Werther at the Palau

My first night in Valencia was spent at the opera. I've talked about the Palau Reina Sofía a lot. It is part of the City of Arts and Sciences complex, so let's start with the rest of my photo tour. Skipping over some minor items such as the radio-controlled model boat club that meets at the other end of that lagoon from the science museum, we finally come to the Palau. Notice that that huge curvy bit on top just hangs there, it is not supported by anything you can see from this angle:

Click to enlarge

That shiny white exterior is made up of millions of tiny tesserae. They are used to finish surfaces throughout the entire complex, as you can see in this photo of the edge of the lagoon:

Yes, little ceramic chips, as in mosaics. The interior walls of the hall are also finished with ceramic chips, tesserae, but in blue, not white. I think you can see the light reflecting off them in this photo:

Here is another photo of the exterior:

Sorry, for the angle, but I can't straighten it out without losing part of the photo. What you are seeing, starting from the bottom is a restaurant, then some meeting and classrooms (the complex includes a training centre for opera singers under the patronage of Plácido Domingo) and above that, the big window is to the lobby where opera-goers hang out at intermission. Here is a closer photo of the lower two levels:

And from the inside, looking out, during the intermission. What you are seeing, from left to right are, way in the distance, the towers of my hotel, then one end of the science museum, the Hemispheric (IMAX theatre), the suspension bridge, and on the far right, the roof garden on the parking garage. In the foreground is another bridge, for cars and pedestrians.

Here is a better photo of the folks gathered below.

As you can see, they are enjoying a wide assortment of snacks and champagne:

What are those ropes, guarded by black-clad ushers for, you ask? Ah, those delightful refreshments are only for the patrons of the opera! Quite different from the Teatro Real, where everyone had equal access, on payment, to the intermission refreshments.

But let me finish my photo-tour. Here is a look at the other end of the Palau which is on a higher level:

This is the entrance to the box office and to the hall and that big pylon has a guide on it:

And here is a photo from underneath the pylon which gives an interesting angle on the architecture:

Here is a nearby poster for upcoming events:

What troubled me about that poster was that there was nothing about the symphony concert the next night. So I asked around and it turns out that I have been confusing and conflating two different places! This Palau is only an opera house (and training centre). The symphony concert is in an entirely different Palau a couple of miles away:

Good thing I discovered that!

Now, about Werther: I don't know Massenet much and, apart from reading the Wikipedia article, I don't know the opera, though I have some acquaintance with the book, by Goethe, that it is based on. It is a late romantic opera, quite successful outside and inside France--the premiere was actually in Vienna. The performance was very well done; the orchestra were excellent and the leading singers quite good. The tenor, Jean-François Borras was very good. He is also scheduled to sing the role of Werther at the Metropolitan Opera in New York this year. Not sure of his age, but he seems a young artist as he only debuted in 2012. I was less impressed with the female lead, Anna Caterina Antonacci who, frankly, seemed too old for the role. I thought this in the performance itself and only just now looked her up to see that she is in her mid-50s. Her voice revealed that hooty wavering that sopranos seem to fall into as their voices age. If I am being indelicate, please forgive me! I'm only a guitarist, after all, and have no special expertise in understanding the voice. But, for me at least, there was a bit of a mis-match in the two leads.

The production was a bit disappointing: here we are in this ultra-modern opera house and the production seemed all too traditional. Apart from the largely ineffective use of a large video screen (made to look like a huge mirror) that dropped down from time to time, the production could have been from decades ago. Not that there is anything wrong with that! Perhaps we don't want to inflict a post-modern production on Massenet! The opera is interesting enough. One commentary talks about how the character was a huge revelation to the public when the novel appeared in the mid 1770s. It was an entirely new kind of person, one not defined by the church or the old class system, but one who creates himself out of romantic ideals--and then kills himself, of course! But while the production was certainly adequate, there was nothing in it that seemed particularly noteworthy. This is rather ironic, isn't it? The really dynamic and creative productions are at the 200-year-old Teatro Real in Madrid while the somewhat stogy ones are at the super-modern Palau de les Arts that opened in 2005!

Here, through the magic of YouTube is a 2010 production from the Opéra National de Paris with Jonas Kaufmann as Werther and Sophie Koch as Charlotte:

UPDATE: I lightened up one of the interior photos as it was very dark.