There was an abundance of delights to savor in the huge production of Berlioz’s “
The Trojans” that opened Sunday afternoon at the
San Francisco Opera,
with five hours’ worth of sumptuous music, elaborate spectacle and epic
vision. But the one that will stay with me longest and most piercingly
was the performance of mezzo-soprano
Susan Graham as Dido, the Carthaginian queen pulled back into love almost against her will and then betrayed by the demands of empire.
On a day that saw Graham receive the San Francisco
Opera Medal to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her debut with the
company, she marked the occasion with one of the most powerful showings
in her long history on the stage of the
War Memorial Opera House — a tour de force of vibrant vocalism and searing theatricality.
Dido (or Didon, in Berlioz’s French libretto) comes
into view only midway through the work’s five-hour epic sweep, after the
Trojans have seen their city torched by the victorious Greeks and
Aeneas has escaped to make his way to Italy and establish the Roman
empire. The newly founded city of Carthage is just a way station on his
path to glory.
Rage, resignation
But Dido asserts herself as a character with all the
force of a queen and a lover, and Berlioz’s magnificently expressive
writing tracks her course in inimitable strokes — from the inner
conflict that informs her early scenes as a ruler, to the rapture of her
all-too-brief romantic idyll with Aeneas, and finally to the
combination of vindictive rage and tragic resignation of her
abandonment.
All of that and more came through in Graham’s
arresting performance. Her robust vocal tone sounded practically
unweathered, and as rich in color as ever. In duets with the
bright-toned, tireless tenor
Bryan Hymel, making his company debut as Aeneas, and with the lustrous mezzo-soprano
Sasha Cooke as her sister Anna, Graham provided lush and impeccable partnership.
And in the last act, when she has to hold the
audience spellbound through the sheer emotional potency of her singing,
Graham rose to the occasion with unbridled virtuosity. The tragic
downfall of this regal character has rarely seemed so galvanic.
Under other circumstances, a performance like this
would have been enough to carry an entire operatic production. Yet “The
Trojans” — which has not been performed at the San Francisco Opera since
1968 — operates on such a monumental scale that Dido’s fate is only one
part of a large and sprawling undertaking.
In adapting Virgil’s “Aeneid,” a work for which he
maintained a lifelong passion, Berlioz took the opportunity to draw on
everything he knew about music and theater. The score boasts a wealth of
ingenious orchestral inventions, both subtle and grandiose, and an
enormous cast. It includes ballet interludes and choruses, intricate
polyphonic ensembles and exquisitely direct solo vocal writing. The
music is rich in thunderous effects and detailed tone painting.
It is also, at least to this taste, a bit blocky in
its dramaturgy; each episode comes with its own sonic proscenium, as it
were. A listener simply takes that as a premise of the performance, and
grants Berlioz the license to toss in a pair of lascivious sentries,
say, for no other reason than that he feels like it.
Runnicles’ return
Sunday’s performance dodged that issue in large part because of the welcome return of former Music Director
Donald Runnicles,
whose work in the pit evoked wonderful memories of his command of
expansive form. The orchestra sounded fantastic under his leadership,
with surging, tumultuous string textures and impeccably pointed playing
from the woodwinds (no one works the woodwinds like Berlioz). And the
canny ebb and flow of individual scenes and entire acts served as a
testament to Runnicles’ overarching mastery.
The afternoon’s other noteworthy return was that of soprano
Anna Caterina Antonacci,
whose performance as Cassandra marked the first of her two assignments
with the company this summer. (She’ll return to the War Memorial on
Saturday, June 13, to create the central role in the world premiere of
Marco Tutino’s “Two Women,” ceding the part of Cassandra for two performances to
Michaela Martens.)
Antonacci, who has not sung here since 1998, gave a
riveting account of the character — the only one among the Trojans who
foresees the doom that will come from the wooden horse the Greeks have
left outside the city gates. If her repertoire of twitchy gestures and
loony eye rolls seemed a bit outsize for their purpose, there was no
denying the intensity and fervor with which she conveyed the character’s
plight, or the vocal majesty she brought to the assignment.
In a work that is as much about the clash of nations
as about individual personalities, the chorus carries much of the
dramatic weight, and
Ian Robertson's
Opera Chorus,
joining their voices in full-throated splendor, filled that role
splendidly. From the besieged and increasingly terror-stricken Trojans
of the first acts to the optimistic Carthaginians singing the praises of
their queen, this was a vigorous and multi-faceted performance.
Scattered throughout the afternoon were other contributions of nobility and grace. Christian
Van Horn gave a muscular performance as Dido’s minister Narbal, tenor
René Barbera sang sweetly in his set piece as Dido’s court poet Iopas, and tenor
Chong Wang,
an Adler Fellow, brought down the house in Act 5 with a remarkably
soulful and beautiful rendition of the homesick lament of a young
sailor.
Vast panoramas
David McVicar’s production, a co-production with Covent Garden, La Scala and the
Vienna State Opera directed here by
Leah Hausman,
captures the extravagance of Berlioz’s conception in vast scenic
panoramas. Troy is a shadowy pile of metal and fortifications just
waiting to be turned into rubble, Carthage an open, sun-drenched expanse
that forms a pointed contrast. The Trojan horse itself — a sort of
scary steampunk cousin to the title character in the Broadway hit “War
Horse” — would be counted a small miracle of stagecraft if not for the
fact that it’s enormous.
San Francisco Opera: “The Trojans,” through Wednesday, July 1, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F. $96-$384. (415) 864-3330.
www.sfopera.com.
Article and images sourced from http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/Graham-shines-in-S-F-Opera-s-epic-Trojans-6314477.php#photo-8088835
