Purcell - Dido and Aeneas (Aix, 2018)

Henry Purcell - Dido and Aeneas (Aix, 2018)

Festival d'Aix en Provence, 2018

Václav Luks, Vincent Huguet, Anaïk Morel, Rokia Traoré, Tobias Greenhalgh, Sophia Burgos, Lucile Richardot, Rachel Redmond, Fleur Barron, Majdouline Zerari, Peter Kirk

ARTE Concert - 12 July 2018

The theme of the 70th Aix-en-Provence Festival is based around the power of myths, and each of the operas in the programme in their own way examine deeper truths that would have application for the times they were written, but such is the nature of great art that those words and sentiments can still have contemporary relevance and application. Even Purcell's 1688 treatment of Virgil's story of Dido and Aeneas, two rulers of great kingdoms, is believed to have points to make about the English monarchy and the political situation of its time. As far as the present day is concerned, that historical context is unlikely to provide any meaningful commentary, but there is very much something we can relate to in how it also deals with the controversial subject of refugees.

The original prologue for Dido and Aeneas was lost over the centuries since it was first performed, but it's not uncommon for the one-hour or so of the surviving elements to be filled out with other pieces by Purcell or some of his near contemporaries. There aren't many who would go as far as composing a whole new prologue, and it would be hard to imagine anyone wanting to write in the style of Purcell, but Vincent Huguet's production for the Aix Festival shows that it is possible to write something complementary that supports some of the themes of the work and develops some background, putting it into a context that makes some reference to contemporary matters.

Rather than write a musical prologue, the context for the drama of Dido and Aeneas is developed in a mostly spoken word narration with some traditional North African music, created for this production by the French author Maylis de Kerangal. It describes the journey that Dido herself made, a Princess married to her uncle Acerbas, a rival for her father Pygmalion, the King. Becoming a kind of political refugee after her husband is murdered she leaves the Phoenician city of Tyre and travels to North Africa via Cyprus, but the journey by ship is no glorious affair. Related by a Cypriot woman (Rokia Traoré) who came with many others on those ships carried by the winds to North Africa, it was a particularly difficult journey for the women and prostitutes that were picked up along the way.

The Prologue sets the scene then for greater emphasis to be placed on the hardships endured by refugees and by women, both of which are certainly an underlying feature of the subject, not least in the 'love them and leave them' sentiments expressed by the Trojan sailors and by Aeneas, driven by the Gods to his destiny in Italy. Vincent Huguet, a former assistant to Patrice Chéreau, shows both these matters contributing to create a sense of deep unrest in Carthage, more than just in the unresolved romantic situation between Dido and Aeneas that eventually leads to their all too brief marriage.

What is new about this treatment and given greater emphasis in the current political climate is how the subject of refugees can be used to create political divisions, here setting the common Carthaginian people against the refugees from the war in Troy who seem to be enjoying more favour and benefits that their own people. The witches here become rabble rousers, the Sorceress inciting one of the crowd to take up a gun in a terrorist attack that ends up with her being shot dead by the authorities. Whether you think this has a place in Dido and Aeneas or not, it does tap into the tensions that must exist, the choral work of the common people having a role just as important as that of Dido and Aeneas in Purcell's work.

So that it doesn't appear to be too anachronistic - but at the same time evokes the current refugee crisis in the Mediterranean - Huguet sets the production in a more recognisably North African setting, the cast also featuring a number of singers of African origin. In fact, the South African soprano Kelebogile Pearl Besong was originally cast in the role of Dido, but had to withdraw for health reasons. She's replaced by the French mezzo-soprano Anaïk Morel who doesn't have the ideal clarity of English diction that the role demands, but brings a deeper regal presence to the role that works well alongside the baritone of Tobias Greenhalgh's Aeneas, equally regal, but again not quite ideal in delivery.

There is some impressive singing from the other members of the cast who bring brightness and spirit to the roles, particularly Lucile Richardot as the rabble-rousing Sorceress and her Mercury-impersonating elf. Richardot stood out when I saw her in the fascinating Bratislava production of Vivaldi's Arsilda, Regina di Ponto a production that was also conducted by Václav Luks. Aside from the context that director Huguet brings to the production, it's Purcell's extraordinarily beautiful music that carries the huge emotional force of the work, and Luks's directing of the Ensemble Pygmalion finds that deep resonance within the work. If Dido's Lament, 'Remember me' and the choral finale don't move you to tears, something has gone wrong somewhere. There's nothing wrong with this Dido and Aeneas.

Links: Festival d'Aix en Provence, ARTE Concert

Poulenc - Dialogues des Carmélites

Francis Poulenc - Dialogues des Carmélites

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich 2010

Kent Nagano, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Alain Vernhes, Susan Gritton, Bernard Richter, Sylvie Brunet, Soile Isokoski, Susanne Resmark, Hélène Guilmette, Heike Grötzinger, Anaïk Morel, Kevin Conners

Bel Air Classiques

Clever modern concept stagings of opera are all very well in the right place and with the right kind of opera. Sometimes however, it just seems perverse to take them out of their original context, particularly when the opera applies to a specific historical period or event that is explicitly referred to in the libretto. There seems little value then in “updating” Poulenc’s 1956 opera Dialogues des Carmélites away from its French Revolutionary setting or the historical incident in 1794 where sixteen nuns from a Carmelite convent in Compiègne were executed for resisting the confiscation of the church’s assets and the dissolution of the order.

You just know however that a controversial director like Dmitri Tcherniakov is never going to go down a conventional route, or even find an intermediary space (like the fine 2008 Nikolaus Lehnhoff production in Hamburg), where the actual themes of the opera beyond the historical setting can be examined, themes relating to the question of life in the face of death, fear of death and the nature of martyrdom for a cause. No, Tcherniakov doesn’t follow any expected route, but what clearly is his intention – as it is in all his productions, whether they actually work for an audience or not – is to attempt to cut the distance between the themes that are sometimes obscured by an overly elaborate and literal period setting, and strip back the staging in order to give the music and the singing the necessary environment that will allow provoke a reaction in the viewer towards the subtext. In the right kind of opera, it’s not so much about imposing a concept or an interpretation or being deliberately obscure for the sake of it, as allowing the audience the space to relate to the themes in their own personal way.

Whether that is achieved in this production of Dialogues des Carmélites recorded at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich is however debatable, as the staging seems to do its utmost to actually distance itself from the audience and box it into its own little world (the box within a box idea is also used in Tcherniakov’s staging for Verdi’s Macbeth, released by Bel Air alongside this). The period is non-specific but modern (even though the De la Force family still have a servant and chauffeur-driven coach), and Blanche de la Force certainly doesn’t enter any traditional kind of convent where the nuns wear habits. Perhaps reflecting Blanche’s fear of the world outside – and despite the Prioress Madame de Croissy’s insistence that it is not a refuge – the convent does resemble a women’s refuge, with all the sisters wearing heavy woollen cardigans and sensible skirts, all nursing mugs of hot tea.

There is no reason however why the questions that arise in the opera – making sense of life in the face of approaching death, finding order and meaning in it, and examining how each person individually comes to terms with their mortality – can’t be examined outside of the historical context of the French revolution. Poulenc based the opera on a play by Georges Bernanos, which in turn was based on an original 1931 novel by Gertrud von le Fort (’Die Letzte am Schafott‘), which itself used the subject as a means of commenting on German social disorder following the fall of the Weimar Republic – so it’s certainly artistically valid for Tcherniakov to update the work if it’s in the service of throwing a new light on the themes. What is rather more controversial is that the director radically changes the original ending – which is a really powerful conclusion. Tchernaikov’s finale, which practically turns the original on its head, is just as powerful and dramatic in its own right, but whether it “improves” or casts any further light on the actions of Blanche de la Force is debatable. It could just be that it’s the complete disregard of the traditional approach that is what is really shocking about the ending here, and it results in an equal amount of audible booing and cheers at the director’s curtain call.

At the very least however, Tcherniakov’s staging forces the audience to think about the subject again in a different way, and it’s an opera that really does have a lot of deeper subtexts to be drawn out of it. What makes this production even more worthwhile in this respect is the conducting of Kent Nagano. The music in Dialogues des Carmélites can be a little strange and unsettling, even with some hauntingly beautiful melodies that evoke Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélissande, but Nagano seems to bring out those ambiguous qualities of the opera and its similarities to Debussy even more strongly, with a greater sense of warmth and harmony than, for example the Hamburg production. That harmony and warmth is also more evident in the singing – although not in every case – so I wouldn’t necessarily say that one is better than the other, but I certainly find the interpretation here much more intriguing, creating new resonances and opening up the opera in an unexpected way.

Whether the staging works or not in a live context, it certainly doesn’t come across well on DVD or Blu-ray. The majority of the opera takes place (as you can see from the cover) within a boxed room on the stage. This means that crossbeams frequently get in the way, obscuring the view of the singers, which is further hampered by a gauze screen that softens the image, desaturates the colours and causes hazy netting effects. The HD reproduction of this consequently isn’t good, and the encoding doesn’t really help matters, looking rather blurry in movements. Between the net effect and the encoding, this does appear to be a visually substandard release. (Although the cover states it’s a BD25 disc it is however, as you would expect, BD50 – ie. dual-layer). The audio tracks are better, the singing mostly clear, the orchestration warm and enveloping, but also revealing a good amount of colour and detail. It’s no match for the precise crystalline clarity of the DTS HD-MA 7.1 mix on the Hamburg Staatsoper production, and if you would prefer a more faithful version of the opera I would highly recommend that release, but there are enough intriguing elements in the Nagano/Tcherniakov production to make this certainly worth your time.