Four Saints in Three Acts," is another one of the collaborative projects for what is San Francisco's summer of Stein. There are two exhibits about the Gertie (and her family) at the Contemporary Jewish Museum and the SFMOMA; and now an opera production at the Yerba Buena Novellus Theater of the Gertrude Stein/Virgil Thomson collaboration, Four Saints in Three Acts, performed by the Ensemble Parallele team. The performance was presented in conjunction with SFMOMA's exhibition The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, and YBCA's Bay Area Now 6.
I'm not a music critic nor do I pretend to be but I confess that I was mostly underwhelmed.
Since the libretto was by Gertrude Stein, I didn't expect logic. In fact, one of Gertrude's charms is her lack of formal logic but one of her charms is the rhythm of her prose. Alas, far too often, both rhythm and diction were lost in this production.
Instead of three acts, YBCA divided the presentation into two uneven acts, padded by a mumbling, boring, dreary prelude by Iby Italian composer Luciano Chessa (who teaches his craft at the SF Conservatory). The curtain opened on a black stage, with a chorus of singers dressed like monks in black who proceeded to chant in unintelligible whispers for what seemed an eternity.
Even the presence of a supposed notable multi-media performance artist (Kalup Linzy) didn't enliven the gloom. His facial features don't improve when blown up 40 feet on a back screen projection and the slow motion clouds were lovely at first but quickly got tedious. My favorite part of that part of the production was when the shinny floor covering slithered down off the stage.
If nothing else, that proves that YBCA has a state of the art theater mechanics.
The "Gertrude" part of the production was much more lively and interesting, although still marred by sloppy diction. The only exception was Eugene Brancoveanu (Saint Ignatius dressed in red!) whose "solo" of "Pigeons in the grass, alas" was the best part of the show. Compère (John Bischoff) and Commère (Wendy Hillhouse) act as the Masters of Ceremonies had good comic timing and Ms Hillhouse, in particular, belted out her arias with feeling. The saints all sang prettily and Saint Teresa I and Saint Teresa II were lovely (Heidi Moss).
All the props were either on wires or wheels and wheeled on and off the stage by two guys dressed in black (see Mike Strickland's review below) which made for some nice stage business. The choreography, from Michael Mohammed, was amusing and with a very funny part when the whole cast broke into a far-too-brief tango.
Nicole Paiement conducted with passion and the orchestra was flawless. But I waited in vain for what I understood was the original staging:
From Wiki: After the chorus sings a prelude, the first act takes place at the Ávila cathedral; it is titled "St. Teresa half indoors and half out of doors". Act two, "Might it be mountains if it were not Barcelona", involves a telescope and glimpses of a heavenly mansion. Act three, "St. Ignatius and one of two literally" is a picnic and contains Ignatius' famous aria "Pigeons on the grass alas". It ends with a tango-like ballet. The brief fourth act ("The sisters and saints reassembled and re-enacting why they went away to stay") is set at the garden of a monastery. Before the curtain falls the Compère announces "Last act", and the chorus replies "Which is a fact".
We had St. Therea wheeled around the stage in an open-four poster bed, St. Ignatius in red as a surgeon and later, some sort of torture victim. The chorus, dressed mostly in white, played musical chairs and ladders dropped up and down in background.
The ending, with St. Ignatius strapped to a torture chair, wrapped with cables while miming electric shock was not funny - and that's a fact.
Mike Strickland's POV: http://sfciviccenter.blogspot.com/2011/08/critics-on-grass-alas.html
SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/22/DDVH1KQBRK.DTL#ixzz1VoVOoCdS
An article on the real St. Theresa:
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