Wait a Minute - Czech Opera?

Did you know that there's such a thing as Czech opera?  No?  I didn't either, until my latest adventure to the Lyric.  I'm sure my brain hadn't ruled Czech opera out as a possibility; it's one of many things that might possibly occur somewhere in the world, but when you think opera you generally think Italy - or Germany, if you prefer Wagner - and then France.  Not the Czech Republic.  And technically that's not even correct, for although this opera is Czech, it's not from the Czech Republic, because the Czech Republic didn't exist at the time.  (History buffs will know that it was part of the Austrian and, later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire for much of modern history.)

(If you're curious, the picture is the vestibule at the Lyric, which is lit in much warmer tones than this picture suggests.  And that guy whose head you see at the bottom of the picture?  He's a bartender - I got him in the photo by mistake.)

In any case, if you aren't familiar with Czech opera, you won't know which opera I went to see (unless you've already checked the Lyric's schedule while reading through this paragraph above, in which case I salute your ability to multitask, even if I am slightly peeved that you multitask on top of my blog).  It was Leoš Janáček's Káťa Kabanová (that's ley-ohsh yah-NA-check, if you're curious about all those diacriticals over the composer's name.  The opera title is sometimes transliterated as Katya Kabanova and is sometimes just referred to as Katya). 

Still doesn't ring a bell?  I forgive you, because I had never heard of it either.  (I won't spoil the story or bore you with details about the composer, but if you like you can read about Janáček here and a synopsis of the opera here.)  Suffice it to say that Janáček was born in Moravia in the middle of the 19th century and was heavily influenced, like many of his historical and geographic contemporaries, by folk music.  The Czechs consider him of equal stature with Bedřich Smetana (composer of the opera The Bartered Bride and the symphonic cycle Má vlast (My Fatherland)) and Antonín Dvořák (known in this country for the New World Symphony), but he is not very well-known in the States.  In my humble opinion, he deserves to be.  Let me explain why.

Upon learning that Janáček wrote Katya in this '20s, I was a bit worried.  My impression of music from the 1920s was dissonant, atonal, unpleasant, and obtrusively modern - not the sort of thing I would want to sit through for a few hours.  But I was also drawn by the fact that I had never heard of either the composer or the opera, so I bought a ticket and went.  And I was happily surprised.  As I read in the program notes (and mentioned above), Janáček was influenced by his contemporaries of the late 1800s, including the great Russian Romantic (as in the period of music history, not the amorous tendency), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  Tchaikovsky, while definitely a departure from the Classical era, is most definitely not atonal, unpleasant, or modernist (he was also gay, but that's not relevant to this discussion).  Janáček's music is not unlike Tchaikovsky's, but with slightly more modern overtones and - because of the opera's subject - bleaker and harsher, well-suited to great rushes of emotion and the weight of enormous tragedy.  I liked it.

I promised not to give away the plot of Katya, and I won't, but I will say a little about it.  The title character is trapped in a marriage with Tichon, who is henpecked not by Katya, but by his mother Kabanicha, with whom he and his wife live.  The fourth member of this happy household is Varvara, a foundling adopted by Kabanicha who is just a bit younger that Katya.  Kabanicha is a domineering witch (figurative, not literal), and when Tichon leaves on business, Katya gets a chance at freedom, which she seizes with disastrous results.  For those of you interested in the technical side of this, Katya is a soprano, Kabanicha a contralto, Varvara a mezzo-soprano, and Tichon a tenor.  There are more characters and more voice parts (though the basses get a bit shortchanged), but to tell you who they are and why they're important would give away the story.

The music, as I've mentioned, was quite good, but what struck me the most, in a positive way, was the way this opera was staged.  In keeping with the idea of bleakness - the opera is set in a Russian village on the banks of the Volga - the vast expanse of stage was painted gray, and the entire rear wall was a film screen depicting the sky,  filled with clouds, which grew darker and more sinister as the opera progressed.  There were only two pieces of real set, Kabanicha's house and a ruined chapel.  Each stood in the middle of the stage during their respective scenes (never on stage together, of course), with the vast gray stage on each side and sweeping off to the horizon in back.  Kabanicha's house, cleverly, was cut in half and put on casters so it could be turned between scenes, so scenes outdoors would happen in front of Kabanicha's porch, and scenes inside the house would happen inside the house, which would be turned so we could see inside.  The ruined chapel, which we see in the penultimate scene of the opera, is appropriately cold and also gray.  In addition, all the supporting characters (not the six or seven named characters) were dressed in black, and even some of the named characters wore black or brown.  All in all the staging made a significant contribution to how I perceived the opera, and in this case, is worked very well.

I suppose now you're curious as to what happens in this opera that requires such bleakness, but it would be hard to retell - better to see it.  You won't be able to see it in Chicago, unfortunately - tonight was closing night.  Why not read the synopsis, and then add it to your "To See" list?

A Night at the Opera!

Having failed to grow up in one of the largest cities in the country, my only exposure to opera up until high school was through recordings, and while I'm sure they were very good recordings, opera takes place on a stage for a reason.  This does not come across on a CD, no matter how many pictures they've managed to cram into the little booklet inside the case.  I believe the first proper opera I ever saw was as a senior in high school, when our German teacher bought tickets for her senior class to see the local university's production of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel (which, because the university had an attached conservatory, was quite well done).  When I was an undergraduate there I went to the operas - one per year, except that one year when they did Sor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi in one performance, which was great, but still not an opera in an opera house with an opera company.  I did attend a performance of The Barber of Seville at our local performing arts center, which had brought in an opera company from Bulgaria (warning right there), but that performance - especially the bass who played Doctor Bartolo - was weaker than what I had heard at the university.  In short, I'd not been exposed to much proper opera before.

Then I moved to Chicago.

Lest that sound too much like Mecca, I will admit that Chicago is not exactly a world-renowned center for the operatic arts - that honor is reserved for places like New York and Milan - but it does have an opera house, with a resident opera company, and it performs regularly.  It also has a student rush ticket program by which a student can get tickets that don't sell for $20.  On the main floor.  So, naturally, I bit.

I went to see Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani, which is not a well-known opera, but I've always preferred the slightly less conventional.  So I bought my ticket a week or two in advance, dressed up (rocking the vest, as usual), and took the Metra downtown.  I managed to find the Civic Opera House (stage pictured above) and obtain my ticket with little difficulty.  I sat in row W, right side, on the main floor (that picture above is my view from that seat).  Not too shabby for $20.  Damned uncomfortable seat, though.  I suspect they're original to the building (1920s - and you think I'm kidding but I'm not).

As we waited for the first act to begin, I couldn't help but listen to the couple behind me (I was surrounded by couples, it seemed, and wished I had brought my other half along, but he wasn't interested in seeing Ernani).  The guy sitting behind me was Italian, the girl American, both obviously students who, like me, had gotten their tickets through the rush program, which is open to all the universities in Chicago (there are quite a few).  Although the girl sounded a bit ditzy, she was having a fairly intelligent conversation with her boyfriend (who, despite being Italian, had never been to an opera before) about opera and such.  But then the conversation turned to dancing and she mentioned that she had taken dance lessons at one point.  She had learned the samba, the rumba, the cha-cha, and the Vietnamese waltz.

"Vietnamese?" he asked.

Maybe it was Venetian, she mused.

He hadn't ever heard of a Venetian waltz either.

It was supposed to be very graceful and dignified, she said.

Silence.  Then: "Do you mean Viennese?"

And curtain.  (Except not really, because minutes later she tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could take a picture of her and her boyfriend in their seats.  I gladly obliged, though I think they'll find that the dignity of being at the opera doesn't really come across in a poorly lit, over-flashed photo of two white people in dark clothing.  None of my business, though.)

At last the curtain rose, and Ernani began.  Two intermissions and three hours later I stumbled out into the night.  It was a fairly good performance.  The soprano who played Elvira (Sondra Radvanovsky, an American) was without a doubt the best part.  The central difficulty of opera - and the way in which, in my limited experience, I have seen the most opera performers fail - is that you have to sing and act.  Not one or the other, both.  Radvanovsky did it, and well - her three males counterparts were all rather wooden by comparison.  I won't presume to judge their singing, since I don't know the score well enough, but whenever Elvira was on stage I looked at her, even if someone else was singing, because she was the most interesting thing going on.  And the audience agreed with me - Ms. Radvanovsky got far more applause than any of the other performers.

Now the plot, in my humble opinion, is not terribly convincing - though I'll let you read the synopsis and decide for yourself - and I would have been perfectly happy had the entire fourth act been cut.  Ernani is one of Verdi's early operas, though I find fault not with the music (which was plenty interesting) but with the libretto, mainly some of the jumps in the plot.  We are forced to "suspend our disbelief" in places, and when you combine some singers who don't act very well with a plot that feels forced, you can have trouble.  But in any case, I can say I've seen Ernani, I've been to Chicago Civic Opera House, and I had a lovely time.  There are some excellent performances coming up in early 2010 - who wants to join me to see Faust?

The Odyssey: A Daytrip to Greektown

As I noted in my post of October 17th, sometimes one finds oneself with an extra ticket to something or other, and sometimes one invites someone to something with that ticket.

And sometimes one is the invitee - as I was for the second time since I've moved here.  One of my friends won two tickets to a Chicago Cultural Center tour of Chicago's Greektown, and invited me to join him.  We hadn't seen each other since I last visited him in April, and I had a (homemade) scarf to give him, so I said yes.  Also, lunch was included.  Who am I to turn down authentic Greek food?

After I found my way to the cultural center - conveniently located across the street from the terminus of my Metra line - we loaded onto a bus and my friend began wondering if he could hit on the tour coordinator, a mildly good looking Greek guy (if you go for that sort of thing - I pegged him as straight from minute 1).  Pondering this question, we drove to the church above, which is actually the Greek Orthodox Annunciation Cathedral, despite the modest exterior.  (I don't have interior photos because I felt that would be disrespectful, but to give you an idea, here's a photo that the internet kindly provided upon request.)  Although not terribly large, Annunciation Cathedral is a very attractive building inside, replete with mosaics, painted walls, chandeliers, and all manner of lovely things.  It makes all but the most baroque of American Catholic churches seem dull by comparison - though it is the seat of an archbishiopric, so I suppose I should check out Chicago's Catholic cathedral before I make that kind of judgment.  Ooops, too late.

From Annunication cathedral we drove to Hull House (yes, the Hull House, the one founded by Jane Addams), which is now on the campus of UIC, but was, when it was founded, within the confines of the old Greektown.  We toured it briefly, then drove through what had been old Greektown before heading to new Greektown (farther south and east, if my memory serves me) for lunch.  And what a lunch!  Saganaki (that's the cheese they set on fire), a wonderful chicken breast marinated  in olive oil with various sides, and baklava for dessert.  Greek tour guide showed up at our table with his fiancee, much to my friend's chagrin, though it didn't surprise me in the least.  Afterward he (my friend) and I took a short walk before our last stop, and went to a Greek candle store and browsed.  I found what pictured on the right.  Another flavor you might like to consider is "Come to Me," which is supposed to draw the person you're in love with to you.  Also available as a body wash.

We returned from our rather entertaining walk and visited a museum displaying art by Greek-Americans; one of the exhibits was focused on Cyprus, a situation I know only a little about.  As I understand it, the Turks invaded Cyprus to protect the Turkish minority there from the depredations of the Greek majority, but the Turkish solution was to divide Cyprus politically, which made no one happy.  Fortunately for the future of world peace, I know a candle store in Greektown with the solution to this problem in a bottle.  Just be careful - those contents are under pressure.  Do not expose to heat or store at temperatures above 120 degrees.  Keep out of the reach of children and shake well before using.  And remember not to point it at yourself.

Chicago Symphony Plays Sacher Torte

Miss Manners once wrote, in response to a reader query about pick-up lines, that the best way to invite someone out on a date was to announce with some surprise that one found oneself in possession of an extra ticket for the opera, and would madame (or monsieur) care to make use of it (in the company of the benefactor, of course)?

Well, Miss Manners never said if it worked for the symphony, but I nevertheless accepted the kind invitation from the gentleman and went.  Unfortunately for him, I'm dating someone else.  (!)

Now, I like to consider myself fairly well-informed when it comes to classical music, so I was a bit perturbed to realize, upon being informed that the concert was a performance of Bruckner's 4th Symphony, that I didn't know who Bruckner was.  To Wikipedia!  After reading a surprisingly well-written article (one keeps ones expectations of Wikipedia low as a precaution, and then is pleasantly surprised upon each visit to find that one is not the only literate person in the universe), I found out that Bruckner's first name was Anton, he was Austrian, he revised his works almost obsessively, and he was violently killed when one of his rivals smothered him beneath a gigantic Sacher torte.  (I made that last one up, but if I put it on Wikipedia, how long does it take until it becomes the Truth?)  Armed with these useful conversation starters, I hopped onto the Metra on a blustery October afternoon, rain threatening (but in the end failing) to come, and was soon deposited in downtown Chicago.

I met my friend for coffee (actually, he had tea, and I had hot chocolate, but who says "I met my friend for hot beverages"?) and was either hit on or patronized by the baristo - I still can't tell which - and then we strolled off to the symphony (2:00 performance, but it was general seating so we got there well in advance).  There was a coat check, and lots of red carpet.  And loads of middle-aged to older people.  Apparently I'm not the only youngish person who hadn't heard of Anton "Sacher Torte" Bruckner.  I snapped the picture above on my phone before I turned it off - I apologize for the blur, but it's the only one I got without peoples' heads in it.

Bruckner's 4th Symphony, as it turns out, is quite good.  There's a good balance between passionate,  plaintive, and playful, and it was quite enjoyable.  The Chicago Symphony played well too, though not well enough for me (or my companion) to give them a standing ovation, for which we received glares from some members of the audience and the first violinist (he could see us from the stage).  All in all, quite an enjoyable afternoon.

So, if Bruckner has a 4th Symphony, there must be three more, right?  It's time to give them a listen, and also time for a little audience participation, in the form of comments.  Have you, dear reader, ever heard any of Bruckner's works?  If so, what did you think of them?  If not, are you going to run off and check them out of the nearest library now that I've brought them up?  No?  Do you even like classical music?  How about Sacher torte?