Elizabeth – Jeremy Sams’ Enchanted Island is a pastiche opera, taking storylines from two Shakerspeare plays, mixing them, along with various baroque music to form one new storyline and opera.  I thought it was a fun new take on opera, but apparently this is actually a throwback to the early days of opera.  Apparently back in the day, opera singers would travel with all their costumes and if there was a piece they didn’t know in an opera, they would simply sing arias they did know in its place.  While Sams’ opera isn’t quite this mismatched, I loved the idea that this was a pastiche and that people sang arias that worked for them.  Even this resurrection of Enchanted Island was altered because Placido Domingo as Neptune felt a different aria would work better this time around and so they changed it. 

While modern in many ways, the staging made a nod to earlier times.  The stage was framed to look like an old book coupled with gears occasionally in motion when Prospero’s machinations took place.  Lighting was used to darken or lighten parts of the stage (Sycorax vs Prospero), giving cues to the audience who was the good guy and who was the bad. 

The music was great fun with bits of Handel, Vivaldi and other baroque writers mixed together.  It was fun to try to figure out which composer’s music was being used.

David Daniels as Prospero was wonderful.  I’m not that familiar with countertenors so that was great to hear him, and makes me curious more about the voice type. Danielle de Niese as Ariel had a very long sing, and kudos to her for making it through it and with energy to spare it seemed.  She was mugging a bit much, but the whole opera was kitschy so it fit.  Susan Graham was terrific as Sycorax.  This was my first time hearing Susan Graham (she cancelled her performance of Les Troyens I went to see) and I loved her voice.  She was a gorgeous Sycorax.  But of course the highlight for many was Placido Domingo’s appearance as Neptune.  It was not the meatiest role, but it was great to hear him and feel his stage presence.  And the audience reaction, even though he forgot some of his lines and just sang open notes, was fantastic.  I think everyone just loved seeing him in a cape.  And poor Caliban, what an unfortunate looking guy and you really felt for him, wanting someone to love him.  Luca Pisaroni was terrific as the disfigured dope. 

The costumes really added to the kitsch factor of Enchanted Island.  They varied from feathers and more abstract to the 18^th century garb.  It was silly seeing the contrast—honeymooners clad in 18^th century garb arrived on the island of feathered friends.  And that’s part of what I liked so much about the show, the kitsch element and the silliness of both the storyline and the production.  I love that Ariel cast the wrong spell twice(!) to fall in love with Miranda on the wrong people.

Congratulations to Jeremy Sams for creating a delightful new storyline, funny and engaging text, and a beautiful mix of music from Shakespeare and the Baroque era’s music. 

Shawn – This was my first time seeing Enchanted Island.  I missed it when it premiered in 2011/12 and it did not play last year. 

Jeremy Sams has done a great job I think.  No small feat taking numerous unrelated baroque pieces and weaving them together in the service of a story that is itself a fusion of two separate Shakespeare plays.  I really liked it.  Opera needs more light, fun, silly evenings.  Enchanted Island also demonstrated to me that this year’s Fledermaus debacle was due to the inanely voluminous and vapid dialogue more than I even realized.  Sams is a serious talent, I wish he would have done the dialogue in Fledermaus.  That could have possibly saved me much frustration and nearly two hours of my life.  I also like that Enchanted Island changes and evolves to serve the singing strengths of it’s changing cast with new arias for both Susan Graham (stepping in for Joyce Di Donato who premiered it) and Placido Domingo in this revived version.

Bass-Baritone Luca Pisaroni, David Daniels and Susan Graham are seriously fabulous in it.  Graham especially shone and was strangely kinda hot and sexy.  Luca Pisaroni managed a kind of generalized silliness while maintaining an air of threat.  This was my first time hearing Pisaroni.  My loss, I hope to hear him again in La Cenerentola late next month.  Daniels is excellent and the role of Prospero seems tailor made for him, which in fact it was. 

Danielle de Niese is game and tries hard in the role of Ariel.  And she sure thinks she’s super cute.  I’m not sure that makes it so however.  But it’s a long sing for her and she handles it and has found some little physicality and tricks that work in the role. 

I love Placido Domingo.  Not only for reasons that have to do with his performance talent, but many of them do.  His pronunciation of the word “maelstrom” has changed the way I feel about the word forever.   He did not appear to know all the words as Neptune, but who cares?  He is a master of his craft and a beloved figure, and the warmth and joy streaming from the audience at his first entrance was wonderful to be a part of.  He should also always carry a Trident I think.  Even in private life.

Amongst the rest of the cast, Anthony Roth Costanzo, who was by far the best thing for me in Sams’ Fledermaus, was excellent in the smaller role of Ferdinand.

Conductor Patrick Summers, whom we will hear hopefully this summer in the Lincoln Center Festival’s production of The Passenger, skillfully blended the pastiche Sams has created.  The music was so delightful at times I would close my eyes and just listen.

A final note, I have found the ushers at the Met, strangely, to be far more aggressive and unpleasant on the weekend shows than on weekdays.  It could be just a coincidence of which ushers are scheduled to work when, but I have found this not only in Dress Circle but elsewhere.  Additionally, the Met needs to find a far better solution to the cell phone/social media in the theatre issue.  I’m not sure exactly what it is, but having ushers scurrying around scolding patrons (paying $170 a ticket and up) for having their cell phones on in the theater 20 minutes before curtain is absurd.  Hello Met, you WANT people checking in on social media at your institution.  You want them finding their other friends in the theatre through social media and coordinating teeny tiny social media blitzes via Twitter and Facebook.  It’s all good.  Trust me.  Better than good.  Necessary.  Younger patrons, whom you covet so desperately, will not stand for anything less.  Period.  Haughtily banishing them to the lobby just to check their Twitter or Facebook page will lose you patrons and increase the perception that you, Metropolitan Opera, are an organization out of touch with the needs and desires of younger audiences.   (A perception which, I know, terrifies you.  As well it should.)

As for the texting and tweeting during performances, that is a separate issue.   Perhaps text zone seating is the answer.  It may already be in the works at some theatres.  We’ll see, but scurrying around scolding patrons for checking their email, coordinating drinks for intermission or texting the babysitter, all before the show begins, is not a sustainable model.

– Elizabeth Frayer and Shawn E Milnes