Strauss - Salome (Bologna 2010 - Blu-ray)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 2010

Nicola Luisotti, Gabriele Lavia, Erika Sunnegårdh, Mark S. Doss, Robert Brubaker, Dalia Schaechter, Mark Milhofer, Nora Sourouzian, Gabriele Mangione, Paolo Cauteruccio, Dario Di Vietri

Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray

It may be a little unfair on the composer of Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten, but Richard Strauss's critical reputation and musical influence on the modern opera probably rests more on his earlier stark, expressionist one-act tone-poem operas Salome and Elektra. In the year when the composer's 150th anniversary is being celebrated, there's no doubt that those other works will receive renewed critical attention and re-evaluation, but for sheer visceral impact, none of them can match these two early masterpieces.

Although Strauss would abandon his harsh experiments with the form after these two extraordinary works, there's no denying the profound influence these boundary-pushing works would have on atonality and serialism in music and the direction of opera in the 20th century. I don't think Strauss entirely abandoned the use of dissonance either when it could be used for effect in his neo-Romantic works, and by the same token, it's also possible to recognise the sweep of high Romanticism in the crushing crescendos of those highly charged mental landscapes of Elektra and Salome.

Salome in particular, as the composer's first foray into this new and unexplored territory, still has that impact of shock and awe in the sheer force of its musical expression. Undoubtedly, the method developed by Richard Strauss was a direct response to Oscar Wilde's deliciously decadent play that was the source for Hedwig Lachmann's libretto for the opera. Strauss aligns the music to the text with unerring precision for its mood, drama and psychological content, creating a work of extraordinary contrasts in its extreme love/hate relationships.

On the one side you have the lush orchestration for the flowery language and rapturous declarations of Salome's appeals to Jochanaan, and on the other you have the harsh dissonance that clashes with the vicious barbs she throws at him when those advances are rejected. Similarly, there is the lush exotic Eastern-influenced orchestration of Salome's dance that nonetheless carries a faintly disturbing undertone for how it is being enjoyed by her step-father, Herod. Even John the Baptist's auguries and admonitions have a fanatical flavour behind them that is reflected brilliantly in Strauss' music and contrasted strongly with the bickering of the Jews and the behaviour of Herod and Herodias.

In that respect, Salome is much more a product of the time of its creation than it is a biblical story, with there being a strong influence of late 19th to turn-of-the-20th-century Viennese philosophical and psychoanalytical thought, and even a measure of fin-de-siècle decadence. And it's perhaps with that in mind that Gabriele Lavia updates the period of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna production to Strauss' time, with soldiers wearing period military uniforms with helmets and lances, and Salome looking like she stepped out of the ballroom from a production of Arabella.

Salome doesn't appear to gain anything though this updating, but it looks good and matches the dark mood of the piece well. The stage for the most part remains stark and bare, the floor of Herod's palace a jagged stepping of shattered red marble. Jochanaan is hauled up out of a crack in the floor enchained and in a cage. It's simple and effective, the darkness of the night time scenes gradually brightening as events unfold. Other than the addition of a sofa for Herod, the only other real prop is a large magnifying glass that amplifies the emotional and erotic tension that develops. The bringing of the head of Jochanaan is handled differently, with a large stone monumental head arising out of the stage, but alongside the hanging decapitated body (and Strauss's score) it is still a suitably and floridly gruesome conclusion.

Musically, it's initially hard to distinguish the detail in the somewhat echoing sound mixes, but Nichola Luisotti seems bring out that important balance between the lush orchestration and the cutting edge of the rising dissonance. It's played and sung with wonderfully compelling fluidity, gripping you and holding you right through to the conclusion that should always leave you semi-stunned and breathless. That's certainly achieved here.

The singing is clear, powerful and resonant across the board here. Everyone sings with perfect clarity, strong declamation, but with fine control of expression and diction. Evidently, much relies on the cast in the roles of Salome and Jochanaan, and those are very well covered here. Erika Sunnegårdh has strong presence as Salome, handling the singing challenges of the role and fitting well within the nature of the production. Mark S. Doss is a suitably grave, deeply-intoned Jochanaan, but with superb clarity and force of expression. The fact that we also have a strong Herod in Robert Brubaker and an impressive Heriodias as well with Dalia Schaechter is a bonus.

The Blu-ray from Arthaus looks terrific on a BD25, region-free disc. The DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 surround track tends to give more space to the ambience with the result that it sounds a bit indistinct and echoing in places. The LPCM 2.0 track is 'bright' but more focussed and sounds better through headphones. There are no extra features other than trailers for other releases. Subtitles are in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean.

Janáček - Katia Kabanova

Leos Janáček - Katia Kabanova

Teatro Real de Madrid, December 2008

Jiri Belohlavek, Robert Carsen, Karita Mattila, Oleq Bryjak, Miroslav Dvorsky, Dalia Schaechter, Guy De Mey, Gordon Gietz, Natascha Petrinsky, Marco Moncloa, Itxaro Mentxaka, María José Suárez

FRA Productions

I liked Robert Carsen’s stage design for the NY Met production of Eugene Onegin where he employed a large three-sided "light-box" with minimal props, but made use of the lighting and autumnal colours to perfectly complement the tone of Tchaikovsky’s dramatic and emotionally turbulent opera. Carsen’s Brechtian design for Katia Kabanova at Madrid’s Teatro Real in 2008 is similarly austere and emotionally resonant, and again it seems to me to be perfectly complementary for an opera whose storyline has the potential to be melodramatic, yet is served so much better if it is coolly and delicately underplayed.

The emotion is downplayed in this production on almost every front of the theatrical presentation to better let the music and the singing speak for itself. The staging is restricted to boarding that is rearranged by what seems like water-nymphs or drowned lost souls, and rests on a couple of inches of water. The intention is to evoke the presence of the Volga, where the drama takes place in the little town of Kalinov, and emphasise the importance of the location and the significance that water plays throughout. If the concept is a little over-pronounced, it nonetheless proves highly effective, creating a calming impression, occasionally showing ripples and casting reflections on the mirrored background. With the use of lighting - impeccably lit and coloured - it establishes a perfect location that connects with the emotional resonance of the drama, without being too heavy-handed or obvious in the symbolism. It just feels absolutely right and it looks marvellous.

The reason why it feels perfect, is that it supports the important elements of the performance without imposing a false presence that could either overstate or take away from the intent of Janáček’s score - wonderfully played by the Teatro Real Orchestra conducted by Jiri Belohlavek - or indeed from the fine performances and singing. Katya is a complex character who undergoes some quite brutal treatment and yet remains despite of it all in thrall to her interior life, and it’s all too easy to highlight the grimness of the external drama at the expense of the beauty of the person inside. The only other staging I’ve seen of the opera placed emphasis - quite effectively, as it happens - on a recreation of a grim East European tenement block - but the concept here seems much more imaginative and in tune with the tone of the music. The contrast in Katya’s personality can also lead to over-emphasis bordering on madness, but Karita Mattila finds a perfect balance here in her acting performance and in her singing, exuberant in the right places, despairing in others, but reserved and internalised where necessary at the key moments.

Everything is pretty much as it should be in terms of the technical specifications of the FRA Blu-ray disc. A 1080i encode, presented in 16:9 widescreen, the image looks slightly soft, perhaps on account of the low lighting, but it fully captures the tones of the subdued but limpid lighting. The soundtrack comes with the standard PCM and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mixes, both of which perform well. The surround mix disperses the orchestration effectively, but on an empty stage the singing can seem a little echoing at times. It’s never less than powerful however. Really, High Definition and opera is a match made in heaven and this disc shows why. The Blu-ray includes a 24-minute interview with Robert Carsen and Jiri Belohlavek. In the spirit of the production, the booklet includes a detailed synopsis that doubles as a fine interpretative essay on the opera.