in one ensemble at the beginning and one at the end and that's it. She has a long speech as she frets about her mistress (who doesn't expect the Spanish Inquisition — nobody does — but ends up facing it just the same) but no aria. Thus I applaud Sally Anne Russell for looking so cheery and involved by the end. Grant Doyle made a good spoilt brat as Philip II, jealous of his illegitimate half brother Don John, whining that Daddy (Charles V — Don Carlos, of course) loves his natural child more than his successor. He's in love with Agnes, whom Don John wishes to marry and uses the Inquisition to make everyone as miserable as he can.

But Agnes is problematic for any man in the Inquisition era to love — she's Jewish. She tells Don John and he has no problem with it. Philip, on the other hand, plots to burn her (and anyone else he can manage). Despite the title, it's Agnes who quickly becomes the centre of the opera. Cheryl Barker imbued the role with such dignity and fragility that when she was there, it was almost like a different opera — not one to be affectionately mocked, just one to hear and be touched by. Her slender, faintly exotic and sweetly blossoming voice grew warmer and more brilliant as the opera progressed and she tackles even the most inane flourishes with style. Agnes has aria after aria lavished upon her and Cheryl aced every single one. It was only right that she take the final bow, even after Don John himself; this is an opera about Agnes and Cheryl is an ideal prima donna.

The whole show was very very well staged with the confines of the City Recital Hall, everyone in black and white except the now-cloistered Charles V, in his friar's robes, and Donna Agnes replendent in blues and greys and beads. Cast members sang and read from scores, while actors in non-singing roles moved among them. Charles' sudden entrance to save the day came from the back of the theatre, after which he (and the long suffering Dorothy) made their way up the aisle). The Sydney Symphony made gorgeous sounds — they were helped in this by two illustrious descendants of Isaac Nathan, namely Sir Charles Mackerras, who wrote the orchestration (with characteristic brilliance) and his very talented nephew, Alexander Briger, who conducted. Family affair.

Would I go again? Absolutely. Sadly, I can't, as the only other performance conflicts directy with something a little bit special. Were that not the case, I'd be there in a flash. For me, Don John was more entertaining and more musically satisfying than The Gondoliers the previous night; and besides, Cheryl Barker as Agnes is simply not to be missed. I'm looking forward to the broadcast on ABC Classic FM on November 10th and I feel like I read somewhere (though I can't find it now) that it will eventually be released on CD as well. It wasn't great art but it was definitely great fun.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

After several months of withdrawal symptoms, Opera Australia has returned to Sydney, and Tuesday night saw the opening of the Winter Season with Leon Krasenstein's brightly coloured and cartoonish production of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

Amidst an extravagant set inspired by Gaudi — though apparently realised by Disney — Krasenstein has shifted the action of the opera to a 1930s spa. Doctor Bartolo actually works as a doctor, Berta as a quasi-nurse, and there's even a clutch of mute guests thrown in for good measure — among them a pair of ornamental toreadors and a wildy moustachioed Salvador Dali. Visually the new setting is an appealing one and it has its share of comic charm. In terms of plot, however, the move seems both unnecessary and, at times, obstructive. Exchanges between Rosina and Almaviva which should take place outside are now happening indoors, with the Count halfway up the stairs and Rosina at the top. It's hard to see why they don't elope then and there — the usual locks and bolts preventing their elopement have disappeared and Rosina seems pretty easily accessible. Parts of the set seem to alternate between being outside and in, so that we have Figaro and Almaviva propping a ladder against a wall despite being about two feet from the internal staircase. Obviously there's a need for suspension of disbelief and all that but I can't help wondering whether a happy compromise might have been reached — keep the wacky Gaudi-esque aesthetic and the 1930s setting, but use them to create a slightly more conventional (and logical) arena for the action.

Barbiere is an opera which offers up three potential protagonists. Since every intrigue turns about her — and since she's the (mezzo) soprano — it can, if so desired, be Rosina's opera. It can also be the Count's; after all, it premiered under the title Almaviva. Or it can be, just as the title suggests, an opera about Seville's most indispensable barber. It's a question of casting and of directorial vision — and in this case there's not a shadow of a doubt that Figaro is our star. José Carbo is thoroughly in his element here. Both his comic timing and his bel canto technique are effortlessly idiomatic and quite irresistible. He glides through Figaro's coloratura with rich and ringing tone and exudes such charm you'd suspect he really was born Raffaello. Certainly he was born for this role — it's obvious how completely at ease he is when he starts throwing a bit of fancy footwork in to complement the fastest passage of "Largo al factotum". Evidently nothing in this role presents a challenge for José — it's a perfect match and a total success.

Amelia Farrugia turns in a very creditable performance as Rosina. This is her debut in the role and no doubt there is improvement to come, but even on her first night there was much to admire — she sounded far better last night than the last time I heard her live (as Manon in 2005) and certainly has improved since her recital disc Joie de vivre. Her upper register was brighter and more cleanly focused than I expected, her coloratura exactly as showy and silvery as it needed to be. Her ornamentation in "Una voce poco fa" was impressive if occasionally slightly wayward; but by the time of Rosina's singing lesson she was more settled and tossed off the interpolated Proch variations with style and shimmer. There's perhaps a tendency to squeeze the highest notes just a little but it does little to detract from the undeniable prettiness of her sound. My concern, though, is that she has lavished all possible care and attention upon the top end of her voice and neglected the rest. On Tuesday her lower register sounded breathy and artificial — the recitative in particular was delivered in a mannered quasi Sprechstimme and could stand to sound a whole lot more tuneful. Onstage she's an energetic and self-assured presence. Personally I found her Rosina wholly unsympathetic, a manipulative and superficial brat, but that's just a matter of taste — like her or not, it's certainly a vivid characterisation.

As a roly-poly, happy go lucky Count Almaviva, Henry Choo is quite charming but ultimately miscast. His smooth, honeyed tenor is a gorgeous sound but it's not suited to the rapid-fire demands of Rossini and as a result he comes off sounding weaker than he really is. He sounds like a Don Ottavio who has wandered into the wrong opera — quite lovely, but out of place. The contrast with Kanen Breen's darker, more solid sound will prove telling, I suspect, when Breen takes over the role in August. Warwick Fyfe was to have been our Don Bartolo but proved indisposed — the role was taken over at (presumably) short notice and with great aplomb by Andrew Moran, in what appears to be only his third Opera Australia role. Don Basilio was my compatriot Conal Coad, in his usual fine form, done up to look repulsively Rasputinesque and pulling out all his buffo basso tricks — "La calunnia" was a comical whirlwind. Lovely, too, to see Rosemary Gunn as Berta. I'd previously only ever seen her on DVD as Cornelia in Giulio Cesare — the thirteen years since that production have apparently done little to alter her voice and it was nice that Berta was given her aria to sing.

Our maestro was, of course, Richard Bonynge. If there's anybody I'm willing to trust with bel canto, it's him. He managed to pull off that overture without turning it into musical caricature and despite the odd mishap in the pit, he had the AOBO sounding warm and vibrant all evening. He seems to have aimed not so much for rollicking farce as for commedia dell'arte panache, and I think that approach, while it mightn't have audiences bouncing up and down in their seats in rhythm, nevertheless has a definite appeal. Bonynge's tempi mightn't be the speediest but the evening flies by pleasurably just the same.

New Year's Eve

"Opera at the movies" was the unifying thread for Opera Australia's New Year's Eve gala last night. No, hardly the most unusual or unpredictable theme. Without further prompting, you could probably guess at least two thirds of the programme. There were few surprises, it's true — but what matter? Of fabulous singing, there was more than enough — and that's what it's all about, after all. Maybe I hunger occasionally for obscure baroque or endless Poulenc, but I'm still a pretty mainstream girl, and once in a while I think there's nothing better than the joyous familiarity of operatic greatest hits. Over-exposed they might be, but in most cases there's some kind of musical reason for their popularity, excessive or otherwise. So, no sneering from me; I was happy to abandon myself to an evening of easy-going gorgeousness.

The concert opened with — what else? — the William Tell overture, followed by a very charming turn by José Carbo, relishing the patter of Figaro's "Largo al factotum" while climbing a ladder and handing out flowers to women in the front row. Of course, the last time I saw José was back home in Dunedin, as Opera Otago's dashing Escamillo, and his "Votre toast" made an appearance  here too, to much adulation. Naturally we were never going to make it through the night without "Nessun dorma". There are ways to mitigate the overfamiliarity of the piece (not least of which is making even the vaguest acknowledgement of its actual context) but sadly none of these were paid the slightest heed, and we were treated instead to the pedestrian crossover stylings and jarringly forced climaxes of Rosario La Spina. Of course he received the loudest ovation of the night, but that's to be expected. His second appearance was no more impressive — Rodolfo's "Che gelida manina" and "O soave fanciulla" both likewise lacking in either musical or dramatic nuance. But the other tenor of the evening, Henry Choo, stood in stark contrast, with a sweet and lilting "Una furtiva lagrima".

On the female side of things, there was, incredibly, no "O mio babbino caro". But we did hear the other Puccini moment from A Room With A View, Magda's "Chi il bel sogno di Doretta" from La rondine. It was just one of numerous appearances by Russian soprano Elvira Fatykhova, who seemed at times to be singing half the gala single-handed. Her most impressive moment came in Violetta's "E strano...Ah, fors'e lui...Sempre libera", sung with insight and lyrical precision. She also blended beautiful with the Catherine Carby's warm, rounded sound in the duet from Lakmé — which strangely enough was ushered in without a mention of The Hunger. Carby returned later with a lush "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix", suitably seductive despite a slightly rushed tempo from the orchestra.

I'm left with just one more soprano to mention — my life's delight, Yvonne. With the theme for the concert in mind, as well as her typical concert repertoire, I had my own predictions about what she might sing. But her first aria hadn't even entered my mind — "Lascia ch'io pianga. As featured (I'd forgotten this) in Farinelli, only, of course, sung far more exquisitely. I thought my chance had passed to hear her sing Handel live and with orchestra, I thought I'd found her too late for that. Not quite, it seems. And that it should be this aria  — the first track on the first of her CDs I ever owned and thus the first aria I really heard her sing. Nine years have made a difference, as does a concert hall instead of a recording studio. There's more vibrato, the ornaments are simpler, the timbre has a bit more metal (but precious metal) to it. What nine years don't change is that she sings this aria, which everyone with even the most tenuous claim to the title of soprano has attempted, with a radiant beauty and an understanding of the Handelian idiom of which the pretenders could hardly conceive, let alone match. 

And yet there was better to come. Two magic words, words which I'd tried not to let myself hope too hard for, lest they never come. But come they did — Shawshank Redemption. Yes. "Sull'aria". For me it's one of the most extraordinary beautiful pieces of music in existence. And I have the Chandos English Figaro, so I've heard her sing it before, but this was different. Hearing it live, and in Italian — and watching her sing it, seeing, if only fleetingly, her Countess Almaviva come to magical life... again these were joys I thought I should always be deprived of.

Finally came the prediction I did have right, Rusalka's Song to the Moon. In English as always— I'd adore her to sing in Czech but have long since given up on that. Like the Handel it showed the changes in her voice over the last decade and a half. This wasn't the same Rusalka as on Simple Gifts or even the 1999 gala with Bryn Terfel. Her sound is a little heavier now, the high passages require slightly more, and different, effort. The result is richer and more exciting than ever. She filled that concert hall with shining sound in a way nobody else last night approached. I think back to something I said all that time ago, after her Hanna Glawari — that even with no prior knowledge of any of the singers on stage, you still could not fail to realise that she exists on an entirely different level of artistry. There's a quality she exudes, even in silence, which distinguishes her immediately. No matter how many times I come into the presence of the glory she creates, I never get used to her — she always takes my breath away, and she always will. The fireworks in the harbour afterwards were impressive, but nothing in that display was even a fraction as amazing as she is.

Idomeneo (Pinchgut Opera)

The set might be sparse and the costumes a little on the beige side, but all the same Pinchgut Opera's Idomeneo is bursting with vivid life and colour. Directors I suppose feel obliged to do all they can to shake up this kind of Mozart, the relatively conventional (at least on the face of it) operas without the opportunities for subversion which Figaro and Don Giovanni, for instance, offer up on a plate. But thankfully enough, Lindy Hume's production for Pinchgut resists idiosyncratic directorial weirdness — no severed heads here — and just goes to the human heart of the matter. She draws, for the most part, heartfelt and convincing portrayals from her soloists, identifying the key psychological crises at play here and thus creating an intimate, tangibly personal drama. Transporting this opera, full of references to Trojans and the like, to another time or place would be at best difficult to do convincingly, at worst disastrous and absurd; so for all intents and purposes, this Idomeneo takes place in its original setting. But this scene is set in such a neutral way that it is very definitely the emotional core of the play — a father's excruciatingly untenable situation — which takes centre stage.

Love, fear, rage, jealousy: strong feelings abound in Idomeneo from its very beginning, and as events progress they only intensify further. Driving this intensity is the opera's suprisingly powerful music. Mozart had of course written opera seria before this one, but the difference is immense between the relatively unswerving conventionality of, say, Mitridate and the inspired fire which shows itself in Idomeneo. The story may be not be as fascinating or characterful as those of the Da Ponte trilogy, but it does offer the opportunity for dark and dramatic music in a way those later comedies, Don Giovanni included, can't necessarily do — and it's an opportunity Mozart seizes with both hands. There is a thrill to be had in Mozart without jokes or comical misunderstandings: last night's only laugh was the result of a somewhat poorly considered surtitle; otherwise there's light and love to be found in Idomeneo but little in the way of levity.

None of this heavy-going gorgeousness comes together, of course, without the singers who can execute it, and Pinchgut has assembled an excellent and able cast. Mark Tucker is riveting in the title role, his earthy and commanding yet flexible tenor ideally suited to the role; his detailed acting is likewise compelling, striking just the right balance between kingly gravitas and unimaginable pain. As his son, Fiona Campbell looks convincingly manly, and indeed at times even sounds it: one could almost mistake her for a countertenor. But I found her a disappointingly mousy Idamante, both vocally and dramatically: her voice too insubstantial — though cleanly focused — and bearing too awkwardly hesitant to do the role justice. The fact that Idamante appears to have been inadvertently costumed as a member of Greenpeace also doesn't help. Martene Grimson's Ilia, on the other hand, is forceful and regal enough for the both of them. Though some (me, for instance) might wish for a richer and more rounded sound, she nevertheless sings with beauty of line and thrilling commitment. In her hands, Ilia is no mere sweet and pretty princess but a fiery and determined leader, the only person on stage who's truly in control.  Her "Se il padre perdei" is a revelation — no longer an expression of hard to believe forgiveness and generosity, but rather a command: you've robbed me of home and family — that makes me your responsibility, so do your duty. Such a statement is of course a particularly heavy burden to lay on the shoulders of a father already so utterly tormented by his paternal duties. Completing the quartet of principals is Penelope Mills' electrifying (if you'll pardon the pun) Elettra. Inappropriately resplendent in royal blue among a sea of earth-toned Cretans, Elettra is clearly the outsider — the frenetic power which drives her arias is fear and alienation rather than fury. Mills' singing combines slice and scariness with exquisite phrasing and irresistibly silky tone, and she makes an unusually sympathetic Elettra. Though her jealous rants might in theory seem superfluous to the story, Penelope's performance made certain that when Elettra was singing, it was she and nobody else at the centre of the drama. When she exited after her Act III aria I wished I could follow — her story seemed, at that point, rather more fascinating than the lieto fine about to roll itself out in Crete.

The opera's smaller roles are also admirably filled. Paul McMahon is a pleasant if not hugely memorable Arbace and Didier Frédéric a suitably booming Voice; but particular mention must be made of Brett Weymark's outstanding appearance as the High Priest, whichsucceeds in making a three-dimensional character from what could easily be a faceless cameo, and is so fantastically sung one wishes a larger role could have been found for him. With far more work to do than in other Mozart operas, the chorus here (Cantillation) responds marvellously, singing with precision and power. The Orchestra of the Antipodes is just as magnificent; from them and from his singers, Antony Walker draws a muscular, blazing and beautiful performance. Pinchgut Opera offered a money back guarantee to "opera virgins" unmoved by this Idomeneo; I daresay they could make the same promise to experienced operagoers and hardened fanatics and still have no takers. Absolutely a success.

P.S. This is my 500th post. Well done me!

Operatunity Oz / Rigoletto

Now, Operatunity Oz is something I ought to write more about than I'm actually going to: what it really deserved was to be blogged as it happened, but it's too late for that now. But the winner, bass David Parkin, was pretty easy to pick right from the beginning. My personal favourite among the six finalists, tenor (and surely one of the nicest people in the world) Roy Best, was a runner up; soprano Emily Burke was the other. I think the competition went exactly the way it ought to. Despite my incredibly conspicuous bias towards female voices (or perhaps because of it) none of the three sopranos to make the final impressed me hugely: none of them had that thing, whatever it is, that makes a girl like me smile and swoon and spend a million dollars on tickets. Roy did though, at least a little bit. David Parkin was always at an advantage on account of having such a rare voice - in an early audition, when conductor and panelist Richard Gill had him boom out a few lines of Magic Flute dialogue, it was clear he had serious promise. The voice, the look, the physical presence and the acting ability. There was also a wildcard among the six, John Roehrig, a plumber with an infectious love of singing but basically no musical training who, as appealing as he was, was ultimately more than anything else an advertisement for the necessity of a musical education. What the panel managed to do with him in the short time they had was incredible. Particularly amazing was the way in which the one and only Yvonne transformed his "E lucevan le stelle" — a testament perhaps more even to her own mindblowing to talent than to Roehrig's potential, but then I would say that. 

That's it in an entirely inadequate nutshell. But it's enough to lead up to the main thing I want to write about, which is Rigoletto. Being the Mozart-Handel-Strauss girl I am, I'm very good at neglecting the Italian repertoire. The Met broadcast with Anna Netrebko was the first time I'd heard Rigoletto from start to finish, and my trip to Rigoletto on October 24th was my first time seeing it live. And I mightn't have gone under normal circumstances — but this particular performance was the one which marked the culmination/prize of Operatunity. David Parkin, as the winner, sang Sparafucile; Roy and Emily, as runners-up, sang the Duke and Gilda respectively in Act Three. In the stalls, dozens of family members, a shouting and supportive audience and five beaming proud panelists  — Richard Gill, Yvonne of course, vocal coach par excellence Anna Connolly, the fabulously sharptongued director Elke Neidhardt, and soprano Antoinette Halloran (who, if she has the voice to match, must be Australia's answer to Anna Moffo.)

Because of the special nature of this Rigoletto I have to deal with in two halves. So. The Operatunity half first. David was absolutely a success. My cheap-as-they-come seat meant I couldn't see him during most of his first appearance but I could certainly hear him and there was no doubt he proved himself entirely worthy of his prize. You can't judge a singer in this situation by the usual standards, of course; you can't expect a world-class Sparafucile from someone who's never sung opera on stage in his life. But for what it was, it was pretty damn good. Roy's turn in Act Three was something I was particularly anticipating and he was wonderful, negotiating "La donna e mobile" with far more swagger than, just a few weeks earlier, anyone would ever have expected of him. Emily Burke's nerves were evident but in the end she basically pulled it off, and my sympathies were with her — Gilda's final act must be hard enough for any soprano, but to be obliged to do it without the psychological preparation of the rest of the opera must make it even more difficult.

And now to the rest of the cast. This far removed from the performance there's only so much I can remember. I know that Warwick Fyfe in the title role took some time to convince me but did eventually do so, especially once he started getting properly vengeful. Somehow I'd missed the fact that Dunedin's Own Jud Arthur was even in the cast — it wasn't until I'd spent a minute or so thinking, isn't this Monterone brilliant that I realised it was him, sounding just fantastic and looking quite terrifying. Singing Maddalena was the always wonderful Roxane Hislop, whose dark and (this is probably a strange word to choose but never mind) curvacious mezzo I absolutely love — and lord knows I've had plenty of chances to appreciate it, since she appeared in both Il signor Bruschino and Falstaff. But as the Duke, Rosario La Spina disappointed me even more than he did at the OA anniversary gala — the voice is undeniably attractive, but the further it's pushed (and he certainly does push it) the more he sounds to me like a Neapolitan street singer or a crossover star out of his element. I believe he was once a Ten Tenor. This doesn't surprise me at all. By the end of Act One I couldn't wait till the final act, when we'd get Roy instead and with him, a bit more grit and, to my tastes, a much more attractive timbre.

But what I'm working up to, in typically longwinded fashion, is, of course, a soprano. Natalie Jones. Number one candidate for my local diva. I saw Natalie as Musetta here last year, and she was excellent. All the same I was unprepared for the vocal splendour of her Gilda, strong and secure but still girlishly silvered, with a rainbow of colours at her disposal and a very respectable trill to boot. These days I feel like I've exhausted my standard soprano vocabulary somewhat — I'll need a good deal more Natalie before I can choose some words individually suited to her. Thankfully, with a little patient, this shan't be too difficult a task. Next year she's Morgana, Blonde, and Casilda in (sigh) The Gondoliers. Given that in the first two she's singing opposite Emma Matthews, I'm all for encouraging a Bordoni/Cuzzoni-style feud between the two. I know whose side I'd be cheering for in the ensuing catfight but, alas, I fear Opera Australia is unlikely to programme Bononcini any time soon. Never mind — there's a new Natalie in my musical life and she's brilliant.

Jenufa

Sydney Opera House, 21 October 2006.

In all my excitement over my first live Janacek opera  I didn't buy a programme or check the website and discover that it was going to be sung in English. In fact, finally visiting the website now I discover no mention of said translation and, what's more, this sentence "Janáček loved his native Czech language, and his music is infused with the rhythms of speech." Curiouser and curiouser.

Anyhow I suppose it's hardly the disaster of the century, and knowing certainly wouldn't have stopped me going, but it was a bit of a disappointment — there's something about an English translation, especially in an through-composed opera like this and especially in an opera so unfamiliar to me, which creates a distance which wouldn't otherwise be there. It just isn't the ideal way to meet an opera for the first time. I heard Falstaff  in English a number of times before hearing it in Italian and there's no doubt that the language absolutely shapes the musical experience. Though, of course, I still haven't heard La voix humaine in French. But I did learn it in French so in my mind it's a bilingual creature. Not unlike certain Mozart arias which I used to play on piano from a book with German texts only — to this day, if "Dove sono" is in my head, the opening recit runs something like "E Susanna non vien? Sono ansiosa. Wüsst' ich nur wie die Conte accolse la proposta. Kühn scheint es immer was ich heut' wagen will" and so on. But I've been spectacularly sidetracked.

Revenons à notre Jenufa. Cheryl Barker did some interesting things in the title role. Obviously she's a singer who thrives on drama rather than the chance to display vocal splendour — the more hideous Jenufa's life became, the more focused her performance became. Vocally she was fine though this was the last performance of the run and I think the strain was starting to show through in everyone's singing — it's a demanding piece. But in a sense the slightly threadbare quality to all the singing was appropriate, an aural match to the relentless misery and Eastern European starkness of it all. But naturally the show belonged to Elizabeth Whitehouse's powerhouse of a Kostelnicka, the source of most the show's genuinely beautiful sounds, and a superb vocal actress even if her stage presence was not always entirely persuasive. Heather Begg's Burya on the other hand sounded ready to keel over any moment but presumably this was intentional, like the ancient emperor or whoever he is in Turandot. As Laca, Peter Wedd threw his heart and soul and then some into it, singing with an incredible intensity which maybe made his voice sound rather more remarkable than it actually is — I mean this as praise, incidentally. Jamie Allen sang well also, though somewhat unmemorably, and made for an effete and rather repellent Steva of whom Jenufa was well rid and who resembled nothing so much as a blonde David Walliams. (Think Sebastian. And apologies if you've no idea what I'm talking about.) The production moves things up to I suppose the 1950s but that really makes very little difference to anything except allowing Karolka to look exceptionally blonde and soignée in the final act. Otherwise it's all pretty straightforward, and successfully harrowing. Again, not perhaps my ideal first Janacek-in-the-theatre experience: I yearned for a little more vocal lushness and I'd still rather hear it in Czech. But a satisfying one all the same.

Gala

Yes, I am here, alive and well and beginning to cope with my new, sunny and highly populated home. But no longer, for the time being at least, at leisure to labour for hours over a single post, so I shall have to settle for speed blogging.

The gala on Wednesday night was fantastic. For me, a little like attending three events at once though — an evening where Yvonne Kenny sang, an evening where I got to see Joan Sutherland in person and only after both of those things, a gala. From my side view seat I couldn't always hear all the singing perfectly, but when it mattered, I could — the singers really worth hearing by definition had the voices which carried backwards as well as forwards.

Yvonne sang "Vilja" from The Merry Widow, as I suspected she might, but in the translation she sang in San Francisco in 2002, not the (execrable) one which Opera Australia used in 2004. (I have a mild obsession with Merry Widow translations. Ignore me.) Also we had the final ensemble from Falstaff, including that magnificent high C of hers which I so adore. She was heartstoppingly beautiful, of course. She always is. Funny that. And seeing her so soon after my arrival is the best welcome to my new home I could have asked for.

Other vocal highlights (though still necessarily well and truly in her shadow) — Henry Choo's contribution to the Act I ensemble from Die Zauberflöte, Elizabeth Connell's transcendant Liebestod, Lisa Gasteen's "Dich teure Halle" and the gorgeous Fiona Janes, who really ought to have been given a solo number instead of just the L'italiana in Algieri ensemble she formed part of. Glenn Winslade disappointed, however, in "Fuor del mar" with haphazard coloratura and audible strain, and Rosario La Spina, who I assumed would be fantastic, was, well, not particularly — but perhaps that was just from where I was sitting. His "La donna è mobile" seemed underpowered and discoloured, but earned him rapturous applause, so what do I know?

And Joanie. The second she, with the rest of the offical party (though no Bonynge) entered the theatre I was in tears. What a privilege to be in her presence. At the end of the listed items came the birthday surprises, streamers and sparkles and bright lights — and, in pitch black, a few minutes of the woman herself, spectacular in Sonnambula. Absolutely glorious. Vive la reine.

Carmen

When the University of Otago announced it would stage Carmen this year, I admit I grumbled. A million operas in the world, a good dozen or so of them Top of the Pops enough to bring in a big audience, even in Dunedin, and they'd gone and chosen the one I felt least like seeing. I am, after all, one of only two people I know who would, if pushed, name Djamileh their favourite Bizet opera. Carmen has never really gripped me, musically or dramatically, and its excess of overexposed hit tunes doesn't help. But between then and now I've recovered somewhat. The opera has improved in my opinion (though I still like Djamileh better), I've come to enjoy the hits again, and the prospect of seeing in on stage has grown ever more appealing. Besides which, complaining about the choice of opera in a city which sees so little is just plain ill-mannered.

So by opening night last Thursday I was, if not exactly trembling with anticipation, definitely feeling positive at the thought of what lay ahead. My complaints were more or less forgotten — and after, say, two or three bars of overture, they'd evaporated completely. What was I thinking? Who could complain about this? There's far too much to be blissfully happy about.

Believe it or not, when I went on Thursday, my ticket for that performance was the only one I had. Two or three bars of overture and it was already obvious that one was not going to be enough. You know what a vocal fanatic (and then some) I am but I didn't need a single soprano to know this was going to be a brilliant evening and one I'd want to repeat — and that's testament to the appeal of the music itself, but even more so to the way it was being played, to the exceedingly talented conductor Tecwyn Evans and the excellent playing he drew from the Southern Sinfonia. So I was hooked in even before the curtain rose — and then it did rise and everything just got even better. Just Neil Irish's set made me smile, a pretty straightforward town square but immediately atmospheric. The soldiers' chorus, Moralès, solid singing in both cases.

And then, one of those flashes of magic which remind me why I'm so in love with this art form. Micaëla, in the shape of Rebecca Ryan. Adorable even before she sang and exquisite from the moment she did. She's a revelation to me, a name which, unbelievably, I'd never heard before this Carmen and a voice which made me an instant fan. Sometimes, it's true, the thrill of a performance can make me love anyone's opening phrases, only to find myself rather less enchanted as the night progresses. Not so Rebecca — every bar she sang just delighted me further. Her "Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante" was radiant,  transcending both a wayward horn solo and the seagull-sized clumps of fake snow descending from above — not to mention time itself.  Wonderful how fate works out: Rebecca was originally cast as Frasquita, with Anna Leese to sing Micaëla. But Anna was released from her contract so as to début at Covent Garden (where I believe she's to sing Micaëla next year) and Rebecca was promoted — an inspired move, as Micaëla, and not Frasquita, is clearly where she should be in this opera. Even as Micaëla she doesn't really have enough to sing. I'd happily have given her the whole opera.

I'm afraid I can't afford such besotted or wholehearted praise to Deborah Wai Kapohe in the title role. I wish I could, for mostly personal reasons: though I've had an unpredictable relationship with her voice of late, it was nevertheless among the first operatic voices I experience and fell for in person, and I was convinced Carmen would prove a perfect fit for her. I was both right and wrong. Unquestionably she looks and acts the part divinely, all swaying hips and dangerous beauty. She's a seductress whose bark is worse than her bite. For all her provocative defiance in the face of men too overcome by her to pose a threat, once they take the bait her power wanes. Don José's jealous violence quickly tears down her fearless façade, and by the time she's Escamillo's soignée companion she's barely recognisable. This is a powerful performance but, alas, it's one without the vocals to match. And yet it's not quite as straightforward as all that. I can't exactly call it a poorly sung Carmen. Rather I'm going to make what will probably seem a bizarre criticism: her Carmen is too authentic. What I mean is this. For all the local flavour Bizet incorporated into his score, Carmen remains, when all is said and done, French opera. Now of course Carmen should sound convincingly Gypsy but, speaking for myself, I think she should also sound like an opera singer. Deborah makes all manner of attractive enough sounds but only some actually sound like opera. Elsewhere, the lower the tessitura goes, the greater her tendency simply to belt it out. I've heard Deborah in her other musical persona, as a folk singer-songwriter, and I struggle to hear any significant difference between her style in that genre and her approach to much of Carmen's music. Gypsy touches in the singing are all well and good but this isn't a case of varied vocal colour, it's actually a separate voice, and the break between that and her higher (and lovely!) "opera" voice is quite noticeable. Theatrically I suppose it's all still very effective, and she's almost always very listenable, but it's nevertheless a jarring musical experience for me, a PorgyandBessified Carmen when what I wanted was the real thing.

Towering over Carmen both physically and vocally is Dwayne Jones' superlative Don José. Apparently this is the new unwritten rule of opera in Dunedin: import a young, bald Australian singer with an insanely good voice. For Opera Otago's Falstaff it was Derek Welton and Carmen has Dwayne to fit the bill. No allowances for acoustics necessary here, he just soars regardless. His is the most free, open and gorgeous sound, hugely powerful but without ever blasting or shouting. Please don't think me unjust if I don't devote as much space to him as the sopranos, you know how I am. But this is an incredible talent, the kind of tenor sound that girls who like that kind of thing go quite mad for. And despite the gorgeous voice, he's quite unsettlingly good at bringing out Don José's scary, violent side too — his assault and murder of Carmen, staged starkly and graphically, is heavy going stuff, his initimidating physical presence matched by his singing.

Whereas the other man in the piece is just irresistible. José Carbo's Escamillo, with his infectious smile and suave, easy manner, is so engaging and so effortlessly charming that, despite all the adulation he so happily soaks up, he never seems arrogant — just justifiably self-confident. Nobody could help but like him; the fascination he exercises for both the men and the women is easy to understand. He sings with equal style and grace. I think he's just absolutely wonderful. And just how often have you seen me go into starry-eyed italics over a baritone? Exactly.

Though it's quite possible I have done just that in the past over Roger Wilson, who sings Le Dancaïre here. I've been a fan of Roger's for I don't know how long, but at least since December 2003 when his mellifluous voice and ability to actually pronounce French like French made him the highlight of a concert of the complete choral works of Berlioz. Both those distinguishing features are at work for him here, alongside his gift for comedy. He's aided and abetted by a hilarious Brendon Mercer as Le Remendado — honestly the two of them ought to go into business as a double act. Richard Green also makes his mark as the outrageously lecherous Zuniga. Green underwhelmed me somewhat as the Commendatore last year but here he's much more interesting.

Completing the cast are Carmen's two fellow female smugglers. Mercédès is the excellent Sarah McOnie. She doesn't exactly get much to sing, but what we did get to hear sounded very good indeed — I hope one day to have a chance to hear her in something rather more substantial. Likewise Frasquita. Perhaps I'm cursed always to long for more, more, more from the Frasquita of the piece. If Rebecca Ryan had sung it, that would certainly have been the case; and Elisa Wilson, another Australian import, is also a tantalising presence.

Annilese Miskimmon's production sets the action in the Spanish Civil War, creating an interesting juxtaposition of familiar elements with the unexpected — Carmen in grey with pillbox hat and sunglasses, the smugglers as members of the resistance. It's a smart, stylish update, one which creates a new and interesting context but without being so intrusive as to obscure or detract from the piece. Dunedin, incidentally, makes the small world even smaller — when I was in London for Fedora by the opera company of my heart, Opera Holland Park, they were also doing a Così directed by Annilese Miskimmon.

Tonight was the second performance I've seen. I'll also be there on Wednesday for the final one, when the only complain I'll have left is that it is the final one. Plain old gratitude only goes so far. It's not that which makes me so happy about this Carmen, but rather a love of opera — any opera — performed beautifully. And I'll very interested to see what the University chooses for its next production.

The Merry Widow at Opera Holland Park

I spent my last night in London at Opera Holland Park for The Merry Widow. Going was a spur of the moment decision, and I was lucky to get a ticket. In more ways than one, it was a perfect finish to my stay – an evening at the venue which was the centre of, and reason for, the whole trip, seeing the opera which started it all: it was, after all, The Merry Widow which brought me to Yvonne in the first place.

That last point's not an insignificant one. For as long as I've had any sense of this operetta, Yvonne has been my only Hanna Glawari. Not just in a spiritual sense, but literally. All the music — not just Hanna's – immediately says Yvonne to me, before it says anything else. There's a whole tangled web of emotional associations at work, more so even than I realised: until the overture began and I more or less burst into tears. So I really wasn't sure how I was going to cope with a new Hanna, how to deal with the comparison. Well, problem solved. Rebecca Caine's Hanna was about as far from Yvonne's in every respect as it could possibly have been. Two brilliant, beautiful Hannas, but worlds apart. Just as their respective musical backgrounds would suggest, Yvonne's Hanna is operatic in every sense, Rebecca's Hanna in every sense a creature of musical theatre. She didn't suffer by comparison, simply because there was no sensible comparison to be made.

The production is brilliant, a high camp roaring-Twenties update which works splendidly. The Act II folk dance which preceded Vilja has been, in a stroke of genius, transformed into something by Busby Berkeley, full of bathing beauties and anyone-for-tennis choreography. Operetta is supposed to be funny but that doesn't mean it necessarily is — but in this instance it's hilarious, one of the funniest shows (of any kind) I've seen in a long time. That's thanks not only to excellent direction but to a cast of talented actors whose delivery of the dialogue is spot-on. Rebecca Caine captured the essence of Hanna and of the era charmingly, partnered by the not quite so convincing but nevertheless likeable Danilo of Philip Salmon. But even better, in my view, was Charlotte Page's Valencienne, whose comic timing and outrageous French accent were both impeccable. Oliver White, too, made a nicely over-the-top and flouncing Njegus. As for vocal thrills, well, there weren't so many. Chacun à son goût, of course – for me, as a purely aural experience, I prefer my operetta a little more operatic. In fact for me the vocal highlight of this show came in Valencienne's Act III turn as a grisette, where Charlotte Page threw off all vestiges of operetta singing and turned sultry cabaret singer, just about stealing the show in the process. Otherwise the singing here was fine, mostly, but not overwhelmingly excellent and certainly in no case the most interesting thing about anybody's performance. But it mattered not a jot. This was some of the best fun I've had at a theatre for who knows how long, a tight, witty and hugely enjoyable Merry Widow. I wish I could have stayed to see it again and again. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's the kind of Merry Widow production which Yvonne, both of whose were a little on the heavy-handed side, deserved. Now how's that for high praise?

Mostly Mozart

(Rather than one impossibly long post, I'm splitting my London adventures into a series of slightly less impossibly long posts. Here's the first, more to come once I've slept.)

Così fan tutte

Without really thinking about it I ended up booked for three Mozart operas in three weeks, which was a rather pleasant sort of accident. First up was Cosi fan tutte at Sadler's Wells, presented by the Classical Opera Company. One of those productions - you know the sort of thing - where one sees all the stage at once, the parts usually on display and the parts usually not. Which no doubt makes some point about the theatricality of life and deception in romance and The Masks We Wear or something but in the end I think it was neither here or there: the people singing were on a proper stage in the middle of it all so one's attention was naturally drawn there anyway. Excellent singing from a clutch of important young artists. The important thing, as far as we're concerned down at this end of the world, is of course Anna Leese's Fiordiligi which I'm happy to report was a gorgeous performance. I heard a yet better one from her the following week (on which more in a moment) but still, this was fantastic. I daresay it will get even better in the course of the glittering career Anna indisputably has ahead of her. (Actually it's already pretty glittering, what with the Proms next month and Covent Garden in the offing.) Perhaps objectivity is mingled here with hometown bias but still I do think that, had Anna been entirely new to me, I'd be just as enamoured of her voice as I presently am. Though I've liked her a lot ever since I first heard her (a one-note solo in a Tower NZ Youth Choir performance), this Fiordiligi was the first time I've really sat up and thought oh my. The rest of the cast was likewise excellent though none quite to striking to my ears as Anna. Jacques Imbrailo's Guglielmo was a particular pleasure, however, and Rebecca Bottone something of a scene-stealer as Despina. As far as the comedy went I thought the women made a slightly better show of it than the men, particularly the sisters' ability to collapse on cue. One final touch: the show opened with snippets of "In Napoli" and "That's Amore" before moving into the overture as a waiter swept up the café which was to provide the stage.  Maybe not to everybody's tastes but it made me smile.

Il re pastore

The Classical Opera Company again, but this time at the Barbican as part of their Mostly Mozart festival. Now this is not exactly the world's most riveting opera. But it is nice to hear Mozart which, while familiar in that it's Mozart, isn't actually something I knew at all, apart from the big hit in Act II. I can't claim to have been overjoyed with all of the performances: Martene Grimson as Aminta was pleasant enough but a little monochromatic after a while, and in her more treacherously acrobatic passages, not as commanding as a king (even a shepherd king) ought to be. Rebecca Bottone was the lilting love interest Elisa, sounding very pretty indeed. Andrew Staples, who was Ferrando in Così, appeared here as Alessandro. He's a wonderful singer but I liked him far better in that than in Il re pastore, and I had the impression he was rather happier there too. Mark Le Brocq's Agenore was on rather steadier ground, if at times somewhat on the rigid side. But shining brighter than all of them combined was Anna Leese's Tamiri. Gorgeous as her Fiordiligi was, this was the performance which had me signing up for the fan club. I'd have been happy to praise her purely out of loyalty but it makes me even happier not to need to. Rather, I sat there in my restricted (ie side on) view seat cursing all involved in the opera's creation for relegating Tamiri to a secondary role, thinking reprehensible thoughts like: let's give her all of Elisa's arias and perhaps Aminta's too for good measure. This sort of voice makes such thoughts entirely pardonable: luxurious, goldenly glowing, dangerously delectable; never ever a boring beauty but rich with characterful colour and personality. Not merely a lovely sound but also by far the most interesting one to be heard on stage that night.

Don Giovanni

Yet another night at the Barbican (not that repeated attendance makes it any easier to find one's way around) for my favourite Mozart opera, performed by the starriest cast I've ever shared air with. A few days earlier I'd received an email informing me that Dietrich Henschel, the originally cast Don Giovanni, had been obliged to withdraw - but that that they were "delighted to announce" that Ildebrando d'Arcangelo would take his place. Well, I was delighted too. Dietrich Henschel is no doubt a fine Giovanni but it's not a name which carries any great resonance for me. Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, on the other hand, I know and like. Quite a lot. Add to that my schoolgirl style excitement at the prospect of Patrizia Ciofi and the presence of several other promisingly familiar names: Lorenzo Regazzo, Alexandrina Pendatchanska and Evelino Pido conducting and, well... I was very, very happy. And rightly so. Though once again in the cheap seats, a million miles from the stage, I was in bliss. With the opening chord, Evelino Pido and Concerto Köln wrapped me tightly around their collective little fingers and that was that. I could have left before Leporello even arrived on stage and been utterly contented. But then, the singing wasn't bad either. Ildebrando did not disappoint. He was a perilously likeable and wickedly funny Giovanni, so plainly unashamed of his bad behaviour that it was difficult to judge it as such. Maybe I could have wished to be slightly closer, or for his singing to have carried slightly more bite to it, but then maybe not. In any case, Lorenzo Ragazzo's sure-footed Leporello was an ideal foil, singing with such style and spirit one almost wondered at times just who was in charge. E la mia Patrizia? Bellissima in her scarlet dress, her Donna Anna an extraordinary experience. She's mesmerising, that voice so soft and pretty, but startingly intense, precise and penetrating. Quite inescapable, I fear. She was, if not matched, at least ably supported by Francesco Meli's touching and surprisingly passionate Ottavio. Alexandrina Pendachantska's powerhouse of an Elvira was a stark contrast to Patrizia's Anna, powerful, vengeful and a little larger than life, teetering on the edge of melodrama and yet so sincere as never quite to become laughable. Alessangro Luongo was a fine, if not hugely individual Masetto. Which leaves only Zerlina, the magnificent Anna Bonitatibus. I've always found Zerlina a singularly tiresome and unlikeable character and by association have never been too wild about her music either, except quite out of context and in the most exquisite of hands. Mostly her arias - and even "La ci darem la mano" - have tended to drag for me, as I wait for one of the real women, for Elvira or Anna, to return. But as I mentioned the other day: evidently nobody informed Anna Bonitatibus of any of this, and thus with her very first note I immediately fell quite madly in love, not just with her voice but, yes, with her Zerlina. For the first time in my life, I missed Zerlina when she wasn't on stage, waited impatiently for her return, wished that by some miracle the rarely performed Zerlina-Leporello duet would be included just so I could hear her sing some more. Finally I could understand the appeal of her, the temptations on offer in her two arias, Masetto's inability to stay angry. Nobody could withstand such a Zerlina: least of all me. I'm a fan.

Fedora at Opera Holland Park

Alright. Time, at long last, to write a word or two about Fedora. Time flies, it seems, when you're having such melodramatic and espionage-filled fun. Can't believe I've seen two already, and I'm more than a little distressed to think there's only one left.

Of the music I'm not entirely sure what to say. It's grand, ever-changing, Puccini-esque though without all of that composer's detailed dramatic sense. No arias, exactly, but plenty of thrilling moments. All of it is very verismo and let's be honest, that's never been my musical home. But oh, it's wonderful fun all the same. For me it feels like a fabulous chance to revel in the gifts that opera - any opera - sends us. Music, drama, high emotion, pretty frocks, Byzantine crosses, phantom nihilists and fantastic singing. Especially the last item. Maybe the twisting, turning, letter-writing plot can't be taken entirely seriously but the performers...oh my, they certainly can. Australian tenor Aldo di Toro has had all the reviewers raving, and justifiably so; soprano Natasha Marsh who sings the Countess Olga is definitely another name to watch - and that's only the beginning. In fact, that it's really quite easy to forget that you're supposed to think it's a second (or third) rate opera. Because when you're sitting in such a lovely theatre, watching such thrilling and engaged performances and hearing such glorious singing, well, that's just heaven isn't it, regardless of the opera.

Heaven. And so, of course, an angel in residence. Yvonne Kenny is a magnetic, fiery Fedora, miraculously combining grand gestures and regal bearing with an engaging vulnerability, so that while always very much a royal presence, she's also beautifully sympathetic throughout all Fedora's (many) trials and tribulations. Funny how things work out: this whole experience has been, on a number of levels, so very unexpected. On the flight from Hong Kong to London, with not a single decent movie on offer, I listened instead to Offenbach's Robinson Crusoe. Surely nobody in their right mind would hear Yvonne's Edwige there, so sparkling and so sweet, and predict, of all things, Fedora for her future. But along it's come all the same, out of the blue and thank god it did. And in fact I think that those things which seem to make her a less than obvious Fedora are exactly what make her such a success in the role. The core of her career has been the three composers who are the core of my musical life too, Handel, Mozart and Strauss. So that while she mightn't be the red-blooded, Italianate Diva with a capital D which the genre perhaps more regularly expects, she instead brings to the role the exquisite refinement and aristocratic lyricism of a Marschallin or a Countess Almaviva. And I doubt it's every Marie Therese who could pull off the part but this one definitely can - and then some. Thrilling enough on Wednesday, the first peformance I saw, on Friday she surpassed herself to give what was among the most brilliant and beautiful vocal performances I think I've ever heard from her, be it live or recorded. And beautiful is an important word here. Having a lyric soprano in a role like this is a wonderful thing, especially for someone like me and having my favourite soprano there is even better: she offers intense, dramatic singing but never bereft of that delicate silver sheen I adore so much. For my own tastes there's simply no better way to hear this sort of music. Obviously I'm beyond biased, but I don't think you'd need to be mad like me to appreciate how extraordinary this woman is: however unpredictable the repertoire, intelligence, commitment and devastating beauty are without fail guaranteed.

Fedora

Fedora might call itself verismo but what it plays like to me, more than anything else, is a 1930s MGM period drama. Clearly a Greta Garbo vehicle, with Robert Taylor as her leading man (not John Gilbert, whom I can't abide) and Maureen O'Sullivan, the capricious Countess Olga. Not that I've seen the opera yet, or even heard it, but I've read it. I decided from the start to let myself be surprised by the music but it seemed like a good idea to come to grips with the text: after all, with a soprano as lovely and as compelling as Greta herself onstage, can I really be expected to bother looking at surtitles? Course not. And being the dedicated kind of lunatic I am, I've ended up by memorising the thing, more or less.

Poor Fedora. All the synopses sell her as merely a vengeful Russian princess, but it's a rash and passionate kind of vengeance, not something cold and calculated. Though she does manage quite deftly to tempt her fiancé's murderer into her web, her true talent (and weakness) is falling desperately in love. First she loves an utter creep, the perfidious Vladimiro; then somebody (theoretically) worthy, the man who killed him, Loris Ipanoff. Both Act I and Act III begin with Fedora passionately in love and declaring it left, right and centre. Repeatedly she affirms her belief in Vladimiro's fidelity: "O grandi occhi lucenti di fede" she says, looking at his photograph, and in the same speech, "Ascolto qui gli appelli del labbro suo fedel". What's devastating is not just that she's mistaken but that, as we'll discover, he's at that moment in the act of being unfaithful. She's waiting for him, praising him to high heaven, and he doesn't deserve a word of it. Before he arrives home, she turns accidentally prophetic, declaring that she feels a new life beginning for her here in this room. She sees marital bliss — but within minutes her fiancé is brought home, mortally wounded. He dies, and a new life really has begun for Fedora. Filled with angry, vengeful love for Vladimiro, she pursues his killer. And then she falls in love with him, and he with her — and with Loris, she actually finds all the things she thought she had with Vladimiro. He is faithful, he does adore her. But Act I started with outpourings of love and ended in death and so does Act III: but this time it's Fedora, not her man, who dies.

In between there's the mandatory operatic Parisian party. This one even comes with a Chopin clone, his nephew supposedly: who turns out to be a spy. Along with the party comes the tiresomely capricious Countess Olga. Did I mention she was capricious? She's also capricious. And capricious. And eager to remind her admirers of that fact whenever the occasion arises. Later, having established that she's actually rather capricious and, in the third act, that nature irritates her, she sings about a bicycle. As one does. It's some kind of metaphor: when she's done, Loris suggests she find a tandem. But anyway.

Fedora starts out the charming hostess with the mostess but soon directs all her attentions and best interrogation methods towards Loris, drawing out a confession to piano accompaniment. Foolishly enough, she's managed to more or less fall in love with him before discovering that the murder was a nice, justifiable crime of passion — and not, as she originally thinks, some kind of nihilist plot. One might understand if, having discovered her fiancé was such a nasty piece of work, she might feel inclined to like his killer: but, though she's still willing to take her revenge upon him before knowing the whole truth, her feelings for him are already pretty well established. "Non l'odio quanto dovrei", she tells De Siriex: I don't hate him as much as I ought. That fact becomes ever more obvious. Unfortunately her timing and decision-making skills are somewhat, well, lacking: and so by the time she has her full confession, realises that she loves him to bits and doesn't want him to die, a letter (one of many) has been sent to Russia and a trap has already been set at her orders . No choice but to keep him with her all night. Loris turns momentarily into Shirley Jones — "People will say we're in love" — but does as she asks, and stays.

Act I was St. Petersburg, Act II Paris and now for Act III, the Swiss Alps, and domestic bliss aplenty. Oh Fedora, have you learned nothing from Violetta or Manon? It's like watching a horror movie and wondering why the blonde doesn't hear the spooky music and think, perhaps I shouldn't go down there. It's opera and there's no way this will end happily. It doesn't, of course: and it's a nastily speedy downwards spiral. After just a moment or two of rather unbearably sweet coupledom ("Ancora?" exclaims Olga, discovering the two of them locked in embrace. "Sempre!" they reply in unison) De Siriex pays a visit while Loris goes to the post office — the news his letters bring is also the purpose of De Siriex' visit. In a suitably complex chain of revenge and letter-writing, Fedora has managed indirectly to bring about the deaths of Loris' brother and sainted mother. De Siriex sets off on a bicycle race with Olga (how capricious of her!) and Fedora is left to deal with Loris, who returns home bounding with happiness but is soon a tearful mess. Now Loris is the one who craves vengeance, and it is Fedora who has a confession to make. But the forgiveness she so readily gave him is not so easily obtained this time. Before Loris has even realised that the mysterious Russian woman responsible for all this trouble is Fedora herself, she begs and begs on "her" behalf for his pity. Like Lois Lane, he's blind to the obvious, as she puts a supposedly hypothetical situation in front of him: perhaps she's not a spy. Perhaps she just loved Vladimiro. You could understand why she'd act this way, no?

No. He works it out eventually and she's forced to find his forgiveness (and her own) the only way left: she poisons herself. She told her party guests in Act II that inside the cross she wears, she kept a medicine which could heal any sickness. This is the sickness, and so she drinks the cure.  She dies forgiven, and loved, but nevertheless she dies. Fedora blames herself for everything, which helps her find happiness in death as it approaches — "L'amore è ingiusto, buona è la morte" — but she shouldn't. If anyone's to blame it's the awful Vladimiro; and neither should Loris get off scot-free. He makes a point of telling Fedora how little remorse he feels for killing Vladimiro. She, on the other hand, tries once to kill him and then goes out of her way to save him; and when she feels responsible for the deaths of his mother and brother, punishes herself. Vengeful princess, yes: but that's far from all that she is.

It's all rather melodramatic, yes, and rather silly at times. Fedora's effusions over Vladimiro in Act I are rivalled in laughable floridity only by Loris in Act III, when he manages to call her a flower six times in seven lines. But at the same time there is a genuine and earthbound tragedy to her. Like Violetta, though constantly surrounded by friends and suitors, she seems always alone somehow; and though she loves, and loves deeply, only rarely and briefly is she allowed to enjoy that love before it's ruined for her.

If my trip to Fedora weren't the mad act of divadienst it is, I doubt I'd have gone to the effort of thinking so much about all of this. And even if I had, chances are I wouldn't feel nearly so obliged to be on Fedora's side. But it's just like when I watch a Greta Garbo film: whatever she does, however badly or foolishly her character behaves, it's Greta Garbo and thus, by definition, she's always in the right and her leading men are always unworthy. So, because I have cause to love this particular Fedora, I'm biased in favour of Fedora generally. Love of a soprano isn't just fun and decadance, I suppose: it can be educational too. A couple of months ago I'd never have foreseen writing the thousands of words I have here about a verismo heroine and yet, here I am. And all of this, as I say, before I've heard even a note of the music. When that does happen, it will change everything, I'm sure. Best to have got this out of the way now: you know how verbose La voix humaine made me, so think of this as a pre-emptive strike.

Just a week and two days and I'll be there at Holland Park for my very first Fedora. Opera Holland Park's first Fedora, however, is in just a couple of days, and I'll be there too, in spirit. With such a sublime leading lady, it cannot be anything but a triumph.

Falstaff

You know, I was happy enough with just the bare fact of a Salieri opera happening in Dunedin. This a city where even the operas of Mozart are rarities. The Australasian premiere of a genuine rarity: ma foi, I doubt it would ever have occured to me even to dream of such a treat.  Yet here it is and, lo and behold, it's a triumph.

Opera Otago has assembled for its Falstaff a line-up of accomplished singers who shine both individually and in ensemble. If there exists occasionally a tendency for singers to project in a manner more akin to musical theatre than opera, it's understandable given the tiny theatre, the (translated) English libretto and many cast members' relative lack of operatic experience - not to mention opening night nerves. In any case it's far from a major issue: Salieri's music simply doesn't afford many opportunities for anything other than an operatic approach, and those singers who do fall into the trap never remain there for more than a moment or two.

A few weeks ago I described the women in this Falstaff as more or less my fantasy cast for any opera produced in Dunedin. I'm both gratified and proud to report that they are, indeed, the stuff of dreams - and very sweet dreams at that; and while I don't tend to dream too frequently of tenors and baritones, the male cast members here match in almost every instance the splendour of their female counterparts.

Rising Australian baritone Derek Welton is majestic in the title role. It's difficult to imagine a voice better suited to the part: opulent, authorative tone, liquid legato, impressive agility and near-flawless English diction combining to create a memorable performance. Director Jacqueline Coates' 1930s update has removed some of the character's broad Shakespearean colour, re-casting Sir John as a small town swindler, but Welton indulges all the same in some brilliant buffoonery, his mellifluous yet subtly gravelly vocalism a perfect match for his shabbily lascivious Falstaff. It's hard to believe (though not surprising given the rarity of the opera) that this production marks his début in the rôle, or that Welton is just twenty-three years old. He's a natural stage animal in remarkable command of his material who deserves a shining future: a future which I've little doubt will sooner or later include Verdi's fat knight.

Mistress Ford is sung with verve and polish by soprano Fiona Henry. Her Alice is not so much scheming noblewoman as blithe coquette, a young wife who, were her suitor less repulsive, might just justify her husband's suspicions. She's a vivid soubrette in a role where one might expect a slightly creamier lyric voice, but given that youthful characterisation, she's well cast. The caution audible in some of Mistress Ford's more challenging moments is unnecessary: this is brilliant, characterful singing which needn't shy away from anything.

Her co-conspirator, Claire Barton's Mistress Slender, is in every way an ideal foil, sung with rich, rounded tone and impeccable comic timing. Though both women are given a solo aria or two, their loveliest and most interesting music comes in duet, and vocally the pair is a perfect match. The two voices blend to truly heavenly effect, and their rapport with one another is obvious. Thankfully Mistress Slender has a rather meatier role than Meg Page, her Verdian equivalent, and Claire takes full advantage.

The two husbands, Ford and Slender, are sung by Derek Hill and Matthew Landreth respectively. It's another effective pairing, Hill's forceful, if sometimes forced, tenor forming a sharp contrast to Matthew's gentle and soft-grained baritone. Ford here is slightly reminiscent of a Handelian heroine, vacillating in his arias between florid devotion and jealous madness; his music, too, reflects his over-the-top emotional state, gently mocking the opera seria idiom. After a rather shaky opening night, Hill was in noticeably better form for the second performance. Even better is Matthew Landreth as Mr Slender, a true gentleman and patient voice of reason. Salieri has given him cruelly little to sing, but what there is he handles with poise and elegance, giving what is surely one of his best performances to date.

Asthe Fords' maid Betty - a role invented by the librettist - Alethea Chittenden is at times in danger of stealing the show. An experienced performer, whose diverse musical credits range from Bach to Anthony Ritchie by way of Sondheim and Die Fledermaus, she's dramatically the strongest presence on stage, personable and winningly high-spirited. It's a convincing and vocally gorgeous performance; but she's a chambermaid whose silken, subtly mature timbre and nobility of both phrasing and bearing are more suggestive of Contessa Almaviva than any kind of servant. It's not the largest voice but it's exquisitely shaped, rose-hued and graceful.

Bruce McMillan fills the piece's other servant rôle as Falstaff's long-suffering batman Bardolfo. It's not the most idiomatic or even the most operatic performance, hovering instead between Gilbert and Sullivan and Henry Higgins-style sprechstimme. It's a rather incongruous approach, and I'd have preferred a properly operatic treatment; but as your standard comic valet, all winking asides and cheeky grins, he's effective enough, and a crowd pleaser. Rounding out the cast are Nicole Evans and Karl Reid as Mr and Mrs Swallow, characters apparently invented for this production in order to swell the ensembles. Their unexplained and textually unacknowledge presence on stage is thus slightly odd, but vocally it's a joy to hear from them, even if very very briefly.

Unusually for me, I wrote a few notes for this review. One of them read, simply "HOLLY!!!". It's hardly the most eloquent or insightful thing one can say about a conductor, but it's a reflection of the inspired and brilliant work of Holly Mathieson. With sensitivity and precision, she gives a cohesive, flowing and thrillingly nuanced reading of the score, making it difficult to believe that she hasn't been absorbing this style for decades. The Southern Sinfonia has rarely sounded better, the colourful, effervescent orchestration unfolding with style and surprising beauty, partnering the singers perfectly and never once overpowering them. It's only a shame that the overture in this production plays with the curtain up and the Act I party already in progress: this orchestra and its extraordinary maestra need no aids to excitement.

There's a great deal more to be said: about the production, about the English translation, about the opera itself. It's all brewing: I've already written more than enough for one night, and I still have three performances left to attend. Leave it at this for now: Opera Otago's Falstaff is just the delicious treat I hoped for, and more besides. My congratulations and gratitude to all involved: you've achieved something rather special.

Falstaff

Opera Australia's production of Verdi's Falstaff is a visual match to the music: at once exquisitely beautiful and bursting with warts-and-all human vitality. The scenes are colour-coded: the Garter Inn drenched in deep reds and scarlets, the market resplendently green, Alice's kitchen in luminous creams and soft yellows. Thus Falstaff writes the women's matching notes on red paper; when, in the following scene, they compare and then tear up their notes (in rhythm to "quell'otre, quel tino") the paper has turned green. With gorgeous period costumes and detailed sets, the effect is of a Dutch Master brought to life: not flat and tableau-like, but living, breathing art. The final scene, the antler-sporting Falstaff's humiliation in the forest, deserves particular mention too: with snow falling from the sky and steam rising up from the ground, it's difficult not to be just as fooled as Falstaff is by the apparition of Nannetta and her luminous "fairies" (a chorus of women who ought to be congratulated for singing and acting while moving about on their knees) - the atmosphere so genuinely magical that one could be forgiven for forgetting it's all a joke.

English bass Stephen Richardson, in his role debut, meets the role's dramatic and vocal requirements admirably. It's a taxing part and by closing night he was showing signs of fatigue, but only to a very slight and entirely understandable degree. Though a bass, the high end of Falstaff's tessitura appeared to present no serious problems, his singing throughout steady and pleasingly resonant, with just the right flavour of amiable gravity one looks for in a Falstaff. The same characteristic informed his acting, too, and he was a knight so cheerful and enthusiastic in his lechery and bad behaviour that he was impossible to dislike - and at times almost boyishly appealing.

Yvonne Kenny's Alice Ford is a masterpiece of elegance, charisma and vocal flair. The sound of her voice at this point is suited perfectly to Alice: full, bright and forthright, with just enough slice to dominate the ensembles to a fitting degree and more than enough lyric loveliness to float Alice's solo passages perfectly. The starlit darkness which maturity has brought to her lower register lends an engagingly knowing, world-wise air to her performance, while the agility of her youth, still intact, keeps her Alice vivacious and sweet throughout. She remains steadfastly impervious to Falstaff's clumsy attempts at seduction but takes obvious pleasure in the sport. Her comic timing is impeccable, she's radiantly beautiful (fulgida Alice indeed) and she sings with polish and security, all the way up to the glorious high C which is her final note, crowning and concluding a captivating performance.

Among the rest of the cast, the clear audience favourites were the young lovers Nannetta and Fenton, sung by Hye Seoung Kwon and Andrew Goodwin. Kwon is a member of Opera Australia's Young Artists' Development programme and even this early in her career made a strong impression, singing with charm, spirit and some gorgeous high notes. Goodwin is undeniably something very special, the owner of a pure, limpid and colour-rich tenor voice, along with an instantly appealing stage manner and the clean-cut good looks of a Disney movie prince. Alice's neighbours and co-conspirators were sung by two delightful mezzo sopranos, both of whom I had heard once before. Roxane Hislop was adorable as Marianna in Il Signor Bruschino and I said then I'd like to hear her in something more substantial: I wasn't disappointed. Fiona Janes appears as Dorabella to Yvonne Kenny's Fiordiligi in the 1990 film from Opera Australia: she's outstanding there and her warm and resonant tone here made for a gorgeously sung Quickly, even if she has yet to realise the role's full comic potential (this was another role debut). Michael Lewis' ringing baritone rendered his Ford a commanding presence, his "E sogno..." a truthful and serious moment in the midst of all the burlesque. Falstaff's sometime sidekicks were brought to comically repellent life by Shane Lowrencev (a beer-swilling, crotch-scratching Pistol) and Christopher Dawes, as a hilarious Bardolph, particularly so when unveiled as Dr Caius' new wife, chasing him about the stage, skirts lifted.

Brought together they formed a superb cast, interacting with ease as a brilliant ensemble but each performer nevertheless individualised and excellent in their own right, nobody blending seamlessly into the background, nobody bland or invisible. They were aided, of course, by the attentive and energetic conducting of Giovanni Reggioli who drew lively and idiomatic playing from the orchestra, not to mention a loudly appreciative audience response every night.

It's funny, you know. After four (not to mention five) performances of Love in Two Acts, I felt like I knew Il Signor Bruschino better than I ever wished to; and La voix humaine made its way not just under my skin but into my bloodstream, presumably for good. Four of Falstaff, however, and though it has certainly become a familiar friend, my greatest sense is still is of the complexity, the detail and the jokes which I've yet to grasp. La voix humaine, if I make the effort, can play in my head pages at a time. Falstaff, unsurprisingly, comes in fits and starts, a snatch of melody here, a flurry of strings there and oh-so-much staccato. Its near-infinite riches are, I think, better left that way, the depths always slightly unplumbed. Four performances in a fortnight is enough; I wouldn't want to hear it every week. Better to leave it a while, return every now and then to a new and shiny little discovery. I like it a great deal but I'd prefer not to know it backwards when it is precisely the robust and colourful spontaneity of the opera which makes it such fun, and such genius.

Post mortem

From the score, all we know about the conclusion of La voix humaine is this: the telephone cord wrapped around her neck ("J'ai ta voix autour de mon cou") and the phone itself clasped to her, she lies in bed, tells him she's strong and then shouts at him to end it now, to hang up. Her last words are a series of ever softer "je t'aime" until the receiver falls to the ground and curtain drops.

In Rachel McDonald's production for Opera Australia, there's an added layer. The eagle-eyed (and the human-eyed whose gaze, unlike mine, wasn't trained immovably on Yvonne) might have spotted the clues before the revealing moment. I didn't. However, her lover's hat is on the floor. His scarf is on the bed. His gloves are on the telephone table. As she tells him is dog is "off his food" and hasn't moved for days, we can plainly see that the dog is lying dead in front of the fire. When she sings to her lover, "I know I've hurt you very much" she looks briefly towards the mantlepiece, and on it is what looks like a very mangled fire poker. Can you see what's coming? When they're cut off for the last time, he rings back but this time she doesn't answer: the phone slides up the wall and disappears, and she continues singing without it. She puts on his favourite red dress, which she told him in the beginning she was wearing, and some earrings, fixes her hair and makeup, and turns to greet an imaginary lover. Then she takes her barbiturate-laced whiskey, kneels down, says "I love you, I love you, I love you....love you" and drinks - and the sheet falls off her bed, and there's her murdered lover.

Leaving the theatre five times, I've heard a few theories as to just what went on. Does the point where she puts down the phone for good mark the moment where he came around - hence her greeting - and she killed him? This makes some sense, but for the fact that, especially on a second viewing, she subtly but undeniably talks to him with the knowledge that she has already killed him. As I mentioned, she looks at the fire poker when she says "I know I've hurt you very much." There are other lines sung with similar suggestiveness: "maybe [the dog] thinks I've caused you some harm" she sings, not innocently but with a touch of menace; and when she responds to some comment of his with "how could imagine me doing something so dreadful" (I paraphrase, I only have the French text and my memory of the translation) she rans her hand slowly across her dress, which she has lain on top of the bed and thus on top of his body. It would seem, then, that the entire conversation takes place after the fact.

Who's on the other end of the phone then? The devil, somebody suggested, perhaps responding to a reviewer's observation that the opera, with its skewed expressionist sets, appeared to take place in an apartment in "the lower reaches of hell". I don't think it's the devil. I think it's truly nobody, just in the way that she, with no name, is essentially nobody. My feeling is that the entire conversation takes place after she kills herself, that it is to some an extent a recreation of the events leading to her suicide, but also a sort of extended mad scene, an invented conversation. It's interesting that phone, technically speaking, never actually rings: the ring comes from the xylophone in the orchestra. If the constant disconnections and crossed lines are a reflection of her mental state, then surely it's possible (though I certainly don't think it's the only possible spin) that the entire conversation is itself a reflection of that mental state. Adding to that imaginary aspect, I wonder if perhaps it's a recreation not of a conversation they had, but of the conversation they would have had, if she hadn't killed him instead. Then again, perhaps she didn't kill him at all, perhaps that's her imagination. After all, it's only a dummy in the bed.

But you know what? For all these ideas, I'm perfectly happy to go without an explanation. I don't think that there is one. These additions to plot seems to me more atmospheric and suggestive than narrative: there is no need for the various twists to be strung together into a coherent 'what-really-happened' story, they merely exist as suggestions, as aspects of a fragmented consciousness. I come back again to the concept of the opera as a 40 minute mad scene, or death scene. Who is to say what is 'real' here and what is not? The set is stylisted; the dialogue on the other hand painfully realistic. Maybe when she tried to kill herself the first time, Marthe didn't in fact come to save her. Perhaps she's dying and dreaming all of this.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Personally I like it left open like that. There's a natural human tendency frantically to tie up these sorts of loose ends but a piece like this I think thrives on the not knowing. We don't know who she is, who he is, we only hear snippets of what has gone on between them for five years, and in the end, we can't really be certain what's happened, what she's done to him, who's dead. By my reckoning the body count as the curtain drops could be two, one or even zero.

Reviewers haven't been particularly fond of Rachel McDonald's take on La voix humaine, and when they say she complicates it excessively, I can see their point. Certainly the piece itself is strong enough to stand as is, and I have no doubt that Yvonne could make it just as exquisitely harrowing as simply abandoned and fragile, rather than abandoned, fragile and potentially murderous. I don't believe that McDonald makes the piece any better or more effective with her twists and turns - but I also don't think she does it any harm. The core of La voix humaine is not story, but psychology: it's not a ripping yarn, but rather a disconcerting window into a fractured psyche. If we realise that, and stop trying to assign single and definite meaning to the various layers of this production, then I think it starts to make sense in the way it ought.

I only have two (related) complaints. Because the sheet falls off the body at the end, just before 'She' takes her final fatal drink, and because the bed is on the other side of the stage, at the moment when all eyes should be trained on Yvonne, many are still trained on the mannequin in the bed. And because the ending is such a twist, people leave the theatre discussing that, when they should be discussing the incredible achievement by this gifted singing actress. Apart from that, however, I like this production a lot. I would also love to see a production without the extras. The only problem being, that the soprano who has introduced me to this wonderful opera - and I do love the opera itself now, not just the singer involved - has in that same moment spoilt me utterly for any other singer's version. That's an irrational sentiment, I know: it's also true.

Bruschino revisited

(A post about Opera Australia's Il Signor Bruschino which has taken longer to type than the opera itself actually runs....and knowing Rossini, probably longer than he took to compose the thing.)

In the last few months I've never considered Opera Australia's Il Signor Bruschino as anything but incidental to my second-act diva mania - but since I have now seen it four times I feel that perhaps I ought to have a few further observations to make. I rather hurried through my review of opening night, understandably enough; four performances later I'm at leisure to say a little more.

Apart from anything else, I must say that the very fact that I've actually made it through four night of this opera, without once being tempted to time my arrival for interval and skip the whole thing, speaks volumes. Especially given that it's Rossini. Now don't misunderstand me, I have great affection for Rossini. But he's so very recognizable that it can be quite easy for just enough to become too much. I feared that might happen here, and I'm happily surprised to find that it hasn't. It will be enough, quite enough, by Saturday night, when the show closes: I admit readily that I've probably had sufficient helpings of Il Signor Bruschino to last me for life - and then some - but though I'm full, there's no indigestion.

Much of the credit for that digestiblity has to be given to the talented line-up of singers. As far as I'm concerned poorly-sung Rossini would be worse than boringly-sung Rossini. None of the singing in this production is electrifying, but it is at least stylish. Kanen Breen's Florville doesn't possess a particularly colourful or interesting voice, but it's pleasant enough; best of all is that he seems to have an excellent grasp of bel canto style, which makes a real difference. It bothers me to hear a singer with apparently little or no idea of the era or style from which the opera has emerged: Mozart sung like Puccini, for instance, or vice versa. No such problem with Breen, and thus, though I'm not leaping out of my seat at the sound of his voice, I also find very little to criticise, because even the drawbacks of his sound are sufficiently compensated for by his sense of style. Not to mention, of course, his sense of humour. Every time I've seen this Bruschino, it has been Kanen Breen's antics on stage, his gorgeously melodramatic gestures and impeccable comic timing, which have made me glad to be back there again.

Every night the audience goes a little wild for Emma Matthews at her curtain call. I can understand this. She's adorable to watch, she has a sweetly crystalline voice which is perfect for Sofia, and she also gets in a decent number of chandelier-rattling high notes: always a crowd pleaser. Still, though, for me there is something lacking. I can see that she's doing a wonderful job, but her singing lacks conviction somehow: it's pretty, to be sure, but a little weightless. Every sound she makes is lovely, and so I'll applaud her for that, but personally I hear nothing in her performance to make me feel like stomping my feet: though others were doing just that.

There's only one other girl in the cast, and my loyalties lie with her. Roxane Hislop is woefully underutilised as Marianna, with just a duet and an ensemble or two. Obviously at nineteen Rossini hadn't yet hit upon the magnificent idea of having the mezzo as the star; here she's the maid, without even much manipulation of her master to sing about. But each time I've heard her I've liked her voice more and more. Despite the secondary role, she's an ideal Rossini mezzo, darkish and Mediterranean. From my Act I seat tonight she sounded the best she has yet, and I can only hope that if she stays around Opera Australia she won't be condemned to a string of minor roles.

It turns out, however, that the actual star of this opera is John Bolton Wood as Bruschino padre. I assumed the lovers were the centre of the story but no, it's Bruschino padre around whom everything revolves, even if for a long time he has no idea just what's going on. John Bolton Wood is also the star because he's head and shoulders above everyone else on stage in terms of talent. He's an old favourite among Melbourne audiences apparently, the senior member of the cast; he's absolutely in his element both vocally and dramatically in this role.

I mentioned Marianna already; the rest of the minor roles have been cast excellently too. My personal favourite is in fact the man with perhaps the shortest role of them all: the real Bruschino figlio (David Lewis), who stumbles onstage debauched and drunk, relieves himself in the garden,attempts to grope Marianna, tells his father he's 'pentito-tito-tito' then loses consciousness. He's a scream. He also, as it happens, seems to have a rather fabulous voice. It's hard to tell, he only has a few lines, and those are slurred and silly but still, there's something there I think, something which made me wonder - even though I adore Kanen Breen - what effect swapping the casting of Florville and Bruschino figlio might have had.

There are others who deserve my attention but I'm running out of steam rather. Richard Alexander's Gaudenzio is terribly good fun, a good foil to John Bolton Wood's Bruschino even if his vocalism isn't quite so freely-flowing as the latter's; Shane Lowrencev does an excellent job as Filiberto, and Tom Hamilton's police commissioner sings almost nothing but is fine all the same. But there's only so much virtual ink I can spill over tenors and baritones and I think I've about reached the limit. Really, the best thing about this Bruschino is the evenness of casting, vitally important in an opera which is so very much an ensemble piece. One performance would have been fine for me, I really had no burning desire to know this opera as well as I now do, but four (five on Saturday) is bearable and even quite enjoyable.

Troisième

Tonight, the third night. The best so far? I'd say so, if I could - I can't say so, because each night has been such unassailable joy.

To call her performance perfection seems an unjust oversimplification. Perfect is all well and good but it glosses over the ups and downs, the nuances, the thousand and one shades of loveliness contained within. A polished performance, certainly, but not beyond recognition. Always she has been a careful singer but always fearless too. Every moment is accurate, not a hair out of place, but still she flames out, thrilling, bright, with a seeming spontaneity which could make one forget that there was a composer at all, that this music and text existed before she animated them. The high C on 'madness' must, these days, represent something like the upper limit of her voice but there's not a hint of trepidation, she thrusts herself into it and the effect is quite extraordinary. It is a scream but it is not screamed. She is sweetness, she is all silk. The monologue is one of unremitting despair but there are moments, gone again in a flash, of lightness of heart and humour even. They disappear again, the contrasts just makes the desperation worse - but so captivating and magnetic is she that despite everything, while these moments laugh, I can't but smile. 'Can you just imagine me trying to buy a gun?' It's a comical picture, and for just a second she forgets everything bad, and we can too - and that's something. After all, anyone who could get through this opera could upset us with it, it's horrendous, that's not too difficult; actually to create moments of cheer within it is, I think, an exceptional achievement. It's a shattering piece for an audience, one can only imagine how much more shattering for the singer, but performed like this, with such vitality and such generosity, it is all the same life affirming somehow.

La seconde fois

Three wishes for La voix humaine:

1. Everyone should see this production twice at least. Once you know the ending they've given it, there's a whole new chilling layer to it.
2. Film it, now. It matters, it's magic, and in a week it will be gone.
3. Turn off the damned surtitles. People are reading them out of habit and they're missing out on all the details and the beauty below. Without them, everybody would cope, her diction is flawless. (While they're at it, they can get rid of the surtitles for Il Signor Bruschino too, I think we can do without the embarrasing translation of the libretto into 'idiomatic' English Australian.)

But apparently not everybody appreciates this wonder as I do. Overheard leaving the theatre tonight:

HER: Well I thought it was very dramatic.

HIM: Yes it was, but I wanted to hear her sing.

The ingratitude. You heard her sing. No, poverino, no 'O mio babbino caro', no 'Vilja-Lied' for you but you heard her sing. If you don't realise that, you don't deserve to have any wishes granted, let alone that one.

And on ingratitude...the theatre was quite frighteningly empty tonight. Most of the left hand side of the stalls unsold. How could anybody want to be anywhere else? But I, at least, am not ungrateful. I took advantage, I moved at interval, and so watched Yvonne tonight from Row D instead of Row R. Which among other things put me directly in line for that terrifying, beautifully bloodcurdling high C. Again, my gratitude knows no bounds.

Further thoughts on La voix humaine

The last thoughts I shall have before seeing it again tomorrow night...

• My eternal gratitude to whoever thought to give 'Elle' red painted toenails. They're a fabulous touch.
• I get the feeling that some audience members - not to mention the author(s) of the information on Opera Australia's website - are, as I suspected might happen, under the impression that the character's name actually is Elle. Like, you know, Elle Macpherson. Or Reese Witherspoon's character in Legally Blonde. Or...actually those are the only two I know. Anyway, it isn't of course. She's anonymous. In a sentence, she's 'elle' with a small 'e', she's a pronoun from the stage directions. But the official synopsis will insist on describing her as 'forsaken Elle'. Perhaps they should have translated the pronoun, even if 'she' sounds rather less exotic. (Robert Mitchell does, in fact, in his beautiful programme notes.)
• Speaking of translation, I can't quite believe I managed to write all I did about this production and forget to mention the wonderful English translation being used. I get easily annoyed with English translations - too easily perhaps - but this one, by Joseph MacHlis is superb. It matches the French text both literally and in spirit and tone, it's musical and singable, it flows like natural speech just as the French would. There's nothing which jars, nothing silly in it, and indeed it's been so well-written that it could quite possibly stand on its own as a libretto: unlike some translations, it steps nicely out of the shadow of its original, without radically re-shaping anything. I like it. I particularly like that the phrase 'mon chéri', which is repeated so many times, has been left untranslated.
• If you subscribe to The Opera Critic, they have three photographs from the production: the one I've posted already, and two others. All gorgeous, though from where I was sitting there were a few thousand even more beautiful photos to be taken. But no matter.
• What, exactly, is this? Now I don't want to seem humourless and awful, but it does seem a rather absurd exercise in missing the point.
• Buying tickets to all five performances of this opera was not a particularly cheap exercise - nor, some might add, a particularly sane one. Indeed, the opera tickets cost me more than flying here did. But as far as I'm concerned, doing so was one of the most sensible and cost-effective decisions of my life. I couldn't bear to be in Melbourne while Yvonne Kenny sang here, and not be present. That's a thought I can't even process. And as far as cost goes, well, what of it? Saturday night alone was worth infinitely more than what I spent on all the tickets together  - and I get to see it four more times. Me felice appieno.
  
  
  

Elle

Yvonne Kenny in Francis Poulenc's La voix humaine.

Listening to that sweet, sweet, twinkling girl in Rosmonda d'Inghilterra, could there be any hint that she had this in her? Yes, in fact, I think so. Though she is all silvery sheen and lightness of touch, there are, even at twenty-four, at the very beginning of her career, dramatic instincts which go beyond the requirements of bel canto. They're the reason she can turn the commonest phrases into seemingly spontaneous moments of bliss or of anguish: surely everybody in the cast gets an 'ohimè' or two (or five) but in hers there is true pain, not just operatic pain. Though musical through and through her singing seems such a natural outpouring of expression that when I had only heard her sing, and never heard her speak, I had difficulty imagining that the two could be different, that she could make any other sound. She began proper singing lessons at eighteen. Always - last night included - I feel I can still hear that eighteen year old. Her technique is superb but it is the art which conceals art; it gives us the gift of her voice, but never overwhelms or constitutes the voice itself.

Whatever Poulenc may have said about the necessity of a young woman, there is no question that the single role in La voix humaine requires the weight of experience. She has chosen the ideal moment to take on this part. No longer the quicksilver coloratura, but neither would one wish her to be; she has the warmth to captivate, the darkness to wound, and the ideal mix of maturity and youthful gleam to be entirely convincing. The line between speech and singing is a fine one here. At times one could almost forget she is singing at all; and yet the music of it is always present, underpinning every word and every moment, and from time to time bursting through, turning from parlando distress to intense, bittersweet lyricism. The musical setting, too, adds power perhaps out of reach in a spoken play. It is one thing simply to say or even to shout "je devenais folle"; quite another to sing it, orchestra blazing underneath, with a sustained fortissimo high C on the first syllable of "folle", dropping down a full octave for the second syllable - not to mention the gut wrenching effect of the sudden pianissimo which follows, and then the calm return to naturalistic recitative. She sings that high C, like every other note, flawlessly. A perfect sound, but it hurts; it is beautiful but it is not pretty. But elsewhere she is pretty, when pretty is called for. Again I say, there are times when one must remind oneself that she is singing; there are times, too, when that fact is gloriously obvious; often, whether this makes sense or not, both are simultaneously true.

As an actress too - though it is a strange thing to be dealing with the two separately - her achievement is supreme. Her movements, her gestures, her intonation and diction, all are so superb and so natural, were the orchestra removed and the piece performed as Cocteau's original spoken drama, she would be no less persuasive. Her acting is not stock-gesture operatic; it is barely even theatrical. Twenty-seven hours since the curtain dropped, I feel still as if I sat in that bedroom with her. And yet in its own way the piece - and this production particularly - pays tribute to the operas of centuries preceding, to death scenes and mad scenes and poison scenes and so on. La voix humaine at once intensely personal, intimate, dialogic, and proudly, recognisably operatic; her performance recognises and celebrates the fact.

I say that even in that 1975 Rosamonda I hear the potential for a performance such as this. It's true. Still, this was unlike anything I've ever heard or seen her do; for that matter, unlike anything I've ever heard or seen anybody do. This was a tour de force. She is an exquisite singer, an actress of moving, almost unbearable intensity, a sublimely talented performer, a gifted, brilliant, beautiful person. Leaving the theatre, the woman who had been sitting beside me turned around and said to me, "How does she do it?". "I have no idea," said I. "She's a miracle". And that, believe me, is what she is.

[See below, and below that, for the rest of last night.]

Update: the proper reviews are in:
The Age - Love in Two Acts
The Australian - Mad eroticism takes Kenny to different level (Yes, that it does.)

La voix humaine: the rest of it

I thought she deserved a review on her own, so I gave her one. However I don't want to ignore the other aspects of it. For one, the orchestra under Stephen Mould, who played wonderfully. After my abysmal efforts on piano, I was very much looking forward to hearing what the piece actually sounded like, and I wasn't disappointed. I can't have done too badly on my own - much of it was familiar - but still there's simply no suggestion in a piano part of the richness of the orchestration. The xylophone for the ringing of the telephone was especially effective; particularly so, I think, in light of the ending. But I might have to come back to that in a few weeks. (No spoilers here.)

The production is simply brilliant. It is, as promised, reminiscent of a Hitchcock film, but there's an ever so slightly more lurid feel to it too. There's also a sense of unreality to the whole thing: the walls are skewed and there are large gaps through which the night sky makes its way into the room.  And then there's that ending, which as I say - on the offchance that anyone intending to see it makes their way here first - I won't spoil. But it's bound to stir up debate among some; I for one think it works wonderfully. Apparently it is hinted at from the beginning, by certain props. I had to be told this, however: my eyes were so glued to Yvonne I was oblivious to all else.  Her actions on stage have been stunningly directed too. As naturally as all her beautiful movements flow, there is a hint of choreography to them which adds to their power, as, apparently accidentally, she forms tableau after tableau: a series of pulp fiction covers, perhaps. (Though I must admit some credit for this goes to Yvonne Kenny's legs...) The costuming, too, is fabulous. No, actually, that requires a longer vowel. Faaabulous. Resplendently 1950's, and tailored to perfection.  Gorgeously costumed and with gorgeous brunette curls, she's quite breathtaking. Emotionally she's wrecked, but, freshly abandoned, she doesn't look it yet. Just as her voice retains a youthful strain, so too she looks young and lovely still, which makes her plight all the more heartbreaking to witness.

Ah, you see, it comes back to Yvonne again after all. Can't be helped. And neither, I fear, can I - but then, I don't want to be.

Opera Australia: Il Signor Bruschino

Sharing the bill with Yvonne Kenny as it did, this light frothy Rossini comedy was never going to constitute my lasting memory of last night's trip to the opera. Nevertheless it deserves some comment, because overshadowed though it was by the end of the night, it really was an excellent performance.

Yes, amazingly enough, I managed to watch it more or less attentively, and despite my second half anticipatory nerves, to enjoy myself. The production is conventional but appealing nonetheless, though it did seem a slight pity to have the singers spend so much time more or less lined up in front of the elaborate and very pretty set. Still, there were some nice touches: Florville's entry at the beginning, for one, through a window complete with trompe l'oeil Italian village skyline.

However the key to this production's success is its performers. Il Signor Bruschino is very much an ensemble piece, with barely a solo aria to be found. The cast is pretty much ideal, with neither a weak link nor an overly dominant spotlight-grabber. The voices all work well together and the rapport among the singers is palpable, which makes for excellent comedy. John Bolton Wood as Bruschino Padre is superb, as is Richard Alexander's Gaudenzio: both men sounding excellent and enjoying their buffo performances to the hilt. Roxane Hislop is a spirited Marianna, an attractive, bright-toned mezzo whom I'd be very interested to see in a lead role. Other smaller roles - Shane Lowrencev as Filiberto, Tom Hamilton's Ronnie Corbett-esque Police Commissioner, David Lewis' hilarious turn as the cartoonishly drunk'n'debauched Bruschino Figlio - are equally well executed. Of the two young lovers about whom all revolves, I imagine I'm supposed to pick Emma Matthews as the standout among the cast. She certainly made a winning Sofia and is a lovely singer, better (just as I hoped) on stage than on record, though there's a slight constriction to her upper register which bothered me a little. However, to my mind Kanen Breen as Florville very nearly stole the show. His singing was attractive and well controlled all the same, if not hugely distinctive. His stage presence, though, is distinctive. He was adorable and irresistably hilarious, earning proper laughs - not a guarantee in comic opera - in his melodramatic attempts to impersonate Bruschino Figlio. I'd be happy to come across any of this cast in another opera - but I'd make a special effort to see Kanen Breen in something else, and particularly in comedy. Still, as I say, it's in an ensemble piece, and all concerned acquitted themselves marvellously to provide us with an hour of fun and nice bouncy music, the perfect entrée before the sublime main dish.

More of the same

I can't properly gather my thoughts about this opera, and can only imagine I'll be in a worse state once I've actually seen it, but I did want to post something vaguely coherent about it. So I offer this, shamelessly lifted from the information at Opera Australia's website.

Yvonne Kenny, one of Australia's best-loved and most distinguished artists, holds the stage for 40 minutes as Elle, a lover trying to keep a relationship alive by phone.

We never learn her name. All we know about her is that her lover has abandoned her for another woman, and that tomorrow they will be married. He is calling for the last time to ask for the return of his letters. He is clearly afraid she will use them to embarrass him. The conversation continues, they were together for five years and it is hard to say goodbye. We never hear his voice, but we put the clues together from her responses. She lies to him about how well she is coping, but then reveals that last night she attempted suicide. He lies to her too; she discovers accidentally that he is not at home, as he wants her to believe. Later they are interrupted by another caller. Is it a crossed line or his fiancée on another extension? In between the banalities of how the letters are to be exchanged and what is to be done with his dog she tries desperately to engage him but it is no use. He frequently hangs up, but then calls back, motivated by guilt and the fear that she will take her own life. Poulenc and Cocteau show us a woman on the edge, frantic and delusional, but the innocent victim of a callous man. Or is she?

Poulenc was no stranger to depression or neuroses and in the short monodrama La voix humaine he presented a jagged, obsessive study of a woman on the edge, to a libretto by Jean Cocteau. Composed during a period of enforced separation from his lover, La voix humaine was described by Poulenc as "a sort of musical confession" and he admitted that "the protagonist is more or less myself." Although the orchestra provides a sensuous underpinning to the proceedings, the overall impression is one of desperation, tragedy and, not inappropriately, disconnectedness. The production by Rachel McDonald is stylish yet intense, reminiscent of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller.

They're wonderful, they've described it far better than I could. A few comments to add. Firstly I adore the idea of making it look like a Hitchcock film. I'm also rather intrigued by that 'or is she?' and also by the suggestion that the caller who interrupts (and actually has the nerve to tell 'Elle' and her ex that they're uninteresting) is his fiancée, which hadn't occured. But to be a little more prosaic for a moment: I can't help thinking some people are going to get it into their heads that this woman is actually called Elle, as in Elle Macpherson. But she ('She') needs to be nameless. Pauvre petite. I've really become quite attached to her over these months, more or less independent of any thought of Yvonne. Seeing the two combine - and seeing 'Elle' in action, and committing suicide - will be quite something. I keep rabbitting on about how painful and shattering it all is but, though that's true, I'm still excited and expecting to enjoy myself. An opera I like, a soprano I love: even steeped in doom and desperation it can't help but be wonderful. But I recall now, this was supposed to be a coherent post. I'll stop.

La voix humaine II

The previous owner of my score of La voix humaine has oh-so-helpfully pencilled in his or her English translation throughout. It's not too too bad a translation, though I can't quite tell its purpose. In parts it seems intended to be a singable translation, matched syllable-for-syllabe, but elsewhere it's simply literal and there's even the odd explanation and grammatical fact (not always exactly correct). There are a few mistranslations too, idioms misunderstood, that sort of thing. What should be "I went shopping" becomes "I ate a lot", and apparently she has "no reason to want anything" from her ex-lover's dog. No screamingly hilarious errors, disappointly enough.  It all makes me wonder, though, who had this score, who wrote the translation, who - if anyone - performed it, and when, where, in which language?

Despite the pencilling in, however, as I play through this score again and again and come (vaguely) to absorb the music, I'm absorbing the French text too. This is a Cocteau monodrama which Poulenc set, so, you know, genuine literary merit etc etc. How terribly edifying. But it does make good reading. Heartbreaking of course. Each time I go through it I understand more and more what's actually happening, the hideous ordeal of it all. This woman knows early on that the man on the other end, her ex-lover, is lying. He's calling from a restaurant, he's told her he's at home. So she continues the conversation but keeps trying subtly to have him admit the lie; yet at the same time that's the last thing she wants him to do. This whole conversation is about maintaining as much of an illusion as she can. He will be married tomorrow, and will go with his new wife to Marseille; she asks that he not take her to the same hotel as they used to go to, because "things which I do not imagine do not exist". There's one bitter moment where, in the midst of speaking calmly she suddenly catches her breath and cries in pain. He (presumably - we never hear him) asks her why, and she tells him it's nothing, simply "I imagine we are speaking as usual and then I remember." Painful, and made all the more so by the music underpinning it. Cocteau apparently told Poulenc he had found "the only way to say my text", and that's the impression I get too.

There are a thousand little twists of the knife in this text and yet they're hard to pinpoint or pull out: it's more the piling up, the repetition, and again, that music - both the setting of the text itself and the sounds coming from the orchestra underneath. "Faites qu'il me redemande" ("Make him call me back") doesn't seem like much on its own but believe me, it's crushing. And if it has that effect on me with just my upright piano, I can hardly imagine what it will be like in performance, with that voix humaine bringing it to life.

However this is all slightly irrelevant: Yvonne is performing it in English. I'll admit I wasn't entirely happy about this at first, but I've changed my tune. It's such an intensely personal piece, and such a nerve-shattering one, that I think it needs to be as immediately and unbearably engaging as possible. I want that whole audience, myself included, to leave the theatre at least a little traumatised. Singing it in English will help that, I think. Every word, every pause, every nuance will be right there, inescapable and painful.

I can't tell you how fascinated I am by this piece. Would I have gone to all this trouble without the promise of Yvonne's performance of it? Of course not; but she isn't the only reason that I'm glad I have gone to the trouble. It's rewarding, as a play and as music, but I think Cocteau was right. In French or in English, I think this brilliant setting is the only way to say it. But it's sure going to hurt.

Bellissima Donn'Anna

That's it then. Last night I saw my third and final performance of NZ Opera's Don Giovanni - also the production's closing night. Having reviewed the performances I saw in Wellington three weeks ago, I wasn't sure I'd write anything much about this - but I will, because in some ways I feel as if I saw a whole new show last night.

It seemed to me a much tighter production this time round. Several of my own wishes, eerily enough, were granted. One of my complaints in my earlier review was that, in the middle of 'Ah chi mi dice mai', Donna Elvira heard Don Giovanni's whispered conversation with Leporello, and reacted coquettishly, checking her hair and so on - and thus undermining the point of her aria. Well, somebody else must have felt the same way, because that was gone last night - she just kept singing, focused on vengeance and violence, and I thought the aria was the better for the change. Something else which bothered me, and which I didn't mention because it seemed a necessity of the stage set-up rather than any directorial decision, was that in Wellington, Donna Elvira left the Act II dinner, spotted the statue, screamed and then ran towards him. Which makes no sense. It's like people in horror movies who run upstairs with an axe murderer in house. But it was fixed this time: she didn't scream until she was already offstage, implying she passed the statue in the street - which, I think, is what the libretto actually says. All in all, I found last night's Donna Elvira much more convincing; I also felt like vocally I was hearing what everybody else heard in Wellington.

Those were the changes which pleased me most. Others were a little more curious. Donna Elvira's entrance last night came immediately after Donna Anna's first call (of many...) for vengeance. The scene between Don Giovanni and Leporello - "la vita che menate è da briccone" etc. - was gone. Not that it's absolutely necessary, I suppose, but I do think it's important in establishing a sense of the servant-master relationship (and sometime lack thereof) and giving us a tiny glimpse of the works of Giovanni's mind. Really I can't think why, having been performed in the Wellington production, it was cut. However that cut wasn't as heartbreaking as the disappearance of the middle of 'Non mi dir'. I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it, though at the time I thought surely I had. It went straight from the first "che son io crudel con te" to "calma calma" and then into the second section. No "tu ben sai quant'io t'amai" - that part was gone. Was this intentional? Things seemed to flow pretty seamlessly down in the orchestra pit but I imagine a good conductor and a good orchestra can do stuff like that impromptu, and it seems an unusual cut to make.

What made it a particularly difficult omission to bear was that last night's Donna Anna constituted one of the very best operagoing experiences in my life so far. Patricia Wright was so beautiful in Wellington, that I had no idea she could be so much better even than that. She simply blew me away. She sounded and looked about 15 years younger, she was alive to every nuance of music and drama, she seemed - as much as a Donna Anna can - genuinely to be enjoying herself. When I saw her in Wellington, part of the thrill was seeing one of my favourite sopranos in a beautiful role, hearing a voice I recognized; but last night's performance was like discovering her all over again - she was not only a beautiful soprano whom I adore, she was, independent of anything previous, a truly great Donna Anna. Her 'Non mi dir' was easily the best of the three I've heard - beginning with one of the most perfectly wrought pieces of Mozart recitative I've ever heard - and so the disappearance of that middle section hurt. Both times in Wellington, I was in tears by the end of the aria - but this time I was so overwhelmed I didn't really come back to reality until Don Giovanni was asking Leporello to whistle un poco, and even then not entirely. Even now not entirely. I can still hear her.

When the curtain fell I was trembling. I would so have liked to have been able join in the 'brava' shouting - but at that point I'd have been hard pressed to speak in English, let alone shout in Italian. Let's be honest, the opera is divine, but Patricia and Patricia alone is the sole reason I spent hundreds of dollars on tickets and airfares and hotelrooms in order to see this a third time. I knew, of course, that she'd be worth it - but I had no idea just how worth it. I only wish I could spend all my weekends like this.

Don Giovanni (at length)

If I were a proper reviewer, I'd have things like word limits to contend with - and it would probably do me good! But I'm not, and I don't, and as a result my Don Giovanni review is preposterously long. So I've in fact written two: a short version, which is in the post immediately before this one, and the preposterously long one, which follows here.

 

Don Giovanni (in brief)

Production: Beautiful and clever if a bit too light and comedic for my taste.
Orchestra: Wellington Sinfonia excellent. A few rather quick tempi but otherwise powerful, persuasive and beautiful.
Singers:
Leporello (Conal Coad): brilliant & comic
Donna Anna (Patricia Wright): magnificently intense
Don Giovanni (Paul Whelan): elegant and lyrical
Commendatore (Rodney Macann): fine but slightly disappointing in Act II
Don Ottavio (Jaewoo Kim): a stunner
Donna Elvira (Marie-Adele MacArthur): powerful and attractive
Zerlina (Ali McGregor): adorable
Masetto (John Brunato): appealing and nicely sung

Verdict: Good production in every respect, no truly weak links, and the added bonus of one of my favourite sopranos in the world as Donna Anna. Well and truly worth all the money I've spent on tickets and airfares. 8/10 - which will become 9/10 if the Auckland Commendatore restores the goosebumps I'm accustomed to in the cemetery scene.

Click here to read my (much) longer Don Giovanni review