The Newly Inspired Sound of Music

Arizona Opera often looks at ways to widen the audience or broaden the definition of opera. The latest example is their production of The Sound of Music, directed by Ian Silverman and starring Cadie J. Bryan as Maria and Jonathan Bryan as Captain Von Trapp. So how does a musical look as performed by an opera company?

Quite beautiful, it turns out. It's already a pleasure to hear live music and singing--and having this put together by an opera company means that the singers have different backgrounds than those you'll find at a typical musical. They add that extra, luxuriant quality to their singing. So the emphasis becomes even more on the singing than normal--or perhaps more on the technical delivery than just on the general tone of the songs.

Not that we lost the tone or the story. I've only watched The Sound of Music once, so it was a delight to delve back into the story. The themes around Maria's character center so perfectly around the idea that we each have a role in life, even if we don't always know what that role is. We see her trying to fit into a place that doesn't quite work--so the nuns offer her a different way to serve God and Man, as a teacher and then a wife and mother. Doing the right thing can take many shapes; it takes all of us, all of our shapes, to make the world turn. And Maria's very delight in the world and in life and in singing and joy that didn't make her fit in well at the convent are the very things that make her thrive in the Von Trapp household.

I have little to say on the technical sides of this production. The sets were beautiful, as usual; the way that the mountains were lit for day or darkened for evening was lovely. Having so many children on stage, all singing along, was impressive. But really it was just the way that everything expressed the story of this family coming together that made this opera's production of a musical just as elevated an experience as one of their operas. I wouldn't mind seeing more musicals show up in the season occasionally. 

An Opera as a Graphic Novel?

Remember 2020? Course you do. Remember how all the shows and events were cancelled? Remember how long it took to get them started up again? So, in that in-between time, companies tried out different things. Online streaming. Behind the scenes videos. Arizona Opera put together The Copper Queen, which came out in theaters in 2021. But filming an opera as a movie instead of producing it as a live show is still a visual medium with performers and sight and sound and song. It was different--but not altogether. Their other experimental project that came out of that time was even more different.

I'm referring to the graphic novel of Carmen, which was adapted by Alek Schrader, P. Craig Russel, and Aneke. A graphic novel is long in the making. I believe it was announced in December 2021 and the Kickstarter campaign began the following spring. Kickstarter can be a bit of a set-it-and-forget-it type of thing. Even though there were updates in the following months, I was still caught pleasantly by surprise to find the actual, physical graphic novel in my hands this week. 

One hardly knew what to expect from such a project. But it's quite a nice volume the team put together. It's big and hardcover (and printed in Canada). I haven't read many graphic novels, so I'm not the best judge of this. But it was easy to read and follow along with. The dialogue and action flowed. While the visuals were kept to a simple style, they still conveyed strong emotions--in the same dramatic way that emotion comes across when I'm watching an opera on stage. I also have never watched Carmen. Rather than taking that as a negative, though, it meant that I was able to see just how much I enjoyed the story in its own right and felt each emotional beat as I flipped the pages--even without having any previous knowledge of or connection with the story.

I left off hoping that I do get to see the opera in person sometime. The book was emotionally stirring, with plenty of action and drama. I enjoyed following the story and picturing the music. The bold color palette matches the bold plot and characters. 

The idea of a project like this seems like it's to get more people into opera who wouldn't normally be. But I wonder if it doesn't work the opposite way, in getting people who enjoy opera more into graphic novels. Someone who has never read a graphic novel before is probably more likely to read this book (because of the opera) than it is likely for someone who has never seen an opera (but is into graphic novels) to read it. I could be wrong about that. (And this conversation is also going along with the assumption that there are two different groups of people--those who watch operas and those who read graphic novels. But since they're both sort of niche things, I wonder if there isn't more crossover between the audiences than one would think. People who like one niche type of content tend to like many niche things.) But either way, crossover and artistic experimentation can be fun--and they really did do such a great job with this volume that it will be a satisfying read for whoever it is that comes across it. 

Ariadne auf Naxos

Ariadne auf Naxos was originally intended to be part of Arizona Opera's spring 2020 mainstage productions. After the delay, they brought it back this year for the fall instead, which means that it was at the smaller Herberger Theater instead of at Symphony Hall. The smaller venue felt fitting for this romp of an opera that hits a lighter note than some of the more melodramatic mainstage productions.

For the past several years, I have been diving into the opera having previously known almost nothing about it. I just started watching one, enjoyed it, and kept going. Rather than trying to learn more (other than reading the program and such), I've kept myself as a casual audience-goer. And I like it that way: it proves that you don't have to know the history of the composer or all the cultural nuances of the story to just go to a production and enjoy it. Sometimes you don't even have to know all the details of the plot.

Ariadne auf Naxos can be a slightly complicated storyline to follow: it's an opera within an opera. That is, the characters, after bickering about whether the comedy should go first or the opera, learn that they will have to perform them both simultaneously. So the two groups continue bickering, the opera set about how they have the higher art form and the comedy troupe about how the opera will put everyone to sleep. It becomes a bit of a philosophical debate between the two art forms. High art or pop culture? The arthouse film or the newest superhero movie? The tragedy or the comedy? What makes people cry or what makes them laugh?

Over the course of the production, we as the audience get to see a bit of both. We see comedy to make us laugh and we see sappy drama to stir us. It's actually quite nice, especially for a modern audience who may not be as used to two and a half hours of just sappy drama. The comedy does in fact keep your attention, but not without the benefit of enjoying the sappiness, as well. When the composer is describing his character to Zerbinetta of the comedy troupe, Zerbinetta suggests a simpler, more lighthearted approach--but he insists that "and then she succumbs to death," reveling in the drama of it. I can relate to that. Just put on Bright Star for me and I'll go on and on about the beautiful tragedy of John Keats. Ah, there's nothing like melodrama. 

But there does come a point when we have to say that we ourselves are not John Keats tragically dying at a young age at the beginning of his poignant poetic career. So we do need a bit of Zerbinetta to pull us out of our melancholy, to make us smile and laugh and move forward instead of becoming stagnant. Tragedy happens and it's sad--but only by moving forward do we continue to live. The timing of Ariadne auf Naxos therefore is quite good. Its delay only emphasized the importance of that concept: let's keep on living. 

The Copper Queen

Even more so than usual, this is not a review. It also contains spoilers.

Normally I try not to be too negative on here. That is, if I mainly have negative things to say about something rather than positive, I'll just not talk about it at all here. For the most part, I want to share the things I'm excited about or interested in, not those I dislike. But occasionally I'll let the negative comments in because I think that they're topics worth discussing. Today's subject is Arizona Opera's latest production, The Copper Queen.

Because of the closures in the past year, they decided last year to produce The Copper Queen as a film instead of a live show. But that all still takes time, so it only just came out this past weekend (which is a little ironic to me given that live shows are now back, so I'm not sure whether it was necessary to make this one into a film at all, but what do I know about productions?). You can still see it in select Harkins through Thursday; after that it will be available to stream online. 

It was definitely a different experience to watch an opera movie versus a live opera. The sound quality of the recording was great, so you still got that immersive quality that you wouldn't necessarily get from watching video of a live show at home. And because it was filmed as a movie (versus filming a show on a stage), the cinematography was completely different, too. I'm not used to seeing the performers' faces close up. While this allows for more acting, it also gave me as the viewer less to look at. This is especially given that it all takes place in one room.

But let's get to my main point of conversation. Initially, I was excited when I heard this title. The Copper Queen takes place in Bisbee, so I was excited to get more of that Southwest focus that we started getting with Riders of the Purple Sage (which is the only opera I've had a chance to see twice). But as it came closer to the film's release and I started paying more attention to the synopsis, my interest began going down. It's about the ghost of a prostitute? Ghosts and prostitutes--two subjects in which I have no interest. These are exactly the types of Southwestern stories I try to avoid. It's as if they sat down in a room and said, how can we continue bringing in a wider and younger audience to the opera--I know, let's bring in ghosts and sex, those topics sell. 

I was also concerned by the time the trailer came out and they were including a warning that the film contains scenes some viewers "might find disturbing" and the "mature audiences" only. I understand that many of the operas we now watch were considered quite scandalous in their day (and often still are today actually). But does this mean that the film went further than they would have gone if they'd just done a live show? 

The answer: probably a bit. The nature of a film (with close ups you don't have live) is that any physical action is more detailed and less pantomime than it is live in a big symphony hall. So if you're seeing someone being strangled to death, it's more graphic. And if you're seeing Julia at work, it's more graphic. But it's still meant to be somewhat classy opera, so they're still clothed. Rating-wise, this film probably could have even managed a PG-13 with some tweaking (if not for the language peppered in the dialogue, of course). 

Now, the reason I was willing to go see a film that might be more risqué than I wanted was because I wanted to see the story they made with it. I figured if the synopsis was of a modern day woman going to stay at Julia's room in a hotel to see her ghost, then the story would probably be about telling Julia's untold story and her perspective and how she found herself in this unfortunate position. Initially, it seemed like that's what we were getting. We meet Julia's, um, work persona. So that's the impression that tourists would have of her, Julia the prostitute. Then we begin to see that, of course, she does not like what she does. And then we see that she's at the mercy of her father, who is the one running the hotel and prostituting her out and also abusing her. So I can go along with that so far. I can go along with telling the untold story of this woman. 

My issue, though, is with the way in which they "redeem" her. She begins to fall for one of the men who comes to see her--and the feeling is mutual. He is considering leaving his wife to be with her, and his resolve is stronger when he finds the abuse marks on her back. But later on he returns to tell her that he can't because his wife is pregnant. She's devastated, but ultimately decides to leave on her own--until her father comes back and their confrontation ends with him murdering her. We find that the woman who came to see Julia's ghost is the granddaughter of the man's daughter. She tells Julia's ghost that after his wife died in childbirth, he never remarried and eventually told his daughter of his love for Julia. 

How disgusting. We're meant to sigh and say how sweet over the forever love of this man for Julia? Even though she had a terrible life, this man's love for her makes it all better? Yuck. Thematically, to have their love be the "redeeming" element is unstable and falls apart in light of the entire story. It is because men like him cheat on their wives and go pay for prostitutes that Julia's father is able to keep her in this compromising position. He is enabling her abuse by going to pay for her services. And yet because he was considering escaping with her, we can just sidestep the fact that that he is being cruel and disrespectful to his wife and also disrespectful to a woman he has never met (Julia the first time he goes to see her) by paying for her body? Oh, because he paid her a little extra, that makes it okay, right? Like I said, disgusting. 

I realize it's a story about a prostitute and not everything is going to be all pearly. But that's why my issue is with the ultimate theme of the story. We don't even have any remorse from him for taking part in the system. There was some potential with the granddaughter coming in, declaring that she and Julia are the same. She is also someone who has felt unseen and in constant service to others (by being the caretaker for her grandmother). But that part of the story isn't developed enough. 

The singing was good and I like the Arizona setting. Vanessa Becerra as Julia portrayed both the seeming confident woman and the woman literally falling apart emotionally in panic over her situation. She gave a wonderfully emotive performance. I suppose, then, this film was worth seeing. I was curious. Ultimately, though, its treatment of theme left me disappointed. 

The Riders Ride Once More

Riders of the Purple Sage is the first opera that I have seen a second time. I caught Arizona Opera's world premiere of it three years ago and was quite happy to see it coming back again this season. (Click here to read that original post.) Essentially it was the same production, with perhaps some adjustments to the sets. So I have already talked about the music, Ed Mell's artwork, and the themes.

The question is, how does this opera appear on a repeat viewing? Was it just exciting because it was different (a Western opera)? Was it just beautiful because of the moving-painting-screen backdrop? Sure, those are great, but no, there is something more to this piece that made it a pleasure to revisit.

My favorite part remains Jane's song at the beginning of Act II. That is this opera. It is the extension of the self over the landscape. It is the absorption of the beauty all around and the expression of the harshness--and the vocalized resolution to embrace that which is good. The Southwest makes for such a great fictional setting because it is a land rich with color, texture, and life, and yet it is also a land that is deadly if you take a wrong step. That delicate way of walking is essentially the way that Jane tries to walk, believing so strongly in her faith and yet realizing that the very churchmen who claim to uphold it in her community are not living out love and faith.

So that is what makes Rider of the Purple Sage a lovely piece to revisit. Its embracing of the Southwest is enough to make it an anthem for Arizona Opera. But its way of capturing that duality of the desert makes it into the anthem for Arizona (or the Southwest) as a whole.

La Boheme & What Is Real

Given how much I'd enjoyed Arizona Opera's production of Madama Butterfly a couple years ago, I was excited to see more Puccini coming up with La Boheme this season. So yes, music was great, the symphony was great, the performers were great, the sets were great--but that really isn't my zone to talk about, is it? I'm here to talk about how it all felt.

How does it feel to be an artist trying to create something meaningful but really feeling like what would be meaningful would be food on the table and bills paid? How does it feel to find yourself on the edge of love but know that it will not last? How does it feel to feel? That is the main question that this story brought up.

In fact, this feeling of the great joy/pain and success/failure of life is so strong that it almost feels like a sort of precursor to postmodernism. It's a witty story. The opening scene is funny as the characters, desperately cold, burn the pages of Rodolfo's play to keep warm. But by the third act, when Mimi is singing about how she and Rodolfo can agree to stay together until spring because they won't be able to feel the loss so much during spring, well, that's the breaking point. Even though she's singing about pretty springtime things, her song is heartbreak in music form.

And that's life. Heartbreak can come in many forms. There is the loss of a relationship--but also any type of emotional loss. That's one of the guarantees in life: there will be heartbreak. These characters also experience fleeting pleasures and even fleeting sorrows--but they are most stirred by the deep happinesses and the deep losses. In a way, as artists they pursue the deep experiences. They make beauty out of them in their art. But they are also shattered and broken by them. In Mimi and Rodolfo's story, happiness and pain meet, which is expressive of life itself.

First they wanted to believe that they were in love because the idea of being in love seemed so wonderful. Then they wanted to believe that they could separate in order to avoid the pain of a hopeless situation. At the bitter end, they feel the love they have for each other and also the pain of their loss of each other, now made eternal. All through this the question in mind is, what is real in our minds? There is the conflict between what this group of artists are trying to do with their lives and what they are actually experiencing--and a conflict between what Rodolfo and Mimi want and what they actually experience. The curtain closes on her death because what happens next depends on what the characters decide is real. Is the heartbreak real enough to make Rodolfo never love again? Is it real enough that he will pursue an entirely different life, one where he finds a different career and a simpler love that is simply marriage rather than what he had with Mimi? Is it real enough to inspire him to write an amazing play, one that might even give him financial success? Or is it real enough that he will simply continue to live the life that he is now, because it is this life of poverty and fear and poetry that brought him all that he has experienced?

(This is what happens when you write about Puccini while listening to Breaking Benjamin.)

The Marriage of Figaro

Nice as it was to see The Barber of Seville last year and then its sequel, The Marriage of Figaro, this year, I quite honestly probably just wasn't in the mood for such a lighthearted story on that particular day.

The story is full of fun comedy--and a little bit of iffy comedy. Yet it was when the Countess (performed by Katie Van Kooten) was singing about wanting her love to come back to her that I was all bawling. It brought somewhat to mind Madama Butterfly. I do prefer the melodramatic, don't I? Give me three hours of lighthearted comedy and all I latch onto is the touch of pain.

That's how art is, though, isn't it? You can sit an audience in front of the exact same show and we're all going to come out with different experiences. That's why so often art will feel like it's speaking exactly to you: once it's unleashed on the world, it becomes a mix of what the artist gave it and what the viewer gives it.

On a Silent Night

Probably you have heard the story of how soldiers during WWI laid down all hostilities for one day, for Christmas Day, and intermingled and played games and acted as friends and comrades, and even though they went back to fighting the next day, for that one day, Christmas Day, they had put all of that aside.

This is the story that Arizona Opera's latest production, Silent Night, was based on. That is, the opera, with music by Kevin Puts and libretto by Mark Campbell, was in turn based on the film Joyeux Noel. Perhaps that was why the piece flowed along much like a film would rather than an opera. Even though you could sense that the audience was moved, there weren't any gaps that allowed for the usual pauses of applause that are the norm for opera (opera audiences love to show their appreciation). In fact, that was just as well: pauses and applause would have removed the audience from being inside the story and this was one of those pieces that just pulled you in and kept you within the world.

Also seeing soldiers and bits of battles was different from usual at the opera. But still we had the main thing: music and singing that moved us emotionally. I've talked about maybe the shedding a tear thing at an aria, but the first act of Silent Night pretty much just had me weeping. This is where I start to wonder again if it's just me--except that this music won a Pulitzer Prize, so no, it isn't just me.

The story is war . . . and war stories are about people who are coming from all phases of life to a horrible existence. The mothers, the fathers, the children, the friends, the lovers, they all got their moment, each moment a chance for the audience to connect and weep at the idea of what that would be like--that is, for those of us who have been so fortunate as to not experience events quite like this. For those who have, well, that would be even another layer.

The performers in this sang the song of life . . . of heartbreak and pain and beauty. That's what made this opera so poignant. I will state that, while the first act just left me utterly stilled, the second act didn't have the same power. I would rate the piece as a whole higher if there hadn't been that difference between the two. Still, though, Silent Night remained a beautiful story of the deepest and most touching aspects of living.

La Traviata

What an interesting journey into the world of opera this has been. It began with Don Giovanni at Santa Fe Opera and then I started in on Arizona Opera two years ago with Madama Butterfly, which has remained one of my favorites. That piece broke my heart. So two years later, I found myself watching another story of love and tragedy, Verdi's La Traviata.

It's funny. The difference in story between the two was likely quite fitting a difference for me two years ago and today. So siting watching La Traviata this weekend was like swimming in a strange blur where everything in me was blending with everything in the opera. I thought it was just me until I read all of the material in the program that comments on Verdi's way of reaching the audience with relatable, real life themes. I felt it.

In my observations over the past two years, I have observed that I like Puccini much and Rossini not as much. So I've definitely started in on what style of music I prefer. Verdi was different from both, though I would say more like Puccini than like Rossini. I kept on noticing (again, with my unmusical perspective) how the singing would come to a climax that was then matched by the orchestra. It was very theatrical, the way that the two matched like that. Emotion plus, well, louder volume.

I always like to say that the sets and costumes were pretty--this time I couldn't even pay much attention to them. I was just reading the lyrics and listening to the music . . . and yet I can't even remember much of the music now. (Though I think I will maybe look up a recorded version to listen to again.) Yet still it caught me up in that strange blur of emotion. Sara Gartland as Violetta led it all; I feel like I was watching an ode to her life and her final discovery of love and her acceptance of that love at whatever cost, even the cost of pain and heartbreak. David Blalock as Alfredo did also bring in some sweet, sweet tones that helped to create that feeling of love.

I was expecting more tragedy to the story, I admit. Maybe because I was expecting more, this didn't feel "that bad," even though of course in real life it would be. I think this is because the main effect, for me, was Violetta's choice to take this love that she has with Alfredo at whatever cost. So everything else kind of fades away because their love was the point and even any tragedy that accompanied it somehow only made it sweeter. But I guess that perspective is the perspective of a literature student who finds beauty in the painful things, too.

So very lovely, definitely one of my favorites.

The Death of Charlie Parker

Given that normally I'm not much of a jazz fan, I did think I might skip Charlie Parker's Yardbird from Arizona Opera's RED series. When I won some tickets at Aria Jukebox, though, that seemed the perfect excuse to go ahead and see something a little different, something that didn't call to me as much. Oftentimes, after all, it's the risks that lead to exciting and new artistic experiences.

Musically, though, this piece felt more like opera than jazz than I'd been expecting. Maria de Buenos Aires in September, for instance, was the tango opera that had the definite tango feel to the music. I am, however, without any knowledge of music, so this is all I can say on this aspect. I only bring it up to mention that it wasn't the style of the music that ended up keeping me distant.

It was the story. The production takes place after Charlie Parker dies. The concept is that he is writing his last piece, a symphony, before he moves on. Instead of seeing him write a symphony, though, we hear him talk about writing and we see him reliving moments in his life/meeting again important people from his life. And while there are certainly inspirational aspects to his story, mainly his life just came across as incredibly depressing.

A musically brilliant man going up against segregation and discrimination. A boy from a small town who wants to make it big in the city. A man who falls from one relationship into another. A person who finally jumps into the arms of drugs to try and deal. I tend to be a sucker for depressing artist stories, but not of this variety. This plot wasn't really for me, so it was hard to come out of this production either moved or entertained in more than a casual way.

Not to say that there weren't aspects that even I, as I suppose the wrong target audience, didn't appreciate. The performers did well. Stephanie Sanchez as Baroness Nica brought me back to the feeling of Main Stage performances at Symphony Hall. Joshua Stewart as Parker himself had some moments of absolutely sweet and warm notes. Du'Bois A'Keen added a unique element as the dancer giving a visual interpretation of the music. He reminded me somewhat of Emma Shapplin's dancer on her Macadam Flower tour. And this production was a great example of the successful use of projection. They projected onto real bases in order to give the sense of different places while also making each of those places feel solid.

Hmm. I try and make a point of the fact that I don't write reviews; I write reactions. And when it comes to Arizona Opera, I write reactions as a casual yet regular attendee without any knowledge of music or opera. When it comes to Charlie Parker's Yardbird, that leaves me with very little to say. What this production offered to me was a contrast. By being part of the mix, it showed me how wonderful certain other productions are and helped me to see just why they can be so moving.

First Friday at the Opera

The leaves are falling (in other parts of the state) and the mornings are becoming cool and the Thanksgiving turkeys are gobbling all over my apartment and all the artsy things have emerged once more. The summer season is the off season for Arizona in many ways. Now all the shows are starting up again and the outdoor festivals and all sorts of other events, like Arizona Opera's First Friday Aria Jukebox.

I almost thought I might not make it to this one, but it was great that I did. I may have won some tickets to see one of their shows, so in addition to getting an hour of live entertainment for the evening they're also getting me in to a show. Thanks, friends.

As I've described before, the concept of Aria Jukebox is that you get to vote on which songs you would like the performers to sing. Then you get to hear those songs in a small setting. So it's a chance to get a close-up glimpse of performance that is quite different from going to Symphony Hall and seeing an elaborate production far away on the stage. Going to the opera is wonderful but so is getting to see some of these artists in person and see what it is like to make performance your craft. There is also, of course, the human element of seeing someone in person right in front of you versus simply hearing their voice coming from a stage. It's a bit behind the scenes.

Compared with last year, this event was more brief. They, for the most part, took out the Q&A, so that definitely shortened things. If you are taking part in other First Friday events, then I can see how more people would be willing to attend this one knowing that it won't take up the bulk of the evening (although I personally don't mind it going longer). I wonder, too, if they might consider having it start later. Six can be a little early for people to have a chance to make it over on a Friday night.

Once more, events like this remind me how great it is to live in the city. I love pretty nature and open landscapes . . . and I love the arts. So while I am in the city, I'll take advantage of all that it has to offer. The Phoenix area has much to offer from the world of the arts.

Maria de Buenos Aires

'Tis that time again, the time in which I wander around to the theatre and the ballet and the opera. The first of the season was also part of Arizona Opera's new McDougall RED series. With these, they're going for shows with a slightly different tone or style and putting them in the smaller Herberger Theatre rather than the grand Symphony Hall. 

Even that change means quite a big. While Symphony Hall is so big that you can buy last minute tickets for the opera no problem, Herberger is small enough that seats were getting filled up much sooner. As per usual, I took the very back balcony row, even though this was my first time at Herberger and I wasn't sure how a seat in that row would be. Turns out, though, that this seat was perfectly great. Though the balcony is greatly tiered, it wasn't to the point that you felt like you were going to fall over (like at a big arena), simply that it was tiered so that you could be closer to the stage and with a clearer view than if there were little or no tiering. The small size of the theatre was more comparable to watching a play at the Mesa Arts Center than to watching an elaborate opera or ballet at Symphony Hall.

Indeed, the show itself, Maria de Buenos Aires, was almost more like watching a play than an opera. Celeste Lanuza as El Duende made me think of something like spoken word in the way that she wasn't quite singing but not quite just speaking, either. And while opera tends to be about big shapes and movements that you can see far away (with the main emphasis on sound rather than sight), this show made a little more of movement. It's a tango opera, so of course there was dancing, but also other types of movement that went along to help tell the story. 

And the story? A story of sorrow, the story of a woman who is born from the toying meddling of El Duende to a life of pain. Yet also the story of a woman who feels deeply and, led by a song in her soul, pictures great things. Is it a story of triumph over darkness? No, not really. Triumph hardly seems to describe what the ending felt like: it felt more like taking a breath after struggling to hold it beneath water for a very long time. 

I don't know. I think this opera was more about the feeling of each moment than a particular theme. As you'd expect from a tango opera, it is often deeply moving and sensual and striking and bold and did I mention moving? 

The audience knew going in to expect something different. You could get the vibe in the first few scenes that everyone was kind of trying to get their bearings and figure out what type of a show this was, but by the time Maria (portrayed by Catalina Cuervo) sang "Yo Soy Maria," we were all enthralled in this weird web of red darkness. I don't have the words to describe Catalina Cuervo singing as Maria. She has been in this role over 50 times, and so it would seem that she has entirely embodied the passion and sorrow of this character. She took hold of the whole audience. And when Luis Alejandro Orozco joined her as the Payador, it was . . . like this beautiful passion of love that they were singing. 

While an opera is usually close to three hours, this was only an hour and a half (which is kind of nice for a modern audience because you can just focus in on enjoying rather than getting either antsy or sleepy before the end). Yet it felt like it covered so much that it couldn't have been so short as that. Fascinating and striking. That is what Maria de Buenos Aires was. 

Das Rheingold

Perhaps I should be calling these posts "an outsider's view on attending the opera." The more I watch, the more I remember that I know absolutely nothing about opera. But that's okay: it just goes to show that you don't need to already know anything in order to go and enjoy a good show.

So. Wagner's Das Rheingold. From the Lord of the Rings-esque descriptions of this one, I had a feeling it would be one not to miss. An opera that's also a fantasy about nymphs and magical gold (that can be formed into a ring that ends up being cursed) and dwarfs and giants? Awesome, right? And it was. The first act probably was my favorite because, well, nymphs are great--and having them float around live in front of you in a sea of mist while singing opera just makes them even better. All of the fantasy elements were great fun to watch.

The production choices were fascinating, too. The orchestra sat up on stage, and the orchestra pit could then be used for some of the other performers in certain scenes. For instance, it was the water in which the nymphs swam and played. A high platform ran the width of the stage above the orchestra so that performers could be up there above the musicians. And the giant screen was back on the far end of the stage, providing backdrops that moved with the rhythm of each scene. They did also use the semi-transparent screen that drops in front of the stage; projections on the screen allowed you to see the orchestra behind it while also seeing the images. And the giants. They stood towards the front of the stage (well, actually above what would be the orchestra pit) and in front of a small camera; this camera was linked to a big screen on one side of the stage that showed them live but in like black and white night vision or something like that. It gave them a creepy, WWI, Borg look. Rather than making the story feel "modern" (which I say in a negative sense--or I suppose I could just say "too modern" or "modern in the wrong way"), these elements just kept it all interesting and fresh (even though, since this was my first introduction to this opera, it wasn't exactly stale to me--but something can still feel fresh even if it's only new to you personally).

The singers were wonderful. The giants had this striking way of projecting. And Loge had my attention the way he gave flourishes to both his singing and his movement. The music? It was . . . good. It just . . . dragged. Before the show started, I overheard a conversation in which one person asked the other if they had to stay for the whole thing because they didn't want to listen to Wagner for that long. And after seeing the show, well, I get it. Instead of having the usual intermission, the opera was presented as one two and a half hour piece with just the four acts but no intermission, no breaks. Just one long piece. And whereas some operas have more recognizable "songs" in them, pieces that a singer or group of singers perform, all of the music here just kind of flowed into one long, unbroken train. Opera audiences usually clap all throughout at the different pauses. Here there was literally no clapping until the show water over; that was strange. So I do have to say that the long, drawn out style of the music and how it was put together didn't entirely suit me.

This show, then, had that double effect: on one hand it was wonderful to watch, and on the other I kept wondering how much longer until it was over. It was a lot to take in without pauses and yet still it did end up being one not to miss.

The Barber of Seville

What a grand old time of randomness Arizona Opera's production of The Barber of Seville was last weekend. There I was thinking oh, maybe Rossini's style isn't my favorite (I find I like Puccini's style more) and maybe I like the dramas more than the comedies (the dramas are all about violence and sadness and so they are very exciting). But this was much fun and in many ways fell in a completely different vein from Rossini's Cinderella last year.

I've read The Barber of Seville, of course, and we're all familiar with a bit of the music of this opera ("Figaro, Figaro, Figaro," sound familiar to you?); maybe that also helped. And it was kind of one of those shows where you didn't even need to be following along with every plot point or understanding all the intricacies of what's going on with the music, etc. to just have a grand time watching.

Even with a fairly large setting like Symphony Hall, this production had the performers coaxing the audience to spur them on. I hadn't realized that the aforementioned "Figaro" tune is sung by Figaro himself (he's basically singing about how he's awesome, so it's quite funny to have those lyrics along with that tune). So Joo Won Kang basically came on the stage and said, oh, don't you love me, audience? And everyone did. Things like that.

In general, too, there was this sense sometimes of, I don't know what I'm watching but it isn't what people think of as being the opera, is it? I thought I didn't like comedies as much, but this comedy of randomness definitely caught me up. And this time I liked Rossini's music with the lyrics and plot; I didn't feel that disconnect between the two that I felt with Cinderella. This time I felt like the grand and bouncy (is bouncy the right word?) feeling of the music went well with the randomness of the plot.

I did regret right away when glancing at the program that I came on a night when Katrina Galka and Anthony Ciaramitaro weren't there; they're beginning to feel like old friends after seeing them at Aria Jukebox and at different productions. And they must have been great as Rosina and Count Almaviva. (Not to say anything against Stephanie Lauricello and David Margulis, though, of course.) I did get to see Zachary Owen as Don Basilio, Jarrett Porter as Fiorello, and Stephanie Sanchez as Berta, though, so there were still familiar faces (or voices?).

Alright, then, another famous opera tackled. Have you ever watched The Barber of Seville live? I tell you, opera is a pretty awesome form of art entertainment.

Candide: A Depressing Comedy?

Well, well, one year after moving back into the greater Phoenix area, I've turned into quite the Arizona Opera regular, haven't I? That is, hopefully I'll be able to finish with Das Rheingold in April and maybe The Barber of Seville in March. This month it was Candide, which I had read was more like a musical than a usual opera. So definitely a little different.

They also used this opportunity to try out something different with the stage. Instead of having the usual physical sets, there were projections on the backdrop, the side walls (sorry, what are they called?), the floor, and sometimes also around the middle of the stage. For most other shows, I would feel like something was missing with not actually having physical sets. But this was the perfect show to try out this method. Candide is a kooky, weird, random, comedic bundle--and the kaleidoscope of projections fit it perfectly. Cityscapes gave the view the look almost of a live-action/animated film, the forest made for a beautiful backdrop to Candide's somber songs of solitude, and the scenes with the ships and the hot air balloon (that would have just looked silly if the tone were serious) looked hilarious and cool in a positive sense.

The music? I don't really know. Because the instrumental portions sounded much like a film score, it was once again great to hear the Phoenix Symphony playing all of this music live. The songs were different from opera, yes, but also sometimes similar. As I somewhat alluded to, Candide's lonesome songs were quite pretty, breaks from all the, ah, stuff that goes on throughout this show. And Katrina Galka, I've said positive things about her in the past (actually I think it was partly because I knew she would be in Candide that I decided I did want to go see this one). She really stole the show with "Glitter and Be Gay," when Cunegonde is showering herself in jewels to try and cheer herself up. That piece alone made the whole show worth it. She has power, both to sing and to express. You could tell, too, that the entire audience was captivated by her performance there (you've gotta love an opera audience: they are entirely honest and will clap loudly when they're pleased and only quietly and politely when they're neutral--oh, and another side note, you know how with any other show if one person does a standing ovation at the end then the rest of the audience stands up, too, even the person sitting next to you who couldn't stop yawning just because they're all sheep? opera audiences don't do that; each person only stands if they feel led to stand to express their honest appreciation. I like that).

The plot? Now I have no idea what I think. I got the idea that this show was going to have a couple racy moments, and it did, though honestly not much (then again, not much seems that racy to me even years after that one Greek plays class I took in college). I just share this because there was a big group of students that attended this production, and as we were all walking out I heard a couple of them talking about all of this. You know, the awkwardness of sitting next to someone else's parent during those scenes and hearing their teacher express apology about not realizing that that content would be in there (that's the surprising part: didn't he/she look up the show at all before planning to take the class?). It was just kind of funny, not the type of conversation you usually hear while walking out of the opera.

Anyways, back to the plot. Even with reading the synopsis before each act, I had a hard time keeping up. There are so many characters and places and everyone brutally dies and then randomly shows up again in some other setting that I eventually just gave up on trying to keep up and settled on watching each moment instead. The gist of it is that this group of young people have a teacher who tells them his philosophy in life, which is that everything in the world is for the best. Basically everything has a reason and nothing is bad. But then everything that happens to everyone in the story is worse than bad. War and natural disasters and rape (another side note: there would not be so much about rape, including jokes about it, if this show were written today; that part really started to get annoying by the end) and hangings and shipwrecks. It's all terrible--but it's all treated in that same kooky, comedic tone so that it's all comedic rather than tragic. When the crowd is all excited to hang Pangloss, for instance, (and I really have no idea who the crowd was or why they wanted to hang him) you want to step back because, well, hanging someone just because you want to is horrible, and yet they were acting out the scene so silly that it was funny. The board chair, John Johnson, said it himself in his message in the program: Candide is entertainment. Whatever else it is or isn't, it's entertaining.

The theme did feel a bit depressing towards the end there, when all of the characters are broken and feel like nothing was worth what it cost them and nothing in the world occurred as promised. There was definitely a moment of despondency there after all of the comedy. And yet everything did wrap up with a final message of, in a sense, saying that yes, you do need to simplify your view. Nothing in this world will be perfect and therefore you need to ground yourself in something real and solid and simple. No palace of jewels, Cunegonde, just a little farm. No gold and status. Candide, just a little farm. No perfect people, just Cunegonde and Candide.

So while I can't say that this was my favorite show that I've ever seen, it did give me an evening's entertainment and also more to think about afterwards. And I'm fine with that: when a company has a whole season of shows, they have the opportunity to do different thing with each show. You don't necessarily want them all to be Madama Butterfly and Tosca.

Aria Jukebox: Holiday Edition

Back in October, I wrote about Arizona Opera's first Aria Jukebox event (click here to read that post), in which the audience voted with tokens for which songs they wanted the singers to perform. This past Friday they held the same type of event, except that this time the songs were all themed to the holiday season.

The singers were a different group, so we had a chance to see some different styles of singing from before--as well as, of course, different styles of songs. They had the Opera Center all decked out for Christmas with a tree and lights, making for a festive First Friday. The format was quicker this time without the longer pauses in between sets and with no Q&A mixed in. Given that I can't replicate the singing here for you, what I'd like to talk about is in fact what followed the songs.

This time they gave us the option to stay afterward for a tour of the building, and a good handful of us took the opportunity to see behind the scenes. We saw some areas where they keep costumes and sets and we walked past the library and the office areas; we also got to see the rehearsal space. Along the way, we heard a little bit about how the company goes about planning and putting together productions. Especially for just a quick "if you'd like to stay for a tour at the end" type of thing, I was excited about how much we got to see and how much we learned.

Perhaps other people know more about how opera productions are put together; I knew very little. And as I'm constantly repeating on here in different contexts, I love seeing behind the scenes. Whether it's watching or viewing or hearing, getting that extra glimpse has always made things even more alive for me. So while perhaps overall I enjoyed the singing more at the first Aria Jukebox, this event still was wonderful to attend.

Puccini's Tosca

For more of a classic opera, this month Arizona Opera turned to Puccini's Tosca, directed by Tara Faircloth. Given how much I enjoyed Madama Butterfly last season, more Puccini sounded very welcome.

Indeed it was. His music has long and sweeping sounds, where emotions soar up into the notes that the performers sing. And the score, performed by the Phoenix Symphony, had such resonance that it reminded me of early film scores--for some reason, I kept on thinking of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Maybe it's that dramatic quality. This was a very dramatic opera, and it felt like I was simply watching theatre, not specifically "opera." When the characters sang, everything felt a thousand times more natural than the singing in most musicals (most musicals, by nature of their form and genre, have a "false" feeling about them).

That is, the story and the lines are all, as I mentioned, extremely dramatic. Over the edge dramatic, but in a good way. In a way that made everything feel completely immersive. And the way that it is all put together pulls you, the audience, into this heightened level in which you experience art as a fluid and tangible substance.

Hmm. This is why I consider posts on shows and books and movies reactions rather than reviews. I don't feel led to comment on the sets or the costumes or the particular talents of each performer or any of that. To my eye/ear, all of that was wonderful, so I have little to say in terms of regular review content. Instead, I just wanted to share what I came away with. I have nothing to say except that this production was one of the unmissable ones.

Hercules in the Opera

While at first I thought that Arizona Opera's production of Hercules vs Vampires would be one of the shows that I would skip, I decided that perhaps I should see it for the possibility of seeing something new, different, and innovative. Well, it was different.

They even called us (the audience) "the brave" for being the ones to go see it: none of us knew what to expect. We knew that we would be watching the 1961 film Hercules in the Haunted World with a new score by Patrick Morganelli and that the singers would be singing (adapted) lines to go with the film/score--but how would it all unfold, really? (This film/opera combo composition was first performed in LA in 2015, by the way.)

The basics are just as you would imagine. They had a big screen set up on the front of the stage and a row of chairs in front of the screen where the singers sat (and stood while they were singing). It was definitely a different experience to come in to Symphony Hall knowing that we were all getting ready to watch a movie. Here is where I'm going to once again praise sitting in the balcony: you get a great view of the orchestra, which was particularly important for this production.

The thing is, the night mainly felt like watching a film with the score performed live (like places sometimes do for films like The Lord of the Rings). That part was quite a pleasure; Phoenix Symphony always does a wonderful job, and in this case they seemed to be using some instruments they don't usually use for the operas and ballets that I'm used to seeing them perform. This was, for me, one of the best aspects of the production.

Shouldn't it, though, have been the singing? (Or maybe not necessarily?) I just came from seeing six of these nine singers at the Aria Jukebox event, where I was completely enthralled by their artistry. But I felt like they got a little lost in this production. I've noticed before (I don't remember whether or not I've mentioned it) that the singing can seem a little quiet at Symphony Hall (but I don't know how this compares to most venues as I've ever been to one other opera venue, Santa Fe Opera). That was the case this time, except possibly that it was even quieter. And the encouraged the audience in the beginning to be vocal (to laugh at the funny parts and boo the bad guys, that sort of thing)--which the audience was. That was fun, to be part of a collective group watching and reacting to this campy film. But sometimes the loud audience moments overlapped with a line of vocals and we would completely miss out on hearing that line. And in general, as well, you found that it was better to (mainly) watch the film than the singers--so I started to feel like I wasn't giving them enough attention. In addition, because these are lines in a film, they're short. Usually when you watch an opera (or at what I've been coming to find), the performers build up moments; here, though, they only had short snippets of sung dialogue with which to try and make something. It felt (to me with my non-musical ear) like there wasn't enough content for their talents.

Not to say that they did perform well. I don't mean to imply that. It was still obvious that they're talented people. Katrina Galka, in particular, really brought extra glitter and liveliness to her performance (or should I say performances since, like most of them, she sang multiple roles).

It was fun to watch this production. The audience's involvement and willingness to react was great (it kind of brought me on an extension from The Three Musketeers on Thursday night: that was also a pretty reactive audience). But was Hercules vs Vampires a cool, new, innovative piece? For me, not really. Sure, I did see a few more people in the audience who looked like they don't usually attend opera; of course it's great to bring in new audiences. But this piece didn't move me or excite me or linger with me in the way that others have. Granted, it was shorter than usual (not even two hours long) and the ticket prices were much lower than usual (except, of course, for the cheap seats, which were the same), so it's reasonable for it to not deliver the same type of experience.

It's just that I still remember Riders of the Purple Sage this past spring; that was innovative and new and throughly enrapturing (and can they please sell me the soundtrack?). It is because I sometimes come on here and write a post about how much I loved a production that I also need to come in for this one and say that I didn't love it. Like I said, it was fun and I had a good time--but that was all and it would have been nice to get more. In order to show that I'm being honest when I say that I loved something, I also need to be honest and say when I didn't.

Arizona Opera, First Friday, & Aria Jukebox

We had Ballet Arizona's Ballet Under the Stars a couple of weeks ago, and this past weekend was Arizona Opera's Aria Jukebox--it's a wonderful time to be living in the city.

This was their first time putting on this event, which they did as part of the First Friday collection of things that go on every month in Phoenix. The concept was this: as you walked in, you received tokens that you could then use to vote for a selection of songs for the evening. There were five singers there, along with a pianist to accompany them. The setting, then, was completely different from usual. Instead of a large audience at the grand Symphony Hall, we were a small audience gathered in a fairly regular-sized room at the Arizona Opera Center. This meant that it was more casual and that we were all much, much closer to the singers.

They mixed in some short Q&A with the songs, so this event was also a chance to get a glimpse about what it's like to work in this field. This was, then, one of those times when you were able to see the performer as opposed to the character (when they're singing in an opera up on stage). That is, they still became characters when they sang. I might have expected that since we were just going to hear an assortment of songs (from operas and musicals and even a couple from Elvis and Elton John), all we were going to hear were songs sung. But in fact these people aren't just singers--they are performers, and they brought that entrance into character even into free-standing songs. This style of acting as well as singing was also something that someone asked about during the Q&A, and hearing their discussion on the topic (mentioning that American audiences now expect this style) particularly interested me given that the amount of acting in operas is one of the things that has really drawn me in and amazed me in these my early days as an opera attendee.

What was such a pleasure was to see so much talent and devotion encapsulated in one song at a time and directly in front of you. Arizona Opera puts on a wonderful production at Symphony Hall with all of the sets and costumes, but it was an entirely different experience just getting to see these performers singing up close. They are truly devoted to their craft, and with that kind of delivery they have complete control over their audience's emotions. I love it when performers bring me into that magical bubble of art.

And as a First Friday event, Aria Jukebox was free. What a gift to the community. So it does pay to stay in the know about what events are coming up where you live; when there are so many wonderful things going on and you start to get a taste for attending them, you hate to miss out on things. In fact, I thought I would skip Arizona Opera's first production of the season (coming up this month), but after Friday night I'm craving more from them, so I might just make it to that show, after all.

Rossini's Cinderella

I had come to expect a certain style or a certain effect from the opera. But Arizona Opera's production of Cinderella (conducted by Dean Williamson and directed by Crystal Manich) this past weekend offered something a little different from what I had experienced before.

The music was noticeably different to the three other operas I have seen. The board chair, Robert S. Tancer, in his message for the program helpfully points out the musical term of coloratura, which I suppose must be the difference I noted. (Here is the oddity of a non-musical person trying to describe a musical experience.) In this opera, at least, it was what I would call "the sheep effect" (I don't mean to use this description rudely) of quickly changing notes layered together versus long sweeping notes--and this effect is probably what most people think of when they think of opera. But, to me, it feels less natural. Tancer also helpfully describes how coloratura went out of style before coming back in in the 1960's. 

Now, I have given the reason why I connected less with the music of this opera and why it didn't quite captivate me in the same way as the others. So let me move on to the rest of my commentary.

While I may not always have liked the style of the music, there was no doubt that the performers were all stellar. They not only brought the execution of the music but they also performed wholeheartedly. I once may have thought that opera was just singing; I have, of course, quickly found that it is also acting in the same sense that is any stage production (a play or a musical, for instance). These performers sing with emotion and also compose themselves and move around the stage fully as their characters. Interestingly, the page in the program that gives further info and analysis of Rossini's music explains that he "wrote abstract music"  that "carries beauty, but not emotion" and whose "meaning is not found in the notes on the page" but rather in the experience and through "performers endowing the melody with pathos." I wasn't musical enough to realize on my own that this is what was happening and this is what was intentional, but I did feel that difference between the music and the emotion of a scene and I did look with amazement on the performers. 

To continue with my earlier thought, the physical aspect of performance came in particular into Cinderella, since this is a comedy. Katrina Galka and Mariya Kaganskaya as Clorinda and Tisbe, Angelina's (Cinderella's) stepsisters, as well as Stefano de Peppo as their father, Don Magnifico, dove wholeheartedly into the comedy of their characters. This opera had many, many laughs.

And yet, for all the comedy and for the happy ending, this opera has a quite serious theme to it. It is slightly different a retelling of the Cinderella story, though of course it keeps the main elements. Most notably, of course, is the lack of magic, which serves to emphasize the real effects of acting based on Good thoughts. Angelina (Daniela Mack) is still the beautiful and long-suffering young woman who has been downtrodden by her stepparent (father instead of mother in this case). But here there is more made of class, and of the fact that both Angelina and her prince, Don Ramiro (Alek Shrader), must accept each other while believing that he/she is lower class. They both must pass a test, that is, a test where only goodness and virtue can win. There is nothing about the innate "royalness" that disguised upper class people display, which is so often the case in stories; rather, the emphasis remains on the acceptance of an individual for who an individual is through his/her actions.

That's quite a theme, and perhaps, in storytelling, one of the better versions of Cinderella that I have seen. I said that I didn't connect to this opera's music that much--but I did connect to the opera on a literary level.

Here I do have to add in that I'm not sure what was going on with the subtitles. They didn't seem to not be working. But they didn't translate enough. Granted, a couple of times it seemed that new translations stopped going up for the sake of simplicity when the lines were basically repeating the same concept. But there were whole sections with no translation at all, sections where it couldn't be a case of just avoiding repetition. Sometimes, yes, multiple characters are singing different lines at the same time, which is impossible to translate well on a thin screen. But there were also multiple characters singing or quick dialogue at Santa Fe Opera's Don Giovanni last year, and they did their best to keep the translations going; after all, sometimes you don't need to have the time to read every word, you just have to be able to glance at the translation to get the gist of it. After what I said about loving the story of Cinderella, you'll understand why it irked me to not have translations. I need to know what characters are saying. So if this was a stylistic choice, I did not like it.

Let me finish with one more positive comment. As usual, this production was visually beautiful. Costumes and sets always gave somewhere for my eyes to dwell. Since I mentioned Santa Fe Opera, I might as well throw in here that while I absolutely loved going there and they do have a beautiful outdoor stage and I would definitely go there again given the opportunity, I probably would miss the elaborate visual elements of Arizona Opera. It's quite something to have the curtain peel back and to peer into the window, to peer through at the stage and see a complete world right there before your eyes, all details in place and all action unfolding.