Scene from "Le Rossignol." Photo by Nan Melville.
The Juilliard Opera Center's spring offering at the Juilliard School was a satisfying double bill of Igor Stravinsky's opera-oratorio "Oedipus Rex," with Latin text by Jean Cocteau, after Sophocles' play, and opera "Le Rossignol" ("The Nightingale"), with Russian libretto by Stepan Mitusov, after Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducted, Ned Canty directed, and designs were by Raul Abrego (sets), Kaye Voyce (costumes) and Matthew McCarthy (lighting). Robert Craft's English translations of "Le Rossignol" and narration for "Oedipus Rex" were employed. The April 22 performance, the second of three, is considered here.
Abrego's setting for "Oedipus Rex," about the mythological King of Thebes who kills his father, Laius, and marries his mother, Jocasta, was as stylized as Stravinsky and Cocteau's opus is. Men of the full-throated Juilliard Choral Union, directed by Judith Clurman, were situated at the back of the stage, behind a scrim, scores in hand. The playing area before them consisted of a rectangular pit of, apparently, stones or gravel, within a raised disk within another rectangle. Canty had singers circle around the disk before their musical entrances and remain onstage until just prior to the dénouement. In lieu of narration delivered by an actor, the singers shared narrative duties, which worked well enough, although it was unusual to hear Jocasta announce the news of her own death. Voyce dressed the soloists in black garb of antiquity until the final appearance of Oedipus—barefoot, blinded by his own hand, and crashing to his knees in the pit--in a blood-stained white robe.
Branches projected on cloth hangings served as the forest in " Rossignol," which concerns a nightingale prized by the Emperor of China until a mechanical bird usurps her place of honor. Lacquered red panels decorated the throne room. White curtains, neon lights, and a hospital bed were trappings of the room where the Emperor lay dying until Death withdrew, enchanted by the real nightingale's song. The foolish courtiers, posturing and snapping their fans in Canty's charming and witty production, were dressed in a rainbow of bright silks, the unassuming nightingale in plain gray, and the faltering Emperor in robe and crown of gold. The "Japanese envoys," wheeling and dealing, wore Western suits, ties, and broad-brimmed hats. Their bejeweled mechanical nightingale was a comical thing of rivets and gears, its head turning and beak opening and closing when it was plugged in. Death, swathed in black, waited by the Emperor's bedside, sardonically "clutching a copy of Life" magazine in addition to a scythe.
With the Juilliard Theater Orchestra, under Harth-Bedoya, playing the neo-classical "Oedipus" score at full tilt, there were blats here and there and singers standing upstage were often drowned out. There were few such problems in the more delicate "Rossignol."
Tenor Richard Cox made a dulcet-toned Oedipus, with a prominent head voice and ease in executing the melismas. Singing Jocasta in a vibrant mezzo-soprano, Alison Tupay mined her wide-ranging music for more drama than many would find in this stately, deliberately static piece. Alvin Crawford made a sonorous Tiresias in "Oedipus" and Bonze in "Rossignol."
The Nightingale's high coloratura suited bright-voiced soprano Hanan Alattar far better than the spinto part of Tatiana did in last season's "Eugene Onegin" here. Tenor Brandon McReynolds offered a sweet fisherman's song, to begin and end "Rossignol," and played the shepherd who helps reveal the secret of Oedipus' origins.
Brian Mulligan, as Creon, Jocasta's brother, who consults the oracle, and Weston Hurt, as the Emperor, displayed focused high baritones. Erin Elizabeth Smith sang the part of the cook, trusted by the nightingale and seemingly the only sensible person at court, in a lyric mezzo-soprano with presence. Mezzo-soprano Amy Wallace-Styles was the rich-toned Death. Daniel Gross, Steven Paul Spears, Ryan McKinny and Matthew Garrett completed the cast.
Hanan Alattar & Weston Hurt. Photo by Nan Melville.
Juilliard Opera Center at the Juilliard School
155 West 65th Street
April 20, 22 & 24 at 8 pm
Tickets $20 212/721-6500
Web site http://www.juilliard.edu