Mefistofele

I hadn’t known much about Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, but am now mightily impressed with parts of it, like the prologue in heaven above, although still a bit puzzled with others, despite having seen it twice now. This is one of our big-bucks new productions – of which we get several each year – intended to raise the profile of the opera, which seem to be largely entrusted to the compelling direction of Balázs Kovalik, who together with designer Csaba Antal also brought us Elektra as set in one of Budapest’s 19^th century bathhouses a few years ago. Actually this production premiered last year, but for some reason I didn’t get a good opportunity to see it then.

As an operatic work, it’s uneven in its brilliance, a bit like Goethe’s Faust itself (Yes, I read it way back when. Both parts. In English.) Which is I suppose what you would expect from an Italian Wagnerite who, despite being trained in music, composed little other music and is mainly known as Verdi’s librettist for Otello, Falstaff, and Simon Boccanegra. Also, you can tell that it’s been cropped from a much longer work, which is perhaps why it doesn’t hang together so well. 


But where it’s brilliant, it’s brilliant, and also provides an opportunity for a visual feast. The opera, after spending so much money on this production, kindly posted high-grade clips of the two grander scenes. Both are well worth watching on full-screen. Up top is the prologue in heaven where Mephistopheles makes his bet for Faust’s soul with God, via God’s middle management, who then proceed to sing the praises of the boss with great vigor. The little kids are the cherubini, the souls of children who died across the ages flitting around the cosmos, including one in a Bart Simpson shirt who apparently left this vale of tears circa 1991. I’m not sure who the scruffy guy getting shaken down is. An earthly penitent? With opera on this scale you get the sense that subplots are being worked into the fabric of the scene.

The provocative second clip is from the Witches’ Sabbath in Act II, recast as an average Saturday night at your local Budapest pub. There’s a lot going on here, including scantily clad dancers to please every gender and persuasion, some of which doesn’t show up on this clip. Declaring his contempt for the wicked world and his intention to destroy it, Mephistopheles, with a knowing grin, hoists the EU flag. I hope this doesn’t affect our funding. Also there's some cocaine being blown on stage. 

The opera sort of loses its way after this, much like Goethe’s version, although Faust’s new love Marghereta (played by Gabrielle Létay Kiss and Zsuszanna Bazsink, who was the stronger of the two. I saw both casts) gets an intense death row scene before being converted into Helen of Troy and the action switches to Ancient Greece and some kind of magic tanning booths. Mefistofele, which is supposedly one of the great bass-baritone roles, is played competently by Gábor Bretz and more than competently by András Palerdi. Faust himself seems somewhat inconsequential as a singing role, which is presumably intentional since he’s no longer even the nominal star of the show. 

Winter Opera Round-up (1)

Happy New-ish Year. It has been an interesting winter contemplating Hungary’s absurd political situation. (For the record, I think the reports circulating through the international press indicating that we are in danger of becoming another Belarus are in large measure echo-chamber hype. Our leaders are far too incompetent to successfully erect an authoritarian state. The reports that we are in danger of becoming very broke, very fast are in fact, however, quite true. Which puts us in the company of some of the finest countries in the world, at least.)

Fortunately the Budapest opera house still seems to be fully funded, so I’ve been going quite often to watch people being beheaded, stabbed, carted off to hell, consumed by tuberculosis and hauled off to jail for 8 days for insulting a state official, all of which puts our present woes into a more manageable perspective and helps stave off the wintertime blues.

In December we start with Turandot, an opera I’ve always found a bit overrated, but since we don’t have dramatic-ish soprano Szilvia Rálik in too many home-field performances this season and I had never seen her in this, one of her signature roles, I went to see how she handled it. Which was just fine – she opens her mouth and fires forth a perfectly controlled barrage of Chinese ice princess. Except it’s a brief barrage, which is one reason I’m not such a big Turandot fan – like relegating your team’s ace starting pitcher to the bullpen. 

Here she is in the only Youtube version I could find, singing in Hungarian at the Szeged Opera Festival a few years ago, presumably because our country yokel cousins cannot be presumed to have the mastery of Italian shared by all true Budapesters. But you get the idea what kind of power she has.

János Bándi fluffed Calaf’s Nessun Dorma, which probably ruined his day. Szilvia had to drag him out to take his bows. He sounded like he might have had a bit of a cold, although I wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway since the student couple sitting next to me, suddenly confronted a bit they recognized from the recordings of the fat dead Italian guy, decided to ecstatically point this fact out to each other and inadvertently the nearest four rows as well, necessitating a shushing. Seriously, this is getting worse, and the tourists making smartphone videos. From now on until I can afford real my own box I’m staking out seats based solely on minimizing the number of knuckleheads in my immediate vicinity. Who cares if I can see or not?

Then we have Don Giovanni. At the Budapest opera, most of the Mozart I’ve seen over the years has turned out a bit uninspired, but this was a new production with a vibrant youngish cast (who actually looked like plausible candidates for either end of a seduction procedure), and turned out to be the best performance I’ve seen in Budapest thus far this season. Excellent pacing and all of the principals bringing their characters to life, especially István Kovács as a formidable Don. I got chills in the statue finale. If there was a weak spot it was Alik Abdukayumov’s slightly mushy enunciation of Leporello’s Mille e Tre in the first act before he had warmed up properly, but he got that fixed up later and brought a compelling depth to the character, who does indeed require a bit of acting ability.

And a workmanlike pre-Christmas performance of Aida with no real standouts, despite my man Anatolij Fokanov holding down Amonasro. It seems to me the most memorable parts are in the chorus, anyway, or maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood that day.

Banging in the new year we have a cold wintry performance of La Bohème, which always turns out really well here, in my experience. Our resident Mimi, Ilona Tokody, who has sung the role opposite any major tenor you can think of over the years was splendid as usual, threading the tricky Mimi tightrope of filling an entire opera house with your lung power while succumbing to tuberculosis.

Exciting in this performance was Rebeka Bobanj, a young “South Country” (from the Hungarian minority in what is now northern Serbia) soprano making what I believe was her first appearance at the HSO as Musetta. Her voice has this interesting full but reedy quality that I would like to hear more of in the future. Here she is performing Musetta’s Waltz on the television for the good people of, again, Szeged, starting at 0:40, although the self-important urgently-scored lead-in for the local news program is also good for a laugh. If something ever happens in Szeged, these guys will be on top of it on a hurry (just teasing, Szeged. You are not yokel-ish at all. You are very pleasant town with a level of musical culture superior to that of even Kecskemét.)

Then, a fun performance of Die Fledermaus, where they sing in German and switch to Hungarian for the spoken bits. A standout was actor Péter Vida in the non-singing role of Frosch the drunken jailer, with a contemporary shtick of high-speed comic patter and wordplay that went over really well. When Hungarian wits go into rapid-fire wordplay mode I can only claim partial comprehension, but what I got was funny. Éva Várhelyi made an excellent Prince Orlovsky. The ball doubled as a real-life 80th birthday party for long-time director Miklós Szinetár with gifts presented and ditties sung. Happy Birthday Teacher, Sir!

And because not every day can be opera day (or can’t it?), Andi for Christmas got us tickets to see funk-rock band Magna Cum Laude. I don’t listen to an awful lot of rock these days, but this is the kind of creative, lyrical upbeat Hungarian band that I can get behind. Here is charming front man Misi Mező working his gypsy magic on the Pálinka Song, the unofficial anthem of us pálinka aficionados everywhere. Balkan brass sections make everything better.