The problem is me, part 4: U2

U2, International House Assembly Hall, University of Chicago, Saturday 11 April 1981

U2 performing on 11 (?) April 1981. Photos: Paul Sandberg. Image source: NewCity

In April 1981 U2 was a new band from Ireland whose first album Boy, released in the US just a month earlier, had begun to get play on college and even some commercial FM radio stations. Their sound was somewhat reminiscent of John Lydon's post-Sex Pistols band Public Image Ltd., especially PiL's First Issue album. Unlike Lydon, though, who sneered and ranted his way through songs, U2's singer Bono had a soaring tenor voice—almost too good for a rock band. (Displays of conventional vocal talent made me suspicious of a rock band's sincerity. Funny that I never have that problem with opera.)

During U2's first US tour they were appearing at the Park West in Chicago, but it was announced that earlier the same day they would do a show at the University of Chicago's International House. It seemed worth taking a chance: tickets for the I-House show only cost $1, and a free beer was included. There's a contradiction in the dates: the Park West show was evidently on Sunday 12 April (here' the setlist for the Park West concert) but various sources state that the University of Chicago show was on Saturday 11 April. I didn't keep a journal at the time, so I can't supply my own confirmatory evidence for either date. I will say that I remember feeling that I had to put in some study hours that night, which accords more closely with a Sunday than a Saturday performance. On the other hand, this was the University of Chicago, where studying on a Saturday night was not an unknown occurrence, particularly if there was a Monday morning exam.

I recall that it was an early-evening show that started around 6 pm: more evidence that it may have happened the same day as their Park West show. While it was still light outside a dear friend and I found ourselves with several hundred other people standing in the I-House Assembly Hall waiting to see what this group would be like. This video clip from Swedish television accords with my memory of what I heard and saw, including Bono's energetic onstage presence and white shirt.

https://youtu.be/98lkI64TmZQ?t=4

You'll notice in the photos above no white shirt is in evidence, a circumstance I can't explain—my memory is extremely vivid. Either that memory is false, or Paul Sandberg's photos are from their Park West performance.

The band played through practically their entire first album (here's the setlist for the I-House show) and then for an encore, almost out of material, repeated some of the songs they had already played. A recording of the I-House show has been posted to YouTube, and the song order matches the setlist linked above. The sound quality is not pristine by any means—perhaps it was recorded by someone in the audience on a Walkman?—but it's fun to hear the energy of the band and the enthusiasm of the crowd:

https://youtu.be/tXniHoUU47o

After the concert my friend and I agreed that we'd enjoyed the band's music, but neither of us were moved to make the commitment of buying their album ($6.98 was serious money for us in those days). We had no clue that within a few years U2 would become, for many, the defining band of the decade.

Perhaps U2 made a greater impression on me than I was willing to acknowledge at the time. The following year I joined a band, and our setlist included "I Will Follow." Hubris, certainly, but fortunately our vocalist and lead guitarist, both very talented musicians, were up to the challenge. I can't say that my moves on bass or my haircut were as cool as Adam Clayton's, though.

Coda: For the story of how U2 came to play the I-House as told by the man who brought them there, see this post by the Major Activities Board's Bart Lazar. He states that people were trying to climb through the windows to get into the show. I don't want to dispute his memory, but as I recall, although the crowd was sizeable, there was no trouble getting tickets—I think we walked up and bought ours at the door—and $1 was within the reach even of an impoverished undergrad like me. Perhaps the show ultimately sold out, but if so it was long after we got there.

Last time: Ramones

Mozart Summer: The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni

This has been Mozart Summer in San Francisco, with film-inspired productions of The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) by San Francisco Opera and Don Giovanni by the Merola Opera Program.

The Magic Flute

Pamina (Christina Gansch, left) is terrorized by Monostatos (Zhengyi Bai, right) in Mozart's The Magic Flute at SF Opera. Photo credit: Cory Weaver. Image source: SF Opera

Performers: Amitai Pati (Tamino), Lauri Vasar (Papageno), Anna Siminska (The Queen of Night), Zhengyi Bai (Monostatos), Christina Gansch (Pamina), Kwangchul Youn (Sarastro), Arianna Rodriguez (Papagena), with the SF Opera Orchestra conducted by Eun Sun Kim.
Production: Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade; animation design: Paul Barritt; stage and costume design: Esther Bialas; company: San Francisco Opera; venue: War Memorial Opera House. Seen June 30.

In an earlier post I outlined the problems with Emanuel Schikaneder's libretto for Mozart's The Magic Flute: I find it racist, sexist, misogynistic, hypocritical, and dislike its use of spoken rather than sung dialogue. Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade's clever production solves some of these problems by turning the opera into a Weimar-era expressionist film. That takes care of the problematic stretches of dialogue, which in a very clever and effective idea are replaced by intertitles. The bird-catcher Papageno (Lauri Vasar) is dressed like Buster Keaton, the captive princess Pamina (Christina Gansch) wears a Louise Brooks bob, and the villainous Monostatos (Zhengyi Bai) is made up and costumed to look like Max Schreck's Nosferatu.

Max Schreck as the vampiric title character in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (1922)).

That last alteration significantly reduces the racism; in the original libretto, the impulsive, lustful and treacherous Monostatos is characterized as "ein Mohr"—a Moor.

All the singers wear the heavy whiteface makeup worn by actors in the silent era. Projected animations referencing Lotte Reiniger's "silhouette-film" The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)—as well as Disney's Dumbo (1941) and Peter Pan (1953)—create the spaces in which the characters enact the story. [1]

The Queen of Night (Anna Siminska) is turned into a giant black spider:

The Queen of Night (So Young Park) and Prince Tamino (Bogdan Volkov) in LA Opera’s 2019 production of the Kosky/Andrade/Barritt/Bialas Magic Flute. Photo credit: Cory Weaver. Image source: San Francisco Classical Voice

After her Three Ladies (Olivia Smith, Ashley Dixon and Maire Therese Carmack) rescue Prince Tamino (Amitai Pati) from a giant serpent, the Queen of Night demands that he free her daughter Pamina, who is being held captive by the evil mage Sarastro (Kwangchul Youn). But Tamino will discover—no surprise, perhaps, considering the source of the information—that all is not what it seems. The Queen of Night's appearance as a menacing maternal arachnid seemed to refer to Louise Bourgeois's huge sculpture Maman (Mother, 1999):

Louise Bourgeois's Maman in Bürkliplatz, Zürich, Switzerland. Photo credit: Roland zh. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

As the images and descriptions above may suggest, the staging is visually astonishing and brilliantly allusive, as you can also see in the trailer below:

https://youtu.be/hTQQTx61vCo

However, the production concept creates two issues which work against its effectiveness. The first is the mismatch between the visual allusions and the opera's characters. Papageno is not a stone-faced stoic like Keaton—on the contrary, he always wears his heart on his sleeve. (The Harold Lloyd of Safety Last! (1923) or Chaplin's Little Tramp might have been a better parallels.)

Esther Bialas' costume design for Papageno. Image source: SF Opera

And Pamina is neither a femme fatale like Lulu in Pandora's Box (1929) nor a "lost girl" (that is, prostitute) like Thymian Henning in Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), Louise Brooks' two most iconic roles.

Pamina (Zuzana Marková) in LA Opera’s 2019 production of The Magic Flute. Photo credit: Cory Weaver. Image source: San Francisco Classical Voice

The second issue is that the animations and film references function as distancing effects: the characters, their relationships and dilemmas get a bit lost in the constant flow of clever images and staging. Also, some of the character transformations are themselves problematic: the Queen of Night's characterization as a venomous spider makes her monstrous. That choice reinforces, rather than calls into question, the libretto's misogyny, and rather than complicating our understanding of the opposition between the Queen of Night and Sarastro, renders it more starkly, well, black & white.

https://youtu.be/RlAImMuZSWo

The voices were all very good, although Gansch's delivery of Pamina's sorrowful "Ach, ich fühl's" perhaps lacked ideal warmth of tone. But for this viewer that was generally true of the production: amid the spectacle, emotion largely went missing. I would definitely see this staging again to try to take in more of the amazing imagery. But when I want to be moved by Mozart's music, Otto Klemperer's 60-year-old recording remains unsurpassed.

Don Giovanni

The servant Leporello (Donghoon Kang) clings to his master Don Giovanni (Hyungjin Son) in the Merola Opera Program's production of Don Giovanni. Photo credit: Kristen Loken; image source: SF Classical Voice

Performers: Hyungjin Son (Don Giovanni), Donghoon Kang (Leporello), Lydia Grindatto (Donna Anna), Viviana Aurelia Goodwin (Donna Elvira), Moriah Berry (Zerlina), Justice Yates (Masetto), Benjamin R. Sokol (Commendatore), and Michael John Butler (Don Ottavio) with the San Francisco Opera Center Orchestra conducted by Stefano Sarzani.
Production: Patricia Racette; scenic design: Andrew Boyce; lighting design: Davida Tkach; projection design: Ian Winters; costume design: Annie Smart; company: Merola Opera Program; venue: Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, SF Conservatory of Music. Seen August 3.

From Weimar 1927 to Rome 1950: the inspiration for director Patricia Racette's production of Don Giovanni was the neorealist film movement in postwar Italy. During the overture we see a cameraman setting up on location and singers arriving pre-performance and trying on costumes. Projections (by Ian Winters) on the single set provided the backdrops for every scene, and sometimes looked "scratchy" like old celluloid.

But this conceit wasn't developed much further, and it didn't need to be. Racette is a highly regarded soprano with a long career at many American and European opera companies and a mantelpiece-full of awards. Based on this production, her stage experience really shows in her direction (she herself sang Donna Elvira at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 1998).

Her focus was less on the concept and more on helping the performers create fully fleshed-out characterizations. Interactions among the characters were also carefully thought through. As a result, this seemed more like a true ensemble work than merely a showcase for Hyungjin Son's excellently-sung Don Giovanni. The Rome 1950 concept wasn't entirely incidental, though: it did allow the women characters to wear some fabulous 1950s frocks, an opportunity not wasted by costume designer Annie Smart.

The aftermath: Masetto (Justice Yates) and Zerlina (Moriah Berry), Leporello (Donghoon Kang) and Donna Elvira (Viviana Aurelia Goodwin), and Donna Anna (Lydia Grindatto) and Don Ottavio (Michael John Butler) survey the wreckage and formulate plans after Don Giovanni's hellish demise. Photo credit: Kristen Loken; image source: SF Classical Voice

In addition to the Don Juan stories, Mozart's librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte is rumored to have based the character and exploits of Don Giovanni on his friend Giacomo Casanova. Let's hope not: over the course of the opera Don Giovanni, supposedly a great seducer, sexually assaults two women. [2]

The first is Donna Anna (the superb Lydia Grindatto, a singer clearly ready for major stages), daughter of the Commendatore (an impressively sonorous Benjamin R. Sokol) and the fiancée of Don Ottavio (sung lyrically and with more than usual ardency by Michael Jean Butler). Don Giovanni enters the Commendatore's house in disguise and surprises Donna Anna in her bedroom; in Racette's version there is no question that his rape attempt is strongly resisted. When Donna Anna raises the alarm, her father pursues and challenges the fleeing attacker. In the ensuing clash, the Commendatore is killed (Racette's direction brought out the brutality of this moment) and the unrecognized Don Giovanni flees. Donna Anna then demands a pledge from Don Ottavio to find her father's killer and avenge his death.

Don Ottavio (Michael Jean Butler) attempts to comfort Donna Anna (Lydia Grindatto) for the death of her father the Commendatore (Benjamin R. Sokol). Photo credit: Kristen Loken; image source: SF Classical Voice

The escaping Don Giovanni and his servant Leporello (well sung by a wonderfully hangdog Donghoon Kang) encounter Don Giovanni's former lover Donna Elvira (portrayed with beautifully mixed emotions by Viviana Aurelia Goodwin). Donna Elvira vows to try to thwart Don Giovanni's attempts to seduce other women, and joins forces with Donna Anna and Don Ottavio.

Don Giovanni and Leporello happen across the country wedding of Masetto (a firm-voiced Justice Yates) and Zerlina (sung beautifully and with an appropriate hint of vulnerability by Moriah Berry). He invites the whole party back to his palazzo and, with Leporello's aid, separates wife and husband. At he first seems to be making some headway with Zerlina, who is tempted by his wealth, status, and suavity. But swiftly losing patience with his lack of continued progress, he pounces. Her screams disrupt the party, which Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Don Ottavio are attending in masquerade. As Don Giovanni accuses Leporello of being the culprit, Donna Anna recognizes his voice as that of her attacker. Don Giovanni will escape all human retribution, though. . .

The score was crisply played by the authentically-sized SF Opera Center Orchestra under the assured baton of Stefano Sarzani. In short, this was a superior performance of this opera vocally, musically, and in its thoughtful and detailed staging by Racette. Many a major opera company would love to be able to produce a Don Giovanni so well-performed and -directed.

For another review, please see Lisa Hirsch, "Don Giovanni Gets a Powerful Production From Merola Opera Program," SF Classical Voice, 5 August 2024, which was the source of the images in this part of the post.

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1. Regarding the elements of this Magic Flute production that aren't consistent with the silent film era, such as Dumbo and Tinkerbell, in an interview included in the program Paul Barritt says that "we take our visual inspiration from many eras. . .the actual year isn't important as long as everything comes together visually."
2. We learn that Don Giovanni has also coerced a third, Donna Elvira, with false promises of marriage. The multiplication of these "seduction" techniques by the 2,065 women he has slept with (according to Leporello's "Madamina, il catalogo è questo") is left as an exercise for the reader.