Anchors Aweigh

Ben Heppner and cast of Moby-Dick Photo: Ken Howard/SDO 2012

Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s version of the Pequod sailed into the port town of San Diego this weekend. And while things didn’t go much better for Captain Ahab and his crew, the opera Moby-Dick fared pretty well in its West Coast premiere at San Diego Opera on Saturday. The show first surfaced in landlocked Dallas, TX in 2010 to fairly glowing reviews. (I myself had several reservations at the time.) And despite some fateful changes in casting, this solid, enjoyable show is rolling into California not only in San Diego, but San Francisco as well later this fall. Moby-Dick has all the qualities that should make it as successful as Heggie’s prior opera Dead Man Walking, and on a second viewing, the things that it had going for it before are still clearly assets. It has an accessible score, well written libretto and enough spectacle to please most audiences. It’s undoubtedly an opera in every sense of the word, and though it doesn’t push boundaries, it will undoubtedly make its own fans.

Jonathan Lemalu and Jonathan Boyd Photo: Ken Howard/SDO 2012

I’m increasingly impressed with Gene Scheer’s libretto. It’s smart in so many ways managing to stay clearly focused on a few of Melville’s central themes and creating some dramatic tension around them. He must still deal with the episodic nature of the novel and the fact that nothing much happens in it until the whale shows up for the big rumble in the end. But Scheer shrewdly picks and chooses the story elements that are left behind, giving everyone in the ensemble cast their turn to shine. There is poetry here, but nothing that sounds silly or wince inducing. Then there is Leonard Foglia’s attractive and well thought-out production with sets designed by Robert Brill and extensive projected video material originally from Elaine J McCarthy and revived under Shawn Boyle. The single curved plane that rises into the flyspace is filled with ropes and sail-like scrims that move about with the changing scenes. The video component is extensive using both the sails and the back wall as a surface for any number of scenic elements. Perhaps the most exciting are the boat outlines that the cast appear to be riding in as they lower into the sea to hunt whales. The show is good looking with plenty of motion, and Foglia knows what to do with the large chorus and cast to keep them from looking like they’re just standing around on a boat deck.

Talise Trevigne as Pip Photo: Ken Howard/SDO 2012

Heggie’s music continues to be the weakest thing about the show. That isn’t to say that it isn’t lovely at times, and it has the kind of proverbial “hummable tunes” audiences supposedly want. Conductor Joseph Mechavich who led the opera in its second outing in Calgary, gave the score a very favorable performance with San Diego’s orchestra forces. There are memorable arias for Ahab, Greenhorn, and Starbuck, and well as a tenor and baritone duet in the climactic scene. But the shadow cast by Britten’s Billy Budd can’t be escaped, and while Heggie tries to shake it, the overall sound palette here is comparatively tepid. Moby-Dick avoids being a rehash of Britten, but it doesn’t necessarily strike out on its own to say something different either. The overall strong cast is nearly identical to the Dallas premiere. Morgan Smith makes a very sexy and vocally resonant Starbuck who becomes the centerpiece of the show. His scene debating whether or not to kill Ahab while he sleeps is one of the highlights of the show. Jonathan Lemalu is again Queequeg who opens the show with a prayer in his character’s native tongue. Talise Trevigne reprises her bright sounding young pants role as Pip. She has a lot to do physically here including an aria sung while suspended with fly wires that was quite touching. The new member to the cast was Jonathan Boyd taking over the role of Greenhorn created by Stephen Costello. He’s got one of the trickier bits in the opera with the closing scene and he excelled here making the moment feel weighty and not slipping into unintended comedy.

Ben Heppner and Morgan Smith Photo: Ken Howard/SDO 2012

Of course, there is also the matter of the Ahab, tenor Ben Heppner. Heppner created the role in Dallas and was not scheduled to return to it again in California, with Jay Hunter Morris taking his place. But oh what a difference Wagner’s music makes on fortunes in the opera world. After some exceedingly rocky vocal patches for Heppner including his appearance as Lohengrin at L.A. Opera in December 2010, he began backing out of commitments almost as quickly as Morris began booking them. Morris is now starring as Siegfried on the big screen for the Metropolitan Opera and booking A-cast Wagner roles right and left around the world. Meanwhile, Heppner is back in the role he created now in California. He’s an imposing and troubled Ahab and considering he spends all of the opera hobbling about with his knee on a peg leg, he provides the show with its darker elements. But sadly, his vocal troubles continue. He struggled much more than in Dallas with cracking and strain in much of the upper register. Here’s hoping things pick up for him, but in his current state, it’s hard to imagine how he’s going to pull off Tristan opposite Nina Stemme in Houston in 2013.

Moby-Dick may be the ideal opera for those audiences who don’t think they like contemporary music. It’s not a radical move, and there is pleasant music to listen to. It has a well-written dramatic story with plenty of excitement, and while it’s not a story filled with romance, it does have somewhere to go. And arriving at the end, you do feel you’ve traveled somewhere with these believable characters. There are three more performances over the next several days in San Diego and for those of you up north, you’ll get your chance later this year in San Francisco.

UPDATE: San Diego Opera announced this evening that Ben Heppner has withdrawn from the next performance of Moby-Dock on Tuesday February 21 and the role of Ahab will instead be sung by Jay Hunter Morris.

Careful What You Wish For

Lise Lindstrom as Salome Photo: Ken Howard/SDO 2012

Opera, like most other natural phenomena, travels south for the winter in California. Which means it’s time for the opening of the San Diego Opera 2012 season which kicked off Saturday night with a first-rate performance of Strauss’ Salome. Based on Wilde’s faithful play of the classical Biblical tale, Salome continues to be one of the more shocking and outright graphic of all operas. This is abetted, of course, by one of the most shocking scores in 20th-century music, one that serves as the starting point of Alex Ross’ great survey of the topic, The Rest is Noise. When done as well as it is currently in San Diego, it’s as unnerving now as it was a century ago.

So what makes a good, Salome? Well first an orchestra playing as well as the San Diego Symphony Orchestra did under Stuart Bedford. After a bit of a tenuous start, they dug in admirably with a difficult often-raging score that can lurk in some intensely beautiful lyrical passages before lunging unexpectedly for the throat. The production, originally commissioned by Opera Theater Saint Louis, comes from choreographer turned director Seán Curran. It’s a bland single room that looks like some abandoned sewer with a large covered circular opening at the back that serves as the cistern. The costumes are mostly modern dress with a few accents that might suggest the Middle Eastern setting of the piece, and the whole thing relies heavily on Chris Maravich’s lighting design for any visual punch. I wasn’t crazy about the production last time it surfaced in San Francisco and am still puzzled by some elements. (Still with those copper-colored shin guards for some reason.)

Lise Lindstrom, with Sean Panikkar and Greer Grimsley, as Salome Photo: Ken Howard/SDO 2012

But casting makes all the difference in some instances, and this plain production coursed to life with the enormously talented Lise Linsdtrom in the title role. That she looks gorgeous in this physically demanding role is one thing. But the fact that she can actually sing the part, and do so much better than most, is another matter all together. Her tone is even and well placed without ever turning shrill or her having to yell, a not uncommon occurrence in this particular role. She cuts through the orchestra readily when she needs to, and her final monologue on the mysteries of love and death came off as fresh and authentic. We’ll take some more of her please, and soon. And then there’s that dance. Lindstrom takes Curran’s twist on the dance of the seven veils by making it less of a striptease and a bit more contemporary with Salome using various bolts of cloth to engage, cajole, and tease Herod. Lindstrom makes the whole thing sexy in a way that is surprisingly understated and direct.

She has quite good colleagues around her on stage. Allan Glassman gives one of the more complex performances of Herod than I’ve seen in a while and avoided barking or mincing around the stage. Sean Panikkar was a sweet-voiced Narraboth and Irina Mishura avoided making Herodias overly campy, another common pitfall. Popular American bass-baritone Greer Grimsley sang one of his signature roles with Jochanaan and looked every bit as seductive as Salome imagines him to be. Oddly, his booming sound came clearest where I was sitting when Jochanaan was singing off-stage from within the cistern and somewhat muddier when he was onstage bare-chested and in chains. In any event, this is a show that works in the biggest moments and is blessed with talents both onstage and in the pit that make a great evening out of the most basic elements.