San Francisco abounds with unique and unusual things to do, which typically does not include something as traditional as on opera.  But operas can be innovatively suprising, as I discovered recently.  Tuesday night was the final installment of  my San Francisco Opera mini-subscription, and this time it was Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.  I’ve always found Stravinsky rather ‘difficult,’ but that may be due to a lack of refinement on my part (I am a Texas farm boy at heart, after all); or perhaps because of a lack of exposure to his works.  Thus my only preconceived notion was a determination to be open-minded when it came to Stravinsky ’s modernist style. 

I was simultaneously dazzled, edified and disappointed.  Here’s my scorecard:

Rake’s Progress as an opera:  A

Sets:  A+ 

Vocals/Singing:  D-

Performance Overall:  B-

As an opera, The Rake’s Progress works exceptionally well.  To my surprise, Stravinsky’s opera is only loosely based on the series of paintings by William Hogarth.  Instead of following that story exactly, he injects a wonderful Faustian element that ‘operatizes’ the plot very efficiently.   In this Hogarth cum Goethe manner, Tom Rakewell unwittingly makes a pact with the devil as represented Nick Shadow, easily my favorite character.  By turns an oil man (the opera starts out in a Texas oil field), movie director, and personal assistant, Nick “directs” his unfortunate victim in scene after scene of dissipation.  He first emerges from the depths an an oil well, drenched in black goo, and informs Tom of his newfound wealth.   Their deal is consummated with a handshake accompanied by a bolt of lightning (a sign if ever there was one), which is then followed by Tom’s inexorable path to self-destruction.  In one scene, Nick is quite literally a movie director, complete with the requisite attire and admonitions of “Action!” and “Cut!”  In this scene he oversees the filming of what amounts to a porn flick, in which Tom has his first experience with a prostitute.  Later, he keeps the paparazzi at bay during the debut of Tom’s film that launches him into stardom.  It’s a very clever device in which the Rake’s alter-ego leads him first to leave his true love Anne, then renounce her in favor of a licentious life, and ultimately take the final step into perdition in the form of a large-scale swindle.  But unlike the Rake portrayed in Hogarth’s paintings, Stravinsky’s Rakewell is basically a good guy, albeit a simpleton –  it’s his naivete that gets the better of him and leads him down the path of self-destruction.  In this way, Stravinsky’s creation is not only pitiable, like Hogarths’; but also sympathetic.

The sets were far and away the best component of this performance, and were perhaps the most unique that I have seen in 20 years of opera-going.  Based on the negative response to last week’s Macbeth, I half expected the audience to boo and hiss in response to the sometimes shocking scenery by Carl Fillion; but to my surprise, they too seemed to love the whimsical innovations he put forth, frequently ooh-ing and aah-ing as the curtain went up. 

The opening scene presaged what was to come:  The backdrop seems to be nothing more than a painting of a Texas prarie, but gradually one notices that those clouds are actually moving; and slowly, subtly, almost imperceptibly, the sun is setting.   When Tom makes his doomed pact with Nick Shadow, the clouds have coalesced to form a menacing thunderhead looming in the background, waiting to unleash its fury.  There were many subsequent and effective uses of video elements, including one in which a television set magically transforms a stone into a loaf of bread.  In the final scene, a television flickers in psychiatric unit of Bedlam, hypnotic in it’s effect on patients . . . but then is suddenly filled with Tom’s tormented face, which was captured live from an actual closeup by a camera hidden who-knows-where.  It creates one of those dazzling How did they do that? moments, which significantly enhances the overall sophistication of the performance. 

But it was the humorously daring components of Fillion’s work that truly carried this opera.  At the end of the “porn” scene, I was tempted to look away in modesty as Tom unceremoniously plops himself between the prostitute’s spread-eagled legs; but before things got X-rated, both players were sucked into the bowels of the earth through the  heart-shaped mattress, which bore (dare I say it?) a shocking resemblance to a vagina.  The next scene began almost immediately,with a bizarre-looking balloon billowing forth from the very spot that swallowed the mattress, which gradually turned into a full-sized trailer, complete with all the requisite trailer-park accoutrements.  The audience loved it, and I couldn’t restrain myself from squealing with delight. 

The opera was filled with such moments, such as the part in which Anne appears in a Mini Cooper-like car, with a long scarf billowing out behind her.  As the video backdrop whimsically creates the illusion of a frenetic drive through European streets, a revelation slowly comes over the audience:  With the scarf, the sunglasses and the tiny car, the intentional resemblance to Grace Kelly is unmistakable.  It’s fantastic!

And it’s a lucky thing, too; because the singing was abysmal, without a single ‘Great Voice’ on stage all night.  I hate to trash the singers because I know how hard they work, but there were times when I couldn’t even hear the voices over the instruments.  It’s really a shame, because some of Anne’s and Tom’s arias are wonderfully complex, but the cast simply didn’t do Stravinsky justice.  The only singer who rescues the score from an “F” was Baba the Turk, which was ably done by Denyce Graves, resplendent in her veil and beard.  It’s a pity they couldn’t have cast Angela Gheorghiu (from La Rondine) in the role of Anne, and perhaps Thomas Hampson (Macbeth) as Tom.  If they had assembled a world-class cast, this opera would have been truly stunning.  As it stands, it only rises to the level of ‘very good.’

Thanks to clay94109 for the photo.

Posted on December 6th, 2007 by Thomas
Filed under: Opera, San Francisco, Uncategorized