Raskatov - Animal Farm (Vienna, 2024)

Alexander Raskatov - Animal Farm

Wiener Staatsoper, 2024

Alexander Soddy, Damiano Michieletto, Gennady Bezzubenkov, Wolfgang Bankl, Michael Gniffke, Andrei Popov, Stefan Astakov, Karl Laquit, Artem Krutko, Margaret Plummer, Isabel Signoret, Elena Vassilieva, Holly Flack, Daniel Jenz, Aurora Marthens, Clemens Unterreiner

Wiener Staatsoper Streaming - 5th March 2024

There is no question that George Orwell's writing has provided to be a fundamental and premonitory outlook on power, politics and society that stands up today. 1984 continues to have relevance beyond its "sell by date" and may be even more relevant now, but can the same be said for Animal Farm? Has this short but well crafted work really stood the test of time or does it remain an allegory about events around the Russian revolution and the horrors of Stalinism? Some of the aphorisms and observations of course continue to have relevance and remain in daily use, not least the sinister implications of the truth that "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others". We can still see that there are underlying behaviours that remain true today, that reflect the animal side of human nature, or just human nature as we know it.

There is good reason then for a Russian-born composer to try to make something of Animal Farm, something that brings out the contemporary relevance of the work and its application to the world of today. While the idea of a totalitarianism Communist regime posing a threat to the stability of the world and oppression of its people through the kind of language and means employed is by no means far-fetched or indeed unknown even now, there is a danger that even in the "enlightened" western democracies we can be complacent about the messages that are keenly delivered in Animal Farm, or indeed fail to see that they also apply to many aspects of the society many blindly accept or find acceptable.

Alexander Raskatov certainly isn't someone to see this from a detached perspective or as an academic exercise. Born into a Jewish family in Moscow on the day of Stalin's funeral, Raskatov has direct experience of his family being targeted and suffering under Stalin's regime. Never having read Animal Farm before - understandably it was banned in Russia - there would need to be something that resonated with the composer today, something that would speak about abuses of power in our post-Stalin, post-truth world. Looking around the world today, never mind just Russia, there is no shortage of application and relevance in Animal Farm, without the stage director needing to make any specific reference.

Perhaps then because there is no need to specifically target any one regime or political ideology, the Italian director Damiano Michieletto - who was one of the instigators of the project - retains the abstract, allegorical quality of the animal farm setting, but shifts it onto another level entirely. As if to ensure that there is no danger of anthromorphised animals making it seem like a cute fairy-tale, the production emphasises the horror of the real world application of the allegory by setting it not in a farm, but in an abattoir. Likewise the situations, the rebellion of the animals, the setting of seven commandments of the new regime, the building of the windmill and the inevitable corruption of any ideals remain in line with the themes of the book, but are given a much darker complexion by the choice of setting.

And, of course, Raskatov's music also plays a large part in contributing to the darkness of the work's operatic treatment. The libretto by Raskatov and Ian Burton updates the language to be a little more direct and crude, but only in a way that is befitting of the grimness of the situation. That is matched by the aggressive musical attack. Raskatov's closest musical influences are Schnittke and Weinberg with the importance on drawing from Russian folk music, but Animal Farm also reminds me of Shostakovich, maybe because of the subject the horror of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (and possibly because the Krzysztof Warlikowski production of it was also set in a slaughterhouse), with the surreal satire of the animals and the pushed vocalisation of language that takes on some of the characteristics of the animal noises giving it something of the slightly disturbing apocalyptic outlook of Ligeti’s Le grand macabre.

Somehow however the purpose of the work and any real point it might want to make about the world around us today fails to hit home. Part of the problem seems to be that the opera treatment just adds another level of abstraction on top of an already abstract allegorical satire. The setting of the animal farm as a slaughterhouse certainly adds darkness with the suggestion that they are all likely to meet the same fate sooner or later, but the work doesn't really gain any great nuance or detail in translation to opera. Rastakov's score doesn't succeed either in grabbing and holding your attention in order to engage with it fully. It feels detached, an exercise, remaining a fairy-tale fable, despite the best efforts of the composer to invest it with personal and universal significance. As an opera, it also feels episodic, with little opportunity to gain narrative momentum or character development, the ending or moral not at all clear or in line with the original novella.

Although it's intentional of course and part of the whole point of the work, it's also difficult to distinguish the humans from the animals. Or perhaps that's not so much the issue as finding a reason to comprehend the actions of each of them. Despite having distinct vocal ranges written for them they are thinly characterised, which is part of the problem of them being allegorical figures given animal characteristics rather than fleshed out people. It's though no fault of the singing performances, which are exceptional in an opera with a lot of principal roles. All roles are equal of course but some are more equal than others and Isabel Signoret stands out as a character as well as in her delivery of the challenging range of Muriel. Michael Gniffke also makes a strong impression as Snowball. The orchestra of the Vienna State Opera conducted by Alexander Soddy deserve credit for their handling of what is clearly a challenging score.

Despite reservations about the continuing relevance of Orwell's Animal Farm and whether it successfully translates to the stage as an opera with another level of abstraction, I suspect that the opera might have more of an impact in a live environment (I viewed it on the Vienna State Opera streaming service) and more meaningful depending on your experience of living under an oppressive political regime. I daresay, considering the current political climate and the troubling direction of elections and wars in the world today that we might find that Animal Farm still has lessons for us all.

External links: Wiener Staatsoper, Staatsoper Live

Verdi - Macbeth (Venice, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Macbeth

La Fenice, Venice - 2018

Myung-Whun Chung, Damiano Michieletto, Luca Salsi, Simon Lim, Vittoria Yeo, Elisabetta Martorana, Stefano Secco, Marcello Nardis

Culturebox - 27 November 2018

It goes without saying that director Damiano Michieletto tries his utmost to avoid anything like the familiar in his production of Verdi's Macbeth for the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, trying to put aside over-used imagery (from the drama and opera alike) in order to bring out some of the deeper in terms of psychological motivations, certainly a little more deeper than Verdi actually does. Going back to the original source in Shakespeare, Michieletto focusses on the bonds and dark undercurrents that lie in the relationship between Macbeth and his wife as the key that brings all the elements of horror and nightmare together.

Most of these things are unspoken and only hinted at, giving them an even deeper air of dark despair, and to some extent that tone can be found in Verdi's overture for Macbeth. Michieletto uses that music to draw out the idea of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth having lost a child, a bereavement that draws them together to some extent in shared grief, but also casts a dark pall over their lives or a void that can't be filled with their love for each other. Something darker has crept into their souls. An empty swing, a pit in the ground, a balloon that floats out of it fits the mournful overture and becomes a musical and visual theme that carries throughout the work.

The theme carries through to the early appearance of the three witches, each of the three part chorus represented by a child in a red dress (who come into play again later in the dream visitations), and a similar red dress is taken out of a child's toy locker by Lady Macbeth just before 'Vieni t'affretta!' All of this not only suggests a dark episode in their past, it also accounts for why Macbeth and his wife have further reason to fear Banquo and his progeny usurping not just the crown, but the line of their existence into the future. Their mortality is much more fearful to them, their brief existence famously viewed as nothing more than 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'.

Such imagery abounds and the psychological underpinning works better than any literal depiction, but it is perhaps over-emphasised somewhat in the absence of any other real ideas in Michieletto's production. As far as darkness and horror goes, it's fairly bloodless. Literally bloodless even. Predominately black and white, with red reserved only for imagery associated with their dead child, Macbeth comes back from killing Duncan his dark shirt stained white. Lady Macbeth of course goes back to finish the grim murder that doesn't leave dark immovable blood stains on her hands, but rather white chalky paint up to her elbows.

This, along with plastic sheets, becomes the symbol of death in the production. Whether it's Cawdor at the start, Duncan and Banquo later or Macduff's murdered family, they end up wrapped in plastic sheets, with white paint poured over them. Plastic sheets in fact feature heavily in the absence of any props or sets other than side column of white tubed lighting, and the stage designer Paolo Fantin finds a hundred and one ways to use them; as a veil between the living and the dead, as a thin membrane between sanity and madness, a billowing protective barrier that shows disturbance to reality and order.

Bloodless it might be, but unfortunately, bloodless is also how you might describe the performance of Vittoria Yeo, this production's Lady Macbeth. No-one under-estimates how challenging this role is, but you need the right kind of voice for a Verdi soprano. Yeo can attack the high notes with ferocity but her voice is too thin for the role and she struggles to hold the line. The other performances are good, but capable more than exceptional. Luca Salsi brings a sympathetic lyricism to a Macbeth who looks permanently bewildered and in over his head, never in control of his actions and later not even his mind. Simon Lim's Banquo is good and Stefano Secco makes a good impression as Macduff.

Whether there's enough here for Michieletto to achieve the desired psychological qualities and depth is debatable; the performances aren't enough to bring the extra dimension needed in the face of rather limited symbols and themes that are inevitably overused and tend to lose their impact. The critical scenes however do hit home where they should, from Banquo's ghost scene, where he carries a skeleton (drenched in white paint, wrapped in plastic) is effective during the dinner scene. Macbeth's ambitions being at the mercy of his sanity through his child's bereavement is effectively represented by the crown descending on a child's swing. 'Patria oppressa' is not the usual rag-tag bunch of refugees but a people gathered in mourning dress for the funeral of Macduff's murdered family, a scene that adds an extra poignancy to Secco's performance of 'Ah, la paterna mano'.

Musically it could do with a little more of a punch, but Myung-Whun Chung goes for a more fluid account of the opera's strong melodic core and dramatic underscoring that emphasises why this one particular Verdi opera has lately been reassessed, more frequently performed and often found deserving. Having immersed myself in all flavours of Verdi this month (Aida, Otello, Attila, Simon Boccanegra and Macbeth back to back) and seen an excellent Il Corsaro earlier this year, it's clear that Verdi has by no means fallen out of favour and that a wide variety of his works continue to be an important part of the repertoire of all the major opera houses, but it's also evident that contrary to popular belief even those earlier works and flawed later works can still reveal new qualities and unexpected depths.

Links: Teatro La Fenice, Culturebox

Rossini - William Tell (London, 2015)

Giacomo Rossini - Guillaume Tell

Royal Opera House, 2015

Antonio Pappano, Damiano Michieletto, Gerald Finley, John Osborn, Malin Byström, Alexander Vinogradov, Sofia Fomina, Enkelejda Shkosa, Nicolas Courjal, Eric Halfvarson, Michael Colvin, Samuel Dale Johnson, Enea Scala

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

The Royal Opera House production of William Tell caused a bit of an uproar over some explicit content that some thought had no place in Rossini's opera, specifically a scene depicting the rape of a young village woman by Gesler's soldiers. As is often the case, it appears that one scene has come in for undue attention, taken out of context of the production as a whole. While it is uncomfortably long it's meant to make the audience feel uncomfortable, and if so Damiano Michieletto succeeds in getting across the reality of military oppression and war crimes, which is surely what the legend of William Tell and Rossini's opera is all about. Or is it?

Well, there's an argument to be made on both sides. For a start, Michieletto is not recounting the legend of William Tell and the Swiss rebellion against the oppressive Austrian Habsburg regime in the 14th century, but rather updates it to a more modern setting that looks more like it takes place in one of the Balkan states, the Ukraine or Crimea. It's not just that the director wants to de-romanticise the William Tell legend, since it's apparent to anyone who listens closely to the score that Rossini by no means romanticises the subject of military oppression and genocide. All Michieletto is doing is bringing the underlying reality of that to the stage rather than hide it behind costume drama theatrics.

There's a case to be made however that Rossini's music - in that controversial scene certainly - doesn't depict that kind of brutal realism. And even if it has been toned down a little for this video recording, do we really want to see it acted out in this way on the stage? We wouldn't watch it if it was on the news and surely acting out a rape scene on the stage and choreographing it to Rossini's music risks cheapening the horror of the reality. Well, that's why we have directors to make decisions about how far to go in the visual staging of an opera and Damiano Michieletto takes sensitivities on both sides into account in the Royal Opera House production.

Rossini's music might indeed suggest more of mythological hero of the kind that Jemmy reads about in his comic books, while playing with his toy soldiers, as we see during the famous four-part overture that Rossini devises for the opera - an overture that is unlike any of his previous dashed-out-in-minutes-just-before-the-opening-night overtures for his earlier operas. The overture captures the sense of human suffering and endurance, buoyed by a sense of unquenchable spirit for heroic resistance, and finally acceptance of the human reality and the cost that must be paid for it. It's all there in Rossini's overture, it's expanded on (considerably) over the long opera, and all that is there in Michieletto's production as well.

The romantic image of the 14th century folk legend and what he stands for is there in Jemmy's imagination; a figure who steps off the comic book page in this production and gives the strength and inspiration of the ideal to those living with the reality. The Robin Hood-like figure tries to rouse the people of the little village of Bürglen with his arrow, but the despairing villagers are clearly too terrified having suffered at the hands of the brutal Austrian governor of the region, Gesler. William Tell, all too aware of the bitter reality that they have to live with on a daily basis, is himself is disgusted at his son's nonsense, and is reluctant to take up the quiver presented to him by the ghostly figure of legend.

But take it up he does. He first attempts passive resistance (refusing to bow before Gesler's hat) and appeasement (shooting the apple from his son's head), before realising that other more direct and violent means are necessary. It's not acceptable to just heroically storm in there and Rossini's opera, based on Friedrich Schiller's play, incorporates a variety of real human responses, not just through Tell and his family, but also the suffering endured by Arnold Melchtal through the murder of his father, and the compromised position he is in with regards to his post in the Austrian army and his relationship with Mathilde. Family, above all is what is important, and it's complicated. There's also a sense of the community as a family and it is in the realisation of the greater good being served for the sake of this family that the path to action becomes clearer.

Michieletto's production takes all of this into account, placing great emphasis on the family connections and the depth of feeling that Rossini's score gives them in the opera. He contrasts this - in sharp lighting with long shadows - with the devastation that had been done, the landscape a wasteland with uprooted trees featuring prominently. Nature has been defiled. At the same time, it's important that the turning point that is reached is one that justifies Tell's actions. The horror of Tell having to shoot an apple off the head of his own son is vividly depicted in the opera, but the folk legend is unlikely to have the same impact for a modern audience used to seeing worse horrors on the TV every night, and if Michieletto deems it necessary to elaborate on a scene that is discreetly alluded to in the libretto in order to make the work function dramatically, well, that's his job.

Obviously not everyone will agree with the means employed, but regardless of the merits of the production designs and the concept employed, the musical and singing performances make a convincing case for the brilliance of Rossini's masterpiece. The Royal Opera House orchestra under Antonio Pappano put in an outstanding performance, forceful, lyrical and dynamic, never over-playing or over-emphasising Rossini score into grand opera mannerisms, but remaining sensitive to the pace and varied moods of the piece. It's often dazzling, particularly with the uncompressed high quality audio mixing on the Blu-ray disc.

The casting too is of the highest order for what is undoubtedly an extremely challenging and a long work to sing for all its principals. I'm not sure why I never get terribly excited about Gerald Finley in a leading role, but perhaps it's because there are just never any airs or showiness attached to his performances. That doesn't mean that he is ever merely filling a role functionally; his William Tell here is faultlessly controlled and expressive in singing, his acting performance completely within character. John Osborn is one of the most underrated Rossini tenors out there, and one of the few who can really do justice to a role as challenging as Arnold. He's quite brilliant here. I've been hard on Malin Byström in the past, but she amply demonstrates how good she can be here and is simply extraordinary as Mathilde. Keeping the emphasis essentially on the family theme, Sofia Fomina presents a lively, spirited Jemmy and Enkelejda Shkosa a touching Hedwige. Nicolas Courjal is a force to be reckoned with, as you would expect Gesler to be. The chorus also play their important role in the opera exceptionally well.

Links: Royal Opera House

Perocco - Aquagranda (Venice, 2016)

Filippo Perocco - Aquagranda

La Fenice, Venice - 2016

Marco Angius, Damiano Michieletto, Andrea Mastroni, Mirko Guadagnini, Giulia Bolcato, Silvia Regazzo, Vincenzo Nizzardo, William Corrò, Marcello Nardis

Culturebox - 10 November 2016

Aquagranda was commissioned by La Fenice to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a significant event; the flooding of Venice on the 4th November 1966, when storms and high tide lifted the water two metres above sea level, inundating St Mark's Square and threatening the city's important historical buildings, but it also affected the lives of many ordinary Venetians. Despite its very modern musical language and the fact that it has a libretto co-written by the author of the source novel it is based on, Filippo Perocco's Aquagranda however never seems to find a character of its own beyond the remit of its commission.

Aquagranda looks at the events of November 1966 through the eyes of Fortunato and his son Ernesto. 25 year old Ernesto is unwilling to become Venetian fisherman like his father, and is preparing to leave the little island of Pellestrina for a life in Germany when the flooding occurs. Finding himself deeply affected by the event, Ernesto recognises the feelings he has for La Serenissima and stays to help rebuild the city. There are other figures who appear, and you could say that the waters of Venice play a major role in the work, but essentially that's about as far as any real storyline goes in the opera.

Rather than a conventional drama then, Aquagranda, through Perocco's score and through Damiano Michieletto's stage production for its performance in Venice, is more of an impressionistic commemoration of the 1966 flood. The first third of the work doesn't really have much more to it than Fortunato and another fisherman debating in repeated fragmentary back-and forth phrases just how bad things are going to be. They look at the menacing skies, the full moon, the high tide and watch its irregular rise and fall. Eventually, they are faced with the irrefutable evidence of the mounting level of water and forced to consider its impact.

If there is little of any narrative drive in either the music or the exchanges between the characters, there is at least a vivid impression of the nature of the coming storm in the music and the staging. A chorus placed to either side of the stage chants words and provides rhythm for the atmospheric drone-like score with live electronic elements, the orchestra ensemble conducted by Marco Angius. Avoiding any typical depiction of Venice - no domes or gondolas - production designer Paolo Fantin sets a glass wall of water behind the main figures. The water rises and swirls within its frame, while dancers move behind it, all soon to spill over onto the front of the stage.

The middle part of the opera is then drenched with the water that has built up as the walls which have protected the city for centuries are destroyed in a single day. Father and son, their family and friends are suddenly faced with the impact on their little isola of Pellestrina and consider how much greater a disaster such a deluge must be for the palaces, churches, domes, marble, gondolas and the celebrations in the great city of Venice. The mood is darker, the stage is drenched in water, the singers and dancers move through it all in a state of mourning, lamenting the disaster.

If the first part of Aquagranda relates the coming of the waters and the second part deals with the event itself, it's the third part that lets the overall narrative or structure of the work down. Instead of ending on a note of warning or reminder of the ever present danger that climate change presents to the lagoon city, the opera chooses to end on a celebratory note that doesn't ring true immediately after the disaster. The walls have been reconstructed and life goes on, seemingly with little reflection on what has occurred. Instead of being a work that might continue to have meaning and significance for the future of Venice, it's a conclusion that just presents the event as a wrapped up 50 year old piece of history. Musically, Aquagranda captures a sense of that event reasonably well within the remit of the commission, but Perocco never reveals any ambition to invest the work with any greater sense of purpose.

Links: La Fenice, Culturebox

Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila (Paris, 2016)

Camille Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila

L'Opéra de Paris, 2016

Philippe Jordan, Damiano Michieletto, Anita Rachvelishvili, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Egils Silins, Nicolas Testé, Nicolas Cavallier, John Bernard, Luca Sannai, Jian-Hong Zhao 

ARTE Concert - 13 October 2016

Originally conceived as an oratorio Samson et Dalila was, soon after a visit to see Das Rheingold at Bayreuth, developed by Camille Saint-Saëns into something more operatic. If there's little suggestion of Wagnerian influence, the unconventional method of opera composition led to Samson et Dalila having a unique and blend of music and drama elements that were perfect for the composer's strengths. It has Biblical drama, lyrical Romantic passions, lush Eastern musical arrangements and choral fervour that manage to express the contrasting sentiments at the heart of the work. If you like that sort of thing - and it's only slightly less extravagant in its exoticism than Aida - Samson et Dalila can be something fabulous, particularly when the Paris Opera get behind it the way they do in this 2016 production.

Like many other French composers around the end of the nineteenth century, Camille Saint-Saëns shared a fascination for all things oriental, travelling extensively in these exotic places and soaking up more than just a flavour of these new sounds. Mélodies persanes (1870), La Princess Jaune (1872) and Samson et Dalila (1877) are not just influenced by oriental rhythms and melodies, but positively seeped in them. There might be a tendency to regard such borrowings as kitsch or, in the parlance of our times, "cultural appropriation", but they really are what make these works distinctively beautiful.

While there might be a tendency to downplay such elements and attempt to find a middle-ground that is a little acceptable to modern tastes and sensibilities, that's not the strategy adopted by Philippe Jordan for Samson et Dalila. Quite rightly, Jordan conducts the orchestra of the Paris Opera in a manner that emphasises the true merits of the work. It's not only there that you find the sheer beauty of the composer's extravagant orchestration for the piece, but the heart of its drama. With two great singers in the principal roles and attention paid to the choral aspects of the work musically, I found this to be one of the finest and most persuasive performances of Samson et Dalila that I've come across.

Damiano Michieletto's direction of the work at the Bastille doesn't perhaps contribute quite as much as the musical performance to the success of the production, but it functions well enough to give a strong visual and dramatic context for the work. It is a typical Paris production in that, unlike the musical performance, it does tend to settle for a middle-ground. The period lies somewhere between modern and Biblical, with guns and togas (albeit used in an 'ironic' kind of way) and nothing much that adds up to any real conceptual or thematic coherence. Good vertical use is made of the stage, the Hebrew slaves confined to the darker lower levels, the misery of their captivity contrasted with the golden glow of the luxurious decadence of Delilah's bedroom above it.

It's in such contrasts however that Samson et Dalila thrives as a work of music drama, and those contrasts are well reflected also in the complementary casting of Aleksandrs Antonenko and Anita Rachvelishvili. Both artists are regulars at the Paris Opera, and their development there is paying dividends for French opera. While she is capable of great dramatic delivery and an impressive range, Rachvelishvili shows here just how versatile her voice is and how capable she is of expressing the kind of delicacy and tenderness that are vital to Delilah's allure. Evidently it's Delilah's beautiful 'Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix' aria that demonstrates what she is capable of, and her delivery of the line 'Réponds à ma tendresse!' is enough to send shivers down the spine.

It's a love/betrayal aria that turns into a duet of course, shared with Samson, and Antonenko blends perfectly. Antonenko is a tenor who is strong right across the range, but only really shines in certain roles. Verdi roles can be testing, and his voice can have a certain steeliness that doesn't open up and bloom as you might like, but here he complements Rachvelishvili well, providing the contrast that is necessary, giving the aria the edge of hesitancy and danger it needs before the recognition of betrayal that comes with the cry of 'Trahison!'. With Jordan and the Paris orchestra right behind this, the swooning loveliness exploding into rage, you have everything that is musically and dramatically great about this work all summed up the closing duet of Act II.

If much of Act III can feel rather kitsch with its soft choruses and oriental dance music, there similarly should be an underlying suggestion of anguish and menace for the coming fate of Samson and Delilah. The costumes don't quite manage this, the Philistines dressing up in praise of Dagon as if for a Roman orgy, all in glittering dresses and togas, with gold laurel crowns, throwing money down from Delilah's balcony onto the revellers, the downtrodden Hebrew slaves and the tormented Samson. If it studiously goes out of its way to deny the audience the expected toppling of the marble pillars conclusion - one of the few scenes of dramatic action that there is in the opera - the self-immolation scene carried out with a repentant Delilah's compliance nonetheless delivers the kind of bang the opera needs to end on.

Not providing the expected famous pay-off is a bit of a risk and it's not as if it is for the sake of any additional edge or to make some concession to a contemporary reality, but in its own way probably Damiano Michieletto's middle-ground production does more or less find an equivalent level of where Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila lies. More importantly however the work is given its due where it really counts; in the music and singing performances. And with this kind of account of one of the highlights of French opera of the Belle Époque, the Paris opera make the case that those merits are not inconsiderable.

Links: L'Opéra de Paris, ARTE Concert

Mascagni / Leoncavallo - Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci (Royal Opera House, 2015)

Pietro Mascagni - Cavalleria rusticana
Ruggero Leoncavallo - Pagliacci

Royal Opera House, 2015

Antonio Pappano, Damiano Michieletto, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Elena Zilio, Dimitri Platanias, Martina Belli, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Dimitri Platanias, Carmen Giannattasio, Benjamin Hulett, Dionysios Sourbis

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

It's not normally the first thing you think of when you go to watch a double bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, but Damiano Michieletto's 2015 production for the Royal Opera House started me thinking about verismo, what it means and why so little of it has stood the test of time. Post-Wagner and Verdi, verismo seemed to be very much the next step, giving opera the opportunity to explore the lives of ordinary people rather than those of heroes, gods and legends. Aside from Puccini, who never really could be associated closely with verismo post-La Bohème, verismo never really took off and hasn't left a lasting influence. Viewing the two great popular stalwarts of verismo in this production, however, perhaps the style made more of a mark than we think.

The definition of those essential verismo characteristics and perhaps the influence they extend over modern-day opera is highlighted I think by Damiano Michieletto's weaving together of the two genre-defining operas. The popularity of the double bill and their complementary compatibility has long been beyond question, but Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci are still viewed as entirely separate musical and dramatic entities. And for good reason, since for all the commonality in subject matter, Pietro Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo adopt very different approaches to musical storytelling. Giving both works a common setting however does provide a very vivid indication of the ground that verismo covered in the short period between 1889 and 1892.

What is particularly enjoyable about the Royal Opera House production is that it fully explores the context of the works and their themes and blends them together successfully, but it's not merely a directorial exercise. While the stage production brings out qualities that might have gone unnoticed before, it does so in a way that also manages to give the works their fullest expression. Damiano Michelietto's production is all about pushing the verismo to its extremes, and that means pushing both works to their extremes by playing to their respective strengths and qualities.

Seen in that context, if there's any single reason why verismo never really established itself as a force and turned out to be (debatably) an operatic dead-end, it's immediately evident in this production's opening for Cavalleria rusticana; too much verismo realism can kill you. Cavalleria rusticana wears its heart on its sleeve. It's an extraordinary work, too often seen as a kind of warm-up opener for Pagliacci, but I don't accept that it's the lesser work for a second - it's just different. In Pagliacci the passions are more internalised and leaning towards modernism, whereas Mascagni's approach looks back to Verdi, to melody aligned to pure melodrama, and does so by making the passions of the people hyper-externalised.

Certainly as far as Antonio Pappano directs the music and as far as Michelietto sets the drama of the music on the stage, this is life lived without restraint and played at full tilt. Passion, religion, sin, guilt, love and jealousy - this slice of Sicilian life is one lived fully and passionately. As far as verismo goes, that's not only opera dealing with real life, but life lived like an opera. There's no clever conceptualisation required here then, Michelietto allowing the singers full expression for the drama as it plays out, Pappano underlining every sweep and crescendo with a flourish. In a work like this, the impact is astonishing, all the more so when Michelietto takes a step like making the statue of the virgin come to life during the Easter parade. Here, religion is living and the pregnant Santuzza's sin feels as real and vivid to her as the ground she walks on.

Pagliacci might be a little more recondite in its play-within-a-play distancing, its clever use of commedia dell'arte themes and Leoncavallo is a little more modern in the musical expression, but the approach adopted here shows that there's merit in how this kind of overemphasis of the real pushes Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana almost into the surreal or hyper-real. Mascagni's extraordinary gift for melody is all the more apparent for this, as well as his ability to weave religious processions, church bells and local folk colour into the whole fabric of the lives of the work's characters. But it's not life lived without restraint. Eva-Maria Westbroek has spoken about the danger of being swept into the passions of the work and having to control her singing in this work, and it is important. All of the passions are channelled towards an inevitably tragic conclusion, and it's arrived at here with remarkable force and impact.

If there was too much overemphasis anywhere, it is perhaps in making a big deal of the imminent arrival of a troupe of actors in the town to put on a performance of Pagliacci and live out their own version of the tragedy mirrored in Cavalleria rusticana. Michelietto's direction makes good use of the Mascagni's inter-scene music to introduce the characters and situations that would play out in Pagliacci without letting them intrude on the importance of Cavalleria rusticana. The screen direction however, the performance filmed for the live cinema broadcast, made rather more of it, the focus of the camera drawing extra attention to the Pagliacci posters and the significant appearances of characters and situations that might otherwise have passed as local background colour. Just another slice of life.

Cavalleria rusticana is all externalised passions, Paolo Fantin's impressive revolving set fully used to show interiors and exteriors and the relationship between them - particularly as they relate to Santuzza's position in the community. By way of contrast, Pagliacci attempts to put a lid on the emotions through its transference of life into 'art' or performance in its play-within-a-play dramatisation. Again, Micheletto's direction of the performers and the build-up established through the previous work serves to be both a commentary on the nature of the work - on opera, on verismo, its origins and its progress - as well as being a slice of life drama in its own right, never failing to address the music and its dramatic function.

Those origins are not just those of the commedia dell'arte but also indeed Cavalleria rusticana. At this stage in the traditional performance of the double bill, the earlier work has been pushed aside and practically forgotten as we become caught up in the latest new drama. Michelietto's production - even bringing back Santuzza for a cameo appearance - doesn't let you forget however that Cavalleria rusticana is important to the whole tone of Pagliacci, and even shows how the two works have developed a kind of co-dependence. Even the "audience" of Pagliacci here have forgotten the "real-life" drama that has just recently taken place in their own town, sitting down to watch a "made-up" drama, and are unable to recognise the truth that lies behind them.

By this stage too many inverted commas in this review suggest that everything is getting a little too post-modern and over-ambitious in Michieletto's production, but Pappano's conducting and the committed performances manage to dial-down any fanciful ideas and sustain the actual drama, which in verismo you would imagine is paramount. Playing characters in both works, Aleksandrs Antonenko (Turiddu and Canio) and Dimitri Platanias (Alfio and Tonio) keep everything grounded in pure dramatic expression without overacting. Eva-Maria Westbroek's Santuzza is pushed further than most, but likewise holds to the line and essential tone established here. Carmen Giannattasio's Nedda has just as complex and dynamic a position to maintain and does so with tremendous personality. These are performances that work with the production to simultaneously hold one dramatically while at the same time suggesting and sparking off numerous other associations and ideas. Seen in this light, and setting it in the late 20th century, might even provide a clue to the significance of the 'missing link' between the past and the direction opera would take post-verismo.

The Blu-ray disc comes as a 2-disc set, which doesn't really seem necessary, as both are single-layer discs. Even less so since with Micheletto's production the two works are even more intertwined as one here. Colour and detail are all strong in the video transfers, but as usual it's the High Definition uncompressed audio tracks that are most impressive, particularly for works as dynamic as these. In addition to the usual LPCM stereo and the DTS HD-Master Audio tracks there is also a Dolby True HD Atmos mix which my amplifier picked up as being a 7-channel mix, although it will also work with a 5.1 set-up. I don't know if there's a significant difference between it and the DTS mix, but both distribute the sound exceptionally well. The extra features are slim but the Introductions more than adequately cover the works and the production, and there's a short piece where Antonio Pappano looks at the music for both pieces. There's also a synopsis and a wonderfully detailed essay on the creation of the two work by Helen Greenwald in the enclosed booklet. The Blu-ray discs are region-free. Subtitles are in Engligh, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Royal Opera House

Mozart - Idomeneo (Theater an der Wien, 2015 - Webcast)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Idomeneo

Theater an der Wien, 2015

René Jacobs, Damiano Michieletto, Richard Croft, Gaëlle Arquez, Sophie Karthäuser, Marlis Petersen, Julien Behr, Mirko Guadagnini

Culturebox - 20 November 2015

Idomeneo is a problematic work in the Mozart canon, belonging to his youthful period and tied to the format and conventions of opera seria. It is unquestionably Mozart however, highly accomplished and full of melody and beauty, but with a darker edge of terror here. It's the latter aspect that is an unfamiliar quality from what we are accustomed to hearing in Mozart, and it often seems to be at odds or inadequately expressed by the beauty of the music itself. Damiano Michieletto's production of Idomeneo for the Theater an der Wien seems to get more from the work by focussing on that darker side, and is assisted in drawing those qualities from a closer period interpretation of the music by René Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchester.

Michelietto's production relies heavily on symbolism to emphasise the darker underlying context of Idomeneo beyond even the horror of the drama that unfolds. We are reminded of the fall of Troy and the damaging consequences of what the Greeks have brought back from the long drawn-out war on the highly-stylised stage set. Boxed-in by a set of curtains, the stage is a sand and mud pit filled with the boots of fallen warriors, the characters having to pick their way through it, sticking to the ground and stumbling over the lumps and bumps of this troubled landscape. It's here that we first see Ilia and get a sense of her predicament and state of mind. She can't escape from what has happened to her home and neither the love professed by Idamante nor his freeing of her captive people are enough to compensate for that.

There is more tension between Ilia and Idamante than you would traditionally see in this work since there is another lump or bump that is significant in this version. Ilia, the daughter of King Priam, is noticeably pregnant by the son of an enemy king, which only deepens her despair and confusion. The gift she had to offer Idomeneo when he returns back from the dead after the storm at sea is a package of baby clothes and an ultrasound scan of the baby she is carrying. Any kind of joyful news, whether its the liberation of the 'refugee' Trojans, Ilia's conflicted love for Idamante, or indeed Idamante's joy at the safe return of his father, is qualified and short-lived. Particularly the latter situation, since Idomeneo has rashly promised Neptune to sacrifice the first person he meets if he is allowed to survive and reach dry land.

The characterisation is thus somewhat more consistent here with the overall tone and it's very strongly developed and explored in this production; in appearance, in singing and in how each person reacts to one another. There's a lot of pent-up tension and no respite for anyone following the harrowing war that has just ended. The tension between Ilia and Idamante for example, should be obvious considering their backgrounds, but it is only really drawn out here by the symbolism, the direction of the performers and how they sing the roles, as well as by how Jacobs handles the musical direction. The usual bombastic emphasis of the romantic melodic line is toned down by the harder edge of the period instruments, Jacobs aiming for a simpler interpretation that seeks to find a truer expression for the dramatic content which might not be quite as developed here as in other Mozart works.

The casting and singing however are of the highest order, and it's noticeably this aspect - the lyrical qualities of the singing voice and what it is capable of expressing - that differentiates Mozart's late opera seria innovations from other works in this style. All of the singers here show how good this early Mozart can be when it has the right voices assigned to the roles, and when those roles are allowed to express the characterisation that is implicit in the situations they find themselves in. It's most evident in Richard Croft's Idomeneo. Like Kasper Holten's 2014 Vienna production, the King of Crete is visibly haunted here by the bloodshed and horror of the Trojan war, tormented by gore-covered ghosts. He's like Macbeth haunted by Banquo's ghost, driven mad, stumbling and flailing, self obsessed and full of self-pity, wallowing in the injustice of it all and hopelessly ineffectual as a consequence, often symbolically found in proximity to a bed.

Croft's voice has a softness, delicacy and lyricism that matches the requirements of this kind of Idomeneo. And even with the sweetest timbre, Sophie Karthäuser too can express the conflict and boiling anger that lies just beneath the surface of Ilia, making those beautiful da capo arias really express something fundamental about herself and her predicament. Just as impressive is Gaëlle Arquez as Idamante who proves here, if it needed to be made clear, that in the absence of a castrato, a mezzo-soprano can make much more of this role than a countertenor. There's a lovely voice there to be sure, but Arquez also demonstrates confidence in her expression, interpretation and colour.

The icing on the cake her is the luxury casting of Marlis Petersen as Electra. She fully involves herself in Michieletto's characterisation of Electra as a scheming glamour puss in blonde wig, wearing glittery dresses as she teeters through this landscape of misery in high-heels and shopping bags. She's the only person happy with the turn of events, since Idomeneo is forced to send her off with Idamante into the safety of exile, trying on a series of colourful outfits in a fashion-show rendition of 'Idol mio'. There's a little thinness creeping into the middle range, but Petersen is still capable of imbuing this role with great character, and her spirited performance is exactly what is needed to give the work that extra dimension and dynamic.

While the consistency of tone is maintained right through to the climax and is perhaps even bleaker in the ruins of Crete, I'm not sure that Act III holds together quite as strongly. As is often the case these days, Electra and Idomeneo are depicted as self-interested villains - and even lovers here - who pay the price for their actions. The singing and performances at least are just as strong and convincing, Sophie Karthäuser in particular delivering an amazing 'Zeffiretti lusinghieri', Gaëlle Arquez joining her impressively for the subsequent duet. Julien Behr also shows us the value of his Arbace here. If the direction throws everything in to try to make the final act a little more exciting - including the voice of Neptune seeming to come from Ilia's womb - it at least finds the right note to end on, Mozart's long chaccone accompanied by Ilia going into labour and giving birth on the stage. As far as establishing Idomeneo's out with the old and in with the new message, this production - as elsewhere - takes everything just that little bit further than most.


Links: Culturebox, Theater an der Wien

Donizetti - L'Elisir d'amore (La Monnaie, 2015 - Webcast)

Gaetano Donizetti - L'Elisir d'amore

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2015

Thomas Rösner, Damiano Michieletto, Olga Peretyatko, Dmitry Korchak, Aris Argiris, Simón Orfila, Maria Savastano

La Monnaie Streaming - September 2015

La Monnaie's 'Extra Muros' 2015-2016 season, using a number of temporary venues across Brussels while the Théâtre Royal is undergoing renovation, seems like an ideal opportunity to rethink and experiment with approaches to staging works. Well, it would be if it were any other opera company, but La Monnaie's productions are always bold and innovative even when they are at home. So it's business as usual then for their new production of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore.

For Damiano Michieletto's production, the set designer Paolo Fantin has constructed a wonderful beach set. And why not? According to the director, all the justification/inspiration needed for this change of location is there in the first lines of the libretto sung by the chorus - ’How good it is to rest a while under a tree when the sun is hot and sultry.’ The beach is as good a place as any, and perhaps actually more appropriate than harvesting in a field, not only as a place to look for and admire potential partners in our body-beautiful conscious times, but as a superficial way of establishing those limits and expectations of whether someone is in your league or not.

I like also that in terms of the singing that Dmitry Korchak's Nemorino is quite evidently marked out as not being in the same league as soprano Olga Peretyatko, who is capable of even more challenging bel canto roles than Adina. Korchak is good, he has an ideal boyish charm for the role, a lovely voice that is well-versed in the bel canto style, and he takes the high-Cs (high seas?) of the role well, but he clearly doesn't have the full body (puns galore in this review) of the more suitable (and superficial) Belcore. And speaking of bodies, credit to Michielotto for having Peretyatko sing an opera in a swimsuit, although I'm afraid that the lovely Russian soprano is unfortunately out of my league too.

The set design (the production shared between Brussels, Valencia and Madrid) for the production is fantastic, bright and colourful, ideal for the superficial tone and content of the work. It doesn't miss a trick as far as beach accessories, activities and attitudes go, and often in very clever and fun ways. Nemorino, for example, admires Adina's intelligence and learning as she reads nothing more than a gossip magazine while lying on a beach towel. The only Tristan and Isolde that she's likely to come across there are the exotically named offspring of celebrities whose lifestyles she is reading about.

Aris Argiris' broad-chested Belcore, for his part, wanders on like he is ready to kick sand in the face of the weedy Nemorino. He's not a soldier here evidently, but more like the captain or crew member of a cruise liner. Dulcamara's magical elixir meanwhile, when he rolls up to join the beach party, is of course a new energy drink. His promotions van comes with oversized cans and female assistants wearing fitness gear who hand out samples to the gullible Nemorino and the easily impressed beach bums. Only the orchestra at the back of the stage - unavoidably I presume on account of the venue not having an orchestra pit - don't really fit the setting, but they at least make an effort to dress casual and remain in the background.

The beach ideas, everything from inflatable sharks to beach massages, are all entertaining if occasionally stretching to the absurd such as the inflatable wedding cake for Adina and Belcore that leads to a foam-bath love-in for the newly rich Nemorino by the end. It's fun if not spectacularly funny, but then L'Elisir leans more to the romantic of the romantic-comedy opera buffa anyway. A big, bold, colourful set with a sense of humour about it and some good singing is usually enough. With Simón Orfila rounding out a good cast, Thomas Rösner conducting a lively musical account of the work and Martino Faggiani working his usual magic with the chorus, that proves to be the case here.

Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, RTBF

Rossini - Sigismondo

Gioachino Rossini - Sigismondo

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, 2010

Michele Mariotti, Damiano Michieletto, Daniela Barcellona, Olga Peretyatko, Antonino Siragusa, Andrea Concetti, Manuela Bisceglie, Enea Scala

Arthaus Musik

Updating an opera and setting it in an asylum isn’t a terribly original idea and it does usually have a sense of desperation about it, but there is a tradition of mad scenes in Italian bel canto opera, so it’s not entirely an inappropriate or all that far-out an idea. All the more so since Rossini’s rarely heard 1814 opera Sigismondo actually opens with a mad scene of sorts rather than builds up to one, where Sigismondo, the king of Poland, is still tormented by the loss of his wife Aldimira, who he had executed 15 years ago after accusations of infidelity had been laid against her. The loss and the agonising doubts about the truth of these accusations - or just his inability to accept them - has left the king raving and delirious, his kingdom unprepared for the attack that is being launched against him by Ulderico of Bohemia, Aldimira’s father.

Sigismondo belongs to another traditional opera theme, that of innocent women unjustly accused of infidelity or having their maidenly honour called into question by a jealous admirer who has had his advances rejected. This theme of innocent women whose purity has been impugned would become a popular theme in bel canto and opera semiseria works - Halévy’s Clari, Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix, Bellini’s La Sonnambula - for its ability to drive the heroine to madness and consequently to the heights of coloratura vocal abstraction. Starting the way it does however, already wading in the depths of madness, Rossini’s Sigismondo would seem to have other ambitions towards a psychological drama more closely aligned to that of Desdemona in Shakespeare’s 'Othello' (worked into an opera of course not just by Verdi but by Rossini himself soon after Sigismondo) and to the medieval legend of the saintly Genoveva, the subject of Schumann’s only opera.

Directed by Damiano Michieletto for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in 2010 and conducted by Michele Marotti, there’s certainly a belief here that Sigismondo - the last of Rossini’s early works written just before the move to Naples that would take his career in a whole new direction - is worthy of more serious consideration and capable of bearing that more rigorous approach. Although there are a lot of familiar Rossini melodies and characteristic touches here (the composer re-using the best elements in later works after the failure of Sigismondo), it isn’t always the case however that the music or Giuseppe Foppa’s libretto are strong enough to bear any real dramatic conviction, but the opera is certainly more experimental in its arrangements than some of Rossini’s earlier work and it does indeed build up to a forceful expression of the situation in an impressive series of arias, duets and ensembles in the distinctly Mozartian Second Act.

As a two-act opera, there’s no great call for scene changes, so the viewer has to bear with the asylum set for the entire First Act, whether they like it or not. Although it leaves the king not looking terribly regal, rolling around under a blanket in a filthy nightgown with his hair hacked back short, the madhouse setting is not inappropriate considering the rather dark tone that is adopted here, which is more a reflection of the state of Sigismondo’s mind than the reality of the outside world. There are other effective touches that bear this out such as the three identical Aldimiras who torment both Sigismondo and Ladislao - the scheming First Minister who has betrayed and denounced the former Queen after being rejected by her - and by the other asylum inmates who, since they all carry over into the palatial Stateroom of the Second Act, are clearly intended to be representations of the psychological mindsets of the characters as expressed in the music rather than actual real figures.

The sense of ghostly apparitions haunting the characters also works well within the context of the drama, since (probably no surprise to opera-goers here) Aldimira is not actually dead, but having been rescued from her unjust fate 15 years ago returns in the guise of Egelinda, the daughter of the noble Zenovito. On the one hand this helps restore the king’s sanity when it is suggested that since she looks so like Queen Aldimira she could pretend to be her in order to forestall Ulderico’s attack, but it also reignites the feelings Sigismondo had for his wife, and his guilt over what has happened. It also reawakens the desire and the suspicions of Ladislao, giving the production team the opportunity to restage what amounts to a re-enactment of the attempted rape of the Queen that led to the First Minister’s denunciation of her. If the plot inevitably slips into high melodrama, the staging does however manage to show that there are powerful feelings expressed with considerable skill by Rossini in this near-forgotten work.

It’s tremendous then to have the opportunity to see this work - and many others like it - revived by the Rossini Opera Festival and now being made available on DVD and Blu-ray. It’s particularly interesting to see these works being given the best possible representation in terms of musical performance and staging and being cast with fine singers capable of handling the specific demands of Rossini opera. Such is the case with Sigismondo, which gives the singers the opportunity to really shine if they are up to it and are capable of making these characters even half-way convincing, and fortunately they’re all exceptionally good here. As Sigismondo, mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona (yes, it’s a trouser role) brings a brooding intensity that underplays the potential for raving melodrama, her vocal expression of the king’s torment alone powerfully emotive, particularly - as it should be - in the king’s direct encounters with Egelinda/Aldimira. As Aldimira, Olga Peretyatko’s rich, dark soprano suits the nature of her character’s steely determination to resist the injustice of her fate. It’s not a coloratura role, but there are certainly vocal demands in the role, and she handles them more than capably, working particularly well with Barcellona in the ‘Tomba di morte e amore‘ duet. It’s the tenor role of Ladislao however that has more of the coloratura arias (’Giusto ciel che i mali miei‘), which are sung terrifically well by Antonino Siragusa.

Despite the faith the Pesaro team have in it, I don’t think Sigismondo is a 5-star Rossini opera by any means, but this is certainly a 5-star production of an interesting work preceding and prefiguring Rossini’s Neapolitan period that merits the effort and the commitment put into its revival here. It’s well filmed and recorded, looking and sounding very good in High Definition on the Blu-ray release. It’s mostly filmed ’straight’, but the director does use split-screen effects a few times, although only for a few occasions of ensemble singing where it’s actually good to be able to see all the performers. Discreet radio mics are also used by the cast, but the sound and mixing sounds natural in both the PCM stereo and the upfront DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 tracks. The Blu-ray is all-region compatible and contains subtitles in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.