Verdi - Simon Boccanegra (Salzburg, 2019)

Giuseppe Verdi - Simon Boccanegra

Salzburg Festival, 2019

Valery Gergiev, Andreas Kriegenburg, Luca Salsi, Marina Rebeka, René Pape, Charles Castronovo, André Heyboer, Antonio Di Matteo, Long Long

Unitel Edition - Blu-ray

Whatever the plotting and structural weaknesses of early and mid-period Verdi operas, you have to admire the composer's ability to put every ounce of musical conviction behind them, and none more so than the likes of Don Carlos and Simon Boccanegra. If you can find a conductor willing to push it but not sacrifice character detail for bombast, if you can get a director willing to approach the work on the basis of its deeper underlying themes, and you can get singers of equal conviction and technical ability to deliver it with passion and meaning, then those works can approach true greatness. Getting all those elements lined up however is no small task.

The most obvious area of Simon Boccanegra that needs particular attention - and where it is lacking in this Salzburg production - is the plot. To put it mildly, it's difficult to follow and has issues with credibility, contrivance and coincidence. It doesn't have a particular large cast of principals, but the connections between them have conflicts of duty, position and romantic complications, all of which in a lesser production can tend to obscure or distract from the chief underlying theme of the opera, which was clearly the subject that was most significant for Verdi; the bonds between a father and his daughter.

Falling somewhere between Rigoletto and Don Carlo - and not just chronologically - Simon Boccanegra has a central father/daughter relationship that is threatened by personal vanity and ambition in the former work and the heavyweight political concerns intruding on personal freedom and happiness in the latter, not to mention a tone that is consistently gloomy and pessimistic. It never manages to reconcile these two sides despite Arrigo Boito and Verdi's 1881 revisions to the original 1857 version, but with a creative director who can recognise the qualities of the music and bring strong dramaturgy to a production it is possible to make Simon Boccanegra work.

Calixto Bieito's revelatory Paris production is a rare case where the true genius of the work is brought out, the director recognising that what is missing - on the surface at least, it's not missing in Verdi's music - is the presence of the spirit of Maria. Amelia's mother is very much the connecting tissue, the emotional charge that drives Boccanegra's gloomy despair and Fiesco's desire for revenge, the common factor that links the otherwise disconnected scenes separated by time or off-stage developments.

Unfortunately Andreas Kriegenburg, whose productions have consistently failed to really connect with the works in question as far as my experience goes with this director (Not so keen on his Les Hugenots, Die Walküre or The Snow Queen, although I liked his Wozzeck rather more), doesn't have anything similar to offer that might make the plotting and characterisation credible, much less illuminate the deeper undercurrents that Bieito so successfully explored. Aside from functionality the best thing you can say about the pretty vacant set design (again by Harald B. Thor) is that it fills the huge stage of the Festspielehaus impressively. At a stretch it raises the human struggles to an epic scale, or conversely, it shows that all the family feuding is ultimately pointless in the grander scheme of things.

I'm not sure however that this mixed message is particularly meaningful in the context of Simon Boccanegra. At the very least the director should be attempting to make the plot easier to follow and alert the spectator to the nature of the family tragedy that is about to unfold. Andreas Kriegenburg has nothing to bring to the work other than a stylish modern setting with figures carrying tablets and texting messages on mobile phones, and there's a little bit of theatrical mannerism in recognition of the fact that the operatic drama is itself stylised rather than naturalistic. It neither draws however from the melancholic soul of the work nor succeed in making it feel contemporary and relevant.

It's unfortunate because in other respects the Salzburg production is impressive. Valery Gergiev is often criticised for lack of rehearsal but there's no faulting the measured control of the Wiener Philharmoniker here, harnessing all the power of the work, pinpointing the key scenes, particularly the Council Chamber scene at the close of Act I and the highly charged Act II trio confrontation between Adorno, Boccanegra and Amelia. That probably has as much to do with an almost flawless cast that includes an incandescent Marina Rebeka as Amelia, a heartfelt Charles Castronovo as Adorno and an always reliable René Pape as Fiesco. Luca Salsi's Boccanegra is warmly and capably sung, but perhaps due to a failing of the direction, it doesn't carry the necessary dramatic or melancholic weight here.

The musical performance and singing performances are so strong and well-presented in HD on the Unitel Edition Blu-ray that this is certainly worth a look. If Kriegenburg doesn't really help the plot work, Verdi's remarkable score almost convinces in its own right with performances like this and a strong audio/visual presentation. There are no extra features related to the production on the disc, but the booklet contains a brief overview of the problems Verdi had with the work and some commentary on the Salzburg production.

Links: Salzburger Festspiele

Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor (Royal Opera House, 2016)

Gaetano Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor

Royal Opera House, 2016

Daniel Oren, Katie Mitchell, Diana Damrau, Charles Castronovo, Ludovic Tézier, Peter Hoare, Rachel Lloyd, Kwangchul Youn, Taylor Stayton

Royal Opera House Cinema Season Live - 25 April 2016

Katie Mitchell's intentions for the new Royal Opera House production of Lucia di Lammermoor and their potential for controversy had been well publicised beforehand. This was going to be a feminist reworking, one that put Lucia at the centre of the drama as a woman taking control over her own destiny, neither a victim nor someone acting at the behest of others, where even the heroine's famous descent into madness would be her own decision.

It's a fine idea and one that you might hope would bring a little more depth to the characterisation mostly abandoned by the librettist Salvadore Cammarano in this adaptation of Walter Scott's novel 'The Bride of Lammermoor'. Unfortunately, while there is some notional resistance in Lucia refusing to marry the wealthy Arturo at the demand of her brother Enrico for the sake of the Ashton family fortune, choosing instead to love Ernesto, the son of an old rival family, this revisionist view runs contrary to what actually happens. Katie Mitchell's version of the work might not entirely succeed in its intentions then, but it does nonetheless have some impact.

It's hard to give any real depth to the opening scenes of Act I however, and the director's "updating" the work from the 18th century to the mid-19th century of Donizetti's time hardly makes a significant difference. Vicki Mortimer's set designs make use of a split-screen technique, meaning that Lucia remains on the stage even during the scenes when there is all-male plotting going on, but this comes into play to more effect later in the opera. Spicing things up with a sex scene between Lucia and Edgardo might not seem like much either, but there are consequences here also that have more of an impact later. The fact that the following Act II fairly simmers with tension means that the production team and the singers have put the necessary work in. And it shows.

It's not the only thing that shows. Lucia, in this version, is pregnant and is seen suffering from morning sickness at the start of Act II. This is undoubtedly the most important detail that Mitchell includes to 'fill out' the characterisation, establishing a greater bond between her and Edgardo and providing a more convincing reason - since she miscarries after her murder of Arturo and loses a lot of blood - for her becoming somewhat unhinged at the turn of events and for her dying so dramatically at the conclusion.

Whether that carries though as convincingly in practice is debatable, but it certainly makes Lucia's Act II scene with Enrico much more intense when there something more real at stake and not just something that could be dismissed as a romantic illusion. The fact that it is sung with tremendous passion by Diana Damrau and Ludovic Tézier in a way that belies any belief that Donizetti's music is repetitive and unsophisticated. Daniel Oren's conducting of the work here, when it's combined with dramatic realism and expert singing, shows just how intensely dramatic it can be.

The rest of this highly-charged Act then falls neatly into place. If Enrico seems to let his enemy get away with rather a lot by gatecrashing Lucia's wedding to Arturo, it's only because it suits his purpose to see Edgardo further destroy the bond between him and Lucia. Mitchell also makes sure that the ghosts have a large part to play in determining the nature of this relationship, and it always helps when they are made physical. Here they are often seen coming between Lucia and Edgardo, the ghosts of the past as terrible family histories that present an insurmountable obstacle to their union. The final touch of the ghost of Lucia's mother pressing the kiss of madness into her forehead works wonderfully.

Despite this, Act III still doesn't seem able to overcome some of the inherent dramatic weaknesses of the bel canto opera, nor really live up to the intentions of Mitchell's revisions. The split-screen might provide greater rationale for the usually off-stage action - allowing the murder of Arturo to be acted out in its full gory detail - but it divides attention and takes away from where the focus of the Wolf's Crag scene (and the music for it) is intended. It doesn't make things easy for the video director capturing this for the cinema screening either, the camera never seeming to know which scene to settle on, but appearing to spare the viewer from some of the more gruesome images of this controversial scene, which kind of works against the intentions of the production.

If the overall impact is nonetheless impressive, it's not because of any "feminist" agenda, but because the characterisation is stronger and fuller than you usually find it in this opera. It's also unquestionably because Diana Damrau brings a lot to the role with an outstanding singing and dramatic performance. It becomes a bit too much to try to make every note of the mad scene coloratura mean something and relate to a recognisable reaction - it still feels like so much yodelling - but it's still a committed performance that has real depth and intensity. By way of contrast, Charles Castronovo avoids the kind of mannerisms that can sometimes sound like an effort to emulate Jonas Kaufmann, and he gives a more grounded lyrical performance. Ludovic Tézier's luxurious rounded tone for Enrico contributes to a well-integrated cast of singing and performance that delivers as much as could be expected from this bel canto work, and even perhaps a little bit more.

Links: Royal Opera House

Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia

Gaetano Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia

La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels, 2013

Julian Reynolds, Guy Joosten, Paul Gay, Elena Moşuc, Charles Castronovo, Silvia Tro Santafé, Roberto Covatta, Tijl Faveyts, Jean-Luc Ballestra, Jean Teitgen, Alexander Kravets, Justin Hopkins, Stefan Cifolelli, Alain-Pierre Wingelinckx

La Monnaie - Internet Streaming, February 2013

La Monnaie's production of Lucrezia Borgia maintains a consistency of style and quality of interpretation that has been evident in all their works broadcast this season via their internet streaming service.  Like La Traviata, Lulu and Manon Lescaut, it's not without a certain amount of controversy either.  Modern, boldly coloured and neon-lit, with a stage set that is far from conventional in concept and configuration, much less traditional in period in design, it was however another bold vision where the spectacle was rivalled by the interpretation of the music and excellent singing from an intriguing cast line-up.

It's well established that the plot and characterisation of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia are not the most convincing.  The work is filled with inconsistencies, improbabilities and weak characterisation.  Donizetti's music too, if we're honest, has its moments but there's an awful lot of plodding conventionality in the scoring.  It doesn't make a whole lot of sense or at least it's expecting a bit much for the audience to sympathise with the idea that there's a loving mother beneath Lucrezia's notoriety as a monstrous killer who even in the opera commits a number of atrocities that include the inadvertent murder of her own son.  The nature of her love for Gennaro is itself somewhat dubious and borderline incestuous.  Gennaro's actions and motivations and love unfortunately are no more credible.  And that's to say nothing of the plot involving poisoned wines and antidote plot twists.

The complications of the characterisation and the melodrama in Lucrezia Borgia do however provide a wealth of material that can be worked effectively by a strong cast of real personality, particularly if they have strong direction.  It's a work that builds up scene upon scene towards a magnificent dramatic finale in the way that only Donizetti or Rossini can do, if the production has singers of sufficient stature to pull it off, particularly in the title role.  La Monnaie's production benefits in this respect from a strong committed central performance by Elena Moşuc, who not only hits all those extraordinarily difficult high notes but she does so with a soft unforced expressiveness and true dramatic conviction.

As Gennaro, Charles Castronovo's lovely rounded lyric tenor is more than capable of the necessary range and power, but he's a little declamatory and unable to really bring anything out of the role and the complicated (badly-written) relationship with Lucrezia.  There's a suggestion that the director has to some extent modelled this Gennaro on Donizetti himself, but I'm not sure this is established entirely successfully.  The adventurous and successful casting of the two leads extends to the other roles.  Paul Gay's lighter bass-baritone is revealed as being much better suited to the bel canto of Don Alfonso than the boom of Grand Opéra, while Silvia Tro Santafé makes a good impression as Orsini.

It's also been well established that a "realistic" period setting isn't necessarily going to make Lucrezia Borgia any more convincing.  It's not a historical drama nor is it a movie or a documentary.  Like any operatic work from this period, the emotions expressed principally through the singing - love, anger, betrayal and revenge - are far more important than the historical characters or the period.  Guy Joosten's setting of the opera, with sets by Johannes Leiacker, looks like a circus or even a nightclub with a catwalk leading down from a curtained entrance that has Borgia written up in neon-lights.  Large menacing figures representing aspects of Lucrezia (Maternity, Death, Evil, Nobility) loom over the circular stage of the Cirque Royal, with the orchestra located to the right hand side at the back.  There's evidently some conceptual layers added here, but the drama itself is nonetheless played out within this according the intentions of the libretto.  More or less.

There are some liberties taken then in the stage production, but no more than Donizetti and Felice Romano's working of Victor Hugo's fictional drama and only as much as is necessary to make the notoriously difficult and somewhat static dramatic staging for this opera work.  This was no stand-and-deliver performance and at the very least it was visually impressive in its colourful stylisations, with figures wearing masks and costumes - pigs, clowns, 'Clockwork Orange' droogs, topless ladies in saucy nun costumes - that not only fit with the Venetian Carnival revelry in Lucrezia Borgia, they also give a sense of characterisation and personality that is hard to find in the work itself.  The success of the production was assured by the superb playing of the La Monnaie symphony orchestra and a lively, intense and invigorating interpretation of the score by conductor Julian Reynolds.

La Monnaie/De Munt's production of Lucrezia Borgia was broadcast on the internet via their web streaming service, the performance recorded on the 23rd and 26th February 2013.  The next broadcast of their exceptional season is the world premiere of a new work by Benoît Mernier, La Dispute.

Gounod - Mireille

Charles-François Gounod - Mireille

L’Opéra National de Paris, 2009

Marc Minkowski, Nicolas Joel, Inva Mula, Charles Castronovo, Sebastien Droy

FRA Productions

There would appear to be some questions of the value of Gounod’s forgotten 1864 opera and some risks involved in the director of the Paris opera, Nicolas Joel, reviving it for its Paris Opera premiere in 2009, but watching and listening to it now, restored as closely as possible to the original intentions of the composer, it seems extraordinary that Mireille has been overlooked so long and has never been part of the French opera repertoire.

Certainly Mireille and its subject matter are somewhat old-fashioned, the opera tied very strongly to its source in the romantic and bucolic 19th century Provençal poetry of Fredéric Mistral, but Gounod’s musical interpretation of the material is practically perfect.  The pastoral scenes of ordinary workers in the fields, their modest hopes and ambitions for nothing more than a pure love are elevated to a dramatically romantic level by the lush arrangements and beautiful arias, Gounod even introducing folk dances of the region into the score and the performance.  In some ways it’s a five-act version of Cavalleria Rusticana and ultimately, it’s just as emotionally charged.

The Opéra National de Paris’ production is equally as impressive, the staging concretely literal, Joel putting the sun-drenched fields of Provence right up there on the stage of the Palais Garnier.  The themes are certainly of the kind that could perhaps bear a more abstract lyrical interpretation – the sun, the land and religious fervour or faith being dominant themes throughout – but there are no modernisations or clever concepts, and the style remains traditional, but no less amazing for it.

The stage is superbly and brilliantly lit to evoke the light and colours of a cornfield in the south of France in midsummer, darkened to evoke the Rhône at midnight, blazing at the key scene of the Le Crau desert, with sultry dusks and twilights in between.  It’s perhaps over-literal in this respect, the drama accordingly heightened with the evocation of the summer moods and taken to the extremes of religious fervour, but it seems perfectly in keeping with the nature of the region and the lyricism of the Provençal poets.  Inva Mula is positively luminous as Mireille, capturing all the intensity of the extreme emotional journey she undergoes, brilliantly supported by the orchestra of the Paris opera, who are conducted with élan by Marc Minkowski.

The Blu-ray presentation, a Francois Roussillon production, captures the occasion perfectly in High Definition, the golden colours of the set and the lighting exploding off the screen.  The DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mix catches the tone of the orchestration and singing well and disperses it beautifully.  For some strange reason, the scene selection doesn’t work on my copy, all selections taking you invariably to the beginning of the opera, but the chaptering allows you to get where you want without much difficulty.  The BD comes with an interview featurette and a booklet with a synopsis.