Il viaggio a Reims

The great Italian composer of comedic opera (opera buffa) Gioachino Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims never quite reaches the soaring heights of his previous operas, Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola. Burdened with an aimlessly static plot—a common feature of opera buffa—the work reaches a new height of frivolity and pointlessness.

After giving the world two of the great comic operas, Rossini left Italy in 1823 to assume the musical directorship of Paris’s Théâtre Italien. In the six years that followed, Rossini produced five “French” operas, culminating in his revolutionary and opulent Guillaume Tell (1929). In the first opera of this period, however, Rossini bade farewell to his native tongue with Il viaggio a Reims. Composed in 1825 to honor the coronation of Charles X, the last Bourbon king, this glorified opera buffa features an unusually large cast of 18 soloists, portraying an international array of guests preparing to leave a hotel in Plombières for Reims, the site of the king’s elaborate coronation. Despite a tuneful score and plenty of juicy roles for many of the most talented singers of the day, Viaggio ran for a mere three performances during the festivities surrounding the coronation. Never again performed in Rossini’s lifetime, it slipped into obscurity for the next 150 years. Charles X isn’t on record with his views on the work. He may have been flattered, but also, I suspect, a trifle bored by its trivial nature.

This is the principle aspect of Viaggio that strikes one in New York City Opera’s current revival of James Robinson’s elegant and playful production. Despite the fine care and attention to detail evident both in the casting and production design, there is precious little that can be done to rescue this work from remaining an essentially inspired bit of tuneful nonsense.

Even with a dream cast of operatic superstars, the nearly three-hour-long work could never successfully sustain one’s interest. The hotel guests, who hail from all over Europe, are modeled mostly on cultural clichés. Galloping on a black stick horse, the fiery Count Libenskof of Russia pays court to a Polish widow with Tolstoyan passion à la Boris Grushenko in Woody Allen’s Love and Death. Lord Sydney of England is a heap of love letters and flowers, as he pines away for the unaffected Roman poet Corrina like a mock Shelley or Byron. The Countess of Folleville embodies both Gallic frivolity and vanity with her fashion-inspired fainting spells and interminable array of scales and shrieking, while Baron Trombonok is an artifact of Prussian hochkutlur and rigidity, a cross between Goethe and Metternich. Maybe not the most current cultural cliché, but a cliché nonetheless.

Rossini and his librettist Luigi Balocchi pit nation against nation in a series of arguments and rivalries, but to claim that anything more nuanced than petty stereotyping is going on here would be giving them far too much credit. As it becomes increasingly unlikely that the guests will set out on their appointed voyage to Reims, they hold festivities in honor of the royal family. The program culminates in an exchange of national music, to which Lord Sydney contributes “God Save the King” (sung in Italian, of course). Petty misunderstanding and jealousies are resolved, and the guests depart for Paris to continue the spirit of goodwill and rejoicing. And Rossini has the good sense to end his opera before their voyage.

Given its varied dramatis personae and flashy vocal-writing (arias, duets, and ensemble pieces, including a quattordicimino that outdoes Figaro by employing all but four of the lead singers), Viaggio enables an opera company to showcase the cream of its crop. While by no means flawless, City’s cast is among the strongest I’ve heard. Most surprising was an assured company debut from the Canadian mezzo Alison McHardy as the Polish Marquise Melibea. For an opera whose appeal hinges so greatly on exaggeration, McHardy brought a welcome degree of sobriety and control. It wasn’t difficult to choose between her two suitors; Marcus DeLoach was stiff and awkward both in voice and attire as the courtly Don Alvaro, while the Puerto Rican tenor Javier Abreu dominated scene after scene as Libenskof. Like his character, Abreu’s performance was highly erratic, and his forceful but uncontrolled voice left much to be desired. Nevertheless, he was a joy to watch and constituted the most dynamic element in a work plagued by inertia.

The kindest words are reserved for the leading couple, Maria Kanyova as the bold and self-possessed Corinna, and the veteran baritone Daniel Mobbs as the noble and lovelorn Englishman. The pair lends the production a degree of class and sophistication absent from the rest of the cast. Even at its most inspired—and most everyone involved is to be applauded for their energy—the dynamic ensemble seemed a few rehearsals away from something really solid. But when the poet and the Englishman graced the stage, they took the production to a whole other level. Though rarely singing together, they exhibited a consistency of style and trust in their own vocal capacities, which made their performances a cut above the rest. Additionally, both Mobbs and Kanyova are well-versed in Mozart and Puccini. They really ought to put their talents to better use.

Capriccio

For a second consecutive year, New York City Opera has opened their season with a Strauss opera. Last fall, City presented the composer’s rarity Daphne, a less-than-transcendent work, in a distinctive production perfectly-suited to the somewhat constrained dimensions of the New York State Theater. This time around, NYCO has chosen to tackle Strauss’ final opera, Capriccio. Like Daphne, the scale of this one-act work is well matched to City’s facilities. Set entirely in the drawing room of the Countess Madeleine – here re-imagined by director Stephen Lawless as a run-down theater – this “Conversation Piece for Music,” as Strauss called it, is an amorous and aesthetic debate between the composer Flamand, and the poet Olivier, both of whom vie for the Countess’ affections. The debate, which rages late into the evening, concerns the relation of words to music and is symbolized by a competition between Flamand’s music and Olivier’s drama, which is proposed by another guest, the stage director La Roche, in honor of the Countess’ birthday. Bounded by such a tightly symbolic premise, Capriccio often resembles a chamber opera. It even opens with the string sextet composed in the Countess’ honor.
One of the devices Strauss uses to concretize his aesthetic exploration is a love sonnet by Pierre de Ronsard, which we hear four times in the course of the opera, twice spoken and twice sung. In the sonnet, composer and poet become intertwined, to the point were the Countess is unable to choose between them.
At the opera’s onset, the libretto and score seem at odds. They both meander around on their own. The motif of the opening sextet repeats in a muted form, sort of as background music. As the drama progresses, the marriage between music and text becomes solidified and makes sense. In a self-referential twist that most resembles his Ariande auf Naxos, Strauss has the debate led to the commission of an opera, the very one that we are watching.
    Despite the appropriateness of Capriccio to this venue, City’s production leaves much to be desired. The chair-filled theater on stage outfitted with a writing desk and a harpsichord made for cramped quarters, especially when peopled with the Countess’ brother, his love interest Clarion, and a duo of bumbling Italian hams. The Italian couple, though well sung by Barry Banks and Lisa Saffer, cavorted around the stage for cheap laughs. After a poorly placed break (Capriccio is often performed without intermission), the second half featured continued inanities and antics, which accompanied La Roche’s preposterous plans for the Countess’ birthday. And this time, the lighting kept varied dramatically, often drowning the singers in a garish orange-gold. A flood of mirrors and golden gaudiness overdid the closing scene, where the Countess sings for 20 radiant minutes.
Kinder words are reserved for the singers, many of whom were well chosen. The bold Mel Ulrich and impassioned Ryan MacPherson made for a marvelous pair of rivaling doppelgangers and Eric Halfvarson was positively majestic as the aging La Roche. The Countess Madeleine ranks among one of the Strauss’ crowning female creations, a list which included Salomé, Elektra, and Arabella. Unfortunately, Pamela Armstrong, the soprano who fills the Countess’ shoes in this production, was a disappointment. She sang well, in a bright and effortless way, but with a voice that was impossibly small to do justice to her role. For much of the evening, she seemed to be saving her best stuff for her final monologue, which is definitely the jewel in Capriccio’s crown. Her acting was likewise dull, and whenever dealing with her vying suitors, she had a stupid, lovesick expression plastered on her face.  More often that not, she was upstaged by the mezzo Claire Powell, who played up the vocally tepid role of Clarion to a fresh and exciting degree.
In the pit, musical director George Mahanan took a sensible approach to the rich score, which practically overflows with ideas from many of Strauss’ earlier masterworks. There are overt references to the romantic melodies of Der Rosenkavalier and Arabella. The shimmering, ethereal music of the closing scene has much in common with his proto-Freudian fantasy, Die Frau Ohne Schatten, and the Mondlichmusik at the end of Daphne. And the opening sextet points forward to his late work for string ensemble, Metamorphosen. 
All in all, City is to be applauded for presenting this challenging work as their season opener. In the future, may they be advised not to stave off the urge to make a primarily intellectual work more accessible with meaningless theatrical flourishes and slapstick.