THEATER REVIEW: THE FLYING DUTCHMAN

Tomas Tomasson in The Flying Dutchman.

Pop Cultured

By Ed Rampell

There is a popular misconception regarding so-called “high art,” like plays by Shakespeare and operas are elitist, only able to be fully understood and appreciated by the hoity-toity. But is this reputation deserved? What is Hamlet other than a revenge tale worthy of Quentin Tarantino and a ghost story? And what is Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (Der Fliegende Holländer) if not a rip roaring ghost story, highly charged by greed, and lest we forget, sexual frisson?

The composer adapted his 1843 opera from 17^thcentury seafaring folklore, about a phantom ship roaming the high seas, never able to return to its home port. Only one thing can spare the ship’s captain -- the eponymous Dutchman (Icelandic baritone Tomas Tomasson) -- from his eternal nautical roaming: true love. Due to a storm off the coast of Norway the Dutchman encounters Daland (bass James Creswell), and they strike a sort of Faustian bargain: The Dutchman offers the Norwegian captain a treasure chest in exchange for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

Senta was to be played by Portuguese soprano Elisabete Matos, but according to L.A. Opera’s publicist, 12 minutes before the curtain was scheduled to rise on opening night, March 9, in a scene straight out of a 1930s Hollywood musical, Matos “had suddenly become indisposed, and would be unable to perform. Instead, soprano Julie Makerov would.

As the old saying puts it, “the show must go on!”, and boy, did it ever -- and marvelously so. Maerov flew right into The Flying Dutchman. Fortunately, according to her website bio, Makerov had previously played Senta at Canada and Salzburg, and she performed peerlessly at the premiere. Makerov brought the wronged Senta vividly to life with song and acting, as she tried to defend her honor and purity to two suitors: The Dutchman and the hunter Erik (American tenor Corey Bix). Senta’s sonorous, spirited self defense might even make a Shakespeare write “methinks the lady doth not protest too much.” Whether singing “Senta’s Ballad” or the famous duet with the nautical specter she is betrothed to, Makerov admirably rose to the occasion -- especially given her 12-minute notice to report for duty aboard the HMS Chandler.

The sets by Bavarian scenery designer Raimund Bauer, costumes by his fellow German Andrea Schmidt-Futterer and lighting design by Duane Schuler, strike the right imaginative, eerie chords in expressing this shadowy, supernatural saga. During the emotion laden 10-minute overture, a scrim of surging seas is accompanied by music that could best be called “Wagnerian,” conveying a sense of turbulent, crashing waves. Act I transports us out to sea aboard creatively evoked ships near a Norwegian harbor. Later in this three-acter the entire ensemble gathers at Daland’s Scandinavian village, and the mass mise-en-scene is quite impressive and at times appropriately ghoulish. During these scenes the work of choreographer Denni Sayers -- with some balletic moves -- and chorus director Grant Gershon especially shine.

As well it should be, the production is quite Germanic -- Schmidt-Futterer’s costumes are at times extremely suggestive of German silent cinema’s Expressionism, with period apparel reminiscent of the demonic title character of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and F.W. Murnau’s telling of the Dracula fable, Nosferatu. In other scenes the costuming reminded me of L.A. Opera’s highly stylized re-telling of Wagner’s Ring Cycle a few seasons back, with its pseudo-Star Wars panache.

And what of The Flying Dutchman’s music and of the librettist and composer, who about 30 years later would complete The Ring of the Nibelungen? The Flying Dutchman’s theme of exile would psychologically appeal to Wagner -- not only because he was a globetrotter himself, but in only five or so years after presenting The Flying Dutchmanhe would himself become a stateless wanderer due to his taking part in Europe’s 1848 workers revolution. Wagner was forced to flee Germany and live abroad in Switzerland for around 12 years. Like the Dutchman, Wagner would be “banished from his homeland.” The phantom mariner was the first of Wagner’s exile characters, and on a metaphorical, metaphysical level one can perceive that this genius would identify with the outcast. Wagner knew what it felt like to be a persona non grata. And given his tumultuous private life Wagner could presumably relate to the turmoil of the relationship between the Dutchman, Senta and Erik -- a rather messy ménage-a-trois, if ever there was one, with that fourth partner named “fate.”

The sonorous score, deftly conducted by James Conlon, is full of Wagner’s hallmark sonic sturm und drang: brassy refrains, drums, dramatic outbursts and the like, which some might consider to be bombastic. But the earnest music also conveys a powerful, transcendent sense of yearning and longing -- to belong, be loved and for home.

Please note: The two and a half hour-plus opera is performed sans intermission.



The Flying Dutchman runs through March 30 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.