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concert review: San Francisco Symphony
Mar. 2nd, 2007 12:27 amHow about that - I got to attend the American premiere performance of John Adams's new opera, A Flowering Tree, in a semi-staged production conducted by the composer, as part of the regular SFS concert season. It plays tonight and Saturday at Davies as well.
This is the second Adams opera I've seen staged, having been to a performance of the original production of The Death of Klinghoffer at the Opera House next door.
A Flowering Tree is based on a Tamil folk tale of a woman who can turn herself into a tree. And back again. She marries a prince who finds this odd talent of hers really sexy. (But he never calls her "my own tree love," or says "Do not ever leaf me," as in the Jane Yolen story. What's wrong with this libretto, anyway?) His jealous sister tricks her into doing the tree bit and breaks all the branches, so when she tries to turn back into a human she's a limbless slug (like the baby in the Judy Merril story, I guess). At this point the singer clasps her hands behind her back, lies down on the floor, and starts to writhe a lot. The poor woman is taken away as a circus freak, but her grieving husband (who knew nothing of this) eventually finds her and, with the skill of a practiced tree surgeon, makes her whole again in both formats.
There was nothing Indian about the opera, though, except the costumes. The dancers who shadowed the main characters were Indonesian. The principal parts were sung in English but the chorus sang in Spanish. (Why? Because the chorus in the original production - in Vienna a few months ago - was from Venezuela. Silly question.) And the music was Adams; if you know his work it was what you'd expect, which means it was pretty good. Especially in the first act the orchestra had lots of churning, chirping rhythms, detached chords, and occasional phase effects, rendering rather desperate-sounding the declaration in the fawning program notes that Adams has moved beyond that limited Minimalist stuff. I begin to think that "minimalist" is in some people's vocabulary a word like "science fiction" is for others - if a work is good, it can't be that dreadful thing.
The solo singers' parts were typical modern opera through-composed and rather detached from what the orchestra was doing. The chorus tended to shout a lot, and pick up crisp, complex rhythms from the orchestra. Sometimes they sounded a bit like Edgard Varese, and sometimes they sounded a lot like Carmina Burana. The best unaccompanied orchestral passage was the prelude to Act 2, essentially a speeded up version of the opening of Das Rheingold and none the worse for that.
During intermission the balcony began to shake slightly in an odd way. I thought, "It's probably an earthquake." It was.
This is the second Adams opera I've seen staged, having been to a performance of the original production of The Death of Klinghoffer at the Opera House next door.
A Flowering Tree is based on a Tamil folk tale of a woman who can turn herself into a tree. And back again. She marries a prince who finds this odd talent of hers really sexy. (But he never calls her "my own tree love," or says "Do not ever leaf me," as in the Jane Yolen story. What's wrong with this libretto, anyway?) His jealous sister tricks her into doing the tree bit and breaks all the branches, so when she tries to turn back into a human she's a limbless slug (like the baby in the Judy Merril story, I guess). At this point the singer clasps her hands behind her back, lies down on the floor, and starts to writhe a lot. The poor woman is taken away as a circus freak, but her grieving husband (who knew nothing of this) eventually finds her and, with the skill of a practiced tree surgeon, makes her whole again in both formats.
There was nothing Indian about the opera, though, except the costumes. The dancers who shadowed the main characters were Indonesian. The principal parts were sung in English but the chorus sang in Spanish. (Why? Because the chorus in the original production - in Vienna a few months ago - was from Venezuela. Silly question.) And the music was Adams; if you know his work it was what you'd expect, which means it was pretty good. Especially in the first act the orchestra had lots of churning, chirping rhythms, detached chords, and occasional phase effects, rendering rather desperate-sounding the declaration in the fawning program notes that Adams has moved beyond that limited Minimalist stuff. I begin to think that "minimalist" is in some people's vocabulary a word like "science fiction" is for others - if a work is good, it can't be that dreadful thing.
The solo singers' parts were typical modern opera through-composed and rather detached from what the orchestra was doing. The chorus tended to shout a lot, and pick up crisp, complex rhythms from the orchestra. Sometimes they sounded a bit like Edgard Varese, and sometimes they sounded a lot like Carmina Burana. The best unaccompanied orchestral passage was the prelude to Act 2, essentially a speeded up version of the opening of Das Rheingold and none the worse for that.
During intermission the balcony began to shake slightly in an odd way. I thought, "It's probably an earthquake." It was.
