Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Violanta (Turin, 2020)
Teatro Regio Torino, 2020
Pinchas Steinberg, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Annemarie Kremer, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Norman Reinhardt, Peter Sonn, Soula Parassidis, Anna Maria Chiuri, Joan Folqué, Cristiano Olivieri, Gabriel Alexander Wernick, Eugenia Braynova, Claudia De Pian
Dynamic - Blu-ray
As well as the overwhelming and inescapable influence of the legacy left on the world of opera by Richard Wagner, German and particularly Austrian composers like Korngold were certainly under the influence of the intoxicating new ideas and expression that was in the air in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. It's only recently however that we are getting the opportunity to hear and see stage performances of the lush fantasies of composers like Franz Schreker and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, whose careers were impacted or cut short during the rise of Nazis in the 1930s. The image of a glamourous decadent society in the operatic works of these so-called 'degenerate' composers is inevitably tempered by an awareness of the darkness in the heart of humanity or at least within human society.
Korngold was certainly something of a prodigy, showing remarkable talent in composition and orchestration from a very young age. The evidence of Die Tote Stadt alone, written at the age of 23, clearly shows just how incredibly accomplished his early opera works were before he left Germany under advisement and established himself as a composer in the United States. The recent revival at the Deutsche Oper of Das Wunder von Heliane (1927) was another eye-opening glimpse into those incredible accomplishments, another dreamy and slightly unsettling exploration of Freudian themes as well as revealing something of a debt to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. The even earlier one act opera Violanta, premiered in 1916 and written when Korngold was just 17, is very much within the same decadent fantasy realm of repressed desires, lusts and fantasies, and the musical influence accordingly owes a great deal of debt to Richard Strauss's Salome.
The comparison with Salome strikes you almost immediately from the opening melancholic overture to Violanta in the rather decadent setting of a Renaissance carnival in Venice. Elegant, masked guests arrive at the House of Captain Trovai, indulging in pleasure and milling around while two uniformed guards discuss how the Lady Violanta is in a dark melancholic mood, one young guard teased for being in love with her. "He dreams of her white body, in which the moon plays the lute" certainly adheres to the imagery in Wilde's play that Strauss set so vividly to wild, decadent and powerful music in 1905. Korngold's music is not quite as harsh and dissonant, displaying more of a Puccinian love of melody and romanticism, but by the same token it doesn't have quite the same conviction or philosophical underpinning to push against conventional thought or morality.
The threat to their pleasure comes with the troubling news that the notorious womaniser Alfonso has returned to Venice. Despite the painter Giovanni Bracca's admonition that "Women frequent the shores of adventure" Simone Trovai is sure that his wife Violanta hates Alfonso for his baseness and his offense. Alfonso is certainly no Jochanaan; he seduced Violanta's sister Nerina while she was a novice at a convent and the young woman subsequently killed herself. Since then Lady Violanta has been sad, melancholic and avoided society.
Simone however can't help but be troubled to discover that Violanta has gone to sing and dance for this man with the intention of seducing him as a way to avenge her sister. Inviting him to their home, Violanta demands that Simone must kill Alfonso. Her husband is horrified that such he is being asked to kill a man who commands power and respect, but he is prepared to do it. All he has to do is wait for Violanta to sing a song that will be the cue to act, but when Violanta comes face to face with Alfonso, there is a danger that she too will be seduced by his nature.
There are variances in the situations but the musical cues of foreboding, hidden lusts and lush decadence are very similar to those of Salome, with ecstatic raptures woven around matters of debauchery and death. Which is not to say that Korngold doesn't have a way of making his own mark upon them. Like Strauss, the singing challenges are also considerable, not just for the principal role of Violanta but all of the roles are heavily demanding in the Wagnerian sense. In the 2020 Teatro Regio Torino production Annemarie Kremer is excellent as Violanta, giving a commanding central performance that has to be convincing and maintain force and seductiveness over the course of most of the hour and a half of the opera. Alfonso has to measure up to her, challenge her dominance in the same way as Jochanaan, but here with an almost lyrical Heldentenor Lohengrin-like purity of voice to go with his seductive and secretly vulnerable character and Norman Reinhardt captures that well with a fine performance.
Updating it from the Renaissance period to the 1920s the intention ought to be to highlight or draw on some of the undercurrents in the world of that time feeding into Korngold's composition, but there's no explicit references or obvious parallels made. Director Pier Luigi Pizzi however successfully contours that mood of seductive decadence and death effectively, with a hint of Klimt in the designs and costumes, Violanta wearing a voluptuous figure-hugging sparkling gold sequined dress. The whole of the one-act drama takes place in a room with long red and gold curtain drapes hanging over red velvet couches and there is a wide open circular window at the back like a dark moon showing gondolas gliding by. It creates an appropriately Styx-like quality to the location, spanning the gap between life and death.
Making the whole drama work convincingly, making the characters and the denouement credible and meaningful is a trickier prospect and it needs a little more of the edge of conviction that a director like Christof Loy can bring to this kind of work (Das Wunder von Heliane, Der ferne Klang). With fine singing performances, a strong central performance from Annemarie Kremer, and with Pinchas Steinberg bringing out the youthful musical splendour of Korngold, highlighting the characteristics that would become more familiar in the Korngold of Die Tote Stadt, the Teatro Regio Torino production give a fine account of this wonderful rarity.
Pizzi's set is dark and shadowy with bold burning reds, so it's a bit tricky to transfer to video accurately and consequently there are some variances in tone depending on the camera angle used, but the Dynamic Blu-ray HD presentation is generally very good at capturing the mood of the piece and the production. The LPCM stereo and surround DTS HD-Master Audio tracks are warmly toned, fully capturing the mood and colour of Korngold, although the recording is perhaps not quite as detailed as you might find on other High Resolution recordings. There are no extra features, but as usual Dynamic provide good information on the work and the production, including an interview with Pier Luigi Pizzi in the enclosed booklet.
Links: Teatro Regio Torino
Richard Wagner - Tannhäuser
L'Opéra de Monte-Carlo - 2017
Nathalie Stutzmann, Jean-Louis Grinda, José Cura, Steven Humes, Annemarie Kremer, Aude Extrémo, Jean-François Lapointe, William Joyner, Roger Joakim, Gijs van der Linden, Chul-Jun Kim, Anaïs Constans
Culturebox - February 2017
The failure and the uproar caused by the first French performances of Wagner's Tannhäuser in Paris in 1861 is one of the most significant events in musical history. Wagner's new way of structuring and writing opera with through-composition was certainly viewed as a challenge to the unwritten rules of opera; rules that were strictly observed at the Paris Opera. Those rules may have had more to do with social conventions than musical ones - upsetting the dinner arrangements of the influential Jockey Club members - but Wagner's musical innovations were significant and the work at least made a strong impression despite and maybe even because of the notoriety of the perceived fiasco in Paris.
Wagner had in fact tailored his opera specifically for the French audiences at its Paris premiere, even going as far as including the obligatory ballet sequence - albeit not placed in the conventional running order. The ballet and some of the other revisions are occasionally still introduced into productions of the opera, but it's very rare that you have the opportunity to see the work performed in the French language translation that was given at in its brief three night run in Paris in 1861. It's of considerable interest then to see this rare French version of Tannhäuser revived for the Monte-Carlo Opera.
The difference the French language makes to Tannhäuser is immediately striking, if not really all that surprising. It's not really all that immediately obvious though, since in addition to the long Vorspiel, Wagner's controversially placed ballet also follows the choral Bacchanal, which means that it's a full 25 minutes before you get to hear the voice of Heinrich, or Henri as he is known in this version. And credit to José Cura, who brings his robust dramatic lyrical tenor to the role with a fluid line if not with perfect enunciation, but it's the fact that the role is sung in French that is so striking, making Tannhäuser sound almost entirely different from the more familiar German version.
As you might expect, the work has a softer, lyrical flow in French, and conductor Nathalie Stutzmann emphasises this lighter treatment with a more delicate touch. It really doesn't sound at all like the Wagner we are more familiar with, nor does it really sound like anything that we could find comparable in French opera. It's not at all like Massenet, Saint-Säens nor any of the early adopters or admirers of Wagner's methods, although only Chausson really ever attempted anything in French opera that showed overt influence. What the French version does highlight however is something closer to what Wagner himself would have been aiming for at the time of composition; something that draws from the extravagance and style of the French Grand Opéra but has a uniquely German expression. That makes it sound totally unique in that respect, and in this version you can really see why the work would have come as a shock to a conservative French audience.
Consequently, the French Tannhäuser requires a different type of singer, and that does seem to be the biggest challenge faced by the Monte-Carlo production. José Cura copes best, showing that the role of Henri requires a more lyrical Saint-Säens style tenor than it does a Heinrich Heldentenor. Even then, the French language doesn't always scan well over the long Wagnerian lines and this certainly presents problems for some of the other roles. The role of Vénus is more of a mezzo-soprano role in the French version, and it is sung well by Aude Extrémo. Élisabeth is more of a challenge, and it certainly pushes Annemarie Kremer to her limits. Steven Humes comes over well as Hermann, the Landgrave, and the Monte Carlo production also has a good Wolfram in Jean-François Lapointe, who gives a lovely rendition of 'Ô douce etoile, feu du soir' (O, du mein holder Abendstern), but Tannhäuser/Wagner is undoubtedly a challenge for the French voice. The chorus is outstanding.
Jean-Louis Grinda's production makes effective use of Laurent Castaingt's visually impressive set designs. There's an extravagance of colouration in Act I which matches the vaguely 1940s period costumes with a Powell and Pressburger like Technicolor staging. In a stage context it looks more like more the stylised designs of 'The Red Shoes' or 'Tales of Hoffmann', but it also manages to capture something of the feel of 'Colonel Blimp' or the ecstatic colour sections of 'A Matter of Life and Death'. Act I's Venusberg is extraordinary, a hallucinogenic blaze of colour and psychedelic projections that would be appropriate for Henri's indulgence in this den of sin here being more of the narcotic kind. That also suits the slighter lighter touch that takes an edge off Wagner's rather more heavy-handed social and religious moralising.
Henri's act of rebellion nonetheless still contrasts strongly with the elegant clean lines and formal dress of Act II's scenes in Wartburg. The singing contest takes place in a cathedral-like dome where a grail is ceremoniously placed centre stage. During Henri's act of rebellion, scandalising polite society with profane art that is in defiance of social niceties and musical conventions, four representations of Venus remain present, visible only to Tannhäuser. They are easily upset these fine upstanding citizens, but then so too were the original first audience at the Paris Opera, we have to remember. One can only imagine that, despite the apparent failure of the work in Paris, Wagner must have delighted that the provocation of his own act of rebellion would make him the talk of the town.
Quite what kind of acceptance that the apostate expects to find is always difficult to reconcile in Act III of Tannhäuser, and it's by no means clear what way director Jean-Louis Grinda intends to present it, other than that it is still visually arresting. In a kind of inverted world, trees hang down from the sky, while Henri appears to be walking on the clouds of heaven, while the sun rises above/below the clouds and an eye appears in the sky. Henri's salvation at the end appears to be a heavenly one only, the penitent chorus appearing over the curve rise of the stage proclaiming the miracle of the flowering staff, while Henri faces down the guns of his rivals as the last notes ring out. Heaven and eternal peace ("À lui le ciel et la paix eternelle") may be the due of the penitent sinner, but in this production there's apparently not much earthly forgiveness being offered.
Links: L'Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Culturebox
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito
Opera North, 2013
Douglas Boyd, John Fulljames, Paul Nilon, Annemarie Kremer, Fflur Wyn, Helen Lepalaan, Kathryn Rudge, Henry Waddington
Grand Opera House, Belfast, 7 March 2013
Mozart's final opera La Clemenza di Tito was composed in 1791 as a commission for the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia. It had a short-life span which barely lasted much beyond the death of Mozart just three months after its first unsuccessful performance. The opera's failure and subsequent disappearance into near-obscurity for centuries can be put down to the haste in which it was written (once account claims it was written in just 18 days), its old-fashioned opera seria structure that was based on an old libretto by Metastasio that had already been set more than 40 times by other composers, and the fact that its story of a benevolent and forgiving king was somewhat dated and out of touch even then with the revolutionary upheaval going on in Europe at the time.
Mozart was of course in ill-health and in financial difficulties by the time he came to write La Clemenza di Tito, requiring the assistance of his student Süssmayer and Catherino Mazzolà to adapt Metastasio's libretto into a workable form, but Mozart also completed some of his greatest works during the same late period, not least of which were The Magic Flute and the Requiem, so it's not surprising that the composer's final work has resurfaced and been subjected to a number of successful productions that have highlighted the aspects of the qualities that are to be found within it. Despite the rigidity of the opera seria form and the seemingly outdated libretto, it's also a work that can sustain modern and stylised reinterpretations. And, contrary to its unrealistically optimistic outlook on the wisdom and goodness of the monarchy, certain elements of Mozart's own enlightened views can be found in the work if a director is willing to delve deeper beneath the surface.
Opera North's fresh, unfussy, clean and modernistically classical account of La Clemenza di Tito (seen on tour in Belfast) is just such a production. Recognising that the strength of the work lies within Mozart's writing, there's nothing too radical attempted here in terms of interpretation. Douglas Boyd's conducting of the Orchestra of Opera North places emphasis on the structure and rhythm of the piece, not seeking to overstate the relative simplicity of the arrangements, yet it pays attention to how certain lyrical touches give warmth and personality to what would otherwise be stock opera seria characters. This is where the danger lies in any performance of La Clemenza di Tito. It can seem like a dry, conventional and academic work, remote and aloof, uninspired in many sections, simply going through the motions and without some real emotional investment on the part of the singers, it can come across as just the rote recital of lines.
A work like La Clemenza di Tito however needs some careful consideration if it is to bring these characters to life and make their predicament seem relevant. On the surface, it doesn't look like director John Fulljames has done much tweaking of the piece. The subject remains grave and serious, each of the characters involved seem to have their own personal predicaments and it seems that anything that the Roman Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus (71 to 81 AD) does will only lead to unhappiness for others. As far as traditional opera seria goes, Metastasio's libretto then meets all the necessary conditions that allow a composer to express these deep feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy, betrayal and vengeance in the musical arrangements, while the work as a whole fulfils its function as a suitable piece to put on to celebrate a coronation, showing how a monarch rules for the good of his people, with wisdom, compassion, forgiveness and clemency.
Making the work feel relevant while remaining faithful to its intentions is however still something of a challenge. Setting it in the past, in its historical setting (whether from an Ancient Roman or with regard towards its 18th century relevance), will not do a great deal for this dusty opera seria, other than making it look like an ancient operatic curiosity, but it's difficult to see how it can be applied to any modern context. Fulljames doesn't attempt to impose any specific present-day parallel (an interesting essay in the programme attempts to relate it to Boris Johnson and David Cameron's present UK coalition government, but it's far from convincing), but rather sets it in a more generically timeless modern office boardroom setting of clean lines and geometric structures. While this might not seem to do much to give La Clemenza di Tito contemporary relevance, it does however provide a perfectly appropriate environment for the meticulous elegant structures of Mozart's score, and it also reflects the progression of the drama as those lines and structures break up and fragment, only to become whole again at the end.
What brings considerably more humanity out of this work however is the careful attention paid to the emotions and the predicament of the characters, and the degree of emphasis placed on their respective positions. The key to the relevance of La Clemenza di Tito in Opera North's production, and the principal reason for its success here, lies in the consideration it gives to the relatively secondary characters of Annio and Servilia. There's good reason to assume that this is not just an arbitrary tweak that distorts the balance of the work, but that it does fit in closer to Mozart's own personal views and his distinctive approach to the work. While all the others are running around striving to further their own personal and political agendas (Vitellia to become Empress, Sesto to win the love of Vitellia, the recently appointed Tito to give his people firm, stable leadership), Annio and Servilia strike a balance between these opposing positions that seemingly cannot co-exist.
Tito's clemency at the end of the opera evidently lies at the heart of the work, mending the divisions that have been stirred up to have such terrible consequences. That healing comes about however through the intervention and selfless appeals of Annio and Servilia. Although they are indeed motivated by their love for each other, they are prepared to put their own happiness aside if it is ultimately for the greater good. Tito responds to the openness and honesty in Servilia pleas. She is the only one who speaks the plain truth that other yes-men in his inner-circle, too concerned about their own position, will not. It's Annio's honest, heartfelt appeals too that touch Tito much more than Sesto's belated regrets for his betrayal, as sincere as his sentiments may be. None of this takes anything away from the opposing contrasts that are so important in the work, or the reconciliation that takes place between them, but rather it makes their resolution just that little bit more meaningful and credible, to say nothing of truly humanistic.
It's to the credit then of Fulljames and Boyd that not only does the warmth of Mozart's writing for these parts and their importance come through, but it's not to the detriment of the other figures who are traditionally given a bigger billing. That was reflected in the way that the casting was not only strong for the main roles of Tito (Paul Nilon), Vitellia (Annemarie Kremer) and Sesto (Helen Lepalaan), but that attention was paid to singers of warmth of expression in the roles of Annio (Kathryn Rudge) and Servilia (Fflur Wyn), as well as the rather serious Publio (Henry Waddington). Not one of the performances felt like routine deliveries, but rather like their characters and personalities had been carefully thought through and given expression, without mannerism, in the smallest of details and gestures.
La Clemenza di Tito can still have challenges making a staging visually interesting and meaningful, but Conor Murphy's innovative designs and geometric lines suggested classical structures in a modern context. Back-projections and a rotating dividing screen that projected images and transformed from transparency to opacity, opened up and closed down spaces with perfect precision, working wonderfully in accord with the musical content, playing to the strengths of the work and the singers.
