The Opera and the Unicorn

Financial Times reviews (3 out of 5 stars) the Wuthering Heights opera production in Minnesota (Picture by Michal Daniel):

There are enough moments when music and drama come into Hitchcock-like sharpness to make one wish it were all like that. But perfunctoriness often infects scenes that seem more dutifully composed than inspired. Heathcliff is portrayed sympathetically, a victim of Cathy’s mean-spirited brother Hindley, with no inherent diabolical streak. But perhaps this is acceptable operatic simplification, designed to strengthen the love-bond between him and Cathy.
Herrmann knew something about creating music keenly matched to drama, and his lush, late-Romantic musical palate engages the listener. Several short motifs run through the score. Aria-like numbers, though rarely captivating melodically, affectingly spell well-crafted expository stretches. I left wondering whether on subsequent listening, certain scenes would emerge in sharper relief.
Eric Simonson’s staging, with sets by Neil Patel and costumes by Jane Greenwood, evokes both the fraught ambience of the Heights and the forbidding moors surrounding it. Sara Jakubiak’s bright soprano and clear diction make for a captivating Cathy, a demanding role with two extended scenes in which she anguishes over Heathcliff, who is sung by baritone Lee Poulis in virile voice. Adriana Zabala boils over in frustration as Heathcliff’s eventual wife Isabella, while Michael Christie ably conducts a slimmed down version of the score. (George Loomis)

Minneapolis Post likes the production:

Despite occasional flaws, the work is a rich and rewarding endeavor, as compelling in dramatic terms as it is musically accomplished, and the superb, thoughtful production it is receiving at the Ordway Center serves only to make the opera's strengths abundantly clear. (...)
Simonson's cast is uniformly strong. Lee Poulis is the handsome Heathcliff, a brooding, powerful presence onstage. His wounded pride and aristocratic bearing enforce Simonson's theory that Heathcliff is the love-child of the elder Earnshaw, whom we don't meet, and is therefore Cathy's half-brother, a relation that Brontë could only hint at. Poulis' rich baritone is a perfect match for Sara Jakubiak's soaring, firm-toned soprano — and a wonderful characterization here, too, a woman torn between conflicting impulses — nature verses respectability.
Among the others, Ben Wager was compelling on opening night as the dissolute Hindley, Adriana Zabala was a sweet Isabella and Eric Margiore an earnest Edgar. Victoria Vargas was fine as Nelly, Rodolfo Nietro a properly stern Joseph and Jesse Blumberg a believably nervous Lockwood.  (Blumberg's "snow, ever-lasting snow" got a knowing laugh from the audience Saturday night. Brontë would have felt at home in a Minnesota winter.) Jane Greenwood designed the costumes and Robert Wierzel the lights. Heidi Spesard-Noble choreographed the dances, executed so winningly by Jeremy Bensussan and Megan McClellan.
Conductor Michael Christie drew a polished, passionate performance from the orchestra, and Herrmann's many brief but telling woodwind solos came through beautifully. It's a brilliant score in many ways. Much of it is delicate chamber music, though the climaxes, like that of the first act, are almost over-powering in their force. (Yes, we do hear echoes of Herrmann film scores such as "Vertigo" and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.")
And what of that awkward ending that Herrmann left us? Heathcliff is supposed to wander the moors endlessly searching for Cathy. Simonson has him lie down with her on the table, as if joining her in death, and then carrying her decayed body across a field. Grim, perhaps, but surely a better solution than having the two of them climb toward heaven and the celestial choir, as happens in the 1939 movie. (Michael Anthony)

Minnesota Star Tribune:

Most of the musical interest resides in the orchestra. The resplendent music is reminiscent of Herrmann's film scores, but it is rooted firmly in the tradition of American romanticism, exemplified by composers like Samuel Barber.
The vocal line is mainly extended recitatives, broken up by arioso and a number of extended arias. But too many of them are of similar tempo and mood, resulting in a sameness of vocal utterance.
Conductor Michael Christie led a brisk performance, but he could not overcome the opera's fatal flaw: Herrmann's lack of experience in pacing opera. Too often, forward momentum is sacrificed to orchestral expressiveness, as in Act IV, when another interlude interrupts drama that should be propelling to the climax.
The physical production could hardly be bettered. Neil Patel's set creatively contrasts an oppressive and gloomy Wuthering Heights estate with the elegant and airy neighboring Thrushcross Grange. Wendall K. Harrington's projections create an effective visual representation of the music.
Under Eric Simonson's direction, Heathcliff and Cathy come across as a pair of passionate lovers, compelling in their all-consuming ardor. The details of his staging give the over-the-top story an emotional verisimilitude.
Lee Poulis' Heathcliff was a most vivid characterization. He brought a Byronic presence and a dark baritone, rich in colors. He was capable of dark rage, but became all the more engaging in stillness.
Sara Jakubiak made Cathy's casual selfishness palatable. She has a silvery, gleaming soprano, but needed more heft to fully scale the heights of dramatic intensity called for by the music.
Minnesota Opera makes a strong case for "Wuthering Heights," but this is an opera I never need to hear again. (William Randall Beard)

His loss.

Tulsa World confirms that Jane Eyre 2011 opens in Tulsa in April 29 and in the Auckland Times (New Zealand) a new cinema will open with the film in September. Film Chronicles is also looking forward to the UK premiere the film (September 9th). Korean fans have chosen Lee Min Jung as the Korean actress best fit for the role of Jane Eyre if it ever were to have a Korean version. Hollywood.com informs of the current box office of the movie:

Top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday
16. "Jane Eyre," Focus, $993,232, 274 locations, $3,625 average, $6,605,035, six weeks.

Some blogs reviewing the film: Through the Shattered Lens, Always, Capra, Rusty Sarcasm, Everyday adventures (of me at the city), TTPost (in Korean), Smoke~~, InvadeNola, The Enchanting Butterfly.

The Brontë Parsonage Blog reviews Michael Yates's The Brontë Boy production:

In spite of the confusion introduced by [John] Brown’s character, this was still a professional production, well directed by Colin Lewisohn and sympathetically staged, and there were many, many instances of a real understanding of difficult characters.  Particularly clever was the way in which Branwell was made to lift well turned phrases from his fiction and insert them into his letters.  Indeed, the use of the text of Brontë letters was extremely well done. Costumes and props were simple but appropriate and stage management neat and as unobtrusive as possible within a studio setting. (Chris Went)

BWW interviews the actress Jamie Farmer, a true Brontëite:

If you could play any role, direct any work, design any production, mount any production...what would it be and why? I want to play Cathy in a gorgeous, startling, spooky, dramatic, violent, unsettling and unapologetically romantic staging of Wuthering Heights. I would also love to do a one woman show about Emily Brontë. (Jeffrey Ellis)

The Herald reviews the book All About Love. Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion by Lisa Appignanesi:

But what better description is there of love, first or otherwise, than when Emily Bronte’s heroine Catherine Earnshaw describes her feelings for Heathcliff: “He’s always, always in my mind, not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.” It is this – the most fierce, painful, searing of bonds – that dominates and ignites Appignanesi’s work. (Rosemary Goring)

Owls go hoot posts pictures of Top Withens and Brontë country; Basically, I'll Read Anything reviews Wuthering Heights; sand is overrated... (in Swedish) and Cindy's Book Club post about Jane Eyre. EDIT: James Dumb alerts us of another No Coward Soul is Mine reading on Erodiade2008's YouTube channel.

Finally, The Hooded Utilitarian publishes a hilarious piece mixing a recently-discovered set of letters between Emily Brontë and her publisher and how Emily Brontë's novel could become Jane Eyre. Book the Second: Wuthering Heights and a Unicorn.

Categories: Brontëites, Haworth, Humour, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Opera, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights