OperaNow! #211: San Tijuana Opera: Donqey Showtte

San Diego Opera...nuff said. (Plus some other stuff.)

This week Oliver's Corner analyzes all of the secco recit in Cosi (whoopee!) and shows how singing in 6/8 can lead to immorality.

This week features Michael, The OC, Doug Dodson and Jenny Rivera.

Comments

[Menuet alla Zoppa]

I just wanted to quickly say something about the Oliver's Corners on Cosi, hopefully in a way which comes across as constructive rather than needlessly critical. They have been really interesting (as ever) but I get the feeling that Oliver is holding back a bit. By that I mean that since this Corner has been so long in the making, and since Oliver never tires of listening to this opera, there must be more to his love of it than just admiration of the brilliant music. I often find myself listening to opera and classical music in quite a detached, unemotional manner, but often the pieces that I *really* love get to me in a deeper way. I also find that I can enthuse and talk about such pieces much more readily. For example, I really empathised when Oliver was talking about his own (presumably embarssing) experiences in relation to the letter scene from Eugene Onegin. So I get the impression that to love Cosi so much, it must have personal resonances for him, and I think it would be interesting to hear about some of those, although obviously if he doesn't feel comfortable doing that, that's fine! I just think that the personal element in opera and classical music sometimes gets lost amongst formal analysis (not so much here, but in musicology more generally), and I think it needs to be reclaimed!

I hope that makes sense. I don't mean it as a criticism of what you've said so far, because it's been great :)

Also, Michael, you have confirmed for me that Americans are incapable of differentiating between Cockney and Australian accents :D

(P.S. Sorry for not commenting in a while - I have been listening though!)

[Michael Rice]

HA! To be fair (to myself) it was a parody.

[zach]

This usually doesn't happen when Oliver covers an opera, but I'm starting to fall in love with Cosi. I have been listening to it everyday for the past week. Maybe that's too much? Anyway, I have the Solti recording on my ipod so i liked that Oliver had Michael play some clips from that recording on the show.

The closing of San Diego Opera is sad. I feel guilty because i live in California and I tend to favor Los Angeles and San Francisco Opera. Both Los Angeles and San Diego are doing Massenet this season, but I;d much rather see Thais in Los Angeles. than drive 2 hours to San Diiego to see don Q. I'd rather see that because I know it really well from recording but I have never seen it live but I don't know any of the music from Don Q. I may just end up seeing both but I don't have much time to debate it with myself.

[SQLWitch]

That first Despina clip - was that Ileana Cotrubas?

[Geddy Lee]

I reallly enjoyed your discussion about San Diego Opera. I live in Los Angeles and drove down to San Diego to see 2 operas this year. In February I went to see Elixar of Love. There was an accident on the freeway and I got there 10 minutes late and had to sit outside in the lounge for the first act unfortunately. When I finally got in for the 2nd act I really enjoyed myself. It was a really fun production although it sounded like the tenor was struggling a bit on the high notes. Then in March I saw Masked Ball and it was pretty amazing. The singers were awsome. Gustav III was sung by Piotr Beczala and Oscar was sung by Kathleen Kim. I have seen both of these singers in Met Live in HD productions. They were really great.

The opera house seemed pretty full for both shows although I wasn't really paying attention.. But, if there were a lot of empty seats I'm sure I would have noticed.

San Diego opera also produced Pagliacci this season. I reallly wanted to see it, but they didn't double bill it with anything. I think that opera is only about 1 hour and 15 minutes long. I think that was another mistake made by the San Diego Opera managment. Who wants to see pay normal price for an opera and then sit in the opera house for only 1 hour and 15 minutes? Is that normal for an opera house to do? I'm kind of new to opera so I don't know. It seems too short for me though.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion on San Diego opera. I especially enjoyed learning about the finances of putting on opera. It was also really interesting for me because I had plans to make annual trips down there to see a show or 2. But, unfortunately, my first year going to see a San Diego opera will also end up being my last.

[Gianmarco]

Glad you took the extra time for an extended discussion of the San Diego mess. Beyond the ridiculousness of it all, fglad you extrapolated this one scenario to point out its relevance to the bigger picture. Jen's comments about opera boards and how expectations have changed in the last few decades are especially important. I agree that companies that don't try riskier programming probably don't stand a chance BUT are audiences ready to follow down this path? It's a bit of a gamble. Even some of the younger audience everyone is courting have old fashioned notions of what opera should be. Yet companies cannot hold onto the idea that "grand opera" is the only model. That's probably what might kill San Diego more than anything else. We're about to open Peter Sellars production of Handel's Hercules here in Toronto. An example I think of how truly great singing can be married to a meaningful concept with the ability to touch modern audiences.

[The OC]

YES, SQL
Cotrubas FTW

[Tamerlano]

Bravo, Oliver, this second segment on Così fan tutte I enjoyed much more than the first. It's a complex opera, with so many different layers. To me it's extremely facile for anyone to label Così as a misogynistic opera, for that is missing the point entirely, starting with the full title of the opera. We mustn't forget the subtitle, "Or The School for Lovers," which includes the men as well as the women. The title could just as easily have been Così fan tutti. Dismissing Così as misogynistic is also ignoring the libretto and the music, which make it very clear that it's so much more than even Guglielmo and Ferrando could have imagined in their wager with Don Alonso. A misogynistic opera would not make the men look like asses, but that's exactly how Guglielmo comes off, doesn't he? And as stated before, Despina warns the women not to trust men (let alone soldiers). These are just a few examples of how the men don't come off superior in any way to the women.

I was intrigued by Doug's suggestion that the plot is basically a "joke with the audience" with opera seria characters plopped into a comedy. I disagree with it, but I nevertheless find that interesting, as it's something I'd never previously considered. If Così is a comedy at all, it's what I would describe as a very dark and disturbing one. It's is SUCH a complex opera--oh wait, did I already say that? LOL!

I do agree very much with you, Oliver, about the beautiful music Mozart lavishes on the sisters and Ferrando, that it does give us a clue about with whom Mozart sympathizes. I can't believe that Mozart would compose such sublime music for nothing more than a shallow joke.

Finally, you selected some very nice clips, which is hard to do, because there are so many choices, and spanning so many decades, as there has never been a shortage of truly great Mozartean singers.

One of the reasons this opera resonates with me is for its prescient lessons about "love" in today's 21st century society. Just as people can and do change, so can our notions of love. In an age of easy hookups and hanging out, we tend to be a lot more cynical (realistic?) about love today. For me this makes Così fan tutte a prescient lesson about love, monogamy, and relations between the sexes. On some level I think it speaks more to today's society than to Mozart's.

Love is far more complicated than a Disney fairytale where beautiful young people fall in love and live happily ever after. What Cosi does is it explores the good, the bad, and the ugly about love, sexuality, feelings, and changes that take place and can even overwhelm people. Its message may ultimately be that love and monogamy may not be possible for most people, and that's okay because people, like love, are incredibly complex!

This reminds me of the old Stephen Stills song, "Love the One You're With":

"If you're down and confused
And you don't remember who you're talking to
Concentration slips away
Because your baby is so far away

Well there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can't be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you're with"

Looking forward to segment 3! I also look forward to your take on the opera's ending, which is anything but clear. Again, nice job!

[Arthur]

I liked the discussion of the San Diego mess. Living in the Twin Cities, I'm impressed that San Diego Opera's board managed to be even more self-destructive than the Minnesota Orchestra's board. Here in Minnesota the lockout only cost the orchestra its musical director and many key members. San Diego seems intent on scuttling the whole ship.

I'm not a singer, and while I've been an opera fan for decades, I've never had the skills to analyze the music. I really enjoyed listening to Oliver's corner and then seeing Eugene Onegin last fall. It really gave me a new of an opera I've been listening to for 30 years. I can see that Oliver's analysis of Cosi will be just as rewarding.

[Tom]

Oliver, thanks for the Cosi analysis. I remember the first time I heard Caballe do those arpeggios years ago and thought, "wow, that's how they should sound!" (She also gave me another "aha" moment with her studio recording of Aida in the middle of the big ensemble when she broke through with her solo phrase.) You very often give me insights I would never have thought of, the comparison of Dorabella and Despina's 6/8 music was one of them. I really appreciate it.

A few other things that came to mind: first with Jenny saying she doesn't like singing Dorabella it reminded me of a Met broadcast interview with Yvonne Minton many years ago. The interviewer asked her about singing Mozart and she said that other than Sesto she didn't -- and then said "I don't DO Dorabella" with such scorn in her voice it made me laugh but I was probably 16 years old and didn't stop to wonder why. (Of course, later I think Minton did sing Dorabella, but hey, you've got to eat, right?)

Second, Oliver, you were so right about Dolora Zajick being a d*&k to Terry Gross on Fresh Air! All that pronunciation business got Terry flustered and I think threw her off for the rest of the interview. I hope Zajick's PR person or manager made Zajick realize what a jerk she had been. Terry Gross is exactly the kind of person you want talking about opera. Her audience is huge. And Terry's story about how she came to love opera was really interesting and more relevant than anything Zajick had to say. (Plus, Zajick's rendition of O Don Fatale was note perfect but dull as dishwater.)