From a monologue on death to a story about a police shootout, Opera
Philadelphia’s productions showed us the many things opera can be.
John Sherer
Semele: From the ashes of Semele rises Bacchus (principal dancer
Lindsey Matheis) (photo by Dominic M. Mercier for Opera Philadelphia)
PHILADELPHIA — Over the past several years, Opera Philadelphia’s
Festival O has become one of the most anticipated events in the world of opera.
This year’s Festival O19 continued to carry the banner of innovation, in both
its new works and its productions of classics.
The most delightfully unusual piece was Joseph Keckler’s Let Me Die
(here, in its world premiere), which the creator describes as a “morbid
collage” of death scenes from the opera canon. Most of the performance involves one death aria after another — some in
full, some in pieces woven together. A list of incorporated works that was
distributed as we entered the venue named some 49 operas, with arias by
composers from Monteverdi through Richard Strauss. The pastiche of so many
death scenes is at times hilarious — since the tropes of death in opera are
pointedly, intentionally over the top — and at times very moving, especially
given the knowledge of some of the stories touched upon, and the tragic ends of
their characters.
Let Me Die also includes, near the beginning, Keckler’s thoughtful
monologue on the significance of the ways death is handled in opera. Death, he
says, is paradoxically “the beating heart of tragic opera” — though, of course,
this could be extended to all forms of tragedy. He also examines the paradox
that scenes depicting the body’s failure often require the most skilled acts of
vocal athleticism, as well as the uncomfortable fact that 75% of deaths in
operas befall female characters (trust me, he has counted). To none of these
questions does he give a definitive answer, but he opens a space for the
audience to contemplate them. My one misgiving about Let Me Die is that Keckler
didn’t delve into these fascinating topics more deeply.
Another world premiere was Denis & Katya, with music by Philip
Venables and libretto by Ted Huffman. An adaptation of the true story of two
Russian teenagers who live-streamed their shootout with police in late 2016,
this opera takes a kind of documentary form, with the two singers (in the
performance I saw, baritone Theo Hoffman and mezzo-soprano Siena Licht Miller)
playing various characters who comment on the events, rather than trying to
reenact them. This makes the gut-wrenchingly tragic material easier to process,
as the opera avoids trying to inhabit the mindset of the doomed teenagers.
The minimalist set design by Andrew Lieberman matched the
stripped-down quality of the music (the only instrumentalists were four
cellists, one in each corner of the stage). Yet the music has a remarkable
range, with more reserved passages featuring droning notes and eerie harmonics,
and others building to a frantic energy with rapid antiphonal elements. That
the four cellists (Branson Yeast, Rose Bart, Jean Kim, and Jennie Lorenzo) so
deftly handled this difficult material without a conductor, despite the
constant changes in tempi and the need for precise cues, is a testament to their
superb musicianship.
A somewhat more traditional, though no less thrilling, production
was that of Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges. It’s an absolutely bonkers
tale of a hypochondriac prince who is cursed to fall in love with three oranges
by a witch after he laughs at her. Filled with all kinds of absurd sub-plots
and diversions, it’s Mother Goose meets Luis Buñuel.
Alessandro Talevi’s staging was opulent and fittingly whimsical for
the kitchen-sink plot. Some ingeniously simple elements, such as extras
carrying giant clouds at full-speed past the main characters to simulate a
plane flight, drew huge laughs from the audience. Prokofiev’s music is as
wide-ranging as the story itself, careening from lush romanticism to crunchy
modernism to comical sound effects. Talevi starts the action in Europe and
moves the second half to America, reflecting the circumstances of Prokofiev’s
life at the time he was composing the opera. He had fled to the US during the
Russian Revolution, and found in America’s more heterogeneous society an array
of musical and cultural influences previously unavailable to him, including
jazz. The change of setting provides a smart framework that not only connects
the work with the history of its composition, but also provides an organizing
principle for the purposefully haphazard plot.
All four of the performances I saw at Festival O19 were
exceptional, but for me, the most extraordinary one was of Handel’s Semele.
Baroque opera, due to its relative unfamiliarity compared to the bel canto
classics, allows directors to take more risks without contravening the rigid
expectations of certain audiences. It is more than a century older than most of
the repertoire one typically sees at the opera house, and yet this staging was
one of the most stylish, energetic, and downright sexy productions I have seen
in some time. Director James Darrah was wise to work with choreographer Gustavo
Ramirez Sansano, who imbued the entire performance with movement taken from the
vocabulary of contemporary dance. Every singer performed with panache, from
those in the chorus to those in the lead roles. Among the most noteworthy were
mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack (Juno/Ino), soprano Amanda Forsythe (Semele), and
countertenor Tim Mead (Athamus), all of whom sang the extremely intricate and
demanding music with the utmost precision and expressive power.
The Love for Three Oranges: Truffadlino (Barry
Banks) opens the second orange and both princesses (mezzo-sopranos Katherine Pracht and Kendra Broom) begin to beg for water (Photo by Kelly & Massa
for Opera Philadelphia)
The combination in this production of
virtuosic, complex order with raw, chaotic energy echoes the fusion of
Apollonian and Dionysian qualities that Nietzsche saw in The Birth of Tragedy
(1872) as exemplary of the best Greek tragedies. Such a combination is fitting
for a story that ends with Apollo’s decree to create the god Bacchus from the
ashes of the title character.
I am practically counting down the days until
the programming for Festival O20 is announced. With this year’s festival, Opera
Philadelphia showed us again the many things opera can be. So often,
discussions around opera today center on the art form’s relevance and viability
(“Is opera dying?”). Opera Philadelphia’s stunning festival makes this
hand-wringing seem out of touch. Of course opera is relevant when it’s done
like this, and of course audiences will flock to it when the productions are
this fresh and thoughtful.
Festival O19 took place at various venues in
Philadelphia from September 18–29.
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