What opera have you been watching lately?

[Florestan]

Gluck – Iphigenie en Tauride – Opernhaus Zurich (2001) – DVD
I haven’t really acquired a taste for Gluck yet – other than the short version of Orphee – but this one I enjoyed. The score seems more hot-blooded than Alceste, and it helps that the libretto was more action-driven. This production has doubles for all the characters acting out memories or premonitions, but they’re wearing these giant papier-mache heads which are kinda ridiculous. In general, it’s the right approach to this opera – exploring the psychology of the characters to add depth – but in execution, forgettable. Rod Gilfry gives a fantastic performance; the rest of the cast is good but not great. ***

I can't say I have watched or heard any Gluck but Orphee/Orfeo (three on DVD). I binged on Baroque a couple years ago, then burned out. It may be time to get back into some Baroque as I have a few more Baroque DVDs in the unwatched pile.

[Florestan]

[Nemorino]

Verdi - Attila - Teatro Comunale di Bologna - Blu-Ray
This production is modern enough to be dark and ugly, but old-fashioned enough to be park-and-bark. Truly forgettable staging. Amazing cast though. Of the "galley years" Verdi I've seen, I'd say this is slightly above average in both music & libretto. Most of the highlights are in the "Prologue" which is longer than any of the subsequent acts, which get shorter and less memorable until someone finally just kills the title character to get it over with. Before that they talk a lot about killing him, but people chicken out for no clear reason. Maybe because he's a hunky bass. It's clear this opera gets revived because it's a rare title role for a bass superstar. But I do think a good staging could do something interesting with all of the conflicted character motivations. ****1/2 for the singing. Overall: ***1/2

[Florestan]

[Florestan]

Corny story but then it is a comedy. Still not fond of counter tenors.

[MAuer]

I do like Serse, but only in the "historically uninformed" style with a tenor in the title role. (I still think JK would be a wonderful Serse!)

[Nemorino]

Over the holidays, the streams I watched had an unintentional theme of all being productions affected by COVID restrictions. Rather than find them sobering reminders of 2020, I like to find hope for 2021 in the resiliency of the artists behind them:

Mozart – “Covid fan tutte” – Finnish National Opera – Streaming on Operavision
Restrictions: Limited audience; reduced running time. Reduced orchestra. Limited pre-recorded chorus.
Presented instead of a scheduled Die Walkure, the FNO decided not to butcher Wagner, but to find another piece to fit the same cast. Remarkably, they went with Mozart, but rather than present a shortened version of Cosi fan tutte, they decided to repurpose the music for a new pastiche with a COVID-inspired libretto in Finnish. They also included an aria each from Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute which the librettist exploited for pure comedy gold. Top marks for all of the singing in this very funny show. As a quickly improvised show, it doesn’t have much in the way of plot or characters. But that’s okay, this show wasn’t designed to “have legs”, it’s a delight of its moment. ****

Bizet – Carmen – Staatsoper Hannover – Streaming on Operavision
Restrictions: No audience. Reduced orchestra. No chorus.
With Carmen, cutting the choral numbers causes issues, so Hannover decided to approach Carmen from a new point-of-view, and had composer Marius Felix Lange reorchestrate, rearrange, and even add new elements to the music. It added surprise to a piece that is ultra familiar. I have to admit, I have not found traditional productions of Carmen to be anywhere near as thrilling as this one (I have always assumed the recitatives to be to blame, which have been jettisoned for narrations from Merimee’s novel). This is one of the most “alive” productions of an opera I’ve seen all year. I also liked the production design, especially the costumes for Carmen – of which there were many – evoking perfectly all of the contradictions of her character without being unrealistic or over-sexualized. Evgenia Asenova was terrific. Not ideal for a first-timer, but an enlightening fresh take for an opera one sees a million times. ****1/2

Wagner – Lohengrin – Staatsoper Unter den Linden – Streaming on Arte.tv
Restrictions: No audience. Reduced orchestra & social-distanced chorus.
In the case of Lohengrin, a reduced orchestra has precedent; Liszt premiered the opera with a similar reduction. The result is transparent and mostly enjoyable – I liked hearing woodwinds in more detail - but when the brass are playing they tended to overwhelm the rest. Given the lesser restrictions, and compared to the productions that *had* to do more, Calixto Bieito’s production is a disappointment. He has a good core idea -
Ortrud and Telramund are like today’s social media “fake news”, any suggestion from them shouted loudly enough ripples through the chorus as a reason to doubt the factual truth - however he also throws in too many symbols of dubious quality, like a video of a woman giving birth to a swan, which regardless of his reasoning can not be expected to produce anything better than confused laughter in a sane audience. Alagna’s role debut was great but needs a little polishing. The solid, fiery Ortrud of Gubanova was the highlight. ***