Adès - The Exterminating Angel (Paris, 2024)

Thomas Adès - The Exterminating Angel

Opéra National de Paris, 2024

Thomas Adès, Calixto Bieito, Jacquelyn Stucker, Gloria Tronel, Hilary Summers, Claudia Boyle, Christine Rice, Amina Edris, Nicky Spence, Frédéric Antoun, Jarrett Ott, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Filipe Manu, Philippe Sly, Paul Gay, Clive Bayley, Thomas Faulkner, Ilanah Lobel-Torres

Paris Opera Play - 5th March 2024

When it comes to the films of Luis Buñuel, the ideas and sentiment behind them isn't particularly deep or complicated, but it's the surrealist treatment that distinguishes the works. You could possibly break most of them down to the filmmaker rejecting and making fun of the establishment, the bourgeoisie, the church and their perversions, but he does so in a slightly surreal way that gives them an unexpected character, and a very daring one that challenged many sacred cows. Whether it's Catherine Deneuve as a young newlywed housewife who becomes a prostitute at a high-class brothel in order to enact the deepest sexual fantasies that her young husband is unable to fulfil in Belle de Jour, the story of a nun who resists the lecherous advances of her uncle, renounces her vows and gives his estate over to homeless beggars after his death in Viridiana (including a parody of the Last Supper), some of the images and situations in his films are indelible. None more so than The Exterminating Angel.

Again the idea is a simple one where things seem to go wrong at a dinner party organised by Edmundo de Nobile and his wife Lucia after an evening at the opera. They are surprised to find that the servants are not there to collect the coats of the guests, and this initial upset seems to be the catalyst for throwing the evening into turmoil. The scene is repeated as if to suggest that if the servants, the workers, aren't there to look after them, the upper classes don't know what to do or how to function. They drop their coats on the floor and thereafter everything rapidly falls apart. Enrique drops the hors d’oeuvre ragout, and then Pablo the chief wants to go an visit his sick sister. Even though everything has been prepared, Lucia is outraged. She is going to hold these useless servants to account.

The evening and the celebration for Leticia, the opera singer they call "the Valkyrie", never seems to take off and eventually they each decide to leave. This pleases Lucia, as she intends to conduct a little affair when they go, but somehow no-one seems to be able to leave the room. Perhaps the servants aren't there to open the doors for them. Trapped in uncomfortable proximity with each other in a room they are unable to leave, all the little insecurities they have kept hidden rise to the surface and they find themselves forced to enact them. The further the evening progresses and extends into days, the tensions and pretensions intensify and soon turn from petty arguments and affairs to violence and barbarism.

Buñuel's 1962 film is wildly absurd as it is, so imagine how much more the story must be when Thomas Adès and Calixto Bieito put their stamp on the opera version of the work. The essential theme that must carry over is surely to mercilessly rip into the pretensions of the upper classes and have fun in the process. Subtlety isn't essential, the more extreme the better. Adès certainly has fun introducing strange untypical sounds and instruments like the use of the ondes martenot into the buoyant orchestration. It's as richly and creatively scored as you can imagine, and Adès himself has tremendous fun conducting the Paris Orchestra through it. Yet it is not wild, but controlled, the implication being that the guests haven't lost their minds, they are simply being extreme, or perhaps just unrestrained versions of their true selves.

As a dramatic situation, that is inevitably limited. Taking place in one room where everyone seems to be losing their mind for two hours, the point seems to be made very quickly, and it's just a matter of seeing how far they can push this and what the eventual outcome or explanation for the strange event might be. Inevitably, there is no easy answer and there are many ways of looking at the resultant chaos and the ineffective ways they try to deal with it. The image of sheep - which Calixto Bieito manages to introduce in his own way - suggests conformity and inability to think for themselves to the extent that they are unable to leave a room unless everyone else does, or it could have religious connotations, which are certainly treated with scorn by Buñuel. That is also suggested here, even though the opera version does not include Buñuel's horror in the cathedral epilogue.

Given that, the question must be whether The Exterminating Angel gains anything by being an opera. Unquestionably Adès brings something fresh to the work. Making use of a wide variety of musical instruments and arrangements, it's as musically inventive as you would expect from this composer, finding varied expression for each of the characters, and layering them together with great skill. In terms of transferring those ideas to a stage production, this must be a rare case where the plot of the opera itself has an absurd side that even surpasses what Calixto Bieito usually brings to a production. But then we are talking about Luis Buñuel here, one of the original surrealists, and - while it might not seem like it - Bieito is actually more subtle and suggestive here than the original work. It could be just that the Catalan director has found a work that fits with his own sensibility and indeed I actually would be surprised if Buñuel wasn't a major influence.

If there is one slightly different stance or slant that the opera takes, it's maybe taking the opera evening aspect of the story and making a little more of the idea of musical resolution. This is there in the original, I seem to recall, but unsurprisingly perhaps it takes on another meaning when it is seen in the context of an opera itself, the guests seemingly unable to move until the unfinished playing of Paradisi by Blanca on the piano is brought to a conclusion. As if having to acknowledge that, Adès self-references his own music trapping the guests, and scores the opera singer at a higher pitch than the others, in the same range as Ariel in his version of The Tempest. The finale then, rather than follow Buñuel's cathedral ending, has all the surviving guests emerging dazed from the room, confronting their inner selves and suggesting (in my mind anyway) that the audience do likewise. You must wonder what the audience in the expensive seats at the Bastille make of it, and if that's the only intention in bringing The Exterminating Angel to the modern opera stage, it is surely justification enough.

While occasionally it seems like (controlled) chaos on the stage, there are actually many little touches in both the music, the direction and the singing performances to keep things moving along and give the viewer much to think about. Each of the characters have their own hang-ups and ways of dealing with being locked in that reveals another aspect of the society that the original creator wants to expose and mock. The singing alone is striking enough to grab your attention. There is an exceptional cast assembled here, and each have their own distinctive part to play. It's hard to just pick out one or two in a cast that includes great performances from Nicky Spence, Christine Rice, Philippe Sly, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Paul Gay and Clive Bayley, but Jacquelyn Stucker is exceptional as Lucia di Nobile, Claudia Boyle delivers an impressive lament/lullaby late in the opera for Silvia's son Yoli and Gloria Tronel hits those stratospheric heights as the opera singer Leticia.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play

Glass - Orphée (London, 2019)

Philip Glass - Orphée

English National Opera, 2019

Geoffrey Paterson, Netia Jones, Nicholas Lester, Sarah Tynan, Jennifer France, Nicky Spence, Anthony Gregory, Clive Bayley, Simon Shibambu, Rachael Lloyd, William Morgan

The Coliseum, London - 18 November 2019 

The Orpheus myth has been an inspiration to artists and musicians for centuries and, as the recent English National Opera series that includes Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice and Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus - but going right back to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo - it has often provoked some of the most fascinating and enduring works in the history of opera. Whether you consider Philip Glass's Orphée based on Jean Cocteau's movie of the same name is worthy of being considered on the same level, there's no doubt that it's an equally fascinating approach to the same subject, haunting, unconventional and admonitory in its outlook

More than just be inspired by Cocteau's film, having worked on a series of three works based on Cocteau's extraordinary films (Orphée, La Belle et la Bête, Les Enfants Terribles), Glass is clearly attracted to Cocteau's sensibility, having studies in Paris in the 1950s with Nadia Boulanger, immersed in the same bohemian artistic milieu of the Paris left bank that inspired Cocteau. Director Netia Jones alludes to that in the opening scene of the ENO's production where the young poet Cégeste is killed in a road accident, having Glass, Boulanger and early formative dream-like companions from Einstein on the Beach sitting in the cafe where the young man has just caused a disturbance and a fight.

There's a good reason why Glass, Cocteau and many other artists and poets are attracted to the myth of Orpheus as, among other themes, it touches on some fundamental questions about the role of the artist. Glass uses the original text from Cocteau's 1950 film Orphée as libretto, and although Cocteau's contemporary updating of the story departs considerably from the original Orpheus myth - as does The Mask Of Orpheus - in essence the themes are the same, probing the idea of obsession, with questions of mortality and immortality through one's works, with the need to transgress boundaries in order to ask difficult questions and find the inspiration that leads one to be creative.

Glass's music and the visual representation of it on the Coliseum stage captures this alternate view of reality superbly. Glass's usual swirls and arpeggios combine with the projections and overlays of sequences from the Cocteau film, matching the fluid dream-like mood of the subsequent events as Orpheus is led by the Princess into the world through the mirror, a world where the dead can live again. Orpheus struggles to reconciles this vision of another reality with the practicalities and realities of everyday life as a poet and as a husband. His relationship with the Princess however allows him to co-exist in the world of the living and the dead as a poet, without really being conscious of where his gift and muse lies.

Orphée (1991) comes at an interesting stage in Glass's musical development. It's less radical perhaps than his early Portrait Trilogy operas (Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, Akhnaten), but still quite experimental and within the familiar Glass idiom of minimalist music of repetition and changing parts. As well as looking to the influence of Cocteau, Glass would also attempt to tap into the similar creative experimentation from other artists like David Bowie (Low Symphony, 1992) and Allen Ginsberg (Hydrogen Jukebox, 1993), with varying levels of success. All of these projects however would push class into exploring different responses and techniques from symphonic arrangements to chamber opera and song cycles, to even scoring La Belle et la Bête (1994) as a live opera over a real-time projection of the Cocteau movie.

The methods employed in Orphée are perfect for the work, using the full text of the film as a libretto, allowing the music and setting of the text to explore and delve further into Cocteau's creation and vision. It doesn't so much seek to deconstruct the work, as this is a work that requires no deconstruction, nor does it act as pure soundtrack accompaniment. The film casts its own spell and you don't want to lose or negate that, and all Glass does is enhance and present it successfully in a new medium where it can be explored creatively and remain fresh. In a way it renders it in three-dimensions, keeping it alive and open to reinterpretation through the medium of performance.

Musically there might not appear to be a great deal of room for interpretation within the familiar rhythms of Philip Glass's music, but as his recent work with Phelim McDermott and Improbable on Satyagraha and Akhnaten has shown (and to an extent on Tao of Glass), it can be expressive and collaborative in its live interaction with a sympathetic stage production. What it does inspire, certainly in the ENO production is an imaginative response from director Netia Jones and set designer Lizzie Clachan to a visual presentation that does succeed in bringing out another dimension to the film, indeed essentially transforming it into 3D through creative set designs. Frames and props move on simple rope-pulled trolleys, reflecting Cocteau's rudimentary but eerily effective techniques, with projections onto blocks of backdrops make the war-torn cityscapes of the Zone indeed three dimensional.

And of course the live performances add a further dimension and character to the work. Conductor Geoffrey Paterson brings out the musical richness that is on offer in Glass's score for chamber orchestra enhanced with vibraphone and electronic keyboard. Set to Cocteau's text, there is inevitably a lot of 'talky' singing (something that is not greatly improved by the ENO's continued pointless policy that translates the original French text into English with no subtitles, which instead of making it 'accessible' actually manages to render it less intelligible), but there are some beautiful passages of vocal writing that bring stand-out performances from Jennifer France as the Princess, Nicky Spence as Heurtebise, Sarah Tynan as Eurydice and Nicholas Lester as Orphée. Once again, the ENO turn out to be great advocates for the operas of Philip Glass.

Links: English National Opera

Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito (Glyndebourne, 2017)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito

Glyndebourne, 2017

Robin Ticciati, Claus Guth, Richard Croft, Alice Coote, Anna Stéphany, Michèle Losier, Clive Bayley, Joélle Harvey

Glyndebourne online - 3 August 2017

It seems to be the case that the success of a production of one of Mozart's opera seria works depends very much on how well it balances of all its different crucial elements. Mozart's music speaks for itself and in La Clemenza di Tito it's of a rare beauty and perfection; almost too beautiful for the nature of the turmoil and sentiments of the work, until you realise at the conclusion that this sense of order and reconciliation is precisely the point of the opera. The spoken dialogue in Mozart's work however is rarely given a consideration commensurate with the kind of attention to detail that is applied to the music.

In the past it's often been a case of cutting or rushing through the long stretches of recitative or spoken dialogue in Mozart operas to get back to the music. Christof Loy however demonstrated in an uncut Die Entführung aus dem Serail was how a work could be transformed when a director gave equal consideration to the mood and meaning of the spoken drama passages and had capable performers with good acting skills to deliver them. When both music and drama were given this kind of attention, there can be a remarkable synthesis between words and music, staging and performance, showing that Mozart's operas are more than just a collection of pretty tunes.

Robin Ticciati's conducting of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the 2017 Glyndebourne production certainly demonstrates that there is more to the music than pretty tunes. He picks out the gorgeous detail of the composition and structure, highlighting the sonority of individual instruments and how they combine with the drama and sentiments of the work itself. Director Claus Guth characteristically looks beneath the surface and presents contrasting sides of the conflicted personalities involved in the opera's drama, but it's in how they give expression to the flaws in their nature - in the spoken sections as much as in the singing - that their humanity combines with Mozart's music to create a beautiful whole.

And when you see this opera done so well, its qualities as a complete opera are all the more evident. La Clemenza di Tito is more than a typical opera of expositional dialogue followed by static arias of love and anguish. The opera has some measure of dramatic interaction and action, but more importantly it has real human sentiments rather than generic interchangeable ones that drive these actions and give the arias a real sense of heartfelt meaning. In Mozart's hands, La Clemenza di Tito is more than a musical exercise and more than just a plot to hang some pretty arias off.

Here Tito's actions do not feel arbitrary or cruel. They reflect the real difficulties of ruling and trying to please everyone. Ruling it seems is not just a case of having your cake and eating it. We recognise Tito's wisdom in this matter early on when Servilia tells the emperor that her heart belongs to Annio but she is willing to submit to his will, and Tito renounces his intention to marry her. Likewise, when the cake offered is potentially poisonous, metaphorically speaking, as when Publio offers him a list of known political agitators who have been outspoken about the regime, Tito refuses to take any action against them. He certainly doesn't send in the riot police.

But a ruler is only as informed as his advisors allow him to be and only if his subjects are willing to speak without fear of retribution. Willingness to learn and forgive is all a part of La Clemenza di Tito and that's a characteristic that perhaps seems a little more idealistic when applied to the reality we know. And yet how attractive a proposition Mozart makes this seem. La Clemenza di Tito might appear unrealistic and naive in its treatment of the realities of politics and human nature, but the primary purpose of the opera is not to show a mirror to reality, but rather to show the potential of human nature and the rewards that we can strive to attain.

Claus Guth's production for Glyndebourne 2017 uses a split-level set design by Christian Schmidt to show to separation of the reality and the ideal and the conflict that lies between them. Guth recognises that the divisions are not as obvious as you might think, particularly in Mozart's view, where feelings of love and revenge can lie on the same side and are contrasted rather with duty and social/regal expectations that can blind one from seeing the truth. Guth also suggests a division between the spoken articulated word on one level and deeper sentiments and forces that drive one underneath. I'm not sure why Guth chooses to show the lower level as some kind of swamp, but there is a sense of seeking the truth in a more simple way of life, away from the duties of office.

What is also interesting about La Clemenza di Tito is that it's a work where, depending on the production, different figures can emerge as the key player, each expressing this split in nature versus behaviour. In some productions Sesto takes prominence as the character most prone to action and reaction. In others a forceful Vitellia can be the manipulator who provokes the troubles and then comes to regret her actions. It all very much depends on the strength of the direction of the performers, and while Anna Stéphany and Alice Coote are both excellent as Sesto and Vitellia in this production, it's Richard Croft's lyrical and sensitively performed Tito who emerges as a figure of real personality and character, showing genuine human concern for the role of a ruler and the anguish over the difficulties it involves.

Attention to the recitative is important, being able to get across the human feelings behind the words is vital, and Guth's direction forges a strong connection with Mozart's music as it is conducted by Robin Ticciati. Guth also has recourse to projections that hark back to simpler times, showing Tito and Sesto as children, but whether this is necessary or not, it provides another layer that fits in with all the other elements and gets to the human heart of Mozart's great final opera.

Links: Glyndebourne

Mozart - Don Giovanni (NI Opera, 2016)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni

NI Opera, 2016

Nicholas Chalmers, Oliver Mears, Henk Neven, John Molloy, Clive Bayley, Hye-Youn Lee, Rachel Kelly, Sam Furness, Aoife Miskelly, Christopher Cull

Grand Opera House, Belfast - 19th November 2016

So, it would appear that we are coming to the end of Oliver Mears' term as Artistic Director of NI Opera. It seemed obvious that Mears would go on to bigger and better things sooner or later and I suppose you could consider an appointment replacing Kasper Holten as Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden as a step in the right direction. Both Mears and conductor Nicholas Chalmers have achieved much in their time at NI Opera, raising the profile of the work done in the province in a way that has evidently made a favourable impression in the UK opera world. We've been lucky to see some great work from them over the last six of years. In the meantime, as for Don Giovanni at the Grand Opera House in Belfast - well, it's business as usual.

Business as usual however doesn't mean that there is anything at all predictable about the NI Opera production, but without having to involve any fancy concept or new interpretation, they manage to find a way to keep it fresh and modern and still get to the heart of the work. But Mears can also surprise in his choice of location settings. I've seen many productions of Don Giovanni in any number of inventive productions, but I would never have imagined it being suitable to stage on a mid-twentieth century cruise ship. On the other hand, it seems like a perfectly natural place for a romantic adventure and misadventure, to show class differences where there are servants below the decks, and where there is also a recognisable air of period decadence about it all, and isn't class and decadence what Don Giovanni is all about?

Well no, evidently it's about a lot more than that, but too often that is the aspect that is given the greatest emphasis. And it's given that emphasis because Don Giovanni is set in a world where such class distinctions are obvious and because Don Giovanni himself is such a fascinating character to explore. We know he's an inveterate womaniser, we know there's a cruel streak to his use and abuse of women (and his manservant), and we know he does indeed use his position to charm and seduce them. Any deeper exploration of his motivations however usually tends towards a darker, more callous nature, as a murderer and a rapist, and there is a good case for examining Don Giovanni by today's standards in those terms (and the opera is so great that it can bear such an approach), but you have to question whether that was really the tone that Mozart and Da Ponte were aiming for in an opera buffa.

Even though he is amusingly bunked up in cabin 666 of the cruise ship Sevilla, there's nothing really sinister or radical about Oliver Mears' interpretation of Don Giovanni for NI Opera, and it does consequently lack a bit of an edge that you might find in other interpretations. What is significant about the weight and emphasis in this production however was that it is not wholly focussed on an interpretation or exploration of the psychological mindset of Don Giovanni as much as there is a recognition that the work is essentially an ensemble piece with many other areas of interest to explore. And yes, it is essentially a comedy too, but - much like Così Fan Tutte and Le Nozze di Figaro - comedy in the hands of Mozart and Da Ponte can still have a lot of a bite to it. And, when you get right down to it, and no matter from what angle you approach the work, the message here is not one that needs to be overly laboured or complicated: in the end Don Giovanni pays for his sins and goes to hell.

It's tempting to look at some of the references in the production and consider why Don Giovanni has a blonde bouffant hair-do, but this production was developed long before there was any suggestion that Donald Trump would be a figure of such importance. Although, considering the US President-Elect's views of women and his treatment of them, if you want to apply that image to Don Giovanni, you might find it adds another level to a work that is more than capable of sustaining such ideas. It's tempting also to read something into the colonial references of Don Giovanni's fancy-dress party, where he comes dressed as a white hunter taming the savages - but again, there is no overt reference here nor expansion of the theme. It is very amusing though, and creates a colourful scene in one of Annemarie Woods' beautifully designed and eye-catching sets for the production.

What matters perhaps just as much as any psychological exploration of Don Giovanni, or attempt to apply his behaviour to a deeper evil that we recognise in our own times, is how his behaviour affects others. In that respect, the murder of Donna Anna's father the Commendatore and Don Giovanni's attempted rape or seduction of Donna Anna is clearly an important factor in bringing the Don to justice. Don Ottavio's role in the work can tend to be overlooked, but he too suffers from the consequences of what has happened between Don Giovanni and Donna Anna. Some productions have daringly suggested that Donna Anna is complicit or at least a willing and participant in Don Giovanni's seductions, before it perhaps goes too far.

Oliver Mears doesn't seem to be too concerned with such nuances or interpretations. To do so would be to again place too much attention into one area when you could as easily make the case that Donna Elvira's betrayal and her self-delusions are just as important to shining a light on the activities and nature of Don Giovanni (it is to Donna Elvira of course that Leporello reveals the list of his masters conquests across Europe). As indeed is the manner in which the servants Zerlina and Masetto, and perhaps by extension the sanctity of the institution of marriage, are treated with callous disregard by Don Giovanni. All have equal weight in Mozart and Da Ponte's great work and Oliver Mears and Nicholas Chalmers allow the music Mozart writes for each of the characters to speak for them.

They also bear in mind that the comedy is important and that Leporello is a perfect conduit between the comedy and the tragedy of Don Giovanni, that Don Giovanni gets his comeuppance in the end (an unusually wet one here rather than the usual fiery one, but no less effective or spectacular for it), and that it's by a joining of forces of his victims that this result is brought about. As such, if you are going to place the emphasis on the ensemble nature of Don Giovanni as an opera, there's only one thing that is important, and that's the singing. Which means there are eight things to get right, and - as is evident from looking at the cast list alone - it's clear that NI Opera have assembled the strongest possible team with a good mix of local, UK and international talent.

There's room to identify with the predicament of any of the characters, but for me it was Hye-Youn Lee who made the strongest case for Donna Anna's suffering. It's a technically demanding role, but Lee (who I've also seen sing Scottish Opera's Madama Butterfly) has the capability and the lyricism required for expression of these deep emotions. It helped also that there was a Don Ottavio of equal lyricism in Sam Furness, who made an often overlooked role come to life in a warm and sympathetic way. It's not quite clear how the vengeful Commendatore makes his comeback here, as his statue is packed on-board even before he is killed, but Clive Bayley's voice was enough to put the fear of god into anyone. Rachel Kelly's Donna Elvira really was also a woman on a mission (her fancy-dress costume even had something of Joan of Arc appearance to it), the singing full of character, her appearances hitting that difficult spot between the comedy of her interventions and the tragic nature of her circumstances.

The last time I saw John Molloy I thought he struggled with the demands of the Verdi bass role as Banquo in Macbeth, but he's perfectly at home in the lighter comedy bass roles. Leporello is still a challenge well above something like Doctor Dulcamara, but Molloy was superb, making it look easy, giving the role energy and fire. If the lyricism wasn't always there in the catalogue aria ('Madamina, il catalogo è questo'), it was probably more to do with it being sung in English. That was something that also hindered the more nuanced expressions of Henk Neven's Don Giovanni, but his performance nonetheless captured that tricky combination of charisma, sleaze, arrogance and authority that is needed. Last and far from least Aoife Miskelly played a light, playful and skittish Zerlina alongside Christopher Cull's insecure but devoted Masetto, both raising the level of the two servants and their humble love to a level of equal importance that is vital to the purpose of the work and this production as a whole.

If some of the singing was on the light side, Nicholas Chalmers did his best to balance the weight and measure of the orchestral playing to keep the translation audible. Lightness of touch is often better with Mozart, as much for the treatment of the drama as for the openness it gives to instrumental colour and for the lyrical character it's necessary to have in the voices. Without losing any of that character, the drama and the coming together of the piece as an ensemble takes on a momentum of its own towards that darker conclusion. Even there, the lightness of touch is consistent and telling, Don Giovanni appropriately meeting his end via an object - a hairdryer dropped by the Commendatore in his private pool - that highlights another fatal flaw in his character; his vanity.  Shocking stuff!

Links: NI Opera

Britten - The Rape of Lucretia

Benjamin Britten - The Rape of Lucretia

English National Opera, Aldeburgh Festival 2001

Paul Daniels, David McVicar, John Mark Ainsley, Orla Boylan, Clive Bayley, Leigh Melrose, Christopher Maltman, Sarah Connolly, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Mary Nelson

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Although it's come late in the year that also celebrated the work of Verdi and Wagner, the centenary of the birth of Benjamin Britten has done much to consolidate and even raise the reputation of Britain's greatest composer, and in the process highlight some unjustly neglected works. If Richard Jones was unable to salvage the reputation of Gloriana however, it must be hoped that this belated release of David McVicar's 2001 production of The Rape of Lucretia for the English National Opera, recorded by the BBC at the Aldeburgh Festival, will bring this more deserving work to the attention of a wider audience. The Rape of Lucretia is a work of extraordinary intensity and depth that sees Britten at his most distinctive and inspired.

Following the full orchestration of Britten's first opera Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia marks something of a rethinking of approach to opera that would have a significant impact on the style of much of the composer's later dramatic works. There appears to be a more overt religious Christian element here that one sees echoes of in the Canticles and in the Church Parables, but Britten's interest in the subjects of these works would appear to go beyond Christian parable towards less clearly defined and somewhat more ambiguous moral issues. What is most interesting in The Rape of Lucretia however is Britten's approach to the scoring of the work, not only reducing the orchestration to allow the instruments greater individual voices, but also striving to find a unique expression in them that doesn't always adhere to expected conventional dramatic writing.

The subject of The Rape of Lucretia then is a powerful one which, when combined with Britten's musical scoring of it, is almost harrowing in its intensity. All the more so when it's given a strong interpretation and that is certainly the case in this production. On the surface, the plot and the sequence of events that lead up to the event seem to be as direct and straightforward as the title of the work itself. A group of Roman generals have made a drunken bet over the fidelity of their wives and unadvisedly tested it as far as to confirm their own unenlightened views. Junius in particular is bitter about the outcome, remarking to Tarquinius that "Women are all whores by nature" that "Virtue in women is a lack of opportunity" and that they are only chaste when they aren't tempted. He's not beyond recognising the hypocrisy of his position either, noting that "men defend a woman's honour when they would lay siege to it themselves".

There is however one exception to the rule it seems - Lucretia, the virtuous wife of Collatinus. Tarquinius, the "Prince of Rome" however refuses to accept that she is any different from the rest and goes out of his way to prove it. He invites himself into her home, visits her bedroom at night and forces himself upon her. As harrowing an ordeal as this is for Lucretia, what proves to be more despairing and leads to her taking her own life is the reaction of her husband when he learns of what has occurred and the shame of what other people will say about her. On the surface then, the story seems a familiar operatic one - the defilement of the chastity of an innocent woman that one finds throughout bel canto and opera semiseria works (Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix or Rossini's Sigismondo) with the added piety of Schumann's only opera work, the magnificent Genoveva.

Having already written Peter Grimes however, it's not difficult to see in The Rape of Lucretia themes that preoccupy Britten throughout his musical career and even in his personal life relating to the corruption of innocence. Lucretia, for Britten however is about much more than just the defilement of a woman's saintly virtue, but touches on the nature of society and the values that it assigns to men and women. And at the heart of it, there's the question of violence, how it can be seen as acceptable in certain circumstances - the Roman-Etruscan war forms more than a backdrop for the work - or at least excused in the case of it being part of the nature of man. War is a subject of great importance to Britten and The Rape of Lucretia would seem to question whether this is necessarily the case, or whether pacifism isn't truer to the better nature of mankind.

It's commented on specifically by the 'Male Chorus', a single singer who represents one of the more interesting means of expression that Britten makes use of in this opera. The Male Chorus and the Female Chorus are omniscient overseers who are witness to the events, but who exist outside of time and the period in a way that allows them to consider the events from a later 'Christian' perspective. The Male Chorus observes that "For violence is the fear within us all / And tragedy the measurement of man / And hope his brief view of God". It's an important device that allows the composer a wider perspective and a contemporary relevance, and not insignificantly, it's a device that has been used recently in a very similar way by Martin Crimp and George Benjamin in their very contemporary view of the medieval storyline of Written on Skin.

It's Britten's musical arrangements however that are just as innovative, distinctive, modern and relevant. The reduced orchestration highlights the expression of individual instruments and heightens the dramatic tone and tension of the subject. Rarely does the music rely on any conventional signposting that tells you how to react to the drama, but instead it fulfils the primary function of music in opera by exploring below the surface and revealing other depths. It's beautiful and haunting, underpinning the drama in Britten's own developing idiomatic language, but it also expresses convictions that are important to the composer in relation to his own life, views that were out of place with the accepted conventions of prevailing social attitudes of the time.

How much David McVicar's direction contributes to the sheer power and intensity that comes across in this production is hard to judge. The set itself is relatively straightforward, unadorned and more or less period. One directorial choice that goes against the original specifications is in how McVicar involves the Male and Female Chorus more in the action. Not quite interacting with it, but certainly having more of a presence, and this works well, as it is an important feature of the opera. If it's difficult to point to any specific directorial choice that evidently has an impact on the performance, what is clear nonetheless is the McVicar gets the mood exactly right and his direction of the singers and the acting is what ultimately makes this a truly great production.

Which of course means that you need fine singers who can also act in order to do it justice. The cast here is great, although not all of them are in their prime. Sarah Connolly is still terrifically good, it's just that she's an even better singer now. Christopher Maltman too has also matured into a better singer, but he has always been a good actor is performance here is, if anything, just a little too creepy and disturbing. In this work however, that isn't a bad thing at all. John Mark Ainsley is at his best here as the Male Chorus and with Orla Boylan good as his counterpart, the Female Chorus. All the roles really are just terrific and the measure of the success of the production is that it's about as intense, well-sung, painfully well-acted performance of The Rape of Lucretia as you could wish for, a perfect match for Britten's remarkable score, which is revealed in all its brilliance here by Paul Daniels.

Offenbach - The Tales of Hoffmann

Jacques Offenbach - The Tales of Hoffmann

English National Opera, London, 2012

Antony Walker, Richard Jones, Barry Banks, Georgia Jarman, Clive Bayley, Christine Rice, Iain Paton, Graeme Danby, Simon Butteriss, Catherine Young

The Coliseum, 23 February 2012

For his final opera - his only opera proper, since his prolific output up to 1880 consisted principally of comic operetta - Jacques Offenbach found a suitably inventive and imaginative mind to “collaborate” with in the shape of ETA Hoffmann. Using three of the writer’s fabulous stories, interlinked through involving their original author in the relating and playing out of the stories, finding common connections in character types that allow them to be played and sung by singers in multiple roles,The Tales of Hoffmann is consequently a very rich work where the contributions of the composer and the original author can be played upon to interesting effect. The English National Opera’s new production of the opera (already seen in Munich as a co-production with the Bavarian State Opera) seems to find a like-minded stage director of inventiveness and imagination in Richard Jones, but while his stage design for the production delivers everything you would expect from this type of match, it also feels a little too neat and obvious and doesn’t yield any unexpected results.

There’s a balance between playfulness and tragedy to be achieved in The Tales of Hoffmann and Jones (as seen most famously recently in his Royal Opera House production for Turnage’s Anna Nicole) can be good at showing an underlying dark unease beneath the surface kitsch and colour. As if it’s all conjured up from within the fevered imagination of an alcoholic writer at his wits end (only a little licence involved in relating this to the real-life circumstances of ETA Hoffmann), the action in each of the acts takes place in a uniformly shaped, trompe d’oeil twisted room, with a bed, a bookcase, a sink, a writing desk and several other elements that change subtly in form and colouration according to each of the three gothic romances that Hoffman relates to his assembled (imaginary?) audience, three affairs that have taken him to the edge of despair and self-destruction. The sense that this fevered imagination is enhanced by the smoking of mind-altering substances is reinforced by the repeated appearance of Hoffmann, his muse and three gentlemen smoking pipes in between each of the stories, the smoke forming the names of the three women involved - Olympia, Antonia and Giuletta.

Each of those three parts then is deliriously coloured to emphasis the fairytale quality of the original stories along with the dark undercurrent of gothic horror and tragedy that underpins them, and Richard Jones’s designs couldn’t be faulted for being eye-catching and imaginative in this respect. Just as in Offenbach’s score, there’s room for those familiar broader comic touches as well as for the more sensitive plays of character and emotion that lies within the situations, but it often feels perfunctory when compared to Offenbach’s wilder flights of fancy in his opéra comique, and merely playing on opera conventions. The production mirrors the nature of the work perfectly well in this respect, in other words, but it doesn’t manage to make anything more of those links and contrasts in the stories, in the differing views that Hoffmann and Offenbach bring to them, or in how they even relate to each other.

Some lovely melodies aside, The Tales of Hoffmann isn’t the most sophisticated work, and there perhaps isn’t much to delve into beneath the surface, but these elements and contradictions could be exploited further in the hands of a more adventurous director. Considering that the theme of the banal realities of life being enhanced by the imagination of a disturbed character or lunatic form a core part of the films of Terry Gilliam, I couldn’t help think that this opera would have been a more interesting vehicle for the former Python than Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust at the ENO (notwithstanding his success with that) - whereas with Richard Jones, The Tales of Hoffmann just feels in safe hands. It’s all very entertaining and visually impressive, but personally, I think this particular opera, with its rather old-fashioned storytelling devices relating a confusing and strange narrative needs rather more than a straightforward telling. Jones gets the surface down well, but there’s not a whole lot of sense or depth in it as a whole.

It’s left to the singers then to try and bring something more memorable out of the production and, while the performances are terrific, it’s not enough to bring any new qualities out of the work. Barry Banks sings his heart out, but without any depth to the work or the production, he seems, like the character of Hoffmann in his choice of women (and like Offenbach himself), to be expending an awful lot of energy and investing a lot of emotion in something that doesn’t seem worthy of his efforts. Georgia Jarman acquits herself admirably across a notoriously difficult singing of the opera’s multi-part soprano role, bringing some genuine sensitivity to the character of Antonia at least, if he is unable to do much within the staging for the other parts. Christine Rice also brought some heartfelt emotion and character to the muse disguised as Nicklausse - indeed surpassing the otherwise unimaginative director’s interpretation of the character. Clive Bayley sang well and was suitably sinister as the villain of the pieces.

Antony Walker’s conducting of the score was excellent, but like all the other aspects of the production, it didn’t raise the work to any new levels - but that might perhaps be asking for too much. That perhaps sums up my overall impression of the ENO’s The Tales of Hoffmann, which on its own terms was a delightful and entertaining account of the work, marvellously performed with skill and commitment, but anyone looking for something a little more thoughtful or challenging from Richard Jones’s production could well feel a little bit disappointed.

Stravinsky - The Rake’s Progress

Igor Stravinsky - The Rake’s Progress

Glyndebourne, 2010

Vladimir Jurowski, John Cox, David Hockney, Miah Persson, Topi Lehtipuu, Clive Bayley, Matthew Rose, Susan Gorton, Elena Manistina, Graham Clark, Duncan Rock

Opus Arte

Although it evidently depends on the opera in question, there is always room nonetheless for a wide range of expression and interpretation in how productions of operas are staged. There are however no hard and fast rules – a Baroque opera composed according to very strict musical conventions can take on a new life when subjected to a modern, avant-garde stage production, while relatively modern and difficult works can be opened up by a traditional straightforward staging that reveals their references, origins and underlying intent. Few works however seem so perfectly matched and strike such a perfect balance between the intentions of the opera work and its presentation on the stage as David Hockney’s designs for the classic Glyndebourne production of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.

The measure of the success of the production is that it was first put on at Glyndebourne in 1975 and, as this 2010 performance at the festival shows, it is still delighting and wowing audiences thirty-five years later and will no doubt continue to be revived for many more years. There aren’t many productions that have that kind of staying power. A modern artist surely not to everyone’s taste, one might expect something relatively avant-garde from David Hockney when called upon to design the set for a 20th century opera, but in reality, his approach almost perfectly mirrors Stravinsky’s method of composition for The Rake’s Progress. Seeking inspiration directly from the source of William Hogarth original drawings made in the 1730s, Hockney’s sets reproduce the intricate cross-hatching in bold, colourful strokes on flat board backdrops – a modern interpretation of a classical design.

It works so well because, after all, that’s exactly what Stravinsky’s opera does also. Composed in 1951, the composer working in the neo-classical form (before he moved on to serial composition), The Rake’s Progress accordingly plays to the conventions of the 18th century opera. Classically structured into three acts, with three scenes in each, Stravinsky’s 20th century composition even uses recitative with harpsichord continuo and da capo arias in his treatment of a subject that has many resonances with Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte and Don Giovanni, but has an even a greater range of references to draw from over the subsequent expansions of the form and subject through Donizetti, Rossini and Gounod, to name but a few.

Since it wears its references openly, the names of the characters even reflecting their types – Tom Rakewell leaving behind his beloved Anne Trulove on the instigation of his demonic alter-ego Nick Shadow for a life of dissolution in London – The Rake’s Progress can be an opera that is easier to admire more than to really love. The symmetrical construction of the opera conforms to a predetermined order of the classical subject – a young man, coming-of-age, uncommitted to settling down to a life of domesticity in marriage and a solid career, decides to explore the endless pleasures that life offers, only to find in the end that there’s something to be said for a more simple lifestyle. It’s an A-B-A structure that is even mirrored in the structure of the three scenes in each of the three acts. It’s all very clever but a little dull and constricting, and the opera can consequently be a little static when performed.

There are however compensating factors that prevent The Rake’s Progress from being merely a pastiche that is too clever for its own good. The libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman is direct but allusive and elusive, knowing but hinting at deeper underlying truths. The same can be said of Stravinsky’s score, which doesn’t just reference various styles, but expands on them with extraordinary arrangements that do indeed force you to reflect on the nature of the characters as well as how their lives and relationships are constructed and revealed through opera techniques. The blending together of the libretto with the score through the singing isn’t always perfect – and the moral at the ending is a little trite (il dissoluto punito) – but there are some wonderful and dazzling ensemble pieces with duos and trios that are as good as anything by Mozart. Well, almost.

What this particular Glyndebourne production has going for it as well, is of course the production by David Hockney and John Cox. If it’s a little static in places, that’s often more to do with the nature of the opera itself, which is more reflection than action, and the decision to adhere closely to the Hogarth arrangements. Every scene however is an absolute delight, breathtaking in some places, with marvellous little touches that bring out the humour of the situations well. Vladimir Jurowski treats the opera very much as a Russian work, while being mindful of its English and international aspects. These are brought out fully in the casting and the singing, which is of fine quality throughout, with Miah Persson and Topi Lehtipuu demonstrating perfect English diction. If their acting performances are unremarkable, it’s probably more a failing with the nature of the opera itself – but there are enough compensating factors in the singing, the staging and the performance to make this a highly entertaining experience.

With the kind of cross-hatching that you have in the production design, the last thing you want is aliasing in the transfer, but the transfer copes very well with only a faint hint of instability in one or two places in the textures of the costumes, particularly tweeds. It’s very minor however, and for me it just drew attention to the fact that the detail of the overall production concept is taken through to the costume design. Otherwise, the full impact of the colourful production is well captured in the High Definition transfer and in the actual filming. LPCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 tracks capture the detail of the musical performance brilliantly and dynamically. Extra features include a Cast Gallery, a brief Introduction to The Rake’s Progress that contains recent interviews with Hockney and Cox about the production, and a wider look at the opera in a 12-minute Behind The Rake’s Progress featurette.