Karlsson - Melancholia (Stockholm, 2023)

Mikael Karlsson - Melancholia

Royal Swedish Opera, 2023

Andrea Molino, Sláva Daubnerová, Lauren Snouffer, Anne Sofie von Otter, Rihab Chaieb, Ola Eliasson, Jens Persson Hertzman, Johan Edholm, Mikael Stenbaek, Anton Textorius, Klas Hedlund

ARTE Concert - 2nd November 2023 

I don't envy any composer - and to be honest can't even understand their motivation - for choosing to make an opera based on a fairly recent film. It's not that it's necessarily a bad idea in itself; cinema is a valid source of inspiration to opera and theatre directors and Kryzsztof Warlikowski and Ivo Van Hove in particular have drawn on movie and film techniques for some excellent productions. The challenge of making an opera based on Lars von Trier's Melancholia however is considerable. Since the original soundtrack of the film heavily featured Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, how would a composer put that out of his head while approaching a new musical version? But more to the point, does it even need to be made into an opera when the successful film is readily accessible?

Well the truth is that you could pose the same question to Lars Von Trier, since as a filmmaker he has followed - like many - in the footsteps of Andrei Tarkovsky. That influence has been obvious throughout his career, in the visual style of his earlier films, and Melancholia bears more than a passing resemblance in tone with Nostalghia and the apocalyptic subject matter of The Sacrifice. Von Trier nonetheless has managed to establish his own vision, and Melancholia proved to be one of the director's best films up to that point, one where he didn't need to court controversy for attention. The discovery of a hitherto unknown planet on a crash course for Earth as a metaphor for a young woman with mental health problems facing a devastating breakdown on the day of her wedding was a powerful one, related one supposes to the director's own mental health issues. "Melancholia is on her warpath".

It's a powerful subject, but there is no reason a composer couldn't bring out another dimension to the subject, particularly when it doesn't have to rely on Wagner as a generic musical accompaniment, no matter how well that works as a soundtrack for the film. An interview with the composer Mikael Karlsson on bringing the premiere of this opera to the Royal Swedish Opera, shows he was familiar with the film but clearly able to put the presence of Wagner aside and use his own musical language to work in service to the libretto written by Royce Vavrek. And it's a very modern approach that Karlsson takes, using a traditional orchestra, opera singers and chorus, but supplementing it with electronic rhythms, synthesisers and sound effects, not so much to create a 'science-fiction' feel as much as find a way to represent two different worlds, the external one and the interior struggle that Justine grapples with.

It might not really be the end of the world, but it certainly feels like it to Justine. This breakdown, coinciding with news of the appearance of the planet Melancholia, doesn't come from nowhere of course and there are many elements to explore in the young woman's relationships with her family; an overbearing mother who isn't satisfied, her father complaining that she isn't happy enough for all the expense he has put into the wedding, doubts about commitment in the marriage to her new husband, and issues with her father-in-law who is also her employer in a job where Justine is something of a workaholic. All of her frustrations, pressures and anxieties come to a head in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the wedding reception. All of this takes up Act I of the opera, which really amounts to little more than the wedding from hell, but all the underlying issues individually as well as cumulatively are clearly traumatic.

The looming planet that appears in the sky hurtling towards Earth could be just a metaphor for an impending mental breakdown on an apocalyptic scale, but even if it is real, Justine's condition is such that the complete obliteration of Earth would be welcomed. There are several levels that have to be worked on then. Since it is not a movie there is evidently little room for the kind of cinematic techniques, montage and special effects employed by Von Trier, but the composer - if he is good enough - has the most powerful element of all at his disposal, which evidently is the musical expression of the layered issues. Karlsson's music needs to be more than just a soundtrack and it needs to avoid the danger of being bombastic on the progress of a planet hurtling on a collision course, as much as it has to depict the inner disintegration of Justine's mental breakdown.

Karlsson's use of electronic effects and synthesiser rhythms alongside the more traditional orchestral and arioso singing arrangements works quite well. It's a unique new sound I haven't heard used so extensively in opera before and it suits the subject. There's a bit of predictable ominous choral backing of haunting oooohh and aahhhh vocalisations, but there is also strong use of the chorus for reaction to the declining situation. In the first Act it sounds not unlike John Adams, quite dynamic, rhythmic and melodic, curiously establishing a mood that reminded me more of Luca Guadagnino’s use of Adams' music for I Am Love than Von Trier’s Melancholia, the former perhaps also closely related thematically and in a similar social and familial milieu.

As with the film version of Melancholia however, the second half - seen principally from the perspective of Justine's sister Claire - has an entirely different character, her view on motherhood giving a less self-absorbed view. It still has a melancholy and oppressive character, but it's one related to a wider existential concern; the thought of annihilation and extinction, whether personal or global, and the sense of sadness and loss of everything and everyone we know. Karlsson's approach to the music is accordingly quite different in response, as you might expect really, blending the electronic and acoustic well, with electronic sounds, samples and distortion replacing the ordered progress of the music.

While Karlsson succeeds in placing his own stamp on the story of Melancholia, it has to be said that the stage director Sláva Daubnerová and set designer are not so ambitious, or perhaps is less able to avoid the pull of the planetary force of the original, since it remains very close to the visual colour scheme and feel of the film version, certainly in Act I. On the plus side, the single location of the luxury hotel and the wedding reception adds to the intensity of the situation, an oppressively stressful occasion in proximity to family. Nor can they resist a stage version of special effects, having the wedding guests resort to strange movements, speeding up, slowing down and freeze-framing. Act II uses other techniques to close the world down, the stage darkening as the sun is blotted out by the mysterious planet growing larger as it bears down on them, clawing branches reaching down, the borders of the lawn curling in on the remaining figures of Justine, Claire and her son Leo. The projection effects built in intensity alongside this up to the spectacle of the finale.

I'm not sure whether you could say that the opera sufficiently establishes own distinct character from the original film, but you might feel differently if you haven't seen the film. On its own terms Vavrek's libretto, while heavily reliant on the film for situations, does nonetheless have its own expression. "Even as the bride wore white, inside the gown the bride was blue turned black" the chorus intone gloomily at the end of Act I, and I don't recall anything like the Act II hunter's scene in the original film, or certainly not like this and the way the opera slips into a surreal dream or nightmare world. There is definitely an effective equilibrium achieved in the contrasting tone of the two acts, the perspective of the two sisters, and in the music composed for them in each act.

It can't be easy to likewise balance all the varied tones of the drama in the unconventional electronic instruments and sound effects with the acoustic orchestral instrumentation, but the effectiveness of the musical direction under Andrea Molino is evident and impressive. As is the singing. The opera relies on two central performances from Justine and Claire, and it has two superb singers in Lauren Snouffer and Rihab Chaieb, but also solid performances from Jens Persson Hertzman as Michael, the husband and Ola Eliasson as the father. As Justine's mother Gaby, Anne Sofie von Otter must break some kind of record for the most use of the word 'fuck' in the aria 'Fuck you and your fucking rituals'. There is no reason that strong language can't be used in a modern opera, but it feels a little gratuitous here. Then again, why not? There are many ways of expression and this is just another one, which is no less effective than the others so well employed in Karlsson's Melancholia.

External links: Royal Swedish Opera

Verdi - Un Ballo in Maschera

Giuseppe Verdi - Un Ballo in Maschera

Opera Australia, 2013

Andrea Molino, Alex Ollé, La Fura dels Baus, Diego Torre, Tamar Iveri, José Carbó, Mariana Pentcheva, Taryn Fiebig, Luke Gabbedy, Richard Anderson, Jud Arthur, Andrew Brunsdon, Dean Bassett

Opera Australia Cinema Live, 2013


There's always a moment of doubt about a new production by La Fura dels Baus when you wonder if they are going to pull off a spectacular coup in their vision for a particular work (as in their productions of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre and Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, for example) or whether it's going to be a complete fiasco (like their versions of Les Troyens and Die Zauberflöte). There's a moment at the start of the Opera Australia production of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera when it looks like they might have taken things a little too far again, but even if there remain a few doubts about the validity of the concept here, the direction unquestionably draws out the full force of Verdi's work.

With La Fura dels Baus' Alex Ollé at the helm here the concept is at least a little more restrained than it might have been in the hands of his colleague Carlus Padrissa. Rather than try to make an opera fit an idea, Alex Ollé is a little more inclined to propose an overall concept and then let the meaning of the work speak for itself through attention to the performance. That was the case with his Tristan und Isolde and, once you get over the initial strangeness of Alfons Flores and Lluc Castells' designs, it proves to be the strength here in a late mid-period Verdi opera that can often be problematic to stage.

It's not however a great stretch to consider the idea of masks as being a central theme of the work, and that indeed is the focus of Alex Ollé's concept. The exposition of this theme, as well as the question of revolution that is inevitably a part of most Verdi works, is laid out during the overture. A screen showing modern projections of war, famine, death and revolution, emphasises those aspects in terms of our own society where there is a marked divide between those in power and the ordinary person on the street. That division is further emphasised through the wearing of masks - literal as well as metaphorical - on the part of King Gustav III and his court, while the ordinary citizens, on the rare occasions we see them, are unmasked and depicted in the style of antiglobalist protesters.

The masks worn by Gustav and the royal court then are not just worn during the Masked Ball in the final act of the opera, but almost throughout the whole work and only very occasionally removed. It's perhaps unfortunate that the flesh coloured masks cover the top of the head and sides of the face and are rather blocky in a way that makes everyone look like the android Kryten in the TV SF-comedy series 'Red Dwarf'. Once you get past this and accept the concept for what it is - that everyone, whether conspirator, friend of the king, or even the king himself must necessarily hide their true face - it's a valid if not particularly deep response to the work.

Barring the costumes (mainly marine blue suits with identifier IDs imprinted on them) and the wearing of masks however, Ollé's direction for the work remains fairly traditional and - up until the final scene at least - sticks closely to the original intentions of the work. There are a few minor touches (references to swords for example) that show the difference between the period setting of the original and the science-fiction like tyrannical dystopia of this production, but there's nothing that takes away from the force of the work. In some cases, such as the horrors of Amelia's midnight expedition to the cemetery showing the real victims of Gustav's reign, the changes actually serve to make the situation more realistic and down to earth.

Applying realism to the setting is exactly what Un Ballo in Maschera needs, and it's refreshing to see the qualities that are undoubtedly there in Verdi's composition not buried behind operatic mannerisms or the theatrical contrivances of the somewhat creaky plot. The benefits of this could be seen in the singing and the acting performances. The most impressive here for me was Tamar Iveri. Amelia is not the easiest role to sing or bring to life, but the Georgian soprano really showed a sense of personality that makes her part in Gustav's downfall credible. Her singing was magnificent throughout, commanding yet sensitive to the characterisation and the situation, never more so than in her spellbinding account of Amelia's Act III aria 'Morrò, ma prima in grazia' - sung significantly with her "human" face revealed from behind the mask seen elsewhere.

Having only previously seen the ludicrous old-fashioned operatic gesticulation of Marcelo Álvarez in two other stage productions of Un Ballo in Maschera, it was refreshing to see Gustav performed here by a fine singer who can also act. Diego Torre brought real dramatic intensity to the king, showing the depth of his love for Amelia as well as his flaws as a ruler in the personal decisions he lets influence them that give his enemies rightful cause to conspire against him. He's no tyrant or romantic fool here, but a real person with human weaknesses and his dilemma is fully felt. As Renato José Carbó started out not so strongly, but gained gravity as the opera progressed, ending up fully embodying the role, which perhaps realistically reflects the development of his character.

As good as each of the singers were in their own right however, the true quality of the work, its dark nature and the conflict of interests between its character, comes out fully in the duets and ensemble pieces. Together, with this kind of singing and intensity of performance, the effect was powerful. Alex Ollé's stage direction played to those strengths, never undercutting the important moments of true drama in the work. And, as I indicated earlier, more than that, he also managed to bring some gravity and realism to the weaker aspects of the plot. It's not clear quite why it's not only Gustav who dies at the end here but all the other guests as well, victims of a gas attack by the conspirators. The fact that they are wearing masks also - gas masks - adds another level to the notion of the masked ball, as well as invoking revolutionary imagery that we have become very familiar with on our televisions recently. And in that respect it's perhaps a more recognisable and realistic result of violent civil war arising out of protests to remove a hated leader.