John Adams’s 2000 opera-oratorio El Niño does simply that, connecting the traditional previous to the equally troubled current, a mosaic of non secular poetry from the English- and Spanish-speaking worlds over ten centuries and medieval and baroque music with 20th century minimalism.
To cite this system notes of the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere manufacturing:
Described by John Adams as his method of understanding what is supposed by a miracle, El Niño is an opera-oratorio that brings the custom of sacred works by composers like Bach and Handel into the trendy period.
El Niño opened on Tuesday evening in a fascinating new manufacturing by Lileana Blain-Cruz in a sensational Met debut together with a number of different debutants together with soprano Julia Bullock, baritone Davóne Tines, conductor Marin Alsop, countertenors Key’mon W. Murrah and Siman Chung, set designer Adam Rigg and lighting designer Yi Zhao. (On Could 1st and 4th, the Argentine mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack will carry out because the mezzo soloist.) The viewers acquired their efforts with real heat and delight all through the night.
The evening earlier than the El Niño premiere, I watched the DVD of the Paris world premiere starring Daybreak Upshaw, the dearly missed Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson and Sir Willard White performed by Kent Nagano. The non secular work was commissioned as a celebration of the approaching new millennium. Adams and his collaborator Peter Sellars (the librettist and director) wished to attach the conflicts of battle and the travails of refugees fleeing political violence in historical Judea to the issues of the trendy world getting into a brand new millennium.
Properly ,we at the moment are almost 1 / 4 century into the 21st century of the brand new millennium. We face wars in Ukraine and Gaza which are dividing our world and yielding document numbers of refugees. Principally Hispanic refugees are being turned away or imprisoned at America’s southern border. The theme is extra topical and extra well timed than ever. Mary and Joseph and the toddler savior should additionally flee political violence and oppression, braving potential hostility and rejection in international lands – they too are refugees who’re a part of an oppressed minority.
I need to point out that within the second act there may be an apocalyptic refrain that mentions that the “towers are falling” – written over a yr earlier than the bombing of the World Commerce Middle. The road gave me chills (I work 100 yards from the Commerce Middle and went into work that September morning…)
In Paris within the yr 2000, Sellars’s multimedia manufacturing was stark and up to date with darkish backgrounds, no surroundings and plain fashionable costumes. Daybreak Upshaw’s Virgin Mary wore a pink plaid shirt and black skirt and the boys sported button-down shirts, t-shirts, and slacks. Gritty movie projections confirmed Mary and Joseph stand-ins fleeing of their automotive on the freeway to Egypt. Mary and St. Elizabeth greet one another in a basement laundry room and crying policemen are comforted on city sidewalks. Sellars created a darkish world of social dystopia and ominous foreboding all through and the musical method adopted swimsuit. Nagano’s tempos are driving with a darker orchestral sonority and louder quantity – the pounding ostinatos counsel violence able to erupt.
On the Met, Marin Alsop in Act I retains the textures clear and shimmering with better delicacy and softness evoking non secular surprise and beatific pleasure on the miracle of conception and start. The musical model is evocative of Bach and Handel performed on this vogue. Lileana Blain-Cruz units her nativity story in a dreamlike South American panorama of saturated colours and plush flowers and bushes evoking the Latin American primitivist artwork of Frida Kahlo. The refrain is wearing lengthy flowing robes in iridescent colours and fanciful headdresses. There’s a sense of childlike surprise and heightened theatricality.
Whereas the darker components have been omnipresent within the Sellars world premiere staging, Blain-Cruz efficiently shifts the tone from surprise and pleasure in Act I to political violence and displacement in Act II with the doorway of the despot Herod. Herod (Tines) enters in army uniform evoking Mussolini, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Hitler under a larger-than-life statue of himself. Troopers with machine weapons pop up within the hills and mountains upstage. A ultimate refrain of youngsters shut the night in a prayer lauding the brand new savior. They cost us with the accountability (at present damaged) that we’ll preserve the world peaceable and entire so that they will have a protected and constructive future.
Blain-Cruz doesn’t rely upon projected movie however phases most of the incidents associated within the textual content – puppet dragons (designed by one other debuting artist James Ortiz) harking back to Chinatown and Mardi Gras parades appeared to threaten after which fall in worship earlier than the toddler Jesus. The choreography of one other debutant, Marjani Forté-Saunders, retains the stage as filled with motion as it’s of coloration. The attention and ear are continually intrigued and delighted with a symphony of motion, sound, and imagery filled with coloration and life. That is truly an opera that one may take a baby or non-opera individual to and count on them to get pleasure from and to be engaged by it.
Julia Bullock has a wealthy, low set soprano with a plummy but pointed resonance within the center register (very completely different from Upshaw’s piping, childlike excessive soprano). The highest can flip reedy (the voice has notable lyric mezzo colorations with similarities to Frederica von Stade) however the added heat and sonority gave this Mary an earthy but pure high quality. Bullock has the reward of stillness and ease onstage, she was by no means affected or self-consciously arty in her supply. The voice crammed the home fairly nicely. I need to point out that Bullock (a up to date opera specialist and advocate) has made El Niño her personal private pet challenge involving herself in scaled down live performance variations of the work for church and chamber performances which is able to tour the nation later this yr. I look ahead to her Cleopatra within the Adams Antony and Cleopatra subsequent season.
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J’Nai Bridges because the mezzo-soprano Mary/Narrator soloist began out a little bit tentatively with a barely muffled supply, however got here into her personal because the opera progressed, revealing a radiant, sensual presence and appealingly dusky mezzo voice (she had canceled the gown rehearsal and could also be working by some indisposition). Her rendition of the Act I “La anunciación” lacked the sensual abandon and non secular awakening of Hunt-Lieberson’s rendition, however she shined within the second half. I look ahead to what Spanish speaker Daniela Mack brings to the half in Could because the mezzo soloist is assigned a lot of the Spanish-language materials.
Davóne Tines because the baritone Joseph/Herod/Narrator soloist introduced one other sturdy debut revealing a heat, velvety baritone with stunning legato line, clear diction. A flexible artist, Tines introduced a youthful sympathetic stage presence to Joseph whereas being correctly imposing and threatening as Herod. A really promising starting on this home for a rising younger artist.
The trio of countertenors Eric Jurenas, Key’mon W. Murrah, and Siman Chung (who double because the Angel Gabriel and the Three Magi) offered a seamless mix of ethereal sound even when suspended excessive above the stage, flying on wires within the annunciation scene (Bullock as Mary additionally had her airborne moments in Act I). In his solo traces, Murrah revealed a wealthy distinctive sound.
Alsop maintained a virtuosic management of orchestral dynamics significantly in revealing quite a lot of orchestral element whereas preserving the quantity all the way down to preserve the voices within the forefront. Her command of the shimmering, delicately articulated orchestration in Act I used to be contrasted with better density and thundering energy in Act II because the Holy Household is threatened by earthly risks. Steadiness, selection and ample element have been evident all evening lengthy.
The Metropolitan Opera refrain was augmented by dancers, a youngsters’s refrain and puppeteers bringing a way of vibrant neighborhood which then was fragmented and pushed into the wilderness in Act II. This was additionally a triumphant profession finale for departing refrain grasp Donald Palumbo who was greeted with cheers by a standing viewers on the ultimate curtain calls.
The ultimate cheers have been for John Adams who strode out final and embraced conductor Marin Alsop.
This manufacturing is one thing of a testomony to lady energy for the reason that director, conductor, the very concerned lead soprano, and choreographer are all feminine. The change in tone, emphasis and emotional resonance within the conceptualization and realization of Adams’s opera-oratorio is a testomony to their thoughtfulness.
Our divided and intransigent world is in dire want of pleasure, hope, peace, compassion, reconciliation, childlike innocence, and human connection. Adams’s El Niño is a radiant messenger of all of those direly wanted life requirements that are being embodied on the stage of the Met in radiant coloration and vibrant life. It is usually a enjoyable evening out. A lot of tickets can be found – come collectively and join with this expertise.
Pictures: Evan Zimmerman/MetOpera
