Opera San José’s ‘Swallow’ soars like a hawk

By Eman Isadiar

This season of Opera San José comes to a close with Puccini’s La rondine (The Swallow), which opened at the California Theatre on April 24 and runs through May 9, 2010. The principal roles of Magda de Civry and Ruggero Lastouc were sung by Rebecca Davis and Christopher Bengochea. Khori Dastoor and Michael Dailey appeared as Magda’s maid Lisette and Prunier the poet. Krassen Karagiozov sang the part of Magda’s companion Rambaldo Fernandez.

Rebecca Davis as Magda and Christopher Bengochea as Ruggero (photo by Pat Kirk)

The Opera is set in 19th century Paris with the final act in Nice. It follows Magda—a woman with a shady past—who now lives with the wealthy banker Rambaldo. When Magda meets a humble country boy named Ruggero, she realizes that her life of privilege has not satisfied her longing for true love. She leaves Rambaldo and follows Ruggero to the Mediterranean coast, much like a swallow migrates to warmer climes.

Magda is quite content as Ruggero’s lover, but is suddenly conflicted when he proposes marriage. She struggles with guilt about her unspoken past, and feels unworthy to be Ruggero’s wife. Her internal anguish comes to a head when she realizes, too, that they are broke and must move in with Ruggero’s parents in the countryside. So she tells Ruggero that theirs is an impossible love, and—once again like a bird—wings her way back to her former life of luxury in Paris with Rambaldo.

In the first aria of the opera, “Il bel sogno di Doretta” ("Doretta's Sweet Dream"), Magda completes an unfinished song by her friend Prunier about a young woman named Doretta who must decide between love and riches. In Magda’s version, Doretta chooses love over fortune, foreshadowing Magda’s own impending decision to leave Rambaldo for Ruggero.

Requiring supreme vocal control, “Doretta’s Dream” is one of Puccini's most moving tunes with a heart-rending pair of descending thirds, which stretch the upper range of the soprano voice to its very limits. If there were an instrument for measuring audience goose bumps, Rebecca Davis might well have broken it with her stunning rendition of this aria.

As the love-stricken Ruggero of Act 2, gifted tenor Christopher Bengochea certainly maintained the standard set by Davis in the preceding act. His powerful delivery of “Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso” ("I Drink to Your Cool Smile"), was one of the highlights of the production. In another moment of pure vocal magic, Begochea left the audience breathless with his soul-stirring aria“Dimmi che vuoi seguirmi” ("Say You Wish to Join Me") of Act 3, where Ruggero sings of the happy life he and Magda would share as husband and wife.

Soprano Khori Dastoor brought just the right dash of playfulness to the opera as Magda’s loyal and mischievous maid. In addition to her highly refined voice, Dastoor is known for her trademark facial humor and physical comedy when appearing in supporting roles. Tenor Michael Dailey was compelling as the debonair poet Prunier, and made a particularly well-suited stage partner for Dastoor.

Baritone Krassen Karagiozov was simply brilliant as Rambaldo, and may have even left the audience regretting that Puccini didn’t write more for his role.

Stage director Jose Maria Condemi deserves credit for the all-around superb acting. The awkward romantic moments often expected in opera were entirely absent in this production, and every embrace was warm, passionate and convincing.

Opera San José music director Maestro David Rohrbaugh led the orchestra in a sensitive and acutely well-balanced accompaniment, even during a few scenes when vocalists sang from the rear area of the theater’s surprisingly deep stage.

Until recent times, La rondine remained one of Puccini’s least-performed operas owing to a number of reasons, including some conflicting versions left by Puccini and partial destruction of the score in bombings during World War I.

Another possible reason is the story’s rather flat ending for an opera—there is no murder, suicide or death of any kind, and love does not conquer all. Naturally, the work went largely neglected until the mid-‘90s, when the missing orchestration was reconstructed and a new version was performed in Turin.

One woman, however, may have also influenced the resurgence of interest in this quasi-forgotten opera—Angela Gheorghiu. The Romanian super-soprano recorded La rondine with the London Symphony Orchestra in the late ‘90s, and appeared in following years in new productions of the work with the Royal Opera House, Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco Opera. Gheorghiu has also performed “Doretta's Dream” extensively in concert.

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Eman Isadiar is a San Francisco-based pianist and music writer.

Pop! Goes the Symphony

By Eman Isadiar

In its latest concert, San Francisco Symphony was led by guest conductor Edwin Outwater in a premiere of songs from the musical play Whisper House by pop artist Duncan Sheik. The concert also included excerpts from the ballet suite from the opera Faust by Charles Gounod and local premieres of Zipangu by Claude Vivier and music from the ballet Les biches by Francis Poulenc.

The concert opened with selected movements of the ballet suite from the opera Faust. Charles Gounod added this music ten years after the opera was first performed in order to accommodate a more elaborate new production.

The work requires a sizable orchestra for the rich, colorful sounds that are typical to the late romantic period. While San Francisco Symphony is known especially for its unique flare for romantic repertoire, Outwater's conducting brought out the most brilliant colors the orchestra has to offer.

Then came the evening's headliner, Duncan Sheik, whose works include chart-topping pop singles, award-winning musicals and film scores. The concert featured the song suite from Sheik's latest musical play titled Whisper House, which debuted last January in San Diego.

Award-winning pop artist Duncan Sheik performs songs from

Whisper House withSan Francisco Symphony

(photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony).

The music was especially arranged for the San Francisco Symphony by Sheik's long-time collaborator Simon Hale. The large orchestra included a partially off-stage brass section, whip, wind machine and electric guitar. Sheik was the lead vocalist, with backup by his female counterpart.

Whisper House tells the story of a haunted lighthouse in Maine, whose musical ghosts sing to the eleven-year old orphan living there with his aunt in the 1940s. Prior to their death, the ghosts were apparently musicians on a steamer that crashed nearby in 1912. The songs of the ghosts examine our modern world—as its in 2010—torn by conflict and fear.

The opening number, “We're Here to Tell You,” is a hypnotic tune with an eery orchestral accompaniment. “The Tale of Solomon Snell”—a rather sinister song about a man whose lifelong fear of being buried alive comes true—leaves the listener with a lingering sense of unease. “Earthbound Starlight” has a catchy melody and is deeply emotional. As the title suggests, “I Don't Believe in You” is a callous and mean-spirited song, proclaiming man's inability to change his dark fate.

Sheik's haunting tunes are a perfect fit for a story about ghosts. The lyrics are powerful, poignant and sobering. The orchestration is dazzling and extravagant. While the wind machine evokes the stormy New England coast, the electric guitar provides an impressively wide array of ghostly sound-effects and echoes.

Sheik's music bears the undeniable influences of pop, aspires to Broadway dimension and features an elaborate orchestration all at the same time. By crossing multiple boundaries of genre and style, Sheik is well on his way to creating his own. Something we might call “symphonic pop.”

The next piece on the program was French-Canadian Claude Vivier's Zipangu—a reference to Japan as it was known at the time of Marco Polo. Outwater explained from the stage that the music focuses rather on the “idea” of Japan as the far-away place of mystery and intrigue to Marco Polo, and not necessarily on the country itself or its music.

Zipangu calls for a 13-piece string ensemble and has a striking introspective quality. It takes the listener—as the proverbial Marco Polo—on a distant journey to the remote corners of the self. One of the most prominent features of the music is its rough bowing technique, which draws multiple tones from one note. In this regard, Vivier joins the ranks of 20th century avant-garde composers who used musical instruments in unconventional ways, seeking to produce sounds not originally intended for the instrument.

San Francisco Symphony associate concertmaster Nadya Tichman truly outdid herself, not only with her flawless technique and variety of sound, but also as the musical glue that held the piece together in this difficult and highly demanding work.

Zipangu is a clear testament that, had he not been silenced by murder in 1983, Claude Vivier is likely to have become an influential voice in contemporary art music.

The orchestral suite from the ballet Les biches (“The Does,” as in female deers) by Francis Poulenc made for a strong ending to the concert. While Vivier's music featured sounds the instruments may not have been intended for, Poulenc takes the conventional “intended” sonorities of each instrument to new heights with his breathtaking orchestral writing.

Poulenc originally composed Les biches in 1923 for Diaghilev, but wrote the orchestral suite 16 years later as a stand-alone concert piece. While the subject of the ballet may have been inspired by Nijinsky's choreography of the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn, Poulenc's music has little in common with that of Debussy.

The music prominently features rhythmic motifs well-suited for dance. The rapid tempos and quickly shifting dynamics require an orchestra of the highest caliber, led by a capable conductor. San Francisco Symphony and its own former Youth Orchestra music director Edwin Outwater proved to be equal to the task.

The most striking aspect of Les biches is its use of musical norms established in the preceding century, a stylistic feature now commonly labeled as “neo-classical.” Poulenc's music shares this retrospective quality with that of his fellow members of the group of young, aspiring musicians known as "Les Six" (“The Six”) in 1920s Paris.

Incidentally, Les Six has ties to the Bay Area through one of its members, namely Darius Milhaud, who moved to America and taught at Oakland's Mills College.

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Eman Isadiar teaches piano at the Peninsula Conservatory and writes about music in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Israel's RITA sings of love and hope

By Eman Isadiar

LOS ANGELES—Beloved Israeli pop star RITA left an indelible mark in LA after an impressively well-attended single performance at the Fred Kavli Theater of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza on March 21. The LA concert was the last in RITA's US tour, which included a special charity benefit in Great Neck, New Jersey, and shows in New York, Philadelphia and Miami.

Israeli sensation RITA concluded her US Tour with a concert in Los Angeles on March 21, 2010 (photo courtesy of Keshet Chaim Dance Ensemble).

RITA's LA concert also included a brilliant performance by the talented Israeli-American dance ensemble Keshet Chaim (“Rainbow of Life”) to the beat of drumming troupe Naked Rhythm.

But who exactly is this enigmatic RITA, and why has she risen to such unprecedented heights of popularity and stardom back in Israel?

Aside from the obvious ingredients of talent and opportunity, RITA's success may also be linked to Israel's own development as a nation. While earlier generations of Israelis were deeply divided along lines of national and cultural origin, RITA represents Israel's longing for a single, unified nation.

Being a household name since the '80s, RITA's artistic longevity has also given the Israeli people a sense of stability and permanence in a country where unrest and conflict are part of everyday life.

Whatever may have led to the rise of the phenomenon that is RITA, she has the unique and unmistakable mark of a true star—she can connect with each and every one of her fans on a deep, genuine and personal level.

In her early days, RITA was part of a group of performers during her service in the Israeli Army. She competed twice to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest, attracting more attention each time with her unique voice and captivating stage presence. Her second attempt garnered a victory in the national qualifying contest, which sent her to Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1990.

Although RITA didn't win Eurovision, she became a national sensation four years later with the release of her fourth album “Ahava Gdola” (“Great Love”). Since then, she has released seven other albums, many of which have topped the charts with record-breaking sales and airplay.

While trying to stay clear of volatile Israeli politics, RITA has remained an outspoken advocate against violence of all kinds. She participates frequently in charity benefit concerts, and a percentage of proceeds from her non-benefit performances are also often donated to children's organizations.

RITA has also become something of an icon to Israel's gay community after her song “Bo” (“Come”) was featured in Eytan Fox's award-winning film “Yossi and Jagger.” The English version of this same song was released in the US as the single “Love Has Begun,” which recently earned RITA the title of “Top 40 Breakthrough Artist” by New Music Weekly.

From the moment she set foot on stage at the Kavli Theater, RITA sang her most memorable hits, which even included her 1990 Eurovision entry “Shara Barkhovot” (“Singing in the Streets”). Some of the evening's highlights were “Erev Kakhol Amok” (“Deep, Blue Evening”), “Mehaka” (“Waiting”), “Tiftakh Khalon” (“Open A Window”), and of course, “Love Has Begun” in both English and the original Hebrew.

Honoring her Persian ancestry, RITA sang a song in Farsi titled “Gole Sangam” (“I'm a Stone Flower”), and ended the concert with Shlomo Bar's satirical song—and one of RITA's own biggest hits— “Yeladim Ze Simkha” (“Children are a Joy”).

The most pleasant surprise of the evening, however, was an operatic number—“Chi vuol la zingarella?” (“Who Desires the Little Gypsy Girl?”) from Giovanni Paisello's opera “Zingari in Fiera” (“The Gypsy Fair”). Here, RITA showed an entirely different side of her talent, and by her own admission, years and years of classical training as a youngster. She said that she recently sang the same aria for the Italian prime minister during his latest visit to Israel.

RITA's comments from the stage—mostly in English with a dash of Hebrew—were remarkably funny and philosophical at the same time. In a tearful moment, she offered hope and optimism by stating that the darkest moment is the instant just before the break of dawn, which she attributed to the Kabbalah. The message of hope, patience and perseverance is a recurring theme in most of RITA's music.

Another striking aspect of the concert was that the audience seemed to know every word to RITA's songs. In fact, on multiple occasions, RITA turned the microphone to the audience for almost the whole length of the song. This was a reminder that RITA is no ordinary artist with a handful of successful hits—she seems to have built her entire career on one blockbuster hit after another.

How appropriate that this immensely gifted woman from the Middle East should bring her songs of hope and love to us on this first day of spring after a difficult El Niño winter. Hopefully, the rest of the world will soon discover RITA, and likewise, take her message to heart.

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Eman Isadiar is a San Francisco-based pianist and music writer.