November 2000 - Nr. 11
Views and Reviews
by Alidë Kohlhaas
On the surface, the painter Henri Matisse and the composer Giacomo Puccini share little except that their lives somewhat overlapped. But the works of the Frenchman, Matisse, and the Italian, Puccini, still appeal as strongly to the emotions of audiences as they did at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. The exotic fascinated both artists, and they expressed this fascination in rich colours of sound and in paint.
Some
of the painter’s works are now on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario until
January 14, 2001. Once owned by the Cone sisters of Baltimore, they now
belong to the Baltimore Museum of Art. The composer’s opera, Madama
Butterfly, sadly, has come and gone from the Hamilton and Kitchener stages
when you read this.
The AGO’s show is a mixture of works: portrait and figurative oils, drawings, landscapes, and sculptures. Despite this amalgam, it is a subdued display. Few of the paintings have the daring colour and shape that have earned this artist and his colleagues the disparaging title "les fauves" (the wild beasts).
While
none of Matisse’s works will shock us now, they still arouse deep
feelings, though muted in the AGO show. Of course, there are his famous Pink
Nude (or Large reclining Nude) completed in 1935, his voluptuous 1907 Blue
Nude, Standing Odalisque reflected in Mirror of 1923, and the vibrant The
Yellow Dress, painted between 1929-31, to remind us that the artist helped
to shape modern art. It is his drawings that drew me. Their deceptive
simplicity of line especially reveals Matisse’s powerful talent. His
landscapes look drab to eyes used to the Canadian landscape, and his
sculptures mostly fail to excite. Yet, there is his bronze "Jaguar
devouring Hare". It lays bare the cat’s power and grace with
startling reality despite its coarse finish. Thus, this exhibit is an
excellent introduction to Matisse’s multi-faceted talent and vision.
Madama Butterfly is likely Puccini’s most popular opera despite its negative opening night in 1904. In it he wove many Japanese tunes into his rich score full of tender lyricism and colourful orchestration. It is a score identifiably Puccini’s, yet has a lush exotic tone that clearly separates it from his other works. The lyrics, based on a story by John Luther Long may well be the first depiction of the "ugly American". It tells the tragic outcome of an arranged marriage between a 15-year-old Japanese girl and an American naval lieutenant, who doesn’t take the contract seriously.
Opera
Hamilton’s was an amazingly clearly articulated Madama Butterfly. Artistic
director/conductor Daniel Lipton and the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra
produced a superbly unified sound that never overpowered the excellent
singing cast. Stage director Diana Leblanc brought her Shakespearian
discipline to the staging and interpretation of the book. Her setting of the
transition from Act II’s scene 1 to scene 2, as Butterfly waits through
the night for the arrival of her American husband, is perhaps one of the
most painfully haunting moments ever created on stage. The action was
exquisitely complemented by the simple but evocative set by Marie Anne
Chiment and E.K. Ayotte’s costume design.
Soprano Cynthia Lawrence brought her vast experience as Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly) gained at the Metropolitan Opera, at Covent Garden and Deutsche Staatsoper among others, to her debut in this role with the Hamilton Opera. She was well partnered by Spanish tenor, Miguel Olano, as Lieutenant Pinkerton in his Canadian debut. Canadian baritone, John Avey, sang Sharpless, the American consul, who is unable to prevent the tragedy he so correctly foresaw at the beginning of the opera. Avey gave the most well-defined portrayals of Sharpless I have seen of this character. All three, and the entire cast, deserved the long standing ovation given on opening night.
While on the subject of music, two CDs just released by CBC Records are worth mentioning. Jean Stilwell is one of this country’s finest mezzo-sopranos. Her new release on the Musica Viva label, Les chemins de l’amour (The Paths of Love), allows her rich voice to be heard at its best in songs by the likes of Satie, Hahn, Moustaki, Brel and Weil. The latter’s Je ne t’aim pas (I don’t love You), Debussy’s Beau soir (Beautiful evening), the title song by Poulenc, and Brel’s Ne me quitte pas (Don’t leave me) are perhaps the best known of the 16 songs on this 55:02 minute long CD.
The other CD, on the SM 500 series label, features the National Arts Centre Orchestra under the baton of its music director, Pinchas Zukerman, in a performance of Beethoven’s Symphonies No. 1 and No. 2, and Romance No. 2 for violin and orchestra. It offers 74:46 minutes of great music in a first-class performance. Zukerman has a fine feeling for Beethoven, and the NACO is proving to be an excellent ambassador of Canadian music making.
A subject of a different kind is the re-release of Patrick Watson and Benjamin Barber’s The Struggle for Democracy. Originally written to accompany their television series of the same name released in January 1989, the book has been somewhat updated to allow for some of the political changes that have occurred in the past decade. It is a fascinating history of democracy from the Athenians onward, and it shows how different societies perceive the meaning of it, and how they employ it for the good or not so good of their people, and the world as a whole. It also reveals why it is so difficult to get a consensus among nations on how democratic rule should be conducted.[The Struggle for Democracy, Key Porter Books, 232 pages, $29.95].
Comments to: alide@echoworld.com
