One Last Kick at the Can

One of the unexpected thrills of the past year or so has been reporting on performances at La Scala for my friends at Opera Britannia. On five occasions I have headed up to Milano,  approached the Box Office on Via Filodrammatici  and asked for my press ticket.  How cool is that?  Me with press tickets at La Scala! How I wish my father could have seen that. 

However as the time to leave draws closer I realize I am doing things for what is probably the last time.  This past Monday's trip up to Milano was the last of that sort that I will be making to view and review a performance at what is arguably the world's most famous opera house.  And the review, which was published last evening,  will most likely be the last I will be doing with any regularity for my friends at OB.   That trip had a bittersweet flavour to it and what would be more appropriate than Charles Gounod's take on Shakespeare's most bitter-sweet tragedy - Roméo et Juliette.  Not produced at La Scala since 1934 it also had the added interest of featuring the very talented Canadian conductor Yannik Nézet-Séquin in his debut at the house. A left click on the poster will take you to my views on the opening night performance.

I can't thank Faye at Opera Britannia enough - first for taking me on as a member of her reviewing team and then for putting up with missed deadlines and using all of her editing skills to make my articles almost readable.  Big bunch of baci Faye and buon compleanno!

12 giugno - San Barnaba apostolo

The Ring Continues - La Scala December 10, 2010

As I mentioned in December I went up to Milano mid-month to see the opening opera of the new season at La Scala: Die Walküre , the second installment of their new Der Ring des Nibelungen. I been there in May last year when the cycle began with Das Rheingold and reviewed it at that time for Opera Britannia. Once again the kind editors (Faye and Anthony) had arranged for me to be there as both an opera lover and their critic.

Unfortunately a combination of Holidays and a hacker - the deadly H and H combo - resulted in many of the December reviews at Opera Britannia being delayed in posting but they were finally able to get things sorted out and my thoughts on the new season's opener where published today.

A left click on the poster from the December 10, 2010 performance will take you over to Opera Britannia and my review.

28 gennaio - San Valerio di Saragozza

Semi-Demi-Hemi-Quavers

Here's a few things musical or music related that caught my eye or pocket book in the past few days. And though I've often said Baroque architecture is not my thing I've included a few photos of the very baroque decorations that adorn several of the organ lofts here in churches in Roma.

The Church of Santa Maria Maddalena has always been closed when we've passed it and I honestly thought it was one of the abandoned churches that dot Rome. However a few weeks ago it was open and obviously undergoing restoration. The scaffolding in the side aisles and apse made it difficult to get a decent photo of the lovely organ loft.

I am on the mailing list for Vivaticket which is one of the larger agency ticket brokers here in Italy. They handle venues such as La Scala, La Fenice and San Carlo in the classical world and major rock concerts in the more popular vein. As often happens with literal word for word - and in all likelihood computer generated - translations the results can be to unintended comic effect. Take this ad for an upcoming Riccardo Muti concert in Napoli

Notice how Sonia Ganassi is listed. Now I can order a mezzo-litro (= half litre) of wine; I can say that I will meet someone at tre dieci et mezzo (= half past one). And though I can give a performance with a "mezzo-soprano" I would be hard pressed to achieve anything with a "half soprano". In the case of most singers you need both halves. Now I have heard Ganassi on many occasions including just last week here in the Muti led Moïse et Pharon at the Opera - and she isn't half of anything but a full blown "mezzo"-soprano and a great one at that. Google Translation has a bit to answer for on this one.

The organ at San Giovanni in Laterna stands in a side aisle to the right of the main altar and though the casing is quite lovely the Basilica is known for its marble statues. The two marble base reliefs on either side have a lovely balance - King David on the left is easily recognizable but I'm a bit lost as to the identify of the gentleman with the crown and the portive organ. Any suggestions?

My trip up to La Scala for the second performance of Die Walküre, the
seaon's opener, will be covered in Opera Britannia (and of course I'll be linking to it in the hope that friends will visit it in the millions so Faye and Antony keep using my stuff) shortly. But I have to comment on the programme La Scala published for the production. It is a 300 page (+30 pages of adverts) hard-covered volume weighing in at .5 kilos (over 1 lb). Lavishly illustrated with historical and production photos and the complete libretto in German and Italian, it includes 7 essays on everything from Wagner's life to currently available CDs and DVDs plus entire productions lists for past performances at La Scala. As most of the essays are in Italian and I have yet to struggle through them I can't vouch for their value as musicology but I can tell you they certainly added weight to my luggage if not my review.

The church of Santa Maria di Loreto is another church that I have never found open until one wet Tuesdays when the entire Centro was under vehicular lock-down and in walking by it on my hike to Trastevere found it open. Its central location at Piazza Venezia along with its larger sister church Santo Nome di Maria make it a landmark in the city centre. I did a quick pop-in - mostly to get out of the pounding rain and discovered two sets of organ pipes symmetrically arranged in the octagon. They were setting up the presepe while I was there.

Despite of the fact that she has been dead for over 33 years and last sang in 1974 no name can get opera fanatics pulses racing like that of Maria Callas. Her recordings - particularly the early Norma and Tosca - are still best sellers and singers' voice and performances are still being compared - unfairly - to hers. Her relationship with La Scala was a tempestuous one and many of her most noted performances were given there. In an effort to preserve some of those performances - and cash in on the still lucrative Callas money machine - La Scala has issued La Scala Memories a series of mini-books/CDs of "legendary" performances including three with Callas: the 1954 La Vestale, the 1956 La Traviata and to come the 1957 Anna Bolena - landmark performances all of them.

I have always wanted to hear the Vestale so I snapped it up the minute I entered the Bookshop. I should have saved my €24.90! The booklet is badly translated (the same person that did Vivaticket?) and the recordings are old radio transfers to vinyl disc to CD which they have not even bothered to clean up. In this day and age of digital programmes there is no excuse for transfers of this quality. Anything above forte is completely unlistenable and Spontini's little tale of unfaithful Vestal Virgins has lots of fortissimo in it. The good people at La Scala should be ashamed to market this with either their name or that of their legendary artist on it. I was going to ask Santa for the Traviata for Christmas - I think I'd be better off settling for a few old wax cylinders.

17 decembre - San Giovanni de Matha

Lunedi Lunacy

Well it turns out I'm heading up to Milano for the second performance of the new Die Walküre which opens the season on December 7 - but I have a feeling there won't be a helmet or breastplate in sight!

06 decembre - San Nicola di Bari

Clothing the Music

We were up in Milano in late July to see Il Barbiere di Siviglia and other than the opera had no planned itinerary. It was a weekend to wander Centro, window shop - though we did get break down and buy some fantastic sheets on sale at Frette and I did get that Borsolino - eat, drink, visit the miraculous Duomo and just relax. There was a great deal going on and as always some fascinating exhibitions but only one was on my must-see list: Il costumi veste la musica (The costumes [that] clothe the music) at the Palazzo Morando. It was a peek into the Wardrobe workshops at La Scala.

With the renovation of theatre in 2002-2004 the physical plant of the house was moved out to the Ansaldo Workshops on the outskirts of the city. All the productions are created there and transported to the theatre for final rehearsals and performances. The Benois Pavilion (named after famed designer Nicola Benois) houses the scenery workshop; the Visconti Pavilion (named after director Lucchino Visconti) has rehearsal halls and a stage area identical to the theatre's; and the Caramba Pavillion is the costume atelier.

I had no problem identifying who the first two workshops were named after but Caramba meant nothing to me. A quick search revealed that Luigi Sapelli, who went by the name of Caramba, was a renowned designer of sets and costumes for La Scala, La Fenice, Regio di Torino, Opera di Roma and the Metropolitan Opera. A self-taught artist, he established his own costume design studio and from 1921 until his death in 1936 he was director of decor and costuming at La Scala. So the costume workshop at the new facility was named in his honour.

The shop houses pattern makers, cutters, seamstresses, tailors, milliners, boot and shoe makers and the various other artisans needed to bring a designer's creations to life. In a normal season they will create between 800 and 1000 new costumes and up to 1500 are taken from the warehouse to be repaired and retailored to fit the current company of singers and dancers.

The warehouse currently has an inventory of almost 60,000 costumes for over 280 productions. Some of the costumes date back to 1911 and are kept for their historic value. Others - such as the one worn by Joyce DiDonato as Rosina (right) designed 40 years ago by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle - are used time and time again. The storage wardrobes take up 1400 sq metres (about 15,000 sq feet) of the workshop area.

There is also a full laundry on site as each costume is washed before being sent to the theatre and washed again after the final performance. There is a smaller laundry at the theatre for quick clean ups and freshening.

The exhibition allowed a view into the workshops with examples of costume books for productions, designers' notes and buyers' lists, the materials used and most important a chance to have a close up look at the costumes that are worn on stage.

A left click on the thimble and thread below will take you to a slide show of a few of the photos I took of the exhibition. (And if you wish to stop and look at a photo more closely just use the pause button and simply click through them - many of these costumes are worth a closer look for the sheer artistry involved in creating them.)

A left click on the poster will take you to a slide show of exhibition photographs.

More photos can be found at my friend Opera Chic's - who had an article on the exhibition in August. It was while going through her archives that I remembered I had a few photos myself and should really put them to use.

As an amusing little side note - I saw the poster for the exhibition outside the opera house but no one at the La Scala Bookshop or at their Administration counter could give me directions on how to get to the Palazzo Morando. At least the receptionist had the good grace to apologize and say he hadn't seen the exhibition himself.

The photo of Joyce DiDonato from the La Scala Barbiere is by Marco Brescia & Rudy Amisano, Archivio Fotografico del Teatro alla Scala

16 settembre - Santi Corneilo e Cipriano

Wagner Does the Cirque du Soleil

Once again last month I headed up to Milan for a performance at La Scala - I can't help thinking, as I seem to do the trip on a regular basis these days, that I wish my Father could see me now. Back when I was a Wee Willym I sat with him and a copy of Opera News and showed him exactly where I would go when I grew up; of course in those days I was going to sit right in the middle of the Royal Box - and who knows maybe one day I will. But meanwhile 51 years later I have to make do with a very good poltroni on the platea. And this time I was going to review a performance of Tannhauser for Opera Britannia.

I think the title of this post may say it all but if you'd like to find out more about what was, if theatrically over the top, musically a splendid evening just click on the poster and it will take you to the review.



And I still wish Daddy could see me now.

13 aprile - San Martino I Papa

From The House of Janacek

Its been a mad month of opera going - From the House of the Dead at La Scala at the beginning of March, Mefistofele here in Roma in the middle and last week it was down to Napoli's San Carlo for Maria Stuarda on Tuesday and up to La Scala again for Tannhauser on Saturday. And April 1st brings a new Tosca here at Teatro dell'Opera Roma. I recall there were times in my life when one live performance a year was a treat. Now its seems to be an unending goodie basket!

A few of my thoughts and opinions on some of these outings will be appearing on Opera Britanna, a website devoted mainly to opera and concerts in the United Kingdom but with excursions to North America and Europe.

A click on the La Scala poster will take you to my view on Janacek's From the House of the Dead as presented in Milan on March 4.



30 marzo - Sant'Irene

Things to Come

So the winter season has started musically here in Roma and I'm looking over the next few months and figure we have a fair smattering of good stuff. And quite a few evenings booked.

First up Ute Lemper the German chantootsie - as Walter Winchell use to say - will be doing her Last Tango in Berlin show at the Parco del Musica on January 20. Lemper is an acquired taste - like many of the singers who specialize in this type of music. I find her very much to my taste and a review of her New York performance - in a somewhat smaller venue - by Squirrel over at Parterre Box has definitely whetted my appetite.

The season at Teatro dell'Opera starts here on January 23rd - we have tickets for all the opening nights this year - with my favorite Verdi: Falstaff. It a "new" production by Franco Zeffirelli, conducted by Asher Fisch. Now Zia Zeff has been in the news here lately for making rude comments about, amongst other people, Daniella Dessi, left-wing politicians and reporters and sadly seems to becoming a bit of a joke. His over bloated La Traviata closed this past season to decidedly mixed notices. I have a sinking feeling that this "new" production will be a retread of the one I saw at the old Met back in 1964 - except we won't have Bernstein in the pit.

The Red Poppy is the first ballet of the new season. This classic of 1920s Soviet ballet was scheduled for November past but replaced at the last minute by more performances of Swan Lake but with big names. It is a real oddity, I'm not even sure its still in the repertory of any of the Russian companies. I'm glad to see that it wasn't canceled altogether as originally thought - its one of those works, like last season's Cleopatra that I've often read about but never thought I'd have a chance to see.

If Bernstein is missing from the new Falstafff, his music will be heard at the Academia Santa Cecilia. Conductor Wayne Marshall will be leading the Orchestra in a mixed programme of suites from West Side Story and Candide but best of all that marvelous chorus will be doing the Chichester Psalms.

The beginning of March brings a trip up to Milan to see the only thing that I found interesting in La Scala's 2010 line-up: Janacek's From the House of the Dead. This is a co-production from several sources including earlier this season at the Met. It was the hottest ticket of the New York opera season so far - the Patrice Chéreau production has been highly praised as has the conducting of Esa-Pekka Salonen. The ensemble work of the cast have made this a must-see piece of great music theatre. Not surprisingly given the audiences in Milan their musty old production of Rigoletto is a sell-out but there are plenty of tickets left for all six performances of this ground breaking piece of music theatre.

The season here will continue with a revival of Boito's Mefistofele in a production using designs from the turn of the last century. As will be the case with the Tosca that is set for April - for some reason the Zeffirelli production from 2008 has been shelved in favour of a reconstruction of the sets and costumes from the premiere back in 1900. I'm not sure what that's all about; it may be an interesting artistic decision though I have a feeling its more about cost cutting. The house owns the designs, the artists are dead and copyright has long since expired so it just may be cheaper. Funny how cynical you become about these things as you watch the political maneuvering that surrounds opera houses here.

The ballet company has another work deferred from last season sandwiched in between revivals of Giselle and Don Chiscotte - L'heure exquise. Based on Sam Beckett's Happy Days it was choreographed by Maurice Béjart for Carla Fracci and Micha van Hoecke. Though I have complained about Fracci inappropriately taking centre stage in so many things here this is one performance of hers I don't want to miss.

March also brings us Woody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz band. And Martha Argerich and a group of friends are doing two programmes of a Brazilian Getaway - tangos and the like by Piazzolla, Ginastera, Ramirez, Guastavino. Unusual programming but should prove interesting. And spring comes in with Claudio Abbado making a rare appearance at Santa Cecilia with a fairly traditional programme of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and Mozart's Jupiter but Abbado's traditional should be worth its weight in gold.

And that's just what we have tickets for in the next three months - there's still the stuff we'll hear about at the last minute. Or those performances that my dear Opera Chic will suddenly mention that have me hustling to Vivaticket and the TrenItalia website for those last minute bookings.

08 gennaio - San Lorenzo Giustiniani

Perché non?

I’ve always hated the conditional tense, particularly the past conditional: would have, could have, and should have are such sad conjugations. And I find as I get older than I like them less and less.

I was mentioning to a colleague today that I’d decided to go up to Milano next Wednesday to catch the last performance of the Robert Carsen production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at La Scala. She casually asked how long I planned on staying – with that slight raised eyebrow that most Southerners give you when you mention spending any time in Milano. When I said just overnight, she gave me an astounded look and said: All that way for one night? You’re mad you know?

And I guess in a way I am. So far I’ve journeyed up to Milano, Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Parma, Torino and Genova for short periods of time to go to operas or theatre that I particularly wanted to see. But in discussing with Laurent– who often can’t accompany me because of work – whither I should go or not, his response has always been: Why not?

And why not indeed? If I don’t take advantage of the opportunities that are being presented I'm the only one losing. Probably in two years time it will be back to Canada, the winter cold of Ottawa and the mundane existence of a Civil Servant. La Scala, Salzburg, a box at the Opera and travel to the Dolomites, Greece and the Adriatic coast will all be in the past tense. And I would rather that not be past conditional.

And frankly I am getting too old to want to have regrets about not doing something. And not meaning to sound dramatic – Cecilia you know this is to set your mind at rest – but given the on-going health issues, more a matter of not being able to find the parts on E-bay than anything else, I should be making hay while the old sol is shining.

So next Wednesday I will board the 0930 AV for Milano, arrive 4 hours later, check into the Hotel Felice, meander around the neighbourhood, head down to Scala around 1800, get my ticket, grab a bite to eat in the Galleria and be sitting in my palcho at 2000 when Sir Andrew Davies mounts the podium. Next morning after a leisurely breakfast I’ll leave Milano Centrale at 1130. God and the deities of train travel willing I’ll be back in the house by 1600 – much lighter of wallet but a bit higher of heart.

And notice at no point in that last paragraph did I use the conditional – future or past. I really don’t like the conditional tense.

These pictures are from the Carsen Dream when it was presented last year in Athens - my good friend Parsifal took them. For more a few more just click here. It is an incredibly beautiful production.

10 giugno - Santa Diana

Milano - Some Observations ...

... and some photos.

This is now my fourth trip to Milano but each time there are three things that are always guaranteed to take my breath away:

The sight of La Scala across the Piazza della Scala

That great “drawing room” of Europe - the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

The Duomo as you enter the Piazza from any direction.

• This time of year Milano is a city of roses. I was amazed by the varieties available in neighborhood plant stores and more by the beds of them that served as medians on the city streets.

The second of the many courtyards of the Castello - its an incredible complex.

This fun 16th century autotron was created from an earlier wood sculpture body (a Christ figure) with the Devil's head added to it.

A stunning example of woodworking - a left click will give you a close up of the incredible detailing.

I don't know why but I just have a feeling that the singer in this painting is more Katherine Jenkins than Maria Callas!

• I had never been to the Castello Sforzesco though how I could miss the enormous fortress and its great park in the middle of the city I'm not sure. There are seven museums plus the fortress to explore - for only E3.00 ($4.50) - and it was crowded last Saturday. I managed three of the museums - Ancient Art, the Pinacoteca and the Furnishings - before I got museum fatigue. Maybe I'll get a chance to see more the next trip back.

• It may be its fashion centre but Milano also has to be the botox capital of Italy, if not Europe. I have never seen so many bloated lips and stretched brows in my life. Sadly one is reminded of an exchange from Sheridan’s The School for Scandal:

  Lady Sneerwell: ... and surely that’s better than the careless manner in which the Widow Ochre caulks her wrinkles.
  
  Sir Benjamin Backbite: Nay, now, Lady Sneerwell, you are severe upon the widow. Come, come, ’tis not that she paints so ill — but, when she has finished her face, she joins it on so badly to her neck, that she looks like a mended statute, in which the connoisseur may see at once that the head is modern, though the trunk’s antique.

• The boxes (palchi) at La Scala were never meant for comfort; small, narrow and cramped they are an effort to extract the highest price from the maximum number of people under the guise of old-world romance. And though I still get a certain thrill as the crow-black garbed, gold chained usher unlocks the door to give me access to my place, after sitting for 90 minutes in a slightly contorted position to get a full view of the stage I greatly envy those in the orchestra who have paid the same price or even the gallery who have paid considerably less. I felt particularly sorry for the gentleman behind me who spent most of the performance on his feet craning to get a view of the stage. And though I recall doing exactly the same thing one evening at the Palais Garnier in Paris I don’t recall paying E120.00 ($180.00) for the privilege.
  
  The one pleasure a palco can give you is good company. And I had good company on Friday evening: a charming - and I might add for the lady, beautiful older woman - couple from Cannes and a gentleman from Aix-en-Provence. We spent the evening sharing memories and opinions of singers, festivals and music in fractured French, Italian and English - it was polyglot but we all spoke the language of opera and it added great social pleasure to a musically pleasurable evening.

• It is incredible that the washrooms at the elegant Savini in the Galleria, which charges E19 for a Chicken Caesar, were a disgusting mess - to the point where I would not use them; while those at MacDonald's across the way, which charges considerably less for the same thing, are spotless. There is something to be said for corporate standards.

• As I was walking towards Piazza San Marco a little girl - maybe 8 years old - in a blue church scout uniform came running up to me. Proffering a small bag of homemade cookies she rather rapidly and breathlessly tried to explain that she was selling them for her scout group. When I told her I spoke French or English but not much Italian it didn't stop her for a mintue. She just slowed down a bit and tried to remember how to count in French. They cost "une ... deux ... (her friend nudged her and whispered "trois") trois!" I only had a five euro note and I gave it to her. Again she struggled to tell me she owed me deux euros. As she ran to get change I called over to the leader that it was okay, I didn’t want the change. That little girl’s efforts to communicate were worth much more than two euros. A lesson I should learn.

17 maggio - San Pasquale Baylon