Lyric Opera’s ‘Les Troyens’

Nuit d’ivresse: Susan Graham and Brandon Jovanovich.
This and all photos ©Todd Rosenberg courtesy of Lyric Opera of Chicago.

When Lyric Opera of Chicago announced that Susan Graham would be stepping into the role of Didon in Berlioz’s Les Troyens this fall, I welcomed the news. I’ve heard her each time she’s sung this opera, and I had supposed that her performances in San Francisco last year would be her last — no matter that she had never sung Didon better. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” I said to myself, and made plans to fly to Chicago.

Little did I realize how, days after the announcement, the plot of Les Troyens would come to seem so timely: the opera depicts the collapse of not one but two governments, the demise of one civilization and a prediction of the demise of a second. Yet it wasn’t until the performance began that I fully understood the necessity of what was, in effect, a pilgrimage.

Outside the walls of Troy.

Lyric’s production, the company’s first, featured a vast cast, most of whom but Susan were new to their roles; and a vaster chorus of 94 singers, with Sir Andrew Davis in the pit and Tim Albery providing stage direction. Sir Andrew and the orchestra got off to a blurry start on November 17, when the sheer strangeness of the music simply didn’t come across. Berlioz is creating a sonic environment that’s meant to be like nothing we’ve ever heard, automatically transporting us to another time and place. But within a few measures Sir Andrew corrected course and steered us ably onward. Part of the satisfaction of the performance was the vivid sense that the Chicago musicians had been yearning to play this score.

Albery’s best decision may have been to keep so much of the principals’ action downstage, where we could better appreciate the relationships. For example, virtually every principal in Act II is a member of one family, and the stage groupings and the singers’ interactions made this clear. We weren’t merely watching heroes of legend, we were watching a family, people like us. When my biggest complaint is that the curved wall of Troy should be convex when the Trojans are outside it, and concave when they’re inside (instead of vice-versa), you know Albery succeeded overall.

Goerke as Cassandre (foreground, with Meachem at center).

Singing this opera for the first time in her career, Christine Goerke was the production’s great revelation, so right is she for the role of Cassandre. She sang magnificently, coloring her immense instrument with a wide range of emotions, knowing precisely when tenderness is required and when to let it all hang out. Her acting brought me to tears at the end of Act II, something no other Cassandre has accomplished. Now I may have to become a camp follower for Goerke’s Cassandre, the way I’ve been for Susan’s Didon.

Okka von der Damerau was the wittiest Anna I’ve seen, a gleeful schemer in the scenes where she plays matchmaker for her sister, Didon, which makes for a nice contrast with her sorrow when that match goes awry at the end of the opera. Hers is a plush voice — she’s sung Erda with Lyric — so that vocally this was the definition of luxury casting. Lucas Meachem sang Chorèbe with great feeling, and he and Goerke made a plausible couple, giving the sense of a real history to the characters’ relationship. Annie Rosen was lively and appropriately gamine as Ascagne.

Jovanovich as Enée.

The afternoon began with the announcement that tenor Brandon Jovanovich had a cold. At first my heart leapt — did this mean that my friend Corey Bix would step in to sing Enée, as he did when I heard Troyens in San Francisco? No, it did not; though he did step in for one performance after I left Chicago, Corey sang the role of Helenus this afternoon. Apart from a couple of notes (to which honestly I might not otherwise have paid attention), I’d never have known that Jovanovich was indisposed. His voice has matured so handsomely since I first heard him, and I’m hoping he’ll continue to sing Enée and to grow in the role.

And then there was Susan. Albery’s production sets the opera in a non-specific near-present, and Tobias Hoheisel’s first costume for Didon made her look distinctly more like a prime minister or president than like a queen. Was it compensation — or the cumulative effect of having sung the role so many times — that made Susan’s Didon more regal than ever? The character’s awakening to love (a transition made more gradual by another nice directorial touch, making the “Royal Hunt and Storm” ballet the embodiment of the sleeping Didon’s dream*) became clearer: as she fell in love, she really did let her hair down.

Reine par la faveur des dieux.

For financial reasons — namely, the need to avoid paying overtime — Sir Andrew and the team cut some music, pretty judiciously. Yes, I noticed the absences, but the plot didn’t suffer, and one passage (the long sequence of tributes in Act III) can be theatrically boring, no matter that the music is nice and it’s fun to hear people going on endlessly about how terrific Susan — I mean Didon — is.

But some music in Troyens you wish could go on forever, particularly the duet “Nuit d’ivresse” that closes Act IV. As the music spun out in its dreamy, voluptuous whirls and eddies, Albery made use of Lyric’s new revolving stage, and Didon and Enée’s love carried them beyond all earthly concerns, beyond the earth itself, with stars and planets (projections by Illuminos) looking on. I hesitate to say “perfect,” but this was close to perfect, an entirely apt visual representation of what we heard and the characters felt.

Didon’s dream: The Royal Hunt and Storm ballet.

French repertoire has provided Susan with so many opportunities to revel in the sheer sensuality of her voice, and perhaps none better than “Nuit d’ivresse.” But she doesn’t stop there: then come the blind fury of Didon’s fight with Enée and the anguish of “Adieu, fière cité,” leaving me an emotional wreck. At a talkback after the performance, Susan said she thought she’d sung the aria better that afternoon than she’d ever sung it before — and I was in a position to confirm that she was right.

It’s been a helluva ride, as I’ve followed Susan to Paris, New York, San Francisco, and now Chicago with Les Troyens. A friend estimates that I’ve spent two full days of my life sitting in theaters and listening to her Didon. She has made this music so meaningful to me, and never more so than this fall, when much of the world has seemed to be collapsing around us all. Didon is more, then, than a signal achievement in the career of an artist for whom I feel both admiration and affection. It’s a gift of art that Susan has shared, when we need it most.

So if it should happen that she decides to sing it again — in Brussels or Barcelona or Bug Tussle — I’ll find a way to be there, too.

A gift, an offering: Rosen as Ascagne with Graham.

*NOTE: To a degree, the start of the ballet reminded me of Laurie’s Dream in Oklahoma! — and I mean that in a good way. I’d love to see this staging concept developed further.

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Berg’s ‘Lulu’ at the Met

Petersen as Lulu in a promotional portrait.
I’m such a fanboy now that I want to get a pair of those hands to wear to all of her future performances.

Full disclosure: I am probably the least-fair critic of any performance of Alban Berg’s Lulu you are likely to find. The reason is my exceptional education in this opera, which I learned at the foot of Teresa Stratas, the soprano who created the title role in the world-premiere performance of the completed three-act score. Until Teresa and I started to talk about Lulu, I’d found this work absolutely fascinating and utterly unlistenable. But not long after Teresa started to explain it to me, I listened with greater and greater appreciation. Soon I called her to report that on many evenings I’d come home after work and play her recording of the opera. “Honey, be careful!” she replied. “That music can be dangerous!”

So it’s not merely my relationship with a singer closely associated with Lulu that seemed to doom my chances of ever witnessing a performance that met, much less surpassed my standards. That I attended the Metropolitan Opera’s new production three times — and would have attended more often, if circumstances had permitted — should tell you a great deal.

Dangerous Music: Stratas in the world premiere.
(“And comparisons are odious, honey.”)

Though a great deal of press surrounded the new production itself, by artist William Kentridge, my primary interest was in the singers, especially the leading ladies. Friends had heard Marlis Petersen’s Lulu and praised her extravagantly; she had decided to retire the role at the end of this run (last night).

And Susan Graham had decided to tackle the tremendous challenge of Berg’s score and the role of Countess Geschwitz, something I really wanted to see — because in the past I’ve been able to see only one performance when she created a role, or else I’ve seen her in roles she’s sung many times. Example: I saw only her only once in Les Troyens at the Châtelet, where she introduced the role of Didon to her repertoire — but five times when she returned to the role at the Met. And that in turn encouraged me to travel to San Francisco to see her Didon one more time, last summer.

This may be reflexive fan behavior, but I prefer to think that it’s something more. If this art — this opera — and this artist — truly mean something to me, then I must explore, study, immerse myself, in order to understand better.

Susan Graham as Geschwitz.

Susan has sung Berg before — but the “Sieben frühe Lieder,” not one of his mature works, certainly not Wozzeck or Lulu. As an artistic undertaking, then, this step into an entirely new kind of music was significant for her. At first hearing (the second performance), she won me over easily, and (predictably, perhaps) she seemed to warm most to the passages in which Geschwitz’s music chimes closest to the scores of Mahler and of Berg’s other immediate predecessors. Geschwitz’s final monologue proved tremendously moving, as Susan located a wellspring of tenderness and sorrow. At the penultimate performance, I found her more confident onstage, freer with her body as she acted, and even more resplendent vocally. And last night she carried all her best qualities before her as she crossed the finish line.

In interviews before opening night, she referred a few times to the unkind ways Lulu treats Geschwitz, as if mystified by Geschwitz’s unrequited devotion to her younger friend. To me, this characterization is one of the most easily understood aspects of the entire libretto: of course Geschwitz is slavishly devoted to Lulu, for all the almost-inexpressible reasons that I’ve behaved in similar ways with some of the objects of my own affections. By the final performances, I sensed — without knowing for certain how or why — that Susan was grasping her character’s emotions more completely. In Act III, Scene 1, Kentridge gives Geschwitz a particular, silent gesture, at the foot of a staircase as she reaches toward Lulu above her; by last night, the gesture had become especially poignant, and Susan’s entire body went into it. Yep, that’s what it feels like.

Petersen’s physicality as Lulu is only one of the extraordinary achievements in her performances: she delivers something quite like a modern-dance interpretation of Lulu, her choreography reflecting that assigned to Kentridge’s addition to the piece, a dancer who plays (or writhes inside) a piano far to one side of the proscenium. That Petersen can do all of this while singing a notoriously demanding score is almost beyond belief, and she’s doing so in varying states of dress, looking wonderfully sexy all the while.

Daniel Brenna with Petersen onstage at the Met.

The Met Titles meant that the audience could understand the jokes and ironic juxtapositions of the libretto — and the singers got laughs where Berg must have hoped they would. But Petersen’s theatricality proved so expressive, so perfectly attuned to the character’s moods, that she might do very well without titles at all. On first hearing, I was even more eager to attend the Met simulcast, with all its closeups, to permit me to see what her facial expressions were like — but when I got to the movie theater, there was a technical glitch, the screen was blank, and now I’ll have to wait for the DVD.

Lulu’s music requires a great deal of singing in very high registers, some coloratura, some Sprechstimme, and almost anything else you can name; she’s onstage for all but a very few extended passages. Petersen maintained a purity and beauty of tone throughout, without a trace of the metallic timbre that helped to lower one acclaimed Met Lulu in my estimation. (Comparisons are odious, but remember: 1.) I already admitted I’m an unfair critic; and 2.) that other soprano’s performance helps to illuminate just how delighted I am to find a singer who really does justice to this opera.)

Petersen explained to The New Yorker that, at the end of the final performance, she would deliver her own death-scream (as Lulu is murdered by Jack the Ripper, offstage), rather than letting another singer do the honors. It was a fitting way to bid farewell to the character, and indeed Petersen’s death-scream wasn’t like that of Jennifer Roderer (excellent though she’d been). Petersen had a guttural urgency — maybe Lulu herself was reluctant to leave Petersen’s body.

As for the rest of the cast, I was especially impressed with Martin Winkler’s commanding Acrobat, robust of voice and exuberant in his stage presence: somehow, in all my experience of this opera, the role had never seemed so important or so rich. Similarly, Alan Oke’s fully realized characterization brought the Prince into fresh new focus, though Johan Reuter (Dr. Schön), Franz Grundheber (Schigolch), and Daniel Brenna (Alwa) were all excellent without offering any revelations — for me. (I told you, I’m unfair.)

Kentridge’s production involves projected images and video, as well as curious props (see the gigantic hands, above) and the aforementioned piano-dancer. Much of this is, as we were warned, over-busy and distracting. Yet even from the first performance, I found it easy enough to ignore that which didn’t interest me and to focus on the staging itself, which was often straightforward and at times revelatory, as in the physical interactions between Lulu and Schön. Ultimately my biggest quibble may be with Geschwitz’s costume, which makes her look more ordinary and less exotic than I imagine her. But maybe that’s the point, and Kentridge’s choice did make me question why I’d always found Geschwitz exotic. Because she’s one of the rare lesbians in opera? Because other Geschwitzes wear men’s clothing? I’m not sure. Kentridge also sold tickets: I’ve never encountered a Lulu with better attendance, and fewer walkouts.

Derrick Inouye conducted the final performances, but by then I was under the spell of Lothar Koenigs, who brought out an almost lush quality in the score, Late-Romantic colors that I hadn’t heard from Pierre Boulez or James Levine. Koenigs’ performance made me realize that this opera, which I used to find denser and no pleasanter than an accident in a lawnmower factory, now strikes me as eminently accessible. How wonderful! For as audiences, we can also evolve artistically.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
Susan’s next development — “transitioning,” shall we say, to Prince Orlofsky, tonight at the Met. Expect me to report about this remarkable juxtaposition of roles.

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‘The King and I’ in Paris

Curtain call: In foreground, Susan Graham, James Holmes, and Lambert Wilson.

For several years now, Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet has made a specialty of presenting classics of Broadway musical theater. It’s a daring venture, since the French have virtually no direct experience of a thoroughly American style of performance, apart from what they’ve seen in the movies: by now several shows have seen their French premieres at the Châtelet, years after they bowed in New York, and the producers hope to return the favor, with their own adaptation of An American in Paris, opening in November with hopes of a transfer. I’ve seen only one other Broadway show at the theater, Bernstein’s Candide, which — being an operetta based on Voltaire’s novella — at least fell a little closer to the French sensibility. But I missed out on such gems as West Side Story (a monster hit), On the Town, and La Mélodie du Bonheur (a.k.a. The Sound of Music).

The Châtelet’s production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I sparked irresistible interest, however, and warranted a trip to Paris: they cast Susan Graham as Anna Leonowens. Susan performed musical comedy in high school and college, but since then she’s specialized in opera, limiting her Broadway rep to Gershwin concerts and the occasional encore number. One knew ahead of time that she’d excel in “Hello, Young Lovers” and “Shall We Dance?” But how would she fare in the less lyrical “Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?” — to say nothing of all that dialogue and the dancing? Even Susan wasn’t sure, when we spoke during an interview for GBOpera.it, last winter.

“Getting to Know You.”

And what, in the very theater where I first saw Susan in Les Troyens, would the French make of something that, despite its Siamese setting and its Welsh heroine, is fundamentally American — with the potential to be as corny as Kansas in August? Would they tinker with it (as they did with Candide)? Would they embrace it?

Under James Holmes’ vital baton and in Lee Blakeley’s tasteful, straightforward production, Le Roi et Moi emerged in all its charm and its occasional bursts of glory earned. If the show’s finale, the death of the King, tends to sentimentality, so be it: all around me, I could hear people — French people — sniffling and crying.* At every level of the production, one sensed a basic respect for the piece itself, and that’s as it should be.

Illustration by WVM.

Blakeley proved more faithful to Rodgers & Hammerstein than he did to Offenbach in his production of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein at Santa Fe last season, and if he felt the need to update, bowdlerize, or apologize for this play’s East–West and male–female conflicts from their oh-so postwar-American roots, you saw no trace of it. Every word and gesture was rooted in character and plot, and in dialogue scenes he elicited fine performances from a cast that included several non-native English speakers and more than one opera singer.

Jean-Marc Puissant’s sets evoked the grandeur that we (and the French) remember from Hollywood’s King and I, yet with simple, almost abstract means; Sue Blane’s costumes included sumptuous gowns for Susan, sleek silks for the Siamese, and oddly sci-fi armor for the King’s female bodyguards. Peggy Hickey (a Tony nominee, also of Santa Fe’s Grande-Duchesse) provided elegantly understated choreography, then pulled out the stops for a recreation of Jerome Robbins’ “Small House of Uncle Thomas” — and, of course, a delightful “Shall We Dance?”

Lambert Wilson played the King. Not merely a thoroughly bilingual singing actor, he’s a true rarity, a Frenchman who loves Broadway with a fan’s passion and a scholar’s seriousness. (He’s even recorded an album of show tunes.) A veteran of the Châtelet’s Candide and A Little Night Music, he’s prevailed in more challenging songs than anything Rodgers throws at the King: more remarkably, he got through the entire play without ever once making me think about Yul Brynner, making the role very much his own.

Praise to Buddha: Susan and Lambert.

As Tuptim, Je Ni Kim offered charming presence and a lovely soprano voice, opposite the vividly sung Lun Tha of Damian Thantrey (of whose performance not much else could be discerned, because Rick Fisher’s otherwise gorgeous lighting design took “We Kiss in a Shadow” a little too literally). The esteemed Scottish mezzo Lisa Milne, whose work I’ve admired on recordings, nimbly traced the development of Lady Thiang from meekest subordinate to subtlest power behind the throne, culminating in a stirring “Something Wonderful.”

And then there was Susan. She knows exactly what to do with this material, and “Shall I Tell You” turned out to be a high point of the entire show, as she crawled around the floor — in pantalettes — while raging through her chest voice, something she’s seldom called on to use in opera. “I Whistle a Happy Tune” and “Getting to Know You” came out as “bright and breezy” as they’re intended to be, but when “Hello, Young Lovers” and “Shall We Dance?” presented her with opportunities to soar, she seized but didn’t overdo them. The first Anna, after all, was Gertrude Lawrence, not an opera singer.

Perhaps because I worked with an opera singer on another Broadway show, Susan’s skill in dialogue scenes impressed me very favorably: not only landing every laugh line squarely, she used her voice as adeptly as she does in song, bringing out nuance through color, letting us hear all those feelings that the teddibly proper Anna cannot express outright. After all, The King and I endures as something more than a collection of hit songs because it is at heart a love story — in which the principals never speak of or act on their love.

Anna and the King dance their love, however, and Susan moved gracefully (all those Merry Widows add up!) as her hoopskirts swirled and swept about her. This was no slumming opera singer, but an American bringing her native culture to another country, with expertise and affection. The French have showered Susan with honors and awards for her dedication to their culture: the Americans might consider giving her a medal of some sort, too.

I’ve never before taken a picture in a theater, but this was historic. The glowing orb near the center is Susan, in a skirt wider
than she is tall.

*NOTE: I attended the performance on June 17. I’d forgotten — probably repressed the memory — that there’s a reprise of “I Whistle a Happy Tune” during the King’s death scene. Yikes, how mawkish. And yet somehow it worked. It all did. They were smart fellows, Rodgers & Hammerstein.

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Santa Fe Opera 2013: ‘The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein’

Celebrate! Susan as the Grand Duchess.
This and all photos by Ken Howard, courtesy of Santa Fe Opera.

There’s so much fun to be had in Santa Fe Opera’s new production of The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, once you get past a fatal flaw in the staging concept of director Lee Blakeley — so let’s get it out of the way. By transplanting this ultra-European gem to the United States, somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, Blakeley makes the piece more immediate, but at the cost of the work’s darker underpinnings.

A fine essay (by Gavin Plumley) in the program explains that Offenbach’s operetta is not merely a fizzy trifle but a pointed satire. The rise of nationalism and militarism in Europe around the time of the premiere of Grand Duchess, in 1867, had important consequences, as France had seen already and was about to see again: the attempt by Napoléon III to set up a French empire in Mexico was crumbling; three years later, his adventurism in Europe led to the Franco-Prussian War.

While it’s true that jingoism is an apt enough equivalent of European militarism, and one which had dire consequences that the majority of Americans don’t seem to have considered at the time, it’s also true that nowhere in the U.S. would the headmistress of a military academy (if such a person existed) have had the power to send her pupils off to die in battle — as the Grand Duchess gleefully does.

Maybe Blakeley’s conceit would work, if this “Gerolstein” were one of those miniature steampunk empires that Jim West kept stumbling upon in The Wild Wild West — and I rather like the idea of the Grand Duchess as a feminized (and much taller) version of the diabolical Dr. Lovelace, with the power of life and death over her minions. But Blakely doesn’t carry the concept that far. Instead, he achieves the singular feat of making Offenbach’s operetta at once more immediate and more trivial.

Susan has this effect on me, too.

I hasten to underscore, however — you really don’t think much about this while you’re watching. Blakeley’s production is great fun, with often striking sets, costumes, and choreography; and it showcases a number of remarkable singing artists. With Emmanuel Villaume conducting a restored edition of the score, it’s a Grand Duchess to remember.

Leading the pack, of course, is Susan Graham, who from all appearances is having a high old time as the lusty Grand Duchess. Decked out in gowns designed by Jo van Schuppen, she lets loose an inner diva, imperious, capricious, and very funny. Watching her review her troops is like watching a very greedy little girl in a toy store, though there’s never any doubt that her intentions are grown-up. And she looks gorgeous.

It’s hard to believe this is the same singer who incarnated Berlioz’s Didon (at the Met) and Argento’s Tina (in The Aspern Papers in Dallas) just months ago. While she generally takes care to include comic numbers in her recitals, she seldom essays completely comic roles: one knows that her timing will be flawless, and that she’ll know just how far to go for laughs, but it’s a treat to see her construct an entire character.

Susan also sang Offenbach’s Belle Hélène here in Santa Fe, in Laurent Pelly’s production, in 2003. French repertoire is her specialty, of course, and since all the songs in Grand Duchess are performed in French (presumably because so many have only recently been rediscovered), she’s able to draw on her understanding of the language and her sensual delivery of the text. Ornamenting some lines and caressing others, ecstatic in her love of “militaires,” she sounds absolutely radiant — a far cry from the stereotypical, late-career Grand Duchess. This is a role debut for her; I’d like to think she’ll return to it often.

Ah! que j’aime les militaires!

One did wish that Villaume would rein in the orchestra a bit: at various points in the evening he drowned out all the singers. But he leads with all the verve one could want, and the restored material does a great deal to illuminate the characters’ emotional lives. The climax of Act II is like an explosion in a fireworks factory. Overall, the score is a testament to Offenbach’s seemingly inexhaustible melodic gifts, with effervescent, memorable numbers following in rapid succession — which Villaume certainly seems to enjoy.

In his reading of the score, you never wonder why Offenbach was so popular in his day, though I do regret that his operettas aren’t performed more often in the U.S. today. If things had worked out differently, Madeline Kahn might have made her debut with Santa Fe Opera as the Grand Duchess, in a staging by Charles Ludlam and a translation by Michael Feingold, in the 1980s. Maybe that would have given Offenbach the boost he needed.

In the present production, the young lovers, Fritz and Wanda (played by Paul Appleby and Anya Matanovicˇ) are among the prime beneficiaries of the restored material. Their duet in Act I is delightful, and they deliver gorgeous singing with surprisingly spunky characterizations — especially in Matanovicˇ’s case. Not least with her resentful glares directed at Susan, Matanovicˇ fleshes out an otherwise conventional type, revealing a steely resolve that suggests Wanda might make an estimable despot herself.

Appleby was a memorable Hylas in Troyens at the Met with Susan, and his Fritz is as lively as Hylas was dreamy. Few tenors in operetta can have thrown themselves into demanding stunts with the zeal that Appleby shows here — to the point that he injured his ankle. Hobbled, he keeps going, like an Energizer Bunny with high notes.

Paul Appleby as Fritz.

Kevin Burdette, as General Boum, is in a league of his own, kicking up his heels and performing gymnastic routines even while singing in a resonant bass-baritone; he’s equally at home in pratfalls and dialogue. Having seen his Archibald in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience at Glimmerglass and his Ogre in El Gato con Botas with Gotham Chamber Opera (among other roles), I knew he’d excel here. His command of the stage is complete, no matter how silly the business at hand. If this man isn’t working constantly, then there’s something rotten in the state of Opera World.

As his partners in crime, Baron Puck (here a Catholic clergyman, for some reason) and Prince Paul, Aaron Pegram and Jonathan Michie deliver their fair share of laughs, too, along with almost incongruously pretty singing. Michie’s physical characterization is especially fun: tall and rail-thin, he moves like a rubber band.

Partners in crime: Burdette, Michie, and Pegram.

A corps of eight dancers enlivens the stage at several points, with flips and an elaborate can-can at the close of Act II, and the cadets dance, too. In their uniforms, they’re indisputably — and quite appropriately — sexy. I note with pleasure that one of those cadets, Dan Kempson, steps forward in the small role of the Notary.

Though this production might have done more to make its satirical points, it’s certainly enough to take your mind off your troubles — and almost enough to take your mind off the inconsistency in the staging concept.

The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein continues at Santa Fe Opera through August 24. For more information and tickets, click here.

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The Haushofmeister’s Diary, Part 5

So happy to be in Dallas: Susan Graham as Tina.
Photo ©Karen Almond, courtesy of Dallas Opera.

Even as I find myself drawn back to my old homeland by the very thing that enabled me to escape — and one of the things that made escape seem necessary — I see other friends whose experience parallels mine. The mezzo-soprano Susan Graham grew up in Midland, Texas, and last night she made her debut with the Dallas Opera, the very company where I heard so many singers in so much wonderful music for the first time.

I sometimes describe Susan as my secret twin, because we have so much almost in common. And our experiences in this case don’t quite match up: I merely listen to music, while she did something with it, and music became the engine that drove her all the way to New York, the Manhattan School of Music and the Metropolitan Opera — and beyond.

Music has drawn Susan back to Texas on several occasions, including numerous performances in productions at Houston Grand Opera that range from Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea to Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, the very piece that I’ll be performing in Fort Worth next month. Friends from Midland come down for the show — sometimes they rent a bus — and a gang of them will be coming to Dallas, too, for The Aspern Papers. If you’re anywhere near Dallas, you should think about joining the pilgrimage.

Nathan Gunn as the Lodger, with Susan as Tina.
The Aspern Papers, Dallas Opera 2013.
Photo ©Karen Almond, courtesy of Dallas Opera.

Dominick Argento’s opera has been given a compelling production by Tim Albery and a spectacular cast, and with Dallas Opera’s music director Graeme Jenkins conducting. Argento’s libretto opens up the eponymous novella — which was my introduction to Henry James and to which my first novel owes such a debt that I really ought to grant him co-authorship. Here the American poet Jeffrey Aspern is made a composer, the better for us to experience his work, but the central relationships remain largely unchanged.

So you have Susan lending the warm sensuality of her voice to a character who is, right up until she sees the Lodger, terribly, even tragically repressed; gradually Tina opens herself to the possibilities of a wider world. The Lodger, sung by Nathan Gunn, exercises the easy affability of a good-looking guy who’s not quite so clever as he thinks: he believes himself in complete command of a complex situation, while in reality, he’s at the mercy of two women. As Juliana, who in her youth is Aspern’s lover and in her old age is Tina’s aunt, Alexandra Deshorties displays an aptly fiery temperament quite unlike anybody else’s in this opera. No wonder the others don’t know how to handle her.

Alexandra Deshorties as Juliana, with Susan and Nathan Gunn.
The Aspern Papers, Dallas Opera 2013.
Photo ©Karen Almond, courtesy of Dallas Opera.

Argento’s score is moody and often lush, in a thoroughly tonal musical language that sounds as if it comes from a time just between Puccini and Berg, eschewing conventional melodies and yet respecting formal structures. Those who aren’t hardcore devotees of modern music will find this piece accessible, I think. Aspern Papers was Dallas Opera’s first commission, 25 years ago, with a cast that included Frederica von Stade, Elisabeth Söderström, and Richard Stilwell; the production was telecast on PBS, and I remembered it with admiration but little precision. Its return now, in this new production, is welcome, and the company is right to be proud of it.*

My date for the evening was Joyce Castle, who has sung to considerable acclaim in two other operas by Argento, Casanova’s Homecoming and The Dream of Valentino. We spoke briefly with him after the performance before going backstage to congratulate Susan. I was acutely conscious that the last time I went backstage at Dallas Opera, I was going to interview Beverly Sills for the high-school paper — the beginning of a career in journalism that would one day lead me to interview such notables as … Joyce Castle and Susan Graham.

Joyce Castle as Alla Nazimova
in Argento’s Dream of Valentino.
Photo by Joan Marcus, courtesy of Joyce Castle.

I was also conscious that I was in the company of two dear friends whom I’ve gotten to know because of opera — and that the fact that both women have connections to Texas (Joyce was born in Beaumont, though she didn’t stay long, and she has family there) was something that I’d have found thrilling and rather difficult to believe.

After all, for most of my years in Texas, opera was a primarily solitary pursuit. My two closest friends, Karen and Kevin, took an interest in opera, but neither found in it the passion that became, almost from the first note I heard, absolutely essential to my continued existence. Certain grownups — notably my godparents, as well as Mrs. Morini, my English teacher; and Frau Terry, my German teacher — were more enthusiastic, and more overt than my father, a secret opera buff. But these were grownups, not people my age. The only kid I knew who loved opera as much as I did, was a Wagnerite. I barely knew what to make of that.

Backstage at Dallas Opera, 1976:
Sills speaks — to me.
Photo by Christopher Burnley.

Really, it’s just since coming to Fort Worth Opera that I began to feel a part of an opera community within the Texas borders. Over the years since my first visit, in 2003, several friendships developed here, originally (I think) because I was a critic who understood what the company was trying to do: folks were glad to see me. But growing up, I despaired of finding such a community. I had to come to New York City to find people like me.

There’s a new reality, one which we often enough acknowledge this reality in discussions of sexuality, though it holds for opera, too: for young people today, the relative isolation I used to feel may no longer exist, or at least the remedies are closer to hand, because of the Internet. A kid need only log on in order to find plenty of others who feel just as strongly about opera as she does. She needn’t run from her own beginnings, as I did. She may even be free to be herself.

The Aspern Papers by Dominick Argento
Dallas Opera
April 12, 14, 17, 20, 18
At the Winspear Opera House
For more information and tickets, click here.

Composer–librettist Dominick Argento.

*NOTE: My full review should appear in the coming days at the Italian online magazine GBOpera.it

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Bad Breakups from Berlioz and Schubert

Susan Graham and Marcello Giordani at the Met.

So your boyfriend says, “Listen, I really care about you, but God has other plans for me, which I know because the voices in my head are telling me to go away now.” Naturally, you’re so surprised that you can’t even answer a ludicrous thing like that. So he leaves.

That should be the end of it, but instead, you chase after him, plead and threaten, humiliate yourself in front of all his friends and your friends, quit your job, destroy every single present he ever gave you, and finally kill yourself. Because it’s an opera!

Or say that your girlfriend decides she’s Just Not That Into You and marries somebody else. Every single thing you see reminds you of how miserable she has made you. This water? It’s like your tears! Those crows? They’re just waiting to pick at your loveless, lifeless body! That mailman? He has nothing for you! This weathervane? Yes, even the weathervane is depressing you. Because it’s Lieder singing!

Instead of going to the doctor and getting a prescription for antidepressants, you find an organ-grinder and listen to him until you can’t take it any more (because you couldn’t find a bagpiper!), and finally you kill yourself. Because it’s a Lieder Cycle!

I spent much of my Monday coping with other people’s breakups, and let me tell you, it was fun. You should definitely try it sometime. Because it’s cathartic!

David Adam Moore in Brooklyn.

One great thing about being a fan is that your totem singer can lead you places you didn’t expect, and show you things you didn’t know your life depends on. Susan Graham led me deeper into Berlioz. Before she recorded his Les Nuits d’été, I really didn’t think there was any need for anybody ever to sing the piece again, because Régine Crespin had sung it perfectly, on an essential recording that all people should own. Period.

Then Susan found stuff in that music that even Crespin hadn’t found. So her recording is essential, too, and what’s more, it’s opened me up to listening to other people’s interpretations, to hear what they find. José Van Dam. Joyce DiDonato. David Daniels. Anne Sofie von Otter. Gabriel Bacquier. They’ve all got something to say — and now I know better how to listen.

If Susan hadn’t taken me by the ear and led me into Berlioz, I would have missed her performances in Les Troyens. I’d have missed John Eliot Gardiner’s conducting when she sang this opera in Paris, at the Châtelet in 2003. Gardiner is an early-instrument buff who raided museums in order to get antique brass instruments like those that Adolphe Saxe created especially for Berlioz, who wrote (among other things) for this opera a fanfare that’s an important, recurring musical theme. Suddenly I was transported to an entirely different world, hearing sounds I’d never heard before — and that, I realized, was just what Berlioz wanted.

Susan at the Châtelet.
One of the most powerful performances I have ever witnessed.

Susan has returned to the role of Dido: a revival of Francesca Zambello’s production from 2003 opened on Thursday night at the Met. I saw the final dress rehearsal, and of course nobody is supposed to pass critical judgment on a rehearsal. I will venture to say that Susan’s interpretation is, if anything, deeper than it was nine years ago, boldly acted, thrillingly sung, and unbelievably sexy. You should see her rock Dido’s purple gown.

Another great thing about being a fan is that sometimes you get to feel really, really smart. The singer says, “I’m going to perform such and such,” and you say, “That’s a perfect fit for you,” and then he sings it, and you were right. Now aren’t you the clever one?

When David Adam Moore told me that he was going to tackle Schubert’s Winterreise, I knew he’d come up with something terrific. He’s mature enough to dig into the melancholy of the verse without sounding like a tiresome kid (which is, let’s face it, exactly what the narrator of the Winterreise would be if you ever met him in a bar). His voice is perfectly suited to the music: it’s warm, centered, produced with ease and conversational directness. He never sings at anybody. Best of all, David is still young enough that I can be confident he’ll be able to continue his explorations of the Winter Journey for years to come, continue to discover new phrases and new feelings, continue to make this piece come alive. [My interview with David on the occasion of his first Winterreise, two years ago, can be found here.]

And I was right. Performing in a tiny venue somewhere in what, everybody assured me, is called Park Slope, Brooklyn, David more than lived up to my expectations. I’d say he aced it — except that, as I say, I know he’s going to keep singing the Winterreise and getting better and better. To his A+ he’ll add extra pluses.

Because David is a polymath who also composes and creates video art (and so on, and so on), he’s “staged” this Winterreise with a fluid series of videos that isolate and distill the images discussed in the poetry. Just as the Narrator is completely absorbed in his melancholy, so David is completely absorbed in the images: he wears a white shirt and trousers so that he becomes a part of the screen (or, in this case, the wall) onto which the video is projected.

There’s some beautiful stuff here, most notably a sequence in which we see what the Narrator remembers of his lover lying in bed. David reaches out his hand to touch an image that is no longer flesh. Gorgeous. And yet I’m hoping that, from time to time, he’ll perform the Winterreise without the video, too.

The texts of the Winterreise are uncanny: somehow the poet has latched onto German vocabulary that’s about 80 percent cognates for English vocabulary, and with a printed or projected text, it’s easy for an educated listener to follow along. Add to that David’s expressive gifts, and he can make us see the images even when he hasn’t got a video projector.

Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise: it’s a good thing to follow a musician — to be a fan. A singer who’s already demonstrated an ability to communicate with you, is going to be able to help you understand better the things she’s discovered in the music. You’ll learn more, and she’ll point you in other directions, too, that you can explore on your own or with other artists. And by sharing the experiences in the music — even really bad breakups — you come out wiser, stronger, richer.

Also, it helps if the singer went to high school in Texas.

Paradoxically, David performed on the most tropical night in the history of Decembers in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Santa Fe Opera 2012: “Susan Graham & Friends’

Susan Graham and Friend.
Photo by Susan’s sister, using WVM’s camera.
All other photos by Ken Howard, courtesy of Santa Fe Opera.

While still a student at the Manhattan School of Music, presided over at the time by John Crosby, founder of Santa Fe Opera, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham thought she was a shoo-in for the company’s prestigious apprentice artist program. However, as it turned out, she told us on Saturday night, “I auditioned twice. I was rejected twice.”

That was quite likely the last time Santa Fe Opera ever has or ever will reject Susan Graham. On Saturday, Susan made her triumphant return to the Santa Fe stage in a gala concert, the mere title of which — “Susan Graham and Friends” — pretty much demanded my presence. With Susan our witty, charming mistress of ceremonies, the program offered an opportunity to catch up with several singers appearing in those operas I didn’t get to hear this season, as well as a selection of numbers that showed off Susan’s greatest strengths as an artist. Indeed, it seemed as if each number was a personal gift to this listener, an ongoing demonstration of her uncanny ability to connect with her audience, and this audience in particular.

Susan sings ‘Vilja.’ Oh, how I love the expression on her face here.

Following conductor Kenneth Montgomery’s elastic-tempo reading of the overture to The Magic Flute, Susan offered Mozart’s concert aria, “Ch’io mi scordi di te” (That I should forget you, with conductor Frédéric Chaslin on piano), a mini-opera of contrasting emotions and a dazzling display of Susan’s fluid, agile mastery of the composer’s style. “Every special occasion ought to include a little Mozart,” she observed, and she got no argument.

Almost a decade ago, I travelled to Paris to hear Susan sing Didon in Berlioz’s Les Troyens; she’ll sing the role for the first time at the Met next season, and she gave the Santa Fe audience a sampling of highlights of what is, for this listener, one of the most memorable interpretations he’s heard from anybody. First came the sensual love duet, “Nuit d’ivresse,” with tenor Bryan Hymel, whom I’d never heard before but whose grasp of French lyrique style is wholly admirable. Then came Didon’s swan song, “Adieu, fière cîté,” in which (here as in Paris) everything Susan has learned as Didon, everything she has learned about Berlioz, and indeed everything she’s learned about music and life seem to come together. In Paris, this was her moment of “going to 11,” and so it was in Santa Fe; the audience awarded her with a thundering ovation.

In the second half, Susan gave us “Vilja,” and here as sometimes in concert performances before, she called for audience participation: we were all supposed to sing along, and in fact her colleagues came out and joined in, too. Honestly, I’d rather just listen to Susan in this melting, bittersweet aria from The Merry Widow, but who am I to deprive others of fun? And baritone Mark Delavan, in particular, was having a high old time of it.

For her final solo, Susan returned to one of the highpoints of her recent recital tour, Stephen Sondheim and Mary Rodgers’ “The Boy From…,” in which her assurance in comedic material — she never, ever oversells a joke — took the spotlight. I half-expected a number from La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, such as “Ah! J’aime les militaires,” as a special preview of coming attractions, but even greedy as I am, I was indisputably content.

For the “Friends,” the first half of the program was almost too serious, such that, when Delavan joined soprano Erin Wall, they gave us the death scene from Thaïs. I’m not complaining: I’ll always love this opera, Delavan was a much-valued stalwart at New York City Opera*, and this was my opportunity to hear Wall, the talked-about leading lady of Strauss’ Arabella at Santa Fe this season. The duo provided such a dramatic reading — lacking only a little of Thaïs’ dying frailty and Athanaël’s frustrated fury — that I’ve begun to hope to see them in a fully staged production soon.

Une nuit d’extase infinie: Susan and Bryan Hymel exult in Berlioz.

Most of the singers incorporated a good deal of acting in their arias, such that bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni’s account of Méphistophélès’ serenade (from Gounod’s Faust) was almost jarring in its detachment, which was that of a recitalist and not of an ironic Devil. No matter: he sounded great, we know he can act, and he showed more involvement in the duet between Luisa and Wurm from Verdi’s Luisa Miller, opposite soprano Leah Crocetto, a little later.

Soprano Erin Morley sailed through Meyerbeer’s coloratura extravaganza “O, beau pays de la Touraine” with dazzling ease and flavor, and with comparable mastery and ringing high notes, Hymel returned to close the first half with “Asile héréditaire” from Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, backed up by the gentlemen of the Apprentice Singer Program.

The second half opted for lighter fare, beginning with tenor William Burden’s ingratiating “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” (a Richard Tauber specialty, from Lehár’s Land of Smiles) and a series of Broadway numbers that were designed for (or don’t battle with) classically trained voices. The exception was Delavan, who threatened to kill us all in Sweeney Todd’s “Epiphany,” but both he and Susan assured us that his true intentions were entirely peaceful — and this was a welcome souvenir of his fiery interpretation of Sweeney at NYCO several years ago.

Pisaroni gave us a perfectly calibrated, freshly imagined reading of “Some Enchanted Evening,” and Hymel managed to make Romberg’s “Be My Love” seem like something far truer than the kitsch it’s usually taken to be. Baritone Nicholas Pallesen unveiled a passionate “If Ever I Would Leave You” (from Camelot), then joined Wall for “If I Loved You” (from Carousel) of irresistible charm.

For this audience, soprano Leah Crocetto is the “discovery” of the Santa Fe season, and her account of Jerome Kern’s “All the Things You Are” demonstrated not only her luscious tone but also tremendous feeling and an admirable ability to color English text. Tenor Zach Borichevsky, who’s appearing as the headstrong Matteo in Arabella, brought the evening to a close with “Make Our Garden Grow,” from Bernstein’s Candide, bringing many in the house to tears. As the song grows from sadder-but-wiser solo to full-blown chorale, soprano Lindsey Russell sang Cunegonde’s lines with crystalline sweetness. (That’s not a mixed metaphor: think of rock candy.) Ultimately, all the soloists and apprentices joined in, and Susan chipped in Pangloss’ closing line, “Any questions?”

My only question was, “When can I hear more?” Next season, Susan will sing her ninth role with the company, as Offenbach’s Grand Duchess of Gérolstein, a role that may have been written expressly for her. When I first heard about this, I levitated half a foot off the ground. I don’t know yet how I’ll get there, but I know I’ll be coming back to Santa Fe next year. Anyone care to join me?

How could I possibly forget you? Susan sings “Ch’io mi scordi di te,” with Maestro Chaslin on piano and Maestro Montgomery on the podium.

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Glass Composes New Opera, ‘Suzyagraha’

One proposed costume design for the opera’s heroine …

Opera World is abuzz since the announcement of a new work by Philip Glass, inspired by the life of a famous American mezzo-soprano, whose name the composer refuses to divulge. Who can she be?

The mystery could hardly be more exciting, and everyone wants to be the lucky lady. Can you imagine a more wonderful prize than a brand-new Philip Glass opera entirely about you? I can’t!

Thus far, I’ve been unable to learn the identity of Glass’ muse. However, I have managed to get my hands on a copy of the libretto to the new opera, entitled Suzyagraha, which I reprint here in its three-act entirety.

Maybe we’ll find some clues here. If you think you’ve found the solution, let me know.

… and here’s one more proposed costume design.


SUZYAGRAHA

An Opera in Three Acts
by
Philip Glass
Libretto by the Composer

ACT I

SETTING: Morning. A New York City apartment, home to a SINGER who is returning from a long recital tour.

The curtain rises. The SINGER enters, begins to unpack her suitcase. While she does so, she sings to herself.

SINGER

Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!
Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!
Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!
Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!
Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!
Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!

A small BIRD appears at the window and begins to sing along.

BIRD

Peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep peep!

SINGER

Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!

SINGER and BIRD (Unison)

Deedle de peep deedle de peep deedle de peep deedle de peep deedle de peep deedle de peep deedle de peep !

The BIRD flies away.

SINGER

Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!

The dancing chorus


ACT II

SETTING: Afternoon. The same.

The SINGER removes from her suitcase a blouse which she doesn’t remember buying. She reads aloud the washing instructions, while an UNSEEN CHORUS echoes her words.

SINGER

Lava separadamente a mano con agua tibia,
No use blanqueador, no remoje,
Seca sobre superficie plana,
Plancha frio, si se necesite!

UNSEEN CHORUS

Lava separadamente a mano con agua tibia,
No use blanqueador, no remoje,
Seca sobre superficie plana,
Plancha frio, si se necesite!

Now a DANCING CHORUS enters, while the OFFSTAGE CHORUS sings a poem in medieval Sanskirt describing peace in the moonlight, love under the jasmine blossoms, and a terrific recipe for chapatis just like Mamaji used to make.
[Text TK.]

The SINGER still doesn’t remember buying the blouse. She shrugs.

SINGER

Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!

ACT III

SETTING: Evening. The same.

The SINGER’S FRIEND has come over to watch a movie on TV: entitled Vacances 1937, it is the only film by Jean Cocteau to which Glass has not written a score, and it depicts the famous French artist on holiday in Brittany.

While watching, the FRIEND sits upright in a straight-back chair, while the SINGER moves very slowly around the room, broadly sweeping the air with a large fluorescent tube.

SINGER and FRIEND

Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!

FLUORESCENT TUBE

Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz!

SINGER and FRIEND

Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!
Deedle de deedle de deedle de deedle de!
Deedle dum!

FLUORESCENT TUBE

Pop!

CURTAIN

Design for Act III.

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Songs Announced from the Stage, and Other Notes from Susan Graham

Susan Graham returned to Carnegie last night for a new recital program, once again accompanied by the indispensable Malcolm Martineau, and once again cheered on by me. Almost all the material was new to Susan’s repertory, including the first song she’s ever performed in Russian, but the mix of moods and characters was just what you’d expect from her, by turns poignant and hilarious.

Indeed, the stated purpose of the program was to present a series of portraits of women, and Susan actually has a choice in the matter — that is, having played so many trouser parts, she could just as easily present a gallery of men — she reminded us with “Sexy Lady,” a comic number written by Ben Moore for that first Carnegie recital, in 2003.

Sexy indeed.

In all seriousness, Susan is a very sexy lady in her own right, and she brings to her music a whole set of decidedly physical pleasures, both for her listener and (I presume) for herself. That’s what makes her unbeatable in French rep: the warmth and sensuality of her voice find their most congenial resting place in that music.

Thus it was no surprise that Susan and Malcolm performed La Mort d’Ophélie, by the Berlioz who understands her so well, in the first half, and Poulenc’s Fiançailles pour rire, an ideal selection, in the second half of the evening. Yet as I have witnessed the collaborations between these two artists over the years, I’ve come to appreciate that their goal is never merely to make Susan look good. With their previous program, Un frisson français, they offered a survey course in French art songs — so thoroughly that any music-appreciation instructor could use the album as a starting point for a syllabus.

This time, offering their portrait gallery of women, Susan and Malcolm effectively split the program into two parts — nice girls and nasty girls — with a change of gowns at intermission, from demure white to vavoom one-shouldered dark-and-sparkly, to heighten the contrast that ranged from the Blessed Virgin in Part I to Lady M*cbeth in Part II. But in between these two extremes the distinctions weren’t so clear-cut, and the Poulenc, for example, depicts a number of ladies whose stories are very different, one from another, and from all the other stories Susan and Malcolm told during the evening.

The Lady M piece, by Joseph Horovitz, was new to me; it takes three of the titular character’s speeches and sets them to mostly conversational music that — if nothing else — gives the singer plenty of opportunity to act one of the greatest roles in theater. Seated off to the side, and thus not lost in Susan’s gaze (as I usually am), I had the chance to admire her use of gesture, economical and true, as Lady M descended from majesty to madness.

Kennst du Midland?

The set of five Mignon songs inspired me to read Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship at long last, and I confess I’ve gotten only about 10 percent of the way, according to the handy measure on my Kindle. Without having finished my reading, or even gotten to Mignon’s first appearance in the book, I’m left knowing what I knew already: that Mignon appealed to 19th-century composers because of a certain variety of innocent victimhood. What I get from Susan’s interpretations of the songs is a direct connection to the physical: when she sings of lemon trees and orange blossoms, you can smell the fragrance. Malcolm is very much complicit in evoking the sensuality of this music, it should be said, and at times I caught him “watching” a phrase as it floated away from his piano.

Susan’s wit is part of her charm as a performer, and in the final sections of the evening, “Other songs announced from the stage” and a couple of encores, she made the promised announcements with flashes of humor, as well as putting over the comic numbers (also including Messager’s “J’ai deux amants” and Porter’s “The Physician”) with verve.

We were beside ourselves with happiness, to the point that at least one fellow in the audience was shouting out requests. He wanted to hear “A Chloris,” and Susan meant to give it to us — but according to her own schedule. She is still finding fresh insights, though she’s sung this piece a thousand times, surely, and it’s grown ever more mystical, sacred even, in the purity of its feeling. Yet she turned this mood on its head a moment later, delivering Sondheim’s “The Boy from…” and cracking us up, before calling it a night.

This was the sort of musical evening when I went backstage just because it's the equivalent of pinching myself: yeah, I really do know this person who uplifts me and who decks me in beauty. And she kissed me, too, just in case I didn’t already feel like the luckiest guy on earth. Afterward I walked alone in the warm moonlit air, with her voice still ringing in my heart. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The recording of Susan’s Carnegie recital debut:
if you listen closely, you can hear me cheering.

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Kennst du das Buch?

An illustration from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister:
She’s been singing while the old guy plays the harp and the young guy listens, and that’s about as much as I can tell you about the story, for now.

To say that I’m excited about Susan Graham’s recital tour (now underway and arriving at New York’s Carnegie Hall on February 1, with the heroic Malcolm Martineau at the piano) would be an understatement of a sort to which I am not prone when Susan is the subject. By far the bulk of the program is given over to material Susan hadn’t sung before opening night (in Québec), including the first number in Russian she has ever performed in public — because if there’s one thing Susan is bad at, it’s coasting.

Perhaps most intriguing is a set of five songs, by five composers, inspired by the character Mignon, from Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjare (usually translated as “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship”). An appealing character, apparently, Mignon herself sings in the novel, and she inspired several 19th-century composers, notably with “Kennst du das Land?” (“Do you know the country?”), which everybody from Franz Schubert to our dear contemporary, Mark Adamo, has set. Ambroise Thomas wrote an entire opera on Wilhelm Meister, and named it after Mignon.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I’ve never read Wilhelm Meister. I daresay that Susan could sing the tax code in Chinese and still manage to connect with me on a spiritual level — but why not read the book? I had no answer to that question, and so I’ve loaded it onto my Kindle.

Susan Graham in recital, Québec, January 6, 2012

I’ll update you on my progress, and I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with Goethe, of whose work I know only two other monuments: Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther. (Those books inspired two of Susan’s most distinguished stage roles, Marguerite in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust and Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther.)

With a view primarily to impressing the admissions officers of Harvard College, I read Faust in a dual-language edition; the stunt didn’t work, and while I remember the framework, I don’t remember the brushstrokes, as it were: neither German nor English text stuck in my head.

Werther I read in English, but at a time when an ex-girlfriend was about to marry. I was homeless at the time, sleeping on a friend’s sofa, and I dreamt — surely as Werther himself must have done, when Lotte married Albert — that I could hear the happy couple making love in the night. Let’s just say that I understand why Goethe’s novel provoked a rash of sympathetic suicides when it was first published.

Susan as Massenet’s Charlotte, with Rolando Villazón as Werther.
I was lucky enough to see them in this production
in Paris a few years ago.

Will Wilhelm Meister enhance my appreciation of Susan’s performance? There’s only one way to find out. But as I move forward, I’m reminded of something Beverly Sills said during my first-ever interview, backstage in her dressing-room in Dallas. “You have to do your homework,” she said about opera-going.

In those days, she was especially right. We had no projected titles in those days, children, and so we had to read the libretto before we went to the theater, or else risk getting hopelessly lost in the flow of foreign languages. At the very least, we had to read a plot synopsis, so that we understood that Alfredo was Violetta’s boyfriend, and not her dad or some guy she picked up on the street.

Nowadays it’s easier, and even I sometimes go to a show without having studied up on it. But in “winging it,” I’ve lost something, I know. By doing my “homework” for the opera, I wound up learning a lot — and not least that there existed a great wide world beyond the horizons I could see from where I stood.

Susan herself has spoken eloquently about listening to the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts on Saturday afternoons and dreaming of that wider world. Now it’s she who points out new horizons to the people who are lucky enough to hear her. I am one among them, and I am glad of it.

Okay. Back to my homework.

Susan Graham and Malcolm Martineau

January 14, 2012: Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall at Univesity of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

January 18, 2012: CSU Northridge, Valley Performing
Arts Center, Northridge, CA

January 22, 2012: Spivey Hall, Morrow, GA

January 28, 2012: Koerner Hall at Telus Centre, Toronto, ON

February 1, 2012: Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

February 4, 2012: Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington, DC

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