The operatic highs and lows of 'Mildred Pierce'

The coloratura soprano is the most dangerous of all operatic performers, explains a music teacher in the HBO miniseries "Mildred Pierce." He compares her with "a snake ... that is the coloratura."

Poor Mildred (Kate Winslet) fails to heed the warning and is lured into the unhinged jaws of her daughter, Veda (Evan Rachel Wood), a budding opera star who seduces prey with her beguiling siren songs.

"Mildred Pierce" features several operatic scenes in the final two episodes, which debuted Sunday. As a young girl, Veda was an aspiring pianist, but after her voice is discovered, her career as a singer miraculously takes off, instigating a new round of mother-daughter drama.

To help create the operatic sequences, director Todd Haynes and music supervisor Randall Poster brought on board David Weyner, an opera authority and former executive at classical labels including Polygram and BMG. They also hired Korean coloratura soprano Sumi Jo to serve as the primary singing voice for the character of Veda.

In the original novel, author James M. Cain is specific about which arias Veda performs. Cain knew classical music: His mother was an opera singer, and the author was once married to the renowned soprano Florence Macbeth.

But the makers of "Mildred Pierce" decided to depart substantially from Cain's repertoire and to devise a new coloratura program for Veda. Weyner, who was instrumental in choosing the pieces, explained that they wanted arias that a young soprano at the time might realistically attempt. Cain's choices, he said, were "quirky and almost ridiculous. ... They would feel weird coming from a young, budding singer."

The filmmakers chose arias that provided dramatic parallels to the contentious relationship between Mildred and Veda. "Not that one needs to delve deeply to appreciate the scenes, but if you do, you can extract thematically some commentary on the whole story," Weyner said.

Weyner said he used French soprano Lily Pons as a model for Veda. When Mildred first hears her daughter perform on the radio, it's "The Bell Song" from the opera "Lakmé," by Léo Delibes. (In the novel, it's the Polonaise from Ambroise Thomas' "Mignon.") "The Bell Song" was a big hit for Pons, and the opera's story -- featuring a rebellious daughter whose voice is used to lure people -- provides a thematic parallel to Veda the Viper's seductive qualities.   

Later, Mildred attends an NBC radio concert in Hollywood where she sees Veda perform the famous "Casta Diva" aria from Bellini's "Norma." The opera foreshadows the messy emotional triangle that develops among Mildred, Veda and Monty Beragon (Guy Pearce).

For Veda's career-making concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the filmmakers chose to include the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart's "The Magic Flute." The scene in Mozart's opera features a battle of wills between an obsessive mother and her daughter. "It seemed an irresistible choice," Weyner said.

The concert scene also includes "Caro Nome" from Verdi's "Rigoletto," "Qui La Voce" from Bellini's "I Puritani" and the pop chestnut "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows." (In the novel, which sets the scene at the Hollywood Bowl, Veda's program features arias from "The Barber of Seville" and "Lucia di Lammermoor," plus Schubert's "Ave Maria.")

Veda's singing voice is performed by Jo for most of the operatic scenes in "Mildred Pierce." Born in Seoul and now living in Italy, Jo is one of the top coloratura sopranos working today. For "Mildred Pierce," producers used some of her previous recordings but also made new recordings of Jo singing the Wedding March from Wagner's "Lohengrin" -- used for Veda's grand entrance during Mildred's wedding reception -- and "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows."

Wood trained with Deborah Surdi, a vocal coach and an executive at the Opera Orchestra of New York, who taught the actress breathing technique and posture.

Veda is the star of the concert, but the viewer experiences everything through Mildred, who lives vicariously and narcissistically through her daughter's success. Cain described the concert as "the coming true of all [Mildred] had dreamed for Veda, all she had believed in, worked for. ... This was the climax of Mildred's life."

RELATED:

Television review: 'Mildred Pierce'

Sumi Jo: A voice rising in the east and west

A display of versatility by Sumi Jo at the Bowl

Set Pieces: The 1930s California interiors of HBO's 'Mildred Pierce'

The Reading Life: Revisiting 'Mildred Pierce'

Mildred Pierce, Part 3: Fight or fight

 -- David Ng

Photos, from top: Evan Rachel Wood in "Mildred Pierce."  Wood, performing "Casta Diva" from Bellini's "Norma." Kate Winslet in the HBO miniseries. Credit: Andrew Schwartz / HBO

Comments

[john]

A total debacle. One of the worst ideas HBO ever tried. A total disgrace to a wonderful movie!

[Native Angeleno]

I really hate how less creative people take an author's stated plot and details, which was supposedly what attracted them to the work in the first place, and "improve" on them. As if the content and situations of the arias they chose for Veda over those of the author would be recognizable as ironic or revealing to anyone. Imagine Cain actually using an aria that paralleled her life with Mother. He'd have been laughed out of the Very Bad Soap Opera Writers Union. Cain may have had a specific motive with the music he chose for Veda, which is now lost on all of us just as it was on the adapter. Calling Cain's choice of music as "ridiculous"---pay no attention to the opinion they were not suitable for a young singer in the late '30s---tells me the adapter was superficial and shallow in his flip-sounding dissing of the author's iuntents.

[LDA in Tulsa]

My wife and I watched the original prior to viewing HBO's re-make. Why did they bother? FIVE HOURS to tell a story that was so well told in under two, when nothing of substance is added, says it all. This was a production for its own sake, and it certainly didn't make anyone forget the original. Additionally, while I know for a fact that Kate Winslet CAN act, in this waste of time she makes no one forget Joan Crawford. I'm sure she's not all to blame; the script forces her to emote ad naseum so by the end (yes, that new and oh-so-creative 'let's get wasted' end)it's the audience that's really in need of the hooch. While I'm at it...was there really a need for the gratuitous nudity toward the end in the scene where Mildred (gasp!) discovers (and the set-up for this was so much more effective in the original) Monte and Vida on just the other side of flagrante delicto? I'm no prude, and I can certainly appreciate a nice figure, but there was no need for it. It enhanced nothing, added no particular impact. By definition, gratuitous. Was there some sort of contractual obligation that needed fulfillment? This won't be a DVD I'll be adding to my collection. Not even worth space on the DVR. Sorry.

[melinda]

I loved it from start to finish. Beautiful work by all involved.

[bookreader]

Uh, John, before it was a "wonderful movie", it was an even better book.

[virg]

Sumi Jo is one of my favorite opera singers there is...the most beautiful, clear voice I have ever heard of from any soprano. However, I spent six hours of my life watching this, and at the end...what happens to nasty, evil veda who steals her mother's husband, forces her into financial ruin, and tortures her mother to no end...NOTHING, wait, no veda gets to go on making 2500 a week as an opera singer and gets her mother's husband. At least with the Joan Crawford movie, monty gets it, and veda goes to the slammer for his murder. Six hours of my life...tons of unnessary sex scenes, and a crappy ending. I feel like the kid in the Christmas Story that waits and waits for the secret decoder ring only to find out the secret message is "drink your ovaltine".

[AndreaU8]

This series has been a slight disappointment, but love the clothing and set design.
As like Joan Crawford, Kate Wislet's Mildred makes me want to slap her. The daughter is pure evil and it is the creation of the mother.

[Renee Davis]

I enjoyed the tension drama and the music of "Mildred Pierce" and found it to be a delightful break for a Sunday entertainment break.

[steve herrera]

I give it a C +. The Joan Crawford was way more fun.

[bluegreeny]

My grandfather Ferrese, who was born in Italy, loved the opera "Norma" and in particular its famous aria. Hence, both my aunt and my big sister were named Norma. My sister always wanted a more "American" first name, but I love it (because of the music, and because of my grandfather) and wish it were mine!

[annie]

This series was a complete disappointment. I was looking forward to it but it only made me feel like the (wonderful) Joan Crawford version was only about ninety minutes for a reason. This latest project was slow moving and bogged down with "stuff" that only clouded the story. Winslet has done much better work.

Could we please try to find good new material instead of remaking old classics? I'm so tired of remakes!!!

[Lisa Alkana]

I really like Kate Winslet and was looking forward to this production. Unfortunately, like many others, I was underwhelmed.

I admit that I have not read the book, and this version may be more faithful than the 1945 movie, but poor Kate was dragging an anvil with this production. Can a plot move any slower? They ran back and forth over the same material again and again, and once again.

The actresses playing Veda were both terrible in the role. I missed Ann Blythe as much as Joan. Ironically, Ann Blythe was a trained opera singer, but the movie didn't go there.

Poor Kate, if she'd had a sleeker, faster vehicle to ride, she could have gone places.

[Jim Glass]

I have to say that it does mildly annoy me to find people clinging to the 1945 version of "Mildred Pierce" as the only filmed interpretation that has any merit. I love the Joan Crawford version and own it on DVD; however, I also love the Cain novel and must say that Todd Haynes' production is a much truer representation of the novel than the Crawford film. Yes, the HBO version is slowly paced, but Veda's and Mildred's characters are much more fully developed and understandable than in the Warner Bros. film. The Warner Bros. version is very entertaining and fast-paced, but is a melodramatic vehicle for Joan Crawford infused with a noir sensibility that is not in the novel, and as seen from the present day, rather campy and two-dimensional.

As for LDA from Tulsa finding the nudity gratuitous and adding no impact to the scene where Mildred discovers the depths of her child's hatred, having Veda blatantly naked, smoking in bed made the scene all the more horrifying. Evan Rachel Wood flaunts her nakedness in front of Mildred by walking to her vanity table and continuing to smoke without getting dressed. In doing so she shows Mildred and us how she disdains her mother and how she has triumphed disgustingly over her.

My one critique of last night's episodes has to do with the Laguna Beach scenes. In no way or shape did the flat, lushly wooded landscape look like Laguna.....it looked like Long Island Sound, where it was probably filmed. I'm surprised that Haynes, who so lovingly recreated Glendale, Hollywood streets and all the interiors would neglect to select a landscape that resembled a famous West Coast coastline.

[Blue Fairy]

Absolutely, in fact those arias specially, "Casta Diva" should not even be touched until late 20's really. I only hope that everyone will know that LILY PONS sang, "The Bell Song" in the movie and not Sumi Jo. Although Sumi Jo is an incredible talent, Lily Pons needs to be known to those who never even heard her name. No one sounds like her, she is a true diamond.

[claudine willis]

I can't see "Mildred Pierce" as an opera because I saw the movie starring Joan Crawford and well---Crawford, who won the Academey Award for her part in the picture is a hard act to follow.

[hazmat]

One acting teacher (Meisner?) talked about the "pinch and the ouch" - there was too much pinch and not enough ouch between Veda and Mildred. My favorite scene so far is Mildred choking the crap out of her. I think this series could have been edited to make it shorter and more powerful.

The dunes looked like the Jones Beach area on Long Island. The singing blew me away!

[bluegreeny]

I should add a non-music related comment...The production values were lovely; I appreciated the attention to period details in all respects. And the costuming was great. The big problem with the story was not the pacing, but the story itself. It's just so ridiculously one-note melodramatic. The only interesting way to film such a piece would have been to have all the female leads done in drag. Where is Lypsinka when you need her?

[Cynthia]

This series was a DISASTER!!! The thing I enjoyed most were the sets & props. The evocation of the '30's was right on. From there it all went downhill. Winslet get the Emmy? For what? For needing botox after a role that involved non-stop wincing? That is what she did for the entire series for the most part - wince! No person in the universe could start, run & expand a business so successfully & be such a milktoast as a parent. Wouldn't happen. No person in the universe could never study & practice opera & then out of the blue become an operatic sensation. Just doesn't happen. Never has Laguna Beach looked like it did in MP. Plus, I'm no prude, but the amount of nudity was gratuitous. Mildred's lust was rather a turn-off as she seemed so animalisitic. She used both of the men in her life after her husband left. I had no sympathy for such a stupid, shallow woman. There were no likeable major characters - a major flaw in any production.

[Songbirdwatcher]

I agree the TV version has been slowly paced overall, but at times I've also quite appreciated the ability of the director to linger on details of character or context of the era instead of having to jump cut away as soon as possible to "keep things moving."

But as for the main point of this article -- the coloratura singing and the arias chosen -- I have no problem with the musical director changing the selections to underscore elements in the story, as long as they remained in the same coloratura fach -- but the reason he gives does not hold water. The article claims they were changed because they wanted "arias that a young soprano at the time might realistically attempt. Cain's choices were ... quirky and almost ridiculous. ... They would feel weird coming from a young, budding singer." That is not true, going from those arias listed in this article! Lakme's Bell Song is no more appropriate for a young soprano than Philine's polonaise. Both were often done by young high sopranos (Beverly Sills sang one when as a child prodigy, Julie Andrews sang the other). "Casta Diva" on the other hand is truly a ridiculous choice for a budding soprano -- it is notorious for demanding an extremely mature technique and sound. The Queen of the Night is fine to include, I guess (though I think it works best with a dark more dramatic sound), but the arias from Barber and Lucia, and Ave Maria, are absolutely pieces a young high soprano would attempt at the time (and now). Check any vocal competition! Again, Caro Nome and Qui la voce are no more appropriate than these. It seems like splitting hairs on their part. If they wanted to change them out for subtle thematic reasons, fine, but to say Cain's original choices are quirky or ridiculous is ludicrous.

[Elaine]

The HBO version to me is overdone, dark and drags, too much graphic sex, what ever happened to leaving things to the imagination? Love Kate Winslet, but don't think this was the best for her. And why the The Joan Crawford version is much more fun, love the fashions and shoes, and there is a lighter touch to it, but the points get across.