As for
Passion last night on PBS... Again, I greatly admired the original production. Donna Murphy, Marin Mazzie and Jere Shea (who apparently has left the business) set the bar for me. The Kennedy Center trio of Judy Kuhn, Rebecca Luker and Michael Cerveris were also admirable.
-Michael Cerveris' make-up was a bit too much for me. It was a good make-up job - the skin tone was very even from his face to his (bald) head. Unfortunately, I thought it made him look like Dr. Evil from the "Austin Powers" movies. It also made him look a little too clean for a soldier - whatever that means. But I liked his performance - just like I liked it two and a half years ago. However, I don't think all the close-ups served him well - nor anyone else. They were acting for a theatre setting, not a TV setting.
-Audra McDonald sounded a bit too contemporary for me. Some of her "Audra-isms" got on my nerves throughout the evening, especially the little scoops and slides into notes and between them. But, otherwise, I liked her - like I always have.
-La LuPone took a while to grow on me. Such a different approach from Donna Murphy. -Who, by the way, was at each performance of
Passion that I attended; and, to my knowledge, she was only out one performance the whole run of the show - and that was scheduled months in advance. In any case... Patti LuPone's non-delicateness worked against her Fosca in the beginning, and that mainly came across in her vocal color and delivery. Too forced, too "sure" at times, but she's never really been known for having a "delicate" voice. But as the evening progressed, she seemed to be more comfortable with Fosca's more genteel moments - and less rangy singing.
-The concert staging worked for me in general, and I didn't mind the cutting of the soldier's gossip sections. And I particularly liked the overlap of the "To feel a woman's touch" transition over the Dr. and Giorgio scene (the one post-rain storm).
-The one moment I wish had been handled better audio-wise was the brief a cappella section at the end of the flashback sequence, "Beauty is power, Longing a disease". Its just sort of didn't project, and seemed rushed through.
-I just wish the credits hadn't rolled by so fast. I wanted to see who was in the ensemble - and I tried time and again to find the full casting info last night on the web. I recognized Gina Ferrell as the Mother, Richard Easton as Dr. Tambouri, Kate Baldwin as the Mistress, and George Dvorsky as Ludovic. But everyone else...
-I recognized their faces from other projects, but the names weren't coming to me.
-And that one long shot of Paul Gemignani conducting during the post-flashback transition. What time pattern was he conducting? I was starting to think he was sort of April Fooling for the camera.
-Oh - and although it's always nice to have a full orchestra, I'm so used to original 13-14 piece orchestration. A chamber orchestration for a chamber piece.
-I was soooo glad that Lonny Price chose not to include the "I love Fosca" outburst/aria for Giorgio. It was in London (and not orchestrated by Tunick), and Mr. Schaeffer included it in the Kennedy Center presentation. -There was a reason it was cut from the original production.
And those are my quibbles... well, the ones that I can remember. For what they're worth.
