Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Recommended Posts

This afternoon I saw an ad for "Nicholas Hytner's Olivier Award-winning production of Handel's classic" Xerxees. ("Wise, witty, wonderful, & fun -- The Daily Mail.) I went to the London Colisseum to see if I could buy a last minute ticket to find a queue waiting for returns. It was getting late, and I was transitioning to the meal of Chinese food I'd have instead, when a woman came by with one ticket, and no one in front of me wanted less than a pair. It was only after I bought it that I saw that it was for Madam Butterfly; Xerxees doesn't open until tomorrow night. (Doh.) If I had known, I wouldn't have gone, and I would have missed a night of spectacular vocal theater.

From front to back, the set consisted of an apron (approximately 5-6 feet deep): a raised lacquer floor (about 1.5-2 feet above the apron) that went to about midstage, with horizontal grooves that spanned the stage and in whose tracks shogi screens were moved to created different scenes; more lacquered floor on a rake; and all the way upstage, an unseen platform with stairs leading to the raked stage. Just like in Un Ballo in Maschera at Covent Garden, there was a reflective ceiling, tilted to reflect the stage. (Michael Levine designed the set.)

The opera opened with Butterfly (or perhaps a surrogate) in a white Kimono being wrapped in two long -- half the stage depth -- red silk scarves that formed an intricate set of bows tied behind her back. (This was during the overture.) Goro, the marriage broker, looked like a Kabuki character; Pinkerton was in uniform, and Sharpless, the US Consul, was in a western suit. (He changed ties between acts.) The women in Butterfly's family were dressed in bright kimonos -- aqua, yellow, hot pink, bright green -- making a kaleidescope of color against the reflective ceiling. Clothes designer Han Feng did the costumes ("Among her private clients are Jessye Norman and Susan Sarandon" according to her bio in the program).

One of the articles in the program stressed the many parts of the opera that the Japanese find inauthentic and laughable, even if they enjoy the music. I don't know enough about the various types of Japanese theater to know how authentic Minghella's vision was, or even if he strove for authenticity: he may have been following Puccini's example by focusing on the dramatic possibilities. The three main devices he introduced into the production were dancers in Japanese dress acting out a few scenes, including one short one to physicalize her family's disapproval; eight characters dressed in long, slim black robes who took on a multitude of roles, such as holding lanterns, flying origami birds on long poles, moving scenery, and in a theatrical coup, becoming gardens from which Butterfly, Suzuki, and Trouble picked flowers to prepare the house for Pinkerton's return; and the use of bunraku, Japanese puppets that are controlled by three "handlers" (arms, hands, feet, legs, and head) who are dressed in black, but are visible to the audience. While two were used in Act I to introduce Butterfly's cook and another household servant, and a third, dressed like Butterfly, was used during the Act III overture with one of the dancers -- I'm not quite sure what this was meant to signify -- the fourth, Butterfly's son, Trouble, was a major character in the second half of Act II and in Act III.

This was not a production in which a cute young kid was walked on and off stage; there was constant interaction between Butterfly and Trouble, and Suzuki and Trouble. Butterfly, who was young and naive in Act I, became far more interesting when she became delusional and tragic in Act II, particularly when she brought the boy out -- Sharpless didn't know she had a son -- and started to ask, "would he [Pinkerton] abandon this child?" Of course, the audience knew the answer to that was a resounding "yes," but Butterfly was overtaken by her own inner logic, and there was a child onstage, trying to understand why his mother was suddenly so emotionally charged.

Gwyn Hughes Jones sang Pinkerton with a bright, open tenor voice, and his high note at the end of the Act I love duet shook the rafters of the old tart of a Colisseum. Alan Oke has a very strong tenor as well, and he sang Goro with clear tone and diction. Mark Stone was an impressive and moving Prince Yamadori, visually and vocally. Jean Rigby (Suzuki) was most impressive in Act III, when she sang much more in her lower register. (She sounded like Carmen intoning inevitable fate.) Christopher Purves was a very sympathetic Sharpless; the role is more lyrical than most baritones get to portray. He has a lush but flexible voice, superb legato line, and I could understand every word he sang. (Not a given in opera in English.) In my fantasy opera house, I'd hire him to sing anything he wanted.

The star was Mary Plazas, who sang Butterfly. After the first act, I didn't expect this. She has a very nice voice, but she sounded like she was pushing it when she went from sweetness to full throttle in the love duet, when her voice sounded a little hollow, like the vibrato had holes in it. But from the moment she started to sing in Act II, as the mother of a child desperate for the return of its father and delusional enough to be completely convinced of his return, she was spellbinding. I don't know if there was an objective change to the quality of her voice, but she brought a modern opera sensibility to her characterization, and a contemporary opera singer's fidelity to the text. Except for the occasional cough, there was not a peep from the audience that I could hear. (Well, and two cell phones that went off and were very quickly shut off.) Minghella's Butterfly was a very hot ticket in London. From random conversations I overheard in the lobby, the number of people who didn't seem to know how the theater worked, and from the conversation between the group of women to my left, there were a number of people who'd never been to the opera before. It's rare for an audience to give that much attention to a performance, but Plazas was vocally and dramatically riveting.

I've seen more great operatic performances in the past two months than I've seen in any one year: The End of the Affair, Doctor Atomic, Tristan und Isolde, Un Ballo in Maschera, and now Madam Butterfly. There are four things they all have in common: great conducting and orchestral playing, unusual use of sets and other media, direction that seemed to slow down the pace to focus on the drama and the text, and the singers who took the opportunity the pacing provided to tell a story with their voices.

Link to comment

Thanks for the detailed review, Helene. It sounds like a fascinating production, but I'm surprised it's in English. We have an opera company here that puts on English language productions, mostly of the classics, every summer in the boxwood garden of President James Monroe's Ash Lawn estate. This past summer they did a fine Butterfly. But I thought English translations were strictly for the provinces, certainly not for London. Is this a trend?

Link to comment

I believe that all English National Opera productions are in English. This is consistent with the original mission of the company's founder, Lillian Baylis, who wished to make opera more accessible to the Briitsh people. Threre's a policy to set aside many inexpensive seats, too.

However, the Colisseum is a vast theater (one of the largest I've ever been in), and not all singers can articulate or project the text clearly, so they are planning to introduce surtitles, I've heard. This should certainly help in those situtiations in which a vocal line comes across rather as something like this: "brr brr love you mish mash Carmen brr brr a-a-w-i-i-o-o DEATH."

ENO is about more than productions of Handel and Puccini -- however adventurous. The December issue of Opera News contains a positive review of their premiere of Gerald Barry's "The Bitter Tears of Petra van Kant," based on Fassbinder's playi and film. Imagine the Met, or even NYCO, commissioning something like that!

Link to comment
I believe this production is to be shared by the Met, first outing there next year.

Thank you so much for noting this -- I just looked at the program and saw that I had missed the following: "A co-production with the Metropolitan Opera and the Lithuanian National Opera." I hope it's as much of a box office success in NY and Vilnius as it was in London.

I also read that the Sellars/Viola Doctor Atomic may come to NYC. I should note that my memory is already playing tricks: the direction for the principals is patient and focused, and I had blanked out much of the silly staging for the chorus -- except the final scene, as the bomb is dropped, which was inspired -- and the mundane and dated Lucinda Childs choreography ("OK, campers, let's pretend to be radioactive debris!"), with the one exception where they embodied the "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" facade of the war machine.

However, the Colisseum is a vast theater (the largest I've ever been in), and not all singers can project the text clearly, so they are planning to introduce surtitles, I've heard.  This should certainly help in those situtiations in which a vocal line comeds across rather as something like this:  "brr brr love you mish mash Carmen brr brr a-a-w-i-i-o-o DEATH."
:thanks: That's exactly what some of last night's opera sounded like! Luckily, there was a sign-language translator to the side of downstage right. I don't understand sign-language, but she sort of acted the entire opera, including all parts in the ensemble. She was very graceful.
ENO is about more than productions of Handel and Puccini -- however adventurous.  The December issue of Opera News contains a positive review of their premiere of  Gerald Barry's "The Bitter Tears of Petra van Kant," based on  Fassbinder's playi and film.  Imagine the Met, or even NYCO, commissioning something like that!

Their season this year also includes The Carmelites, Xerxees, Salome, Billy Budd, The Mikado, Rigoletto, Vaughn Williams' Sir John in Love, La Belle Helene, Orfeo (co-production with Handel and Haydn Society of Boston), Makropoulos Case, Ariodante, Nixon in China, and Purcell's King Arthur (with Mark Morris Dance Group). It actually sounds like a couple of NYCO seasons combined, with a greater emphasis on texts that were written in English.

Butterfly had to be translated -- Pinkerton's first act aria began, "The world is my oyster" -- and while the translations themselves by David Parry were sensitive to text and time, on the whole, operas that are written in English sound more natural to the English-speaking ear. Unlike the supertitles translators, who can give the gist of the text without regard to the music, for opera in English, the translator must take on every text-based note. Both The End of the Affair, with large sections taken from or based closely on the Graham Greene novel, and Doctor Atomic, a compilation of texts, including one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets which provided the text for a tour de force aria for Oppenheimer that ends Act I, flowed quite naturally. (It helped a great deal that Gerard Finley, Kristine Jepson, and Richard Paul Fink had superb diction.)

The proposed introduction of supertitles at ENO has proven to be controversial, with commentators wondering what the purpose of opera sung in English is, if the words are projected. However, as bart pointed out, the Colisseum is a barn, and I doubt that the gaudy decorations were applied with acoustics in mind.

There is a great recording of the Ring sung by ENO, called the "Gooddall Ring." All 16 hours are in English. Seattle Opera put itself on the map by producing the Ring, and the first seasons had sequential English and German versions. Opera in translation has a long history: many of the productions in the first half of the 20th century were translated into the local language (Wagner in Italian, Verdi and Massanet in German and Russian.)

Link to comment

Helene:

First of all, thanks for a wonderful review of the ENO "Butterfly". It shows up a lot on the regional opera stage--Puccini is easy to sell and sets are always available for rental--and it is far from my favorite work. This sounds like a performance well worth seeing and hearing

There is a great recording of the Ring sung by ENO, called the "Gooddall Ring." All 16 hours are in English. Seattle Opera put itself on the map by producing the Ring, and the first seasons had sequential English and German versions. Opera in translation has a long history: many of the productions in the first half of the 20th century were translated into the local language (Wagner in Italian, Verdi and Massanet in German and Russian.)

The Godall Ring is excellent. I have "The Valkyrie" and "The Twilight of the Gods" from the set and probably listen to them as often as any other Ring sets. Norman Bailey as Wotan appears on the cover of "The Valkyrie" in costume--very shiny armor, huge helmet with a cresent pointing upwards on top, a spear that looks to be about twelve feet long. The cast is uniformly good--especially Bailey, Albert Remedios and Rita Hunter, and the ENO orchestra really responded to Godall.

Besides the ENO the only other company that has a regular opera season in English--either as originally written or in translation is the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Unfortunately their season runs from late May to late June when it is already brutally hot and humid.

Link to comment
The Godall Ring is excellent. I have "The Valkyrie" and "The Twilight of the Gods" from the set and probably listen to them as often as any other Ring sets. Norman Bailey as Wotan appears on the cover of "The Valkyrie" in costume--very shiny armor, huge helmet with a cresent pointing upwards on top, a spear that looks to be about twelve feet long. The cast is uniformly good--especially Bailey, Albert Remedios and Rita Hunter, and the ENO orchestra really responded to Godall.

I'm so glad you mentioned the singers and the orchestra. I've never heard anyone match Bailey's "Introduction to Valhalla" from Das Rheingold. I wish I could have heard him, Remedios, and Hunter live.

Link to comment
I'm so glad you mentioned the singers and the orchestra.  I've never heard anyone match Bailey's "Introduction to Valhalla" from Das Rheingold.  I wish I could have heard him, Remedios, and Hunter live.

Helene,

Odd that you mentioned this. I'm just right now in the process of copying the LPs to CDs.

I saw Remedios, Hunter, and Bailey at the Met. Remedios was as Bacchus but Hunter and Bailey did Brunnhilde and Wotan as well as other roles.

But it just wasn't the same as the EMI discs, they were good, but didn't match what they did in London.

I guess they needed to be in the Coliseum with Goodall conductioning!

Richard

Link to comment

Doran's resignation was reported in today's Independent. The article can be found on the andante.com site:

http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=26213

Yesterday the tensions that simmered throughout Seán Doran's three-year tenure at the helm of the much-troubled English National Opera ended, abruptly, with his departure.

Seán Doran (photo by Sarah Lee/English National Opera) The controversial Irishman, who was virtually unknown to opera aficionados when he secured the second-biggest job in British opera in 2003, leaves behind him an organisation plunged into crisis — again.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...