Confessions of an Opera Addict, Part V

The Academy of Jennifer, Part Two

My real opera education began when I invited Jennifer der Torossian to a Mexican restaurant, parked a tape recorder in front of her, and peppered her with questions as we ate. Jennifer is anything but a shrinking violet, so my part of the job was easy. She began by telling me about her childhood, how she was so fond of recreational screaming that the neighbors reported her parents to the police, assuming that somebody must be abusing that poor child. (And there was the opening of my novel.)

I also learned that her voice teacher, Maestro Salvatore d'Aura, used to work for Puccini. Maestro was a teenage tenor, singing "Che gelida manina" at the Santa Cecilia Festival in Rome, when the composer himself came up, tears in his eyes, and asked, "How did you learn to sing my music so beautifully?" Puccini was dying of throat cancer - a result of his fondness for cigars - and could no longer demonstrate his vocal lines to singers, so he hired the young tenor to do it for him.

Jenny gave me that big-eyed stare, the one that I would learn as one of her trademarks - a signal that she was about to say something impressive. "I have scores," she said, "with Puccini's handwritten notes in the margins!"

Maestro thus became my novel's most implausible character: Maestro Giuseppe Umbra, 93-year-old voice teacher and raconteur. I didn't realize until much later that I had offered up an Italian pun: "aura" meaning light, "umbra" meaning dark.

Jennifer's father, Papken, was a big-time Silicon Valley developer who owned a seaside filmhouse in Capitola. The family decided to turn the theater into an opera house, with mother Claire acting as producer and Jennifer as prima donna. I attended the first production, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and was simply astounded at the voice that emanated from the balcony at Jenny's first entrance. I soon came to understand that this was the result of bel canto training, a Jedi-like discipline with breathing techniques and phrasing that produced an effervescent tone seemingly freed from the physical body of its owner. This became the central theme of my novel, Gabriella's Voice - the idea that someone could fall in love with a voice separate from its creator.

I also took great delight in the quirks of the Bay Shore Lyric Opera - the way the water in the Seville fountain would rise and fall depending on the flushing of toilets in the restrooms, the way the cafe wall in a production of La Boheme collapsed one night, nearly taking out Rodolfo. With Jennifer's permission, I set up an unofficial residency and began taking mental notes.

The company's breakout production was The Marriage of Figaro. The opera is much too challenging for most companies, but with Maestro's ear, BSLO managed to assemble a divinely inspired combination of voices, including a Susanna and Cherubino flown in from New York (with Jenny playing the Contessa). Through my spywork at auditions, rehearsals, performances and cast parties, I learned more about that opera than any I had seen, and assembled a richly complex and humorous supporting cast for my novel.

One day, Jenny mentioned someone named Tebaldi. My plea of ignorance inspired another of her wide-eyed stares. "You haven't heard Tebaldi?" She immediately put on a CD, and my ears were met with the most perfect soprano voice I would ever hear: a broad tone, smooth as butter but alarmingly agile, like an aircraft carrier that navigates like a speedboat. My adoration of Tebaldi would grow so much over the years that I became an evangelist, and upon her death in 2004 received more than a half-dozen notes of condolence. You would have thought that I had lost a close relative.

Next: SF Opera and the big picture

Photo: Maestro Salvatore d'Aura with Met great Licia Albanese. Photo by Robert Sheaffer.

Confessions of an Opera Addict, Part IV

The Academy of Jennifer

One day in the mid-nineties, my editor at Metro, Michael Gant, called with a rather odd assignment.

"There's this soprano who's giving a recital at San Jose State. I keep telling her father that we don't cover recitals, but he keeps hounding me. Tell ya what, it's a free concert, so why don't you check it out for me? If it turns into nothing, I'll give you ten bucks for your time."

I wasn't expecting much, but it was nice to see the old concert hall, to take in that familiar musty smell along the hallways. I took a program and a seat, feeling like a spy, and listened to the opening act, a rather run-of-the-mill mezzo. Then came Jennifer der Torossian, the soprano in question.

Jennifer radiated a professionalism and panache far beyond her bachelor's degree, and her voice was astounding. It carried a buoyant lyricism that I would soon learn to seek out. She was also quite atttractive, a petite brunette with long, dark hair and large, expressive eyes. It was hard to believe that a voice of that size was emanating from such a small frame.

The details of the program are hard to recall, but the clincher was Ophelia's Mad Scene from Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, a work notorious for its pyrotechnics (operaphiles say you've got to be already half-insane just to attempt it). As delivered by Jennifer, it brought the house down.

I slunk out of the joint like a private dick in a Raymond Chandler novel, gave my glowing report to Mr. Gant, and got my assignment. I would write a piece on Jennifer and my old choir-mate Stephen Guggenheim for the Saratoga News, a community paper owned by Metro. Both singers were Saratoga natives, and Stephen had just made his debut at San Francisco Opera. I also decided to do the photos for the piece, and a couple weeks later had a handsome cover story all my own, with a photo of Stephen on the steps of Villa Montalvo, plus a shot of Jennifer in the Villa's Greek garden.

Interviewing Stephen felt like cheating, but talking with Jennifer sparked something deeper. She had an infectious passion for opera, complemented by an encyclopedic knowledge of its history and musical pathways. I had to stop her several times during the interview to ask for definitions of terms like "spinto," "squillo" and "mezza voce," and the same puzzle I had with Irene Dalis, role names that I couldn't connect with operas.

What I began to realize was that I wanted to use the opera as a setting for a novel - but before I did so, I had to get much further into the subject. And I decided that Jennifer could be my gatekeeper. Several events fell into place to provide me with one hell of an education.

Photo: Jennifer der Torossian

1999 article: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/08.19.99/laboheme-9933.html

Korngold's Die Tote Stadt

San Francisco Opera
Sept. 26, 2008

There's no need for hallucinogenic drugs in San Francisco these days - just go to the opera. Following its world premiere of the Amy Tan-inspired The Bonesetter's Daughter, with its flying waitresses and eye-candy projections, the Opera presents a wild, surrealist production of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's 1920 Die Tote Stadt, taken from an original production at the 2004 Salzburg Festival.

"The Dead City" is Bruges, where our hero, Paul, has isolated himself in an apartment, the better to mourn his late and beloved wife, Marie. He sits before her oversized portrait, holding a glass case containing a lock of her hair (well, actually, an entire wig, but there are utilitarian needs at play here). Paul's worship is interrupted by his friend Frank, who tells him that enough is enough, and he needs to go back to living his life. As if to verify Frank's concerns, Paul announces that he has met a reborn Marie: a dancer conveniently named Marietta, who does, indeed, turn out to resemble his late wife. But Marietta is pure hedonist, miles away from Sainte Marie; her first comment upon entering the apartment is "You must be well-heeled!" She does, however, know how to sing a song - the ecstatically lovely "Gluck, das mir verblieb," often referred to as Marietta's Song, and one of the few kernels of real hope in the opera. In any case, Marietta doesn't last long with Paul, whose attentions keep drifting back to the portrait. Tiring of playing second fiddle to a ghost, she departs.

This is when Paul fades off to sleep, and where all the Dali-esque fun begins. The walls and plaster ceiling tilt away at odd angles, and an identical apartment with an identical Paul appear behind a screen, where Marie has come to offer her husband some consolation. Paul's dream then flies off into all sorts of Freudian directions, complete with over-the-top tableaux. It's not good enough to simply show Marietta off having fun without him; she must be carried off by a dozen white-faced Busby Berkeley tapsters in tuxedos. When Paul's housemaid Brigitta runs off to the convent, she must be carried away on a giant white crucifix by a crowd of white-faced nuns. And then a white-faced, white-dressed commedia dell'arte troupe arrives, looking like a ghost cast of "Cabaret," to mock Paul and his silly attachments to the dead. All of these sequences are delivered in brilliant, vivdly imagined fashion. (Split the credit between original director Willy Decker, original designer Wolfgang Gussmann, and current director Meisje Hummel).

The cast is stocked with voices you could listen to for hours. German tenor Torsten Kerl lends Paul a warm, forceful tone, and a presence edged with a touching vulnerability to offset the dalliances with obsession. Soprano Emily Magee as Marietta (and Marie) is pure spitfire, particularly in the final act, where she taunts and raves her way through a battle with the memory of Marie. (And what brand of chutzpah does it take to perform nearly two acts completely bald?) Mezzo Katherine Tier, one of SFO's Adler Fellows, gives an excellent accounting of Brigitta, particularly in her first-act lament for her master's condition, and baritone Lucas Meacham shines as Frank, delivering an outstanding performance of "Mein Sehnen, mein Wahnen" as the dream-troupe's Pierrot figure, Fritz.

The score is a revelation, fully exploited by Donald Runnicles, who also conducted the production's 2004 Salzburg debut. It's fascinating to hear the (then-23-year-old) Korngold play with the timbres of madness, tickling the edges with the celesta and harmonium, signalling the onset of lunacy with dissonant chords from the piano. Korngold was criticized by contemporaries for his conservatism, but he obviously knew when to employ modern techniques in the service of torment and disorientation. The opera is brilliant, and one can only hope it continues to be performed on a regular basis.

Through Oct. 12, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, 301 Van Ness Avenue, $15-$290, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/.

Photo: Emily Magee as Marietta, Torsten Kerl as Paul, Lucas Meacham as Fritz (Priest). Photo by Terrence McCarthy.

Confessions of an Opera Addict, Part III

Voices at the Villa

In the early '90s, I got that long-delayed "job-job," doing PR for the performing arts seasons at Villa Montalvo, a mansion in Saratoga, California. Part of the season was a week-long residency by the San Francisco Opera's Merola program, which conducted its final performances at the outdoor Garden Theater. I vivdly recall hiking the trails behind the estate, hearing the best young voices in the country filter through the redwoods.

One of those voices belonged to mezzo Reveka Mavrovitis, who was appearing as Carmen. I met her while coordinating some interviews with the local press. In 1995, I was in New York, getting ready to read from my choral novel Frozen Music at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble, when I spotted Reveka's name on a cast list for the Met, a production of Fedora. I immediately bought two tickets, and asked Adelina, the beautiful half-black, half-Jewish PR lady at the B&N, to accompany me. While Adelina was off at the ladies' room, I discovered the marvelously clever advance-purchase beverage trick, and felt like James Freakin' Bond when I went to the table at intermission and handed her a champagne.

Reveka was playing a minor role, but there was quite a hubbub about the lead soprano: confetti, dozens of bouquets, numerous ovations. Somebody told us it was one of her last performances before she retired from the stage. For me, the highlight was visiting Reveka backstage, and having her actually remember me (or putting on quite a good act). The bonus came years later, after I had obtained a better knowledge of opera history, when I dug up that old program and rediscovered the name of that lead soprano: Mirella Freni.

Photo: Mirella Freni

SF Opera, The Bonesetter's Daughter, 9/16/08

If you believe in opera as the ultimate fusion of the arts, then San Francisco Opera’s production of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter would be the ultimate example of that idea. The production is simply spectacular, using wild visuals, acrobatics and traditional Chinese musical forms to translate the epic two-continent sweep of Tan’s novel.

The Prologue, occurring in “a timeless void,” features acrobats flying through wild projections of flame and chaos – an introduction so spectacular, in fact, that it tends to muddle the opening storyline. Ruth Young Kamen (mezzo Zheng Cao), a San Francisco ghost writer working on a book about O.J. Simpson, is attempting to negotiate a dinner with her meshuggah Jewish in-laws when her mother, LuLing, has a strange tirade, acting out the O.J. killings in weird, grisly details and then dropping from a stroke.

The setting proceeds to the village of Immortal Heart, just outside Beijing, where we find Zheng Cao playing LuLing, sixty years younger, being raised by her Precious Auntie (Qian Yi). As LuLing approaches her wedding day to the coffinmaker Chang (Hao Jiang Tian), Auntie seems particularly focused on the sacrifices she made in child-rearing, describing the day she protected LuLing from a spill of boiling water by catching it in her cupped hands, suffering from the blisters for months after.

Stewart Wallace, creator of Harvey Milk, has concocted his own fascinating fusion, backing his operatic singers with percussive Asian strokes that bridge easily to the nasal swoops of Qian Yi’s Chinese opera, or kunju, style, and the traditional singing and suona – a shrill Chinese horn – of Wu Tong as the Priest. Wallace has also created a series of memorable set pieces: Ruth’s opening aria lamenting her confused childhood, the aforementioned child-rearing memory-piece of Precious Auntie and, most memorably, the chilling aria of Chang as he stalks LuLing in Hong Kong (featuring Hao Jiang Tian’s supremely rich bass).

Zheng Cao provides the production with a strong central figure (actually, two), Ning Liang with its tragic edge as the older LuLing, but clearly the star is Qian Yi, whose ghostly presence, elegant motions and bewitching kunju singing leave a permanent tattoo on the senses. The same indelible mark is left by Leigh Haas’s projections, notably a black-and-white montage of the crowded Hong Kong harbor and the enormous, horrified faces of Auntie’s wedding-day intrusion.

Much of the credit for the “fusion” aspect of the opera belongs to director Chen Shi-Zheng, who has pretty much guided the creation of an entirely new theatrical sub-genre, and to Tan’s highly compressed libretto, which resolves that early murkiness with a second-act revelation breathtaking in its economy. Perhaps the only drawback to Tan’s work can be seen in its entirety; a mother-daughter obsession oddly similar to the father-daughter obsession of Verdi in SFO’s recent Simon Boccanegra.

Through Oct. 3 at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. $15-$290, 415/864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com/.

Photos: Zheng Cao as Ruth. Photo by Terrence McCarthy

Confessions of an Opera Addict, Part II

The Divine Miss Dalis

At the same time that I became arts editor at the Spartan Daily, I began to hear about Irene Dalis, a San Jose native who starred at the Met for 20 years, then returned home to begin an opera workshop at San Jose State. I set up an interview, and spent almost two hours in her office, talking about her life. She wasn't at all what I expected from an opera star. She was certainly refined, with a thick head of silver hair and sharp Greek features, but she had a definite blue-collar edge, and smoked cigarettes, which probably contributed to the gravelly edge of her speaking voice. She heaped upon me an overhelming amount of information about opera. In that way characteristic of opera singers, she kept referring to title roles, and expecting me to naturally know the corresponding opera. Being a young journalist, and not wanting to appear as uninformed as I was, I said nothing and figured I would look them up later. Before I left, she handed me a half-dozen gorgeous, mythic-looking black-and-white head shots from various roles during her days at the Met.

I was a little tired from all this listening and questioning, so I retired to McDonald's to take in a couple burgers. I returned to my table to find my book bag missing - and with it the cassette tape containing 90 minutes of Irene Dalis interview. I spotted a homeless-looking dude walking outside with what looked to be my book bag, and, motivated by the thought of reconstructing that whole damn interview from scratch, I pursued. I thought I had lost him, but took a lucky turn at the corner and found him in a vacant lot, just standing there with my bag.

"Hey! I said. "That's my bag."

"Oh," he said, looking at the bag that had magically appeared in his hand. "Sorry." And handed it back to me.

This was not the way I had expected it to go. I wondered if I should call the cops. But the guy left, and I was just so grateful to have that interview back that I let him go.

A couple weeks later, my article appeared in the entertainment supplement of the Daily, with all six of those head shots on the cover. It was quite cool. And little did I know that I would spend the next 25 years covering Irene Dalis's opera company.

After graduation, I just wanted to find some gigs. I was going the freelance route, and hoping the flexible schedule would allow me to work on my first novel. I got an internship at Good Times magazine in Santa Cruz in the summer of '84, and they decided to send me out to review some theater. I was apparently not entirely bad at it, and after my internship became the regular theater critic. Feeling my oats, I pursued the same job at a new alternative weekly Metro, in San Jose, and got that job, too. One of the groups I would cover was Opera San Jose, created out of that workshop that Irene Dalis had started at San Jose State.

A little side story: a couple years before, the San Jose Symphony decided to put on Rigoletto, with lead singers borrowed from the San Diego Opera and the chorus culled from our choir. It was quite fun: I got to wear a cape, participate in an abduction and gang rape (don't you love Verdi?) and learn some snappy Italian choruses that still come back when I see the show. I also came terribly close to losing my virginity at a post-show party. I was admiring a cleavage-wrapped tattoo on a signorina, and she invited me to come to a dark room and take a closer look. We were about to attempt the coup de grace when one of her idiot friends told her she was leaving and needed a ride home. Alas! I had to hang on to the virginity another year (cursed wench!) But don't say opera ain't an inspiring artform.

I was a little intimidated about actually reviewing opera, but I did have enough musical education to discuss the qualities of different voices, and enough sense to talk about the show when I didn't know enough to actually critique it. I also made regular intermission visits with the Opera's marketing manager, Larry Hancock, who is such a font of opera knowledge he should have Grove's tattooed somewhere on his person. I was delighted to find old choir-mates across the footlights. Julia Wade, a paralyzingly good-looking redhead who somehow ended up on my lap at a choir party once (I had no idea what to do with her). Elaina Lappaleinen, the untouchable soprano blonde goddess who I would interview years later when she played Lulu at San Francisco Opera. Ravil Atlas, my tenor-pal; I met him in the hallway outside Dr. A's office at my freshman audition. He would eventually go on to an international career, and is now in London, composing his first musical. Another tenor was Stephen Guggenheim, who hosted the post-opera party at which I almost lost my virginity, and who would soon make the jump to San Francisco Opera's prestigious Merola Program.

Confessions of an Opera Addict, Part 1

Clue number one: don't look to my family. Dad played cornet in high school, Mom sang Rodgers & Hammerstein over the sink. Not much to go on. I do remember that Dad could listen to a song on the radio and weave whistling variations over the melody. It wasn't till twenty years later that I realized this was a pretty special talent.

But I seem to have developed a pretty good voice, regardless, and one day in high school my friend Maurice said that I wasn't "cool enough" to be in the Men's Glee. Seriously. At Peterson High in Sunnyvale, CA - alma mater to Brian Boitano and new opera librettist Amy Tan - the men's glee had 120 voices, and about half of the members were on sports teams. We were often invited to other high schools to encourage boys to sing. Once we were invited to Reno High to sing - and I swear, I had nothing to do with Sam Stegemiller winning all that money on the slot machines.

The reason for this freakish situation was Mike Patterakis, a Central Valley denizen who for some reason always reminded me of Jerry Lee Lewis. Mr. P transmitted to us the idea that singing could be a very cool thing, could even get us some wimmens, and filled our concerts with manly showtunes like "Hey, Look Me Over" and "My Way." We took it upon ourselves to do unspeakable things to "Winter Wonderland" ("Later on we'll get higher, as we drink by the fire, to face unafraid, the chicks that we laid, Tokin' in a Winter Wonderland"). At Christmastime, the glee joined up with two women's glees, the choir and the orchestra to present a concert that featured more than 500 performers at a school of 2,000 students. We also had a production of "Damn Yankees" nearly postponed because most of the men's chorus (including me) were actually on the baseball team. Thankfully, the league rescheduled our first playoff game, and the show went on.

I advanced to nearby San Jose State University - mostly because it was nearby - and klutzed into a gold mine: an honors humanities program that finally gave my writing skills a suitable challenge, an excellent journalism program, and Dr. Charlene Archibeque's Concert Choir, perhaps the best in the nation. I knew I was into something unusual when our first assignment was singing Berlioz's oratorio Lelio, in four different languages, at San Francisco's brand-new Davies Hall. At the end of the year we did Beethoven's Ninth with the fully professional San Jose Symphony.

Dr. A was a six-two blonde former fashion model. We sometimes referred to her as Big Bird. Years later, when I wrote my choral novel, Frozen Music, I declined to use her as a character, because I feared she wouldn't be believable. She rarely raised her voice, but she was always intimidating, and brought more music out of me than I would have thought possible. In concert, she was a stunning figure, still the most precise, technically perfect and graceful conductor I've ever seen. In my four years at State, I received an "academic concentration" in music - basically, twelve units in any music class - but I always refer to it as a minor, because I think I learned enough in choir to justify the term.

Paradoxically, the more I learned about singing, the more I realized that I did not have what it took to be a pro. I lacked the vocal talent, the discipline and the passion to pursue a carer that probably even tougher than writing. But something else popped up to take its place. Perhaps it began with my job as choir historian. I assembled a scrapbook of photos with an often-humorous running narrative that became a popular read among my classmates. My junior year, as a reporter for the Spartan Daily, my beat was the arts and humanities department, which led to a lot of features about concerts and musicians.

One week, I was sent off to the Concord Pavilion in the East Bay to cover an opera, something called Rigoletto, performed in English by the Western Opera Theater, the touring arm of the San Francisco Opera. The performance contained some wonderful news angles: a black baritone played the lead role, in a time when cross-race casting was still a new idea; an actual rainstorm bedeviled the partly-exposed Pavilion, lending a comic reality to the third-act storm scene. My resultant review, accompanied by an interview with the baritone, was roundly praised by our advisor for its vivid descriptions and sense of humor. I blushed for three days. At the end of the semester, I won an award for Best Entertainment Story, and was selected as arts editor for the coming semester.

In short, I had found within myself a rare ability. Blessed with some musical knowledge - but not too much - I was able to write about music in a way that was comprehensible to the lay reader. I've been doing exactly that ever since.

Next Chapter: Irene Dalis and the birth of Opera San Jose