Walter Legge, writing at a time during which conventional wisdom believed that Richard Strauss went through a bad period between 1916, the year in which the final version of “Ariadne Auf Naxos” was premiered, and 1942, the year in which the wondrous “Capriccio” was unveiled, asserted that “Arabella”, from 1933, was a failure. “Arabella”, Legge argued, was nothing more than “a weak mixture of ‘Rosencavalier’ and water” and did not merit attention.
To this day, many persons share Legge’s assessment of “Arabella”—even those who have come to appreciate the beauties of Strauss’s other operas of the 1920s and 1930s. “Arabella” indeed does have much in common with “Der Rosencavalier”, particularly the class distinctions that are key elements in the plots of both works as well as the Viennese settings, firmly grounded in past (but vastly different) epochs.
Yet “Arabella” is, I believe, uniquely rewarding, featuring as it does a charming, operetta-like plot set to profound music—to which is added a fraught undertow of economic concern, the overwhelming issue of the years during which Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote the libretto and Strauss the music. Is there any other opera that so vividly presents the waning financial fortunes of a family during perilous times?
I have always liked “Arabella”—in fact, I prefer it to “Der Rosencavalier”—and I believe my fondness has much to do with the opera’s title character, a most complex and winning young woman. Arabella is intelligent, well-bred, charming, spirited, emotionally generous—and irritating when she wants to be. She is loyal to her family, gracious to all (except when someone affronts her), prepared to deal with realities and make sacrifices—and yet she always maintains her essential dignity and inherent goodness (as well as a stiff backbone). Arabella is one of opera’s most enchanting characters.
“Arabella” needs only two things to come alive in performance: a great Arabella; and a decent Strauss orchestra.
Last night, Joshua and I went to Saint Paul to attend Minnesota Opera’s current production of “Arabella” (my parents and my sister-in-law had attended opening night).
There was no Strauss orchestra in the pit—there was a pickup ensemble that did not know how to approximate a lustrous Strauss sound. Minnesota Opera does not often present Strauss operas, and the contracted pit players were, stylistically, at sea. It was a rough—and loud—account of the glorious score we heard, blustery and insensitive, the sort of account to be encountered only in places that are music backwaters.
The conductor was Michael Christie, in his second year as Music Director of Minnesota Opera. I become less impressed with Christie with each encounter. He is a routinier—and a routinier without a first-class orchestra at his disposal. Who wants to hear a routinier leading a pickup group? In any event, Christie has no feel for Strauss; a Strauss conductor should have been engaged for the occasion.
The Arabella was a youngish American soprano whose career is centered in Germany. Two years ago she had been a musically bland, musically unsatisfying Fiordiligi in Minnesota Opera’s “Cosi Fan Tutte”. This season, her Arabella was less bland—the singer certainly tried to create a compelling musical characterization—but the final result was nothing more than a game try. At root, the singer does not have the glamorous voice for the part—and an Arabella without a glamorous voice is an Arabella no one wants to hear. (My father referred to her as “a hand-me-down version of Pamela Coburn”—and dedicated operagoers will know, instantly and precisely, what my father meant.)
The Mandryka was terrible. Simply put, the singer lacked the voice for major roles. He should have been replaced during the rehearsal period.
The performance belonged to the secondary couple, Zdenka and Matteo. (All operettas have a secondary couple; Hofmannsthal observed acutely every convention of the operetta stage while fashioning his “Arabella” scenario.) Elizabeth Futral, a superb actress with a less-than-superb voice, who had been the Musetta in last season’s Lyric Opera Of Chicago “La Boheme”, sang Zdenka. Brian Jagde, a young tenor in possession of the finest voice of the night (but not the finest artistry), sang Matteo.
The character parts, of which there are many in “Arabella”, were well-taken. I thought Arabella’s (and Zdenka’s) mother and father were particularly fine. (The Count Waldner had appeared in last season’s Chicago “Boheme”, too—as Benoit/Alcindoro.)
The physical production was from Santa Fe Opera, which had first presented this production in 2012. It was, above all, a budget-conscious production, with a semi-circular unit set that was neither attractive nor pleasing (but easy to ship; the production clearly had been designed with one overriding objective: to achieve lots of rentals). The costuming, too, was unattractive. The stage and costume design were of indeterminate period, and suggested at least six different decades, perhaps more, from the 1860s to the 1920s.
Since the plot of the opera and the plot’s conventions are firmly rooted in 1860, and reflect the uncertainties, economic and political, of the Austro-Hungarian Empire twelve years into the shaky early reign of Franz Josef (the opera is set one year after the disastrous Second Italian War Of Independence and six years before the even more disastrous Austro-Prussian War), for a production not to be tied to 1860 makes no sense.
The stage direction was busy—and shockingly unstylish. The director must have believed that large doses of hokum and vulgarity were necessary in order for the opera to come across to a contemporary American audience.
On that issue, the director was wrong. A well-presented “Arabella” will grip any audience anywhere.
Persons in Minnesota, however, did not get the chance to see that for themselves . . .
Whoever is making artistic decisions at Minnesota Opera is making disastrous choices over and over. Casting, selection of imported productions, engagement of stage directors: all reflect someone in possession of no judgment and no taste.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Watered-Down Petipa
During China’s Cultural Revolution, ballet was the only Western art form permitted to flourish, a circumstance connected to China’s status as a client state of the U.S.S.R.
As many as 200 Russian teachers of dance lived and worked in China throughout The Cultural Revolution, all for the purpose of reproducing the Russian dance industry in China.
The effort did not work: hoards of agitprop ballets were the only results, all of which disappeared as soon as The Cultural Revolution collapsed of its own weight. However, a regimen of Russian training had been put into place that allowed China to develop dancers to a high standard—and to establish new ballet companies beginning as early as the late 1970s, a period during which China was just beginning to open to the West.
According to dance experts, China’s leading ballet company is The National Ballet Of China; the next-finest company is said to be Shanghai Ballet.
Last evening, my parents, my middle brother, and Joshua and I attended a performance of Shanghai Ballet at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis (my sister-in-law took a pass, which is why my middle brother, who can tolerate ballet, accompanied us).
Given China’s dance history, we were expecting Russian-style dancing . . . but we didn’t get it (and we were not disappointed on that account).
The Shanghai dancers did not display the strong, supple, heavily-arched backs of Russian dancers. The volatile, expressive, fluttery arms typical of Russian dancers were also not to be seen. The Chinese male dancers had not been groomed to demonstrate flashy athleticism and brute power, the primary attributes of Russian male dancers.
Instead, the Shanghai dancers looked little different than American dancers in their training: speed, clean lines and unaffected grace were what the dancers were going for—and by and large achieved. Based upon what we saw, it appears that American ballet training has now superseded Russian ballet training in China; there was no Russian-style exaggeration on view all night.
The choreography, however, was a different matter: EVERYTHING onstage was a rehash of Marius Petipa. The choreography was either geometric ensemble numbers a la the surviving fragments from “Paquita” or caractéristique dances a la Act III of “Swan Lake”—and nothing more. If a visitor had entered the theater blind, he would have been justified in assuming that he was watching a revival of some quaint 1901 ballet choreographed by one of Petipa’s less-talented assistants toward the end of the Petipa epoch, which had become stale and formulaic in its final years.
Alas, the ballet we were seeing had been created, not in 1901, but in 2001. It was disconcerting to watch such a work, recognizing in every step and in every device a direct steal from the Petipa playbook, with nothing freshened, nothing updated.
“The Butterfly Lovers” was the name of last night’s evening-length, four-act ballet. Based upon an ancient Chinese fable, “The Butterfly Lovers” is a Chinese version of the Romeo and Juliet tale—except the young lovers in “The Butterfly Lovers” are transformed into butterflies after their deaths.
“The Butterfly Lovers” was danced to a sickly-sweet Chinese score especially commissioned for the ballet. The stage décor was very old-fashioned—ancient photographs of original Petipa stagings must have provided the inspiration—and the costumes looked like discards from the original 1927 production of “The Red Poppy”.
The presentation was not offensive; on occasion, it even verged on being fun. However, “The Butterfly Lovers” is not the sort of thing designed to appeal to American dance audiences—it is designed to appeal to a Chinese “Nutcracker” audience.
And this probably accounts for the fact that “The Butterfly Lovers” is being toured nowhere near American dance centers; its presentation is deliberately being limited—by Columbia Artists Management, the American tour coordinator—to cities without sophisticated dance audiences.
We went because we were curious—and we had no trouble sitting through the thing.
However, it must be said that The Northrop Dance Series has been presenting a lot of sub-par stuff the last three seasons.
As many as 200 Russian teachers of dance lived and worked in China throughout The Cultural Revolution, all for the purpose of reproducing the Russian dance industry in China.
The effort did not work: hoards of agitprop ballets were the only results, all of which disappeared as soon as The Cultural Revolution collapsed of its own weight. However, a regimen of Russian training had been put into place that allowed China to develop dancers to a high standard—and to establish new ballet companies beginning as early as the late 1970s, a period during which China was just beginning to open to the West.
According to dance experts, China’s leading ballet company is The National Ballet Of China; the next-finest company is said to be Shanghai Ballet.
Last evening, my parents, my middle brother, and Joshua and I attended a performance of Shanghai Ballet at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis (my sister-in-law took a pass, which is why my middle brother, who can tolerate ballet, accompanied us).
Given China’s dance history, we were expecting Russian-style dancing . . . but we didn’t get it (and we were not disappointed on that account).
The Shanghai dancers did not display the strong, supple, heavily-arched backs of Russian dancers. The volatile, expressive, fluttery arms typical of Russian dancers were also not to be seen. The Chinese male dancers had not been groomed to demonstrate flashy athleticism and brute power, the primary attributes of Russian male dancers.
Instead, the Shanghai dancers looked little different than American dancers in their training: speed, clean lines and unaffected grace were what the dancers were going for—and by and large achieved. Based upon what we saw, it appears that American ballet training has now superseded Russian ballet training in China; there was no Russian-style exaggeration on view all night.
The choreography, however, was a different matter: EVERYTHING onstage was a rehash of Marius Petipa. The choreography was either geometric ensemble numbers a la the surviving fragments from “Paquita” or caractéristique dances a la Act III of “Swan Lake”—and nothing more. If a visitor had entered the theater blind, he would have been justified in assuming that he was watching a revival of some quaint 1901 ballet choreographed by one of Petipa’s less-talented assistants toward the end of the Petipa epoch, which had become stale and formulaic in its final years.
Alas, the ballet we were seeing had been created, not in 1901, but in 2001. It was disconcerting to watch such a work, recognizing in every step and in every device a direct steal from the Petipa playbook, with nothing freshened, nothing updated.
“The Butterfly Lovers” was the name of last night’s evening-length, four-act ballet. Based upon an ancient Chinese fable, “The Butterfly Lovers” is a Chinese version of the Romeo and Juliet tale—except the young lovers in “The Butterfly Lovers” are transformed into butterflies after their deaths.
“The Butterfly Lovers” was danced to a sickly-sweet Chinese score especially commissioned for the ballet. The stage décor was very old-fashioned—ancient photographs of original Petipa stagings must have provided the inspiration—and the costumes looked like discards from the original 1927 production of “The Red Poppy”.
The presentation was not offensive; on occasion, it even verged on being fun. However, “The Butterfly Lovers” is not the sort of thing designed to appeal to American dance audiences—it is designed to appeal to a Chinese “Nutcracker” audience.
And this probably accounts for the fact that “The Butterfly Lovers” is being toured nowhere near American dance centers; its presentation is deliberately being limited—by Columbia Artists Management, the American tour coordinator—to cities without sophisticated dance audiences.
We went because we were curious—and we had no trouble sitting through the thing.
However, it must be said that The Northrop Dance Series has been presenting a lot of sub-par stuff the last three seasons.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Shanghai Ballet
Shanghai Ballet is five weeks into a grueling seven-week tour of North America, and tomorrow night the troupe will be in Minneapolis.
Two full-length ballets have been brought to North America, but Minneapolis will see only “The Butterfly Lovers” (some cities are getting “La Sylphide”).
“The Butterfly Lovers” sounds like kitsch—but not Monstrous Kitsch, which is what Aix-En-Provence’s Ballet Preljocaj brought to Minneapolis two weeks ago.
There is a difference between kitsch and Monstrous Kitsch. We might be able to tolerate a little of the former; the latter is beyond our power to endure.
Saturday, November 09, 2013
Luise Rainer
The radiant Luise Rainer in Hollywood in the 1930s.
Rainer still lives. In January, she will be 104 years old.
Minnesota 24 Penn State 10
The game itself was not particularly exciting—there was, for instance, no scoring in the second half, very odd for a Minnesota team that has shown more than a little prowess on offense this season.
We might as well have departed after the halftime show.
Friday, November 08, 2013
Another Exquisite Still Life
Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Flowers In A Crystal Vase
1882
National Gallery Of Art, Washington
Oil On Canvas
12 7/8 Inches By 9 5/8 Inches
Sunday, November 03, 2013
“Morning’s At Seven”
On Friday evening, my parents, my middle brother, and Joshua and I went to Theatre In The Round to see its current production of Paul Osborn’s 1939 play, “Morning’s At Seven”. (The play’s title is borrowed from Robert Browning, and does not reflect a grammatical error.)
The play is a tale of four aging sisters, in their sixties and seventies, who live in a small town in the American Midwest. The year is 1938.
One sister is married and childless; she and her husband have a permanent live-in guest, her unmarried sister, who after decades of living under their roof is beginning to get on their nerves.
Another sister lives next door. She, too, is married, and is the only sister with offspring: she has a forty-year-old son who has proven himself reluctant to let loose his mother’s apron strings. The son has been engaged for a dozen years to a woman from the same town—and yet he has never brought her home to meet his family.
Another sister lives across town. She has “married up”, and her husband views her family members as “morons” and discourages her from visiting them (not that that stops her).
The play takes place over a single weekend. Two events set the plot into motion: the first sister announces that she wants to move into a new house and leave the existing house to her unmarried sister; and the son of the second sister announces that at last he is going to bring his intended home to meet the family, a move preliminary to their wedding, shortly to occur.
And, for the next two hours and forty-five minutes, the characters mull over and discuss these events, which are supposed to be dramatic as well as humorous.
“Morning’s At Seven” opened on Broadway in 1939 and—with an all-star cast—promptly bombed. In the pre-television era, during which New Yorkers attended the theater several nights a week, “Morning’s At Seven” closed after a one-month run.
The play was not to be revived until 1980, when it received a second Broadway production, again with an all-star cast—and became an unexpected hit, running for sixteen months and spawning national tours.
A third Broadway production was mounted in 2002, once again with an all-star cast. The 2002 Broadway production lasted only three months.
I am clueless why anyone would consider “Morning’s At Seven” worthy of revival. The play has no merit as drama, the play has no merit as comedy: it is jaw-droppingly earnest, and jaw-droppingly bad, as if Henrik Ibsen had supplied the comedy and George S. Kaufman the drama.
The Theatre In The Round production did the material no favors (other than provide work for area actors “of a certain age”). However, I am not convinced that any cast could bring such a feeble script to life—and, in any case, I believe the play to be pointless.
________________________________________________
Osborn is remembered, to the extent he is remembered at all, for adapting existing material into screenplays. Osborn worked in Hollywood for decades.
Osborn lived to see the successful 1980 revival of his 1939 play.
I wonder what went through Osborn’s mind as he watched his failed play from four decades earlier transformed into a surprising commercial hit.
Osborn HAD to have known, in 1980, that his 1939 play was a piece of wood-rot.
________________________________________________
Somewhat pressed for time, we ate a quick dinner at a pub only steps away from the theater. The pub has a very limited menu, and we had been advised to go for the walleye, served with Minnesota wild rice and asparagus.
The walleye was excellent. We were pleased.
The play is a tale of four aging sisters, in their sixties and seventies, who live in a small town in the American Midwest. The year is 1938.
One sister is married and childless; she and her husband have a permanent live-in guest, her unmarried sister, who after decades of living under their roof is beginning to get on their nerves.
Another sister lives next door. She, too, is married, and is the only sister with offspring: she has a forty-year-old son who has proven himself reluctant to let loose his mother’s apron strings. The son has been engaged for a dozen years to a woman from the same town—and yet he has never brought her home to meet his family.
Another sister lives across town. She has “married up”, and her husband views her family members as “morons” and discourages her from visiting them (not that that stops her).
The play takes place over a single weekend. Two events set the plot into motion: the first sister announces that she wants to move into a new house and leave the existing house to her unmarried sister; and the son of the second sister announces that at last he is going to bring his intended home to meet the family, a move preliminary to their wedding, shortly to occur.
And, for the next two hours and forty-five minutes, the characters mull over and discuss these events, which are supposed to be dramatic as well as humorous.
“Morning’s At Seven” opened on Broadway in 1939 and—with an all-star cast—promptly bombed. In the pre-television era, during which New Yorkers attended the theater several nights a week, “Morning’s At Seven” closed after a one-month run.
The play was not to be revived until 1980, when it received a second Broadway production, again with an all-star cast—and became an unexpected hit, running for sixteen months and spawning national tours.
A third Broadway production was mounted in 2002, once again with an all-star cast. The 2002 Broadway production lasted only three months.
I am clueless why anyone would consider “Morning’s At Seven” worthy of revival. The play has no merit as drama, the play has no merit as comedy: it is jaw-droppingly earnest, and jaw-droppingly bad, as if Henrik Ibsen had supplied the comedy and George S. Kaufman the drama.
The Theatre In The Round production did the material no favors (other than provide work for area actors “of a certain age”). However, I am not convinced that any cast could bring such a feeble script to life—and, in any case, I believe the play to be pointless.
________________________________________________
Osborn is remembered, to the extent he is remembered at all, for adapting existing material into screenplays. Osborn worked in Hollywood for decades.
Osborn lived to see the successful 1980 revival of his 1939 play.
I wonder what went through Osborn’s mind as he watched his failed play from four decades earlier transformed into a surprising commercial hit.
Osborn HAD to have known, in 1980, that his 1939 play was a piece of wood-rot.
________________________________________________
Somewhat pressed for time, we ate a quick dinner at a pub only steps away from the theater. The pub has a very limited menu, and we had been advised to go for the walleye, served with Minnesota wild rice and asparagus.
The walleye was excellent. We were pleased.
Saturday, November 02, 2013
Minnesota 42 Indiana 39
I think we’ll have to go to next week’s Penn State game.
An Exquisite Still Life
Three Peaches On A Plate
1868
National Gallery Of Art, Washington
Oil On Canvas
7 3/4 Inches By 10 1/8 Inches
________________________________________________
This very small but exquisite still life always rivets the viewer’s attention. I cannot count the number of times I have seen art-lovers hovered, spellbound, around the canvas.
A photographic reproduction cannot begin to reveal the greatness of the painting. I believe it is the artist’s capturing of textures—wood, porcelain, peach fuzz—that grips the viewer’s attention. (Textures are much more amazing in the painting than any photograph can suggest.)
The first time I showed this painting to Joshua, he exclaimed, “That’s the best peach fuzz ever!”
And Josh was right.