Photo: Dan Rest

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Verdi’s “Rigoletto” is so popular and done so often that it has become a festering ground for avant-garde directorial concepts that more often than not are bizarrely superimposed over Verdi’s intentions. The Met’s current production, for instance, sets the opera in a Las Vegas casino.

This unit-set production, originally presented in 2006 as a traditional “back to basics” enterprise attempting to in part compensate for a 2000 Christopher Alden production that was off the charts, does an effective job of reminding us why “Rigoletto” remains the beloved work that it is. It has been somewhat rethought by director Stephen Barlow, who is making his Lyric Opera debut. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Dan Rest

By Dennis Polkow

The gargantuan music dramas of Richard Wagner are by and large a world inhabited by gods and heroes ruled by magic and fantasy. The one exception is “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,” Wagner’s single comedy and most life-affirming work that deals with real, down-to-earth people, ordinary citizens who support and maintain the arts.

This is an idea that Wagner had as far back as 1845 when he wrote down most of his own original scenario for “Meistersinger,” but he set it aside for years, only returning when he stalled in his work on the “Ring” cycle after Act I and Act II of “Siegfried.” Wagner would compose “Tristan und Isolde”—which would revolutionize music and develop the expansive chromaticism that he needed to complete the “Ring”—and returned to “Meistersinger” in the intervening years, finishing the piece in 1867. Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew Polenzani and Sophie Koch in Lyric Opera’s Werther photo: Dan Rest

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How rarely is Massenet’s “Werther,” the work many consider the crown jewel of French Romantic opera, done at Lyric Opera? Well, only twice prior in the company’s near sixty years of existence, the last time in the late 1970s, so definitely not a good idea to miss it this time around, unless your calendar for 2045 is wide open.

Huge pity that the staging of this new production sets aside the original’s intentions and instead overlays a matrix of extramusical pseudo-psychological associations not only at odds with the narrative and the music—no small feat—but more often than not, directly competing against both, to say nothing of common sense, for attention.

Also not helping is a cluttered, inelegant and cold set design that also stands in direct contrast to the lusciousness of the music. Under such less-than-ideal presentation circumstances, one wonders why Lyric did not just save some money and decide to present “Werther” in concert form.

That leaves us with the music, which thankfully is in superb hands here. Read the rest of this entry »

Thomas Hampson, Ferruccio Furlanetto/Photo: Dan Rest

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The Doge of Genoa is back. He doesn’t come around very often, so if you want an audience with him, now is a good time to do so or you may end up having to wait another decade and a half or so to catch him again. Even at a house with as Italian-centered a repertoire as Lyric Opera, Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra” is a relative rarity. Lyric’s lack of confidence that “Simon” can give its audiences a complete Verdi fix is evidenced by the fact that it is actually the first of two Verdi operas to be presented this season.

“Simon” should be heard every so often and certainly needs no apologies musically even if the tortured libretto might have sunk the work forever after its disastrous premiere had it not been for its reworking by Arrigo Boito years later. Verdi’s publisher had organized a meeting between Verdi and Boito concerning “Simon” in the hopes that if they could work well together, the pair might go on to collaborate on an operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Othello.” The rest, as they say, is history. Neither Verdi’s “Otello” or “Falstaff,” the crowning glories of his career and of Italian opera, might have come into being had Boito and Verdi not been able to work effectively on revising “Simon.” Read the rest of this entry »

Charles Castronovo/Photo: Dan Rest

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The perfect Mozart opera? Most would pick “The Marriage of Figaro,” some “Don Giovanni,” perhaps a handful even “Così fan tutte,” all Mozart collaborations with brilliant librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. And yet, for comedy, fantasy and intrigue, “The Magic Flute” has to top the list. A product of those much romanticized last months of his short life, this is Mozart at his most witty, his most charming and at the full height of his soon-to-be-silenced miraculous musical powers.

The memorable August Everding production that Lyric Opera is still using dates back to the mid-1980s and has frankly had more revivals than I can count with casts of various quality levels. After a quarter of a century of use here and elsewhere, apparently some of the pieces could barely be repainted and lighting had to be adjusted to compensate for the age of some of the scenery. If so, this is never obvious in the current revival. Read the rest of this entry »

Amber Wagner, Brandon Jovanovich/Photo: Dan Rest

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During the recently ended Bill Mason era at Lyric Opera, the philosophy was that works of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss had to alternate for attention to contain costs of the huge orchestra needed for these works. This year, however, the Strauss opera presented, “Ariadne auf Naxos,” employs a chamber orchestra, yet nonetheless was left to stand as the single season ambassador to represent the vast canvas of German Romanticism.

This production was originally mounted for soprano Deborah Voigt, who had sung the role here in 1998 and was to have sung this revival, “Ariadne” being one of her signature roles. However, soon after a Chicago Symphony concert over the summer spotlighting Strauss and Wagner roles associated with her where Voigt was having obvious vocal trouble, she abruptly withdrew from these performances with a statement that she was “focusing increasingly on dramatic soprano roles and thus has decided to drop the part from [her] repertory for the time being.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ferruccio Furlanetto/Photo: Dan Rest

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“Boris Godunov” is making a return appearance to Lyric Opera for the first time in some seventeen years, a long time to go without hearing the crown jewel of Russian opera. What is needed to make it work is a bass extraordinaire who doesn’t come around all that often. Lyric had to wait its turn to obtain the services of Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto, who is making his Lyric debut with this role.

One could quibble about the size and color of the voice, which is not the dark timbre often associated with classic performances of the tortured czar. But the nuances of Furlanetto’s characterization are profound and the shading of his voice expressive of the myriad of moods that need to be conveyed. Making a splendid contrast with Furlanetto is the darker sound of Italian bass Andrea Silvestrelli as Pimen. Read the rest of this entry »

Susanna Phillips/Photo: Dan Rest

It is telling that in a series of promotional videos that Lyric Opera music director Sir Andrew Davis and creative consultant Renée Fleming made to promote the new season, Davis admits that he is not partial to the bel canto repertoire before he nonetheless waxes on about the melodic appeal of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.”

The strategy for the company’s new production of “Lucia” is to depend on the vision of a former Lucia, Catherine Malfitano, to direct, apparently with the hope that the drama she once brought to the role—the actual singing of it was never her strength—would somehow translate to another portrayal and to an entire production. Would that it were so.

Instead, the end result comes off as a bewildering affair, marked by portrayals that seem detached as to what their specific character—to say nothing of anyone else’s—is doing in this opera. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dennis Polkow

“Enraptured” is the word most often used to describe experiencing Wagner’s “Lohengrin” at Lyric Opera (through March 8), heard here for the first time in thirty-one years. Under retiring general director William Mason, the thinking was to generally alternate seasons between Wagner and Richard Strauss, the two most expensive composers to produce in an opera house because of the large size of the orchestras needed to perform them.

But last year, neither composer was performed, and since next year’s Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos,” only requires a chamber orchestra, couldn’t Wagner have been included next season as well? Grabbing a bite in his backstage dressing room at the Civic Opera House before a matinee of Puccini’s “La fanciulla del West,” Sir Andrew Davis titters with audible delight at the suggestion.

“You know I love these works deeply,” he says, “but they are very expensive to produce. Aside from the orchestra, there is the cast size and you cannot skimp on Wagner. How many great Lohengrins are there in the world today? One? Two? And imagine, the best one is sitting right there,” says Davis, pointing to South African tenor Johan Botha, who has entered the room.

“I can only sing ten to twelve Wagner performances a season,” admits Botha, “and this year, I am doing seven of them in Chicago. That means that the Met, Vienna, anywhere else in the world that wants you to sing Wagner has to wait because you can only sing in one place at a time.” Read the rest of this entry »

Johan Botha, Emily Magee/Photo: Dan Rest

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Clocking in at four-and-a-half-plus hours and taking thirty-plus years to get back to Lyric Opera, “Lohengrin” is once again riding in on a swan—or in this case, a projected swan silhouette—for a stunning evening of musical theater as only Wagner could provide it.

No, this is hardly the new production that was originally promised, but a truncated version of the colorless whitebox version seen here in 1980 with Eva Marton’s memorable Elsa and “staged” this time around in a static and at times, ridiculous manner. But no matter. Close your eyes and feast on the glorious sounds, a rare Chicago opportunity to savor Wagner’s sixth and last opera, per se, as the true Wagnerian revolution that would forever change music would commence in earnest with his next work, “Tristan und Isolde,” which would usher in the new art form that Wagner would dub music drama.

“Lohengrin” is a work with one foot each in opera and music drama: the characters are the most psychologically developed to that point, and the drama component is as important as the music, a rarity as of yet, and of course, the work has some of the finest choral singing of any opera. Pity that longtime Lyric chorus master Donald Palumbo never had a crack at “Lohengrin” in Chicago before the Met spirited him away from us, but current chorus master Donald Nally, who is retiring after this season, really pulled out all of the stops and had the Lyric Opera Chorus sounding their most glorious of his time here. Read the rest of this entry »