surplus of counter-tenors

there’s a surplus of counter-tenors in the boston area. how else would you explain my encounter of not one, not two, but THREE at the recent boston lyric opera‘s performance of Agrippina? while walking there, i was explaining to my friends about the trouser roles in anticipation of at least a couple of mezzos…

But first, let me back up. we’re talking about Handel and operas! i think being in the US (or even western europe??), the combination of Handel and opera is so exotic, even my two well culturally-versed friends from that part of europe have not heard of it before. I myself would not have known if not for this famous post from Anik (it kept popping up again and again and again when i was searching for kasarova+trouser back in my white-shirt-infancy days. you need to read way down the comment section for a couple of superb reviews from Purity, which was partially why i got motivated to fly to Wien for Alcina last year. (this is also the right time to file my selfish personal petition for purity’s “se vuoi pace” to be back online…)

But where was i? got distracted by too much white-shirt goodness. Back to the BLO, I’m now even much more convinced: anything of Handel around here and i WILL show up! the Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra is amazing! I had such a great evening listening to them. the sound from 2nd balcony in Shubert Theater is superb. For the $23.50 discounted price, I would have come back multiple times had it not been for the near annual dosage of counter-tenors. My reaction to the first sound was “waa..o..o..a..h..”, soon followed by the thought “sh*t, can i really handle an orfeo like this for 3 hours??” Is it just a coincidence that the BLO casted 3 counter-tenors, or are they really afraid the american audience can’t handle mezzos in trousers? the 2nd one gave me even more goosebumps. BUT, ottone was sung hugely emotionally well by Anthony Ross Costanzo. He would be the main reason I consider coming back to see Agrippina again. The rest of the casts was also superb, led by the flexible and clear with absolutely no-hint-of-strain voice of Kathleen Kim (Poppea), a calculated and very well acted Caroline Worra (Agrippina), and David McFerrin (Pallante). Poppea had a lot of acting to do on top of the vocally demanding music full of coloratura and super high heels, and Kathleen Kim had absolutely no problem (she just sang recently a role in Nixon in China at the MET also). The production is simple (no distraction) and very funny: it started out with Agrippina pulling a gun on the servant who was delivering the news of Pallante’s death and ended with the cast joining hands singing about madness and suicides and murders. All in all, the cast gave me the impression of the first true professional opera production I have seen this year (a class above the other productions of La Traviata + Lucia di Lammermoor in term of voice). The only thing that prevents me from coming back is the overdose of counter-tenors (a white shirt girl can only handel so much.)

On the last note, this was my first ever experience hearing counter-tenors live. they’re what I’d call an “acquired taste”. Reactions from my two friends range from “interesting” to “not quite my cup of tea”. We agreed though that David Trudgen (Nerone) did a very good job, to the point that we could NOT like him, which is exactly what his character is about. The polka-dot boxer they put on him also helped.

Anyhow, I couldn’t handel well even Phillippe Jaroussky’s take, so we’ll sample Veronique Gens’ version (to a beautiful valse, i think):