CLARISSA, A FICTIONAL HEROINE BROUGHT TO LIFE
                    But in a Troubling Concert Version 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of May 28-June 4, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 107
          Yes, I would relish seeing and hearing Robin Holloway’s 1996 opera “Clarissa,”  which has never been shown on this side of the Atlantic. But please, spare me the hodge-podge orchestral suite “Clarissa Sequence” from the same work, presented by the S.F. Symphony May 27.  Only a bigger-than-life title-role rendition by soprano Erin Wall saved it from a worse fate.
            There’s an art to creating successful operatic suites, as we have seen with Bizet, Prokofiev and Wagner. But Holloway’s cobbled-together version is backwards and upside-down, with Clarissa’s dramatic vocal scene coming at the start, leading the soprano to fidget idly in her chair through the last half of the 37-minute opus.  But if truth be said, many operas simply resist the straight-jacket of an orchestral concert version.
            Holloway, 66, is an original stylist from Britain, with his own distinctive voice, vacillating provocatively between consonance and dissonance (a bit like his icons, Britten and Tippett). He closes with a “Fire and Apotheosis,” where, apart from a brief outbreak of wild brass and drums, we get a lot less fireworks than many a dramatic stage work from the past, with a consequent sense of anticlimax.  
            Holloway’s music is busy, churning, brooding, not too seriously marred by the orchestral “herding instinct,”  as the instruments move in parallel (but not unison) motion up and down scale. He rarely stops to smell the roses, intent on maximal dramatic gestures in the tight progression of his score.
            The most fascinating segment by far is the opening “Clarissa’s Scena” for dramatic soprano. Her passionate and erotic monologue about her predicament emerges, often with her and the orchestra in conflict. You get a feel for the intensity, if not the length, of Samuel Richardson’s epic 1748 novel “Clarissa,” a trail-blazing British work often called the longest novel ever written. The heroine Clarissa is locked up by her stern father when she declines to marry the swain chosen for her. She dreams of a knight in shining armor who turns out to be Lovelace, a real cad who abuses her on several levels. Like Elektra or Wozzeck, she suffers mightily, a victim of society and the system.
            The Canadian soprano Erin Wall proved a forceful interpreter of this heroine, with a broad range and searing power, leaving us already looking forward to her “Lulu” excerpts two weeks hence. Unfortunately, she did not fare as well in Mozart’s late concert aria “Bella mia fiamma” (My Most Lovely Flame), K. 528, which she almost crushed, giving it the large-opera-house treatment instead of a Mozartian dimension. 
            Michael Tilson Thomas closed with his latest in the Schumann cycle, the “Rhenish” Symphony (No. 3). It was an assertive reading, with a blazing quartet of French horns (and other brass), but only rare moments of tenderness. The orchestra responded with its accustomed high polish. 
            HOLLOWAY NOTES---The composer attended and took bows quite reclusively, then emerged in the lobby during intermission chatting in low-key, semi-private fashion; he seemed astonished when well-wishers came to shake his hand….He has an extensive relationship with MTT, who has interpreted various Holloway opuses on both sides of the Atlantic and is credited for having suggested this particular Sequence for the concert hall.

         These San Francisco Symphony concerts continue through May 29 at 8 p.m. For info: (415) 864-6000, or go  online. Broadcasts on KDFC-FM (102.1) at 8 p.m. on the second Tuesday following.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010
                                       #
           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
                      #
              Return to main menu.