Friday March 2, 2007 SGN.org |
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Volume 35 Issue 09 |
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Friday, Jan 09, 2009
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Seattle Opera's 'Caesar' seeks thrills without frills or trills |
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| Seattle Opera's 'Caesar' seeks thrills without frills or trills | ||
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by Rod Parke -
SGN A&E Writer Seattle Opera has only in relatively recent years tackled any of the many operas by George Frederick Handel. Indeed, they are not everyone's cup of tea, but not for lack of good stories or brilliant and beautiful music. The "problem" is that their focus is so emphatically on virtuosic singing that audiences looking for the dramatic and emotional pacing of Puccini, Verdi, Wagner, etc. will be left disappointed. And the biggest stumbling block for those audiences is something called the "da capo" aria: a song that begins with a fast or slow section, followed by a contrasting slow or fast bit, then followed by a return all the way to the beginning of the first section. This process makes each aria usually quite long. Unless the singer can wow us with beautiful singing and use the repeated first section to show his/her skill in ornamentation, the most beautiful music in the world can get downright deadly. Speaking of vocal ornamentation, significantly lacking in the casts below were trills. This is a serious deficiency when it comes to singing Handel. If any singer had a trill, it was not audible in this large auditorium. In the orchestra lies another adjustment required of the casual opera attendee: the orchestra is much smaller and plays its instruments in an unfamiliar manner. Strings use less vibrato, and horns are limited to the notes the older, valveless instruments could play. These, plus the addition of a few "period" instruments, gave the orchestra an unaccustomed sound that was leaner and with a few different timbres. In the current production of Handel's 'Julius Caesar,' Cleopatra has no less than five 'da capo' arias, and that's after three of her arias were entirely cut! Nearly every character had significant material cut; even so the evening was just short of four hours long. Not even at Wagner's 'Parsifal' did we see so many people walking out with their coats at the first intermission. So, why did the remaining audience give both the casts in this production such enthusiastic responses at the final curtain? Mainly because the singing, conducting (by Gary Thor Wedow), and orchestral performance were at least adequate and sometimes really impressive. In the impressive category, count the horn of Mark Robbins, the Cleopatra of Alexandra Deshorties, and the Sesto of Kristine Jepson. Deshorties has a powerful voice, which she kept under superb control that allowed long periods of most effective soft singing. Only in the final aria and ensembles did she push it into a less attractive tone. Both she and the Sunday cast Cleopatra, Christine Brandes, truly looked the part. Brandes' voice was smaller but more than adequate. Deshorties, on the other hand, wowed me with her musicality and phrasing. Both Ewa Podles (pronounced Pode-lesh) and Anna Burford were committed Ceasars. Even though her tops were a little uncertain, Podles was the more impressive, both by the sheer phenomenal size and richness of her voice and by the size of her personality. She gave, as usual, 110 percent. Burford was tamer and had better top notes, but she did not convince me as a masculine Caesar. As the widow of Pompey, the two casts had two sopranos who looked incredibly alike. Saturday's Helene Schneiderman sang Cornelia well enough, but her voice lacked fullness. Sunday's Gloria Parker provided that missing warmth and then some. A lesser distraction of Handel operas is the number of gender-bender roles, wherein women sing male roles and men sing as counter-tenors or "male sopranos." This can be both fun and rewarding, but disturbs some. In the case of Sesto, son of the murdered Pompey, Seattle Opera gave us two female mezz-sopranos. Kristine Jepson was completely successful both dramatically and musically. Her ample, warm voice was delivered with perfect technique and perhaps the best musicality of all. Carolyn Kahl was tall and handsome, but her thin, fluttery voice was totally inadequate to this angry, masculine role. She was the weakest link of both casts. All the smaller roles were handled well, especially the Achilla of the always reliable Arthur Woodley in his eighth role at Seattle Opera. The other roles were that of Tolomeo (counter-tenors Brian Asawa and Mark Crayton), Curio (baritone Joseph Rawley), and Nireno (male soprano David Korn). Sadly, most other aspects of this production (from Florida Grand Opera) were disappointing. The minimalist sets were barely adequate and at times distressing in their off-target garishness. The costumes were distracting (and at times difficult to maneuver), except for Cleopatra's attractive outfits. The stage direction (by Robin Guarino) was little better than high school level. (When in doubt, take a walk, preferably in a circle.) Much of the unsung music was choreographed (by Donald Byrd) for opposing soldiers, who were too scrawny to look like soldiers and whose motions were silly. The generally high musical standards saved the production from disaster and made for a satisfying show for those adjusted to the special characteristics of Handelian opera. Certainly any chance to hear the phenomenal Ewa Podles is worth checking out. Reviewer Rod Parke can be reached at rmp62@columbia.edu. |
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