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Operas move to outdoors

By Bradley Winterton
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Friday, Apr 26, 2002, Page 7

Tonight and tomorrow, weather permitting, one can see free outdoor performances of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. These are revivals of last September's National Theater production, one of the finest opera events Taiwan has seen in recent years.

They are taking place in the square outside Taipei's Chungshan Hall at 7pm. Conditions are unusual. The entire evocative set has been reassembled in front of the hall, but the Taipei Symphony Orchestra will play inside, with the sound relayed, while the singers follow conductor Felix Chen via video monitors.

Last September's performances were of astonishing beauty and subtlety. The orchestral playing was outstanding, and the entire stage picture colorful beyond belief, even extending to period magnesium-flare photographers at the Shinto-style wedding (the opera is set in 1904). The famous "Humming Chorus," with Butterfly, her maid Suzuki, and Butterfly's child by Pinkerton seen in silhouette behind the paper door of their Japanese-style house must have brought a lump to not a few throats.

By contrast, Butterfly's first appearance, arriving with a host of parasol-holding friends in kimonos, flooded the stage with exquisite color just when the music was at its most effective. Puccini was a master of just this kind of effect -- visual and musical combined -- and this production touched exactly the right Puccinian chord on numerous occasions.

And Pinkerton, in his tropical naval uniform, quietly smoking a cigarette while waiting for Butterfly to come back out of the house on their wedding night was marvelously evocative of the period.

September's Butterflies will again share the role, Mewas Lin (tonight) and Huey-Ru Tang (tomorrow). Two of the original foreign soloists are returning, the excellent British tenor Justin Lavender to sing the unfaithful lover, Lieutenant Pinkerton, and resonant New Zealand bass Barry Mora as Sharpless, the American Consul.

The ever-active Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taipei is covering all costs of this free show. Six hundred chairs will be available on a first-come, first served basis. Only in the case of a downpour at 7pm will the show be canceled. Rain in the afternoon shouldn't be a problem as adequate covers are available.

This Butterfly can be recommended even to non opera-lovers, or even to non classical-music fans. If emotional power plus sensuous allure are opera's essential recipe, Butterfly has it in overdrive. Felix Chen thinks it's Puccini's masterpiece, and his superb production is testimony to that belief. All in all, it's an event not to be missed. Act One is visually the most attractive, so don't be late!

Another opera is taking place next Friday, May 3. This is a concert version of the last act of Wagner's titanic Die Walkure, the second in his Ring cycle, given by Taipei's other orchestra, the National Symphony.

The complete opera approaches four hours in length, but the last act is only just over an hour. It's clear why it's been chosen. It opens with the famous (some would say notorious) Ride of the Valkyries, and ends with Wotan's Farewell and the celebrated Fire Music.

Wotan, the one-eyed king of the gods, has fallen out with his favorite daughter Brunhilde, the Valkyrie (a winged female messenger in Norse mythology) of the title. Against her father's orders she has championed two lovers in a fight with the woman's brutal husband, and Wotan now arrives in a rage to reduce her to the status of a human woman as punishment. She asks to be put to sleep on a mountain top ringed by fire so that only a genuine hero can break through to take her virginity. (Siegfried will do this in the next opera of the cycle, named after him). Wotan agrees, and the fire god Loge sets up the circle of flame in the closing music.

National Symphony Orchestra's conductor Chien Wen-Pin also works on a regular basis with the Germany's Dusselfdorf Opera, and he has taken the opportunity to import major soloists for this one-off event.

Germany's Bodo Brinkmann, who will sing Wotan, has some astonishing achievements to his credit. He has, for instance, sung this same role with the Bavarian State Opera under the great conductor Wolfgang Sawallish, as well as five other Wagner roles at Bayreuth, the theater Wagner designed himself and high temple of all Wagnerites.

Brunhilde will be the American soprano Susan Owen. In the last few years she has sung the part (and the even more taxing Wagner role of Isolde) all over Germany, and recorded it on CD. These, in other words, are two important international soloists, and Taipei is lucky to get the chance to hear them.

Chien told Taipei Times that fully-staged opera productions involve a great many more organizations than a simple concert does, and so are much more complex, and expensive, to mount. But the third act of Die Walkure was a relatively self-contained unit, he said. In addition, this concert of a mature Wagner score will be an excellent experience for the orchestra, and a chance to expand their expertise.

Chien said he is planning further operatic concerts in Taipei soon, probably featuring Puccini's Tosca and Verdi's Otello.

Ticket prices for next Friday's concert, in the National Concert Hall, are from NT$300 to NT$1,500. More information is available by calling (02) 2343-1364.
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