Raymond Deane - Vagabones
Opera Collective Ireland, 2019
Sinéad Hayes, Ben Barnes, Crash Ensemble, Rory Dunne, Carolyn Holt, Kelli-Ann Masterson, Sarah Power, Rory Musgrave, Ross Scanlon, Fionn Ó hAlmhain
The Civic Theatre, Tallaght - 6 September 2019
Do I detect a certain amount of revived hostility towards the English in recent new Irish opera works? It's not hard to note a growing frustration bordering on disbelief at the handling of Brexit in the UK and the serious collateral damage that this English vanity project might inflict on the people and the economy of Ireland. Old grudges haven't been forgotten, the wounds run deep and it looks like they might be coming back to the surface.
Another new Irish opera premiered in Dublin just a few weeks ago. Donnacha Dennehy's The Hunger dealt with the Irish Famine, and while its focus was on the suffering of the ordinary people, taking the perspective from historical accounts and the roots of suffering in traditional Irish music, it was made clear in the contemporary interviews with academics that it's a historical accepted that the English were certainly not blameless for the severity of the situation. As well as continuing to export grain from Ireland during the famine, it's clear that there was a general indifference to the suffering of the Irish people in favour of a hands-off approach to non-intervention in market forces that contributed to the severity of the resulting famine.
Showing that Irish opera seems to be going through a rich phase at the moment, it's hard not to see similar political undercurrents and contemporary resonance in Opera Collective Ireland's commission of Raymond Deane's new opera Vagabones. Whether it is indeed in reaction to contemporary events, Brexit and border issues being revived by the English is probably too early to say, but it's interesting that Deane also chooses to delve far back into Irish history to another episode where a sense of English entitlement and ruling superiority can be seen as being responsible for the oppression of the Irish way of life in the sowing of hatred and suspicion.
Based on the play 'Trespasses' written in the mid-1990s by Emma Donoghue, Vagabones dates back long enough before the current fiasco and cause of divisions, but it also derives in part from the writer's experience of being Irish and living in England in the period leading up to the Good Friday Agreement. It's based on an account of a witch trial of Florence Newton, which took place in Youghal in Co. Cork in 1661, one of the few witch trails that took place in Ireland. Perhaps, if Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible' is anything to go by, the accusation made against Florence Newton is inspired by jealousy more than any deeper political intent by Mary Longdon, a maid of English origin. Afraid that she won't be able to marry her master John Pyne because she suffers from epileptic fits, Mary blames them on the curse of old Irish woman, accusing her of being a witch.
Ben Barnes's direction of Opera Collective Ireland's world premiere production of Vagabones keeps to the 17th century period setting and doesn't set about introducing any modernisms or revisionism, or indeed anything that would point to any contemporary allegorical or political element. The locations are all based in and around Florence's prison cell and her being brought to trial, those scenes contrasted with the finery of the English landlords and ruling authorities. The sense of injustice is strong, heightened by entitlement of the authorities that even if they know they are wrong they must be seen to be right. Sharing a cell with Donal a young boy jailed for a minor theft, there is a sense of the poor being made to pay for the indulgences of the rich. In the hierarchy here, even an English maid is more important than an indigenous Irish person.
If the historical subject matter and treatment of Irish matters in their new opera works suggests a common purpose when seen in close proximity, Raymond Deane comes from a very different musical background to Donnacha Dennehy. Deane, who studied composition under Stockhausen in Cologne, is more from the European modernist tradition open to experimentation, whereas Dennehy has a strong connection to the peculiarities of Irish trad for rhythm and sensibility and a foot in American minimalism. There are no obvious Irish musical references in Vagabones, although there is some use of accordion and harp, but if there are similarities between Dennehy's The Hunger and Dean's Vagabones it's probably highlighted by in the use of the Crash Ensemble and a similar scale of chamber orchestration, with an ensemble of 13 musicians conducted by Sinéad Hayes.
Deane's music and his development of Vagabones from a play gives the work a more traditional dramatic character with nothing overtly experimental. Deane does develop a technique here, creating a unique voice for each of the six main characters by superimposing scales on a pitch structure to develop a unique voice for each of the characters. Whether that's evident or not, it at least gives the something with which to establish a sense of character and personality. The scoring certainly has mood and impact, the music appropriate in scale and delivery for the intimacy of the subject, supporting the drama and letting its undercurrents come through.
The singing performances are all very good, inevitably somewhat Sprechgesang and traditionally dramatic. It's delivered as such with nothing unconventional or experimental here, and no unnecessary flourishes. Vagabones is a smaller scale chamber work and it might not be particularly ambitious in staging or conception, but it certainly finds an intriguing subject that works well on its own terms as a drama and even in a wider context, presents a interesting bigger picture of where contemporary Irish opera and maybe even Ireland is at the moment.
Links: Opera Collective Ireland
Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice
Irish National Opera, 2019
Peter Whelan, Emma Martin, Sharon Carty, Sarah Power, Emma Nash, Dominica Williams, Fearghal Curtis, Matthew Mannion, Robyn Byrne, Stefaniw Dufresne, Javier Ferrer, Sophia Preidel
The Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire - 28 February 2019
The absolute wonder of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, the reason for its reputation as one of the greatest works of opera ever composed and the ability of the work to deeply move audiences some 350 years after it was composed, lies undoubtedly in its simplicity. Or rather its apparent simplicity since it relates to deep human feelings that connect us to myth, Gluck's work fully employing all the artistic musical, theatrical and dance elements that are the essence of opera. Refinement rather than simplicity of all those elements and how they work together was at the heart of Gluck's reformist agenda for opera, and it's in adherence to those principals that the Irish National Opera succeed in their beautifully simple but refined production.
Such indeed is the refinement and unadorned beauty of Orfeo ed Euridice and the deeper sentiments that underlie its purpose, that it can sustain all manner of interpretations. It is mythology after all. At the heart of the work is perhaps the rawest and most relatable of human emotions, those connected to love and loss, Orpheus's desire to bring his beloved wife Eurydice back from the dead practically serving as a model for Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Gluck's ability to make those sentiments behind Orpheus's dramatic/symbolic journey vividly real in musical terms lie at the heart of the work.
Unquestionably then, even though La Fura dels Baus have successfully been let loose on the work with their enhanced stage techniques, they recognised nonetheless that it was essential to forge a connection between the music/musicians and the drama. In rather more stripped back conditions, while still presenting a theatrical presentation of extraordinary beauty, director and choreographer Emma Martin likewise, but through entirely different means, succeeds in making the essence of Gluck's timeless musical moods and melodies visible on the stage in the Irish National Opera's production.
First performed last year for the Galway Festival, but taken this year on a wider provincial tour of Ireland, the venues chosen remain (for the most part) small scale, permitting an intimate closeness with the drama and the production. Indeed, my front row seat at the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire placed me practically in the 'orchestra pit', sharing a ground level space almost between the orchestra ensemble and 'stage'. Immersive theatre is nothing new, nor indeed is immersive opera, but it's quite another thing to be immersed in the same space that Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice occupies, particularly one that in every other way strives to make the work's every sentiment tangible.
Stripping back the orchestra to its essential components, Peter Whelan's arrangement and conducting of the Irish Baroque Orchestra permits the beauty of each of the instruments and the part they play in each of the scenes to stand out all the more vividly. Emma Martin's production likewise reduces the vocal ensemble down to the main roles of Orpheus, Eurydice and Amore, with Amore also part of the four-way harmonised voices of the chorus for the Mourners, Furies and Blessed Spirits. Nothing was lost with this reduction, but rather the refinement of Gluck's musical scoring only even more apparent.
Orfeo ed Euridice was of course originally intended to make use of another element of opera that in the subsequent century after its writing tended to not have such a prominent role, and that's dance. Orfeo ed Euridice is written for movement, it's not the static stand-and-sing solitary aria expressions of the requisite numbers and sentiments of baroque opera, nor is it the stop-start division of singing and ballet of the French tragedie-lyrique, but an essential integration of dance into the whole flow and pace of the work. Orfeo ed Euridice indeed has been staged purely as a dance work, but more often opera productions tend to cut the instrumental/dance passages to suit modern tastes.
As a choreographer Emma Martin however knows the value of dance in Orfeo ed Eurydice adding another dimension to the opera and bring those sentiments to life. The INO production accordingly has a four-person troupe of dancers that symmetrically balance and in a way supplement the four-part chorus, flowing and weaving thought the work like the notes of Gluck's score brought to life. They vividly express all those stages of Orpheus's grief, as much as the impassioned singing of Sharon Carty's Orpheus himself/herself; the anger and the struggle with the Furies (even transforming into a horrifying multi-limbed creature that stalks Orpheus across the stage, wrapping him in his submission to the Blessed Spirits, standing as a barrier between this world and the unreachable other.
The superb flow and choreography extends its mood and reaches outward to take in the stage itself. It doesn't need much in the way of set dressing but everything is purposefully employed, the lighting effective for the mood, the drapes at the back of the stage and the veils wrapped around the figures drawing everything together. It's not just the choreography or even the impressive technical blocking of the singers with the dancers and the sets, it's the direction of every scene to match and express those deeper human sentiments at the heart of the work.
The qualities of the human voice are essential to that purpose and Sharon Carty (Orpheus), Sarah Power (Eurydice) and Emma Nash (Amore) made them soar with love, anger, fear and regret. The essential moral of the mythological take, which was unfortunately lost under the stage requirement of the period to present a happier ending, must also be taken into consideration. Romeo Castellucci managed to address that brilliantly in his living-death element to his production for La Monnaie, and Emma Martin also takes the reality of the nature of bereavement into account here, consigning the happy ending to a kind of postlude that reminds us that after loss, life still goes on.
Links: Irish National Opera
