Archive for February 15th, 2010

The Dallas Opera: February 12, 14, 18, 20, 26, & 28, 2010

Winspear Opera House

Review by Dean Cassella

This second production in the Dallas Opera’s first season in its new home was just what the doctor ordered, especially after the sumptuous and heavy fare served up with Verdi’s Otello at the season premiere.  Although one could certainly could not label Mozart’s last opera buffa collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte musically light, it does deliver laughs in some of the most sumptuous and delightful music that Mozart composed.

Originally set in eighteenth-century Naples, the plot centers around a case of deliberate mistaken identity between two pairs of lovers.  Two young men, Ferrando and Guglielmo are in the throes of young love with Fiordiligi and Dorabella.  A cynical old man, Don Alfonso, taunts them that it is impossible for women to remain faithful, should the men leave the scene for a while.  The resulting argument ends with a wager: Ferrando and Guglielmo will pretend to be called off for military duty, only to return in the guise of two Albanians and each actively try to court the other’s belle.

Jeffry Jones as Austrian Emperor Joseph II in the famous 1984 movie "Amadeus."

The opera was commissioned by none other than the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, best known in popular culture from the play/movie Amadeus.

This was Mozart’s third and last collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte, a Venetian Jew who, as a child, converted to Christianity, took holy orders, and was eventually ran out of town for taking . . .liberties . . .with certain lady friends.  He then led a semi nomadic life, cutting a swath across Europe to London, and eventually settling in New York City as a greengrocer, and as the first professor of Italian at Columbia University (he also established the first Italian opera company in New York).  His collaborations with Mozart occurred early in his wanderings, when he was living in Vienna and trying to make his inroads in the Imperial court as a poet and librettist.  The story of Così was a allegedly based on a real incident that was making the rounds in Vienna at the time.

Last time around, the Winspear Opera House demonstrated marvelous acoustics with a full-sized late Romantic era orchestra.  The current production makes use of a comparatively tiny chamber orchestra, which poses a different set of resonance challenges.  I am delighted to report that the new opera house was able to handle these to remarkable effect.  Graeme Jenkin’s stately phrasing was carried with both a volume and a warmth that I have rarely heard in a full-size opera house.

Così is unusual in that there are only six roles which are very carefully balanced.  Soprano Elza van den Heever and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Holloway, as Fiordiligi and Dorabella respectively, have beautifully matched voices.  Miss van den Heever also displays considerable skills as an actress, and Miss Holloway, who graced the TDO stage last season with her interpretation of the love-sick Cherubino in La Nozze di Figaro, treated us to her wonderfully lilting vibrato.  Italian soprano Nuccia Focile sang a beautiful rendition of Despina, the cynical, deadpan maid who serves as a female counterpart to Don Alfonso, and who often reminds me of Alice Kramden on the Honeymooners.  Her petite stature helped to enrich the comic potential when she dresses up as a quack doctor and a notary during Act II.

The real star of this performance, though was the illustrious bass-baritone Sir Thomas Allen who, after almost 40 years on the boards of the worlds major opera houses, boasts a rich, powerful voice and a magisterial presence whenever he is on stage.  Tenor Brian Anderson as Ferrando, and baritone Michael Todd Simpson also did commendable jobs in their roles.

Robert Perdziola’s sets recast the time to around 1910.  The main set resembles an Egyptian-style casino, or hotel, lends itself to the time period it seeks to evoke.  I generally prefer sticking to the librettist’s original intentions, but the change in question does not seriously interfere with the work’s enjoyment in any way.

All in all, this is a fine production and one definitely worth seeing.

Next up: Donizetti’s Don Pasquale!

My little brother, or rather, one of them, starred in his school’s production of “Sessical: The Musical,” performed this past weekend. It was a great performance – quite professionally done, considering everyone in the cast was a 7th or 8th grader.

One theme evident in Seussical was alienation in one’s world; indeed, one of the songs, sung twice and echoed back to many other time, was “Alone in the Universe” -

I’m alone in the universe.
So alone in the universe.
I’ve found magic but they don’t see it

Horton sings this after being mocked for believing a person is living on the dust speck he found, referring back to the story Horton Hears a Who.

It’ quite poignant, really. Horton had good reason to feel that way; he was being emotionally and physically cut off from his social group (the other creatures in the Jungle Of Nool). But one can feel that way even if they aren’t being publically derided and excluded.

I was considering this idea, being so alone. I believe everyone feels this way sometimes; perhaps some more than others, but I believe it is shared unanimously; after all, how else could it be so common a theme, found in literature, art, and yes, Broadway musicals.(PS: Is this a theme that is universal in human existence or has appeared and increased in the modern era?)

This is quite complicated, I discovered. Humans are super-social beings; we don’t do so well in isolation, and you notice we aggregate in the same places and buildings, tending to cluster together rather then spread apart (which goes against nature as it increases the entropy of the system, but oh well there goes Tonia on a nerdy tangent).

Yet, we are all unique – thanks to random gamete selection, crossing over, and mutation, most of us have different genomes; even twins, who share the same genetic material, express it differently as they interact with their environment. We all look different, have our own thoughts, and our own unique little characteristics. In The Incredibles, the young super-hero child complains that when everyone is “super”, then “no one is.” So, we are all uniform in our unique-ness. Yet we feel alone.

—So, funny story. I began this draft early this morning. Just an hour later, in Cell Bio, our professor explained to us that the genetic differences between people are so small they are statistically negligible. How about that! It boggles my mind. Basically what that means is that a tiny, tiny, fraction of our genetic material dictates differences between us, and those differences are magnified or smoothed over by our relative experiences – and I don’t just mean experiences that you are aware of and become memory. For example, the chemical composition of your surroundings in utero can have a big effect on you later – I believe this fact explains to a certain extent the differences between identical twins.

So, anyways, we are these members of a species who are pretty much identical at a molecular level, yet each rather unique in our feelings and activities, roving around in big packs, and feeling alienated all the while. Phew. There’s some pretty deep psychology and philosophy that goes into that one, which I do not understand (yet)/won’t go into now. Just revel in the facts, without asking why.

Speaking of reveling in the facts, consider, as I said before, that some people feel more “alone” than others – and this doesn’t necessarily mean they are a social outcast or are that different. Hmmm… meaning the first-person experience can be in quite independent of third-person reality.

So, ponder that.

And thus concludes today’s rambling about human nature.