Last night was the Opening Night performance of the Seattle Opera's 50th anniversary season. It was Donizetti's comic opera La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment).
I subscribed to two seats for the season, but couldn't find anybody available to come along tonight, so a ghost accompanied the seat next to me, and it turns out they actually quite enjoy opera. In any case, this was also my first time sitting in my subscription seats for an opera performance, and I must say I really like them. In fact, I might not move them at all even if I could afford any seat in the house.
Speight Jenkins took to the stage before the performance began, again receiving a vivacious applause very much like he did during the Ring when he came out to announce that their Brünnhilde was sick. This time when the crowd finally quieted, the first thing he did was to reassure everybody that nobody is sick. Then he acknowledged the opening of the 50th anniversary season, and asked those "charter subscribers" who had been subscribing for all 50 years to stand up. There were two or three of them that I could spot. Quite impressive. After that conductor Yves Abel entered the pit to begin the overture.
I'm semi-familiar with this opera due to the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD performance from a few years ago, with Natalie Dessay playing the role of Marie, the daughter of the regiment. There isn't a lot of really great music in it, but there are some deep moments, and certainly a lot of laughs. Opera houses take many liberties with a piece like this, inserting all kinds of jokes all over the place. Many of the jokes from the Met weren't seen tonight, but there were many new ones cooked up in this production that were nowhere to be found in the Met performance.
The overture was played very well. It's an extremely long, boring overture, but it was played as well as it could be played, and sparkled with life most of the time in spite of itself. Finally the curtain went up on a tavern in Tyrol, where the first act took place.
A regiment of the French army is stationed in Tyrol, led by Sergeant Sulpice (sung by Alexander Hajek). They have amongst them a girl that they found as an infant and brought up to be their daughter. The other principal characters we are introduced to at the beginning are the Marquise of Birkenfeld and her servant, Hortensius. The Marquise is a rich lady who wants to return to her mansion and doesn't bode well with war going on around her. The two of them make a comic duo, played by Joyce Castle and Karl Marx Reyes. Castle was a little bit on the older side, and it was beginning to show in her voice, but she had all the self-expression and humor necessary to make the role come to life. Hortensius was rather dryly interpreted in this production though. He looked a bit like a doctor, and he never engaged in any humor or antics that were extremely memorable.
Marie was sung by an excellent Sarah Coburn, who had a beautiful voice, great technique, and also acted quite well. And Tonio, her lover, was played by Lawrence Brownlee, a young tenor with a wonderful, creamy voice, but who unfortunately was quite a bit shorter than Coburn, making them a slightly awkward pair.
Throughout the first act the cast was all around wonderful, and the orchestra as well. There were absolutely no togetherness issues between the orchestra and singers, which seems to be the norm at the Seattle Opera fortunately. Coburn and Hajek were wonderful in their first duet where they sing about how the regiment found Marie as a baby and brought her up. The chorus of men (the regiment) were also very good, and several of the men were very involved in their acting, which is always nice.
Brownlee did amazingly with the famous aria with the nine high Cs, and received quite an ovation from the audience. He also was very good at the random insertions of humor that kept the audience laughing. A couple of his moments in particular stick in my mind; absolutely priceless. Of course, those things are much easier to be good at than great musicality.
What ends up happening in the first act is that the Marquise discovers that Marie is her own daughter (though she pretends it's merely her niece at first), and she takes her away to try to assimilate her into the aristocratic culture that is her birthright. This greatly saddens the regiment, and Tonio obviously, who has joined the regiment by this point in order to be able to marry Marie. Marie has a gorgeous sad aria towards the end of the act, "Il faut partir," (literally 'It is necessary to leave') and then the act comes to a close shortly after that.
I wandered around the McCaw Hall lobby during intermission, making my way through the various levels. I didn't find anyone I knew, and eventually the 30 minute intermission came to an end and I returned to my seat.
The second act takes place entirely in the Marquise's mansion, and from the beginning evoked a great deal more laughter from the audience than the first act did. This is not a criticism of the first act; I think this is always the case with this opera. The situation in the second act presents much more opportunity for wacky slapstick humor to be inserted, and this production and cast capitalized on it very well.
Much of the dialog in the second act (and I believe to a lesser degree in the first act) was different than what I remember from the Met production. I only have these two productions to go by, but it seems that with a comic opera with spoken dialog between the pieces, much liberty can be taken to shape it in different ways.
The Marquise is trying to teach Marie how to be a respectable lady, mostly by having her sing lieder with her accompanying on the piano. Sulpice is there as well, and with his help Marie keeps falling into songs from the regiment, greatly frustrating the old Marquise. There was also a butler guy in the mansion who would start dancing gleefully every time Marie and Sulpice would pick the music up into a jollier rhythm and sing about the regiment. That butler was actually the most popular comical insertion in the production; you'd have to see him to understand why. The laughter was sustained, I'll say that much.
The Marquise has arranged to marry Marie to the Duke of Krakenthorp, which will give her honor and a name and all that. Tonio and the regiment show up, and Tonio sings a beautiful aria to the Marquise, explaining how much he loves Marie (Brownlee was again excellent here), but plans for the wedding to the Duke continue. Eventually the guests begin to arrive, at which point a very daring comical insertion presented itself. Where normally there would just be music playing and the guests piling into the mansion, in this production they had the pairs of guests hand cards with their names to Hortensuis, who would call out who they are, and they were all from different regions of the Seattle area. The first was "The Baron and Baroness of Medina," and then there was a pair from Puyallup, and from Hunts Point, etc. The audience laughed with each one even as the joke got old. I guess it didn't get old that quickly.
Then the Duchesse of Krakenthorp appeared, played by Peter Kazaras. That's right, a man played the Duchesse. He was all puffed up in a dress, with makeup and everything; it was quite a hoot. Some more priceless moments of comedy followed his... er, I mean her entrance, and she ended up singing an Offenbach song with the Marquise on the piano.
Of course the Marquise ends up changing her mind about the wedding and allows Marie to marry Tonio, and everyone is happy except for the Duchesse and the guests, who are caricatures of snobby nobility.
The second act was practically non-stop laughs and really complimented the first act very well. The performances from all involved were again very good throughout this act, and although it was opening night there seemed to be no glitches of any kind.
After the curtain went down at the end, the music of the second act of Die Walküre came storming into my head, as if to remind me that this was a fun show, but dramatic opera is practically a different genre, and one which I much prefer. Rigoletto is coming up in January, and I plan to see it at least three times.
Until then, the Seattle Opera is definitely still on top of its game!
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