Zandonai - Francesca da Rimini (Berlin, 2021)

Riccardo Zandonai - Francesca da Rimini

Deutsche Oper, Berlin - 2021

Carlo Rizzi, Christof Loy, Sara Jakubiak, Alexandra Hutton, Samuel Dale Johnson, Ivan Inverardi, Jonathan Tetelman, Charles Workman, Meechot Marrero, Mané Galoyan, Arianna Manganello, Karis Tucker, Amira Elmadfa, Andrew Dickinson, Dean Murphy, Patrick Cook, Thomas Lehman

takt1.com streaming

Other than being associated with a group of post-Verdi Italian composers at the beginning of the twentieth century, opera verismo is hard to define in musical or thematic terms. There's an element of social realism in works like Puccini’s La Bohème and Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, but it’s more in considering how the real people deal with personal hardships and difficulties than in any social commentary or criticism. Other works, like Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur or Giordano's Fedora that hardly fit the common idea of verismo. In any case with the enhanced emotional range and the artificial construct of singing one’s troubles, opera hardly seems the ideal way to approach any kind of social realism.

On the other hand, the hard-hitting musical style of verismo, pushing and even perhaps over-extending the emotional content even further than Verdi, perhaps hits on a deeper emotional reality for the troubles of its subject, or perhaps more accurately, it communicates the depth of feeling to an audience. For all the (unjustified) criticism of emotional manipulation and accusations of sentimentality that could be levelled against Puccini, there is no question that he does masterfully express the deep personal dilemmas suffered by his protagonists and communicate it through the medium of music in a way that touches the listener.

It might not have the common people touch of Cavalleria Rusticana, dealing instead with two noble families where an arranged marriage has left a woman in a loveless relationship and unable to be with the person she loves, but Riccardo Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini does nonetheless enter into that realm of enhanced emotional turmoil. Musically, it elaborates and elevates to an extraordinary level (aspiring to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde obviously) the romantic aspect, but sets this against and within the bloodthirsty violence and brutality of the family wars. Whether Zandonai’s opera is successful is debatable, but it has potential that could be realised in a strong theatrical setting. Christoph Loy can usually be relied upon for that, but while he certainly makes Francesca da Rimini 'work', I’m not convinced he finds anything deeper in it.

What is indisputable is that Act I of Francesca da Rimini has one of the greatest build-ups in all opera. Perhaps not quite as prolonged and ultimately sublime as Tristan und Isolde, the origin story of which this opera acknowledges as a model, but it's a good one nonetheless. The arrival of the mysterious Giovanni Malatesta is surrounded in gossip and speculation and, on the part of Francesca at least, some amount of trepidation, as she is to be married to this unknown man. When he finally approaches from the wings, she is told that he's slim, tall, handsome and walks like a king. "You're going to be the happiest woman in the world". And bam! just as described her future husband walks onto the stage and Zandonai accompanies this with the most seductive and romantic of music and heavenly choruses. Albeit with a hint of something awry behind it? Menace? Disappointment? For a trick of bait and switch has been played and it's not Giovanni, but his much better looking brother Paolo il Bello who she sees and immediately falls in love with.

Loy isn't going to let that be a premature climax and ensures that Act II of the opera closes on another dramatic finale that has you gripped to your seats and almost blown away. That effect is of course not achieved in isolation and as usual Loy pays close attention to what the music is telling us and looking for the best way of presenting that. Without swords and doublets, he shows the household of Francesca's Polenta family as thugs in suits, conspiring to trick Francesca into a marriage of convenience. With scattered flowers and a Gothic backdrop in the earlier scenes, there's an air of decadence about it as well, and Loy emphasises the almost ecstatic musical explosion at the violent wars of the conclusion of Act II with the intoxicated Francesca almost revelling in the spilled blood of the Malatesta.

That moment of madness turns into confusion and fear that is extended and developed as she becomes torn between all three Malatesta brothers. The music, and particularly the vocal range, is correspondingly pushed further into heightened expression, which Sara Jakubiak sings superbly in Francesca's confrontation with Smaragdi. If she can appear a little detached and not always have the fullness of voice elsewhere, she does bring a sultry character to Francesca, much as she did previously - in parts fully naked - as the queen in Loy's production of Korngold' s Das Wunder der Heliane. She really shows her ability in the varied tones of the opera's third Act.

Although linking thematically and visually with that previous work at the Deutsche Oper, Christoph Loy here adopts more of the style of the similarly themed feuding family wars of his 2015 production of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Zurich or, taking place confined in a wealthy mansion with a window view, it's more simplified like his production of Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe at the Theater an der Wien in 2018. If it doesn't measure up to provide any deeper or broader thematic approach, the little details and correspondences with the music do manage to highlight the dramatic qualities of the work, even if it still doesn't seem to hold together as a whole.

Still, Act IV ramps up the drama and the decadence deliciously as Loy insists on showing Francesca flirting dangerously with the third brother, the psychotic Malatestino, fabulously sung and performed with casual menace by the always impressive Charles Workman. The music continues to be filled with ominous motifs building tension and anger that is going to end in tragedy, and it plays out wonderfully under Carlo Rizzi's musical direction. The role of Paolo has a challenging dramatic range to meet and Jonathan Tetelman does it well, all of which adds to a very successful interpretation of Zandonai's opera. The casting is great, the performances convincing, the music compelling, but it's still hard to feel involved in the circumstances or character of D'Annunzio's drama.

Links: Deutsche Oper

Braunfels - Die Vögel (Munich, 2020)

Walter Braunfels - Die Vögel (Munich, 2020)

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2020

Ingo Metzmacher, Frank Castorf, Wolfgang Koch, Charles Workman, Michael Nagy, Caroline Wettergreen, Günter Papendell, Bálint Szabó, Emily Pogorelc, Yajie Zhang, Eliza Boom, Theodore Platt, George Vîrban

Staatsoper TV - 31 October 2020

A previous production I saw of Walter Braunfel's Die Vögel for LA Opera in 2009 kept the work fairly neutral in a magical fairy-tale world, but whether you choose to relate the obvious parable in Aristophanes' tale to any contemporary situation or not, it most certainly has something to say about power, social division and inequality. Directed by Frank Castorf (Bayreuth Ring, From the House of the Dead), I think you could pretty much guess beforehand how this was going to be handled in the Bavarian State Opera production. Or broadly guess at least, since while all the more familiar Castorf imagery, symbolism and references are present, it is of course impossible to imagine all the unusual and strange details that the director will throw in.

There is at the very least a case for delving beneath the surface beauty of Braunfels' musical arrangements and trying to get to the root of what the composer might have wanted to say about the underlying themes in the fairy-tale. Braunfels was one of many German and Austrian composers who suffered under the hands of the Nazis because of his Jewish heritage, but his refusal to write an anthem for the Nazi party wouldn't have gone down well either and Braunfels found his music classified as Entartete ("Degenerate"). It's not difficult to see some concerns about the post-first world war divisions in society and where it might lead to in his 1920 opera Die Vögel (The Birds).

In Braunfels' version of the story by Aristophenes, the division is characterised between two men who both have idealistic names, Ratefreund (Loyal Friend) and Hoffegut (Good Hope), who set out to leave behind the world of men, to escape the confines of bourgeois society and culture, and aspire to artistic greatness. They turn to Hoopoe, the Emperor of the birds who was once human, and propose the building of a grand city in the skies, where the birds can reassert their dominion above humans and even the gods. Inevitably the ideal of such a utopia is weakened by the vanity of assuming such power, and Prometheus is there to warn them of where this is all going to lead.

Braunfels started writing Die Vögel before the First World War, and it's not difficult to imagine that the opera might reflect the concerns that the composer could have had about the changes in society during the period of the writing up to its completion in 1919. Castorf's production attempts to reflect those divisions and the human weaknesses that corrupt the idealism of a utopia in harmony with nature. Hoffegut's hope for emotional fulfilment turns into an obsession for the beauty of the nightingale, while Ratefreund's desire for power higher than Zeus leads both to effectively (in this production at least) become Nazis.

It's impossible not to think of Richard Strauss's lushly orchestrated fantasies Die Frau ohne Schatten or Daphne, both musically as well as in the fairy-tale subject matter of Die Vögel. Braunfels composes some ravishing but not particularly challenging music that is at least persuasive of the possibility of a utopia, with bird trills feeding into the score. The second half goes all-out with Hoffegut's wooing of the Nightingale, the long instrumental ballet music for the wedding between Mister Pigeon and Miss Dove, but it's all brought down to earth (literally) with the arrival of Prometheus, and Castorf is determined not to let the fantasy and musical extravagance overshadow the darker message. If anyone can make Die Vögel just that bit edgier it's undoubtedly Frank Castorf.

Inevitably when it comes to this director, it's very much hit and miss. Nothing is going to be presented literally or as a pure allegorical fantasy as in the LA Opera production, and the imagery and the symbolism don't correlate with underlying themes in any obvious way. What works and what doesn't will depend on your perspective, but there's certainly plenty to take in and work with in the set design. For Act I Alexander Denic provides a familiar Castorf 360 degree rotating three-level platform of makeshift rusting scaffolding, steel staircases and plastic sheeting with a wooden hut at the top. The ground floor likewise looks like a refugee camp with shipping containers, wooden fence and chairs.

As you also often find with Castorf there are handheld cameras projecting close-ups and backstage action up onto screens, the set also decorated with little details that reference consumerist society (a Coca-Cola dispenser) as well as more obscure references to the subject of birds in concert posters for The Eagles and one for The Byrds backed by The Flying Burrito Brothers. Running in a similar free-association way, Act II after the interval features a huge billboard of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, with clips from the film showing on an array of satellite dishes as the inevitable horror of this (capitalist?) citadel to man's vanity comes crashing down to earth.

Whether you can make anything clear out of Castorf's production, there's no shortage of ideas and it does look spectacular. The birds' costumes are beautifully extravagant like nightclub showgirls and dancers, with feathers in their hair and plumage on wire harnesses. The arrival of Prometheus amidst the cacophony of life, ideas, references, emotional and political conflict in Castorf's intentionally cluttered stage is extraordinary, capturing the beauty and the ugliness, the mundane and the mysterious, the whole glorious spectacle and the ignominious collapse of it all. Performed in an almost empty theatre, the premiere and final performance of this production before the National Theatre goes into lockdown, certainly lends a strange atmosphere to the piece, where culture is again at the mercy of social upheaval.

The casting and of course the musical performance under Ingo Metzmacher certainly helps contribute to emphasise the contrasts between the lush music and the on-stage furore. I always enjoy Charles Workman's singing and he's very good here as Hoffegut, bringing a suitable little bit of an edge to his usually soft lyrical tenor. It's rather hard for anyone else to be relatable on a human level either - for obvious reasons in this fantasy - but there are songbirds aplenty and excellent performances from Wolfgang Koch as Prometheus, Günter Papendell as Wiedhopf (Hoopoe), Michael Nagy as Ratefreund and Caroline Wettergreen as the Nightingale.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper TV

Janáček - From the House of the Dead (Munich, 2018)

Leoš Janáček - From the House of the Dead

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2018

Simone Young, Frank Castorf, Peter Rose, Evgeniya Sotnikova, Aleš Briscein, Charles Workman, Bo Skovhus, Christian Rieger, Manuel Günther, Tim Kuypers, Ulrich Reß,

Belair Classiques - Blu-ray

Personally I'll always hold the director Frank Castorf in the highest esteem for his deeply thoughtful Bayreuth Ring that dared to upset many but explored this complex work on numerous levels with increasing but unpredictable precision across all four days of that monumental opera cycle. There's no doubt however that the German theatre director can be hard work, particularly when he tries to condense down many ideas into a much shorter work like From the House of the Dead. Although the actual circumstances of the each of the inmates in a Siberian work camp is hard, the underlying humanistic intent and meaning of Janáček's opera, and indeed Dostoevsky's original work based on his own experiences as a political prisoner, shouldn't be quite so difficult to understand.

And at the most basic level its purpose does come across clearly. From the House of the Dead is a remarkable book and opera that celebrates the diversity of life and the power of humanity to endure the most abject of situations, retain hope and even some twisted sense of brotherhood or community in their shared experience that helps face the hardships that have to be endured. It's not so simple really when you break that down and even in this concise opera Janáček gives voice to the experiences of a number of men, each with very different ways of dealing with the situation they find themselves in, not all of them noble or their stories life-affirming. Janáček's music goes a considerable way to break that down and reassemble these broken people into a common humanity but Frank Castorf obviously isn't going to let Janáček do all the work.

One of the common experiences that all of the men in the Siberian labour camp have is hardship and living constantly in the presence of death. Death is inevitably uppermost in the minds of men struggling to survive intact from the soul-destroying experience of having endured time in this House of the Dead. As a way of showing how this brings about a recognition of one's mortality, Castorf has the inmates dress up as carnival goers wearing macabre suits and masks for a Day of the Dead parade. To contrast this and to provide some light that needs to exist somewhere in all this darkness, the symbolic eagle that is captured and eventually freed is at the same time an eagle and Aljeja, the young Tartar prisoner befriended and mentored by Petrovic, dressed in another colourful carnival costume as a Bird of Paradise.

Like many of the constructions created for his Ring tetralogy, the set is a typical three-dimensional rotating construction of a concentration of a camp, if I may be allowed to describe it that way, closed in and layered upwards with guards and warders up on the upper level, the grimness of the prison camp's concrete and barbed wire below. In a way it's like all humanity at its best and worst is crammed down below, faces scarred, covered in boils and sores, others stained with blood and dirt. There is certainly an expansive look at the variety and diversity of life experiences to be found in the stories that the men tell to stand out and affirm their own sense of identity. There's also a measure of release in expressing their cynical view of the unjust cruel world outside, taking some comfort at the same time in the stories of others' experiences that are worse than their own. Even the way they amuse themselves, fighting, bickering, mistreating prostitutes, putting on an absurd theatrical entertainment, has an air of grim but necessary release from inner demons.

To extend that view and get down and dirty with it Castorf uses another device the viewer might be familiar with from his Bayreuth Ring and that's using video screens with cameramen walking around the stage gathering closeups and behind the scenes incidents. Characters speak silently to the camera with subtitles provided (not always in English), spotlights and searchlights, contribute to the intense situation and there are of course plenty of Castorf's strange touches that connect to or have contemporary associations like an illuminated Pepsi Cola sign and a movie poster of Joseph Losey's 'The Assassination of Trotsky'. What they all mean is anyone's guess, but they all add to an interesting view on an always fascinating work.

Something else that you can always count on in From the House of the Dead is the opportunity to see some fine singers put through their paces in an opera that always remains a challenge and requires exceptional singers, not least because they are sung in Czech. The Bavarian State Opera have engaged an exceptional cast here, all of them very much rising to the challenge that Janáček and Castorf have in store for them. More often a Gremin in Eugene Onegin or Daland in Der fliegende Holländer Peter Rose is a great singer but rarely gets parts as expressive as Petrovic and he makes a great impression here. Charles Workman characteristically throws himself into the madness of Skuratov and Bo Skovhus brings a more menacing edge to Šiškov, but all the variety that you expect to find is there in the excellent casting. Janáček's opera has an uneven rhythmic melodic pulse but Simone Young finds that through-line in the score that captures the different tones and adventurous instrumentation employed by the composer in his final work.

The quality of the picture and sound on the BelAir Blu-ray release is excellent, the image clear and free from any issues, the relatively short work comfortably fitting on a BD25 disc. The detail of the score comes across well on both the lossless PCM stereo and DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 surround audio tracks. There are no extra features on the disc and the booklet only includes a synopsis and tracklist, with no information on the intentions of the production. 

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper

Korngold - Die tote Stadt (Dublin, 2019)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Die tote Stadt

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, 2019

Patrik Ringborn, John McKeown, Celine Byrne, Charles Workman, Ben McAteer, Katharine Goeldner, Julian Hubbard, Clare Presland, Susanna Fairbairn, Alan Leech

National Concert Hall, Dublin - 12 April 2019

You don't get many opportunities to see a Korngold opera in Ireland, so when even a concert performance of Die tote Stadt comes up it's an event that can't be missed. In fact, a concert version comes with the additional benefit of putting the orchestra up on the stage with the performers and when you have a master orchestrator like Korngold, even at 23 years old when he composed his most famous opera, you really get a unique chance to experience the intricacy, beauty and power of the work.

Like Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande or Schreker's Die Gezeichneten, the lush orchestration of Korngold's Die tote Stadt has a dreamy seductive quality that when combined with the nightmarish qualities of a Symbolist-influenced text that has undertones of decay and decadence, creates an atmosphere of gathering unease. In Pelléas et Mélisande there's no musical way out of the nightmare and you remain trapped within it, with Die Gezeichneten the illusion eventually comes crumbling down, revealing the true horror underneath.

With Die tote Stadt ('The Dead City'), Korngold's orchestral crescendos are more ambiguous; in some way they seem to break the illusion, but in others, they just seem to enforce how strong the madness lies within Paul's delusion that his dead wife Marie has been revived, reincarnated or reproduced in some way in the form of Marietta.

That certainly came across forcefully in the performance of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the Swedish guest conductor, Patrik Ringborn. Not only did we have the luxury of hearing Die tote Stadt performed in all its glory in concert performance, but the performance was also able to take advantage of the National Concert Hall's pipe organ that emphasise the eerie climactic moments of mad love.

We were also fortunate that Celine Byrne and Julian Hubbard had extended their stay in Dublin after their stint on Madama Butterfly for Irish National Opera a few weeks ago, and having seen thought that both were phenomenal in that, a concert performance of Die tote Stadt was surely going to be a treat. And of course it was.

I hadn't realised how difficult a role Marietta is, or I had forgotten, but Celine Byrne demonstrated the kind of voice needed to not just reach and sustain its tricky heights and German cadences, but how important it is to bring an expressive lyricism to Marietta's predicament and a cool authority to the ghostly spirit and allure of Marie. Whether it's a more challenging role than Madama Butterfly or it's a case of different challenges that depend on voice type I'm no expert, but Byrne grew magnificently into the role, or perhaps it's Marietta who gradually grows and asserts her own personality away from the pull of Paul's dangerous obsession to transform her into a dead woman.

Whether I overlooked it or there was no information on the performers when I booked my ticket for this, I was delighted to find Charles Workman cast in the role of Paul. Workman is one of my favourite tenors in early twentieth-century repertoire of this kind, works like Jenůfa and Die Gezeichneten, and this is a gift of a role for him. With that lyrical voice he could just glide softly and beautifully around such lush orchestration, but he is more than capable of rising above it and against it with expression and force, particularly in the jarring behaviour of Paul. It's marvellous to hear him sing and perform in this context in a concert performance, and particularly when he is a perfect match for Celia Byrne. The duet between Paul and Marietta's (or is she the dead Marie in Paul's dream?) at the end of Act II was one of the highlights of the performance.

Also terrifically impressive in concert performance is Northern Ireland baritone Ben McAteer. His Frank provides a wonderful contrast and balance to the richness of the voices that accompany Korngold's orchestration. There was a wonderful clarity to Julian Hubbard's singing, although that fared better as Victorin from the front of the stage that trying to soar above the orchestra from the back of the choir as Gaston. Katharine Goeldner made Brigitta's role significant, and there was lovely support from Clare Presland, Susanna Fairbairn and Alan Leech as Marietta's lively singing colleagues, all contributing to the richness of the score, the performances and the surreal madness that Die tote Stadt is capable of attaining.

A live stream of this concert was recorded for RTÉ Lyric FM

Links: National Concert Hall

Schreker - Die Gezeichneten (Lyon, 2015 - Lyon)

Franz Schreker - Die Gezeichneten

Opéra de Lyon, 2015

Alejo Perez, David Bösch, Charles Workman, Magdalena Anna Hofmann, Simon Neal, Markus Marquardt, Michael Eder, Aline Kostrewa, Jan Petryka, Jeff Martin, Robert Wörle, Falko Hönisch, James Martin, Piotr Micinski, Stephen Owen

Lyon - 13 March 2015

Selected as one of three thematically connected works in the Opéra de Lyon's 'Les Jardins Mystérieux' March 2015 opera festival, the mysterious garden of Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten is a rather disturbing one, a paradise that holds altogether darker, twisted roots. The Lyon production of this rarely performed yet enchantingly beautiful work was accordingly dark, recognising perhaps the historical origins of Schreker's composition, as well as its continued relevance today.

The libretto for Die Gezeichneten (translated as 'Les Stigmatisés', the Stigmatised) was written by Schreker on the request of fellow composer, Alexander von Zemlinsky. The work is based on the play Hidalia by Frank Wedekind (famous as the author of Lulu), but the inspiration also comes from Oscar Wilde's 'The Birthday of the Infanta' - a work that Schreker had already written as a dance-pantomime 'Der Geburtstag der Infantin'. Zemlinsky's identification with the cruel little tale stemmed from his own insecurities regarding his relationship with Alma Schindler, later Alma Mahler, and it would become the subject of his own opera based on the Wilde story, Der Zwerg (The Dwarf).

It's not difficult to see why Schreker's libretto may not have entirely suited Zemlinsky's intentions. It doesn't have a happy ending or even a noble one, but rather seems to suggest that there is a darker side to everyone. Even the best of intentions, corrupted by a sense of pride, love or even self-empowerment, can have unintended consequences. Schreker's own experience following the success of Die Gezeichneten would seem to follow a similar trajectory, the composer being appointed to a prominent position as a Music Director in Berlin, before falling victim to the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi party and seeing his influence and musical reputation slip into decline.

In Die Gezeichneten, the stigmatised outsider is Alviano Salvago, a scarred, hunchbacked nobleman in 16th century Genoa, who has created a beautiful island paradise called 'Elysium'. Unknown to Alviano, the Genoan nobility have been using the underground grotto of the island to abuse children that they have been abducting from the city. Aware that he cannot be loved for his appearance, Alviano intends to enhance his reputation by donating the island as a gift to the people of Genoa. The nobles appeal to Duke Adorno to preserve their playground, Adorno unaware that his own missing daughter Ginevra Scotti is one of the victims held captive in the grotto.

Alviano finds another powerful enemy in Count Vitelozzo Tamare. Tamare is in love with Carlotta, the daughter of the Podestà. Carlotta, an artist following her own independent spirit, has rejected Tamare and is attracted rather to the hunchback, wanting to paint him, but Alviano's lack of confidence prevents him from exploring whether the attraction goes any deeper than artistic. Indeed, once Carlotta finishes her experimental portrait of Alviano's soul, she seems to lose any further interest in the strange little man, but Alviano, flattered by the attention of Carlotta, is now a changed man.

Lyon's production, directed by David Bösch, spared the audience none of the horror of this dark fairy-tale nor the disturbing implications and undercurrents that run through the subject. There was little sign of any Romantic decadence or period glamour here. The true nature of the Genoan nobles' activities was laid out clearly, posters showing pictures of abducted children in screen projections, lusts openly displayed as the men shared videos and pictures of the abuse carried out, groping and grasping at horrified young women. The scenes of abused children in the grotto, when it is uncovered in the final act, are horrifying, some of victims wearing rags, some dead, others with blood spilling down their legs. And yet, for all the realism of the treatment, there was still an otherworldly hallucinatory aspect to the nature of the work.

Partly that's down to the themes being just as suggestive as the abstract dark fairy-tale nature of the plot, and partly it's down to how that is expressed in the music. The themes that rise to the surface are those of the abuse of power, the corrupting influence of power, the gratification of desires and the inevitable downfall of a corrupt society. But it's also about art, the power of art to explore beneath the surface and show the true nature of the human soul. If you delve into such places however, you can also be sure of finding some unpalatable truths. This fits with the post-war view of the barbarism unleashed by Great War, but its essential truth is borne out in Schreker's own later experiences, when through his Jewish ancestry, his own art would come to be regarded as 'Entartete', degenerate art, by the National Socialists, who would come into power and leave similar devastation in the wake of the Second World War.

The question of whether Schreker's own art with its grand, elegant flow of lush post-Wagnerian orchestration, is capable of delving into those places is debatable, but in Die Gezeichneten at least, it has a place. Tied to these themes moreover, it's not ambitious to say that the work is capable of being expressive of how these themes can be applicable to many different facets of life. If there's any kind of disparity between the dark decadence of the work and the surface beauty of orchestration, Schreker's score is revealed to be much more muscular and expressive than one would think under the direction of Alejo Perez. Art is transformative, but it can also be twisted and corrupted. The meansure of that is in the dissonance that creeps into this beguiling music, and Perez and the Lyon orchestra bring this out clearly, not letting the audience be entirely seduced by its chromatic spell, but reminding us that it has a sinister side to it.

It helps that the musical performance works in conjunction with the imagery on the stage, but the singing is also a vital ingredient in this work. Having previously known this work with a more heldentenor style of performance from Robert Brubaker in the role of Alviano Salvago at Salzburg in 2005, it was quite a change to hear the softer timbre and delicate delivery of Charles Workman in the role here. This worked wonderfully however, Workman's luxurious tones contrasting with Alviano's marked and disfigured appearance. It was a captivating performance, remarkably clear in enunciation and carrying across the huge orchestral forces in a strong expressive delivery. Magdalena Anna Hofmann impressed as Carlotta, a difficult role that has to reach some near-impossible heights, and if the securing of those notes wasn't pitch-perfect every time, she brought a degree of personality to the work's complex artistic female character.

Links: Opéra de Lyon

Janáček - Jenůfa

Leoš Janáček - Jenůfa

La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2014

Ludovic Morlot, Alvis Hermanis, Sally Matthews, Charles Workman, Nicky Spence, Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, Carole Wilson, Ivan Ludlow, Alexander Vassiliev, Mireille Capelle, Hendrickje Van Kerckhove, Beata Morawska, Chloé Briot, Nathalie Van de Voorde, Marta Beretta

Culturebox, Medici.tv, La Monnaie Internet Streaming - January 2014

Jenůfa is a challenging opera to perform and stage. Musically, despite its seemingly simple rhythmic pulsations, this early 20th century opera by Janáček bridges Romanticism and Modernism, but it has the additional complication of being very much related to Moravian folk music and to the particular rhythms of spoken language that are an important aspect of Janáček's style. An indication of the challenges of performing the work is how varied interpretations of Janáček's musical scoring can be in attempting to find that precise rhythm in music and language. It doesn't help, I find, that Sir Charles Mackerras' near-definitive editions and recordings of many of Janáček's operas set an incredibly high standard for anyone else to match.

In terms of the storyline, Jenůfa also appears to be a simple folktale, a morality tale of village life, the melodrama of a local beauty who scandalously falls pregnant and is spurned by her lover, only to have her face disfigured by a jealous admirer. Not only that, but in an attempt to resolve the difficulties and the shame that lie upon the family and in an attempt to open a way to a marriage for Jenůfa, her frantic stepmother, Kostelnička, drowns the new-born baby in a frozen river. The storyline revolves around these few highly intense situations in a way that not only makes it difficult to dramatise, but to find a suitable tone that is not overwhelmingly bleak and despairing.

On the contrary, based on the lush beauty of the musical score, the director and conductor actually have to find a way to make the work beautiful and achieve a conclusion that is heart-warming and tender. Jenůfa is not a work then that benefits from a naturalistic interpretation or from any kind of harsh social realism, but at the same time it has to emphasise or make real the human qualities that arise out of their efforts to overcome the bleakness of the situation. That's no small challenge. Relatively new to opera, the Latvian theatre director Alvis Hermanis however takes an unusual approach to the stage presentation of this remarkable work for La Monnaie in Brussels. It's not quite perfect, but it's every bit as impressive and innovative as any staging of this unique and remarkable work should be.

Drawing heavily from the turn of the century Art Nouveau movement, with imagery taken directly from the works of the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, Hermanis' production for La Monnaie is therefore a highly stylised one that is far from naturalistic. At the same time however it is authentic in terms of the roots of the work in Moravian folktale and culture, while also being entirely sympathetic to the tone adopted towards the story by Janáček in his stunningly beautiful and evocative musical scoring. There are no conventional props or sets, yet the location, the background of the characters and their nature is represented brilliantly in the puffy-sleeved, embroidered and garlanded traditional costumes as well as in the elaborate decorative designs of the set.

That goes as far as using a line of dancers almost as a decorative border and background for the drama, positioned behind the singers throughout Act I and III. The upper level is used for projections of swirling and scrolling Art Nouveau patterns with Alphonse Mucha images that reflect the Czech Moravian setting and the characters, opening up at times to present the chorus who contribute to the background dramatic action and reaction. The singers act out the drama in stylised movements and dance-like gestures, never naturalistic but expressive nonetheless, retaining the folk quality of the story even though it adapts the body-language of formalised Oriental dance theatre.

Visually, it's a sumptuous display. Words alone can't do it justice. It's simply ravishingly and almost heart-breakingly beautiful, which is something you could say also about Janáček's score, so it's clearly wholly appropriate and in tune with the musical account of the work. That's evident in the way that Act II is treated entirely differently from the formalised tableaux of the opening and closing acts. Act II presents the reality of the situation in a much more socially realistic way, depicting a poor cottage or a run-down apartment in a housing block from a 1960s' Czech New Wave film, with peeling paint, a stove, a bed and religious pictures and icons on the walls. The music written by Janáček bears out this division of styles between ritualised folktale and the human reality, so close attention has clearly been paid to the score.

The production however doesn't perhaps always come to life the way it should or respond entirely to those deeply tragic moments and emotional undercurrents, but it's hard to imagine how any staging could. Most productions of Jenůfa (and they are rare enough) tend to follow the minimalist principle of the drama being enacted by just a few characters, but this one, while it might appear to be overly busy, at least fills the stage with context. The sense of community is of vital importance in Jenůfa, and that's evident in all the cultural and costume iconography, on a stage that has dancers in constant motion, and that is enacted often before the watchful, judgemental eyes of that small community looking down from those upper levels.

Ideally, you'd like to have native Czech singers who are capable of reproducing the speech rhythms that are so vital a component of the opera. It's rare however that anyone is able to cast in this way for the roles of Jenůfa and Kostelnička, but outside of Elisabeth Söderström and Eva Randová from the definitive Charles Mackerras recording in the 1980s, this Monnaie production is as good as I've heard with Sally Matthews and Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet in those roles. Charbonnet feels the strain of the high pitch towards the end of the opera, but she has good presence and dramatic force in her delivery. Sally Matthew's dramatic performance is a little bit blank in the context of the stylised delivery, but she's stronger in Act II's realism and her singing performance is solid and consistent throughout. Nicky Spence is a fine Števa, but it's Charles Workman who stands out here, his gorgeous tone and impassioned delivery in Act III making that difficult acceptance of Laca's dreadful actions and his redemption meaningful and truly heart-warming.

The 2014 La Monnaie production of Jenůfa is available to view for free via internet streaming from the Culturebox, Medici.tv and La Monnaie sites. Subtitles are in French only, although the La Monnaie site also has optional Dutch subtitles.

Berg - Lulu

Alban Berg - Lulu

La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels 2012

Paul Daniel, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Barbara Hannigan, Natascha Petrinsky, Frances Bourne, Tom Randle, Dietrich Henschel, Charles Workman, Pavlo Hunka, Ivan Ludlow, Albrecht Kludzuweit, Rúni Brattaberg, Mireille Capelle, Beata Morawska, Benoît De Leersnyder, Gerard Lavalle, Charles Dekeyser, Anna Maistriau, Rosalba Torres Guerrero, Claude Bardouil

La Monnaie Internet Streaming

As a work that it was necessary to subject to some interpolation of the music score on account of its final Act being left largely unfinished by the composer at the time of his death in 1935, there’s a richness to Lulu that leaves it open to infinite rearrangement of its elements. The openness of its subject - the eternal ambiguity that is Lulu, or indeed the eternal ambiguity that is the fate of a woman in the modern world - and the nature of the writing means that even within the two acts that were fully scored by Alban Berg, there is a multiplicity of meaning that can be applied to its themes through the imposition of emphasis on different elements of the work. For Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski in his 2012 production for La Monnaie-De Munt in Brussels (viewed here via the opera house’s internet streaming service), the principal idea that is emphasised - the one that expresses the inner nature of Lulu before it becomes corrupted by the reality of her circumstances - is that of her childhood ambition to be a successful dancer.

To add further weight to this idea - a valid idea that doesn’t needs any further justification - Warlikowski refers to a little-known biographical detail in Berg’s life, an unacknowledged daughter, Albine, who he fathered with a woman twice his age who worked for the family. Later in life, Albine - a painter and a model - made contact with Berg, looking for a father or a father-figure, but also hoping perhaps to be taken seriously through her association with Berg in her dream of being an artist. For the director, it’s hard not to consider that the nature of this relationship would have found its way into the composition of Lulu, and it’s certainly an interesting detail that adds to the mystery and ambiguity of the work. Tied in with this is the parallel writing, incorporating elements of Lulu that would be used for the scoring of the unfinished third act in 1979 by Friedrich Cerha, of the violin concerto which would become a requiem for the 17 year old daughter of Alma Mahler and architect Walter Gropius. Another less likely reference that Warlikowski seems to drawn upon to express this desire to be a successful artist, the internal pressures that reveal cracks in the female psyche and the requiem “to the memory of an angel”, is Darren Aronofsky’s lurid melodrama ‘Black Swan‘.

The most obvious reference to this is in an extended dance sequence added to the end of the first act, where a dancer in a black tutu (Rosalba Torres Guerrero), stripping down to waist, performs the dance of the dying swan with extraordinary intensity, but there are other rather disturbing references that have a David Lynch quality (particularly with dual-killing at the end of the work of the blonde Lulu and the dark Countess Geschwitz), with dark masked figures always on the stage, in the background and on occasions taking over the roles of other characters who are complicit in her downfall. Young girls in ballet outfits also populate the stage, often within a glass cage - at least one of whom is presumably meant to represent Lulu’s innocence - but others reflect explicit references in the work to the sale into prostitution and the exploitation of women. Most directly however, Lulu herself is frequently dressed in tutus and dancer costumes, moves around en pointe, dancing to her doom.

Barbara Hannigan throws herself fearlessly into the role, but there’s really no other way to play Lulu. There’s a necessary balance that must be struck between a sense of abandon to her fate and the discipline that is required to maintain her sense of self, and playing the role as a dancer works very well with this idea. Hannigan was involved with the dance/opera collaboration in her last role this season at La Monnaie - Pascal Dupasin and Sasha Waltz’s Passion - and she puts the strength, flexibility and stamina demanded in that role to good use here, being metaphorically flung around and twisted, but also physically rolling around, holding dance poses and singing at the same time, while also being in a state of undress in provocative positions. Hannigan’s superb control of her high range and light soprano was perfect for the role of Lulu, and evidently it was tested to its limits here, with additional demands placed on the role by the nature of the dancing, but she was impressively capable throughout. She perhaps doesn’t have the robustness or the experience required for the darker side of her character’s development and downfall in the latter half of the work, but it could also be that the direction and the limitations of the concept (or its expansiveness) didn’t really give her a clear enough focus to work with. Regardless, Hannigan brought her own focus and intensity to the part and, by any standard, this was simply an extraordinary performance of Lulu.

There are many personalities and realities wrapped up within the complex powerplay of characters, in Berg’s extraordinary score and in Friedrich Cerha’s completion of the work that make this a difficult work to grasp entirely, and this production at least tries to capture the whole range of possibilities that this gives rise to within its design. It looks terrific, with a great deal going on in the foreground and the background - almost too much to take in really. Effective use is made of screens and projections, with additional dancers and figures presenting a disturbing freak-show display in a glass cage and a final act that is set in a ballet school dormitory (by way of an underground station) that feels frightening and exploitative. This Lulu was decadent where it ought to be, wild and abandoned, but also precise and intense on the points that matter. With a lavish production filled with ideas and resonances, Lulu’s extremely complex cast of personalities was given additional force through an all-round strong cast. Natascha Petrinsky brought a softer, more vulnerable but strong sensibility to the usually difficult to characterise Countess Geschwitz, Charles Workman was a handsomely voiced and driven Alwa, and Dietrich Henschel suitably and impressively menacing as Dr. Schön and Jack The Ripper.

This production of Lulu is available to view on-line for free for 21 days until 28th November, through the La Monnaie web site. Subtitles are available only in French and Dutch.