The Judgment of Paris • Press Coverage
Featured Coverage
Seattle Times: Jake Heggie’s new opera ‘The Judgment of Paris’ will mix mythology and an infamous wine competition
Sotheby’s Magazine: Collector’s Cellar: The Judgement of Paris, half a century later
The Drinks Business: Judgment of Paris wine tasting becomes opera
The Press Democrat: Festival Napa Valley commissions first opera, inspired by a defining moment in wine history
Critical Acclaim
“This joyous new Napa opera deserves a life beyond its premiere. Most operas are written to be repertory items, performed in one theater this year and somewhere else the next. But “The Judgment of Paris,” the ebullient and delightful new comic one-act by San Francisco composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, is so resolutely site-specific that its world premiere on Saturday, July 18, at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena practically counts as an art installation.
The music is alternately joyous, tender, cinematic and virtuosic, but the opera’s underlying spirit is that of a victory march. The allure of Heggie and Scheer’s creation ranges far beyond the specifics of time and place. It’s a marvelous musical and theatrical invention, infused with the comic spirit of Offenbach, and it tells its story with a perfect balance of seriousness and breathless farce.
The title, with its allusion to Greek mythology, comes from Taber’s article, but the opera takes it and runs with it. Venus and Bacchus, the deities of love and wine, form the framing narrative. He’s a French wine fundamentalist, while she’s so bored and desperate for variety (both in and out of the bedroom) that she inspires the whole taste-off just to rattle him out of his rut.
There’s even a ready-made villain in the person of Odette Kahn, the doyenne of French wine writers, who appears as a sort of oenological Miranda Priestly, the imperious fashion editor from “The Devil Wears Prada.” Heggie, who always understands the assignment, gives her ferocious strands of high-flying coloratura to sing, making the entire role practically one long mad scene.
The rest of the score, which was conducted by Berkeley native Kent Nagano, proved equally enchanting, and the starry cast delivered it all with fervor and panache. The orchestral writing for the opening scene, set atop a storm-ridden Mount Olympus, evokes memories of mid-century MGM sound tracks.
Heggie renders Paris as a shadowy, history-rich realm, while California appears as a series of bright, airy choruses. The score is replete with marvelous pieces of invention — a choral toast to the glory of wine, a tango theme for the lovemaking of Venus and Bacchus, and much more.
Soprano Danielle de Niese and baritone Quinn Kelsey brought a wonderful combination of earthiness and grandeur to their godly roles. When people talk about of the Greek and Roman deities as being reflections of human foibles, this is what they mean.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“The Judgment of Paris Has Notes of Wit and Brilliance. Commissioned by the Festival, the one act opera comes in at well under two hours and brings the funny. It’s about the famous 1976 blind tasting, where Napa Valley wines competed on even terms with France’s best, and actually came out ahead. Heggie and Scheer treat the event with lightness and broad humor.
The opera is unapologetically laid out in numbers which Heggie provides with great melody and dance rhythms, specifically a snappy tango that gives the show lift and wit. The Olympus and Paris scenes fly by, and the tasting itself is a little gem of unison group movement by the chorus, punctuated by loud sips and spitting.
The show was rapturously received. It would be a shame if The Judgment of Paris doesn’t make it into the international repertory. It’s a hoot.”
San Francisco Classical Voice
“For composer Jake Heggie and his frequent collaborator, librettist Gene Scheer, The Judgment of Paris was an opportunity to do something different. As with their last collaboration, 2024’s one-act Before It All Goes Dark, the opera took a real situation involving real people, adapted it into operatic idioms, and ultimately gave its creators a new perspective.
From the outset, Heggie and Scheer seemed to take a page from Monteverdi’s playbook, framing the opera with gods and goddesses, specifically Bacchus, the god of wine, and Venus, the goddess of love. Their constant jibes and nonstop bickering provided the audience with many comedic moments, while the real-life characters were treated with respect and dignity.
The opera was clearly a labor of love, and both Scheer and Heggie excelled in the piece. It was quintessentially Californian, particularly in the libretto. Scheer’s words were marked by a strong sense of naturalness and were chock-full of wine references that could only come from a study of wine or extensive research on the topic. The California scenes with the winemakers were exceptionally tender and hopeful, deeply resonating with the audience, some of whom were winemakers themselves.
Heggie’s score was a marvel, as he made a clear delineation between Paris and California scenes. With jazz influences and heavy on percussion, he evoked the distinctly French sounds of Les Six in the Paris scenes, while the grand Americana feel of the California scenes brought to mind Aaron Copland’s works, perfectly coupled with the sunny California landscapes projected on the screen. The central tasting scene unfolded with delightful Rossinian panache that felt fresh and exciting. It was smart, funny, sleek and sparkling – definitely one of the best contemporary comic operas in recent years.
Parisian director Jean-Romain Vesperini returned to direct The Judgment of Paris. He translated the score’s energy and the libretto’s naturalness into a joyful staging that moved swiftly even within the constraints of Festival Napa Valley’s tiny stage. Kent Nagano conducted the orchestra with clarity and vigor, bringing out all the nuances and colors from Heggie’s scores, juggling between the various stylistic depictions that Heggie employed.”
Parterre Box
“The last century is littered with the corpses of high-minded comic operas. Fearlessly, the composer Jake Heggie and his longtime librettist Gene Scheer took up the challenge with The Judgment of Paris. Venus and Bacchus have a spat on Mount Olympus and involve themselves in the humans' contest. Every time the leading French wine critic, Odette Kahn, was mentioned, a chorus bellowed her name from backstage, bringing to mind 'Frau Blucher' from Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein. The climax was a hilarious Mad Scene for Kahn.
The cast was exceptional. As Venus, Danielle de Niese sang with a sumptuous tone. As Bacchus, the big-voiced baritone Quinn Kelsey was the perfect comic foil. When Venus inevitably brought him to heel after her Californians won the day, his pouting schoolboy manner was genuinely funny. As the wine merchant Steven Spurrier, Nicholas Phan sang with focused clarity. His diction and ease of delivery are wonders unto themselves. The recent Adler Fellow Simone McIntosh, as Spurrier's business partner Patricia Gallagher, matched Phan's diction and gave the character a youthful, endearing earnestness.
Brenda Rae gleefully inhabited the role of Kahn. She took the Mad Scene and ran with it; her high notes rang out full-bodied, and her vocal acrobatics were combined with a wonderful comic performance. As she deflated like a balloon and slid under a table at the finish, the audience rewarded her with abundant applause.
Four dancers added sparkle to the proceedings, and the orchestra—filled with top professionals—gave Heggie's score polish. The conductor Kent Nagano paced the show with a masterful combination of firmness and flexibility.”
Opera Magazine