Opera Rat: The Blog

WELCOME BBC RADIO 3 LISTENERS

The previous post has sparked a discussion on the BBC Radio 3 message boards about whether the opera is, indeed, too damn long. And a spike in blog traffic from across the sea. (I wonder if the British visitors understand the allusion in the headline.) Welcome, BBC opera and classical music fans.

THE OPERA IS TOO DAMN LONG

Took in Carmen last Friday night at the Lyric, and while departing the house heard repeated variations on the well-worn theme, "I liked it, but it was a little long..."

Seriously - how many thousands of times do we have to hear this from operagoers before WE JUST CUT THE DAMN SHOWS? This is killing opera. The composers are dead, OK? They aren't going to mind. Among the living you'll offend 18 purists and draw cries of gratitude and relief from everyone else. I love opera but there isn't a show in the repertory that runs more than three hours without stretches that drag. Let's get rid of those stretches. Please.

SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING

Yesterday brought my first opera of the season, a matinee of Verdi's Macbeth at the Lyric in Chicago. The singing and acting were first-rate. The opera, not so much. Macbeth lacks that melody (or several) you wait for beforehand and hum for two days afterward. And it has some serious dull stretches, exacerbated by an act structure that kept us imprisoned for nearly an hour and a half before the single intermission. (Note to opera companies everywhere - it's still legal to cut the score, y'know?) 

I did get a few of the requisite chills at the end, as house snow fell on the victorious king and celebrants. And let me say this about Nadja Michael: wow. Still and all, the fact that a minor Verdi like Macbeth gets as much play as it does this many years after its conception is yet another illustration of how the opera repertory could use some - pardon the Shakespearean double entendre - fresh blood.

WHO NEEDS A NEW PAVAROTTI?

Vittorio Grigolo is auditioning for the world as the "next great tenor," and that means incessant comparisons with the last one. Anthony Tommasini has weighed in, with this from a review of Grigolo's star turn at the Met in the Franco Zefferelli "La Boheme," in Sunday's New York Times: "I had reservations about his voice, which has a bright cast and a narrow, sometimes tight, vibrato that will not be to all tastes... He started a little nervously, understandably, given all the talk of his being the successor to Pavarotti, which cannot help him. But once he warmed up, the natural ardor and the rich texture in his voice came through. His is essentially a lyric tenor, able to shape Puccini’s phrases with tenderness and lovely colorings."

Which cannot help him, indeed. Or us.

Let's stop doing a disservice to opera by comparing every rising tenor with Pavarotti. There wasn't a voice like Pavarotti's in the history of the world before Pavarotti; there's no reason to believe we'll see one soon afterward, if ever again. With Pavarotti as the standard, aren't we setting ourselves up for continual disappointment, predisposing such disappointment on new operagoers, and hurting the entire art form?

It's disheartening how praise like "lyric tenor" and "tenderness" and "lovely colorings" turns faint in shadow of the Pavarotti comparison. Not every role calls for what Pavarotti brought to the stage. And can we celebrate what Grigolo brings that Pavarotti couldn't? Such as...well, look at the guy.

If Grigolo is an heir, it's not to Pavarotti, not from what I've heard online and seen in the pictures. It's to the prior tradition of matinee-idol lyric tenors, like di Stefano, and Bjorling, and Corelli. Is anything wrong with that? Pavarotti had a voice like no other, and personality to burn. But Grigolo is no slouch on those scores, and let's face it - nothing sells better than sex appeal. Opera needs this guy more than a new Pavarotti. Sic 'em, Vittorio.

THE LADY IS A TRAMPLER

Fellow opera tweeter Cheryl A. Pierce (@OperaZone) has joined the chorus against what she terms "tramplers" - operagoers who dash from their seats at the last note to prevent a cab wait, often trampling others in the way. She writes: "If you're gonna go to the opera but you spend the entire time planning your cab/exit row strategy then a) hire a car or b) get the DVD."

Trampling is an epidemic in American opera houses, particularly in trafficky cities like Chicago, where Lyric Opera patrons jockey over main floor aisle seats to facilitate the fastest departure possible. @OperaZone points out trampling shows a lack of respect for the performers and fellow patrons. When the opera being trampled has a particularly stirring finale, like Turandot, I say a silent prayer in thanks for gun carry laws without which a crime of passion might be inevitable.

More than disrespect, though, trampling is emblematic of those who are in the opera house not to enjoy the opera but to be seen looking like they enjoy it. Anyone who loves opera loves the curtain call almost best of all. It's the first and often most knowledgable review of the show. Reading the curtain-call reaction from the audience is indispensable to post-opera conversation over the beverage of one's choice. Which the trampler is likely forgoing as well. What is the point of attending in the first place?

In short, bounding out of an opera house during the curtain call is like leaving a football game without knowing the score. No one who cares about the game would do it.

CONCERT VS. STORY: ARE YOU A DRAMA QUEEN?

I divide operas into two basic groups, concert operas and story operas. In a concert opera the story is too complex or illogical to make fine drama, so you're there mostly for the music, like a concert. A story opera is true drama set to music, the sort of show where you might not even read the synopsis, for fear of spoiling the suspense.

Broadly, I would call Verdi, Bellini and Mozart concertians, and Puccini, Donizetti and Wagner storians. Many Shakespeare adaptations are story operas. Much French opera I would classify as concert. Eastern European: story. Operettas are story (and I find, as I mature as an operagoer, I'm enjoying operetta more, not less). Older operas tend toward the concert; newer operas tend toward the story. If I could pick one great opera to symbolize the concert form, it might be Il Trovatore; if I could pick one great opera to symbolize the story form, it might be La Boheme. (Your suggestions or corrections welcome below.)

I write fiction and teach journalism; I like stories. As I embark on a new season of opera-going with three shows this coming week - two at the Lyric in Chicago with Macbeth and Carmen, and a world premiere at the Florentine in Milwaukee of a rare opera in Spanish, Rio de Sangre by Don Davis - what excites me most is the preponderance of story opera on my list. Two Shakespeares. Three myths. A great Wagner. And, if I can work it out, Lucia at the Met.

So this season, as I watch, listen and write, I'm planning to concentrate on the story. Drama queens, unite.

OPERA, BASEBALL OF THE ARTS

Along with opera, one of my great cultural loves is baseball. I particularly love the Chicago Cubs - in sport as in art, I am drawn to tragedy, though some might classify the Cubs as comedy. (I can assure you, their performances are not funny to me.) People who otherwise love sports often make a sour face when I tell them I love baseball, just as people who otherwise love the arts often make a sour face when I tell them I love opera. "But (baseball/opera) is so (slow/boring/repetitive)," they will say.

I was once a sportswriter, at a big daily newspaper, in the days when big daily newspapers roamed and terrorized the earth like the dinosaurs they turned out to be. In those days, from my elevated vantage point, I got to watch a lot of baseball, and I got to watch a lot of people watching baseball. It occurred to me then that many sports fans who don't like baseball don't know how to watch it. And it occurs to me now that many arts lovers who don't like opera don't know how to attend it.

Unlike continuous-action sports like hockey and basketball and soccer, baseball doesn't reward a spectator's unswerving attention. The frequent breaks and uneven pace are what build suspense and supercharge the high points. If you train your eyes for three straight hours on a baseball game, the slow parts will tire you out for the fast parts. Also, you might go mad. But if you relax and give yourself to the game - pausing with it to chat with a friend, sip an adult beverage, feel the sunshine, crack a peanut - you'll discover the seductive rhythm that accounts for baseball's durability and popularity. And you'll find that the exciting moments, when they happen, can be more intense in comparison than skating-skating-skating or basket-basket-basket.

Now, if you chat with friends or crack peanuts during an opera, you are not likely to leave the house alive. But the general principle is the same. Opera doesn't reward steady focus the way theater or the symphony do. Like baseball, most operas in the historic repertoire have slow stretches, known to many opera fans by the French term longueurs. Unlike baseball, though, in opera even the longueurs are accompanied by beautiful music. Rest your attention, admire the darkened house, and bathe in the sound rather than training your mind on it. If you stay even barely connected to the story, the climax will be intensified by your earlier repose - just like in baseball.

Because the opera house is much darker and quieter than a baseball park, some opera fans, even dedicated ones, sleep through the longueurs, which has done serious damage to opera's reputation. I believe the sleepers are more exhausted from the rest of their day than bored by the show. Nap before, not during. Come to the house rested and not too full from dinner, and you won't sleep - opera is not dull. Also - this is critical - get to the house early, and promise yourself to enjoy the surroundings before the curtain and during intermissions. (As with baseball, an occasional adult beverage can help.) It's not merely a show, it's an experience, and one that can transcend everyday cares and responsibilities. When the lobby of the Civic Opera House unfolds before me in all its fine appointment on a blustery Chicago evening, I know I am fortunate, and my life is well lived.

Similarly, when I was finally able to write and teach full-time, I vowed never again to have a job that kept me from spending a sun-soaked day at a baseball game instead of cooped in a cubicle or office. Sitting at Wrigley Field, sometimes I feel like I might burst from gratitude. That doesn't happen during a basketball game. I have fun, sure. But baseball allows a spectator time and space for profound appreciation of the artistry taking place. Just like opera.

TADDEI: THE WORLD'S FALSTAFF, MY SCARPIA

As I write this, Italian news services are reporting the great baritone Giuseppe Taddei has died. If there were an award for the baritone of all time, Taddei would for sure be among the nominees, but probably not the winner, through little fault of his own. If Taddei owned a role, it was Falstaff, which is not my favorite opera, nor that of many opera fans - a Verdi aficionado's Verdi. Taddei was a beloved Figaro, but no one filled that role like Tito Gobbi, or probably ever will. Most would say Gobbi aced out Taddei as well for Scarpia, the villain in Tosca and perhaps the darkest role in all opera.

On that last assessment, though, I differ, just as I differ that Maria Callas, opposite Gobbi, owned Tosca. Callas dominates my modest opera collection. But my Tosca is Leontyne Price. And my Scarpia is Taddei, who is Price's tormentor on the incredible 1962 Vienna recording with Herbert von Karajan at the baton.

This is not like me. My taste in opera, especially Italian opera, tends toward the vulgar. I like it loud, over the top, with high notes the composer never wrote. If you're going mad, do you care that much about the score? But Taddei's Scarpia is somehow more terrifying than others in its restraint. You get the feeling this torturous Scarpia is even worse inside, that he's holding himself back from what he'd really like to do. Which leaves your imagination to fill in a more gruesome character than a mere composer or librettist could write. On top of that, Taddei sings the part beautifully, which is no easy feat with a villain. Beautiful and awful at the same time - the sort of impossible-but-true contrast that makes art, and life.

So here's to Giuseppe Taddei, an artist in the highest sense of the word. Arrivederci, il mio Scarpia.

OPERA NEEDS A PITCHFORK

Haven't posted in a little while, having realized that the end of opera season wasn't maybe the optimal time to start an opera blog, and also having realized that when opera season ends there isn't a lot to say about opera from the upper-midwestern United States. Alas, Vienna would be a wicked commute.

It's also a commentary, though, on how little new is being said at any given moment about opera, period. I'm not merely talking about how the same 200 operas are stuck on permanent worldwide shuffle. I'm also talking about how opera doesn't translate well to the Webbed world rising around us. Opera on .mp3 is like fine dining with a cold. The spectacle of the opera stage is made for IMAX, not YouTube. And opera critics tend to go on as long and obliquely as some operas themselves.

Some of this will never change, and what opera fan would want it to? I love that opera rewards showing up in person. I love that it brings people with a common interest together face-to-face, under chandeliers. I love that the opera house is the one place left where no one divides their attention between the world and a smartphone. Including me.

But I find myself starving for more contact and community on the 300-plus days a year when I'm not going to an opera or shelling out 50 downloads' worth to buy one on CD. Would that there were enough new opera to sustain a site like hipster-music haven Pitchfork, with its carnival midway of reviews and streams and clips and news. Or a global broadcast outlet like Minnesota Public Radio's The Current, which is revolutionizing popular music by letting it be supported by listeners, as opposed to advertisers and market-driven programmers. Suddenly pop music has a chart again, instead of endlessly recycled "classics." Endlessly recycled classics...what does that remind you of?

Until opera itself begins to expand again - and I remain almost moronically optimistic about that - maybe it would behoove opera and its fans to jump on the technological wave and mix more boldly with the broader musical and artistic world. Having been turned on by a friend to The Current, I've been amazed at the richness and integrity and theatricality of the newest musical forms. Which might mean that world could be amazed by opera too. I mean, they play Rufus Wainwright on The Current, and he composes opera. Is that a glimmer of an actual opera future?

I intend for this humble site to be not only about opera, but also about bringing an opera sensibility to all the music and culture and art at our dancing fingertips. And vice versa. This is no Pitchfork. But it's worth a stab.

AS I WAS SAYING, ISN'T 'LA TRAVIATA' ENDLESSLY INTERESTING?

After two snarky blog posts about the bloated reputation of La Traviata and the tiresome magnification of subtle differences between classic opera performances, Anthony Tommasini counters both charges with one sublime piece in today's New York Times. I didn't think Leonard Slatkin's inexperience with La Traviata disqualified him to conduct it at the Met - on the contrary, I thought it made him perfect. Then Slatkin got pilloried and sacked, Marco Armiliato picked up the baton (so to speak), and Tommasini took the occasion to give NYT readers a master class in opera history and the importance of conducting. Did you know Giulini's "Un di felice" is 60 percent longer than Toscanini's? Did you know that when Alfredo sings the pivotal phrase "Di quell'amor..." Verdi writes "con espansione" ("with expansion") above the vocal line? Did you know that how much "espansione" is as much up to the conductor as the singer?

If you caught Tommasini's tour de force this morning, now you know. If you didn't, go catch it. It accomplishes the seemingly impossible: it makes La Traviata fresh again.