Today I attended a very special Opera League event at the Millennium Biltmore Grand in downtown L.A. The Opera League and members of the opera company set up shop in the hotel's Crystal Ballroom to put on a two-hour seminar about their upcoming production of the Ring Cycle. Before I get into that, can I just mention that the Crystal Ballroom is where they filmed that one scene in Ghostbusters where they catch the little green slimy ghost? Sorry, I know that already takes you a million miles from opera, but I grew up on that movie and had never been in this room before. Being there just for that alone would've been awesome enough. As it was, I got to attend this terrific event.
Okay so back to the seminar. Have you ever heard of the Ring Cycle? Let me provide some background for the non-operaphiles out there. Officially known as The Ring of the Nibelung, the Ring Cycle is a series of four operas by German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Each one tells a story that could fill up a book, but I'll be brief. The operas are called Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods). Collectively they're about this ring, right? Not surprising, I know, but it's important to point that out. It's a powerful magic ring that was forged by this dwarf who made it with gold from the Rhine River, which is like the Mississippi of Germany, okay? Anywho, the thing about this ring is that because it's so powerful, everyone and their cousin vies for it, even Wotan. You know who he is? Wotan is to Nordic mythology what Zeus is to Greek mythology. He's the chief god. The god of the gods. Another person who wants the ring is this human guy named Siegfried (the third opera's namesake). He eventually wins the ring, and that's a good thing as far as Wotan is concerned. But Siegfried is eventually killed. Not good. Especially if you're Wotan. And it's Wotan's daughter Brünnhilde, whom we meet in part two (she's one of the Valkyrie) who eventually takes the ring back to the Rhine River. So there you have it. A full-circle journey for that little ring. Unfortunately for Brünnhilde's dad, and all the other gods, the ring's deposit into the river kills them all. See how part four is called, in English, Twilight of the Gods? Twilight doesn't mean end of the day in this instance. It means end of their divine lives. Poor devils.
So that's it in a nutshell. It feels weird summing up sixteen hours of opera in one paragraph. It took Herr Wagner something like a quarter century to write the thing. No, seriously. Dude was in his late thirties when he started it, and by the time he wrapped up Götterdämmerung, he was in his early sixties.
So that's it in a nutshell. It feels weird summing up sixteen hours of opera in one paragraph. It took Herr Wagner something like a quarter century to write the thing. No, seriously. Dude was in his late thirties when he started it, and by the time he wrapped up Götterdämmerung, he was in his early sixties.
While it isn't absolutely necessary to watch all four operas in sequence, they do tell an epic story. And I do mean epic. Each opera is....wait for it....four hours long. Yes, you read that right. You see what I mean by not having to see them all at the same time? Or even in the same year? Besides, each opera does stand on its own as a complete work with a beginning, middle, and end. Many opera companies will include one of them in any given season, and that's just fine.
Los Angeles Opera, however, has never produced any of them in their twenty-three-year history. You can't exactly blame them. Wagner never did anything small. Whether it's one of the Ring operas or any of his other ones, you can be sure it will be a massive production. L.A. Opera has done some of his other stuff. Just last year, in fact, they put on Tristan und Isolde. In 2001 they put on Lohengrin which, despite its four hours, is one of my favorite operas. The first time I saw that was in Vienna during the summer of '99. I didn't have the benefit of supertitles then, but that didn't stop me from falling in love with the music. Wagner can be double-edged, though. L.A. Opera staged Parsifal back in 2005 or thereabouts. Easily one of the worst operas I've ever seen. Ugh. Five hours. Ugh! At least I think it was five hours. Like most Wagner operas, it was at least four. Maybe I'm thinking five 'cause that's how it felt. Oh what difference does it make? Once you get past four, and you're still awake, your ass is already numb.
Well now L.A. Opera has decided to tackle the Ring once and for all. And, although the details of the production are being kept under wraps, the company's making no secret of how they're sparing no expense, recession be damned. They're staging the first two this spring, then the second pair next season. And right after next season, during the summer of 2010, they're mounting all four in the same month. They always take the summers off, so this is quite a deal, not to speak of the fact that they're mounting the entire Ring several times the same month. I suppose props have to go mainly to Placido Domingo, the legendary tenor who still performs on opera stages across the globe while serving as the general director of both L.A. Opera and D.C.'s resident company, National Opera. He's always been involved in L.A. Opera in some capacity or other. I think at first, when the company was first born in '86, he was a creative consultant or something. But since he took the reins in 2000, he's done a yeoman's job putting this nascent company on the map. And yes, L.A. Opera is still considered very young. By comparison, the Met in New York has been around since the 1880s. Many of the opera companies in Europe go back even further. So it speaks volumes that in such a short time L.A. Opera is attracting the crème de la crème of opera talent from all over the world, and now they're staging the Ring in its entirety, a true mark of a sincere opera company.
I've only been an Opera League member for about a year now. You can find a few other posts on this blog about seminar events. For the most part they're lectures. And that's fine. The Opera League is entirely member-supported, so you can't really expect special effects extravaganzas. Besides, as you can see in those other posts, I always learn a ton. Today's event went a bit further. You had lectures, some costumes, and a bit of singing to cap it off.
My attendance got off to an inauspicious start when I first walked into the Crystal Ballroom. I pulled out my cell to snap a few photos that I had planned to include with this post. I had literally taken all of one when this old codger jumped in front of me, sloshing his glass of water in an effort to block the front of my phone. Hadn't I seen the sign at the ballroom entrance prohibiting photographs? Uh, no. And stupid me because when I looked back, the sign wasn't exactly hidden. I guess I had my head too far into Ghostbusters to notice. Anyway, this guy insisted he watch me delete my photo. I don't think he could see that well because when I did delete it, he didn't really make an effort to watch. He just stared at nothing in particular and insisted several more times that I not take any photos. I couldn't help smiling. "No big deal, man," I said. Eventually he smiled too and walked back to his fellow septuagenarians by the water table. He'd been so serious about it. Maybe he expected I'd resist the edict, but I took it perfectly in stride, which I think helped him chill out.
Most of the seats in the front and middle of the ballroom were taken, but being toward the back didn't prevent my eyes from being drawn to the stage up front. Arrayed around the stage were what could only be costumes. There weren't that many, but you couldn't possibly miss what I can only describe as a giant-headed dwarf piece. It was pretty complete and looked remarkably alive for a costume that didn't have anyone in it. You also had what looked like a ballerina figure with a puffed up black skirt and a black headdress.
Opera League President Dorothy Wait, elegant and smiling and articulate as always, came out to introduce things and thank us all for being there at four in the afternoon on a Tuesday. And not just any Tuesday. Inauguration Day! And then another high-up from the League, Warner Henry, stepped up to the mic to plug Mozart's The Magic Flute, the opera they're putting on right now. As far as I was concerned, he was preaching to the converted. I just saw it last Saturday. And I didn't need anyone to convince me. I saw it when L.A. Opera put it on a few years ago. It's always been one of my faves. But I like the way Warner did it. The first thing he said, which is something I never thought about, was that advertising in the Los Angeles Times is so expensive that usually they have to sell out an opera just to get that money back. That's kind of amazing, really, since I've seen their ads in the Sunday Calendar section and never thought much of them. I usually hear about operas from stuff they send in the mail. Their newspaper ads are pretty small. Anyway, he said that to make up for the fact that they're cutting back on print ads, those of us who've already seen The Magic Flute should e-mail our friends and family about how much we liked it. Apparently he did this and ended up selling a hundred tickets. That's what he said anyway. But what I really liked about his pitch was when he talked about the reactions of children who've seen it, including his own grandkids and the grandkids of friends. He seemed like a sincere guy so I'm pretty sure he wasn't making it up. And besides, if there's one opera that's kid friendly, it would be The Magic Flute. Relating operas to kids is also a way to balance out the demographics that operas traditionally cater to. I have to say that whenever I go to these Opera League events, I'm in the minority in terms of age. The vast majority of these people are middle aged and above. Although when I actually go see operas, it isn't like that at all. I always see plenty of twenty- and thirtysomethings and, yes, even kids.
Warner then introduced the first featured speaker of the afternoon: James Conlon. A diminutive graying-haired guy with a boyish face and voice, James got a lot of well deserved applause. He's only been music director for a couple years, but he's already garnered an enormous amount of respect. Part of that comes from his accessibility. His predecessor, Kent Nagano, never really spoke much to the audience. James, in stark contrast, quite often partakes in those pre-performance lectures up in the second-level lobby of the opera house. He's got a terrific sense of humor. And as someone who's been immersed in classical music since he was a teenager, his breadth of knowledge is incredibly vast.
Speaking of his youth, he did reminisce for a bit about growing up in New York in the sixties. He remembers when the new version of the Met opened for the 1966-67 season, when he was in high school. Dude actually skipped school and blew off his homework to go see operas. Can you say devotion? I've never known any teenager so in love with classical music that they would do that. Indeed, I'm not sure I've ever met a teen who likes classical at all, although I know they exist because I was one of them. Since he was in high school and didn't have a job, he could never afford more than the buck twenty-five standing room area. When times were really tight, he'd pay the seventy-five cents for the highest-level standing room.
Prior to joining L.A. Opera, James had been making the rounds in Europe. While this is hardly the first time he's conducted the Ring, it is the first time he's ever done it in the U.S. The rehearsal space they're using is over near the intersection of Pico and La Brea, in the Mid-Wilshire area of L.A. It's not far at all from the opera house, but he was tickled by how unassuming it looks from the outside when compared with the massive multi-zillion-dollar project they're concocting inside. Speaking of big, another thing that tickled him was how the city of Los Angeles is putting on a city-wide Ring festival during the summer of 2010 to coincide with the L.A. Opera's staging of all four operas at once. He said if there was one composer whose ego was big enough to think it makes sense for a city to bring everything to halt to honor him, it would be Wagner. That's why he prefaced his speech by saying there wasn't anything new he could say about Wagner because so much has already been written about him. And no one wrote more about Wagner than Wagner himself.
It's kind of ironic that it's taken him this long to do an American production of the Ring, as this guy, per his own admission, is the biggest Wagner fan you'll ever see. Part of the reason he was so frustrated as a journeyman conductor was not only because he couldn't find a place to be a resident conductor, but also because he couldn't find enough opportunities to do Wagner. The first time he was offered a music directorship, in Cologne, he said he would only take it if they'd let him conduct all ten of Wagner's major works. They agreed. And then when he was eventually offered the directorship in Paris, he made the same proviso. He got to perform five of them before moving on. And finally, when Placido Domingo offered him the L.A. gig, James once again insisted he be allowed to Wagnerize the joint. Placido had no problem with that. Remember, Placido's a tenor, and some of the best tenor roles come from Wagner. Wotan, anybody? How can you beat playing the god of gods? Although that role actually requires a bass, but you know what I mean. James sure is getting his wish now, isn't he? He couldn't stop gushing about how Placido's given him the budget to build Bayreuth. Not literally, of course. But as I stated above, they're not sparing any expense. Do you know Bayreuth? It's a town in southern Germany most famous for its annual Wagner festival. In fact, Wagner himself founded the festival as a way to show off the Ring Cycle.
James also had nothing but nice things to say about working in L.A. in general. The big turnoff about the European houses was all the rivalry and back biting. More than once today he expressed his amazement at the lack of behind-the-scenes drama. Indeed, they all get along so famously that it's now a tradition for the cast and crew and musicians to have post-opera get-togethers at Kendall's, the restaurant and bar located next to the opera house on Grand Ave. Not only do they eat and drink and be merry, but James himself, ever the conductor, steps behind the bar and serves the drinks.
While he didn't really spill any details of the production, he did say that the orchestra pit would be covered. Now that right there makes me look forward to it, as I've never in my life seen an opera where you couldn't see the hard-working musicians down there. Besides that, all he told us about the Ring was that, like any Wagner piece, it's all-consuming. No other composer does that to him, he said. Whenever he does Wagner, nothing else in his life exists.
James spoke the longest by far, but the program wasn't over yet. After him you had a couple of gals from the costume department. Hallie Dufresne is what they call senior craft person. And Heather Bair is a cutter and draper. And she's also a Temple University alum! Apparently she got her MFA in theater there, which is part of the same school where I got my bachelor's in film. It's too bad I didn't get a chance to chat with her afterward. I don't meet many Owls outside alumni events.
Hallie and Heather basically talked about all the costumes that had been displayed on the stage since I sat down, including that one with the giant head. Apparently that is just one of several dwarves. Hallie tried on the black ballerina dress. Her face appeared at the bottom of the long neck. On stage, the person wearing that will have their face covered in a black mask so that it blends in with the rest of the neck, while the character's actual black and blank face is a couple feet higher. One of the main points they made was that they have to be practical first and foremost. You always have to think about how heavy or light the costumes are while, of course, trying to fulfill the director's vision. It's always a fine line. This got Hallie talking about the thermal plastic they used for a lot of the costumes.
The stage director, by the way, is this seventysomething German guy named Achim Freyer. I have to admit I've never heard of him, but reading his bio on the L.A. Opera site, dude's obviously a living legend in the theater world, especially European theater. Hallie and Heather said that Achim's vision for the Ring is so vast that he required two solid years of preproduction, which is downright unprecedented whether you're talking about theater, film, whatever. Two years! I've got to think that Achim's on the demanding side. Hallie and Heather sort of hinted as much, but they were very diplomatic about it. "He's just got this complete vision," they said more than once, always giggling after they said it.
Achim actually has a history with L.A. Opera. Back in '02 he did an abstract staging of Bach's B-minor Mass, which I didn't see, but I worked with someone at the time who did. She hated it. And apparently she wasn't alone. L.A. Opera got a truckload of scathing letters about it. In '03 Achim bounced back with Hector Berlioz's Damnation of Faust. Now that I did see and enjoyed quite a bit. I wasn't alone. It did quite well. Achim is first and foremost, however, a painter. That's always been his first love. After Damnation of Faust, he wanted to retire from theater altogether so he could do nothing but paint. Then he got a fatefull call in 2004 from L.A. Opera's then-COO Edgar Baitzel. At first it was about doing Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. That was the first suggestion because Achim's a longtime student of Brecht's work, what they call in German a Meisterschüler (master student). Achim also did plays for the Berliner Ensemble, a theater company in Berlin founded by Brecht. But during that same phone call, Edgar said something like, "But ya know, Achim, it'd be more awesome if you could do the Ring Cycle for us instead." The rest, as they say...
On a sad note, Edgar passed away last year from cancer. His widow Christina, however, is still very much involved in L.A. Opera. Officially she's special assistant to Placido Domingo. Unofficially, during the Ring productions, she shadows Achim as his translator, since his English is as narrow as his Ring production is grand.
And finally, to cap off this special event, which I have to admit I felt kind of lucky to be at, they had three different singers come up one at a time to sing excerpts. Playing the piano accompaniment was this big fella named Mark Robson, a voice coach from Cal Arts. First up was a young African-American mezzo by the name of Ronnita Miller. She'd been sitting up front the whole time actually. She stepped up to the stage and sang a piece from scene four of Das Rheingold called "Weiche, Wotan! Weiche!" Apparently it's when the goddess Fricka summons Wotan. Ronnita, by the way, is a recent winner of the Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Award, a pretty competitive competition co-founded by Placido himself. After her you had a Dutch tenor named Arnold Bezuyen, who sang an excerpt from scene two. Dorothy Wait said he'd been in L.A. a good ten days already and was digging the summer-like weather. He still lives in Holland which, it's not hard to imagine, has some pretty harsh winters. And finally there was Jeannine Altmeyer, a blonde soprano from California. She sang by far the longest piece, from act three, scene three of Götterdämmerung. She just turned sixty last year, although you wouldn't know it. Officially she retired from opera back in '03, having led quite the Wagnerian career.
When it was all over, they put on a reception in the adjacent Tiffany Ballroom, which unfortunately I didn't have time to attend. As I was filing out through the crowd, I found myself exiting the ballroom behind Jeannine. Next to her was this guy who I think was her assistant or something. She was telling him that she could have done her piece so much better. Wow, you could've fooled me. I'm no opera expert, but I thought she was terrific. As did everyone else judging by the thundering applause she received.
