Beauty over beast
View PDF | Print View
by: Guest
Total views: 185
Word Count: 1352
ROMEO AND JULIET
Who: By Charles Gounod. Directed by David Lefkowich for Minnesota Opera. Conducted by Ari Pelto.
When: 7:30 p.m. Tue., Thu. and Sat.; 2 p.m. next Sun.
Where: Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, 5th and Washington Sts., St. Paul.
Tickets: $20-$150. 612-333-6669, or go to www.mnopera.org
The Fat Lady doesn't sing here anymore.
Once an iconic clarion of conclusion ( It ain't over till ... ), the portly warbler is fading to a wisp as opera migrates into the MTV world.
There's a realism in opera now, said James Valenti, one of the principals in the Minnesota Opera's production of Gounod's Romeo and Juliet that opened Saturday night at Ordway Center. The younger generation is more about the visual, and you don't want to see a 50-year-old guy playing Romeo.
This shift plays right into Valenti's strengths. He is young, tall and possessed of geometric good looks. His dark eyes, framed by curly hair, radiate charisma. The company has similarly turned to another tall drink of water for Juliet. Ellie Dehn describes herself as a curvy woman, but never would be considered plump.
There is definitely pressure to stay in shape, said Dehn, a soprano who graduated from Anoka High School. I hate going to the Y, but it's a necessity to be as healthy as you can be.
Dehn is no Anna Netrebko, the sylphlike Russian singer who is opera's current It Girl. But she and Valenti are among the cohort transforming the art form with physical beauty, greater movement and emotional dexterity that relies more on honesty than stock gesture. No longer do immobile battle axes and warhorses lumber onstage to park and bark.
Several factors have blended to drive the trend. Perhaps most evident is the Metropolitan Opera's move to high-definition simulcasts of its live productions on movie screens across the country. The days of simply hearing the Saturday afternoon Texaco broadcasts on radio have given way to this new visual medium that has caught fire. For example, more than 50,000 watched Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Ren e Fleming and Ram n Vargas last February in Tchaikovsky's lyric opera Eugene Onegin.
Individual consumers have followed that change in tastes with a greater appetite for DVDs rather than audio recordings of their favorite shows.
Lastly, audiences want to empathize with the characters in these grand, emotional stories, and it's difficult to do that when the singers don't seem real. Dale Johnson, the Minnesota Opera's artistic director, recalled a La Boh me he saw with Luciano Pavarotti as Rodolfo and a healthy woman who was 20 years his senior playing Mimi.
There was such a disconnect with the idea that here is a consumptive woman in her last six months and this young starving artist, said Johnson. I got the sense of this absurd art.
Johnson, recognizing the modern pressures of visual glamor, feels the movement is new, but not necessarily original.
Verdi insisted on his singers being superb actors, he said. You look at the people doing his roles and they were quite beautiful. They looked like their parts. There has always been that wish for the whole product -- looks, throat, musical ability and visual ability. That's not just a 2008 desire.
Slimming down, firming up
Perhaps the most notorious fallout from this trend occurred in 2004, when soprano Deborah Voigt was released from her contract in Ariadne at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Voigt was -- and is -- recognized as one of the great voices in opera, yet it was her inability to squeeze into a cocktail dress that precipitated the producers' decision.
Plus-sized singers might have seized on this outrage to argue that opera was abandoning the music for glitz. Voigt, however, defused the situation by undergoing gastric bypass surgery and losing 135 pounds. She has rebounded with significant roles at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and was hired back at Covent Garden for Ariadne -- defeating the stereotype that singers need a belly to heft their voice.
That's baloney, said Johnson. The vocal cords guide that; it's not your girth. Debbie's vocal quality has never been better.
Part of the reason physicality has warranted a greater look is the growth of stage movement.
If you look at some of the older operas, you see stock gestures that don't come from the text, Johnson said. The best new directors understand how these composers set these texts to the music.
Director Dale Lefkowitz has Valenti running, jumping and singing while lying on his back in the challenging Romeo and Juliet.
It's a long sing, Valenti said. It's so satisfying to sing it, but it's not easy. It requires stamina.
Johnson said directors are driving the evolution. Increasingly, they are investigating texts for the composer's original intentions.
He thinks American regional opera has been ahead of the game in this regard because we don't have the world's biggest voices and we've always had audiences that push us to create a more believable opera.
In the next breath, Johnson noted that European opera houses are pushing the beauty movement much further.
New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini swooned last June over a broadcast that he saw in New York of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House in London. Netrebko, the Russian soprano who is off-the-charts beautiful, starred opposite baritone Erwin Schrott of Uruguay. Tommasini wrote that he knew what to expect from the ethereal Netrebko, but that Schrott, whom he described as seductively handsome with a chiseled physique, grabbed his attention.
Advance hype, likening him to a young, operatic Marlon Brando, made me wary, wrote Tommasini. Vocally, though a fine singer, Mr. Schrott is not the next Sherrill Milnes. But he is certainly a stage animal. Opera houses everywhere will soon be clamoring for him.
It's still about the voice
Johnson planned the Minnesota production of Romeo and Juliet around Valenti, who trained in the opera's Resident Artists Program from 2000 to 2002 ( It feels like coming home, he said). A rising star who made his debut four years ago with the Rome Opera, he drew fine notices in San Francisco for his Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly.
Given Valenti's height (6- foot-5-ish) and striking looks, it was natural for Johnson to bring in Dehn. She and Valenti trained together at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and continue to take coaching together in that city. This is their first time together onstage.
With someone like James, you have to partner him with a beautiful woman -- a tall woman -- because the audience has so many perceptions about this well-known love story, said Johnson.
All this talk of glitter opera makes Valenti smile. Yes, it's nice that his appearance opens the door. However, he said, I want people to acknowledge me for my voice.
Indeed. Opera is still foremost about the voice and the music. Even the great Netrebko, with whom he will sing this year, would be no more than the opera world's version of tennis player Anna Kournikova (all glam, no game) without her magnificent instrument.
I think you get hired for your youth, said Dehn, but you get hired back for your voice.
She and Valenti agree that for all the changes, the core of opera will retain its purity.
It will not change into musical theater, said Valenti. If you lose the voice, you lose the most important thing in opera.
Graydon Royce 612-673-7299
Good News, available for download links to this site, the link through the Express software automatically search the Internet or through personal networking related content on the computer, users select the fastest download links to download non-content of this site servers, accuracy is not guaranteed, no registration do not need to download log entirely by the software to automatically search for this site only provides hyperlinks services.
Site of all audio content by automatically search the Internet to find, this site server link is not only available to the blind friends learning and entertainment used by the rest, the text by all users upload, and the maintenance of the common users, such as copyright, reluctant to provide work to the blind friend, please attach letter informed us that the copyright, we will disconnect the link within 24 hours, and delete the text of the website. Please write qukanshu@gmail.com
Related: Beauty over beast
Additional information:
From www.startribune.com:
A site with beauty and fun, gif animations, midi files, design, backgrounds.
Generations of children have been fascinated by the story of the girl named Beauty who grows to love a fearsome.
Introduces four basic types of disasters unique to Hawaii and information on how individuals can better prepare themselves.
The many tellings of the story of Beauty and the Beast with references to historical.
Experience all the action, romance, music and magic of Beauty and the Beast in an elaborate, enchanting.
Beauty and the beast tv gateway. All about Vincent and Catherine. Jay Acovone gateway. Photos, interviews, wallpaper, art, Jay Acovone pages, Jamie Murray.
The official site of Disney On Broadway and the theatrical productions of 'The Lion King', 'Mary Poppins', 'The Little Mermaid' and the national.
Brief history of Beauty and the Beast, a musical by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and Linda Wolverton, plus links to all cast albums.
Rating:
Not yet rated
Comments
No comments posted.
Add Comment
You do not have permission to comment. If you
log in, you may be able to comment.
