Handel / Mozart - Der Messias (Salzburg, 2020)

George Frideric Handel / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Der Messias

Mozartwoche Salzburg, 2020

Marc Minkowski, Robert Wilson, Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft, José Coca Loza

Unitel Classica - Blu-ray

Putting aside the sheer beauty of the aesthetic of a visual artist who paints with light and shapes, the success of Robert Wilson's unique style and direction, I find, is down to his ability to touch on the spiritual nature of music in his abstract designs without needing to slavishly serve the conventional narrative form of the drama. Evidently that works well in works that stretch the opera form like Pelléas et Mélisande or Arvo Pärt's Adam's Passion, but even in a work with no apparent ambitions towards spirituality as Einstein on the Beach or in a work as conventionally opera-dramatic as Il Trovatore he sometimes manages it as well - perhaps finding something spiritual in the less familiar French language version in the case of the latter.

There are similar gaps to explore between traditional expectations and boundaries in this less familiar German version of Handel's Messiah. The original work itself of course has a beautiful spiritual dimension, and if the purpose or intent of the oratorio is to embody the essence of godliness, Wilson is well equipped to do that. Intriguingly however the work was arranged with new instruments and in the German language by Mozart, another great composer who also had a deep feeling for the spiritual side of humanity, who would himself contribute a considerable body of his work to religious music, masses and of course in his famous requiem. There's an intriguing crossover there, an exploration and reworking of one great composer's work by another to his own idiom and that presents a fascinating musical world for a conductor to explore, and for a director like Robert Wilson to present.

Quite how you would begin to describe Wilson's approach to Der Messias, much less evaluate it, doesn't seem at all worthwhile. In a light-boxed and light-framed stage he captures transitions in mood, sentiment and meaning in a shifting of light, in the change of a colour tone, a blast of bright godly light or fading light like the setting of the sun, from glory to quiet contemplation. The projections of nature and floating natural objects add another element not always used in the artificial reality and geometric shapes of Wilson productions. A log, a stick, a tree with roots, waves gently rolling, huge shifting and crashing icebergs. And within this figures are precisely posed, Richard Croft dressed up like a Bob Hope music hall entertainer, winking and nodding to the audience, Elena Tsallagova a more angelic presence (and voice), with dancers and other enigmatic figures making appearances.

You might have a problem with this abstraction, but only if you try to apply or impose meaning or interpretation upon it. It can distract from following the expression of Charles Jennens's libretto (although that has a complicating factor in it being sung in German, so is not as 'direct' as you might be familiar with). Not that Jennens's words are transparent or direct in any case, but if they take on renewed meaning here it's because of Mozart's beautiful version of the score, a wonderful blend of Handel's composition and Mozart's musical and instrumental rearrangement. Not that you can find Wilson's contribution indifferent. As is often the case, even if it sounds like a cop out, is that you have to do is let Wilson transport you into his vision and feeling for the piece. It will work for some, not so much for others, but it is beautiful hypnotic and involving in its own way.

Inevitably, there is always a sense of coldness and formality about a Robert Wilson production, which when aligned with the archaic expression of Jennens makes the message of the Messiah feel as if it were something encased in ice. That may sound unkind, but there is something to that view of religious formality and purity that doesn't permit any flaws or imperfections. Wilson embraces this, finds the beauty within it and seeks to almost glorify it and in his own way break through the ice to the message of warmth, of peace and of hope for humanity. Which was perhaps also Mozart's intention in taking the outdated musical style of oratorio and bringing his own human touch to the greatness that lies within Handel's icy perfection.

Whether he succeeds and whether you ascribe to the Wilson view of opera and theatre direction or not is a matter for the individual viewer, but it's unquestionably original. If you go with that (ice) flow however, there's every possibility that you can look at Handel's Messiah in an entirely new way. The contribution of Mozart's Classical Viennese reworking of Handel can't be discounted for the power and majesty of the music alone, and unsurprisingly Handel sounds natural in German. In terms of interpretation it is quite wonderful under Marc Minkowski and his Les Musiciens du Louvre. Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft and José Coca Loza all likewise go a considerable way to ensure that even though almost entirely devoid of any religious connotation, the majesty of the work and its uplifting message for humanity comes through clearly.

Any Robert Wilson production in High Definition is always a treat and the image on this Blu-ray release from Unitel Classica of the 2020 Mozart Week Salzburg performance captures the muted blue/grey colour tones and the gradations of light and shadow beautifully. The 48kHz/24 bit High Resolution LPCM and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio tracks are no less impressive a soundstage for the wonderful musical performances and outstanding soloist and choral singing. Other than trailers, there are no extra features on the disc, just some background information in the enclosed booklet on how Mozart's version came into being and some consideration of the ideas employed by Wilson. The region-free Blu-ray has subtitles in German, English, French, Korean and Japanese.

Links: Mozartwoche Salzburg

Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito (Glyndebourne, 2017)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito

Glyndebourne, 2017

Robin Ticciati, Claus Guth, Richard Croft, Alice Coote, Anna Stéphany, Michèle Losier, Clive Bayley, Joélle Harvey

Glyndebourne online - 3 August 2017

It seems to be the case that the success of a production of one of Mozart's opera seria works depends very much on how well it balances of all its different crucial elements. Mozart's music speaks for itself and in La Clemenza di Tito it's of a rare beauty and perfection; almost too beautiful for the nature of the turmoil and sentiments of the work, until you realise at the conclusion that this sense of order and reconciliation is precisely the point of the opera. The spoken dialogue in Mozart's work however is rarely given a consideration commensurate with the kind of attention to detail that is applied to the music.

In the past it's often been a case of cutting or rushing through the long stretches of recitative or spoken dialogue in Mozart operas to get back to the music. Christof Loy however demonstrated in an uncut Die Entführung aus dem Serail was how a work could be transformed when a director gave equal consideration to the mood and meaning of the spoken drama passages and had capable performers with good acting skills to deliver them. When both music and drama were given this kind of attention, there can be a remarkable synthesis between words and music, staging and performance, showing that Mozart's operas are more than just a collection of pretty tunes.

Robin Ticciati's conducting of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the 2017 Glyndebourne production certainly demonstrates that there is more to the music than pretty tunes. He picks out the gorgeous detail of the composition and structure, highlighting the sonority of individual instruments and how they combine with the drama and sentiments of the work itself. Director Claus Guth characteristically looks beneath the surface and presents contrasting sides of the conflicted personalities involved in the opera's drama, but it's in how they give expression to the flaws in their nature - in the spoken sections as much as in the singing - that their humanity combines with Mozart's music to create a beautiful whole.

And when you see this opera done so well, its qualities as a complete opera are all the more evident. La Clemenza di Tito is more than a typical opera of expositional dialogue followed by static arias of love and anguish. The opera has some measure of dramatic interaction and action, but more importantly it has real human sentiments rather than generic interchangeable ones that drive these actions and give the arias a real sense of heartfelt meaning. In Mozart's hands, La Clemenza di Tito is more than a musical exercise and more than just a plot to hang some pretty arias off.

Here Tito's actions do not feel arbitrary or cruel. They reflect the real difficulties of ruling and trying to please everyone. Ruling it seems is not just a case of having your cake and eating it. We recognise Tito's wisdom in this matter early on when Servilia tells the emperor that her heart belongs to Annio but she is willing to submit to his will, and Tito renounces his intention to marry her. Likewise, when the cake offered is potentially poisonous, metaphorically speaking, as when Publio offers him a list of known political agitators who have been outspoken about the regime, Tito refuses to take any action against them. He certainly doesn't send in the riot police.

But a ruler is only as informed as his advisors allow him to be and only if his subjects are willing to speak without fear of retribution. Willingness to learn and forgive is all a part of La Clemenza di Tito and that's a characteristic that perhaps seems a little more idealistic when applied to the reality we know. And yet how attractive a proposition Mozart makes this seem. La Clemenza di Tito might appear unrealistic and naive in its treatment of the realities of politics and human nature, but the primary purpose of the opera is not to show a mirror to reality, but rather to show the potential of human nature and the rewards that we can strive to attain.

Claus Guth's production for Glyndebourne 2017 uses a split-level set design by Christian Schmidt to show to separation of the reality and the ideal and the conflict that lies between them. Guth recognises that the divisions are not as obvious as you might think, particularly in Mozart's view, where feelings of love and revenge can lie on the same side and are contrasted rather with duty and social/regal expectations that can blind one from seeing the truth. Guth also suggests a division between the spoken articulated word on one level and deeper sentiments and forces that drive one underneath. I'm not sure why Guth chooses to show the lower level as some kind of swamp, but there is a sense of seeking the truth in a more simple way of life, away from the duties of office.

What is also interesting about La Clemenza di Tito is that it's a work where, depending on the production, different figures can emerge as the key player, each expressing this split in nature versus behaviour. In some productions Sesto takes prominence as the character most prone to action and reaction. In others a forceful Vitellia can be the manipulator who provokes the troubles and then comes to regret her actions. It all very much depends on the strength of the direction of the performers, and while Anna Stéphany and Alice Coote are both excellent as Sesto and Vitellia in this production, it's Richard Croft's lyrical and sensitively performed Tito who emerges as a figure of real personality and character, showing genuine human concern for the role of a ruler and the anguish over the difficulties it involves.

Attention to the recitative is important, being able to get across the human feelings behind the words is vital, and Guth's direction forges a strong connection with Mozart's music as it is conducted by Robin Ticciati. Guth also has recourse to projections that hark back to simpler times, showing Tito and Sesto as children, but whether this is necessary or not, it provides another layer that fits in with all the other elements and gets to the human heart of Mozart's great final opera.

Links: Glyndebourne

Mozart - Idomeneo (Theater an der Wien, 2015 - Webcast)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Idomeneo

Theater an der Wien, 2015

René Jacobs, Damiano Michieletto, Richard Croft, Gaëlle Arquez, Sophie Karthäuser, Marlis Petersen, Julien Behr, Mirko Guadagnini

Culturebox - 20 November 2015

Idomeneo is a problematic work in the Mozart canon, belonging to his youthful period and tied to the format and conventions of opera seria. It is unquestionably Mozart however, highly accomplished and full of melody and beauty, but with a darker edge of terror here. It's the latter aspect that is an unfamiliar quality from what we are accustomed to hearing in Mozart, and it often seems to be at odds or inadequately expressed by the beauty of the music itself. Damiano Michieletto's production of Idomeneo for the Theater an der Wien seems to get more from the work by focussing on that darker side, and is assisted in drawing those qualities from a closer period interpretation of the music by René Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchester.

Michelietto's production relies heavily on symbolism to emphasise the darker underlying context of Idomeneo beyond even the horror of the drama that unfolds. We are reminded of the fall of Troy and the damaging consequences of what the Greeks have brought back from the long drawn-out war on the highly-stylised stage set. Boxed-in by a set of curtains, the stage is a sand and mud pit filled with the boots of fallen warriors, the characters having to pick their way through it, sticking to the ground and stumbling over the lumps and bumps of this troubled landscape. It's here that we first see Ilia and get a sense of her predicament and state of mind. She can't escape from what has happened to her home and neither the love professed by Idamante nor his freeing of her captive people are enough to compensate for that.

There is more tension between Ilia and Idamante than you would traditionally see in this work since there is another lump or bump that is significant in this version. Ilia, the daughter of King Priam, is noticeably pregnant by the son of an enemy king, which only deepens her despair and confusion. The gift she had to offer Idomeneo when he returns back from the dead after the storm at sea is a package of baby clothes and an ultrasound scan of the baby she is carrying. Any kind of joyful news, whether its the liberation of the 'refugee' Trojans, Ilia's conflicted love for Idamante, or indeed Idamante's joy at the safe return of his father, is qualified and short-lived. Particularly the latter situation, since Idomeneo has rashly promised Neptune to sacrifice the first person he meets if he is allowed to survive and reach dry land.

The characterisation is thus somewhat more consistent here with the overall tone and it's very strongly developed and explored in this production; in appearance, in singing and in how each person reacts to one another. There's a lot of pent-up tension and no respite for anyone following the harrowing war that has just ended. The tension between Ilia and Idamante for example, should be obvious considering their backgrounds, but it is only really drawn out here by the symbolism, the direction of the performers and how they sing the roles, as well as by how Jacobs handles the musical direction. The usual bombastic emphasis of the romantic melodic line is toned down by the harder edge of the period instruments, Jacobs aiming for a simpler interpretation that seeks to find a truer expression for the dramatic content which might not be quite as developed here as in other Mozart works.

The casting and singing however are of the highest order, and it's noticeably this aspect - the lyrical qualities of the singing voice and what it is capable of expressing - that differentiates Mozart's late opera seria innovations from other works in this style. All of the singers here show how good this early Mozart can be when it has the right voices assigned to the roles, and when those roles are allowed to express the characterisation that is implicit in the situations they find themselves in. It's most evident in Richard Croft's Idomeneo. Like Kasper Holten's 2014 Vienna production, the King of Crete is visibly haunted here by the bloodshed and horror of the Trojan war, tormented by gore-covered ghosts. He's like Macbeth haunted by Banquo's ghost, driven mad, stumbling and flailing, self obsessed and full of self-pity, wallowing in the injustice of it all and hopelessly ineffectual as a consequence, often symbolically found in proximity to a bed.

Croft's voice has a softness, delicacy and lyricism that matches the requirements of this kind of Idomeneo. And even with the sweetest timbre, Sophie Karthäuser too can express the conflict and boiling anger that lies just beneath the surface of Ilia, making those beautiful da capo arias really express something fundamental about herself and her predicament. Just as impressive is Gaëlle Arquez as Idamante who proves here, if it needed to be made clear, that in the absence of a castrato, a mezzo-soprano can make much more of this role than a countertenor. There's a lovely voice there to be sure, but Arquez also demonstrates confidence in her expression, interpretation and colour.

The icing on the cake her is the luxury casting of Marlis Petersen as Electra. She fully involves herself in Michieletto's characterisation of Electra as a scheming glamour puss in blonde wig, wearing glittery dresses as she teeters through this landscape of misery in high-heels and shopping bags. She's the only person happy with the turn of events, since Idomeneo is forced to send her off with Idamante into the safety of exile, trying on a series of colourful outfits in a fashion-show rendition of 'Idol mio'. There's a little thinness creeping into the middle range, but Petersen is still capable of imbuing this role with great character, and her spirited performance is exactly what is needed to give the work that extra dimension and dynamic.

While the consistency of tone is maintained right through to the climax and is perhaps even bleaker in the ruins of Crete, I'm not sure that Act III holds together quite as strongly. As is often the case these days, Electra and Idomeneo are depicted as self-interested villains - and even lovers here - who pay the price for their actions. The singing and performances at least are just as strong and convincing, Sophie Karthäuser in particular delivering an amazing 'Zeffiretti lusinghieri', Gaëlle Arquez joining her impressively for the subsequent duet. Julien Behr also shows us the value of his Arbace here. If the direction throws everything in to try to make the final act a little more exciting - including the voice of Neptune seeming to come from Ilia's womb - it at least finds the right note to end on, Mozart's long chaccone accompanied by Ilia going into labour and giving birth on the stage. As far as establishing Idomeneo's out with the old and in with the new message, this production - as elsewhere - takes everything just that little bit further than most.


Links: Culturebox, Theater an der Wien

Glass - Satyagraha

Philip Glass - Satyagraha

The Metropolitan Opera, New York

Dante Anzolini, Phelim McDermott, Julian Crouch, Richard Croft, Rachelle Durkin, Molly Fillmore, Maria Zifchak, Mary Phillips, Kim Josephson, Bradley Garvin, Richard Bernstein, Alfred Walker

The Met: Live in HD - November 19, 2011

It’s taken a long time for Philip Glass to find acceptance in his home city of New York, his success and popularity as a living modern composer undoubtedly regarded with some suspicion by music critics, as well as his ability to blur the lines between classical and modern music through the writing of numerous film scores and symphonies based on David Bowie albums. Mainly however, it has to be admitted, the criticism has been principally on a failure to grasp the value of his minimalist approach to music that consists of long sections of repetitive rhythms with slowly changing parts, music that seems to be more mathematical in its structure and precision than relating in any meaningful way to human emotion or expression. It’s a valid criticism, but it’s one that a serious consideration of Glass’s 1980 opera Satyagraha very strongly refutes, and with this production at the Metropolitan Opera, it seems as if recognition for the brilliance of the work – one of the greatest opera works of the late 20th century – and for Philip Glass has finally been achieved.

The Met have of course been more receptive towards Philip Glass than the music critics, with his first opera Einstein on the Beach – an abstract avant-garde theatrical project that is undoubtedly one of the composer’s more difficult works – performed there in 1976. It was the Met who also commissioned Glass to write The Voyage (1990), an opera to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus, which, if it approached the subject from a typically oblique angle, was however rather more conventional in its musical form. Of all Philip Glass’ opera works, Saytagraha remains one of the most interesting, shaped as it is by period of its writing with Glass still in minimalist mode but moving towards a more conventional use of classical orchestra instrumentation. Forced by necessity of the size of the orchestra pit of the commissioning house in Rotterdam,Satyagraha is distinctive also for making use only of strings and woodwind instruments, with no percussion or brass, and some supplemental electronic organ to hold the rolling sequences of rhythms.

There is however one more vital component to the sound and the score for Satyagraha that doesn’t require space in the orchestra pit, and that is the composer’s remarkable and unconventional use of the voice in the opera. Apart from the ensemble arrangements for duos, quartets, sextets and choir, what is significant and unconventional about how the voice is implemented in Satyagraha, is that it the libretto is sung in Sanskrit, the words broken down into syllables that give additional force, rhythm and another layer of instrumentation on top of the orchestration. The choice of Sanskrit is, of course, not random, but inextricably tied into the purpose, the themes and the expression of the subject of the opera, which deals with Mahatma Gandhi, specifically his early years in South Africa where he first formulated his principles of non-violence and civil disobedience working as a lawyer for the immigrant Indian population there.

The entire libretto of Satyagraha, written and arranged by Glass and Constance De Jong, is drawn from an ancient Hindu scripture, the Bhagavada Gita, and what is highly unusual about its use is not just that it’s sung in Sanskrit, but that this sacred text replaces any kind of conventional narrative spoken by the principal characters. Gandhi would have meditated on the Bhagavada Gita, and rather than use any external means of expression through the libretto for the actions of Gandhi and his supporters during this period in their following the path of truth (the meaning of the word “satyagraha” is roughly “truth force”), Glass chooses to have his characters look inward as a means of dealing with the increasing violence, prejudice and injustice enacted by the European South Africans against the blacks and Indian immigrants. Used in this way, the rhythmic intoning of the verses of the Bhagavada Gita are attuned Janacek-style to the tone and inflections of the voice with a mantra that seems to bear the sacred voice of truth. Working in conjunction with the barest outline of the setting of the real-life events, the words of the libretto and their delivery combine to create a near-religious purity of expression that has all the sincerity, conviction and spirituality of a Handel oratorio.

It starts as one voice, initially Gandhi alone (sung well in this production by Richard Croft), who has just arrived in South Africa as a young lawyer, and has immediately been put off the train for failing to give up his seat to a white man. In a moment of silence before the music and singing commences, he looks at his suitcase lying in the dust as if trying to decide whether to just give up and go home. Instead he turns his thoughts inward, finding the determination to go take up the struggle in the Bhagavada Gita’s description of the great conflict between the Kuruvas and the Pandavas. That voice is taken up by others as the opera progresses, his secretary Miss Schlesen, Kasturbai and Mrs Naidoo, culminating in an extraordinary sextet by all the principals through the New Castle March of Act III, each of them finding truth in the words and the strength to stand up to the injustice of the South African government’s racially discriminatory laws. There are few real dramatic reconstructions, not one word written that attempts to describe the narrative playing out of events or the interaction between the characters. The characters for the most part face the audience and express the truth as it is written in the Bhagavada Gita, and find their strength and unity through this.

That’s very difficult to get across on the stage, particularly as the ancient Sanskrit text is not translated into English surtitles for the audience, but the opera is only difficult if the audience is expecting a conventional narrative. Words, and attempts to define or interpret their meaning, would just get in the way here. The meaning should come through the intoning and recital of the vocal arrangements themselves, driven forcefully with the accompaniment of the orchestra. It helps however if there is something visually interesting and relevant to focus on in the place of dramatic action. That might not have been there in previous very rare productions of the opera (the Stuttgart production of Satyagraha by Achim Freyer, currently the only version available on DVD), that perhaps haven’t been able to bring the meaning across quite as well as it’s done here. Directed by Phelim McDermott, with the set designs by Julian Crouch and the Improvisational Puppetry of their Improbable theatrical company’s skills ensemble, this production manages to find a balance between the stylised setting of the events in Gandhi’s life in South Africa between 1893 and 1913, the words of the libretto – some of which are projected in English onto the set designs – and the wider context of the opera and the meaning of satyagraha, past, present and future (in Tolstoy, Tagore and King).

I first saw this production of Satyagraha when it premiered in London at the English National Opera in 2007 (and again when it was revived in 2010), and even then it was clear how those subjects and the broader meaning of Gandhi’s message in the opera were still relevant and successfully put across by the inventive but unfussy production that combined spectacle with meaning. That relevance is perhaps even more pronounced at the present time, with the power of non-violence and peaceful demonstration evident in upheavals in the Arab world, but also in events closer to home at St Paul’s in London and, not so far away from the Metropolitan Opera itself, contemporaneously on Wall Street. The timing seems fortuitous, resulting in deserved recognition belatedly given to Satyagraha and Philip Glass in standing ovations at the Met global broadcast around the world in HD-Live, but the truths expressed in the opera itself have always been there, only needing the means to spread the word and find an audience who will be receptive to it. It’s gratifying to see then that the same global communications technology that played such a vital part in the Arab revolutions as a new Indian Opinion could, albeit in a much less important way, help gain wider appreciation for this particular work, but – who knows? – some might even find deeper inspiration from the truths expressed in it.