John Adams' opera 'Antony and Cleopatra' has its world premiere by San Francisco Opera.
uncovers the surprising foundational roots of the exploitative capitalism that has ultimately given rise to the careless excesses of Silicon Valley. Those libretti are striking assemblages from documentary and literary sources by Sellars that Adams’ music brings to life. In his operas, while ever full of spectacle, history and myth are made personal.“Antony and Cleopatra,” though, is different.
The result, though, on first hearing can sound like an endless flow of parlando singing, more ongoing narration than operatic musing, music confined to underscoring Shakespeare’s unbroachable phrases. Pulitzer’s cautiously fluid production and Mimi Lien’s tasteful, architectural sets offer no innovation. The costumes by Constance Hoffman and video projections riff on the glitz, but not the sexiness, of the Cecil B. DeMille’s 1934 “Cleopatra.
Bullock was Adams’ muse for this Cleopatra but, about to give birth, she has had to bow out of the San Francisco performances. She will join the production when it travels to Barcelona and the Met over the next couple of years. Adams does have his amusing moments. A composer who often contextualizes with music from the past in unexpected ways, he riffs on the famous watery opening of “Das Rheingold,” conflating Cleopatra’s Nile to Wagner’s Rhine. But the tone of “Antony” remains soberly serious throughout, missing the startling moments of humor and whimsy that often found a way into his collaborations with Sellars. The use of chorus is typically marvelous but limited.
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