Johann Strauss - Die Fledermaus
Northern Ireland Opera, 2019
Walter Sutcliffe, Gareth Hancock, Stephan Loges, Ben McAteer, Maria McGrann, May McFettridge, Denis Lakey, John Porter, Alexandra Lubchansky, Dawn Burns, Conor Breen, Mark Pancek,
Grand Opera House, Belfast - 17th September 2019
It was a bit concerning for any opera fan that the last Northern Ireland Opera production was a Stephen Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and with advance notice that Belfast's local pantomime dame May McFettridge has been signed up for a role in the Johann Strauss operetta Die Fledermaus, it looked like we'd skipped the opera season and Christmas had come early to the Belfast Grand Opera House this year. Still, the best way to take this this is perhaps not to look at this from a serious operatic viewpoint or as a pantomime either but just as an enjoyable piece of light entertainment, and Walter Sutcliffe's production managed to achieve that. Eventually.
It's easy to be dismissive of musicals and light operetta, but such works bring their own challenges in finding a successful blend of acting and singing, in establishing a comic situation and getting the timing and delivery right. In the hands of specialised practitioners of the opéra-comique, comedy and farce can be hugely entertaining when it is done right on the opera stage. In terms of visual presentation, NI Opera's Die Fledermaus looked the part with Andrea Kaempf's spectacular set designs and superb colourful costumes, but there was a bit of a disconnect between the visuals and the performances that - in the first half at least - failed to engage the audience.
Surprisingly even Strauss's famous overture - jam-packed with the composer's brilliant waltz melodies - failed to raise any applause from the audience, as they looked on baffled wondering what a man in a Batman suit was doing running through a kaleidoscopic visual of art deco city skyscrapers. The man is of course Falke, who has been made the butt of a practical joke, left wandering through the city in a fancy-dress costume, something he isn't ever going to live down until he gets revenge on his friend Eisenstein, but unless you had a programme to read the synopsis, the visuals alone weren't sufficient to let you know the backstory.
The use of a 60s era Adam West Batman costume was a good updating of the Bat costume that gives the opera its title, but it still the overture didn't have the necessary 'Ka-pow!' factor. The English translation maybe could have been looser and wittier, the delivery could have been sharper and it could have had more of a local connection. One reference to the maid Adele's aunt, supposedly at death's door, being seen cycling up the Cave Hill fell a little flat, as it seemed entirely at odds with the high society life of the Eisensteins with their servants and their lavish art deco mansion. I mean, I know the Antrim Road is posh but it's not exactly 19th century Viennese high society.
You can get away with a lot however if you play the comedy to the hilt, particularly when you've got Johann Strauss's melodies behind you and musically Die Fledermaus is a feast that was at least relished by the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Gareth Hancock in the pit. Unfortunately, the Belfast production seemed to lack the confidence and edge to push the boat out and really let it swing, some of the voices weren't always strong enough or had too strong an accent to lift it over the orchestra, and Act I's intermission came around quickly with an indifferent smattering of applause. Still, if we wanted to see things liven up a little more, there was always the promise of May McFettridge in the second half.
As it turned out, May McFettridge's role as the jailer Frosch wasn't really exploited either, but Walter Sutcliffe had a few other surprises that enlivened the second half considerably. We got a drag-queen Prince and his very gender-fluid entourage and servants, the racy exploits of Eisenstein trying to seduce the Hungarian Countess who was actually his wife Rosalinde carried over well, but essentially it was the party scenes - the colour, the costumes, the lighting and the choreography - that established a more unified connection with Strauss's music and its sensibility. It was suddenly much more fun.
And if an entertaining evening was all you were expecting from Die Fledermaus, NI Opera got there in the end. I heard many comments of approval from the audience as I left the theatre, so along with their music-theatre productions at the Lyric, the company are reaching an audience. The failure to produce a single genuine opera this year however is more of a concern for opera goers, and NI Opera could lose out big time to Opera Ireland's much more ambitious progamme south of the border and to the Wexford Festival Opera. Unfortunately, the temporary closure of the Grand Opera House for refurbishment doesn't bode well for next year's programme, but I'm still hoping they might surprise us yet.*
* (Edit: No, looks like I was wrong about that - Kiss Me Kate)
Links: Northern Ireland Opera
Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande
English Touring Opera, 2015
Jonathan Berman, Annelies van Parys, James Conway, Jonathan McGovern, Susanna Hurrell, Stephan Loges, Michael Druiett, Helen Johnson, Lauren Zolezzi
English Touring Opera, Buxton - 16 October 2015
Trying to pin down the symbolism and floating musical ambiguity of Pelléas et Mélisande to any one meaning or interpretation would seem to be a pointless exercise, yet it's a choice that any director who stages the work has to make. Even if one particular interpretation is settled on or a single theme is drawn upon, the work tends to remain elusive and take on an unintended meaning and mysterious direction of its own. If Pelléas et Mélisande can be pinned down to just one broad theme however, it's the one that James Conway develops here in the English Touring Opera's 2015 production in its most abstract form. It's all about love.
That's a strong theme, particularly when it's explored in terms of love inspired by unspeakable passions that drives one to unimaginable actions, and it links in well with the two other very different French operas in the ETO's Autumn 2015 touring programme, Tales of Hoffmann and Werther. The nature of that overpowering love is extreme in all of those works, but in the symbolic nature of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande it can be seen as all-encompassing. The sea, a fountain, water, a ship a cavern, a rock, a tower, a ring, a crown - all of these things can be used to express different facets and aspects of that single theme of love in all its manifestations and the feelings associated with it.
James Conway takes a holistic approach to the work, its themes, its symbols, its characters, its music and its language in a way that supports this theme as well as brings out the other more ambiguous and indefinable qualities of the work that can't quite be expressed in words. The words are suggestive but the intentions are hidden or kept suppressed, particularly in regard to the feelings that Pelléas and Mélisande have for each other, but directorial choices can be imposed on the reading of them. Conway doesn't attempt anything too radical, adopting a position certainly, but crucially allowing some of the ambiguity to remain.
Mélisande is, or appears to be, a total innocent here, but also a figure who has a hidden past that may prevent her from being totally open to her own feelings. Pelléas however knows that the games they play have more of an illicit edge, hesitatingly drawn by her mysterious allure but ultimately unable to resist. Whether he really believes them to be playing what he angrily and dismissively calls a 'jeux d'enfants', Golaud undoubtedly reads too much into it, his suspicions and jealousy fuelled by his own imagination. The key to establishing this or any interpretation successfully is in how it is projected onto the outside world.
The ETO's staging is uncomplicated and open to the symbolism of the drama, contrasting the interiors and exteriors of the castle with the internal emotional world of the characters and their external manifestations. A recessed room behind a gauze screen separates the formal superficial exchanges in the castle of Allemonde from the rather more abstract uncertainties of the mysterious light and colour of the world outside. The only real licence that Conway's production takes with the symbolism is what looks like an overturned filing cabinet that holds all those mysteries buried within it. What spills out of it in terms of where love takes us, is Golaud's inner world, his disturbed mentality coming to dominate and extend out into the world to colour everything else.
With regard to what is unexpressed and inexpressible, much of the mystery and ambiguity in Pelléas et Mélisande and everything that binds it together can be found in Debussy's musical score. Flitting between the worlds of the characters is difficult enough, but it can be hugely rewarding when it integrates and binds itself to the music. The musical interpretation can open up other levels, tones and suggestion far beyond what the words say and even what the actions show, and that is wholly the case here. Arranged by Annelies van Parys for a small chamber-sized orchestra, Debussy's score is still a thing of wonder, depth and mystery, and it's brought out wonderfully under the baton of Jonathan Berman.
The arrangement is familiar but the lightness of the touch dispels the more Wagnerian influences and highlights the power of the notes and the melodies themselves to mark the changes of mood. The tone slips between wonder, anger, sadness, melancholy, and allows them to co-exist. There are one or two minor adjustments, including the use of dialogue cut from the performing edition of the work, reinstated here unaccompanied to excellent effect. The use and flow of the French language is essential here too, and it was delivered with great clarity of diction and appropriate interpretation by all the performers.
Stephan Loges made the greatest impression as Golaud in a production that assumed his outlook as the dominant one, but Jonathan McGovern and Susanna Hurrell's softer, lyrical voices were also ideally suited to the personalities of Pelléas and Mélisande. Helen Johnson's fine singing made sure that the contribution of Geneviève also has relevance to the work as a whole, and Michael Druiett was suitably grave as the preoccupied Arkel, if not quite sonorous enough in the bass register. Yniold was sung wonderfully by Lauren Zolezzi, who also made a real contribution as Sophie in the ETO's Werther on this tour.
Links: English Touring Opera
