What do you make of that item when you are Davies? “It’s ridiculous. The only reason I found that very nice was because Andreas Scholl was the person I first listened to and kind of idolized when I was 18. And I thought if I can have the kind of career he has, which seems to be a career where he can choose to do concerts; he can do a bit of opera; he’s got a beautiful sound. That’s fine for me because that seems to be a good role model.”

Davies clearly learned plenty from his idol (with whom he ultimately ended up performing). He’s doing exactly what he admired about Scholl’s career. On Wednesday he has the official opening night of Santa Fe Opera’s first-ever production of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which he will sing the role of Oberon.

For those who watched the Metropolitan Opera’s streaming productions during the pandemic you saw Davies perform in Nico Muhly‘s Marnie with Isabel Leonard; the Thomas Adés opera The Exterminating Angel and Handel’s Agrippina. The latter opera was conducted by Harry Bicket who leads the orchestra for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Britten’s opera, though not performed nearly as often as Billy Budd or Peter Grimes, is credited with rolling back centuries worth of history where the countertenor was confined to churches. It’s a significant moment in history that is not lost on Davies.

“I think without this role it’s very unlikely we’d be seeing countertenors in operas at the moment because it legitimized the countertenor as a serious stage voice. For someone as important as Benjamin Britten to put their faith and trust in a singer, and in particular Alfred Deller who was part of the whole regeneration and rebirth of 18th century music at the time, it’s hugely significant.”

Not that the press reaction to Deller’s performance was universally accepted as Davies learned.

“When I sang this role at the Aldeburgh Festival [home of the Britten-Pears Foundation] we got taken around to Britten’s house and the archives. There is a letter that Deller wrote to Briten after the dress rehearsal. In those days, because it was a new piece, the Times newspaper came and reviewed the dress rehearsal to get people interested in opening night. It was particularly unfavorable towards Deller and they couldn’t get their heads around it. Deller felt embarrassed and apologized and said ‘delete me when you see fit.’ Meaning before the opening. Britten could have said ‘you got me out of a tight spot’ and hired a woman to sing it. [He didn’t.] To me that letter is hugely significant because on it hinges the careers of most countertenors today.”

For such a groundbreaking role, Davies said that Oberon poses unique challenges for countertenors.

“To sing Oberon you have to really be able to sing it all in your falsetto properly to get that sound that Britten wanted – proper alto countertenor singing; none of this chest voice and trying to fake the bottom. These days it’s considered quite hard, even though it’s a relatively pain free role to sing. There’s not a coloratura aria, but a lot of countertenors shy away from it because it is just too low. They are going into the vocal studio with the mezzo sopranos and working on their high range because many careers can be flashy and if you can sing high that’s exciting. For me it’s so important to be able to sing a healthy voice with a low range near the bottom of your range. That is always a good indicator of your singing.”

In his mid-twenties Davies was already considering how long his career might be and whether his would be a voice that lasted a long time. He told Opera Today in 2006 that he’d “hope that in twenty years, I’d still have a happy voice.”

“When you are 27 you don’t realize how easy it is to do stuff and how quickly you can recover from tiredness, alcohol, whatever. At the time it seems difficult. Now I think it’s not so much the voice is less happy, but you’re just more self-aware of everything. I think I’m actually happier now when it goes well because there have been times in the last ten years, as all singers will tell you, where you have moments of doubt about the health of your voice. I think at the moment, depending on what’s in the diary, I’m pretty happy about my singing.”

He’s certainly happy about this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which reunites him with director Netia Jones.

“I did a production of this opera with Netia and it was a completely different production. It’s interesting to see a director take on a piece for a second time and she’s really nailed it. I’ve been in quite a few productions. They are either quite plain in the sense that they just do the play or they are kind of extreme. I did one at English National Opera with Christopher Alden which was set in a school and it was the power of teachers over the school and the school burned down. It was all very dark and I loved it. But this kind of sits somewhere in between. As it was done in Shakespeare’s time the same actor plays two different roles. Theseus and Oberon are kind of the same person. I’m king of the fairies, but I’m also the shadow, the human person. I hope it’s going to go down well because I think it’s pretty good.”

As is getting back on stage with an orchestra and an audience.

“We’ve had a lot of time to reflect on exactly why it is we do this job. And what became really apparent in this last year is when you do stuff without an audience there it feels completely wrong. You shouldn’t be standing there being paid to sing to nobody. Even if it’s on the internet. That’s not a real thing. It isn’t music unless it’s heard by somebody. As a performer you completely rely on the people listening to dictate where it’s going to go next – especially in opera when you’re repeating yourself over weeks.

“What differentiates classical music from pop music is people go to pop concerts because they want to hear the live version of a band’s song. There’s something really special about classical music where you want to hear the sort of definitive version that’s a one-off in that moment. Not I want to hear this opera live because I’ve listened to a CD. The moment you hear this music it’s gone. Nobody else will ever hear it again in this version. That’s what’s really special.”

For tickets to A Midsummer Night’s Dream please go here. There are performances on August 4th, 13th, 19th and 25th.

All photos: Iestyn Davies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (photo by Curtis Brown/Courtesy Santa Fe Opera)

The post Iestyn Davies Learns from the Past to Assure His Future appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

A pair of composers have two operas being shown this week: John Adams (Doctor Atomic and Nixon in China) and Philip Glass (Akhnaten and Satyagraha). Also represented are John Corigliano, Nico Muhly and Kurt Weill (technically German, but he ultimately became an American citizen).

Since the Met is re-running productions as the bulk of their weekly streaming schedule, I’m going to mix in interviews with the performers and creators in place of clips to avoid the redundancy of showing the same few clips available. Let me know your thoughts!

All productions become available at 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST and remain available for 23 hours. Schedules and timings may be subject to change.

The Met is heavily promoting their Met Stars Live in Concert series and the planned resumption of performances in the 2021-2022 season, so you’ll have to go past those announcements and promos to find the streaming productions on the Metropolitan Opera website. 

If you read this column early enough on June 28th, you’ll still have time to see the 2016-2017 season production of Verdi’s La Traviata that was part of Pride Week.

Here is the full line-up for Week 68 at the Met:

Monday, June 28 – Nico Muhly’s Marnie – 3rd Showing – STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

Conducted by Roberto Spano; starring Isabel Leonard, Iestyn Davies and Christopher Maltman. This Michael Mayer production is from the 2018-2019 season.

Muhly’s opera, with a libretto by Nicholas Wright, had its world premiere at the English National Opera in 2017. The opera is based on Winston Graham’s 1961 novel.

If the title, Marnie, sounds familiar, this is based on the same novel by Winston Graham that inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s 1964 film. The title character is a woman who steals from people, changes her identity and quickly moves on to other victims. Until an employer catches her and blackmails her.

Anthony Tommasini, in his review for the New York Times, said of the opera, “Marnie benefits from the director Michael Mayer’s sleek and fluid staging, with inventive sets and projections designed by Julian Crouch and 59 Productions. (It was first seen last year in London for the work’s premiere at the English National Opera.) Scenery changes are deftly rendered through sliding and descending panels on which evocative images are projected.

“Mr. Muhly’s music could not have had a better advocate than the conductor Robert Spano, making an absurdly belated Met debut at 57. He highlighted intriguing details, brought out myriad colorings, kept the pacing sure and never covered the singers.”

Tuesday, June 29 – John Adams’s Doctor Atomic – 3rd Showing

Conducted by Alan Gilbert; starring Sasha Cooke, Thomas Glenn, Gerald Finley, Richard Paul Fink and Eric Owens. This Penny Woolcock production is from the 2008-2009 season.

This John Adams opera had its world premiere in 2005 in San Francisco and features a libretto by Peter Sellars. The main source of inspiration for the libretto was declassified government documents from individuals who worked at Los Alamos on the development of the atomic bomb.

Act one of Doctor Atomic takes place approximately one month before the first test. The second act takes place the morning of that test in 1945. At the center of it all is Robert J. Oppenheimer (Finley).

In his review for the New York Times, Anthony Tomassini said of Adams’s score: “This score continues to impress me as Mr. Adams’s most complex and masterly music. Whole stretches of the orchestral writing tremble with grainy colors, misty sonorities and textural density. Mr. Gilbert exposes the inner details and layered elements of the music: obsessive riffs, pungently dissonant cluster chords, elegiac solo instrumental lines that achingly drift atop nervous, jittery orchestral figurations.”

Wednesday, June 30 – John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles – 4th Showing – STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

Conducted by James Levine; starring Håkan Hagegård, Teresa Stratas, Renée Fleming, Gino Quilico and Marilyn Horne. This Colin Graham production is from the 1991-1992 season.

Beaumarchais is the playwright who wrote the plays that inspired Rossini’s The Barber of Sevilleand Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. His third play in that series, The Guilty Mother, serves as the inspiration for this opera by John Corigliano and librettist William M. Hoffman.

In the opera, ghosts occupy the theatre at Versailles. Marie Antoinette, not too happy about her execution, spurns the advances of Beaumarchais. He offers his new opera, A Figaro for Antonia, as a means to win her love and change her fate. Now an opera appears within the opera, utilizing the familiar Figaro characters.

The Metropolitan Opera commissioned this work for its 100th anniversary in 1983. It wasn’t performed there until eight years after that centennial. This film is from those performances.

I interviewed Corigliano when LA Opera performed The Ghosts of Versailles. Here’s what he told me about how he handled opening night at the Met:

“The premiere of the opera, this is what I did. I sent out for a take-out chicken. I had a bottle of wine and ten milligrams of valium. I ate the chicken, took the valium and wine to the opening. If you’re asking about something that happened at opening night, I was a zombie. It was traumatizing. I’d never written an opera, it was overwhelming. I couldn’t face it without a little help.”

Both this Metropolitan Opera production and the more recent The LA Opera production were amazing and I personally think Corigliano had nothing to worry about. This is a terrific work.

Thursday, July 1 – Philip Glass’s Satyagraha – 3rd Showing – STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

Conducted by Dante Anzolini; starring Rachelle Durkin, Richard Croft, Kim Josephson and Alfred Walker. This is a revival of Phelim McDermott’s 2008 production from the 2011-2012 season.

This Philip Glass opera had its world premiere in 1980 in Rotterdam. The libretto was written by Glass and Candace DeJong. The title means “insistence on truth” in Sanskrit.

The life of Gandhi is depicted in a story that goes backwards and forwards through time as a way to examine his life in South Africa and leading to his belief in non-violent protests. Sung in Sanskrit with projected titles on the stage itself, this is one unique opera that is staged beautifully and powerfully.

James R. Oestreich, writing in the New York Times, said of this revival (which took place during a celebration of the the composer’s 75th birthday):

“The singers were exceptionally fine and well matched, starting with the tenor Richard Croft, strong yet vulnerable as Gandhi. Like Mr. Croft, Rachelle Durkin as Gandhi’s secretary, Miss Schlesen; Maria Zifchak as his wife, Kasturbai; and Alfred Walker as his Indian co-worker Parsi Rustomji were veterans of the 2008 premiere, and all were excellent except for a bit of strain in Ms. Durkin’s sustained high work in the newspaper scene. Kim Josephson was also strong as Gandhi’s European colleague Mr. Kallenbach.”

I challenge anyone to get to Satyagraha‘s final aria, “Evening Song,” and not be utterly moved.

Friday, July 2 – John Adams’s Nixon in China – 4th Showing

Conducted by John Adams; starring Kathleen Kim, Janis Kelly, Robert Brubaker, Russell Braun, James Maddalena and Richard Paul Fink. This Peter Sellars production is from the 2010-2011 season.

Nixon in China had its world premiere in Houston in 1987 in a production directed by Peter Sellars. Inspired by President Nixon’s trip to China in 1972, the opera features a libretto by Alice Goodman.

It was wholly unlikely that someone as anti-Communist as Nixon would make a trip to China. That trip forged new relations between the two countries and helped thaw the icy relationship the United States had with the then Soviet Union. Nixon and his wife Pat, Chou En-lai, Mao Tse-tung, Henry Kissinger and Madame Mao all play prominent roles in the opera.

This 2011 production, while a Met debut for Nixon in China, was not the New York debut of the opera. It was performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in 1987 following its premiere in Houston. Critical reaction upon its premiere was quite mixed.

By the time of this production (which found Sellars revisiting his original work and that of a 2006 revival), Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times called it an “audacious and moving opera.”

Saturday, July 3 –Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny – 2nd Showing

Conducted by James Levine; starring Teresa Stratas, Astrid Varnay, Richard Cassilly and Cornell MacNeil. This John Dexter production is from the 1979-1980 season. 

Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny had its world premiere in Leipzig in 1930. The libretto, of course, is by Bertolt Brecht.

Three fugitives and four lumberjacks make their way to Mahagonny. The fugitives are trying to elude the authorities and enjoy themselves in a city where men can get all their needs met. The lumberjacks are looking for opportunity. 

A prostitute named Jenny is, at first, attracted by the presence of the fugitives and their money. But she finds herself falling for one of the lumberjacks, Jimmy, who gets more and more in debt as the opera progresses.

As both personal and city financial problems mount, the lives of all eight characters will be changed forever and the shining city will collapse into chaos.

This was the first ever production of this opera at The Met. Harold C. Schonberg, writing in the New York Times, opened his review this way:

“The Weill‐Brecht Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny came to the Metropolitan Opera Friday night, and at least one question about the work was answered. There were those who predicted that Mahagonny with its cabaret roots, smallish orchestra and jazz elements, would not ‘go’ in a house as big as the Met’s. It does. Whether or not it is an opera, and Weill strongly insisted that it is, it does use voices skillfully, it has a big chorus, and it was not lost on the stage of the big house.”

Sunday, July 4 – Philip Glass’s Akhnaten – 6th Showing – STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

Conducted by Karen Kamensek; starring Dísella Lárusdóttir, J’Nai Bridges, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Aaron Blake, Will Liverman, Richard Bernstein and Zachary James. This Phelim McDermott production is from the 2019-2020. 

Akhnaten is one of Glass’s three biographical operas (the others are Einstein on the Beach and Saturday’s opera, Satyagraha.) The composer also wrote the libretto with the assistance of Shalom Goldman, Robert Israel, Richard Riddell and Jerome Robbins.

Akhnaten was a pharaoh who was controversial for his views on worshipping more than one God. He suggested just worshipping one – the sun. He was husband to Nefertitti and father of Tutankhamun. This opera does not have a linear storyline.

In his New York Times review, Anthony Tommasini praised the leads:

“Wearing gauzy red robes with extravagantly long trains, Mr. Costanzo and Ms. Bridges seem at once otherworldly and achingly real. His ethereal tones combine affectingly with her plush, deep-set voice. Ms. Kamensek, while keeping the orchestra supportive, brings out the restless rhythmic elements that suggest the couple’s intensity.”

I’ve seen this production with Costanzo singing the title role and cannot recommend taking the time to watch Akhnaten highly enough. 

That’s the full line-up for Week 68 at the Met. At press time we had no details for next week.

Enjoy your week! Enjoy the operas! Happy Birthday America!

Photo: James Maddalena, Russell Braun and Janis Kelly in Nixon in China (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy Metropolitan Opera)

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There are significant highlights this week. Topping my list is Nico Muhly‘s Marnie. There is also a 1985 telecast of Verdi’s Aida starring Leontyne Price. You can also watch Donizetti’s Tudor Trilogy.

Here’s the line-up and remember that each opera becomes available at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PDT and will remain available for free streaming for 23 hours.

Monday, April 27 – Donizetti’s Anna Bolena

Conducted by Marco Armiliato, starring Anna Netrebko, Ekaterina Gubanova, Stephen Costello, and Ildar Abdrazakov.

This production was the first time the Metropolitan Opera performed Anna Bolena in all its history. It was, however, the second time Netrebko had performed the role having sung it in Vienna earlier that year. The title, of course, is Italian for Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife.

Tuesday, April 28 – Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda

Conducted by Maurizio Benini, starring Elza van den Heever, Joyce DiDonato, and Matthew Polenzani.

Mary, Queen of Scots, is the central figure in this opera written by Donizetti that had its world premiere in 1835. The libretto Guiseppe Bardari, was based on Friedrich von Schiller’s play, Mary Stuart, from 1800.

Of DiDonato’s performance in the title role, Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times said, “Ms. DiDonato’s performance will be pointed to as a model of singing in which all components of the art form — technique, sound, color, nuance, diction — come together in service to expression and eloquence.”

Wednesday, April 29 – Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux

Conducted by Maurizio Benini, starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Elīna Garanča, Matthew Polenzani, and Mariusz Kwiecien.

Roberto Devereux was the last opera LA Opera performed before the pandemic forced closure of venues around the world. Donizetti’s opera had its world premiere in 1837. The title character was the 2nd Earl of Essex and served in the court of Queen Elizabeth the 1st.

It should be noted that all three of these productions were directed by David McVicar. Also worth mention is that when Radvanovsky sang in this production, she had also performed the two previous Donizetti operas in this informal trilogy in the same season at the Met.

Thursday, April 30 – Nico Muhly’s Marnie

Conducted by Roberto Spano, starring Isabel Leonard, Iestyn Davies, and Christopher Maltman.

If the title, Marnie, sounds familiar, this is based on the same novel by Winston Graham that inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s 1964 film. The title character is a woman who steals from people, changes her identity and quickly moves on to other victims. Until an employer catches her and blackmails her.

Muhly’s opera, with a libretto by Nicholas Wright, had its world premiere at the English National Opera in 2017. Nearly a year later it had its US premiere in this production at the Metropolitan Opera.

I’m a huge fan of Muhly’s work and I hope the Met Opera will soon make available his opera Two Boys which has a libretto by playwright Craig Lucas.

Friday, May 1 – Verdi’s Aida

Conducted by James Levine, starring Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, James McCracken, and Simon Estes. This video clip does not represent the quality of the film the Met will be streaming. But it does reflect the power of Leontyne Price.

This film marked Price’s farewell to opera. From a purely historical perspective, that alone makes this opportunity to see it unmissable. Reviews were mixed on the production, but by the end the ovation Price received acknowledges more than just a production or a performance, but also her career.

Saturday, May 2 – Verdi’s Luisa Miller

Conducted by Bertrand de Billy, starring Sonya Yoncheva, Piotr Beczała, and Plácido Domingo.

Luisa Miller was Verdi’s 15th opera. Like Maria Stuarda, the composer turned to Friedrich von Schiller for inspiration. His work, Kabale und Liebe, was the basis for Salvadore Cammarano’s libretto. The opera had its world premiere in 1849.

For those who miss seeing and hearing Domingo, the tenor-turned-baritone received rave reviews for his performance in what he said was his 149th new role in opera.

Sunday, May 3 – Borodin’s Prince Igor

Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, starring Oksana Dyka, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Ildar Abdrazakov.

This 2014 production marked the first time in nearly 100 years that Prince Igor had been performed at the Met. It was a new production directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov who also designed the sets.

Borodin based his opera on The Lay of Igor’s Host, a poem scholars believe dates back to the 12th century. The composer died before completing the opera and the work was ultimately finished and edited by composers Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. Prince Igor had its world premiere in 1890 in St. Petersburg three years after Borodin’s death.

Tommasini of the New York Times included this production on his list of 10 Best Classical Music Events of 2014.

As you can see, Week 7 at the Met is indeed an exciting one.

Photo: Isabel Leonard (center) in the title role of Nico Muhly’s Marnie with (l. to r.) Dísella Lárusdóttir, Deanna Breiwick, Peabody Southwell, and Rebecca Ringle Kamarei. (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy of the Met Opera)

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Muhly has assembled a program that includes his collaboration with Thomas Bartlett on Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music. This album was released in 2018 by Nonesuch Records. It features nine songs the two wrote together and three transcriptions of traditional Gamelan music.

Philip Glass has long been an inspiration for Muhly. As part of this program he will offer his own interpretations of some of the composer’s lesser-known works. These will be performed with Nadia Sirota on the viola and Caroline Shaw on vocals and violin, Alex Sopp on flute, Lisa Kaplan on piano, Lisa Liu on violin, Patrick Belaga on cello and Wade Culbreath on percussion.

Rumors are circulating about some special guests who will be part of this concert. Since Muhly has worked with Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Benjamin Millepied and more, who could they be?

I’m hoping that one or more of his operas, Two Boys, Dark Sides or Marnie might be performed in Los Angeles sooner as opposed to later.  LA Opera? Beth Morrison Projects? REDCAT?

Until that happens, we’ll have Archives, Friends, Patterns which is our pick for Your Best Bet This Week in Culture.

For tickets go here.

Photo of Nico Muhly by Heidi Solander/Courtesy of Cap UCLA

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