Review: The music and the singers remain the best things about "La Rondine" at Opera Theatre

Act II quartet and chorus
Photo: Ken Howard

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What: Puccini's La Rondine
Where: Opera Theatre of St. Louis
When: Through June 28, 2015

Puccini’s romantic drama "La Rondine" was something of a problem child for the composer. Opera Theatre's utterly splendid production of the original 1917 version (there are thee altogether) illustrates the issue: Giuseppe Adami's clunker of a libretto. As beautifully sung, impeccably acted, intelligently directed, and generally entertaining as this "La Rondine" is, there's just no getting around those words.

The opera's history was troubled from the beginning. The original request from Vienna's Carltheater in 1913 was for an operetta. Puccini asked for (and got) permission to instead write a genuine opera, but lighter in tone than his tragic masterpieces. When he offered the finished product to his publisher Tito Ricordi in 1916, Ricordi turned it down. Yet when it was published by Ricordi's rival Lorenzo Sonzogno, Ricordi (as stage director Michael Gieleta relates in his program notes) "spread bad word of mouth about 'La rondine'...with such zeal that even a century later, both experts and amateurs retains all sorts of 'opinions' on what 'La rondine' was and wasn't."

Sydney Mancasola and John McVeigh
Photo: Ken Howard

It was revised twice after its premiere (the final version was mounted by OTSL back in 1996), but no revision of it has ever achieved the popularity of "La Boheme" (which it somewhat resembles, at least in the second act) or Puccini's other operas. Until very recently it was still not uncommon to see it dismissed as "Puccini's operetta."

In both the first and third versions, the libretto of "La Rondine" is often so cryptic that it's nearly telegraphic. "We are given minimal background information concerning the characters," observed Mr. Gieleta in an interview with me during tech week, "as if the piece was prompting the audience to figure the actual storyline out for themselves from the scraps of textual evidence. In that context, La Rondine is reminiscent of a good theatrical play in which the author renounces traditional omniscience and where the public is free to interpret the scarcely narrated facts in their own way." Unfortunately, it also makes some of the characters' decisions a bit baffling.

The story is basically “Traviata lite”. Magda, a “kept woman”, leaves her rich, middle-aged lover Rambaldo and her lush life in Paris to take up with Ruggero, a young hunk from the sticks. Unfortunately the young hunk is, as written, far too painfully naive to be sympathetic, and the rich lover little more than a cipher, which makes Magda's decision to leave them both seem more immature and petulant than tragic.

Corinne Winters
Photo: Ken Howard

That said, this is such an impressive production in every way that I mostly found myself able to suspend disbelief and revel in the many wonderful individual moments. The ecstatic "toast to love" in the second act, with the full chorus in full voice, is but one of many examples. One does not, in the final analysis, go to a Puccini opera for the intelligence of the libretto but for the emotional power of the music. And "La Rondine" has that in abundance.

This production also has bravura performances in abundance, led by soprano Corinne Winters as Magda. She has, in her lower register, the kind of richness I associate with mezzos or altos, while still retaining a crystal clear head voice. Her first big aria in Act I ("Chi il bel sogno di Doretta" in the original Italian) was a real show stopper, drawing enthusiastic applause from the opening night audience. Better yet, her acting is completely convincing, even in the drawn-out melodramatic renunciation of Ruggero in the third act.

As Magda's maid Lisette, whose expectations of music-hall stardom prove to be wildly unrealistic, soprano Sydney Mancasola also displays a wonderfully clear voice with great top notes, along with a sure comic sense. Tenor John McVeigh turns in an equally fine performance as the poet Prunier, Lisette's on again/off again lover, with yet another fine, strong voice and a convincingly sympathetic character.

Corinne Winters and Anthony Kalil
Photo: Ken Howard

In the role of Ruggero, tenor Anthony Kalil did not sound as vocally powerful to me as the rest of the principals, but otherwise turned in a respectable if somewhat monochromatic performance. There is, I think, a bit more variety to Ruggero's character than I saw, at least on opening night. Still, he certainly holds his own with Ms. Winters, Ms. Mancasola, and Mr. McVeigh in that rapturous quartet-and-chorus number in the second act.

Bass-baritone Matthew Burns isn't given much to do as Rambaldo, but even so he manages to suggest that there is more to his character than the libretto indicates, and does so with a robust and well-focused voice. Sopranos Ashley Milanese and Elizabeth Sutphen and mezzo Hannah Hagerty all provide well-sung cameos as Magda's friends Yvette, Bianca, and Suzy.

Mr. Gieleta direction is unfailingly sure-footed, creating powerful stage pictures, clarifying character, and generally serving the material remarkably well. Alexander Dodge's and Gregory Gale's costumes beautifully conjure up both Belle Époque Paris and the seaside resort to which Magda and Ruggero flee in the third act, assisted by Christopher Akerlind's dramatic lighting design. This is a "La Rondine" that looks as good as it sounds.

John McVeigh, Corinne Winters and ensemble
Photo: Ken Howard

Speaking of how it sounds, OTSL Music Director Stephen Lord conducts the orchestra with the assurance we have come to expect of him over the years, while the ensemble of (mostly) St. Louis Symphony musicians responds with powerful, impeccable playing. Puccini's entrancing score comes through in all its glory.

"La Rondine" may never get as much respect as Puccini's more famous works, but it deserves to be seen, if only because it's one of the few Puccini operas in which the heroine isn't either a hapless victim or clueless enabler of badly-behaved men. Say what you will about Magda, she ultimately chooses her own road, even if her reasons are not always clear. And when her story is told this well—to say nothing of this beautifully sung—it’s a reminder of why we love opera in the first place.

The Opera Theatre of St. Louis production of "La Rondine" continues through June 28 in rotating repertory with three other operas at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus. More information is available at the opera theatre web site.

Opera Preview: Stage director Michael Gieleta on Opera Theatre's "La Rondine"

Michael Gieleta
michaelgieleta.com

This Saturday, May 30th, Opera Theatre of St. Louis presents Puccini's rarely seen "lyrical comedy" "La Rondine" ("The Swallow") in the original 1917 version. The opera has only been seen once before on the OTSL stage—in 1996, when the company presented the American premiere of the third (1921) version. I interviewed stage director Michael Gieleta via email during the final week of rehearsals.

Chuck Lavazzi: Puccini famously left "La Rondine" in a bit of a mess when he died, with three different performing versions available. OTSL has decided on the original 1917 version, which seems to be a popular choice. What were the factors the led you and your collaborators to pick this one as opposed to the other two?

Michael Gieleta: I don't think Puccini's lateral takes on "La Rondine" are any different from his takes on "Madama Butterfly," or of many now-famous American musicals which, for different reasons, get written and rewritten before, during and after they reach Broadway/the West End. It's not untypical of the composers' creative process and of its response to the various kind of pressure from the publishers, producers and the initial press feedback. Lastly, there are the stars who demand an extra "number" (be it "Send in the Clowns" or "Una furtiva lagrima") before the final curtain. Does anyone ever perform the Berlin version of Ibsen's "Doll's House" at the end of which Nora decides to stay with the husband and the children in order to keep the family hearth alit?

OTSL considered the original, Monte Carlo-premiered version of "La Rondine" most immediate and straightforward and that was the version it was decided to go along with. It may mean that our male lead misses out on his "Parigi è una città dei desideri" Act One aria introduced in the later versions, but he more than makes up for it later in the opera!

"La Rondine" doesn't seem to get as much attention as Puccini's more famous operas. Why do you think that might be?

It's an interesting question that could be asked in reverse: why is it that "Tosca," "Butterfly," and "Bohème" have been more present in the repertoire than "Manon Lescaut," "The Girl of the Golden West," "Il Tabarro," "La Rondine" or even "Turandot"?

What makes "La Rondine"'s rare appearance in the rep even more particular is the fact that, unlike some of the titles above, "La Rondine" has a genuine "hit", "Qu'il bel sogno di Doretta". Furthermore, it is one of Puccini's most loved, performed and enduring arias. The biographical background of the premiere of the piece is an unusual one too; I've written about it at length in the programme note.

What is important is that some titles, some composers and some authors simply come in and out of fashion. It's up to each generation to find their sung or unsung heroes according to that generation's sensitivities towards beauty, drama and music. If you stand outside the famous Paris Opera House, you may as well ask what the busts of Spontini, Halévy, Meyerbeer and Auber are doing next to those of Mozart, Beethoven and Rossini.

As you write in your program note, "La Rondine" was often referred to (inaccurately and dismissively) as Puccini's "operetta," but that this is finally changing. Do you think the attitudes of the protagonist Magda might play a part in that? She seems a bit less inclined to play the victim than Puccini's more well-known heroines, which would make her more plausible to a contemporary audience.

As "La Rondine" is being reappreciated in the modern day, the contemporary audiences get a chance to directly experience this paradox: whatever monikers were applied to the opera in the past, they are not necessarily substantiated by the work itself.

Magda is no victim at all; she takes responsibility for her choices and she sticks to those choices. We are given minimal background information concerning the characters as if the piece was prompting the audience to figure the actual storyline out for themselves from the scraps of textual evidence. In that context, "La Rondine" is reminiscent of a good theatrical play in which the author renounces traditional omniscience and where the public free to interpret the scarcely narrated facts in their own way. To quote Puccini's contemporary playwright Luigi Pirandello: "it is so, (if you think so)". That's the spirit, I believe, in which Puccini and Adami were writing "La Rondine."

So it is, in some ways, a very modern work.

Last question: the last opera you directed here in St. Louis was Smetana's "The Kiss" back in 2013. At the time, I couldn't help noticing that the heroine, Vendulka, was a refreshingly independent-minded woman with attitudes toward the opposite sex and marriage that sounded very modern, given that the opera premiered in 1876. As a director, are you drawn to libretti that (unlike so much of 19th century opera) feature strong-willed heroines? Or am I just reading too much into this?

I'm very flattered, Chuck, that you have noticed the parallel. I see myself as a storyteller and an interpreter of the material left over by the composer and the librettist. It's Smetana and Puccini (and countless others) who put strong-willed women at the centre of their works. "La Rondine" is quite unusual in Puccini's cannon as it does not have a pre-existing literary source. But that gives both the artists and the audience a wider scope for unbiased interpretation. There's much less play-like realism in "La Rondine" (as opposed to such intricately crafted theatrical set-ups as those found in "Tosca" or "Butterfly," based respectively on plays by Sardou and Belasco); such absence of narrative certainties makes my job all the more demanding, it enriches the rehearsal process and prompts us all in the rehearsal room to stretch our imagination beyond the factual succinctness of the stage directions in the score.

Ticket information for "La Rondine," the season's other operas, and information on the entire OTSL experience (including picnic suppers on the lawn before the shows) is available at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.