There’s a lot of familiar music in Handel’s Acis and Galatea, but the opera is seldom staged. So it was good to have a New York City Opera production in March and April. But what a strange, even laughable, production!
The set featured orange beach chairs and big blue beach balls (that sounds like Dr. Seuss, doesn’t it? “Big blue beach balls”). The guys dressed and pranced like twinkly Troy Donahues, and the gals dressed and pranced like—whoever Troy’s female friends were. At the back of the stage lay a giant Cupid on a sloping hill. The audience couldn’t help tittering, as titter one had to. Polyphemus rode up and down on an elevator, wearing a miner’s hat and leering.
In opera, though—no matter what stage directors and set designers try to do; despite their best efforts to detract—the music’s the thing, as was the case here. Choruses were well sung: crisp, tight, and assured. The Galatea, Christine Brandes, has a smallish but well-trained voice. She at times failed to rise above pretty blandness, but shows promise. The Acis, William Burden, had a rough outing (the performance I attended was on March 17), straining and overly hooding the voice. In his struggles, he seemed unwilling, or unable, to let his voice—and it’s not a bad one—simply emerge. The production’s second tenor, however, was a smash: light, sweet, and free. This was John Tessier, and he should have a fine career. It almost didn’t matter that his big, marvelous aria— “Shepherd, what art thou pursuing?”—was staged in an especially asinine way, with the singer breaking into melodramatic hugs with the shepherd. The bass Dean Elzinga, as Polyphemus, sang in a sturdy, though not particularly Handelian, way.
Two dominant questions came out of this performance. First, is it necessary to stage the opera? What do we gain from seeing Acis, as opposed to merely (merely!) hearing it, with its arias, ensembles, and choruses? This is a work of set pieces. The visual element—the “action”; the story, such as it is—adds little. Does it matter whether a soprano sings “Hark, ye pretty warbling choir” on her knees—“in character”—or concert-style? Do we need to see Acis, in the sublime “Love in her eyes sits playing,” feel up his girlfriend on a swing? Does it enhance our enjoyment of the giddy, quicksilver duet “Happy we” that the tenor carries the soprano on his back? I was, believe it or not, glad to see this production, but I say, in the end, no.
The second dominant question (or exclamation, rather) is: isn’t Handel’s fecundity amazing? Acis and Galatea—like Giulio Cesare and many others—is an unrelenting outpouring of melody and invention and genius. The entire work is a highlights disc. This opera company, on balance, did well with it. Even with the big blue beach balls.
James Levine is proud of his Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and he is proud of its individual players, too, which is one of the reasons he puts on chamber concerts in Weill Recital Hall. The Met Chamber Ensemble is almost an institution in New York now, with its Sunday-afternoon musicales. In these concerts, Levine is not merely a collaborator, not just one of the gang. Much as he may try to blend in, he is the undisputed leader, his imprint on everything.
These concerts usually feature interesting and eclectic programming, and so it was on March 25, when the group did Beethoven, Schoenberg, Ligeti, and Bach, and in that very curious order. The Beethoven was the Quintet for Piano and Winds, Op. 16, an excellent early work in the composer’s beloved key of E flat. The players (led by Levine at the piano) were alert, sensitive, and solid. They expressed both the rugged and the lyrical elements of Beethoven. Sometimes these concerts appear underrehearsed—or even unrehearsed—but the Beethoven seemed polished. It was not too dense a performance; it had plenty of light in it. This was, indeed, a remarkably transparent reading. And Levine, as always, seemed to be having a ball (although not one of Dr. Seuss’s). He is often rather stiff at the keyboard, and his playing of the Quintet’s Andante cantabile was, indeed, a little blocky—lacking that cantabile, that singing line, that Beethoven asks for. But Levine is a fine pianist—although perhaps not as good as his mentor, George Szell, who also loved and excelled at chamber playing.
The Schoenberg was the Chamber Symphony for 15 Instruments, Op. 9, an excellent opportunity to show off the virtuosity of the Met players. This is a beautiful, exceptionally intelligent, exceptionally dense work. It hovers between two worlds: you hear in it Austro-Hungarian touches, such as those found in Brahms (who died six years before the piece was composed), and also the beginnings of the new musical language that Schoenberg would perfect. The Met ensemble handled the work superbly, with tight coordination and astounding clarity.
As for Ligeti, his compositions can seem more like math problems than music: but they have value, as evidenced by his Ramifications “for twelve solo strings.” The Met players made a strong case for it, playing it with precision and putting over its haunting quality. At the close, Levine held his baton in the air for what seemed an absurdly long time. It was hard to see the musical, as opposed to the theatrical, point of it.
To end the evening was the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major. It was surprisingly rough, detached, and disjointed. This was not a performance that emphasized beauty. In fact, it was coarse, as the players dug into the strings. Coordination was hardly a model here, either—this is one on which they seem to have skimped on rehearsal time. The whole piece was rather bulled through, an error to which Levine is prey. The final Allegro, in particular, felt rushed and unnuanced, with some violin playing that was downright ugly. Levine —supposing, or wanting to assert, that his players had everything under control— stopped conducting altogether, leaving the stage and sitting with the audience to enjoy the last few pages. This was a striking flourish, but its musical wisdom was open to question.
Murray Perahia, not content with being one of the greatest pianists in the world— and one of the greatest in history—is now a conductor. They all get the bug, don’t they? Not just pianists, like Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir Ashkenazy, but everybody: violinists (Joseph Silverstein, Vladimir Spivakov), trumpeters (Gerard Schwarz), and even singers (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Plácido Domingo). What’s next? Kathy Battle leading the Mahler Ninth? In any event, Perahia made his New York conducting debut at Avery Fisher Hall on March 28, with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, of which he is “principal guest conductor.”
Perahia has long been one of those pianists who conduct earlyish concertos from the keyboard: he recorded all of the Mozarts this way, many years ago, with the English Chamber Orchestra. This is never a great idea, even when it’s tried by great musicians, such as Perahia and Barenboim. No man can serve two masters: the conducting gets slighted, the playing gets slighted (and distorted), and the result is dissatisfying, a display mainly of ego. The argument, I suppose, is that one musical mind, one musical spirit, presides over the whole affair, making for a unified experience. In practice, it’s a loser and a cheat.
Perahia played/conducted two concertos on this program, before getting to a Mozart symphony. First came Mozart’s Concerto in G Major, K. 453, one of Mozart’s most beautiful, most profound works, and therefore one of the most beautiful and profound works in music. Perahia’s playing has suffered some in recent years, in the sad opinion of many of his old admirers. He tries to be a “bigger” pianist now, getting more sound, punching at the keyboard, sometimes pounding, becoming less tidy. He was always a refined, tasteful, poetic pianist, in the tradition of Myra Hess and Dinu Lipatti—he still is. He just shows it rather less. The Mozart concerto was fine, demonstrating that Perahia remains one of the best Mozarteans in the business. But it lacked some of the nobility and spirituality and wonder—in short, the perfection—of his earlier years.
Next was the Bach Concerto in D Minor, in which Perahia, of course, shone—this is a great pianist, come what may—but in which he shone less brightly than he might have. The Adagio didn’t quite sing, and the pianist was also somewhat sloppy and indistinct in certain quicker passages. But it was grand to hear Bach played on the piano, and full-heartedly so. Opportunities to hear this music on this glorious instrument are, unfortunately, becoming fewer. The back-to-nature crowd is taking over.
The symphony was the late G-minor one, and Perahia showed himself no slouch with the stick. The qualities that have always (or usually) marked his pianism are present in his conducting. It is only right that a musician as gifted and smart as Perahia should avail himself of a wider repertory, through this new career, or side career, or future full-time career (who knows?). He was exquisite in his phrasing, dynamics, and balances; one almost didn’t miss Sir Neville Marriner. If his performance had a fault, it was perhaps an excessive politeness or correctness. The piece had the feeling of the Mozart serenade known as “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” and the symphony should be bigger, weightier, in scope and feel. But then, we had on stage a chamber orchestra.
Christoph Eschenbach may be the busiest, most jet-setting conductor there is. He will succeed Wolfgang Sawallisch as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra in the 2003–04 season. He is already the chief of the Orchestre de Paris, and of the NDR Symphony Orchestra (Hamburg), and of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and of the Ravinia Festival. He is also conductor laureate of his old band, the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The man gets around, and he is a worthy pianist (there’s that theme again) to boot.
Eschenbach guest-conducted the New York Philharmonic in late March. (I heard the performance that took place on the 29th.) Opening the program with a group of Strauss songs was Barbara Bonney, the American soprano who has reason to believe she is descended from Billy the Kid (real name: William Bonney). Several years ago, she commissioned a piece from André Previn on the old outlaw. Indeed, she has made a specialty of American and English music, in which she is superb, with her clarity, simplicity, and sincerity.
Her Strauss, on this occasion, was not top-drawer, though Bonney is unquestionably a top-drawer singer. Little “Wiegenlied,” for example, could have been dreamier; it failed to cast the spell it should. Her intonation wasn’t up to her usual standard, as in the difficult passages from “Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden.” Hers is usually a penetrating voice, but it could not be heard over the orchestra in some of the low notes, which was annoying. Her “Ruhe, meine Seele!” was affecting, the best of the set; “Morgen,” however, was so slow and self-conscious, it almost flopped. This was not really the Bonney we know, and applaud.
After intermission, Eschenbach led the orchestra in Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. He is a bull of a man and a bull of a conductor. His every thought and intention, he enacts on the podium. It is hard to imagine a more physical conductor. He did not draw from the Philharmonic an especially beautiful sound, but the symphony had (by and large) tautness and drama, and he was determined to wring from the players all he could. The Sixth gives first-desk men plenty of chance to show their stuff. Clarinetist Stanley Drucker was phenomenal, as he customarily is. Trumpeter Philip Smith was smooth and secure (also as customary). French hornist Philip Myers, however, had a rough day, with clumsy onsets, a strained tone, and an excess of flubbed notes.
The conductor did not deliver a Sixth for the ages. The Scherzo’s relaxed, charming parts weren’t especially relaxed and charming; this movement should include a ländler feeling, missing here. And in the Andante, a warmer sound would have been desirable (which reminds us: what will Eschenbach do with the fabled Philadelphia sound? Keep it Philadelphian?). Furthermore, the symphony, particularly in its final movement, fell into an episodic state, although I should add quickly that to keep the thread going in this piece is a near-impossibility.
Christoph Eschenbach, partly by default, is an important conductor. If nothing else, Philadelphians will enjoy watching him. But Eugene Ormandy, that example of restraint on the podium, may roll over a little bit.
A word about James Levine’s schedule: On the night of Thursday, April 12, he conducted Berg’s Lulu (about four hours); on Friday night, he conducted Wagner’s Parsifal (about five and a half hours); and on Saturday afternoon, he was back in the pit for Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. Who knows how many other things he accomplished in this time? With apologies to James Brown, this other James may be “the hardest-working man in show business.”
There were two main reasons to see and hear the Ariadne: Deborah Voigt, soprano, and Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano. They are a couple of youngish Americans, and they are among the very best singers before the public today. Mentzer, as The Composer, turned in a stirring performance, full of character and life. There is iron in her mezzo—and a thrilling top—and every note she sings commands attention and respect. She was even able to sound like a young man (this is a trouser role), though she looked like the beautiful woman she is, dressed up butchly. There are, in fact, two astonishing young American mezzo-sopranos before the public now, and they are easy to confuse: Susanne Mentzer and Susan Graham. No matter which you think you’re going to hear, you’re unlikely to be let down.
Voigt is celebrated for many things, not least for her Chrysothemis (Elektra), her Sieglinde (Die Walküre), and her Aida (guess where?). Ariadne is another role right up her vocal alley, and on this afternoon she did several beautiful things in it. Her voice is extraordinarily big and opulent, but she sometimes uses too much of it; she might husband it, ration it, a little more wisely. She, lucky girl, has so much to spare: why not keep some in reserve? More seriously, she is showing some signs of wear and tear, which—particularly at this stage of her career, meaning, her prime—are alarming. But she ended the opera well, and she had managed her great aria (“Es gibt ein Reich”) admirably.
Singing Zerbinetta, the soubrette with a soul, was Lyubov Petrova, a Russian soprano making her Met debut. (She replaced the French sensation Natalie Dessay, who withdrew, citing vocal distress.) Petrova has a strong, clear voice, although one wanting for give, or pliancy. She didn’t melt much, and in her most unflattering moments she was strident. But she acquitted herself without embarrassment.
As for men, Ariadne auf Naxos has them, but Strauss didn’t much care about men, so drunk on the female voice was he, so why should we?