By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
__________
Los Angeles Opera: Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw
March 12, 17 25 and 30 at 7:30 p.m.; March 20 and 27 at 2 p.m.
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
Information: www.laopera.com
__________
Anniversaries and classical music meld together like bacon and eggs or apple pie and vanilla ice cream (can you tell I’m on a diet?). Whether it’s the anniversary of a composer’s birth or death, rarely a year goes by without someone to commemorate; without such crutches, music directors would find their jobs harder.
However, few years will be as significant as 2013, particularly for opera lovers. Two years from now marks the bicentennial of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, arguably the greatest composers of Italy and Germany, respectively. It’s also the centennial of the birth of Benjamin Britten, who sits atop a similar pinnacle in England.
In at least one sense, Britten is unique among this triumvirate. You can expect to see and hear lots of Verdi and Wagner in opera houses, and some of their music (especially overtures and preludes) will also show up in orchestral concerts and song recitals.
However, Britten’s compositional output cuts across so many genres that the 100th anniversary of his birth will be commemorated by a vast array of organizations during the next three years. Two examples: Pasadena Presbyterian Church’s “Friends of Music” concert Saturday night (LINK) will include one of Britten’s masterpieces for chorus and organ, Rejoice in the Lamb. The Hollywood Master Chorale follows the next day with an all-Britten concert in Shatto Chapel at First Congregational Church, Los Angeles (LINK).
(Full disclosure: in that Pasadena concert, I’m both singing with the Pasadena Singers and giving a preconcert lecture so, in the words of the late, great Molly Ivins, you can take my shameless plug with a grain of salt or a pound of salt, if you so choose).
I digress. Realizing that it wouldn't be fiscally prudent to offer an entire season of Britten operas in one year, Los Angeles Opera decided to get the jump on the centennial celebration by spreading some the composer’s most important works over a three-year cycle, beginning with The Turn of the Screw, which opens Saturday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The company is also presenting free two performances of Britten’s children’s opera, Noyes Fludde (Noah’s Flood) on March 19 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles (tickets to Noye’s Fludde were snapped up long ago).
Next season’s schedule includes another of Britten’s so-called “chamber operas,” Albert Herring, and although the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 seasons have yet to be announced, I expect that Peter Grimes and Billy Budd — Britten’s two most famous operas — will show up on the schedules.
It’s been 20 years since LA Opera presented The Turn of the Screw but this production is neither a revival nor a new production. The company has been in a cost-savings mode for this season and next but — as was the case with Rossini’s The Turk in Italy (which, if you haven’t seen you should — LINK) — this should prove to be beneficial for The Turn of the Screw.
The production originated at the 2006 Glyndebourne Festival where it received strong reviews from Opera News (LINK) and others. The famed English festival will revive the production this summer (LINK).
LA Opera’s principal marketing focus for The Turn of the Screw has been Patricia Racette, who makes her role debut as The Governess. The New Hampshire-born soprano is one of the most in-demand singers today, both nationally at the Met, Santa Fe Opera and San Francisco Opera (where she is an alumna of that company’s Merola program and was an Adler Fellow) and internationally at houses ranging from Covent Garden to La Scala.
Four singers will be making their company debuts in this production, as will the entire production team. One of the first-time artists is 12-year-old treble Michael Kepler Meo in the pivotal role of Miles, a role he has performed with Houston Grand Opera and Portland Opera (Rick Rojas’ profile him from the Los Angeles Times is HERE).
LAO’s Music Director James Conlon will conduct all six performances and also offer one of his erudite preconcert lectures an hour before each performance (the production runs 2:20, including one intermission).
The opera is based on a 1898 short story by Henry James (1843-1916), who was born in America but spent the last 53 years of his life in England and became a British subject a year before his death. The novella is considered by many to be a classic in the “ghost” story genre, although it’s more complex than a mere haunted house story. Whether you need to (or even should) read the novella before attending the opera is open to question but the paperback version is available at bookstores such as Vroman’s, and several Kindle versions are available through amazon.com for as little as 99 cents.
In addition, Leann Davis Alspaugh has an informative article on the LA Opera Web site HERE and Conlon offers his perspective HERE.
The 2 p.m. March 20 performance will be broadcast live on Classical KUSC (91.5 FM) and streamed on the Web at www.kusc.org.
___________
(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.
Comments