K. 384
You've probably heard us going on about how Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born 250 years ago. Yesterday, to be exact. And where else would you have found us last night but listening to Mozart's music? As we recommended in last week's Classical Music Agenda, we spent the big night with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. This week, they are presenting a semi-staged performance of Mozart's early opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), with television personality Sam Donaldson in the non-singing role of the Pasha Selim. Abduction is the first Viennese example of the operatic genius that the composer would later develop, reaching its full flower in The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. The story was set in a pasha's harem in Turkey, a country with whom the Austrian empire was increasingly in conflict politically, leading up to a disastrous war toward the end of Mozart's life. Two Spanish women are enslaved by the pasha, and the men who love them come from Spain to help them escape.
If you are not a regular classical music listener, you might wonder what all the fuss is about. Why do we care so much about Mozart? We had occasion to give this some thought last night as we listened to this charming opera, far down the list of his best work and yet still filled with moments of remarkable beauty. The appeal of Mozart's music is undeniably universal, the musical equivalent of chocolate-covered strawberries, something that just about everyone will love. However, the delight of the surface is only the sweet aroma that draws you in, toward the substantial ideas that are underneath, profound without the least air of forbidding seriousness. Americans may be the most disposed to appreciate Mozart's political ideas, expressing as they do the Enlightenment goal of moderating absolute government toward greater personal freedom. Many of Mozart's operas have ultimately to do with noble rulers who restrain their own autocratic powers out of love for their subjects, the ideal of the enlightened monarch. Pasha Selim in Abduction, the Count in Figaro, Titus in La Clemenza di Tito, Sarastro in The Magic Flute, and even the title role in the early Lucio Silla all either learn or teach us a lesson about forgiveness and mercy in the hands of the powerful. Of course, we Americans in the 21st century cannot really identify with the idea of an executive leader, seemingly drunk on power, who imposes his own will on a country while ignoring the needs and desires of a large percentage of its citizens. Oh, wait.
For this performance, Leonard Slatkin led the small Classical core of the NSO, tucked into the house left corner of the Concert Hall stage, which was draped in aqua cloth. In the house right corner was a small area with a minimal set, where the singers acted out the story. They were also able to move along the apron space in front of the orchestra and onto a narrow platform that jutted a short distance into the audience. About 50 singers from the Master Chorale of Washington sang the choral parts and were seated in the chorister loft over the stage. All of the singers wore beautiful costumes, coordinated by Jennifer Johnston. In this production, directed and designed by Douglas Fitch, the least satisfying elements were a result of ultimately misguided attempts at updating the opera, including the clunky computer animation shown on the large screen over the orchestra.
Mozart and his librettist, Johann Gottlieb Stephanie der Jüngere, connected the musical pieces of this Singspiel with spoken dialogue in German. Librettist Richard Sparks has created an adaptation, not a true translation, in English for this production, which was annoyingly cute, including a line added for last night's performance ("I'm having a little party -- it's Mozart's birthday!") and countless cheap jokes. The use of silly descriptions of each musical number on the screen ("Ah, LOVE!"), rather than supertitles with an actual translation, didn't help. We had the sense of watching something other than what Mozart created, which is a strange way to give tribute to the composer's 250th birthday. One of the reasons that companies do this opera is that they can involve a celebrity as an audience draw, by casting him in the non-singing role of Pasha Selim. ABC veteran Sam Donaldson takes that role in this production, appearing on the large television screen for the first two parts and then finally entering the stage at the conclusion. He delivered his lines well, got a lot of laughs, and looked like he had a good time.
The singers were all quite good, if not with the excellence of major star names. Jennifer Casey Cabot (Constanze) brought great power, if perhaps too much vibrato, to the most difficult role. Her big aria, "Martern aller Arten," is the showcase piece at the center of the opera, and Casey Cabot gave us fluid melismatic singing and ringing high notes but did not have the same presence on the extremely low notes that Mozart included. We have been impressed before by Korean soprano JiYoung Lee (Blonde), currently in the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists Program at Washington National Opera. She was excellent here, in a hot pink gown and blonde wig, with only one high note that sounded a little flat and tenuous in her first aria. Tenor Richard Clement was a bit outmatched by the demands of the role of Belmonte, but his performance was dramatically and vocally fine. Tenor Robert Baker is one of our favorite local singers, and he brought great humor to the role of Pedrillo, if not always the strong high notes in Mozart's score. His performance of the Moorish guitar serenade ("In Mohrenland gefangen war"), with the pizzicato strings of the NSO, was understated and lovely. The best male performance was bass Kevin Short as the hilarious Turkish guard of the harem, Osmin. He was vocally imperious and physically menacing, well, as much as anyone could be costumed in red pantaloons and gold high heels. The NSO gave excellent support, with the perfect jangling sound of flutes and percussion for the sections of Janissary music.
If you like the sound of what you read, you could hear it for yourself at the final performance of this program, this evening at 8 p.m.