Giuseppe Verdi - Luisa Miller
Malmö Opera, 2012
Michael Güttler, Stefano Vizioli, Olesya Golovneva, Vladislav Sulimsky, Taras Shtonda, Luc Robert, Ivonne Fuchs, Lars Arvidson, Emma Lyren
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
It's not often that you see something new or conceptual attempted with an early Verdi opera. Partly that's because they aren't performed often enough and, on the rare occasions they are produced, it's usually safer to keep unfamiliar works in their original setting rather than confusing the audience with a high-concept production. Partly however, it's got a lot to do with the relatively straightforward subjects of the works themselves not really lending themselves to reinterpretation. The themes in Luisa Miller are based however on universal sentiments, so there's no reason why - despite some creaky plot points - that something a little more adventurous can't be attempted with the staging.
The Malmö Opera's 2012 production of Luisa Miller finds an excellent way to make Verdi's opera a little more visually interesting than this particular work might otherwise be, without having to obscure the original dramatic points in some ill-fitting modernised concept. The costumes remain period and traditional, all the drama is carried out according to the stage directions (there's no anachronistic use modern technology or appliances), but there's a little bit of stylishness applied to the set designs - and perhaps a little symbolism - that works well to give a little bit of extra emphasis to the dramatic situation.
Based on 'Kabale und Liebe' by Friedrich von Schiller, the plot of Luisa Miller is a familiar one, or at least familiar in Verdi adaptations of such material. In broad terms it's about fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, it's about family and duty, it's about love and betrayal, freedom and suppression. Luisa is planning to marry Carlo, who is in reality Rodolfo, son of a wealthy landowner. Rodolfo's father Count Walter however has other plans for a more favourable alliance that can be achieved by his son marrying the Duchess Federica. In between, there's the manipulative figure of Wurm, the Count's steward, who is in love with Luisa himself and does his best to blackmail her into renouncing her love for Rodolfo.
The plot doesn't really need any extra spelling out, and Verdi's score speaks plainly and eloquently enough for itself, but a little bit of theatrical reinvention can make some of the more melodramatic points sit a little better with a modern-day audience. Rather than merely providing backdrops, the staging at Malmö illustrates this situation well with some big gestures. Two giant hands split the platform of a grassy verge when Wurm makes his divisive entrance in Act I, boxed-in rooms close down Luisa's options in later scenes, and a huge hand puts the squeeze on the lovers in Act III. It's slightly abstract, but in keeping with the tone of the work, the colours and lighting playing just an important a role in matching the heightened reality of the drama.
Verdi traditionally scores rousingly for such material, and he does so here in Luisa Miller as well. The score doesn't perhaps quite have the mastery of characterisation that can be found in his subsequent works - not just the mature works, but the sophistication that can be found in the not-far-off La Traviata and Rigoletto - but it's perfectly attuned nonetheless to the dramatic narrative. As conducted here for Malmö Opera by Michael Güttler, the orchestra give Verdi's score a romantic sweep that is in keeping for this work, although I daresay it would be attacked more idiomatically and with a little less delicacy by an Italian orchestra. As it is, it sounds wonderful here, showing the beauty of Verdi's arrangements.
Verdi's other great achievement in Luisa Miller is in his writing for the voice. Arias are well-placed at key moments and have the necessary impact ('Quando le sere al placido' in Act II being one of the work's few famous highlights), but Verdi also drives the narrative through duets, punctuates it with some beautiful choral work and even throws in an acapella quartet to show off the beauty of the combined voices. It's wonderful if you have the right singers in the roles and the cast and chorus at Malmö show how impressive that writing is. In the main roles, that's Luc Robert as the conflicted Rodolfo and Olesya Golovneva as Luisa, but there's good support from Vladislav Sulimsky as Miller and Lars Arvidson as Wurm.
Golovneva in particular has the right temperament and timbre for this character. It should not an overpowering soprano voice but that of a delicate woman, initially bright, happy and in love who is gradually broken down by manipulative figures through fear of reprisals. The journey to her death is tricky to navigate, but Golovneva manages to sing the role without the melodramatic mannerisms that you might expect, yet still make her Luisa heartfelt and expressive. It's a style of performance that is perfectly in keeping with the intentions of the production and the staging here at Malmö, showing how effectively early-to-mid Verdi can be treated without revising or reinterpreting the work.
Malmö Opera's Luisa Miller is released on Blu-ray and DVD by Arthaus Musik. On Blu-ray, the disc is BD25, all region with subtitles in Italian, English, German, French and Korean. The filming is excellent, using lots of close-ups that show the intensity of the performances, the recording capturing the strong colour schemes that also play a part in setting the tone of the work.
Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos
Glyndebourne, 2013
Vladimir Jurowski, Katharina Thoma, Thomas Allen, Soile Isokoski, Kate Lindsey, Laura Claycomb, Dmitri Vargin, James Kryshak, Torben Jürgens, Andrew Stenson, Sergey Skorokhodov, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Ana Maria Labin, Adriana Di Paola, Gabriela Iştoc, William Relton, Frederick Long, Michael Wallace, Stuart Jackson
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
The purpose or indeed the true worth of Ariadne auf Naxos isn't always immediately identifiable. Like Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella and Capriccio, the opera is partly a homage to opera and older forms of music and in how they clash with a more modern sensibility, and partly it's an experiment with style and form. Musically and poetically - even in its pastiche of "music hall" - it's clearly a work of exquisite beauty and sophistication, but isn't it really just a frivolous exercise that's overly contrived and ultimately inconsequential? Ariadne auf Naxos however has not only remained enduringly popular over the years but in spite of the apparent limitations of its construct it has also proved to be remarkably open to exploration, reinvention and reinterpretation.
Ariadne auf Naxos, of course, is only silly and inconsequential if it's allowed to be and only if it's played either too straight or too much for laughs. It's easy to underestimate it on the basis of its central conceit, which is a bit of an inside joke. The Prologue is set at the house of the richest man in Vienna who has commissioned the performance of two operas for his dinner party, one a rather heavy opera seria on a classical subject 'Ariadne auf Naxos', the other an opera buffa 'The Fickle Zerbinetta and her Four Suitors', a vaudeville comedy "with song and dance and a plot as clear as day". Due to an unavoidable change in the schedule for the evening's entertainment however, it's been decided that they now only have time to put on both works before the firework display at nine if they are performed simultaneously. The second part of the opera after the Prologue then is the "hilarious" clash between two works that seem to have nothing in common, but which remarkably work together to create something extraordinary.
The coming together of high art and low entertainment to reach out and say something meaningful to an audience then is the "message" of Ariadne auf Naxos. This can be summed up in an early exchange between the conflicting sides over how to bring the two works together. Discussing the Princess Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus and her abandonment on a desert island, her situation is described as "Wracked with yearning she longs for death", to which the rejoinder is "Death? What she really wants is another man." And in essence Zerbinetta's deflating of the lofty expressions of Ariadne's self-indulgent grief does reflect the belief that life's difficult questions may indeed be found in life's simple pleasures. Does the opera however really need so much artifice to deliver such a simple sentiment?
Well, Ariadne auf Naxos is about the transformative power of love, the creation and realisation of one's dreams and illusions, the creation of "little gods", and in a way that's what opera does too. It's not life, it's an artificial construct, but it's one that nonetheless contains essential truths, real emotions and feelings, and packages them up in a way that communicates directly to the listener through the magic of music and stagecraft. It's the stagecraft then - the sets, the lighting, the performances - that determines the success of Ariadne auf Naxos (or indeed any opera), and in terms of its presentation directed here brilliantly by Katharina Thoma for Glyndebourne 2013, the opera communicates to the audience everything it ought to.
The WWII period setting for this Ariadne auf Naxos has proven to be controversial in some parts - which I find hard to believe. In reality it's fully supportive of the themes of the work and its opera within an opera conceit by cleverly placing its country estate setting within the country estate setting of Glyndebourne. More than just being a clever self-referential idea however, Katharina Thoma makes the essential conflict within the opera work by relating it back to an issue that plagued Strauss and his librettist Hugh von Hofmannstahl through most of their working lives - the question of the split between the world of the artist and reality. As his career as a German composer spanned two world wars, this was a particularly thorny question for Strauss, whose neo-Classical style was regarded by many as being frivolous in the context of what was going on elsewhere in the world at that time, and even out of touch within the world of music.
Whether the artist has any responsibility for what goes on in the wider world or whether they should remain above politics and remain concerned with essential universal questions of human nature is debatable, but Strauss' work must be judged on its own terms and a good production - like this Glyndebourne one - can draw out those personal conflicts within it. It's not difficult to see the deeper question of Strauss' personal dilemma in the character of the Composer and his horror of the desecration of his glorious work of art - "Why drag me from my world into this?", he asks, and Thoma intelligently highlights this question by setting it against his reaction to the reality of the war breaking out during the Glyndebourne performance. The end of the Prologue sees fighter planes fly over the stately home, bombs explode and masonry falls from the ceiling onto the stage.
The actual performance of the two operas combined takes place subsequently in the same stately home that has now been converted into a field hospital for the wounded locals. The Composer can be seen wandering around throughout, his lofty dreams about the purity of his art in tatters. The correspondence however between his work and reality is - thanks to the insight provided by this production - plain to see. Ariadne awakens in an improvised hospital in the stately home to question "Where am I? Am I dead?", looking around her at the destruction created to conclude that "This can't be called living". Looking like a WWII entertainment company, Zerbinetta and her suitors however represent the spirit and tenacity of the ordinary citizen to pull through, no matter how bleak the situation, and they rally behind her.
Zerbinetta's chirpy optimism however and her welcoming of each new opportunity as a god in her coloratura aria is seen here as a kind of PTSD induced delirium. She is given a sedative by the nurses (Naiad, Dryad and Echo) and wrapped in a straight-jacket. Her words and her spirit nonetheless have a transformative effect by the time Bacchus arrives and the Composer watches this transformation occur in his Ariadne, seeing the truth of the situation through new eyes. Very cleverly characterised as a heroic fighter pilot here, shot down in the dogfight over the estate - a "Captain", a god raised indeed by "nurses" - Bacchus resists Ariadne's despair for "eternal rest" as she fumbles in his jacket for his pistol, and does indeed offer her the promise of a new world arising out of the horrors of the current reality. Even the Composer here is overawed by what his creation has revealed to him.
This is simply marvellous characterisation that gets right to the heart of the work's sentiments, while at the same time illuminating the deeper truths that lie in its construction. The power of art, theatre, music and - very specifically - music and opera to transform and illuminate reality is exactly what Ariadne auf Naxos sets out to demonstrate. There's nothing frivolous about it. And if the stagecraft helps brings these elements out, the performances are no less critical to getting the message across. Soile Isokoski is a soaring Ariadne; Sergey Skorokhodov a heldentenor Bacchus; Kate Lindsey is an intense Composer who sings marvellously and even makes her presence felt in the second part; Laura Claycomb is a sparkling Zerbinetta. Conducting the London Philharmonic, Vladimir Jurowski draws out the delicate beauty of the opera's reduced ensemble instrumentation, tying its deceptively simple melodies accurately to the tone and the intent of the production.
The Blu-ray presents the production well with a sharp, colourful video transfer and good sound mixes in LPCM 2.0 and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 that reveal the quality of the singing and the orchestral playing. The usual Glyndebourne extra features give a good overview of the design and concept and the challenges of putting on a work like this. Jurowski is particularly impressed at how much insight into a difficult work this production achieves. The disc is BD50, region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German and Korean.
Richard Wagner - Der fliegende Holländer
Bayreuther Festspiele, 2013
Christian Thielemann, Jan Philipp Gloger, Franz-Josef Selig, Ricarda Merbeth, Tomislav Mužek, Christa Mayer, Benjamin Bruns, Samuel Youn
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
You never know quite what to expect from a new Bayreuth production other than the certainty that it won't be a "traditional" staging of a Wagner opera. Jan Philipp Gloger's concept for the 2012 production of Der Fliegende Holländer for example, is initially difficult to figure out, but there are a few things that stand in its favour that suggest that it at least holds true to the spirit and intention of the work. One is its adherence to the dramatic and mythological strengths of the work, the other is the quality of the performance itself, conducted by Christian Thielemann and sung well by a strong cast.
Taking it in terms of each of the three acts - although this performance uses the "joined-up" version of Der Fliegende Holländer without breaks or intermission - it's not immediately obvious what the setting or the intention is from the first act, and there's not much that appears consistent in the tone or the concept in the acts that follow either. Act I seems to suggest a futuristic setting, a data or information sea rather than a traditional water one. Dark walls are lined with connections, components and cables like a motherboard, lighting-up with the flashes of the storm, one that seems to derive directly from the ominous and unnoticed approach of the cyborg Dutchman's phantom ship.
It may be dark and menacing, but the tone is inconsistent, the Steersman and Daland like a comedy double-act or at least showing some degree of levity in their actions and gestures. Conceptually, it doesn't seem to hold together, but arguably Wagner's technique doesn't hold together either in this earliest through-composed work which breaks into Donizetti melodies and Lortzing-influenced operetta duets. Act II seems similarly schizophrenic, the female chorus not a group of wives-a-weaving but workers in a factory packing fans into boxes. Among this group of sweetly singing industrious ladies, Senta comes across as a bit of an odd-ball - dark, gloomy and not a little deranged, crafting an abstract sculpture of the mythical Dutchman out of spare bits of wood, black tar and packing.
If you're a bit lost as to what is going on here you can at least enjoy the outstanding musical and singing performances, but things do start to fall into place in Act III (although it might help if you refer to the director's notes on the production in the accompanying booklet). Broadly speaking it's not that far removed from Martin Kušej's interpretation for the De Nederlandse in terms of how the subject of Der Fliegende Holländer is viewed as a question of love versus commerce. The incompatibility and conflict between love and business is indeed a subject that plagued Wagner most of his life, so there's merit in this view, but whether it can be brought out meaningfully depends very much whether it also adheres to other important aspects of the composer's life and philosophy, particularly around this time.
According to Jan Philipp Gloger, the Dutchman's curse is to be ever in search of new markets and increasing his profits. Weary of the pace of modern life and cold practicality of business, he needs to find some peace and get back in touch with real human feelings. This is a credible reading of the work, but it needs to also take into consideration Wagner's belief in the romantic and ennobling power of myth, its importance enriching and expanding the horizons of the individual and its collective purpose as something that defines a nation and its people. Golger's production actually does this, converting Senta into a makeshift angel, her actions inspiring her co-workers to recognise her human sacrifice in a commemorative object d'art.
That sounds belittling of Wagner's mythology, but it actually brings it back to human terms without losing any of the grandeur of the work. That's all there in the music - to which careful and respectful attention is paid here - and in the singing performances. Christian Thielemann's conducting of the Bayreuth orchestra might perhaps be a little unadventurous, but it's perfectly attuned to the dramatic performance and the singing. Unshowy, it's sensitive to the intricacies of the score, muscular where required, light and lyrical in other places with a true romantic sweep and dramatic drive. It's wonderful to hear, but even more impressive in how it connects with all the points of the dramatic staging.
The efforts of director and conductor could still all fall apart if the production didn't also have sympathetic singing performances and, fortunately, the singing here is very strong in all the roles. Ricarda Merbeth in particular is outstanding as Senta. It's is a difficult role, not just for the singing requirements, but in how one chooses to define and balance Senta's dreamy, deranged and romantic nature. Merbeth not only meets all the technical requirements, she delivers it with ringing lyricism that captures the magical as well as the all too human nature of her character. She's at her best in the critical Act II scene with the Dutchman which has to make this unlikely couple seem credible and she and Samuel Youn do indeed 'click' and work together wonderfully.
You can't fault the casting in the other roles here either, with Franz-Josef Selig a solid Daland and Benjamin Bruns a bright, golden-voiced Steersman. The choral work - a vital element of Der Fliegende Holländer - is also outstanding, the male choruses purposeful and driven, the female chorus delicate and lyrical. The production design for this 2013 recording incidentally seems to have been reworked slightly from it 2012 presentation from what I can see from production photographs. Senta is dressed in black throughout here rather than red, the blood red imagery replaced elsewhere with black tar-like drips. The model sailing ship is gone in Senta's ballad, replaced with her obsessing over the abstract sculpture she has created.
On Blu-ray, the 2013 Bayreuther Festspiele production of Der Fliegende Holländer looks tremendous, even with all the dark backgrounds and high contrast lighting. The audio tracks are both strong, the DTS Master HD-Audio 5.1 giving a good surround ambience while the PCM track is more focussed and direct. Extras consist of short interviews with Benjamin Bruns, chorus master Eberhard Friedrich, director Jan Philipp Gloger and a slightly longer entertaining interview with Christian Thielemann being amiably(?) spiky and contrary, clearly knowing his own mind with respects to Wagner and this work. The disc is region-free, subtitles are in English, French, German and Korean.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Live from Hangar-7, Salzburger Festspiele, 2013
Hans Graf, Adrian Marthaler, Felix Breisach, Desirée Rancatore, Tobias Moretti, Javier Camarena, Rebecca Nelsen, Thomas Ebenstein, Kurt Rydl
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
Personally, I think that opera is one of the most progressive, cutting-edge artforms out there, continually pushing stage-craft and the art of performances to new heights, but I'm aware that there are some opera-goers who would prefer that productions remain in the traditional form on the stage in an opera house. What is commonly known as Regietheater can certainly push familiar works into alienatingly obscure and ill-fitting concepts, but as live cinema and webcasts have shown, there is a case for taking opera away the notion of it belonging to dusty theatres that remain the preserve of a privileged elite and strive to make it fresh, modern and accessible to a wider, younger audience.
I'm not sure that this is something that the Salzburg Festival has traditionally been good at, as anyone would be able to see from the expensive corporate promotion and the kind of audience visibly present at what looks to be an exclusive air terminal in Salzburg in this 2013 festival production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail. On the other hand, the technical achievement of the performance and its live broadcast to Austrian television is a fine example of the innovation and creative forces that go into opera and its outreach and accessibility is ground-breaking and impressive. I'm not sure that this Blu-ray release of the event will convince any of the traditionalists out there, but I'm certain that it is capable of reaching a fresh new audience.
Basically, Die Entführung aus dem Serail Live at Hangar-7 in Salzburg is an open-air production shot in a vast aircraft hangar/terminal/museum that holds aircraft, helicopters and classic cars in a boldly coloured, modern, high-tech building with plush cafés and lounge bars. The performance takes place on 10 or 11 stages that have been set-up around the building, the singers moving from one to another seamlessly down ramps and on platforms, singing into clearly visible radio-mic headsets. The Camerata Salzburg orchestra play live from Hangar-8, while the audience (in expensive suits and dresses, carrying glasses of champagne) wander around freely, listening to the live play-back on in-ear headphones, while skipping back occasionally so as to dodge camera crews and avoid bumping into the performers.
The concept for the production takes the opera out of the Turkish seraglio and re-imagines Bassa Selim as a fashion designer with a private (sponsored) jet-plane, his seraglio a sweatshop of seamstresses who manufacture his clothes. On other stages Blonde does a bit of ironing and measuring, Pedrillo serves drinks at bar and Osmin assists photo-shoots of models wearing the Pasha's creations and Belmonte comes along seeking to be engaged as a parfumier. Barring Stockhausen, there aren't too many works that call out for the use of helicopters, high-speed jeeps and aeroplanes as part of the performance, so clearly this isn't exactly what Mozart had in mind. It is at least debatable that Mozart would be taking advantage of every opportunity to put the essence of the work across to a popular audience if he were around today and the idea here works perfectly well with the original, finding a suitably glamorous exotic setting to show how women are treated as commodities in so many walks of life.
This is an entirely new way of viewing an opera, with multiple cameras and audience members getting to places you would never come near to in a traditional staged performance or indeed a conventional filmed live performance. It can be a little distracting when you find yourself looking at those bemused figures in the audience, or find yourself thinking more about the technical challenges that the crew must be facing in the live TV broadcast, but at the very least you can't help but be impressed at the achievement. It's superbly designed, technically accomplished and executed to perfection, but I would also argue that it's entirely in the spirit of the work, with a witty production that dazzles and amuses.
You might be less inclined to go along with this were the quality of the performance compromised in any way, but it's not at all. Diana Damrau was originally cast as Konstanze for the production but had to cancel, leaving Desirée Rancatore with the unenviable task of filling such a challenging role in a highly unconventional production at very short notice. She's not quite up to holding the higher end and is a little shaky at first, but she does exceptionally well considering, warming up well by Act II where she gives a good account of the 'Welcher Wechsel, herrscht in meiner Seele" aria. Rebecca Nelsen is a rather more confident Blonde and Javier Camarena a reliable Belmonte. Kurt Rydl isn't the steadiest as Osmin, but gets by and with Thomas Ebenstein a fine Pedrillo, this is a cast who are more than capable of doing the work justice.
The use of radio-mics allows for softer and sweeter singing that doesn't have to soar above the orchestra and this works well for the singers here. Some might see that as an unacceptable compromise, but it gets the best balance between the singing and the orchestra and it's the end result that counts in this production. Hans Graf conducts the Camerata Salzburg through an elegant account of the work that shows just how sublimely beautiful Mozart's maturing writing is in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and it all adds up to an impressive and sometimes stunning production of the work. At the very least this is an ambitious and largely successful attempt to approach the work in a new, fresh and original manner.
Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice
Český Krumlov Castle, 2013
Václav Luks, Ondřej Havelka, Bejun Mehta, Eva Liebau, Regula Mühlemann
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
They don't often put on opera in Český Krumlov Castle, which has one of the oldest working Baroque theatres in the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The restoration of the theatre was celebrated in 2011 with a performance and subsequent DVD/BD release of Domenico Scarlatti's Dove è Amore è Gelosia. Hardly an important or great work, it was an entertaining opera buffa, more notable for its historical and rarity interest as the first work written to be performed in the original theatre, but it gained considerably from the authentic Baroque presentation in its original setting.
I don't know if Gluck has any historical connection with Český Krumlov castle, but in the 300th year of the composer's birth, it's a fine place to re-examine one of the most important works in the entire opera repertoire in hopefully a more authentic light. With Václav Luks conducting the period Collegium 1704 orchestra, a traditionally-informed stage production lit only by wax candles and countertenor Bejun Mehta as Orpheus, an alto-castrato role more often performed by a mezzo-soprano, this Orfeo ed Euridice is undoubtedly closer to the original than most other productions. There are however a few caveats that can be given about the nature of the film itself.
Primarily, this production of Orfeo ed Euridice is shot as a film rather than a concert, which does take away somewhat from the charm of seeing it performed in a Baroque theatre. It's not filmed in the traditional manner of a live theatre performance, but it is nonetheless clearly a live performance, shot in seven days over a number of takes, with perhaps a small amount of overdubs. That's fine, and it's a good account of the work that matches the stripped-back reformist nature of the work with a reduced period orchestra. The casting is also good with Bejun Mehta's sweet countertenor giving this Orpheus a suitably lyrical quality, Eva Liebau a strong Eurydice and Regula Mühlemann a bright Amore.
This works wonderfully when its performed in Act I on the stage of the Baroque theatre where Orpheus mourns the death of Eurydice who is laid out on a marble catafalque. It's old-style theatre, with painted forests to the wings and a sea at the back with old-fashioned pulley-operated rolling sea effects. Amore too descends in an authentically shaky manner on a mechanical cloud to give Orpheus a chance to bring his beloved back to the land of the living. Unfortunately, once Orpheus descends through the trapdoor to the Underworld, much of the remainder of the performance takes place in the wider setting of the backstage of the theatre and the castle caverns and - other than the Elysium scene - not on the stage at all.
The locations backstage and in the wings are at least well used in this respect, retaining the candlelight illuminations, giving the underworld a suitably eerie and otherworldly appearance. Even here, with wooden beams and stone staircases there are no anachronisms, although you would suspect that the Furies here might be familiar with the "zombie shuffle" choreography of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video. There are some clever touches like the play of shadows embracing and holding hands as Orpheus leads Eurydice out of the underworld that don't need to rely on special effects. The idea is nice, playing on the magic of the theatre experience and how it extends beyond the stage and takes on a life of its own, but I did find that the 'film' concept and editing distracted from the power of the work itself.
Musically however, it sounds wonderful, the theatre creating a natural acoustic reverb rather than an amplified sound. It's not the clean, precise HD audio you might be used to, but there's no big orchestra here and neither should there be. There is rather a harder edged gut string pluck and rhythm that isn't quite so smooth, and heard this way it does present the opera in a new light. The original 1762 Vienna edition of the work has however been cut back slightly with most of the ballets shortened or excised entirely. The Act III, Scene 3 dances, for example, are all missing here. I suspect that the decision was made for artistic reasons (Bejun Mehta is credited also as Artistic Advisor here), since they get in the way of the clear narrative flow that is needed more for the film than a stage production, but such cuts aren't unusual.
On Blu-ray, this looks very fine indeed. There's a slightly softer edge to the image on account of it being filmed by candlelight, but it's clear and detailed with lovely tones and textures. The audio mixes are PCM stereo and DTS HD-master Audio 5.0. The mix is bright but there's a pleasant naturalness to the sound. The balance between the voices and the orchestra is different in the two mixes, the surround track seeming to make more use of reverb and give prominence to the voices, while the stereo track is more direct and evenly balanced. There are no extras on the BD25 region-free disc, but the booklet gives some background on how the film was made and the history of the Baroque theatre. There's no synopsis provided, but the plot of Orfeo ed Euridice is simplicity itself. Subtitles are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Korean.
Gaetano Donizetti - Don Pasquale
Glyndebourne, 2013
Enrique Mazzola, Mariame Clément, Alessandro Corbelli, Danielle de Niese, Nikolay Borchev, Alek Shrader, James Platt, Anna-Marie Sullivan
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
It's quite clear from the extra features of the BD release that the cast and creative team behind the 2013 Glyndebourne production of Don Pasquale are of one mind about what is the essential purpose of the work. The audience should come away from a performance of Donizetti's charming and delightful comedy feeling that they have been amused and entertained. And they are absolutely right. Don Pasquale is a very funny work, it has some amusing comedy characters and situations, some lively melodies and songs. So why then does the Glyndebourne production feel so lifeless and just plain unfunny?
Well, for a start everything feels forced. The work demands a lightness of touch from both the orchestra and from the cast. Not necessarily subtlety - you can ham-up Don Pasquale as much as you like and it can still be riotously funny - but with at least some measure of fluidity and consistency. Enrique Mazzola at least understands and projects the right tone for the work and the London Philharmonic fairly romp through the work, but the staging, the direction and a few of the the performances leave something to be desired.
Originally created as a touring production, there's at least a simplicity and practicality to the revolving stage that suits the flowing nature of the work and makes an effort to play out the proceedings on a light-hearted basis. Unfortunately, many of those elements introduced in the form of props are bewildering and just plain unfunny. Ernesto owning a rocking horse and teddy bears? Paintings that change and have trapdoors behind them? A pigeon on a string delivering a letter to Norina? Malatesta shoving the maid into the wardrobe for no apparent reason? It gets a brief chuckle or two from the audience, but none of it is clever, witty or seems to make any sense. It just seems desperate.
It's also somewhat inconsistent. The characters can be witty and entertaining in their own right, particularly when well directed and rehearsed, but this production never feels comfortable and relaxed enough to laugh at itself, modelling it to an extent on 'Dangerous Liaisons' which actually even seems to work against the humour within the characterisation. The problem mainly lies with the unnecessary change in the personality of Malatesta. He's shown during the overture tiptoeing at night through the revolving rooms of each of the sleeping characters, popping into wardrobes and out of baths. It cleverly indicates that he's going to be the arch manipulator of them all here, but it's not really that clever since this kind of characterisation ends up working against the ensemble nature of the deceits and self-delusions.
On the other hand, by making Malatesta's relationship with his 'sister' a little more in the vein of Sparafucile's in Rigoletto, it does actually place Norina more centrally as the one playing each of the foolish men. Again, this doesn't really hold up under any kind of scrutiny and instead just confuses the viewer as to what the real intentions of the story are (which should be about contriving a means to get Ernesto married to the poor Norina against his uncle's wishes), and consequently the comedy of the lengths that they go to in order to bring this about suffers.
Some good singing and comic timing can hide a multitude of sins and implausibilities in the plot, but even though they try very hard - a little too hard perhaps - none of them really seem to be able to make these characters work, at least not with the confused directorial approach employed here. You would think that the bubbly and irrepressible Danielle de Niese would at least make a sparkling and bright Norina, but she looks and sounds uncomfortable in the role, her singing a little strained and the effort showing in her exaggerated actions. It might look fine in the Glyndebourne hall, but in close-up in High Definition it seems overplayed.
By way of contrast Nikolay Borchev doesn't quite have enough personality or a voice big enough for the role, but he copes well with the singing and with the characterisation that he's been asked to play. Alek Shrader shows no signs of the illness that forced him to miss the opening night of this production at Glyndebourne, and makes things worthwhile with his lovely pure tenor voice. Any impression that he might have made however suffers from lack of direction and his role is also trivialised somewhat by the nature of Dr Malatesta's bewildering relationship with Norina. Alessandro Corbelli too is left to make what he can out of his Don Pasquale, but does so marvellously with a luxurious tone, precise enunciation and deft weighting of delivery.
These are small compensations though for the lack of real wit and humour in Mariame Clément's characterisation and direction. Comic opera in works like The Barber of Seville or Gianni Schicchi is difficult to carry off, but when it's done right it can be dazzlingly brilliant. Unfortunately once you've seen one of those works done really well it does colour your view and sets a standard that is hard for others to live up to. In this case of Don Pasquale, the Met's production with Anna Netrebko as Norina is a masterclass in comic opera performance. The attention to character, situation and comic timing in that production makes it all look so effortlessly easy, and emphasises just how forced and awkward the Glyndebourne one is by comparison.
The Blu-ray has the usual fine presentation from Opus Arte, with an impeccable HD image and strong audio tracks. Extras include a couple of featurettes totalling around 20 minutes that look behind the scenes and interview the director and all the main performers. The booklet makes much of the commedia dell' arte origins of the work and the nature of the three-four waltz time of the work, but doesn't really serve to greatly illuminate either the work or the production. The BD is region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German and Korean only.
Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly
Staatsoper Hamburg, 2012
Alexander Joel, Vincent Boussard, Alexia Voulgaridou, Christina Damian, Ida Aldrian, Teodor Ilincal, Lauri Vascar, Jürgen Scaher, Viktor Rud, Jongmin Park, Thomas Florio
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
One thing I've noticed about the few opera productions I've seen by Vincent Boussard (La Finta Giardiniera, La Favorite), other than the fact that he likes reflective stages, is that he manages to do a lot with very little, with minimalist stagings that are eye-catching and give the impression of being more elaborate. There are some places where this approach works better than others, and it's usually when the music and the libretto of the operas in question are strong enough to stand on their own. Madama Butterfly is certainly a work that fits into that category, but it nevertheless usually comes with a lot of additional stage baggage and stereotypical imagery that borders on kitsch. Can Madama Butterfly survive without cherry blossoms, silk kimonos and bamboo houses with paper screens?
Boussard finds a way to retain the essence of this imagery, but presents it in a relatively minimalist fashion in this Hamburg production of Madama Butterfly, and he does so without losing anything of the exotic spectacle. That much is essential in as far as it presents the idealised beauty and perfection of an arranged marriage that underneath isn't quite as ideal as it appears on the surface. That is something that Boussard takes as the basis for the overall concept here and by and large it works without distorting the intent of the work, but there are also one or two interpretative twists here that everyone might not agree work as well or even consider necessary.
The costumes, by Christian Lacroix, look stylised traditional, with obis and big hats, although reflecting Cio-Cio-San's adoption of American ways she wears jeans and a sweatshirt for Act II. In terms of the set design itself however, this Madama Butterfly looks every bit as minimalistically oriental and yet subtly elegant as it ought to do. Largely, the set for the entire three acts is based around a spiral staircase at the centre of the stage, with only large panels behind. These however slide back to open up to the seasons and the passage of the day outside, as well as being used for off-stage locations for Madama Butterfly and Suzuki to retire to at significant points. It's very much an 'interior' design then and functional for the purposes of the work, but a subtle play of light and colour suggests other moods and situations.
If it's all about establishing the essential mood for each scene, you could say that Boussard's production is a little over-elaborate in its use of colour. More than just reflecting the time of day or the seasons, the lighting here changes from moment to moment with purple and yellow washes adjusted by bold reds and greens, saturating the stage like a scene from a Wong Kar-wai movie. Whether Puccini's rich scoring and balance of moods needs that kind emphasis is debatable and a matter of taste, but there's no doubt that the set and lighting follows and relates closely to those rapid switches between one extreme emotion and another.
It's this idea of extremes, of being bathed in an image of perfection and an ideal, that lies at the heart of Madama Butterfly. The exotic of the Oriental appeals to US Navy Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton. His marriage to a young 15 year-old Japanese girl something of a dream in which he succumbs to the illusion of a perfect marriage to a submissive and attentive wife for a brief period before having to deal with the reality back home. For Cio-Cio-San, the fantasy is more deep-rooted and necessary to escape from an otherwise terrible fate as a geisha, a prostitute or bound to a loveless marriage in the Japanese style.
This is why Cio-Cio-San buys into her husband's American lifestyle with the Western ideal of it being a marriage based on love. She can't afford to consider the event, even after three years absence, the Pinkerton will not return. Her illusions are all crystallised in her centrepiece aria 'Un bel di vedremo', where every detail and every gesture of their joyful reunion is perfectly rehearsed in her mind. Those hopes are confounded if not entirely shattered in the very next scene with the Consul bringing a letter with news from Pinkerton, since Cio-Cio-San is unwilling to admit the intent of the words and Sharpless can't quite bring himself to deliver them.
This creates a kind of dramatic tension between two different kinds of reality that Puccini, with his basis in verismo, vividly depicts. The romantic illusions that sustain both Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton are just as "real" to them as reality, and they consequently pack a full emotional punch as they are elaborated and just as quickly punctured in the next scene. More than just holding a suspension between illusions and reality however, Madama Butterfly likewise swings between the difference between male and female sensibilities, as well as between the clash of cultures and it sustains a similar weighted tension between them all.
Boussard's production, mood and lighting, follows these developments very closely but it leads the director to make a few decisions that don't perhaps hold up as well. One can understand how Cio-Cio-San can make a little shrine to her delusions - a letter, a whisky glass and a bottle of liquor - but whether those should be seen as extending to their child is another matter. It's clear from the libretto that the child is real, but Boussard muddies the issue by not having a real child on the stage, but making use of a large doll instead. He also takes the final death scene off-stage, which is a brave decision, but there's no denying that it does rob the conclusion of some of its intended emotional impact.
If the intention is to let the strength of the music and the singing speak for itself, at least the Hamburg production has some fine singers who are capable of giving the work a full and nuanced expression. It's absolutely essential that you believe in these characters that are so well written by Puccini (in spite of some stereotypes), and if sung well they work. They work here. Freed from the usual mannerisms, Alexia Voulgaridou is able to emotionally delve into the work anew and sings wonderfully and with tremendous force. It's a riveting performance. Teodor Ilincal is a lyrical tenor in the classic traditional mould, his B.F. Pinkerton naive and romantic rather than exploitative and insensitive. Christina Damian's Suzuki is also very fine and adds considerably to the overall quality of this production. As too does the excellent account of the work by the Hamburg Philharmonic conducted by Alexander Joel.
On Blu-ray, the video transfer is very good. It looks a little softer than most, mainly on account of the colour saturation, but the colour reproduction and the beauty of the set is impressive. There's only one audio track on this release, a PCM stereo track, but it's strong and gives a good account of the singing and the orchestration. Other than trailers, there are no extra features on the BD, but the booklet comes with an interview with Vincent Boussard that discusses his approach to the work. Region-free, subtitles on the release are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Korean.
Richard Strauss - Salome
Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 2010
Nicola Luisotti, Gabriele Lavia, Erika Sunnegårdh, Mark S. Doss, Robert Brubaker, Dalia Schaechter, Mark Milhofer, Nora Sourouzian, Gabriele Mangione, Paolo Cauteruccio, Dario Di Vietri
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
It may be a little unfair on the composer of Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten, but Richard Strauss's critical reputation and musical influence on the modern opera probably rests more on his earlier stark, expressionist one-act tone-poem operas Salome and Elektra. In the year when the composer's 150th anniversary is being celebrated, there's no doubt that those other works will receive renewed critical attention and re-evaluation, but for sheer visceral impact, none of them can match these two early masterpieces.
Although Strauss would abandon his harsh experiments with the form after these two extraordinary works, there's no denying the profound influence these boundary-pushing works would have on atonality and serialism in music and the direction of opera in the 20th century. I don't think Strauss entirely abandoned the use of dissonance either when it could be used for effect in his neo-Romantic works, and by the same token, it's also possible to recognise the sweep of high Romanticism in the crushing crescendos of those highly charged mental landscapes of Elektra and Salome.
Salome in particular, as the composer's first foray into this new and unexplored territory, still has that impact of shock and awe in the sheer force of its musical expression. Undoubtedly, the method developed by Richard Strauss was a direct response to Oscar Wilde's deliciously decadent play that was the source for Hedwig Lachmann's libretto for the opera. Strauss aligns the music to the text with unerring precision for its mood, drama and psychological content, creating a work of extraordinary contrasts in its extreme love/hate relationships.
On the one side you have the lush orchestration for the flowery language and rapturous declarations of Salome's appeals to Jochanaan, and on the other you have the harsh dissonance that clashes with the vicious barbs she throws at him when those advances are rejected. Similarly, there is the lush exotic Eastern-influenced orchestration of Salome's dance that nonetheless carries a faintly disturbing undertone for how it is being enjoyed by her step-father, Herod. Even John the Baptist's auguries and admonitions have a fanatical flavour behind them that is reflected brilliantly in Strauss' music and contrasted strongly with the bickering of the Jews and the behaviour of Herod and Herodias.
In that respect, Salome is much more a product of the time of its creation than it is a biblical story, with there being a strong influence of late 19th to turn-of-the-20th-century Viennese philosophical and psychoanalytical thought, and even a measure of fin-de-siècle decadence. And it's perhaps with that in mind that Gabriele Lavia updates the period of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna production to Strauss' time, with soldiers wearing period military uniforms with helmets and lances, and Salome looking like she stepped out of the ballroom from a production of Arabella.
Salome doesn't appear to gain anything though this updating, but it looks good and matches the dark mood of the piece well. The stage for the most part remains stark and bare, the floor of Herod's palace a jagged stepping of shattered red marble. Jochanaan is hauled up out of a crack in the floor enchained and in a cage. It's simple and effective, the darkness of the night time scenes gradually brightening as events unfold. Other than the addition of a sofa for Herod, the only other real prop is a large magnifying glass that amplifies the emotional and erotic tension that develops. The bringing of the head of Jochanaan is handled differently, with a large stone monumental head arising out of the stage, but alongside the hanging decapitated body (and Strauss's score) it is still a suitably and floridly gruesome conclusion.
Musically, it's initially hard to distinguish the detail in the somewhat echoing sound mixes, but Nichola Luisotti seems bring out that important balance between the lush orchestration and the cutting edge of the rising dissonance. It's played and sung with wonderfully compelling fluidity, gripping you and holding you right through to the conclusion that should always leave you semi-stunned and breathless. That's certainly achieved here.
The singing is clear, powerful and resonant across the board here. Everyone sings with perfect clarity, strong declamation, but with fine control of expression and diction. Evidently, much relies on the cast in the roles of Salome and Jochanaan, and those are very well covered here. Erika Sunnegårdh has strong presence as Salome, handling the singing challenges of the role and fitting well within the nature of the production. Mark S. Doss is a suitably grave, deeply-intoned Jochanaan, but with superb clarity and force of expression. The fact that we also have a strong Herod in Robert Brubaker and an impressive Heriodias as well with Dalia Schaechter is a bonus.
The Blu-ray from Arthaus looks terrific on a BD25, region-free disc. The DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 surround track tends to give more space to the ambience with the result that it sounds a bit indistinct and echoing in places. The LPCM 2.0 track is 'bright' but more focussed and sounds better through headphones. There are no extra features other than trailers for other releases. Subtitles are in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean.
Giacomo Puccini - Turandot
Royal Opera House, London - 2013
Henrik Nánási, Andrei Serban, Lise Lindstrom, Marco Berti, Eri Nakamura, Raymond Aceto, Dionysios Sourbis, David Butt Philip, Doug Jones, Alasdair Elliott, Michel de Souza
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
The popularity and longevity of Puccini's most famous works has had the unfortunate consequence of them almost becoming aural wallpaper or operatic elevator music. True, most of the composer's works have little to say about social or political issues, they don't provoke any great depth of philosophical thought, or even consider the human condition other than in the most generic life/death terms. Musically too, Puccini's works don't really have any ambitions to revolutionise the world of opera. While it may seem easy then to categorise and devalue Puccini's calculated contribution to the artform, one shouldn't dismiss the sheer ability of those works to entertain or the composer's great gift for melody and "tunes".
As such, works like La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly need no special pleading. They are unquestionably true masterpieces that are likely to endure and deservedly remain in the popular repertoire for a long time to come. Puccini's later works - La Fanciulla del West, Il Trittico and Turandot - while by no means underepresented on the stage, don't however leap so immediately to the mind or (with the exception of one or two famous arias) whistle off the lips. They are however works that have most interesting sides to them and a certain amount of intriguing musical development, with more through composition, the use of leitmotifs and some Debussy-like impressionism.
What shouldn't be dismissed in these later works, particularly in the case of Turandot, is that Puccini retains this facility to simply entertain. Entertainment - as evidenced by the fact that it is often prefaced with the word 'cheap' - tends to be regarded as something less desirable in opera than high concepts and virtuoso singing. Puccini's sense of entertainment, and yes, even a sense of humour, is also often overlooked or looked down upon in this way. Gianni Schicchi might be the composer's only out-and-out comedy, but there's a light scattering of humour through many of the composer's works. It's there in Act I and Act II of La Bohème evidently, but even Madama Butterfly has comedy in its culture clashes, and it's there too in Turandot with Ping, Pong and Pang. In Turandot, Life, Death and Love remain the big main operatic subjects, but there's also associated dramatic moments providing poignancy, valour, selflessness and humour - albeit comedy with a darker edge.
Turandot has all the elements then for a grand entertainment, but even so, the fairytale plot is one that doesn't seem best placed to draw out those essential human characteristics. If it's not dealt with effectively, it can be just a mess of Orientalist clichés, with situations calculated specifically to run through the numbers, all built around the showcase aria of 'Nessun dorma'. A cold and cruel Princess, with a series of riddles for suitors who will be executed should they fail, whose heart is melted by a valiant Prince, this is Life, Death and Love writ large with very little in the way of genuine human sentiments. Or so it seems. Liù is of course the saving grace on that front, her sense of honour, duty and love igniting feelings of compassion in the Princess Turandot, and it similarly opens a way to the heart of the audience.
And this, while it seems sentimental and calculated to put it in those terms, is primarily the strength of Puccini. He always finds a way to touch the heart of the listener, and more than just being entertainment, that's the critical element that needs to be in place. If it doesn't obviously provide the necessary heart, Andrei Serban's production for the Royal Opera house (dating back to 1984) at least exploits the entertainment value of Turandot, with all its Oriental exoticism and regal glamour. The set is grand but unfussy, requiring no major set changes just the addition of props - pagodas, masks and banners - between scenes. The background is however surprisingly dark, and doesn't show off the full impact of the set. The costumes are typically bold Serban primary colours, and full use is made of the stage with good blocking of the characters with masked dancers to add life and movement.
While it certainly has all the glamour and high production values that are required to make Turandot an entertaining spectacle, there's nothing here in this production or in the performances however to make you sit up and be willing to explore the qualities that are there in the work and find the warm heart behind it. It all feels a little perfunctory, and it's not just the fairy tale element or the use of masks that make it somewhat inscrutable. Henrik Nánási's musical direction doesn't really manage to bring the score to life either, but it and the staging mainly provide the context for this production and they do that fairly well in the necessary places. 'Nessun dorma', for example, isn't overplayed as a showpiece but kept in its dramatic context. Liù's death is most affecting here, as it must be, and Turdanot's discovery of the name that that has eluded her - not Calaf as much as Love - brings the work to an unquestionably powerful conclusion. The lack of imagination elsewhere however means that it's the singers who have to make up for the dramatic failings, but unfortunately there's not sufficient attention paid there either.
The singing performances themselves are good, but a little more dramatic direction however might have made a real difference. Marco Berti has all the right Italian tenor characteristics that you expect to hear in this role, even if it is clearly a stretch for him in places. More of a failing is his acting ability, and you don't really get a sense of the importance of his task of Calaf being emotionally engaged with the enormity of the riddle challenge and potentially facing death the next morning - it all seems more like an act of bravado than true love. Lise Lindstrom is very capable in an unquestionably tough role, but a little on the strident side. There's plenty of ice but no fire of passion. A little more vulnerability would bring a little humanity to her Princess Turandot, but there's not much sign of it here. Eri Nakamura is a fine Liù, apparently light of voice but there's a robustness here and her top notes ring out beautifully. Raymond Aceto's Timur is solid, with clear enunciation in his deep bass.
The quality of the Blu-ray is, as expected from Opus Arte, of a typically high standard with a clear image and strong audio tracks. The release also includes a 8-minute introduction and a 4-minute Behind the Masks feature on Ping, Pong and Pang. The performance can be played with these features included, or as separate Acts. There's a synopsis in the booklet, which also has a good essay by Linda Fairtile on the creation of Puccini's final opera which remained unfinished at his death. Like most, this version uses the final scene completed by Franco Alfano. The BD is Region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Korean.
Richard Wagner - Götterdämmerung
Teatro alla Scalla, Milan - 2013
Daniel Barenboim, Guy Cassiers, Irène Theorin, Lance Ryan, Mikhail Petrenko, Gerd Grochowski, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Anna Samuil, Waltraud Meier, Margarita Nekrassova, Aga Mikolaj, Maria Gortsevskaya, Anna Lapkovskaja
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
While there are undoubtedly critical elements that it's important to get right in the earlier parts of the tetraology, it's Götterdämmerung that is ultimately the real test of any Ring cycle. After the years of hard work preparation that go into putting on a work of this scale, it has to come together meaningfullly at the end. It really wouldn't do if the epic end of the world finale of Götterdämmerung proved to be anticlimatic. The La Scala production is certainly unconventional in how it presents that all-important conclusion, but I don't think anyone could say that it is anything but bold and deeply impressive. That's not to say that the production here doesn't suffer from the same problems that face any company staging this demanding and exhausting work - principally in casting and singing - but it's a fitting conclusion nonetheless to a consistently impressive if not exactly revelatory new Ring cycle.
There is at least one important aspect to the La Scala Ring that has remained consistent and left no cause for concern about how the final segment would play out, and that's Daniel Barenboim's contribution. The sheer scale and ambition of Wagner's masterwork means that Götterdämmerung has to bring together all the earlier themes and leitmotifs the earlier works and bear the conceptual weight of the Ring as a whole. It's an enormous musical challenge, but Barenboim has been remarkably consistent and adaptable to Guy Cassiers' concept and he conducts the orchestra of La Scala through the varied tones of this particular work with a beautiful fluidity and a rising sense of urgency. It feels of a whole in a way that Götterdämmerung rarely does, consolidating those elements elaborated in the earlier parts into something much grander than their constituent parts. The whole point of Götterdämmerung is that all the little dramas and personal tragedies add up to something meaningful in the grander scheme of things, and in this production under Barenboim, that is exactly what is achieved.
There has also been a strong consistency to the look and feel of Guy Cassiers' production design, even if any deeper meaning or significance has been hard to determine. The source of certain imagery that has cropped up regularly throughout the cycle however is revealed here - in all its glory at the finale - to have been inspired by Jef Lambeaux's relief sculpture 'Les passions humaines'. This certainly gives substance to imagery and the ideas the director has been working with and leads to an immensely powerful conclusion, finding a strong visual concept that supports and illustrates Wagner's music and ideas, even if it doesn't add anything new to our understanding of the meaning of Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Even with its mythological setting and its play on the affairs of Gods, Giants, Dwarfs and Nymphs, the Ring is indeed about "human passions". It's about stripping away those God-like ideals and revealing the complexity of those human passions that are no less capable of destroying the world. There's nothing in the greed of Alberich and Mime, in the marital discord between Wotan and Fricke, in the pride of Wotan and the despair he feels at the defiance of his will by his wayward daughter Brünnhilde that isn't representative of real human passions. There's an inevitability too that the great romantic forbidden love of Siegmund and Sieglinde and the actions of the great hero Siegfried will inspire great passions and lead humanity to new heights, but that ultimately even those will eventually come to a tragic end.
That at least is one aspect of what the Ring is about. The mythological aspect is also a vital component in Wagner's exploration of human passions in his search for a national identity and his expression of it through a new art form for a new nation. That's not neglected either in Guy Cassiers' direction with its spectacular visuals and projections, while the question of where the wielding of that newfound power will lead is to be found throughout in the mutilated body parts that merge together in Lambeaux's sculpture. It's a superb illustration of those themes on a number of levels, but in itself it's also a stunning state-of-the-art visual spectacle that has the look and conceptual qualities of an art installation. With Barenboim conducting the groundbreaking, genre-defining brilliance of Wagner in the full-flower of his genius, this is every bit as "momumental" as Götterdämmerung ought to be.
It also reveals and emphasises however the weaknesses or the difficulties that are nearly impossible to overcome in a work of this scale and ambition. With the emphasis on the grander scale, the actual playing out of the drama with any kind of conviction is unfortunately, and perhaps necessarily, often neglected. In the context of Guy Cassiers' production, in a the set never looks naturalistic but merely an arrangement of stage props and "installations", there is scarcely any dramatic playing within it. That's understandable considering the exceptional demands placed on the singers in Götterdämmerung, but even so, there's an awful lot of standing and declaiming out to the theatre and very little interaction or dramatic interplay between the characters. Anna Samuil for example, although she sings well, only has eyes for the conductor and barely glances at her on-stage companions.
For Götterdämmerung sadly we lose Nina Stemme, who made such an impression as Brünnhilde in Die Walkure and Siegfried, but Irène Theorin proves to be a more than worthy replacement. She's perhaps not as strong across at the lower end of the range, but her top notes hit home in a performance that is full of fire. Just about passable in Siegfried, Lance Ryan's weaknesses are however cruelly exposed in the more open and testing environment of Götterdämmerung. His delivery is sometimes good, particularly in shorter phrasing, but any long notes waver around wildly. I'm not sure that there are many heldentenors around nowadays though who are capable of holding down this role, and at least he appears engaged in the role. Mikhail Petrenko sings Hagen well, although his delivery is a little too Russian in declamation. The other roles are more than competently played by a strong cast that includes Gerd Grochowski, Johannes Martin Kränzle (as a disturbingly distorted version of his already sinister Alberich), Waltraud Meier and Anna Samuil.
A four hour forty-five minute performance is a lot to get onto a single disk, even a BD50 Blu-ray, but the image and sound quality hold up alongside the fine presentation of the other releases in this cycle. Like those, the BD is region-free, with subtitles in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean. These can only be selected from the player remote or from the 'Pop-up' menu during playback. There's no synopsis in the booklet, just a fanciful essay that unconvincingly attempts to link Götterdämmerung with Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' and with the Belgian Congo. It does however provide that useful information about Jef Lambeaux's 'Les passions humaines' sculpture, which might otherwise not be recognised. Its significance however can fully be felt in this powerful conclusion to an intriguing Ring cycle.
