The month of November 1967 proved to be a memorable time to attend San Francisco Opera performances. In the first weekend I had attended my second-ever performance of Gounod’s “Faust” starring Alfredo Kraus in the title role and Nicolai Ghiaurov as Mephistopheles and my first-ever performance of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” starring Jess Thomas and Irene Dalis in the title roles.
On the third and fourth weekends II attended two performances of”Ballo”, one from my Saturday night seat on November 18, the other eight days later from my first row Sunday matinee seat.
Leontyne Price’s Amelia
[Photo: Amelia (Leontyne Price) searches the land around a gallows for an herb whose properties repress emotions of sexual attraction; edited image, based on a production photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]
Saturday night provided my first opportunity of the season to see soprano Leontyne Price, repeating the role of Amelia, that she had sung two seasons prior [Historical Performances: “Ballo in Maschera” with Leontyne Price and Sandor Konya – October 31, 1965].
The revival of Lloyd Burlingame’s 1965 San Francisco Opera production of “Ballo” was a vehicle for Price’s 1967 appearance at the War Memorial Opera House, and for Swedish tenor Ragnar Ulfung to perform one of his most famous roles. The resulting performances, although well-sung, proved to be dramatic misfires for reasons I will explain below.
A Price performance was one of classical elegance. She exhibited a powerful, expressive voice, which I especially associated with the Verdi repertory. She moved through Burlingame’s “Ballo” sets with uncompromising dignity, appearing first for a private meeting with Ulrica, then searching near a gallows for an herb Ulrica recommended, to be discovered their by Riccardo, then her husband Renato and others, then for a fateful scene at her home, and finally for the fatal masked ball.
[Photo: Leontyne Price as Amelia; edited image, based on a production photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera Archives.]
In the 1960s, to date, I had seen Price perform in operas of Mozart [Historical Performances: “Don Giovanni” with Leontyne Price’s Donna Anna – San Francisco Opera, October 15, 1965] and Puccini [Historical Performances: Leontyne Price, Sandor Konya in “Madama Butterfly”: San Francisco Opera, September 28, 1961 and Historical Performances: Leontyne Price, Konya, Shaw in “Tosca” – San Francisco Opera, October 3, 1963].
My most vivid memories of her performances were in the operas of Verdi, at this point consisting of the title role of “Aida” [Historical Performances: “Aida” with Price, Konya, Resnik, Shaw and Tozzi – San Francisco Opera, September 21, 1963], the “Ballo” Amelia, cited above, and the “Forza” Leonora [Historical Performances: “Forza del Destino” with Leontyne Price, James McCracken – San Francisco Opera, October 24, 1963 and Historical Performances: “Forza del Destino” with Leontyne Price, Konya, Wolansky – San Francisco Opera, October 9, 1965].
I saw additional Price performances in the San Francisco Opera Fall seasons of 1968, 1971, 1974, 1979, 1981, 1982 and Summer 1984. The future would include the Leonora roles in both Verdi’s ‘Ernani” and Verdi’s “Il Trovatore”. I would see her as Puccini’s Giorgetta in “Il Tabarro” and in the title role of his “Manon Lescaut”.
Ragnar Ulfung’s Riccardo and Reri Grist’s Oscar
[Photo: Oscar (Reri Grist, left) informs Riccardo (Ragnar Ulfung, right) of information he has about a person accused of suspicious activity; edited image, based on a Robert Cahen photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]
Normally, I only pair two or more artists under a single heading if there is a particular reason for doing so.
Norwegian tenor Ragnar Ulfung, in his debut season with the San Francisco Opera, assumed the role of Riccardo. Ulfung achieved international recognition for his role in the Swedish Opera’s 1958 production of “Un Ballo in Maschera”, directed by Swedish director and opera administrator Gören Gentele.
Gentele’s production was based on the reign of Swedish King Gustavus III, who was the historical sovereign whose assassination at a masked ball was the historical subject of Eugene Scribe’s libretto for French composer Daniel Auber’s 1833 opera “Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué,” on which Verdi and his librettists based “Un Ballo in Maschera”.
Sweden’s King Gustavus, whose masked ball assassination took place in 1792, is known for his unconventional sex life, whose “fluidity” included adventurous sexual liasons with men.
In Gentele’s production, Ulfung’s Gustavus was engaged in an obvious gay relationship with his young (male) page Oscar, even while pursuing an affair with Amelia, the wife of his most trusted minister, Renato.
Director Lotfi Mansouri was tasked with a seemingly impossible assignment. Ulfung was engaged to replicate his portrayal of the licentious Gustavus, but to perform it surrounded by the 1965 Burlingame “Ballo” production that transferred the action from the Swedish court to Boston, Massachusetts during the Puritan ascendancy.
It admittedly is unusual to pair the Verdian lead tenor Riccardo with the ‘musico’ Oscar, but this action is emblematic of the results of melding Gentele’s and Ulfung’s hypersexualized presentation of an 18th century King of Sweden’s behavior as if that behavior is taking place in an historical Massachusetts under Puritan control.
Verdi’s music for Oscar, which Grist performed with her bright-sounding lyric coloratura, also worked against the supposed Riccardo-Oscar liaison. Grist excelled in the vocal fireworks of Oscar’s principal arias, the first act ‘Volta la terrea’ and the third act “Saper vorreste”.
We in the audience (I saw two performances) watched a tenor playing a puritanical Boston potentate pawing a soprano cast as a young man in the potentate’s employ. The staging failed the credibility test.
Cornell MacNeil’s Renato
[Photo: Cornell MacNeil as Renato; edited image, based on a Robert Cahen photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera Archives.]
Minnesota baritone Cornell MacNeil performed the role of Amelia’s husband and Riccardo’s trusted advisor, Renato.
This was the second MacNeil operatic performance at which I was present. At age 33, MacNeil performed the lyric baritone role of Valentin in Gounod’s “Faust”, my very first opera, 12 years and 15 days prior to the first 1965 “Ballo I attended. [Seem Historical Performances: Peerce, Albanese, Siepi and MacNeil in “Faust”, San Francisco Opera Fall Tour, San Diego, November 3, 1955].
Now 45, having established himself as a princiapl dramatic baritone at the New York Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere, MacNeil was a forceful presence throughout the performance, most notably in Renato’s great final aria ‘Eri tu’.
Mignon Dunn’s Ulrica
[Photo: Mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn; edited image of an historical photograph from the Manhattan School of Music.]
Ulrica is the second of three roles that Tennessee mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn was scheduled to perform for the San Francisco Opera in Fall, 1967.
I had previously reported on her Brangäne [Historical Review: Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” starring Jess Thomas, Irene Dalis and Mignon Dunn – San Francisco Opera, November 5, 1967]
As Ulrica, Dunn displayed the deep, dark contours of her lower voice, especially in her showcase aria ‘Re dell’abisso affrettati’.
Perhaps the character of the mysterious Ulrica is the best fit for any of Verdi’s characters when ‘Ballo” is set in Massachusetts, where a woman telling fortunes and invoking spirits would raise suspicions of witchcraft.
Ara Berberian’s Samuel, Federico Davia’s Tom, Allan Monk’s Silvano and Other Cast Members
Three important artists associated with major ‘comprimario’ roles first performed at the San Francisco Opera in the mid-60s – Michigan bass Ara Berberian beginning in 1965, Italian bass-baritone Federico Davià beginning in 1966 and Canadian baritone Allan Monk, beginning in 1967.
Berberian and Davià respectively portrayed the conspiratorial noblemen, Samuele and Tommaso. Monk was the sailor Silvano.
The remaining cast members were L. D. Clements as the Judge and John Beauchamp as Amelia’s Servant.
Maestro Mario Bernardi and Other Crew Members
[Maestro Mario Bernardi; edited image of a historical photograph, from the National Arts Council, Ottawa.]
Canadian Maestro Mario Bernardi made his San Francisco Opera debut conducting the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in the season’s first “Boheme” on November 11, and the season’s first “Ballo” on November 14th. In addition to his busy November 1967 schedule, Bernardi would return for several of the seasons throughout the remainder of the 20th century,.
As noted above, the source material for Verdi’s ‘Ballo in Maschera” was the Eugene Scribe libretto for Daniel Auber’s “masked ball” opera. The very next San Francisco Opera season would include three performances of Daniel Auber’s most famous opera, “Fra Diavolo”, which also had a Scribe libretto. The conductor of those performances, which starred Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda in the title role, was Maestro Mario Bernardi.
The two seasons in which Lloyd Burlingame’s Boston-based “Ballo” production were presented, were Burlingame’s only productions in San Francisco Opera history. However, the revival’s director, Lotfi Mansouri would have a rich San Francisco Opera career, as both director and administrator, becoming the company’s fourth General Director in its history.
[New York City Opera Choreographer Thomas Andrew; edited image from his 1984 obituary.]
I have always referred to the 1967 season as the “Year of the Ballet”
Choreographer Thomas Andrew, whose professional career was centered at the New York City Opera, was responsible for the choreography of the full ballets for “Gioconda” [Historical Performances”: Chester Ludgin, Grace Bumbry in Verdi’s “Macbeth” – San Francisco Opera, October 6, 1967], “Macbeth” [“Historical Performances”: Chester Ludgin, Grace Bumbry in Verdi’s “Macbeth” – San Francisco Opera, October 6, 1967] and “Faust” [Historical Review: Gounod’s “Faust” Starring Kraus, Ghiaurov, Saunders and Wixell – San Francisco Opera, November 4 and November 12, 1967] and the dances for “L’Elisir d’Amore”. He also created the “masked ball” dances for Verdi’s opera.
This was the only season in which Choreographer Thomas Andrew, then only 35 years old, worked with the San Francisco Opera.