Drawing upon the frequently quoted words of Jane Austen, it is “a truth universally acknowledged” that Ludwig van Beethoven was never in his comfort zone when writing for the human voice. Indeed, the very idea of writing an opera was so frustrating that one of Beethoven’s letters refers to his efforts in composing his Opus 72 Fidelio amounting to a “shipwreck.” Indeed, when it came to finding music to set a text, whether a script for an entire opera or a familiar poem, Beethoven preferred to follow in the footsteps of his former teacher Antonio Salieri, who had composed a one-act opera entitled “Prima la musica e poi le parole” (first the music and then the words).
Yesterday afternoon in the War Memorial Opera House, it often seemed as if there was more action in the San Francisco Opera (SFO) orchestra pit than there was up on the stage. Indeed, Music Director Eun Sun Kim undertook a major overhaul in the seating of the musicians. She felt that this was a score that deserved having the first and second violin sections face each other, filling out the usual arc with the cellos on the left and the violas on the right, allocating the basses to the rear of the pit. The space to the far left accommodated an “extended wind quintet” of flutes, oboes, clarinets (including a brief appearance of the bass clarinet), and horns. The right-hand side was then given to the trumpets and trombones with the timpani behind them.
The entire layout provided Kim was a more accessible palette to balance her instrumental sonorities. This was evident as she unfolded the overture with an attention to coloration that is too frequently overlooked in an orchestra pit. That configuration also allowed the attentive listener to identify (and appreciate) the diversity of instrumental techniques that Beethoven deployed to reflect the connotations of the words being sung. Indeed, to find any earlier effective examples of instrumental coloration of the words, one would have to go back to that abundance of sacred texts set by Johann Sebastian Bach. Furthermore, just as those words that Bach set were rarely (if ever) paragons of literature, Beethoven’s instrumentation brought a third dimension to characters that, in the text of the libretto, are little more than cardboard stereotypes.
Elza van Den Heever as Leonore disguised as Fidelio (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera)
For the most part the vocalists up on the stage, under the direction of Matthew Ozawa, brought flesh and blood to that third dimension. This was particularly the case for the “title character” of Leonore disguised as a young man to work as an assistant at the jail where her husband Florestan has been unjustly imprisoned. Soprano Elza van den Heever studied at the San Francisco Conservatory, advanced to the Merola Opera Program, and then ascended to an Adler Fellowship, which brought her to a variety of compelling roles on the Opera House stage. There was a clear sense that the “flesh and blood” of her character owed as much to the subjective shadings coming from the music as from Ozawa’s staging.
The same could be said of tenor Russell Thomas’ characterization of Florestan. Indeed, the only character that showed signs of weakness was baritone Greer Grimsley’s account of of Don Pizarro, the governor of the prison, whose corrupt practices had been discovered by Florestan. After the vocal impact and multi-dimensional characterization of Wotan in his performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Grimsley both sang and acted as if his heart was not really in his role.
Beyond the individual characters, however, the rich musical resources of Kim’s orchestra were best complemented by the SFO Chorus prepared by Director Ian Robertson. Extended choral writing was composed for the finales of both acts of the opera. At the end of the first act, the prisoners are afforded a rare moment of sunlight; and, at the end of the second, they are all given freedom after the corruption of Pizarro has been revealed. These are some of Beethoven’s finest passages in the entire opera, and the rhythmic roller-coaster of phrasing in the concluding chorus is probably the best example of the composer at the top of his game.
The only real shortcoming in the production involved Ozawa working with a unit set. A turntable supported a structural cube, rotated to reveal both the conditions of the imprisoned and those of the “managers” of the prison. The visual experience was effectively contemporary, which is to say reflecting the disturbing conditions of current detention centers. Unfortunately, more often than not, the setting failed to coordinate with the libretto texts. Mind you, the unit set meant that the final scene did not require the curtain to fall during a major rearrangement, usually requiring the time available to play the third of Beethoven’s “Leonore” overtures (Opus 72b). The unit set allowed for a more “efficient” flow of the narrative; but, where the plot was concerned, the “fit” between what was sung and what was seen was, more often than not, an awkward one.
No comments:
Post a Comment