Opera Impressions

La Boheme, Again

OK, I admit it. I have become jaded. I attended the recent performance of La Boheme at the Met and I found myself very reluctant to again encounter the Zeffirelli production. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with the Zeffirelli production. It is just that after more years than I care to count and more performances than I can remember, I am tired of it. Actually, I dread it. They should change the libretto so that Rodolfo sings to Mimi, "of all the artist's garrets in all the towns in all the world, you walk into mine." Why Paris? Why this same room, the same table, chairs, food basket to be lowered from the ceiling? Why the same old inn in which Marcello and Musetta live? Why the same Cafe Momus? This proves the old adage about too much of a good thing.

To be fair, there were some minor changes in the movements of the characters on stage. That was refreshing. And the cast was good.

Il Trittico: Three is more than enough!

Keeping three plots and three sets of music straight in my head has proven to be problematic. I say this for a number of reasons. First, several weeks ago, I ventured to attend Elektra, Les Contes d'Hoffman and Il Trittico within the space of several days. Thinking and writing about all three proved to be too much. Il Trittico fell through the cracks. Then, of course, I had to keep straight in my head the three tales of Hoffman which luckily do have unifying features. Il Trittico's three stories do not. In fact, over the years, the practice has been to perform only one or two of the Il Trittico segments at a time or to pair Il Trittico segments with other operas. Even Puccini apparently did not envisage the same soprano singing all three. So, there is a long history with this opera of three being more than enough.

The Queen Of Spades

The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky provides another opportunity to consider the issue of virtue or the lack thereof in human beings. The opera also provides a perspective on greed and obsession. The opera is based on a story by Alexander Pushkin. The setting is Russian society where Ghermann sung by Ben Heppner is in love with Lisa sung by Maria Guleghina. Ghermann has an obsession with gambling which at this point consists of watching his friends play all night though he never plays himself. Ghermann learns a story about Lisa's grandmother the old Countess who is said to know the secret of "the three cards" which if known could lead to great riches. He becomes obsessed by the need to learn this secret. Through Lisa, he gains access to the Countess's chambers where he accosts her and demands to know the secret. When he threatens her with a pistol, the Countess dies of fright. Later on, Ghermann is visited by the Countess' ghost who tells him that the three cards will be "three, seven and ace." Ghermann refuses the entreaties of Lisa to leave telling her that he is on his way to the gambling house to play these cards. Realizing she has lost him, Lisa drowns herself. Ghermann goes to play the cards, bets a huge amount of rubles and has success with the first two cards. Instead of an ace, the last card turns out to be the Queen of Spades. Imagining the Countess' face staring at him from the card, Ghermann stabs himself.

Those are the facts. What the facts do not convey is the increasing tension building up in the opera arising out of this obsession on the part of Ghermann. There is a struggle within him between the love for Lisa and the obsession to learn and reap the rewards of the secret of the three cards. The secret of the cards soon takes hold and prevails. The struggle is dramatized externally with the pull towards the relationship with Lisa and the conflicting pull towards the Countess and her secret. In truth, the only semblance of virtue in the drama is the commenting by the other characters on the strange behavior on the part of Ghermann. Ghermann appears sociopathic in his obsession. The casualties of his obsession do not seem to register on him. Lisa leaves her fiance for Ghermann and then persists with Ghermann even when knowing he is the cause of her grandmother's death. Any introspection on her part seems to be lacking.  

From a contemporary viewpoint, this opera affords us an opportunity to think about sociopathic greed and the casualties that it causes. Even though as the audience we watch things unfold, we are still left not understanding why there is this obsession or what prompts the actions being taken. Maybe that is the point. We can watch, but we can't understand. Maybe one cannot understand the sociopathic mind.

We are joined in our observations by the other characters who comment: "Our Ghermann looks glum....He is under the spell of..the hope of discovering those three cards....He really is an odd fellow!...He is one of those men who will stick (sic) at nothing once his mind is made up. Poor devil! Poor devil!" 

Lest we fall into the doldrums over the fate of humanity, we at least had enjoyable singing in this opera. There was certainly a fine cast: Ben Heppner, Maria Guleghina, Paul Plishka, Felcity Palmer. I was delighted to see the familiar head of hair up there at the conductor's podium in the personage of Seiji Ozawa formerly of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. One could say that the opera was a little slow moving, but I tend to see it as Tchaikovsky's way of dramatizing this growing obsession as perhaps only a Russian author or composer could portray it.

La Boheme

Writing about an opera performance several months after the fact is not the easiest thing to do. However, since the Met season started several months before I started my blogging career, I have no choice. I will do my best to capture at least some aspect of the fall performances as this page goes on. I attended the performance of La Boheme in December. The most significant thing about the performance was that the role of Mimi was scheduled to be sung by Anna Netrebko. This was my motivation in getting tickets for an opera that I love but have also seen numerous times. In fact, I saw it at the Met within the last year or two. Alas, as I found out about a month prior to the performance, Netrebko was out having a baby. I Googled her replacement, Maija Kovalevska, and found a little information and no recordings. In the end, I could not resist another visit with La Boheme and the adventure of seeing a recent arrival on the opera stage with the hope that it might prove to be one of those surprise revelatory moments.

My recollection is that Kovalevska did a decent job. I can't recall being disappointed and it was a generally pleasant evening. An opera critic who I met while having coffee at Zabars said he thinks very highly of Kovalevska and that he even prefers her to Netrebko. I certainly don't share that perspective. The performance also left me with this major sense of deja vu. The set was the same as last time. Paul Plishka was again called in to sing Benoit and Alcindoro. In this performance Ramon Vargas sang Rodolfo and Susanna Phillips sang Musetta. I ask myself, can I see this opera every year and not get bored or tired of it. I guess I am looking for something new and different - a new staging or an exciting combination of performers. So, while I continue to enjoy listening to the music, I think I should give it a rest for a while at least at the Met. I like the Pavarotti-Freni recording. In fact, my very first opera was La Boheme at the old Met sung by Freni. So, there is a bit of nostalgia there as well.