Parać - Judith (Zagreb, 2024)

Frano Parać - Judith

Croatian National Theatre, Zagreb, 2024

Ivan Josip Skender, Snježana Banović, Sofija Petrović, Matija Meić, Stjepan Franetović, Mate Akrap, Ivo Gamulin, Emilia Rukavina, Petra Cik, Marin Čargo, Siniša Galović, Mario Bokun

OperaVision - 5th October 2024

Despite being the only female character to have a book dedicated to her in the Old Testament, Judith has not made a great impression on the opera world. There have been several notable but rarely heard works, including Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha Triumphans in 1717, an 1863 Russian opera Judith by Aleksandr Serov and a 1922 opera Judith und Holofernes by the Austria composer Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, but Judith is perhaps better known to most people through some of the great classical painters, Caravaggio's probably being the most famous. The single powerful and extremely violent image of Judith's beheading of Holofernes in some of those paintings may explain why it hasn't been adapted more often to the theatrical or lyric stage, but it's more likely that the impact of the story centres on this key scene and it's difficult to establish a sense of drama and context around it.

To outward appearances, it's not a complex or even a subtle plot by any means. To save the people of Bethulia from the Assyrian forces Judith seduces Holofernes with her charms and cuts off his head while she sleeps. Essentially, that is it in terms of dramatic action, but there is a need to establish historical context, and there are evidently considerable depths of human feelings, resistance and consequences of enacting such a violent act to be taken into account. From a contemporary viewpoint, the subject raises questions of female empowerment and achieving justice, even if there are questionable behaviours in a woman using her beauty and female wiles to achieve those aims. The greatest paintings of the subject - and perhaps the most graphic - Caravaggio's and Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith, manage to address all these questions in all the gruesome horror of the act, while an opera must seek to address those issues in the composition and music.

For Frano Parać, I get the impression that rather than push a particular reading or direction on the action of Judith, he is content to rely on the source material for the libretto and by giving it the most appropriate dramatic treatment that it will be left to the individual to interpret and indeed feel the moral dilemma and the necessity of Judith's action. That would seem to be a reasonable way to address the subject if the music is up to the challenge of expressing or invoking those deeper issues. Parać doesn't rely on avant-garde musical techniques or instrumentation, but on a more traditional musical treatment, which under conductor Ivan Josip Skender is clearly effective if somewhat limiting.

I wouldn't say that the composer was restricted as such, but the original source material for Parać's opera, composed in the year 2000, undoubtedly plays a part in his approach to the subject. Parać's own libretto is based on the epic work Judita by Marko Marulić, the father of Croatian literature, written in 1521. His intent was to take a biblical story that was written in Latin and make it accessible to the common people, making it the first literary work in the Croatian language. It's a work unadorned by psychological motivation or wider context, relating the story of Judith and Holofernes in a direct fashion and Parać adheres to that principle. The direction of this new production of Judith for the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Marulić, similarly relies on the most direct and effective way of putting this story across on the stage.

The subject itself suggests a certain approach and delivery and those are evident in this 2024 Zagreb production. Musically, Parać keeps that classical form and structure in the opera, and there are certainly a number of effective models for this subject. It's hard not to think of Verdi's Nabucco at the opening of the work, as the people in chorus lament and pray for delivery from their fate under an oppressive regime, the Israeli people of the city of Bethulia under siege by the Assyrian forces of Holofernes. Verdi is evident there, but there is also more than a little of the undercurrent of menace running through Turandot in there, particularly in those opening scenes, but the playing out of one person's determination to see through her duty despite the considerable dangers is evident throughout in the darker but still melodic character of the music in Judith.

It might not employ any of the techniques or instrumentation of new music, but what this Croatian National Theatre production of Parać's Judith makes apparent is the strength of the work as one of pure opera. In its directness and simplicity, it comes across as a powerful plot of high emotion and drama, strong dramatic musical writing, exceptionally good singing and an unfussy but impressive direction by Snježana Banović that supports the drama and provides spectacle. You can't argue with that. You could expect that it might make some contemporary commentary on the conflicts against oppressive forces in the world today - and god knows there are plenty to choose from - although perhaps we don't need reminded of it on the opera stage as well. Like Turandot however there is little historical context emphasised in this production of Judith, so it almost operates in abstraction of the necessity of goodness and purity to fight against evil. And there we are very much aligned with Gentileschi and Caravaggio as much as Marko Marulić.

Adhering to the directness of the drama, the structure and arrangement of scenes keeps to a classical form across seven scenes divided into two acts. In Act I, the first scene sets up the climate of fear in a choral arrangement with the people of Bethulia praying, awaiting attack from the army of Holofernes just outside the city. The danger is heightened by the arrival of Achior who testifies to the horrors about to be enacted. Unwilling to surrender while there is a chance God will save them, they choose to wait for five more days. Judith, unwilling to believe you can impose a deadline on God, chooses to go into the enemy camp herself, and prepares herself with the help of her maid.

Once past the enemy guards, introducing another fearful choral episode with the assembled male chorus using handheld wooden claps, Judith has no difficulty in seducing Holofernes with her great beauty, but also using the five-day challenge to God as a reason for her rejecting the Bethulians. After a celebratory banquet and much drinking, Judith takes Holofernes' sword and summons up the strength to kill the sleeping drunk General and remove his head. Bringing it back to Bethulia, the people rejoice and prise Judith while the Assyrians flee in fear and confusion.

Evidently, a production of this opera relies on having a powerful central performance, Judith is indeed written as such with all other roles secondary, and it requires a commanding but lyrical voice to carry it. We certainly have that here in the rich, deep full voice of mezzo-soprano Sofija Petrović, who gives a compelling performance. A mark of the nature of the work is that she doesn't even have a tenor to compete with. The only tenor role is a relatively minor one, Achior, but he plays a key role in the plot nonetheless and is sung well by Ivo Gamulin. Holofernes, sung by Matija Meić, is obviously is a baritone baddie, but the part is surprisingly underwritten as far as the characterisation and limited singing role he has. Everything however is built around the role of Judith, the choral arrangements impressive, the well-designed sets and lighting serving to enhance her presence and the mood of the opera, and it comes across wonderfully effectively in this production.

External links: OperaVision, Croatian National Theatre

Charpentier - Médée (Paris, 2024)

Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Médée

Opéra National de Paris, 2024

William Christie, David McVicar, Lea Desandre, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Laurent Naouri, Ana Vieira Leite, Gordon Bintner, Emmanuelle de Negri, Élodie Fonnard, Lisandro Abadie, Julie Roset, Mariasole Mainini, Maud Gnidzaz, Juliette Perret, Virginie Thomas, Julia Wischniewski, Alice Gregorio, Bastien Rimondi, Clément Debieuvre, Matthieu Walendzik

ARTE Concert - 3rd and 7th May 2024

Euripides' ancient Greek tragedy of Medea is a sensational tale of sex and violence of love and betrayal that has long inspired theatre and the arts and of course countless opera versions over the centuries, from Francesco Cavalli's Il Giasone in 1649 to Aribert Riemann's Medea in 2010. The most famous opera version, its status defined by Maria Callas, is Luigi Cherubini’s Médée, and that's the version you are most likely to still see performed. With the works of Marc-Antoine Charpentier having their turn in the early opera spotlight, William Christie again being at the forefront of reviving great forgotten works of the early period of classic French 17th century opera, you aren't going to get a better opportunity to experience the quality of his version of Médée than this production on the Paris stage at the Palais Garnier.

With a libretto by French dramatist Thomas Corneille, who composed libretti for Lully's operas, and it being an opera composed during the reign of Louis XIV, you might have some expectations as to how this will play out. If you are thinking rather dry 17th century drama with some longeurs, noble sentiments and classical formality that require some patience and familiarity with the style to appreciate, you'd be partly right, but with Charpentier and French music of this period, you can also expect the flavour of wonderful dance music, choruses and spectacle all fulfilling the dramatic punch of the story. You definitely get that in this opera and it's brought out effectively in a manner that ensures accessibility in Christie's musical direction and in this production directed by David McVicar.

But there is a little scene setting required first of all to establish the situation that is going to lead to Jason's betrayal of his wife Medea and fire such fury in her that she is going to do the unthinkable. The context is their exile from Thessaly driven by the people's fear of Medea's magical powers, and Jason's seeking an alliance that will give them safe haven with King Creon in Corinth. He is prepared to lead a joint Corinthian and Argive army against Thessaly and extend the power of the rule of Creon. Although his daughter Creusa has been promised to Oronte, the Prince of Argos, Creon thinks Jason would make a better husband for the Princess. Jason sees that as an opportunity to secure and elevate his own position, but how will Medea take the news?

Well, I think we all know how that goes, and although the phrase "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" wasn't around at the time (it being coined just 4 years after Charpentier's opera in 1697 by William Congreve), there is no surer description for what takes place in the final act here. There is however other shades and colours of dramatic action and sentiment that Corneille and Charpentier have to work with before Act V of Médée. Act I starts slowly with Medea expressing misgivings about Jason's mission, Jason himself confessing love for Creusa to his confidant Arcus, but it soon picks up with the armies assembling for the attack against the Thessalonians.

The Paris Opera production sets this version in a more recent and familiar wartime setting, Creon a de Gaulle like figure, Oronte a brash American fighter pilot, Jason of course a naval officer. It works fine, removing it from the Greek classicism and giving it an attractive freshness and colour on the Palais Garnier stage. Dance routines from a small troupe of six male and six female dancers enliven the stage choreography and choral arrangements considerably; they are not overly elaborate, more formation dancing that suits the militaristic look and feel of the setting. The real battle here however is more the one between Jason and Oronte for the favour of Creusa than a concerted fight against the foreign enemy.

That more or less establishes the template for what follows in subsequent acts of Médée; a little bit of accompanied recitative exposition followed by some invigorating music, singing and dancing as the emotional temperature rises. The stage production rises to those moments as well with - it being a David McVicar production - a few surprising twists. A glittering US fighter plane is wheeled on at the end of Act II for a nightclub scene with L’Amour/Cupid appearing as a cabaret act, the whole scene bathed in purple and pink light. Yes, it's a little bit camp, in a McVicar way, but not excessively so. It's a good way to treat the mythological characters that appear in the opera and it seems to fit musically.

The latter is essential really, since musically this production has the complete William Christie attention to detail and above all rhythm. The use of period instruments is invigorating in those dance and choral pieces, with soft flute and plucked theorbo or lute accompanying the expressions of troubled emotions. Authenticity is a matter for the musical director of course and I'm in no position to dispute or approve the choices Christie makes, but he always makes early music that could otherwise sound alien to a modern classical audience feel accessible and beautiful as well as expressive of emotional and dramatic content.

There's a sweetness to the music that is reflected in the singing voices. Yes, that even goes for Lea Desandre as Medea, but the softness of her voice has an underlying steeliness that leaves you in no doubt as to the depths of feeling love and betrayal inspired in her, nor the horrors she is capable of inflicting because of them. Corneille provides adequate motivation, character definition and some poetic beauty in the libretto for Medea. Vowing vengeance in collaboration with Oronte in Act III, she instinctively softens in the face of Jason and believes she can persuade him away from the fatal course he is on. (Jason is also well sung in this scene by Reinoud Van Mechelen, but perhaps lacks the same depth of character). This leads to a beautiful lament "Quel prix de mon amour, quel fruit de mes forfaits" where Desandre shines, pouring out the complexity and depth of Medea's love for Jason. It's a pivotal scene that the outcome depends on and everything about this is convincing for what follows.

What follows is of course all the horrors of hell, and there Desandre is also wonderfully convincing. The early dance rhythms of the period music might not seem best designed for that kind of darkness, but the fury within is there in Desandre and in McVicar's direction of the subsequent acts and scenes with dancers and demons adding emphasis and impact to the intent. It's not a particularly thrilling or insightful production, more typical 'neoclassical' McVicar, but the way it is modernised is enough really to be able to appreciate the true qualities of the work. Under William Christie the work's beauty, its charm, its seductiveness, as well as its edge of menace are all there in a wonderful combination of soft flutes and flurries of plucked and hammered strings.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, ARTE Concert

Britten - Owen Wingrave (Manchester, 2025)

Benjamin Britten - Owen Wingrave

Royal Northern College of Music, 2025

Rory Macdonald, Benjamin Voce, Orpha Phelan, Alex Riddell, Johannes Gerges, Sam Rose, Kirsty McNaughton, Esther Shea, Hannah Andrusier, Daisy Mitchell, Samuel Horton, Grant Haddow

RMCM Theatre, Manchester - 5th April 2025

The cause of going to war has remained a moral dilemma throughout the ages, and those conscientious objectors and pacifists opposed to it have very much been against the tide of history. Even the most devout Christian leaders seem to be permitted special dispensation to get around the very unambiguous commandment "Thou shall not kill" when it comes to war. Perhaps the real problem that hasn't been addressed is that human nature doesn't seem to have yet found a way to overcome its taste for greed and barbarism. Quite the contrary. To present oneself as a nonconformist to the prevailing order of things as Owen Wingrave does and as Benjamin Britten did in his time, one needs a strong counterargument and Henry James' original story presents the case where it's not enough to just be against something, but rather to take positive steps and stand up for one's beliefs from a position of strength even when they are rejected by everyone else.

That's perhaps getting a little preachy, but it's necessary to emphasise how much the arguments in Owen Wingrave and in Britten's impassioned opera version are just as important now as they were at the end of the 19th century when James read uncomprehendingly of the glorification of Napoleon's campaigns, and during the war years of the 1930s and 40s when Britten took a principled stand as a conscientious objector. It also serves as a reminder that, over a decade on from the composer's anniversary celebrations and now less frequently performed (The Turn of the Screw aside), Britten's music still has a lot to offer and hopefully isn't going out of fashion. Written for musicians and audiences of all ages - Owen Wingrave even originating as a TV opera - makes his work suitable for smaller scale productions, while still having all the impact of a full-scale opera production. That's essentially what we got at with this Owen Wingrave at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Having come to his thoroughly considered the reasons for his decision to withdraw from military academy, Owen Wingrave's initial arguments and explanations, his genuine distaste for what it represents come from the heart and get directly to the essence of his dilemma. He is unable to see any case of glorification of the death, violence and misery that war brings. Wingrave, despite a long proud family tradition (of being killed in battle), refuses to take part in such horror, much to the shock, disbelief and disapproval of his family and friends. He names and shames all the wartime leaders/mass murderers of history and even when challenged on that by his tutor Coyle and fellow student Lechmere to dare level his argument against a great man like Wellington, recalls the Duke's famous quote that "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won". The counter-argument presented by Coyle and Lechmere is that Wellington still fought his battles and won them. 

The sincerity of the sentiment and the intellectual argument are one thing - and would probably not make all that compelling a subject for an opera - but making it feel like a matter of real life and death is another. Although it wasn't his usual genre, The Turn of the Screw notwithstanding (also developed as an opera by Britten of course), Henry James found the ghost story an effective means for tapping into areas of the human psyche as a way of exposing or suggesting unspoken and taboo subjects. Britten also rose to that challenge in the writing of Owen Wingrave, commissioned in 1971 for a TV broadcast, and while the opera does inevitably have its moments of preachiness, it also finds ways musically to persuade and frighten in order to get beneath the skin. The director of this production, Orpha Phelan, also finds ways to make that come alive in mood, content and situation, and so too do the music students at RNCM.

The essential character of making this a pertinent subject today is evidently to make it feel present, not some dusty period drama or ghost story. That is clearly the intention right from the start of this production, using the overture or introduction to show soldiers from a number of historical periods climbing onto the stage, seeking cover and fighting for their lives. These are the Spirits of Paramour, the generations of Wingrave men who have given their lives for their country. These physical figures present a more effective ghostly presence than mere portraits of military ancestry hanging on the ancestral walls of the family estate for glorification. Phelan even provides a little tableau to illustrate the 'glorious' fate of Owen's father that is all the more effective for making it feel real. The talk of honour, sacrifice, duty and glory in war is just a twisting of language, but such devices show how Owen sees through this. His intent is to take back or reclaim the language of honour and decency for those who choose not to kill others or submit to blind obedience.

The military tradition of the Wingrave males present one kind of presence of horror, but there is another ghost story introduced that ties into the family's own mythology, another form of self-aggrandisement that in reality hides an uncomfortable truth. Whether taken literally or not (it's a problematic layer at least that has to be dealt with by a director), the childish dare to stay in a haunted room does contribute to the sense of unease in the breaking of taboos, in how far Owen is willing to go to show the depth and sincerity of his beliefs, and his fate is the price to be paid for it. Phelan again makes good choices in how she presents those elements, not playing up to genre trappings, but showing that there is a dark horrible story here, one of bullying and abuse, one that we may take to apply to the techniques employed on young recruits to become unthinking killers and grist for the mill. 

The set and the production design by Madeleine Boyd (who previously worked with Phelan on the Wexford Festival Opera's excellent production of Donizetti's Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali last year, certainly works very much along with the tone of Phelan's direction and contributes considerably to the mood. The choice is not to set it in the present day (where the horror of modern warfare seems even more depersonalised with drones and long-range missiles), but closer to Britten's wartime period. That, the First World War and the Napoleonic era referenced here, would still be the kind of warfare that an audience would be most familiar with as a killing ground. Somehow, even the Paramour setting has a similar feel of something mired in the past, like its hidebound intransigence in regard to the military establishment, a former glory that has not survived the rigours of the passage of time.

For the April 5th performance of Owen Wingrave at the RNCM, Alex Riddell gave a controlled, assured and impassioned performance as Owen, never descending to over earnestness or over-emphasis, but rather delivering with conviction and completely in line with the nature of the character. He is determined and assured, but also regretful of how his commitment to his own beliefs will be taken by his family. Riddell held the attention completely and conveyed the meaning of what is sung through a commanding performance. 

Kirsty McNaughton was a striking Miss Wingrave, as was Hannah Andrusier's Mrs Julian. Aside from the title character, few other roles have any sympathetic qualities in this opera, but it's important that the opposition that Owen faces has sufficient expression and voice, and that was abundantly delivered by McNaughton and Andrusier. Serving an equally important role as Owen's fiancée, Daisy Mitchell performance was very much up to the task of the berating and bullying Kate. Mrs Coyle has more of a conflicted position, but was sung well by Esther Shea.

In comparison to the forceful writing of the female roles, the military men come across as rather weak and pathetic, but were characterised and sung well by Johannes Gerges as Coyle and Sam Rose as the young, enthusiastic and approval-seeking Lechmere. Grant Haddow gave a perfect delivery of the ghost story as the ballad singer at the opening of the second act, setting up Samuel Horton to present the formidable Sir Philip Wingrave as the author or instigator of Owen's demise.

Britten's score was presented in a reduced orchestration at this RNCM production, but I have to say that the musical performance never felt like it. Rory Macdonald's musical direction, with the orchestra here playing under assistant conductor Benjamin Voce, had all the necessary mood and impact. And not just the music nor indeed the uniformly fine singing performances, but everything about this production contributed to the mood and direction of the piece and the most effective way of delivering the important message of the opera. Even the offstage chorus sounded perfect as the Spirits of Paramore. This was pretty much an ideal production of Owen Wingrave whichever way you look at it.

External links: Royal Northern College of Music