By Eileen Wingard
LONG BEACH, California — The Long Beach Opera Company’s staging of Ernest Bloch’s Macbeth was an unusual production, taking place in San Pedro’s World Cruise Center. With bleacher seating on two sides of a center aisle, there were no set changes, costumes were minimal, and the three acts were telescoped into 105 minutes of engaging music drama. A long table stretched down the aisle, serving as stage, table and bed.
The opera opened with gossamer-gowned witches, wreathing to the music of the overture, played by a 33-piece orchestra at one end of the aisle. Bloch’s music underscored Macbeth’s lust for power, his murderous deeds, his subsequent remorse and his final demise. Although there was no nudity, there was unabashed sexual innuendo, such as when Macbeth and his wife were simulating copulation after the bloody deeds were done, accompanied by the orchestra’s throbbing beats and climaxing crescendo.
Nmon Ford, the Grammy Award-winning African-American baritone, portrayed a convincing Macbeth. He not only has a strong, focused voice of great beauty, but he is tall, well-built, moves with agility and has a flair for acting. A graduate of the University of Southern California, he has sung in the opera houses of Bologna, Hamburg, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Cincinnati and with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Enhanced by Bloch’s impassioned music, the delivery of the famous lines following the news of his wife’s death were memorable: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Susan Hanson handled the role of Lady Macbeth well, although her dramatic soprano voice was sometimes a bit strident. A seasoned actress, she projected the seductive wife, cajoling her husband to murder in fulfillment of the prophesies of the witches. Tenor Doug Jones and baritone Robin Buck played several roles, and the three witches, Ariel Pisturino, Danielle Marcelle Bond and Nandani Sinha completed the strong supporting cast.
The orchestra and chorus, the Camerata Singers of Long Beach, were conducted by Benjamin Makino, and the stage director and production designer was Andreas Mitisek, the Long Beach Opera’s innovative Artistic and General Director. Dan Weingarten did the lighting.
Swiss-born Ernest Bloch was only 24 years old when he began composing this significant work, which was completed five years later. Influences of Debussy, Richard Strauss and Moussorgsky are apparent, and the lack of arias is similar to Wagner’s operas. Yet, the harmonic idioms prevalent in his later Hebraic works are also evident. Most of all, the music effectively increased the emotional impact of the drama, and rendered the work totally engaging. Although the opera was originally written in French with the libretto by Edmond Fleg, Bloch and Alex Cohen created an English version in 1950, which was the version heard last month in the Long Beach production.
During the pre-opera lecture, delivered by LBO Director, Andreas Mitisek, Bloch’s granddaughter, Sita Milchev, spoke. She is a singer and recalled performing in a production of Bloch’s Sacred Service in Los Angeles with Robert Merrill. She shared childhood memories of her grandfather.
Before the performance, an older grandchild, Sita’s cousin, Ernest Bloch II, presented Andreas Mitisek with an agate, which was polished by the hands of his renowned grandfather who lived the last 18 years of his life in Agate Beach, Oregon, on the Oregon coast. Ernest Bloch II has devoted his life to promoting the music and the legacy of his illustrious grandfather. Other members of the Bloch family who were present were Ernest’s wife, Judy, Sita’s daughter, Lucienne Allen, and her two daughters, Sita’s granddaughters, Devina and Alise.
Although Macbeth has had productions in Europe and at several campuses in the United States, this was the first professional opera company in the United States to stage this impressive work.
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Wingard is a freelance writer and former violinist with the San Diego Symphony. She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com