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Carol Benet

Carol Benet

Aug 05 2024
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“Der Rosenkavalier” at Santa Fe Opera Festival 2024

By Carol Benet

“Der Rosenkavalier” at Sante Fe Opera

Carol Benet

Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” with the libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal at Sante Fe Opera festival 2024 could not have had a better production.  The fantastic third act is a deconstruction and amplification to the original.  The opera is the story of an aging aristocrat, the 32 year old  Marshallin (Rachel Willis-Sørensen), who is having an affair with a 17 year old Count Octavian (Paula Murrihy) and its aftermath.  

Aging and the passing  of time are the main themes of Strauss’ famous opera of 1911  The tale is timeless and the portrayal of Viennese society of the time historical.  The boorish uncle of the Marshallin Baron Ochs (Matthew Rose) pursues women of all levels of society and here he chases the maid Mariandel, non other than Octavian dressed as a woman, and Sophie (Ying Fang), the rich daughter of Herr von Faninal (Zachary Nelson).  Och’s marriage to Sophie would satisfy both him and Faninal wishing to elevate family’s social standing.  Baron Ochs, like many nobles, is in need of money.

“Der Rosenkavalier” is a four hour opera with one long intermission needed to change the set for the 3rd act.   Gary McCann’s set is brilliantly conceived and executed along with his fanciful costumes of traditional aristocracy in wild abandon of party goers. The third act is a dream scene when all the former pregnant victims and the illegitimate  children of the predatory Ochs come back to haunt him.  It is in a claustrophobic room set in two psychedelic colored neon-framed boxes.  Ochs is imprisoned in this a room with all his victims from which he cannot escape. Matthew Rose’s portrayal of Ochs with his excellent bass voice and comic acting  is one of the highlights of this production.  He is perfectly played as an overweight, toupee wearing bore whose name Ochs (“ox” in German) is appropriate.   Maybe Strauss is turning in his grave at this re-enactment of Act 3 but the audience loved it.

The correct coupling takes place at the end when Sophie and Octavian are together yet the Marschshallin blesses them both in this inevitable end of her affair. Sørensen aria’s and duets with Octavian are wonderful in her strong soprano voice and fine acting.  Ying Fang’s voice is gorgeous as Sophie and Rose’s acting and singing ability as Ochs enlivens the entire production.

Conductor Karina Canellakis presented a lively rendition of the music that was fun loving and at time filled with pathos as the Marschallin reflects on her life.  Bruno Ravella’s direction of this complicated and demanding opera is excellently creative.  I hope the production moves on to other venues.  It should.

“Der Rosenkavalier”  runs through August 15, 2024 at the Sante Fe Opera.  

Aug 05 2024
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Santa Fe Opera 2024

By Carol Benet

Sante Fe Opera Festival 2024

Carol Benet

In the middle of the most gorgeous scenery in the United States, with art everywhere and the dozens of restaurants with delicious food, Sante Fe in northern New Mexico boasts of one of the most important opera events in the world, the Sante Fe Opera Festival.

Operas takes place July and August in an architecturally splendid outdoor auditorium seating more than 2000 (Polshek Partnership Architects and acousticians Purcell & Noppe & Associates). Some operas are timed so that they start just before and during sunset so the wonderful  open background on the stage for two operas this season is filled with rich colors of the western vista introducing the universal and timeless beauty of nature.  

The 2024 season features five operas with one world premiere and four beloved classics.  “The Righteous” with music by Gregory Spears and libretto by former poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, is a slog,  It is over three hours of a story that tries to incorporate too many themes drawn from the 1980’s such as feminism, the war on drugs, Mid-East conflict, AIDS, political power grabs, unfaithful husbands, hypocritical preachers, social inequality and the such.  The opera needed a serious editing job that would let it focus on one or only a few of these important themes.

But the production was in place with conductor Jordan de Souza, director Kevin Newbury, set designer Mimi Lien and costumes by Devario Simmons, Japhy Weideman lighting designer and chorus master Susanne Sheston.

Both the wife and budding feminist Michele (Jennifer Johnson Cano),  the countertenor Jonathan (Anthony Roth Costanzo) with his closeted love for the preacher showed both vocal and acting expertise.  The opera deals with the question of who is “righteous” and the spiritual search for truth and good these ordinary characters seek.  The production borders on the soap opera level.

Two of the other operas in the season were the kind that make the Sante Fe Festival famous.  The comic “The Elixir of Love” by Gaetano Donizetti has an update to the 1940s in a small Italian town.  The simple story of an itinerant salesman Dulcamara (Alfredo Daza) who peddles a remedy that he claims can cure everything.  The poor car mechanic Nemorino (Jonah Hoskins) is in love with Adina (Yaritza Véliz) and buys the phony love potion.  Adina falls for the army bigwig Belcore (Luke Sutliff)  and they are to marry when Nemorino, who has inherited a fortune, intervenes and the right couple is united.  

Director Stephen Lawless has brought this favorite classic comic opera to a new level with a flashy red car from the period and characters flitting around in real motorcycles.  Ashley Martin-Davis’s costumes and set are colorful and fun.  Roberto Kalb’s conducting of the fine orchestra and Susanne Sheston’s choral direction are top-knot.

Also during the season is the favorite Verdi’s “La Traviata” which was a pure pleasure.  The  Armenian soprano Mané Galoyanb as Violetta was as fine a singer as actress in this heart throbbing story  of a courtesan in love with Alfredo (Bekhzod Davronov) whose father Giorgio (Alfredo Daza) intervenes to save the marriage prospects of his daughter.  Galoyanb has a bright future ahead.

“La Traviata” is filled with beautiful areas and ensembles throughout.  The director Louisa Muller has brought a new staging (set and costumes by Christopher Oram) placing the opera in Paris of the 30s before the Nazi occupation when everyone was in a party mode.  The parties here are wild as if the era was coming to an end as it was. Choreographer Matthew Steffens helps with the lively fun-loving scenes.  Conductor Corrado Rovaris is masterful in bringing out the joyful scenes as well as the deeply pathetic ones.  

Two more operas “Der Rosenkavalier” and “Don Giovanni” are on the roster for the Sante Fe Opera Festival that ends on August 24. 2024.

santefeopera.org or 1 800-280-4654
505-986-5900

 

Aug 04 2024
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“Don Giovanni” at Santa Fe Opera

By Carol Benet

“Don Giovanni” at Santa Fe Opera

Carol Benet

One of the most popular opera’s ever written, Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”, is currently through August 23, 2024 at the  Santa Fe Opera. 

With an undated concept by director Stephen Barlow  and set and costume designer Yannis Tavoris, it is placed in Victorian London.  Their idea to make it  a sort of Oscar Wildean “Picture of Dorian Gray” yet the idea is only minimally achieved.  The set, artist painting a portrait and several of Giovanni on the wall refer to the novel. And If you are close to the stage, you can see  the portrait’s age changes at times.  I was in mid-auditorium and could not see this.  

Nevertheless, the success of  the novel idea or not, this production was a great success.  It was amazing that Rachel Willis-Sørensen could step into the demanding role of Donna Anna at the last moment.  This fabulous soprano beautifully sang the grilling 4 hour performance of “Der Rosenkavalier” that I saw the night before.  As Anna in Giovanni she was equally spectacular.

“Don Giovanni” is a Don Juan story with a rapacious Don (Ryan Speedo Green) chasing anything wearing a skirt.  His servant Leporello’s (Nicholas Newton) famous aria recounts the  lists of his conquests, country by country, ending with Spain -over one thousand.

As it opens, Giovanni is running away from Donna Anna whose father has saved her from an attack.  The father Il Commendatore (Soloman Howard) chases Giovanni and is shot dead.  The rest of the opera is more conquests and eventual punishment for the Giovanni’s many rapes and the murder.

The action takes place on a rotating stage with scenes in the lobby and the outside entrance to the tony Savoy Hotel plus Giovanni’s portrait laden apartment.   Donna Elvira (Rachael Wilson), one of his conquests, pines for Giovanni throughout and there is much interaction between her and the Don and later Leporello with whom the Don has exchanged clothes to escape being caught.  

The Don also desires the servant girl Zerlina (Liv Redpath) on the night of her wedding to Masetto (William Guanbo Su).  He could do this legally due to  “le droit du seigneur”.  Donna Anna’s fiancé Don Ottavio (David Portillo) consoles Anna and helps her avenge her father’s murder .  His wonderful tenor voice sings two important arias. and the many ensembles.  In the end Giovanni is punished by the ghost of Il Commodore.

The opera has one famous song after another starting with the overture that anticipates many of them.  The singers in this performance are all excellent and well experienced in the great opera houses of the world including the Metropolitan (Willis-Sørensen, Green, Newton, Portillo, Howard, Su, Redpath).

Chorus Master Susanne Sheston leads the choruses in all this season’s operas.  The choruses are  made up of Apprentice Singers for all the operas.  They are participating in Santa Fe’s Opera program for young opera singers,  one of the most competitive and prestigious in the nation.

The entire  production “Don Giovanni” is one of the highlights of the season of five operas in the 2024 season of the Santa Fe Opera.  

santafeopera.org 

Jun 08 2021
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SF Bay Area Arts: Asian Art Museum Open and Exciting

By Carol Benet

Asian Art Museum Open and Exciting

Carol Benet

The Asian Art Museum is now open and offers three extraordinary exhibits, all on the first level.  They attest to the  change in policies in the Asian that now wants to emphasize contemporary art as well as offer its traditional Asian art galleries on the upper levels which are also open.  

The three contemporary exhibitions welcome the viewer.  First, in the Lee Gallery is a display of over 50 short videos in “After Hope” where international political issues are addressed as well as Asian art motifs from the past.  On the wall facing the video screen are posters reflecting the pain of the anti-Asian violence that has just erupted in our country, thanks to the thoughtless remarks from the former president about the unproven claims that Covid 19 was caused by the Chinese.

The posters also advertise sentiments saying “Yellow Peril Supports Black Power” and “Asian for Black Lives” in addition to displays of cartoons, reproductions of short essays and other relevant out-cryings from artists in countries as diverse as Iran, China, Syria that have been targeted by prejudice.

Three socially distanced benches facing the screen invite visitors where they can take a rest or park the kids for awhile while they see the other parts of the display.

The second exhibit in the Hambrecht gallery shows “Mementos” by two artists with two impressive large works.  Jayashree Chakravarty’s large hanging derives from her memories of her hometown Kolkata in West Bengal, India.  She has constructed a kind of map of the city using cotton as the backing on top of which she layers rice paper and tissue .  On this background are small squares symbolizing houses, mountains, trees and roads outlined with stains of natural pigments including coffee and tea.  In some places she creates a golden and silver luminescence from special paints giving the undulating hanging a shimmering quality.  The work can be seen by walking around it.  It is very elegant.   

The other installation in this gallery is  a two sided video by Hong Kong artist Lam Tun Pang.  ‘A Day of Two Suns” has moving images of birds on branches, trees,  and rocks surrounded by rising water.  As you walk around the video screens your own shadow becomes incorporated in the work allowing an interesting interactive touch.

The Osher Gallery features the Bay Area Artist Zheng Chongbing whose works were commissioned by the Asian Museum and signal its emphasis on contemporary art.  A large painting in blacks and grey ink and acrylic take up an entire wall.  Facing this is a video with two separate screens around which you may walk to enjoy them from two sides.  And on another wall is a display of many of this artist’s sketches and works in process that resemble architectural designs.

Zheng Chongbin’s spectacular “I Look for the Sky” hangs above the Bogart Courtyard outside the Osher Gallery .  This is an impressive series of constructions that resemble architectural forms that could be taken as buildings. He  is one of the Bay Area’s most creative contemporary artists.

All three galleries on the first floor were donated by people who lived on the Tiburon Peninsula,  The Lee’s,  Osher’s and Hambrecht’s.  The Asian Art Museum requires reservations, but the day I went it was quite empty and they welcomed me.  It is  also open Thursday nights from 5 to 8 pm.  asianart.org                                                                                                     

Jun 08 2021
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Two New Exhibits at SF Legion of Honor

By Carol Benet, Go See

Pompeii and Wangechi Mutu at reopened Legion of Honor 

Carol Benet

With two huge volcanoes currently raging the world (Congo and Iceland), an exhibit on Pompeii could not be more timely.  Why is it that people like to revel in disaster and seek it out as part of their entertainment in movies and museum exhibits?

The recently reopened Legion of Honor presents two exhibits, “Last Supper in Pompeii” and “Wangechi Mutu:  I Am Speaking to You, Are you Listening”.  As different as they are, they both depict remnants of disasters and dwell on them.

“Pompeii” is a collection of items used in the preparation and the partaking of meals, with emphasis on wine produced in the volcanic soil surrounding Mt. Vesuvius.  Volcanic soil around both Etna and Vesuvius are rich for wine grape growing. The disastrous volcano that destroyed the entire city and its inhabitants took place in A.D. 79.   People have been fascinated by it since then.  This exhibit is part of this curiosity that has continued for centuries. 

Much of the exhibit is about the wine industry at the time.  Renée Dreyfus, Curator of Ancient Art at the SF Museums of Fine Arts, has contributed to this exhibit. and points out that people in the first century gravitated to Pompeii as a luxurious destination from Rome, much like the way pleasure seeking people head for Napa Valley to eat and drink.  

In the past Dreyfus has brought other interesting exhibits to the museums that shine a light on traditional viewing of Greek and Roman sculptures now seen in stark white where she points out and demonstrates the original colors they bore.  She also organized an exhibit on Thrace, an unusual and unknown subject for an art exhibition.

Most people know about the destruction of Pompeii by the volcano Vesuvius in A.D. 79.  In this exhibit their knowledge is expanding by knowing how they lived, ate, drank and spent their leisure hours. 

On display are many wine vessels, pitchers,  cups, bowls, often in silver with a myriad of designs.  The history of the wine industry in Pompeii is well labeled and introduced by a statue of Bacchus, the god of wine, is apparent.  

Cuisine is the other important subject of the exhibit with preparation vessels, plates, utensils on display. This part is not so interesting as it is predictable.  But a narrow room with a fresco, paintings and statue of a giant phallus attest to the love these people had for erotica as they used it as decoration of their homes.  This gallery is off-bounds to youth attending the museum.

The finale of the exhibit is a short video with computer graphics that recreates the volcano and show how it destroyed the buildings and the city,  bit by bit.  ‘Last 

supper in Pompeii:  From Table to the Grave” runs at the Legion through August 29.  Reservations are a must.

The second exhibit, upstairs, mainly in the Rodin galleries are the works of the Kenyan American artist Wangechi Mutu.  Her exhibit “I Am Speaking to You, Are You Listening” is a series of mostly sculptures and some paintings.  The works are spread among the standard Rodin sculptures as if they are in dialogue with this European male artist’s presentations of his reality.  It was the former director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Max Hollein who first starting putting the contemporary and sometimes shocking works next to the standard fare of the Legion.  He was much criticized for this.  This criticism didn’t matter to him because after San Francisco he took up the helm as director of the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

Mutu’s sculptures are many layered. Two greet the visitor in the courtyard before the entrance of the museum and at the the base of the famous “Thinker” of Rodin as if the figure is pondering the disaster below.  Here Mutu has placed  two bronzes, bodies covered by  blankets covering two figures, These are identifiable as female because of the pointy toed very high sexy heeled red shoes poking out.  An overt reference to violence against women. Also in the courtyard are two huge bronze sculptures that represent mythological female goddesses.

In the entrance hall of the museum is another reclining sculpture and beyond that in the main Rodin gallery is “Sentinel IV” made of several materials including wood, soil, branches, paper and black hair.  The standing sculpture is set apart by strands of large black beads.   This statue stands on a platform of earth red soil, a motif that is present in other of her sculptures.  

Three photographic prints of ink and emulsion are placed in the next Rodin gallery with three busts emphasized with mirrors.  A standing sculpture has  an exaggerated hairstyle and fringe replicating a skirt. 

Mutu uses a rich assortment of materials as she works in many genres.  She refers to questions surrounding feminism.  She has exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the 2019 Whitney Biennial in New York. Her works are a welcome addition to the once staid collection of European art at the Legion.  This exhibit runs through November 7, 2021.  41 5 750 3600 or www.famsf.org. 

May 24 2021
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Test Review May 24, 2021

By Carol Benet, Go See

Manual Cinema performs Frankenstein as part of Cal Performances at Home, streaming premiere Thursday, October 29 at 7pm PDT; Performance will be available on demand until January 27th, 2021. Pictured: Sarah Fornace
(credit: Drew Dir)

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