La Calisto at Glimmerglass 2024: The Gods Fall and Fail in Love in Cavalli’s Sumptuous Hall of Mirrors
July 26, 2024
La Calisto
Music, Francesco Cavalli
Libretto, Giovanni Faustini
Conductor, Rob Ainsley
Director, Mo Zhou
Choreographer, Eric Sean Fogel
Set Designer, Charlie Corcoran
Costume Designer, Carlos Soto
Lighting Designer, Amith Chandrashaker
Hair & Makeup, Tom Watson
Calisto, Emilie Kealani
Diana/Jove-as-Diana, Taylor Raven
Juno, Eve Gigliotti
Jove, Craig Irvin
Mercury, Schyler Vargas
Endymion, Kyle Sanchez Tingzon
Linfea/Destiny, Winona Martin
Satirino (Young Satyr)/Eternity, Amanda Sherriff
Pan/Nature, Amarea Randolph-Yosea
Sylvan,Cameron Rolling
Fury, Xiao Xiao
Fury, Lauryn Davis
Dancers
Kailee Reagan Brandt
Peter Murphy
Blaise Rossmann
Emma Sucato
Truman Tinius
La Calisto at Glimmerglass 2024: Gods Fall in Love
Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto is one of the great seventeenth-century Italian operas but had a remarkably ill-fated premiere in 1651. It only saw its first modern-day professional performance in 1970, over three hundred years later, at The Glyndeborne Festival Opera using Raymond Leppard’s rather prosaic realization. The opera had to wait some twenty years before a colorful palette of Baroque instruments would be employed, which now makes this music really shine.
In spurts, La Calisto has had a contemporary following with some attractive historically informed interpretations, sometimes with a lot of risqué buffoonery. However, it has still been upstaged by either Monteverdi’s incomparable earlier works, or the nouvelle vague of French Baroque opera so successfully promoted by William Christie. Add to these works the numerous revivals of George Frideric Handel’s operas, and it is not hard to see why this Roman myth-based Venetian gem could be overlooked.
The clever conceit of mixing two doomed love affairs is balanced by the playful sexual antics of horny satyrs and lusting nymphs. Librettist Giovanni Faustini tastefully peppers his lovers’ longings and hardships using the eternally entertaining gender role reversal. Indeed, contrasting reflection and illusion permeate the plot throughout. Not only are the lover pairs literally “star crossed,” but they have a second eternal life reflected as heavenly constellations.
Opera, as we know it, developed as an artistic experiment in the late sixteenth century with the Florentine Camerata. This group of noblemen and artists rebelled against polyphony and the difficulty in understanding both the sung word and any emotive conveyance tangled in the complex music. Lead by Count Giovanni de’ Bardi, and including illustrious figures such as Galileo’s father, Vincenzo Galilei, the group produced Dafne by Jacopo Peri, which premiered in 1598. Heinrich Schütz, the great German composer followed suit in 1627 with his own Dafne, now lost.
Throughout these “operas,” soloists “recited” text to a melodic line accompanied by some instruments filling in the bassline and harmonies. This accompaniment, termed “basso continuo,” could include bass viols, harpsichords, and theorboes. The basso continuo became the unifying element of the Baroque era (roughly 1600 to 1750).
The singing style of recitation, stile recitativo succeeded in communicating the text and could be extravagantly expressive as the style progressed. Members of the Camerata believed this rather minimal music resembled how classical Greek drama was presented.
While many of these early operas have fallen into obscurity, geniuses such as Monteverdi evolved revolutionary artistic innovations that addressed the gripe of audiences: il tedio del recitativo, the tediousness of recitative. Monteverdi’s innovations such as instrumental interludes and short strophic structures, frequently dance-based, livened these works without deterring from the desired clarity of text. The debate of whether words or music should predominate in an opera was decisive in favor of the word, as long as ensuing melodic material kept audiences’ interests.
Francesco Cavalli, a student and successor of Monteverdi, perfected a musical flow as an intermediary between short dance-like episodes, monody, and dramatic expressive passages. This flow allowed the mood and action to extend for even longer periods amassing great tension and variety.
Based on a tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the writings of Cicero, gods have human-like proclivities which can be at odds of their lofty symbolic roles.
The story of Calisto, a companion nymph of the goddess Diana, tells of the carnality of these supreme beings, and the extent to which fidelity and morality could be breached. Jove (or Jupiter, Zeus, or Wotan) has always been portrayed as a Lothario, cheating on his goddess wife, Juno (protector of love and marriage). We’ve seen this conceit used in opera for centuries, right up through Wagner’s Ring. In La Calisto, Jove’s accomplice is his own son, the god Mercury (or Hermes in Greek mythology) to assist in his romantic imbroglios. Here, the pair brilliantly performed by bass-baritones Craig Irvin and Schyler Vargas, have the repartee of Mozart’s future operatic womanizers, Don Giovanni and his sidekick, Leporello.
Since Diana’s troupe is bound by a vow of chastity (as is Diana, herself), Mercury suggests that Jove dress up as Diana, and try to seduce the beautiful Calisto, sung tonight by the sweet-voiced Emilie Kealani. Calisto seems almost epicene in her sexual insouciance. She is seduced by false Diana (Jove), and ultimately has sexual activity with him/her. When Calisto encounters the real Diana, she makes awkward and misguided romantic advances to the goddess who was really Jove in disguise.
Juno eventually finds out about Jove’s infidelity, and, in a rage, transforms Calisto into a bear. Jove shows he’s sympathetic and will atone for Juno’s curse and make Calisto a constellation (Ursa Major) after her spell on Earth (presumably to bear his bear-cub). The god and nymph will be joined since Calisto is also one of Jupiter’s moons, so, for eternity she will be close to her “paramour.”
Meanwhile, the real Diana and a forlorn shepherd, Endymion, are coping with an impossible love attraction, much to Pan’s chagrin (who also adores Diana). As the goddess of the moon and the hunt, she will remain chaste but ultimately pushes the Platonic envelope when Endymion advances.
Other randy creatures abound: assorted satyrs and nymphs (like Satirino and Linfea) that seem indefatigably on the prowl.
This complex plot yielded many disastrous moments in its first run of eleven performances, including the death of the original Endymion. There are problematic choices to be made on Fach assignment, which only intensified after the forced reclassification of Endymion. In the original score, when Jove poses as Diana, the direction reads “Giove trasformato in Diana.” This is a puzzling instruction. Some performances have the bass-baritone Jove sing in a falsetto soprano voice mocking Diana’s voice. This solution, of course, puts the burden on Jove to sing in a rather impossible tessitura. At Glimmerglass, however, “Giove trasformato” is simply assigned the real Diana, who was portrayed magisterially by Taylor Raven; Ms. Raven, in my opinion, had a most challenging dual-role vocally and dramatically, and was winning throughout. Her mezzo-alto range could handle the character changes and convincingly pose as a Jove “in drag.”
Juno, whose anger punished Calisto, was wonderfully portrayed by Eve Gigliotti whose stage polish, bearing, and striking voice were superb.
The shepherd Endymion is a countertenor part requiring great vocal agility and poetic delivery. Kyle Sanchez Tingzon, was perfect: his voice had a beautiful luster in both the lower and higher registers. Cavalli showed great skill in crafting the tessitura for this melancholic youth role.
Winona Martin was brilliant as the comical and frustrated nymph Linfea who appeared to be smoking from a 1920s Quellazaire. Something of the flapper era permeated her presence.
The opera usually features a chaconne mid-way when Calisto is changed to a bear. Thankfully this clumsy stage prank was elided and tastefully played as the closing chaconne (sans Ursa).
Music director Rob Ainsley, a fine keyboard virtuoso, not only conducted but filled in on harpsichord; baroque cello, lutes, and viola da gamba filled out the attractive continuo.
The stage designs were rife with descending and ascending colors, shapes, moon images, and constellations. Kudos to Charlie Corcoran and Amith Chandrashaker for such splendid visuals. Dancers enacted reflections or doppelgangers to each singing part. The motion and emotion were artfully complementary.
Perhaps the golden moment of this performance was the luscious and moving duet with Endymion and his unreachable object of passion, Diana. “Addio, … My love … My heart…” is as beautiful as anything we could hear centuries later by our more familiar masters.
Mo Zhou’s La Calisto, reflected her own directorial panache, provided a star in the Glimmerglass 2024 lineup.
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