The Pearl Fishers at Seattle Opera, January 10th, 2009
I'm a bit slow on posting my Pearl Fishers review, and for a good reason: I was a bit dozy during the performance. As a result, this one will be shorter than usual.
This had nothing to do with the quality of the performance (the singing was perfectly lovely, and the staging was, I think, the most all-around enganging performance I've seen at McCaw Hall since Italiana in October 2006). Rather, it had more to do with the fact that I had been back from Europe for only a few days and I was suffering badly from jet lag.
Leila - Mary Dunleavy (debut)
Nadir - William Burden
Zurga - Christopher Feigum
Nourabad - Patric Carfizzi
Conductor - Gerard Schwarz
Director - Kay Walker Castaldo (debut)
Sets and costumes from Philadelphia Opera
Prior to the performance, the only music from the opera I knew was the famously gorgeous duet. (If you have not heard the Jussi Bjoerling/Robert Merrill recording of said duet, then you have not yet heard the most sublime recording I have ever heard. In fact, if you have not yet heard that recording, then what the hell are you doing reading this? Get you to the iTunes store! You'll be glad you did.)
The music is consistently lovely, and the drama is quite good for an opera of that period. I don't have a history of watching this opera, but this production quite rightly makes the baritone Zurga the dramatic and emotional crux of the piece. His profound self-sacrifice at the end was believable and moving. Frankly, I think Leila should have run off with the baritone and left the tenor to his own devices.
I was most looking forward to William Burden, and he sounded beautiful, but rather small-voiced compared to his colleagues. Christopher Feigum was wonderful as Zurga, Patric Carfizzi's Nourabad was dark and dangerous, and Mary Dunleavy sang Leila's high-lying lines with a rich and dusky soprano. I'd like to hear her again, perhaps in more French repertory. (Marguerite in Faust would be good.)
Next up will be the Bluebeard's Castle/Erwartung double-bill that has been seen around the continent for around a decade, directed by Robert Lepage, who has also done the Met's Damnation of Faust, Lorin Maazel's 1984 at Covent Garden, Cirque de Soleil's Ka in Las Vegas, and the upcoming new production of the Ring at the Met. There has been one change: Evan Rogister has replaced the previously announced Vjekoslav Sutej as conductor.
This had nothing to do with the quality of the performance (the singing was perfectly lovely, and the staging was, I think, the most all-around enganging performance I've seen at McCaw Hall since Italiana in October 2006). Rather, it had more to do with the fact that I had been back from Europe for only a few days and I was suffering badly from jet lag.
Leila - Mary Dunleavy (debut)
Nadir - William Burden
Zurga - Christopher Feigum
Nourabad - Patric Carfizzi
Conductor - Gerard Schwarz
Director - Kay Walker Castaldo (debut)
Sets and costumes from Philadelphia Opera
Prior to the performance, the only music from the opera I knew was the famously gorgeous duet. (If you have not heard the Jussi Bjoerling/Robert Merrill recording of said duet, then you have not yet heard the most sublime recording I have ever heard. In fact, if you have not yet heard that recording, then what the hell are you doing reading this? Get you to the iTunes store! You'll be glad you did.)
The music is consistently lovely, and the drama is quite good for an opera of that period. I don't have a history of watching this opera, but this production quite rightly makes the baritone Zurga the dramatic and emotional crux of the piece. His profound self-sacrifice at the end was believable and moving. Frankly, I think Leila should have run off with the baritone and left the tenor to his own devices.
I was most looking forward to William Burden, and he sounded beautiful, but rather small-voiced compared to his colleagues. Christopher Feigum was wonderful as Zurga, Patric Carfizzi's Nourabad was dark and dangerous, and Mary Dunleavy sang Leila's high-lying lines with a rich and dusky soprano. I'd like to hear her again, perhaps in more French repertory. (Marguerite in Faust would be good.)
Next up will be the Bluebeard's Castle/Erwartung double-bill that has been seen around the continent for around a decade, directed by Robert Lepage, who has also done the Met's Damnation of Faust, Lorin Maazel's 1984 at Covent Garden, Cirque de Soleil's Ka in Las Vegas, and the upcoming new production of the Ring at the Met. There has been one change: Evan Rogister has replaced the previously announced Vjekoslav Sutej as conductor.