Rufus Wrainwright - Prima Donna
Armel Opera Festiival, Budapest - 2017
Gergely Vajda, Róbert Alföldi, Je Ni Kim, Mária Farkasréti, Máté Sólyom-Nagy, Botond Ódor
ARTE Concert - 19 July 2017
There are certain risks associated with writing an opera about opera, unless you are Richard Strauss and have Hugo von Hofmannsthal as a librettist. Which, as that obviously implies, means that you have a lot to live up to. Somewhat in the thrall to Romanticism then and in complete contrast to most contemporary opera composition Rufus Wrainwright's first opera Prima Donna is, to say the least, a little florid if not actually musically and dramatically overwritten. On the other hand, as an opera that is essentially about the great opera tradition, you can excuse its excesses to some extent, particularly when it's done as well as this.
Dealing with a great opera singer living in seclusion and fear of her decline in a Paris apartment, Prima Donna is clearly inspired by the fate of Maria Callas. In a Paris apartment, Régine Saint-Laurent, a former great opera singer is looking back over her career. She hasn't sung in public since the acclaimed premiere of 'Aliénor d'Aquitaine' six years ago, singing a role one that was written for her, one she believes was the greatest role of her career and indeed one of the greatest parts in any opera. But the opera was in some way cursed, and the great diva's voice failed her on the night of the second performance. She hasn't sung it or any opera in the six years since, even though the press still show considerable interest in speculating at her making a comeback.
The success of Wrainwright's opera lies in it being more than just a loving tribute to an opera diva, and it even extends beyond the belief (and successful demonstration) of the power of opera to permit one to dream. There's also an essential human side to the story that it is essential to tell, and that's more than just the tragedy of the loss of greatness, the acceptance of the failing powers, the diminution of talent and genius, or the ending of a dream. In many ways it's also about acceptance that change is inevitable and that all things come to an end.
Prima Donna has a small cast, but none of them are supporting roles. In their own way each has singing challenges as great as those given to someone playing a grand diva, but they also support the wider implications of the work. Philippe, Madame Saint-Laurent's majordomo, is perhaps the one with the greatest delusions, and the one who has the hardest time accepting the fate of his mistress. He is someone who believes he has powers, managing (invisible?) servants around, arranging for a journalist to help give Régine the confidence to return to the stage.
For a while Philippe, Marie the maid, Régine and the journalist all fall into the thrall of this dream. The journalist, professing great love for the legend of her last great performance, encourages Régine to momentarily relive the experience, singing pieces from 'Aliénor d'Aquitaine', and Wainwright scores and sets the scene admirably. The rather Saint-Saëns-like opera within an opera does indeed seem to aspire to a greater place, to transport the participants and the listener to another world, only for the reality to come crashing back in.
The musical reference points are what you might expect; hints of Wagnerian Romanticism; lush Puccini-like orchestration, numbers and sentiments; even some Janáček rhythms and structuring, with Emilia Marty of the Makropulos Case an evident reference point, but there's also an element of Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen in those deeper themes of dreams giving way to the acceptance of the harsh but undeniable realities of life. Conductor Gergely Vajda handles this without any suggestion of pastiche or irony as Wainwright's music has its own character and is closely related to the subject itself.
Whether the work touches on a deeper human element or remains lost in its own little world of opera could depend very much on how it is presented in any given production. The staging created by Róbert Alföldi specifically for the Armel Opera Festival competition in Budapest is simple but effective. It relies on the fact that the opera has a single physical location and a small cast of singers, and makes the most of them to transport the work into those other essential areas. The main transformation takes place in the appearance of Régine, between when she is over-dressed as the diva and shuffling around the apartment without her wig in a bathrobe. There are other little tricks of lighting and a 'spot-lit' platform that can transform the location and mood in a second, which this opera often does.
It shouldn't be underestimated however just how challenging the singing is for all four roles here. The female roles are really in the Richard Strauss register, dramatically and technically challenging for Mária Farkasréti's Madame Saint-Laurent, who also has to show an edge of vulnerability for the role of a great singer losing her voice to be credible. The high tessitura for Marie the maid calls for a light agile voice and Je Ni Kim (in competition) reaches those stratospheric heights impressively while retaining a sense of musicality. The journalist is also at the high end of the tenor voice, and Botond Ódor shows just how lyrical and beautiful that can be. Máté Sólyom-Nagy sings the baritone role of Philippe authoritatively and with sensitivity. The Armel production of Prima Donna is a very fine showcase for Wainwright's abilities as an adventurous and capable composer.
Links: Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert
Hans Werner Henze - Elegy for Young Lovers
Franz Liszt Academy Budapest, 2016
Gergely Vajda, András Almási-Tóth, Kim Boram, Ákos Ambrus, Botond Ódor, Karina Szigeti, Lusine Sahakyan, Diána Kiss, Alexandra Ruszó, Viktória Varga, Xénia Sárközi, Kristóf Widder
Armel Opera Festival/ARTE Concert - 2 July 2016
Hans Werner Henze's idea of opera is very much a theatrical one, where the music is in service to the drama and capable of expressing deeper psychological levels. Elegy for Young Lovers in particular is a dramatic ensemble piece that delves into the lives of a diverse group of characters and attempts to show different sides to their personality and to how they interact with one another. Using multiple singers for several of the roles, the Armel Opera Festival performance of the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest's production could be said to be an attempt to give as much of an insight as possible into Henze's musical expression of the drama and the complexities of the characterisation of Elegy for Young Lovers, or it might just unnecessarily complicate it further.
Dealing with the subject of a temperamental poet who uses his close friends and acquaintances as little more than material for his masterpieces, Elegy for Young Lovers is an attempt at a deconstruction of the Romantic ideal of the artist. It's intended to be much in the same vein as the operas of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, but even as they recognised that there was no place for such ideals in the world they lived in, you can still detect a fond reverence and nostalgia for the loss of beauty in a more innocent age in Strauss and Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos, Arabella and Der Rosenkavalier.
With a libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kalman, the callous poet supposedly based on W.B. Yeats, the treatment is a little less sentimental in Elegy for Young Lovers. Hofmannsthal is even openly referenced in the libretto, as Gregor Mittenhofer - working in his retreat at a hotel in the Alps - reads scornfully through the critical reviews of his latest work, contemptuous of the praise of lesser artists. He's no more interested either in the people that surround him other than for how he can use their own personal troubles and reactions to inform his own work. He's not beyond stirring them up either, manipulating and mistreating them just so he can get a reaction that he can use.
That's largely fine as far as Lina his secretary and Wilhelm his doctor are concerned; they are well used to Mittenhofer's temperamental behaviour and carry on regardless. Even if they receive no thanks for their efforts, they are happy enough to sing their own praises. Elizabeth however is a different matter. The young woman has flattered herself that she is Mittenhofer's muse, and as such is uncertain about whether she should marry Toni, the son of Dr Reischmann, who is in love with her. She decides to tell the poet about Toni but Mittenhofer is surprisingly magnanimous, even encouraging them to set off together, although conditions are somewhat dangerous out there on the Hammerhorn at the moment.
The reason Mittenhofer isn't particularly concerned is that he is currently writing a work called 'Elegy for Young Lovers', and is unhappy about the "emotional untidiness" that exists (in real life and in the work), and it needs to be cleared up. Setting Toni and Elizabeth up to face the world together in a potentially doomed Romantic relationship on the Alps, the young woman forsaking her higher calling for love, should provide the kind of drama that should inspire him to great poetic heights.
There are a number of other characters in the opera, including Hilda Mack, a lady whose husband disappeared 40 years ago, and whose body Josef reports has recently been brought down by the glacier. There is consequently very much an ensemble nature to the work, a puzzle of characters whose lives and reactions are used, manipulated and exploited by the poet, with no real concern for their feelings. Henze's complex theatrical sound world is very much attuned to those rhythms, fitting mood to situation and using the voice as a highly expressive instrument.
The Franz Liszt Academy production uses multiple singers in two of the roles in an attempt it seems to master the challenges of the score as much as to elucidate the behaviour of the characters. Elizabeth is played by no less than three young sopranos here, one who is in love with Toni and uncertain about her position with the poet, one who confesses her love to Mittenhofer and is confused over his reaction, and a third who is the one who leaves and becomes the idealised fictionalised version that the poet has created to resolve this messy dilemma. There are likewise two Hilda Macks in this production, one who is the Romantic ideal of the woman whose husband died on the Alps, the other the rather more prosaic reality.
Strauss and Hofmannsthal, for all their post-modern play on their subjects, might have had a little too much affection for the Romantic ideal to be properly critical of it, but that ambiguity works in their favour. It's difficult to find the same redeeming qualities in Henze's Elegy, or at least the necessary ambiguity of a genuine human response to the subject. It's a little too clinical, and at the same time, it's not really edgy enough, although that is something that is perhaps more to do with the performances. I'm sure Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the original Mittenhofer, might have presented a more nuanced reading of the poet than Kim Boram - singing in a competition role here - but the singing and the stage presentation are all good nonetheless in this Armel Festival production of an undoubtedly challenging work.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
