Seattle Opera’s Pagliacci Highlights Recital

Seattle Opera has been releasing content at a shocking rate this fall – new performances are posted every Friday. After so much new digital content, you’d think that people would know what to expect by now. But nearly everything I’ve seen so far has been a different “type” of production. From the summer’s at-home recitals to a semi-staged production to an on-stage recital, there are so many ways to produce a physically distant opera performance. It’s hard to keep up, so there’s already new content available, but the most recent thing I’ve seen was Seattle Opera’s Pagliacci Highlights Recital.

Pagliacci

Let’s face it. For generations of Seattleites, Pagliacci means one thing: pizza. But for the century before I moved to Seattle and discovered pizza with seasonal toppings (and then later, opera) Pagliacci was a short opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Before this season, I was not familiar with either the opera or the composer.

Like Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci is a verismo opera in which regular people (in this case, traveling performers) engage in adultery and eventually murder. Because the characters are actors instead of peasants, there is also a story-within-a-story element. Since the two operas are short and have very similar plots, Pagliacci is often presented as a double bill with Cavalleria rusticana. That is what Seattle Opera planned to do in the Before Times.

Instead of opening the season of live performances in August, these pieces of these two operas were recorded and released online to subscribers. Cavalleria rusticana was released as a semi-staged McCaw Hall production; Pagliacci as a highlights remote recital.

Highlights Recital

A highlights performance, regardless of the format, isn’t going to give you much opportunity to evaluate the story. Title cards or spoken introductions summarize most of whatever plot you get. In a lot of cases, that would border on tragedy (I can’t imagine consuming Rigoletto that way). But since I’m not a big fan of cheatin’ songs and murder ballads, seeing the highlights reel of these two operas may have been an advantage.

For Pagliacci, the performers were unable to travel to Seattle. Instead, each recorded their own parts where they were. The remote recordings were edited together, sometimes with split screens. Lesley Chapin Wyckoff, President of the Seattle Opera Board, gave the introductions, and title cards between the songs placed them in the context of the story.

Seattle Opera’s Pagliacci Highlights Recital

The recital starts with a prologue from the character Tonio, who basically explains what verismo opera is supposed to be by flipping the traditional prologue script from, “Don’t worry we’re just pretending,” to “We really do suffer like this.” Tonio was performed by barihunk Michael Mayes, whom I had never seen before. Opening with a baritone solo is always a good idea in my book.

I loved how Vanessa Goikoetxea interpreted Micaela in Carmen. But I didn’t recognize her in Pagliacci. This could be partly due to how different it is to see someone in costume on stage vs. close up on camera in (a seriously stylish) contemporary dress; but Nedda is also a very different character from Micaela. So I’m going to attribute some of it to acting capability, too.

And then of course we have bae-rihunk Will Liverman, whom I’ve stanned since Count Ory, as Nedda’s lover Silvio. I am always there to hear Liverman sing.

Finally Gregory Kunde performs the role of Canio, singing the original tears-of-a-clown song, “Recitar! Mentre presso.” The first time I heard Kunde was in the Cavalleria recital. Getting to hear the same singer recorded on the same stage (possibly even on the same day) in two previously unfamiliar roles was a treat. I’m really enjoying the way that these videos make it easier to compare music – I definitely like the music in Pagliacci better than the music in Cavalleria.

The recital ends with a bonus track – Kunde singing “Nessun dorna,” an excellent choice for a tenor surrounded by baritones in the program. It also proved to me that you never really know a person. I was shocked to find out that my husband never heard the song before – how is that even possible?

Art Asks Questions

At the inaugural Iceland Writers Retreat I took a workshop from an author who said, “Art asks questions.” That thought has stuck with me long after other details have faded, and to me, one measure of a good art experience is how much it makes me wonder.

For Cavalleria, several of the key players in the opera were available to perform on the McCaw Hall stage. Objectively speaking, this is a better way to do recorded opera – everyone in the same space at the same time, subjected to the same technological treatment. But the spliced presentation of separate recordings of Pagliacci provided a lot more food for thought. We actually had to pause the video for an impromptu intermission to discuss the technical questions around arts production that it raised.

“He’s so loud!” my husband commented during Mayes’ prologue. Thus ended a decades-long ceasefire in an artistic disagreement that dates back to college. At that time, he worked in the university’s recording studio. I had a favorite Aretha Franklin album on vinyl in which her rapid changes in volume often resulted in distorted sound that drove him crazy. The recording of Mayes, singing in what looked like a backstage rehearsal room, also had this friable sound in places. But while my sound-nerd spouse gritted his teeth, I hold my ground. I like it when artists overwhelm technology.

Artistic Irony

There’s a kind of irony in this entire season. The simplest, most common definition of opera is “singing without a microphone.” But in order to preserve opera, we’re asking artists to do the opposite of what they usually do. Mary Elizabeth Williams commented on it in the introduction to her recital last summer. Opera singers train to be loud so they can reach actual people listening at the back of a very big room. Now they are singing in small spaces where their usual volume overwhelms equipment in order to eventually reach people sitting at home. This requires a host of readily available technological resources that the entire genre mostly tries to avoid. And it raises all sorts of interesting questions.

More Questions

How much do you try to make the recordings mimic the traditional opera experience? And do you define the traditional experience as “music unaltered by technology?” If so, the unusual recording circumstances guarantee it’s going to sound different from what you’re used to. Or do you define it as “what opera usually sounds like?” If so, you’re going to have to manipulate the recordings a lot.  

In Pagliacci, Goikoetxea was recorded in a really bright-sounding room. Liverman was in a quieter space, which is technically better for recording. But low sounds tend to recede on recordings, and this was compounded with the different conditions to make their duet sound uneven. It was almost like you were in the room with the soprano and listening to the baritone on the phone at the same time.

It really highlighted the additional interactive layers of logistics and artistic choices in producing opera digitally. There is a risk of these sorts of questions overwhelming the ones we primarily care about – like phrasing, breath control, and characterization. But fortunately, you can always watch recorded performances again to pay closer attention to the elements you missed the first time.

The Details

Pagliacci Highlights in Recital
Composer: Ruggero Leoncavallo
Piano: John Keene

Cast:
Tonio……Michael Mayes
Nedda….Vaness Goikoetxea
Silvio……Will Liverman
Canio…..Gregory Kunde

Available Oct. 16–Nov. 6 by subscription.

{I purchased a Seattle Opera Fall Season subscription for full access to digital content generated during the pandemic.}