Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel (Madrid, 2022)

Sergei Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel

Teatro Real de Madrid, 2022

Gustavo Gimeno,Calixto Bieito, Ausrine Stundyte, Leigh Melrose, Dmitry Golovnin, Agnieszka Rehlis, Mika Kares, Nino Surguladze, Dmitry Ulyanov, Josep Fadò, Gerardo Bullón, Ernst Alisch, David Lagares, Estibaliz Martyn, Anna Gomà

ARTE Concert - April 2022

Based on a Symbolist work by Valery Bryusov with autobiographical experiences that were shared to some extent by the composer, Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel is one of the most impressive and original works of opera I've come across. Musically and thematically it is quite unlike anything else in opera and each new production - although they aren't that common - always suggests new ways of looking at it. There have been some interesting perspectives taken on the work in recent years in Munich, Aix and Rome, but the idea of seeing what a director like Calixto Bieito can make of it is always going to be an intriguing proposition. It turns out that the Madrid production of The Fiery Angel doesn't seem to have a whole lot to say that is new, but the opera nonetheless remains fascinating, particularly with Ausrine Stundyte again taking on the mesmerising role of Renata. 

Sure, in some respects you can see Renata as a typical opera heroine abused and mistreated and misunderstood by the men in her life, her behaviour out of step with society around her, but in the case of Renata, there is indeed quite a bit to misunderstand. Not that her state of mind is any excuse for the abuse she endures or indeed the exploitation of her vulnerability, but fundamentally does seem to be the rationale for the irrational here. Because for whatever reason (there are hints and suggestions but nothing is made explicit), Renata is indeed not functioning on a rational level. Whether a victim of childhood abuse or suffering from schizophrenia, she has clearly been scarred by her childhood experiences, experiencing visions of a celestial being appearing in her bedroom, a fiery angel who becomes intimate with her.

This unfortunately sets her up to become a victim to be further exploited by the men she meets. She lets herself be taken in by Count Heinrich, who she believes is the angel Madiel in a corporeal form, and his eventual rejection only deepens her trauma. Even the noble knight, Ruprecht who comes to her aid in her distress, sees a vulnerable woman he can exploit sexually. His behaviours and actions are suspect, but when he is rejected he does at least try to consider his better nature and help, although it seems to be primarily because he is still fascinated by this extraordinary woman. With his assistance, Renata is exploited even further by charlatans and astrologers, as she tries to find a way to Madiel through occultism and mysticism. 

On one level then it is a familiar situation of a woman being exploited and shunned by a conformist society, leading her to seek answers elsewhere, but The Fiery Angel is also a work that seeks to explore the far reaches and complexities of human experience, Renata's journey being one to get in touch with a spiritual dimension or existence of life outside of the common experience. She has a sense of having touched on forbidden knowledge and seeks to press it further. For Ruprecht too, there is even a fascination for the mystery of a woman that Renata represents. She stirs up a riot of feelings that involve lust, compassion, fear, jealousy and possessiveness. Combined, The Fiery Angel is an exploration of human dualism, what it means to be human, a material physical being with a spiritual mind, mortal creatures with aspirations of an eternal afterlife. On an everyday level grappling with this dualism extends to male and female divisions, base instincts and a higher purpose, purity and corruption, subjective and objective realities.

In other productions by Mariusz Treliński at Aix-en-Provence and Emma Dante in Rome, the stage directors have sought ways to bring the otherworldly level of the opera expressed in the music to the fore, whereas Barrie Kosky's Munich production highlighted the comic absurdity. Calixto Bieito takes a surprisingly much more down to earth approach, seeing the opera very much as an opening into the mind of a woman rejected for not conforming to the expectations of society. It's even set (restricted I feel) in a specific period, the 1950s, before a more general liberalisation and a sexual permissive society. Initially we see Renata seeking mystery in the spinning of a bicycle wheel, creating patterns, the bicycle perhaps alluding to a childhood trauma. The set meanwhile consists of a block of compartments that, as occasional projections of Ausrine Stundyte as Renata illustrate, are representative of the idea that we are seeing into her mind.

Those rooms or compartments are mostly bare empty rooms, ready to be filled with horrors, each in their own little world, none of them connecting up to form any coherent view of reality. Significantly, perhaps rejecting any idea of a spiritual realm beyond physical reality, the few rooms that are decorated, the only lights in the darkness, are related to Agrippa von Nettesheim who in this version is less of a sorcerer than a physician, a man of science who is aware that we are still far from having all the answers. Her childhood bedroom, the source of her trauma, is also shown in all its horror. With an older man appearing, there is the suggestion of abuse by her father, who she looks up to. She sees Heinrich, an older man, as a substitute for her father, but inevitably that is a terrible mistake that only deepens her trauma. The tavern scene with Faust and Mephisopheles pushes Renata to her limits, and is quite disturbing in its own way. As she disturbs the community of nuns in Act 5, there are correspondences with Penderecki's opera Die Teufel von Loudun, which also featured Ausrine Stundyte in a recent Munich production.

Prokofiev, in a work long laboured over that he never saw performed in his own lifetime, strives to find similar expression in the music for the tangible and intangible, and it truly is a remarkable endeavour. The music is powerful and dynamic, sweeping between sensual and disorientating, evoking objective and subjective realities. I think its complexities came across better in the Rome production, but that might just be that the recording benefitted from superb High Resolution sound mix on the Blu-ray presentation. Here, conducted by Gustavo Gimeno, the detail isn't all there, nor the same dynamic shifts of tempo and volume.

Where the opera really comes to life however here in this Madrid production is in the singing performances. Once again - a revelation in the same role in Aix-en-Provence - we have a marvellous performance by Ausrine Stundyte. It's a role that has considerable vocal challenges but there are dramatic challenges too that require expression beyond the external, a requirement for Renata to be possessed of a deep and mysterious inner life. Bieito makes it physically challenging too and Stundyte is again impressive. Leigh Melrose is also excellent, his Ruprecht grappling with things beyond his comprehension and his own limited knowledge and experience. He brings that out in a similarly committed physical performance. 

The origins of the work and its Symbolist trappings leave a lot of room for analysis in The Fiery Angel, but it seems like the controversial Catalan director Calixto Bieito uncharacteristically seeks to demystify the work and restrict its possibilities. In his hands it does indeed boil down to familiar opera themes of a woman with unconventional individual behaviours being shunned by a closed society, moulded to conform and eventually destroyed by it. Prokofiev music suggests a wider context, but in that dialectic between the score and stage representation, the opera still works and weaves its fascination. Principally of course its real human level is expressed by the singers, and with prior experience of these roles, Stundyte and Melrose are thoroughly convincing.

Links: Teatro Real, ARTE Concert

Verdi - Le Trouvère (Parma, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Le Trouvère

Teatro Regio di Parma, 2018

Roberto Abbado, Robert Wilson, Giuseppe Gipaldi, Roberta Mantegna, Franco Vassallo, Nino Surguladze, Marco Spotti, Luca Casalin, Tonia Langella, Nicolò Donini

Dynamic, Blu-ray

Verdi's French operas have remained rare and infrequently performed. Even those originally written for a French audience, Don Carlos and Les Vêpres Siciliennes are better known in their Italian counterparts, Don Carlo and I Vespri Siciliani. Lately however not only have we been able to better assess the relative merits of those works in actual performance, but we've even been able to compare I Lombardi alla prima crociata against Jérusalem, both works rare in either language, but Verdi's French version of Il Trovatore has remained largely overlooked, and perhaps with good reason.

Notwithstanding its popularity and a number of famous choruses, Il Trovatore has pacing and plot credibility issues in its Italian version, and it's hard to imagine that it could be improved with a change of language and the insertion of a long ballet at the beginning of Act III. Any yet, watching the 2018 Verdi Opera Festival production from Parma, it's clear that Verdi's Le Trouvère is Il Trovatore like you've never heard it before. Or, perhaps more pertinently, like you've never seen it before, since Robert Wilson's characteristic direction has a way of placing a very different complexion on any familiar opera.

This is not the best place to consider the merits of Wilson's approach to theatrical presentation (Wilson makes his own arguments for it in the booklet of this BD/DVD release), but arguably they do seem better suited to works that have a more spiritual dimension rather than the full-blooded melodrama of a Verdi opera. I've rarely seen a production so beautiful but unsuited to the music and drama as Wilson's production of Verdi's Aida, and yet Wilson does unquestionably impose a huge presence and influence that colours how you perceive any opera he is involved with.

'Colour' being the operative word here. You know what to expect - a sparse light-box stage lit in shades of teal or aquamarine blue, geometric shapes floating above the stage, figures in stylised costumes contrasted against the light, striking strange static poses, with occasional objects and figures mysteriously floating past or wandering onto the stage. All this is very much present in Wilson's production of Le Trouvère which, in acknowledgement to the history of the venue and its composer, this time has the addition of some period photographs of Parma projected and animated, and one old man, looking very much like an elder Verdi, observing it all with amusement.

Even if you are familiar with Robert Wilson's designs and techniques, it still looks extraordinary, completely unlike anything else. Whether it is appropriate or not for the work ...well, it certainly doesn't look like any familiar view of this opera, but it does succeed in establishing a haunting and vaguely sinister quality that suits Il Trovatore, or Le Trouvère, very well. Whether that feeds into the musical performance or whether the French version has its own particular character is harder to determine, but why speculate and attempt to deconstruct? It is what it is, and in its totality it is utterly compelling and beguiling whether as French Verdi or as Wilson doing French Verdi.

In some ways, Wilson's cool approach - while it might not have done much for Aida - suits the overheated melodrama and wild flights of Il Trovatore and works well to tone it down and bring it into focus. It doesn't so much cool it however as show it for its true stylisation - in its own way - as a dramatic piece. The credibility of characterisation or ability to follow the machinations of Azucena the gypsy and the switched identity of Manrico (Manrique here) and his romantic attentions towards Léonore is largely irrelevant. Le Trouvère creates its own universe where anything can happen and Wilson's production makes it possible for the viewer to enter into that world.

But there are a number of clear differences and revisions that do make Le Trouvère a different prospect from Il Trovatore, and it does indeed even have a very different character sung in French instead of Italian, sounding more lyrical and less declamatory. The majority of the actual changes are small tweaks, the excision of a cabaletta here, the addition of an aria there - but there are a couple of significant changes, notably the Act III ballet and the handling of the conclusion. Whether any of these changes are noticeably for the better is doubtful but they are fascinating to hear and see performed. Unfortunately, Wilson, like nearly every other director I've seen faced with a Verdi ballet, doesn't know what to do with it, and 20 minutes or so of extras boxing - not matter how stylised - really tests even the most tolerant Wilson fan.

Despite such additions Le Trouvère thankfully doesn't aspire to grand opéra extravagance, and Wilson's slow-paced choreography and direction would never permit it anyway. Conductor Roberto Abbado recognises the more sweeping lyrical flow of the score and takes a varying approach to the pacing, never letting it head off at full-tilt but rather working with Wilson's direction to establish a piece that works on mood rather than dramatic action. Perhaps the French singing also makes a difference on the character of the work, but what matters most here - as it does with any Verdi opera in any language - is that it is superbly sung by the cast. The voices are clear and resonant Roberta Mantegna's Léonore representing that romantic lyrical quality, while Giuseppe Gipaldi's Manrique and Nino Surguladze's Azucena soar above the drama. All remain focussed on vocal character and delivery, never getting submerged by the music or indeed by the extraordinary visual aspect of the production.

It's difficult to transfer that character effectively to the screen, but the Dynamic Blu-ray release looks great. The usual transfer issues of blurring in movement are hardly noticeable in a slow Robert Wilson production, but vitally, the image gets across the subtle graduations of colour tones and lighting, with deep, rich blacks in the shadows that are essential for the contrast and the mood. It looks simply amazing in High Definition. And the audio tracks pack a punch as well. Voices are clear and resonant, there's good presence to the orchestra, although not always full detail. An impressive presentation nonetheless.

The only extra on the Blu-ray disc is a guide to the Teatro Farnese venue in Parma, but the enclosed booklet is wonderfully informative with a look at the history of the French edition of the work, including notes from Robert Wilson on his approach and a synopsis. The disc is BD50 for an almost 3 hour opera, all-region compatible, with subtitles in Italian, English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Teatro Regio di Parma