Tag: San Jose Opera

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PICK ASR! ~~ A Firehose of Neo-Romanticism: “Florencia en el Amazonas” at San José Opera

by Jeff Dunn

In one of Lisa Kleypas’ bestselling romance novels, the leading character Lillian, gives advice to her younger sister about the act of love: “You wouldn’t want to swoon, or you might miss something.” In Daniel Catán’s 1996 opera, resplendently on stage in San Jose on May 3rd, a long-unfashionable surge of romanticism floods out of mouths and instruments with the force of a firehose. A lot is missed in the process, but does it matter?

“… (this opera) …will flow far into the 21st century….”

Soaring Pucciniesque vocal lines, shimmering woodwinds out of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé augmented by marimbas, swashbuckling brass pronouncements recalling Wolfgang Korngold’s opera and film scores–all of these inundate the audience at considerable volume throughout Act 1 like the Amazon itself in flood. Only a few quieter moments allow much time for breathers until Act 2. But by that time, in spite of the over-intensity, I was beginning to realize I was experiencing a new masterpiece performed in a forgotten style: an opera where melody takes precedence over system, where music takes precedence over libretto, and, with thanks to Stage Director Crystal Manich, where librettos are respected and not mauled (i.e., regietheater).

Passengers (from left to right: Efraín Solís, Aléxa Anderson, Guadalupe Paz, and César Delgado) on the El Dorado riverboat play a rousing game of cards in the Bay Area premiere of Daniel Catán’s “Florencia en el Amazonas,” presented by Opera San José. Photo credit: David Allen

Manich neatly summarizes the river-journey plot as the evolution of three kinds of love in three couples: “blossoming” (Arcadio & Rosalba), “rotting” (Alvaro and Paula) and “lost” (Florencia and the deceased Cristobal). The journey is mediated in the physical realm by the ship’s Captain (sympathetic bass-baritone Vartan Gabrielian) and in the spiritual by deckhand Riolobo (warm baritone Ricardo José Rivera). Tenor César Delgado was a fine, youthful Alvaro; soprano Alexa Anderson a standout as Rosalba—I want to hear more from her ASAP. Baritone Efrain Solis and mezzo Guadalupe Paz were emotionally and musically on the money as the sniping couple Alvaro and Paula. And Elizabeth Caballero’s uplifting Florencia seemed like a gift from soprano heaven—her concluding aria melted all the plastic in the house.

Paula (Guadalupe Paz, left) and Alvaro (Efraín Solís, right) board the El Dorado riverboat to the Amazon and join Riolobo (Ricardo José Rivera, center) and the Captain (Vartan Gabrielian, upper right) in the Bay Area premiere of Daniel Catán’s “Florencia en el Amazonas”. Photo credit: David Allen

This reviewer felt Liliana Duque-Piñeiro’s stage design was far superior to the recent Metropolitan opera’s overly abstract and distancing version. Its dangling jungle, like the music, was embracing rather than pictorial. The performance I attended was led by Assistant Conductor Johannes Löhner, who did passionate justice to the 30-pound score. As he put it in a subsequent interview:

“I will die on any hill for this score … The orchestration, it’s massive. … It’s like Puccini meets [Richard] Strauss, but it never feels plagiarized. It always feels genuine. It comes from the heart.”

I blame Catán, not him, for the music that made an iguana in an early scene sound like a brontosaurus.

I predict that Florencia en el Amazonas, with its voluptuous river of sound, will flow far into the 21st century.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor Jeff Dunn is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs

ProductionFlorencia en el Amazonas
Libretto byMarcela Fuentes-Berain
Stage DirectionCrystal Manich
Producing CompanyOpera San Jose
Production DatesThru May 5th
Production AddressCalifornia Theater -
345 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113
Websitewww.operasj.org
Telephone(408) 437-4450
Tickets$50- $175
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4.5/5
Performance4.5/5
Music4.5/5
Libretto4.0/5
Stagecraft4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?YES!
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ASR Opera ~~ Political Incorrection at San Jose’s California Theater

By Jeff Dunn

In 1832, Victor Hugo had a play produced in Paris about a serial rapist and murderer, a brother-sister pair of cutthroats, a gang of kidnappers, and a hunchbacked provocateur who berates everyone and imprisons his daughter. All of these characters escape the law. Is this politically correct? It wasn’t in 1832 when it was banned in France as an insult to the monarchy, nor was it in 1851 when Verdi and his librettist Piave retold the same story.

Hugo’s rapist was the King of France, who hung the Mona Lisa in his bathroom, and the play was called The King Has Fun. Verdi and Piave squeaked by Austrian censors in Venice by making all the characters Mantuan instead of French, and naming their opera Rigoletto. Far from being banned, the opera has spread throughout the world like Covid, its many jaunty tunes inoculating audiences into enjoying themselves while at the same time being reminded of how abuse of power is the chief ill of civilization.

… Conductor Jorge Parodi did a fine job of pacing the proceedings …

Among the range of interpretations for this constantly reproduced staple of the repertoire, San Jose Opera’s take is somberly traditional. Howard Tsvi Kaplan’s dark and musty costumes evoke the 16th century. Steven C. Kemp’s sets are nondescript black and dingy, except Rigoletto’s brilliant white-and-red home or, instead, keep, that is supposed to protect his innocent daughter from the Duke of Mantua and his court. Director Dan Wallace Miller adds two gruesome deviations from the norm: Rigoletto’s congenital hunchback is instead a hideous red scar branding his bald pate, and the Duke has syphilis.

Count Ceprano (Glenn Healy, back center) and courtiers have no pity for the jester Rigoletto (Eugene Brancoveanu, front center) in Opera San José’s production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto”. Photo credit: David Allen

Performances fit well into Wallace’s gloomy vision. Eugene Brancoveanu’s obnoxious grizzly bear of a Rigoletto makes the courtiers and the audience wince, but his notes are spot on. At the conclusion, his grief is a Niagran force of nature. Edward Graves, a newcomer to the role of the Duke, also fits the director’s tone with his accurate voice, despondent more than joyfully playing the field. Melissa Sondhi, as Gilda, conveys innocence as puzzlement while negotiating her complex music.

The Duke of Mantua (Edward Graves, left) and his jester Rigoletto (Eugene Brancoveanu, right) at work. Photo credit: David Allen

Standout performances were contributed by Philip Skinner as the wronged Count Monterone and Ashraf Sewailam as the principled murderer-for-hire Sparafucile. Melisa Bonetti Luna’s expressive acting was a great plus, though, in this reviewer’s opinion, her voice was occasionally overshadowed by others. Conductor Jorge Parodi did a fine job of pacing the proceedings. Most impressive was the Opera Chorus of courtiers and kidnappers, meticulously prepared by Johannes Löhner.

The jester Rigoletto (Eugene Brancoveanu, center) entertains the Duke of Mantua’s courtiers in Opera San José’s production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” playing thru March 3, 2024 at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose. Photo credit: David Allen

While Miller’s approach is undoubtedly defensible, I wonder if Verdi’s message would be better conveyed by even greater present-day incorrectness. If a director pretended to endorse the duke’s and courtier’s predations with cheery carryings-on and bright colors, if women happily allowed men to have their way, that murder was a trip to the nearest 7-11 in a Death of Stalin milieu, maybe some in the audience might question power structures more strongly.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor, Jeff Dunn, is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle member and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won photography prizes and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

ProductionRigoletto
Based on a play byVictor Hugo
Libretto byFrancesco Maria Piave
Stage DirectionDan Wallace Miller
Producing CompanySan Jose Opera
Production DatesThru Mar 3rd
Production AddressCalifornia Theater -
345 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113
Websitewww.operasj.org
Telephone(408) 437-4450
Tickets$50- $195
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall3.5/5
Performance3.5/5
Music4.75/5.0
Libretto4/5
Stagecraft3/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?No
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PICK! ASR Music ~~ “Tosca:” Creative Turns and a Fabulous First

By Jeff Dunn

How can you make your production of Tosca memorable to experienced audience members when it’s performed worldwide more than 500 times every year? Certainly a must: Employ one or more unforgettable singers. After that, you must either (a) try for a big-bucks, blow-them-away, gargantuan scenic design (Robert Dornhelm 2015, here: https://vimeo.com/171417034 ), or, more usually, (b) come up with creative turns here and there that leave a lasting impression.

Creative turns are what Stage Director Tara Branham and her team have attempted with Opera San Jose’s Tosca. All are memorable, and many succeed. But, as Nancy Pelosi remarked three years ago, the devil, as well as the angels, are in the details.

…Joseph Marcheso’s conducting and his excellent and substantial orchestra…

Maria Natale, in a fabulous first appearance in the title role, is the unforgettable singer, along with a fine-voiced, ominous Kidon Choi (Scarpia), and Adrian Kramer (Cavaradossi), who really blossomed in Act 3 opening night.

Floria Tosca (Maria Natale) is eyed by the predatory Scarpia (Kidon Choi – left) in Opera San José’s vivid production of Puccini’s thriller “Tosca,” April 15-30 at the California Theatre. Photo Credit: David Allen

Natale fills the auditorium with her voice, never shrieking even in the highest range. It amazed me the way her voice wafted into the onstage action when she sings as part of an offstage cantata–it’s usually unintelligible in other productions. Furthermore, she’s a consummate, expressive actor–you must witness, for example, her masterly shudder as Scarpia barrages her with predatory demands.

The list of creative turns is long; Audience effectiveness may vary. On the positive side:

    • Great direction, with emotional intensity
    • Tosca’s many, enthusiastic knife stabs into Scarpia–and an earlier slap in his face.
    • A large anachronistic head-shot portrait of the girl Cavaradossi was painting—for once, you could see her blue eyes!
    • Christina Martin’s irresistibly passionate wig for Tosca. It went everywhere while staying in place.
Adrian Kramer as Cavaradossi in Opera San José’s “Tosca”. Photo Credit: David Allen

Plusses that are also minuses:

    • Lots of stage action just prior to the Te Deum in Act 1. Probably interesting to some, distracting to other audience members.
    • Cavaradossi making out with another woman in the church at the beginning of Act 1. Indicates he’s a hot-blooded Italian and justifies Tosca’s intuitive jealousy, but decreases his customary heroic stature.
    • Scarpia’s Farnese Palace chamber in Act 2 has an upstage bed in it, an understandable if uncommon furnishing among productions. This emphasizes Scarpia’s goal regarding Tosca, but when Tosca sings her famous “Vissi d’arte” aria on it, which should begin quietly, she still has to reach the audience. From my position in the third row, its beginning seemed too loud.
Kidon Choi as Scarpia in Puccini’s thriller “Tosca”. Photo Credit: David Allen

Some minor minuses:

    • Too often, it seemed characters were having intimate conversations from opposite ends of the stage. Disconcerting.
    • Congregants in the Te Deum marching in front of Scarpia, obscuring him while he’s singing his “Va, Tosca!” aria.
    • Baron Scarpia’s anachronistic horseshoe mustache, rare for the 1800 date, and more suitable for a spaghetti western. Fortunately, Elizabeth Poindexter’s terrific costume gave him appropriate class.
    • Supertitles were out of synch much of the time on opening night.

Finally, some lasting impressions that were not necessarily unusual, but simply top-notch:

    • Joseph Marcheso’s conducting and his excellent and substantial orchestra. I was especially pleased with how the horn section handled the opening to Act 3.
    • Igor Vieira taking on a deformed foot to add to the bumbling character of his well-voiced Sacristan.
    • Robert Balonek’s strong voiced and desperate Angelotti.
    • Choreography by the Napoleon of fight direction, Dave Maier.

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Jeff Dunn is ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor. A retired educator and project manager, he’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

ProductionTosca
Stage DirectionTara Branham
Producing CompanyOpera San Jose
Production DatesThru Apr 30th
Production AddressCalifornia Theater -
345 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113
Websitewww.operasj.org
Telephone(408) 437-4450
Tickets$50- $175
Reviewer ScoreMax in each category is 5/5
Overall4.5/5
Performance4.5/5
Stagecraft4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?YES!