OPERA
Dido in the Catacombs
Opera in an iconic Brooklyn cemetery; unaff ecting prison fare
BY DAVID SHENGOLD
The music series “The Angel’s
Share,” imaginatively
and wittily curated by
producer Andrew Ousley,
uses an extraordinary venue: the
mid-19th century Catacombs cut
into Brooklyn’s iconic Green-Wood
Cemetery, which affords extraordinary
atmosphere plus terrifi c views
of Manhattan. The Catacombs’ long
space has a — sorry! — haunting
acoustic, which imparted mystery
to harpsichordist and conductor
Elliot Figg’s fi ve-piece string ensemble
in Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”
(seen June 5).
The iconic opera got an intelligent,
visually inventive if slightly
overbusy staging from tenor Alek
Shrader. Talented dancer Liana
Kleinman too often grabbed focus,
as if channeling the Falcon
in Richard Strauss’ “Frau ohne
Schatten”. Shrader added in pertinent
passages from Marlowe’s
1593 “Dido, Queen of Carthage” —
not strictly necessary but not a bad
idea either. This swelled the named
cast members to include Iarbas,
Dido’s local suitor, and Anna, her
sister (who took Purcell’s Second
Woman’s music). Despite resonant
voices, neither performer spoke the
verse easily, and giving the overlooked
Anna an Elettra-style Mad
Scene derailed the central tragedy’s
pace.
I’ve now seen Daniela Mack —
a real chameleon onstage — convincingly
inhabit Handel’s Bradamante
(“Alcina”) and Rosmira
(“Partenope”), Siebel, Berlioz’s Beatrice,
Carmen, and the murderous
title role of Kevin Puts’ “Elizabeth
Cree.” Her Dido was equally stylish
from the musical point of view as
well as thoughtfully and effectively
performed from a dramatic perspective.
She declaimed the Marlowe
lines with more impact and
nuance than her colleagues and
sang Purcell’s remarkable music
with tonal variety and beautiful
phrasing. A striking fi gure in Fay
Eva’s red dress and jewelry, she
rightly dominated the proceedings.
So far, the Met has utilized her
Brooke Larimer, Daniela Mack, and Molly Quinn in “The Angel’s Share” production of Purcell’s “Dido and
Aeneas” in the Catacombs in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.
manifest talents only as the Kitchen
Boy in “Rusalka,” with Varvara
in “Kat’a Kabanova” on deck next
season. Luxury casting! Opera
Philadelphia recognizes Mack’s artistic
worth more fully, presenting
her next season as Juno/ Ino (“Semele”)
and in Verdi’s “Requiem.”
The two other female leads, gifts
to strong performers, were strongly
vocalized and acted in complementary
fashion to Mack’s proud,
impassioned Dido. Molly Quinn
showed well-honed baroque style in
Belinda’s coruscating music, and
Vanessa Cariddi dug richly into
the oft-caricatured music of the
envious, destructive Sorceress. Aeneas
has little music. Paul La Rosa
looked suitably heroic and romantic;
it’s a fi ne voice, but he tended
to roar operatically in the confi ned
space. Stylish, deft contributions
came from Marc Molomot’s Sailor
and Erin Moll’s Wayward Sister.
Keep your eyes open for news of
“The Angel’s Share” future emanations:
this “Dido” proved a memorable
evening.
As part of music director’s Jaap
van Zweden Beethoven-centered
“Music of Conscience” mini-festival,
the New York Philharmonic
unveiled “prisoner of the state” by
David Lang: his 13th stage work,
and not his fi rst effort to enter into
dialogue with an existing canonical
work. This well-intentioned
co-commission retells “Fidelio” employing
none of Beethoven’s music
and omitting Marzelline, Jacquino,
KEVIN CONDON
and — perhaps most signifi cantly
— Don Fernando, the deus ex
machina Justice Minister.
Elkhanah Pulitzer’s well-judged
staging, effectively blocked and
successfully employing video, took
place around the orchestra. The
male chorus (Donald Nally’s Concert
Chorale of New York) was excellent
in clarity and tone as the
prisoners (on a platform behind
and above the players). The equivalent
of Beethoven’s “O welche Lust”
proved the most compelling — indeed,
the only moving — segment
of Lang’s 70 minute-long score. His
libretto is insistently “plain-spoken”
to the point of mannerism.
The composition — more memorable
for rhythm than for melody —
is highly professional, tidily handling
in Brittenesque fashion one
musical motive in each segment.
Though van Zweden’s guidance of
his players proved clear, the orchestration
sometimes covered the
vocal soloists. Also, Mark Grey’s
sound design was over-resonant
and the black-and-white video of
lyric baritone Jarrett Ott’s Prisoner
distractingly out of synch with the
beautifully phrased legato sounds
he produced, Jokanaan-like, from
an understage trap door. (The hunky
Ott and childlike Julie Mathevet
seemed improbably young to be an
established ‘prisoner of the state”
and his long-term wife.)
As the Assistant — the Leonore
fi gure — Mathevet was puzzlingly
miscast: audibly not an Anglophone,
she distorted vowels in
both dialogue and song. Plus, her
tiny high soprano — she is a frequent
Yniold — only carried atop
ensembles. Elsewhere she sounded
— when audible over Lang’s heavily
percussive orchestration — like
a fl atting boy treble. His bass-baritone
in good estate, Eric Owens’
strong presence and clear diction
served him well as The Jailer. Alan
Oke also evidenced effective stage
presence as the sinister Pizarro
fi gure, but his incisive tenor is now
somewhat decayed tonally, suitable
for Musorgsky’s Shuisky but
not always fi rmly produced here.
An example of the piece’s
Brechtian dramaturgy: when The
Assistant fi res her gun at The Governor,
the lights fade, and he takes
the gun, the moment has a lyrically
cynical, cello-accompanied
monologue about the futility of action
(“What is one man?”) heavily
evocative of Jimmy Mahoney’s preexecution
reverie from “Mahagonny.”
Lang’s fi nal chorus, delivered
by all the participants to the audience,
suggests the same operatic
source (and the same skepticism
about rescue or amelioration).
Much must be said about the injustices
of mass incarceration in
the United States and elsewhere,
but — whatever its benefi cent intentions
— this ultimately unaffecting
piece did not express it either
musically or dramatically.
One last chance to hear the
superb Met Orchestra before the
summer came June 14, when
at Carnegie Hall Yannick Nézet-
Séguin led the gorgeous-voiced
mezzo Elina Garanca through
Mahler’s fi ve “Rueckert-Lieder” —
not a cycle but a group of poems by
the same writer. Mahler brilliantly
orchestrated four; after his death,
conductor Max Puttmann tackled
the fi fth, “Liebst du am Schoenheit,”
a wedding gift/love token to
the composer’s legendarily fi ckle
bride Alma. Coping with a recent
injury that caused her some canceled
bookings, Garanca was brave
to perform at all, and — taking a
➤ LAST MET CHANCE, continued on p.49
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