Rheingold at the Washington Opera

Here is the Washington Post review of the new production of Das Rheingold at the Washington National Opera.

"A Rheingold that Stands on its Principals"
by Tim Page

The best way to approach Washington National Opera's new production of Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold, which opened Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, is as a solid, abstract and sometimes very attractive updating of a classic.

In short, forget most of what you might have read about this being the first installment of an "American 'Ring' " -- that is, a staging of Wagner's four-evening "Ring" cycle based on what WNO calls the "rich history of the United States." It isn't, unless you count as pointed political commentary, dressing up the earth goddess Erda like the lady on the Land O' Lakes box, casting African Americans in the roles of the captive Nibelungs, and having the giants Fafner and Fasolt bop and swagger like wild 'n' crazy guy construction workers.

Perhaps the next three operas in the series -- a new Die Walkure will enter the repertoire next season, with Siegfried and Gotterdammerung promised for later -- will deepen the American subtext. For now, just enjoy Francesca Zambello's "Roaring Twenties" staging for its general usefulness, its evocative projections (mist, sun, water and some creepy snakes), its occasional moments of majesty and whimsy.

I am grateful, I suppose, that none of the characters wear antlers on their heads, but I am less happy that the production, for the most part, lacks the luminous beauty of the best traditional stagings (Otto Schenk's hypnotic rendition at the Met foremost among them) and the sort of genuine directorial vision that would make for a radical new understanding of the piece.

Still, it will suffice, especially when the performances are as good as they were Saturday. Baritone Gordon Hawkins is simply the best Alberich I've encountered. Grasping, haunted, malevolent -- a monster, of course, but strangely sympathetic at times -- Hawkins's Alberich stole the show as surely as any great Mephistopheles will steal a "Faust." His acting was dynamic and multi-dimensional; moreover, despite the inherent grotesquerie of his character, Hawkins never devolved into Disney horror show. He always made sure the notes were sung -- properly and in tune.

Robert Hale's voice is perhaps a size too small for Wotan -- he brought power to the role but not quite the seemingly effortless power one might have hoped for. That said, he sang with intelligence and sensitivity and brought as much gravity to the character as he could in a production that does not exactly extol Wotan's godliness.

Elizabeth Bishop (Fricka) and Jane Ohmes (Freia) were excellent, singing clearly and soulfully, with proper Wagnerian amplitude. Robin Leggate was a dapper, understated and remarkably lyrical Loge.

The three Rhinemaidens -- JiYoung Lee, Frederique Vezina and Jennifer Hines -- were lovely all around, singing with welling, primordial freshness. Elena Zaremba sounded curiously husky and strained as Erda; she might have the cold Washington has been passing back and forth all winter, but no announcement was made. John Marcus Bindel and Jeffrey Wells played skillfully off each other as Fasolt and Fafner, dressed in elongated bell-bottoms that looked as though they had been designed by R. Crumb. There was worthy support from Corey Evan Rotz as Froh, Detlef Roth as Donner and Gary Rideout as Mime.

A huge factor in the success of any "Rheingold" is the performance of the orchestra, and in this production WNO music director Heinz Fricke has surpassed himself. He took the amazing overture -- a four-minute exploration of a single sustained E-flat major chord that effectively defines and perfects musical minimalism 100 years before the name was invented -- at such a slow tempo that one worried whether his forces could sustain it. But they came through, playing with such sweep, precision and prismatic color that one almost forgot that the Kennedy Center Opera House pit holds a considerably smaller orchestra than is usually employed for this music.

The concluding "Entrance of the Gods Into Valhalla" made up for its somewhat prosaic staging (set on what looked like the gangplank to an ocean liner) with a glorious and affirmative peal of sound. We can almost believe, for a moment, that the gods and goddesses are eternal, that nothing can ever harm them. But just wait until "Die Walkure."

There will be six more performances of Das Rheingold : Thursday, Sunday and April 5, 8, 10 and 14.

March 25: Rheingold Day

Tonight the Washington Opera premieres its much awaited production of Das Rheingold, the work which kicks off the company's first staging of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung. While we wait for the critical word on what this "American Ring" is like, I thought that I would report on the new DVD from Unitel of the Daniel Barenboim Harry Kupfer Bayreuth production of this opera. The production was filmed in widescreen in 1991, three years after its controversial premiere at the Festspielhaus.

In Kupfer's vision, the Ring is just another tale of greed that we have all seen before but which deserves to be retold over and over again. To this end, the opera begins in silence on a barren, foggy empty road as enigmatic characters wearing trench coats and fedoras are looking at a corpse. An obvious conclusion to some sordid story we may never get to know. As these characters disperse the lights dim to total darkness, and we hear the familiar E flat chord that begins the work. Suddenly the stage fills with green beams of laser lights which will swell and eventually imitate the watery surface of the Rhine. The laser allows for some nifty tricks making the Rhinemaidens and Alberich seem as if they are really under water.

The Gods in the second scene are all dressed in Great Gatsby style, and they all carry empty see-through Plexiglas suitcases (I guess that this newly built Valhalla of the future has plans of becoming a clothes-optional playground). The giants, Fasolt and Fafner, are giant behemoths with microcephalic sized heads. In the Nibelheim scene, Mime, wearing a lab coat, works in a laboratory, and at the end of the opera Wotan and the rest of his gang get onboard a rainbow elevator to go up to their penthouse in the sky.

This production was the target of very harsh criticism back in 1988. When directors tamper with Wagner (as they often do) a sizable part of the audience takes it as an insult: almost as if they thought that the work of the Master was being desecrated. This explains the booing that often occurs at Bayreuth and everywhere else where the management tries to forge new ground despite a decidedly conservative audience.

The DVD is definitely worth getting. The production, despite its eccentricities, is well directed and creates an unforgettable world. The performance by Graham Clark as Loge is delicious; check out the way he does jumping jacks to warm up just before he has to confront the giants. His blond wig and black floor-length leather coat makes him look like Mike Myers' German host Dieter on Saturday Night Life. Not far behind him is the Wotan of John Tomlinson who looks more disreputable than any god in any mythology has a right to be. The rest of the cast is strong, and they all ham it up to the hilt, especially Günter von Kannen as Alberich who appears to have prepared for his part by studying villains in silent films.

Daniel Barenboim's conducting is solid and exciting, and the sound on this DVD is wonderful. You'll enjoy the sound field on the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track, but for a cleaner, more exciting experience listen to it on DTS 5.1 Surround, if your equipment can decode it. You'll be blown away by it!

A Wondrous Forza at the MET

The performance of La Forza del Destino that I attended on March 18 was as good as anything I have seen at the MET in quite a while. It was not like the Forza performances of my childhood (Leontyne Price, Plácido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes) but few things these days are. This one came really close, though, and that was a pleasant surprise. I had recorded last Saturday's broadcast (pictured here is the cover that I designed for it), and I thought that it had turned out to be a very uneven performance. I am sure that when you get down to it, most of us were just happy that Forza was back at the MET. The cast changes on Saturday were excellent decisions: Samuel Ramey's unsteady, wobbly Padre Guardiano was replaced by solid bass Vitalij Kowaljow, and the roles of Don Carlo and Preziosilla were sung by Mark Rucker and Mary Phillips, replacing Mark Delavan and Ildiko Komlosi. Still in the cast were Deborah Voigt as Leonora, Salvatore Licitra as Don Alvaro, and Juan Pons as Fra Melitone. Mr. Licitra sang with greater conviction and more securely than in the broadcast. He was really impressive throughout the evening, producing a true Verdi sound. The same can be said of Mr. Pons who, with his huge but uneven voice these days, should begin exploring the comprimario repertory more often. Deborah Voigt's voice is not ideal for this role, and that's all there is to it. Although her tone is lovely, and she is able to produce some angelic sounds, the role requires a heftier, darker, more mature sound than she can deliver these days. The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under Gianandrea Noseda sounded like a well-oiled machine, and played beautifully.

This morning the following review of this performance was published in the New York Times.

Being Prepared for a Worst that Never Shows Up by Anne Midgette

At this point, the Metropolitan Opera production of Verdi's La Forza del Destino, now in the final week of its run, is like a piñata: everyone has taken a swing at it. And while the conventional wisdom about each individual performer has covered the entire spectrum of opinion, the aggregate has shaded toward "disastrous." So it seemed reasonable, on Saturday night, to brace for a train wreck.

But there was none: at most, there was an occasional horrifying screech of wheels at the crossing. This demonstrates two things: second casts may be better than first ones, and opera is an ever-changing art with performances that may vary from one night to the next.

The second cast was notably strong. A happy surprise was the vital, warm bass of Vitalij Kowaljow as the Padre Guardiano. Another was the baritone Mark Rucker, more than respectable as a stout Carlo. Mary Phillips, a mezzo-soprano, made her company debut on Wednesday as Preziosilla; on Saturday, she sounded slightly driven and brittle, despite an appealing instrument. (Mark Delavan and Ildiko Komlosi will resume the roles of Carlo and Preziosilla for the final performance on Thursday, but Mr. Kowaljow will remain.)

Deborah Voigt's Leonora has divided fans. To my ear, the role exposes her voice's lack of sheer heft. Her lovely shimmer — which worked for the final aria, "Pace, pace" — was not enough to carry her big Act II scene, the opera's emotional heart. Here, she came close to parody, breaking up the big arcs of her vocal line, aggressively rolling her r's, singing flat and gesticulating wildly.

Then there's the unpredictable Salvatore Licitra, once hailed as the next big thing in tenors, since castigated for sloppy performances. On Saturday, I thought he sounded great. His upper middle register remains the weakest part of his voice, but that weakness wasn't as glaring as I've heard it, and for the most part he sounded big and warm. His Act III aria, followed by the duet with Mr. Rucker, was some of the more satisfying Verdi singing I've heard in a while. Less satisfying was the conductor Gianandrea Noseda, with fast, driving tempos and heavy balances in the orchestra.

The final performance of "Forza" is on Thursday night at 8 at the Metropolitan Opera.

The Rheingold Cometh -- Part II

Washington Opera to give Wagner's "Ring" a New, American Setting

By Tim Page -- The Washington Post

One test of a masterpiece is its ability to withstand many different interpretations. Who would have imagined that the maverick director Peter Sellars could have set Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" in a lavish apartment in Trump Tower and still have the opera seem absolutely true to its 18th-century origins? Director Jonathan Miller placed the action of Verdi's "Rigoletto" in New York's Little Italy, and Frank Corsaro had the same composer's Violetta ("La Traviata") expire in an AIDS ward.

And now Washington National Opera will present Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung -- an encyclopedic study of the Norse gods, family politics, greed and the redemptive power of love -- as what the director Francesca Zambello calls an "American Ring."

The first of the four works in the "Ring" cycle -- an evening-length operatic prelude titled Das Rheingold -- will receive its first performance on March 25. Die Walkure (starring WNO General Director Placido Domingo) will follow in March and April 2007. No dates have yet been set for the last two operas, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung.

Although this "Ring" will be a co-production with the San Francisco Opera, each installment will receive its premiere in Washington. When complete, this will be WNO's first "Ring" cycle. The last time the entire 15-hour work was performed here was during a visit by the Deutsche Oper Berlin to the Kennedy Center in June 1989.

"Like any Wagnerian masterpiece, the 'Ring' is always contemporary and speaks to us today," Zambello said in a statement. "We have coined the term 'American Ring,' and the designers and I are using American history, mythology, iconography and landscape to set the operas. We are creating a world in some ways familiar to our audience but also one that will feel very mythic as we look to our country's rich imagery. The great themes of the 'Ring' -- nature, power and corruption -- resound through America's past. In many respects, the politicians and celebrities that are today's superstars perform as if they were the gods of Valhalla. It is especially fitting to undertake an American 'Ring' in Washington, D.C., where the concept of global power is a feature of daily life."

Zambello staged Die Walkure for WNO at DAR Constitution Hall in 2003, but the new, unified production of the complete "Ring" will be nothing like that.

"From the very beginning of Washington National Opera's discussions about the 'Ring,' I wanted it to have an American atmosphere," Domingo said in a statement. "I felt that this is not only an original, but also a proper concept for a 'Ring' in the capital of the United States, and Francesca Zambello, the director, was very receptive to that. Francesca's productions are always beautifully balanced between the intimacy of the characters and the sweep of the epic, and I think that she will use the symbols of America brilliantly."

According to Zambello, the costumes "encompass worlds that are both abstract and realistic." For example, Erda, the Earth Goddess, will be clad in Native American attire. Further details will be forthcoming.

The cast will include Robert Hale as Wotan, Elizabeth Bishop as Fricka, Gordon Hawkins as Alberich and Robin Leggate as Loge. WNO Music Director Heinz Fricke will conduct. The production will include sets by Michael Yeargan, costumes by Anita Yavich and video projections by Jan Hartley. Mark McCullough will be the lighting designer.

"I wanted an American production team," Zambello said. "Many of our artists are American as well, and I felt they could bring a collective experience and personal histories to the piece."

The Rheingold Cometh

Next Saturday, the Washington Opera will unveil its eagerly awaited new production of The Ring of the Nibelung. Das Rheingold, the first opera of Richard Wagner's massive cycle, will debut on March 25 in a production that has already been dubbed the "American Ring." During this week, this blog will feature articles from the New York Times and the Washington Post about this new production. We hope that your curiosity will be sparked, and that you will visit us often for more details about this upcoming cultural event.

An Americanized Version of Wagner's Ring by Carl Hartman

WASHINGTON -- In the world of Wagnerian opera, Wotan is the king of Germanic gods. In an upcoming American production he'll appear on stage in a natty 1920s suit, a fedora and a black eye patch.

Erda, the earth goddess and mother of Wotan's eight children, the Valkyrie, will look very much like an American Indian.

The fanciful costumes will give a distinctly American twist to the Washington National Opera's production of Richard Wagner's four epic German operas, "The Ring of the Nibelungs," which the company will present over the next four years.

When "Das Rheingold" opens the cycle March 25 at the Kennedy Center, tradition will prevail in one aspect of the production: It will be sung in German. Next season the company will present "Die Walkure," with Placido Domingo in the lead role of Siegmund. Domingo is general director of the Washington Opera.

"When Placido wanted to do it (the Ring) I was very excited to do it here," Francesca Zambello, who is directing "Das Rheingold," told reporters. "So many of the stories in the Ring are also right here _ stories about power, greed, about society, respect for the environment, all hot issues of our time which are in the Ring and also right here, in the seat of American and in some sense global power."

"Das Rheingold" is a story about greed, power and natural resources. Rhine maidens try in vain to protect the gold under the river from the villain Alberich. Wotan, as big a thief as Alberich, wrests from him the ring made from the gold, which gives him absolute power. When Robin Leggate, the British tenor who plays Wotan's tricky adviser Loge, asked the director about the part, she messaged back: "Think corporate lawyer."

Ms. Zambello takes the position that the Ring is a masterpiece, and that masterpieces are always contemporary. Shakespeare, theater manager as well as playwright, clothed his actors in the long stockings and puffed-up shorts that were the modern dress of his own time, not the Roman togas that Julius Caesar and Mark Antony wore.

When a new sketch of Wotan in costume was hung at the Goethe Institute, Germany's cultural arm in Washington, people dubbed it "Gatsby in Valhalla." Jay Gatsby was the rich young New York protagonist of "The Great Gatsby," the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel of 1925.

The singers will use the libretto written by Wagner in a dense romantic poetry that even many Germans find hard to understand. The English translations will appear in surtitles flashed above the stage. The director said the surtitles will not try to translate the German into American slang.

"Wotan doesn't have to say, 'C'mere, babe, I wanna kiss you,'" she said.

Peter Schneider meets Parsifal

Conductor Peter Schneider has been named James Levine's replacement for the three performance of Wagner's Parsifal which will play during the month of May. He is a native of Vienna, where he began his musical career early in life as a member of the famous Vienna Boys Choir. He has conducted extensively throughout the world, but his home base is the Vienna State Opera where he has conducted since 1984. In 2004 he was awarded the title of honorary conductor at this famed opera house. The 2004-2005 season at the Vienna State Opera was a Wagnerian year for maestro Schneider. He conducted The Ring, Parsifal, and Tristan und Isolde. In the summer of 2005 he conducted all performances of Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival. I heard and recorded the premiere performance of this Lohengrin production on July 26. It featured tenor Peter Seiffert in the title role (for a complete cast list of this production, click here) and soprano Petra-Maria Schnitzer.

Regretfully, the reviews for this production were lukewarm at best. Referring to Peter Schneider's conducting, Andrew Clark in the Financial Times wrote that "it was no better than you would find anywhere else in Germany." Although this is not too promising, we have to remember that maestro Schneider is an accomplished musician with loads of experience, and that the stellar cast that the MET has assembled for the May Parsifals will inspire any conductor to greater heights. At least, I hope so.

Now, let's see what tempi he will use for this work. If you have heard Peter Schneider conduct Parsifal elsewhere, feel free to comment.

Levine Out for the rest of the MET Season

Regretfully, it is now official: his rotator cuff is torn and James Levine requires surgery. This unfortunate event will lead the Maestro to cancel his participation for the rest of the Metropolitan Opera season which included multiple performances of Beethoven's Fidelio, the new production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale, and Wagner's Lohengrin and Parsifal. Maestro Levine will also have to cancel the May 20 Gala Farewell Concert for the MET's general manager Joseph Volpe, as well as the company's summer tour of Japan where he was to have conducted Wagner's Die Walküre and Mozart's Don Giovanni. According to the general manager this type of injury is unprecedented, and it has sent the MET scrambling to fill the conductor positions for the thirty-five performances that Levine has been forced to cancel. This will not be an easy task for the Metropolitan Opera. The management will have to find conductors who are available, who know the scores, and who have the international reputation worthy of one of the largest opera companies in the world. Already Maurizio Benini has been selected to conduct the new Don Pasquale, and the MET expects to make a final decision on Fidelio as early as Monday. This now leaves the Wagner operas temporarily unattended. Parsifal, with its dream cast of Ben Heppner, René Pape, Waltraud Meier, and Thomas Hampson will be a particular loss. In my opinion, this is the strongest ensemble that the MET has put together in years for Parsifal, and Levine's conducting is very much the main character of any performance of this opera, in particular, in terms of tempi. Undoubtedly, if a second-tier assistant conductor takes over, Levine's tempi will remain intact, and the three performances will hopefully not lack the gel that's needed to keep everything together. On the other hand, if the MET is able to find a great conductor (has Pierre Boulez's official retirement after he conducted Parsifal at Bayreuth this summer kick in yet?) then we are in for some interesting surprises in the merry month of May.

Anna Moffo R.I.P. (1932-2006)

I never got to hear Anna Moffo live. When I started going to the opera in the late 1970's, she had already retired from singing at the MET. All that was left of her, in the early Saturday standing room line where I met other opera fans for the first time, were memories from the old faithful. Record stores loved Anna Moffo's image, though: those wonderful sexy covers on her LP's were always prominently displayed. Her recording of Massenet's Thaïs, which featured a stunning photograph of Ms. Moffo in costume, was a huge best-seller. At that time, I thought that she was the most beautiful opera singer in the history of the genre. And I still do. Physically, I never thought that Maria Callas was a great beauty, although I recognized her visual elegance and grace. But Callas was too European for my tastes in those days. There was something earthy in the way that those pictures made Anna Moffo look. There was something that was closer to home about her. And indeed she was. Born, bred, and educated in the USA. She hailed from Pennsylvania, the daughter of Italian-American parents who loved music. She studied the piano and the viola when she was a voice major at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and was recognized to be an all-around great musician.

So many opera fans that were lucky enough to have heard her live remember her Traviata, her MET debut, and perhaps her signature role. Her stunning high E-flat was legendary because it was secure, memorable and incredibly beautiful.

In his obituary in the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini wrote the following impressions of the late soprano:

"She died of a stroke after grappling with complications of breast cancer for 10 years. Though Ms. Moffo's career began splendidly, her voice had declined by her late 30's. With her radiant appearance, she was drawn early on into television and film, playing host of her own variety show on Italian television for many years. She might not have fulfilled her promise, but for a good dozen years Ms. Moffo enjoyed enormous success and won a devoted following at a time when her competition for roles like Verdi's Violetta, Puccini's Mimi and Donizetti's Lucia included Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi and Joan Sutherland. Though Ms. Moffo's voice was not large, it was warm and rich, with soft pastel colorings and a velvety lower range. Agile coloratura technique allowed her to sing high soprano bel canto repertory impressively, especially Lucia di Lammermoor. She was a thoroughly trained musician, having studied the piano and viola when she was a voice major on scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. For a brief time, Ms. Moffo was a lovely singer and appealing artist who broke out of the traditional career mode to reach the larger public. 'You may not like what I do,' she said in a 1972 interview, 'but you can't say I'm dull.'"

James Levine's Health

I saw James Levine on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, in the spring of 2004, walking outside the MET. He was walking very gingerly, lagging behind a female companion, and carrying in his hands a folded Playbill to the Christopher Plummer production of King Lear that played at the Vivian Beaumont from February to April of that year. Looking at him, walking like a tired old man, his gaze lowered to the ground, almost afraid of taking the next step, I assumed that he had been overcome by Christopher Plummer's stellar performance. But when he walked passed me, I could see in his face the unmistakable pain of someone deeply suffering from his sciatica. James Levine's journey from young energetic prodigy to infirm middle age came too fast.

This weekend the news broke that he had fallen onstage at Boston's Symphony Hall after a rapturous performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The preliminary reports are that he fell right on his shoulder and injured his rotator cuff. The fall has now forced Maestro Levine to cancel his participation in the Boston Symphony's upcoming tour and, depending on the extent of his injury, possibly the rest of the performances at the Metropolitan Opera. He was scheduled to undergo an MRI today, and the best that he can hope for is that the rotator cuff is only bruised. Anything more damaging, such as a tear, would require surgery and put him out of commission for many months. His schedule at the MET for the remainder of the season, is quite hectic, with upcoming performances of Fidelio, the return of Robert Wilson's production of Lohengrin and three performances of Parsifal. Also, he is scheduled to conduct the upcoming new production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale.

If James Levine is forced to cancel his Wagner performances during April and May, it will be interesting to see who the MET gets to replace him. Will these performances be led, by default, by Maestro Valery Gergiev (who in April of 2003 conducted a number of memorable performances of Parsifal with Domingo, Pape and Struckmann)? Or will David Robertson or Marek Janowski (both of whom are taking over the Boston Symphony's tour) be hired to fill in for the ailing maestro in New York.

Listen up, Mr, Volpe: desperate times require desperate measures. If Maestro Levine is unable to fulfill his duties for the rest of the season, I recommend Christian Thielemann (an amazing Tannhäuser at Bayreuth this summer), Kent Nagano (his vivid reading of Parsifal from Baden-Baden is now available on DVD) or Esa-Pekka Salonen, whose Tristan Project and Tristan und Isolde last year in Los Angeles and Paris respectively electrified the musical and artistic world.

But make no mistake, what we all really want is for James Levine to get healthy and to conduct the rest of the operas he is scheduled to lead. The A-list of star conductors that I recommended above would be great ringers, but I think it would be better if they just became part of the MET's regular roster of house conductors under the upcoming Peter Gelb tenure.

Mark Morris Dance Group does Vivaldi

The Juilliard Choral Union, to which I belong, will be performing at BAM with the Mark Morris Dance Group. The ballet is called Gloria, and it features the music of Antonio Vivaldi. This week, Time Out New York published some reflections from the choreographer on the 25th anniversary of the founding of his Dance Group. Here's what Mark Morris had to say about the upcoming performances of Gloria: "Here's the thing: it's one of my first dances, it's very very good, people like to do it and people like to watch it, and I've done everything I can with it. It's not always my favorite thing to watch in rehearsal. I decided to reinvolve myself with the piece, so I'm conducting the motherfucker."

He's Becoming Quite the Wagnerian

These days, mention Bryn Terfel's name and it is Wagner, not Mozart or Verdi, that first comes to mind. Last year it was Die Walküre at Covent Garden and the BBC Proms, and this winter it is The Flying Dutchman that is keeping the Welshman busy right in his homeland. The Welsh National Opera has mounted for him a new production of Wagner's romantic work, helping to fulfill Terfel's promise to the company that he would sing this taxing role when the company had a suitable house. The critics have all praised Terfel's singing and acting, but have been less kind to David Pountney's production which was first seen in Zurich, and which features projections by video artists Jane and Louise Wilson. Using an approach that vaguely reminds one of The Tristan Project, static close-ups of Mr. Terfel's face are rear-projected throughout the opera on two giant screens.
Anthony Holden in The Observer wrote the following review of this production which, to him, reminds him more of a space opera than anything else.

"Where Wagner Boldly Goes"

The Flying Dutchman Welsh National Opera, Millennium Centre, Cardiff

On the cover of Welsh National Opera's programme for its new version of The Flying Dutchman is a faux-naif nightscape reducing the universe to one-quarter sea, three-quarters brooding sky, dotted with white objects too large to be stars. Observant opera-goers might be forgiven for thinking the (uncredited) artist has got his (or her) proportions wrong, especially in the case of a work so steeped in the maritime. In fact, the picture is a clue to director David Pountney's characteristically bold new take on Wagner's first great meditation on solitude and redemption.

Space, to Pountney, has these days replaced Wagner's sea in the collective imagination as 'an image of the ultimately lonely, desolate place in which someone might be condemned to wander aimlessly'. Such is the plight of the legendary Dutchman, cursed to sail the high seas forever unless he can seize a fleeting chance, once every seven years, to find the love of a faithful woman.

When last he directed this opera, on the huge floating stage at the Bregenz festival in Austria, Pountney had to avoid the temptation to use real ships on the lake as he could not rely on real weather to reflect the shifting moods of Wagner's music. So he internalised the Dutchman's quest, setting it in an abstract house, 'the house of his mind'.

This remains largely true in this new staging, with no less a mind than Bryn Terfel's returning home to Wales, and the company where he began his career, to make his debut as the Dutchman in honour of WNO's 60th birthday. The trouble, as he roams space for two-and-a-half uninterrupted hours, is that so much of Wagner's music is still explicitly, all too audibly, about the sea.

Undeterred, Pountney reinforces his mise-en-scene with video images he came across by chance in Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum - pictures by sisters Jane and Louise Wilson of a crumbling Soviet space training centre in Kazakhstan. He then commissioned them to film extreme, often uncomfortably so, close-ups of Terfel and the girl who might just end his protracted quest.

Projected on to giant screens through which the two interact, these suggest that each may be a figment of the other's imagination, or at least someone other than they seem. Given that the girl is a dreamy adolescent in love with the romantic idea of the Dutchman, and that he sees her purely as a means of escape from his plight, this adds up to an effective variant on the over-familiar use of video images onstage, even if it does neither soloist any cosmetic favours.

It also turns the evening into a collision of archetypes rather than the conventionally torrid human drama. Roaming around a central platform of the girders so loved by this director (and too many others), rarely interacting except to each other's phantom images, rarely even touching for a couple supposedly in love, the two central figures take on dream-like dimensions of fantasy and illusion that cumulatively suit their roles in this otherworldly piece.

And they are majestically performed, Terfel's trademark snarls and gloriously rich baritone more than matched by the glacial beauty and sonorous reach of Swedish soprano Annalena Persson as Senta. Where he maintains a lofty detachment, singing to her projected image (or even his own) more than her corporeal self, she hurls herself towards her new-found destiny with as much physical as vocal commitment.

This involves the summary dumping of her childhood sweetheart, Eric, whose impossible longings and self-righteous indignation are touchingly captured by British tenor Ian Storey. You cannot imagine this wimp ever seeming an adequate son-in-law to Senta's scheming father, Daland, the unscrupulous materialist as powerfully enacted as sung by Israeli bass Gidon Saks.

A sensitive director of singers, with a sure enough sense of theatre to lend central moments a duly celestial stillness, Pountney cannot resist the occasional postmodernist intrusion. Where his own synopsis of the plot has Daland's crew becoming 'increasingly aggressive and provocative', for instance, he decks out a female chorus of all shapes and sizes in tediously unoriginal Barbie doll wigs to become the victims of a drunken gang-rape.

The childish graffito that Senta draws when singing of her love for the Dutchman is, by contrast, a clever conceit reminding us that she is a young woman way out of her depth in this saga, pimped by a greedy father to a lost soul who cares only about her fidelity.

It's an unremittingly bleak scenario, rendered all the bleaker by its transference from the foaming seas of Wagner's imagination to the boundless space of Pountney's. His decision to dispense with an interval, let alone the usual two, bolsters the epic scale of the work without quite turning it into an endurance test. But it also deprives the audience of the chance to work out exactly what's going on with a quick flick through the programme over a welcome drink.

I have said it before - and I'll say it again - it should never be necessary to read the programme to grasp what's happening in any theatre, operatic or otherwise. In this case, however, it sure helps, for all Pountney's protestations that his meaning should be 'completely understandable from what you see in front of you'.

Those who don't understand the sudden descent of spacemen towards the end, or the fibre-optic bulbs being manufactured by the female chorus, might even take the first video-projected images of some derelict institution to be a topical reference to Abu Ghraib. Fear not. Once you grasp that we're all wafting around the Milky Way, rather than being subjected to yet another stage protest about some dire contemporary hellhole, everything will gradually fall into place. Think of space as an ocean and Wagner's surging music will weave its magic. Succumb to Pountney's maverick vision and these world-class performers will help you understand why even early Wagner has a cult following.

With the impressive Carlo Rizzi in the pit, this exemplary ensemble is blessed with distinguished support from WNO's fine chorus and house orchestra, every stitch in Wagner's rich tapestry meticulously revealed, if, at times, underplayed for the sake of the onstage voices.

It may have got off to a slow start on the first night, but this is a reading which is bound to grow in confidence as the show moves from Cardiff to London, Birmingham and Bristol, where Robert Hayward takes over from Terfel and continues with the role in Milton Keynes, Liverpool and Swansea. If the visuals don't grab you, the aurals surely will.

Mr. Wainwright Goes to the MET

Singer Rufus Wainwright was a hit during the first intermission of today's MET's broadcast of Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila. He was just himself, and his bubbly persona was a good introduction to this artist. I am sure that a good number of broadcast listeners are not familiar with him or his music, and might only have heard of him for the first time after his name came up during the Peter Gelb press conferences in which the MET's new impressario announced that Mr. Wainwright is on the short list of composers commisioned to write a workshop opera under his proposed new project. Rufus Wainwright's music can best be described as alternative with, at times, strong leanings towards the operatic. For example, in the first cut of his latest album Want Two, a composition called Agnus Dei (which was alluded to in the intermission conversation he had with announcer Lisa Simeone), the composer takes the Latin text of the Catholic mass and sends it on a musical journey through time starting in a primitive Celtic world, then traveling to Moorish Spain, and finally coming to an impressive climax in the post-Romantic era of Mahler and Bruckner. He is very imaginative, very talented, and totally in love with opera. His young vibrant personality came through in the interview, sounding like an approachable celebrity, rather than a laconic, introverted artist. He showed insight when discussing his personal links between opera, the AIDS crisis and the affect that it has had on a young gay man like himself. He even showed a hint of nerves during the interview when he could not think of the name of Leontyne Price. On the other hand, although announcer Lisa Simeone conducted a fairly enjoyable interview, and did ask the right questions, I don't believe for a minute that she did not know that Mr. Wainwright had been commissioned by the MET to write some kind of work. If she really didn't, then I would recommend that she do her homework before stepping up to the mike.

Anthony Minghella's Butterfly

By all accounts, Anthony Minghella's Madama Butterfly at the English National Opera, and soon to open the 2006-2007 Metropolitan Opera season, is a masterpiece. It is innovative, bold, but still very much in the spirit of Puccini and western opera. Edward Seckerson in The Independent wrote that "This Butterfly is at once the simplest and most sumptuous thing we've ever seen in this theatre. It is the meeting of Japanese kabuki and Western opera but shot through with the expensive air and finely tuned manner of a Broadway show. When Butterfly's wedding party arrives, it too rises over a turquoise horizon and processes downstage as if seen through a shimmering heat haze."

He went on to report that the boldest innovation in the production is the use of puppets, in particular with the mute character of Butterfly's child, Sorrow. He writes: "Instead of a child, three wonderful puppeteers breathe tangible life into a little Japanese doll in a sailor suit. The physical detail, the restless, excitable, mother-clinging actions and reactions are such that a child actor could never give us and after a while you stop noticing the puppeteers and, like Butterfly, you see only genuine emotion and need in the impassive doll-face."

To me, the whole concept sounds quite wonderful, and my only concern with this approach to Butterfly is that the production could be swallowed whole by the sheer size of the MET. The London Coliseum is an intimate theater as opera houses go, and the subtleties of a little puppet are perfect for this jewel-box of a theater. Is it possible that it can work at the MET? Sounds to me like the patrons in the orchestra seats will be the ones who will end up receiving the full impact of Mr. Minghella's brilliant concept.

This'll get'em in, by George!

The English National Opera has been advertising their current season at the London Colisseum with plenty of captivatingly sexy images these days. Pictured on the top left is an image from the Billy Budd ad, and below an image for Dialogues of the Carmelites. In the hopes of dusting the cobwebs suggested by the word opera, the ENO's advertising campaign reveals a sleek world where the lyric theater promises to meet trendy London. The new ad campaign is designed to lure in members of Generation X and Y, Baby Busters, Yuppies, and Bobos who, up to now, have stayed away in droves from opera.

Across the Pond, the New York City Opera, among others, has also adopted similar ad campaigns to get the young people in. And although they have not been using flesh to fill seats, little tricks such as listing repertory using one word "hip" titles (Butterfly, Figaro) often appear in their advertising.

As the Metropolitan Opera prepares to welcome Peter Gelb, we are reminded that the MET has plans to replace the current Madama Butterfly production with the current smash hit at the ENO which has been helmed by superstar film director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley). I am sure that as Mr. Gelb becomes entrenched in his new post at the MET that this is the style of advertising that will begin to appear to compliment the new productions that will be filling future repertory.

The Goeran Gentele Revolution

The recent Peter Gelb news conferences have brought on many conversations about imminent winds of change that promise to swirl about the Metropolitan Opera. During a conversation I had at work with one of my colleagues, he wondered what the MET would be like these days if the brilliant Swedish empressario and director Goeran Gentele had not died so tragically right as he was starting his tenure in New York City. This, together with the above photograph of Leonard Bernstein conducting a vocal rehearsal of Carmen in 1972, inspired the following post.

The Goeran Gentele Revolution ended abruptly when he was killed in an automobile accident in July of 1972. Mr. Gentele had assumed leadership of the Metropolitan Opera after Sir Rudolph Bing's retirement. He had only been at the helm of the opera house for a few short weeks. His brilliant production of Carmen with James McCracken and Marilyn Horne, conducted by Leonard Bernstein became his posthumous legacy to the Metropolitan Opera. It was an amazing, abstract re-thinking of Bizet's work (with monumental bare white walls and blinding light) that shifted the focus of the work to Don José, away from the title character and, in doing so, brought a sense of doom to a work that had grown stale with endless repetition. On the musical side, Mr. Bernstein's tempi were the slowest one ever associated with this work, resulting in a score that sounded noble and filled with doom, instead of a collection of well-known, often-played arias and ensembles. A recording of this production is available from Deutsche Grammophon.

The Schuyler Chapin, and Anthony Bliss tenures led to the Joseph Volpe Era. Personally, it is hard to imagine this Carmen production under the present leadership. In the years that Mr. Volpe has led the MET, his creative eye grew to be more expensive, while at the same time his vision shrunk down to become more conservative. The MET thrived financially for some years, but after the events of the eleventh of September empty seats became the norm. Somewhere along the line, the MET ceased to become the place to be when it came to innovation, and this is the sad legacy that Mr. Volpe leaves behind. The unkindest cut of all was that Mr. Gentele's work was replaced by Franco Zeffirelli's current production, which has all the intimacy of Ringling Brothers.

Goeran Gentele is known to have said that "Opera is an 18th and 19th century art that must find a 20th century audience." I certainly hope that Mr. Gelb shares this opinion, and that he is able to lead the MET into the 21st century.

The Upcoming Peter Gelb Revolution

From the tone of today's article by Daniel J. Wakin in the New York Times, the upcoming tenure of Peter Gelb as General Manager at the Metropolitan Opera will feature new operas, new productions, new broadcasts, and everything you can imagine that could possibly be called new. Needless to say, it appears that Mr. Gelb feels that the Metropolitan Opera is wearing knickers and that it needs to be catapulted into modern times with daring productions, HD-TV broadcasts, and iPod downloads. While all of this, personally, sounds very exciting to me, I really don't know where he is going to get the money without totally pricing the MET out of the reach of the fans who are the backbone of the house. Further, although I would love to see at the MET more of the kind of daring productions that are now old hat in Europe (the new Ring better be Eurotrashy -- we've been due for about twenty years!) without major bucks from government subsidy it is not going to happen. And if the MET's new Ring happens to take place inside a Russian submarine, or fifty-three miles west of Venus, will the old-guard, accustomed to Günther Schneider-Siemssen's Teutonic peaks accept this kind of radicalism and continue to patronize this institution? Clearly there are changes in the horizon for the Metropolitan Opera, but if Peter Gelb can make this house once again relevant in the New York art scene, then he will have accomplished his job.

Here is Mr. Wakin's article from today's Times:

"As Audience Shrinks, the MET gets Daring" by Daniel J. Wakin

Revolution is afoot at the Metropolitan Opera, the world's largest opera house, which has been plagued in recent years by declining attendance and budget woes.

Peter Gelb, who takes over in August as the Met's first new general manager in 16 years, has laid out broad-ranging plans to remake the venerable house, sharply increasing the number of new productions, commissioning more and different kinds of new works, bringing in a wave of high-profile theater and film directors and striding into the world of digital transmission.

This attempt to reconceive the Met as an institution more open to popular influences and more attractive to a wider public may well alarm opera traditionalists, who are the heart of the Met's audience. It is also a response to the long reign of the current general manager, Joseph Volpe, who has worked at the Met for 42 years.

"I told the board at the time of my choice that I wanted to take this great institution that had grown somewhat isolated artistically and reconnect it to the world," Mr. Gelb said.

Mr. Gelb's program calls for a collaboration with Lincoln Center Theater that will engage Hollywood directors like Anthony Minghella and Broadway directors like George C. Wolfe, as well as musical figures like the theater composers Michael John LaChiusa and Adam Guettel and the jazz musician Wynton Marsalis. Major conductors who have never appeared at the Met will make debuts, including Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim and Esa-Pekka Salonen. The Met will install a gallery for works by contemporary painters, extending its reach into the visual arts. The artists include John Currin, Richard Prince and Sophie von Hellerman.

Mr. Gelb said he wanted to embrace new technology. Performances will be broadcast nationwide in high-definition movie theaters and made available through downloading, if agreements can be reached with the house's unions. CD's and DVD's could follow.

In a two-hour interview on Thursday, Mr. Gelb sketched out plans that could radically remake the house and influence opera houses around the world, given its size and influence. "My work at the Met is going to involve everything," he said, "even subtitles."

A former record company executive who produced Met telecasts in the late 1980's and early 90's, Mr. Gelb formally takes over on Aug. 1. But since January 2005 he has been working alongside the strong-willed Mr. Volpe.

Mr. Gelb, who is a son of Arthur Gelb, a former managing editor of The New York Times, said his plans were not meant as a criticism of the Volpe era. He noted that a sharp drop in opera attendance since 9/11 afflicted many institutions.

But he went on to say that the house had been "coasting" and that the old formula — counting on dedicated operagoers to fill the house for standard productions — no longer worked. He also took note of criticism that the Met has not attracted enough world-class conductors. Regarding singers, he said, it has "waited too long to jump on talent."

Mr. Volpe said his successor's approach might ruffle feathers. "Our audience loves standard opera done in a traditional way," he said. "But if it's very theatrical and well done they will be very happy with it. I think it's a good direction."

Mr. Volpe said he did not consider Mr. Gelb's plans a repudiation of his stewardship. "What I did, in my opinion, worked," he said. "If the new direction is successful, then you could say that the way the Met operated in the last decade should have been changed." If the audiences do not accept the new productions, he added, "then that's another result."

Martin Bernheimer, the New York-based music critic of The Financial Times, said Mr. Gelb appeared to be "desperately looking for a new audience and a new kind of opera."

"I think that's fine," he said. "But the question is, what will he do with the core audience while he's courting this new audience?"

Mr. Gelb said he wanted to create a "constant kind of excitement" by staging a new production every month, raising the average from four a year to seven. He will immediately scrap the tradition of an opening-night gala of big stars performing acts from several different operas.

"The idea that the Met has not opened a season with a new production in 20 years I find remarkable," he said. Hence, a new "Madama Butterfly," directed by Mr. Minghella and produced in cooperation with the English National Opera, will open the next Met season. It was a hit in London last fall.

Making such changes in the opera world, in which seasons are planned many years in advance, is unusual. But the Met had already scheduled an old "Butterfly" production for October, so that puzzle piece was replaced with a new one.

Mr. Gelb said that his goal with all the changes was to create bridges to a broader public. But the strategy also carries the risk of alienating traditional opera lovers and serious-minded critics. It remains questionable how congenial iTunes opera downloads would be to the typical Met attendee, whom the house has identified as a 62-year-old college graduate earning about $120,000.

Mr. Gelb acknowledged the need to keep traditionalists in the fold.

"My plans are not intended to frighten them," he said. "What I'm trying to do is to honor the aesthetic traditions of the Met while at the same time moving forward. If I were to function purely as a curator, then the Met would not continue to function and thrive."

The Met has cut its budget in midseason three years in a row, and in December it reported an expected box-office shortfall of $4.3 million. After selling more than 90 percent of its tickets in the 1990's, it is selling about 85 percent now, and a much larger proportion of them are discounted.

Mr. Gelb said he would change ticket prices next season to increase revenue. The highest-priced seats would rise from $320 to $375, and costs would go up for 60,000 seats out of the 857,000 total capacity next year. But the lowest ticket price would drop from $26 to $15, and 90,000 seats would decline in price.

The next three seasons have already been mostly planned, but Mr. Gelb said he had some influence, adding two new productions each season in 2007-8 and in 2008-9.

The first season fully planned by Mr. Gelb will be 2009-10. It will have seven new productions.

The season will open with a new "Tosca," possibly directed by George C. Wolfe, the former producer of the Public Theater. Karita Mattila will sing the title role for the first time. Angela Gheorghiu, a high soprano, will sing Carmen, a mezzo role. Matthew Bourne, a choreographer, and Richard Eyre will direct. The two collaborated on the musical "Mary Poppins," now playing in London.

The elusive Mr. Muti will make his Met debut with the early Verdi work "Attila," one of his signature operas. Mr. Salonen will conduct Janacek's "From the House of the Dead," directed by Patrice Chéreau. Renée Fleming will star in the early Rossini opera "Armida," directed by Mary Zimmerman. The next season, 2010-11, the Met will begin presenting a Wagner "Ring" cycle directed by Robert Lepage, a master of theatrical spectacle and technology who recently created the Cirque du Soleil extravaganza "KA" in Las Vegas. It will also present a commissioned work by the currently prominent Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov.

Notably absent from Mr. Gelb's outline of his plans was a discussion of the repertory's more challenging works, like Berg's "Wozzeck" and "Lulu," which are close to the heart of James Levine, the music director and longtime artistic soul of the Met. When asked, Mr. Gelb said both would continue to have short runs in coming years.

"We have to balance the season," he said. "And Jimmy insists on that, and he's right."

Mr. Levine said he fully supported Mr. Gelb's plans. "What I think he wants to do is produce a noticeable change right away," Mr. Levine said, "where he will have a way in front of him to evaluate what works."

But he cautioned that financing was not a given and the Met's plans depended on whether guest artists do in fact appear. He cited the fragility of voices during winter and the whims of conductors.

"If all those conductors to whom Peter spoke really come and do what they've agreed to do," Mr. Levine said, "that will be really exciting."

One of the biggest and perhaps most controversial departures is the collaboration with Lincoln Center Theater, which Mr. Gelb said was designed to produce operas with better dramatic flow from unexpected composers and to give them a chance for improvement before hitting the stage.

The Met and the theater have commissioned works from a range of composers and playwrights, some of them outside the classical tradition. The pieces will be workshopped and then guided toward either the Vivian Beaumont Theater or the Met stage. The Met is holding open a spot during the 2011-12 season for the first product of this collaboration. The artists include the team of Jeannine Tesori and Tony Kushner, as well as Rufus Wainwright, Scott Wheeler and Michael Torke.

Mr. Gelb said that if a revenue-sharing agreement with the house's unions could be reached, he hoped to start movie house broadcasts next year. The Met would begin with six Saturday performances in its radio broadcast season, relayed to theaters outfitted with high-definition systems, for about $20 a ticket. Two movie chains are interested, he said.

"The idea is to really conceive of it as an event," he said, "because that's what's exciting about opera."

Thomas Hampson / Marilyn Horne

American Song, the Thomas Hampson recital at Carnegie Hall last Thursday was a critical and popular success. It happened on the nineteenth of the month, that is, two days after Marilyn Horne's birthday. Two days after the concert itself, an audio capture of the event appeared posted on a Usenet group. The great baritone performed some of the best songs by Barber, Ives, Rorem, Thompson, and others. It was a carefully selected group of compositions, chosen and presented by Mr. Hampson with a didactic tone that seemed to work most of the time. At the conclusion of the show he offered two encores of incredible beauty: Stephen Foster's well-known "Beautiful Dreamer," and Haydn Wood's poignant "Roses of Picardy." It was towards the end of the program, right before he sang the Stephen Foster song that Mr. Hampson turned to the audience (as he did throughout the concert to explain and complain -- more about that later) and dedicated the Foster song to Marilyn Horne for her birthday. On the subject of American song, all singers owe a debt of gratitude to Marilyn Horne. Her album "Beautiful Dreamer, The Great American Songbook" with the English Chamber Orchestra under the great Carl Davis has done a lot to promote popular, serious American music. The fact that a day before Mr. Hampson's concert it was reported that the legendary mezzo-soprano was diagnosed with localized pancreatic cancer, added to the poignancy of Mr. Hampson's dedication. I'm not sure if Marilyn Horne was present at Carnegie Hall, but a friend who was at the concert told me that Mr. Hampson turned to the side when he dedicated the song, seemingly talking directly to someone.

According to Anne Midgette, in the New York Times, "there was a sense of unruliness in the public from the start, when the first song was delayed by an audience member walking around the auditorium, and it continued with applause in the middle of sets that Mr. Hampson tried to quell, tactfully, repeatedly and unsuccessfully." Perhaps, the fact that Mr. Hampson talked a lot between numbers led to this kind of audience behavior. For instance, after he finished Walter Damrosch's setting of the poem "Danny Deever" in which a soldier is executed, Mr. Hampson said to the audience "That was Teddy Roosevelt's favorite song!" Was that random piece of trivia really necessary? It not only brought on laughter, but a woman in the audience stood up and interrupted Mr. Hampson by asking him why the soldier was executed.

I will end this report about the concert by once again quoting the beginning of Ms. Midgette's review: "A wave of laughter greeted the song's last line, and from the Carnegie Hall stage, the baritone Thomas Hampson looked at the crowd in bemusement. "All over the country they laugh at that!" he said. His perplexity was understandable. The text was Edward Arlington Robinson's poem "Richard Cory," set to music by John Duke. It describes a handsome, wealthy man who is the envy of his community. In the abrupt final line, this favored child of fortune "went home and put a bullet through his head." Wry, bitter, unsettling: yes. But funny?"

Discovering Ugetsu Monogatari

This weekend I discovered one of the masterpieces of the Japanese cinema: Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari. I had never seen this film, although I have known of its existence since the summer of 1977 when I first discovered foreign films. Ugetsu, with its contemplative theme of careless love, its fluid structure, and its subtle supernatural story is not the easiest of films, especially when compared to the more dynamic, more "American" cinema of Akira Kurosawa -- the director of The Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Yojimbo. I'm glad that it took me all these years to get to the movie, since I don't think I would have liked it when I was a teen discovering Kurosawa's masterpieces. I probably would have found Mizoguchi's work vague, and perhaps boring. This is one of those movies that always ends up on the top ten lists of the greatest films ever made from critics from all over the world. I think I agree with these critics. The Criterion Collection has finally issued the film in a wonderful DVD version which, again, makes me glad that I waited to see it. Needless to say, this pressing from an original fine-grain 35mm print looks superb. You will enjoy this DVD release, with its amazing visual, its fine commentary and the well-made documentary about director Mizoguchi. So, if you are ready to step further beyond the films of Akira Kurosawa, you should give Ugetsu a try. I am sure that you will find it mesmerizing and totally unforgettable.

Requiem for Sweeney Todd

The skeletal remains of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street are on view eight times a week at the Eugene O'Neill theater. Stephen Sondheim's big operatic musical has been re-orchestrated, turned into a chamber work, and removed from traditional Victorian London. The setting of the work is now a room in an insane asylum (filled with Victoriana bric-a-brac) and populated with Michael Cerveris, Patti LuPone and a cast of eight incredibly talented singing actors and musicians. The result is a production that exasperates as often as it delights.

Most of the things that I liked about the original production (with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou) are gone: the big orchestra, the big sets, and the big climaxes. In 1979, Hal Prince turned Sondheim's work into an unforgettable commentary on the Industrial Revolution's effects on the common man. It was a huge spectacle that catapulted Sondheim's work into the level of opera, took home Tony Awards for its creators and stars, and assured Sondheim's place in the pantheon of immortals. I remember falling in love with the work instantly (right from the first couple of bars from the organ) when I first heard it. My two visits to the original production at the then Uris Theater (now the Gershwin) were simply unforgettable theatrical evenings.

This production is a totally different experience, and if you have seen this work before this production will really challenge you. In fact, in order to appreciate the show's current run one has to be somewhat familiar with the work. If you are, then you will be more accepting of the production's conceits. The staging by British director John Doyle does not help the run-of-the-mill theatergoer or the neophyte to the work. Since everything takes place in one room, the audience is forced to imagine the various settings where the story takes place (streets, tonsorial parlor, bakehouse) and try to piece the story together from the lyrics and dialogue, which are beautifully enunciated by the cast. The short list of props includes a macabre black coffin, a ladder, and a symbolic tiny white baby coffin that Michael Cerveris clutches like the distant memory of his lost wife and child.

The most surprising and effective aspect of this production is the fact that the actors act, sing, and play all the musical instruments. This triple threat tour-de-force is something to behold, and it is quite surprising to hear how good they all are performing their various duties. Many of the actors play more than one instrument throughout the course of the show, and the new orchestrations are intelligent and quite lush. I do wish they would have gotten some older looking, drabier instruments, though. Patti LuPone's tuba is way too shiny, and Michael Cerveris' guitar is way too cheerful, colorful, and modern looking for this production.

Speaking of Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone: they are very talented performers, and they are quite good in the roles of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. With his bald head, leather jacket, and pale make-up, and her Louise Brooks-like hair and torn fishnet stockings, they both look like escapees from a German Expressionist side-show. Overall, the singing is excellent from the leads and from everyone in the cast; likewise, the acting is superb. In the roles of Johanna and Anthony, Lauren Molina and Benjamin Magnuson are both making their Broadway debuts, and they are very memorable in their pivotal parts. Again, the same can be said of all ten members of the cast. This is a very tight ensemble, and I urge you to see the production because of this reason. However, if you don't know the work, make sure that at least you listen to it and get your bearings before you go. It will prove to be a less abstract, more enjoyable experience if you prepare.

I predict many Tonys for this production, so catch it before it closes. Sondheim's works, as a rule, don't last too long on Broadway, and it will be a shame if you miss this unusual version of one of our very own musical treasures.

Astrid Varnay Remembers Birgit Nilsson

The following letter was posted on the Internet newsgroup rec.music.opera. It is a personal note from soprano Astrid Varnay rememembering her friend and colleague Birgit Nilsson. Astrid Varnay was one of the great Brünnhildes of our time, and a staple at Bayreuth during the post-war Wieland Wagner years. Here at the MET I was fortunate to hear her live in the cast of the MET's premiere of Kurt Weill's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Here is her note:

Birgit Nilsson -- A Remembrance

Even with our helmets on, we never locked horns.

There were simply too many bonds that linked us inseparably: born in the same country - Sweden – under the same sign - Taurus - in the spring of the same year –1918. I got here first, on April 25th as the daughter of visiting Hungarian singers in Stockholm and she showed up on May 17th down the road a piece on her parents’ farm in Västra Karup in Skåne. She never stopped ribbing me about the fact that I arrived a couple of weeks before she did.

Once, after I had moved from Elektra to Klytämnestra, while she continued in the title role, I was on my way to a rehearsal, when behind me on the sidewalk I heard an abrasively cranky child whining incessantly "Mommy, mommy..." When I finally decided I could ignore this no more and turned around in exasperation to beg the parent to pay a little attention to the yammering kid, I realized that the "brat" was my friend Birgit. I did get her back, though. Years later on one of our many phone calls I feigned one of those very formal secretarial voices and inquired if I might speak to Madame Nilsson – when she took the bait and said: "This is she speaking," I switched to my own voice and said "It’s your mother!" It became an identifying mark for our many conversations over the years.

We were colleagues, not rivals. There was never any jealousy, although perhaps occasional, and I hope pardonably small surges of envy emerged on both sides. I coveted those effortless clarion high C’s, and she confessed that she would have enjoyed having some of my dramatic skills, although hers could be fairly incendiary. Actually we didn’t share that many roles. Apart from three or four pillars of both careers: Brünnhilde, Isolde, Fidelio and the aforementioned Elektra, our repertoires pretty much went their own ways. She never sang Ortrud, and I wouldn’t have touched Turandot with a Yang-Tse barge pole. And we loved singing together: Those performances and the joy of our collaboration forged a friendship that will remain affixed in my heart forever.

A talent like Birgit’s comes along – if you’re lucky – perhaps once in a lifetime. How fortunately we are that it happened in our lifetime. A friend and colleague like that is even rarer, and it was a blessing for me to have worked with her.

I’ll miss her greatly.

Astrid Varnay

Birgit Nilsson: NY Times Bernard Holland Article

The New York Times

January 12, 2006
Birgit Nilsson, Soprano Legend Who Tamed Wagner, Dies at 87
By BERNARD HOLLAND

Birgit Nilsson, the Swedish soprano with a voice of impeccable trueness and impregnable stamina, died on Dec. 25 in Vastra Karup, the village where she was born, the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported yesterday. She was 87.

A funeral was held yesterday at a church in her town, the presiding vicar, Fredrik Westerlund, told The Associated Press.

Ms. Nilsson made so strong an imprint on a number of roles that her name came to be identified with a repertory, the "Nilsson repertory," and it was a broad one. She sang the operas of Richard Strauss and made a specialty of Puccini's "Turandot," but it was Wagner who served her career and whom she served as no other soprano since the days of Kirsten Flagstad.

A big, blunt woman with a wicked sense of humor, Ms. Nilsson brooked no interference from Wagner's powerful and eventful orchestra writing. When she sang Isolde or Brünnhilde, her voice pierced through and climbed above it. Her performances took on more pathos as the years went by, but one remembers her sound more for its muscularity, accuracy and sheer joy of singing under the most trying circumstances.

Her long career at the Bayreuth Festival and her immersion in Wagner in general, began in the mid-1950's. No dramatic soprano truly approached her stature thereafter, and in the roles of Isolde, Brünnhilde and Sieglinde, she began her stately 30-year procession around the opera houses of the world. Her United States debut was in San Francisco in 1956. Three years later she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, singing Isolde under Karl Böhm, and some listeners treasure the memory of that performance as much as they do her live recording of the role from Bayreuth in 1966, also under Böhm. The exuberant review of her first Met performance appeared on the front page of The New York Times on Dec. 19, 1959, under the headline, "Birgit Nilsson as Isolde Flashes Like New Star in 'Met' Heavens."

Playing opposite Karl Liebl as Tristan, Howard Taubman wrote, "she dominated the stage and the performance."

When she appeared at the end of the first act to take a solo bow, he wrote, the audience "roared like the Stadium fans when Conerly throws a winning touchdown pass."

Like so many distinctive artists, Ms. Nilsson considered herself self-taught. "The best teacher is the stage," she told an interviewer in 1981. "You walk out onto it, and you have to learn to project." She deplored her early instruction and attributed her survival to native talent. "My first voice teacher almost killed me," she said. "The second was almost as bad."

Birgit Nilsson was born in 1918. Her mother, evidently a talented singer, began Ms. Nilsson's musical education at 3, buying her a toy piano. She began picking out melodies on it.

She once told an interviewer that she could sing before she could walk. "I even sang in my dreams," she added. A choirmaster near her home heard her sing and advised her to study. She entered the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm in 1941.

Ms. Nilsson made her debut at the Royal Opera in Stockholm in 1946, replacing the scheduled Agathe in Weber's "Freischütz," who was too ill to go on. The next year she claimed attention there as Verdi's Lady Macbeth under Fritz Busch. A wealth of parts followed, from Strauss and Verdi to Wagner, Puccini and Tchaikovsky.

Her first splash abroad was 1951, as Elettra in Mozart's "Idomeneo" at the Glyndebourne Festival in England. From there, it was a short hop to the Vienna State Opera and then to Bayreuth. She took the title role of "Turandot," which is brief but in need of an unusually big sound, to Milan in 1958 and then to the rest of Italy.

Ms. Nilsson was suspicious of opera's recent youth culture and often remarked on the premature destruction of young voices brought on by overambitious career planning. "Directors and managers don't care about their futures," she once said. "They will just get another young person when this one goes bad."

In today's opera culture, the best managed voices tend to mature in the singer's 40's and begin to deteriorate during the 50's. (Singers like Plácido Domingo, flourishing in his 60's, might dispute such generalizations.) Yet at 66, when most singers hang onto whatever career remains through less taxing recitals with piano and discreet downward transpositions of key, Ms. Nilsson sang a New York concert performance of Strauss and Wagner that met both composers head-on.

"Ms. Nilsson did not sound young," Will Crutchfield wrote in The Times. "Soft and low notes were often precarious; sustained tones were not always steady." He continued: "The wonderful thing is that she doesn't let this bother her. There was never a sense of distress or worry."

The conductor Erich Leinsdorf thought that her longevity, like Flagstad's, had something to do with her Scandinavian heritage, remarking that Wagner required "thoughtful, patient and methodical people." Ms. Nilsson attributed her long career to no particular lifestyle or regimen. "I do nothing special," she once said. "I don't smoke. I drink a little wine and beer. I was born with the right set of parents."

In sheer power, Ms. Nilsson's high notes were sometimes compared to those of the Broadway belter Ethel Merman. One high C rendered in a "Turandot" performance in the outdoor Arena di Verona in Italy led citizenry beyond the walls to think that a fire alarm had been set off. Once urged to follow Ms. Nilsson in the same role at the Met, the eminent soprano Leonie Rysanek refused.

Ms. Nilsson was known for her one-liner humor. The secret to singing Isolde, she said, was "comfortable shoes." After a disagreement with the Australian soprano Joan Sutherland, Ms. Nilsson was asked if she thought Ms. Sutherland's famous bouffant hairdo was real. She answered: "I don't know. I haven't pulled it yet." After the tenor Franco Corelli was said to have bitten her neck in an onstage quarrel over held notes, Ms. Nilsson canceled performances complaining that she had rabies.

Ms. Nilsson was also a shrewd businesswoman and negotiated much of her own career. She never ranted or engaged in tantrums. She was also too proud to make outright demands. She would begin contract talks by refusing every offer and being evasive about her availability in general. This tack would continue until the impresario offered something she wanted. Ms. Nilsson's reply would be "maybe." Now in control, she would be begged to accept what she desired in the first place.

She could stand up to intensely wired conductors like Georg Solti as well. When Solti, in "Tristan und Isolde," insisted on tempos too slow for her taste, she made the first performance even slower, inducing a conductorial change of heart.

Partly because Ms. Nilsson was on the scene, Decca Records undertook the audacious and mammothly expensive project of making the first studio recording of Wagner's four-opera "Ring" cycle conducted by Solti and produced by John Culshaw. The effort took seven years, from 1958 to 1965. A film of the proceedings made her a familiar image for arts-conscious television viewers.

Ms. Nilsson's American career was derailed in the mid-70's by a squabble with the Internal Revenue Service, which had filed claims for back taxes. Several years later, cooler heads intervened: a schedule of payments was worked out, and Ms. Nilsson's ill-tempered hiatus from the United States ended. When she returned, Donal Henahan wrote in The Times, "The famous shining trumpet of a voice is still far from sounding like a cornet."

Ms. Nilsson appeared at the Met 223 times in 16 roles. She sang two complete "Ring" cycles in the 1961-62 season, and another in 1974-75. She was Isolde 33 times, and Turandot 52. The big soprano parts were all hers: Aida, Tosca, the Dyer's Wife in Strauss's "Frau Ohne Schatten," Salome, Elektra, Lady Macbeth, Leonore in Beethoven's "Fidelio," and both Venus and Elisabeth in Wagner's "Tannhäuser." For much of this time, the Met's general manager was Rudolf Bing. Ms. Nilsson, when signing a contract, was asked to name a dependent. She wrote in Bing's name.

James Levine, who conducted her in Wagner and Strauss at the Met, said yesterday: "Birgit was unique. Her voice, the dedication of her artistry, her wonderfully wicked sense of humor and her loyal friendship were in a class by themselves. I miss her already, as does the entire Met family." At Mr. Levine's 25th-anniversary gala at the Met in 1996, she spoke briefly and wittily, throwing in a brief and wholly professional Valkyrie hoot at the end.

Ms. Nilsson had by then retired to her childhood home in the Skane province of southern Sweden. Here her father had been a sixth-generation farmer, and here she had worked to grow beets and potatoes until she was 23. A decade ago an interviewer for The Times found her there: happy, serene and as unpretentious as ever. "I've always tried to remember what my mother used to tell me," she said. "Stay close to the earth. Then when you fall down, it won't hurt so much."

Birgit Nilsson Dies

The great Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson died on Christmas Day in her native Sweden. It was only today that her death was reported in America. She was one of the greatest stars of our times, memorable in the roles of Turandot, Tosca, and Aida. It was in the works of Richard Wagner, however, that she will be remembered as one of the immortals. During the late 1950's and '60's she was the world's leading Brünnhilde and Isolde, and her recording of The Ring, conducted by Sir Georg Solti, (the first complete Ring to be recorded in stereo) was a memorable landmark event.

I was very lucky to hear her live in Richard Strauss' Elektra and Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Metropolitan Opera when she made her triumphal return to America in the early 1980's. Although past her prime, those performances had an unforgettable electricity, and those of us who were lucky enough to get tickets for these performances will never forget them. You can read more about Birgit Nilsson career by visiting the Wagnerian Sopranos section of Wagner Operas.

The following is the New York Times obituary:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Birgit Nilsson, the farmer's daughter who became renowned in the world's great opera houses for her dazzling voice and among colleagues for her playful sense of humor, has died at age 87.

She died on Christmas Day, the Stockholm daily Svenska Dagbladet reported.

As word spread of her death two decades after she retired, the Swedish singer was remembered as one of the world's top Wagnerian sopranos.

''With Birgit Nilsson's passing, Sweden has lost one of its greatest artists,'' King Carl XVI Gustaf said in a rare statement.

''She was one of the greatest singers of the 20th century,'' said Menno Feenstra, artistic director at Stockholm's Royal Opera, who developed a close friendship with Nilsson after her retirement.

Feenstra called her vocal skills ''so solid and so 100 percent that you can hardly find a singer nowadays that has a technique like that.''

A funeral was held Wednesday at a church in her native town Vastra Karup in southern Sweden, with only her closest relatives attending, said Fredrik Westerlund, the church's vicar. He did not know when she died or the cause of death, but Nilsson was said to have had heart trouble in recent years.

Born on a farm, Nilsson reigned supreme at the world's opera houses during her career, which began in 1946 at the Stockholm Royal Opera as Agathe in Weber's ''Der Freischutz'' and continued until 1984.

She sang a wide variety of dramatic roles, but her reputation was based especially on her mastery of the most punishing in the repertory. Chief among these was Isolde in Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde,'' which she sang for her sensational debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera on Dec. 18, 1959.

She was immediately hailed as a worthy successor to her fellow Scandinavian, Kirsten Flagstad, the Norwegian who owned the Wagner repertory at the Met during the years before World War II.

Other parts Nilsson made her own included Bruennhilde, the warrior maiden of Wagner's ''Ring'' cycle, the title role of Elektra in Richard Strauss' opera, and the heroine of Puccini's ''Turandot.''

''Birgit was unique!'' Met music director James Levine said in a statement. ''Her voice, her artistry, her sense of humor and her friendship were in a class of their own. I was so fortunate to hear her sing many times over the years, and eventually to work with her on several memorable occasions with Wagner and Strauss.''

''The thing that was remarkably wonderful about her was that she had no conceit. She was completely modest,'' Jon Vickers, her frequent Tristan, said in a telephone interview from his home in Bermuda.

At her peak, Nilsson astounded audiences in live performance with the unforced power of her voice, which easily cut through the thickest orchestrations, and with her remarkable breath control, which allowed her to hold onto the highest note for seemingly endless amounts of time. Her interpretive powers grew as her career developed, and she became a moving artist as well as a vocal phenomenon.

Her reputation in operatic lore was enhanced on Dec. 28, 1959, when she sang a performance of ''Tristan'' opposite three different tenors. Her scheduled co-star, Karl Liebel was ill, and so were his two ''covers,'' Ramon Vinay and Albert DaCosta. Met general manager Rudolf Bing perusaded each of them to go one for a single act so the performance wouldn't have to be canceled.

Nilsson also was renowned for her playful sense of humor. Once asked what was the chief requirement for singing Isolde, she replied: ''Comfortable shoes.''

Johanna Fiedler, in her book about the Met, ''Molto Agitato,'' tells the story of Nilsson's unhappiness with the gloomy lighting on which Herbert von Karajan insisted for his production of the ''Ring.'' To register her objections, she appeared on stage during a 1967 rehearsal of ''Die Walkuere'' wearing a coal miner's helmet with searchlight and wings.

''Karajan just looked at her, put his head down and conducted,'' Vickers recalled. ''He wouldn't look at her.''

Another legendary moment came after one of her frequent battle-of-the-high-note contests with tenor Franco Corelli during the second act duet from ''Turandot.'' Enraged that no matter how he tried she could hold onto the climactic high C longer than he could, Corelli apparently got his revenge during their third-act love scene by biting her on the neck instead of kissing her. Nilsson is said to have telephoned Bing to cancel her next performance with the explanation, ''I have rabies.''

Nilsson recalled the episode in an Oct. 30, 2003, phone interview with the AP following Corelli's death.

''He neither bit nor kissed me. It all ended appropriately in any case,'' she said.

Nilsson sang with the Met 222 times in 16 roles, making her finale at the October 1983 centennial gala. Her last appearance on the Met stage came more than a decade later, when she took part in an April 1996 gala celebrating Levine's 25th anniversary with the company. After some gracious remarks, she launched into Bruennhilde's ''ho-yo-to-ho'' battle cry from ''Walkuere,'' delivering -- at age 77 -- a performance that would have been the envy of any younger soprano.

Nilsson made her American debut at the San Francisco Opera on Oct. 5, 1956, as Bruennhilde, and sang at the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1956-74. She sang Bruennhilde in the 1960s recording of Wagner's Ring Cycle with Sir Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic, considered by many the definitive rendition.

She appeared 232 times at the Vienna State Opera from 1954-82, and the Vienna Philharmonic, the company's orchestra, made her an honorary member in 1999.

''If there ever was someone that one can call a real star today and a world-famous opera singer during her time then that was Frau Nilsson,'' said Ioan Holender, director of the Vienna State Opera.

Her music education started at age 3, when her mother, an accomplished amateur singer, bought Birgit a toy piano, on which she learned to pick out melodies.

''I sang before I could walk. I even sang in my dreams,'' she told reporters soon after her opera debut.

After retirement, she continued to teach master's level courses in singing.

Although she studied at Sweden's Royal Academy of Music, Nilsson said she learned most of her musical skills on her own.

''I'm mostly self-educated. I discovered early how wonderfully easy it was to sing in big localities. In small rooms my voice got tired,'' she told a Swedish reporter once.

Despite her worldwide recognition, Nilsson said she was nervous before every major performance.

''Before a premiere, on the way to the opera, I'd hope for just a small, small accident, it didn't need to be much, but just so I would not have to sing,'' she said in a 1977 interview on Swedish TV.

Nilsson married Swedish restaurateur Bertil Niklasson in 1949. The couple had no children.

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Associated Press writers Mike Silverman and Ronald Blum in New York, Mattias Karen in Stockholm and George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, contributed to this report.