THEATER REVIEW: ALBERT HERRING

A scene from Albert Herring.

Sex sings

By Ed Rampell

Benjamin Britten’s comedy of manners, Albert Herring, premiered in 1947 at Glyndebourne, a grand country manor in the veddy British countryside near East Sussex. But this good fun opera about sexual repression unfortunately remains all-too-contemporary, what with Republican presidential candidates debating contraception and Rick Satan-orum running for witch-burner-in-chief and all.

When the prim and not so proper village of Loxford runs out of vestal virgins for its annual, traditional May Day Festival (no red flags, please -- this is Edwardian England, after all), they turn to the virginal and eponymous Albert Herring (tenor Alek Shrader). Like his nation’s future prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, Albert is the child of a green grocer (mezzo-soprano Jane Bunnell). Much as with today’s GOP buffoons, Loxford’s power players place a premium on chastity, as well as on greed.

The resident one percenter, Lady Billows (Scottish singer Janis Kelly alternates in the role with soprano Christine Brewer), is tended to by Florence Pike (mezzo-soprano Ronnita Nicole Miller), a domestic servant with airs, at her ladyship’s posh estate, beautifully evoked by scenic designer Kevin Knight. Lady Billows offers a handsome sum as reward for Albert’s virtue, while she presides over a retinue of comical sycophants. The festival committee includes those not so stellar pillars of the community: The Vicar Mr. Gedge (baritone Jonathan Michie); the Mayor Mr. Upfold (tenor Robert McPherson); the Superintendent of Police Budd (bass Richard Bernstein); and the teacher Miss Wordsworth, a sort of old maid, well-played by soprano Stacey Tappan.

Not all of the Loxforders pretend to be such goody two shoes. A trio of undomesticated youngsters add to levity. The drolly named Sid and Nancy may not be punk rockers like the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, but as the youthful lovers baritone Liam Bonner and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack add a devil-may-care ingredient to the simmering stew of social propriety. Ultimately, boys will be boys, and predictably, as Albert is quite publicly lauded for his moral uprightness, with a little help from the mischievous Sid and Lady Billows’ bounty, all hell breaks loose. Much to the constable’s consternation amidst several, uh, red herrings, he is no longer a Prince Albert in a can. Although Albert’s coming of age is couched in hetero camouflage, Britten was reportedly gay, and his lampooning of sexual repression may have been his encoded ripostes to homophobia.

Mr. Knight’ sets, with rather large models of various homes in the background, aesthetically evoke the English countryside, while his period costumes conjure up a highly class stratified and rarefied era. Whereas Lady Billows’ home is suggestive of manorial splendor (not unlike, one suspects, Glyndebourne), the Herrings’ claustrophobic grocery shop is realistically rendered. The scenic transitions, enhanced by Rick Fisher’s lights, are gems as the Shanghaied cast, apparently impressed into service as stagehands, seamlessly, fluidly move from one time and place to another. But the fact that part of the background is simply bare and black -- at least viewed from my angle -- distracted me from Samuel Coleridge’s willing suspension of disbelief.

James Conlon’s baton reigns over a 13-piece orchestra with a sprightly score and much recitative singing, although there is no breakout aria or solo number per se that shakes the rafters. Paul Curran adeptly directs his ensemble cast with a flair for the bawdy and vaudevillean. Herring’s libretto, by Eric Crozier, is based on the French writer Guy de Maupassant’s short story Le Rosier de Madame Husson. Although sung in English supertitles are projected in English throughout the performance. Rule Britannia!

Innocence -- or rather innocence lost -- is a recurring theme in Britten’s work; his operatic take on Herman Melville’s angelic but doomed sailor Billy Budd (the mariner has the same last name as Herring’s policeman) premiered in 1951. Undercurrents of angsty sexuality roiled Britten’s version of Henry James’ symbolically titled The Turn of the Screw, which debuted in 1954 and was staged by L.A. Opera last season. (The centennial of Britten’s birth is next year.) While Britten put the sex into East Sussex, the hanky-panky in Albert Herring is largely played for laughs, although beneath the surface Britten’s opera jabs the tyrannical puritanical busybody brigades of then and now. One wonders what opéras bouffes the current Republican presidential race will someday inspire?  


Albert Herring runs through 17  at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. For more info: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com.

  

THEATER REVIEW: SIMON BOCCANEGRA

Simon Boccanegra (Placido Domingo) in Simon Boccanegra. Photo by Robert Millard.

Dialectic of Enlightenment

By Ed Rampell

Widely perceived as a hoity-toity elite art form for the one percent, opera often gets a bum rap as a stuffed shirts’ sonic sphere, but Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra (based on a similarly named historical figure) gives the lie to this cliché. Marx and Engels wrote in 1848’s Communist Manifesto that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle,” and with its plebians versus patricians battle, this clash is clearly reflected in Simon Boccanegra, which premiered nine years later at Venice. Verdi’s opera opens in medieval Genoa (the Italian coastal city-state Christopher Columbus hailed from) as Simon Boccanegra (Placido Domingo) is voted Genoa’s first “Doge."

According to conductor James Conlon’s pre-opera lecture, in the 14^th century Venetian dialect Doge is the 20^th century Italian language equivalent of “Il Duce”-- Benito Mussolini’s title -- and means “duke” or “leader.” But Simon was no Blackshirted fascist. Indeed, he is a man of the people, a former pirate who represents the aspirations and interests of the masses against the patrician class -- the Middle Age’s aristocratic one percent. Originally, Genoa’s Doge was elected by popular suffrage, although his term of office was for life. If I understood Conlon correctly, this 1339 election marked Europe’s first democratically elected head of government.

Set against this background of power struggles, Verdi agilely interweaves a complex personal story full of mistaken identities, as the opera jump cuts to circa 1364. No simple Simon, Boccanegra still serves as Genoa’s Doge, as he tries to balance the plebian-patrician strife plus possible war with the competing city-state of Venice. Like a prototype of Flower Power leaders, Simon says “peace and love” and pursues policies to implement them. Harboring quarter century old grievances, the base bass Jacopo Fiesco (Vitalij Kowaljow) plots to topple the Doge and assumes the identity of Andrea Grimaldi. In the process, he unwittingly adopts a girl called Amelia Grimaldi (Ana Maria Martinez) who -- unbeknownst to all at this point -- is not only Fiesco/Andrea’s granddaughter, but Simon’s long lost love child.

Fiesco’s fiasco triggers a series of complicated events your spoiler adverse reviewer is loathe (and too lazy) to reveal. The golddigging Paolo Albiani (Paolo Gavanelli) and Gabriele Adorno (Stefano Secco) each woo Amelia. For some dubious reason the hotheaded Adorno is a hero of this opera, although he not only threatens to murder Simon -- whom he mistakenly believes to be likewise courting Amelia -- but his beloved, too, when Adorno suspects Amelia of being unfaithful to him. At one point, I wanted to shout out, “Hey Amelia! Why don’t you just tell Adorno that you found out Simon is actually your father, moron?” -- but I don’t think the crowd at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Verdi’s ghost would have appreciated it. (Ironically, just as Grimaldi is now the name of Monaco’s royalty, Theodor W. Adorno was a prominent 20^th century Marxist thinker of the so-called Frankfurt School, whose students included Angela Davis.)

Suffice it to say, this being a non-comedic opera, a melodramatic death with a requisite amount of staggering about onstage is required, and Verdi, but of course, delivers the goods, the bads and the uglies in this action packed precursor to those Spaghetti Westerns. (Take one wild guess who gets to chew the scenery during the big scene?) What Verdi doesn’t deliver, however, is a toe tapping aria fans leave the theatre humming. This, along with the overtly political nature of the subject matter, may have prevented Simon Boccanegra from scaling La Scala’s heights in the operatic pantheon, alongside of, say, Verdi’s La Traviata and Aida (which I still remember being staged at the Roman Forum with live camels and elephants when I was 12).

That’s not to say that the score isn’t sonorous, as well as wide ranging in its tonality. Harps and understated wind instruments convey a sense of serenity, while at other times brassy instrumentation and drumming conjure up the martial mood necessary for much of this class struggle text, with its libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito. Conlon’s supple baton nimbly presides over the orchestra and work which he clearly dearly loves.

Director Elijah Moshinsky’s mise-en-scene of this Les Miserable-type mass drama is masterfully staged, as what I imagine must be the entire L.A. Opera cast (and crew?), 50 or so performers by my count, bring alive the historical epic sweep of this saga inspired by actual events. Fight (club) director Charles Currier’s brio on the boards evokes the dueling and demos of a restive populace. Costume designer Peter Hall’s brilliantly colored medieval apparel captures the spirit of that bygone age, and helps to transport us back in time.

But kudos go to scenic designer Michael Yeargan’s colossal sets, once again bringing medieval Italy back to life, as they did last year with Yeargan’s scenery for L.A. Opera’s production of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Yeargan’s Genoa imparts a sense of the sea worthy of the burg that produced Columbus, while his massive columns evoke an imperial sensibility. Act I’s Council Chamber scene is bravura, and the map room in the Doge’s palace during Act II isn’t too shabby, either. And I don’t know if Yeargan is responsible for the graffiti scrawled on the wall, proclaiming in Italian “Victory to the people!” and similar slogans during a scene of mass protest, but it’s a worthy addition, considering that the Occupy L.A. encampment was just a stone’s throw away at City Hall, which is visible from the Music Center.

Simon Boccanegra premiered in 1857 as Italy was on the verge of a unification the politically-minded Verdi agitated for, both on and offstage, as a deputy in unified Italy’s parliament. Similarly, L.A. Opera continues to present socially relevant works, and one likes to think that Placido Domingo’s Simon would have supported the Occupy Wall Street movement, just as Domingo’s Pablo Neruda in 2010’s Il Postino most assuredly would have. Despite the pricey seats, these are operas for the 99 percent that express the tenor of their times.

Simon Boccanegra runs through March 4 at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. For more info: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com.

THEATER REVIEW: EUGENE ONEGIN

Despina  (Roxana Constantinescu) in Eugene Onegin. 

In Russia with love

By Ed Rampell

L.A. Opera has launched its new season with two operas that have a single, controversial theme: Infidelity. Both works are conducted by James Conlon. One, Eugene Onegin, is a Russian tragedy composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, based on Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse. The other, Così Fan Tutte, is an Opera buffa, an Italian comedy composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Sung almost entirely in Russian, in Eugene Onegin’s Act I Tatiana (Ukrainian soprano Oksana Dyka) is a virginal, repressed young woman living in Russia’s countryside. Tatiana throws herself at the dashing newcomer from Petrograd, Onegin (Slovakian baritone Dalibor Jenis), the friend of her sister Olga’s (Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk) fiancée, the poet Lensky (Russian tenor Vsevolod Grivnov). However, for some reason -- unlike the Beatles – “well, the Ukraine girls don’t really knock Onegin out, Moscow girls don’t make him sing and shout and Georgia’s apparently not always on his mind.” Onegin declines Tatiana’s impulsive proposal, declaring their marriage would never work due to certain unspecified characteristics he possesses which would inflict misery upon her.

At a party in Act II Onegin dances with and ogles Olga, prompting his jealous best friend Lensky to challenge him to a duel. The outcome propels Onegin to embark upon a self-imposed exile; in Act III Onegin is back in the pre-U.S.S.R. He’s been away so long he hardly knows the place; gee, it’s good to be back home. At Saint Petersburg he stumbles upon a ball being thrown by elderly Prince Gremin (American bass James Creswell), who has wed a now radiantly beautiful and worldly Tatiana. In a moment of lucidity, Onegin realizes his woes were triggered by snubbing Tatiana, and pursues the now married sophisticated beauty. Although she still has the hots for Onegin, Tatiana won’t come and keep her comrade warm; the tables are turned and now it’s Tanya’s doing the rejecting. You don’t know how unlucky you are, boy! (My sincere apologies to Lenin and Lennon/McCartney.)

Eugene Onegin’s sets are co-stars in L.A. Opera productions, and while scenic designer Antony McDonald’s ho-hum interiors are serviceable, his glowing exteriors are glorious. In the first act McDonald brings alive Mother Russia’s vast steppes, as reapers rhapsodize about the harvest in a great ensemble number with about 40 performers onstage. Old McDonald’s farm is truly beautiful. As at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, lighting designer Peter Mumford creates a sense of the natural passage of time with his colorful, lovely lights. A pond of water makes a big splash and is imaginatively put to good use; it later serves as a skating rink as winter sports are enacted in the third act, wherein McDonald provides a sumptuous, panoramic view of Petrograd (which I recognized from all of those Eisenstein and Pudovkin films about the storming of the Winter Palace). McDonald also acquits himself well with the cast’s 1820s costumes, but those Russian exteriors are eye popping. Bravo1

The score is sonorous and well-conducted; director Francesca Gilpin’s mise-en-scene and choreographer Linda Dobell’s dances are on point. There is, however, a gremlin in the Kremlin. Gremin is played by a performer who is much younger than the prince is supposed to be – and his age is an important plot point obscured by this casting of 30-something Creswell. But this is a mere quibble that should not deter opera lovers from experiencing Tchaikovsky’s lamentation of love loss. 

Eugene Onegin runs through Oct. 9 at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. For more info: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com.

THEATER REVIEW: THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Flora (Ashley Emerson) and Miss Jessel (Tamara Wilson) in The Turn of the Screw.

L.A. Opera gets twisted

By Ed Rampell

In Anthony Burgess’ novel, A Clockwork Orange, and Stanley Kurbrick’s film adaptation, the Beethoven-loving, ultra-violent uber-droog, Alex (Malcolm McDowell) uses a sci-fi Pidgin English expression, “real horrorshow.” In the same spirit composer Benjamin Britten’s operatic adaptation of Henry James’ novella, The Turn of the Screw, could be described as “real creepshow.”

Unlike its predecessors, L.A. Opera’s last opera of the season is no Gioachina Rossini romp like like The Turk in Italy or mirthful Mozart-ian concoction like The Marriage of Figaro – The Turn of the Screw is indeed a deeply creepy tale. So opera auds better buckle up those seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and this creepshow is not for the faint of heart. This is not only a chilling ghost story, but also apparently a look at child molestation. When James (whose brother William was an eminent psychologist) wrote The Turn of the Screw in 1898, and Britten composed his opera (with libretto by Myfanwy Piper) in 1954, the arts were far more straitjacketed by censorship than they are today. Now, with our greater freedom, the implicit can be made more explicit, on page, screen and stage.

Original production director Jonathan Kent and stage director Francesca Gilpin take full advantage of that liberty, but that’s not to say they’re taking liberties with the saucy source materials. In a nutshell the plot is: A Jane Eyre-like young Governess (soprano Patricia Racette) travels to her new post at Bly in the English countryside, where she is to tutor a sister and brother, Flora (soprano Ashley Emerson) and Miles (Michael Kepler Meo, who is 12). The country home is presided over by a middle-aged housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (Dubliner Ann Murray, a mezzo-soprano).

But the quartet is not alone. Bly is haunted by the troubled spirits of the Governess’ predecessor, Miss Jessel (soprano Tamara Wilson), and the diabolical valet for the offstage property owner, Peter Quint (tenor William Burden). How did they shed their mortal coils to attain their current spectral disposition? For the time being, Dear Reader, suffice it to say that things didn’t quite go well for the star-crossed couple. As Henry slyly scribbled: “Come, there was something between them.”

Unlike L.A. Opera’s rendition of another horror story, The Fly (which was directed a few seasons back by David Cronenberg, who’d also helmed the 1986 remake of the classic 1958 sci-fi flick starring Vincent Price), The Turn of the Screw does not have nudity. However, the adult ghosts do lie in bed with the children in a scene that is rather suggestive. Screw, of course, can be a slang word for intercourse while Peter is sometimes slang for penis and Quint sounds like a vulgar word for vagina. (Hey! I’m just reviewing this stuff; I didn’t write the source short story -- home Henry!) It’s not for nothing that the devilish Quint and Miss Jessel sing, “The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned,” a line pilfered from William Butler Yeats' poem, The Second Coming (ed. no comment).

The music for Britten’s chamber opera, conducted by James Conlon, is often dissonant. Meo’s lovely soprano voice stands in stark counterpoint to his character Miles’ ominous coming of age. The casting of performers in The Turk in Italy perfectly matched the characters they were playing, but it’s, uh, screwed up here. Although she does a good job, Emerson seems a bit long in the tooth for Flora, who is a child in Henry's novella. And without meaning to sound cruel, Wilson does not live up to Henry's billing of Miss Jessel as an “extraordinary beauty.” I realize that in operas performers are often cast in roles according to their voices, but if they do not embody the type of character they’re playing in terms of age, body size and the like, it might cause some cognitive dissonance for ticket buyers, and Britten’s brittle score is already dissonant enough.

Scenery and costume designer Paul Brown’s garb conveys an impression of late Victorian England, but is not fabulous. However, Brown’s sets, accompanied by Mark Henderson and David Manion’s lighting, are minimal yet fluid, cinematically keeping pace with 16 different scenes. The scenery and lighting range from moody to macabre to morbid, and literally set the scene. From an organic perspective the sets and lighting are this opera’s most expressive elements in terms of projecting the underlying warped and thwarted sexual sensibility of Henry -- a gay man who was in the closet.

Burden does a creditable job as Quint, but lacks the menacing demeanor and brooding presence of Marlon Brando as what may be the quintessential Quint, in Michael Winner’s eerie 1972, The Nightcomers, a sort of prequel to The Turn of the Screw.

Although rarely seen, The Nightcomers was just screened at the American Cinematheque’s Santa Monica outpost, The Aero Theatre. Brando starred in it during his decade-long Diaspora of duds after the 1962 film, Mutiny on the Bounty, and before The Godfather. But no matter how bad the flick flopped, Brando was constitutionally incapable of giving an uninteresting performance, and The Nightcomers is his second most sexually graphic film after 1973’s Last Tango in Paris. Brando is pitch perfect as Quint, who symbolizes the unbridled id, which is why Mrs. Grose grouses that “Quint was much too free” in Henry's novella. When it comes to acting and stage presence, Burden may be no Brando, but then again, to be fair, I doubt Brando could have sung an aria like Burden can.


The Turn of the Screw runs through March 27 at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Downtown Los Angeles. For information: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com.