El Cimarrón’ and ‘Murasaki’s Moon’ Reviews: Opera in a Temple of Art

At the Metropolitan Museum, the stories of a runaway slave and a shunned author.

Martin Bakari as Genji and Kristen Choi as Lady Murasaki in ‘Murasaki’s Moon’ Photo: Stephanie Berger By Heidi Waleson May 20, 2019 4:20 p.m. ET

New York

The Metropolitan Museum’s MetLiveArts programming has a strong focus on the contemporary. This season, the unconventional American soprano Julia Bullock’s residency was particularly imaginative, especially “Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine,” her shattering embodiment of Joséphine Baker, a collaboration with the composer/percussionist/pianist Tyshawn Sorey, which they performed on the steps of the museum’s Great Hall several months ago. The show amplified the furious inner voice of Baker, the black American entertainer who was the toast of Paris starting in the 1920s, uncomfortably exploring Baker’s feelings about race and being objectified. In mid-May, Ms. Bullock curated a piece amplifying another marginalized voice: Hans Werner Henze’s “El Cimarrón” (1970), which is based on the oral history of an Afro-Cuban ex-slave Esteban Montejo. Born into bondage in 1860, he worked on the sugar plantations, escaped and lived in the jungle until slavery was abolished in 1886, and fought in Cuba’s war of independence from Spain. He lived to age 113.

Henze’s 80-minute chamber piece for voice, flute, percussion and guitar was a tour de force for the mesmerizing bass-baritone Davóne Tines, who recounted Montejo’s story with a deliberate, matter-of-fact cadence that belied its horrifying content. Much of the text was spoken, and when, in moments of rage or other extreme emotion, Mr. Tines veered into song, it was often falsetto, as though the storyteller were somehow possessed. The musicians, Emi Ferguson, Jonny Allen and Jordan Dodson, built atmosphere under and around the voice. A huge percussion array, with dozens of instruments including marimba, steel drum, melodica and gongs, was used subtly for color and variety rather than as massed cacophony; the delicacy of the Spanish-style guitar and the multiple special flute effects contributed to a score that felt purposely fragmentary.

Different sections powerfully evoked the brutality of slavery; the freedom of life in the jungle; the machines of the sugar factories; Montejo’s musings about ghosts, women and priests; and his account of the Battle of Mal Tiempo, when he joined the rebel cavalry in slaughtering Spanish soldiers with machetes. With direction by Zack Winokur, the percussion instruments crowding the stage of Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium became, among other things, an obstacle course for the escaping Montejo and the jungle that hid him for years. The neutral-colored homespun costumes, designed by Carlos Soto, completed the effect.

The world premiere of Michi Wiancko’s “Murasaki’s Moon,” co-produced with On Site Opera and performed in the museum’s Astor Court this weekend, accompanied a special exhibition that explores the artistic tradition of the celebrated 11th-century Japanese novel “The Tale of Genji.” Artists through the centuries have played with the imagery of this 54-episode saga and the exploits of its amorous hero—the exhibit includes parodies, erotic paintings, card games and manga illustrations, among other objects. In their hour-long opera, Ms. Wiancko and her librettist, Deborah Brevoort, offered a feminist spin, putting the focus on the novel’s author, Murasaki Shikibu, who was a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court. Their Lady Murasaki is lonely and unpopular with the other ladies because she is educated and not pretty; she decides to write her tale, which centers on Genji’s quest for the perfect woman, in order to show the negative outcome of that behavior for both the pursuer and the pursued.

The structure is clever. A quick sequence of episodes from the novel, depicting Genji’s serial conquests (he collects lovers’ fans as trophies) and his lack of consideration for the women he seduces and abandons, is bookended by Murasaki’s meditations and her conversations with her creation. However, the libretto often tells instead of shows, and its moral—that the artist must speak the truth, even if it doesn’t make her any friends—is heavy-handed. The vocal writing similarly has expressive high points, like the Murasaki-Genji duet about loneliness, but too often devolves into simple text-spinning melodrama.

Kristen Choi was a powerful Murasaki, with a big, expressive mezzo and a commanding presence, and she ably switched characters to become Genji’s different conquests. Tenor Martin Bakari made an amusingly arrogant Genji. As the bossy Buddhist Priest, who chides Murasaki, saying “the purpose of stories is to keep women in their place,” John Noh’s text articulation was unclear. Geoffrey McDonald capably led the eloquent chamber ensemble made up of a string quartet with Japanese flutes, percussion instruments, and a koto providing non-Western accents. Director Eric Einhorn made a virtue of simplicity: The singers used the whole courtyard space, often venturing behind the audience that flanked the narrow runway at the center, and Murasaki’s plain kimono (designed by Beth Goldenberg) established her low-level position in the glamorous Imperial court.

—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).

The Ring’ at the Met Review: Rise of the Machine

The Robert Lepage production of Richard Wagner’s epic cycle returned to New York with better results than before.

A scene from ‘Götterdämmerung’ Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera By Heidi Waleson May 13, 2019 3:42 p.m. ET

New York

The Metropolitan Opera’s Robert Lepage production of Richard Wagner’s “Ring” returned this spring for three complete cycles, concluding with Saturday’s “Götterdämmerung.” Launched with “Das Rheingold” on the opening night of the 2010-11 season, and last mounted in spring 2013, the production has been lambasted for its seemingly idea-free monumentality. Built around the enormous multi-ton “Machine,” with its 24 rotating planks, the production is an odd mix of abstraction and extreme literalness, like the tacky breastplates and wigs worn by the gods in “Rheingold.” (Carl Fillion designed the set; François St-Aubin the costumes; Etienne Boucher the lighting; Boris Firquet, Pedro Pires and Lionel Arnould the video.) This time out, the Machine suffered none of the malfunctions that plagued its debut, and only clanked a little bit. At its best, the show allows for spectacular moments, but for the most part, it leaves the singers to fend for themselves against an overwhelming, and sometimes precarious, backdrop. The three cycles did a brisk box-office business anyway; such is the rarity value of a full “Ring” with a top-flight cast.

For my third time through this production (and having seen other “Ring” cycles in Toronto and Chicago since the last one), I thought I pretty much knew what to expect. “Rheingold” was as remembered: a handful of eye-catching special effects, some of which rely on stunt doubles for the singers walking up and down walls, and others done with video, as when the mermaid tails of the Rhinemaidens seem to create cascades of river pebbles. But for most of the opera, the Machine looked bare and, well, mechanical, with the singers wedged uncomfortably onto the stage apron, or gingerly climbing around the planks, appearing none too safe, and the production lacked any point of view. This was in marked contrast to the David Pountney version at Lyric Opera of Chicago, which skillfully interpreted “Rheingold” as a black comedy.

The savior of the evening was Michael Volle, whose lyrical baritone and extraordinary articulation of text created a wonderfully pompous, arrogant Wotan. Other pluses were the Alberich of Tomasz Konieczny, with his powerful, penetrating bass-baritone and thoroughly nasty demeanor, and the playful, mellifluous trio of Rhinemaidens, Amanda Woodbury, Samantha Hankey and Tamara Mumford. None of the other singers stood out, and the Met Orchestra, led by Philippe Jordan, sounded muscular if occasionally unfocused, with some worrying bleats in the brass section. Overall, the auguries seemed unpromising.

But as the rest of the cycle unfolded, the performances in general got stronger, and I even found myself making my peace with the Machine. “Die Walküre” is the most emotionally immediate of the four operas, and thus the hardest to kill. The tipped planks made sense as the roof of Hunding’s gloomy, oppressive hut, while Günther Groissböck (Hunding), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Sieglinde), and especially the anguished Stuart Skelton (Siegmund) created high tension together. The acid tone of Jamie Barton’s Fricka worked better here than it had in “Rheingold,” and Christine Goerke’s impulsive, radiantly sung Brünnhilde was exhilarating.

Again, Mr. Volle was riveting. He started Wotan’s lengthy Act II monologue practically in a whisper, as though he were talking to himself, and built it up into a howl of despair. In Act III, you believed both his towering rage and his grief over his punishment of Brünnhilde. No longer serenely certain of his power, as he was in “Rheingold,” this “Walküre” Wotan visibly struggled in the trap he had made for himself. The set issues were still there—watching Wotan and Brünnhilde scramble over the planks in Act II was frightening, and the eyeball that displays shadowy figures during the monologue was weird—but Fricka’s ram-headed chair had a certain elegant witchiness, and the stark mountain against which father and daughter play out their final confrontation looked properly implacable.

The “Siegfried” production has more representational video, some of it cool (the critters and snakes slithering through the roots of the forest), some of it lame (the insubstantial Woodbird, especially pale when compared to Erin Morley’s silvery offstage voice). The Machine’s major drawback here was the tiny, cramped space allotted for Mime’s cave, and Mime (the effective Gerhard Siegel) kept crossing behind Siegfried (Stefan Vinke), distractingly close to him, during the Forging Song. This was annoying because Mr. Vinke’s tenor was at its clarion finest in this moment, and while you need to notice the scheming Mime, he shouldn’t upstage the star. Mr. Volle developed the Wanderer (Wotan) still further in “Siegfried”: He had a sense of humor (he enjoyed baiting Mime and Alberich), and was resigned to watching his own destruction play out. And as Wotan leaves the cycle, Brünnhilde’s development begins. Ms. Goerke brought a whole kaleidoscope of feelings to the Act III awakening scene, changing from frightened virgin goddess to rambunctious, ready-for-anything teenager, when confronted with the hot young hero.

Ms. Goerke was even more exciting in “Götterdämmerung,” delivering the newly adult Brünnhilde’s confidence, fury and finally understanding with absolute vocal and dramatic authority. This last opera of the cycle was all about her. Eric Owens turned in a deep-voiced, complex Hagen, his malevolence hard-wired, Mr. Vinke, though tiring a bit, powered through Siegfried’s undoing, and Michaela Schuster was touching as the desperate Waltraute.

The orchestra’s brass bleats had gone away by the end of “Die Walküre,” and Mr. Jordan and the musicians provided a cushion for the singers, and powerfully sustained the narrative thread. Then in those final, transcendent orchestral moments of “Götterdämmerung,” when the world is washed away, I started to see the point of the Machine. Mr. Lepage has said that his inspiration came from the treeless, rocky landscape of Iceland. Now, the set’s craggy, abstract blankness suggested geological time, with the video images and even the people—the struggles of gods and men, with the stupid, greedy Gibichungs as the last straw—being evanescent blips in its eternal existence. “What use was my wisdom?” sings Brünnhilde. What use, indeed? It’s not a comfortable conclusion, and there are still silly bits (that horse! those costumes!) and too many dull, undirected moments in the long hours of this “Ring.” But maybe it did have an idea, after all.

—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).

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Review: A Visit to Dystopia

Boston Lyric Opera’s staging of Poul Ruders’s operatic adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel gives the audience an up-close view of a horrifying near-future.

Caroline Worra as Aunt Lydia (center) in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Photo: Liza Voll By Heidi Waleson May 7, 2019 2:46 p.m. ET

Boston

In the last two years, a television adaptation of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Margaret Atwood’s dystopian 1985 novel, has pushed the story to the forefront of the present-day zeitgeist. Women wearing Handmaids’ red dresses and white winged caps have become emblems of #MeToo protests, a visual reminder of the novel’s depiction of the sexual subjugation and silencing of women. Now, Boston Lyric Opera has mounted Poul Ruders’s gripping stage version, which had its world premiere in Copenhagen in 2000 and its only U.S. production at the Minnesota Opera in 2003. The score has lost none of its ferocious impact, and BLO’s ingenious, immersive staging in a Harvard basketball arena ensures that the audience cannot escape its message.

Paul Bentley’s deft libretto follows the novel closely. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is set in the not-to-distant future, when America has been violently transformed into a theocracy, the Republic of Gilead, with women relegated to second-class status, forbidden to hold jobs, have money, read or write. Ecological devastation and pollution have produced rampant infertility, so women who had children in the “Time Before” are allotted to high-ranking men (Commanders) and their wives to serve as reproductive vessels. These Handmaids are strictly policed and deprived of all agency, including their names. The heroine is called only Offred (“of Fred”); her struggle is to remember the past (the opera skillfully interpolates Time Before scenes), particularly the child who was taken from her, and to try both to survive and to hope for some alternative future. It won’t be easy: The rules are rigid, and punishment is extreme.

Chelsea Basler as Moira and Jennifer Johnson Cano as Offred Photo: Liza Voll

The large, noisy orchestra and the swift pace of the opera’s three dozen scenes, many of them fleeting, create the almost unrelenting stress and disturbing atmosphere of this environment for the characters and the audience alike. A new edition of the score has slightly reduced the size of the orchestra to 62 players, making for a better balance with the voices without any diminution in impact. BLO also wisely eliminated a pair of framing “symposium” scenes. The opera is now focused squarely on Offred, sung with passionate intensity by the rich-voiced mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, a consummate actress, who is onstage throughout. She is the only character who has arias, well-crafted mediations that take us into Offred’s mind and feelings, in contrast to the ritual phrases (“May the Lord open;” “Under His Eye”) that make up her daily interactions.

Aunt Lydia, trainer and enforcer of the Handmaids, personifies Gilead’s oppressiveness. Soprano Caroline Worra played her with ramrod demeanor, and made her vocal character—high, steely, with upward leaps—reflect her sadistic pleasure in wielding power as much as her olive uniform, helmet-like hairdo, and cattle prod did. The other excellent singers were precise in their supporting roles: Maria Zifchak exuded resentment as the Commander’s wife, Serena Joy, a silenced gospel singer, whose former trademark song, “Amazing Grace” is malevolently twisted and darkened in the orchestration. Kathryn Skemp Moran brought a piercing brightness to the broken Janine, who thinks she is still a waitress; as tougher women, Michelle Trainor (Ofglen) and Chelsea Basler (Moira) each had her own take on resistance. Felicia Gavilanes brought a poignant innocence to Offred in the Time Before. Matthew Dibattista made the most of his cameo as the sleazy gynecologist who offers, with a bit of tenor falsetto, to impregnate Offred; as the Commander, David Cushing used his sonorous bass-baritone to evoke both patriarchal privilege and uncertainty. The chorus of Handmaids, singing Bible texts in chorales, became the brainwashed majority. Conductor David Angus led a taut, balanced performance.

Director Anne Bogart, aided by movement director Shura Baryshnikov, cannily zeroed in on the group rituals of Handmaid life in Gilead, which included processions, practicing for childbirth, attending at a birth, and executing transgressors. Designer James Schuette created a simple cinderblock and neon-lined well at the center of the basketball arena. A few bits of furniture—Offred’s bed, the Commander’s table, a shop sign—were quickly whisked in and out as necessary. Costume colors established everybody’s status in the hierarchy and video designer Adam J. Thompson supplied the creepy images of the executed hanging on the Wall, a menacing symbol of the consequences of disobedience, which the Handmaids visit regularly. Brian Scott’s lighting segued between the chill of the present and the warmth of memory.

The space required some sound enhancement for balance and J Jumbelic’s artful sound design kept the voices, for the most part, sounding natural. Whatever the trade off, the immediacy of the experience in this unconventional space, with the audience on bleachers on three sides and the orchestra behind the singers instead of in a pit, was worth it. The opera was powerful on a proscenium stage; here, its horror reached out and grabbed you.

—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).