Un Ballo and Tristan und Isolde

[Helene]

The circulation has returned to my legs and my back has finally relaxed after my bout in the Amphitheater section of the Royal Opera House, and, luckily, the women to my left left before the third act, allowing my neighbors and me to stretch out a bit. Those seats were built for Kate Moss. Luckily tonight's seats for Sylvia are better. However, the one advantage to Amphitheater is its secret ladies room. No line on my way in or out.)

Un Ballo in Maschera, in the 18th century Boston version, opened with Riccardo, the Governor of Boston, sleeping in a chair midstage, as a group of conspirators surrounded him, aired their grievances, and plotted his death. Most were the male chorus, but there were a few ladies sewing an American flag, while passing the revolver that was not used later on in the assassination attempt. (Perhaps a slap at the original censors, who suppressed firearms from the plot.) The setting for this and for the second scene, in Ulrica's dwelling, were rather on the traditional side. Having just told the very nice, but tiring man to my right that Act II was usually played in darkness -- I've seen a few with a woods-like setting -- I was more than pleasantly surprised by the setting: it was truly a graveyard, with gallows, rocks, skulls, and debris, and with its harsh lighting, it looked like a frightening black and white print. Usually the scene makes Amelia seem like a big, sheltered fraidy cat, but Sergio Tramonti's sets for the gallows were truly chilling, and it was no wonder she was scared out of her wits going there to find the plant that would make her forget Riccardo.

Act III opened on a half stage, with a desk, candelabra, and dagger that were very reminiscent of Scarpia's office, making Renato's threats that much more ominous. When the backdrop rose for the next scene, a mylar mirrored backdrop took its place, reflecting the conductor and orchestra, and Riccardo, who sang one of the most beautiful tenor arias Verdi ever wrote, but which is strangely absent from solo tenor recordings. The transition to the ball scene was spectacular: the mylar rose and was set at a tilt. About halfway upstage was a black "bannister" about 5 or so feet tall, which continued into a rectangle that took up the back of the stage, with an opening stage right, where there was a downward staircase. Inset into this rectangle was a dance floor with a red patterned floor, with swirling dancers, a small string orchestra, and onlookers reflected in the mirrored "ceiling." The party guests used the staircase to flow back and forth from the dance room to the main stage. A clever directorial decision was to have Riccardo die on a chair midstage, taking the same position that opened the opera.

A friend of mine once said that he rarely goes to see Verdi operas live anymore, because they are almost impossible to cast strongly in all voices. While the only basses in Un Ballo are smaller roles, the Royal Opera House has pulled off a Verdi coup: clarion-voiced Richard Margison as Riccardo, the young Swedish soprano, Nina Stemme, a true, dramatic Verdi soprano, Dmitri Hvorostovky, whose transition to the lyrical section of "Eri Tu" was breathtaking, as Renato, and the amazing Stephanie Blythe as Ulrica, who, instead of the usual stage stalking, used the coloration of her voice to create a powerful and threatening presence. (The performance would have been worth it just to hear Blythe.) Silver-voiced Patrizia Biccire, who has plenty of power of her own without forcing or marring her tone, was a perfect complement to the other two women as Oscar, and she bypassed most of the cute stage affectations that often mar the performance. Charles Mackerras conducted. At the beginning, the orchestra sounded a little "tooty," leaving out the underlying tension that Verdi was a genius in evoking; this was a disconcerting contrast to the Wagner I had heard the day before. However, the orchestral sounded more rich and involved as the performance went on.

This score, in my opinion, has some of the best music Verdi wrote, including multiple tenor and soprano arias, particularly the great Act II aria in which Amelia begs to see her son before Renato murders her, "Eri Tu," and a terrific love duet, as well as some spectacular choral work. I'm surprised this opera isn't as well know and oft-performed as Traviata and Rigoletto.

Tristan und Isolde, at the Opera Bastille Sunday afternoon, was another kettle of fish. Directed by Peter Sellars, the set consisted of a black box about the size of a queen bed, several squares of light that created "spaces," and the video screen that hung about midstage, on which Bill Viola's opera-long video show was projected. Sellars made judicious use of the auditorium as well: opening with the young seaman singing from a side balcony box; ending the first act with the auditorium lights rising slowly, and Willard White's King Mark walking to the middle of the orchestra/main floor, a jarring intrusion of reality; Brangaene's Act II warnings sung from the left balcony box; and the shepherd singing from the same box. Apart from an occasional stabbing, on the whole, the direction was very subdued, taking the same slow pace as the videos.

The controlled direction freed the singers from tossing themselves around trying to invoke fits of passion, which is a laughable part of many stagings. On the other hand, when singers are the only things to look at, if they don't move a lot, they are considered static and too large to be convincing characters. In this production, there were three things to look at: the supertitles, which are more prominent for non-French speakers, who could glance at the meaning instead of trying desperately to translate, the singers, or the video. There was also a pace to the video and the staging that slowed down time and the urgency to push through the singing. What emerged was the text and the emotional impetus behind it.

Viola's conception, which was printed in the program, was a bit too woo-woo for me to take seriously, as was Peter Sellars' post-post-Freudian synopsis, which included an explanation of how Tristan and King Mark had been lovers, and that's what made everything so tragic; luckily, if I hadn't read this explanation, I wouldn't have known from watching the direction. (Or maybe I watching the video, then.) The video ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime; most of the ridiculous coming in Act I. The themes seemed to be water, fire, and the combination of the two, with some unfortunate contemporary actors as an alternate Tristan und Isolde.

The opening scenes depicted the cold, rocky coast, with waves battering. There couldn't have been a better way to set the scene, with Tristan and Isolde being transported on a boat and nothing but coldness and misery in their foreseeable future. (And that's before they drink the love potion.) Unfortunately, the actors entered. In a split screen, with Isolde on the left and Tristan on the right, they very, very slowly disrobed, handing piece by piece of clothing and jewelry to two aged supporters in the background. (Tristan wears tighty-whities, a fact I did not need to know.) They are given loinclothes for the rest of the act. They then submerge their faces slowly into large bowls of water, kneel as their supporters annoint them with water, and more cleansing. One of the problems was that both of the actors looked Californian, but had about as much blood as a stone, which is amazing since the male actor is a comedian. It was all so Esalen. One of the finest images, though, was that two dots that appeared on screen turned out to be Tristan and Isolde swimming upward from the depths of water.

Act II was a great improvement, as it was the fire section. Besides the beauty of the the blazing fire images, there was a long sequence in which a series of small, metal old containers were lit, one by one. It turned out to be an wide altar with seven rows of candles, under which several banks of multi-sized votives flickered. As the camera panned back, we could see that a long, curved instrument was used to light them, and then we could see a woman (the Isolde actress), standing in front of the altar doing the lighting. In another sequence, the Tristan character walks slowly towards what appears to be a fire, and when he crosses the fire, we see that he is stepping through shallow water.

Act III combined fire and light by showing the reflection of sunlight on underwater reefs and rocks, which was a spectacular effect. In one scene, we see Isolde walking away from us, through the woods, between two sets of coastal rocks, and directly into the ocean. The final scene returned to woo-woo land, with the singing Tristan lying on the platform, and the video Tristan in a similar, but oh-so-different pose, as there was no life at all to the Beardsleyesque actor in the video. It was entirely predictable that he would rise toward the heavens before the opera ended, but by then the Liebestod was my real focus.

There was an announcement before the performance, which I didn't understand, except I thought I heard the name Lisa Gasteen, who was scheduled to sing Isolde, and a loud groan from the audience. I didn't recognize the name of a different singer, but I'm still not sure if Gasteen didn't sing, or if we were being told that she wasn't in best voice and to cut her some slack. Whoever sang was amazing, with the text driving each phrase, with a full emotional pallette, particularly in the beginning of Act II, when she's in an "in love with love" phase, so different from her embittered and humilated Act I and her spiritual Act III. Clifton Forbis has a very impressive tenor voice, and he could be heard through all of the orchestra waves. He was a very responsive Tristan, and a surprisingly sympathetic one. (Tristan can be sung as such a stiff.) Ekaterina Gubanova made Brangaene so much more than a supporting role, a remarkable presence in her own right, and she got lovely sheen to her voice and the ability to spin long, involved phrases, not always a given in Wagner. Willard White sounded strong as King Marke, but his acting was a bit plodding, and his scenes were the ones that held my interest least. Ales Briscein, a young Czech tenor, sang his dual roles of the shepherd and young seaman with a brilliant, light voice. I'm going to hear Peteris Eglitis' Wotan in Toronto next year, and I can't say that what I heard makes me look forward to this; while the role of Melot is small and nasty, there was nothing in the performance to suggest the Iago-like strength or pride that I've heard before in this role and which is critical to Wotan. (I'm hoping what I heard was a under-warmed up singer.) Once again I found myself wishing that another singer was cast in the role, this time Alexander Marco-Buhrmeister, who sang Kurwenal. If there is legato in Wagner, he found it in Kurwenal, and, especially in the last act of Tristan, sang with such agony and tenderness, I wanted to marry the character.

Another glory of the performance was Valery Gergiev's conducting and the orchestra. I've heard him sound rushed and orchestras he's conducted sound frayed, but it was clear from the pace of the overture -- patient and eternal -- that this was going to be brilliant. The orchestra sang. Perhaps some of the zen of the production's rubbed off, because Gergiev was the servant to it, and the effect was gorgeous.