Opera: A brilliant ratpack Rigoletto at the Met
While attending the immensely enjoyable Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera, I reflected on why opera is often not so entertaining. Part of this is a mismatch of directors' vision with the essential nature of the operas. Let's take the three greatest opera composers: Wagner, Mozart, and Verdi. Wagner's operas are challenging, highly symbolic, prompt intellectual reflection, and often have too many ideas, notes, and minutes for their own good, similar to such filmmakers as Andrei Tarkovsky, Lars von Trier, and Kenji Mizoguchi. This makes Wagner's operas very open to interpretive, daring, allegorical, and symbolic productions. Mozart, much like film's Ingmar Bergman, strips his art down to the emotions and interactions of real people (Mozart much more optimistically than Bergman). Mozart opera directors are therefore wise not to interfere too much, and let us experience the human insights without over-interpretation. Verdi's operas have always seemed to me more entertainments than high art. Attend an opera outdoors in Italy and see what I mean--people sometimes sing along and guzzle Chianti in the seats. His orchestrations and arias are tuneful, simple, and visceral, and the plots are pure blood and guts. They remind me of the best of American classic films like The Godfather and The Wizard of Oz, which feature simple moralistic messages, offer the ultimate in fine craftsmanship and performance, and manipulate the audience shamelessly--and we love being manipulated. Too often opera directors try to overthink Verdi as they do Wagner, resulting in tedium, as if Casablanca were 1 hour longer.
The Met's Rigoletto shows how Verdi can be enhanced by a creative director. This opera is a grim pageant of thugs, rape, betrayal, and brutality, with nary a sympathetic character. Director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening) has set it in seedy 1960's Las Vegas casinos and strip clubs, settings very appropriate to this sordid melodrama. Various rat pack-like characters in sequined tuxedos manipulate women as sex objects, especially the virginal Gilda, who causes her own demise by naively falling for the slimy, predatory casino chief (The Duke). Below he sings the smirking, sexist aria "Questa o quella" (All girls are the same) with a fake microphone [opera is not amplified!]).
In the last act the Duke cavorts with a sleazy woman as the crushed, betrayed Gilda (who fell for him despite his sliminess) looks on then sacrifices her own life to save the Duke from being murdered. The traditional setting in a dark tavern now becomes a dingy strip club, with a pole dancer gyrating during the orchestral introduction, and the Duke ironically singing the famous "La donna e mobile" (Women are flighty) swinging around the same pole.
Gilda is offed not in the traditional brown sack, but in the trunk of a car. The proper Met electronic translations go along for the period ride, using mob vernacular ("take him for a ride", "bums", "such a doll"). I really smiled during the opening, as the neon casino glowed and resounded with Verdi's tacky offstage party music, rich with woodwinds and simple harmonies akin to a street band. It all just worked, and I have rarely enjoyed a Verdi opera so much, for all of its brutality and primal emotion.
The cast was excellent, but almost seemed subsumed by the production. The Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja is the real thing in Italian tenor style and voice, with a creamy middle voice with projection and warmth akin to Jussi Björling's, just a bit less open on the very highest notes. Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko conveyed Gilda's adolescent immaturity well, without milking the role for diva gestures. Her Slavic wide vibrato was not too distracting, except at times in "Caro nome" when it disrupted some trills and coloratura (diva technique moment: this big aria was delivered from the prone position, as she giggled over the Duke's picture lying on her bed). Serbian baritone Željko Lučić could have swaggered more as the Duke's humpbacked sidekick Rigoletto (he should have watched more Frank Sinatra movies to prepare the role) and his voice ideally would have carried more powerfully in the large Met opera house, but he has classic Italian baritone style and sound, a rare thing these days. Italian conductor Pier Giorgio Morandi held together the ensemble well, with peppy tempos appropriate to the production, good balances and nice Verdi style.
Overall, this was one of my most enjoyable Verdi nights at the opera, and showed what a production can do to enliven a familiar chestnut, especially when paired with the Met's roster of musicians. It achieved the same effect on me as The Godfather--pure entertainment, virtuosic performances, and high craftsmanship.
The Met's Rigoletto shows how Verdi can be enhanced by a creative director. This opera is a grim pageant of thugs, rape, betrayal, and brutality, with nary a sympathetic character. Director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening) has set it in seedy 1960's Las Vegas casinos and strip clubs, settings very appropriate to this sordid melodrama. Various rat pack-like characters in sequined tuxedos manipulate women as sex objects, especially the virginal Gilda, who causes her own demise by naively falling for the slimy, predatory casino chief (The Duke). Below he sings the smirking, sexist aria "Questa o quella" (All girls are the same) with a fake microphone [opera is not amplified!]).
In the last act the Duke cavorts with a sleazy woman as the crushed, betrayed Gilda (who fell for him despite his sliminess) looks on then sacrifices her own life to save the Duke from being murdered. The traditional setting in a dark tavern now becomes a dingy strip club, with a pole dancer gyrating during the orchestral introduction, and the Duke ironically singing the famous "La donna e mobile" (Women are flighty) swinging around the same pole.
Gilda is offed not in the traditional brown sack, but in the trunk of a car. The proper Met electronic translations go along for the period ride, using mob vernacular ("take him for a ride", "bums", "such a doll"). I really smiled during the opening, as the neon casino glowed and resounded with Verdi's tacky offstage party music, rich with woodwinds and simple harmonies akin to a street band. It all just worked, and I have rarely enjoyed a Verdi opera so much, for all of its brutality and primal emotion.
The cast was excellent, but almost seemed subsumed by the production. The Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja is the real thing in Italian tenor style and voice, with a creamy middle voice with projection and warmth akin to Jussi Björling's, just a bit less open on the very highest notes. Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko conveyed Gilda's adolescent immaturity well, without milking the role for diva gestures. Her Slavic wide vibrato was not too distracting, except at times in "Caro nome" when it disrupted some trills and coloratura (diva technique moment: this big aria was delivered from the prone position, as she giggled over the Duke's picture lying on her bed). Serbian baritone Željko Lučić could have swaggered more as the Duke's humpbacked sidekick Rigoletto (he should have watched more Frank Sinatra movies to prepare the role) and his voice ideally would have carried more powerfully in the large Met opera house, but he has classic Italian baritone style and sound, a rare thing these days. Italian conductor Pier Giorgio Morandi held together the ensemble well, with peppy tempos appropriate to the production, good balances and nice Verdi style.
Overall, this was one of my most enjoyable Verdi nights at the opera, and showed what a production can do to enliven a familiar chestnut, especially when paired with the Met's roster of musicians. It achieved the same effect on me as The Godfather--pure entertainment, virtuosic performances, and high craftsmanship.
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