“Idomeneo” on Crete by Heather Mac Donald The humanists who created the first operas out to be his son, Idamante, whom, in Cam- in late sixteenth-century Florence hoped to re- pra’s opera, the king does indeed sacrifice be- capture the emotional impact of ancient Greek fore going mad. Such a dark ending no longer tragedy. It would take nearly another 200 years, suited Enlightenment tastes, however, and in however, for the most powerful aspect of Attic Mozart’s libretto, by the Salzburg cleric Giam- drama— the chorus—to reach its full potential battista Varesco, the gods grant Idomeneo a on an opera stage. That moment arrived with last-minute reprieve from his vow and rule is Mozart’s 1781 opera Idomeneo, re di Creta. This amicably passed from father to son. September, Opera San José performed Idome- The delight that Mozart must have had in neo’s sublime choruses with thrilling clarity and composing for the Mannheimers is palpable force, in a striking new production of the op- in Idomeneo’s dynamic score. And it is in the era that wedded a philanthropist’s archeologi- opera’s nine choruses that the orchestral writ- cal passion with his love for Mozart. San José’s ing reaches its pinnacle. In the celebrations Idomeneo was a reminder of the breadth of classi- of the Trojan War’s end—“Godiam la pace” cal music excellence in the United States, as well (“Let us savor peace”) and “Nettuno s’onori” as of the value of philanthropy guided by love. (“Let Neptune be honored”)—the strings In 1780, the twenty-four-year-old Mozart re- skitter jubilantly through complex rhythms ceived his most prestigious commission yet: to and rapid volume changes, while the winds compose an opera for the Court of Bavaria to embroider fleet counterpoint around the open Munich’s Carnival season. The Bavarian vocal and other instrumental lines. The joy- court orchestra had recently been transplanted ful climactic crescendo of “Nettuno s’onori” from Mannheim by its patron, Elector Carl anticipates Le Nozze di Figaro’s effervescent Theodor; the “Mannheimers,” as the players overture and Don Giovanni’s explosive pae- continued to be called, were famed through- ans to pleasure (not to mention Rossini’s out Europe for their virtuosic skill. To write an nuclear-powered crescendi). opera for them, Mozart had declared to Carl The choruses of terror are more astound- Theodor in 1777, was his “fondest wish.” ing still. The hair-raising “Oh voto tremendo!” The story for Mozart’s Bavarian opera was to (“Oh terrible vow!”) matches the solemnity be based on Idomenée, a 1712 Parisian work by of any Dies Irae. Idomeneo has just revealed André Campra. Idomeneo, the king of Crete to his court that it is his son whom he is obli- and ally of the Greeks, is returning from the gated to sacrifice. The winds slowly beat out an Trojan War when a deadly storm strikes his agonizing chromatic scale upwards followed ship. He vows to Neptune that he will sacrifice by a monumental outburst of anguish from the first person he sees upon landing if he is al- the chorus. “Death now rules” (“Già regna la lowed to return safely home. That person turns morte”), lament the Cretans in a pulsing call- 60 The New Criterion December 2011 Music and-response with the winds that anticipates erate theatrical archaism, but soon loosened Verdi’s hypnotic antiphonal choruses. up dramatically and vocally. He seemed to In light of the enormous emotional power shrink with heartbreak as his beloved father, that Mozart unleashes with these choruses, it is still concealing his lethal vow, persistently re- all the more surprising that choral numbers had buffed him. Blake’s recitatives were stylish; his virtually disappeared from opera seria in Italy by pleasing vibrato communicated youthful pas- the mid-1700s. (Opera seria grew out of an early sion. Rebecca Davis as Idamante’s beloved, the eighteenth-century reform movement designed Trojan princess Ilia, rightly luxuriated in her to purge Italian serious opera of anything that floating arpeggios in “Zeffiretti lusinghieri” distracted from its purpose of representing the (“Flattering breezes”), in which Ilia decides to virtues of noble rulers; out went the by-then confess her reciprocal feelings to Idamante. traditional comic characters, ballet, and choral The neurotic Argive princess Elettra, who spectacles.) The chorus was undoubtedly given has taken refuge on Crete after her family’s a helping shove off the Italian opera seria stage bloodshed, is not usually a comic character, but by preening castrati and other virtuoso soloists. Christina Major elicited chuckles from the au- During the second half of the eighteenth dience as she displayed a catty, Marcellina-like century, however, what had begun as a reform exasperation at her rival Ilia’s obvious success movement was itself reformed. The Berlin with Idamante. Playing against type, Mozart critic Christian Gottfried Krause called in 1752 gave Elettra the most sensuous duet in the op- for a return of the classical chorus. The greatest era, in which she weaves her hope of conquer- of the reformers, Christoph Willibald Gluck, ing Idamante into the chorus’s lilting barcarole, wrote magnificent choral numbers, above all in “Placido è il mar” (“Calm is the sea”), sung by Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), but even they do not the Argives in anticipation of their sea journey prepare a listener for the transcendent effect of home. Major’s soprano had an occasional harsh Idomeneo’s choruses. edge, but she tore through her final rage aria with bravura skill, eyes flashing, voice snarling, Opera San José’s chorus performed with a slapping her body and grabbing her hair as the precision, clarity of voicing, and rhythmic vipers of insanity descend upon her. drive that are rare even on the opera stages of The quartet, “Andrò ramingo e solo” (“I New York—the absence of unionized singers shall wander alone”) is, after the choruses, the may partly explain that difference. In “Corri- opera’s musical high point. The Mozart scholar amo, fuggiamo” (“Run! flee!”), dueling male Alfred Einstein called it the first great ensemble and female choruses scatter in shuddering in the history of opera seria. Cleve maintained horror across the musical scale; the San José a suffocating tension as each of the four prin- singers pulled off this showpiece with blaz- cipals layers his suffering onto the others’ in a ing percussive panache. After overcoming tight canon; the singers’ sharp stress on the first some initial pitch problems, the soloists (one syllable of “soffrir” seemed like a dying exhala- of two different casts, heard on September 13) tion of grief. Cleve provided taut orchestral were also impressive. The tenor Christopher support that emphasized the score’s regal Bengochea conveyed Idomeneo’s despair with architecture throughout the evening: the riveting intensity, shouting out in anger: “In- timpani and muted trumpets’ descent into guisto sei!” (“You are unjust!”), as a glowering, silence in “Oh voto tremendo!” was chill- bare-chested Neptune silently presses him to ingly profound. fulfill his vow. Bengochea brought a dark bari- In a particularly poignant moment in Brad tonal color to his virtuoso solo “Fuor del mar” Dalton’s imaginative staging, Idomeneo and (“Rescued from the sea”), ending the aria on his councilor Arbace try to force on an ashen his hands and knees, a broken man. Idamante a large bouquet of white lilies and The tenor Aaron Blake as Idomeneo’s son roses to present to the triumphal Elettra upon Idamante started out the evening with such their embarkation for Greece. Idamante shies wooden physical gestures as to suggest delib- away from them like a frightened colt. The The New Criterion December 2011 61 Music opera’s final ballet was vivid and well-coordi- the only occasion one will have to see a life- nated, contrasting with the sloppy pastoral in- size replica of the palace at Knossos peopled terlude in last season’s Queen of Spades at the by Minoan royalty and its retinue. Metropolitan Opera. The only choreographic The set (or should one say palace?) con- misstep came in Elettra’s first rage aria when a sisted of simple architectural forms like pair of dancers mimed her anger with Isadora children’s blocks; large swathes of color— Duncan-esque melodrama. primarily brick reds and smoky slate blues, often in wave and circle motifs—took the Idomeneo has not been spared from the as- place of more refined architectural detail, for sault of narcissistic directors who com- an effect recalling David Hockney. Frescoes mandeer defenseless operas into serving as from the palace and related archeological vehicles for their own adolescent postur- sites, including a charming harbor panorama ing. In fact, it was a production of Idome- with dolphins leaping over stick-figure gal- neo in—where else?—Berlin that brought leys, formed the backdrop for several scenes. the depressing phenomenon of Regietheater (Ironically, this rigorously historical produc- (German for “director’s theater”) to world- tion ignored some of the libretto’s scenic wide attention. In director Hans Neuen- directions, such as for Neptune’s temple in fels’s rewriting of the opera, first produced the final scene.) The soldiers wore short, full in 2003, Idomeneo places the severed heads skirts with bright geometric borders; Idome- of Neptune, Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammad neo sported a full-length, red leather coat on chairs during the finale, allegedly signify- while Ilia was outfitted in long white robes ing humanity’s liberation from superstition with cobalt marine appliqués. The dancers and religious belief. Of course, Mozart’s and supernumeraries, with their sweepingly tale is set over a thousand years before the broad shoulders and wasp waists, seemed to birth of Christ and Mohammad, and it ends have leapt onto the stage from the frescoes with a prayer to the goddesses Juno and behind them; Elettra’s black snaking locks Hymen.