Verdi - Don Carlo (Strasbourg, 2016)

Giuseppe Verdi - Don Carlo

L’Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg - 2016

Daniele Callegari, Robert Carsen, Stephen Milling, Andrea Carè, Tassis Christoyannis, Ante Jerkunica, Elza van den Heever, Elena Zhidkova, Patrick Bolleire, Rocío Perez, Camille Tresmontant

Culturebox - November 2016

There are some dark operas in the Verdi catalogue - Macbeth and I due Forscari are certainly there and Simon Boccanegra is no bundle of laughs - but none of them are as bleak and pitiless as Don Carlo. What makes it so is that each of the characters is offered the opportunity of love and friendship, but either happiness is snatched from them or they consciously spurn it and make other choices that they feel are for a greater good. None of those choices work out well, but the fact that it could have been so different is what gives the opera a darker edge that Verdi fills with music of overwhelming melancholy and regret.

OK, we get that Don Carlo is dark, so perhaps we don't need Robert Carsen to emphasise it so heavily in his production of the 4-Act Italian version at L’Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg. Carsen's idea is to establish the uneasy alliance between the oppressive political regime of Philip II and the merciless persecution of heretics by the Inquisition of the Catholic Church as a kind of death cult alliance. Everyone is dressed in black, wearing dark suits or soutanes, and the set is a black box. Rather more than just visually darkening the work down however, Carsen has a few other ideas and changes that take this a little further.

It's risky to tamper with individual motivations, inner conflicts and the complex inter-relationships in Don Carlo. They already sit on a delicate balance, so you really don't want to be adding additional levels onto them. Verdi's Don Carlo is based on a work by Friedrich Schiller, but Robert Carsen in his Strasbourg production finds a parallel in the work with another of Verdi's favourite writers: Shakespeare, and specifically in Hamlet. In the version without the Fontainebleau scene, Don Carlo opens with the funeral of a king - Carlo's grandfather Charles V - and we see a brooding young man dressed in black with only a skull for company on the stage, reflecting on mortality, as a ghostly voice seemingly from the dead king, calls out a warning to him.

Using Hamlet as a reference, Carsen in this way establishes the tone and the nature of the work as directly and quickly as possible. Without having recourse to the Fontainebleau scene, Carsen's evocation of Hamlet establishes that the primary reason for Carlo's despair is not the death of Charles V, but a more personal conflict and quasi-incestuous sentiments about his father marrying his new 'mother' Elisabeth, the same woman who had previously been promised to him as a bride in the excised Fontainebleau scene. It's an act of a ruler exercising power in the interest of consolidating that power rather than for the sake of the people, and Carlo's response is the only sane one in such a situation; madness. It leads to Philip having to banish Hamlet-Carlo to a foreign land after he takes up arms against him, and even consider whether he might not be justified in killing his own son.

So, all in all, whether you think all the blackness on the stage is necessary, you have to respect that it is justified by the tone of the work itself. And if Hamlet is used as a reference, it is not a framework that can be imposed on top of Don Carlo. The very idea is absurd and surely unsustainable. Rather, Carsen uses Shakespeare's imagery to draw attention to similar themes in Verdi's Don Carlo, taking it away from the historical and even the personal - the Italian version without the Fontainebleau scene facilitates this - and putting the focus instead on the social and political, on questions of state oppression, on religious fanaticism, and the not insignificant application that this has for today.

Verdi, it's true, wasn't a big fan of religious authoritarianism, so the emphasis in the Opéra National du Rhin production of the state being a theocracy that facilitates the will and the violent means of the church is a relevant one, and it's one that Verdi's dark drama is able to sustain. "Death in my hands can reap a harvest", the Grand Inquisitor tells soutane-robed Philip, and together they represent a formidable force of oppression. The crime of the Flemish delegates when they are brought to the court is not insurrection but heresy for not holding to the faith of their Holy Ruler. The auto-da-fe scene, often so difficult to stage convincingly, is effectively handled by Carson. It's the books of the heretics that are burnt in a conflagration, while the black-robed priests execute the hooded kneeling heretics with pistols.

Carsen consequently brings a strong and meaningful focus to the work. It's not only about state oppression but it's also about crushing personal sentiments for the sake of belief in something greater. It's not just Carlo and Philip who have to struggle with the dilemma of killing someone in their own close family. Elisabeth and Carlo's happiness counts for nothing in the greater scheme of things: even Elisabeth believes that her marriage to Philip as the king is more important. Eboli too belatedly recognises the mistakes she makes. There is perhaps only one beacon of light in Don Carlo where integrity remains unsullied by adversity and ambition, and that's Carlo's friendship with Rodrigo. You think so? Think again.

It's one thing to use Shakespeare's Hamlet as a working template to bring out other elements from Don Carlo, but Robert Carsen's biggest intervention is in his manipulation of the ending and its subversion of the friendship between Carlo and Posa. Posa controversially doesn't die here at the end of Act III while visiting Carlo in prison, but his assassination is faked as part of a plot of the church to overthrow Philip and assume total power with Posa as its figurehead. We're not dealing with history here in Carsen's production, and there's precious little historical accuracy in Schiller or Verdi's version anyway, so that matters little. What matters more is finding a way to making the huge flaw of the ending of Verdi's opera work in a more convincing manner, without undermining the essence of the work and the themes it considers.

At the very least Carsen delivers a shock that is greater than the disembodied voice of Charles V bringing about a deus ex machina. Here Carlo looks on aghast as the uprising falters not at the voice of a ghostly monk, but the voice of the Grand Inquisitor - the people bowing before the far more earthly might of the military arm of the church. But what of the inviolable friendship between Carlo and Posa? Well, it wouldn't be the first time that the sincerity of that friendship has been questioned, and indeed the rousing theme of the two men can sound rather hollow and false in the midst of all the through-composed darkness, so all Carsen is doing is taking this further and pushing the tone of the work towards its natural (as opposed to supernatural) conclusion. At the very least, it can't be faulted for shock impact.

Nor can it be really faulted for musical performance. Daniele Callegari strikes a suitable sombre tone that matches the tinta of the score and the minimal bleakness/blackness of the production, but it never pushes it into heavy overstatement. There's a great deal of light and shade in Verdi's score that belies the melodrama of the situations, and Callegari finds that balance well with the orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg. As is often the case with such a challenging work, the principal roles pose a few problems to Stephen Milling's Filippo II, for Andrea Carè's Don Carlo and for Elza van den Heever's Elisabetta di Valois, but they still without question get across the essence of the predicament in those confrontational moments that Verdi brilliantly creates. Tassis Christoyannis is an impressive duplicitous Posa, and Ante Jerkunica an imposing Grand Inquisitor. I was most impressed by Elena Zhidkova's Princess Eboli, who delivers a stunning "O don fatale" and manages to gather more sympathy for her predicament and actions than is more often the case.

Links: L’Opéra National du Rhin, Culturebox

Verdi - Il Trovatore (Opéra National de Paris, 2016)

Giuseppe Verdi - Il Trovatore 

L'Opéra National de Paris, 2016

Daniele Callegari, Àlex Ollé, Ludovic Tézier, Hui He, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Marcelo Álvarez, Roberto Tagliavini, Marion Lebègue, Oleksiy Palchykov, Constantin Ghircau, Cyrille Lovighi

L'Opéra National de Paris, Bastille - February 2016

When it comes to early Verdi operas it's often the case that the plot doesn't matter quite as much as the passion in which it is presented. There's a balance to be found of course between quite how far to push those passions and where to push them, but when it all comes together the effect is unlike what any other opera composer can achieve. Il Trovatore is one of the most difficult to balance drama and passion, but between the production and the singing, Àlex Ollé's 2016 Paris production proves to be one of the better attempts to harness and unleash the work's unquestionable power.

Àlex Ollé's production goes for a simple set of adaptable black monoliths that can be used for multipurpose application. Looking not unlike the Berlin Holocaust memorial, the pillars rise into and out of the ground at variable heights to represent steps, seats, high towers and trees, flattening when required into gravestones. Disappearing altogether, they also create doorways to hell from which ghostly figures emerge as Azucena relates the story of the burning of her mother for witchcraft.

There's no imposition of any concept here, the abstract designs rather being used simply to serve the playing of the drama while having a strong visual sensibility at the same time. Primarily however, the set design works in conjunction with the lighting to establish a distinctive mood. The dominant mood in Il Trovatore is a sombre one of dark and dire portents and there doesn't appear to be a great deal of variegation within that. Using mirrors and shifts of lighting however, the infinitely configurable set proves surprisingly adaptable to subtle changes of a measured tone that never lets it all spill over into hysterical melodrama.

Despite its propensity towards going over the top with a notoriously wild plot of misfortune and chance, and with highly-charged music to match, Il Trovatore however is itself not terribly dramatic. The characters tend to stand around and relate events in a story to others, emoting and declaiming quite a bit. Ollé's production doesn't really enliven this much or particularly add anything much in the way of character development. I'm not sure that having the Conte di Luna and his troops dressed in Nazi-like uniforms really helps either. Nor does Daniele Callegari's conducting of the Paris orchestra, although the musical performance is good - it just lacks the kind of Verdean fire you might like to find there.

By way of recompense however, the Paris Opera have assembled an excellent cast here. It's not perfect by any means - it's hard to get a uniformly great Verdi cast together - but everyone throws everything into the performances and they balance each other out well, if not always to the expected strengths of Il Trovatore. It's Ludovic Tézier's Conte di Luna and Ekaterina Semenchuk's Azucena who contribute most towards that tone of darkness and danger. Tézier is impressive and wonderfully lyrical in a way that gives the Count a suavely evil character. His breath control and ability to sustain his notes is not only technically impressive, it adds to that character. Semenchuk is a fire-breathing Azucena, again demonstrating marvellous control with a rich timbre.

Without underestimating the challenges of the tenor and soprano roles, Marcelo Álvarez and Hui He aren't quite as note perfect and show the strain of singing these roles a little more, but only a little. Hui He's lovely fullness of voice gives intensity to the role of Leonora, while Álvarez puts more effort into his acting performance than is usually the case, and it makes all the difference. Whether all the elements were perfect or not however, the stage direction that weighs and balances the tricky dynamic of Il Trovatore was clearly effective, with an incredible finale that gives you shivers, as it rightly should. Verdi's unforgettable melodies, some fine singing and an impact like that is all you want from Il Trovatore, and you get it here in Paris.

Links: L'Opéra National de Paris

Dukas - Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Strasbourg, 2015 - Webcast)

Paul Dukas - Ariane et Barbe-bleue

L’Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg - 2015

Daniele Callegari, Olivier Py, Lori Phillips, Marc Barrard, Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo, Aline Martin, Rocío Pérez, Gaëlle Ali, Lamia Beuque, Jaroslaw Kitala, Peter Kirk

Culturebox - 6 May 2015

There's no doubt that fairy tales have a certain power to unsettle and create a sense of unease, and it's usually in respect of a moral or a cautionary message. Clinically exploring the psychological underpinnings of those works in some modern productions, particularly the legend of Bluebeard in the operas by Dukas and Bartok, can however tend to take away somewhat from the dark mystery of the myth behind them. Olivier Py's production of Ariane et Barbe-bleue for L’Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg exposes some of the work's subtext without losing its edge of dark, mysterious suggestion, but there would appear to be other elements that Py wants to take from this distinctive working of the Charles Perrault fairy tale.

In as far as most modern revisions of Ariane et Barbe-bleue go, and indeed of Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle, the emphasis is often on the psychoanalytical aspect of female psychology and sexuality. Ariane's flirtation with the notorious Bluebeard is often less that of an innocent being delivered into the hands of a notorious suspected murderer of his previous wives, less a cautionary tale on the nature of searching for forbidden knowledge, and more as the freedom of a woman to probe, question and explore her own sexuality rather than submitting to a man's needs. In the age of '50 Shades of Grey', this question can be taken even further into sexual exploration and the dangers that lie within such experimentation.

It's hard therefore to go back and simply see the Bluebeard legend as nothing more than a fairy tale, but there ought to be another way to explore the themes of the work, and Maeterlinck's libretto, departing considerably from Perrault's version, offers opportunities to do that. The search for forbidden knowledge, as related in Ariane's determination to unlock the door to the Seventh Room despite the express instructions of her new husband, is only the starting point as far as Dukas's opera goes. In fact, Ariane is scarcely bothered to even look at the treasures contained in the other rooms, despite the Nurse being satisfied with the contents of these alone. Py likewise is hardly interested in this aspect in his production, the treasure that they contain being invisible as far as the audience are concerned.

All the audience can see are two women in a dark underground dungeon, walking though a single door into an equally dark, squalid bare room, with a little bit of falling glitter briefly illuminating the dual-level set. While the nurse has no capacity to imagine anything more precious than glittering stones, Ariane is far from impressed. The treasures she seeks are not precious jewels or even material objects, but something deeper - "Ce que j'aime est plus beau que les plus belles pierres", she tells the nurse at one stage, and shortly after this as they approach the 7th door - perhaps more significantly as far as the director's interpretation goes here - "Le bonheur que je veux ne peut vivre dans l'ombre". ("The happiness I am looking for cannot live in the shadows").

There is unquestionably more than a suggestion of sexual undercurrent to the meaning of these words, and that is certainly not underplayed in Py's direction. There is considerable full nudity on the stage, with each of Bluebeard's previous wives represented by naked dancers in the extended musical interlude sections of the work, as well as at other points throughout. Not murdered by Bluebeard in this version of the fairy tale, the women are nonetheless captives, enslaved, abused, raped, serving the master (Bluebeard also represented by a naked male dancer wearing a devil mask with horns) and his accomplices. All this takes place in eerie red light, in the darkness of the upper room, and in the woods surrounding Bluebeard's castle.

What is significant about the Maeterlick and Dukas version of the story, apart from the fact that the wives are not dead here (and that the wives are all named after heroines in other Maeterlinck plays, including a Mélisande), is that Ariane attempts to help them escape from the dungeon and allow them to see the light. When the nervous villagers see the women however, they finally rally to storm the castle and beat Bluebeard almost to death. Feeling sympathy for their captor, or perhaps just no longer capable of conceiving of any other life outside of that which they have experienced at the hands of their abuser, the women however each refuse to follow Ariane now that she has opened the path to their freedom.

For Py, an actor and theatre director who is well known for his political stance as well as his Catholicism, there are familiar themes in his treatment of this turn of events in Ariane et Barbe-bleue. According to the director himself - and without neglecting the sexual content of the work - the political questions that this gives rise to is his primary concern in the direction. When people are oppressed, they don't know how to respond to someone who wants to deliver them from their captivity - "Personne ne veut être délivré. Il vaut mieux se libérer soi-même". The need to throw off the chains needs to come from within. The dark rituals showing women liberating themselves from a Devil and looking toward the light however has more of a suggestion of Py's Christian outlook than any political message. The messages might be mixed - Py is happy to let much remain in the shadows - but the director's treatment is nonetheless typically strong, distinctive and supportive of the material.

Lori Phillips took on the role of Ariane for this production, replacing Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, who I've heard singing it before. It's a challenging role, demanding Wagnerian stamina and force at a very high pitch, and if the voice tires of such sustained singing it can waver and lose its dramatic force. For Phillips that comes around the scene of leading the captive women towards the light, but she never loses control and rallies through in the second part of the work. Elsewhere, the singing among the nearly entirely female cast is good, the variety of voices giving individual character to Bluebeard's wives. Daniele Callegari weaves a steady line between Wagner and Debussy in his conducting of the orchestra of the Opéra National du Rhin.

Links: Culturebox, L'Opéra National du Rhin

Verdi - I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata

Giuseppe Verdi - I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata

Teatro Regio di Parma

Daniele Callegari, Lamberto Puggelli, Roberto de Biasio, Michele Pertusi, Christina Giannelli, Dimitra Theodossiou, Roberto Tagliavini, Gregory Bonfatti, Jansons Valdis, Francesco Meli, Daniela Pini

Tutto Verdi, ARTE Live Web

Verdi's skill as a composer was clearly established by the time he came to write I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata in 1843, but he was also increasingly finding himself confined by public expectations, particularly after the success of Nabucco the previous year. In its first act alone, I Lombardi more or less sums just how adept Verdi was at establishing a dramatic situation, combining personal drama with political or nationalist sentiments, and driving it forward with a forceful musical accompaniment, but it also shows its constraints. As the opera develops, the quality of material that has largely been manufactured to fit conventional situations starts to wear thin, but there's nonetheless a lot of great Verdi to enjoy here.

Act I of I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata sets the tone well, if the tone you are striving for is Gothic melodrama overload. The Overture leads seamlessly into a prologue where a choir relates the backstory of a dispute - over a woman inevitably - that has driven two brothers apart. Pagano and Arvino are however about to be reconciled, Pagano welcomed back from exile. Despite appearances of contriteness however, Pagano wants vengeance and plans to abduct Viclinda, who is now Arvino's wife. The kidnap attempt is foiled, but it results in Pagano mistakenly killing his own father. The stage accordingly resounds with fervent prayers (Verdi controversially setting the 'Hail Mary' to music), dark curses ("Dreadful monster of Hell!") and dire pronouncements ("More than the fire and the serpents of Hell, terror consumes my flesh!").

It's fairly standard material for Verdi then, harking back even to his first opera Oberto, but it is certainly handled with greater aplomb here. What sets it apart from a standard family melodrama is the working of the material to incorporate wider political events and calls to duty. That comes with a passing announcement in Act I of preparations for a Crusade, which not only provides a wider sense of drama, but it gives the composer room to invoke some exotic colour in the musical arrangements when the location (and conveniently everyone involved) transfer over to Antioch and the Holy Land. The Eastern inflections feel a little forced, as does the obligato violin introduction to Act IV, and it's no surprise that Verdi attempts to reprise the success of the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves by introducing stirring choral sections at every possible juncture, but it is nonetheless masterfully realised. 

Unfortunately, the change of scenery does feel perfunctory, the questions of religion, war and differing beliefs coming secondary to the personal and romantic drama. There's an attempt to draw them together with the kidnapped Giselda falling in love with Oronte, causing the son of Acciano to consider converting to Christianity, but again, it feels more like Verdi, despite not being a religious man, is trying his hand at the writing of sacred music in all the prayers and devout sentiments expressed in the choral pieces. He does so marvellously, it must be said (if not quite at the level of the Requiem), contrasting hymns with the darkness of the murder, vengeance, parracide and the violent battles that take place. It's the kind of varied and colourful material that, with the addition of even more dramatic elements and ballets, made I Lombardi eminently suitable for rewriting in the Grand Opéra style for the Paris stage as Jérusalem.

Directed by Lamberto Puggelli, the staging of the work at the Teatro Regio di Parma (and released on DVD/BD as part of the Tutto Verdi collection) is almost completely period, traditional and theatrical in a way that suits the work. Conducted by Daniele Callegari, it's a very fine musical account of the work. Other than some strange choices of background projection images (Picasso's Guernica), the lighting and colouration reflects the colours of Verdi's score and the exotic locations. Sand, a few swords and armour scattered around and a huge wall at the back that takes on literal and metaphorical significance, create exactly the right kind of imagery and tone. The literalness is challenged only at the conclusion, where the City of God is invoked and the fallen rise, but it's perfectly in keeping with the heightened tone of the finale.

The singing is also of a very high standard with no weak elements at all, and there are plenty of interludes and scenes to extend the cast (Pirro, Acciano, Viclinda) and the colour of the work. Michele Pertusi is the baddie yet again playing Pagano/the hermit and does well to resist the kind of over-playing that some of the libretto seems to call for. Roberto de Biasio is a fine Arvino, though his is very much a lesser role than either Oronte or Giselda. Dimitra Theodossiou takes on the greater challenges as Giselda, including the fervent prayers and a near mad-scene at the feared death of Oronte. She's just tremendous, almost bringing the house down in Act III with Verdi's dramatic writing and arranging of events. Francesco Meli demonstrates a good Verdi tenor voice as Oronte, harmonising well with Theodossiou.  Not Verdi's finest work then, but with this kind of performance, fully realised and revealing of its merits.

Puccini - Madama Butterfly

Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly

Sferisterio Opera Festival Macerata, 2009

Daniele Callegari, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Raffaella Angeletti, Massimiliano Pisapia, Annunziata Vestri, Claudio Sgura, Thomas Morris, Enrico Cossutta, Enrico Iori, Nino Batatunashvili

Unitel Classica - C-Major

I know it’s one of the most performed and most popular crowd-pleasers in the opera repertoire, I’ve heard it and seen it performed any number of times (usually in a fairly traditional staging), I know that, derived from a piece of popular theatre by David Belasco, it’s emotionally manipulative, racially stereotypical, riddled with cliché with little cultural authenticity or ethnic realism – but I still won’t hear a bad word said about Madama Butterfly. Even in its most unadventurous and traditional of stagings Madama Butterfly just works. You might not buy the story for a second, but Puccini’s score makes you want to believe it is real, and he does so convincingly.

I won’t have anything bad said about Puccini either. Easy listening it may be, and unchallenging to some, but familiarity hasn’t made his work any less impressive for me, but rather every listening, every new production of his operas, reveals something new about the structure, the composition of his works, his ability to build a scene and hit you exactly the right way at exactly the right moment for maximum impact – and not necessarily in a deliberately calculated or manipulative way, but truthfully, with every sentiment perfectly balanced and weighted. Even now, with the availability on CD and DVD of a much wider range of composers and rare compositions, Puccini’s brilliance never wanes, but rather, one can see how he is the culmination of a long line of a tradition of Italian opera, who is able to draw from the lyricism of bel canto and combine it with the melodrama of Verdi, but also, in his later works, show an influence or awareness of Wagner in his approach to dramatic structuring. Puccini is undoubtedly one of the masters.

So perfect an opera is Madama Butterfly moreover, that it doesn’t need any modern revisionism or high concept staging. It already works on multiple levels – like all Puccini’s work – and if you want it to see it as a straightforward clash between Japanese and American culture that inevitably results in tragedy, then that’s more than enough for it to work successfully. There are other clashes, divisions and incompatibilities brought out in the opera – from the division of imperialism and isolation, destiny or self-determination, modernity versus tradition to simply the clash of ideals between men and women in respect of what each of them hope to gain from a relationship. All these ideas exist in Madama Butterfly, and some of them can be tweaked for emphasis in individual productions, but they are all there to be drawn out by the listener in even the most basic of stagings.

Directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi, this production for the Sferisterio Opera Festival in Macerata in 2009 isn’t exactly basic, but it is fairly traditional, aiming for a stylised Japanese setting with silk kimonos, bamboo and paper houses on wooden struts and a cherry tree in bloom. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly can bear such idealism, since in many respects, there is an unrealistic idealism in the minds of the two main protagonists, the American sailor B.F. Pinkerton and the young 15 year-old Japanese bride he has bought, Cio-Cio-Can, known as Butterfly – both however clearly have different ideas about what they expect to gain out of this arrangement. This production makes use of the interlude music after the Humming Song to introduce a dreamlike ballet sequence that depicts this idealised version of the relationship, perhaps in Butterfly’s mind as she sleeps awaiting the return of Pinkerton, and it’s a nice touch that works very well with this idea.

The other notable thing about this production is the open-air performance at the arena which is not traditionally theatre shaped. The long wings to the side of the stage however are well used for processional marches, as well as giving a greater sense of isolation of Cio-Cio-San from the world outside. The walls behind the stage however do add to the reverb on the voices, but not in any overly detrimental way. It does tend to lend a stridency to the singing of Raffaella Angeletti who can certainly hold the high notes as Butterfly, but doesn’t have the delicacy that is required in other passages. She does however deliver where she needs to. Massimiliano Pisapia is a robust and traditional Pinkerton, alternating between confidence and cowardice, between being arrogant and being loving. I liked the tone of his voice here throughout. Claudio Sgura’s Sharpless demonstrates good clear diction, but the microphone or the mixing gives his voice too much reverb, and both his voice and Angeletti’s can occasionally be a little piercing in places. Overall however, the singing is good and this is a fine production of Madama Butterfly, presented on a fine Blu-ray with a strong picture and – allowing for the slight extra reverb of the open-air location – good sound-mixes in PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1.