Whether it’s the latest rookie sensation on the hardwood, the young emerging artist with a fresh new vision, or opera’s hottest vocal talent — everyone enjoys the chance to experience a superstar in the making.
Los Angeles audiences have that opportunity now with the new production of Vincenzo Bellini’s “Norma,” which opened Saturday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion starring superstar-in-the-bud, Angela Meade, in the title role of the Druid priestess.
If you happen to have seen “The Audition,” a documentary recounting the selective process of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, you’ve seen and heard Meade (who hails from Centralia, WA), who went on to win the competition. She has also appeared once with L.A. Opera as Donna Anna in “Don Giovanni.”
Since then, Meade has appeared at the Met in a series of roles including Norma to great acclaim. And according to L.A. Opera’s music director, James Conlon, the company was lucky to sign a contract with her before the stampede began.
Norma is one of the most challenging vocal roles in opera. It requires immense range, technical virtuosity and enough stamina to appear in almost every scene. The soprano who takes it on must be able to produce floating pianissimos, sudden dramatic swells, a fusillade of coloratura effects including rapid runs, fluttering trills, delicate turns, and declamatory outbursts. She must also rhapsodize the audience at the outset with “Norma’s” dulcet, and best-known aria, “Casta Diva.”
Memorable Normas of recent history include the immortal Maria Callas, the pearlescent Joan Sutherland and the statuesque Jane Eaglen (who performed the role for Los Angeles Opera).
Meade does not have the dramatic intensity of Callas or the dazzling purity of Sutherland, and her acting skills could improve with the aid of a good director. But in all honesty, I have yet to see a “Norma” that managed to transcend the “you stand here, you stand there” school of directing. This includes San Francisco Opera’s production with Sutherland as Norma to Marilyn Horne’s Adalgisa, and Eaglen’s performance with LA Opera. I can only guess (from the recording and videos) the sense of power and emotional intensity Callas could bring to the role.
Her acting skills could improve with the aid of a good director, a service that the current production’s overseer, Anne Bogart, certainly does not provide. Bogart is satisfied to simply act as traffic manager moving her forces from point A to point B with the addition of a few stock gestures of declamation.
But in all honesty, I have yet to see a “Norma” that did manage to transcend the “you stand here, you stand there” school of directing. This includes San Francisco Opera’s production with Sutherland as Norma to Marilyn Horne’s Adalgisa, and Eaglen’s performance with L.A. Opera.
I can only guess (from the recording and videos) the sense of power and emotional intensity Callas could bring to the role.
“Bel canto” opera, of which “Norma” is a prime example, is all about the glorification of the voice framed within a prescribed formula of structured arias, duets and ensembles.
Bellini, however, by 1831 (the year the opera premiered) was beginning to question “bel canto’s” by-the-numbers template. His innovations toward a more fluid, dramatic style would provide inspiration to the young Hector Berlioz, help to emancipate the rising star of Giuseppe Verdi, and eventually lead to the epic endeavors of Richard Wagner, who paid homage to Bellini’s influence throughout his life.
“Norma” requires three exceptional voices to make it sail, and L.A. Opera has gathered together a most impressive trio. Meade takes center stage as the love-torn high priestess who has fallen in love with (and born two children to) the Roman proconsul, Pollione. Sung with heroic thrust by tenor Russell Thomas, he is a man emotionally conflicted between his role as head of an occupying army that is determined to do away with Druid culture, and his love for not one, but two, Druid ladies.
Initially infatuated with Norma, he has now turned his amorous attentions to her acolyte, Adalgisa, who is sung with dynamic strength by mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. The strange thing is, with the exception of their hair color, on-stage Meade and Barton look almost identical.
A fine supporting cast includes bass Morris Robinson as Norma’s commanding father, Oroveso; mezzo-soprano Lacy Jo Benter as Norma’s loyal attendant (and baby-sitter) Clotilde; and tenor Rafael Moras as Pollione’s aid, Flavio. The Los Angeles Opera chorus provides sonorous accompaniment.
No one, however, benefits from the dreadful production design by Neil Patel, originally conceived for Washington Opera. The single unit set (a definite cost-saver for the company) transforms the opera’s mystical woods into a realm of stark post-modern architecture without a hint of nature in sight.
You can’t tell the forest from the trees because there aren’t any. The world of the Druids (stage right) is represented by a whitewashed, dilapidated barn propped up by 2x4s. The Roman world (stage left) looks like the façade of a public library. In between is plaza accentuated by an oval pit meant to symbolize the “sacred grove.”
During intermission, one man was complaining to his friend how much he hated the set. To which his friend responded, “If you don’t like it, just close your eyes.”
I did — more than once. It was the best way to let the sumptuous tide of Bellini’s music — superbly crafted by James Conlon’s conducting — flow over me.
Jim Farber is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.
Norma
Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.
When: 2 p.m. Nov. 29; 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2, 5 and 10; 2 p.m. Dec. 13.
Information: 213-972-8001, laopera.org.
