Prima la musica

Griiiiimes

Yes, I am attempting to plug this video in every online outlet I can think of.

(It's the Mad Scene, in case you need further inducement to watch.)

 

The big night

I'm a little late with this, but then again, if I'd tried to write it earlier, it probably would have descended into illiterate squealing within seconds. Even now I'm in danger. The fact is this: last Friday night, The Tenor In My Life sang Siegmund in Die Walküre at the Met. He only had one shot at it – we're already in London for the next gig and Siegfried hasn't even happened yet – and I think it's safe to say he made the most of it. By which I mean, it was sensational. Within my own highly biased frame of reference, it was one of the most exciting performances I've seen him give.

That won't mean much to you, perhaps, but maybe this little factoid will: he managed to unite the doyennes of the Parterre commentariat. They can be (and frequently are) brutal and bitchy, and I was steeling myself forsomebody to find fault, but remarkably, nobody did. Instead there were comments like "the great revelation of the evening", "the next great heldentenor", "the best overall performance" and so on. And yeah, I know, they're blog comments, and if they didn't make me happy, I'd be the first to play down their credibility. Too bad. I intend to have it both ways. 

Besides, there's a level at which I will take what I can get. Because the tragedy of this otherwise triumphant evening is that it was, technically at least, a revival, and as a result there was a grand total of one press reviewer in the audience – and he appears to be saving his thoughts until all three cycles. Sigh. Reviewers aren't everything, of course; again, when they say mean things about singers I love, I'm all too ready to dismiss or doubt them. But it would have been nice on such an important evening to have some sort of external record of this triumph. (There was also, alas, no radio broadcast, and the Met doesn't seem to have published any photos yet. I feel my inner conspiracy theorist stirring...)

Not to worry. I have my own memories, and those of the friends and colleagues who were in the audience. It was an amazing night, a thrill from start to finish, and the buzz both in the auditorium and backstage was palpable. I was insanely and tearfully proud and just plain bowled over. As a dear friend said on Twitter: that boy can sing. Yes, he can, and oh my, did he ever. 

The whole cast was on fabulous form, from Deborah Voigt's oh-so-sympathetic Brünnhilde (I want her Pre-Raphaelite hair) to Stephanie Blythe's majestic Fricka (how does any human person sing like that?) to Hans-Peter König's sonorous Hunding. Then of course there was Bryn Terfel's Wotan, who broke my heart several times over. And there was the glorious Eva-Maria Westbroek (increasingly one of my very favourite sopranos) as a radiant and adorable Sieglinde. I had seen her in a few late rehearsals, and she was wonderful then, but I was quite taken aback with the emotional intensity that she'd saved up for the performance – not to mention the constant cascades of gorgeous, gorgeous voice. With such a sweet pair of Wälsung twins, who could possibly get on board with Fricka's arguments, logical as they may be? I sure couldn't.

The five hours of opera flew by and so have the subsequent days. I can't believe it's been almost a week. I'm still buzzing a bit (we both are) and prone to fits of glee. So I'll stop writing now, and point you in the direction of a lovely blog post by the excellent Lucy of Opera Obsession. As for me, the rest is squeals. Yay! Wälse! And so on. 

 

Peter Grimes in Oviedo

It seems to be becoming traditional for me to begin every blog post with 1. an exclamation about how long it's been since my last and 2. some creative excuses for my absence – to the point where I should probably stop exclaiming and just accept that I'm no longer the once-a-week blogger I used to be. Les neiges d'antan and all that. I can't even offer many excuses this time. I mean, sure, this last week has involved (wait, let me count) six flights, eight cities and two hemispheres – not to mention an excruciating thirty-six hours in dial up hell – but it was preceded by several weeks of lounging about in Spain and forgetting what green vegetables look like, when what I should have been doing was writing something – anything – about my favourite opera.

The fight with Butterfly would be hard-won, but yes, I'm 99.7% sure that Peter Grimes is in fact my favourite opera. Should I make it to see the Welsh National Opera's Butterfly in 2013, featuring Cheryl Barker in the title role, the ranking might swap around for a little while, but in the end, Britten always triumphs. Grimes is just too headpoundingly extraordinary to be beaten. 

How convenient, then, that I have ended up travelling the world with the man who some would say (have said, in fact) is pretty much the Grimes of his generation. I know I think he is, and what's more, I've thought so since before I had such cause for bias. I lavished some of my best hyperbole ever on Stuart's Grimes for Opera Australia in 2009 – as did most of Sydney's operagoing population – and that was before I'd even met the man, much less run off with him. Not that it really matters. There was never a shortage, then or now, of people far more credible than I've ever been to declare his supremacy in the role, either in that mesmerising Opera Australia production or in the similarly triumphant ENO production which preceded it.

That ENO show is the one that's just been in Oviedo, along with half the original cast, half the cast from the Vlaamse Opera, where it's been in between, and, well, yours truly. I wrote about the sitzprobe earlier, the only rehearsal I went to until the final dress, in order to preserve the shocks and horrors of a production which more than one Londoner has told me is among the most exceptional they've seen. It was the right choice; in fact, just the jawdropping conclusion to Act II, when (SPOILER ALERT) a panicked and sobbing Grimes actually drags the bloodied corpse of his apprentice back on to the stage, was in and of itself worth all of my willpower.

Inside the Teatro Campoamor.

Alden's production is in many ways the polar opposite of Neil Armfield's: alienating rather than humanising, cruel instead of compassionate, and just plain weird where Armfield's was agonisingly naturalistic. If I'm honest, I think the Armfield has imprinted me, ducklike. It wasn't my first Grimes, but it might as well have been: it was the first Grimes which got to me, and one of the most moving experiences (theatrical or otherwise) of my life. That's hard to beat. Impossible, in fact.

But it doesn't preclude me from seeing the brilliance of other stagings, and Alden's unquestionably has brilliance in abundance. I don't pretend to understand all its intricacies, nor do I trust myself to describe it adequately. Reviews like this one will give you the basic idea; beyond that is a web of infinite detail and deep, dark ambiguities. I noticed new things every time I saw it, and emerged with new questions. I marvelled at how closely every little bit of stage business was tied to both libretto and score. I recoiled from, then was drawn back to, every grotesque villager in turn, from the oily Ned Keene to the drug-addled Mrs Sedley to creepy, creepy (yet oh so pitiable) Nieces.

And as ever, I hoped that this would be the time that Grimes followed Balstrode's advice, married Ellen immediately and moved away from the Borough. He never does. I still keep hoping he will. I'm sure it was a combination of factors – the production as a whole, the way Stuart plays (and sings...oh how he sings) the role, the way the rest of the cast interacts with him, and the advent of my own personal connection – but I felt more sympathetic than ever to Grimes this time around. In Sydney, he was a character doomed from the outset by his own obvious inability to cope with everyday life – he was forever on the edge of rage, of anger, of despair.

In Oviedo I saw a more adult Grimes, a man still (at least to begin with) connected to reality, and who might just have been able to make it work until everything went so horribly wrong. In Alden's Borough, Peter Grimes isn't the strange one, or the villain, or the madman. Everybody else is messed up, and he's their victim. Not blameless, but undoubtedly wronged. Grimes ripped my heart out in Sydney, and in Oviedo, he ripped it out again – in a slightly different way but with no less force. And while the Opera Australia production is still the best production of any opera I've ever seen anywhere, I have to say: closing night in Oviedo was the best Grimes I've yet seen Stuart sing. For all I know it outdid the London performances too. 

I haven't mentioned the rest of the cast, and I need to, because they did a wonderful job. My particular favourite may just have been Leigh Melrose as Ned Keene – such a mess of lechery and vices, and yet so hilariously played that, forgive me, I kind of liked him. (It did help that he sang it so perfectly.) Judith Howarth was all gorgeous tone and legato as Ellen, Peter Sidholm terribly dashing in his naval uniform, and Michael Colvin's bright tenorial stylings were ideal Bob Boles. Carole Wilson's fiercely blustery Mrs Sedley, and Rebecca de Pont Davies's German Expressionist Auntie was two masterpieces of mezzo menace.

Darren Jeffery's Hobson was as intimidating in stature as in voice, Matthew Best sonorous and superior as Swallow, while Phillip Sheffield made it bravely through some appallingly timed throat trouble to be the world's most obsequious Rector. And I can't forget the terrible twins – Gillian Dazeley-Ramm and Tineke Van Ingelgem as the spooky schoolgirl Nieces, their role rather larger in Alden's hands than usual, and requiring not only lovely singing (which they also provided) but also a lot of complex choreography, in whch they also excelled. I just hope I never meet them in a dark alley. Or in my nightmares.

Giant thumbs up also to the OSPA (Oviedo's opera orchestra) and conductor Corrado Rovaris, for a fantastic realisation of the Best Score Ever, to the chorus – Peter Grimes is enough of a challenge for a full-time, Anglophone chorus, let alone a part time group of Spanish speakers, and they did a very impressive job, to the supernumeraries and dancers, and last but not least, to the administation of the Opera de Oviedo, who looked after us so beautifully.

In fact, thumbs up to the city of Oviedo as a whole. Our five weeks there flew by. The wine, the food, the rugby, the public art (statues everywhere), the fur coats (I've never seen so many in one place), the architecture both very old and very new...I could go on. It was all such a joy. I hope we'll make it back soon. 

 

Artist's impression: a sketch by Francesco, the assistant choreographer.

 

Top Eleven of '11

This should by rights have been my New Year's Eve post, a round up of all that was grand and glorious for me in 2011, just as it drew to a close. Then several things got in the way: my incompetence, which caused me inadvertently to delete said post; Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve; our own New Year's Eve celebrations; sleep; and last, but not least, a drive to Miami and a flight to Spain, with absurd behaviour from American Airlines obstructing our progress wherever possible.

We made it, however, and are now starting to settle into Oviedo. Rehearsals for Peter Grimes are in their second day and although 2012 is nearly half a week old, I'd still like to celebrate a few of last year's highlights. After all, there's no opera here until Grimes opens, in three weeks or so, so I have to find other blogging fodder, and what better than a list? I love lists.

Thus I give you, in no particular order, my Top Eleven of 2011. 

London

Our travel for the year began here, and while it was not my first visit, it was my longest, and reinforced once again my eternal love for this city. I mean, the duck confit sandwiches at Borough Market would actually be reason enough on their own for devotion, but then you start piling on the museums, the parks, the shopping, the Indian food, the sheer sense of history, the theatre and oh my gosh the music. I don't know how people who live there permanently cope with it all: we were only there for eight weeks, and the volume and quality of live classical music on offer was already overwhelming. I saw plenty, but missed even more; and such was the concentration of brilliance that I was twice obliged to forsake my own tenor's Parsifal in favour of other, less repeatable delights. The weather was pretty rotten but if I could have stayed forever, I'd still have done so in a heartbeat.

The Met

Mecca. I finally made it there, and for the most part it lived up to my expectations. Which is to say, it was huge, quite glamorous, and offered an impressive variety of repertoire and an even more impressive line-up of star soloists. Suddenly my CD collection came to life: there were Joyce DiDonato, Diana Damrau, Juan Diego Florez, Renée Fleming, Joe Calleja, Bryn Terfel, Deborah Voigt, Karita Mattila, Peter Mattei, Natalie Dessay and and and ... the list goes on. 

And because I was there in the company of another of those star soloists – whose own Met début was even more exciting than any of the star spotting – I was able to experience the backstage half of the company too. I was in the Green Room on opening night of Walküre when ill health forced the divine Eva Maria Westbroek out halfway through and Margaret Jane Wray was summoned to take over (which she did magnificently). We went and said hi to Joyce before she strutted her stuff as the Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos. I was even hugged by Bryn Terfel. And I'm sure this all sounds like so much insufferable namedropping, but believe me, it's said with nothing but awe and disbelief. Maybe as time goes by, I'll become jaded, but right now I'm still wide-eyed as anything.

Michelle DeYoung

I've lost count of how many times I've raved about Michelle this year, but it's quite a few. She's so worth it. I was fortunate enough to hear Michelle three times this year, in three different countries: as Judith in Bluebeard's Castle with the New York Philharmonic, then in Das Lied von der Erde in Hong Kong and again in Sydney in Mahler 2. Believe it or not, I'm actually not stalking her; but given half a chance, I probably would. She's truly amazing: a wonderful artist, with a voice which is both heaven and earth, all at once, and also one of the coolest people I know. Michelle, you rule. 

Orchestras with proper pits

Sydneysiders will understand. While I will always feel a sort of filial affection (coupled with seething frustration) for the Sydney Opera House's Opera Theatre, with its dodgy acoustic and hellish concrete pit, it has been quite a revelation to spend this year in opera houses which don't stow their orchestras under the stage, and whose auditoria are actually, you know, designed for opera. Even the Santa Fe Opera, which is effectively outside, pulls off a fuller, more convincing sound, and the Met, or in Zürich or at either of London's opera houses, well, let's just say you don't know what you're missing until it smacks you round the head. In a good way. 

Cheryl's Tosca

Let me get this out of the way first: I am stupendously grateful to whichever operatic deity ensured that Cheryl didn't cancel on me. She has been known to do so, and while I, whose devotion is unconditional, always forgive her for it, it might have been a bitterer pill to swallow this time. When I lived in Sydney, I just booked for every show so that I was covered either way. But I had to fly to Brisbane from Taiwan, and I could only stay long enough for two shows, so the potential for a shattered heart was far greater. Actually she did shatter my heart, but by showing up, not by cancelling. Her Tosca was all I could have hoped for – and I'd been hoping for a while, ever since she was announced for – and then bowed out of – Opera Australia's Tosca two years earlier. As spoilt rotten with opera as I am these days, it still stings a little that I've left the town where I could see my favouritest soprano on a remarkably regular basis – pursuing her is harder now, but my dash across the globe for her Tosca proved that it's still ridiculously worthwhile.

Wagner

From the moment I was brave enough to dip my toes in Wagnerian waters, I've loved the stuff, but for many years never felt I had the fortitude to spend more than the occasional afternoon in its company. Wagner, I felt, was the antithesis of background music – it required all of my energies and attentions – and thus, because I am inherently lazy, I ended up listening to very little. Then along came a Heldentenor and I had no choice but to be immersed. Well, it's been grand. I know Parsifal almost as well now as I know Don Giovanni or Vec Makropulos – a circumstance I hardly saw coming – and can make Lohengrin jokes with the best of them. I know Walküre better than I did a year ago and by the end of 2013 I think I'll probably have it (or at least the first two acts...) down pat.

I love it still, and I still find it perfect and transcendent and all of that stuff which Wagner so patently is. Never too long, too ponderous, too slow or too loud. I've seen more Parsifals this year than your average bear – fifteen I think, in two productions – and it only gets better. I've learnt to love Wagner in rehearsal chunks and in full performance, and I look forward to the day – and it will come – when Tristan arrives. 

God

Meaning, of course, Sir John Tomlinson. His Gurnemanz at the ENO was awe-inspiring – imposing and sonorous yet quivering with human emotion, a privilege to behold every single time. And yes, I was also lucky enough to experience Matti Salminen's Gurnemanz, and yes, he's also God, pretty much, though in a rather scarier, Old Testament-y way. Sir John's was the one that got to my heart, however. He was also the first person this year to turn me into a babbling fangrrl when I met him.

Ned Canty

The whole Santa Fe experience was fantastic from start to finish – the food was excellent, the views mindboggling, the opera company treated us beautifully and the show we were there for, Daniel Slater's production of Wozzeck under the inspired leadership of David Robertson, was a massive success. The town itself, and its surrounds, were a revelation in themselves. But operatically speaking, the biggest revelation was the directorial genius of Ned Canty, whose production of Menotti's rarely performed The Last Savage provided one of the smartest, funniest and most captivating nights I've ever had in the theatre. The opera itself was fine, musically, and surprisingly hilarious, but I have no doubt that it was Canty's superb production – and the pitch-perfect performances he drew from a very talented cast – which really caused this rarity to scintillate. I really, really hope to have another chance to see his work, and soon. 

Eva Maria Westbroek

I fell for her first in Turnage's Anna Nicole, which did her glorious talents scant justice but still couldn't hide her radiant presence or the liquid gold of her voice. I fell for her again on DVD, in a weirdo production of Fanciulla del West, where I wished she could sing forever, in every role. I missed her, would you believe, in Walküre; even being Siegmund's cover (or his consort) wasn't enough to get tickets for that sold out show. I did meet her, by happy chance, and reverted to babbling fangrrl mode once again. I've been devouring YouTube clips ever since. And this year on April 13 – o wondrous day! – I shall submit to a surfeit of delights, when the Met starts Ring-cycling again and my tenor sings Siegmund to Eva Maria's Sieglinde. I should start training my hands now for the ovations.

Surreal encounters

There have been a few, but the winner has to be the day we arrived in Zürich – and my apologies if I've told you this story before – and found that the key to our apartment didn't work. In the ensuing attempts to unlock the door, we were assisted by two of our neighbours: who turned out to be José van Dam and Peter Seiffert. José made many valiant attempts to wrestle the door open, but in the end it was to no avail, so his wife kindly drove off to collect a new key for us while Peter provided red wine and chocolates. The image of us all, clustered together on the landing and conducting trilingual conversation – while my inner voice squealed that's Lucia Popp's widower! – is not one I'm ever likely to forget. And if I were in need of an emblem of how completely different my life became in 2011, well, there it is. 

The tenor in my life

Forgive me now if I get soppy and a bit more autobiographical than usual. It's only for a moment. It has to be said, however, that the facilitator of practically all of the above – the glamorous, the gorgeous, the transcendent, the surreal and the newly pervasive first person plural pronoun – has of course been Stuart, the tenor I ran off with just as 2010 was ending. 2011 has meant a completely new life for me. When I announced all the changes, almost exactly a year ago, I titled the post "Happy New Everything". Well, it's a little less new these days, I suppose, but believe me, just as happy. Happier, in fact. I'm living a life I could never have predicted, an opera fanatic's dream in many ways; but the best thing about it, when it comes down to it, is just having an awesome person to share it all with. He's got a nasty habit of murdering swans, of course, but hey – nobody's perfect. 

Right, that's the soppy bit – and the list as a whole – over and done with. Here's your reward for making it this far.

It's Joyce! Because I can't quite believe I didn't give her a separate listing here.

 

(I want that polka dot chair.) 
(And her dress.) 

Das Lied von Berlin

My latest Limelight blog post is now online. Just so's you know. 

Also online: the Digital Concert Hall video of the Berlin Phil Das Lied.

Berlin

Berlin is cold but Christmassy and I'm delighted to say that The Tenor in My Life made a spectacular Berlin Philharmonic début last night. Just amazing. I've heard him sing Das Lied von der Erde a billion times (well, almost) and it's always fantastic but I'm prepared to say that last night's was the best yet. The urge among the audience to applaud after the fifth song (his last, but of course not the end of the piece) was palpable. And oh my word can that band play. I have to say, sitting there and listening to the Berlin Philharmonic play Mahler was definitely one of those extraordinary how-did-I-get-here moments. 

Not to mention the bonus of hearing Anne Sofie von Otter sing the alto half of Das Lied – first time I'd heard her live – and Gerald Finley being fabulous in the final scene of Cunning Little Vixen, which started the concert. Das Lied and Janacek gloriousness in the same night, and played by one of the best orchestras in the universe – with Sir Simon Rattle on the podium, what's more. It really doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Two more concerts, tomorrow and Saturday. The last is particularly exciting as it's to be broadcast globally via the Berlin Phil's Digital Concert Hall. So even if you're not in Berlin – if you're in, say, Australia (hint hint) and want to support a homegrown heldentenor (hint hint) – you can still watch it, either live or after the fact, as they archive everything. Ain't technology swell? 

Lohengrin

Curses, almost a week since Lohengrin opened — with the next show only two days away — and I still haven't written a word about it.

Well, here's one word: magic. 

And here are some more. Opening night was brilliant. I'd been to a few rehearsals, but I'd only ever seen chunks of individual acts. Never the whole show, never with the full setand never with everyone in costume. Such is life in a Wiederaufnahme. I'd never even seen the swan — but that, as it turned out, was a piece of excellent luck. Its arrival was breathtaking, its revelation of the young prince at the end even more so (I cried...) and I was so glad not to have had either surprise spoilt ahead of time.

The set in all its glory is showing its age here and there but this I forgive, given that it's a year and a day older than me. I don't look like I did in 1983 either. It's still very grand and, I have to say, it really is a joy to see an old-fashioned show, with knights in armour and swords and ladies in brocade and all that stuff. After nine months of Wozzecks and non-literal Parsifals, excellent though they've all been, it's nice to spend a little time with a Lohengrin that's jumped straight out of a storybook. 

I wish I could point you to a review somewhere for a (comparatively) unbiased take on the singing, but alas, no critic seems to have seen fit to cover this show yet. What I can say is that Marjorie Owens and Tichina Vaughn both made auspicious débuts as Elsa and Ortrud respectively; that Georg Zeppenfeld is one heck of a King Henry; that Hans-Joachin Ketelsen's Telramund is also mighty; and that The Tenor in my Life surprised even me with his Lohengrin.

So, yes, incredibly partial comments to follow, but: I hang around him every day, and I still have no idea he how sings so gloriously, so powerfully or for so long. And for all the miraculousness of his Parsifals this year (not to mention everything else), I think last Sunday's Lohengrin is basically the coolest, jawdroppingest and most virtuosic bit of singing I've seen him do since Peter Grimes in Sydney two years ago. Biased I may be, but I ain't deaf, and I don't expect ever to hear Lohengrin sung much better than that.

And I must be on to something, because the response which greeted both the cast as a whole and my own Grail Knight suggested everyone else was as impressed as I was. There was massive applause at the end of every act and for every cast member. There was cheering, and foot-stomping, and the first bow of Lohengrin himself sparked a standing ovation which eventually spread throughout the stalls and into much of the upper levels. Erik Nielsen, the excellent conductor who took over at short notice for an indisposed Adam Fischer, also received his share of wild acclaim. 

It was one of those electrically charged evenings, both in silene while the show was in swing and in the clamour when it stopped. All the more impressive when you think that we're talking about a revival which opened on a Sunday afternoon: not exactly a Gala Night. Yet it frequently felt like one. Like I say. Magic.

Can't help but post this. I suspect I saw the person filming it.

Parsifal - Zurich Opera House - October 2nd 2011 - Final curtain call (zoom) (by FanaticosdaOpera)

Fidelio

Sunday night's Fidelio — the second of two performances with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra under Lan Shui — was in Yuchi Township, site of Sun Moon Lake and accordingly of the Sun Moon Lake Festival, of which this concert was a part. There had also been a performance the previous evening at what I assume to be the orchestra's regular venue in Taichung.

It was an adventure. The lake is gorgeous, although sadly among the cast only Rocco was lucky enough to have a room with a view. And you can't see it from the car park either. Did I mention that? The Fidelio was performed in a car park. A very large car park, mind you, and presumably the biggest open space in town, which is why it's used for open air concerts like this. Nevertheless, it was slightly disconcerting having to pick our way through all the tour buses to find the dressing tents (yep, tents) but we made it in the end.

And despite occasional attempts by car alarms to Ligetify Beethoven's score, it turned out to be a pretty cool evening. It had been pouring with rain throughout the afternoon soundcheck, but by the time 7.30 rolled around, it was starting to dry. Nevertheless, I wasn't too keen on the plastic seats, so I found a spot in the wings instead, and watched from there. Being a concert performance, there was very little dialogue included, but happily the gaps were bridged by not one but two costumed narrators — a gentleman (who had directed the semi-staging) dressed as Beethoven and a lady in spangled quasi-Victorian garb. I'm not sure who she was — perhaps the ferne Geliebte? — but the pair of them definitely added to the evening's entertainment value. 

Our cast, for the record: Janice Watson as Leonore, Carsten Wittmoser as Rocco, Simon Neal as Pizarro, Klara Ek as Marzelline, Diang Wang as Jaquino, Simon Lim as Don Fernando and of course The Tenor In My Life, Stuart Skelton as Florestan. Much fun had by all, I think — it wasn't the most straightforward week, but was definitely an adventure, and often quite hilarious. And the singing wasn't too shabby either.

 

And speaking of things I should have blogged earlier, here are a couple of snippets from rehearsals for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Das Lied von der Erde earlier this month. 

Wozzeck in Santa Fe

Yesterday evening at seven o'clock, just as we were preparing to leave for the theatre, the heavens opened up. Now, there have been some showers here lately — much welcome drought relief — but they've rarely been torrential and when they are, they're usually shortlived. Last week, for instance, it was bucketing down as we drove out to Bobcat Bite, but the rain was drying up even before our burgers arrived. But last night's was the heaviest and most diagonal we've seen. It brought the full stormy complement with it — thunder, lightning and wind — and showed no signs of letting up. Even the short trip from front door to car was suddenly looking like an ordeal, and I wasn't much relishing the prospect of the time I had to kill between depositing my tenor backstage and the start of the opera, two hours later.

Needs must, however. We made it from house to box office to backstage to Opera Club with minimal saturation. And once I was in the shelter of said club, with a Diet Coke and a squillion dollar view, the weather was no longer a problem. In fact it was downright picturesque. What other opera company could offer you a pre-show electrical storm? And what better opera to see in such conditions than a dark and stormy piece like Wozzeck? As the sun set, we had lightning in every direction, crackling across a pink and cloudy sky; and while it settled somewhat in time for the show, there were still intermittent flashes for the whole first half — including a magnificent bolt in time for Marie's first entrance, framed perfectly by the open back wall of the stage. It was as if they'd planned it.

Not that Daniel Slater's production needs much help in the atmosphere department. I've said on Twitter, and will say again here, this is one of the best productions of anything I've seen this year. The line between imagination and reality — sanity and madness — is blurred so gradually at first that you hardly realise it, and then when you do, the whole thing twists in an instant. Quite literally, in terms of the set, but figuratively as well. With a quick change of lightning and choreography, a perfectly innocent scene become grotesque, and you're pulled irresistibly into Wozzeck's crumbling psyche. In particular, I love how Slater has expanded the role of the Fool, who now — with pallid death mask and gently choreographed movements — becomes the embodiment of Wozzeck's darker thoughts, spurring him on to the murder of Marie and to his own demise.

David Robertson's conducting has been similarly revelatory. Of course it was thrilling to hear James Levine's Wozzeck in New York, but David brings out other facets of the score — its lyricism, its beauty — and in combination, I think my two contrasting experiences of the piece, especially so close together, make for a fairly special first encounter with this opera. One could hardly do better than to start with Levine; and upon that ear-opening foundation, David's reading has worked considerable new magic. 

I don't suppose anybody would turn their nose up at the cast here, either. Richard Paul Fink outstanding in his role début as Wozzeck — a tour de force any way you look at it, especially as this production has him onstage almost constantly — and Nicola Beller Carbone beautifully bringing out both Marie's hardness and her fragility. Eric Owens is somehow both jovial and malevolent as the deranged Doctor, Robert Brubaker superb as a tightly-wound Captain, and my own tenor a disturbingly convincing Drum Major. (Those high notes, which one reviewer in New York compared to hand grenades, sound even better in Santa Fe's far less barn-like acoustic.) Jason Slayden's fresh-faced Andres is a striking contrast to Wozzeck's broken spirit, Patricia Risley's Margret is delightfully arch, and Randall Bills as the Fool takes Slater's unusual concept and makes poetry of it.

The above are all my highly impartial views, of course, but take a look at the blog posts already up from the far less beholden Out West Arts and Opera Tattler, and you'll see I'm not alone in them. I'm curious to see the print reviews as well. Over the last few weeks, I've heard more than one Santa Fe veteran describe this production (it was last staged here in 2001) as one of the company's finest. It's my first Santa Fe show, so I've nothing to compare it to; but having already seen it three times this week (two rehearsal plus opening night) I'm more than prepared to believe them. I don't think it will be an easy one to beat.

 

A short report from the Swiss TV show Glanz und Gloria about opening night of Parsifal in Zürich. 

30 Day Opera Challenge: Day 6

Facebook challenge: Favourite French composer

At last, a clear-cut one. Poulenc. No question. (With Rameau as runner-up. And thus did I bypass the entire nineteenth century.)

An Acquired Taste: Best tenor

Perhaps the most biased answer ever, but no less true for that. Yes, as far as I'm concerned, the best tenor is my tenor. (Though I think he'd tell you it was James King.)

(Third Peter Grimes clip in six days, I know. But it's the best opera ever, or close to it.)

Seattle, here we come. Eventually.

Right, well, Seattle Opera has now announced the details of its 2013 Ring Cycle, which means I can now point out to you that The Tenor In My Life will once again be their Siegmund. I've been excited about this for a while now: I've only seen YouTube snippets of the Seattle production but it looks gorgeous, and I know Ring-devotees in Australia who rave about it as one of the best. Plus, you know, TTIML is pretty good at this Wagner lark.

So, here, by way of a shameless plug is the video trailer for Seattle's 2009 Walküre. The first minute is my favourite bit, can't think why...

...and while I'm at it, I'll also point out that Seattle Opera's website has stacks of information, photos and even audio clips attached to many of the returning cast members' names (recorded during the 2009 cycle). And of course I'll particularly draw your attention to this bio, which includes an "Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater" that you simply gotta hear. Yeah, I know, I'm so unbiased. But seriously, that "Wälse" goes on forever. 

Double duty

Today was a two opera Saturday. Le comte Ory in the afternoon, Wozzeck in the evening. I think you would struggle to find two operas with less common ground. There are no nuns or jokes in Wozzeck, no blood or expressionism in Le comte Ory. It's like having lunch with Doris Day and dinner with Alanis Morissette. (Which is not to say that Alanis Morissette is as good as Berg. Although I do think Doris Day is at least as good as Rossini.) 

The best thing about Le comte Ory continues to be the people singing in it. Frankly I think even the weakest opera ever could be halfway redeemed by the presence of Joyce DiDonato OR Diana Damrau. Having them both, plus Juan Diego Florez, is a masterstroke. Meanwhile the opera itself is too insubstantial even for me, and I love fairy floss. Among its faults: not enough music for Joyce. Honestly, Rossini. You're supposed to be the one who spoils his mezzos. She was wonderful anyway, of course; she can't not be, and Diana was not only in drop dead gorgeous voice but completely hilarious. It's all about the two of them for me, crazy talents of (new father - congrats!) Juan Diego notwithstanding. The staging has been tweaked a bit since I saw the dress rehearsal, mostly to its advantage, though I suspect a funnier production than this one is possible — and I'm still not really sure why it's staged as a show-within-a-show. (Or, more precisely, a dress-rehearsal-within-a-show.) But hey, there's probably only so much you can do with an opera like this. I want to see Il viaggio a Reims now though: a sort of morbid curiosity to find out if it's any funnier. 

Meanwhile, both Lucy at Opera Obsession and Brian at Out West Arts were also there this afternoon (along with a Met in HD audience of trillions) and I agree with great chunks of their respective blog posts, which are far more extensive and thoughtful than what I've just written, and which you should definitely read.

A few hours at home watching Star Wars (not my choice) and then back to the theatre for Wozzeck #2. A smaller audience, alas, but the show's as strong as ever. (I also blogged at Limelight about the whole début experience.) A man behind me — despite being well and truly old enough to know better — evidently considered it appropriate behaviour to ask his wife, at full volume, questions like "Is this Act Two?" (it wasn't) and "Is this the bit where he kills her?" (it was). But I managed to ignore him enough to enjoy the show. I'm still making up my mind as to whether I'll see all four, but as it's short, I suppose I might as well.

Next on the agenda: Capriccio, on Monday. This is also the date on which the 2011 #operaplot competition begins, and takes over my brain, my life and my Twitter feed. 

P.S. Brian has now also blogged about Wozzeck.

Ovation

The big début went brilliantly well. I was terribly proud. Actually it was a pretty amazing show all round: Alan Held and Waltraud Meier both on top form, and a huge reception for James Levine at the start and end, everyone clearly very happy to see him back in the house and at the top of his game. But personal bias wins out every time: I clapped loudest for the Drum Major. 

Big night tonight. The Tenor In My Life makes his Met début tonight, as the Drum Major in Wozzeck. Forgive me if I jump up and down excitedly. So proud. 

Das Lied

While it's still fresh in my mind (and I hope in yours, if you made it) here are a few Das Lied bits and pieces.

There are reviews from the usual suspects, Murray Black (The Australian) and Peter McCallum (Sydney Morning Herald) plus one from Nicholas Routley at Australian Stage Online. Everyone's happy — hardly surprising — and actually I think this is one of my favourite McCallum reviews yet. There's also a nice little preview here. And then, slightly tangentially, there's a review from Gillian Wills (The Australian) of a performance which fills me with envy — Lilli Paasikivi singing Mahler's Rückert-Lieder with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, something which, were it in the future and not the past, I would seriously consider travelling to hear. Meanwhile, in blogland, Wanderer has two ecstatic Das Lied posts here and here, and since I think I spotted Marcellous in the audience, I hope we might eventually have something from him as well.

Both our soloists are distressingly underrepresented on YouTube, but even so, there's one clip of each I can't help but share, although if you're an habitué(e) of The Mad Scene, you'll have seen/heard them already. 

This trailer for Seattle Opera's 2009 production of Die Walküre begins with one tantalising minute (actually less than that) of Stuart Skelton's Siegmund...

...and this clip [audio only] has the divine Lilli singing a song by Carl Gotthard Liander.
 

Sigh. On both counts.

The Accidental Completist

It dawned on me yesterday that I have spent the last three and a half years quite unwittingly becoming a Stuart Skelton completist. Not that this is a bad thing to be; on the contrary, it's clearly a stroke of genius on my part. Just unintentional genius. 

First there was his Mitch in Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, the opera I saw (just thinking about it wears me out) eight times on account of my Yvonne Kenny completism. That's the whole Sydney season plus the general. And then the next thing he did at Opera Australia was last year's Peter Grimes, and as we know, I went to every performance of that. Of course in that case — unlike Streetcar, which was definitely All About Yvonne — Stuart did have quite a lot to do with my repeated attendance, but still, it was the show as a whole which was my fixation. In between those shows I also managed to be among the crowd when he sang two arias (amazingly I might add) at the launch of OA's 2010 season. 

And then this past week I ended up, somewhat to my surprise, seeing all three of his performances in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. I mean, I was always going to go. Partly for the piece itself, partly for lovely Lilli Paasikivi, and in great part, yes, for Stuart. But I only meant to go once. And then things changed: one turned into two, so I was there on the Wednesday as well as the long-planned Friday, and since both nights turned out to be such utter enchantment, well, how could I resist completing the set?

It's with a slight Mahlerian blush that I confess I really didn't know Das Lied very well at all prior to last Wednesday. My abiding crush on the Rückert-Lieder excepted, I've never been manic about Mahler; I'm usually delighted when he finds me, but I don't often seek him out. Thus my preparation really consisted only of the recording I listened to during the afternoon before the first concert. Even that augured well, though; I could feel it seeping into my brain, and already felt that this — especially the earthy, airy contralto stuff — was my kind of piece.

First impressions were correct. Das Lied von der Erde has turned out to be absolutely my kind of piece, perhaps even more than I expected. I heard it three times and loved it more with each performance. I loved its exuberance and its introspection, its Oriental traces and its rich Romanticism, its kaleidoscopic orchestration and its varied, taxing and oh-so-wonderful vocal writing. I loved the contrast between the tenor and contralto parts: without the other, each might be in its own way a bit too unrelenting, but side by side they're a match made in heaven — or should that be, a match made on Earth?

Of course my symphonic completism meant I also heard the first half of the program three times. I can't claim to have been thoroughly enraptured, but then, almost any first half would pale when succeeded by Das Lied, and so it should — two such ecstatic pieces in one night could do a person's head in. Anyway, we had a curiously operatic-but-not-vocal first half. The overture of Le nozze di Figaro followed by a slightly clunky Rosenkavalier suite. The Figaro was nice enough, if a bit blurry in the strings, though until the (pretty wonderful) third performance, I can't say it sounded like an overture I could imagine leading into a great performance of the opera itself. Strauss, meanwhile, is Strauss, and thus never unwelcome. I wasn't really won over by the suite, particularly its jarringly bombastic conclusion, but the Presentation of the Rose made me weepy even without the voices, and there were a few other magical moments too. 

It was all about Das Lied anyway, though, and I was putty in the hands of Ashkenazy and his fantastic orchestra. The sound seemed richer, more shimmery and all-enveloping every time. Emma Sholl and Diana Doherty's solos (flute and oboe respectively) were sublime. If I needed another reason to feel guilty about how rarely I venture into the Concert Hall, this was it: the SSO is wonderful and my neglect of them definitely makes me a Bad Person.

Our soloists, it goes without saying, were just as stunning. I heard Lilli Paasikivi with the SSO last year, as the Angel in Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, so I knew she was beautiful. But I still wasn't prepared for just how beautiful. The radiant, unaffected simplicity with which she embodied every word and sound. The way the music seemed to flow through her. The voice. Oh, the voice, so warm and so pure; and how she used that voice, so that it seemed almost like speaking yet made of music. She was irresistible, and in "Der Abschied", transcendent. Time stood still as she repeated "Ewig...ewig..." If I stop typing and think — I'm still there. 

Lilli was one kind of revelation. Stuart, despite all the aforementioned completism, was another. This was really quite different from anything I've heard him sing before and I was bowled over anew by his energy, his expressivity and just the sheer sound of him. For the second performance I abandoned my circle seat and moved to the second row of the stalls essentially in order to be blasted. And blasted I was, but in such exquisite fashion. Yes, he does loud exceedingly well, but he doesn't just do loud; there's a basic beauty to the voice, a sort of vast and monumental lyricism, so that even at his most clarion, there's still that honeyed quality round the edges. It's an addictive sort of sound, and it's so very much his sound. Stuart sounds like Stuart and nobody else and I could listen to him for hours. (So bring on the Wagner, Mr Terracini.)

So there you have it. The completism might have been last minute and unplanned but I'm thanking myself — and Mahler, and Lilli, and Ashkenazy, and obviously Stuart — for it now. One encounter with Das Lied von der Erde was a discovery. Three turned it into love. It is an extraordinary piece of music and I couldn't have asked for a more special introduction than this.

London Calling

Just a quick break from my all-encompassing Blissfulness to link to some Australians doing Good Stuff back in the mother country.

1. Stuart Skelton in an appallingly appealing Kat'a Kabanova. It's at the ENO. Stuart is Boris, opposite the Kat'a of (cue sighing) Patricia Racette. The production is by David Alden, brother of Christopher, of Tosca fame. And here's the bit that will set Grimey hearts even further aflutter — Mark Wigglesworth conducts. Stuart, Patricia, Wigglesworth, Janacek. Has your head exploded yet? Information, trailer, images and so on at the ENO website. Too many reviews to link to, so have a Google News link instead. And The Guardian has a fantastic interview with the very articulate and fascinating Stuart.

2. Emma Matthews' Covent Garden début. What is it with Australians and Janacek? At long last Emma has made her London splash, in the title role of The Cunning Little Vixen. Charles Mackerras, King of Janacek, conducts. There were dramas on opening night, with Emma Bell (who was to have sung the Fox) admitted to hospital the previous day for an emergency appendectomy, but all seems to have turned out pretty nicely in the end for our Emma. MusicOMH has a nice interview, and again, Google is better than I am at aggregating reviews.

3. This one is further in the future. Opera Holland Park's Charity Gala in honour of Richard Bonynge's 80th Birthday. There will be celebrations here in Australia, too, of course, but meanwhile the line-up for this gala is fairly bursting with fabulous Antipodeans — Yvonne Kenny, Conal Coad, Aldo Di Toro, Julian Gavin and, um, Cheryl Barker are all on the list. OHP has a good track record with Australian singers. It was in their Fedora that I first heard Aldo (singing opposite Yvonne) and of course I'm off there myself in August to see Cheryl and Julian in Francesca da Rimini, whose cast also includes Australian baritone Jeffrey Black and New Zealand's Own Anna Leese. Now is probably also a good time to point out that Opera Holland Park's very entertaining blog has been revived.

Fetch the drum

Yes yes, I will get to A Midsummer Night's Dream soon (short version is go, obviously) but in the meantime, this little nugget deserves its own post. The Met has announced its 2010-11 season, and among its many enviable wonders is the news that Prima la musica's favourite heldentenor, Stuart Skelton is to make his début with the company, singing the Drum-Major in Berg's Wozzeck. James Levine conducts, and the cast also includes Waltraud Meier and the wonderful Matthias Goerne. Lucky, lucky New York — this just sounds extraordinary. Huge congratulations to Stuart on yet another step on the path to world domination. 

And just in case you've forgotten — as if you could! — why we love Stuart so much, here's a reminder. 

Doesn't get any less amazing or any less upsetting with time, does it?

2009 in review: Opera Australia

This would usually be the post in which I handed out various laurels to the best of the past year's Opera Australia season. The problem is that this year, all of those laurels would just have to go to Peter Grimes, wouldn't they? It was truly the best of everything. So I'm opting instead for a more inclusive (and, typically, more longwinded) approach.

Here are Fifty-Two Things I Loved at Opera Australia in 2009.

1. The chance to see Moffat Oxenbould's exquisite production of Madama Butterfly live in the theatre, and with the soprano for whom it was created in the title role. I could see those petals fall a hundred times and the magic wouldn't fade.

2. The palpable electricity of Cheryl Barker's final Butterfly of the season, a stunning and maybe paradoxical combination of utter abandon and gorgeous refinement. 

3. Antoinette Halloran's short notice triumph in the same role when Cheryl cancelled what turned out to be the first of three performances. Her standing ovation came a little later in the run but she deserved it for that first performance.

4. The spontaneous (and unanimous) standing ovation for Cheryl's second Butterfly. Yes, it can probably be explained by the high proportion of tourists in the audience that night, but it was still a great thing to see. 

5. The last of Cheryl's January Butterflies, before she adjourned to Paris and Antoinette officially took over. She had cancelled three times, my poor nerves were shattered; but at last, she was back, and with the considerable bonus of Jacqui Dark, filling in for Catherine Carby as Suzuki. 

6. Jonathan Summers's two fabulous entrances in Cav/Pag, first as a Mafioso Alfio and then, even better, as a haunting and darkly comedic Tonio. I didn't exactly love this double bill, but I swear there's no production so dire it can't be immediately improved by the presence of Jonathan Summers.

7. José Carbo's beautiful (but of course, much too short) appearance as Pagliacci's Silvio. I tell you, if there's one thing this season needed, it was more José. 

8. And again, from Pagliacci, Stephen Smith's strong cameo as Beppe, the first of his many bit parts in this season and an auspicious introduction.

9. Fine, one from Cavalleria Rusticana. Dominica Matthews's surprisingly convincing Lola. I wouldn't have picked Dominica for verismo repertoire and yet she absolutely made it work.

10. Emma Pearson's suitably ferocious Queen of the Night. I tried to see her a second time but (sigh) she was indisposed. So please, please, Opera Australia, bring her back soon.

11. Two lovely Paminas in Emma Matthews and Hye Seoung Kwon, each of whom brought her own brand of prettiness to the role. Objectively, I'd give Emma the victory; subjectively speaking, I preferred Hye Seoung's voice in the role.

12. Andrew Moran as a very funny Aussie Papageno. Warwick Fyfe did a fine job in the role but somehow Andrew was even more hilarious, and I'm more enamoured of his voice every time I hear it.

13. The privilege of a true dramatic soprano in our midst, in the form of Susan Bullock, a sensational Katerina in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. 

14. All the seedy and confronting glory of aforementioned Lady M and of Francesca Zambello's excellent production. I'm still kicking myself for not making it to a second performance. 

15. Jacqui Dark's rather brave performance as Aksinya in the opera's infamous "barrel scene".

16. The overpowering sound of the AOBO as, under the leadership of Sir Richard Armstrong, it tore into Shostakovich's blazing score. Loudness of the best sort. 

17. And, of course, the very successful company début of my compatriot, heldentenor Simon O'Neill as a thoroughly slapworthy (but magnificently sung) Sergei.

18. The opportunity to finally express admiration for Elke Neidhardt. She and I have not had the best history, but I thought her work as revival director of the Moshinsky production of Werther was just superb. Loved the costumes, too. 

19. The eternally swoonworthy voice of Aldo Di Toro as the lovelorn Werther. 

20. The delightful surprise of Sarah Crane's sparkling Sophie. I adored her (and her character, who should have annoyed me) and I'm rather upset at her absence from the 2010 season. I hope she's back in 2011.

21. In a rather, shall we say, uneven production of Acis and Galatea, Shane Lowrencev's towering, raging and hilariously insatiable Polyphemus. His "O ruddier than the cherry" was my favourite part of the opera. 

22. Over the top though it may have been, Patrick Nolan's staging of Damon's "Shepherd, what art thou pursuing?" in said Acis, which piled in almost everything a director could do to outrage the easily outraged. 

23. The virtuosic grotesquerie of Kanen Breen's Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas, one of the best (and downright weirdest) performances I've seen from him.

24. Yvonne Kenny's devastating final Dido, which far outdid the other three I saw and included the most moving rendition of "When I am laid in earth" I've ever experienced. 

25. Tamara Wilson's sweet and finely wrought Aida, proof that you don't need to blast the roof off to be an idiomatic and effective Verdi soprano.

26. And speaking of idiomatic: Michael Lewis's excellent Amonasro. There's a man with Verdi in his blood. 

27. Graeme Murphy's staging of the final act of Aida. I wasn't very taken with the first half of this production, but the clearer the stage became, the better it worked, and the tomb scene was really very striking. 

28. David Parkin's return to the opera theatre stage, his first OA performance since he appeared as Sparafucile after winning Operatunity Oz. It's great to see that for once, the winner of a TV talent show has turned out to be absolutely the genuine article. 

29. The night when Cheryl Barker altered the staging of Manon Lescaut's "Sola, perduta, abbandonata", and then every subsequent performance she gave of it. Flawed opera, very flawed heroine, but that final scene had a raw truth to it which was heart stopping.

30. The delectable misbehaviour of Cheryl's Manon in her gilded second act: her playful trills, the spitefully held high note, eight gorgeous renditions of "In quelle trine morbide", the fabulous frock, eight different ways of enunciating "E il busto?", the look on her face when caught in the act of fleeing with her lover and the jewels. 

31. Just surrending to Cheryl's unparalleled ability to make me fall hopelessly in love with a character I thought I didn't like.

32. For good measure, two very fine tenors. Stephen Smith's Harlequin-esque Edmondo, and Jorge Lopez-Yanez's ardent Des Grieux. 

33. The total revelation that was Fidelio. Not that I was expecting to dislike it; but I never expected to love it so much. Opening night was one of the best nights I had in the opera theatre all year. 

34. Speaking of revelations and Fidelio, Peter Coleman-Wright's magnificently villainous Don Pizarro. I never knew he could be so evil, but he absolutely was, from his terrifying "Ha, welch' ein Augenblick" to the fabulous swirl of his cape when he took his final bow. 

35. Best of all, though, Lorina Gore's perfect (there's no other word!) Marzelline. I knew I liked Lorina, but it was this performance which turned me into a bona fide fan and raised my hopes for her future sky high. 

36. Still with Fidelio, Cathy Dadd's direction of this revival. It's a pretty traditional, straightforward production; a lesser talent might have fallen asleep at the wheel, but Dadd kept the show as vivid and compelling as could be. 

37. My Emma Matthews epiphany, which was sparked by her new CD but consolidated by her exquisite Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. It turned out she'd been ill and apparently not at her best on opening night, but I must have had my diva goggles (or auditory equivalent) on because I loved her. 

38. Aldo Di Toro's return as Tebaldo, after missing opening night. A surprisingly three-dimensional characterisation and, of course, sublimely sung. Can't wait for his Elvino in Sonnambula. 

39. And yes, believe it or not, Orpha Phelan's rather bleak and jagged production of Capuleti. I might be in the minority but I liked it a lot. It might not have been visually beautiful, but in its own jagged way, it seemed to highlight the beauty of the score.

40. Anthony Warlow's Ko-Ko in The Mikado. Despite all my arms-folded resistance to the supposed charms of Gilbert and Sullivan, I couldn't help but warm to him. I know others thought much less of him, but ever contrary, I finally began to understand his appeal.

41. Warwick Fyfe's revelatory Poo-Bah. Hands down the most impressive thing I've seen him do, and I don't mean that as faint praise. He was completely ideal for the role, both vocally and temperamentally. I was terribly impressed. 

42. The high camp of Kanen Breen's Nanki-Poo. It's always fun seeing Kanen in a role where he gets to show off his gift for physical comedy.

43. Jim Sharman's delightful framing device for his production of Cosi fan tutte, the Japanese wedding. I especially liked the immaculately pair of wedding planners; having the newlyweds dance during "Soave sia il vento" was also a lovely touch. 

44. And, of course, the colour co-ordinated confetti.

45. Rachelle Durkin's simple, sincere and very touching "Per pietà". 

46. Tiffany Speight's show stealing striptease for Despina's "Una donna". I'm still keen to hear Tiffany in a less soubrettish role, but in the meantime, she's a pretty amazing maid. 

47. Neil Armfield's and Peter Carroll's extraordinary conception and expansion of the role of Dr Crabbe in Peter Grimes. 

48. David Corcoran's fantastically well sung Bob Boles. Another burgeoning star for whom I have very high hopes.

49. The succession of jaw-dropping moments which was opening night of Grimes. 

50. The unique spirit which developed among the audiences for Grimes, a sort of solidarity and fraternal feeling borne of an extraordinary shared experience. I've never felt anything like it and for all I know, I may never feel it again.

51. Similarly, the way in which we all responded to that experience, both in conversation and in writing; the speechlessness which turned into an inability to stop talking about it. Very few productions, after all, could produce a collective response quite like this. 

52. The darkened pit.

And now that that's all done and dusted, here are the Peter Grimes laurels. 

My soprano of the year is Susan Gritton. I've heard Susan in various repertoire over the years and generally quite liked her, but her Ellen Orford flicked a switch. She was shattering and sublime in that role, and now with every single piece of music I hear her sing, I fall in love all over again. There's no question that we have the late Richard Hickox to thank for her presence in Grimes, and she's truly one of the most precious gifts he left us. I hope and pray we'll see her back here one day.

My baritone of the year is of course Peter Coleman-Wright, and I also want to name him as my revelation of the year. Maybe that's a strange thing to say about a singer I've been listening to on a daily basis for a couple of years, but this was the year in which he won my devotion in his own right, and not just by association. Plus, his Balstrode was just astonishingly beautiful. I'll never forget the way he fidgeted with suppressed rage as the villagers closed in on Ellen, or the look he threw her as he joined the mob on their way to the hut, or the sublime way he sang in that third act scene. And so many more moments, but I should stop.

Naturally Mark Wigglesworth, Neil Armfield, Ralph Myers and Damien Cooper all take out their respective categories. I've never witnessed such a powerful and triumphant creative collaboration, and people who have been attending OA performances for decades longer than I have have said the same thing. Every facet of Grimes was just so right, from the pit to the stage to the morning sun coming through the skylights. I wish I could say more but, well, see #51 above — it's either astonished silence or endless praise.

So I come to my tenor of the year and, more importantly, my singer of the year. Who else could it be but Stuart Skelton? I had started anticipating his Grimes before it was even announced. Then he sang it in London and the critics (and audiences) went crazy. And finally, here he was in Sydney and he exceeded every expectations. I've been over this before, and since there are only so many ways to put it, I won't repeat myself too much now. But Stuart's Grimes was a treasure, a terror and, I think, a life-altering experience. I shan't ever forget it, and I know for a fact I'm far from alone in that. 

The man, the voice, the category

Back in February, my bullet-pointed enthusiasm over Stuart Skelton prompted a commenter to wonder whether this blog would shortly boast a dedicated Skelton category. I said I'd wait till Grimes before considering that.

Let's be honest, though: I always knew the answer. I arrived at Stuart's first Australian Grimes equipped with an insane and dangerous set of expectations; expectation which he promptly rendered sane, harmless and possibly even irrelevant. Because it wasn't just that he was better than I thought he'd be — in fact, I don't know that anyone could be better than the singer my jittery heart was expecting — but that he was sublime in ways it hadn't even occured to me to imagine. It's one thing to anticipate greatness and then receive it; another to anticipate it, receive it, and yet still be completely knocked sideways by its appearance, and the latter is what Stuart caused to happen. He was at once exactly what I'd hoped for and completely unexpected. Witnessing his Grimes — and doing so at such close quarters and in such extraordinary circumstances — was been an astonishing privilege, and, in its nerve-shattering way, a total delight. 

So if all that's true, then the least I can do is afford the man a category on this blog. It's a bit sparsely populated at present, but one hopes and expects (more expectations) that this will change in due course. I wish I'd had the means to follow him to Adelaide for SOSA's Dutchman, and if I hadn't overdosed so thoroughly on Streetcar the first time around, I might even be eyeing up the production's Melbourne season. But there's the Sydney Symphony's Das Lied von der Erde on the horizon, and after that, who knows? My fingers are tightly crossed and my wishlist is infinite. Sing anything, Stuart, and we will come. Category officially launched.

P.S. I've finally given Peter Coleman-Wright his own category too. Since he'll shortly join the (extremely) short list of Singers I've Travelled To Hear, it seemed only fair.

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. 

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.

Various

• Maybe I am a sentimental fool, but it made me smile to see that Jodie McGuren has been cast in the small (very small) role of Kätchen in Werther. I've always remembered how excited she was during Operatunity Oz just to have a chance to sing in the empty Opera Theatre, and then on the follow-up show, it was lovely to see that she'd been given a full-time chorus position. Because of that, I always notice her in the chorus and somehow she just seems to radiate positive energy and joy in singing. So I think it's great she's been given a solo part, however tiny, and I plan to clap especially loudly for her. 
• As has been pointed out in the comments, Bruce Beresford has been speaking again about his plans to direct Carlisle Floyd's Of Mice and Men for Opera Australia. He reckons he'd like Anthony Dean Griffey (for whom Previn wrote the role of Mitch in Streetcar) for Lenny. Which I wouldn't say no to, of course: Griffey is wonderful as Mitch on disc and he was a pretty compelling Peter Grimes in last year's Met HD broadcast. My vote's still with Stuart Skelton though. I actually found his Mitch even more affecting than Griffey's — seeing him live probably helped that, admittedly — and I fully expect his Grimes this year to be at least the equal of his American counterpart's.    
• Speaking of Stuart Skelton, my constant YouTube trawling has dragged up one single solitary clip of the man in question. Alors, here are a couple of snippets from a Carmen somewhere (the clip details don't say where). There's more Carmen than Don José (bien sur) but it's much better than nothing. (Also, after the lumpish, wooden Don José OA had last year, I think Stuart is brilliant proof that it's entirely possibly for, shall we say, a larger gentleman, to move and act convincingly on stage, to be a physically committed and responsive member of the cast. Lumpishness, I suspect, has very little to do with size.)
• Moving from tenors (!) back to my natural territory — sopranos — it occured to me that, even though I tend to consider my diva obsessions as solitary pursuits, there may actually be more people than myself interested to read the Parisian response to Our Cheryl's season of Butterfly at the Bastille. To that end, some links — all in French, of course — Franck, naturellement (blog post) |  Devil Dave (blog post) | Forum Opera (review) | Altamusica (review) | Anaclase (review)| ConcertClassic (review). As was discussed in the comments a while back, an oh-so-Parisian strike meant the actual opening night (with the A-cast Butterfly) was cancelled, so that Cheryl in fact opened the production: hence, presumably, all the press. And if you don't fancy reading all the French: they liked her. There's little abject diva worship — that's my department — but it's a pretty positive response overall.   
• Well, if Stuart Skelton gets a YouTube link, then Cheryl definitely does. She's remarkably hard to find: neither of the two clips which come up in a search on her name actually contain any footage of her. But I tracked her down eventually, in four clips (here, here, here and here) from a 2001 La bohème at the Vlaamse Opera. They're focused on the Musetta (Rebecca Caine) but there's quite a bit of Mimi too, and she's fabulous. Bonus: the Rodolfo is Julian Gavin.

2007 in review

The season is over. It was also my first year of regular and frequent operagoing. As good an excuse as any for a bit of list making (I like lists). These, then, were a few of my favourite things...

Sopranos and mezzos

Antoinette Halloran. After a sort of nondescript Johanna in Sweeney Todd, Antoinette turned in a breathtaking performance as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire and made a fan of me. As an added bonus, she singlehandedly transformed The Gondoliers into something I wanted to hear.

Pamela Helen Stephen. A bit of a revelation as Nicklausse in Les contes d'Hoffmann. I disagree with the redoubtable Dr Andrew Byrne's slightly snide comments, I think she utterly deserved her star turn and I'd happily listen to her sing as many arias as could be discovered.

Rachelle Durkin. I've written excessively about Rachelle and will try to restrain myself here. I adore her. I thought her Alcina was just insanely fantastic. I'm trying not to think about the fact that she's about to sing it again in Melbourne and that I can't possibly be there. I saw her four times and would happily see her four more. Bring on Orlando.

Milijana Nikolic. She was impressive in her short roles in Il Trittico and Hoffmann but it was as Venus in Tannhäuser that she really came into her own, resplendent and electrifying.

But the soprano of the year has got to be Cheryl Barker. A sublime Rusalka, and then radiant in all three Trittico roles. Not to mention her wonderful performance in Don John of Austria with the Sydney Symphony and her Jenufa last year, which was the first opera I saw after moving here. A very special artist. We're privileged to have her here so frequently; and next season there are not one, but three fabulous Cheryl vehicles to look forward to. I can't wait.

Tenors and baritones

José Carbo. In his element as both Figaro (in Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and the Count Almaviva (in Le nozze di Figaro). A voice as suave and charming as his stage presence. He's one of those singers I'm always pleased to see and hear.

Joshua Bloom. Absolutely staggering. He was an excellent Figaro and absolutely glorious in the St Matthew Passion with the Sydney Philhamonia Choirs. His career is growing more glittery by the minute so evidently I'm not the only one terribly impressed by him.

Stuart Skelton. Stuart was utterly perfect as Mitch in Streetcar. He sang gorgeously and was almost worryingly convincing.

But my favourite of favourites? Aldo di Toro of course. Twice I saw him sing Alfredo, twice I saw Traviata through Alfredo's eyes and not Violetta's. Rarely have I seen a singer with a more immediately engaging and sympathetic presence on stage and that liquid amber voice and golden age technique are knee weakening.

Productions

The old fashioned but still opulent La traviata, proof that conventional doesn't necessarily mean boring.

Half of Rusalka. I loved the stark, icy, abstract sets. I didn't like all the mad scientist business with Jezibaba. But overall, one of the most visually appealing shows all year.

Sweeney Todd. Scary and funny and compelling. Is it an opera? I tend to say no. But I enjoyed myself a lot.

For all its flaws and mirrors, Alcina. It was fantastical and weird, which is how Alcina ought to be. It gave Rachelle ample space to terrify and bewitch, and I liked the golden light at the end, even if it did leave me temporarily blind.

A Streetcar Named Desire. Whatever you make of the music, this was some seriously impressive theatre. The costumes were mostly good (though Blanche could have been treated a bit better) and the set was ingenious and evocative. All I want to know is — how did Blanche's trunk get to the house? She doesn't bring it with her when she got off the streetcar at Elysian Fields, but it's there by the next morning. Nitpicking of course. This was brilliant.

Moments of brilliance and beauty

Kanen Breen's contortive comic antics in both Sweeney Todd and Hoffmann. I'm not going to claim that he has the world's most wonderful voice but he's clearly a genius of physical and verbal comedy.

Yvonne Kenny's "Soft people have got to shimmer and glow" in A Streetcar Named Desire. She did shimmer and glow. She was heartbreaking and lovely.

I loved everything about Rachelle Durkin's Alcina, but especially her "Ombre pallide", when the look in her eyes was so manic I wouldn't have been surprised if the dark forces she was summoning had actually arrived in the theatre.

A revelation — Amelia Farrugia's Proch Variations in Rosina's singing lesson. Polished, pinpoint coloratura. Give her more bel canto to work with.

The offstage Pilgrim's Chorus in Tannhäuser, which came from the outside the back doors of the theatre. Unearthly, eerie and transcendently beautiful.

What can I pick for Cheryl Barker? Her ability to remain mesmerising and magnetic in Rusalka even while mute. Her real tears at the end of Suor Angelica. And the richness of expression with which she imbued Giorgetta's tiniest phrases in Il Tabarro — how can a simple "Ma che credi?" sound so wonderful?

And the list goes on... these are a few, but every single opera this season (even the ones I've been less than kind to) has had at least one moment which made me think: this is why I'm so head over heels in love with opera. Coming next, a few scattered thoughts (and probably more lists) on next year's season.

Nuit blanche

A Streetcar Named Desire

Opera Australia's new production of André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire has a great deal going for it. I'll get to all of that in a moment. But its biggest advantage is the most obvious one of all — it is A Streetcar Named Desire. Transformed into an opera, it remains well and truly the beautiful baby of Tennessee Williams, a work of incandescent genius which any relatively faithful realisation would have difficulty destroying.

Phillip Littell's libretto isn't always the most subtly wrought adaptation but it nevertheless remains very close to its source. Even where the poetry is lost, the plot is not — and in Williams' play, both aspects are as enthralling as each other. Whereas in previous centuries we can find operas whose primary claim to brilliance is their music, inspired enough to make libretto and plot secondary concerns, Streetcar works in reverse. Provided it was set with a reasonable degree of intelligence and flair, it would always have fascinated because the story it tells is fascinating. There's very little could mask the essential shimmer and glow of this play and its beguiling protagonist. If it sounds like I'm saying that any kind of operatic Streetcar given any kind of production would be some kind of success, that's because I more or less am. If Tennessee Williams' basic creation is left intact then the result, even if lacklustre, could never be wholly hideous.

Lacklustre, however, this Streetcar most certainly is not. Opera Australia has lavished the best of everything upon it and such pampering has paid off spectacularly well. Every aspect of this production has been realised with intelligence, sensitivity and passionate engagement. Designer John Stoddart's production is of startling, spectral beauty. His sets are realistic but not quite real, New Orleans Gothic in greys and blacks. The women are dressed in pastels — Blanche always in shades of blue; Stanley as plain and practical as can be until the terrifying appearance of his devil-red silk pjyamas. Michael Gruchy's film projections are used to mesmerising effect — images of Belle Reve and old South grandeur which bleed hauntingly in and out of the rundown Kowalski home. Bruce Beresford's direction is subtle and surefooted, concerned at every moment to present truth and not melodrama. Even where Previn's setting is at its most sweepingly operatic, he never allows things to go over the top. He strikes an ideal balance between musical showcase and credible theatre, so that you'd almost — but never entirely — forget it was an opera. Tom Woods is an attentive and revelatory conductor, bringing out exciting colours and sounds that even in eight months of immersion in the Deutsche Grammophon recording, I'd never entirely appreciated before. What a difference a theatre makes. Previn's jazz and blues inspired phrases come to far more vivid life with space in which to breathe than squashed onto a CD, and what seemed needlessly complex orchestration makes far more sense when matched to action onstage. I'm still not in love with the score but I felt more affection for it last night than I have all year.

Animating this enchanting framework is a spectacularly strong cast, with even the smallest roles given excellent and individualised voice. Dominica Matthews is superb as Eunice Hubbell, imbuing Previn's slightly merciless Sprechstimme lines with as much music as possible and resisting the temptation to caricature which such a brief role could easily afford. Tenor Andrew Brunsdon is spot on as her rough and slightly hopeless husband, Steve. As the Spanish flower-seller, Catherine Carby is a wonderful luxury. Her monologue is one of the opera's oddest passages, a cryptic tirade about death and fire and flowers. On the DG recording it's given a dementedly exaggerated reading by Josepha Gayer which recalls nothing so much as Bela Lugosi's inexplicable ranting in the Ed Wood classic Glen or Glenda?. Catherine's more understated performance — and much sweeter voice — turn this scene from laughable to genuinely eerie and effective. Angus Wood is convincingly earnest and awkward as the young collector whom Blanche half seduces.

Antoinette Halloran is a revelation. She expertly captures both Stella's powerful attraction to Stanley and her genuine love and compassion for her sister. This is not the earthy, slightly immature Stella of Elia Kazan's film. Antoinette's Stella — indeed, Previn's Stella — is a bit more thoughtful and sympathetic. She adores Stanley to distraction — the physical chemistry between them is evident, but so too is a gentler affection. Previn gives Stella some of the opera's loveliest, purest music, which Antoinette sings with poise and surprising power. Her "I can hardly stand it" in Act One is glittering and impassioned; her morning-after vocalise at the end of the same act a smoky, sensual knockout. I can only hope she has opportunities to perform the role elsewhere — this is a truly impressive performance.

As Mitch, Stuart Skelton is one of most perfect pieces of casting I've ever seen. He's built for the role. This is an important concern in any case, but especially so because Mitch actually sings his measurements. That said — they're wrong. Phillip Littell, for reasons known only to himself, has made Mitch a full sixty-three pounds heavier than in the play — he goes from 207 to 270. For Stuart, they've shaved a few inches off Mitch's height as well; but at 6'1 he's still just as imposing as Blanche tells him he is. Much more important, of course, is his vocal suitability — and he's an absolute dream. He shapes Mitch's surprisingly elegant lines beautifully, his easy, mellifluous sound underpinned by just enough heldentenor solidity. It's just the right mix for Mitch, youthful sweetness edged with something a bit heavier — a diamond in the rough. His acting conveys much the same sense — a genuinely sweet natured boy, if a bit dopey and awkward. Even when he's drunk and gets rough with Blanche, his movements and reactions speak more of bewilderment and disillusionment than real violence.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes brings his very own brand of charisma and physicality to the role of Stanley. The self declared "king around here", he dominates his home (and his wife) with calm and unselfconscious assurance. Stanley is the polar opposite of Blanche — there's no affectation here, nothing false. He's as natural in his tender moments with Stella as he is in his violent treatment of Blanche — whatever he does, he does because he feels it's his right. Thus there's an odd sort of sincerity to his character which prevents him becoming entirely despicable. He's brutal, yes — but not necessarily malicious. Though he looks like Lucifer himself when he emerges from the bathroom in his red silk pyjamas, his most hideous act — his rape of Blanche — is driven more by a primal, animal urge than calculated evil. That's not an excuse. Stanley is still bad news — but in Teddy's hands he's at least three dimensional bad news. His voice, in its own way, is just powerful — and utterly unmistakeably. Teddy sounds quite unlike anybody. It's a dark, deep-set, bronzed kind of sound. Smooth as smooth can be but at the same time richly textured, full of glorious and surprising vocal colours. It maybe isn't always the most conventionally attractive voice (or maybe that's just me) but there's a definite allure to it just the same, not to mention irresistible authority. Little wonder this is his fourth Stanley.

Blanche. Yvonne Kenny is Blanche. I mean that — Yvonne Kenny is Blanche. She's not Vivien Leigh's Blanche, so small and fragile that you want to look after her right from the start. Nor is she Renée Fleming's Blanche, oversized and overtly tragic. Yvonne's Blanche takes a little longer to warm to. The cracks in the façade don't show straight away — thus in the first act we see her mostly as she wishes to appear; or in the way she's perceived by others. Prim, superior. A little insincere. Of course, there are moments. In front of the mirror, before Stella arrives — "I look so old". But she maintains the lie quite well for the first act. Then in the second act she starts to crumble and it's here that her performance really blooms and draws us in. Her gestures have been so contained and refined that when Stanley finally gets to her and she starts thrusting papers violently into his hands — then stops just as suddenly and regains composure — the effect is quite shocking. She portrays Blanche's descent into madness with heartbreaking stillness, a stillness which makes Stanley's every push and shove that much more brutal. In the scene with the young collector she is mesmerising. Just before Stanley brings her to her lowest point, she is at her most breathtakingly beautiful, a vision of loveliness in her ballgown and tiara. It doesn't look like a "worn out Mardi Gras outfit" at all; she looks perfect and so when Stanley pushes her and the clasp comes undone and she's left exposed in her slip, the cruelty and humiliation are that much worse.

In Blanche, Previn has devised one of the most taxing roles in the soprano repertoire. Just the psychology of it is an immense emotional undertaking. It also has to be sung. It is not an easy sing — it's incredibly long and vocally demanding. At a point in her career when nobody would look askance at her for sticking to recitals and vineyard concerts and the odd Hanna Glawari, Yvonne has taken up this monumental challenge instead — and she emerges transcendentally victorious. She throws herself into this music with a lyrical forcefulness and fullness of tone which surprised even me. Blanche's music reflects her mental fragmentation, alternating between frantic, spiky vocal writing and comparative peace, with simpler, more conventional music. She's in electrifying command in both states. The story of her young husband is riveting, brought with exquisite judgement to its unbearable climax. Her pianissimi are celestial. And the truth is, if you don't happen to be among the 10543 or so people who will see this show in Sydney, your life will be forever poorer for having missed her "I want magic!" — a thing of such sublime beauty I can't trust even my own floridity to do it justice. Yvonne's Blanche is an extraordinary achievement — among her finest to date — and a priceless gift.

Indeed this production in its entirety is one to be treasured. Even with a few opening night hiccups, last night was a singularly powerful performance. As the season progresses, I've no doubt it will intensify and improve even further — and when it does, it'll be electric. Opera Australia has something rare and valuable  on its hands. A remarkable triumph for all concerned.