Opera Chic

From the House of the Dead: Finally it's La Scala's Turn for Janácek’s (and Chéreau's) Masterpiece

 

Although too many empty seats stretched across the Teatro alla Scala platea on the opening night of Leoš Janácek’s Czech masterpiece, From the House of the Dead, eight minutes of applause thanked the excellent production team which stirred the dust from sets that had earlier transformed the stage into a Siberian Gulag. For the second time in La Scala's history, From the House of the Dead was presented to the Milanese, Sunday night in the legendary Patrice Chéreau production that has been trailblazing through International opera houses for the past three years, bulletproof by mesmerized opera critics, paralyzing audiences with its theatrical vernacular, blue-white brilliant clarity told in unflinching parameters. First it was Pierre Boulez enjoying the conducting victory, but Esa-Pekka Salonen's been chaperoning the production since it last showed, which was at NYC's Metropolitan Opera a few months ago (that Opera Chic had the pleasure of attending, full review here).

Patrice Chéreau's production -- called by Corriere della Sera's chief music critic as, "un allestimento mirabolante" and "la regia di Patrice Chéreau, mi ripeto, la perfezione" -- was again lovingly bolstered by his excellent co-conspirators: Thierry Thieu Niang's choreography, Richard Peduzzi's sets, Caroline De Vivaise's costumes, and Bertrand Couderc's lights. As opposed to the gaping maw of auditorium space offered by NYC's Met Opera (we say that with lots of endearment), the smaller dimensions of La Scala's stage drastically altered the emotional impact. The opera read as a more personal, intimate experience, less cinematic, and the sets were more oppressive and claustrophobic.

Esa-Pekka, who was additionally called by the same Corriere della Sera critic as, "il piu' grande maestro della sua generazione", led the orchestra in an evening of evocative music with a decisive, masterful, and unrelenting drive that never sounded muscled or thunderous. John Mark Ainsley sung a gorgeous Skuratove, and Peter Mattei's Šiškov was flawless. Patrice Chéreau's chef d'œuvre continues to stun audiences for its sheer beauty, the Milanese equally receptive to its charm.

From The House of The Dead Overload: Coming to La Scala Tomorrow, In the Papers Now

 

Since 2007 it has shaken audiences in Berlin, Vienna, Aix-en-Provence, Amsterdam, and New York. Now three years later, Da una casa di morti comes to Milan's La Scala. Leoš Janáček's opera based on Dostoyevsky's writings about hope and transcendence in a Siberian Gulag will open tomorrow night in Patrice Chéreau's epic production (costumière Caroline De Vivaise; set designer & Chéreau-collaborator since their 1979 Bayreuth Ring, Richard Peduzzi; and choreographer Thierry Thiue Niang). Pierre Boulez was the man with the plan, conducting performances prior to NYC, but now Esa-Pekka Salonen is all over it. Since Scala has only seen it once on stage in over 40 years, this weekend it's been a media deluge with articles in Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, Vivimilano, and La Stampa. Opera Chic covered it extensively when it premiered at the Metropolitan Opera this past fall, but will sooooo be there tomorrow night.

 

Chéreau said to Vivimilano: "It's an opera rich with energy and vitality that's reflected in Janáček's music. There aren't true protagonists, rather, many characters. The protagonist is the society that the detainees have formed, with their trauma there are also moments of beauty. The prisoners are relatively free. They eat, drink, sleep, think, love, hate, rebel, mess around, play, walk, and act..."

 

To Corriere: "Behind the work of Janáček is Alban Berg's Wozzeck. The Czech composer had heard it three years prior to writing From the House of the Dead and remained transfixed by the work." Of Peduzzi's scenery: "With the movable walls, I wanted to synthesize the feeling of a prison. Like a box, huge and encompassing, or small and oppressive. Walls and walls, not a single breath of air and no sky." 

To La Stampa Chéreau said that after this production finishes at La Scala, he's done with opera. In his future it will be more cinema and theater, searching always for a new audience, a new challenge, and as always, a new experiment. Spoken like a real philosopher.

 

So What Are You in For? Patrice Chéreau's Buoyant From the House of the Dead

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention. And so began Patrice Chéreau's achingly theatrical production of Leoš Janácek’s From the House of the Dead, in a Shakespearean tribute, darkness punctuated by a single match -- a prisoner lighting his cigarette -- our first glimpse of the Siberian prison that would be our reckoning point for the next hour (and some), where humility is all that keeps buoyant in the oppressive confines of the descending concrete walls.

Gelb frantically covered all his bases in the month leading-up to the premiere, speaking about the ensuing Czech opera from the insultingly lowbrow dailies to the heavy hitters & glossies, drumming up support for the opera that blazed a glorious comet-trail of success across Europe last year (and the year before that), leaving critics and Janácek-martyrs alike breathless from Pierre Boulez's conducting with Patrice Chéreau's coup d'theatre.

After the Luc Bondy Tosca scuffle that opened the Metropolitan Opera's 2009/10 season, where boos rained-down from the offended, excitable self-appointed arbiters of the Family Circle ring, Gelb (and the rest of the world) now had a scarily-sobering barometer of what the Metropolitan audiences considered avant garde. And frankly, if Bondy's calm-as-a-kitten Tosca was treated by NYC audiences like Calixto Bieito's fisting/S&M visions of proctological Regie, one should definitely worry about the well-being of Chéreau. So Gelb rode weary his House of the Dead warpath, proclaiming the Met's "theatrical renaissance", relying on free panels and local news promos to ingratiate Janácek to the people. Did all that exhausting work deliver a nice payload? Well, last night, OC witnessed one of the longest MET curtain calls that she's ever lingered for (c'mon...while we Milanese stick around for 20+ headline-breaking minutes of applause, those serious businessmen NY'ers rush out do their serious businessmen things). All in all, a nice reception for Patrice Chéreau's house debut.

And so last night premiered Leoš Janácek’s last opera, From the House of the Dead, never before staged in the MET's history. It's okay. There's a time and place for that strict, uncompromising Czech a$$hole. And that time is now...the lean, streamlined version from Chéreau's body-of-work that teasingly floats hope and morality millimeters away from Janácek’s harrowing score, love and pity closely intertwined. The opera is an assemblage of unsentimental, unflinching scenes from Dostoyevsky's book of the same name (without narrative thrust or clear protagonists) of his 4 years spent in a Siberian gulag. A poignant, cinematic treatment, including the English titles that were projected on the back of the scenery, fittingly like film noir.

As each prisoner enumerates their crimes, they no longer are the psychopathic criminals, and each becomes his own distinct character. As OC heard here at the Met Panel, Chéreau hired professional actors to mix with the singers to heighten his desired theatrical conventions. Railing against the powers that have locked them in, each prisoner is a distinct entity, uplifting and full of humility in the face of oppression. Here we have no hardened criminals resigned to do their time lifting weights and reading the bible (and getting crappy tattoos)...we have instead humble men, spurned on by survival and clutching to the last remnants of hope, whether it be a stuffed eagle that spirits the men to their imaginations or remembrance of landscapes past.

Chéreau's production team seamlessly wove an opera that transported the Metropolitan Opera audiences from the massive, sterile maw of that cosmopolitan stage to Vienna or Amsterdam or Aix-en-Provence (heck, even Milan where "Da una casa di morti" will premiere in March 2010).

Longtime Chéreau collaborator and  French set designer Richard Peduzzi, who was responsible for that Tosca that ya'll hated so much (OMG *that's* not what an Italian church looks like!) erected large gray massive walls that opened and closed as the opera progressed; Associate director Thierry Thieû Niang choreographed the excellent prison secks pantomime, homage to the French ballet interludes so cherished in traditional opera; French costume designer Caroline de Vivaise had a very Max Ernst vision and color palette, perfectly visualized with every detail caressed; Lighting maestro Bertrand Couderc expertly fluctuated from creamy rose-tinged washes to golden afternoons to soul-baring, psychopathic whites.

Former MD of the the L.A. Phil Esa-Pekka Salonen made his house debut last night, presenting a score full of clarity and vibrant light, saddled with lush romanticism and a buoyancy that echoed Dostoevsky's book: cruel human trauma suffused with wit and an underlying sense of hope. For Esa-Pekka to carry off such a sound at the cavernous and impersonal auditorium of the MET was quite a skill indeed. An unforgiving, unflinching mastery, Esa-Pekka plowed ahead ruthlessly in a soaring, expressive dialog with his singers on-stage, never rushing never overshadowing.

Towering Swedish baritone Peter Mattei sang Shishkov, the prisoner with the most intricate past, effectively pushing his character through all the phases of remembrance and retribution. Czech tenor Stefan Margita as Filka/Luka sang effectively and cunningly,  American tenor Kurt Streit as the psychotic Skuratov was a standout, with the remainder of the main characters -- British tenor Peter Hoare as Shapkin and bass-baritone Willard White as Gorianchikov -- wonderfully rounding-out the corps of political prisoners.

Are American opera audiences ready to accept what the Europeans/Brits so easy recognize -- that there exists in this scarily-big world production-driven performances and that the singers themselves don't always have to be the ticket-sellers? Let's hope that Chéreau effectively indoctrinates, prison secks included. 

From the House of the Met: Chéreau/Gelb/Esa-Pekka tête-à-tête

Debut, debut, debut for the Metropolitan Opera's encroaching premiere of Leoš Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, which drops to the delight of OC (and her European brethren in NYC) on November 12.

The Czech opera, the last penned in Janáček's career, has never before been staged in the MET's entire history -- quite fittingly adept for producer Patrice Chéreau and Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen's house debuts next week. Thanks to The Gelbster, Americans will be privy to a (variation of a) production that blazed through cultural headlines in prestigious dailies abroad as a roundly bulletproof work, and untouchable coup d'theatre that had critics and Janáček fetishists (OC fits in somewhere on that spectrum) clamoring for tickets.

Pierre Boulez, who had conducted the FTHOTD European runs, bowed out of the USA duties, citing travel preparations as just too strenuous for his advanced years (the reality is, he actually thinks we're all barbarians over here in the Colonies). Picking up the baton is former MD of the LA Phil, Esa-Pekka Salonen, who joined Gelb and Patrice Chéreau, glorious Frenchman and stage, film, and opera director (who could easily be a 007 film extra/James Bond advisor) on stage last night in a free chat with future ticket holders about their gloriously terrifying Janáček vision.

In what Gelb called a theatrical renaissance for the MET, Patrice Chéreau is undoubtedly most qualified to breathe life into Gelb's inspired strategy -- first known to the opera masses after a 1976 Bayreuth Ring cycle, although past collaborations with theater luminaries such as Giorgio Strehler at Milan's Piccolo Teatro mark his long, theatrical career. Although Chéreau may have been the most appealing project leader, he petitioned for many stipulations regarding the Czech opera. He hired professional actors to mix with the singers, as his vision for effectively presenting the opera relied on a predominantly theatrical convention. Also, main characters have to spend the evening completely untethered without the aid of a prompter, as Chéreau wanted the actors absolutely focused on personal interactions. Nor was the prompter's box harmonic with the clean visual aesthetics of the stage setting, carefully planned by French set designer Richard Peduzzi (longtime Chéreau collaborator who also designed the sets for Tosca).

In co-production with Vienna, Amsterdam, and Aix-en-Provence, what unfolds on stage for the MET is markedly different than what has been seen in Europe, along with a new crop of singers and actors. Even costume designer Caroline de Vivaise stepped it up for the cast: after vacationing in Hungary and exploring the local flea markets, new inspirations came for guard and prisoner costumes, each painstakingly chosen to match the idiosyncrasies of each singer. Swedish baritone Peter Mattei sings Shishkov, Czech tenor Stefan Margita sings Filka Morozov, American tenor Kurt Streit sings Skuratov, British tenor Peter Hoare sings Shapkin, and bass-baritone Willard White sings Gorianchikov, and will all have their turns at encapsulating the trenchant themes of hope and survival, the steely pulse of Dostoevsky's book, written after spending soul-crushing years in a Siberian gulag.

After the MET run, FTHOTD heads to Milan in March 2010 where Scala gets its horny hands on it -- this time as Da una casa di morti where Esa-Pekka Salonen and crew get to kick up their post-game heels at Da Giacomo over steaming plates of garganelli alla bottarga, and Opera Chic will be throwing her Carine Gilson handmade panties -- well, culottes, actually -- in the orchestra pit, hoping E-Pek catches them.

The Makropoulos Affair Gone Bananas!

Opéra national de Paris's current production of Janacek's The Makropoulos Affair features a set inspired by the 1933 film, King Kong, with Angela Denoke's Emilia Marty channeling Fay Wray. All thanks to Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski. Photo credit, Christian Leiber.

The Makropulos Affair @ Scala: Immortality Never Sounded So Good

Edgar Allan Poe, that sad, crazy potato and possibly our greatest writer (together with Twain, that other nut Pound, and a couple others) taught us that there is no aestethic experience more powerful, for a reader, than being able to read a story from beginning to end in just one sitting.

(That's why he was such a firm believer in the power of short stories). Some works of musical theater, just like literature, are for their very nature best experienced in one sitting, straight up, no interruptions, no intervals, no time for overpriced drinks in the Ridotto (and no bathroom breaks, a possible issue in classical music with its increasingly aging audience).

The Makropulos Affair is one of those works that should really be staged without pause, not to dilute its subtle, creepy power. As the key theme to The Makropulos Affair, the conundrum of immortality is truly a mixed blessing. After last night's premiere of Leoš Janácek's three-act opera at Teatro alla Scala, despite the creamy music, gorgeous direction/sets, and stellar singing, we honestly felt like the old/restyled-as-new Luca Ronconi staging tested our own immortality and our resolve to keep things simpler, sparing continuity for big ideas and even bigger sets.

The Makropulos Affair is Janácek's stabby stab at turning Karel Capek's 1922 play into opera (where after he had seen the play in Prague in 1922, he started communicating with Capek to gain rights and artistic guidance), complete with libretto (penned by the maestro between 1923 - 1925) continuing on the everlasting argument of immortality.

Boulez's Last Hurrah: Janacek's House of the Dead Conquers Vienna

Thirty-one years after their historic Ring in Bayreuth, Pierre Boulez and Patrice Chéreau have been reunited by another smashing success, Leos Janacek's last opera, they Syberian horror story that is From the House of the Dead, in Vienna (at the Festwochen). Standing ovations galore and great, great reviews in the Austrian press (esp Kurier and Die Presse). Sadly, it will be 82-year-old Boulez's last hurrah as opera conductor, because he wants to concentrate on composing. He will occasionally conduct symphonic works, but operas consume way too much time -- three or four months of work -- for the maestro.

We will admire the same production next year at la Scala (it's a co-production with la Scala, Aix-en-Provence, the Met and obviously the Wiener Festwochen).

A Boulez/Chereau interview on Orf is here.

Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa at Teatro alla Scala

Concluding from here: From the mastermind directing and staging of Stéphane Braunschweig comes a chilling, minimal wash of the Czech opera Jenůfa at Teatro alla Scala, trapping the performers in a world as stripped-down and bare-bone as the raw emotions and oppressive tragedy found in the libretto. Opera Chic had heard the buzz prior to the performance, and knew that the design team channeled the genius of Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Mark Rothko, (in co-production with Teatro Real Madrid, and created at the Paris Théâtre du Châtelet in 1996) and there was no way she would miss it. Another draw was to satiate her flaming crush on Anja Silja, which intensified after attending a NYC Jenůfa-centric lecture between Silja and Karita Mattila at the MET Opera.

Act I opens with dark-brown paneled walls, stacked and rising to the ceiling, set as a framing element for the entire stage. The floor is painted stark white. Jenůfa sits tending to her plant, while a narrow slit opens in the floor behind her, from which the giant red turbines from the mill circulate behind her, perpendicular to the floor. It’s stunning, and provides a very cutting image, and greatly foreshadowing the morbid presence of the mill and what tragedy is to come. Costumes are either swaths of bright red cloth, creamy whites, or blacks, and pop from the dark brown wood panels of the staging (in the article below, you can see Števa returning with the other musicians and conscripts).

Throughout the opera, the shadows cast from the superb lighting create their own independent show, deepening the pathos and visceral impetus that breaks-down between the characters. Long mellow shadows mix with harsh, bright, cutting plays of light…thanks to the genius behind lumière Marion Hewlett's clever technique. The theme of cutting, sharpness, and jagged ripping was transformed into the lighting, creating visual elements of the same nature.

Act II, the room in the house of Kostelnička, has been shown as two simple walls pushed together to form a deep triangle. At the point of the triangle, furthest away from the stage, is the cradle of the baby. When Kostelnička decides to kill the child and snatches the baby from the cradle (no not teh babee!), the room spits open, shattered, splintered, with sharp, white lights creating physical seams and stratifications on the stage floor. It’s very effective and powerful. At the point where Laca enters the room and reaffirms his love to Jenůfa, that huge motherfather fan comes up from the stage and divides Kostelnička from the couple, the shows splicing and cutting the forms. Throughout it all, Anja Silja sang her freaking head off. She made Emily Magee’s Jenůfa appear impotent and plastic.

Act III was the same basic staging as Act I, but included stark yellow/green lighting, and pews evocative of the church. Maestro Lothar Koenigs conducted blithely, pulling staccato and coldness from the orchestra when needed, and then morphing into a sweet legato. It was perfect.

(pretty bad photo of curtain call with Jenůfa front and center) 

At the curtain call, Jenůfa was more or less snubbed, given a polite applause for her capable performance. But the real applause went for the creative team (Braunschweig, Hewlett, and Thibault Vancraenenbroeck for costumes), Lothar Koenigs’ conducting, Miro Dvorsky’s Laca, and certainly for the most bada$$ lady singing on stage today: Anja Silja.

~~Here's a bonus that was spotted during la pausa:

If ur invited as someone's "escort" to la prima, don't dress like ur @ the Kentucky Derby. yeee-haw! Dress + hat does not automatically = class tia tia. ladies, your fashion crimes are hijacking my will to live. (btw, no one has worn a hat at la scala since like Verdi).

   

Take No Prisoners: Jenůfa Premiere

OC returned a few hours ago from la prima of Janáček's Jenůfa at Teatro alla Scala, and has quite a few stories to tell (which will have to wait until tomorrow when a rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed OC has gotten a few hours of beauty sleep under her tired little head).

Amid endless curtain calls, wild cheering for conductor Lothar Koenigs, Miro Dvorsky's Laca, and of course, omg omg Anja Silja's wrenching Kostelnčka, it was immense. Scenery stripped bare, collapsing space, dynamic light, like a visualized Rothko -- this production put the holla back in La Scala.

It was Anja's show. ok anja you won at the opera.

I could totally see her backstage before the performance ripping water fountains off the wall and being like WHO WANTS A PIECE and then running amok knocking over vending machines. The woman is unstoppable.

Janáček's Jenufa with Karita Mattila and Anja Silja

Karita Mattila and Anja Silja chatted-up the audience at last Thursday ’s Kaplan Penthouse Metropolitan Opera Guild lecture series; however, a few of the juicier bits of information will not be pried from Opera Chic’s cold, dead fingers, and are reserved for those of us who were lucky enough to attend. DONT ASK WHUT DETAILS R!!!!! MAYEB SOME1 WILL LET YOU IN ON TEH SEKRETS (WITCH WILL BLOW UR MIND!) v(º_o)v

While discussing Janáček's Jenufa (aka: YAH-nah-check’s Yah-NOO-fah), the two lovely sopranos tossed about like kittens, playfully jabbing at each other the way that only confident, secure divas can dig …all while Dr. Harlow Robinson proceeded to mangle his facts and ask redundant questions. The best part was when he turned to Silja, upon discussion of her historically-fascinating life, and asked:

Robinson: Do you have plans to write a book?
Silja: I *did* write a book! [Silja penned the autobiographical "Die Sehnsucht nach dem Unerreichbaren" in 1999.]
Robinson: [squirming] Um…another one?

heh. loalz. d00d i think ur pretty cool & ur doing a good job keep up the good work <3 OC

Aside from Robinson’s banter, the conversation was smacked-down with Godwin like five times, with reductio ad hitlerum, argumentum ad nazium, w00t w00t. What?

Finnish soprano Karita Mattila is now an honorary member of teh OC Brigade, as she was resplendent in an all-black outfit: a cropped & fitted velvet blazer, and silk turtleneck underneath; black tights; a silk georgette ruffled skirt, and knee high Fendi-esque black boots. Very sexay, with the attitude and sultry voice to carry it off. Also, a pair of ghetto-fabulous gold hoops. Also, homegirl looks like Cammy Diaz. No joke.

Mattila is the second youngest of three siblings – all boys – and apparently the smallest in stature. Damn. She spoke extensively about her physicality and sport, relaying that she was raised on a farm, and therefore habitually active. She realizes that she will, “never be a size 2, so sport is a necessary part of life”. She has a NYC personal trainer, who she nicknames lol “Gestapo Lady” lol . She loves pilates, and plays golf with her husband. She also does yoga on the days of her performances.

Next up for Mattila?: Salsa, Merengue, the Mambo, and the Cha Cha! She is currently taking Latin dance lessons in Manhattan. Her other big project is some sort of jazz thang in Finland (currently working with a jazz pianist and singer that she found via Juliard). Crossover n e body?

She confirmed that her Puccini Manon Lescaut is definitely coming to NYC Met next season, and her Strauss Salome at the MET will be revived the season after next. YAY!

The German soprano spark-plug Anja Silja divulged that in addition to a successful career, she raised five children. She recounted that started her career with the heavy stuff, and did Salome when she was only twenty-years-old (which she eventually sang over 300x in her career), and then Isolde when she was twenty-one.

Therefore, Silja joked, Janáček's Jenufa was fairly easy for her. Although Czech was hard to learn, it was convenient to have Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek's (who studied with Sergiu Celibidache) on-hand for pronunciation corrections.

Silja spoke about her grandfather, who fostered her musical education, and sated her precociousness with Wagner. One anecdote that resonated: while she was in Bayreuth singing Salome with her grandfather watching in audience, he died in his seat during the performance. Chilling. During the dialogue, it was discerned that Silja had actually never sang the lead of Jenufa throughout her extensive and exhaustive career.

A+++++++ would do business again.

Karita Mattila's Jenufa pwns the NYC MET

 

Mad props to Karita Mattila (and her Tara Reid eyeliner) for singing the title role at la prima of Leos Janácek’s Jenufa last night at the New York City MET, conducted by Jirí Belohlávek.

Mattila has once again proved that she is too cool for school (or any other type of educational institution/process).