L'enfant et les sortilèges at SF Symphony
June 28, 2019
* Notes *
Last night's opening of L'enfant et les sortilèges at San Francisco Symphony shimmered and shone. James Bonas' semi-staged production (Anna Christie and Isabel Leonard pictured, photograph by Jean Pierre Maurin) made use of quirky animated projections. The nine soloists and three choruses all sang beautifully and the playing from the orchestra glittered.
Maestro Martyn Brabbins filled in for MTT, who is recovering from a heart surgery. Brabbins, the music director at English National Opera, is a charming presence, and the orchestra sparkled, only overwhelming the singers during the arithmetical section of the opera.
The opera has three sopranos and three mezzos (plus tenor, baritone, and bass), and it must be a casting challenge voices that are distinct from one another. In the lead role of L'enfant (The Child), mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard is all petulance and brattiness at first, and the ethereal qualities of her instrument come out later.
Mezzo-soprano Ginger Costa Jackson (A Herdsman, The Chinese Cup, The White Cat) has a darker tone and more sensuality. I found her jarring as both The Chinese Cup and The White Cat, the former because of the mocking nonsense words meant to be Chinese, the latter because of the palpable violent eroticism. Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson-Cano (Mama, The Dragonfly, The Squirrel) is warmer and richer.
Soprano Anna Christy has a bird-like brilliance as The Fire, The Princess, and The Nightingale, while sopranos Nikki Einfeld (The Bat, A Country Lass) and Marnie Breckenridge (The Bergère, The Screech-owl) are more icily penetrating.
Tenor Ben Jones was very funny as The Little Old Man, he comes out on stilts and a pointy hat while numbers bounce around in waves behind him, he was only a touch quiet. As The Tree Frog and The Teapot I had no trouble hearing him. Baritone Kelly Markgraf gave evocative performances as both The Comtoise Clock and The Black Cat. Bass-baritone Michael Todd Simpson was particularly poignant as The Tree, his mournful grievance against The Child is convincing.
The set is essentially an downstage scrim with drolly drawn projections that the singers interact with, sort of a live action and cartoon mashup. The effect is charming, I really loved the scene with The Fire (Anna Christie pictured, photograph by Jean Pierre Maurin) and the aforementioned one with arithmetical demons.
Tattling *
There a lot of whispers. Someone with a child in Box D spoke quite a bit to her throughout the evening, though fairly quietly. The woman behind me in Row S had many audible reactions to the production at first, and I was glad she seemed so engaged with the performance.
The three young people in Row R Seats 17, 19, and 21 next to me chatted and looked at their phones, even taking photos during the performance. I think they must have been string players, they seemed more interested in the orchestra members than singers.
The boy next to me absolutely hated the pianist John Wilson who played pieces from Debussy's Children's Corner in the first half of the evening, which included several short French chamber music works from 1879 to 1915. Wilson was restrained, his Serenade for the Doll had a delicacy to it to be sure. I just wish the person on my right hadn't talked so much during Ginger Costa-Jackson's rendition of "Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons" by Debussy. I was completely distracted already by Costa-Jackson's amazing biceps, and his comments about accompanist Peter Grunberg on the piano were not helpful for me.
