Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande
Komische Oper, 2017
Jordan de Souza, Barrie Kosky, Jens Larsen, Nadine Weissmann, Dominik Köninger, Günter Papendell, Nadja Mchantaf
OperaVision - 15 October 2017
Proving that he has more than one trick up his sleeve, Barrie Kosky's production of Pelléas et Mélisande for the Komische Oper in Berlin glides along in a minimalist design production on a reduced stage with practically no props at all. Recognising that Pelléas et Mélisande tends to respond better to minimal intervention, Kosky is able even to remove all the familiar symbolism from the work and anything to do with nature, other than perhaps the most important aspect of it as far as this opera is concerned - human nature. But it's not all take, and Kosky has other ways of giving something else to the work that does succeed in bringing out its essential characteristics.
Primarily however, as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing anyone can do that can bring anything more to Pelléas et Mélisande than Debussy's music, and the real success of this production lies in the ravishing performance that Jordan de Souza, the new Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin, brings out of the house orchestra. The shimmering beauty and flow of the work is all there, but that suggests hazy impressionism and actually there is beautiful clarity and detail brought out of individual instruments and groups of instruments here, as well as a fully expressed dynamic - particularly to the instrumental interludes - that occasionally made it feel like you were hearing passages for the first time.
Listening to the conductor talk about his approach to the work in the interval feature, it's clear that he has a profound understanding of the workings and merit of Debussy's score, but I think it also comes out that there is a strong collaboration with Barrie Kosky that ensures that there is a strong connection between the orchestra pit and what takes place on the stage. Kosky is able to reflect the dynamic in the musical performance on the stage, and the means by which he achieves that - within the context of a minimal set design - is very interesting indeed.
Kosky cites Edgar Allan Poe's blend of horror and eroticism as a reference for Pelléas et Mélisande and it's an unusual but valid comparison. Rather than head in the direction of gothic melodrama however, Kosky takes a much less obvious route to express those characteristics. The set throughout is nothing more than a recessed set of framing borders that reduce the stage down into a claustrophobic cave. The oppressiveness of the set becomes more apparent later in the work when there are more characters all crammed together at the back of the stage, where a revolving panel brings characters onto and off the stage.
Elsewhere, the characters enter and leave by gliding around on the revolving sections of the stage. They never seem to walk on or walk off, but once on the stage are able to move around a little more freely, except when they can't; which amounts to the kind of volition they have and control over their actions and lives at any given time. In terms of movement and position, everything is relational to the geometric patterns of the stage, and within that human nature in Pelléas et Mélisande is something of a chaotic element, even as it flows gracefully in time with Debussy's score.
It's in such subtle contrasts that Kosky seeks to bring out the gothic horror of Pelléas et Mélisande, but it's not entirely hands-off, and there are subtle shifts of emphasis that are applied. Some feel random and designed to do nothing more than jar with your impressions and preconceptions (such as Mélisande swallowing her ring rather than drop it into the Blind Man's Well); others however are perfectly acceptable interpretations of the suggestive and ambiguous undercurrents that lie within the work and which exert such fascination. Sometimes Kosky works with the moods and other times against them, just to see how the opera responds, and it does prove to be extraordinarily responsive to the slightest of touches and shading. Pelléas et Mélisande is that kind of work.
Despite conventional psychological exploration being largely replaced by suggestion and symbolism, there is actually a great deal of leeway in how these enigmatic characters can be interpreted and in how they interact. While it's often possible for Golaud to be the central figure of the work and even a sympathetic character, Kosky directs Günter Papendell towards a more aggressive Golaud in this production. He manhandles Mélisande quite brutally and kicks her when she is pregnant, soon after Arkel is seen creepily pawing over her. The suggestion is that Mélisande later miscarries in a bloody manner that is far from the quiet deathbed conclusion you usually find in this opera.
Golaud and Arkel's behaviour is contrasted with a Pelléas and Mélisande who play up to nature of their childlike games ('jeux d'enfants'), or at least initially. Whether that develops into something more erotically charged or whether that is a projection of Golaud's fevered mind is always an ambiguous matter, and it remains so here even as it is vividly depicted. The singing performances are outstanding, distinct and expressive, with a similar clarity and precision that can be found in the orchestration. When you hear the voices and music performed in this way, the miraculous unique quality of Debussy's approach to opera is all the more evident and impressive.
Links: Komische Oper, OperaVision
Aribert Reimann - Medea
Komische Oper, Berlin - 2017
Steven Sloane, Benedict Andrews, Nicole Chevalier, Anna Bernacka, Nadine Weissmann, Ivan Turšić, Günter Papendell, Eric Jurenas
Opera Platform - 21 May 2017
Revived for this new production at the Komische Oper in Berlin, Aribert Reimann's Medea still sounds as wildly demented as it did when it received its world premiere in Vienna in 2010. Its harsh dissonance hasn't become any easier to listen to over the last seven years, but the purpose of the composer's choice of this particular classical Greek myth has certainly become clearer in how it reflects certain vital aspects of our modern society and how people behave when pushed to their limits.
For good reason then, Reimann's work is one that pushes well beyond the boundaries of tonality. It opens quietly, but it doesn't stay that way for long, building into a tumultuous cacophony that reflects Medea's utter desperation and anger by the end of Act I. The second half of Medea sounds like something has been broken, the music limping along with occasional blasts of brass and squealing strings, the voice of Medea straining to hold herself together, struggling between anger and supplication, between love and the desire for revenge.
It's not easy listening, but then it's not easy watching someone's life collapse in front of you. Medea's life might just fall apart within the framework of a Greek myth or an opera, but the challenge is to make this feel real, relevant and important in the world today. Somehow though, even though the musical force of the work made a striking impression on its own terms, it was hard to see how it could be applied to real life when it received its premiere in 2010. The composer, if I recall, made some remarks about Jason's social climbing ambitions and about the work being about wanting to make a better life for yourself, but it hardly seemed like a matter of pressing social relevance.
In 2017 however that has changed completely and, regardless of what Reimann's intentions might have been and whether or not there was an element of Delphic prophesy in his vision, the refugee crisis and its handling by our governments in the years in-between throws a different light on the work. The fear and mistrust of foreign ways that has been generated and the growing danger of terrorism surely couldn't be more obvious and relevant to the German public at the Komische Opera in Berlin, or indeed to any European or American audience. Whether prophetic or not, it's the undoubted acuity of Reimann's adaptation of Franz Grillparzer's version of the Euripides' tragedy and the intense musical accompaniment that underlines the human nature of Medea's dilemma and treatment with a terrible degree of truth and conviction.
Medea and Jason are indeed refugees, fleeing their homeland of Colchis, bringing fear and suspicion along with them to Corinth. Creon is already wary, having heard of Medea's reputation as a practitioner of the dark arts. When a messenger from the Amphictyonic League appears and adds further fuel to the fire by describing how Medea used spells and potions to murder King Pelias, he is painting her as a terrorist and warning that it would be unwise to let these refugees into the country. With a difficult choice to make, since Jason and Medea have children, Creon agrees to give Jason shelter, but banishes Medea and offers his daughter Creusa as a new mother for them.
Well, we've also seen the fate of the children of refugees caught up in the political disputes and war-mongering of governments, and with that in mind it's hard not to feel on an intensely visceral level Medea's desperation and how this leads to the death of her children. Reimann's Medea is not a political statement or overtly anti-war treatment of the Greek tragedy, but as someone who lived through the allied destruction of Germany during the Second World War (and who has summoned up the forces of Armageddon in his scoring for his opera Lear), the composer unquestionably characterises the nature of an individual human being - and specifically a mother - caught up in such a terrible event.
It's a deeply troubled interiorised world that Reimann scores, one that evidently bears some comparison with how Strauss psychologically probed Elektra in that Greek tragedy, but evidently Reimann takes the atonal dissonance even further. There is scarcely a note in Medea that isn't mangled or pitched at a level that assaults the ears of the audience; there's no flow or melody, just a fractured structure that makes Medea seem like she is in the middle of a nightmare, an edgy sense of her trying to hold it together and lashing out in explosive outbursts, the music clashing with singing that rises towards a scream.
Benedict Andrews's direction and the production design for the Komische Medea adopt a similar reflection of devastation of mood and mindset that could be seen in the rocky cratered landscapes of Marco Arturo Marelli's Vienna premiere production. If anything - and it may be very much to do with sudden realisation of real-world context - this production seems to strike an even darker tone. There is at least greater emphasis placed upon measuring the weight of the words of the libretto and their meaning. In the black ash of the landscape, Medea literally tries to bury her past, her potions, her memories, even the Golden Fleece. When the future seems to hold nothing for her, she eventually buries that as well, with devastating consequences.
There is no question that Reimann's score delivers every ounce of impact that is implicit in Medea's actions, and Steven Sloane's conducting of the Komische orchestra brings that out forcefully. It also has to be brought out in the intensely demanding vocal score that Reimann has composed for the role of Medea, and that is fully undertaken by Nicole Chevalier, who gives a fearsome performance that matches the singing challenges, and at the same time achieves some measure of sympathy for her predicament. There are excellent performances elsewhere that manage to rise beyond the individual and the mythological to a more universal application of the themes. Ivan Turšić's Creon embodies the difficult position of applying the rule of law, while Günter Papendell's Jason and Anna Bernacka's Creusa try to adopt a caring but practical approach to the problem that they face. None of it however will be enough to appease the rage of the abused and mistreated Medea or prevent the disaster that is about to be unleashed.
Links: Komische Oper, Opera Platform
Richard Wagner - Siegfried
Bayreuth, 2016
Marek Janowski, Frank Castorf, Stefan Vinke, Andreas Conrad, John Lundgren, Albert Dohmen, Karl-Heinz Lehner, Nadine Weissmann, Catherine Foster, Ana Durlovski
Sky Arts - 29 July 2016
If there was ever any question around the political content of Frank Castorf's Ring Cycle in the first two evening's works at Bayreuth, the nature of the beast is firmly established as soon as the curtain is drawn back on Aleksandar Denić's extraordinary set design for Siegfried. Mime - the dwarf exploited and disenfranchised by their actions of the gods - is working from his travelling van portable workshop forge that is currently located beneath a Mount Rushmore of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, a panorama of Socialist/Communist deities who also once had great ideals that proved to be somewhat more flawed in practice.
It's a big, impressive image that hits home as far as the production's overarching theme goes, but it's also an astute observation that updates and proves the validity of the subject that Wagner was really writing about when creating this mythology. (Wagner's head wouldn't be out of place up there either). Just so your focus doesn't stray and let the mythology get in the way of the message however, the young Siegfried's hobby seems not to be so much chasing and catching bears as rounding up socialist intellectuals who read books, fawn over their great leaders and try to keep them on the right path. As for Fafner, well, seen parading around the Alexanderplatz U-bahn flipside of the rotating set with glamorous ladies with shopping bags, obviously he's the great dragon of capitalism that needs to be slain.
Lest you think this is a bit of a stretch and an imposition on Wagner's creation mythology, the well-translated subtitles - much more idiomatic than usual translations of Wagner's archaic use of language - help make those real world concerns a little clearer. When the Wanderer is asked by Mime which race dwells below the Earth, the Niebelungen's relationship with "black Alberich" is described as one where the "magic ring's masterful might" has "subjugated the slaving mass to him". In every respect, in imagery large and detail small however, Castorf's production doesn't just recap on what has already been established in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre or even just follow through, but it seeks to find new ways to extend the themes that are important to the meaning of the work.
It might have been sufficient - in a rare moment of fidelity that is all too rare even in other modern Ring cycles - to depict Nothung as an actual sword in the Azerbaijan setting for Die Walküre, but in the socialist revolution of Communist Mount Rushmore and the Berlin Alexanderplatz of East Germany, nothing but a Kalashnikov Notung will do (although Siegfried does alternate between the symbolic and the literal here) to slay the dragon of capitalism. That's powerful imagery, and a powerful political statement to associate with Wagner's Ring but it is wholly in keeping with Wagner's own political outlook and in keeping with the higher and thus necessarily mythological worldview of the Ring. Castorf's production allows the application of the mythology to be simply applied to contemporary and real-world matters.
Or perhaps it's not so simple. The Ring and Wagner's own personal ideologies are far more complex than that, particularly when you add on references from subsequent historical periods, and Castorf's production consequently has many other obscure references and bizarre details. The forest songbird, for example, has an important part to play here, but her role is difficult to define, as is the 'bear' that appears every now and again (and in different guises throughout the whole cycle). Nascent humanity perhaps, yet to evolve, learning from the (flawed) ways of the gods. The depiction of Erda as a prostitute is strange and certainly controversial, but the characterisation, observation and humour applied to this scene - a drunken Wanderer makes a sentimental late-night call to an old flame - makes it outrageously funny and humanising.
It might be a welcome injection of lightness into what is too often heavy-going for some, but for others it's clearly not what they expect from Siegfried. Castorf deflating of the glorious union of Siegfried and Brünnhilde by having crocodiles invade the stage and get involved in all kinds of antics is clearly not in the spirit of this opera's epic conclusion. There is however reason to be sceptical of it considering how that noble union subsequently falls into decline in Götterdämmerung, but Castorf is keen to emphasise in Siegfried that the flaws in the hero's character are already there. This Siegfried is a little dumb, wild and impetuous. He's not a person who you want to entrust with saving the world, but inevitably it's only a fearless person who would take on such a task, blissfully unaware of the enormity of the undertaking until it all goes badly wrong. America, take note.
That might be the reality, but it's not what many of the Bayreuth audience want to see and their apparent tolerance for Castorf's interpretations seem to have reached their limit in Siegfried, to judge by the audible loud booing that accompanies the ending. Castorf's interpretation however is vindicated or at least well supported by the performances and the singing. Catherine Foster and John Lundgren reprise their Brünnhilde and Wotan/Wanderer roles impressively, Lundgren in particular more reflective and repentant but still formidable in Wotan's earthbound incarnation. Stefan Vinke has a good balance of the lyrical and heroic tenor for Siegfried and is sure of voice here. Ana Durlovski impresses as the songbird, but every single role - from Andreas Conrad's Mime, Albert Dohmen's Alberich, Karl-Heinz Lehner's Fafner and Nadine Weissmann's Erda - are all an absolute delight to listen to and see performing. Unless, of course, you came to Bayreuth expecting something else in Siegfried.
Links: Bayreuth Festival
