meanwhile a few centuries later, yet another Roman operatic orgy

Barber in gold, silver, lame and mylar

Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, branded a monstrous failure when it opened at the Met in 1966 and stands as one of the all time theatrical catastrophes. Even the 1963 film Cleopatra had the benefit Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s canoodling to blame. But for this Barber opus debuting in a newly built Met house, it couldn’t have gone worse, forever branding the opera box office poison. The eight performance run sent Barber into a creative tailspin and on personal bender.

Curtis Opera Theater and Opera Company of Philadelphia, collaborating for the third time on their ambitious chamber opera series attempt a rescue of the music. It is both scaled down, but highly campy as they seek to restore what does work in the opera. Namely, a flawed, bold operatic experiment from Barber.

The trouble in Egypt is still the same old story, Nile Queen falls for Roman General, the countries vie for power, nothing survives save the asps. Certainly not Shakespeare, in Franco Zefferelli’s filmy libretto, short on plot details and broiled dialogue cycles ‘My man of men‘ is Cleo‘s refrain.

At the Perelman Theater, David Zinn’s understated metallic set frames the tableaux of Roman and Egyptian exotica- from Cleopatra’s gold train that spans the length of the stage (drawn out under a rain of glitter confetti) to the transgender pink drag corsets on her slaves- this A & C is decidedly over the top. In embracing that milieu, OCP-COT unvaults Cleo’s musical treasures, the steel and fantasia in Barber’s score, even the grand scale of its thorniness.

Allison Sanders and Brandon Cedel in the leads, keep this an unfussy love story, even when the music and drama demands gnashing. Theirs is a hot-blooded love affair with arias. Barber’s overlapping singing is smoothly dispatched, helping to keep focus in some narratively sketchy scenes.

Cedel had moments of swagger in the love scenes and Sanders flashed a reluctant diva at times, but mostly they downplayed the drama for musical intimacy, despite the libretto‘s claustrophobia. Cedel and Sander retain a reserve and mystery, good choice when exposition is so clammy. Her voice was cool control especially in the queenly strata, Cedel’s smooth bass-baritone lending virile mystique.

bloglog supplemental

This is post 601! seems significant somehow. a thousand thanks to Jan whose eye and photographs tell better stories than I can. ta, Lew

operaworld

In the opening moments of the rarely performed Attila, the overture engulfs the Metropolitan Opera with Verdi’s ominous symphonic clouds, but those fast tempests are overshadowed as the curtain comes up on the production’s two stories of stony collapsed ruins. Think crushed Stonehenge.

Everything about this opera is big, even if it is musically minor Verdi, its nationalist themes of protecting Italian soil made it a populous hit in 1846.

Championing Attila’s restoration for its debut at the Met is Riccardo Muti, also just making his debut on the podium. Maestrodiva hair as silky as ever.

Muti’s hand is clearly felt in the dimensional sound, the punctuation in the orchestral gallops and the stillness in the fades. Marco Armiliato, who conducted Monday night, shows again (as he did with Il Trittico) how he can project solo sections and filagree a wall of sound out into the expanse of the house.

The Huns will not be lunching at the Coliseum today, madam, and this is a story of a strident and somewhat dense conqueror. There is some deadly leather accoutrements by Dolce, with Attila’s chrome feathered headress stabbing out of the ruins, with no hint of decamp.

Attila and his Huns are leaving a path of destruction as he cuts his way west, but God is on the side of the Romans, so the conquerer has to cut a deal with his enemies. All along he is being set up by Odabella, who seduces him so she can avenge her father’s death. Her lover Foresto doesn’t know her scheme, so feels betrayed himself and launches a plot of his own. The story drags on but basically, suffering mobs or not, becomes a love triangle of raging jealous arias.

When it is time for a set change, they don’t mess around. What could be more impressive than the ruins? It’s opposite- a towering crystalis forest topiary. Breathtaking stagecraft.