Manon: c'est la l'histoire...

Rooting for these crazy kids: Manon and her Chevalier, Act I
Photo (c) Ken Howard/Met Opera

I attended the opening performance of this season's Manon at the Met, and for fans of stylish, passionate singing, the rest of the run promises to be magnificent. Laurent Pelly's stylish, sinister production I found even more effective in revival than (apparently) I did in its first run. The bourgeois brutality and hypocrisy of which Manon and Des Grieux fall afoul were apparent from the first. And the setting in the fin-de-siècle, with its bustling urban spaces, conspicuous consumption, and religious anxiety (to say nothing of precarious social mobility and the precarious position of women in the public sphere,) really does work remarkably well. My customary raptures over the orchestra must in this case be modified. Their sound, while aptly lush, could be unfocused, and there were occasional lapses in stage-pit synchronization over the course of the evening. Emmanuel Villaume was, however, responsive to the singers in their (many!) challenging arias, and ensembles were well-supported, so matters may improve over the course of the run.

Le coeur se creuse: Werther in Frankfurt

Order vs. the artist: Werther, Act I
Photo © Oper Frankfurt/Wolfgang Runkel

Until last night, Werther belonged to the category of operas I'd never seen live, despite its being solidly established as part of the standard repertoire. I'm glad to have amended this under such favorable conditions: Frankfurt's current revival boasts not only an excellent cast, but a cool, intelligent production by Willy Decker that provides a welcome counterweight to the emotionalism of Massenet's score. Decker's visual language is straightforward and effective, dividing the nature where Werther absorbs experience and sensation from the Bailli's house by a sliding wall. The Bailli's reference to it as "his kingdom" appears as a hollow reference to a pretense of bourgeois order which he cannot uphold: the image of his dead wife has a stronger presence than any of the living in this repressed and depressive atmosphere. The emotions in the score are officially forbidden by the bourgeois society on stage: Massenet is writing in and for the time of Ibsen, not that of Goethe. The children's toy houses reappear as the village of Act II; Albert and Charlotte are separated as they are bound by the enormous dining table where they preside over all the parishioners. I particularly liked that Decker's production creates many silent, musically sensitive interactions among the characters which helped give a clear emotional through-line between the opera's episodes. Credit is due to the revival director, Alan Barnes, for making poignantly clear how each of the opera's characters is imprisoned. Even the Bailli is depressed rather than feckless; Schmitt and Johann function like Shakespearean mutes, personifying the unimaginative apathy which, as Goethe's protagonist observes, can be as dangerous as malice. It is they who bring the messages which interrupt Werther and Charlotte's attempts to break free of their prescribed social roles. Charlotte, for all the calm which Albert praises, has a lively intellectual life, and is aware, with painful intensity, of the emotional life which she is being denied. And for once we see a Werther whose Todessehnsucht is present (and credible) from the outset: he devotes himself to art and nature alike; but he is exhausted by the constant effort of maintaining his refusal to compromise.

Manon: l'homme est très observateur

Manon and the male gaze
Photo (c) Ken Howard/Met Opera

Massenet's Manon, an opera about sex, scandal, and social status--oh, and true love--revolves around the character of its title heroine, and around others' perceptions of her. Manon is described as a sphinx even by her lover Des Grieux, and treated as a creature of caprice, but Laurent Pelly's production makes her a passionate young woman who pursues her own goals, playing perilous games with a hypocritical society. Maybe it was partially the updating to the 1880s which made me see the Manon of this production as a figure parallel to De Maupassant's Georges Duroy (Bel Ami): a provincial set on conquering Paris, an individual of insignificant antecedents but extraordinary personal beauty, for whom sex is not only a sensual pleasure, but a weapon of social conquest. The tone of Pelly's production seemed, like the opera's heroine, to hesitate between laughter and tears without quite knowing why. The voyeurism of male(-dominated) society was highlighted, as were Manon's resolute attempts at self-assertion within that society. But despite the near-ubiquity of sinister flâneurs, the trio of Poussette, Javotte, and Rosette were played as straightforwardly comedic, and even Guillot and de Bretigny were relatively non-threatening. In short, the production, while not devoid of style or ideas, did not always seem to have the courage of its convictions.

Fabio Luisi's leadership of the Met orchestra was light of touch, and sensitive to the quicksilver undercurrents in the score. Even when Massenet's characters dissemble, his orchestra reveals what they are thinking and feeling; Luisi and the Met forces did so with subtlety nearly always, and with well-timed escalations of passionate intensity. I especially appreciated the nuanced handling of the frequent ostinati in the strings, and the fine work of the woodwinds throughout. Anne-Carolyn Bird, with an agile, bright soprano and vivid presence, made a memorable Poussette. The Guillot of Christophe Mortagne was another standout: Mortagne sang with bright tone and assured diction, and acted with comic opera flair. David Pittsinger sang the Comte des Grieux with consistently elegant phrasing and rich, expressive sound; his Act III scene with Beczala was notable for its emotional nuance. Paulo Szot sounded somewhat grainy, but made a charismatic (and thoroughly caddish) Lescaut.

Love, Death, and Local Color: Cavalleria and La Navarraise

I blame the scaffolding for the lighting.
I could also claim it's an artistic effect.

The Opera Orchestra of New York's much-anticipated return to the musical landscape was, for me, actually a Planned Event rather than Spontaneous Frivolity.  The orchestra, conducted by Alberto Veronesi, played with energy and sensuality, if not faultlessly.  There were a few brass wobbles, and I thought I noted one missed cue.  Veronesi seemed to have very clear ideas about how both verismo operas should sound, however: atmospheric and unabashedly, urgently emotional.  His website is still under construction, but according to Opera News he will be officially directing the OONY from next season onwards.  Technical faults are fixable, so I look forward to good and exciting things.

Usual caveats in place about the fact that I am feeling my way into the vocabulary, not to mention the more technical aspects of musical appreciation, I found the singing of Cavalleria curiously uneven.  The sexiest thing about Lola was her red dress (nerves, maybe?)  Alfio, Carlos Almaguer, seemed to have a nice timbre, but this was masked by a tendency to bellow, which affected intelligibility as well.  Veteran artist Mignon Dunn was a treat as Mamma Lucia, vividly characterized and sung.  Maria Guleghina sang a Santuzza I wanted to like more than I did.  With a warm tone and dramatic commitment she created a Santuzza with uncommon understanding of herself and Turiddu, and a resulting gentleness which was quasi-matronly.  Even phrases like "Turiddu mi tolsi l'onore" were more informed by fond memory than by present anguish.  (Quite a contrast with Waltraud Meier, who created a Santuzza straight out of a Greek tragedy, fierce and rawly passionate.)    Interesting as she was, though, she was occasionally inaccurate, and more than occasionally nigh-inaudible, which I found puzzling and disappointing.  Alagna sounded darker, stronger, and more focused than when I heard him in a run of Cav/Pag at the Met last spring.  (And I heard him from the orchestra, thanks to rush tickets, so the potential problem of his not-very-large voice getting lost should have been obviated?)  At any rate, I was quite impressed.  Curiously, he was the only performer on book for Cavalleria and I missed the unrestrained energy of his on-stage Turiddu.  Still, he sang vividly, and "Mamma, quel vino" was sung with a sob in the voice, urgent with desperation and remorse.

Reine par la beauté

I'm always surprised by finding events which I'm excited about not sold out at the last minute.  But I was thrilled to be able to walk into the box office of the Teatro dell'Opera on Thursday and get two cheap tickets for Saturday's performance of Massenet's Manon (June 19.)  A note on these back-of-the-house seats: my assumption that "molto alto" in Rome would be just fine for one accustomed to standing at the top of the Met was correct.  The shape of the theater meant we did have to perch straight-backed on the edge of our seats to see the stage at all, but when we did, there was a fine view.  I missed only the very back of the stage... where, as it turned out, some Significant Recurring Themes were being illustrated, but more on that later.

First things first: a Really Shameful Confession is that I keep being surprised by Massenet.  Thais was the first of his operas I came to know, and based on this, and recordings of Manon and Werther where I failed to grasp either depth or subtlety, I had mentally classified his music as a bit... light: lovely, certainly, but tilting dangerously towards the trite and trivial.  I am, of course, recalibrating this opinion.  This January's Werther under Michel Plasson in Paris came as a glorious shock, even on a web stream.  While the Manon I saw in Rome may not have brought out musical and dramatic subtleties to that degree, I did get a sense of its cohesion, charm, and poignancy which had utterly eluded me in recordings.  The charm which is so often attributed to Manon and its eponymous heroine is a charm which I still find more in the music than in the drama.  While the conducting of Alain Guingal may not have brought out all the sparkle and all the irony that general enthusiasm leads me to suspect Manon of coyly hiding, it still enabled me to have many "aha!" moments in seeing how the music was hinting at things to come, reminding me of things past, hanging together, and keeping its momentum.   And I sympathized here with the besotted Des Grieux and the flighty Manon... I actually rooted for their too-insouciant happiness to continue, and felt genuinely sorry for Manon in her artificial splendor.

Je ne sais si je veille

I listened to several recordings of Massenet's "Werther" this past week, preparing myself for the Great Telecast Event. Then I reread Die Leiden des Jungen Werther, driven by terrible feelings of guilt. If Massenet had been inspired by Goethe's masterpiece to write an opera so darkly, intimately beautiful, surely I should give said masterpiece another try (my horrible, shameful confession is that I did not like Werther when I read it in school.) I don't know what was wrong with me the first time. Perhaps I failed to pick up on the self-awareness and gentle self-mockery with which Werther evaluates his own impressionable, impulsive nature. Perhaps I was too immaturely looking for "the main story" of Werther and his passion for Lotte, rather than absorbing all of Werther's experiences. In any case, this time, like thousands before me, I was drawn in, pulled along, and overwhelmed.

L'anima ho milionaria!

It's true that I have the very great fortune to live in a metropolis which boasts one of the world's great opera houses. For an opera-obsessed little girl in a big city, there may be no better place of refuge than the Met, with its sleek opulence, its friendly staff, and reliably glorious music (not to mention tickets for $20 and under at any non-gala performance.) However, when one is obsessed with opera, there are always more worlds to conquer. Right now, all over the world, opera is happening. While I cheerfully embrace the lofty-goals, low-income existence of a graduate student, there are times when I wish I could fly to Milan for Rigoletto, or budget a week at Bayreuth.