FOREWARD

 

By Robert Commanday

 

 

 

A CHOICE TREASURY OF OPERA

 

 

            After more than 70 years of coping with opera librettos and their mostly fustian translations and of reading story synopses in opera programs and hand-books,  I have finally found English versions of the texts that are intelligent,  musical,  and most important,  worthy of being sung,  and the stories related in a manner that is engaging and pertinent,  not just factual.  This welcome new source,  Donald Pippin’s As the Lights Go Up:  Tales from Opera,  takes in 24 operas, their stories and translations, the “Tales of Handel”  (four of his operas,  delightfully “narrated”)    and “In Short,”   brief discussions of eight more operas,  including Wagner’s No Love Allowed  (Das Liebesverbot).    That last begins with a typically inveigling Pippin lead:   “Pandemonium!   Riot!    Bedlam!   A war on vice has been declared by someone who obviously means business and has the resources to back it up.”

 

            Most San Franciscan opera lovers have long been hooked on Pippin’s urbane style by way of his “Pocket Opera.”    Through this institution he has been presenting operas since 1968,  himself as host,  pianist, and conductor of the “Pocket Philharmonic” and with casts of young aspiring opera singers,  a startling percentage  of whom have gone on to significant careers.   Initially,  these presenta-tions took place in “The Old Spaghetti Factory,”   a wonderful funky restaurant in San Francisco’s North Beach district.   From l978 on,  these performances have been given in other theatrical venues in the City,  at the rate of from 10 to as many as 15 operas a year.   In all,  Pippin has produced over 100 operas,  80 of them in his own translations.   These “settings”  as he prefers to call them,  have been used at the Washington   Opera  at the Kennedy Center,  the San Francisco Opera Center,  the San Diego Opera,  the  Chicago  Lyric,  the Julliard School of Music,  and the Aspen Music Festival,  among many others.      This new book,  As the Lights Go Up,  one might say,  just scratches the surface of the Pippin treasury.

 

            Central to each Pocket Opera performance has been Pippin’s inimitable “stand-up”,  introducing the work iin his droll,  straight-faced style:   “Venice --  city of magic and mystery,  where days and nights seem shorter.   The perfect resting place for Gennaro and his friends,  fellow soldiers of fortune.  Yesterday Verona,  tomorrow on to Ferrara,  city by the Po,   domain of the Borgias,  where Duke Alfonso,  husband of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia,  holds a tight grip on the reins of power.   Her fourth husband,  by the way.   Ask not what became of the other three.”     And we’re off and running as the commentary continues and, where deserved,  with tongue in cheek and shared bemusement at the conceits and follies of the librettos and their characters,  but never condescension.

 

            Any Pippin translation exemplifies his deftness and raises wonder that traditional translators are so clumsy and so systematically miss the poetic and musical point.  To use an example of an aria with a most familiar  tune,   Gilda’s “Caro nome”  from   Verdi’s Rigoletto:

 

Far or near, the name alone

Of the hero I adore

Stirs a shy delight unknown

To the child I was before.

 

On the wings of sweet desire

To my love I long to fly,

There to give my life entire

Till I breathe  a final sigh.

 

Easy, natural,  falls into place right along with the melody,  and no awkward usages.

Or Germont’s  Di Provenza” –

 

From the land of olive trees

Have you wandered far astray?

 

            Pippin is not above appropriate lateral commentary,  where relevant,  as in this instance:   “One of the current trends in the opera world demands that the director prove his creativity by changing the locale and period of the opera in question to something wildly different from what the uninformed composer intended,  Thus Aida  moves to Cambodia,  Cosi fan tutte to South Carolina and the civil war,   Norma to God knows where.    This is a practice for which Pocket Opera has little tolerance,  and one to which we have yielded only once,  despite the relative ease with which we leap from one continent to another .   With Der Freischütz we were tempted to make another exception . . .  Our hero we would change from a huntsman to perhaps a salesman,  a profession that I believe shares some of the same vocabulary – making a hit,  scoring, etc. --  and where the difference between success and failure is equally stark and clear-cut,   This particular young man is driven to succeed,  not only for the sake of his career,  but also in order to win the boss’ daughter . . .”

 

            But after pursuing this analogy for a spell,  he springs the trap.  “As I said,  the notion was tempting,  but we have resisted it.  Does an audience have to have the meaning spelled out?   Certainly not.”    Bingo!

 

            So it goes,  or in some such fashion,  in each of the treats awaiting the reader.  Rather than spoil further the  delight of discovery,  the invitation is extended to open to any of the operas herein and meet Opera by Pippin.

 

 

Robert Commanday is the former music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle and the founding editor (retired) of San Francisco Classical Voice (www.sfcv.org).