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Rambles

by Robert Wilder Blue

Several items crossed our desks during the past couple of months and we gathered together some of the most interesting for your consideration.

Se habla inglés

Recently, we noticed that the New York City Opera's press releases and other advertisements referred to the operas in its repertory by their English titles, rather than their original-language titles. We logged onto their Web site and found the same phenomenon. So, we decided to phone Claudia Keenan Hough, Director of Marketing at City Opera, to ask her about this. She told us that "part of City Opera's mission has always been and continues to be making opera accessible to as wide an audience as possible, especially to new audience members who might not have grown up with opera the way the previous generation did. We prefer to use The Flying Dutchman or The Magic Flute in our brochures and on our Web site. Our philosophy is very much about conveying the idea that 'this art form is for you and it is not something you do only if you know the language the opera is being sung in. You don't have to know some special code.' Certainly, when we print substantive information on the opera we include both the original-language title and the English title. But, we believe The Return of Ulysses is an opera that can speak to many people. It's not necessary you know that the composer, Claudio Monteverdi, is the father of opera, or that you understand Italian. I personally don't feel it is dumbing down or not showing respect for the opera itself. It's about trying to make opera live in this country and in this century. It's about inviting people to share in one of the world's greatest art forms. Speaking to someone in his or her own language is being open and inviting, and that's what City Opera tries to be."

Now, this might seem an insignificant point to ponder; however, we believe it makes a rather important statement. In their promotional materials, most opera companies in the U.S. give the title of the opera only in its original language, i.e., Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) or Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (The Return of Ulysses). Opera companies in other countries seldom follow this practice; in France, for instance, one encounters Le vaisseau fantôme (The Flying Dutchman) and Un tramway nommé désir (A Streetcar Named Desire). Original-language titling carries with it all the prejudices, pretensions, and phobias that are connected to opera in this country. Although, admittedly, it does alert the novice to what he or she is getting into. But, if your opera company wishes to sell tickets, wouldn't it be better to give the public some idea of what to expect? The Flying Dutchman conjures up so much more in the imagination of the English-speaker. The seasoned opera-goer probably finds Der fliegende Holländer more exotic-sounding, especially after having spent no small amount of time learning to pronounce it; but for most English-speakers, it may as well be Latin. One would still insist on La Bohème though, as that title just doesn't translate. The Bohemian Life is inaccurate and sounds funny besides.

Another side of the coin: Los Angeles Opera will present Lehár's La Viuda Alegre (The Merry Widow) for the benefit of the large Spanish-speaking population in that city, and Santa Fe Opera offers its audiences a choice between supertitles in English or Spanish.

The Same Old Song and Dance

Distressing is the only way to describe the views expressed in "Future Indefinite" by Joan Peyser and "A Novel Idea" by Joel Honig, which appeared in the August issue of Opera News. Actually, horrifying is more accurate. One hesitates to blame the editors of that publication personally for offenses leveled by others - everyone is entitled to her or his opinion, after all. Yet, as Opera News rarely publishes pieces that are negative in nature, we found it a strange departure and wondered if the only purpose had been to monger scandal. To us, it sounded like the same trashing American opera always gets from the critics and traditional-minded (and, it seems, New York-based).

Ms. Peyser is notorious for her dirt-filled biography of Leonard Bernstein; although, that book was conspicuously absent from her credits as listed in Opera News. In "Future Indefinite," she claims to examine the staying power of American operas. In fact, she fiddles an old tune: "Why can't American opera be more like this or like that?" She pines for the continued recycling of the European model and dismisses the efforts of those composers who are creating a unique, American voice.

Mr. Honig's piece was amusing in a naughty-boy-throwing-a-temper-tantrum sort of way. But his argument (that novels do not make good source material for opera) was so full of potholes and detours we could barely find our way; ultimately, it looked like just another American-opera bashing to us. Both pieces were completely subjective. Neither author impressed us by her or his knowledge or scholarship; neither did much to further the serious examination of opera by American composers.

We burned our copy.

Change Is Good

Lately, our thoughts have been on San Francisco Opera. (We can't help it - we live here.) Pamela Rosenberg arrived here in August to take over the leadership of the Company, heralding a new age for the Opera and the City. The innovations, renovations and repertory she has announced for her first five seasons sound enticing and we can't wait for her to get started (the current season was planned by her predecessor). One imagines she has gotten sick of hearing Kurt Herbert Adler's name; but anyone who attended the Opera during The Adler Years cannot help but yearn for a return of those thrills.

We want to encourage Ms. Rosenberg to continue her two predecessors' American opera campaign (in her own manner of course), particularly in presenting new works. Under Terry McEwen and Lotfi Mansouri, the Company commissioned eight operas from American composers. Five of them made it to the stage over a nine-year period: The Death of Klinghoffer (John Adams), The Dangerous Liaisons (Conrad Susa), Harvey Milk (Stewart Wallace), A Streetcar Named Desire (Andre Previn), and Dead Man Walking (Jake Heggie). Three were cancelled: Esther was commissioned from Hugo Weisgall by McEwen, cancelled by Mansouri, and finally premiered to great acclaim by New York City Opera; a commission extended to Bobby McFerrin was postponed repeatedly and eventually cancelled; and a second opera was commissioned from Mr. Previn by Mansouri and cancelled by Ms. Rosenberg. One of the happy results of this commissioning activity was the creation of a public for new American works. Many words have been printed about the perceived merits and deficiencies of these operas. Death of Klinghoffer is held in high regard; Streetcar continues to have a life; and Dead Man Walking is nothing short of a hit, with thirteen future productions currently scheduled. One imagines that this record is about the same as in any other time and place in history.

Ms. Rosenberg has stated to the press that before she extends commissions, she needs time to learn about the scene in the U. S. and to get to know our composers (she has spent the last two decades in Germany). This seems smart. She says she envisions seeking out American composers to develop pieces at some time in the future, but falls short of mentioning either "commission" or "produce." She has announced for 2003-4 a production of Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All (1947) and for "a future season" the commissioning of a new work subtitled "An American Faust" from a composer to be determined. One hopes she determines an American composer up to the job. In the meantime, she is trying to persuade Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Györgi Ligeti, Luigi Nono, or Wolfgang Rihm (all well-known Europeans) to write an opera for the company's 2004-05 season.

It is presumptuous and foolish to judge Ms. Rosenberg before we see her work. The new energy and outlook she brings to the Company are welcome (we wish we had gone to the airport with a big sign to greet her!). We would only remind her that those all-time favorite opera composers Mozart, Rossini, Verdi and Wagner were given the benefit of the doubt after Apollo et Hyacinthus, Demetrio e Polibio, Oberto and Die Feen, respectively. Unless Ms. Rosenberg has a crystal ball, she will need to take a similar leap of faith as did those composers' early employers. In the meantime, we have a list of about 25 American operas already composed that we would be happy to suggest to her.

Ancient History Repeats Itself

A friend gave us a copy of a November 13, 1972 Newsweek so we could be reminded of those heady Adler years at San Francisco Opera (a Sutherland Norma opened the season, a Sills Lucia di Lammermoor closed it, and the complete Ring Cycle was seen in-between; Meyerbeer's L'Africaine and the U.S. premiere von Einem's A Visit From An Old Lady were commented on by Hubert Saal). But before we could get to those pages, we were distracted by the cover, a close-up photograph of a smiling, confident-looking Richard Nixon so large his head didn't fit on the page, with the word "LANDSLIDE" obscuring half the magazine's title. Mr. Nixon had just been reelected to the presidency in an election that gave his Democratic opponent George McGovern only seventeen electoral votes (from Massachusetts and the District of Columbia). Of course, we know how Mr. Nixon's political career ended; not a glimmer of his fate is betrayed in that photo, though. Was the smaller photograph, buried on page 40, of Nixon dropping his ballot while voting an omen of things to come? Mr. Nixon has been immortalized in John Adams's opera Nixon in China, a work that has inspired the "m" word (masterpiece) from those who make such pronouncements, and is getting some attention in Europe. It is still looking for a major revival in the U.S.

In other 1972 election news, three new U.S. Senators were elected: from North Carolina, Jesse Helms, "a strident right-wing TV commentator," won with the endorsement of Ku Klux Klan; Delaware elected Joseph Biden, who would turn 30 (the minimum age for the office) only 44 days before being sworn in; and an "obscure country lawyer" from Georgia, Sam Nunn, won his first election. Maine Senator, Margaret Chase Smith, for many years the Senate's only woman, was unable to withstand the "ungentlemanly" campaign waged by Democrat William P. Hathaway; she lost the election and left the Senate to its all-male ways. Over in the House of Representives, Mississippi gave "archconservative" Trent Lott his first job; New Yorkers asked Bella Abzug and Elizabeth Holtzman to represent them; and Andrew Young, a former aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King, became Georgia's first black congressman since Reconstruction.

In response to the October 23 cover story "Black Movies," readers wrote, "I would not mind trash like 'Super Fly' if the moviemakers would only show other dimensions of black life…. Our brothers in Hollywood speak out against the old 'Uncle Tom,' and 'yes, suh' stereotype, yet they … have created a new stereotype, almost as bad as the old: that of the rampant, soul-coated, cocky, supersexual warrior…;" and "One can only wonder at the public outrage that would ensue if Hollywood suddenly released a picture in which a blond, blue-eyed fellow went storming through a ghetto neighborhood heroically murdering every black that happened to cross his path;" and, finally, "It is the peak of immorality when a black man goes to bed with a white woman…. Hats off to Archie Bunker!" (Archie Bunker was a character in the 70s television series All In the Family, which has eternal life on cable television.)

Also noted ("The New Arab Terror") was that an American-made device (read: bomb small enough to be mailed in an envelope) designed for use in Vietnam was used to kill an Israeli diplomat in London. "Let's hope that during the U.S. debate on terrorism it will be agreed that this weapon and all other such weapons used by terrorists, including the American terrorists in Southeast Asia, will be banned," wrote a Florida reader.

And briefly, because we do tend to go on: twenty-one members of Britain's royal family posed for a photograph "in anticipation of [Queen Elizabeth II's] 25th wedding anniversary" (one presumes her husband, Prince Philip, was anticipating the event also); Idaho-born poet Ezra Pound, who had died a week earlier, was eulogized as "a tough, wrongheaded genius" who "changed the course of English literature during the second and third decades of this century;" two years after it was introduced, the IBM photocopier had failed to live up to the Company's expectations that it would lead "Xerox's world to crumble;" and, finally-whew!, top 60s French fashion model (they didn't call them supermodels then) Zouzou had become an instant celebrity after the release of her first movie, Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon, and was attracting the attentions of Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty (AARP members now), among others. She tells the interviewer that "marriage is just useless," and defends her first record album, saying, "I was out of tune, but it was no great risk to [the producer]. There are so many bad singers in France." Newsweek informs us that Zouzou, like another young 70s actress, Cybill Shepherd, "projects a new kind of glamour, suggesting that behind the alluring façade, there is a disturbing, complicated, original woman." To find out what Zouzou has been up to the past 29 years, check out http://perso.worldonline.fr/zouzou/uk/3choixportrait1.htm.

Getting Back to the Subject

A new opera season has begun and we note a marked increase in performances of American operas and other musical stage works by opera companies in the U.S. and around the world. Our now second annual, informal and not entirely complete survey reveals that there will take place at least 313 performances of 34 different works during the 2001-2002 season. This is about three times the number of performances as were given last season. There will be eleven different revivals of operas written in the past three years (Little Women, A Streetcar Named Desire, Resurrection, The Great Gatsby, Dead Man Walking), reversing the trend of new operas not getting a second production.

At least seven world premieres will occur: Lilith (Deborah Drattel) at New York City Opera, Thérèse Raquin (Tobias Picker) at The Dallas Opera, Dracula (Richard Oberacker) and The Memory Game (Joel Hoffman) at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Evelyn Swensson) at OperaDelaware, Heloise and Abelard (Stephen Paulus) at The Juilliard School, and Loss of Eden (Cary John Franklin) at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

It might surprise some that only one professional production of Gian Carlo Menotti's perennial holiday crowdpleaser Amahl and the Night Visitors appears on the schedule. Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, Kurt Weill's Street Scene and George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess will be seen in several cities, an acknowledgment of those operas' places in the repertory. We're particularly excited that Francesca Zambello's production of Floyd's masterpiece Of Mice and Men, a spectacular hit at the Bregenz (Austria) Festival in August, will come to Washington, DC in October and Houston in February (where it will be recorded). Marc Blitzstein's opera, Regina, based on Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes, will receive a major new production by the Florida Grand Opera (March 2002). Mr. Blitzstein's early musical theater work, No For An Answer, makes its world stage debut at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Get on board the train for Cincinnati! Opera-goers in this city will have the opportunity to survey nearly fifty years of American opera. Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music devotes its entire season to American works. In addition to the two world premieres mentioned above, it will present The Medium (Gian Carlo Menotti), Candide (Leonard Bernstein), Transformations (Conrad Susa), The Crucible (Robert Ward) and The Ballad of Baby Doe (Douglas Moore). To end the season, one can take in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking at Cincinnati Opera.

Candide will receive no fewer than six productions this season. Viewed as a problematic work to pull off, it nevertheless still fascinates us. Not that we're in the business of selling records, but, anyone with an interest in this piece should rush to his or her local CD store and pick up a copy of the original Broadway cast recording (1956) with Barbara Cook, Robert Rounseville, Max Adrian and Irra Petina. If the performing edition isn't definitive, the performers are. Of further interest on that recording are the lyrics of Dorothy Parker, which have been cut from subsequent performing editions. (If the proprietor tells you it's out of print, threaten to organize marches, boycotts, hunger strikes and other acts of civil disobedience until you get your copy.)

The rest of the world remains more fascinated by America's musical theater works than our operas. Leonard Bernstein's masterpiece West Side Story pops up at the Vienna Volksoper and around England; Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd can be seen in England and Australia; and Jerome Kern's Showboat will be presented by L'Opéra National du Rhin, which also presents the European premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire (Un tramway nommé désir).

Compact disc collectors can get to know no fewer than six recent American operas in their world premiere recordings: Little Women (Mark Adamo), Cold Sassy Tree (Carlisle Floyd), and Resurrection (Tod Machover) come from Houston Grand Opera on the Ondine label; the Manhattan School of Music's presentation of Scott Eyerly's The House of the Seven Gables and the Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of William Bolcom's A View From The Bridge are featured on the Albany label; and Erato brings us Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking from the San Francisco Opera.

Welcome to the new Golden Age of American opera!

September 11, 2001

We cannot leave unacknowledged the recent terrorist attack on the United States, unmourned the victims, nor unconsidered the ramifications.

One popular response as been along the line of "things will never be the same." Perhaps that is true. Many countries have lived and continue to live with terrorism and the reality or threat of war. Can life go on "as normal" for Americans living in the U.S.? One hopes not in some ways and pleads for it in others. Thinking of the families and friends of the dead and missing, of the rescue workers, and of the survivors, we might feel our everyday lives and work are trivial. Some of our friends, including artists featured in these pages, have written to tell us so, and about the difficulty they are having focusing on their work. Yet, we all must go back to our work if we are able, for that is how life continues.

Elizabeth Kendall from The New Yorker was in St. Petersburg ten years ago when the Soviet Union broke up. She noted that in the middle of the coup three dancers from the Kirov Ballet went to the Kirov Theatre to give themselves a class. When they arrived at the stage door, a worker told them to leave - the theatre had been closed under martial law. One of the dancers, Tatiana Terekhova, put down her foot. "Nonsense. You can't tell us to go away. There was a revolution in 1917, and dancers didn't stop working then. Revolutions will come and go and we'll still be here doing our battements tendus."