"Mission Impossible" and Turandot

IF WE OUTLAW FLUTES,
ONLY CRIMINALS WILL HAVE FLUTES!

Have you seen Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation yet? My wife and I went last night. How was it? Not boring, that's for sure! I was already aware that it features a lengthy sequence taking place during a performance of Puccini's Turandot, but that wasn't the reason I wanted to see it. I wanted a slick action-filled roller coaster of suspense; you know - a Hollywood blockbuster with all the trimmings. But it does provide me with the opportunity to consider what can happen to operas when movie writers elect to incorporate the art form into a commercial movie.

In previous commercial films electing to have characters attend a live performance of an opera in an opera house (thinking now of Pretty Woman and Godfather III), there was an effort to treat the operas in question (La Traviata and Cavalleria Rusticana, respectively), with reasonable faithfulness to the original, even if the level of singing by some of the principals was not always big-league. (Michael Corleone's son resembled those tenors on the Lawrence Welk show more than the Turridu of one's dreams, let's just leave it at that.)

That's in contrast to the Turandot shenanigins taking place in Rogue Nation. I'm kind of glad they didn't choose an opera by a living composer; the dead know not what vivisection is performed on their creations after they leave this earth.

On the plus side, the singing was pretty good. I searched the International Movie Data Base to see if the singers were credited, but no soap. Actors were employed to play the roles of the various performers - even the conductor! Did actual orchestral conductors feel this job would be "beneath" them, or did the producers think an actor would manage to look more maestro-ish? Whatever. In a New York Times interview, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie asserts that all the actors used in the Turandot sequences were "aspiring opera singers" who "had experience singing opera", whatever that means. He also revealed that, as part of a contractual agreement reached with the Vienna State Opera for the use of their name, the singing artists heard are "the cast of their upcoming version of Turandot and their orchestra". So one has to search through the Vienna State Opera website to unearth the artists' names. Because why should THEY be credited publicly? Who cares about THEM? (Heavy sarcasm.) Anyway, if you've seen the movie and you're curious, Turandot was sung by Lise Lindstrom, with Johann Botha as Calaf. Well, they both have pretty good careers going; I guess they can live without the extra PR.

Oh, and if you're wondering if the opera sequence was filmed on the actual stage of the Vienna State Opera, ...it wasn't. There was a massive set built on a London sound stage, according to McQuarrie. Access to the real opera house was extremely limited.

Now, never mind the extremely unlikely backstage acrobatics taking place as Cruise's Ethan Hunt cavorted nimbly on theatrical equipment fighting a bad guy in a manner that made "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" look like a documentary. So it's unrealistic and over-the-top; we LIKE that, some of us! I wanted to know if the operatic staging would be as authentic as in the other two movies I mentioned.

Oh, dear.

I knew Puccini was in trouble when the curtain rose on Act 1 and the music began. For one thing, the Mandarin was alone on an empty stage to deliver his "Popolo di Pekino" line. Um, it's a crowd scene. The entire city is supposed to be gathered there. They all sing within seconds. How much would it have added to the movie's budget to have stuck a few extras on stage? THAT'S where you economize? Really? Isn't the spectacle of a crowd scene a GOOD thing?

Also: it's a little thing, but noticeable: the Mandarin started singing too early. They lopped off some of the orchestral introduction with those brutal chords that sound like chops of an ax. I'm not saying the singer goofed and entered early; I'm saying they cut like three seconds of music. Well, timing is everything, and Ethan Hunt has villains to kill - let's not dilly-dally!

From then on, it became apparent that our fictitious cast, orchestra and chorus had all dropped the pages of their music on the floor, with the result that they were hastily re-assembled in the wrong order. And, remarkably, all in the same order! While Ethan delivered karate chops, the music hopped around in some crazy-quilt order unfamiliar to opera-lovers. I can't EVEN re-construct how this worked, but we leaped from late scenes to early scenes and back again while, in contrast, the action unfolded in "real time", continuously. I would have loved for Mr. McQuarrie to explain the necessity of taking a hatchet to the opera, but the Times reporter didn't go there.

I once attended a recital by a pianist who specialized in contemporary music. The program closed with a piece whimsically entitled "Haydn in the Forest". (I don't recall the composer, this was some 30 years ago.) The joke was that pages of a Haydn piano sonata were cut into strips, upon which the strips were glued onto a large poster board in the shape of a tree. The strips were the "branches", sticking out at random angles. The pianist then played the notes visible on the strips, in any order he chose. This produced an extremely random-sounding mosaic of Haydnesque piano bits.

That's what Rogue Nation did to Turandot.

Also, the device of "hiding" the sound of a rifle shot (or a woodwind shot... don't ask...) under the blare of the high note in the tenor aria "Nessun dorma" is an homage. The same idea first occurred in Hitchcock's thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much. Nice subtle touch, but in reality, wouldn't the three cymbal crashes at the end of "Non piangere, Liu" have been a more logical moment to cover a gunshot? Ah, but then the audience wouldn't get to wallow in their "favorite aria", assuming they paid attention to The Three Tenors back in the day.

Finally, those with ears to hear became aware that film composer Joe Kraemer used "Nessun dorma" in his underscoring, allowing the big tune to appear as some kind of - what? Leitmotif? - whenever Ethan and Ilsa, the female lead, made goo-goo eyes at one another. For a blockbuster, Rogue Nation is positively prim and prudish in matters of sex; there's not so much as a smooch on the cheek, and everybody keeps their clothes on. But we're led to believe that the un-coupled couple will hook up some day (...un bel di...) and Puccini's aria is the symbol of that potential.

It's not completely inappropriate in that context, actually. In the aria, Calaf is singing about a woman who is not yet his, vowing that he will kiss her at some point in the future, "when the light shines". That's clearly Ethan's general train of thought as well, right? Although he really seems, you know, married to his career.

So, my verdict: thumbs-up for choosing an opera as the context for an action sequence. Not original, but the more people see opera, the more it registers on their personal cultural radar. Thumbs also up for singing at a high level. But thumbs close into a fist when it comes to assuming that "us dummies" in the audience won't know or care if the opera thus employed is turned into a mish-mash of random musical passages, like a cinematic iPod scrambling a list of excerpts at random.

Sizing up the Met's 2015-2016 "Live in HD" cinema season

Esa-Pekka Salonen. Hey, are you married?
Because there's a woman I want you to meet...

We're about a month away from the Metropolitan Opera's opening night, and one further week removed from the first of ten HD transmissions at your local cineplex, assuming you have one. (I mention that because my daughter, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois in Urbana, lives in a community without access to these opera-at-the-movies presentations. Wassup wid DAT, Champaign-Urbana?)

I thought I'd peruse the list and share my observations and thoughts with you, my Faithful Readers.

First up: geez, Met, were ticket sales THAT bad last season? Following seasons in which we've had such non-standard fare as The Enchanted Island, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, The Nose, Francesca da Rimini and Nixon in China, the most outre production on tap this season is Berg's Lulu, which is not really off the beaten track. Furthermore, exactly half of the operas are by Verdi and Puccini.

So yes: the Met is a museum. This doesn't outrage me as much as it does some of you, because in the larger context of contemporary opera,we're living in a very active period, especially for American composers.

I was also struck by the cast list for Verdi's Otello. Given the nature of the scheduled artists, I'm surprised they haven't re-titled the piece Otell-ski. Five of the eight listed singers are Slavic! Yes, to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, "not that there's anything wrong with that"; it's just such a contrast with the ethnic makeup of much of the company's history. These "Venetians" will be sung by:

• Sonya Yoncheva (Bulgaria)
• Hibla Gerzmava (Republic of Georgia)
• Aleksandrs Antonenko (Latvia)
• Alexey Dolgov (Moscow)
• Željko Lučić (Serbia)

Again - not complaining, nothing wrong with it; I just note it with interest. 

One other note about Otell-ski which is of political/historical interest but will have no particular effect on the performance: for the first time in Met history, the title role will not be depicted in so-called "blackface", the device of applying makeup designed to make a white performer appear to be a person of color. (Otello is a Moor, a dark-skinned North African.) This is a good move, Peter Gelb; late in coming, but good.

Both of the Verdi productions (Trovatore is the other one) follow the current norm of moving the time period away from that of the original libretto. If you're the cranky-pants kind of opera-goer who just hates that aspect of the opera world, then the Met's Tannhauser is for you. (Forgive my spelling - Blogger doesn't permit symbols like umlauts. DOGGONE IT, BLOGGER!) This will be as traditional as traditional gets, with an Otto Schenk production. Schenk and Zeffirelli productions are the ones with the kind of sets and costumes one might have seen in the 1950's.

In reading the blurb about Lulu on the Met's website, I had to chuckle at the optimistic way the music is described: 

"Berg's score employs the 12-tone technique pioneered by his teacher Arnold Schoenberg but in a keenly dramatic way that makes it accessible to all kinds of audiences."

Look, I adore Berg, but that sentence lacks a certain connection to reality. C'mon, now: "all" types? Um, no.

My guess is that the production of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers will be a break-out hit; a box-office smash. How this company managed to ignore such a juicily melodic score by a master composer for ONE CENTURY staggers my imagination. I don't get it. It's no Carmen, but the list of operas inferior to Pearl Fishers routinely staged by the Met would be a substantial one. And the cast, with Damrau and Pollenzani in the leads, should be capable. This will be "boffo" (as opposed to "buffa", which is a whole different thing.)

Wait - wasn't I just talking about Franco Zeffirelli a couple of paragraphs ago? Well, speak of the devil! (Or - for traditionalists, the angel..) The old boy's Turandot crops up this season, probably the most appropriate of all operas to be a vehicle for his lavish eye-candy. Do we need a Turnadot set in ISIS headquarters, or Catfish Row, or the South Pole, or a Nazi Concentration Camp? Nah - we don't even want it in modern Beijing; give me PEKING, baby! Start roasting that Peking Duck NOW! I want it CRISPY!!!

I'll be grateful for Donizetti's Roberto Devereux for two reasons:

1. It's not Lucia di Lammermoor which (IMHO) has worn out it's HD welcome with over-exposure, and
2. The presence of a glorious and likeable soprano, Sondra Radvanovsky. 

Madama Butterfly? Whatever. It's the same production already seen in cinemas in 2008. That puppet is looking a bit frayed by now. Consider this the soybean meal in the hamburger that is this season.

I'm more interested in the same composer's Manon Lescaut. For one thing, it boasts the tenor who makes women's hearts (and possibly other organs) go pitty-pat: Jonas Kaufmann as Des Grieux. Also, I suspect I'll find Kristine Opolais a more effective Manon than Karita Mattila, who sang the role several years ago. 

The season will end on an artistic high note with a masterpiece: Elektra. Everything about this production looks stellar: the conductor (Esa-Pekka Salonen), the principals (Nina Stemme, Waltraud Meier, Eric Owens, et al) and the look of the production itself. 

By the way, not to play matchmaker, but wouldn't it be cool if Maestro Salonen were to marry actress S. Epatha Merkerson? Esa-Pekka Salonen and S. Epatha Merkerson: now THAT'S a fun couple.

Why I'm "meh" about opera highlight concerts

I really like the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day. It's one of those movies that I can't turn away from when I find it on cable, regardless of how many times I've seen it in the past. Remember Ned Ryerson? He's the dorky insurance salesman who assails Murray's character over and over with obnoxiously inappropriate familiarity and frantic shtick. Finally, Murray can't stand it any more and sucker-punches Ned with a cold-cock right roundhouse, sending him pirouetting into the street.

Now, suppose you have a friend who has never seen Groundhog Day and let's also suppose that the sucker-punch scene is your favorite bit in the film and makes you laugh every time. You don't have the time to show your friend the entire movie, so you fast-forward to the scene in the GIF above. 

"Isn't that a riot?" you ask, barely suppressing snorts of laughter. "Uh, yeah, I guess", offers your friend, "why did he punch him? Is he mad at him? I don't get it."

After a few moments of exasperated impatience with your friend (who never DID appreciate real comedy), a profound truth occurs to you:

It's just not as funny out of context.

We only really find it funny when the punch-moment is a payoff set up by all the previous meetings with Ned during which we came to dread seeing him confronting Murray yet AGAIN. It's not a "joke", it's a "funny moment in a comedy in which humor results from character".  Like that.

This - THIS! is my issue with recitals of opera arias.

I hesitate to mention this, because such recitals constitute a portion of my responsibilities with Virginia Opera. We call our young professional apprentices the "Emerging Artists" or EA's for short. Each season, besides touring the children's operas written by *cough cough* Your Humble Blogger, they present concerts we call "An Evening of Arias and Broadway" at retirement communities, concert halls and other venues around the region. The EA's trot out their audition repertoire, throw in some duets or trios, top it off with four or five tunes from music theater and Bob's your uncle. I often serve as Master of Ceremonies for these, introducing each number with a bit of snappy patter.

People love this. They LOVE it. 

And why wouldn't they? It's all the luscious ear-candy without the boring recitative and dialogue. No soybean meal of plot exposition, just the juicy red meat of Musetta's Waltz, the Toreador Song, and other "Gems of the Opera". There really are people out there who would rather hear such a recital than actually attend a full production.

And it's just not my thing. Why? It's "Ned Ryerson Syndrome":.

Opera is NOT A CONCERT. It's not a collection of nice tunes. It's THEATER.

T.H.E.A.T.E.R.

If you've only heard Musetta's Waltz sung in the curve of the piano, YOU DON"T GET IT. You miss the irony of the situation; namely, that it's being sung by a woman pretending to ignore her former boyfriend when she's actually hoping to drive him insane with desire because she wants him to take her back. You also miss the amused and amusing commentary of the ex-boyfriend's pals as they watch the situation develop. 

If you only know the Toreador Song from seeing some baritone flounce around a concert stage by himself while the pianist pounds away on the keyboard, you miss more irony. See, Carmen is waiting for Don Jose to arrive at the tavern because she's agreed to be his lover in consideration for his having gone to jail for her. But even before he gets there, we see the electric chemistry between the Toreador and the Gypsy woman and we in the audience realize that whatever happens between Carmen and Jose cannot and will not end happily. It's not in her to be a one-woman man, at least not with THAT man, her impending seduction of that man notwithstanding.

And those are fairly upbeat numbers, not moments of high drama like the Miserere from "Trovatore" or Violetta's "Sempre libera". It's even more vital with tragic moments that we know what has happened to these people to cause them to emote so intensely. THAT'S what makes the music masterful, not how pretty the soprano looks in her gown, or how memorable the melody. I want LUMPS IN YOUR THROATS, people, not tapping toes. Sheesh.

Exactly 0% of any of that comes through in the context of a recital with voice and piano, leaving us with merely the memory of a high note nailed or a melody crooned. Big deal. 

Any opera aria suffers when it's heard without the build-up of characters and their interactions that brings us to the moment of that aria. That makes it different from any pop song you hear on the radio.

This even holds true for opera arias that are heard right at the start of an opera, like Radames' "Celeste Aida", the aria heard just as the opera begins. Context doesn't matter there, right? After all, there haven't BEEN any interactions yet; there IS no context. The curtain goes up, and BANG - the tenor is singing away on this pretty tune. So that's the exception, right?

Wrong.

Context can be retroactive, my friend. Once we see everything that Aida is going to put Radames through in the drama that follows, our perception of "Celeste Aida" changes; we see how ironic it was all along. Radames of the final scene isn't as tragic without the sunny innocence and optimism of Radames in the opening moments. The value of his opening aria is not solely its beauty; it's how it serves as a point of reference we'll look back upon later to realize the journey we've taken.

I acknowledge that for many people, arias in and of themselves, and the beauty of the voices singing them, are indeed a portal of entry into the world of opera appreciation. But I also know that for many of those same people, their appreciation never goes any deeper. And they will never truly, really understand the emotional roller coaster of a brilliant - and COMPLETE - operatic production.