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calimacHow often do I go to an opera? Oh, every four years or so. This is actually the second time B. and I have seen The Ballad of Baby Doe, because this is the second local production we've come across during our time together. She likes it that much, and as for me, I liked this production better than the previous one, from San Francisco Opera, largely because of excellent overall direction (by Jonathan Khuner, who doubled as conductor and stage director - Berkeley Opera is a small, poor company, but it has spirit).
More than anything else I've seen, this performance conveyed what a through-composed opera should be, which is a story told in music. This is a quite different aesthetic from that governing the abstract concert music I love most, and it has to be sold to me. This time it got sold. Everything that the composer, Douglas Moore, was doing with his music made intuitive dramatic sense.*
It is of course a touching and tragic story, for all three principal characters, and I won't go into that; you can read it on Wikipedia or somewhere. (The program book cites Wikipedia to explain the political background; that barrier of shame has now been thoroughly trampled.) But I can review the cast.
Horace Tabor was sung by Torlef Borsting, whose affectingly sweet baritone voice was quite pleasant to hear. He lacked the power to dominate the role, but made up for a lot by really looking and (within the limitations you'd expect) acting the part, especially of the self-confident, prosperous Tabor of Act I. Jillian Khuner, the conductor's wife, was Baby Doe. Nepotism casting? No, she's a good soprano; lovely line in the ballad arias, excellent high notes. The real winner was Lisa Houston as the scorned Augusta. Tall, severe, and rigid, she carried all of Augusta's dignity, and conveyed this through vocal impact, too, especially in the "I'll take my revenge" scene (Act I, scene 5).
Most of the supporting cast was good. John Bischoff (as W.J. Bryan, who stops by to make a campaign speech - full of genuine Bryan soundbites - in Act 2, and also as the narrator of Tabor's life in the closing scene) has all the easy carrying power that one wants in an opera star. (Pity he couldn't have played Tabor, as his voice is far too deep, and the limitations of his roles left one leave to wonder if he has Borsting's acting abilities.) The four men who kept wandering in a phalanx through the plot, variously as Tabor's cronies and assorted politicians (in one scene they're playing poker, and for a moment I dearly wished we'd switch into Fiorello) were all good and engagingly diverse; likewise the four women who played Augusta's friends, the Floride Calhouns of the story. Darcy Krasne as Augusta's maid has like one line, but fairly blew out the circuit breakers with it.
The ringer was George Arana, who played most of the small older men parts (the drunken miner in scene 1, the fatuous hotel clerk, the marryin' priest who hadn't been told that Tabor and Baby Doe are both divorced, and others). His voice is strong, to be sure, but he cannot sing, the way that Keanu Reeves cannot act, and I had to wonder, WTF was he doing on stage?
The minimal staging (I told you this is a poor company) - just a few chairs, one desk, and an excellent use of backdrop screen projections - passed muster, only failing in the closing scene which came off like a high-school drama production. (Yet this is such a moving scene that any stronger and we'd all have gone weeping into the night.) Costuming was good except for the scene where Baby Doe is dressed up as a Sara Lee pound cake. The pit orchestra was tiny, but any larger in the confined space of the Julia Morgan Theater and the singers would have been drowned out.
*And having just been poking back into Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and being newly appalled by the way composer Howard Shore just pours buckletloads of goop over everything, I have a new appreciation for the skills of a good dramatic composer.
More than anything else I've seen, this performance conveyed what a through-composed opera should be, which is a story told in music. This is a quite different aesthetic from that governing the abstract concert music I love most, and it has to be sold to me. This time it got sold. Everything that the composer, Douglas Moore, was doing with his music made intuitive dramatic sense.*
It is of course a touching and tragic story, for all three principal characters, and I won't go into that; you can read it on Wikipedia or somewhere. (The program book cites Wikipedia to explain the political background; that barrier of shame has now been thoroughly trampled.) But I can review the cast.
Horace Tabor was sung by Torlef Borsting, whose affectingly sweet baritone voice was quite pleasant to hear. He lacked the power to dominate the role, but made up for a lot by really looking and (within the limitations you'd expect) acting the part, especially of the self-confident, prosperous Tabor of Act I. Jillian Khuner, the conductor's wife, was Baby Doe. Nepotism casting? No, she's a good soprano; lovely line in the ballad arias, excellent high notes. The real winner was Lisa Houston as the scorned Augusta. Tall, severe, and rigid, she carried all of Augusta's dignity, and conveyed this through vocal impact, too, especially in the "I'll take my revenge" scene (Act I, scene 5).
Most of the supporting cast was good. John Bischoff (as W.J. Bryan, who stops by to make a campaign speech - full of genuine Bryan soundbites - in Act 2, and also as the narrator of Tabor's life in the closing scene) has all the easy carrying power that one wants in an opera star. (Pity he couldn't have played Tabor, as his voice is far too deep, and the limitations of his roles left one leave to wonder if he has Borsting's acting abilities.) The four men who kept wandering in a phalanx through the plot, variously as Tabor's cronies and assorted politicians (in one scene they're playing poker, and for a moment I dearly wished we'd switch into Fiorello) were all good and engagingly diverse; likewise the four women who played Augusta's friends, the Floride Calhouns of the story. Darcy Krasne as Augusta's maid has like one line, but fairly blew out the circuit breakers with it.
The ringer was George Arana, who played most of the small older men parts (the drunken miner in scene 1, the fatuous hotel clerk, the marryin' priest who hadn't been told that Tabor and Baby Doe are both divorced, and others). His voice is strong, to be sure, but he cannot sing, the way that Keanu Reeves cannot act, and I had to wonder, WTF was he doing on stage?
The minimal staging (I told you this is a poor company) - just a few chairs, one desk, and an excellent use of backdrop screen projections - passed muster, only failing in the closing scene which came off like a high-school drama production. (Yet this is such a moving scene that any stronger and we'd all have gone weeping into the night.) Costuming was good except for the scene where Baby Doe is dressed up as a Sara Lee pound cake. The pit orchestra was tiny, but any larger in the confined space of the Julia Morgan Theater and the singers would have been drowned out.
*And having just been poking back into Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and being newly appalled by the way composer Howard Shore just pours buckletloads of goop over everything, I have a new appreciation for the skills of a good dramatic composer.
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Date: 2009-07-12 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-12 11:49 pm (UTC)