Juan Diego Florez and Diana Damrau in her debut performance as Marie, "La Fille du Regiment" finished Donizetti's jubilant bel canto piece with an autograph signing in the lobby of San Francisco Opera on Sunday afternoon. I asked Juan Diego to sign my program "Ah Mes Amis" and he obliged. Superbe! Moreover that Sunday champagne brunch at the Top of the Mark before the matinee set the bubbly tone. A big slide show below.
SFO performs La Fille one last time on Saturday, October 31, Halloween, at 8:00 pm.
Here is Juan Diego performing the song with the nine high Cs, Ah Mes Amis.
Note Adler Fellow Alek Shrader covered for Juan Diego and attended all rehearsals. Alek will have his own salon on Wednesday at Hotel Rex and I will tell you all about it. It's oversold. Alek sang Ah Mes Amis at the national competition at the Met and won.
Diana managed the physical comedy honorably compared with ballerina Natalie Dessay. Pretty, young, blond, petite, exuberant and demonstrative, she fit the part. Somebody has to inspire those nine high Cs.
Diana's performance seemed particularly impressive as it was Diana's debut in the French role but not her native language. This production has the same set and costumes too, from the laundry line of clean longjohns to the piles of ironing and the ironing board and iron . . . to the red Pippi Longstocking braid which never relaxed but curled up and pointed to the ceiling the whole time. Laurent Pelly designed the costumes and directed. Mon dieu!
No wonder Juan Diego Florez got Best DVD from BBC Music in April with this production when it was at Covent Garden. It features the heavyweight Brit comedian Dawn French as the mother. She gives it some stellar Vicar of Dibley attitude.
While Bruno Pratico made his company debut as Sulpice, a sergeant in the 21st Regiment, Meredith Arwady returned from this season's highly acclaimed comedy Gianni Schicchi. That was the third story in the triptych by oddly enough, Puccini, the maudlin prince of pain. Meredith plays Marie's mother, the Marquise of Berkenfeld. She arranges for her rambunctious tomboy raised by the soldiers (her fathers) to marry a prestigious duke. Our nerdy Tyrolean runt puts on a uniform and mounts a tank to rescue his beloved Marie once again, this time from the precipice of propriety instead of the edge of a cliff in the Alps. Well done.
Departing Adler Fellow Kenneth Kellogg got a great part and I could hear his voice. He not only stood front and center in the regiment formation, Kenneth also sang with Juan Diego Florez during Ah Mes Amis. Moreover Juan Diego's Tonio, in his jubilation and love for Marie, tries to leap into the arms of the soldier played by Kenneth, but Kenneth just stands impossibly tall.
Under the matching outfits: Don't ask, don't tell
Priceless moments include the synchronized ballet of the maids in Marie's new home. Were those hairy legs under those blue uniforms? Sacrebleu!
On a more melodramatic note, Diana had a great solo in her pretty white debutante dress at her mother's mansion. Marie feels lovesick and homesick. She digs up the treasures given to her as sentimental parting gifts from her fathers back with the regiment. While a lot of the humor in La Fille comes from over the top sentimentality, in contrast she sings:
They have given me wealth and a title, they thought I would be impressed.
Instead I live in by-gone memory, all my dreams and hopes are laid to rest.
Beneath the jewels and the laces, I bury my grief and despair.
What use are beauty, frills and graces, when my beloved is not here?
I have to ask, are real soldiers this sentimental? At least La Fille shows love remains fashionable whether in white lace or matching outfits.
Don't ask, don't tell.
Comments
It is interesting that those four "maids" were not credited anywhere in the program. Anyone who has seen Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo would have been delighted that their loony style has now been elevated to a genre unto itself! The choreographer (Karine Girard) may be French; but it is hard to imagine that she came up with that scene with no exposure to the Trocks!
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