Les pêcheurs de perles - Opera Australia

Bringing back a sense of spectacle

(Myer Music Bowl - Melbourne)
John Slavin, Reviewer
November 26, 2007

Tenor Kanen Breen was busy last week. On Wednesday he played three distinctly different comic roles in Opera Australia's Tales of Hoffmann. And on Friday night he sang the role of Nadir, the hero of The Pearlfishers, an exhausting lyric tenor role that includes the duet In the depths of the temple, with his friend and mentor Zurga (Lucas de Jong).

This was a free performance, enthusiastically received by more than 12,000 people. Breen has a steely but sure sound and sang with intense poetic feeling.

The opera was voted last year by ABC listeners as their most operatic work. It is performed more often in Australia than in any other country and it is easy to see why.

While Nadir and Zurga harbour a secret passion for the Brahmin priestess Leila (Hye Seoung Kwon), they are also blood brothers and Zurga's feelings for Nadir - even in betrayal - are clearly more than platonic. This is an opera about betrayed mateship.

I initially thought that Hye Seoung Kwon's Leila was sweet but reedy. But I was wrong. She was mastering being miked. Her performance revealed an exquisite and fragile artistry, underlining beautiful articulation and intelligent phrasing.

There are anomalies in staging a full production in the Music Bowl. Ann-Margret Pettersson's original production reworks the traditional libretto. In her interpretation, Zurga becomes a French administrator in India and notions of colonial power are introduced into the fairytale. But outdoors, such complexities are largely lost because of the distance from the stage. Matters are further complicated by subtitled screens on either end of the Bowl.

The effect is screen versus stage, image versus music, drama versus spectacle. You can't do subtle stage effects or explore complex interpretations.

Nevertheless, it was the perfect Melbourne celebration of the cosmopolitan and the popular. Orchestra Victoria played with lyrical passion under Emmanuel Joel-Hornak and the full moon drifted above, right on cue.

Don Giovanni - State Theatre, November 16, 2007

Tahu Rhodes irresistible as the Don

John Slavin, Reviewer
November 16, 2007

Teddy Tahu Rhodes in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Taryn Fiebig as Zerlina in the Opera Australia production.
Photo: Branco Gaica

DON GIOVANNI
Mozart, Opera Australia, State Theatre,
November 14 - December 14.
Running time: 180 minutes with one interval.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera describes itself as a comic drama.

There are delightful opera buffo moments such as the scene when the Don (Teddy Tahu Rhodes) persuades his put-upon servant, Leporello (John Pringle), to swap identities so that he can seduce the maid of Donna Elvira (Fiona Janes). But even here the action slips into cruel deception as the Don takes the opportunity to half-beat his rival for the sexual favours of Zerlina (Tiffany Speight) to death. Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, were creating something more subtle than a night's entertainment.

The drama splits neatly into two halves. Act One presents the Don as a philanderer who leaves in his wake a trail of dumped lovers. Nothing and no one can stop his erotic trajectory. Like a jungle predator Tahu Rhodes' seducer sniffs the flesh of the women to whom he is attracted. His persistent sexual urge suggests he is a vampire of the senses. In Act Two this production appropriately transforms him into a flower-crowned incarnation of Dionysius, god of intoxication and illusion. Erotic frenzy blurs reality so identities are destabilised. His vengeful victims owe him a vote of thanks because the Don brings passion and meaning in the form of revenge to their dull conformity.

The original set of director Goran Jarvefelt and designer Carl Friedrich Oberle is austere to the point of minimalism, a neo-classical hall, which also serves as a street. The empty space places the emphasis squarely on dramatic interpretation and its limits are pushed beyond redemption in the finale.

The supporting cast is perfectly adequate. Kate Ladner's Donna Anna has a fresh lyric soprano and is good at dramatising the circumstances of her rape but the role requires a much bigger dramatic voice. Janes sings Donna Elvira tastefully but brings no sense of anger or unrequited passion. In the thankless role of Don Ottavio, Jaewoo Kim is sweet and flaccid when compared with the Don's vitality. At the end of a distinguished career John Pringle has reached that level where artistry papers over fault lines in the upper register.

These characters are dragged in the slipstream of Tahu Rhodes' Don Giovanni. Resplendent in Errol Flynn costume and black wig, Tahu Rhodes affects a swarthy swagger that is matched by a thrilling dark baritone, which can bury its power sotto voce in scenes of seduction. He brilliantly underlines the various facets of the character and at the climax when confronted by his nemesis, the Commendatore (Jud Arthur), he attains titanic defiance.

It is a superb performance that stands out from the cast and overcomes the rather benign beat of conductor Imre Pallo.

No woman I know can resist the sex appeal of Tahu Rhodes and this is the perfect role for his dynamic talent.

Don Giovanni - State Theatre, Melbourne - November 14, 2007

Don Giovanni
State Theatre, Melbourne; Opera Australia
Wednesday, November 14, 2007.
Opening Night Performance.
Review by JOSEPHINE GILES.

If Don Giovanni were written today it might look a lot like Californication, but the Don would make David Duchovny’s character look like a wimp. In Spain alone Don Giovanni has racked up 1003 conquests and is still counting...

Don Giovanni is not an opera for the faint hearted, coming in at just over 3 hours, but it contains lots of fabulous music, and has a surprisingly contemporary story. Though this production is flawed in places, it is well worth seeing for the stellar performances of the two major principal males.

As Don Giovanni baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes is outstanding as he makes the role his own. He is opera’s version of the triple threat: he can sing, act and has a great bod – which is just as well, as this particular production has his character appearing in various stages of undress. Tahu Rhodes’s voice is at turns richly menacing or sweetly seductive, and he brings a commanding physicality to his portrayal of the testosterone ruled, morally bankrupt Don.

“As everyone knows, the opera is really about Leporello”, said OA Chief Executive Adrian Collette as he introduced John Pringle at the after party. In this case, he wasn’t joking. John Pringle’s performance of the most put upon servant of the Don is one of the last appearances he will make in opera, as he is soon to retire from the stage. He makes the most of every moment on stage, exploiting the comic potential of the role to the full, and his enjoyment and rapport with Tahu Rhodes lifts the whole show. It is definitely the best Leporello I have ever seen.

The casting of the female principals is less successful, with the exception of Tiffany Speight as Zerlina, who can be relied upon to please in the Mozart subrette roles. As Donna Anna, Kate Ladner was dramatically convincing but, on the night, lacked the vocal stamina that this fiendishly difficult role demands.

The role of Donna Elvira happens to be one of my favourites, and while she is often played as a comical love sick fool, she is in my opinion a good portrait of the sort of madness that can possess a woman when she is obsessed by a charismatic, abusive man. Alternately angry then forgiving, her conflicted feelings are expressed in outbursts with a spiky vocal line that requires a soprano with an exciting top. In this production Fiona Janes’s fine mezzo quality was pleasing, but ultimately incongruous in the opera.

The one tenor role, Don Ottavio, was filled more than ably by Jaewoo Kim. It is a thankless role, as the character fruitlessly tries to capture the attention of the hysterical Anna, but Kim has a beautiful lyric tenor and was almost heroic in the aria Il mio tesoro. And bass Jud Arthurs cuts a fine figure as the Commendatore.

This production of Don Giovanni has been in the OA repertoire for some time, and its age is beginning to show. It contains a number of, to my taste, gratuitous gestures to “sexiness”, but in general maintains a good pace throughout, culminating in a powerful denouement. Opening night was hampered by too many tempo disagreements between the stage and pit, which may well account for some of the uneasiness from the girls, but I trust these problems will be resolved during the run of the season.