Richard Wagner - Das Liebesverbot (Madrid)
Teatro Real, Madrid, 2016
Ivor Bolton, Kasper Holten, Christopher Maltman, Peter Lodahl, Ilker Arcayürek, David Alegret, David Jerusalem, Manuela Uhl, María Miró, Ante Jerkunica, Isaac Galan, María Hinojosa, Francisco Vas
Opus Arte - Blu-Ray
Bold, brash, colourful and comic are not adjectives that you'll find applied to a Wagner opera very often, but Das Liebesverbot is most definitely not a typical Wagner opera. Written before the composer had found his own musical voice for the expression of his philosophy of the importance of art and mythology as a foundation for German culture, Wagner's earlier non-canonical work would have been more in the thrall of the Italian bel canto and French grand opéra. Meyerbeer's 5-Act epics would be the model for Wagner's subsequent opera Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen, but it's the much lighter touch of Bellini and Donizetti that can be detected in Das Liebesverbot.
Das Liebesverbot is notable also for being based on Shakespeare's comedy 'Measure for Measure'. It's not one of the playwright's more famous dramatic works and it seems to be one less likely to be suited for an operatic treatment. It deals with the Duke of Vienna, who has introduced harsh measures to deal with the growing problem of drunkenness, vice, licentious behaviour and the increasing number of establishments of ill-repute in the city. Going in disguise as a friar, the Duke leaves his deputy Lord Angelo to carry out his orders, wishing to see for himself how the law is implemented. He not only sees the unintended consequences of his laws, but he also sees how they can be misused by corrupt individuals for their own ends.
Like most adaptations of Shakespeare to opera, Das Liebesverbot isn't terribly faithful to the original. Wagner relocates the setting from Vienna to the hedonistic Palermo in Sicily, where the corrupt regime in charge of implementing the strict laws are the Governor Friedrich and his Chief of Police, Brighella. The opera version at least retains the characters central to the drama, if not its main players, as it's the relationship between Claudio and Juliet that is to bring the unintended consequences of the laws. As they are not yet married, Claudio has been arrested and condemned to death, the law effectively a ban on love - Das Liebesverbot. His friend Lucio brings the news to Claudio's sister Isabella, who is a nun in a convent. She goes to plead with the governor for the release of her brother, but Friedrich intends to take advantage of the vulnerable young woman's position and tries to seduce her.
If the drama isn't exactly the type of material you would normally associate with Wagner, there is perhaps some indication of his interest in the subject in how it relates to his anti-authoritarian and libertarian views. Even in this early work, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music as he would for all his operas, but otherwise there is very little that is recognisably Wagnerian about the subject or the musical treatment. If you can get past the idea that it has something of an academic workshop quality to it, or that it even comes across as a pastiche, Das Liebesverbot is a hugely enjoyable work, masterfully constructed to create a fine musical drama out of a difficult Shakespearean drama. Wagner works with the contrasting and inconstant tones of the drama, filling it with great melodies and racing rhythms, if not any particularly memorable arias.
Rather than try to integrate the work somehow into the Wagner universe, which seems an impossible task, Ivor Bolton and Kasper Holten instead do their best to capture the pace and dynamic of all its colourful scenes and the musical variety purely on its own terms. Visually, Holten's bold, stylised, cartoon-like approach suits the opéra-comique nature of the plot, with rolling platforms keeping things moving across the stage. The director struggles nonetheless to find ways to hold interest through some of Wagner's excesses. The duet of the meeting between Isabella and Claudio at the start of Act II, for example, is unnecessarily long drawn-out without any compensating musical qualities. Even with good direction, using mobile phones and text messages to try and catch the absurdities of the scene, it still drags.
It doesn't help that this scene is followed with another scene - a trio between Isabella, Lucio and Dorella - that likewise feels rather academic in its composition and utterly lifeless in the staging. This scene highlights another problem with the opera - although it's evident from quite early on - and that's finding the right kind of voices to sing it. Regardless of the model it is based on, Das Liebesverbot is not bel canto, and the lighter, lyrical and agile voices that are cast here might sound lovely, but they are frequently overwhelmed by the orchestration and challenged by the length of the scenes. The cast would be more at home in the post-Wagnerian works of Strauss or Schreker, but that doesn't quite work here, suggesting that Das Liebesverbot demands the range of Strauss along with traditional Wagnerian stamina. Within those limitations however Manuela Uhl is certainly pushed but copes well as Isabella, but it's only Christopher Maltman's Friedrich who holds up consistently, albeit to lesser challenges.
The colourful production however comes into its own at the absurd comedy of the finale. A little more convincingly than Shakespeare (but not much), Wagner conceives a fancy dress party as a means of tricking Friedrich into sleeping with his own wife instead of Isabella. There are still problems with this idea of the governor who banned pleasure being invited to a carnival (with the Chief of Police Brighella also being lured into making a fool of himself for good measure), not to mention the strange circumstance of his wife being a nun (María Miró an excellent Mariana), but it's a good excuse to set the revelations and resolutions to vibrant carnival music that bring the whole affair to a lively conclusion. In that respect, Kasper Holten does justice to Das Liebesverbot in a production that should satisfy Wagner completists but, much like finally getting the chance to experience Strauss's Feuersnot or Guntram, you'll probably not be in any great hurry to see it again.
The Teatro Real production of Das Liebesverbot is nicely presented on the Blu-ray release. The image is clear and colourful and the sound mixes present the musical performance well in uncompressed high definition mixes. As often seems to be the case, the mixing tends to favour the orchestral performance, particularly in the DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 surround track, with the already weak voices further submerged in the centre channel. They come across a little better in the LPCM Stereo, but are still a little low. The only extra feature on the disc is a Cast Gallery, but the circumstances of the composition of the opera and discussion of its content (where more of its inconsistencies and problems are identified) can be found in an essay by Chris Walton in the booklet. A synopsis is also provided. The BD is region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.
Links: Teatro Real Madrid
Gioachino Rossini - Il Signor Bruschino
Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro - 2013
Daniele Rustoni, Teatro Sotterraneo, Carlo Lepore, Maria Aleida, Roberto de Candia, Francisco Brito, David Alegret, Andrea Vincenzo Bonsignore, Chiara Amarù
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
Irony can be used to good effect in opera in certain circumstances. It's always a good fallback when an opera is a little too immersed in period attitudes and behaviours, or when the musical style is no longer in fashion. You'll see irony used a lot with modern productions of Meyerbeer, for example, as in Laurent Pelly's Royal Opera House production of Robert le Diable. Not everyone will agree that it's the best way of viewing all such works, but it helps if the opera in question is a comedy and an entertainment and not expected to be taken seriously.
The good people at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro aren't afraid of applying a little ironical distance to their productions when the occasion demands it. It's not just a case of being clever and modern, as much as the only way of reaching back and finding a way to revitalise works that in the present day would seem a little stagy and conventional. Certainly many of Rossini's early works are far from masterpieces, but there are wonderful innovations, humour and techniques in them that a little judicious irony can bring out and highlight without getting too carried away.
Such an example would be the composer's very first opera, Demetrio e Polibio which the Rossini Opera Festival, with the clever hand of Davide Livermore directing, characterised as a backstage ghost version of a long "dead" opera. With such techniques, creating their own little world where Rossini's works can be appreciated for what they are worth (and sharing them with the world in the form of wonderful Blu-ray releases), the Rossini Opera Festival can be said to have created their own kind of Rossiniland. In Rossiniland, the spirit of Rossini is celebrated and might even have something relevant to offer the modern world, even if that's just mildly diverting entertainment.
The one-act 'farsa giocosa' Il Signor Bruschino is such a minor work that would probably otherwise forever be consigned to obscurity if it were considered in terms of its modest surface merits. It's pleasant, inoffensive, contrived, conventional in the extreme, and running to just over an hour in length, there's no real reason to put on above other great works by the composer other than for the sake of completeness. The Rossini Opera Festival's remit goes far beyond dusting down creaky obscure works for an airing now and again, but really researching new Critical Editions and giving the works the best possible presentation to a modern day audience. There's not a lot of point in trying to recreate their appeal to an early 19th century audience after all, is there?
With this kind of adventurous spirit, the festival are willing to look more widely at how opera can be presented and engage a young collective theatre group with no previous experience of opera directing called Teatro Sotterraneo (Underground Theatre Group) to try to bring something fresh to Il Signor Bruschino. It's a work that could really do with not only a bit of a dusting down, but a bit of restoration work and a good polish as well. It's Teatro Sotterraneo who come up with the ironical Rossiniland concept here, seeing the work in the context of it being performed by guys in suits in a theme park dedicated to the works of Gioachino Rossini.
In the Rossiniland theme park, visitors, tourists and school groups can wander around and see little scenes from in the maestro's works performed by actors in outrageous wigs and colourful 'period' costumes. They munch some popcorn, take a few selfies and then move on to the gift shop or to the next attraction. Inevitably, when there are signs advertising Il Barbiere di Sevilla, La Gazza Ladra and Guglielmo Tell, there's not a lot of reason to hang around the Il Signor Bruschino too long, but a few adventurous souls or couples who have wandered off the beaten path and ended up there seem to enjoy the modest charms of this unusual work.
Within this kind of setting and with such a work, Il Signor Bruschino can seem like a bit of a pastiche or a parody. In terms of music and plot development it's by the numbers romantic farce with confusion over assumed identities and marriage intentions that runs as smoothly and entertainingly as a Haydn comic opera, with some notable Mozart influences in there. Gaudenzio, the father of the bride to be, has some very Sarastro-like moment of intoning gravely, while his daughter Sofia bemoans the cruelty of her situation with a Donna Elvira-like character and occasional Queen of the Night flourishes.
It's never going to be thought a great opera, and even a little ironical distance isn't going to bring out any surprise revelations here. The comedy still falls flat more often than not, raising little more than a chuckle now and again. There is some genuine engagement that comes through however between the 'actor's performance' of the opera and the visitors who stop by. A young couple, for instance, soon lose interest in the plot and are more interested in each other, but it ties in well to Gaudenzio's infuriation with young people being oblivious to those who are trying to act in their interests, or at least think they are. It's nothing profound, it's not particularly clever, but it connects the world of Rossini with the modern world in a nice way.
Musically too there are of course some wonderful Rossini-isms. The overture is a delight (as they always are with Rossini), and has little hammering interludes with the back of the bow on the violins - Rossini far ahead of avant-garde modern composers in that respect. And even though it is only one act long, follows a familiar sequence of numbers and is occasionally weighed down with recitative, Rossini still fills the work with vivacious music, catchy melodies, the occasional bravura aria and a particularly wonderful trio involving Gaudenzio, Bruschino and Florville.
There's a danger that ironical distance can introduce a measure of singing by numbers, not really giving the performers anything substantial to engage with in characterisation that is already insubstantial to begin with. You feel this is the case initially with the bland romantic leads of David Alegret's Florville and Maria Aleida's Sofia, but the singing is wonderful and beautifully suited to the roles, Aleida in particular making rather more of the role with some virtuoso singing. Carlo Lepore and Roberto de Candia however bring great comic vitality to the father roles and Chiara Amarù is a bright Marianna.
On Blu-ray, the opera is given the usual high standard of presentation. The image is perfect and the sound in particular gives a fine indication of the quality of the score and how well Daniele Rustoni conducts the performance. It could be a little less 'classical' and a little more free and energetic though you feel. The extra features on the BD include a Cast Gallery and a short Making Of that explores Teatro Sotterraneo's thoughtful and irreverent approach to directing the production. The BD is region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.
