O brave new opera that has such music in it!

A reminder - the Met is always with you. They are now on week 65 of their free livestreams, and this week they screen a series of classics in modern settings. Something good most nights. Go here to see the schedule, and remember the screening is a day later our time.

Changing the Scene: Updated Settings for Classic Operas

Pick of the bunch? My choice screens Saturday 12 June our time -

Thomas Adès’sThe Tempest with Simon Keenlyside as a splendidly vindictive Prospero. Here's his final act aria 'Their brains are boiled.'

This production screened several times in these lockdown months, but if you've missed it, don't bypass it this time. The amazing Audrey Luna is Ariel, and a very sweet Isabel Leonard is his precious daughter Miranda and Alan Oke as a truly fascinating Caliban.

Comic characters Iestyn Davies, Kevin Burdette - with Alan Oke as Caliban

Thomas Adès conducts. Production by Robert Lepage. Here's our recent post about it. And more here from the early days of this course when we surveyed operas from Shakespeare.

Then week 66, they offer some operatic fathers for Father's Day!!

A mixed lot of gods and humans, including Wotan, Boris G., and of course pere Germont, Alfredo's stern father - here sung by a gnetle Dmitri Hvorostovsky,

And that takes you on wings of opera across most of June.Thanks, Met.

Lyn, 8 June 21.

A short history of our black opera

In Australia, indigenous opera singers succeeded rarely till recently, a strong comparison with the century-old presence of black singers in America, - despite the overwhelming discrimination against them. In America, there was no recognised indigenous opera till postwar. As NY Times points out, 'That “Porgy and Bess” — written by three white men, the Gershwin brothers and DuBose Heyward — has become known as the quintessential opera of the black American experience is a symbol of both the systemic racism found throughout the arts and the specifically slow-to-modernize nature of the operatic canon.' But there was a long tradition of black 'ambitious music dramas', but operas? There's a brief history here.

In Australia, there was no such tradition until the work of Deborah Cheetham. In 2009, she set up Short Black Opera, a national not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. It began with Pecan Summer, an opera that tells the historic story about the Cummeragunja walk-off. Here's that history and the story of the opera.

"We will cross the river,we'll be together". The walkoff..

Deborah Cheetham as Ella and Jessica Hitchcock as Alice

The goal of Short Black is to provide a ‘clearly defined pathway for Indigenous singers in the world of Classical vocal music and opera’ as well as increasing Indigenous representation in the opera community and sharing Indigenous stories to a wider audience.

Deborah Cheetham describes herself as a “21st century urban woman who is Yorta Yorta by birth, stolen generation by policy, soprano by diligence, composer by necessity and lesbian by practice.” On the Aboriginal Victoria website, she's described as 'A pioneer in the Australian arts landscape'. Here's the start of that story. 'She came to opera through plays and music pieces.Deborah is a member of the Stolen Generations and has spent the last 30 years finding her way back to her grandmother’s Country, Yorta Yorta Country. Born on Yuin Country in Nowra, NSW, she was raised by an adopted family in Sydney and graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Bachelor of Music Education Degree.' Read on here.

In 1995, Deborah Cheetham won a three-month scholarship to train in New York with Juilliard School of Music and the Metropolitan Opera. Back in Australia, she had her first major work, performed, a one woman (autobiographical) play 'White Baptist Abba Fan'. And then an opera - a Fellowship with the Australia Council for the Arts supported her first opera, Pecan Summer. That's where we start this week. It's the story of a young Yorta Yorta woman whose life is torn apart in 1939. Review here. 'Musically, this is an utterly lovely piece of work', wrote this reviewer.

Read and listen to interviews with the composer here.

Ella and Alice are torn apart (left to right Robert Hoffman, Deborah Cheetham Jessica Hitchcock and Rosamund Illing)

What happens when Indigenous cultures are portrayed through opera? We're starting that conversation with Pecan Summer, recognised as the first indigenous opera in Australia. Cheetham's answer is here. “Music is my way of knowing the world and giving meaning to everything in it. As a performer, composer, artistic director, producer and educator I have worked to build pathways for Indigenous artists and new audiences alike. The work continues while there are still more barriers to break through. I draw on the strength of my ancestors every day and thank them for the song that lives in me.”

And how good a vehicle for such a story is opera? There's an account here of the opening night, with Deborah Cheetham's reflection. “Opera tells the big stories, and this is the story of the exodus of a people from their homeland. At the same time, opera is capable of dealing with intimate moments as well. Think of Aida, and that enormous triumphal scene that brings that second act to a close – but the rest of that opera is intimate moments, a love triangle over here, a betrayal over there. It deals with epic scale and intimacy. Pecan Summer is about the epic journey of the Yorta Yorta people, but it’s also about the intimate connection of a mother and a daughter, and what happens when that connection is broken."

Watch it here on SBS On Demand.

The War that launched a lot of operas

The Trojan War stories are second only to the myth of Orpheus for operatic output across the ages. They cover the wide range of opera, from the sweet baroque saga from Monteverdi (1640) of the Return of Odysseus (Ulysses) to Ithaca after the sacking of Troy, and a few years later Purcell's beautiful Dido and Aeneas (1688) to the massive epic account by Berlioz (Les Troyens,1858) of Aeneas' journey from the sacking of Troy to Carthage, to the comedic retelling just a few years later of the cause of it all - Helen's abduction - as told by Offenbach (La belle Hélène, 1864). And more recently, more questioning of our 'heroes' and their epics.

The Trojans haul that horse onto the Covent Garden stage in Les Troyens.

Following Homer, Monteverdi's opera 'tells how constancy and virtue are ultimately rewarded, treachery and deception overcome'. That humans are puppets is established in the opening of this - arguably the first - opera. 'The spirit of human frailty (l'humana Fragilità) is mocked in turn by the gods of time (il Tempo), fortune (la Fortuna) and love (l'Amore). Man, they claim, is subject to their whims: "From Time, ever fleeting, from Fortune's caresses, from Love and its arrows...No mercy from me!"' They will render man "weak, wretched, and bewildered." And where would Odysseus be without Athena? Synopsis here.

The Roundhouse ROH production of Monteverdi's opera

Purcell's opera similarly stresses the frailty of humankind, following Virgil's Aeneid, but its more complicated; he adds evil machinations of the Sorceress and her witches (recognised as representing Roman Catholicism, a common metaphor at the time) in persuading Aeneas to leave Dido, who was seen by commentators as symbolising the British people. Read the debate here.

Berlioz offers a historic epic in which human agency is always plaything of the gods. Troy falls because Cassandra is not believed - we know why she was cursed by Apollo! 'One could say that Les Troyens is not about the love story between Aeneas and Dido, but rather, it's a work about power - political power shaping humankind's history; power that is drawn from a people's destiny.' The opera is explored in detail here.

Here's a fuller reading. 'This operatic epic has many layers of meaning and interpretation. On a superficial level we have the story of the capture of Troy with the deception of the Wooden Horse, democratically voted into the city of Troy. We have the ironic tragedy of Cassandra, cursed with the gift of prophecy, whom no one will believe, although she warns the Trojans of the impending apocalypse to be unleashed from the belly of the Wooden Horse. And we have the love story of Dido and Aeneas, her betrayal by Aeneas, and her tragic suicide. At a deeper level we have the imperialist ambitions of the Trojan, Aeneas, for the conquered Italians to rule the world as the newly formed master race, the Romans. Deeper still is the irony involved in using the music of the suicidal decision to bring in the Wooden Horse – the Trojan March, sacred hymn of the Trojans- as the new national anthem of the Romans. Is not the Trojan Horse a powerful archetype of invasion by deception?' More to think about here.

And was Offenbach just having fun? Wikipedia gives a wonderful account of the reception for his opera then and more recently. And provides this contemporary drawing of the first production: Oreste, Pâris, Hélène and Calchas

What do these stories offer modern opera? That war, its causes and its terrible outcomes are usually portrayed as heroic as well as driven by the gods. To quote a recent paper, Helen is more than a pretty face, her depictions 'bring up questions of how female agency and culpability intertwine in both literature and film, and also how female agency changes and often decreases in the transition from page to screen'. Similarly, the Odyssey is a highly complex tale, and its hero far from perfect.

A fine effort at retelling and rethinking the legend of Odysseus was made in 2015 in a youth opera of stunning beauty and neat, contemporary commentary. 'Since its premiere at The Glimmerglass Festival in 2015, Odyssey has brought Homer’s epic tale to life for young performers and audience members across the country.

How to do Cyclops on an opera stage

The hour-long opera features rollicking choruses, tender ballads, a tango, and a Siren song that conveys“a sense of ageless, timeless beauty” (Opera News). It's available on YouTube, in the version at the other Met - the Museum of Art. Ben Moore composer, Kelley Rourke librettist.

Watch it here.

It's one to warm you in winter and help you reflect on your relatively comfortable lockdown!

Circe turns the sailors to very contented cute pigs!

'This original adventure story is presented in a new musical setting that returns the epic to its roots as a tale meant to be sung (“Sing in me, Muse”). Odysseus faces storms, shipwrecks, monsters, and the gods themselves on his journey home from war and to his wife. Featuring “an ebullient, lyrical score” and a “witty, tightly rhymed libretto,” this Odyssey is “more than just an opera for young audiences … it’s an opera for all ages” (Opera News). Performed in 2017 by members of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, the LiveArts Digital Premiere features visuals drawn from The Met’s stellar collection of ancient Greek art and artifacts.' Here, Odysseus urges the sailors on - and their response is very human!

More to come on Friday....