And now from Salzburg

So why doesn't Luca's chair have a name?

Late Late Show

Ailyn Perez and Luca Pisaroni with James Corden.  In case you missed it.  I think we've decided this is from Elixir of Love.

Sexiest Today

Philippe Jaroussky

Kristīne Opolais

Danielle de Niese

Elīna Garanča

Vittorio Grigolo

Ailyn Perez

Rene Pape

Isabel Leonard

Paolo Szot

Lisette Oropesa

Luca Pisaroni

Noah Stewart

Oh what the heck.  Jonas Kaufmann

Downton Abbey Figaro

Today from the Salzburg Festspiele was the Downton Abbey Le Nozze di Figaro. Susannah and Figaro were Anna and Bates, of course. Marcellina was the Duchess. Hugh and Cora never seem to quarrel but they are the Count and Countess Almaviva anyway. Susannah very very quickly snuck in a Nazi salute when she spotted Cherubino in a uniform. What was that about?

As I get older I realize that I understand more and more of the big three languages of opera--French, German and Italian--so I did not mind that there were no subtitles. Maybe I should try this more often.

This is the perfect Figaro.  I have never openly sobbed for Figaro before.  For the singing.  For the playing.  For the conducting.  And most especially for the spectacular production and the absolutely perfect staging of the final scene.  I'm very fussy about this, you may have guessed. We got to see the Countess's riding outfit hanging in her room and were very pleased to see it appear at the end on Susannah.  The countess wears Susannah's wedding outfit all the way to the end.  Luca looks truly sorry.  When it looked as though the Countess would be left alone while everyone was happy, I simply could not bear it.

Figaro waves around a gun, but does not shoot it.  Apparently in other parts of the world people can hold guns without firing them.

Such a perfect Figaro could only come from Salzburg.  

Dan Ettinger musical direction
Sven-Eric Bechtolf stage director

Luca Pisaroni (Conte Almaviva)
Anett Fritsch (Contessa Almaviva)
Martina Janková (Susanna)
Adam Plachetka (Figaro)
Margarita Gritskova (Cherubino)
Ann Murray (Marcellina)
Carlos Chausson (Don Bartolo)

Footnote.  I have one complaint.  I realize that all around us sex is happening.  However, I would prefer that this was left to my imagination.

Le Nozze di Figaro

Conductor: Patrick Summers
Director: Robin Guarino

Figaro: Philippe Sly (bass)
Susanna: Lisette Oropesa (soprano)
Countess Almaviva: Nadine Sierra (soprano)
Cherubino: Kate Lindsey (soprano)
Count Almaviva: Luca Pisaroni (bass)
Bartolo: John Del Carlo (bass)
Marcellina: Catherine Cook (soprano)
Basilio: Greg Fedderly (tenor)
Barbarina: Maria Valdes (soprano)

The San Francisco Opera has revived Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro yet again.  It's a very traditional production such as the just retired one from the Met.  Susanna accompanies "Voi che sapete" on the guitar. Stuff like that.

I went for the very fine cast.  Some of the cast members are repeats from the last time:  John Del Carlo, Catherine Cook and Greg Fedderly.  Of the younger cast members Luca Pisaroni has moved to the elder statesman Count role.  The singing for everyone was excellent.

I think this version is designed around the Susanna of Lisette Oropesa, she who runs marathons.  There is a lot of athletic activity.  Cherubino doesn't just hide behind the chair--he runs wildly around the stage, even turning a cartwheel.  Susanna and Figaro wrestle around in the garden, and she does a martial arts throw at one point, sending him over on his ass.  Philippe Sly's Figaro is up to the task.

It's interesting that while the production is the same as last time, the directing is completely different.  It was designed for the maximum amount of confusion, at least for me.  Perhaps I should consider not trying to follow the plot.

The tempos were brisk but I did not witness the loss of coordination reported elsewhere.

Selfie of the Week

Close in second place is this....

You have to guess.  I like these, too, but I won't make you guess.

Lawrence Brownlee and Anja Harteros.  I still need to see her live.

The one and only Brigitte Fassbaender with Brownlee.  He gets around a lot.  This has to be for Rosenkavalier and maybe the above one is, too.

To heck with guessing.  The top one is René Pape in his makeup for Gurnemanz followed by Luca Pisaroni as Henry VIII in Anna Bolena.  Doesn't Rene look like a street bum?

News

Anna Netrebko is being picketed in Zurich where she is singing Anna Bolena.

Playing her husband is Luca Pisaroni who is looking very gangster.  The reviews are good.

Salzburg Don Giovanni

Conductor:  Christoph Eschenbach

Donna Anna:  Lenneke Ruiten
Donna Elvira:  Anett Fritsch
Zerlina:  Valentina Nafornita
Don Giovanni:  Ildebrando D’Arcangelo
Leporello:  Luca Pisaroni
Il Commendatore:  Tomasz Konieczny
Don Ottavio:  Andrew Staples
Masetto:  Alessio Arduini

Lots of goodies are streaming from Salzburg on medici.tv this year.  I don't know how you tell if they are charging, but if you start it running and it doesn't stop, that means it's free. 

Right now I am watching Don Giovanni.  They all appear to be in a hotel together with the characters staying in different rooms.  One of the groups of guests is getting married:  Zerlina and Masetto.   Donna Elvira comes in with her suitcase.  She is checking in.  What a great idea.  Two of the women, Zerlina and Donna Elvira, are wearing modern wedding dresses.  Donna Elvira has just come from marrying Don Giovanni, I imagine.  For me this absolutely works.

You see there's always a problem with this opera that every little bit seems to be in a different place.  So we end up with 10 or 12 sets, like the Met checkerboard.  So why not put the opera in an environment where the set stays the same and the people occupying it change?  I think the designer must be someone who spends a lot of time in hotels.

This Leporello just seems to follow DG around and goose all the same girls.  He isn't viewing his master with alarm--he's trying to get in on the action.  This reduces the complexity of his character.  

Recitative is on the piano.

One problem is that the girls are all about the same age and build, making them difficult to tell apart as their costumes change.

In the second half our newlyweds do a mostly striptease in the lobby.  When I'm up wandering around in a hotel at night, I put on a lot more than these girls.  Now they are placing a bust of the Commendatore in the lobby.  This is actually fascinating.  For my requirement that the production needs to explain the plot it is aces.  Our Giovanni and Leporello are quite the pair, more interesting together than apart.  This is the first time I've thought that Giovanni was actually the main character.  I usually feel that he is upstaged by Leporello and the girls.  Excellent.  Congratulations.  It's only suitable that it should be at Salzburg.

They poison the Don.  Donna Elvira becomes a nun.

La bontà in trionfo

Conductor: Fabio Luisi
Production: Cesare Lievi

Cast

Angelina: Joyce DiDonato
Prince Ramiro: Juan Diego Flórez
Dandini: Pietro Spagnoli
Don Magnifico: Alessandro Corbelli
Clorinda: Rachelle Durkin
Tisbe: Patricia Risley
Alidoro: Luca Pisaroni


This series of Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Metropolitan Opera was a first go for Fabio Luisi, and I must say he was fantastic.  His tempos were great.  His ability to follow the singers was incredible.  Every note was secure, joyful and invigorating.  Someone mentioned in the interviews how nice it was to look down into the pit and see his smiling face.

All of these great singing actors were in form.  I didn't even mind Don Magnifico played by the great Alessandro Corbelli.  He explains that he never plays anything for laughs, and in this performance only the sisters and Dandini seemed to be deliberately aiming for silliness.  Joyce, Juan Diego, Luca, Pietro, all were fabulous.  The entire performance was filled with love and joy.  It was a truly great La Cenerentola.

I apologize to my fellow viewers for conducting and humming along throughout most of this. It is still the opera I have listened to most, and apparently I know every note.

Luca Pisaroni Recital

Luca Pisaroni sang last night in Nourse Theater in San Francisco.  This was my first time in this theater since it became a performance space and not a rehearsal venue for the San Francisco Opera.  I kept imagining the director's table in the middle.  The theater began its life as part of a high school which was later deemed too expensive to earthquake proof.  It's sort of pseudo Ali Baba or Scheherazade. 

I am a fan of Luca, loved him in Cosi in Salzburg, The Enchanted Island, Maometto II in Santa Fe and as Leporello in Don Giovanni. 

I love you, Luca, but you didn't seem happy at all.  You came to life a little after the intermission when you sang Liszt, but you didn't feel comfortable with what you were doing.

I'm going to let you in on a secret:  nowadays singers are performing what they love, as long as it's within the vast catalog that is classical music.  At long last.  So don't let someone else pick what you are going to sing.

My favorite part of the program was the encore: "O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst" which sounded familiar.  And it was.  It's Liszt's Liebestraum, better known as a piece for piano.  Love as long as you can.  I took this personally.  

After hearing him in Mozart, Cavalli and Rossini, I guess I was unprepared for a program by German composers (Beethoven, Brahms, Reichart) plus the Hungarian in his most German mode.  There wasn't exactly anything wrong with it, the pianist Wolfram Rieger was wonderful, but Luca didn't quite come to life.

He is so cute!!

This is Rapid Fire with Luca Pisaroni.

Conversation with Luca

This is from January Opera Magazine.

Luca Pisaroni is complaining about Italian singers.  "In Italy, a singer sings only opera and some Verdi Requiem.  Show me an Italian recitalist!"

Anna Caterina Antonacci?

"She lives in Paris."

Cecilia Bartoli?

"Bartoli's a rock star!  There is nobody like Bartoli in the business.  I adore Cecilia because she has a passion about what she does that nobody else has.  To come up with these programmes, it's not easy.  I wish everybody had the passion she has about older repertoire, to research, to find the material--she's a rock star, it's a fact."

This came in the mail years ago postmarked Roma. I am posting it in honor of the 20th anniversary of my instant infatuation with Cecilia. She's my rock star, too.

Ercole Amante

No expense has been expended to explain the plot of Cavalli's Ercole Amante (1662).  Perhaps a dissertation would be required.

Here we go.  In Act II Scene 4 someone explains that:

"Hyllus [son of Ercole, Jeremy Overden] loves Iole and she loves him, but she hates Ercole [Luca Pisaroni] who loves her;  Nicander loves Licoris, and she loves Orestes who loves Olinda; Olinda and Celia love gold and jewels...."

Ercole is married to Deianira, mother of Hyllus, and Iole hates him because he killed her father.  Ercole thinks he should kill Deianira and Hyllus.  Apparently, explained in Act III, Iole's father promised her to Ercole.  Iole then talked him out of it, and Ercole killed him.  Ercole blames everything on her.

There is a lot of hanky-panky in this opera which was supposed to be given at the marriage of Louis XIV to Maria Theresa of Spain.  I'm not sure, but I think there is a confusion of Ercole with Louis.  It's a kind of Iron Man plot where as the king of France he is skinny like, well, like Luca Pisaroni, and then he puts on his muscle suit and turns into the super buff Hercules.  This suit doesn't help him fight crime, it's just for attracting women. 

Doesn't seem like a particularly suitable plot for a wedding celebration.  They could not perform the opera at the wedding in 1660 because the construction of the stage machinery was not complete.  I imagine things soaring through the air or flying down from above, things which don't seem to happen in modern productions.

This is all miserably hard to understand.  Much like in the Ring, there are gods littering the stage who take sides with the mortals.  Venus is with Ercole.  Juno [Anna Bonitatibus], naturally sides with Deianira and tells Iole how wonderfully virtuous she is.  Neptune and Juno advise Hyllus.  Oy.  It's exhausting.

The music is mostly Florentine recitative with arias and ballet interspersed.  Because it's meant for Paris, there is quite a lot of ballet.  There are some funny scenes.  The dialog refers to Atlas, so he appears holding up the world, which Ercole takes out of his arms and carries easily around before giving it back to Atlas.  The program notes call this an opera buffa, but we know that it is before the split into seria and buffa.  It can't be a buffa because there was at least one castrato who sang Juno.

In Act IV there are giant fish, boats and water for Neptune to rise out of.  They could have more successfully differentiated the gods from the humans.  But then what to do with Ercole who is some of each?  Luca is adorable in his muscle suit.

In the end Ercole becomes a god who marries Beauty.  In his guise as a god he goes back to resembling Louis XIV, a significantly thinner person who wears a sun crown.  
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Ercole

I was wandering through the shop at the San Francisco Opera and came upon this DVD.  This appears to be Luca Pisaroni in a muscle suit.  He seems to get all the good outfits, like this one from the Enchanted Island.

In real life he's quite handsome.

 

I bought it, of course.  More later.  I have to write something for Dolores Claiborne first.

Cosi from Salzburg

CAST

Fiordiligi:  Malin Hartelius,
Dorabella:  Marie-Claude Chappuis,
Despina:  Martina Janková,
Ferrando:  Martin Mitterrutzner,
Guglielmo:  Luca Pisaroni,
Don Alfonso:  Gerald Finley,

Perhaps it was too soon for me to see another Cosi fan tutte. I think if you get enough opera lovers together, everything will find someone to dislikes it. We used to say "Gesmacksache!"

So I will just tell the things I liked. The Despina of Martina Jankova was fresh and entertaining. I don't know why I never noticed this before, but Don Alfonso only wins because he cheats by persuading Despina to do all the work for him.

The set was a giant spa with a bath in the center and palm trees all around. In the second act the bath is covered and the palms move outside. This was a very conservative production, but still someone wanted to know "Why?"

Both of our baritones, Luca Pisaroni as Guglielmo and Gerald Finley as Don Alfonso, were excellent. Christoph Eschenbach conducted some outstanding ensembles, the key to a successful Cosi.

Our audience was very pleased, with sustained rhythmic clapping that went on for a long time.

The disguises were lame, as usual.  This time Ferrando gets Fiordiligi and Guglielmo rejects Dorabella, the consolation prize.   Don Alfonzo drinks poison and dies.  There's a lot to be explained here.  How about Fiordiligi goes to Ferrando and Guglielmo stabs him? Wouldn't that make more sense?

I bought a program for Cosi and it lists the casts of every performance of Cosi at the Salzburg Festival. It makes for some fascinating reading.

Irresistable

These guys are in Baden Baden for Don Giovanni.  The picture is by Catherine Pisaroni.  The cast is Erwin Schrott as Don Giovanni (right), Luca Pisaroni as Leporello (left), Anna Netrebko as Donna Anna, Charles Castronovo as Don Ottavio (hat), Jonathan Lemalu as Masetto (second from left) and Malena Ernman as Donna Elvira.  It must be cold.  I am taken with Schrott's fashion statement--bare chest, jacket with fur collar.  Hmmm. 

I am starting to wish I was rich.

Maometto II

This was the world premiere of the new critical edition of Rossini's Maometto Secondo to be published next year.  In his liner notes Dr. Philip Gossett goes out on a limb and says, "...Maometto II is one of the greatest serious operas written during the 19th century."

In my youth there was no serious Rossini in the repertoire.  I feel especially blessed to be living in the era of Rossini revival.

I thought I detected the Gossett touch in this performance--not just in the perfection of the score but also in the ornamentation of the singers.  And sure enough, he was here helping with the preparation.  And for me what is the Gossett touch?  Ornamentation suitable for each voice and powerful self-confidence in its execution.

The odd thing about Maometto is all the ensembles.  By 1820 we are living in the dying ends of opera seria, a form that is more pure in Handel, a time when da capo arias are almost the whole thing.  In Maometto II everyone gets an aria, Anna gets a lot more, but that still leaves a lot of ensembles. 

It is a monumental opera, more like something by Verdi and not at all the kind of opera usually taken on by Santa Fe.  This season the excellent chorus is especially prominent.

This opera requires four magnificent singers, and it got them.  My fellow bloggers, who have already come and gone, seemed critical of these singers.  Bah humbug!  They were all wonderful.

At the top is Luca Pisaroni as Maometto.  According to Wikipedia he is from Venezuela but moved to Italy when he was 4.  That's Italian enough for me.  I also understand that he is Thomas Hampson's son in law.  Hampson was in our audience.

In the picture above we have our other three artists.  Left is Patricia Bardon as Calbo, a contralto almost in the Ewa Podleś tradition.  This part is wickedly difficult with lots of notes on either extreme of the range, and she handled it well.

Center is the magnificent Leah Crocetto as Anna, an individual fanatically devoted to duty.  In one night I am suddenly a fan.  It is a very long and difficult role which Leah executed with increasing assurance.  Right is the tenor Bruce Sledge as Erisso.  He was also excellent.  I stood for Leah.

There is a glaring flaw in this production.  At the end Maometto faces stage left and Anna faces stage right.  This puts Maometto's sword on his upstage side, so when Anna uses it to stab herself, this is completely invisible to the audience.  Obviously if you reverse where they are standing, all this changes.  We were warned.

Thank you for this wonderful experience.

Opera News for August

I am enjoying very much the new copy of Opera News featuring an article titled "Opera's Next Wave."  I am surprised to see that there are a lot of familiar faces in this list.  I'm going to talk a bit about the ones I know.

I saw soprano Angela Meade in Ernani in HD last season.  Their take on her is about the same as mine.  She has a fabulous niche voice--spinto with agility.  For me to go mad over her she's going to have to get the musical parts of her work to a highly polished state in order to compensate for her lack of charisma.  The Met isn't searching primarily for charisma, but I think maybe I am.

I saw tenor Michael Fabiano in Lucrezia Borgia at the San Francisco Opera last fall where he played Gennaro, Renée Fleming's son in the opera.  Michael was good but was hampered by the fact that the tenor doesn't really get to do tenory things in this opera.

I am already a fan of the very sexy Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni.  As Leporello, he stole Don Giovanni from the Don of Mariusz Kwiecien.  He was also adorable in his very weird makeup for The Enchanted Island.  I'm going to Santa Fe in a few weeks where he will sing the title character in Maometto II.  He actually wants to sing this so much that he suggested the opera to the Santa Fe Opera.  I'm starting to get excited.

Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard completely stole the show for me last summer in Griselda at the Santa Fe Opera.

I have already traveled to see soprano Ailyn Pérez in La Bohème at the LA Opera. This was because I liked her so much in Faust at the Santa Fe Opera last summer.  She's gorgeous, charismatic and has a beautiful voice.  Unfortunately she doesn't seem to fall into my path any time soon.  David Gockley!!  Are you listening?

Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey is the person in the top hat standing behind Anna Netrebko in the Met HD of Tales of Hoffmann where she played Nicklausse, Hoffmann's muse.  Nicklausse is rather a trans-gender individual who hovers around all of Hoffmann's loves and basically destroys them.  Kate Lindsey completely transformed this character into the lead.  I have also seen her in Don Giovanni in Santa Fe.  She is what I would call a singing actress and a definite candidate for sexiest in drag.

I saw baritone Quinn Kelsey in 2009 in Il Trovatore in San Francisco and then again earlier this month in Attila.  I detected significant growth, both in his command of his voice and in his presence on the stage in his second Verdi character.  He already has a classical Grammy listing for Mahler 8 with the San Francisco Symphony.  I was very impressed and hope to see him again soon.

This is tenor Javier Camarena whom I saw in Otello.  Maybe I should post all of them behind someone else, someone more famous today.  I have also seen him as Elvino in La Sonnambula in Paris with Natalie Dessay.  That makes him a bel canto tenor, and a very nice one, too.  I should find him a better picture.  If you ever read this blog, you will know that I have a perverse sense of humor.

I am surprised to see how many out of their list of singers I have already seen.  There were no violent disagreements.  I did not write about tenor Alek Shrader, soprano Latonia Moore or soprano Eglise Gutiérrez because I haven't seen them.  Forgive me.  Anthony Roth Costanzo I have seen, but he is a countertenor. I also did not write about conductors, composers, etc.  Read the article yourself.

Enchanting

I finally found someone who would send me the list of numbers from The Enchanted Island.  I found something I didn't expect.  The selection of numbers appears to have been tailor made for the artists in the cast, perhaps an attempt to guarantee success.

David Daniels had already sung...

• #16, Vivaldi: Longe mala, umbrae, terrores, "Longe mala, umbrae, terrores"  
• #41, Handel: Partenope, "Ch’io parta?"

 Joyce DiDonato had already sung...

• #4, Handel: Teseo, "Morirò, ma vendicata"  
  

 Luca Pisaroni sings 

• #5, Handel: La Resurrezione,  "O voi, dell’Erebo"  
  

 Placido Domingo sings

• #22, Handel: Tamerlano,  "Oh, per me lieto" 
  
  

Besides this, a large number of pieces are from recent performances by other contemporary artists.  These include Philippe Jeroussky, Veronique Gens, Cecilia Bartoli, Anne Sophie von Otter, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, and Magdalena Kožená, to name a few.

In short the whole pastiche is part of the present-day burst of performances from the Baroque.

I think I'm in Love

I think I fell in love today at the Live from the Metropolitan Opera in HD presentation of The Enchanted Island.  Maybe I fell in love with the ever more fascinating and spectacular Joyce DiDonato as Sycorax.  I was pleased to see she got top billing.

Or perhaps I fell in love with Danielle de Niese as the spectacular spirit Ariel. She got all the best arias and looked adorable in her costume.

It is even possible that I fell in love with David Daniels.  He is very serious in the role of Prospero, and perhaps that is what I needed.

I know I love madly Luca Pisaroni as Caliban.  He complained about having to shave his hair for the role, but he was successfully lovable and hideous all at the same time.

Perhaps I fell in love with Placido Domingo in his first role as a god.  How is that possible?  Hasn't he always been a god?  Today is his birthday. 

Probably I already loved the conductor William Christie, who did not conduct from the harpsichord.  I didn't love anything more than he did.

The pastiche was a success.  I enjoyed the English text enormously.  If English translations were always this good, we would argue for singing more operas in English.  Everyone sang it well.  The oddest selection for retexting was "Endless Pleasure, Endless Love" from Semele made into an ensemble.

The thing that was least like a real Baroque opera was the frequent use of ensemble numbers.  Real Baroque opera is just one da capo aria after another.  In this they represented I would say about half of the opera instead of the usual 80 percent.

I found it amusing that Ariel messes up and shipwrecks the wrong boat.  The odd plot was very well handled.  If you've seen The Fairy Queen, you know that this makes way more sense.

It was enchanting.
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