Leonard Turnevicius

Munich Opera Festival: Pieczonka captivates in Otello

(Munich, Germany: July 30, 2009)

jamilton.ca photo by Leonard Turnevicius:Burlington native Adrianne Pieczonka and South African tenor Johan Botha bow as Desdemona and Otello respectively in Munich's Nationaltheater.

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Splendid performances are pretty much de rigueur for soprano Adrianne Pieczonka. And such was the case earlier this evening when the Burlington native appeared as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello at the Nationaltheater undr the auspices of the 2009 Munich Opera Festival.

            Pieczonka’s singing combined a clear, full, gentle radiance with warmth of expression. Certainly, her highpoints came at the end of Act III, and in the beautiful Willow Song in Act IV. Yes, there was an incorrect entry on a “perchè” in Act IV, but as the saying goes, “to err is human.”

            It’s not only Pieczonka’s voice that attracts, but also her acting. Here was a sensitive portrayal, one which clearly upstaged the Otello of South African tenor Johan Botha. Botha’s Achille’s heel was, and continues to be his mannered gestures, and facial expressions, if any, that simply don’t project past the orchestra pit.

Botha’s Otello did a lot of striking out at people (slapping Desdemona in the face, punching Iago in the gut). None of it convincingly brought on. And though he and Pieczonka have appeared in other productions together (Salzburg’s Don Carlo in 2003 if memory serves me correct), there were certainly no onstage sparks between this Otello and this Desdemona.

Vocally, Botha can handle the role. Yet, his Ora e per sempre addio took a scant 50 or so seconds to complete. Compare that with Francesco Tamagno, the creator of the role, who took almost ninety seconds on one of his recordings.

Lucio Gallo bawled his way through most of Iago’s loud music (with a vibrato that bordered on a wobble), though there were times when nuances were attempted and achieved.

The vocal colour of Steven Hume’s Lodovico was similar to that of Gallo’s Iago. However, Hume’s height undoubtedly effectively sealed that casting decision.

Enkelejda Shkosa’s Emilia was suitably emotionally charged in Act IV.

Cassio was admirably taken by Wookyung Kim.

The Bayerischer Staatsoper Chorus sounded disparate and undistinguished. That is, up until the pomp of Lodovico’s entry in Act III when they finally came into their element.

There were a few ensemble problems between the stage and the pit. Under conductor Bertrand de Billy, both the chorus and the on stage band (four mandolins, two guitars, one cor anglais) had extended moments of imprecision.

Francesca Zambello’s production first played Munich in 1999. This remount featured Alison Chitty’s uniset of four iron ramps which zigzagged to the flies, bounded on each side by iron scaffold towers. A chain metal-like scrim, lowered to cover at least two-thirds of the stage’s visual area, added coldness to the effect. Certainly, those post-modern visuals jarred with Chilly’s costumes which placed the proceedings at the time of Otello’s première in 1887. (Otello premièred in Munich’s Nationaltheater the following year.)

Tomorrow, another Canadian soprano hits the boards of the Nationaltheater. Stay tuned.             

 

Savonlinna Opera Festival: Turandot tales

Photos: Leonard Turnevicius, jamilton.ca:

The principals in the Savolinna Opera Festival's production of Turandot.

One-half of the Savonlinna Opera Festival Chorus in Turandot. 

(Savonlinna, Finland) Does life imitate art or vice versa?

Vexing questions to be sure.

Equally vexing when a stage director uses them in a production.

And so it was with Pet Halmen’s staging of Puccini’s Turandot earlier this evening.

It’s well known that Puccini never lived to finish Turandot. (It was completed by Franco Alfano.) So, at the opening of this production, Halmen placed a frozen tableau consisting of a Puccini look-alike character attended by three doctors, all placed on top of a raised stage piece. Then we had a pantomime of a servant girl committing suicide. Hmm…was that in reference to Puccini’s real-life servant who committed suicide, or did it foreshadow Liù's fate in Turandot? And at the end, that same Puccini look-alike returned in tableau at the spot in the music where the real Puccini left off, joined later by those same doctors. The five gigantic Chinese masks rising from the stage on posts were then rotated to display pictures of Puccini's deathmask.

Pity, since this business only distracted from the tale being told.

As the icy Turandot, Lise Lindstrom’s soprano voice was suitably brittle and harsh in Act 2, yet somewhat warmer in Act 3. Halmen’s costuming ensured that we’d know the difference in her character after Calaf had successfully answered her three riddles. First appearing in a black gown, her palms stained blood-red, she then wore a red gown in the final act.

Quite pleasing to the ear was the lovely soprano voice of Inna Dukach as Liù.

As the Calaf, South Korean tenor Francesco Hong got a big hand from the audience during Nessun dorma, thanks to showboating on the high B-flat. His strongest singing, however, came during Act 1.

Halmen had Ping (Eijiro Kai), Pang (Aki Alamikkotervo), and Pong (Juha Riihimäki) dressed in Oliver Hardy get-ups. That comedic touch was underscored by general nastiness the kind seen when these three manhandled Liù.

South Korean bass In-Sung Sim was a resonant Timur, the dispossessed King of Tartary.

Finnish tenor Lassi Virtanen was an accomplished Emperor Altoum.

The Savonlinna Opera Festival Chorus fared very well in the louder sections, but didn’t get much help in the softer sections from Finnish conductor Jari Hämäläinen who was alternately cold and lukewarm at best in the pit. Halmen costumed the chorus in Mao-era blue suits and caps, their matching blue face paint completely robbing them of any individuality.

Does art imitate life? Check out those Mao-inspired Little Red Books the chorus sang from in their final paean to the happy couple seen in black and white silhouette on the Olavinlinna Castle's inner wall.

Savonlinna Opera Festival: A time to pray

Photo: Leonard Turnevicius, jamilton.ca:

Bishop Seppo Häkkinen (left) delivers the sermon at the Savonlinna Opera Festival's Divine Service with the Camp Kirkland Big Band (seated right).

 

(Savonlinna, Finland) With Mefistofele’s cabaret lair cleared away after last night’s performance, the stage was set for the Savonlinna Opera Festival’s Divine Service on Sunday morning.

That’s right. A secular opera festival holding a church service presided over by Lutheran clergy. Quite the rarity.

Stage left: Camp Kirkland Gospel Big Band from Nashville, Tennessee.

Centre stage: a makeshift altar covered with linens; a white cross projected onto the castle wall.

Stage right: a pulpit and a wooden processional cross.

The Camp Kirkland Gospel Big Band provided jazzy prelude music as the auditorium in Olavinlinna Castle filled to about 80% capacity.

The service, which began at 11 a.m., was completely in Finnish and followed a pretty much standard Lutheran liturgy which included Holy Communion.

The hymns were accompanied by either Kirkland’s Big Band, or a gentleman seated at a synthesizer set to Pipe Organ. As cantor, Esa Pyöriä led the congregational singing, while Heikki Kilpeläinen was the baritone soloist in Maan ja Taivaan Luoja, and Psalm 103. The sermon was delivered by Bishop Seppo Häkkinen.

The service lasted an hour and thirty minutes, not counting the ten minutes of recessional music in which Kirkland’s band let their hair down in swinging arrangements of Amazing Grace, and The World is Waiting for the Sunrise.

Today, the opera festival follows the third Commandment (Lutheran ordering), and keeps the Sabbath holy. Turandot is on tap tomorrow.

Savonlinna Opera Festival: A marred Mefistofele, but a super Soile

Photos by Leonard Turnevicius, jamilton.ca: The leads and chorus in Boito's Mefistofele at the Savonlinna Opera Festival; Marita Viitasalo and Soile Isokoski in the Savonlinnasali.

(Savonlinna, Finland) What a difference a day makes.

Gone are the paparazzi snapping photos of patrons entering the Olavinlinna Castle.

Gone too, are the seasonal temperatures. Opera fans came dressed for autumn. Some wrapped themselves in their own blankets while festival attendants handed out red blankets to others.

And there were other ways to keep warm on this cold night. A Russian gentleman from a St. Petersburg motorcycle club warmed himself by taking a swig from his pocket flask.

And all for Boito’s Mefistofele.

In spite of it being a remount from last year’s festival, it’s not an opera that’s done all that frequently. The reasons are clear. It has little or no dramatic coherence, and outside of a few exciting chorus numbers and Margherita’s Act 3 aria, and duet with Faust, its music is more miss than hit.

So too, was Dieter Kaegi’s stage direction. He decided to set this Mefistofele in a kind of Kit-Kat yacht club, with William Orlandi’s set including a cabaret stage placed centre stage flanked by tables and seating areas from which the chorus and sometimes Faust and Mefistofele watched scenes from Faust (the opera) play out. That’s all fine, especially when it came to Margherita’s prison scene in Act 3, and the Helen of Troy and Pantalis business in Act 4.

But Kaegi’s hoped for coherence was blurred in his treatment of the Epilogue, when the chorus, who’d been a mass of onlookers in tuxes and black formal dress, suddenly found itself on the cabaret stage in the role of participant.

The opening prologue suffered, too. The chorus sang from behind a huge blue, billowing curtain, with the shapes of a few choristers’ bodies protruding through. That effect was made all the weaker when Kaegi repeated the same business near the prologue’s end.

What was enjoyable were the solid performances by the principals led by the Mefistofele of Carlo Colombaro, the Faust of Sergei Semishkur, the Margherita of Daria Masiero (the lone holdover from last year’s leads), the Wagner of Petri Bäckström, and the floozy Martha of Edyta Kulczak.

Once again, Matti Hyökki’s chorus was superb.

Phillipe Auguin conducted in the pit with a steady hand.

There was seven minutes of applause from the audience and much foot stomping. (That doesn’t mean they were trying to warm themselves, but that they enjoyed the opera.)

Even more enjoyable was Soile Isokoski’s sold-out afternoon recital at the Savonlinnasali.

Her program included Schumann’s Liederkreis op. 39, and after the interval, four songs by Finnish composer Toivo Kuula, and Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder.

All was filled with sensitively shaded singing, delicacy and strength where and when required, though there were rare instances of incorrectly shaped German vowels (the ‘e’ in “lange”, and “Herze”).

Isokoski and her accompanist, Marita Viitasalo, also gave two encores, one a Finnish miniature, before ending with Strauss’s Ich trage meine Minne.

Savonlinna Opera Festival: Madama Butterfly flutters to new heights

Photo: Leonard Turnevicius, jamilton.ca: The principals and some of the chorus and supers in Madama Butterfly at the Savonlinna Opera Festival.

(Savonlinna, Finland) It was opening night at the 2009 Savonlinna Opera Festival. And judging by the paparazzi and star-gazers who’d assembled on Tallisaari Island, many of Finland’s beautiful people were here, passing by, crossing over the bridge to Olavinlinna, and to the centuries old castle where the operas are staged.

But not only were there Finns. You could hear (American) English, German, Danish, Swedish, and Spanish, too.

And they all poured into Olavinlinna Castle, walking over the rugged cobblestones of the Water Gate Bastion, past the Small Courtyard, and the King’s Hall, into the tarpaulin covered Great Courtyard.

Here, the narrow stage and orchestra pit are hulked over by one of the castle’s huge walls atop which were hung lights and a surtitle screen which translated the opera’s libretto into Finnish and English.

And what better opera to open the festival than Puccini’s ever-popular tearjerker, Madama Butterfly.

Briefly, it takes place in 1900 in Nagasaki, Japan, where an American naval Lieutenant named Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton contracts to marry a 15 year old geisha, Cio-Cio-San, nicknamed Butterfly. Cio-Cio-San’s family disowns her for renouncing their ancestral religion, and her “husband” leaves for the States. Three years later, Pinkerton returns, only this time with his new American wife to fetch the son born to Butterfly. Anguished by the entire situation, she commits hari-kari.

Savonlinna’s Butterfly was sung convincingly by Viktoria Yastrebova from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. While she passed on the optional high D-flat in Act 1, opting instead for the written B-Flat, the opera’s big aria, Un bel dì, was beautifully sung. What was missing in Yastrebova’s otherwise fine performance was any hint of Oriental bearing or gestures that would lead one to believe that Butterfly is, in fact, Japanese. True, Anne Namba’s costumes were every stitch Japanese or American as the case warranted. And the Japanese haikus which were projected onto a screen on the huge backdrop (read: castle wall) added to the production’s value.

And set designer Dean Shibuya took that huge castle wall, its staircase and walkway into consideration, and then placed two mini-stages of differing height on the stage proper.

The twenty supers, who dressed in black from head to toe (only their eyes could be seen), were effectively used in the production. They assembled some of the shoji doors in Shibuya’s set. They carried Japanese lanterns. And at the end, they became the angels of death in the suicide scene.

It seems directors everywhere are downplaying Pinkerton’s callousness. And Henry Akina is no exception to this. He had Adam Diegel sing Pinkerton’s aria Addio fiorito asil while down on his knees.

Jordanka Milkova was a slightly heavy voiced Suzuki, a servant in Pinkerton's leased home. She earned her keep during the night watch scene when she had to constantly still the fidgety youngster playing Butterfly’s son (uncredited in the program booklet) by placing her hand on his shoulder, or on his leg as they lay on stage.

Daniel Sutin’s voice suited the role of Sharpless, the American consul, quite well.

Under Akina’s direction, Dan Karlström’s Goro bowed only once at the opening, even though the descending leaps in Puccini’s music suggest frequent bowing.

Mikhail Kolelishvili wasn’t a totally fearsome Bonze, but one who sounded sufficiently blustery.

Tiina-Maija Koskela was a slightly husky voiced Kate Pinkerton.

Matti Hyökki’s Savonlinna Opera Festival Choir was quite strong and impressive.

Ilkka Paloniemi’s lighting highlighted changes in mood and time. And Paloniemi followed Puccini’s wish of having a white light beam at Cio-Cio-San’s young son during his climactic appearance.

Akina’s dream sequence at the beginning of Act 3 was highly effective, but had to compete for the attention of many in the audience who witnessed paramedics dealing with an ill patron in row 7 or 8. Akina also connected Act 2 and 3. But with no curtain to speak of in the Great Courtyard, that was a no-brainer.

Stefan Soltesz led the Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra in this well paced account.

For the record, there was ten minutes of audience applause at the end, during which time women in Finnish national dress presented flowers and birch branches to the cast members.

Tomorrow’s double-header in Savonlinna includes a recital by Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski, and Boito’s Mefistofele.

Mikkeli Festival: All you need is a...toothpick?!

photos by leonard turnevicius, jamilton.ca
cutlines, from top:
-Miroslav Kultishev and Sergei Roldugin
-The Mariinsky Orchestra with Gergiev flanked on either side by two soloists.
-Yuri Bashmet and Valery Gergiev
-Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra accept applause for Sibelius's Fifth Symphony

With the Mariinsky Theatre coming up on the short end of a 2-1 loss in yesterday's soccer match against the Mikkeli Festival (sponsors and press), the Russians were out to prove that they're better on stage than they are on the playing field.

And so, it was a double-header at the Mikkeli Festival this evening, the first concert starting at 5 p.m. in Martti Talvela Hall

Well, actually 5:05 p.m. (Mrs. Gergiev and the kids needed to get seated.)

Up first, was a mini-recital by cellist Sergei Roldugin, and pianist Miroslav Kultishev.

The Latvian born Roldugin was educated in Leningrad, and joined that city's Philharmonic Orchestra while still a student at the Conservatory. In 1984, he became principal cellist of the Kirov Orchestra (synonymous with today's Mariinsky Orchestra). Eight years later, he was appointed rector of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. During the 2004-05 season, Gergiev let him wield a baton in the pit of the Mariinsky for performances of Le Nozze di Figaro, and The Nutcracker. What program booklet bios neglect to mention about Roldugin is that he is the godfather of one of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's daughters.

The St. Petersburg born Kultishev was the silver medalist in the 2007 Tchaikovsky Piano Competition (no gold medal was awarded that year.)

The first selection on their program was Brahms's Second Cello Sonata op. 99. The major problem with this work is that the piano part far outweighs the cello part. Consequently, the cello is often drowned out by Brahms's thick keyboard texture. Indeed, this has been the case since Brahms's day. There is a well known anecdote in which a female cellist played through the work then complained to Brahms that she couldn't hear herself, to which Brahms caustically retorted, "You were lucky."

Roldugin encountered the same problem. he was often covered by Kultishev's playing. But Roldugin also had some issues intonation issues. The final note of the third movement being but one ear-twisting example.

Balance wise, things improved in their second piece, Shostakovich's Cello Sonata op. 40 which was rendered with the requisite passion, impishness, and verve.

Both musicians gave encores, first together, then Kultishev alone in a work by Franz Liszt.

After intermission, Gergiev and a chamber-sized, twenty-eight piece Mariinsky Orchestra came on with four soloists (an oboist, clarinetist, bassoonist, and French horn player, none of whom were identified in the program) to perform the Sinfonia concertante KV 297b attributed to Mozart.

Whether you're in the camp that says this is a work by Mozart, or if you're in the camp that says this piece is by someone else (Robert Levin argues that it was assembled in Paris in the 1820s-30s by an unknown clarinetist), the reading by Gergiev and company was warm, and long-breathed. The strings often played legatissimo, and their tone production was often more suitable for a work by, say, Schumann.

The second concert of the double bill was in memory of Finnish bass Martti Talvela who passed away twenty years ago. (The concert was to have begun at 8 p.m., but Gergiev was still rehearsing the orchestra behind closed doors until 8 p.m.)

When all were seated, there was a special speech made on stage to Talvela's widow, Annukka.

Following that, Gergiev came on to conduct the Prelude to Act 1 of Wagner's Parisfal. But what was that in the maestro's right hand? A toothpick?

Yes, a toothpick to conduct Wagner's majestic, and awe-inspiring prelude!

And majestic and awe inspiring were the tones that Gergiev drew from the orchestra.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the concert didn't live up to its very promising start.

Yuri Bashmet's performance of Hindemith's Trauermusik (written by the composer in six hours after hearing of the death of England's King George V) was a variable one. It included some unclean shifting, and early on, an unwanted change of colour when Bashmet went from playing on the D string to the A string.

Bashmet's variable play continued in the Bartok-Serly Viola Concerto which closed the first half. There were some beautiful notes to be sure, but there was also some scratchiness on the uppermost repeated notes of arpeggios in the first movement.

Not all of Serly's tempo markings were followed. A prime example was the "Un poco meno mosso" marking at bar 41. (William Primrose must be rolling in his grave.) And, Gergiev, head in the score, actually sped things up twice where no accelerando was marked. Gergiev also appropriated the "Lenny Hop" (a jumping-up-and-down-on-the-podium antic made famous by Leonard Bernstein) to effect the tempo change into the third movement. Sure, it's humorous, but it did the job.

The second half got off to a late start. During the lengthy intermission (over half an hour), Gergiev had gone outside for a walk, score in one hand, cell phone in another, only to disappear in the back seat of a black car that had pulled up to him then remained stationary on the parking lot.

There was nothing humorous in Sibelius's Fifth Symphony, unless of course, you've got your eyes on that toothpick which somehow disappeared in the second movement, but reappeared mysteriously in the middle of the last movement.

Gergiev's reading of Sibelius's Fifth was done with animal instincts. Unfortunately,so many of Sibelius's dynamic markings were blatantly ignored to the detriment of the performance.

And will someone show these Russians how to turn pages quietly. During the quietest passages of the final movement, the Mariinsky Orchestra's violin section constantly turned their pages so loudly as to ruin the music. (But then again, maybe this was their message to the maestro? If so, he didn't even bat an eye.)

It's frightening to think what kind of monster orchestra this could be if Gergiev would A) prepare himself properly for concerts,and B) prepare his orchestra properly.

At 10:27 p.m., with six grunts from Gergiev, one for each of the final chords of the symphony, it was all over except for the applause.

And there was warm applause for about 5 minutes, Gergiev making several curtain calls. Only two Finns stood to applaud. The rest in the sold out hall remained seated until the house lights went up.

The Mikkeli Festival concludes tomorrow night with Gergiev (who's of Ossetian heritage), conducting his long-time friend, pianist Alexander Toradze (who was born in Tblisi, Georgia) in Stravinsky's Capriccio, and Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto. That should be quite the match up. However, tomorrow is also opening night for the 2009 Savonlinna Opera Festival. Stay tuned.

Mikkeli Music Festival: Two Finnish treats

But with Mikkeli Festival artistic director Valery Gergiev and his Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg, Russia resting after a late morning soccer match versus the press and sponsors, the festival’s stages were turned over to the Finns.

This afternoon, up and coming Finnish lyric tenor Toumas Katajala and organist Matti-Veikko Kuusi were in recital at the Mikkeli Cathedral.

Briefly, Katajala has already sung at the Savonlinna Opera Festival (2006), the Finnish National Opera, as well as houses in France and Luxembourg, and the Accademia Rossiniana in Pesaro, Italy. As for Kuusi, he's been the cantor at the Mikkeli Cathedral for three decades, and has also taught music and been a music critic.

The recital was made up of well known works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. The best of them was Haydn’s Vidit suum dulcem natum from the Stabat mater, and Er zaehlt unsere Traenen in der Zeit der Not from Mendelssohn’s ‘Lobegesang’ Symphony.

Often Katajala’s rapid vibrato and the cathedral’s rather ample resonance made for uneasy partners. As well, there were the odd times when Katajala resorted to shouting out high notes.

The organ is hardly the instrument that comes to mind as the ideal partner for Mozart's arias Un’aura amorosa, and Il mio tesoro. Indeed, in the latter Kuusi messed up the introduction, and was forced to start over.

Kuusi’s solos, which punctuated Katajala’s program, were stolid renditions of Bach’s Ein feste Burg (BWV 720), Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam (BWV 685, not BWV 684 which was stated in the program, and which, by the way, is the far more interesting setting of this baptismal hymn tune), An Wasserfluessen Babylon BWV 653, and to top off the program, the Prelude and Fugue in C Major BWV 547.

The highlight of the afternoon was the encore, the Domine Deus from Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle. The work is neither small, nor solemn. And that was effectively demonstrated by Katajala and Kuusi.

At 7 p.m., in the Martti Talvela Hall, sixteen year old Finnish piano prodigy Johannes Piirto performed Busoni’s Concerto for piano and string orchestra op. 17 with the Mikkeli String Orchestra under the baton of Gavriel Heine.

Piirto’s gangly appearance belies his playing which is poised and fluid, never showy. However, Busoni’s piece of juvenilia can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be Mozart, Beethoven, or Mendelssohn. And the harmonic language in the cadenza sounds as though from still a later age.

The New Jersey born Heine trained in Moscow, St. Petersburg, as well as Indiana University. He is presently on staff at the Mariinsky.

In the opening work, Fuchs’s Andante grazioso and Capriccio, Heine was constantly moving around in front of the 14 member Mikkeli String Orchestra. That can be a distraction for some musicians who’d rather see the conductor’s gestures in one and the same spot out of the corner of their eyes, not having to constantly adjust their field of vision when the conductor moves several feet to his left or right as though executing some kind of balletic choreography.

Nonetheless, Heine had this municipal ensemble playing their utmost in the Sextet from Strauss’s Capriccio, and the concert closer, Sibelius’s Voces intimae, here arranged for string orchestra.

The latter received very warm and lengthy applause from the half filled auditorium. Obviously, the Finns love their Finnish music.

Tomorrow night, the Russians take over: Gergiev, Roldugin, Kultishev, Bashmet, and the Mariinsky Orchestra.