Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice
NorrlandsOperan, Armel Opera Festival 2018
Olof Boman, Åsa Kalmér, Susanna Levonen, Henriikka Gröndahl, Jeanne Gérard
ARTE Concert - 1 July 2018
You
can always find ways of bringing a conceptual or modern-day reworking
to the Orpheus myth, but what is more important in any performance of
Orfeo ed Euridice is that it responds to the beauty, purity and
simplicity of Gluck's reformist agenda for opera. The fact that it can
easily sustain both modern conceptual (Romeo Castellucci) and more
elaborate theatricality (La Fura dels Baus) and that it even has the
flexibility to cast Orfeo as a mezzo-soprano, countertenor or even a
bass! (Lyon 2015) is testament not only to the robustness of the framework
that supports the opera, but that the principles behind it are also
enduring.
It's one of the key works of all opera, one
that any composer can look back on and learn from, and many of them did.
The same goes for any jaded opera-goer (does such a thing exist?) or
even anyone who has over-indulged in Strauss, Puccini and Wagner and
wants to return right back to the basics. Whether it's the original
Italian version Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck's even more austere stripped
back French version Orphée et Eurydice or even Berlioz's edition of the
best of both worlds, it's an opera of exquisite beauty that demonstrates
what opera is capable of in its blending of music and drama, in its use
of myth and in the Orpheus-like magic of breathing new life into it
that performance can bring.
The most important aspect
then, and it's one that the Swedish NorrlandsOperan company do very well
in their production, is that most basic of opera requirements -
bringing the drama and the music together perfectly to highlight its
essential purpose. Orfeo ed Eurydice is a work that celebrates love and
music in its mythological subject, but it also considers death, grief
and new beginnings as a necessary part of human existence.
I
don't know if you can find any conceptual reading within the
NorrlandsOperan production, performed here at the 2018 Armel Opera
Festival, but the tilted mirror looking down on the stage somehow opens
up the space while at the same time closing it down. The idea of
division is important in Orfeo ed Euridice, most evidently in the
demarcation between the living and the dead, and this is as effective a
way as any of making that idea visual and ever-present. The main
difference or unique point of this particular production is that
Orpheus is a woman as well as Eurydice.
It's common
enough for a woman to sing the role of Orpheus, the role often better
suited to the more robust mezzo-soprano voice than the lyrical
countertenor (although both have their own distinct qualities), but in
the NorrlandsOperan production there is no attempt to make Orpheus look
like a man. There's no need to either and it's not just to a concession
to modern notions of diversity in relationships. The perfect
simplicity of Orfeo ed Euridice and the myth itself is that the idea of
love doesn't need to be defined in male/female terms. It's a human
experience common to everyone and a woman is quite capable as a man of
feeling the same love, grief and feelings for a loved one that takes
Orpheus to such depths and yet rise above them.
Sung by
Susanna Levonen and brilliantly directed by Åsa Kalmér, the depth of
those feelings are beautifully expressed and never more apparent than in
the glorious scene where Orpheus finally discovers Eurydice in Elysium
with the Blessed Spirits ('Torna, o bella'). For this scene, as
elsewhere, the set is simply dressed, kept down to essentials. A snowy
veil lifts away from the floor as the lovers are reunited, the ancient
pillars that were standing in Thrace now fallen in the Underworld. It's
as simple and effective as that, and as simple and effective as Gluck's
wondrous scoring of the opera.
It's given a fine musical
reading as well, Olof Boman conducting the Armel orchestra through a
full account of the work that includes all the dance pieces. I can't
say that the dancing is great, but it's good to have these pieces
included, particularly in the epilogue scenes. The chorus - a vital
character in this work - is outstanding. Henriikka Gröndahl's Eurydice
gives her character an equal footing with Orpheus, which is something
you don't always get. It's an impressive performance with purity and
sincerity of expression that takes into consideration the extreme
suffering and exquisite joy that humans are capable of experiencing.
Sung by Jeanne Gérard, Amore also has an extended role to play as a
punkish - or perhaps Puck-ish - figure in red who observes the journey
of Orpheus and permits a breaking of the usual rules.
Links: Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert
Rufus Wrainwright - Prima Donna
Armel Opera Festiival, Budapest - 2017
Gergely Vajda, Róbert Alföldi, Je Ni Kim, Mária Farkasréti, Máté Sólyom-Nagy, Botond Ódor
ARTE Concert - 19 July 2017
There are certain risks associated with writing an opera about opera, unless you are Richard Strauss and have Hugo von Hofmannsthal as a librettist. Which, as that obviously implies, means that you have a lot to live up to. Somewhat in the thrall to Romanticism then and in complete contrast to most contemporary opera composition Rufus Wrainwright's first opera Prima Donna is, to say the least, a little florid if not actually musically and dramatically overwritten. On the other hand, as an opera that is essentially about the great opera tradition, you can excuse its excesses to some extent, particularly when it's done as well as this.
Dealing with a great opera singer living in seclusion and fear of her decline in a Paris apartment, Prima Donna is clearly inspired by the fate of Maria Callas. In a Paris apartment, Régine Saint-Laurent, a former great opera singer is looking back over her career. She hasn't sung in public since the acclaimed premiere of 'Aliénor d'Aquitaine' six years ago, singing a role one that was written for her, one she believes was the greatest role of her career and indeed one of the greatest parts in any opera. But the opera was in some way cursed, and the great diva's voice failed her on the night of the second performance. She hasn't sung it or any opera in the six years since, even though the press still show considerable interest in speculating at her making a comeback.
The success of Wrainwright's opera lies in it being more than just a loving tribute to an opera diva, and it even extends beyond the belief (and successful demonstration) of the power of opera to permit one to dream. There's also an essential human side to the story that it is essential to tell, and that's more than just the tragedy of the loss of greatness, the acceptance of the failing powers, the diminution of talent and genius, or the ending of a dream. In many ways it's also about acceptance that change is inevitable and that all things come to an end.
Prima Donna has a small cast, but none of them are supporting roles. In their own way each has singing challenges as great as those given to someone playing a grand diva, but they also support the wider implications of the work. Philippe, Madame Saint-Laurent's majordomo, is perhaps the one with the greatest delusions, and the one who has the hardest time accepting the fate of his mistress. He is someone who believes he has powers, managing (invisible?) servants around, arranging for a journalist to help give Régine the confidence to return to the stage.
For a while Philippe, Marie the maid, Régine and the journalist all fall into the thrall of this dream. The journalist, professing great love for the legend of her last great performance, encourages Régine to momentarily relive the experience, singing pieces from 'Aliénor d'Aquitaine', and Wainwright scores and sets the scene admirably. The rather Saint-Saëns-like opera within an opera does indeed seem to aspire to a greater place, to transport the participants and the listener to another world, only for the reality to come crashing back in.
The musical reference points are what you might expect; hints of Wagnerian Romanticism; lush Puccini-like orchestration, numbers and sentiments; even some Janáček rhythms and structuring, with Emilia Marty of the Makropulos Case an evident reference point, but there's also an element of Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen in those deeper themes of dreams giving way to the acceptance of the harsh but undeniable realities of life. Conductor Gergely Vajda handles this without any suggestion of pastiche or irony as Wainwright's music has its own character and is closely related to the subject itself.
Whether the work touches on a deeper human element or remains lost in its own little world of opera could depend very much on how it is presented in any given production. The staging created by Róbert Alföldi specifically for the Armel Opera Festival competition in Budapest is simple but effective. It relies on the fact that the opera has a single physical location and a small cast of singers, and makes the most of them to transport the work into those other essential areas. The main transformation takes place in the appearance of Régine, between when she is over-dressed as the diva and shuffling around the apartment without her wig in a bathrobe. There are other little tricks of lighting and a 'spot-lit' platform that can transform the location and mood in a second, which this opera often does.
It shouldn't be underestimated however just how challenging the singing is for all four roles here. The female roles are really in the Richard Strauss register, dramatically and technically challenging for Mária Farkasréti's Madame Saint-Laurent, who also has to show an edge of vulnerability for the role of a great singer losing her voice to be credible. The high tessitura for Marie the maid calls for a light agile voice and Je Ni Kim (in competition) reaches those stratospheric heights impressively while retaining a sense of musicality. The journalist is also at the high end of the tenor voice, and Botond Ódor shows just how lyrical and beautiful that can be. Máté Sólyom-Nagy sings the baritone role of Philippe authoritatively and with sensitivity. The Armel production of Prima Donna is a very fine showcase for Wainwright's abilities as an adventurous and capable composer.
Links: Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert
Hans Werner Henze - Elegy for Young Lovers
Franz Liszt Academy Budapest, 2016
Gergely Vajda, András Almási-Tóth, Kim Boram, Ákos Ambrus, Botond Ódor, Karina Szigeti, Lusine Sahakyan, Diána Kiss, Alexandra Ruszó, Viktória Varga, Xénia Sárközi, Kristóf Widder
Armel Opera Festival/ARTE Concert - 2 July 2016
Hans Werner Henze's idea of opera is very much a theatrical one, where the music is in service to the drama and capable of expressing deeper psychological levels. Elegy for Young Lovers in particular is a dramatic ensemble piece that delves into the lives of a diverse group of characters and attempts to show different sides to their personality and to how they interact with one another. Using multiple singers for several of the roles, the Armel Opera Festival performance of the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest's production could be said to be an attempt to give as much of an insight as possible into Henze's musical expression of the drama and the complexities of the characterisation of Elegy for Young Lovers, or it might just unnecessarily complicate it further.
Dealing with the subject of a temperamental poet who uses his close friends and acquaintances as little more than material for his masterpieces, Elegy for Young Lovers is an attempt at a deconstruction of the Romantic ideal of the artist. It's intended to be much in the same vein as the operas of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, but even as they recognised that there was no place for such ideals in the world they lived in, you can still detect a fond reverence and nostalgia for the loss of beauty in a more innocent age in Strauss and Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos, Arabella and Der Rosenkavalier.
With a libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kalman, the callous poet supposedly based on W.B. Yeats, the treatment is a little less sentimental in Elegy for Young Lovers. Hofmannsthal is even openly referenced in the libretto, as Gregor Mittenhofer - working in his retreat at a hotel in the Alps - reads scornfully through the critical reviews of his latest work, contemptuous of the praise of lesser artists. He's no more interested either in the people that surround him other than for how he can use their own personal troubles and reactions to inform his own work. He's not beyond stirring them up either, manipulating and mistreating them just so he can get a reaction that he can use.
That's largely fine as far as Lina his secretary and Wilhelm his doctor are concerned; they are well used to Mittenhofer's temperamental behaviour and carry on regardless. Even if they receive no thanks for their efforts, they are happy enough to sing their own praises. Elizabeth however is a different matter. The young woman has flattered herself that she is Mittenhofer's muse, and as such is uncertain about whether she should marry Toni, the son of Dr Reischmann, who is in love with her. She decides to tell the poet about Toni but Mittenhofer is surprisingly magnanimous, even encouraging them to set off together, although conditions are somewhat dangerous out there on the Hammerhorn at the moment.
The reason Mittenhofer isn't particularly concerned is that he is currently writing a work called 'Elegy for Young Lovers', and is unhappy about the "emotional untidiness" that exists (in real life and in the work), and it needs to be cleared up. Setting Toni and Elizabeth up to face the world together in a potentially doomed Romantic relationship on the Alps, the young woman forsaking her higher calling for love, should provide the kind of drama that should inspire him to great poetic heights.
There are a number of other characters in the opera, including Hilda Mack, a lady whose husband disappeared 40 years ago, and whose body Josef reports has recently been brought down by the glacier. There is consequently very much an ensemble nature to the work, a puzzle of characters whose lives and reactions are used, manipulated and exploited by the poet, with no real concern for their feelings. Henze's complex theatrical sound world is very much attuned to those rhythms, fitting mood to situation and using the voice as a highly expressive instrument.
The Franz Liszt Academy production uses multiple singers in two of the roles in an attempt it seems to master the challenges of the score as much as to elucidate the behaviour of the characters. Elizabeth is played by no less than three young sopranos here, one who is in love with Toni and uncertain about her position with the poet, one who confesses her love to Mittenhofer and is confused over his reaction, and a third who is the one who leaves and becomes the idealised fictionalised version that the poet has created to resolve this messy dilemma. There are likewise two Hilda Macks in this production, one who is the Romantic ideal of the woman whose husband died on the Alps, the other the rather more prosaic reality.
Strauss and Hofmannsthal, for all their post-modern play on their subjects, might have had a little too much affection for the Romantic ideal to be properly critical of it, but that ambiguity works in their favour. It's difficult to find the same redeeming qualities in Henze's Elegy, or at least the necessary ambiguity of a genuine human response to the subject. It's a little too clinical, and at the same time, it's not really edgy enough, although that is something that is perhaps more to do with the performances. I'm sure Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the original Mittenhofer, might have presented a more nuanced reading of the poet than Kim Boram - singing in a competition role here - but the singing and the stage presentation are all good nonetheless in this Armel Festival production of an undoubtedly challenging work.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
Astor Piazzolla - Maria de Buenos Aires
Theater Orchester Biel, 2016
Esteban Dominguez Gonzalvo, Olivier Tambosi, Christiane Boesiger, Richard Bousquet
Armel Opera Festival/ARTE Concert - 29 June 2016
You wouldn't expect a tango opera to have much in common with a 'conventional' opera, and the strength of Astor Piazzolla's 'tango operita' Maria de Buenos Aires is indeed that it strives to meet the demands of the tango music's own inner narrative and tradition more than it does to conform to theatrical conventions. Staged productions of the work are rare however, so it was a pleasure to see just how lively and invigorating this piece can be when played on its own terms as it was in the captivating Theater Orchester Biel production for the 2016 Armel Opera Festival.
For it to be an opera however, Maria de Buenos Aires needs to be more than just a string of generic tango songs with a common theme linked together by a spoken narrative. Or perhaps that's not the essential criteria, as you could judge operetta and baroque opera by those standards. Initially, that does seem like the path that Maria de Buenos Aires is going to follow, the opera opening with a lament that recounts Maria's birth in a nowhere district through to her arrival as a woman looking for work in Buenos Aires and finding it in the traditional occupation for a single woman new to the big city.
What is exceptional about this opening number however (and evident throughout) is the poetry in the music and the libretto. Maria, we are told, was born on "a day that God was drunk", hammering "three black nails" into her voice, giving her a love for and a gift for the tango. We have a protagonist who is the embodiment (and later the disembodiment) of tango itself. Piazzolla's music reflects everything that is familiar with the form of the tango but with a similar poetic and self-referential expression. The familiar melancholic narrative has a celebratory rhythm, the immigrant's tale of love and misfortune sustained by a determination to weather adversity.
Piazzolla's nuevo tango music however extends the range of the traditional form to incorporate a richer melodic language that can express a wider outlook. The detached elegance of the rigid dance rhythms of the guitar, bandoneón, double-bass and piano are enriched with a jazz-influenced touch, with greater melodic expression in the violins and flute to give mood and narrative flavour. With an expanded string arrangements and drums to boost the rhythmic drive, the music for this opera has something then of the storytelling qualities of Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens or Joan Manuel Serrat, with a little of Michel Legrand's jazz swing. But it also has a little more than that. It has the tango. It's a dance.
It's another dimension, incorporating several artforms into one and giving it a dramatic narrative, that makes Maria de Buenos Aires a proper Gesamtkunstwerk - an opera. And it's the quality of Astor Piazzolla's music and Horacio Ferrer's libretto that makes it a great opera, the story not merely concerned with surface narrative, but truly exploring human nature and its expression; its expression in the form of the tango music and the dance. It's the joy and anguish of living, and what is more expressive of those moods and sentiment than the tango, jazz and the blues? It's also about dying, and Maria de Buenos Aires spends much of its second half in that world as well with the Sombra de Maria and its duende narrator.
Just like any opera however it only really comes to life in performance and the Theater Orchester Biel Solothurn production of Maria de Buenos Aires presented at the Armel Opera Festival really is a thing of wonder. It's no small matter to try and present the elusive qualities of the sometimes abstract and surreal narrative and give it a theatrical form. The dim, colourful nightclub-like lighting of Karen Petermann's set and costume design evokes the necessary mood. The songs of the opera are very much of the ballad format, sung to the audience rather than in a dramatic context and that is retained in director Olivier Tambosi's direction, but there is good expression to the narrative content in the use of dancers, who don't rely on traditional tango dancing to express the meaning of the work.
It would be a mistake in any case to present Maria de Buenos Aires as a dramatic narrative. With the profane religious overtones of a title that correlates a Buenos Aires prostitute with the Virgin Mary, the work is clearly allegorical and keen to work with contrasts and contradictions. It's those contradictions that are symbolic of the nature of life and death in Buenos Aires, that speaks of the love and regret, that tries to delve into the areas of complex human sentiments, impressions and moods that there are no words to express. It's a work of tango that ultimately speaks of the nature of the tango itself.
The musical performance of the tango ensemble under the direction of Esteban Dominguez Gonzalvo is utterly authentic, transporting you into this world. You don't need to be an expert in tango or nuevo tango to recognise the brilliance of the musical performance and the expression it gives to the drama. If the work only comes to life in the performance, Maria de Buenos Aires needs someone who can make the symbolic drama of Maria real and personal, and Christiane Boesiger's performance is impressive, switching between moods of melancholic ballads and celebratory joys with all the verve of Maria's love of tango. She also takes on the role of the duende narrator in German, but her Argentinean-inflected Spanish for the songs is just perfect. Tenor Richard Bousquet sings the role of 'the Man' in a competition role here, and although the role calls for more of a balladeer than a tenor, he sings it with great lyricism.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
Gian Carlo Menotti - The Telephone
Samuel Barber - A Hand of Bridge
Paul Hindemith - There and Back
Serbian National Theatre Novi Sad, 2016
Aleksandar Kojic, Ksenija Krnajski, Richard Rittelmann, Darija Olajos Cizmic, Zeljko R. Aandric, Jelena Koncar, Igor Ksionzik, Violeta Sreckovic, Sasa Stulic, Danijela Jovanovic
Armel Opera Festival/ARTE Concert - 1 July 2016
As well as being an advocate for the new media of radio and television as a means to promote opera and make it more accessible for a wide audience, Gian Carlo Menotti could also be critical of other forms of communication that he evidently felt didn't offer the same opportunities, such as the telephone. Somewhat ironically and quite inadvertently - it was just the most convenient option at the time - I watched this streamed recording of the Armel Opera Festival performance of Menotti's short one-act opera The Telephone on my smart phone. Perhaps since it is no lesser a medium for experiencing opera now than CD, TV or radio, Menotti might not be so quick to disparage the telephone today.
This kind of sums up both the vision of Menotti to look beyond the traditional role of opera, but also the limitations of his thinking - although he can hardly be criticised for not having foreseen the advent of the internet and smart phones 70 years ago when he composed The Telephone in 1947. Similarly, the themes in The Telephone are still universal and adaptable to the modern media - how much more of our lives are consumed with technological communication and less with physical contact with people? - but the nature of the work is also limited in its observations, which it has to be said are obvious and banal.
But essentially, that's the partly the purpose of The Telephone and also part of Menotti's observations on ordinary life as being worthy as subjects for opera. Menotti recognised in 1947 how much of a role the telephone would play in our lives, how impersonal it was as a means of communication and - depending on how we adapt to it - how it could be either a destructive force or a positive one. It might not seem all that original an observation but clearly it's still a problem that everyone continues to struggle to resolve in our ordinary daily lives.
As far as Ben is concerned in Menotti's short piece, the telephone is a great nuisance. He's going off on a trip and has decided to propose to his girlfriend Lucy before he goes. Unfortunately, he can't manage to pop the question as he is interrupted constantly by Lucy's friends calling her up on the phone, or by Lucy suddenly feeling the urge to exchange gossip or enquire about the health of her friend Margaret's cat and dog. Even a wrong number intrudes on this moment much to Ben's frustration. Eventually, showing that the phone can also serve a more useful function, Ben is finally able to propose to Lucy when he isn't even there by calling her up and proposing over the phone.
As a short 25 minute piece, The Telephone is by no means a terribly deep exploration of its subject, but it's still relevant and a universal concern that can be easily updated to a modern context. As it is evidently here in the Serbian National Theatre Novi Sad's production for the Armel opera festival, with Lucy using a mobile phone for her calls. The nature of the trivia discussed and even the comic nature of Ben trying to propose doesn't open it up to any greater purpose, and the only anachronism the production has to work around is that there is no cable that Ben threatens to cut. I'm not sure him producing a gun to shoot the thing - raising questions about Ben as a 'nice guy' - is entirely in keeping with the lighter nature of the work either.
It's a bright and colourful production however that motors along nicely, buoyed along by Menotti's jaunty chamber compositions with piano and flute, the rhythms playful in the manner of a lighter Puccini touch in something like Gianni Schicchi. The singing is mostly recitative-based - and sung in Serbian here - but that's tricky enough with the acting and movement required, not to mention bringing come character to the roles, which is done well here by Richard Rittelmann and Darija Olajos Cizmic. The work closes with a pleasant duet between one person on the stage and the other present only over the phone which perfectly illustrates the simple message of the opera that there is "you're never alone when you have a phone" but it's no substitute for real physical presence.
There are several connections that unite The Telephone with Samuel Barber's one-act opera A Hand of Bridge. The libretto was written by Gian Carlo Menotti, who was Barber's partner in life, and it also has the purpose of finding ordinary lives and everyday behaviour to be a suitable subject for accessible opera. Even playing a game of cards, there is evidently much more going on beneath the surface in the inner lives of the people gathered around the table. When you put two couples together, two men and two women each with their own personal concerns, you create a certain dynamic and a different kind of gameplay than just that of Bridge. But how much of that can you really express in a 10 minute opera?
In truth, not a lot, but - such is the nature of opera, staging and music composition - more than you might think. On face value, there's nothing surprising in the revelations of each of the couples as they each in turn set away from the table and tell us what is one their minds. Sally and Bill, David and Geraldine are concerned with trivial matters, Sally about buying a feather hat, David fantasising over wealth, power and sex; romantic notions, disillusionment and infidelity - there's nothing that is going to surprise anyone here, and despite some contemporary references in this updating to '50 Shades of Grey', there's less here that provides opportunities to make it feel more relevant.
Except, of course, that these trivialities, banal domestic matters and fantasies are still what preoccupy the minds of most people, and they can be dramatic, beautiful and funny in an opera, as Richard Strauss recognised and managed to orchestrate so well in Intermezzo (which as I recall, also has a game of Bridge in it). With only ten minutes to work with Samuel Barber obviously can't compete with that, but for all it is A Hand of Bridge can be brightly entertaining and imbued with character, and this production demonstrates that well.
As such a short piece it's also a work that obviously needs to be programmed with complementary works. Here, as part of the Armel Festival's 'Omnibus Opera' it comes between Menotti's The Telephone and Paul Hindemith's There and Back, the three combined barely adding up to 50 minutes in length. Hindemith's 10-minute piece is another little domestic incident, a scene between a husband and wife having a dispute over a letter he believes comes from her lover. Hindemith's twist however is a clever one, the scene ending with the husband shooting the wife, only for the entire scene to be straightaway played out again backwards on the intervention of a wise man with mystical powers.
Hindemith's palindrome structure for the short piece plays around with time to highlight the impact of cause and effect. If we knew an action might lead to an unhappy outcome, would we not modify our actions? Mainly however, the piece is just pure entertainment, a dramatic exercise that provides good opportunities for a small troupe of singers and musicians to run through their paces. The Novi Sad Theatre production doesn't attempt to do a lot with it, settling for a bold colourful cartoon version instead of the usual ordinary domestic setting. It takes its lead in this respect from the other two works, the letter of suspected infidelity in this case updated to a text message on a mobile phone, making it a familiar scene that will doubtless have been played out many times, although without the benefit of being able to take it all back. The musical performance is buoyant and playful, capturing the exuberance and richness of the piece.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
Péter Eötvös - Senza Sangue/Béla Bartók - Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
Opéra Grand Avignon, 2016
Péter Eötvös, Róbert Alföldi, Nadine Duffaut, Romain Bockler, Albane Carrére, Adrienn Miksch, Károly Szemerédy
Armel Opera Festival/ARTE Concert
Based on a psychological revenge thriller by Alessandro Baricco, Péter Eötvös' short one-act opera Senza Sangue might not seem to have much in common with Bartók's Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, but the pairing of the works by the two Hungarian composers proves to be complementary. The connections and commonalities between the two works are further emphasised by the conducting of both by Péter Eötvös in this Opéra Grand Avignon production for the Armel Opera Festival.
Effectively, Eötvös has reduced Baricco's novel down to its final confrontation, bringing the intensity of what has gone before entirely into a conclusion that is short on drama but filled with tension and intriguing implications. Nina has tracked down a man she has been looking for, a 72 year old lottery ticket seller called Tito who formerly went under the name of Pedro Cantos. 52 years ago he was one of three men who killed her father and he is now the only one left alive. Nina invites the man for a coffee where she reveals that she was present when her father was killed, and she believes it was Pedro who fired the first shot.
From the conversation that takes place between the man and the woman - the dramatic action of the opera not really consisting of much more than that - we are led to believe that Nina has spent her whole life tracking down the three men, and may have been responsible for their deaths, but reduced down to the conclusion alone Senza Sangue becomes much more than a revenge story. It's about a young life that has been destroyed by war, condemned to live in hatred for the rest of one's life, shaped by this one terrible event. "Even if life has no meaning, we go through it with one desire", Nina tells the man, "To return to the hell that created us".
If there's not much in the way of drama, the accompanying music by Péter Eötvös delves much deeper into this troubled soul. The music is tonal, but dark, slow, twisting and stripped down of ornamentation. Not surprisingly, considering the subject, it reminds the listener of Strauss's Elektra, moods fluctuating and rising to the surface in surges, always with ominous undercurrents. The music doesn't just take in the woman's view however, but contrasts it with the man's perspective. There's hesitancy in its flitting, dancing, confusion but with a thread of acceptance underpinning the fear that this day would eventually come. But there's also a measure of challenge to the woman's viewpoint.
The story is evidently not as simple as it seems, and Eötvös's music and the setting probe this further. The man does not attempt to condone his killing of Nina's father, but he does make the point that it was done in a time of war. He was a soldier, he was fighting to build a better society. Vengeance runs both ways. Moreover, he was aware of the young child in the room, saw her hiding and let her live. The tone between the man and the woman gradually changes the more they discuss and come to understand each other. For all the lack of drama and the 'talky' nature of the treatment, Senza Sangue is a subject as operatic as they come, all the more intense for being played out between two people. Péter Eötvös has room to explore these characters in this situation for all the complexity and nuance of their positions and does so brilliantly in this fascinating work.
Senza Sangue is well paired here with Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle. Seen together, the commonalities are obvious, both short one-act operas, both detailing a situation between a man and a woman where there is much more going on beneath the surface than the obvious, the music of both works highly attuned to the psychological or the symbolic underpinnings. Perhaps most significantly - although Senza Sangue is in the Italian language of its source novel - both works are by Hungarian composers.
Conducting his own work as well as Bartók's, Eötvös emphasises the musical connections between the works, or perhaps it might be more a case that he adapts Bluebeard to make it a little more complementary to the tone and the intent that has been established in Senza Sangue. This is not the harsh, jagged, disturbing inner-world of Bartók's dark score, but rather a more sensitive reading that likewise strives to find a neutral position between Judith's troubling inquisitiveness and Bluebeard's admonition to "look but don't question". Like the lesson in Senza Sangue, you won't always find the answers that you want, or worse, you can risk creating the hell you are trying to escape.
Directed by Róbert Alföldi (Senza Sangue) and Nadine Duffaut (Duke Bluebeard's Castle) for the Armel festival, the stage production for both works is clean, simple and neutral, reflecting the neutral position of the musical treatment of the subjects. Other than a gun being shown in the hands of the woman at the start, there is little in the way of props in Senza Sangue, the real drama taking place on an inner psychological level. It's much the same with Duke Bluebeard's Castle, with only sinister figures in the background and semi-abstract projections for each of the rooms adding to the disquieting, sinister undercurrents that come with the peeling back of the psychological layers. The imagery remains, surprisingly but appropriately for the purpose of this production, rather bloodless - senza sangue.
The singing is excellent throughout, noninflected, expressive of character without over-emphasis, allowing those ambiguities and uncertainties within the personalities and the subject to remain. Romain Bockler as Pedro in Senza Sangue was the only competition singer and held all the dramatic tension well alongside Albane Carrére's Nina. Adrienn Miksch and Károly Szemerédy took those personalities a stage further in Duke Bluebeard's Castle, the careful dance between probing and wariness leading to a fraught situation that demands a resolution, although not necessarily lead to the desired outcome.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
Gaetano Donizetti - L'assedio di Calais
English Touring Opera, 2015
Jeremy Silver, James Conway, Craig Smith, Paula Sides, Catherine Carby, Matthew Stiff, Andrew Glover, Ronan Busfield, Matt RJ Ward, Jan Capinski, Peter Braithwaite, Nicholas Merrywether
Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert - 29 June 2015
One of the rarer works in the Donizetti catalogue but certainly not a lesser one, L'assedio di Calais (The Siege of Calais) was written to appeal to the Paris Opera and has certain Grand Opera characteristics that set it apart from most of the composer's other works. The opera didn't reach Paris, although Donizetti would have success there later with Les Martyrs and La Favorite, L'assedio di Calais opening instead at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1836. Despite its undoubted qualities, the work still had some problems that Donizetti himself was displeased with, but even though it was later revised down from three acts to two, L'assedio di Calais soon vanished and wasn't performed after 1840.
Reviving this rare work, the English Touring Opera then wisely opted for the two-act version of L'assedio di Calais which has some of the dropped third act elements worked in. James Conway's production was well received when it toured the UK in 2013 and it was revived in 2015 and selected as one of the productions for this year's 2015 Armel Opera Festival competition. The work was acclaimed for its music in the first two acts, and based on this performance, rightly so. Donizetti's music is characteristically melodic, but additionally concise and dramatic here, the usual jauntiness of the composer's rhythms taking on a more sober, sombre tone in accordance with its subject.
The action takes place in 1346, at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. At the beginning of the revised opera, the English soldiers led by King Edward III (Edoardo), are becoming frustrated with their siege of the city of Calais. The city however is close to breaking point. The mayor Eustachio is deeply concerned for the citizens of Calais as well as for the fate of his own son Aurelio who is believed lost in an incursion against the English. Aurelio's wife Eleonora, joins him in a lament (beautifully sung by Craig Smith and Paula Sides) that turns to joy when news comes that Aurelio is alive.
Their joy is short-lived. "Let us not get caught up in sentimentality", Aurelio tells his loved ones after a brief moment of reunion, and Donizetti doesn't indulge on that front either. Neither really has time for it, as the citizens of Calais, fearful and starving, confront the mayor, blaming him for a situation that they have been led to believe could have been peacefully resolved. Eustachio however points out that the ringleader of the protests is none other than an Englishman in disguise trying to undermine their resolve, and the town react violently against the imposter.
The opening of The Siege of Calais is incredibly intense, with fervent singing that has all the necessary drive and expression to match the dire situation of the besieged city. There is inevitably a lot of patriotic fervour, and according to the ETO one of the main themes of the work is where the duty of a citizen lies, but beneath it all is a strong humanitarian sentiment that shines through. Not only is it clearly there in the music, but as is often the case with Donizetti, the writing for the singers allows the depth of feeling to be fully expressed. Even the structure and development of the drama reflects this, the expressions of fear, anxiety and despair invariably turning into hope, strength and determination.
The humanitarian crisis is also the focus of James Conway's dark, gritty, oppressive production. The setting is not period, but non-specific modern dress of an embattled nation of people, all of them dressed in dull rags and overcoats, sporting wounds and looking beaten-down. Conway's notes that the look is referenced from imagery from the bombardment of Stalingrad in WWII, but it captures something that is recognisable to anyone who watches the news. The questions facing a suffering people, the choices they have to make are what L'assedio di Calais is all about, and the ETO's production design reaches right out to those ideas much more meaningfully than a distant middle-ages conflict.
The tone darkens even further in Act II, beginning with Aurelio dreaming of his son and family slaughtered, and it doesn't get any better from there. The English have agreed to withdraw their siege of the town, but there's a price to be paid; six hostages must be handed over for execution. In line with the sentiments, the musical scoring goes to the kind of dark places that remind one of what Verdi would do later, but it's impressive to hear it in Donizetti. There's a little bit of jingoism in the sentiments as the men step forward to save their city - "By a cruel twist of fate we are victims, but we are still French!", they may proclaim, but the fire that lights their anger comes from a deeper place.
Links: ARTE Concert, English Touring Opera
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mitridate, re di Ponto
Tbilisi State Opera and Ballet, 2014
Davit Kintsurashvili, David Sakvarelidze, Boram Lee, Sébastien Obrecht, Irina Taboridze, Tatia Jibladze, Salome Jicia, Irakli Murjikneli, Nino Chachua
Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert - 16 October 2014
Despite their relative conventionality and their adherence to the rigid structures and longeurs of the opera seria, there is still much to admire in Mozart's early operas. Midridate, re di Ponto, composed in 1770 when Wolfgang was only 14 years old, shows much of the composer's ability to develop a strong and beautiful melodic line and a remarkable facility for a musical setting that accentuates and enhances the sentiments of the libretto.
The libretto for Midridate, re di Ponto isn't so different from so many Baroque opera seria plots, a typically complex mixture of political intrigue and mismatched couples in unrequited love situations. As is also common, this state of affairs has been foolishly instigated by a king or a ruler with the best of intentions, but having misread the signals and advice given to him, it results in feelings of despair, betrayal and revenge. The raw materials don't matter as much however as the ability and skill of the composer in question to set it to music. Even at this early age, within the restrictions of the opera seria format and with such conventional material, the young Mozart's ability to make it come to life can't be faulted.
It's not exactly inspired, but there's a wonderful sense of order and construction to Mozart's music that just gives it an uncommon balance and coherence. The music itself is mostly straightforward, but blessed with Mozart's gift of melody that you'll also find in his elegant and graceful early symphonies. What's different about the compositions here of course is that Mozart is also writing for the voice. Even in the early Mozart operas we can already see prototypes of characters that he would explore later with considerably more depth and humanity. If the characters don't quite come to life in the same way in Midridate, re di Ponto, they are nonetheless beautifully coloured by the testing range and coloratura that Mozart writes for them.
This makes Midridate, re di Ponto a good opera for singers and a good testing ground for a competition entrant in the Armel Opera Festival. Being an opera seria, the emphasis is on the voice and individual expression more than in any kind of collaborative dramatic performance. The drama and interaction is all played out in recitative, with the arias and da capo giving expression to individual responses to the tumultuous events. That doesn't mean that there isn't a dramatic quality to the singing, or genuine collaboration between the singers, and you realise that when you hear a Mozart setting of just such a work. They each have a distinct personality, they each reflect various sides and responses to the drama, and bring it together into a satisfying whole.
The quality of Mozart's writing for the voice only comes out however when you have the right kind of voices in the roles. That's a challenge in itself when Midridate has roles written for two soprano castratos and an alto soprano. With female sopranos and a mezzo-soprano playing those as trouser roles, and light, sweet voices in the tenor and soprano roles, you can however match the qualities that Mozart puts into the music, and those qualities enhance the nature of the characters considerably. That's achieved here particularly well by the Tbilisi State Opera company with Sébastien Obrecht as Midridate and Irina Taboridze as Sifare, but it also provides the best possible environment for the lovely voice of Boram Lee to sing the challenging role of Aspasia. As the woman who comes between the king and his two sons, Sifare and Farnace, all of whom are in love with the same woman, it's a critical role to get right.
It's particularly critical that the right voices are behind these characters and able to express the turmoil it gives rise to because otherwise it would be hard to summon up much interest for the standard developments of the opera's plot. The singing here however supports and gives good expression to the qualities that are there within Mozart's wonderful music. It also helps that the score is conducted by Davit Kintsurashvili with attention to the rhythm of the action and played with a delightful brightness, verve and a completely authentic Mozartian buoyancy by the orchestra. Performed like this, the work can be enjoyed on a purely auditory level, or even on a dramatic-auditory level as it satisfyingly hits all the required points and sentiments.
With this kind of interpretation also, you can quite happily put up with the initial confusion and the latter couldn't-care-less-anyway manner of how the plot of Mitridate, re di Ponto runs through its standard routines. In terms of the staging, there's not much you can do with the rigidity of the opera seria format either, but director David Sakvarelidze keeps the drama moving along with surprising fluidity. The set comes up with nothing more than the familiar generic ruins of antiquity, but good lighting and stage direction prevent the performance from ever feeling repetitive, static or overlong. Cutting the work down to around two hours might also have helped also in this respect. It might be no masterpiece, but this was an utterly delightful account of an underrated and under-performed (aren't they all?) early Mozart.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
Harrison Birtwistle - Punch and Judy
Neue Oper Wien, 2014
Walter Kobéra, Leonard Prinsloo, Richard Rittelmann, Manuela Leonhartsberger, Till von Orlowsky, Jennifer Yoon, Lorin Wey, Johannes Schwendinger, Evamaria Mayer
Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert - 14 October 2014
With its Commedia dell' Arte origins and the violence of its content, the Punch and Judy English seaside puppet show was always a curious subject for a children's entertainment, but it's evident that the sinister nature of the show has inevitably had a marked impression on a generation of children. Much like the adult response now towards clowns, what once seemed like fun in a more innocent age now appears somewhat sinister and unsettling. Harrison Birtwistle's opera Punch and Judy takes advantage of all these connotations related to the origins and the nature of the work as well as what the appeal of it says about the English character.
The work caused a bit of a stir when it was premiered in 1968, with Benjamin Britten reportedly walking out of a performance of the work at Aldeburgh. Since Britten himself had a somewhat conflicted and critical view of the nature of the English society in his opera works, it's hard to imagine that he found the subject of Punch and Judy entirely unappealing, although it does admittedly push violence much further and take what appears to be a more extreme cartoonish view of character than anything in Britten's work. I would think that Britten's difficulty with Birtwistle's opera (if it's even true), may however lie in the unsettling nature of the music.
Even now at the age of 80, with several major celebrations this year to mark the occasion, Harrison Birtwistle has never been an accepted part of the musical establishment. His work can be difficult to listen to and challenging of conventions. Punch and Judy, amongst all the other reasons why the subject might be distasteful and vaguely disturbing, uses musical ideas, structures and dissonance in a way that is similar to, or perhaps even intentionally evokes resonances with Berg's treatments of the dark, violent subjects of Lulu and Wozzeck. With a fine libretto by Stephen Pruslin that perfectly suits Birtwistle's intent and structural methods, the work uses cyclical repetition and subtle subversion of musical and text motifs for impact.
The story of Punch and Judy is a familiar one, although over the years it has evolved its own pantomime conventions and characters. Punch, derived form the Commedia dell' Arte character Pulcinella, is a mean and violent trickster. The story itself has become a by-word for marital strife of a particularly violent nature. In Punch and Judy, Punch, disappointed with family life and attracted to the unattainable beauty of Pretty Polly, casually throws his baby in the fire, and when his wife discovers what he has done he brutally stabs her to death. Punch's efforts to win over Pretty Polly drive him to further crimes and murders of a doctor, a lawyer and his friend Choregos.
A grotesque parody of Commedia dell' Arte archetypes combined with some theatre of the absurd mannerisms; a satire of the English character as exemplified by life in seaside towns; Punch and Judy is a study of misery and malevolence that recognises some very disturbing as well as familiar character traits. Birtwistle's music and Pruslin's libretto don't so much expand on the character of Punch as take it out further into the world and consider it in the greater scheme of things. This Punch is geographically, astrologically, mathematically, musically, seasonally and colourfully located on his journey of destruction and mindless violence, and he wreaks havoc over the whole spectrum of human endeavour.
The only way the work can be any more sinister and disturbing is when it is staged, and the Neue Oper Wien production, performed at the Armel Opera Festival in Budapest, is truly the stuff of nightmares. "The bitterness of this moment is undeniably sweet/ The sweetness of this moment is undeniably bitter" is one of the recurrent phrases and motifs in the work, and that's the tone a staging of the work has to aim for. Leonard Prinsloo's direction for the Neue Oper Wien and Monika Biegler's set and costume design resembles something from Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton's worst nightmares.
That comparison suggests stylisation, but Punch and Judy should be aiming for archetypal rather than realism, and it has that here with an extra bite of grit and shadowy mystery. If you could imagine Burton or Gilliam directing Wozzeck, it might look something like this, but there are other operatic references worth considering in this field including Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges and even Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. Pretty Polly, the unattainable object of Punch's desires, would appear to be very much modelled on Olympia, the mechanical doll of Hoffmann's somewhat disturbing and illicit fascination. Pretty Polly even has the same high-end soprano range - even more exaggerated here - and it's sung marvellously by Jennifer Yoon in the production performed here at the Armel Opera Festival.
All of the roles however call for very specific voice ranges, and the casting elsewhere is impressive. There was an extraordinary power and beauty to mezzo-soprano Manuela Leonhartsberger's Judy/Fortune Teller, and Till von Orlowsky also impressed as Choregos. The principal role however, and the competition role for the festival was Hungarian Richard Rittelmann who handled the high baritone range of Punch very well. There's nothing easy about Birtwistle's writing for the voice and the role is also a physical one in a one-act opera that is almost two hours long, but like the rest of the cast, Rittlemann just threw himself into the madness of it all. That's the way to do it.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
Jaroslav Krček - Clothes the world has never seen (Šaty, jaké svět neviděl)
Josef Kajetán Tyl Theatre - Pilsen, Czech Republic, 2014
Vojtěch Spurný, Magdalena Švecová, Jan Ježek, Ivana Klimentová, Jiří Brückler, Jan Adamec, Dalibor Tolaš, Roman Dušek
Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert - 9 October 2014
A contemporary composer who bases an opera on the story of 'The Emperor's New Clothes' sets himself up for some potential ridicule, but veteran Czech composer Jaroslav Krček's one-act opera Clothes the world has never seen (Šaty, jaké svět neviděl) straddles the divide between the classical and the modern well by underpinning the medieval setting of the work with folk-like melodies. This comes across particularly well in this stylish production by the Josef Kajetán Tyl Theatre of Pilsen in the Czech Republic presented at the 2014 Armel Opera Festival in Budapest.
The libretto for Clothes the world has never seen was written by the composer himself, based on a play by Věra Provazníková that is drawn from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. This short opera works very much towards the same moral of the original fairy tale, but rather than it being a child that draws attention to the Emperor's pretension and pomposity, this version plays on the distinction between the king and his fool, and the reversal of what we expect from people in those positions.
The fool is of course no fool at all. He's the king's confidante, the person who can tell him things that others would be afraid to say to the king for fear of their position. It's all very much a matter of strategy and daring, and the opera and the J. K. Tyl Theatre of Pilsen production reflect this well right from the outset by setting the work on a stage that is designed as a chessboard. The chorus of courtiers that introduce the work and provide commentary throughout, are dressed in black-and-white as pieces on the chessboard where a game is being played out between the king and his jester.
Fed up with the responsibilities that come with being ruler and viewing a marriage to the Queen with some concern, the king asks his fool to think how clever he would be in the same position. When the Queen appears however, both men are captivated by her beauty, and the challenge between them takes on a new edge. Trying to demonstrate his superiority, the king however allows himself to be duped into ordering custom made clothes stitched with invisible thread that can only be seen by the wise and the noble. The question of who is wise and noble is of course overturned by the fool when the 'transparency' of this thinking is revealed.
Not unsurprisingly, being a Czech opera with folk music elements and clearly working the music to the speech rhythms of the libretto, there's an evident Janáček influence here. Rather than blending the elements of the old and the new together however, Jaroslav Krček's music draws a greater distinction between them in a way that reflects the opposition of old and new ideas that are the subject of the work. The medieval like folk-music arrangements of the chorus that punctuate the work give an appropriate fairy-tail narrative quality, while the discourse that is carried out between the king and the fool according to their own rhythms has a slightly more dissonant edge to it.
Although subtitles weren't available on the ARTE broadcast to examine the detail of the libretto, the production carried all the necessary nuance for this short work. The contrasting musical elements were vividly drawn out by the musical director and conductor Vojtěch Spurný and they found a complementary balance in Zuzana Přidalová's colourful and imaginative stage designs. Magdalena Švecová's direction further enhanced the contrast and complementary battle of wits between Jan Ježek's King and Jiří Brückler's Jester. Clothes the world has never seen was presented at the Armel Opera Festival in a double bill with another short one-act opera, Gábor Kerek's Parody. Entertainingly scored and played, its contrasting views of a Chemistry lesson in a classroom proved impossible to follow however in Czech without subtitles.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
Marco Tutino - The Embers
Szeged National Theatre, 2014
Sándor Gyüdi, Attila Toronykóy, Tamás Altorjay, Jean-Philippe Biojout, Szilveszter Szélpál, Tivadar Kiss, Krisztina Kónya, Boglárka Laczák
Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert - 9 October 2014
Based on a novel by Sándor Márai, Embers deals with the passing of time, with youthful ideals and old-age regrets, with friendship and love and how it too can change over time and under the cold gaze of reflection. The time span of the work also presents an allegorical level of the change that occurred in the world around the turn of the 20th century. Marco Tutino's one-act opera effectively treats the question of youthful friendship and idealism embittered by the passing of time within its musical composition, while the production of the work's world premiere at the 2014 Armel Opera Festival, highlights the supernatural element that expresses the allegorical side of the work.
The drama in the opera is divided between the present of 1940 and a significant moment in 1899. In the present, and old man Henrik lives a solitary and embittered existence in a room of faded paintings. He has advised his servant Nini that he is expecting a visit from an old friend Konrad, but the prospect of the visit is not one that brings him any happiness. It stirs up old memories of a time when Henrik was in love with Kristina. All his life Henrik has had suspicions stemming from events one day in July 1899, the day of the hunt. Kristina's presence in Konrad's room and a suspicion that Konrad actually took aim at him during the hunt, have led him to believe that they had an affair. Many years later, having walked out on both of them, Henrik still replays the events in his mind, unable to find any answers. He hopes that Konrad's visit after 40 years will put matters to rest.
Dealing with the passing of time, questions of regret for the past, of falling in love with the wrong person, of a love triangle situation resulting in jealousy and the shattering of illusions, Embers recalls both Eugene Onegin and Pélleas et Mélisande, and Marco Tutino's score even employs the same musical language. It's a modern score however and there are no direct or indirect quotes of Tchaikovsky or Debussy, but it uses contrasting styles to highlight the differences between the periods. On the one side there is the joy and youthful idealism of the three young people before the Great War and on the other is the bitter experience that has marked Henrik in the present just as another world war commences.
There's a personal element then to the sense of disillusionment with love and friendship, but it's tied then into a reflection on the differences between a more carefree time in the Austro-Hungarian empire of the late 19th century and the reality of the 20th century post-war world. It's as if the actions of Konrad, prepared to take a shot at his best friend, are a betrayal of the old rules of decency, duty and behaviour that has led to or in a way foreshadowed the barbarism unleashed in the Great War. In Henrik's mind, at least, and that's the world that the composer attempts to explore in Embers. Tutino is aware of how these historical events changed the musical landscape of the 20th century, and it's the reflection of that in the score that marks it out from Tchaikovsky and Debussy's musical treatments of such subject matter.
That contrast is also reflected in Attila Toronykóy's direction of the world premiere of the work for the Szeged National Theatre at the Armel Opera Festival. If there are any suggestions of Eugene Onegin and Pélleas et Mélisande, it perhaps as much to do with how the two distinct periods of the work are treated, the past played out in 19th century period with younger versions of the main characters, while the present is a much more shadowy and unsettling abstract world of dark undercurrents where morals have been subverted. This takes an abstraction of being practically photo-negative, the older Henrik wearing a white suit with dark grey shirt, his face blanched white, the glass of wine he holds coloured blue. Portraits on the wall are also negatives, as is the significant scene - one fixed in Henrik's mind - of one man pointing a gun at another on the day of the hunt.
The timelines are however not entirely distinct and the past does bleed into the present. Rather than the ghosts being those of the past, the production design places emphasis on it being the older Henrik and Konrad who are the ghosts. Shadows of themselves, you might say, broken by the past, but the final lines of the libretto give this a more literal (or perhaps ethereal) reading. Perhaps both Konrad and Henrik have died in the war and are restless spirits that are still looking for answers. Inevitably, definitive answers are hard to come by.
The Armel Opera Festival is also a singing competition, and both the competition singers for this performance - Tamás Altorjay singing the bass role of the older Henrik and Jean-Philippe Biojout singing the bass-baritone role of the older Konrad - richly expressed the dark melancholic undercurrents of the libretto. Despite the focus being on the older and younger versions of the men, the importance of the woman in the middle is not neglected, and Krisztina Kónya gave an outstanding performance as Kristina. The younger men were sung by Szilveszter Szélpál and Tivadar Kiss, with Boglárka Laczák giving a fine performance also in the role of Nini.
Links: ARTE Concert, Armel Opera Festival
