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Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Challenging Opera Arrives in New York, Only on Film

By ANNE MIDGETTE for New York Times - Published: May 11, 2004

"New York isn't quite ready for this opera."

The speaker was the composer Louis Andriessen, subject of a festival at Lincoln Center, and the opera was "Rosa," his collaboration with Peter Greenaway. A film of it was shown at the Walter Reade Theater on May 3.

Mr. Andriessen is a kindly looking gentleman whose manner and music are more acerbic than twinkly; he was explaining why Lincoln Center had not mounted a live production of "Rosa." In the lobby after the film, two women could be heard concurring as they tied their scarves under their chins before emerging into the drizzle outside. New York isn't ready for "Rosa."

Which is a shame. All right, "Rosa" includes nudity, bestiality, explicit sex, graphic descriptions of bodily emanations and filth. The premiere in Amsterdam in 1994 was a succès de scandale. "Rosa's" female lead spends most of the opera entirely naked, covered in black paint in an effort to make herself look more like the horse her husband desires more than he does her.

And did I mention biting social critique? "Rosa" takes American society in particular into its sights, skewering the politics and mores encoded in classic western films. In it artists become martyrs to the machinations of a system that forces the facts before it to fit the framework of the narrative it wants, rather than just observing them.

"Rosa" is also compelling, direct, riveting and even beautiful. It confronts and challenges its audience with layers of image, sound and meaning. The music is at once demanding and engaging. The piece forces you to think, whether it inspires you to go home and play the recording (on Nonesuch, which has released a lot of Mr. Andriessen's music) or, after watching a normal woman's body in all its cellulitic glory for 90 minutes, to go buy a good diet book. Art as a mirror of society, with contemporary relevance and challenge: you look for it in the galleries of Chelsea, perhaps at the Joyce Theater but not very often in the opera house.

What we more often expect from classical music is something prettier, nicer, more tasteful. All of those qualities were present in the lovely "Cultural Connections" concert that the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center offered on Friday night at Alice Tully Hall: a juxtaposition of East-meets-West that seemed a shelf of cloisonné against the messy Abstract Expressionist canvas of "Rosa."

The first half of the artfully programmed evening achieved an exquisite balance: Harry Partch and Ravel on the one hand, the Chinese composer Chen Yi on the other. The highlights were the wonderful eggshell arcs of Partch's "Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po" (excerpted), with Mary Nessinger's mezzo-soprano balanced on the cusp of speech and song, supported by the swoopings of the tenor violin played by Theodore Mook. (Partch is known for his explorations of alternative instruments and pitches; this friendly little stringed instrument looks like a small cello.)

But the freshness of Partch's approach yielded to self-conscious striving in the evening's conclusion, Lee Hyla's chamber opera "At Suma Beach," an attempt to create a kind of Westernized Noh drama. The piece had its premiere with the same forces last summer at the Japan Society (including Ms. Nessinger, who seemed oddly rough in the middle of her thin speechlike voice, prettily clear on top). It sounded no less earnest and no more compelling on a second hearing, with passages of lovely music fading into a kind of monochromatic gray wash.

And even Mr. Hyla's attempt isn't really what New York wants or expects from opera. That's served up at the Met, which ended its season on Saturday night — a little bruised and battered by a year that was tough on ticket sales and administrative leadership — with the bang of Wagner's "Götterdämmerung." What does the Met offer? Big names, huge productions, occasional attempts at something new, heavy emphasis on something expected and, alas, very little that could really be called art.

James Levine, whose health has been an increasing subject of discussion both behind and before the scenes in recent seasons, conducted the six-hour marathon as if to demonstrate that he was fine, thank you very much. But healthy or not, Mr. Levine does not seem to offer the full measure of excitement, sparkle, or brio that he once did. This "Götterdämmerung" was energetic enough when it needed to be, yet somehow lackluster, particularly in the prologue and first act, when the winds and horns seemed badly frayed. In fairness, the orchestra must have been exhausted, not only by the demands of the season but also by a day that required at least some of its members to play two operas back to back (with a "Rusalka" matinee in the afternoon).

A sense of anticlimax persisted through the immolation scene, which was not furthered by the soprano Gabriele Schnaut as Brünnhilde. Ms. Schnaut is endowed with a voice that could strip paint off the walls, which in this role is not necessarily the devastating criticism it may seem. I would rather hear her in this part, with all of her conviction and good German, than many other would-be Brünnhildes. Her main weaknesses are her limitations of range — neither her low nor the very top of her voice seemed secure — and volume: her voice seems to work at only two settings, high and low.

John Fredric West, as an Energizer-Bunny-like Siegfried, sometimes called to mind the vocal advice of another briefly touted Heldentenor, Gary Lakes: "I put it in my nose and make it as ugly as I can get it." Gunther and Gutrune were excellently cast: Alan Held and Margaret Jane Wray did fine jobs in singing and in dramatic characterization. But the god whose twilight this proved to be was Matti Salminen as Hagen, past his vocal prime and nonetheless the most authoritative artist onstage. This was his final Met performance.

Another blow to the notion of opera as art came with the Carnegie Hall recital of Olga Borodina on Sunday night, which was gorgeously sung and lovely to look at but which teetered perilously close to parody in its old-school approach. Ms. Borodina certainly didn't extend herself: the program was striking for its brevity.

The first half consisted of seven Baroque songs and arias ("Se tu m'ami" by Pergolesi; "When I Am Laid in Earth" from Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas"); the second half, Mussorgsky's four "Songs and Dances of Death." Carmen's "Seguidilla" and Dalilah's "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" were the encores. One could argue that gorgeous singing is not the first thing one looks for in Mussorgsky's raw, spare cycle about death, but it was worth hearing even if the program's true highlight was the Dalilah aria, which was sensational.

Well and good. But all of this served only to further the impression that a jolt of Mr. Andriessen and "Rosa" is just what New York needs. Ready or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/arts/music/11DIAR.html
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"Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua
ferita ogni sua carezza..."

"I sing to life, to its beauty, to each of its
wounds and each of its caresses..."

[LaSignoraMusica]

Funny to read here this article about "Rosa". One of my former singing coaches sang in the choir at the premiere in Amsterdam. I got the impression that the production seemed a bit strange to the singers and musicians as well. Louis Andriessen is one of the better known dutch contemporary composers. Several years ago dutch tv broadcast his huge opera about Mondriaan, the famous painter. I remember a part of that opera about the Boogie Woogie(...), made by Mondriaan when he lived in New York.
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I believe in the equality of all people, I try to respect all living creatures, and I believe in the power of love....