Last Saturday evening, a tiny corner of Westchester County was transformed into a Druid temple in ancient Gaul. The occasion was a performance of Vincenzo Bellini's tour-de-force opera Norma as part of the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah. The festival has its beginnings in 1945, growing out of recitals organized by Walter and Lucie Rosen, who built the estate during the decade before. The main house is an Italianate villa set on some 80 acres, offset by walks and gardens. Earlier in the day, rain threatened— an inevitable aspect of unpredictability that goes with outdoor music festivals. But, alas, as yellow sunlight of midday bent into the gold of early evening, the gods smiled. Grey skies were replaced by blues that gently faded as the evening approached. Picnickers spread blankets across grassy carpets, even as the coaches and cars crept in.
Part of the festival's mission is to provide a forum for young artists, an aspect that my elder daughter benefits from. (She was a chorister on this night.) The performers are young, well-trained but still developing. That aspect lends each event sense of a compound still under development, of vigor and opportunity being mixed in imprecise parts. For the audience, this is a chance at witnessing the infancy of talents, that with time and experience might mature into something wonderful; for the performers, this is a chance to hone their art. Before the evening's main course, a set of smaller performances were organized, set in a quiet courtyard, featuring some of the understudies and apprentices.
Because another central component of the festival is educational, these recitals are hosted and organized around themes related to the main event. Since 1997, after a successful production of Rossini's Le Cenerentola, there has been a particular focus on the bel canto repertoire at Caramoor. Bel canto ("beautiful singing") is a style of vocal music predominant throughout the 17th and 18th centuries that brought Baroque sensitivities— litheness of tone, technical agility, and graceful precision of phrasing— to the genre of song. Bel canto is at the base of Handel's oratorios, Bach masses, and (even earlier) Monteverdi madrigals written for the castrati. Later, the term was applied in a specific context to a style of operatic composition that prevailed, especially in Italy, from roughly 1805-1840. Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini were bel canto's champions, writing stage works at once demanding and beautiful, works like L'elisir d'Amore, I Puritani, and Semeride.
Eventually the bel canto style fell out of fashion, and was supplanted by a more animated, less delicate style of singing promoted by Richard Wagner (replaced even in Italy, by the end of the 19th century, in the works of Verdi and Puccini). But, that Wagner sought to move opera in a new direction did not mean that he had no appreciation for what came before. Will Crutchfield, the former New York Times music critic, serves as the Director of Opera for Caramoor and is a bel canto scholar: In 2003, he prepared and conducted the premiere performance of Donizetti's Elisabeth ou la fille de l'exilé, a reworking that had lain dormant for more than 150 years. Crutchfield served as the host of the pre-performance session I attended, organized around the legacy of Bellini in the work of Wagner. Crutchfield's passion for the history of this music was infectious, and he sat at the piano demonstrating passages that would allow us to note the historical debts and homages buried within the German master's ouevre. It was customary in the 19th century for composers to augment operatic performances with bits of their own work. Wagner composed an aria and a chorus for an 1837 production Norma, and so was intimately acquainted with the construction of Bellini's work. For our illumination, an aria from Norma was juxtaposed against a scene from Die Walküre. A performance of "Träume" (part of Wagner's Wesendonck song cycle) took on new meaning under Crutchfield's tutelage.
After the dinner hour, Andrew Porter, eminence grise of opera criticism, gave a detailed dissertation on Bellini's masterpiece and those who have famously performed the lead role. Porter himself saw Maria Callas's 1952 interpretation at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, some two years before she performed made her American debut in Norma during the opening season at what is now the Lyric Opera in Chicago; her Metropolitan Opera debut came also in Norma in 1956. Norma has, almost from the beginning, been seen as one of the most demanding roles. Porter reminded us that Lilli Lehmann, the Met's first Norma (in an 1890 production), found the role particularly exhausting: The German soprano, who sang in the first festival at Bayreuth, famously said that, in Norma, one needed more stamina than for all three of Wagner's Brünnhildes. In spite of those demands, the roster of Normas includes many legendary sopranos— in the modern era, Dame Joan Southerland, Beverly Sills, and Renatta Scotto. Porter's remarks gave a context for this Caramoor production, but also with questions about how young Angela Meade, cast here as Norma by Crutchfield, would measure up.
The tented performance space of Caramoor's Venetian Theatre was abuzz for this sold-out performance. Meade performed as lead in Caramoor's Semiramide last summer— with the production garnering honors on both The New Yorker and the New York Times annual "best lists"— so anticipation was high. Angela Meade made her professional debut a mere two years ago, standing in for an ill colleague to sing the role of Elvira in Verdi's Ernani at the Met. She is more widely known as one of the winners of the Met's competition, chronicled in the documentary The Audition.
The story of Norma involves tragedy being played out a multiple levels: An aging Druid priestess, Norma has a clandestine relationship with Pollione, a Roman governor, whose army rule over her people. She has borne him two sons, keeping his paternity a secret, but now senses that his affections lie with another. In fact, Pollione has fallen in love with with Adalgisa, a temple virgin and confidante of Norma. Guilt-ridden, Adalgisa confides her indiscretion to Norma. Norma curses Pollione, and determines to kill herself and her children. Ultimately, however, her love for the children wins out, and she asks Adalgisa to care for them after her death. The younger priestess is so moved by Norma's selflessness that she renounces her lover and pledges to convince Pollione to return to Norma. However, he refuses Adalgisa's entreaty, which enrages Norma when she is later told of the exchange. Calling the Druids together into the temple, Norma incites her countrymen to war against the Romans. Needing a sacrifice to lay upon the altar, they find one in Pollione who is captured trying to enter the temple to find Adalgisa. But, Norma's guilt makes it impossible for her to see him condemned. She confesses that Pollione is the father of her children, commends her children to her father, and bravely offers to take Pollione's place upon the sacrificial pyre. Seeing this, Pollione is overcome; proclaiming his love for Norma, he joins her in death.
Two weeks before, I had seen Meade perform at a showcase event at WCNY's Greene Space. That evening, in isolation on a small stage with only Crutchfield on piano, her performance seemed a tad heavy, more stolid than graceful, as if somehow the proportions were out of kilter. But on Saturday, none of that sense remained. Meade took command of the stage from the moment she arrived upon it. Accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, a chamber orchestra that serves as the festival's orchestra in residence, Meade was by turns defiant and tender. Meade's performance of "Casta diva" was supple, emotive without a hint of slipping into maudelin, and drew thunderous applause. On that earlier night, at the Greene Space, Crutchfield characterized bel canto as the "jazz of classical opera," and noted the opportunities the music provides for moments of improvisation. Meade and her fellow performers made effective use of those occasions throughout the performance. While I would say that the results were occasionally uneven, missteps were rather minor on the whole, and quickly forgiven. The singers' labors on our behalf were wonderfully appreciated. In addition to Meade, Keri Alkema's Adalgisa was sublime, her voice lithe and clarion clear, especially in the duet "Mira, o Norma." Daniel Mobbs, the bass-baritone, brought gravitas to the role of Norma's father, Oroveso, and Emmanual di Villarosa, a tenor, brought flair and vigor to Pollione.
Of course, for me the evening was framed by the lens of proud parent: I anxiously awaited each appearance of the chorus for the chance to see my daughter to do the thing she loves most— to sing. But, what an evening it was. Spectacular performances of breathtaking music. The kind of evening that reminds you of the immediacy and power of opera as an art. It was a pleasure to bear witness to a cast of talented young performers, one and all sustained by the joy of song.
Of course, for me the evening was framed by the lens of proud parent: I anxiously awaited each appearance of the chorus for the chance to see my daughter to do the thing she loves most— to sing. But, what an evening it was. Spectacular performances of breathtaking music. The kind of evening that reminds you of the immediacy and power of opera as an art. It was a pleasure to bear witness to a cast of talented young performers, one and all sustained by the joy of song.
