Don Giovanni

I was vaguely aware that there was a marionette company in Seattle that did an opera production each year. And when it crossed my consciousness I would think, "well that would be interesting to attend sometime."

This year, we did it. And boy am I sorry we didn't take advantage of this sooner. First of all, the production is not for children. But, I wasn't sure who might show up at a marionette opera-- opera people? early music people? (a number of notable early music musicians were performing) -- puppet people? I'm still not sure. It was an older crowd - older even than the symphony crowd - but there wasn't anyone we recognized. We go to enough music in Seattle that we are familiar with a set of "usual suspects" that show up to various types of classical performance.

Donna Anna & Don Giovanni

The opera was Don Giovanni, done in its entirety, with only very minor cuts. Rather than sing the recitative, it was spoken, in English, much of it quite funny (and adult -- again this was not for kids). The English dialog helped move the drama along. But the marionettes were amazing dramatically. It's hard to explain how expressive they were--both in the spoken dialog and the aria singing. The singers (local favorites, including a couple from the Tudor Choir) were accompanied by a string quartet plus flute. They were seated, dressed in black, in front of the stage. The experience was so intimate--it felt like you were in someone's salon. It was an incredible theater experience.

They announced next year's opera, which is Don Quixote. Marionette opera is clearly something we're going to be looking forward to each year. Marionettes have a very interesting history in theater--particularly in Italy--which you can read about here.

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Florez

Ladies and gentleman, I given you Juan Diego Flórez and his phenomenal high C's.

More about the performance (and his encore) here.

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Last night, the Met finished it ill-fated run of Tristan and Isolde, whose whole reason for being was to bring together the two leading Wagnerian singers of the day, Ben Heppner and Deborah Voight. The only problem: due to illness Ben missed 5 of the 6 performances and Deborah missed 2. (Ben writes about his illness, which required hospitalization, here.)

Last night was the last performance of the run--and the only performance where the two actually sang together.

Heppner and Voight

The Met decided to broadcast the audio of the performance via their web site. So, last night Drake and I huddled around the computer and listened in. Sound quality-wise, it was somewhat like listening to Tristan on an old transistor radio, but it was still worth listening to. Lucky dogs in the theater who had purchased tickets to the last performance. They won the opera lottery there. Alex Ross wrote a brief review of the evening. Sigh.

The run has some implications for Seattle, as Janice Baird, who replaced Voight, will be signing in the Seattle Opera  2009 Ring. She got a lot of publicity from stepping in, particularly since in the first performance she covered, she stepped in mid-performance when Voight's illness cause her to run off the stage mid-aria. Baird made a very respectable Met debut and I think this will be a huge boost for her career (and will have a related effect on ticket sales for the Ring, which are scheduled for some donors/subscribers in the next month.)

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Tonight, we are off to the a Seattle Young Artists production, something we enjoy every year since it gives us the change to hear opera in a more intimate setting.

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Ten more minutes and really... I'll start packing. We leave tomorrow for Chicago--a mix of personal (family) and business. We are also going to catch (the dreamy) Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the role of Eugine Onegin at Lyric Opera.

Hvorostovsky

But enough goofing around...

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Canio

We went to our regular subscriber performance last night. This production was even more affecting from our subscriber seats - Main Floor Row P - we're quite close (by preference) to the stage. Many wonderful subtleties in the staging that I missed the first time around. But wow, the whole evening just packed a major emotional punch.

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It's been all Pagliacci, all the time for us: our neighborhood pizza place is Pagliacci.  And Pagliacci the pizza place couldn't resist doing a little cross-promotion with Seattle Opera's Pagliacci, thus this pizza box from our Friday night pizza:

Pizza

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The Canio in last night's Pagliacci was Antonello Palombi, who Speight Jenkins (General Director of Seattle Opera) has rightly been raving about as a true dramatic Verdi tenor. (Pagliacci is not a Verdi opera, but requires a tenor voice similar to the big, dramatic Verdi roles such as Otello.)

What I didn't realize until I was reading the rest of the program this morning is that Palombi was the guy who stepped in, wearing street clothes, when Roberto Alagna walked off the stage of La Scala in the middle of a performance of Aida. Check out the look on the soprano's face when she sees Palombi make his entrance:

Roberto Alagna Booed at La Scala

And, funny enough, we'll be seeing Palombi next season as Radames in Seattle Opera's production of Aida.

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The 1977 Pavarotti/Scotto Boheme is available on DVD!

One of my opera regrets is never having seen Luciano Pavarotti. But yesterday, on the Met Radio broadcast we got to hear him "live" at the near-peak of his vocal abilities (1977) singing La Boheme. Pavarotti passed away just a few days before my Dad, so I barely noticed his passing at the time. Hearing him in his youth is a reminder of what an unbelievable artist he was.

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There was a chance I would be in Vegas through Saturday, so we weren't able to plan ahead to get tickets to an extra performance of Pagliacci. Based on everything we'd heard, this was a production we were going to want to see twice. Luckily, Drake was able to score a couple of tickets to the sold-out performance yesterday. We were "up in the Gods" but in McCaw Hall that really isn't too far up.

I'm not even sure what to say about this production. It may be the finest Seattle has done in recent memory in terms of emotional impact.

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I've written previously about the talks that Speight Jenkins (General Director of Seattle Opera) and Perry Lorenzo (SO Education Director) give at Elliott Bay Books the Friday before the opening of each new production. If anyone from Seattle is reading this, and you have even thought about going to an opera (and even if you don't have a ticket to a performance), I can't recommend these talks highly enough. Speight and Perry individually are probably the most compelling speakers I've encountered in any context. Funny, brilliant, fascinating.  And it's only $5.00 to get in. There are usually only 20-50 people so it's quite an intimate forum.

The last half hour they take questions from the audience. Last night, there was a woman who had never been to an opera before. What inspired her go was this video of Paul Potts doing Nessun Dorma (which generated a huge amount of traffic on YouTube):

Paul sings Nessun Dorma high quality video/sound

Now, vocally, Mr. Potts is not a professional-caliber opera singer (at least of the caliber we get here in Seattle). And they are obviously pumping up the drama factor leading up to his performance. But the video does clearly convey the power of an aria to heighten drama. And for at least one person, it was enough to compel a first-time outing to the opera.

Speight explained that the Pagliacci was a wonderful first opera and she would have a chance to experience professionally-trained singers (minus any amplification; I think many people don't realize that voices aren't amplified in opera--and what an emotional impact hearing the voice directly can have).

So I hope she has a great experience. As Speight likes to say, "it's going to be a great show." The cast sounds fabulous, particularly, the Canio.

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Last night we made a nice dinner, got a fire going, then settled into our respective positions (Drake with the libretto, me with some knitting) to listen to Seattle Opera's live radio broadcast of Iphigenia in Tauris.

Iphigenia and Orestes

The production is a big deal for Seattle Opera, since it's the first time the Met has done a co-production with a regional opera company. As soon as the Seattle production ends next week, it's being packed up and shipped to New York, where Placido Domingo will sing the role of Orestes. Interesting choice of role of Domingo, because even though Orestes is a baritone role, it's very high for a baritone. And even though Domingo spent most of his career singing tenor roles, I read recently that he's gone back to singing baritone (which is how he started his career). So a high baritone role is probably perfect for him.

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Anyway, I must have gotten overly involved in the broadcast, because I was knitting a sleeve and kept goofing up the final shaping. I finally did get the sleeve done, so now all the knitting is done on the sweater I made using some beautiful Donegal Tweed yarn sold by my cousin Chris (who lives in Northern Ireland). I still need to weave in the ends, sew it up, and add the crochet trim, so the sweater's hardly done, though. But, since it's a deep red color, I hope to have it finished in time to wear for the holidays.

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Seattle's next Ring Cycle is in August of 2009. But we've got a running start on studying up for it via Kenneth Harl's Vikings audio lectures.

Viking Ship

Wagner drew heavily from Norse mythology for the characters and story of the Ring. So Odin (Woton), Frigg (Fricka) and Freyja (Freia) are like old friends. What I really need to do one of these days is read the Prose Edda. 

And I hadn't realized how strongly the promise of Valhalla compelled Viking raiders into battle.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying:
Valhalla, I am coming!

And for pure Viking silliness:

Viking Kittens

I have to note, however, that Vikings didn't wear horned helmets. They wore conical helmets like this:

Vikings-in-the-park

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