Madame Butterfly, Vancouver Opera, Queen Elizabeth Theatre

What a wonderful night for Puccini’s masterpiece Madame Butterfly.  Pink cherry blossoms on the streets as we walked to the car. Pink cherry blossoms on the magnificent set depicting Nagasaki Japan during the allied occupation 1940’s to 50’s. .  We driove in from the Burnaby suburbs to the busttling Vancouver city.. Saturday night. Cultural events and sports events and just the city itself.  So much life.  Parking wasn’t a problem just finding our way to Queen E once we came out on Hamilton turned around and looking for Homer street. 

 Laura had the tickets. We arrived on time.  She was dressed in a new tan and white spring frock with her Mexican cowboy boots engraved with flowers. . I had the grey shirt, wheat coloured Harris tweed jacket, tan slacks and sandals. I would have worn shoes but I couldn’t find the shoe horn.  

We were ‘dressed’ for an event and I was thankful to see almost all others were. Vancouver was once an uncultured town where too many vied for attention by dressing like refugees at theatre, ballet and opera events the expense of production itself exclusive.  No more. Every year that college student attention seeking has declined.   Audiences are participating in the aura of the evening. Vancouverites are a quick study. 

I remember going to Rocky Horror Picture Show\ a couple of decades back to be one of very few in costume on Halloween.  A few years later almost all had arrived with rice ready to participate in the act. 

Here at the opera I loved the long gowns, brocades and satins, little black numbers, capri pants, suits and sparkling jewelry.    A lot of beautiful and handsome young people too. A lot of Asians.   I wondered if this was reflection of the show itself or the love of music, especially classical, in these talented educated folk.  My first opera, again decades ago,  seemed to be dominated by  elderly church folk, a white haired affair. The ballet has.always had a hip slick and cool following but that  fashion and vibe seemed to have moved to the opera. There was a complete age spread and culture spread and just a whole lot of interesting people watching.   The ‘in crowd’ was certainly here tonight.   Lots of elite along with those who just loved the music. I loved it.  Standing in line for a cappuccino while others collected stemmed glasses of wine I loved the people watching. It feels so good to be part of something so much more than television, a time, a place, a magical memorable event.

Laura looked lovely. The first bell to announce seats sounded.

I don’t like announcements, political or otherwise. Fortunately they were brief. Frankly, I always want to skip right to the beginning. That was the orchestra which was unbelievably superb. Music director Jacques Lacombe out did him self with the collective of fabulous musicians.  What a start to a magnificent night. Next the perfect set that took me instantly back to my time in Japan.  The singing began with acting thatt  all just flowed and fit..

I loved the English titles thrown up on the screen above the performers. I realized I was  trying to match the words to song till I realized how silly that was,  Puccini’s Italian. Pinkerton, the male scoundrel lead whose character transformation was profound wore modern naval attire which juxtaposed with the traditional costume of the Japanese family.  The costuming was incredible and the juxtapositions of American and Japanese were fascinating. 

I really loved the two men Pinkerton ( Robert Watson)  and the Consul Sharpless (Brett (Polegato)  singing. What rich tapestry of male sound!  The chorus was wonderful at the wedding.  But really. Yasko Sato who played  Cio-cio-san the bride . Madame Butterfly, was the most captivating.  Her maid, Suzuki ( Nozomi Kato) was delightful. These women’s voices together were such a marvellous dance.  The uncle, the Bonze played by Insung Sim was the perfect gangster wicked witch in the dramatic scene of wedding conflict, pagan gods offended by the American cross. What a perfect moment made vivid by Puccini’s music and timing thanks to conductor Lacombe and director Mo Zhou. After the earlier happy wedding music this shift was so dramatic.  The dischord was magically followed by the  the most tender and intimate love song duo of Watson (Pinkerton) and Sato (Butterfly).  The rising moon in the set and romantic poetic duet literally brought down the curtain to the first act followed by applause and more applause. 

The second act and third act were even more perfect as the story unfolded with surprising twists of plot. I won’t be a spoiler. The pathos was profound. The breadth and depth of music just so moving.  The final curtain fell. The cast appeared  bowing and smiling.  The standing ovations followed with  crescendoing applause for Yasko Sato so well deserved  What a truly magnificent  moving performance by all. Laura and I spoke with admiration and joy about the performance as we left the threatre.  It was  clear Vancouver cherry blosoom night

 

Sweeny Todd, by Stephen Sondheim, Vancouver Opera at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre

I’ve seen several Sweeny Todd’s but this Sweeny Todd by the Vancouver Opera is by far the best.  Stephen Sondheim’s music is rockstar sensational and Jonathan Darlington’s musical direction is genius.  I loved Darlington’s opening performance the best.  Greer Grimsley, bass baritone, from New Orleans, plays Sweeny Todd and his performance alone was worth coming for. I’ve never heard such an incredible voice so perfect for this role.  That said, Luretta Bybee playing the pie lady Levitt  was so enjoyable to listen to and delightfully comedic.
Tenor Rocco Rupolo was equally a delight as the love struck sailor singing his heart out for Johanna Barker, played by soprano Caitlin Wood. I thought her first number ’shrill’ only to fall completely in love with her voice as it grew richer and warmer throughout the production.  The whole musical ensemble grew together this way crescendoing to a great finale.
Pascal Charbonneau’s tenor, as he played  Tobias was alive with character. I loved Karen Ydenberg’s soprano beggar woman performance.  David Curry, tenor, played Adolfo Pirelli hilariously and had an amazing voice that filled the hall with laughter.    Baritone Doug McNaughton played the evil judge so well that he really irritated me despite his masterful voice. Michael Barrett, tenor, played the horrid Beadle to vocal perfection.  Zacchary Reed Baritone sang immensely well in the part of Jonas Fogg.  I loved all the voices and all the costumes and all the acting and the ingenious set.
To a non opera going friend I said, Greer Grimsley’s voice is to opera what Wayne Goretsky’s stick handling is to hockey.  That good, my friend replied.  Yes, I said.  And Darlington is like the coach the Canucks needed to bring the Cup home.
As for the story, written by Hugh Wheeler, it’s rather tasteless, more like a fart joke than Steven King at his lowest. Hugh Wheeler clearly could have used editing by Monty Python. A vengeful barber slices the throats of his enemies and others rather indiscriminately while Mrs Lovett turns the corpses into pies for profit, selling human remains to the unaware cannibalistic masses. It’s as macabre as a Robert Picton Farm opera with Sarah McLaughlan  and Bryan Adams in happy pig costumes singing a Bare Naked Lady score.  Is someone in the VSO smoking BC Budd or are times so bad in Gotham Vancouver that the well heeled need this level of humour to continue their decadent businesses?

Carmen, the Opera, Vancouver 2014

I love music.  I love song.  I love the amazing capacity of the human voice. Opera is the penultimate expression of human vocal music. It’s the ballet of voice,  Amazing.  A learned experience.
I didn’t begin liking opera. I preferred Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Country Joe and the Fish, the Guess Who, Eagles,Dave Matthews Band to anything operatic for the longest time.  My friend Anna Borowska, a physician who also sings beautiful operatic soprano heavily influenced me. I liked Handel but hearing Messiah sung by her and friends at St. John’s Anglican Church one year really made me think there may be more to music than Banjo and Bluegrass.  I’ll always love Amy Grant and Third Day but really, maybe I could listen to more opera, and see if there’s something there for me.
So over the last decade, I took in a few of the Vancouver Opera Series and wasn’t disappointed.  It was different. Not reggae. And certainly not rapp.  Opera is a whole other world.  Out there, like Mars and the space probes.  Something to reach for.
I cried for the first time listening to a soprano sing this last spring at an opera I heard in the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.  I came home and bought seasons tickets to the Vancouver Opera for the first time.  I've always liked seasons tickets to the BC Ballet and Pacific Theatre but this was the first time for me with opera.
Carmen was the VO's first production of the year. My friend, Laura, loves the opera.  It gives her a chance to wear her long gloves.  I’d taken her to Barber of Seville, another Vancouver Opera piece a couple of years before and she's been hooked ever since.
Opera stories are a bit odd. A barber who chops up people. Now Carmen , a bad girl who works in a tobacco factory, cuts up a girls face and then lures a good son and soldier from his duty and the good girlfriend to the life of a gypsy smuggler. Then she dumps him for another and he kills her. Domestic violence. Telling the ending in Opera isn’t a spoiler. The whole story is written in the program.  Nobody is there for the prose. It’s all about the music,
Bizet the french composer who died in 1875 wrote this amazing music that everyone knows. I recognized it right off.  Two of the pieces from Carmen are the most heard and most easily recognized opera musical lines in the world today.  Meanwhile Bizet wasn’t sure of himself.  Died shortly after Carmen first appeared and before it achieved almost universal fame.
It’s like “Don’t put on the red dress’ of modern day music.  Indeed a lot of this hysterical borderline personality disorder shallow lust theme is a kind of morality play. The music transcends all this.
I loved mezzo-soprano Ginger Costa-Jackson’s voice and performance as Carmen.  She was terrific. Her voice caught every nuance of emotion and filled the theatre. Her every movement oozed bad girl. Tenor Christopher Magiera played soldier Don Jose and was truly believable as the young duped lover who chose Carmen over Micaela, the woman who truly loved him performed by  Marianne Fiset.  Soprano Caitlin Wood, played  Fraguita and Mezzo Soprano Laurelle Jade Froese who played Mercedes were delightful, their songs and performances thoroughly entertaining.  I especially loved Baritone Morgan Smith who played Escamillo, the bull fighter who Carmen left soldier Don Jose for.  The chorus was stupendous.
Laura and I both loved the Orchestra conducted by Jacques Lacombe.  Director Joel Ivany outdid himself with all the activity and large cast.  Kinza Tyrrel as Children’s Chorus Director had reason to be proud of the performance of all the children.  Camellia Koos set design was unforgettable. The bull ring was truly inspired.   We loved it all.
All around, a great afternoon of entertainment.  The music so moved me, the voices sublime.  Laura loved it.  Packed Queen Elizabeth Theatre and roaring applause.