We Dallasites have always loved our opera company. The Dallas Opera has always been a higher grade than most "inland" companies. But for generations it was performed at Fair Park, the same grounds where you would find the State Fair of Texas every October. It is a pretty and historical hall, but it is fan-shaped and seats about 3500. Though that was the accepted form of concert halls for about 70 years, it's a bad design. Sound loses energy as it leaves the stage, because of the fan shape, and sight lines are such that only the middle sections can see the whole stage.
So, we built a new opera hall. Though this is its 6th season, it is the first year my wife and I have had season tickets at the new place. If you're an opera fan, you want good seats, and good seats are expensive. Our new opera hall, The Winspear, seats a more sensible 2200 in a traditional horseshoe layout, with brilliant acoustic design that makes our current seats, the center mezzanine, almost like being on stage.
The inspired new hall, with its indoor/outdoor design in which you hardly know when you've passed from one to the other. The inner hall looks like something you'd want to lick, a giant piece of cinnamon candy, or cherry cordials.
Mrs. Shooshie & me, front-row center mezzanine, looking over our sheer drop without a net! Opera is not for the faint of heart! (I photoshopped out the people sitting behind us whose pictures stood out in the bright light they were sitting in.)
Stock Dallas Opera photo (not Salome)
Ok, Back to Salome. There's an odd story of our good fortune in regard to this production of Salome. On Sunday my daughter went to see it. I asked her if she was blown away, and she said "no, it was good, but not exceptional. In fact, it was a little hard to watch." It turns out that the star, Deborah Voight, was distracting. The suspension of disbelief that is so essential to stage productions just wasn't possible, because Ms. Voight had a back injury, required a cane on stage, and had to be helped up by the "guards" when she would kneel or lie down on stage.
Bear in mind that Salome is supposed to be a teenage girl, just now a young woman, who is kitten-like in her curiosity, adolescent in her reactions to rejection, and completely focused on herself, the way many young ladies are at that age. She also is beautiful, ravishing, and so desirable that no man can resist her. She dances the "Dance of the Seven Veils" which so bewitches the king that he is willing to give her anything to dance it for him. She is tragic in that she has grown up in privilege, isolated from the world, and she knows nothing about the world except her own desires, one of which is not to be ogled at by all the men in the castle. Of course, she has learned that her looks get her anything she wants.
Lastly, and this is important, Salome ends up naked from the waist up at the end of this dance. Yes, that's right, the first topless striptease on the opera stage was (AFAIK) Strauss's Salome, which caused a scandal in December, 1905, especially when it came to the USA about a year later.
Now, Deborah Voight is a famous diva, a star among stars. She's also in her 50s, looks 10 years older than she is, and is... well... obese. We love her for her voice, but the dance of the seven veils has no singing. It's a dance. Now, picture a 55 year old obese woman limping around on stage with a cane as she removes one veil after another. She's not dancing, but walking from one place to another, kind of rocking her shoulders as she goes. Are you getting the picture?
My daughter found this extremely distracting and detrimental to her enjoyment of the opera. Still, it's Strauss, and Salome is one of the roles that Voight is famous for. Yes, even Deborah Voight was once young and sexy. But that was a long time ago. I'm fine with Voight as Brünnhilde, Turandot, and many other fine opera roles in which her size and age are not of great importance. But Salome? No. I'm not prepared to watch this very large diva disrobe on stage while limping around with cane. It's a STRIP tease, not a TRIP GEEZE.
So, a curious thing happened before the curtain opened, fulfilling a wish I'd had since my daughter told me about the performance on Sunday. I mean, I feel like I WILLED this to happen, so much was I focused on the hope that it would: A man walked out and announced that Ms. Voight sends her regrets; she is having problems due to a hip injury, and will not be able to perform. But they have flown in Lise Lindstrom, who is singing the same part with the Vienna Opera, and she is prepared to save the role. Lise Lindstrom is perfect for the part. She's in her late 30s, is a very nice size and build, and she has an amazing voice. Plus, she gets into her characters in a way similar to method-actors; she has nailed all the mannerisms of this complicated and tragic figure of an adolescent girl-cum-woman. You believe you are seeing Salome in the flesh.
Oh, and when she removes the last veil, even though it's just for an instant, you share in the king's lust for her gorgeous body, rather than searching for some way to suspend disbelief so that you can imagine the fat lady having some kind of sensual spell over men. With Lise Lindstrom it's just as it should be. She is beguiling with or without clothes. She's complex and enticing whether singing or dancing. You believe this young woman wants what she says she wants: the head of Jokanaan, a.k.a. John the Baptist. (Salome is a biblical story, for those who are uninitiated)
The opera starts out light, even funny. There are many chuckles and outright laughs in the first half. Then it takes a turn for the serious and sinister. Soon, you join King Herod in pleading with Salome to make another choice, not to do this to herself, much less to Jokannaan. The music and the drama pull you into the story, and you are distraught at what she has demanded. You feel for the king who is bound by witnesses to his oath to Salome, that he will give her ANYTHING she wants if she will just do that dance for him.
Then there is the case of Jokanaan, whose voice might well be the voice of the almighty himself. When he sings it is like thunder. It strikes fear into the debauched and devout alike.
Dallas mounted a performance not to be forgotten, ever. It was like history in the making. When it ended, the audience leaped to their feet and it seemed the curtain calls would never end. Most of the applause went to the guy who played Jokanaan and especially to Lise Lindstrom, Salome's actress/singer. She had saved the role on short notice, and not only saved it but infused it with fire. Performances like this put an opera company on the map. Dallas is already known for its fine productions, but this... this is worldwide news.
Last week's production of Marriage of Figaro was equally amazing. It was spectacular! And now a spectacular Salome after fears that the whole run would be like that of last Sunday's matinee with Deborah Voight. I have to commend Ms. Voight for stepping aside, and for knowing that she must do so. She herself played a role in saving the performance for the rest of us by allowing Lise Lindstrom to come in and work her magic with the role. I'm just blown away. It seems that Dallas has entered the realm of giants, first with our new opera hall that is a story in its own right, and secondly with an opera company that rises to the heights of their new home. I'm thrilled and amazed to see our "new" opera company after many years of not attending. It has become a company worthy of our civic pride, a company that anyone could attend and lose themselves in the performance.
The acoustics deliver the voices and orchestra to every seat in the house. And did I mention that the orchestra is first-rate? I know about a quarter of the players, having gone to school with them, or having played with them in the Dallas Symphony or one of the other symphonies about town. They are first-rate players who were brought into world-class orchestral playing years ago by Anshel Brusilow, arguably one of the best conductors and concertmasters ever to take the stage.
I would do Salome a disservice if I did not mention the genius of Richard Strauss. A latter-day Mozart, he was the bad-boy of modern romanticism, and he knew exactly what he was doing, musically. His structures of symmetry, his over-the-top harmonic structure, his leitmotifs, not to mention his subject matter and perfect adaption of Oscar Wilde's play, Salome, into a 90 minute encapsulation (without intermission) of what would normally be a 5 hour opera, are all the work of an absolute genius.
What happened last night will be talked about for years in Dallas. The night that Lise Lindstrom saved the opera and Salome. But what will be even more widely dispersed is a growing reputation that Dallas has become a city capable of supporting a world-class opera company, capable of mounting productions that exceed expectations even of our video-tainted critics who compare it with commercially edited tapings for TV. And Dallas is willing to do what it promises when it comes to opera. I've noticed for over 30 years that Dallas opera fans take this stuff quite seriously.
And for my wife and I, another night to remember, and four more to go in the spring, including La Boheme! This season promises to be the best thousand bucks I ever spent, and a bargain at that!
Shooshie
