Verdi - Il Corsaro (Valencia, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Il Corsaro

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, 2018

Fabio Biondi, Nicola Raab, Michael Fabiano, Kristina Mkhitaryan, Oksana Dyka, Vito Priante, Evgeny Stavinsky

OperaVision - 8th April 2018

The quality of early Verdi operas is variable, even by the composers own admission, but some are certainly worthy of occasional revival, even if it's just for curiosity value. A few - very few, maybe only one (Macbeth) - are worthy of being included more often as part of the familiar Verdi canon, others are crude and forgettable (Alzira, Attila), some are flawed but redeemable through a good production and an interesting interpretation (I Due Foscari, Stiffelio, Giovanna d'Arco, Luisa Miller). Il Corsaro probably belongs in the latter category, but its qualities can be enhanced with a good staging and exceptional singing and the 2018 Valencia production goes some way towards demonstrating and achieving that.

It's rare however that you can do anything redeemable with the staging of any early Verdi opera; which in the main consist of romantic melodramas in oppressive wartime situations that don't have much in the way of subtext, nuance or depth. The singing, particularly that of the lead soprano role, can also be extremely challenging far beyond the merits of the piece without really adding to the drama. That's all part of the Verdi DNA however that comes into fruition mid-career, and it can be fascinating to explore the hints already there of the greatness to come if you have a production good enough to tease them out.

The first good sign in the Valencia production is that there's a bit of imagination and style applied to the production design rather than literal slavishness to the libretto's locations. Instead of ship anchored at a Greek island where the chief corsair Corrado is languishing in exile and reduced to piracy, we find ourselves in Act I within the mind of a broken man, sitting at writing desk remembering better times or dreaming of taking part in further exploits. His wife Medora looks on in despair at his downfall and, alarmed at the flask of what may be laudanum he is imbibing, she slips it into her pocket.

Corrado however has other vices and is clearly not adverse to a pipe of opium. In his mind the Ottoman Empire still a threat, so in Act II the bold Byronic adventurer once more visits the exotic East of delights and dangers. There he visits a harem and attracts the attention of Gulnara, the favourite of the Pasha Seid. Seid and his warriors launch into a battle with the corsairs, putting the city and the harem to flame. Corrado rescues Gulnara from the conflagration and is captured while doing so, and earns the mercy of Seid. Until Seid becomes suspicious of Gulnara's feelings for this brave corsair...

There's no need to get to clever with the concept, but there's no need for literal realism either, as combined with Verdi's bombast, the Byronic hero's romantic adventures in the exotic East could seem a little bit over the top. Il Corsaro is tremendous fun, but not particularly memorable and hard for a modern audience to take seriously. Director Nicola Raab doesn't try to get too clever by imposing an unworkable concept on top of what is a fairly straightforward romantic adventure, and without betraying the original spirit of the work she finds a good way of making it a little more 'realistic' or relatable by playing it out as an opium-induced flight of imagination, which as it was originally written by Lord Byron it may well have been.

The production doesn't need a literal depiction that takes it all seriously and literally then. There's more than enough dynamic in the music and the contrasts and colours that lie between East and West, between Christian and Muslim, between men and women. Verdi of course depicts all that in grand brush strokes, all sword and flame, blood and thunder, gods and demons. There's nothing wishy-washy about early Verdi (or middle or late Verdi either, I suppose), and Fabio Biondi's conducting of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana emphasises the sheer brio with which Verdi attacks the material, where there is also at least some measure of sophistication in the melodies and romantic sentiments.

There's a similar contrast between imagination and reality in George Souglides's production design that shows this flitting between dreams of adventure and the sudden down-to-earth shifts of reality that seep in. Projections of battles and flames are thrown onto a screen that is torn down like a sheet of paper, emphasising that it's all the projection of a troubled mind, allowing it to be taken seriously but not literally. It's a good middle-way to approach early Verdi, giving us spectacle and entertainment and permitting all the spirit of the work to come through without having to look at it ironically or indulgently. That's probably about the best you can hope for in Il Corsaro. 

Well, that and some great singing, as that can make all the difference. The Valencia production gets off to a terrific start, the clever production design and the invigorating score matched by a committed Michael Fabiano in the role of Corrado and Kristina Mkhitaryan as his wife Medora. As he showed in Dmitri Tcherniakov's radical reworking of Carmen for Aix-en-Provence 2017, Fabiano isn't thrown by contradictions between characters who are seen to be role-playing and allows a touch of bewilderment creep into the heroic sincerity of the performance. Mkhitaryan is mightily impressive as Medora, showing a fullness of voice and a deep emotional expression. Medora however is not the principal soprano role, and it's Oksana Dyka who has to struggle with that challenge as Gulnara. Inevitably she is pushed and her pitch wavers occasionally, but it's a valiant effort. Vito Priante sings well but throwing pantomime villain poses he is unable to make much of the role of Seid.

The singing performances and the full-on musical performance under Fabio Biondi carry the work though the dramatic weaknesses of Act III. There's a long scene of Corrado refusing to accept Gulnara's help of escape ("Fly from your prison to freedom, my soul") by manfully accepting his fate only to eventually agree, but as Corrado puffs on his opium pipe, the production does well to try to associate his behaviour as being captive of his addiction or the affliction of his desires and fears. Medora is also saddled with more despairing sentiments that lead up to her suicide and Corrado following, but there's no denying that Verdi provides all the thrills and spills that lead up to this heroic-romantic conclusion, and Biondi hammers it home.

Links: Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, OperaVision

Beethoven - Fidelio

Ludwig van Beethoven - Fidelio

Palau de les Arts 'Reina Sofia', Valencia, 2007

Zubin Mehta, Pier' Alli, Waltraud Meier, Matti Salminen, Juha Uusitalo, Peter Seiffert, Ildikó Raimondi, Rainer Trost, Carsten Stabell, Javier Agulló, Nahuel di Pierro

Sky Arts TV

Revised twice after its first performance as Leonore in 1805 and taking its final form as Fidelio in 1814, Beethoven's only opera is a beautiful testament to humanity, its capacity to love and ability to endure and thrive even in the direst of circumstances. Pier' Alli's direction, set and projections for the 2007 production of the work at the Palau de les Arts 'Reina Sofia' in Valencia is largely period, literal and doesn't attempt anything too adventurous, but it accompanies the sentiments of the work perfectly, as does conductor Zubin Mehta, taking the orchestra through a grand and very moving account of the score that Beethoven laboured over for so many years.

Pier' Alli's direction is quite literal in the sets and their depiction of the 18th century Seville prison and dungeons where the entire work takes place. It's dark, the lighting is sombre, imposing high doors shut off any indication of the world outside and spikes, chains and instruments of torture (emphasised in the projections at the start of Act II) testify to the horrors of the State Prison under the command of Don Pizarro, the governor of the jail. Yet even within such a place, love, hope and more noble sentiments still exist in Jaquino's unrequited love for Marzelline, in Marzelline's love for Fidelio, the young man who has earned the trust and admiration of her father the jailor, Rocco. Fidelio is actually Leonore in disguise, the most faithful of all, hoping to find out if her husband Florestan is imprisoned there and do what she can to help him escape.

The direction doesn't really need to do much to emphasise the brightness in the darkness, and you're not going to notice this anyway when everything that is needed to describe this situation is there in Beethoven's magnificent score, in the stirring sentiments of the libretto and expressed so well in the singing voices. The music is as beautiful, noble and warm as Mozart, ennobled further perhaps through the recognition of the darkness in which the finer spirit of mankind endures. That darker side is more evident when Marzelline's hopes for marriage are put aside (but not discounted) in the later scenes of the first Act and in the early part of the second, as Pizarro plots to dispose of the prisoner he is secretly holding in the deepest dungeon. Its most beautiful expression is there in the scene where the other prisoners take hope in the rare glimpse of light on their walk in the courtyard and express their belief that "We shall be free, we shall find peace".

The light is never snuffed out, no matter how bleak it gets and hope, faith and belief in the supremacy of goodness endures in the hearts of the characters of Fidelio. And no more so than in Leonore/Fidelio. The casting for this production gives us such great singers as Waltraud Meier in the title role and Matti Salminen as Rocco. One could question whether their voices - more Wagnerian than Mozartian - are really right for Beethoven, but it's interesting casting. Neither unfortunately are at their peak here, but their abilities, experience and personality contributes enormously to the overall power of the production. For similar reasons, I wasn't particularly keen on Peter Seiffert's singing as Florestan, nor do I think he carries the role well either. The use of the more Mozartian voices of Ildikó Raimondi and Rainer Trost to express the youthful idealism of Marzelline and Jaquino provides good contrast however and they complement well with the Wagnerians, particularly in the outstanding ensemble finale to Act I.

It's a testament to the production and the rich voices of Meier, Salminen, Uusitalo and Seiffert that Fidelio's themes come through even more strongly in the greater bleakness of the Second Act. Pier' Alli's depiction of the deep dungeon that holds Florestan is superb, a projection of images of spikes and chains taking us down there, and a clever mix of real sets and projected staircases (with virtual prison guards?) creating a truly bleak picture of Florestan's predicament. Beethoven's score rises above it all however, and Zubin Mehta is unable to resist including the third Overture from Leonore as a beautiful moment of contemplation before the finale. It's an imperfect solution to the hurried ending in Beethoven's revised version of the opera, but it rounds out an overall very fine performance of this great work.

Berlioz - Les Troyens

Hector Berlioz - Les Troyens

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, 2009

Valery Gergiev, Carlus Padrissa, La Fura dels Baus, Lance Ryan, Daniela Barcellona, Elisabete Matos, Gabriele Viviani, Giorgio Giuseppini, Stephen Milling, Eric Cutler, Oksana Shilova, Zlata Bulicheva

Unitel Classica - C-Major

In principle, I’m all for the approach and the use of new technology that the experimental Catalan theatre group la Fura dels Baus bring to opera productions. In practice however, I can never get past the dumb ideas that they sometimes base their concepts upon. Although I have avoided it myself, a lot of people like their Valencia Ring cycle, and I can see how their approach to total music theatre would work with Wagner (a recent production of Tristan und Isolde was handled very appropriately) – much as it suits, in principle, the dramatic theatricality of Hector Berlioz (they’ve done La Damnation de Faust in the past). In practice however, I’m afraid it just doesn’t work for me in the case of Les Troyens.

I’ve seen Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte destroyed by la Fura’s “concept” of the split in the hemispheres of the brain that could be seen as marking the divisions between enlightenment and obscurantism in that opera taken to the extreme of putting inflatable brains on the stage with the singers hanging suspended over them – a wooly concept taken over-literally that added nothing to Mozart (I won’t even get into them removing the recitative and replacing it with poems read out by French actors). The same sense of facile concept not thought-through in any meaningful way and taken over-literally applies also to the approach taken in this Fura production of Les Troyens. Thinking of the notion of a Trojan Horse in modern computer technology parlance, they apply the concept to the computer network of ancient Troy being the victim of a computer virus. Seriously.

What genius (that would be Carlus Padrissa) though it would be a great idea to take the metaphor of the Trojan Horse virus back to its source and make it literal? The phrase, “Beware of Greeks or other outside hostile agencies bearing gifts of laptops carrying viruses that may compromise the integrity of your system”, doesn’t really have all that great a ring to it. Even if you were to find this feeble concept worthy of more than a minute’s consideration, there’s little to support it in this staging, which is an impressive spectacle certainly (you are always guaranteed that at least from la Fura dels Baus), but it’s also a complete hotchpotch of ideas and concepts that look a complete mess and don’t come across particularly well on video. There’s little sense of and physical location of Troy in the first part of the opera (presented here in its entirety as originally intended as a 5-act opera, rather than two operas), but I suppose in this version it is supposed to be a virtual world. Quite why the cast are dressed in sports padding, hockey helmets, Tae kwon-do outfits and what looks like Stormtroopers costumes from Star Wars is however anyone’s guess.

There are nonetheless impressively staged scenes mixing projections and live action – and inevitably, much wire work, hanging singers and acrobats from cables – which enhances the nightmarish visions of Cassandra and representing the death of Laco’on well in the first half. The idea of designing Carthage as a particle accelerator to represent the idea of a modern technical paradise in the second half of the opera (Acts III to IV) at least carries the concept through, the Trojans spreading their virus before leaving for an ideal (in Mars!) and it looks impressive – but really, does this bring anything meaningful out of the work, or is it just half-baked concepts and Cirque du Soleil spectacle? More often however, the spectacle doesn’t really come to life, failing to find anything meaningful to do in the ballet sequences – a boxing match? a fashion parade of warrior fetish costumes? – and it is actually quite static, particularly when compared to the active, inventive and always impressive production at the Châtelet.

Conducted by Valery Gergiev, the Valencia production at least remains hugely entertaining from a musical viewpoint, although I wouldn’t put it above the John Eliot Gardner version. The singing is mostly of a good standard, particularly the two female leads Elisabete Matos (Cassandra) and Daniela Barcellona (Dido), but again, personally, I prefer the performances of Anna Caterina Antonacci and Susan Graham in the Châtelet production. Gregory Kunde is however certainly a better Aeneas than Lance Ryan here, who I thought delivered everything in a dreary declamatory fashion and in a tone that becomes unpleasantly nasal on the high notes. His poor diction moreover painfully murders the French libretto.

The quality of the Blu-ray itself – the entire opera on a single BD50 disc – is reasonably good, the image as clear as it can be on a dark stage that uses a lot of back and front-screen projections. The audio tracks – PCM stereo and DTS 5.1 HD master audio – are both fine, if there is little to choose between them. Overall, if you don’t think too much about the terrible concept and are able to simply just enjoy the spectacle of the staging, this isn’t a bad version of Les Troyens, and it’s certainly well performed – but there is a much better version out there already on Blu-ray in terms of production values, spectacle and overall quality of the performance.

Alfano - Cyrano de Bergerac

Franco Alfano - Cyrano de Bergerac

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, 2007

Patrick Fournillier, Michal Znaniecki, Plácido Domingo, Sondra Radvanovsky, Arturo Chacón Cruz, Rod Gilfry, Corrado Carmelo Caruso, Roberto Accurso, Javier Franco

Naxos

The story of Edmond Rostand’s epic romantic drama 'Cyrano de Bergerac' (1897) should be known to most audiences from the various film versions that have been made – some of them even predating Alfano’s 1937 opera – the most notable being Gérard Depardieu’s performance as the long-nosed character in Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s popular French film from 1990, but it may also be known to more through Steve Martin’s modern updating of the role in 'Roxane'. The story however is essentially the same, that of a man with an exceedingly large nose that disfigures his face, who believes that he is ugly and unworthy of the love of his beautiful cousin Roxane. Working closely to Rostand’s original text, Rappeneau’s film captured all the comedy, wit, romance and tragedy of the situation, retaining the verse format of the original, and did it so well that it’s impossible for anyone who knows and loves the film version not to measure up Franco Alfano’s opera against it. It has to be said that the opera compares very favourably, working so naturally that one wonders why it isn’t better known and more frequently performed.

Alfano, who is now only really known for the rarely performed Cyrano and for completing Puccini’s final opera Turandot after the composer’s death, only succeeds intermittently in finding the right tone and melody to engage the audience in the drama, but he is wholly convincing in the areas where it counts most – in the romantic expressions of love between Cyrano (acting on behalf of another man) and Roxane. The arias and duets that consolidate the nature of their love (“Sens to mon âme un peu dans cette ombre qui monte?” and “Je lisais, je relisais. J’étais à toi”) achieve a perfect expression of the highly florid nature of the romantic declarations and the underlying depth and sincerity of the sentiments with all the mastery of a student of Puccini. If it were just for these two arias alone, Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac does complete justice to the work, but there is great skill in how the essence of the story fits around it. The dramatic action is somewhat condensed in the opera but it retains all the essential qualities that make the work so charming and doesn’t lose a fraction of the emotional depth or spirit of the original.

It does so of course, because that is the great strength of opera, allowing expression of such elements through the music and the singing, and Alfano plays to these strengths. In the film version, I find Roxane comes across as somewhat bland, insipid and superficial, and you need to will a sense of disbelief to understand what inspires such passion in Cyrano apart from her beauty, but here she has a much more active role and is much better characterised, principally through the musical arrangements, and, of course through the singing. Here we have Sondra Radvanovsky, who conveys the full force of her character’s nature and passion through her singing, if not so well in her acting or facial expressions. Rod Gilfry is marvellous as De Guiche, actually almost making his character sympathetic and less of a moustache-twirling villain. Arturo Chacón Cruz is fine as Christian, but it’s a thankless role that has no real arias and is always upstaged by Cyrano. As Cyrano, you couldn’t have anyone more charismatic than Plácido Domingo. His French diction isn’t the strongest, but he has all the passion and charm that the swashbuckling hero demands and is in fine voice in his 121 role.

The staging at the Palau des Arts in Valencia is fine, striking a good balance between the period and a modern approach to staging it, without introducing any incongruous elements. The stage however is a little dark and the recording, even in High Definition on the Blu-ray, doesn’t enable you to see the detail and the overall impact of it all. The audio, even in lossless LPCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1, is also lacking, but mainly due to how it was recorded. The microphones are clearly far from the singers, as there is a lot of ambient noise and stage clatter, the singing sounding rather echoing, occasionally drowning out the rather thin orchestration but at other times being overwhelmed by it. For the most part however, the qualities of the singing and the music, and the opera itself are no less evident. Overall, it’s a slightly imperfect live recording, but an otherwise fine presentation and performance of an opera that really deserves to be better known.