Cav/Pag Opening Night at SDO: Carter Scott and José Cura Superstars
Mar 23 '08 (Updated Sep 20 '08)
The Bottom Line Don't let this month goes by without going to the San Diego Civic Theater to see this cast of Cav/Pag. You might not have another chance!
Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci Opening Night at SanDiegoOpera (22 March 2008): Dazzled By Carter Scott and José Cura
I must admit that I was surprised to be invited back (with a free orchestra level ticket) by the friendly folks at San Diego Opera to review another performance there after my rather harsh write up of the opening night of Maria Stuarda a month earlier. I didn't have the decency to decline such a generous (not to mention good sported) offer... and so must impose on my patient readers another unsuccessful attempt to write a concise review of an opera performance. Here goes....
Where most people go to the opera to escape from the familiar story of everyday life, there was a short period in Italian opera where the music lovers flocked to the theater for the bloody opposite. Verismo, the short-lived operatic style exemplified by the 2 operas often presented as a double-bill of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, strives instead for realism. The stories concern the passion and plights of the common folks, presented in everyday language (rather than the usual flowery poetry) with uncomplicated yet exquisitely expressive music that dares you to take pleasure in raw emotions. The composer isn't trying to send any message or making clever jokes at anything in particular. He just lets you hear how not so boring your unglamourous life really is!
The first half of the night's performance was Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry). Premiered at Rome's Teatro Costanzi in 1890, the story takes place on an Easter Sunday in Sicily, Italy. Turiddu, the too-cool-for-any-one-girl tenor, had broken off an affair with beautiful Lola prior to going off to serve in the army. Upon returning to find her already married to the carter Alfio, he impregnated young Santuzza, before discarding her to resume his extra-marital affair with Lola. Santuzza is devastated by the betrayal and her excommunication by the church for out of wedlock pregnancy, and takes revenge by alerting Alfio to the infidelity of his wife. The justifiably livid Alfio, being a Sicilian, naturally challenges Turiddu to a knife duel. Our (anti)hero has enough conscience to instruct his mother, Mamma Lucia, to take care of Santuzza if the worst happens before going out to meet his well-armed rival. It proves to be a prudent move, since he is promptly dispatched off the stage as the certain fall on the distressed Lucia as she is told of her son's skewering.
CAST:
Turiddu ::: Richard Leech (tenor)
Santuzza ::: Carter Scott (soprano)
Alfio ::: Bruno Caproni (baritone)
Mama Lucia ::: Judith Christin (contralto)
Lola ::: Sarah Castle (mezzo-soprano)
Edoardo Müller/ San Diego Symphony Orchestra
Timothy Simmons/ San Diego Opera Chorus.
Stage Direction by Lotfi Mansouri
See photos from this production at: www.sdopera.com/pressphotos/cavpag.html
Even as I love the European conceptual staging, I still find it refreshing to see good old fashioned staging that sets a realistic and functional background for the story-telling. The set design of an aptly rustic Sicilian village by John Coyne is beautiful and innovative, filling the stage without crowding it.... and even presenting subtle artistic license to irony in hanging a purple (Italian color of death) instead of white drape over the church's entrance all through the Easter procession. The opening scene even looked as if it is a projected scene from a film (thanks to great use of lighting and shades)!
Lotfi Mansouri's stage direction is mostly good, though not effective enough on some key scenes like the confrontation between Turiddu and Alfio. There isn't enough tension in the interaction between the two alpha males to prevent Turiddu's subsequent cry to his mother from turning into a comic moment when the audience should be feeling just about anything but amused. I also think that Santuzza is directed to do too much during the famous intermezzo, since the wonderful singing actress, Carter Scott, already has such an imposing stage presence that she could have delivered all the pathos even if she was half as active during that wonderful orchestral scene.
Carter Scott... I don't know why I hadn't heard of her before... The voice isn't the most beautiful or as arrestingly unique as many other soprani's, but what she does with it nearly convinced me that she's the best thing to happen since sliced bread. Singing- and acting-wise, she was totally in character and her presence on the stage, even when silent, was impossible to ignore. Her 'Voi lo sapete' showcased some really wonderful dynamic control with breath-taking pianissimo and heart-rending fortissimo. I had a hard time deciphering her Italian, but that is of minor importance when Santuzza's despair is already apparent in her singing. The opera was heavily advertised for the leading tenor role, but this Santuzza was the force that made the opening performance work. The level of acting declined all too noticeably when she wasn't in a scene! Never mind that standing ovations are way overused in American opera houses, the one she drew at the curtain call on Saturday night was all on merit.
Richard Leech as Turiddu took a while to warm up with a rather flat serenade during the prologue. The voice is heavier than I've ever heard him and he started out with more prominent a quick vibrato than I enjoyed. Though he got steadier as the show progressed. I'm afraid, this being his first performance in this role, he hasn't got Turiddu under his skin yet. There were moments when he seemed tentative on the stage, and the lack of ...how should I say it... attitude... the I'm The Man attitude, made it difficult for me to believe that he is the object of desire for the two beautiful ladies in the show. I suspect that he will keep improving in subsequent performances, though.
As the obnoxiously immoral Lola was the young New Zealander mezzo, Sarah Castle, last seen here as a very fetching Cherubino in the run of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro last season. She is a very physically attractive woman with a beautiful dark lyric mezzo voice, though her portrayal of the role was a bit girlish for my taste (not much of a seductive vamp). Bruno Caproni was vocally fine as the jealous Alfio, though not a very convincing actor in this dramatic role. Judith Christin rounded off the cast with her tenor-ish voiced Mamma Lucia, who made her role seem larger than it actually is.
Maestro Edoardo Müller led a brisk yet lyrically colorful read from the orchestra pit, and the San Diego Symphony followed him beautifully. By the 10 minute mark I was so persuaded by the orchestral colors that I thought I was actually breathing in Mediterranean air right there in the auditorium. Timothy Simmons' San Diego Opera Chorus is quite adept at acting, though the male chorus tended to overpower their female counterpart in this opera.
Following the 15 minutes intermission was Ruggero Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci (The Clowns). This 1892 tragic opera is set near Montalto, a Calabrian town during the Feast of the Assumption (August 15th), where Canio the professional clown and his small theatrical troupe are performing. When he isn't in his professional capacity, though, Canio is drastically less comical and his jealousy keeps his beautiful wife, Nedda, in a constant state of unease. She is, like other operatic soprani, being romantically pursued by many, including the hunchback Tonio (whom she holds in contempt) and handsome Silvio, whose love she returns with more passion than decency would allow. Having been informed by Tonio of Nedda's infidelity, Canio becomes even less funny and has to be restrained from violence by his friend Beppe. When husband and wife find themselves playing estranged couple on the stage later that night (during their performance of 'Pagliaccio e Colombina'), Canio's clown first delights the audience with his very 'realistic acting', and then horrifies them by actually stabbing Nedda and her lover Silvio (who rushes onto the stage to help his beloved) to death... one after the other, bringing the play's final line, "La commedia è finita! (the comedy is finished!)," to a new level of truth-telling in performance art.
CAST:
Canio ::: José Cura (tenor)
Nedda ::: Elizabeth Futral (soprano)
Tonio ::: Bruno Caproni (baritone)
Beppe ::: Simeon Esper (tenor)
Silvio ::: Scott Hendricks (baritone)
Also traditionally staged, Mansouri's direction is better in this second half of the double-header. Having a good acting chorus sure helps, especially when they are this effectively moved around on the stage looking absorbed in their interpretation as the village folks rather than just fulfilling a choreography. There was a bit of a timing problem as they started singing before entering the first scene, but on the whole they were impeccable (and the males actually blended with the females rather than covering their sound as happened during Cavalleria Rusticana).
Elizabeth Futral had a good debut in the role of Nedda. The voice is surely that of a top-tier lyric soprano. It is beautiful, well controlled and can suggest vulnerability and romance... though doesn't really have enough dramatic thrust down low to convincingly suggest anger or distress. She is a wonderful actress, though I wish that she was directed to sing the bird song to herself rather than trying to sell Nedda's wish for freedom to the audience. She came close but didn't quite sell it to me (though I'm willing to bet that she'll have less trouble doing so in subsequent shows). Scott Hendricks was an ardent if slightly fuzzy-pitched Silvio.
Bruno Caprioni proved a better comic actor than a tragic one as the hunchback Tonio, and was as engaging in his 'out of character' plea in the Prologue as he was 'in character' during the opera proper. Simeon Esper made the most of his short role of Beppe, especially during the charming little serenade during the 'Pagliaccho e Columbina' performance. He has such a pleasant and well focused lyric tenor voice that I wished his role has more music to sing.
Maestro Müller kept the show moving well from the orchestra pit, but set a rather undramatically quick pace for the show’s most dramatic aria, Canio's 'Recitar!/ vesti la giubba'... A lesser singing-actor would have found it harder to move the audience singing that thing at such a fast tempo, but then it is for occasions like this that theaters heartily pay the asking price to get an artist like José Cura to star in their shows. What Carter Scott did for Cavalleria Rusticana in the earlier part of the evening, Cura did in the final half. From the moment he first entered the stage there was no question who 'the boss' was. And then he started singing and I knew I was in the presence of a sacred monster, a kind of stars who sell out the biggest of opera houses just by being in a cast. What can I say? The guy has a one-in-a-few-millions tenor voice... clear and beautiful with enough zing in it to blow the roof off a skyscraper. And he knows how to act both vocally and physically! There is so much of that irresistibly magnetic 'attitude' on the stage that the few high notes that were held indecently long wouldn't bother anyone in their right mind.
And so... another well earned standing ovation at the curtain call. Two in one night! And it looks like the subsequent shows would only get better (after all, it's the Turiddu who's supposed to set the crowd aroar rather than the Santuzza). Now that the debut is behind them, Leech and Futral should be getting more and more comfortable with their new roles in later shows. I am impressed enough with Saturday night's performance to want to attend another show, if my current nasty bout of headache doesn't turn into my fourth full blown flu of the season.
If you are in San Diego area this month and enjoy drama and good music, you really shouldn't miss Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci at the San Diego Civic Theater. Even if you have never attended an opera before, it wouldn't take much love for classical music to enjoy this double-header more than you have ever dreamed that you would. The entire show runs for about 3 hrs (with one 15 minutes intermission between the two opera). The curtain usually rises at 7 PM, though if you could get there an hour early, be sure to attend the free pre-opera lecture in the main auditorium. The opening night's lecture was delivered by the always enthusiastic Dr. Nick Reveles from the UCSD Music Department. No matter how much research I've done before going to an opera at the SDO, I'm still always learning something new about the opera there.
Next performances of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci at the San Diego Opera:
March 25, 28 (8PM), 30 (2PM), Apr 2
See the kind of performers you'd miss if you don't go see this run of Cav/Pag:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=18v-L-jIcZ8 (José Cura as Canio)
http://www.funkhouserartists.com/Carter_Scott/video_Macbeth.html (Carter Scott as Verdi's Lady Macbeth)
UPDATE**25 Mar 2008**
San Diego Opera announced today that, due to illness, baritone Bruno Caproni has withdrawn from the Tuesday, March 25 performance of Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci. Replacing him will be American baritone Mark Rucker, who arrived in San Diego this morning to begin rehearsals of the next San Diego Opera production, Aida, where he appears as Amonasro.
-Announcement courtesy of San Diego Opera
More resources:
San Diego Opera Talk: Cavalleria Rusticana/I Pagliacci (www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGxuBew0D9c), Audience's Rules of Conducts, A Few Words To Opera Newbies,
Dance Thru Opera History with Munkus, 10 Beginners-Friendly Opera, Some Friendly Diva Opera Arias (the ladies), Some Friendly Divo Opera Arias (the gents), Some Friendly Operatic Duets, Some Friendly Operatic Ensembles, Tips In Opera Reviewing, 15 Favorite Opera Youtube Clips (2007), Newbies' Guide to German & French Opera, Newbies' Guide to Operetta
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Member: Smorg
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