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Tricks of a Titillating Triptych New York
Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Juilliard School
11/12/2008 - & Nov. 14, 16, 2008
Modest Mussorgsky/Alexander Tcherepnin: The Marriage
Ernst Krenek: Heavyweight or Pride of the Nation, Opus 55
Benjamin Fleischmann/Dmitri Shostakovich: Rothschild’s Violin
The Marriage: Shen Yang (Pokholyosin), Nicholas Coppolo (Kochkarev), Renée Tatum (Fyokla), Nicholas Pallesen (Stepan), Jane Monari (Dying Swan Dancer)
Heavyweight: Paul LaRosa (Ochsenschwantz), Jennifer Zetlan (Evelyne), Paul Appleby (Gaston), Nicholas Pallesen (Professor Himmelhuber), Frédérique Vézina (Anna Maria), Nicholas Coppolo (Journalist), Ta’u Pupu’a (Government Minister), Andy McCullough (Ottokar), Jane Monari (Maid)
Rothschild’s Violin: Shen Yang (Yakov), Paul Appleby (Rothschild), Nicholas Coppolo (Moisei Ilyich Shakhes), Julie Boulianne (Marfa)
Diane Richardson (Musical Preparation), Michael Baitzer (Chorus Master), Juilliard Orchestra, James Conlon (Program conception and conductor)
Darko Tresnjak and James Marvel (Realization), James Marvel (Director), Jeanne Slater (Choreographer), Laine Goerner (Stage Manager), David P. Gordon (Set Designer), Linda Cho (Costume Designer), Jane Cox (Lighting Designer), Jonathan Estabrooks (Video Montage)
Production: Juilliard Opera Center
James Conlon (© Ravinia Festival)
The production team of the Metropolitan Opera’s Damnation of Faust has the duty to walk across the street and see how video projection should be done. The trio of operas by the Juilliard School is hardly as famous at the Berlioz conception at the Met, and the Juilliard budget is probably pocket change for Gelb Incorporated. But the Juilliard Opera Centre technical staff possess one asset which the Met technical staff never took into consideration: They have respect for the operas they are presenting. And the graphics, video, special effects, and lighting actually enhance, do not distract from the music and stories.
Each of the three operas here—presented without a break in the 95-minute show—has a distinct character. Yet the single set, with only minor furniture changes but some very very beautiful holographic changes—was magnetic. The languages were Russian and German, yet the stories were simple, emotional, well sung, and the diversity showed taste, understanding, and, most of all, even fun.
One opera was banned by Stalin for being too Jewish, though the theme was pure human love. Another opera was never finished but showed the most haunting Russian melodies (even with a Tchaikovsky dying swan). And the third—everybody’s favorite—possessed, amongst other things, a semi-nude boxing champion, two lovers doing the Charleston, a machine which electrocutes people, Ta’u Tutu’a as a prancing minister, some pompous professors, and a woman who pretends to be a boxing dummy and is knocked out.
This was Ernst Krenek, the chameleon of composers, during his jazz period. The Pride of the Nation has as much sense as an early Bunuel movie, but the colors, bright lights, Linda Cho ersatz-flapper-er costumes, silliness and singing left nothing to be desired. Krenek, who later became one of the great atonalists of the last century, here was his joking element. The music was upbeat (in Berlin cabaret style), but the singing satirized Verdi, Ravel, bel canto and jazz itself. The direction meant a lot of people falling on their derrières, and one character doing a John Cleese-like “funny walk”. But the absurdity was part of the triumph.
The most mysterious opera was the final one, composed—supposedly—by Shostakovich’s most gifted student, Benjamin Fleischmann to a Chekhov short story, Rothschild’s Violin. I say “supposedly” because Fleischmann was killed during the Second World War. Shostakovich took his manuscript and orchestrated it. This is the only extant manuscript (it was banned after one showing, by Stalin, who hated the pro-Jewish sentiments), and much of it sounds like pure Shostakovich.
On the other hand, when the original humorous beginning is ended, we have a 15-minute monodrama by an unhappy coffin-maker which does not sound like Shosty, but which has an absolutely gorgeous melodic line, a touching poem to the unhappiness and the passing of life. It was never maudlin or sentimental, but had an honest depth.
Now we add to this what the video people did. On this one set, the video projections in the back were sometimes illustrative, sometimes dominating, sometimes almost unseen. Almost unconsciously, we went from pastoral village scenery to barbed wire, and then the most beautiful forest of Russian poplars, sometimes light, sometimes in the dark during a driving rainstorm.
And at the climax, when the coffin-maker gives his only prized possession, his violin, to the poor Jew, Rothschild, and the poplars become larger and larger, almost dwarfing the stage, and the cast, back to the audience, celebrate the gift….well, it matters not who composed the music. It was done with taste and emotion. (And totally different from the original story, where the violin is given on the coffin-maker’s deathbed.)
Perhaps the least effective opera was Mussorgsky’s Marriage, re-orchestrated by the late Alexander Tcherepnin, a fine composer in his own right. The music was purely Mussorgsky, and one could feel Boris in each measure. But the opera, an experiment with Russian speech patterns, was never finished, and we were left hanging at the end.
The singers, who appeared in several roles, were top-rate. Above all was Shen Yang, who is in this year’s Don Giovanni at the Met. Not for his farcical playing in the Mussorgsky, but because he has the beautiful monologue in Violin, as well as an all too short duet with stage wife Julie Boulianne. Nicholas Coppolo had three roles, each delightful. One as the pompous friend in the Mussorgsky, as a journalist in the Krenek (asking the boxer the silliest of questions) and the gravedigger in Violin.
Paul Appleby is the graceful Charleston dancer in the Krenek, but gets knocked and batted around in Violin before the redemption at the end. He was wonderful.
As were the others here, all under that most experienced conductor James Conlon. It was his idea to play the operas one after the other. Partly the musical similarity of the Russians operas, along with the German farce. And all of them dealing a little bit, with domestic bliss and domestic war.
His rationale was not quite convincing. The production was—and is—most convincing. This is Conlon’s love of three operas, with the invention to make them come vibrantly alive.
Harry Rolnick
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