Gotham Chamber Opera: “Lexapro… for anxiety, fictional and non-fictional!”

B  ecause you're so close you have no choice but to feel a part of it... It’s really visceral!”
  — Neal Goren.

A ttended the 10^th anniversary celebration performance of Gotham Chamber Opera last night, at Le Poisson Rouge. Founded in 2000 by Neal Goren, Gotham Chamber Opera is dedicated to producing rarely-performed chamber operas from the Baroque era to the present (including Piazzolla’s 1968 tango opera, Sutermeister’s 1935 ‘Die schwarze Spinne’, Britten’s 1947 ‘Albert Herring’, Haydn’s 1779 ‘L’isola disabitata’, and Handel’s 1733 ‘Arianna in Creta’). As last night’s performance demonstrated, GCO is also dedicated to new music combined with a hefty dose of comedy. Their concert included the première of a new work by Gabriel Kahane, ‘You left me, Sweet, two legacies’, a setting of the Emily Dickinson poem with that first line, performed by soprano Jennifer Check and pianist Neal Goren.

A lso on the program were Opera Company of Philadelphia composer-in-residence Lembit Beecher’s dark, poignant and beautiful ‘Heart Rhythms’ 2008 trio for bass clarinet (Amy Zoloto), violin (Nurit Pacht), and cello (Sophie Shao); Mozart’s ‘Quercia annosa su l’erte pendici’, aria No. 7 from ‘Il sogno di Scipione’, K. 126; Ravel’s ‘Chansons Madécasses’; George Lam’s and Benjamin Rogers’s ‘Variations’; Purcell’s ‘Sound the Trumpet’ 1694 aria/ode celebrating the birthday of King James II [Maeve Höglund, soprano; Gennard Lobardozzi, tenor; Keun-A Lee, harpsichord; Sophie Shao, cello]; Richard Strauss’s ‘Wie schön is doch die musik’ [Benjamin LeClair, bass] and ‘Marie Theres! Hav’ mir’s gelobt’ from ‘Die Rosenkavalier’ [with Eve Gigliotti, mezzo-soprano]; and ‘Les vents furieux’ from Rameau’s 1745 hit ‘La Princess de Navarre’. Gabriel Kahane and ensemble Miracles of Modern Science (MoMS) [Evan Younger, vocals/double-bass; Josh Hirshfeld, vocals/mandolin; Kieran Ledwidge, vocals/violin; Geoff McDonald, vocals/cello; Tyler Pines, vocals/drums] contributed comic and atmospheric pieces as well.

O ne of the works, George Lam’s and Benjamin Rogers’s ‘Variations On’, incorporated fragments of ambient/overheard conversations in public spaces combined with satirical quotes from recent pharmaceutical advertisement voiceovers. The latter were sometimes edited or transformed slightly (as, for example, with the one in the title of this blogpost, for Forest Laboratories’ Lexapro® escitalopram SSRI antidepressant), which makes the quoted material function as commentary on contemporary society—in a manner that is only incrementally more disturbing than the original ad.

T he audience in the sold-out LPR club loved the whole evening. Bravo! Happy GCO 10^th anniversary! Many happy returns!

• Gotham Chamber Opera
  
• Le Poisson Rouge
  
• Neal Goren page at Pinnacle Arts
  
• Neal Goren page at Mannes College (New School)
  
• Miracles of Modern Science (MoMS) website
  
• Elliott C. White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine. Beacon, 2010.
  
• Milzoff R. GCO sets a sexy example for the City’s scene. Vulture, 13-FEB-2009.
  
• Oppenheim K. A night of chamber opera. The Economist, 12-AUG-2008.
  
• Yohalem J. GCO: Il Mondo della Luna. Opera Today, 22-JAN-2010.

Gene Pritsker: William James and Pluralistic Consciousness Beyond the Margin

T he new recording of Gene Pritsker’s ‘William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience: A Chamber Opera’ is beautiful—musically and dramatically.

W illiam James was fascinated by what he termed our ‘selective interest’—our harmoniously adjusting ourselves to things seen and unseen. In the sea of evolving, conflicting stimuli in which we are immersed, we pay attention to a small subset of things... mostly things that match our predispositions and expectations: our interests and beliefs. A renowned psychologist and pragmatist and empiricist philosopher, James in the late 19th Century set about to assemble evidence that could reveal whether and how experiences that are gated by interests and beliefs in things unseen can catalyze positive changes in people—especially when people attach symbolic or emotional/spiritual importance to the experiences. “Explore the peculiarities of this attitude... All our attitudes... are due to the objects of our consciousness... the things we believe to exist. We feel a presence in the room... definitely localized... coming suddenly, and suddenly gone... I felt myself to be the less ‘real’ of the two...”

I n VRE (p. 55), James says “so far as religious conceptions are able to touch this reality-feeling [of objective presence of the Other] they would be believed in spite of criticism, even though they might be so vague and remote as to be almost unimaginable... even though they might be such non-entities in point of ‘whatness’...”

• Gene Pritsker, guitar
  
• Greg Baker, guitar
  
• Dan Barrett, cello
  
• Larry Goldman, contra bass
  
• Lynn Norris, soprano
  
• Chanda Rule, mezzo soprano
  
• Marc Molomot, tenor
  
• Charles Coleman, baritone
  
• Chester Layman, narrator
  
• Kim Pritsker, narrator

D elicate, taut, and incisive writing. Beautiful interplay between instruments and voices, between the rhythm/melodies/harmonies and the text. ‘Synaptic’ guitar picking; a really elegant solo improvisation on Track 5.

T he guitars-cello-bass instrumental ‘presence’ pervades the whole—this fact plus the fact that the voices in the foreground are so crisp and tangible make it seem as though the instrumental parts must collectively be ‘God’. But then the timbre of the voice changes, and I’m doubting that my sense of that was right. Maybe this is sonic evidence for some sort of pantheism? Everything is divine... everything that’s not being deceptive, anyway.

P ritsker’s ‘William James’s VRE’ is not a contemporary event-centric historical opera per se (not a “headline opera” about a famous historical figure and a famous moment in history, a la John Adams’s ‘Doctor Atomic’, on J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb). Sometimes event-centric works feel too self-referential—‘program music’ or a suite of ad hoc ‘concept’ compositions that are too overtly seeking adherents.

T his chamber opera is not like that. It’s far too unpredictable! It does, though, share with historical operas an attractive ‘topicality’ in terms of (a) dramatizing interrelated subjects (spirituality; religion; multiculturalism; tolerance) that have plenty of currency these days and (b) grounding these in the life of one well-known historical protagonist.

I  really admire the judicious excerpting of William James VRE texts for this libretto! Attention to the unbiddenness of how we recall things: verses, that bubble up in our minds, contrary to our ambitions or plans.

M any passages from James’s book (VRE) are dense and literary: the sentence structure was meant to be read by readers of 100+ years ago. When spoken aloud in this opera, these words engage our minds in provocative ways that highlight the finiteness of our attention as well as the alienness of the century-ago culture that produced the notions in VRE. Our relation to the music that is being performed while the voice-over narration is going on is altered, far more than happens in ‘conventional’ opera.

W hat’s more, some of the narrators/texts are more ‘reliable’ as narrators than others. Each is clearly earnest in his/her own way, and yet some of them make statements that are more accessible or less accessible to us, given our own beliefs and style and inclinations/disinclinations to share our feelings in ways that resemble what the narrator is doing. Listening to these different narrators/singers, we’re led to recognize more of what we ourselves are doing: selectively filtering, giving and getting, allowing and forbidding.

T he opera and the ‘arc’ of the 8 tracks of the recording ably convey dramatic tension of setting out on a journey to explore the diversity of spirituality; of encountering many instances and types of experience; of empirically assessing each of these; and finally integrating and summarizing what we’ve found out.

T he 43-min performance time is just sufficient to develop the ideas and the ambience and characterizations, and bring things in for a satisfying “landing”.

T he sound has warmth and intimacy throughout, perfectly matched to the subject and content. Beautiful performances by all, plus excellent engineering and production values on the recording.

I ’m uplifted by this new Pritsker CD—impressed by the authenticity of music that “had to come out”, had to be composed, had to exist. There is a wonderful ‘meta-meta’ aspect to the work as well. It is as though Pritsker has created a sonic picture of ‘William James’s Red Mood’ (see Arthur Danto’s famous book of 30 years ago, link below)—plus a further picture, an abstract minimalist exemplar of geometrical art which happens to be lush and sensuous and red and pulsating—plus yet a further picture, a metaphysical painting based on the fact that James knew the Nirvanic and Samsara orders are identical and that the Samsara world is fondly called the Red Dust by its deprecators.

J ames near the end of VRE says “Religious mysticism... is much less unanimous than I have allowed... It is dualistic in Sankhya and monistic in Vedanta” (VRE p. 336). He maintains that, rather than being adversarial or conflictual, the varieties of spiritual experience can in fact be harmonious with each other... there can be rapproachment between individuals and religions that hold what appear to be incompatible ‘over-beliefs’. James says that this can be done by looking to everyday feelings and to everyday acts—however unplanned and discordant with ambitions and ideologies as they may be—looking to these as comprising the essence of real religion (VRE p. 397).

T his opera by Gene Pritsker honors that Jamesian notion. The opera—and this recording—are a welcome invitation to self-discovery, to mutual respect and tolerance for the spirituality (or lack thereof) of others, and to joyous, mindful living in community. Look for the CD when it’s released in February. Very worth your listening!

• Gene Pritsker website
  
• Composers Concordance Records [Pritsker release on 28-FEB-2012]
  
• Danto A. Transfiguration of the Commonplace. Harvard Univ, 1983.
  
• Lamberth D. William James and the Metaphysics of Experience. Cambridge Univ, 2009.
  
• Proudfoot W, ed. William James and a Science of Religions: Reexperiencing ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’. Columbia Univ, 2004.
  
• Putnam R, ed. The Cambridge Companion to William James. Cambridge Univ, 1997.
  
• Taylor E. William James on Consciousness Beyond the Margin. Princeton, 1996.
  
• Blind Men & Elephant metaphor for epistemology, empirical relation to Truth
  
• Council on Spiritual Practices (CSP.org)

Gogol’s Terminal Psychosis, No Effective Medical Palliative Care in Sight

I   n the last stage of his life Gogol is increasingly consumed by a religious mania. He considers his past work a sin and burns the second part of his major novel, ‘Dead Souls’. In the end he refuses to eat. In his final hours he is visited by the fantastic figures from his own works – and they show themselves to be more reasonable than he is himself at this point. Gogol has utterly broken with his previous life and renounces it; now it is avenging itself. … This opera is not so much a biography as a poetic and satirical study of one of the greatest Russian writers, whose emotional life is as mysterious and fascinating as his idiosyncratic works... Lera Auerbach … has found her own voice, and it is full of stylistic freedom and dramatic power.”
  — Theater an der Wien opera, program notes, 2011.

T he person must, according to the DSM-IV, have at least two out of five symptoms:

• (i) delusions, (ii) hallucinations, (iii) disorganised speech, (iv) grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, or (v) functional incapacities or negative symptoms (such as alogia, avolition, etc)—for a substantial percentage of a one month period;
  
• Plus, continuous signs of disturbance must continue for at least six months;
  
• Plus, substantial social or occupational dysfunction must be evident;
  
• Required exclusion criteria include substance abuse, mood disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder.

C heck, check, and check—with regard to Nikolai Gogol in the last 6 months of his life.

I f you are expecting in Lera Auerbach’s new opera a Gogolesque, cynical account of human nature, or about the ruling class (‘We are the 99%!’), or a scatology as absurdist art, you will not find it here.

N or will you learn famous Gogol’s concept of the untranslatable Russian word пошлость (‘poshlost’). [Vladimir Nabokov explained this as “posh-lust”, “not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive” (Nabokov 1944, p. 70)—the falsely transcendent.] Пошлость reduces reality to a sort of cavalier mediocrity and unrepentant vulgarity—a moral and spiritual condition from which humankind cannot escape—compulsive smutiness, radical pointlessness, compulsive garish carnival, absurd superfluousness.

N o, in this fantastical new opera we get nonstop existential angst and horror—superbly manifested in Auerbach’s score and libretto, and in an exceptionally fine production by Theater an der Wien (who commissioned the work), with performances by ORF Radiosymphonieorchester, Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Grazer Kapellknaben, and Mozartknabenchor Wien… a convincing reenactment, showing the suffering Gogol, receiving no effective medical help for his end-of-life psychiatric condition.

I t is as though Gogol’s invention, пошлость, ironically haunted him during his final days. Which amounts to a lesson to us all, to be careful about what we dream, what we think, what we dwell upon. As our minds begin to fail late in life, those one-time droll ideas of ours—every hubristic preoccupation; every cynical mental posture we ever indulged—every one of them could become real in our waning days—and we may be powerless to make them stop from bothering us. Bad karma or poetic justice, hunting you down in your own lifetime! Ein Alptraum jagt den nächsten!

B   efore writing a note of ‘Gogol,’ composer Lera Auerbach immersed herself in the writer’s complete works and over twenty books written about him. It would take similar efforts to begin to understand this opera: taking us inside the fevered mind of its title character, ‘Gogol’ is less a biographical narrative set to music than a phantasmagorical, psychological investigation. Given a virtuosic staging by director Christine Mielitz, it is also an overwhelming theatrical experience.”   — Zwölftöner (Werner Kmetitsch), 17-NOV-2011.

A uerbach regularly collaborates with soloists and ensembles including Hilary Hahn, Vadim Gluzman, Leonidas Kavakos, Julian Rachlin, Philippe Quint, Gautier Capuçon, Alisa Weilerstein, David Finckel, Kim Kashkashian, Tokyo String Quartet, Borromeo Quartet, Artemis String Quartet, Vanbrugh String Quartet, Kremerata Baltica, Camerata Pacifica, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Auerbach was born in the city of Chelyabinsk, adjacent to Siberia. After writing her first opera when she was 12, she moved to the U.S. in 1991 where she studied piano and composition at Juilliard. Her piano studies took her to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover. She was awarded the Hindemith Prize by the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, Deutschlandfunk’s Förderpreis, selected as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, and in 2007 she was selected as a member of the Young Global Leaders forum by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

• Lera Auerbach website
  
• Theater an der Wien ‘Gogol’ production
  
• 'Gogol' at ORF.at [good pix here]
  
• Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) page at Wikipedia
  
• Aleccia J. Before Code Blue: Who’s minding the patient? Little-known ‘failure to rescue’ is most common hospital safety mistake. MSNBC, 08-APR-2008.
  
• Allen E. A Fallen Idol Is Still a God: Lermontov and the Quandaries of Cultural Transition. Stanford Univ, 2006.
  
• Arkhangel'skii G. The medical environment of N. V. Gogol. Klin Med (Mosk). 1985;63:138-41.
  
• Bennett M. Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011.
  
• Fanger D. The Creation of Nikolai Gogol. Belknap, 1979
  
• Friedlander M, et al. Delirium in palliative care. Oncology. 2004;18:1541-50.
  
• Fusso S, Meyer P, eds. Essays on Gogol: Logos and the Russian Word. Northwestern Univ, 1994.
  
• Geppert C, et al. To treat or not to treat: Psychosis, palliative care, and ethics at the end-of-life. Psychosomatics. 2011;52:178-84.
  
• Kmetitsch W. Review. Von heute auf morgen, 18-NOV-2011 [good pix here]
  
• LeFevre P, et al. Screening for psychiatric illness in the palliative care in-patient setting. Palliat Med. 1999;13:399-407.
  
• Milne L, ed. Reflective Laughter: Aspects of Humour in Russian Culture. Anthem, 2004.
  
• Nabokov V. Nikolai Gogol. New Directions, 1944.
  
• Orwin D. Consequences of Consciousness: Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. Stanford Univ, 2007.
  
• Rasmussen K, Richardson J. Electroconvulsive therapy in palliative care. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2011;28:375-7.
  
• Witztum E, et al. Creativity and insanity: The enigmatic medical biography of Nikolai Gogol. J Med Biogr 2000;8:110-6

G   ogol’s ‘grotesque’ is a—] means of estranging—a comic hyperbole that unmasks the banality and inhumanity of ambient reality.”   — Susanne Fusso, p. 69.

Káťa Kabanová’s Admission-against-Interest: Janáček’s Kabanicha as ‘Cyberbully’

T   he avant-garde lies surely in the fact that it does not presuppose the spontaneous social order to which Janáček constantly returns us; it is not addressed to a community but to the individual, who experiences through the music the alienation that reigns in his heart... This is a music which was not derived from the community portrayed in it: it was an attempt to create that community as a musical idea. And that, in part, is why it is so inpsiring... [we] hear in this music the working out of an ideal... an ideal of human community.”
  —  Roger Scruton, quoted in Whittall, p. 37.

O   per erzählt vom Untergang einer jungen Frau, die zum einen an ihrer außerehelichen Liebe und der daraus resultierenden Angst vor Höllenstrafe, zum anderen an der Kälte und Heuchelei der Gesellschaft zerbricht.

[Opera about the downfall of a young woman who under duress confesses her extra-marital love affair—her admission due partly to fear of eternal damnation in Hell, and due also to the alienating hypocrisy of family and society.”

  —  Wiener Staatsoper program notes.

T he Leoš Janáček opera Káťa Kabanová at the Wien Staatsoper is a beautiful, intimate production. Lots of great “chamber-ensemble-within-orchestra” playing: the textures and dramatic timbre changes and “sectional” orchestrations are so varied!

F or a work that was composed in 1919-21, this has a lot of "contemporary" qualities to it. I had not expected it would resemble ‘Intervention’ or other reality television.

T he lead part (Káťa Kabanová, sung by Janice Watson) was compellingly performed, with a most convincing devolution from admission of infidelity to suicidality.

• Janice Watson - Katja
  
• Klaus Florian Vogt - Boris
  
• Deborah Polaski - Kabanicha
  
• Marian Talaba - Tichon
  
• Wolfgang Bankl - Dikoj
  
• Gergely Németi - Kudrjas
  
• Stephanie Houtzeel - Varvara
  
• Marcus Pelz - Kuligin
  
• Alisa Kolosova - Glasa
  
• Donna Ellen - Feklusa
  
• N. N. - Eine Frau

T he intimidating, icy-cold Mother-in-Law-from-Hell (Kabanicha, sung by Deborah Polaski) reminded me of nothing so much as the situation several years ago in the real-life suicide of young Megan Meier subsequent to transgenerational cyberbullying by Mrs. Lori Drew. A tremendous amount of her aggression is projected “virtually,” by putting words in her son's mouth, making him say mean and manipulative things, or making it appear that her feelings and thoughts are really his.

L ike so many contemporary online behaviors, the Ostrovsky story on which this opera is based endorses the value of passion as a medium of truth and authentic identity. When that person—that identity—is persistently reproached, rejected, subordinated, and intimidated, a dark, deep depression sets in. Life seems unworth living. Katja feels lonely, helpless, convinced that nothing will ever change.

A nd Kabanicha the mother-in-law, like so many bullies, has profoundly low self-esteem and is even more unhappy than she makes her victims. She is evil, but more depressed and revealing of the meanness that can come from depression than simply evil per se.

T his is not pre-revolutionary Russian nor Soviet-era cynicism, nor even a criticism of the Church and its punitive tendencies in situations of marital infidelity. If anything, this is a straightforward indictment of dysfunctional family and community culture of 20th-Century modernity… evoked by the Art Deco metropolitan sets.

J anáček’s music is so inflected by the rhythm of the Czech language, whether performed in English or German or other languages. I try to keep up simultaneously, alternating between the English and German, on the small LCD text displays attached to the seatbacks in front of us.

I    think that in the music and in the text the opera does not try to explain itself but presents a situation which, on the surface, is very simple. The surface is what is primary. The mystery is already on the surface. In the text and music this is allowed to resonate. For me a work is like peeling an onion. You take a layer off, then another layer, then another and so forth, until you get almost nothing... All my work is choreographed, so I can do initial blocking and choreography with stand-ins and it is notated. This makes it much easier for me to teach the choreography to the singers. Western singers for the most part have no training in movement and dance. This way of working makes it easier for me to show the choreography to the singers.”   — Robert Wilson, Prague, 2002 production of Káťa Kabanová.

I n the ending after Katja has hurled herself into the river, we hear the mordent/turn theme played by a trumpet. The river is something like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. The opera ends with a majestic and dignified presentation on choir and orchestra thundering out—and then lights out to black. Wonderful symbolism. Beautiful production, set design, and lighting. Superb singing and acting, and gorgeous orchestra.

• Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations website
  
• Leoš Janáček chamber opera page
  
• Chisolm E. Operas of Leoš Janáček. PhD Dissertation (Edinburgh), 1971, at MusicWebInternational
  
• Synopsis of Leoš Janáček's opera Káťa Kabanová [Metropolitan Opera website]
  
• Káťa Kabanová summary at LeošJanáček.com
  
• Megan Meier Foundation website
  
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline [+1-800-273-8255]
  
• Deborah Polaski website
  
• Janice Watson page at Askonas-Holt Management
  
• BullyOnline.org
  
• Bonanno R, Hymel S. Beyond hurt feelings: Investigating why some victims of bullying are at greater risk for suicidal ideation. MP Quarterly 2010;56:420-40.
  
• Briggs A. 'Pre-revolutionary Russian theatre,' in Cornwell N, ed. Companion to Russian Literature. Routledge, 2001. (Ch. 6)
  
• Cheek T. Kat'a Kabanová: Translations and Pronunciation. Scarecrow, 2004.
  
• Clark R, et al. Cross-Examination Handbook: Persuasion Strategies & Techniques. Aspen, 2010.
  
• Due P, et al. Is bullying equally harmful for rich and poor children?: A study of bullying and depression from age 15 to 27. Eur J Public Health. 2009;19:464-9
  
• Friedman L. Cyberbullying. Greenhaven, 2010.
  
• Gardner T, Anderson T. Criminal Evidence: Principles and Cases. 7e. Wadsworth, 2009. (Ch. 8: admission-against-interest)
  
• High B. The what & how: Warning signs list for bullying, depression and suicide. BullyCide.org, 2007.
  
• Hinduja S, Patchin J. Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying. Corwin, 2008.
  
• Inbau F, et al. Essentials of the Reid Technique: Criminal Interrogations and Confessions. Jones & Bartlett, 2004.
  
• Klomek A, et al. High school bullying as a risk for later depression and suicidality. Suicide Life Threat Behav 2011;41:501-16.
  
• Meltzer H, et al. Victims of bullying in childhood and suicide attempts in adulthood. Eur Psych 2011;26:498-503.
  
• Patchin J, Hinduja S. Cyberbullying Prevention and Response. Routledge, 2011.
  
• Shariff S. Confronting Cyber-Bullying: What Schools Need to Know to Control Misconduct and Avoid Legal Consequences. Cambridge Univ, 2009.
  
• Sontag L, et al. Traditional and cyber aggressors and victims: A comparison of psychosocial characteristics. J Youth Adolesc 2011;40:392-404.
  
• Tyrrell J. Janáček's Operas: A Documentary Account. Faber & Faber, 1998.
  
• Wang J, et al. Cyber and traditional bullying: Differential association with depression. J Adolesc Health 2011;48:415-7.
  
• Wang J, et al. Co-occurrence of victimization from five subtypes of bullying: Physical, verbal, social exclusion, spreading rumors, and cyber. J Ped Psych 2010;35:1103-12.
  
• Whittall A. Exploring Twentieth-Century Music: Tradition and Innovation. Cambridge Univ, 2003.

L   eave it to follow from what you are reading now: a different situation from the present one; a pattern of activity from different from the historical and psychological contexts where your reading is done in the Here and Now... Here and Now, the [opportune] place for engaging other impassioned unions and charged connections amongst us. Imagine a future where you connect like this exclusively, with the greatest fortune and unprecedented speed.].”   — Wiener Staatsoper screen.

Con Che Soavità Intuito: BEMF’s Production of Steffani’s ‘Niobe’

T he 2011 Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) opened yesterday with a production of the fully-staged North American premiere of the Baroque Italian opera, ‘Niobe, Regina di Tebe’ by Steffani. The work received its first performance in 1688 in Munich. Here it is restored with new choreography (dances by Melchior d’Ardespin from the original are no longer extant) and libretto by Luigi Orlandi now with a new English translation by Ellen Hargis.

T he opera is nominally Ovid’s story from classical Greece, but with Enlightenment characteristics.

E nlightenment-era people still were born into social positions with predestined obligations such as kinship and feudal duty, or even, as in the case of Niobe and Anfione in ancient times, royal privileges and duties to Theban subjects and kingdom. Human nature being what it is, even royalty could become frustrated with the lack of freedom, and with social positions and obligations that didn’t change throughout a person’s life.

O ut of chronic frustration come greed, pride, the wish for longevity or godlike immortality, and other motivations, which lead to bad, catastrophic decisions. In this case, at the end Niobe’s kids, the Niobids, have all been killed by lightning bolts hurled by the gods, who are hopping mad on account of all the vanity below; Niobe’s husband, the king Anfione, has committed suicide on account of the loss of his kids, his wife and his kingdom; and Niobe is turned to stone. It is about as bad a day as can be had by anybody in any Century.

D uring Niobe’s final aria at the end, the antiphonal utterances of two or three viole at a time—arrayed as the orchestra is across the entire width of the theater—add an especially dramatic, morbid effect.

G   ià mi rende di Pietra.
Funeste Imagini
Già mi tormentano;
Stigie Voragini
Già mi spaventano:
Vinta al fin dall’empia sorte...

[Now I am turned to Stone.
Funereal images
Torment me now;
Stygian abysses
Frighten me now.
I am vanquished in the end by bitter Fate...]”
  — Niobe, Act III, Scene XII [Agostino Steffani, tr., Ellen Hargis]

T he music establishes more of an orchestral underpinning than is usual... one cannot call it ‘accompaniment’. The vocal lines ride on the luxurious magic carpet of 20+ period instruments with natural inflections. [A four-piece off-stage viol consort adds a dramatic sense of acoustic distance and emotional depth at various times during the opera, complementing the sound from the larger chamber orchestra positioned between Row #1 and the stage.] The voices occupy their mid-ranges mostly, enabling each singer to project the text with crisp melismas and complexities that add to the emotion they are conveying. The naturalistic writing of the rhythms for the voices makes the dramaturgy that much more credible. The orchestral rhythms and phrasing are complementary to and sympathetic with the vocal parts: we are hearing one thing, a unity of voice and instruments, not accompanied voice. Really wonderful.

T he singers’ knowledge of the language and their sensitivity to phrasing and dynamics are truly remarkable. They and their coaches have clearly approached this work with extraordinary enthusiasm and depth of interest, to master all of the dramatic, musical, technical, and physical challenges that this opera presents.

T he BEMF cast members are superb in their parts—large voices that just won’t quit, countertenors too—all are compelling individually and wonderfully balanced, and the orchestra superb as well. The sets and costumes are sumptuous, and the production values: first-rate, as BEMF routinely achieves. Congratulations all around!

F our more performances of Niobe remain this week (Tue, June 14, 7pm; Wed, June 15, 7pm; Fri, June 17, 7pm; Sun, June 19, 3:30pm). Not to be missed!

• BEMF opera reviews webpage
  
• BEMF Niobe press webpage
  
• Donnington R. Opera and its Symbols: The Unity of Words, Music and Staging. Yale Univ, 1992.
  
• Holman P. Rediscovering Steffani. Early Music 2004;32:619-21.
  
• Robinson P. Opera, Sex and Other Vital Matters. Univ Chicago, 2002.
  
• Timms C. 'What did Handel learn from Steffani’s operas?' in Studies in Seventeenth-Century Opera, ed. B. Glixon. Ashgate, 2010.
  

Stefan Jackiw: Violin Atmospherics, Where They Come From

V iolinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Max Levinson performed last night at Kansas City’s Folly Theater, as part of the Harriman-Jewell 45^th season.

• Beethoven: Sonata No. 1 in D major
  
• Copland: Sonata for Violin and Piano
  
• Lutosławski: Subito
  
• Brahms: Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108

F or me, the highlight of the evening was the performance of Witold Lutosławski’s ‘Subito’ for violin and piano. Lutosławski was noted for his striving to achieve a unity of effect and expression through a 'system' of composing, for his love of drama, and for his penchant for high-saturation coloristic effects. Jackiw’s tendencies align perfectly with Lutosławski’s.

M  akes me wonder what Jackiw would do with Debussy’s violin and piano Sonata, L.140... Color for color’s sake.

E mphasis on small-scale, phrase-length features... anticipating the very next interval, the current ‘arc’. ‘Operatic’ sense of drama and discovery!

C all it ‘animated canon’—reverential, recursively referential to what has gone before, sentiment upon sentiment, until you are airborne.

M ore than this, Jackiw’s violinistic ‘voice’ is both liminal and abject in its submissiveness to the atmospherics as they unfold. The fascination with boundaries and liminality is sometimes forceful, as in the presto agitato of the Brahms, and at other times delicate in the andante semplice and lento of the Copland. Delicate, delicate vibrationless decrescendos, vanishing into thin air.

N ot surprisingly, as an encore Jackiw frequently performs ‘Méditation’ from Jules Massenet’s opera ‘Thaïs’, a wonderful vehicle for Jackiw’s interpretive sense of where the ‘earth’ ends and the ‘sky’ begins.

E lizabeth Lorenzo (UCLA) has argued that Massenet intentionally imbues his female characters with aggression and overt sexuality, so much as to place them well beyond the realm of acceptable feminine conduct, exulting in their defiant refusals to be contained—rhetorically anticipating French feminism. In the instance of Thaïs, Massenet’s opera with a libretto by Gallet based on the novel by Anatole France, set in Egypt under Greek occupation, we have a Cenobite monk, Athanaël, who tries to convert Thaïs, an Alexandrian courtesan and devotée of Venus, to Christianity. Eventually Athanaël acknowledges that his obsession with Thaïs is really only lust... the licentious courtesan, pure of heart, opposite the outwardly abstemious religious man who is carnal and deluded through and through... an object lesson in religious eroticism vs. erotic spirituality?

S o Thaïs is afraid of dying; she knows beauty is only skin deep; a violin is only a mortal box with strings. After a bumpy struggle in her soul through the night she hooks up with Athanaël in the morning, to go with him to the desert. Later Thaïs is almost dead with fatigue—really bad case of the flu? we’re not sure what. Athanaël plunks her at the oasis—more boundaries and liminality—in the care of Albine and the nuns, and then returns to the desert. But he can’t get the beautiful woman he has “saved” out of his mind. He sees her in his dreams; he hears voices telling him she is dying. He goes and finds Thaïs on her death-bed/boundary. He tries to revive her, exhorting her with sweet carnal nothings, so inappropriate we can hardly believe it. But visions of heaven already occupy her mind, and she dies:“I see God” are her last words.

Y es, well. Massenet was fascinated by the conflict between the secular and the sacred. And a courtesan who turns from the God of Love toward the Love of God is sentimental Massenet in spades.

B ut for Jackiw such a piece is an exploration, not so much of an eternal tension/conflict between the divine and the carnal, but of pure emotion itself. Jackiw embodies not a revivified sentimental, dramatic Massenet or Copland or Lutoslawski but instead a fresh incarnation of the muse that makes a composer create these things in the first place.

W hich is actually a far more valuable and inspiring trick! Bravo!

J ackiw has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the orchestras of Baltimore, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Nashville, Oregon, Rochester, San Francisco, Seattle, and St. Luke’s, among others. Born in 1985, Mr. Jackiw began playing violin at the age of 4. His teachers have included Zinaida Gilels, Michèle Auclair, and Donald Weilerstein. Mr. Jackiw holds a B.A. from Harvard University, as well as an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory. In 2002, he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. These days, Mr. Jackiw makes his home in New York City.

• Stefan Jackiw website
  
• Max Levinson website
  
• Brown C, Norrington R. Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900. Oxford Univ, 2004.
  
• Massenet sheetmusic at IMSLP.org
  
• Excerpt of Henry Finck writings on Massenet, BobsUniverse.com [1MB pdf]
  
• Finck H. Massenet and his Operas. Brewster, 2007.
  
• Harding J. Massenet. Da Capo, 2000.
  
• Huebner S. French Opera at the Fin De Siecle. Oxford Univ, 2006.
  
• Irvine D. Massenet: A Chronicle of His Life and Times. Amadeus, 2003.
  
• Rust D. conversation with Witold Lutosławski. The Musical Qt. 1995; 79:207-23.
  
• Lutosławski page at Polish Music Center
  
• Stucky S. Lutoslawski and His Music. Cambridge Univ, 2009.
  
• Massenet J. Thais - Meditation. Marsick transcription at VirtualSheetMusic.com

L    utosławski sent the work to Rostropovich as it progressed, with explanations couched largely in terms of the work’s dramatic scenario, in which the cellist and the orchestra confront each other as adversaries. This concept appealed strongly to Rostropovich, and he developed a deep identification with the dramatic persona represented in the solo part.”
  —  Steven Stucky, Lutosławski and His Music, p. 92.