One thing I have talked about very little in my blog is Opera- and I can’t say that I’ve been inundated with cards and letters from people who regret this. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if I did full-length opera reviews in this blog, my hits would go from 2017 to minus 412 in one fell swoop.
But in this case, I can’t resist the urge to say something about the opera which Marshall and I saw on Tuesday night at the Lyric because in more than twenty seasons of going to the Lyric Opera of Chicago, we’re pretty certain that this was the most wonderful night of them all. And when you consider that there are eight operas every season (and for a couple of seasons there were nine – and one year they added the four operas of Wagner’s Ring Cycle) that adds up to a lot of opera over the years.
But Tuesday night’s opera was probably the peak. The opera itself is rarely done because it’s long and difficult and requires probably the largest orchestra of any opera ever written. (Older operas by composers like Handel require only a small chamber orchestra in the pit- but the operas by Wagner and Strauss require a not-so-small army of musicians. And in an opera like the Strauss work we saw this week, the musicians are crammed into the pit like sardines. . . and that’s not even counting the offstage brass or the wind machine (which technically speaking is part of the orchestra.) And every one of those musicians is paid, so this is a tremendously costly opera to mount. Moreoever, you have to comb the world to find singers who can sing these murderously difficult roles. So if this work shows up on an opera house’s schedule, it’s quite a rare treat- – – and it’s also an opera that more often than not will disappoint on some level. There’s lots of magic in the story that’s tough to bring off, and musically it’s a beast to perform. (It dates from the early twentieth century, so it’s a somewhat modern score- very romantic-sounding but incredibly complex.)
But Tuesday night was a night of undiluted splendor. . . and Marshall and I sat there for much of the night with our jaws hanging down in dumbstruck awe at the level of singing we were hearing. It’s safe to say that we were hearing the best sung performance you could possibly hear today- and we were also hearing singing who probably stack up very favorably with anyone who has EVER sung this opera.
Oops – I haven’t said the name of the opera yet. That’s what happens when an opera fan gets excited about something. You find yourself riding the waves of your passion and forget about certain basic information or about matters of organization and order, because the excitement of it all is what seems to matter and that’s what this night was all about – sheer excitement.
Oops – I STILL haven’t said the name of the opera. It’s called Die Frau ohne Schatten, which means The Woman WIthout Shadow. It’s by a composer named Richard Strauss, whose most famous music is actually an orchestral theme which became the main theme for 2001: A Space Odyssey. And that little bit of music gives you some idea of the majesty and mystery of his best music. It’s a weird story and because I arrived at the opera house right before it started, I didn’t get to read the synopsis in the program- but Marshall said that wouldn’t have helped a whole lot anyway. This story is weird. The title character is the Empress, and her shadowless state means that she can’t bear children- and that’s something she wants, so she and her evil nurse go down to earth to essentially persuade/ trick the wife of a Dyer (someone who dyes fabric, as it turns out) to relinquish her shadow. At some point, the Empress’ husband turns to stone (I still don’t know why) and there’s a Falcon that’s supposed to fly around the stage (I don’t know why) – and at the end everyone lives happily ever after, and I have almost no idea why or how. It’s strange for me to be so in-the-dark about an opera I’ve seen; I like to know the story before I get there, and I know the popular operas pretty thoroughly. But this one left me scratching my head for most of the evening.
But I didn’t care – and neither did Marshall – because we were hearing the most amazing singing. In particular, we were hearing two of the best Strauss singers that have ever lived, Deborah Voigt and Christine Brewer. You may have heard of the former because her story has been in People magazine and elsewhere. She was dismissed from an opera production in England because the director thought she was too obese – and in the wake of the scandal which that caused, Ms. Voigt had gastric bypass surgery and has slimmed down considerably. And she sings divinely in this music. Ms. Brewer is just now coming into her own professionally and may be the hottest female opera commodity right now. She possesses a mammoth voice- probably the single most impressive voice I have ever heard in all these years at the Lyric – huge and gorgeous. She’s less well known because she wanted to stick close to home (St, Louis) in order to raise her daughter, and it’s only now that she’s left home that her mom is free to accept offers from the Met and elsewhere. So this was her debut at the Lyric and her performance left us stunned. She was truly amazing.
And afterwards, I got to procure her autograph and chat with her for a few moments. She is a delightfully down to earth woman without pretense – someone who has done plenty of living outside of the opera stage and practice room- and made of sturdy midwestern stock. And I hope she will be singing this well for a long long long long time to come.
It was so fun to meet our cellist friend Laura afterwards and to tell her how much we loved the performance. And as we talked with her, the artistic director of the Lyric and the conductor of this performance, Sir Andrew Davis, walked by. Laura flagged him down, they chatted for a second, and then she gestured to us and said “Sir Andrew, you must hear what my two friends have to say about this performance.” And right then and there, we told him that in twenty-plus years of season tickets at the Lyric, this was the best thing we had ever seen or heard. And the smile that came over his face was priceless. He knows better than anybody how tough this opera is to bring off. . .and although he had to know how wonderfully they had succeeded in this supreme challenge, I’m sure he was delighted to know that someone in the audience knew it too.
One thing – one very important thing – that made the night as special as it was is that I could enjoy it with my partner in crime over these last two decades, Marshall. Together we’ve enjoyed some very good nights and some fairly good nights, endured some mediocre nights and cringed through a couple of evenings of sheer awfulnesss. It was nice to be able to share together a night when the whole universe seemed to align itself for a performance of sheer perfection which we will remember for as long as we live.
Okay, that’s enough opera. Tomorrow some profound thoughts on the Packers.
pictured: the curtain call for Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Lyric. In this particular shot, Sir Andrew Davis – the conductor – has just come out for his bow and his acknowledging the orchestra. In the front row of soloists right behind him, Christine Brewer (brown) and Deborah Voigt (gray-blue) are the two singers at the center.