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Category: opera

The Makropulos Case and the Religion of Engineers

We look at time in an abstract way and see it stretching out to the horizon, leaping off the edge of the world and galloping on without limit into the wilds of the universe. In a sense, we view the infinity of time as a limitless extension of a space. A line the continues beyond the boundaries of human sight. The analog watch puts time on a leash and walks it around a dial on our wrist.

One of the many thoughts that flooded through my mind while watching San Francisco Opera‘s production of Leos Janacek‘s The Makropulos Case had to do with the religion of the engineers. This idea of the singularity, of shedding this mortal coil in favor of an electronic/digital instantiation of whatever it is we call our lives. The advantage, at least from an engineering perspective, is that, in silicon, we live forever. Or at least that’s the idea in so-called transhumanist circles.

The original story of Janacek’s opera was written by Karel Capek, who is probably better known as the author of the play R.U.R.— a story that featured and coined the term, robot. The engineering version of paradise and eternal life takes the form of inhabiting the robot, where all that was irreplaceable in our mortality can be put on a charge card at the hardware store. Worn parts easily replaced or upgraded.

Janacek’s The Makropulos Case takes a look at what immortality does to the morality of its anti-heroine, Elina Makropulos. Perpetual youth leaves her nothing but apathy and disconnection from the people around her. She’s lived many lifetimes and seen all the people around her grow old and die. The pain and suffering of others has ceased to matter, she’s seen it all before. In the San Francisco Opera production, soprano Karita Matilla, offers a stunningly dramatic performance showing the weight and weariness brought on by eternal youth. The opera, written in 1926, provides a very modern look into the dark side of living an endless series of lifetimes. We often look at the misbehavior of the Greek gods, and wonder how the immortals can be so foolish. Janacek and Capek show us that eternal youth changes the basic equation of human life. All human values are revalued on a payment plan that stretches out to infinity. Something essential is lost in the translation. We’re left with an entity that is too big to fail.

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Die Walküre: Once Upon A Time In America

Last Sunday I attended a performance of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre by the San Francisco Opera. In many respects, it’s a minor miracle that any grand opera is produced at all— given the high cost, the super-specialized talents required and the deep coordination of the music, singing, drama, light, costume and stagecraft. To complicate things further, Die Walküre is the second opera in a cycle of four operas called The Ring of the Nibelung. The Ring Cycle is one of the more ambitious projects an opera company can undertake. The Ring takes years of planning, signing the right talents, finding the right concept and assembling considerable financing. Given the difficulty, one would think it was a rare event. But instead we find ourselves with one Ring after another. This year the Los Angeles Opera presented its science fiction ring. In 2012, the Metropolitan Opera in New York will present a Ring that features integrated computer and video technology designed by Robert Lapage. San Francisco Opera’s offering of Die Walküre is a prelude to their presentation of the full ring cycle in 2011.

The Ring tells the story of the Twilight of the Gods and the beginning of the age of men. It’s been told in many ways over the years. The San Francisco Opera production (a co-production with the Washington National Opera) brings the story to America. The Gods are transformed into the titans of industry, inhabiting the skyscrapers of a giant metropolis; the Valkyries are women aviators parachuting on to the stage, the mythology of the opera is seamlessly fused to the mythology of America.

Director Francesca Zambello has created an American Ring full of raw power, deep psychology and strong resonances with our national story. In Die Walküre, it is the sense of touch that expresses these big themes in terms of personal moments. In the scenes between Hunding and Sieglinde in a rural shack, their entire relationship can be understood by watching their body language and how they touch each other. Zambello manages to infuse the entire dramatic level of the opera with this kind of specificity and emotion. Donald Runnicles, SF Opera’s former music director, is one of the foremost interpreters of Wagner’s music. He recently conducted two full Ring Cycles with the Deutsche Oper Berlin for their 2007/2008 season. His work on Die Walküre is detailed and passionate. The singers, Stemme, Delavan, Westbroek, Ventris, Baechle and Aceto are outstanding in both voice and their dramatic work. From the opening notes, all the way through the four and half hour opera, the audience is riveted. While I’ve seen the opera many times before, I was on the edge of my seat wondering what these characters would do next.

This may be one of the Rings that people talk about years from now. There’s something about the mythology of the Ring, the Twilight of the Gods, and this time in American history that creates very strong connections— where new meanings well up from leitmotifs of the music and the unstinting drama unfolding on the stage. This Ring sheds a great deal of light on the story of America, from the very personal to the highest levels of our politics. Even a God is bound by treaties, contracts and obligations— seemingly unlimited power is always limited by the power of the world. It’s a drama where the Gods are human, all too human.

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Salome: An Ultra-Dissonant Biblical Spectacle

salome4

Tonight I’ll be attending a performance of Richard Strauss’s opera Salome at the San Francisco Opera. Despite the sacrilegious themes and radical music, I doubt there will be any protests. Somehow, opera –in the United States at least– has the ability to present some of the most radical art in the guise of the most conservative. Alex Ross, in his excellent book The Rest is Noise, recounts the circumstances surrounding the second performance of the opera which Strauss himself conducted on May 16, 1906 in Graz, Austria:

…word had got out that Strauss had created something beyond the pale–an ultra-dissonant biblical spectacle, based on a play by a British degenerate whose name was not to be mentioned in polite company, a work so frightful in its depiction of adolescent lust that imperial censors had banned it from the Court Opera in Vienna.

The British degenerate they were referring to was a fellow named Oscar Wilde. The opera is based on his play, written in French, called Salomé. In attendance at that performance were Giacomo Puccini, Gustav Mahler, Alban Berg, the fictional character Adrian Leverhkühn from Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, and very possibly a 17 year old Adolf Hitler. The performance was one of the defining moments at the dawn of modern 20th century music.

One hundred and three years later, the work still has the power to shock and disturb people. While the dance of the seven veils may get most of the press, the moment where Salome declares her love for the severed head of John the Baptist is complex blend of power, lust, religion and madness. So dust off your tux, opera, as we all know, is a civilized affair.

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Aria: O mio babbino caro

Puccini

Next week I’m going to see Puccini’s Il Trittico (The Triptych) at San Francisco Opera. It’s comprised of three short operas: Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. Soprano, Patricia Racette will be performing the lead role in each story. It’s rare for a single performer to take on all three roles. Puccini started with the idea of three short operas about Dante’s Divine Comedy, but in the end only Gianni Schicchi maintained a connection.

Even if you don’t know opera, you may be familiar with an aria from Gianni Schicci, it’s called O mio babbino caro. Courtesy of YouTube, here are some renditions of that song.

Maria Callas

Renee Fleming

Anna Netrebko

And here’s a preview of the San Francisco Opera production of Il Trittico:

Il Trittico premiered at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on December 14th, 1918.

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