Operaville

The Story So Far...

2011-11-18T14:14:00.001-08:00

One

I am on the Flanagan deck, where Colin and I are conducting a war with Mother Nature. With mid-June temps edging into the 80s, Colin has decreed that not one ounce of stain strike that deck in direct sunlight. This means a day-long dance in which I hopscotch from one surface to the next, following the squares of shade meted out by house and tree.
I am utterly behind schedule. The clock edges past six and I am still on the upper deck, applying a second coat that simply has to be finished today. And Maddalena Hart calls to me. I foxtrot our thousand-bristle brush across the final foot of plank, unscrew it from the broomstick and drop it into a bucket of water. Then I race downstairs to my car, grab my evening clothes and retreat to the back of the house, where the hillside offers some visual shelter.
That’s the thing about working in the mountains: you can get away with stuff you wouldn’t dream of doing in the city. I remove every stitch, grab a hose, brace for the shock, and crank the spigot. I give myself a thorough soaking, then I use my work shirt as a towel, drying off as much as possible before I start in on the evening wear.
I am trousered, shirted and ready to go when I pass by a large black pipe and hear the sound of descending liquid. Uh-oh. This is the sound of a toilet flush. Looking up, I see a small window with a light on.
I run up the steps to the driveway, toss my work clothes in the back seat, and am just pulling out when I see Mrs. Flanagan’s silver LeMans in the garage. I discover our 82-year-old client at the kitchen window, and give her a friendly wave. She waves back, wearing a smile that is equal parts flustered and amused.
A half hour later I am NASCARring along the sweet swath of Interstate 280, the fog drifting over Crystal Springs Reservoir like an army of cotton balls. My refrigerator-level AC has finally deactivated my pores, so I drop in at the Burlingame rest stop to assemble my dress shoes and tie. I pull into the Civic Center garage with minutes to spare, sprint up the urine-smelling exit and circumnavigate City Hall, the frigid municipal wind blow-drying my deck-hair. I arrive at the side entrance of the War Memorial Opera House and give a wave to the spry, ginger-haired gentleman who serves as my gatekeeper.
“Billy! Hi.”
“Mister Siskel. Go on through. Delores is hosting tonight.”
Four of my favorite words. With her cutesy black-Irish features, youthful figure and actual personality, Delores forces me to keep an eye on my dirty-old-man alarm system. I cross the south hallway to find her in the press room, talking to the usual vaguely European assholes.
“Oh! I went to the Los Angeles premiere last autumn. They have a new artistic director. Dennis McClintock. Used to be with Glimmerglass?”
I have never heard one of these industry whores actually talk about an opera. They chatter like a squad of thirteen-year-old girls in a cafeteria. Delores has spotted me and is giving me one of her profoundly genuine-seeming smiles.
“Mickey! Let me find your ticket.” She shuffles her envelopes, poker-style, and hands one to me. “Oh, and the info sheets are tucked into the programs.”
“Fantastic. Thanks.”
I head for the coffee and add a ridiculous amount of cream to bring down the temperature. I know it’s Mozart, and staying awake is not a problem, but I want Maddalena’s voice to stream along my synapses on wide-open channels.
Delores leans over my shoulder. “By the way, Mickey, you know you could have a second ticket, right? It’s been five years – you’ve definitely passed the test!”
“To be honest, Delores, I am surrounded by people all week. If I can go on pretending that those tightwads at San Francisco Opera just won’t give me a second ticket, I may continue to use this as my personal retreat.”
She swats me with her envelopes. “No, Mister Siskel! You may not have a second ticket, and please stop asking!”
“Thank you. I mean, curse you, you miserly press relations… person!”
Her eyes light up, then she looks closer and develops a concerned expression.
“Oh, um… You might want to check your forehead.”
I head for the mirror over the refreshment table and discover a slash of golden stain over my left temple. I dip a napkin into my coffee and manage to scrub it away. The chimes go off in the hallway, so I head out, whispering a thanks to Delores.
There is not a square inch of the War Memorial that I do not adore. The gilded florets that look down on the cavernous lobby. The red-carpeted steps that lead to the auditorium; the scroungy standing-room-onlys shuffling for position behind the back row. The Olympic-sized gold bricks that cover the north and south walls. The spiky gardenia of chandelier that shuts off in a dazzling spiral.
My ticket says row L, fantastically close. I wait next to my aisle seat until my row fills up, then sit down and applaud the conductor, Patrick Summers, he of the silver mane and ruddy complexion, who should probably be astride a horse in an Eastwood movie. The burgundy curtain rises to the heavens.
Cosi fan tutte is the ultimate romantic farce. Rascally bachelor Don Alfonso scoffs at his youngers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, as they brag on the beauty and fidelity of their fiancées. He then concocts the juiciest of wagers: the two will pretend to leave the country, then return in disguise to test the faithfulness of the other guy’s chick. Make this a mid-century American film, and the women are tempted but not won; the assembled cast laughs and smiles for the final scene as someone plays Cole Porter. In the hands of Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte, things are never that comfortable.
The folks at SFO have gone for a modernized production. The purists hate these kind of things, but then I hate the purists. The sneaky fiancés traditionally come back as Albanians, all facial hair and Middle Eastern robes, but here they’re long-haired ‘70s-era rockers. The baritone wears skin-tight leather pants, a copper-colored duster and no shirt, revealing an impressive set of abs and an eagle tattooed across his chest. The supertitle translator is in on the joke, as well. When one of the sopranos catches sight of their weird-looking suitors, she asks, “Where are these guys from? Haight-Ashbury?”
Speaking of sopranos, I have found myself in a kind of sonic heaven. They have paired Maddalena with a Dorabella whose mezzo is forceful and vibrant, a perfect match. Equipped with Mozart’s harmonic magic – long passages of girl-on-girl singing – the two are sending out chill after chill to give my spine the beat-down.
And then there’s Maddalena, and since I do go on about her, perhaps I should give you a summary of her talents. Her voice is huge, and powerful, but never forced. She manages to maintain the buoyancy of the category known as lyric, showing a gymnastic agility that should be impossible for someone with such a broad, buttery tone. Her delivery comes with impossible ease, her tone spinning into the audience like a million tiny Frisbees. And her top notes are absolutely secure, the dynamics of her phrasing always thoughtfully dramatic. She also has that rare ability to appear as if she’s simply talking – as if we should all go around singing our conversations – when in fact she is launching pyrotechnic displays of sound that mere mortals may only dream of.
What’s serving to intensify my obsession is the present-day clothing. They have dressed her all in white – befitting Fiordiligi’s chaste attitude – a flowing pantsuit with a long jacket that flits here and there with her movements, revealing contours that one might not expect from an opera singer. The generous knockers, yes, the stout ribcage (an occupational hazard) – but the ass on this girl! Medium to generous, as befits a diva, but possessed of a round shape and firmness that would give your average construction worker hours of material. Throw in those oversized emerald eyes, a head full of blonde Monroe ringlets, and those inflatable, flexible lips that they emphasize for every album cover. By the time she arrives at the big second-act aria, I’m already a mess, my heart on a platter, waiting to be frappéd by her performance. But more on that later.
At the end of three hours, I head downstairs for my pre-drive restroom stop, stopping at a portrait of Renata Tebaldi from 1968 (in Andrea Chenier) to run my thumb across her name plate. Maddalena has been compared with her, and don’t go thinking that I disagree.
[Track 1]
On the drive home, I pop Maddalena’s rendering of Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” into the cassette player (it’s an old car), and then I cleanse my palate with some AC/DC. I picture the modernized Ferrando and Guglielmo onstage with Angus and Malcolm Young, as young opera fans flash their tits at the stage.
The drive is long but not difficult. Mozart to me is like crystal meth, and also I have my nightscapes. My favorite arrives at Stanford, between the satellite dish and the linear accelerator. The surrounding land is a green vale, dotted here and there by live oaks and cows, painted silver by three quarters of a moon.
Twenty miles later, I’m approaching the evergreen mountains behind Saratoga, speckled with the lights of houses belonging to the rich – who spend most of their daylight hours denying that they’re rich at all. But this is a previous lifetime, and I’m just passing through, into the long ascending stretches of Highway 9. The deer population keeps me alert, chewing on the roadside grasses perilously close to the asphalt.
The final directions are a little complicated. Half mile past the fire station, first Ped Xing sign to your right, through the gate with the combination lock. After that it’s a full mile of downhill dirt and gravel, the rain channels beating up the suspension, and finally the much-anticipated left-hand sweep that signals home base, ancient orchards to the right, cabin of Trey the Fish to the left. I park between two redwood trees, take a moment to breathe the mountain air, check out the moonlight sliding through the trees in dull metallic streaks, then reach back in for my program and make my way to the steps.
“Ahwuff!”
“Jesus!”
It’s Katie. She’s on all fours in the entryway, and, yes, as my eyes adjust to the dark I see that she is wearing a dog suit: floppy black ears, big round nose-cap, and a furry white beagle onesie with built-in paws and a springy spike of tail.
“Pretty cute, Katie. Could you maybe call next time so I don’t have a freakin’ heart attack?”
“Hawroof!” She shuffles forward and leaps on me. I pat her on the head and she pants her approval, then adopts a cartoony growl-voice. “Mrrickey bring bone? Katie want bone!”
“No Katie, I didn’t bring you a bone. Now let’s get inside and…”
She snarls (as menacingly as a four-foot-ten blonde can) then pads her way down to my crotch and snuffles around like she’s hunting for kibble.
“Urrh! Bone!”
“Oh! Okay. I getcha.” I drop my program on a filing cabinet, undo my belt and drop trou to reveal that yes, the dog has given the man a bone. She gives my dick a few exploratory licks and then engulfs it with a messy, dog-like blow job. I grab her floppy ears and endeavor to get into the spirit of things.
“Katie, you sexy bitch!”
“Haroomph!”
After a minute she pulls away, circles around and raises her tail into the air. “Rrowf!” she says, what sounds like a canine command.
Ah, thinks I. I believe she wants to do it doggie-style. Access is a bit of a puzzle, until my initial butt-squeeze reveals a pair of large buttons. I quickly undo them and pull up the panel, revealing Katie’s round, plump cheeks. I dip a hand between them to find that she is well-lubricated, then I insert a finger, enjoying the vision of her bare pussy in the moonlight. My cock is about ready to launch itself right off my pelvis, so I take it in hand and guide myself home. It’s a grand feeling, but her tail keeps whacking me in the face.

An hour later, we’re back to human form, entwined beneath a couch blanket as we enjoy a small summer fire. I cannot usually tolerate such lengthy stretches of personal-space invasion, but Katie fits into the curve of my frame as if she were designed for the purpose. She also has this natural taste and smell that I never tire of, augmented by spearmint gum, vanilla shampoo, milk-white skin, bubble-gum nipples and labia – she is my candy girl. Too bad she’s so fucked up, but it’s really not her fault.
“How was the drop-off?” I ask.
“Oh God. Same old shit. I thought I was getting away clean, but then he calls me and says that Sara needs her Hannah Montana sweatshirt. ‘Just pull up,’ he says. ‘I’ll come to the car and get it.’ Always trying to get us alone together, like I find him so fucking irresistible I will me mesmerized by his manly presence and decide not to divorce him. For seven years I told that asshole we needed to work on our marriage, for seven years he didn’t do a goddamn thing, but now, now that I’ve left his sorry ass – now he desperately wants me back. Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so pissy. But you shouldn’ta got me going.”
I stroke her hair, the way she likes me to.
“Y’gotta dump on somebody. It may as well be me.”
She gives me a kiss. “Thanks, honey.”
“As long as you’re bitching about other men, I could listen for hours! It’s just the price of admission. And what a show you put on tonight.”
“I’m a creative little slut.”
“What do you say to popcorn and a movie? They’re playing an old Hitchcock.”
She gives me that priceless, impish smile, eyes the color of a spring sky. “Sounds fab, honey. You’re a great fuck, ya know?”
“Thanks.” I give her lips a proper chewing and head off to the microwave.

I have a life-long habit of dating brunettes, so it’s still a surprise to find this golden-haired creature sitting on the edge of my bed, doing her best to work out the morning tangles. She is a small sun over my nightstand.
The hour is another thing. Ungodly. Fifteen minutes later I am re-awakened by a toothpaste kiss, and wet hair that smells like peaches. I do my best to smile, and then I assemble enough clothing to ward off hypothermia and walk her out to her car. The morning is sharp and beautiful, lemon slices of sun cutting through the trees. A pair of Steller’s jays wing in front of us to carry their squabbling to a small madrone. I lean Katie against her car and do some more work on those lips.
“So I was wondering… where did you get that outfit?”
“Our church did a production of ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.’”
“I was fucking Snoopy? Good grief!”
“Yeahbaby.”
“This is Charles Schulz, spinning in his grave.”
She bites her lip. “I better go. Air kiss?”
I wrap my arms around her back, lift her into the air and apply lips liberally, then I spin her a couple of times so we can look like a scene from a screwball romantic comedy. Or Cosi fan tutte. Then she’s gone, up the road, down the mountain, off to pick up the kids for church. I must be a good fuck, for all the trouble she goes to. And I am profoundly impressed at her ability to compartmentalize between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

I indulge in a couple more hours of snoozing, but it’s not going to be more - I’ve got too many ideas circling my bloodstream. My agenda begins with a long sit on the pot as I read every shred of SFO’s program, including a seriously well-written piece on the friendship between Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte.
Second is a long soak in my most excellent clawfoot bathtub. I am a connoisseur of luxury soaps, and this morning I am breaking in a French-milled Shea butter bar with the deeply sweet aroma of linden blossoms. Over the next two weeks, this scent will suffuse the entire cabin. I lather it between my hands, hold the suds to my nose and then begin with my left foot before the water gets too high.
After that I’m raring to go, so I keep the breakfast simple: two pieces of toast with butter and strawberry preserves, followed by fresh-ground Ethopian coffee. I head to my writing table, positioned before a window view of my twin redwoods, to the right a deep hollow covered in madrone. To the left is the cabin of Trey the Fish, with yet another topless woman flouncing on the deck. I make a mental note to thank him. I position myself before a circle of books – a Mozart biography, Grove’s Book of Operas and the SFO program (the cast page covered with written-in-the-dark scrawls) – set down a spiral-bound notebook and pick up a cheap powder-blue stick pen. I don’t play any music, because already I can hear Maddalena singing.

[Track 2]
If you were a singer in Mozart’s company, you really couldn’t lose. He would write the role to accentuate your strengths, and dance artfully around your flaws. Thus was created one of the scariest roles in the canon: Fiordiligi of Cosi fan tutte, her stunning rollercoaster vocal lines inspired by the awesome high and low registers of Adriana Ferrarese.
It’s quite possible, however, that that’s all she had. Other than Fiordiligi and a few productions as Susannah in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adriana had a pretty lackluster career. This came from two important shortcomings: she couldn’t act, and she couldn’t do comedy.
Aha! you say. (Go ahead – I’ll wait.) So why was Adriana so successful in the decidedly farcical Cosi? Excellent question, and here’s your answer: because Fiordiligi is the square peg, holding firmly to her church-girl principles even as all around her are screwin’ around. This custom-crafted role came about either through good fortune or because Adriana was sleeping with the librettist, da Ponte. The torridness of the affair (owing largely to the married status of both participants) doubtlessly contributed to the libretto’s conflicted views on love and fidelity.
Regardless, given the way that Mozart treats Fiordiligi as his own personal yo-yo, any normal soprano should be forgiven for not being entirely up to the part. Fortunately, we’re not talking about normal sopranos – we’re talking about Maddalena Hart. Hart’s easy top notes are the stuff of legend, and her bottom end is not to be disregarded. For recorded evidence, note the low sobbings at the denouements of Boito’s “L’altra notte” (Mefistofele) and Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” (Rusalka) from Hart’s Favorite Arias album. The depth of these passages has won the singer much-deserved comparisons to Tebaldi.
[Track 3]
Naturally, it’s not just having the notes, it’s how the notes are deployed. Many a singer has come to these clifftop drops and landed on the low notes with all the tender sensitivity of a professional wrestler. Hart manages to make the descent more deftly, like a hang glider, dipping her toes to the precise mid-point of the pitch before catching the next updraft. Not once does this seem like work, and not once does she lose her supremely intelligent sense of dynamic flow. Hart often creates the impression that none of this is so unusual, that these are just everyday conversations that decided to take wing.

Since my rough beginnings, I have made major strides. I am now able to complete a review in a matter of one longhand draft, one computer draft and a final read-through. Considering the fact that I’m not getting paid a cent, this is good. I head for my blog, Operaville, paste in the article, and then I go to the SFO site to shop for a photo. The images there are sharp, and beautiful, and provocative. I always feel like I’m cheating, like I’m applying Chanel No. 5 to a pig. This time I settle on something comic: rocker-dude Ferrando hauling Fiordiligi over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her mouth open in a gasp of surprise. Maddalena is so freakin’ gorgeous all the time that it’s hard to catch her being cute. I download the image to my desktop, upload it to the blogsite, add the IDs and photo credit, and press the magic Publish button, committing my words to public consumption.
I celebrate by preparing my slow-cook goulash, an olio of red peppers, onions, cabbage and potatoes over a bacon stock, and spice it with oregano, cayenne pepper and some pomegranate molasses that I discovered in a high cabinet. While that’s brewing, I sit on my porch in the twilight treeshade and light up a cigar – a low-priced maduro from Honduras. I have set my computer to let out a chirp when anyone responds to my blog, and am pleased, halfway through my smoke, when DD rings in with her first comment. She’s like clockwork, that girl. I finish the cigar, consume a bowl of the goulash with a dollop of sour cream, and respond to a text from Katie that reads, simply, Arf! (I respond with U r 1 fine piece of tail.) Then I mix up some mango nectar with yogurt (a trick I picked up from an Indian friend) and park it next to the computer.

DevilDiva: You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a modernized opera these days. I take it from your review that this doesn’t bother you?

Mickey: I always wanted to start a jazz band called Swing a Dead Cat. But yes! As long as a modernization makes sense, I’m all for it. Whenever possible, opera should be fun.

DD: But infidelity, illicit sex, the fickle ways of love -–how can a modern audience possibility relate to these things?

M: Funny!

DD: Thank you for not responding “LOL.” I hate that shit.

M: OMG!

DD: Smartass. But I’m afraid these progressive ideas of yours will never do. Opera is nothing but an excuse for fusty 70-year-olds to impress their friends and obtain valuable tax writeoffs. Fun is utterly out of the question.

M: Sorry. I had fun, and I make no apologies. And the thing with the rockers? Hilarious.

DD: Yes, the Haight-Ashbury joke. Audiences love that stuff. It is a bit unsettling, though, how often they laugh at the supertitle before you actually get to the line. I once had a director who brought in students for dress rehearsal and instructed them to laugh at the funny supertitles right when they appeared on the screen, just so we could get used to it.

M: Good idea!

DD: But darling! Let’s talk about this segue from the historical to the musical, from Ferrarese to the way Maddie handles those intervals. You are a magician, my dear. You are a singer’s dream. If I ever get a chance to sing Fiordiligi, I’m definitely using that hang-glider visual. Why are you not writing for Opera News?

M: A late start. I am the Satchel Paige of opera criticism. And alas! I turned down that scholarship to Julliard.

DD: Okay, I’ll go along with the mythmaking process. “Siskel left a promising career in professional tennis to write a blog about opera.”

M: Hey! I’ve got a pretty decent serve.

DD: Okay. But tell me, honestly. Is Signorina Hart really that good? Or are you just buying into the hype?

M: Sometimes I read the stuff I have written about her, and I think, Come on! You’re going too far. And then I see her again, I hear her again, and I realize that I am not exaggerating at all. It’s this combination of intelligence and vocal power. Intoxicating! I find myself holding my breath when she’s singing. And you’ve read my other reviews – I’m really not a gusher.

DD: No. You’re amazingly even-keeled. And fair. So, did you discover anything new about her?

M: You’re really digging today.

DD: Hey, if you want to be the best, you study the best.

M: Okay. You know how most opera costumes entirely obscure the body? Décolletage excepted?

DD: God yes! When I’m doing Mozart, I feel like a freakin’ parade float.

M: Modern dress, of course, is much more revealing, much tighter to the silhouette. And this first-act pantsuit… It turns out that Maddalena Hart, in addition to killer top notes, a beautiful passagio, and a divine sense of phrasing, has an incredibly fine ass.

I sit there for a couple of minutes, and I’m getting nothing. This is not unusual. Out here in the boonies, I am a prisoner of ancient dial-up technology. Perhaps a squirrel is sitting on the wire. I have half a thought that I got a little too saucy, but DD and I have “gone there” before, so I can’t imagine she would take offense. I take a break to clean my dishes. When I return, sure enough, she’s back.

DD: Sorry. Life intercedes. So why no mention of derrieres in the review?

M: Do you not recall the phrase, “…her bottom end is not to be disregarded”?

DD: That is so bad, on so many levels.

M: I save the R-rated stuff just for you, honey.

DD: You do recall that this is a public forum we’re chatting upon?

M: You kiddin’ me? I’m counting on this stuff to get me some page-views. In fact, I think I’ll plug in a search tag for “Maddalena Hart’s ass.”

DD: Yeah, operatic porn is big these days. And what kind of sleazy readership will that get you?

Cordell: Somebody call?

M: Cord! Good to hear from you.

DD: Time for Diva to Di-part, hon. But one last thought: I think you’re in love with Maddalena Hart.

M: Well who isn’t?

C: I’m in love with her, and I’m as queer as a three-headed monkey.

M: Cordell! Nice bon mot.

C: Thank you. I saw an Oscar Wilde play last night.

DD: Ciao, belli.

M: Buona notte, signorina divina.

C: Not break up this little love-huddle, but rocker duds? They really did that?

M: You woulda loved the shirtless baritone.

C: Please! I’m strictly about the art. Can I get a photo?

M: Ha! I’ll smuggle you one from the website.

C: God bless you, young hetero.

Two

The Olsen house lies near the southern tip of Skyline Boulevard, at the far reaches of a well-organized mountain community. After a confusing series of forks, I pull onto a hilltop hosting three large homes under a canopy of live oak. The center house, rather Frank-Lloyd-Wrightish with all its natural touches, is one that we did last summer. I recall a terrifically hardy species of lichen that took forever to pressure-wash, as well as impractical white carpeting that we had to cover with adhesive plastic runners. But we must have done a good job, since we’re now putting in stakes with their next-door neighbors.
The Olsen estate is an assemblage of blue-gray boxes – pretty jarring next to the chaparral, but they’ve done their best to soften it with modern sculptures and fountains. My favorite is a jumble of steel rods at the entryway that seems to represent a pair of figures in erotic embrace. I find Colin piling equipment along the front steps, his early-Dylan hair bobbing and weaving as he moves.
“Ay! San Franciskel. Right on time as usual. You are a marvel of punctuality, my friend. Ready to spend the day on your hands and knees?”
“It’s my natural position.”
He joketh not. Our clients, a geeky software exec and his intermittently sexy wife, are inordinately fond of their deck. They insist on preserving it with an organic mineral-based stain so benign that it must be reapplied once a year. It feels more like we’re sautéing the deck in teriyaki sauce. But I’ll give them this: at twenty years of age, their deck is in immaculate condition.
The process is one royal pain in the tuckus. A glacial drying time means that we must wait three days between coats. It also means that, after laying the stuff down, we have to crawl around wiping up the excess with rags. The rags must then be deposited in buckets of water, lest they inspire spontaneous combustion. You don’t even want to whisper the word “fire” in these parts. This very mountain range has hosted three major blazes this year, and it’s only June.
Our starting point is the back deck, which offers one of the best views I’ve ever seen: a steep grassy downhill that disappears into mile after mile of evergreen mountains, followed by the faint low buildings of Santa Cruz (the white-steepled Holy Cross Church) and the Pacific Ocean. I take a mental note to take occasional viewing breaks; in the throes of labor, it’s easy to forget.
I position my trolley – a flat wooden board with wheels – set down my paint tray and fill it up with stain. Then I screw my thousand-bristle brush onto my broomstick, dip it in and start laying it down. Colin takes up shop at a walkway, three feet down, that rings the edge of the deck. We’re separated by a long limestone bench, but still in easy conversing distance. Colin is a painfully social creature, and not about to pass up the opportunity for a chat.
“Have a good weekend?”
“Yes. I saw Maddalena.”
“Ah! Is this a new one?”
“This is a soprano.”
“Ah yes – the one you’re so keen on.”
“That’s the one.”
“Did she fulfill your every desire?”
“All that I could ask for and not be arrested.”
“Well! Much as I appreciate a fine voice, I hope you’re having occasional meetings with actual women.”
“Oh, I did. Katie popped in on me.”
“Ah! The blonde midget. Guerrilla booty call?”
“Dressed in a dog suit.”
Colin replies in the long-voweled manner of the titillated Brit: “No-o-oh!”
I answer in the falsetto voice adopted by every American boy who grew up watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus. “She’s a saucy little bitch, she is!”
“Well I wish she would have a word with my number three. Fantastic woman – absolutely passive in the sack. May as well be inflatable.”
I stop, mid-dip. “You actually call her ‘number three’?”
“Not to her face. But she knows she’s number three.”
“Really.”
“How’s a girl going to improve unless she knows her ranking?”
“I wish I had your cojones.”
“Is that some sort of Spanish dish?”
“Yes.”
Colin is a committed follower of Burning Man, a group that assembles a small city in the Nevada desert each summer for the purpose of burning a giant man. One of the offshoots of the group’s libertarian leanings is a population that practices poly-amory – committed couples who give each other permission to screw around. Colin refers to these types as “polys,” and I cannot help but picture horny men and women dressed as parrots. It’s clear that he means this expression dismissively, which is pretty funny coming from a man who numbers his girlfriends. On the other hand, my dismissal of Colin’s approach has less to do with principles than laziness. I have a hard enough time managing a single booty call; I wouldn’t know what to do with a harem.
“So this Katie sounds like great fun, actually. Why don’t you get involved with her?”
“She’s too busy going through a terrible divorce.”
“Ah, yes. Nuclear fallout.”
He works his way around the corner, but returns to work on some side panels. It’s been a half hour, but he takes up the conversation as if we haven’t missed a beat.
“Anyone else in the picture?”
“I have this online pal, DevilDiva, who claims that I’m in love with Maddalena Hart.”
“Ah, yes. You do wax poetic. But that’s sheer fantasy, correct?”
“Yes. I do not believe in the celebrity fuck.”
“I know who’s in love with you, mate.”
“Who?”
“This DevilDiva.”
“Really.”
“Classic female stratagem. She accuses you of being in love with Maddalena Hart, because she wants you to say, ‘Why of course not, DevilDiva – I’m in love with you.’”
He delivers this with a swooning passion that truly cuts me up. I gotta say, it’s good to have a boss with a sense of humor. But I’ve got no answer for his hypothesis.
“Well!” says Colin, happy to have planted a seed. “I’d best fetch the rag-box. Hellish job, this, but we do need the work, eh?”
I repeat his favorite mantra. “It’s a slog.”

Colin abandons me at lunchtime to go wrangle up some new clients. I have no complaints, because him dealing with the clients means I don’t have to deal with them. All I want to do is work. Besides, as much as I enjoy our gossip sessions, Colin has a bad habit of micromanaging.
It’s a warm day, and with no one around I can take off my shirt and collect some rays. I slip into the rhythm of the work, and am pleased when I reach that state where I can think without thinking.
A few hours later, I have reached the shaded steps near the garage, and am about to slip my T-shirt back on when I hear a door. Misty Olsen stands on the top step in an elegant ensemble: chocolate-brown dress, gold earrings, a copper-colored scarf. Misty is the epitome of the mousy brunette, but like I said she can be unexpectedly sexy. Something about my midway-dressed state puts a weird charge in the air. She gives me an embarrassed smile.
“Hi. I’m meeting Mac for a fundraiser in Los Gatos.”
“You look good,” I don’t say.
“Oh,” I do say. “Have a good time.”
“I hope you finish soon! It’s got to be hot on that deck.”
“That’s all right – I’m in the shade now.”
“Well. I brought you a Coke from the garage. I’ll just leave it on the ledge here.”
“Oh. Thanks!”
“Well… Bye.”
“Have fun.”
Truth be told, I’m pretty well-stocked. Colin once had a scary brush with heat stroke, so he’s pretty insistent on throwing Gatorades at me. But still, as soon as Misty drives off, I go for that Coke. Soda isn’t even all that good for hydration, but when you’ve got one fresh from the fridge, little beads of sweat on the can – oh, there’s nothing like it.
Clients of contractors should understand this. I know you’re paying good money, and honestly there’s no time that Colin and I aren’t shooting for the highest quality, regardless. But with this single 50-cent Coke, Misty has purchased gratitude and loyalty, and a good feeling that will enable me to work that much harder on her deck.
As it turns out, I need every edge I can get, because the finishing slog is brutal. In the shade, the deck drinks up very little of the stain, which means more wiping. But I’ve got no choice; I’ve got to finish this first coat or our schedule will be all screwed up.
Finally, as the sun lowers over the ocean, I finish the last few planks. I take care to get all the rags into the water-buckets, and I take a look down to discover that I am a complete mess. So here I am stripping off again, a little spooked at Misty’s previous entrance. I use the few remaining rags for an all-over wipedown, then I take my softball gear out of my cleverly concealed duffel and get all suited up. I may be utterly destroyed at all available joints and tendons, but it’s time to play.

I cruise the familiar downhills of Highway 9, locked in on a Giants game, the delicious roll of Jon Miller’s baritone, Tim Lincecum casting his usual spell on opposing batters. I arrive in time to get in a few warmup tosses and then we’re playing. Truth be told, I have my best games when I am utterly exhausted. I think it’s because I truly couldn’t give a shit, and there’s something about apathy that makes for good softball. I am retired to second base these days, and the position suits me. During twenty years at shortstop, my fondness for diving brought fair-to-middling results – the throw to first is just too long. But at second I’ve got all the time in the world, time to gather myself, get to my feet (or at least my knees) and make that throw.
Tonight, however, I am merely the sidekick. Doug, the Japanese fireplug with the surprisingly wide range, is nabbing everything. He feeds me two perfect double-play balls in the first three innings, and in the fifth we are offered the chance to achieve the unthinkable. With men on first and second, the batter strokes a hard grounder that brings Doug into the baseline. He tags the lead runner and flips it to me at second. In the slow-mo nature of moments like this, I know immediately what’s up: we’re going for a triple play. In his rush, however, Doug has tossed the ball too far from the bag. Instead of stretching for it, I try to pull it back toward me for the throw to first, and it drops to the dirt.
At the end of the inning, I join Doug on his trot to the bench.
“Sorry, man. I could have stretched for the double play, but I could see that look in your eyes.”
“Oh, you read me right. Triple play or nothin’. You don’t get too many chances at greatness. And I totally choked on that flip.”
“A little excitement is a dangerous thing.”
We call our team the Bums, and we too often play like it. At 47, I am a master strategist (at 47 I have to be), and it drives me crazy, the stupid things we do on a regular basis. Like Marcus, our blowhard left fielder. Good with the glove, impressive arm, no more brains than a sack of caramels. Gets up with the bases loaded, one out, and rolls one down the line for an easy third-to-first double play. Hit that ball anywhere else on the diamond and you’ve got at least a run.
We lose by the usual brutally small margin, and I walk with Doug to the parking lot.
“Kids still small? No one in college yet?”
Doug chuckles. “The oldest is four. The youngest is still in diapers.”
“Good. I’m tired of finding out my friends’s kids are graduating Princeton.”
We walk a few feet in silence. I take note of Doug’s new-style softball backpack, two bats pointing skyward in their holsters. He looks like Clint Eastwood, riding into town with a pair of shotguns. Doug is my only teammate anywhere near my age – maybe 38. Thank God, because all these youngsters make me feel like an alien.
“How’re things with you?” he says.
“Oh, same ol’. Lotsa work, which is good. Couple of operas. Occasional bouts of sex.”
“Ha! You make it sound like boxing. You oughta be a writer.”
“I’ve thought about it.”
I haven’t told Doug about the blog. Hell, he’s the only one who knows about the opera thing at all. The field lights blink off. I have to slow down while my eyes adjust.
“I have the feeling that something extraordinary is about to happen. I have absolutely no basis for this. But you get these… signals.”
“I get those. Until I choke on the throw to second.”
“Ah, but what I’m envisioning is even bigger than a triple play.”
“Nothing’s bigger than a triple play.”
“Welp. Here’s my car. See ya next week.”
“See ya. And for God’s sake, clean off that nasty arm of yours.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Sixth inning. Grounder to my right. I take a full-on dive. The ball ticks off the edge of my glove and heads for center field. My throwing arm lands on a gravelly patch of dirt. In the dim light of the parking lot, I touch my arm to my softball pants, leaving a Rorschach blotch of red. I laugh. It’s good to be a guy. It’s good to bleed.

Three

For once, my opera-day schedule is devoid of adventure. A half-day pressure wash above the Lexington Reservoir, top of a freakin’ mountain, it’s hard to believe that places like this exist. Much as I hate driving that dirt road to my cabin, I cannot resist the chance to get myself clean. So I take my clawfoot bath, sunlight ticking in through the madrones, doll myself up in the usual black suit, then pick out a striped burgundy tie that Katie gave me.
So I’m all moussed up and back on Interstate 280. It’s pretty hot outside, so I’ve got the AC blasting away like a Wagnerian tenor. I slip in a Foo Fighters cassette to give myself some audio contrast, and I’m feeling good.
The luxury of time allows me to scout the curbside parking spaces, and I nab one just outside the Civic Center garage, with a meter that stops nicely at 7 p.m. I arrive at the press room a half hour before curtain, and I relish the chance to sit on a couch with a coffee as I scour the program. This one’s got a vastly entertaining piece on the life of Alexander Pushkin, although the language drifts into that neo-Dickens that opera writers feel obligated to adopt.
Just across from me is a television monitor showing the stage. They’ve given the production a full-size title screen, a Russian village in the style of Chagall, Yevgeny and Tatyana drifting overhead, accompanied by a flying cow and a violin. I’ve always wondered if they use this monitor just to track the show, or if they force late-arriving critics to sit here and watch the first act on TV. Fortunately, I have yet to test the system.
I finish my coffee and article and head for the refreshment table, where Delores has arrayed a fine selection of crackers and spreadable cheeses. It’s good to be a critic. Delores is occupied with her twenty-some guests, so I finish my munchies and slither into the hall.
Tchaikovsky is such a mixed blessing he’s almost a frappé. The orchestrations are lush, the vocal lines soaring and graceful, but he’s certainly in no hurry to tell a story, and not overly fond of quick tempos or jaunty rhythms. I saw Joan of Arc last year, and it literally put me to sleep. “How could you possibly make Joan of Arc boring?” you ask. Mostly by following that brilliant Russian tradition of keeping all the action strictly offstage. That way, all the characters can gather to discuss it after-the-fact. It’s like skipping the football game so you can get to the exciting post-game wrapup.
Pushkin was hardly innocent of this himself ; his works are more dependent on social commentary and descriptive details than plot. But somehow his verse novel inspired Tchaikovsky’s most entertaining opera. Perhaps because the composer and his co-librettist, Shilovsky, preserved much of Pushkin’s language and were happy just to skim the cream from his story. They didn’t even call it an opera, opting for the phrase “lyric scenes” and trusting that their audience had already memorized the original novel.
The cast is certainly promising. The title singer is Jesus Cortez, a Venezuelan baritone who came up through SFO’s residency programs and is threatening to become the company’s biggest find since Anna Netrebko. Playing Lensky, Yevgeny’s best pal, is Ramon Vargas, a tenor who utterly knocked me out in last year’s Elixir of Love. That pure, lyric – dast I say Pavarottian – tone, delivered with such ease, and a remarkable level of comfort on stage. With the two of them, the papers are calling it “the world’s first Latino Tchaikovsky,” but of course at the opera it’s just another night.
The most preposterous role is Tatyana, a teenager who is rarely played by anyone under 30. It takes at least that long just to develop the required vocal skills. But for once it’s not Maddalena’s singing that’s impressing me so much as her acting. I’ll save the details for later, but her handling of the Letter Scene is a revelation.
It’s a traditional production, sometime in early 19th-century Russia. They’ve outfitted her in a white country dress with floral patterns in blue. Her honey-blonde hair hangs long down her back. She’s gorgeous, as usual.
At the end of the act, I’m entirely wired on the performance. I’m loitering between the lobby and the south hall when I find a woman in a beaded silver-blue dress advancing my way. It’s Delores.
“Mickey! I’m so glad I found you.” She hands me a blue envelope. “Sorry, have to run. Ta!”
She heads off to the lobby, leaving me feeling like the straight man in a Neil Simon play. I open the envelope to find a photographic note card portraying a collection of pineapples, mangos and bananas in Mozartean gowns and waistcoats. The caption reads Cosi fan tutti-frutti. Inside is a handwritten note in a smooth cursive.

Would love to talk with you about your writing. Please meet me at Jardiniere one hour after curtain.
Grazie – Maddie

I scan the walls, looking for hidden cameras.

The rest of my evening is its own rather enjoyable brand of hell. I need to take in enough to support a reasonably intelligent review, but how is one bit of it going to penetrate my brain when I know that I will soon be talking to Tatyana herself? (She turns down Onegin, standing in her regal scarlet ball gown, nicely married to royalty, every woman’s dream revenge for a first love scorned. And yet, she is heartbroken.)
The worst part is that post-performance hour. I understand all the cleanup, undressing, meetings with friends and fans, but it leaves me with sixty absolutely unkillable minutes. The ushers are eager to clear everybody out, so all I’m allowed is my visit with Miss Tebaldi and the adjacent men’s room. Five minutes. After that, I figure it’s a good idea to fetch my car and re-park it nearer to my final destination. Ten minutes. Then I take a stroll around City Hall, but it’s getting cold. I am downright euphoric to find a copy of the Bay Guardian, sitting alone in its box, and I make my way to the bar to sit and read.
Jardiniere is like the most elegant retro-‘60s Eichler living room you’ve ever seen. Entering the double glass doors, you encounter a wide curve of staircase to your left. Straight ahead is a horseshoe bar with cut-glass ornaments, and along a brick wall to your far left you’ll find a series of long, straight couches with square leather cushions, the seating enclaves marked off with armchairs and glass-topped coffee tables.
The hostess, a young brunette dressed in black pants and shirt, leads me to one of these couches, nicely sheltered by the bottom of the staircase. Looking up, you can see dining-room tables next to the upstairs railing, patrons peering over as if there’s some kind of a show down here. A nice-looking redhead in the same black uniform perches on an ottoman and takes my order, a lemon-drop martini. But no appetizer. I’m hungry as hell, but I don’t think my stomach would be able to handle it.
The place is pretty full, but not packed. It’s hard to figure the demographics – locals? business types? tourists? – but the clothing and hairstyles project a general air of wealth. I open my paper and pretend to read, but the final fifteen minutes are horrible. Every voice that jumps out of a conversation, every opening of a door yanks on my strings. I feel like an actor doing his first Hamlet. I can’t pull this off! They’ll never buy it. What’s my first line? Oh shit. Why couldn’t Maddalena Hart remain in the comfortable realm of mythic figure? What the hell does she think she’s doing, fraternizing with commoners?
She’s wearing blue jeans. Black pumps, a gray suit jacket over a black blouse. And a gray fedora with a silver band. She stands in the open area, looking around, and her gaze settles on me. She smiles. Why the hell would Maddalena Hart know my face? Perhaps I’m mistaken, perhaps I’ve got myself thinking that every woman who comes through that door is a diva. But here she comes, and those enormous green eyes cannot possibly belong to anyone else. I rise from the couch and I manage not to fall on my ass. She smiles and takes my hand. I hope I’m not sweating. I hope my breath doesn’t stink.
“Mickey!”
“Hi.” One word, two letters. That’s all I’m going to venture.
“Excuse the film-noir hat. I don’t exactly have a Britney Spears paparazzi problem, but we are near the opera house, and for some reason the hat seems to throw them off.”
“Oh. Yes. I…” Three words. I’m useless.
She nods toward the armchair. “May I?”
Silly question. She can sit wherever she wants. She can set fire to my hair. What am I, the armchair police?
“Yes,” I say. “Please.” Okay. That was pretty good.
She sits down and crosses her legs. Her face is very large. That sounds odd, but I have heard that it’s advantageous for performers to have large heads. I’m sitting across from an album cover. Cripes. The waitress arrives and asks about a drink. Maddalena is wearing pink fingernail polish. She dangles a hand over her knee. Her hand is very white.
“Whatever he’s having.”
“Lemon-drop martini?”
“Ooh! Yes.”
The waitress leaves. Maddalena studies me, as if I’m supposed to say something. She has heavy eyelids, a sleepy look. Bedroom eyes. Lauren Bacall.
“Lemon-drop, Mickey? Isn’t that a little gay?”
“Well, I’m… I guess… Sweet tooth.” I’m pathetic.
She runs her left ring finger along her lips, done up in a subtle pink, almost mauve. Her lips are almost as pillowy as on the album covers, with those little crinkles at the edges. Her speaking voice is husky, tired from the night’s work, though clearly soprano, her accent that enunciated American that verges on European. No trace of her native New York.
“God, Mickey. How do we get you past this celebrity thing? I know there’s a real person in there, and I want to talk to him. But you’re all decoupaged into place, like I’m talking to a Rodin. Would it help if I farted?”
“I’m… sorry?”
She leans forward and lowers her voice. “Opera singers have tremendous control. It’s all in the diaphragm. Backstage at the Met, we have competitions. Watch out for that Samuel Ramey. If he’s had cabbage or Brussels sprouts, he has been known to fart the overture to Giovanni.”
It’s that last image that gets me. I chuckle.
“That’s it?” she says. “A little snort? This is some pretty top-notch material, buddy.”
I attempt to sip from the lemon-drop, and I realize what a precarious vessel is a martini glass. But the sweet and the cold of it does me well.
“I’m sorry. It’s just… you’re stupendous. You’re everything I…”
Maddalena places two fingers to my lips. “No! Don’t even start. I know exactly what you think of me, so… just… No!”
Maddalena Hart’s fingers on my lips. I’m going to pass out. She sits back and gives me a sly smile, a little wider on the right. She flicks her tongue along her front teeth. I’ve heard that singers do this, always adjusting the equipment.
“I get more flattery than a person should. There’s a certain pressure, having to answer to all that admiration. As for tonight’s performance, I’d rather read about it on your blog.”
The waitress arrives. Maddie gives her lemon-drop an appraising sip.
“Mmm. The citrus feels good on the throat. And, where was I? The blog! The level of understanding, so much more important than flattery. It’s like this: I’ve been reworking Fiordiligi with my voice coach, Luigi Corazonne. I do this every few years; it keeps my performances fresh. So I asked the staff at SFO to gather all the reviews for me. I wanted to see what kind of impression I was making.
“Most of them? Garbage. Either critical for all the wrong reasons or favorable for all the wrong reasons. Drives me insane. But way down at the bottom I find a printout of your blog, and I am mesmerized. This historical/critical hybrid, I’ve never seen anything like it. And all these connections between Adriana and the role. We all know the basic story, especially the loony tessitura, but I have never seen all the threads drawn together like that. The affair with da Ponte. The custom-composing by Mozart, Adriana’s lesser-known shortcomings.
“I felt like I had never fully understood why the part was written that way. And your description of the drops – the hang-glider, the toe-dipping. That was so affirming, because that’s the flaw in almost every Fiordiligi I’ve ever seen. I was so determined not to stomp those notes. Visualization is drastically important to me, and now I have this lovely image to help me whenever I sing the part.
“I’ll tell you, Mickey, most of the critics out there are so damn sure that they know everything about opera, and never do they land on something like that. It’s all bluster. When did they all give up on learning? I didn’t. You didn’t. And no offense, but I get the feeling that your operatic knowledge is anything but encyclopedic. But maybe it’s the humility, the not knowing, that opens the way to discovery. Where did you come from, Mickey, and how do you come up with this stuff?”
Maddie Hart the opera star is tapping her finger into my chest. I cannot force a word past my mouth. I’m an imposter. She immediately makes matters worse by taking off the fedora and unpinning her hair. She shakes it out with a hand and lets it settle along her shoulders, revealing subtle gradations of platinum, straw and sand. An elderly woman in a black sequin gown creeps up from behind, program in hand.
“Ms. Hart? I hate to interrupt, but you were fabulous tonight! Could I trouble you…?”
She hands Maddie the program and a pen and waits as she signs the cover.
“Thank you so much!”
“Thank you for coming to the show.” The woman walks away, and Maddie turns to me with a smile.
“You see what I mean about the hat? It’s like an invisibility cloak. But opera singers have the most well-behaved fans in the world. I would hate to put up with those obnoxious movie fans. I asked you a question, young man!”
She slaps me on the knee, another injury to my sense of reality. In doing so she leans forward, allowing me a generous view of her cleavage.
“I’m sorry. What was the question?”
She gives me a broad stage laugh. I can see the little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
“Let me rephrase it. How did you arrive at this unique approach to critiquing opera?”
“Oh. Well… I…” Hell. I was just going to have to tell her the whole mediocre truth. It has to be some sort of felony to perjure yourself to a diva. I take a deep breath.
“Absolute ignorance. I came to opera late in life, with little musical knowledge. So I listened to everything I could get my hands on, and I read everything I could. But still, it wasn’t enough. I had to see it firsthand, but I couldn’t afford the tickets. I have this friend who works at a community newspaper, and she said the local performing groups were always offering her free tickets, whether she wrote about them or not. With print media dying off, and arts coverage being hacked to pieces, they’re desperate for any recognition they can dig up.
“So she told me I should start a blog about opera, and request comps from the regional companies: Opera San Jose, West Bay Opera, Mission Opera. If they gave me any trouble, she could vouch for me. But they gave me no trouble at all. Fortysomething guy, corporate demeanor, no problem.
“After that, however, came the real puzzle: how was I supposed to write about these operas? I didn’t have enough expertise to offer much of an opinion about the singers. Or the production values, or the directing. So I covered my tracks with research, and I discovered that almost every opera ever created has some fascinating backstage story. So I connected that to my reviews, and I came up with something that was, at the least, entertaining.
“The rest is in the details. I had my newspaper friend hack up my stories until I became a decent writer. I learned to upload photos, and made sure I got the credits right. I double-checked the calendar and ticket info. Then I sent an email to the opera to make sure they read it.
“A year later, I began to find my reviews being quoted on singers’ websites, and on the season brochure for West Bay Opera. I sent a query off to San Francisco Opera and was absolutely shocked when they gave me tickets for the entire fall season. The second production was Figaro, with Maddalena Hart as the Countess. But that’s the story. I’m an imposter. I snuck in through the back door. And now I’m sitting here talking to my favorite singer.”
“Favorite singer?” she says. “Or most famous singer?”
“Absolute favorite.” I’m about to tell her the car story, but I decide that it would be too much. “How far back in my blog did you read?”
She gives me an embarrassed smile that takes off twenty years. (Perhaps embarrassment is a youthful endeavor.)
“Okay. You got me. I searched your blog for every reference to me, and I didn’t read about any other singer. But I was pressed for time! Honestly!”
I raise an accusing finger. “Aha! So you are a soprano.”
Now that our flaws are on the table, the conversation rambles freely, and it’s easier to forget the golden identity of the person with whom I am speaking. And I have always found this to be true: find two people with a passion for opera, and the time melts away. In this way, Maddalena Hart is everything I have wished for: an intensely focused performer with a need to constantly poke and prod at the secret meanings and nuances of her craft, to do anything to increase her understanding and sharpen her skill. I try my best not to sound like I’m interviewing her, but I do pick up some tidbits that are bound to pop up in my review.
Maddie and I close down the bar, and we find that my car is parked directly behind hers. She opens her door, tosses her bag and fedora inside, and turns to receive whatever farewell I might offer. The lights of City Hall strike the low overcast and fall over her in a soft mist, spelling out the brighter tresses of her hair, glimmering in the corners of her eyes. Even if she were not Maddalena Hart, I would be in love with her. I take her hand and bring it to my lips. Being a diva, she knows how to accept this, with a smile and the subtlest dip of her knees.
“I can’t even tell you,” I say. “So I won’t. Thank you for appreciating my appreciations.”
“Thank you, Mickey. I can’t wait to read your…”
Maddie stops and looks down, rubbing her eye as if a piece of dust has landed there. She looks up with tears on her cheeks.
“Don’t ever stop writing, Mickey. You do lovely work.”
She kisses me on the lips. Then she gets in her car, gives me a wave and drives off. I wave back. Maybe five minutes later, I remember to get in my car and start it up. I doubt very much if I will have a problem staying awake.
On the lips. I wait until I can see the Stanford dish, and then I play “Song to the Moon.”

Four

“Continue straight for the next fourteen miles.”
There’s no way I could have written that review last night. And this morning, I didn’t really have the time.
“Continue straight for the next thirteen point eight miles.”
But between Maddie and Tchaikovsky and the Latino Brothers Karamazov, I have enough raw material for a novella, and the first paragraph is pounding on my mental front door like an angry landlord. Write me! Write me!
“Continue straight for the next thirteen point six miles.”
“Hey, Larry. Any chance you can get this bee-acch to shut up?”
“Oh, sorry.” He hits a button on his navigation screen. “After a while, you don’t really hear it anymore. It’s just like being married – and you so totally didn’t hear that from me.”
Between the wife, two daughters and what you might call an actively present mother-in-law, Larry is gynecologically surrounded. But he’s got a fantastic degree of patience and a wicked sense of humor to help him deal.
Despite the over-persistent vocals, the navigator is a fascinating little gizmo. I watch the little dot that is us as it crawls past the junction of I-280 and 92.
Me, I’m a terrorist. I’ve got this gorgeous little nugget of plastic explosive sitting in my pocket, next to my cell phone. It’ll only work if I find the right target, and the right time. Larry’s not it. As father of two rambunctious girls and builder of Silicon Valley startups, he’s got way too much on his plate to keep track of my musical obsessions. We are alike in so many ways, but we are outfitted with vastly different lives. I leave the explosive where it lies, and I keep the conversation light.
“How’s Calypto?”
“Pretty good. Still in the development stages. But our investment capital is super-solid, and I got a nice deal on the new facilities.”
Larry’s sort of a CFO, although his companies are never quite large enough for him to cop to the title. Gotta love the names. The first was InSync, one letter away from a boy band. Next was Expedion, three letters away from an online travel site. The new one, Calypto, sounds like a foot fungus suffered by Harry Belafonte. But I shouldn’t make fun. I’m the one who gets the logo golf shirts when the companies get sold.
Carla and Linda are in the back seat, maintaining a heavy chatter. The subject, as usual, is education. It seems like every one of their kids is headed for college, so they’ve become experts on the new generation of SAT scores, the balancing of tuition costs with scholarship offers, the all-important question of How far away? and the more important question of Why didn’t we have our kids further apart?
“Oh! The campus. No kidding – it was actually named one of the top ten best-looking campuses in the country. Gorgeous. And I really do think she’ll prefer going to a smaller school.”
“Still playing ball?” asks Larry.
“Amazingly enough. All these young punks tryin’ to push me out, but they didn’t count on my craft and guile.”
Larry laughs. “Sounds a lot like Silicon Valley. Oh, geez. I better reactivate the bee-acch.”
He presses a button and gets immediate results.
“Turn right, Sneath Road exit, two point four miles.”
“Well, at least she’s got a new song.”
We’re into the North Peninsula – Colma, Daly City, South San Francisco – about two-thirds along my opera commute and deep into Cemetery Central, where the dead outnumber the living. We swing through the arched gates of the military cemetery and find infinite rows of white crosses – enough to fill a stadium. Our arrival, as usual, finds the place in rare form, fresh flowers everywhere, small American flags planted at five-foot intervals. It’s not really our choice – Mom’s birthday just happens to be May 31 – but it’s nice that the place always looks so festive.
We take a left and spiral up the hill to the cemetery’s central feature, an enormous flagpole surrounded by commanders, privates and sergeants. Her stone is modest and horizontal, etched with the words Grace M., wife of LCDR Harold J. Siskel. It’s funny that she’s lodged in such a boys’ club, but she certainly put in enough time as a Navy wife to qualify.
After sixteen years, we have all developed our rituals. I brush away the grass clippings that have fallen into the engraved letters, then pull out any roots invading the edges. Carla manages to find one of the military-issue flower holders – a metal cone attached to a stake – plants it into the lawn and works an arrangement of roses. They come from her house and Linda’s house, descendants of the bushes from my mother’s garden. I would leave the house late in the evening and use my car key to cut off a blossom for my date. My favorites were orange with swirls of yellow; they smelled like citrus and vanilla. A year after she died, my father discovered an enormous purple iris in the center of the garden. “Don’t know where that crazy thing came from,” he said, but of course we both knew where it came from. My mom had planted it the previous spring, even as the cancer moved from her colon to her liver.
Sixteen years later, we are beyond much need for reminiscing, much more apt to sit around Mom’s name and talk about the kids, the jobs, the A’s, the Giants, our much more entertaining cousins – sort of the same stuff we would be telling her about, anyway. In California, it’s second nature to steal ideas from other cultures, and in this my Scots-Irish clan is very Latino, very Dia de los Muertos.
A few minutes later, we have entered our quiet phase – each of us, perhaps, trying to bring up an image of her face, wondering what she would have looked like if she had attained the old age she so richly deserved, and trying to recall what life was like before we learned how to pronounce the word “metastasize.” Linda retells a piece of the family liturgy, how she took a walk on Mom’s beloved beach, the day of her death, and found that someone had written the name Grace in the sand. I follow with one of my own, Mom’s habit of pointing out her favorite women to Dad and saying, “If I die before you, you can marry her.” One of those women was Sharon, who eventually became our stepmother. How we decided that the siblings should meet every year on Mom’s birthday, and visit her gravesite. And then it gets quiet again. I shuffle a hand into my pocket and pull out my grenade.
“Last night, I had a date with Maddalena Hart.”
My principal target is Linda, she who retains an innocence that can break your heart. She lets out a gasp (God bless her) and looks at me with wide eyes.
“Oh my God! Isn’t she that opera singer? What do you mean ‘a date’? You mean you got to meet her?”
“She asked me to meet her at a bar after the performance. We talked for three hours.”
My next respondent is big sister Carla, who is most up-to-date on my opera life. “Wow! That’s like… Wow! Were you nervous?”
“I was pathetic!”
“Was she nice?” asks Linda.
“Nicer than I could have dreamed.”
I realize that this level of celebrity gossip is too good not to make use of, but my bragging has left me feeling a little tawdry. I already miss the sense of anticipation, the lump of explosive that I have now squandered.
“Hey!” says Larry. “I think I saw her on PBS once. She’s kind of a babe!”
“Oh Larry!” I protest. “Maddalena is such an amazing artist that I would never even notice such a thing!”
And now we all laugh. Because siblings know better. And now I feel less tawdry.

We head across the freeway for lunch and pie at Baker’s Square, and by the time I get home I’m beat. That lead paragraph is still parked on my brainstep, ringing the bell like a Jehovah’s Witness with a quota. I, however, am too tired to lift a finger, so I take a swan dive onto the bed and I don’t get up.
Is there anything worse than the overlong evening nap? When you get up it’s dark outside. At first you assume that you’ve landed somewhere deep in the night. You feel this awful regret over the loss of time, and then you realize that it’s eight o’clock and you have an entire Saturday night in front of you. Then you hear the sound of a car pulling down the dirt road and stopping at the end of the drive. And then, for a long time, nothing.
I stumble from the bed, fully clothed, and peer out the window. Katie’s out there, but why hasn’t she knocked? In the faint light from her dashboard, I can see that she has buried her face in her hands. I make my way outside and cross the front yard, redwood twigs snapping under my bare toes.
When she sees me coming she waves me off, as if she wants me to go back to the house and pretend I’ve seen nothing. Yeah, right. I open her door and kneel on the ground so I can pull her to my shoulder. She doesn’t look like she’s been crying for long, but the moment she pulls the key from the ignition, it all comes out.
“It’s okay.”
“No it’s not,” she sobs.
“I mean it’s okay to cry.”
So she does. This may sound odd, but there’s are few things more beautiful than a crying woman. Because this is real, this is what matters. I suppose this is one reason that I love opera. All that raw emotion.
Five minutes later, I grab her weekend bags and head for the living room, where she gives me the full account. Katie has landed herself in a nice little torture chamber. Given no choice but to move out of her house (she mentions police visitations, implies abuse), she moved in with her sister’s family. This means Katie and her two daughters stuffed into a single room, this means imposing on a sister with her own children to raise – but this is the only way she’ll be able to get the teaching degree, and be able to support the family on her own. This afternoon, as I was dining with my sibs, Katie’s sister was giving her the dreaded speech: “You need to make plans for moving out.”
Katie sits on my couch, nursing her nose with a Kleenex. “I can’t stand being in that house! I can’t breathe, I feel so bad – but what else can I do? I have to think of my girls.”
I have no answers, but that’s not my job. I’m the safe harbor, the weekend retreat. I toss a Duraflame into the fireplace and light it up.
“Have you eaten? Can I make you something?”
She waves a hand. “I had some McDonald’s. But I brought some brownie mix. Can you make me some brownies?”
“Sure.” I pour some red wine and hand her the remote.
“Make sure you undercook them by a couple minutes. I like them nice and gooey. And bring me the mixing spoon. I want to lick the leftover.”
She gets into this bossy mode sometimes. But that’s okay. She spends every day on a carpet of eggshells, so I don’t mind her roughing me up. Besides, I’m still pretty fuzzy from my nap, so clear instructions are helpful. Amazingly, I have everything the brownie mix demands – one egg, cup of milk, baking powder. I pop the tray into the oven, then I run a finger through the mixing bowl and lick it off. Yowza!
We spend the next hour consuming the entire tray, along with a full bottle of Cab. Katie’s feeling good, and kissing my ear. I warned her about that. It drives me insane, and should only be undertaken with serious intentions.
“Mickey? I want you to make it all go away. I want you to destroy me.”
She pulls my hand inside her shirt. She’s a nipple girl, and can sometimes reach orgasm with nothing else. Between red wine, luscious brownies and Katie’s tits, all thoughts of Maddalena Hart and that first paragraph have escaped my mind. Now it’s my turn to be bossy.
“Go to my bedroom, take off all of your clothes, but don’t get on the bed just yet. I’ll be right in.”
“Oh-kay!” She hops up and strips, leaving a trail of laundry as she crosses the room.
I race outside to the car and dig around until I find a brand-new dropcloth. When I return to the bedroom, Katie is seated on a chair, wearing not a stitch, legs daintily crossed. I open the plastic packaging, unfold the dropcloth and spread it over the bed.
“Lie down, honey – face to the mattress.”
She squeals and takes her position, the plastic crinkling beneath her.
“Now close your eyes and don’t open them until… Well, you’ll know when.”
I dash away to the kitchen, where I pour an entire quart of olive oil into a pot and warm it to the temperature of a hot tub. Then I take the pot to the bedroom and slowly empty its contents over Katie.
“Oh my God!” she moans. “That is so… That is so…”
I strip off and saddle her butt so that I may embark on a full-body massage, working every muscle from head to toe. I manage to keep this going for a half hour, as Katie maintains a rumbling moan beneath me. My muscles are getting a little sore, but I don’t care. My cock becomes so rigid that I can no longer ignore its pleas, so I insert myself into Katie’s pussy as I continue to massage her back. I didn’t actually think I could do this. The inside/outside rubdown has an immediate effect on Katie, whose moans are growing in pitch and frequency.
After a few minutes, I get another idea and run outside, erection bobbing like a diving board, to dig up a box of rubber gloves. Katie is mightily curious about my disappearance, but it helps that she’s halfway to a coma. I pull her hips until that gorgeous white bubble-butt is pointed skyward, and insert one, two, then three fingers into her pussy, her breathing working into an excited pant. Then I pull on a glove and insert a finger into her anus. She tightens up, putting some impressive pressure on my second knuckle, but then I put my ungloved hand back to work on her pussy, and soon she’s accepting my multiple intrusions with glee. I’m a freakin’ gynecologist, and a minute later Katie is bucking.
She collapses, my hands still inside of her – but I’m not done. The word was, after all, “destroyed.” I pull a butt plug from my nightstand – a beginner’s model, three inches long – and work it into her asshole. Then I collect some oil from her calf, slather up my dick and re-enter her pussy. After all the attention, she’s hot as a sauna, and I have to stop for a second before I go spurting out all the fun. From behind, I can fuck her in standard doggy fashion as my pubic bone pushes against the butt plug, sending both pistons in and out of her at once. She starts ramming her ass back against me, slamming the headboard with both hands and screaming all manner of high-pitched, unintelligible filth. That’s what I like about the woods. Nobody hears. Except for Trey the Fish, who’s probably shocked that a 47-year-old gets this much action.
Katie comes violently, then yells at me to keep going, and thirty seconds later is coming again, letting out a series of glissandos that would make Maddalena proud.
I can take no more. I pull out, stand up on the bed and jerk off as Katie waves her much-abused ass at me. I shout as loudly as I please and send sprays of semen over her back. Then I collapse next to her and rub the whole messy vinaigrette into her skin.
“Destroyed?”
She turns, eyes wide with energy. “Y-yes.”
“I’m going to pour you a bath, honey.”
“Mickey?”
When I look at her again, she’s crying, but I think I know what she’s trying to say.
“You’re gonna be okay, honey. Just hang in there.”
I kiss her, fill the tub with hot water and bubble bath, then I carry her from the bed and settle her into the water, like a baby at baptism.

The straw-colored sun at my bedside. Fifteen minutes later, she’s back, fully dressed, damp hair, ready for church. I walk her out. She looks tired. Destroyed. I give her a kiss and say, “The next step. That’s where you keep your focus. Just get to the next step.”
“What is the next step?”
“Pick up your kids, take them to church. And don’t let them blackmail you.”
“Right. Thanks for last night. It was a nice trip.”
I kiss her again and watch as she drives away, raising a parade of dust. I would tell her that I love her – because I’ve been where she is, because I understand. But I won’t.
My third wake-up comes early: ten o’clock. The lead paragraph is back, knocking at my cerebellum like a Girl Scout with a cart full of cookies. Still, I’m going to insist on the ritual. I have some new soap that I’m dying to open. French-milled with Shea butter and mango butter. It lathers up in a yellow cream, with a ripe tropical smell. I raise my hands to my nose and take it in.
Twenty minutes later, I’m at my writing table. Across the way, Trey the Fish is setting up for a party. He’s an international spear fisherman. No kidding. I went to one of his barbecues and found myself chewing on a zebra-stripe manta ray from New Zealand. But even exotic grilling and topless women will not stay me from my appointed rounds.

[Track 4]
I first learned the immortal Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin through recordings. I had little idea of the text, or the context, but I loved the passion of its vocal lines, the uplifting breeze-like woodwinds, the life-transforming back-and-forth of the character’s monodrama.
Which is why my first encounter with an onstage incarnation was so unsettling. The regal music was there, as were the dramatic vocal lines, but the supertitles stripped away all the mystery. Basically, you had a teenage country girl attempting to write a crush letter to her hunky new neighbor, and tormenting herself with a night-long oscillation. “OhmiGOD! What do I do? I mean, like, if I tell him and then he doesn’t like me, that would be like a totally wicked bummer! Does he love me? Does he not love me? Argh!”
The biggest news about SFO’s production is Maddalena Hart’s innovative approach to this scene. Hart manages to take Tatyana’s irritating indecisions and paint them with a tennis-match conviction – as if every flip-flop is, in fact, a solid, committed step in the advancement of her argument. She does this by delivering each new flight with a distinct attitude, expression or movement, helping us to step inside the actual crazymaking mindset of a teenage girl, for whom each new thought marks an entirely new direction in the course of her life, on par with the discovery of Relativity. The ride is vastly entertaining, and brings a palette of new and vivid colors to Tchaikovsky’s legendary scene.
I had a chance to talk with Ms. Hart post-performance, and she confirmed my impression. Every few years, she refashions her roles, going back to square one and seeking new revelations about her characters. With the Letter Scene, she began with the translation, imagining how each sentence would feel, mapping out her reactions, and using certain keywords as guideposts. She wanted to be sure not to have the same exact feeling or reaction more than once. Hart also credits stage manager David Cox, who designed a choreography of movements to go with these reactions.
And now for the history. In 1877, as Tchaikovsky embarked upon the project, his sympathies stood firmly with Tatyana, whose first confession of love meets with a heartbreaking failure. Although Onegin handles the situation with sufficient tact – saying that he can offer nothing more than a brother’s love – he later proves himself a crass, shallow schmuck.
During the composition of the Letter Scene, Tchaikovsky found himself in the exact position of his title character. He received a crush letter from a former pupil, Antonina Milyukova, a young woman he barely remembered. His dismissal was much more brusque than Onegin’s, including an instruction for Antonina to “quell her feelings.” After completing the Letter Scene, however, he reconsidered his rude behavior and decided to make up for it by marrying the girl.
This was a huge mistake. Tchaikovsky quickly discovered that he was repelled by physical contact with a woman, and celebrated his honeymoon by hurling himself into the Moscow River. The anticipated pneumonia failed to arrive, so instead the couple separated. Tchaikovsky paid her off at the rate of 6,000 rubles a year. Despite all of this trauma, he finished Yevgeny Onegin in the span of eight months.
Despite bearing three children by another man, Antonina refused a divorce. Sixteen years after the wedding, Tchaikovsky was caught flirting with a duke’s nephew. A court of colleagues issued a secret missive ordering the composer to kill himself. His death, soon after, was blamed on the ingestion of tainted water. More recent biographers conclude that he was, in fact, carrying out the court’s instructions. Antonina outlived him by 24 years, drifting from one asylum to the next.
The creation of the Pathetique Symphony, one of the most melancholy pieces of music ever written, is often credited to Tchaikovsky’s lifelong struggle with his homosexuality. The piece debuted in 1893, nine days before his death.

I upload a photo of Maddalena in her Letter Scene nightclothes, wearing one of her well-designed expressions: utter radiance, her eyes raised to the light as she considers the possibility that Onegin’s feelings might be equal to hers. Her hair looks like spun gold. I press Publish, and I take a beer out to the porch. I’m surprised to find that it’s only midafternoon. Trey’s party is going strong, a dozen rascally young guys, a trio of girls, drinking and laughing and eating God-knows-what from God-knows-where. The road is packed with vehicles; I’m not sure if I could get out of here if I wanted to. Then I remember that I forgot to set my computer’s response-alarm. When I go back in to check, DD’s already there. That girl really needs to get a life.

DevilDiva: Um… Hello? Am I reading this right? You met Maddalena Hart?

Mickey: Yeah, I did.

DD: All right, you’ve earned your coolness points for playing it low-key. But please! A few details for the groundlings?

M: She liked my Cosi review, so she asked me out for a drink. I’m still a little in shock. Three hours! We talked for three hours.

DD: Did you sleep with her?

M: OMG! You little drama queen. Are you trying to create a viral rumor?

DD: Couldn’t hurt your numbers, honey. So what was she like?

M: I told you I didn’t sleep with her!

DD: I sorta meant, ya know, personality-wise.

M: Doh! Charming as all hell. So much as I imagined her that it sort of surprised me.

DD: You were surprised by the lack of surprise.

M: Exactamente.

DD: Looks?

M: Well, no one’s as perfect in person as they are on stage. But I rather like the little flaws. Less goddess-like, more human. Those eyes, though. Wow.

Cordell: I find that her eyes are even better in person.

DD: Jesus! Am I the only one who hasn’t met her?

C: I’m a voice coach, honey. I meet ‘em all. But I wanted to thank you, Mickey, for that story about Tchaikovsky. I’ve heard little bits of it, but I’ve never seen it spelled out in such a beautifully tragic arc. And the secret suicide command! Is that new?

M: Yes, it is. It was discovered in somebody’s archive, and reported in a biography a couple years ago. Of course, it might also have to do with the increasing openness about homosexuality.

C: Amen for that. Meanwhile, so glad you got to meet Maddie! She is a delight. A bit mad-making sometimes, how neurotic she gets about the details – but that’s what makes her the best.

DD: Yes, and now I have an additional reason for disliking her. She’s met the legendary Mickey Siskel.

C: Maddalena is not our only green-eyed soprano. Mee-ow!

M: I’ll meet with either of you, anytime. I shan’t forget my roots, now that I’m hangin’ with the stars.

DD: You got a deal.

C: Come up to Seattle and see me sometime.

M: Thank you, Mae West.

I have successfully given birth to the lead paragraph, and everything that follows, and once the gang leaves the comments page I realize what a weekend I have had, and how exhausted I am. I dial up a baseball game – one that I have no intention of watching – and I collapse on the couch.
Hours later, I awake, and I realize that I’ve done it again: the accursed evening nap. It’s dark outside, a whisper of sunset still in the heavens, and Trey’s party is down to a handful of smokers, a string quartet of glowing orange tips. I notice that the baseball game has become a soccer match, and that my computer is running its screen-saver, a labyrinth of colored pipes building and unbuilding itself on a gray background. I roam across the room, hit the space bar to clear the plumbing, then click the refresh button on my comments page.

Mad Huntress: You are a poet. I have never heard the story of Antonina and Pyotr told so well. It is excruciatingly sad. I’m certain that Ms. Hart had a splendid time speaking with you.

Opera San Jose's "La voix humaine" and "Pagliacci"

2011-11-14T15:19:00.001-08:00

November 12, 2011

Passion is pouring from the California Theater these days, as Opera San Jose presents two of the most intense small operas in the canon.

The evening begins with Poulenc’s La voix humaine, the operatic equivalent of a high-wire act. Take one mezzo soprano, add a telephone, and… well, what else do you need? The one-act opera, with libretto by Jean Cocteau, uses this minimalist approach to outline that classic romantic tragedy, the break-up call.

Our heroine, known simply as “the woman,” is more desperate than most, a point that Betany Coffland takes to divine extremes. The air of manic-depression is there from the start; she enters in a long, jarring silence, letting one thought take her to laughter, the next to tears, and downs multiple drinks on the way to her enemy and friend, the telephone that looms at center stage.

Once Bryan Nies brings in the orchestra, Coffland begins a terrifyingly intimate conversation with her soon-to-be-ex-lover, sung in phrases of speech-like parlando. The orchestra answers her, like the inhales to her exhales, or perhaps the other half of the conversation, as well as providing representational atmospherics (the jangling ring of the phone, rough haunting pizzicatos from the strings).

Coffland’s voice is well in its element (perhaps because of her skill with an earlier speech-based form, bel canto recitative), but it’s her acting that compels. She and director Layna Chianakas (herself a wonderful singing actress) have framed the dialogue with bits of “stage business” that leave indelible images: Coffland spreading sleeping pills across her coffee table and dropping them, one by one, into a cocktail glass; arranging red carnations along the rug, perhaps as a suicide bier; staring into the mirror as she tells her lover, “I avoid looking at myself.” The phone becomes a dance partner, caressed as a lover, dragged around as a slave, its cord wound around her neck as a threat.

The setup magnifies the emotions. Phone cutoffs are treated as unimaginable tragedies. When the reality of the separation hits home, Coffland falls into a fit of lunatic sobbing that’s hard to believe. If you tried such a trick without the fullest commitment, you would surely fail – but fail she does not, and the spectator is left feeling like a voyeur, in awe of a performer who has the courage to expose such raw emotions in such a public forum.

The sensation translates into the voice, as well. Coffland takes the phrase “I was going insane” into a searing top note that bends upward into a scream, and later enters a dream-like nostalgia presented by Poulenc as a mock waltz. The parlando flowers into unexpected, crazy fortes, revealing surprising levels of power. Taken as a whole, the act is a devastating hour of pathos, and I don’t know if I’ve seen a more complete performance on an opera stage.

Not that the rest of the company is going to let you off the emotional hook. The evening continued with an intense performance of Pagliacci, a little rough at the edges but powered by forceful voices.

The first of these comes in the famed Prologue, introducing not just Leoncavallo’s opera but OSJ’s new resident baritone, Evan Brummel. Brummel delivers a solid, meaty tone and an natural stage presence, drawing his Tonio with inspired levels of creepiness.

Jasmina Halimic takes the darker fourth-act shades of last season’s Mimi and applies them to Nedda, showing the ability to produce bits of onstage thunder. Her performance of the birdsong aria, “Stridono lassu,” is particularly affecting, as is the following duet with Silvio (baritone Krassen Karagiosov).

Tenor Alexander Boyer was born to sing “Vesti la giubba,” and manages to put a personal stamp on a vastly overexposed piece of music. (I told my companion she would probably recognize it from various TV commercials, and, sure enough, found it the next day being used to sell the fine products of Taco Bell.) He has also conquered a previous tendency toward awkward onstage movement, making use of his impressive height and a surprisingly effective evil eye to project Canio’s simmering rage.

Halimic and and Karagiozov do not fare so well in this category; you can see them thinking about their blocking (except, in Halimic’s case, when she adopts Nedda’s commedia alter-ego, Columbina). This is a fine point, perhaps, but it does have the unsettling effect of breaking the illusion of character. Another fine example of a natural presence is tenor Michael Dailey, who plays the company manager Beppo with energetic authority and adds some wonderful physical humor to his stage persona, Arlecchino.

Director Cynthia Stokes, with the assistance of fight director Kit Wilder, has coached her players into a rough physicality. Tonio’s gropings of Nedda are anything but subtle (and will surely dampen any ambitions for political office). Boyer arm-twists a villager to the ground while confessing his jealousies, and achieves the final double-stabbing with brutal elegance.

Faced with two such disparate styles, the orchestra plays wonderfully, particularly in Poulenc’s arresting use of percussion and inventive stringwork, and the haunting double-bass of Leoncavallo’s overture (which reappears at Canio’s discovery of Nedda’s infidelities). Nies conducts with a forceful energy, and is a pleasure to watch. Cathleen Edwards’ black-and-white commedia costumes are a delight, especially Arlecchino’s dazzling checkerboard suit.

Images: Betany Coffland as the woman in "La voix humaine." Michael Dailey as Arlecchino in "Pagliacci." Photos by P. Kirk.

Through November 27, California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. Alternating casts. $51-$101. 408/437-4450, www.operasj.org.

SFO's "Carmen"

2011-11-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

San Francisco Opera
Bizet’s Carmen
November 6, 2011

The curtain calls caught mezzo Kendall Gladen tearing up, and it’s easy to see why. Gladen’s career was launched by an Adler Fellowship at San Francisco, and although she’s performed Carmen in Berlin, Los Angeles, Florida, Michigan and Saratoga, New York, this was her first at the old house. She is impressive in the role, endowing the nearly uncatchable character with a statuesque presence and a voice that goes deep without going too far. (The part goes to Anita Rachvelishvili 11/12-23; Gladen returns 11/26-12/4.)

Another fine balance was Thiago Arancam, who sang Don José with a spinto that was forceful without being forced, opening up splendidly on his top notes. Arancam’s performance of The Flower Song was memorable, and he’s a rare José who seems as young as his character.

The rarity in Escamillo is the ability to look good in a matador’s wardrobe, as does Paulo Szot. Szot sings in an easy baritone that fits his cool, James Bond demeanor; even in a knife fight, the man doesn’t sweat. I also enjoyed Wayne Tigges, who played Zuniga with a sinister intensity (and, like SFO’s Don Giovanni, an anachronistic pair of sunglasses – what is this, steampunk opera?). The only letdown was Micaëla, sung by Sara Gartland with a powerful but overcovered tone. She did, however, bring out the beauty in the Act 3 reprise of the melody about José’s mother.

The entire production projects a wonderful sense of nuance, beginning with Nicola Luisotti, who often conducts without a beat, preferring to paint the flavor of the passage until it comes time to strike a sudden downbeat. His orchestra succeeded in bringing out the great beauty of Bizet’s score, the exotic, mystic passages between and beneath the infectious melodies, especially in the woodwinds. Ian Robertson’s chorus brought out similar qualities with subdued, beautifully sung passages, particularly in the opening scene.

Jose Maria Condemi’s direction was subdued, as well, waiting like a cobra for the right moment to strike, whether it be a slo-mo freeze of Carmen and José’s first meeting (aided by Christopher Maravich’s artful lighting), the couple’s rather earthy embraces, and a handcuffed Carmen picking up the famed flower with her teeth. Arancam and Gladen performed the final stabbing with such brutal force that even this veteran lost his breath.

Jean-Pierre Ponelle’s set is a dream of efficiency, a stone-wall proscenium that accommodates a running slide-show of village, tobacco factory, tavern, mountain hideaway and bullfighting arena.

Image: Kendall Gladen (Carmen). Photo by Cory Weaver.

Through Dec. 4, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $21-$330. 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com.

SFO's "Xerxes"

2011-11-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

San Francisco Opera
Handel’s Xerxes
November 4, 2011

Dealing with the gap between Baroque practices and modern audience expectations is always a bit of a high-wire act, but SFO’s company premiere of Xerxes is right on balance. Production designer Nicholas Hytner provides an intriguing backdrop, using London’s 18th Century Vauxhall Gardens as his model. Director Michael Walling takes every opportunity to use Handel’s florid style for comic ends, thus acknowleding the elephant in the room. The combination provides an energizing framework for an evening of soaring musicality, thanks to conductor Patrick Summers, a period-faithful orchestra and a stunningly talented cast of singers.

The solid core of the production comes from mezzo Susan Graham in the lead role and countertenor David Daniels as the king’s brother, Arsamanes. Graham is a local favorite, having created the role of Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s groundbreaking Dead Man Walking. She delivers in full here, although she’s a bit hampered by her sunny exterior. (Xerxes is an A-one jerk, especially in matters romantic.) Daniels provides an intriguing flash of exotica, nimbly delivered, but, I have to admit, not my favorite sound. (It was actually Xerxes who was originally played by a castrato, but gender in Handel is a pretty flexible matter.)

The real plaudits go to two sopranos playing women, Lisette Oropesa as Romilda, the object of the royal brothers’ affections, and Heidi Stober as her crafty sister Atalanta. Both showed tremendous skill with the trademark runs; both took full advantage of crescendoes, cultivating them with great care and effect. Stober’s first-act “Un cenno leggiadretto” was an especial delight.

For sheer athleticism, it’s hard to beat Italian alto Sonia Prina, playing Xerxes’ wronged fiancee, Amastris. She has a way of taking extraordinarily fierce runs and still separating the notes into discrete marcatos, which is somewhere near superhuman. It also fits the character, whose need for vengeance causes her to skulk around in men’s clothing, running sabotage against the king. At one point, she’s wandering through a crowd of stuffy socialites, delivering Handel’s ornaments as booze-soaked grenades of gingivitis.

The chorus is a cosmic joke in itself, dressed and made up completely in gray, and playing The Offended to all off-kilter behavior. As in, bass Michael Sumuel as Arsamenes’ servant Elviro, a very large man disguised as a flower girl to deliver a secret message. Another amusing presence is bass Wayne Tigges as the overenthusiastically martial Ariodates.

It’s a testament to Handel’s creation – based on Silvio Stampiglia’s libretto - that he takes on such a tangled love quadrangle and manages to keep things straight. This is thanks in part to innovations such as the brief arias and recitatives that he was exploring later in life.

It was a joy watching Summers – an unmitigated Handel enthusiast – leading the small orchestra, which included such period instruments as the theorbo (a longnecked lute), arch lute and baroque guitar. Summers handles his chores with great delicacy, providing plentiful space for his singers to luxuriate in his cadenzas.

Although the action took place in Handel’s London, Hytner used the relics often displayed at Vauxhall to pay tribute to the tale’s Persian origins – notably a large bird-like figure from the Persian capitol of of Persepolis, whose construction was completed by Xerxes himself.

Through Nov. 19, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $21-$330, 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com.

Image: Heidi Stober (Atlanta). Photo by Cory Weaver.

SFO's "Don Giovanni"

2011-10-17T20:23:00.001-07:00

October 15, 2011

Italian film and theater director Gabriele Lavia makes a profound demonstration of what can be achieved with small, provocative touches. In a production using period costumes, Lavia bestows upon his Giovanni a pair of sunglasses, lending the rapscallion lover the aura of a rock star (in fact, to my companion’s eyes, the late blues/rock icon Stevie Ray Vaughan). The parallel certainly fits, since Giovanni is privileged by his noble status to get away with behavior that would get the rest of us thrown in jail. The production in general seems to bring out the element of classism, drawing a line from Giovanni to Count Almaviva of Figaro – and even between Figaro and Leporello, who sings a strident opening aria, “Voglio far il gentiluomo,” that bears a striking similarity to Figaro’s opening battle cry, “Se vuol ballare.” (Just to extend this game a little further, both operas use the running gag of their lotharios’ inability to land a fish, thanks to the blocking techniques of Cherubino and Donna Elvira.)

Lavia’s high-energy direction is aided greatly by Alessandro Camera’s set designs, a minimalist combination of layabout dining chairs and large flyaway mirrors. One scene proceeds directly to the next as the set shifts, cinematically, around the players.

Lucas Meacham, who appeared (aha!) as Almaviva in last season’s Figaro, does a splendid job of filling out the rockstar aura, playing Giovanni with a James Bond smoothness broken with sudden flares of temper. Vocally, he delivers a smoky baritone with the tender phrasing befitting a wooer of women. This shows itself primarily in the duettino with Zerlina, “Là ci darem la mano,” and in the lilting serenade to Elvira’s maid, “Deh vieni alla finestra.” Another of Lavia’s small touches is to bring up the house lights and have Giovanni sing the second half of said serenade to every single woman in the hall – which is, after all, his true target market. (Meacham also does a fine job with the faster end of things, in a list of orders delivered to Leporello in a stunningly rapid patter.)

Leporello is served to a T by bass Marco Vinco, who employs heaping portions of physical comedy and a facial dexterity on the level of Mr. Bean. (Da Ponte’s quips make the role an absolute prize. Answering his boss’s orders in the darkness after the duel with the Commendatore, Leporello inquires, “Who’s dead – you or him?”) Vinco knocks the immortal Catalogue Aria out of the park, and is absolutely hilarious while lip-synching Giovanni’s lines a la de Bergerac under Elvira’s balcony (assisted by, once again, the magic sunglasses).

Soprano Serena Farnocchia is picture-perfect as Elvira, the librarian who’s only had sex once and will never, ever let go. She sings with a suitably acerbic edge befitting the role, but dials it back for the tender lament of “Mi tradi.” Soprano Ellie Dehn (last season’s Contessa Almaviva), sings Donna Anna with a fetching evenness of tone, gracing the final, heartbreaking acknowledgement of her guilt, “Non mi dir,” with crystalline high pianos.

Faced with an even more conflicted character, tenor Shawn Mathey plays Don Ottavio with great sincerity and angelic lyricism, carefully tracing the emotional shifts of “Dalla sua pace.” As Zerlina, mezzo Kate Lindsey is just plain sexy, singing what I call the S&M Aria, “Batti, batti,” while using a garden bench as a horizontal stripper pole. Faced with such talent, Ryan Kuster’s likeable Masetto has no choice but to forgive all transgressions.

Bass Morris Robinson is superbly imposing as The Commendatore, and performs the cemetery scene so well that even opera veterans might be jolted when the statue begins to sing. I wish I could say the same for Giovanni’s elevator to hell. Although the trapdoor/white smoke approach is effective, I have not once in 25 years seen a Giovanni damnation that truly satisfies. Given the solid theatricality of the rest of this production, I suppose I expected better.

Especially given the preceding minimalism, the backdrop for the dining scene is a truly lavish sight: half-circle folds of plush red drapery rising to the heavens. I also enjoyed Andrea Viotti’s masquerade outfits for the Triumvirate of Vengeance, white ceramic masks topped by humongous powdered wigs.

Through Nov. 10, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $21-$330, 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com

Image: Marco Vinco (Leporello) and Lucas Meachem (Don Giovanni). Photo by Cory Weaver.

San Francisco Opera: Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia

2011-09-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

Sept. 26, 2011

Renée Fleming’s cadenzas are so gorgeously crafted that the true aficionado may forget there’s some kind of opera going on. She manages to deliver these small treasures without sounding the least bit canary-like, and sings so effortlessly that they seem more like conversations that have taken flight.

This was especially evident in the first-act “Com’ è bello!” an aria sung to her sleeping son Gennaro (who does not know that he is her son). But the artfulness went on all night – for instance, an incredibly gradual crescendo that rises into a riotous chorus later in the act. Twenty years after her SFO debut, Fleming is at the top of her game, and it is an utter joy to watch her cast her spells.

Not that she’s alone. SFO has assembled a cast of one divine bel canto voice after another, beginning with tenor Michael Fabiano as Gennaro. Elizabeth DeShong brings a forceful, vibrant mezzo to the pants role of Gennaro’s warrior-lover Orsini; their third-act duet, with its extended passages of unaccompanied harmonizing, are breath-taking. Another treat is bass Vitalij Kowaljow, a powerful, sinister Duke Alfonso who cuts through the orchestra with his assertive, forward-placed tone.

Musically, this less-performed opera provides some fascinating moments, including a trio for Gennaro, Alfonso and Lucrezia that prefigures devices used by Verdi. Torn between her son and her husband (who assumes Gennaro to be his wife’s lover), Lucrezia’s vocal line flies back and forth between the two like a tennis ball. It’s also a great pleasure to hear the composer’s use of Gennaro’s warriors, akin to having a small men’s chorus.

Dramatically, the opera provides a challenge similar to another recent SFO opera, Puccini’s Turandot: a heroine who also happens to be a mass murderer. The trick is to understand the mythologizing process of the era, which often fell prey to misogyny: in this case, in blaming Lucrezia for the sins of her family. Donizetti clearly allows for this possibility, using Victor Hugo’s empathetic play as his source material, and creating the kind of music that could only serve to soften the historical view of Lucrezia. It’s also intriguing to note the parallels (mistaking a child for a lover, killing a child in a bungled attempt at revenge), in a previous Hugo play, Le Roi S’Amuse, the source for Verdi’s Rigoletto.

The vision of a woman dressed as a man kissing a man (dressed as a man) is a bit of pseudo-homerotica rare even for San Francisco. Another unsettling vision is created by the device used for Lucrezia’s throat-slicing suicide, a knife blade that spouts blood. John Pascoe’s production design is both authentic – the series of Italian limestone walls and facades that shuffle into the opera’s different settings – and fantastical – costumery that takes medieval Italian styles and push them in the direction of fantasy-fiction comic books. Alfonso projects his wicked aura with a black leather robe and crown. Lucrezia turns up in Act III as something akin to Brunnhilde meets Wonder Woman (a testament to Fleming’s well-known workout regimen). The only misfire was with Orsini, whose leggings do nothing to hide Ms. DeShong’s womanly hips (while her gruff red beard butches her up quite a bit).

Conductor Riccardo Frizza guided his orchestra like a man opening a musical treasure chest on Christmas morning. He showed great care in giving his lead singers room to operate.

Through Oct. 11, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $30-$389, 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com.

Image: Renée Fleming (Lucrezia Borgia). Photo by Cory Weaver.

Michael J. Vaughn is a twenty-five year opera critic. You can find excerpts from his latest novel under the Facebook fan page Operaville.

San Francisco Opera: Theofanidis’s "Heart of a Soldier"

2011-09-19T10:34:00.001-07:00

Sept. 18, 2011

In the highly compressed world of opera, the idea of a 9/11 opera is truly scary. There’s too much “there” there. In commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Twin Tower attacks, San Francisco Opera landed on the perfect focus: one man’s life, a life that ended on that momentous day. Rick Rescorla, the security chief for the Morgan Stanley investment firm, evacuated all 2,700 of his workers from the South Tower, then, heading back in to seek out stragglers, perished in the ensuing collapse.

The first act of the work, created by composer Christopher Theofanidis and librettist Donna Di Novelli, threatens to fall into a similar trap: trying to sum up a life that is simply too big. This seems especially true of a running Socratic dialogue on the nature of war, conducted by Rescorla and his best friend Dan Hill during tours of duty in Rhodesia and Vietnam. Following a battle in the Ia Drang River Valley, Dan declares “I don’t want to know their names,” while Rick obsesses over every lost soldier. The act feels overburdened with philosophizing, but this is a false sensation. Especially with the glut of attention brought by coverage of the anniversary, one feels impatient to get to the horrors of the main event. In fact, there’s plenty going on in Act 1, it’s all necessary to the conclusive action in Act 2, and the opera’s total running time is a modest two hours, ten minutes.

A crucial line of the narrative centers on the Vietnam platoon’s medic, Tom, played with great heart by baritone Michael Sumuel. A running correspondence with his sweetheart, Juliet (soprano Nadine Sierra), gives the opera a grunt’s-eye view of the real cost, the fear and loneliness of those who wait at home. Tom’s death in battle (one of the more visceral killings you’ll see in an opera) launches Juliet’s aria of worry, “I read and re-read the old letters,” and also helps to illuminate the depth of Rick’s compassion for his men.

The jungle battle scene is terrifying, due to a combination of qualities: singers that actually look and move like soldiers, the use of recorded battle sounds (Tod Nixon, sound designer), a dizzying background of Vietnam-era footage (S. Katy Tucker, projection designer), and Theofanidis’s pulsating, explosive score.

Theofanidis occupies the new school of opera composing, where personal style takes a backseat to the needs of the story. He opens with a troop of Normandy-bound Yanks singing to the tune of the familiar military marching chant (“Left! Left!” etc.) then borrows a Cornish fighting song for young Rick (the fine boy soprano Henry Phipps) to teach to the troops. The wedding song, “Overflow your glasses,” evokes Copland. The drug-addled soldier Dex plays his rifle to the sound of rock guitar, and Dan receives his call to Islam from Mohannad Mchallah, a Syrian singer trained in the secular Mideast form of Muwashshah.

What’s especially welcome – compared to the grinding, moaning tempi of many modern operas – is Theofanidis’s use of rapid rhythms. He applies martial modes throughout, notably in the staccato shouting accents of the training-camp scene at Ft. Benning and the adrenalized, chaotic scenes in Vietnam and at Ground Zero. He even makes use of counterpoint, in a fugue of Morgan Stanley workers gossiping about their strangely intense security chief (“Always watching”).

The second act opens with some much-needed relief: the light-hearted, late-in-life romance between Rescorla and Susan Greer, his New Jersey neighbor. Falling rapidly for each other over coffee, the two fiftysomethings act like teenagers, the accompanying awkwardness delivered by Di Novelli’s artful wit and wordplay in the duet “Do you ever wish?” When Susan assumes that Rick’s Cornwall homeland must be somehow associated with bagpipes, she asks, “Isn’t all the UK kind of bagpipey?” Rick later defends his excessive evacuation drills to his workers by saying, “I’m here to save your asses!” “From what?” they ask. “Exactly!” he replies.

Playing Susan, Melody Moore lights up the stage, delivering extra servings of warmth and humor with her vibrant soprano. William Burden plays Dan Hill with a strong, clear tenor and an underlying toughness. Baritone Thomas Hampson, whose involvement was a primary reason for the opera’s development, performs the forbidding task of taking a half-intellectual, half-warrior, almost mythic figure and making him fully human. “Marathon,” a genuine hit aria foreshadowing the events to come, gives Hampson a chance to shine, backed by sweeping strings and brass.

This central trio provides the perfect setup for the fateful morning: Susan in her bedroom, Dan mowing his lawn as Rick works behind them in the towers: two four-level platforms whose long vertical lines evoke the architecture of the World Trade Center. As the planes strike the North Tower across from them, then their own tower, Rick ignores the Port Authority’s call for the workers to stay put and orders them into their drill, singing all the way down the tower as a way to drive off panic. Hampson’s part could be the first operatic piece delivered entirely through a megaphone (“Exit singing”). Susan and Dan receive their final phone calls from Rick, and react with the same horror and anguish felt by the rest of the country. Moore delivers a fearsome top note as she begs Rick not to go back in (“I want you to stay!”). Burden watches the towers collapse and cries out the names of his friend’s favorite battles: “Marathon! Agincourt! Antietam!”

The set design by Peter J. Davison, and the manipulation of its elements, is masterful. The battle-heavy first act is a dreamlike world of flyaway flats, sets, screens and chin-up bars, augmented by Mark McCollough’s lighting. The eight-ton towers – built by Adirondack Studios in New York – achieve just the right balance of evocation without using actual imagery from the attacks, a smart decision by the production team. The most remarkable image is a rainfall of office papers, providing a moving visual elegy to the lives lost that day. The performance was led by stage director Francesca Zambello, who initiated the project when she read her friend James Stewart’s book of the same title. Conductor Patrick Summers worked with Theofanidis in developing the opera, and led his orchestra in an energetic, nuanced performance.

Through Sept. 30, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $21-$389. 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com

Photo by Cory Weaver.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of the novel Operaville, available at amazon.com.

San Francisco Opera, Puccini's Turandot

2011-09-16T20:26:00.001-07:00

Sept. 14, 2011

As evolutionary creatures, we respond to sudden changes in sound in a primal fashion – as if that sound might be attached to a creature that might eat us. This is why we are energized, sometimes alarmed, by sudden changes in music, and – once we reassure ourselves that we’re not about to end up in someone’s belly – why we often even enjoy the experience.

In Turandot, Puccini created a sonic rollercoaster of haunting elegies and musical grenades to create a provocative mix of fear and love. This aspect of the composer’s last (and unfinished) work was driven home by San Francisco’s resident dynamo, conductor Nicola Luisotti, and a supercharged orchestra, equipped with enough percussion to open a drum store (for the record: four timpani, triangle, snare drum, funeral drum, cymbals, tam-tam, eleven tuned gongs, glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba and chimes).

Not that the rollercoaster was strictly an audio affair. David Hockney’s 1992 set makes a welcome return, its collison of shocking reds, greens and off-kilter architecture creating an otherworldly Peking. The alien feeling is intensified by the haunting Moon Chorus, sung by the villagers before the arrival of a very busy executioner. (Ian Robertson’s chorus sang assertively and beautifully all evening.) After the execution, with its rousing bursts of brass and the Prince of Persia’s snappy yellow and blue robe (because you only die once), Puccini shifts to absurdist humor in the form of Ping, Pang and Pong, clownish administrators of the Imperial household. Attempting to ridicule our hero, Calaf, out of wooing their deadly princess (“Our graveyards are all full, and we have enough lunatics”), Hyung Yun, Greg Fedderly and Daniel Montenegro perform with such vocal and comic tightness, it’s hard not think of them as s single entity. In Act 2, they follow passages of Rossinian patter with a surprisingly touching andantino, “Ho Una casa nell’Honan”) about the homes they never see.

For sheer emotionality, of course, the opera’s peak moment is Liù’s “Signore, ascolta,” and former SFO Adler Fellow Leah Crocetto does not miss her opportunity. Making her role debut, Crocetto sings with a clarity and directness absolutely reminiscent of Montserrat Caballe. Her final note was a soul-shaking, crystalline dream.

Fear and Love make their appearance in the form of Swedish soprano Iréne Theorin and tenor Marco Berti, who battle it out in the Act 2 riddle scene like a hurricane battling a tornado. In the tradition of tenors with awesome voices, Berti is a little too static in his movements. Theorin begins in the same fashion – especially in Turandot’s fearsome “In questa reggia” – but then, at the answering of the third riddle, reveals a beguiling frailty. This helps later, as Puccini and his “finisher,” the much-debated Franco Alfano, attempt to marry off a serial murderer and a schmuck over the dead body of a devoted servant. (Considering his long history of squeezing effective drama out of his harried librettists, I’m betting that a healthier Puccini would have given the whole thing a massive overhaul.)

Puccini’s fascinating late-life experimentation – the ventures into exotic cultures and 20th century musical trends – tend to distract one from these dramatic flaws. SFO’s lavish production – a cast of 199 performers, a second-act palace that seems to go on forever, rhythmic gymnasts whipping ribboned banners all over the place, and one hell of a headdress – is a pretty amazing show all by itself.

Through Oct. 4, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $21-$389. www.sfopera.com, 415/864-3330. Free simulcast 2 p.m. Sept. 25 at AT&T Ballpark.

Photo by Cory Weaver

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of the novel Operaville, available at amazon.com.

Opera San Jose's "Idomeneo"

2011-09-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Sept. 11, 2011

Thanks to a gift from Hewlett-Packard heir David W. Packard, Opera San Jose made its very first Idomeneo a truly lavish affair. The great thing is, the money went not into showy elegance but to elegant authenticity, a production that seemed like a four-hour exhibit of Bronze-Age Minoan art, architecture and dress.

To modern sensibilities, Mozart’s 1781 creation suffers a bit from its story. Cretan King Idomeneo buys his survival in a shipwreck by promising Neptune he will sacrifice the first mortal he sees upon reaching land. That mortal turns out to be his own son, Idamante. Librettist Varesco then tried to crowbar in some Enlightenment values with a deus ex machina that provided several final-act titters.

The opera is worthwhile, regardless, for a view of Mozart’s most ambitious production, including a decided emphasis on choruses and dance. The company takes full advantage of these elements. Andrew Whitfield’s chorus performs as robustly as I’ve ever heard them, particularly in the opening chorus, “Godiam la pace.” A 15-member dance troupe, meanwhile, performs rustic, athletic interludes – notably in the final coronation scene - choreographed by Ballet San Jose director Dennis Nahat.

It was interesting to see how some of OSJ’s now-familiar voices matched up with the opera’s roles. A perfect example is Sandra Bengochea, who should probably travel the world, seeking out chances to sing Ilia, surviving daughter of the fallen Troy. Ilia’s lilting, lyric lines are a perfect match for Bengochea, and I have never heard her sound more vibrant, particularly in Ilia’s third-act farewell to Idamante, “Zeffiretti lusinghieri.” She makes the most of her phrasing, notably in several beautifully shaped sustenatos, and sings with a relaxed optimism that matches Ilia’s resilient demeanor.

Soprano Jasmina Halimic has the kind of Queen of the Night/Lady Macbeth/Tosca intensity that makes a perfect match for Elettra, particularly in her black-and-gold Evil Queen dress (designed by Johann Stegmeir). Halimic suffered some breathing problems in the second-act “Idol mio, se ritroso,” but stole the show with Elettra’s final-act freakout, “D’Oreste, d’Ajace.”

The only real flaw in tenor Alexander Boyer’s OSJ performances has been a bit of awkwardness in his stage movements, but with the tragedy-stricken monarch, he seems to have settled into his skin. (It also helps, in playing royalty, to be very tall.) He was a little tentative with the runs of the second-act aria “Fuor del mar,” but otherwise received many chances to show off the natural warmth of his tone, especially in the more anguished fortes of the final act, when he is faced with actually carrying out his promise to Neptune.

Speaking of Neptune, the company provided a side of beefcake with Paul Gemignani, who also (kidding aside) endowed the non-singing role with a stern god-like presence. Another side-treat was the quartet of “civilian singers,” Trojan men Jo Vincent Parks and Raymond Chavez; Cretan women Tori Grayum and Jillian Boye, all with lead-level voices.

The great emotional heft of the opera belongs to the role of Idamante, shunned by his father for no apparent reason, and infatuated with a woman, Ilia, who considers him an enemy. These conflicts fall to just the right performer, mezzo Betany Coffland, and the results are wonderful. In Act I, Coffland delivers the heartrending lament, “Il padre adorato,” then curls up on the beach as the curtain falls on Idamante’s befuddlement. This emotionality continues into the affair with Ilia, notably the third-act duet with Ilia, “S’io non moro.” The duet leads into the brilliant quartet, “Andro, ramingo e solo,” in which Elettra, Ilia, Idamante and Idomeneo simultaneously explore their varying conflicts. (In the alternate cast, Idamante is played by a tenor, Aaron Blake, in an alternative score written by Mozart in reaction to the growing movement against castrati.)

The orchestra played under the sure hands of George Cleve, one of the finest Mozarteans in the world, and, given his 21 years as director of the San Jose Symphony, a local favorite. Cleve led orchestra and audience in a longstanding tradition – the opening-weekend singing of The Star-Spangled Banner – that, given the date of the performance, carried much more significance than usual.

Through Sept. 25, California Theatre, 345 South First Street, San Jose. $51-$101. 408/437-4450, www.operasj.org

Image: Sandra Bengochea as Ilia. Photo by P. Kirk.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of the novel Operaville, available at amazon.com.

Betany Coffland: Putting the "Bel" in Bel Canto

2011-08-24T12:34:00.001-07:00

By Michael J. Vaughn

With its unique four-year residency program, Opera San Jose offers its patrons a chance to cultivate actual relationships with its singers: perhaps to develop a list of favorites, or even identify that rare performer who has what it takes to make it in the broader world of opera. Since these singers are also steadily improving during those fours years, often these true talents sneak up on you. You might not even remember when it was they first came to your attention. Fortunately, critics have old reviews to jog their memories.

The first thing that struck me about mezzo Betany Coffland was the most obvious: pure vocal power. Singing Dorabella in a February 2009 production of Cosi fan tutte, Coffland paired up with Rebecca Davis’s Fiordiligi to make divine ear candy with Mozart’s female harmonies. She also delivered an excellent rendition of “Smanie implacabili,” Dorabella’s hilariously overwrought lamentation. (Coffland later performed the aria in the 2010 Irene Dalis Vocal Competiton.) Mental checklist: strong voice, musical wit.

The next revelation came in the November 2009 production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, when Coffland took that vocal power and added “lightness, agility, birdsong.” She also demonstrated the warmth and charisma a singer needs to “carry” a show. Her performance of the finale, “Non più mesta,” was simply masterful. Add to the list: dexterity, star power.

In February 2010, Coffland made her trouser-role debut with the ultimate: Cherubino of Le Nozze di Figaro. Here, she illustrated a quality I call the Audience Comfort Quotient. This happens when a patron attends a favorite opera, sees a performer’s name on the program, and knows that he can simply sit back and enjoy. “I have already developed the belief,” I wrote, “that mezzo Betany Coffland can do no wrong on a stage.” She also had the chance to demonstrate a talent for slapstick that was only hinted at in her previous roles. List: audience confidence, physical humor.

In February 2011, everything on the list came together with Rosina of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The physical humor was cast-wide, and Coffland offered an intriguing interpretive choice, playing Rosina much “feistier” than the usual. Feeling that I was beginning to run out of superlatives, I wrote that the performance “should confirm Coffland’s genius in the special discipline of bel canto mezzo.”

As far as next-big-thing predictions go, here’s the clincher. Not only does Coffland possess the perfect skills for the Mozartean/Rossinian mezzo – she knows it, and seems fully capable of resisting the Puccini-Verdi temptations that have ruined many a singer before her. Even a rather intriguing venture into a Mendocino Carmen was undertaken with the understanding that she would sing with Betany’s voice, and not the usual double-wide Spanish sultry.

I had the pleasure of bumping into Betany at this summer’s San Francisco Ring Cycle, two Italophiles feeling a little lost in the German bigness. We spent our intermissions chatting about bel canto, Opera San Jose and her upcoming role as Idamante in Idomeneo, and I asked her if we could continue our conversation for the readers of The Opera Critic.

How did you first get into singing?

I was surrounded by music as a child. One of my first singing memories is my mother playing the guitar while myself and my three siblings would harmonize to “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.” My mother also loved to sing opera and I grew up with her singing “Ch' il bel sogno” and “Depuis le jour.” To this day, they are still two of my favorite arias.

I began taking voice lessons at age 12 and when I was 15, I started performing in musicals and plays. That first year, I think I juggled school and performing in five different productions. I was constantly busy with late-night rehearsals. I ended up wearing myself out and even getting mononucleosis. Yet, I loved every minute of it.

How did you discover opera?

I was interested in becoming an actress, but knew that I had a voice. The option of going into musical theater was thrown out by my lack of dancing skills. I had a huge “Aha” moment when I attended The Missouri Fine Arts Academy during high school. It was the first time I was completely surrounded by artists: singers, writers, painters, dancers, actors and instrumentalists. These people were creative, interesting and strange. I was hooked. It was that experience that convinced me to choose to attend New England Conservatory of Music. However, the drama and being an honest actress is still an integral part of my creative process and interest in performing opera.

Regarding the Rossinian mezzo repertoire: Did you have an early exposure to this area of opera, or was it a later discovery?

For the first seven years of my singing studies, I sang soprano. It wasn't until my second year of conservatory that I made the switch to mezzo-soprano. At first, this was a really difficult change for me. We singers are so emotionallly connected to our voice type and it is a bit of an identity crisis when we switch vocal fachs. However, now I'm so grateful to be a mezzo. It fits my personality.

While I was an undergraduate at New England Conservatory, I auditioned for the graduate program's Opera Workshop Class. It was there that I was assigned my first Rossini aria. During that time I was singing some Handel which also can involve a lot of coloratura singing. Even back then, I knew that it was a good fit.

However, it wasn't until my second season at Opera San Jose that I was given the chance to sing a full role as a Rossini heroine - Angelina, in La Cenerentola. I loved it, and people began to pay attention.

What is it about this area of singing that you enjoy?

There are definitely difficult technical aspects about singing Rossini and I like that challenge. I'm a hard worker and enjoy finding those moments of finally letting go and trusting that the technique is there.

Part of our job as a singer is making it all look easy. Believe me, it's not. For 30 seconds of Rossini's coloratura you hear on stage, I spend literally hours and hours trying to work that all out. It's amazing to me to think that I have the patience to do that, but ultimately, my voice likes the workout. Finding the body coordination and trust to finally let the voice go is what the audience is waiting to hear. There's something so exquisite in letting go and trusting. Inherently, I believe it's one of the most beautiful things we can do in art and in life. It's extraordinary to think that Rossini brings this out.

Is there a difference in the way you approach trouser roles? What's been
your experience with these?

I believe that passion and raw emotions aren't gender-based, regardless of
the boundaries society attempts to put on the sexes. When performing a
pants-role, in an attempt to be less feminine, I might change my gait and
gestures, but ultimately, I don't consciously attempt to “act like a boy.”
While getting my Masters at Juilliard, I sang Miles in Britten's The Turn
of the Screw and I covered L'enfant in Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges.
I've also sung Cherubino and will be doing Siebel this coming Spring. I'm
currently singing Idamante in Opera San Jose's production of Mozart's
Idomeneo. I love that the name Idamante literally means “from the heart.”
He's such a beautiful character caught in the emotional juxtaposition of
some major drama. I think ultimately there's something about the timbre
of a lyric mezzo-soprano's voice that captures the sentiments of young men
who are coming of age.

How has Opera San Jose helped your development as an artist?

To be a part of the only resident artist opera company in the U.S. has been
such a blessing. Imagine that I've been able stay in one place for four
years and gain all this experience! I feel so lucky to have been a part
of Irene Dalis's vision and hard work. Ms. Dalis and my experience at
Opera San Jose have taught me lessons for which I will be forever
grateful.

The main thing I take away from Opera San Jose is confidence. Confidence
in my singing and performing, confidence in “carrying a show,” and
confidence in hard work. I've worked with so many different personalities
of stage directors, conductors and singers, and it's been important to
learn how to be a good colleague to all those personalities. I will leave
OSJ as a resident with so many good memories and lifelong friends.

You don't seem the type (vocally) for Carmen. What was your strategy in
approaching that role? Also, what was it like performing in Mendocino?

The most important thing I can say about my adventure with Carmen is that
Opera San Jose told me to sing her with my own voice. I also got the
green light from my teacher, Cesar Ulloa, which was very important to me.
While I'm definitely not a “Mama Mezzo” voice that most people are used to
hearing sing Carmen, that doesn't mean that I can't sing her. The range
is perfect for me and she feels so good for me to sing. Honestly, I
thought I didn't want to tackle the role because my Finnish/English
heritage doesn't contain an ounce of Spanish blood. However, after taking
flamenco dance lessons for a year and donning a dark brown wig, I really
inhabited the role quite easily.

Fortunately, I was able to perform Carmen for a second time at the
Mendocino Music Festival last summer. Music Director, Allan Pollack, has
something really special going on up there. This glorious coastal town
just bustles with energy from the music-making for three weeks during the
summer and I had a lovely experience. This festival really is a gem.

How far along are you in your OSJ residency?

I'm just beginning my fourth and final season. Of course, I hope to
return as a guest artist!

Any plans for your post-OSJ career?

I'll be thrown into the abyss of unemployed singers auditioning for work.
Finding work now is even harder than it was four years ago due to opera
companies cutting back. It's a scary and exciting time, but I definitely
have a great support system behind me.

What would be the absolute perfect situation for you?

Honestly, I don't like being away from my husband, Joseph, for very long.
As a computer software engineer, he works from home and, fortunately, we
really like to be around each other. Therefore, that means that I don't
want to be traveling ten months out of the year, living out of hotel rooms.
That lifestyle just doesn't appeal to me. However, he is able to travel
with me a bit.

The perfect situation? Settling in the Bay Area and working on
the West Coast for four months out of the year. Then working regionally in
the U.S. or internationally for 4 months (with Joseph coming along for the
ride) and the other four months saved for learning new roles.

What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you on stage?

As opera singers who are trained to have excellent diction, we spit a lot
on stage while emoting or attempting to get out those consonants. It's
an interesting thing to have gotten used to my colleagues spitting on me.
Recently, in our production of The Barber of Seville, one of my dear
friends spit and it landed directly on my own lip. Of course, I had to
remain in character and smile as if that was normal. And I guess in some
weird way, I have gotten used to it.

What’s your favorite popular aria and lesser-known aria?

Popular aria: “Ombra mai fu” from Handel's Xerxes. Lesser know aria? “Perfect As We Are” from Mark Adamo's Little Women.

What's your absolute favorite role and opera?

That I've performed: Dorabella in Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte My favorite opera that I would never sing in is Stravinksy's The Rake's Progress. My dream role? Melisande in Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande.

I note that Idamante is also being done by a tenor in the alternate cast.
Are there different versions for each voice type, or is he more of a
countertenor?

Yes, the other Idamante is being sung by a tenor. Mozart originally
wrote Idamante for a castrato, which has now been taken over by mezzos. A
revision of the score by Mozart was written for a tenor. The notes we are
singing are the same, but obviously, I'm singing an octave above the
tenor.

Mozart’s Idomeneo, with alternate casts, Sept. 10-25 at the California Theatre, 345 South First St., San Jose, California. Tickets are $51-$101. 408/437-4450, www.operasj.org

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of the novel Operaville, available with a companion CD by soprano Barbara Divis at amazon.com. He is also a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest.

Photo by Elena Generally

The Story So Far

2011-07-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

Operaville

a novel by Michael J. Vaughn

For Barbara Divis

With thanks to Rochelle Bard and the opera companies of San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle.

Cover art: Lightness, manipulated photograph by
Paula Grenside.

Foreword

La Divis

Divis was divine, endowing the opera’s most empathetic character with a gentle strength. To picture her lush descending tones at the finish of “Bei Mannern,” please visualize a silk burgundy scarf wafting from a third-story window.

If last season’s Lucia weren’t proof enough, this Juliet removes any doubt about Divis’s remarkable range and agility. One minute she’s tossing off poofy florist-shop cadenzas, the next she’s unfurling streams of triple-forte agony at the news of Romeo’s poisoning. And her top notes are downright captivating.

Barbara Divis has a way of turning opera critics into gushing adolescents. Especially me. In September 2008, when Barbara returned for Opera San Jose’s 25th anniversary. I looked at my old reviews and began to question my judgement. Could anybody be that good?
At the Silver Gala, Barbara and tenor Christopher Bengochea performed the garret scene from La Bohème. And yes, it turned out I was mistaken. She was even better. Here’s how I described it in my 2009 novel, The Monkey Tribe:
“As her singing rises in force Jack notices something extraordinary about the woman’s voice. It’s nearly radioactive. It doesn’t merely slice the air like the man’s voice, it spins wildly, like those whirligig rockets that shoot away from the center of pyrotechnic explosions. The woman shapes her phrases like the other singers – lessening, growing, slipping away, returning from nowhere – but she gives no indication of working at this, and somewhere through the Italian words, Jack understands her completely.”
Barbara has a huge voice that is miraculously nimble – a 747 that navigates like a hummingbird. Match that with an immaculate attention to dynamics and phrasing, a thorough understanding of character, and a determined professionalism (she once sang for five people at one of my book readings), and you have the ultimate soprano.
Barbara and I long ago broke through the critic-performer divide, thanks largely to tennis. (My job is to run her ragged, so that she may continue to fit into her costumes.) Acting as my primary consultant on this novel, she provided invaluable insights on technical matters, backstage culture and role interpretations.
Strangely, it was only during final edits that I thought of Barbara’s two marvelous CDs, and realized that they included nine arias featured in Operaville. I was elated when she agreed to let me use them. But there was one more step. Understanding that the book’s explicit sex scenes are not everybody’s cup of tea, I asked Barbara to review the manuscript. She wrote back to say that, yes, the early sex scenes did make her uncomfortable. But that she believed in artistic freedom, and didn’t want to unduly influence the way I wrote my book.
Not many people can make that distinction, and Barbara’s answer only added to an admiration that was already canyons deep.

(Look for track listings in brackets for best times to listen to particular arias.)

Tracks
1. Song to the Moon, from Dvorak’s Rusalka
2. “Come scoglio,” from Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte
3. “L’altra notte,” from Boito’s Mefistofele
4. The Letter Scene, from Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin
5. “Mi chiamano Mimi,” from Puccini’s La Bohème
6. Musetta’s Waltz, from Puccini’s La Bohème
7. Doretta’s Song, from Puccini’s La Rondine
8. “Je dis que rien ne m’epouvante,” from Bizet’s Carmen
9. “O mio babbino caro,” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi

Piano accompaniment by Thomas Webb (tracks 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9) and Irina Prilipko-Morgan (tracks 2, 3, & 4).

“Voice is breath transformed.”
-- Maestro Salvatore d’Aura

One

I am on the Flanagan deck, where Colin and I are conducting a war with Mother Nature. With mid-June temps edging into the 80s, Colin has decreed that not one ounce of stain strike that deck in direct sunlight. This means a day-long dance in which I hopscotch from one surface to the next, following the squares of shade meted out by house and tree.
I am utterly behind schedule. The clock edges past six and I am still on the upper deck, applying a second coat that simply has to be finished today. And Maddalena Hart calls to me. I foxtrot our thousand-bristle brush across the final foot of plank, unscrew it from the broomstick and drop it into a bucket of water. Then I race downstairs to my car, grab my evening clothes and retreat to the back of the house, where the hillside offers some visual shelter.
That’s the thing about working in the mountains: you can get away with stuff you wouldn’t dream of doing in the city. I remove every stitch, grab a hose, brace for the shock, and crank the spigot. I give myself a thorough soaking, then I use my work shirt as a towel, drying off as much as possible before I start in on the evening wear.
I am trousered, shirted and ready to go when I pass by a large black pipe and hear the sound of descending liquid. Uh-oh. This is the sound of a toilet flush. Looking up, I see a small window with a light on.
I run up the steps to the driveway, toss my work clothes in the back seat, and am just pulling out when I see Mrs. Flanagan’s silver LeMans in the garage. I discover our 82-year-old client at the kitchen window, and give her a friendly wave. She waves back, wearing a smile that is equal parts flustered and amused.
A half hour later I am NASCARring along the sweet swath of Interstate 280, the fog drifting over Crystal Springs Reservoir like an army of cotton balls. My refrigerator-level AC has finally deactivated my pores, so I drop in at the Burlingame rest stop to assemble my dress shoes and tie. I pull into the Civic Center garage with minutes to spare, sprint up the urine-smelling exit and circumnavigate City Hall, the frigid municipal wind blow-drying my deck-hair. I arrive at the side entrance of the War Memorial Opera House and give a wave to the spry, ginger-haired gentleman who serves as my gatekeeper.
“Billy! Hi.”
“Mister Siskel. Go on through. Delores is hosting tonight.”
Four of my favorite words. With her cutesy black-Irish features, youthful figure and actual personality, Delores forces me to keep an eye on my dirty-old-man alarm system. I cross the south hallway to find her in the press room, talking to the usual vaguely European assholes.
“Oh! I went to the Los Angeles premiere last autumn. They have a new artistic director. Dennis McClintock. Used to be with Glimmerglass?”
I have never heard one of these industry whores actually talk about an opera. They chatter like a squad of thirteen-year-old girls in a cafeteria. Delores has spotted me and is giving me one of her profoundly genuine-seeming smiles.
“Mickey! Let me find your ticket.” She shuffles her envelopes, poker-style, and hands one to me. “Oh, and the info sheets are tucked into the programs.”
“Fantastic. Thanks.”
I head for the coffee and add a ridiculous amount of cream to bring down the temperature. I know it’s Mozart, and staying awake is not a problem, but I want Maddalena’s voice to stream along my synapses on wide-open channels.
Delores leans over my shoulder. “By the way, Mickey, you know you could have a second ticket, right? It’s been five years – you’ve definitely passed the test!”
“To be honest, Delores, I am surrounded by people all week. If I can go on pretending that those tightwads at San Francisco Opera just won’t give me a second ticket, I may continue to use this as my personal retreat.”
She swats me with her envelopes. “No, Mister Siskel! You may not have a second ticket, and please stop asking!”
“Thank you. I mean, curse you, you miserly press relations… person!”
Her eyes light up, then she looks closer and develops a concerned expression.
“Oh, um… You might want to check your forehead.”
I head for the mirror over the refreshment table and discover a slash of golden stain over my left temple. I dip a napkin into my coffee and manage to scrub it away. The chimes go off in the hallway, so I head out, whispering a thanks to Delores.
There is not a square inch of the War Memorial that I do not adore. The gilded florets that look down on the cavernous lobby. The red-carpeted steps that lead to the auditorium; the scroungy standing-room-onlys shuffling for position behind the back row. The Olympic-sized gold bricks that cover the north and south walls. The spiky gardenia of chandelier that shuts off in a dazzling spiral.
My ticket says row L, fantastically close. I wait next to my aisle seat until my row fills up, then sit down and applaud the conductor, Patrick Summers, he of the silver mane and ruddy complexion, who should probably be astride a horse in an Eastwood movie. The burgundy curtain rises to the heavens.
Cosi fan tutte is the ultimate romantic farce. Rascally bachelor Don Alfonso scoffs at his youngers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, as they brag on the beauty and fidelity of their fiancées. He then concocts the juiciest of wagers: the two will pretend to leave the country, then return in disguise to test the faithfulness of the other guy’s chick. Make this a mid-century American film, and the women are tempted but not won; the assembled cast laughs and smiles for the final scene as someone plays Cole Porter. In the hands of Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte, things are never that comfortable.
The folks at SFO have gone for a modernized production. The purists hate these kind of things, but then I hate the purists. The sneaky fiancés traditionally come back as Albanians, all facial hair and Middle Eastern robes, but here they’re long-haired ‘70s-era rockers. The baritone wears skin-tight leather pants, a copper-colored duster and no shirt, revealing an impressive set of abs and an eagle tattooed across his chest. The supertitle translator is in on the joke, as well. When one of the sopranos catches sight of their weird-looking suitors, she asks, “Where are these guys from? Haight-Ashbury?”
Speaking of sopranos, I have found myself in a kind of sonic heaven. They have paired Maddalena with a Dorabella whose mezzo is forceful and vibrant, a perfect match. Equipped with Mozart’s harmonic magic – long passages of girl-on-girl singing – the two are sending out chill after chill to give my spine the beat-down.
And then there’s Maddalena, and since I do go on about her, perhaps I should give you a summary of her talents. Her voice is huge, and powerful, but never forced. She manages to maintain the buoyancy of the category known as lyric, showing a gymnastic agility that should be impossible for someone with such a broad, buttery tone. Her delivery comes with impossible ease, her tone spinning into the audience like a million tiny Frisbees. And her top notes are absolutely secure, the dynamics of her phrasing always thoughtfully dramatic. She also has that rare ability to appear as if she’s simply talking – as if we should all go around singing our conversations – when in fact she is launching pyrotechnic displays of sound that mere mortals may only dream of.
What’s serving to intensify my obsession is the present-day clothing. They have dressed her all in white – befitting Fiordiligi’s chaste attitude – a flowing pantsuit with a long jacket that flits here and there with her movements, revealing contours that one might not expect from an opera singer. The generous knockers, yes, the stout ribcage (an occupational hazard) – but the ass on this girl! Medium to generous, as befits a diva, but possessed of a round shape and firmness that would give your average construction worker hours of material. Throw in those oversized emerald eyes, a head full of blonde Monroe ringlets, and those inflatable, flexible lips that they emphasize for every album cover. By the time she arrives at the big second-act aria, I’m already a mess, my heart on a platter, waiting to be frappéd by her performance. But more on that later.
At the end of three hours, I head downstairs for my pre-drive restroom stop, stopping at a portrait of Renata Tebaldi from 1968 (in Andrea Chenier) to run my thumb across her name plate. Maddalena has been compared with her, and don’t go thinking that I disagree.
[Track 1]
On the drive home, I pop Maddalena’s rendering of Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” into the cassette player (it’s an old car), and then I cleanse my palate with some AC/DC. I picture the modernized Ferrando and Guglielmo onstage with Angus and Malcolm Young, as young opera fans flash their tits at the stage.
The drive is long but not difficult. Mozart to me is like crystal meth, and also I have my nightscapes. My favorite arrives at Stanford, between the satellite dish and the linear accelerator. The surrounding land is a green vale, dotted here and there by live oaks and cows, painted silver by three quarters of a moon.
Twenty miles later, I’m approaching the evergreen mountains behind Saratoga, speckled with the lights of houses belonging to the rich – who spend most of their daylight hours denying that they’re rich at all. But this is a previous lifetime, and I’m just passing through, into the long ascending stretches of Highway 9. The deer population keeps me alert, chewing on the roadside grasses perilously close to the asphalt.
The final directions are a little complicated. Half mile past the fire station, first Ped Xing sign to your right, through the gate with the combination lock. After that it’s a full mile of downhill dirt and gravel, the rain channels beating up the suspension, and finally the much-anticipated left-hand sweep that signals home base, ancient orchards to the right, cabin of Trey the Fish to the left. I park between two redwood trees, take a moment to breathe the mountain air, check out the moonlight sliding through the trees in dull metallic streaks, then reach back in for my program and make my way to the steps.
“Ahwuff!”
“Jesus!”
It’s Katie. She’s on all fours in the entryway, and, yes, as my eyes adjust to the dark I see that she is wearing a dog suit: floppy black ears, big round nose-cap, and a furry white beagle onesie with built-in paws and a springy spike of tail.
“Pretty cute, Katie. Could you maybe call next time so I don’t have a freakin’ heart attack?”
“Hawroof!” She shuffles forward and leaps on me. I pat her on the head and she pants her approval, then adopts a cartoony growl-voice. “Mrrickey bring bone? Katie want bone!”
“No Katie, I didn’t bring you a bone. Now let’s get inside and…”
She snarls (as menacingly as a four-foot-ten blonde can) then pads her way down to my crotch and snuffles around like she’s hunting for kibble.
“Urrh! Bone!”
“Oh! Okay. I getcha.” I drop my program on a filing cabinet, undo my belt and drop trou to reveal that yes, the dog has given the man a bone. She gives my dick a few exploratory licks and then engulfs it with a messy, dog-like blow job. I grab her floppy ears and endeavor to get into the spirit of things.
“Katie, you sexy bitch!”
“Haroomph!”
After a minute she pulls away, circles around and raises her tail into the air. “Rrowf!” she says, what sounds like a canine command.
Ah, thinks I. I believe she wants to do it doggie-style. Access is a bit of a puzzle, until my initial butt-squeeze reveals a pair of large buttons. I quickly undo them and pull up the panel, revealing Katie’s round, plump cheeks. I dip a hand between them to find that she is well-lubricated, then I insert a finger, enjoying the vision of her bare pussy in the moonlight. My cock is about ready to launch itself right off my pelvis, so I take it in hand and guide myself home. It’s a grand feeling, but her tail keeps whacking me in the face.

An hour later, we’re back to human form, entwined beneath a couch blanket as we enjoy a small summer fire. I cannot usually tolerate such lengthy stretches of personal-space invasion, but Katie fits into the curve of my frame as if she were designed for the purpose. She also has this natural taste and smell that I never tire of, augmented by spearmint gum, vanilla shampoo, milk-white skin, bubble-gum nipples and labia – she is my candy girl. Too bad she’s so fucked up, but it’s really not her fault.
“How was the drop-off?” I ask.
“Oh God. Same old shit. I thought I was getting away clean, but then he calls me and says that Sara needs her Hannah Montana sweatshirt. ‘Just pull up,’ he says. ‘I’ll come to the car and get it.’ Always trying to get us alone together, like I find him so fucking irresistible I will me mesmerized by his manly presence and decide not to divorce him. For seven years I told that asshole we needed to work on our marriage, for seven years he didn’t do a goddamn thing, but now, now that I’ve left his sorry ass – now he desperately wants me back. Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so pissy. But you shouldn’ta got me going.”
I stroke her hair, the way she likes me to.
“Y’gotta dump on somebody. It may as well be me.”
She gives me a kiss. “Thanks, honey.”
“As long as you’re bitching about other men, I could listen for hours! It’s just the price of admission. And what a show you put on tonight.”
“I’m a creative little slut.”
“What do you say to popcorn and a movie? They’re playing an old Hitchcock.”
She gives me that priceless, impish smile, eyes the color of a spring sky. “Sounds fab, honey. You’re a great fuck, ya know?”
“Thanks.” I give her lips a proper chewing and head off to the microwave.

I have a life-long habit of dating brunettes, so it’s still a surprise to find this golden-haired creature sitting on the edge of my bed, doing her best to work out the morning tangles. She is a small sun over my nightstand.
The hour is another thing. Ungodly. Fifteen minutes later I am re-awakened by a toothpaste kiss, and wet hair that smells like peaches. I do my best to smile, and then I assemble enough clothing to ward off hypothermia and walk her out to her car. The morning is sharp and beautiful, lemon slices of sun cutting through the trees. A pair of Steller’s jays wing in front of us to carry their squabbling to a small madrone. I lean Katie against her car and do some more work on those lips.
“So I was wondering… where did you get that outfit?”
“Our church did a production of ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.’”
“I was fucking Snoopy? Good grief!”
“Yeahbaby.”
“This is Charles Schulz, spinning in his grave.”
She bites her lip. “I better go. Air kiss?”
I wrap my arms around her back, lift her into the air and apply lips liberally, then I spin her a couple of times so we can look like a scene from a screwball romantic comedy. Or Cosi fan tutte. Then she’s gone, up the road, down the mountain, off to pick up the kids for church. I must be a good fuck, for all the trouble she goes to. And I am profoundly impressed at her ability to compartmentalize between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

I indulge in a couple more hours of snoozing, but it’s not going to be more - I’ve got too many ideas circling my bloodstream. My agenda begins with a long sit on the pot as I read every shred of SFO’s program, including a seriously well-written piece on the friendship between Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte.
Second is a long soak in my most excellent clawfoot bathtub. I am a connoisseur of luxury soaps, and this morning I am breaking in a French-milled Shea butter bar with the deeply sweet aroma of linden blossoms. Over the next two weeks, this scent will suffuse the entire cabin. I lather it between my hands, hold the suds to my nose and then begin with my left foot before the water gets too high.
After that I’m raring to go, so I keep the breakfast simple: two pieces of toast with butter and strawberry preserves, followed by fresh-ground Ethopian coffee. I head to my writing table, positioned before a window view of my twin redwoods, to the right a deep hollow covered in madrone. To the left is the cabin of Trey the Fish, with yet another topless woman flouncing on the deck. I make a mental note to thank him. I position myself before a circle of books – a Mozart biography, Grove’s Book of Operas and the SFO program (the cast page covered with written-in-the-dark scrawls) – set down a spiral-bound notebook and pick up a cheap powder-blue stick pen. I don’t play any music, because already I can hear Maddalena singing.

[Track 2]
If you were a singer in Mozart’s company, you really couldn’t lose. He would write the role to accentuate your strengths, and dance artfully around your flaws. Thus was created one of the scariest roles in the canon: Fiordiligi of Cosi fan tutte, her stunning rollercoaster vocal lines inspired by the awesome high and low registers of Adriana Ferrarese.
It’s quite possible, however, that that’s all she had. Other than Fiordiligi and a few productions as Susannah in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adriana had a pretty lackluster career. This came from two important shortcomings: she couldn’t act, and she couldn’t do comedy.
Aha! you say. (Go ahead – I’ll wait.) So why was Adriana so successful in the decidedly farcical Cosi? Excellent question, and here’s your answer: because Fiordiligi is the square peg, holding firmly to her church-girl principles even as all around her are screwin’ around. This custom-crafted role came about either through good fortune or because Adriana was sleeping with the librettist, da Ponte. The torridness of the affair (owing largely to the married status of both participants) doubtlessly contributed to the libretto’s conflicted views on love and fidelity.
Regardless, given the way that Mozart treats Fiordiligi as his own personal yo-yo, any normal soprano should be forgiven for not being entirely up to the part. Fortunately, we’re not talking about normal sopranos – we’re talking about Maddalena Hart. Hart’s easy top notes are the stuff of legend, and her bottom end is not to be disregarded. For recorded evidence, note the low sobbings at the denouements of Boito’s “L’altra notte” (Mefistofele) and Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” (Rusalka) from Hart’s Favorite Arias album. The depth of these passages has won the singer much-deserved comparisons to Tebaldi.
[Track 3]
Naturally, it’s not just having the notes, it’s how the notes are deployed. Many a singer has come to these clifftop drops and landed on the low notes with all the tender sensitivity of a professional wrestler. Hart manages to make the descent more deftly, like a hang glider, dipping her toes to the precise mid-point of the pitch before catching the next updraft. Not once does this seem like work, and not once does she lose her supremely intelligent sense of dynamic flow. Hart often creates the impression that none of this is so unusual, that these are just everyday conversations that decided to take wing.

Since my rough beginnings, I have made major strides. I am now able to complete a review in a matter of one longhand draft, one computer draft and a final read-through. Considering the fact that I’m not getting paid a cent, this is good. I head for my blog, Operaville, paste in the article, and then I go to the SFO site to shop for a photo. The images there are sharp, and beautiful, and provocative. I always feel like I’m cheating, like I’m applying Chanel No. 5 to a pig. This time I settle on something comic: rocker-dude Ferrando hauling Fiordiligi over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her mouth open in a gasp of surprise. Maddalena is so freakin’ gorgeous all the time that it’s hard to catch her being cute. I download the image to my desktop, upload it to the blogsite, add the IDs and photo credit, and press the magic Publish button, committing my words to public consumption.
I celebrate by preparing my slow-cook goulash, an olio of red peppers, onions, cabbage and potatoes over a bacon stock, and spice it with oregano, cayenne pepper and some pomegranate molasses that I discovered in a high cabinet. While that’s brewing, I sit on my porch in the twilight treeshade and light up a cigar – a low-priced maduro from Honduras. I have set my computer to let out a chirp when anyone responds to my blog, and am pleased, halfway through my smoke, when DD rings in with her first comment. She’s like clockwork, that girl. I finish the cigar, consume a bowl of the goulash with a dollop of sour cream, and respond to a text from Katie that reads, simply, Arf! (I respond with U r 1 fine piece of tail.) Then I mix up some mango nectar with yogurt (a trick I picked up from an Indian friend) and park it next to the computer.

DevilDiva: You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a modernized opera these days. I take it from your review that this doesn’t bother you?

Mickey: I always wanted to start a jazz band called Swing a Dead Cat. But yes! As long as a modernization makes sense, I’m all for it. Whenever possible, opera should be fun.

DD: But infidelity, illicit sex, the fickle ways of love -–how can a modern audience possibility relate to these things?

M: Funny!

DD: Thank you for not responding “LOL.” I hate that shit.

M: OMG!

DD: Smartass. But I’m afraid these progressive ideas of yours will never do. Opera is nothing but an excuse for fusty 70-year-olds to impress their friends and obtain valuable tax writeoffs. Fun is utterly out of the question.

M: Sorry. I had fun, and I make no apologies. And the thing with the rockers? Hilarious.

DD: Yes, the Haight-Ashbury joke. Audiences love that stuff. It is a bit unsettling, though, how often they laugh at the supertitle before you actually get to the line. I once had a director who brought in students for dress rehearsal and instructed them to laugh at the funny supertitles right when they appeared on the screen, just so we could get used to it.

M: Good idea!

DD: But darling! Let’s talk about this segue from the historical to the musical, from Ferrarese to the way Maddie handles those intervals. You are a magician, my dear. You are a singer’s dream. If I ever get a chance to sing Fiordiligi, I’m definitely using that hang-glider visual. Why are you not writing for Opera News?

M: A late start. I am the Satchel Paige of opera criticism. And alas! I turned down that scholarship to Julliard.

DD: Okay, I’ll go along with the mythmaking process. “Siskel left a promising career in professional tennis to write a blog about opera.”

M: Hey! I’ve got a pretty decent serve.

DD: Okay. But tell me, honestly. Is Signorina Hart really that good? Or are you just buying into the hype?

M: Sometimes I read the stuff I have written about her, and I think, Come on! You’re going too far. And then I see her again, I hear her again, and I realize that I am not exaggerating at all. It’s this combination of intelligence and vocal power. Intoxicating! I find myself holding my breath when she’s singing. And you’ve read my other reviews – I’m really not a gusher.

DD: No. You’re amazingly even-keeled. And fair. So, did you discover anything new about her?

M: You’re really digging today.

DD: Hey, if you want to be the best, you study the best.

M: Okay. You know how most opera costumes entirely obscure the body? Décolletage excepted?

DD: God yes! When I’m doing Mozart, I feel like a freakin’ parade float.

M: Modern dress, of course, is much more revealing, much tighter to the silhouette. And this first-act pantsuit… It turns out that Maddalena Hart, in addition to killer top notes, a beautiful passagio, and a divine sense of phrasing, has an incredibly fine ass.

I sit there for a couple of minutes, and I’m getting nothing. This is not unusual. Out here in the boonies, I am a prisoner of ancient dial-up technology. Perhaps a squirrel is sitting on the wire. I have half a thought that I got a little too saucy, but DD and I have “gone there” before, so I can’t imagine she would take offense. I take a break to clean my dishes. When I return, sure enough, she’s back.

DD: Sorry. Life intercedes. So why no mention of derrieres in the review?

M: Do you not recall the phrase, “…her bottom end is not to be disregarded”?

DD: That is so bad, on so many levels.

M: I save the R-rated stuff just for you, honey.

DD: You do recall that this is a public forum we’re chatting upon?

M: You kiddin’ me? I’m counting on this stuff to get me some page-views. In fact, I think I’ll plug in a search tag for “Maddalena Hart’s ass.”

DD: Yeah, operatic porn is big these days. And what kind of sleazy readership will that get you?

Cordell: Somebody call?

M: Cord! Good to hear from you.

DD: Time for Diva to Di-part, hon. But one last thought: I think you’re in love with Maddalena Hart.

M: Well who isn’t?

C: I’m in love with her, and I’m as queer as a three-headed monkey.

M: Cordell! Nice bon mot.

C: Thank you. I saw an Oscar Wilde play last night.

DD: Ciao, belli.

M: Buona notte, signorina divina.

C: Not break up this little love-huddle, but rocker duds? They really did that?

M: You woulda loved the shirtless baritone.

C: Please! I’m strictly about the art. Can I get a photo?

M: Ha! I’ll smuggle you one from the website.

C: God bless you, young hetero.

Two

The Olsen house lies near the southern tip of Skyline Boulevard, at the far reaches of a well-organized mountain community. After a confusing series of forks, I pull onto a hilltop hosting three large homes under a canopy of live oak. The center house, rather Frank-Lloyd-Wrightish with all its natural touches, is one that we did last summer. I recall a terrifically hardy species of lichen that took forever to pressure-wash, as well as impractical white carpeting that we had to cover with adhesive plastic runners. But we must have done a good job, since we’re now putting in stakes with their next-door neighbors.
The Olsen estate is an assemblage of blue-gray boxes – pretty jarring next to the chaparral, but they’ve done their best to soften it with modern sculptures and fountains. My favorite is a jumble of steel rods at the entryway that seems to represent a pair of figures in erotic embrace. I find Colin piling equipment along the front steps, his early-Dylan hair bobbing and weaving as he moves.
“Ay! San Franciskel. Right on time as usual. You are a marvel of punctuality, my friend. Ready to spend the day on your hands and knees?”
“It’s my natural position.”
He joketh not. Our clients, a geeky software exec and his intermittently sexy wife, are inordinately fond of their deck. They insist on preserving it with an organic mineral-based stain so benign that it must be reapplied once a year. It feels more like we’re sautéing the deck in teriyaki sauce. But I’ll give them this: at twenty years of age, their deck is in immaculate condition.
The process is one royal pain in the tuckus. A glacial drying time means that we must wait three days between coats. It also means that, after laying the stuff down, we have to crawl around wiping up the excess with rags. The rags must then be deposited in buckets of water, lest they inspire spontaneous combustion. You don’t even want to whisper the word “fire” in these parts. This very mountain range has hosted three major blazes this year, and it’s only June.
Our starting point is the back deck, which offers one of the best views I’ve ever seen: a steep grassy downhill that disappears into mile after mile of evergreen mountains, followed by the faint low buildings of Santa Cruz (the white-steepled Holy Cross Church) and the Pacific Ocean. I take a mental note to take occasional viewing breaks; in the throes of labor, it’s easy to forget.
I position my trolley – a flat wooden board with wheels – set down my paint tray and fill it up with stain. Then I screw my thousand-bristle brush onto my broomstick, dip it in and start laying it down. Colin takes up shop at a walkway, three feet down, that rings the edge of the deck. We’re separated by a long limestone bench, but still in easy conversing distance. Colin is a painfully social creature, and not about to pass up the opportunity for a chat.
“Have a good weekend?”
“Yes. I saw Maddalena.”
“Ah! Is this a new one?”
“This is a soprano.”
“Ah yes – the one you’re so keen on.”
“That’s the one.”
“Did she fulfill your every desire?”
“All that I could ask for and not be arrested.”
“Well! Much as I appreciate a fine voice, I hope you’re having occasional meetings with actual women.”
“Oh, I did. Katie popped in on me.”
“Ah! The blonde midget. Guerrilla booty call?”
“Dressed in a dog suit.”
Colin replies in the long-voweled manner of the titillated Brit: “No-o-oh!”
I answer in the falsetto voice adopted by every American boy who grew up watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus. “She’s a saucy little bitch, she is!”
“Well I wish she would have a word with my number three. Fantastic woman – absolutely passive in the sack. May as well be inflatable.”
I stop, mid-dip. “You actually call her ‘number three’?”
“Not to her face. But she knows she’s number three.”
“Really.”
“How’s a girl going to improve unless she knows her ranking?”
“I wish I had your cojones.”
“Is that some sort of Spanish dish?”
“Yes.”
Colin is a committed follower of Burning Man, a group that assembles a small city in the Nevada desert each summer for the purpose of burning a giant man. One of the offshoots of the group’s libertarian leanings is a population that practices poly-amory – committed couples who give each other permission to screw around. Colin refers to these types as “polys,” and I cannot help but picture horny men and women dressed as parrots. It’s clear that he means this expression dismissively, which is pretty funny coming from a man who numbers his girlfriends. On the other hand, my dismissal of Colin’s approach has less to do with principles than laziness. I have a hard enough time managing a single booty call; I wouldn’t know what to do with a harem.
“So this Katie sounds like great fun, actually. Why don’t you get involved with her?”
“She’s too busy going through a terrible divorce.”
“Ah, yes. Nuclear fallout.”
He works his way around the corner, but returns to work on some side panels. It’s been a half hour, but he takes up the conversation as if we haven’t missed a beat.
“Anyone else in the picture?”
“I have this online pal, DevilDiva, who claims that I’m in love with Maddalena Hart.”
“Ah, yes. You do wax poetic. But that’s sheer fantasy, correct?”
“Yes. I do not believe in the celebrity fuck.”
“I know who’s in love with you, mate.”
“Who?”
“This DevilDiva.”
“Really.”
“Classic female stratagem. She accuses you of being in love with Maddalena Hart, because she wants you to say, ‘Why of course not, DevilDiva – I’m in love with you.’”
He delivers this with a swooning passion that truly cuts me up. I gotta say, it’s good to have a boss with a sense of humor. But I’ve got no answer for his hypothesis.
“Well!” says Colin, happy to have planted a seed. “I’d best fetch the rag-box. Hellish job, this, but we do need the work, eh?”
I repeat his favorite mantra. “It’s a slog.”

Colin abandons me at lunchtime to go wrangle up some new clients. I have no complaints, because him dealing with the clients means I don’t have to deal with them. All I want to do is work. Besides, as much as I enjoy our gossip sessions, Colin has a bad habit of micromanaging.
It’s a warm day, and with no one around I can take off my shirt and collect some rays. I slip into the rhythm of the work, and am pleased when I reach that state where I can think without thinking.
A few hours later, I have reached the shaded steps near the garage, and am about to slip my T-shirt back on when I hear a door. Misty Olsen stands on the top step in an elegant ensemble: chocolate-brown dress, gold earrings, a copper-colored scarf. Misty is the epitome of the mousy brunette, but like I said she can be unexpectedly sexy. Something about my midway-dressed state puts a weird charge in the air. She gives me an embarrassed smile.
“Hi. I’m meeting Mac for a fundraiser in Los Gatos.”
“You look good,” I don’t say.
“Oh,” I do say. “Have a good time.”
“I hope you finish soon! It’s got to be hot on that deck.”
“That’s all right – I’m in the shade now.”
“Well. I brought you a Coke from the garage. I’ll just leave it on the ledge here.”
“Oh. Thanks!”
“Well… Bye.”
“Have fun.”
Truth be told, I’m pretty well-stocked. Colin once had a scary brush with heat stroke, so he’s pretty insistent on throwing Gatorades at me. But still, as soon as Misty drives off, I go for that Coke. Soda isn’t even all that good for hydration, but when you’ve got one fresh from the fridge, little beads of sweat on the can – oh, there’s nothing like it.
Clients of contractors should understand this. I know you’re paying good money, and honestly there’s no time that Colin and I aren’t shooting for the highest quality, regardless. But with this single 50-cent Coke, Misty has purchased gratitude and loyalty, and a good feeling that will enable me to work that much harder on her deck.
As it turns out, I need every edge I can get, because the finishing slog is brutal. In the shade, the deck drinks up very little of the stain, which means more wiping. But I’ve got no choice; I’ve got to finish this first coat or our schedule will be all screwed up.
Finally, as the sun lowers over the ocean, I finish the last few planks. I take care to get all the rags into the water-buckets, and I take a look down to discover that I am a complete mess. So here I am stripping off again, a little spooked at Misty’s previous entrance. I use the few remaining rags for an all-over wipedown, then I take my softball gear out of my cleverly concealed duffel and get all suited up. I may be utterly destroyed at all available joints and tendons, but it’s time to play.

I cruise the familiar downhills of Highway 9, locked in on a Giants game, the delicious roll of Jon Miller’s baritone, Tim Lincecum casting his usual spell on opposing batters. I arrive in time to get in a few warmup tosses and then we’re playing. Truth be told, I have my best games when I am utterly exhausted. I think it’s because I truly couldn’t give a shit, and there’s something about apathy that makes for good softball. I am retired to second base these days, and the position suits me. During twenty years at shortstop, my fondness for diving brought fair-to-middling results – the throw to first is just too long. But at second I’ve got all the time in the world, time to gather myself, get to my feet (or at least my knees) and make that throw.
Tonight, however, I am merely the sidekick. Doug, the Japanese fireplug with the surprisingly wide range, is nabbing everything. He feeds me two perfect double-play balls in the first three innings, and in the fifth we are offered the chance to achieve the unthinkable. With men on first and second, the batter strokes a hard grounder that brings Doug into the baseline. He tags the lead runner and flips it to me at second. In the slow-mo nature of moments like this, I know immediately what’s up: we’re going for a triple play. In his rush, however, Doug has tossed the ball too far from the bag. Instead of stretching for it, I try to pull it back toward me for the throw to first, and it drops to the dirt.
At the end of the inning, I join Doug on his trot to the bench.
“Sorry, man. I could have stretched for the double play, but I could see that look in your eyes.”
“Oh, you read me right. Triple play or nothin’. You don’t get too many chances at greatness. And I totally choked on that flip.”
“A little excitement is a dangerous thing.”
We call our team the Bums, and we too often play like it. At 47, I am a master strategist (at 47 I have to be), and it drives me crazy, the stupid things we do on a regular basis. Like Marcus, our blowhard left fielder. Good with the glove, impressive arm, no more brains than a sack of caramels. Gets up with the bases loaded, one out, and rolls one down the line for an easy third-to-first double play. Hit that ball anywhere else on the diamond and you’ve got at least a run.
We lose by the usual brutally small margin, and I walk with Doug to the parking lot.
“Kids still small? No one in college yet?”
Doug chuckles. “The oldest is four. The youngest is still in diapers.”
“Good. I’m tired of finding out my friends’s kids are graduating Princeton.”
We walk a few feet in silence. I take note of Doug’s new-style softball backpack, two bats pointing skyward in their holsters. He looks like Clint Eastwood, riding into town with a pair of shotguns. Doug is my only teammate anywhere near my age – maybe 38. Thank God, because all these youngsters make me feel like an alien.
“How’re things with you?” he says.
“Oh, same ol’. Lotsa work, which is good. Couple of operas. Occasional bouts of sex.”
“Ha! You make it sound like boxing. You oughta be a writer.”
“I’ve thought about it.”
I haven’t told Doug about the blog. Hell, he’s the only one who knows about the opera thing at all. The field lights blink off. I have to slow down while my eyes adjust.
“I have the feeling that something extraordinary is about to happen. I have absolutely no basis for this. But you get these… signals.”
“I get those. Until I choke on the throw to second.”
“Ah, but what I’m envisioning is even bigger than a triple play.”
“Nothing’s bigger than a triple play.”
“Welp. Here’s my car. See ya next week.”
“See ya. And for God’s sake, clean off that nasty arm of yours.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Sixth inning. Grounder to my right. I take a full-on dive. The ball ticks off the edge of my glove and heads for center field. My throwing arm lands on a gravelly patch of dirt. In the dim light of the parking lot, I touch my arm to my softball pants, leaving a Rorschach blotch of red. I laugh. It’s good to be a guy. It’s good to bleed.

Three

For once, my opera-day schedule is devoid of adventure. A half-day pressure wash above the Lexington Reservoir, top of a freakin’ mountain, it’s hard to believe that places like this exist. Much as I hate driving that dirt road to my cabin, I cannot resist the chance to get myself clean. So I take my clawfoot bath, sunlight ticking in through the madrones, doll myself up in the usual black suit, then pick out a striped burgundy tie that Katie gave me.
So I’m all moussed up and back on Interstate 280. It’s pretty hot outside, so I’ve got the AC blasting away like a Wagnerian tenor. I slip in a Foo Fighters cassette to give myself some audio contrast, and I’m feeling good.
The luxury of time allows me to scout the curbside parking spaces, and I nab one just outside the Civic Center garage, with a meter that stops nicely at 7 p.m. I arrive at the press room a half hour before curtain, and I relish the chance to sit on a couch with a coffee as I scour the program. This one’s got a vastly entertaining piece on the life of Alexander Pushkin, although the language drifts into that neo-Dickens that opera writers feel obligated to adopt.
Just across from me is a television monitor showing the stage. They’ve given the production a full-size title screen, a Russian village in the style of Chagall, Yevgeny and Tatyana drifting overhead, accompanied by a flying cow and a violin. I’ve always wondered if they use this monitor just to track the show, or if they force late-arriving critics to sit here and watch the first act on TV. Fortunately, I have yet to test the system.
I finish my coffee and article and head for the refreshment table, where Delores has arrayed a fine selection of crackers and spreadable cheeses. It’s good to be a critic. Delores is occupied with her twenty-some guests, so I finish my munchies and slither into the hall.
Tchaikovsky is such a mixed blessing he’s almost a frappé. The orchestrations are lush, the vocal lines soaring and graceful, but he’s certainly in no hurry to tell a story, and not overly fond of quick tempos or jaunty rhythms. I saw Joan of Arc last year, and it literally put me to sleep. “How could you possibly make Joan of Arc boring?” you ask. Mostly by following that brilliant Russian tradition of keeping all the action strictly offstage. That way, all the characters can gather to discuss it after-the-fact. It’s like skipping the football game so you can get to the exciting post-game wrapup.
Pushkin was hardly innocent of this himself ; his works are more dependent on social commentary and descriptive details than plot. But somehow his verse novel inspired Tchaikovsky’s most entertaining opera. Perhaps because the composer and his co-librettist, Shilovsky, preserved much of Pushkin’s language and were happy just to skim the cream from his story. They didn’t even call it an opera, opting for the phrase “lyric scenes” and trusting that their audience had already memorized the original novel.
The cast is certainly promising. The title singer is Jesus Cortez, a Venezuelan baritone who came up through SFO’s residency programs and is threatening to become the company’s biggest find since Anna Netrebko. Playing Lensky, Yevgeny’s best pal, is Ramon Vargas, a tenor who utterly knocked me out in last year’s Elixir of Love. That pure, lyric – dast I say Pavarottian – tone, delivered with such ease, and a remarkable level of comfort on stage. With the two of them, the papers are calling it “the world’s first Latino Tchaikovsky,” but of course at the opera it’s just another night.
The most preposterous role is Tatyana, a teenager who is rarely played by anyone under 30. It takes at least that long just to develop the required vocal skills. But for once it’s not Maddalena’s singing that’s impressing me so much as her acting. I’ll save the details for later, but her handling of the Letter Scene is a revelation.
It’s a traditional production, sometime in early 19th-century Russia. They’ve outfitted her in a white country dress with floral patterns in blue. Her honey-blonde hair hangs long down her back. She’s gorgeous, as usual.
At the end of the act, I’m entirely wired on the performance. I’m loitering between the lobby and the south hall when I find a woman in a beaded silver-blue dress advancing my way. It’s Delores.
“Mickey! I’m so glad I found you.” She hands me a blue envelope. “Sorry, have to run. Ta!”
She heads off to the lobby, leaving me feeling like the straight man in a Neil Simon play. I open the envelope to find a photographic note card portraying a collection of pineapples, mangos and bananas in Mozartean gowns and waistcoats. The caption reads Cosi fan tutti-frutti. Inside is a handwritten note in a smooth cursive.

Would love to talk with you about your writing. Please meet me at Jardiniere one hour after curtain.
Grazie – Maddie

I scan the walls, looking for hidden cameras.

The rest of my evening is its own rather enjoyable brand of hell. I need to take in enough to support a reasonably intelligent review, but how is one bit of it going to penetrate my brain when I know that I will soon be talking to Tatyana herself? (She turns down Onegin, standing in her regal scarlet ball gown, nicely married to royalty, every woman’s dream revenge for a first love scorned. And yet, she is heartbroken.)
The worst part is that post-performance hour. I understand all the cleanup, undressing, meetings with friends and fans, but it leaves me with sixty absolutely unkillable minutes. The ushers are eager to clear everybody out, so all I’m allowed is my visit with Miss Tebaldi and the adjacent men’s room. Five minutes. After that, I figure it’s a good idea to fetch my car and re-park it nearer to my final destination. Ten minutes. Then I take a stroll around City Hall, but it’s getting cold. I am downright euphoric to find a copy of the Bay Guardian, sitting alone in its box, and I make my way to the bar to sit and read.
Jardiniere is like the most elegant retro-‘60s Eichler living room you’ve ever seen. Entering the double glass doors, you encounter a wide curve of staircase to your left. Straight ahead is a horseshoe bar with cut-glass ornaments, and along a brick wall to your far left you’ll find a series of long, straight couches with square leather cushions, the seating enclaves marked off with armchairs and glass-topped coffee tables.
The hostess, a young brunette dressed in black pants and shirt, leads me to one of these couches, nicely sheltered by the bottom of the staircase. Looking up, you can see dining-room tables next to the upstairs railing, patrons peering over as if there’s some kind of a show down here. A nice-looking redhead in the same black uniform perches on an ottoman and takes my order, a lemon-drop martini. But no appetizer. I’m hungry as hell, but I don’t think my stomach would be able to handle it.
The place is pretty full, but not packed. It’s hard to figure the demographics – locals? business types? tourists? – but the clothing and hairstyles project a general air of wealth. I open my paper and pretend to read, but the final fifteen minutes are horrible. Every voice that jumps out of a conversation, every opening of a door yanks on my strings. I feel like an actor doing his first Hamlet. I can’t pull this off! They’ll never buy it. What’s my first line? Oh shit. Why couldn’t Maddalena Hart remain in the comfortable realm of mythic figure? What the hell does she think she’s doing, fraternizing with commoners?
She’s wearing blue jeans. Black pumps, a gray suit jacket over a black blouse. And a gray fedora with a silver band. She stands in the open area, looking around, and her gaze settles on me. She smiles. Why the hell would Maddalena Hart know my face? Perhaps I’m mistaken, perhaps I’ve got myself thinking that every woman who comes through that door is a diva. But here she comes, and those enormous green eyes cannot possibly belong to anyone else. I rise from the couch and I manage not to fall on my ass. She smiles and takes my hand. I hope I’m not sweating. I hope my breath doesn’t stink.
“Mickey!”
“Hi.” One word, two letters. That’s all I’m going to venture.
“Excuse the film-noir hat. I don’t exactly have a Britney Spears paparazzi problem, but we are near the opera house, and for some reason the hat seems to throw them off.”
“Oh. Yes. I…” Three words. I’m useless.
She nods toward the armchair. “May I?”
Silly question. She can sit wherever she wants. She can set fire to my hair. What am I, the armchair police?
“Yes,” I say. “Please.” Okay. That was pretty good.
She sits down and crosses her legs. Her face is very large. That sounds odd, but I have heard that it’s advantageous for performers to have large heads. I’m sitting across from an album cover. Cripes. The waitress arrives and asks about a drink. Maddalena is wearing pink fingernail polish. She dangles a hand over her knee. Her hand is very white.
“Whatever he’s having.”
“Lemon-drop martini?”
“Ooh! Yes.”
The waitress leaves. Maddalena studies me, as if I’m supposed to say something. She has heavy eyelids, a sleepy look. Bedroom eyes. Lauren Bacall.
“Lemon-drop, Mickey? Isn’t that a little gay?”
“Well, I’m… I guess… Sweet tooth.” I’m pathetic.
She runs her left ring finger along her lips, done up in a subtle pink, almost mauve. Her lips are almost as pillowy as on the album covers, with those little crinkles at the edges. Her speaking voice is husky, tired from the night’s work, though clearly soprano, her accent that enunciated American that verges on European. No trace of her native New York.
“God, Mickey. How do we get you past this celebrity thing? I know there’s a real person in there, and I want to talk to him. But you’re all decoupaged into place, like I’m talking to a Rodin. Would it help if I farted?”
“I’m… sorry?”
She leans forward and lowers her voice. “Opera singers have tremendous control. It’s all in the diaphragm. Backstage at the Met, we have competitions. Watch out for that Samuel Ramey. If he’s had cabbage or Brussels sprouts, he has been known to fart the overture to Giovanni.”
It’s that last image that gets me. I chuckle.
“That’s it?” she says. “A little snort? This is some pretty top-notch material, buddy.”
I attempt to sip from the lemon-drop, and I realize what a precarious vessel is a martini glass. But the sweet and the cold of it does me well.
“I’m sorry. It’s just… you’re stupendous. You’re everything I…”
Maddalena places two fingers to my lips. “No! Don’t even start. I know exactly what you think of me, so… just… No!”
Maddalena Hart’s fingers on my lips. I’m going to pass out. She sits back and gives me a sly smile, a little wider on the right. She flicks her tongue along her front teeth. I’ve heard that singers do this, always adjusting the equipment.
“I get more flattery than a person should. There’s a certain pressure, having to answer to all that admiration. As for tonight’s performance, I’d rather read about it on your blog.”
The waitress arrives. Maddie gives her lemon-drop an appraising sip.
“Mmm. The citrus feels good on the throat. And, where was I? The blog! The level of understanding, so much more important than flattery. It’s like this: I’ve been reworking Fiordiligi with my voice coach, Luigi Corazonne. I do this every few years; it keeps my performances fresh. So I asked the staff at SFO to gather all the reviews for me. I wanted to see what kind of impression I was making.
“Most of them? Garbage. Either critical for all the wrong reasons or favorable for all the wrong reasons. Drives me insane. But way down at the bottom I find a printout of your blog, and I am mesmerized. This historical/critical hybrid, I’ve never seen anything like it. And all these connections between Adriana and the role. We all know the basic story, especially the loony tessitura, but I have never seen all the threads drawn together like that. The affair with da Ponte. The custom-composing by Mozart, Adriana’s lesser-known shortcomings.
“I felt like I had never fully understood why the part was written that way. And your description of the drops – the hang-glider, the toe-dipping. That was so affirming, because that’s the flaw in almost every Fiordiligi I’ve ever seen. I was so determined not to stomp those notes. Visualization is drastically important to me, and now I have this lovely image to help me whenever I sing the part.
“I’ll tell you, Mickey, most of the critics out there are so damn sure that they know everything about opera, and never do they land on something like that. It’s all bluster. When did they all give up on learning? I didn’t. You didn’t. And no offense, but I get the feeling that your operatic knowledge is anything but encyclopedic. But maybe it’s the humility, the not knowing, that opens the way to discovery. Where did you come from, Mickey, and how do you come up with this stuff?”
Maddie Hart the opera star is tapping her finger into my chest. I cannot force a word past my mouth. I’m an imposter. She immediately makes matters worse by taking off the fedora and unpinning her hair. She shakes it out with a hand and lets it settle along her shoulders, revealing subtle gradations of platinum, straw and sand. An elderly woman in a black sequin gown creeps up from behind, program in hand.
“Ms. Hart? I hate to interrupt, but you were fabulous tonight! Could I trouble you…?”
She hands Maddie the program and a pen and waits as she signs the cover.
“Thank you so much!”
“Thank you for coming to the show.” The woman walks away, and Maddie turns to me with a smile.
“You see what I mean about the hat? It’s like an invisibility cloak. But opera singers have the most well-behaved fans in the world. I would hate to put up with those obnoxious movie fans. I asked you a question, young man!”
She slaps me on the knee, another injury to my sense of reality. In doing so she leans forward, allowing me a generous view of her cleavage.
“I’m sorry. What was the question?”
She gives me a broad stage laugh. I can see the little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
“Let me rephrase it. How did you arrive at this unique approach to critiquing opera?”
“Oh. Well… I…” Hell. I was just going to have to tell her the whole mediocre truth. It has to be some sort of felony to perjure yourself to a diva. I take a deep breath.
“Absolute ignorance. I came to opera late in life, with little musical knowledge. So I listened to everything I could get my hands on, and I read everything I could. But still, it wasn’t enough. I had to see it firsthand, but I couldn’t afford the tickets. I have this friend who works at a community newspaper, and she said the local performing groups were always offering her free tickets, whether she wrote about them or not. With print media dying off, and arts coverage being hacked to pieces, they’re desperate for any recognition they can dig up.
“So she told me I should start a blog about opera, and request comps from the regional companies: Opera San Jose, West Bay Opera, Mission Opera. If they gave me any trouble, she could vouch for me. But they gave me no trouble at all. Fortysomething guy, corporate demeanor, no problem.
“After that, however, came the real puzzle: how was I supposed to write about these operas? I didn’t have enough expertise to offer much of an opinion about the singers. Or the production values, or the directing. So I covered my tracks with research, and I discovered that almost every opera ever created has some fascinating backstage story. So I connected that to my reviews, and I came up with something that was, at the least, entertaining.
“The rest is in the details. I had my newspaper friend hack up my stories until I became a decent writer. I learned to upload photos, and made sure I got the credits right. I double-checked the calendar and ticket info. Then I sent an email to the opera to make sure they read it.
“A year later, I began to find my reviews being quoted on singers’ websites, and on the season brochure for West Bay Opera. I sent a query off to San Francisco Opera and was absolutely shocked when they gave me tickets for the entire fall season. The second production was Figaro, with Maddalena Hart as the Countess. But that’s the story. I’m an imposter. I snuck in through the back door. And now I’m sitting here talking to my favorite singer.”
“Favorite singer?” she says. “Or most famous singer?”
“Absolute favorite.” I’m about to tell her the car story, but I decide that it would be too much. “How far back in my blog did you read?”
She gives me an embarrassed smile that takes off twenty years. (Perhaps embarrassment is a youthful endeavor.)
“Okay. You got me. I searched your blog for every reference to me, and I didn’t read about any other singer. But I was pressed for time! Honestly!”
I raise an accusing finger. “Aha! So you are a soprano.”
Now that our flaws are on the table, the conversation rambles freely, and it’s easier to forget the golden identity of the person with whom I am speaking. And I have always found this to be true: find two people with a passion for opera, and the time melts away. In this way, Maddalena Hart is everything I have wished for: an intensely focused performer with a need to constantly poke and prod at the secret meanings and nuances of her craft, to do anything to increase her understanding and sharpen her skill. I try my best not to sound like I’m interviewing her, but I do pick up some tidbits that are bound to pop up in my review.
Maddie and I close down the bar, and we find that my car is parked directly behind hers. She opens her door, tosses her bag and fedora inside, and turns to receive whatever farewell I might offer. The lights of City Hall strike the low overcast and fall over her in a soft mist, spelling out the brighter tresses of her hair, glimmering in the corners of her eyes. Even if she were not Maddalena Hart, I would be in love with her. I take her hand and bring it to my lips. Being a diva, she knows how to accept this, with a smile and the subtlest dip of her knees.
“I can’t even tell you,” I say. “So I won’t. Thank you for appreciating my appreciations.”
“Thank you, Mickey. I can’t wait to read your…”
Maddie stops and looks down, rubbing her eye as if a piece of dust has landed there. She looks up with tears on her cheeks.
“Don’t ever stop writing, Mickey. You do lovely work.”
She kisses me on the lips. Then she gets in her car, gives me a wave and drives off. I wave back. Maybe five minutes later, I remember to get in my car and start it up. I doubt very much if I will have a problem staying awake.
On the lips. I wait until I can see the Stanford dish, and then I play “Song to the Moon.”

Highway Song

2011-06-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

Video

North we go a-roaming from Wyoming to Montana
All upon a tankful of George Custer's diesel gas
Jesus Christ is savior on the local reservation
But still we eat our snowpeas on the Powder River Pass

Eastward in the gloaming from Wyoming to Mt. Rushmore
All to see the faces in the South Dakota night
Ripping down through Deadwood in the name of Rapid City
to see Abe Lincoln glowing in the cold arena light
to see Abe Lincoln glowing the cold arena light

And Roy Rogers sang the Torah
And Gene Autrey said shalom

We have wandered in the desert

Old man highway take me home

Gave us such a chilling there in Billings, South Montana
fictive flames of Zion just beneath the bookstore glass
Driving back down 90 just as fast as wheels would take us
to see them burning bridges in the deep Wyoming grass

Operaville, The Novel

2011-06-26T14:18:00.001-07:00

Chapter Two

Two

The Olsen house lies near the southern tip of Skyline Boulevard, at the far reaches of a well-organized mountain community. After a confusing series of forks, I pull onto a hilltop hosting three large homes under a canopy of live oak. The center house, rather Frank-Lloyd-Wrightish with all its natural touches, is one that we did last summer. I recall a terrifically hardy species of lichen that took forever to pressure-wash, as well as impractical white carpeting that we had to cover with adhesive plastic runners. But we must have done a good job, since we’re now putting in stakes with their next-door neighbors.
The Olsen estate is an assemblage of blue-gray boxes – pretty jarring next to the chaparral, but they’ve done their best to soften it with modern sculptures and fountains. My favorite is a jumble of steel rods at the entryway that seems to represent a pair of figures in erotic embrace. I find Colin piling equipment along the front steps, his early-Dylan hair bobbing and weaving as he moves.
“Ay! San Franciskel. Right on time as usual. You are a marvel of punctuality, my friend. Ready to spend the day on your hands and knees?”
“It’s my natural position.”
He joketh not. Our clients, a geeky software exec and his intermittently sexy wife, are inordinately fond of their deck. They insist on preserving it with an organic mineral-based stain so benign that it must be reapplied once a year. It feels more like we’re sautéing the deck in teriyaki sauce. But I’ll give them this: at twenty years of age, their deck is in immaculate condition.
The process is one royal pain in the tuckus. A glacial drying time means that we must wait three days between coats. It also means that, after laying the stuff down, we have to crawl around wiping up the excess with rags. The rags must then be deposited in buckets of water, lest they inspire spontaneous combustion. You don’t even want to whisper the word “fire” in these parts. This very mountain range has hosted three major blazes this year, and it’s only June.
Our starting point is the back deck, which offers one of the best views I’ve ever seen: a steep grassy downhill that disappears into mile after mile of evergreen mountains, followed by the faint low buildings of Santa Cruz (the white-steepled Holy Cross Church) and the Pacific Ocean. I take a mental note to take occasional viewing breaks; in the throes of labor, it’s easy to forget.
I position my trolley – a flat wooden board with wheels – set down my paint tray and fill it up with stain. Then I screw my thousand-bristle brush onto my broomstick, dip it in and start laying it down. Colin takes up shop at a walkway, three feet down, that rings the edge of the deck. We’re separated by a long limestone bench, but still in easy conversing distance. Colin is a painfully social creature, and not about to pass up the opportunity for a chat.
“Have a good weekend?”
“Yes. I saw Maddalena.”
“Ah! Is this a new one?”
“This is a soprano.”
“Ah yes – the one you’re so keen on.”
“That’s the one.”
“Did she fulfill your every desire?”
“All that I could ask for and not be arrested.”
“Well! Much as I appreciate a fine voice, I hope you’re having occasional meetings with actual women.”
“Oh, I did. Katie popped in on me.”
“Ah! The blonde midget. Guerrilla booty call?”
“Dressed in a dog suit.”
Colin replies in the long-voweled manner of the titillated Brit: “No-o-oh!”
I answer in the falsetto voice adopted by every American boy who grew up watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus. “She’s a saucy little bitch, she is!”
“Well I wish she would have a word with my number three. Fantastic woman – absolutely passive in the sack. May as well be inflatable.”
I stop, mid-dip. “You actually call her ‘number three’?”
“Not to her face. But she knows she’s number three.”
“Really.”
“How’s a girl going to improve unless she knows her ranking?”
“I wish I had your cojones.”
“Is that some sort of Spanish dish?”
“Yes.”
Colin is a committed follower of Burning Man, a group that assembles a small city in the Nevada desert each summer for the purpose of burning a giant man. One of the offshoots of the group’s libertarian leanings is a population that practices poly-amory – committed couples who give each other permission to screw around. Colin refers to these types as “polys,” and I cannot help but picture horny men and women dressed as parrots. It’s clear that he means this expression dismissively, which is pretty funny coming from a man who numbers his girlfriends. On the other hand, my dismissal of Colin’s approach has less to do with principles than laziness. I have a hard enough time managing a single booty call; I wouldn’t know what to do with a harem.
“So this Katie sounds like great fun, actually. Why don’t you get involved with her?”
“She’s too busy going through a terrible divorce.”
“Ah, yes. Nuclear fallout.”
He works his way around the corner, but returns to work on some side panels. It’s been a half hour, but he takes up the conversation as if we haven’t missed a beat.
“Anyone else in the picture?”
“I have this online pal, DevilDiva, who claims that I’m in love with Maddalena Hart.”
“Ah, yes. You do wax poetic. But that’s sheer fantasy, correct?”
“Yes. I do not believe in the celebrity fuck.”
“I know who’s in love with you, mate.”
“Who?”
“This DevilDiva.”
“Really.”
“Classic female stratagem. She accuses you of being in love with Maddalena Hart, because she wants you to say, ‘Why of course not, DevilDiva – I’m in love with you.’”
He delivers this with a swooning passion that truly cuts me up. I gotta say, it’s good to have a boss with a sense of humor. But I’ve got no answer for his hypothesis.
“Well!” says Colin, happy to have planted a seed. “I’d best fetch the rag-box. Hellish job, this, but we do need the work, eh?”
I repeat his favorite mantra. “It’s a slog.”

Colin abandons me at lunchtime to go wrangle up some new clients. I have no complaints, because him dealing with the clients means I don’t have to deal with them. All I want to do is work. Besides, as much as I enjoy our gossip sessions, Colin has a bad habit of micromanaging.
It’s a warm day, and with no one around I can take off my shirt and collect some rays. I slip into the rhythm of the work, and am pleased when I reach that state where I can think without thinking.
A few hours later, I have reached the shaded steps near the garage, and am about to slip my T-shirt back on when I hear a door. Misty Olsen stands on the top step in an elegant ensemble: chocolate-brown dress, gold earrings, a copper-colored scarf. Misty is the epitome of the mousy brunette, but like I said she can be unexpectedly sexy. Something about my midway-dressed state puts a weird charge in the air. She gives me an embarrassed smile.
“Hi. I’m meeting Mac for a fundraiser in Los Gatos.”
“You look good,” I don’t say.
“Oh,” I do say. “Have a good time.”
“I hope you finish soon! It’s got to be hot on that deck.”
“That’s all right – I’m in the shade now.”
“Well. I brought you a Coke from the garage. I’ll just leave it on the ledge here.”
“Oh. Thanks!”
“Well… Bye.”
“Have fun.”
Truth be told, I’m pretty well-stocked. Colin once had a scary brush with heat stroke, so he’s pretty insistent on throwing Gatorades at me. But still, as soon as Misty drives off, I go for that Coke. Soda isn’t even all that good for hydration, but when you’ve got one fresh from the fridge, little beads of sweat on the can – oh, there’s nothing like it.
Clients of contractors should understand this. I know you’re paying good money, and honestly there’s no time that Colin and I aren’t shooting for the highest quality, regardless. But with this single 50-cent Coke, Misty has purchased gratitude and loyalty, and a good feeling that will enable me to work that much harder on her deck.
As it turns out, I need every edge I can get, because the finishing slog is brutal. In the shade, the deck drinks up very little of the stain, which means more wiping. But I’ve got no choice; I’ve got to finish this first coat or our schedule will be all screwed up.
Finally, as the sun lowers over the ocean, I finish the last few planks. I take care to get all the rags into the water-buckets, and I take a look down to discover that I am a complete mess. So here I am stripping off again, a little spooked at Misty’s previous entrance. I use the few remaining rags for an all-over wipedown, then I take my softball gear out of my cleverly concealed duffel and get all suited up. I may be utterly destroyed at all available joints and tendons, but it’s time to play.

I cruise the familiar downhills of Highway 9, locked in on a Giants game, the delicious roll of Jon Miller’s baritone, Tim Lincecum casting his usual spell on opposing batters. I arrive in time to get in a few warmup tosses and then we’re playing. Truth be told, I have my best games when I am utterly exhausted. I think it’s because I truly couldn’t give a shit, and there’s something about apathy that makes for good softball. I am retired to second base these days, and the position suits me. During twenty years at shortstop, my fondness for diving brought fair-to-middling results – the throw to first is just too long. But at second I’ve got all the time in the world, time to gather myself, get to my feet (or at least my knees) and make that throw.
Tonight, however, I am merely the sidekick. Doug, the Japanese fireplug with the surprisingly wide range, is nabbing everything. He feeds me two perfect double-play balls in the first three innings, and in the fifth we are offered the chance to achieve the unthinkable. With men on first and second, the batter strokes a hard grounder that brings Doug into the baseline. He tags the lead runner and flips it to me at second. In the slow-mo nature of moments like this, I know immediately what’s up: we’re going for a triple play. In his rush, however, Doug has tossed the ball too far from the bag. Instead of stretching for it, I try to pull it back toward me for the throw to first, and it drops to the dirt.
At the end of the inning, I join Doug on his trot to the bench.
“Sorry, man. I could have stretched for the double play, but I could see that look in your eyes.”
“Oh, you read me right. Triple play or nothin’. You don’t get too many chances at greatness. And I totally choked on that flip.”
“A little excitement is a dangerous thing.”
We call our team the Bums, and we too often play like it. At 47, I am a master strategist (at 47 I have to be), and it drives me crazy, the stupid things we do on a regular basis. Like Marcus, our blowhard left fielder. Good with the glove, impressive arm, no more brains than a sack of caramels. Gets up with the bases loaded, one out, and rolls one down the line for an easy third-to-first double play. Hit that ball anywhere else on the diamond and you’ve got at least a run.
We lose by the usual brutally small margin, and I walk with Doug to the parking lot.
“Kids still small? No one in college yet?”
Doug chuckles. “The oldest is four. The youngest is still in diapers.”
“Good. I’m tired of finding out my friends’s kids are graduating Princeton.”
We walk a few feet in silence. I take note of Doug’s new-style softball backpack, two bats pointing skyward in their holsters. He looks like Clint Eastwood, riding into town with a pair of shotguns. Doug is my only teammate anywhere near my age – maybe 38. Thank God, because all these youngsters make me feel like an alien.
“How’re things with you?” he says.
“Oh, same ol’. Lotsa work, which is good. Couple of operas. Occasional bouts of sex.”
“Ha! You make it sound like boxing. You oughta be a writer.”
“I’ve thought about it.”
I haven’t told Doug about the blog. Hell, he’s the only one who knows about the opera thing at all. The field lights blink off. I have to slow down while my eyes adjust.
“I have the feeling that something extraordinary is about to happen. I have absolutely no basis for this. But you get these… signals.”
“I get those. Until I choke on the throw to second.”
“Ah, but what I’m envisioning is even bigger than a triple play.”
“Nothing’s bigger than a triple play.”
“Welp. Here’s my car. See ya next week.”
“See ya. And for God’s sake, clean off that nasty arm of yours.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Sixth inning. Grounder to my right. I take a full-on dive. The ball ticks off the edge of my glove and heads for center field. My throwing arm lands on a gravelly patch of dirt. In the dim light of the parking lot, I touch my arm to my softball pants, leaving a Rorschach blotch of red. I laugh. It’s good to be a guy. It’s good to bleed.

Operaville, The Novel

2011-06-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

Chapter One

“Voice is breath transformed.”
-- Maestro Salvatore d’Aura

One

I am on the Flanagan deck, where Colin and I are conducting a war with Mother Nature. With mid-June temps edging into the 80s, Colin has decreed that not one ounce of stain strike that deck in direct sunlight. This means a day-long dance in which I hopscotch from one surface to the next, following the squares of shade meted out by house and tree.
I am utterly behind schedule. The clock edges past six and I am still on the upper deck, applying a second coat that simply has to be finished today. And Maddalena Hart calls to me. I foxtrot our thousand-bristle brush across the final foot of plank, unscrew it from the broomstick and drop it into a bucket of water. Then I race downstairs to my car, grab my evening clothes and retreat to the back of the house, where the hillside offers some visual shelter.
That’s the thing about working in the mountains: you can get away with stuff you wouldn’t dream of doing in the city. I remove every stitch, grab a hose, brace for the shock, and crank the spigot. I give myself a thorough soaking, then I use my work shirt as a towel, drying off as much as possible before I start in on the evening wear.
I am trousered, shirted and ready to go when I pass by a large black pipe and hear the sound of descending liquid. Uh-oh. This is the sound of a toilet flush. Looking up, I see a small window with a light on.
I run up the steps to the driveway, toss my work clothes in the back seat, and am just pulling out when I see Mrs. Flanagan’s silver LeMans in the garage. I discover our 82-year-old client at the kitchen window, and give her a friendly wave. She waves back, wearing a smile that is equal parts flustered and amused.
A half hour later I am NASCARring along the sweet swath of Interstate 280, the fog drifting over Crystal Springs Reservoir like an army of cotton balls. My refrigerator-level AC has finally deactivated my pores, so I drop in at the Burlingame rest stop to assemble my dress shoes and tie. I pull into the Civic Center garage with minutes to spare, sprint up the urine-smelling exit and circumnavigate City Hall, the frigid municipal wind blow-drying my deck-hair. I arrive at the side entrance of the War Memorial Opera House and give a wave to the spry, ginger-haired gentleman who serves as my gatekeeper.
“Billy! Hi.”
“Mister Siskel. Go on through. Delores is hosting tonight.”
Four of my favorite words. With her cutesy black-Irish features, youthful figure and actual personality, Delores forces me to keep an eye on my dirty-old-man alarm system. I cross the south hallway to find her in the press room, talking to the usual vaguely European assholes.
“Oh! I went to the Los Angeles premiere last autumn. They have a new artistic director. Dennis McClintock. Used to be with Glimmerglass?”
I have never heard one of these industry whores actually talk about an opera. They chatter like a squad of thirteen-year-old girls in a cafeteria. Delores has spotted me and is giving me one of her profoundly genuine-seeming smiles.
“Mickey! Let me find your ticket.” She shuffles her envelopes, poker-style, and hands one to me. “Oh, and the info sheets are tucked into the programs.”
“Fantastic. Thanks.”
I head for the coffee and add a ridiculous amount of cream to bring down the temperature. I know it’s Mozart, and staying awake is not a problem, but I want Maddalena’s voice to stream along my synapses on wide-open channels.
Delores leans over my shoulder. “By the way, Mickey, you know you could have a second ticket, right? It’s been five years – you’ve definitely passed the test!”
“To be honest, Delores, I am surrounded by people all week. If I can go on pretending that those tightwads at San Francisco Opera just won’t give me a second ticket, I may continue to use this as my personal retreat.”
She swats me with her envelopes. “No, Mister Siskel! You may not have a second ticket, and please stop asking!”
“Thank you. I mean, curse you, you miserly press relations… person!”
Her eyes light up, then she looks closer and develops a concerned expression.
“Oh, um… You might want to check your forehead.”
I head for the mirror over the refreshment table and discover a slash of golden stain over my left temple. I dip a napkin into my coffee and manage to scrub it away. The chimes go off in the hallway, so I head out, whispering a thanks to Delores.
There is not a square inch of the War Memorial that I do not adore. The gilded florets that look down on the cavernous lobby. The red-carpeted steps that lead to the auditorium; the scroungy standing-room-onlys shuffling for position behind the back row. The Olympic-sized gold bricks that cover the north and south walls. The spiky gardenia of chandelier that shuts off in a dazzling spiral.
My ticket says row L, fantastically close. I wait next to my aisle seat until my row fills up, then sit down and applaud the conductor, Patrick Summers, he of the silver mane and ruddy complexion, who should probably be astride a horse in an Eastwood movie. The burgundy curtain rises to the heavens.
Cosi fan tutte is the ultimate romantic farce. Rascally bachelor Don Alfonso scoffs at his youngers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, as they brag on the beauty and fidelity of their fiancées. He then concocts the juiciest of wagers: the two will pretend to leave the country, then return in disguise to test the faithfulness of the other guy’s chick. Make this a mid-century American film, and the women are tempted but not won; the assembled cast laughs and smiles for the final scene as someone plays Cole Porter. In the hands of Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte, things are never that comfortable.
The folks at SFO have gone for a modernized production. The purists hate these kind of things, but then I hate the purists. The sneaky fiancés traditionally come back as Albanians, all facial hair and Middle Eastern robes, but here they’re long-haired ‘70s-era rockers. The baritone wears skin-tight leather pants, a copper-colored duster and no shirt, revealing an impressive set of abs and an eagle tattooed across his chest. The supertitle translator is in on the joke, as well. When one of the sopranos catches sight of their weird-looking suitors, she asks, “Where are these guys from? Haight-Ashbury?”
Speaking of sopranos, I have found myself in a kind of sonic heaven. They have paired Maddalena with a Dorabella whose mezzo is forceful and vibrant, a perfect match. Equipped with Mozart’s harmonic magic – long passages of girl-on-girl singing – the two are sending out chill after chill to give my spine the beat-down.
And then there’s Maddalena, and since I do go on about her, perhaps I should give you a summary of her talents. Her voice is huge, and powerful, but never forced. She manages to maintain the buoyancy of the category known as lyric, showing a gymnastic agility that should be impossible for someone with such a broad, buttery tone. Her delivery comes with impossible ease, her tone spinning into the audience like a million tiny Frisbees. And her top notes are absolutely secure, the dynamics of her phrasing always thoughtfully dramatic. She also has that rare ability to appear as if she’s simply talking – as if we should all go around singing our conversations – when in fact she is launching pyrotechnic displays of sound that mere mortals may only dream of.
What’s serving to intensify my obsession is the present-day clothing. They have dressed her all in white – befitting Fiordiligi’s chaste attitude – a flowing pantsuit with a long jacket that flits here and there with her movements, revealing contours that one might not expect from an opera singer. The generous knockers, yes, the stout ribcage (an occupational hazard) – but the ass on this girl! Medium to generous, as befits a diva, but possessed of a round shape and firmness that would give your average construction worker hours of material. Throw in those oversized emerald eyes, a head full of blonde Monroe ringlets, and those inflatable, flexible lips that they emphasize for every album cover. By the time she arrives at the big second-act aria, I’m already a mess, my heart on a platter, waiting to be frappéd by her performance. But more on that later.
At the end of three hours, I head downstairs for my pre-drive restroom stop, stopping at a portrait of Renata Tebaldi from 1968 (in Andrea Chenier) to run my thumb across her name plate. Maddalena has been compared with her, and don’t go thinking that I disagree.
[Track 1]
On the drive home, I pop Maddalena’s rendering of Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” into the cassette player (it’s an old car), and then I cleanse my palate with some AC/DC. I picture the modernized Ferrando and Guglielmo onstage with Angus and Malcolm Young, as young opera fans flash their tits at the stage.
The drive is long but not difficult. Mozart to me is like crystal meth, and also I have my nightscapes. My favorite arrives at Stanford, between the satellite dish and the linear accelerator. The surrounding land is a green vale, dotted here and there by live oaks and cows, painted silver by three quarters of a moon.
Twenty miles later, I’m approaching the evergreen mountains behind Saratoga, speckled with the lights of houses belonging to the rich – who spend most of their daylight hours denying that they’re rich at all. But this is a previous lifetime, and I’m just passing through, into the long ascending stretches of Highway 9. The deer population keeps me alert, chewing on the roadside grasses perilously close to the asphalt.
The final directions are a little complicated. Half mile past the fire station, first Ped Xing sign to your right, through the gate with the combination lock. After that it’s a full mile of downhill dirt and gravel, the rain channels beating up the suspension, and finally the much-anticipated left-hand sweep that signals home base, ancient orchards to the right, cabin of Trey the Fish to the left. I park between two redwood trees, take a moment to breathe the mountain air, check out the moonlight sliding through the trees in dull metallic streaks, then reach back in for my program and make my way to the steps.
“Ahwuff!”
“Jesus!”
It’s Katie. She’s on all fours in the entryway, and, yes, as my eyes adjust to the dark I see that she is wearing a dog suit: floppy black ears, big round nose-cap, and a furry white beagle onesie with built-in paws and a springy spike of tail.
“Pretty cute, Katie. Could you maybe call next time so I don’t have a freakin’ heart attack?”
“Hawroof!” She shuffles forward and leaps on me. I pat her on the head and she pants her approval, then adopts a cartoony growl-voice. “Mrrickey bring bone? Katie want bone!”
“No Katie, I didn’t bring you a bone. Now let’s get inside and…”
She snarls (as menacingly as a four-foot-ten blonde can) then pads her way down to my crotch and snuffles around like she’s hunting for kibble.
“Urrh! Bone!”
“Oh! Okay. I getcha.” I drop my program on a filing cabinet, undo my belt and drop trou to reveal that yes, the dog has given the man a bone. She gives my dick a few exploratory licks and then engulfs it with a messy, dog-like blow job. I grab her floppy ears and endeavor to get into the spirit of things.
“Katie, you sexy bitch!”
“Haroomph!”
After a minute she pulls away, circles around and raises her tail into the air. “Rrowf!” she says, what sounds like a canine command.
Ah, thinks I. I believe she wants to do it doggie-style. Access is a bit of a puzzle, until my initial butt-squeeze reveals a pair of large buttons. I quickly undo them and pull up the panel, revealing Katie’s round, plump cheeks. I dip a hand between them to find that she is well-lubricated, then I insert a finger, enjoying the vision of her bare pussy in the moonlight. My cock is about ready to launch itself right off my pelvis, so I take it in hand and guide myself home. It’s a grand feeling, but her tail keeps whacking me in the face.

An hour later, we’re back to human form, entwined beneath a couch blanket as we enjoy a small summer fire. I cannot usually tolerate such lengthy stretches of personal-space invasion, but Katie fits into the curve of my frame as if she were designed for the purpose. She also has this natural taste and smell that I never tire of, augmented by spearmint gum, vanilla shampoo, milk-white skin, bubble-gum nipples and labia – she is my candy girl. Too bad she’s so fucked up, but it’s really not her fault.
“How was the drop-off?” I ask.
“Oh God. Same old shit. I thought I was getting away clean, but then he calls me and says that Sara needs her Hannah Montana sweatshirt. ‘Just pull up,’ he says. ‘I’ll come to the car and get it.’ Always trying to get us alone together, like I find him so fucking irresistible I will me mesmerized by his manly presence and decide not to divorce him. For seven years I told that asshole we needed to work on our marriage, for seven years he didn’t do a goddamn thing, but now, now that I’ve left his sorry ass – now he desperately wants me back. Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so pissy. But you shouldn’ta got me going.”
I stroke her hair, the way she likes me to.
“Y’gotta dump on somebody. It may as well be me.”
She gives me a kiss. “Thanks, honey.”
“As long as you’re bitching about other men, I could listen for hours! It’s just the price of admission. And what a show you put on tonight.”
“I’m a creative little slut.”
“What do you say to popcorn and a movie? They’re playing an old Hitchcock.”
She gives me that priceless, impish smile, eyes the color of a spring sky. “Sounds fab, honey. You’re a great fuck, ya know?”
“Thanks.” I give her lips a proper chewing and head off to the microwave.

I have a life-long habit of dating brunettes, so it’s still a surprise to find this golden-haired creature sitting on the edge of my bed, doing her best to work out the morning tangles. She is a small sun over my nightstand.
The hour is another thing. Ungodly. Fifteen minutes later I am re-awakened by a toothpaste kiss, and wet hair that smells like peaches. I do my best to smile, and then I assemble enough clothing to ward off hypothermia and walk her out to her car. The morning is sharp and beautiful, lemon slices of sun cutting through the trees. A pair of Steller’s jays wing in front of us to carry their squabbling to a small madrone. I lean Katie against her car and do some more work on those lips.
“So I was wondering… where did you get that outfit?”
“Our church did a production of ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.’”
“I was fucking Snoopy? Good grief!”
“Yeahbaby.”
“This is Charles Schulz, spinning in his grave.”
She bites her lip. “I better go. Air kiss?”
I wrap my arms around her back, lift her into the air and apply lips liberally, then I spin her a couple of times so we can look like a scene from a screwball romantic comedy. Or Cosi fan tutte. Then she’s gone, up the road, down the mountain, off to pick up the kids for church. I must be a good fuck, for all the trouble she goes to. And I am profoundly impressed at her ability to compartmentalize between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

I indulge in a couple more hours of snoozing, but it’s not going to be more - I’ve got too many ideas circling my bloodstream. My agenda begins with a long sit on the pot as I read every shred of SFO’s program, including a seriously well-written piece on the friendship between Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte.
Second is a long soak in my most excellent clawfoot bathtub. I am a connoisseur of luxury soaps, and this morning I am breaking in a French-milled Shea butter bar with the deeply sweet aroma of linden blossoms. Over the next two weeks, this scent will suffuse the entire cabin. I lather it between my hands, hold the suds to my nose and then begin with my left foot before the water gets too high.
After that I’m raring to go, so I keep the breakfast simple: two pieces of toast with butter and strawberry preserves, followed by fresh-ground Ethopian coffee. I head to my writing table, positioned before a window view of my twin redwoods, to the right a deep hollow covered in madrone. To the left is the cabin of Trey the Fish, with yet another topless woman flouncing on the deck. I make a mental note to thank him. I position myself before a circle of books – a Mozart biography, Grove’s Book of Operas and the SFO program (the cast page covered with written-in-the-dark scrawls) – set down a spiral-bound notebook and pick up a cheap powder-blue stick pen. I don’t play any music, because already I can hear Maddalena singing.

[Track 2]
If you were a singer in Mozart’s company, you really couldn’t lose. He would write the role to accentuate your strengths, and dance artfully around your flaws. Thus was created one of the scariest roles in the canon: Fiordiligi of Cosi fan tutte, her stunning rollercoaster vocal lines inspired by the awesome high and low registers of Adriana Ferrarese.
It’s quite possible, however, that that’s all she had. Other than Fiordiligi and a few productions as Susannah in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adriana had a pretty lackluster career. This came from two important shortcomings: she couldn’t act, and she couldn’t do comedy.
Aha! you say. (Go ahead – I’ll wait.) So why was Adriana so successful in the decidedly farcical Cosi? Excellent question, and here’s your answer: because Fiordiligi is the square peg, holding firmly to her church-girl principles even as all around her are screwin’ around. This custom-crafted role came about either through good fortune or because Adriana was sleeping with the librettist, da Ponte. The torridness of the affair (owing largely to the married status of both participants) doubtlessly contributed to the libretto’s conflicted views on love and fidelity.
Regardless, given the way that Mozart treats Fiordiligi as his own personal yo-yo, any normal soprano should be forgiven for not being entirely up to the part. Fortunately, we’re not talking about normal sopranos – we’re talking about Maddalena Hart. Hart’s easy top notes are the stuff of legend, and her bottom end is not to be disregarded. For recorded evidence, note the low sobbings at the denouements of Boito’s “L’altra notte” (Mefistofele) and Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” (Rusalka) from Hart’s Favorite Arias album. The depth of these passages has won the singer much-deserved comparisons to Tebaldi.
[Track 3]
Naturally, it’s not just having the notes, it’s how the notes are deployed. Many a singer has come to these clifftop drops and landed on the low notes with all the tender sensitivity of a professional wrestler. Hart manages to make the descent more deftly, like a hang glider, dipping her toes to the precise mid-point of the pitch before catching the next updraft. Not once does this seem like work, and not once does she lose her supremely intelligent sense of dynamic flow. Hart often creates the impression that none of this is so unusual, that these are just everyday conversations that decided to take wing.

Since my rough beginnings, I have made major strides. I am now able to complete a review in a matter of one longhand draft, one computer draft and a final read-through. Considering the fact that I’m not getting paid a cent, this is good. I head for my blog, Operaville, paste in the article, and then I go to the SFO site to shop for a photo. The images there are sharp, and beautiful, and provocative. I always feel like I’m cheating, like I’m applying Chanel No. 5 to a pig. This time I settle on something comic: rocker-dude Ferrando hauling Fiordiligi over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her mouth open in a gasp of surprise. Maddalena is so freakin’ gorgeous all the time that it’s hard to catch her being cute. I download the image to my desktop, upload it to the blogsite, add the IDs and photo credit, and press the magic Publish button, committing my words to public consumption.
I celebrate by preparing my slow-cook goulash, an olio of red peppers, onions, cabbage and potatoes over a bacon stock, and spice it with oregano, cayenne pepper and some pomegranate molasses that I discovered in a high cabinet. While that’s brewing, I sit on my porch in the twilight treeshade and light up a cigar – a low-priced maduro from Honduras. I have set my computer to let out a chirp when anyone responds to my blog, and am pleased, halfway through my smoke, when DD rings in with her first comment. She’s like clockwork, that girl. I finish the cigar, consume a bowl of the goulash with a dollop of sour cream, and respond to a text from Katie that reads, simply, Arf! (I respond with U r 1 fine piece of tail.) Then I mix up some mango nectar with yogurt (a trick I picked up from an Indian friend) and park it next to the computer.

DevilDiva: You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a modernized opera these days. I take it from your review that this doesn’t bother you?

Mickey: I always wanted to start a jazz band called Swing a Dead Cat. But yes! As long as a modernization makes sense, I’m all for it. Whenever possible, opera should be fun.

DD: But infidelity, illicit sex, the fickle ways of love -–how can a modern audience possibility relate to these things?

M: Funny!

DD: Thank you for not responding “LOL.” I hate that shit.

M: OMG!

DD: Smartass. But I’m afraid these progressive ideas of yours will never do. Opera is nothing but an excuse for fusty 70-year-olds to impress their friends and obtain valuable tax writeoffs. Fun is utterly out of the question.

M: Sorry. I had fun, and I make no apologies. And the thing with the rockers? Hilarious.

DD: Yes, the Haight-Ashbury joke. Audiences love that stuff. It is a bit unsettling, though, how often they laugh at the supertitle before you actually get to the line. I once had a director who brought in students for dress rehearsal and instructed them to laugh at the funny supertitles right when they appeared on the screen, just so we could get used to it.

M: Good idea!

DD: But darling! Let’s talk about this segue from the historical to the musical, from Ferrarese to the way Maddie handles those intervals. You are a magician, my dear. You are a singer’s dream. If I ever get a chance to sing Fiordiligi, I’m definitely using that hang-glider visual. Why are you not writing for Opera News?

M: A late start. I am the Satchel Paige of opera criticism. And alas! I turned down that scholarship to Julliard.

DD: Okay, I’ll go along with the mythmaking process. “Siskel left a promising career in professional tennis to write a blog about opera.”

M: Hey! I’ve got a pretty decent serve.

DD: Okay. But tell me, honestly. Is Signorina Hart really that good? Or are you just buying into the hype?

M: Sometimes I read the stuff I have written about her, and I think, Come on! You’re going too far. And then I see her again, I hear her again, and I realize that I am not exaggerating at all. It’s this combination of intelligence and vocal power. Intoxicating! I find myself holding my breath when she’s singing. And you’ve read my other reviews – I’m really not a gusher.

DD: No. You’re amazingly even-keeled. And fair. So, did you discover anything new about her?

M: You’re really digging today.

DD: Hey, if you want to be the best, you study the best.

M: Okay. You know how most opera costumes entirely obscure the body? Décolletage excepted?

DD: God yes! When I’m doing Mozart, I feel like a freakin’ parade float.

M: Modern dress, of course, is much more revealing, much tighter to the silhouette. And this first-act pantsuit… It turns out that Maddalena Hart, in addition to killer top notes, a beautiful passagio, and a divine sense of phrasing, has an incredibly fine ass.

I sit there for a couple of minutes, and I’m getting nothing. This is not unusual. Out here in the boonies, I am a prisoner of ancient dial-up technology. Perhaps a squirrel is sitting on the wire. I have half a thought that I got a little too saucy, but DD and I have “gone there” before, so I can’t imagine she would take offense. I take a break to clean my dishes. When I return, sure enough, she’s back.

DD: Sorry. Life intercedes. So why no mention of derrieres in the review?

M: Do you not recall the phrase, “…her bottom end is not to be disregarded”?

DD: That is so bad, on so many levels.

M: I save the R-rated stuff just for you, honey.

DD: You do recall that this is a public forum we’re chatting upon?

M: You kiddin’ me? I’m counting on this stuff to get me some page-views. In fact, I think I’ll plug in a search tag for “Maddalena Hart’s ass.”

DD: Yeah, operatic porn is big these days. And what kind of sleazy readership will that get you?

Cordell: Somebody call?

M: Cord! Good to hear from you.

DD: Time for Diva to Di-part, hon. But one last thought: I think you’re in love with Maddalena Hart.

M: Well who isn’t?

C: I’m in love with her, and I’m as queer as a three-headed monkey.

M: Cordell! Nice bon mot.

C: Thank you. I saw an Oscar Wilde play last night.

DD: Ciao, belli.

M: Buona notte, signorina divina.

C: Not break up this little love-huddle, but rocker duds? They really did that?

M: You woulda loved the shirtless baritone.

C: Please! I’m strictly about the art. Can I get a photo?

M: Ha! I’ll smuggle you one from the website.

C: God bless you, young hetero.

San Francisco Opera's Gotterdammerung

2011-06-22T13:32:00.001-07:00

June 19, 2011

The industrial imagery that underlies Francesca Zambello’s American Ring Cycle comes to a head in Gotterdammerung, as the mortals take over for the gods in the process of screwing with nature. The interlude projections of pollution and refineries threatens, in fact, to become overbearing, except when one realizes how overt this theme is in the text. Wagner and his source mythologies were nothing if not sadly prescient.

The thread begins with cables – in fact, piles of them, a high-tech substitute for the rope of fate. With Wotan bringing the gods to their end, the Norns – dressed in the surgeon-style scrubs of Silicon Valley clean rooms – are unable to save the universal connections from a system crash. Former SFO Adler Fellow Daveda Karanas stands out as the Second Norn, and also, later, as Brunnhilde’s Valkyrie sister Waltraute.

Tenor Ian Storey makes an apt successor to Siegfried’s Siegfried, Jay Hunter Morris – physically, they almost look related. Unfortunately, Storey also carried on with Morris’s vocal struggles. Such was his plight in Act II that general director David Gockley appeared to ask for the audience’s understanding. Freed up by a physician’s clearance and license to go ahead and clear his throat, Story made a heroic comeback, performing Siegfried’s final monologue with a touching pathos.

The new ring-pirates, the Gibichungs, plan their attack from set designer Michael Yeargan’s steel-and-glass industrial headquarters. Their demeanor and clothing, however, smack more of tabloid Hollywood, Gutrune and her dazzling gowns like a cousin to Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian.

Although the plot devices at this point begin to spiral out of control (notably the love potion that sends Siegfried into the arms of Gutrune), the production is carried through by some remarkable performances. Nina Stemme continues her role as a force of nature, bringing such vigor to Brunnhilde that one worries for her health. Bass Andrea Silvestrelli milks the prime conspirator, Hagen (or, as we call him, Karl Rove), for every ounce of nastiness. The men’s chorus gives a stirring (and somewhat frightening) performance as Hagen’s fascists-in-waiting in “Gross Gluck und Heil”. The Rhinemaidens – Stacey Tappan, Lauren McNeese and Renee Tatum – return to pull the plastic bottles out of the River not-so-Gold and offer three-part laments that make you wish Wagner had done more of such work. What really shines through in the totality of this Ring, however, is the playing of Donald Runnicles and his orchestra. Played so beautifully, Wagner’s motifs have a way of rewiring one’s circuitry and returning over the following weeks for haunting internal replays.

The company’s rendition of the finale is spectacular, Brunnhilde’s immolation causing an image-burst of the soldier-photos that populated the Valhalla of Die Walkure. I still won’t forgive Wagner for this act and others (notably the lame attempt at reforming Gutrune), which show signs of a man who has painted his narrative into a corner and is desperately tieing up his ends. But the powerful imagery of Zambello’s conception certainly makes up for a lot.

Through July 3 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com.

Image: Stacey Tappan (Woglinde), Lauren McNeese (Wellgunde) and Renee Tatum (Flosshilde). Photo by Cory Weaver.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and the author of the novel/CD Operaville, available at amazon.com.

San Francisco Opera's "Siegfried"

2011-06-21T20:43:00.001-07:00

June 17, 2011

The third installment of San Francisco’s lively American Ring Cycle is a knockout, a “Siegfried” of unparalleled physicality and imagination. Director Francesca Zambello and her forces have created a five-hour opera that plays like a two-hour action flick.

The sense of theatricality is evident from the rise of the curtain, in the incredible level of detail in Mime’s trailer-trash abode: burned-out camper (check), propane tanks (check), stacked cases of Rheingold beer (check), engine block that serves as an anvil (check?). The oddly hateful relationship between Siegfried and his foster father is amped up by the hyperactivity of its players. Tenor Jay Hunter Morris comes across as a big-boy football player, rambling around the acreage and sitting with his legs out to either side as he threatens his “daddy.” (I’ll leave this place forever, happy to be rid of you!”)

Tenor David Cangelosi, meanwhile, turns Mime’s nervous energy into a kinetic sideshow, dancing on the trailer roof, performing cartwheels and generally being a goofy evil gnome. He also delivers vocally, with a deliciously acerbic tone that suits his character. The scene is also helped by an ingenious bear suit, allowing super Christopher R.T. Smith to look so authentic it’s a little unsettling.

Wotan makes his appearance as The Wanderer dressed as The Big Lebowski meets Jack Sparrow. Mark Delavan continues a remarkable evolution in the role, singing the part as roughly as Wotan is looking.

Act II rises on an industrial garage, Alberich (baritone Gordon Hawkins) watching over the place as he prepares Molotov cocktails for an attack on the ring-holder, the giant-turned-monster Fafner (bass Daniel Sumegi). Two remarkable innovations mark the scene. The Forest Bird that provides Siegfriend with all his covert information appears in the form of a brightly clad young woman (delightful soprano Stacey Tappan). Fafner appears as a scary 5,000-pound military tank, letting out fearful blasts of steam. The final encounter between Siegfried and Mime – in which the latter’s every lie is uncovered by the Tarnhelm – is as funny and slapstick as an old Lewis and Martin routine.

The first half of Act III brings Wotan back with Erda, played by contralto Ronnita Miller with the same earth-mother presence she brought to “Die Walkure.”

The final scene was another chance to see the unofficial queen of the city, Nina Stemme, as Brunnhilde. Her emotions upon waking from her years-long slumber follow a rollercoaster that feels quite genuine: the joy of seeing her her rescuing hero, the anguish of remembering her powerless state, a dip into hopelessness (the heartbreaking monologue, “Ewig war ich”). Morris plays off of this beautifully: Siegfried’s first taste of fear, a touch of shyness, followed by a recovery into his basic courage and his desire to win Brunnhilde. Morris was also conducting a battle with his voice, and eventually won out. Michael Yeargan’s set was a convincingly eroded ruin of the hilltop bunker that finished “Die Walkure.”

Notes:

A joke that few people would get: Guy runs into Brunnhilde and Siegfried at a bar, isn’t sure what to say. “So, umm… How’d you two meet?”

Mime’s forge is equipped with a sanding drum that generates sparks when struck with a hammer. Very cool.

Through July 3 at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com

Image: David Cangelosi (Mime). Photo by Cory Weaver.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of the novel/CD “Operaville,” available at amazon.com.

San Francisco Opera's "Die Walkure"

2011-06-17T14:08:00.001-07:00

June 15, 2011

Despite the flying Viking ladies, Die Walkure can be a ponderous creature, its four-and-a-half hours filled with restatement, redundancy and repetition. It is, dramatically speaking, a monster, but one that has largely been tamed thanks to the vivid imagination of Francesca Zambello's American reconception.

Things begin in a deceptively frenetic fashion. After Jan Hartley's eerie projections of a chase through one of California's own redwood forests, the tenor who shall be Siegmund arrives at a backwoods cabin seeking sanctuary. The wife is nice enough - in fact, she looks alarmingly familiar - but hubby is a creepy survivalist wife-beater. The interior of the cabin is a hunting-lodge treasure trove: wood paneling, trophies of both the brass and stuffed-animal variety, and enough weaponry to start a militia. Australian bass-baritone Daniel Sumegi is captivating, playing hubby Hunding like a volcano that could blow at any second, while German soprano Anja Kampe conducts the tightrope walk of the abused wife, alternately comforting and fearing her psycho-spouse. Brandon Jovanovich is perfect as Siegmund, bringing to the role an athletic physicality and an absolutely gorgeous voice - particularly in the Spring Song, "Wintersturme wichen dem Wonnemond," that initiates the love affair with Sieglinde, his rediscovered twin sister. (Yes, kind of creepy.)

The Act I tension manages to rise even further in Act 2, thanks to a magnificently dysfunctional family of gods, stationed in the boardroom of their New York Valhalla skyscraper before a god-sized black-and-white photo of the skyline. Baritone Mark Delevan delivers a much more robust Wotan than in Das Rheingold, perhaps freed up by the god's increased power (while performing the two on consecutive nights, no less). The same is true of mezzo Elizabeth Bishop, who makes the most of much juicier material. Given the possibility of a justified righteousness given Wotan's infidelities, her Fricka opts instead for extortion, demanding her hubby preserve the sicko Hunding's marriage instead of the twisted twin-tryst of his beloved Siegmund. "I cannot restrain true passion," says Wotan. Retorts Fricka, "Beings like us do not trouble ourselves with such riff-raff." They are both truly hateful, and one fears for Brunnhilde, the ping-pong ball in the middle.

Swedish soprano Nina Stemme has put her stamp on Brunnhilde. She performs with a kinetic tomboyish energy while still leaving herself open to vulnerability. Her voice follows a similar pattern: richly thunderous in her calls to the battlefield, but also, in quiet moments, exceedingly captivating - as in the beginning of her defense to Wotan, "War es so schmalich." She also has a fantastic collection of coats , a style I call "Matrix Aviatrix." During her covert defense of Siegmund under the astonishing frame of Michael Yeagen's freeway-underpass battleground, it's interesting to compare Jovanovich's supremely natural movements with Stemme's - wholly unnatural and yet irresistible. She is forever on her toes, like a basketball point guard, leaning forward, ready for the next sudden burst of energy.

Brunnhilde fails in her defense, makes off with the widowed Sieglinde, now pregnant with the future hero Siegfried, and flies away to another stunning vista, the home bunker of the Valkyries, who drop in from the flies as World War II paratroopers. The conceit and the lively performance of the eight sisters fashions a whole new package for the Ride of the Valkyries. Their Valhallan squadron is represented by large photos of actual American casualities, from the Civil War to Iraq.

Once the angry Wotan enters the picture, the scene drags on (as did the love scene between the twins) as he hesitates and ponders and hesitates some more regarding the punishment he must bring down on Brunnhilde. This could be the price of an updated setting. Dress a god as a human and we just don't let him get away with as much. Painting himself into a corner to preserve his precious power and screw as many women as possible, Wotan has now decided to take it out on his daughter on a technicality. Under these terms, even the song to Brunnhilde's "bright eyes" rings hollow. After a long, long wait, however, the audience is rewarded by a ring of fire that is simultaneously dazzling and scary.

Donald Runnicles and his orchestra play so gorgeously - particularly the much-heralded brass - that I feel like I take them for granted. That said, I send them a "Bravi!" and look forward to more.

The Ring Cycle, through July 3, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California. 415/864-3330, wwwsfopera.com.

Image: Nina Stemme (Brünnhilde). Photo by Cory Weaver.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of the novel/CD "Operaville," available at amazon.com.

Das Rheingold, San Francisco Opera

2011-06-15T14:42:00.001-07:00

June 14, 2011

This idea of an American Ring Cycle is pretty preposterous. Ill-conceived real estate deals? High-powered executives fomenting resentment toward blue-collar workers? Come on! That would never happen in America.

Sarcasm aside, the idea of a Ring festooned in American iconography - a longtime dream of stage director Francesca Zambello - is fitting not only from square one, but at square one, as the Rhinemaidens protect their River of Gold. Rivers of gold? That's the very reason that San Francisco was founded.

Let's begin by giving you a quick rundown of said Americanisms. The maidens are dressed as Gold Rush saloon girls. Alberich appears in overalls and a miner's cap. In Scene 2, the gods are dressed in light-colored 1920s picnicwear - a la the Kennedys, or perhaps the Gatsby clan. Wotan wears a blazer and jodhpurs, and Donner's hammer is a croquet mallet. He and Froh wear the hard-hats of general contractors as they review blueprints for Valhalla. The blue-collar giants Fasolt and Fafner are dropped in on a steel beam, taken from those iconic photos of New York skyscraper workers. They are dressed in denim overalls and work caps, and their extremities have been extended by metallic fingers and black stilt-boots. The gods enter Valhalla courtesy of a cruise ship gangway.

Zambello's touches (and those of costume designer Catherine Zuber and set designer Michael Yeargan) enliven the action without intruding on it. This invigoration is furthered by the intriguing projections of Jan Hartley (a primordial soup for the famed E-flat prelude, Arizona caves for the trip to Alberich's underworld) and the ceaselessly inventive lighting by Mark McCullough.

Given such a fresh new look, it's easy to find new thoughts on Wagner's epic. Such as, how early and blatantly he proclaims his theme. Alberich is able to steal the Rheingold only by forswearing love, and there you have it: love versus power, for the rest of the Cycle. ("So the gold is safe," declares a maiden. "Who would give up love?")

The second epiphany comes in the trap of rooting for the declared protagonist, no matter what. This is a human habit, one that has led many readers to find themselves, in Nabokov's "Lolita," empathizing with a pedophile. In the case of Das Rheingold, it is important to realize that Wotan is a complete ass. He offers his sister-in-law as payment for Valhalla, intends all along to screw the giants out of any payment at all, and eventually covers his rear-end by stealing from Alberich. Sadly, Wall Street is currently occupied by thousands of Wotans.

Wotan's henchman/lawyer Loge is even slimier, but he's also the first guy you would invite to a cocktail party. Czech tenor Stefan Margita makes use of stabbing marcatos and lively enunciation to fork Loge's tongue even further, giving the production a welcome serving of cynical wit. Bass-baritone Gordon Hawkins brings an animal presence to Alberich, and everything about Italian bass Andrea Silvestrelli's Fasolt is gigantic: the voice, the size, the presence. The Rhinemaidens - Stacey Tappan, Lauren McNeese and Renee Tatum - are comely both physically and musically, giving the sunrise hymn to the gold a delicate three-part rapture. Contralto Ronnita Miller performs the Earth spirit Erda with a sense of calm power.

Other notes:

- Not very nice to begin a two-and-a-half-hour intermissionless production with all those images of water.

- Nice final-act brotherly beat-down by Daniel Sumegi as Fafner. Watch out for those quiet ones.

- The supertitles are fresh, as well. Alberich leaves the maidens with "Flirt in darkness, you slimy sluts!"

- Provocative choice: On the brink of her release, Freia seems to have fallen prey to Stockholm Syndrome, clinging to Fasolt like a smitten teenager. Perhaps it's that old saying about large feet...

- After Erda clearly warns Wotan to give up the ring, and then repeats the warning, he answers with, "Your words are mysterious." What an ass.

- The Nibelungs are awesomely creepy, courtesy of raggy outfits and the ghastly orange lighting of Alberich's mine.

The Ring Cycle, through July 3, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California. 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com.

Image: Andrea Silvestrelli (Fasolt) and Daniel Sumegi (Fafner). Photo by Cory Weaver

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and the author of the novel/CD "Operaville," available at amazon.com.

The Irene Dalis Vocal Competition

2011-05-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

May 21, 2011

The Fifth Annual Irene Dalis Vocal Competition was blessed with some awesomely good young singers, a few welcome moments of mirth and the reappearance of its namesake, the Met legend and Opera San Jose founder, who returned after a nasty car accident and subsequent hospital stay. Miss Dalis was greeted with a much-deserved standing ovation.

The competition is a tribute to that form-within-a-form, the aria, and should not be confused with an opera performance contest. (Speaking to a favorite singer who didn't make the finals, I told her that her own talents take a full three-hour opera to make themselves known, which is precisely why I like her so much.) The Dalis Competiton also carries an intriguing element of chance. Each singer submits several arias, and begins by performing one of their own choosing. The second entry is requested on-the-spot by the three-judge panel.

It's much fun to turn this into a handicapping affair, and this year I fared pretty well, picking two out of three on the opera exacta. One of my choices was the winner, Alexandra Lobianco, who was listed in the program as coming from Russia but actually hails from St. Petersburg, Florida. (Whoops!) Lobianco began with Turandot's challenging "In questa reggia" and sang with great power, shaking the walls of the California Theater with her dramatic soprano. She also went against the evening's animated trends and delivered the piece from a static posture, an excellent choice for the Ice Princess. The judges then took her to middle Puccini with Tosca's "Vissi d'arte," perhaps seeking a sensitive side to her skill-set - which is exactly what she delivered.

Second Prize went to California baritone Evan Brummel, whose primary skill is that ineffable quality we call "presence." He simply took over the stage, with a powerful rendering of Rigoletto's "Pari siamo," displaying a high range that was quite affecting. He finished his set with Faust's "Avant de quitter ces lieux" and its thunderous final phrase. Opera San Jose fans will be happy to know that Brummel will be performing with the company in the 2011-12 season.

Third prize went to local favorite tenor Christopher Bengochea, a local favorite who has gone from ringing lyric to muscle-car spinto and now back to an blend of the two that is quite moving. He began with the grand "O Paradis!" from Meyerbeer's "L'Africaine" and was asked to sing "Parmi veder le lagrime," the more challenging of the Duke's pieces from Rigoletto. Bengochea was so intent on his opening aria that he was halfway into Daniel Lockert's piano intro before he realized he hadn't told the audience exactly what he was going to sing.

The rest of the finalists brought highlights aplenty. Guyana soprano Shawnette Sulker began the evening with a vigorous reading of Die Zauberflote's "Der Holle Rache," creating a buzz by employing a few optional notes in the famed staccato passages (and what an intelligent audience to notice such small changes!). Soprano Jennie Litster sang "O luce di quest'anima" from Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix with incredibly seamless phrasing. Soprano Jasmina Halimic employed Deniro-level acting with "Tutto nel cor" from Mozart's Idomeneo, channeling Electra's lunacy so intensely that we were a little concerned for her health. After recovering from some early breathiness, soprano Rebecca Davis played Dvorak's Song to the Moon with ultimate tenderness.

I was also impressed with the audience's impartiality. Faced with five of ten singers with Opera San Jose connections, they agreed with the judges and voted Lobianco the Audience Favorite. This added $5,000 to her $15,000 First Prize. Second prize was $10,000, Third $5,000, and the other finalists took home $2,000 apiece. Soprano Jouvanca Jean-Baptiste won an additional $1,000 from the Wagner Society for her performance of "Traft ihr das Schiff im meere an" from Die Fliegende Hollander. The $50,000 total came from the same anonymous donor who has funded the previous four competitions.

Photo by Robert Shomler

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of the novel Operaville, currently available at amazon.com

Opera San Jose, La Boheme

2011-04-25T17:40:00.001-07:00

April 23, 2011

By Michael J. Vaughn

For the simple reason that the critic has now seen 637 Bohemes (and, yes, tends to exaggerate), let’s take this review in a highly randomized fashion. Beginning with…

1) The wine glasses. For years, I have experienced a vague irritation over OSJ’s refusal to put anything fluid in its glasses. Is this a union thing? Worker safety? Lack of a liquor license? But they’ve worked out a nice compromise, painting a strip of red at the bottom of their glasses so they at least appear to contain wine. Hey, it’s a step forward.

2) In the barely controlled chaos of the Café Momus scene, the company threw in a juggling stilt-walker. Nice touch!

3) I’m always intrigued by the carefully timed gate-shouts of the workers and milkmaids that begin Act 3. (I know they’re difficult, because they’re so often messed up.) Not this time. Conductor David Rohrbaugh and his choristers were right on the mark.

4) Love the addition of a bathtub to the garret set – especially since it was used most often for dining. Colline, in fact, dined while seated inside. The bonhomie amongst the boys was first-rate, with special marks for baritone Daniel Cilli as a sprightly Schaunard. OSJ is blessed with male performers these days, and the man-heavy Boheme certainly illustrates the point.

5) How nice, when you lose a Rodolfo and Musetta to voice issues, to call the Bengochea household and get some handy replacements. Hubbie Christopher is taking Rodolfo for the alternate cast. Wife Sandra – lately focusing her talents on stage directing – takes over the Café Momus scene like Rosalind Russell taking over Auntie Mame. The latest addition to her comic tricks is an absurdly long kiss with Marcello (baritone Torlef Borsting), and the way she blurts out her sudden affliction (Musetta’s excuse to get rid of her annoying patron) is priceless.

6) Each new viewing reveals another spot where Puccini foreshadows or reprises his aria motifs. This one, for me, was a whisper of “Che gelida manina” as Rodolfo mentions an article he has to write for The Beaver. (And perhaps while I’m writing it a consumptive beauty will appear at my doorstep.)

7) And while we’re on Rodolfo, Alexander Boyer has such a gorgeous lyric tenor – and delivers it with such ease – that you almost have to hate him. Hard to hate him, though, since he radiates an innocent, slightly awkward quality that makes a perfect match for Rodolfo.

8) Soprano Jasmina Halimic enjoys these same advantages – she just looks like Mimi, and also possesses a gorgeous lyric tone, so broad and buttery at the top that it evokes thoughts of Tebaldi. (All in all, these two are enough to make an opera fanatic pass out.) Halimic’s lines are strikingly spare, more involved with character than display, but she does provide some enchanting dynamic swells – notably in a unison line with Boyer in “O soave fanciulla.” The real revelation, however, is Mimi’s dialogue with Marcello in Act 3, as she relates her recent breakup with Rodolfo and her worries about her health. Halimic and stage director Timothy Near have fashioned a Mimi tormented by shadows, bringing an intensity to this scene that I’ve never witnessed.

Image: Alexander Boyer and Jasmina Halimic. Photo by Robert Shomler

Through May 8, California Theatre, 345 South First Street, San Jose. $51-$101, 408/437-4450,www.operasj.org.

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of the novel Operaville, available at amazon.com.

Opera San Jose's "Barber"

2011-02-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Opera San Jose
February 12, 2011

By Michael J. Vaughn

Opera Santa Barbara artistic director Jose Maria Condemi took some time out to unleash his (Groucho) Marxist talents on the Barber, filling every available quarter-rest with comic anarchy: the triangle gag, the bad mustache gag, the Bugs Bunny carrot gag, the upside-down book gag, the zone defense gag, the inexplicable apple gag, and especially the singing-from-the-diaphragm gag. Just to name a few.

Oddly, this fenetic evening had a bit of a slow start. Bryan Nies and the orchestra gave a lackluster reading of the overture, though they certainly made up for it later. Krassen Karagiozov offered a solid account of the Largo Factotum, but I’m going to be insanely demanding and ask him for ten percent more energy. Overall, however, the baritone’s performance was a fine example of going with your strengths. His open expression and curly-forelock wig give him a whimsical Danny Kaye aura, so he performed the part with more playfulness and less craftiness than most.

The production brings out the comic potential of Count Almaviva, who enters as an ingenue and soon turns to daffy hijinks. Tenor Michael Dailey took the physical flair he showed in last season’s Cosi and turned up the volume. His drunken soldier brought flashbacks of Richard Pryor’s ‘70s wino routines, and the Liberace arm movements behind the harpsichord were priceless. His musical highlight came in the haunting, high passages of the guitar serenade, “Se il mio nome.”

Betany Coffland’s turn as Rosina – together with last season’s Cenerentola – should confirm her genius in the special discipline of bel canto mezzo. Her performance of “Io sono docile” was astoundingly agile - and also funny. She rolled an r at her snoopy housemaid as if it were a dagger. She also brought out the easily overlooked beauty of the music-lesson rondo (even when it’s a joke, Rossini’s music is divine). Theatrically, Coffland gave the role an extra measure of feistiness, a welcome choice.

Bass Silas Elash brought his velvet foghorn to a Dr. Bartolo who’s got a bit of a vicious streak himself, and delivered the intimidating passages of patter with the ease of an auctioneer. (When the rest of the principals joined in at the Act I finale, it was like an argument between several machine guns.) Bass-baritone Isaiah Musik-Ayala shone with Basilio’s delicious Scandal Aria (“La calunnia e un venticello”). And mezzo Tori Grayum did an excellent job with the opera’s thesis aria, “Il vecchiotto cerca moglie,” performing a pipe-smoking housemaid Berta in the finest Charlize Theron playing-ugly-for-the-Oscar tradition.

Matthew Antaky’s sets display a superb sense of detail. The Tuscan interior would transfer quite readily to many of the houses being built in California. The production’s costumery is quite dashing, particularly Rosina’s dress and the off-shoulder capes of Almaviva and Figaro (Alyssa Oania, original designs by Cathleen Edwards). Andrew Whitfield’s chorus added much to the liveliness, particularly in the aforementioned Act I finale.

Oh, and also the Harlem Globetrotters’ confetti-in-a-bucket gag. And the tongue gag. And the sneezing-in-the-hand gag.

Through February 27, California Theatre, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $51-$101, 408/437-4450, www.operasj.org. Alternating casts.

Image: Betany Coffland as Rosina, Silas Elash as Dr. Bartolo. Photo by Pat Kirk.

Michael J. Vaughn is author of the novel Operaville, with a companion CD by soprano Barbara Divis, available at amazon.com.

Opera San Jose's "Tosca"

2010-11-17T13:19:00.000-08:00

November 14, 2010

It's always a pleasure to see the young singers that Opera San Jose is developing - but perhaps even a larger pleasure to see the end results. Such was the case Sunday, when alumni Christopher Bengochea and Rebecca Davis returned to play Cavaradossi and Tosca.

It's a special time for Davis, who went directly from her OSJ residency to this summer's Merola Program in San Francisco. After a series of light lyric roles in San Jose - the Countess in Figaro, Adina in Elixir of Love - I had some doubts about her taking on Tosca, but it turns out that the darker, more dramatic side is where her voice more naturally "wants to go," as she puts it, and it certainly comes across onstage. Her Floria is downright ferocious, particularly in the dark, foreboding passages as Scarpia lures her into the trap of jealousy. She begins "Vissi d'arte" in a prone position and taps into her lyric side to produce a beautifully tiered three-step dynamic drop from the final top-note.

Bengochea's transformation continues to be a highly entertaining ride. He began his OSJ career as the ultimate lirico but has matured into a forceful spinto. Sunday, his instrument was a bit of a wild beast - he strained at the upper reaches of "Recondita armonia" - but once he warmed up the results were fantastic. His "E lucevan" was heart-wrenching, and he followed with a tender reading of the oft-overlooked "Dolci mani," Cavaradossi's tribute to the sweet hands that were forced to kill on his behalf. (A Pucciniphile can't help flashing on "Che gelida manina.)

Current resident Torlef Borsting did superbly with Scarpia, favoring "nasty" and "creepy" on the Scarpia buffet. He did especially well with the divinely hypocritical Te Deum, over the excellent singing of the OSJ chorus.

Stage director Sandra Bengochea led her players through a passionate, physical production (and freely abused her husband, who at one point was dragged into Scarpia's apartment on a sheet). The hand of veteran fight director Kit Wilder shows, as well. The tussle between Cavaradossi and Scarpia's henchmen was Eastwood-grade, and the pivotal stabbing was superb: Tosca lying in wait till the Baron leaned over her, then two solid thrusts to the midsection with a shiny, nasty-looking knife. The torture scene was agonizing and visceral, punctuated by a scream from (Christopher) Bengochea that was downright primal. The clincher was Davis's leap from the parapets, which was purposeful and fearless, with a defiant look back at her pursuers.

The orchestra under David Rohrbaugh played well, with the exception of some sour strings in the third-act reprise of the "Mia gelosa" theme. The creaking doors to the Attavanti chapel and the torture room were nice, authentic touches. And Tosca's second-act gown - a black-and-gold ensemble designed by Elizabeth Poindexter - was divine. Supertitle of the evening: "He's dead - now I forgive him."

Through November 28, California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $51-$101, 408/437-4450, operasj.org.

Image: Christopher Bengochea as Cavaradossi. Photo by Pat Kirk.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and novelist. His latest book, Operaville, is set for release in early 2011, with a companion CD by soprano Barbara Divis. Available at amazon.com.

San Francisco Opera, Janacek's "The Makropulos Case"

2010-11-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

On those infrequent occasions when I see an opera for the first time, I do my best to not read a word about it beforehand. I prefer to ingest it purely in its stage form. This paid off greatly in this case, serving to increase my enjoyment of soprano Karita Mattila's mesmerizing. Playing opera singer Emilia Marty, Mattila pops into the Prague law offices of Dr. Kolenaty, seemingly as an interested layperson. She proceeds to singlehandedly untangle a century-old inheritance case, employing bits of information she should have no way of possessing.

What's even more intriguing is her physical presence. With bird-like features, cutting eyes, a sharp sweep of blonde hair and a lithe, athletic figure, Mattila spends the first act striking one unnatural, uncomfortable pose after another, making the act of getting herself into an armchair into a symphony of effort. She has no concern for social constructs - especially personal space - and succeeds in casting a spell over every male onstage (the lone female, apprentice singer Kristina, is already a disciple). The most apparent victim is Albert Gregor, the man who has just inherited a fortune thanks to her intercession. The intrigue doubles in the second act, when Marty, still dressed as the clown Pierrot, appears backstage to encounter Count Hauk-Sendorf (Matthew O'Neill), an old eccentric who claims to be her former lover. Mattila reacts to the reunion by performing a bit of flamenco, doing the splits and rolling around with the Count in one gymnastic position after another. (Mattila is reported to be a fan of yoga.)

Being a mystery, the story depends largely on exposition, and Janacek creates a brilliant frame for delivering it. He extends the hurly-burly orchestral action of the overture (meant to symbolize the hyperactivity of 20th-century life) while his bureaucrats deliver the case history in rapid single-note parlandos, handing it off from the clerk Vitek (tenor Thomas Glenn) to Dr. Kolenaty (bass-baritone Dale Travis) to Gregor, played by tenor Miro Dvorsky. Dvorsky does a superb job of leaping from these straight lines into the high-lying flights of Gregor's newfound passion. German bass-baritone Gerd Grochowski as Prus, the loser of the case, provides the only calm presence, and the only man with half a chance at Emilia's weird affections.

Mattila possesses a strong lyric instrument, and bends it in some astonishing ways to make the most of Janacek's quirky score. Her more traditional lyric side comes into play in Act III, as Emilia resigns herself to her fate, singing a slow waltz theme as the orchestra modulates through several keys beneath her. The performance of the orchestra under Czech conductor Jiri Belohlavek is impressively robust, especially in the overture.

The production design by Frank Philipp Schlossman is a model of mid-century modernism, the law office a monochrome curve of packed bookshelves, the backdrops shaded with the crosshatch style often used in comic books. The set employs large illuminated clocks bearing the actual performance time - time being a primary theme of the story. The costumes are also '50s-through-'60s, including Emilia's striking strapless ball gown in Act III, inspired by a Givenchy design.

It's understandable that Makropulos is not performed more often; its requirement for virtuosic singing actors is simply too demanding. Working with director Olivier Tambosi, however, Mattila has developed the character in this, her role debut, to an astounding level. One could see her singlehandedly inspiring a new wave of productions.

Through Nov. 28, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. Sung in Czech with English supertitles. $20-$360. 415/864-3330, sfopera.com.

Image: Karita Mattila (Emilia Marty). Photo by Cory Weaver.
Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and novelist. His latest book, Operaville, will be relased in early 2011 with a companion CD by soprano Barbara Divis. Available at amazon.com.

Domingo at San Francisco Opera

2010-11-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac

October 30, 2010

It seems silly to even express an opinion about Placido Domingo. The Spanish tenor long ago earned his place as one of history’s great performers, performing more than 130 roles, becoming a respected conductor and demonstrating a ceaseless thirst for artistic challenges.

Domingo’s latest pursuit is the rehabilitation of Franco Alfano, the poor sap who had to try and write the final scene of Puccini’s Turandot after the composer’s death. Domingo performed the American debut of Alfano’s Cyrano in 2005 at the Met, and recently brought the opera to San Francisco for its debut there.

Alfano’s score certainly reflects some of the directions that Puccini was headed at the end of his life – particularly in through-composing– but the more prominent influence may be Massenet. Alfano’s Cyrano shies away from melody in pursuit of a recitative-like style (referred to as parlando) that reflects the patterns of natural speech.

This drama-friendly approach and the enormity of Rostand’s character make fine dining for Domingo, whose acting skills have rarely been matched. But don’t think the vocals are a cake-walk – Alfano loves the higher reaches, and Domingo, nearing his 70^th birthday, shows not the slightest hesitation in delivering those robust spinto top-notes time and again.

With its Roxane, SFO has found a glorious match for Domingo’s power: Spanish soprano Ainhoa Arteta, who brings a strong, creamy tone, as well as generous helpings of wit. The latter showed itself especially in the second act, as Roxane dupes De Guiche (baritone Stephen Powell) into delaying the deployment of her beloved Christian. Arteta also shines in Roxane’s final-scene aria about Christian’s (Cyrano’s) letters, some of the most soaring passages in Alfano’s score.

Brazilian tenor Thiago Arancam gives a sympathetic reading of Christian (whose saving grace is his understanding that he is witless). I also enjoyed baritone Timothy Mix as Cyrano’s aide, Le Bret, and baritone Lester Lynch, who lent a commanding presence to Carbon, the captain of the Guards. Musical theater veteran Martin Rojas-Dietrich was delightfully over-the-top as theater star Montfleury.

The production is even more action-packed than spring’s La Fanciulla del West, a quality insisted upon by Domingo and stage director Petrika Ionesco. (At times, it felt like I went to a swordfight and an opera broke out.) The participants were actual swordfighters, drawn through auditions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, who created wonderfully chaotic battle scenes under fight director Jonathan Rider. For good measure, the company threw in a trio of stagehands rappelling from the flies in Act I.

The sets – designed by Ionesco - were astounding, particularly Ragueneau’s bakery, which looked like a scene from Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. A particular techno-geek thrill came from the leaves in the final-act tree, which contained electrodes allowing them to fall on command from a backstage switchboard.

The undercover trio of the balcony scene was as ravishing as one might expect, Domingo delivering Cyrano’s poetry over the ebbs and swells of Alfano’s orchestration. Still, nothing could compare with the heartstopping intensity of the final scene, as Cyrano, dying of a headwound, finally reveals his love for Roxane. The sight of Domingo crawling toward his plumed hat, gasping Cyrano’s last wishes, is just another indelible moment in a career containing thousands.

Through Nov. 12, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. $20-$360, 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com. Ticket availability extremely limited.

Image: Ainhoa Arteta (Roxane) and Plácido Domingo (Cyrano de Bergerac). Photo by Cory Weaver

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and the author of Operaville, an opera sex novel which will be released in early 2011 with a companion CD by soprano Barbara Divis. Available at amazon.com.

San Francisco Opera, Puccini's "Madama Butterfly," 10/12/2010

2010-10-14T14:38:00.001-07:00

San Francisco Opera's "Butterfly" has a little bit of everything: a stylized 1982 production from famed Broadway director Harold Prince, an intriguing use of Japanese theatrical devices, a solid dramatic ensemble and a knockout Pinkerton. Sadly, they also have a Butterfly who can't get off the ground.

Soprano Svetla Vassileva handles Cio-Cio-San's quieter passages with elan and delicate phrasing. She's an excellent actress who performs the traditional Japanese movements well, and delivers a frightfully good death scene. She also looks like Cio-Cio-San, with a petite bearing and dark, delicate features. But every time she presses past double-forte or above the staff she produces an overdone vibrato that can only be described as ugly. Three out of four might be all right for other roles, but in this case, Cio-Cio-San is the whole opera.

Italian tenor Stefano Secco is yet another Pinkerton who makes me wish the plot didn't depend on him disappearing for most of Act 2. His power and clarity are evident immediately, in Pinkerton's early line about the maid Suzuki, "From her chatter, she seems quite worldly." The line carries unusual drama for such a pedestrian thought, almost as though Puccini wanted to give his tenor a chance to clear his throat. Secco proceeds through a robust reading of Pinkerton's credo, "Dovunque al mondo," employing a forceful instrument that is not quite a spinto, more like a lirico with extra breadth.

Homegrown tenor Thomas Glenn delivers a sprightly Goro (dressed like Harold Hill from The Music Man), and baritone Quinn Kelsey was heavy on the simpatico as Sharpless, his Hawaiian features accenting the consul's empathy for the Japanese culture.

The Japanese-inspired presentation, based on Prince's original concept for Lyric Opera of Chicago, was well-executed by stage director Jose Maria Condemi and crew, notably the black-clad Koken - stage assistants who delivered props, created visual effects and turned the rotating set (and sometimes lay prostrate for 20 minutes at a time!). The mobile set gave the performance a cinematic feel, particularly in Cio-Cio-San's intentionally overlong night-wait for her American husband. By moving slowly from room to room, the audience could see several tableaux of the restless residents, wife, maid and child. I also enjoyed the American touches in Butterfly's Act 2 household, including her very American dress and two deck chairs from the USS Lincoln.

Under Nicola Luisotti, the orchestra revealed the many small gems of Puccini's musico-dramatic genius, such as the deceptively sweet pizzicatos and lush string melody beneath Sharpless's ill-fated reading of Pinkerton's letter, and the remarkable use of silence around the appearance of his American wife. More than ever, I am convinced that Puccini used the tam-tam preceding Cio-Cio-San's suicide specifically to scare the bejeesus out of his audience.

Through Nov. 27 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. (Daniela Dessi will play Cio-Cio-San beginning Nov. 5). $20-$360, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/.

Image: Daveda Karanas (Suzuki), Austin Kness (Prince Yamadori), Thomas Glenn (Goro), Svetla Vassileva (Cio-Cio-San) and Quinn Kelsey (Sharpless). Photo by Cory Weaver.

Tucked away in the opera shop I found the new collection of Verdi arias by soprano Sondra Radvonovsky, who took the city by storm in last season's Il Trovatore. Do yourself a favor and get it. It's available at amazon.com.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic. His novel, Operaville, will be released this winter, with a companion CD of arias by soprano Barbara Divis.

San Francisco Opera's Le Nozze di Figaro

2010-09-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

September 21, 2010

There was a bit of celebrating in San Francisco, as British stage director John Copley opened his 30th production with the company and received the San Francisco Opera Medal. The night's performance served up all the small, crafty touches that a veteran stage director brings, but the tremendous ensemble acting came at the price of some musicality.

The main cuplrit was soprano Danielle de Niese, whose voice is entirely too heavy for Susanna. de Niese is excellent at comedy, and has also captured the marinara tang of Susanna's recitatives, but she exacerbated the tonality problem by playing Susanna's brightest musical moment, the final-act "Deh vieni non tardar," for an overpassionate joke on her jealous husband. (Heidi Stober, who displayed a much more Susanna-ish voice in SFO's Werther, will play the role October 10, 16 and 22.)

Somewhere in-between is soprano Ellie Dehn, who performed the Countess with lovingly shaped lines (particularly in "Porgi Amor") but lacks the tonal energy of a Ruth Ann Swenson. Dehn acted the role with a poignant grace, particularly in the final pardon of her philandering husband.

And then there's mezzo Michele Losier, who as Cherubino delivers the dramatic/musical package that a true Nozzephile is looking for. Losier is the most convincingly male Cherubino I've seen (with her black hair and white trousers looking disarmingly like Giants baseball pitcher Tim Lincecum), and plays the physical comedy beautifully. Her tone is strong and focused, and she does a marvelous job of deploying it. Her "Voi che sapete" was strikingly understated, and her handling of the final ritard of "Non so piu" - one of the most touching moments in the opera - is divine.

As our Figaro, bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni is a raucous ball of energy. I love the way he ruthlessly batters Cherubino during "Non piu andrai," and his delivery of the gender-based battle cry "Aprite un po quegl'occhi" is hilarious. Baritone Lucas Meacham, meanwhile, applies the perfect balance of lechery and frustration to the Count.

The minor roles are just as tasty. Tenor Greg Fedderly adds some likeable gags (including some, ah, pimple maintenance) to Basilio, a character who seems to get more gay by the decade. Fedderly also has a lovely voice, a quality that doesn't always come through in comic roles. Bass-baritone John del Carlo has tremendous fun with Dr. Bartolo's patter-gags, while mezzo Catherine Cook as Marcellina seems to be channeling Mrs. Slocombe from British TV's "Are You Being Served?" The combination of the two makes for the most hilarious parental-revelation scene I've ever witnessed.

Nicola Luisotti led the orchestra in the old-school Mozartean style, playing the harpsichord continuo from the podium. His improvised additions provided a lively commentary on the recitative passages, an element already distinguished by the naturalistic, near-dialogue delivery of de Niese and Pisaroni. Watching Luisotti conduct sans baton was a revelation in itself. The 1982 set by Zack Brown is most notable for its gorgeous garden scene, which is just the place you'd like to be on a warm summer night at the end of a long, crazy day.

Through Oct. 22 at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $20-$360, 415/864-3330. www.sfopera.com.

SFO trivia: In 1950, Renata Tebaldi sang the Countess, but only on the company tour, in Fresno. It was the only Mozart role Tebaldi ever performed in the United States.

Image: Danielle de Niese, Lucas Meacham and Michele Losier. Photo by Cory Weaver.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic. His novel, "Operaville," will be released this winter, with a companion CD of arias by soprano Barbara Divis. Read Michael's new counterculture comedy, "The Monkey Tribe," available at amazon.com.

San Francisco Opera, Massenet's Werther

2010-09-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

Sept. 19, 2010
The great challenge of Werther - based on the novel by Goethe - is that so much of the conflict takes place inside the minds of its characters: the fatally romantic poet of the title and Charlotte, the object of his obsessions, who becomes so haunted by Werther's sadness that she risks house and home to save him. In a co-production with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, stage director Francisco Negrin and production designer Louis Desire have taken all this interior Sturm und Drang and turned it inside-out, giving the opera a vivid visual language and creating a transcendent production.

Desire's set design delivers all the stimulating provocation of a good conceptual art exhibit. Center stage is dominated by a cluster of bare trees, given their seasonal wardrobes by a dangling square of foliage representing spring (Act I) and fall (Act II). A jarring metallic border offers bars of light that flash white for heaven and love, red for blood and death. Projections along the back screen offer haunting visions of an isolated neighborhood, a stripe of light when Werther talks of "raising the curtain and stepping to the other side," and foreshadowing smears of blood. A mountain of boxed possessions represents the chaos of Charlotte's household, and a video screen next to Werther's bed serves up his obsessions: visions of dancing with Charlotte, or a live capture creating an eternal line of Werthers as the poet rails against his dilemma.

Without singers, of course, this is all for naught, but the opera pivots around the enormous talents of Ramon Vargas. Vargas's divine lyric tenor is well-suited to Massenet's understated, delicate style, and he crafts his lines with a painter's touch. His impish presence and oddly graceful way of moving give Werther the sympathetic aura of the self-tortured soul, even when his behavior veers toward stalkerdom. Every moment of his singing is a delight, leading up to the signature aria "Pourquoi me reveiller," using the words of the poet Ossian.

Vargas's tenor is nicely matched by the creamy baritone of Brian Mulligan. The beauty of Mulligan's tone helps to keep Albert from sliding over to the villain side. Albert's only real sin, after all, is marrying a woman who doesn't entirely love him, and finding that his best friend has an obsession with his wife is not exactly an easy situation to deal with.

As Charlotte, mezzo Alice Coote begins the opera in rather unremarkable fashion, but grows in strength and depth both vocally and dramatically, reaching a peak with Charlotte's Act III obsession over Werther's letters, "Air des lettres." Soprano Heidi Stober provides much-needed sunlight as little sister Sophie, introducing beautifully colored dynamic lines into her singing, notably with her first aria, "Du gai soleil." (The good news is, Stober is also singing Susanna in SFO's Le Nozze di Figaro.)

Director Negrin's influence shows in the innovation of the players' movements, small touches like Werther painting the name of his beloved on his bedroom wall, but mostly in a reworked and intensified finale. The Act III flirtation is turned into a dream, with Werther speaking his passions to Charlotte from behind her bedstead. The actual tryst - one of the more passionate tussles you will ever see on an opera stage - is moved into Massenet's intermezzo. Werther, previously fractured by the video screen, breaks into three persons (Vargas and two identically dressed supers) and shoots himself. Charlotte hovers over the body of one of the supers as Vargas sings Werther's dying thoughts, a spirit hovering over his own body. Strangely, this is a more realistic approach than the usual, in which a man with mortal chest wounds sings lovely passages of lyric tenor. Regardless, the reworking makes for disturbing, scintillating theater, and ups the psychological ante tenfold.

Conductor Emmanuel Villaume and orchestra gave a lush reading of Massenet's pastry-chef score. The passages of solo violin and cello in the overture were gorgeous. At times, in the first two acts, the playing got a little too rich, overpowering the singers.

Image: Ramon Vargas and Alice Coote. Photo by Cory Weaver.

Through October 1 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $20-$360, 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com.

SFO's historical cast of choice: how about Jose Carreras and Kathleen Battle in 1978?

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic. His novel, "Operaville," will be released this winter, with a companion CD of arias by soprano Barbara Divis. Read Michael's new counterculture comedy, "The Monkey Tribe," available at amazon.com.

San Francisco Opera, Verdi's Aida

2010-09-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

September 16, 2010

With help from co-producers Houston Grand Opera and English National Opera, SFO pulled out the bells, whistles and any number of kitchen sinks for this circus-level spectacle of Verdi's great power-play. They also brought in some hugely strong voices for their love triangle.

When my companion asked me about Marcello Giordano's acting, I realized that I had stopped caring about the time he set off into Radames' "Celeste Aida" in Act I. Giordano's tenor is a searing lirico spinto, delivered with tremendous power and an almost uncontainable energy. I found myself cursing Verdi for not giving Radames more set pieces.

The acting comes mostly from mezzo Dolora Zajick, whose voice is just as powerful as Giordano's. From the moment that Zajick delivers the wonderful line "God help him if he loves another," she takes Amneris's juicy conflicts and runs with them, turning her performance into a veritable personality parade: one moment the eager young girl chasing her adored warrior, the next the vindictive princess who will take any measure to punish those who have the bad taste not to return her affections.

Equipped with conflicts just as rich - in love with the general of the country that enslaves her - our Aida didn't fare quite so well. Soprano Micaela Carosi gives a vague acting performance, and her voice is equally inconsistent - capable of great expressiveness (particularly in her tenderly sustained end-notes) but often pushed too hard into an overwide vibrato. The intended showpiece of Aida's "Ritorna vincitor!" gives way in the memory to the lightning storm of Amneris and Radames' final-act duet, beginning with "Gia i sacerdoti adunasi."

Another fiery presence is baritone Marco Vratogna, who plays Aida's father Amonasro. Vratogna's voice has a wonderful edge to it, and he plays Aida's father with the bottled intensity of a caged tiger.

The victory celebration is truly spectacular, featuring six onstage herald trumpeters, a team of gymnasts, a thrilling acrobatic dance solo from Damon Mahoney, and solo dancer Chiharu Shibata leading a troupe of superb child dancers from the Pampa Dance Company. The production offers the illusion of Radames' victory elephant through a magnificent job of puppetry and choreography, and the dessert topping is a rain of golden confetti. Kudos to stage director Jo Davies for keeping this scene clicking.

Zandra Rhodes' production design takes the familiar iconography of Egypt and delivers it in the bright colors of a children's crayon book, depending largely on enormous panels to create the opera's many spaces. The costumes get pretty wild, as well, beginning with the golden hooped skirts of the temple attendants, their bald heads scribbled with lightning bolts of baby blue.

The great energy of Nicola Luisotti and his orchestra made the most of Verdi's barrage, turning the constant rain of sforzando and marcato strokes into a hail of musical hand grenades. The great vivacity of the performance instilled a bit of ADD in the audience, making the final-act trial of Radames seem glacial in comparison.

One of the lovelier perks of the SFO press packet is a list of singers who have performed the opera in previous productions. In this case, I'll take the 1959 cast of Leontyne Price, Irene Dalis, Mario del Monaco and George London (although the 1981 Price/Pavarotti pairing is certainly tempting).

Through October 6 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $25-$320, 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com. Free simulcast Sept. 24 at AT&T Park.

Image: Marco Vratogna as Amonasro. Photo by Cory Weaver.

Opera San Jose, David Carlson's Anna Karenina

2010-09-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

Sept. 11, 2010

Opera San Jose launched its 27th season with one of the more lavish productions in its history, the third-ever production of David Carlson's Anna Karenina. The opening night performance featured stunning turns by soprano Jasmina Halimic as Anna and bass Kirk Eichelberger as her husband, Alexei Karenin. With the flying sets of Steven C. Kemp and an expert job of personnel movement by stage director Brad Dalton, the opera created the sweep and smoothness of an epic film.

The film feeling begins with Carlson himself, whose score feels very much like a soundtrack. The music is utterly at the service of the drama, and the vocal lines often feel like illustrated dialogue, as if you were just talking with a neighbor and your words took flight. The approach is completely tonal, and the long measures of dialogue are like arching waves, giving the production as a whole the sensation of a rolling ship. Carlson is also fond of going the illustrative route, conveying the drive of a tense horse-racing scene in galloping rhythms for both singers and instruments. Scenes of mania are often portrayed with musical fragments, flying across the pit like pieces of broken glass (particularly in the pizzicato storm of Anna's "To die would be so easy"). Stewart Robertson, long associated with Carlson's work, led the orchestra in a sterling account of a difficult score.

The libretto has some pretty regal roots. British librettist Colin Graham wrote the original draft for Benjamin Britten, but the project, aimed at a Bolshoi Opera premiere, was cancelled when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. Graham's final version is a masterful compression, and a vast improvement on Tolstoy's novel, which is too often weighed down by philosophizing. In fact, the opera's first act is so quickly paced that it leaves its spectators sitting on the edges of their seats, as if they were watching a Hitchcock film.

Carlson's vocal writing is so naturalistic that it makes describing the voices rather challenging. The first thing that one notices about Jasmina Halimic is that she simply looks the part, owing to her dark features and Bosnian background. The second thing is her vibrato, which is absolutely perfect. She brings out the alluring quality of extended lines, notably the sustained vowels that meander back and forth like overwide trills, and handles several alarming top notes with aplomb. It's also fascinating to watch her navigate a lengthy unaccompanied passage in Act 2 while sitting with her back to the audience, looking into a mirrored screen. The best feature of Halimic's acting is the subtlety of the gestures she uses to potray Anna's growing depression. This is how a noblewoman loses her mind - with taste.

San Jose opera fans already know the power and sureness of Kirck Eichelberger's bass, but what really impresses here is his acting. One of the liveliest Leporellos I've ever seen, Eichelberger takes all that charisma and turns it inside-out, making of Alexei Karenin a black hole of a personality. His first monologue, "What is the shadow in her eye?," is a brooding, coldy calculating appraisal, serving notice of two things: that the composer will use set pieces, and that Karenin will be the most strangely intriguing character in the piece.

A welcome lighter side is delivered by tenor Christopher Bengochea as Stiva Oblonsky and mezzo Betany Coffland as his wife Dolly. Both bring a much-needed element of humor and humanity, and Bengochea (who has always played tragic tenors) shows a special talent as a wise guy. Baritone Krassen Karagiozov does a wonderful job as the other man, Vronsky, loving Anna so intensely that he succeeds in driving himself to collapse.

Providing another kind of light is our second couple, tenor Michael Dailey as Konstantin Levin and soprano Khori Dastoor as Kitty Scherbatsky. Their Act 2 reunion is the tear-jerker of the evening, and it's a pleasure to hear Dailey's voice continue to mature and widen out.

The plasticity of the blocking is made possible by Steven C. Kemp's sets - flats and screens that are constantly flying in and out. Many of them are simply evocations, like the Manet-like panels of color that signify the changes of the seasons. The Russian costumes were dazzling, particularly Anna's first-scene dress of silver, black and burgundy (costume designer Elizabeth Poindexter).

A couple of minor players give rather pivotal performances. Mezzo Megan Stetson adds a bit of drunken wit at her balls (which are simply packed with breakups and proposals!). Ballet San Jose's Peter Hershey gives a compelling performance as the train-suicide - especially in the jarring, athletic replay of Anna's dream (choreographer Lise la Cour).

Which brings up a final complaint. The final, inevitable image of Anna walking into the light of the train is so iconic and striking, so darkly beautiful, that it should be the final thing we see. The epiologue with Levin and Kitty is a clumsy, tacked-on stab at redemption. If this means I'm criticizing Leo himself, then so be it.

Through Sept. 26, California Theater, 345 South First Street, San Jose, California. $51-$101, 408/437-4450, http://www.operasj.org/

Image: Krassen Karagiozov as Vronsky, Jasmina Halimic as Anna. Photo by Pat Kirk.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic. His novel, "Operaville," will be released this winter, with a companion CD of arias by soprano Barbara Divis.

San Francisco Opera, Wagner's "Die Walkure," June 19, 2010

2010-06-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

One of the payoffs to a well-executed shift of setting and locale is a higher level of humanity from your characters, as if the big medieval costumes have been keeping you from seeing the person - or god - inside. This is certainly true of SFO's "American" Ring cycle, which lends tremendous insights to the game of familial power inside Die Walkure.

Escaping a tribal battlefield, Siegmund finds his long-lost twin sister Sieglinde trapped in a loveless marriage to one of them. Director Francesca Zambello turns her first trick of the evening by consulting her ancient Norse-to-modern American translator and making of the brutally possessive husband, Hunding, a groping, sword-loving militia man. Bass Raymond Aceto fills the role with a hateful flair.

Zambello's next stroke is to take Valhalla to a boardroom atop a New York skyscraper, and where better to find overpowerful figures who mess with the lives of mortals to settle petty squabbles? Later, the Valkyries drift onstage as WWII paratroopers, carrying oversize photos of the heroes they have recruited for the defense of Valhalla.

Set designer Michael Yeargan absolutely dazzles, especially in his Act II setting beneath an eroded freeway overpass; the structure's columns evoke Greek ruins, while the little touches (the standard torn-out car seat serving as a couch) bring a divine seediness. Jan Hartley, meanwhile, gives life to all of the settings with constantly shifting cloudscapes (and the lightning strikes are pretty impressive).

For pure vocal virtuosity, you can't beat the golden heldentenor of British singer Christopher Ventris as Siegmund, particularly in Act I's Sword soliloquy. Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek delivers in kind, at her best in Act III, as Brunnhilde works to talk her out of her depression over her twin's death and into the work of saving their chosen child, Siegfried.

The principal conflict, however, is father and daughter, and here the acting is superb. Baritone Mark Delevan plays Wotan as a god trapped by his own power. His burly voice plays well in the quiet, somber moments of Act III, as Wotan faces a common father's common dilemma: how to overcome tender paternal feelings in punishing a daughter. His farewell, "Leb wohl," is heartbreaking.

General Director David Gockley appeared onstage beforehand to ask the audience's "indulgence" for soprano Nina Stemme, who performed despite a viral infection, but it was hardly necessary. After some cautious singing in the early going, the handicap was not noticeable. Stemme brought to the oft-lampooned Brunnhilde a wild, tomboyish quality, entirely appropriate to a girl who spends her free time scouring battlefields for heroes. During the tension-filled father-daughter debate of Act III, Stemme and Delevan performed the great trick of extracting intimate, everyday familial interactions from epic mythology.

Former SFO music director Donald Runnicles returned to warm ovations, and justified them by leading the orchestra in a strenuous attack on Wagner's score, especially in the lush low-string tones of the opening scene. Costume designer Catherine Zuber excelled in the subtleties of her modern outfits, giving her gods and heroes flowing overcoats to evoke the robes of an earlier day. The company continues to have fun playing with fire, in this case a ring of flames that sprouts directly from the set to protect the sleep-cursed Brunnhilde.

Image: Mark Delevan as Wotan, Nina Stemme as Brunnhilde. Photo by Cory Weaver.

Through June 30, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $15-$360, 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com.

San Francisco Opera, "La Fanciulla del West," June 12, 2010

2010-06-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

I once asked Salvatore d'Aura - a former assistant to Puccini - why La Fanciulla del West isn't performed more often. He replied that it demands a soprano of near-superhuman abilities. Watching my first-ever Fanciulla - and a near-superhuman performance by Deborah Voigt - I was reminded of last summer's SFO production of Porgy and Bess. Both works represented unprecedented fusions of ethnic forms - and both were far too ahead of their time to be truly appreciated.

Fanciulla incorporates American folk forms like ragtime (even a quote from "Camptown Races") but is clearly composed from Puccini's ever-evolving Italian palette, including oriental touches influenced by Madama Butterfly. But perhaps the more fascinating experience is witnessing Puccini's steady advance into through-composing, and his ability to turn his music on a dime to reflect temporal conditions in the drama (e.g., the snowstorm in Act II). This "crop-shot" effect would greatly influence the development of the Hollywood soundtrack. Considering his life-long obsession with theatrical realism (and a long line of exhausted librettists to prove it), it's easy to see Puccini developing into the ideal 20th-century composer, were it not for the throat cancer that cut short his life.

This realism is also reflected in Fanciulla's characters - a love triangle reminiscent of Tosca, but each of its members much more nuanced. In a gold rush mining town deprived of female company, Minnie reigns over the Polka saloon much as Tosca reigned over the concert hall. Her primary admirer, Sheriff Jack Rance, is given to Scarpia-like abuses of power, but is often held back by a tender side. And Minnie's mysterious lover, Dick Johnson - far from the idealistic artist of Cavaradossi - turns out to be a Mexican bandit trying to kick the family business.

The secret of SFO's success is a beautifully cast central trio. As Rance, Italian baritone Roberto Frontali is solid from moment one, creating an alpha-male presence in the saloon without ever seeming tyrannical. His singing is resounding and lovely, beginning with his backstory aria, "Minnie, dalla mia casa." As Dick, tenor Salvatore Licitra takes a while to warm up, not really finding his energy till the second act, but taking flight from there. His performance of the opera's only self-contained piece, "Ch'ella mi creda libero e lontano," as Dick faces the hangman's noose, is passionate and powerful, marked by gorgeous top-notes.

As for our Ms. Voigt, I literally cannot say enough. In her first-ever Minnie, she demonstrates an amazing timbral range, singing arias like the Act I "Laggiu nel Soledad, ero piccina" with a bright Italian lyricism, but pulling out her customary Lady Macbeth flamethrower for moments like the climax of Act II. Winning Dick's freedom in a card game with Rance, she throws down her cards with a delicious vengefulness. Her performance in Act 3, as she trades on her years of devoted service to save Dick from the noose, is intensely moving.

Stage director Lorenzo Mariani marshals his troops with style, creating one of the most action-packed productions I've ever seen, complete with a good old-fashioned barrom brawl choreographed by Jonathan Rider. Chorus director Ian Robertson and his men create a group of rowdy-but-sensitive '49ers, while Nicola Luisotti and orchestra bring out the exceptional power of Puccini's score.

The hometown crowd was well aware of the opera's unique California setting, particularly when someone announced that Dick "must be from San Francisco - he wants his whiskey with water." A poignant supporting turn is delivered by tenor Steven Coles as bartender Nick. Gotta love the product-placement supertitle, "It's a great day for Wells Fargo," especially with a full-page Wells Fargo ad in the program. Puccini's particular approach to through-composing often means turning a single line into a mini-aria, illustrated by Minnie's line to Dick: "How often I hoped to see you again." This seemingly simple phrase takes a dramatic upward flight before settling back down to a sudden shyness.

And then there's the Andrew Lloyd-Webber thing. The Puccini estate sued the composer for purloining the climactic phrase of Dick's opening aria, "Quello che tacete" for Phantom of the Opera's "The Music of the Night." Hearing the phrase in its original context, there's no doubt it's an exact copy. What's worse, Puccini uses it as a recurring motif for the Dick-Minnie romance, and every time it comes back my brain drags it into that insipid song like a Pavlovian dog. (The suit was settled out of court, and I think I'd like a cut.)

Voigt made her Act 3 entrance on Whiz Kid, an 11-year-old carriage horse from Martinez, then repeated the trick for her curtain call. Amazingly calm animal, and accompanied by two of its owners just in case. Voigt and Luisotti will both appear in the Metropolitan's 100th anniversary of Fanciulla's premiere (first performed at the Met December 10, 1910, with Puccini overseeing the production).

Through July 2, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $15-$360, 415/864-3330, www.sfopera.com.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of the award-winning opera novel Gabriella's Voice, available at amazon.com.

Image: Salvatore Licitra as Dick Johnson, Deborah Voigt as Minnie. Photo by Cory Weaver.

San Francisco Opera, Faust, June 8, 2010

2010-06-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

Having managed to avoid "Faust" for 25 years, I look forward to never seeing it again. A glacially paced setting of Goethe's story, Gounod's opera simply fails theatrically, and its church-endorsed propaganda has not weathered the past 150 years well.
This is no fault of the forces at SFO, who gave a flawed but ambitious performance. The production's primary delight is right where it should be: bass-baritone John Relyea's Mephistopheles. Relyea delivers a prototypical black-licorice thundervoice (particularly in the second-act golden calf song, "Le veau d'or"), and he and stage director Jose Maria Condemi leave no comic stone unturned: covering the eyes of a Madonna statue during the seduction scene, coughing and waving away the special-effects smoke, dragging a harlot by the ankles. The techie tricks are nice, too, including a shattering sword, a well with an elevator and a statue that bleeds wine.

Another large presence is Brian Mulligan as Margeurite's brother Valentin. Mulligan's baritone has tremendous size and power, and he plays the role with passionate intensity, particularly in his fatal duel with Faust.

Italian tenor Stefano Secco played the milquetoast title character a little too wimpy. Vocally, he delivers tremendous top-notes, but fails to maintain his energy at the less-spectacular moments. This was true especially of the famed cavatine "Salut! demeure chaste et pure."

The most distressing disappointment came from soprano Patricia Racette as Margeurite. Racette displays a few elements of her estimable palette - her care for crafting the quiet passages, her abiity to imbue a doormat character with personality and pathos (the spinning air, "Il ne reveient pas") but her top notes were unstable, weighted down by an oversize vibrato and unclear pitch. Racette is a personal favorite, so I'm hoping she was just having a bad night.

Mezzo Daniela Mack was a complete delight as Margeurite's young admirer, Siebel (the flower song, "Faites-lui mes aveux"). Condemi and the chorus created a lively crowd for the fairgrounds scene. The nighttime garden is a marvel of blue lights (lighting designer Duane Schuler) and the final-scene stairway to heaven from the Chicago Lyric production (designer Robert Perdziola) is dazzling. Maurizio Benini and orchestra handled Gounod's elegant score with aplomb (with help from Ernest Knell's backstage organ work). Mephistopheles' gypsy-fiddler outfit is wild and fun (costume supervisor Kristi Johnson)

Through July 1 at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, San Francisco. $15-$360. 415/864-3330.

Image: soprano Patricia Racette (Margeurite) and tenor Stefano Secco (Faust). Photo by Cory Weaver.

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of the opera novel "Gabriella's Voice," available at amazon.com. The sequel, "Operaville," will be released this fall, with a companion CD of arias by soprano Barbara Divis.

Opera San Jose

2010-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Irene Dalis Vocal Competition
May 22, 2010
California Theater, San Jose, California

Soprano Danielle Talamantes won over both audience and judges in the 4th Annual Irene Dalis Vocal Competition, winning both the $15,000 Grand Prize and the $5,000 Audience Favorite Award with her performance of Meyerbeer's "Ombre legere" and "Ach, ich fuhls" from Mozart's Die Zauberflote.

For this critic - a slave of the soprano voice - handicapping the contest was a tricky chore, since Talamantes was the only soprano. The ten finalists - drawn from 90 participants in the West Coast regional opera auditions - included four mezzos, three baritones, one bass and one tenor. The job got trickier due to the showpiece nature of Meyerbeer's aria, in which Talamantes displayed masterful control and easy top-notes. But the soprano clinched my vote with her handling of the Mozart, Pamina's reaction to Tamino's shunning of her affections. Her handling of the final line, especially, was a jewel of legato phrasing. So I took my poker chip (each attendee gets one) and dropped it in the appropriate box.

The judges were James Caraher, artistic director of Indianapolis Opera; Lotfi Mansouri, former artistic director of San Francisco Opera; and Christina Scheppelmann, artistic director of Washington National Opera. Second Prize went to baritone Jonathan Beyer, who took on the difficult repetitions of John Adams' "News has a kind of mystery" from Nixon in China. Third went to baritone Jerett Gieseler, who endowed Ford's aria, "E sogno e realta" from Falstaff, with an edgy intensity. A special Wagner award went to bass Silas Elash, an Opera San Jose regular, who performed "Leb wohl, du kuhnes, herrliches Kind" from Die Walkure.

I must confess, I completely misguessed the second and third choices. My second went to mezzo Lisa van der Ploeg, who was utterly possessed by Azucena's confessional "Condotta ell'era in ceppi" from Trovatore. My third was tenor Nova Safo, who clowned his way through Beppe's Aria from Pagliacci and, in Mozart's "Il mio tesoro" produced gorgeous and amazingly breath-free lines. Two other arias of note were mezzo Kathryn Leemhuis's entertaining "What a movie!" from Bernstein's resurgent Trouble in Tahiti, and mezzo Betany Coffland's comically exasperated rendition of Dorabella's "Smanie implacabili" from Cosi fan tutte.

The competition followed the standard format of five or six arias for each singer, from which the singer picks one to perform, and the judges pick the second. Daniel Lockert did a fantastic job of handling the difficult accompaniment duties. The entire $50,000 in prize money was provided by an anonymous donor.

See operasj.org for more info and offerings for the '10-'11 season. 408/437-4450.

Image: Danielle Talamantes

Michael J. Vaughn's eleventh novel, Operaville, will be out this fall, with a companion CD of arias by soprano Barbara Divis. See barbaradivis.com for audio excerpts.

Opera San Jose

2010-04-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

Puccini's "La Rondine"

April 24, 2010

It was a night of couples at Opera San Jose, as the company presented Puccini's elegant, understated gem. And things began with Doretta's Song, which is always an interesting phenomenon, being heard so much more often in recitals and recordings than in its dramatic context. The first surprise comes when it's presented by the tenor, playing the poet Prunier, as a fanciful story that foreshadows some of the "real" action in the opera. Prunier leaves those trademark sustenatos to the orchestra, then gives way as our prima donna, Magda, decides to finish his story in a romantic vein (Doretta rejecting the rich man for the poor student, yeah, sure).

It's not fair at all to foist these notes on a soprano five minutes into the evening, and a Magda could be forgiven for blaring her way into them, but Rebecca Davis went for the route that made her February Contessa Almaviva so touching, beginning with a tonal seed and growing it into a lovely, blossoming tree through the line. Davis's singing is an evening-length delight, at both extremes: the gem-like quiet of her Act 1 wishes for an evening out (working up her courage to escape her benefactor) or the unexpected power of her passages with her dream-lover, Ruggero.

It's a good thing she's got that power, too, because Ruggero comes in the form of Christopher Bengochea, an OSJ alum whose always sublime lyric tenor has suddenly taken on a spinto muscularity. The power of both singers comes through especially in the final quartet of the second act in Cafe Momus, er, Bullier's, "Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso," and the final anguished duet of the third-act breakup, "Ma come puoi lasciarmi." Bengochea's new sound fits well with Ruggero's scarily monogamist passions.

Our second couple is Marcello and Mus...,er, Prunier and Lisette, Magda's housemaid, who pretend to hate each other while carrying on a torrid affair - but, in fact, really do quite often hate each other. It's a great bit of fun that tenor Michael Dailey and soprano Khori Dastoor make the most of, particularly in a third-act moment of slapfight-as-foreplay (this current group of OSJ residents are the best slappers I've ever seen). With her physical gags and facial expressions, Dastoor continues to show a great facility with the underrated skills of opera comedy, and both singers offer vocal pleasures, as well: Dastoor with Lisette's sudden, powerful protestations, and Dailey with his remarkably beautiful tones above the staff (particularly in a touching flirtation in Act I).

The surest sign that stage director Jose Maria Condemi is in town is the barely controlled chaos of Cafe Momus, er, Bullier's. The atmosphere is almost cartoonish, helped not a little by the linebacker-size men in the chorus (where do we get these guys?). The act offers some lively divertimentos - for example, the dance quartet of Taggart Frost, Mary Ines, Maurice Monge and Svenja Reinschmidt - but retains the feeling that all of this is being produced spontaneously, in the style of an actual cafe. The setting of the opera's final moments - Ruggero ruined, lying on the ground as Magda exits to the call of church bells, is as beautifully arranged as a Rembrandt. (Condemi's work has hardly gone unnoticed; he was just appointed artistic director at Opera Santa Barbara.)

Larry Hancock continues to be a divine materials-at-hand set designer, outfitting Bullier's with striking blue-screen windows, and concocting an Act 3 seaside terrace with a bracing feeling of expansiveness. (The sky-screen, however, needs a little ironing toward audience-left.) The supertitle prize, meanwhile, goes to the exclamation of one of Magda's working-girl colleagues: "Money is so expensive!"

David Rohrbaugh and orchestra brought the most from Puccini's lovely score, particularly the bittersweet strings accompanying Magda's final, critical decision. The musicians showed their collective cool when the audience gave Bengochea an unexpected applause in Act 3, maintaining a tremolo until the clapping ceased, then smoothly kicking back in to Magda's response.

I can't recount how many times I have included the name Sara Beukers in my reviews, but this will apparently be the last. The wig and makeup designer has worked on 67 OSJ productions. The times I didn't mention her name were probably nights like this one, when her creations blended smoothly and effectively with the feel and action of the opera (although at this point I should re-mention her high-larious creations for the ugly sisters in "La Cenerentola"). I offer my thanks to Sara for so many years of outstanding work.

Through May 9, California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $51-$91, 408/437-4450, www.operasj.org.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic whose novel, "Operaville," will be released this fall.

Photo by Chris Ayers.

Opera San Jose's "Marriage of Figaro"

2010-02-08T20:10:00.001-08:00

February 6, 2010

Thanks to stage director Peter Kozma, the folks at Opera San Jose have themselves a raucous and merry "Marriage of Figaro." In Figaro's "Non piu andrai" - poking fun at teen lothario Cherubino's exile to the military - the pair employ two small trunks as barricades and suffer a fusillade of lingerie hand grenades from Susanna, who in turn dies a tiwrling, agonizing death from a camisole missile. Picture a whole opera of this stuff. Kozma leaves no comic stone unturned, and he also encourages a high level of physicality; you've never seen a cast so fond of fondling, and slapping each other silly.

The current group of OSJ residents is well-tailored to this opera, beginning with soprano Khori Dastoor, who occupies ever cell of Susanna, housemaid eye of playwright Beaumarchais' storm. The only small complaint is her tone, which seems too covered for Susanna's traditionally saucy lyric - except, oddly, in the recitatives and the final aria, "Deh vieni, non tardar," which takes on a pleasing sultriness.

A similar tradeoff comes with baritone Brian Leerhuber, who lacks the low end for his opening aria, "Se vuol ballare," but whose agility in the higher spaces enables a nimble "Non piu andrai" and a hilarious, fast-paced "Aprite un po queglocchi," Figaro's pointed rant on womanhood. His physical gags are excellent, from a dead fall during the "Sua madre" revelation to the cuckold torments of the garden scene.

I have already developed the belief that mezzo Betany Coffland can do no wrong on a stage, and this, her first trouser role, is further evidence. Coffland plays Cherubino as the traditional cad-in-training, but one who literally cannot keep his eyes off the Countess whenever she's in the room. This bluster/blush dichotomy is a perfect summary of male teenhood, and her rendition of a boy "running like a girl" is freakin' hilarious. "Non so piu" and "Voi che sapete" are just the hummable delights one would expect, especially the touching coda of the former.

The striking thing about our royals is that they look so royal. Perhaps baritone Krassen Karagiozov is cheating, importing his classical features from Bulgaria, but he also plays well as the everfrustrated Count Dawg, er, Almaviva, especially during the jealous furies of the closet scene.

Soprano Rebecca Davis projects her nobility with graceful features and eyes that seem to radiate from the stage. She takes one of the most pathos-equipped characters in opera (especially for those who know "The Barber of Seville") and delivers in spades, employing an impressive dynamic range - from fill-the-hall forte to lean-forward piano - to shape the tender phrases of "Porgi Amor" and "Dove sono." Then, just as you're feeling gorged with music, she pairs with Susanna for "Che soave zeffiretto," the most delicious female harmonies this side of "Lakme."

It was great to have founding conductor David Rohrbaugh behind the podium, although he seemed to be having a little tempo-debate with our fiances in the opening scene. I could listen to Bartolo, bass Silas Elash, sing the phone book and be happy for hours (or perhaps a few Darth Vader quotes). Baritone Bill Welch, meanwhile, adds to his growing list of screwballs (see Guillot in September's "Manon") with the raving, purple-wigged one-man party of Don Basilio. The woodsy screen behind Larry Hancock's garden set is sublime, as was another earth-colored concoction, the Count's rococo dressing gown in Act II (costume coordinator Alyssa Oania).

I do realize that Opera San Jose has a tradition of cutting their operas to size, but the garden scene of the Count seducing his own wife when he thinks he's seducing Susanna (cited by Salieri as an example of Mozart's genius in the play "Amadeus") was sorely missed. It's an irresistible moment of conflict, sadness and humor all in one.

Through Feb. 21, California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose, CA. $51-$91, 408/437-4450, operasj.org. Alternating casts.

Opera San Jose will begin its '10-'11 season with the West Coast premiere of David Carlson's 2007 "Anna Karenina" (Sept. 11-26) followed by "Tosca" (Nov. 13-18), "The Barber of Seville" (Feb. 12-27) and "La Boheme" (April 23-May 8).

Photo by Chris Ayers.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of ten novels. His latest, "The Monkey Tribe," is available at amazon.com.

Opera San Jose's "La Cenerentola"

2009-11-18T14:21:00.001-08:00

November 14, 2009

In addition to fielding the best-looking cast ever, Opera San Jose supplied its opening night of Rossini's "La Cenerentola" with some remarkably deft coloratura singing. It was an evening that the composer himself would have enjoyed immensely.

For a Rossiniphile, there's no moment more suspenseful than the prima donna's opening aria, in which we discover if we're getting some authentic bel canto or a Verdi mezzo trying to stuff a whale through the neck of a bottle. Betany Coffland answered that question in about three seconds, embarking from Cenerentola's touching, folk-like theme song, "Una volta c'era un re" into a cadenza of lightness, agility and birdsong. Ah, relief. The rest of the evening was sheer enjoyment, all the way through the final and brilliant aria, "Non piu mesta."

Another great enjoyment is Daniel Cilli as Dandini, the squire who pretends to be the Prince so the real Prince might read the true natures of his bridal candidates. Although Dandini is a largely comic figure, his bel canto requirements are demanding, and Cilli makes the most of it, demonstrating that, yes, there is such a thing as baritone coloratura. I also enjoyed his "speed recitatives" as he mightily compressed the Prince's life story.

Vocally, our Prince, tenor Michael Dailey, remains a puzzlement. He retains a covered tone in his lower range that bugs the heck out of me, but this same technique produces absolutely gorgeous top notes. His best moment came with the initial "flirting" duet with Coffland, "Un soave non so che." The two characters cross the stage toward each other even as their voices mingle in mid-air.

Comically, the evening is a veritable buffet of goofiness. At the center is bass-baritone Isaiah Musik-Ayala, who plays the oafish father, Don Magnifico, with a wry cynicism, and possesses that rare ability to sing as if he is actually just conversing. This makes for a good contrast with the kinetic hysterics of his daughters, Clorinda and Tisbe (soprano Rebecca Schuessler and mezzo Tori Grayum), two good-looking women who show no fear in playing ugly, helped greatly by the corkscrew wigs and grotesque makeup jobs by Sara Beukers.

Sandra Bengochea continues to make her mark as a stage director, pulling a tremendous amount of energy from her players. She also finds an ingenious soluton to the second of Rossini's outmoded freeze-frame scenes, having the royal advisor Alidoro (bass Paul Murray) wander around engaging the robotic singers in gags, including a limbo contest and an Old West shootout. Brilliant.

Larry Hancock adds a nice layer of irony, both through his supertitles (my favorite: "Princikins!") and a final-act set design stolen from a Barbie Dream House, complete with thrones fashioned from butterfly wings (that's right - monarch butterflies). Anthony Quartuccio braved certain limb damage leading his orchestra through what must be the most quickly paced score ever created.

Through Nov. 29, California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $51-$91, 408/437-4450, http://www.operasj.org/

Image: Bettany Coffland and Tori Grayum as Cenerentola and Tisbe. Photo by Pat Kirk.

Read Michael's new counterculture comedy, "The Monkey Tribe," at http://www.themonkeytribe.blogspot.com/

San Francisco Opera's "Otello"

2009-11-18T13:41:00.000-08:00

November 13, 2009

In constructing Shakespeare's beautiful three-legged table, San Francisco Opera has provided two legs of world-champion talent. In the title role, South African tenor Johan Botha opens with the Moorish captain's ringing cry of "Esultate!" and continues in just that vein, using his mighty instrument to hurl Zeus-like bolts from the stage. Then, in the first-act love duet, he demonstrates that the lightning bolts can be tamed, producing impressively sweet passages of lyric singing. His second-act lament, "Ora e per sempre addio," is masterful.

For the second leg, Iago, Italian baritone Marco Vratogna uses subtler, craftier means. In fact, he doesn't stand out much at all in the opening act, but this makes the second-act soliloquy, "Credo in un Dio crudel, a showstopper of villainous singing. An inspiration of librettist Arrigo Boito, the Credo succeeds in spelling out Iago's motives much more directly than Shakespeare could do, and ends with a rumbling sotto voce that sends chills through the audience.

And now, for that third leg. It's not that soprano Zvetelina Vassileva doesn't possess a beautiful instrument, it's that she fails to craft her lines in a way that lines up with her character's emotions. This was most painfully apparent in the Willow Song, which fails to deliver its most necessary subtext: this is a woman who expects that her husband is going to come very soon and kill her. Dealing with a character who is, from the outset, threatening to disappear into victimhood (much like Hamlet's Ophelia), this is an opportunity that cannot be passed up. Not helping matters are the physical interactions between Vassileva and Botha. Botha is a large man whose onstage movements are problematic to begin with, but the awkward public assault of Act 3 and the comically pathetic suffocation (five seconds with a soft pillow) are inexcusable.

Nicola Luisotti was well at home with Verdi's awe-inspiring score, especially in drawing a fulsome, downright scary sound from his strings in the slashing passages of the opening thunderstorm. Peter Hall's set (from the Chicago Lyric production), makes an intriguing play on the Globe Theater. It's a pleasure to watch the machinations of the elder Verdi, who took 16 years off before composing this work, especially in his divine handling of Shakespearean dramatics. This is especialoly evident in the Act 3 Concertato, in which the entire cast expresses its amazement at Otello's behavior as Iago races around advancing several subplots in the background. The sheer efficiency is amazing.

Through Dec. 2 at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, San Francisco. $15-$310, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/.

Read Michael's new counterculture comedy, "The Monkey Tribe," at http://www.themonkeytribe.blogspot.com/

Photo by Terrence McCarthy

San Francisco Opera's "Salome"

2009-10-31T13:07:00.000-07:00

October 24, 2009

As a devotee of plot and character, I cannot entirely forgive Strauss's "Salome" for its cartoon figures. From its mythological origins through Oscar Wilde's play, the story's figures seem to be mere idea-messengers, human shells manipulated toward a greusome ending for purposes that verge on propaganda.

Fortunately, there are other reasons to see it, the primary one being to see if the soprano can actually pull of the multiple demands of the title role: dramatic vocalization, a lengthy dancing/stripping scene, and performing the world's only necrophiliac love aria. In all categories, I'd have to give Nadja Michael an A. Michael gives the massively troubled teen a self-involved intensity, delivers the kinds of searing top-notes that befit the actions and the score, and dances better than any opera singer in the world (and perhaps better than 20 percent of professional dancers). As far as her physical attributes, let's just say that she makes a convincing argument against the fat-Viking-lady stereotype (on the other hand, let's just say "Yowza!").

Sean Curran does a fine job of choreographing the Dance of the Seven Veils, managing to trigger plenty of Salome's sensuality (including an enticing flash of nudity) without inspiring the men in the front row to begin tossing dollar bills. The gore is also handled well: the life-cast of Greer Grimsley's head leaks enough blood to stock a Red Cross bank for a week, and is genuine enough to convey the horror of the scene.

When he actually has his head, Grimsely is fantastic, taking what could be dull biblical condemnations and investing them with power through his thunderous baritone. (His backstage pronouncements were delivered with the help of a megaphone fashioned from the bell of a sousaphone.) Russian mezzo Irina Mishura does well with the double-scorned mother Herodias, but British tenor Kim Begley fails to deliver the real power behind Herod's lechery.

With its use of modern tonalities, and absolutely vicious brass and percussion, its amazing to think that Strauss created this score in 1905. Consider just one of its innovations: Strauss wrote Jokanaan's (John the Baptist's) music around the tonal center of C, and Salome's around C#, thus guaranteeing that every time they met, they would produce nothing but dissonance. This happens most notably at the climax of Salome's final line, a musical event known as the "Salome chord."

Bruno Schwengl's production design follows the current trend toward minimalism, creating a shadowbox of golds and blacks that culminates in Jokanaan's cell, which resembles the aperture of a lens, creating the feeling that we are standing inside of an old-fashioned camera. His costumes are an odd hybrid of post-apocalyptic sci-fi and biblical, although Salome's white dress more resembles the one worn by Marilyn Monroe in "The Seven-Year Itch."

Nicola Luisotti's orchestra was astounding and powerful, although his stage notes promise a preponderance of piano and pianissimo that never comes. Against this artful cacophony - which propels the action forward in a way that almost drives the listener to distraction - the silences before the moment of execution create a rich Hitchcockian suspense.

Through Nov. 1, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, San Francisco. $15-$310, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/.

Image: Nadja Michael. Photo by Terrence McCarthy.

Read Michael's new counterculture comedy, "The Monkey Tribe," at http://www.themonkeytribe.blogspot.com/

San Francisco Opera, "La fille du regiment"

2009-10-23T15:58:00.000-07:00

Oct. 19, 2009

The co-production idea is reaching extreme proportions these days, as a production that has already seen New York, London and Vienna touches down in San Francisco. The show is comically brilliant, highlighted by the physical humor of soprano Diana Damrau and the inventive direction of Laurent Pelly.

Although the stated influences are Laurel and Hardy, Damrau's performance is distinctly Carol Burnett, a combination of ragged red hair, the willingness to be homely and unladylike (apropos for a girl raised by soldiers) and absolute fearlessness. In Act I, she laments her agreement to marry a member of the regiment then runs to a pile of laundry and dumps herself on top of it, leaving her butt straight up in the air. During the infamous music lesson in Act II, Damrau sees her prim white dress as no obstacle to falling directly on the self-same body part, creating a priceless image of frustration.

The bonus is Damrau's voice, which shimmers in the high pianissimos like a diamond, particularly in her touching farewell to the regiment, "Il faut partir" (the aria reminds me of "Una furtiva lagrima" from "L'Elisir d'amore," both of them surprising passages of pathos in the midst of absurd farces). Her many cadenzas are as agile as gymnasts, and she has an uncanny sense for using the standard facial movements of vocal production to accentuate the current physical gag.

Juan Diego Florez lives up to every bit of his reputation as the hapless lover Tonio. Florez emanates an everyman charm, and delivers all nine high C's of the call to arms "Pour mon ame/Qual destino" with incredible ease. Meredith Arwady, a rookie alumna of SFO's Merola Program, gives a masterfully comic performance of the mezzo role, the Marquise of Berkenfeld, lending immediate pizzazz to the opening barricade scene and throwing a few Victor Borge tricks into her piano playing in the priceless music-lesson scene. Bass-baritone Bruno Pratico gives the captain, Sulpice, an amiable presence, and mezzo Sheila Nadler is just a rip and a half as the Duchess of Krakenthorp.

Chantal Thomas's set design is absolutely fascinating, a regimental encampment built on a smattering of gigantic maps, followed by a tilt-a-whirl music parlor balanced precariously on those same maps, rolled up. Pelly and choreographer Karine Girard augment the action with three priceless dance scenes: a waltz of clothesline long-johns (or perhaps a can-can), a ballet of suspiciously hairy housemaids, and an entrance minuet of fantastically crotchety senior citizens. And kudos to the SFO chorus, which excels in these scenes and with the rapscallious gents of the regiment.

Through Oct. 31, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness. $15-$310, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/

Image: Diana Damrau as Marie. Photo by Cory Weaver

"Yeah, Donizett does all light stuff, right? Just like Gilbert & Sullivan."
--overheard in the parking garage, a lady who has apparently not seen "Lucia di Lammermoor"

Read Michael's new counterculture comedy, "The Monkey Tribe," at http://www.themonkeytribe.blogspot.com/

San Francisco's Abduction from the Seraglio

2009-10-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

September 29, 2009

The third performance of this production created one of those backstage dramas that fans sometimes enjoy more than the opera itself - though for a sad reason. Bass Peter Rose, set to play the Turkish villain Osmin, had to return home upon the death of his father. Andrea Silvestrelli, in town to perform in Puccini's "Il Trittico," performed the role earlier in Chicago (in fact, upon the same sets), and so was able to step in on a moment's notice.

Silvestrelli performed Osmin with robust enthusiasm, and his usual resounding vocal presence, although he fumbled a bit over the English dialogue. He gave notice of his presence early on in the fuming "Solche hergelauf'ne Laffen," a curse upon all wandering European fops, and spent the rest of the evening amusingly storming about.

Another early delight came in our wandering rescuer, Belmonte. Matthew Polenzani played the role with a divinely Mozartean lyric tenor, caressing his phrases and bits of coloratura with a sensitivity often missing in tenors of the Verdi/Puccini stripe. This comes in his opening aria, "Hier soll ich dich denn sehen," in which Belmonte laments the shipwreck and subsequent imprisonment of his beloved Constanze.

Playing that very heroine, soprano Mary Dunleavy excels in a similar lament, the second-act Adagio "Traurigkeit ward mir zum Lose," but otherwise suffers from a difficult-to-define lack of focus. A handy contrast appears in the form of her servant, Blonde, soprano Anna Christy, who is spot-on in all categories: her singing is brilliantly centered, her physical comedy hilarious (especially the nipple-twisting torments she inflicts upon her pursuer, Osmin), and her Bernadette Peters cuteness should be insured by Lloyd's of London. One particularly effective bit of phrasing is an overlong sustenato she uses to toy with Osmin's guards in "Durch Zartlichkeit und Schmeicheln." The guards hang upon the note even as they are hanging upon the blonde.

Blonde's beau, Pedrillo, is played by tenor Andrew Bidlack with an earnest enthusiasm, seeming almost like one of those heros from 1920s movie serials. Osmin's guards lend a creepy presence with their male-geisha appearances, and the identical mustaches and outfits of the Janissaries give a cult-like quality to the scene. Charles Shaw endows the speaking role of the Pasha with an air of wisdom that succeeds in not being overbearing. (An interesting historical note: the Pasha's role was limited to speaking primarily because Mozart and his librettist, Johann Gottlieb Stephanie, were afraid another singing role would make the Singspiel too long.)

Production designer David Zinn sets the opera in a theater-within-a-theater; having the characters romp about in the balconies and front-row seats gives a nice Brechtian alienation and forgives some of the silliness of the plot (part of the Enlightenment trend of doing just about anything to take an audience to exotic locales). There are some nicely goofy bits, too, such as Pedrillo borrowing a mandolin for his serenade from the prompter's box. Director Chas Rader-Shieber has instilled a fine sense of comic energy in his troupe, and Cornelius Meister does the same for his orchestra, illustrating all the radiant nooks and crannies of a thoroughly elegant score.

Through Oct. 17, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Boulevard, San Francisco. $15-$310, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/.

Image: Anna Christy as Blonde. Photo by Terrance McCarthy.

See Michael's opera novel, "Gabriella's Voice," at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Gabriellas-Voice/Michael-j-Vaughn/e/9781929429950/?itm=2&USRI=michael+j.+vaughn+gabriella%27s+voice

San Francisco Opera, Il Trovatore

2009-09-25T13:11:00.001-07:00

Sept. 22, 2009

This is not something a critic says lightly, but I think I have just seen the best soprano I have ever seen (and heard). Her name is Sondra Radvanovsky (an American, lest that last name mislead you), and she's currently taking over the city of San Francisco as Leonora in "Il Trovatore."

Let's get extremely specific about this. Let's talk about a device that Radvanovsky uses, first in her opening Andante, "Tacea la notte placida," and most remarkably in Leonora's centerpiece Adagio, "D'amor sull'ali rosee," sung outside the palace as her lover Manrico awaits execution within. The device is a sudden diminuendo - although it doesn't feel sudden, due to the incredibly smooth quality of Radvanovsky's singing. She then takes the note to the barest of pianissimos - a single silk thread of tone, just that close to actual silence - and grows it back. But she's not done. Seeming to possess the lung capacity of pearl diver, the soprano carries the line far past the spot where an average singer might take a catch-breath, spelling out the phrase as a literally breathless audience listens. Although I have always had a problem "buying into" the implausibilities of "Trovatore," Radvanovsky had me weeping for Leonora regardless, if only for the emotional thrill ride that accompanies such gorgeous singing. It's also remarkable that she achieves these iridescent pianissimos from a position of strength - her fortes and top notes are powerful and ringing. Her instrument is a pit bull that also performs pirouettes.

New musical director Nicola Luisotti has made a special project of this "Trovatore," and it certainly shows. The cast is powerful in matters both vocal and dramatic, especially mezzo Stephanie Blythe in the "co-star" role of Azucena. Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky brings his trademark dash and power to the villain role of Count di Luna, particularly in the graceful Largo, "Il balen del suo sorriso." Tenor Marco Berti lends his warrior spinto to Manrico - although his cabaletta "Di quella pira," cut by a verse, lacks the anticipated energy. Turkish bass Burak Bilgili, meanwhile, starts things right with a muscular, compelling delivery of the story of Azucena's slain mother (I always feel like this story should come with a warning - "Pay careful attention or you will be lost for the rest of the opera").

The chorus presence - notably the legions of soldiers on both sides - is impressively active, thanks to stage director David McVicar and fight director Jonathan Rider. The vision of Manrico's men climbing the fences, guns at the ready, was an especially striking image.

Charles Edwards' sets - inspired by the works of Goya and used previously in productions at the Met and Chicago Lyric - are set upon a three-sided rotating monolith, and it's much fun to watch the next scene cruising in even as the last one is spinning away (especially Manrico and di Luna, dueling all the way offstage at the finish of Act I). The lighting by Jennifer Tipton added greatly to these artful tableaux, notably the hellish orange-yellows of the Anvil scene. Brigitte Reiffenstuel's costumes are intriguing, notably the top hats worn by the Count's forces and di Luna's Act I outfit, a dazzling black uniform with white button squares - going nicely with Hvorostovsky's blazing white hair.

Luisotti is well at home with Verdi, and it came through with his orchestra, which gave a lively, robust performance. Watch closely during the Anvil Chorus, by the way, and you'll note that only one "anvilist" is actually producing the famed metallic peals - a shrewd maneuver.

Through Oct. 6 at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Boulevard, San Francisco. $15-$310, 415/864-3330.

Image: Sondra Radvanovsky. Photo by Terrance McCarthy.

San Francisco Opera's Il Trittico

2009-09-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

September 18, 2009

It’s impressive enough that Patricia Racette is delivering all three soprano roles in Puccini’s trio of one-acts; what’s even more impressive is the style in which she and her cohorts are doing it. Aided by sets and costumes from the 2002 New York City Opera production, SFO’s performance is a thoroughly satiating evening of opera, capped by a dazzling, Fellini-esque “Gianni Schicchi.”

The three-role trick demands a singer with versatility both vocal and theatrical, and Racette, a graduate of SFO’s Merola Program, certainly qualifies.Tackling the verismo potboiler of Il Tabarro, Racette performs the lusty, frustrated wife Giorgetta with a forceful, dramatic, tone, invested with a bit of a jagged edge.With Suor Angelica, she shifts to a classic Puccinian lyric, shaping her phrases with a light touch befitting the religious setting. Dramatically, her handling of the pivotal scene, in which she learns of the death of her illegitimate son, rang resoundingly true, and led the way into a mesmerizing performance of the beautiful “Senza mamma.”

Finally, she shifts to the Rossinian, opera buffa sensibilities of “Gianni Schicchi.” Racette sacrifices all for the laughter, trotting around in a pink Sandra Dee dress and heels and even marking up the revered “O mio babbino caro” with comic pouts and sobs. It’s a miracle that any one singer could make it through this panoply of styles (the last I knew of was Barbara Divis’s 2007 performance at Hawaiian Opera Theater), but then Racette is a pretty miraculous performer.

Not that she achieves all of this by herself. Il Tabarro offers tenor Brandon Jovanovich’s wrenching performance of “Hai ben ragione,” a tirade against the harshness of a stevedore’s life. Baritone Paolo Gavanelli achieves a fine balance with Michele, the sometimes-sympathetic, sometimes-scary husband, notably in his final, fatal litany of suspicions.

Angelica is rare for its all-female adult cast; this serves to accentuate the strength of SFO’s chorus singers, who are asked to sing together almost as a single entity, the sisterhood offering a running commentary on their eccentric peer. The stark contrast comes from contralto Ewa Podles, who applies her quirky stage presence to Angelica’s heartless aunt, The Princess.

For “Gianni Schicchi,” director James Robinson has assembled the most divine team of oddballs this side of “The Office.” The standouts include contralto Meredith Arwady as Zita, the enormous (both physically and vocally) bass Andrea Silvestrelli, and David Lomeli, who lends a brilliant tenor to the ingenue Rinuccio. The center, of course, is the title character, and Paolo Gavanelli, like Racette, displays an astounding ability to play both sides of the coin, recovering from the tormented Michele to play the crafty, cantankerous lawyer. His impression of the dead uncle, Buoso – upon which the family’s will-changing scam depends – is hilarious, with a few bits of Adam Sandler thrown in for good measure.

Allen Moyer’s “Schicchi” set – an astounding kaleidoscope of black-and-white checks – earned its own applause. Bruno Schwengl took his black-and-white costumes straight from a Fellini movie. The cast also made much use of the new electronic cigarettes, chain-smoking inside a dying man’s room as only a dysfunctional ‘50s clan could. Moyer’s “Angelica” set is a ‘50s model as well, a children’s hospital whose green-tiled walls, painted cabinets and miniature desks should evoke memories both good and bad for Catholic spectators.

It’s a joy to see Il Trittico in its original form (for the first time at SFO since 1952), especially for the testament it provides to Puccini’s virtuosity. It was almost as if the aging composer wanted to play a game of Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better, simultaneously paying tribute to verismo, the sacred music of his childhood and the great school of opera buffa. His very popularity has inspired a trendy new wave of Puccini-haters, but what’s irrefutable is that the man was an amazing musician.

Through October 3 at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $15-$310, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 25-year opera critic and author of the opera novel “Gabriella’s Voice.” Look for his author page at amazon.com.

Image: Allen Moyer's Fellini-esque set for "Gianni Schicchi." Photo by Cory Weaver.

Manon, Opera San Jose, 9/12/09

2009-09-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

It's a true delight when Opera San Jose ventures beyond the standard regional-company fare, especially when it pays off as well as it does with its recent opening of Massenet's "Manon. The reason lies squarely with its lead couple, soprano Khori Dastoor and tenor Alexander Boyer. Both singers display a deep knowledge and skill with both their characters and Massenet's music.

I could go on and on about Dastoor, who has developed into a masterful bel canto singer. The singer brings lyricism and sensitivity to Manon's opening aria, "Je suis encore tout etourdie," reaches an emotional peak with with the second-act "Adieu, notre petite table" (notably a thrilling double-forte cresendo suddenly cut off to the nearly whispered confession, "I am nothing but weakness and fragility"), then ventures into the prytechnical with the coloratura cadenzas of Manon's "brag-piece," "Je marche sur tous les chemins." Throughout, Dastoor brings out the light and dark sides that make Manon one of opera's most complex and compelling characters. It was a thrill to follow the artistry with which Dastoor shaped her lines, especially a couple of gorgeous 2nd-act diminuendos, and to enjoy the space afforded to her by Joseph Marcheso and his orchestra.

Boyer continues to make a mark with his powerful, lyric voice (and after Don Jose, finds himself in yet another sucker-for-the-ladies role). Tenors with Boyer's kind of tone can get away with murder (sorry, sopranos), but Boyer chooses not to, continually refining his approach. A good example is the third-act prayer, "Ah! fuyez, douce image" and the following duet with the repentant Manon, "N'est-ce plus ma main," in which he employs a lighter tone to bring out Des Grieux's emotional vulnerability.

The supporting roles are another strength: tenor Bill Welch, who makes the most of the comically hateful nobleman Guillot de Morfontaine; baritone Adam Meza, who enjoys himself a little too much as the caddish soldier De Bretigny; and bass Silas Elash, who lends the proper degree of gravitas to Des Grieux's father (who has that irritating quality of being insufferably right all the time). The only complaint is for baritone Krassen Karagiozov as Manon's cousin, Lescaut; he's fine vocally, but distractingly stiff in his movements.

I save a separate paragraph for "the actresses" - Pousette, Rosette and Javotte, played by soprano Jillian Boye and mezzos Cathleen Candia and Bettany Coffland. Massenet laces his party scenes with these three in the same way that Mozart decorates "The Magic Flute" with his Three Ladies, like a host serving up regular portions of creme brulee. Those three-part female harmonies are just sonically delicious.

The biggest surprise in the program was seeing the name of OSJ's General Manager, Larry Hancock, as set designer. No typo there. Already serving as supertitles translator, apparently Hancock's going to address these recessionary budgets by doing everything himself. The results for "Manon" were pretty impressive, a series of scenes designed not so much to be showy as to best augment the action. (Given Hancock's encyclopedic knowledge of opera, this is no surprise.) A couple of standout touches were the royal red bed canopy in Act 2 that rose all the way into the flies, and the creepy hand-like tree in the final scene on the road to Le Havre.

OSJ's new principal conductor, Joseph Marcheso, in addition to "playing nice" with his singers, is a hell of a lot of fun to watch; he's quite theatrical in his movements. He and the orchestra brought out all the subtleties in Massenet's work that are, perhaps the culprit in making him one of history's most underrated composers.

Through Sept. 27, California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. Alternate casts. $51-$91, 408/437-4450, http://www.operasj.org/.See the serial version of Michael's novel "Outro" at http://www.outronovel.blogspot.com/

Image: Alexander Boyer and Khori Dastoor. Photo by Chris Ayers.

La Traviata, San Francisco Opera, June 16, 2009

2009-06-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

There are few young-singer programs as successful as those at San Francisco Opera, and the faithful gathered this week to welcome back one of their hotter alumni, soprano Anna Netrebko, who has been busily conquering the opera world. The occasion was a "Traviata" that excelled in spots but seemed rather lackluster in comparison to SFO's recent productions of "Tosca" and "Porgy and Bess."

Director Marta Domingo took an interesting and apt tack in updating the time setting from 1850s France to 1920s America, sending Violetta from courtesan to flapper without much consternation, and bringing her onstage in a stylish 1929 Buick. Domingo also had a lot of fun designing the lavish art-deco party set for Act II, providing a dazzling backdrop for the silent-movie costumery and dance divertissements, including some quirky era choreography by Kitty McNamee and a wonderfully athletic dance solo from Jekyns Pelaez as the matador.

The third-act set, an astral background of hanging lamps filtered through falling snow, received a few snickers from the purists, but to hell with the purists, I liked it. It also matched well with Netrebko's marvelously understated approach to Violetta's swansong, "Addio del passato," over a sensitively played layering of strings from Donald Runnicles and his orchestra. Netrebko played with the dynamics and phrasing with great facility, a contrast with the drier approach she applied to "Sempre libera" in the first act. I enjoyed the overlong pause that she and Runnicles applied before the opening cadenza of that piece (building anticipation among the aficionados) but was disappointed that she opted out of the final high E-flat.

As Alfredo, tenor Charles Castronovo was good but not spectacular, and did have his moments, notably when Alfredo denounces Violetta before the partygoers and throws a wad of cash at her to pay for their time together. He also sang beautifully in the final duet with Violetta, "Parigi, o cara."

Baritone Dwayne Croft delivered an able Germont, though I have yet to see a singer who can make up for this character's gross schmuckiness. It doesn't help matters that Croft failed to deliver the usual passion of "Di Provenza, il mar, il suol," Germont's salute to his family's homeland. And might I add a postscript compliment to lighting designer Mark McCollough, for the flickering effect in the autumn trees of Alfredo's country home. Well done!

Through July 5, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, $15-$290, http://www.sfopera.com/, 415/864-3330.

Image: Anna Netrebko as Violetta Valery. Photo by Terrence McCarthy

San Francisco Opera, Porgy and Bess, June 12, 2009

2009-06-16T14:43:00.001-07:00

Every great once in a while, a critic faces that most daunting of tasks, writing about a production that has no flaws. Such a one is San Francisco's production of George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess," a work of vastly misunderstood genius that has finally, in the past few decades, received its due. This derives largely from the efforts of SFO general director David Gockley, who oversaw the first-ever production of Gershwin's complete score in 1976 at the Houston Grand Opera, 41 years after the premiere of the opera's Broadway-ized version in Boston. That said, I'm now going to hand out compliments like party favors.

Our Porgy, baritone Eric Owens, is a force of nature, rumbling away at this powerful lead role and harvesting every bit of its pathos. His showpiece is "Bess, You is My Woman," but he also stars in "Little Stars," a deceptively calm and poignant prelude to the violent actions that immediately follow: the killing of Robbins by Crown, the resident bad guy of Catfish Row. (After Crown flees from the law, Porgy takes in his beleaguered girlfriend, Bess, and the tale begins.)

Bess, fixed firmly between the sweetness she has found with Porgy and the animal lust she feels for Crown, demands a fine balance. Laquita Mitchell, equipped with a full lyric spinto soprano, fills the bill well; she is all woman, and burns brightest in "I Loves You, Porgy," after her dalliance with the fugitive Crown on Kittiwah Island. Lester Lynch endows Crown with a delicious brand of animal depravity, earning a melodrama-style booing from the audience at curtain call. His physical presence was thrilling, especially in the fight with Robbins (eviscerating him with a cotton hook) and his abusive encounter with Bess in the Act II Kittiwah scene.

Playing Sportin' Life, the dope dealer once performed by the likes of Cab Calloway and Sammy Davis, Jr., is tenor Chauncey Parker. It's a hell of a lot to ask a single performer to produce operatic notes, jazz rhythms and an evening full of slick dance maneuvers, but Parker does so with aplomb, providing particular delight with the bible-thumper taunt "It Ain't Necessarily So" (featuring such classic Ira Gershwin rhymes as "He made his home in / that fish's abdomen").

The hope of the next generation is evoked by the newlyweds Jake and Clara, a fisherman and his wife bringing up a newborn babe. Eric Greene and Angel Blue play these parts with a great sense of joy, Greene with the rascally commentary "A Woman is a Sometime Thing," and Blue with the all-important framework song "Summertime." The song's oddly fetching match of happy lyrics and sad harmonic underpinnings gets its full explanation here, serving as both a hopeful prelude and, during a horrific hurricance, Clara's fearful reprise. Blue's performance of it, in both cases, is sumptuous. The most gripping song of all is "My Man's Gone Now," a funeral lament sung by Karen Slack as Robbins's widow Serena. Slack's rendition is heartbreaking and vocally spectacular.

The supporting ensemble is amazingly good, fueling Catfish Row with a constant flow of energy, as well as handling the difficult chorus parts, inspired by negro spirituals. Most thrilling of all was the uproar created at the finale of the hurricane scene, which was enthralling in its sheer power. Give credit to stage director Francesca Zambello and Ian Robertson for marshalling these forces, as well as Jonathan Rider for choregraphing the excellent fight scenes. The set design by Peter J. Davison - from a Washington National Opera production - sets the scene among towering metal walls and rusted railings, creating a warehouse-like atmosphere that is both rugged and beautiful. Giant fallen letters from a decrepit amusement park sign give the Kittiwah Island set a fantastical aura, like the ruins of an ancient civilization. John DeMain and his orchestra played with great vigor, attacking what must be a challenging score for orchestral musicians.

And about that score. As I implied before, Gershwin's original work was pretty much eviscerated, since no opera house would allow black performers and since the composer's Broadway backers wouldn't tolerate such a long and musically adventurous piece. Which is a profound shame, because the complete work presented here is truly a revelation. Steeped in folk, jazz and classical forms as very few composers could be (and having taken trips to South Carolina to study the Gullah culture that informs the story), Gershwin tapped into a spiritual singing style that fits the traditional forms of opera surprisingly well, backing these scenes with lush orchestral accompaniment, but also stepped out to pepper the score with the jazzier songs that had made his reputation. Stringing everything together with traditional recitative, he succeeded in blending all these elements into a purely American artform that, thanks to a nationwide myopia about issue both artistic and racial, died off as soon as it was created. It was perhaps too far-seeing for its own good, and it will now be up to a new century of Americans to see "Porgy and Bess" for the work of genius that it is.

Through June 27, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, $15-$290, http://www.sfopera.com/, 415/864-3330.

Image: Eric Owens and Laquita Mitchell as Porgy and Bess. Photo by Terrence McCarthy.

San Francisco Opera, "Tosca," June 5, 2009

2009-06-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

Tosca can be a physically brutal little opera, and SFO's latest production takes this notion to the hilt, stressing pure power in both its singing and acting. The energy of it all makes for an outstanding evening of theater.

With a magnificent series of tromp-l'oeil sets by Thierry Bosquet, inspired by a 1932 SFO production, and a straightforward approach to the music and action, the differences come largely in the small touches and decisions, notably those made by talented stage director Jose Maria Condemi. One must begin with Scarpia, played by Georgian baritone Lado Ataneli as a sort of creepy ringleader, choreographing events around him for his own maximum entertainment. At one point, he rushes to the front of the stage to reveal the torture being inflicted upon Tosca's beloved Cavaradossi, and the effect is almost like a magician announcing "presto chango" before a masterful illusion. Another particularly sleazy moment comes when he offers to take Tosca's wrap, then gives it a thorough sniffing before setting it down. He spends a large portion of the rest of his stage time pushing his lackeys to the ground - particularly the equally creepy Spoletta, Joel Sorenson, who does a lovely job of smacking the stage with maximum impact. Vocally, Ataneli doesn't quite have the lower-end gusto for the Te Deum, but his high baritone of serves him well for the rest of the performance.

Our Tosca, Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, brings a strong lyric voice to the role, and isn't afraid to go a little ragged for Floria's frightened screeches (particularly after Scarpia reveals the price she must pay for Cavaradossi's freedom). She also plays the opening lines of her "Vissi d'arte" a little breathy, accentuating her character's emotional torment, and finishes the aria with some beautifully wrought diminuendos. As an actress, Pieczonka makes an excellent showing of contemplating the carving knife that has made its way into her hand (almost channeling the approach Sarah Bernhardt used in Sardou's original play), then delivers a deliciously rough stabbing. And her final leap from the parapet is quite convincing (which is more than I can say for most of the Toscas I've seen).

Cavaradossi is played by Carlo Ventre, who sings the part with a rugged lyric spinto, and delivers his top notes with a lushly broad, bronze tone. He excelled in his "E lucevan le stelle," but perhaps was even better in the arioso that follow, "O dolci mani."

In the supporting roles, Dale Travis invests his sacristan with a delightful array of tics and nervous gestures. My favorite among the costumes (costume supervisor: Jai Altizer) is Scarpia's Act II coat, purple with intricate white embroidery. Marco Armiliato's orchestra was strong throughout, especially the horns and percussion, who took great pleasure in Scarpia's thunderous motif (is there better entrance music in opera?).

Puccini's use of motif in the opera is an endless well of discoveries, and this time around I found phrases from the first-act duet "Mia gelosa" ("My jealous one") floating around as Scarpia pursued his Iago-like endeavors to use Tosca's jealousy against her. It's also a constant pleasure to study the way Puccini uses different musical forms against each other: Scarpia's vows of conquest played against the congregation singing the Te Deum, the confrontation of Scarpia and Cavaradossi against the cantata sung by Tosca in the neighboring church, and the shepherd's song (performed by Zachary Weisberg) used as a prelude to the painter's morning execution, a scene whose quietude and comings-and-goings harken back to the tollgate act of "La Boheme." It's fashionable these days to downplay Puccini's talents (and seemingly to punish him for his popularity) but it's stupid to deny this level of musical mastery.

Through June 26 at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, San Francisco. $15-$290, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/.

Side notes: The opera was simulcast to AT&T Park, the stadium of the baseball Giants, and the principals took their bows wearing Giants paraphernalia (the sacristan, for instance, with a "#1" foam finger). They did, however, miss a prime opportunity: Scarpia should have appeared wearing the jersey of the hated rival Dodgers. Walking to the performance, it was impossible not to think of the movie "Milk," which told of the assassination of gay rights leader Harvey Milk, a crime which took place directly across the street from the Opera House at City Hall. The movie made brilliant use of scenes from "Tosca" to foreshadow Milk's murder. One of the singers in those excerpts was tenor Joe Meyers, a friend and choirmate from my college days, which made it, for me, even more personal.

Image: Adrianne Pieczonka (Tosca) and Lado Ataneli (Scarpia).
Photo by Cory Weaver.

Sacramento Opera, La Boheme, May 8, 2009

2009-05-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

About the 30th time you see La Boheme, you begin to focus on the itty-bitty particulars. Thus, I am here to report that Sacramento Opera stage director Chuck Hudson opted for a bowl of pickled herring instead of the usual cartoonish prop-fish in the final scene, that the baguette was, indeed, employed in the mock duel (reinforced by a steel rod, no less), and that the sight gag used to demonstrate the failings of Musetta's new shoes was a naughty sit-down can-can.

A more important decision was the use of an upstairs loft over the tollgate in Act III, to host parts of the double-couple interplay - but this may not have been a decision at all, since the sets were borrowed from the University of Cincinnati. Brian Ruggaber's design is pretty nifty - the Paris skyline literally flies away to open up the fourth wall -but the higher elevation of the singers had the unfortunate effect of sending their voices directly into the flies. This added to the already-challenging acoustics of the Sacramento Community Theater and the sometimes overboisterous playing of Tim Rolek's orchestra.

Still, the production featured some strong young singers, equipped with quirks that were sometimes problematic, sometimes intriguing. This came through especially in the garrett scene, whose trio of hit arias did not strike gold the way they usually do. Adam Flowers was fighting his passagio in "Che gelida manina" (thought his top notes were fine), and NaGuanda Nobles sang a hurried "Mi chiamano Mimi" that refused to blossom in its usual fashion, not even at the rapturous turn when the spring sunrise comes to Mimi's windows.

With Flowers, this seemed to be simply a matter of warming up. He was back to form in the tollgate duet with Mimi, "Donde lieta usci," and downright captivating in his final-act duet with Marcello, "Ah, Mimi, tu piu non torni." As for Nobles, it turned out that "Mi chiamano" simply didn't take advantage of her outstanding feature, a sultry lower range that came to the fore in the tollgate scene and made the death scene even more devastating than usual.

I am forever amazed by Rochelle Bard's chameleonic ability to match her voice to a role. Though she's capable of broadening her tone to the depth of a lyric-dramatic when it's called for, she chose to rule that quality out completely and sing Musetta as a pure Rossinian lyric. This added an extra degree of coloratura to Musetta's famed Waltz, and allowed Bard to reveal, through deft phrasing and a gorgeous final messa di voce, the longing behind her character's seeming bragadoccio. She also does a pretty good can-can, and bosses around her Alcindoro (Burr Phillips) in an extremely amusing fashion.

As for Marcello, who continues to be my favorite of the bohemians, Nicolai Janitzky is not much more than perfect, his baritone resounding but never forced, his characterization a fine balance of Marcello's machismo and painterly sensitivity. He was the other reason that the final Marcello/Rodolfo duet achieved such a profound level of intensity. (And a brief plaudit for Tom Corbeil, who did a fine job with Colline's Coat Aria.)

Sacramento Opera's volunteer chorus was superbly energetic; Hudson led them to a degree of barely controlled chaos in the Cafe Momus scene, which is just about right (and did so without the usual scrambling children). The silver lining to the orchestra's occasional overplaying was that they were also spot-on, bringing out all the fine colors of Puccini's score. I also enjoyed the company's supertitle projection, which allowed for additional lines to be added to a single frame. This allowed the translations to more closely match the singing.

The sign of a masterwork is that, even on a 30th viewing, the listener is still making discoveries, and this time I made at least two. One arrived as Musetta was warming Mimi's medicine over a candle, saying, "Don't let the flame go out." I apologize to librettists Giacosa and Illica for not noticing this before. The other was the suspended note from the strings at the moment of Mimi's death. Puccini is the master of playing the audience's emotions, and yes, you bastard, for the 30th time you made me cry.

Through May 12. Sacramento's '09-'10 season includes "The Elixir of Love," "La Traviata" and an evening of opera music by Tchaikovsky. 916/737-1000, http://www.sacopera.org/.

Image: NaGuanda Nobles and Adam Flowers as Mimi and Rodolfo. Photo by Sacramento Opera/Eleakis Photography.

Opera San Jose's Carmen, April 18, 2009

2009-04-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it takes all night to figure out a voice, and such was certainly the case with Opera San Jose's Alexander Boyer, whose powerful tenor had a way of dominating the opening night of the company's "Carmen." Boyer's reading of Don Jose's famed Flower Song fully displayed the lyric ring of his instrument, but there was something else lying at the edges of his timbre, yet to be uncovered.

That something began to reveal itself in the mountain scene, as Jose got into louder and louder squabbles with his Carmencita, and came to full fruition in the final scene at the bullfight: a primal, slashing edge to his tone that began to bounce off the walls the further he fell into his character's desperate, ruined mindset. Boyer delivered an emotional welling-up full of stalker creepiness, leading up to a well-choreographed stabbing and a nice post-mortem kiss just to put a little Stephen King icing on the cake. I don't know if I've ever sat through a Carmen finale filled with so much tension, or a more fortuitous match of a singer's talents with a role's requirements.

The production marked the stage-directing debut of former OSJ singer Sandra Bengochea (nee Rubalcava), and though her ensemble work is a little rough around the edges, you have to enjoy her leanings toward chaos and an action-packed stage. This came through in much of the side-work: the hijinks of the boisterous smuggler duo Dancairo and Remendado (Stephen Boisvert and Bill Welch) and the intriguing decision to take the first-act catfight (usually recounted after-the-fact) and bring it onstage.

As our heroine, Cybele Gouverneur, born of Venezuelan parents, begins with the advantage of just plain looking like Carmen. The mezzo does well with upper ranges and elevated emotions - as in the final two scenes - but opts for a covered tone that can sometimes mute the lower reaches, as in the opening Habanera. (When the range dips truly low, however - as in the ominous Tarot song, "En vain pour eviter les responses ameres" - the results are downright spooky.) Gouverneur also needs more work with the "rhythmic gymnastics" portion of the program, the percussion and dancing tasks of Lillias Pastia's tavern.

As Micaela, Rebecca Davis delivers the same lovely lyric soprano we've heard in previous productions, but with a few odd problems with breathing and phrasing, particularly in the showpiece aria, "Je dis que rien ne m'epouvante." She's much stronger soon after, in Micaela's brief report of the impending death of Jose's mother. Bulgarian baritone Krassen Karagiozov plays Escamillo with a James Bond smoothness that's almost too smooth. The part could use a little more vigor. I have always been a sucker for the sopranos who are cast as Carmen's sidekick Frasquita, and Jillian Boye certainly continues that tradition, playing the part as a kind of gypsy goth girl.

The OSJ chorus was a little off its game, taking an unfocused approach to Bizet's difficult parts, and carrying on a few quibbles with conductor David Rohrbaugh over entrances and tempos. This also happened with the rapid smuggler's quintet, "Nous avons en tete une affair." The orchestra, on the other hand, was spot-on all night, particularly with the gorgeous entre'acte and the festive bullfight anthems that follow. Set designer Giulio Cesare Perrone uses brick archways and slate steps to produce a warm public square, but his mountain set seems a little artificial. I'm also rather fond of the new stage cigarettes, which allow performers to simulate smoke by blowing powder out the ends. And, as always, the decision to use Bizet's original spoken dialogues will always receive a thumbs-up from these parts.

Opera San Jose, Bizet's "Carmen, through May 3, California Theatre, San Jose, $69-$91, 408/437-4450, http://www.operasj.org/.

Image: Cybele Gouverneur as Carmen. Photo by Chris Ayers.