Review: The Ghosts of Versailles at Glimmerglass Festival 2019

Glimmerglass Festival has made a bold choice in re-mounting The Ghosts of Versailles, a complicated, multi-layered late 20^th-century opera, as part of its 2019 season.

Contemporary opera tends to suffer through an unusually difficult and long gestation before it is brought into this world. The Ghosts of Versailles is no exception.  Commissioned with the team of composer John Corigliano and playwright/librettist William M. Hoffman by the Metropolitan Opera for their hundredth anniversary, it missed its deadline and took fully seven years before being presented in its Met debut in 1991.

Seven performances later, it closed (all this despite such luminary singers as Teresa Stratas, Renee Fleming and Marilyn Horne in the cast.) In 1993 there was a television production that recorded the work with the same artists. It has since been produced but rarely, and the verdict continues to be highly contested.

Set in the world hereafter, we are first introduced to a group of somnambulant ghosts who wander on stage and drape themselves around the set, seemingly just hanging out in the famous Parisian palace, “leftovers” from that unfortunate episode of what writer Oscar Wilde alluded to as “the worst excesses of the French Revolution.”  Chiefly, there is Marie Antoinette, dead but not quite dead perhaps, who, having met with a decidedly unpleasant off-with-her-head end, languishes in despair and wishes to alter her fate.

The plot is curious and perhaps unnecessarily fussy.  The playwright Beaumarchais tries to make amends or at least distract the inconsolable queen. In fact, he insists he loves her, and, to cheer her up, he stages an opera-within-an-opera by reviving two of his favorite characters Count Almaviva and his manservant, man-of-a-thousand-trades-and-guises Figaro.  In this mash-up, Beaumarchais enters the action as a character, blares out to the assembled characters that he is chief architect of all and, as progenitor, he can and will change history through rewriting “alternate facts.”

Later, a whole new set of characters is introduced, including British and Turkish diplomats and a half dozen middle-eastern dancers and swordsman who somehow meet up in the Turkish Embassy. Also, the decidedly nasty piece of work P.H. Bégearss, who is introduced in the play-within-the-play as the favored suitor of Count Almaviva for his daughter, despite the girl being in love with the illegitimate son of the Count’s wife by Cherubino, a role always played by a woman (I told you it was complicated.) Bégearss grabs a lot of oxygen both singing and in a duel with his creator Beaumarchais, but the buildup fizzles as neither can win the day running each other through with their rapiers because they are all dead.

The story comes back into focus in grizzly fashion when we relive the rather dreadful kangaroo court  (taken verbatim from transcripts) that sentenced the Queen (here called Antonia,) and though we were assured that Beaumarchais will get her off as he promised (i.e. write a new ending to historical events,) he doesn’t.

The production values are simply stunning. Greeting us upon entering the auditorium is a vast black-and-white scene, suggesting decorative wallpaper, on a curtain that looks to be from the period of the French Revolution. But the view is challenged by a slinky curtain hanging in front made of black snake-like strips, which constantly move and break up the image. The shimmering broken-up effect wrought by designer James Noone complements exactly composer John Corigliano’s fragmented and complex soundscape, and both serve to illuminate the three or more worlds in the opera (the ghosts-in-residence, Beaumarchais’ artistic configuring, and the Figaro plot of the play-within-the-play.)

Costumes and lighting add greatly to the weird dreamscape of the work. The monochromatic white-and-off-white period clothes and wigs on the powdered faces of the ghosts created a tout ensemble elegant look, and costume designer Nancy Leary juxtaposes this ghostly look with great contrast in the jewel-hued costumes of the characters inside Beaumarchais’ play. Lighting designer Robert Wierzel uses multiple layers of twinkling18^th century candelabra sconces and effects throughout to emphasize the shimmering magic of a vanished world.

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Most successful, all the visuals refocus our attention back to the fascinating colors in the instrumentation and sounds Corigliano has explored. His score has nods throughout to some of opera’s biggest hits, but he also used his vastly accomplished musical palette to underscore and evoke moods in a very contemporary, even cinematic way. The choice of instrumentation goes forwards and backwards in time much like the story – from synth to harpsichord. The bowing of percussive instruments was spine-tingling, and the tension that was maintained between the descending twelve-tone runs and the introduction of chromatic chords served the dramatic thrust of the opera.

Conductor Joseph Colaneri, whose work with La traviata in this same Glimmerglass season opened me to a whole fresh hearing of Verdi’s opera, demonstrated he is equally sure-footed and sensitive to working with the contemporary Italian composer Corigliano’s massive and complicated score. Viva I’italia! 

There are some beautifully written and singable lines in Hoffman’s libretto. The figure of Marie Antoinette sings, “As color fades from leaves, feelings leave the soul.” Soprano Yelena Dyachek has one of the most luscious and memorable moments early in the opera with Corigliano’s setting of “Once there was a golden bird in a garden of silver trees.”

The motif returns and shows to great affect her ability to plunge dramatically and rise through vocal registers.

Hoffman can also write clever lines, and these were much enjoyed as in Figaro’s delivery of “My money is low. My status less than quo,” and certainly in the patter song that follows enumerating his many talents.

I could appreciate that in a summer camp atmosphere that is part of the Glimmerglass’ charm, where young singers  (and composers this year) gather to learn and stretch together, the choice of producing this opera made sense. General Director Francesca Zambello has provided a rich opportunity to delve into the canon, play around with going over the top with caricaturing “tropes and mimes” of the ‘opera buffa’ genre, provide many cameo opportunities to individual singers, and maybe also fulfill the crass need for singers entering the industry to set in their resume having sung recognizable singers’ roles. The performers certainly entered fully into the sense of play.

This said, Jay Lesenger’s direction felt all too effortful. Perhaps this is an unfair criticism, and fault should be laid instead at the feet of the form itself. “Grand opera buffa” is  already rarefied, an historic form  all but listed as “endangered species” status. Hoffman and Corigliano’s goal to satirize and parody operatic conventions within this form requires an audience savvy to those conventions, which push plot into the absurd and physical comedy into broad slapstick. But it became ‘too clever by half,’ and, finally, keeping up with Hoffman’s libretto became a slog with the accompanying musical in-jokes and references. In the final analysis there were too many characters, too many stories to tie up, too many words (many of them spoken to get through the work’s ambitious scope,) and too many endings.

The Ghosts of Versailles closes August 23, 2019 at Glimmerglass Festival 2019.
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I kept wanting to get inside these characters as people. “Antonia” seemed the most sympathetically realized character. Dyachek made choices that intrigued me, eschewing the more typical characterization of Queen Marie Antoinette as haughty, flippant, and careless (and usually cast as anorexic).  In this opera she is rendered softer, sadder, and more maternal. There were moments, such as I mentioned, where the soprano delivered achingly beautiful lines of music and where the opera seemed to want to delve deeper into the story of this haunting flesh-and-blood creature. But there wasn’t the focus given or a storyline arc sustained where she could transform this character believably. The slightly hunched melancholic figure she started out as was how she ended.

The other singers seemed to be playing in alternate universes through the conventions established by the tri-partite worlds, but not affectingly,

Christian Sanders showed himself to be a powerful tenor and strong stage communicator as the despicable villain through numerous reprises of  “Aria of the Worm” in what clearly was intended as a great crowd pleaser.  He pranced and hissed and staggered on the stage as if he had been coached by Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” The performance, surely directed thus, was calculated so over the top it felt completely disproportionate to anything else on stage (not unlike Depp’s presence on screen.)

Likewise, Ben Schaefer as the perennially beloved character of Figaro was directed to be so in motion as to become more  “Bouncing Tigger” than a convincing human thrown into comedic situations. I never believed one moment of the relationship with his Susanna (Kayla Siembieda.)

If these choices could be forgiven, analyzed as being intentionally two-dimensional for the play within a play, the role of Beaumarchais became for me more problematic. Jonathan Bryan has a powerful on-stage presence and here takes on the central voice of the artist, maybe stand-in for the composer or librettist. His character is not only the lens through which we entered his creation but should have been rendered as the most sympathetically-drawn character.  Unfortunately, the character-as-written tells more than he shows. He says he is the ultimate creator. He says he can rewrite history. He says he loves the Queen and wants to rescue her from her fate – maybe take her to Philadelphia (where anti-tyrannical sentiments had been resoundingly pledged and American democracy was having its day and had showed itself as the hope of the future. Sigh.) The Beaumarchais plotline doesn’t add up, perhaps this too is intentional as the unresolved shifts in the music, but in the drama it proves less satisfying.

The material is difficult, and I don’t mean just sufficiently challenging.  Some of the settings for the voices pushed the young singers in ways that didn’t show these voices at their best. Many singers sounded tired. Some of the sopranos sounded too shrill, with quaking vibratto on the upper notes. A male quartet sounded just a tad tentative.

When Gretchen Krupp entered in the role Samira (originally written as a kind of out-of-story “party piece” to show off the vocal skills of Marilyn Horne,) Krupp had such rock-solid power she nailed the cabaletta, written with a kind of appropriated  “Turkish-style”   and “hit us with her best shot,”  making her few on-stage moments indelible. I think many of us in the audience wondered where was that kind of sound all evening? Isn’t this the central experience in opera?

In the razzle-dazzle of this three-ring circus of an opera, somehow the singing and the satisfaction of drama kept getting sacrificed. In Hoffman’s not settling on an overall tone, I felt the libretto suffered from a lack of applied rigor.

But who’s to say? The production has been invited to be performed in Marie Antoinette’s own theatre at Versailles.  Perhaps it will bring the queen back to life?

The Ghosts of Versailles. Composed by John Corigliano. Libretto by William M. Hoffman. Conducted by Joseph Colaneri.  Directed by Jay Lesenger. Set Designer James Noone. Costume Designer Nancy Leary. Lighting Designer Robert Wierzel. Choreographer Eric Sean Fogel. With Yelena Dyachek. Jonathan Bryan, Peter Morgan, Zachary Roux, Bryn Holdsworth, Lindsay Metzger, Maxwell Levy, Christopher Carbin, Teresa Perotta, Abigail Paschke, Simran Claire, Norah Devlin, Ben Schaefer, Kayla Siembieda, Joanna Latini, Brian Wallin, Christian Sanders, Emily Misch, Spencer Britten, Katherine Maysek, Gretchen Krupp, Wm. Clay Thomson, Tucker Reed Breder, Charles H Eaton, Tanyaradzwa A Tawengwa, Rachel Kay, Spencer Hamlin, Jawan Cliff-Morris, Shanel Bailey, Rachel Kay, Joshua Kring, Jorrell Lawyer-Jefferson, and The Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra and Chorus. Produced by Glimmerglass Festival . Reviewed by Susan Galbraith.