Opera companies, the important ones anyway, feel tremendous pressure to produce new work, despite the indifference of most patrons who are just as happy to hear their ten-thousandth “Tosca” as they are anything original.
But artists, and the general directors who enable them, don’t want to think of themselves as working in a form whose best days are behind it. They’re desperate to stay relevant and mark their own age by adding to the canon.
It’s the best kind of discontentment, truly, because it leads to all levels of experimentation. New operas are troublesome, expensive, risky and usually bad, so there’s real incentive to make things interesting enough to warrant international attention.
All that is to explain how two of the quirkiest productions in a long while could end up on the Santa Fe Opera stage this same summer. They’re both novelties and both succeed in shaking up, in a good way, the classical music business.
“Dr. Sun Yat-sen” is the American premiere of composer Huang Ruo’s intimate take on the epic rise of China’s great, 20th century revolutionary. The piece is sung in Mandarin, which is rare and intriguing, and it taps both East and West culture to make something that feels entirely fresh and winning in the New Mexico desert.
The season’s “Double Bill” is less exotic, but more off-the-wall. It combines Mozart’s 1786, one-act comedy “The Impresario” and Stravinsky’s 1914, one-act drama “Le Rossignol” into one interwoven night at the opera. It’s a long stretch from Amadeus to Igor, and it feels that way in the theater, but the result is amiable and entertaining and its essential love for art wins you over.
Director Michael Gieleta went out on a limb for this one, especially “The Impresario,” a zany singspiel (partly spoken and sung) about dueling divas vying to be cast in a work staged by a producer on the verge of bankruptcy. The original was full of in-jokes about 18th century theater and had the actors auditioning for a play by reciting long monologues.
That wouldn’t fit so well in 2014, so Gieleta brought in librettist/playwright Ranjit Bolt to update the dialogue with a lot of in-jokes about 21st century opera. There’s an overload of references to those composers and titles opera patrons have seen innumerable times right up to several barbs about Santa Fe Opera’s own production of “The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein” just last year.
Instead of the monologues, Gieleta dug up rarely-heard concert arias by Mozart and subbed them in as the audition pieces. It’s a clever way of getting around one of opera’s golden rules: Don’t mess with Mozart.
And in a bold (probably too bold) move, he turned the plot so that the sopranos are vying for roles in “Le Rossignol,” which of course, begins in earnest after intermission with a very straight, and powerful take on the original.
“Le Rossignol ” — in English ‘The Nightingale” — is a somber delight, powered by soprano Erin Morley, who sings the part of the feathered creature who enchants, and teaches life lessons to, a long-ago Chinese emperor. Her soprano is sweet, and not at all bird-like. It resonates with human depth and emotional clarity and exploits with richness all of Stravinsky’s sharp and dissonant moments.
The two operas are like night and day and Gieleta doesn’t always see so clearly in the dusk. “The Impresario,” with all its talk and mugging performers, is too much musical theater for an opera venue. He went farther than he might have making the thing so current and connecting it to “”Le Rossignol.” There’s a shortage of serious singing.
But there are moments of intoxicating innovation in the mashup as well. Gieleta cleverly and economically uses the opera’s overture time to set his stages. Actors take their places and begin to develop their characters silently while conductor Kenneth Montgomery’s orchestra plays its intros.
One opera gives away gracefully to the other as “The Impresario’s” show biz office is transformed into a Chinese wilderness. As audiences watch, walls come down, trees come out, the same actors who played furred and flamboyant divas are stripped and fitted with robes for roles as Chinese courtesans. Scenery designer James Macnamara, costumer Fabio Toblini and lighting designer Christopher Akerlind work magic.
“Dr Sun Yat-sen” has its wow factor as well, though sets are just a part of it. Huang Ruo’s score soars with urgency and pulses with repetition. The music is driven by percussion and expressed through instruments traditional to both Europe and Asia, which conductor Carolyn Kuan manages to balance well.
Vocal lines float patiently above the fray and they are wholly true to the nature of Mandarin as it is both spoken and sung. Notes collapse at the end of words and phrases instead of rising as they do in Italian or French.
That helps to keep attention on a story that isn’t always compelling. Huang and librettist Candace Mui-ngam Chong humanize Sun Yat-sen’s story by making the overthrow of corrupt imperialists nearly a backdrop to the story of his courtship and marriage to his second wife and comrade in arms, Soong Ching-ling.The pair hook up while the man is still married and the great hero’s character is allowed its flaws.
But the joys and pains flash by in broad strokes and ordinary (translated) dialogue. Passion is in short supply and that makes for a long night that might have passed more quickly with a few potent battle scenes.
“Dr. Sun Yat-sen” has a difficult past. It was supposed to premiere in Beijing in 2011, but government officials pulled the plug at the last minute and the opener took place in in Hong Kong. Watching through American eyes, it’s hard to see the reasoning. Is it the founding father’s humanity that made officials nervous? Some sense that government corruption is an inescapable part of the Chinese political personality? Neither seem offensive, so the mystery remains.
The Santa Fe production had its difficulties, too. Just a few weeks before opening, lead tenor Warren Mok, who created the role, left town amid wide suspicion that he wasn’t cutting it vocally. Director James Robinson, a top creator of new work in the U.S., had one of those delicate opera world situations on his hands.
Joseph Dennis, a second-year apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera, stepped in and brought ample stature to the part, not easy considering the women here get the better arias (first wife Rebecca Witty and second wife Corinne Winters, and both were impressive). They all plunged into the Mandarin with confidence and skill, though, not surprisingly, it did sound more natural coming from the actual Chinese singers in the show (Gong Dong-Jian and Chen Ye Yuan).
That’s part of the experiment with making new work — or making work new. What do you present, and also, how do you do it with dignity? Are caucasian actors in Asian hair and makeup a form of old-school black face? Or is it new-school color-blind casting? How far can you push a bit of Mozart, even if his work actually could use some improvement?
These sorts of questions don’t come up with “Tosca” and they are answered incorrectly as often as they are innovatively. Santa Fe never seems to fear the possibility of failure. And, season after season, its successes go far in keeping the art form vibrant.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/rayrinaldi
Santa Fe Opera Summer 2014 season
“Dr. Sun Yat-sen” and a double bill of “The Impresario and “Le Rossignol”
The Santa Fe opera presents two new works as part of its 2014 season. Dates vary through Aug. 22. 505-986-5900 or santafeopera.org.
