Magnard - Guercœur (Strasbourg, 2024)

Albéric Magnard - Guercœur

L'Opéra national du Rhin, 2024

Ingo Metzmacher, Christof Loy, Stéphane Degout, Catherine Hunold, Antoinette Dennefeld, Julien Henric, Eugénie Joneau, Gabrielle Philiponet, Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Marie Lenormand, Alysia Hanshaw, Glen Cunningham, Natalia Bohn, Yannick Bosc, Lucas Bléger, Laurence De Cet, Éric Kaija Guerrier, Dominique Kling, Aleksandra Kubuschok, Caroline Roques, Nicolas Umbdenstock

ARTE Concert - 2, 4 May 2024

For my 999th post on OperaJournal, Albéric Magnard's Guercœur presents a fine opportunity to reflect on the nature of opera and its ability to convey the experience of life and death in a way no other artform can match. The existence of Guercœur itself is almost miraculous, the opera a forgotten and almost lost doorway into the past, one that when revived and staged for the first time since its posthumous premiere in 1931 has been allowed to breathe again. Many such works are forgotten and lost, but the fact that some works survive to make this journey across centuries and speak to us from the past never ceases to be a magical and irresistible experience for me. What is special about Guercœur is that its story and indeed the story of its own existence all combine to illustrate and emphasise that it has something important to tell us that needs to be heard in the present day.

The fact that Guercœur exists at all is, if not miraculous, fortunate to say the least. Composed between 1897 and 1901, the story of a knight who has died and gone to paradise but begs to be allowed to return to the world only to be disappointed by what he finds there, the opera was never fully performed in the composer's lifetime. Magnard was killed in 1914, attempting to protect his home from German soldiers, his property destroyed along with most of his manuscripts, including the opera Guercœur. It was reconstructed from memory and a piano reduction by the composer's friend Joseph Guy Ropartz and presented for the first time in 1931. There are many such stories of composers lives and careers ruined destroyed by war and untimely deaths, but it is the fact that Guercoeur actually concerns itself with similar sentiments, about a warrior who has been ripped away from the world too soon and wants to return there to complete his life's work, that makes this even more fascinating.

It's down to the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg now to revive this work from the dead, putting real flesh and bones, real human sentiments, feelings and expression into something that otherwise exists as nothing more than markings on paper. There is even a sense of that longing to be brought back to life in the opening scene of the opera where, in a place beyond time and space, souls live in ideal blissful contentment, no wants, no desires. Except for one spirit, Guercœur who begs to be given the chance to live again. The Shades of a Virgin, a Woman and a Poet are unable to persuade him otherwise, nor Souffrance (Suffering), so Vérité (Truth) accedes to his request  allowing him to "become again the plaything of human weaknesses, of desire, hatred, shame, doubt and fear".

And those human qualities are what the idealistic Guercœur goes back to face. In the two hours since he has died and been in a place beyond space and time however, two years have passed on Earth and the world is already a very changed place from the one he left. Guercœur's love Giselle is now engaged to his faithful disciple Heurtal and the people that the knight freed from tyranny are already calling for an authoritarian dictator to restore order and make their country great again. Hard to imagine something like that happening today, I know. To Guercœur's horror, his friend and disciple. Heurtal is ready to assume that role of dictator, just as he has assumed Guercoeur’s place as the beloved of Giselle.

On the surface, Guercœur is not the most complex of this kind of Orphic myth or morality tale where someone is given a chance to see life and death from both sides. It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol reveal otherwise unrealisable truths just as effectively as the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, a story that has been a cornerstone of the opera world in many forms and varieties over the centuries. The moral can be seen as a simple warning about life being for the living and leaving the dead to their place, but it's the emotional beauty and the human tragedy of the story that is attractive and superbly related in Magnard's opera and self-written libretto. It covers the idealism of the spiritual nature of man and questions of our legacy after death, but it also considers the other side of the equation, the day-to-day reality for most people, how they cope on an individual level as well as part of a society in response to the death of an important and influential figure or in the aftermath of a war where death takes an even greater toll. There is the fear that true peace can only be found in oblivion.

In the way that it contrasts our expressed desire for beauty, freedom, peace and a utopian society with the reality of human weakness for earthly material needs, greed, pride, power and ambition, it could easily be an opera written for today. What is fascinating and makes this even more strangely compelling, is the history of the work and the composer itself, its brush with the finality of death and destruction, its 'calling' to be brought back to life. As mentioned earlier, what is special about opera is that this 'dead' work of notes on a page has been reincarnated here, in an expressive manner that can only be achieved through opera performance when it is produced for the stage. Real people pour their heart and soul into these recreated figures and its the efforts of Ingo Metzmacher, Christof Loy and Stéphane Degout here who raise this work from the dead to bring an important message to the world today.

Conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, the music is drenched in turn of the century post-Wagnerian Late Romanticism, but Magnard's fantastical view of a lost paradise is more than just the extravagant fin de siècle fantasies of Korngold and Schreker (although arguably they also in their own way reflect and confront the reality of the world around them and the philosophical ideas of their time). Guercœur has the same quest for answers to questions on Love and Death and the role of the Artist as some of Wagner’s late works, but it doesn't have the same sense of mythological self-aggrandisement (if I may somewhat unfairly and not entirely accurately characterise Wagner's more nuanced and ambiguous position for the sake of comparison). Although there are recognisable elements and references there, Guercœur belongs more to the French Romanticism of César Franck, but like many composers that followed him in this period, the shadow of Wagner is inescapable. 

Magnard’s own voice however can be heard in this and its primarily in the human rather than the mythological element of the story, the willingness to confront his idealism and humanitarian viewpoint with the truthful reality of the nature of people and society. The opera draws resonance and complexity from how it recognises these issues, and like the period of time that has elapsed in the real world since Guercœur died, the work too has been in a state of suspended animation and needs some form of adjustment, translation or interpretation to reconnect with the new world it finds itself in. In essence, more than a faithful musical or singing performance, that is the principal element that needs to be brought forward into our modern world, and it is the task of the director to 'translate' that into action on the stage for a contemporary audience.

Christof Loy approaches the work with his characteristic attention to detail. Detail in regards to the human experience, that is, reducing the sets and other potential distractions to the bare minimum, never letting the focus drift away from what is essential to make the work feel alive, vital and meaningful. It's not a spectacle, despite the nature of this work seeming to call out for bold contrasts between the otherworldly allegorical and the human reality. Loy treats them equally, a simple plain background - one dark, one light, but seeming to overlap as the set containing really only chairs revolves to slip between one reality and the other. It looks like there has been very little hands-on input, but in truth the power of the work is better expressed by human figures than stage props and Loy is I believe one of the best directors of actors. There are no operatic mannerisms here, you believe in the characters and feel the weight of their predicament.

That goes not just for the extraordinary experience and conflict within Guercœur, a role that is taken with pure heartfelt expression and sincerity by Stéphane Degout, a singer I have admired and rated very highly for a long time, in a perfectly judged performance, but all the roles are perfectly weighted, balanced and aligned with the content, tone and intent of the opera; the 'human' characters as well as the allegorical ones. The conflict of love for one lost and the need to find a reason to live is no less great a dilemma for Giselle, sung with sensitivity and clarity of purpose by Antoinette Dennefeld, and there is even sympathy for Julien Henric's Heurtal, who struggles with the demands placed on him in the role he has inherited. There are choice roles for Catherine Hunold (Vérité), Eugénie Joneau (Bonté), Gabrielle Philiponet (Beauté) and Adriana Bignagni Lesca (Souffrance), all of them with key roles to play in Guercœur coming to an acceptance of his fate.

The opera is also gifted with heavenly choruses that are not only ravishing but necessary to contribute to and support the underlying sentiments and transformation that Guercœur has to undergo, contrasted with the earthly uproar, conflict and violence that he is forced to endure on his return. Loy recognises that the power and true meaning of the work is in its third act credo of Hope for a better future and that it is here that Truth, Beauty and Goodness, with some necessary 'Souffrance', are most needed. There is also an acknowledgement that this is no magical fantasy, that this message needs to go out to all those in witnessing the performance at l'Opéra national du Rhin, and as the cast approach the front of the stage in the lead up to the beautiful conclusion, the camera filming the event takes in that other crucial element for any opera to continue to live and breathe; its audience.

External links: L'Opéra national du Rhin, ARTE Concert

Wagner - Siegfried (Brussels, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Siegfried (Brussels, 2024)

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2024

Alain Altinoglu, Pierre Audi, Magnus Vigilius, Peter Hoare, Gábor Bretz, Scott Hendricks, Wilhelm Schwinghammer, Ingela Brimberg, Nora Gubisch, Liv Redpath

RTBF Auvio streaming - 25th September 2024

Well this was unexpected, but in the end perhaps not totally surprising. Ring Cycles are notoriously complicated to stage and require enormous planning and resources. Sometimes they fail, sometimes they are abandoned before they start, sometimes mid-stream (as appears to be the case with the English National Opera production), but this the ambitious new production at La Monnaie in Brussels, the first two parts of which took place in the 2023/24 season with the remaining parts to be fulfilled in 2024/25, is the first I've seen where the director has jumped ship half-way through. La Monnaie issued a press statement advising that the remaining two parts would no longer be directed by Romeo Castellucci and that they had parted ways on this Ring Cycle by mutual agreement, unable to achieve what was planned within the planned timescale and budget.

The reason is probably more complicated than simply creative differences or even just budgetary concerns. It's not as if La Monnaie lack resources or ambition and have staged many extravagant Castellucci productions over the years, so his plans for the remainder of the cycle must have really been really out there. Considering the extraordinary visuals of what was staged the previous season in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre and that there was a proposal for a full length feature film using new untested technology to accompany Siegfried and a "double project" mixing theatre and opera for Götterdämmerung, it is genuinely feasible that the production team were indeed incapable of meeting the technological demands of Castellucci's vision for the remainder of the tetralogy.

The unenviable task of taking over the reins on a Ring Cycle in the middle of the race is handed to Pierre Audi, and it's not as if he even has any clear direction to follow. The horses of the Valkyrie have already bolted from this Ring stable, the previous two parts looking spectacular but having very little in the way of any coherent or even comprehensible intent to latch onto. There may have been ambitions (probably not) for the complete cycle to come together into something more thought-provoking rather than just appear as a series of bizarre visual ideas thrown out for each part by Castellucci, but either way I for one was looking forward to seeing where the director would take it next. It seems however that the next level was just simply unachievable, the artist's ambition greater than anyone's ability to realise its potential. Can Pierre Audi attempt to pull this together what has come before into something just as interesting, while at least remaining achievable?

There are maybe a few minor references to what has come before in the opening filmed footage that plays out before the opera, a group of schoolchildren putting on cardboard masks and wooden swords - a reminder at the surprising use of children to play the gods in one scene of Castellucci's Das Rheingold - and in one of children drawing a large circle - a reference found at the beginning and end of both parts directed by Castellucci. Or perhaps, like the childish drawing of a man with a sword that leads into the overture, it's more a sign that this is a return back to basics which, since that characterises Siegfried in Siegfried to some extent, is a reasonable way to approach it. The children's drawings however only make a reappearance as overlaid projections in the closing moments of the opera, so their inclusion - at this stage anyway - is a mystery.

But it's hard to find anything at all meaningful in Pierre Audi's Siegfried. It's true that he hasn't been given much to work with (apart from Wagner's account of the myth obviously) and it must be difficult to take over any project half-way through, but his style has always been for abstraction and bold grand symbolism. Not the obvious kind though. Here in Act I the scene consists of a wall of tarnished gold blocks (a familiar Audi image) with a huge jagged black ball hovering above it. You could potentially see this as representative of the two figures, one corrupted by desire for gold, the other an unformed ball of potential. You could however find a reason for reading this the other way around, so I may be giving the abstract design more credit for symbolism than it's worth, but it seems to be borne out when a long glowing spear descends and bisects the stage at the arrival of the Wanderer. On its own terms the staging is fine, the effective lighting capturing tone and mood, but it's not really enough to make the playing out of backstory between Mime and Siegfried and Mime and Wanderer any more interesting.

The credibility of Act II unfortunately suffers from poor choices in the combination of costume design and lighting. Alberich and the Wanderer skulk about the darkened stage wearing Judex capes and wide-brim homburg hats, their faces bathed in green light, making it looks like a casting session for Wicked. Perhaps that's not the worst image to hang on Alberich and Wanderer, but it looks silly and rather ruins the tone as they gather outside the formidable grotto of the dragon Fafner. The huge inflatable crumpled ball covered in heavy-duty black plastic sheeting sprouts lights for eyes as the dragon, but the spectacle is brief and the impact of Siegfried slaying the dragon is rather ineffective. There is added gravitas however when Fafner appears carrying the desiccated blackened and rotted remains of Fasolt, underlining the tragic end of the race of giants. That gravity is carried over into the scene between Erda and Wanderer but it has little else to offer, the confrontation and destruction of Wotan’s spear feeling somewhat routine.

It does however lead into a dramatic science-fiction-like Act III, the huge ball splintering or rather replaced with floating shards in a blazing red sky, before giving way to the coolness of the discovery of Brünnhilde in a frozen state in an abstract landscape of a blazing white dawn. That at least gives this scene its own distinct character and tone, although in its abstraction it could equally pass for a scene from Act II or Act III of Tristan und Isolde. It's an effective scene nonetheless on its own terms, held together by the sense of epic revelation and resolution to the tragic consequences of Die Walküre, the performance of the score and the singing all coming together to reveal the full majesty of the moment, which of course is built upon everything that has come before. It's a bit of a chore getting there, but almost worth it in the end.

Audi's taking over of Siegfried was undoubtedly a challenge and it at least looks the part, breaking away from the direction Castellucci was taking the cycle and focussing on just delivering a suitably bold spectacle with good singing. Personally I find that Siegfried needs a little more than that. Although you would be hard pressed to understand the direction Castellucci was taking this Ring des Nibelungen in, Audi's vision has no psychological or philosophical underpinning and doesn't invite one or even have any distinctive directorial stamp. It's just a routine performance, in as much as a challenging work like Siegfried can ever be 'routine'. Peter De Caluwe, the general director of La Monnaie prefers to rebrand this cycle now as two diptychs, the first two "allegorical" about the gods, the second two a "human" story about the love between Siegfried and Brünnhilde. It's a big disappointment however when you think that, however extreme and absurd his ambitions might have been, the reasons given for Castellucci's departure is an acknowledgement that his Siegfried would at least never have been dull.

There are no big gestures in the score, which is given a softer reading from Alain Altinoglu than I expected, making me think that La Monnaie were perhaps not using full scale orchestration. It's more likely however that the choices were made for the sake of dynamism, saving the impact for where it is needed and it fairly scaled up for the final scene. Another reason might be to give the singers room to be heard, but there were few problems on that front, although they were left with fairly standard characterisation with no obvious direction. Peter Hoare's Mime is excellent, but it was a familiar weasely and slimy semi-comic routine. Gabor Breitz is a solid menacing presence but brought little that was distinctive to his continuation of the role of Wotan/Wanderer. Scott Hendricks makes great efforts as Alberich but struggles a little. The Wicked outfits perhaps didn't help either of them. The best performance here comes from Magnus Vigilius as Siegfried, totally in command of the role, his voice approaching Klaus Florian Vogt lightness but with a little more steel and not so much softness, which seems ideal. Ingela Brimberg reprises her Brünnhilde from Die Walküre and sings it well, but just as importantly, captures the complexity of her condition as a formidable but now fearful Valkyrie.

External links: La Monnaie-De Munt, RTBF Auvio

Karlsson - Fanny and Alexander (Brussels, 2024)

Mikael Karlsson - Fanny and Alexander

La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels, 2024

Ariane Matiakh, Ivo Van Hove, Susan Bullock, Peter Tantsits, Sasha Cooke, Jay Weiner, Sarah Dewez, Thomas Hampson, Anne Sofie Von Otter, Jacobi Loa Falkman, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Alexander Sprague, Justin Hopkins, Polly Leech, Gavan Ring, Margaux de Valensart, Marion Bauwens, Blandine Coulon

La Monnaie Streaming - December 2024

There is an element of semi-autobiography in nearly all of Ingmar Bergman's films, or perhaps it could be described as an element of exorcism in confronting the fears, concerns and formative experiences that determined his outlook on life. Whether it's the terror of death in The Seventh Seal or the silence of God in ...well, most of his work, that outlook is not a particularly optimistic one. Perhaps the most important formative experience for Bergman and for most people is family and particularly one's childhood experiences. It was only much later in his life, in preparation for what he believed would stand as his final film and testament as a career as a writer, director and filmmaker that Bergman was able to approach those youthful moments of joy as well as the more familiar explorations of pain and fear in a masterful and probing manner through Fanny and Alexander.

As much as they draw upon personal experiences, incorporating the root causes of many of his personal fears as well as his influences that he would unflinchingly bring to the screen as one of the world's greatest film directors, Fanny and Alexander of course has a much broader outlook on life. Which it would need to, since Bergman's experience of childhood in Fanny and Alexander, fictionalised as the well-to-do Ekdahl family in provincial Sweden in Uppsala, doesn't appear to have much in common with most people's lived experience. The challenge of adapting this to opera then would be to focus on and draw out the more universal qualities and experiences from the sprawling richness of the original filmed work, as well as retaining the sense of coming-of-age drama of a turbulent family experience that is to have a profound impact on how one child relates to the wider world as an adult.

With his sister Fanny, Alexander grows up in a wealthy family of businessmen and artists, all of whom gather at the start of Mikael Karlsson's opera version of Fanny and Alexander, composed for La Monnaie in Brussels from a libretto by Royce Vavrek. The family own and run their own theatre, managed by Fanny and Alexander's father Oscar. As the extended family in formal dress gather around the lavish Christmas dinner table prepared by a host of servants after a performance of a nativity play at the theatre, Oscar tells the children that "Outside is a big world and the little world in which we were born succeeds in reflecting the big one" while Alexander and Fanny sit at the foot of the table creating their own personal little drama with a miniature toy theatre. It's a little heavy-handed maybe, but it succeeds in establishing how the opera develops the theme that art doesn't just imitate life but seeks transform those human experiences. 

What this scene also establishes is the gulf between childlike innocence and imagination and the danger of its corruption when it comes into contact with the harsh realities of the world. Certainly there is a lifetime of troubling experiences to be processed as the children unwittingly eavesdrop on the private lives of their relatives, lascivious uncles philandering with maids, their grandmother reminiscing with an old love, one uncle facing ruin from failed business interests, another depressed at aging and the declining state of the world. It would take Bergman a whole career to process these issues - some his own experiences as an adult reflected here as much as fictionalised ones for other people - and confront their roots in this ambitious project.

The most harrowing experience for the young Alexander, as it would be for many children, is their first encounter with the death of a close family member. His father Oscar is rehearsing a scene from Hamlet when he has a heart attack and dies. For the young Alexander, seeped in the family's theatrical tradition, it's as profound an experience as Hamlet’s own horror of meeting his father's ghost, and indeed his own father will later make a similar ghostly appearance in the story. It's a moment wrapped in theatrical and philosophical meaning and suitably presented as such in the staging of this premiere opera production by Ivo van Hove. The Shakespearean allusions continue as Alexander's hatred grows for his step-father, their mother Emilie remarrying to an austere authoritarian and cruel man of the cloth, a bishop who demands they abandon their former life of privilege.

All this will be familiar to anyone who has seen Bergman's film or extended TV mini-series, which is a sign that the creators of the opera have succeeded at least in retaining the essence of the work. Both composer Mikael Karlsson and librettist Royce Vavrek have a good track record in adaptations of movie-sourced material, the two having previously worked together on Lars von Trier’s Melancholia for the Royal Swedish Opera last year. Musically Fanny and Alexander is recognisably in the same style evidenced in that opera, rhythmically and melodically propulsive in the idiom of John Adams, with electronic effects used for dramatic underscoring. It's less 'science-fiction' sounding electronics this time, providing rather an undercurrent that underlines moments of intense emotional stress as well as the ghost appearances, which are also heralded by shimmering bells.

What doesn't come across in the recorded and broadcast version of the production is the effort of the composer to make the opera a visceral theatrical experience. Modern technologies don't have to be restricted to theatrical techniques - and Ivo van Hove knows all about those - but can surely also be employed for musical effect in modern opera. That however is not something that most opera houses are equipped for and it does involve a considerable amount of effort and complexity to install surround speakers and deep subwoofer technology to make the audience actually feel the musical reverberations. There is also the challenge of synchronising the electronic elements of the score with the acoustic orchestra (the performers also wear microphones so that they can be mixed into the live sound design), but the impact of all that is lost in a streamed broadcast.

As well as employing cinematic techniques in his theatre and opera productions, Ivo van Hove is a director who is also very familiar with adapting Bergman and other filmmakers for theatre and often uses extended theatrical techniques like live cameras and projections. By comparison his direction of Fanny and Alexander for the most part feels rather restrained and almost traditional. I have to say I prefer when he is a little more adventurous and avant-garde. The fact however that the scenes have the necessary impact - minimalist but for a number of key scenes like the death of Oscar, the ghost story of the two drowned children and the remarkable effects used for the Isak and Ismaël scenes - suggests that he knows when to hold back in order to give those key moments prominence (underlined by the reverberating score) and does succeed in finding the best way of presenting the material.

That's surely the essential thing, but aside from the scenes mentioned above that are creatively handled, and despite what sounds like a wonderful musical interpretation, personally I didn't find either enough to hold attention as the opera moved into the second half. It was perfectly good, but I was perhaps too familiar with the movie version, so the adherence to the original felt predictable and something of a pale copy of Bergman's film, an unnecessary reworking that didn't really add anything as an opera. I felt like that at least until the stunning and remarkably effective choices for the setting of the avant-conclusion in the puppet theatre shop of Isak and Ismaël. Here Karlsson and van Hove succeeded in establishing the value of the opera on its own terms, which, as it should be, was in the realm of bringing music, drama and singing together to lift the source material to new heights.

That is no small part was due to a stunning performance from countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Ismaël. His extraordinary voice and presence brings that necessary enigmatic quality to the key moment when Alexander's eyes are open to how an artist can take those mysteries and unknowns, the personal traumas and experiences and use them to not only create art, but also how they can be a vital tool for survival. That is supported, as I have said, in the music score and in the stage direction with conductor Ariane Matiakh harnessing all those varied forces of the complex musical arrangements together.

The singing and performances are excellent elsewhere, relying on some veteran performers like Susan Bullock, Thomas Hampson (first time at La Monnaie) and Anne Sofie Von Otter for smaller roles in order to bring extra significance to their roles in the drama. The principal role in the opera however is that of Emilie, the children's mother, sung impressively by Sasha Cooke. Boy soprano Jay Weiner played Alexander exceptionally well with no stage-school mannerisms or over-acting. Although Fanny is not a large role, it was equally well performed by Sarah Dewez.

External links: La Monnaie-De Munt, Fanny and Alexander streaming

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble - Ink Still Wet VIII (Belfast, 2024)

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble - Ink Still Wet VIII

Composers: Anselm McDonnell, Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot, Simon Mawhinney, Omar Zatriqi, Peter O'Doherty, Sam Chambers, Ian Wilson

Conductor: Benjamin Haemhouts

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble: Aisling Agnew (flute), Sarah Watts (clarinet), David McCann (cello), Daniel Browell (piano) with guests Alex Petcu (percussion), Ciaran McCabe (violin), Ben Gannon (oboe), Lina Andonovska (flute)

Harty Room, Queen's University, Belfast - 1st February 2025

There may be some commonality in the musical backgrounds of the composers, many of them having studied at Queens University in Belfast or lectured there, but that's to be expected considering that the pieces in this programme of contemporary music are being presented - and in the case of four of the seven pieces actually commissioned - to form part of the eighth annual concert of new music performed by Northern Ireland's principal contemporary music ensemble, the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. New music so fresh in fact that this particular annual programme goes under the title of Ink Still Wet. The backgrounds of the composers however are rather more varied than that suggests and that is reflected in the surprisingly wide variety of compositions presented in Ink Still Wet VIII.

Or perhaps not so surprising really. Aside from the permutations that you can make use of in a core ensemble of five or six musicians and a few additional guests, there are various creative and modern technologies that can be employed where appropriate in service of the demands of any given piece, and some unexpected ones too. As such, none of the pieces in the programme were remotely alike, which is a testament to the individuality and creativity of the composers and to the performers of the HRSE in adapting to those styles, but it's also a sign that new contemporary music is in a very good place at the moment - both locally and internationally - not relying on the style or technique of some of the modern titans of new music past, but seeking to find new and creative means of personal expression that speaks of the world today.

What impressed me most about all the selections is that none of the compositions presented here - well, maybe one or two of them a little - were purely 'conceptual' or technical exercises in virtuosity, but indeed many of them reflected in one form or another consideration of an newfound or revitalised appreciation for nature. The programme notes for Ink Still Wet VIII reveal that many of the pieces here found inspiration from sources in nature, and embraced the challenge of finding an artistic and creative way to express and share those impressions with an audience through music.

The first two pieces in the programme strove to do this by extending the range of traditional musical instruments by including electronic and sound effects from nature. A play on the word Ectosymbiont, that refers to a parasitic organism that attaches itself to another to form a symbiotic relationship Anselm McDonnell's 'Echosymbiont' saw the composer acting as the 'outside' force, processing some of the sounds of the live performance on computer and playing it back through an on-stage speaker as an echoing response. It was a little unsettling initially to hear pauses where Alex Petcu's percussion continued in soft fading delays of electronic reverberations, but aside from perhaps recognising that there is a symbiotic (but hopefully not parasitic) relationship between composer and performers, it also reminded me that music doesn't stop when the playing finishes. It resonates in the room and - hopefully - has made a deeper connection with the listener and perhaps stays with them even longer than that. This one certainly did. 

Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot's 'Lisnabreeny Townland' was perhaps the piece where the connection with nature was most open and obvious without the aid of programme notes, the composer choosing to find her own form of symbiotic relationship in a solo flute composition by introducing field recordings alongside the playing of the flute. In four parts, inspired by walks to the ancient Lisnabreeny Rath in the Castlereagh Hills, the flute blended with and interacted with the sounds of birds, wind, water and leaves, even background sounds of traffic recorded on location. This was not just a pastoral piece however, but touched on mythology and fairy lore and our connection with an ancient world through nature. You could almost imagine this piece working in an outdoor setting, since it certainly achieved a sense of that even within the acoustics of the Harty Room at Queen's University. The piece resonated wonderfully with some deeply felt and sympathetic playing from Aisling Agnew. Again it emphasised how music is all around, how sounds inspire music and how music can strive not just imitate natural sounds but seek to embrace them and invite the listener to hear them in a fresh context while making something entirely new.

Simon Mawhinney perhaps stretched the definition of 'ink still wet' with his piece 'In Blue and Gold', taking a youthful student composition from 1998 and developing it into something new in 2024. If there is a connection to nature here it is at a remove, taking initial inspiration from another artistic work itself based on nature - a Middle Eastern painting 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold' by Walter Greaves, (which in itself were inspired by Whistler's paintings of the Thames in the same style) - which makes it an intriguing proposition when the composer is himself working at a remove and with maturity and experience in response to his younger nature and ideas. And it very much proves to be, the expansion of the instrumentation for a seven piece ensemble requiring the addition of guest oboist Ben Gannon with the HRSE delivering the wonderful richness and fullness of sound of the newly developed piece.

Belfast-born Omar Zatriqi's 'Diatribe' also proved to have a deep connection to exploring personal roots and influences, drawing from the composer's Albanian, Scottish and Croatian heritage. Although it incorporated folk influences from each of these worlds across each of its three sections and coda, there was no evident referencing of old style music in this thoroughly modern and contemporary piece composed for six piece ensemble. That in itself is a testament to acceptance of the gift of diversity and musically processing that mixed heritage into something new. If anything there was an sense of jazz fusion as much as folk in the bringing together of those influences to derive something of a distinct contemporary and personal voice. Different instruments would come into focus in each section, taking a lead and responding to each other, with the piano and marimba acting as a kind of connecting tissue. Each section seemed to build to a head only to be punctuated by crashes to release the build up of tension created by the overwhelming weight of bearing such rich and diverse ideas.

Perhaps it was just a lack of focus on my part after the interval, but Peter O'Doherty's 'Inflorescence' flew over my head and I was unable to find a way into it on a single hearing. It seeks to replicate in its structure the cluster patterns of flowers on a plant, the whole ecosystem of growth, flowering, decay and renewal. I love the idea of taking inspiration from structures in nature but it inevitably makes it a very complex piece with interweaving clusters, creating textures and resonances on adjoining sections and instrumentation. I would like to hear this again to see if I could get my head around it.

While understandably some of the commissioned works take advantage of the full resources of the musicians of the HRSE, there is also the freedom to choose to avail of just one of its soloists. Sam Chambers' 'His Feet are Light and Nimble' for solo violin certainly put guest violinist Ciaran McCabe through his paces, the piece feeling like it lay somewhere between a jig and demonic possession. It's not a long piece but such was the drive and delivery that you almost feared that McCabe was operating under a spell or a curse, and that if he stopped he would drop down dead in the spot. Fortunately that did not happen, but such are the fanciful ideas that come to mind while listening to the thrilling performance of this piece. Perhaps not so fanciful really since the piece is indeed inspired by just such a satanically possessed performance by a character in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.

While trying to navigate my way through a new piece of music heard for the first time, I often look for focus on an instrument that leads the way through it. There was no such difficulty with Sam Chambers' piece and definitely no mistaking that the focus of attention in Ian Wilson's 'When I Became the Sun' was on the rivetting performance of guest flautist Lina Andonovska, for whom the piece was written. Again the concept determined to a certain degree the choice of instrument - another ambitious engagement with nature on a grand scale, perhaps the most important one of all - but there was no failing to recognise the dominance of the role of the flute in the piece or the virtuosity of the performance. Becoming the sun, Andonovska's playing was a stellar force of nature, and if the rest of the ensemble at times felt like they were merely responsive to its force and whims, they were nonetheless vital components in the piece and in the overall fabric of the concept.

Suitably rich in its instrumentation, the piece therefore had a coherence but also an unpredictability in how a response to those emanations could take many forms. Sometimes it manifested as playful ripples of percussion and piano keys, sometimes inviting a concerted rhythmic pulsation from the ensemble, slipping into a melodic bliss or a chaotic breakdown, in the process of course inviting an individual response within the listener. One other quite original element that introduced a hard to define character to the composition was the threading of motifs and indeed riffs, from heavy rock band System of a Down's 'Toxicity' throughout the composition. The title of the composition indeed comes from the last line of the song 'When I became the sun I shone life into the man's hearts'. It served perhaps as the human counterpart to the flute's sun and the ensemble's Earth responsiveness, but certainly brought additional dynamism to the conceptual and musical flavour of the piece.

External links: Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble

Rameau - Samson (Aix-en-Provence, 2024)

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Samson

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2024

Raphaël Pichon, Claus Guth, Jarrett Ott, Jacquelyn Stucker, Lea Desandre, Nahuel di Pierro, Laurence Kilsby, Julie Roset, Antonin Rondepierre, René Ramos Premier, Andréa Ferréol, Gabriel Coullaud-Rosseel, Pascal Lifschutz

ARTE Concert - 12th July 2024

There's an art to reviving a lost work, even more so recreating an opera where one of the original elements of the libretto or the music are lost, missing or perhaps never even completed in the first place. Which of those categories Jean-Philippe Rameau's Samson, developed as a world premiere for the Aix-en-Provence 2024 festival by Claus Guth and Raphaël Pinchon, falls into isn't quite clear from the documentation provided on their web site or from the interviews with the stage and music directors, but historical documentation suggests that it would have been no small task to research, reconstruct and stage an opera that was written almost 300 years ago and never fully performed.

What we do know is that, composed in 1734 after Hippolyte et Aricie, the libretto for Samson by Voltaire - who was not greatly loved by the French authorities - fell victim to the censor and despite several attempts to have it staged, the complete work remained unperformed. Some of Rameau's music ended up elsewhere, some reportedly reused for Les Indes galantes, but how those pieces were meant to appear in their original form in Samson, is anyone's guess. Or, in this case, the experience and research of Raphaël Pinchon, who would have had the unenviable but fascinating task of reconstructing the opera as a kind of pasticcio, setting the libretto which still exists to other sources of music and opera written by Rameau.

Figuring out which music has been taken from which opera and how it has been repurposed to work in the reconstruction of Samson would be interesting to find out, but to be honest I'm not sure it really matters. That's of academic interest only and even then, who can say that a reconstruction like this is authentic or not when there is no original to compare it to. Like Wolfgang Mitterer's recomposition of Heinrich Schütz's Dafne, or indeed like Pinchon's creation of a Bach opera from various sources for Trauernacht at Aix in 2014 and the patchwork Purcell creation of Miranda in 2017, what really counts is whether the newly (re)created opera works in a dramatic stage setting. And surely any attempt to bring more Rameau to the opera stage can only be seen as a good thing.

That said, Rameau is not easy opera. An 18th century musical academic and theorist of harmonic structures, his works are long, can be rather dry and challenging to a modern audience. Even Voltaire, his librettist here for Samson, described Rameau as a "pedant", his approach "meticulous and tedious". The director for this Aix production of Samson, Claus Guth, clearly aware of this, aims to find a mid-way position where the original dramatic points from the original libretto are adhered to, honouring as much as possible Voltaire's directions for reducing recitative and placing emphasis on the choruses, while at the same time striving to bring it up to date and make it fitting for a modern audience to appreciate the deeper context and meaning of the biblical story.

For the source material then the creators don't have to delve too far for authenticity, taking the story of Samson from the Book of Judges. Biblical passages are highlighted and projected above the stage, introducing chapters or eliding them (we don't see the young Samson tearing a lion apart with his bare hands, nor him attaching flaming torches to the tails of 300 of foxes to burn down the lands of the Philistines). There is an effort to retain certain bold biblical imagery in the angel appearing to Samson’s mother, the wife of Manoah, in an Annunciation scene, telling her that she will bear a son who will be blessed with God's strength to free the Israelites from their captors. As long as his hair is not cut. The other key scenes, Samson's seduction by Delilah and his destruction of temple of Dogon, are also dramatically staged, as you would expect.

In order to dispense with long passages of recitative however certain scenes are acted out without words, stage choreographed in step with Rameau's music. Using just mime acting with grand gestures, this has the consequence of appearing a little too "formal", with little in the way of engaging realism. Again that's an artistic choice, one suggested undoubted by the manner in which the story is told in grand gestures in black and white, lacking nuance and playing to the structural formality of the baroque musical arrangements from sections which were perhaps evidently never attuned to dramatic expression or presentation. So we have choreographed movements of baton wielding Philistines, led by a sneering cruel ruler dressed in all black bearing down on the enslaved and put upon Israelites who are dressed in purest white, chasing them from the land. As well as staged movements and bold gestures, the direction also employs slow motion sequences and strobing lights, with extra thudding electronic sound effects bring a cinematic edge to Samson's demonstrations of strength and acts of violence. It's certainly effective for all the stylisation. 

That said, elsewhere the fitting of the music to the drama is good, Rameau's music, even the dance music proving to be quite adaptable to scenes when they are permitted to engage with the stage action. The Paris Opera were perhaps the first to highlight this quality, bringing Krumping to Rameau to stunning effect and here the melodies even seen to have an Eastern flavour - the music also presumably being taken from Les Indes galantes - at the dance of Samson's wedding to Timnah. The singing with the familiar cadences of tragédie en musique and tragédie lyrique are also well suited to depth of expression, and this comes into play much more effectively in the famous actions of the concluding scenes with Delilah and in the temple.

Of course, there is no way that any new production of a newly reconstructed opera, one which was never performed as is may have been intended, is going to be staged as a story in biblical times and period costume. The Aix-en-Provence production takes place in a ruined building not unlike many we can see today in Gaza, with the roof blown in and fallen beams and rubble lying around. Workmen in hard hats wander on in one or two points, surveying the reconstruction. Within this the biblical story of Act I and II is the most stylised, while Act III's encounter with Delilah is a little more dark, gritty and graphically violent. both in the seduction by Delilah and in the bloody result of her betrayal. Delilah is no traditional dark seductress here - well, up to a point. She is used by the king and discarded when he gets the power over Samson and this has great impact, not least because of the remarkable performance of Jacquelyn Stucker in the aria 'Tristes apprêtes, pâles flambeaux' where she contemplates and carries out suicide over what has occurred while holding the bloody blanket of her betrayal.

One element introduced by Guth that I could have done without is the old fallback of the modern day spoken word narrator to link past and present. An old lady, the mother of Samson now transported to the present day, reflects on the events that she witnessed, the joys and the regrets, walking amongst the ghosts of the past. This was done recently, similarly to no real effective purpose or benefit, in the Northern Ireland Opera production of Eugene Onegin. If it's an attempt to draw comparison to present day events in the Middle East, it's a brave or foolhardy decision depending on one's reading of the wiping out of a race of people and an act of mass murder in an opera that contains the lines "Vengez le peuple d’Israël… écrasez ce peuple furieux”. Drawing comparisons with the present day is perhaps unavoidable even when watching a work composed 300 years ago, but the manner in which it is imposed here feels unnecessary and adds nothing for me.

The inclusion of the old lady to link the past and present is only really used to any extent in the first two acts, the role lessening as the drama progresses. Despite reservations about that and about some of the stylisations used, the result of this project to revive Samson must still be seen as a great success. The employment of Rameau's arias feels authentic, matching at least the mood and character of the scenes if not always really serving the function of moving the drama forward. The choruses often prove to have more dramatic drive, as Voltaire perhaps intended. They are marvellous and carry the first half of the opera, while the Samson and Delilah part of the story has more than sufficient power to carry drama and tragedy of Act III and IV.

The singing performances of course contribute to that. Jarrett Ott was suitably robust, lyrical and bright as Samson, but perhaps because of the varied source material it's a role that covers a wide tessitura and was clearly tricky at the lower end. As mentioned earlier, Jacquelyn Stucker's Dalila was superb, as was a beautifully lyrical Lea Desandre as Tinmah. I suspect this biblical character many have been an addition to the new version of the opera, as it is documented that there were no female voices in first two acts. Either way, her role brings welcome colour and drama that is needed in these earlier scenes.

External links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Aix Digital Stage

Pfitzner - Palestrina (Vienna, 2024)

Hans Pfitzner - Palestrina

Wiener Staatsoper, 2024

Christian Thielemann, Herbert Wernicke, Michael Spyres, Wolfgang Koch, Wolfgang Bankl, Günther Groissböck, Kathrin Zukowski, Patricia Nolz, Michael Nagy, Michael Laurenz, Michael Kraus, Hiroshi Amako, Jusung Gabriel Park, Clemens Unterreiner, Devin Eatmon, Andrew Turner, Ilja Kazakov, Teresa Sales Rebordão, Marcus Pelz 

Staatsoper Live Streaming - 12th December 2024

It isn't often you get the opportunity to hear Hans Pfitzner's music or operas, which is a shame as Palestrina is a beautifully scored and arranged opera, but there are some valid reasons for this omission. Some composers fall out of fashion, their works no longer attractive to a modern audience and certainly the subject of Palestrina - an opera set around the Pope giving his approval at the Synod of the Council of Trent in 1563 for polyphonic music to be used in the composition of a mass - is not one that sounds like it will draw in big audiences. There are also are considerable challenges for orchestral and choral elements to consider, but perhaps the main reason why Pfitzner is rarely programmed are nothing to do with the quality of his music, but with the legacy of his association with the Nazis and antisemitism.

Whatever the reasons, Palestrina is rarely performed and it's true that the subject is a hard one to sell to a modern opera audience. Although it forms a considerable part of Act II, the opera is not really concerned with discussions between archbishops and cardinals disputing obscure esoteric religious dogma and heresies, but rather there is a clear underlying intent. Make that overt intent, since the opera is called Palestrina, after all, named after the choir master of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, Pierluigi Palestrina, who is tasked with the formidable and momentous task of writing music that will make polyphonic music an acceptable part of the celebration of the Catholic mass. It's then really about celebrating the magnificence of music, about celebrating composers for their art, for how they suffer to create. Through Palestrina, Pfitzner gives due recognition to “the art of masters of many centuries”, to those who have contributed significantly to their art. And that includes Richard Wagner, whose Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is a clear reference point for Palestrina.

Still, a word-heavy, long-winded opera about an ancient former papal composer giving thanks to God through music isn't going to appeal to the masses either (not to be confused with appealing to masses in the religious sense) and Palestrina is indeed heavy going but, as with any great opera, you would expect there to be some correspondence with a deeper human experience, or perhaps a more common one, since you don't get much more elevated than striving to reach into the spiritual realm of human experience. Pierluigi Palestrina’s suffering that perhaps inspires such creativity is indeed a human one; sorrow for the loss of his wife. At the beginning of the opera however, still in the depths of grief, all inspiration has deserted him and he is unreachable. Such is the depth of his loss that he has no confidence that he can accept the commission from Cardinal Borromeo to write a new work, an eternal mass, and indeed he no longer even sees the point of value of his metier. He has reached Faustian levels of despair, abandoning himself to the of 'Rien'. Evidently though in this case Palestrina doesn't submit to Mephistopheles but to a higher power; music. 

Somewhat appropriately then, Palestrina is far from a 'one-note' opera then, but has many levels in its progression through its three acts. Just as Palestrina is the missing a note in the chord, so too pouring all the human contradictions and complexes that arise over the doubts, fears and all other kinds of human experiences - greed and pride come into play between the religious orders in Act II - all feed into the score that Pfitzner uses this to construct a foundation and embellish it with beauty and spirituality. Voices, the outward manifestation of human expression is fully involved in this, from the individual grappling with their fears, weaknesses and limitations to the choral togetherness that elevates it and joins it with the rest of the world.

Bringing in the Council of Trent and its aims, its religious, political and powerplays is another complication. Can polyphonic church music wrung from a reluctant choir master unite all the reform of ecumenical matters that are subject to discussion, dispute, heresy and schism, fraying tempers, the assertion of dominance of Pope or Emperor, carving up their domains of power and influence? Well, at long as you don't bring the Protestants into it! Despite the apparently elevated subject matter, the opera is not without a sense of humour at the pomposity and entitlement of it all, but there is a sense that power is respected and, where is the will, distinguished leaders can reach agreement and bring about important change. Not sure anyone who was following the outcome of COP29 will agree that this is a valid argument, but Pfitzner makes a compelling case for it here.

Directed by Herbert Wernicke, the production in Vienna matches intent of both sides of the work well, bringing music and majesty, order and elegance to the stage. The effects and sets are basic but effective. For Palestina's grappling with his muse and his human condition, there is an array of tiers for an orchestra with a large church organ, the back of the stage opening to reveal a chorus, heavenly choirs and angelic voices bringing light from darkness. It's almost overwhelming, which is the effect it should be aiming to achieve. Likewise for the Synod, the music stands are removed and the seats rearranged for the chamber, the assembled cardinals and archbishops all arranged in order of importance, stretching back and upwards into the choir gallery. There is none of the elaborate day-glo colour schemes of the Bayerische Staatsoper production from 2009, the only recorded stage production of this opera.

All credit to the Wiener Staatsoper for giving this work another opportunity to confirm that this is truly a magnificent opera. Whatever you think about what history has to say about the human weaknesses and failings of Hans Pfitzner, like Luigi Palestrina he manages to compose music that lives on beyond its creator. If the conservative nature of his writing has proved not to be the work of a master who went on to inspire other masters on a musical level, it nonetheless has an important message to impart - and a challenge to incorporate it - about the transcendental qualities of music, of how an artist can rise above human earthly constraints to aspire to a higher spiritual level.

That's still a challenge to get across in an epic work of this length, and it's clear that it needs the highest level of performance and interpretation here to lift it up to its fullness. With Christian Thielemann at the helm, attention to detail and considered personal interpretation is assured. The casting is also superb with excellent performances throughout. Familiar with Michael Spyres mainly as a lyric tenor who can sing baritone with a sweetness of voice that is ideal for Rossini and Mozart, I was thoroughly impressed with his performance as Pierluigi Palestrina. Considering that he has to embody the spiritual, the artist, the human, there is a lot to take on and a lot of singing for intense though well-dispersed periods of a long opera. Wolfgang Koch is also excellent in the role of Cardinal Borromeo.

External links: Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming

Gluck - Iphigénie en Aulide/Iphigénie en Tauride (Aix-en-Provence, 2024)

Christoph Willibald Gluck - Iphigénie en Aulide and Iphigénie en Tauride

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2024

Emmanuelle Haïm, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Corinne Winters, Russell Braun, Véronique Gens, Alasdair Kent, Florian Sempey, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Alexandre Duhamel, Nicolas Cavallier, Soula Parassidis, Lukáš Zeman, Tomasz Kumięga, Timothé Rieu, Daphné Guivarch

ARTE Concert - 11th July 2024

The important and influential reforms that Christoph Willibald Gluck brought to opera seria are still impressive and remain an evident feature in his versions of two connected Greek dramas for the French stage, Iphigénie en Aulide (1774) and Iphigénie en Tauride (1779). If you are used to viewing opera seria - and there have been many opportunities to revisit some of these great works in an authentic form over recent years - Gluck’s concise, minimal compositional form and the dramatic drive of through-composition feels thoroughly modern compared to the old traditional recitative and da capo aria form. And since the Greek dramas still have meaning that tells us about something about human experience in the modern world, so too do they benefit from this being highlighted in a modern production. All the more so when the two works are staged side by side as a single unit by Dmitri Tcherniakov for the 2024 Aix-en-Provence Festival 

Even the manner in which each of the works are presented on the stage allows for a continuous flow of drama that allows those themes to be better connected and explored. The overture for Iphigénie en Aulide shows Agamemnon's nightmare of carrying through his intention to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, demanded by the gods to ensure the safe passage of the Greek forces to Troy. Despite his pleas to Calchas, the Gods and even trying to ensure that Iphigenia doesn't arrive in Aulis, his efforts are in vain. The nightmare has a force of its own that will see it carried though by the time we get to the conclusion. The danger of what lies ahead remains as a driving force all the way through the opera, even if it doesn't come to pass that way in the opera, except for this one where it kind of does...

You can feel it even when, led to believe that Achilles who Iphigenia is to be married to has been unfaithful, Clytemnestra immediately pleads with her daughter to leave, but Iphigenia wants to find out the truth. There is an urgency here in the drama, in the music, which you can imagine intensifies as the drama progresses. There is no time for self-indulgent arias that stop the flow so that the tenor, soprano or mezzo-soprano can reflect on their misfortune. The dilemma can be felt, discussions and exchanges must be made (and perhaps there is still some aspects remaining for the seria form) but every scene feels like it is moving the drama forward, that events are happening quickly and there is an immediate need to act. The production bears that out while all the time maintaining an unreal air of regal sang froid, propriety and elegance, again all of which can be heard in the music. And in the voice, with Corrine Winters impressive in the title role.

Gluck's sense of pure musical drama is perhaps still not fully formed in Iphigénie en Aulide, and it is considered the lesser of the two works performed here. It's certainly less frequently staged than Iphigénie en Tauride. I personally don't buy into the idea of lesser Gluck. Lesser is just never a word I would use to describe any Gluck opera. Even his pre-reform works (all too rarely revived, alas) are superb and have their own qualities. It's not even a question of refinement, just that the later works benefit from a greater unity of form and content. It's hard however to see any weakness in Iphigénie en Aulide, particularly when it is well directed, as it is here. The music is beautiful and the sentiments are sincerely expressed without over-emphasis. It's a serious matter, a horrific one, a father about to sacrifice his daughter. You would actually expect there to be more outrage at the situation, but there is that element of knowing their duty, following the will of the gods and Iphigenia's love for her father, so instead it is profound grief that is evident here and expressed beautifully in the music and the singing.

To possibly overstate the relationship between the music and the direction, you could see the same intentions reflected in Elena Zaytseva set showing the house of Agamemnon as a house with transparent walls. It's elegant and stately, but there is nothing that can be kept hidden behind its doors. Tcherniakov takes that consistent worldview approach in most of his productions now, and it's evident here in the gloomy sepia tones, in the corruption of the royal family. The lengths to which they are prepared to go to cannot be overstated, so Tcherniakov puts it up there. The dream played out in the overture is a terrible presentiment and with the uniformity of the stage setting you can feel that tension reach a peak as Iphigenia dresses for wedding and brings herself closer to the terrible fate that awaits her after the celebrations. You see the nightmare unfold and repeat before your eyes.

We are dealing with mythology here so there is or should be no need to align this with any modern reality, although Krzysztof Warlikowski certainly managed to use contemporary themes successfully in his production of Gluck's Alceste. To say it's just mythology however doesn't take away from the human experience that Gluck presents in his version of Racine's tragedy, and it is enough for Tcherniakov to get that across. As well as highlighting the horror faced by Iphigenia, he doesn't neglect the fact that it is also a difficult duty for Agamemnon as a father, taking into account the contradiction between the public and private aspects of a king who needs to appear firm, commanding, brooking no doubt, no argument. Gluck's score bears all the complexity of these competing demands, Russell Braun's Agamemnon bringing this out in a fury out of remorse.

Considering the dramatic drive, there is nonetheless a variety of sentiments expressed. The wonderful dance music for the celebrations for Achilles and Iphigenia's marriage are retained and fit in well, and Achilles has a considerable part to play in the variations of tone and character as a figure caught in the middle of this absurd affair. Achilles is sung brilliantly by Alasdair Kent in the high tenor range, abruptly interrupting the course of events (and even the course of the music), and Véronique Gens is superb as Clytemnestra, inhabiting the role, responding with the dramatic expression of an expectantly grieving mother. That said, the sentiments expressed are limited by the singular drive of the situation towards a horrific notion of sacrifice, which might account for why the work is not more often revived.

As such it's a good idea then to expand the production to pair Iphigénie en Aulide with Iphigénie en Tauride, making this Aix-en-Provence production more of a fuller experience. It's been done before, relatively successfully at the Dutch National Opera. Tcherniakov however has a habit of overturning expectations and killing off figures who don't usually expire at the end of the opera and keeps alive those who traditionally die at the conclusion. At least here you would expect him to keep he needs to keep Iphigenia alive for "Part 2", but, well, that wouldn't be like Tcherniakov to make things easy now, would it? The impact of the family joining in a celebratory dance of death at the conclusion is certainly effective in its own way.

Iphigénie en Tauride is indeed then like a mirror image of Iphigénie en Aulide, Part 2: The Nightmare Continues. And indeed it opens with another nightmare, that of Clytemnestra murdering her husband Agamemnon. It takes place in the same outline of the house, only this time only a framework remains, sometimes neon lit (like Tcherniakov's Lulu), which when dulled down takes the appearance of a cage, a prison. Again, it's the overall tone that is important to the director, to establish the character of the work and make it effective rather than trying to find a way to make the archaic mythology work as a drama. Tcherniakov appropriately then plays Iphigénie en Tauride like it was Strauss’s Elektra, the tone one of the weight of crimes bringing increasing derangement and madness. Which is to be expected also on an island that executes any visitors, including a couple of shipwrecked Greek sailors who arrive there. Orestes too is damaged, deranged, tormented and full of aggression from his experiences.

Another characteristic found in Dmitri Tcherniakov productions is his intention to humanise works, bringing elevated mythological themes down to a level where everyone can relate to what is going on. There are no mystical priestesses in robes here, no high priest, as for example with the Met production. The inhabitants of Tauris look like refugees, like Tcherniakov's Knights of the Holy Grail in his Parsifal, wrapped up in heavy clothing to protect against the elements. The framework of a set becomes more a place of the mind here, an echo or a shadow of Aulis, where Orestes murders his mother in a ghostly recurrent nightmare. With its use of lighting illuminating scenes from the waking nightmare, it strikes a contrast that explores the work from the human experience as well as the deeper level of the psychological impact. As such, it reflects of course Gluck's musical exploration of the tone, mood and intent of the work.

Considering how he left things at the conclusion of Aulide, you can be sure that the director will - and consequently needs to - reinvent what takes place at the conclusion of this work, but it also has an impact elsewhere. Tcherniakov very much underplays the traditional key scene of the revelation of brother and sister. There is a gap of shocked silence, but Iphigenia seems to already know it's Orestes and is just waiting on her brother to finally acknowledge the reality of the tragic family misfortune. And again, it would be wrong to think that it's just Orestes who has suffered. As in Aulide, the goddess Diana (Soula Parassidis) appears at the conclusion as a double of Iphigenia. Quite what you are to make of that and how much psychoanalytical examination you want to subject the work to is up to you, but it's consistent in its reference back to what takes place in Aulis. What is perhaps more worthy of consideration is how this applies to the state of the world today, to current wars where victims become executioners. The horror of that doesn't need to be spelled out.

Whether you like Tcherniakov's work on the operas or not, the intentions are sincere and thought-provoking. What is not questionable however is the quality of these works themselves and the impact they have in this production by the joining the two operas together. The singing in Iphigénie en Tauride relies as much in the impact of the choral work, which was excellent throughout, as it does on Orestes and Iphigenia. Both Florian Sempey and Corrine Winters were fine, but it was certainly more of a challenge for Winters, singing two operas back-to-back and the latter in a lower tessitura than she would normally sing. It felt a little less dynamic as a result, but the direction also called for a muted performance here. The real winner here was Gluck, the music side-by-side, back-to-back and end-to-end doubly glorious under the baton of conductor Emmanuelle Haïm.

External links: ARTE Concert, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Aix Festival Digital Stage