As many of you would have noticed by now, a smorg is a slow-moving creature. And as I've had quite a bit of distance to move of late (have just relocated to the South Bay area of Chula Vista... quite a few miles closer to the Mexican border), I have been even slower-moving than usual!
I did get up to visit the old haunts in North Park over the weekend, though (had to go see about a few old furry friends). Dropped off some mails at the always overly busy North Park Post Office on Grimm St... I wonder which speedophobic architect designed the place. Everything there seems set up to make the traffic flow as retarded as possible. Just have a look at where they've set up the quick-drop mail boxes... Why put the things out of reach against the building where people have to park and get out of their car to deposit their mail when they could have put the boxes at the edge of the sidewalk where people can just drive by, roll down their car window, drop their posts and be off?
The staff inside do their best, of course, but the building fights rather than help them move the customer through the line as quickly as possible. It also doesn't help that there are rarely ever more than 2 customer service staff manning the counter at the same time (so the line goes right out the front door on a regular basis).
I also dropped in at Auntie Helen's, the perpetually characterful thrift-shop on 30th between Lincoln and Polk with its eclectic but always friendly staff and clientele... and manned by the gay world's most serene-tempered dog (don't get startled if the white fluffy shawl on the countertop suddenly shifts its position or raises its head to sniff at you... it really actually is a dog!).
Last Sunday in North Park was actually livelier than usual with its Festival of the Arts taking over University Avenue between 30th and 32nd Streets. Multiple stages showing live rock bands, dance troupes, local kids music programs, local vendors, lots of good food.
I followed a particularly inviting scent to a stall near Illinois St where a friendly guy was grilling a bunch of mouth-watering Mexican hotdogs (fat sausages wrapped in juicy bacon!). Naturally I couldn't resist ridding him of the well-endowed links...
Though, as you can see from the photos, bacon has a demoralizingly disturbing way of shrinking into near-nothingness as it makes its way from the grill to my plate... Where the heck did all that tasty bit of fat go???
Don't be alarmed by the cloudiness in the video, though. It's normal weather for San Diego this time of year. The locals call it 'May Gray' and 'June Gloom'... The low layer of cloud usually burns off by noon and leaves you with a brilliantly sunny afternoon that explains nearly everyone's tan (and skin cancer, among other things).
A sad news for the operatic world today. Giulietta Simionato (12 May 1910 - 5 May 2010), the great Italian mezzo-soprano (also known as Maria Callas' best friend and singing partner), passed away at Via di Trigoria in Rome, Italy earlier today. Simionato was a superstar in Romantic Period Italian opera from the 1930's until her retirement in 1966 and helped ushering in the rejuvenation of the bel canto operas... for which I shall be eternally grateful.
There are many good clips of La Simionato on Youtube and elsewhere. This one features her in the wonderful Santuzza-Turiddu duet from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana from 1955 with Giuseppe Di Stefano. One good news is that she is very well represented on good quality CDs. There is nothing like getting to hear her live, of course (I didn't... I wasn't even the sparkle in my father's eyes yet when she retired from the singing scene), but even an electronically captured glimpse of her is worth seeking out.
This should also remind many of us not to take the wonderful singers performing on the stage today for granted. They won't always be there. If you have a chance to catch someone like Jonas Kaufmann, Edita Gruberova, Nina Stemme, Patricia Racette, Vesselina Kasarova, Renee Fleming, Ewa Podles, Bryn Terfel, Juan Diego Florez, Ramon Vargas, Simon Keenlyside and others live today, for Pete's sake, don't put it off!
Two days after the wonderful French soprano Natalie Dessay was named an Österreichische Kammersängerin (it is sort of like being knighted in Austria) your smorginess is happy to report that my most obsessive operatic addiction, the huskily mesmerizing Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova, along with German soprano Ricarda Merbeth was also bestowed the title earlier today by Culture Minister Claudia Schmied at the Vienna State Opera's Tea Salon.
I confess I'm not familiar with Merbeth, though the other two ladies need no introduction. Dessay and Kasarova are two of the most artistically adventurous artists of their generations who dare to perform their own conviction even in the face of criticism (some deserved and some totally not).
But then that's what an artist has to do in order to be able to look back at their career one day in their old age and really say that they had used their talents and opportunities to try to do something special and worthy of remembrance rather than just going along having an inoffensive money-making career, I think. Being ardently hated by some is often a price of greatness... And as uncomfortable as that may seem, hopefully it is well off-set by the adoration they truly earned from those who value their unique contribution.
Photo: www.volksoper.at
Herzliche Glückwünsche Frauen Österreichische Kammersängerinnen Dessay, Merbeth, und Kasarova!
Saturday night saw the opening performance of Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) at the San Diego Opera (at the SD Civic Theater in Downtown). The show had a glitchy start when Ian Campbell, the SDO's General Director and Artistic Director, came to the curtain to announce that maestro Karen Keltner (the SDO's Principal Conductor) will be substituting for Renato Palumbo, who was to make his house debut with the performance. It was a really last minute sort of change and caused a 15 minutes delay as the technical crew made adjustment on the conductor's podium and music stand.
Most opera fans would already know the story of the opera, of course. It is based on a real story of famous 19th century French courtesan Marie Duplessis, as semi-fictionalized by one of her lovers, Alexandre Dumas (fis) shortly after her untimely death from tuberculosis at age 23.
Fabulously pretty and nearly universally bewitching courtesan Violetta Valery (Elizabeth Futral) gives a party as she is recovering from tuberculosis. One of her guests, Alfredo Germont (Marius Brenciu), declares his love for her. And though Violetta was keen on remaining free of bondage in order to live in pleasure, she is overcome by the force of their mutual attraction.
After a few months of living together at Violetta's country villa Alfredo finds out from Annina the maid (Rebecca Skaar) that his beloved has been selling off her possessions in order to fund their lifestyle, so he plans to go off to be their bread-winner. Unbeknown to him, though, his dad, Giorgio Germont (Alan Opie), beats him to a meeting with Violetta where he successfully asks her to let go of his son (because this affair with a courtesan is casting a bad light on the family and Alfredo's sister would find it harder to marry with this cloud over her). Distraught but determined to do the right thing for Alfredo, Violetta extracts from his father the promise that he would reveal her real motif for ditching his son after her death.
Being young, angry and overly flushed with hormones that make him think with the wrong body part, Alfredo publicly humiliates Violetta at Flora (Susanna Guzmán)'s party and is challenged to a duel by Baron Douphol (Nicolai Janitzky) while the heroine collapses. Papa Germont is immensely regretful of how his well-intended request has turned out for everyone decides to fulfill his promise a bit early and reveals the truth to Alfredo... who must now race the clock to get back to Violetta before she expires from tuberculosis-induced-heartache-compounded deadness (I know, I know, that is neither a real word nor a bonafide medical diagnosis... but then what can you expect from an opera queen, ay?).
This production of La Traviata is traditionally set and flawlessly directed by Andrew Sinclair. The sets are beautiful and uncluttered, nicely treading the line between being minimalistic and lavish (the flashy supporting cast costumes helped). The Act II scenery was actually applauded by a segment of the audience when the curtain went up! (I should note, though, that the opening night audience really couldn't wait to clap at many things. By the end of the third act I was hoping that the curtain would get stuck and refuse to come down until the last note of the music has sounded because the minute that thing moved nearly everyone started clapping and there was no hope of hearing the final bars of what the orchestra was still playing ). The San Diego Symphony Orchestra was in the pit, of course, and sounded like a million buck all night long. The gltichy side-effect of the substitution showed up soon after the superbly performed overture, however, when the singers and the orchestra were just a tad out of sync for much of the first act. The orchestra was a bit ahead of the principal singers, but when the chorus joined in they were a tad ahead of everybody else... And the adjustments everybody was trying to make showed a bit more than they should... which goes to show that even the pros need practice time in order to perform flawlessly and I'm happy to report than most of the audiences very much appreciated the difficulties maestro Keltner faced in having to jump in to a performance with literally no notice at all. She got a well deserved warm ovations every time she entered the pit and at the curtain call.
Everything came together well by the time Elizabeth Futral launched into Violetta's Act I ending 'E strano! - Sempre libera', however. The American soprano looked quite fetching as her role requires and performed like a real veteran. Her top notes didn't rub well on me, but everything else was worthy of the fascinating courtesan who was well known in nearly every corner of Europe in the days before the invention of telecommunication and internet and when the rich and famous traveled in a horse-drawn carriage instead of a Porche or an H2 Hummer.
Her Violetta is neither very young nor very subtle, but she was convincing in her own ways. Sempre Libera was turned into something of a mad (as in angry mad) scene and elicited a warm round of applause. Her best qualities shone the brightest in the dramatic final act, however, with all the right accent and dynamism to highlight Violetta's hopeless distress in a very touching rendition of 'Addio, del passato.'
The most gorgeous voice of the cast, however, belongs to her onstage lover, the Alfredo of Romanian Marius Brenciu, whose beautifully Italianate tenor comes with a silky legato that no smoothie in San Diego County can compete with. It is a beautiful and well projected lyrical voice from top to bottom, deployed with prolific controlled... which makes him very easy to listen to even though he wasn't theatrically and vocally quite as ardent and hot-headed as my vision of Alfredo is.
The really splendid surprise appeared in the 2nd act of the opera when the British baritone Allan Opie appeared on stage as Alfredo's meddling papa, Giorgio Germont. His was easily the most theatrically and vocally commanding performance of the night. Excellent stage presence and full of all the right vocal gravitas, and I somehow found myself listening for his vocal line rather than Violetta's during their gorgeous Act II duet (the two voices don't really match that well).
The supporting cast was quite well done with Susanna Guzmán returning as a theatrically adept if vocally rather hideous Flora (I and everyone like the lass, mind you, but her voice sounded really shot.... by an uzi or something worse. It helped that she didn't have much to sing and when she did much of it was nearly inaudible). Rebecca Skaar was pleasing to hear as Violetta's devoted maid, Annina. Joseph Hu made a pleasantly wobbly Gaston, and Nicolai Janizky suitably snobbish Baron Douphol.
The San Diego Opera Chorus was (after the initial sync problem with the orchestra) spot on. The gypsy and toreador dancers were delightfully snappy and earned their choreographer, Kristina Cobarrubia, a nice round of applause at the curtain.
It was a good show! And everyone I talked to in the audience enjoyed the performance and LOVED the special treat of getting to see the stage crew change the set when they left the curtain up for much of the intermission between Acts II and III.
If you are in San Diego or within an easy driving distance, there are still 3 performances of La Traviata left:Tuesday April 20 (7PM), Friday April 23 (8PM), Sunday April 25 (2PM). Ticket information available at www.sdopera.com
Photos: All stage photos are by Ken Howard and posted courtesy of the San Diego Opera.
The staff inside do their best, of course, but the building fights rather than help them move the customer through the line as quickly as possible. It also doesn't help that there are rarely ever more than 2 customer service staff manning the counter at the same time (so the line goes right out the front door on a regular basis).
I also dropped in at Auntie Helen's, the perpetually characterful thrift-shop on 30th between Lincoln and Polk with its eclectic but always friendly staff and clientele... and manned by the gay world's most serene-tempered dog (don't get startled if the white fluffy shawl on the countertop suddenly shifts its position or raises its head to sniff at you... it really actually is a dog!).
Last Sunday in North Park was actually livelier than usual with its Festival of the Arts taking over University Avenue between 30th and 32nd Streets. Multiple stages showing live rock bands, dance troupes, local kids music programs, local vendors, lots of good food.
I followed a particularly inviting scent to a stall near Illinois St where a friendly guy was grilling a bunch of mouth-watering Mexican hotdogs (fat sausages wrapped in juicy bacon!). Naturally I couldn't resist ridding him of the well-endowed links...
Though, as you can see from the photos, bacon has a demoralizingly disturbing way of shrinking into near-nothingness as it makes its way from the grill to my plate... Where the heck did all that tasty bit of fat go???
