December 13, 2009: End-of-semester opera at the San Francisco Conservatory

The full-length opera prepared for the fall semester at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music was Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.  Since this is a one-act opera that takes less than an hour to perform, three of Purcell's songs were performed as an "overture" to this afternoon's performance:  "Nymphs and Shepherds Come Away," "Man is for the Woman Made," and "I Attempt from Love's Sickness to Fly."  These were sung to harpsichord accompaniment, while the music for the opera was provided by a string quartet with guitar and harpsichord continuo.  The production was staged by Richard Harrell, Director of the Opera Program, assisted by Heather Mathews;  and music direction was by Kathryn Cathcart.

Working with relatively minimal resources, Harrell's staging was most effective.  As Mathews had done in the Family Opera staging of Hansel and Gretel, he tended to play up the comic side of the malevolent forces behind this tragedy, a contralto Sorceress and the two witches that assist her, both sopranos.  Both the witches and their supporting chorus sang with nasal voices that made of an eerie sound;  but Harrell endowed the witches with a playful quality, somewhat reminiscent of Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein, particularly in those moments when he was straining Gene Wilder's patience.  This comic relief is a great asset in the context of the libretto by Nahum Tate, which rarely rises above the tedium of inflated language and overly predictable rhyming schemes.  Consider this bit for Aeneas in the grove scene that takes place after a successful hunt at which he had killed a stag:

Behold, upon my bending spear
A monster's head stands bleeding,
With tushes far exceeding
Those did Venus' huntsman tear.

For those who know the word only as the diminutive of the Yiddish tuchis, "tush" is an archaic English predecessor of "tusk."  Comic relief goes a long way when the author is laughable when trying to be serious, and there is good reason to believe that Tate actually intended some his scenes in such a comic sense.  Most critical is that the announcement that Aeneas and his crew are setting sail for Italy, the crucial decision that will lead to Dido's suicide, is delivered as a drunken sailor's song.  Finding the right mood of delivery for each episode in the libretto is thus a bit like walking a tightrope, and Harrell negotiated that tightrope excellently.

The successful staging provided some compensation for shortcomings in the musical performance.  This was primarily a technical problem of inconsistent intonation, most evident in the sharp distinctions of tone between the two violinists.  Fortunately, the singers could usually rely on the harpsichord for pitch;  and their delivery was far more secure in both solo and group passages.

Baroque opera can be a risky business.  For all the musical virtues, the dramatic elements tend to come across as archaic to modern day audiences;  and, when the libretto is in English, that archaic sense is even more pronounced.  Similarly, while the melodies and harmonies are readily accessible, getting the sound right can be challenging, particularly to those who spend most of their time cultivating a nineteenth-century repertoire.  Today's performance may not have hit on all cylinders, but the staging was successful enough to throw the whole affair in a most positive light.