Last Tuesday night was the opening of New York City Opera's Candide, the final work for this spring season.  And what a way to finish the year!  If you are within 100 miles of the State Theater during the month of April, there is absolutely no reason you can't come down and see this marvelous, historic, trend-setting production.  Also -- New York City Opera's "Opera for All" program is offering $25 orchestra level seats!  Seriously now, if you come to Candide because of my gushing response and find yourself truly disappointed, then contact me and we'll do a depression screening on you.  If everything checks out and you still have heavy-duty problems with spending 25 bucks to see theater so thrilling and polished, then I'll convince New York City Opera to give you a refund.  Except to prove your dissatisfaction, you're going to have to sit through another performance with me next to you.  And if you smile just once during the performance, bet's off!  It's impossible to watch this production without grinning like a goon.

 

When New York City Opera promotes, advertises, and generally raises hell about its production, it has every right to create as big a hullabaloo as it wants.  Candide was practically resurrected at the City Opera back in the early 1980s.

 

 

Candide is essentially an operetta based on the novella of nearly the same name by Voltaire.  The great thing about this work is that it's sung in English and the libretto is nearly perfection.  It manages to be profound and insouciant at the same time, and it's all done with a brevity that easily fits on the supertitles (which you generally don't need anyway because of the superb diction from the performers).  As a result, not much preparation is needed to have a rollicking good time.

 

Candide was a French satirical work written by Voltaire during the Enlightenment.  In it, he railed against the dominant philosophical system of his day -- the theory of Optimism created by Leibniz.  Optimism is the idea that humanity must, and does, live in the best of all possible worlds.  Why?  Because God created the world.  And if God is presumed to be a benevolent deity, then surely the world he created is the best possible one for us.  For those who remember high school calculus, Leibniz is the also the guy who invented calculus backwards, using the integral instead of differentiation, as Sir Issac Newton did.  Surely for a man to have created the calculus backwards, without a purpose in mind (Newton only came up with it because he needed more advanced techniques to describe his theories of mechanics), he needed to believe fervently that he lived in the best of all possible worlds... otherwise, why not just forget it all and toss back a drink at the local watering hole?

 

Anyhow, in 1755 there was a catastrophic earthquake in Lisbon which occurred on All Saint's Day, and it strongly influenced many thinkers, including Voltaire, to reject the indiscriminately saccharine ideas of Optimism.  To get oriented to this opera, all you need to know is that Candide's main character, is well, Candide.  He is young, innocent, and not super-bright.  He represents the tabula rasa which Voltaire uses to prove his point.  Candide falls in love with the local beauty in their idyllic little village of Westphalia, Cunegonde (her name means something unique to women, not necessarily G-rated).  These lovebirds and their friends are indoctrinated by their teacher, Dr. Pangloss, in philosophies reminiscent of Optimism.  Candide is banished for seeking extracurricular pleasures from Cunegonde and henceforth begins a whirlwind saga where harsh realities of a non-Optimism world are seen.  Rest assured, though, that there is a happy ending.

 

I'm not going to say any more because when you enter the State Theater to see Candide, you're really boarding a ride that exports you on a journey all over the world.  The sets are magnificently exuberant and the singers bring you into their reverie, performing not only on stage but out among the audience as well.  The entire experience is an in-your-face, let's-go-along-for-the-ride kind of evening that creates a visceral thrill rarely had in a theater that's not IMAX.  All throughout, the genius of Leonard Bernstein's score evokes exotic locations with brilliant, foreign motifs.  But this is also the man who brought us West Side Story and Our Town, so in climaxes like "Make Our Garden Grow," the music goes straight to the heart and there are few dry eyes in the house.

 

I was so excited on opening night that I risked certain banishment from the ushers and tried to snap a picture of the delicious staging.  It didn't quite come out -- all the more reason for you come see it yourself!

 

As with all opening nights, it was a different sort of crowd.  More high-rollers, you might say -- snappily dressed and ordering champagne at the interval.  From the few I spoke with, it seemed many had seen the production in the past and couldn't pass up seeing it again.  The elderly couple next to me were in tears at the end of "Make Our Garden Grow."  They also watched the performance through opera glasses, which was odd.  You have to understand that I had seats in row D, which can't be more than 15 feet from the stage.  Unless your vision is egregious, the only thing opera glasses might do from row D is perhaps to let you see the pores on Cunegonde's face!  I'm definitely looking forward to getting older.

 

Stephen and Gail, a middle-aged couple I spoke to at the interval, remarked that they thought "every [opera] house needs a good frolic now and then, at least once a season."  Certainly, Candide fits the bill for New York City Opera this spring.  They reminded me that next door at the Met is a fantastic production of Hansel and Gretel -- another exuberant and over-the-top opera with creative staging that certainly could be their frolic for the year.

 

Oh, and one last thing: I was saying that Candide was practically resurrected at City Opera. About that -- you see, Candide initially opened on Broadway as a musical in 1956 and was poorly received although Bernstein's music was undeniably profound and charming -- so it became sort of a cult hit.  Despite this, the production itself had a hard time finding traction anywhere.  So it was re-written and re-worked over the years into other versions with moderate success -- the most popular of which actually omitted more than half of the musical numbers!  Finally in the late 1970s, opera companies began expressing interest in a version truer to the original, with more of Bernstein's score intact. One of City Opera's benefactors then approached Beverly Sills with funding, and Bernstein set to work on it with director Hal Prince.  Shortly thereafter, a new two-act version debuted at New York City Opera in 1982, and it has since become the standard version performed in opera companies around the world.

 

This is the production that made Candide the great hit that it is today.  It all started here --and the tradition is still going strong. You absolutely have to come see it.

 

By the way, as if the opera weren't enough excitement, while you're at the State Theater you might as well check out some of the fantastic non-acoustic art they have in the public spaces.  On the opening night of Candide, I met up with Andrew, my old roommate from college -- it had been nearly four years since we'd seen each other!  He's working in the city now and has a keen eye for visual art.  He noticed that there was a Jasper Johns sculpture hanging on the first floor's west side lobby.  We checked with a very nice volunteer manning the information desk named Ellen.  Indeed, it was a Jasper Johns --whose work was recently featured in a special exhibit at the Met Museum.  In fact, the entire theater is filled with notable art-- most noticeable perhaps being the two enormous female nudes at either side of the promenade, each carved out of a single block of Carrara marble!  So there is truly something for everyone here at City Opera.  But please come more for the music than the two nudes, for they are idealized and abstract whereas the music is not; particularly with Candide, which is as accessible, entertaining, charming, profound, and giddy as you can get in an opera house!

I walked into school on Monday morning, the morning after I saw New York City Opera's production of Candide, and was greeted by a few of friends who asked how I had liked Candide.  I could not think of a response.  I stared at them, completely mute, for a good minute until one of them repeated, "Sonia... how was Candide?"

 

"How was Candide?" I asked, "HOW was CANDIDE?  It was Voltaire's genius plus Bernstein's genius plus New York City Opera's production genius.  It was geniusly genius!"

 

"Right..." they all said, backing away slowly.  "'Geniusly genius...'"

 

My voice teacher, who was at a different performance, thought that the production was a bit "too much;" too long, too overdone, too big.  While I could possibly understand the complaint about the show's length, I wholeheartedly disagree that it is overdone.  In fact, I wholeheartedly disagree with any negative comment about this production.  In my mind, there is almost nothing that could detract from the genius of the music, the text, and the way New York City Opera put it all together.  In fact, I think that New York City Opera managed to perfectly compliment the absurdity of the text with the elaborate set, costumes and props.  I was a fan especially of the small stages on the big stage that allowed the different story lines to flow together very smoothly.

 

The "Note on Candide" in the program really spoke to the genius of both Voltaire and Bernstein.  The note describes the "conglomeration of tango, polka, mazurka, barcarolle, Neapolitan bel canto, Germanic Chorale" and the other types of music that Bernstein wrote into the score.  This mélange of genres helped highlight the radically different places that the characters travelled to, and the individualities of each character.  The paragraph on Candide (the novella, not the opera) made me laugh out loud during intermission.  It describes the meaning of the names Voltaire chose for his characters (i.e. Cunegonde from the Latin for "vulva.")  The only thing I could think after reading this note was, "Dear god, could these two men have been any more detail oriented?"  It's no small wonder that the amalgamation of these two works is so ridiculously perfect.

 

I feel like I have to say a thing or two about the singers.  At first I found the fact that they were all mic'ed a bit strange.  I know that Broadway singers tend to be mic'ed and it's not that this made me think any less of the singers, but the sound felt so out of place at the State Theater that I didn't quite know what to make of it at first.  Once I got used to it, however, I found the singers to be very impressive.  I've heard that it isn't easy for Broadway singers to make the transition into a sound that is more suited to an operetta.  If this is in fact the case, these singers did a praiseworthy job of it.  A few of them were also far younger than most singers you see onstage in an opera (Lauren Worsham, who plays Cunegonde, graduated from college in 2005!); I always find it extremely exciting to see young adults who are already so successful.

 

Candide's finale, "Make Our Garden Grow," is really one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard.  It is the perfect way to end an operetta that is abundant with firework-y and hilarious musical numbers ("Glitter and Be Gay," "The Old Lady's Tale"). "Make Our Garden Grow" juxtaposes perfectly with all of these; it is beautiful, simply and unarguably beautiful.  I'm not a particularly sentimental person, but this song always makes me a bit teary, and seeing it live made me that much more emotional.

 

This is the best of all possible music, the best of all possible novellas, and the best of all possible productions.  See it.  Seriously.

This past Tuesday, I left after my final class prepared to go see Candide.  (My preparation involved meeting up with a dear friend and grabbing dinner.)  As we entered the lobby of the theater, I thought back to my experience at Candide's final, non-dress rehearsal: directors conferring at the production table, cast members plopping down with a book after an extravagant musical number, ensemble members chatting quietly on the sidelines.  Remember how I said that the show was mesmerizing with virtually no set, costumes, or props?

 

When I entered the theater, I was overcome with immense anticipation.  What would the set look like, since the show is already so appealing by itself?  The set, as it turned out, succeeded in engaging the audience even more.  In this production of Candide, the story is presented as if by a troupe of traveling actors on a pageant wagon.  The effect is very welcoming; the production fully embraces the fact that we are all sitting in a darkened room to watch a story.  In fact, the cast walks through the audience at many times during the performance!

 

Out of the troupe of players comes Richard Kind, who narrates as well as plays various roles.  In a recent interview, Kind said that he wanted to focus on making clear the drastic changes in plot throughout the story of Candide; he succeeded with flying colors!  Even as a longtime fan of Candide, I have never understood the story more.

 

The rest of the cast of characters are just as strong: Daniel Reichard wins hearts as a tenderly oblivious Candide, Lauren Worsham and Judith Blazer are equally hilarious as two generations of spunky beauties, and the juxtaposition of Kyle Pfortmiller's beautiful baritone and youthful antics was hysterical.  One of my favorite standout performances was that of Jessica Wright as Paquette.  Maybe it was the surprising power and timbre of her voice, maybe it was her naïve playfulness, but I look forward to seeing more from her.

 

For all of you who have yet to see Candide, be sure to check out New York City Opera's Opera-For-All program.  You get to sit in the first two-three rows of the entire theater for only 25 dollars!  If you sit in the first couple rows, the cast will walk right by you, and if you're lucky, Richard Kind might just sit on your lap!  As for me, I'll be seeing Candide again next week!

Recently, I sat down with Katherine Benfer and Beth Pensiero, two of City Opera's chorus members.  It was incredibly fun chatting with these two longtime choristers who love their job and had some great things to say.  And they were very gracious with a novice interviewer!  Afterwards, they gave me a backstage tour and took me around the State Theater.  I snapped a few shots (below) as we ran around before they got ready for Tosca.

 

 

Beth Pensiero:  There's a range of reactions.  Some people are impressed... and some people are just bewildered, they're not sure what it means.  They don't understand what the job entails, what the schedule's like.  Some people will be impressed, some people will be like, "...oh...you sing, that's nice"

 

Katherine Benfer:  A lot of times they ask you if you get paid for that!  Oh yes you do, as a matter of fact! [laughs]

 

 

Beth Pensiero:  Depends on the complexity of the show.  If it's a big show and there's a lot of chorus in it, they might take a few weeks to work us into a show little by little till production week, which is intense.  If we're singing offstage most of the time and maybe sing onstage for ten minutes, they won't spend much time with us.

 

Katherine Benfer:  We have to learn the music cold, first.  So you have a musical rehearsal, then you have a staging alone, then you stage one opera and perform another.  That's the hardest and it's what we're doing right now.  We had a stage rehearsal of Candide this afternoon from 11:30-5:00pm, and then we have a show tonight, which can go to 11:00pm.  So this is the 12-hour day with a break in between.  At the end of the season, there's a week or two when we're free during the day and just do shows at night.  That's what helps us survive!

 

 

Katherine Benfer:  I think the difference with this career is that you perform.  There's a huge level of intensity and fitness.  Performing is like sports; you work and work and work and work and two minutes later it's over.  There's a huge intensity, and you're acutely aware of everything.  I could compare it to being a surgeon.  They have to study and study and study and they have one shot to get it right.

 

Beth Pensiero:  Performing is a high energy thing.  You can do your paperwork and sit at your computer and not be at your best, physically.  But when you're performing, you must be energized.  But you have to be relaxed as well so your body and your voice will respond.  It can be very demanding.

 

 

Katherine Benfer:  Well, the chorus -- and the orchestra, too -- our job is to help the soloists out, we give them space or guide them.  We know what's going on -- sometimes better than the soloists!  They might know their arias better but we know the show as a whole.  We energize the production, too.  Sometimes, when the chorus comes on, it's like..."let's bring the circus in here and liven things up!"

 

 

Beth Pensiero:  Well, as an example, we've been working very intensely on Candide lately.  It's kind of like an opera in a way but it really is an American musical, too.  This version was written years ago for New York City Opera.  It's a play within a play.  We, the chorus, are an invited audience to watch the story of Candide.  And we sit on the sidelines and watch the action.  But there are these big chorus numbers where we're asked to participate and comment.  We're onstage from the top of the show to the end of the show.  We get to be soloists in a way.  We are on our best behavior -- in character all the time.  It can be very tiring but it's a lot of fun, too.  Alternately, there's the King Arthur chorus, which just comments on the action from the pit.  That's totally different.  Then there are the Puccini operas.  Like in Tosca, we're part of the story.  We're part of the crowd, we're the churchgoers, and we're in the background.

 

Katherine Benfer:  And our purpose there is to reflect the spirit of the time.  In Tosca, we express the agony of the fascist state.

 

 

Katherine Benfer:  And sometimes, the audience can identify with us, too.  We're onstage there and they identify with us as we comment on a situation.

 

 

Katherine Benfer:  I came here from a church-singer background.  I wanted to try this art form and explore it.  What better way to understand it than right from the middle.

 

Beth Pensiero:  I worked with the Opera [Company] of Philadelphia for a few years.  Then I ended up moving to the New York area and I decided to audition here.  The timing was right; they needed someone for a soprano spot and it ended up being me!  And that was 24 years ago and I'm still here!  It's been a way to make a living and have a lot of experience singing with different types of opera.  And we get to go on tour every once in a while, which has been fun.

 

 

Katherine Benfer:  This job has broken me out of who I thought I was.  Imagine you have to look in the mirror every day to put on makeup and see all those wrinkles.  But you put on a different wig and a different outfit -- and you don't get a choice as to what you wear or what wig they hand you -- and this image of yourself gets shaken up a little.  And that can be a very good thing.  You do have to leave your ego at the door, though.  "I'm sorry, I always part my hair on the side!" -- Well, that's not going to work here.  They're going to give you a fright wig or they'll want you to be a madam [of a brothel].  What do you say to that? "I'm sorry, I can't, I'm Episcopalian?" [laughs]  No, you do what they tell you!  And it's good to be flexible, to look at yourself in the mirror and get over yourself.

 

Beth Pensiero:  One of my favorite things about the job is when we participate in an extraordinary production.  We get to do a lot of good stuff with conductors and directors but every once in a while there's an extraordinary experience.  It's wonderful; you get to experience these people and their music in a very special way.  There are good singers and there are great singers.  Renée Fleming was in our Marriage of Figaro production!  And my ears pricked up and I went, "Oh wow, who is she?" and ten years later she's a big star at the Met!

 

 

Beth Pensiero:  Yeah.  So, that's fun.

 

Katherine Benfer:  And I love when you finish a production and you hear the applause and you know you've done really good work. You can't buy that. That's the priceless part of the MasterCard.  [laughs]

 

 

Beth Pensiero:  There's a lot of controversy about the direction of opera today.  And we wonder about the next generation; whether it will end up being the next opera audience.  We want to see this art form continue to flourish, yet we want to keep our standards high.  I really hope that it's true that we are attracting the next generation.  There's so much culture and beauty in opera.  I would hate to see it become a dying art form.  I really want to see it flourish.  That's my hope for the future.

 

Katherine Benfer:  We do care about it, beyond a paycheck.  We just had the television special of Butterfly and I know a lot of people who watched it and were impressed.  They bought tickets to the opera.  It was a wonderful thing.

 

Beth Pensiero:  Yes, there was a lot of positive feedback.

 

Katherine Benfer:  And the houses were packed out there.  This is important to us.  We believe in it.

After seeing the ad for the New York City Opera Thrift Shop numerous times in the opera playbills, I finally decided to stop by and check out their merchandise.  The City Opera's thrift shop, located at 222 E. 23rd Street, offers (but is not limited to) the usual variety of secondhand men's and women's clothing.  The extensive selection of women's wear occupied much of the store.  Prices were reasonable and reflected the quality of the garments, many of which were from high-end designers.  Menswear was limited to three racks tucked in the back of the shop, separated into tops, bottoms and jackets.  Women can easily find a great outfit (especially for the opera!) while men will have to do some scavenging.

 

A walk past the fashion options and up to the second floor reveals various pieces of home furnishings, wall art and a large variety of literature.  Hidden in the corner was a box full of old opera recordings -- a steal at $1 each, but only on vinyl.  A couple of framed, vintage opera posters caught my eye, but the price range of $40-$75 didn't agree with my wallet.

New York City Opera's thrift shop is not only a great place to find secondhand goods, but also an easy way to support City Opera.  If you want to donate stuff, they'll cover the cost of your taxi ride there, or if it's large enough, you can schedule a free pick-up.  All donations to the thrift shop are tax deductible and all proceeds benefit New York City Opera.  This really is an ingenious fundraising idea on their part!

 

In other news, I have been readying myself for City Opera's Candide for quite some time. Even before being offered this student correspondent position, I've had my eye on the production.  Not only is Candide one of my favorite novels, but Leonard Bernstein is one of my favorite composers and his not-quite-opera, not-quite-musical adaptation of Voltaire's classic is one of his many masterpieces.  When I first heard "Make Our Garden Grow," the glorious finale, I was blown away; and hearing other pieces from Candide, especially "The Best of All Possible Worlds" and "Glitter and Be Gay," I was immediately drawn to it.

 

So when the staff from marketing mentioned that they had set up a window at the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Triangle, I vowed to check it out.  The window display, featuring some costumes, sketches, and various knick-knacks from the show, was very well put together.  There were many pieces, worthy of taking a good look at and the vibrancy of the display certainly caught my eye.  If you're in the area, it's definitely a great photo-op!

A typical opera-going evening for me begins on the train.  I commute down to the city from New Haven, where I go to medical school.  It's typically a bum-numbing experience on the Metro-North, where I try to do some reading or catch up on work.  It's also a great opportunity to review the score of the opera I'm planning to see.  Madama Butterfly has never been one of my favorite Puccini operas so on this particular train ride, I wasn't eager to crack open the score.  Luckily, there was a crowd of at least ten middle-aged women in my compartment upon whom it was my pleasure to eavesdrop instead.

 

They were all middle-school teachers from Westport heading down to the city to watch their students compete in some sort of speech team contest.  The most vociferous among them was complaining about her husband, who apparently used to drive three hours up to Boston (where she went to college) every weekend to see her while they were courting.

 

But after 20 years of marriage, he was now posted in Boston for two months on some sort of assignment for his work, while she held down the fort in Westport.  And he refused to drive down to visit her or the kids on the weekends.

 

"Doesn't he love me anymore?" she moaned.  "He used to drive to see me all the time."

 

One of her fellow teachers remarked, "Life's not like Enchanted."

 

I'm pretty sure she was talking about the recent Disney movie, Enchanted.  It occurred to me that this film is an excellent reduction of the themes in Butterfly.

I'm not sure if any of you have seen it, but in Enchanted, there is a wonderful scene where Amy Adams (playing the lost princess, Giselle) is at a salon with Morgan, Patrick Dempsey's young daughter.  Morgan is advising the princess that she shouldn't wear too much make-up on her first date with the prince.

 

"But why?" asks the princess.

 

"Because boys will get ideas in their head -- and you know they're only after one thing," replies Morgan, wisely.

 

"Oh, what's that?" wonders the princess.

 

"I don't know, no one will tell me," shrugs Morgan.

 

Well, it's pretty clear what that "one thing" is, wouldn't you say?  It's certainly the "one thing" on Pinkerton's mind during the first act of Butterfly.  He's a hapless American navy lieutenant in Nagasaki who has decided to purchase a house and wife to satisfy his worldly sailor appetites.  The only problem is that Cio-Cio San, the geisha who comes with the house he's purchased, believes he is marrying her for true love.  Her level of devotion and faith in sailor-boy is nothing short of breathtaking, and is parodied aptly in movies like Enchanted, where Princess Giselle and her prince decide to marry after meeting each other only once!  In Butterfly, Pinkerton and Cio-Cio San share one ostensibly crazy night of passion, but then he disappears for 3 years, only to come back with an American wife.

 

I think the reason I've always been reticent about Butterfly is that it makes such a fool out of the tenor role, Pinkerton.  It is also a huge misrepresentation of men, portraying them as mindless sacks of seed with the motto "fertilize and forget."  Butterfly seems to happily corroborate what Robin Williams has uncharitably said about men: "God gave them a brain and a penis and not enough blood to run both at the same time."  What was Puccini thinking?  (Plus, the tenor is made to sing lines like, "Lo Yan-kee va-ga bon-do.")

Oh yes. The buffoonishness is utterly complete.

 

And yet it also has some of the most beautiful music Puccini ever wrote.  The love duet at the end of Act I --"bimba dagli occhi pieni di malia" will hopefully be the theme music of my honeymoon.  It has swells and swings that seem to be in sync with the pituitary gland.  The only problem is that my wife will have to be kept in the dark about what happens in Act II or else she'll get nervous about why I'm playing music from Butterfly.

 

Thankfully, New York City Opera's production on Wednesday proved to me that you have to keep going to live performances despite old prejudices.  Every once in a great while, you'll see something on stage that is simply electrifying and makes you fall in love with the theater all over again.  I imagine it's a lot like being a physician -- one takes care of a lot of mundane disorders and ailments, but every so often, something truly life-threatening comes in and you discover once again what a privilege it is to take care of patients and their families in such times.

 

This was the second to last performance of Butterfly this season and it featured a soprano playing Cio-Cio San (Yunah Lee) who had us nibbling at her feet from the word go.

 

She not only stole the show, she hijacked it.  At the first intermission, an elderly Italian couple seated next to me rushed outside to call their friends about the "next big thing." Numerous other fans I spoke to mentioned that she reminded them of a young Renata Scotto.  I would have to agree, except that I think she's more of a mix between a young Katia Ricciarelli and a mature Renata Scotto.  (Please click on the above youtube links to appreciate what I mean.)  Scotto was one of the greatest actresses of the opera stage and Ricciarelli had one of the most delicious and creamy soprano voices of the last 25 years.  It's incredibly rare to see a young singer so vocally endowed -- with a voice that carries over the orchestra effortlessly, yet retains focus and the floating quality necessary to portray a character who's supposed to be 15 years old!  Oh, and by the way, she can act too.  And how!

 

The production was fairly traditional compared to what I've seen in the past, but that was a welcome respite.  All the Butterfly productions I've seen in the past have been uber-modern dalliances and for some reason, they all omitted the part of the young Butterfly-Pinkerton love-child, relying on symbolism instead.  Is it really that hard to cast an adorable little boy wearing a kimono?  Once, when I saw the production in Baltimore, they used a potted plant to represent the little boy.  The only way you knew the plant was the boy was that Cio-Cio San was watering it while she sang about her son.  It's definitely more poignant when you have an actual child on the stage!

 

Something funny: during the second intermission, there were numerous couples on the mezzanine bemoaning the Spitzer-Patterson affairs, inspired by the "typically male behavior" of Pinkerton.  Poor New Yorkers have been through a lot in March.  At least there's no love-child that we know about from these extracurricular activities... yet.  (This may be where potted plants actually come in handy.)

 

After Cio-Cio San committed suicide in the final act and the curtain came down, there was a split-second of silence before the audience rose out of its reverie and started clapping violently.  When Yunah Lee took her bows, everyone was instantly on their feet.  I haven't seen that kind of excitement in an opera house in a long time.  This production featured a different cast than the version that was broadcast live on PBS last week, but I can't imagine how any evening could have been more thrilling.  It's proof that New York City Opera is continuing its tradition of being the launch pad for the next generation of opera stars.  This must have been what it was like when Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, Beverly Sills, and Renee Fleming were at New York City Opera... you just knew you were witnessing history.

 

Wednesday night helped me get over my beef with Butterfly.  I've always been slightly peeved about the way it portrays men.  But with Yunah Lee singing Cio-Cio San in a production that was pitch-perfect, I was forced into being ashamed instead of angry.  That's what powerful theater can do.  I think it made all the guys in the audience feel sorry on behalf of their entire gender that they have been "fertilizing and forgetting" since the time of Abraham.  That's how touching and affecting Yunah Lee was on Wednesday.  I'm sure we'll be seeing more of her at the New York City Opera, and it will be a huge loss for us if she moves next door to the Met.  I hope she'd come back to visit.

Number one most-performed opera in the US?  Madama Butterfly.  If this trend keeps up, and the folks at New York City Opera's current production are any indication, Madama Butterfly will continue to bring in new opera aficionados for years to come.

 

On the "New to Opera?" section of their website, City Opera recommends Madama Butterfly for first-timers at the opera house.  I decided to make finding opera newbies a goal that evening, to see how they reacted to Puccini's masterpiece, and to opera in general.

 

Madama Butterfly has a simple, tragic plot.  Butterfly is a geisha who falls in love with Lieutenant Pinkerton, an American sailor stationed in Japan.  He marries Butterfly, but then abandons her.  She waits for three years, only to find on Pinkerton's return that he has taken an American bride and forgotten about his faithful Butterfly.  When Butterfly hears about his second marriage, she is heartbroken and commits suicide moments before a remorse-stricken Pinkerton returns to see her.

 

New York City Opera's production was restrained in terms of sets and visuals.  Rather than detracting from the experience, I liked this minimization of distractions; I could just concentrate on the story and the music.  The simple blue-stage setting was the same for all three acts; they just pulled in some silk screens for the scenes that took place inside Butterfly's house.  Yet, while there was not a lot in the way of props and scenery, the costumes were sufficient to give the production a definite Japanese/period flavor. 

 

"Visually, it's beautiful," said Theo, a patron who was attending his first opera.  He had familiarized himself with the story before heading to the opera, and said that had enabled him to just concentrate on the stage (rather than having to look back and forth, watching the supertitles). 

 

Josh Thomas, a university student, was particularly struck by the breathtaking lighting effects.  "It's amazing how they change the lighting from night to day, and how they add the moon, or the red light [when Butterfly's threatening uncle appears]."

 

As I walked around during the two intermissions, I was struck by the variety of people attending the opera.  There were retirees, theater students, tourists, kids (even whole families!), or young professionals looking for something different to do on a Saturday night.

 

Martina, an au pair from Germany, was fascinated by her first experience at New York City Opera: "It is my first time at a big opera house and it is interesting."  She had decided to come see Madama Butterfly after noticing an ad for it on a college billboard. 

 

Shy, ten-year-old Dasha was enjoying herself and thought that "the music was pretty." 

 

A talkative, engaging young lady named Amy shared her thoughts while she browsed flyers for other operas.  "It's a sad story, but I really like it anyway.  I think it's going to become one of my favorite operas.  I definitely want to see more."

 

I happened to go to Madama Butterfly the same night the honors program from Ithaca College was visiting New York City Opera.  It was a school trip that included a visit to the Metropolitan Museum and sightseeing in New York, but the centerpiece of the outing was Madama Butterfly.  Most of the Ithaca students were completely new to opera and practically all were enthusiastic about the performance.  "I think it's great," said Matthew, one of the honors students, "and it's definitely fulfilling everything I've heard about [opera]."  His friend Julianne added that maybe "the vibrato took some getting used to, but the singers are really talented."

 

Garret, another Ithaca student, summed up the evening perfectly for me when he said, "It's beautiful.  I never really thought much about going to the opera but I'm really interested in it now.  I kind of want to see another one."

Despite my love of Verdi, I had never really gotten to know his final opera, Falstaff.  The day before the performance, I had an impromptu conversation with New York City Opera dramaturg, Cori Ellison, about the events in Verdi's life surrounding his final composition.  I learned that Verdi was eighty years old when the opera premiered; he collaborated via mail with librettist (and composer in his own right -- see his opera Mefistofele) Arrigo Boito, from his home in Sant'Agata, Italy.  People criticized his supposed inability to write a comic opera because his first and only other attempt, his early Un Giorno di Regno, was a rather large flop.  Story has it Verdi himself was sitting in the orchestra pit on the night of the premiere performance of Un Giorno, and he heard the audience's negative reaction.  (Yikes!)  To save himself any further embarrassment (at eighty, no less), his writing of Falstaff was a confidential matter.  The opera went on to be a solid success, proving that the master of the tragic opera could, in fact, lighten up.

 

I was very excited to get to know Verdi's light side.  I always love seizing the opportunity to experience with a fresh palate something others have revered since long before me.  Such was the case last Thursday night.  I brought my dear friend Adam, a vocal performance major at New School's Mannes College of Music.  He was already familiar with the opera, and he was just as excited as I was.  I knew that was a good sign. 

 

The cast was, across the board, a line-up of fully-realized characters, whacky, zany, and delightful.  Jan Opalach began singing opera to play this role, or so it would seem from the panache he exuded as he relished John Falstaff's élan.  Other standouts included Ursula Ferri as Mistress Quickly, a performance so crystal clear and hilarious, I forgot that she was singing -- and in Italian.  Adam was particularly impressed by Stephen Powell's chops as Ford and Pamela Armstrong's Alice.

 

What I liked most about the production was the set.  Simple but effective, its two main walls were visually appealing, yet neutral enough for the numerous ways they would be employed throughout the performance.  After growing accustomed to the largely interior locales of the first two acts, the set for Act Three's night scene seemed especially pleasing: a mammoth tree dimly lit center stage with the moon above.

 

The opera itself thrilled me.  It was structured in such a way that the action was constantly unfolding, often at the breakneck speed of farce.  Maybe it was the fact that Adam and I had just seen the Metropolitan Opera's Tristan und Isolde two nights prior, but we looked at each other in shock at the end of the night, both completely astounded at how quickly an entire opera had flown by.

 

Cori had one more thought on Falstaff that I have saved for the end, because it's my favorite: Verdi's farewell to his audience is anything but solemn.  The opera ends with a fugue, "Tutto nel mondo é burla," that says, "Everything on earth is a joke, everyone on earth is a fool."  I love imagining the eighty-year-old Verdi putting down his fountain pen after completing the fugue, knowing full well the final message from the master of tragedy.

Last week, I got to watch the final rehearsal run-through of Candide, and I am so excited for this production to open!  If you couldn't tell by the gushing in my Madama Butterfly entry, I love Candide.  It appeals to lovers of both opera and musical theatre, but not only that -- it appeals to lovers of wit, sarcasm, laughter, fast action, beautiful music, and madcap adventure!

 

Lauren Worsham was playing Cunegonde at the rehearsal I attended; she, Daniel Reichard and Richard Kind all seemed to be having as much fun playing the roles as I had watching them.  I was also incredibly impressed by the supporting players; they made the entire show a delight.

 

In the rehearsal room, with no set, no costumes, bright rehearsal room lights, and people milling about, Candide still had me grinning, and still had me hooked.  I'll let you all know how the final product is once I've seen it on opening night!

 

 

I loved so many things about Tosca; the storyline, music and staging of the opera worked together magically to create an amazing production.  And it's definitely going on my list of favorite tragedies.

 

This night out to the opera started with dinner at Café Fiorello, across Broadway from Lincoln Center.  I'm a huge foodie, so pre-theater dinner is usually a must when attending shows.  Fortunately, my cousin offered me dinner at this (relatively expensive) restaurant in exchange for taking him to the performance. 

 

I read a synopsis of Tosca and familiarized myself with the plot before the performance, and definitely thought it was intriguing.  Seeing it live, and set to Puccini's music, however, was so much more fulfilling.  On the other hand, I felt that some of the acting was not as convincing as it could have been.  Still, the simple yet effective sets were enough to convey the intense emotion of each of the characters.

 

The second act was, by far, my favorite of the three.  A long red stripe across the backdrop and along the floor says so much for Tosca and Scarpia.  The end of Act II, with Tosca against the red background, saying, "And before him all of Rome trembled," was so emotionally compelling and truly brought out the feminist in me.

 

Puccini's work is definitely the overall highlight for me.  The orchestrations aptly set the mood for what was going on onstage.  I love when music is that powerful, and Puccini's ability to create powerful music was extraordinary.  The progression from major chords expressing Tosca's joy to minor ones showing her grief in Act III is a phenomenal example of such ability.  Unsurprisingly, he has become my one of my favorite composers!  I'm sure that after seeing Madama Butterfly, I'll be a Puccini fanatic.

It was at a Saturday performance of King Arthur that I really figured out the difference between old folks at the Met and old folks at New York City Opera.  However, before I get to that, here's a little explanation of what happened during the performance.

 

You should know that opera is a still-evolving art form, and when Henry Purcell wrote King Arthur a lot of the traditions that surround staples like La Bohème and Carmen hadn't yet come into being.  Music was largely liturgical throughout the Middle Ages and it wasn't until the very late Middle Ages that secular forms of theater emerged.  Purcell was in the middle of this large evolution, and as a result his operas are more "semi-opera," or spectacles that combine spoken dialogue with dance (or masques as they were called: i.e. masquerade), orchestral music, and song.

 

All of this is fine, except that choreographer Mark Morris decided to omit the spoken dialogue from this production of King Arthur because he didn't like it.  Seriously.  But he did keep the music because... well, he liked it.  Sounds odd, and certainly most of the audience found it that way on Saturday.  I accosted a number of people during intermission to see what they thought of the unusual production, and a typical answer went something like, "Gosh, I don't know that I understand it.  Certainly it's very different.  But thank goodness, at least the music is so pretty."  Most of these people were familiar with opera, but they weren't frequent opera-goers.  None of them seemed to regret coming even if they didn't understand what was happening onstage.

 

Despite these problems, I enjoyed the production immensely.  I couldn't figure out why until I ran into a very elderly Italian woman toward the end of the intermission -- let's call her Magda.  She was my last interview, immaculately dressed and standing by the window on the 4th ring of the house, clucking her tongue at the mess of construction in the Lincoln Center plaza.  When I asked her how the music made her feel, she responded by re-enacting one of Mark Morris' trademark dance moves from the first act.  I was stunned -- mostly at her incredible flexibility.  The move was something the dancers did when the chorus was singing "Triumph!" during the first act.  It involved arching the back and feigning an archer's position.

 

"Well, what does that mean?" I asked.

 

"Deh meeoosik ees so beooteefuhl!"

 

"But doesn't it bother you that Mark Morris removed the dialogue and one cannot understand the plot?" I asked.

 

"Whyee shood I cahrre?  Eeet makes no deeferhence.  Dis ees ohperah."

 

She also reminded me to mention in my post that the New York City Opera's Madama Butterfly would be on PBS's "Live from Lincoln Center."  At the mention of this, I immediately fell back into my old-fogey Met pose.

 

"Which recording of Butterfly do you like most?" I asked.

 

"Whoo cahrres?  Evehree taiime ees deeferhent.  Ees beooteefuhl."

 

This woman was a true human being and a true opera-lover (She is Italian, after all.)  She made me realize all over again, that it's the music which is most important in opera.  Otherwise you can go see a play, a poetry recitation, attend a lecture, or just stay home and read a book.  Why did people start putting music to words in theater?  Because music provides a direct line to the soul.  Spoken word can discuss, describe, and delineate emotions, but music goes straight to your heart.

 

So I say kudos to Mark Morris for getting rid of the words he thinks aren't important. Magda agrees with him, and so do I.  How brave of New York City Opera to have used this production as the launch of their spring season.  As modern and avant-garde as it might have been (and it was pretty "out there," with paper-airplanes flying all over the stage during the maypole dance, and at one point, a pretty realistic enactment of sex on-stage...)  It was a clever way of forcing us back to the basics of why opera is important.  It connected everyone in the theater to emotions that were central to our humanity -- through music.

Norman was right -- New York City Opera is hot.  They're hot and they're right about opera.  This is the kind of hot that you can bring home to mom.  Oh, by the way, the difference between Met Opera old-folks and New York City Opera old-folks: Magda re-enacted a dance at the age of eighty-odd.  You're not going to find anyone in the Met who'll do that.  She also isn't moaning about in the gift shop trying to find a recording she first heard in 1956.  She's ready for new singers, new stagings, new productions -- and she'll find it at the New York City Opera.  Of course, even Magda has her limits.  She wouldn't let me take a picture of her doing the "Triumph!" dance.  But I got her to show me and my friends how to do it, as you can see.

 

Next stop, Madama Butterfly!

 

Early this season, I came down to New York City Opera to sign my contract for this blog.  Afterward, Jaime in the marketing office was nice enough to give me a quick tour of the State Theater.  It was unbelievable.  I got to meet one of the sopranos who is singing in Candide, Lielle Berman. 

 

You have to understand that opera stars can be difficult, but she was the opposite of what you hear about divas.  They used to say that if Kathleen Battle wanted the air conditioning turned down in her limo, she'd call up her manager, who'd call up the limo company, who'd call up the limo driver. 

 

Anyhow, I think Ms. Berman sensed that I was in awe of meeting her and she tried to put me at ease, saying, "Gosh, so you're in medical school.  That's incredible."  But honestly, this woman gets up on stage, opens her mouth, and fills the several thousand cubic meters of air in front her with truly sinful noises, sending shivers up the 2,000+ bodies and gaping mouths in front of her.  She stands on the same wooden planks that Beverly Sills walked.  She breathes the air Placido Domingo breathed.  Medical school seemed unbelievably rudimentary at that moment.

 

She was eating chili.  I should have asked her if that's good for the voice.  She asked if I was musical or played an instrument but I was too humbled to say anything about the fact that I studied piano at Peabody and opera at Yale.  This was a diva.  She was eating chili.  Okay, on with the tour before I start peeing my pants, Jaime.

 

After the tour I said goodbye to Jaime and wandered over to the Met gift shop (that's at the Metropolitan Opera, the other opera house next to the State Theater).  This place is really like an Alcoholics' Anonymous for opera nuts.  What happened to me that day is very common.

 

"Hello, I'm Mary from Rhode Island.  Oh goodness, you're so young and I think you might have a better memory than me.  I'm looking for a recording with the Berlin Philharmonic and this young man helping me is wanting to know who the conductor was... do you know?  He's the new one, the British one with the funny teeth."

 

I told her it was Simon Rattle and she practically started crying.  "My God, yes!  Oh I tell you, my mind isn't fresh when I feel irregular."  Then I got another tap.

 

"Excuse me, I'm Norman.  I'm looking for a Faust with Di Stefano before he had his nose fixed.  Have you heard it?"

 

"Oh," I said.  "I've never been able to find an early recording here.  Have you tried the internet?  Sometimes you can find great CDs on places like eBay or Amazon."

 

"Oh... I've heard of the internet but I don't know.  Can it be trusted?"

 

Sigh.

 

About 20 feet away, at the entrance to the shop, the theft alarm went off for the 7th time since I'd come in.  And for the 7th time that day, I heard, "Ma'am!  Ma'am!  Not to worry, it's your hearing aid that keeps setting off the alarm.  No, no -- I know you paid, it's the hearing AID."

 

Norman and I started talking about Roberto Devereux, which I'd heard many times but had never seen.  It's possibly one of the hardest bel canto roles for soprano ever written, practically impossible to sing.

 

"God.  I mean, hot damn, you know?  There was no one like Beverly Sills in that."

 

From the clips I'd heard, I had to agree with him.  This was another one of the holy grails Norman was looking for.  I mentioned to him that she never performed it at the Met, only at New York City Opera.

 

"Oh, of course, that was at the City Opera in the 70s," said Norman.

 

I asked him if he wanted to walk over there and see if they had any recordings.

 

"Hot damn.  You're right," he said, and we were off, side-stepping the 8th hearing-aid alarm.

 

Sadly, the New York City Opera gift stand was closed when we got there.  Norman walked around the lobby and looked wistful.  I asked him what separated City Opera-goers and Met-Opera goers of his age.

 

"Well," he said, "The City Opera... I don't know.  Damn, those were the days.  It was hot then, you know.  Hot damn, it was hot!  It's always been hot.  But after a while, I just started going to the Met."

 

"Norman, it's absolutely hot now," I said.  "It's positively smoldering!  You should come see King Arthur before its run concludes."

 

"You know what, maybe I will.  Hot damn, maybe it's time."

 

Well, we said goodbye.  I still didn't know the difference between old folks at the Met and old folks of New York City Opera, but I had heard "hot damn" uttered more times in one day than I had in the last year.

 

I will preface this entry by saying that I have an unwarranted but fairly strong aversion to Puccini's music.  I went to New York City Opera's production of Madama Butterfly feeling apprehensive about the experience.  I wondered how I would be able to sit through three hours of Puccini when I could hardly listen to three arias in a row at home.  I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying almost every minute of Madama Butterfly.  I will not chalk this up to the music -- my Puccini aversion is still alive and well -- but the incredible singing and the striking lighting and sets made it all seem worthwhile.

 

I was not particularly blown away by the first scene.  I think this is because, having never seen this opera live before, I found the affectation of Japanese mannerisms and customs to be slightly awkward and very strange.  I found myself wondering if the opera would make any sense at all if it was set in another time period, or a different country.  I later decided that no, it absolutely would not, but it was an interesting thought all the same.  The love scene at the end of the first act captivated me; the floating orchestral and vocal music with the white costumes against the indigo sets were so incredibly striking, both aurally and visually.

 

Madama Butterfly is one of New York City Opera's most popular and most praised productions; this could explain why I noticed so many tourists in the lobby at intermission.  It was fairly exciting to see people from so many different countries at one performance in New York.

 

The second act began as enticingly as the first act ended.  Madama Butterfly's big aria, "Un Bel Di" was sung superbly and acted so delicately that it really blew the audience away.  The applause lasted a good while longer than any other ovations I can remember at New York City Opera.

 

The visuals in the second act were what really made this show special for me.  I was shocked by how effectively they used lighting, props and the set to convey the different emotions that Butterfly was feeling.  From the shower of rose petals on the ivory sheet during the excitement of the flower duet, to the red sun that lit up the stage when Butterfly stood waiting in vain for Pinkerton; and finally, the simplicity and slight disarray of the set when Madama Butterfly finally decides to take her own life.