Mercoledi Musicale

I am always amused when I read the horrified comments that greet "crossover" performances on the opera websites and blogs.   Now granted some of those performances do deserve a "What the hell was that suppose to be?" - a rather excruciating performance of I Could Have Danced All Night by a famous soprano springs to mind - but crossover is nothing new.  The great 19th century soprano Adelina Patti would often end not only her concerts but her operatic performances by performing Henry Bishop's Home Sweet Home even if it meant having a piano wheeled out on stage so she could play the accompaniment herself.   American soprano Eileen Farrell recorded four very successful albums of popular music in the 1950s and very few African-American singers omit a selection of spirituals either from their main programmes or as encores.

My darling Anna Caterina Antonacci appears to be carrying on the tradition and though she did not offer this as an encore at the concert in Rome, it appears it has become a fairly regular encore in her current programme. 

What I find as beautiful and touching  as Anna Caterina's quiet but intense delivery is the piano work of Donald Sulzen.   Nothing really elaborate, nothing show-offy in the accompaniment just a perfect match to the mood set by the soprano.  They really do have a remarkable partnership and again I am reminded of that most lauded of accompanist Gerald Moore.

16 May - 1943: Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.

Mercoledi Musicale (A Day Late)

In all probability I will be waxing lyrical about Venice in the next few days - I've been working on several posts - but in the meantime I thought I'd share one of my favourite artists singing the lyrical praises of one of my favourite cities.

One of the things I miss - amongst so many things - about living in Italy is the opportunity to hear singers like Anna Caterina Antonacci (left).  I was fortunate enough to see her on three occasions during my four years in Europe.  The first was in a searing portrayal of Medea in Cherubini's opera which opened the season in Torino in November of 2008.  Though I had reservations, serious reservations, about the production about Antonacci herself I had none - I loved her.

The second was a semi-staged performance of Gluck's Alceste with Gregory Kunde in Athens the following October.  My dear Fotis had insisted I fly over for it and as well as it being an opportunity to see him and visit my beloved Greece it allowed me to experience another facet of Antonacci's art.  Her grasp of the French style was masterful and the gentle nobility and sacrifice of Alceste - which can often seem, if terribly admirable, also terribly dull dull - had all the doubt and anguish that bargaining with death for the life of a loved one would draw from a human.  It was a remarkable evening made more so by the perfect interplay between Antonacci and Kunde.

It was made even more remarkable because Fotis led me backstage to say hello and congratulation both Mr Kunde and - gasp! - Anna Caterina - her ardent admirers often refer to her as AnnaCat, but as much as I adore her I can't bring myself to call her that.  Now I have a history of being less than tactful when meeting famous opera singers - I still have nightmares about the Marilyn Horne episode in 1986 - and this meeting was no exception.  In my stumbling efforts to say something other than "I adore you!" I muttered  that I really hadn't liked Hugo D'Ana's production in Torino - not her mind you but the production, which it turned out she liked very much!!!!  But Signora Antonacci, ignoring my awkward attempts at retrieval,  flashed me her wonderful smile and said that she would make it up to me by adding me to the guest list for an upcoming private concert in Rome at the American Academy.

And so I found myself wandering the beautiful grounds of Villa Aurelia on the Juniculum Hill on a cool but pleasant December evening; having coffee and chatting about Rossini with Philip Gossett , one of the leading authorities on 19^th century opera; and sitting with him and 40 other people in the gilt and white grand salon listening to Anna Caterina accompanied by Donald Sulzen in Echi della Belle Époque, a programme of songs by Fauré, Tosti, Cimara, Toscanini, Respighi and Zandonai.  It is an evolving programme that she and Sulzen have now presented in Europe and North America including a rare and much heralded appearance at New York's Lincoln Centre last month.  The programme had been well-thought out and beautifully performed with the Tosti English songs and Resphighi's Cinque canti all'antica as the highlights.

Anna Caterina Antonacci and Donald Sulzen after their concert at Wigmore Hall.
  Sulzen is a brilliant accompanist much in the Gerald Moore vein. At a reception
after the concert he talked a bit with me about how they had chosen the programme
- it was very much a collaborative effort.

The concert had opened with Fauré's Cinq mélodies de Venise so there was a taste of La Serenissima but it wasn't until a few months later that she added Reynaldo Hahn's Venezia cycle.  Of the two I realize that the Hahn is perhaps the more frivolous which is not a word I can ever imagine applying to Antonacci.  However she add a touched of perfumed erotica - and tongue in cheek tartness when needed - to Hahn's postcard-picturesque tales of moonlit nights on the lagoon.
I have only been able to find five of the six songs posted by yukio84 on YouTube; they are taken from a concert in Firenze this past March.  It may seem like quite a few videos but believe me they are worth it - I only wish that Primavera, the final song was available.

Sopra l'acqua indormenzata - Asleep on the water

A young lady is invited to accompany her lover on a gondola ride on the lagoon in the moonlight.  Her inamorata  is afraid that the moon will be jealous of her beauty - a beauty that is only enhanced by the gentle movement of the waves.  But he does warn her that "Tears will come soon enough, so now is the time for laughter and for love."

La barcheta - The Little Boat

Another lovesick swain takes his Ninetta out in the evening air in a gondola piloted by the silent, and obviously discreet, Toni. So discreet that the lover assures his beloved Ninetta that should the evening breezes cause her veil to lift and reveal her lovely breasts, that Toni is much too intent on plying his oar to pay any attention. Why he tells her, its almost like we are along here and anything could happen!

L'avertimento - The Warning

The lovely Nana has obviously broken the singer's heart.  Ah yes there are roses in her cheeks, her breasts are milky white and her voice gentle and sweet "but.. but.. but.. the lovely Nana has the heart of a tiger!"

La Biondina in gondoleta

As their gondola glides across the lagoon the lover rhapsodizes over the beauty of his "blonde" as she lays sleeping, her golden tresses floating in the water.  But he arouses her - from slumber and in other ways also it would appear as he declaims "God what wonderful things I said, what lovely things I did! Never again was I to be so happy in all my life."

Che pecà! - What a shame!

The gentleman assures the still-lovely (and one feels perhaps loved?) Nina that his days of seeing only her are long since gone. After all she is only a woman - and a fickle one at that so who really cares? But all the same "what a shame!"

That big sigh you heard was me - Anna Caterina and Venice!  Two of my treasured memories! 

10 May - 1849: Astor Place Riot: A riot breaks out at the Astor Opera House over a dispute between actors Edwin Forrest and William Charles Macready, killing at least 25 and injuring over 120.

Desperate Housewife

I often wonder if the current crop of operatic stage directors ever read the libretto or score of an opera - or do they just listen to a CD while giving the synopsis a quick read over? Take in point the opening production of the season at Teatro Regio Di Torino: Cherubini's Medea. Now I'm sure director-designer Hugo de Ana is an educated man and knows the story of Jason's betrayal of his wife, the barbarian princess Medea and he is also more than aware that it is one of the great epic myths. In an interview he stated he wanted to make the story timeless - not of an age but for all ages - so in an effort to do that he set it squarely in the 1930s????
His set - he's a well-known multi-tasker and did the costumes as well - was a very realistic Greek seaside with a beached ship (Jason's Argo? the ship that brings Medea to Corinth? A ship of fools? - not quite sure on that one) tilted at various angles for each act until it flew up in the air shooting out flares and fireworks like an alien spacecraft as the opera ended. When the cast weren't scrambling over rocky outcroppings and steeply angled decks they were skirting around suitcases and crates strewn across the stage - Oh I get it Medea is wandering homeless but did she have to bring everything she owned back in Colchis with her. The 30s costuming meant that King Creon (Giovanni Battista Parodi) resembled nothing more than a Greek Big Daddy surrounded by Fascist hoods and the mighty warrior Jason (Giuseppe Filianoti) became a social-climbing cafe dancer in a very trendy three-piece suit and Borsalino. And in her black dress and smart ankle-straps Medea looked more like a pissed-off refugee from Desperate Housewives than a vengence bent sorceress. The great revenge myth had been reduced to a soap opera domestic crisis.
This was unfortunate as the Medea was one of the great singing-actress around today, Anna Caterina Antonacci. Anyone attempting this ball-busting role (sorry that may not be politically - or anatomically - correct but its accurate) is fighting with the ghost of the singer most identified with it in the 20th century: Maria Callas. The Callas Medea is one of those performances that if you were to believe half the comments you read was seen by more people than saw the opening of the Beijing Olympics. It is the nature of operaphiles (I'm using the polite word here) to bemoan the passing of the Golden Age and I have been as guilty as the next opera queen goer of keening like a widow at an Irish wake about times past. But I've only heard the Callas Medea, never seen it so other than pitting a recording from the 1950s against a 2008 live performance I can't make comparisons. Antonacci is her own Medea and despite the production imposed on her she seared across the stage both dramatically and vocally. If she didn't succeed completely - and who in this role has, including (gasp) Callas - I put much of it down to her willingness to work within the director's concept.

Certainly her two duets with Filanoti had a dramatic intensity that was almost frightening and brought out a power in the tenor that had been lacking in his first act aria. They became the great centrepieces of the drama that they should be. Sadly the confrontation with Creon suffered because of Parodi's tendency to force and de Ana's bright idea of having the King's fascist thugs chase and then rough up Medea's old nurse, Neris, during the scene. Sara Mingardo sang Neris with conviction and her touching lullaby-lament was beautifully delivered. Again it was undermined by the direction - according to the libretto, she cradles Medea in her arms as she did when she was a child, here it was sung to a caged bird while hugging a suitcase. I won't even try to figure out what de Ana was getting at.

His attempt to upstage Medea's great third act arias by having Neris bath the children behind her - shades of the Passolini-Callas film - were defeated by the sheer force of Antonocci's vocal and dramatic power. She pulled our attention back downstage to the now vengeance consumed Medea as she pleads with the gods and finally chooses to take her final revenge on Jason. Her sudden appearance, in exactly the same position, covered in the blood of her slaughtered children was a remarkable coup-de-theatre but again de Ana could not leave well enough - rather than the blood stained Medea consumed by fire we had to have that bloody air-born ship as the final image.

Conductor Evelino Pido had previously conducted Antonacci's Toulouse Medea with great success and repeated it here. He drew sounds from the pit that were astounding given what sometimes emulates from Italian theatre orchestras. The introduction to Act 3 with its threatening storm was particularly effective and the applause for conductor and orchestra at the curtain calls was well deserved.

Looking over what I've written I may have dwelt a bit too much on the physical side of the production but I honestly feel that de Ana's overall concept and Antonacci's willingness to go along with it did much to rob the evening of the fire that this work demands. I went expecting the epic drama of revenge in Corinth and much of what I saw was a hissy fit on Wisteria Lane.

09 novembre - Dedicazione della basilica Lateranense