SPOLETO BUZZ BLOG

Good post today from Dan Conover on the P&C’s Spoletoblog. He’s got a point: Die Vögel, which is by all accounts an excellent opera that’d be getting huge press in any other year, is, strangely, the subject of about as much chatter as another Paris Hilton sex video.

The loser in the buzz-game so far has got to be Die Voegel, which is, by all accounts, an excellent production. Here’s what our William Furtwangler had to say about the May 27 premiere: The “musically and visually stunning American premiere performance of Walter Braunfels’ ‘Die Voegel’ excited and inspired the Sottile Theatre audience. With astonishing singing and dazzling staging, this long-lost work even now electrifies…”

So how does something with those qualifications go so unremarked in the first week? There can be little argument that the most talked-about performances so far have been La bella dormente, DollHouse and the Big Buzz Champ, Don Giovanni. Die Voegel has been slogging along somewhere in the middle of the bell curve, much respected but almost forgotten. I hear more chatter about Charles Wadsworth’s most recent quips than I hear about Die Voegel.

One reason may be its scheduling:Voegel hasn’t been performed since opening night of the festival, and tonight’s second performance is up against Kingdom of Desire, which is sucking so much of the oxygen out of the room. Compare that to La bella dormente (three performances) and Don Giovanni (two).

I’m seeing it on Saturday, so you can at least be assured of reading more about it then.

If you, like me, were wondering exactly what’s printed on the Polaroid pictures Leoprillo strews across the Memminger stage early in Don Giovanni, when he’s telling Donna Elvira about his master’s thousands of exploits, then wonder no more. Here for your cultural erudition is one of the faux Polaroids, which I liberated from the floor near my seat after the opening night performance. Scroll down to see the image. (This is probably not a good idea if you’re a prude, if you’re easily scandalized, or if you’re appalled by the human figure).

After soaking in some of The Abduction, I hightailed it over to the Simons Center’s Recital Hall for Tuesday evening’s a presentation of Spoleto’s second ‘Conversations With’ program, which was supposed to feature Don Giovanni director Gunther Krämer, with Emmanuel Villaume and new P&C overview critic Blair Tindall. Krämer, however, had apparently had to fly to Germany, so we got Villaume, Tindall, and Reese Williams, production manager for Spoleto.

The main topic of conversation, naturally, was Don Giovanni, which has received about as strong a reception as anyone at Spoleto could have hoped for. (As I mentioned earlier, Emmanuel stated at the program and, later, to me in person, that Spoleto would definitely be keeping the set up at the Memminger and presenting Don G again at next year’s festival.)

Emmanuel’s a remarkably engaging speaker, and you can’t say he’s shy about thee spotlight, either (although both Blair and Reese seemed to wilt a little when they spoke). Some of the cool stuff we learned:
* The pool is heated. “At one point,” Villaume said, “none of the actors would get in because it was too cold.”
* A chemical they used in the pool’s water had an unforseen efffect on the white cotton costumes the chorus wore for the final dress rehearsal — it dissolved them. “Half of the chorus was naked for that dress rehearsal,” Emmanuel laughed. (This may also be why someone was shouting about ‘pornography’ in the lobby on the night before the opera opened.)
* Emmanuel on the casting of Nmon Ford, a black singer, in the role of Don Giovannni and some Charlestonians’ reactions to that: “It’s a touchy subject, and I’m not from the South. I’m waiting for the day when color is not an issue. But it’s still an issue, and we can’t ignore the effect right now. So the fact that Nmon Ford is black is something we play with a little in the staging. It’s a way to unsettle people a little. But it’s not part of a master plan to make a social or political statement.”
* According to Krämer, the actors in the play who sometimes hide their eyes with one hand and turn slowly in place — something that happens only when Don Giovanni is not on stage — is an effort to show that they are without a focus when he is gone, they have no point of reference.
* Krämer’s unique staging had a huge dose of cinematographic influence — he had specifically cited Ingmar Bergman to hos Martha Tiechner.
* It takes the crew three hours just to reset the skull, after it appears out of the mulch and leaves at the opera’s end.
* Most operas have two weeks or less to rehearse their staging with the actors and musicians. Spoleto, which self-produces all its operas, had slightly more than a month, in the case of Don Giovanni.

I was running slightly late when I arrived at New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church on Elizabeth Street yesterday for the second presentation of Piccolo’s biggest work in this year’s Spotlight Concert Series, Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio. It was still raining, of course, but that didn’t seem to have stopped Piccolites from turning out in droves for the concert version of the ‘other’ Mozart opera in this year’s festival. Abduction is the first opera Piccolo has presented in quite a few years (perhaps ever), and the 1200 seats of the big church in Mazyck-Wraggboro were very nearly full. Piccolo matriarch Ellen Dressler Moryl had made much of her hopes that the event would pull in a strong contingent of the area’s East-Side community, but looking around the expansive room, every face I saw in the audience was white but one.

In any event, the performance was a concert verion of the German opera — without the expensive staging, costumes, sets, technical equipment, etc. — and so the principal singers were in tuxedos and gowns. When they entered for a scene they came in from one of the side vestibules and took up a spot in front of the altar and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, which was jammed onto the tiny dais like frat brothers in a telephone booth. (In fact, it didn’t appear that the whole orchestra was even up there, more like three-fifths).

But the singers — Gregory Cross at Belmonte, LeRoy Lehr as Osmin, Gregory Lorenz as Pedrillo, Patrice Boyd as Constanze, and Jong Mee Lee as Blonde — sang their hearts out, giving nearly as dramatic a performance as they probably would have in costume in a full production. Lehr’s Osmin ran away with most of the scenes he was in, but it’s likely that’s just the nature of the role (think of the Viseer in Disney’s Alladdin.)

Big props to Piccolo and Moryl for tackling such an ambitious production — which featured the Metropolitan Opera’s Gregory Buchalter conducting the CSO and SCETV’s Beryl Dakers providing narration.

Were you one of the hundreds who missed out on getting tickets to this year’s acclaimed production of Don Giovanni? Looks like all is not completely lost for you, if you have a little patience. It’s not a signed, sealed, and delivered done deal yet, but according to Spoleto musical director Emmanuel Villaume, the sold-out production of Don Giovanni at Memminger Auditorium will be back next year, hopefully with much or all of the same cast, for another run. He made the announcement at Tuesday evening’s Conversations With program, where heb was appearing with Spoleto production manager Reese Williams and P&C overview critic Blair Tindall (DG director Gunther Krämer had been called back to Germany and had to miss the program). Villaume noted that it was an official statement, but he seemed certain it would be happening. Spoleto media relations didn’t have a firm answer yet at midday on Wednesday, but promised to get an answer from Nigel redden asap. You’ll know it here as soon as we do.

There’s Nothing Sleepy About This Beauty

Grade: A
A charming and exquisite piece of puppet theatre, La bella dormente nel bosco is sure to please everyone in your Spoleto party

By Jennifer Corley

“Magical” is probably the word you’ll most hear when audiences describe legendary puppet man Basil Twist’s newest work, La bella dormente nel bosco (”Sleeping beauty in the forest”). And magical is indeed an apt word. With the production’s swirling fairies, singing cats, galloping spindles, leaping frogs, and dancing roses, there’s not really a more appropriate word that exists.

The story, in a nutshell, is this: the King and Queen procure fairies of good fortune to become their new baby daughter’s godmothers. A jilted fairy, at the princess’ baptism, lays an evil curse that on the princess’ 20th birthday, she will prick her finger on a spindle and fall into a deep death-like sleep. Once that happens, a good fairy lays a new spell that says the coma will be broken when true love awakens her. Surely you know what comes after that.

The seven opera singers, clad in robes, take the stage whenever the character they’re voicing is onstage. But they remain in the sidelines. They act almost as translators or interpreters for the puppets — as if they are merely the vocal conduit for what the object is expressing. They watch the puppets’ movements and sing in explanation as they look out to the audience.

All of the opera singers except one take on multiple roles. Talented soprano Nicole Heaston sings only the part of Sleeping Beauty. She’s a bit stiffer than the others when it comes to her stage presence, but her voice is clean, powerful, and moving.

As the voice of the King, baritone Daniel Sutin has the most expression of any of the seven. He also changes his voice for his other characterizations the most. He sings for three other characters and has a richness that seems to fill his entire body.

Tenor Eduardo Valdes has an ebullient personality that spills out in his singing, which he makes appear so carefree. He gives voice to a Jester and to Sleeping Beauty’s Prince. As the Prince, his voice floats off his tongue and rolls over the audience’s heads so soothingly and naturally, that if it were food it would be liquid chocolate.

Mezzo-soprano Kathryn Day has a commanding menace in her recitative as the villainous Green Fairy. (As Day’s stern face looks on, the Green Fairy swoops over the heads of the kingdom’s well-wishers as they tremble violently in fear.) There are a couple of moments during her performance as the Old Woman when she is difficult to hear in the lower register, but aside from those moments, she’s extremely robust.

Olga Makarina, as the Blue Fairy, the leader of the pack, is excellent. She also opens as a nightingale that sets the tone of the piece. Her coloratura is bright, sparkling, and clear, and a perfect fit for this production. She seems to have a certain radiance of goodness, through her voice and her expressive eyes.

Michaela Martens, mezzo-soprano, displays a lovely, heavy sadness in her voice as the Queen as she fears her child lost forever to the curse. She has a majestic stance, befitting of a queen, that causes her voice to project beautifully. She and Sutin have a lovely, strong duet as the King and Queen lament their daughter’s fate.

It would’ve been nice to see mezzo-soprano Patricia Risley more. She’s delightful in her voicing of the Old Woman’s raggedy cat. She gives it a lot of character without detracting from the puppet itself. She also voices a songbird, Cuckoo, with soft, pleasant precision.

The singers all have a purity of tone, with the strength and density of a light beam, that almost seems to project directly out of their chests instead of their mouths.

The principal singers are accompanied by singers from the Westminster choir, who flank the stage in the balconies and later perform onstage. They perform excellently, aside from perhaps being a little too laid back in their manner at the show’s beginning (a few of the ladies were smoothing their hair, or looking down at the floor, or talking, and appearing generally unprepared to be standing and facing the audience). Their voices are hearty when necessary and breezy in other scenes.

The set, designed by Matthew Benedict and Twist himself, is dazzling. The castle can be seen in the distance, silhouetted against a twinkling night sky through layers of trees and overhanging branches. The forest seems to breathe as it expands and contracts. Andrew Hill’s ambient lighting design and Mr. David’s sumptuous costume design enrich the piece and help shape the magical environment. And the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, conducted by Neal Goren, present a gorgeous performance of Respighi’s opera.

Of course, the real stars of the production are the puppets and the artists who manipulate them. A crew of 12 puppeteers work the gloriously expressive puppets — some of them life-size — by string, by stick, and by hand. All of their work is visible to the audience. These puppets do amazing things. One appears to blow a trumpet. Another does a handstand. The fairy puppets are exquisitely human in their peaceful faces, muscular legs, and twig-like, bending arms. The puppeteers are expert in their handling skills.

Basil Twist has created an enchanting, uplifting, and magical realm in which it’s easy to lose oneself. You can see that every person involved onstage is absolutely dedicated to, and happy to be in, the project. It’s one of those rarities in theatre — a good-spirited, charming, whimsical production without an ounce of corniness. So if you can still get a ticket, go get one. — JC

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already heard that Don Giovanni, which encompasses the entire interior of the auditorium, is a wonder. And that’s absolutely true. I’m a middling opera fan – by nature more theatrically oriented than music oriented – and so librettos like Don Giovanni’s in which the principals sing the same lines for ten minutes while one short line of English translation sits gathering dust on the superscript screen (is there a word for this?) generally drives me nuts. I’m sitting there thinking, Can we get the freakin’ narrative going again? But Kramer’s production had me mesmerized, because there was as much theatre going on as there was opera. The singers utilized every inch of the performance space; they meandered through the audience, took photographs of us, played with conductor Emmanuel Villaume and the musicians, stopped the opera altogether to gab with those of us watching, and generally broke all the rules of traditional western opera in a most entertaining fashion, all in a spectacular setting and costumes. Too bad it’s sold out.

If last night’s opening performance of La bella dormente nel bosco is any indication of how audiences at this year’s Spoleto Festival will react, then you’d better grab your tickets right now.And I mean now, as in this morning. ‘Cause otherwise, I’d say you can forget about getting into this one. La bella is without question one of the most charming, flat-out entertaining productions Spoleto’s put up in recent years; director and chief puppeteer Basil Twist has outdone himself — and, if he’s not careful, pretty much everyone else in the festival to this point. I’m still hearing extraordinary things about Don Giovanni, but I’m here to tell you: it’s got its work cut out for it if it expects to create a bigger sensation that La bella dormente.

Twist’s puppets are a marvel. Sleeping Beauty’s tale is familiar to most of us in the audience, but what this production brings to that story is infinitely greater than the tale itself. The life-sized puppets do things you wouldn’t believe marionettes could do. This is still an opera, with the black-robed singers standing off to the side of the action on stage or on the puppeteers’ catwalk above it. And often we see the puppeteers themselves, either manipulating the strings of the marionettes or, more directly, moving the arms, legs and head of a puppet (whether person, or cat or a singing spindle). At times, the stage is so thick with strings it looks almost like rain. At one point I counted no less than 26 puppets cavorting across the stage. That’s a lot of puppets, my friend. And every one of them is magic .

If you miss this one, you’ll never forgive yourself.

Word has it that last night’s premiere of Don Giovanni had at least one patron up in arms over the show’s apparently risque content. Here’s one attendee’s version of what happened at last night’s premiere:

“The opera itself was awesome. It’s very, very cool. Nmon Ford, who’s cut and has just a beautiful body, plays Don Giovanni. At one point he comes out while the supporting cast is frolicking in the water, and as he’s trying to seduce one of the women in the water, he completely takes his clothes off except for like a g-string. And the other people in the opera have on white cotton bloomers, so when they get wet you can pretty much see right through them. At one point, this guy whose wife is in love with Don Giovanni opens up a trunk full of polaroid pictures, hundreds of them, like proof that Don Giavanni’s a womanizer, and he shows her the pictures and then he just throws them all over the place. As intermission I picked up a couple of them and I saw they were rea photos of nudes, like girls on girl, guys on girls, that sort of thing. They were kind of blurry, but you could still tell what was going on. So as were were walking out, this guy comes out and he’s screaming about ‘pornography,’ about how they get these young actors who need the work and put them in thse ‘pornographic roles.’ He was just ranting and raving in the lobby, then he got on his cellphone, and he started very loudly about calling the police and chief Greenberg. He was going to write a letter or get in touch with the police and Spoleto. And this guy wasn’t old or anything — 50-ish, maybe even late 40s, just some conservative right-wing fool. He didn’t stay for the second half, obviously. So it’s a little racy. But it’s incredible, it really is. And this is my first opera, besides Peony Pavilion last year.