Adwan, Moody, Van der Harst - Orfeo and Majnun (Aix, 2018)

Moneim Adwan, Howard Moody, Dick van der Harst - Orfeo and Majnun

Festival d'Aix en Provence, 2018

Bassem Akiki, Airan Berg, Martina Winkel, Loay Srouji, Nai Tamish Barghouti, Yoann Dubruque, Judith Fa, Sachli Gholamalizad

OperaVision - 8 July 2018

The Aix-en-Provence Festival is known for its adventurous approach to new opera works and one of the finest and most surprising revelations was bringing Arabic opera to the stage in 2016, with Palestinian composer Moneim Adwan's Kalîla wa Dimna. There's always the danger that such ventures will be seen as cross-cultural tokenism and fail to make a wider impact, but if that's the case it's through no failing of the quality of the pieces. Nor is it any failing of the Aix festival, who I was delighted to see commission a new piece with Adwan, a composer of real talent and musical storytelling ability who brings a colourful and invigorating freshness to the world of contemporary opera.

While the Arabian folk fable character of Adwan's Kalîla wa Dimna is very much present in this new work, Orfeo and Majnun however is a collaborative opera between Moneim Adwan and two other western composers Howard Moody and Dick van der Harst. Whether the collaboration is a genuine attempt to further experiment with form and composition, or whether it's an attempt to make the unconventional Arabian instrumentation more accessible to an opera audience is debatable, but there is at least a sense that the cross-cultural collaboration is compromised towards tokenism in its presentation.

The story itself for example is not just one story but two blended together to show a common theme across cultures. From the Greek tradition there is Orpheus and Eurydice, a popular subject for western opera from its very beginnings, since it puts music and poetry together as an expression of human endeavour and ability to strive to overcome seeming insurmountable challenges, where love sets itself against death with the journey of Orpheus to Hades. There's a similar treatment of those themes in the ancient Arabic story of Layla and Qays. When Layla is forbidden to marry her true love Qays, the young man becomes 'Majnun' (a crazy man), writing poetry that charms the animals, but their love endures and Layla remains faithful to her love until death.

The connection between the two stories lies on a deeper level of two lovers who find a distance between them that cannot be bridged. The commonality is made clear in a number of overlapping scenes, Layla walking a distance behind Qays in one scene while Eurydice follows Orpheus out of the Underworld, but the distance of those few steps is nonetheless a huge gulf. Orpheus's song charms Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog of Hades, and Qays likewise writes poetry that enchants and draws animals to him. Love, represented in the abstract by music and singing (opera) is the unifying force in both cases that enables man to exceed his human boundaries and be capable of something greater, something written in the stars.

Despite their commonalities, bringing them together creates something of an Ariadne auf Naxos situation, another imperfect matching of life, myth and art that was also part of this year's Aix programme. While the stories should come together naturally, there is however a clear division between the eastern and western traditions in Orfeo and Majnun that is immediately marked by the instrumentation and melody, each composer seeming to work on their own alternating section of the work. If you listen closely however there is some crossover of harmonies in the sections where Layla and Eurydice meet and where the stories overlap, but it rarely does the piece really feel like it has a single voice of its own.

Obviously this is inevitable to some extent, as musical composition is rarely a collaborative process in the opera or classical tradition, but the narrative doesn't help matters. Martina Winkel's libretto does unfortunately tells too much rather than let the story and the music fill in the detail. It goes as far as including a narrator who explains the moral and the message throughout on the common power of myth just in case you don't get it, as well as providing a bridge between the two stories that as a consequence remain largely separate.

Where it might have come together better also is in the stage production. Directed by Airan Berg and Martina Winkel, you can't say that they don't make every effort to provide a strong visual presentation that attempts to integrate the stories. There are abstract projections, giant life-size puppets of the animals, figures with animal masks, puppet shows and shadow plays. The only thing lacking is the character direction and singing, which mainly consists of standing singing with heartfelt expressions and some dance movements/yoga poses that don't really express the underlying sentiments terribly well.

The need to ensure that everyone understands the cross-cultural importance of the work also extends to the make-up of the chorus and the orchestra, which combines traditions as well as amateur and professional singers and musicians. While the chorus is mixed age, the predominance of children's voices does make it sound like a children's story, particularly when aligned with the moralising narrative. The international composition of the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra however are superb, creating a wonderful range of sounds and melodies under the direction of Bassem Akiki, navigating the changing moods and styles well.

I think it's important that the Aix-en-Provence festival (and La Monnaie in Brussels who are one of the co-producers here) continue to support innovation in contemporary opera and seek outreach to a wider international audience of all ages, but the creators of Orfeo and Majnun, Airan Berg and Martina Winkel, seem to feel it is within their remit to make the cross-cultural message what the opera is about and it feels a little patronising. Again however, even if it highlights the contrast in approach more than commonalities, there is much to admire in what Moneim Adwan's Arabic melodies and storytelling have to bring to help diversify the language of contemporary opera.

Links: Festival d'Aix-en Provence, OperaVision

Adwan - Kalîla wa Dimna (Aix-en-Provence, 2016)

Moneim Adwan - Kalîla wa Dimna

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2016

Zied Zouari, Olivier Letellier, Ranine Chaar, Moneim Adwan, Mohamed Jebali, Reem Talhami, Jean Chahid

ARTE Concert - 10th July 2016

It's great that the Aix-en-Provence festival seeks every year to extend the reach of opera not only through challenging new looks at familiar works, but in their efforts to ensure that the performances are broadcast on radio and TV throughout the world. What is just as important is that they also commission the writing of new opera and works for younger audiences, and not always in a style that you would recognise as belonging to the musical language of contemporary music and opera, but also works that derive from folk and the traditional music of other cultures.

That involves a certain amount of risk taking and the results might not always meet expectations. Although last year Ana Sokolović's Svadba was worthy and generally well-received, personally I found the subject of the preparations for a young girl's wedding and its treatment using no instruments but just women's voices to be lacking in depth and not best suited to the operatic medium. Moneim Adwan's Kalîla wa Dimna likewise has an unconventional approach to its musical style and instrumentation - at least in terms of what we are used to accepting as opera - but it is much more successful in its presentation and impact.

Partly that's because the original story of Kalîla wa Dimna has a strong pedigree; an almost two thousand year history as one of the most famous of Arabian fables. It's the simplicity and the purity of the storytelling that it is important to get across, the nature of the telling itself as important as the message it has for us, and the operatic medium has all the necessary tools to do this better than most. Palestinian composer Moneim Adwan's Kalîla wa Dimna manages to achieve this perfectly through a small arrangement of instruments that are capable of tremendous depth of expression in their interaction, and through the extraordinary and not typically operatic use of the singing voice.

Dimna is an ordinary man, one of many courtiers, but he has dreams of making an impression and becoming a confidante of the king - a butterfly who wants to be an eagle, as the narrator, his sister Kalîla describes him. And the king does have worries. Cut off from the outside world by a protective mother, the king confides to Dimna his fears of the people rebelling, pointing to what he sees as threats in the words of the writing of the charismatic poet Chatraba. When Dimna introduces him to the poet, the king's eyes are opened to the troubles of the world and his people. Unhappy with being replaced in the king's confidence however, Dimna convinces the king that Chatraba is weaving magic in his words to suggest that it is their ruler is to blame for their troubles.

The moral of the story is made clear using animals (the jackal is one of the main predators evoked here) that are traditional to the story's telling, but the narrator also brings in poetic metaphors to warn of the dangers of the outcome of what transpires - "If you burn a vine, a thousand flowers will bloom in its place" or "If you kill a poet, he will be reborn in a thousand songs". The poet Chatraba also evokes the power of words and song, and through them the idea of freedom of expression - "Let's raise our voice so that it can carry our ideas far", he says, but the king fears that "Cries of anger always begin from a song".

It's the kind of idea and language that works well in opera if it can be matched to a correspondingly powerful use of music and the music composed by Moneim Adwan is very persuasive. Using a small group of five musicians playing in the Arabic form rather than the traditional western style, this is nonetheless wholly operatic in treatment and in expression. The string instruments include an Arabian qanun which gives an exotic edge to what mainly feels like continuo, but the interaction with violin, cello and percussion give it a more expressive dimension. A clarinet provides a more lyrical layer on top of the rhythms, but the other instruments are highlighted and provide solo accompaniment for additional emotional expression.

When it comes to emotional expression, the strength of Kalîla wa Dimna lies in its appropriate and remarkable use of the singing voice. Kalîla's short narrated interludes are in French, but elsewhere nearly all of the singing is in the traditional Arabic folk style of delivery. It's a style of singing that is every bit effective in its colour and range as the more traditional operatic style. It has a inherent lyricism and storytelling character of its own, but it is also capable of heightening individual sentiments in declamation, as well as finding dramatic drive and harmony in exchanges between characters that complement and weave together.

Directed by Olivier Letellier, the staging at Aix-en-Provence is a marvel of directness and simplicity, one that is totally in line with the nature and expression of the work itself. All the singing performances are impressive, particularly from the composer Moneim Adwan who sings the role of Dimna himself, the singing style allowing for individual expression and dramatic nuance. The same can be said of the musicianship from the small ensemble under the direction of violinist Zied Zouari, which carries the intent of the story and at the same time its sense of wonder. Kalîla wa Dimna might not be opera in the familiar sense, but it is opera in the purest sense.

Links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, ARTE Concert