Hans Werner Henze - Das Floß der Medusa
Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam 2018
Ingo Metzmacher, Romeo Castellucci, Dale Duesing, Bo Skovhus, Lenneke Ruiten
ARTE Concert - 26 March 2018
Romeo Castellucci's productions seem to be well-suited to the drawing out the
allegorical aspects out of works that have a level of musical and
thematic abstraction that can be adapted to address current affairs and
contemporary subjects of interest, albeit often somewhat obliquely.
Hence we've seen Castellucci bring his unique individual touch to
Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, Bach's St Matthew's Passion, to Wagner's
Tannhäuser and Parsifal, but also managed to approach and make real
mythological themes in Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice. In all those works
there is also a very marked struggle between two different and almost
diametrically opposed forces, between life and death, the physical and
the spiritual, the word and the deed.
There's another
world very much concerned with strong divisions, in the space between
life and death, but also with a political undercurrent suggested but
never made explicit in Hans Werner Henze's Das Floß der Medusa (The Raft
of the Medusa). Again, the work is not a conventional work; an
oratorio rather than an opera, and again Castellucci strives not only to
find ways to illustrate the nature of the opposing forces at play and
the relationship between them, but find a modern allegorical way
to illustrate and give them a relatable contemporary relevance, and also
in some way that is difficult to define, turn the focus back on the
either self-reflexively on the theatrical nature of opera or even back
onto the audience.
The opposing forces in Henze's work
appear to be easily identifiable but in reality also hold complex layers
which are related to the time it was created in 1968. On a surface
level, Das Floß der Medusa is very obviously inspired by and named after
Théodore Géricault famous painting "Le Radeau de la Méduse", painted
not long after the notorious naval incident it depicts. In 1816, the
French naval frigate the Medusa was shipwrecked not far from its
destination, but still 108 miles off the coast of Senegal. The
governor, the captain and the ships officers took to the available
lifeboats, leaving 154 crew to put together a makeshift raft that was
initially towed, but then cut off and left to the mercy of the currents.
When the raft was picked up 13 days later, only 15 people survived on
the raft.
There's a clear commentary on the class
divisions between those privileged to be saved and those left to fend
for themselves in what turned out to be a horrendous journey, subjected
to deprivation, starvation, dehydration and cannibalism that caused an
enormous scandal. Théodore Géricault's painting, created in 1819,
depicting the moment that the survivors first spy and attempt to attract
the attention of the dot of a ship on the horizon, is painted like a
glorious memorial to those who suffered, defiantly provocative and
unflinching of the reality of what was endured by those on the raft of
the Medusa, and of a corrupt regime that allows such inequalities to
persist.
Similar political and social implications can be
found in Henze's oratorio, written in 1968 in another period of social
and political activism to which Henze was very much connected. Das Floß
der Medusa however doesn't make any overt reference to then
contemporary issues, depicting the journey and fate of those aboard the
raft of the Medusa strictly in historical terms. The nature of the
struggle between two vast forces is very much evident in the make-up of
the roles of the oratorio. Only one person is identified, Jean-Charles,
the mulatto at the head of the raft who is seen waving a red shirt at
the approaching rescue ship, the other two solo roles being Death and
Charon who acts as narrator and as a guide to lead the chorus on board
the raft from the side of the living to the dead.
Fairly
stark divisions then that draw the lines between the living and the
dead, between the privileged and the poor, but also the struggle that
each individual on the raft has to make, the "perspective of an end that
is separated only by courage or cowardice", which is how I think it is
described. Romeo Castellucci's innovative approach, using projection screens,
text and symbols, contributes a few other levels that bring out the
underlying political subtext of the work and place it in a modern day
context where the message is not overt, but hard to miss all the same.
Like his Orphée et Eurydice - and indeed his production of Moses und Aron - there's a large screen that places a barrier that highlights the
division between the message and the work, between the audience and the
performers.
Playing out in parallel to the story of the Raft of the Medusa, Castellucci projects a film made in present-day
Senegal, where a Muslim man, Mamadon Ndaye, is brought out to the exact
point where the Medusa was shipwrecked and left in the sea for four
days. Without having to make it explicit, there is evidently a
commentary to be made about the inequality between the prosperous
nations of the west and the poorer nations suffering disease, poverty,
war and torture, having to take to attempt to migrate and seek asylum on
flimsy boats on dangerous seas. It doesn't even have to be explicit,
the footage of a man alone out in the middle of an immense sea is
powerful enough, particularly when it is projected on top of the story of
what happened to the crew of the Medusa some 200 years previously.
But
of course, nothing is that simple with Castellucci. You might wonder
why Death wears a yellow waterproof jacket and why she operates a movie
camera that is trains on the audience (projecting back an empty theatre
towards the conclusion). Self referential elements, breaking down the
barrier between reality and theatre, also appear in the form of the
actual names of the chorus - seen bobbing in the background behind the
sea, sometimes as dummies - being projected on the screen, with their
date of birth and the date of their 'death' being the 23 March 2018 (the
date of the recording of this performance at the Dutch National Opera).
Géricault's painting is also referenced in reverse as a geometric
framing, while other unusual technological objects, neon poles and
circles (see Moses und Aron again) descend from above.
Whatever
it all means, it does nonetheless convey in a very abstract fashion the
experience of people and reality being pushed to its limits, to minds
becoming unhinged, of a world literally turning upside down. Visually
striking, very much unconventional and avant-garde in its theatrical
presentation with everything appearing immersed in the sea, when
combined with Henze's relentless flow, its the rises and falls into
violent outbursts meticulously controlled by Ingo Metzmacher, the
hypnotic siren-call of the chorus proves irresistible, drawing crew and
audience alike into its thrall. Lenneke Ruiten's extraordinary
performance singing Death makes the certain end feel just as
inescapable, which indeed, despite his rescue is also the fate of Bo Skovhus's determined Jean-Charles. It looks like Mamadon Ndiaye at least
makes it out of the water, but you are left in no uncertain terms with
as much an indication as it is possible to put on a stage of what must
be endured every day for the thousands who take to the seas to endure
similar horrors to the crew of the raft of the Medusa.
Links: DNO, ARTE Concert, YouTube
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lucio Silla
La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2017
Antonello Manacorda, Tobias Kratzer, Jeremy Ovenden, Lenneke Ruiten, Anna Bonitatibus, Simona Šaturová, Llse Eerens, Carlo Allemano
ARTE Concert - 9 November 2017
I'm all in favour of a bit of imaginative reinterpretation when it comes to Mozart's early opera serias. There are musical pleasures and much to admire in juvenile works like Lucio Silla, but without some creative direction the plots can be more than a little hard to digest. There's not a great deal in the way of psychological insight into human behaviour in Lucio Silla other than generalisations about the exercise of power and the strength of true love. There's little dramatic action and the sentiments and situations are drawn out to tortuous length in repetitive da capo arias. As my most recent experience of Lucio Silla at the 2017 Buxton Festival confirmed, it can be tough going if there's not a bit of thought put into making it relevant, interesting and engaging.
If it's radical adventurous reinterpretation and modernisation you are looking for, La Monnaie in Brussels is the place that is likely to not only provide it but push it to its limits and often succeed in revitalising works in the most unlikely of ways. Tobias Kratzer's production - modern inevitably - attempts to put the work in a context that we might be more familiar with than the historical events in Rome in 82 BC, because evidently, Lucio Silla, composed by a 16 year old Mozart in 1772 is much more than a history lesson; it has wider and usually somewhat more generalised points to make about the nature of power, love and conscience. Tobias Kratzer's job is to make that feel a bit more real and immediate.
There's a short video sequence that plays out during the overture, a montage of jump cuts that blend images of Kennedy, Putin, Trump and Kim Jun-Il mixed in with nightmarish and seemingly random elements that are going to play a larger role in the La Monnaie production - oysters, knives, blood, security cameras and cross-dressing dolls. Essentially, the impression it gives is one of power, indulgence and violence, and that certainly characterises the lifestyle of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, or Lucio Silla, or whichever modern face you want to put on him. Silla's petulant warning that "Whoever refuses to love me should fear me" certainly has a sinister resonance with some of those figures mentioned above.
The set itself exerts a suitably imposing presence. In the opening scene, Cecilio, the exiled Roman Senator, approaches a set of security gates patrolled by a guard dog protecting the grounds of Lucio Silla's residence. The majority of the subsequent drama - mainly between Silla and Giunia who the dictator has been trying to woo by letting her believe that Cecilio is dead - takes place within the elegantly fitted rooms of this mansion. The stage rotates to present different views of rooms, with plenty of visual variety to make up for the lack of drama. The graveyard where Cecilio and Giunia meet is at the back of the house, presenting another sinister dimension to the mood of the proceedings.
I say 'lack of drama' and that at least is usually the case with Lucio Silla. Not much happens apart from confrontations and declarations that never really come to anything, either on the part of Giunia and Cecilio's threats, or between Cinna and Celia whose loyalty to Silla conflicts with their own interests/love. Celia indeed has a strange role in this production, playing with dolls and a doll house, and she seems to have a rather disturbing idea of happy families. It's not always clear what the purpose of some of the ideas are, but clearly Kratzer wants to make sure that realise that all these feelings come from a very real place. Using security camera footage depicting physical abuse and even rape, the production really gets to the true nature of Silla's attempts to what is usually described rather more circumspectly as 'win' Giunia. The reality is a lot uglier than this phrase suggests.
None of this matters if you can't put on a musical performance that is just as engaging and invigorating, that puts a real human experience behind the rather manufactured drama. La Monnaie's cast fortunately are exceptionally good at keeping up with the driving rhythmic intensity of Antonello Manacorda's musical direction. More than anything you can put into modernising the production or even in any depth that you can seek to bring out of Mozart's musical score, it's conviction in the dramatic and the singing performances that count here. In opera seria, the sentiments around love are almost life or death matters and you really feel that here.
There are no opera seria mannerisms in the singing here, each of the performers are fully involved in the roles, projecting the challenging arias (and challenge of dramatic conviction) with extraordinary intensity. This is a production that is centered on Giunia and so particularly reliant on Lenneke Ruiten's performance to give a sense of something really meaningful being at stake. It's an outstanding performance, Ruiten utterly committed and engaging, impressively navigating the fiendish coloratura in arias like 'Ah se il crudel periglio'. Her intensity is matched however in Jeremy Ovenden's Lucio Silla, in Anna Bonitatibus's Cecilio and in Simona Šaturová's Cinna.
As much as the director tries to make this relatable in a modern-day context there is one aspect of human behaviour from ancient Roman times that proves impossible to 'translate'. It may be true that Lucius Cornelius Sulla had a crisis of conscience, regretted his actions and stepped down from power for the greater good, but it's hard to imagine Trump or any other modern politician doing the decent thing in the present day. If La Monnaie production does no more than gives pause to consider the implications of what that says about us as a civilised society today, then it's still made a significant point.
Leoš Janáček - The Cunning Little Vixen
La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2017
Antonello Manacorda, Christophe Coppens, Andrew Schroeder, Lenneke Ruiten, Sara Fulgoni, John Graham-Hall, Alexander Vassiliev, Vincent Le Texier, Yves Saelens, Mireille Capelle, Eleonore Maguerre, Maria Portela Larisch, Logan Lopez Gonzalez, Marion Bauwens, Kris Belligh
ARTE Concert - March 2017
In theory I like the way that La Monnaie actually take the animals out of their 2017 production of Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen, since the anthropomorphised creatures of the opera are really meant to teach us about human life. Yes, I'm aware that this seems to go against the whole purpose of the work being an allegory in the first place, but the danger with The Cunning Little Vixen is that the baby animals either make the work too cutesy trying to talk down to a younger audience or risk missing the point entirely. The Cunning Little Vixen can be a good opera for young children, but making the opera suitable for that particular audience can involve some amount of compromise.
In practice however, director Christophe Coppens' modernisation and de-animalisation of the work does also involve some measure of compromise with the original intentions of the work, to the extent that it almost - but not quite - distorts the meaning of the work; if you can even figure out what it is trying to achieve. In recognition perhaps that this version doesn't present the work entirely the way that Janáček intended, and does involve some reworking of the libretto (in the translation at least, but not in the actual sung text), the La Monnaie production of The Cunning Little Vixen is prefaced by the title Foxie!
It's not long before you recognise how much the original storyline is distorted in 'Foxie!'. The Forester in this version is something of a security guard for a school, with monitors in his office to keep an eye on the children going wild outside on a summer evening. The groups of children have their own little groups and cliques that match the creatures of the animal kingdom. Foxie is a young red-head girl phoning home for her 'Mami', but unable to get through, so the Security guy takes her across the way to a cafe. When he sees that Foxie still hasn't been picked up and is somewhat in distress, he brings her back to the control room and leads her to a backroom. Then it all goes a bit David Lynch.
The immediate problem that tends to go against the grain of the original to a worrying degree is that it changes the Forester capturing a fox into what looks like a case of child abduction and molestation. Foxie is introduced not into a yard with hens and a cockerel lording it over them, but some kind of surreal brothel from which she eventually escapes. This is definitely not a 'kiddie' version of The Cunning Little Vixen. Arguably, you could wonder whether that is not the underlying context of Janáček's version, which does indeed have a sexual undercurrent that is often played upon in other productions, but it still doesn't feel comfortable in this presentation. But I don't think it's meant to be comfortable, and Janáček's opera certainly doesn't offer any illusions about the harshness and cruelty of nature, and the nature of men.
While some of the imagery is indeed Lynchian, looking like it is a nightmare taken from 'Inland Empire', it's used to suggest a conflict in generational outlooks rather than attempt to probe split personalities or a mind in conflict with itself. There is also something of a Stefan Herheim feel to the production that is similar to his treatment of Rusalka at La Monnaie, where the water nymph was also a prostitute in an similarly elaborate street-scene production. The key difference however is that Herheim uses such techniques to delve beneath the surface of the fantasy to attempt to probe the underlying source or psychology of the story, either from what it tells us about the origins of the fairy-tale or what it tells us about the author and composer. In The Cunning Little Vixen the allegory is already there to allow us to explore and consider the underlying meaning, so any attempt by Christophe Coppens to change that risks altering its message.
But perhaps that's for a good reason. If there is a way of making sense of this production it's perhaps viewing the older Foxie as someone who is being persecuted by society for living an alternative lifestyle. That certainly is one notable change that is made in the subtitles, when Foxie accuses the poacher Harašta of wanting to kill her simply because she is different. That works with Foxie's back-to-nature fondness for the woods, living outside of conventional society. There also seems to be an emphasis on how her unconventional relationship with Goldie scandalises the neighbours, since there is little attempt here to make Goldie a male fox. You have to wonder whether the composer didn't intentionally score the role for a female to provoke just such a scandalous pairing, so there is validity in the production taking this path. The rather heavy petting that goes on between the two women does push this further than you might expect, so definitely not for the kids this one.
The question of how they produce cubs - such an essential element of the cycle of life that is the central theme of the work - is neatly covered by Foxie going on to become a gym teacher for a sports team of young girls. And it is all about allowing the younger generation to live free from the shackles of the tradition and morality of the previous generation, something that doesn't always come across in a more literal adaptation. Whether you find this all as an awkward attempt to fit an unwieldy, contradictory and often inexplicable concept on top of a work that has no real need to have any additional levels added to it, or whether you view the concept as having something meaningful to say about social change and tolerance being a necessary part of the cycle of life from one generation to the next, it does come up with a number of clever ways to make it work together, even if it takes it all a little further than Janáček might have intended.
The unconventional production certainly doesn't interfere in any way with the quality of the singing and musical performance. If anything, it gives the performances a youthful freshness and an extra edge. The role of Vixen/Foxie is sung exceptionally well by Lenneke Ruiten - one of the best performances I've heard of this role in recent times. The Forester is a rather more ambiguous figure in this production, but even there Andrew Schroeder makes it work and even come across as quite touching. There are no weak points anywhere else, all of the roles sung tremendously well. Antonello Manacorda's conducts the orchestra of La Monnaie and it's a vibrant, detailed and sensitive reading of the score that retains the rhythmic pulse and also recognises the folk elements of Janáček's brilliant, hypnotic score.
Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, ARTE Concert
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Così fan tutte
Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2016
Louis Langrée, Christophe Honoré, Lenneke Ruiten, Kate Lindsey, Sandrine Piau, Joel Prieto, Nahuel di Pierro, Rod Gilfry
ARTE Concert - 8th July 2016
Categorised as an opera buffa and based on a rather frivolous concept, there is unquestionably a darker side to the morals and attitudes expressed Mozart's Così fan tutte and you don't necessarily need to view from an 'enlightened' modern perspective to see it that way. It's true that most recent productions have tended to put the emphasis on the twisted nature of the game play and the sexual politics of Lorenzo da Ponte's libretto, but few go as far as Christophe Honoré in this new production for the 2016 Aix-en-Provence festival.
Surprisingly a very popular work with film directors at Aix (Patrice Chereau and Abbas Kiarostami have both done productions of this opera for the festival in the past), the dark ambiguities of Così fan tutte and its 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' machinations have also been explored by Michael Haneke for the Teatro Real in Madrid. French filmmaker Christophe Honoré's take on the subject is a distinctive one, where the setting of Ethiopia in 1930 under the control of Mussolini and the actions of the Gugliemo and Ferrando as Fascist soldiers immediately suggests a turn not only towards a dark treatment but a particularly unpleasant one.
Even as the overture is played out, we see Gugliemo and Ferrando sexually harass and abuse the native Ethiopian women. It's a matter of power and conquest and Honoré clearly intends to draw a parallel between the actions and attitudes of racist soldiers with men's attitudes towards women as they are viewed in Così fan tutte. The men's friend Don Alfonso - who might be an official from the administrative or diplomatic corps in the country - tells them not to be fooled by airs of sophistication and pretence of purity in the white women from their own race. He's convinced that at heart, their own girlfriends, the sisters Flordiligi and Dorabella, are no better than the black native women that they casually frequent and assault.
Well, to all appearances they are not regarded or treated much differently, although both men of course would deny it. They certainly don't accept Don Alfonso's proposition that the women would ever let themselves be seduced by inferior black men and are prepared to bet on it. Pretending to be called off to the front with the army, Gugliemo and Ferrando return disguised as black foreigners to put Flordiligi and Dorabella to the test. Their maid Despina, who is in on the game and has a thing for the native men herself, tells the women that they are well off without their lovers, who are probably unfaithful to them with the native women (and how!), so they should take advantage of the two striking dark-skinned gentlemen who have just appeared declaring undying love for them.
As much of a false equivalence as it might seem to compare the conquest and rape of the native population of an African colony with the power that men exercise over women, and do it moreover in the context of a comic opera by Mozart, this is indeed the crux of the director's argument in relation to the work. Does it stand up to scrutiny? Well, it sounds like a tough sell, but it's no harder to swallow than Mozart and Da Ponte's play on male and female relationships, and in practice it proves to be much more convincing than the awkward contrivances of the comic plot. If you've ever felt any uneasiness at the attitudes expressed in Così fan tutte, well, this production only amplifies that feeling. Surprisingly however, not only is Mozart and Da Ponte's work able to sustain this extreme interpretation, but it actually thrives with a bit of added realism.
Christophe Honoré ensures that every element of the production is geared towards making it real and keeping it in touch with the underlying premise of the opera. Alban Ho Van's sets depicting the exterior and interior of an army garrison in an Ethiopian town are strikingly realistic, enhanced by the fine use of lighting. Directed for the screen it even looks cinematic with the camera angles used and a widescreen CinemaScope presentation. The setting is only as good and as credible as the action that takes place within it and Honoré's direction is outstanding. The singing isn't perhaps as virtuosic as you might expect, sounding slightly underpowered in pretty much every role, but the characterisation and acting performances are thoroughly convincing, and even a little troubling.
Honoré is a great film director, and his experience in working with actors shows and really pays off as far as the ambitions of this production are concerned. With an earthy feel to the period instruments of the Freiburger Barockorchester under the direction of Louis Langrée and committed singing performances, this is a Così full of heat, passion and wild eroticism and certainly the most convincing production I have ever seen for this particular Mozart opera. As horrendous and abusive as the treatment often is, the director nevertheless brings much more to Così fan tutte than just a subversive little twist that sets out to shock. Rather it supports and emphasises the importance of Mozart and Da Ponte's themes by pushing them to their limits and seeing how well they stand up.
Surprisingly, for all Così fan tutte's reputation as a comedy, it copes well with the added weight of Christophe Honoré's direction and it even succeeds in revealing other dimensions. It shows the depth of passion and a revelling in the pleasures of the flesh that Mozart and Da Ponte could only suggest, but it also shows the abuse that be inflicted when these forces are misused or misplaced, and that a happy ending is not guaranteed. The important message it has for us however is that we are all free to love whoever we choose and that we are all equally empowered by love. Men and women, black or white, we're all the same - Così fan tutti.
Links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, ARTE Concert
Ambroise Thomas - Hamlet
La Monnaie - De Munt, Brussels 2013
Marc Minkowski, Olivier Py, Vincent Le Texier, Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo, Stéphane Degout, Till Fechner, Lenneke Ruiten, Rémy Mathieu, Henk Neven, Gijs Van der Linden, Jérôme Varnier
France TV Culturebox, La Monnaie - Internet Streaming
It's fairly evident that Ambroise Thomas's opera version of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' is far from faithful to the original. As I've noted myself elsewhere, while it starts out with good intentions it quite literally loses the plot half-way through and becomes more a case of 'Scenes inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet'. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and indeed if there were any way of conveying the essence of 'Hamlet' as music theatre, it's probably best achieved in the style of a 5-Act Grand Opera. Much depends however on the stage direction being strong enough to make up for the liberties Barbier and Carré take with the plot and characterisation. Directed by Oliver Py, La Monnaie's production takes a few liberties itself but manages nonetheless to make a strong case for the work.
Shakespeare purists might balk at the idea, but for Hamlet to fit into a grand opera template, it requires considerable pruning and some reordering of events. There's no ghostly apparition on the battlement of Elsinor castle at the opening here, for example. That regular feature of the grand opera tradition is saved to be employed for effect later when Hamlet himself witnesses it in the second scene of Act I. Before that we have a huge joyous celebration with chorus for the wedding of Claudius to Gertrude, a scene that is in marked contrast with Hamlet's gloomy disposition and his speech about the inconstancy of women. We also have a love scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, and a display of friendship between Hamlet and Laertes. Then we finally get the big scene where Hamlet learns from the ghost of his dead father of the deed most foul committed by his brother.
That's a great way to compositionally reorder the scenes for an opera, introducing all the characters, displaying a wide variety of emotions with arias and duets in a standard series of numbers and set-pieces, achieving the necessary impact without straying too far away from the intentions of the drama (even if the 19th century French language isn't quite as rich as Shakespeare's Elizabethan verse). It's particularly effective in Oliver Py's staging of the work (the 2013 revival of the production directed here by Andreas Zimmermann). Py's regular collaborator, set and costume designer Pierre-André Weitz, provides an ingenious subterranean labyrinthine construction of revolving and shifting staircases that resembles something out of an MC Escher puzzle, an impossible architecture of dark recesses that reflect the mindset of the characters.
All the characters are a mass of neuroses here, not just Hamlet - although is always remains possible that everything we see and how it plays out is just a reflection of Hamlet's disturbed mind. When we first encounter him in this production it's descending a staircase while cutting lacerations into his own chest and arms. Deeply affected by the death of his father, he's prepared to see conspiracy everywhere in the world, in the murder of his father. Even Ophelia and his mother's attempts to lighten his disposition are met with suspicion and mistrust. Hamlet however, particularly in this production, seems to be marked by a sense of futility to change events. His direction of the drama of the travelling players can be seen in this light, either an attempt to make the world and events conform to his dark personal view or as an indirect and impotent revolt against it.
Perhaps reflecting the state of Hamlet's troubled mind, Claudius and Gertrude are first seen stumbling down the same staircase as Hamlet, unsure of their footing. During the apparition of the ghost of his father, Claudius stumbles onto the stage in a drunken stupor, Gertrude laughs wantonly and Ophelia appears surrounded by shirtless men wearing masks who also torment her (or seduce her) during her death scene. There's plenty of room for such ambiguities in Hamlet, and Py makes the most of them without going too far overboard. Well, not often anyway. There are certainly some Freudian issues that can be played upon in the play, but some might find an entirely naked Hamlet being bathed by his mother before wrestling her to the ground and then dunking her under the water a little bit pointless.
As conventional as the arrangements often are (barring the unusual employment of a saxophone solo in the travelling players scene), the subject is nonetheless well handled by Ambroise Thomas, who matches the music and the numbers with the tone of the drama. As if the saxophone is some kind of indication however, things start to go a little wayward following the reenactment of Claudius' crime in 'The Murder of Gonzago'. It's as if after everything has been brought out into the open and laid bare the characters have nothing more to do but recoil at the horror of it all. Any further progression of the plot kind of grinds to a halt while the subsequent numbers are played out in the final acts. There's a disproportionate amount of time given over for example to Ophelia's mad scene, evidently to fill-out the soprano role, but also to satisfy the French mania of the period for this character.
Stéphane Degout has some uncommon challenges when singing the role of Hamlet, including singing a major aria entirely naked, but he copes admirably. Degout is making Hamlet very much his own much the same way that he is with Pelléas, singing these key French baritone roles with the required delicate lyric romanticism underpinned with a commanding strength of purpose. The same could be said about Vincent Le Texier's command of key bass roles in the French repertoire, bringing depth and character to Claudius here in the same way that he tackles Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande. Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo is not so strong, a little wobbly in places, but she has a good voice and likewise copes well with some of the challenges of the staging, like having her head shoved into bathwater.
Key to the success of the production as a whole however, considering the emphasis that her character has in this version of Shakespeare's work, is the wonderful performance from Dutch soprano Lenneke Ruiten as Ophelia. Her French enunciation is excellent, her delivery flowing, her high notes expressive and well pitched. Equally important is the conducting of Marc Minkowski which brings a dramatic consistency to the work. This is perhaps achieved with some judicious cuts to the ballets and other excesses (I'm not familiar with the uncut version of the work), but it helps that there are no obvious divisions between the acts, the drama allowed to flow from scene to scene through the fine set designs, with the instrumental interludes used to connect and retain the mood.
Recorded at La Monnaie-De Munt on the 13th and 17th December 2013, Hamlet can be viewed for a limited time via on-line streaming from France Television's Culturebox site or through the La Monnaie streaming service. There are no English subtitles available on any of these platforms, but there are also no location restrictions on viewing.
