Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Glyndebourne, 2015)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Glyndebourne, 2015

Robin Ticciati, David McVicar, Sally Matthews, Edgaras Montvidas, Tobias Kehrer, Brenden Gunnell, Franck Saurel, Mari Eriksmoen, Jonas Cradock

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

In a radical new approach to directing opera, David McVicar has moved more towards the idea of respecting the original period and libretto in order to get as close as possible to the composer's intentions. It's radical only in that such fidelity to the source is not currently fashionable in opera productions, but McVicar's contention would be that putting the work above the director's ego is surely paramount. While McVicar may have been a little more flexible with period detail in other opera productions in the past, he has however always seemed to be less inclined to mess about with the original intentions of Mozart operas and you can't really argue with the reasoning behind that that decision.

The great Mozart operas need no updating to assist a modern audience in grasping the universality and humanism that lies within them. By the same token their qualities ensure that they can equally withstand a modern interpretation, but what matters is that the director remains faithful to the meaning and intent of the works, and in that respect 'traditional' works just as well as 'revised'. Whether the same qualities can be found in an old-fashioned Singspiel comedy like Die Entführung aus dem Serail however is more questionable, as is the decision to play it straight with period detail and literalism. It works, of course - it's still Mozart - but whether it presents the work in its best light for a modern audience is debatable.

Evidently it's not possible to stage a work such as this as it was originally intended. The world is a different place, people behave a little differently and they have different ideas of what humour can be derived from western women being held captive in a barbaric Turkish harem. Die Entführung aus dem Serail however is no inconsequential lightweight comedy and Mozart still manages to find the most noble human sentiments in even the most unlikely places and brings it out beautifully in his music. All McVicar's production seeks to do is make it all seem a little more realistic and credible without damaging the integrity of the work.

Or indeed the humour. Realistic and credible is not really essential for a comedy opera and it can in fact be a mistake to take it too seriously. Christof Loy has already established that when you include all or most of the spoken dialogue, you have a very different Die Entführung aus dem Serail from the general perception of the work. McVicar's direction, also retaining most of the spoken text, allows the humour to work alongside this, and undoubtedly that's an important aspect that contributes to the wider human element of the work.

I'm not sure though that there's much to be gained from asking Vicki Mortimer to go into such meticulous detail in researching and building the elaborate sets for this Glyndebourne production. McVicar tweaks the public and private locations from scene to scene to make it more realistic - even if there is still no sense whatsoever of it being in a seraglio - and Mortimer and the crew oblige with impressive stage-craft. For the amount of effort put into this however, it doesn't seem to bring a corresponding increase in value or depth. If however all you gain is a sense of order and elegance as well as a certain delicacy of touch, well then that suits Mozart, and McVicar, as he often does, judges the tone perfectly and matches it on the stage impressively.

Looking like something of a sister production for McVicar's 2013 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg however, it's a sign of the safer and more traditional side adopted in recent years by Glyndebourne. There are still some daring reworkings in each year's programme, but not here and not with Mozart - at least not since the 2010 'La Dolce Vita' version of Don Giovanni. Die Entführung aus dem Serail has proven its worth in the Mozart operatic canon over the years and it deserves a serious treatment. It gets that here with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Robin Ticciati, the period orchestra arrangement enlivening the work with a real kick. There's much to enjoy in the treatment then, just not much that is imaginative or adventurous.

Unfortunately, while the cast is impressive and the singers are all very capable, it's not good enough overall to give the production a bit more of a lift or an edge. Sally Matthews has a powerful range and has impressed many times on the Glyndebourne stage, but her timbre is a little harsh for Mozart. McVicar clearly intends to depict Konstanze as a woman with a little more fire and grit, and you do get a realistic sense of the seriousness of her predicament, but the lyricism and the romantic sensibility isn't there. Her voice seems warmer in the second and third acts, but without a sufficient connection with Edgaras Montvidas' Belmonte, it never really comes together the way you might like.

Montvidas is fine and if he similarly doesn't have the beautiful soaring tone of a typical Mozart tenor or a prototype Tamino he nonetheless gives a good performance as Belmonte. It just doesn't particularly stand out. For Die Entführung to work well however, you really need the comic roles to be well cast, and there at least the singing matched the tone being strived for with Brenden Gunnell a lively and desperate Pedrillo - a role that has Papageno-like potential for stealing the show in this opera - and with Tobias Kehrer excelling as his adversary Osmin. Mari Eriksmoen's voice wasn't always the strongest, but her Blonde was played well.

What continues to be a remarkable discovery however, fully justifying the decision to include as much of the spoken dialogue as possible, is just how important and significant the non-singing role of Pasha Selim is to the whole tone and purpose of the opera. It's one that proves that drama is the beating heart of opera and one that Mozart wasn't afraid to entrust to an actor rather than a singer. Franck Saurel plays the role rather well here, showing the kind of dynamic and emotional investment that Selim brings to the work, deepening the serious questions raised as well as contrasting with and extending the comedy. Proving McVicar's point, given the right environment and fidelity to the intent of Mozart's music and drama, Die Entführung aus dem Serail speaks for itself.

The quality of the HD transfer on Blu-ray is exceptionally good, not least with the detail that can be heard in the DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 and the LPCM Stereo mixes. The BD includes a feature that looks into how the visual look of the production was developed. There's more on this in the booklet, where there is an interview with the set designer Vicki Mortimer. The booklet also contains an essay by Cori Ellison and a synopsis for the opera.


Links: Glyndebourne

Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Salzburger Festspiele, 2013 - Blu-ray)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Live from Hangar-7, Salzburger Festspiele, 2013

Hans Graf, Adrian Marthaler, Felix Breisach, Desirée Rancatore, Tobias Moretti, Javier Camarena, Rebecca Nelsen, Thomas Ebenstein, Kurt Rydl

Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray

Personally, I think that opera is one of the most progressive, cutting-edge artforms out there, continually pushing stage-craft and the art of performances to new heights, but I'm aware that there are some opera-goers who would prefer that productions remain in the traditional form on the stage in an opera house. What is commonly known as Regietheater can certainly push familiar works into alienatingly obscure and ill-fitting concepts, but as live cinema and webcasts have shown, there is a case for taking opera away the notion of it belonging to dusty theatres that remain the preserve of a privileged elite and strive to make it fresh, modern and accessible to a wider, younger audience.

I'm not sure that this is something that the Salzburg Festival has traditionally been good at, as anyone would be able to see from the expensive corporate promotion and the kind of audience visibly present at what looks to be an exclusive air terminal in Salzburg in this 2013 festival production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail. On the other hand, the technical achievement of the performance and its live broadcast to Austrian television is a fine example of the innovation and creative forces that go into opera and its outreach and accessibility is ground-breaking and impressive. I'm not sure that this Blu-ray release of the event will convince any of the traditionalists out there, but I'm certain that it is capable of reaching a fresh new audience.

Basically, Die Entführung aus dem Serail Live at Hangar-7 in Salzburg is an open-air production shot in a vast aircraft hangar/terminal/museum that holds aircraft, helicopters and classic cars in a boldly coloured, modern, high-tech building with plush cafés and lounge bars. The performance takes place on 10 or 11 stages that have been set-up around the building, the singers moving from one to another seamlessly down ramps and on platforms, singing into clearly visible radio-mic headsets. The Camerata Salzburg orchestra play live from Hangar-8, while the audience (in expensive suits and dresses, carrying glasses of champagne) wander around freely, listening to the live play-back on in-ear headphones, while skipping back occasionally so as to dodge camera crews and avoid bumping into the performers.

The concept for the production takes the opera out of the Turkish seraglio and re-imagines Bassa Selim as a fashion designer with a private (sponsored) jet-plane, his seraglio a sweatshop of seamstresses who manufacture his clothes. On other stages Blonde does a bit of ironing and measuring, Pedrillo serves drinks at bar and Osmin assists photo-shoots of models wearing the Pasha's creations and Belmonte comes along seeking to be engaged as a parfumier. Barring Stockhausen, there aren't too many works that call out for the use of helicopters, high-speed jeeps and aeroplanes as part of the performance, so clearly this isn't exactly what Mozart had in mind. It is at least debatable that Mozart would be taking advantage of every opportunity to put the essence of the work across to a popular audience if he were around today and the idea here works perfectly well with the original, finding a suitably glamorous exotic setting to show how women are treated as commodities in so many walks of life.

This is an entirely new way of viewing an opera, with multiple cameras and audience members getting to places you would never come near to in a traditional staged performance or indeed a conventional filmed live performance. It can be a little distracting when you find yourself looking at those bemused figures in the audience, or find yourself thinking more about the technical challenges that the crew must be facing in the live TV broadcast, but at the very least you can't help but be impressed at the achievement. It's superbly designed, technically accomplished and executed to perfection, but I would also argue that it's entirely in the spirit of the work, with a witty production that dazzles and amuses.

You might be less inclined to go along with this were the quality of the performance compromised in any way, but it's not at all. Diana Damrau was originally cast as Konstanze for the production but had to cancel, leaving Desirée Rancatore with the unenviable task of filling such a challenging role in a highly unconventional production at very short notice. She's not quite up to holding the higher end and is a little shaky at first, but she does exceptionally well considering, warming up well by Act II where she gives a good account of the 'Welcher Wechsel, herrscht in meiner Seele" aria. Rebecca Nelsen is a rather more confident Blonde and Javier Camarena a reliable Belmonte. Kurt Rydl isn't the steadiest as Osmin, but gets by and with Thomas Ebenstein a fine Pedrillo, this is a cast who are more than capable of doing the work justice.

The use of radio-mics allows for softer and sweeter singing that doesn't have to soar above the orchestra and this works well for the singers here. Some might see that as an unacceptable compromise, but it gets the best balance between the singing and the orchestra and it's the end result that counts in this production. Hans Graf conducts the Camerata Salzburg through an elegant account of the work that shows just how sublimely beautiful Mozart's maturing writing is in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and it all adds up to an impressive and sometimes stunning production of the work. At the very least this is an ambitious and largely successful attempt to approach the work in a new, fresh and original manner.

Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail

L'Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège - 2013

Christophe Rousset, Alfredo Arias, Maria Grazia Schiavo, Wesley Rogers, Franz Hawlata, Elizabeth Bailey, Jeff Martin, Markus Merz

France TV Culturebox Internet Streaming, 31 October 2013

Establishing the correct tone can be a difficult thing to manage with any Mozart opera.  Even with works that appear on the surface to be outright comedies, there's always a darker side to the situations and the nature of the characters.  Conversely, even those with a darker and more controversial content (particularly in the treatment of women) are often redeemed by the most sensitive and beautiful music that suggests that the intentions of the composer are not so simple to pin down.  Like Così Fan Tutte, the work that it most closely associated with (although one can also see clear parallels and character types in Die Zauberflöte), there's undoubtedly a darker side to the comic situations in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.  Given the right treatment, there's definitely a case to be made for the worthiness of this work (or indeed even for some of Mozart's earliest operas), but the Liège production here isn't quite up to the mark. 

On the surface, Die Entführung aus dem Serail might indeed appear to be one of those familiar operatic situations of a gentle white European lady being at the held in captivity by ruthless heathen middle-eastern rulers (Rameau's Les Indes Galantes, Galuppi's L'inimico delle donne, and later Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri).  While the treatment of the subject in his earliest mature opera from the 25 year-old composer is conventional in most respects, Mozart does seem to delve more deeply into the subject.  More than just being a comedy, a rescue opera and foreign exploits in exotic lands, the core of the work rests on a rather more sensitive depiction of the unfortunate lot of women in relationships with men.  It's by no coincidence that the lead person of the opera, Konstanze shares the name of Mozart's wife.

There is indeed a lot of humour to be had at the expense of Turkish men, their harems, their heathen customs and hatred of European men in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, but essentially the real underlying question here is to do with women's servitude and of being bound to the will of men.  Most evidently, there's the lack of freedom in her being held captive by Bassa Selim, but even the nature of unwanted attentions and hopeless devotion is an additional pressure that weighs heavily on Konstanze.  Her forced separation from the man she loves, is also a burden, but so too are his suspicions of infidelity when she is reunited with Belmonte.  There seems to end to the pressures of being a woman - "Sadness is my destiny from this day onward, as Kostanze puts it in her aria "Traurigkeit ward mir zum Lose".

That aspect of the opera is treated very seriously in the Opéra Royal de Wallonie production at Liège - perhaps a little too seriously and to the detriment of the wider dynamic of the work.  There can be tendency to overemphasise the serious side in Mozart and downplay the more difficult comedy that can be politically questionable in this day and age.  The tone is very much set by conductor Christophe Rousset in this respect.  Better known for his harpsichord playing and the life that he has breathed into Baroque opera with Les Talens Lyriques, the step up to early Mozart is a rare foray towards the more Classical repertoire for Rousset.  It's wonderful to hear Die Entführung aus dem Serail played authentically on period instruments, and Rousset conducts with characteristic rhythmic precision, but it's a little too rigid and dry for this work.

The direction too plays it relatively straight and consequently isn't able to quite lift the work out of its fairly conventional structure and arrangements, or even spark much life into it.  The set is somewhere between traditional representational and generic stylised modern, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for a work that itself sits between two opera traditions.  The main set is of a generic palace (or harem) with three pools that are mostly just decorative and have to be walked around by the cast.  The backdrop is a huge frame cloudscape of white clouds in a blue sky.  A gauze screen drop is used to allow scenes outside the seraglio to take place in the foreground, with entrances/exits to left and right.  Gold and blue dominate, which is a nice scheme, particularly when the set-off the white and off-white costumes of Belmonte and Konstanze.  It looks fine and requires a minimum of scene changing, but doesn't particularly enhance the dramatic action or the spoken dialogue.

As a performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail though, this is typical of the standard we expect from the Opéra Royal de Wallonie - a good, functional, well-suited stage design, good singing and a highly entertaining production overall, often of lesser performed works, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail is not the first choice Mozart.  A strong Konstanze is of key importance and it's a challenging role that was very capably filled by Maria Grazia Schiavo.  Wesley Rogers has that lyrical-noble Tamino quality to his voice and was mostly fine, although he struggled in sections of his "Ich baue ganz auf deine Stärke" aria, particularly in the coloratura.  Jeff Martin's Pedrillo was excellent, and Elizabeth Bailey sparkled as Blondechen.  Combined they created a lovely quartet for "Wenn unsrer Ehre wegen".  Franz Hawlata was a very capable Osmin, while Markus Merz played Selim with a particular explosive intensity.

Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona 2010

Ivor Bolton, Christof Loy, Christoph Quest, Diana Damrau, Olga Peretyatko, Christoph Strehl, Norbert Ernst, Franz-Josef Selig

C-Major

There’s an in-built difficulty in Mozart’s earliest 'mature' comic opera that every modern opera stage director must consider a challenge – the long passages of spoken dialogue and recitative that are scattered throughout. Yes, the actual drama of Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail is a bit silly too and the libretto isn’t the most sophisticated, but even if you manage to make the plot work dramatically (having good singers can help gloss over the inconsistencies which is certainly the case here), you’re still left with those lulls between Mozart’s beautiful musical passages that can potentially kill the opera dead in its tracks. This production by Christof Loy at the Liceu in Barcelona, aided and abetted by an outstanding cast and an exhilarating performance of the score from the Liceu orchestra under Ivor Bolton, crucially takes account of those weaknesses, and if the result is still not entirely convincing, it’s nonetheless still one of the best versions of this Mozart opera that you’re ever likely to come across.

Traditionally, the way of handling the recitative in Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail is to heavily trim the dialogue and just get it out of the way as quickly as possible so as to move on to the music, but such an approach fails to adequately take into account the fact that the main dramatic drive of the opera actually lies in between the musical numbers and arias. In some respects, it could be argued that the spoken parts are equally as important as the arias, if not even more so in this particular case since Mozart’s music for Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail is not the most lyrically attuned to the emotional content. At this stage, even if there are occasional flashes of genius in the work, Mozart’s compositions are conventional and still very much mired in the Baroque tradition. How does Belmonte express his desire to be reunited with Konstanze in his Act I aria? “I tremble and falter, I waver and hesitate. My heart leaps in my breast.” - “O wie ängstlich, o wie feurig…” “How ardently and fearfully my loving heart beats”. Like the majority of the arias in the opera, it’s lovely but dull, and hardly advances the plot or even describes any complex emotional state.

Christof Loy attempts to address the vacuity of the arias and the dead-space of the spoken dialogue by getting the singers to act properly. In terms of opera performance, that can often be as simple as just toning down on the theatrical delivery, but Loy clearly believes that there are deeper sentiments and qualities to this opera, particularly in the spoken passages, which he retains in full and gives them rather more attention than they would normally receive. The treatment of the dialogue and how it works alongside the musical pieces is immediately apparent at the arrival of Pasha Selim. Arriving on-stage to that ringing chorus of the people, he seems weary of the acclaim, his position as ruler made only more weighty by his inability to win the heart of the woman he loves. This is not an uncommon position for a ruler to be in, particularly in Baroque opera, but it’s rarely treated with this kind of realism, and Loy takes advantage of the fact that – uncommonly for a major character in an opera – the Pasha is a non-singing role, and he accordingly makes the fine Christoph Quest the central acting focus for the others to work off.

What pervades the opera and characterises the approach to the spoken passages in this production, even before the appearance of the Pasha, is an air of melancholy. There’s nothing particularly new about viewing Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail in that regard, but such a sentiment is usually drawn from the arias and it’s rarely extended in any kind of realistic way to the recitative. There is no declamation of the lines here as they would more commonly be expressed, but rather Loy directs the performers to deliver dialogue naturalistically and makes use of their silences in the same way that he makes use of space on the stage to define the relationship between them. That use of space is as effective here as elsewhere in Loy’s work, even if the set for the Liceu’s production is not as sparse as the director usually decorates them. Yes, there are a usual few chairs scattered around, and little more than a painted backdrop of the sky for the most part (which is blithely lifted whenever Pedrillo makes an entrance), but other more decorated and naturalistic sets are shown, although they often remain viewed as if through a window in the background while the main action takes place in the foreground stage. Inevitably, the costumes don’t reflect any specific period, but there is a nod towards a middle-eastern flavour in some of the attire.

Loy’s direction isn’t really geared towards appeasing traditionalists then, but it should at least be evident that it is a respectful production that is aimed towards making the best out of what is imperfect opera, one that the director clearly thinks deserves to be considered more than just a lightweight entertainment. He doesn’t always succeed, but it’s an impressive attempt that does manage to make a strong case for the work and bring it closer to the latter Mozart operas, the relationships and structure here more evidently a prototype for characters better developed in The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute. It helps that Ivor Bolton also brings out a terrific, lively account of the score that works well in conjunction with the staging, revealing its qualities and making those connections to later works evident. If you’ve been less than convinced by this particular Mozart opera, this performance reveals just how dazzlingly clever and brilliant it can be.

You shouldn’t need to be convinced that there are great and quite demanding arias in the opera, but it is terrific to see them delivered so well in such a sympathetic production. The performance of Diana Damrau deserves to be singled out as it’s not only one of the best Konstanze’s you’ll ever hear, but when placed in the context of this fine treatment of the opera, it’s an incredible tour de force performance that highlights the extraordinary abilities of one of the best sopranos in the world today. Most pleasingly for the sake of the opera, rather than being merely a showcase for the soprano, the singing is of an exceptionally high standard right across the board. Really, it’s just thrilling to hear Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail sung and acted so well – everything working together in perfect harmony. Franz-Josef Selig’s rich bass and cool deliberation makes his Osmin more than just a second-rate Monostatos, while the performance of Olga Peretyatko and Norbert Ernst makes the Blonde and Pedrillo partnership more than just a subsidiary relationship to the more complicated main ones. Christoph Strehl is perhaps the weakest element, but he works well in the context of the casting, where the tones of all the singers are perfectly complementary, always bringing out the best of Mozart’s ensemble writing.

An exceptional production – one of the best I’ve ever seen – the Blu-ray is just as impressive. There are no extra features, but the HD image quality and the sound reproduction are amazing. Region-free, BD50, 1080i, subtitles are in German, English, French, Spanish, Catalan, Chinese and Korean.