Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - The Queen of Spades
Salzburg Festival, 2018
Mariss
Jansons, Hans Neuenfels, Brandon Jovanovich, Vladislav Sulimsky, Igor
Golovatenko, Evgenia Muraveva, Oksana Volkova, Hanna Schwarz, Alexander
Kravets, Stanislav Trofimov, Gleb Peryazev, Pavel Petrov, Margarita
Nekrasova, Oleg Zalytskiy, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Yulia Suleimanova,
Imola Kacso, Márton Gláser, Juan Aguila Cuevas
Medici.tv - 16 August 2018
No
matter how familiar you might be with an opera, there is always the
potential for a new production to bring something new out of it. Mariss Jansons exploring the richness Tchaikovsky is always a great
experience, finding a human warmth in it where other conductors find
Russian coldness and stiff formality. Both aspects are actually present
in The Queen of Spades and Jansons controls and paces wonderfully to
bring that out here in Salzburg, as he has done elsewhere.
A
good director can also find something new and surprising to explore in
the work of a great composer, and while he can be controversial and
somewhat 'out there' at times, the very least you can say about Hans Neuenfels is that he has a unique vision that will be quite unlike any
other interpretation of the work. Expectations and conventions must be
put aside as you never know what will come next, and it can be very
revealing to see a familiar work afresh, as it were, see it from a
different perspective. If a work is rich enough, it is capable of
endlessly revealing new truths and interpretations.
Even a
work that is ostensibly a ghost story? Yes,
certainly. Stefan Herheim most recently and convincingly demonstrated
how much of Tchaikovsky (it's a lot!) is in The Queen of Spades at the Dutch National Opera (soon to be transferring to the Royal Opera House),
again with Mariss Jansons conducting there. Hans Neuenfels not
unexpectedly has an entirely different outlook on the opera for the 2018
Salzburg production, but surprisingly, while abstraction holds out over
naturalism in the set designs, he sticks fairly closely to the stage
directions, finding other ways to delve deeply into the subject and
themes of the work.
And to some extent that is determined
by the variety of tones, by the hot and cold nature of the work itself
that Jansons brings out here, from the heat of passion to the chilling
cold-bloodedness of murder and ghostly revenge. As with his Lohengrin
for Bayreuth, those divisions are expressed visually in a
black-and-white manner, and the chorus also have an important role to
play in highlighting those extremes between the darkness of inner
torment and the longing for the light of purity and innocence.
That's
brought out right upfront in the opening scene of The Queen of Spades,
where the children's chorus are subjected to almost militaristic
control. It's always been a strange way to open and it doesn't seem to
have much direct relevance to anything else that develops in the opera
unless you contrast it with other parallel and equivalent scenes. For
Hans Neuenfels, that's a matter of setting things in black or white, so the
children are all dressed in white, while Liza, Pauline and her 'Circle
of Friends', in the following scene quite literally form a circle,
dressed in black like some kind of secret society. Pauline's song of
life's morning looking towards the grave certainly takes on a different
complexion here.
Quite what this contrast is precisely
trying to say is hard to pin down and it seems a little reductive - as
it often did in his Bayreuth Lohengrin - to mark divisions this way, but
it is effective and makes an impression that forces you to reconsider
how you look at the opera. What it does clearly mark out however is the
contrast between how Hermann (in red) and the Countess dress
colourfully in contrast to everyone else. The key to this can perhaps
be found in the nurses with the children and with Liza's governess's
words to her and her friends, that you must follow the "rules of
society", know what is "proper and right" and "observe the conventions".
Hermann and the Countess lie outside those strict black and white
principles.
The structure of the work and its music also
throws up such contrasts, from singing about happy days and enjoyment of
life to being besieged by sudden storms, and that is the kind of
emotional turmoil that Liza (who wears both black and white) seems to be
most susceptible to. Hermann is just another blazing, burning ember on
the fire of the confusion, uncertainty and naivety that lies with her,
attractive and exciting in how he acts and behaves in a way that lies
totally outside those normal rules of acceptable social behaviour.
If
Neuenfels breaks the work down into such abstract terms while still
holding to the familiar dramatic line, it's supported well by Jansons'
elegant and passionate response to the music, alive to the precision of
detail within it. The human element is brought out much more
effectively by the characterisation and performances of a cast that
boasts two exceptional leads in Brandon Jovanovich and Evgenia Muraveva
as Hermann and Liza. I've become too used to Misha Didyk monopolising
the role recently, but Jovanovich brings a much more lyrical and
sympathetic interpretation to the madness of Hermann. Muraveva brings
out Liza's innocence likewise in a sympathetic manner and sings
marvellously, her Act III aria on the bridge absolutely heart-breaking.
With
secondary roles all well cast and sung and a strong chorus that
expresses all the variety of colour in the work with its little
Pastorale and other diversions, this is an outstanding production at
Salzburg that dispenses with operatic mannerisms, touches on its deeper themes and makes the ghost story at the centre of the work feel real and truly tragic.
Links: Salzburg Festspiele
Claudio Monteverdi - L'Incoronazione di Poppea
Salzburg Festival, 2018
William
Christie, Les Arts Florissants, Jan Lauwers, Sonya Yoncheva, Kate
Lindsey, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Carlo Vistoli, Renato Dolcini, Ana
Quintans, Marcel Beekman, Dominique Visse, Lea Desandre, Tamara
Banjesevic, Claire Debono, Alessandro Fishe, Davic Webb, Padraic Rowan,
Virgile Ancely
Medici.TV - 18 August 2018
The
importance of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea in the world of
opera lies in its innovation, in extending the boundaries of opera
beyond classical myths and bringing real historical figures to the
stage. The strength of the work and the reason why it still holds such
power almost 400 years later however lies in Monteverdi and librettist
Busanello's fearless examination of human nature caught up in a
powerplay and tyranny of love. And it's not just the interplay of the
central figures competing, gossiping and plotting but the impact that
this has on peripheral characters and society as a whole is very much a
part of the wider remit of the opera.
Or at least it
ought to be. Such is the strength of characterisation and the
accumulation of events, plots, murders, suicides and, yes some of the
most passionate expressions of love committed to music, that there can
be a tendency for the drama to revolve around and turn inwards on the
relationship between Nero and Poppea and forget about the devastating impact
that their scheming and actions would have on the rest of the world.
Directing for the 2018 Salzburg Festival production Jan Lauwers wants to
keep that wider context present in the mind and visible, but
essentially do it without detracting from the intensity of the musical
content of the work.
That would be hard to do and not a
wise move to make when you have William Christie conducting Les Arts
Florissants, and when you have a cast like the one assembled here, one
that combines experienced practitioners of Monteverdi and the Baroque
(Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Ana Quintans, Dominique Visse) with a few major
stars in the making not often heard in this repertoire (Sonya Yoncheva,
Kate Lindsey). It's a tall order for any singer; there are few heroes
or noble actions in L'Incoronazione di Poppea, all of them display at
the very least meanness, arrogance and self-importance - arguably even
Seneca, and certainly the gods of the Prologue.
As such,
it's easy to get lost in these characters, and the superb cast make the
most of them. Stéphanie d’Oustrac plays a particularly embittered
Ottavia and takes it with relish, holding back on grand gestures but
putting it all into the voice. Sonya Yoncheva puts everything into her
singing and performance, an alluring presence that convincing turns
Nero's head, but you don't get the same sense of engagement with her
Poppea and I'm not certain she connects with the audience either, which
has always been my experience with her at least. Full credit to her
however for this ambitious venture out of standard repertoire that she
takes well.
Kate Lindsey is a marvellous Nero. It's a
stylised performance rather than a naturalistic one, but Nero is and
should be seen as a larger than life character, albeit one with deep
human feelings and failings. Lindsey navigates between anger and
tenderness in a flash as Nero is driven by lust and power. "The heart
is a poor counsellor. It hates laws and scorns reason", Seneca tells
Nero, who retorts that "Laws are for those who serve". "Those who don't
know how to rule gradually lose their power" warns Seneca, incautiously
as it turns out, and therein lies the brilliance of what Monteverdi and
Busanello observe and achieve in L'Incoronazione di Poppea, daring to
put on stage sentiments that had never quite been expressed like this on
an early opera stage before.
The challenge is to make
the impact of all this visible on the stage and it's too easy to get
overpowered by the scandal of powerful people behaving abominably to
realise that it has consequences for everyone else. Monteverdi's opera
however has many other parallel situations and characters that show that
such behaviour is common across all social classes and sexes. Jan
Lauwers however not only takes on the challenge of expressing the wild
and contradictory facets of larger than life character like Nero or the
ambition and ruthless single-mindedness of Poppea, but he extends it out
and makes it vivid and real for each of the secondary characters and
applicable to the wider world as well.
The quality of the
performers in the supporting roles accounts for the success of this
endeavour to some extent - Carlo Vistoli's Ottone, Ana Quintans'
Drusilla, Lea Desandre's Amore/Valletto and Marcel Beekman's Nurse all
impressive - as does the presence of dancers of BODHI PROJECT and SEAD
Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, who are given more to do than
just the typical interpretative double mirroring of characters. A
constant presence in the background, spinning and whirling, they
occasionally move forward and interact with the characters, deepening
relationships, expressing and visualising those contradictory elements
as well as helping force the sense of real relationships between
characters who could typically and easily be left to express solitary
sentiments in individual arias.
That's extended to
keeping other main characters on-stage, such as Poppea wandering past
when Ottone is expressing his secret feelings for her, and it also
extends to some limited interaction with the musicians who are all there
in a shallow pit on the stage. There should be a very definite
interaction between the music and the performance, more so in the
semi-improvised measures and accompaniment of music that is not fully
scored. Interpretation is very much a feature of Monteverdi's operas
and there's no right or wrong way, but there certainly ways that bring
the music to life better so that they connect with the tone of the drama
and communicate it to the audience. There's no doubting the ability of
William Christie and Les Arts Florissants to do that exceptionally well
here.
It's Jan Lauwers however who manages to most
successfully focus all those elements of music, dance, characterisation
and expression and push them out beyond the stage. The stage itself is
covered with images of classical paintings, a mass of bodies that remind
you that this is not just a heated drama of consequence only to a
little group of self-interested and self-serving people, but that their
actions have consequences out in the wider world. That's a lot to take
on, and much more than would normally be considered necessary when you
have Monteverdi's music to express and enchant, Jan Lauwers'
production for Salzburg, with its fine cast, make this ancient work feel
as fresh and modern and relevant as many contemporary works, and
perhaps even more so.
Links: Salzburg Festspiele
Giuseppe Verdi - Il Trovatore
Royal Opera House, 2017
Richard
Farnes, David Bösch, Anita Rachvelishvili, Gregory Kunde, Lianna
Haroutounian, Vitaliy Bilyy, Francesca Chiejina, Samuel Sakker
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
The
principal challenge for a director approaching Il Trovatore must be to
find a way of making its notoriously implausible plot half-way
intelligible and work around its operatic template of mannerisms and
numbers. It's a tall order and the best you can do is just attempt to
tone things down and let Verdi's overheated orchestration provide all
the drama. The other approach is to just let fly, run with it, but you
need exceptional Verdi singers to make that convincing. David Bösch's
production for the Royal Opera House tries to do both, but the focus on
mood doesn't quite make up for the static direction and not all the
singing performances are quite good enough to carry it off either.
There are however some good points to the production and the
performances, certainly enough to ride on Verdi's music and bring this
work to its breathless conclusion.
The set designs for
David Bösch's production settle for the generic modern day setting of a
dark barb-wired landscape of wartime devastation that is now
unfortunately quite common at the Royal Opera House. As far as mood
goes, the dark gothic minimalism works well to downplay some of the more
extravagant drama, which is instead allowed to simmer in the recurring
presence and imagery of fire. A simple gesture in the opening scene for
example, where Ferrando having given his troops and himself the
heebie-jeebies over the curse of the evil wicked witch burnt at the
stake who still haunts the Count di Luna's family, tentatively kicks
over the remnant of the burning camp fire, expecting it looks to find
bone lying there.
There's a similar reliance on mood and
suggestion elsewhere. Azucena's caravan at the gypsy camp is decorated
with macabre looking dolls pinned to its outside, the scene eerily lit
by the orange flames of the camp flickering brazier. In terms of
direction however there's little thought or effort made to make the
characters or the drama feel real of convincing. It's all rather
static, the scenes remain a collection of disconnected dramas with no
flow or follow-through that aren't resolved in any way until the
conclusion. Like the ROH's controversial 2015 Guillaume Tell, it
unimaginatively relies on generic groups of soldiers/thugs threatening captives in bleak war-torn landscapes and subjecting them to brutal beatings, torture and execution.
What
counts here and ultimately determines the nature of the production is
the quality of the Verdian musical and singing performances. In terms
of the musical interpretation, the early indications were that Richard Farnes doesn't seem to have much to offer as far as arrangements and
interpretation, but in reality it seems it's more just an indication
of good pacing. The delivery matches the early setting of mood,
building on the drama, letting Verdi's score for the opera take on its
own momentum, and when those moments of thunderous impact are needed, it
proves to be a full-blooded account.
The singing however
is a mixed bag as far as the division between the male and female roles
goes. Although there are some impressive moments in the performances
of Lianna Haroutounian's Leonora and Vitaliy Bilyy's Conte di Luna, they
aren't totally convincing or always secure in their delivery. Both are
a little static and their characters lack personality and direction - a
fault as much with Verdi and Cammarano's writing as much as the
director's failure to bring them to life. Haroutounian is certainly
capable, her 'Tu vedrai che amore in terra' quite impressive in its own
right, if still not having a good flow or connection to character and
situation.
Anita Rachvelishvili and Gregory Kunde are
much better equipped to handle the technical and dramatic challenges of
Verdi's writing for the voice, and as Azucena and Manrico, their voices
and performances ultimately hold more sway over the outcome and
effectiveness of the production. Rachvelishvili comes out on top,
taking the role of Azucena with relish, matching Verdi's intensity but
not overselling it. Kunde is always a joy to hear, a dramatic rather
than a belcanto Rossinian, and that kind of dramatic lyricism serves him
well for Verdi. He brings real character and personality to Manrico in
his stage presence and singing. When these two are in alignment with
the thunderous performance of the Royal Opera Orchestra under Richard Farnes, it's enough to carry this Il Trovatore over the line. That's no mean feat.
The Opus Arte Blu-ray presents the
recording of the opera on its dark stage very well throughout to such an
extent that you can almost feel the heat of the conflagration in the
closing scene. The High Resolution audio stereo and surround mixes are
superb, giving clear presence to the voices, and if you can listen to it
loud (on headphones maybe) the impact of the Anvil Chorus and the more
thunderous parts of the score is just amazing. The extra features are
not plentiful, just a snappy 3-minute introduction with soundbites from
cast and the creatives and a 3-minute look at the set designs. The
booklet however contains a very interesting essay by Flora Willson on
the history of the writing of the opera and the working relationship
between Verdi and Cammarano revealed in their correspondence.
Links: Royal Opera House
Jacques Offenbach - Tales of Hoffmann
Irish National Opera, 2018
Andrew
Synnott, Tom Creed, Julian Hubbard, Claudia Boyle, Gemma Ní Bhriain,
John Molloy, Andrew Gavin, Brendan Collins, Carolyn Holt, Fearghal
Curtis, Kevin Neville, Peter O’Reilly, Cormac Lawlor, Robert McAllister
O'Reilly Theatre, Dublin - 14 September 2018
At this rate I could get to
like Tales of Hoffmann. Up until fairly recently it's been an opera
whose attraction and qualities have mostly eluded me. Part of the
problem could be down to the work having been left unfinished, Offenbach
dying before his only full opera (as opposed to his numerous operettas) was
completed. Subjected to cuts, revisions and additions from sketches
left behind by the composer to try to approximate what Offenbach might
have had in mind, there's never been any clarity over the intended final
shape of the work. But then, I've never been taken with the idea of
purpose of the work or find that it has any great insights or
truths to reveal.
It's a romance above all, a single troubled one taking shape across four different
incarnations, but drawn from
stories by the German writer ETA Hoffmann, Offenbach includes Hoffmann as the main
character in the work, making a connection between the creator and his
creations, the inspiration for them and the suffering an artist has to
endure to bring them to life. That's all well and good, but the stories
themselves are strange, fantastical and almost hallucinogenic in their
obsessions, fuelled by alcohol and tainted with madness, the music
likewise somewhat overblown.
There's a lot to work with
here and certainly richness in the situations, but a good production
should be able to draw it all together, bring some kind of coherence and
try to make sense of it all. My experience of Tales of Hoffmann
however - until fairly recently - has been that directors similarly
tend to go overboard and add another level of complication and
distraction. A stripped-down reduced-orchestration production by the English Touring Opera however demonstrated for me that there is much to
enjoy in the work, and following a similar policy in their new
production, the Irish National Opera have confirmed that impression.
Of
course what is true of the approach taken towards Tales of Hoffmann is
true of any opera; it can be seen at its best when music, direction and
singing all come together in a cohesive production with a strong
central theme. The central theme of the varied three related love
stories that attest to Hoffmann's unfortunate choice in women is of
course his singular love for Stella in all her varied moods and
character (and an opera singer to boot!). Offenbach of course makes the
connections by having not just Stella in the roles of Olympia, Antonia
and Giulietta, but he keeps a thread of adversity in the combined
villains of Lindorf's Coppélius, Dr. Miracle, and Dappertutto.
Created
as a INO touring production and having to work within the limitations
of the O'Reilly Theatre in Dublin, which is not equipped for major scene
changes or special effects, director Tom Creed is somewhat limited as
far as stage designs go, but in a way this helps consistency and fluency
not just between the stories, but with the framing device of Hoffmann
the storyteller and the connections the stories have to Stella. The
lack of atmosphere in the venue also threatened to work against the
efforts of the production which with only a reduced ensemble of seven
players felt initially cool and detached, not really engaging with the
audience. By the time Claudia Boyle's Olympia took to the stage
however, that all changed.
The detached from reality
aspect of the stories can still be a problem, but Tom Creed finds
suitable modern updates that take some of the old-fashioned eccentricity
out of the work. Rather than an automaton or living doll, Creed
re-envisions Olympia for this production as a robot AI, Hoffmann dazzled
by its brilliance of science but disillusioned by its lack of humanity,
immune to the charm of his poetry. In the second story Hoffmann's trust
in love is dashed by the inadequacy of medicine to cure Antonia if she sings.
Hoffmann is charmed in the third story not by a seductive courtesan
who is charged with stealing his reflection, but by a performance artist
in the Venice Biennale who attempts to destroy his soul through
drug addiction.
Katie Davenport's set designs cleverly
provide suitable locations for Creed's updated settings that bring more
of a sense of reality to the metaphor, but it still looks magical and
just as importantly retains a sense of humour. The consistency and
continuity is brilliantly maintained in the three major singing roles,
with Claudia Boyle in particular simply outstanding. The ability to
sing all the four highly challenging soprano roles is never in doubt,
but there's personality and presence there as well, which makes a
difference in this opera. Julian Hubbard also sang well but wasn't
quite as successful in finding any deeper humanity in his character.
The multiple Lindorf villain role posed no difficulties for John Molloy,
an expert in this register, but he was perhaps a little too declamatory
for the reduced instrumentation. Gemma Ní Bhriain's Nicklausse was
exceptional and Andrew Gavin provided good support for Molloy's
different incarnations. With fine performances in secondary roles and a
fine chorus, the INO clearly have a strong ensemble of singers.
It
was in that reduced seven-piece instrumentation, alive to the
subtleties of the melodies that I feel that the Irish National Opera's
production was truly successful in revealing the qualities of
Offenbach's writing for Tales of Hoffmann. Andrew Synnott directing
from piano is always strong with this kind of arrangement (his own
composition for Dubliners at the 2017 Wexford Festival benefitted from
the same treatment). As well as simply being able to appreciate the
detail of the instrumentation and quality of the playing, too often lost
in larger arrangements, it more than anything else helped bring
consistency and cohesion to the work, while still finding plenty of room
for colour and expression.
Links: Irish National Opera
Samuel Barber - Vanessa
Glyndebourne, 2018
Jakub
Hrůša, Keith Warner, Emma Bell, Virginie Verrez, Edgaras Montvidas,
Rosalind Plowright, Donnie Ray Albert, William Thomas, Romanas
Kudriašovas
Medici.tv - 14 August 2018
On
the surface, Samuel Barber's Vanessa is a simple domestic drama, but
inevitably there's much more going on beneath the surface. Written in
1958, Alfred Hitchcock was going something similar with repressed
passions around that same time in Vertigo, and Keith Warner has chosen
to stage the Glyndebourne production of Vanessa as a Hitchcock-like
drama of hidden passions leading to disintegrating minds, and it's not a
bad idea, even if it does have the consequence of making an unashamedly
old-fashioned work feel rather dated.
But is it really a dated work or, like Hitchcock, does it not actually address something that was
more than a little daring for its time in its subject matter and
perhaps even taboo? Certainly a more personal reading of the matter of
hidden passions and dark unspoken secrets can be detected in the
libretto of composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who wrote the original libretto
for his lover Samuel Barber, and it can be felt in the dark melancholic
tone of the music. Keith Warner's direction doesn't address that
directly at all in the Glyndebourne production, but he does delve a
little deeper in a way that brings the human element out of the somewhat
mannered and stuffy setting.
The sets, the moral
attitudes and the class issues in Vanessa are all very much of their time. Vanessa
lives with her mother and niece in an isolated mansion in the north of
the country. Abandoned 20 years ago by Anatol, Vanessa has remained in
Miss Haversham-like seclusion, with all the mirrors of the house
covered. She is however expecting Anatol's imminent return, but is
shocked to find that it is not Anatol who arrives, but his son, also
called Anatol. Unknown to Vanessa, Anatol and her niece Erika spend the
night together, but Erika refuses to marry Anatol and he turns his
attentions instead to Vanessa.
The drama and the romantic
triangle situation becomes rather more heated when it is revealed that
Erika is pregnant. Hearing the news of Vanessa's engagement to Anatol,
she attempts to throw herself in the lake late on a dark and snowy New
Year's Eve. While Barber's lushly romantic score underpins the drama,
it doesn't however allow it to tip over into melodrama, since while the
revelations are shocking to the audience, they remain mostly hidden,
repressed and covered up by the characters in denial; Erika about her
feelings for Anatol, Vanessa about her suspicions about Anatol's true
nature.
With much going on beneath the surface as above
it, Keith Warner's direction finds expression for the multiple levels by
highlighting the use of mirrors. Mirrors are referred to explicitly in
the libretto, Vanessa has covered them up for 20 years since Anatol's
absence, and they are covered up again at the end of the opera, and the
significance of covering up and hiding from oneself is obvious.
Warner's use of large mirrors that dominate the stage in Act I take on
another dimension however when they are uncovered, playing on what is
real and what is a reflection.
This is extended in Act
II, when more mirrors are added and doubles are used, sometimes showing
guests behind the scenes, other times showing younger idealised versions
of the protagonists. This is most effective in the scene where the
doctor, who has drunk a lot at the party, sees a ghostly younger, more
gallant and much more confident idealised version of himself asking a
lady to dance, that contrasts with the reality of the older, drunken
man. But these levels and contradictions between what is spoken and the
reality are all there in the music.
Aside from the
Hitchcock references (the period looks much older than Vertigo, going
back to Notorious or Suspicion), there are other film influences and
effects evident in Warner's production, from the use of mirrors
distorting reality and stretching to infinity like Orson Welles's The
Lady from Shanghai, to the use of projections and a twisting set that
almost replicates Hitchcock's reverse-zoom effect at the dramatic moment
of Erika hearing of Anatol and Vanessa's engagement from the top of the
stairs. All of the effects are merited and echoes in the score.
The
music for Vanessa is beautiful, the melodies and arias are lovely, and
even if there is a little too much talky recitative - which Menotti and
Barber tried to avoid not entirely successfully - it is always musically
expressive. The dark and moody 'goodbyes' conclusion is just
wonderful and all of it is marvellously sung by a good cast. Emma
Bell's conflicted and troubled Vanessa could easily have been upstaged
by her rather more impetuous dramatic niece Erika, but sung tremendously well by Virginie Verrez, but Bell's interiority
suggests more. Edgaras Montvidas is excellent as Anatol, singing the
role persuasively, never playing a blatant cad, but rather more subtle
than that.
With an elegant and expressive set, excellent
singing and dramatic performances, good direction that attempts to dig a
little deeper, this is an excellent performance of an entertaining and
superbly constructed opera. Unfortunately, despite Glyndebourne's
insistence that the time has come for accessible 20th century American
opera, Vanessa still feels unadventurous and stuffy. It's a
trend that is also becoming increasingly evident at Glyndebourne, but alongside ambitious productions like Barrie Kosky's production of Saul, Claus Guth on La Clemenza di Tito and Brett Dean's Hamlet, at the moment there's still a good balance in the festival and room for testing out lesser known American works like Vanessa.
Links: Glyndebourne, Medici.tv
Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly
Glyndebourne, 2018
Omer
Meir Wellber, Annilese Miskimmon, Olga Busuioc, Joshua Guerrero, Carlo
Bosi, Elizabeth DeShong, Michael Sumuel, Jennifer Witton, Eirlys Myfanwy
Davies, Adam Marsden, Oleg Budaratskiy, Simon Mechlinski, Ida Ränzlöv, Shuna Scott Sendall, Michael Mofidian, Jake Muffett
Culturebox - 21 June 2018
Opera
houses don't tend to get adventurous when it comes to Madama Butterfly,
but there have been some interesting new looks at one of Puccini's most
popular works. La Scala in Milan went right back to the original
'failed' 1904 version of the opera that Puccini was forced to rewrite, which
was fascinating even if in the end it still played mostly to the
conventional locations and imagery. A more abstract Madama Butterfly at La Monnaie in 2017 on the other hand certainly stripped it back of its
kitsch Japanese elements and expectations only to prove that most of
those elements and the melodrama may be integral to the opera, and it
won't work without it. Madama Butterfly almost demands 'safe' by
definition, as any attempt to tinker around too much with expectations
is unlikely to play well with its target audience.
Madama
Butterfly and even the selection of it is surely more a consideration
of providing a safe choice for Glyndebourne audiences (and as a touring
production) than for any desire to artistically explore the work for new
meaning. Annilese Miskimmon's production however makes one or two
concessions towards modernisation, placing it in a different period and
context that seeks to highlight certain harsh realities and truths of
its subject. She tries to strike a balance that attempts to bring it a
little more up to date rather than appearing to be a situation so far
removed from familiar modern attitudes as to appear as almost fantasy,
but there's also clearly a necessity not to throw Butterfly out with the
bathwater.
Act I doesn't differ greatly from any
traditional representation of the marriage scenes. It's a 50s' setting,
where Goro's Marriage Bureau handles matches for US troops with
Japanese brides after the war, a situation that is a little more
relatable, even if it still carries implications of inequality.
Projections are used showing genuine documentary newsreel footage:
"Yanks Marry Japanese Maids", with the new brides given instruction on
"Learning to be an American Wife". It's perhaps not exactly the same
situation as Cio-Cio-San, but even if it's presented in contrast it does
highlight the reality. Or if not so much a reality, selling the
American dream as a reality. There's no real commentary or emphasis
placed on the ethics of it all however, on Pinkerton marrying a 15 year
old, collecting her like a butterfly or even commentary on the American
imperialism side of things here. It leaves the match it open as if it's
something that both parties go into in good faith. The real test of
the marriage and the production will come later and there's plenty of
opportunity there to feel outrage.
In line with the tone
of Puccini's music, Act II does indeed mark a strong contrast to Act I.
Butterfly has adopted American lifestyle big time, not just in little
details of her manner of western dress, but in her confidence and
attitudes as well. Or rather it's more like rather a Japanese view of
American life that is influenced by the Technicolor melodramas of
Douglas Sirk, and I can't imagine any film director who is closer to the
sentiments of Madama Butterfly than Douglas Sirk (although you could
try Mikio Naruse or Kenji Mizoguchi if you were going for a more
authentic view of the perspective of a Japanese woman rather than an
American director - or even Yasujiro Ozu's later colour films which show the
creeping influence of America on Japanese life in the 1950s). So from
that point of view, the 1950s' Sirkian setting works perfectly, working
with the light, the colour and the seasons, as leaves fall and darkness
draws in.
Thereafter it's wiser to just let Puccini do
his work, and this production does just that. Conducted by Omer Meir Wellber, it felt like a relative straightforward interpretation of the
score, but there were a few nice touches that worked with the mood and the
production. I'm not sure what instrument usually plays the melody in
the Humming Chorus, but here it has the distant melancholic sound of a
harmonica playing that feels appropriate. It may not be inspiring or
inspired, but it's certainly successful in getting across the intended
impact and message of the opera. You can't work against Puccini without
defeating the purpose of the work and to do that would not only be
failing the opera and failing the audience, but in many ways you're
failing Cio-Cio-San and many like her in real life over the years.
You'd
need to be made of stone to get through Act III unmoved here, the trio
of Sharpless, Suzuki and Pinkerton, the choking sobs that are the only
answer's to Butterfly's question "Quella donna, che vuol da me?", and
the recognition that "Tutto è finito". Watch it through a wet
blur, which is as it should be. Which is as much to the credit of the
singers here as Puccini. It only really carries that urgency if the
director can make the characters real and for there to be anguish and
sympathy on all sides. Often Pinkerton is made out to be a villain, and
that can spur indignation at his treatment of Cio-Cio-San. Some,
including Miskimmon, see it more as a human failing, the
Pinkerton of three years later not so much regretting his fake marriage
as realising that it was never realistic. It doesn't mean that he is
blameless, but it helps to see all sides, and that's what this
production seems to be able to balance well, finding the true emotional
weight of each.
As such, it's easier to admire the
heartfelt performance of Joshua Guerrero's Pinkerton here. It's a
little 'operatic' but in the context of a Sirkian response to Puccini
it's acceptable and effective. Olga Busuioc handles Cio-Cio-San just as
well, if rather holding to the conventional mannerisms and gestures.
The experienced Carlo Bosi as Goro, Michael Sumuel's Sharpless and Elizabeth DeShong's
Suzuki all support the leads well, although the latter may be a little
too emotionally overwrought. Again however, it's to be expected, the
cast fulfill what we expect of them, the director and conductor giving
us the full Puccini, and the resulting impact is not unexpected either.
Links: Glyndebourne, Culturebox
Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice
NorrlandsOperan, Armel Opera Festival 2018
Olof Boman, Åsa Kalmér, Susanna Levonen, Henriikka Gröndahl, Jeanne Gérard
ARTE Concert - 1 July 2018
You
can always find ways of bringing a conceptual or modern-day reworking
to the Orpheus myth, but what is more important in any performance of
Orfeo ed Euridice is that it responds to the beauty, purity and
simplicity of Gluck's reformist agenda for opera. The fact that it can
easily sustain both modern conceptual (Romeo Castellucci) and more
elaborate theatricality (La Fura dels Baus) and that it even has the
flexibility to cast Orfeo as a mezzo-soprano, countertenor or even a
bass! (Lyon 2015) is testament not only to the robustness of the framework
that supports the opera, but that the principles behind it are also
enduring.
It's one of the key works of all opera, one
that any composer can look back on and learn from, and many of them did.
The same goes for any jaded opera-goer (does such a thing exist?) or
even anyone who has over-indulged in Strauss, Puccini and Wagner and
wants to return right back to the basics. Whether it's the original
Italian version Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck's even more austere stripped
back French version Orphée et Eurydice or even Berlioz's edition of the
best of both worlds, it's an opera of exquisite beauty that demonstrates
what opera is capable of in its blending of music and drama, in its use
of myth and in the Orpheus-like magic of breathing new life into it
that performance can bring.
The most important aspect
then, and it's one that the Swedish NorrlandsOperan company do very well
in their production, is that most basic of opera requirements -
bringing the drama and the music together perfectly to highlight its
essential purpose. Orfeo ed Eurydice is a work that celebrates love and
music in its mythological subject, but it also considers death, grief
and new beginnings as a necessary part of human existence.
I
don't know if you can find any conceptual reading within the
NorrlandsOperan production, performed here at the 2018 Armel Opera
Festival, but the tilted mirror looking down on the stage somehow opens
up the space while at the same time closing it down. The idea of
division is important in Orfeo ed Euridice, most evidently in the
demarcation between the living and the dead, and this is as effective a
way as any of making that idea visual and ever-present. The main
difference or unique point of this particular production is that
Orpheus is a woman as well as Eurydice.
It's common
enough for a woman to sing the role of Orpheus, the role often better
suited to the more robust mezzo-soprano voice than the lyrical
countertenor (although both have their own distinct qualities), but in
the NorrlandsOperan production there is no attempt to make Orpheus look
like a man. There's no need to either and it's not just to a concession
to modern notions of diversity in relationships. The perfect
simplicity of Orfeo ed Euridice and the myth itself is that the idea of
love doesn't need to be defined in male/female terms. It's a human
experience common to everyone and a woman is quite capable as a man of
feeling the same love, grief and feelings for a loved one that takes
Orpheus to such depths and yet rise above them.
Sung by
Susanna Levonen and brilliantly directed by Åsa Kalmér, the depth of
those feelings are beautifully expressed and never more apparent than in
the glorious scene where Orpheus finally discovers Eurydice in Elysium
with the Blessed Spirits ('Torna, o bella'). For this scene, as
elsewhere, the set is simply dressed, kept down to essentials. A snowy
veil lifts away from the floor as the lovers are reunited, the ancient
pillars that were standing in Thrace now fallen in the Underworld. It's
as simple and effective as that, and as simple and effective as Gluck's
wondrous scoring of the opera.
It's given a fine musical
reading as well, Olof Boman conducting the Armel orchestra through a
full account of the work that includes all the dance pieces. I can't
say that the dancing is great, but it's good to have these pieces
included, particularly in the epilogue scenes. The chorus - a vital
character in this work - is outstanding. Henriikka Gröndahl's Eurydice
gives her character an equal footing with Orpheus, which is something
you don't always get. It's an impressive performance with purity and
sincerity of expression that takes into consideration the extreme
suffering and exquisite joy that humans are capable of experiencing.
Sung by Jeanne Gérard, Amore also has an extended role to play as a
punkish - or perhaps Puck-ish - figure in red who observes the journey
of Orpheus and permits a breaking of the usual rules.
Links: Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert
Béla Bartók - Duke Bluebeard's Castle / The Magnificent Mandarin
La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2018
Alain
Altinoglu, Christophe Coppens, Ante Jerkunica, Nora Gubisch, Gábor
Vass, Vincent Clavaguera-Pratx, Merche Romero, Brigitta Skarpalezos, Dan
Mussett, Norbert De Loecker, Amerigo Delli Bove, James Vu Anh Pham
La Monnaie Streaming - June 2018
When
you read about the atrocities committed by the real-life inspiration
for Bluebeard, it seems a little tasteless to make his story the subject
of a fairy tale or an opera. Rather than focus on the horrors of what
really took place in the castle of Gilles de Rais, the dark fairy tale
story has become more of a cautionary tale on how a woman attempts to
break down defensive barriers of masculine power and control in order to
engage love and self-awareness but falls victim in the end to her own
feminine weaknesses of curiosity and jealousy. That's one
interpretation anyway, but there is a certain amount of ambiguity played
with there as well as a sense of horror at what can lie in the darker
recesses of the human psyche. Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle does
actually explore that quite successfully.
It's a
beautifully structured and concise piece, gifted with a score from
Bartók that is precisely attuned to its moods and darkness, yet, it's
not so precise that it can't also convey the ambiguity that
allows it to work on a number of levels. That character is very much
emphasised by the diabolically-intoned spoken-word introduction which
leaves it open whether what take place on the inside or the outside.
Are we looking at Duke Bluebeard's Castle as a place of horror or do the
seven locked rooms of the castle rather a symbolical representation of
the inner life of Duke Bluebeard?
The latter, the
symbolical and the allegorical, is very much to the fore in La Monnaie's
production directed by Christophe Coppens, the former artist and
fashion designer who has returned to his theatrical roots and who was
first involved with opera in La Monnaie's version of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen, (which they retitled 'Foxie!'). The castle is a
grid of nine rooms, with Bluebeard at its centre unable to move,
unreachable, wrapped in the castle constrictor-like grip. Judit's
appearance and fearless willingness to explore breaks down this barrier
on the opening of the first chamber, but Bluebeard still remains
confined to a wheelchair until he is finally freed. Freeing Bluebeard
however might not be such a great idea.
The set design
highlights that this freedom is one of breaking down barriers to
self-awareness or self-reflection by making this a castle of mirrors.
Every surface is mirrored, but angled and distorting. It's dark, cold
blue, turning to red as Judit recognises that everything in each of the
rooms is covered in blood. The chambers themselves are of course
symbolic of what lies in the deeper recesses of the male psyche, bathed
in violence, avarice and secrecy, closing down human feelings, hiding a
lake of tears and sentiments of love in the seventh chamber. It's the
idea that Bluebeard might harbour those feelings for other women that
proves to be an open door that the woman can never close once she has
become aware of it. Some things are better not knowing.
As
a staging and representation Coppens' direction and designs are
effective enough, if not really spectacular, daring or revealing of any
new ideas or insights. It remains a fairly static production, with only
Judit moving slowly between one room and the next. The lighting brings
emphasis to the music, saving its big moment to chime with Bartók's
grand theme for the opening of the fifth chamber. It's in the musical
performance really that the work lives, and Alain Altinoglu finds that
epic quality in the work, the dark fairy-tale and the dark allegory.
It's a work for great singers too, and Ante Jerkunica and Nora Gubisch
bring out its chilling stridency.
What
is good about the production however is that it doesn't just view the
partnering piece as an entirely separate work, but uses Bartók's The
Magnificent Mandarin - composed in 1924 - to also to highlight and add
further commentary on Bartók's short 1918 opera - his only one - Duke
Bluebeard's Castle. It's a welcome change for seeing Duke Bluebeard's
Castle paired with another short one-act opera like Iolanta or La Voix
Humaine, and even as a ballet-pantomime, The Magnificent Mandarin is a
much more complementary piece than you would first imagine, and perhaps
even allows both works to gain something in the pairing.
If
Duke Bluebeard's Castle is all symbolism of suppressed and internalised
emotions, repressed sexual desire and violence, those characteristics
are made explicit to some extent in The Magnificent Mandarin, where an
unscrupulous brothel manager assaults and robs clients and pays for his
crimes when he murders a Chinese Mandarin. Coppens accordingly revisits
the dark chambers of the castle as the colourful and brightly lit rooms
of a brothel, where we can voyeuristically see those behaviours carried
out in the Technicolor style of Hitchcock's Rear Window. This might
perhaps account for Bluebeard appearing again at the conclusion in his
wheelchair, as otherwise there's no direct overlapping or reference
between the two parts of this production.
I say explicit,
but it's actually highly stylised, very much in the cartoon come to
life quality that Coppens used in Foxie! The Cunning Little Vixen. That
doesn't mean however that it can't get across the intent of the piece,
the sensuality and the violence that rises to the surface, and it's
often quite clever and imaginative in the designs, such as one of the
prostitutes wearing a skirt of legs that dissolve into a blur of body
parts in her tryst with the Mandarin. Again it's Bartók's music that is
highly expressive and it's matched much more precisely to the dancer's
movements and actions, delivered with like precision and expression by
Alain Altinoglu's conducting of the La Monnaie orchestra.
Links: La Monnaie
