Saturday, March 21, 2009

Dear Madam, So Sorry to Inform You That You're a Hack; or, La mort d'Interpétation?

This evening Mary Zimmerman’s production of Bellini's La Sonnambula at the Met will be broadcast live in HD worldwide. It's the perfect venue for Juan Diego Flórez and Natalie Dessay: they’re sexy, glamorous, born to be on the big screen and in big sound. True twenty-first century opera stars in an unfortunate twenty-first century production. I guess you'd call Zimmerman's staging "controversial" -- like her Lucia last season -- which is an arbitrary word I've grown to despise. I'd rather call it: overwrought, nonsensical, amateurish, hacked out to the maxxx, or even just plain bad.

For many operagoers in NYC, this is so two weeks ago. The whole affair has been covered nicely in this cool blog, the Financial Times, and the Sun-Times, among others. Everyone has an opinion. I do, too. Yawn. Don't get me wrong: I saw it last Saturday and had a nice evening out. Dessay and Flórez are a mighty pair -- my gosh, the crowd went wild a few times, even waving a gigantic Peruvian flag after "Ah, perchè non posso odiarti” in Act II. Real Bellini fireworks! Whoever said bel canto was kaput?

So what's the problem? It's a silly opera! This production is certainly everything Vinnie B. could've ever wanted or imagined for his trifle little bel canto semiseria -- “famously light and, even for the world of opera, a little incredible,” states Zimmerman in her Program Notes. Don't worry, she’s fixed all that.

Synopsis: Mary Zimmerman’s new production is set in a contemporary rehearsal room, where a traditional production of La Sonnambula,set in a Swiss village, is being prepared. In that rehearsal space, all the events and relations that Bellini’s characters experience also happen to the rehearsing performers in their own “real” lives. In this staging, Amina and Elvino are played by two singers (also named Amina and Elvino) who are, like their fictional counterparts, lovers. The chorus constitutes the population of the Swiss village, and Lisa, the innkeeper of La Sonnambula,is the stage manager.

"Incredible," indeed. Here's the deal: this isn’t “interpretation.” Not by a long shot. Mary Zimmerman’s production of La Sonnambula is the anti-interpretation. There is nothing in Romani’s libretto or Bellini’s music from which the play-within-a-play “concept” was interpreted. It was merely attached -- rather carelessly -- to a dramatic work that doesn’t sustain it, creating an entirely new set of obstacles on top of existing ones, effectively placing us in square negative two.

Of course, this ain't nothing new. It’s standard procedure! Setting Shakespeare in the Wild West or giving Molière a colorful Saved By the Bell makeover. B- drivel at best. Hack directors shoot themselves in the foot before they even start rehearsals and then waste time poring over details. If you wanna do a play, then you gotta love language. Same thing with opera: you’ve gotta love the language of music. But what's true in music is true in storytelling: you gotta hit all the notes. Same thing with the events, the relationships, the drama. The basics you follow before you break a single rule. I'm not saying you need cowbells and Lindt bars to do La Sonnambula (it can -- and should! -- be done a thousand different ways), but I need to care about the characters and their journey.

What makes for marketable interpretation these days? Here’s a buzz word: cleverness. Delicious, decadent (Nietzsche’s word), Family Guy-esque and oh-so-blissfully-unaware-of-actual-human-emotion, randomly awkward yet smartly sardonic and even ironic (in the true sense of the word): too cool, too calculated, too, too clever. Cleverness can fix everything! All this frivolity -- this “lightness” -- these dated, unsophisticated art makers of our past.

Do we really think we're more sophisticated? That people in the past lacked any kind of humor? Zimmerman must see them as black-and-white, soot-faced, standing in line for sugar and dying in a Holocaust or something that must not resemble our culture. Did she even read the chorus parts? They’re hilarious. So much self-awareness, so much ridiculous Commedia joy. And Count Rodolfo’s explanation of Amina’s sleepwalking: laugh-out-loud! Don’t pretend the 1830s cast-- and audience! -- wasn’t aware of its own shallowness. C’mon! These people knew good art! They had Shakespeare and Cervantes! Not to mention Mozart, for chrissake: they at least knew good opera! So it’s "light." What’s wrong with that? Not everything can be King Lear, nor should it be. If you don’t like it, then don’t stage it. No opera is realistic! That’s what opera is: huge, sweeping metaphor. Where’s the imagination? The love? The life?

Worst of all, none of it even matters. Because Ms. Zimmerman is not smarter than Vincenzo Bellini, as much as she probably fancies herself to be. After all these years La Sonnambula is still in the repertoire. Why? Listen to the music. Bellini knew this. His whole goddamn creative team knew this. The music will overcome everything else. It isn't merely “beautiful and tuneful” (so dismissive -- so American -- UGH!); the music is the thing. Zimmerman writes that La Sonnambula hasn’t been staged at the Met in 36 years and thinks the “light” plot is to blame. Outrageous! Does she think someone on the artistic staff penciled it into the season because her staging idea was such a brilliant Bridges-of-Fucking-Amsterdam puzzle solution to Bellini? No! It’s because it is difficult music and even great singers can’t manage it. They booked Flórez and Dessay. That's why. IDIOT.

For more info on Opera in HD go here. Wanna see it live? Bellini's La Sonnambula runs till April 3rd (Barry Banks replaces Flórez as Elvino on the last performance).

Open plea to Peter Gelb: I beg you, please please please tear up Zimmerman's contract and find someone -- anyone! the ninja monkey! -- to direct Rossini's Armida in 2010 and stop the insanity!