Hit or Miss, Part deux

So Faust was a hit. What about the miss? I regret to report that Vivaldi’s “Griselda” was a disaster. Never fond of Peter Sellars’ bad boy approach to opera, I still had no trouble believing what I overheard--that he accepted this commission from SFO with a great deal of reluctance, having called it “the worst opera ever written”, and only because he wanted to spend the summer in Santa Fe. There is nothing wrong with Vivaldi’s music as conducted by Grant Gershon whose balletic hands were far more interesting than anything happening on stage. Sadly, the arias are very long and very repetitive and were only brought to life through the stellar singing of mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, soprano Amanda Majeski’s brilliant coloratura (in a pants role !), the superb counter-tenors David Daniels and Yuri Minenki (who did amazing things by way of fioratura) and some nice legato phrases by Paul Groves who sounded a bit frayed on top as he assayed a thankless role. Meredith Arwady has a huge contralto that thrills and an equally huge body that made the ardent love protestations of her suitor a laughing matter. As a matter of fact, so much that transpired onstage produced titters and giggles which seemed to provide the long-suffering audience some relief from tedium.

The source for Carlo Goldoni’s libretto was the final tale of Boccaccio’s “Decameron”; it may have excited the pilgrims escaping from plague-ridden Venice but it does nothing for a 21st c. audience, dealing as it does with the wife of Gualtiero, King of Tessaglia, who subjects his loyal wife to about 16 years of abuse and rejection before taking her back; I kept thinking of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale”. Why was this dead opera resurrected? Why was so much talent wasted? Just because it had not had a major production in the US? Just to allow the so-called artist Gronk the right to install his eye-assaulting gronky painted backdrops? The costume designer Dunya Ramicova saw fit to dress the beautiful Ms. Leonard like a third-world prom queen and the Queen’s unwelcome suitor as a hip-hopster in a pork-pie hat. Isabel’s suitor and his brother made appearances in suits of blueberry and kiwi hue.

The direction was, in every instance, embarrassing. Ms. Leonard was made to grovel on the floor with no motivation; indeed, none of the stage business was motivated by the dialogue or situation or even the music. Automatic weapons, pistols and microphones were ubiquitous. One could almost believe that Mr. Sellars wanted to express his disdain for this “worst of all operas” by trashing it. Enough of Regietheater already! It’s time to respect music and story.

I hope that Mr. Mackay has chosen better for the 2012 season. There are so many deserving and underproduced operas from the past 300 years that could be given thoughtful productions and thereby win friends instead of enemies for the world of opera. At the final moment of the opera, poor Meredith Arwady, dressed like a janitor and pushing a broom, having learned that her husband is taking her back, stands there with a puzzled expression on her face. I saw the same expression on the faces of the departing audience.
© meche kroop for The Opera Insider