PERSPECTIVE — Spain isn’t the first place North Americans think of when it comes to opera, but beyond a host of wonderful singers from Maria Malibran and Julian Gayarré through Victoria de los Ángeles and Teresa Berganza, the country can furnish rich experiences for current-day enjoyment of the art form. Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Bilbao, and Oviedo all offer seasons of potential interest to the traveler. In one week, I managed to attend several unforgettable evenings in the country’s two leading musical centers.
After decades as operagoers, most of us have bucket list theaters (the way others have classic baseball stadiums) to check off. I was delighted finally to enter Barcelona’s legendary Gran Teatre de Liceu, dating (despite fires and reconstructions) from 1847 and key in careers not only of major Catalan singers like Montserrat Caballé and José Carreras but also of many international stars (for example, Edita Gruberová and Sondra Radvanovsky). Beyond its considerable beauty, the theater offers fine acoustics.
Josep Pons, music director since 2012, led a finely paced and played production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen on Sept. 30. Starting with a mimed funeral — the Forester’s Wife’s? The Vixen’s? That of youth itself? — Barrie Kosky’s staging emerged as sober and uncutesy as I’ve ever seen with this nonpareil work. Only the doomed Hens took on animal costumes; the Rooster resembled an agitprop Capitalist in a top hat, the soprano role here assigned to a solid tenor, Roger Padullés. Everyone else had human form. (Refreshing after the Metropolitan Opera’s slick Kavalier and Clay to see cartoon characters treated like people, instead of the reverse!)
Kosky excels at whimsy but here everything had more than a tinge of melancholy suiting Janáček’s score. Ossetian soprano Elena Tsallagova’s Vixen won acclaim in Paris (2008) and again in Munich (2022), where Kosky’s production originated. She started rather weak and patchy except on top, recovering form in Act Two’s more lyrical outpourings. Throughout, she embodied the character with youthful grace and swagger. In his role debut as the Forester, 60-year old Peter Mattei sounded and looked magnificent, singing with great legato, free dynamic play, and remarkably youthful tone. Plus — as his unforgettable Šiškov in the Met’s From the House of the Dead showed — he handles Czech well. Paula Murrihy brought ardent and beautiful tone to the Fox; she, Tsallagova, and Pons made the love scenes very sensuous and compelling. Serbian baritone Milan Perišić showed a fine voice and appropriate machismo as the poacher Harašta.
Some smaller roles could have been better vocalized, but tenor David Alegret proved an uncommonly clear and sonorous Schoolmaster. A memorable first Liceu evening! Potential visitors should also examine schedules at 1908’s Art Nouveau marvel the Palau de la Música Catalana, where upcoming events include concert performances with Kathryn Lewek in Alcina and Cecilia Bartoli as Gluck’s Orfeo. On Oct. 1, Angela Hewitt offered Bach’s Goldberg Variations with commanding style and limpid tone; she’ll repeat them Oct. 24 at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
The next night in Madrid’s historic (1856), well-appointed Teatro de la Zarzuela — slightly larger than Manhattan’s World War I -era Broadway theaters — I made my first live acquaintance with the Romantic form of this theater/operetta hybrid popular in many Spanish-speaking countries, particularly Spain, Mexico, and Cuba. Pepita Jiménez, based on a semi-epistolary 1874 novel by Juan Valera, received operatic treatment by Isaac Albéniz 22 years later; it underwent several revisions — one with Paul Dukas’ help — during his short lifetime. In 1964, eminent zarzuela composer Pablo Sorozábal (1897-1998) produced an edition tailored to that genre’s particular traits (including a tragic ending, with the heroine’s suicide). Two magnificent Spanish singers — soprano Pilar Lorengar and tenor Alfredo Kraus — gave the premiere as the young widow who falls obsessively in love with Luis, the seminarian son of her older presumptive fiancé.
With a fluid and pleasing though not melodically memorable score marked by some telling instrumental solos, it plays quickly and rather melodramatically. The drama was little aided here by Giancarlo del Monaco’s awkward production, involving a needlessly revolving, noisy ironwork set, much play with fabric swatches, and the sonorous chorus standing in fixed rows. Jesús Ruiz’s costumes proved the strongest design element. Perhaps unfairly, I had Lorengar’s lovely sound in my ears when hearing Carmen Romeu: youthful in looks and a daringly all-in, Lorca-worthy tragedienne, but on this occasion vocally tired and often below pitch. Subbing for a colleague, Leonardo Caimi sang his second Luis in two nights: a worthy lyric tenor a bit fixed in attack at the top, but creditable enough musically and fitting the physique du rôle. Otherwise, the finest voices were rich-toned mezzo-soprano Cristina Faus as Pepita’s meddling but supportive nanny Antonõna and strong baritone Iago García Rojas as an officer sympathetic to Luis.
Rising German conductor David Afkham, who makes his San Francisco Symphony debut later in October, this month, led Berg’s Wozzeck in a splendid semi-staged version Oct. 2 with the Spanish National Orchestra and Chorus in its modern, impressive-sounding auditorium seating 2,180. The orchestra sounded well rehearsed and seamlessly terrific; Afkham found the score’s surprising moments of lush beauty. Director Susana Gómez deployed a committed cast well, with entrances, exits, and interventions cleverly spaced around the orchestra’s playing area and Wozzeck’s revolving barber chair as the main prop.
Martin Winkler, who sang Lulu‘s Rodrigo at the Met a decade ago, performed the downtrodden soldier like a man possessed, with almost too much Expressionist emphasis but compete stylistic mastery. Marie proved a very fine role for the sympathetic Lise Lindstrom, whose high notes gleamed. Danish Wagnerian bass Stephen Milling made a resonant, chilling Doctor. Tenors Rodrigo Garull and Tansel Akzeybek sang well above the usual level encountered as the Drum Major and Andrès. A truly invigorated, searing reading that made one anxious to hear both Afkham and this Madrid orchestra again.
Teatro Real, the capital’s major classical-music ensemble, has become, under the adventuresome aegis of general director Joan Matabosch, one of Europe’s most interesting and accomplished companies. On Oct. 3, Teatro Real premiered its concert version of Mascagni’s Iris, his most successful work after Cavalleria rusticana and L’amico Fritz. Set in Japan, it’s resoundingly a work of fin-de-siècle Orientalism, though in distinction to Madama Butterfly or Lakmé, no cultural clash is implicated. Tragedy befalls the innocent titular heroine at the hands of three of the least sympathetic male charcaters imaginable — an entitled aristocratic would-be ravisher, a conniving brothel keeper, and Iris’ judgmental, unempathic father. (Luigi Illica’s at times poetic libretto actually names the first two “Osaka” and “Kyoto.”)
Famously, the much victimized heroine spends Act Three slowly expiring in a sewer, transported Isolde-like to death by the rays of her beloved sun. The sun, voiced by the chorus (here outstandingly prepared and resonant), gets the best tune, an anthemic hymn influenced by Boito’s Mefistofele that both begins and ends the sung text. The overture typifies Italian Wagnerismo, beginnng with double-bass chords recalling — as Puccini’s Act Three Fanciulla del West would 12 years later — Alberich by Fafner’s cave in Siegfried; Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Gotterdämmerung also flit through.
Arias and ensembles, though, follow veristic models. The composer led 1898’s premiere at Rome’s Teatro Costanzi with Hariclea Darclée (the first Tosca and Wally) and Fernando De Lucia, who also created Mascagni’s Fritz. Osaka must be the most revolting tenor “hero” in opera, a destructive creature of lust and whim. (By this point in my week of witnessing multiple abusive men onstage, I thought approvingly of Catherine Clément’s book Opera, or the Undoing of Women.) The Met produced Iris three times: 1907 (Emma Eames and Enrico Caruso), 1915 (Lucrezia Bori and Luca Botta) and 1931 (Elisabeth Rethberg and Beniamino Gigli), excellent singers all but only the middle couple must have been remotely credible dramatically.
Daniele Callegari’s conducting was idiomatic and propulsive, but he seemed to forget at times that this large orchestra was onstage and not in the pit, giving them free rein to overwhelm the highly expressive but not refulgent-voiced Ermonela Jaho. The Albanian soprano, a first-class artist perhaps lacking a truly first-class instrument, achieves her best effects in her poignant upper register (what’s below can lack tonal focus) and through eloquent word painting. Her Iris, when audible, was a pleasure to witness. At 71, Gregory Kunde (Osaka) remains something of a miracle, his tenor not exactly youthfully radiant but absolutely solid, with squillo at the top. The evening’s revelation was baritone Germán Enrique Alcántara, powerful and imaginative as the highly theatrical Kyoto. Young Jongmin Park fielded a solid bass as the old father; mezzo-soprano Carmen Solís impressed in two supporting roles.
More victimization ensued with Otello: a resounding masterpiece where Iris is a worthwhile curiosity. The Teatro Real revived David Alden’s well-traveled production with multiple cast leads: three Otellos and Iagos and a pair of Desdemonas. It’s highly instructive to see a production two days running (Oct. 5 and 6) with different artists. Alden’s murky early 20th-century concept lacks any sense of Mediterranean color. Jon Morrell’s flattering costumes and Adam Silverman’s atmospheric lighting outshone the gauche, self-regardingly arty choreography by Maxine Braham, as jarringly itchy/scratchy and counterproductive as any of the Met’s recent efforts in this direction. A dancer evoking Fellini’s feral Volpina from Amarcord pointlessly grabbed focus all too often; smoking soldiers caper on with gifts for Desdemona while the famously jealous Otello watches. Why hasn’t Alden rethought this nonsense in a dozen years? But some things he did made sense: Iago isn’t a mustache twirler but a blunt “regular guy” hiding his evil intentions and — at the end of every scene, even the last — a theatrical observer of his own handiwork.
Conductor Nicola Luisotti, experienced Verdian that he is, led a powerful reading with wonderful string playing. On the run’s final night, young Giuseppe Mentuccia stepped in with faster tempi and actually achieved a theatrically more exciting performance — with Jorge de León and Maria Agresta a less musically sophisticated and technically accomplished pair than the previous night’s starrier but low-chemistry Brian Jagde and Asmik Grigorian. Both Otellos were tall and handsome, both Desdemonas slim and beautiful. Jagde, new to Otello and announced as indisposed, has many of the needed qualities and, after a very cautious first half, achieved nobility and considerable power in the final scenes. This was a promising start. De León, a Met Radamès in 2017 and 2022, showed a less-refined sense of line and dynamics but a more Latinate sound.
Grigorian, a critic’s darling throughout Europe, moves and acts with exceptional skill and is a thoughtful musician; that said, the voice sounded comparatively thin. As Zinka Milanov said of Licia Albanese’s Desdemona, Grigorian banked everything on the lightly accompanied Act IV, an unforgettable experience which for me was the first time (save for videos) I ever heard her live up to her fans’ unquestioning ballyhoo.
Agresta, more challenged in terms of breath control, gave us two acts of flat entries but indubitably had more the lirico-spinto voice and native Italian diction needed for the part, particularly Act Three’s testing concertato. She and de León evinced more romantic chemistry, upping the emotional stakes. Like Grigorian, Agresta held the audience rapt in her final “Willow Song” and “Ave Maria.”
Both Iagos had real Italian and, if not world-beating timbres, highly serviceable Verdian instruments. Gabriele Viviani sounded somewhat more plush, and the more experienced Franco Vassallo, whose early roles in America were Germont and Posa in Philadelphia, scored more verbal points. They both succeeded in this far-from-easy part.
The supporting cast was solid — no more, no less — with Albanian mezzo-soprano Enkelejda Shkoza’s capable Emilia rather more than that. Alden’s production made Cassio a stumbling drunk throughout, too much so to make his embassy to Desdemona credible; but it illuminated through dandyish costuming and prominent blocking the often obscured function of Roderigo, quite important in Shakespeare (as indeed in Rossini’s Otello). José Luis Basso’s chorus again displayed great skill and musical discipline. I look forward to future Teatro Real adventures.
