Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila (Paris, 2016)

Camille Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila

L'Opéra de Paris, 2016

Philippe Jordan, Damiano Michieletto, Anita Rachvelishvili, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Egils Silins, Nicolas Testé, Nicolas Cavallier, John Bernard, Luca Sannai, Jian-Hong Zhao 

ARTE Concert - 13 October 2016

Originally conceived as an oratorio Samson et Dalila was, soon after a visit to see Das Rheingold at Bayreuth, developed by Camille Saint-Saëns into something more operatic. If there's little suggestion of Wagnerian influence, the unconventional method of opera composition led to Samson et Dalila having a unique and blend of music and drama elements that were perfect for the composer's strengths. It has Biblical drama, lyrical Romantic passions, lush Eastern musical arrangements and choral fervour that manage to express the contrasting sentiments at the heart of the work. If you like that sort of thing - and it's only slightly less extravagant in its exoticism than Aida - Samson et Dalila can be something fabulous, particularly when the Paris Opera get behind it the way they do in this 2016 production.

Like many other French composers around the end of the nineteenth century, Camille Saint-Saëns shared a fascination for all things oriental, travelling extensively in these exotic places and soaking up more than just a flavour of these new sounds. Mélodies persanes (1870), La Princess Jaune (1872) and Samson et Dalila (1877) are not just influenced by oriental rhythms and melodies, but positively seeped in them. There might be a tendency to regard such borrowings as kitsch or, in the parlance of our times, "cultural appropriation", but they really are what make these works distinctively beautiful.

While there might be a tendency to downplay such elements and attempt to find a middle-ground that is a little acceptable to modern tastes and sensibilities, that's not the strategy adopted by Philippe Jordan for Samson et Dalila. Quite rightly, Jordan conducts the orchestra of the Paris Opera in a manner that emphasises the true merits of the work. It's not only there that you find the sheer beauty of the composer's extravagant orchestration for the piece, but the heart of its drama. With two great singers in the principal roles and attention paid to the choral aspects of the work musically, I found this to be one of the finest and most persuasive performances of Samson et Dalila that I've come across.

Damiano Michieletto's direction of the work at the Bastille doesn't perhaps contribute quite as much as the musical performance to the success of the production, but it functions well enough to give a strong visual and dramatic context for the work. It is a typical Paris production in that, unlike the musical performance, it does tend to settle for a middle-ground. The period lies somewhere between modern and Biblical, with guns and togas (albeit used in an 'ironic' kind of way) and nothing much that adds up to any real conceptual or thematic coherence. Good vertical use is made of the stage, the Hebrew slaves confined to the darker lower levels, the misery of their captivity contrasted with the golden glow of the luxurious decadence of Delilah's bedroom above it.

It's in such contrasts however that Samson et Dalila thrives as a work of music drama, and those contrasts are well reflected also in the complementary casting of Aleksandrs Antonenko and Anita Rachvelishvili. Both artists are regulars at the Paris Opera, and their development there is paying dividends for French opera. While she is capable of great dramatic delivery and an impressive range, Rachvelishvili shows here just how versatile her voice is and how capable she is of expressing the kind of delicacy and tenderness that are vital to Delilah's allure. Evidently it's Delilah's beautiful 'Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix' aria that demonstrates what she is capable of, and her delivery of the line 'Réponds à ma tendresse!' is enough to send shivers down the spine.

It's a love/betrayal aria that turns into a duet of course, shared with Samson, and Antonenko blends perfectly. Antonenko is a tenor who is strong right across the range, but only really shines in certain roles. Verdi roles can be testing, and his voice can have a certain steeliness that doesn't open up and bloom as you might like, but here he complements Rachvelishvili well, providing the contrast that is necessary, giving the aria the edge of hesitancy and danger it needs before the recognition of betrayal that comes with the cry of 'Trahison!'. With Jordan and the Paris orchestra right behind this, the swooning loveliness exploding into rage, you have everything that is musically and dramatically great about this work all summed up the closing duet of Act II.

If much of Act III can feel rather kitsch with its soft choruses and oriental dance music, there similarly should be an underlying suggestion of anguish and menace for the coming fate of Samson and Delilah. The costumes don't quite manage this, the Philistines dressing up in praise of Dagon as if for a Roman orgy, all in glittering dresses and togas, with gold laurel crowns, throwing money down from Delilah's balcony onto the revellers, the downtrodden Hebrew slaves and the tormented Samson. If it studiously goes out of its way to deny the audience the expected toppling of the marble pillars conclusion - one of the few scenes of dramatic action that there is in the opera - the self-immolation scene carried out with a repentant Delilah's compliance nonetheless delivers the kind of bang the opera needs to end on.

Not providing the expected famous pay-off is a bit of a risk and it's not as if it is for the sake of any additional edge or to make some concession to a contemporary reality, but in its own way probably Damiano Michieletto's middle-ground production does more or less find an equivalent level of where Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila lies. More importantly however the work is given its due where it really counts; in the music and singing performances. And with this kind of account of one of the highlights of French opera of the Belle Époque, the Paris opera make the case that those merits are not inconsiderable.

Links: L'Opéra de Paris, ARTE Concert

Mascagni / Leoncavallo - Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci (Royal Opera House, 2015)

Pietro Mascagni - Cavalleria rusticana
Ruggero Leoncavallo - Pagliacci

Royal Opera House, 2015

Antonio Pappano, Damiano Michieletto, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Elena Zilio, Dimitri Platanias, Martina Belli, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Dimitri Platanias, Carmen Giannattasio, Benjamin Hulett, Dionysios Sourbis

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

It's not normally the first thing you think of when you go to watch a double bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, but Damiano Michieletto's 2015 production for the Royal Opera House started me thinking about verismo, what it means and why so little of it has stood the test of time. Post-Wagner and Verdi, verismo seemed to be very much the next step, giving opera the opportunity to explore the lives of ordinary people rather than those of heroes, gods and legends. Aside from Puccini, who never really could be associated closely with verismo post-La Bohème, verismo never really took off and hasn't left a lasting influence. Viewing the two great popular stalwarts of verismo in this production, however, perhaps the style made more of a mark than we think.

The definition of those essential verismo characteristics and perhaps the influence they extend over modern-day opera is highlighted I think by Damiano Michieletto's weaving together of the two genre-defining operas. The popularity of the double bill and their complementary compatibility has long been beyond question, but Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci are still viewed as entirely separate musical and dramatic entities. And for good reason, since for all the commonality in subject matter, Pietro Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo adopt very different approaches to musical storytelling. Giving both works a common setting however does provide a very vivid indication of the ground that verismo covered in the short period between 1889 and 1892.

What is particularly enjoyable about the Royal Opera House production is that it fully explores the context of the works and their themes and blends them together successfully, but it's not merely a directorial exercise. While the stage production brings out qualities that might have gone unnoticed before, it does so in a way that also manages to give the works their fullest expression. Damiano Michelietto's production is all about pushing the verismo to its extremes, and that means pushing both works to their extremes by playing to their respective strengths and qualities.

Seen in that context, if there's any single reason why verismo never really established itself as a force and turned out to be (debatably) an operatic dead-end, it's immediately evident in this production's opening for Cavalleria rusticana; too much verismo realism can kill you. Cavalleria rusticana wears its heart on its sleeve. It's an extraordinary work, too often seen as a kind of warm-up opener for Pagliacci, but I don't accept that it's the lesser work for a second - it's just different. In Pagliacci the passions are more internalised and leaning towards modernism, whereas Mascagni's approach looks back to Verdi, to melody aligned to pure melodrama, and does so by making the passions of the people hyper-externalised.

Certainly as far as Antonio Pappano directs the music and as far as Michelietto sets the drama of the music on the stage, this is life lived without restraint and played at full tilt. Passion, religion, sin, guilt, love and jealousy - this slice of Sicilian life is one lived fully and passionately. As far as verismo goes, that's not only opera dealing with real life, but life lived like an opera. There's no clever conceptualisation required here then, Michelietto allowing the singers full expression for the drama as it plays out, Pappano underlining every sweep and crescendo with a flourish. In a work like this, the impact is astonishing, all the more so when Michelietto takes a step like making the statue of the virgin come to life during the Easter parade. Here, religion is living and the pregnant Santuzza's sin feels as real and vivid to her as the ground she walks on.

Pagliacci might be a little more recondite in its play-within-a-play distancing, its clever use of commedia dell'arte themes and Leoncavallo is a little more modern in the musical expression, but the approach adopted here shows that there's merit in how this kind of overemphasis of the real pushes Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana almost into the surreal or hyper-real. Mascagni's extraordinary gift for melody is all the more apparent for this, as well as his ability to weave religious processions, church bells and local folk colour into the whole fabric of the lives of the work's characters. But it's not life lived without restraint. Eva-Maria Westbroek has spoken about the danger of being swept into the passions of the work and having to control her singing in this work, and it is important. All of the passions are channelled towards an inevitably tragic conclusion, and it's arrived at here with remarkable force and impact.

If there was too much overemphasis anywhere, it is perhaps in making a big deal of the imminent arrival of a troupe of actors in the town to put on a performance of Pagliacci and live out their own version of the tragedy mirrored in Cavalleria rusticana. Michelietto's direction makes good use of the Mascagni's inter-scene music to introduce the characters and situations that would play out in Pagliacci without letting them intrude on the importance of Cavalleria rusticana. The screen direction however, the performance filmed for the live cinema broadcast, made rather more of it, the focus of the camera drawing extra attention to the Pagliacci posters and the significant appearances of characters and situations that might otherwise have passed as local background colour. Just another slice of life.

Cavalleria rusticana is all externalised passions, Paolo Fantin's impressive revolving set fully used to show interiors and exteriors and the relationship between them - particularly as they relate to Santuzza's position in the community. By way of contrast, Pagliacci attempts to put a lid on the emotions through its transference of life into 'art' or performance in its play-within-a-play dramatisation. Again, Micheletto's direction of the performers and the build-up established through the previous work serves to be both a commentary on the nature of the work - on opera, on verismo, its origins and its progress - as well as being a slice of life drama in its own right, never failing to address the music and its dramatic function.

Those origins are not just those of the commedia dell'arte but also indeed Cavalleria rusticana. At this stage in the traditional performance of the double bill, the earlier work has been pushed aside and practically forgotten as we become caught up in the latest new drama. Michelietto's production - even bringing back Santuzza for a cameo appearance - doesn't let you forget however that Cavalleria rusticana is important to the whole tone of Pagliacci, and even shows how the two works have developed a kind of co-dependence. Even the "audience" of Pagliacci here have forgotten the "real-life" drama that has just recently taken place in their own town, sitting down to watch a "made-up" drama, and are unable to recognise the truth that lies behind them.

By this stage too many inverted commas in this review suggest that everything is getting a little too post-modern and over-ambitious in Michieletto's production, but Pappano's conducting and the committed performances manage to dial-down any fanciful ideas and sustain the actual drama, which in verismo you would imagine is paramount. Playing characters in both works, Aleksandrs Antonenko (Turiddu and Canio) and Dimitri Platanias (Alfio and Tonio) keep everything grounded in pure dramatic expression without overacting. Eva-Maria Westbroek's Santuzza is pushed further than most, but likewise holds to the line and essential tone established here. Carmen Giannattasio's Nedda has just as complex and dynamic a position to maintain and does so with tremendous personality. These are performances that work with the production to simultaneously hold one dramatically while at the same time suggesting and sparking off numerous other associations and ideas. Seen in this light, and setting it in the late 20th century, might even provide a clue to the significance of the 'missing link' between the past and the direction opera would take post-verismo.

The Blu-ray disc comes as a 2-disc set, which doesn't really seem necessary, as both are single-layer discs. Even less so since with Micheletto's production the two works are even more intertwined as one here. Colour and detail are all strong in the video transfers, but as usual it's the High Definition uncompressed audio tracks that are most impressive, particularly for works as dynamic as these. In addition to the usual LPCM stereo and the DTS HD-Master Audio tracks there is also a Dolby True HD Atmos mix which my amplifier picked up as being a 7-channel mix, although it will also work with a 5.1 set-up. I don't know if there's a significant difference between it and the DTS mix, but both distribute the sound exceptionally well. The extra features are slim but the Introductions more than adequately cover the works and the production, and there's a short piece where Antonio Pappano looks at the music for both pieces. There's also a synopsis and a wonderfully detailed essay on the creation of the two work by Helen Greenwald in the enclosed booklet. The Blu-ray discs are region-free. Subtitles are in Engligh, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Royal Opera House

Tchaikovsky - Pique Dame (Wiener Staatsoper, 2015 - Webcast)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Pique Dame

Wiener Staatsoper, 2015

Marko Letonja, Vera Nemirova, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Tómas Tómasson, Markus Eiche, Barbara Haveman, Marjana Lipovsek, Elena Maximova, Thomas Ebenstein, Sorin Coliban, Benedikt Kobel, Janusz Monarcha, Clemens Unterreiner, Aura Twarowska, Caroline Wenborne

Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home - 28 January 2015

It's probably not a coincidence that Tchaikovsky's two most popular operas, Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades), are both taken from works from Alexander Pushkin. Tchaikovsky would take creative inspiration from several other sources in his operas and ballets and find a certain Russian character in them, but there's a pure Russian Romanticism in Pushkin's work that clearly appealed to the composer and inspired his most successful musical dramas. It's Eugene Onegin that presents grand Romantic sentiments in their purest form and they are expressed with great yearning in Tchaikovsky's score, but Pique Dame finds other Russian characteristics tied to similar themes that Tchaikovsky also successfully translates into music.

Gambling is one such device that is used in Russian literature to express the extravagant Romanticism of the Russian soul in the abandonment of oneself into the hands of fate. It's there in Dostoevsky in 'The Gambler', and it's there in Niikolai and Doholov's card games in Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. In most cases, it's more than just a device, gambling a very real Russian problem that almost destroyed Tolstoy in real life. In the case of Hermann in The Queen of Spades, there's a similar 'all or nothing' attitude to his gambling, that will either be his salvation or destroy him, and it's inextricably linked (or is just another manifestation of the deeper gambler/Russian psychology) in Hermann's feelings for Liza.

Hermann knows he has no hope of his love for Liza being acknowledged, much less reciprocated. She's engaged to marry a handsome officer, Yeletsky, but Hermann throws himself at her mercy nonetheless. "Decide my fate!", he pleads, or blackmails, since he's holding a gun to his own head as he confesses that he cannot live if she refuses him. For her part, Liza is not indifferent to Hermann's declarations. On the contrary, she herself is fatalistically attracted to this mysterious dark figure who she has seen watching her from the background. There's plenty of room then in this alone for an Anna Karenina-like mutual rush to self-destruction, but Pushkin's story has another element that raises the stakes.

Pique Dame attaches such already heightened sentiments to what is essentially a ghost story. Hermann in his despair believes that Liza could never marry him because he isn't rich like Yeletsky. In his all or nothing frenzy, Hermann is prepared to pay whatever price is necessary, and the only option is gambling for the highest stakes. Aware of the legend of the three cards that surrounds the Countess, an infallible sequence of winning cards that can only be revealed to "one impelled by burning passion" (that's Hermann all right). Once a great gambler herself, known as the Queen of Spades, revealing the secret would however mean her death. In the event, it's only after her death at the hand of Hermann, that her ghost reveals the three cards that will seal his fate.

There's tremendous drama for Tchaikovsky to get his teeth into here, but Pique Dame is - for the most part, I find - surprisingly tame in its scoring. Pushkin's original work is a short story and benefits from its concision, but Pique Dame - even though it is imaginatively expanded with considerable colour - tends to dilute the intensity of the original. Tchaikovsky undoubtedly extends the Russian character of the work with choruses, a drinking song, a gaming song and a pastoral Intermezzo 'The Tender-hearted Shepherdess', but the most successful passages of the opera are those that relate to the ghost story and the passions of Hermann and Liza.

It's those aspects that also work best in Vera Nemirova's direction for the Vienna State Opera. Nemirova's production has no time for the usual Russian clichés and sets the work, for some unknown reason, in what appears to be an orphanage. This avoids the period trapping of wealth, privilege and position, the children looked after in the opening not by nurses and nannies, but by care workers. The orphanage building is also used throughout for interiors and exteriors, but it has a suitably ghost-like monastery appearance that suits the mood. Likewise avoiding old social trappings, the Intermezzo at the fancy-dress ball looks more like a showgirl cabaret here.

It's all reasonably moody and effective, particularly the apparition scene. In terms of distinctive directorial touches, there's nothing too outlandish attempted. The old Countess, for example, is not killed with a gunshot, but in the killing embrace of Hermann as a lover driven to the extremes of passion. Hermann raping the old lady introduces a much more desperate element to the work, tells us more about the mindset of Hermann, and actually fits with the warnings surrounding the revelation of the secret of the Legend of the Three Cards to one "impelled by burning passion". Similarly, Nemirova's bringing Liza's body back on the stage at the conclusion is a strong touch that brings home the impact of Hermann's choices and actions.

Marko Letonja's conducting of the work in Vienna was fine, but he was unable to ring any genuine emotion out of the cool calculation of the majority of Tchaikovsky's score. There are of course moments of great dramatic tension however, and those were built up well. The singing was strong from a good cast. Aleksandrs Antonenko can likewise be a little cool and steely but he grew greatly in intensity along with the role, never letting it tip over into full-blown insanity. After Hermann, it's the Countess who is the most charismatic personality here, and Marjana Lipovsek was just perfect here. The Countess is aloof and graceful, dismissive of fussy retainers, but she has to show fear and vulnerability, as well as regret for the past. Lipsivsek's performance could hardly be bettered. Barbara Haveman's Liza was also excellent, utterly commanding in Act III, and Elena Maximova supported her well as Polina.

The Wiener Staatsoper's Live at Home in HD season continues in February with broadcasts of TOSCA, ANDREA CHÉNIER, DON CARLO and an EDITA GRUBEROVA gala concert.  Details of how to view these productions in the links below.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video

Puccini - Il Trittico

Giacomo Puccini - Il Trittico

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2011

Antonio Pappano, Richard Jones, Lucio Gallo, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Alan Oke, Jeremy White, Ermonela Jaho, Anna Larsson, Irena Mishura, Elena Zilio, Elizabeth Sikora, Ekaterina Siurina, Francesco Demuro, Rebecca Evans, Gwynne Howell

Opus Arte

An essay in the booklet for the Blu-ray release of the Royal Opera House’s 2011 production of Puccini’s Il Trittico remarks that there’s always a temptation to try and find a common theme between the three short operas that the composer wrote to be performed together, but that essentially they were written mainly to complement each other only in so far as the contrast they provide. That still doesn’t stop producers (or those writing about the work) from trying to find connections between them. Antonio Pappano in his introduction here sees the overall theme as deception, which I like, and it’s a useful theme to keep in mind, but although there could be other commonalities found between the works - young love and dreams being stifled or weighed down by events from the past - the main uniting theme is indeed the diversity of the works. Il Trittico will make you laugh and it will make you cry - you can count on that - but, should you want to, there’s a wealth of riches to explore here in Puccini’s masterful scoring and the variety of themes that he covers.

The variety of the subjects and the manner in which they are written and played out however is more than just for the entertainment of the audience (although this is evidently the primary consideration and there is something for everyone here), but it seem to me that they are also purposely diverse in subject matter, tone and treatment in order to give Puccini as much scope as possible to stretch himself and develop into new musical areas that had been opened up in the post-Wagner world of 20th century opera. Even if the romantic melodrama of Il Tabarro or the tragic opera heroine theme of Suor Angelica are familiar areas for Puccini (the comedy of Gianni Schicchi is however another matter entirely), one can see that he is working musically outside the comfort zone of traditional Italian opera arrangements and arias, working within the constraints of the shorter form in order to concentrate on finding the purest expression of the dramatic and emotional content of the works.

Il Tabarro however is far from familiar Puccini. It is certainly a close relation to La Bohème, being set in Paris, concerned with the hopes and dreams of the lower classes looking for love and security in their lives, their romantic lives stifled by their poverty, and it even makes a few minor references to Mimi and the music of La Bohème behind the scenes, but Puccini’s mature musical perspective is quite different, darker and far heavier. Pappano makes reference to the influence of Debussy and impressionism, which is most obviously evident in the opening sounds of the canal dockyard blending into the music itself, creating a perfectly evocative atmosphere for the dark, misty setting, but the music throughout seems to express the underlying social context, the inner lives of the characters and their pasts, as much as it illustrates the dramatic events that occur in the present. There are no major arias, but the sense of their history and their social position as vagabonds, a life that is slowly grinding them down, is expressed in the singing and in the voices, the intensity of the emotion and expression of temperament as important as they actual words they sing, if not even more so. Puccini brings all that out, fully and with considerable depth, fitting it in with the dramatic developments, all within the compressed space of a one-act opera. It’s masterful.

The dark gritty realism extends through to the sets in Richard Jones’s production that recreates the dark Parisian streets at the banks of the Seine as effectively as Puccini’s score. The excellent lighting is particularly instrumental in establishing the mood. The cast too are terrific, able to spark life into these characters and reveal them in all their humanity. Eva-Maria Westbroek in particular is very strong as Giorgetta, with her Wagnerian range that still has a lovely lyricism. Gallo has the reputation of mugging characters, but he’s strong here as the dark and intense Michele. He doesn’t really have the depth of voice or the acting quality to reveal any unexpected qualities, but he sings the role quite well. There are no concerns at all with Aleksandrs Antonenko, who sings powerfully and brings out that extra dimension that Puccini scores in his revealing duet with Westbroek’s Giorgetta. If Il Tabarro is never thought of as the strongest section of Il Trittico, this production presents it as well as it can be done, Pappano in particular directing the orchestra of the Royal Opera House magnificently through the strains and the sweep of Puccini’s score.

If Il Tabarro has a kind of spiritual connection with La Bohème, the fatal tragedy of the romantic heroine of Suor Angelica is aligned closely with the circumstances and the fate of Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly. If there are differences in the plot, and particularly in the cultural background and the individual circumstances of the central figures, at heart however the emotions and what engenders them is similar, and Puccini couches those female sentiments in much the same kind of musical language. There is however considerable maturity in the through composition of the opera and in Puccini’s attempt here not so much to accompany the action as much as describe the otherworldly aspects that drive it. Aware of the wide range of opportunities this offers - even in a short work of this length - Puccini doesn’t focus solely on the complications of Sister Angelica’s situation, but also delves into the inner lives, the playfulness, devotion, contemplation and secret desires of the other nuns, their conflict between earthly being and a search for heavenly grace all contributing to the fullness of the character study of Angelica.

Forced into a convent, having given birth to an illegitimate child that would bring shame to the noble family name that she belongs to, living in hope for some kind of news from the family that has disowned her, the developments when combined with a religious experience could certainly tip the work over into high melodrama, particularly when scored with such feeling by Puccini. I’m sure there are many who feel that this is indeed the case with Suor Angelica, but it’s clear that Puccini is seeking to express a deeper, more complex view of extreme very specific female emotions where a sense of motherhood has been denied, caught up in religious devotion and monastic discipline. That balance also needs to be maintained in the stage presentation, particularly the handling of the dramatic conclusion, and Richard Jones managed to bring out that inner world described in the music well, with subtle but telling touches. More important than anything else however is the performance of Suor Angelica herself, and Ermonela Jaho not only sings it exceptionally well, but she is completely involved in a role that demands acting of concentrated intensity.

Buoso Donati has just died, his family and loved ones surrounding him, but in the third part of Puccini’s Il Trittico, Gianni Schicchi, this is not the usual tragic opera deathbed scene, and if there are any tears shed by the assembled mourners it’s on account of their being disinherited in the old man’s will, while it’s more likely to be tears of laughter on the part of the audience (and that’s no exaggeration). The comic opera is certainly not a style you would associate with Puccini, but his treatment of the humour in Gianni Schicchi is nothing short of brilliant. Closer to Verdi’s Falstaff than say Donizetti’s clever but broader slapstick, there’s no heavy comic underscoring here (whatever that might entail, I’m not sure), but rather an almost furtive, subtle, insidious expression of the nature this mixed bag of greedy, grasping, backstabbing, moneygrubbers in all their scheming self-importance. It’s dazzling to hear how a composer of Puccini’s experience and maturity handles himself in this unfamiliar register, from the false sobs scored into the opening notes, through the knowing self-parody of heartfelt (yet still justly famous) arias that don’t express ‘Addio del passato’ as much as ‘Addio to the money’, to the frantic jostling for positions of influence of this motley mob and their eventual well-deserved comeuppance.

Richard Jones’s setting for the Royal Opera House production again fits quite admirably, finding its own sense of style without having to adhere to the period. Somehow the slick sixties suits and garish dresses express the tasteless vulgarity of the rich Donati family and their brood, as does the tacky flowered wallpaper Buoso’s over-sized bedroom. There’s no sharp spiv suit either for the scheming lawyer Gianni Schicchi, but a suitably seedy quality nonetheless to his open-shirted swagger, looking as if he’s just been dragged away from a different kind of bar than the one expected for his profession, differentiating his social class from the pretensions of the Donati family. It’s spot-on characterisation, wonderfully played and sung by the cast - Lucio Gallo switching register wonderfully from the very different role of Michele in Il Tabarro. As Antonio Pappano notes however in the introduction, the comedy in Gianni Schicchi relies greatly on the timing, and while this production gets those laughs, when compared to the English Touring Opera’s recent hilarious production that is still fresh in my mind, Jones’s stage direction doesn’t always make the most of the potential that Puccini’s score and the witty situations of the work present.

It’s Antonio Pappano’s contribution to the production as a whole however that proves to be the critical factor in its overall resounding success. All this richness and diversity, the sense of fun and drama, along with the serious musicological insight and consideration of the deeper qualities of the work is borne out in Pappano’s conducting of the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, who give a mesmerising performance. With excellent casting and singing, and an appropriate staging, you really couldn’t ask for more.

Opus Arte however also package the set extremely well. In addition to the impeccable technical presentation on Blu-ray, with a crystal clear High Definition transfer and outstanding HD sound mixes in LPCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 that reproduce the music and the singing exceptionally well, each of the three hour-long operas are presented separately and given their own optional introduction that briefly sets out the premise and the treatment. An additional Extra Feature follows Lucio Gallo through make-up, warm-up and last-minute preparations with the conductor for his two roles as Michele and Gianni Schicchi. The full-HD Blu-ray is region-free, dual layer BD50, with English, French, German, Spanish and Italian subtitles.

Verdi - Otello

Giuseppe Verdi - Otello

Opéra National de Paris | Marco Armiliato, Andrei Serban, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Sergei Murzaev, Michael Fabiano, Francisco Almanza, Carlo Cigni, Roberto Tagliavini, Renée Fleming, Nona Javakhidze, Chae Wook Lim | Opéra Bastille, Paris, France - 28 June 2011

The relative restraint and respect for the source that Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito afford Shakespeare’s drama is all the more apparent to me for having a few nights previously watched a production of Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet (and also relatively recently, a Blu-ray recording of Verdi’s Macbeth). While Shakespearean drama suits the familiar big Verdi subjects of romance, jealousy and revenge, Otello (1887) however marks a change in Verdi’s approach to opera composition, moving away from the bel canto tradition in Italian opera that has been influential in his composition of great arias to express the blood-and-thunder nature of the subjects, towards a more dramatic focus with emphasis on psychologically realistic characterisation and a musical integrity that doesn’t stop at intervals to let the diva show off her vocal talents.

The amount of effort that went into consideration of the nature of the drama and the make-up of the characters is clearly evident in the way the drama plays out and in the respectful reading in the performance by the Opéra National de Paris at the Bastille that adhered to these intentions with a relatively low-key approach to a highly emotive subject – jealousy. The programme however revealed detailed notes made by the librettist Arrigo Boito on each of the characters and on how they out should be played. In the case of Desdemona, for example, he notes that “the serene and chaste figure of Desdemona must present a profound experience of love, purity, nobility, goodness, innocence and devotion… the more natural and measured her playing, the better she will arouse the sympathy of the spectator”. There could hardly be a better description than that of the performance of Desdemona in this production by Renée Fleming, although I would also add that her honey-inflected voice brought out another level to the nature of her character that was thrilling to see played-out to its inevitable and moving conclusion. Unfortunately, while Fleming came out of it better than most, I don’t feel that the direction or the dramatic staging in the revival of this 2004 production by Andrei Serban helped her or any of the other performers.

There’s a need to remain controlled and restrained, but there’s also a need to let go in Otello, even if it’s just a flash of emotional torment, rage, desire, jealousy or cruelty. It’s certainly there in the musical composition, which is measured and calculated both within the score and the libretto to achieve the maximum impact of the necessary condensation of the original drama, we saw it also in some of the performances, but it wasn’t brought out or enhanced by the sets or the stage direction. Visually, the sets looked fine during each of the three acts, in a typically tasteful Paris Opera fashion, making good use of the full width and height of the stage through a mixture of uncluttered props, organised choreography, strong colours and lighting and a considered amount of projections. It was however, too brightly lit, too colourful, too clean-cut and smooth-edged to be appropriate for the sombre tone of the opera itself, and there consequently remained a disparity between the content of the opera and how it actually looked.

It’s hard not to identify that the principal theme of Otello is jealousy, but what is marvellous is the subtle way that Verdi and Boito handle the potentially melodramatic situation that develops between Othello and Desdemona. The composer takes time to establish all the courage of the Moorish governor of Cyprus, all the charm, beauty and innocence of Desdemona and the love and devotion that they share, but he shows the utter devastation that jealousy can wreak on even the most stable of personalities and relationships, and this slow-acting poison is introduced brilliantly in the form of Iago. We were perhaps fortunate that on the performance I attended we had Sergei Murzaev in the role of Iago, since on alternate nights, Lucio Gallo took over the role and, by most accounts, played the part in his usual baritone baddie manner that was ill-suited to this particular role. Murzaev was a much more subtle and insidious presence, which is really how it should be, because, regardless of the order of billing or the actual amount of singing, it’s Iago who has the most important role in determining the course of events.

In an opera that doesn’t have any particularly big moments – apart obviously from Desdemona’s death scene, which was indeed extraordinarily moving here – one of the most famous arias in the opera (one not directly drawn from Shakespeare, it must be noted) is Iago’s Credo, where he lays out the nature of his cynicism in a powerful manner that the subverts Christian belief system. Wonderfully, and clearly thought through by Verdi and Boito, even if it does adhere to familiar stereotyping of the tenor, soprano and baritone types, the declamatory nature of the baritone villain in this section is balanced by the lyrical beauty of the soprano and the noble tenor elsewhere. They too each have their moments, but they are far from the usual playing of such roles. It’s Iago who runs this show, and his presence, his very existence, removes any trace of romantic idealism. If there is necessarily less ambiguity in the characterisation within the compressed libretto, Verdi makes these colourations in the score and in the very structure of the opera that refuses to play according to type.

All of this came through marvellously in this Paris Opera production, the orchestra finding those subtleties of shading, and the singers by and large finding and expressing the nature of their characters, particularly Sergei Murzaev and Renée Fleming. Aleksandrs Antonenko sang well and was a strong presence, but I would have liked to see him let his mask slip on occasion, as he appeared to suffer from the operatic version of the some Shakespearean actors’ gravitas and solemnity, intoning the scared words and going through the motions on cue, without ever hinting at any deeper understanding of his character. True, Othello is manipulated throughout by Iago like a puppet, but there should always remain the deeper resolve within Othello that the character exhibits earlier in the drama, which is not so much broken down as twisted into a perversion of its original nature in a way that reflects Iago’s Credo. The stage direction was somewhat lacking in this respect, failing to suit the drama or find a unifying theme or concept that would support the wonderful coherency and intelligence within Verdi’s opera, but the performance alone, aligned with the strong themes of the original work, was strong enough nonetheless to carry this through.