Anna Karenina's West Coast Premier

Driving back from the Opera, I heard on NPR that money can actually buy happiness, albeit up to a certain point ($75,000). All the money in the world couldn’t buy happiness for the aristocrats in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. David Carlson’s setting of the epic novel was absorbed in the bleak unhappiness of this story, hardly ever letting any ray of hope shine through. Even in the grand parties, the springtime escapades at countryside dachas, or at diverting horse races, the score churns with a lustful urgency, possessed with a dreary unrelenting nervousness, unhappy to the core.

The cast in Opera San Jose’s production tackled the score with conviction, as did the orchestra. From the very first notes of vocal harmony on the words “a bad dream” between sisters Anna (Jouvanca Jean-Baptiste) and Kitty (Khori Dastoor) blended together with haunting chemistry. Anna’s chemistry with Vronsky (Torlef Borsting) is less immediate, but when she succumbs to her illicit passions with him, their two elements combust to form a burning passionate flame in a scene that is the highlight of the first act.

In the ball scene, instead of writing a light aristocratic Waltz that would have been heard at such an event, Carlson set the scandalous party to a barbaric romp—something that sounds like it came from the endless steppes of Russia rather than elegant St. Petersburg. Carlson gets to the deeper, biologically ancient motivating urges of the characters with his music rather than painting the surface with pretty sounds. He never relents for the entire opera.

This is achieved through meandering melodic lines that seldom resolve, unsettled harmonies that often feel neither consonant nor dissonant, and a persistent orchestral narrative. Carlson’s expert orchestration imbues the work with fascinating colors and aids the vocal lines by swirling around them, then backing off for important words to cut through. Some of the most memorable colors were the woodwind chorales accompanied by percussion—sounding like something out of an Eastern Orthodox service (perhaps inspired by Rimsky Korsakov’s orchestrations.) Another unforgettable moment was the harmony buried in a divided double-bass line when Anna contemplates suicide by drug overdose. The parts didn’t sound easy, but the orchestra was well rehearsed and attentive under conductor Stewart Robertson.

Members of the orchestra (who, for you rabid fans out there, can usually be found at the Market St. side of the California Theater after shows) reported a wide variety of reactions ranging from “wanting to seek out the composer and strangle him” to “slowly falling in love with the music.”

The audience is drawn into the music with magnificent stage design, convincing costumes, and expressive stage movement by the supporting ensemble. Even when they weren’t moving about rhythmically, the extras’ constant eavesdropping—be they servants ever listening to their masters’ scandals (Heather McFadden as Agafia Mihailovna) or socialites with ears ever on the lookout for gossip (Kindra Scharich as Countess Lydia Ivanovna)—brought the audience in as additional voyeuristic members of the cast.

In the 21st century, composing for standard opera pit orchestra instrumentation inevitably places the sound in the 19th or early 20th centuries, or as the soundtrack for a cinematic drama, unless the composer takes extreme measures and uses a lot of extended technique (using the instrument in a fashion that the instrument wasn’t necessarily designed for, or in techniques that were not used in the 19th centuries). It is difficult to achieve a new or “contemporary” sound with the same means that were used for centuries. Carlson doesn’t use these extreme measures and is exacerbated by a subject that instantly conjours up the dreadful thought of a 1000+ page 19th century Russian soap opera masterpiece. The music consequently sometimes tends to suffer from “the orchestra is dead” syndrome: the notion orchestra reached its climax in Mahler and early Stravinsky. There are late 20th century exceptions to the syndrome but this is not one of them. Carlson is resigned to that fact, and makes the most of it, which is quite a bit.

I urge those of you who haven’t seen the opera to go hear what that bit was. And if you’ve already seen it, scroll down to the comment section, and share your thoughts.

One warning though: (SPOILER ALERT)

Walking into the concert hall, my ushers give away the ending (perhaps for some liability reason)! Since it was spoiled for me I will spoil it for you: a bright light will shine directly in the eyes of the audience at the end of Act 2. This trick is being used heavily in movies and live productions nowadays, in hopes that the blinding light will help wring some tears from the audience during the climax. This would have made a fine ending—a bit cheesy but a strong way to depict dying on stage, with Anna literally vanishing off into the light at the height of her opium-induced nightmare. It was so cheesy I literally laughed out loud from excitement, but an elderly lady next to me was crying, so I felt bad. I don’t think my laughter disturbed anyone though, as the orchestra was screeching at its loudest.

Unfortunately a final scene was tacked on after the grand finale (an regrettable device inherited directly from Tolstoy and Shakespeare before that.), in which minor characters teach us the moral of the story if we didn’t catch it already. Levin, who had been depressed for the entire opera suddenly grasps the meaning of life (“to live, love and be loved” of course) and amidst suddenly glorious fanfare—a grand grand finale (this even cheesier than before)— as the curtain came down.

Speaking of stanzas needlessly tacked on after one another, I shall conclude here. ;-)