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The Saturday Morning Post
There are ways to attend an opera in Washington at a ticket price that will not make you cry. The easiest way is to go to a performance from one of the smaller or collegiate companies, where the reasonable ticket price will translate into hearing lesser singers or a piano or small instrumental ensemble instead of a full orchestra. If you want the true experience of opera, however — that "exotic and irrational entertainment" described by Samuel Johnson — then you have to have it all together: the full orchestra, the room-filling voices, the lavish costumes and sets. In short, in Washington with a few exceptions, you need to attend a performance by the Washington National Opera, resident in the Kennedy Center Opera House.
The company only mounts seven productions each seasons. The season opener, Puccini's La Bohème, has already come and gone (see my review for details), but two productions remain, both opening within the next two weeks. First will be the opera that, if pressed, many opera lovers might cite as the greatest opera ever composed, Mozart's Don Giovanni. The main stage cast is going to be very good: Erwin Schrott reprising his 2003 Washington appearance in the title role, Ildar Abdrazakov as the Don's servant Leporello (Ildar will sing the title role in the second cast, with his brother Askar as Leporello), Erin Wall as the jilted Donna Anna, Anja Kampe as the vengeful Donna Elvira. Plus it is a chance to spot a living legend, tenor Plácido Domingo, who will be conducting. John Pascoe has rethought his 2003 production with some flamboyant new costumes and sets. Pascoe has said that his new concept revolves around the idea that Don Giovanni "has to be an incredibly seductive figure . . . looking like a magnificent sexually driven animal in the first act." One might also describe it as Don Giovanni transported to the world of The Crow or X-Men. There are eight performances, from October 25 to November 16.
Photo of John Pascoe's costume designs for Don Giovanni courtesy of Washington National Opera
The most exciting opera on the company's fall schedule is the local premiere of William Bolcom's A View from the Bridge, adapted from Arthur Miller's play by the playwright himself and librettist Arnold Weinstein. The opera will be mounted in the same production used for the opera's premiere, in 1999, at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Described by the composer as ''grand opera Brooklynized," A View from the Bridge is widely recognized by opera critics as one of the most successful new operas of the last few decades. Baritone Kim Josephson, tenor Gregory Turay, and soprano Catherine Malfitano will reprise their acclaimed roles as Eddie, Rodolpho, and Beatrice. If you think opera is a relic of the past, you must get to one of the six performances (November 3 to 17). Follow the course of the production's development by reading the rehearsal journal, a blog with posts about the work on A View from the Bridge from start to finish.
If you are a student or young professional (ages 18 to 35), sign up for membership in the company's Generation O program. You will be able to buy a subscription at greatly reduced prices or, depending on ticket availability, may be able to buy last-minute tickets to individual performances at reduced prices (generally $50 for orchestra seats and $75 for prime orchestra, an incredible deal). Members also get the first opportunity to buy tickets to special performances each season, like the Don Giovanni featuring the company's young artists' program (November 9, now all sold out). A new program, called Access to Opera Tickets, provides the cheapest ticket of all. For a couple weekday performances per production, the company provides a small amount of tickets at the rate of $25. You must purchase them at the Kennedy Center box office, starting at 10 a.m. on the day of the performance and with a limit of two tickets per person. The performances coming up for this program are November 7 and 13 (Don Giovanni) and November 8 and 14 (A View from the Bridge).
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Oh god. If the costume designs are any indication, it looks like I'll have to file this Don Giovanni with the previous Boheme in the "trying too hard to be different" category. (Not that different is necessarily bad: Baz Lurhmann's Boheme on Broadway was moved to a more modern Paris and enjoyable despite -- perhaps in part *because* -- of that. But our Boheme's different was bad.) Let's just hope they don't mess with the supertitles like they did for Boheme.
Your apprehension is understandable. However, "Don Giovanni" is a kind of myth, the universal seducer who somehow manages to get away, every time but the last time, that is. And, let us not forget, that the libretto does include a masked ball. Maybe costumes and the playing of roles in sexuality are not as far from the opera as they might seem.
Then again, maybe the concept will only get in the way. You have to see it to decide!
The Generation O program is wonderful-- I got $25 orchestra seats a few weeks ago for their "Introduction to Opera" performance, and in a couple weeks I'm seeing a Friday night perfomance of Don Giovanni for $15 (also with an orchestra-level seat). Those seats normally go for something outrageous like $250, so this is an incredible deal.
It is an incredible deal. And the more that young music lovers take advantage of it and buy tickets, WNO and other organizations will realize that it is probably the best way to renew their audiences.
As for View from the Bridge, word is that these may be Catherine Malifitano's last stage performances - reports are that her future engagements are just for directing, not singing. So this may be the last chance to see one of the most dramatic performers of our time in a singing role.