Not one’s cup of tea?

Last night I witnessed the end of the pandemic hiatus at Los Angeles Opera. It felt weird. It felt, in certain essential ways, wonderful. But there was no escaping that this remains a conflicted period in the pandemic, where we are neither here nor there.

I was seated in the orchestra section and had to sport a black wristband signifying proof of my COVID-19 vaccination. The balcony was virtually empty, where evidence of a negative COVID-19 test was required. Capacity was limited to 25% and seats were assigned, and the Music Center clearly meant it. There were no lobby concessions. They did however during intermission offer free cookies and coffee outdoors; a nice treat to sweeten the heaviness of the German opera.

Conlon’s grand conception was to capture all this by matching power with power. The lowered orchestra allowed for more bass than we usually get in the Chandler and increased the prominence of the winds, and even the brass instruments such as the french horns, served Wagner’s Tannhauser well. Then again, nothing is normal. It has taken well over a year for opera in America to finally come in from the cold.

The singing was tremendous. Stunning but few soloists — Yulia Matochkina, Isaachah Savage, and Morris Robinson— dominated. Robinson, a bass, I read is a Los Angeles Opera regular who has had a significant presence in the company’s programing that contends with diversity in opera and social justice throughout the last year.

Wagner did not intend to display diversity. He asked that characters in “Tannhauser,” whether staged or not, be treated as living statues, their movement restricted to head and arms. Free will and expression come from the composer and the composer alone. The sets were stark and bare and I found them to be aesthetically boring. I yearned for something more ethereal to express the representation of love. But the libretto was less concerned with romance than underscoring the fated tragedy of living with erotic sin and religion, prayer, and penance played a significant role in the operas' theme. So in the end Tannhauser desperate to find redemption, dies.

Now I know that German opera isn’t for everybody. But you don’t know until you try one on for size. As for me, I’m glad I gave it a go but this is one opera that I will not need to see again. Even the overture dragged and the dance movements although erotic got to be tedious. In six weeks I’ll see La Cenerentola which I haven’t seen for many years and comes with love, romance, and a happy ending.

Until then I’m departing from a German theme with a contemporary song I like.