Adès - Powder Her Face (NI Opera, 2017)

Thomas Adès - Powder Her Face

Northern Ireland Opera, Wide Open Opera, Belfast - 2017

Nicholas Chalmers, Antony McDonald, Mary Plazas, Adrian Dwyer, Stephen Richardson, Daire Halpin

Lyric Theatre, Belfast - 27th January 2017

Musical boundaries have certainly been pushed over the last seven years that Oliver Mears has presided as artistic director of the newly formed Northern Ireland Opera, and they don't come much more daring and frighteningly modern than Thomas Adès's 1995 opera Powder Her Face. Like all works involved in scandal however there's an indistinct boundary between whether the scandal lies in the source material - here, the notorious 1950s' divorce trial of the Duchess of Argyll and the detail revealed about her promiscuous lifestyle - or with the opera itself, infamously well-known for its rather graphic musical depiction of one of the sexual scenes in the opera. As is often the case with such material, the notoriety rarely lives up to the reality, but NI Opera's collaboration with Wide Open Opera on Adès's Powder Her Face makes a convincing case for its music-theatre qualities.

The nature of the material and how it is approached in Powder Her Face presents such challenges and if it's not pitched right it's more likely to provoke giggles than shock, but in reality neither response is particularly helpful in getting to the point of the opera. The point of Powder Her Face however, it must be said, has always been difficult to judge. Director Antony McDonald recognises that there's no way to avoid the elements of shock and giggles, but the trick really is to effectively control where the shocks and giggles should be, and to try to put them in service of the human story that is too often overlooked in the case of the Duchess of Argyll.

It's the human story that seems to be lacking in Philip Hensher's libretto. The opera is divided into eight scenes that cover the years from 1934 through to 1990. The scenes and the limited number of characters involved don't seem to be particularly well chosen and scarcely seem adequate to shed any real psychological light on the Duchess or even the extent of her scandalous extra-marital activities. The main content of the opera is framed by the two scenes in 1990, which seems to provide a distancing social context for the work, viewing the past through modern eyes. There seems to be as much emphasis placed on the peripheral characters of the servants and the hotel staff as there does on the Duchess, and their response to her, to her position and to her notoriety is emphasised in the libretto.

In the 1990 scenes, the hotel staff are deeply disrespectful, putting on her coats and jewellery and acting out the contrast between her airs and graces and the reality of her disgraced reputation. Their behaviour is in marked contrast to the how the servants and the 'lower classes' behave in the 1930s, the 1950s and the 1970s. Subservience and simmering resentment at their treatment, not to mention being used for sexual gratification, seems to deteriorate in equal measure with the decline of the reputation of the Duchess of Argyll. If the libretto suggests that Powder Her Face is a play about changing attitudes towards class and social orders, it doesn't seem to reveal anything profound or revelatory. It's the music of Thomas Adès however that gives the work another dimension.

And it's the music that suggests the tone to adopt that best suits the presentation of the opera. Antony McDonald previously directed the NI Opera/Wide Open Opera production of Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest, an equally challenging work where tone and presentation is of vital importance, and helped turn it into one of the most astonishing and entertaining productions I've ever seen. (Can we see it again please?). He seems to get the tone absolutely right yet again in this elegant and stylish Powder Her Face, not relying solely on the literal content of the libretto, but finding rather ways of presenting it that respond to the playful period musical touches with an underlying discord that contrasts with the rather more tragic personal fate of the Duchess. The Belfast audience dutifully gasped when provoked, giggled at all the right moments and responded with enthusiasm at the conclusion.

That kind of response is never solely related to just one successful aspect of a production; it all has to work together. Sensitivity to the content of the libretto and the tone of the music is one thing, but the underlying humanity of the characterisation is best served by the singing and the acting performances. That's particularly the case with the depiction of the Duchess of Argyll. Judging by the 1990 framing scenes, the audience are being asked to sympathise with this woman without there seeming to be any real humanising content provided in either the scenes or the music, but Mary Plazas - who clearly has great experience with this role - showed how much dignity there was in a woman subject to pressures of her libido and her position. It's a terrific performance that completely humanises the role.

It's this aspect that is vital not only in the understanding of Powder Her Face, it's what also ensures that the opera has a greater universality and life-span beyond the social context or the period class issues it raises. It's the degree of truth in the human story that lies underneath such issues that will determine whether the opera can sit alongside the depictions of women at odds with their times and society in La Traviata, Madama Butterfly or Lulu. As it stands, it's impossible to judge whether Powder Her Face will have a place alongside such works, but the Northern Ireland Opera/Wide Open Opera production and Mary Plazas's performance certainly got beneath the surface of a woman who is struggling to control and balance her own desires against the expectations and judgements of society, even as that society gradually changes.

The whole vitality of work, its relevance across the different periods that present differing responses of an unforgiving society, are very much contained within the performances of the other three singing roles in the opera. It's amazing in fact just how much can be conveyed by the brief scenes of no great expositional nature when you have a small cast that are capable of imbuing them with verve, personality and an essential degree of unselfconsciousness. Adrian Dwyer, Stephen Richardson and Daire Halpin throw themselves into the roles, always judging the tone perfectly. Richardson is permitted some of the more slapstick moments (and slapping with a stick moments) as Hotel Manager, Husband and Judge, which he delivers with gusto. Daire Halpin makes deceptively light work of the challenging range and variety of Maid characters, forming a terrific double act with Adrian Dwyer who is equally as impressive as the Waiter in a number of guises.

Without subtitles, the English text doesn't always carry over when it has other voices singing over one another and a complex musical arrangement to follow, but Nicholas Chalmers measured the chamber orchestration exceptionally well, with a sense of fluidity that gave greater continuity to those separate scenes with their variations in musical and dramatic tone. Credit where credit is due, Nicholas Chalmers' contribution is often overlooked alongside the more visual artistic direction of the Oliver Mears' stage productions, but he has also been an important factor in the Northern Ireland Opera success story. Certainly, the response to the opening night of this new production of Powder Her Face would seem to vindicate the approach that has been adopted by Mears and Chalmers with their NI Opera venture, and I'm sure that it will be maintained with the promising appointment of Walter Sutcliffe as the new incoming artistic director.

Links: Northern Ireland Opera

Barry - The Importance of Being Earnest

Gerald Barry - The Importance of Being Earnest

NI Opera / Wide Open Opera, 2013

Pierre-André Valade, Antony McDonald, Aiofe Miskelly, Jessica Walker, Peter Tantsits, Joshua Bloom, Stephen Richardson, Hilary Summers, Christopher Cull, Olwen Fouéré

Grand Opera House, Belfast - 30 October 2013

Welcome to Barry's world! In Northern Ireland, the name Barry's is probably most associated with a large amusement arcade and fairground ride attraction found in the seaside town of Portrush and formerly also in Bangor. The success of Gerald Barry's opera version of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest obviously has no connection to Barry's Amusements, even if it does often feel something like a wild rollercoaster ride, but there is a sense that you do need to adopt the same sense of childish abandon and leave the real world behind in order to experience the pure exhilaration of sensations that are opened to you in The Importance of Being Earnest.

I have to admit I was sceptical at first. Yes I'd read all the unanimous acclaim when the work was first performed at the Barbican in London last year, and I was aware of all the 5* reviews that this new production - a collaboration between NI Opera and Wide Open Opera - had already received before its arrival at the Grand Opera House in Belfast, but I still wasn't convinced. You see, I had actually heard the work when the Barbican performance was broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and wasn't exactly taken with hearing a cut-down version of Oscar Wilde's witty play raced through at break-neck speed and recited in high-pitched voices that rise and fall in and out of normal speech patterns according to the whims of the wayward orchestration. It was all a bit frantic and a bit mad.

Which of course was clearly the intention, as reports of some of the more outrageously anarchic stage directions that accompany the performance testify. There's the famous scene in which Cecily and Gwendolen converse through megaphones to the accompaniment of smashing plates on every syllable. Then there's Algernon and Jack having a lengthy discourse about the superiority of muffins over teacake sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. There's Lady Bracknell's outrageous account of Freude, schöner Götterfunken from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The fact that Lady Bracknell is sung by a bass is in this context not so much of a surprise, since there's often a man cast in the role even in regular performances of Wilde's drama. Just to stretch that even further however - a method that seems to be the by-word for anything to do with this opera - this production even dresses Lady Bracknell as a man.

None of which, I have to say, makes Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest sound any more attractive to a regular opera-goer than the idea of a visit to Barry's Amusements. The Importance of Being Earnest however proves to be an opera in the truest sense of the word. It doesn't stand alone on the music, it has to be seen performed, and more than just seen it has to be experienced. It's a true opera too in the sense that it gets to the heart of the drama and expresses the underlying sentiments though the music and performance far beyond the conventions of superficial drama and the recital of words. It just so happens that Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is a rather absurd comedy and Barry wrings out every single ounce of comedy and absurdity that is inherent within it. To tremendous effect.

NI Opera and Wide Open Opera's production of The Importance of Being Earnest therefore relies greatly on a staging that not only recognises and draws out the absurdity of Barry's interpretation of the work, but it must contribute to it as well. When Lady Bracknell gasps out her shock at the nature of Mr Worthing's parentage - "A hangbag!" - it should have a visual and musical response that is commensurate with the tone. For Barry and Antony McDonald's staging here that takes the form of the bearded lady-gentleman actually vomiting the words into a bucket. And when she complains about the decadence of the French and the worst aspects of the French Revolution, it similarly ought to be accompanied by visual references that match the formidable lady's wildest imaginings and result in a decapitation, at least of a hat from a head (into the vomit bucket) if not actually going as far as to remove any heads. That's about as much restraint as you can expect from this work. I think there was even some twerking here between Gwendolen and Jack "Earnest" Worthing, but honestly I'm not exactly sure what that is.

Again, try as I might, none of this makes The Importance of Being Earnest sound the least bit appealing, but the rightness of it, the sheer compelling brilliance of it as you are actually watching, listening and experiencing it is undeniable. Undoubtedly you gain more from it if you are familiar with Wilde's original comedy and practically know the lines before they are devastatingly and rapidly delivered here. I think Barry expects an audience to have some familiarity with the play or at least some of its unforgettable witticisms, but just in case and for any younger members of the audience (of which there were many - another astonishing coup for an unapologetically contemporary opera), the adapted libretto was helpfully contained in full in the programme.

As for the actual production, you could hardly expect more from the wonderful contemporary-period designs, stage props and backdrop or from the performances. Aoife Miskelly and Peter Tantsits were appropriately sparkingly bright and high as Cecily and Jack, but the work is a comic gift for all the cast, with Stephen Richardson as a scene-stealing Lady Bracknell and Jessica Walker a scene-shattering Gwendolen. A true ensemble piece, Hilary Summers, Christopher Cull and Olwen Fouéré also made fine contributions that worked wonderfully in a work that has considerable challenges of pitch and timing. Comic operas that are funny are rare enough, but to find one where even the music itself is funny is pretty much unique, and Pierre-André Valade and the Crash Ensemble worked wonders in the pit of the Grand Opera House.

This then is opera and comedy at its most compelling in its wit and inventiveness. With so many comic antics, so much humour to pick out of the compressed libretto and so much to enjoy in every scene, you could scarcely take your eyes off the stage or let your concentration drop for even a moment. Not so much in a hyperactive attention seeking kind of way, but in the respect that every single word, phrase, syllable and note holds weight, significance and comedy and you didn't want to miss a single one. The "difficult" music is not so difficult in this way, but completely in the spirit of the work. In fact, while I'm sure that Wilde's comedy drama will hardly ever age or disappear from the stage, it's going to feel rather dry and stuffy to go back to seeing The Importance of Being Earnest performed "straight" after experiencing what Gerald Barry has made of it. That's quite an achievement.