Another Not Nopera!

Last night, through the offices of a couple friends with a spare ticket, I was able to take in the Santa Fe Opera's Vivaldi/Sellar's Griselda, including of course, the usual sushi-pre-tailgate extravaganza. Half of the fine seats in the mid-balcony where we were sitting were empty, possibly due to this opening night review published in our daily local news-rag:  Premiere of Vivaldi Opera Misfires.

.... OK? Back? ....

It is my personal belief -- knowing basically-jack-all about opera but something about theater -- that the reviewer either saw an off-night or is off himself. There are kernels of truth in many of his quibbles so I tend to believe the latter. But I would reverse just about every one of his opinions:

• The singing -- although a bit variable -- was quite fine throughout. I thought the King and Queen took a while to warm up but came though in the end. Amanda Majeski's Ottone was not "shrill" but the hit of the show. To extend an olive branch, I agree -- and double down -- that Isabel Leonard's Costanza was fabulous.
• The music was balanced and easy to listen to -- one could make a case for the entire 101 Strings catalog being simply the working out of Baroque permutations.  The guest appearance of two French horns towards the end of the first act was a pleasing counterpoint to all the strings'n'things.
• The costumes -- perhaps a bit over-the-top, but hey dude, it's OPERA -- worked well to distinguish the characters' personalities. Griselda's native blanket brought her down to S.Fe earth from her royal loftiness and Costanza's quinceañera dress played well to her child-bride innocence. That dress was well used by the lighting in a number of cases -- did anyone notice that her back-lit shadow looked like a Pawn shuttling around the Kings and Queens? If anything, the Southwest references were quite honorable "Coals to Newcastle".
• The lighting was dramatic and -- usually -- well paced and placed. There were points I would have tweaked, say a tiny bit of fill when the characters were kept in the dark of their own thoughts, a widening of a spot here and there to hold focus, or some blocking changes to backup the drama. But it worked. Sometimes fantastically.
• The set comprised a green floor, one -- bumped up to two for the penultimate Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire scene -- movable chair, and two secret service goons who provided all the backdrop one really needed. So I found the actual Gronk backdrop -- a mashup of Dali, Miro, Grotz, Rousseau, and some miscellaneous household objects -- to be superfluous. Perhaps the director was trying to emulate Merce Cunningham Style but missed the point that the individual ostensibly un-related elements need to be intrinsically interesting in and of themselves?
• The staging. Well, given the minimalist setting, the staging did somewhat over-rely on the flooring. Which is actually fine if you are in the balcony, but maybe those lucky souls in the orchestra seats couldn't always see the cast "rolling about" upon it?  It is also my humble opinion that Sellars tends to bludgeon the dramatic bits somewhat more heavily than necessary. E.g., the final lights-out on re-Queened Griselda still sweeping the floor just seemed out of place.

Which brings me to the N.Mex'ans central complaint: "When opera people argue about whether directors have gone too far...", Baroque opera should be their touch-stone.  It was Experimental Musical Theater. This one in particular may have been the first to employ both a composer and a librettist. Performances were melded from bits and pieces to fit the capabilities and preferences of those involved. Nothing was Set-in-Stone.

Now, of course, it Should-Never-Be-Turned. When funding for The Arts is divied up it's always the Symphony and the Opera, and maybe Shakespeare in the Park, that get the big bucks. But they are not The Arts. They are History. The Arts are a living, growing, groping, thing. Thus I feel impelled to applaud Peter Sellars and the Santa Fe Opera for busting out of the envelope.