Tosca (an opera review post)

In my last opera review, I talked about the bel canto opera style. Well, I'm not the only one who doesn't, or didn't, like it. Verismo, which means "true" or "real," was, at least in part, a reaction to the bel canto style which dominated opera through a large part of the 1800s. Puccini is probably the most well known verismo composer. So, where last time we had Donizetti playing fast and loose with history and facts in the name of some "emotional truth" that he completely made up, this time we have Puccini paying close attention to facts and details and presenting a fictional story set against exact historical veracity.

When I say he wanted to get it all correct, I'm not exaggerating. The story is set against a particular day in Rome when they got news early in the day that Napoleon had been defeated. In fact, the news was false and Napoleon was actually victorious, so the celebrations that had started over Napoleon's "defeat" came to a sudden halt when the actual news finally reached them that Napoleon had won the battle. Puccini set his story at three specific places in Rome, actual places that are still there today, and reproduced them exactly. In fact, he wanted to include the ringing of the bells in  the church that part of the opera is set in, so he went to Rome so that he could listen to them and accurately incorporate their music into his score. There was no loosey-goosey "emotional truth" and re-writing history for Puccini!

Of course, none of that has anything to do with this production; it's just to contrast Tosca against Roberto Devereux.

As for this production, it was great. At least we (my wife and I) thought it was. Evidently, the local opera critics didn't think much of it, overall, because they felt it was not original enough... What...? These are the same people who complain when SFO stages a classic opera in some new way, as with the opera set in the museum last year (or the year before; I forget).  So you can't do it the way it's always been done, and you can't do something too original, either. What line is it they want walked, here? Oh, wait, the invisible one.

So my wife and I thought Tosca was great. The sets were stunning. Of course. And the singing...

Well, Briane Jagde was in it as the male romantic lead, and he was great. I know I've talked about Jagde before -- this is at least the fourth opera I've seen him in, maybe fifth -- and he's always quite good. Okay, very good. I enjoy him a lot. He's not one of those "stand and sing" fellows, and I really appreciate that. In fact, in this one... wait, hold that thought.

Tosca was played by Carmen Giannattasio. This was her debut to the role and to SFO, and she was also great. Giannnattasio and Jagde had great chemistry together, and they both had scenes where they had to sing while lying on the floor! Excuse me, they both had scenes where they had to sing while lying on the fucking floor! And if you'd had your eyes closed, you wouldn't have been able to tell they were on their stomachs on the floor. Do you know how hard it is to sing while lying on your stomach? Why don't you try it. And they had no loss of volume while doing it!

Yeah, I was pretty impressed with that.

All of that to say that we really enjoyed the opera. And, if you go into it without knowing the plot, it might just throw you off a bit. At least once. However, it is Puccini, so expect everyone to die in the end. Okay, well, it's not Hamlet, but Puccini may be the best at deaths other than Shakespeare.

Roberto Devereux (an opera review post)

Donizetti is one of the most prolific composers of opera who has ever lived, having composed nearly 70 operas in his 50 or so years on Earth. I'm just going to assume, wait, I don't have to assume; he wrote his first opera at 19, so that's better than two a year for the rest of his life. Which I don't know why I'm telling you (or even if I told you before, considering that this is the third Donizetti opera I've now seen) other than to say that Donizetti wrote a LOT of operas, and I'm having to go with idea that they weren't always good. On the one hand, I loved Don Pasquale but, then... Well, then there's this.

I want to make it clear, here, that my problem is specifically with the opera itself, not the production. As is generally the case with SFO, the production was top notch. The set, while not as good as the previous opera we saw, was still pretty fantastic and based, loosely, on the Globe theater. It was meant as a metaphor, but I'm not sure that bit really worked. The costumes were great. And the performances...

Okay, Sondra Radvanovsky, who played Queen Elizabeth, was amazing. Seriously, she was incredible. Both her singing and her acting. I can't quite say the same for the rest of the cast. Not that any of them were bad, they just didn't rise to the same level as Radvanovsky.

And this is where bits of the opera begin to fall apart for me, though. It's a bel canto style opera, which means, approximately, "beautiful song." Donizetti was one of the central figures in bel canto. On the surface, that sounds fine, right, an opera with beautiful songs? The problem is that bel canto can better be described as happy sounding music. It's all light and bubbly and stuff and, well, Roberta Devereux is a tragedy. The words and the music don't fit together at all. It's a little disconcerting to have someone singing about betrayal and heartache while sounding as if she's singing about a glorious spring day.

Then there's the bit where Donizetti and his librettist, Salvadore Cammarano, took an actual historical event and completely fictionalized it... to get at the "emotional truth" of the story, they said. Um, wait... If you completely change the story so that it has no real relation to the things that actually happened, how can you get at any emotional truth involved in what really happened? The short answer: You can't! And they went for the wrong "emotional truth" with this story, anyway.

Which brings us to the biggest issue of Roberto Devereux:
Elizabeth governed England during a time of tremendous prosperity for the country. "She" defeated the Spanish Armada, making England ruler of the seas. And while I know it can be debated how much of this or how much of that can be attributed to Elizabeth, Donizetti reduces her to a petty, lovesick adolescent who has people executed for spite and personal vengeance. A female Trump (#fakepresident), if you will.

It was disappointing, to say the least. It played up all of the worst cliches about women while adding some horrible plot devices, including what can best be described as a "magic" ring that worked as a "get out of execution free" card. This is not an opera I'd ever want to see again, no matter the production. And it puts in doubt future Donizetti operas. Yeah, despite how much I loved Pasquale, this one was so bad that I'm not sure I want to see anything else by the guy. Especially since I wasn't crazy about Lucia di Lammermoor, either. Maybe another of his comedies.

We Went to the Opera! (a local color post)

This is a view from the very top of the balcony down to the stage during the intermission and set change. Yes, it is a long way down.

(Sorry, this is the only picture that came out well enough to post it. There just wasn't enough light to get good shots.)

We went to the opera, my wife and I. Twice, actually (and have a third trip coming up next week). When I say we went to the opera, I don't mean that we went to just some opera performance, I mean that we went to the San Francisco Opera. It's the second largest opera company in the States, so it's not some two-bit production. As we learned last time, the full stage area (including backstage) is more than 10 times the size of our house!

Yeah, that's not small. Our house is, but that stage is still pretty ginormous.

There's a lot I could say about the two trips, too much, now, for one post. For instance, we had car picnics on the way down both times so that we could make it on time. Finger foods, good finger foods, like bits of cheese and apple and olives and tri-tip. My wife fed me (and herself), and I drove, and we talked and had a lot of fun. The second trip, we were also invited to a wine and cheese tasting before the performance with a talk from the chorus master. That's the guy who teaches the chorus their parts. He's been there at the San Francisco Opera for quite a long time.

I could also tell you about the completely rude guy with OWDS who interrupted the presenter during the pre-show presentation about the opera. It was actually the dude (and, yes, he was an old, rich, white dude) and two women, and all three of them had flaming cases of OWDS, though the dude had it the worst. I suppose, though, the San Francisco Opera is a common meeting ground of people with OWDS. That guy really deserves his own post, although I probably won't actually get around to doing that.

There's a short review of the first opera we saw below. I'll do a different post for the other show.

Before I get to that, though, I want to make one specific general opera comment:
The problem with opera is that it is often just people standing and singing. As my wife says, it's difficult to do a lot of movement when you're trying to sing, especially the kind of singing that opera singers do. And, yet, this is not a problem for all opera performers. And, I think, it probably didn't used to be a thing at all. Opera, once upon a time, was performance for the common man. It was the equivalent of going to the movies. I'm pretty sure that opera used to be much more lively and performative, but gentrification has made it much more accepted to just stand and sing.

Lucia di Lammermoor
Gaetano Donizetti

This opera suffered much from the stand-and-sing issue, especially among the male performers. Mostly, they didn't even bother to summon up any facial expressions. Nicolas Teste as Raimondo was the worst. He was about as flat as a piece of paper. He's one of the main characters and, yet, he often felt like he belonged in the chorus, because he had about as much animation as them. He could certainly sing, but there was no emotion in it, and he rarely moved at all. Nadine Sierra, the female lead, however, was the exact opposite. She was expressive and animated. A performer in all senses of the word. She made the show worth watching, especially how creepy she was in the post-murder scene where she goes off the deep end. Sierra is what more opera performers should aspire to. Opera is not just singing; it's also acting.

The issue with this particular production of this opera was the director. His interpretation of it was to "modernize" it, which would be fine... if he had actually done that. What he actually did, though, was to produce the same period piece that it's supposed to be (with the women wearing big period dresses and all of that and the whole thing in a castle-ish setting) except that the men get to wear suits and some of them wave guns around. It creates a horrible muddle. It did not give the "near future" vibe it was supposed to give at all. Not even close.

Still, it was an enjoyable experience. overall. The singing was, as to be expected, amazing, and, actually, Nadine Sierra was good enough on her own to make the show worth watching even with the other issues of this production.