Why Do We Go to the Opera?

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Conductor: Donald Runnicles
Production: David McVicar

Troy:
Cassandra: Anna Caterina Antonacci
Aeneas: Bryan Hymel *
Coroebus: Brian Mulligan

Carthage:
Dido: Susan Graham
Aeneas: Bryan Hymel
Anna: Sasha Cooke
Narbal: Christian Van Horn

For this, oh yes, for this.

Hector Berlioz' Les Troyens was a work of love.  Virgil's Aenead was one of his favorite things from childhood.  You can tell this because he composes everything.  He can't bear to leave anything out.  He didn't seem to care how hard it was to get such a long opera produced.

Les Vêpres Siciliennes

Now that the Met has had such success with simulcasts into theaters, everyone wants to do it.  The Tower Theater shows performances from the Royal Opera House in London, so I went down to catch Verdi's Les Vêpres siciliennes.

Conductor: Antonio Pappano
Director: Stefan Herheim

Guy de Montfort, French governor: Michael Volle
Henri, young Sicilian: Bryan Hymel
La Duchesse Hélène:  Lianna Haroutounian
Jean Procida, Sicilian doctor:  Erwin Schrott

This is a grand opera in French, one of Verdi's earliest ventures into the world of French opera.  I kept listening to hear Verdi and really did not.  It seems he was very much trying to sound French.  There is a coloratura aria called Bolero near the end, the hit tune for this opera, but that was all I could hear of bel canto.

The setting has been moved from the historical event in 1282 to the 1850s period of Verdi's opera.  It is common to stage an opera in the style of the date of its premier instead of what it says in the libretto, and I felt it worked fine here.  The French and Italians seem to fight in almost every era.

The production seemed to try to crowd as much on to the stage as it could possibly hold.  There is the interior of the Paris Opera and the female part of the corps de ballet.  There's scenic shots of Sicily.  There's a very large chorus and a lot of supers.  If you like everything in motion, you would love this.  For instance, in the tenor and soprano love duet they constantly circle the chopping block, seeming to avoid instead of embrace each other.  The ballet dances the prologue and various other scenes throughout the opera, but the traditional long ballet in act 3 was omitted.



There is politics.  France occupies Sicily, and the Sicilians make periodic attempts to throw them out.  Procida is the most anti-French, along with Hélène whose brother was killed.  She first enters holding her brother's head wrapped in a cloth.  The whole production is like that.  The governor rapes one of the dancers in the middle of the stage.  People are shot.   At the masked ball and other times, too, the masks are skulls held like lorgnettes.  It is a dense, complicated, dark and violent opera made more so by the production.  They spared us an actual massacre at the end.

I went to see Erwin Schrott in a dress.  It came near the end.  Why he wore a dress in this scene remains a mystery, but he looked great in it.  He also sang and acted very well.  Next in order of impressive performances came Bryan Hymel.  I think I was right about what I said about him here.  With a bit of extra polish he could be a very impressive singer.

The sound and picture quality at the Tower Theater in Sacramento were excellent.  This is my first time for the French version.  I saw the Italian version in San Francisco in 1993 with Carol Vaness and James Morris, and conducted by Charles Mackerras.
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Bryan Hymel

Here are a few films of Bryan, the tenor from Les Troyens, starting with Carmen.



Lucia.



He's 33 and from New Orleans.  William Tell.



Wow.  This entire role is completely insane.

Les Troyens in HD

Conductor...............Fabio Luisi
Production..............Francesca Zambello

Part I: La Prise de Troie

Cassandra...............Deborah Voigt
Coroebus................Dwayne Croft Aeneas..................Bryan Hymel
Ascanius................Julie Boulianne Priam...................Julien Robbins Hecuba..................Theodora Hanslowe

Part II: Les Troyens à Carthage

Dido....................Susan Graham
Anna....................Karen Cargill
Narbal..................Kwangchul Youn
Iopas...................Eric Cutler
Ascanius................Julie Boulianne
Panthus.................Richard Bernstein
Aeneas..................Bryan Hymel

We liked this picture because the right side of the dome shot, seen at the very end of the opera, is the interior of the Pantheon in Rome.  Berlioz is assigning to his characters the ability to see into the future, in this case the fact that ultimately Rome conquers Carthage.  Hector Berlioz loved Virgil's Aenead and created his own libretto for his masterpiece Les Troyens, simulcast today live from the Metropolitan Opera.

This quote from Wikipedia is interesting. "In 1969, Bärenreiter Verlag of Kassel, Germany, published a Critical Edition of Les Troyens, containing all the compositional material left by Berlioz. The preparation of this critical edition was the work of Hugh Macdonald, whose Cambridge University doctoral dissertation this was. The tendency since then has been to perform the opera complete." This in spite of the fact that earlier in the same article it says, "In this [earlier] published score, [Berlioz] introduced a number of optional cuts which have often been adopted in subsequent productions."  We liked especially the idea, not being ourselves French, that all the ballets would be cut.

It is a huge opera that can be produced only in the largest opera houses.  I think it would work to do a cut down version using only the final three acts, actually the format for the original production called Les Troyens à Carthage. Perhaps in this format we would get to see it more often.  For my taste these are the parts I enjoy; the lyricism, the love duet, the fatal love affair.  I could live without a crowd of women stabbing themselves.

Because we are living in the prime of Susan Graham, an artist of wonderful gifts, especially in the French repertoire.  This is the part we would want to see over and over.  To quote Joyce Didonato, "Berlioz and Susan Graham--a match made in heaven."

The replacement tenor who sang Énée, Bryan Hymel, was incredible.  We were definitely hoping to get to hear more of him.  He received the loudest ovation, both during the opera for his aria in Act V and at the final bows.

Kudos to everyone, especially the chorus which is in virtually every scene.

Regie Faust

The band of color across the bottom of the picture is actually a reflection in the moat that runs around the edge of the orchestra pit.

Faust and I have a relationship since it was one of the operas we performed in Ulm.  Ours was neither as serious and sensible as last season's in San Francisco nor as silly as the one at the Santa Fe Opera.

Let's see.  Guys in pointy helmets is Kaiser Germany, right?  It's hard to guess the period for this production.  Men are in top hats, but Marguerite's dress does not reach the floor.  Does that make her a child?

Faust first appears in a wheelchair through the opening at the back of the stage where God's sunset was still in progress.  To turn him back into a young man the devil is reduced to performing surgery.  The fair where Faust meets Marguerite is staged as a carnival side show with a bearded lady, a fat man and a set of Siamese twins.  Marguerite makes her appearance on roller-skates. 

The ballet is left in--a first for me--and staged as six opera divas, each attempting to seduce Faust.  It makes the opera too long.

One could go on and on listing the regie gimmicks.  I liked it that when the soldiers return in triumph, they are followed on stage by three caskets.  Serious and silly alternate in rapid order.

So how does this explain that it was a triumph?  It is one of the great mysteries, one that Shakespeare understood, that a little comedy only makes the tragedy that much deeper.

Our conductor, Frédéric Chaslin, the chief conductor of the Santa Fe Opera, is an actual Frenchman.  After my experience in Paris, I am convinced the French understand their opera in a way that mere foreigners cannot.  We were spared unrelenting heavy tempos and thick orchestral playing, and in its place was lightness and charm, a winning combination.

His singers were with him all the way, beginning with the wonderful Marguerite of American Ailyn Pérez who has already made her debut in Milan, Berlin and Vienna.  I look forward to seeing more of her.

Ours was the last performance for Bryan Hymel as Faust.  He's also already sung in Milan.  Faust appears to be on the heavy end of his repertoire.  Mark S. Doss was vocally a bit light but generally an outstanding Mephistopheles.

My tour mates are quibbling over the production, an irresistible pastime, but for me it was the singing, the poise of the singing actors, and most of all the magnificent music making that made this an excellent Faust. 

Vive la France.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1850-70]