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.

---

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

Patricia Racette Is the Beating Heart of 'Trittico'

By Eman Isadiar

One can only speculate why Puccini insisted that his three single-act operas always be presented together on the same program. Faithful to the composer’s wish, San Francisco Opera’s first production in 57 years of Il trittico (The Triptych) included all three works – Il tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. The orchestra was led by Patrick Summer, reputed Puccini scholar and music director of Houston Grand Opera.

In Il tabarro (The Cloak), Puccini evokes the intense mental anguish and guilt that are the fallout of marital infidelity. To the mix, he then adds an explosive measure of jealousy and a dash of grief for a dead child. Just when the spectators find themselves sitting in a hot, messy and volatile goo of raw human emotion, they get a shocking dose of murder.

Baritone Paolo Gavanelli inhabited perfectly the character of the aging husband, Michele. His aria “Perchè non m'ami più?” (“Why do you love me no more?”) was the heartbreaking cry of a desperate man, who, having lost his youth and his only child, now fears losing his only love.

Soprano Patricia Racette sings the part of Giorgetta in San Francisco Opera’s production of Il tabarro by Puccini (photo by Cory Weaver).

Celebrating her 20th anniversary with San Francisco Opera, soprano Patricia Racette appeared as the voluptuous Giorgetta opposite Brandon Jovanovich, who sang the part of Luigi. Their stage chemistry was intense.

A refreshing surprise came in the ragged, old character of Frugola – the wife of a drunken dock worker – sung by mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook in a brief but impressive appearance.

In sum, the opera’s idée fixe is the cloak, in whose folds Michele and Giorgetta once cuddled blissfully with their infant son, which later serves as the shroud around the corpse of Giorgetta’s lover, Luigi.

In the evening’s second opera, Suor Angelica, Patricia Racette’s voice accompanied the audience into the deepest, darkest and least visited recesses of their own psyche, to experience the bleak despair of a woman without hope and fallen from grace.

Angelica is a former member of Italian aristocracy, who brings public scorn to her family by having a child out of wedlock. So they take the child away and confine Angelica to a convent. After seven years of isolation, she is disinherited from the family fortune, and is told that her child is dead.

San Francisco Opera’s production of “Suor Angelica” is set in a 1950s-era children’s hospital (photo by Cory Weaver).

Upon hearing the news, Sister Angelica slips into a downward psychological spiral and hears the voice of her dead son inviting her to join him in heaven. She concocts and ingests a potent poison.

As painful death overtakes her, Sister Angelica remembers that suicide is a mortal sin, which fills her with deep remorse. She is, however, redeemed in a vision of her son accompanied by the Madonna. The humiliated dying nun draws her final breath in peace.

Polish contralto Ewa Podleś appeared as Angelica’s cruel aunt, the Princess, whose part she sang with a richly resonant vocal timbre.

The dimensions of Racette’s own voice were monumental, reaching from profound emotional depths to soaring dynamic peaks. While her delivery was technically flawless, it was the sincere agony of Racette's sound that made Angelica the most fragile and vulnerable creature on earth.

In the third and final opera of the set, Gianni Schicchi, Patricia Racette sang the evening’s most memorable tune and one of Puccini’s catchiest – “Il mio babbino caro” (“Oh Daddy Dearest”).

The audience burst into applause at the first sight of the bright, black and white set of Gianni Schicchi. While the detailed and realistic blue-tiled cantina of a 1950s children’s hospital was certainly impressive as the setting for Suor Angelica, it took a back seat to the eye-popping surreal décor of Gianni Schicchi.

The set of Il tabarro came in third with only two holes in the stage floor serving modestly as the barge cabin and engine room, and a stone wall backdrop vaguely resembling the banks of the Seine.

Gianni Schicchi is a character mentioned in passing in Dante’s Inferno, which takes on an entirely comical spin in Puccini’s creation. The opera is filled with smiles, chuckles and laughs from the opening bars through to the very end, and makes a delightfully sweet dessert to the three-course musical banquet of Il trittico.

Wealthy Buoso Donati is on his deathbed as his relatives mill about, anxious to know what each of them stands to inherit. Upon discovering Buoso's will, however, they are shocked to learn that the rich Florentine has left his entire estate to the local monastery. Moreover, they cannot force him to rewrite his will as he just happened to expire moments ago.

This is when a man named Gianni Schicchi enters and is greeted rather coolly. Schicchi’s daughter, Lauretta, is in love with Rinuccio of the Donati family and wishes to marry him, but the Donatis require a hefty dowry and consider themselves too good for a union with a family whose origins are unknown.

In order to endear himself to the Donatis for the sake of his daughter, Schicchi unveils his plan to impersonate the dead Buoso and write a new will in the presence of a notary. His proposition immediately meets with everyone’s favor as he promises each member of the family a significant portion of the estate.

When the notary arrives, Gianni Schicchi skillfully imitates the voice of Buoso Donati and orders a token amount be given to the monastery upon his death. He then distributes Donati’s various material possessions to the family. Finally, to the gasping shock of everyone present, he names himself – Gianni Schicchi – as the recipient of Donati’s prized ox and house.

With this surprising turn of events, Schicchi can now offer an acceptable dowry for his daughter’s marriage to Rinuccio. Being the lawful owner of the house, he then proceeds to order everyone out, knowing no one would dare oppose him as the new richest man in town.

A particularly humorous aspect of the opera was the wardrobe. Members of the Donati family were dressed unmistakably in typical Italian suits and hats of the early 1900s, almost as if they had just landed on Ellis Island. True to the image of the Italian-American matriarch, the heavy-set Donati women also proved to be adept at using their purses as weapons on their husbands.

Members of the San Francisco Opera Chorus portray the Donati family in a hilarious production of Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” (photo by Cory Weaver).

In a 180-degree turn from his somber role as the jealous, murderous Michele of Il tabarro, baritone Paolo Gavanelli returned to the stage, this time artfully hilarious as Gianni Schicchi. Mexican tenor David Lomelí, who received glowing reviews last summer as Alfredo Germont in La Traviata, made a befitting partner to Patricia Racette’s Lauretta as the love-stricken Rinuccio.

The show’s invisible stars were stage director James Robinson, who brought this New York City Opera production to San Francisco, and chorus master Ian Robertson, who directed the longshoremen of Il tabarro, the nuns of Suor Angelica and the loud-mouthed Donati family of Gianni Schicchi.

This Trittico will surely be remembered among the most uplifting productions of San Francisco Opera in the recent past, and possibly in many more seasons to come.

---

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

Triumphant ‘Turandot’ Opens Season in East Bay

By George Hernández and Eman Isadiar

The Festival Opera of Walnut Creek opened its 2009 season at the Lesher Center for the Arts with a strong, colorful and inspiring production of Puccini’s final opera Turandot, which continued through July 19. The principal roles of Turandot, Calaf and Liù were sung by soprano Othalie Graham, tenor Christopher Jackson and soprano Rebecca Sjöwall respectively, with Bryan Nies conducting the orchestra.

Closing scene from Festival Opera’s production of Turandot (Photo by Robert Shomler)

Much like its spice-laced tale of the royal courts of the Far East, the creation of the opera itself was fraught with drama and controversy.

Composer Giacomo Puccini had composed roughly three-quarters of the music when he was diagnosed with advanced throat cancer and died shortly thereafter. Knowing of his own impending death, Puccini asked that his colleague Riccardo Zandonai finish the opera. The composer’s dying wish, however, was boldly ignored by his editor and by his own family, who instead commissioned Franco Alfano to write the remaining music. This choice arguably left a conspicuous artistic scar in the final act of the opera.

The 1926 world premiere of Turandot was led by the legendary Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, who refused to include Alfano’s ending, and ordered the curtain lowered in the middle of Act 3 with the sounding of the final notes known to have been written by Puccini himself.

The story is taken from the Persian tale of "Turandokht" ("Damsel of the Orient”), which in translation became “Turandot.” It is the name of an irresistible Chinese princess, whose beauty is matched only by her cruelty and contempt toward men. According to custom, she must marry, but her intense hatred for men causes her to devise a disturbing plan to eliminate her suitors.

Any man requesting Turandot’s hand in marriage must offer the correct answer to each of three mind-boggling riddles. A wrong answer, however, does not simply mean refusal of the marriage proposal—it means death by execution.

In the opening act, the prince of Persia is slated for execution at dawn for failing to answer Turandot’s riddles. Now the deposed prince of Tartary, Calaf, who is traveling incognito, falls victim to Turandot’s charms and sounds the ceremonial gong, thereby presenting himself as her next suitor. He becomes aware that his blind father, the former Tartar king Timur, is also wandering the streets of Peking with his loyal maid, Liù.

Rebecca Sjöwall (Lìu), Kirk Eichelberger (Timur) and Christopher Jackson (Calaf) in Festival Opera’s Turandot (Photo by Robert Shomler)

Unbeknown to all until now, Liù has been secretly in love with Calaf for years, which explains why she has remained in his father’s service. After being reunited and hearing of Calaf’s intent to marry Turandot, the former king and his maid plead with Calaf not to risk his life for the princess, who has so far managed to have all of her suitors killed.

But Calaf persists and remains true to his heart. He answers all of the riddles with awe-inspiring wisdom. However, knowing that he has yet to earn Turandot’s love, he offers to be executed, but only if the princess is able to find out his name by morning.

This is when the frenzy begins. Turandot charges everyone serving the royal court with the single task of uncovering her mysterious suitor’s identity, or else all shall be killed.

Singing the part of Calaf, lyric tenor Christopher Jackson gave a remarkably sincere rendition of “Nessun dorma” (“None Shall Sleep”), which has become perhaps one of the most famous arias of all time. It describes the long night during which Calaf’s life hangs in the balance as Turandot’s subjects seek to reveal the Tartar prince’s name.

Against the odds, love prevails at last and Calaf melts through the ice of Turandot’s distrust, winning her affection with a tender kiss.

Appearing as the heartless Turandot, Othalie Graham brought much dramatic depth to a largely one-dimensional character. Graham’s subtlety of acting and powerful voice are two reasons behind the success of this production.

Rebecca Sjöwall gave a moving performance as the love-stricken Liù, the import of whose character is often raised above that of Turandot. Sjöwall reached her highest point in the aria “Signore, ascolta” (“Listen Master”) where she begs Calaf not to attempt to solve Turandot’s riddles, to which Jackson replies with an equally compelling “Non piangere più” (“No More Tears”).

Sadly, Liù gives her life while refusing to divulge Calaf’s name to Turandot.

Remarkably gifted Bass Kirk Eichelberger lent a kingly voice to Timur, while baritone Igor Vieira and tenors Adam Flowers and Michael Mendelssohn brought just the right touch of comic relief as high-ranking officials Ping, Pang and Pong. An invisible star of the show was James Toland, under whose direction the chorus came to life as the men, women and children of this exotic metropolis on the Silk Road.

Festival Opera’s Turandot was a highly professional production with striking sets and lighting that magically transformed every corner of the fairly small stage into the ancient land of legend.

While talent was in no short supply, the twin heroes of this production were stage director David Cox, for raising the acting of the cast to a level worthy of their voices, and conductor Bryan Nies, for his attentive and flawless orchestral accompaniment.

Stay tuned for Gounod’s Faust, which will open on August 8 and will continue through August 16. For tickets, call (925) 944-9610 or visit www.festivalopera.com .

---

George Hernández teaches voice and piano in Walnut Creek. Eman Isadiar teaches piano at the Peninsula Conservatory and writes about music in the San Francisco Bay Area.