Moneim Adwan, Howard Moody, Dick van der Harst - Orfeo and Majnun
Festival d'Aix en Provence, 2018
Bassem Akiki, Airan Berg, Martina Winkel, Loay Srouji, Nai Tamish Barghouti, Yoann Dubruque, Judith Fa, Sachli Gholamalizad
OperaVision - 8 July 2018
The
Aix-en-Provence Festival is known for its adventurous approach to new
opera works and one of the finest and most surprising revelations was
bringing Arabic opera to the stage in 2016, with Palestinian composer
Moneim Adwan's Kalîla wa Dimna. There's always the danger that such
ventures will be seen as cross-cultural tokenism and fail to make a
wider impact, but if that's the case it's through no failing of the
quality of the pieces. Nor is it any failing of the Aix festival, who I
was delighted to see commission a new piece with Adwan, a composer of
real talent and musical storytelling ability who brings a colourful and
invigorating freshness to the world of contemporary opera.
While
the Arabian folk fable character of Adwan's Kalîla wa Dimna is very
much present in this new work, Orfeo and Majnun however is a
collaborative opera between Moneim Adwan and two other western composers Howard Moody and Dick van der Harst. Whether the collaboration is a genuine
attempt to further experiment with form and composition, or whether it's
an attempt to make the unconventional Arabian instrumentation more
accessible to an opera audience is debatable, but there is at least a
sense that the cross-cultural collaboration is compromised towards
tokenism in its presentation.
The story itself for
example is not just one story but two blended together to show a
common theme across cultures. From the Greek tradition there is Orpheus
and Eurydice, a popular subject for western opera from its very
beginnings, since it puts music and poetry together as an expression of
human endeavour and ability to strive to overcome seeming insurmountable
challenges, where love sets itself against death with the journey of
Orpheus to Hades. There's a similar treatment of those themes in the
ancient Arabic story of Layla and Qays. When Layla is forbidden to
marry her true love Qays, the young man becomes 'Majnun' (a crazy man),
writing poetry that charms the animals, but their love endures and Layla
remains faithful to her love until death.
The connection
between the two stories lies on a deeper level of two lovers who find a
distance between them that cannot be bridged. The commonality is made
clear in a number of overlapping scenes, Layla walking a distance behind
Qays in one scene while Eurydice follows Orpheus out of the Underworld,
but the distance of those few steps is nonetheless a huge gulf.
Orpheus's song charms Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog of Hades, and
Qays likewise writes poetry that enchants and draws animals to him.
Love, represented in the abstract by music and singing (opera) is the
unifying force in both cases that enables man to exceed his human
boundaries and be capable of something greater, something written in the
stars.
Despite their commonalities, bringing them
together creates something of an Ariadne auf Naxos situation, another
imperfect matching of life, myth and art that was also part of this year's Aix
programme. While the stories should come together naturally, there is
however a clear division between the eastern and western
traditions in Orfeo and Majnun that is immediately marked by the
instrumentation and melody, each composer seeming to work on their own
alternating section of the work. If you listen closely however there is
some crossover of harmonies in the sections where Layla and Eurydice
meet and where the stories overlap, but it rarely does the piece really
feel like it has a single voice of its own.
Obviously
this is inevitable to some extent, as musical composition is rarely a
collaborative process in the opera or classical tradition, but the
narrative doesn't help matters. Martina Winkel's libretto does
unfortunately tells too much rather than let the story and the music
fill in the detail. It goes as far as including a narrator who explains the moral and the message throughout on the
common power of myth just in case you don't get it, as well as providing
a bridge between the two stories that as a consequence remain largely
separate.
Where it might have come together better also
is in the stage production. Directed by Airan Berg and Martina Winkel,
you can't say that they don't make every effort to provide a strong
visual presentation that attempts to integrate the stories. There are
abstract projections, giant life-size puppets of the animals, figures
with animal masks, puppet shows and shadow plays. The only thing
lacking is the character direction and singing, which mainly consists of
standing singing with heartfelt expressions and some dance
movements/yoga poses that don't really express the underlying sentiments
terribly well.
The need to ensure that everyone
understands the cross-cultural importance of the work also extends to
the make-up of the chorus and the orchestra, which combines traditions
as well as amateur and professional singers and musicians. While the
chorus is mixed age, the predominance of children's voices does make it
sound like a children's story, particularly when aligned with the moralising
narrative. The international composition of the Mediterranean Youth
Orchestra however are superb, creating a wonderful range of sounds and
melodies under the direction of Bassem Akiki, navigating the changing
moods and styles well.
I think it's important that the
Aix-en-Provence festival (and La Monnaie in Brussels who are one of the
co-producers here) continue to support innovation in contemporary opera
and seek outreach to a wider international audience of all ages, but the
creators of Orfeo and Majnun, Airan Berg and Martina Winkel, seem to
feel it is within their remit to make the cross-cultural message what
the opera is about and it feels a little patronising. Again however,
even if it highlights the contrast in approach more than commonalities,
there is much to admire in what Moneim Adwan's Arabic melodies and
storytelling have to bring to help diversify the language of
contemporary opera.
Links: Festival d'Aix-en Provence, OperaVision
Sergei Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel
Festival d'Aix en Provence, 2018
Kazushi
Ono, Mariusz Treliński, Aušrinė Stundytė, Scott Hendricks, Agnieszka
Rehlis, Andreï Popov, Krzysztof Bączyk, Pavlo Tolstoy, Łukasz Goliński,
Bernadetta Grabias, Bożena Bujnicka, Maria Stasiak
Culturebox - 15 July 2018
It's
hard to say exactly what the true nature of Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel
is, whether it's a satire, an exploration of mental illness, decadent,
absurdist, symbolist, but I'm pretty sure it's not a comedy. Any yet
it's a work that does push the boundaries of human experience or at
least the expression of them, so the absurdity of madness can indeed
appear to be strangely comic, a side of the work that Barrie Kosky
emphasised in his typically colourful and somewhat camp 2015 Munich production of
the work. Director Mariusz Treliński takes it a little more seriously
and is more open to alternative interpretations, but The Fiery Angel
remains an enigmatic experience.
Written by Valery
Bryusov, whose work is associated with Russian Symbolism and the
Decadent Movement, The Fiery Angel is intentionally allusive and
unconnected to any superficial narrative viewpoint, more concerned with
exploring hard to define and even taboo human states and emotions. If
there's an edge of absurdity in The Fiery Angel it's because it heads
towards those outer reaches, exploring the fragility of the human psyche
and human desires, where love turns to obsession and where madness is
just one step removed from reality, and it's an easy line to cross.
In
The Fiery Angel, Ruprecht a German knight, finds a distressed woman in
his lodgings. Renata tells him that she has lost the love of her life,
Heinrich, a man she believes to be the human incarnation of the Madiel,
the fiery angel. First encountering Madiel as an eight year old child,
Renata has followed a chaste and ascetic path towards sainthood, walking
barefoot and inflicting wounds on herself. Wishing a more physical
communion however angered Madiel and he disappeared in a pillar of fire.
Heinrich, although denying he was Madiel, has now left her, and Renata
reaches out to Ruprecht, seeing advice and guidance from alchemists,
spiritualists and occult practices, in hallucinatory drugs and all
manner of strange rituals.
That suggests that there is a
dividing line between reality and a world where visions, unconventional
thought and even madness takes over, but it's not that clear-cut.
Ruprecht's reactions towards Renata's story and her experience, not to
mention the physical presence of this vulnerable woman, brings out a
side to the knight that is split between chivalry and lust that - when
he cannot resist the woman and in this production tries to rape her - is
followed by subsequent feelings of guilt. Possibly. There's nothing
about those areas of human behaviour that the work explores that can be
determined to fit a logical, consistent thought process that makes
rational sense. And that's before the work becomes even more
complicated.
Although it is set in medieval Germany,
there is an autobiographical element to The Fiery Angel in Bryusov's
involvement with the poet Nina Petrovskaya who had just ended a
relationship with fellow Symbolist writer Andrei Bely - all Russian
artists personally known to Prokofiev. Petrovskaya committed suicide in
1927, the same year that Prokofiev finished The Fiery Angel, although
the opera was never performed in his lifetime. There is however no
correlative map to help you understand what is real, imagined and
hallucinated, or what is merely a Symbolist writer's attempt to find a
colourful and darkly poetic expression of deep emotional states.
For
the Polish director Mariusz Treliński, directing The Fiery Angel for
the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2018, Prokofiev's music is very much an
expressionistic response to the meteoric decline in rational behaviour
that occurs when love turns to obsession and madness, Ruprecht, Renata
and Heinrich all coming crashing down to earth. Treliński's working
methods often draw on cinema references and techniques; David Lynch's
Blue Velvet is always going to be a reference for something like The
Fiery Angel, but Treliński also seems to draw on the heightened
expressionism in the neon and colour saturated imagery of Nicolas
Winding Refn's Only God Forgives and Neon Demon.
It's a
fluid dream-world then, the sets and locations blending and dissolving
into one another. It looks amazing, nightmarishly surreal and
hallucinogenic, finding creative ways to represent the intentions of the
work, the feelings of the characters and the expression of it all in
Prokofiev's music. In his duel with Heinrich, Ruprecht is transformed
into a small child with an absurdly large Ruprecht head representing his
feelings of inadequacy; the spiritualist Agrippa von Nettesheim appears
in multiple forms that may part of his occult persona or just be one of
many other visions that assail the Ruprecht in his impressionable
drug-induced state.
The Fiery Angel however is not
entirely just the subjective impressions of a disturbed mind or minds,
but it does place them in the context of other social factors. Renata's
behaviour and self-harm also suggests childhood sexual abuse and
conflicting feelings for her abuser, but certainly in Prokofiev's
version there is confrontation with a patriarchal society, with its
institutions and with the repressive influence of religion. It suggests
that evil can come in the form of what is perceived to be good, and how
it can be difficult to tell the difference. There's a lot to take in
here and much that won't make sense, but Treliński illustrates and
delves into those mindsets as vigorously, unflinchingly and richly as
Prokofiev's highly expressive score, conducted here by Kazushi Ono.
It
would be harder to carry off however if you don't have someone like
Aušrinė Stundytė singing the role of Renata, and she is simply
phenomenal here. It's not enough that she can take on the challenge of
the singing, being on stage continuously for most of the two hours of
the opera, but director Treliński also expects her to act out Renata's
condition as if she were a film actress. Filmed for live broadcast with
close-ups that show every gesture and expression, it's a
thoroughly convincing performance. The mostly Ukrainian, Polish and
Russian cast have the advantage here with the language, which must have
made it all the more of a challenge for Scott Hendricks as Ruprecht, but
while I can't account for his Russian, it was an excellent performance,
perfect for the demands of the role and the production.
Links: Festival d'Aix en Provence, Culturebox
Henry Purcell - Dido and Aeneas (Aix, 2018)
Festival d'Aix en Provence, 2018
Václav
Luks, Vincent Huguet, Anaïk Morel, Rokia Traoré, Tobias Greenhalgh,
Sophia Burgos, Lucile Richardot, Rachel Redmond, Fleur Barron,
Majdouline Zerari, Peter Kirk
ARTE Concert - 12 July 2018
The
theme of the 70th Aix-en-Provence Festival is based around the power of
myths, and each of the operas in the programme in their own way examine
deeper truths that would have application for the times they were
written, but such is the nature of great art that those words and
sentiments can still have contemporary relevance and application. Even
Purcell's 1688 treatment of Virgil's story of Dido and Aeneas, two
rulers of great kingdoms, is believed to have points to make about the
English monarchy and the political situation of its time. As far as the
present day is concerned, that historical context is unlikely to
provide any meaningful commentary, but there is very much something we
can relate to in how it also deals with the controversial subject of
refugees.
The original prologue for Dido and Aeneas was
lost over the centuries since it was first performed, but it's not
uncommon for the one-hour or so of the surviving elements to be filled
out with other pieces by Purcell or some of his near contemporaries.
There aren't many who would go as far as composing a whole new prologue,
and it would be hard to imagine anyone wanting to write in the style of
Purcell, but Vincent Huguet's production for the Aix Festival shows
that it is possible to write something complementary that supports some
of the themes of the work and develops some background, putting it into
a context that makes some reference to contemporary matters.
Rather
than write a musical prologue, the context for the drama of Dido and
Aeneas is developed in a mostly spoken word narration with some
traditional North African music, created for this production by the
French author Maylis de Kerangal. It describes the journey that Dido
herself made, a Princess married to her uncle Acerbas, a rival for her
father Pygmalion, the King. Becoming a kind of political refugee after
her husband is murdered she leaves the Phoenician city of Tyre and
travels to North Africa via Cyprus, but the journey by ship is no
glorious affair. Related by a Cypriot woman (Rokia Traoré) who came
with many others on those ships carried by the winds to North Africa, it
was a particularly difficult journey for the women and prostitutes that
were picked up along the way.
The Prologue sets the
scene then for greater emphasis to be placed on the hardships endured by
refugees and by women, both of which are certainly an underlying
feature of the subject, not least in the 'love them and leave them'
sentiments expressed by the Trojan sailors and by Aeneas, driven by the
Gods to his destiny in Italy. Vincent Huguet, a former assistant to
Patrice Chéreau, shows both these matters contributing to create a sense
of deep unrest in Carthage, more than just in the unresolved romantic
situation between Dido and Aeneas that eventually leads to their all too
brief marriage.
What is new about this treatment and
given greater emphasis in the current political climate is how the
subject of refugees can be used to create political divisions, here
setting the common Carthaginian people against the refugees from the war
in Troy who seem to be enjoying more favour and benefits that their own
people. The witches here become rabble rousers, the Sorceress inciting
one of the crowd to take up a gun in a terrorist attack that ends
up with her being shot dead by the authorities. Whether you think this
has a place in Dido and Aeneas or not, it does tap into the tensions
that must exist, the choral work of the common people having a role just
as important as that of Dido and Aeneas in Purcell's work.
So
that it doesn't appear to be too anachronistic - but at the same time
evokes the current refugee crisis in the Mediterranean - Huguet sets the
production in a more recognisably North African setting, the cast also
featuring a number of singers of African origin. In fact, the South
African soprano Kelebogile Pearl Besong was originally cast in the role
of Dido, but had to withdraw for health reasons. She's replaced by the
French mezzo-soprano Anaïk Morel who doesn't have the ideal clarity of
English diction that the role demands, but brings a deeper regal
presence to the role that works well alongside the baritone of Tobias Greenhalgh's Aeneas, equally regal, but again not quite ideal in
delivery.
There is some impressive singing from the other
members of the cast who bring brightness and spirit to the roles,
particularly Lucile Richardot as the rabble-rousing Sorceress and her
Mercury-impersonating elf. Richardot stood out when I saw her in the
fascinating Bratislava production of Vivaldi's Arsilda, Regina di Ponto a production
that was also conducted by Václav Luks. Aside from the context that
director Huguet brings to the production, it's Purcell's extraordinarily
beautiful music that carries the huge emotional force of the work, and
Luks's directing of the Ensemble Pygmalion finds that deep resonance
within the work. If Dido's Lament, 'Remember me' and the choral
finale don't move you to tears, something has gone wrong somewhere.
There's nothing wrong with this Dido and Aeneas.
Links: Festival d'Aix en Provence, ARTE Concert
Ondřej Adámek - Seven Stones
Festival d'Aix en Provence, 2018
Ondřej
Adámek, Léo Warynski, Éric Oberdorff, Anne-Emmanuelle Davy, Shigeko
Hata, Nicolas Simeha, Landy Andriamboavonjy, accentus/axe 21
ARTE Concert - 10 July 2018
The
commissioning of new opera work is an important part of Aix-en-Provence
Festival, something necessary to keep opera fresh by providing
opportunities for established composers to develop new repertoire, but
Aix also seek to extend it to encompass and expand the definition of
what opera can be and the audience it can reach. In recent years there
have been children's operas, opportunities for female composers and
works from other parts of the world with a different musical tradition,
played on instruments and in a style far removed from the western
tradition. Largely these have all proved to be fascinating and
innovative works, enriching the programme.
Commissioning a
first opera from the Czech composer Ondřej Adámek is a further
ambitious outreach into the field of experimental new contemporary
music. Adámek's new works, which premiere regularly at the annual
Donaueschinger Musiktage Festival of new music, are unconventional to
say the least, but there actually is something theatrical about his use
of unconventional sounds and the voice as an instrument. There can also
be something of a visual spectacle in his presentation, such as in the
2014 Donaueschinger premier of his 'Körper und Seele for air machine,
choir and orchestra', which derived sounds from inflating and deflating balloons.
The
voice is the primary musical instrument in Adámek's Seven Stones, an
"Opera a capella for four soloist singers and twelve chorister singers",
but the work also makes use of a variety of percussive sounds and music
performed on unconventional instruments, found objects, kitchen
utensils and others built in the composer's workshop specifically for
the purposes of the opera. In fact, everything about the composer's
approach to the opera is a challenge and questioning of its traditional
form. It accepts no preconditions but builds anew, from the instruments
to the use of the voice, whether it should be an operatic voice, a
normal pitch of voice or the voice as an instrument. Neither is it
performed by a static orchestra sitting out of sight in the pit, but
moving around and up on the stage.
The conductor too has a
different role to play in Seven Stones, setting the story off with the
recurring image of putting a stone to one's head. The story and
libretto is created by Sjón, an Icelandic poet who has worked with
Björk, and there is something mythic (fitting with the theme of this
year's Aix Festival) about the story of a mineralogist who sets out on a
quest to discover 'the first stone', the stone that Jesus Christ
prevented from being used in the Biblical story of the woman condemned
to death by stoning for adultery ("Let he who is without sin cast the
first stone"). A quivering figure found in the snow at the start of the
opera, the collector is brought back by the touch of a stone to a
Central European pub where his stone collection is kept. There he is
minded to recall how his search for stones would take him from
Argentina, to Japan and Paris.
The international flavour
of the journey is not accidental, as it in many ways reflects both
Adámek and Sjón's own journeys of exploration and discovery of music,
tradition and storytelling from far-flung places. Seven Stones however
is a journey in time and in space, not just appropriating the sounds of
other cultures and traditions, but exploring them for resonance, looking
into them for deeper relationship to questions of mythology and its
importance to the human spirit. It's not Parsifal by any means, but in a
similar respect Seven Stones touches on the essence of what opera is
for and about, seeking to overturn some of those grand myths and get to
the essence of the truth that we seek to hide behind them. In the case
of the stone collector, the reality he is hiding from leads to a
resolution that is perhaps a little contrived, but the
journey to get there has many other things to reveal.
The
use of unconventional instruments, household objects and custom built
instruments for each scene is another way of breaking down
preconceptions and predetermined musical constructions, Adámek seeks to
find something that brings us closer to the sentiments and true nature
of the subject. Rather than remain in the pit, these constructions that
are wheeled out onto the stage, providing a dual function of being
played and also being part of the scenery and props. Those instruments
include a framework of pipes that are used to create crashes and
rhythms, string instruments that evoke a tango sound for the Argentinean
sequence and small hammers on stones for the scene in Japan sounding
similar to the striking of blocks in Noh theatre. More than just
providing exotic colouration, the instruments - particularly stones -
are also crucial to the foundation and building blocks of the work
itself.
The use of voices, provided by accentus/axe 21
are similarly woven into the framework of the music and the narrative.
They start out percussively, stuttering and staccato, sounds and
syllables forming words and then sentences, marking time and rhythm as
well as meaning. Sung in English - not always the most musical tongue in
contemporary opera - Adámek is not afraid of allowing the words to be
audible and lyrical, with musical and melodic phrases, rather than
letting it slide into dissonance and recitative or stretch out into extravagant
virtuosity just for the sake of it. Whether you find anything
meaningful in the message of "A stone thrown in anger never returns to
the hand", there is certainly more to be gleaned with the symbolism of a
stone, a man, a journey, time and associations with mythology,
obsession and idealism. Adámek's musical approach adds another
dimension that does extend the work's ideas, and indeed the reach and
definition of what opera can be.
Links: Festival d'Aix en Provence, ARTE Concert
Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos
Festival d'Aix en Provence, 2018
Marc
Albrecht, Katie Mitchell, Lise Davidsen, Eric Cutler, Sabine Devieilhe,
Angela Brower, Huw Montague Rendall, Jonathan Abernethy, Emilio Pons,
David Shipley, Beate Mordal, Andrea Hill, Elena Galitskaya, Josef
Wagner, Rupert Charlesworth, Petter Moen, Jean-Gabriel Saint Martin,
Maik Solbach, Sava Vemić, Paul Herwig, Julia Wieninger
ARTE Concert - 11 July 2018
For
a work that I used to consider a bit of a one-note meta-theatrical joke
confected as a compromise to a failed theatrical/operatic crossover,
Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos has continued to enjoy popularity and
stimulate a variety of interpretations. It shouldn't be that
surprising, because at its heart the work is precisely about how art as
entertainment (and particularly opera) has a unique way of connecting
with people to express and communicate a rich variety of life
experiences.
And if that's not enough there's always the
music of Richard Strauss, gorgeous and alluring in its own right, as
well as forming a bridge between the words and the deeper intentions of the
work; like Capriccio, making a clever self-referential commentary at
the same time on its working methods and intentions. Director Katie Mitchell is also used to working with divisions between form and content
and trying to find ways to bridge them in her stage productions. One
other divide you will also find Mitchell tackling is the male/female
divide in classic works, seeing to offer a 'corrective' to their
traditional male-dominated bias. How will Ariadne auf Naxos stand up to
such scrutiny?
A one-note joke or not, there is a
certain boldness in how Ariadne auf Naxos turns its gaze on the process
of opera and performance, in how it marries popular entertainment with
high art, and it's obviously necessary for that marriage to be seen to be
successful and mutually beneficial, but certain structural and
ideological weaknesses remain that need to be addressed. Regardless of
whether you agree with or find musical value in Strauss and
Hofmannsthal's somewhat nostalgic neoclassical idealisation of opera's
past, and some of the reactionary attitudes towards men and women that
persist within it, there is at least the structural disjoint in Ariadne
auf Naxos's division between Prologue and Opera.
Forced
to adopt this as a fix after the failure to pair the operatic element
with Molière's 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' in the original 1912 version,
the two parts don't sit perfectly well with one another either in the
reworked 1916 version. Once the Prologue is out of the way, the dispute
between the artists and the entertainers over how to simultaneously
present their different perspectives because of the whim of the Richest
Man in Vienna resolved by compromising artistic integrity for
commerce, the meta-theatrical framing is largely forgotten about. Even
though the contrasting dialectic remains at the heart of the work, it
does tend to forget its original audience (the guests of the Richest
Man in Vienna) and seems to start taking itself rather seriously
presenting itself to the 'real' audience as a neoclassical drama/music
theatre revue with a grand Wagnerian ending.
You could
look at that as intentional, as the work itself taking on its own
artistic life, removing itself from the framework of the craft, from the
personalities and problems of its creation to become something that
relates directly to an audience without any necessity of explanation or
commentary, and if so, it's another level of cleverness. It does tend
to make the intention of any director seeking to insert another level of
remove or abstraction on the work rather more difficult, but it has
been done, most successfully I believe in Katharina Thoma's 2013 Glyndebourne production.
Katie Mitchell's response to the work, in collaboration with Martin
Crimp, doesn't seem to have quite as much to offer.
The
immediate intention of their Aix production seems to be to make that
divide between creativity and creation visible again, but also to show
how they are brought together through an audience. It's a worthwhile
endeavour, certainly central to the premise of opera, and in the process
Mitchell and Crimp also find a way to draw the Prologue back once again
with the Opera. Rather than remaining invisible in this version of the
opera, since they don't have any part to play in Ariadne auf Naxos (or
'Ariadne auf Naxos'), the Richest man in Vienna, his wife and guests
remain seated throughout in this production to the left of the stage
while the players perform for them on the right. Occasionally, they
make comments on the performance (a role they performed in the first
version), and in one or two places are drawn in to participate or get
closer to the drama. When the opera finishes, it's indoor fireworks
that are set off and the performers put on their party hats and take a
bow to their on-stage audience. It brings the work full circle in a way
that Strauss and Hofmannsthal neglected to do and for which they could
be justifiably be criticised.
That's fine as far as it
goes, but obviously Katie Mitchell will have other issues with Ariadne
auf Naxos as it stands, not least of which is the pomposity that is
allowed to remain in the performance of the opera seria part of 'Ariadne
auf Naxos'. Whether you agree that Strauss got carried away and
forgot about it supposedly being a pastiche, it's clear nonetheless
that the musical composition is much more considered than clever,
Strauss fully aware of the variety of musical forms and techniques
employed and how they interrelate with the drama. What is harder to
swallow is how men and women are depicted, where the women are waiting
for a man, "a new god", who even though he may be unfaithful is better
than nothing and necessary to deliver them from their loneliness and
misery. It depends how you play it obviously, and with how much tongue
in the cheek.
Katie Mitchell is obviously not going to
have any of that, or leave any room for ambiguity. In her version,
Ariadne is pregnant, and it's the delivery of the baby - which takes
place on-stage - that is the birth of a new god, Bacchus. Where this
leaves the real Bacchus in the opera I'm not entirely sure, he could be
Theseus returned or Hermes, the messenger from the Gods who delivers her
this 'gift'. It's very much one of those feminist twists that Mitchell
can employ that seem unnecessary and don't always work terribly well
(Miranda, Lucia di Lammermoor), but here I liked how it deflated the
grand Wagnerian sweep accompanying the woman finding her man. The
playing out of the drama within a dining room instead of a desert island
also helps in that regard, reminding you that it all remains a
theatrical construct.
Some of it works and some of it
doesn't, but what works and what doesn't will obviously depend on the
individual viewer. The role reversal dressing of the richest man in
Vienna in a dress and his wife in a suit felt gratuitous and unnecessary
to me, and I felt that Zerbinetta's role and the risk of her appearing
to be a bimbo may have been underplayed, allowing the Ariadne storyline
to dominate, but the "discussion" between Zerbinetta and the Composer in
the Prologue is touching, all credit to Sabine Devieilhe and Angela Brower. What really makes it come alive here however is the fine
musical performance of the Orchestre de Paris under Marc Albrecht,
playing down the propensity for the work to seem overblown or just too
damn clever, finding instead the incredible variety of expression within
it.
That incredible variety also extends to the singing
roles in Ariadne auf Naxos, and the cast assembled here are outstanding.
Lise Davidsen is not the most natural actress, but less can be more
for Strauss, particularly when you can express everything so well
through the voice. Davidsen is just superb, carrying gravity and a
commanding vocal presence that is just extraordinarily rich and
expressive in her hold and control and swelling of a line. Sabine Devieilhe doesn't have quite the same volume but is an appropriately
flighty and bird-like Zerbinetta, and always impressive. If her
presence isn't given the same stature in Mitchell's production, she
remains dignified and 'luminous' in her eye-catching dress. Eric Cutler's Bacchus may also be given shorter shrift here, but his singing
is clear and lyrical. Angela Brower also makes a very favourable
impression as the Composer.
Links: Festival d'Aix en Provence, ARTE Concert
Giuseppe Verdi - La Traviata
Den Norske, 2018
Julia
Jones, Tatjana Gürbaca, Aurelia Florian, Matteo Lippi, Yngve Søberg,
Caroline Wettergreen, Martin Hatlo, Jens-Erik Aasbø, Johanne Højlund,
Rolf Conrad, Eivind Kandal, Pietro Simone, Ole Jørgen Kristiansen
OperaVision
I
imagine I'm not the only person to get jaded and avoidant of La
Traviata, particularly when it's performed in sanitised Belle Époque
period. If you've been listening to a lot of early Verdi in the
meantime however - which we've had more of an opportunity to explore in
recent years - it is interesting to come back to La Traviata and see it
in a context that highlights the level of mastery and developing
maturity Verdi had reached. At this stage in his career, Verdi is a
musician in complete control of the musical and dramatic expression of
his medium, pouring all those considerable forces into a subject that he
clearly feels strongly about. There's no two ways about it, La
Traviata is a remarkable work, a superb example of craft and passion,
and perhaps even genius.
While you might have endured
numerous stuffy and unimaginative copy-cat productions - which it has to
be said are still capable of delivering a devastating emotional impact -
there have been other more adventurous productions of La Traviata
willing to explore the work's themes further, testifying to the strength
of the musical and structural composition and the presence of universal
and contemporary themes within it. The need to fit into a social
milieu, society's insatiable hunger for gossip and scandal, and the
question of women's rights and the cruelty of their treatment is ever
more important in our own times.
Other than it being in
modern dress in a very stripped back minimalist set, the Den Norske
production directed by Tatjana Gürbaca doesn't initially appear to have
much more to add to these themes other than emphasis in certain places.
This director however was capable of using selective emphasis well in a
similarly minimalist production of Parsifal for Antwerp, so there is some promise of looking at La Traviata afresh. There's a silent pantomime
during the overture, with men dropping trousers during Violetta's wild
party, Alfredo is there in casual dress in contrast to the other
formally-dressed guests, Violetta and her maid Annina collect money out
of the pockets of the stupefied drunk revellers, but there's not really
much here to make anything new of the run though the Brindisi, the
'Sempre libera' etc. It's admirable, but uninspiring.
All
this takes place on a platform stage on top of the theatre stage with little in
the way of props, and by removing the accoutrements the work is able to
work purely on an emotional plane and move swiftly onto Act II with
barely a pause. Alfredo brushing away the debris from the party becomes
then another way of showing the two of them wanting to make a 'clean
sweep' of the past, even as their old friends look on from the
sidelines, sceptical and delighting in the unfortunate turns that
prevent the wayward couple thinking that they can exist and succeed
outside of the orbit of social expectation and its approval.
There
are other hints why society's conventions and expectations might drag
them down, and they could strike you as a little jarring as this act and the
rest of the opera progresses. Alfredo is unexpectedly physically rough
with Violetta's maid Annina, but that could be seen as foreshadowing his
later abusive treatment of Violetta at Flora's party and hint at an
underlying distasteful attitude towards women in general. That is
somewhat over-emphasised by the Matador song at Flora's party, which may
well be a display of machismo, but using it as an excuse for the guests to
physically maul Violetta feels uncomfortable and doesn't seem merited by
the situation, particularly as everyone is later appalled at Alfredo's
unacceptable behaviour towards her. Outwardly at least.
A similar
kind of discrepancy between outward polite behaviours really hiding less
pleasant or perhaps just old-fashioned attitudes towards women is not
unexpectedly also brought out in the behaviour of Giorgio Germont.
During 'Pura siccome un angelo' his daughter is present on the
stage, which isn't new, but there's an interesting spin here in how
Germont's pleading to Violetta to step aside for the sake of his
daughter is played as his daughter taking her place, to be stripped and
abused by society. This and a whole family gathering gets across much better the idea of the
perpetuation of attitudes towards women and of the hypocrisy that
underlies them. By Act III, the stage has fractured, Violetta largely
alone on an island of the stage. Violetta's efforts to resist the tide
of social attitudes and achieve happiness is doomed to failure and her
sacrifice is played up as a kind of martyrdom, which to a large extent
it is intended to be.
Such ideas are good at relating the
sentiments and the gender politics of the work to the present, but
musically there's less room for invention and interpretation under the
musical direction of Julia Jones. The effectiveness of Verdi's
composition is plainly evident however in how this gains force as the
opera progresses. The flow of the work in that regard is impressive
here and the singing is effective. Aurelia Florian is challenged by the
extravagant high notes and coloratura, but builds on the character of Violetta, as you have no option but follow her course, and she does carry a strong
emotional expressiveness throughout. Matteo Lippi is likewise very
expressive in the romantic Italianate style that you would expect for
Alfredo. Some interesting ideas and meaningful emphasis is applied here
in the Den Norske production and Verdi's masterpiece is undeniable,
but I don't feel I need to hear La Traviata again for another while yet.
Links: Den Norske Opera, OperaVision
Richard Strauss - Salome
Salzburg Festival, 2018
Franz
Welser-Möst, Romeo Castellucci, John Daszak, Anna Maria Chiuri, Asmik
Grigorian, Gábor Bretz, Julian Prégardien, Avery Amereau
Medici.TV
There comes a point in a Romeo Castellucci production when you wonder if it's worth the effort trying to make sense of it. It's
not that they don't have meaning and value, Castellucci's productions
are original, striking and do often find a new way of looking at a
familiar work, but there are strange elements within that defy any
attempt to pin them down or directly relate them to the works in
question. Even when the director provides you with some pointers of
where he is coming from, you can't always follow where he is takes it.
Ultimately however, it fits or it doesn't, it will work for some and not
for others. His Salzburg Festival production of Salome presents the
same issues and is likely to similarly split audiences.
Salome
for Salzburg is typical Castellucci in that respect at least. Some of
the director's familiar techniques and obscure images are in there, but
the production is not just a rehash of familiar tricks and tics, and -
unlike a director with a singular vision like Robert Wilson for example
- he doesn't try to force each opera to fit into their distinct
worldview, but rather approaches it on it own terms, even if there is
sometimes a similar visual aesthetic. This production is very much a
response to Salome, even if inevitably it doesn't entirely match the
familiar imagery and stage directions that we are accustomed to expect
on some level with this opera, and even if it can appear somewhat
obscure and occasionally even baffling.
In fact, rather
more than most directors who take a work on its own terms, Castellucci
is also known for taking the location into consideration and making it
part of the production. Not that you really have much choice when it
comes to the Felsenreitschule venue in Salzburg, an open air riding
school carved into the very rock of the city. There's a reference here
then to a Latin inscription carved above the nearby Sigmundstor or
Neutor Tunnel 'Te Saxa Loquuntor' ('The Stones are talking of you') that
Castellucci employs as a distinctive way to consider the work in terms
of its Salzburg production, but what it means is anyone's guess, and
easier to describe than interpret.
The location itself is
of course spectacular in its own right, even if it's just for scale and
atmosphere. The arcades are actually blocked off here to form a more
solid surrounding wall, with openings used occasionally for entrances,
exits and props. If nothing else it gives 'presence' to the flow and
decadence of Oscar Wilde's original text and the taboo-breaking nature
of the content that is in line with the employment of Strauss's musical
forces. The detail of the composer's attempts to account for the
line-by-line control of mood and subtext is where Castellucci perhaps
has more of his own personal views and ways of presenting it.
You
expect eccentric touches and they are most obviously there with the
lower half of everyone face painted red. Everyone that is except
Herodias, who is painted green for some reason and Salome, whose face is
not painted, but who is marked out in contrast to everyone else by her
virginal white appearance. Virginal is very much suggested by the
opening scene before the music starts, showing her as little more than a
child - whether it's a flashback or a suggestion of her real age is
unknown - who cuts through the veil that presents the Sigmundstor Latin
inscription. The back of Salome's dress when she appears in the opera
appears to be stained with menstrual blood. If it was any other kind of
blood, I think we'd know about it from the production and her
protective and vocal mother Herodias might have had something to say
about it.
The other significant person in the work of
course is Jokanaan, or the prophet John the Baptist, whose voice does
indeed appear to talk of you from the stones (Te saxa loquuntor),
imprisoned below the floor in a cistern. His face is painted black,
making his first encounter with Salome very effective indeed; she slight
and delicate in white, eclipsed by the dark, wild, primitive and almost
bear-like mass of Jokanaan, a man who had lived in the wilderness.
Indeed there is an eclipse of sorts, with a huge black circle that
overwhelms and enfolds their first encounter. Reinforcing his wild
erotic presence, a live horse can be seen rearing out of the circular
pit that holds him. So far so much is mostly just giving emphasis to
the forces at work in the opera, forces that are most definitely there
in the sinister, sinuous, beautiful and violent music, the Vienna
Philharmonica well conducted through that variety of moods and colours
by Franz Welser-Möst.
The other strange and confusing
touches in the production relate to and contrast with how we expect to
see the more iconic scenes of the work. During the Dance of the Seven
Veils, Salome doesn't actually dance (heaven forbid that Castellucci
should be so literal), but instead she kneels head down semi-naked on a
plinth with the word SAXA written on it, while a block of stone is
lowered 'crushing' her beneath it. Feel free to interpret that how you
like. Instead of Jokanaan's head being presented on a silver charger,
we have Jokanaan's naked decapitated full torso, with the head of
a horse (presented as a first appeal to Salome to change her mind) left
beside it in a shallow pool of white liquid. As far as taboo-breaking
goes, you would expect an animal head to have additional shock impact
and hint at illicit desires - which you should really be aiming for at
the conclusion of this opera - but neither the thunderous cacophony of
the closing notes nor the staging really make the necessary impact here.
That perhaps doesn't matter as much when the
performances have been intense elsewhere throughout (although I do think
that the impact of the conclusion should be viscerally felt). Asmik Grigorian certainly carries the kind of soaring intensity that the
opera's Salome ought to have, reaching the luxurious heights and the
depraved depths of the work. Herod and Herodias can sometimes be given
to older singers just past their prime, but that's not the case here
with John Daszak and Anna Maria Chiuri. Daszak isn't ideal but does
carry a suitable haunted quality. Chiuri is spectacular, giving this
Herodias a lot more input than usual. Gábor Bretz is not the most
sonorous Jokanaan, but again his presence is felt. I'm not sure that
Castellucci has any great vision for the work or the characters, but he
certainly gets to the heart of their natures, working with the opera and
the location to bring his usual unique qualities and intensity to this
Salzburg production.
Links: Salzburg Festival, Medici.TV
