Bedřich Smetana - Libuše
National Theatre Prague, 2018
Jaroslav
Kyzlink, Jan Burian, Iveta Jiříková, Svatopluk Sem, František
Zahradníček, Jaroslav Březina, Jiří Sulženko, Jiří Brückler, Petra
Alvarez Šimková, Stanislava Jirků, Eva Kývalová, Olessia Baranová, Yvona
Škvárová, Václav Lemberk
Opera Vision - 27 October 2018
One
of the many not inconsiderable functions of opera can be that of
defining and contributing to the idea of a national character. Every
country is proud of its most celebrated composers and in many ways they
do act as ambassadors for their nations across the world stage. The
linking of myths, folk legends and tradition to musical drama is a
natural connection and all of them can play a part in establishing
cohesion around the idea of a nation as much as any national anthem.
You
could even go so far as to say that composers themselves form part of
that sense of national identity. The two greatest composers Wagner and
Verdi indeed remain in such high standing in the world of opera because
of the nationalistic colour of their works, Wagner in particular even
going as far as to see opera as vital to the propagation and definition
of who a nation and its people are. It's Wagner's influence that would
lead Bedřich Smetana to consider preserving and celebrating the idea of a
Czech nation in his opera Libuše, written for the opening of the
National Theatre in 1881.
In the case of Libuše, the
nation defining story is a fairly uncomplicated one, low-key even to any
outsider not familiar with the characters and the mythology covered in
the opera around the founding of Bohemia in 600AD. The Princess Libuše
has been asked to pass judgement on a dispute between two brothers
Chrudoš and Štáhlav, who have been fighting over their father's
inheritance. Chrudoš as the eldest brother is demanding everything and
rejects the verdict of a woman. To give legitimacy to her position say
she will marry a man who will be acceptable to the nation, choosing
Přemsyl, a peasant ploughman as her husband.
Act I lays
out that situation in which everything is resolved and everyone
reconciled fairly easily over the next two acts of choruses, ceremony
and pageantry. That's the tone established by Act I of Libuše and that's
the way that the Prague production is more or less plays out the rest of
the opera, with no surprises or directorial intervention or
reinterpretation. It's played as a traditional myth, the nobles wearing
pale togas of Greek mythology, the peasants a little more colourful
costumes. The design and almost ceremonial nature of the spectacle
however is in keeping with the occasion, in this case the centenary of
the Czechoslovakian proclamation of independence.
There's
evidently nothing in the production that distracts in any way from the
central purpose of the work, from the simple message of its drama to its
relevance as a national myth. It's meant to look impressive and it
does, the stage surrounded by a golden picture frame, the effects simple
but effective using sliding platforms to parade figures in poses across
the stage, with only a few firework effects at appropriate points.
Elsewhere, the tone is of a bucolic pageant, with earnest intonations of
patriotic sentiments and joyous celebrations of the beauty and honour of
hard working on the land.
It's a case of it is what it
is, requiring no deep concepts or analysis. It's not Parsifal or The
Ring of the Niebelung and despite some superficial similarities it's not
even Lohengrin. Libuše is opera as an occasion, a work that speaks to
the Czech people, and Smetana fulfills that remit admirably. If it
doesn't have anything revelatory to say about human nature to a wider
audience, it does give us a little insight into Czech character, Přemsyl
citing peace, mercy and working for mutual benefit as characteristics
that will bring unity and peace not just in the resolution to the
divisions between Chrudoš and Štáhlav but to the nation as a whole.
This will be important, Libuše prophesies and warns, when the nation
faces threats in the future from the East.
Smetana of
course also wants to bring the essential Czech nature out in the music
as well, allowing it to be expressive of the national character.
Musically the influence of Wagner is there in the mythological grandeur
of the nobles, but these are not Gods; the nature
of the labour of the peasants in the fields is a celebration of the land
itself and their music are celebrated as well in Libuše. It gives the
opera a warmer character with individual colours and folk derived that
has a more Russian character like Rimsky-Korsakov. There is room
however for some lovely individual touches, such as the cello solo that
opens Act II Scene II, the singing not so deep and declamatory as
warmly baritonal and flowingly lyrical.
Links: National Theatre Prague, OperaVision
Bohuslav Martinů - Julietta
National Theatre Prague, 2017
Jaroslav
Kyzlink, Zuzana Gilhuus, Alžběta Poláčková, Peter Berger, Ondřej
Koplík, Petr Levíček, Yevhen Shokalo, Michaela Zajmi, Stanislava Jirků,
Jiří Hájek
OperaVision - April 2018
It seems only a natural reaction to want to interpret, psychoanalyse
or just try to make sense of a work that operates on the level of
abstraction, surrealism, symbolism or dream logic. And, to be fair, when
it comes to works from the former Czechoslovakia or any nation behind
the former Iron Curtain, such an approach has some validity, since it
has often been a means for artists to depict a reality that is difficult
to describe in any other way, not least because of the fear of
censorship, arrest and imprisonment. Bohuslav Martinů's Julietta (The Key to Dreams) however
predates the worst horrors of WWII and the post-war Communist years,
and it certainly seems to operate on a much simpler level, but that
doesn't mean that it is entirely detached from describing another
reality.
That reality, rather than having a political
undercurrent - although I'm sure such an interpretation could be applied
- would seem to be more in the realm of exploring the rather abstract
human emotions and behaviours associated with memory, desire and perhaps
other less easily defined sensations. Martinů based his opera on a play
by French writer Georges Neveux and there are good antecedents for
putting such abstractions to a musical treatment, not least in Wagner's
Tristan und Isolde but more obviously in the approach taken by
Debussy in his musical setting of Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande.
Closer to home, Janáček ponders some basic human questions related to
time, existence and memory in the science-fictional unreality of The
Makropulos Case. Martinů's Julietta finds it own language to describe
its world, and - unlike Maeterlinck - Neveux, who attended the 1938
premiere, reportedly found Martinů's adaptation better than the
original.
You could certainly apply some kind of
commentary on a nation and authority to the little seaside town where
Parisian bookseller Michel Lepic turns up, a town where the
citizens have no memory of the past, are unable to recall anything more
than 10 minutes ago and seem to even have no awareness of basic things.
In such a place there are people willing to tell fortunes and sell
memories of invented histories that serve to pacify and keep the people
happy. Since Michel seems better equipped with knowledge and memory - he
can even remember a toy duck from as far back as his childhood - the
town's Commissar confers on him the office of town captain, giving him a
hat (authority), a parrot (law) and a gun (enforcement).
The
problem with trying to apply any kind of basis in reality to Julietta
is that the dream logic basis of the story means that there's a constant
shift of meaning and emphasis. Michel's role as captain is short-lived
since even the Commissar isn't able to remember appointing him a short
time later when he reappears as a postman. The gun too is somewhat
illusory; fired by Michel in the woods even though he doesn't remember
firing it, a watchman in the woods later says that it was he who fired
at a duck. The principal thread that runs through the opera however is
of course Michel's search for the mysterious woman he heard singing from
a window on his last visit to the town three years ago, Julietta, an
object of desire that has continued to haunt him.
On that
basis the subject of the opera is much more playful in its exploration
of the nature of human desire and memory, on idealisation and reality.
Michel has created a figure in his head based on what to him has been a
magical encounter, but for Julietta it was just an everyday event that
has made no impact on her, and even what she does remember of it seems
to her ridiculous. She has her own memories created for her by a seller
of memories and prefers them to the reality. Act III brings a twist to
proceedings when it is revealed that Michel's dream is indeed just a
dream. At the Bureau of Dreams he discovers that there's a 'Julietta' in
dreams of many others - a beggar, a messenger, a convict, an engineer -
and it's a necessary escape from the boundaries of their earthly
misery. The Parisian bookseller decides he wants to remain there.
Again,
there are ways of viewing that as some kind of political allegory, but
if you want to apply an allegory to the work you'd need to do that
yourself as Zuzana Gilhuus's direction for National Theatre Prague's
production, celebrating 80 years since the opera was first performed
there, treats Julietta merely as a dream fantasy. There's nothing wrong
with that as there is more than enough in those abstract themes to make
this a fascinating and entertaining work, particularly with the rich and
playful score that Martinů has written. It's immensely varied in tones
and styles, from full orchestration to express the dramatic situations
to more intimate piano accompaniment and even unaccompanied spoken
sections.
The production takes advantage of the
opportunities the opera presents to create a simple but effective dream
world set. The townspeople are dressed all in white, in rather
old-fashioned clothes of people living in the past (without a past),
wiped clean of memories, in a certain respect free and pure but unable
to see beyond their limited horizons (I'm still trying to apply an
allegorical meaning!). The town in Act I is viewed only in the abstract
as a maze or forest of low white trees bare of any leaves placed on a
white illuminated platform. This is moved around and turned on
its side for Act II in the forest and in the Bureau of Dreams. It's a
fairly open abstract production that serves the music well and Jaroslav Kyzlink's conducting brings them together well for the varied tones of
the work.
Links: National Theatre Prague, OperaVision
