Richard Wagner - Lohengrin
La Monnaie-De Munt, 2018
Alain
Altinoglu, Olivier Py, Gabor Bretz, Eric Cutler, Ingela Brimberg,
Andrew Foster-Williams, Elena Pankratova, Werner van Mechelen
ARTE Concert - April 2018
When
it comes to Lohengrin, a more cautious director would seek to downplay
rather than actually highlight any associations that might be made
between Richard Wagner and the Nazis. It's an issue however that is hard
to avoid, since the question of German nationalism lies very much at
the core of the opera and, regardless of its intentions it certainly formed a view of nationalism that Hitler and his adherents took in another direction. Olivier Py,
directing for La Monnaie in Brussels, however tackles the issue head-on ...in a roundabout sort of way.
In fact, Py even takes to
the stage before the start of the opera to explain why he sets his
production in 1945 at the end of the war when Berlin and much of Germany
was lying in ruins. Mainly it's because he believes that Wagner's
Lohengrin is not just a nationalist display, but a warning of where such
sentiments can lead. Wagner can't be entirely exonerated for his
antisemitism, for a sense of jingoism in his works or for their and his
family's later association with the Nazis, but there is certainly a
case that Lohengrin is a work of artistic and cultural expression that
does consider the disastrous future impact of nationalistic sentiments
that can take art and culture and twist it toward personal and political
interests.
Certainly Olivier Py and his regular stage designer
Pierre-André Weitz's touch is all over the La Monnaie Lohengrin. It
works in contrasts of black and white with little of shading in between.
On one side we have Elsa and Lohengrin in pale blue, Lohengrin even
associated with angels, while Ortrud and Friedrich von Telramund are all
in black. King Heinrich incidentally (and somewhat negligibly) is
dressed in grey. Py's Catholic or Christian faith may well play a part
in reducing Lohengrin to such stark divisions, but it's perhaps more a
case of emphasis as they are already there in Wagner's work. Ortrud
certainly appeals to the pagan gods Wotan and Freia in a way that
"allows evil to enter this house" as Telramund describes it. Is it a
lack of 'faith' that leads to the ideal of the German nation being
destroyed from within? And is this inevitable corruption of a pure ideal
not indeed what Wagner's opera is all about?
Well, it's
perhaps a little more complicated than that and it's certainly not as
'black and white' as it looks in the La Monnaie production. Firstly,
there's the setting of Lohengrin, which as Py indicated, appears to take
place in the ruins of the Third Reich, in a burnt-out theatre that has a
platform at the front and the rotating ruin of the building behind.
It's hard to imagine a 'straight' playing out of the legend then, and
indeed the early indications point to a little bit of reinterpretation
with the suggestion being that it is Ortrud who has choked the child
Gottfried, the future ruler that would have taken Brabant to glory. Py,
as he often does, introduces other obscure quotes, symbols and messages;
"Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland" (Death is a master from
Germany) on a wall, Ortrud painting a thick black cross, Elsa a white
cross in chalk. Lohengrin's duel with Telramund in on a chessboard
(black and white) rather than with swords, although a battle between
factions takes place in the background.
It's hard to see
any real connect between Py's 1945 setting of the work and Wagner's
setting of the medieval legend, but that could well be intentional,
showing a disconnect between a glorifying vision of Germanic culture
(contrast this with the rather ideologically vacuous 2016 Dresden production)
and the reality of the inglorious conclusion that awaits when it
appropriated towards what Py describes as "the aesthetisation of
politics". That kind of reading is certainly heavily supported by the
rather meta-theatrical set of Act 3, Scene 1. The pastoral idyll
behind the massed chorus of the people of Brabant in this burnt-out
theatre is nothing but a rolled-out backdrop that the stagehands lift,
the set rotating to reveal a sentiment that is built on a framework of
German romanticism and idealism, represented by dusty statues, busts and
monuments to Schiller, Holderin, Casper David Friedrich, Goethe,
Novalis, Schlegel, Grimm, Heine, Carl Maria von Weber and Beethoven,
with even what might be a Nothung buried in the stump of a dead tree.
There
are a lot of ideas and ideals here that never quite seem to gel
together into something entirely coherent in a way that works
hand-in-hand with the opera itself, but the essential points are valid
and well made. The lack of faith in the ideal even by as pure a spirit
as Elsa (who Py aligns with a view of Wagner that Elsa represents the
'volk') who has fallen under the corrupting influence of the likes of
Ortrud and Telramund, means that Lohengrin refuses to be the figurehead
that leads the forces of King Henry the Fowler into battle against
Hungary. Ortrud certainly hammers home the point of ideals being
corrupted in her final words: "Erfahrt, wie sich die Götter rächen, von
deren Huld ihr euch gewandt!" (Learn how the gods take vengeance on you
who no longer worship them!). In case that message isn't delivered
forcefully enough by Elena Pankratova, the fact that it is uttered
amidst the ruins of 1945 makes it hard to ignore the implication that
you could also see Lohengrin as a substitute for Wagner foreseeing and
denying responsibility for the misuse of his art that the Nazis would
put it towards.
Pankratova, as it happens, gets that
across with absolute conviction in one of the strongest performances
among the cast here, but even if not everyone is up to her level, there
are no weak performances or anyone who lets the side down. Andrew Foster-Williams might not have the same strength of personality or
voice, but that suits a dominated, wheedling portrayal of Telramund and
it's an effective performance. Ingela Brimberg mostly meets the
challenges of the role of Elsa and her voice likewise complements that
of Eric Cutler as Lohengrin. Cutler is almost Italianate in his phrasing
and lyricism, if not quite to the extent of Piotr Beczala (at Dresden).
With Klaus Florian Vogt's monopolisation of the role in recent years
however, we know that a lighter higher voice can work well, but it's a
romantic-heroic role that allows a wide range of interpretation, and
it's always interesting to see what a new voice can bring to it.
It
felt like it was more Alain Altinoglu's conducting of the La Monnaie
orchestra that was a little stiff, not really succeeding in capturing
the romantic lyricism of the opera or finding a way to connect it with
the perhaps harder edged tone of the production - but as ever it's hard
to give a fair assessment of that from the compressed audio reproduction
of a live streamed broadcast. There are moments however that capture
the more militaristic and Germanic side of the work well, and some fine
contrasting moments of warmth and sentiment, as in the lovely warm low
brass of Lohengrin's regret in having to reveal his identity. It's an
interesting production, one that does try to engage with the issues
surrounding Lohengrin and its subsequent history, and indeed even look
at it as an opera that looks towards the future, but inevitably in those
circumstances - much like Hans Neuenfel's recent Bayreuth production - it
doesn't feel like it gives a true sense of the opera as Wagner may have
intended it.
Links: La Monnaie, ARTE Concert
Ludomir Różycki - Eros and Psyche
Polish National Opera, 2017
Grzegorz
Nowak, Barbara Wysocka, Joanna Freszel, Wanda Franek, Anna Bernacka,
Aleksandra Orłowska-Jabłońska, Mikołaj Zalasiński, Tadeusz Szlenkier,
Wojtek Gierlach, Adam Kruszewski, Grzegorz Szostak, Mateusz Zajdel
OperaVision - April 2018
The
Polish composer Ludomir Różycki is not a well-known name, but certainly
comes from a musical background and early twentieth century
associations that I personally find interesting. Różycki studied under
Humperdinck in Berlin and was schooled in the style of Wagner and
Strauss and went on to form the Young Poland association of composers
with connections to the Russian Group of Five movement formed by Russian
composers including Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov, with the
aim of establishing a new national music identity for Poland.
Inevitably, to judge by Eros and Psyche - which we are fortunate to be
able to see performed thanks to OperaVision - those late-romantic
influences show in the classic mythological subject of Jerzy Żuławski's
libretto and the epic musical treatment applied to it.
Żuławski's
adaptation of the Cupid & Psyche myth certainly presents all the
opportunities for an expanded and rich musical treatment. The ancient
basis of the story is an epic tale of forbidden love that transcends
time and overcomes great obstacles. It's a price Psyche has to pay for
falling in love and looking on the face of an immortal god, Cupid or
Eros, who has been secretly visiting her. Cupid's orders were to use his
dart to make Psyche fall in love with a monstrous creature for
presuming her beauty to be an equal of Venus, but these darts have been
known to go astray and both she and Eros fall under a spell of this
forbidden love and are punished for it, condemned to wander the earth
(and the underworld) eternally.
In Żuławski's version of
the story, that wandering takes Psyche to a number of famous historical
ages, from the Golden Age of Arcadia, to imperial Rome, to early
Christianity in a monastery in Spain, through the French revolution and
into the present day. It's a treatment and a structure that provides a
number of serious obstacles to Psyche, who is visited by Eros in
different guises in each of these situations, and it provides Różycki
with a variety of colours to work with, as well as the
opportunity to push the romantic tone of the music into epic levels. The
tone is inevitably Straussian, with mythological correspondences with
Daphne, Die Liebe der Danae and of course, Ariadne auf Naxos.
And
it would appear to be from Ariadne auf Naxos that director Barbara Wysocka takes her inspiration for the staging of this 2017 production of
Eros and Psyche at the Teatr Wielki, 100 years after its premiere in
Wroclaw. Różycki and Żuławski's version of the story is a relatively
straightforward telling of myth that has none of the framing and
self-referential dramatic and operatic narrative complexities of Strauss
and Hofmannsthal's treatment of Ariadne auf Naxos. Wysocka however
chooses to frames this opera's story of Psyche's wanderings through time
as that of an actress working on a number of period film productions.
It's a reasonable way to make the mythological story modern and
contemporary, but it has to be said that it doesn't appear to bring
anything unexpected out of the work and may indeed even confuse matters
somewhat.
What it does highlight is that the music is
indeed beautifully composed and scored for each dramatic situation like a
movie soundtrack. The first appearance of Eros on the set, emerging out
of the darkness to meet Psyche waiting in anticipation, is lushly and
scored with a romantic surge. Each of the mini movies are given titles
(Rome, Under the Cross, With Blood etc.) the titles and Falconetti Joan
of Arc-like close-ups of Psyche accompanied by sweeping musical
introductions. Conducted by Grzegorz Nowak, the music is a treat for
anyone who likes their late and post-romantic indulgent Strauss or
Rimsky-Korsakov orchestrations, and it's wonderful to hear another
Polish composer other than Szymanowski working in this register.
Lived
through the movies, this undoubtedly helps maintain the
larger-than-life character of the mythological romance between Eros and
Psyche that is otherwise abandoned in the production, and it retains all
the colour of the periods and locations. It's perhaps a bit too busy
with extras and camera crews cluttering the stage as well, adding a
layer of remove that the opera doesn't really need, and it may even
detract from the character of the work as well. Psyche's journey and her
encounter with Eros in various guises in different eras (with Blaks the
farmhand who has been condemned alongside her for disturbing the
meeting between the illicit lovers also present) raises questions of
decadent living (Rome), sin (The Cross) and compassion (Paris) are also
considered perhaps as necessary stages in her journey to redemption.
On
the other hand if 'Psyche' gains awareness of such matters through the
movies she plays the lead role in, then that element isn't entirely lost
in the 2017 production. Nor is it lost in how it is covered in the
direction or the musical and singing performances. Joanna Freszel is
very much centre stage as Psyche and the role is not without its
challenges (if not quite at the Richard Strauss level of demands), and
she gives an engaging and note-perfect performance throughout, her voice
having a lovely character and timbre. The high tenor role of Eros is
almost Mozartian by comparison and tests the tenor's ability to hold it
steady but Tadeusz Szlenkier certainly brings a lyrical sweetness to the
role. There are good supporting performances from the remainder of the
cast, particularly from Anna Bernacka as Hagne (et al) and from Mikołaj Zalasiński as Blaks.
Links: Polish National Opera, OperaVision
Giuseppe Verdi - Aida
Royal Swedish Opera - Stockholm, 2018
Pier
Giorgio Morandi, Michael Cavanagh, Christina Nilsson, Ivan Defabiani,
Katarina Dalayman, Lennart Forsén, Alessio Cacciamani, Johan Edholm,
Jihan Shin, Jessica Forsell
OperaVision - April 2018
If
there's one Verdi opera that needs to be continually reassessed and
reconsidered in terms of whether it still has any real relevance or
anything to say to a modern audience it's probably La Traviata, but Aida
isn't far behind. Both works might have been fuelled by real anger
against social institutions, but if they ever did have anything
important to say it's easy for it to get lost in the star power and
glamour that the operas' settings and subjects inevitably attract. La
Traviata however can be immensely powerful and hard-hitting about
society's treatment of women when it's allowed to be, and condemnation
of the horrors of war in Aida need not necessarily be submerged under
the bombast of Verdi's score and the pomp and ceremony of grand opera
spectacle.
You do have to question the effectiveness of
Verdi's treatment in Aida however, in how it seems to get carried away
with its exotic setting and location, in the attention that Verdi pays
towards Eastern-influenced melodies, grand religious ceremonies and
ceremonial triumphal marches before royalty. With the melodramatic turns
of love, family and duty all becoming intertwined, it threatens to
overshadow the anti-war, anti-religious sentiments that are there, but
there have been some notable attempts (and failures) to move away from
the glamour and address the real issues at the heart of the work - if
you consider that they were ever really there.
The short
overture to Aida certainly reflects a more sombre note, and in Michael Cavanagh's production for the Royal Swedish Opera, that's immediately
established as being associatedwith the more intimate story of
the individuals whose lives have suffered because of the demands placed
on them by the 'state'. We already see Aida and Radamès buried alive in
the tomb that descends to show a figure we can presume in Amneris, lying
face down in a pool of blood with a knife by her side. The note of
melancholy that can also be found in Radamès ode to an impossible love
for a slave girl of his nation's enemy ('Celeste Aida') is soon
overwhelmed by cries of 'war and death' as the news of Amonasro's
advance is brought by the High Priest, Ramfis.
It's in
such contrasts however that Aida does effectively present the conflict
between the individual's hope and dreams and the necessity of putting
them aside for something as monstrous as war. Radamès's personal
conflict is mirrored in the situation of Aida later in the opera when
she is torn between her love for Radamès and her love for her father,
Amanasro, the King of Ethiopia whose armies have been routed and taken
captive by the Egyptian commander and his forces. There's also very much
a case put of there being no real victors when it comes to war. "Today
we are the victims of fate, tomorrow fate may strike you", Amonasro
warns Radamès, and history has shown the truth of such turns of fate in
the downfalls of the great.
This aspect is borne out and
elaborated upon quite successfully in the Stockholm production even if
the focus is very much on the small personal drama. It's hard to
criticise the production on those grounds, as this is indeed very much
how it is played by Verdi. So yes, Aida has musical and dramatic flaws,
or even if you don't consider them flaws - and it's perfectly valid to
enjoy the opera for the music and singing for what it is - you still
adjust the emphasis at your peril. Olivier Py's scattershot Paris production demonstrated the risks inherent in that whereas the chamber
approach as seen more recently in the La Monnaie production, touched
much more effectively on the true nature of the work in a way that
prevented it from it appearing dated and out of touch with the times.
Magdalena
Åberg's set and costume designs for the Royal Swedish Opera production
are unimposing, but there is a balance struck between modern military
uniforms with AK47 rifles and some nods to the Egyptian heritage of the
work with its robes and ceremonies. The production does well to avoid
the familiar imagery and processional choreography, presenting a more
minimal stage with a gold wall in the background and blue lighting that
nonetheless retains an air of a royal palace with notions of strict
protocol and order. So there's a fresh modern outlook on the work at the
same time as the necessary contrasts between the institutions of the
state and the ordinary citizen are marked out well; contrasts that focus
on the intimate love story at the heart of the work, one crushed by the
weight of those powers that Verdi depicts so dramatically.
The
main issue that has to be dealt in a production of Aida is in how to
present it's Triumphal March; whether to make it a glorious spectacle or
undercut it with realism. Cavanagh's approach wisely takes a dim view
of celebrating slaughter, so while the chorus and trumpets are
proclaiming victory and the greatness of their King, we are shown scenes
of the reality of the war that Radamès has waged against the Ethiopian
tribes. And it is very much that of a large military force, bulked out
in combat gear with every precision targeting technology at their
disposal, bringing horror to the lives of ordinary citizens. It's very
well staged - with curtains blocking off live vignette scenes rather
than using projections - and it hammers home the horror of the contrast
between the ideal of duty and the reality for Radamès.
Musically,
Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts an excellent performance that plays well
to the contrasts of Verdi's melodies and the variety of sentiments
within it without letting it get too sentimental. The singing
performances, despite some initial reservations with timing and technique,
are also quite good, and backed up with a superb chorus. You have to
pity any young tenor who has to launch straight into an aria like
'Celeste Aida' with barely time to warm up, but Ivan Defabiani's Radamès
really comes through spectacularly later with a performance that builds
in character and confidence. Christina Nilsson as Aida also takes a
short while to find her feet after 'Ritorna vincitor', but likewise
gives a fine performance, the two of them making a convincing young
couple whose love is challenged by the scorned Amneris. Katarina Dalayman shows the right kind of
imperiousness tinged with regret, although her voice is lacking some of
the necessary force. It's in this small scale drama that the bigger
picture is reflected, bearing out the words spoken earlier that "Today
we are the victims of fate, tomorrow fate may strike you".
Links: Royal Swedish Opera, OperaVision
Stephen Sondheim - Assassins
The Gate Theatre, 2018
Selina Cartmell, Rory Corcoran, Muiris Crowley, Brian Gilligan, Kate Gilmore, Dan Gordon, Ger Kelly, Andrew Linnie, Aoibhéann McCann, Ruth McGill, Sam McGovern, Helen Norton, Rachel O’Byrne, Mark O’Regan, Nicholas Pound, Matthew Seadon-Young
The Gate Theatre, Dublin - 28 April 2018
Usually there are a few signs around the entrance to the theatre that warn if there are going to be any sudden loud noises, but I think you could take it for granted that there are likely to be a few gunshots heard in Assassins at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. Stephen Sondheim's musical presents accounts of no less than nine people who have plotted to take the life of the incumbent President of the United States of America, and in some cases succeeded. Going out with a bang I guess you could say, and the Gate production makes a bit of an impression as well.
Even as someone unfamiliar with Sondheim and with the musical theatre genre in general, a musical about nine deluded, deranged and dangerous people does strike me as an unusual subject to write songs around. Considering they take place many years apart with no indication that any of them knew one another, I couldn't see how Assassins could be anything more than a series of musical vignettes that possibly delved into the personal backgrounds of each of the nine would-be and actual assassins and the circumstances that led to them pointing a gun at the President. Even though they do indeed take place many years apart, with only Gerald Ford being the target of two different assassins, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman manage nonetheless to weave together 100 years of American history into the production.
The interweaving of separate stories is not purely for dramatic purposes, to provide an overarching narrative rather than a collection of disparate events, but precisely to consider the assassins as a very distinctive and select group of people united by a very singular drive to kill the President of the United States of America. Could there be some common ground? Could they have legitimate grievances about how the USA is governed? Or is the common theme that unites all these individuals merely just mental illness and a sense of self-importance? Even there alone, could that not tell us something deeper about the nature of the where the American Dream meets reality?
Certainly there are on the surface very different motivations between the oldest recorded case here where John Wilkes Booth would shoot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head in a Washington theatre in 1865 and the most recent, John Hinckley Jr, who shot and succeeded in wounding Ronald Reagan in 1981. And yet, there are suspicions that Booth - a stage actor himself - may have been at least in part frustrated by a lack of success and bad press notices and may have seen the shooting of Abraham Lincoln as the ultimate piece of theatre, jumping from the theatre box and shouting 'Sic semper tyrannis!' from the stage straight after the assassination. Hinckley too has some sense of detachment from reality in his obsession with Jodie Foster and her character in the film Taxi Driver, and the shooting of Reagan could also be seen as a theatrical act of attention seeking.
Such little connections creep out also in the lives of Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, the two women who unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford merely weeks apart in 1975. One was a disciple of Charles Manson, the other according to Weidman's book at least, came from the same part of the States as Manson, and knew him from school days. Even though the two women never met in real life as far as we know, Sondheim and Weidman establish this connection between them in an amusing target practice scene. The writers similarly have Booth speak as an 'inspiration' to Lee Harvey Oswald, and many of the other assassins similarly connecting with each other on various levels, whether that be common interests and sentiments, political or personal grievances, or - since such a common aim immediately makes you famous - even just on the level of inspiration or awareness of past assassins.
It's important in a stage production then to both clearly demarcate each of the individuals and their rationale, as well as find a common connection or overarching theme that necessarily draws them together. As if the idea of bringing the nine singing assassins onto the stage weren't a strange enough idea on its own, the concept of bringing them together as part of some kind of macabre carnival game is another inspired touch that the production at the Gate Theatre in Dublin wholeheartedly embrace. Each of the would be assassins are offered a gun and a prize (Shoot the Prez! Win a Prize!) by a rather Pennywise-like clown master of ceremonies - a wonderfully sinister Nicholas Pound as 'The Proprietor' - their efforts marked by a Hit or Miss indicator flashing in lights above the stage. The humour is wonderfully black, Sondheim's songs and music also drawing from carnival themes, country music and a wide variety of styles.
The music and singing performances are a constant delight. Inevitably, working with historical characters of clearly rich colourful backgrounds, each of the individuals is well characterised, but the ensemble playing is also exceptionally good and important to the overall impact and Ruth McGill and Rachel O'Byrne are in fine voice in roles where they have much more to do than just sell sticks of candy. It's the comically incompetent roles of course that get the most laughs, but certainly Aoibhéann McCann shooting at a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken as Sara Jane Moore and Dan Gordon as a Santa-suited Samuel Byck in a Dodgems car strike a wonderfully surreal note and really make the most of characters whose motivations and behaviours strike you as the most unfathomable and deranged. It's a close call though, and - as is at least clear from the account of Lee Harvey Oswald - the nature of the musical and songs is clearly insufficient to delve fully into most complex conspiracies and motivations.
What is clear however is that Assassins brilliantly achieves what it sets out to do, creating a platform that allows the spectator to see this diverse group of individuals as a select group of people and perhaps through that tell us something about the nature of the people and government of the United States. First produced in 1990, the contemporary relevance of Assassins still comes through in 2018, when the question of gun control remains a highly controversial issue. The nine assassins might have very little obviously in common with each other and apparently achieved little of any real political change (much less gun controls), but what happens when a person with mental illness, deranged beliefs and a sense of their own superiority gets their hands on a gun with the promise of a prize of fame and immortality, is still very much a relevant and topical subject.
Links: The Gate Theatre
