As signed photograph of her first assumption in the 1960s of Emila Marty in The Makropulos Case
November 30, 2009
Vale Elisabeth Söderström
As signed photograph of her first assumption in the 1960s of Emila Marty in The Makropulos Case
November 20, 2009
Review - Cosi fan tutte - Opera Australia
Like most opera companies, the Mozart/da Ponte trifecta of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte are central to Opera Australia’s repertoire. Like his production of Don Giovanni, the staging of Cosi fan tutte by the late Göran Järvefelt served the company well for decades before being replaced in September by this new take on the story by Jim Sharman. Sharman is one of Australia’s most invigorating stage directors whose earliest work was with Opera Australia (then called The Australian Opera) when, in 1967, as a twenty-one year old, he produced Don Giovanni, setting it on a huge chess board and calculating the Don’s progress to Hell like chess strategies. Sharman’s biggest claim to worldwide fame, however, is as director of the original Rocky Horror Show and it’s subsequent film adaptation. In Australia he is counted among the country’s foremost directors with laudable stagings of classic and contemporary plays, musicals and occasionally operas. His staging of Britten’s Death in Venice was mounted for the 1980 Adelaide Festival, eight years after it’s premiere where it garnered favourable comments from local and international critics before being taken into Opera Australia’s repertoire where it still holds sway nearly thirty years later.
Like than early Don Giovanni, Sharman’s Cosi sadly seems to be trying too hard. But by most accounts Cosi is a difficult opera to pull off. The partner swapping shenanigans and misogynist sentiment have stranded it as a kind of antiquated boulevard farce like Georges Feydeau set to music!
Using a contemporary setting, Sharman reveals during the overture a wedding party, the couple, a Japanese Bride and Groom, arriving at the reception before freezing the action and transporting the Bride and Groom to either side of the stage where they watch the opera unfold before being transported back at the end of the opera to their nuptials as the cast sing the opera’s moral. Don Alfonso’s (José Carbó) bet appears to be a the result of a locker room brag as Ferrando (Henry Choo) and Guglielmo (Luke Gabbedy), under stylised showers, compare their respective fiancée’s virtue (rather, as one would imagine in a locker room situation, their physical or sexual attributes). The action unfolds in a white walled set, designed by Ralph Myers, with an arched floor where the stranded wedding organisers and guests act as chorus and occasional prop movers. Occasionally the wedding photographer appears with a live video camera to zoom in on characters during their principal arias and relay their image to a huge curtain interminably pulled back and forth throughout the long opera.
While the concept may be puzzling it works well enough until the second act where these directorial high jinks gloss over the searing bitterness as Fiordiligi (Hye Seoung Kwon) agonises over her situation and the two men agonise over the swiftness of their lovers infidelity. Unlike Brad and Janet in Sharman’s notorious Rocky Horror Show, the partner swapping and sexual humiliation is far from funny. In fairness the fault lies with the opera itself it’s sexual attitudes are as infuriating to modern audiences as those of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and even the best directors have a tough job with either.
The opera is also sung in a modern English translation by Jeremy Sams that almost matches the famous, mid-twentieth century, Ruth and Thomas Martin translation for its lumpiness. While getting plenty of laughs for its up to date casualness (“I might forget myself or even wet myself” sing the men after Guglielmo’s ‘mustacchi’ serenade sends the ladies packing), Sams’s choice of words robs the open-vowelled flow of da Ponte’s Italian text. Nor does Sams even try to be literal about translating the original words, let along consider their singability “I have sinned my best beloved” is his substitution for Fiordiligi’s “per pieta, ben mio perdona”. Sams even suggests that the opera's ‘motif’’ “Cosi fan tutte”, when sung by Don Alfonso should be “That’s how God made them”. The obligations of a translation - should it be as literal as rendition of the original as possible - and other concerns about the act and art of translating make an essay on its own but, if an opera company must perform a work in translation (and spend good money on royalties for it) it should at least be better than this.
To their credit, the young cast sing even the most difficult passages clearly, nearly every word of the unfortunate text is audible. Henry Choo is a most stylish tenor; his voice has the heft to carry into the big auditorium without apparent force. He establishes a beautiful and limpid line through ‘Un’aura amorosa’ and is spot-on in the difficult runs in the act one finale. As Guglielmo, Luke Gabbedy’s light baritone could almost be mistaken for a tenor and a darker colour might be wished for in the duet with Dorabella (Sian Pendry) and the act two aria. The same applies to José Carbó’s as Alfonso, the voice seeming lighter than one would expect for the role. Of the ladies the most accomplished is Tiffany Speight as Despina. I first heard Speight in a production of the Brecht/Weill piece Happy End in a suburban theatre in Melbourne before she joined Opera Australia. Already the operatic potential of her voice was apparent and, a decade on, Speight is one of the company’s best Mozartians (think of Leslsey Garrett's 1980s voice and presence and you'll have an idea of what I mean). Speight's voice is silvery and her charming stage presence carries with the same clarity. Hye Seong Kwon handled Fiordiligi’s big moments with breathtaking ease, long phrases, octave jumps and embellishments all perfectly judged despite the impositions the English words placed on her. Sian Pendry handled Dorabella’s music with similar ease; hers is a high, light mezzo, rather like Gabbedy’s high, light baritone. Kwon and Pendry also make their first appearance in swim suits and spend the rest of the opera equally revealing costumes and both have catwalk figures.
Some of the embellished vocal lines occasionally depart from the more familiar resolutions (this is presumably the Bärenreiter Mozart edition). Ollivier-Philippe Cunéo coaxed a period sounding performance from the orchestra, the strings occasionally emphasising that wiry sound that passes for authentic. Cunéo also adopts that peculiar practice of breathlessly playing the two opening chords of the overture (as evidenced in Arnold Östman's 1986 recording of the opera) and generally rushing things where a little restraint might have been better. The woodwind were often given a difficult time and the big moment when Fiordiligi finally succumbs (Mozart’s delectably sudden change from lurching chords to gorgeous runs on the strings) passed without the attention it deserves.
With chic costumes and attractive singers to wear them, this Cosi will certainly appeal to younger audiences. Sharman is obviously at his best when dealing amorous absurdities but the deeper musical and emotional content that is so unique in the Mozart/da Ponte operas are left buried.
Like than early Don Giovanni, Sharman’s Cosi sadly seems to be trying too hard. But by most accounts Cosi is a difficult opera to pull off. The partner swapping shenanigans and misogynist sentiment have stranded it as a kind of antiquated boulevard farce like Georges Feydeau set to music!
Using a contemporary setting, Sharman reveals during the overture a wedding party, the couple, a Japanese Bride and Groom, arriving at the reception before freezing the action and transporting the Bride and Groom to either side of the stage where they watch the opera unfold before being transported back at the end of the opera to their nuptials as the cast sing the opera’s moral. Don Alfonso’s (José Carbó) bet appears to be a the result of a locker room brag as Ferrando (Henry Choo) and Guglielmo (Luke Gabbedy), under stylised showers, compare their respective fiancée’s virtue (rather, as one would imagine in a locker room situation, their physical or sexual attributes). The action unfolds in a white walled set, designed by Ralph Myers, with an arched floor where the stranded wedding organisers and guests act as chorus and occasional prop movers. Occasionally the wedding photographer appears with a live video camera to zoom in on characters during their principal arias and relay their image to a huge curtain interminably pulled back and forth throughout the long opera.While the concept may be puzzling it works well enough until the second act where these directorial high jinks gloss over the searing bitterness as Fiordiligi (Hye Seoung Kwon) agonises over her situation and the two men agonise over the swiftness of their lovers infidelity. Unlike Brad and Janet in Sharman’s notorious Rocky Horror Show, the partner swapping and sexual humiliation is far from funny. In fairness the fault lies with the opera itself it’s sexual attitudes are as infuriating to modern audiences as those of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and even the best directors have a tough job with either.
The opera is also sung in a modern English translation by Jeremy Sams that almost matches the famous, mid-twentieth century, Ruth and Thomas Martin translation for its lumpiness. While getting plenty of laughs for its up to date casualness (“I might forget myself or even wet myself” sing the men after Guglielmo’s ‘mustacchi’ serenade sends the ladies packing), Sams’s choice of words robs the open-vowelled flow of da Ponte’s Italian text. Nor does Sams even try to be literal about translating the original words, let along consider their singability “I have sinned my best beloved” is his substitution for Fiordiligi’s “per pieta, ben mio perdona”. Sams even suggests that the opera's ‘motif’’ “Cosi fan tutte”, when sung by Don Alfonso should be “That’s how God made them”. The obligations of a translation - should it be as literal as rendition of the original as possible - and other concerns about the act and art of translating make an essay on its own but, if an opera company must perform a work in translation (and spend good money on royalties for it) it should at least be better than this.
To their credit, the young cast sing even the most difficult passages clearly, nearly every word of the unfortunate text is audible. Henry Choo is a most stylish tenor; his voice has the heft to carry into the big auditorium without apparent force. He establishes a beautiful and limpid line through ‘Un’aura amorosa’ and is spot-on in the difficult runs in the act one finale. As Guglielmo, Luke Gabbedy’s light baritone could almost be mistaken for a tenor and a darker colour might be wished for in the duet with Dorabella (Sian Pendry) and the act two aria. The same applies to José Carbó’s as Alfonso, the voice seeming lighter than one would expect for the role. Of the ladies the most accomplished is Tiffany Speight as Despina. I first heard Speight in a production of the Brecht/Weill piece Happy End in a suburban theatre in Melbourne before she joined Opera Australia. Already the operatic potential of her voice was apparent and, a decade on, Speight is one of the company’s best Mozartians (think of Leslsey Garrett's 1980s voice and presence and you'll have an idea of what I mean). Speight's voice is silvery and her charming stage presence carries with the same clarity. Hye Seong Kwon handled Fiordiligi’s big moments with breathtaking ease, long phrases, octave jumps and embellishments all perfectly judged despite the impositions the English words placed on her. Sian Pendry handled Dorabella’s music with similar ease; hers is a high, light mezzo, rather like Gabbedy’s high, light baritone. Kwon and Pendry also make their first appearance in swim suits and spend the rest of the opera equally revealing costumes and both have catwalk figures.
Some of the embellished vocal lines occasionally depart from the more familiar resolutions (this is presumably the Bärenreiter Mozart edition). Ollivier-Philippe Cunéo coaxed a period sounding performance from the orchestra, the strings occasionally emphasising that wiry sound that passes for authentic. Cunéo also adopts that peculiar practice of breathlessly playing the two opening chords of the overture (as evidenced in Arnold Östman's 1986 recording of the opera) and generally rushing things where a little restraint might have been better. The woodwind were often given a difficult time and the big moment when Fiordiligi finally succumbs (Mozart’s delectably sudden change from lurching chords to gorgeous runs on the strings) passed without the attention it deserves.
With chic costumes and attractive singers to wear them, this Cosi will certainly appeal to younger audiences. Sharman is obviously at his best when dealing amorous absurdities but the deeper musical and emotional content that is so unique in the Mozart/da Ponte operas are left buried.
Cosi fan tutte (1790) Opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte
First performance - 26 January 1790, Burgtheater Vienna
First Australian performance - February 17 1953, Princess Theatre, Melbourne
First performance of this production - 17 September 2009
Fioriligi – Hye Seoung Kwon
Dorabella – Sian Pendry
Despina – Tiffany Speight
Ferrando – Henry Choo
Guglielmo - Luke Gabbedy
Don Alfonso - José Carbó
Conductor - Ollivier-Philippe Cunéo
English translation of the original Italian text - Jeremy Sams
Director – Jim Sharman
Set Designer – Ralph Myers
Costume Designer – Gabriela Tylesova
State Theatre, The Arts Centre, Melbourne
19, 21, 24, 27 November 3, 5, 9 & 12 December 2009
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