Landi - La Morte d'Orfeo (Amsterdam, 2018)

Stefano Landi - La Morte d'Orfeo

Dutch National Opera, 2018

Christophe Rousset, Pierre Audi, Cecilia Molinari, Renato Dolcini, Alexander Miminoshvili, Gaia Petrone, Rosina Fabius, Magdalena Pluta, Juan Francisco Gatell, Kacper Szelążek, Emiliano Gonzales Toro, Salvo Vitali

Naxos - Blu-ray

The myth of Orpheus has not only been the inspiration to some of the greatest works of opera ever written, it could even be said to have inspired the creation of opera itself. Certainly some of operas most important key works, namely Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607) and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (1774), are works that still carry every bit of their original power, beauty and meaning from several hundred years ago through to the present day. Every new production of these works seems to find endless inspiration in them and it's not difficult to see why since the story of Orpheus is about transforming life into art that lasts through the ages. The moral that there's a high price to be paid for the artist who pours his life into immortal works is however conveniently glossed over somewhat in these early opera versions of the myth. Not so in Stefano Landi's La Morte d'Orfeo.

Orpheus's journey to the Underworld to bring back his dead wife Eurydice is not the whole story, and there is certainly no happy ending of the kind that was imposed by dramatic convention on Gluck's opera, but rather there is more to be learned in the myth that makes its meaning even more tragic and illuminating. The fate of Orpheus is taken up from where Monteverdi left off in La Morte d'Orfeo composed in 1619 by Stefano Landi who, as a Papal composer, was nonetheless likewise adapting the story for his own audience. Orpheus does indeed pay a high price for his infractions against the order of the gods, and not just though his insistence on reviving the dead Eurydice, but for the sins of pride and artistic excess. For the sinning against the purity of women and the sacred bond of marriage, he is ripped apart by the women of the maenads.

Orpheus might have the power to charm the God and the spirits of the Underworld with his music, but there are other stronger forces at work on the artist and Orpheus is torn between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Landi personifies that struggle in the first scene of La Morte d'Orfeo, and Pierre Audi directing this Dutch National Opera production (his last production after 30 years as artistic director there) depicts that simply and directly. Fate has decreed that Orpheus die on his birthday and Orpheus is shown as helpless against the coming of the dawn, Aurora, and the breezes that sidle up against him, waking him to the fate that Fate has in store for him. All of these forces have physical form and are personified, as also is Fury.

Orpheus however is oblivious to his fate, a demigod who perhaps even believes himself exempt from the fate of ordinary mortals. Follow the path of virtue, advises his father, beware of women and their wiles. "He who does not honour love is better off dead". When Orpheus slights Bacchus however, his followers, the maenads call for vengeance. There is something typically anti-women in Laudi's depiction of this situation for his Roman Catholic commissioners, but there are two ways of looking at this and Audi turns it around for the #MeToo age where it becomes a cautionary tale not for the benefit of men to beware of women leading them into sin, but that a reckoning will come for those who mistreat and abuse women.

Up to that point much of the opera is fairly dry, delivered mostly through early opera style recititative and choruses, with little in the way of arias. There's little that Pierre Audi can do to enliven the lack of conventional dramatic action. He keeps the direction simple and doesn't clutter the smaller scale stage of the Muziekgebouw theatre in Amsterdam, restricting expression to costumes of pale colours and blood red lighting for the drama. The design has a few of the familiar Audi aesthetics but nothing that distracts from the purpose of the work, an upside down flowering tree with blood red blooms the only real symbolism on the stage.

If there's a lack of expression in the dramatic action and expression, all the colour is there however in the characters and personification of the forces of nature, and that is very much brought out by Landi's musical composition and the beautiful textures and colours of the baroque instruments. It's assisted considerably in that respect by Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques interpreting the score. There's less of the usual rhythmic drive that Rousset brings to this kind of period music, but this is not music for dance as it would be in a French tragédie lyrique. As anyone who has heard William Christie's revelatory Caen production of Landi's Il Sant'Alessio will expect, this is much more in the realm of spiritual or religious music that Landi more frequently worked in.

The greatness of the work then only really becomes evident with the death of Orpheus. Incredibly the dramatic scene of him being ripped apart by the maenads takes place off-stage and is instead recounted vividly in the music and singing of Fileno, who tells Calliope, the mother of Orpheus, how he witnessed her son destroyed even as he tried to appease the furies with his music and singing. It's by far the longest scene in the opera, the centrepiece, the emotional heart of the work and it's particularly impressive here for the lyrical singing and heartfelt delivery of Renato Dolcini. That tone is maintained for the remainder of the work, with organ music piping in behind Orpheus's funeral lament. It truly elevates the work to a thing of great beauty.

The structure and arrangement of the drama is not conventional then, and it doesn't put Orpheus at the centre of the opera - he actually has a lesser role in a small cast that play multiple roles - but rather as the title of the opera makes evident, it puts the death of Orpheus at the centre. Even the idea of Orpheus having some consolation that he might be reunited in death with his lost love Eurydice is taken from him. Charon and Mercury have bad news for him on that score, as Eurydice has taken the waters of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. If the artist is to live on it is through his legacy and Orpheus urged to drink the same waters, leave behind his earthly desires and become a star in the heavenly firmament.

The 2018 DNO production of Stefano Landi's La Morte d'Orfeo is released on Blu-ray and DVD by Naxos. It's a fine production and a good recording that really serves this beautiful rare work well, particularly on the High Definition Blu-ray release with its lossless High Resolution stereo and surround soundtracks. The DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 surround in particular gives space to that beautiful open percussive sound of the period instruments. The booklet included contains a full tracklist, a brief synopsis and an informative and insightful commentary on the work by Pierre Audi, who clearly understands the intentions of the work and brings those across wonderfully in this production. The disc includes subtitles in Italian, English, German, French, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Dutch National Opera

Cavalli - La Calisto (Strasbourg, 2017)

Francesco Cavalli - La Calisto

L'Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg - 2017

Christophe Rousset, Mariame Clément, Elena Tsallagova, Vivica Genaux, Giovanni Battista Parodi, Nikolay Borchev, Filippo Mineccia, Raffaella Milanesi, Guy de Mey, Vasily Khoroshev, Jaroslaw Kitala, Lawrence Olsworth-Peter 

Culturebox - 2 May 2017

There is a distinct tone of melancholic longing pervading La Calisto (1651) that sets it apart from most other Cavalli operas that we have since been able to rediscover in more recent years. That familiar tone is certainly there is the romps of Elena and Il Giasone, but those works encompass a much greater emotional range in their adventurous blend of farce and raw humanity, while La Calisto's melancholy tread through classical myth seems rather academic by comparison. La Calisto is however by no means any lesser a work, since what seems to be a narrower focus is actually a deeper and more expansive exploration of different aspects of one of the most agonising of human sentiments; the longing to love and be loved in return.

This single unifying theme that runs throughout the opera manifests itself however in a surprising number of ways. It may have a mythological treatment in Ovid's story that plays out between immortal gods, wood nymphs and satyrs in a setting of antiquity, but the sentiments that afflicts these poor creatures in Cavalli's treatment is recognisably human. The balance of humans aspiring to the godlike immortality that love conveys on them is also rather well brought out in this 2017 production directed by Mariame Clément for L'Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg.

There's no-one left unaffected by this sense of longing in La Calisto, but some of them know better than others what to do about it. It's the chaste nature of the goddess Diana who inadvertently sows much of the confusion. She can't help that Endymion composes rapturous verses to her, but his love might not be as hopeless as you would expect, and the goddess is strangely moved by his devotion. Young and old, no-one is immune from the torments of love. Even Diana's elderly nymph assistant Lymphea isn't too old to want a bit of love in her life (much like Helen's maid, Astianassa in Elena or Delfa in Il Giasone), but she's not that desperate that she will submit to the advances of the young satyr Satirino, although she'll happily play him along for a while.

Jupiter too is no novice at this game, and it's the poor nymph Calisto who is cruelly deceived this time by his tricks. Led on by Mercury, he disguises himself as Diana in order to seduce the young maiden. And, just like the inconsiderate rulers who are determined to have their own way against the run of nature in the subsequent opera seria treatment of such subjects, Jupiter's actions cause even greater consternation and misery for the lovelorn characters of La Calisto. Believing it to be Diana acting in this manner, the satyr Pan feels emboldened to pursue his own less than noble intentions for the haughty goddess, and he's prepared to use violent means to get what he wants.

There are a lot of unhappy lovers in La Calisto then, each involved in situations that are far from ideal. Let's not forget Juno either, who is married to such as louse, and once again having to deal with the fall-out of her husband's philandering. Cavalli has beautiful laments for each of them, and since it's not opera seria, there is nothing generic about any of them. And also since it's not opera seria, there are no sudden revelations of long lost princes believed dead or sudden gaining of a conscience by a ruler to sort everything out, so there remains a more realistic bittersweet character to the music and the sentiments expressed in La Calisto, where the realisation is reached that "The dying of one kiss gives birth to another", and that as a consequence "Joy is infinite".

The character of those heart-rending laments and beautiful melodies is brought out beautifully by Christophe Rousset even though this opera doesn't adhere to the strong rhythmic pulse that characterises his interpretations of much of the other baroque work of Lully and Rameau. Here, with the period instruments of his Les Talens Lyriques ensemble, there is a rich, delicate and sympathetic treatment of the music and the sentiments behind it.

Mariame Clément's direction and Julia Hansen's set and costume designs are also wonderfully sympathetic towards the work, maintaining much of its classical antiquity in terms of dress and a traditional depiction of mythological creatures, but framing it quite nicely within the more down-to-earth setting of a bear-pit in a zoo. That might not seem the obvious setting for La Calisto, but it is one that permits a bear to be used (Calisto is transformed into a bear by Juno before being redeemed into the Great Bear constellation by Jupiter). It's the ingenious stage-craft however that allows it to work so well, the production flowing seamlessly between a variety of scenes that they are able to set within the high walls of the pit, in the bear house and around it.

Clément's direction is also responsible for establishing the right kind of tone of the work, with a lightness of touch that doesn't undermine it with too much comedy. Most of the comedy is visual, whether it's Jupiter swaggering around with a cigar trying to emulate a female walk as Diana, or the dangly bits jiggled about by the satyrs. Nor is there too much reliance on the modern-day framing device. The antiquity seems to be a parallel telling of a modern-day office romance situation, where Endymion and Pan are rivals for the affections of their ice-maiden boss Diana. None of this is forced however, the production flitting between the situations as required, the costumes not strictly one period or another, with Jupiter and Juno dressed in formal evening wear from the 1940s, Mercury wearing 90s' street gear or transforming into a circus ringmaster according to the whims of the setting and music.

Elena Tsallagova is the bright star of the show (in more ways than one obviously). She gives a bright, youthful and sparkling performance as Calisto, her singing clear and controlled, handling the requirements of the role with great facility and expression. Vivica Genaux likewise provides an enjoyable turn as Diana (and Jupiter as Diana), fully in the spirit of the piece, bright and luminous, with just the right edge of goddess coolness that reflects the uncertainty of feelings that don't become her position. Without overplaying their hand, Giovanni Battista Parodi's Jupiter, Nikolay Borchev's Mercury and Filippo Mineccia's Pan and Raffaella Milanesi's Juno all contribute to the seemingly effortless lightness that Clément and Rousset weave around Cavalli's beautiful score.

Links: L'Opéra National du Rhin, Culturebox

Handel - Tamerlano (La Monnaie, 2015 - Webcast)

George Frideric Handel - Tamerlano

La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels, 2015

Pierre Audi, Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Dumaux, Jeremy Ovenden, Sophie Karthäuser, Delphine Galou, Ann Hallenberg, Nathan Berg, Caroline D’Haese

La Monnaie Streaming - February 2015
 
Pierre Audi's direction of Alcina for La Monnaie didn't inspire me to visit the Handel opera it was paired with, Tamerlano, in any kind of a hurry. Patrick Kinmonth's elegant Handel-period costumes and the beautiful simplicity of the old-style theatrical backdrops might have suited the baroque theatre at Drottningholm in Sweden that these two productions were originally designed for, and it might have served the music beautifully and have drawn attention to the drama, but Alcina still felt very dull and mannered, as opera seria can do if not treated with a little more invention.

Tamerlano however, coming from the composer's most celebrated period and following Giulio Cesare, ought to have a little more going for it. Even within the confines of the opera seria format, dealing with a ruler who plans to marry and thereby break up other happy plans and romantic arrangements before eventually showing clemency to his enemies and sorting everything out, Tamerlano's musical qualities, characterisation and sense of human emotions in conflict, reaction and interaction with each other, is surely unsurpassed until Mozart returned to the opera seria and a similar theme in La Clemenza di Tito.

It was something of a revelation too to see Harry Bicket's period performance with a countertenor Tamerlano on the Arthaus DVD recording of the work at Halle in 2001. Even within a basic period Eastern setting, you could see how Handel's score with its rhythms and melodies gradually developed characters and sowed tensions between them in a way that led up to a fraught and deeply involving human drama. It's the drama that counts in Tamerlano and, reportedly, Pierre Audi's intention for this production and for Alcina was to remove any superfluous elements and let Handel's sense of dramatic construction speak for itself. Even with Christophe Rousset conducting with precision and authenticity, and with an exceptionally good cast, it's still difficult to see what if anything Audi's direction brings to the work.

Tamerlano, in fact, is even more sparsely decorated than Alcina. Kinmonth's 18th century period costumes are the dominant feature of the production design, the actual set for the whole three hours of the three acts consisting of nothing more than a line of highlighted pillars set down each side of the wings. On the stage itself, there is nothing on the stage other than a single chair used in Act III, and only the bare minimum of props - a scarf, a vial of poison. Any setting of mood or situation is done though lighting, and even that is restricted to the occasional spotlight to pick out the singer from the surrounding darkness, with little use of colour, or even any indication of day or night settings.

If the intention is indeed to similarly draw attention to the drama as it is enacted by the performers alone, it fails completely. Many traditionalists bemoan modern presentations with the claim that you'd be better off closing your eyes, or switching off the screen in the case of a DVD recording, and just listening to the music, but Pierre Audi's production is an instance where you might as well enjoy the beauty of the music since the staging has absolutely nothing to offer or contribute to putting across its dramatic content. It's not entirely static or mannered, there are some background walk-ons when others are referred to, so you can follow exactly what is going on, and there are one or two old-style painted panels lowered into place at significant points to great effect, but it's really not enough to lift Tamerlano out of its opera seria mannerisms.

Whether it's an impression enforced by the staging, Christophe Rousset's conducting of Les Talens Lyriques also fails to enliven or touch on the heart of the work. The performance is impeccable, the quality of the individual playing, the beauty of the instruments and the interaction between them is measured and precise, but for it's a little too precise and the rhythms are a little too jerky stop/start in the French manner that doesn't suit Handel quite so well. There's fine singing here from Christophe Dumaux's countertenor Tamerlano, Jeremy Ovenden's Bajazet, Sophie Karthäuser's Asteria, and a delicate charming Andronicus in Delphine Galou. It's in the duet 'Vivo in te mio caro bene' where true feelings are revealed and shared for the first time that Handel transcends the confines of the opera seria structure and touches on the human, and Karthäuser and Galou sing it beautifully, with unadorned simplicity and true feeling.

It's at this point too that Audi allows the harsh edges of the set to soften with billowing clouds lowered to frame the two lovers, which fits perfectly and has impact, but it turns out to be an isolated gesture. That is clearly the intent, undoubtedly in the belief that it is all that is needed and that Tamerlano can work on its own terms. It does, musically and in terms of the singing performances, but there's still nothing here to engage the viewer with the visual aspect of the opera or its drama. You could dispense with the stage direction, and listen to this on a CD and it would be just as good. Which is just not good enough.

Links: La Monnaie, Culturebox

Handel - Alcina (La Monnaie, 2015 - Webcast)

George Frideric Handel - Alcina

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2015

Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques, Pierre Audi, Sandrine Piau, Maite Beaumont, Angélique Noldus, Sabina Puértolas, Chloé Briot, Daniel Behle, Giovanni Fulanetto, Edouard Higuet

La Monnaie, Culturebox, RTBF - February 2015

There's long been a belief that Baroque opera can't possibly be put performed in the manner in which it was originally intended, and indeed, it hardly serves any useful pupose to attempt to recreate the theatrical conditions of 300 years ago. If you're going to attempt a more 'authentic' experience of Baroque opera beyond the now more common use of period instruments however, the location needs to be right. The Drottningholm Slottsteater near Stockholm is one of the few working Baroque theaters in the world and seen in that context it's necessary and doubtlessly instructive to see great works making use of the theatre's rope and pulley stage systems. I'm not convinced however that there's anything to be gained from putting on Baroque period-style productions elsewhere, and on the rare occasion I've seen it attempted, I haven't been terribly impressed.

Originally created for Drottningholm by Pierre Audi, the productions of Handel's Alcina and Tamerlano have been modified to allow them to be taken to Madrid, Amsterdam and to La Monnaie in Brussels this year, but still retaining the character and purpose of the original productions. The intention is to show how revolutionary these operas are as dramatic stage works and, up to a point, they do just that. On the surface, Alcina, one of Handel's operas derived from Ariosto's Renaissance work 'Orlando Furioso', isn't really much different in form from other opera seria works of this period. There are only a few characters and little real dramatic development beyond the usual love complication ones, resulting in a great deal of anguish and emotional turmoil for all concerned. There is however in Handel a different type of dramatic structure from the types we are familiar with, and that definitely comes through in this production. Up to a point. 
 

The simple sets recede from the wing panels to a plain painted backdrop, creating the space and the perspective required, leaving the stage clear and fuctional. Within this, the period costumes designed by Patrick Kinmonth stand out and keep the eye drawn to the characters themselves, to the specific arrangement of people on the stage at any one time, and to the sentiments they are expressing. Audi's direction allows the emotional flow and expression of the music itself to determine the dramatic arc of the work, and when you've got Christophe Rousset directing Les Talens Lyriques in the pit, you'd be right to do just that. The rhythm, precision and with the extraordinary beauty of what Handel writes and the sound that can be derived from those period instruments is just breathtaking. When you have singers who can make something of those arrangements too, well, musically, this is as close to perfection as you can get.

And yet, it's still not enough. As beautiful as the music is, as wonderfully as it's performed and as beautiful as the stage production looks, it all becomes tiresome and visually repetitive over a three hour performance. Audi's intention is of course to prove that this is not the case, but - viewed on screen at least (admittedly not the intended or ideal way to view these productions) - it starts to drag by the middle of the second act. By that point we've obtained a good sense of where all the drama and the conflict lies. We are aware of Bradamante's mission to save Ruggiero from the spell that Alcina has cast upon him, and we are aware that Alcina's love is genuine. We also realise that, disguised as her brother Ricciardo, Bradamande has stirred up some other problems on the enchanted island, coming between Oronte and Morgana. There is however only so much back and forth switching of sentiments and partners that one can take before it all becomes terribly tedious and repetitive.

It is nontheless possible to sustain the viewers interest in other ways. As a magical opera, where the enchanted island is populated by the spirits of Alcina's former lovers who she has since abandoned and transformed into stones and trees, or at best into animals, there are opportunities to present some magical effects, or visual imagery, but that's not taken advantage of here in Pierre Audi's production. Occasionally, we see figures, ghosts with veils wrapped around their eyes, and we also have occasional interjections from Oberto, a young man with no memory of his past who is looking for his missing father, which helps bring a little variety and 'colour' to the otherwise predictable sequence of arias of love, betrayal and jealousy, but there's really not enough done to make any of this visually distinctive, much less magical.
 

There's nothing predictable or tedious about singing performances, or at least not in the principal roles. Maite Beaumont's Ruggiero is a little cool and not particularly distinctive, but it's sung well. You can forgive Ruggiero being a little cool as he is under a spell for most of the work, but you really need fire and depth of sentiment in Alcina and Bradamante. Sandrine Piau is a richly-voiced Alcina, variously commanding, fired up with rage, and hopelessly in love at different points. Piau is impressive on every register, reminding you that no matter what sentiment Alcina is feeling, she's always a sorceress and a woman and consequently very dangerous indeed. Angélique Noldus's Bradamante/Ricciardo is just as well characterised, her singing voice delightful and clearly well-trained for this repertoire. The ornamentation for her Act I 'È gelosia forza è d'amore' is superb, and she demonstrates great variety and colour elsewhere.

The other roles are also well-sung, and the performance of Les Talens Lyriques under Christophe Rousset is truly wondrous, but it's still not enough to sustain dramatic interest. There's not really enough depth in the drama of Alcina to give you a great deal to think about, work out or engage with. It's fairly rote opera seria material and even if Handel's treatment of it is just exquisite beyond words, it can still be long and tedious without some additional visual or mental stimulation. As a 300-year old work, far from its original historical context, it's surprising that Pierre Audi is unable or doesn't feel it necessary to use other means that would enable a modern audience to engage with its themes in a way that would not at the same time harm the beauty or the indisputable brilliance of this work.

La Monnaie's Alcina and Tamerlano can be viewed on-line for a limited period from the La Monnaie streaming service, or from the RTBF Belgian radio web-site.  Links below.  The next production from La Monnaie is Wolfgang Rihm's Jakob Lenz, available from 17 March to 6 April.

Links: La Monnaie, RTBF Musiq3

Rameau - Les Indes Galantes (Bordeaux, 2014)

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Les Indes Galantes

L'Opéra National de Bordeaux, 2014

Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques, Laura Scozzi, Amel Brahim Djelloul, Benoît Arnould, Eugénie Warnier, Olivera Topalovic, Judith van Wanroij, Vittorio Prato, Anders Dahlin, Nathan Berg, Thomas Dolié

Medici.tv, Culturebox Live Internet Streaming - 27 February 2014

A year after the bicentenaries of Wagner and Verdi and the centenary of Britten, it's not difficult to notice that 2014 marks a few other significant anniversaries in Richard Strauss 150 and Gluck 300. There is however another major composer whose anniversary will probably not receive as much attention and that is Jean-Philippe Rameau, who died 250 years ago in 1764. In France however, you can expect a little more fuss will be made of the successor to Lully at the Royal Court in Versailles, a composer who wrote several important treatises on harmony, and one of the greatest composers of the great French tradition of the tragédie-lyrique.

L'Opéra National de Bordeaux have gone for something on the lighter side of Rameau, but the opéra-ballet Les Indes Galantes is nevertheless a hugely challenging work to stage. Done right - and it's not performed very often - it can be just as dazzling and entertaining as Rameau's more famous pieces. That much was demonstrated by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants who put on a spectacular presentation of the work directed by Andrei Serban for the Paris Opera in 1999 (recorded for DVD in 2003). The Bordeaux production, directed and choreographed by Laura Scozzi, takes a very different approach from the Paris production, but it's no less dazzling an exhibition of the supreme beauty and majesty of Jean-Philippe Rameau's music.

Les Indes Galantes might be relatively light entertainment, but made up of five separate short pieces (a prologue and four entrées), it presents certain challenges for a director who wants to make something more of them. Laura Scozzi not only wants to make the little divertissements entertaining and interconnected (which is a challenge in itself), but in the year of the anniversary of Rameau, she clearly wants to prove that the composer still has a place in the modern world. Andrei Serban's production for Paris shows that this Rameau opera can be handled respectfully and still be highly entertaining for a modern audience, but for the purpose of Scozzi's intentions, Les Indes Galantes not only has to be entertaining, it has to also needs to be relevant.

Updating Baroque opera can often be controversial, and there's no question that the Bordeaux production is really going to challenge some traditional opera-goers. That's immediately evident from the Prologue, which is set in a Garden of Eden and features ten dancers wearing not a stitch prancing joyfully around for almost 30 minutes. Once you get past the shock of it, it proves however to be a perfect way to introduce the work, representing a more innocent age. Towards the end of the prologue however, the outside modern world starts to intrude, the naked Adams are dressed in suits and work overalls, the Eves are left behind to deal with domestic matters. Innocence has been defiled, and the three cupids set out exploring the impact this has had on love in the modern world. Love still exists in these far-flung places, but Cupid's arrow is less sure in its aim now, and the three love tourists, passing through airport security with holiday souvenirs, jetting through time and space, find a very different kind of world from the one celebrated 300 years ago by Rameau.

On the other hand, a closer examination of the situations in Rameau's four entrées show that perhaps things aren't all that different. The 1st Entrée, Le Turc généreux, is the familiar operatic situation of a Turkish pasha abducting a white woman, updated here to a more modern context of piracy on the high seas and the arrival of refugees on hostile shores. The 2nd Entrée, Les Incas de Pérou, updates the forbidden love of an Inca Princess for Spanish conquistador to the love of a village girl for a wealthy tourist, with the twist that the girl is the daughter of a South American drug baron and the tourist an undercover agent for the drug enforcement agency. I don't think Rameau had helicopter raids and grenade battles in mind for this section, but it works perfectly with the theme and the music.

The rationale for Scozzi's updatings becomes clearer in the 3rd and 4th Entrées. Set in Persia, Fatime is in love with Tacmes in Les Fleurs but, jealous of how he responds to Atalide, she disguises herself as a man. In the context of modern-day Persia/Iran - all bikinis and burqas - it becomes a particularly hard-hitting indictment of the degradation, abuse and mistreatment of women in society. It's a theme that Scozzi recognises is not just an anachronism from Rameau's time, but that it stems right back to the Garden of Eden in the Prologue and continues right through to the present day.

That's also how the 4th Entrée, Les Sauvages, plays out in its modern-day America setting where Zima is torn between two suitors. The director cleverly shows that choice in the context of the place of women in capitalist society as being a choice between being a goddess in the kitchen and something else in the bedroom. Zima however dumps them both and goes for an environmental warrior saving the forests (respect for nature versus the exploiting of the world's resources yet another connecting theme in this multi-layered production).

None of this in any way negates or distorts the intention or indeed a word of the original libretto. It's actually a highly imaginative and intelligent response to the work that does indeed have the desired impact. Les Indes Galantes is not just some period piece and Rameau is not just a historical composer, but rather Scozzi's production shows that the opera-ballet can not only be entertaining, but also relatable and meaningful to an audience in the present day. That's quite an achievement.

Not only is the concept viable and perfectly structured, ending with the hope of a return to Eden and paradise regained, but the staging throughout is inventive and highly entertaining. It's a massive undertaking to provide a different set for each entrée and keep the whole work flowing, but Natascha Leguen de Kerneizon's sets are almost impossibly elaborate and beautiful. And although there's a serious message here, the intention to entertain is not forgotten, the director also choreographing the ballet sections, using dance and humorous pantomimes (usually involving the three cupids, wonderfully played by actors), connecting it all with projections. Attention to the music and matching the situations perfectly to it proves that Les Indes Galantes can be capable of expressing truth and real human sentiments even within these humorous little escapades. 

Another vital ingredient in the production, and one that is in very safe and experienced hands, is the musical direction of Christophe Rousset and the playing of his Talens Lyriques orchestra. This is a buoyant, vivid, exciting performance, attuned to the rhythms of the work with an ability to express a much wider range of situations and sentiments than you would think. The Bordeaux production doesn't have the luxury of the Paris production's A-list casting, making use of a smaller troupe of singers who play multiple roles across the five stories. They are light but sweet of voice, and carry the musical expression of the works perfectly, clearly well-coached by Rousset.

Considerable thought and ingenuity has gone into this - to say nothing of expense - on the part of all involved, but it's to the benefit of the production and the concept as a whole. I really can't over-emphasise how impressed I was with the cleverness of the concept, the creativity and the imagination of Scozzi's Bordeaux production, and the fact that it's all done to serve Rameau and take his magnificent work deservedly into the 21st century.

The Bordeaux production of Les Indes Galantes can be viewed in its entirety for free via on-line streaming on the Medici.tv and Culturebox (until 26/08/14) websites.

Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail

L'Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège - 2013

Christophe Rousset, Alfredo Arias, Maria Grazia Schiavo, Wesley Rogers, Franz Hawlata, Elizabeth Bailey, Jeff Martin, Markus Merz

France TV Culturebox Internet Streaming, 31 October 2013

Establishing the correct tone can be a difficult thing to manage with any Mozart opera.  Even with works that appear on the surface to be outright comedies, there's always a darker side to the situations and the nature of the characters.  Conversely, even those with a darker and more controversial content (particularly in the treatment of women) are often redeemed by the most sensitive and beautiful music that suggests that the intentions of the composer are not so simple to pin down.  Like Così Fan Tutte, the work that it most closely associated with (although one can also see clear parallels and character types in Die Zauberflöte), there's undoubtedly a darker side to the comic situations in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.  Given the right treatment, there's definitely a case to be made for the worthiness of this work (or indeed even for some of Mozart's earliest operas), but the Liège production here isn't quite up to the mark. 

On the surface, Die Entführung aus dem Serail might indeed appear to be one of those familiar operatic situations of a gentle white European lady being at the held in captivity by ruthless heathen middle-eastern rulers (Rameau's Les Indes Galantes, Galuppi's L'inimico delle donne, and later Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri).  While the treatment of the subject in his earliest mature opera from the 25 year-old composer is conventional in most respects, Mozart does seem to delve more deeply into the subject.  More than just being a comedy, a rescue opera and foreign exploits in exotic lands, the core of the work rests on a rather more sensitive depiction of the unfortunate lot of women in relationships with men.  It's by no coincidence that the lead person of the opera, Konstanze shares the name of Mozart's wife.

There is indeed a lot of humour to be had at the expense of Turkish men, their harems, their heathen customs and hatred of European men in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, but essentially the real underlying question here is to do with women's servitude and of being bound to the will of men.  Most evidently, there's the lack of freedom in her being held captive by Bassa Selim, but even the nature of unwanted attentions and hopeless devotion is an additional pressure that weighs heavily on Konstanze.  Her forced separation from the man she loves, is also a burden, but so too are his suspicions of infidelity when she is reunited with Belmonte.  There seems to end to the pressures of being a woman - "Sadness is my destiny from this day onward, as Kostanze puts it in her aria "Traurigkeit ward mir zum Lose".

That aspect of the opera is treated very seriously in the Opéra Royal de Wallonie production at Liège - perhaps a little too seriously and to the detriment of the wider dynamic of the work.  There can be tendency to overemphasise the serious side in Mozart and downplay the more difficult comedy that can be politically questionable in this day and age.  The tone is very much set by conductor Christophe Rousset in this respect.  Better known for his harpsichord playing and the life that he has breathed into Baroque opera with Les Talens Lyriques, the step up to early Mozart is a rare foray towards the more Classical repertoire for Rousset.  It's wonderful to hear Die Entführung aus dem Serail played authentically on period instruments, and Rousset conducts with characteristic rhythmic precision, but it's a little too rigid and dry for this work.

The direction too plays it relatively straight and consequently isn't able to quite lift the work out of its fairly conventional structure and arrangements, or even spark much life into it.  The set is somewhere between traditional representational and generic stylised modern, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for a work that itself sits between two opera traditions.  The main set is of a generic palace (or harem) with three pools that are mostly just decorative and have to be walked around by the cast.  The backdrop is a huge frame cloudscape of white clouds in a blue sky.  A gauze screen drop is used to allow scenes outside the seraglio to take place in the foreground, with entrances/exits to left and right.  Gold and blue dominate, which is a nice scheme, particularly when the set-off the white and off-white costumes of Belmonte and Konstanze.  It looks fine and requires a minimum of scene changing, but doesn't particularly enhance the dramatic action or the spoken dialogue.

As a performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail though, this is typical of the standard we expect from the Opéra Royal de Wallonie - a good, functional, well-suited stage design, good singing and a highly entertaining production overall, often of lesser performed works, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail is not the first choice Mozart.  A strong Konstanze is of key importance and it's a challenging role that was very capably filled by Maria Grazia Schiavo.  Wesley Rogers has that lyrical-noble Tamino quality to his voice and was mostly fine, although he struggled in sections of his "Ich baue ganz auf deine Stärke" aria, particularly in the coloratura.  Jeff Martin's Pedrillo was excellent, and Elizabeth Bailey sparkled as Blondechen.  Combined they created a lovely quartet for "Wenn unsrer Ehre wegen".  Franz Hawlata was a very capable Osmin, while Markus Merz played Selim with a particular explosive intensity.

Rameau - Castor et Pollux

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Castor et Pollux

De Nederlandse Opera, 2008

Pierre Audi, Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques, Anna Maria Panzarella, Véronique Gens, Judith van Wanroij, Finnur Bjarnason, Henk Neven, Nicolas Testé

Opus Arte

The production notes in the DVD of Castor et Pollux note that Jean-Philippe Rameau quickly came to be regarded as the successor to Lully after his first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie, was performed in Paris, and his importance is certainly evident in his third opera Castor et Pollux, (first performed in 1737 but revised in 1754, the latter version used for this recording). The story of love triumphing over death through a trip into Hades to rescue a deceased loved-one is certainly of common mythological origin going back to Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, which is regarded as the first opera, so it’s no surprise that Handel’s Admeto and Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice and Alceste also come to mind when watching Castor et Pollux, but the similarities and the influence that Rameau would have on his successors is evident just as much in the musical treatment and arrangements.

Rameau’s following of the mythology is relatively straightforward in terms of plotting, the subject efficiently laid out in the opening two acts, but the conflicting sentiments of four different figures, some mortal and others immortal, make the opera rather more complicated, and it’s in the expression of these through the music and the singing that the brilliance of Rameau’s tragédie lyrique is evident. Pollux the immortal son of Jupiter marries Télaïra, but becoming aware that she is in love with his twin moral brother Castor and he is in love with her, he gives up his wife and unites her with Castor, rather than hurt them both and see his brother go off into exile. This would be all noble and fine but for Télaïra’s sister Phébé, who is in love with Castor herself, but doesn’t have her feelings reciprocated. She arranges for Télaïra to be kidnapped by Lincée, but it is Castor who is killed in the battle that ensues. As Phébé has the ability to open up the gates of Hades, Pollux agrees to go look for his brother, knowing that he will have to take his place there so that Castor can live again, the two of them taking their place as immortals as stars in the constellation of Gemini.

Performed here at De Nederlandse Opera with the same production team behind the spectacular Drottningholm version of Rameau’s Zoroastre, stage director Pierre Audi and Christophe Rousset, the musical director of Les Talens Lyriques, create another remarkable spectacle out of all the elements – singing, music, dance, stage, lighting, costumes – that combine to make Rameau’s operas so invigorating. There’s a magnificent sound mix (in LPCM stereo and DTS 5.1) that captures the astounding performance of Les Talens Lyriques, played on period instruments, with clarity and perfect tone, creating a wonderful fullness of sound, particularly when the off-stage chorus is employed (in a manner that brings to mind Mozart’s Requiem particularly during the funeral of Castor). The Baroque and Rameau specialist singers such as Anna Maria Panzarella, Véronique Gens and Nicolas Testé are accompanied also by fine singing from Judith van Wanroij (as Cléone), Henk Neven (as Pollux) and Finnur Bjarnason (as Castor).

The staging and lighting are just as important, making use of an almost bare stage, with minimal backdrops of crossbeams, columns and geometric objects that nonetheless create a perfect impression of mythological antiquity, the costumes, colours and lighting emphasising the passions and emotional language of the characters that is expressed with such drama and depth in the musical arrangements and the singing. Anna Maria Panzarella in particular gives one of her finest Rameau performances here, giving a wonderful rendition of Act 2’s “Tristes apprêts” lament for Castor. The dancing is well employed, not as a divertissement as it is often used in Baroque opera, but to add another level to the unspoken sentiments of the characters and in how they relate to one another. On every level, this is an outstanding production of one of the finest Baroque operas.

It’s released on DVD only by Opus Arte, which is a pity as this would look stunning on High Definition media. It still looks and sounds excellent on the 2-DVD set. Extras consist of a booklet that covers the history of the opera and the production, but there is no synopsis given. The story is covered to some extent on the 16 minute Making of on the disc, through interviews with Pierre Audi, the production team, the cast and the dancers. The rehearsals give some idea of the amount of effort that went into making this an amazing spectacle.

Rameau - Zoroastre

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Zoroastre

Drottningholm Slottsteater Sweden, 2006

Pierre Audi, Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques, Anders J. Dahlin, Sine Bundgaad, Anna Maria Panzarella

Opus Arte

First performed in 1749, the reason this wonderful piece of French Baroque opera from Jean-Philippe Rameau, court composer to Louis XV and contemporary of Bach, Scarlatti and Handel, stands up so well today is undoubtedly down to the timeless nature of its subject matter. Rather than being based on Greek gods and legends, Zoroastre rather is set in the fictional land of Bactria and its subject, dealing with the timeless struggle between forces of good and evil, a battle between darkness and light on a vast epic scale, could even lend itself to a science-fiction fantasy interpretation.

Here, Abramane takes advantage of the unexpected death of the King of Bactria to attempt to seize power through an alliance with the Princess Érinice, usurping it from the rightful heir, Amélite, and exiling her lover Zoroastre, who has already spurned the attentions of Érinice. Zoroastre however is inducted into a higher state of awareness by a guru, Oromasès, and returns to Bactria to save Amélite. An epic power struggle develops then between the forces of goodness and love on one side and evil and hatred on the other. It’s a familiar struggle, with Masonic references, that just as easily be connected to The Magic Flute (Zoroastre = Sarastro), as it could be a premonition of the French Revolution (or if you fancy a Eurotrash interpretation, even the Batman mythos and Dracula stories fit the model surprisingly closely).

This production however is utterly faithful to its period setting and presented with magnificent attention to the smallest detail. Performed in an 18th century theatre in Drottningholm in Sweden, with its highly effective original pulley-operated stage scenery, the production is beautifully costumed, impressively staged and immaculately lit, filmed exceptionally well, with unusual close-ups and angles that draw you in (although the semi-obscured shaky overhead shot is over-used and really offers nothing).

The same enthusiasm can be shown towards the performance. Although the plot can be a little obscure and there are indeed some long opera seria arias that can occasionally be testing - without the excess of any da capo singing it has to be said - there is nonetheless a surprising amount of engaging dramatic action and interaction that keeps it well-grounded, as well as some unusual dance moves that add well to the emotional expression. The orgy of bloodlust in the Black Mass sequence that takes up the whole of Act 4 is one of the most dramatically staged scenes you’ll see in any production, darker and more menacing than Don Giovanni’s descent into Hell.

Most effective in this respect is Rameau’s music itself, which has pounding baroque rhythms several hundred years before Michael Nyman appropriated them, but is also dynamic and lyrical, innovatively introducing clarinets into the orchestra ensemble. Les Talens Lyriques ensemble’s playing of this revived piece is exemplary, and the singing flawless, although particular mention should be made of Anna Maria Panzarella’s Érinice for her powerful singing, as well as the sheer emotional force contained within it and her intense performance.

On the technical side, the all-region Blu-ray is also pretty much flawless. 16:9 widescreen, the superbly lit production shows tremendous detail in its 1080i encode. My amplifier identified the audio tracks as full bit-rate PCM, in stereo and in 5.1, though it’s listed as Dolby True HD on the case, but uncompressed the surround track in particular gives wonderful tone and body to the period instrumentation, and offers a full dynamic range to the singing. In an hour-long documentary, the production team offer their thoughts on the opera and its staging. A visual synopsis and cast list is also provided, along with a booklet that puts the opera into context. A fascination production of a little-known baroque opera, this is a strong package all-around, one that certainly merits a couple of viewings.