Puccini - Madama Butterfly (La Scala, 2016)

Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly

Teatro alla Scala, Milan - 2016

Riccardo Chailly, Alvis Hermanis, Maria José Siri, Annalisa Stroppa, Carlos Álvarez, Bryan Hymel, Carlo Bosi

ARTE Concert - December 2016

With all its kitsch Orientalism, do we really expect to find realism in Madama Butterfly? Maybe not in the conventional sense, but there is a kind of realism in how Puccini and David Belasco's original play (based on a true story) recognise western attitudes towards the lure of the exotic East (which includes racist and stereotypical views) and how the incompatibility of those views with the reality can have tragic consequences for both sides. Musically too there have always remained question marks about Puccini's emotional manipulation, so it was going to be interesting to see what would be revealed in the La Scala production of the original two-act version of Madama Butterfly that Puccini quickly abandoned and revised after its failed premiere in 1904. The results are impressive and, for me at least, a complete revelation and revindication of the work.

Latvian director Alvis Hermanis seems to find the perfect place between realism and the ideal in his production for La Scala. It looks traditional in one respect having all the associated imagery and colour we expect to find in Madama Butterfly, with its sliding screens and cherry blossoms, traditional geisha make-up and obis. In the same way that his Jenůfa for La Monnaie in Brussels made use of the imagery of Alphonse Mucha, the director here taps into another authentic source for representation of the place and the period, using photographs from the start of the 20th century as a basis for the costumes and the design. It draws from the very imagery that inspires these idealised and stereotypical views that come out in US naval officer Francis Blummy Pinkerton.

F.B. Pinkerton, in this original version of Madama Butterfly (and often too in the more familiar revised version) is a just as much a vulgar stereotype of the brash American as Cio-Cio San is an idealised western image that persists of the Japanese woman as a fragile, silent, submissive doll. If that's the ideal that Pinkerton wants he can buy it, and dollars are flashed and handed out liberally to everyone who helps him acquire that dream. It's a contractual arrangement to legitimise the more uncomfortable reality that he is buying a 15 year-old girl to sleep with. Regardless of the dressing - and Madama Butterfly is exquisitely dressed here in the gorgeous costume designs - I don't think there's any attempt to hide the true nature of this sordid little set up.

And there's no attempt either in this opera to pretend that such a situation will end in anything but disaster and tears. And tears are always guaranteed by the time we get to the always shocking finale, but Puccini is surely justified in provoking them. At heart Madama Butterfly is not a study of idealism versus reality in a social context nor an exploration of the incompatibility of diverse cultural worldviews, it's a conflict on a more personal level, on a romantic level, between what a man expects out of this unconventional arrangement and how the woman views it. Pinkerton believes that anything of value can be bought, that even nature will bow down to the dollar. Madama Butterfly - despite the superficial adherence to rituals and traditions - shows that the human heart cannot be bought. Putting aside the oriental touches in the music, it's on this level that Puccini's music operates and it hits there at the deepest point.

All of these elements and the deeper implications are brought out exceptionally well in the La Scala production. It's ravishingly beautiful, it satisfies an audience who prefer a more traditional approach, but by playing to those expectations it also highlights the very prejudices that the opera is criticising and fully realises the musical world that Puccini has created for the opera. It's totally involving and enveloping, all the more so for Riccardo Chially's superb musical direction and the quality of the singing, which is of a very high standard right across all the principal roles. Bryan Hymel is still Byran Hymel; wonderfully lyrical, entering fully into the role and taking the high notes gloriously but sounding pushed and constricted when there is more body needed in the lower range. Annalisa Stroppa and Carlos Álvarez are both terrific as Suzuki and Sharpless, showing the value of these roles.

There can be no praise too high to describe Maria José Siri's performance as Cio-Cio San. More than just beautifully sung to meet the exacting standards of the La Scala audience, it was an extraordinarily complete performance that practically lived out the role on the stage. The singing alone is a challenge for any dramatic soprano, but imagine living through the extreme range of emotions that Puccini scores for in such a concentrated, heightened fashion. No soprano experienced enough to sing this role is ever going to pass in appearance for a 15 year old girl, but Maria José Siri evokes the innocence and inexperience of the girl in every expression and in every note, completely assuming the role.

There's the rapturous innocence of Act I, the firmness of her convictions bordering on delusion in Act II, the combination of which leads inevitably to the tragic conclusion in Act III. If you get the first two Acts right, then Act III is going to follow through and hit hard the way it should. Well, it can hardly fail in any case, but it makes all the difference if there is that strength of character and conviction placed behind it. I think you could tell how well Maria José Siri was going to assume that role well before 'Un bel dì vedremo', so there was also plenty of time to prepare yourself for the emotional impact of the conclusion, which indeed is pretty much near devastating.

Of course I'm talking here as if this were the three-Act version of Madama Butterfly, when in reality this production goes right back to the original poorly received 1904 two-Act version. Despite reports of it being extensively revised by Puccini, the original doesn't appear to be significantly different from the more familiar version of the opera as we all know it. The Humming Chorus is still there - not as long I think - as a link between Act II and the concluding scene. I was interested and glad to hear however that its melody isn't there when Sharpless attempts to read Pinkerton's letter to Butterfly. I have never liked it there, feeling it was out of place, particularly as it is so well-known now as a kind of expectant night music or lullaby.

The more significant revisions however are reported to be in the tone of the racism expressed by the Americans and the callousness of Pinkerton. That to me however is more of an issue of interpretation, as I've seen more sympathetic Pinkerton's certainly, but depending on how it is directed Pinkerton can still come across as a heartless cad in the familiar three-Act version. Greater emphasis can also be placed on his willingness to 'buy' a 15 year old girl as a 'bride'. Mrs Pinkerton has a little more of a role in this version, but I'm sure I've seen her role developed before and always thought it was cut according to the production. I could be wrong.

Essentially however, the familiar Madama Butterfly is entirely there in all its ravishing beauty and dark romanticism. Alvis Hermanis's production looks stunning, keeping it traditional and period, with an authenticity in detail and manner and with no small degree of flair. Most importantly, it is utterly perfect in how it presents the mood, the drama, the romance and the tragedy, with attention to the surface impressions and the underlying tensions. If there were every any doubts about the merits of Madama Butterfly as an opera beyond its crowd-pleasing popularity, this production reminds you that it is indeed nothing short of a masterpiece.

Links: Teatro alla Scala, ARTE Concert

Rossini - Guillaume Tell (Bayerische Staatsoper 2014 - Webcast)

Gioachino Rossini - Guillaume Tell

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich - 2014

Dan Ettinger, Antú Romero Nunes, Michael Volle, Bryan Hymel, Marina Rebeka, Evgeniya Sotnikova, Günther Groissböck, Jennifer Johnston, Goran Jurić, Christoph Stephinger, Kevin Conners, Enea Scala, Christian Rieger

Staatsoper.tv Live Web streaming - 28 June 2014

The qualities of Rossini's musical composition and the measure of how advanced his dramatic writing is in comparison to his earlier works, is clearly evident in his prematurely final work for the Paris Opera, Guillaume Tell. In part, that's much to do with the quality of the orchestra that Rossini had at his disposal, but there's clearly ambition on the part of the composer to move away from the standard number opera towards a more dramatic musical expression. In many ways, even though it is largely through-composed, Guillaume Tell points the way towards the grand opéra tradition, even as it looks back and retains a sense of the opera seria.

In both respects, whether it adheres towards one style or other, Rossini's final opera is a virtuoso work that requires performers of an extremely high calibre. It's a long work, almost four hours without cuts, with challenging vocal lines that push one tenor role to deliver fifteen high-Cs, many of them late in the second Act. The challenges extend to the staging of the dramatic action. Other than providing a sense of location for the Swiss Lake Lucerne setting, there aren't any conventionally difficult scenes to stage (other than an archer shooting an apple off a boy's head evidently!), but the real challenge lies rather in finding a way to make the staging visually and dramatically interesting. Without proper direction there can be a lot of opera seria-like standing around singing out one's emotional conflict to the audience.

Consequently, Guillaume Tell is not a work that is performed very often, but if the considerable musical and dramatic challenges can be overcome, there are great rewards to be found in this remarkable opera. Set during the Swiss revolt against the Austrian Hapsburg occupation in the thirteenth century and even managing to tie a doomed love affair into the storyline, there is at least a strong dramatic situation in Guillaume Tell. It's the kind of scenario that Verdi would come to specialise in, and Rossini's writing here sets a high bar for his successor to aspire to and eventually surpass. An oppressed nation under a hated foreign rule, stirrings of revolution and expressions of patriotic fervour, there's even a romantic situation of lovers torn in a conflict of love and duty to one's country.

The sense of the kind of passions that underlie Guillaume Tell are exemplified by the action that opens the opera. Leuthold, angry at an assault committed by Austria troops in his village, brutally attacks and kills the soldier responsible for the abduction of his daughter. This scene is shown silently before the opera starts, but rather than choose to follow this with the traditional overture, Act I of this production launches straight into the action with the village wedding celebrations that are soon to be interrupted by news of the Austrian governor Gessler's reprisals. The dropping the overture (or moving it, as it transpires, since cutting it would be unforgivable), and even the tone of the wedding celebrations indicate that this is going to be a production that emphasises the darker side of Guillaume Tell. And, being Munich, it's an abstract and modernised staging as well, looking like it is set sometime in the 1970s.

Instead of anything like traditional backdrops or even a sense of the setting even being anywhere in Switzerland, the production relies mainly on a layered series of columns on a darkened stage, the long tubular shapes rising and falling, symbolising or at least effectively evoking a sense of crushing oppression. In other scenes, the pillars float, revolve and strike angular positions, always matching the tone of the scene, whether it's a love scene or one of conflict. Or both, as is the case with Arnold Melcthal and his love for Mathilde, a Hapsburg princess whose life he once saved from an avalanche. On hearing that his father has been executed by Gessler, Arnold however has no choice but to join the call to arms that the intrepid archer William Tell is advocating against the oppressors.

Advocating, that is, with a gun rather than a traditional bow and arrow. Following the absence of the overture, this could lead the audience to wonder whether the director hasn't gone too far in taking Guillaume Tell away from the crowd-pleasing elements that contribute to its musical and dramatic greatness. That proves not to actually be the case. The shooting of the apple from Jemmy's head it staged with a crossbow and has full dramatic impact at the end of Act I, while the overture is reinstated after the interval before the start of the second act, a place where - arguably of course - it fits in well. It's not so much delayed gratification as using the melancholy tone of the solo viola to reflect Jemmy's sense of impending death - one that is populated it seems by fantasy figures from 'Where The Wild Things Are' - exploding into the famous march as the success of Tell's shot is seen to be sure and his turning on Gessler provokes the people to rise up in rebellion.

The Bayerische Staatsoper are of course well-known for taking on challenging works as well as for the experimental stylisations they take in their approach to opera stagings. For a work that is rarely staged which and has as many challenges as Guillaume Tell, the obvious approach would be stick with a familiar traditional period production, but playing it safe is never an option for the Munich opera company. Not that they get any thanks for it. The mindless booing that greeted Antú Romero Nunes and his team at the curtain call was inevitable then, but Munich should continue to pursue this kind of approach undaunted. It might infuriate a small section of the audience, but Nunes' approach succeeded in projecting a suitable tone for Rossini's opera, the measure of its success being plainly that the force of the work and the sentiments it expresses were fully achieved. I'm not sure why anyone would think the wearing of lederhosen and a few painted backdrops of the Alps would have improved it greatly.

There could however be little anyone would find lacking in the musical performance or the singing. Dan Ettinger finds a lush romanticism in the score, quite different from the familiar Rossinian romp, that drives the sweep of the drama wonderfully. The structure of the work is likewise tied more to dramatic requirements than to providing tailor-made roles to either showcase the performers' talents or spare their energies. It's a good hour and a half for example before the arch-villain Gessler even makes an appearance. Günther Groissböck doesn't quite have the depth of bass for a commanding governor, but donning a bull's head mask he presents a fearsome enough figure for Tell to defy. It was Marina Rebeka however who won most of the applause at the end of Act I for her Mathilde, and deservedly so.

Michael Volle and Bryan Hymel's Act I contributions were also acknowledged, but they really came into their own in Act II. Volle was as solid and reliable as ever as Tell, but it was Hymel who really impressed here. You have to give credit to any tenor who can hit all Arnold's high-Cs, but Hymel took them all effortlessly through a smooth vocal line and timbre that now seems more natural for Rossini than the heavy dramatic requirements of Verdi and Grand Opera. Evgeniya Sotnikova made the role of Jemmy count with a clear and expressive delivery, as did Jennifer Johnston as Hedwige.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper.tv

Verdi - Les Vêpres Siciliennes

Giuseppe Verdi - Les Vêpres Siciliennes

Royal Opera House, London, 2013

Antonio Pappano, Stefan Herheim, Lianna Haroutounian, Bryan Hymel, Erwin Schrott, Michael Volle, Michelle Daly, Neal Cooper, Nicholas Darmanin, Jung Soo Yun, Jihoon Kim, Jean Teitgen, Jeremy White

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden - 4 November 2013

It was a little bit disappointing to discover that Verdi's famous 'Four Seasons' ballet sequence had been cut from this new production of Les Vêpres Siciliennes, only now being performed at the Royal Opera House in the original French version for the first time. Stefan Herheim is usually such a thorough director, meticulous in his construction (and often reconstruction) of works, examining them from every level from their subject matter to context and subtext. Surely Verdi's 30-minute long ballet forms an important part of Les Vêpres Siciliennes?

On the other hand, there's a good reason why the ballet is often cut even on those rare occasions that the original French version of the work is put on. There are Grand Opéra mannerisms aplenty in the five acts of Les Vêpres Siciliennes, perhaps too many for a modern audience to endure. As it turns out however, Stefan Herheim doesn't actually shy away from the challenges of incorporating the ballet but rather cleverly finds an alternative and rather more acceptable means of including it. Paying careful attention to the music as always and recognising that all of the themes that are brought out in the music of the ballet are there also in the heart of Verdi's remarkable scoring for the work, he includes ballet elements throughout the length of the opera itself.

Those themes, which are condensed within the Four Seasons ballet sequence, are all to do with the changing of the seasons, with life and death, the past, history and politics involved, and how they weigh heavily on families and individuals caught up in momentous events. Verdi's take on grand opéra is extraordinary, the composer making the most of the opportunity to expand his range and take expression in his music much further than before. He weaves these themes dynamically together, finding depth and subtext, suggesting much more than is evident on the surface. Herheim rather fearlessly tries to break these themes down again and find a way to express each of them visually. And, in his own inimitable way, he throws a few other ideas in there for consideration. Despite all this, Les Vêpres Siciliennes surprisingly proves to be a relatively straightforward Herheim production.

Principally, Herheim does what he often does - he brings the composer and the creation of the work into the work itself. What's interesting about the way it's done here however is that it manages to avoid all the usual Risorgimento trappings. The political climate and Verdi's part in the revolutionary activities of the period (often overstated) evidently form a part of it, but the director here is more interested in Verdi in Paris, Verdi writing Grand Opéra, the period, the venue and even the work's place in opera history. Accordingly the most immediately distinctive part of the staging is that it's an opera within an opera. Les Vêpres Siciliennes is played out with the French audience of 1855 taking the place of the French soldiers in 13th-century Sicily, with the interior of the Paris Opera house forming a backdrop and ballet dancers on the stage dressed like those in paintings by Degas.

That sounds like a lot of unnecessary baggage to add on top of the work itself, but Verdi's choice of subject for the French audience is an interesting one and worth exploring since it undoubtedly informed the creation of the work. Arguably it's even more important since Les Vêpres Siciliennes is primarily an opera and not history, the story cobbled together from a libretto for Donizetti's unfinished Le Duc d'Albe which had a 16th century Dutch historical setting. The reason it works so well in this production then is due to another of Herheim's strengths - his ability to make the characters come to life and his use of space on the stage to reflect their personalities and situation, opening up and closing down, only using what is necessary for impact and always finding a way to get that impact across at the right points, if not exactly in a conventional manner. And marshalling diverse forces to make a necessary impact is what opera is all about.

That isn't something that Verdi himself always manages in Les Vêpres Siciliennes. As fascinating a work as it is coming at this period in the composer's career, it is a somewhat imperfect opera. The production and the singing can help, but even they are limited in this particular production. The first two acts in particular are not entirely successful, even though Herheim attempts to establish the prologue to the story in the overture, where Henri's mother - here a dancer at the ballet school run by Procida - is raped by one of the French soldiers, Guy de Montfort. Hélène then appears dressed as a vengeful woman in black, mourning for the loss of her brother Frédéric, carrying his mummified head around with her, waving it accusingly at the French soldiers with the officers sitting behind in the best opera box seats.

Despite some remarkable writing and a powerful account of the score from Antonio Pappano and the Royal Opera House orchestra, the first two acts can't seem to bring any kind of coherence or purpose to the structure in which the events are laid out, and they consequently come across as rather flat. The last thing you need at this stage then is a 30-minute ballet on top of it, so its omission at this point is clearly justified, particularly as there is no shortage of ballet dancers on the stage throughout, and their significance - some wearing white tutus, others black - has been well established in the prologue. All the stops are pulled out however for the impact that the personal situations and events of the past bring to Acts III to V.

Yes, there's glorious music throughout, but even in these latter acts there are traps that could bring the whole thing down, particularly in the unsatisfactory conclusions reached in Act V. Herheim however takes full advantage of Verdi's orchestration of these developments, making powerful use of the choruses that represent the masses of the soldiers and the people, and the people against the soldiers. You can feel in them the sense of simmering nationalist resentment, but because of Herheim's direction, you can also understand the complicated personal issues of the past and the family connections that have been brought into it all which more significantly influence the outcome. It's in high melodrama territory certainly, but Herheim works with the intimacy of Verdi's writing to make it feel real and vital.

It has to feel real and vital as far as the singers are concerned also, and by and large, this was successfully achieved. There was some concern expressed by Marina Poplavskaya's dropping out of the production at the last moment and some opinions expressed that Lianna Haroutounian wasn't a strong enough replacement, but I thought she performed marvellously.  Her Hélène didn't make so much of an impression in the opening acts, but her character gained in strength and personality after the interval, and Haroutounian rose to meet those demands. Bryan Hymel again proved himself well suited to this repertoire particularly as the role of Henri is considerably less punishing than Robert le Diable. Michael Volle was a solid threatening presence as Montfort, the role sung with characteristic nuance and warmth from this performer. Erwin Schrott is also a performer with great personal presence and sang very well, but he seemed a little too laid-back as Procida. Herheim's mastery of the work however and Antonio Pappano's conduction ensured however that everything came together perfectly to achieve the kind of satisfying and powerful conclusion than the work really needs.

Berlioz - Les Troyens

Hector Berlioz - Les Troyens

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 2012

David McVicar, Antonio Pappano, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Fabio Capitanucci, Bryan Hymel, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Brindley Sherratt, Hanna Hipp, Barbara Senator, Robert Lloyd, Pamela Helen Stephen, Jihoon Kim, Ashley Holland, Ji Hyun Kim, Lukas Jakobski, Daniel Grice, Ji Min Park, Adrian Clarke, Jeremy White, Ed Lyon

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

It’s ironic that Berlioz’s epic creation based on Virgil’s 'Aeneid' was never performed in full during the composer’s lifetime, yet we’ve had enough opportunities now to view the work to realise that Les Troyens is unquestionably a masterpiece. Having had the opportunity to see several productions however, it’s also possible to see why the opera would have been such a tricky proposition to stage in the first place. It’s a vast, all-encompassing work, one that not only demonstrates the complete range of the composer, but one that also takes in the considerable musical studies, theories and passions that were as much a part of the lifework of Hector Berlioz. Written over two years (1856-58) for the Paris Opéra (the only house with the resources to possibly stage it), Les Troyens was a deeply personal undertaking that drew from the composer’s childhood imagination-inspiring readings of the ‘Aeneid‘ and his love for the Shakespearean epic drama. It proved however to be too ambitious an undertaking for the city’s major opera house and eventually only a cut-down version of the second part of the five-act opera was performed at the Théâtre Lyrique.

Now we have Blu-ray releases of no less than three complete productions of Les Troyens to be able to judge the quality of the work.  Previously we had the revelatory 2003 Châtelet production in Paris (in an impressive account conducted by John Eliot Gardiner) and the rather less successful attempt to modernise the opera by La Fura dels Baus in the 2009 Valencia production. A comparison between the two suggests that if it’s not a case of less is more (that’s something that you couldn’t say about Berlioz’s writing here), it is nonetheless a work where it’s necessary - and difficult enough - to strike a balance between the extravagance and dynamic of the distinct styles of the two parts of the work, while at the same time also living up to the epic grandeur that it represents. Trying to impose an alternative reading or concept on top of Les Troyens (much less one as misguided as La Fura del Baus’ Trojan Horse computer virus concept) is risky and likely to conflict with the intentions and tone of the work. David McVicar therefore had quite a challenge in this new major production of the work for the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, and while it didn’t exactly meet with universal critical acclaim at the time, the weaknesses in the production seem rather less pronounced when viewed at home.

The fact that David McVicar and set designer Es Devlin go for their familiar industrial Steampunk style in the first act with weapons and military uniforms that are clearly not related to the ancient Greek setting proves to be neither here nor there. As ever with McVicar, the detail is less important than the overall impact, and both the Troy and Carthage scenes aim for a mood and grandeur of scale that is commensurate with the work itself. The tone of the first half is inevitably dark, the celebrations of the Trojans at the departure of the Greek army after ten years of siege short-lived, giving way to ceremonial mourning for the loss of so many great warriors, dire premonitions of doom from an increasingly hysterical Cassandra, and the mass suicide of the Trojan women as the warriors flee for Italy, the city having been breached by the Greek soldiers through the ruse of the horse. It’s the huge mechanical construction of the Trojan Horse that is the imposing image of the first half and it’s suitably impressive. If the direction is otherwise fairly static in this section, it at least allows attention to be drawn to the magnificent musical construction of the first two acts, and it gives plenty of room for Anna Caterina Antonacci to dominate as Cassandra.

As directed for the screen, the frequent use of close-ups here goes some way towards focussing on those strong points in the tone that was effectively established and in highlighting the qualities of Antonacci’s mesmerising performance, even if the actual staging and the power of the singing aren’t quite up to the demands of the music itself. Fortunately, most of The Fall of Troy section relies on choral arrangements of celebrations and lamentations and these also come across wonderfully. The strengths and weaknesses within Les Troyens and the difficulty of coping with them in a staged production are emphasised here by the treatment of the rather different second half. The warmth of tone and presentation of the Trojans in Carthage section is in marked contrast to the darkness of the first half, but Berlioz’s arrangements are no less epic in his depiction of the utopian society of Carthage under the rule of their beloved Queen Dido. Even Bryan Hymel, who doesn’t quite manage to rise above the dramatic power of the Troy section as Aeneas, seems to find the North African climate more to his liking. The challenges of the second half of Les Troyens however lie in the presentation of those sentiments, and that isn’t quite so well achieved as the first half.

Again, there is no faulting McVicar and Es Devlin’s approach to the stage design. Carthage is laid out in all the epic grandeur and warmth that is suggested in the score. While there’s much that’s beautiful about Berlioz’s scoring for these scenes, all the ballets and the celebratory love-fests can be a little bit too much - the rush into battle with Iarbas and the Numidians the only confrontational element in the first part and even that is given only a cursory treatment. The dances and celebrations can also be particularly difficult to stage in a way that retains the interest of an audience who has by that stage already had very nearly a full evening’s worth of Grand Opéra. As Dido, Eva-Maria Westbroek sings beautifully and is excellent at conveying the dilemma of the Carthaginian Queen over her feelings for Aeneas and her promise to remain faithful to the memory of her dead husband. Westbroek has a fullness of tone and sufficient power in her soprano, but not quite the necessary colour that you would normally get from a mezzo-soprano in the role. This is particularly noticeable for the lack of sufficient and complementary contrast that ought to be there in her 'Nuit d’ivresse et d’extase infinie' duet with Hymel - a key moment in their relationship which never really comes across here as it should.

Allowing for the longeurs in Act III and the inability of the director to make them sufficiently interesting, there is however still a lot to enjoy musically and in the singing during the final three acts and it's all superbly put across by the Royal Opera House Orchestra under Antonio Pappano’s direction. In addition to the strong performances of Hymel and Westbroek, there are some beautiful sounds coming from Brindley Sherratt’s concerned Narbal and Hanna Hipp’s devoted Anna, both providing the necessary counterweight to Dido’s mental disintegration in the closing acts. Masterfully orchestrated in musical and dramatic terms by Berlioz, Hylas’s song of longing for home at the beginning of Act Five is sweetly sung by Ed Lyon, the lure of the seas and the call of Italy urged by dark forces of the ghosts of the dead Trojans, combining well with the frisson of betrayal between Dido and Aeneas that is more strongly characterised than their romance. That ensures that the conclusion at least is sufficiently tragic.

The Royal Opera House's Les Troyens is handsomely packaged for its 2-disc Blu-ray release. The two discs are contained in a digipak that is slipcased with a large booklet with several programme-length articles and a full detailed synopsis by David McVicar. The four and a half hour opera is evenly divided across the two discs, not according to the two distinct parts. Disc One has the first three Acts, which takes in Fall of Troy (Act I and II) the first act of The Trojans in Carthage (Act III). Disc Two has the final two Acts (IV and V). Antonio Pappano provides introductions at the start of the opera and during the 'interval' sections (Before Act III and before Act V). The opera can be played with these introductions included or without. There is also a featurette that looks at Es Devlin's set designs, an excerpt from Pappano's 'Insights' look at the opera and a Cast Gallery. The BD is all-region, subtitles are in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.

Meyerbeer - Robert Le Diable

Giacomo Meyerbeer - Robert Le Diable

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden - 2012

Daniel Oren, Laurent Pelly, Bryan Hymel, John Relyea, Jean-François Borras, Marina Poplavskaya, Patrizia Ciofi, Nicolas Courjal, Jihoon Kim, Pablo Bemsch, David Butt Philip, Ashley Riches, Dušica Bijelić

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

The folly and the controversy surrounding the Royal Opera House's production of Meyerbeer's Robert Le Diable have been extensively reported elsewhere, from the cast changes and departures through to its critical mauling in the press. While I've no doubt that a full evening of a misconceived five-act Meyerbeer opera could well have been a painful experience live at the Royal Opera House, a filmed recording of the production is however another thing entirely. That's not to say that some of the problems with the production are any less evident, but there are compensating factors that one can perhaps better appreciate from the comfort of one's own living room.

Even the undoubted weaknesses in the production can be offset to a large degree in this case just by the rare opportunity to see one of the greatest works of 19th century opera performed on the stage. Meyerbeer was one of the most important and composers of his time, an influence on both Verdi and Wagner, but his extravagant style and grandeur hasn't remained fashionable, and even his greatest works - huge successes in their day - have fallen from the popular repertoire. Such is the case with Robert le Diable, a work which drew wide acclaim from fellow composers, critics and achieved wide popular international success following its premiere in 1831. The work was last performed at Covent Garden however in 1890, and it hasn't been performed much anywhere in the world over the last century.

The fundamental difficulty with putting on a staging a work of 19th century Grand Opera does indeed have to do with it being at odds with popular tastes and fashions. It's not so much a reflection on the quality of the work as the fact that modern audience has very different expectations from opera, and the old-style can be hard to swallow for a modernist, post-modernist, post-post-modernist audience. It's like expecting a reader of Harlan Coben thrillers to adapt to reading Walter Scott, or for readers of Ian McEwan to engage with the themes of Victor Hugo. The challenge that faced director Laurent Pelly then is not an enviable one. He may not entirely have succeeded, but although his production for the Royal Opera House was heavily criticised in a way Pelly does capture the spirit of Meyerbeer to some extent. Perhaps it's more of a case that audiences still aren't ready for Meyerbeer.

Which is understandable, but a pity nonetheless. If nothing else Robert le Diable is an opera experience like no other. Musically and in terms of plotting it's not the most sophisticated, but Meyerbeer packs the five acts of the opera so full of melodies and dramatic development, underlining it with grand choral refrains, lyrical expression, comic interplay and over-the-top gothic imagery with some ballet sequences thrown in for good measure, that it's never anything less than pure value-for-money entertainment. Pelly's production, unfairly criticised I feel, attempts to put all the colour and the darkness of the work up there on the stage in the sets and costumes, and he does so rather well. It's faithful to the spirit of the work, playing it straight where it ought to be, exaggerating in other places, but never stooping to making fun of the melodramatic developments and wild declarations.

Aiming for the middle ground between period fidelity and modernism, there's a "cardboard cutout" feel to the scenery then that is reminiscent in places of David Hockney's designs for the Glyndebourne production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. It's like an ancient black and white engraving that has been garishly hand-coloured, or even a medieval tapestry that might lack realistic detail and proportion, but nonetheless has the power to evoke the history and the values of another period far from our own. Sometimes this works exceptionally well (Act III's vision of Hell on a mountain pass like something out of an Hieronymus Bosch painting), at other times the imagery feels a little forced (the ultimate battle between the good of Alice and the evil of Bertram in Act V), and sometimes it's just a little too kitsch and reminiscent of Monty Python and the Holy Grail to take seriously (the colour of the medieval tournament in Act II).  

In most cases however, even those mentioned above, these are valid responses to the nature and tone of the material itself. Stravinsky and Meyerbeer may have little in common (Gounod's Faust might be a better model to consider), but Robert le Diable does indeed relate an exaggerated morality tale of the battle between good and evil similar to the one in The Rake's Progress. Here, Robert of Normandy is rumoured to be the son of beautiful princess who married a demon from Hell. Robert however has the choice to follow a path of righteousness, and demonstrates his leniency by sparing the life of the minstrel Rimbaut who relates the story of Robert the Devil to assembled knights at an inn in Palermo. He could choose also to win the hand of Isabelle in the traditional way through a tournament, but despite the warnings of his late mother and his foster sister Alice, is laid astray by the machinations of his companion Bertrand, the real devil of the work. If he steals a magic branch from the tomb of Saint Rosalie, he can win Isabelle by other means.

Barring some questionable choices - I'm still in two minds about the choreography of the zombie sisters of St Rosalie during the opera's most famous/notorious Dance of the Nuns ballet - Pelly's staging is sympathetic to the shifts of tone in the work itself and gets fully behind it, never attempting to make it into something else entirely with conceptual cleverness. Daniel Oren too shows great feeling for the work, its rhythms and variations, and - regardless of what you think of the merits or otherwise of Meyerbeer's score - it's simply a delight to see this type of work being put through its paces. There is however one other problem associated with putting on a Meyerbeer opera that the best efforts of the conductor, director and the Royal Opera House seem powerless to influence. It seems like we really don't have the singers for this type of work any longer.

It's understandable that singers who would be suited to or capable of singing Meyerbeer are obviously more focussed on the greater career opportunities afforded by singing Wagner or bel canto. Even good Verdi singers are thin on the ground nowadays and the demands of Meyerbeer are often greater. Singing the title role, Bryan Hymel proves that he is up there and his performance is not only commendable, it's almost heroic. His voice might not be to everyone's taste, and it does start to grate and go a little bit wayward as the opera progresses through the final acts, but the effort is considerable. No less demanding is the role of Bertram and John Relyea handles it superbly and with great character. Despite her commitment, Marina Poplavskaya however is terribly miscast here, as is Patrizia Ciofi, who really doesn't have a large enough voice for this style of work, her singing sounding like a whimper that is lost in the orchestration and big choruses.

It's this aspect of the production that is the most problematic. While there are advantages to watching Robert le Diable on the screen that allow one to better to appreciate the full Meyerbeer experience that Oren and Pelly recreate, it only emphasises the unsuitability of some of the singing. There's no doubting the commitment of the performances however, and for all its flaws this is a sincere and a valiant effort to stage one of the great opera masterworks of yesteryear. The recording of the work and its presentation on the Opus Arte Blu-ray (which comes in a die-cut slipcase) is of course of the highest quality in both image and sound. The extra features however are slim, with only a Cast Gallery and a five-minute presentation on the legacy of the work, which does nonetheless give you an idea of the challenges of putting on this work. There's an essay and a full synopsis in the enclosed booklet. The disc is BD50, Full-HD, Region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Dvořák - Rusalka

Antonín Dvořák - Rusalka

Royal Opera House, London, 2012

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito, Camilla Nylund, Petra Lang, Byran Hymel, Agnes Zwierko, Alan Held, Daniel Grice, Gyula Orendt, Ilse Eerens, Anna Devin, Madeleine Pierard, Justina Gringyte

Covent Garden, 27 February 2012

It’s somewhat surprising that Dvořák’s gorgeous Lyric Fairytale opera Rusalka has never been performed before at Covent Garden. One hundred and eleven years after its composition, its February 2012 premiere at the Royal Opera House was therefore long overdue, but under conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin it was at least a fine introduction to the musical qualities of the work. The far from traditional stage production however - premiered at Salzburg in 2008 and revived here with many of the original cast - without necessarily detracting from the work, certainly confused the audience about the intentions of the piece, the directors attracting a fair share of booing on the opening night performance.

The intentions of the work and its source in European folklore - notably Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid‘ may not be easily apparent other than it being merely a fairytale, but even on that level there is a richness of imagery and some typical themes in such work on the corruption of innocence, particularly in the context of the destruction of the purity of nature by the actions of humanity. It’s also a tragic love story of a water nymph who falls in love with a prince in the woods and wants to become human. Escaping from the tyranny of the water goblin, with the help of a witch in the woods, she manages to grow legs and appears as a beautiful but mute vision before the prince hunting in the woods. Unable to cope with the complex and inconstant nature of human beings, Rusalka however finds herself banished from her sisters and home, unable to fit into the human world either, and ultimately cursed to live in a limbo state between them.

Quite how the production directed by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito came to be set in what looked like a brothel then and whatever intentions were behind this choice were unclear, but it’s not the first time that the opera has been subjected to a radical reworking. Martin Kušej’s 2010 production of Rusalka for the Bavarian State Opera managed to graft the story of young girls being held captive in a dank cellar and abused by a Josef Fritzl-like water goblin quite successfully onto the work’s theme of the corruption of innocence, finding in Rusalka’s dilemma a parallel to the profound psychological damage that abused women in captivity must endure for the rest of their lives. There would appear to be something similar attempted with this production, but its muddled intentions were far less coherent and nowhere near so successfully or powerfully seen through to the fullness of their dark intent.

The key to understanding the production’s concept comes perhaps in its treatment of the Rusalka’s three wood nymphs. Reflecting Rusalka’s innocence of the fact that she is growing up in a brothel - the set dressed with lurid colours and red curtains - in Act 1 the three semi-naked figures in transparent dresses writhe around like exotic creatures of a young girl’s imagination, but it’s only after leaving her home - losing her mermaid tail and literally learning to stand on her own two feet - and having been subjected herself to the acts and whims of men, that the young woman’s illusions are shattered. In Act 3 then, the three “nymphs” are seen more for what they really are, dressed far more conventionally (albeit still in theatrical fantasy terms in unbelievably skimpy outfits rather than with any sense of naturalism) as cheap prostitutes. The scales have fallen from Rusalka’s eyes and, no longer able to return to the world of childhood innocence, the idea of living in a world with this knowledge becomes intolerable.

That’s one interpretation - the best I can come up with - but its manner of expression in the production is far from consistent, mixing this stylised theatrical realism with pantomime-like fairytale imagery, often to bizarre effect. Rusalka quite literally has a mermaid fish tail at the start, which is removed from her by the witch Jezibaba’s giant person-in-a-big-furry-costume black cat familiar. The revolving stage set with its red curtains is asked to stand-in for a variety of locations and the fit isn’t always good, the imagery and mix of concepts proving rather confusing. I’m not sure where the religious elements and use of neon crosses come into the work, although perhaps it views religious intolerance and hypocrisy as being antithetical to Rusalka’s pure and natural paganism.

Regardless of how it’s interpreted, the progression of the storyline and the impact of Rusalka’s dilemma still comes through, expressed principally and convincing by a strong performance from the Royal Opera House orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. They captured the Wagnerian romanticism of the work rather more successfully however than the folk rhythms that Dvořák beautifully blends into the opera, coming across a little too aggressively in such places. It was the quality of the singing however that carried the work through in spite of the peculiarities of the production. Camilla Nylund’s performance and delivery were flawless, meeting not only the technical demands of the singing, but injecting the right note of wistful romanticism into Rusalka’s “Song to the Moon” aria, and a sense of distraught confusion at the harsh reality of being a human that leads to her tragic fate. Bryan Hymel was equally as emotive in his delivery of the rather more human failings of the Prince, his singing strong and resonant.

There were moreover no weak elements even in the secondary characters with Petra Lang a formidable foreign princess, Agnes Zwierko compelling as the witch Jezibaba and Alan Held a strong Water Goblin. Particularly impressive however were the Rhinemaiden-like figures of the three wood nymphs, Anna Devin, Madeleine Pierard and Justina Gringyte. This was consequently a solid performance of Rusalka, exceptionally well-sung by a strong cast, even if the production didn’t always capture the lyricism of this beautiful work in the orchestration or the stage direction.

Bizet - Carmen

Georges Bizet - Carmen

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 2010

Constantinos Carydis, Francesca Zambello, Christine Rice, Bryan Hymel, Aris Argiris, Maija Kovalevska, Dawid Kimberg, Nicolas Courjal, Elena Xanthoudakis, Paula Murrihy, Adrian Clarke, Harry Nicoll

Real-D Inc

To my mind, there are two ways to play Carmen for maximum effect – one is slow and sultry, the other is fast and passionate. I will admit though that I haven’t seen a production of Carmen in well over ten years, so I was prepared to accept that there may be other aspects that could be brought out of the opera. With a 3-D version on a theatrical run in the cinema, it seemed like a perfect opportunity then to consider what other ‘dimensions’ could indeed be found in Bizet’s opera. While the Royal Opera House production did indeed reveal that there are indeed deeper elements to an opera with more than its share of terrific, universally-known, crowd-pleasing tunes, it never really settled however on any one approach, and, perhaps most disappointingly – although perhaps not unexpectedly considering the experience of 3-D movies at the cinema – it failed to convince that the 3-D experience is anything more than a gimmick that doesn’t work all that well.

This is a production that never really comes to life, and the use of 3-D, in an attempt to bring you closer to the experience, doesn’t make up for failings in the performance itself. Opera already has an extra dimension that cinema and theatre don’t traditionally have in their acting and storytelling, and that is the expression of sentiments, actions and themes through the music and the singing. There is nothing lacking in opera – and if anything the 3-D production confirms this – that needs to be brought out by any other means than the interpretation of the performers under the direction of the conductor and stage director. Francesca Zambello’s stage direction for this production of Carmen is in this respect fairly conventional, working with the opera and playing to its traditional strengths, a composite almost of every cliché associated with the opera’s vision of Spanish gypsy culture, but not really having anything new to contribute to it, no modern reinterpretation and – I suppose we should be thankful for this at least – nothing added to make it more accessible for either television viewing or 3-D cinema projection. It’s a traditional, old-favourite opera, and it’s played very safely.

As to whether the performance, more importantly, gets to the emotional core of the opera – personally, I found it unconvincing. The pace of Act 1 opts, I presume, for slow and sultry, with gypsy girls aplenty, legs spread, arms akimbo, skirts hitched up and much heaving cleavage on show during la Havanaise – “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle”, but the real expression of the underlying passions and temptations are better expressed in the music and singing, and here it just feels lifeless with a tempo that drags. There is little wrong with the singing of Christine Rice and Bryan Hymel in the principal roles, but whether they felt the pressure of performing before cameras that get in much closer than usual in filmed opera – although there was no toning down of theatre mannerisms – the performances felt perfunctory, never getting beneath the surface of whatever dark passions drive the characters to their tragic fates. Only Maija Kovalevska in the role of Micaela, brought out that other dimension I was looking for in the opera in her Act 3 “Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante”, showing that there are more noble sentiments and a more pure love can exist, but that it doesn’t really stand a chance against the all-consuming lust and the jealousy that fires Don José and Carmen.



If the lust doesn’t come across convincingly, the painful jealousy that is going to lead to the tragic conclusion is there also to some degree in Act 3 of this production, but it’s too little and too late when the connection that brings Don José and Carmen together hasn’t been sufficiently established. To its credit then this production at least convinced me that there are other ways of playing Carmen than slow and sultry or fast and passionate, and that really, a balanced production should incorporate all those elements, as well as the more noble sentiments of Micaela’s love and a mother’s concern for her son. All those elements are there in this production, but none of them seem to reach the heights demanded, nor indeed work in common accord. The failure to achieve this is likewise across the board, the staging not really finding a way of exploring these emotions in any depth, the singing and acting feeling largely perfunctory, and the filming for the screen never succeeding in bringing it to life.

The RealD 3-D filming, directed for the screen by Julian Napier, was extremely disappointing in this respect. The most effective use of the 3-D effects were backstage at the start of the opera, where the lighting is strong enough to set figures in the foreground against the background, and in the opening shot on stage when an imprisoned Don José stretches out his hands pleadingly – one of the few original touches that indicate that both deaths foretold in the Carmen’s card-reading come to pass. Elsewhere, backgrounds were black or too dark, and figures were not close enough in the foreground to achieve anything like the same effect, save for the very occasional close-up arrangement, and only one or two obvious attempts to project images towards the camera. Where the 3-D also fared badly in comparison to regular High Definition live broadcasts and particularly with the exceptionally high standard of Blu-ray discs, was in the artificiality of the shimmery digital image that was created, one that also blurred excessively in movement and, even when static, failed to produce a sharp or detailed enough image.