Tchaikovsky - The Maid of Orleans (Amsterdam, 2025)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - The Maid of Orleans

Dutch National Opera, 2025

Valentin Uryupin, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Elena Stikhina, Allan Clayton, Nadezhda Pavlova, Vladislav Sulimsky, Andrey Zhilikhovsky, John Relyea, Oleksiy Palchykov, Gábor Bretz, Patrick Guetti, Eva Rae Martinez, Tigran Matinyan

ARTE Concert

It may have inspired at least one of the greatest films ever made, but Joan of Arc is a problematic work for an opera, at least as far as Verdi and Tchaikovsky are concerned. The focus on the spiritual side of Joan of Arc, the strength of her inner light and purpose and use her determination to inspire others is perhaps what makes Dryer's The Passion of Joan of Arc and Bresson's The Trial of Joan of Arc deeply moving. Opera, particularly in this period (Verdi's Giovanno d'Arco in 1845, Tchaikovsky's in 1879), demanded a little more conventional romance and drama built into the exigencies of wartime duty. That's not to say that the spiritual side of the story is neglected, but can get overwhelmed by the roar of battle cries. Or at least that's been my experience of those rarely performed works.

Dmitri Tcherniakov, controversial in his manner of often reworking or twisting original scenarios to suit his own vision for them but in my opinion infallible when it comes to drawing the inner essence out of great Russian operas, can hardly be faulted then for attempting to 'fix' Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans. Typically he sets this production far from its historical 15th century battlefield, but not only that, to further downplay any idea of war heroism, he already has Joan placed under arrest and on trial at the start of the opera. In Act I that successfully straddles the line between courtroom and town hall meeting, where Joan's refusal to behave as she is expected to do as a young woman and submit to marriage is already a crime laid against her, the events leading to it then viewed as scenes in flashback.

Seven weeks into her trial, some of the town folk are getting frustrated with the young woman's deranged visions, but with war threatening Orléans, fear takes hold and the sense of grace that exudes from the charismatic Joan is nonetheless seductive, bringing hope. Opera has the advantage here of being able to convey that characteristic in the voice (although the lack of a speaking voice certainly did not detract from Carl Th. Dreyer's 1928 silent movie masterpiece). Inevitably messing with time lines and locations in Tcherniakov's version causes some misalignment with the opera plot, but rightly the intent is not to make the slightly ludicrous or at least unfashionable dated dramatic historical action credible, but rather to serve to bring out the deeper spiritual side of the work.

Spiritual maybe, but as he has made plain in everything from Dialogues des Carmélites to Parsifal, Tcherniakov is not going to depict any of Joan's visions in terms of religious or quasi-religious mysticism, but from a profoundly humanistic viewpoint. Which does not mean idealistic either, particularly in this case where the outcome of those deep convictions lean towards fighting and killing. Joan receives her messages from the lights above the fans in the town hall/courtroom, rather than any celestial visitation. There is no time either for earnest stilted declamation (or subtitles), which I thought undermined this work the last time I viewed it, and accordingly characters here are seen behaving irreverently or mockingly whenever it occurs. The long scene between King Charles VII and Agnes Sorel works partly due to this but credit must also be given to the singing performances of Allan Clayton and Nadezhda Pavlova, who are outstanding here. That's also a measure of good direction, subverting pomposity without undermining the work, just shifting the focus towards the work's real strengths and the purpose which is to highlight the experience and fate of Joan subjected to the judgement of her society.

The same applies to Tchaikovsky's roaring choruses and bombastic score which, as I observed before, is somewhat over the top in his vaunting the nationalistic heroism of warriors, but when turned inward it can be very powerful indeed, and it is well directed towards that in Valentin Uryupin's conducting of the Netherlands Philharmonic. It's not entirely possible to eliminate the jingoism in the libretto, but Tcherniakov never lets that side of the declamations dominate. Evidently, taking it out of the historical period and adopting a more modern perspective on the actions of the state helps make that case; the abuse of the prevailing religious and political establishment is more recognisable in this context and it hits all the harder for it. Even Joan's glorious acclaim from the people is subverted here, seen as nothing more than a hallucination of her own fevered mind having been locked up and abused in a prison cell. Aligned with Tchaikovsky's music it's incredibly powerful, setting up the underlying tragedy of the young woman's treatment in the run up to the dramatic conclusion. 

If you were to take the opera's libretto and setting literally as the historical Joan of Arc, you would have to think that Joan's divinity or position as a national hero and feminist is compromised here in Tcherniakov's vision. She becomes a tool, her mental illness (the titles above the stage clearly indicating that these are "hallucinations") turning towards religious fervour and used as a way of controlling the war narrative, leading the people to killing and death for the benefit of the ruling powers. But whatever perspective you want to place on her legacy, it's not the historical Joan that is of interest to Tcherniakov, but her underlying humanity and her mistreatment at their hands of the authorities. The DNO production uses Tchaikovsky’s operatic version of Friedrich Schiller's dramatic account, whose adherence to historical facts is hardly the most accurate account (nor meant to be), as a way of bringing all those forces together, showing how they work and how they use people for their own ends.

There are no real surprises there as far as the look, feel and outlook of a typical Dmitri Tcherniakov interpretation of an operatic work, which for all its apparent divergence from the original intent, supports the music, brings the opera up to date and indeed validates its deeper truths. What stands out then are indeed those musical qualities of Tchaikovsky at full tilt, yet maintaining those familiar lyrical qualities and tragic elements more familiar from Eugene Onegin, Iolanta (both of which Tcherniakov has directed) and The Queen of Spades; lyrical qualities that particularly when sung with authentic Russian voices can be very impressive. All the cast are excellent in that regard, but Elena Stikhina as Joan is hugely impressive, giving a breathtaking, committed performance that rises to the occasion, holding you captivated through the young woman's glory and torment as much as Falconetti did when she immortalised Joan of Arc in Dreyer's film version. High praise indeed.

Links: Dutch National Opera, ARTE Concert

Tchaikovsky - The Maid of Orleans (Düsseldorf, 2023)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - The Maid of Orleans

Deutsche Oper am Rhein, 2023

Vitali Alekseenok, Elisabeth Stöppler, Maria Kataeva, Sami Luttinen, Aleksandr Nesterenko, Sergej Khomov, Luiza Fatyol, Thorsten Grümbel, Evez Abdulla, Richard Šveda, Beniamin Pop, Johannes Preißinger, Žilvinas Miškinis, Mara Guseynova

OperaVision - 20th August 2023

Cinema has shown us that there can be a number of ways of presenting the Joan of Arc story. On the one side you have Carl Theodore Dryer's silent masterpiece of spiritual interiorised conflict The Passion of Joan of Arc and Bresson's austere recounting of the court records of the Trial of Joan of Arc. On the other side you have Luc Besson's actioner The Messenger with Jacques Rivette’s two-partner Jeanne la pucelle divided between 'The Battles' and 'The Prisons' seeking somewhere in-between. The question that all of the films grapple with to one extent or another, or fall to one side or the other on, is whether Joan is a warrior or saint.

When it comes to opera however it's a different story. Although this warrior/saint dichotomy presents great material for an opera, it represents different things to Verdi and Tchaikovsky in their versions of the story. Using Schiller as the source material for both, each find their own particular way into the story which also appeals to the operatic tradition, even if it perhaps takes it a little further off course. For Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco, the father/daughter relationship is emphasised and Joan's ignited passions give expression to the idea of a nation and a people struggling oppressed under wartime conditions and given dramatic force through huge stirring choruses. Tchaikovsky makes use of these musical elements also but with greater focus on the spiritual drive, giving that additional emphasis through the romantic melodrama of a love story.

The force of these feelings of spiritual and emotional conflict can't be ignored in any staging and director Elisabeth Stöppler's 2023 production of The Maid of Orleans for Deutsche Oper am Rhein draws on that right from the dramatic overture. The Virgin/angel appears to Joan as a mirror image of herself in white shift and chainmail dress. At this stage it's just an awareness that she has a calling, but Joan is not yet ready and conflict rages within her (if Tchaikovsky's stirring music is anything to go by). To be fair, she's not getting a lot of support from her father who wants her to be a nice little housewife and arrange a husband for her protection, but the advancing forces on Orléans and Joan's prediction of Salisbury's fall means that this idea is resisted and the urgency of war takes precedence. It's at the end of Act 1 that the angel gives voice to her calling to take to the sword and the battlefield.

It's only really then that the urgency of Tchaikovsky music takes flight. Not that it's been anything less than intense up to now, but it's finally given revelation and purpose. Much like Tatiana's ecstatic letter to Onegin, there is a sense of fatalism in this, Joan throwing herself fully and irrevocably into the service of her inner passion and voice. If that perhaps doesn't seem quite as convincing as an expression of whatever it is that drives Joan, it's perhaps less to do with Tchaikovsky's handling of the material than the opera libretto's reliance on rather old-fashioned overly-earnest and solemn declamatory expression. There's a danger that the passion can be subsumed by nationalistic fervour but Tchaikovsky's opera does manage to give expression to the drama and what is at stake at a human level. Verdi faced the same problem with the same mixed results until he found a librettist like Boito who could give him better material to work with.

It still means that a lot of this is declamatory of feelings and conflict and little to support all this fervour in dramatic terms. There's no real action other than reports from the battlefield which are reflected and commented upon in arch terms like "he sleeps the eternal sleep". The libretto is a horror to work with and if it is to succeed on the stage, it's going to need something more than the rather unconvincing passion that is ignited in Joan's impossible love for an enemy soldier, Lionel. The director and singers here try their best to make that work with the rather bombastic expressions, but it just leads to an extraordinary amount of grasping and grappling with each other on the part of Joan and Lionel. It looks ridiculous in the middle of a war, but in terms of giving expression to those inner feelings through the singing, it's given full voice and commitment.

All of the singers are fully committed and impressive - as is the chorus (some members a little more overly enthusiastic than others) - but Maria Kataeva's Joan and Richard Šveda's Lionel in particular have to rise up to the over-the-top demands of Tchaikovsky score. We're on the heavier side of the Tchaikovsky of the 1812 Overture variety, and then some. Lionel's love for Joan truly feels life or death here, but that only leaves the director Stöppler with a challenge to bring a little more realism and humanism to the situation. There's a need to recognise at the same time that Joan of Arc is an uncommon character in a modern age, driven indeed by an internal fire, inspired by god, heaven and the angels as well as nationalistic pride. Playing it as period won't cut it, so Stöppler chooses to give it a more modern-day look and feel. And, considering it's Tchaikovsky, the current situation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine can't be ignored.

The choice of setting all four acts of the opera in the same location of a church serves to at once rein in the excessive elements of the opera, while at the same time attempting to focus it on Joan's experience being an internal transcendental spiritual experience. The same idea perhaps applies to contrasting of the modern day East European dress of the people and their experience of war with the heroic declamation of the choruses and the libretto. The reality of the situation and the reality as we know it from images from present-day Ukraine are there to see without any need to overstate the case or the parallel. King Charles VII here is more like an extravagant wealthy man with Dunois his bodyguard, both Sergej Khomov and Evez Abdulla succeeding also in giving strong performances that support both the work and the stage presentation. 

Updating the work to underplay any nationalistic expression or heroic glorification of war as being a God-given command is perhaps a necessary condition for a director, but the question is whether it doesn't end up undermining what Joan of Arc represents. Can The Maid of Orleans really work without the period Joan of Arc or does it have any more universal quality that allows us to see the same passions and sentiments in the present day? Is it still relatable? Of course it may be possible, but I didn't get too great a sense of it here. The plot too never really adds up to anything meaningful. Joan's crime in this version appears to be falling in love with an enemy and thereby losing the approval of heaven and the people. She is no longer la pucelle.

Rather than being burned at the stake for this, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein production uses the single location of the church finally being destroyed as a symbol for the fire of Joan's passion burning out and becoming an object of pity to the confused populace. Or something like that. It doesn't really make a lot of sense in the original stage directions or in the stage production here. The single location of the church also reminds me of Tcherniakov's recent take on War and Peace, but that was more towards distancing from the militaristic and nationalistic side of Prokofiev’s version of the drama, while here it seems to be harder to put any such distance from the work's romantic heroism, religious and sentimental fervour.

Under Vitali Alekseenok, the conducting and musical performance of the opera is however clearly exceptional. The passion on stage is replicated in the music which works hand-in-hand with the drama. It's a little bombastic with the huge choruses on top, but it's meant to be, Tchaikovsky giving early Verdi a run for his money in the lack of subtlety stakes. All the passion is there however in the music and there too unquestionably in the efforts of the director to get it across somehow on the stage, reaching a conclusion of a kind of ecstatic transcendence. The point of it escapes me, the worthiness of the work remains in question, but it is still marvellous to hear this work and this side of Tchaikovsky given such a full blooded performance.

External links: Deutsche Oper am Rhein, OperaVision

Photos : © Sandra Then