Opera House at The
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC. Tier 1 (Seat E212, $95.)
Story. The story
takes place on a steamship named El Dorado sailing from Leticia to Manaus on
the Amazon. One of the passengers, the
legendary diva Florencia, is returning to the town in which she grew up for a
concert at the opera house. She is
looking forward to meet Cristobal, a butterfly hunter whose passion awakened
her voice before she left. Also on the
boat are the couple Paula and Alvaro, they are hoping a trip to attend the
concert will rekindle their romance; the young writer Rosalba working on a
biography of Florencia; the Captain’s nephew Arcadio whose dream is to become a
pilot; the Captain who has a great love for the sea; and Riobolo, who has a
multiple role of deckhand, narrator, and – for a few moments – the river
god. Paula and Alvaro starts off by
bickering over everything but eventually rediscovered their love for each other
after Alvaro falls overboard in a storm but miraculously survives. Rosalba and Arcadio fall in love despite
their being career-minded. As the boat
nears Manaus, Riobolo announces that the city is suffering a cholera epidemic
and the passengers cannot disembark.
Florencia has found out earlier that Cristobal may be dead already, but
sends her song towards him anyway, saying “I know that you hear me in life or
in death. If you were not listening, my
song would cease.” The story ends with
her being transformed into a butterfly.
Conductor – Carolyn Kuan; Florencia – Melody Moore,
Riolobo – Norman Garrett, Rosalba – Andrea Carroll, Paula – Nancy Fabiola
Herrera, Alvaro – Michael Todd Simpson, The Captain – David Pittsinger, Arcadio
– Patrick O’Halloran; Principal Dancers – Durell Comedy, Allison Mixon,
Christopher Pennix, Matthew Steffens, Ricardo Zayas.
Anne has a business trip to DC for a couple of days,
Amtrak tickets were on sale (less than $120 roundtrip) so I decided to tag
along. I found out about this opera at
the WNO website, and also from Goldstar that discounted tickets were available
(regular price around $150.)
On top of that, there are some interesting aspects to the
opera and the performance. This opera
was commissioned by the opera companies in Houston, LA, and Seattle, and was
first performed in Houston in 1996.
There must be very few operas with libretto in Spanish (I don’t recall
having seen a single one,) so it would be a first for me. The librettist Marcela Fuentes Berain was a
student of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the latter being a Nobel Literature Prize
winner known for “magical realism.” In
researching for a trip to Brazil (which I didn’t take) I found out about this
Amazon Opera House built by rubber industrialists located in Manaus. Finally, the conductor is a young Chinese
American woman who has recently been appointed as director of the Hartford
Symphony. All in all a lot of
interesting aspects that I looked forward to.
I didn’t walk away disappointed. On the other hand, I didn’t walk away being
wowed either. Another case of reality
not living up to expectations.
Admittedly, some of the expectations were of my own doing (such as
expecting to learn more about the Amazon Opera House and the conductor,) but
WNO did nothing to moderate the hype with their use of words and phrases such
as “magical realism,” “visually stunning,” “inspired,” and “mesmerizing.”
The storyline is remarkably straightforward. The stories of the two couple are quite
simple: two of them rediscovered their love, and the other two couldn’t help
but fall in love. This is told
matter-of-factly, no suspense, no surprises.
This contrasts poignantly with the fate of the protagonist; hers is an
unknown. Either the librettist is not
capable of doing anything other than the most obvious, or didn’t bother to do
so.
Great music would have easily made up for that
shortcoming. The music is certainly okay
and relatively easy to follow, but nowhere near the “great” end of the spectrum
of modern music I have heard. It is contemporary
sounding, but yet gives me the impression that the composer was more trying to
avoid being called “classical” than trying to forge new ways of expression. The melodies while
not easily hummable are pleasant to hear, but don’t always match up with the
mood of the moment.
My seat allowed me a view of the back of Kuan’s head and
her arms as she went about her job. She
was a very precise conductor, giving cues to the singers throughout the
work. Her work with the orchestra had
the appearance of simple time-keeping; yet the orchestra played with great
precision.
The singing was good but generally devoid of
emotion. The opera house is on the small
side (2350 per their website), so it was a bit surprising sometimes the
acoustics was on the weak side. There
were a lot of empty seats – the two rows behind me were completely empty. WNO evidently has a young artists program
named Domingo-Cafritz, from which many of the singers graduated.
If there is one clear disappointment, it is the
staging. Basically it consisted of a
mock-up steamship (or parts thereof) that can rotate on a platform, with
projections in the back to represent various sceneries. I had my complaints about the Met’s Ring
production which also used a lot of projections (in that case onto planks), but
that is great artistry compared to this.
This is the one single prop used throughout the opera.
Five dancers were used in the opera representing various
things such as a school of piranhas and stormy waves. The Playbill devoted much space to explain
the genius behind the choreography and how the use of one woman dancer modified
the level of energy. I certainly
appreciated the athleticism of the dancers, but fail to see how this group is
different from the many other groups I have seen before.
If I were a reviewer writing about the opera, I would use
phrases such as: straightforward plot, pleasant music, competent delivery, and
simple sets.
As is my usual practice, I refrain from reading review
until I finish mine, so … here is the review in the Washington Post.
The reviewer has also a mediocre assessment of the show she saw (with
the role of Florencia sung by another soprano,) although she did it with much
better prose. I do want to quote what
she said at the outset: “Also like a dream: It’s not as substantial as it looks.” My disagreement with that is I didn’t even
think it looked substantial. The reviewer
also found the dancers distracting.
