Strauss - Salome (Ghent, 2025)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, 2025

Alejo Pérez, Ersan Mondtag, Allison Cook, Thomas Blondelle, Angela Denoke, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Denzil Delaere, Linsey Coppens, Daniel Arnaldos, Hugo Kampschreur, Timothy Veryser, Hyunduk Kim, Marcel Brunner, Reuben Mbonambi, Leander Carlier, Igor Bakan

OperaVision - 16th January 2025

The German theatre director Ersan Mondtag, should his opera work become more regularly produced and distributed, looks likely to become someone worth following. Already noted for his work on Franz Schreker's Der Schmied von Ghent at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Heinrich Marschner's Der Vampyr at Staatsoper Hamburg and on Rued Langgaard's Antikrist for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, whether he provides any great insights into those works or not, the fact that he works with challenging pieces of a certain character is reason enough to take notice. That and the fact that he clearly has a very distinctive and colourful approach to opera direction, as is evidenced again here in another production of a very challenging work that he has undertaken for the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Richard Strauss's Salome.

Extravagantly staged, with not too much in the way of personal re-interpretation, the only way I can describe Ersan Mondtag's visual look for the Flanders production of Salome is that it seems to appeal more to the feel of the Gothic otherworldliness of Oscar Wilde's Symbolist dramatic poetry in appearance and mood. It doesn't hold to any Biblical context or appear to hint at any modern day commentary. Rather, it has a fairy-tale look that seems to inhabiting the same dark mystical world of Pelléas et Mélisande’s Allemonde or Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle; which is to say a world of dark mystery with an underlying threat of menace and violence, it explores dark corners of forbidden desire that can't be easily brought out or expressed rationally or in any more familiar human terms.

Wilde and Strauss's faithful German version of this struggle with forbidden desires is marked between the corrupt, twisted lust of Salome which pits itself against the steadfast moral purity of John the Baptist, or Jokanaan. It's not clear from this production that Ersan Mondtag takes any new, original or even discernible position on this. That fact is borne out by a short production video on the OperaVision site where the two Salomes for this production run, Allison Cook and Astrid Kessler, both have different views on the nature of the Princess, the former seeing her as a "victim" the other a "brat". Mondtag doesn't seem to come down on one side or the other, nor indeed really have any contribution to make or contemporary resonance on the work, unlike say the recent Tcherniakov Hamburg or the Christof Loy Helsinki productions. Or at least no overt contemporary reference. The programme notes suggest that the director "sees parallels between the historical Herod, vassal of the Roman Empire, and contemporary dictators such as Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko", but I'm not sure you would come to this conclusion independently.

The set may in fact distract from drawing any such allusion, but Herod's castle with its huge statues carved out of stone, demonic murals and opening to a dungeon certainly has a bold and menacing appearance. Impressive looking, it illustrates the scene well in terms of a kind of banality in its dull expression of a brutal controlling regime where corruption is indulged, even celebrated. It's a grey, dusty world of stone, Herod's militaristically dressed troops pale and colourless. Even Narraboth is not distinguished from the surrounding dullness, although Herodias's Page wears black. Only Salome and Jokanaan stand out against this forbidding background, Salome with fiery red hair in long blood red split leg robe, and Jokanaan austere and pale as ivory, undoubtedly from his imprisonment in the dark dungeon at the lower level of the castle, wearing a loin cloth and bright purple robe.

With a kind of Gothic Soviet brutalism on the outside, the second scene of the opera revolves to present a contrasting decadent brothel-like world of the interior court of Herod, the disputing Jews all grey bald pointy headed and alien-like, the women in grotesque grey costumes with pointed hoods. Herod comes in a fat bodysuit, a wonderfully irreverent caricature of a Lukashenko-like leader. In this environment Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils really comes to life and extends outward, the dreamlike fairy-tale fantasy imagery of obscene naked body suited dancers extending Salome's desire for Jokanaan and entwining itself with Herodias's nightmare and offstage screams of horror. Along with Herod's lustful desires, it blends together the fevered atmosphere of the combined lusts, fears and desires of all assembled.

It's the best part of this production, making the most of the music Strauss composed for this section and it ties in well with the scene of wholesale slaughter that seems to be the only natural outcome for this decadent regime at the always shocking climax of the opera. These key scenes might be the best part of the production design, where the choreography and direction all have something more to offer, but elsewhere Mondtag's direction remains in complete accordance with the score and its performance here at Opera Ghent. Conducted by Alejo Pérez, it's dark and seductive where it ought to be, luring you in, but hinting at the dangers to come in flashes of decadent dissonance and menace such as the deep rumble of the "rustling of giant wings".

Just as critical to the work as a whole are the singing performances and we really have some terrific singing here from an excellent cast, conveying all the extremes of the expressions of secret taboo lusts and the corruption of power. Allison Cook is excellent throughout as Salome but really comes into her own in the final scene, sung exceptionally well. In an interview she describes the need to approach the role like a marathon, demanding stamina and the ability to build the role up in stages. That technique is very much in evidence here and works powerfully, throwing herself completely into the character and reality of the horror she has wrought.

There is perhaps more of a hand of a director in this production then in the defining of characters, or at least that's the way it seems from how well each of the performers make an impression in their acting and singing roles. Jokanaan of course remains an enigma, an object of lust as well one of moral purity that only reflects or highlights the corruption of the soul that has fermented in this hypocritical and repressive society that indulges it own vices while condemning others, and perhaps that's really what Michael Kupfer-Radecky's performance succeeds in revealing here. Thomas Blondelle is also excellent as Herod, again making a real presence and contribution to the intent of the work as a whole, and it's great to see the Angela Denoke giving her customary fearless performance as Herodias. 

External links: OperaVision, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen 

Schreker - Der Schmied von Gent (Antwerp, 2020)

Franz Schreker - Der Schmied von Gent

Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Antwerp - 2020

Alejo Pérez, Ersan Mondtag, Leigh Melrose, Kai Rüütel, Vuvu Mpofu, Daniel Arnaldos, Michael J. Scott, Leon Košavić, Nabil Suliman, Ivan Thirion, Chia-Fen Wu, Justin Hopkins, Thierry Vallier, Simon Schmidt, Onno Pels, Erik Dello

OperaVision - February 2020

From just about every aspect, the Opera Vlaanderen production of Franz Schreker's Der Schmied Von Gent must be one of the highlights of an unfortunately curtailed opera season, but that's something we've come to expect from the adventurous Flanders company, a selection of whose work we've been fortunate enough to see streamed on OperaVision. Aside from the curiosity value of a neglected work by a composer currently enjoying something of a revival and re-appreciation, the fact that there is a local connection with the Flemish city of Ghent makes this an attractive proposition, and it's one that the company treat with great affection and attention to detail.

Schreker's final opera from Der Schmied von Gent is quite unlike the more typical sumptuous orchestrations of the composer's previous works. The irreverent and almost comic tone of the work is very different from the lush extravagant fantasies of Die Gezeichneten, Der Schatzgräber, Irrelohe and a long way from Schreker's first staged opera Der ferne Klang. As a Jewish composer working in a musical medium that would be classed as Degenerate, the opera was however not greatly appreciated when it was first presented in Berlin in 1932 and was all but lost in the ensuing troubled years, Schreker himself dying in 1934. In this Opera Vlaanderen performance it turns out to be not only a worthwhile revival of a Schreker curiosity but simply a wonderful opera.

Der Schmied von Gent may not be as lofty and philosophically searching in its aspirations as Schreker's other works and it does get a little bogged down in the historical period detail of the sixteenth century Eighty Years War between Spain and the Netherlands, but there is certainly more of a down-to-earth human quality in this opera that perhaps arises out of the Faustian pact in its plot. Ghent blacksmith Smee is taken advantage of by a beautiful she-devil Astarte who catches the smith at a low ebb, ready to throw himself in the river after losing business due to the actions of a rival blacksmith Slimbroek. He's promised seven years of prosperity but after that, he belongs body and soul to Astarte. That doesn't seem like a bad deal to Smee, but when the time comes, he tries to find a way to escape from the Hellish pact.

There's not much here that is particularly profound or philosophical, it's not something that touches insightfully on human nature and it's not as if the opera's themes can be endlessly explored and updated for new meaning or contemporary relevance, but like any fairy-tale like story it does have important truths and observations to make. Plunging into history and war, evoking horrors and tyrants, religion, devils, Schreker's opera even brings Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus to the stage. What it certainly has then is the essence of opera, of drama writ large, heightened human emotions and behaviours, expressed with feeling and passion. Schreker's compositional ability and dramatic writing is perfect in terms of pacing and tone, making the whole drama thoroughly engaging.

The Flanders production, visualised and directed with considerable flair by Ersan Mondtag, recognises those characteristics perfectly and confidently expands on it, capturing all the life, colour and magic of the situation in a way that only opera can. The set and costume design is impressive; highly stylised, colourful, cartoonish and playful, completely fitting with the tone of the work. In Act I and II the revolving background set rotates between a simple Ghent street scene with an archway running through it that when turned around reveals a demonic figure devouring a baby towering over the town, the tunnel a gateway to Hell that allows all the devils to arrive. The whole set is used, battlements and towers, tunnels and streets, background and foreground, populated by strange caricature figures. Constantly revolving, it's more than just magically fantastical, but emphasises the two aspects and two sides of the same nature.

It's open for interpretation whether that's two side of human nature, the nature of life in the city of Ghent or the nature of war. On their own however the first two acts provide plentiful colour and entertainment, but there's more to give in Schreker's opera and in the Vlaanderen production. Having deceived the agents of Hell with trickery, they are reluctant to admit Smee when his human time on Earth comes to an end and it appears he's not welcome in heaven either. It's a little superfluous perhaps but Schreker is able to fill this act with majestic heavenly choirs, more colour and humuour. Mondtag uses this act also to consider Der Schmied von Gent as a work that is not just about historical injustice of a long forgotten past but as Smee is revived in the future to witness the liberation of the Congo from Belgian rule and bondage, it's a reminder that the struggle against evil is a constant battle and very real.

The Vlaanderen production and the performances are world class but it's the work itself that most impresses. Kurt Weill and the German music hall are often cited as influences on Schreker's late change of musical direction, but it shows a much wider range of contemporary influences and references, from Hindemith and Zemlinsky to the playful extravagance of the early Strauss of Feuersnot in its satirical tone and irreverent comedy. It consequently has a wonderful down to earth human quality that is missing from Schreker's other works, and although even those are rare enough, only rediscovered properly in recent years, it seems incredible that other than one notable recording on CPO, few have looked seriously at Der Schmied von Gent or given recognition to its qualities.

Alejo Pérez clearly has a ball with the wonderful range and variety of the score, confidently holding all the variations of pace and tone together. Musically, it's an absolute joy. The singing performances can't be faulted either with Leigh Melrose wholly immersed in the glorious character that Smee presents commanding attention throughout with some fine singing and playful acting. Kai Rüütel is also excellent as his wife and Vuvu Mpofu is superb as Astarte, fully convincing as a seductively-voiced she-devil. Unquestionably, Opera Vlaanderen do full justice to the merits of Schreker's final opera, and it's revealed to be something of a marvel.

Links: OperaVision, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen