Foccroulle - Cassandra (Brussels, 2023)

Bernard Foccroulle - Cassandra

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2023

Kazushi Ono, Marie-Ève Signeyrole, Katarina Bradić, Jessica Niles, Susan Bickley, Sarah Defrise, Paul Appleby, Joshua Hopkins, Gidon Saks, Sandrine Mairesse, Lisa Willems

OperaVision - 14th September 2023

There are any number of Greek dramas and myths that remain applicable to today, with themes that are still capable of inspiring contemporary operas. Matthew Aucoin's Eurydice adapts Sarah Ruhl's original play and libretto to explore deeper feminist and human themes explored by the Orpheus myth, while Aribert Reimann's Medea casts a shadow over a society intolerant of outsiders, its rulers obsessed with wealth and prestige, blind to the danger of failing to respond appropriately to the needs of those seeking asylum and the price that is paid by our children. Cassandra in as far as Bernard Foccroulle's opera presents it, clearly speaks to perhaps the most immediate global crisis facing modern society, one that is being warned about daily and becoming ever more urgent, but it's apparent that again, no one is listening. Climate change is the pre-warned disaster facing us all.

Cursed by Apollo so that her premonitions for the future will fall on deaf ears, the words "Ototoi popoi da” that Cassandra struggles to express at the start of Foccroulle's opera are unintelligible and unheeded until disaster strikes. She emerges here as a ghost of the past brought into the present, the two time periods combined and overlapping through a wall of literature written on the subject. The collapse of Troy with all its classical implications - traditionally well-served in opera as well as in Greek drama - is echoed in a modern disaster, as the wall collapses leaving devastation in its wake. People buried by the disaster emerge cut and bruised and crying over the dead in the rubble, as a camera operator zooms in showing the devastation in all its horror.

It's a familiar scene that we have seen repeatedly on our own screens over the last couple of years. There's really no beating around the bush here. The opening is direct and devastating, a classical style Cassandra in full outburst, carrying a dead bleeding child plucked from the ruins of Troy as a Greek chorus ominously intones the consequences of the failure to listen and the orchestra delivers jagged blocks of chords. It's a powerful opening, the impact heightened by Foccroulle's music, not to mention the reaction of Cassandra, and yet, despite all the power of classical-inspired opera, it's a message that is still likely one to go unheeded. It needs something more to bring that message up to date, and Foccroulle and librettist Matthew Jocelyn choose to find another way to get the message across.

There is an intentionally jarring change of tone as the setting abruptly changes to the present day, where a modern day Cassandra, PhD student and published climatologist Sandra Seymour, conscious that all other attempts to express the imminency of the danger have fallen on deaf ears, chooses to deliver her warning as a comedy routine. Running models and algorithms from her studies, Sandra knows danger is real, but chooses to approach the subject with the audience by blaming 'sex fiends' going under the names of Donald, Jeff and Vladimir raping the earth, as she shatters a block of ice. There's not really any beating around the here bush either (not much comedy either), but there is disagreement about her approach from an environmental activist, Blake, who who takes her message more seriously that she does. They share the same concerns however and end up in a relationship together.

Using such means, Fouccrolle's opera seeks to provide a wider context and every means at his disposal to draw together the classical warnings and the present crisis. There are plenty of 'sex fiends' in history bringing damage to humanity and mythology is full of them, not least Apollo, so the parallels are well-established and the musical language used for each of the scenes is appropriate and effective. The subject is not exactly a new concern expressed in modern opera - Sivan Eldar's Like Flesh, Tom Coult's Violet, Perocco's Aquagranda - but these are a little more allusive towards the subject and Foucrolle's opera strives to be more direct. It's important but difficult to do that without descending into preachiness. Cassandra does do a lot of telling, quoting statistics and figures on the melting of ice caps, but it tries to present these in an accessible way, looking at classical mythology for additional substance, using a modern couple debating with each other as a way of putting fire into their relationship and the best way of putting the message out there. This might work for some observers, not for others.

The classical story however does add another element, or at least it does in the way it is presented here as overlapping with the modern-day story. Priam and Hecuba are also brought back from the books, now able to reflect on what the plays written about the fall of Troy tell us, now fully aware of the consequences of failing to listen to the warnings of Cassandra. These scenes - which flow seamlessly from a dinner party scene with Sandra's well-to do parents who are more focussed on causes that boost their image and profits doubling up the roles of Priam and Hecuba - is as charged and anguished as you would expect, equally if not as much as a classical retelling, such as in Berlioz's Les Troyens for example. We already have the benefit of hindsight to act as foresight, the opera seems to be telling us, and we don't want future generations to look back on our society incredulous that we failed to heed the obvious present warnings of the fall of civilisation.

Belgian composer Bernard Foccroulle is a former director of La Monnaie in Brussels and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. This is his first opera composition and it's an ambitious full-scale work, attempting to encompass a number of styles, each effective for the requirements of the libretto and the message. There's Cassandra past blending into Sandra's present, the drama and music serious on one hand, seeming blithe on the other, reflecting two ways of viewing the subject. If we truly knew what is ahead we wouldn't treat it as a joke, but at the same time, most aren't taking it seriously. Foccroulle tries every means, style and views of these conflicting worlds and tries to replicate it in the music, not least in the strong writing for female voices and the short musical interludes, Scene Four and the final scene for example consisting only of a musical depiction of a swarm of bees.

There is inevitably some banality in the modern sections in the domestic relationships, the language, the swearing, the so-called comedy and in the family crises. There is a point to be made about preserving the world for future generations, but whether the opera and its approach hits the mark or is "bullshit" as is loudly heckled by an "audience member", the point isn't convincingly made. Opera has the power to raise a subject to a higher level, elevate the mere words and drama of a libretto, achieve impact through the music and singing, but it's by no means clear that Jocelyn and Foucroulle's approach to Cassandra will be heeded any more than those unheeded warnings of its title character.

Conducted by Kazushi Ono for the premiere of this new opera at La Monnaie, the music and its effectiveness to the subject and libretto can't be faulted, the fascinating and varied score inviting the audience to listen closer to what is being presented. There is much that is equally impressive in the singing and the stage production, so every effort has been made. A new opera, the singers cast are obviously chosen as perfect for the roles. There are singing and performing challenges here but each is outstanding, Katarina Bradić in particular in a gift of a role as Cassandra, but Sandra is also a large role and is impressively sung by Jessica Niles. I also thought the performances of her mother and father, sung by Susan Bickley and Gidon Saks, doubling as Hecuba and Priam were both terrific, contributing superbly to both sides of the work.

The stage production directed by Marie-Ève Signeyrole with sets by Fabien Teigné also plays an important part in maintaining an connection and fluidity between the 'classical' sections and the modern-day sections, as well as bringing out the underlying context of the climate change debate that is drawn between them. Projections and live filming are used, every means that can enhance the central key imagery of nature and devastation. There are blocks of ice, screens of hexagonal blocks, computer-generated swarms of bees, showing life and nature interwoven and in crisis. It's an impressive looking production, serving the subject, the music and the drama well, or as well as it is possible to do considering the limitations of what the arts can really be expected to contribute to the discussion.

Externa links: La Monnaie streaming, La Monnaie, OperaVision

Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress (Aix, 2017)

Igor Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2017

Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Simon McBurney, Julia Bullock, Paul Appleby, Kyle Ketelsen, Evan Hughes, David Pittsinger, Hilary Summers, Andrew Watts, Alan Oke

ARTE Concert - 11th July 2017

To borrow a phrase from Baba the Turk, the rationale behind Stravinsky's neoclassical account of The Rake's Progress is not only perplexing to many, but it can be vexing too. Without some imagination and purpose applied it can - to continue with Baba the Turk's own commentary - show too much devotion towards an ancient flame and end up being, in dramatic and musical terms, nothing more than a souless pastiche of Classical opera mannerisms. In that respect, the opera could even be a self-regarding commentary on it own nature.

When a work seems to be a superficial pastiche or a commentary on itself, it leaves limited scope for a director to do something new or interesting with it, but surely The Rake's Progress offers more potential than Simon McBurney brings to the new production of the opera at the Aix-en-Provence festival? Like his Magic Flute, which appeared at Aix a few years ago and at a few other European opera houses, the use of stage-craft is innovative - this time using an almost entirely computer generated boxed-in surrounding set - but it plays along with the superficiality of the work, illustrating it without finding or bringing any new depth in it.

It's true anyway of course that The Rake's Progress, based on a series of Hogarth 18th century prints, is essentially a cautionary tale warning of the dangers of being swept away by the superficial attractions of money and the dissolute lifestyle that comes with it, its superficial attractions blinding us from where true beauty lies and what life has to offer. On that level at least, as well as on a level that impressed with its open-box immersive visual extravagance, the production design matches the intent of the original. And, regardless of the fact that the Hogarth series is almost three hundred years old, its point about sinful indulgence lacking the true rewards of moral integrity still holds true, even if the times have changed.

Simon McBurney's production design is essentially then an updating of David Hockney's updating of the Hogarth prints in his designs for John Cox's celebrated Glyndebourne production, the world depicted in one of flat paintings come to life. McBurney's version of this world is a fake computer-generated equivalent, projected appropriately on a thin paper wall blank sheet. Nick Shadow is the first person to rip a whole in the wall and step into Tom Rakewell's perfect but dull world, and the fragile nature of this delusion is exposed with further rips and tears, the most damage being done with all the trivial luxury items purchased by Tom's new wife Baba poking through the walls and ceiling.

Aside from images of a stock-market crash and the towers of the City melting down, in essence there's nothing here that really puts any new spin on the dehumanising endgame of materialism, consumerism or capitalism. Rakewell's bread-making machine viewed as nothing more than a brown box hardly scales up the operation to a level where this would have any valid social commentary on the world today, and there's little in the opera anyway beyond platitutes of innocence and virtue in Trulove that suggest that there's any real-world alternative. By merely illustrating it, McBurney's production exposes the thinness of the opera's concept as much its basic morality tale, and the work needs more real engagement with its subject than this.

Musically, as sophisticated as Stravinsky's writing undoubtedly is in its own terms, never mind the cleverness of its appropriation and reworking of its neoclassical reference points, The Rake's Progress still risks coming across as little more than an early model for the West End or Broadway musical. Or worse, as an insincere West End or Broadway musical. I don't think the rather Handel oratorio-like archaic formality of expression of Auden and Kellman's dialogues helps, the libretto often giving the impression of just being clever for the sake of it without really expressing anything that has genuine feeling in it or a belief in the story it tells.

The blandness of the dialogues extends to the characters, who never come to life or show any real personality. Tom Rakewell, Anne Trulove, Nick Shadow; as their allegorical names indicate, they are all ciphers created to fit a predetermined role unenlivened by a sense of humour or irony instead of their natures arising out of their circumstances, behaviour or situations. The singing and dramatic presentation of these caricatures is well handled by Julia Bullock, Paul Appleby and Kyle Ketelsen, but inevitably superficial and mannered, lacking any human interest or purpose. Rather like the work itself, the Aix-en-Provence 2017 production of The Rake's Progress is something that it is easier to admire than truly enjoy.

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

Handel - Saul (Glyndebourne, 2015)

George Frideric Handel - Saul

Glyndebourne, 2015

Ivor Bolton, Barrie Kosky, Christopher Purves, Iestyn Davies, Paul Appleby, Lucy Crowe, Sophie Bevan, Benjamin Hulett, John Graham-Hall

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Very much old fashioned as they might be as a form of music, Handel's oratorios have proven to still have tremendous vitality in modern performances. More informed use of specialised period instruments in the hands of skilled musicians helps and some fine singers can bring the wonder of the music to life, but the works benefit just as much from efforts to make them visually appealing as stage works. The nature of the Biblical origins of those stories and the format Handel developed in the oratorio present some difficulties on that front, but Glyndebourne's acclaimed 2015 production of Saul is a perfect example of what can be done with an imaginative director on board.

As far as the musical performance of the work goes, there's little cause for concern. The composer's first English oratorio Saul has a tremendous character of its own, Handel by-passing the limitations that the opera format had placed on him by keeping arias short and free from repetition or da capo, using a larger scale orchestration than previously and introducing new instrumental colour, punctuating the work with short instrumental "Symphony" passages and high-impact choruses. Even if it wasn't written to be performed like an opera, there's a lot of dramatic colour in Saul and Ivor Bolton conducts the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment with all the necessary dynamic, capturing the sheer exuberance of the heightened passions while at the same time retaining the beauty and subtlety of more noble qualities expressed in the work.

Director Barrie Kosky's approach to the staging is a little less straightforward. The Australian director, who is also the Intendant at the Komische Oper in Berlin, operates in a style that is very much his own. A distinct, individual approach however works well in translating and putting across all the colour of Baroque opera for a modern audience who might otherwise find its structure and conventions dry, unappealing and unapproachable. Kosky's productions for Rameau and Monteverdi consequently can divide opinion, since they are unlikely to meet any preconceived ideas you might have for how those works should be staged. There's not much dramatic action in opera seria or in an oratorio like Saul, so an imaginative response is precisely what is required here.

Coming from the Biblical story of the Book of Samuel, the story of David and Saul is a familiar one, but not one that you would immediately consider lending itself to great music theatre, much less a high concept reinterpretation of it. Handel, with his librettist Charles Jennens however really give the story a colourful setting, with a particularly explosive opening and a magnificent finale. Barrie Kosky's approach seems to be simply to put those musical flourishes into visual terms, but not entirely in abstraction, retaining as much as possible of the essence of the emotional sentiments and the dramatic situation that provokes them in order for it all to remain meaningful.

You might think never think of the opening of Saul in the context of a huge feast on a banquet table before a colourfully dressed group of Israelites in 18th century costume, but there's no question that Kosky's vision for this setting entirely gets across the essence of Handel's music. It even invites you to listen to the music more closely to hear how the sentiments of joy are mixed with horror and fear at the sight of the decapitated head of Goliath lying gruesomely before them. Katrin Lea Tag's set designs don't elaborate on that a great deal over the three acts, remaining simple and expressive, but Kosky's finds other extravagant, surprising and grotesque ways of putting the dynamic across, using dance, movement, shouted interjections and shock imagery.

All of this is justified by the exuberance and extravagance that is found in Handel's composition itself - or if not justified, it at least abiding by the spirit of work. It might not appear to follow the stage directions of the libretto to the letter (although strictly there are no real stage directions to be followed in an oratorio), it still manages to adhere to the essential themes and intent of the work. Joyous celebration at the start of Saul is followed by anger, jealousy and love complications and ends in tragedy, mourning and reflection, but Handel no longer has to compartmentalise these sentiments according to old opera seria rules in the musical construction he develops for his oratorio.

That richness is reflected in the musical interpretation at Glyndebourne under Ivor Bolton, and it certainly finds an equivalent visual representation under Kosky's direction, but it's also matched on a performance level by the singing. Handel's music is a driving force in itself, but the dramatic emphasis that it requires often comes from the strength of individual performances. Unquestionably, it's Saul who is the centre of all the dramatic conflict in this oratorio, and it could hardly have a more driven Saul than the interpretation given here by Christopher Purves. Under Kosky's direction he's given full rein here to delve deep into his character's torment, and Purves expresses that fully in the beauty and nuance of the voice as well as in the very physical performance.

Saul then provides a solid core of anger, jealousy and hatred that inspires differing reactions and responses from all the other characters. Despite being charged with arranging for the death of David, Jonathan's inner compassion and his friendship with David overrides any hatred and jealousy that Saul tries to sow between them. David's response to Saul's actions are likewise more reflective and compassionate, and both men's character finds perfect expression in the performances of Iestyn Davies's lyrical countertenor David and Paul Appleby's noble Jonathan. The roles of Saul's daughters Michal and Merab are less well established, but the more sympathetic Michal comes across better in Sophie Bevan's performance, her undisguised glee at Saul's change of heart over her love for David adding another level of tone and amusement that fits in well with the intentions of the production. The gorgeous chorus writing that also plays such an important part in the overall tone of the work is superbly handed by The Glyndebourne Chorus.

Links: Glyndebourne

Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Met 2014 - HD-Live)

Richard Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Metropolitan Opera, 2014

James Levine, Otto Schenk, Annette Dasch, Karen Cargill, Johan Botha, Paul Appleby, Michael Volle, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Martin Gantner, Hans-Peter König, Matthew Rose

Met Live in HD - 13 December 2014

There's been quite a contrast between how New York's Metropolitan Opera present a mixture of modern and classic traditional Wagner productions. On the one hand you have the abstract otherworldly modernisations of Parsifal and the high-tech concepts of their Ring cycle, and on the other you have literal realism of the Otto Schenk's twenty year old production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. It demonstrates how opera tastes and approaches to production design and direction have changed over the years, but what hasn't changed (in my view anyway), and specifically in relation to Wagner's operas, is that they each in their own way seek to represent the essence of Wagner's music on the stage, as well as the literal narrative depiction of the drama.

Although the approach is quite different then, and the subjects evidently are as far apart as you can get on the Wagner scale, the Otto Schenk's production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and the Robert Lepage's Ring cycle for the Met both adopt the necessary approaches that they find best convey the qualities of the work. And, inevitably, both in their own way are doomed to fail to cover the totality of what is in each of those respective works, but that's the challenge you face when taking on works of such enormous richness and complexity. It's precisely because there is so much to be gained from those works that Wagner's music-dramas continue to inspire new ideas and radically different approaches and interpretations.

Despite the differences in the content and length, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is indeed a work that is just as rich and expansive in its outlook as the combined works of the Ring cycle. One specific common aspect of the Met's Ring and their Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg that serves as the backbone for each of the productions, is the necessary impression of solidity and firmness of purpose. That of course ought to be there, as it reflects the muscular complexity of the music score, which in turn serves to reflect the enduring universality of the subject - whether that be the nature of the gods in one or the nature of being human in the other. The Met's Machine gives a firm and consistent foundation to explore the Ring, while the detailed wood and stone structures for the set for Schenk's production give a little more of a human presence, one that is perhaps no less enduring, but also subject to change. The period setting for Meistersinger and the universality of the situations within it reminds us of that fact.

Aside from the strictly literal depiction of Nuremburg in the 16th century and the impressive visual impact of seeing whole streets, houses and workshops recreated in meticulously realistic detail and scale, the sets for Schenk's production fulfil another vital aspect of the work - the question of community. Whether you want to see the humanity within the work as Christian in nature - the opera even opening with a mass scene - other elements suggest that it's the community aspect that is what really matters. That's retained in the context of the period here, in the Christian worship and in the religious subjects that are the basis for the Meistersinger's songs. This of course is challenged by the youthful irreverence of Von Stolzing, but he is cautioned and coached by Hans Sachs not just in the rules of being a Meistersinger, but also how to respect the traditions and the values that underpin them. The community and the rules that govern it might seem restrictive, but - as the inclusion of the watchman suggests - it provides order and protection from, well... let's just for the purposes of this review politely call them "outside threats" to our way of life.

The Met's sets hold all this together, as well as being simply perfect for the functional demands of how the stage is used and filled by the huge choruses. Everything that occurs in Die Meistersinger is designed towards bringing about a showpiece conclusion that has real impact and meaning, and everything should lead towards this. The community and the values they hold are all there in the church setting of Act I, in the craft of the Meistersinger's trades, in the whole street scenes of Act II, in the setting of St John's Eve and the twilight evening, and in the honest labour of Hans Sachs' workshop where von Stolzing learns the value of the song. Act III's conclusion then is everything it ought to be, gathering together the youth and experience, the wisdom and folly, the generosity and the mean-spiritedness of the preceding acts into one glorious celebration of life.

If it's difficult to put all that humanity into the production design (even as it remains one of those challenges that will always attract ambitious directors like Stefan Herheim), the direction of the orchestra and the singing performances are there to bring in that very necessary dimension, and the Met's production consequently does that tremendously well. Principally, it's Levine's conducting of the work that brings all the human colour and nuance out of the score and it's representation of so many facets of the human condition that are there in Die Meistersinger. It is a glorious work, expressing a warmth, a humour and a human sensitivity that does not exist in quite the same way in any other Wagner opera. And although it exalts the qualities and capabilities that love brings to human existence, Wagner also recognises - intentionally I believe - the flaws, the meanness, pettiness and the vainglorious side of human nature that is there in Hans Sachs and Walther von Stolzing as much as in Sixtus Beckmesser. Maybe I'm being overly generous in that view.

Levine's conducting brings all those elements out, but not in isolation. He's clearly working with what is depicted on the stage and is sensitive also to the nature and characteristics of the individual singers. You would expect nothing less from James Levine, but in the context of this particular work, it's more important than ever, and the rewards it yields are even greater. The measure and the pacing through Acts I and II are delightful, revealing the beautiful flow of this work through to its epic conclusion, but with wonderful attention to detail in individual instruments - the individual or the artist's contribution in the harmony of the whole being part of what this work is about. Levine's conducting makes this aspect beautifully meaningful and relevant.

The singing is not quite as nuanced as Levine's contribution - I suspect a lack of direction in this revival - but all of the performances supported the work as a whole. There was perhaps not as much warmth and humanity in Michael Volle's Hans Sachs as you might like, and you didn't really get the sense of what he and Eva meant to each other, but he was drafted in at short notice and his singing was nonetheless marvellous. There's brightness and life in the timbre of his voice, his line was assured, and he has all the ability and charisma required to carry such a role. Johan Botha was perhaps not as strong in the role of Walther von Stolzing as he might have been in the past or in other Wagner roles, but if there is any decline in performance it's minor. Annette Dasch might have had one or two moments of unsteadiness but was a good Eva, although again failing to exude any warmth or character. This production's Beckmesser was more of an amiable blustering buffoon, posing no real threat to the "natural order", but whatever way it's played, Johannes Martin Kränzle experience of this role injects it with the good-natured humour and humanity that is lacking elsewhere.

Led by Levine, it was the underlying humanity that shone out of this production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and that's what marks it as one of the greatest operas ever written. It's remarkable that it takes six hours to perform this work, but there's nothing you would have taken out or reduced, nothing that seems too much or unnecessary. The impression you should be left with rather is that everything feels absolutely right. The genius of Wagner's Die Meistersinger is that it leaves you with a sense of wonder and satisfaction that there may indeed be purpose, order and meaning to life that is within our grasp. In Die Meistersinger, art is the force that elevates humanity, demonstrates man's capacity to express and endure their condition and achieve their potential. It's a philosophy that lies at the heart of all Wagner's work, and it's recognised and brought out marvellously in this New York Met production.