Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique 2/21/20 | Carnegie Hall

Hear Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique capture the unbridled power and intensity of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, as well as his Fourth, a gentler symphony that features a finale that greatly invokes the spirit of its legendary composer. Get tickets.
— Read on www.carnegiehall.org/calendar/2020/02/21/orchestre-revolutionnaire-et-romantique-0800pm

Struggles for Justice Take Center Stage

In ‘The Mother of Us All,’ Susan B. Anthony leads the charge for women’s suffrage; in ‘Freedom Ride,’ a young black woman decides whether to openly fight segregation in interstate travel

A scene from ‘The Mother of Us All’PHOTO: STEPHANIE BERGER

ByHeidi Waleson

Feb. 12, 2020 3:21 pm ET

New York

Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s opera “The Mother of Us All” (1947) is a natural commemoration piece for this year’s centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which secured women’s right to vote. Yet this eccentric portrait of Susan B. Anthony, the crusader for women’s suffrage, depicts a never-ending struggle. Stein’s gnomic text, full of repetitions and oddities, and Thomson’s jaunty marches, waltzes and folk-like tunes create a stew of noise and conflict, with Susan B., as she is called, always working to be heard above it. Anthony, who died in 1906, is a statue when the opera ends with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, but even this is not a triumphal moment. It is, rather, a reminder that the fight goes on.

The New York Philharmonic, the Juilliard School’s Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have collaborated on the production that runs through Friday in the Charles Engelhard Court of the museum’s American Wing. This sculpture gallery made symbolic sense—a raised stage surrounded Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s Diana with her bow drawn, and Jo Davidson’s statue of Gertrude Stein is tucked into a corner of the room—but there were practical drawbacks. Director Louisa Proske deployed the large cast and chorus both on the stage and in the surrounding area (Susan B. spent one scene declaiming from a pulpit; another character sang from the balcony), but the challenging sightlines and the amplification often made it difficult to know who was singing, what they were saying, and where they were. (There are 21 named characters, and while some of them were introduced with wall projections, it was still hard to keep them straight.) The miking also kept the show at a continuous, too-loud volume, muddying its squabbles and undercutting the opera’s intimate, homemade quality.

Felicia Moore’s opulent, Wagner-scaled soprano could probably have dispensed with the amplification. She captured Susan B.’s determination as well as her exhaustion, an immovable monument in a simple, 19th-century black dress, with the other characters, in outfits by Beth Goldenberg that ranged from the early 19th century to the present, swirling around her. Bass-baritone William Socolof was imposing as her primary antagonist, Daniel Webster ; tenor Chance Jonas-O’Toole impressed as the feckless Jo the Loiterer, who wants to marry Indiana Elliot (the assertive mezzo Carlyle Quinn ) but is annoyed that she will not take his name. Conductor Daniela Candillari couldn’t always keep the singers and the six instrumentalists coordinated in this reverberant space—not ideal, but adding to the anarchic spirit of the piece. Ms. Proske’s final image was also true to the opera’s themes. Three top-hatted men, who remained on the stage after all the other characters had filed off to pay homage to Susan B.’s statue, stamped on the ballot box and destroyed it, a reminder that rights must be defended in perpetuity.

Dara Rahming as Sylvie in Dan Shore’s ‘Freedom Ride’PHOTO: MICHAEL BROSILOW

Chicago

Dan Shore’s opera “Freedom Ride,” given its world premiere at Chicago Opera Theater at the Studebaker Theater on Saturday, is a noble effort to tell an important story, but its earnestness leaches the tension out of a violent and dramatic episode in the American civil-rights movement. The 90-minute piece follows Sylvie, a fictional young African-American woman, as she decides whether to join the Freedom Riders, activists who rode buses and trains in the South in 1961 in a campaign to integrate interstate travel. Sylvie ( Dara Rahming ) keeps changing her mind about participating. She is urged on by the organizer, Clayton ( Robert Sims), and discouraged by her mother, Georgia ( Zoie Reams ). We hear that Riders are beaten and jailed, and that it’s God’s will that things remain as they are. After an attack on a church rally, she decides to ride.

But Mr. Shore’s clumsy, awkwardly rhyming libretto fails to create any character development or a convincing dramatic arc to tie together what is basically a collection of songs. Pleasantly tonal but mostly unmemorable arias alternate with livelier choruses, original spirituals that unite and encourage the community of Riders and supporters. Overall, the musical tone is oddly serene, even when the subject is people being hurt and arrested. Only one impassioned aria caught my ear: Leonie Baker (soprano Whitney Morrison ) tells Sylvie to leave well enough alone and not make trouble—she just wants to get to Jackson, Miss., and doesn’t care if the train is segregated. It reminded me of “My Man’s Gone Now” from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.”

Notable singers included soprano Kimberly E. Jones, a charismatic presence as Ruby, a would-be Rider felled by asthma, and some ensemble members with featured moments—bass-baritone Vince Wallace (Tommie), mezzo Morgan Middleton (Frances) and soprano Samantha Schmid (Mae). Lidiya Yankovskaya ably led the Chicago Sinfonietta. Director Tazewell Thompson positioned the chorus on folding chairs at the sides of the bare stage, observing the smaller character scenes at the center. Harry Nadal’s costumes, all in shades of black, gray and white, suggested period newsreels and TV images; only Sylvie’s final outfit, as she prepares to board the train, had color—an orange dress.

Donald Eastman (set design) and Rasean Davonte Johnson (projection design) used images of locations, such as a church balcony and a train station to evoke place. And the final images of the evening—a panorama of mug shots of real Freedom Riders—had more impact than the opera itself.

—Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).

‘Eurydice’ and ‘Agrippina’ Reviews: Voices Lost and Found

The myth of Orpheus told with mixed results in Los Angeles; political satire transported to a modern setting in New York.

Danielle de Niese in the title role of ‘Eurydice’PHOTO: CORY WEAVER

ByHeidi Waleson Feb. 7, 2020 3:41 pm ET

The myth of Orpheus is the essence of opera: Singing is so powerful that it can bring back the dead. But in Matthew Aucoin and Sarah Ruhl’s poignant “Eurydice,” which had its world premiere at LA Opera on Saturday, it is not Orpheus but those who hover between life and death who sing with the most passion, because words and music together represent consciousness, memory and therefore life.

The libretto, which Ms. Ruhl skillfully distilled from her 2003 play, takes Eurydice’s point of view. Its core is the heroine’s longing for her dead father, a relationship that is older and stronger than her new one with Orpheus. Orpheus, the artist, cares about music; Eurydice cares about words. Their relationship, limned in the overlong Act I, feels superficial. It is only in Act II that the opera takes flight: Eurydice arrives in the Underworld, confused after being dipped in the river of forgetfulness. Her father, who has retained his memory and the ability to read and write, reteaches her words, and the real struggle for life begins. At first, the narrative felt regressive—the woman torn between two protectors—but the music made it a deeper story.

The music, which Mr. Aucoin composed and conducted with verve, explores different facets of this battle. The orchestration has Romantic heft, punctuated with zesty percussion, and it sometimes dances into Philip Glass-like swirls and arpeggios. The vocal writing, well-served by the strong cast, creates character: expansive and anguished for Eurydice (soprano Danielle de Niese), warm for the Father (baritone Rod Gilfry), weird and jittery for Hades (high tenor Barry Banks). Orpheus (baritone Joshua Hopkins ) is supposed to be able to make stones weep, but his aria at the gates of the Underworld was forceful rather than lyrical, another choice that puts the spotlight back on Eurydice. Orpheus’s Double (countertenor John Holiday) sings with Orpheus when he is expressing artistic, rather than regular-guy, thoughts. This was a missed opportunity: The two voices together should have created a new, otherworldly timbre, but they didn’t.

Three Stones, bossy keepers of the Underworld ( Stacey Tappan, Raehann Bryce-Davis and Kevin Ray ) provide some comic relief, and the wordless offstage chorus is a haunting reminder that death means forgetting. Gluck’s version of the opera had happy Blessed Spirits. There are none here, and the ending is almost unbearably sad, with neither words nor music: All three main characters end up voiceless, as the orchestra grunts and the chorus mutters.

Daniel Ostling’s simple set suggested locations without being literal. Its best element was an elevator—complete with a forgetfulness-inducing shower—to the Underworld. Ana Kuzmanić’s arresting costumes included a pink flared coat for Eurydice and a poisonous green suit for Hades; T.J. Gerckens supplied the astute lighting. Mary Zimmerman’s often static directing clarified some things—Eurydice makes Orpheus turn around as he is leading her back to life when she sees the Double in front of him, reminding her that she can never be first with Orpheus the artist. Other moments didn’t gel: Eurydice is supposed to die from a fall down a flight of stairs, but that didn’t happen onstage. Still, the bleak staging of the tragic ending made one thing very clear: Eurydice had a choice, and she made the wrong one.

***

Joyce DiDonato in the title role of ‘Agrippina’PHOTO: MARTY SOHL / MET OPERA

New York

Handel’s “Agrippina,” which had its Metropolitan Opera premiere on Thursday, is just over three hours (plus intermission) of ebullient high spirits, as one bubbly da capo aria succeeds another. First performed in Venice in 1709, this biting political satire revolves around the manipulative Agrippina, wife of the Roman emperor Claudio, who will do anything to ensure that her wastrel son Nerone ascends the throne. In David McVicar’s smart, modern-dress production, with sets and costumes by John Macfarlane and lighting by Paule Constable, the tale slips easily into the present day with its nastiness intact. Stone tombs, enormous square pillars and a giant staircase leading to a golden throne trundle around the stage. They are hard-edged and monumental, suggesting that the characters, for all their antic energy and fervent machinations, will be dashed against history in the end.

Agrippina is the consummate pretender—persuading Poppea (here an air-headed party girl with a stuffed clothes closet), Ottone (Claudio’s chosen heir, who doesn’t care about the throne and only wants Poppea), Claudio (who also wants Poppea), Pallante (a general), and Narciso (a politician) that she has only their interests at heart. It’s a high-wire act, and Mr. McVicar’s rollicking direction, with every section of every aria staged with a new idea (a medal ceremony, golf practice, TV cameras…), keeps the energy and comedy level high. For the obligatory pastoral scene, for example, Poppea and Ottone are in a trendy bar surrounded by well-dressed barflies and lounge lizards; Ottone sings about “lovely springs” while pouring designer water; Poppea, a little drunk, sings an aria accompanied by an onstage cocktail harpsichordist (the excellent Bradley Brookshire ). Andrew George’s witty choreography has a Monty Python flavor.

The cast, all accomplished and convincing actors, met the opera’s virtuosic vocal demands with varying degrees of success. Mezzo Joyce DiDonato embodied Agrippina with ferocity and pinpoint accuracy. Brenda Rae, making her Met debut as Poppea, was hard to hear in the lower parts of the role, but scintillated in the highest soprano passages. Mezzo Kate Lindsey played Nerone as an amusingly Gumby-bodied, cocaine-snorting delinquent; her timbre, pinched at first, opened satisfyingly in the later part of the evening. Bass Matthew Rose was a wonderfully clueless, big-voiced Claudio. As Ottone, countertenor Iestyn Davies was the most stylish of the singers, and his lament, midway through the opera, as everyone deserts him, was the first—and last—moment of pathos in the evening. In the smaller roles, Duncan Rock (Pallante), Nicholas Tamagna (Narciso) and Christian Zaremba (Lesbo, Claudio’s servant) gave solid performances.

Holding it all together was conductor Harry Bicket, who also played harpsichord for the recitatives. Mr. Bicket makes modern ensembles sound as though they are playing period instruments, and the Met orchestra’s buoyancy, articulation and richness created a steady, captivating foundation beneath the runaway comedy onstage.

—Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).