Daniel-François-Esprit Auber - Fra Diavolo
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, 2017
Rory Macdonald, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, John Osborn, Roberto de Candia, Sonia Ganassi, Giorgio Misseri, Alessio Verna, Anna Maria Sarra, Jean Luc Ballestra, Nicola Pamio
Culturebox - 17 October 2017
Aside from its historical interest, it's debatable that Auber's once celebrated Fra Diavolo has much to offer the world of opera today. It still has something to offer an audience however and those are the same values that it held right back when it was first performed; entertainment. The Rome Opera production certainly presents Auber's opéra-comique with that intention as its primary focus, finding a suitable presentation that captures the work's immodest sense of modesty, while also managing to have something contemporary and even forward-looking in theatrical staging.
If it doesn't have anything to offer the future of opera, Auber's Fra Diavolo has nonetheless already made its impact. First performed in 1830, Auber's simple melodies and uncomplicated drama would determine the direction of popular French opéra-comique and embody many of the characteristics that are associated with it. With the Rome production's colourful sets and costumes, everything is there for an entertaining evening of romantic comedy, singing and dancing.
Fra Diavolo sets out its intentions right from the outset, with a drinking song and a military march combined. The soldiers are drinking because that's part of the way of military life, but they are also drowning their sorrows as the inn-keeper's daughter Zerline is getting married the next day. The captain Lorenzo in particular isn't happy as he and Zerline had romantic aspirations, but they were doomed to come to nothing since Zerline's father has made plans to marry her to a rich man.
That's the romantic background taken care of in a not terribly original manner and it's inevitably going to have predictable twists and turn of fortune. The drama that will drive this relates of course to the actions of Fra Diavolo, a notorious bandit who operates in the region. Milord and Milady Rocburg, an English couple on holiday touring Italy have already encountered this notorious bandit on their travels and have had all their belongings stolen. They have however managed to keep their best jewels hidden, but they are unaware that Fra Diavolo has followed them to the inn.
There's room for a minor romantic entanglement there too. Just to spice things up a little further, the Marquis they encountered at their last stop has just arrived at the inn. Milord isn't happy that the Marquis has been unwelcome paying attention to his wife and he continues serenading her now at the inn. Of course, we all know that the Marquis is none other than Fra Diavolo in disguise, and that he is using his charms to seduce the noble lady into parting with the secret of where their expensive jewellery is hidden.
Meanwhile Captain Lorenzo and his troops have stumbled on the bandits den and recovered the stolen goods (but not the bandits), and the reward puts him into contention again for the hand of Zerline. Fra Diavolo however is so confident of his charms and his disguise that he is sure that he can steal back the loot and increase his haul that night. The drama - what little there is of it between romantic charms and villainous swagger - tends to lose its way in the second half of the opera. The Marquis's night-time wanderings are discovered and questioned, only for him to sow discord by pretending that his inclinations are more romantic than criminal, but it rallies at the end for the unmasking and capture of the notorious Fra Diavolo.
The comic villainy and romantic twists of Auber's Fra Diavolo set the tone and the standard for much of the opéra-comique that follows, his influence particularly evident in Jacques Offenbach and not just in Les Brigandes. The influence on Auber however is just as evidently the lighter comic work of Giacomo Rossini, and Auber's music carries the same light, simple rhythms that are melodic, buoyant and uplifting. Hardly sophisticated, they are nevertheless conducted here in the Rome production by Rory Macdonald with a confident swagger and an emphatic stridency where required. Entertainment is the entire raison d'être of Fra Diavolo, and the musical performance captures that well.
As does the set design in Giorgio Barberio Corsetti's production. Extensive use is made of cartoon imagery projected onto the versatile backdrops (created by Corsetti with designer Marco Troncanetti using 3-D printers) that permit the set to be transformed instantly from a moving car journey to a balloon ride, from a hotel with a cutaway showing individual rooms to a gondola ride in a Venice with shark-infested canals. It's a riot of colour with larger than life illustrations that perfectly match the tone and spirit of the work. That is also captured well in John Osborn's reliably impressive performance as Fra Diavolo. Not quite as agile with the French recitative and singing, Sonia Ganassi and Roberto de Candia are great fun nonetheless as Lord and Lady Rocburg. Anna Maria Sarra is a bright Zerline (replacing the billed Pretty Yende who dropped out) and Giorgio Misseri also notable as Alfredo.
Links: Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Culturebox, YouTube
Richard Strauss - Feuersnot
Teatro Massimo, Palermo - 2014
Gabriele Ferro, Emma Dante, Nicola Beller Carbone, Dietrich Henschel, Alex Wawiloff, Rubén Amoretti, Christine Knorren, Chiara Fracasso, Anna Maria Sarra, Michail Ryssov, Nicolò Ceriani, Paolo Battaglia
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
History hasn't been kind to Richard Strauss's first two operas Guntram (1894) and Feuersnot (1901), both of them better known now by reputation than through actual performance. It's common knowledge then that the influence of Wagner was still very present in Strauss's early operas, slavishly so in Guntram, self-consciously in Feuersnot. That would change definitively in the operas that follow, Strauss finding his own voice in Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, but that doesn't mean that there aren't traces and roots of classic Strauss in those earlier works. Feuersnot, in particular, demonstrates much of what would become great in later Strauss operas.
Not that you would have had much of an opportunity to reevaluate those early Strauss operas, with any performances of Guntram and Feuersnot, even in the year of the Richard Strauss centenary, tending to be concert performances. One welcome exception, thankfully recorded and preserved for release on Blu-ray, is the rare staging of Feuersnot at the Teatro Massino in Palermo in 2014. Directed by Emma Dante and conducted by Gabriele Ferro, it's a thoughtful and entertaining production that plays to the strengths of the work, at the same time as it manages to overcome many of the problems that might prevent it being staged more often.
The main problem with staging Feuersnot, I imagine, is that it's hard to know quite how to pitch Strauss's undoubtedly self-indulgent attempt at parody in the work, and actually make it entertaining. It's difficult to judge and pitch the work as a Strauss opera when it is so self-consciously Wagnerian. The danger is that you will think that Strauss is being far too clever for his own good, a bit of a show-off, immodestly writing a work on the model of Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg in which he sets himself up as the "true heir" to Wagner, as well as regarding himself as a bit of a stud. Emma Dante finds a very good way of bringing these ambitions a little more down to earth in her production for the Teatro Massimo.
Feuersnot is a played out as a medieval legend based in a village near Munich. There an apprentice sorcerer, Sir Kunrad, based on Strauss himself, takes his revenge on the people who fail to recognise his talent and his rightful position as the successor to the great Master magician Reichhart Wag'ner, whose great genius also wasn't sufficiently recognised in his own time. Slighted by the people of the village who don't recognise the merit of his powers and his right to express his libidinous urges in public - stealing a kiss from the mayor's daughter Diemut - Kunrad calls a fire famine upon the village during the feast of the Summer Solstice, when the children are preparing to set their celebratory bonfires alight.
Strauss isn't exactly obscure about his intentions in how he sets himself up as the successor to Wagner, but it's hard to know whether he is being either tongue-in-cheek or just immodesty secure of his own talent. Musically, Feuersnot is so cleverly constructed and brilliantly composed that you'd have a hard time denying the evident skill with which Strauss weaves his way through Wagner references and places his own spin on them. That spin, taking Wagner's mythic spiritualism and giving it a more earthy sensuality, could be considered vulgar, but this is entirely in keeping with other Strauss works of this time (Ein Heldenleben in 1898 and Symphonia Domestica in 1903) that would elevate the personal and the domestic to grandiose levels. Or simply find them subjects more worthy and relevant to the general public.
However we regard such behaviour, the brilliance of Strauss' technique and its dramatic application in an opera is plainly evident. It does however lead to a provocative conclusion in Feuersnot that might still be problematic and controversial. Having been subjected to Kunrad's fire famine, the terrified people of the village, and even her own father, urge Diemut to put aside her maidenly honour and get jiggy with Kunrad so that they can rekindle the fire on this Midsummer Night. She and Kunrad do the deed - Strauss bringing a more sensuous physicality to the music than you would find with Wagner - and Diemut, impressed by the prowess of the magician, acknowledges his place as her true master.
The 'legend' of Feuersnot is a thin one, even for a one-act opera (a 'Singgedicht in one act'), with little dramatic drive. Emma Dante however recognises that it's about music and not magic, and brings that not terribly well concealed subtext out in a number of ways. She also attempts to capture the huge variety and dynamic that lies within the score and represent that on the stage with circus acts and dancers to give an impression of constant colour and movement. This can be entertaining and sometimes annoying, but it does certainly bring some liveliness and a certain tongue-in-cheek irreverence that adds to tone and enlivens a staging of work. The final 'fire dance' scene in particular more than justifies the approach, finding a colourful and meaningful way to represent the otherwise problematic ending.
The musical performances all contribute to making this an 'illuminating' production of a rare Strauss opera. Gabriele Ferro underplays the Wagner and emphasises more of the familiar later Strauss characteristics in the score. Nicola Beller Carbone has Wagnerian strength aplenty in the role of Diemut, and although Dietrich Henschel doesn't quite have the force or the volume for a 'heldenbaritone' he sings and plays the role of Kunrad with a mischievous sparkle and verve. None of this is perhaps enough to see Feuersnot reconsidered as canonical Strauss, but it is unquestionably Strauss, and presented in the best possible light here.
The 2014 Teatro Massimo production of Feuersnot is released on Bluray by Arthaus Musik, and it looks and sounds terrific in High Definition. The BD has a 12-minute 'Making Of' that gives some insights into the work and the approach to it, and there is also an informative essay on the work in the enclosed booklet. The disc is region-free, but subtitles are in English, German and Korean only.
George Frideric Handel - Orlando
Theater an der Wien, Vienna - 2013
Rubén Dubrovsky, Stefania Panighini, Rupert Enticknap, Cigdem Soyarsian, Gaia Petrone, Anna Maria Sarra, Igor Bakan
Sonostream.tv Internet Streaming, 31 May 2013
There are limitations to what you can do theatrically with a work like Handel's Orlando, particularly in a small venue like the Theater an der Wien. The work itself doesn't seem to present many opportunities for dramatic action, and even the arias often seem to be poetically allusive and darkly melancholic, full of characters wrapped up in their own torments of anger, jealousy and fear. Presented here in Vienna at the Vienna Chamber Opera and a young ensemble of singers from the JET, the intricacies of Handel's musical writing and the powerful imagery of the libretto were however fully explored and brought to the fore.
Much of the strength of Handel's Orlando lies not so much within the conventional beauty of the melodies as in how they meet the expressive qualities of the setting for the libretto. It's not just an opportunity to string together a series of interchangeable arias expressing deep but generic emotional turmoil - even Handel would often reuse and recycle his own work - but an integral work with strong consistent imagery, symbolism and themes. Even as a magic opera, the intentions are not to produce stage craft and spectacle, but to explore the extremes of the human condition. Those themes are fully recognised in the stage production - directed by Stefania Panighini with sets by Federica Parolini - which is minimally dressed, but fully integrated with the tone and the intentions of the work.
The areas that Orlando explores then are very dark ones indeed. There are the familiar Baroque opera themes of love, betrayal and jealousy, with unfaithful lovers or unrequited sentiments. In Orlando however those sentiments take a darker turn into madness as Orlando, a knight in the Crusades, reacts with violence to the discovery that Angelica, the Queen of Cathay, doesn't love him but Medoro. He discovers that they are in the house of the shepherdess Dorinda, and burns the house down. It is only through the intervention of the magician Zoroastro that the situation is resolved and Orlando's mind put at ease, allowing him to return to the holy wars.
There are numerous references that express the conflict within Orlando's mind, his soul and his spirit in terms of the divisions between nature and science, between peace and war. They are not the standard references of tumultuous raging of the soul - allowing the composer to whip up musical storm effects - but to "tender flakes of falling snow melted in the sunny ray", to streams, trees, flowers, "feather'd choirs" and balmy gales in a setting of fountains and gardens conjured up by the magician Zorastro in an attempt to give Orlando respite from the violence of war and the deranged thoughts that torment him. It's even on a tree that Orlando finds the entwined engraved names of Angelica and Medoro that tips him over into madness.
The stage set used for this production at the Chamber Opera of the Theater and der Wien then is a simple one that reflects the division that has been introduced between man and nature, an outline frame representing Dorinda's house that can be reconfigured to look like a greenhouse or a birdcage depending on the context, the house adorned with plants that grow out of the heads of busts. Zoroastro's domain is also alluded to through objects that suggest a temple to magic, science, time and learning, with an anatomy model that straddles the themes of science and nature, particularly in relation to the spiritual nature of the human heart and mind. In many ways this represents the essential conflict at the core of Orlando, between the soul in love and the soul in torment.
The purity and simplicity of the stage expression of the work is reflected in the musical performance of the Bach Consort Wien conducted by Rubén Dubrovsky, and in the fresh singing of the young performers from the JET. Countertenor Rupert Enticknap is a sweet-voiced Orlando capable of great expression, if not quite reaching the extremes of the Paladin's condition. Cigdem Soyarsian, a green-haired Angelica (all the performers had punky-coloured hairstyles), also sang the role well, delivering a particularly good 'Così giusta è questa speme'. The other roles were also well presented, Anna Maria Sarra's Dorinda combining sweetness and melancholy in regard to Medoro and anguish defeat at the hands of Orlando. Medoro's role in the opera was slightly trimmed here, but Gaia Petrone made a very good impression, and Igor Bakan was a solid Zoroastro.
