Fafchamps - Is This The End? (Brussels, 2020)

Jean-Luc Fafchamps - Is This The End? (Brussels, 2020)

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2020

Patrick Davin, Ouri Bronchti, Ingrid Von Wantoch Rekowski, Sarah Defrise, Amaury Massion, Albane Carrère

La Monnaie Streaming - 12 September 2020

2020 has been a tumultuous year, the consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic likely to have a longer term impact on all of our lives and in ways we can't yet imagine. As far as the arts are concerned there has been an immediate and noticeable impact. The opera world has not been immune from Covid-19 related deaths, but everyone involved in opera, from performer to spectator, has at least been affected by the cancellations and the pause in live performances. It's a pause however that may give time to reflect, to create anew with an eye towards where we are now and how we adapt for the future.

That's probably why the few opera productions that have been able to go ahead in the meantime can’t help but reflect on the challenging situation we find ourselves in. All great art, if there is truth in it, reflects life back at us, revealing new aspects as we change and as the world changes around us. Così fan tutte and Elektra at Salzburg reflected new ways of looking at life, death, mental illness and social distancing, opera in the process proving that great art can touch deeply and be a meaningful and necessary part of our lives, helping us put the world into a context that we can better understand and help us get through challenging times.

Whether Jean-Luc Fafchamps' Is This The End? can aspire to the operatic greatness of Mozart or Strauss is very much debatable, but like Marina Abramović's 7 Deaths of Maria Callas in Munich - conceived before the outbreak and delayed by the lockdown - it can be seen as a valid artistic response to a time when there is much concern in the world, and at the same time question the role that art plays in our lives. Opera can be responsive to contemporary events, explicitly or simply through the nature of the subjects it deals with and death is certainly a subject that is prominent in opera. The untimely death of conductor Patrick Davin, who worked on this project only to die suddenly just days before its premiere can’t help but give it additional poignancy and real-world meaning.

The subject of the Is This The End? ‘A pop requiem in three parts’ by Jean-Luc Fafchamps is one that consequently delves into a difficult area but it’s not one that opera has ever shied away from. From the very first opera compositions 400 years ago, Orpheus and Eurydice have been an inspiration and a model to explore the relationship between art and death, and that is recognised in the opera itself which openly references such works, including Die Walküre, but there's an acknowledgement also with a brief scene with a Jim Morrison lookalike singing an excerpt from 'The End' that it’s also a subject that provokes and inspires artists in many musical and non-musical artforms.

Is This The End? consequently embraces the classical form of the Requiem mass (the first part here with an In Paradisum, a Dies Irae and Communio) as well as rock and pop elements in the use of more modern instruments that include electric guitars and even a steel drum. The three characters that the opera follows are sung by opera singers Sarah Defrise (The Teenager) and Albane Carrère (The Woman) but there is also a role for Belgian folk-pop singer Amaury Massion (LYLAC) as The Man. As a necessary response to Covd-19, where fully staged operas with a full audience appear to still be some way off - Ingrid Von Wantoch Rekowski's direction of the project also embraces technology, presenting the work as a 'live filmed opera'.

In some ways then Is This The End? is a reflection on the necessity of opera to adapt and be able to adapt to what is becoming the new norm. In these exceptional times opera needs to reach out and extend traditional performance through the technology of streaming, using filmed elements and virtual reality if it wants to continue to be relevant and not be a dead artform. The technology has been available for a while now, but - like working from home arrangements - circumstances have somewhat forced the hand and demanded an urgent response. On the question of whether the composer manages to touch the questions of life and death in any meaningful human way - even with the tragic circumstances of the death of its conductor - it's less obvious that it succeeds.

Using various backstage areas of the La Monnaie theatre and auditorium as a stand-in for the in-between world between life and death might be meaningful in an opera context, but it doesn't seem quite like the kind of environment that a dead teenager girl - seemingly from a drug overdose -  would end up in limbo. There’s little that is wrong with the hybrid live/filmed approach though, and indeed a similar approach to an operatic 'underworld' was used for the DVD recording of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice at Český Krumlov Castle. Written and developed in record time under lockdown conditions, the project only started at the beginning of May 2020, here in the world premiere of the Is This The End? the music is performed and broadcast live from the stage of La Monnaie, while the dramatic aspect of the work behind the scenes is enacted in the filmed segments.

Some elements grate. Actually quite a lot grates. First of all, although it is standalone to an extent, it's only the first of an opera in three parts that will be completed Ring Cycle-like in subsequent seasons. Most of the one hour long Part One : Dead Little Girl takes the viewpoint of the Teenage Girl, whose reaction throughout is fairly mundane and unrevealing, constantly wondering along the lines of  "What the fuck!", “Where am I and how do I get back?”, which is nonetheless probably an accurate sentiment that a young person in her no-longer-living condition might at first wonder. There's little evidence that Éric Brucher's libretto opens up any philosophical or contemplative view of mortality, but the teenager's confusion is broken up by the voices of The Man and The Woman who will presumably have their own story to play in subsequent parts. There is some further enrichment of the colour and tone of the work in interludes from an angel voice, a choir, as well as strange camp advertisements for death whose purpose is baffling and not particularly original or funny.

I know it sounds like justification more than genuine evaluation of the musical qualities, but like Georg Friedrich Haas and his use of in-between microtones in a similar hinterland at the moment of death in Morgen und Abend, there is something to be said for the musical technique and its approach fitting the subject. At first there's a resistance to the jumble and patchwork of elements, sound effects, dissonance, rock guitar, the blend of opera singers and pop singer as well as the sweary libretto. Conducted by Ouri Broncht it can be difficult to find your musical feet, but that a sense of confusion and discomfort may indeed be the effect that the opera is striving to achieve. Gradually you may find that you do grow accustomed to the distinct sound world which does have a consistency and mood of the sonic environment it establishes.

Links: La Monnaie

Mernier - La Dispute

Benoît Mernier - La Dispute

La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels, 2013

Patrick Davin, Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Ursel Herrmann, Stéphane Degout, Stéphanie d'Oustrac, Julie Mathevet, Albane Carrère, Cyrille Dubois, Guillaume Andrieux, Dominique Visse, Katelijne Verbeke

La Monnaie - Internet Streaming, March 2013

For his second opera the Belgian composer Benoît Mernier set about trying to find a text that would work with that particular quality of opera that is able to touch on mythological and universal subjects and make them vital and human.  The subject of La Dispute, based on an eighteenth century drama by Marivaux has a theoretical, experimental edge as well as a human drama at its centre which makes it a perfect fit for Mernier's intentions.  It's one consequently that the composer scores with precision and sensitivity, even if neither he nor the production entirely succeeds in bringing it to life.

It's somewhat appropriate however that Marivaux text, written in 1744, is treated musically in Mernier's La Dispute not entirely unlike a French Baroque opera.  At the outset, in the first dispute, you have Cupid and Amour defending their respective positions of influence over the human heart, Cupid advocating liberty and freedom of choice, Amour seeing him/herself as the protector of romance and fidelity.  Who is to blame then when the rot sets in, as it seems to be doing in another dispute that is taking place in the mortal world between the Prince and Hermiane?  Having been caught dallying with another woman at a party, the couple's argument takes a theoretical turn as they debate whether it is the man or the woman who is ultimately responsible for infidelity.

To answer that question, the Prince says, you would need to go back to the beginning of time to the first man and woman, which of course is impossible.  Enter Cupid and Amour, disguised as Mesrou and Carise, who are just as interested in the resolution of this question.  It just so happens that they have four young people, two of each sex, brought up in isolation with no outside influences and completely unaware of each other.  Wouldn't it be interesting to see how these perfect subjects interact with each other?  Wouldn't an experiment undertaken under these strict laboratory conditions provide some insight into the matter being disputed?

What develops does indeed follow the lines of a dispassionate scientific experiment and, unfortunately, that seems to apply to the music and the opera as a whole.  Like George Benjamin's recent Written on Skin, one wonders whether it is even possible now to really engage with operatic characters in modern opera or whether there isn't necessarily always going to have to be some kind of detached observation and commentary.  It's all a little too coldly calculated here in La Dispute which never really seems to come to life for all the accuracy of the observations.  The conflicts of Amour and Cupid and the Prince and Hermiane are really just a framework then, one that has been filled out by the librettists Ursel Herrmann and Joël Lauwers from other Marivaux texts, while the main part of the work indeed focuses on the lab experiment of the two young couples who are gradually revealed to each other.

This experiment takes place under observation within a brilliantly designed set by Karl-Ernst and Ursel Herrmann, a neon lit cube framework within a Garden of Eden-like environment cut off from the real world.  First we meet Églé, a young woman enchanted by her own reflection in a stream, who finds her belief in her own beauty validated when she is introduced to the adoring Azor.  The young couple, who have never seen anyone other than Mesrou and Carise, are inevitably totally enraptured with the discovery of each other.  Until, that is, they become aware of another young couple, Adine and Mesrin.  Then, as they become less certain of their own uniqueness and start to develop insecurities, things begin to get complicated.

Principally, the answer to the question of 'la dispute' would appear to be clear enough from how things develop.  The insecurities initially arise when the two women, Églé and Andrine, meet each other.  It's not a pretty sight.  Jealousy arises out of the thought that someone might regard the other as more beautiful than themselves and that person becomes a threat.  The only way to prove one's superiority it seems is to win over the other's lover, and since they are merely men that is not a difficult object to achieve.  This might seem a rather slight if not entirely inaccurate observation, but it ought to be developed further and on a less theoretical level by the various other levels of the dispute.  There is a little more edge and ambiguity introduced through the human presence of the Prince and Hermiane, but not to any real conclusive end.  But perhaps a true conclusion ought not to be reached other than making the observation that, ultimately, human feelings cannot entirely be understood or even trusted.

When you are getting into such matters in opera, this is where the music should say more than the text, but unfortunately - beautiful though it is - Benoît Mernier's score doesn't reveal any great depths to these academic characters.  There's something academic about the score also, which accompanies the situations perfectly, picking at the characters' hesitant first steps, showing developing emotional awareness and curiosity, extending out into more complex personality traits as the characters interact through some marvellously written duets, but little of it seems to hint at anything more than is already apparent in the text and the dramatic situations alone.  The musical language inevitably leans towards Debussy, but without the mystery and haunting impressionism.

If it doesn't entirely come to life then or reveal any great depths, the qualities of the singing, the production and indeed the work itself are still clearly apparent.  Stéphane Degout and Stéphanie d'Oustrac are two of the finest talents in French opera and sing beautifully here, but they aren't really given a lot to work with in characters as insubstantial as the Prince and Hermiane.  There's rather more of a challenge in the roles of the young couples, and Julie Mathevet and Cyrille Dubois stand out as Églé and Azor, but there is fine work and good interaction also with Albane Carrère's Adine and Guillaume Andrieux's Mesrin.  Dominique Visse throws himself fully into another ambiguous cross-dressing role as Amour/Carise with verve and personality, and is matched in this by Katelijne Verbeke's Cupid/Mesrou.

The clarity of the diction and the purity of the singing voices are supported by a meticulously arranged score that is perfectly balanced between spoken accompanied dialogue, arioso singing, duets and purely musical interludes in a way that allows each of the singers and their dramatic expression to stand clear and shine.  The Hermann's sets, lighting and direction also work to enhance every aspect of the dramatic text, everything coming together to provide a superb spectacle and beautiful accompaniment for an interesting work that nonetheless never amounts to more than the sum of its parts.

La Monnaie/De Munt's production of La Dispute was broadcast on the internet via their web streaming service, the performance recorded on the 10th and 13th February 2013.  It's available for viewing until 17th April 2013.  Subtitles are in French, Dutch and German only.  The next broadcast from La Monnaie is Pelléas et Mélisande, which will be made available for viewing for three weeks from 4th May 2013.