Jacques Offenbach - Tales of Hoffmann
Irish National Opera, 2018
Andrew
Synnott, Tom Creed, Julian Hubbard, Claudia Boyle, Gemma Ní Bhriain,
John Molloy, Andrew Gavin, Brendan Collins, Carolyn Holt, Fearghal
Curtis, Kevin Neville, Peter O’Reilly, Cormac Lawlor, Robert McAllister
O'Reilly Theatre, Dublin - 14 September 2018
At this rate I could get to
like Tales of Hoffmann. Up until fairly recently it's been an opera
whose attraction and qualities have mostly eluded me. Part of the
problem could be down to the work having been left unfinished, Offenbach
dying before his only full opera (as opposed to his numerous operettas) was
completed. Subjected to cuts, revisions and additions from sketches
left behind by the composer to try to approximate what Offenbach might
have had in mind, there's never been any clarity over the intended final
shape of the work. But then, I've never been taken with the idea of
purpose of the work or find that it has any great insights or
truths to reveal.
It's a romance above all, a single troubled one taking shape across four different
incarnations, but drawn from
stories by the German writer ETA Hoffmann, Offenbach includes Hoffmann as the main
character in the work, making a connection between the creator and his
creations, the inspiration for them and the suffering an artist has to
endure to bring them to life. That's all well and good, but the stories
themselves are strange, fantastical and almost hallucinogenic in their
obsessions, fuelled by alcohol and tainted with madness, the music
likewise somewhat overblown.
There's a lot to work with
here and certainly richness in the situations, but a good production
should be able to draw it all together, bring some kind of coherence and
try to make sense of it all. My experience of Tales of Hoffmann
however - until fairly recently - has been that directors similarly
tend to go overboard and add another level of complication and
distraction. A stripped-down reduced-orchestration production by the English Touring Opera however demonstrated for me that there is much to
enjoy in the work, and following a similar policy in their new
production, the Irish National Opera have confirmed that impression.
Of
course what is true of the approach taken towards Tales of Hoffmann is
true of any opera; it can be seen at its best when music, direction and
singing all come together in a cohesive production with a strong
central theme. The central theme of the varied three related love
stories that attest to Hoffmann's unfortunate choice in women is of
course his singular love for Stella in all her varied moods and
character (and an opera singer to boot!). Offenbach of course makes the
connections by having not just Stella in the roles of Olympia, Antonia
and Giulietta, but he keeps a thread of adversity in the combined
villains of Lindorf's Coppélius, Dr. Miracle, and Dappertutto.
Created
as a INO touring production and having to work within the limitations
of the O'Reilly Theatre in Dublin, which is not equipped for major scene
changes or special effects, director Tom Creed is somewhat limited as
far as stage designs go, but in a way this helps consistency and fluency
not just between the stories, but with the framing device of Hoffmann
the storyteller and the connections the stories have to Stella. The
lack of atmosphere in the venue also threatened to work against the
efforts of the production which with only a reduced ensemble of seven
players felt initially cool and detached, not really engaging with the
audience. By the time Claudia Boyle's Olympia took to the stage
however, that all changed.
The detached from reality
aspect of the stories can still be a problem, but Tom Creed finds
suitable modern updates that take some of the old-fashioned eccentricity
out of the work. Rather than an automaton or living doll, Creed
re-envisions Olympia for this production as a robot AI, Hoffmann dazzled
by its brilliance of science but disillusioned by its lack of humanity,
immune to the charm of his poetry. In the second story Hoffmann's trust
in love is dashed by the inadequacy of medicine to cure Antonia if she sings.
Hoffmann is charmed in the third story not by a seductive courtesan
who is charged with stealing his reflection, but by a performance artist
in the Venice Biennale who attempts to destroy his soul through
drug addiction.
Katie Davenport's set designs cleverly
provide suitable locations for Creed's updated settings that bring more
of a sense of reality to the metaphor, but it still looks magical and
just as importantly retains a sense of humour. The consistency and
continuity is brilliantly maintained in the three major singing roles,
with Claudia Boyle in particular simply outstanding. The ability to
sing all the four highly challenging soprano roles is never in doubt,
but there's personality and presence there as well, which makes a
difference in this opera. Julian Hubbard also sang well but wasn't
quite as successful in finding any deeper humanity in his character.
The multiple Lindorf villain role posed no difficulties for John Molloy,
an expert in this register, but he was perhaps a little too declamatory
for the reduced instrumentation. Gemma Ní Bhriain's Nicklausse was
exceptional and Andrew Gavin provided good support for Molloy's
different incarnations. With fine performances in secondary roles and a
fine chorus, the INO clearly have a strong ensemble of singers.
It
was in that reduced seven-piece instrumentation, alive to the
subtleties of the melodies that I feel that the Irish National Opera's
production was truly successful in revealing the qualities of
Offenbach's writing for Tales of Hoffmann. Andrew Synnott directing
from piano is always strong with this kind of arrangement (his own
composition for Dubliners at the 2017 Wexford Festival benefitted from
the same treatment). As well as simply being able to appreciate the
detail of the instrumentation and quality of the playing, too often lost
in larger arrangements, it more than anything else helped bring
consistency and cohesion to the work, while still finding plenty of room
for colour and expression.
Links: Irish National Opera
Andrew Synnott - Dubliners
Opera Theatre Company, Wexford Opera Festival, 2017
Andrew Synnott, Annabelle Comyn, Emma Nash, Anna Jeffers, Andrew Gavin, David Howes, Peter O' Donohue, Cormac Lawlor
Clayton White's Hotel, Wexford - 1 November 2017
The two short stories that Andrew Synnott chooses from James Joyce's Dubliners don't strike you as being the sort of thing that operas are made of, but then again I'm sure that it would have been hard to imagine The Dead from the same short story collection being adapted into a feature film. Composer Andrew Synnott and librettist Arthur Riordan however succeed with Counterparts and The Boarding House in exactly the same way that John Huston did with The Dead; they give due attention to the fact that the forces that exist in and around the characters are far more important than the narrative itself.
These are more than just stories to be told, and they are more than just depictions of Dublin life at a certain, albeit significant time in Ireland's history at the beginning of the 20th century. There are all kinds of social and political undercurrents running around in 1914, with the Great War just around the corner and with the Republican Easter Rising not far away, but the idea of identity and change, of the times mirroring a significant moment in individuals' lives can also be found in Dubliners.
In Counterparts and The Boarding House (and indeed The Dead), events come to a point where there is no return to the past. The characters find themselves obliged to reassess their lives and try to assert some kind of authority over their own destiny, only to find that there are external forces that are beyond their ability to control or influence. The stories that make up Synnott's two short Dubliners operas are not connected and the tone and the revelations reached in each is markedly different, but Synnott's brilliantly brings out the respective commonalities, differences and qualities that lie at the heart of both works.
There's an almost impressionistic flow to both pieces, but in Counterparts it's one that is determined by the alcoholic haze and rush of emotions that course through the day of a Dublin office clerk. Farrington has already nipped out for a few quick ones during his breaks and all he can think about is getting back out to the warm happy glow of being in a pub with his friends. There are however all kinds of competing forces at work that prevent Farrington from mastering his situation, and not just in the workplace where his boss is putting pressure on him to urgently to copy documents for a contract.
Alcohol is a force, desire is a force, conceit is a force, masculinity is a force and all of them give Farrington a misplaced sense of self-worth. His bragging to his friends of his witty put-down of his boss when he asks him if he takes him for a fool ("I don't think that's a fair question to put to me") only carries so much weight, and as his money runs out, the alcohol buzz wears off and Farrington receives a few injuries to his pride, so too does his sense of humour. None of his efforts have brought him any satisfaction, and when he returns home he exerts his dwindling sense of control and authority by beating one of his children.
It's hardly the stuff of opera, but Synnott on piano with a string quartet, gives this narrative a wonderful coherence and a feeling for mood, but it only really holds together when it is played alongside and contrasted with The Boarding House. It's a story that seems even less likely to work on the stage, but Synnott's response to that is to just be even more creative with rhythms, with the overlaying of vocal lines and with a construction that wonderfully leap-frogs from one character focus to the next.
It even starts with a narrator, Jack Mooney, who lets it be known that the moment of truth is dawning for one of the guests at his mother's boarding house. Bob Doran has been carrying on with Polly who works there, and it appears that her mother Mrs Mooney has permitted the liberty to be taken or at least turned a blind eye to it; but in reality she has just been biding her time. Doran's fate is sealed before the opera even starts, but he just hasn't realised it yet. He thinks he still has a say in the outcome, but when the summons comes from Mrs Mooney, his bachelor days are effectively numbered.
The forces he has to contend with are brute force (Jack Mooney), the bonds of family, the ideas of right and wrong that are ingrained in this society by religion, and with it the irrefutable certainty that one has to pay for one's sins. The personal wishes of the individual are rendered insignificant in the face of such huge social and cultural forces, and the inevitability with which they pile up on Bob Doran, as well as the inherent humour that lies in the situation, are brilliantly brought out in this wonderfully constructed opera version of the story.
The flow of words and impressions, the flow from one character's perspective to another is brilliantly brought out in the flow of the musical score that Andrew Synnott leads from piano, but this is more than just musical accompaniment and more than an exercise in craft. Between the music, the words and the staging, the operas bring out the deeper essence and universality of these timeless stories. The gorgeous set designs by Paul O'Mahony who also worked on the OTC's gorgeous Acis and Galatea (there's a man who knows his pubs!) and Joan O'Clery's costumes retain something of the period, but Annabelle Comyn's direction ensures that the situations, experiences and the nature of the characters remains recognisable and relevant, and not just to early twentieth century "Dubliners".
The complementary nature of Counterparts and The Boarding House can also be found in the lyrical treatment and Synnott and Riordan have created wonderfully lyrical and poetic vocal lines with rhyming couplets for both pieces. Using the same cast members for the two short operas allows further connections to be drawn; not so much in characters as in their predicaments and expression of them. Cormac Lawlor however only has a singing role in Counterparts as Farrington, but it's one that evidently carries the whole tone of the piece and his timing and delivery of each of the varied moods the alcoholic clerk goes through is superb. The Boarding House has a larger number of leads from Emma Nash's Polly, Anna Jeffers's Mrs Mooney, Andrew Gavin's Bob Doran and David Howes's Jack, who all impress on an individual level, as well as giving wonderfully complementary performances.
Premiered at the 2017 Wexford Festival Opera, Opera Theatre Company's production of Andrew Synnott's Dubliners has a further three performances at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Dublin from the 9 - 11th November 2017, but I would hope and expect that this lyrical, thoughtful and entertaining work will have a longer life beyond its initial run.
Links: Wexford Festival Opera, Opera Theatre Company
George Frideric Handel - Acis and Galatea
Opera Theatre Company, Dublin - 2017
Peter Whelan, Tom Creed, Susanna Fairbairn, Eamonn Mulhall, Edward Grint, Andrew Gavin, Peter O'Reilly, Sinéad O'Kelly, Fearghal Curtis, Cormac Lawlor
Opera Platform - 11 April 2017
It certainly comes as a bit of a surprise and does initially seem a little jarring to find the mythological content of Handel's pastoral opera Acis and Galatea located in a little provincial Irish pub. In the Opera Theatre Company's 2017 production, Handel's fable opens with the nymphs and shepherds coming in from the fields for a quick half and then changing out of their work clothes to take part in a line-dance hoedown.
It's certainly not the first image that comes to mind when you think of nymphs and shepherds in the bucolic setting of a pastoral opera, but there's ample justification for it. Checking the definition on Google, it says that a pastoral is a work that portrays an idealised version of country life, and when you put it like that and apply it to an Irish setting, the connection not only seems obvious in an equivalent modern context, but the way that the tale plays out in this setting also serves to touch on the true spirit of the piece.
This is always a key point when it comes to bringing Handel to the modern opera stage, particularly in those pieces that are more choral or oratorio in format like Acis and Galatea. It's essential not to ironically poke fun at the easy target of its idealised sentiments, but it doesn't serve the works particularly well either to play them in some kind of kitsch notion of traditional period that a modern audience will find impossible to respond to in the way that they might have 300 years ago.
On the other hand, the idea of idealisation is at the heart of Acis and Galatea, but to make it meaningful, there has to be some basis for it in reality. Tom Creed's Irish setting isn't just modernisation for the sake of being clever, it finds a way to touch more deeply on the sentiments at the heart of the work and bring that across to the audiences on the Opera Theatre Company's Irish tour. It does it so well that there's every reason to believe that it can communicate that to a wider audience in its streamed broadcast on the Opera Platform.
Adjusting expectations, bringing a clear head to lofty ideals and rushes of emotions is very much what Acis and Galatea is about, but it's also about transforming reality or creating something greater out of it. For the nymphs and shepherds, it's about celebrating the end of the day in a song and a dance (and maybe a drink or two). The semi-divine nymph Galatea (here a barmaid, much the same thing after that transformative drink or two) is troubled by the far too lofty ideals she holds in her love for the shepherd Acis, and it needs some helpful intervention from Damon to caution both of them to have a little more restraint.
The same goes for the monstrous ogre Polyphemus (here a belligerent drunk), who thinks he can gain the love of Galatea by force. Again, Damon suggests that a more gentle approach might win a fair maid ("Would you gain the tender creature"). The reaction of Acis is perhaps over-solicitous ("Love sounds th' alarm") and again he is cautioned to be more moderate in his behaviour ("Consider, fond shepherd, how fleeting's the pleasure that flatters our hopes in pursuit of the fair"). It's to no avail, as an inebriated Polyphemus staggers in and clobbers him with a brick to the head ("crushed beneath a stone") in a barroom brawl.
Acis and Galatea is not just a morality tale that warns of giving excessive licence to the sentiments, it's more about recognising them - good and bad - and being able to transform them into something more noble. In this way, humans can aspire towards the divine, and even in death Acis is transformed into a fountain. Tom Creed's handling of this vital scene is critical to the success of the production and its overall message. The flashing lights of the emergency services outside the bar, the ambulance men working on the fatally injured man in the foreground all hit home the reality of the death of Acis, while the 'fountain' supplies his friends with a drink to his memory, the commemoration of which will hopefully serve to transform the lives of others.
Music and opera is also an essential element of the transformative experience, turning stories of love and tragedy into something instructive and ennobling, and that's where Handel comes in. Musically, Acis and Galatea is one of the composer's most beautiful works, all its richness compressed into a short work that if filled with memorable melodies and songs. In the context of the performance by the Irish Baroque Orchestra conducted by Peter Whelan, some of the flute playing even delightfully evokes a sense of traditional folk music, cementing the connection between the mythology and its relocation perfectly.
Paul O'Mahony's revolving set provides a lovingly detailed Irish pub interior, exterior and backroom for the cast to move about and give far more expression than you might expect from a work with little dramatic playing. The cast all take their roles well, with a soft gentleness of expression that is perfect for the overall sentiments of the work and its more down-to-earth reduction of the choral parts. Andrew Gavin's Damon is the gentle spirit of temperance that tries to moderate Edward Grint's Polyphemus - played perfectly as more of an awkward drunken fool than an evil monster. Susanna Fairbairn's Galatea and Eamonn Mulhall's Acis bring the same kind of measured dynamic to those roles, keeping them grounded in the realism that the production strives to achieve, while still matching the opera's aspirations to create something greater.
