An Identity Crisis at San Diego Opera

By David Gregson

Photo by Ken Howard

SAN DIEGO OPERA IS UNDERGOING a serious identity crisis. In Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus (The Bat), SDO’s 40th anniversary season opener (January 29–February 9), it’s tricky telling just who’s who and what’s what. Eisenstein, an upper-class Viennese gentleman, disguises himself as a French marquis and flirts with his own wife, Rosalinda, who is masquerading convincingly as a Hungarian countess. Meanwhile, Rosalinda’s prospective lover, Alfred, is doing time in prison in place of her husband. Perhaps the subtlest deception of all is that Die Fledermaus is not an opera but a very popular light operetta featuring a long, spoken vaudeville turn by a drunken jailer. That bat? It’s a practical joke. Disguises and delusions provide a unifying theme for the 2005 season. In Mozart’s Così fan tutte (February 19– March 1), two sisters, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, are wooed by each other’s boyfriends, Ferrando and Guiglielmo, improbably disguised as Albanians. The callous role-playing of the lovers in this piece so upsets some opera-goers that they fail to recognize Così for what it truly is—one of Mozart’s most-accomplished masterpieces, full of gorgeous arias and ensembles, with nary a dud in the bunch.

In Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra (March 26–April 3), a Genoese nobleman pretends to be somebody else in order to keep tabs on his dead daughter’s “lost” child, Amelia, who —are you following this?—is actually the offspring of the opera’s titular hero, Boccanegra. This former pirate, now a candidate for Doge of Genoa, does not recognize Amelia until he sees a cameo given to her by her mother. Nothing funny in this one—but it contains some of Verdi’s best arias and most spectacular dramatic scenes.

None of this befuddlement, however, can begin to equal the tragic psychological dilemma of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa (April 16-24), an American masterpiece overdue for greater recognition. This haunting Gothic story is filled with some of Barber’s most beautifully lyrical music. The work’s eponymous heroine is deluded into thinking that her former lover—a man lost to her for 20 years—has finally returned. But he is actually someone else—Anatol, a handsome, opportunistic scoundrel, the son of Vanessa’s old boyfriend! Vanessa demands a diva of major importance. In fact, Barber offered the role to Maria Callas, but she disliked singing in English and turned it down. Los Angeles recently snagged the great Dame Kiri Te Kanawa for the part, but San Diego Opera’s general director, Ian Campbell, has done equally well in acquiring the services of the distinguished U.S. soprano, Carol Vaness.

The identity crisis in Puccini’s mega-hit La Bohème (May 7–May 18)? Well, this is a stretch, but the doomed tubercular heroine does not know why people call her Mimi. In one of all of opera’s most famous arias, “Mi chiamano Mimi, ma il mio nome é Lucia” (“They call me Mimi, but my real name is Lucia”), she adds, “Il perché non so” (“I have no idea why”).

So I rest my case. And I look forward to a mind-bendingly rewarding season.

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