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New Alceste sets standard for Gluck

Santa Fe
The Santa Fe Opera House
08/01/2009 -  & August 5, 10, 14*, 19
Christoph Willibald Gluck: Alceste
Christine Brewer (Alceste), Paul Groves (Admète), Nicholas Pallesen (herald/high priest), Aaron Blake (Evandre), Wayne Tigges (Hercule), Tom Corbeil (oracle/Infernal God), Matthew Morris (Apollon), Jennifer Forni (Coryphée)
Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Susanne Sheston (chorus master), Kenneth Montgomery (conductor)
Francisco Negrin (stage director), Louis Désiré (set/costume designer), Duane Schuler (lighting designer), Ana Yepes (choreographer)


T. Corbeil, P. Groves, & C. Brewer (© Ken Howard)



Gluck's works present opera directors with certain challenges not found in the rest of the repertoire: what's the best way to deal with extended dance scenes? how do you create believable deus ex machina? and where does the Greek chorus fit into the action of an opera? Stage director Francisco Negrin joined forces with choreographer Ana Yepes and her self-titled dance company to conquer all of these obstacles and more in Santa Fe Opera's new production of Alceste.


Negrin's work with the Greek chorus could not have been better. Instead of extravagance, the director endowed his singers with simple hand motions to convey their melancholy. It worked marvelously, as what could have been tedious stand-and-sing became involved drama with little effort. During the second act celebrations of the king's recovery, the chorus played a vital part in the stage action without overtaking it, their sleek black robes giving them a uniformity mirroring their collective thought process. Negrin truly had them working as one entity, with facial expressions overtaking all at the same time, various grumblings rising up in unison, and invocations of the gods taking an appropriately fearful tone. The vocals were outstanding (a welcome surprise given the chorus' inconsistency this summer in Santa Fe), and the myriad company apprentices forming the group acquitted themselves well.


No weak links existed among the soloists. Dramatic soprano Christine Brewer gave a rousing performance in the title role. Despite the fact that Negrin had her sit in a chair during "Divinités du Styx" and other of Alceste's ariosi, Brewer's powerful voice commanded her scenes and gave more than enough dramatic capital to the Santa Fe audience. Her encounter in the second act with the Admète of Paul Groves was particularly poignant, as the soprano used her entire voice (employing well-executed straight tone) to prove she isn't just a Wagnerite. As King Admète, French specialist Groves proved a force to be reckoned with onstage. During the second act, Groves raged constantly, tossing chairs and slamming his fists about the sets in an effort to cull the identity of the person who gave her life for his own. The Louisiana native's vocals carried the trademark elegance that made the tenor famous. Surprisingly, Groves showed off a good deal of weight in his middle register, almost obligatory for the frenzied state of the character. Unfortunately, the tradeoff came in his top which at times sounded pinched. At the end of the night, though, he had left everything on stage and was rewarded warmly by the Santa Fe audience. Also of note: the king and queen of Groves and Brewer deserve particular credit for their professionalism during the second act on August 14th, when a technical glitch turned on all the in-house lights at full brightness while toying with those onstage. Brewer and Groves didn't miss a beat in their scene, and continued as if in their own world.


Wayne Tigges looked the part as Hercules. His luxurious casting in the important but small role was a coup for the company, as Tigges' strong lyric bass matched his character to a tee. The company's apprentice artists also played an important part in the production. Nicholas Pallesen as the herald turned in a fine performance, booming his rich baritone throughout the house and playing an excellent leader of the chorus. Bass Tom Corbeil as the Infernal God had perhaps the most stage time of any apprentice this season, with a catch – his character sings for about three minutes. During the rest of the opera, Corbeil moved both gracefully and menacingly about stage as the silent leader of his demonic minions. When he did sing, he showed off a formidable bass with good diction despite seeming stretched at his top. Credit goes to Corbeil for showing he can do more than just sing. Soprano Jennifer Forni as Coryphée rose to the challenge of her title, almost stealing the show during her "Parez vos fronts" at the beginning of the second act. The apprentice displayed a rich, warm voice of ample size. Apart from Brewer and Groves, Forni was the only singer who clearly knew how to straddle the vocal line between Gluck's baroque-classical style; for the soprano to have shown this in only a few short minutes of singing is quite a feat. Conductor Kenneth Montgomery didn't bring anything new out of Gluck's score but kept the orchestra on their toes musically and was attentive not only to the singers but also to the dancers during their lengthy sections on stage.


Choreographer Ana Yepes (daughter of famed Spanish guitarist Narciso Yepes) and her eponymous company took on the assignment of filling the dance scenes. To say Yepes scored a success would be an understatement. The Spaniard divided her forces, placing several dancers amongst the chorus, several with Corbeil as his ministers of Hades, and others amongst the gods themselves. Yepes (who herself danced in the production) showed an intuition for the opera stage lost on many contemporary choreographers—she knew what enhanced scenes and avoided blocking that would diminish the progress of the opera itself. Her dancers in the chorus kept it simple enough to where they blended in with the singers, and her dancers in Hades used a sort of leitmotiv of hand motions off of which all interactions with each other and the mortals derived. The fact that Yepes employed such a pattern gave the dancers the permanence that the opera requires. Yepes' Hades dancers in particular repeated these variations on a dance theme, created the aura that death was always present, could not be escaped, and life itself fell into this same rhythm, just as their dances. The impromptu pas de deux during Alceste's second act lament was one of the most elegant short dance pieces I've ever seen in an opera, with two of the group's dancers horizontally molding their bodies to each other in a slow, athletic piece that oozed not only eroticism but romance as well. The only slight drawback to the dancers was that they at times took center stage during important vocal scenes, drawing attention away from the singers who were moving the action forward.


The set design also rose to the standards of the production team. Cast members adorned period dress against a set comprised of barren wall with a large sphere serving partially as Admète's throne and partially as the home of the gods. A few trees and chairs sparsely decorated the ground, but apart from this it was the job of master lighting designer Duane Schuler to manipulate the mood. Schuler used predictable but poignant deep red hues to suggest the impending descent Alceste would take into Hades, and his careful lighting of the gods and of the sphere in which the Infernal God resided created a foreboding atmosphere, even during the scenes of jubilation. Schuler's use of offstage lighting to create shadows kept the idea of death present at all times. During the final act, the sets closed in from the sides to reveal an outer shell that represented Hades. A simple staircase stood on the otherwise black background; again, Schuler's keen lighting highlighted the differences between the mortals and the gods of the underworld – without his guiding hand the production would have been much less interesting.


Negrin's work in this production can't be overstated. The way the Spaniard had gods and mortals interact and the fire he inspired in Paul Groves were marvels in and of themselves. Overly dramatic gestures that doom other Greek-based operas to drivel worked well against Negrin's sets and in context with his cast. The only curious aspect of the production came in the form of a sheer banner which read "la mort" and wrapped around various doomed cast members. One of the less intentional light-hearted sections of the production came when Hercules, Alceste and Admète fought to change the outcome of the gods' victim by playing a game of tug-of-war with the banner itself. Apart from this, Negrin and his collaboration with Yepes was a smashing success. They brought the best out of soloists, chorus, and dancers – you couldn't ask for more.


Any company interested in staging a Gluck work – or for that matter any opera based on a Greek text – should use Santa Fe Opera's new production of Alceste as a guide. Simply put: it really was that good.



Paul Wooley

 

 

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