.Last Acts for Frederica von Stade

Famed mezzo-soprano plays the cruel showbiz mom in Jake Heggie's new opera.

In the early ’90s Frederica von Stade starred in San
Francisco Opera’s sumptuous production of Barber of Seville. In
that performance she played Rosina, a young Spanish minx who hooks up
with the illustrious Count Almaviva at the grand dénouement of a
long comedy of errors. This year von Stade has inhabited a decidedly
different character — a narcissistic showbiz mom who lives in a
prison of denial. The character, named Madeline Mitchell, is the
fulcrum of Jake Heggie’s new opera, Three Decembers: Last
Acts
. At first glance, Mitchell seems like a contemporary Joan
Crawford: cruel, pampered, and more interested in buying Manolo Blahnik
shoes than in catering to her own children. But von Stade finds her
infinitely more complex. “I was a showbiz mom,” she said from her home
in Alameda. “… I know the guilt involved in making the wrong
decisions for your children sometimes, and causing them pain,
really.”

Emotional heft and social relevance make Three Decembers a
great ticket for young audiences, even people who wouldn’t normally run
to see an opera. It opens with a darkly sardonic scene in which
Mitchell’s children read a Christmas letter from their mother,
postmarked from some tropical isle in the Caribbean. Mitchell’s
daughter, Bea, is mired in an unhappy marriage; her son, Charlie, is
losing his partner to AIDS. Meanwhile, they’re reading this letter
that’s oiled with platitudes: “‘You know I miss you both so much, but
pass me a drink.'”

Poetic justice reigns in the end, and Mitchell emerges as a contrite
and sympathetic character — but the burden falls on von Stade to
make it believable. This she accomplishes in what critics have called a
bruising, emotionally forthright performance, which traces Mitchell’s
psychological trajectory and offers a glimpse into her interior world.
Heggie, a former SF Opera publicist who drove von Stade to press
engagements in the ’90s, and later made her a star in his 2000 opera,
Dead Man Walking, conceived the role of Mitchell especially for
von Stade. In many ways, it seems apropos. Although the real-life von
Stade is a good-humored altruist who volunteers at St. Martin De Porres
Catholic School, and undersells herself as an opera singer (she’s one
of the greatest mezzo-soprano vocalists in the world, but claims to be
“on the decline”), she empathizes with Mitchell’s situation. “It really
is an examination of the mother-child relationship with any working
mom,” von Stade said. She added: “I’ve been able to explore many
relationships through Jake’s music. Jake has an amazingly firm hand on
the soul.” Three Decembers plays Dec. 11 (7:30 p.m.), 12 (8
p.m.), and 14 (3 p.m.) at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall.
$48-$86. CalPerfs.berkeley.edu

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