Wagner - Die Walküre
Royal Opera House, London - 2018
Antonio Pappano, Keith Warner, Stuart Skelton, Emily Magee, Ain Anger, John Lundgren, Nina Stemme, Sarah Connolly, Lise Davidson
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
In contrast to Das Rheingold, which has a more obvious dramatic narrative and a number of wonderful theatrical set pieces, Die Walküre is much more contemplative as a standalone work, a conflict between the opposing forces that have been set in motion during the first day Prelude. Musically however and in terms of overall importance to the development of any Der Ring des Niebelungen (as well as the sheer exhilaration of any performance of Ride of the Valkyrie) it's Die Walküre that counts. Likewise if you are going to give a representative part of a the tetraology a DVD release, and Keith Warner's not greatly loved Royal Opera House Ring cycle first seen back in 2006 doesn't look likely to be getting a full release on DVD, this is the one you want to see. So how does Warner's Die Walküre stand up on its own terms?
Well in most respects it's a perfectly serviceable production but as is often the case with Die Walküre, its chances of a successful revival are reliant to a large extent on the strength of the casting. It's not that a strong concept and direction aren't important but the nature of this work demands singers who can bring the kind of intense dramatic conviction that this opera needs. This particular recording has a superlative cast of experienced Wagnerians and it gets off to an impressive set with its cast for Act I where Stuart Skelton is the standout, a Siegmund of heroic magnificence. Ain Anger as Hunding and Emily Magee aren't quite at the same level but both are resolute and steady. Directing them however, Warner ensures that there's no standing around or histrionics, they incarnate the nature of the characters and put everything into expression of their dilemma, making them far more three-dimensional that is usually the case, and that sets up the whole tone of what follows in the subsequent Acts.
With its long Acts and tiring monologues it might be short on conventional drama, but it's hard to imagine a more dramatic musical opening that the thundering Vorspiel to Die Walküre. In the first few impressions of this production, Warner attempts to get across a sense of all that darkness of a world left in turmoil due to the weakening influence of the gods, but the production design also has the benefit of this being a place outside of time. The depiction of Hunding's lodge is semi-abstract then, expressionistic and dark, a box within a spiral. Sieglinde is seen hovering nervously in the fearful captivity of her husband, bewildered by the arrival of a stranger in exhaustion and distress. Roots and branches twist through the furnishings in the room, Nothung embedded in a smouldering beam.
Act II uses much of the same set with only the box room removed to establish a connection and reveal a shattered rundown Valhalla. It's difficult to make Act II dramatically engaging but the singing and musical performance alone are more than enough to make this compelling. Warner matches the highs and lows in the actions and movements, leaving it to the simmering rumble of the music to hold you in the grip of the predicament of Fricka, Wotan and Brünnhilde. Siegmund and Sieglinde's reappearance using a red rope that I presume is related to the Norn's Cord of Destiny, stumble into the room where Brünnhilde has just learned the history of Das Rheingold, the fate of the brother and sister tied up with the gods and their inevitable downfall.
Keith Warner manages to play Act II with the same attention to characterisation and motivation, showing more than just a bitter domestic dispute between an arrogant god who is henpecked and reduced down to size by a jealous and vengeful wife. There is a fire to their relationship that still burns even in such moments as this current crisis, and you can see the balance of power play out on a sexual level between them. It makes them more than just ciphers and suggests that their dispute is more than just a domestic quarrel, but that deeper forces drive their words and actions. John Lundgren and Sarah Connolly give a charged account of what can otherwise be a very dry scene in dramatic terms, Pappano musically holding the tension throughout. Only Nina Stemme disappoints somewhat, not living up to the expectations you might have for her Brünnhilde.
Act III's opening Ride of the Valkyrie however is disappointingly underwhelming as far as Warner's staging goes, the Valkyrie looking like Shakespearean Weird Sisters holding horse skulls, but musically at least it certainly packs a punch under Antonio Pappano and ROH orchestra, and it helps too when you have Lise Davidsen among the number as Ortlinde. Elsewhere in the third Act there's impact aplenty where there needs to be, Lundgren's Wotan a fearsome presence, the Valkyrie and Brünnhilde credibly cowering before his rage. But again the third Act's sheer force is all there in the performances, Nina Stemme and Emily Magee raising their game impressively, the playing and of course the music itself just phenomenal.
In terms of production design you would hope for more in Act III, but the abstract approach is consistent in its follow through, a huge wall thrown up here between Wotan and Brünnhilde and her sisters. If the major part of the Act is very dull and unimaginative as far as Valkyrie scenes go in Die Walküre, it at least gives the closing conflagration scene a little more of a spark, so to speak, in a way that closes the opera on a huge emotional high. Warner's Die Walküre is not a classic production by any means but my goodness this gets across everything that is great about this work and it sounds like it near brings the house down during the curtain call of this 2018 performance.
Whether you consider Antonio Pappano as effective conducting Wagner as he is with Puccini and Verdi in the Italian repertoire, I liked his blood and thunder interpretation here. The Vorspiel to Act I seems to collapse in on itself at the end but elsewhere he really does draw out all the beauty, lyricism and simmering emotion that is built into the highly charged scenes. The state-of-the-art High Resolution audio recording and superb mixing certainly helps hear the quality, detail and sheer glorious weight of the musical performance. I don't think I've ever heard a recording of this work with such depth and dynamic range. You can just revel luxuriously in the sound world of Wagner here, particularly in the simmering eroticism buried in the Act II confrontation between Wotan and Fricka, which is just as gripping as any of the more familiar key scenes. But all the high points are emphatically hit here.
The HD presentation on the Opus Arte BD is impeccable. The image is clear and detailed, but as mentioned above it's in the High Resolution uncompressed soundtracks where the real benefit of the HD format really comes into its own, the spacious uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in particular capturing all the dynamic and detail of the performance. The English translation is also good, the subtitles making this easier to follow than the archaic language more often used without distorting the meaning in any way. The usual short features on ROH productions give a brief overview of what goes into a production like this. The booklet contains a synopsis and a good essay on the influence of Feuerbach on Wagner's Ring of the Niebelung by Barry Millington.
Links: Royal Opera House
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Idomeneo
Teatro Real, Madrid - 2019
Ivor Bolton, Robert Carsen, Eric Cutler, David Portillo, Anett Fritsch, Eleonora Buratto, Benjamin Hulett, Oliver Johnston, Alexander Tsymbalyuk
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
With every new production, Idomeneo is proving to be one of the most exciting of Mozart's operas, and that's even when measured up against a catalogue of mature works where each and every one is a masterpiece. It's not just the number of productions that are elevating it comfortably into the canon of regularly performed Mozart operas - even if you don't rate it as great Mozart, this early work of youth is still head and shoulders above most opera of its century - but each production seems to find new depths in the work. Not only has Mozart created marvellously drawn, living, breathing people out of these Metastasian opera seria characters, but through them you can already see the enlightened ideas and themes that are there in his mature works. What is also amazing is how a work of Greek antiquity with a late 18th century score can still be so fresh and modern, its themes remaining relevant to the present day.
Robert Carsen certainly emphasises the contemporary relevance of the work right from the outset in the Teatro Real production by hitting you with an image that looks like it is straight off a TV news broadcast; a group of refugees clinging desperately to a wire fence that cages them in. Having suffered in a terrible war and displaced from their homeland, Ilia and the Trojan refugees wonder what harsher fate have the gods in store for them. If it's not exactly a new or original perspective on Idomeneo it's only because there's nothing new in such images repeated throughout history, but they still remain relevant and powerful, a scene repeated with depressing regularity.
Imagine a world where human love and compassion could inspire a leader to assist those less fortunate? Well, Mozart could imagine that the good in mankind would always win out over greed, jealousy and lust, where love triumphs and the dissolute are punished, where goodness its own reward. It's a theme that you can see consistently throughout his opera work right through to La Clemenza di Tito. It's one thing to imagine and believe in that but it's quite another greater thing to make it seem like a genuine possibility in the composition of music that expresses such emotions and intentions.
Robert Carsen knows that it's all there in Mozart's music, and with good singers to interpret it and a conductor sensitive to the rhythm, pace and dynamic of the score, Idomeneo speaks for itself. The Madrid production fares well on all those fronts, but it would be over-simplifying to say that Carsen does no more than throw out a few powerful iconic and emotive images. As with some of his more recent productions (Glanert's Oceane also in 2019) the director uses the full dimensions of the stage with projections of nature, sea and sky, raging seas and stormy skies to create a sense of wide open space in which an opera can truly breathe.
There are some strikingly realistic, powerful images used here. The horrors wreaked on Crete by Neptune's sea monster couldn't be any more devastating than the real life images of war torn Syrian towns used here, and it gives the work added authenticity and a sense of classic timelessness. The very Parsifal-like way the production is concluded is also successful, touching on the deeper truths to be found in mythology, how tyranny can be overthrown, how compassion and innocence will save the world and rebuild it anew.
There's not really enough however to carry the narrative though in an engaging way. There are a few spectacular projection effects that capture a sense of inner conflict and turmoil, but the uniformity of the military uniforms works against a stronger sense of character definition, and by making the people an army it goes against the idea of it being ordinary people suffering at the hands of higher powers. There's too much Duty and not enough Humanity. This is recognised in the conclusion to an extent when, the war ended, the uniforms are shed and the people are able to live as humans once again.
Although the singing is excellent there's also little in the way of character interpretation to give it more context and depth. Sure, it doesn't go for black and white the way other productions might in terms of painting Elettra and Idomeneo as misguided villains and Ilia and Idamante as the great young hope for the future, but there's room for finding nuance and highlighting the differences within those worldviews. Carsen's production looks great and it makes an important contemporary commentary but a work of opera seria like Idomeneo needs a little more focus on making the narrative drive more engaging. Even Mozart's opera seria.
There are moments when it comes together, particularly in Act III. Despite the staging of Idamante and Ilia social distancing amidst a beach full of life jackets, the love declarations of the 'Spiegarti non poss'io' duet between Anett Fritsch and Benjamin Hurlett is sung beautifully and accompanied by delicate playing from the pit. The subsequent quartet with Eric Cutler and Eleonora Buratto is also superb, underling that the conflict is not an ideological one between tradition and progress, between being tied to a sense of duty and the freedom to make individual choices, but just four people and two sides that find themselves in a difficult and irreconcilable position. Buratto's final aria as Elettra is also marvellous. Ivor Bolton's handling of the very different dramatic and emotional tones is just superb.
What is also evident right from the overture is that Ivor Bolton is returning the work back to its historically informed period instrumentation, using harpsichord and slightly reduced orchestration that gives it a wholly different feel from the more classical sounding Idomeneo of Mozart. There is consequently a lighter spacious sound with extra delicacy and punch as it hits all the points in the dynamic range. Hearing Mozart this way is always a revelation and the score is lively and percussive in drive but opening up to reveal more detail and beauty in the scoring and playing of individual instruments. Bolton himself plays the recitative accompaniment.
The quality of the production comes across well on the Blu-ray release from Opus Arte, presenting a clear image with bold contrasts that helps bring out the impact of the staging. The PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mixes emphasise the dynamic of the historically informed instrumentation. The surround mix in particular gives a wonderfully spacious soundstage for the orchestration, the harpsichord pinging away throughout. The only extra on the BD is a Cast Gallery but the booklet insert has a tracklist, a synopsis and a brief overview of Robert Carsen's take on the opera. Subtitles are in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.
Links: Teatro Real
Gaspare Spontini - Fernand Cortez ou la Conquète du Mexique
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, 2019
Jean-Luc Tingaud, Cecilia Legorio, Dario Schmunck, Alexia Voulgaridou, Luca Lombardo, David Ferri Durà, André Courville, Gianluca Margheri, Lisandro Guinis, Davide Ciarrocchi, Nicolò Ayroldi, Leonardo Melani, Davide Siega Silvia Capra, Delia Palmieri
Dynamic DVD
The early-to-mid 19th Century is crowded with opera classics but those we see regularly tend to be the works of a small number of Italian composers, mostly Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, who dominate the era and push any other notable composers into the shade. Certainly by the time that Verdi and Wagner came along, the fate of those who came before was sealed as being somewhat old-fashioned and destined to fall into neglect and obscurity. When composers like Paer, Catalani, Mercadante or Ponchielli do get some recognition, it's usually for one celebrated work that occasionally gets a revival. In Spontini's case that work is La Vestale, an opera that stands up more as an example of good craftsmanship where any real creativity has been stifled by the necessity of formal adherence to conventional numbers, a style that means that such works have little to offer the world today. But, is it fair to judge a composer on a single work, and should we not be looking further into this neglected back catalogue?
Well, thankfully that's what the Pergolesi Spontini Foundation have been doing for two significant composers associated with the town of Jesi in the Marche region of Italy over the last decade or so. Several rare Pergolesi masterpieces have been unearthed and new critical editions established leading to some revelatory productions. The efforts of the Foundation are also aimed now at boosting the profile of Gaspare Spontini and, on the basis of this Maggio Musicale Fiorentino production of his 1809 French opera Fernand Cortez, ou La conquête du Mexique, early 19th century Spontini doesn't seem to be quite as tied to opera seria as Rossini or Donizetti but more forward looking, already pointing in the direction of Meyerbeer, Verdi and Berlioz.
There's plenty to grab the attention in the situation, plotting and aspirations towards grand-opera in the opening scenes of this almost three hour long opera. Set during of the conquest of Mexico, the forces of the Conquistador Hernán Cortés are starting to get restless, fearing that they will eventually have to pay a high price for their commander's drive for glory against the Aztec emperor Montezuma. There's inevitably a romantic angle brought into the opera through Amazily, a Mexican princess who Cortez has saved from death, and who in turn has also saved his life, and their love for each other also faces challenges. Another danger is that Montezuma has acquired weapons and is threatening to sacrifice Cortez's brother Alvaro and two of his men.
All of this in Act I provides opportunities for declarations of love, war and peace, with exotic colour, marches, large choruses and ballets, Spontini making the most of these promising situations with an explosive finale at the end of the Act that you would expect. There's nothing out of the ordinary here - as with La Vestale Spontini approaches the drama with a sense of beauty and melody that is somewhat conventional - but it certainly holds attention. The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino production likewise plays it fairly conventionally in historical period costumes and theatrical in its presentation, in the main letting the music get on with the hard work. The chorus of 'Enfants du dieu de la lumière', for example, where the Mexican women seduce the Spanish troops with their charms, is done sitting down and is very static.
By way of contrast however the subsequent scene has seven ballets. Traditionally in a modern revival of a work like this, these would likely be cut, as they often slow down the drama. Director Cecilia Legorio however doesn't take the easy option and recognises that the ballet scenes are key to the work. In this sequence the different music composed for each of the sections serves to emphasise the difference and disparity between the opposing forces. The women of the Mexican tribes are freer and closer to nature but somehow heathen and dangerously unholy with their human sacrifices. while the marching of European conquistadors, trampling underfoot, are masters of their own fate, guided by lust for power, gold and conquest, a machine that marches onward, destroying whatever stands in its way. It's a little reductive but it's meant to be, and musically at least Spontini's expression comes into its element in these scenes, creating a huge sound with large orchestral forces.
If it seems somewhat heavy-handed, it needs to be borne in mind that Spontini wrote Fernand Cortez as a commission for Napoleon who in 1808 was waging a campaign against Spain. In order to counteract this propaganda somewhat, the director adds a little of a framing device at the beginning and end of each act. It's nothing too elaborate, just extracts from the diary of Moralez, one of Cortez's officers, but it helps put into context the rationale behind those who follow Cortez on his conquest, and it's doubtless the same rationale that led to the support of Napoleon in France. That provides a necessary sense of reflection on the work, and it's notable that after fall of Napoleon, Spontini himself reworked elements of the opera in 1817 to put a different perspective on it, but work here is as close to the original performed 1809 Paris version as possible, and the first performance of it in modern times.
After the impressive set up of Act I, Act II and III hold little in the way of surprises or deviation from what we expect to see in most Conquistador operas (see Graun's Montezuma, Gomes' Lo Schiavo or Verdi's Alzira), where family concerns and romance mix with captures and hostage swaps, leading to threats of human sacrifice and offers of self-sacrifice. Spontini enlivens the conventional developments with choruses, dances, marches and a lovely unaccompanied harmonised trio from Alvaro and his two companion prisoners. Cecilia Legorio takes full advantage of the opportunities in the music however and the concluding ballets to show what might not always be evident in the work, hinting that behind the glorious image of conquest, subjugation of the savages and bringing of civilisation, there lies a darker truth and reality.
The quality of the singing is excellent in this 2019 Florence production. Dario Schmunck is solid, authoritative and impressive as Cortez. Alexia Voulgaridou has a challenging vocal line and holds her own against Schmunck, although she is pushed to her limits in more ways than one in the singing and drama of Act II. There's notable singing too from Luca Lombardo as Amazily's brother Telasco. If the family torn apart by war is conventional in many ways, the experience of Amazily, Telasco and their mother is essential to the humanising of the story beyond the typical intrigues of plot and the performers bring this out do this well. There are no weaknesses elsewhere in the singing, David Ferri Durà as Alvaro leads the beautiful trio 'Créateur de ce nouveau monde' and André Courville cuts an imposing figure as an Aztec High Priest.
Instead of the Blu-ray I picked up Dynamic's 2-DVD edition of Fernand Cortez by mistake but the presentation is excellent, the NTSC standard definition image clear, colourful and reasonably detailed. The DVD still has an uncompressed LPCM stereo track in addition to the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track and the sound mixing on both is excellent, exhibiting a beautiful warm orchestral sound that shows the quality and detail of the composition and the performance. On the DVD are interviews with the conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud and director Cecilia Legorio. In the booklet there's a detailed tracklisting, a synopsis and good historical background info on Cortez and on the composition history of Spontini's opera.
Links: Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Richard Wagner - Der fliegende Höllander
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, 2019
Fabio Luisi, Paul Curran, Thomas Gazheli, Marjorie Owens, Mikhail Petrenko, Bernhard Berchtold, Annette Jahns, Timothy Oliver
C-Major - Blu-ray
There's no question that Paul Curran's 2019 Maggio Musicale Fiorentino production gets the mood and tone of Der fliegende Höllander exactly as you would expect a spooky maritime ghost story to look, populated by dark dishevelled figures and bathed in an eerie cold green-blue light. This mood of menace is enhanced through a large projected backdrop of raging seas as Daland's ship is run aground and a dark ship with tattered sails materialises, silhouetted against the background of a stormy sky. Keeping in that vein with no modern costumes or props, Act I of this production holds no real surprises, just the appropriate tone to set up Wagner's tale of an exiled wanderer seeking redemption and the love of a good woman.
There are however various strands you can develop out of that; the self-portrait of an artist in exile, an outsider with great riches to share daring to brave the tides of public opinion, but the strongest theme and the one that certainly overrides all the others by the time we get to the end of Wagner's first successful exploration of his own developing means of expression, is of course that of redemption. It's the Dutchman who is saved, but it's Senta who saves him and she is the centre of the opera, structurally, musically and thematically.
For director Paul Curran the idea appears to be that she's a woman who doesn't fit in with her time; she's a feminist before there was a movement, a figurehead if not a leader. In this production she's not sitting sewing with the other women as she should be while her man is out at sea, but she's prepared to believe in a different dream where a woman can make her own choices, as grotesque as that idea might appear to the other women. But is Senta really a proto-feminist? Does she not willingly enter into a marriage of convenience so that her father can line his pockets with his son-in-law's rare wealth? Well, that's for the production to persuade us, and it doesn't totally convince.
In contrast to the coldness and darkness of Act I, Act II is consequently bathed in warmth. The gathering of ladies sewing are all dressed in soft neutral dull brown and yellow colours that sets off the fiery individuality of Senta who stands out from them in a Gothic green silk and satin gown and blazing red hair. Perhaps more crucially, the Florence production has the extra benefit of having in Marjorie Owens a voice that can express that warmth and longing in her voice. Her's is a gorgeous lyrical Senta of rare beauty that holds you mesmerised as she relates her story of the Flying Dutchman. I've often found that Fabio Luisi is a conductor who pays close attention to the stage and the singers, pacing to their strengths, leaving them room to truly express the depth of feeling that lies within this hugely melodramatic opera storyline, and he strikes up an effective relationship that really brings the best out of Owens and consequently out of the work as a whole.
With an emphasis on mood again in Act III - this production of Der fliegende Höllander using the three separate act version rather than the no-interval run-together version - there is again good use made of the projections on a front screen as well as the back screen to capture the ghostly appearance of the Dutchman's crew. Musically, Luisi doesn't really get behind this scene quite as well, but handles the subsequent scene between Senta and Erik with gentle poignant lyricism. The closing moments of the opera however are a thing of beauty, both in terms its staging of Senta's sacrifice and redemption and in how Luisi allows the majesty of the moment to hit home.
There's little here however to carry through any definitive view on Senta as a feminist other than her making her own choices, but if there's nothing strikingly original or distinctive about the production there is nonetheless something compelling and refreshing about how Paul Curran approaches the emotional content of the work. It works well in conjunction with how Luisi conducts the work gracefully rather than stridently or overly forcefully - although he can hit those dramatic punches when required - but also evidently in how it's sung. The combination of those elements creates its own identity that blends beautifully with Wagner's Romantic vision. I personally found it spellbinding.
I'm not greatly familiar with the singers here but pleasantly surprised with the quality of the singing and the interpretation. Marjorie Owens as I've already mentioned is impressive and I look forward to hearing her again. Mikhail Petrenko is an excellent Daland, wonderfully rich timbre and enunciation, even if Daland rarely makes any great impression as a character. Thomas Gazheli's Dutchman is suitably charismatic in a dark enigmatic and slightly dishevelled fraying at the edges kind of way, persuasively capturing that sense of the melancholic suffering artist eternally searching for a Romantic truth. Again Fabio Luisi supports and works with his voice wonderfully. Bernhard Berchtold is also good as Erik.
The Blu-ray from C-Major presents this production well with a vividly detailed HD image filmed in 4K Ultra HD and warm stereo and surround audio mixes. Subtitles are provided in German, English, Korean and Japanese. There are no extra features on the disc and the booklet contains just a tracklist, a brief overview of the work with a few observations on the production and a synopsis, but it's an excellent presentation of the production.
Links: Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach (Geneva, 2019)
Grand Théâtre de Genève, 2019
Titus Engel, Daniele Finzi Pasca, Jess Gardolin, Stéphane Gentilini, Andrée-Anne Gingras-Roy, Evelyne Laforest, Francesco Lanciotti, David Menes, Marco Paoletti, Félix Salad, Beatriz Sayad, Allegra Spernanzoni, Roland Tarquini, Micol Veglia, Melissa Vettore
GTG Digital
You don't see a new production of Einstein on the Beach in an opera house programme very often but it's always an exciting prospect, even if you imagine that it's going to have a hard time to live up to its original visualisation and collaboration between its creators Philip Glass, Robert Wilson and Lucinda Childs. Glass's most experimental and original opera has already proven it is still a force to be reckoned with in revival, but if Einstein on the Beach is to ever have any kind of extended life - and despite the lasting impression it has made so far its legacy is by no means assured - it needs to be seen whether it can stand up on its own merit without the hand of its creators involved.
Knowing how to approach a new production is an unenviable task because one of the more unusual characteristics of Einstein on the Beach as an opera is that it doesn't exactly have a plot to follow. Despite its unconventionality and lack of adherence to almost any of the rules of what we consider to be essential to opera, it does however have most of the basic components in their purest form. It offers up music as purely music with no relationship to any dramatic or emotional context, it provides drama without a narrative, the words operating as mere text that convey little in the way of meaning, while the stage design and dance are there to provide a visual reference for the space and movement to add another dimension to the music. Einstein on the Beach is intended to be a spectacle for the eyes and the ears, a five-hour flow of rhythm and repetition, the audience invited to enter and leave as they liked. As this was something Philip Glass and his Ensemble were quite used to people walking out of some of their earliest performances, it made sense to make this an acceptable part of his first opera.
Somehow, whether it was the mere fact of hanging this all onto a title like Einstein on the Beach, or some of the imagery that Robert Wilson provided to work in conjunction with the music, the work seemed to acquire a significance of its own. Glass's music does have the ability to establish a strong bond with images, as evidenced by his collaborative efforts with Godfrey Reggio on the soundtrack for Koyaanisqatsi, which this opera is closer to in conception than the other operas in what would become known as the Portrait Trilogy (with Satyagraha and Akhnaten). It captures the pace of modern life, the rhythm of life itself, science, technology, progress, time, the repeated rhythms measuring out the idea of life changing gradually and almost imperceptibly over time but very much changing and gathering pace.
Since there are many ways of expressing that idea, Daniele Finzi Pasca and his company obviously find their own way to explore what Einstein on the Beach means and how it can be developed. The long ten minute opening Prologue, played as the audience are still entering the theatre and taking their seats, consists of three descending notes on an electronic organ repeated with slightly variations in the length, while a woman recites random numbers between 1 and 3000. You can find yourself searching for a pattern, and maybe even find one, but more than anything it creates a trance-like state where the mind is gradually cleansed of any such attempts at rationalisation or search for meaning. It just expects you to accept and appreciate the simplicity of three notes played together with random numbers recited and it is indeed utterly entrancing. A figure dressed like Albert Einstein then joins the woman during the first Knee Play (one of the connecting pieces between scenes) reciting meaningless cut-up text, the chorus then taking up a one-two-three-four repetition that speeds up to Glass's racing rhythms while a red shiny curtain billows behind them.
It sounds completely pointless in description yet utterly entrancing to watch and enter into a receptive rather than passive state that the music creates. This first scene hints that the director Daniele Finzi Pasca is following in the simplicity of Improbable, the production company of Phelim McDermott, a director with a strong affinity for Glass's music who often finds inventive ways of representing it on stage. Finzi Pasca creates a visual language of his own that reacts to the music and sets off other associations rather then rely on Robert Wilson's. There's no 'Train' scene, instead we have Einstein at a desk, dancers, a remote controlled toy plane, and possibly in reference to Vittorio de Sica's Miracle in Milan and Bicycle Thieves there's a floating bike on a wire, a woman in a wedding dress and a groom in white. All of this builds a loose visual narrative that the audience are free to bring together into a meaning of their own.
There's no 'Trial' scene either and some of the libretto monologues are cut or reduced to take the opera down from five hours to four. The 'Mr Bojangles' monologue is recited by a performer within a flickering glow of a rotating spiral array of neon pillars against a deep blue background (the closest this gets to iconic Wilson imagery) with figures moving walking across in slow rhythmic movements, the floating bike reappears as the scene transitions into a badminton game on beach with deck chairs for the 'Paris/All Men Are Equal' scene (although the 'Paris' text is moved to Act 4). A mermaid floats above and it is all observed on the beach by Einstein, which is as close to literal as this interpretation comes, but it also shows that this is a work that has imagery and ideas that are infinitely adaptable.
Any further description of the differences and disconnect between what we might expect to see is rather pointless, as you're doubtless beginning to grasp, since it doesn't illuminate any kind of narrative or conceptual coherence, employing images inspired by the music with no rhyme or reason. Cutting evidently has no real impact on any narrative or meaning, merely swapping some of the irritating nonsense texts for irritating ideas and nonsense of its own. There's no 'House', 'Spaceship' or 'Train' but there are Bullfighters and Buddhist Monks. The Compagnia Finzi Pasca production is what it is; music and visuals, shadow plays, projections, acrobatics, trompe d'oeil and fantastical images with a few recurrent themes mostly involving a kind of transcendental levitation, flying and floating (gravity?). It's not always gripping but that's the nature of this work, you are free to make up your own connections or not as you choose, and you can always (in theory) walk out during the bits when nothing much happens for ages (I zoned out at the appearance of bullfighters in Act 4 'Bed/Aria' here).
Familiarity with the music actually adds another level of fascination as you are anticipating the length of each repeated phrase waiting on the next change to kick in. It still holds you rapt, which when you consider that there is no narrative or meaning to grasp and a lot of repetition, is quite an achievement. That's a testament also to conductor Titus Engel, the orchestra made up of music students of the Haute école du musique de Genève and the indefatigable efforts of the chorus that they are able to keep this together for four hours without a pause. The challenges posed by Einstein on the Beach are like no other and seeing it performed like this really does underline what an incredible achievement it is.
But does the opera have the capacity to be renewed beyond its 1970s origins and outlive its creators? Well, personally I don't think the Geneva production is a patch on Robert Wilson's original, but evidently going ahead it's Wilson's contribution as co-author that is always going to be left behind. Whether there's any life left in Minimalism is a matter in the hands of posterity, but there seems to be little doubt that, as Phelim McDermott has demonstrated for his other operas, Philip Glass's music is capable of inspiring new and creative responses. It's the largely unchanging force behind this enormously original and still totally absorbing work of opera, and yes it still remains opera. Great opera endures and 45 years haven't been bad to Einstein on the Beach.
Links: Grand Théâtre de Genève, GTG Digital
Richard Wagner - Parsifal
Teatro Massimo, Palermo - 2020
Omer Meir Wellber, Graham Vick, Tómas Tómasson, Alexei Tanovitski, John Relyea, Thomas Gazheli, Julian Hubbard, Catherine Hunold
ARTE Concert
The unique nature of Parsifal as a Good Friday celebration, as a consecration for the stage of Bayreuth and as a spiritual journey in its own right, means that there are many ways of exploring it in a stage setting. There's no one way that works better than another but the most effective are those that simultaneously tap into and draw on the work for its unique source of power while also bringing something to it. When it comes to Graham Vick you have a director who is capable of doing just that in his own way, which is in a manner that relates it to the world we see around us. That's not so easy with a work that delves into the philosophical and spiritual and areas of religious mysticism, but Parsifal is a work that remains relevant for all time. Somehow Vick and conductor Omer Meir Welber manage to get all those essential qualities together in this January 2020 production at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, or at least in some places better than other.
You can never tell if it's a good thing with an opera but in the case of Parsifal it's not exactly a disadvantage that you can't immediately see the direction a production is going to take even when a full hour and a half of Act I has elapsed. If it adheres however to the underlying sentiment of the work then it will hold and move you and Vick certainly manages to make you feel viscerally what the opera is all about. It might sound like an excuse but more than anything this is an opera you need to feel before you can understand it. It's no surprise that Vick uses familiar modern military and war imagery for Act 1 as a way of establishing that the world is in the midst of a deep crisis, one that it is badly in need of a saviour, a healing and renewing force. In Act I, more than anything, you can feel the pain. And it's not just Amfortas who is in agony, but Gurnemanz, the knights of the Grail and ultimately Parsifal too who comes to feel their pain and suffering.
The setting of Act I is visually simple and minimalised. There's a sandy-looking floor of chipboard with a canvas screen behind, giving the impression of a contemporary Middle Eastern military base with troops in army uniform and Kundry wearing a burka. Vick doesn't appear to intend to impose any political commentary, he just uses images that you will be familiar with as a way to get through to the idea of pain and feeling compassion. As such, the progression of Act I is straightforward but there are unusual touches that stand out. The first is the very Christ-like image of Amfortas, which isn't anything new he makes the first striking impression here wearing a brutal crown of thorns. Gurnemanz's story of the spear is played out in shadows on the canvas, showing images of war, victory and submission. The procession of troops lining up for the unveiling of the grail is not ineffective for it being a tin cup, as the symbolism of what it stands for is fully felt in Amfortas shedding a blood sacrifice. More than that, the shedding of blood is also endured by the troops/knights who painfully open up cuts on their arms. Set to Wagner's miraculous score, it's an immensely powerful first Act.
I've made no mention of Parsifal in Act I as he is purposely nondescript here, which is no reflection on Julian Hubbard who sings the role well here, but this is not his time, nor space for that matter. He's not even 'Parsifal' yet. That comes in an Act II which when it opens quickly undercuts any sense of Klingsor being an otherworldly agent of evil and instead depicts him as a very human one. He's a rogue soldier in fatigues, smoking a cigar, dropping his trousers to reveal the bloodstain of his emasculation. You might expect the flowermaidens to also be wearing burkas in Vick's contemporary Middle Eastern setting, and indeed that is how we see the chorus, but initially the maidens are semi-clad in underwear only, looking on as Parsifal cuts his way through their men, later coming to him seductively in coloured wraps.
The strangest scene in Act II however is the appearance of Kundry as a head only, buried under the sand, positioned in the same place as the grail buried under the sand in Act I. Establishing the nature of Kundry is vital in any Parsifal and here she is not so much the temptress and seductress as having a surrogate motherly quality, bringing an Oedipal edge to her encounter with Parsifal. An iconic image of Mary Magdalene opening up from the floor hints at another side, and Kundry as a woman of course has many sides and many incarnations, weaving a web of illusion that Parsifal brings crashing down with his newly gained wisdom and the power that such wisdom conveys on him.
Just as you can't expect Parsifal to come to knowledge and understanding without undergoing the whole laborious process of learning, you can't expect to know what direction Vick is pointing towards until you get to the conclusion of this Palermo production. It is of course a variation on the idea of a return to the paradise, a return to lost innocence, but Graham Vick depicts this persuasively as the need to become like a child again, throwing off the artificial constructs of religion, war and racism that have led to a corruption of true nature of humanity, and aspiring to be something better. It's there in the Easter message of healing, of Death and Resurrection, wiping away the sins of mankind. In Act III the salvation is that the Knights are no longer called upon to fight wars and bleed. They no longer have the spiritual nourishment that the Grail once provided, a gift that was used in a corrupted way to sustain nationalistic pride and wage war. Now it is turned towards healing and compassion.
Again, this is something that has to be fully felt in order to be fully understood. Some of the shadowplay imagery in Act III is consequently quite shocking, the result of a world thrown into chaos, where coldness and horror hold sway. Amfortas, as a leader of men is tired of it all, even more unwilling to continue to wage an endless war; reluctant to give sustenance and countenance to its continuance he topples Titurel out of his coffin. In the healing of the wound, Parsifal opens up a new way guided only by love and compassion. That is the Holy Grail.
In order to feel that the production obviously needs rather more than visual references and cues, and fortunately it's a beautiful interpretation in terms of musical and singing performances. Omer Meir Wellber rushes it along a little fast in places, or maybe I've been listening to too many slow versions recently, but there is a deep flow to the performance, completely Wagnerian, and it supports and helps bring out all those undercurrents that Vick hints at in his direction. Catherine Hunold doesn't quite get under the skin of Kundry the way another interpretation might, but she proves to be a fine replacement for Eva Maria Westbroek, providing some lovely lyrical singing in Act II with Parsifal, but she is also able to bring an edge of chilling drama when it's needed.
I've seen Julian Hubbard a number of times - he's a regular in Irish National Opera productions - but I've never seen him take on anything as big as Parsifal. I believe he also was engaged as the understudy before having to take over the main role and he acquits himself exceptionally well, making it look almost too easy, but also essentially human. The other principal roles are all superb. John Relyea is a fine Gurnemanz, his solemn intoning warm and reassuring, his storytelling compelling, his belief unshakable, his joy at the end overwhelming. Tómas Tómasson is wholly enveloped in the painful distraction of Amfortas, and Alexei Tanovitski's Klingsor is one that shows up the weak foundation of his blustering menace in the face of a greater power. Strong singing and good characterisation all around, the Good Friday message of the Palermo Parsifal hits home exactly the way it should.
Links: Teatro Massimo Palermo, ARTE Concert
Leoš Janáček - From the House of the Dead
Bayerische Staatsoper, 2018
Simone Young, Frank Castorf, Peter Rose, Evgeniya Sotnikova, Aleš Briscein, Charles Workman, Bo Skovhus, Christian Rieger, Manuel Günther, Tim Kuypers, Ulrich Reß,
Belair Classiques - Blu-ray
Personally I'll always hold the director Frank Castorf in the highest esteem for his deeply thoughtful Bayreuth Ring that dared to upset many but explored this complex work on numerous levels with increasing but unpredictable precision across all four days of that monumental opera cycle. There's no doubt however that the German theatre director can be hard work, particularly when he tries to condense down many ideas into a much shorter work like From the House of the Dead. Although the actual circumstances of the each of the inmates in a Siberian work camp is hard, the underlying humanistic intent and meaning of Janáček's opera, and indeed Dostoevsky's original work based on his own experiences as a political prisoner, shouldn't be quite so difficult to understand.
And at the most basic level its purpose does come across clearly. From the House of the Dead is a remarkable book and opera that celebrates the diversity of life and the power of humanity to endure the most abject of situations, retain hope and even some twisted sense of brotherhood or community in their shared experience that helps face the hardships that have to be endured. It's not so simple really when you break that down and even in this concise opera Janáček gives voice to the experiences of a number of men, each with very different ways of dealing with the situation they find themselves in, not all of them noble or their stories life-affirming. Janáček's music goes a considerable way to break that down and reassemble these broken people into a common humanity but Frank Castorf obviously isn't going to let Janáček do all the work.
One of the common experiences that all of the men in the Siberian labour camp have is hardship and living constantly in the presence of death. Death is inevitably uppermost in the minds of men struggling to survive intact from the soul-destroying experience of having endured time in this House of the Dead. As a way of showing how this brings about a recognition of one's mortality, Castorf has the inmates dress up as carnival goers wearing macabre suits and masks for a Day of the Dead parade. To contrast this and to provide some light that needs to exist somewhere in all this darkness, the symbolic eagle that is captured and eventually freed is at the same time an eagle and Aljeja, the young Tartar prisoner befriended and mentored by Petrovic, dressed in another colourful carnival costume as a Bird of Paradise.
Like many of the constructions created for his Ring tetralogy, the set is a typical three-dimensional rotating construction of a concentration of a camp, if I may be allowed to describe it that way, closed in and layered upwards with guards and warders up on the upper level, the grimness of the prison camp's concrete and barbed wire below. In a way it's like all humanity at its best and worst is crammed down below, faces scarred, covered in boils and sores, others stained with blood and dirt. There is certainly an expansive look at the variety and diversity of life experiences to be found in the stories that the men tell to stand out and affirm their own sense of identity. There's also a measure of release in expressing their cynical view of the unjust cruel world outside, taking some comfort at the same time in the stories of others' experiences that are worse than their own. Even the way they amuse themselves, fighting, bickering, mistreating prostitutes, putting on an absurd theatrical entertainment, has an air of grim but necessary release from inner demons.
To extend that view and get down and dirty with it Castorf uses another device the viewer might be familiar with from his Bayreuth Ring and that's using video screens with cameramen walking around the stage gathering closeups and behind the scenes incidents. Characters speak silently to the camera with subtitles provided (not always in English), spotlights and searchlights, contribute to the intense situation and there are of course plenty of Castorf's strange touches that connect to or have contemporary associations like an illuminated Pepsi Cola sign and a movie poster of Joseph Losey's 'The Assassination of Trotsky'. What they all mean is anyone's guess, but they all add to an interesting view on an always fascinating work.
Something else that you can always count on in From the House of the Dead is the opportunity to see some fine singers put through their paces in an opera that always remains a challenge and requires exceptional singers, not least because they are sung in Czech. The Bavarian State Opera have engaged an exceptional cast here, all of them very much rising to the challenge that Janáček and Castorf have in store for them. More often a Gremin in Eugene Onegin or Daland in Der fliegende Holländer Peter Rose is a great singer but rarely gets parts as expressive as Petrovic and he makes a great impression here. Charles Workman characteristically throws himself into the madness of Skuratov and Bo Skovhus brings a more menacing edge to Šiškov, but all the variety that you expect to find is there in the excellent casting. Janáček's opera has an uneven rhythmic melodic pulse but Simone Young finds that through-line in the score that captures the different tones and adventurous instrumentation employed by the composer in his final work.
The quality of the picture and sound on the BelAir Blu-ray release is excellent, the image clear and free from any issues, the relatively short work comfortably fitting on a BD25 disc. The detail of the score comes across well on both the lossless PCM stereo and DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 surround audio tracks. There are no extra features on the disc and the booklet only includes a synopsis and tracklist, with no information on the intentions of the production.
Links: Bayerische Staatsoper
