The Met/Lepage Gotterdammerung

Although it drew an almost universal chorus of disapproval from the first note of Das Rheingold which never let up until the world burned across its planks almost a year and a half and 15 hours later in Gotterdammerung, in the end the "Machine" proved its worth to the Met's new Ring cycle. This may not have been true for those seated in the house, who complained about creaks, squeaks and malfunctions, but if you saw it from the seat of a movie theater like I did during the HD broadcasts, what started out as an extravagantly expensive contraption became an icon by the time it was all over. I say that because alongside some gripping performances, it's the imagery of this Ring that rests firmly in the mind and was elemental to its most appealing moments. That's not to take anything away from the singers or the orchestra (whether conducted by Fabio Luisi or James Levine), but there are three things from this cycle that people will be talking about years from now: Eric Owens' amazing Alberich in Rheingold; Jay Hunter Morris' Siegfried; and the Machine, which was used to greatest effect in Gotterdammerung. At least that's how it came across in the theater (and I can't stress this enough), where the camera angles were dazzling and the sound was perfectly mixed, creating an experience wholly unlike that of those who heard and saw it in the house.

The Prologue featuring the Norns (Heidi Melton, Elizabeth Bishop, Maria Radner) weaving their rope of destiny was the only part of the production visually lacking. True, three women weaving a rope doesn't obviously lend itself as inspiration for a scene rife with dramatic tension, but many have found a way to do it. Luisi didn't pull the tension and dread from the score, and though each of the singers were fine (Melton especially), the scene was little more than perfunctory explication of the back story.

The first scene of Act 1 began with the only serious miscue as far as blocking- something which has plagued the other operas but seemed much better in Gotterdammerung- by having Brunnhilde and Siegfried make their entrances approaching one another from opposite ends of the stage. This is their "morning after" moment, so it doesn't make sense- where did Siegfried wander off to that he is now returning from? This underlines the one serious flaw in Lepage's production; he really doesn't have much insight into these characters and what to do with them. Luckily, this time around he's saved by the cast, who are fully invested in giving dramatic portrayals. However, one has to wonder what subsequent casting in future cycles will yield.

But for now, the issue remains in the background since there's so much visual splendor going on- and well, there's the music of course.

Deborah Voigt seemed to struggle with Brunnhilde more than in the earlier segments- perhaps because she was ill earlier in the week, but weak vocal moments aside I remain impressed by how fully she inhabits the role. Jay Hunter Morris' Siegfried was as visually and vocally exciting as he was the last time out. The lightness of his voice, probably more evident in the house, isn't an issue in the broadcasts and if there was ever an opera singer born to be on the big screen he's the one. When he waved to the Rheinmaidens the entire audience I was with guffawed in delight. Overall however, his impression was less powerful than in Siegfried and again I'll assign this to Lepage not knowing what to do with the character nor with a singer who seems like the most perfect fit for the role currently living. There was way too much silliness with striking poses with Notung. Waltraud Meier was excellent in the one superfluous scene of the opera, as were the all three Rheinmeaidens- Erin Morely, Jennifer Cano and especially Tamara Mumford, whose bewitching gaze seemed to reveal a palpable desire to have Morris all to herself, which was pretty amusing.

As the sibling pawns Gunther and Gutrune, Wendy Bryn Harmer and Iain Paterson faced the one of thee bigger challenge in making two almost faceless characters come to life without any direction and to their credit both succeeded, with Paterson especially making the most of it.

Although onstage for roughly only eight minutes, Eric Owens' Alberich was once again a perfect interpretation of the role vocally and dramatically.

Hans-Peter Konig's Hagen was a different story. His voice is fantastic- that's obvious, but his portrayal struck me as all wrong. Hagen should ooze menace visually and vocally from the moment we first see him and Konig has none. Add to this his towering physical presence over the other performers, and the heart of what makes Gotterdammerung so dramatically involving goes wholly missing. He's a huge bear of a man who is absolutely non-threatening. Strange, since he managed to give the opposite effect so easily as Hunding in Die Walkure. The moment when he summons the Gibichungs, which should be one of the most musically thrilling in the entire cycle, went flat, though the Met chorus sounded sensational.

Luisi led the orchestra in a rushed manner through the first two acts, and though he slowed it down a bit in the third, overall he didn't make the most of the score's lushness.

All of this hardly mattered in the end though, as the Machine created one gorgeous mise en scène after another. The Lepage Ring isn't insightful and it's certainly not bold (see Freyer for that) in its obstinately traditional approach, but it is quite beautiful to watch.

In the back, with the loons and the fourth Rheinmaiden for the last Walküre

We arrived too late to get on the rail, so Isabella and I headed up to the biergarten and waited until it was time to take our place with the other lunatics in the back of the orchestra (at this point "lunatic" meaning people insane enough to do standing room for an almost five-hour long opera- the definition changes quickly). Well, she waited and I tried to eat something that was billed as a sausage but had the texture of a personal gratification tool commonly bought at Good Vibrations. As I was practicing, a man standing near us let loose a fart which sounded like one the trumpets in Hunding’s hunting party.


“Really?” I asked- query met with complete silence. It wasn’t the last of its kind I heard last night.

Why do all of the crazy people always end up in my orbit, like I possess some cosmic gravitational pull, which silently emits a signal stating “lunatics- he’s over here!” Around three months ago- eleven weeks now that I think about it, a man started following me as I walked toward the Hilton on O’Farrell on my way home after work. It didn’t take me long to realize this and soon he was coming up right behind.

“I know who you are, motherfucker,” he hissed at me.

I kept walking- to a certain extent I'm used to this kind of stuff.

“Come on- let’s settle this. Right now. I’m going to fucking kill you so let’s just do it right now. Step into the alley motherfucker.Turn left and let's go.”

Now I was becoming unnerved- this was no longer the usual kind of stuff. I looked over my shoulder to see where his hands were and I looked ahead to see if there were any cops around. There were no cruisers in the street, but I saw one standing in front of the Hilton- if I could just make it there before this guy lost it completely.

“You don’t fool me- I know who you are!” he said, his voice starting to rise.

Realizing at this point I was running out of time and still had too much sidewalk left between me and the cop, I turned to face him and said “I have no idea who you think I am, but I don’t know you.”

He called me by a name which isn’t mine and then accused me of turning his wife into a whore and junkie. She was now dead and he was going to kill me since I was responsible for it all.

I said, “That’s not my name.”

“Bullshit! I know you, you fucking piece of shit!”

“Look, I’m not the man you’re looking for. I can prove it to you.” I told him my name, and walking again, now as fast as I could, I suggested we take a walk straight up to that cop and there, I’d present my ID to the cop and we could verify that I was indeed not the man he wanted to kill. If I failed the test, he could follow me and then stick his knife in my neck.

I kept yammering for time and finally reached the cop. My hands shaking, I handed the surprised cop my driver’s license, turned to the dead woman’s husband and said, “Okay- what’s my name?”

He said it.

I turned to the cop and asked,“Is that right?”

The cop looked at me, then at my license, at me again, turned to my would-be assassin and said, “That’s not his name. What’s going on with you two?”

“Nothing,” I said, though the cop could see I was shaking, “This guy just thinks I’m someone else.”

“It is you- I know it is”

“No man, I’m not him. And now I’m leaving- and you’re going to walk away in the opposite direction. Are we clear? Because otherwise I have more to say to this guy,” nodding toward the cop as we stepped away from him.

The man said, “You have no idea how much you look like him. I’m gonna find him and I’m gonna fucking kill him.”

“Good luck with that," I replied, and with that, he turned and walked in the direction from which we came. I waited until he was a block away and watched him disappear into the crowd before I continued on my way home.

What the hell has this got to do with opera?

Sorry- the crazy people standing next to us last night in the back of standing room on the orchestra level reminded me of this story and I meant to write about it at the time but shortly after it actually happened, all hell broke loose in my life and I had forgotten about it until now. So there you have it.

As I was saying, Isabella and I went to catch the last performance of Die Walküre in San Francisco Opera’s Ring cycle. Though I had just seen this production last week, I did want to hear Heidi Melton take over from Anja Kampe as Sieglinde and Isabella is enthusiastically discovering that though Italian opera runs through her veins, there are pleasures of a different sort to be found in German. For the first two acts we stood next to these lunatics who kept arguing- and belching- and breaking wind- and breathing like they’d left their respirators at home. Thankfully, Isabella submitted to me to turning her out as an opera whore and she procured some Dress Circle seats from an elderly couple who were leaving early.

Runnicles had the orchestra under control from the start and though the pacing of the first two acts still felt slow to me, the orchestra was in tight focus all night long and the third act was nothing else but beautifully performed from start to finish. The cast, the same from last week except for Melton, was stronger, giving off a sense that they were happy to be crossing the finish line with this final Walküre. Brandon Jovanovich and Elizabeth Bishop were even stronger than they were last week. For me though, this was really about seeing Melton justly take a turn in a major role in a house that’s been formative in her career.

During the first act she sang well, though I was expecting more. She and Jovanovich didn’t seem to have a lot of chemistry, but who knows who much rehearsal time they had to get the blocking down. What they lacked in chemistry however, was definitely made up for in vocal power.

During the second act she found her comfort zone and simply put, Melton then soared as Sieglinde. The huge, clear voice locals have now appreciated for years filled the house and Melton laid claim to the role with conviction. "Du hehrstes Wunder, herrliche Maid!"- for me the signifier distinguishing those who can and should sing it and those who shouldn’t- was glorious coming from her.

Nina Stemme started off slightly weaker than on previous nights, but by the time the third act came, she was back to her usual, now-setting-the-standard-for-contemporary-Brunnhildes excellence, matched note for note in what may have been his strongest performance yet by Mark Delevan as Wotan.

What I had earlier found problematic or annoying about the production didn’t really bother me too much this time around, in no small part due to the fact that last night it was really all about hearing the voices- and not the ones in my head.

It’s the sign of a good cycle when each night makes you want to go back for more, and though I wasn’t originally planning on it because this has been a very busy week filled with ridiculously long nights followed by work the next morning, at this point I can’t see myself skipping Siegfried this Friday unless I collapse from exhaustion. The momentum builds, as does the anticipation for more.

Hopefully the lunatics will have other plans.

Heidi Melton at the Rex

 After getting off work, the Femme Fatale and I scampered over to Morton's to have sliders, blue cheese fries and Manhattans before traipsing over to the Rex for Heidi Melton's Salon show, which started at 6:00pm.

Yes, that's right- 6:00pm! How ridiculous, and all because some people complained the original 6:30 start time wouldn't give them enough time to make it over the the War Memorial for the Adler finale which began at eight. Morons. It's downtown! You could walk it in less than 30 minutes, and it's a 10 minute cab ride at best. Wtf! You do not need an hour to get from Sutter and Taylor to Van Ness and Grove. Anyway, we were three or four minutes late to the first and only classical music concert that ever started promptly on time so we had to wait until the first song was over to be let in. That's fine, except the person watching the door wasn't paying close enough attention so we missed the next song as well. Eventually we were let in and took seats in the back, where a couple of old, nasty women gave us the stink eye. Sorry dowagers- we came from work and wanted to get a bite to eat first. Why is that a problem?-  and why, lady in the grey suit and dour demeanor in the back row, did you find it necessary to kick my chair every other minute?

Oh yes, the music. The music. So Melton was singing songs by Sibelius and I couldn't tell if it was the strange acoustics of the room, with its very low ceiling and paper-thin walls, or the Finnish, or where we were seated, but it just sounded off. Like she was holding back, or wasn't fully comfortable with the language or the songs. She probably said some introductory comments about all of this, and put it in context, but we missed it, so we were listening blind so to speak. And neither of us, who have both heard her recently in other venues, were impressed by the Sibelius songs. Not that it was bad at all, mind you, but really, one expects, unreasonably perhaps at this still-early stage in her career, for Heidi Melton to be great. Period. That's kind of just the way it is. Everyone else in the room seemed to love it, but we were ambivalent.

During the brief moment after the Sibelius songs concluded, we slid over to the side of the room, away from the seat-kicker and hopefully for better acoustics. Neither of us wanted to sit too close, because Melton's voice is so preternaturally strong I was reluctant to sit close to it in such a small room.

Next up were songs by Korngold, Leider des Abshieds, Opus 14, and these were much better. Having now settled in, translations in hand, it was wonderful to hear Melton sing in German- each word was clear and meaningfully sung. "Mond, so gehst du weider auf (Moon, Where Are You Going)" was particularly poignant and beautiful, especially the final rhyming couplet. The entire song cycle was really quite marvelous. This was Melton at her best. During one pause between songs someone in the kitchen said something so out of context it made me laugh, though I was seated on the opposite side of the room. Something like "Give me a lemon."

After the Korngold, Melton and her accompanist John Churchwell left the room for a few minutes for a brief break allowing her to change into a sparkly dress- because next up were cabaret songs. She began with a Weill song sung in French, which sounded way too German for me, except for the spoken asides, which has a delightful sass to them. The highlight of the cabaret set for me was "Always," which Melton mentioned had personal relevance to her, as she sung it at her grandparents anniversary. In between the Weill and Berlin were songs that didn't fully succeed to my ears, but the strongly enthusiastic response from the audience renders my opinion to a very small minority. Melton's voice, so exquisitely operatic in every sense of the word, just doesn't navigate the subtleties of jazz singing- at least not in a venue this small. She needs room to belt it out and then reign it in gently- and at the Rex a singer really can't do that. The last time I saw her perform she ended with similar material but in a larger space (The Old First Church) and it worked splendidly. At the Rex, many of these songs seemed ill-suited to her voice and natural talents. Still, Melton is one of the finest young singers there is and it was a treat to see her in such intimate surroundings. It just proved what many people have known for a long time- she's ready for the big stage. We'll get to see that when she performs the role of Sieglinde in SFO's Die Walkure on June 29th.

Herr Feldheim and the Opera Tattler were there, as was the Last Chinese Unicorn (whom I do not believe is any relation to The Little Chinese Man, who has been strangely absent of late), whom I espied but unfortunately did not get to meet as all of them were part of the madding crowd rushing off to the opera house almost as soon as the performance ended.  I have a feeling these same usual suspects will all be at Davies tomorrow night for El Niño (which I strongly recommend you do not miss). The Femme and I on the other hand made our way to Koko's (because the obnoxious bartender is still pouring the drinks at the Rex) for a nightcap before parting ways, where they were showing Hitchcock's Psycho on the wall. How interesting it is to discuss the confines of modern life, the instability of relationships, treachery and trust while watching Janet Lee get killed in the shower.

We went to hear Heidi Melton. What were you doing?

Heidi Melton. Photo by Kristin Hoebermann, source Columbia Artists Management Inc.

Where was everybody? I was half expecting Heidi Melton's recital at Old First Church to sell out or come close to it, so imagine my surprise to find a very thin crowd on hand for an opportunity to see and hear a singer destined to become one of the leading performers of the German operatic repertoire. Melton's already landing leading roles in major houses in Europe, debuted at the Met and will sing Sieglinde here in June during SFO's Ring cycle. She gave many memorable performances during her time here an Adler Fellow including an especially impressive Schwabacher Debut Recital and last minute replacement for Patricia Racette in Verdi's Requiem. So why were there less than 100 people there? Beats me, but they missed a fantastic performance.

Accompanied by John Parr (Head of San Francisco Opera's Music Staff) on piano, Melton started off with Samuel Barber's Three Songs, Op. 45 and each word was sung with beautiful clarity. She then moved on to Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, written while he was composing Die Walkure. The songs are set to poems by Mathilde Wesendonck and Melton said she sees this cycle differently than she has in the past, now believing the poems are about the composer. Her interpretation was flawless.

After the intermission she sang seven early songs by Berg, again brilliantly, with "Traumgekront" being especially moving. Next were four Strauss songs. Hearing her sing Berg and Strauss made me want to see her as the Marschallin, which as it turns out she's going to be singing in Europe sometime in the next year. As she sang "Und Klagelaut die luft erfullt, Adonis, Adonis" at the end of "Frulingsfeier (Spring Celebration)"  her voice became a physical presence which I could feel move through my body as I sat in the third row pew. Melton's voice is a huge, powerful force that feels like a lush warm wind blowing through a room. She looks like she's never forcing anything, and gives the appearance that it's completely effortless. As I told her after the show, she's fantastic.

There were two encores, the first was Weill's "My Ship" which was very tenderly sung. I don't know what the last piece was. Among the few others in the audience were Patrick and Axel, who was espied seated dead center in the first row of the balcony. They both declined our invitations for post performance drinks and conversation, so Penelope and I made our own way into the warm fog of a summer evening to figure out the meaning of life. Or something like that.