Cultural life in Paris during the 19th century evolved significantly amidst a whirlwind of improbable events. Tossed back and forth between democracy and autocracy, and transformed by an unlikely and unloved emperor from a medieval maze to well-ordered metropolis, the city’s turbulent history was reflected in its arts. Theaters were especially vulnerable; plagued with closures, relocations, bankruptcies and deadly fires, each competed aggressively for their piece of an upwardly mobile middle class. Out of the chaos emerged such disparate musical forces as Meyerbeer, Verdi, Wagner, Gounod, Bizet and Offenbach, all vying for the opera dollar.

A little political history might be in order. Following the revolution of 1789, which displaced Louis XVI and the ancien régime, the Jacobin Republic was established by 1791, followed by the Thermidorian Republic in 1794. As war was declared on the new government by Europe’s other powers (especially Austria, whose royal family member, Marie-Antoinette, had been executed by the rebels) France began to push beyond its national boundaries, and the new government found among its generals one of stellar quality. Little did they know young Napoleon Bonaparte would seize enough power to install his own Consulate in 1799 and crown himself emperor in 1804. His glory was short-lived, however, as his expansionist designs turned back at him — by 1814 he was ousted and exiled, and Louis XVI’s brothers, first Louis XVIII then Charles X, were restored to power.

But the people (dominated by the now-powerful bourgeoisie) had had enough of the Bourbon despots, and by 1830 they had overthrown their ruler in favor of his cousin, Louis-Philippe d’Orléans, France’s first (and only) “citizen king.” Not really being all they hoped for, Louis-Philippe himself was deposed 18 years later, and a brief Republic, the second, was offered in his place. Elected president was a dubious candidate, Louis-Napoleon, nephew to his great predecessor. Louis-Napoleon had already been jailed twice for trying to overthrow the Citizen King (in 1836 and 1846), but no one seemed to pay it much mind until he staged his own brief, albeit bloody, coup in 1851, proclaiming himself Emperor Napoleon III. (Napoleon II, for the sake of reference, was the son of the first Napoleon, crowned in absentia by the imperialists following his father’s removal from office. He had conveniently died in 1832.)

Napoleon III’s interest in the arts was more than passing, but his true passion lay in positioning France as a major world player (especially in Italy, which was experiencing its own Risorgimento), and rebuilding the capital city to be the darling of Europe. With newly appointed Prefect of Paris Baron Georges Eugène Hausmann, he redrew the map, smashing through old neighborhoods to create wide promenades (boulevards) that were both attractive and useful — an army could be quickly mobilized during times of civil distress. Napoleon took ample opportunity to show off his new jewel with two world’s fairs, both of which would figure prominently in the city’s artistic growth.

In the first decade of the 19th century, Napoleon I had decreed that Paris would have only eight theaters — four primary (Académie Impériale de Musique, known informally as the Opéra, Opéra-Comique, Théâtre Italien and Théâtre Français) and four secondary (Théâtre du Vaudeville, Théâtre des Variétés, Théâtre de la Gaîté and Théâtre de l’Ambigu-Comique). By 1820, two more theaters (Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin and Gymnase-Dramatique) had surreptitiously joined the pack. During the reign of Louis-Philippe, as restrictions relaxed, there was demand for another opera house to spotlight younger, untested talent generally refused admittance to the existing institutions. Nothing permanent was in place until the Opéra-National (later renamed Théâtre Lyrique) opened in 1847.

The Opéra was in its prime the 1830s as French Grand Opera exploded on the scene with the sensational eruption of Mount Vesuvius. La muette de Portici (1828), by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, exploited the spectacular stage effects already known to French audiences (a trait dating back, along with the Opéra’s lineage, to the days of Louis XIV). Soon to follow was the genius of the German expatriate Giacomo Meyerbeer, first with Robert le diable (1831), then with Les Huguenots (1836). Auber’s Gustave III, ou Le bal masqueé (1833) and Fromental Halévy’s La Juive (1835) soon followed. Romanticism had opened up the possibilities of historical and supernatural worlds, and within those settings, the five-act grand opera offered a unique collaboration between composer, librettist, stage and costume artisans and choreographer (a ballet, of course, being mandatory). The commercial demand for mind-numbing special effects (spectacles d’optique), each designed to outdo the last, was enormous. (One can easily draw a parallel to the modern motion-picture industry.) Louis Véron, director of the Opéra during its heyday, was the first to turn a profit since the days of Lully.

Grand opera was performed at the Salle Le Peletier, home of the Opéra since 1821. Previously it had been housed at the first Salle Favart, but the theater was leveled after the heir to the Bourbon dynasty, the Duc du Berry, was assassinated on its steps. In 1858 a bomb was tossed at Napoleon III as he was about to enter Le Peletier, and yet another opera house (with better security) was immediately commissioned. Charles Garnier won the contest, and the new Opéra became a centerpiece in the new Parisian landscape, eventually opening in 1875, ironically after Emperor Napoleon III’s fall from grace.

Not far away was the Théâtre Italien, the point of entry for Italian composers hoping to make it big in the French capital. Operas were routinely performed there in their original language unlike at other theaters, where they were invariably sung in French. Rossini’s works became a staple of the house and the “Swan of Pesaro” became director for a short time (1824-26). Eventually settling in Paris, Rossini reconfigured two of his Italian works for the Opéra [Le siège de Corinthe (1826) and Moïse et Pharaon (1827)] and wrote two new pieces — Le Comte Ory (1828) and Guillaume Tell (1829) — the latter of which was cast as a grand opéra. His arrival greatly invigorated the style of French singing and stagecraft. The younger generation, Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti, followed suit — most of their major Italian works were seen at the Théâtre Italien, and several received their world premieres: Marino Faliero (1835) and Don Pasquale (1843) by Donizetti and I puritani (1835) by Bellini. For the Opéra Donizetti produced Les martyrs (1840 — reworked from an earlier work Poliuto), La favorite (1840) andDom Sébastien (1843), and for the Opéra-Comique, La fille du régiment (1840).

Giuseppe Verdi also made it to Paris by way of the Théâtre Italien — Nabucco was presented in 1845 and Ernani in 1846. But, like his compatriots before him, he was aware that, in order to be known as a composer of first rank, he had to go head-to-head with Meyerbeer at the Opéra. In his battle for the top, he intended to be on equal footing every step of the way and engaged Eugène Scribe, librettist for many a grand opera and noted author of “the well-made play.” Verdi had been at the Opéra before. Hastily approached in 1847 for a new commission, he instead reconfigured an older work, I Lombardi, into the French grand opera formula. Retitled Jérusalem and refitted with a new plot, new characters and a ballet, it scored a mediocre premiere. Verdi’s collaboration with Scribe yielded Les vêpres siciliennes (1855 — the work immediately following La traviata), based on France ‘s 13th-century domination of Sicily. Perhaps the grandiosity of this art form did not fit Verdi’s special attention to the intimate relationships of his characters. The opera failed to please, and Verdi began to develop a distaste for the flagship of French theaters.

Richard Wagner fared no better at the Opéra — his French premiere of Tannhäuser (1861) was one of the most notorious fiascos of the century. Also forced to provide the traditional ballet, the reluctant composer insisted on inserting it in the first act instead of the more customary placement in the second or third. One of the scions of Parisian “good taste,” the Jockey Club (formally the “Society for the Encouragement of the Improvement of Horse Breeding in France,” a holdover from the Restoration), frequented the Opéra but generally arrived after the second act had begun — their real purpose being to ogle the exposed legs of the ballerinas currently under or vying for their protection. The whistles and hisses virtually broughtTannhäuser to a standstill. Its detractors were persistent and similarly disrupted each of the three performances. Wagner was sent into a professional tailspin and decreed no work of his would be performed again at the Opéra until after his death.

As the century progressed, the Opéra’s repertoire began to stale. Grand opera had run its course, and a new competitor was rising to prominence. The Théâtre Lyrique, formed out of Adolphe Adam’s short-lived Opéra-National, filled a void by offering a place for untried young composers to premiere new works. Under the eventual guardianship of an astute impresario, Léon Carvalho, the theater mounted some of the Second Empire’s most memorable shows: Gounod’s Faust (1859), Mireille (1864) and Roméo et Juliette (1867), Verdi’s revised Macbeth (1865), Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles (1863) and La jolie fille de Perth(1867), Berlioz’s Les Troyens à Carthage (1863) and Wagner’s French premiere of Rienzi (1869). Carvalho’s repertoire was an intriguing combination of both the new and the unusual with a few standards (in French translation) by Mozart, Rossini and Verdi thrown in the mix. In spite of his clever programming, Carvalho fell into bankruptcy on several occasions. He gave up his directorship in 1860 only to be reappointed in 1862, then ousted for good in 1868 (but not out of the theater industry — he went on to run the Opéra-Comique from 1876 to 1887).

As “Hausmannization” continued, the Lyrique’s first home on the Boulevard du Temple found itself in the way of progress. Several other theaters also were located in the highly populated neighborhood (Napoleon III having rescinded his uncle’s restrictive theater licensing decree) — the street had become known informally to its denizens as the “Boulevard du Crime” for the tawdry melodramas frequenting its stages. Everyone scurried for new locales. The Lyrique, together with its neighbor, the Théâtre Impérial du Cirque (which at first focused on equestrian and acrobatic entertainment) found lodgings at the Place du Châtelet, just on the edge of the Seine. In 1862, two new theaters were designed and constructed by the same architect, Gabriel Davioud. Unfortunately, the Théâtre Lyrique officially ceased production in 1870 as a result of the Franco-Prussian war, its history spanning exactly that of the Second Empire, and its repertoire nearly eponymous with the regime. Symbolically the house was blasted during the Commune and burned to the ground (another theater has since taken its place). The Théâtre Impérial du Cirque still stands today as the Théâtre du Châtelet, offering a diverse program of opera, ballet and recitals.

Courtesy of The Minnesota Opera

by Lou Harry
Indianapolis Business Journal

The sole on-stage character in Dominick Argento’s one-act opera “A Water Bird Talk” isn’t given a name. He’s just “The Lecturer,” an anonymous gent whose off-stage wife has somehow made him the guest speaker at a ladies’ social club event.

The Lecturer’s subject: water birds (although he would have preferred to speak of spiders). And he’s got some notes and slides to share.

But the Lecturer shares more than his knowledge of our feathered friends. He shares his discomfort. He shares his awkwardness. And, when his wife temporarily leaves her vantage point offstage, he shares his deep sadness about the state of his home life.

Read the rest of the review at IBJ.com

by Jay Harvey, Indianapolis Star

The popular image of opera as something large-scale and grandiose doesn’t tell the whole story.

Chamber opera manages to convey many of the thrills of its magnified cousin, but with the advantage of musical and emotional intimacy.

Indianapolis Opera’s current production of Lee Hoiby’s “Bon Appetit!” and Dominick Argento’s “A Water Bird Talk” take the genre down to practically the onstage minimum.

Only one singer in each show carries the dramatic and musical burden, though both are supported by apt, colorful orchestration.

“Bon Appetit!” captures the ebullience of Julia Child’s cooking show in its lively early days. Emily Lodine portrays America’s own camera-ready French chef, who’s assisted by a pair of tidy but sometimes a little unrestrained sous-chefs in preparing a chocolate cake.

In the second performance Saturday night, Lodine followed Hoiby’s nimble setting of Child’s own words (adapted by Mark Shulgasser) with exquisite timing and understated drollery. She swayed between insouciance and detailed warnings as the cake took shape. When puffs of flour escaped the pans and floated to the floor, Child praised her “self-cleaning kitchen” as her dutiful assistants swiftly took care of the spillage.

With members of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra supplying light-textured accompaniment under the baton of James Caraher, Lodine reflected the down-to-earth zest Child was noted for. If “Bon Appetit!” could be said to have had a dramatic climax, it was the jovial contest between the mixer and the wire whisk, resulting in a tasty tie.

“A Water Bird Talk” posed a greater test of the potential of one-singer opera. Argento’s orchestral palette here is considerably more variegated than Hoiby’s; it has to be, because the character of the Lecturer is going through a soul-searing conflict about the meaning of his life. The monologue is laced with wit and anguish, and requires virtuoso vocal security to deliver.

Robert Orth turned in a first-class impersonation of an amateur expert on his subject lecturing to a ladies’ club — a man tormented by unhappiness into digressions of Wagnerian scope. His miserable marriage is the source of most of these wanderings. Orth’s versatile baritone was supplemented by a turn at the piano, where the Lecturer lovingly reproduces bird calls, then is moved by the thought of his anti-musical wife to launch into the stirring old hymn “Once to Every Man and Nation.”

A screen behind Orth was filled with a selection of Audubon slides of waterfowl, including the pied-billed grebe, whose woebegone existence the Lecturer readily identifies with. It also incorporated thevideo designs of Barry Steele, most movingly when Orth-as-Lecturer appears to soar against a blue sky flecked with clouds, free at last from earthbound woes.

Le Gateau au Chocolat ‘Eminence Brune’

ROBERT ORTH is the best baritone in his price range. A man of average looks and more than adequate vocal skills, he has somehow made the difficult climb from Chicago Opera Theater (his first operatic engagement) to Opera Grand Rapids (his most recent). It has often been said of him, “He has clawed his way to the middle.” A high baritone, he has been referred to as “half man, half tenor.” But it’s Mr. Orth’s abilities as an actor, not as a singer, that have put him in demand to sing Figaro in THE BARBER OF SEVILLE in such cities as Syracuse, Toledo, Corning, and Wilmington. Critics have often commented on his “windmill arms,” his “toothy smile,” and his general tendency to “overact.” Nevertheless, audiences have tolerated him in roles from Morales in CARMEN to Mr. Gobineau in THE MEDIUM. The Metropolitan Opera may not be interested in him. (“We don’t think you’d hear him in our large theater.”) But he is a regular in Indianapolis and Memphis, where the big stars seldom shine. Last year Mr. Orth created the role of Harvey Milk in the opera HARVEY MILK, based on the life of the famous dead homosexual. Though a few critics did not like the opera, most noticed that Mr. Orth tried really hard. A devoted family man, he is away from his wife and children for 7 to 8 months each year. So it’s probably just as well that he has no work for 3 months this summer. But next January he will spend his 50th birthday freezing in Calgary, Alberta, and after that he will make a triumphant return to Grand Rapids, Michigan. His career may be nearly over, but he refuses to give in, a trooper to the end.

In a 1978 Saturday Night Live sketch (episode 74), she was parodied by Dan Aykroyd continuing with a cooking show despite ludicrously profuse bleeding from a cut to his thumb, and eventually expiring while advising “Save the liver”. Child reportedly loved this sketch so much she showed it to friends at parties.

b Lucca , December 22, 1858; d Brussels , November 29, 1924

Puccini was born into a family of court composers and organists in the historic city of Lucca , Italy. With a strong feeling of tradition in the Puccini family, it was expected that Giacomo would assume his deceased father’s position as maestro di cappella when he came of age — by 14 he already was playing organ in a number of the town’s churches. But at age 18 a performance of Verdi’s Aida inspired him to devote his life to opera. In 1880, Puccini began composition studies with Amilcare Ponchielli at the Milan Conservatory of Music. There he was introduced into the professional artists’ circle, to which he would belong for the rest of his life.

He was not a prolific composer. Unlike most of his contemporaries, there were long intervals between his operas, partly because of his fastidiousness in choosing subjects, several of which he took up only to abandon after several months, and partly because of his constant demands for modifications of the texts. Much of his time, too, was spent in hunting in the marshes around his home and in trips abroad to supervise revivals of his works.

Puccini’s first work for the stage, Le villi, originally was submitted to a contest sponsored by the music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno. The one-act opera received not even honorable mention, but Puccini was certain of its merit. He and librettist Ferdinando Fontana began to canvass the opera to the broader circle of the Italian intelligentsia. One of these individuals was the highly influential Arrigo Boito (at that time in correspondence with Verdi about the preparation of the libretto for Otello), who was instrumental in getting Le villi staged.

The reception to the new work was mixed, but the revised two-act version was staged in a number of cities outside of Italy (a remarkable feat for a virtually unknown composer). Puccini’s next opera, Edgar, however, was a resounding critical failure, yet the astute publisher, Giulio Ricordi, found fault in the libretto only and promise in the music. He pitted himself against the shareholders of his publishing house who demanded that Puccini be released from retainer. Ricordi’s confidence was rewarded with Manon Lescaut, Puccini’s first true success.

In 1884, Puccini became acquainted with Elvira Gemignani, who was encouraged by her husband, a pharmacist and former classmate of Puccini’s, to take voice lessons with the composer. Shortly after his mother’s death, he was joined by Elvira and her daughter, Fosca, in Milan. She left her son, Renato, with her husband. Two years later she gave birth to their only child, Antonio. The couple was not married until 1903, after the death of Elvira’s first husband.

With the popularity of Manon Lescaut, Puccini was now generally considered by the Italian art circle to be Verdi’s successor (even by the great composer himself). As the royalties began rolling in, Puccini began to show a predilection for machines and gadgets, in particular fast automobiles and motor boats. His solitary nature drew him to a purchase a villa near the sea, surrounded by the mountains at Torre del Lago.

During the 1890s Puccini began working with Luigi Illica, who worked out the scheme and drafted the dialogue, and with the poet and playwright Giuseppe Giacosa, who put Illica’s lines into verse. Although they had participated in Manon Lescaut (as part of a string of several librettists), their first real collaboration was La bohème in 1896, followed four years later by Toscaand then Madame Butterfly four years after that. Giacosa died in 1906, putting an end to the successful team that produced three of Puccini’s most enduring works.

While Puccini was recuperating from an automobile accident, a young girl named Doria Manfredi was hired as a nurse and maid. She remained in the household as the Puccinis’ maid. Ever suspicious, Elvira saw the makings of an affair and immediately discharged her. She continued her slanderous accusations through the small village, and the townspeople, aware of her husband’s past philandering, quite naturally believed her. In this case, however, she was innocent, and totally humiliated, took poison, dying five days later after unbearable suffering. Giacomo took refuge in Rome and Elvira fled to Milan. Doria’s family sued Elvira following an autopsy that proved Doria’s virginity.

Puccini and his wife lived apart for four months while Elvira persisted in defending her legal position. The case was tried and she was sentenced to five months’ imprisonment — but Puccini made a large financial settlement with the Manfredi family and the lawsuit was dropped. In September of 1909, Giacomo, Elvira and Antonio were reunited at Torre. A month later he wrote, “In my home I have peace — Elvira is good — and the three of us live happily together.”

Puccini’s later operas were quite varied in their styles and subjects. La fanciulla del West, set in the American West, is notable for its advanced impressionistic orchestration and composition. La rondine was designed to be a sentimental musical comedy in the Viennese style. Il trittico was a mixed bag of one-act operas: Il tabarro, a tip-of-the-hat to Italian verismo; Suor Angelica, a nun embroiled in a battle for the future of her illegitimate child; and, most popular of the three, Gianni Schicchi, a comic masterpiece that features Puccini at his most exuberant.

Turandot was Puccini’s last (and arguably his greatest) opera. He died before completing it, and although another composer finished the job, at the premiere Arturo Toscanini set down his baton and refused to continue past Puccini’s last note.

Puccini has been much maligned for his flirtation with popular music, but he had an uncanny feel for a good story and a talent for composing enthralling yet economical music. Though like many of his contemporaries Puccini constantly was experimenting with tonality and form, his experiments were always subtle and without controversy. Having produced only 12 operas, the composer’s personal life was plagued with self doubt and laborious perfectionism, yet he profoundly influenced the world of opera with a deep understanding of music, drama and humanity.

Courtesy of The Minnesota Opera

Welcome to the first Indianapolis Opera Book Club! In preparation for Madama Butterfly we have chosen to read David Guterson’s Snow Falling On Cedars.

Snow Falling on Cedars is a critically acclaimed book and winner of the 1998 Pen/Faulkner award. It is a novel that has been widely praised for its eloquent dramatization of themes of love, justice, racism, community, and conscience – much like Madama Butterfly. These ideas arise organically from the book’s suspenseful story of a murder trial, its evocation of a lost love, and its brooding, poetically nuanced portraits of character and place.

The place is the fictional island of San Piedro off the coast of Washington, a community of “five thousand damp souls” [p. 5] who support themselves through salmon fishing and berry farming. The time is 1954, eight years after the end of World War II, in which some of San Piedro’s young men lost their lives and many others were irreparably injured, physically as well as emotionally.

Now one of those survivors–a gill-netter named Carl Heine–has drowned under mysterious circumstances and another fisherman is on trial for his murder. The fact that the accused, Kabuo Miyamoto, is a first-generation Japanese American is not mere coincidence. To the local coroner, Heine’s injuries suggested that the sheriff look for “a Jap with a bloody gun butt” [p. 59]. And among San Piedro’s Anglos, hostility against Japanese still runs high, even if, like Kabuo, those Japanese were born and raised on the island and fought for the United States during the war. Kabuo’s trial, in a sense, is a continuation of the white community’s quarrel with its Asian neighbors.

But the Japanese–and particularly Kabuo and his wife, Hatsue–have their own grounds for resentment, stemming from years of bigotry that culminated during World War II, when thousands of Japanese Americans were interned in government relocation camps and Kabuo was effectively robbed of land that his father had worked and paid for. Even as the state presents its case against Kabuo Miyamoto, the reader is compelled to recognize the Miyamotos’ case against their white neighbors, the best of whom stood by as an entire community was driven into exile. Their case never receives a public hearing: it can only be prosecuted in the courtrooms of memory and conscience.

It is not only the Japanese who remember. Among the trial’s observers is Ishmael Chambers, the embittered war veteran who runs the San Piedro Review. Ishmael is not an objective witness. He grew up with Carl and Kabuo. He lost an arm on Tarawa to Japanese machinegun fire. Most important, Hatsue was Ishmael’s boyhood love and he has never come to terms with losing her. In the course of the trial he will find himself torn between rancor and conscience, loath to forgive Hatsue yet unable to condemn her husband. To a large extent, Snow Falling on Cedars is about the ways in which Ishmael, Kabuo, and Hatsue at last acknowledge their respective losses and recognize the sense of mutual indebtedness and need that may survive even the gravest injuries and betrayals–the way in which loss itself may become a kind of kinship. In a place as isolated as San Piedro, “identity was geography instead of blood” [p. 206] and people make enemies reluctantly, knowing that “an enemy on an island is an enemy forever” [p. 439]. The snow that falls on David Guterson’s hauntingly imagined world falls on everyone who lives in it.

We encourage you to pick up this beautiful novel and keep checking in over the next four weeks as we post more insights and discussion topics.